Chapter 24

'Where are you, Ryder and Chase? I've been looking for over ten minutes!' Zuma thought. The chocolate labrador was pulled for his date with a lovely retriever by a call from his partner saying that the hospital and police station blew up. Now, the pup was searching around the whole building for his owner and friend because he didn't see them in their rooms. As Zuma continued his walk through the burning building, he walked passed multiple people on the ground - either burnt or crushed to death. The pup grimaced at the corpses. Even some rooms that held patients were closed off by rubble of concrete. Zuma had already searched through the first and second floors, but didn't find anything, not even survivors.

"Zuma," his pup tag went off. It was Sebastian. "Are you okay? You've been in there forever!"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I haven't found Wydew or Chase yet," Zuma sighed through his mask.

"Keep looking and be safe," the former gang member advised. "The paramedics that did survive, since they weren't even near the building, asked if you found any survivors."

"No, evewyone hewe didn't make it," the pup responded as he passed a corpse of a doctor. He then mumbled, "I just hope that they'we okay."

"I'm sure they are Zuma," Sebastian reassured. "I have to go now, I have to help the police station. Are you sure you don't want any help?"

"I'm good dude. I'll check-in when I find them." With that said, the pup in scuba gear hung up and continued his search. He started getting a little nervous because as the fire died down (thanks to the fireman outside), the hallways just remained a warm glow and the details grew bold. The burn marks, melted plastic, and paint, and the broken… everything made it more ominous as if it came right out of a nightmare. But then again, his family is stuck inside here and he doesn't even know they are alive so he guesses it's his nightmare becoming a reality.

"Wyderw?! Chase?! Anyone?!" He called, trying to get anything from the corridor that he was walking through. "Hey! Anyone hewe?! I'm hewe to help you!"

"N-Ngh…" Zuma snapped his head to the direction of the groan. He silently cursed as to why the hospital was so large. Whoever made that noise did it again. It's in the next corridor. Running, the pup went off to that area.

"Hello?! Can anyone heaw me?!" He called through the mask he was wearing. As he reached the hallway, the pup could tell that it was clearer and more open than any of the previous ones he went to. In a distance, he could see to figures laying on the ground. As he got closer, he gasped at the two familiar faces. "Wydew! Chase! Awe you two okay?"

"Zuma?" Chase croaked. The pup in rescue mode winced when he saw his friend's natural brown fur turned matted and dirty with ash and, what he hoped was, ketchup.

"We're okay, Zuma. Just need to get out of here quick before the building collapses from the damage," Ryder answered the pup's question, already taking action of the situation. The boy's natural spiked hair was bent in every direction and his body and face were covered in ash. He didn't have any 'ketchup' though, to the labrador's relief.

"Can you both walk?" Zuma asked. He may not be an EMT pup like Marshall but he does now that if you can't walk on their own, then they'll need help. The problem is, all of the pups know Ryder like the back of their paw. If he was in trouble or hurt, he would try everything so his pups wouldn't have to worry. It gets pretty frustrating sometimes. Anyway, while he ranted in his head, Ryder managed to stand up and so could Chase but he seemed to have a little limp so the boy decided to carry him.

"Alright, we're ready. Let's go." They all nodded and went back the same direction Zuma came through. Wanting to make some small talk since the silence was getting awkward, Ryder spoke up again. "...Did your date go well?"

Zuma looked at him incredulously. Of course, when the situation is serious, let the ten-year-old to lighten up the mood. Marshall or Rubble were the pups who handled that job. "It was until I had to come hewe."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Was it only the hospital that was damaged or were other houses nearby damaged as well?" He asked, understanding that his pup didn't want to continue the topic.

"No, the police station also had the same thing," the pup answered.

"What? How? The police station is across town!" Ruder exclaimed, clearly dumbfounded by the new information.

"I don't know. I will ask Sebastian when he comes back fwom thewe."

"I did smell a broken gas pipe before we were knocked out," Chase spoke up suddenly, causing the two to briefly look at him. "Hospitals wouldn't ever run if they knew that if the gas pipe was weak and on the verge of exploding."

"So what are you suggesting?" The boy asked.

"I don't think that the explosion was a coincidence. Like I said, hospital staff would have moved the patients out immediately if they knew that there was a near-broken gas pipe. Marshall told me one time that the staff check on maintenance and other things daily. So what I'm suggesting is that the explosion wasn't random but rather intentional."

"It could have been the same ovew at the police station," Zuma agreed to the idea. The three had finally made it out of the ruined building and were bombarded by the remaining paramedics, soon taken to the ambulances. Before they entered into the vehicles, they all caught a familiar pink helicopter flying off into the distance. As the paramedics started working on them and removing smoke from their lungs, they started thinking about different things.

'I wonder if Skye was here to help out with the fire' Chase thought. He wondered how she was doing since the three of them left, including the other pups. His mind also wandered to the missions in Adventure Bay and the people that they rescued. How easy. No worries. No murder. No suspicion. No gangs. No stress. That was the life, to have nothing out of the ordinary and you know what to suspect so no one you know gets hurt and has the chance to die. Was he wrong to leave his friends in his home town? Maybe. Was he loving Foggy Bottom and the endless amounts of crime and mystery? Not really. He needs to pull through though. Chase and the rest have three more days to stay there and now they have to solve a whole new mystery about the explosions. 'Kill me now' he thought with a soft groan.

