Chapter 32

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Excited with the news of Alex Wavers getting accepted in the Academy Scientifica-Lucidus, Dr. Nigel Channing takes his guests out of the Chairman's office for a special surprise. The young Katkin cannot contain himself. His furry legs are shaking vigorously in his veins with every step. The only way that is keeping him from squealing like a piglet is Dreamfinder gripping him by the shoulders and pushing him down a little. But who can blame the boy? He is finally given the chance to have the education he has always wanted and do his dead brother proud.

With each passing moment, the color blue on the walls is gleaming brighter and brighter by the afternoon sunlight. But it only seems to look even darker and darker the longer the distance Rachel is walking with a person she is so suspicious about. Why she is like this is by far the biggest mystery both Dreamfinder and Figment can ever figure out if they can. Alex, however, remains too excited to care about it since the Chairman's decision is immediately changing his life forever. Rachel is trying her best not to physically show any grudge in front of her friends, Dreamfinder most of all. She keeps her arms and fists tied behind her back to avoid anyone seeing them shake. The only comfort she is given in this is Dreamfinder's arm wrapping around her shoulder. The least she is doing to repay is showing a highly deceiving smile. In fact, just looking at him and a couple glances at Figment are the only two things that are helping distract her from the backside of Dr. Channing. Whatever Rachel's reasons are for fearing him, he is becoming just as frightening looking at his backside, as he must be on his front.

Joining Alex's excitement, Figment flutters about around the group as they walk through the halls of the academy. The by-standing and passerby students who see him all shout out a great big "Hello!" and "Wassup, Figment?" everywhere they are going. With all of the praises Figment is getting from the students as Figment flies about doing figure eights and loop-de-loops for their entertainment, Fye, Dreamfinder, and especially Rachel, cannot help but laugh together. Alex, of course, if enjoying Figment's act, but the only person in the group who isn't taking in as much humor or much attention in it is Dr. Channing. He doesn't seem to be the whimsical type compared to Figment, or at the very least, Dreamfinder. Despite this, he only seems to smile when he looks at Dreamfinder, which is making the terrible vibes Rachel is feeling all the more worse.

"You're awfully quiet, Rachel." said Dreamfinder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." said Rachel, making sure no one else is listening. "I'm just feeling a little cooled off from all the yelling and the suspiciousness going on in me."

"So you're alright with meeting Dr. Channing then?"

"Hell, no!" Rachel shouts in a whisper, hoping Dr. Channing didn't hear her. "I don't trust him one bit even he and I were to be the last people to live on Earth. Believe me, Dreamfinder, he's not as he seems."

"Alright, fine. If it will make you happy, I'll keep my distance a little bit and watch my step with him. Will that make you feel better."

"No, but go ahead anyway. The last thing I want more than anything is for him to..."

"To what?"

"It's...better you don't know right now."

Finally, they come across a laboratory much like the other labs they have passed by on the way. A control panel is at the left of this giant door. As Dr. Channing dials in a certain code on the control panel, the door splits in two, sliding away from each other and opening the lab for the guests and staff.

"This way! Step lively now!" Channing barks, as he rushes ahead into the giant room.

Rather intimidated, Rachel hesitates to move her legs. Dreamfinder's gentle arm then pushes her forward from behind her neck with his firm hand on her shoulder. Just as well, Figment is beginning to feel a strange sense in him about this new environment. What Figment and Rachel are feeling doesn't seem to affect either Dreamfinder or Alex. Fye is in both a calm and excited mood of his own: calm to be a professional staff of the academy, and excited for the sake of showing his dearest friends what new technologies the academy has come up with. Channing, more boldly, walks into the lab filled with confidence and assurance that what he is doing in here with the students' help is all his own and he is proud of it.

