T
WO MINUTES…
Finn counted down the seconds on his watch. He heard his mouth speak before he meant to say anything.
“The first time I saw you I was scared of you,” he told Jez. The two were huddled close together just below the hatch in the upper tiger yard.
“Me?”
“Your long hair. The way you looked at me.”
“I was under Maleficent’s spell,” she reminded him.
And I was under yours
, he thought. “Yeah,” he said. “The thing is, as it turned out, there was nothing to be afraid of.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked. Their faces were about a foot apart. Only a tiny bit of light seeped in from around the edges of the hatch, emitting a dull glow. He saw the shape of her head, nothing more.
“Fear is a weird thing. It can totally take over, or you can push it away and suddenly it’s gone. That’s how I’m able to be a DHI—I remove all thought, all fear, and suddenly I cross over.”
“It’s going to be scary out there,” Jez said, suddenly understanding what it was Finn was trying to say.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Why can’t boys ever say what they actually want to say? If you were Amanda, you’d have just said, ‘Heads up, girl! It’s going to be freaky out there.'”
“Heads up, girl,” Finn said.
“Ha-ha,” she mocked him.
“I will try to leave the hatch as my DHI. If Charlene’s inside the tiger yard, she will be near a wall. Have you ever been to a rodeo?”
“Are you serious?”
“In a rodeo, the clown’s job is to distract the bull. To draw the bull’s attention away from the bull rider to give the rider enough time to get over the fence, out of danger. Think of Charlene and me as the clowns. You’re the rider.”
“They’re coming after me,” Jez said.
“They’ll come after all of us,” Finn said, “but they can only hurt you. They don’t know that, so that’s to our advantage.”
“It’s not much.”
“No. But it’s all we’ve got. If Charlene has jumped the wall, then she’ll know the way out. You
must
follow Charlene. No matter what happens to me, no matter what you see, ignore it. Stay with Charlene.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
“I’m just saying.”
One minute…
“Finn, if you’re trying to impress me…I already have a boyfriend…”
“Rob,” Finn said. He saw her head cock to the side in curiosity. “‘Change Rob’—it was in your diary. Amanda told us Rob was your boyfriend. It took us forever to realize why you’d written that.”
“And why had I written that?”
“It’s an anagram for Chernabog,” Finn said.
“Like the guy in
Fantasia
?”
“The same. We think he’s Maleficent’s boss, or king, or whatever you’d call it.”
“Superior,” she said.
“Whatever. He’s the one in control.”
“I think…oh my gosh.”
“What?”
“I think I had a daydream,” she said. “While I was down here in the dark.
King of the Mountain
, I called him. Big and ugly, and really hairy. He was trying to kill me. Me and Amanda. He had this club in his hand. No! It wasn’t a club. It was—” She gasped. For the first time in the dull light he could see her face clearly: her eyes were squinted closed.
“What?”
“It wasn’t a club in his hand,” she repeated. “It was…you, Finn. He had you by the legs and was swinging you like a club.”
Finn knew the strength of Jez’s dreams. He found it hard to breathe, his chest tight, his throat dry.
Fear
!
He had to push it away. He had to find a sense of calm. He needed to cross over to his DHI.
Because at that moment, the hatch above their heads began to squeak and groan. Light flooded in and blinded them.
The hatch was coming open.
P
HILBY RAISED HIS AVATAR’S SWORD
and blocked the swipe of silver steel that aimed for his head. Wayne was fighting two at once, his sword nothing but a blur of shining light.
The things coming at them—there were four altogether—were hunchbacked trolls with exaggerated noses, long hair, and strong arms. Never mind that they were avatars, they were horrendous-looking creatures, incredibly quick with their swords and determined to eliminate Wayne and Philby from VMK.
Philby blocked a second swipe and then a third. He backed up and moved to his right, noticing that the troll pivoted on its left foot as it turned to stay with Philby. Philby raised his sword as if to strike a blow to the head. The troll crossed its sword to block, but Philby released the sword, allowing it to fall and, as it did, he bent forward and was there to catch it before it hit the ground. He swung at the troll’s left leg. It sliced in two at the knee. The troll stepped forward and fell over onto its face. It tried to stand but was useless without a left leg.
