Read The Weakness Page 3


  Six feet tall, seven, more. Muscles on muscles. Bones so thick they could have been dinosaur fossils. Matted fur that was like a suit of armor. I was power made flesh. The most powerful land predator on planet Earth.

  I was a grizzly bear.

 

  I slammed into the door.

  WHAM!

  The door came off its hinges. It fell with a clatter.

  We were in! A narrow hallway. Bright lights. Moving shapes and figures, all blurry to my weak eyes.

  But we were in. Grizzly, gorilla, Andalite, wolf, and hawk — bent on destruction.

 

  Down the hallway we tore.

  A scream! Papers flung in panic. I swatted down a framed picture and left gashes in the Sheetrock.

  “What the … ?”

  “Oh my God!”

  I dropped to all fours and ran full-out. A bear on the move is like a semi on the interstate: Get out of the way.

  I brushed a Xerox machine and sent it tumbling. Marco punched a side door and crumpled it in. A security guard loomed up, trying to draw his weapon.

  FWAPP! Ax’s tail cracked, fast as a bullwhip, and the guard fell unconscious to the floor.

  A man with a clipboard. I hit him like a bowling ball hitting a pin. He rolled over my back and hit the floor. Cassie leaped nimbly over him.

  Suddenly we were out of the hallway. Out in the open. Backstage. I could see the bracing for the set.

  I reared up and shouldered into a big TV camera on a dolly. It went spinning and crashed into the back of the set.

  I was pumped. Exuberant. Nothing could stop us!

  “Tseeer!”

  “What the … Get those An — animals out of here!”

  Ah. Christine Kaminsky. Our favorite Yeerkish morning news personality.

  All dressed up in her tight but tasteful two-piece red suit and understated, expensive gold costume jewelry.

  We’d caught her in the middle of her read-through. She looked really, really unhappy.

  I cried.

  Cassie said.

  I jumped in one easy bound onto the anchor desk. It collapsed. I rolled away.

  Marco cried.

  Cassie said, growling and backing Christine’s blandly handsome weenie sidekick up onto his news desk.

  CRASH!

  Another news desk upended. I slid it across the floor and into the weather map “green screen” for good measure.

  ZZEWEEEEEE … SSZZZZ …

  Marco yanked microphones and other electronic equipment from the overhead grid while Ax went off to find the control room, pull some key levers and switches, and put WKVT off the air.

  Tobias called as he landed on an overhead lighting fixture.

  I whirled as quickly as my shaggy brown mass would allow. Coming into the studio, led by an employee guide, was a group of about twenty visitors. Adults and kids. I guess even local “personalities” have their fans.

  The guide stopped cold. She screamed. She fainted. Grizzly sight isn’t great, but I could make out most of the visitors standing frozen, mouths hanging open.

  I turned back to the destruction. To the crew, long since scattered. To Christine and Bobby, now both huddled and crying behind Bobby’s crumpled desk, menaced by Cassie’s growling, snarling wolf.

  I thwacked a rolling coffee cart with my big bear paw. Sent it careening into a wall. Bagels and pastries flew. A chocolate frosted donut rolled toward the visitors.

 

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