I don't own anything other than OCs
CH11
Chase was beyond tired. The sun peaked over through the trees in the early morning but the Lookout still appeared to be asleep. It was a Saturday after all and the pups were on call on the weekends so they didn't have to wake up early unless it was an emergency. Chase prayed to himself that they wouldn't get any calls today, he needed a nice break.
The night's events and the long run back to the Lookout practically drained him, he collapsed from exhaustion as soon as he entered his pup house. He sat up as a small burst of energy hit him when he remembered the only thing that could have some answers about the mysterious place, the flash drive.
He frantically dug in his pup pack and pulled the small device out with his paw. Chase scrutinized it for a moment before glancing down at his pup tag. He popped open the many ports along it's side before finding an odd USB slot and without any hesitation, plugged it in. It fit perfectly to his surprise.
The screen of his pup tag went dark, and it stayed like that for a good while. Chase raised an eyebrow, fear growing in him that it might have introduced some nasty malware into his tag.
Syncing…
Chase blinked at the words on the screen.
Device authorized
Retrieving data
Process time: Five minutes
A buffering blue FIP Corp logo popped on the screen of his pup tag. Chase tapped his paws on the floor of his pup house, surprised his pup tag was compatible.
As he waited, he shot a solemn glance outside to Skye's pup house to see that it was shut. It was tempting for him to walk over and try to apologize, but he knew it would probably be in vein since she was a pup of her word. The only thing he could hope for her now was that she wouldn't tell Ryder anything.
He glanced back at his pup tag to see that it rebooted itself. The screen now displayed two files, one titled January and X 15a and the other titled X 15b that had a red digital padlock. Chase hit the one with the padlock but it brought him back to the home screen with the message 'Device not appropriate level, data redacted'. He grunted and clicked on the other one which opened to a long series of notes and a profile picture that still hasn't loaded. Chase excitedly skimmed through the notes and saw there was a video log at the end, he decided to save that for last as he went back to the top.
The screen suddenly went out again with the PAW Patrol logo spinning, they had a call. Chase slumped in defeat but he came up with a last ditch plan.
Ryder appeared on the pup tag with a look of seriousness. "Pups I need you in the Observatory ASAP! We have an emergency rescue!"
Chase turned his camera on.
"Hey Ryder," he said as weakly as he could before fake coughing.
Ryder looked concern. "Yeah, is everything okay bud?"
"I think I'm gonna to have to sit this call out, I don't feel so good." Chase said pitifully as he sniffled.
Ryder looked surprised as Chase wasn't the one to miss a mission, but as he noticed his aggravated fur and red eyes, he knew it would be the right call.
"Alright buddy, I'll put this down as a sick day for you. Get some rest and try to eat something while we're out." Ryder ordered.
"Will do Ryder," Chase said before the call ended and the notes came back on his pup tag. His excitement almost gave way for a minute but his acting worked along with his appearance.
Chase noticed that the profile picture had loaded and he could make it out as a black furred pup. Subject ID: 01, the profile read beside it. January, he thought with interest. She gazed with light brown eyes akin of a wolf that slightly pinged him with a primitive fear, they were almost mystic. Chase saw the she was smiling, a genuine smile of determination like she was ready for anything.
He couldn't help but grin out of the corner of his mouth at the sight of a young January. She looked happy, healthy, and confident compared to the older and tormented version they currently know. Chase took note of her pup tag which was silver attached to a grey collar, before he began to read the first section of notes that were focused on her.
Designation On Completion: January
Occupation: General Rescue and Service Pup. Potential leader for Project PAW.
Breed: Wolf Dog. (Eastern Wolf/ Belgian Malinois mix)
Gender: Female
Age: 6
Status: Failed, date set for termination.
Woah, a wolf dog, Project PAW? Chase let the information sink in as he pondered about Project PAW and why he's never seen January before.
Well, it looks like we've hit the end of the road with January. Last week was the last test for her abilities and she botched it in a pedestrian rescue simulation.
