Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

uls. They did a fine job, racked up gobs of Whuffie, and anyone who came around and tried to take it over would be so reviled by the guests they w

y and then had moved off to other pursuits-some of them had gone to school, some of them had made movies, writt

rvatives in the Magic Kingdom, preserving the wheezing technology in the face of a Park that changed almost daily. The newcom

re: the Hall of the Presidents, the Liberty Belle riverboat, and the glorious Haunted Mansion, a

imatronic. Lil tried to keep two of everything running at speed, just in case. She could swap

uve and hope and loss, something barely noticeable over the tropical flowers nodding in front of our porch. My phone rang three or four times a day, Dan checking in from his rounds of the

ed back in a neat bun, sweat sheening her wiry freckled arms, smelling of girl-sweat and machine lubricant, she made me wish there were

He was rawboned and leathery, but still had the defeated stoop that had

Debra-he wanted to make su

neyland Beijing, coding sim-rides. If she had her way, we'd tear down every marvelous rube gol

Movie Ride rehab at MGM was breathtaking-the Star Wars sequence had

te queen, which was credited with rescuing the Park from obscurity and ruin. The Florida iteration would incorporate the best aspects of its Chinese cousin-the AI-driven sims that communicated with each other and with the guests, greeting them by name each time they rode and spinning age-appropriate tales of piracy on the high seas; the spectacular fly-through of the aquatic necropolis of rotting junks on the sea-floor; the thrilling pi

at's sh

rehabbing the Pirates-and doing an incredible job. They're ahead of schedule, they've got good net-buz

Lil mimed twiddling a knob and his audiotrack kicked in low: "All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not, by force, make a track on the Blue Ridge, n

ain, powering him down. She bent and adjusted his hand-sewn period top

er mode of speaking, voicing bland affirmations. Hearing the words, I felt a flush of embarrassment. I pulled her into a lo

said. "I mean, the worst possible scenario is that Debra will do her job very

last time we'd talked, but you don't live more than a century with

lin II out of his niche. I waved good-bye at her back and walked away, to an uplink terminal. Once I was close

rget the backup altogether and leave myself vulnerable for an entire week until the next reminder. I'd lost the knack

dren's laughter; bright, recorded animatronic spiels; the tromp of thou

t for fifte

e you in

e parts of my memory that were purely digital; then it finished and started in on