The lab is filled with computers that look like they are from the 1950s, synchronizing whatever is making their parts jitter, beep, or ding. The ceiling is pitch black with rows of small, large, fat and skinny pipes of different kinds that are drilled in. There are tables scattered with papers and tubes and hooked-up computers. Giants cylinder tubes stand together on the far left side of the room, filled with gallons of green liquid bubbling constantly. Except for the liquid, all of the tubes seem to be empty except for one; a strange-looking metal man, a robot perhaps, is floating motionless in the farthest tube from the door. Its sight is probably perhaps the most menacing looking thing in the laboratory. To Dreamfinder, it looks just like one of the Articulate Army's robots who had previously attacked London a century ago, back when Dreamfinder first became the "Dreamfinder," which explains how seeing it for the first time in that long has made him jump back a little, remembering such a horrible flashback of is home country. He suddenly receives a soft pat on the shoulder from Fye, his oldest friend next to Figment, who had also shared this horrific event.

"No need to be afraid, Mr. Dreamfinder." said Channing. "It won't come out an hurt you."

"Where did you find this?" Dreamfinder gasps in question.

"After you and Figment had disappeared from 1910 with the Singular and his Articulate Army, only a small number of the robots remained in London." said Fye, grimly. "Most of them were smashed to bits, some were disassembled by the people of London, while the rest of the few had either melted, been electrocuted, or short circuited during battle. This one, however, is the only robot that has remained in mint condition, full body and without a single scratch. It may have been the Singular's strongest of all of the robots he had brought him from the Clockwork Control."

"Yes!" Channing intervenes. "We have discovered this in an abandoned house on our last trip to London in recent years and had it sent back here into the academy. The people who had informed us of this discovery believed that this particular robot was cornering a poor family during the epic battle, threatening them to salute to the "perfect order," as they called it, and side with the Clockwork Control. It seems, however, that when you had left your own time period and taking most of the Articulate Army with you, this robot had abruptly collapsed with no sign of energy left in it. We brought it back here to the new Florida location hoping that we can repair him with a new purpose of becoming a kind teacher's assistant for starters. After that, who knows what we can accomplish with him."

"Why is he in a giant tube with green juice all around him?" Figment asks, squeamish with the memories of that century long-passed battle.
"We are trying to remove whatever rust is left and give him a longer lasting protective coat."


"What is this place?" Alex asks.

"This is the laboratory for our latest and greatest research." Fye announces.

"Dream power formulation!" Channing clarifies.

"Formulation?" Dreamfinder repeats in confusion. "I don't entirely see where you are getting at."

"Mr. Dreamfinder, when you and Figment first traveled through the realms of imagination, what were your first thoughts?"

"My thoughts were all 'WOW!' and 'Exciting!'" Figment expresses happily.

"Dreamfinder?" Channing asks Dreamfinder, while disregarding Figment's playful attitude.

"Well..." Dreamfinder begins, "when we first used the Mesmonic Converter I invented, I had a hard time figuring out how mind energy would become matter and why. And I remember realizing the answer that it's all part of using our imagination. Whatever I thought of doing or dreamed about, it would all become reality at my own feet or right in my own hands."

"And do you know what has made it a reality?"

"Duh! Are you deaf?" Rachel rudely asks, receiving a strict scowl from Dreamfinder's face as if she hasn't learned her lesson. "He just said he was using his imagination when it happened. Imagination plus Dreamfinder equals dream come true! So why are you asking something you already know the answer to?"

"Rachel." Dreamfinder growls.

"Now, now, Mr. Dreamfinder. It's okay. I'm glad she has asked." Channing says, as he hides a sense of evilness in his smirk within his voice. "This isn't a question I merely know the answer to. It is a question I feel what has made me ask it?"

"Congratulations! You've just lost me by using twenty-two completely undecipherable words in two complicated sentences. Give the man a prize!" she claps.

"Rachel, that's enough!" Dreamfinder growls louder.

"Alright, alright. I'm done now."

"You're done?"

"I'm done.

"Dreamfinder," Channing continues, "do you remember making Figment come to life?"

"Well, yes! I ought to." said Dreamfinder.

"With dream power?"

"Naturally."

"Have you always wondered what that dream power is actually made of? Physically?"

"Physically? Well...offhand, no. I've never actually thought of it. I always imagined imagination being made out of our memories and emotions."

