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Chapter 11: A Troubling Past

Rubble was just finishing up his remodeling of their shelter when the pups returned with Gizmo in tow. He was still unconscious and laying on his side on Everest's snowboard. They had all been taking turns pushing the snowboard from behind while Everest pulled from a piece of rope they had tied around her pup pack. Meanwhile Rocky carried the unconscious pup's satchels with his claw. Marshall came out to meet them.

"Hey guys! Who's that? Is that who Everest saw?" the Dalmatian asked, looking at the sleeping pup riding on Everest's snowboard.

"¡Si! It's G-" Tracker began before being stopped by Rocky placing a paw on his mouth.

"It's definitely the pup Everest saw, at least according to Chase's nose," Rocky finished nervously. He opened his claw, setting the satchels in the sand.

"Okay!" Marshall responded. Thankfully he had been looking at Gizmo and not watching Rocky, so he didn't notice the recycling pup's strange behavior. "Wow, he looks younger than Rubble!"

"I think he might be younger than Rubble," Everest stated.

"Is he okay? Why are you carrying him back?"

"Well, you see," Rocky started before Chase cut in.

"He got shot by a tranquilizer dart."

Skye rolled her eyes in amusement before amending the German shepherd's statement. "Chase shot him with a tranquilizer dart." Chase winced.

"Chase did what?!" Marshall exclaimed.

Zuma padded over to them, "Hold up, what did Chase do?"

"He was going to take us prisoner, so Chase shot him! It was really clever!" Skye smiled.

"I don't blame him at all for that," Rocky agreed, defending him.

"If he was trying to capture you, why did you bring him back?" Marshall asked, confused. "Are you taking him prisoner?"

Chase thought for a moment. "Not really, but I guess you could say so?"

"That was Chase's idea, and that I do blame him for," Rocky stated.

Marshall looked at their shelter, "Bring him inside and I'll take care of him. Oh, by the way, Ryder's awake and feeling better. He also seems to have recovered significantly, and he passed the PEARL check, just like Zuma. You should be able to talk to him."

Everyone was overjoyed at this news. Zuma and Marshall watched as they ran inside the improved shelter. It now had walls built in a log cabin style, making for a more durable structure. Marshall noticed that they had left Gizmo with them, so they went ahead and pushed him inside while the others attacked Ryder with affection.

"You're okay!"
"We were worried!"
"How's your leg?"
"You'll never guess what just happened!"
"How are you feeling?"

Marshall chuckled, "I said you could talk to him, not smother him!"

Ryder laughed as he tried to sit back up as Rubble walked in. "Hey pups! I'm glad you're back! I'm feeling much better now, and my leg doesn't hurt too bad; Marshall did a good job with the cast!" Ryder looked over at Marshall and Zuma pushing Gizmo inside. "Who's your new friend? Are they alright?"

"He should be fine," Rocky confirmed, "All Chase did was shoot Gizmo with a tranquilizer dart, so he should wake up in a few minutes." It was only after he had said it that Rocky realized his mistake.

"Chase shot him with a tranquilizer dart?!" Ryder exclaimed.

Marshall looked up in shock. "Whaaaaa…? Gizmo?!" Rocky winced. This was exactly what they didn't want happening. Marshall stared at the black Lab. "Oh wow! It is! He looks younger than I remember! How did you find him? What-? I-" Marshall sat down in confusion, attempting to take it in.

"So should we just go ahead and tell them everything?" Chase asked.

"At this point, it's probably best," Rocky sighed in resignation.

Ryder, Marshall, Zuma, and Rubble listened in amazement as Rocky and the others detailed the events of the past couple hours, including their reasons for suspecting that time travel was involved. Ryder remained skeptical.

"So you're telling me that all this is based on the facts that he's a black Labrador retriever that has a force field." Ryder stated in clarification. "Don't you think all this is a little far-fetched? You don't even know his name, and you're assuming it's Gizmo because of what you're saying is time travel?"

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it really does make sense! How many Labrador retrievers have ears like that?" Rocky insisted eagerly.

"He's got a point," Zuma agreed.

"I believe you believe it, but we need more evidence," Ryder reasoned.

Rocky looked over at Gizmo, who seemed to have started moving his head. "Well, I know a way we can get that," the green-clad pup stated, grinning. He walked over to their guest and waited, and everyone's eyes followed him. The black dog's pointed ears twitched. After a couple minutes, he opened his eyes and spoke.

"How long have I been out?" he asked.

"About an hour," Rocky replied.

Gizmo groaned, "Oh great… I still have at least another hour left."

"Left before what?" Skye questioned him.

"Before the pancuronium wears off and I can move my legs again."

"You mean you can't move?" Rubble inquired.

"The last chamber wasn't just an analgesic hypnotic sedative; it was coupled with a modified-release dosage of a non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agent mixed with a localized reversal agent to cancel out the vagolytic effects."

"What?" everyone asked, bewildered.

"What do you mean, what?" Gizmo looked at them confused, as if they should know exactly what he had said.

"Did you understand any of that, Rocky?" Everest asked.

