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When Brian opened his eyes and saw his surroundings, he thought he must be dreaming. The bright colors and exaggerated proportions of the décor were certainly out of a dream world. And was it just the dizzy, curving lines of the furniture, or was the whole room spinning?

Realizing he was seeing everything sideways, Brian tried to sit upright, to get a better look, only to realize he could only lift his head. The rest of his body, he saw with horror as he looked down, was bound in thick ropes, his shoulders, arms, legs, and ankles wrapped like cocoons.

So this wasn’t just a dream. It was a nightmare!

But with the struggle to sit up came a throbbing pain in his head, and he realized that this was neither dream, nor nightmare. He’d never felt pain in his dreams. Even his nightmares always ended before the pain was scheduled to come. He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t asleep. This was real.

Moving just his eyes, he looked around again and realized he was lying on a bed in the center of the room. Wriggling like a worm, he managed to roll over onto his other side, and it was then that he spotted Emerald. She was also tied up and had been wedged into the window seat a few feet from the bed. She was sitting up, awake, but deep in concentration. Through bleary eyes and occasional bouts of double vision, he watched her, and after a moment, he realized why. Her hands were free! She was using them to work at loosening the ropes around her ankles.

Brian struggled against his own bindings for a few seconds; they didn’t give at all. How had she managed to free her hands? “Hey,” he whispered, unsure of where their captors might be.

Emerald looked over. “Hey, you’re finally up,” she said nonchalantly, speaking at her normal volume. “You don’t have to whisper; ol’ Mickey ran off to help the rest of them and left us here. Not that we’ll be here when he gets back.”

The ropes dropped limply from around her ankles. Brian watched in amazement as she lifted one foot and flexed it, slowly rotating the joint. “How did you untie yourself??”

A smug smirk played on her lips. “I’ve had lots of experience with bondage.” He felt his face redden, and she laughed. “Nah, here’s the real trick. This wouldn’t have worked for you, since you were already unconscious when they tied you up, but I was able to pull it off. I surrendered and let them tie me up, so they wouldn’t have to knock me out. When they went to put the ropes around me, I tensed all of my muscles, made them bulge out as far as they go. You do that, and when you relax your muscles, the ropes are already a little looser. Then you can work at them until you get your arms free. Your sweat works to your advantage; it lubricates your skin, makes it easier to slide through the ropes.” She rotated her wrists, doing jazz hands. “Neat, huh?”

“That’s real neat.” Brian was impressed. They could use resourceful agents like her in the CIA, if only she weren’t so trigger-happy.

“Give me a few, and I’ll get you loose too.”

Within ten minutes, she’d made good on her promise, and they were both free. At Emerald’s insistence, the first thing they did was get out of their duck costumes, since their masks were long gone. “So where exactly are we?” Brian asked, as he draped his Donald Duck costume over the wardrobe door.

“Haven’t you guessed by now? I thought you were the cartoon freak,” Emerald scoffed. She gestured inside the wardrobe, where there was a rack of identical black suit jackets and pairs of red pants, a drawer of white gloves, and a row of yellow shoes. “We’re in Mickey’s Country House. Mickey and Pluto must have shut it down to tourists, ‘cause no one’s been through it since they left us here.”

“Ah.” Brian nodded. He could see that they were beyond the roped off path through the house designed for park guests taking a tour. He and Emerald climbed over the ropes and followed the path through the house.

“Look around for our guns,” Emerald advised, her green eyes sharp. “They took everything.”

Brian nodded again. He couldn’t help but look around as they poked through the ingeniously decorated kitchen and living room. He hadn’t been to Disney World since old cousin Kevin was working there. Emerald began tearing through any potential hiding place, tossing items haphazardly aside, but Brian was careful, not wanting to disrupt the work that had gone into decorating the little cottage.

Of course, Emerald’s methods were much more efficient, and she found the weapons, along with their communication devices, in Mickey’s garage while Brian was still pouring over the living room. “Here,” she said, tossing him his handgun and pager. “Let’s go.”

