#
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.