Jessica
0000
If you've read my description of Disneyland and thought I didn't know what I was talking about, that's partially intentional. If people actually knew where Mickey installed his own death machines, he'd move them, which will make it harder for us to destroy the installations in the future.
Also, it's because a guy dressed as Minnie shot me in the head with some kind of electrical charge, which screwed my memories up.
Anyways, those things, and guys in drag shot at us, and we ran. One of their blasts did hit me in the head, and Misty and her boyfriend were carrying me, firing at robotic Mickey and Goofy with their own weaponry.
Misty's bug luggage thing moved remarkably fast, a handy thing because she kept pulling weapons out of it.
The English coonhound-ish head of one of the machines exploded. The response of the crowd was similar to something you'd hear at The Haunted Mansion. Nobody thought it was real.
I knocked over a fat guy in a pirate shirt, which I felt bad about, and then a staff lady dressed as Snow White, which I didn't feel bad about at all.
Chad somehow caught up with us as Misty was showing me how to use her weapons.
I blew up a mechanical Daisy Duck, something I'm very proud of.
Storefronts, porches of restaurants, and other decoration shattered and exploded in the melee.
Following the map, Misty led us to a locked gate behind the Enormous Silver Golf Ball Thing, blasting through the lock. The Mickey Mouse intercom system shouted at us as we barged down the staircase, into the darkened tunnel beyond.
It looked like the entrance to a subway. A nice subway. One with shrubbery all around the staircase, to hide it from nosy tourists.
We destroyed a steel security door, breaking into another set of underground tunnels, this one below the humming, banging and thundering equipment of action rides.
The machines stood in separate white rooms, with card scanner doors, a mess of complicated cables, and stacks of flashing computers everywhere.
We passed room after room of nothing but thousand dollar computer stations, monitored by yuppies in business casual. I bet Mickey would have had them in dresses too, if these tech guys didn't occasionally show up on TV.
The other rooms contained huge hydraulic machinery, and you could hear the sounds of dinosaurs and screaming people upstairs as one of the pumps shot a support strut upwards.
Hearing the sounds of stomping boots on the steps, I spun around and saw a dozen men in Minnie outfits rushing after us, bearing animated and non-animated guns.
Misty took out a grenade, pulling the pin.
"Wait," I said. "How big an explosion is that going to make?"
She shrugged. "Pretty big. Why?"
"Well, if it's too big, there's a chance that it'll take out the foundation supports and kill hundreds of innocent tourists."
"I thought you wanted to be a villainess."
I frowned. "I suppose, barring any disabled children, we would only be killing the wealthiest one tenth of the population...A tenth who don't know how to spend money..."
Misty tossed the grenade.
The whole building rocked with the explosion, the walls and support pillars cracking.
The floor behind us collapsed, revealing a vast winery operation, and a secret marijuana farm. The guys in Minnie Mouse outfits, that weren't obliterated in the blast, or killed by flying debris, lost their footing on the rapidly collapsing concrete flooring, tumbling into wine processing machinery, knocking down rack upon rack of Mickey's finest vintage.
The pot, of course, was not within smoking distance.
Misty led us onward down the corridor.
More machines. Maybe Star Wars, ET or something Marvel related.
At the end of the once pristine tunnel lay an elevator. Instead of a call button, it only had a slot for a key card and a retinal scan.
Misty blew up the security panel with a small explosive device, and we were in.
Not as fancy as the other elevator I'd seen, but the controls were digital.
Miley struggled against her bonds, trying to escape, but Misty iced her again.
"Could we please do something about that bimbo?" I asked. "Maybe turn her into a drawing or something?"
"We need to get closer to the spike. I'm afraid my crystals will produce an incomplete sketch, which could be fatal to a human being."
"We don't want that," I agreed.
I looked around for number buttons, only to discover that this also required a card key. "Great. Now what."
Misty frowned and shook her head. "If only we had an artist present..."
"Yeah. If you did, what exactly would I be doing?"
"Oh excellent!" she said, clapping her hands in delight.
