Free Secrets of Bearhaven by K.E. Rocha Page B

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.
    “There she is again! It’s Kirby!” Spencer shouted suddenly, pointing to the computer screens. Aldo rushed over and pushed Spencer aside as he sat at the console.
    “Where?” he asked, a claw poised above his BEAR-COM, ready to radio.
    “Camera four,” Spencer answered quickly. They looked at camera four’s monitor. Aside from trees and a few clusters of large rocks, there was nothing there. “I just saw her, I swear,” Spencer insisted. “She must’ve jumped behind the rocks!”
    Aldo leaned forward to search the screen, grunting a string of untranslated Ragayo that Spencer took for cursing. Spencer began to back away.
    “She couldn’t have seen the camera . . .” Aldo muttered, adjusting the camera’s angle, trying to get a better picture of the rocks.
    Now!
    Spencer sprinted toward the silver platform, slamming his hand against the white button camouflaged on the wall. The platform instantly began to lower. Aldo growled in protest and bounded across the room, skidding to a halt at the edge of the opening to the fast-dropping platform. He tried to scoop Spencer up, but Spencer flopped to his belly and lay just out of reach.

Spencer rolled off the platform as soon as it stopped, and bounded to his feet. He was in a hallway identical to the ones aboveground, sleek and white, except this one had only one door, a great wooden one, at the very end of the passage.
    He took off running. B.D. could appear to take him away any moment, and he didn’t know how Aldo might try to stop him.
    If I could just get into that room, I could convince them . . .
    He was almost to the door when it swung open and B.D. stepped out to block his way. Spencer skidded to a halt, facing the enormous bear, and searched for a way he might dodge past him. “Council meetings are closed, Spencer. I understand you want to help your family, but I’m afraid that I still cannot—”
    Before Spencer could make his best attempt at getting by, Bunny Weaver appeared and slipped in beside B.D. Spencer looked up at her pleadingly. Please understand.
    “Perhaps we can make an exception this once, B.D.,” she said, patting the larger