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Chapter 24: Ghosts of the Past
Ryder woke up. He could tell it was light out, but he rolled over, hugging the blanket he had closer around him. Thankfully Marshall's medical pack included one or he would have spent the night without one on the cold hard ground. As it was, he spent the night with one on the cold hard ground. The boy had trained himself to be able to sleep anywhere for emergency purposes, but his night was restless nonetheless. BZZZ. Ryder opened his eyes. That was his pup pad buzzing. The fifteen-year-old sat up, realizing he must have slept through his alarm. Rubbing his tired eyes with one hand, he reached over and grabbed his phone to check the notifications.
Jake: Thanks for the update, dude. That's insane what happened, man! Glad to hear she's okay. Glad you all are. Things are getting pretty hairy up here with that ice storm. I might have to go down the mountain if this keeps up.
Mom, Dad: Oh, it's so good to hear that. You're lucky to have such good pups looking out for you, and Adventure Bay is lucky to have you too. We're so proud of the work you do! We love you!
Ryder tapped on the notification and pushed the 'Reply' button before beginning to type. "Thanks Mom and Dad. I love you too!" He smiled as he pushed 'Send', contemplating on how lucky he was to have such supportive parents.
Carlos: Thx, cuz. Stay safe! Hope your leg heals soon! Glad Tracker is with you. Snow here has been bad. It's starting to look like Jakes mountain!
Cap'n Turbot: Sorry Ryder, Francois and I are already at Antarctica. We can't come close to your crashed crew for a couple of weeks at least. But I can promise plenty of penguin-y pictures!
Ryder chuckled at this one. Captain Turbot's way of working amazing alliterations into his daily dialogues always put a grin on the boy's face. He had figured Captain Turbot wouldn't be able to make it when he asked if they could come pick them up, but he figured it was worth trying to ask anyway. He texted back, "It's OK captain! We're figuring out something else. Can't wait to see pictures!" Then Ryder continued reading the notifications.
Katie: sure ill keep an eye out 4 trouble while ur gone. dont forget to enjoy urself while ur on ur little adventure!
"Don't worry I will. You don't forget to stay warm! The others are telling me the weather is bad. Wear your heavy coat if Mayor Goodway calls for you to catch her chicken again." Ryder messaged back.
Emergency notifications: Chase, Marshall, Skye, Rocky, Rubble, Zuma, Everest, and Tracker just completed a 32 minute drive. Their top speed was 412 mph.
Ryder almost choked as he read the last line. "What on earth?!" Ryder jumped up in alarm, forgetting about both his broken leg and the low ceiling. "Ow, ow, ow!" he cried as he fell back onto the ground, bruising his bottom in the process. He rubbed his head while looking at his cast. "I hope I didn't just turn this from a hairline fracture to something worse. Marshall wouldn't be happy to say the least." He bent his knee a couple times, testing to see if his lower leg hurt at all. Satisfied that it was alright, he grabbed his phone again and tapped on the last notification to see their route. "They circled around the island how many times?!"
"Let's see, I replaced the bad wiring, Marshall washed the windows, you ensured the electronics were intact and functioning, we replaced the external lights, the faulty controls were jimmy-rigged, after which you reconnected the supercapacitors, and we replaced the corroded main brakes with the spare ones. Thank goodness this train kept spare parts. Motors were fine, emergency systems were semi-fine, the frame didn't show any signs of corrosion, superconductors are fine… Anything else that needed done for this train?"
"Nope," Gizmo told Rocky, "Besides the door and the side panel, that should be everything that needed fixing. Honestly that was more work than I thought there would be. Someone was really slacking on maintenance. Thankfully it should be back in near perfect condition once I get it up and running again."
"And we got it all done in fifteen minutes!" Everest cheered. "That was really quick!"
BEEP BEEP! Everyone looked down as their tags chirped.
"What are you guys doing?!"
The pups glanced around at each other, not sure exactly what Ryder was looking for in their answer. "Um, making our way back to the city?" Chase questioned.
"No, why on earth did you go around the entire island over five times? And for that matter, how?"
Everyone started talking at once.
"We didn't mean to!"
"There was an accident!"
"The Bullet wouldn't stop!"
"We were on a runaway train!"
"It 'didn't need maintenance' for another year."
"We were going to see the shield!"
"It was totally crazy!"
"And Gizmo almost fell out!"
"And so did I!"
"And we caught him-"
"But I got soaked…"
"And then Gizmo walked onto the front of the train-"
"And Gizmo fell off the train!"
"I had to go get him-"
"And Skye saved him-"
"Then Skye stopped the train!"
"And now we're about to start our way back."
"And Gizmo might be a robot!"
All was silent for a moment until Ryder decided to speak, "I would have loved to understand that."
"Oh… Sorry, Ryder sir," Chase apologized for the group.
Ryder sighed audibly, "It's okay. Marshall, is anybody hurt?"
"Nope; everyone's safe and healthy, even Skye."
"Alright, good. Well, I can't wait to hear all about it when you get back; sounds like you had quite the adventure!"
