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.