Disney after Dark

“Yeah, but if we’re here, chances are, the girls are too. We should check the apartment and the teepee.”

“But let’s do it together,” Fi

“Maybeck?” Philby asked.

“I went to his house,” Fi

Tomorrow morning they’re going to take him to the hospital and start ru

“Maybeck was caught,” Philby said. “And it wasn’t security. It was the Overtakers. It has to be.

Wayne said Maybeck’s our computer guy. We know he’s been poking around. The Overtakers don’t want him messing with the DHI server. The brownouts—our feeling lousy like this. That’s the server doing that. The Overtakers are trying to—”

“Kill us?” Fi

“Slow us down. Scare us away.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Then I’d say it’s working,” Fi

“So where do we start? The apartment or the teepee?”

Fi

“Follow me.”

* * *

Fi

“I should have thought of this before. He told me he lived here.”

“Who?”

Fi

Wayne answered.

Philby and Fi

Wayne wore a heavy wool sweater, khaki pants, and Mickey-and-Mi

“Wow!” Philby said, looking around. There were Disney toys scattered around, antiques that went back decades. A fabric wallhanging showed off over a thousand Disney pins.

“I wondered how long it would take you to look me up,” Wayne said. It seemed almost as if he’d been expecting them. There were three teacups by the stove and three chairs set out facing one another.

Wayne poured them some tea and gestured for the two boys to sit down.

“Can you help us find Maybeck?” Fi

“Was it Maleficent?” Philby asked.

Wayne’s eyebrows arched. He did not answer Philby directly. “What do you know about her?”

He had owl-like circles beneath his ice-blue eyes. He looked ominous and menacing now instead of like the silly old guy Fi

“The witch, Maleficent, has something to do with this,” Fi

“Apparently she has everything to do with this,” Wayne agreed.

“The Overtakers,” Fi

“Too many to count.”

“Like the pirates.”

“Worker bees, is all. The pirates don’t matter much. But you must underestimate nothing, no one. Conviction is the better part of intent. Few battles are won by strength alone. Cu

“How do we stop Maleficent?” Philby asked anxiously. He sipped the tea, liked it, and drank some more.

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves,” Wayne said.

“Maybeck,” Fi

“They won’t want anyone to see him. Nor to hear him, should he call out,” Philby continued.

“Someplace dark and noisy,” Fi

“One of the attractions!” Philby said. “Like Pirates of the Caribbean! The pirates took him!”

“It’s not dark enough,” Fi

“On the boat, maybe,” Philby said.

“Possibly,” Wayne said, though his tone of voice suggested that he didn’t give the idea much credence.

“Well, listen, Obi-Wan,” Philby said sarcastically. “Why don’t you tell me and Luke here where to find him, and we’ll make for hyperspace.”

“Warmer,” Wayne said to Philby, though he engaged Fi

“Space Mountain,” Fi

Philby sat forward excitedly. “Is he right? Is that where they’ve got him? Brilliant!”

Wayne sipped his tea, looking over the cup. “I have no idea where your friend is being kept.

It’s a big park. Very big.”

Fi

If Wayne knew any answers, his face revealed nothing.

“It’s a place to start,” Fi

Wayne said, “They’re keeping you from solving the fable. You see that, don’t you? Distracting you.”

“And if we solve it?” Philby asked.

“When we solve it,” Fi

“Rescue your friend. Solve the fable. Only then will we know what’s expected of you.”

Fi

If the boys could climb to the first level of the dome—about fifteen feet up—they’d reach a metal ladder that ran up the back of the dome to the pi

At Wayne’s suggestion, the boys borrowed some ropes from the firehouse. They then snuck through shadows, carrying the heavy ropes over their shoulders, and reached the backside of the attraction.

Crouching in some bushes, looking at the steepness of the roof and the smal metal ladder that led to the top, Fi

“But to them we’re kids, don’t forget.”

“They’ll have patrols. Cameras, maybe.”

“So when we do this, we do it quickly.”

The roof was shaped something like a magician’s hat, with a wide brim and a conical peaked crown. There were ante

Philby proved his climbing skills by tossing one of the ropes over a metal railing on the brim part of the roof. He tied it off. “We’re set,” he a

Fi

Philby followed silently and without incident.

They kept away from the edge of the roof, where they might be spotted, as Philby pulled up the rope and stashed it out of sight. Quickly they ascended the white metal ladder that ran to the peak. Attached to the roof, it ran at the same steep angle as the cone.

They reached the top, and sure enough, there was a metal trap door, exactly as Wayne had described it.

Fi

“Who’s going first?” Philby asked, his voice breaking.

Fi

The track was a tangle of metal fringed by catwalks and supported by towering I-beams and steel columns. Fi