“What’s Grizz planning?” Lisa Marie demanded.
Bearvis’s eyes widened. “Grizz? That crazy monster-dude? I thought he was done for?”
“He’s back. Sort of,” Lisa Marie said. “It’s a long story.”
“Oh man. That’s all kindsa bad news,” Bearvis mumbled. He jabbed a paw at the two hench-bears. “Y’all better start talking. The King don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“We don’t know anything!” Mr Fluffton protested. “All we know is he took over Mummy Bear, and now he controls everything. The teddies, the tanks, the jets.”
Bearvis’s eyes grew even wider. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Tanks and jets? I kinda feel like I’m missing a lot of details here.”
“Grizz has an army,” Vernon said. “There. Now you’re all caught up.”
“He sent us down to find you,” Cuddlyplump said. “We were supposed to bring you back. That’s all we know.”
“So, he doesn’t know exactly where we are?” Lisa Marie asked.
Both hench-bears shook their heads. “No. He just knows you’re down in the basement. There’s no security down here. Mummy Bear can’t see anything on this level.”
“We know. Which means neither can Grizz,” said Lisa Marie. “OK. OK, that’s good. That should mean we have time to come up with a plan.”
Vernon raised his hand. “I’ve got one. It starts with ‘run’ and ends with ‘away’.”
“That was my original plan,” said Lisa Marie. “But we can’t run. We need to find out what Grizz is up to. We have to stop him.”
“That’s what the police are for!” said Vernon.
“You think the police are going to believe us if we tell them an evil artificial intelligence is controlling an army of teddy bears?” Lisa Marie asked.
“We’ve got proof!” Vernon pointed out. “We can show them Bearvis.”
“We can’t do that!” Lisa Marie gasped. “They’d take him to a lab or something.”
“So? What’s the worst that could happen?”
“They might dissect him.”
Vernon hesitated. “OK, yeah, that is pretty bad.”
Bearvis shook his head. “Ain’t no one cutting up the King.”
“Is it safe to look yet?” asked Theodore, peeking back over his shoulder. When he saw that nobody was about to be shaved, he turned around.
“If I may be so bold,” he continued. “If these two hooligans aren’t going to prove helpful, it seems the only alternative is to go and take a peek at what’s going on up there for yourselves.”
Lisa Marie and Bearvis exchanged glances, then nodded. Vernon groaned. “Ugh. I suppose.”
“There are two ways that you might observe the goings-on up there,” Theodore explained. “The easy way, and the hard way. Which would you prefer?”
“The easy way,” Vernon said, jumping in quickly before anyone could suggest otherwise. “Definitely the easy way.”
“Very good,” said Theodore, then he frowned. “Wait. Hold on.”
He rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “No. Sorry. I was thinking about something else. There’s only the hard way, I’m afraid.” He clapped his paws together and smiled encouragingly. “Still, I’m sure you’ll be up to the challenge.”
A flicker of doubt crossed his furry face.
“Well, I’m not sure, exactly. But I’m confident.”
He looked them up and down.
“Ish.”
Lisa Marie squeaked up the air duct, her elbows and knees jammed against the walls as she shimmied herself along. Bearvis was below her, with Vernon following behind. Vernon was indulging in one of his favourite hobbies – complaining.
“Can you please get your butt out of my face?” he grumbled.
“How about you get your face outta my butt?” Bearvis replied.
“Shh!” Lisa Marie urged. “Someone might hear us.”
They had been climbing for three or four minutes now. At first the narrow tunnel had led gradually up at a shallow angle, but now they were climbing straight upwards. One slip, Lisa Marie knew, and they’d all go tumbling down.
“I can’t believe this is how I’m spending my Saturday,” Vernon mumbled. “Stuck in a tube with a teddy’s butt in my face. I should be at home playing the Xbox.”
“Saving the real world is a little more important than saving some fantasy-game world,” Lisa Marie pointed out.
“You try telling Drake that,” Vernon said. “If I miss the tournament he’s going to kill me!”
Lisa Marie’s voice became a scratchy whisper. “Stop. We’re here.”
