“I can help you.”
“You’ve done so much for me already. I’ll be fine.”
“I can pose for photographs and autographs, provide a distraction. A diversion, I think Eric calls it.”
It was the first time she’d mentioned Eric.
“So he’s…real? I mean, as far as characters go.”
“Eric?” Ariel blushed. “Oh, he’s very real. As real as real can be. But they keep him in the Magic Kingdom.
He’s part of the stage show there. In front of the castle. We rarely see each other.”
Willa wondered if there was another Ariel in the Magic Kingdom, or if that one was only a Cast Member. Wondered if Eric had all the mermaid company he wanted, while she sat here pining for him.
“A diversion might help.”
“Consider it done.”
“Don’t you need a handler to make an appearance? Someone who takes care of you?” Willa asked.
“The handlers come and go, dear girl. Who’s the one who’s been doing this all these years? I think I can manage.”
“But won’t you get in trouble?”
“That’s the idea, isn’t it? The more trouble, the better the diversion.”
“I can’t let you do that for me.”
“Actually, you can’t stop me,” said Ariel. She was beaming. “I haven’t had this kind of fun in…well…probably longer than you’ve been alive.”
Willa looked at her-Ariel was maybe sixteen or seventeen. “You never get any older.” She hadn’t thought of what it was like to be a character, not a Cast Member. The characters didn’t change, while the Imagineers, handlers, and staff came and went. Year after year, it was the same shows, the same posing for photos and signing autographs. It had to drive the characters half-crazy. No wonder the Overtakers were rebelling.
Ariel hung her head, clearly saddened by the reminder.
“No,” Ariel said. As she looked up, a coy grin played across her face. “Not older, but I do get wiser.”
Ariel’s appearance at the front gate did the trick. Excited guests encircled her, winning the attention of Security guards. Willa joined the mass of departing Park visitors and left the Park unnoticed.
Soon she was walking in the direction of Epcot. Most everyone else rode the monorail or the buses. Only she and a few others walked. When Willa noticed her hand and arm sparkling, she stopped to let others pass. She had reached the edge of the DHI projection coverage. A few more yards and pieces of her image would decay, leaving holes in her, or missing limbs. She would be human Swiss cheese, and would likely have guests either lining up for autographs, or calling 911.
So she moved up into the flowers and shrubs that hid a cyclone fence. Remaining amid the plants, she continued on, paralleling the sidewalk. Her elbow and part of her shoulder disappeared. Her left leg, from the knee down, vanished. For a moment, she was a set of headless pajamas. Finally, she vanished completely.
DHI shadow was a weird state: she could hear, though not touch. She could see, though narrowly, as if though a camera lens. Whatever this state was technically, it wasn’t perfect. Once while in DHI shadow she and the others had been able to pick up sand from the floor of a tepee. There seemed to be exceptions to the physical laws of nature. Philby explained these as having to do with the survival instinct, comparing them to a mother picking up and moving a car that pinned her child, or a father heaving a slab of concrete aside as if it were Styrofoam.
Back on the sidewalk now, in full DHI shadow, Willa picked up the pace, walking faster. She approached a family coming at her and moved into the grass to avoid them.
One of the two young kids, a girl no older than eight, let out a yip.
“Ghosts, Mommy! Ghosts! I heard a ghost!”
“Oh, shush, Ginny,” the woman said. To her husband she complained, “I told you that ride would scare them!”
He mumbled something as they continued on.
A chill passed through her. How many times as a child had she felt a ghost in the room? How many times, when taking the trash out at night, had she felt someone watching through the dark? For how long had DHIs been around? she wondered.
Her hologram began reappearing as she neared the BoardWalk. Her image sparkled and sputtered. Some kids pointed at her, making fun of her pajamas. A couple of girls recognized her as a Disney Host Interactive from the Magic Kingdom. They approached her for her autograph. Willa explained DHIs couldn’t sign autographs, and allowed the girls to wave their arms through her.
Free of fear and still in her DHI state, she strayed off course a few minutes later and walked through a fence, joining a roadway behind the Eiffel Tower.
It was only a matter of reaching the fob now. Dusk had settled. It would soon be dark. She was perhaps a quarter mile from the fountain plaza. From the Return. From home.
She set off in that direction in determined strides.
7
WITH ONLY AN HOUR TO GO before the Magic Kingdom closed for the night, Finn, Philby, and Maybeck used the employee passes to enter, which didn’t register on the computer system and allowed them to avoid the front gates. Operations Management prohibited them from entering any of the Parks as themselves without prior approval, and now they risked being spotted. For camouflage, all three wore as close to the same clothes as their projected DHIs wore. This way, they’d be mistaken as their own Disney Hosts. But they weren’t perfectly identical costumes: Maybeck had, for some reason, chosen a pair of dark socks; Finn no longer owned the running shoes he’d worn when modeling for his DHI so he was wearing the black ones he’d colored with a Sharpie.
They walked slowly, side by side, behind the buildings on Main Street in the direction of Cinderella Castle. They appeared relaxed and self-confident, never a problem for Maybeck.
As they happened past other Cast Members they heard comments trailing behind them like, “Can you believe how real those things look?” The three fought to keep smiles off their faces.
The Magic Kingdom had been built atop a series of interconnecting tunnels called the Utilidor. Through these tunnels passed Cast Members and electric golf carts that served as small trucks. Control of the Park’s technology was handled from offices in the Utilidor, which included a massive computer server room, the brains of the Park. This was the Keepers’ destination.
Multiple backstage Cast-Member-only entrances to the Utilidor existed throughout the Park. As the three approached the entrance just behind the Main Street ice cream parlor, Maybeck blocked Finn and Philby, pushing them back against the wall.
“Pirates!”
Finn and Philby spotted them: a pair of pirates casually talking in front of a double doorway up ahead.
“That’s the door to the Utilidor,” Professor Philby said.
“Overtakers?” Finn said.
“Must be,” Maybeck agreed. “They’re guarding the entrance, just in case we come along to spoil all their fun.”
“We could try the entrance by Splash Mountain,” Finn suggested.
“We’d have to cross the entire Park to get there,” Philby said. “And if these guys are guarding this one, others are probably guarding that one, too.”
“We need another way in,” Maybeck said.
“How do you guys feel about getting filthy dirty?” Finn asked.
He led them through the crowded parking lot, staying as far away from the pirates as possible. As they neared
