It was deeply unsettling to realize the end of all humanity was sleeping in a tiny, harmless little egg. As the dogs traveled further into Feroxmalis's nest, a writhing ecosystem of fear and nightmares, they uncovered a secret that shook them all to the core. The monster was producing offspring, laying dozens of eggs in the dark corners of its hive. One creature alone was able to cause enough damage that military intervention was required, several of them at once would mean catastrophe for the human race.
"I've counted at least fifty," Rocky whined, scanning his eyes for the small, fleshy capsules.
Zuma gazed into an egg, peering through its glossy soft exterior, "does this mean the creature's a female?"
"No!" Liberty snapped, "it… it's not supposed to be!" She shook her head in panic, trying to process the situation, "it can't lay eggs, it was deliberately engineered not to!"
"Engineered?" Rocky looked up, tilting his head.
"Genetically." She explained, "one of the first things they did, too. They didn't want… this," she pointed her paw at an egg, "they knew it multiplying would be a disaster. There's a lot of… science stuff involved, so the short explanation here is," she said simply, "it can't lay eggs."
"But they're right here!" Chase came to her side, staring into her avoiding gaze, "what else do you call this?"
"I don't know," Liberty hissed, "I don't know how to explain this!"
The group was stewing in discomfort, Liberty was visibly beginning to break down. The Shepherd beside her tried to calm her down, usually a gesture of comfort, but there was a distinct lack of care in his move. The police dog was once a great leader, he was so sure the static in his head was gone, but there were times he wasn't so sure. Zuma could see it all, watching his old friend, narrowing his eyes as he analyzed the Shepherd's movement.
"Rocky," the Lab slowly walked over to the mix, speaking in a low voice, "can I talk to you, like, over there?" He pointed his brown paw to a far corner of the living hallway, a faint sense of urgency in his voice.
The mix turned away from the small egg he was investigating, finding the odd hum that emitted from it strangely alluring. Marshall was still slightly clinging to him, even with all four paws occupied he still made effort to wrap his tail around at least Rocky's leg. The Dalmation was utterly horrified by every sight that met his eyes and seriously doubted whether or not he'd ever get sleep again.
"What is it?" Rocky had to tug his leg from Marshall's grasp, walking with Zuma into a dark corner.
The mix was caught off guard as Zuma suddenly got against the wall, motioning for his friend to get closer. Glancing to the side in case someone was listening, the Lab spoke in a hushed voice, "keep your voice down."
Rocky leaned his head in, "why are we whispering?"
The Lab snuck another look back at the group, "well besides the fact that I'm pretty sure that creature is skulking around the nest as we speak, Chase isn't exactly being quiet." He narrowed his eyes.
"I noticed you've been a little…" Rocky trailed off, wincing as he tried to find the words.
The coast guard immediately caught on to his friend's tone, "a what? I've been what?" A growl emitted from his muzzle.
"Hostile?"
Zuma raised an eyebrow at the word, slightly baring his teeth, "and why do you think I've been hostile?"
"I don't know!" The mix said defensively, "we're trapped in hell down here, my paws are soaked in God-knows-what, you think I have time to think?" He shook his grey head, "what's so important to talk about that we have to whisper?"
Having seen horrid things, the deaths of two beloved friends, and the animal-to-end-all-animals rising in their front yard, Zuma was forced to put aside his personal thoughts and follow the team. It wasn't until now that he finally found someone he could talk to, someone he could share his suspicions about a member of the term.
"I'm not an idiot, Rocky," Zuma muttered, "but Chase seems to think I am." He thought back to hours before Feroxmalis emerged when he met the Shepherd in the rain desiring answers. He knew something was off, and he certainly knew he was being lied to. "He thinks he's controlling us," the Lab hissed, "he thinks we're going to follow everything he says because he wears the shiny badge."
"Zuma, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying, Chase is lying about Skye," the Lab insisted, "he had to have been. I've been watching him, Rocky, I've been reading his movements, his eyes, I've been seeing it all." He took a breath, lowering his tone so as to not come off as insane, "he said he knew she was infected, but she wasn't, then he lied to all of us and tried to pretend she was."