"Oh we did!"
"Absolutely!"
"¡Claro que sí!"
"Totally, dude!"
"See you soon!"
"I'll see you pups when you get back!" Ryder said before closing the connection.
Gizmo turned to Zuma. "I thought we agreed I wasn't a robot."
Zuma smiled sheepishly, "Yeah… Sorry, dude. I guess I got caught up in the moment of telling everything that happened."
"Soooooo," Rubble began, "now that the safety check is done, what about heading back? I'm starving!"
"Rubble, you're always starving!" Skye giggled.
Gizmo nodded, "That's probably a good idea. Everyone go ahead and board." Everyone climbed on and got in their seats. "I'm going to take us slow at first. That way Tracker and Everest would be able to stop us at the next station if the brakes still don't work." After everyone nodded their understanding, Gizmo pushed the lever labeled "⠋⠜⠈⠀⠀⠮⠟⠖⠬", but only slightly. The train began moving forward at about twice the speed they could have run.
"Fixing this was so worth not having to walk the whole way back," Everest told the others.
"And it's not nearly as bad on my allergies anymore!" Chase smiled. "Thanks, Marshall!"
"No problem!" the Dalmatian replied cheerily. "I just sprayed water on it though. The others did the actual cleaning." Then Marshall remembered a question he had wanted to ask. "Oh, Gizmo, why didn't you use your force field thing?"
The black Labrador turned back to the group, "Oh, yeah, that. Well, the supercapacitor time constant is too small, despite the voltage magnitude, so it wouldn't have worked for the purpose. I need to find a way to extend the longevity of the charge without compromising the magnitude."
"Whaaaaaa…?" the fire pup trailed off, head angled to the side.
Rocky translated, "If I understand right, he says that the force field uses a large amount of power. So large that the force field can only be turned on for a few seconds at a time."
The other pups nodded in understanding. Gizmo turned to Rocky. "I'm glad somebody can understand me. That would drive me crazy otherwise."
"I know what you mean," Rocky admitted. "I used to have the same problem. At first only Ryder could understand me when I talked about mechanics and such, and half the time even he didn't get me. It took me a while to learn how to explain things to others. But then Rubble joined us. At first he didn't understand much of physics either, but once he started learning and reading into civil engineering to work towards that, I was actually able to talk to him about stuff like tensile strength and second order electrical systems. My best advice I can give you is to avoid using complicated words like 'oscillation' and 'magnitude'."
Gizmo blinked. "What's so complicated about magnitude?"
As time passed along, so did the train. With the windows cleaned from dust and the lights fixed, the pups joyfully watched their surroundings outside the Bullet. They passed several branches in the tracks which Gizmo revealed led to other stations towards the middle of the island, but he also clarified that some of them branched to more external regions of the land. "For example," he explained, "there's a path that goes around the north end of Mt. Ashton, and there's also a few dead ends. One of them in the Northeast part of the island would eject you directly out of the cliffside into the ocean if you aren't careful. My guess is the cliff there collapsed during construction of the tunnel. It makes for a beautiful view." Eventually they passed the station that led to the beach, giving the pups their first good look at a station platform from inside the train. As the entrance flew by, they could make out a series of large dots along the wall reading "⠝⠒⠬⠀⠐⠺⠻⠒⠂⠀⠐⠬⠆⠁⠞⠊⠁".
"Hey, what was that?" Skye asked.
"Those dots above? I saw that too!" Rubble commented.
"They looked like what's on the control panel," Rocky observed. "What language is that? It reminds me of braille, but it's not."
"It's not a language, but it is an alphabet. It uses a form of binary to represent letter combinations in what looks like braille. Braille only has a total possible sixty-three characters. This code includes an extra row of dots per letter, bringing it up to five-hundred-eleven symbols, of which it uses five-hundred-ten, built in letter pairs. I don't know why they used it instead of normal writing, but it seems to be some sort of more formal writing, I suppose. A lot of the lab reports and documents are written in it. As for that sign, it read 'East Point Station.' It's a very hard language to read. My guess is most people used translation devices. Coming up in a bit you'll see the one for the Shield Sphere and then the one for FIR, where we'll be stopping."
Zuma's face fell. "So we aren't going to see the Shield Sphere anymore?"
Gizmo shook his head. "Not after what happened, no. We should get back. You also promised Ryder you were on your way."
Rocky sighed, "That's what I figured… Oh well. We'll get to see it some other time."
As the pups pulled into FIR Station (aptly labeled "⠱⠀⠃⠀⠐⠬⠆⠁⠞⠊⠁"), they discussed what they should do next. Gizmo reminded them of his desire to finish repairing the Bullet Express, but informed them that after that he would get to work on the new wing. The others agreed to this, and Rocky told the others he would be able to put them to work fixing back up the Air Patroller. There was plenty of cleaning up to do. As the crew of eight left the subway system and padded over to their vehicles, Chase couldn't help but ask the crew a question.
"So, who else here got traumatized today?"
