ᅟ

Chapter 33: The End of Franklin Island

The Paw Patrol and Gizmo stared at the broken building before them. They had been so close. Maybe… they could find a way. But there was no way they could. It was over.

Gizmo sauntered off into the distance to watch the shattering of the only thing he knew. Now that his home was being destroyed, his earlier fire to explore the outside world hissed to a nonexistent pile of ash. Like the tide that would soon crash over their heads, despair was overtaking him, and there was nothing he could do but accept. Nobody seemed to notice his absence.

Zuma turned to Ryder who was trying to calm Tracker down. The Labrador pawed at his owner's leg to earn his attention, "Ryder! I parked my hovercraft father away from the building, and it's fine. Maybe I can navigate us back to Adventure Bay."

Ryder turned his attention to Zuma and gave a sad smile. Already shaking his head before the proposition was finished, "Not everyone would fit. Besides, the debris from the flooded city would crush us, and the inevitable wave coming in would be hard enough to survive. I know that you out of any of us would… Never mind, Zuma. Thanks though. I have to go find Everest."

The marine pup drew an aimless line in the dirt, "I know that out of everyone I would know, but… I just thought that if we could survive that first round of impact then maybe…"

"We wouldn't though. We have no solution! This is hopeless," Chase growled while pacing like the caged animal he was.

Skye still hung onto an unreasonable thread of hope, "Maybe the force field will still hold up."

Rocky sank to the ground in despair, "And maybe I'm an expensive cross-breed from England."

Zuma planted his paw. "There's no way God's just gonna let us all die here when we're needed back home! I'm not gonna give up until we figure out a way off this island! Who's with me?"

Skye immediately stepped up. "I'm in."

Rubble quickly followed suit. "I'm with you."

Tracker also joined them. "If there's a way out of this, I want to help find it."

Looking around, the chocolate Lab could tell Ryder was occupied with Everest and Marshall, Chase was clearly having a hard time processing, and Gizmo was nowhere to be seen. Zuma turned to Rocky. "Rocky, what about you? Can you help us? Please…?"

The mixed-breed raised his head. "What's the use?"

The marine rescuer stared his brother straight in the eye, "We have been given a gift. That gift is the ability to help people in need. If we don't use this gift responsibly, then we don't deserve to have it. We will not die here, and I'll tell you why: People need us, and as long as there is someone in need of a hero, I'll be ready to provide it for them. If one person was left, I would give my life for them not only because it's my job, but because I know it's what I was born to do. Adventure Bay's communication is out, and they need you. And so do we right now. Would you get over your self pity and be the genius we know you are?"

Rocky looked at the ground. He knew that Zuma was right. The Lab stared at the engineer for a couple more seconds to make sure the point was driven home.

Rocky slowly pushed himself to his feet, "I'm in," he announced with the trace of a smile.

The chocolate Lab smiled back, "Good, because I didn't want that monologue to be for nothing. Did anyone write that down?"

The engineer laughed, "It was rather inspiring, but don't use it too often; it might lose its touch."

"Then I can just add some longer words," the Lab smirked. He turned to the rest of the crowd, "Anyone else like to join?"

Chase stood forward, placated by Zuma's call for action, "You just summed up the Paw Patrol in one paragraph. I think we all want to give living another shot."

Everest walked back into the circle, followed closely behind by Marshall and Ryder. The others could only barely tell she'd been crying. "Well if we're going to try doing this, then there's still one more pup we'll need the help of."

"That might be a problem…" Zuma admitted, rubbing his paw in the dirt. "None of us knows where he is."

"Actually," Rocky corrected, turning toward the lavender husky, "I think I might have an idea."

Everest panted as she reached the top of Mount Ashton. It was almost a ten minute drive in her snow cat, and she had to run part of the way, but she had made it. And her efforts weren't in vain.

"Gizmo!" she wheezed, "We need your help to think of a plan!"

The Labrador retriever perked his ears up at the sound of his name, but he didn't make any other movement. He was staring into the northeast, watching the Rim at the point he predicted would collapse first.

