Gosh! What a hectic fortnight I’ve had. It’s no wonder I haven’t updated in a while. I had to land my zeppelin in a storm and then hitchhike back to the place where they make those little rounded things that pop back up when you push them over. And after that I had to buy twenty-three boxes of chocolate covered peanuts because I lost a battle of Guitar Hero to Liza Minnelli. Needless to say, I’ve been busy.
Anyway, a couple of months ago I promised you all I would explain why I was on a quest to find and reanimate the frozen Walt Disneysickle, and then I left the story halfway through and didn’t finish. So to recap, I went to Disneyland California, uncovered a secret sweatshop run by all the children who have ever gotten lost there, and was betrayed by a couple of them (even though I tried to rescue them.) The reason for all of this was because I realised that the company was clearly bent on world domination, and wanted to know how and why they hoped to achieve this. Where we last left off, I was crouched beneath a workbench about to be discovered by the sinister original cast of the Mickey Mouse Club. Any questions? Then read part one you lazy bastard.
I was grabbed by the ankle and dragged out by a Mouseketeer I recognised as Nancy.
You know, the one with the enor-mouse ears.
I was surrounded by about five of them, I’d say.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Nancy sneered. I remembered what one of the children had said about what happened to people who asked about Disney’s plans.
“I demand to know why you are brainwashing the world’s children!” I said defiantly (I like to think it was defiant, but the truth is it may have been more of a whimper.)
They shrank back like rats confronted with sunlight. More like rat-keteers, I thought to myself. They should be arrested for ratketeering. Hehe, that’s funny. I should say that out loud.
“You should be arrested for ratketeering,” I said.
“What?” said one of them, confusedly.
“Is she speaking in code?” asked one with blonde hair.
“She’s a spy. We should take her to the master,” said another.
“Are you sure I can’t offer you some nice mozzarella instead?” I said, regaining my ability to make hilarious jokes. So hilarious.
So they grab me by the arms to take me to this boiler room I’d heard tell of. On the way the whispers of frightened children filled the air. Then I was taken above the workshop to the tunnels which run beneath Disneyland which are used by staff, maintenance, and ‘Wall-E’-style cleaning robots, I assume.
Disney has like, a hundred of these little bastards.
The network of tunnels converged to a central point: the Boiler Room. The mousketeers dropped me off there and ran away quickly. By this stage I had had plenty of time to go through their pockets. I found some fuzzy candy, a ticket for free ice-cream at one of the Disney Land cafés, and, to my surprise and great relief, a loaded pistol, which I tucked into my corset.
“You aren’t staying? But I have not yet exhausted my supply of mouse puns!” I shouted after them. “That’s a lie, I can’t think of any more,” I said to nobody in particular.
“Is that so?” somebody answered. I turned around. A suave-looking man stood there, wearing a suit but no tie, and converse sneakers.
“Who are you? What part do you play in Disney’s schemes?” I demanded. He chortled, smugly.
“Who am I? Well, I was like you once. A human. Noble, idealistic, foolish. I am a mere administrator to the shadowy masters of the Disney conglomerate. A facilitator. And the caretaker of this place. I make people disappear, troubling questions go away, and attractive teens turn into irritating perpetuators of popular music,” he told me. “You, my dear, are asking some very troubling questions indeed.”
I didn’t have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out where this was headed. I turned and ran in the opposite direction, back into the tunnels. Behind me, the man said something into a walkie-talkie. As I was running, I heard the word ‘Intruder’ repeated over and over on the intercom. I was in as much trouble as an unarmed teenager in the bowels of the most evil corporation on the planet.
Finding my way to a door that led to the surface, I performed a double aerial somersault with two twists and sprang through the weak timber, landing in a roll.
… Okay, fine. But the rest is true!
I walked through the door, which was conveniently unlocked. I was back outside the ‘Small World After All’ ride and was getting some funny looks from passers-by, until I joined a passing parade. I hopped a float with some comically oversized classic cartoon characters waving at children on it. Donald Duck handed me a banner to wave and a pair of the iconic mouse-ears. Surprisingly, nobody asked me to leave.
Though I did get some strong signals from that whore, Daisy Duck.
I noticed the administrator/facilitator/caretaker/whatever guy emerge from the door I hadn’t kicked down and look straight at me, but he didn’t do anything. I presumed it was because he couldn’t make a scene in front of the park visitors. I smiled and waved at him like I was meant to be on that float. Disconcertingly, he waved and smiled back. I dismissed this as mind games.
When it became clear that the parade was going to do a full circuit of the park I decided I should disembark before I ended up back where I had started. But when I went to leave, I found that my path was blocked by a giant Pluto. I turned to go the other way, but Goofy was there, looking down on me with those, soulless, plastic eyes. Before I knew it I was surrounded on all sides by the fiendish animated animals, who all the while maintained their innocent act, trapping me behind them while they waved to their audience. I was stuck with no way out.
Then, out of sheer luck, our float passed under an archway. I dug my feet into the soft, spongy costumes of the menacing Disney Land employees and climbed for my life. Grabbing the underside of the arch I swung myself up and away, my erstwhile captors unable to do anything without it looking suspicious. When that float had passed I did a triple flip with one twist and landed on the next one (except really I just dropped and almost tripped on the landing), quickly jumping back off of it before the smiling Disney princesses which inhabited it could try any funny business. A few people in the audience noticed and applauded, but otherwise I went undetected.
I joined the throngs of happy families and blended into the crowd as best I could. It looked like I might just be able to escape, but I had not yet achieved the goal of my mission. Did I escape now with my life, or risk continuing my investigation into Disney’s evil plans? I decided to cut my losses and play it safe.