"What makes you think this?" Rocky leaned in further, bewildered at the information being thrown at him, "he's been doing nothing but trying to help us."
"Of course he is!" The Lab insisted, "Chase is a pathological liar, he lies in a perfect way, building a realistic scenario that we can buy into, and eventually he himself starts believing his own words! Liberty said the creature doesn't jump bodies, and if it did, it would leave a helluva mess behind. If it was Skye, Feroxmalis would've either emerged in the Lookout at the very moment or killed Chase when he was alone with the body!"
"Zuma, you-" the mix looked to the mushy floor, "do you honestly think Chase would murder her?"
"I… I don't think it was supposed to be murder," he confessed, looking to the side with a hint of sympathy for his police friend, "but he bet our lives on blind chance, and then lied when he guessed wrong." Flexing his paws, Zuma felt malice come over him, "I can't stand idly by, knowing he may have done this and won't admit it, I swear I secretly hoped he would've died in those vents."
"What?" Rocky exclaimed, his voice beginning to rise, "why would you want that?"
"He's becoming a danger to us, Rocky, remember how he nearly pulled the gun on me just because I learned to talk normally? What else is he going to convince himself into doing under the guise of it being the right thing?" He let out a sigh, "I don't even know what the right thing is anymore, but I do know one thing: We need to kill the monster."
"Of course we do," the mix ruffled his fur, "but it's practically invincible."
"No, it isn't," Zuma held his gaze, "you saw it retreat when Liberty threw that flaming bottle. It was hurt, Rocky, it's afraid of fire because, like all living things, fire will kill it."
"So what are you proposing?"
"I've been spotting gasoline canisters all over the basement," Zuma put a paw to his chin, remembering the metal containers he found in the corners of rooms, "my guess is, they're meant for our vehicles and just were never recovered from down here. If we can flood those around the basement, turn this whole place into a flaming inferno, it'll kill Feroxmalis and destroy its eggs."
"But that'll destroy the Lookout, won't it?" Rocky whined.
"Of course it will," he growled, "but would you rather have this tower over our lives?"
Lowering his head, Rocky wanted to argue but knew he couldn't. The Lookout was a prized piece that made them who they were, a landmark one could see and recognize as the home base for the Paw Patrol. To destroy it would shatter a part of their very soul, but it was arguable that the deaths of Rubble and Skye had already done so.
"Alright," the mix sighed then nodded, "but are we being secretive about this?"
"Because if Chase finds out, he'll try to stop us," Zuma narrowed his eyes, briefly gazing back at the Shepherd who was still griping with Liberty, "who knows, the very thought of one of us acting on free will seems to agitate him. He likes being the one in control, and the idea of destroying the Lookout could make him kill us too."
He turned back to his friend, "I'll let Liberty in on this, but don't tell Marshall, he'll certainly spill it to Chase. For now, just keep quiet, and follow my lead."
As the two dogs returned to the group, they came across Chase carrying an egg on his back, an action that caused Marshall to immediately back up six feet away from him. They had already continued walking through the disgusting hallway, their horrific sightseeing finished. Zuma was already leering at the Shepherd, although he hated the thought of being hostile to him. At heart, it pained Zuma greatly to go behind Chase's back, but he wasn't sure if he knew the Shepherd anymore.
"Put that thing down before it breaks all over you!" Liberty looked back, quietly snapping at the Shepherd behind her.
"Fine," Chase lowered his hanches for a moment, letting the egg roll off into a puddle of goo, "but I thought you want something to take home to the Archline Foundation."
"It's absorbing living creatures, right?" Rocky piped up, "what if it consumed something that makes eggs, and somehow inherited the trait?"
"Like a frog?" Chase narrowed his eyes, "but even frogs need a mate before they lay eggs, are you saying it somehow inseminated itself?"
Zuma met Chase's words, quickly challenging them with his own, "all this assuming it can inherit genetic traits to begin with."
