Ridley Pearson - Power Play

The raft bumped to shore. Pluto jumped off. Minnie hopped onto the dock and expertly secured the raft to it with a line. She extended a hand and helped Amanda off the raft. Finn jumped down.

“We shouldn’t be long,” he said, eyeing the waterwheel that was only a matter of yards away.

Minnie saluted.

“We might need a quick escape, so maybe you could wait for us here?” he proposed. He didn’t want to get Minnie in any more trouble.

Her big black eyes tracked across the water to the Big Bad Wolf, still lurching from the dock and looking to be considering the swim.

“One thing at a time,” Finn said.

Minnie nodded.

Finn, Amanda, and Pluto headed up the path, turning toward the waterwheel at Harper’s Mill.

“This feels too easy,” Finn said, fearing a trap.

Amanda squeezed his hand, and he looked down to realize he was not pure DHI. But he was not about to let go to fix it.

MAYBECK WOKE UP in an office with gray carpeting, three gray desks, chairs on wheels and trash baskets lined with clear plastic bags. He caught sight of a pair of running shoes with gold-and-silver sparkles thrown into the covering like sequins and knew it could only be one person.

“Charlene?” he whispered dryly.

She crept around to him on hands and knees. For once, she was not wearing her nightgown but instead a black leotard top and black jeans. And those cheerleader shoes.

“Where are we?” She’d dressed and gone to sleep, as Philby had requested. Maybeck, on the other hand, had heard from Philby.

“It’s an electrical power plant on Disney property. We’re about ten miles from the Parks. Philby tracked the OTs’ DHIs here. We’re supposed to observe and report.”

“Observe what?” she asked.

“We’ll know when we see it.”

They came to their feet and approached the office door. Maybeck opened it a crack. The facility emanated a constant low-level hum, a rumbling that came up through the floor. The two were looking down a bland corridor, office doors on either side. At the end of the corridor in both directions were lighted exit signs.

“If you’re wondering which way to go,” Charlene said in a whisper, “check out the wear of the carpet. I’d say, right.”

The hallway carpet was discolored and worn to the right; it grew progressively lighter and less-used to their left.

“Good catch,” he said.

“The thing is,” she said, “if something should go wrong, we don’t want to both get caught, and to be honest, I’d rather you try to rescue me than me try to rescue you. So why don’t you let me go first? You keep watch, but hang back.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Why? Because you’re a guy? Who’s the more athletic?”

“Who’s the tougher?” he countered.

“I’ll go to the end of the hall and stop to listen. I’ll signal you,” Charlene said.

“Since when are you the leader?” he asked.

“Have you got a better plan?”

“Just be careful,” he said. “If it’s them, if it’s the Evil Queen and Cruella, and who knows who else as DHIs…well…”

“I get it.”

Charlene moved down the hall door by door, pausing to listen, giving him a thumbs-up at each. She displayed the grace of a gymnast, raised on tiptoe, almost dancing. At last she reached the door beneath the exit sign.

Maybeck followed. The droning hum bothered him. It was like a bad sound track to a scary movie. It made it hard to hear anything, harder still to think. Power plants were huge facilities. How were they supposed to find a couple of holograms in a place this size? And what would happen to them if they were found first? More importantly, a power plant ran 24/7, so there had to be employees on the job.

He glanced back down the hall, his toes and fingers tingling as he saw something bolted to the wall near the ceiling. The Lake Buena Vista Cogeneration Facility had security cameras. He and Charlene had likely already been spotted as intruders.

The fifteen-foot diameter wooden waterwheel spun lazily at the side of Harper’s Mill. When Finn looked back across the water the wolf was gone. It might have made him feel better, but it did not. It made him realize that none of the Parks were magical for him anymore-not at night. They were mysterious, often dangerous, and always surprising. He kept his senses on full alert, worried for Amanda and grateful to have Pluto by his side.

“We need a splinter from the wheel,” Finn said. “Then we hope for some magic.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to break a piece off or something. I’m not sure how we’ll do that.”

“I don’t love it here,” she said.

“No. I was just thinking how my opinion of the Parks has changed.”

“No doubt,” she said.

“Pluto!” Finn called, winning the dog’s attention. “Defend!”

Pluto licked Finn’s hand, looking dog-dumb.

“Patrol!” he tried. The dog sat and offered moon eyes.

“Guard!” Amanda said harshly.

Pluto barked once sharply and went rigid.

“Good boy,” Amanda said. She ruffled his ears and Pluto pawed at her.

Pluto put his nose to the ground and headed off.

“You charm all the boys,” he said.

“Shut up.”

Finn led her over to the moving waterwheel. It was fed from the top by a waterspout. Water cascaded down its paddles, turning it.

“If I had a knife, or razor blade, or something…”

“How ’bout a rock?” Amanda said, bending down to pick one up.

He felt like a moron. “Yes. Like a rock. That might work,” he conceded. He smashed the inside edge of the huge wheel but the wood was old and hard, and pressure-treated against the water. It was like hitting rock against rock.

She said, “It should be one of the spindles, one of the spokes, right?”

“Yeah.” Again, she made him feel stupid.

The spokes were constantly moving.

“I can climb on,” Amanda said. “You know, like Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Pirates .”

“I’m pretty sure that was special effects,” Finn said.

“I can do this,” Amanda said, judging the wheel’s rotation. She jumped between the outside slats to inside the moving wheel and ran like a hamster, adjusting her stride to match the wheel’s revolutions. As she got the hang of it, she turned to Finn and said, “No problem! It’s kind of like a treadmill.”

Every few steps, she would have the speed wrong and start climbing with the moving wheel, then have to adjust.

“It’s not like I can stay on here forever,” she said. “Say something.”

“Run your hand on the slats,” Finn said. “Try to catch a splinter.”

“Eww!” Amanda said. “It feels like dog snot. Disgusting!” She yanked her hand away, jogging to keep pace. “Bad idea.”

Finn knew what had to be done, just not how to do it. He studied the moving mechanism, trying to think how Philby would see it.

“I need you off of there,” he told Amanda. “Please. Jump off.”

Amanda timed her dismount, but slipping between the moving slats was harder getting off than on. Stuck between slats, she got carried up and around, and Finn pulled her off before she went around again. The two tumbled to the ground.

“The only way to do this,” Finn said, “is to break it.”

At the same moment, Philby was comparing himself to a sponge left too long under the kitchen faucet; there came a point where the sponge could absorb no more water. He was currently monitoring a dozen Security webcams inside the Magic Kingdom, the DHI bandwidth, and was attempting to determine the direction of the unexpected data traffic to see if he could pinpoint where the Evil Queen and Cruella were sleeping during their DHI activity. It was too much. His brain was ready to burst.