"Nope."

"I think I might have understood a couple words of that," Marshall said uncertainly.

Skye looked at him, "What did you get from it?"

"I got the sedative part?" Marshall responded as if in a question.

"Can you say it in simpler words?" Chase asked.

"Sure, Pavlov. I can try." Gizmo thought for a moment, "There was a neuromuscular blocking agent in the third chamber of the dart so that if the first two didn't work, I could activate the third one, which would locally paralyze whatever I had shot, but now I'm stuck here for another one or two hours. So yes, I can't move anything from my neck down."

"Why can you move from your neck up?" Tracker asked, tilting his head to the side.

"I just sa-" Gizmo started, but he cut himself off with a sigh. "It's complicated."

The rest of the pups glanced around at each other, wondering what to do next.

Gizmo broke the silence. "Well, go ahead and do whatever you're going to do to me. You've taken my pack so there's nothing I can do."

"We're not going to do anything to you," Everest said gently. "We're here to help you, Gizmo. Would you like some food or water?"

Gizmo looked at them in confusion. Then in surprise. "How did you know my name?"

Those words hit everyone as if they had been a freight train. Not only did they have definitive proof that this was Gizmo, but they had messed up badly. Everest felt the blood rush out of her face as she realized that she had just slipped. "Um, I- I um…"

Thankfully Skye came in for the save. "You were talking in your sleep on the way here." This was technically true, but nothing he had been saying had been comprehensive.

Gizmo seemed to accept that answer. "So when you say you're here to help…?"

"What do we mean?" Ryder finished. "Well, we help lots of people! We're a rescue team that handles emergencies around Adventure Bay. Whenever someone's in trouble, they just yelp for help."

"So then why do you say you're helping me? I don't need help."

"Everyone can always use some help!" Everest smiled, "What if we brought you off the island with us? You wouldn't have to be trapped here anymore!"

Gizmo looked away for a moment before meeting her gaze, "What makes you think I'm trapped here?"

"Aren't you?" Rocky asked in confusion.

"No."

Rubble brightened up at that. "So you can get out of here any time? Can you help us escape?"

"No, I can't just leave. But I should be able to help you guys back home."

"So you don't want to leave?" Marshall questioned in disbelief.

Gizmo paused, not sure of how to answer. "I've never really thought about leaving. But I can't. Not because I physically can't, but because I shouldn't."

"Why not?" Ryder prompted him.

Gizmo didn't answer at first. Instead he stared into space, a faraway look in his eyes. Eventually he spoke. "It's complicated."

It didn't seem like they would be getting any more information out of him, so they decided to let it drop for the moment. Chase decided to try something else. "What if you came and lived with us? You'd have a good home, great friends, and you could help us with rescues! You'd be good at it!" He figured that if Rocky was right about time travel and Gizmo was a member in the future, that offering him a position on the team wouldn't hurt.

Zuma agreed, "Yeah, you did save them from the puma with that tranquilizer dart! That was brave!"

The black Labrador's reaction took everyone aback. "No, I'm not brave!" he exploded. "And I'm terrible at rescues! It only worked because you were lucky enough to get snagged by one of the traps and flung away, giving time for the hypnotic to take effect. It was sheer luck that saved you. Not me." Gizmo squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm a coward."

The crew didn't know what to do. Silence hung in the air as a tear rolled across Gizmo's face. Eventually Skye spoke up. "Why do you say that?" she asked softly.

Eventually Gizmo opened his eyes. "Because if I was brave," he said, "I wouldn't be here."

The Paw Patrol wasn't sure of how best to confront this situation. They had plenty of experience helping people with problems, but none of their rescues had been emotional trauma. Ryder asked the best question he could think of at the time.

"What do you mean you wouldn't be here? You wouldn't be stuck on this island?"

"No. I would be dead, just like everyone else."

This definitely caused some raised eyebrows. "What happened…?" Chase asked.

Gizmo was about to answer, but then stopped himself. He didn't really know these people. How did he know if he could trust them? And yet, he found himself strangely wanting to tell them. Despite his lack of knowing them, he intuitively felt like they were trustworthy; it was the only reason he had already told them as much as he had. If they had wanted to do something to him while he was unconscious, they could have. If they wanted to capture him for questioning, then why wasn't he tied up? They didn't know he wouldn't be able to move. In the end, his logic came out on top. He decided he would tell them everything.

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember what happened?" Rubble questioned, confused.

"I'll start from the beginning. The first thing I remember was waking up under a table. I was covered in metal powder and had a headache. I was sore and had a large cut in my paw. It was bad enough that it eventually turned into a scar. But the worst thing was that I didn't remember anything. I had amnesia. I still remembered my name, but that was it. I didn't have any memories. Looking around, I could tell I was in some sort of parts warehouse. I had been hiding in a corner. When I went outside and looked around, everything in the city was quiet. There was nobody left. Everyone was dead. I was two at the time. Then I heard a twig snap behind me. I turned around and looked into the woods, but nobody was there. I had the strongest feeling that I was being watched, though. It scared me. So I turned around and ran.