Her recent erratic behavior doesn't seem to stem from her wolf heritage like my colleagues previously hypothesized but from the emotional trauma she experienced as a pup with her caged mother. The handlers back on the mainland probably didn't know how social wolves are, and when they snatched her from her mother, well, it showed in our experiments.
Such a shame too, she was the perfect subject in physically and until recently was the only post-birth pup that managed to survive implementation of X 15a. She even bonded with me and my colleagues, claiming us as her 'pack'. Regardless, she'll unfortunately have to be put down, however, on the bright side our more recent batch of subjects that managed to survive Implementation are developing without any issues. Turns out Dr. Harvey's theory was on the money when she predicted a higher chance of success if we inject in the womb rather than waiting for them to reach ages of three or four and allow them to establish a bond with their parents. We now have their profiles, an addition to Subject 00:
1.
Subject ID: 00
Designation on Completion: Ryder
Occupation: Select leader of Project PAW
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 7
Status: Early stage testing completed, fit for Project PAW.
Chase tensed up when he read Ryder's profile, he was a test subject that was experimented on by these people. I… I wasn't his first pup? He thought in disbelief. He eventually scrolled down to the next profile.
2.
Subject ID: 02
Designation On Completion: Chase
Occupation: Police pup/ Super Spy pup
Breed: German Shepherd
Gender: Male
Age: 3
Status: Still in development, will be ready for testing at age 4.
He froze. Biting the edge of his tongue In anxiety, he quickly scrolled through all of the other profiles. All of them, the whole PAW Patrol all the way down to Liberty, they were all experiments. He sat there in silence minute after minute, gazing at the info on his pup tag lost in his troubled thoughts. He contemplated just turning his tag off and chunking the USB in the Bay. But he continued, he wanted more answers even if they hurt him. He moved past the profiles to the next heading.
X 15a Implementation
Just below the heading was a picture with a vial full of a glowing liquid. Chase immediately recognized it as that weird yellow stuff he saw down in the labs.
I remember first hearing about the discovery of a substance that we would eventually label the X 15 mutagen deep in the caverns of the Bloodroot Cave in Sierra National Forest. It's biologically in nature with some parasitic traits, though many of it's properties are still unknown to us. It appears to almost sync with an underdeveloped host on injection and sort of 'evolve' them, in exchange for nutrients not unlike a typical parasite though I'd think at this point it would be more appropriate to label it mutualistic. The only animals it seems to work on our social mammals capable of forming a type of hierarchy and could feel affection like cats, dogs, and wolves. As for humans it just gives them permanent amnesia just like our boy Ryder. We're still trying to find out why that is the case but haven't come up with anything conclusive.
The host in turn seems to have a more developed brain with a neuron count capable of human intelligence, canines can see color, and appears to be immune to any disease we've tested as well as the ability to digest most human food. Certain bones and muscle mass are restructured and their vocal cords. Lastly their cellular division have slowed down significantly, they are projected to reach full maturity at age 12 and have an overall life expectancy of 60! Even Dr. Harvey predicts future generations descending from these canines could live as long as we do if we breed them! Though with their intelligence I don't think arranged breeding is in the question, we'll definitely need to let them court naturally.
The discovery happened when a caver and his loyal Jack Russell Terrier found the stuff settled in a pool at the end of one of the long side caves. Mike his name, had to crawl on his knees through a tight and jagged crevice to get to the pool. Though the encounter would end in tragedy with his dog drinking from the pool and would immediately be overcome with seizures. However, Mike in his cut up and delirious state claimed that his dog began to speak words of pain in perfect English as he was dying in his arms while they rushed out.
Lucky for us the mainstream media didn't pay any attention to the story as government officials found that there was no crevice and Mike was just rounded up to being a nut case whose dog suffocated in the deep caves. Intrigued by the claim, I visited Mike myself and got permission to examine his dog's corpse back at our labs. Interestingly the dog's brain size seems to have grown rapidly in a short timeframe and we've noticed an altering in the terrier's vocal cords though the rest of the canine was too decomposed for further research, nevertheless our findings gave some credit to his claims.
