Disney after Dark

Fi

“You remember we had to sign those releases before they started turning us into DHIs?”

Maybeck replied. “Some of these imaging techniques have never been tried before. That’s what makes it look so cool, right? It’s, like, totally new stuff. The DHI servers clearly control our holograms, but why they could affect us as humans is really weird. In crossing back over we must take something of our DHIs with us. We don’t see it, we don’t feel it, but it’s there. That might explain how messing with the servers made us feel faint. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not real keen on someone else controlling me. I’m not loving that idea. I think the time will come when we’d rather have control of the servers ourselves. So that’s what I’m working on.”

Murmurs rippled through the group. No one objected to the idea of gaining self-control.

“The Fall Games are tomorrow,” Charlene said. “Is everyone here going?”

They realized they would all be there, participating in various sports.

“That gives us a chance to meet again,” Fi

“Psst!” Maybeck’s arm appeared briefly as he reached across the doorway and pulled Charlene’s knee back inside. In the shadow her leg became invisible.

Fi

Nearby. Security guards? At the same time, he felt a sudden draft, like when he stepped into an air-conditioned room. He shivered.

“I feel you…” It was a woman’s hoarse whisper, raspy and dry, as if she had sand in her throat. Gooseflesh rippled up Fi

The sound of footsteps moved slowly away from their teepee, and continued on to the next.

Fi

Inside the teepee came a soft shuffling sound as the invisible Maybeck and Charlene moved farther away from the door.

“I feel you,” came that awful voice again. “You can’t hide from me.”

It wasn’t just any woman’s voice. Fi

The footfalls circled the teepee and came around front again. Two legs appeared, with black stockings that ended at low-heeled, shiny black shoes. An invisible Willa reached over and found Fi

The black-stockinged legs bent as a hand appeared in the teepee’s doorway.

A green hand. The hand emerged from the end of a long black sleeve. Green as a lizard, the knuckles bent and bumpy, the nails as long as claws. Charlene gasped aloud. Too loud.

The air grew colder still. The woman bent over fully and peered into the dark teepee. She wore a robelike black dress with jagged purple fringe and a purple stripe ru

some kind of costume.

“Interesting,” she said, staring into an empty teepee.

Now Fi

He racked his brain, as Willa’s hand grew colder in his. She squeezed so hard, it hurt.

The woman bent lower, and lower still. The air grew colder and colder.

A green neck appeared, then a green chin, a green nose, and finally her full face. Wretched, yet somehow beautiful.

It was Maleficent, the mean-spirited witch from Sleeping Beauty, the most ill-tempered and dreaded witch of all.

His eyes were stinging with ice, Fi

No one spoke for several long minutes. Fi

“If it was, it was one solid illusion,” Maybeck said.

Philby asked. “What about the cold? Was I the only one who felt that?”

“No way!” they all chorused.

“I had my eyes shut,” Charlene confessed.

“Me too,” Willa admitted. Only then did she let go of Fi

Maybeck scooted forward, and as he did, partially reappeared at the mouth of the teepee’s open door. About a third of him peered outside, the rest of him invisible.

“She’s gone,” Maybeck said.

“She?” Charlene asked.

“Her skin certainly looked real enough,” Fi

“That was green skin, not green makeup. Mark my words,” Maybeck said, “I know the difference.”

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” Willa asked.

Fi

14

The Wide World of Sports complex housed eleven baseball diamonds, a separate major- and minor-league baseball stadium with seating for nine thousand, five sports fields, a te

On this October afternoon, nearly a thousand local students and their families jammed the complex for the a

“You’re not telling me anything,” Amanda complained, as she and Fi

“It’s not like that.”

“Looks that way to me.”

“Listen…all sorts of weird stuff’s happening.”

“Well, that certainly clarifies things.”

“It’s complicated.” Suddenly Fi

Fi

It didn’t take Amanda long to notice Fi

“Who’s that?” Fi

“Who?” Amanda tried to pretend she hadn’t seen her.

“The girl you’re staring at.”

“Never seen her before.” Is Amanda upset with me? Fi

Fi

The pale girl with the black hair smiled at Fi

“Hey, Fi

He stopped. “Hey.”

“I’m Jez.”

“That’s an unusual name.”

“Short for Jezebel. It’s from the Bible.” She wasn’t proud of this. “My mother. You know how that goes.”

“Lawrence Fi

“What’s your sport?”