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Outside, the hall of mirrors sat at the confluence of a generic adventure-themed old-west area, an americana-themed plaza, and a wide avenue. The quad towers awaited due east, visible from anywhere in the park. They shuffled down the avenue quickly, on the lookout for sentries that were nowhere to be found.
Germaine snuck into a courtyard at the confluence of three towers. From here, it was much easier to see the visual illusion that made the towers look larger than they were. They were smaller on top – even the windows and external balconies started off at a realistic human scale and shrunk further up.
“We’ve got to get inside,” he said.
Boss lady and Vic would be waiting there. If they were still alive.
More security drones roamed the streets. These were nonlethal – if found, the true danger would come from armed guards that could descend upon their position at any time.
Stairs brought them towards the top of a tower. The façade grew smaller the further they climbed. By the halfway point, windows were so small they could only barely be squeezed through.
“Forced perspective,” Soto said. “Makes it all look larger than it is.”
“If I were a megalomaniac who built a multi-billion-dollar vanity city-state, where would I put my personal luxury apartment?” Germaine asked.
Not at the top of the tallest tower, apparently. There was barely any standing room in the minor service staircase. It looked to be just for show. They would have to backtrack.
An area directly above the castle’s fake “gatehouse” was upscale and meant to be clientele-facing. For a moment, the interior really did appear like ye olde European castle. A manilla-colored computer monitor broke the illusion.
“You’re late.” Miss Diaz turned from the console. “Come, we’re just about to turn on the security protocol.”
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Corporate security would be preoccupied at the park’s entrance, where the militia was firing wildly into the air as was their protocol.
A biometric scanner read off the boss lady’s thumbprint.
“Welcome back, Mrs. Devereaux. It has been nine-hundred twenty days since your last visit.”
A door swung open, revealing a lavish apartment suite. The furnishings were well-maintained, if dated, and made to look like a fairy-tale castle. There was a separate shower, a separate living area with a rather ornate balcony, and the main room was centered around a super-king-sized bed.
“Corporate never set foot in here,” Diaz said, motioning to a sweeper-bot with its batteries worn down in the corner. “They were trying to scale things back to keep the park running as an extra-exclusive resort where you had to pay for your place in any given line. There’s still some foreign tourists who could stop by the airfield, never have to actually step foot off park grounds. The industrial sector was mothballed. And the Futureplex? Basically ignored. Didn’t even see potential in the bot foundry. Or the massive army mothballed right under their feet.”
“All that from a honeymoon suite?” Germaine asked but received no response. “They weren’t worried about guests digging up this killbot terminal?”
With a click of a button, Mrs. Devereaux stepped back. A divot appeared on the floor, and from out of that hole appeared a coffin-shaped pod. A frosted-over portcullis awaited at head-height.
“Yo, there’s somebody in there!” Germaine pointed at the frosty glass like some kind of grinning idiot.
Soto jockeyed for position. Only the vaguest of features could be made out from behind the frost.
Dan, meanwhile, sat on the bed, still nursing his wounds. He didn’t even come over to take a look at the head in the frosted-over jar.
“Gentlemen.” Mrs. Devereaux cleared her throat with a cough. “This is my granduncle-in-Law.”
A withered, mummy-like figure rested within. With his eyes closed, he could pass for being in a deep sleep.
“Can you thaw him out?” Germaine asked.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Their boss shook her head. “Dewey Devereaux died of natural causes over twenty years ago. Though frozen to be revived later, we’d both have to cure aging more generally, and repair the damage the cryogenic process does to the body to talk to him again.”
Germaine wiped the frost off the portcullis with his glove.
“Looks kind of like my Pawpaw,” Germaine said.
“I met him only once, at the end of his life,” Mrs. Devereaux said. “Still, that is a story for another day. We’re not getting out of this park alive without some creative application of the park’s security system. Come.”
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Dozens of monitors lined a wall in the suite’s recreation room. The area around the balcony was now swarming with patrol cars; corporate security had caught on to their whereabouts.
“Come out, you trust fund baby!” a woman in aviator shades and a pantsuit yelled into a megaphone.
“That’s Meyers,” Vic said. “Her firm bought Devereaux World using strange western market-based antics. Think it was called a ‘hostile takeover.’”
Mrs. Devereaux typed furiously at a terminal. One by one, monitors flickered to life. Security cameras offered a full view of the old park, where corporate security scrambled both to defend from the outside militia and to storm the castle within their perimeter, and the Futureplex, where flabbergasted militias denounced various rides and set pieces as heresy.
