The Return: Disney Lands Page 9

  PHILBY LIKED FINN’S HOUSE. Mrs. Whitman had baked cookies. His own parents could be so annoying, Philby thought, picking a cookie up and taking a giant bite. Not Mrs. Whitman.

  They sat in the living room, with its flat-panel TV, comfortable chairs, and view of the street. Finn’s sister was doing homework in the kitchen, so they kept their voices down.

  “Finn isn’t going to tell you this,” Philby said to Mrs. Whitman. “Because of your being a rocket scientist and all—”

  “I’m retired.”

  “Mom, I couldn’t remember anything after I crossed over.” Finn blurted the words out like a confession.

  “And that’s because?” his mother asked.

  Philby cleared his throat, and then ate another cookie, his chewing obscuring his words. “We—that is, the Imagineers…Jeez, this is going to sound ridiculous.”

  “Try me,” she said.

  “Time travel,” Philby spit out. “I know how it sounds! Believe me, I know! But there’s evidence, and you being so smart and all, we…that is, Finn and me—”

  “Finn and I,” Mrs. Whitman corrected.

  “Mom!” Finn groaned.

  “The Imagineers won’t tell us what’s going on. Not yet, at least. We know they suspect something big. But I think they’re so stuck in ‘reality’ that they can’t admit to themselves it might actually be possible to time travel.”

  “You did make the jump from memory lapse to time travel rather quickly,” Mrs. Whitman said, suppressing a smile.

  “You don’t believe us,” Finn said. “I knew this was a stupid idea!” He gave Philby a scornful look. “Figures. I’m still considered a freak by the other Keepers. And they were there. They saw what happened.”

  “It’s on video,” Philby said, interrupting Finn’s rant. “A seam in the image, like a filmy, oily crack. Then it’s gone, and so is Finn.” Mrs. Whitman’s eyes widened at the mention of her son. “Then, minutes later, it happens again, and Finn reappears.” Philby allowed this to sink in. “We’re pretty sure it has happened before, but Brad—you know Brad—wouldn’t exactly say so. But he didn’t deny it, either.”

  Her eyes darted nervously between the two boys. Then, at last, Mrs. Whitman focused on her son. “This isn’t a joke,” she said.

  Finn shook his head. “Please, Mom. Is it possible?”

  “Well, yes. Einstein and others have hypothesized about the exceptional qualities of time, and some of those ideas now appear theoretically accurate. It’s been studied and discussed endlessly. Some astronomy supports, even seems to prove, the possibility. But that’s all it is. A theory.”

  “But if it were physically possible,” Philby said, “it would involve the speed of light, right?”

  “It’s theorized in those terms.”

  “So being a DHI for instance—being pure light—it might be possible.”

  “Look, boys, there are people who will tell you that fortune tellers and psychics are real, that people can shut their eyes and actually see your future. Others will claim they’ve been to the future and then traveled back. It’s a common delusion among homeless people and the less fortunate. A handful of well-respected scientists believe a small percentage of these transients—‘crazies,’ you might call them—are not impaired at all, but are simply trying to explain an experience that actually took place.” Mrs. Whitman leaned forward in her chair, pressing her palms together and fixed a stare on her son. To Finn, the silence in the room felt absolute. “Kind of like Jess and her dreams.”

  “No,” Finn said. “That is the future. We’re talking about the past.”

  “Okay. So, anyway, you have this group of physicists consistently working to accomplish some of the things Einstein and others theorized,” Mrs. Whitman said, “and another group claiming they’ve experienced these things for real. Then you have the rest of us. Including me. I appreciate the theory, certainly. But do I think my son has gone into the future? No.”

  “The past?” Finn restated. “What about the past?”

  Mrs. Whitman smiled patronizingly.

  Philby set his third cookie down. “But if we accept that some people may have time traveled, then couldn’t we explain them seeming crazy, or even being driven crazy, by the fact that no one believes them?”

  “That’s what I was just talking about, Dell.” Mrs. Whitman didn’t sound convinced.

