Incrementally, reason trickled back into my mind, and with it came ire. How dare they? The wonderful compromises of technology and expense that had given us the Disney rides -- rides that had entertained the world for two centuries and more -- could never compete head to head with what they were working on. My hands knotted into fists in my lap. Why the fuck couldn't they do this somewhere else? Why did they have to destroy everything I loved to realize this? They could build this tech anywhere -- they could distribute it online and people could access it from their living rooms! But that would never do. Doing it here was better for the old Whuffie -- they'd make over Disney World and hold it, a single ad-hoc where three hundred had flourished before, smoothly operating a park twice the size of Manhattan. I stood and stalked out of the theater, out into Liberty Square and the Park. It had cooled down without drying out, and there was a damp chill that crawled up my back and made my breath stick in my throat. I turned to contemplate the Hall of Presidents, staid and solid as it had been since my boyhood and before, a monument to the Imagineers who anticipated the Bitchun Society, inspired it. I called Dan, still snoring back in the theater, and woke him. He grunted unintelligibly in my cochlea. "They did it -- they killed me." I knew they had, and I was glad. It made what I had to do next easier. "Oh, Jesus. They didn't kill you -- they offered their backups, remember? They couldn't have done it." "Bullshit!" I shouted into the empty night. "Bullshit! They did it, and they fucked with their backups somehow. They must have. It's all too neat and tidy. How else could they have gotten so far with the Hall so fast? They knew it was coming, they planned a disruption, and they moved in. Tell me that you think they just had these plans lying around and moved on them when they could." Dan groaned, and I heard his joints popping. He must have been stretching. The Park breathed around me, the sounds of maintenance crews scurrying in the night. "I do believe that. Clearly, you don't. It's not the first time we've disagreed. So now what?" "Now we save the Mansion," I said. "Now we fight back." "Oh, shit," Dan said. I have to admit, there was a part of me that concurred. # My opportunity came later that week. Debra's ad-hocs were showboating, announcing a special preview of the new Hall to the other ad-hocs that worked in the Park. It was classic chutzpah, letting the key influencers in the Park in long before the bugs were hammered out. A smooth run would garner the kind of impressed reaction that guaranteed continued support while they finished up; a failed demo could doom them. There were plenty of people in the Park who had a sentimental attachment to the Hall of Presidents, and whatever Debra's people came up with would have to answer their longing.