“Electricity. It powers Disney World and local businesses.”
“Disney World.” Jess felt light-headed. This was
“Water and sewage treatment, too. Natural gas. Everything. I got an A on my paper,” she announced proudly.
“As in electricity for the Parks?”
“Exactly! Yeah. That’s the Disney part. They wanted to own their own electricity and stuff. You know, so it was more reliable and everything.”
Jess traced the two rooflines again-from the Web site and from her drawing. They weren’t simply similar; they were identical.
“Where exactly is this place?”
“It’s way out on Disney property. As in, the boonies.”
“Disney property? You sure about that?”
“Hello? An A? Did you know that at one point Walt Disney had planned for Epcot to be this futuristic city, with homes all around it? How cool would that have been?”
Jess barely heard her. Her brain was stuck back on Disney generating its own power. She’d drawn a Disney power plant in her diary without knowing it. It had to be hugely significant.
She had to contact Philby. Now!
Philby had his hands full. He kept one eye on the clock in his computer’s toolbar. The other eye jumped between the dozen webcam views from the Magic Kingdom’s Security server as he tracked Finn through the Park. His cell phone rested on his lap in vibrate mode, the laptop bridging his thighs. He sat on the toilet-lid closed-of what his mother called the “powder room,” a small, windowless bathroom with a corner sink near the front door of the house. He had the bathroom’s door locked: there would be no unexpected intrusions by Hugo or anyone else tonight. He could not afford to leave the Keepers stranded.
The e-mail from Jess caused him to perspire. He Googled “Lake Buena Vista Cogeneration Facility.” He had a fine memory, so when a photograph of the power plant popped up, he immediately matched the similarities with Jess’s diary sketch. From what he read, the power plant supplied all of Walt Disney World with power. If something happened to the Florida electric grid, Disney’s facility promised an uninterrupted flow of electricity to all of its Parks and hotels.
And computer servers, he thought.
Jess had foreseen its importance in one of her dreams. That the kiss used the power plant as a background did not necessarily connect the two: Jess’s diary pages often mixed images and time lines. But it established its importance-Jess’s track record was well proven.
With the power plant’s direct connection to the Parks, and its location
Control of the power plant meant control of the Parks-the Overtakers’ ultimate goal.
He had no way to reach Finn to update him. But he did have Maybeck and Charlene asleep and on standby to be crossed over.
He brought up his rendering of the router traffic he’d mapped from the DHI server’s log, already chastising himself. There had been several pings to a router out in the middle of nowhere. On Google Maps it just came up as an area of swampland-but now he saw his error: for security reasons, power plant locations were blocked from Internet maps. He’d been looking at the power plant all along, because those pings represented OT DHI traffic.
The OTs had been to the Lake Buena Vista Cogeneration Plant several times in the past week.
At that moment, his DHI traffic alarm sounded and a red message flashed on his screen: +70% BANDWIDTH USAGE.
Philby tried to focus, his breathing rapid, his heartbeat out of rhythm.
Pluto was waiting for them.
“This way!” Finn said, gently steering Amanda while trying to move her more quickly.
“Why are we running?” she asked.
“Visitors,” Finn said, glancing back.
Pluto’s hackles had been up for the past several minutes, and he kept looking behind them, his eyes a knot of concern.
Finn had tried to see whatever it was back there that was bothering Pluto, but only caught a shadow crossing the empty Park path in Frontierland.
“You see that?” he asked Amanda.
There it was again: the flash of translucent eyes from the shadows, like a deer on the side of a highway.
Amanda skidded to a stop, for she’d seen them, too, but for the first time.
“Another dog?” Finn asked.
Amanda’s blue hologram line faded as she lost a considerable percentage of her DHI to fear. “Not a dog,” she said. “Did you see how high off the ground that was?”
They were walking backward now, still moving in the direction of the Tom’s Landing raft dock, but refusing to take their eyes off the shadows by Country Bear Jamboree, where they’d both seen the pair of eyes.
An animal’s rapid breathing could be heard drawing closer.
Finn whispered, “That has to be a dog! Listen to it.”
“It’s tall. Very tall. Pluto is a Great Dane,” Amanda reminded him. “And there’s another in the movie
“Never seen it.”
“The dog or the movie?” she asked.
They walked faster now, keeping their eyes on the moving shadows while trying not to fall. They heard a wet slurp from what had to be an extremely large tongue. Another flash of eyes.
“Ehh!” Amanda reached for Finn and clutched his arm tightly. He actually appreciated the contact, though not the reason for it.
A sliver of light from one of the few lighted streetlamps played like a knife’s edge across the path, severing the darkness. Through the shaft of light strode a long, hairy creature, rail thin, malnourished and mangy, only a few inches visible at a time, like it was being painted by a tiny flashlight. It had enormous paws and four stick legs, but it was absurdly oversized, had pointed teeth, and a stream of drool that turned their stomachs.
Finn said harshly, “That’s no dog.”
“A wolf,” Amanda said, her voice quavering. “That’s the Big Bad Wolf.”
The thing was as tall as a bicycle, and looked to be about as fast.
“What now?” she asked.
The wolf lumbered out into the light, its back haunches moving fluidly, its ribs showing through the tangle of filthy hair.
A bone-chilling growl from behind them. Pluto, who’d been leading the way, had stopped and was turned toward the challenger.
“No, boy,” Finn said. It was no match.
But Pluto stood his ground as Amanda and Finn backed up past him, putting himself between them and the wolf.
“Come, Pluto!” Amanda whispered harshly.
The dog did not budge, but lowered himself onto his front paws and tucked his tail between his legs. Pluto looked back at Finn with noble eyes.
“He wants us to run,” Finn said.