  “So what if Wayne figured this out? Let’s say he realized that human beings who time travel go nuts. But DHIs, being made of light? Maybe not so much.”

  “You sure get an A for creativity,” Mrs. Whitman said.

  “Brad, the Imagineer, couldn’t explain what happened to Finn during those missing minutes,” Philby said. “Can you?”

  She went a shade paler. “Not without seeing the video.”

  “The Imagineers studied the video. The time code was uninterrupted, Brad said. There were no edits.”

  More silence. Above the fireplace, a clock ticked.

  “The carousel slowed to a stop once I disappeared. It started up again before I returned,” Finn said. “In the video, I just show up back on the horse.”

  “What carousel?” his mother asked. “What horse?”

  “I was on King Arthur Carrousel when I disappeared. Riding the golden horse, like Wayne told me to do in the message we found.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’m sorry to say this, Finn, but I’m beginning to side with your father. Enough is enough.”

  “The carousel started up again just before Finn returned,” Philby said.

  “Boys! Really!”

  “I didn’t remember anything!” Finn said again, more desperately this time. “That protects me, Mom. It keeps me from sounding crazy, from going crazy. Wayne protected me.”

  “You’re borderline, believe me.” Taking a deep breath, the former rocket scientist addressed Philby, appealing to the computer geek’s scientific mind. “It’s possible, even probable, that upstream and downstream data are handled differently. Upstream, when Finn crosses over, is less dangerous to a server than is incoming data. So you go out clean; you do whatever you do as DHIs; but then your data are scrubbed for viruses and malware upon your return.”

  “Affecting memory!” Phiby said.

  “Precisely. Corporations take antivirus measures extremely seriously these days. Including Disney. What if data not matching the original outgoing video stream is clipped and deleted from the incoming data stream when Finn returns? That data could represent anything learned, seen, heard, gained.”

  “I get that, but the thing is, he remembers crossing over, just not the carousel part.”

  “Could that have been Wayne’s intention? It doesn’t mean Finn time traveled.” Mrs. Whitman threw her hands up in exasperation. “People don’t time travel!”

  “So Wayne found a way to make him invisible or something like that?” Philby sounded fairly convinced.

  “For as smart as you both are, you’re missing the point,” Finn said.

  “Which is?” his mother asked.

  “If we accept the idea of antivirus software scrubbing extra data,” Finn said to his mother, “or the notion that I went invisible,” to Philby, “then what explains this?”

  He pulled up his shirt sleeve, displaying the hastily drawn fountain pen on his forearm. The image had faded, but its lines were still visible in the clear daylight. “This was here when the missing minutes were over.”

  Mrs. Whitman reached out and gently ran her thumb across Finn’s skin. It was like she didn’t believe the drawing was actually there.

  “It’s Walt’s pen,” Finn said. He’d spoken the words so often, but they had never sounded more sincere. His mother knew the history and importance of the pen.

  She nodded faintly, suddenly on the verge of tears.

  “A message,” Finn said.

  His mother nodded again, closer than ever to crying. Worried for her son. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “How can my memories not get throu
gh, but a drawing of a pen does? It doesn’t make sense, does it, Mom?”

  Mrs. Whitman shook her head gently and then looked up at her son, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, it makes all sorts of sense,” she said, “just not the kind you want it to.”

  Her voice dropped; she spoke so softly that both boys leaned in to hear. “You know what a psychologist would say? She’d say you are so desperate to win back the support of your friends, so eager to prolong a fantasy life that is all but over, that you’ve convinced yourself you didn’t make this up.”

  Finn sat back, stunned. “What? Mom?”

  “You believe us,” Philby said, pushing her. “I know you do.”

  “I know you boys wouldn’t lie to me.” She looked at her son for a long moment. “Not consciously. But that’s not the same thing as believing you.”

  “Humor me, Mom. Indulge my fantasy and accept that I time traveled. Make it a story in your head—I don’t care how. Just explain how this pen ended up drawn onto my arm.”

