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Chapter 20: The End of a Long Day
Rocky knocked on the door to room 105. He had just recently found the blueprints he was looking for and had started searching for Everest. It swung open on its own and he peeked his head in. "Hey, Gizmo, have you seen-" His eyes widened in surprise. The recycling pup had been about to ask Gizmo where Everest was, but he found her doing the one thing he didn't expect her to be doing. Namely, sitting in the room with Gizmo holding a conversation.
"Oh, hey Rocky!" Everest interjected, "Look at this geothermal turbine thing that Gizmo is working on. It's pretty interesting."
Rocky cocked his head as he walked inside, "Geothermal turbine? Oh, yeah, I remember you saying you were working on a way to power that down." He took a gander at the holographic screen that Gizmo sat by. "Is that a pressure adjustment valve to turn the input on and off?"
"Yeah," Gizmo sighed. "I might have to start over though."
"Isn't that overcomplicating it a bit? If you're only planning on turning it on and off once, you could just drain the fluid from the turbine and refill it, which would accomplish the same effect."
"Oh, that's a really good point," the Labrador responded, "I never thought of that. That's really smart." Holding out his paw, he first moved it in a circle then swiped it to the left, pulling up a fresh simulation. "Alright, let's see how this would work…"
"Could you just pull out that pipe at the inlet?" Everest suggested.
Rocky shook his head. "Not unless you want to get steamed to a crisp. It'd be better to take out the pipe right before the pump or compressor, where it should be either water or some other cooler liquid."
"Someone knows something about thermodynamic cycles!" Gizmo observed, somewhat impressed.
"Well, only some about Rankine and Carnot, but not much else."
"Ah, okay. Yeah, the turbine uses a modified Rankine for obvious reasons. I do use some Carnot engines in some things though."
Rocky's eyes widened, "You have some? They exist?!"
"Good catch. No, not really, but it's the closest approximation to it physically possible. How do you know about thermodynamics?"
"Well, I'm the team engineer and mechanic. It's my job. Everyone else is an expert in their own field. Zuma can talk circles around me with tides and marine biology, Rubble knows more about infrastructure than anyone I've ever met, and Everest knows ice, snow, and mountain terrain like nobody else. She's able to navigate anything, even in places she's never been in before."
Everest's ears flattened at the praise. "Well, it happens when you have to survive on your own out in the wilderness."
"Everyone has their own talents and they're good at them. You're clearly a much better scientist and inventor than any of us, but that doesn't mean we won't know a thing or two once in a while. You could probably talk with Skye about aviation, and I'm sure Marshall would love discussing engines with you."
"Engines? I never knew that about him," Everest piped in, her curiosity piqued.
"Oh yeah. He enjoys racing and watches it every now and then. He likes to keep up on the latest news."
"I would never have thought that about Marshall. He seemed pretty low profile and shy I guess," the scientist admitted.
"I guess you'd have to be pretty gutsy to jump into burning buildings for a living," observed Everest.
"Huh," Gizmo mused, "Well maybe I'll talk to him about it sometime."
"Speaking about the others, I called Rubble when I found the blueprints, and he said they'd be over soon. We finished getting the Air Patroller into the hangar, and the others said they wanted to check out the Shield Sphere and wanted to ask you how to get there since it's underground. You can go ahead and tell them when you're done with that. Though… you don't have a pup tag, so nevermind, I guess…"
"Oh, I'm already finished with this. As you said, it's a simple pipe removal right here. And I'm sure I could just hack into your system, but judging from that noise, I'm not sure I need to."
As he was speaking, the sound of running paws echoed through the entrance. Rubble, Tracker, Zuma, Chase, and Skye came skidding through the door laughing, yipping, and panting. After the giggles died down, they heard a familiar voice call from the hallway, "Wait for me! WOOOOooooaaaaahhh!"
A furry, floppy comet came bolting through the door and bowled through the panting pups like ninepins. The Dalmation vainly attempted to stop his tumbling as he hurtled toward Gizmo. The Lab's eyes widened at the realization of the impending collision, and he quickly activated his shoes and jumped out of harm's way. Marshall groaned as he slammed into the holographic table where the black dog had been. Rocky, who had been spared from the fire pup's fiasco, ran over next to Everest.