"I ran through the city for a long time, not paying attention to anything around me. I must have been running for hours. Eventually I stopped. My head was pulsing, my paw ached, and so did the rest of me. I looked around, evaluating where I was.

"I didn't know how long I had been out, but I was hungry. I didn't know where my house was, or if I even had one anymore, but I decided to start walking and see if my subconscious could get me back home. The city was a ghost town; almost everything was in some form of ruins. I could tell whatever happened had happened suddenly. A construction site was halfway finished and the machines had been left unattended, vehicles were in the streets, and other stuff like that. My first thought was a hurricane; there were buildings twisted and deformed, roofs ripped off, and cars embedded in the sides of buildings, along with extensive water damage everywhere and plenty of dust. But as I kept walking I realized it just didn't make sense, so I dismissed that idea. Eventually I found a site of an explosion. There was a large crater in the earth, with a radius of about three meters. There were a bunch of scorch marks around the area as well. That's when I realized; there must have been a battle.

"Eventually I went into a house. Somehow my subconsciousness pulled it off; it did end up being mine, or if not, at least that house had a kid named Gizmo living there as well. There was a letter from my dad on the table addressed to me. It was old and damaged from whatever had happened, but it was wishing me a happy second birthday. That's how I know how old I was.

"Thankfully there was food there. I ended up staying there for a few days, hiding in case the attackers came back. After a week I worked up the courage to look around. I explored the city, trying to find what had happened. I followed the trail of wreckage back to Crater Square, where it seemed to be the worst. I went into the workshop there. It was a research center called FIR, the Franklin Institute of Research. They were working on a lot of incredible things in there. Room temperature superconductor maglev suspension, intradimensional Einstein-Rosen bridges, metamaterial wavelength adaption fabricators, and geothermal Tesla turbines and water pumps. I figured that the Burglars had killed everyone looking for something, but I didn't know what. Eventually I found a recording telling what it was. They were after a time machine."

At this everyone glanced at each other knowingly. Rocky turned back and shot a look at them which said, "What did I tell you?"

"Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but it's true," Gizmo insisted.

"Alright, go on," Ryder prompted.

"The time machine wasn't even close to being finished, but apparently that didn't deter the Burglars, because they came anyway. When they didn't get what they wanted, it looked like they went on a killing spree. And I hid like a coward. That's the only reason I was left alive.

"All that was shortly over three years ago. Since then I've been maintaining the geothermal turbines, the Island Dome, and the Lake's filtration system. I started designing machines based off the city's technology and started working on the abandoned projects at FIR. My pet project has been the time machine. I think with enough time I might actually have a breakthrough. I was able to get a consistent food supply through some chemical research done at the chem lab which stimulated plant growth, which I use to keep a garden. It was also there that I concocted the formula in those darts. I use them for hunting and keeping the predators at bay. I manufacture the parts at the workshop and if I need something I don't have, I use the reactor. I spend a lot of my time online in research or development, but I've been studying other fields too. Most of all though, I've been staying here and guarding the research so nobody comes back to steal it again. It can't fall into the wrong hands. That's why I have to stay here. And then yesterday, you guys dropped out of the sky.

"At first I was afraid you were the Burglars coming back again. I went out and watched you. I wasn't expecting to be seen, so I ran back into the woods when you saw me. Then I followed you, tranqued you, and retrieved the dart. I was going to take you back and put you in the cells, but then your friends came. I stayed up in the trees. Since they weren't doing anything hostile, I let them go on back to the beach. I didn't notice the puma until the Spanish one shone his light on it, but once he did I was able to shoot it. You took the dart, and I forgot about it. When you went to bed, I went back home. Then this morning I got notified that you had tripped the trap and came and got you."

Skye laughed, "And then we got you!"

Gizmo smiled, "And then Pavlov got me."

"Why do you keep calling me Pavlov?" Chase asked with a mix of confusion and mild annoyance.

"Well, I don't know your real name," Gizmo answered. "Or any of yours, for that matter.

Ryder spoke up. "I'm Ryder. This is Tracker, Everest, Chase, Skye, Rocky, Zuma, Rubble, and Marshall."

"Nice to meet you all. I'm Gizmo, but you knew that already."

"It's good to meet you too, Gizmo," Ryder said.

"Well, if you guys really want to get off this island, we better go back to my lab. We have a lot of work to do."

And here, at last, is Gizmo's backstory. The best heroes are those who have been through the hardest times, but instead of letting it crush them, have decided to overcome and rise above. I think that's why I gave him such a hard backstory; it gives him a good depth of character with a lot that's weighting him down, so there's a lot for him to deal with through his adventures. For any of you wondering why Gizmo started calling Chase "Pavlov", the internet exists for a reason. (Also, Tesla turbines are extremely cool; go look them up too.)
For those of you wondering, yes all of Gizmo's jargon is and will be accurate; I do my research. Fun fact; I actually read that paragraph to someone with a medical background and they were able to understand it and repeat it back to me in normal language. Feel free to look the words up!