She gave me a relieved look. "Is
My ears buzzed. Debra, one step ahead of me all along the way. She probably suggested that Kim do some extra recruiting in the first place. She'd take in the people who came down to work the Mansion, convince them they'd been hard done by the Liberty Square crew, and rope them into her little Whuffie ranch, the better to seize the Mansion, the Park, the whole of Walt Disney World.
"Oh, I don't think it'll come to that," I said, carefully. "I'm sure we can find a use for them all at the Mansion. More the merrier."
Kim cocked quizzical, but let it go. I bit my tongue. The pain brought me back to reality, and I started planning costume production, training rosters, bunking. God, if only Suneep would finish the robots!
***
"What do you mean, 'no'?" I said, hotly.
Lil folded her arms and glared. "No, Julius. It won't fly. The group is already upset that all the glory is going to the new people, they'll never let us bring more in. They also won't stop working on the rehab to train them, costume them, feed them and mother them. They're losing Whuffie every day that the Mansion's shut up, and they don't want any more delays. Dave's already joined up with Debra, and I'm sure he's not the last one."
Dave-the jerk who'd pissed all over the rehab in the meeting. Of course he'd gone over. Lil and Dan stood side by side on the porch of the house where I'd lived. I'd driven out that night to convince Lil to sell the ad-hocs on bringing in more recruits, but it wasn't going according to plan. They wouldn't even let me in the house.
"So what do I tell Kim?"
"Tell her whatever you want," Lil said. "You brought her in-you manage her. Take some goddamn responsibility for once in your life."
It wasn't going to get any better. Dan gave me an apologetic look. Lil glared a moment longer, then went into the house.
"Debra's doing real well," he said. "The net's all over her. Biggest thing ever. Flash-baking is taking off in nightclubs, dance mixes with the DJ's backup being shoved in bursts into the dancers."
"God," I said. "I fucked up, Dan. I fucked it all up."
He didn't say anything, and that was the same as agreeing.
Driving back to the hotel, I decided I needed to talk to Kim. She was a problem I didn't need, and maybe a problem I could solve. I pulled a screeching U-turn and drove the little runabout to her place, a tiny condo in a crumbling complex that had once been a gated seniors' village, pre-Bitchun.
Her place was easy to spot. All the lights were burning, faint conversation audible through the screen door. I jogged up the steps two at a time, and was about to knock when a familiar voice drifted through the screen.
Debra, saying: "Oh yes, oh yes! Terrific idea! I'd never really thought about using streetmosphere players to liven up the queue area, but you're making a lot of sense. You people have just been doing the
I padded silently down the steps and got into my runabout.
***
Some people never learn. I'm one of them, apparently.
I almost chortled over the foolproof simplicity of my plan as I slipped in through the cast entrance using the ID card I'd scored when my systems went offline and I was no longer able to squirt my authorization at the door.
I changed clothes in a bathroom on Main Street, switching into a black cowl that completely obscured my features, then slunk through the shadows along the storefronts until I came to the moat around Cinderella's castle. Keeping low, I stepped over the fence and duck-walked down the embankment, then slipped into the water and sloshed across to the Adventureland side.
Slipping along to the Liberty Square gateway, I flattened myself in doorways whenever I heard maintenance crews passing in the distance, until I reached the Hall of Presidents, and in a twinkling I was inside the theater itself.
Humming the Small World theme, I produced a short wrecking bar from my cowl's tabbed pocket and set to work.
The primary broadcast units were hidden behind a painted scrim over the stage, and they were surprisingly well built for a first generation tech. I really worked up a sweat smashing them, but I kept at it until not a single component remained recognizable. The work was slow and loud in the silent Park, but it lulled me into a sleepy reverie, an autohypnotic swing-bang-swing-bang timeless time. To be on the safe side, I grabbed the storage units and slipped them into the cowl.
Locating their backup units was a little trickier, but years of hanging out at the Hall of Presidents while Lil tinkered with the animatronics helped me. I methodically investigated every nook, cranny and storage area until I located them, in what had been a break-room closet. By now, I had the rhythm of the thing, and I made short work of them.
I did one more pass, wrecking anything that looked like it might be a prototype for the next generation or notes that would help them reconstruct the units I'd smashed.
I had no illusions about Debra's preparedness-she'd have something offsite that she could get up and running in a few days. I wasn't doing anything permanent, I was just buying myself a day or two.