Long story short we ventured out to the caves ourselves and discovered there was a crevice in that part of the cave but it was too small to fit through, like it had sealed itself back up. We brought the right tools and chiseled our way in, opening up to the yellow glow. It was overwhelmingly astonishing, my company now had a new frontier of discovery and research owned by no one else, no longer did we have to work on dead end cancer fighting projects. An addition we noticed some strange symbols chalked on the walls we can't explain so we snapped some pictures before marking the pool on our devices, filling all our vials with as many samples as we could, and ceiling the crevice with cement after we left the pool.
Two images separated the text with the first being the whole pool with red arrows pointing to the symbols and the second being a close up of one of the symbols. It was white with an oval shape at the bottom, six vertical lines jutted out on top of it and a eight pointed star lay marked half a foot above the lines. Chase looked over it in bewilderment before continuing to read.
Not long after returning to our labs, we revised a strand of the mutagen as X 15a and began to gather specimens from various shelters across the state. To our utter surprise, they spoke in pain during seizures but not after suffering the same fate as Mike's dog. Perfect words like 'Hurt' or 'help' and with different pitches depending on the gender. As groundbreaking as it was it began to grow ever stressing in a search to try to keep our subjects alive. Looking back at it now I'm pretty sure it was them being adults as the mutagen needs a developing nervous system in order to adapt and 'sync' with it's host.
Though even with pups they would still die after a week or so and couldn't really speak that well. That was until we got 01, my fellow lab technicians seem to suggest she was a one of a kind with her physical and mental fortitude but there's still some unknowns with her case, and lastly we tried Dr. Harvey's theory in injecting a minuscule amount in developing embryos in a female dog who is in the early stages of her pregnancy. It was a success each time though only one or two pups would survive injections while the rest would be reabsorbed. This video demonstrates the successful implementation of the two sibling subjects we dubbed 'Everest' and 'Gasket', that might even be their designations.
Chase sat there in disbelief, unable to act. Everest and Gasket are… they don't know. He didn't want to look at the video, but, with one last push of mental desperation, he hit play.
The video started with a dog laying on an operating table with it's eyes covered. Chase immediately recognized it as a grey and white furred husky.
"This is Dr. Levy with my colleague Dr. Harvey." A male voice introduced as the camera moved around to a human female in full lab gear with her face almost covered up, she gave a nod.
"Here we will be injecting the appropriate dose of Mutagen X 15a into our subject 'Kayla'. She is a healthy five year old Siberian Husky pregnant with a full litter, we have her sedatedfor the initial implementation." Dr. Levy explained.
Something troubled Chase about this guy, not just because he was apparently a monster from the way January described him but the fact that his voice sounded familiar but he couldn't place it at the moment.
Dr. Levy's gloved hand came into view as he grabbing a small needle off of the cart and filled it with the glowing substance. He than proceeded to inject it into the husky's womb.
"Implementation has started and hopefully at least one of the pups will survive before we extract them before birth."
"I have a feeling we'll get two this time, she's one of the most healthiest specimen we've had so far." Dr. Harvey added.
Dr. Levy made several injections in order to get each fetus but Chase had to stop the video at the point. This was all too much for him. He backed out of the notes and snatched out the USB drive. He tossed it to the side though he wanted to smash it, and just plumped down on his stomach and exhaled.
He couldn't remember his parents and just always assumed they left him on the streets of Adventure City, now he knows they were subjects just like he is, and just like everyone in Adventure Bay.
Chase had to tell someone, but the only one he trusted fully was Skye and that wasn't happened at the moment. There was January who he was still eager to question but that would have to wait until later today when he made his food run.
"GGGRRR!!" Chase growled in frustration.
He wished there still wasn't secrets on that flash drive or he would have chewed it into scraps by now. Why were they experimenting on them with that stuff and to what end? Besides he was had a feeling he was going to have to spill the beans on the others some day and that device would make for good evidence.
The police pup curled up under his covers and allowed his troubled thoughts to storm his mind. However, he couldn't fight off the drowsiness anymore and soon succumb to much needed sleep.