But suddenly, as I turned to go, I heard the sound of sirens and a voice over the loudspeakers. It was the administrator/facilitator/caretaker/whatever guy.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” said the administrator/facilitator/caretaker/whatever guy’s voice. “Please put your hands together for Disney Land’s bajillionth visitor!”
He rolled up beside me in a golf cart as the visitors applauded.
“Get in, smile and wave, and don’t make a fuss or I’ll tell your little friend Captain Malarkey who really pushed him into the shark tank that day- Chaotica.”
I did as he said and got in the cart.
“You know me?” I asked.
“Only by reputation,” he answered.
“How did you get all the way across the park so quickly?”
“There are twelve of me.”
“Eleven.”
“I know you’re lying, but it was a nice try.”
“Thankyou.”
We didn’t say another word to each other as we drove east to a hidden entrance that led back into the tunnels. I begrudgingly concede that at this point I held the man(?) in some degree of respect. As we drove further into the labyrinth it became clear that there was no way I would be able to find my way out alive without help. This was problematic, as I had just made myself an enemy of the people holding me captive, and I had no back-up. If he took me back to the Boiler Room, I might have been able to find my way back to the workshop and out through the ‘Small World After All’ ride, or even through the door that I hadn’t kicked down earlier, but this was doubtful.
Instead we stopped at a freight elevator and got in, abandoning the golf cart. It took us upwards, into a secret library concealed in the top floor of the Cinderella Castle. Lining the shelves were volumes upon volumes of annals written by all the past C.E.O.s of the company, which could be heard whispering the secrets of their authors’ treachery when one was oh so quiet. There were also original stills from some of the oldest Disney cartoons, each individual frame probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the top shelf were copies of Disney classics on D.V.D., labelled with which years they were due to be rereleased, earning the company additional millions of dollars. The man(?) crossed to the other side of the room where he turned on a dusty television set, and inserted an old video tape. The screen came to life, displaying footage of an elderly man in a smoking jacket emblazoned with the Disney insignia.
“Chaotica,” said the man(?), “This- is Walt Disney.”
Walt began to speak.
“Hello. If you are watching this, I am already cheating death in my freeze chamber, which is currently hidden in a location known only to me and the dead scientist who built this place, to be awakened only when a cure for South Patagonian Forest Lemur Influenza has been discovered.”
“Patagonia?” I inquired.
“Currently part of Argentina,” the man(?) responded.
“I leave this message to you, the people of the distant future of 1980, so that in between your hover-boarding and your discoveries of infinitely sustainable sources of fuel, my work on this planet may be completed in my absence. There is one thing still left for me to do. My greatest creation was left unfinished. With me lie drawings, charts, and extensive research on this, my final great idea. Only one worthy enough to have located my secret tomb and with it, my body, will be able to, at last, bring my dream to fruition.”
“But what’s in it for me?” I asked.
“But what’s in it for you, you may well ask. Hidden with me and my final great idea are 900 gold doubloons for the plucky explorer who treks his way through the- well, I’ll stop before I give away any hints. Why, I remember when Dickens told me-“
The man(?) stopped the tape there.
“How old is that guy?!” I demanded.
“Never you mind,” he said, removing a file from the shelf behind him. “Now, we don’t know what Walt’s last great idea was or how to get it, but naturally we want a monopoly on it. You have an impressive record Chaotica. Six stolen submarines, two break-ins at the British Museum, more enemies than friends, your own illegal satellite constantly hovering over Germany…”
“I just want to find out what bratwurst is.”
“Nobody knows. A warrant for your execution in twenty different countries, including- look at this- this one. And what did you do to make the monks of the Indigo Temple put a curse on your cat?”
“That should read hat. They put a curse on my hat.”
“Which hat?”
“I didn’t ask, I had to abseil out of there before they realised I stole their computer.”
“I see.”
At that moment I remembered the pistol I had borrowed from one of the Mouseketeers earlier on. It would come in handy if things started getting out of my control. The man(?) began to speak again.
“Almost every government in the world, and most large companies, have a file six inches thick on you. I’ve read everything we have on you and I realise you are a freelance… something, but perhaps you would consider the employ of our organisation. We can pay every justifiable expense in your search for Walt Disney, not including the 900 gold doubloons. Of course, I say consider, but you don’t have much choice. I’m betting you’ve betrayed just about everyone in your address book, which gives us substantial blackmail material. We also have the resources to track down and kill you if you betray us. My superiors are not very forgiving.”
“Better men(?) than you have tried and failed. But I want those doubloons. I’ll do it. Don’t think for a moment, however, that I haven’t forgotten your little sweatshop underneath the happiest place on Earth.”
“Chaotica, I know you to be a woman of adjustable ethics. Ask yourself this; do you really care?”
I thought about this for a moment.
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
“Then we have ourselves an agreement.”
“Yes, I suppose we do.”
“Wonderful,” he said, right before I shot him between the eyes.
“Eleven,” I said. Then I jumped out of the window, cartwheeled down the side of the castle, did a backflip with four twists and landed on a motorcycle.
Not really, but still.
AFTERWARD: Despite my little disagreement with the administrator/facilitator/caretaker/whatever guy, I’m still on a quest for Walt Disney’s treasure. The company, possibly in an attempt to remain in my good graces and possibly to pretend they have some control over the situation, pay for my expenses as promised, even though I don’t intend to ever reveal Walt’s location to them. I never found out what their plan for world domination was, but have since decided that I don’t really care. Everything you have just read is completely true, by the way, with the exception of various fictional acrobatic manoeuvres.
chaoticathebutterfly 