Brian stowed the gun in its holster at his waist while Emerald trotted off through the house. Her head appeared around the corner a moment later. He had stopped in the middle of the living room to read the sports pennants perched on the couch.

“Will you come on?” she snapped impatiently. “They’ll be back any minute, and they’re not gonna be too happy when they find out we’re gone. But we better be gone.”

“Sorry, sorry; I’m comin’,” Brian assured her. But as he took one final, sweeping look around the room, something else caught his eye. “Hey, hang on a minute…”

“We don’t have a minute!”

“No, Summer, wait. Look over there.” He pointed to the fireplace. “You see those cords hangin’ out of the chimney?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So with as much attention to detail as they gave in every nook and cranny of this house, don’t you find it a little strange that they would wire the electricity through the chimney and leave cords hangin’ there for everybody to see?”

“A big fat F in Decorating 101, for sure,” Emerald replied impatiently, tossing her wild, dark hair over her shoulder. “But who cares? Let’s scram!”

“Go on if you want. I wanna see what those cords go to. Somehow, I don’t think they belong to the Disney people.”

Emerald sighed, but she followed him as he approached the fireplace and knelt down, looking up into the chimney. There was a shadow overhead, something wedged into the cramped space, but it was too dark to see what. He fished around in his pockets. He had a small pocket knife that he’d had since he was a boy scout; it contained a small flashlight. His colleagues at the CIA ripped on him for carrying around a boy scout pocket knife, but it came in handy at times like these. The flashlight wasn’t powerful, but it brightened the chimney enough for him to see where exactly the object was stowed.

“Hold this,” he said, handing the flashlight to Emerald, and before she could protest, he started to climb up the chimney, pushing his arms and legs against the brick sides, using the indents of the grout lines for footholds. It was a tough climb, but thankfully, he didn’t have far to go. He got a hold of the object plugging up the chimney, some sort of mechanical, metal box, and yanked. It took a couple of tries, but the object suddenly came loose, and Brian with it, both of them tumbling into the fireplace.

“Ugh,” Brian moaned as the metal box crushed his chest. The pressure was quickly relieved by Emerald, who picked it up.

“What is this thing?” she asked, turning it over in her hands. “Some kind of machine…”

Brian climbed painfully to his feet. “It’s gotta be the weather machine.”

Emerald wrinkled her nose, studying the metal box. “You think? It’s so small… how could a little, metal box cover Disney World in snow?”

“Hey now… size isn’t everything. Small guys – I mean, things – can pack a lot of power.” He threw her an impish grin.

Emerald looked over at him and suddenly grinned back. “Gotta hand it to you, CIA – you did good.” She tossed the weather machine up and caught in neatly in two hands. “Come on… let’s unplug this thing and take it to Pearl before Mickey’s Country House becomes Mickey’s Snow Fort.”

Brian followed her eyes downward and saw that there was a small drift of snow forming at their feet. Chuckling, he followed the cord to an outlet in the wall and pulled. The weather machine shut off with a low hum, and almost instantly, they watched the fluffy pile of snow cave in, as it began to melt. Soon it would only be a puddle on Mickey’s hardwood floor.

They stepped over the snow on their way out of the house, but before they’d reached the threshold, Brian’s pager crackled to life. “Rok, this is Pearl. I need you and Emerald to go after K and Nick. They’re on Thunder Mountain. I… I have a man down.”

Blue met green as Brian looked into Emerald’s wide eyes. For once, he could see that she was shaken. He knew neither of them had time to dwell on the last of Pearl’s words. He was concentrating on the first part.

Big Thunder Mountain, Brian knew, loomed on the other side of the park in Frontierland; it would be quite a trek from where they were. The Utilidors beneath the park would provide a shortcut, but it would still take them precious minutes to get to the ride. He hoped they wouldn’t be too late to help his cousin and… yes, even Carter.