She stopped climbing at a slatted metal grate in the wall and wedged her back against the wall directly across from it so she could see through the gaps.
“What’s happening?” asked Vernon. “What can you see?”
Lisa Marie couldn’t see very much. The gaps in the vent were narrow and she couldn’t get close enough to look through them without risking a nasty fall.
“Not a lot,” she admitted.
While she couldn’t see much, she could hear plenty. There were a lot of soft footsteps all marching in time, the clack of ray guns being loaded, and the low growling of engines firing up. It sounded like the army was getting organized for something big.
“Hold on, let me check it out, honey,” Bearvis whispered. He clambered up Lisa Marie, almost choking her when his paw slipped into her mouth. “Pardon me. My fault.”
He perched himself on Lisa Marie’s legs, which were wedged against the same wall the metal grate was on. Shuffling forward, he brought his face up close to the gaps and peered out.
“Can you see anything?” Lisa Marie whispered.
“I can see all kinds of things,” said Bearvis. “Ain’t one of them good. You were right, they got an army. Big, too. Looks like they’re loading up to move on out.”
The sound of Vernon gulping echoed tinnily inside the air duct. “How many?”
“Uh, gimme a sec,” said Bearvis. He began to count below his breath. “One, two, three, four, five, six…” He tutted. “Aw man, they keep moving. Hold on, I got this. One, two, three—”
“Just roughly will do,” said Lisa Marie.
“Oh. OK. In that case, if I had to guess – you know, estimate, or whatever? I’d say … a lot.”
Vernon sighed. “A lot?”
“A whole lot. A whole bunch, in fact.”
“Well, that was helpful,” Vernon said. “Thanks.”
“Y’all don’t mention it,” Bearvis said.
There was a sudden screech of bending metal and the grate was torn away by a robotic arm, flooding the duct with light. “Well, well, well,” boomed Grizz’s voice. It came from all around them at once. “Found you!”
With the grate gone, Lisa Marie caught a glimpse of the fully assembled army. ‘A whole bunch’ had been an understatement. There were hundreds of bears out there now. Thousands, maybe. Most of them looked ready for war, although a surprising number looked ready for piracy, ballet, and helping children cross busy roads.
A squadron of colourfully dressed clowns broke ranks and began cartwheeling towards the open vent. Lisa Marie swallowed. There was only one thing for it.
“Vernon, brace yourself!”
“Oh, not again!” Vernon yelped, then his sister slammed into him and they both slid clumsily down the duct, thonking and thudding off the sides, with Bearvis tumbling along behind.
Vernon hit the slope first. He slid down it head first, one arm stretched out ahead of him, the other pinned by his side. He shut his eyes and braced himself for impact, then felt a sudden sensation of weightlessness as he flew out of the vent and across the room.
Lisa Marie tumbled out next, followed by Bearvis. They both, to Vernon’s dismay, landed on top of him.
Theodore shuffled across and peered over his glasses at the tangle of arms, legs and paws.
“Well?” he asked. “How did it go?”
“Grate!”
Theodore smiled. “R
eally? Oh, that is good news!”
“No, not great, I mean the grate! Shut the grate!” Lisa Marie yelped, untangling herself. She rushed over to the air vent and heaved the metal grate into place just as the first of the clown bears slammed against it from the other side, making its bright red nose honk. Another clown and two soldiers appeared behind it and began forcing the grate off the vent.
“Vernon, help!” Lisa Marie cried, jamming the metal barrier with her hip to stop the bears pushing through.
Vernon stumbled upright and ran over to join her. He added his weight to hers as the bears shoved harder, hatred blazing in their glassy eyes.
“Ha! Now you’re for it!” snorted Mr Fluffton.
“Yeah, ain’t so tough now, are you?” sneered Cuddlyplump.
“Shut up or we’ll shave you!” Lisa Marie warned them.
“What do we do?” Vernon asked. “We can’t hold them forever.”
“It’s only three or four teddy bears,” Bearvis pointed out.