I made my way clean out of the Park without being spotted, and sloshed my way into my runabout, shoes leaking water from the moat.
For the first time in weeks, I slept like a baby.
***
Of course, I got caught. I don't really have the temperament for Machiavellian shenanigans, and I left a trail a mile wide, from the muddy footprints in the Contemporary's lobby to the wrecking bar thoughtlessly left behind, with my cowl and the storage units from the Hall, forgotten on the back seat of my runabout.
I whistled my personal jazzy uptempo version of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" as I made my way from Costuming, through the utilidor, out to Liberty Square, half an hour before the Park opened.
Standing in front of me were Lil and Debra. Debra was holding my cowl and wrecking bar. Lil held the storage units.
I hadn't put on my transdermals that morning, and so the emotion I felt was unmuffled, loud and yammering.
I ran.
I ran past them, along the road to Adventureland, past the Tiki Room where I'd been killed, past the Adventureland gate where I'd waded through the moat, down Main Street. I ran and ran, elbowing early guests, trampling flowers, knocking over an apple cart across from the Penny Arcade.
I ran until I reached the main gate, and turned, thinking I'd outrun Lil and Debra and all my problems. I'd thought wrong. They were both there, a step behind me, puffing and red. Debra held my wrecking bar like a weapon, and she brandished it at me.
"You're a goddamn idiot, you know that?" she said. I think if we'd been alone, she would've swung it at me.
"Can't take it when someone else plays rough, huh, Debra?" I sneered.
Lil shook her head disgustedly. "She's right, you are an idiot. The ad-hoc's meeting in Adventureland. You're coming."
"Why?" I asked, feeling belligerent. "You going to honor me for all my hard work?"
"We're going to talk about the future, Julius, what's left of it for us."
"For God's sake, Lil, can't you see what's going on? They
I barked a humorless laugh. Guests were starting to stream into the now-open Park, and several of them were watching intently as the three costumed castmembers shouted at each other. I could feel my Whuffie hemorrhaging. "Debra, you are purely full of shit, and your work is trite and unimaginative. You're a fucking despoiler and you don't even have the guts to admit it."
"That's
Debra followed us in when we mounted the steps to the meeting room. Lil turned. "I don't think you should be here, Debra," she said in measured tones.
Debra shook her head. "You can't keep me out, you know. And you shouldn't want to. We're on the same side."
I snorted derisively, and I think it decided Lil. "Come on, then," she said.
It was SRO in the meeting room, packed to the gills with the entire ad-hoc, except for my new recruits. No work was being done on the rehab, then, and the Liberty Belle would be sitting at her dock. Even the restaurant crews were there. Liberty Square must've been a ghost town. It gave the meeting a sense of urgency: the knowledge that there were guests in Liberty Square wandering aimlessly, looking for castmembers to help them out. Of course, Debra's crew might've been around.
The crowd's faces were hard and bitter, leaving no doubt in my mind that I was in deep shit. Even Dan, sitting in the front row, looked angry. I nearly started crying right then. Dan-oh, Dan. My pal, my confidant, my patsy, my rival, my nemesis. Dan, Dan, Dan. I wanted to beat him to death and hug him at the same time.
Lil took the podium and tucked stray hairs behind her ears. "All right, then," she said. I stood to her left and Debra stood to her right.
"Thanks for coming out today. I'd like to get this done quickly. We all have important work to get to. I'll run down the facts: last night, a member of this ad-hoc vandalized the Hall of Presidents, rendering it useless. It's estimated that it will take at least a week to get it back up and running.
"I don't have to tell you that this isn't acceptable. This has never happened before, and it will never happen again. We're going to see to that.
"I'd like to propose that no further work be done on the Mansion until the Hall of Presidents is fully operational. I will be volunteering my services on the repairs."
There were nods in the audience. Lil wouldn't be the only one working at the Hall that week. "Disney World isn't a competition," Lil said. "All the different ad-hocs work together, and we do it to make the Park as good as we can. We lose sight of that at our peril."
I nearly gagged on bile. "I'd like to say something," I said, as calmly as I could manage.
Lil shot me a look. "That's fine, Julius. Any member of the ad-hoc can speak."
I took a deep breath. "I did it, all right?" I said. My voice cracked. "I did it, and I don't have any excuse for having done it. It may not have been the smartest thing I've ever done, but I think you all should understand how I was driven to it.
