A
MANDA AND
F
INN
turned the corner. At the far end of the hallway glowed a red
EXIT
sign. Finn was already in the process of texting a D-Gamer message.
Finn: chernabog!
The green fairy rounded the far corner, coming between Finn and the
EXIT
sign. She held a black kitty in her arms.
She set the cat down, waved her hand over it, and it stretched and grew to the size of a panther. The man pursuing Amanda and Finn skidded to a stop.
“Silly, silly boy,” Maleficent said, aiming her finger at him. “Won’t you ever learn to mind your own business?”
“Who are you?” the man shouted from well behind Finn.
“Pest!” she called out, waving her finger at the man. The panther took off—running right past Amanda and Finn—and chased the man around the corner.
Finn pushed the fear from his thoughts and drove away his anger. He whispered, “Examination room,” and pointed subtly with his left hand, holding it behind his back. “Get the others. We’ll meet up at the trek.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Amanda informed him. “Not without Jez.”
He couldn’t allow her defiance to ruffle him. Above all, he had to clear his mind of any frustration, resentment, or ill will toward others. As he did, he felt the familiar tingling sensation in his toes and fingers, and he knew it was starting. Knew, without looking, that he was crossing over.
In the past, he had only been able to sustain his waking-DHI form for a matter of a minute or two. Somehow he knew it would have to be longer this time—that this was to be a test of his strength.
He suspected that by becoming his DHI, he risked the Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. This was uncharted territory, but he had to do something to counter Maleficent’s power.
“Go!” he called out to Amanda.
“No. I’m staying.”
Maleficent drew her scrawny hands toward her face, her fingers twitching, her lips bubbling with an incantation. Finn could sense a spell coming, but he would not allow himself to fear it. Even his frustration with Amanda for not listening had to be ignored. He would be no help to her if Maleficent’s spell affected him as well.
“You have a powerful master,” Finn called down the hall. He watched as Maleficent’s face became rubbery with surprise and wrinkled with concern.
“You know nothing of my master,” came the reply.
“More than you think. Is it control over the Animal Kingdom that Chernabog wants?”
Maleficent cringed at mention of the name; it was as if Finn had spoken a sacred secret. She curled her hands into a tight ball, and Finn could feel it coming.
“Look out!” he shouted at Amanda. He turned to warn her.
Amanda was gone. Vanished. No longer by his side.
Maleficent hurled a blinding ball of energy down the hall. About the size of a softball, it spun through the air, throwing off sparks like a tiny, blazing sun, and looked as if it would burn up anything in its path.
“Duck!” said Amanda’s voice.
Finn glanced up to see
her floating
horizontally near the ceiling.
“DUCK!” she repeated.
But it was too late for Finn to duck. The burning ball arrived and passed right through him. It exploded at the end of the hall, hitting a tile wall and erupting into a cloud of black smoke that rose to the ceiling. The smoke crept toward a blinking sensor mounted in the ceiling.
“But how…?” he muttered.
Amanda, still floating, said, “I told you Jez and I had unusual abilities.”
“You can
fly
?”
“Not exactly. I can levitate.” She sank then, and returned to her feet.
Finn knew this discussion would have to wait until later.
Maleficent twisted her ugly fingers. A cage of blue-white lines surrounded Finn and Amanda.
Finn wasn’t scared of the laser cage. His DHI stepped right through it, coming closer to Maleficent. Amanda floated off her feet and swam through the air, slipping through a gap between the electric bars. She sank back to the floor.
“Or is it the other way around?” Finn called out to Maleficent. “Is it that the Animal Kingdom controls him, and you’re going to ‘save’ Chernabog? To free him! His powers are limited here. Is that it?”
Maleficent took a step back, away from Finn. It was the first time he’d ever sensed an ounce of retreat in her. He savored the moment.
By gloating, he briefly lost his DHI.
“My master’s powers are anything but limited,” she said. “Just you wait!”
She threw an arrow of flame at Finn. His cherishing Maleficent’s retreat had cost him more than half his DHI. He was now half kid, half light. And as he turned his back against the oncoming arrow, he unknowingly offered her his mortal half Seeing this, Amanda leaped in front of him.
The arrow struck her in the chest and was totally absorbed. Her arms and legs glowed as she sank to the floor.
Maleficent grinned an evil grin.
“Looks like your girlfriend shouldn’t play with fire,” Maleficent said.