"That's true. But since the last incident with you defeating the Doubtfinder in the end, we've been experimenting with the last physical components of the dream energy left that was puffing out all over the Academy Scientifica-Lucidus and examining thoroughly of what this dream power is really made of."

"Wowie-wow! That sounds fascinating!" exclaims Figment.

"Cool!" Alex exclaims also.

"That sounds brilliant!" said Dreamfinder. "Have you any luck figuring it out?"

"Luck? Psssh!" Channing scoffs. "You don't get your answers just by mere luck. You get your answers by finding them yourself through great observation. You of all people, Mr. Dreamfinder, must know what it takes to be a scientist."

"Inventor, really. But for observation, yes."

"We were, however, lucky enough to have found something that may be the key figuring out this fanciful mystery of ours. If I can just find it...here..." Dr. Channing searches one of the tables in the lab, removing test tubes and sliding papers aside in a calm, yet slightly frantic manner. "Oh dear, it seems that I can't...uh...find what I'm looking for. Can you give me a moment?"

"In the meantime," Fye intervenes, "how about I show you what's happening in the computer here?"

As everyone but Channing gathers around Fye at the computer, Fye puts his cane aside and starts typing. The buttons on the keyboard glow and his fingers press down on them making a click-clacking sound. On the screen, a series of programs pop out like random advertisements on YouTube filled with diagrams, calculation and 3D models and graphs detailing on the same subject. Finally, Fye comes across a program that looks a lot like a radar. It has an aerial 3D model of the entire world on one panel off to the side of the screen and one main panel with a modeling of the entire state of Florida.

"Since we've reenergized the academy with dream power," Fye begins, "we've been detecting more amounts of it that have been appearing throughout the world through this dream sensor and started gathering some data. There are about 49.2% of the world who are dreaming for the sake of dreaming in a variety of scenarios that happen in them, 26.2% are dreaming for their career goals, much like Dreamfinder has done in the beginning, while the rest of the 24.6% are dreaming dreams that may be trying to either inform them of any information or sort out their problems."

"That...seems like a pretty accurate 100%." Dreamfinder concluded, calculating the numbers in his head.

"Indeed. Now here is a 3D rendering of all the dreamers calculated right here in Florida. Before moving in completely into Florida, we did a little observation with some of the residents and some psychologists in the area and suspected that the average amount of dream power between 1910 to early 1911 taken up nearly a quarter of the state. But since old man Illocrant moved the Academy Scientifica-Lucidus here completely, the average amount dream power has increased by thirty to fifty percent over the past century, taking up to almost half of Florida."

"That's cool in all, but how is all of that really progressive?" Rachel asks. "Thirty to fifty percent in one section of the state within a year sounds really good. I mean, really good! But I'm sure by now there's bound to be a lot more dreamers than that here in Florida, let alone just this very spot."

"I'm glad you said that." said Fye with an assuring smile brightening up on his face. "But this is only the half of it. I'm sure Ms. Rachel has heard of this name as most people do, but have you ever heard of the name Walt Disney?"

"Walt Disney?" Dreamfinder repeats in question.

"Of course!" Figment exclaims. "Dreamfinder! He's that man whose name has been all over that convention thing we went to where we met Rachel. Something about him making this mouse character and this huge amusement park."

"Oh that's right! I never knew him, but I've occasionally watched a few of his 'animated cartoons' while we were setting up backstage. His work is quite remarkable!"

"Wait. Who is Walt Disney?" Alex asks.

