by K. E. Rocha
They passed three intersecting pathways, three rings of bear homes, before the path took them out into the open valley. Trees and bushes extended in either direction, growing thicker as they approached the river. Kate slowed to a walk as they neared the riverside.
The river widened by the dock, creating calmer pools near the shore. Brown and orange fish darted beneath the surface of the crystal-clear water, and toward the middle, twigs and leaves swept by on the steady current.
On the dock, facing away from them, stood a huge, very muscular bear. Kate motioned for them to be quiet as they stepped closer.
“Reach for the vines!” the bear boomed through the massive headset propped between his big, furry ears.
“Fred Crossburger,” Reggie whispered to Spencer. “My mom says he gives ‘bulking up for winter’ a whole new meaning.” Kate hushed them again, and then mimed stretching for imaginary vines above her, stifling a giggle.
Taking a step closer, Spencer could see that beyond Fred, standing chest-high in the water, was a group of bears, their paws above their heads. They stretched toward the sky, alternating paws.
“What’s wrong, Maisie?” Fred chided one of the bears who’d dropped her paws back into the water. “You don’t want those delicious blueberries at the top of the tree?”
Examining the microphone that extended out of Fred’s headset, Spencer noticed a fat diamond stud in one of his furry ears, glimmering in the sunshine.
“Blueberries don’t grow on trees, Fred,” Maisie grumbled. “They grow on bushes.”
“Class, you can thank Maisie later,” Fred shouted cheerfully into his microphone. “Ten more for being literal!” The bears groaned.
Kate rolled her eyes and ducked through the row of trees beside them. Reggie hopped through behind her, and Spencer followed, stepping onto a small path that he hadn’t noticed before. It was different than the others in Bearhaven: unmarked and made of dirt.
Reggie sniffed the air around them. “Hey! This is the way to the—”
“The Lab,” Kate finished, grinning.
“But we’re not allowed!” Reggie sat back on his haunches. He looked, wide-eyed, from Kate to Spencer.
Not allowed? Spencer was even more sure that he needed to get to the Lab now. “What’s this lab all about, anyway?” he said, still walking. Maybe if he could get Reggie talking, the cub would forget they were headed somewhere they weren’t supposed to go. Kate kept going, too, falling in beside Spencer as Reggie started to chatter, following behind.
“It’s the most high-tech place in Bearhaven! All of the power comes from the Lab, and things are made there. Like the BEAR-COMs and security stuff and everything. Only the Bear Guard and the Bear Council are supposed to go there. Even the bears training for the guard aren’t allowed near the Lab until they pass the test and get their official cuffs. I’m going to be on the Bear Guard, you know.”
“The Bear Guard?” Spencer asked.
“Our security?”
“He doesn’t know, Reggie. He just got here,” Kate said. “The guard protects Bearhaven,” she explained to Spencer, “and keeps Bearhaven hidden. Their headquarters are in the Lab. My brother Aldo just made it through training, so now he gets to go to the Lab and wear the silver cuffs and everything.”
So Bearhaven had its own police force. Professor Weaver really must have meant it when he said that they were well equipped to help Mom and Dad.
Kate stopped abruptly, and Reggie, who’d been examining Spencer from head to toe, bumped into her back.
“Hey!” she shouted, then clapped a paw over her BEAR-COM. Their path ended at the edge of a clearing a few feet ahead, and in the clearing sat—
“The Lab . . .” whispered Reggie.
Spencer took a step forward, but Kate gently butted him back.
The Lab didn’t look like anything else in Bearhaven. A perfectly round dome, it sat in the center of the clearing and seemed to be constructed out of some sort of pitted metal. Smooth circular scoops evenly covered the shiny surface of the dome, making it look as if some huge silver golf ball had been nestled into the ground.
“How do you get in?” Spencer asked. He couldn’t see any doors or windows.
“It’s impossible,” Kate said. “Unless you’re supposed to get in, you can’t.”
Impossible? But Spencer had to get in there. “Have you ever tried?”
“No way!” Reggie yelped.
