Ridley Pearson - Power Play

The walls were dark wood, the ceiling, vaulted. The five displays depicted various scenes or famous people from Norway’s colorful history. There were descriptive plaques alongside each.

The three girls drew together in the far corner and immediately began talking the way girls do. Finn and Philby were left alone.

Philby reviewed everything he could recall about the video from Wayne; Finn detailed the visit with Wanda.

“A trick?” Philby asked.

“That’s what she thinks.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yes, it does,” Finn agreed.

“I wish she’d told you more about the data bursts.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” Finn said. “You are so predictable.”

“It’s what I do,” Philby said, unapologetically.

“What could it mean?”

Philby shrugged. “All sorts of things. But it’s kind of random that she’d hack a bank of Disney routers. That’s like hacking the streetlights at an intersection. No wonder she’s in trouble.” He mulled it over. “What’s interesting, I suppose, is why she’d bother in the first place. Those big routers…I suppose if you wanted to determine where the packets were headed…the firewall logs might be all you’d need.”

Finn lost him for a minute while Philby was doing the math in his head.

“Listen, there’s one other thing before she gets here,” Finn said.

“Charlene,” Philby said, naming the only girl not there yet.

“Yeah. I know this doesn’t make any sense, but she designed our ride. She gave us the card.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Yes. Of course I do. And look, was it her alone? No. But that’s even more disturbing. And today, she just materialized at school. Said she’d ridden over with the Evans soccer team. She’s been asking all these crazy questions.”

“This is Charlene we’re talking about!”

“I know!” Finn said. “That’s what got me! Since when does she ask a dozen questions in a row?”

“Since never.”

“But she did today. She was like Sherlock Holmes or something.”

“You can’t accuse her. Not without evidence. It isn’t fair. We just don’t do that.”

“I know,” Finn said. “I get that. But I wanted you to know. Only you.”

“So I should keep an eye on Charlene.”

“That’s all I’m saying, yeah.” Finn added reluctantly, “Not that I like it.”

“No. It’s ugly.”

“Speaking of ugly…” He told Philby about his seeing Cruella De Vil on the phone outside Disney Quest and how out of place it seemed.

“This is beginning to feel like a parallel universe,” Philby said.

“Right?” Finn said.

Philby reached out and touched Finn’s shoulder. “Just making sure we’re not holograms,” he said. Both boys laughed.

A father and son entered. The son was carrying a Kim Possible cell phone. The Kim Possible quest was an interactive mystery hunt where the participant joined a popular cartoon character’s pursuit of bad guys. The phones gave clues and could lead you all over the Park.

The boy searched the church and apparently found the answer in a display description that his father helped him to read. The boy squealed and pushed a button on the device. The phone gave him his next location. The two left without having paid any attention to the five kids.

Maybeck arrived out of breath. He looked around the small area, making sure they were alone. He said hello, and then, “Did any of you see the CTDs out there? There was a pair trying to follow me. I lost them, but they were zoned in on me.”

Appraising Maybeck, Finn said, “Not the best disguise I’ve seen.” Maybeck liked the fan attention-loved it, was more accurate-and rarely changed his appearance. He wanted to be recognized. He wanted to be mobbed.

“I’m kind of hard to miss,” he said.

“You reap what you sow,” Willa told him.

“Where’s Charlene?” Amanda asked, looking past him.

Philby and Finn exchanged a curious look.

Maybeck said, “She stopped to get us some food. I’m starving.”

“It’s eight o’clock,” Philby said.

“So what? I can’t be hungry at eight o’clock? I’m hungry all the time! I have a big appetite.”

“I wouldn’t mind something,” Jess said. “That dinner tonight…” she said to Amanda.

“Mrs. Nash’s tamale pie is basically microwaved dog food with boxed gravy and Doritos on top,” agreed Amanda.

“Gross!” Willa said.

“You should be in the same room with it,” said Amanda.

Maybeck said, “I don’t think we should hang here too long. Not only are there cameras all over this Park-right, Philby?-but I wouldn’t be surprised if those CTDs circle back and come looking for me. We’d actually be safer out there with the mob lining up for the fireworks.”

“I love the fireworks,” Amanda said.

Willa said, “So, why are we here, anyway? What’s going on? Do we even know why Wayne wanted us here?”

“Not yet, we don’t,” Finn answered. “What we know is that the OTs are active again.” He told them about the jail visit with Wanda.

Philby tried to explain what Wanda might have been doing hacking the servers. “Disney has an elaborate set of firewalls in place. Think of it as one of those European fort walls around all of Disney World’s data lines. One you can’t climb. One with gates too strong to bust through-”

On cue, the door banged open. Charlene entered, struggling to balance a stack of small plastic plates, all holding food. Everyone hurried over to help her. Shortly thereafter, lips were smacking loudly.

“So,” Finn said to Philby, “you were saying?”

“The point is, the firewalls log any ‘events’-that is, attempts to breach them. There are subnet masks, ISP numbers, all sorts of data that can be traced and used to track down where the attack came from and who was behind it. If I’m Wanda, that’s what I’m looking for: the person behind the data bursts.”

“And if you’re the OTs?” Charlene asked.

“If I’m the OTs and I’m attacking firewalls,” Philby said, “then I’m either looking for a way in or a way out. A way in would give me access to other Disney data-”

“Like the location of where Disney might lock up certain other Overtakers,” Maybeck proposed.

“Like that, yes. Or, you remember how we used the changes in temperature inside pavilions to try to track Maleficent? That kind of record would tell them everything they want to know.”

“Energy use,” Willa said.

Philby smiled. He loved the way her mind worked. “Absolutely. Disney has to keep Maleficent cold. They’re not going to mistreat her, and she needs cold to survive. That would require more energy. That’s a number, something easy enough to uncover. Those kind of records could be hacked.”

“They’re going to bust Maleficent and Chernabog out,” Maybeck said, speculating. “It’s a jailbreak.”

Silence.

Philby began nodding. “Nicely done, Terry.”

“Could it be?” Charlene asked.

“It makes total sense,” Willa said. “They’re trying to gather enough data to locate where Maleficent and Chernabog are being held. At the same time, they know that’s going to attract our attention-Wayne, Philby, Wanda…someone. When that happens, they have a backup plan to lure Wayne out into the open and kidnap him. Maybe they want information from him, maybe they want to trade him for Maleficent and Chernabog, but it’s all directed at the same goal.”

“Freeing the boss,” Maybeck said.

“And with Wayne in hiding and Wanda out of the way-” Willa said.

“It’s up to us,” said Finn, prompting another heavy silence.

The church door pushed open. A girl and her parents entered. They were also on the Kim Possible quest. The Keepers scattered, pretending to be interested in the various displays.