She pulled a drawing pad and a cartoon pencil out of her bug, offering them to me. "Do me a solid."
I didn't know if she had been spying on me, or if she just happened to watch the same TV show, or maybe that figure of speech just came to her, but it kind of bothered me. I acted like it didn't, though.
I stared at the items. "Like, draw a new elevator button or something?"
Misty nodded. "Brill-yont."
I thought about using numbers on my drawing, but who really knows how many basement levels are under The Vatican, or Area 51? And so I designed mine to look like a TiVo remote, with an accompanying monitor that displayed floor information.
Before I had blocked in all the shading and details, Misty reached into the paper, pulling out my creation as if she knew what it was supposed to be. The remote fell to the floor.
She slapped my invention over the elevator control pad, stabbing the door closing button.
When I glanced out, I saw the reason for hurry. Some Minnies had crossed the gap, firing their weapons at us.
The door closed as they were making Swiss cheese out of the shiny back wall.
Misty put her hands on her hips, frowning at my creative display. "How does this work?"
I picked up my remote, scrolling through floors like they were today's hour-by-hour lineup on the Food Network. "Like that."
Wonderful World of Wine.
Epcot Escorts, and More.
Mammy's Big Baby Nursery (if they're as big as I imagine - ick).
`Lost Antiquities,' probably lost items that the world has been searching for for decades, but hasn't been rich enough to access. The Ark of the Covenant, now available from The Disney Vault.
World Biodome.
A water reservoir.
Minnie Max Penitentiary.
Twenty floors of R&D and meeting rooms, each described by numbers and vague acronyms.
Mickey's Survival Town, which appeared to be a vast city comparable to that underground facility in Resident Evil.
"Do you see the mausoleum yet?" Misty asked.
"Not yet," I said.
Mickey's Library of Congress.
The Disney Vault, Bank and Trust, funds and assets probably not reported to the Federal government.
MCP, apparently Disney's bomb proof computer core.
Administrative offices.
United Nations' Secondary Headquarters.
An atomic `power' facility.
Employee Memorial Center.
Genetics.
More administrative offices.
Everything below this seemed to be mining related. Oil extraction centers and the like. "I don't see a Merry Mausoleum here. Are you sure it isn't the Employee Memorial Center?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Misty said.
I selected the EMC with my remote, then felt my stomach shifting upwards as we dropped dozens of stories beneath the earth's crust.
Misty said nothing, just kept her eyes on the screen of her tablet computer.
I only got halfway to the floor when she yelled "Stop!"
"What? The MCP?"
She frowned at the screen. "No. Above that."
I channel surfed back, sending us up a few floors. "Here?"
Misty nodded.
"Seriously?" I said as I stared at the readout. "That's just where they lock up the DVD's to create an artificial demand for something you can still find on VHS or online for free."
"That's what the readout says!"
"Okay then."
The door slid open, and I found myself staring at a chamber filled with hundreds of steel safety deposit boxes. "This really doesn't look like a mausoleum to me."
Misty waved her device up and down the rows of locked boxes, trying to stare the answers out of the screen. "It's somewhere around here."
The place was like a maze, and everything only had a meaningless number designation. I followed Misty around and around to wherever her computer told her, hoping for the best.
Hearing two voices, we froze.
"Girlfriend," said one lispy sounding one. "Don't paint them red. It'll stand out too much. You want a darker color to go with the dress."
"I guess you're right," said another lispy voice, this one a bit deeper. "I still think it's cute, though."
I'd stumbled across a pair of security guards, with a lower case S.
They wore black leather police uniforms, with skirts, heels, blue nylons, and little leather police hats with mouse ears attached to them. Something to do with the J. Edgar Hoover administration or something, I guessed.
They sat on high stools, at little desks that looked like podiums, giggling as they looked at beefcake pictures and Facebook on their phones. The one to my right opened a bottle of nail polish.
Misty drew her gun, but I just chuckled and shook my head. The men (I use this term loosely), didn't even notice when the baby started crying.