"Or it could be evolving," Liberty added as she walked, turning her head as Zuma ran up beside her, pushing past Chase. "It's still a living creature," she added, "I'm not surprised if its own body is trying to restore what we engineered out, that's just kind of how nature works."
"Are you happy with yourself?" Chase flattened his ears as he caught up to the group, "your 'Foundation' and their genetic fuckin' experiments? Bet you're getting some really nice numbers and field data from all this, don't mind all the people dying."
"I didn't want this, and neither did they!" She shot back, "sure, they're opportunistic, but we didn't just decide to let out that thing!"
"Hey, I think we're nearing an intersection here," Marshall pointed his spotted paw out, causing the group, "at least… I think."
With the walls slathered in gummy, wet biomass sludge, it was nearly impossible to make it out any kind of door or window behind it. As the five dogs walked into the intersection, the walls transitioned into a flaky, darker shade of red, black grime bleeding from millions of tiny holes in the walls. It had the texture of almost a sponge if it was left to soak for years in a dirty bucket of mold and rancid water. Every hole seemed to be pulsating as if it was alive and hungry for whatever it called a meal.
"I'm going to throw up," Marshall said, placing a paw on the spongy surface that coated the ground.
Rocky let a chuckle slip, "wouldn't be too far from what's already on the floor."
The front path ended in what appeared to be a wall of brown, hair-like vines that tangled down from the ceiling. Rocky pushed himself through it and found a thin wall of what appeared to be dried bodily fluid, hardening mid-drip and forming a barrier that closed off whatever path was behind it. Although the organic wall seemed solid, it was incredibly brittle, as the mix noted small pieces of its lower section that had broken off.
"I think there's supposed to be a path here," he turned back to the group, "but whatever… this, is," he motioned with his paw at the disgusting barrier, "is blocking it. We could probably break through it."
"Not with our bare paws," Zuma said as he walked off to the right.
Chase approached the left path, an odd eagerness to stay away from Liberty that he couldn't explain. The left hallway wasn't as mangled as he assumed it would be, with only a few eggs laying around and the usual sight of gore plastered on every surface. Taking a few sniffs of the air, he could faintly catch the scent of motor oil. The entrance to Ryder's Garage, it had to be through there.
On the right side, there was a large archway that gave access to an entirely new hallway, one that thankfully wasn't blocked. Zuma hesitated as he took a step down it, however, the corridor took a horrific form. The faint flickers from the overhead lights, weak little lightbulbs that struggled to push their warm glow through the flesh and muscle that had grown over them, were illuminating what he thought was metal scattered all around the hallway. Squinting his eyes, the puppy quickly took a step back at the realization that it wasn't metal at all: It was bone.
Several small bone growths had sprouted in the hallway like a festering pathogen, the walls, ceiling, and not even the floor were safe. It was like the corridor had teeth, hundreds of them, all waiting for whatever was foolish enough to walk in.
"Is this still our basement?!" Zuma whipped around, his face stricken with fear.
"Indeed," came Liberty's exasperated reply, "but whatever Feroxmalis is spreading down here, it's completely out of control. It's like a whole living thing is growing in here."
Marshall gagged as he approached the tangled jungle of hairs Rocky had addressed, "the basement may as well be a living thing now."
"Well that does mean one thing," Zuma gulped, turning back to the teeth-filled hallway, "we gotta get through all this if we're going to escape, this has to lead somewhere." He made haste over to the wall beside the archway, trying to look past the dried matter and veins for any semblance of the actual wall underneath.
"You're not actually going down there are you?" Came the fearful squeak of a Dalmation.
"We have to go somewhere," Chase pointed out, "I think Ryder's garage is down here, let's take this way."
Zuma nearly jumped at the chance to shoot down the Shepherd, "or, we could walk down here instead."
"A hallway full of teeth? Are you insane?"
"You don't know what's down there," the Lab fired back, "and just because it's gone to hell down here, doesn't mean the rooms themselves have changed! We could actually find something we need!"
Marshall joined the debate, "but Feroxmalis is still hunting us!" He whimpered, running toward Chase, "I want out of here, and if this is the way to go, it's where I'll be."
