Ridley Pearson - Power Play

“Wait up!” hissed a humiliated Finn.

“Move it!” Maybeck said. He watched Finn climb. “It’s only a set of stairs.”

Tiny stairs, steep stairs , Finn felt like saying, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Memo to Whitman: I don’t think you’re going to be able to see Willa from up here. So what, in the name of cream cheese, are we doing here?”

“Doing what Philby told us to do,” Finn whispered back. “Into the booth.”

“The IllumiNations booth? How’s that supposed to help Willa?”

“Remember in The Wizard of Oz , the man behind the curtain?”

“Sure. The old guy. What about him?”

“That’s you. You’re the man behind the curtain. You’re the one controlling things.”

“I’m liking this plan more and more, Whitman.”

I knew you would , Finn nearly said. “Okay, so pay attention.”

The longer he sat there staring at his computer monitor, the more concerned Philby grew. The webcam view was of the Park as a whole. He could see a few black specks move from time to time, but they looked about the size of ants. He couldn’t tell who or what they were, or what they were up to. If Finn is going to send me a signal , he thought, it had better be something good . Otherwise, I might miss it . So he focused intently on the most recent development: a thick group of ants had congregated between Spaceship Earth and the office building near the entrance. That couldn’t be good. It might be a meeting of Security, or a cleaning or maintenance team getting ready to deploy around the Park, or it could easily be Overtakers.

When Philby heard rustling in the bushes outside his window, he looked away from his computer.

The window was unlocked. Not good. What if there was a serial killer creeping around their house?

When he heard more brushing of sticks against the side of the house, goose bumps raced up his arms-something was out there, and it was too big to be a dog.

More like a person.

Willa was not scared of spiders; she was terrified of them. They moved as a mass around her bare feet within inches of touching her. Her DHI was anything but pure, making her physically vulnerable.

“What kind of uniform?” the Queen asked.

She’d said too much already. She hated herself for having said anything. “A security officer,” she lied. “Like at the airport.”

There were two huge vultures following behind her. Cruella steered clear of the birds as she walked around Willa, studying her.

Willa’s eyes followed Cruella.

“I don’t think so,” the Evil Queen said. She waved her hand. The spiders swarmed over Willa’s feet and started up her ankles. She cried out and kicked with both legs, like running in place, but the spiders kept coming. Screaming, she brushed them away, but there were thousands of them, and each time her bare feet landed she felt them squish beneath her while a hundred more climbed onto her.

“Get them off!”

Willa jumped out of the oozing black circle, but a vulture came at her, flapping its large wings, and stuck its grotesque bald head and curved beak into her face, driving her back. She leaped to her left, and the second vulture blocked her there as well. She fled back into the swarm of spiders. Some had reached her knees. As fast as she could brush them off, they gained on her.

“STOP IT!”

“What kind of uniform, dear?” the Queen said in a perfectly calm voice.

“Military, I think. Those things on his shoulders.” She jumped and hopped and swatted at the spiders.

The Queen waved the spiders down and off her. They formed the doughnut again, with Willa at the center.

“That’s better, my little ugly duckling,” the Queen said. “More details, and I’ll keep them off you.”

Willa collected herself and looked up, intent to meet eyes with the Queen. But what she saw just beyond the Queen nearly stopped her heart: Finn. Her friend Finn, not the Queen’s copy of him. He wore all black and was carrying the shimmering blue line that said he’d crossed over. Finn, who’d come to rescue her.

The Evil Queen caught Willa’s eye movement and, without looking behind her, made a sweeping, surprisingly graceful motion toward Finn, her lips moving, but making no sound. Whatever she had expected to happen to him did not. The blue line around Finn’s DHI shimmered, though only slightly-he was only part hologram. He rushed Willa, lowered his shoulder, and hit her like a football tackle, throwing her onto his shoulder. He took off at a run.

Spiders raced up his back, Willa brushing them off furiously. She looked down: the stream of spiders had stretched into long black line like a…

Snake.

Gigabyte, the twenty-foot python, was a matter of yards behind Finn. The vultures flew on either side of him.

Back at Gigabyte’s tail, the remaining spiders turned into rattlesnakes.

“Finn…” Willa gasped, laying atop his shoulder. “Snakes.”

The rattlesnakes moved faster than the giant python.

“Finn?” she said.

He could feel himself slowing down-the more frightened she became, the heavier she was to carry.

“Don’t…look!” he said. He followed the path past Innoventions West and aimed for the fountain plaza, now in sight. Maybeck’s timing was going to have to be perfect, or between the snakes and vultures they would lose their chance to Return.

The fountain was now only a matter of twenty yards away. A figure appeared on the far side, toward the lake: Maybeck, running at a full sprint, two CTDs on foot chasing him.

Maybeck counted down in his head: thirty-nine…thirty-eight…thirty-seven…

He had a pair of robots on his tail, pursuing his DHI at lightning speed. One of them had gotten close enough to fire some kind of Taser, but because of his DHI state, its electrodes and wires had passed right through him.

Up ahead he saw Whitman carrying Willa on his shoulder, and some kind of broken shadow slithering behind him. Behind the shadow came the Evil Queen and Cruella. If this had been Philby’s plan, he was out of his skull. They’d walked right into a nest of Overtakers.

“Uncool!” he shouted as he skidded to a stop, seeing the snakes-not shadows but snakes!-braiding themselves around the feet of Finn’s DHI.

“Do NOT look down!” Maybeck added.

Finn looked down. His blue hologram line faded and the tangle of snakes locked around his partially mortal ankles, and Finn fell, dumping Willa, whom Maybeck caught in his arms.

Maybeck had lost count. Eighteen? Twelve? Whitman had told him he had to keep count.

Oops …

Finn rose to his elbows, but surrounded by hissing rattlesnakes, he froze.

“Welcome, boys,” said the Evil Queen, finally catching up.

Maybeck helped Willa keep her balance as he put her down. It was a clever move-it put her within an arm’s length of Finn. If she dared to reach across the snakes, they could hold hands.

Philby stared out his window. It was not a serial killer; it was Hugo Montcliff, and more important, he had Elvis in his arms. Elvis, an inside cat, had disappeared earlier that afternoon and Philby’s mom had been distraught. Hugo would be a family hero for years to come.

Philby threw open the window. “You found him! My mother’s going to saint you.”

“He was wandering around the Evans’ house.”

“Need the couch tonight?” Philby knew Hugo couldn’t suffer his parents screaming fights all night.

“You mind?”

“Climb on in,” Philby said, making a gesture like a hotel doorman. Hugo passed him Elvis and followed through the window.