“Yeah, but if we’re here, chances are, the girls are too. We should check the apartment and the teepee.”

“But let’s do it together,” Finn suggested.

“Maybeck?” Philby asked.

“I went to his house,” Finn answered. “He’s asleep in bed and they can’t wake him up.

Tomorrow morning they’re going to take him to the hospital and start running tests. We’ve got to find him before that. Who knows what they’d do to him?”

“Maybeck was caught,” Philby said. “And it wasn’t security. It was the Overtakers. It has to be.

Wayne said Maybeck’s our computer guy. We know he’s been poking around. The Overtakers don’t want him messing with the DHI server. The brownouts—our feeling lousy like this. That’s the server doing that. The Overtakers are trying to—”

“Kill us?” Finn said.

“Slow us down. Scare us away.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Then I’d say it’s working,” Finn said.

“So where do we start? The apartment or the teepee?”

Finn looked past Philby at the glowing windows above the fire station. “Neither,” Finn said.

“Follow me.”

* * *

Finn climbed the stairs on the side of the firehouse two at a time.

“I should have thought of this before. He told me he lived here.”

“Who?”

Finn knocked on the door.

Wayne answered.

Philby and Finn were welcomed inside. It was a cozy room, all wood and brass, that felt like something from a ship.

Wayne wore a heavy wool sweater, khaki pants, and Mickey-and-Minnie slippers. There were books everywhere, and no television or even a radio. The bed was up in a loft in the very peak of the roof.

“Wow!” Philby said, looking around. There were Disney toys scattered around, antiques that went back decades. A fabric wallhanging showed off over a thousand Disney pins.

“I wondered how long it would take you to look me up,” Wayne said. It seemed almost as if he’d been expecting them. There were three teacups by the stove and three chairs set out facing one another.

Wayne poured them some tea and gestured for the two boys to sit down.

“Can you help us find Maybeck?” Finn asked.

“Was it Maleficent?” Philby asked.

Wayne’s eyebrows arched. He did not answer Philby directly. “What do you know about her?”

He had owl-like circles beneath his ice-blue eyes. He looked ominous and menacing now instead of like the silly old guy Finn had first thought him to be. He smiled thinly and said, “Amazing things happen when we put our minds to it. There is a saying that seeing is believing. But believing is seeing, as well. And touching. And hearing. Connecting.”

“The witch, Maleficent, has something to do with this,” Finn said. He told Wayne everything that had happened recently.

“Apparently she has everything to do with this,” Wayne agreed.

“The Overtakers,” Finn tested. “There are other Overtakers besides Maleficent.”

“Too many to count.”

“Like the pirates.”

“Worker bees, is all. The pirates don’t matter much. But you must underestimate nothing, no one. Conviction is the better part of intent. Few battles are won by strength alone. Cunning and knowing your resources can help you overpower the most powerful.”

“How do we stop Maleficent?” Philby asked anxiously. He sipped the tea, liked it, and drank some more.

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves,” Wayne said.

“Maybeck,” Finn said.

“They won’t want anyone to see him. Nor to hear him, should he call out,” Philby continued.

“Someplace dark and noisy,” Finn said.

“One of the attractions!” Philby said. “Like Pirates of the Caribbean! The pirates took him!”

“It’s not dark enough,” Finn said. “And where would they hide him?”

“On the boat, maybe,” Philby said.

“Possibly,” Wayne said, though his tone of voice suggested that he didn’t give the idea much credence.

“Well, listen, Obi-Wan,” Philby said sarcastically. “Why don’t you tell me and Luke here where to find him, and we’ll make for hyperspace.”

“Warmer,” Wayne said to Philby, though he engaged Finn with his eyes.

“Space Mountain,” Finn said. “Pitch-black and superloud.”

Philby sat forward excitedly. “Is he right? Is that where they’ve got him? Brilliant!”

Wayne sipped his tea, looking over the cup. “I have no idea where your friend is being kept.

It’s a big park. Very big.”

Finn thought for a moment and then said, “More important, it might be like the teepee inside there. A DHI shadow. That would make Maybeck invisible—easy to hide, to say the least.”

If Wayne knew any answers, his face revealed nothing.

“It’s a place to start,” Finn said. “We have to start somewhere.”

Wayne said, “They’re keeping you from solving the fable. You see that, don’t you? Distracting you.”

“And if we solve it?” Philby asked.

“When we solve it,” Finn said, looking right at Wayne.

“Rescue your friend. Solve the fable. Only then will we know what’s expected of you.”

Finn and Philby wouldn’t be entering Space Mountain through the front door. Wayne told them of a trap door that existed in the very top of the pointed dome roof. The roof hatch was used by Maintenance, and to his knowledge had never been locked.

If the boys could climb to the first level of the dome—about fifteen feet up—they’d reach a metal ladder that ran up the back of the dome to the pinnacle. From there, they could enter the ride’s interior.

At Wayne’s suggestion, the boys borrowed some ropes from the firehouse. They then snuck through shadows, carrying the heavy ropes over their shoulders, and reached the backside of the attraction.

Crouching in some bushes, looking at the steepness of the roof and the smal metal ladder that led to the top, Finn said, “The Overtakers have got to assume we’ll come for Maybeck.”

“But to them we’re kids, don’t forget.”

“They’ll have patrols. Cameras, maybe.”

“So when we do this, we do it quickly.”

The roof was shaped something like a magician’s hat, with a wide brim and a conical peaked crown. There were antennae on top.

Philby proved his climbing skills by tossing one of the ropes over a metal railing on the brim part of the roof. He tied it off. “We’re set,” he announced, waving Finn over.

Finn, who was not big on heights, shinnied up the rope. In short order he reached the brim of the roof. He threw a leg over and pulled himself up.

Philby followed silently and without incident.

They kept away from the edge of the roof, where they might be spotted, as Philby pulled up the rope and stashed it out of sight. Quickly they ascended the white metal ladder that ran to the peak. Attached to the roof, it ran at the same steep angle as the cone.

They reached the top, and sure enough, there was a metal trap door, exactly as Wayne had described it.

Finn reached for the handle and pulled. It lifted open. He peered down into a black square, completely void of light.

“Who’s going first?” Philby asked, his voice breaking.

Finn led the way down the metal ladder. Philby followed and they descended silenty. After a moment, Finn’s eyesight began to adjust. They were way up inside the pointy-hat part of the domed ceiling, a gigantic space that contained the entire Space Mountain roller coaster track. He made out a few red exit signs, but they were not bright enough to see by.

The track was a tangle of metal fringed by catwalks and supported by towering I-beams and steel columns. Finn felt as if he were inside a complicated clock. They reached a catwalk—a path that led along the roller coaster track, with a metal mesh floor—and followed it to a set of metal stairs leading down. This connected to another catwalk. Suddenly it felt as if they’d entered a maze.