Zuma growled at his friends' attempts to hijack control, a snarl almost escaping him. The Dachshund standing in the middle quickly took heed of the growing hostility among the dogs, and jumped in to break it up, "we'll go as groups, how about that? We find what we can then meet back in the middle."
"But we don't have any way of talking to one another," Chase said, lowering his ears sightly, "the storm killed the connection in our collars."
"How did it do that exactly?" Rocky chipped in, "storms don't just turn off closed connections."
Zuma rolled his eyes, growing tired of the chaos, "I'm just as lost as you, dude,"
"Groups it is then," Chase let his tail wag a little, "Marshall can come with me, Zuma and Rocky can-"
"Oh no, no no no," he was cut off as the Labrador suddenly came over from the other side of the room, "I'll take Marshall, you can have Rocky." Not in a million years was he going to allow Chase to be alone with Marshall, he would take whatever measure he needed to prevent it. The Dalmation was to be protected at all costs, both from Feroxmalis and whatever Chase was turning into. Although Marshall was giving him a weird look, he shrugged and went along with it, hastily making his way over to Zuma.
Chase couldn't hide his bristled fur, if his paws weren't covered in bodily muck everyone would see his claws flexing. Still, he held his tongue, for now, he was still trying to get a read on what Zuma's game was. The Lab was gleaming in satisfaction as his spotted friend took his side, while Rocky went over to the Shepherd.
"What if it spots us?" The mix openly worried, "what chance would we have?"
"All you can do is hide," Liberty chose to walk with Chase's group, "and pray to God it doesn't smell you."
As the Paw Patrol disbanded into their select groups, traveling down separate paths each seeking a goal, the creature had returned to where it suffered the piercing pain of fire. It was angry, furious that the prey bit back. It could hear the call of its young, even from deep within its eggs they emitted fearful weeps of unwelcome dogs straying into the nest. Snarling in rage, it roared out and swiped its claws into a door. The wood held, but just barely, as the sharp appendages shredded through and sent shrapnel flying. Screeching out, the creature swiped again, this time completely destroying the obstacle before it. Lowering to all fours, it scampered into the darkness, charging back to its hive.
"Why the hell would he not let me take Marshall?" Chase wondered aloud as they walked, "what's even the problem?" Beside him, Rocky was watching his friend closely, seemingly as if he was scanning for something amiss.
"I think you're reading too much into that," he tried to defuse the Shepherd, "give Zuma a break, we're all seeing crazy shit today, and some take it differently."
The officer rolled his eyes, "well, I'm the leader here, and he can't-"
A loud thunk of pounding sheet metal echoed throughout the ceiling, causing all three dogs to stop at once. The sound of claws dragging across the interior of a vent tore into their ears, and they knew right away what was coming.
"Oh God," Liberty paled, backing up as her voice went low. Frantically she looked around for something to wedge under or behind, but to her silent dismay, she saw nothing but the biomass that plagued the corridors.
Rocky flattened himself against the wall, "where do we hide?!"
Static churned in Chase's mind, an odd reoccurring effect he was beginning to notice. The presence of the monster brought confusion and anxiety directly into the minds of those before it, forcing the Shepherd to shake his head at the noise before he fainted. Thinking quickly, Chase grabbed Liberty, resulting in a surprising yip coming from the Dachshund, and nearly tossed her to Rocky. With both dogs against the wall, the Shepherd jumped up and latched his teeth into the veins that glided along the fleshy gore, already flooding his mouth with a rotten, murky taste as he yanked the veins down. The entire portion of biomass quickly collapsed, splatting on top of the mix and Dachshund, completely obscuring them from view. Resisting the urge to retch from the foul mess in his mouth, Chase searched quickly for anywhere he could hide. A thump could be heard from above, as the gore had likely grown over the vent entrance and barred Feroxmalis from entering. Undeterred, the creature slithered out its tentacles and stabbed them through the fleshy blockade. The Shepherd flinched as he darted his gaze upward, witnessing the tentacles dance through and grip the small hole it had created, the creature snarling as it stretched open the passageway, providing a way inside.