“C’mon,” it was his turn to tell Emerald. “You heard her – Kev and Nick need us. Let’s go.”

Emerald, who had been the one urging him to leave all this time, didn’t hesitate. She was right on his heels, still clutching the disabled weather machine, as they hurried from the cottage.


± ± ±


The entire set-up had failed within moments.

He had thought he’d had Dr. Rough cornered; he thought he had helped K. What Nick hadn't expected was more minions coming up like cockroaches feasting on rotten food. And they’d slowed him down a bit.

He’d then figured the climb up Thunder Mountain shouldn't take that long. If the little man could do it, if K could do it, in so little time, he could, right? Wrong again. He’d almost fallen twice and was slowed by scattered gunshots aimed at him. So by the time he had gotten his way up the stupid, fake mountain from hell, he’d thought he had them by surprise.

Wrong. For the third time… wrong.

"Game over, Dr. Rough!" he had said, so confident.

"Yo, you be wrong again, Carter." Only one person spoke like that.

He turned as Dr. Rough moved confidently towards his agent. Nick backed his way closer to Kevin, at one of the upper ledges of the mountain roller coaster. He was suddenly thankful beyond belief that he’d decided to page Pearl on his way up the mountain. Seeing the annoying minions made him think twice about the lack of backup. Nick only hoped JC would finally do something helpful by showing up soon.

"You may have tried to stop this plan, but I WILL rule the world!" the short, Latino man cried triumphantly at the victory evident by the surprising turnaround. "And my first step will be killing two of the greatest HimTak has! Then…"

Nick tried so hard not to snicker as he saw the man's eye twitch excitedly, and failed miserably. He felt like he could step on the short, twitchy, dorky, evil genius before him. The laughs came, and suddenly, they couldn't stop. He wasn't sure if it was because he knew he was going to die or what, but the blonde agent just couldn't help himself.

"Yo, somethin' funny? You's bout ta have a cap in yo’ ass!"

K stared at Nick in utter amazement. How could the boy laugh at a time like this? Literally, in the face of death! What had he been thinking before, about being surprised at Nick's depth? What the hell had happened to that Nick? That Nick was who he needed now. And yet, Nick kept laughing.

Dr. Rough's veins almost popped out of his forehead to explode in rage. "WHAT THE HELL IS SO FUNNY, 00CARTER!?"

Nick paused laughing for only a moment. "Ha, K! Even the bad guys call me 00Carter now!" He began snickering again. "Even ones who..."

"WHO WHAT!?" the evil leader of FANS bellowed.

"Who are short..." He choked on more laughter. "and all twitchy... and…"

K shook his head. "Nick, it's not smart to mock the man about to kill us."

He kept laughing. His face was almost red at that point. K felt like strangling the boy, that or laughing right along with him. Was insanity contagious when it came from Nick?

"With this villain..." That was when he began to sing. "It's a small world... after all!"

Justin only smirked. "Bad move, yo."

The trigger was pressed swiftly, as a furiously intense, falsetto voice shrieked at them, "I AM NOT SMALL!!"

Then, time seemed to slow for them both. Kevin saw the bullet first. It was a dead-on shot for Nick's heart. His own heart almost stopped at the thought. No. Not again. He would not let him die. Quickly, he shoved Nick towards the ground as the bullet angrily tore through his own arm.

Nick's humorous outlook on the situation immediately vanished, and a look of amazement replaced the joyful expression.

"K!" a familiar, female voice cried as footsteps could be heard swiftly approaching them.

Drums was the first to recognize the voice. Emerald. She had one of the best shots in HimTak, and there was no doubt that CIA agent was right behind her. How had they escaped Mickey's house so fast? He took a good look around; his mechanical eye analyzed everything around him and then sent the data to his brain. The storm clouds; they were dissipating, revealing clear, blue skies over the park. The snow; it was finally melting in the ninety-degree heat. That meant they had the weather machine. He listened to the noises around him and made a decision.

