The Fourth Bear

by Jasper Fforde

  Jack rummaged in his pocket and drew it out, his hands shaking as he snapped open the large blade.

  “I have a liquid core that will do just as well—only take care. As well as being an excellent moderator, it’s also a powerful molecular acid—don’t get it on yourself.”

  Ashley closed his eyes and pulled open his jacket to reveal his taut, transparent skin.

  “I need a breach in my membrane, sir. You’ve got to stab me.”

  Jack stared at him. They took another step back as the heat intensified. The paint had caught fire on the outside of the van.

  “I can’t, Ash.”

  “Jack,” said Ashley as he placed a single sucker digit on Jack’s forehead, “you must do this.”

  “Of course,” replied Jack as the power of Ashley’s infinitely superior intellect pushed aside the barriers of illogical emotional reasoning. “It’s all so very clear.”

  And he plunged the knife into the alien’s abdomen without delay. Ashley had tensed himself, and Jack pulled out the knife.

  “Stand back, sir.”

  The cucumber had started to break down further, and the light and heat were now so intense that Jack had to shield his eyes. Then an arc of soft blue liquid shot from the wound on Ashley’s chest, and with a rapid flickering and a tearing noise, the light in the cucumber began to flash and dance as Ashley’s liquid insides reacted with the subatomic tumult within the cucumber’s core. The light faltered, brightened, flashed, then went out, and all the cucumbers rapidly began to melt under the destructive power of Ashley’s aqueous innards. But it didn’t stop there. The neutron-absorbing cascade of rambosia vitae dissolved not only the cucumbers but the chassis of the van containing them and the concrete floor beneath, making a strange hissing and bubbling noise and giving off a smell like toffee apples.

  Ashley had squeezed every last drop from himself and finally fell back empty like a deflated balloon, his once-snug uniform falling off him. Jack cradled Ashley’s now-flattened head in his arms, but he wasn’t yet dead. His eyes flickered open.

  “My mind is going,” he said in a soft voice. “I can feel it. All that I am. Tell…tell…What was her name again?”

  “Mary?”

  “Right. Tell Mary I…would pluck the stars from the sky…100…her…10010101…10…1.”

  “Tell her yourself, Ash. Ash?”

  But it was no good. Ashley had gone. The liquid center that had so successfully quenched the thermocuclear device also carried the memories and experience that made him the alien that he was. Without them he was nothing but a deflated blue bag. In a very real sense, he had forgotten himself for the benefit of others.

  The van collapsed in the middle as the rambosia vitae ate through the chassis. There was now a smoking hole in the concrete floor revealing the next level down, and a car that had the misfortune to be directly below was also being dissolved, albeit a bit more slowly as Ash’s vitae ran out of power.

  “Ash,” said Jack to the light blue membrane that was draped across his hands like a silk scarf, “I’ll get them, don’t you worry.”

  The small alien had traveled 18 light-years to find out more about our sitcoms and ended up saving half of Reading. It was an odd state of affairs, even by Ashley’s standards, but Jack had no time to dwell upon such matters—the inquiry had not yet run its course. NS-4 and QuangTech still had a lot to answer for, and the fourth bear was still out there somewhere. Jack looked up as he heard the sound of feet running down the entrance ramp.

  The first on the scene was Briggs, with Copperfield and several other officers close behind. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Jack and the shriveled blue transparent bag that had once been Ashley.

  “Where’s this ‘thermonuclear device,’ then?” asked Briggs.

  “In the van,” replied Jack as the back axle finally dissolved to nothing and the Ford transit collapsed. They looked inside. It was empty, of course. The vitae had eaten through everything.

  “It was there,” said Jack, “seven giant cucumbers about to achieve critical ‘cuclear’ ignition—but rendered harmless by Ashley’s memories.”

  “I was right,” said Briggs. “You’re stark, staring mad.”

  “I can explain. NS-4 and the Quangle-Wangle—”

  “Drop the knife, Jack.”

  Jack looked down. He was still holding the penknife.

  “You killed the alien!” said someone at the back.