"We're not
Of course, that wasn't the life for me. I had Dan to pal around with, a rare high-net-Whuffie individual who was willing to fraternize with a shmuck like me. He'd stand me to meals at sidewalk cafes and concerts at the SkyDome, and shoot down any snotty reputation-punk who sneered at my Whuffie tally. Being with Dan was a process of constantly reevaluating my beliefs in the Bitchun Society, and I'd never had a more vibrant, thought-provoking time in all my life.
I could have left the Park, deadheaded to anywhere in the world, started over. I could have turned my back on Dan, on Debra, on Lil and the whole mess.
I didn't.
I called up the doc.
Chapter 8
Doctor Pete answered on the third ring, audio-only. In the background, I heard a chorus of crying children, the constant backdrop of the Magic Kingdom infirmary.
"Hi, doc," I said.
"Hello, Julius. What can I do for you?" Under the veneer of professional medical and castmember friendliness, I sensed irritation.
"I'm on-shift until five. Can it wait until then?"
By then, I had no idea if I'd have the nerve to see him. "I don't think so-I was hoping we could meet right away."
"If it's an emergency, I can have an ambulance sent for you."
"It's urgent, but not an emergency. I need to talk about it in person. Please?"
He sighed in undoctorly, uncastmemberly fashion. "Julius, I've got important things to do here. Are you sure this can't wait?"
I bit back a sob. "I'm sure, doc."
"All right then. When can you be here?"
Lil had made it clear that she didn't want me in the Park. "Can you meet me? I can't really come to you. I'm at the Contemporary, Tower B, room 2334."
"I don't really make house calls, son."
"I know, I know." I hated how pathetic I sounded. "Can you make an exception? I don't know who else to turn to."
"I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll have to get someone to cover for me. Let's not make a habit of this, all right?"
I whooshed out my relief. "I promise."
He disconnected abruptly, and I found myself dialing Dan.
"Yes?" he said, cautiously.
"Doctor Pete is coming over, Dan. I don't know if he can help me-I don't know if anyone can. I just wanted you to know."
He surprised me, then, and made me remember why he was still my friend, even after everything. "Do you want me to come over?"
"That would be very nice," I said, quietly. "I'm at the hotel."
"Give me ten minutes," he said, and rang off.
***
He found me on my patio, looking out at the Castle and the peaks of Space Mountain. To my left spread the sparkling waters of the Seven Seas Lagoon, to my right, the Property stretched away for mile after manicured mile. The sun was warm on my skin, faint strains of happy laughter drifted with the wind, and the flowers were in bloom. In Toronto, it would be freezing rain, gray buildings, noisome rapid transit (a monorail hissed by), and hard-faced anonymity. I missed it.
Dan pulled up a chair next to mine and sat without a word. We both stared out at the view for a long while.
"It's something else, isn't it?" I said, finally.
"I suppose so," he said. "I want to say something before the doc comes by, Julius."
"Go ahead."
"Lil and I are through. It should never have happened in the first place, and I'm not proud of myself. If you two were breaking up, that's none of my business, but I had no right to hurry it along."
"All right," I said. I was too drained for emotion.
"I've taken a room here, moved my things."
"How's Lil taking it?"
"Oh, she thinks I'm a total bastard. I suppose she's right."
"I suppose she's partly right," I corrected him.
He gave me a gentle slug in the shoulder. "Thanks."
We waited in companionable silence until the doc arrived.
He bustled in, his smile lines drawn up into a sour purse and waited expectantly. I left Dan on the patio while I took a seat on the bed.
"I'm cracking up or something," I said. "I've been acting erratically, sometimes violently. I don't know what's wrong with me." I'd rehearsed the speech, but it still wasn't easy to choke out.
"We both know what's wrong, Julius," the doc said, impatiently. "You need to be refreshed from your backup, get set up with a fresh clone and retire this one. We've had this talk."
"I can't do it," I said, not meeting his eye. "I just can't-isn't there another way?"
The doc shook his head. "Julius, I've got limited resources to allocate. There's a perfectly good cure for what's ailing you, and if you won't take it, there's not much I can do for you."
"But what about meds?"
"Your problem isn't a chemical imbalance, it's a mental defect. Your brain is broken , son. All that meds will do is mask the symptoms, while you get worse. I can't tell you what you want to hear, unfortunately. Now, If you're ready to take the cure, I can retire this clone immediately and get you restored into a new one in 48 hours."