"Dr. Rough, yo, we gots ta bounce; they got da machine." Shots were being fired at them, missing by mere inches. Nick now had his gun aimed at the enemy, his composure regained. His mentor gripped his own arm tightly, showing no signs of pain.

"We'll meet again, Carter!" Drums smirked as he grabbed his own mentor, and the two jumped into what looked to be a suicide leap. The coaster cart sped out under them in just the precise moment for them to land within it. The landing was rough, having been from a good distance, but they were safe, and escaping.

"SHIT!" Emerald yelled as she saw their escape. "Damnit, Brian, if you had just let me shoot, I could have gotten them!"

"Summer, now, ya could've hit someone! You can't predict coasters, and you could've caused one to go off course."

Nick rolled his eyes, not happy to see either of them, especially since they had come too late. And where was JC? Damn, he had asked for one thing... He shook his head. Maybe he’d gotten held up somewhere. Nick helped K up and began the slow climb down the mountain he had come to loathe. He let the duck duo go ahead of them, wanting a moment to speak with K.

"Why did you do that?"

K raised one of the infamous bushy brows (which most agents loved to mock) at him. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you put yourself in the line of fire? You could've gotten yourself killed, K. I ticked him off; it was my fault..."

"Believe it or not, Nick-" Nick turned his head at not being called a number for once. "I really do care. Far more than you think. I do care about whether you live or die."

"K-"

"Now let’s go find Pearl and 006 and see what happened."

"But-"

"008, let's go." He smiled then. It was only for a moment, but his superior agent gave him a genuine smile.

"Right." And he followed the older man down.


± ± ±


She felt so alone, tucked in a small room that only granted access to employees, away from prying eyes around Cinderella's castle. She had originally planned on just hiding out inside, before realizing people were going to follow. So now she was in that small room, waiting for answers, alone with a corpse. A corpse that, only a short time ago, had been a living ally. He had already grown cold, and the fact that his eyes remained open unsettled her deeply.

Pearl felt a small drop hit her now bare hands. She blinked with surprise. She was crying. She didn't like crying, hated it. In this job, you had to keep control. She had to keep control. That was why she liked science so much. Science, gadgets, technology – all of that made so much sense to her. In science, the basic rules never changed. It was reliable, grew with you, but never did a complete turnaround on you. People at HimTak who didn't know her well called her cold, as robotic as her inventions. But she wasn't; it was just control, and control was safe.

And now she was crying, and she hated it. She hadn’t even liked JC Chasez! He’d pissed her off to no end; he’d hated her just as fiercely, and the two had never been able to get along together. And now she was crying for him. She was crying for him, crying for the fact that he’d died by a friend's hands, crying because she felt like she’d sent him to his death. But was she really crying for him? Or the fact that Justin killed him? She’d never thought she'd see the day, even after witnessing Global Idol and the Antarctica mission. Justin was now dead; Drums had killed him when he’d thrown JC to his demise.

Pearl sighed and dabbed her wet eyes. She couldn't break down yet. She needed control. The others would be over soon. And as soon as that thought entered her mind, her phone buzzed against her breasts. She slipped it out and flipped it open. "Hello?" She sounded composed, not like she had almost broken down just now.

"Pearly?" came Nick's voice. "You okay?" Well, she’d thought she sounded composed. Perhaps not?

"Yeah, Blondie, I'm good. I'm at Cinderella's castle... in a large storage room... the body is with me, too."

"So JC is..." He didn't say it, and didn't have to.

"Yeah. Drums..." She'd never call him Justin again. "He shoved him off the top of Cinderella's castle. I had just come up, and he..." She didn't finish.

"We'll be there in a few."


± ± ±


Nick saw her when they came up to the room. She stood outside of it silently. The body of JC was inside, and she’d wanted away from it once she knew they would be there. He hugged her, and she smiled weakly before shrugging him off in a gentle manner. "I'm okay."