  He’d won a faint smile from her. “A story, okay.”

  “Thank you,” Philby said softly.

  “Whoever drew that pen wanted to send a message,” she said. “He or she knew the pen would mean something to you, that it’s significant. That you, Finn, are focused on getting it back onto Walt’s desk so that you can find it forty years later and save the day.” She shot her son a look. Could he hear how ridiculous this all sounded? Then her voice turned solemn, like a judge commuting a life sentence. “Of course, it’s also an invitation. There’s an obvious reaction to the pen.”

  “Which is?” Finn and Philby nearly spoke in unison.

  “The next time you cross over,” she said to her son, granting him permission to continue the experiment, the tears finally slipping down her cheeks, “you need to carry your own message on the other arm.”

  GIVEN THAT WILLA WAS one half of the “Wilby” pair, she proved susceptible to Philby’s pleading for help. He’d asked her to cross over with Finn as far as the King Arthur Carrousel, but no further, to observe in real time what the Imagineers had seen on video. In particular, she was to take a close look at Finn’s arms the moment he reappeared on Jingles.

  Provided he did reappear.

  Finn’s recollection of red eyes lurking in shadow, along with the food poisoning incident at their Keepers event, suggested that somehow, impossible though it might seem, the Overtakers had been rejuvenated. Though he felt it was implausible, the potential threat contributed to Philby’s decision to carry out their mission during park hours, when an outright attack was less likely.

  Because of the phenomenon of the “lint” and “oil” and Finn’s disappearance from Jingles, the team decided to cross over in the early evening, after dark, but before park closing. The following day Willa and Finn woke early in order to be tired enough to fall asleep that evening. Once crossed over into Disneyland’s Central Plaza, they headed to Walt’s apartment. Willa wrote a message in ink on his DHI forearm.

  Where am I? What is the date?

  Finn wound the music box tight and started the calliope melody. Hurrying to King Arthur Carrousel, he cheated by passing his DHI through the retaining fence, allowing him to cut the twenty-minute line of guests waiting to board the ride. On the carousel, he stood by Jingles, waited for the platform to start moving, and climbed onto the horse. He felt like he was standing at the start line of a huge race, his breath short, his heart in his throat.

  From the sidelines, Willa noted the time as eight fifty p.m. She moved as best she could through the crowds, trying to circle the carousel and keep an eye on Finn. But the golden horse outpaced her, and she lost sight of him.

  Below the ride’s colorful insignia, above the bobbing horses, she saw an anomaly on the far side of the carousel. For a split second, it looked like a cracked mirror, the reflection divided into fragmented pieces. It did, in fact, look like a piece of lint or hair on a movie theater screen.

  In the blink of an eye, it was gone, leaving only an oily texture to the air, like heat shimmering off the sidewalk. That, too, melted away, returning clarity of sight.

  It all happened so fast that Willa wasn’t sure she’d seen anything at all. Not until the carousel came back around and the golden horse stood empty, its rider gone.

  A chill struck her, running up her spine. At first, Willa attributed it to Finn’s disappearance. But it echoed throughout her body, down her arms, and through her fingers, tickling her toes. She recognized it as the chill of fear. She knew in a sickening instant that someone was watching her.

  WILLA FELT SICK. It went beyond creepy. It felt dirty and ugly and if it could have smelled, it would have smelled sour and foul.

  Finn’s disappearance went right out of her head. Taking a deep breath and turning to face Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, she knew the feeling came from there. It was, in fact, one of the darkest of the park’s so-called “dark rides,” an aimless car trip of destruction that ended in arrest and punishment at the gates of hell. Not exactly kiddie fare.

  A flash of red eyes sent more shivers through her. The devil. It had to be! The location, red glowing eyes peering out from shadow—what else?

  But she was being ridiculous. The spike of terror triggered both a loss of all clear and a second, somehow more scalding realization: the Overtakers! She and the Keepers had so easily dismissed Finn’s suggestions, had chalked them up to the ranting of a grief-stricken boy desperate to cling to the excitement and dangers of the recent past.