  “No, no—I can explain.”

  “I think you’d better come with us,” said Briggs. “You’re under arrest.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Almost everything I can think of—but we’ll just have ‘murder of a serving police officer’ to begin with.”

  Before Jack could protest, two officers had disarmed him, pushed him facedown on the floor and begun to caution him.

  “Briggs!” yelled Jack in desperation. “It’s not over!”

  “For you it most certainly is,” Briggs replied, kneeling down to speak to Jack, who had his head pressed against the concrete. “A plea of insanity is about the best defense you have—and from what I’ve seen and heard over the past few days, it will be enthusiastically and gratefully accepted.”

  “Give your brain a chance, Briggs,” growled Jack. “Ash just stopped an explosion from devastating most of Reading. We need to arrest Bisky-Batt, the Quangle-Wangle and the fourth bear.”

  “And let me guess,” said Briggs. “The Easter Bunny as well?”

  “No,” replied Jack with a grunt as someone grabbed his wrist and pulled it up behind him, “she had nothing to do with it.”

  “I hope you’ve got a good lawy—”

  Briggs stopped as a group of large bears walked into the underground garage from the stairwell. Jack, who was facing the other way, couldn’t see who it was at first.

  “Relinquish Spratt to my custody,” came a deep voice.

  “Don’t push it, Craps,” replied Briggs. “Threatening a police officer and obstruction are serious offenses, Ursidae immunity or not.”

  Jack rolled over so that he could see what was going on. The small party of human officers was being faced down by an even larger contingent of bears, Vinnie Craps at their head. They didn’t look too happy either, and they were all males. Large males.

  “I’m not going to argue, Briggs,” said Vinnie. “Spratt is a Friend to Bears, and bears look after their friends.”

  “Like you look after Bartholomew? Harboring murderers isn’t being friendly and will land you in the clink, Boo-Boo.”

  Craps walked up to Briggs, towered over him and placed a single pointed claw on the knot of his tie. “If you call me Boo-Boo again,” he said in a low, threatening growl, “it’ll be the last thing you do.” He raised a lip to reveal a shiny white canine. “Last chance: Leave the Bob Southey right now.”

  “No way,” replied Briggs, who was showing a degree of courage that he’d forgotten he possessed. “And if you don’t surrender Barth—”

  Suddenly the underground garage was full of noise. Directionless and powerful, it seemed to well up from the earth and reverberate right inside one’s skull. Jack wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from until he saw Vinnie with his mouth wide open. The roar was a deafening bellow that seemed to surge forth from within and expel itself at furious speed; it was a deep, guttural cry that spoke volumes about territory, outrage, anger and dominance.

  Everyone jumped about a foot in the air. Briggs was almost knocked off his feet, and the sound set the car alarms going. The noise was brutal, and in a sort of primordial way, the kind of noise that makes anyone who hears it just leg it for the nearest cave or high tree. It also spoke of unpredictable danger. Even Jack, who was now a Friend to Bears, had an awful feeling that even he wasn’t completely safe—that any moment the six hundred pounds of angry bear might vent his anger on him. Abruptly, the roar stopped. Vinnie coughed slightly, cleared his throat and walked through the crowd of dazed officers, pulled Jack to his feet
and escorted him to the stairwell.

  “Hey!” said Briggs, suddenly regaining his composure.

  Vinnie stopped and took a threatening pace toward them, and they all took a hasty step back.

  “Leave now,” repeated Vinnie, and they did.

  35. Ursula

  Highest ursine decoration: Anthropomorphized bears have a peculiar and byzantine system of merits, honors and awards that number almost three hundred. Only two of these, however, are conferred upon nonbears. Most common is the Ursine Badge of Merit (2,568 recipients), which is more a measure of thanks. The second is the Ursidae Order of Friendship, which is closer to a status than medal and confers upon the holder unswerving protection from any bear, to death, without question. There are only five living recipients, all of whom live in Reading, Berkshire.