As we were sneaking past, Misty suddenly gets the nerve to speak to one. "Excuse me. Is this the way to the Merry Mausoleum?"
The weirdo didn't even look up from his phone. "Craig. Do you know anything a mausoleum? Sounds kind of spoo-kay!"
"Girlfriend, you know what the bitch is talking about," said Craig, matter-of-factly. "She's looking for the Disney Disney Vault."
"Oh."
The two pointed down another long corridor lined with safety deposit boxes.
"Disney Disney Vault?" I repeated. "Are we looking for what I think we're looking for?"
"I guess they have to put the DVD's somewhere," Chad said stupidly.
I just groaned and shook my head. "Never mind."
The path was rather clear cut past the `fruit stand.' The middle aisle led straight down rows of lock boxes.
It was great until we reached another security door.
Misty opened the bug luggage thing, taking out a hacker device with the fake credit card and little computer, like that kid from the Terminator used to rob those ATM machines. It opened the door in a couple seconds.
"Why didn't you use that before?" I asked. "It would have been a lot easier."
She shrugged. "It was under all the explosives."
The door slid away into the ceiling like something out of a science fiction movie, revealing the narrow white corridor beyond.
I immediately got suspicious. Featureless save for plexiglass plates, sinister looking panels, and cameras, it reminded me of something bad. "I need to see that sketchpad again."
Misty handed it to me, and I drew a ball, throwing it into the room beyond.
The second it bounced into the middle, a bunch of laser fry slicers popped out of the walls, chopping the object into a grid of finely cut blocks.
Despite being animated, it burned into a pile of ash.
Misty gasped in shock. "How did you know?"
I rolled my eyes. "I watch a lot of movies. Be glad that ball wasn't you."
That's when I got an idea.
Lasers are controlled by mirrors, so I drew us a mirrored box. Me and Misty huddled under it, waddling in like the Trojan horse.
I wanted to bring along Miley, Chad and Misty's boyfriend, using an elaborate sort of mirrored wagon system, but Misty was overcautious about it, even telling our companions to stand clear of the door.
When we reached the door at the opposite end of the tunnel, I felt like I was in the middle of a new Star Wars movie, laser beams and laser cannons blasting all over the place, sparks showering down from the walls and ceiling, machines exploding right and left.
The room went dark.
The lasers stopped. I heard a door pop open.
I crawled out of the box. "I think the coast is clear."
I heard machines whirring, perhaps aiming at me, but they only made sparks when they attempted fire.
I waved the others on through the corridor, urging them to hurry.
The room beyond, unsurprisingly, contained lock boxes. We marched along the aisle, searching for possible traps.
The thing we encountered was far from what I could have logically expected.
For no apparent rhyme or reason, some of the lock boxes just popped open on their own, barfing out rolled up plastic animation cells.
They made a silly sound effect as they unrolled, like when someone in a cartoon lowers a ladder, or Betty Boop pulls down her skirt, then things started crawling out.
The first thing I saw were cobras, which wiggled around on the carpet and tried to bite us until Sleezington tied them in knots.
What came next wasn't nearly as easy to dispatch, as they were the size of cars.
We faced tigers. The realistically painted, not at all friendly type.
"Lovely," I groaned. "Now what?"
Misty handed me the sketchbook.
I drew a boom box.
She stared as I set the thing on the floor. "What the hell good is that going to do?"
"You'll see."
I pushed the play button, and the chamber filled with the theme song from Rocky. "Disney cartoons can't resist a musical number."
The tigers didn't agree. They just roared.
Right away, I got slammed into a wall full of security boxes, spilling `priceless' DVD's and celluloid frames all over the place, to the tune of Eye of the Tiger.
"These guys must have been made from Disney's golden age!" I coughed. "They're immune to song and dance!"
"Let's see if they're immune to bullets," Misty said, pulling out a large elephant poaching gun.
"Wait," I said, getting an idea. "Start...dancing."
"I don't do musicals," Misty growled.
"And I really really respect you for that. But if these things aren't going to boogie, we're going to have to boogie for them."