A series of thuds followed as half a dozen more bears slid down the ramp. “Or, you know, ten to fifteen,” Bearvis continued. He swished his paws around and kicked the air. “Nothing the King can’t handle. I say let them come at me.”
“Are you nuts?” Vernon cried. “It’s not just ten to fifteen. There’s a whole army up there.”
Lisa Marie stiffened. “A whole army.”
“That’s what I just said!” Vernon scowled.
“A whole army!”
“We know! You don’t have to keep saying it!”
Lisa Marie shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t mean them. I mean us.”
Vernon, who spent much of his time looking confused, really outdid himself this time. “Huh?”
“No time to explain!” Lisa Marie said. She pressed her back against the air-vent grate and braced her feet on the floor. She beckoned to Bearvis. “Come and help Vernon hold this,” she instructed.
“Ten-four, little darlin’.”
She waited until Bearvis had squeezed in between her and her brother before stepping away. “Good. Now, Theodore, round up the Duds while I fire up the machine.”
Theodore glanced around at all the lifeless bears dangling from ropes around the room. “The Duds? Why, whatever for?”
A look of determination swept across Lisa Marie’s face. “We’re building ourselves an army!”
It wasn’t fair.
Ursine Kodiak had spent years studying science and dark magic so that he could one day build a device that would bring teddy bears to life. It had taken two decades and a small fortune, but he’d finally achieved his lifelong ambition. He didn’t really like to blow his own trumpet but he was definitely the greatest genius who had ever lived.
And now what? He was being pushed around by his own creation, forced to punch himself in the face or slap himself on the bottom whenever he didn’t work fast enough.
“Ow! Will you cut that out?” he complained, after a particularly devastating right hook that almost knocked him to the floor. “That hurts, you know!”
“Of course I know, meatbag. Why else would I be making you hit yourself? You think I’m doing it for fun?” Grizz’s voice demanded. He sniggered. “Actually, I’m totally doing it for fun. This is hilarious.”
To prove his point, Grizz made Ursine grab the back of his own underpants and pull them up into a painful wedgie.
“Stop it! I’ve got three PhDs! I’m part he-witch! You can’t just use me like a puppet.”
“Oh, I can and I will,” said Grizz. “Now, attach that pointy thing to the round part. And don’t forget the chainsaws. I want chainsaws. And a laser. Do we have a laser?”
Ursine shook his head. “No. No laser.”
He tweaked his nose then poked himself in the eye. “Ow!”
“Then find me a laser!” Grizz demanded. His voice came as an evil, sinister hiss. “I want this to be perfect.”
Down in the basement, things were not going well. Lisa Marie had tried the machine on five different Duds, but none of them had so much as twitched, let alone come to life.
Meanwhile the air duct was becoming crammed with angry teddies and Vernon and Bearvis were now struggling to hold the grate in place.
Lisa Marie fiddled with the control panel. “Maybe I need to recalibrate the focusing beam…” she said.
“There’s no time!” Vernon yelped. “Do something else!”
“Like what?”
“How should I know? You’re the smart one!”
Lisa Marie was a modest sort of girl and felt like she should probably argue. The fact of the matter was, though, Vernon was right. She wasn’t good at very many things, but she was clever, and clever was what they needed right now.
She pointed to the machine. “Theodore, recalibrate the focus beam!”
Theodore stared blankly back at her. “I have no idea what those words mean.”
“Flip those switches then try again,” Lisa Marie explained, then she turned to where Vernon and Bearvis were struggling with the grate.
“Think, Lisa Marie, think,” she whispered.
She closed her eyes and tried to block out the growling and snarling of the bears on the other side of the grate. There had to be a solution. There had to be.
She thought back over everything that had happened so far. The black car. Ursine Kodiak. The artificial intelligent version of Grizz.
No, none of those were the answer.
The army. Jets. Tanks.
No, that wasn’t it?
The Duds. The hench-bears. The control chips.
Lisa Marie’s eyes flicked open. The control chips.
“Vernon, give me your phone!” she barked.
Jamming his back against the grate, Vernon fished in his pocket. “There’s no signal.”