  —The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

  They rose through the Bob Southey in one of the many luxurious oak-paneled lifts. Jack found to his surprise that he was still holding Ashley’s thin but immensely strong outer membrane. It had dried out by now and resembled blue cellophane. So he rolled it up, folded it twice and placed it in his breast pocket for safekeeping.

  “Thanks for rescuing me,” said Jack, finally breaking the thoughtful silence. “I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me shit, Inspector,” replied Vinnie in his usual short manner. “The Ursa Majors voted you Friend to Bears an hour ago, and it’s totally out of my hands. It’s not a good situation. I’ve got a bit of clout with the authorities, but it’s only a matter of time before they decide to use force to get you and Bartholomew out of here.”

  “I’ll surrender before that happens, Vinnie. I won’t have senseless loss just to postpone the inevitable.”

  Vinnie gave an imperceptible nod to show that he approved of Jack’s attitude.

  The elevator doors opened, and they walked out into a plush corridor with thick carpeting on the floor and original Lichtenstein prints decorating the walls. Vinnie walked up to a door and entered. It wasn’t locked, but this wasn’t unusual—bears didn’t have any need for them. In the entire Bob Southey, the only locks were the ones that connected the bears’ world to that of the outside. The apartment was light, airy and modern, but it still retained the same understated utopian ethos as the three bears’ cottage in the forest: hard-wearing, functional wooden furniture and a minimalistic low-tech feel with simple floral designs on the drapes and small furnishings.

  Standing at the window was Sherman Bartholomew. He looked tired and gaunt.

  “Good evening, Inspector,” he said, rubbing his temples nervously. “I know I’m going to be sorry to ask this, but…what the blazes is going on?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure yet, sir. A missing nuclear physicist, a discovery of unthinkable and devastating potential and Goldilocks caught up in the middle. NS-4 and QuangTech are implicated, and the Gingerbreadman is involved—I just don’t know where. And then there’s the fourth bear.”

  Jack went on for some minutes, attempting to explain the complexities of the case.

  When he’d finished, Bartholomew stared at him for a long time and then said, “I knew I’d be sorry.”

  Vinnie, however, had understood it all a little better.

  “So are you saying that all the nuclear strain of cucumbers have been destroyed?”

  “No—Fuchsia told me that his ‘Alpha-Pickle’ was snipped off the main stalk last night. That’s the sole remaining cucumber. Whoever possesses that has almost unthinkable riches and power within his grasp.”

  “And who do you suppose this fourth bear is?” asked Vinnie.

  “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. He’s a dominant male, likes porridge, has no compunction about killing other bears—and was having an affair with Ursula Bruin.”

  Vinnie pricked up his ears when he heard this.

  “You’ve an idea?” asked Jack.

  “Not me—but Ursula might.”

  They took the elevator to the large vaulted atrium on the ground floor and made their way across to the Bob Southey Medical Center.

  “She regained consciousness an hour ago,” explained Vinnie, his claws clicking percussively on the smooth marble flooring. “She can’t speak, but she might be able to communicate in some other way.”

  The medical center was one of the most modern Jack had ever seen, a reflection on the colossal wealth the bear fraternity had amassed over the years with wise long-term investments, well-planned trust funds and top-notch stock portfolios. Ed Bruin was in his own room, where a small army of medical staff was giving him minute-by-minute care. He seemed to have more tubes going into him than Charing Cross Station, and a vast array of high-tech equipment played an almost symphonic melody of bleeps, pings, chirps and whistles, while several monitors spewed out long strips of paper full of meaningful ink traces.

  “He’s a long way from being out of danger,” said a small bear with a stethoscope draped around his neck, “but he’s getting the best care we can give him.”

  Ursula was in a separate room and had only a plasma drip and a heart monitor. She was lying on her back on a sturdy wooden bed with a crocheted bedspread, and a large flower arrangement in a vase was sitting atop a table nearby. Sun streamed through the open window, and sitting opposite her with his chair against a bookshelf was the baby bear. It was the first time Jack had seen him, and he was baby in name only. Medium-size and wearing baggy trousers and a hoodie emblazoned with a flaming skull, he looked like any other teenager you might find in Reading—only with a lot more hair.