  It had all been so easy to make fun of. Until now.

  If she was right, this was huge. Willa wanted to prove it. She wanted to prevent whatever, whoever this was from hurting Finn when he returned.

  She relaxed back to all clear. As a hologram, even a version 1.6, there was little chance of her being harmed if she kept her head.

  Charged with determination, she shed her concern, marched over to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and entered the empty waiting queue area. This was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. She shouldn’t have been alone. It was dark. She grimaced with every step.4

  Had she been less determined, less singularly focused, she might have noticed the old-fashioned policeman string a rope across the entry behind her, closing the ride.

  She reached the boarding area quickly. No Cast Members.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  Willa climbed into the waiting car. Though there was no Cast Member at the control stand, the car took off right on schedule. Made no sense. Panic rose in Willa’s gut as the safety bar slid into place—but too far, too tight!

  She pushed against it. Trapped! Willa’s fear had solidified her hologram; she was pinned to the bench. The car swung through the parting doors ahead, into a dark library where a blue-bearded man threw books at her—actual books. They hit her, and they hurt. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  The car jerked quickly to the left. A full suit of armor raised its arm and lowered a battle-ax. Willa, still pinned by the bar, leaned left. The battle-ax cut a slice of the car’s plastic siding away. In spite of herself, she screamed.

  No! Stop. She reminded herself to push away fear and concern, which were the real enemy of any version 1.6 hologram. But how to do so when she was being jerked and threatened at every turn? The chandelier overhead swayed back and forth, disorienting her.

  Suddenly, a bright blue policeman loomed up before her, hand outstretched in warning, and took a swing at her chest. His nightstick smacked her on the arm. Willa cried out. Pinned to the seat. Pitch-black. Another cop leaped forward. He, too, was alive, not the cartoon he should have been. Their faces were terrifying; there was no way for Willa to calm herself. The bar continued to pin her to the seat.

  Jerking along the tracks, the car spun into a room of stacked wooden barrels and crates that collapsed forward, falling onto her. The car bumped and jerked and plowed on, but too late: Willa had been hit on the head.

  Dazed, hurting, she called out: “Stop! The! Ride!”


  The car shot ahead. Horrific colors and explosions erupted around her—BAM! BOOM!—reflecting how her head felt. A train locomotive aimed at her car, threatening a head-on collision. Willa closed her eyes and focused until feeling the tingles of being a pure hologram again.

  She leaned forward, and moved the restraining bar through her middle.

  The train hit her car head-on, smashing it to bits.

  The ride’s emergency lights switched on. Harsh shadows flickered around her. Willa scrambled and hid just as the set of red eyes reappeared. She cupped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. She worked to keep herself pure hologram, hoping her faint blue outline wouldn’t give her away.

  The eyes blinked.

  Deep breath, Willa told herself.

  The emergency lights continued flashing on the ceiling. Running footsteps approached. The glowing eyes withdrew.

  Willa spotted an exit sign and crawled toward it, not wanting to explain herself or the destruction to the ride.

  Overtakers…

  There was no other explanation.

  FROM THE MOMENT WILLA emerged from what she’d now be calling Mr. Toad’s Disastrous Ride, she found herself warmed by the magic of Disneyland. Though she was nowhere near as familiar with this park as she was with Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, she found herself reveling in the joy and excitement of the guests. It was the perfect balm after her death-defying ride in Mr. Toad’s car—and a huge relief from the renewed terror of the Overtakers.

  She carefully watched the carousel for any sign of Finn. Jingles was occupied on every new run. Keeping her hologram back to the wall directly beneath where she believed the security camera was located, Willa poked at the bruises on her arms, worried they would carry over when she returned. She was going to look a mess.

  Still, she was buoyed by a sense of accomplishment at having defied Mr. Toad’s devilish intentions—and determined to remain on high alert for other attacks. Finn’s report of the red eyes watching him took on new meaning. What if a character from Mr. Toad’s was an Overtaker keeping watch on the carousel?