A bulky scanner awaited near the keyboard where their benefactor was fiercely typing. A biological lock, looking for DNA of the man whose severed head was waiting in a frigid jar just beside the console.
“Gentlemen.” Miss Diaz – or was that Deveraux? – pulled out a locket from beneath her functional business pantsuit. Within was a wedding photo, lined with a crimson finish.
“My late husband and I had our blood mixed into our matching wedding rings. His was tragically lost in the purge. But I had mine transferred into this locket for portability. Just a matter of slathering a bit onto the scanner and the machine will usually mistake dear departed Calvin for his great-uncle, after a pass or two.”
“Watch this,” Mrs. Devereaux said, then clicked Enter at a command line.
Outside, the whirring of mechanicals stopped for a time. There was a murmur of confusion as corporate security wondered why their bots were no longer working.
Then came the screams.
Via camera, they watched as the park-bound sentries started targeting corporate security. While these alone were harmless, the weaponized mascot bots – emerging from hibernation within deep storage from within the walls – were not. Through sheer numbers they overwhelmed the skeleton crew of corporate security.
Industrial-strength cleaning acids melted clear through body armor. It would be considered a bloodbath – if the blood didn’t wash neatly down drains engineered into the pavement.
“To the helipad. Go – go!” Meyers shouted via her loudspeaker.
More mascot-bots appeared from the base of the castle itself.
“Ah! We should’ve decommissioned the damn things when we had the chance,” Meyers said, already abandoning her security detail and leaving for the wild-west side of town in their car “I’ll get you next time, Devereaux!”
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Over in the Futureplex, the militia had managed to destroy the paltry collection of sentry bots that patrolled the dome.
Their commanders – the priests with the snakes – ordered foot soldiers to desecrate or condemn various exhibits.
Devereaux flipped on the audio.
“Behold, this vile tunnel of love!” yelled a priest. “From godless New York and heretical California, these fiends infest this occupied Floridian land with these monuments to cosmopolitan, thespian degeneracy.”
“What do these guys have against actors?” Soto asked.
“Militia ain’t even from Florida,” Germaine said. “Gent I met was from West Virginia.”
With another quick command, Mrs. Devereaux activated the Futureplex garrison.
A clawed hand appeared from a security station beside the Tunnel of Love. The priest-commander dropped his snake as he was dragged into the dark.
The individual foot soldiers were confused at first. Only when more and more weaponized mascot-bots emerged from out of the floors and walls did they start opening fire.
There were hundreds of militiamen, but they were spread out between the hotel, the park gates, the Futureplex, the main gate further west, and every road in between. By sheer numbers, the disorganized militia in the Futureplex was routed. Unleashed security bots from under the park had a similar effect on the band besieging the theme park further north. From there, the bots continued down the road, sending the militia into frenzied retreat.
By this time, the Futureplex was cleared. None dare enter, though the panicked ravings of survivors convinced a few brave souls to try to exorcise the complex from the garage entrances.
A crew retreating from the hotel met up with these groups, park sentries hot on their tails. Then the full garrison of robots beneath the Futureplex was unleashed.
Few dared stand and fight. The militia fled west, running for the main gate. A garrison of mechanical sentries from the compound’s primary gatehouse was harassing the militia, preventing them from even daring to regroup.
One last priest stayed behind, standing athwart the gate. He burned incense, dropped his holy snake at the foot of the gates, and made a sign like a cross with his hands.
Forevermore, the Devereaux World Futureplex and World of Tomorrow would be forever condemned as a foul necropolis, unholy ground no god-fearing red-blooded American man would ever step foot upon again.
Back in the castle suite, the four members of the salvage crew popped a bottle of wine Devereaux had summoned from a bedside minifridge. Together, they watched the bots chase Meyers back to a helicopter. It flew over the park, back towards the east – no doubt towards the old Orlando airport.
The helicopter stopped over a log flume, hovering so Meyers could engage in a last bought of taunting, no doubt. It was not to be, however, as an incoming rocket from the still-retreating militia over the wall struck the helicopter in the cockpit window. The blades flew free, imbedding themselves at the top of the log flume’s mountain. The copter itself fell into a nearby water feature, bits of oil-fire smoldering atop the water.
“Huh, guess the militia had anti-air rockets after all.” Germaine said and chuckled.
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