Philby stepped around it in time to engage the sword of the third troll to attack Wayne, who was already busy defending himself against two of the attackers. Philby caught this troll’s sword as it swung back over its head. The contact spun the troll around and it came at Philby with a series of swift slices to the air, narrowly missing the chest of Philby’s avatar, which was in steady retreat. The troll reared back and lowered its sword with power and speed. Philby sidestepped, tripped, and his avatar went down.
The sword smacked into one of the purple networking cables, cutting it in two. The purple color immediately switched to gray, and Philby realized that since this was an internal maintenance site, anything done to the mechanism was for real and affected the real world. Wherever that data feed had been headed, it was now null and void. He considered cutting all the cables. Wouldn’t that have the desired effect? Wouldn’t it stop all the data—and more than likely all the DHIs? He thought it would, but at the same time, without that vivid color, he wouldn’t be able to follow the cables to their source—the second server. And that was the ultimate prize.
A troll left the fight with Wayne. It squatted and jumped a phenomenal distance, landing right in front of Philby. It raised its sword to do Philby in. It was now two against one. Philby spun in a full circle, his sword outstretched. It was similar to a martial arts move, and it caught the two others by surprise. He hit the first in the arm, severing it. The second took the tip of his sword across its chest. Philby spun again, this time taking a step forward.
The one-armed troll merely switched hands, now holding the sword with its right. It lowered it at Philby, who danced to the left just as the blade came down like a guillotine. It chopped off the end of Philby’s right foot.
Philby moved and saw his avatar sway, about to fall. He jerked left and maintained his balance: he could still stand, but his steps had to be shorter.
Wayne had dispatched the remaining troll. He came at the two on Philby from behind, and soon there was a flash of swords as Philby battled the one-armed troll and Wayne took the wounded one. Philby moved to his right, seeing that Wayne was moving that way as well. And now Philby saw Wayne’s scheme. The two trolls were battling in close quarters, too near one another. They each pivoted on one leg as they turned—a faulty design—and Wayne was working to tie their legs together, to cross their legs.
It worked beautifully. One more move to his right, and Philby watched as the two trolls tumbled over. Before Philby could even lift his sword, Wayne had removed these two from the game as well. Wayne hurried to the one spinning on the floor and stopped it with a sword thrust.
[ ]: if we don’t hurry, they’ll generate another fifty of these and send them our way. can you find the server?
philitup: I’m sure I can.
[ ]: then do it. and tell your friends up top we may need their help, my guess is these trolls aren’t going to let us anywhere near that server.
T
HEIR EYES ADJUSTING
as they climbed up the small ramp and out of the open hatch, Finn and Jez beheld an intimidating sight. The upper tiger yard was a large enclosure, an open expanse of sloping green grass surrounded by fifteen-foot-high walls. The enclosure’s boundaries were broken by bamboo trees, wild grasses, and jungle shrubs. In the shade to their left, and just coming to her feet, was an enormous tigress, six feet from shoulders to tail with a huge head, and paws the size of oven mitts. She glanced back at them with her amber eyes and let out a thunderous growl—they were intruders and she didn’t appreciate being awakened from her nap.
Directly ahead of them, coming over the crest of the small rise, were two more tigers—barreling toward Finn and Jez at full speed and, to the right of the yard, a half dozen monkeys and four large orangutans were also charging. The number of wild animals, as well as their combined ferocity, every twitch of muscle aimed directly at Finn and Jez, froze the kids. They stood absolutely still, which was a good thing.
Then Finn spotted the ivy creeping along the right wall—just behind the gang of monkeys.
Charlene.
“Finn?” a terrified Jez said, her voice breaking.
“No fear,” Finn whispered. He had tried to cross over on his way out of the hatch, but his excitement had prevented it. He didn’t want Jez to know this, so he spoke with authority.
“Move to your right,” he said. “Stay close to the wall.”