Kate jumped. “Did you hear that?”
Spencer hadn’t heard anything, but Kate spun around.
“The bell!”
“What bell?” Spencer was sure he hadn’t heard a bell.
“The school bell!”
“We’re going to be late!” Kate and Reggie gasped at the same time, tripping over each other as they scrambled back down the path.
“Come on, Spencer!” Kate called before disappearing around a bend. “Last one there’s a hibernator!”
But Spencer didn’t follow. He turned back to the Lab.
Maybe Kate was right, Spencer thought, discouraged. He’d walked the perimeter of the clearing twice, searching the Lab for any sort of entrance, and found nothing. He’d stolen his way up to the side of the dome and circled it again. But even up close he couldn’t find a door or window or hatch anywhere. There wasn’t so much as a crack or seam on the whole thing.
Spencer rested his forehead against the dome’s cool metal surface. If there wasn’t an entrance on the Lab, maybe there was an entrance under the Lab. Resolving to circle the edge of the clearing again and look for a trapdoor or a hidden tunnel, he took a deep breath and sighed. And then, the metal rippled.
Yes!
Eagerly, Spencer pressed against the curved metal with all of his weight, but nothing happened. He ran his fingers along the surface, prodding it, frantically looking for anything that would allow him access. There was nothing.
“What am I doing wrong?” Spencer muttered. Taking a step back, he examined the spot where he’d felt movement. He had felt movement. He knew he had. It had happened right under his forehead . . .
Maybe . . .
Feeling a little silly, he put his forehead in the exact same spot. Nothing happened. He waited. Still nothing.
“Come on,” he grumbled. And just for a second, he felt a ripple spread across the cool metal and then vanish, like breath on glass.
Like breath! His breath!
Spencer lifted his head off the dome and positioned his mouth like he was about to take a big bite out of the surface.
“Open sesame!” he proclaimed, then filled his lungs and blew hard onto the Lab. The metal wall shimmered and the dimples smoothed out. The area of the wall he’d breathed on became transparent and then seemed to disappear altogether, leaving a ragged hole about the size of Spencer’s head. Through it, Spencer could see what appeared to be an empty lobby with hallways breaking off to both sides.
Spencer cautiously extended his right hand toward the hole, afraid the wall might snap shut like a Venus flytrap and eat his arm.
“What the . . . ?” Spencer jerked his hand back.
Instead of going through the hole, his fingers had been stopped by an invisible film that felt delicate and a little sticky, like a deflated balloon.
Spencer shook out his hand and stretched his fingers. “Okay, I can do this,” he whispered, and extended his right hand into the hole more forcefully this time. He pushed harder against the film for a moment, and with a slight popping sound, his hand broke through to the other side. He resisted the urge to stop there and examine whatever crazy technology the bears had developed to make this wall possible, and pushed the rest of his arm through, and then his shoulder. Taking another deep breath, he blew on the wall around the hole, widening the gap until the opening was big enough to fit his entire body.
This is so cool, Spencer thought, before squeezing his eyes shut and plunging through the wall into the room beyond.
As he stumbled to regain his balance, he heard a soft crackling
sound and watched as the wall re-formed smoothly behind him. Spencer stood still for a moment. It didn’t seem like anyone had heard him break in. “Better not wait and find out,” he muttered as it dawned on him that he needed to find someone he knew before a bear that he didn’t know found him first.
The broad hallways off the lobby were sleek and white. He started down the left one, staying close to the wall and walking as quietly as he could. The first door he came to was open; Spencer didn’t hear anything and cautiously peeked inside.
Just as cavernous and white as the hallway, the room was filled with tables of electronic equipment. Each table was equipped with a robotic arm, and at the end of each robotic arm was a mechanical replica of a human hand. Creepy.
Sure that nobody was inside, Spencer stepped into the room to get a closer look. The metal parts and wires spread across the tables reminded him of his computer project, lying untouched and unassembled on his desk at home. Of course. They need the robotic hands because huge bear paws can’t work with such small mechanics. Maybe Professor Weaver could give him a tour of the Lab later. If he wasn’t too mad that Spencer had gotten in on his own.