"Marshall!"
"Are you okay?"
Gizmo landed behind Marshall and helped him up. "Does this type of thing normally happen to you?"
The spotted dog nodded as he stood up, "Yeah. It's a somewhat common occurrence…"
"So is that how you got your cast?"
Marshall froze, unable to speak. "Uhhhhh…"
Everest came to his rescue, "Oh, he got that racing into a burning building to save me."
Gizmo's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "Why were you inside a burning building?"
Everest shook her head shamefully, "You know, sometimes I ask myself the same question."
"You were doing a final inspection of the interior of the building, making sure there wasn't anything important left inside. You told us that yourself. It's not your fault," Rocky reminded her.
"It was a condemned building though. It didn't need another inspection. In fact, it shouldn't have had one, it was too dangerous, and I put Marshall in harm's way and he got hurt because of it," Everest argued.
Marshall joined in, "But it was my job to make sure everyone was safe. It's my fault it happened and you almost got trapped in there. That's the only reason I had to go in, got stuck, and had to be-"
Rocky cut him off in the nick of time, "Stop arguing about it; it doesn't matter whose fault it was. What matters is that both of you are okay now, so we can let it go." Marshall and Everest sighed.
"Sorry."
"Yeah, you're right…"
"Speaking of being okay," Gizmo cut in, "you could probably take the cast off now, considering your tumble there didn't hurt it."
"It has been a few weeks," Marshall considered. "It could be healed by now. I'll check it tonight."
"Speaking of tonight," Chase interrupted as he approached the group, "the sun is setting. We should get back to Ryder like we told him we would."
Everyone looked out the window. The sky glowed a faint orange-yellow to the West, though it was hard to see from their angle.
"Yeah," Everest agreed, "We should probably go back now. Do you want to come with us, Gizmo?"
The black pup shook his head, "No, I'll sleep later. I'll show you guys the Shield Sphere in the morning, though. It was- It was nice talking to you."
Everest smiled, "Same to you! See you tomorrow!" Everyone else echoed the farewell and filed out of the room as Gizmo returned to his work.
Rocky spoke to Everest as they walked down the hallway, "So was that…?" he whispered.
"Was that what?" Everest whispered back in confusion. Then she realized what he was insinuating. "What?! No, there's nothing between us. Don't forget he shot me last night and trapped us all in a net this morning. Aside from that he's way younger than me."
"Okay," Rocky replied. "Are you sure, though?" he teased.
The snow pup whispered back, "Yes, I'm sure because- because I'm sure. Tracker quit eavesdropping."
"You know I can't really help it," the potcake hollered from the front of the group, causing a few confused glances in his direction. Luckily he didn't mind.
"I know…" Everest sighed. Rocky raised an eyebrow but discerned it was best not to tease any further. He could tell Everest was sincere that she didn't like Gizmo, but he could tell she wasn't comfortable with the subject for some reason. The group of pups continued down the hallway and exited the building on their way to the hangar, where Ryder was waiting for them. Only one light remained as the sun sank, casting the city into darkness; the light of the holographic table as Gizmo worked on through the night.
Time management is surprisingly complicated in stories, especially in immensely busy days like this one. Writing this chapter I kept having to remind myself that this was only day two of their stay on the island. (I'm very glad most of the two weeks will go by with them working on the Air Patroller. Lol) It also makes me scarred for some of the upcoming stories. If one day can occupy twelve chapters, then whooo boy are some of my stories going to be doozies to write. It'll be so fun though. Also, in case people start getting ideas, I decided to re-emphasize that Everest x Gizmo is not nor will be a ship. Just a natural friendship. I also found it useful to go back to some chapter 1 stuff and better explain why Everest was in the building. The first few chapters were less clearly written than what I'd like, so instead of going back and editing them I'm making up for it now.
Final note, I showed my younger sisters this story and one of them liked it enough that they started writing some one-shots based on ideas I had shared with her. They were a great inspiration for me (some of them so great they're going to be included in the story almost word for word), and she did so well that she's now been promoted to assistant author, writing on some things when she wants to, starting with this chapter. Thank her for the beautiful paragraphs where Marshall cannonballed into the others.