  “She’s very weak,” said the bear with the stethoscope. “Try not to tire her too much.”

  “Mrs. Bruin?” inquired Vinnie softly.

  Her eyes flickered open, and she stared weakly in their direction.

  “This is Inspector Spratt,” continued Vinnie. “He’s friendly to bears, and he needs to ask you a few questions.”

  She blinked twice and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “I know about the fourth bear,” began Jack. “I know that he was there in the cottage the morning Goldilocks came around, and whatever you think about him, you must know that he killed Goldilocks and attempted to have you and your husband murdered to keep you quiet. You don’t owe him a thing, and I need to know who he is and where I can find him.”

  Ursula closed her eyes for a moment, and two tears welled up in her small brown eyes. She looked at Jack, then raised a wobbly claw and pointed it…at Vinnie.

  “Oh, I get it now,” said Jack, jumping to his feet. “All the time you pretend to be on our side, but actually, while using the League of Ursidae as cover, you—”

  But then he stopped, because Vinnie was pointing at Ursula. Her wavering claw was no longer directed at Vinnie; she was pointing it across the room to…baby bear.

  “Oh, I get it now,” said Jack, turning to face the youngest Bruin. “Adopted when a cub, you grew resentful of your father’s authority and—”

  “Jack,” said Vinnie in a kindly tone, “calm down. I think you’re suffering a temporary excess of resolutions.”

  Jack took a deep breath to compose himself. Vinnie was right. And Ursula was pointing not at baby bear but at the bookcase behind him.

  “She means a book,” muttered Vinnie, running across to the bookshelf and gathering up an armful of volumes, which he then proceeded to show to Ursula one by one. By the time they’d got to the third shelf, they’d found what she meant. It was the authorized biography of the Quangle-Wangle, and most households in Reading had a copy.

  Jack opened it to the first page and sat on the bed to show Ursula the list of chapters. She indicated the appendix, Jack rapidly flicked to the back of the book, and Ursula pointed to a popular ballad that described in broadly lyrical terms the formation of the characters who came together to form the Quang’s business empire.

  “‘The Quangle-Wangle’s Hat’? asked Jack, and Ursula nodded. She then closed her eyes and relaxed, her energy spent. Jack cleared
his throat and read:

  “On top of the Crumpetty tree, the Quangle-Wangle sat,

  But his face you could not see, on account of his beaver hat.

  For his hat was a hundred and two feet wide,

  With ribbons and bibbons on every side,

  And bells and buttons and loops and lace,

  So no one could ever see the face

  Of the Quangle-Wangle Quee.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” murmured Jack.

  “Maybe it picks up further on,” suggested Vinnie.

  “But there came to the Crumpetty tree,

  Mr. and Mrs. Canary,

  And they said, ‘Did ever you see

  Any spot so charmingly airy?

  May we build a nest on your lovely hat?

  Mr. Quangle-Wangle, grant us that!

  Oh, please let us come and build a nest

  Of whatever material suits you best,

  Mr. Quangle-Wangle Quee!’”

  “I suppose that must refer to Mr. and Mrs. Canary who now run the Quang’s hotel chain in the Far East,” murmured Vinnie. “They were the first to join the Quangle-Wangle. Who arrived after them?”

  “And the Golden Grouse came there,

  And the Pobble who hast no toes,

  And the Small Olympian Bear,

  And the Dong with the Luminous Nose,

  And the Blue Baboon who played the flute,

  And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute,

  And the Attery-Squash and the Bisky-Batt,

  All came and built on the lovely hat of the Quangle—”

  Jack put the book down and looked up at Vinnie. “‘The Small Olympian Bear,’” he said in a quiet voice. “The SOB we can’t trust that Ed warned us about. Who is he?”

  Vinnie shook his head. “I’d never thought he’d do something like that,” he said sadly, his tone tinged with anger, “after he had done so much and risen so high. Killing a friendly and ordering the Bruins’ death. He’ll never make it to the Perpetual Forest with those on his conscience.”