Poking his head back out into the hallway, Spencer checked for bears, then left the room. As cool as the Lab was, he had to find that Bear Council meeting.
Spencer crept down the hallway, passing a few closed doors before finding another open one. He flattened himself against the wall, and then leaned over just enough to peek inside. Quickly, he pulled back, his pulse racing. The room wasn’t empty, and it didn’t look anything like the last one.
“Yeah, I’ve got her on camera two,” a voice said. Spencer guessed the speaker was the bear whose back was turned to the door. There was a reply, but Spencer couldn’t make out the words: It was fainter, and even more electronic. He must be using the BEAR-COM like Professor Weaver and B.D. did last night. Like walkie-talkies. “More fog to the northeast perimeter,” the bear said. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Spencer leaned in to get another glimpse of the room. He looked beyond the bear to a long, crescent-shaped console lined with oversized computer monitors. His eyes immediately went to the second screen in the row.
The monitor showed a girl in the woods. He thought she might be a little older than him, though not much—but what was she doing?
“Where’s that fog?” the bear boomed into his BEAR-COM, making Spencer jump. “She’s taking more photographs.”
The bear was right. The girl on screen was aiming her phone at the plants and roots at her feet and taking pictures. She reached for the pen that was tucked behind one ear, then suddenly, it got harder for Spencer to see her. Within seconds, the image on the screen was almost totally obscured by silvery fog. The fog! The same fog that Spencer had gotten caught in last night. It was being produced by the bears!
“Aldo,” said a gruff voice from a part of the room that Spencer couldn’t see. He pulled back, pulse racing, and started to slide down the hallway, staying flat against the wall.
“What’s going on here?”
“Nothing to worry about. It’s definitely Kirby this time. Just sent more—” The answer was cut off by a low growl.
“No. Here.”
B.D. stepped into the hallway.
“Aldo, have you had the pleasure of meeting Spencer Plain?” B.D. asked as he maneuvered his massive body in a way that left Spencer no choice but to enter the room. Spencer noticed the silver cuffs on B.D.’s front legs. The bear hadn’t been wearing them when they’d met in the woods yesterday, and somehow, the cuffs of the Bear Guard made B.D. look even more powerful. Spencer gulped.
“Uh, nice to meet you,” he said to Aldo, who was staring at him accusingly. “You’re one of the Weavers, right?”
“He is also new to the guard,” B.D. said gruffly. “Obviously. Since yesterday he so skillfully sent fog down on both of us, and today he chose to focus on a child miles away in the woods, rather than the one right here, who broke in under his nose.”
Aldo mumbled an apology and cast a dejected glance back at the fogged screen of camera two.
“Who is that girl?” The moment he’d asked, Spencer regretted it. Apparently B.D. didn’t think he was in a position to be asking anything.
“I don’t make a habit of sharing security concerns with trespassers,” B.D. answered tersely. “We can discuss how you got into this facility later. It seems you are smarter and more persistent than I would have given you credit for, but at the moment I have more important things to do than hear about your little game of hide-and-go-hunt in the Lab.”
“It’s not a game!” Spencer’s voice was louder than he’d intended. “I came to see the council!”
B.D. and Aldo stared at him, then Aldo swiveled around to face the bank of computers. Uh-oh.
“I beg your pardon?” B.D. said slowly, quietly.
“I have to talk to the Bear Council,” Spencer said more calmly. “I know they’re meeting here.” B.D.’s eyes bore down on him. He wanted to run, but he stood his ground. Mom and Dad needed help. His help. “B.D., please? It’s my family they’re talking about. I have to help find my family.” For a second, Spencer thought he saw a glimmer of sympathy in the bear’s eyes, but then it was gone.
“I’m sorry, Spencer, but council meetings are closed. I’m sure you will be given information about your parents shortly. Aldo will show you to the exit.” At the sound of his name, Aldo jumped to attention. B.D. lumbered over to one side of the room and stepped onto a large silver slab on the floor. He hit a white button that blended into the wall behind him. The slab, which Spencer saw now was really a platform, lowered B.D. quickly into the ground with a soft hydraulic whooosh.
