“The hatches both closed at the same time, and I was trapped. At first I realized how lucky I was, because the Overtakers would never think to look in such a place, but then as time went on, it occurred to me that no one would look down here. That I was not just hidden, I was trapped. And that’s when I realized that a dream I’d had—of a landscape, but from above, like from a plane—made all the more sense. I was in the tunnel, under the C in the photo.”

“It was a satellite photo,” Finn said, explaining. “One of your sketches led us to it.”

“And that’s when I realized the song on my iPod might help you find me. I used my earbud wire to connect to a box.” She turned the glowing iPod, revealing a series of three junction boxes mounted to the stone wall and a number of wires leading from them. “I couldn’t be sure it would work, but I thought it probably should. And maybe you’d hear it. If you were even here in the Park. And so I decided to save the battery and only play the song every few hours.” She pointed at the glowing face of the device. “It still has some power, though not much, I’m afraid.”

“We need to get out of here. Amanda and Charlene are up there waiting for us. Philby is on VMK with Wayne—”

“But VMK is closed!”

“Wayne fixed that. The two of them are monitoring network traffic and also trying to see if they can control the hatches in the tiger yards.” Finn had nearly forgotten about the DS. He checked that it was turned on.

No signal. He tried the BlackBerry: no bars, no signal.

“To get down here,” Finn said, “I had to cross over to get through a maintenance gate. You can’t turn yourself into a DHI the way I can. You can’t cross over to get back out.” He paused, trying to think clearly. “We’re kind of stuck down here.”

“You can still get out.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’m not leaving without you.”

“You don’t happen to have a hamburger and fries in your back pocket, do you?”

“I’m going to try the DS again, closer to the hatches.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

She disconnected the iPod and carried it in front of her as a very dim flashlight. Finn did the same with the BlackBerry. The tunnel’s floor was concrete, its walls, stone. The tunnel was longer than Finn expected. Nearing the far end—the end leading into the upper tiger yard—the tunnel floor began to rise, forming a ramp. The space became lower and tighter, ending in a box of concrete three feet square, a space Finn could just tuck himself into.

“It’s exactly the same on the other end,” Jez said.

Finn already knew their situation had improved: the static in his ear had lessened. “Have you tried opening it?”

“Yes. Of course. It doesn’t open.”

“What if two of us pushed?”

“It’s not that it’s heavy. It’s latched shut. Tigers are much stronger than either of us. I’m sure it’s constructed to stop a curious tiger from opening it.” She paused a moment. “Why do you keep checking your watch? It’s only a few minutes later than when you first looked.”

Finn said nothing. But he checked his watch again. She was right, it was 5:18. He’d last checked at 5:15.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The Park closes at six.”

“So Amanda and the others will have to leave. That’s not the most awful thing.”

“It isn’t just that,” he said. “They move the animals—all the animals—out of the Park at closing.”

“Including the tigers.” Jez made it a statement.

“I’m afraid so.”

“And if we’re down here when they move them Her voice trailed off.

Finn caught himself nodding.

The DS beeped, indicating a connection.

philitup: Finn? Finn?

Finn: i’ve got jez!!! she’s ok!

Messages started to compete, but Philby cut everyone off with an announcement.

philitup: found the virtual switch, i think i can open the hatches, want me 2 try?

Finn looked up at Jez. “What do you think?”

“Do we have a choice? I’d rather get eaten running for my life than trapped in a tunnel.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

angelface13: ten apes just entered the tiger yards, looks like someone knows what we know.

Finn explained to Jez, “A guy saw us take the satellite photo. It’s possible that the Overtakers heard about it and figured out you were down here the same way we did.”

“There are monkeys out there?” Jez asked, unable to keep the tension out of her voice.

“Mean monkeys,” Finn confirmed. “Though the orangutans are the worst.”

“Well, that’s certainly reassuring. And we’re going out there?”

“I’m not sure we have any choice.”

53

MAYBECK AND WILLA stood guard at the Dream Vacation kiosk in Camp Minnie-Mickey. With their backs to Philby, who occupied the computer terminal, they kept their eyes on the crowd as well as on the jungle, acutely aware that the last attack had come quickly and without warning.

Philby had his hands full. While he was negotiating an intricate set of networking cables, represented on-screen by a rainbow of wires that spidered out from various network hubs to the myriad attractions, security cameras, and cash registers throughout Animal Kingdom, Wayne had worked his way through the virtual schematics to find a switch he believed responsible for the tiger-yard hatches. Philby had double-checked Wayne’s work and, agreeing with him, had called Finn over the DS.

philitup: changed a timer, in 5 minutes the tunnel hatches will open.

“Five minutes,” Finn said, sounding anxious.

philitup: will try to knockout any dhis. not sure if possible.

With Charlene’s announcement that the monkeys had arrived in the tiger yards, Philby noticed that the volume of network traffic increased exponentially. Data flowed along the colorful cables, not in data streams, but in data rivers. Philby worked the cursor to move his avatar along the virtual catwalks that carried the network cables like colorful hoses. Screen by screen he followed the increase in color that signaled a rise in data flow. Blue indicated outbound data—from various servers placed throughout the Park—while red signified data returning, check sums used to tell the server the data had reached its intended destination. Like data over the Internet, it moved in pulses, or parcels, which when combined added up to a whole message or image. With the jump in data traffic, the blue lines pulsed sky blue, and the red lines turned fire-engine red. The pulses got faster and the bursts brighter, until all at once a good number of lines turned into a shimmering purple—a combination of the red and blue, the data moving in such quantity and at such speeds that the two colors became a third.

These were the lines that interested Philby, for as life-size graphic images, holograms consisted of phenomenal amounts of data. His avatar hurried, staying with the same purple data line through a half dozen screens, making sure he never confused one purple line for another. (By simply rolling the cursor over the purple line a corresponding number appeared—like an ID tag. He followed number 518912.) The data was passed from one network hub to another, the largest and most complicated being a hub marked Discovery Island Hub.

From here, the purple lines traveled southeast across a bridge. Just before the bridge, a network line led to a structure marked Flame Tree Barbecue. Philby’s avatar reached the far side of the bridge and turned to follow the purple cables as Wayne’s white-haired avatar popped up from below the bridge. Wayne’s avatar held two silver swords cradled in his arms.

[ ]: here, one is for you. i fear we may meet resistance, and remember: although only a virtual world, if your avatar is killed or captured, it’s Game Over, i won’t be able to reconstruct you and reinsert you into VMK for at least an hour or two, and I fear by then it will be too late, if you’re to accomplish your mission you must stay in the game.