“But the monkeys!” she said.
“I know.”
A hollow growl reverberated from behind them: another tiger, this one coming through the tunnel from the lower yard.
Finn picked up a stick and stepped forward, putting himself between the charging monkeys and Jez. The two center tigers continued their advance, while the one in the shade to the left had spun fully around to face the hatch. If he didn’t do something quickly, he and Jez were going to be animal crackers—a late afternoon snack.
“Go!” he said.
Jez took off along the wall at a run.
Finn attacked the line of advancing monkeys and apes, swinging the stick like a baseball bat. The monkeys skidded to a stop, forming a semicircle around him. He saw a flash in the eyes of one of the orangutans: the ape had spotted Jez fleeing along the wall. He chose this ape to go after, chanting under his breath:
Nothing can hurt me.
He charged the orangutan, swung the stick, and forced the ape to dance backward, out of the way of contact. In doing so, the orangutan left a small gap between him and the ape to his side. It was just big enough for Finn to squeeze through. He ran forward and shot the gap. The ape turned.
This offered Jez the opportunity to run even harder, quickly moving along the wall toward the slowly advancing Charlene, who, posing as DeVine, was high atop her stilts.
The large cat to the left stepped out of the shadows, her strides calculated and controlled: she was hunting. If not Finn, any one of the monkeys would make a worthwhile snack.
The monkeys saw the cat as well, their hackles raised in alarm.
Finn was facing the wall of monkeys as the second cat climbed up and out of the tunnel. He glanced over his shoulder: the other two cats would arrive at any moment.
He’d done a fine job of pulling attention away from Jez, but his own situation was far more tentative. If he didn’t think of something quickly, his lone stick was not going to be enough to defend himself.
He held the stick high overhead and cried out loudly in a war cry.
“Go ahead, try it!” he shouted, watching Jez continue her progress. But the monkeys grew daring, tightening the circle around Finn.
Preparing to strike.
P
HILBY’S AND
W
AYNE’S AVATARS
ran along a catwalk of steel mesh, following the few remaining cables like train tracks toward an unconfirmed destination. But everything pointed toward the Dino Institute. Finally, the first wall of the institute appeared, and then the identification on the schematics.
The trick for Philby was to juggle back and forth between the DS and the computer terminal. It wasn’t easy.
philitup: it’s definitely dino-institute.
mybest: we’re almost there.
He studied the wires ahead of him. The purple wires turned right just inside the doors of the institute.
The virtual blueprint spread out before him and Wayne. As they neared the entrance, the plan shifted from two to three dimensions. He and Wayne moved inside the guest entrance. Philby stayed alert for any other ways to get in.
Wayne’s avatar stopped at the edge of the doorway.
Philby typed a message to Wayne.
philitup: what’s wrong?
[ ]: i sense a trap.
philitup: why?
[ ]: we should have met more resistance, i am familiar with their tactics, this is unlike them.
philitup: maybe they’ve changed.
[ ]: not likely, the overtakers never rest, they are cunning and clever and they possess many spells.
i would suggest we look for another access point.
philitup: there’s no time, besides, the cables are right here.
[ ]: have you considered the cables themselves may be part of a trap?
Philby had not given it any thought. The data flow had convinced him he was following the right cables. If it was a trap, then Maybeck and Willa were also walking right into it.
[ ]: please…another door, it’s safer for
all
of us.
Philby hesitated, incredibly tempted to follow the cables. But Wayne had gotten him this far. He had to trust him. He backed his avatar out of the entrance, took his hands off the controls, and texted a message to Maybeck’s DS
philitup: if u can get backstage @ dino institute, u r looking 4 a rack of servers, there will b thick blue or gray ethernet cables clipped into the back of each server, there may be a hub—a box with flashing lights.
As his avatar stepped out of the structure, the schematics returned to two dimensions. He studied the full schematics. The biggest backstage areas were to the right.
philitup: workshops are @ end of ride, must destroy server.
He waited to make sure Maybeck had received the messages.
mybest: got it. . i hope.