Slowly falling into a panic, Chase knew he had mere seconds. His eyes fell upon a pile of eggs sitting against a darker side of the corridor. Acting purely on impulse, the puppy sprinted over to the egg and sunk his teeth into it, puncturing the smooth, warm sack and tearing it open. Murky, amber-colored liquid spilled out and splashed into his face, and a small body floated out from the sack. The infant was merely an oversized worm, yet it wriggled as its underdeveloped body was exposed to the air. A squeak escaped the lump before the baby went limp. Chase grabbed the now-empty egg sack, gagged over the stench, and pulled it over himself like a bag.
Feroxmalis roared as it birthed itself from the ceiling, placing its front legs down as it took its place in the room. Its tentacles remained stuck in the ceiling for a moment, as it savored the few seconds of being merged with metal and steel. It took great pride in its nest, bleeding out infection from its body simply by being there. The only fur-covered part of its body, the shredded dog skin mask it sadistically donned, was now stained red and was rotting as the flesh had begun to wither away. It turned around in place, observing its environment as it smelled anything foreign.
Underneath his egg sac, Chase shivered in place. Hot albumen fluid was dripping down from the inside, clouding his nose and forcing him to twitch his ears to keep anything from leaking in them. He didn't dare move, as he couldn't see where the creature was looking. A single twitch of the muscle could alert it, and a sinking feeling told the Shepherd it wouldn't be happy about one of its babies being prematurely killed. His heart nearly stopped when Feroxmalis leaned down and nosed his egg, tapping its mangled muzzle into its side. He didn't know if it had seen the forced-born infant, but judging from the loud roar Feroxmalis lashed at the egg, he knew it probably had a general idea.
Rocky had to keep his paw over his muzzle to keep himself from screaming. Despite being buried in blood and gore, a small slit gave him a window to peek out. He witnessed Feroxmalis investigate each egg, passing over Chase's disguise. The smell of the broken eggs and the room itself was possibly smothering their own scents, leaving the creature unable to sniff them out. Rocky watched it lean up gazing off in the distance for a moment when it turned and walked away from the eggs. He thought the coast was clear when it suddenly stopped moving, standing aimlessly in the middle of the hallway. It suddenly lowered its haunches, squatting its rear down, and a hiss filled the air. Flicking its bony tail out of the way, its lower organs began to rearrange themselves, folding and contorting over others. A long, red tube extended out from below the base of the tail, reaching almost to the ground. The creature quivered for a moment, then an egg was squeezed out, rolling along the floor for a millisecond before coming to a stop. Standing up straight again, Feroxmalis stumbled as if it was in mild pain, then retracted the tube and reset its organs to their usual position. Flattening its ears and screeching into the darkness, a declaration of its young, the creature charged off, hunting down the dogs it sought to tear apart.
-.-.-.-.-
Rocky and Liberty slowly pulled themselves free from the pile they were hiding under, both of them now sporting bloodstained fur. It would never wash out, and Rocky's grey coat was in danger of being permanently stained. Liberty tried to shake herself off as Rocky went to peel Chase from his egg prison.
"You okay?" Zuma looked at the Dalmation, his eyes filled with worry.
The dogs were traveling down the mouth of terror, literally, in a corridor lined with ingrown teeth. How in the world they were able to grow in was anyone's guess. Feroxmalis's own twisted biology was leeching into The Lookout, transforming it into an entirely new living being. If something wasn't done soon, the biomass would consume the entire tower.
"No, far from it," Marshall sighed, climbing over a bloody tooth, "I... I hate this, I hate all of this."
"I don't blame you."
"I'll take Foggy Bottom, I'll take Mayor Humdinger, I'll take batshit anything over this," the Dalmation shook his head, I'll face every fear in the phobia lexicon over being in a place like this." He quivered, glancing at the perverted dental artwork that surrounded them in the dark, "so... why didn't you let me go with Chase?"