Her eyes widened in comprehension. "We'll be invulnerable!"
It was my turn to stare. "We will? Cool!"
I selected Get the Party Started by Pink and started dancing, giving it the Milli Vanilli lip sync treatment.
I had to do it. We were going to die.
I got up in the tigers' faces, hoping all the sexy would distract them enough to let my boyfriend and our bimbo prisoner sneak past.
It did work for a minute, but then Misty shot both tigers in the head...while dancing, then shot the boom box.
Oh well. Mission accomplished.
We hurried away before anything else could crawl out of the celluloid.
We passed through an archway, and we found ourselves standing at a massive gate outside a castle looking thing, framed with giant torches, the bowl shaped kind they always light at the beginning of Olympic games.
Misty pointed. "Through that gate!"
The moment the words came out of her mouth, I saw a giant green head appear before us.
An oddly familiar head, with slicked down hair and rounded features. At first I thought it was Hugh Beaumont, but then I decided this was Disney-land, so I changed my mind.
"Who dares disturb my slumber!" a booming voice yelled as the torches blazed with giant fireballs.
"Thank the guys that took over your company!" I yelled back. "It's no wonder that you're spinning like a rotisserie in your grave!"
The giant head froze, staring at me in silence for a moment. "I don't know which is worse. Morally corrupt executives thinking they know what my vision is, or idealists who swear they know what it isn't! Maybe I like the Playboy channel, and Ted Turner did me a favor!"
"What you do with your billions of illegitimately earned money is your own business, sir. We're just here for the Spike."
The eyes on the floating head bust with fire.
"No one takes the Spike!" he roared, causing the torches to flare up like dragons.
"I'm afraid we are. Well, not really afraid afraid, since this is basically a gag you stole from the Wizard of Oz, but...you get the idea..."
The head screamed at me.
"Wow Walt, you sure are pissed for a dead guy. How did you even get this thing to respond to me correctly?"
"It's not a thing!" the giant head shouted. "I am Disney! God of all doodles!"
Misty fired at a cluster or black devices attached to the ceiling, and the giant head faded into nothing, screaming in outrage as it disappeared from sight.
"Hologram," she said.
"`Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,'" I quoted.
We pushed the gate inward, and we found ourselves in a crypt.
It was a mausoleum, of sorts. All along the stone walls, I saw the sealed burial compartments, marked with gold and silver plaques, the various members of the Disney family, and Walt's pets.
In the center of all this, on a raised dais, lay a cryogenic machine.
"The rumors were true!" I cried as I ran up the steps.
It looked like the glass coffin from Snow White, except it had been hooked to antiquated refrigeration systems, apparently a cryogenic stasis tank. The lack of upgrades told me people really didn't want Walt to come back, they just wanted a piece of his company.
When I scraped the ice off the coffin with an ice scraper someone had helpfully left beside the machinery, I got my first clear look at the body.
The man looked exactly like he did in pictures I saw from 1966, except now he was blue, frosted over like a container of frozen orange juice you've left in the back corner of a freezer and forgotten for a few months.
His chest glowed.
I scraped over that portion, thinking that Walt, with all his billions, had somehow developed that thing Tony Stark puts in his chest during all those Iron Man movies, but it wasn't that.
"The Spike!" Misty cried as she waved the computer over the coffin. "It's right here!"
She flipped a few latches and broke a lock, throwing the coffin lid open.
A cloud of cold steam rushed out, and we had our first unobstructed viewing of The Waltsicle.
Disney's suited figure lay with its hands by his side, eyes shut, face placid, like your average corpse.
The un-average thing was that he had been staked through the heart. With a glowing spike.
I personally found this more than a little unsettling, but Misty didn't care. She just yanked the object right out of the frozen stiff, as indifferently as one would rip a loose nail out of a piece of sheetrock.
Walt's eyes flew open, red rimmed pupils flashing with indignant rage.
His frozen hands shot out, grabbing me by the shoulders, and , as he pulled me into his box, his mouth cracked open, baring a pair of long glistening canines.