“You’ve said before that might be too much,” she said from the opposite corner, leaning over a table. The light shimmered off her contours as she carefully examined what lay before her.

“Do it,” the slumped man said. The woman touched a dial, then recoiled suddenly.

“What is it?” he demanded. He didn’t take his eyes off the monitor. “Raise it two more degrees,” he ordered, his voice rising. For a moment, the room was silent. Finally, the man turned toward the table. “Is there a problem?”

“I think it’s …” The woman trailed off.

“What?”

“Moving,” she finished.

“Of course it is. Of course, they are.”

“It looks like it’s … in pain?” she whispered. The man smiled.

“Yes.”

A bright light flashed on abruptly as a sudden noise resounded from the center of the room. Red, green, and blue lights flashed in sequence and a cheerful voice erupted from the speakers embedded in the walls, filling the room with song.

Every light shone down on him: the sleek white-and-purple bear. His joints clicked with every pivot; his eyes jolted back and forth randomly. He stood about six feet high; his rosy cheeks like two balls of bright cotton candy, and he wielded a microphone with a head like a shimmering disco ball.

“Shut that thing off!” the slouched man shouted, getting to his feet with obvious difficulty. He moved slowly toward the center of the room, leaning heavily on his cane. “Get back, I’ll do it myself!” he screamed as the woman retreated to the table in the corner. The man pried a white plastic plate off the chest of the singing bear, and reached inside the cavity, extending his arm all the way into the opening and pulling at whatever he could find. As he disconnected the wires inside, first the eyes stopped turning, then the eyelids stopped clapping shut, then the mouth stopped singing and the head stopped turning. Finally, with one last jostle, the eyelids clamped shut and the head dropped to the side lifelessly. The man stepped back, and the heavy plate of the bear’s chest cavity swung shut with a clang, as the animatronic bear filled with the sounds of servos and wheels, broken and disconnected, unable to move or function. Spurts of air burst from between the seams of his body casing as the air hoses misfired.

The sound came to a stop, the echoes from it lingering for a moment before dying away. The man turned his attention back to the table and lurched to it. He looked down, studying the writhing figure that lay there for a moment. The table’s surface was glowing orange, and the hot metal hissed. He took a syringe from the woman’s hand and thrust it into the squirming thing forcefully. He drew the plunger up, holding the needle steady as the syringe filled with molten substance, then finally pulled away with a jolt. He staggered back toward the bear.