Amanda lay unconscious on the floor at Finn’s feet, a burn mark on her shirt. His fear removed him from his DHI state and exposed him to Maleficent’s powers.
But something else overcame him—a wild, pent-up anger that he could no longer control. He charged the witch.
A wide-eyed Maleficent seemed to sense her situation. As her lips muttered another incantation, she was too late.
Finn hit her with a body block, his momentum slamming her against the wall and pinning her there. He brought his hands to her throat.
Her skin was ice cold.
He said, “Release her this instant. You bring her back…or so help me…” He tightened his grip. Her cold skin was like nothing he’d ever felt.
Maleficent’s sickly green skin turned yellow. He was choking the life from her. She had no voice. No incantations.
“RELEASE AMANDA!!” Finn shouted, holding the wild panther at bay with his voice. He tightened his grip. Maleficent’s eyes bulged. She waved her hand.
Amanda coughed and sat up, coming back to consciousness.
“Are you all right?” Finn asked.
Amanda coughed hard but nodded.
Finn squeezed even tighter. “Tell Chernabog it’s over,” he said. “He will never regain his power. The Overtakers are through.”
He threw her to the floor, turned, and ran, grabbing Amanda by the hand just as the smoke reached the smoke alarm.
“You saved my life,” Amanda said, clinging to his arm. “Maleficent was
scared
of you!”
“I was…mad,” Finn said.
“I didn’t know you cared,” Amanda teased him, just as they opened an emergency door and sprinted outside.
“Who says I do?” he said to her, his voice breaking.
“Boys…” she muttered.
T
HE
K
INGDOM
K
EEPERS
and Amanda stood watching the AnimalCam, with Philby at the controls. All but Charlene, who kept vigil at the bat enclosure, her DS in hand. Philby, being Philby, had quickly located two cameras that served the tiger yards and a third that looked back toward the arched bridge that separated the two enclosures. It was this bridge that caused the
C
on the satellite photo.
“They keep tigers on either side of the bridge,” he explained. “Both sides have water and some trees for shade. From the bridge you have a good view of either yard.”
“But if she’s under the
C
, she’s under the bridge,” Finn said.
“I don’t know that that’s possible,” Philby said, switching camera views.
“Zoom back!” Willa said in an excited voice.
Philby did as she asked.
Amanda stepped forward, her finger pointing to the screen. “The window! That’s from the diary.”
“Yes,” Finn said. “You showed us that before, when Maybeck and I were over there.”
“She dreamed about this place,” Amanda said. “No question about it.”
Willa pushed her way to a closer view of the screen.
Maybeck said, “Are we just going to watch TV all day? Let’s
do
something.”
Willa pointed. “Zoom in on this.”
“On what?” Philby said.
“Just do it,” Willa persisted.
Philby used the AnimalCam’s joystick to aim the camera where she pointed: a section where the wall met the dirt.
“Zoom in,” she directed.
It wasn’t dirt, as it turned out. Slowly a geometric shape became apparent: a wooden hatch with grass growing around its edges.
“That couldn’t be what I think it is,” Maybeck said.
“It’s a trapdoor!” Amanda declared.
“A trapdoor in a tiger yard,” Maybeck said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“She’s in there,” Amanda said. She looked to Finn for support. “Don’t ask me how I know, but she’s in there.”
“Philby?” Finn asked. “What’s a trapdoor doing there?”
“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Try me,” Finn said.
“Let’s say you’re the person running the tigers. How are you going to get any tigers into this lower yard?” He switched camera views. It showed a slowly rising hill of grass.
“How ‘bout trying the gate?” Maybeck asked.
“There is no gate. Not in the lower yard, only in the upper yard. We know from what Wayne told us that all the animals are accounted for each evening. They’re kept in barns and pens backstage. I’m thinking they probably move a couple tigers into this upper yard in the morning—then they open the hatch. It leads to a short tunnel that connects to the lower yard. Tigers are cats, so they’re smart. They learn fast.” He zoomed the camera to where a second hatch could be seen, this time in the lower yard. “Once the first tigers are in the lower yard, they close the hatches and put two more tigers into the upper yard. Tigers are territorial, so this system keeps them apart.”
“Brilliant,” said Willa.
“I don’t mean to play devil’s advocate,” said Maybeck, who thrived on playing devil’s advocate, “but if they let them in in the morning, then don’t they let them
out
in the evening? So if Jez is down there, which personally I don’t believe, doesn’t that mean…?” He didn’t finish his thought.