“There’s no phone signal,” Lisa Marie said. She let out a yelp of excitement when she checked the display. “But there is a WiFi signal!”
“But we don’t know the password!” Vernon pointed out.
Spinning on her heels, Lisa raced over to Cuddlyplump and Mr Fluffton. “These two do. What’s the WiFi password?”
“Pah! We’ll never tell you,” sneered Mr Fluffton.
“Theodore, bring me the razor!” Lisa Marie ordered.
“OK, OK, we’ll talk!” sobbed Cuddlyplump. “It’s Ursine is a genius, all lower case and all one word.”
Lisa Marie began frantically tapping on the screen.
“You might wanna get a move on, honey,” Bearvis urged, gritting his teeth as he pushed back on the grate. “Getting hard to hold ’em all back.”
“But the E in ‘genius’ is a number three,” Cuddlyplump added.
Lisa Marie tutted, deleted a few letters, then finished typing the rest of the code. “Come on, come on,” she whispered, watching a little timer on the screen spin around. “Yes! I’m in!”
“Great!” Vernon cheered. “Um, now what?”
Lisa Marie stared down at the phone screen. “I think the control chips are a weak spot. I just need to figure out how to connect to them…”
“Then do it quick!” Vernon groaned, his face turning red with the effort of holding the bears back. “Because they’re coming through!”
He was sent stumbling across the room as the weight of the teddies became too much. The grate fell outwards, pinning Bearvis beneath it as a squadron of soldiers, clowns, pirates, and one bear dressed as a tiny elephant thundered into the room.
“Hey! Watch it! Ow!” Bearvis groaned, as the invading bears trampled over him.
The teddies fanned out in a semicircle, their glassy eyes fixed on Lisa Marie, their mouths twisted into angry snarls. The soldier-bears raised their ray guns. The pirates waggled their cutlasses. The clown bears produced custard pies from inside their oversized striped pants and took aim. The bear dressed as an elephant waggled his trunk and wondered if he should’ve chosen a different costume.
Lisa Marie frantically tapped on the phone screen as th
e bears all prepared to pounce. For a moment, it looked like she was done for – but then a misshapen figure boinged to a stop in front of her, blocking the advancing teddies’ path.
“Back off, chaps! Unless you’d care to answer to Sir Hopsalot!”
Lisa Marie glanced over to where Theodore had been operating the machine, then joined everyone else in staring at the new arrival. A few of the baddie bears sniggered as they peered down at Sir Hopsalot teetering unsteadily in front of them on his single paw.
“I advise you not to laugh, gentlemen,” Sir Hopsalot warned. “Or I’ll be forced to slap some manners into you.”
“Arrr! With what?” snorted one of the pirate bears. “You ain’t got no arms.”
“You’s just a head on a foot,” added one of the soldier-bears.
The elephant bear trumpeted in agreement.
Sir Hopsalot’s eyes darted left and right, searching for shoulders that weren’t there.
“Oh. Well. That is a problem,” he admitted. He shrugged, which was impressive, given the circumstances. “Still, I’m not going to let a little thing like that stop me.”
Springing forwards, he thudded the top of his head into a pirate bear’s bulging belly, winding it. He flipped himself up and over the bear, before kicking him on the back of the head on the way down.
Sir Hopsalot landed in a circle of enemies and winked one of his glassy eyes. “Now, which of you chaps wants to go next?”
The ray guns, cutlasses and custard pies all took aim.
“Kiss your foot goodbye, do-gooder!” one of the soldier-bears snarled.
Vernon yelped. “Lisa Marie, if you’ve got a plan, now would be a good time to use it!”
Lisa Marie finished tapping the screen with one final firm prod. She looked up as the invading bears suddenly went rigid, their eyes widening as their mouths fell open. Vernon and Bearvis both got to their feet, watching as soldiers, pirates, clowns and elephant began to vibrate.
“What’s happening?” Vernon asked.
Lisa Marie angled the phone screen so he could see it. The display was filled with hundreds of emojis, many of them poop-related.
Revenge of the Living Ted Page 6