'Three more days until it's over' Zuma thought tiredly. Honestly, when he said that he wanted to have a better job than just being on the sidelines during missions back in Adventure Bay, this isn't what he thought it would be like. Maybe two or three crimes and that's it, nothing more and nothing less. He just wanted to satisfy his need to be useful. Selfish could be a word to describe it but Zuma doesn't care because it was his decision and he took it. Was it the right call? Yes, why? Because he now understood the dangers of the world (more like just Foggy Bottom) that scarred him for life but he learns from experience. Now, instead of being the second youngest, he was going to be the most experienced (other than Ryder and Chase) on the team. But then again, he just can't wait until this lesson was over so he could sleep peacefully in the Lookout and not on a beach.

'Chase had a point' Ryder thought. Instead of thinking about the next few days, even though he was very aware of it and relieved, the boy had his mind speeding through the information given to him not ten minutes ago. The coincidence that the police station and hospital blew up was incredibly alarming. What did it mean? Was it a message? A warning? A course of action? He didn't know so he tried to break down the relations of both buildings and work from there. The hospital: it was large, took the east side of the town, no obvious or important landmarks near it, has around a few hundred staff including nurses and doctors, many patients (maybe to take out a patient? But why blow up the entire building?), it's main purpose is to help the wounded or weak. The police station: filled with many workers, has access to classified files, few in jail there, no important landmarks there either, has multiple evidence files (probably to eliminate evidence so they wouldn't be charged?), and the entire concept of it is to help with any crime around town but what does that have to do with- wait a minute. The hospital and police station are both emergency and accessible locations. So whoever did this knew that once both locations were out, there's no place to call for help when trouble happens within miles except one specific location that's right next door with their town.

Bingo.

Ryder, forgetting that he had an oxygen mask over his mouth, popped up from his gurney with excitement and fist-pumped the air. "Ha! I figured it out!" He exclaimed, getting odd looks from the nurse working on them, but his two pups looked at him curiously.

"What did you figure out?" They both asked simultaneously.

"I can't tell you right now but we need to meet up with Sebastian so we can think of a plan," the boy said while taking off his oxygen mask, feeling much better.

"Please put that back on," the nurse sternly said to him, but he shrugged in response.

"Sorry miss, but this is an emergency. Let's go pups," he called, to which they followed out from their beds. They ran over to Zuma's vehicle and hitched a ride to go to the station, knowing that it would be a waste of time to get Chase's cruiser and Ryder's car is already with their teen friend. Only a few minutes later, they reached the site, getting off of the vehicle when it stopped.

"Wow, this place had it wowse than the hospital," Zuma remarked. The entire side of the building was exploded, the inside clearly visible and bricks and dust littered the area. It looked like the firemen were almost done with putting out the remaining fire to it as well. By the looks of all the figures on the ground with white sheets covering them could only conclude the same thing, no one survived.

"I'm glad that you three are okay!" They turned their heads to see a familiar former gang member walking up to them, giving pets (for the pups), and a pat on the back (for the boy). "It looks bad right?" He asked, referring to the destroyed station and its employers.

"Definitely," Ryder agreed while the pups just nodded. "Do you know the cause of the explosion?"

"Well, obviously it came from the side of the building but get this, one of the firemen found a stick of dynamite not too far from here," he reported.

"These people keep getting more and more violent," Chase muttered but since Zuma was right next to him, he heard him so he just nodded in response.

"Listen, I think I have an idea as to why the two locations were blow up in the first place," Ryder spoke up.

"What is it?" The other three asked.

"They were trying to knock down anyway for people to call for help. See, when there is an emergency, the first thing you do is call the police and they'll take care of it. If someone's hurt, they would call the hospital. But if neither of them is there, then no one can be helped so that makes them vulnerable. If they were going to contact anyone, helps too far away to get accessed from except one place that's near Foggy Bottom," Ryder explained.

"The Lookout!" Zuma and Chase exclaimed, now understanding.

"Exactly. Whoever is doing this, they know that the Lookout would be the center of command for crime and medical work so if the Paw Patrol is down then they can easily take over both Foggy Bottom and Adventure Bay," he finalized.

"So you'we saying that if we awe… dead, then the bad guys could take ovew evewything?" Zuma gulped.

"Yup."

"Wow, that came out a little too cheerfully," Sebastian chuckled.

"I'm not saying that it's a good thing but now that we found a motive, we could start looking for the guys who did this and take them to jail," Ryder clarified with a slight eye roll.

"But how are we going to do that? There are over two hundred people in this town, very different from the usual eight we rescue," Chase pointed out. "All the evidence that whoever did this is destroyed from the cameras that the buildings had."

"Or," Ryder began. "We could use the same techniques we used for the murder a few days ago. There has to be some witness or security cameras near here."

"It did wowk last time," Zuma nodded.

"Alright, so where do we go?" Chase asked.

"Um, I'm not too sure. We are still unfamiliar around here since we only came here to drop off criminals and that's it. Sebastian, you, on the other hand, lived here so you must know where places, where cameras can be used, should be."

"Way to put me on the spot there, amigo, but luckily for you, you are correct. There is a grocery store around the corner to the left and a gas station to the right. The hospital there is a convenient store near there. All of these places should have cameras on their property," Sebastian told.

"Perfect. Chase and Sebastian, you two will take the hospital while Zuma and I check here," Ryder instructed. He put on a grin, knowing what was going to come next, and so did the others.

"Paw Patrol is on a roll!"

To be continued...