“That if she’s still down there at closing, then the tiger gets her for dinner,” Philby said.
Willa gasped.
“How could she have gotten down there in the first place?” Maybeck questioned.
“She could have crossed the savannah,” Willa proposed, “after escaping the tree trunk. Jumped a wall, or entered an open gate, only to find herself facing tigers. Maybe the hatch was already open; maybe she opened it herself. We won’t know until we find her.”
“One thing,” Philby said, “supporting this theory…if I were rigging the sound for the Park, the wires would follow the path. It might make sense to have a junction box down in the tunnel connecting the yards. Workers would have a place to check the wires that’s out of the view of the guests and safely away from the tigers.”
“No matter what,” Finn said, “I think we talked ourselves into checking out that tunnel.”
“A tunnel we don’t even know exists,” Maybeck reminded them.
“But there’s something else to think about,” Finn said. “The
M
on the satellite photo is a match with the
M
in the diary.”
“So she could just as easily be hiding someplace on the
M
,” Maybeck said, pleased to have some evidence to support his view.
Amanda shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. She played that song over and over. She has to be
under the
C.”
“Then what’s the
M
about?” Maybeck asked.
“Well, for one thing,” Willa said, “it’s your initial.”
Maybeck looked as if he might stick his tongue out at her, but he resisted.
“In the diary there’s a blob of ink on the lower right stem of the
M
,” Philby pointed out. “That could be a mistake, or it could mean something. And I might add that everything in the diary so far has meant something.”
“Agreed?” Finn said.
“So look where it is,” Philby said.
“Dinoland.” Philby looked around at the others. “Do any of you ever come to this Park?” he inquired sarcastically. “Dinoland is ridiculously boring except for one attraction.”
“That research thing—Dr. Grant Seeker,” Willa said.
“Dinosaur. Remember anything special about it?”
“Only that it was really cool,” Willa answered.
“Not cool—well, yes, it’s cool—but it’s also
cold.
And it’s computer controlled. Majorly computer controlled. There have to be some serious computers running that ride.”
“The second server,” Finn whispered, “could be hidden among them.”
“As good a place as any.”
“Listen to you!” Maybeck sniped. “We don’t know any of this for sure!”
“No…” Philby said. “But there might be a way we could find out. If I can get back on VMK, and Wayne gets me into the control center, I may be able to track network bandwidth usage.”
“Speak English,” Maybeck snapped.
“Think about it: if we go after Jez, how is Maleficent going to come after us?”
“With birds,” Maybeck said.
“And monkeys,” Willa added.
“And lions,” said Finn.
“And DHIs of all of the above,” Philby said. “The more DHIs she uses, the more bandwidth usage on the network. What I’m saying is this: we
want
her to come after us with everything she’s got, because when she does, I can probably locate the second server. And if I do, then maybe I can cut it off the network. That would take all the DHIs of animals out of the equation.”
“So we split up,” Finn said. “Maybeck, Willa, and Philby will team up to take out the second server, to destroy it if possible. Charlene, Amanda, and I will get inside the tiger yard and get into that hatch.”
“Oh, yeah, like that’s going to happen,” snipped Maybeck.
“Philby said the tunnel makes sense for maintenance. If that’s the case, do you think the maintenance workers go through the tiger yards every time there’s a problem? I don’t think so. There’s going to be another entrance—a hatch, a manhole, something—probably hidden in the jungle. Something that Jez can’t get to, or isn’t strong enough to move. Philby can check it out when he gets into VMK. There must be a way to open the hatches in order to move the tigers. Philby can look for that, and we’ll be in position, ready to move.”
“There are still a few sketches in the diary that we haven’t run into,” Amanda reminded everyone. “We shouldn’t forget about them. There’s the hairy gorilla and the owl on the branch. There’s the elephant and the hunchback guy who looks sort of Indian.”
“Everyone will stay alert for those,” Finn said.
“Alert?” Maybeck said. “I’m half asleep on my feet.”
“No sleeping!” Philby warned. “Willa and I messed up things by getting caught. We’re both sorry and appreciate everything you did for us. But the Park is closing soon: six o’clock. And that means the animals will all be moved backstage, including the tigers. If there is a tunnel between the tiger yards, and Jez is down there…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence.
But apparently Maybeck felt obliged to. “Then she becomes kitty chow.”