ad-hocracy works well, for the most part. lil’s folks had taken over therunning of liberty square with a group of other interested, compatiblesouls. they did a fine job, racked up gobs of whuffie, and anyone whocame around and tried to take it over would be so reviled by the gueststhey wouldn’t find a pot to piss in. or they’d have such a wicked, radicalapproach that they’d ouster lil’s parents and their pals, and do a betterjob.

it can break down, though. there were pretenders to the throne—agroup who’d worked with the original ad-hocracy and then had movedoff to other pursuits—some of them had gone to school, some of themhad made movies, written books, or gone off to disneyland beijing tohelp start things up. a few had deadheaded for a couple decades.

they came back to liberty square with a message: update the attractions.

the liberty square ad-hocs were the staunchest conservatives inthe magic kingdom, preserving the wheezing technology in the face of apark that changed almost daily. the newcomer/old-timers were on-sidewith the rest of the park, had their support, and looked like they mightmake a successful go of it.

so it fell to lil to make sure that there were no bugs in the meager attractionsof liberty square: the hall of the presidents, the liberty belleriverboat, and the glorious haunted mansion, arguably the coolest attractionto come from the fevered minds of the old-time disneyimagineers.

i caught her backstage at the hall of the presidents, tinkering with lincolnii, the backup animatronic. lil tried to keep two of everything runningat speed, just in case. she could swap out a dead bot for a backup infive minutes flat, which is all that crowd-control would permit.

it had been two weeks since dan’s arrival, and though i’d barely seenhim in that time, his presence was vivid in our lives. our little ranchhousehad a new smell, not unpleasant, of rejuve and hope and loss,23something barely noticeable over the tropical flowers nodding in front ofour porch. my phone rang three or four times a day, dan checking infrom his rounds of the park, seeking out some way to accumulate personalcapital. his excitement and dedication to the task were inspiring,pulling me into his over-the-top-and-damn-the-torpedoes mode of being.

“you just missed dan,” she said. she had her head in lincoln’s chest,working with an autosolder and a magnifier. bent over, red hair tiedback in a neat bun, sweat sheening her wiry freckled arms, smelling ofgirl-sweat and machine lubricant, she made me wish there were a mattresssomewhere backstage. i settled for patting her behind affectionately,and she wriggled appreciatively. “he’s looking better.”

his rejuve had taken him back to apparent 25, the way i rememberedhim. he was rawboned and leathery, but still had the defeated stoop thathad startled me when i saw him at the adventurer’s club. “what did hewant?”

“he’s been hanging out with debra—he wanted to make sure i knewwhat she’s up to.”

debra was one of the old guard, a former comrade of lil’s parents.

she’d spent a decade in disneyland beijing, coding sim-rides. if she hadher way, we’d tear down every marvelous rube goldberg in the park andreplace them with pristine white sim boxes on giant, articulated servos.

the problem was that she was really good at coding sims. her greatmovie ride rehab at mgm was breathtaking—the star wars sequencehad already inspired a hundred fan-sites that fielded millions of hits.

she’d leveraged her success into a deal with the adventureland adhocsto rehab the pirates of the caribbean, and their backstage areaswere piled high with reference: treasure chests and cutlasses and bowsprits.

it was terrifying to walk through; the pirates was the last ridewalt personally supervised, and we’d thought it was sacrosanct. butdebra had built a pirates sim in beijing, based on chend i sao, the xixthcentury chinese pirate queen, which was credited with rescuing the parkfrom obscurity and ruin. the florida iteration would incorporate the bestaspects of its chinese cousin—the ai-driven sims that communicatedwith each other and with the guests, greeting them by name each timethey rode and spinning age-appropriate tales of piracy on the high seas;the spectacular fly-through of the aquatic necropolis of rotting junks onthe sea-floor; the thrilling pitch and yaw of the sim as it weathered aviolent, breath-taking storm—but with western themes: wafts of jamaicanpepper sauce crackling through the air; liquid afro-caribbean24accents; and swordfights conducted in the manner of the pirates whoplied the blue waters of the new world. identical sims would stack likecordwood in the space currently occupied by the bulky ride-apparatusand dioramas, quintupling capacity and halving load-time.

“so, what’s she up to?”

lil extracted herself from the rail-splitter’s mechanical guts and madea comical moue of worry. “she’s rehabbing the pirates—and doing an incrediblejob. they’re ahead of schedule, they’ve got good net-buzz, thefocus groups are cumming themselves.” the comedy went out of her expression,baring genuine worry.

she turned away and closed up honest abe, then fired her finger athim. smoothly, he began to run through his spiel, silent but for the softhum and whine of his servos. lil mimed twiddling a knob and his audiotrackkicked in low: “all the armies of europe, asia, and africa combinedcould not, by force, make a track on the blue ridge, nor take adrink from the ohio. if destruction be our lot, then we ourselves must beits author—and its finisher.” she mimed turning down the gain and hefell silent again.

“you said it, mr. president,” she said, and fired her finger at himagain, powering him down. she bent and adjusted his hand-sewn periodtopcoat, then carefully wound and set the turnip-watch in his vestpocket.

i put my arm around her shoulders. “you’re doing all you can—andit’s good work,” i said. i’d fallen into the easy castmember mode ofspeaking, voicing bland affirmations. hearing the words, i felt a flush ofembarrassment. i pulled her into a long, hard hug and fumbled for betterreassurance. finding no words that would do, i gave her a final squeezeand let her go.

she looked at me sidelong and nodded her head. “it’ll be fine, ofcourse,” she said. “i mean, the worst possible scenario is that debra willdo her job very, very well, and make things even better than they arenow. that’s not so bad.”

this was a 180-degree reversal of her position on the subject the lasttime we’d talked, but you don’t live more than a century without learningwhen to point out that sort of thing and when not to.

my cochlea struck twelve noon and a hud appeared with my weeklybackup reminder. lil was maneuvering ben franklin ii out of his niche. iwaved good-bye at her back and walked away, to an uplink terminal.

25once i was close enough for secure broadband communications, i gotready to back up. my cochlea chimed again and i answered it.

“yes,” i subvocalized, impatiently. i hated getting distracted from abackup—one of my enduring fears was that i’d forget the backup altogetherand leave myself vulnerable for an entire week until the next reminder.

i’d lost the knack of getting into habits in my adolescence, givingin completely to machine-generated reminders over consciouschoice.

“it’s dan.” i heard the sound of the park in full swing behindhim—children’s laughter; bright, recorded animatronic spiels; the trompof thousands of feet. “can you meet me at the tiki room? it’s prettyimportant.”

“can it wait for fifteen?” i asked.

“sure—see you in fifteen.”

i rung off and initiated the backup. a status-bar zipped across a hud,dumping the parts of my memory that were purely digital; then it finishedand started in on organic memory. my eyes rolled back in my headand my life flashed before my eyes.