"A REALLY huge idol of the 20th century! Next to Dreamfinder and Figment, I suppose." Rachel replies, while trying not to let her friends feel left out. "He was an artist, actor, entrepreneur, innovator, cartoon animator, and film producer, as well as a great dad and husband to his family who are, by now, all passed. Right across the street from the convention where we met is the Disneyland Park that he himself, along with his own team of Imagineers, built within a year! All with the funds they received from producing a Disneyland television show during the early 1950s. Later he tried to build another theme park here in Orlando, Florida succeeding the Disneyland location in Anaheim, California, but because he had smoked for a majority of his lifetime, he died peacefully with lung cancer in the hospital across the street from his studio, which forced his business partner, and older brother, Roy O. Disney to postpone his retirement and finish the Florida park's construction. It was dedicated to Walt's life and passing and was renamed from 'the Florida Project' to 'Walt Disney World' or 'Walt Disney World Resort.' First, the Magic Kingdom, whose themes are a lot like the Disneyland, California version opened first, then EPCOT came along as it was intended but not in the same visual idea as Walt have had when he died, then Disney's Hollywood Studios where it focused a lot on the famous blockbuster films throughout the past century, and lastly Disney's Animal Kingdom with its natural environment and animal conservation. But it was always Walt Disney's dream to open EPCOT specifically not just for the sake of it being a theme park, but an actual suburban community with shops and schools and recreational parks and homes galore! The park was opened in 1982, but it didn't come out in the same vision as Walt had planned because his Imagineers feared they would not be able to persuade anyone into building it this way as Walt would have, and Walt Disney, if anything, was REALLY good at persuasion."

"Nerd!" Alex shouted.

"...N-nerd? I'm a nerd?!" Rachel then starts muttering and mumbling to herself. "Well excuse me to teaching a little history here!"

"That's exactly so, Ms. Rachel!" Fye exclaims, as he swiftly types the keyboard. "The average amount of dream power had skyrocketed dramatically since Disney completed the first construction there, about 60% more than what it usually was during that time, which brings up what is happening now."

"Now?" said Figment.

"In the past ten years, Figment, the average amount of dream power that has been showing before and after the events of you and Dreamfinder is about 85.6% in the entire state, 98.2% in this region alone. But lately, something strange has come up." Fye then types and clicks onto another panel to pop up, showing a very intricate graph. With a computer mouse on the side, Fye clicks on the maximize button and enlarges panel to take up the entire screen. He then reports, "The dream power amount has been within the same scale as it has been for the past decade until this happened. This graph shows how much more or less the dream power has appeared in a certain amount of years. But today, for some reason, there has been rapid climb of dream power striking up all of a sudden."

"A rapid climb?" said Dreamfinder. "Where?"

"Now let's see...where did I put that capsule?" Dr. Channing mutters in the back as he continues searching.

"We believe this is happening at this particular spot." Fye clicks onto the previous panel of the 3D rendering of Florida and zooms into on a very familiar location. The area is crowded with people and tourists walking about around a giant lagoon with what seems to look like a giant golf ball in the very center.

"Wait. Is that...?" Dreamfinder asks.

"Yes, it is. That's Epcot Park. And that geodesic sphere is Epcot's Spaceship Earth."

"Wow, oh wow! Look at the giant sphere!" Figment shouts. "It looks just like how Rachel described it a while back."

Seeing this place, most people find it very happy and welcoming to want to go there. For once, Rachel doesn't. For some reason, seeing the Epcot theme park where Fye has pointed out where the dream power increase is coming from has made her tense up inside. Her arms become stiff, cold and numb as ice. Her eyes are bulging hugely out of their sockets like a very frightened cartoon character's eyes. And her mouth is quivering and chattering uncontrollably.

"Wait a second." said Dreamfinder. "We assumed that there must be two of these giant spheres coming in and disappearing at the same time. If the academy's sphere is gone, how is this one still here?"

"Hey, that's right!" Figment exclaims. "We didn't see our sphere anywhere near the academy when we came in today. How can this be?"

"We don't know." said Fye. "It's likely that the rumors of Epcot's Spaceship Earth disappearing may either be just a coincidence or perhaps some other Cast Member either made it up or thought they saw it happen in a hallucination for working too hard. Still, whichever way it goes remains a mystery for us. But I'm afraid this isn't the main concern right now." Fye holds the clicker on the mouse down and drags the cursor up and to the left of the 3D map, showing an attraction that looks an awful lot like the Academy Scientifica-Lucidus. He then says, "We believe that the main source of the sudden increase of dream power is in this building!"

"It can't be..." Rachel quietly gasps to her horror.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Rachel?" Fye notices.

"Oh, nothing. It's not important."

"Most Disney fans and 'Dreamfinder and Figment history enthusiasts' believe that the

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