Hesitating for a brief second, the Labrador wondered whether or not he should let Marshall in on the plan to turn the basement into an oven. It would be irrational not to, but it would lead to the other half of the secret: the distrust of Chase. Zuma wasn't fully aware if the Shepherd was a lost cause or not, a part of him prayed he wasn't, but another part was ready to throw Chase into the flames if it meant saving everyone else.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," Zuma lied, although it wasn't entirely untruthful, "Chase can be intense, he usually leaves a trail of chaos behind him. I thought you probably could've used a break from all that."
In spite of the horrors that covered his paws in goo and stained his fur red, Marshall managed to let a small smile peel into his face, "thanks Zuma, I'm glad we have you."
The Lab whispered his reply so his partner couldn't hear, "I swear, you guys need me."
The hallway begin to narrow around them as they continued walking, the biomass infection was so severe in this sector that was beginning to overgrow itself. Just walking down it was becoming a tight squeeze, as unidentifiable fluid, fleshy pink matter, and loose hairs sticking out glided over their backs. Marshall swore he saw a long, bulbous slit in the wall that could've been a closed eye. Neither of them stuck around long enough to see if it actually was. After a few minutes, a faint, low gurgling noise vibrated throughout the area. Zuma assumed it was just the air conditioning struggling to work around the infection that clogged the vents, but Marshall's mind was only further convinced that the ground they walked on was in fact alive.
Eventually, they came to the end of the hallway, but it was only an end as far as they could tell, as they couldn't find anything that symbolized a continuing path.
"A dead end," Marshall whimpered as they approached a large cluster of boils and flesh, "Chase was right."
Zuma wasn't so sure, the Labrador took a few steps closer and sniffed the amalgamation of gore. It couldn't be the end, a reasonable person didn't build a whole hallway that led to nothing, there had to be something behind it.
"Don't be so quick to assume that Chase is always in the right," he quipped, trying to get the point across to Marshall, "he tends to overlook things." Reaching his paws in, he wedged a passageway open and pushed his head through. It was severely uncomfortable to enter and he feared his own ribs would be crushed as the biomass pressed onto him at all sides. His movement speed was forced to decrease, as he pushed farther and farther through dark, tougher mass. He was relentless, and finally reached his paw out and pushed aside the flesh and veins as far as he could ahead of him. Light flooded over his face, bleeding in from a tiny exit opening he was just barely able to reach. "Hey, Marshall?" He called behind him.
"Still here," the Dalmation kept his distance, "are you okay in there? It's kinda closing in around you."
"You're gonna hate this, but you gotta follow me in here."
"What?!"
"There's a room behind here!" Zuma struggled to say, physically unable to turn around his body, "just trust me, keep pushing forward, and don't stop moving!"
"I... I" Marshall tried to reach a paw forward, flicking his eyes over the mass of gore he was supposed to climb into, "I don't know about this!" His breathing quickened, his heartbeat increasing with every step closer he took.
The sound of a screeching roar echoed behind him, bouncing off the walls from far back and finally hitting the Dalmation. Feroxmalis was incoming, making Marshall immediately bite his tongue and wince. Taking a deep breath, the puppy forced himself to move forward and wedge his muzzle into the cold, soggy muscle. Zuma managed to birth himself from the mass, falling into a large room of tables and computers. It seemed to be some kind of tech room, and the infection, although it was crawling along the floor, hadn't yet fully consumed everything in the area. Some metal cabinets lined the walls, their metal doors concealing whatever secret lay within them.
Turning around, he reached his brown paw back into the red cavern, and he felt Marshall's nose blindly smack against it. A muffled scream emitted as the Dalmation mistook the paw for a monster. After a few seconds, Zuma felt his paw get grabbed, and the Lab pulled his friend free.
Marshall tumbled into the room clumsily, his white fur slathered in a bloody red, "ugh, thanks." It was obvious he was biting back tears and trying to hold his panic within. "Where are we?"