Rocky laughed, "I wouldn't exactly call it traumatizing, but I'm not used to having brushes with death…"
"I see dangerous stuff all the time on the mountain, but seeing you and Gizmo almost get sucked out of the train was terrifying," Everest admitted.
The recycling pup gasped in mock surprise, "Oh, that? Noooooooo… I was talking about getting wet!" Everyone laughed at his joke, brightening their moods significantly.
"On the bright side, we shouldn't have any more brushes with death until after we get back home," Skye pointed out.
"True!" Tracker agreed as he hopped into his Jeep. "The only ones that need rescuing here are ourselves!" Then the Potcake started his engine and began the drive back to the hangar.
As everyone else followed suit, Everest held Rocky back. Something Tracker had said reminded her of something, or rather, someone. "Hey, Rocky, remember how Gizmo said he wasn't brave?"
"Yeah?"
"And that he wasn't good at rescues?"
"You're thinking about what happened on the train, aren't you?"
"Yeah. He was really quick and ingenious in putting that panel in the way so you couldn't get pulled back out. And he was really brave when he went back outside to stop the train."
"You could say that…"
"What would you call it?"
"I think he was being a bit too reckless, but then again there wasn't anything else that could have stopped the train in time, so I can't deny that it was brave."
"So how do we show him he's brave? How do we show him he is good at rescues? He's letting his old memories define who he is."
Rocky paused at this statement, lost in thought. "He's not the only one."
Everest watched as her friend jumped into his vehicle before she spoke. "I know," she replied.
Rocky's eyebrows shot up. "You know?" He looked from side to side, despite knowing everyone was already on their way to the hangar. "Are you sure we're talking about the same pup?"
The husky laughed at her companion's expression of surprise. "I may be newer to the team, but I notice things. His relentless work ethic was the first thing that tipped me off. He doesn't show how it bothers him often… but I'm sure he feels like he can't escape from… whatever it is. If it's obvious enough for you to notice then it's pretty obvious." For a second Everest was worried Rocky might be offended by what she said, but to her relief he returned her laugh.
"Yeah, it's true I'm pretty unobservant of others, but Rubble and I agree that he's worse," the mixed-breed grinned. Then he returned to a serious expression. "So have you… tried helping him?"
"I- I can't. I can't help if he won't open up. It's obvious it's bothering him, but there's no way to help him if he doesn't want to talk to me about it."
"It's not just you. He hasn't talked to anyone about it. Even Ryder says he doesn't know what it is."
"I hate to say it, but I think he has to get over that himself…" Everest sighed before hopping into her snow cat.
"It's hard to watch a friend beat themselves up, but sometimes there's nothing you can do to help…"
"But sometimes there is."
Rocky swiveled in his seat to face the snow pup. "And now you're talking about Gizmo, aren't you? You're going to try to convince him otherwise, aren't you?"
Everest looked away innocently. "Maybe?"
"Well… I won't stop you. But here's my advice. Wait until he comes back with us to join the Paw Patrol."
The husky's attention snapped back to Rocky. "Wait, how can you be so sure he'll come?"
Rocky smiled, "Well, he has to come join us sometime! If not, Marshall just might blip out of existence because Gizmo never showed up to save him."
Everest paled at the thought. "You think that could happen?"
"I sure hope not!" Rocky replied. "I don't know enough about time travel to rule it out, unfortunately… I think you can stop worrying about it though. He'll come around eventually."
Everest perked her ears up upon hearing footsteps. "Speaking of coming around…"
The two turned to look at Gizmo, who had emerged from the tunnel and was now padding towards them. "Hi guys, why are you still here?"
"We were just talking before we left. Did you finish already?" Rocky inquired in disbelief.
"Didn't take too long to reinstall the side panels, and the electrical diagnostics scanner showed everything was good. I figure now that I'm done with it, you pups could use it on the Air Patroller. I also figured I should look at it up close before starting work on the wing."
"That'd be great!" Rocky grinned. "Are you okay with riding on the top of my truck?"
Gizmo pondered for a second, "Sure, I'm okay with that. I can magnet on."
"Great! Now come on," Everest yipped, "we should get back as well. Ryder's waiting on us!"
Lots of information to process here; a glimpse at what Ryder's been doing while alone, explanations for Gizmo's Shield Sphere, details on Archaic Fulgerion (the 'language'), more background on the Bullet Express's history, an exchange of Everest's and Rocky's thoughts on Gizmo, and even a foreshadowing that someone else might be having a similar problem... Who is it? You'll have to wait and find out! (Also, Carlos is Ryder's cousin in my AU for the simple reason that I thought he was this entire time, and only learned he wasn't about a week ago when I showed this chapter to some friends.)
Also, it looks like I'll be using Thursday mornings for a release date. I had a total of 0 responses, so I'm taking that to mean nobody remotely cares. Lol. Not that I care whether people care. I just love writing this stuff. I died laughing at, "Their top speed was 412 mph."
Keep an eye out for a new chapter next week!
