15

Ursine Kodiak knelt on the floor surrounded by circuit boards, lengths of wire, and various bits of scrap metal.

His suit was stained with oil and grease. His beard was wilder than ever, from when he’d accidentally electrocuted himself, and he was still suffering the effects of several self-inflicted wedgies.

“Finished,” he panted. “It’s done.”

The digital eye on the screen swivelled down and studied the metal figure towering above Ursine.

It was sort of teddy-bear shaped, but the size of a fully grown adult human. Taller, probably. Wider, definitely. Its shoulders were as broad as a small family car, while its arms were as thick as telegraph poles. One of them ended in a hand the size of a dustbin lid, while the other didn’t have a hand at all. Instead, one of the tanks’ cannons had been fixed to the wrist, ready to obliterate anything that got in its way.

“Not bad,” Grizz’s voice said. “Not bad at all.”

On-screen, the eye slowly closed. All around the factory, the lights went dark and the machines fell silent. Ursine’s eyes scanned the growing shadows, trying to figure out what this meant.

“Hello?” he whispered.

No reply.

Slowly, Ursine got to his feet. “Uh … anyone there?” he asked.

Nothing.

Ursine gave a little cheep of excitement, barely able to believe his luck. Something must’ve happened to the artificial intelligence software. Maybe Mummy Bear was fighting back. Whatever it was, the nightmare was over.

Turning, he moved to flee, only for an enormous metal hand to clamp down on his shoulder.

Ursine turned just as the robot bear’s eyes illuminated in a sinister shade of red.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” growled Grizz, his metal jaw snapping up and down. “I still have plans for you, meatbag!”

Vernon couldn’t believe quite how big Ursine’s underground complex was. After a long, tiring climb up several sets of stairs, he stumbled into a little room, then flopped on to a beanbag that had been set up in front of a TV. As he fell, he landed on top of Cuddlyplump and Mr Fluffton. They complained about being squashed, but he was too exhausted to move.

Sir Hopsalot hopped over to join him. “What kept you?” he asked. “I’ve been here for almost five minutes.”

“That … was a lot … of stairs,” Vernon wheezed. Eventually, and with a lot of difficulty, he rolled off the beanbag and landed bum first on a half-eaten pizza.

“Oh man, my ham and pineapple!” Cuddlyplump grumbled. “I was going to eat that later.”

Vernon dropped the two hench-bears in the corner and instructed Sir Hopsalot to watch them while he fired up the Xbox.

“Right you are!” Sir Hopsalot said, glaring at the two tightly bound bears. “These two aren’t going anywhere!”

“You’d better not delete our saved games,” Mr Fluffton warned, as Vernon added his profile to the console and logged in.

“Don’t tempt me,” he said. “Do you have a headset?”

“It’s over there,” said Cuddlyplump, nodding to a stack of Chinese takeaway tubs. A wire and part of a headphone poked out from between two silver foil trays.

“Ugh. It’s got chow mein on it,” Vernon said, wiping the headset on the beanbag.

He pulled it on just as his avatar appeared on screen, and flicked over to his friends list. “Come on, be online, be online…” he whispered.

Several names popped up as being active and Vernon let out a cheer. “Yes!”

He scrolled to the first active name, ‘PsychoGamer88349’ and clicked ‘Join Party’.

“Where’ve you been?” Drake demanded through the headset. “You were supposed to be in the tournament.”

“Yes, but listen—” Vernon began.

“We got massacred! It was embarrassing.”

“I know, but—”

“I’m going to kill you, Vern. We all are,” Drake continued. “Me and the lads, we’re going to—”

“Will you just shut up?!” Vernon shouted. “You have to listen. This is important.”

He fully expected Drake to shout him down, but to Vernon’s surprise, he didn’t.

“Well, go on then,” Drake spat. “What is it?”

Vernon hesitated. If he told Drake the truth, he’d either ruthlessly mock him, or threaten to kill him again, there was no way of telling which. Even if Drake did believe him, he wouldn’t help. He wasn’t a ‘helping’ kind of guy, not unless there was something in it for him.

No, this was going to require a different approach. Vernon wracked his brains and looked around the room for inspiration. His eyes fell on the three teddy bears.

“Have you heard about the teddy parade?” he said.

Vernon could practically hear Drake frown. “You what?”

“There’s a teddy parade today. All these high-tech robot-teddy things are going to be coming to town. It’s going to be a big show. There’ll probably be music and dancing and stuff.”

“Ugh. So?” snapped Drake, sounding completely disgusted by the whole idea. “Why are you telling me this?”

Vernon took a deep breath. “So, I know how we can ruin it. I know how we can make all the teddy bears’ heads explode. My sister and all her friends are really looking forward to it. Imagine how disappointed everyone will be if we ruin it. That’ll be fun, right?”

There was silence from the headset for a while. Vernon felt his heart sink. Drake wasn’t going to go for it. He wasn’t buying it.

Then, out of nowhere: “Go on,” said Drake. “I’m listening…”