#
The doc looked sour and pinched when he saw me sitting up on the gurney,
rubbing at my biceps. He produced a handheld diagnostic tool and pointed
it at my melon, then pronounced every bit of digital microcircuitry in
it dead. For the first time since my twenties, I was no more advanced
than nature had made me.
The restraints left purple bruises at my wrists and ankles, where I'd
thrashed against them. I hobbled out of the Faraday cage and the lab
under my own power, but just barely, my muscles groaning from the
inadvertent isometric exercises of my seizure.
Dan was waiting in the utilidor, crouched and dozing against the wall.
The doc shook him awake and his head snapped up, his hand catching the
doc's in a lightning-quick reflex. It was easy to forget Dan's old line
of work here in the Magic Kingdom, but when he smoothly snagged the
doc's arm and sprang to his feet, eyes hard and alert, I remembered. My
old pal, the action hero.
Quickly, Dan released the doc and apologized. He assessed my physical
state and wordlessly wedged his shoulder in my armpit, supporting me. I
didn't have the strength to stop him. I needed sleep.
"I'm taking you home," he said. "We'll fight Debra off tomorrow."
"Sure," I said, and boarded the waiting tram.
But we didn't go home. Dan took me back to my hotel, the Contemporary,
and brought me up to my door. He keycarded the lock and stood awkwardly
as I hobbled into the empty room that was my new home, as I collapsed
into the bed that was mine now.
With an apologetic look, he slunk away, back to Lil and the house we'd
shared.
I slapped on a sedative transdermal that the doc had given me, and added
a mood-equalizer that he'd recommended to control my "personality
swings." In seconds, I was asleep.
========= CHAPTER 7 =========
The meds helped me cope with the next couple of days, starting the rehab
on the Mansion. We worked all night erecting a scaffolding around the
facade, though no real work would be done on it -- we wanted the
appearance of rapid progress, and besides, I had an idea.
I worked alongside Dan, using him as a personal secretary, handling my
calls, looking up plans, monitoring the Net for the first grumblings as
the Disney-going public realized that the Mansion was being taken down
for a full-blown rehab. We didn't exchange any unnecessary words,
standing side by side without ever looking into one another's eyes. I
couldn't really feel awkward around Dan, anyway. He never let me, and
besides we had our hands full directing disappointed guests away from
the Mansion. A depressing number of them headed straight for the Hall of
Presidents.
We didn't have to wait long for the first panicked screed about the
Mansion to appear. Dan read it aloud off his HUD: "Hey! Anyone hear
anything about scheduled maintenance at the HM? I just buzzed by on the
way to the new H of P's and it looks like some big stuff's afoot --
scaffolding, castmembers swarming in and out, see the pic. I hope
they're not screwing up a good thing. BTW, don't miss the new H of P's
-- very Bitchun."
"Right," I said. "Who's the author, and is he on the list?"
Dan cogitated a moment. "_She_ is Kim Wright, and she's on the list.
Good Whuffie, lots of Mansion fanac, big readership."
"Call her," I said.
This was the plan: recruit rabid fans right away, get 'em in costume,
and put 'em up on the scaffolds. Give them outsized, bat-adorned tools
and get them to play at construction activity in thumpy, undead
pantomime. In time, Suneep and his gang would have a batch of
telepresence robots up and running, and we'd move to them, get them
wandering the queue area, interacting with curious guests. The new
Mansion would be open for business in 48 hours, albeit in stripped-down
fashion. The scaffolding made for a nice weenie, a visual draw that
would pull the hordes that thronged Debra's Hall of Presidents over for
a curious peek or two. Buzz city.
I'm a pretty smart guy.
#
Dan paged this Kim person and spoke to her as she was debarking the
Pirates of the Caribbean. I wondered if she was the right person for the
job: she seemed awfully enamored of the rehabs that Debra and her crew
had performed. If I'd had more time, I would've run a deep background
check on every one of the names on my list, but that would've taken
months.
Dan made some small talk with Kim, speaking aloud in deference to my
handicap, before coming to the point. "We read your post about the
Mansion's rehab. You're the first one to notice it, and we wondered if
you'd be interested in coming by to find out a little more about our
plans."
Dan winced. "She's a screamer," he whispered.
Reflexively, I tried to pull up a HUD with my files on the Mansion fans
we hoped to recruit. Of course, nothing happened. I'd done that a dozen
times that morning, and there was no end in sight. I couldn't seem to
get lathered up about it, though, nor about anything else, not even the
hickey just visible under Dan's collar. The transdermal mood-balancer on
my bicep was seeing to that -- doctor's orders.
"Fine, fine. We're standing by the Pet Cemetery, two cast members, male,
in Mansion costumes. About five-ten, apparent 30. You can't miss us."
She didn't. She arrived out of breath and excited, jogging. She was
apparent 20, and dressed like a real 20 year old, in a hipster climate-
control cowl that clung to and released her limbs, which were long and
double-kneed. All the rage among the younger set, including the girl
who'd shot me.
But the resemblance to my killer ended with her dress and body. She
wasn't wearing a designer face, rather one that had enough imperfections
to be the one she was born with, eyes set close and nose wide and
slightly squashed.
I admired the way she moved through the crowd, fast and low but without
jostling anyone. "Kim," I called as she drew near. "Over here."
She gave a happy shriek and made a beeline for us. Even charging full-
bore, she was good enough at navigating the crowd that she didn't brush
against a single soul. When she reached us, she came up short and
bounced a little. "Hi, I'm Kim!" she said, pumping my arm with the
peculiar violence of the extra-jointed. "Julius," I said, then waited
while she repeated the process with Dan.
"So," she said, "what's the deal?"