It was the same as the platform in the tree last night. The council must be meeting underground, beneath the Lab. A moment passed and the silver platform reappeared, without B.D. on top of it, and closed the gap in the floor.
“All right, Spencer,” Aldo said, “time to go.”
I’ve got to get down there.
“I’m sorry for getting you in trouble, Aldo,” Spencer said, turning to the bear whose job it was to keep him from doing what he planned to. Distracting Aldo was his only chance.
“It’s okay,” Aldo answered. His demeanor had changed. B.D. might not have been swayed by Spencer’s plea to help his family, but Aldo looked much more sympathetic . . . He was Bunny’s son after all. “It was my fault, really. Silly mistake. I smelled you, but I was watching Kirby on the screen. Should’ve known that human stink was way too strong to be coming from her out there.”
“So that girl—Kirby?—she’s taking pictures and trying to get into Bearhaven?” Spencer walked over to the bank of computer screens. There were a dozen of the oversized monitors, each numbered with a metal plate at the top, and from the control panel below it looked like the Bear Guard could change the angle of each camera. They must be able to survey every inch of the perimeter from in here . . .
“It’s hard to say,” Aldo said, sitting down at the console again. “Kirby’s been poking around for a while now. She’s definitely looking for something, but we don’t think she knows exactly what she’s looking for.” The bear shrugged, tapped some buttons on his oversized keypad, and looked beyond Spencer to scan the security screens. “B.D. thinks it’s important to take all activity close to the perimeter of Bearhaven seriously, though.”
The fog that the bears had manufactured to engulf Kirby was fading, and through the misty feed of camera two, Spencer could tell that the girl was gone now. He was disappointed not to get another glimpse of her. She would know how he’d felt . . . out there alone in that thick fog. Had it made her think the same things he had—all of a sudden needing to go home?
“So you sent it?” Spencer suddenly asked, remembering what B.D. had said. “The fog?”
“Yeah, sorry about that . . . It was a mistake. B.D.’s not too happy with me about it.” The bear glanced down at his silver cuffs.
Spencer scanned the screens, but didn’t f
ind Kirby anywhere. The Bear Guard’s fog must have worked, sending her back to wherever she’d come from.
“How’d you get in here anyway?” Aldo asked, heading toward the door and motioning Spencer to follow.
“I sort of just, uh . . . breathed on the wall?” Spencer looked back at Aldo sheepishly but didn’t move toward the door. “It was an accident, I guess.”
Aldo rose on his hind legs, his silver cuffs flashing, and Spencer tensed, but instead of towering over Spencer to reprimand him, the bear leaned up against the door frame and slid up and down and back and forth, scratching his back.
“I guess that would make sense,” Aldo said once he’d finished scratching and dropped back to all fours, a thoughtful look on his face. “We breathe in, too. It’s the skin of the building—that special metal that covers the structure, you know? It has sensors that detect DNA—” The bear suddenly stopped talking and looked anxiously toward the platform that had carried B.D. underground. “There’s no way I’m supposed to be telling you all this.” He shook his head, clearly unhappy with himself. “We should—”
“Wait! DNA?” The lab’s technology was even more advanced than Spencer had imagined. “The wall of the Lab knows my DNA?”
“Not yours, little man. Your parents have access, and your uncle Mark. Same thing happened with me. They didn’t have to program me in when I got onto the guard, because my parents already had access.” Aldo stepped up to Spencer. “That’s top secret,” he said seriously, his breath hot in Spencer’s face. “You can’t tell anyone that. I could lose my—”
“No, no . . . of course not!” Spencer sputtered. “I won’t, Aldo, I promise.”
“I never should have said anything,” the bear reprimanded himself. “I’m still getting used to all these rules.” He looked at the silver cuffs on his wrists and then shook his head rigorously, like he was shaking off the mistake. “You heard the boss. Time to get you out of here.” Aldo turned back to the door.
