Between a Bear and a Hard Place(81)

Claire and Fury both exchanged a worried look.

“I know what you’re thinking. Not literally, I’m saying I can guess. They won’t die – they aren’t really alive in the first place. Those who can be conscious should remain so. It’ll just be a bit difficult reintegrating a bunch of cloaked, gasmask wearing figures into polite society.”

With the building heaving back and forth once again, cracks started to open in the walls. Small at first, and then larger as the seconds ticked by, the fissures opened and closed, opened and closed, as though the whole place was breathing.

“Will the bears be sane?” Fury asked, choking back emotion. “Or have they been... tampered with?”

“Not a clue. My guess is that there will be a variety of results. For certain though, King and Stone will be fine. They were taken only a short while ago, and science doesn’t move quickly, as you know, Claire.”

“And how do we get out?” she answered.

“One step at a time.”

Blaring again, even louder somehow, the alarm was dangerously close to deafening. Even shouting, Claire, Fury and Eighty-Three could barely make out what each other were saying. If they were going to do anything, it was going to have to be soon.

As the soldiers began another surge, Claire was almost overwhelmed. Fury too, almost went down under the tide. She fought back, as did he, and as the alarm heightened, and the soaking water became a torrent, the surge came again.

Fury batted one off Claire’s back, and she swiped one as it dove for her mate with some kind of sharp weapon. The knife or whatever it was caught her in a swipe across the forearm, burning her flesh and sending a sear of pain creeping through her. The sweet tingle turned to a tightening clench of muscles. Her stomach knotted, her arms twisted, and before she knew it, she was helpless on the floor, covered in black cloth so heavy and stifling she felt like she was drowning.

She tried to call for help, but the immense weight of the creatures above her crushed out any hope of drawing breath.

“Too many!” she heard Fury call out. “There are just too many of them!”

Her mate’s cry for help wrenched Claire deep in her guts, twisting them, pulling at her every fiber. She struggled helplessly, hopelessly. With every move she made, the pile of soldiers seemed heavier, with every breath she drew, the next was harder to take.

“No more time!” she heard Eighty-Three shout. “Only one thing left. I hope this works!”

She heard a high-pitched whine, then a click that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her own head.

The weight lifted, the mound of soldiers seemed to evaporate, leaving mostly just suits, masks, and junk electronics. Claire pushed to her feet, sloughing off the pile of refuse she’d been buried under. She rose to see Fury with a mechanical hand clutched in his fist, and Eighty-Three standing absolutely stock-still, looking around. Just as he said, a few of the cloaked figures were still standing, although they weren’t doing much of anything else.

A couple milled around, one of them jabbing the other’s chest with an outstretched finger. The alarm had stopped, which was definitely a good thing, but there was a complete and total lack of bear.

Humming sounds from all around preceded more popping – the wires inside the walls were exploding from the unseen aftershock of the EMP. Lights burst one after another, until the entire room was pitch black. A generator kicked on somewhere, chugging along and bringing up low, sickly, orange lights – but at least they were enough to see by.

Metal groaned, and shifted.

Doors slid.

And then, there were bears.

All sorts of them – golden, brown, black, partially shifted, completely shifted, not shifted at all – surged from the now-open cells lining the entire room. Immediately Claire recognized Stone, and King was beside him, but all the rest were strangers.

“Uh... Eighty-Three?” she asked, as soon as she gained her senses. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

He turned around, briefly observed the onrush of furry tanks stampeding toward him and his two friends. “Straight ahead!” he pointed. “Run like hell! Once we’re through those doors, you’ll know the way!”

She didn’t ask how, she just believed him. Fury grabbed her hand as she went dashing down the hall toward the bay door. His squeezing grip, and the sudden appearance of King and Stone beside her, both confused and naked, but both comforting nonetheless, gave her strength. Her friend – the not-robot who had found his answers, who had risked everything to save them, he gave her courage.

And the rush of cooped up bears? That didn’t hurt either.

Claire rounded a corner, and drove her shoulder into a pair of swinging, hospital-like doors as she burst through, she happened to turn her head at exactly the right time to see a sign reading “B-3 NO ADMITTANCE” plastered to the wall. And below that, a clipboard with nothing scrawled on it since that day where everything changed.