"Not sure," Zuma looked back at the room, looking over an old wooden desk with a laptop sitting on it. The metal folding chair that was probably supposed to accompany it was tossed aside. He left Marshall and walked over to the cabinets, clicking the first one open with his paw. There was nothing noteworthy inside, save for some loose papers and pens missing their caps. Unsatisfied, the Lab went to the second and was surprised when he found a box full of pup tags.
"What the-" he picked one up and held up it. The small tag didn't have its logo glued on yet, it was merely a grey badge with a small, dangling loop to be attached to a collar. There had to have been at least a dozen in the box, and Zuma realized this was probably where they were made and programmed. Shrugging to himself he tossed the tag back in the box and shut the door.
"Find anything?" Marshall said, looking up at one of the computers, trying to jump on the desk.
"Not yet," the Lab walked to a third door and opened it. Inside the cabinet was a small, rectangular device. It looked like a walkie-talkie, but there were seven antennas reaching out of the top, and no sign of a microphone or speaker. He narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what the technology was as he turned it around in his paws. Turning it to the side, Zuma spotted a small metal switch and a blinking green light. Curious, the Lab slowly moved his paw onto the switch, and after a few seconds of thinking, flicked to the other side.
The green light turned off.
Suddenly, a low beeping noise could be heard coming from his collar. Zuma blinked in confusion as he dropped the device and moved a paw to his neck, trying to feel the metal tag for anything wrong. The beeping lasted only two seconds, then went quiet.
"What the hell was that?" He asked, tapping the collar.
"What was what?" Rocky's voice suddenly came through it.
"I don't know," Zuma frowned, "my collar just made a noise and-" the Lab stopped in his tracks, freezing on the spot. Marshall had also stopped in surprise, whipping around as he heard the conversation. The coast guard had to stifle his breathing for a moment as he physically shook, then spoke again, "Rocky... our collars are working again!"
"They... are?" Chase spoke into his radio, "what the fuck? What happened?"
"We can talk to each other again!" Marshall jumped in joy, elated that communication was restored.
"But how?" Rocky continued, "our collars were beeping for a second, then they just... turned on?"
Struggling to understand what had happened, Zuma turned back to the odd device he dropped to the floor. He leaned down and sniffed it for a moment, and a sinking feeling hit him as he realized the object's significance.
Marshall was wagging his now-red tail, "how are you guys doing over there?"
"Fucking awful," Chase hissed into his mic, "what about you?"
The Lab stood up straight, hundreds of thoughts running through his head. He knew what the device was, and revealing it only caused more questions than answers, casting them further into the dark rabbit hole than he preferred to be.
"We were jammed," he said, shaking his head, "I found this... thing hidden in a tech room. I shut it off, and suddenly we can magically talk again."
Liberty's voice was heard from Rocky's line, "maybe the storm stopped?"
"No, Liberty," the Lab growled, "we were jammed, on purpose. Someone planted this thing here to cut off our communications."
"Who the hell would do that?!" Chase snarled, "who would even have the chance to do that?"
"No idea," Zuma said, exhaling in annoyance, "it wasn't any of us, that's for sure."
"You think someone snuck in here? I would've caught them!"
"Well you didn't fucking catch Liberty, did you Chase?" The Lab bit back, "and she was here for a significant amount of time before she was locked in the basement."
"Okay," Rocky said, "I think Liberty has some questions to answer then," he hissed those last words, possibly from turning his gaze to the Dachshund, glaring at her. Chase went quiet, resisting the urge to shoot back an insult.
"What if wasn't her?" Marshall came over to his friend, "what if it was the ACG?"
"That wouldn't make sense, given how much they're already trying to help us, according to Chase." The Lab bit yet another jab at the Shepherd's act of keeping his alignment with the military party from them.
"Well, besides Liberty, who else could've planted it?" Rocky came through again.
Zuma narrowed his eyes, looking to the floor as he tried to think of a culprit. One name had already hit his mind, but he was fighting himself to keep it down. It hurt him to think it, stabbed into his heart to even fathom one of the worst betrayals he could imagine. Sighing in defeat, he listened to his friends argue for a moment, before simply uttering the name:
"Ryder."