She saw the others. Emerald and Brian went into the storage room, while K watched her with careful eyes. Her own gaze shifted to his wound. "K, what happened!? You alright?"

He smirked, but with no humor in his eyes. "Just a scratch. What about you?"

She nodded. "I'm fine, just..." She looked around the place that was supposed to be so happy, a place that was twisted and perverted by the people from whom they’d fought to save the world. The young scientist took a deep breath before releasing it slowly. "Just no more missions for awhile. I want my lab, my work. Technology doesn't fall to its death before my eyes."

K nodded somberly. "Understood."

"You sure you're okay, Kit?"

"Yeah, promise… So what happened up there?"

The others walked out from the storage room, as Nick proceeded to fill Pearl in on the events up upon Thunder Mountain. Emerald sighed. She hadn’t minded JC; he’d been nice to spar with and to bash Nick when he pissed them both off. And, more importantly, he had been a comrade, a man fighting by their side against the evils of the world. And he had died by a former ally's hands. Tragic wasn't the world for this. She felt like stealing a car and going off for a massive joyride till she found a crazy thunderstorm to enjoy. Yet she stood there and smiled at Brian a bit as he patted her back in comfort. It was then that she remembered the machine she had tossed aside for K and then picked up again on their way back down the mountain.

"Trekkie girl." She tossed Pearl the small device. "There's the weather machine. We found it stashed in Mickey's house."

Pearl examined it carefully. "So they had this and a bomb... Their leader may be completely crazy, but if he created these, he's a genius."

"No competition for you, though, right?" Nick teased, trying to get her to smile.

"Actually, he might be..."

"Wow, Brainiac may have met her match," Emerald remarked, a bit surprised herself after seeing the man face to face. Who knew such a mess of a man could be such a problem?

"Brian, I take it you'll have your men explain this mess..."

"Yes, cuz, I'll make sure no one knows of this. My superior is going to have a field day as it is, with how public this has gotten."

The others continued to converse as K chose to step away from them for a moment. He walked out to the pathway leading up to the doorway of the castle, pensive about the mission. He guessed many would deem it a success. The world was saved yet again, ignorant, overall, to the truth of what had really gone on around it. Yet Drums had escaped once again, along with his new leader, Dr. Rough. More importantly, he – and HimTak – had lost a great agent and a good man. It hurt more than he wanted to admit.

Nick approached him slowly, almost cautiously.

And yet he had saved one agent...

"K, we're going to go below and get back in our street clothes – is that alright? We figured we'd rent a room here tonight before going back tomorrow. Brian says the clean-up will take a day or so; then we can have JC sent back to us..."

K simply nodded. "I'll find you all later when it's time to leave."

Nick watched him slowly stroll away and disappear within the crowds. K was really hurting, and, this time, not from the past, but from the present. Was all that hardness just an act to get by? K had saved him earlier, had been afraid of letting him die. He smiled to himself. He guessed everyone had another side to them. And Nick couldn't wait till he finally got to see the full view of K, the man behind the shell.

He felt bad for being a bit happy, after all that had happened that day. Happy, even though JC had died. But he knew that he would avenge JC's death. He would make things right. Somehow, some way, because he was responsible. One day, Drums would have to face all he had done. So would Nick.

"Hey, monkey ass, are you coming or not?!" he heard Emerald call out, which shook him from his more somber thoughts.

"Oh, come on, Em, he doesn't look THAT bad as Abu..." he heard Pearl's subdued tone defend.

He chuckled to himself as he walked back to his fellow agents. Well, fellow agents plus Brian, the country government agent who was just downright annoying. "No, you're right – the monkey look is an improvement."

"Just for that..." He smirked as he approached them. "I'm going to sing, just for you guys!"

"Oh, just shoot me now."

Nick snickered as he began to loudly sing to them. "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears… it's a world of hopes, it's a world of fears. There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware... it's a small world after all!"

"Shut up, Nick!" they all shouted at him. But instead of getting mad, he simply laughed.


± ± ±