Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

By the time the choir retired, sweaty and exhausted, a group of ad-hocs were ready to take their place, and I escorted my recruits to an offstage break-room.

***

Suneep didn't deliver the robot prototypes for a week, and told me that it would be another week before I could have even five production units. Though he didn't say it, I got the sense that his guys were out of control, so excited by the freedom from ad-hoc oversight that they were running wild. Suneep himself was nearly a wreck, nervous and jumpy. I didn't press it.

Besides, I had problems of my own. The new recruits were multiplying. I was staying on top of the fan response to the rehab from a terminal I'd had installed in my hotel room. Kim and her local colleagues were fielding millions of hits every day, their Whuffie accumulating as envious fans around the world logged in to watch their progress on the scaffolding.

That was all according to plan. What wasn't according to plan was that the new recruits were doing their own recruiting, extending invitations to their net-pals to come on down to Florida, bunk on their sofas and guest- beds, and present themselves to me for active duty.

The tenth time it happened, I approached Kim in the break-room. Her gorge was working, her eyes tracked invisible words across the middle distance. No doubt she was penning yet another breathless missive about the magic of working in the Mansion. 'Hey, there,' I said. 'Have you got a minute to meet with me?'

She held up a single finger, then, a moment later, gave me a bright smile.

'Hi, Julius!' she said. 'Sure!'

'Why don't you change into civvies, we'll take a walk through the Park and talk?'

Kim wore her costume every chance she got. I'd been quite firm about her turning it in to the laundry every night instead of wearing it home.

Reluctantly, she stepped into a change-room and switched into her cowl. We took the utilidor to the Fantasyland exit and walked through the late-afternoon rush of children and their adults, queued deep and thick for Snow White, Dumbo and Peter Pan.

'How're you liking it here?' I asked.

Kim gave a little bounce. 'Oh, Julius, it's the best time of my life, really! A dream come true. I'm meeting so many interesting people, and I'm really feeling creative. I can't wait to try out the telepresence rigs, too.'

'Well, I'm really pleased with what you and your friends are up to here. You're working hard, putting on a good show. I like the songs you've been working up, too.'

She did one of those double-kneed shuffles that was the basis of any number of action vids those days and she was suddenly standing in front of me, hand on my shoulder, looking into my eyes. She looked serious.

'Is there a problem, Julius? If there is, I'd rather we just talked about it, instead of making chitchat.'

I smiled and took her hand off my shoulder. 'How old are you, Kim?'

'Nineteen,' she said. 'What's the problem?'

Nineteen! Jesus, no wonder she was so volatile. What's my excuse, then?

'It's not a problem, Kim, it's just something I wanted to discuss with you. The people you-all have been bringing down to work for me, they're all really great castmembers.'

'But?'

'But we have limited resources around here. Not enough hours in the day for me to stay on top of the new folks, the rehab, everything. Not to mention that until we open the new Mansion, there's a limited number of extras we can use out front. I'm concerned that we're going to put someone on stage without proper training, or that we're going to run out of uniforms; I'm also concerned about people coming all the way here and discovering that there aren't any shifts for them to take.'

She gave me a relieved look. 'Is that all? Don't worry about it. I've been talking to Debra, over at the Hall of Presidents, and she says she can pick up any people who can't be used at the Mansion-we could even rotate back and forth!' She was clearly proud of her foresight.

My ears buzzed. Debra, one step ahead of me all along the way. She probably suggested that Kim do some extra recruiting in the first place. She'd take in the people who came down to work the Mansion, convince them they'd been hard done by the Liberty Square crew, and rope them into her little Whuffie ranch, the better to seize the Mansion, the Park, the whole of Walt Disney World.

'Oh, I don't think it'll come to that,' I said, carefully. 'I'm sure we can find a use for them all at the Mansion. More the merrier.'

Kim cocked quizzical, but let it go. I bit my tongue. The pain brought me back to reality, and I started planning costume production, training rosters, bunking. God, if only Suneep would finish the robots!

***

'What do you mean, 'no'?' I said, hotly.

Lil folded her arms and glared. 'No, Julius. It won't fly. The group is already upset that all the glory is going to the new people, they'll never let us bring more in. They also won't stop working on the rehab to train them, costume them, feed them and mother them. They're losing Whuffie every day that the Mansion's shut up, and they don't want any more delays. Dave's already joined up with Debra, and I'm sure he's not the last one.'

Dave-the jerk who'd pissed all over the rehab in the meeting. Of course he'd gone over. Lil and Dan stood side by side on the porch of the house where I'd lived. I'd driven out that night to convince Lil to sell the ad-hocs on bringing in more recruits, but it wasn't going according to plan. They wouldn't even let me in the house.

'So what do I tell Kim?'

'Tell her whatever you want,' Lil said. 'You brought her in-you manage her. Take some goddamn responsibility for once in your life.'

It wasn't going to get any better. Dan gave me an apologetic look. Lil glared a moment longer, then went into the house.

'Debra's doing real well,' he said. 'The net's all over her. Biggest thing ever. Flash-baking is taking off in nightclubs, dance mixes with the DJ's backup being shoved in bursts into the dancers.'

'God,' I said. 'I fucked up, Dan. I fucked it all up.'

He didn't say anything, and that was the same as agreeing.

Driving back to the hotel, I decided I needed to talk to Kim. She was a problem I didn't need, and maybe a problem I could solve. I pulled a screeching U-turn and drove the little runabout to her place, a tiny condo in a crumbling complex that had once been a gated seniors' village, pre-Bitchun.

Her place was easy to spot. All the lights were burning, faint conversation audible through the screen door. I jogged up the steps two at a time, and was about to knock when a familiar voice drifted through the screen.

Debra, saying: 'Oh yes, oh yes! Terrific idea! I'd never really thought about using streetmosphere players to liven up the queue area, but you're making a lot of sense. You people have just been doing the best work over at the Mansion-find me more like you and I'll take them for the Hall any day!'

I heard Kim and her young friends chatting excitedly, proudly. The anger and fear suffused me from tip to toe, and I felt suddenly light and cool and ready to do something terrible.

I padded silently down the steps and got into my runabout.

***

Some people never learn. I'm one of them, apparently.

I almost chortled over the foolproof simplicity of my plan as I slipped in through the cast entrance using the ID card I'd scored when my systems went offline and I was no longer able to squirt my authorization at the door.

I changed clothes in a bathroom on Main Street, switching into a black cowl that completely obscured my features, then slunk through the shadows along the storefronts until I came to the moat around Cinderella's castle.