The husky advanced next to the pup. "Come on, we need you down there. We're running out of time."

Gizmo turned around to look at the husky. "How did you find me up here?"

"Well, Rocky pointed out how you did just say the view would be beautiful up here before you left. Come on, we don't have much time left."

The black Lab nodded. "Well you're right about that. To be precise, three seconds… two… one…"

As soon as the countdown ended, the color of the sky began to change. The slight violet tint the dome added to the heavens vanished, and Everest blinked as the sun suddenly seemed brighter. It was funny how she had never noticed the difference before. The one thing they both really noticed, though, was that though the Island Dome was gone, the Rim was holding.

"Well, that's anticlimactic," Gizmo grumbled.

"No! That's perfect! We have more time now!" Everest cheered. A blast of sea wind hit the duo on the top of the mountain, followed soon after by a rumbling beneath their feet. Gizmo recoiled as his first real taste of wind blasted into him. Everest continued unfazed, "You said that God closed the door to leaving with the Air Patroller. Well maybe He just opened a window! Come on, we have to try!"

Gizmo closed his eyes as he felt the cool air ripple through his fur. It was a unique sensation. One the pup had never had before. And for the first time since he could remember, he shivered from the cold. And it made him feel alive. In an instant, the thirst for discovery revitalized in him. Opening his eyes, he met the husky's gaze. "Let's do this."

Ten minutes later, everyone looked up from what they were doing as Gizmo and Everest returned in Everest's snow cat. "You came!" Zuma cheered. "The Rim is holding! We have more time!"

"So we saw," Gizmo replied as he hopped out of the back seat. "What's the plan so far?"

"No plan yet," Rocky sighed, "But we're getting together an inventory list. So far our assets are the ten magneto-discs we used to move the Air Patroller, what looks like a prototype neural headsets, a holographic projector, a gyroscopic stabilization unit, a number of miniaturized Shield Spheres, a first-aid kit-"

Gizmo stopped the mixed-breed from continuing, "So basically the few things that we packed to load on the Air Patroller?"

Rocky nodded. "Yes, but we also have other material too from elsewhere. There's a bunch of the smart-adaption metal that our pup houses and new pup packs are made of. We also have a number of fully charged supercapacitors from the nearby storage warehouse and some wings."

"Wings?" Everest repeated, tilting her head to the side.

"Airplane wings. They were in the back of the warehouse. Tracker and Rubble are seeing if we have enough material to build a plane."

Chase joined the conversation. "Even if we did, we wouldn't have enough time to build one. It took a week to fix the one we have, but none of us have the heart to tell them to stop. They'll figure it out on their own."

Marshall joined the circle. "Hey, Rocky I was looking around and realized we have a bunch of the force fields. What if we got in those? We'd survive the water and float to the surface with all the air inside them!"

"Hey, that's not a bad idea!" the recycling pup exclaimed.

"It would be if the shields could hold for more than half a second," Gizmo pointed out. "However, it's possible they'd be able to ward off the initial crash of pressure from the tsunami wave."

"Yeah, but then it'd just crush everything inside the bubble when it turns off," Rocky realized.

"How long do you think it'll take to upgrade a Shield Sphere?" Marshall questioned, still holding out hope.

"With the charged supercapacitors? Ten seconds, but after that we'd have to swim to land."

By now Skye had joined the circle and volunteered another idea. "The magneto-discs repel water, right? What if we got it to where they repelled all the water away from us, and we could float to the top in an artificial force field?"

Gizmo shook his head, "Unfortunately the water would still slip through no matter how we did it. Not unless we had enough to completely surround us, which we don't. But what if we put them on the bottom of a platform and we rode the incoming water on it? Like a giant hovercraft?"

"Have you ever seen a tsunami wave?" Ryder gently asked.

"Um… no…?"

"Well, at first it might start as a gradual rise, but once it reaches land, it changes. They're usually either curved at the top, or they're a vertical wall of water. Zuma can tell you it'd be suicide to try to ride a tsunami wave."

"Could we build a submarine with anything we have?" Zuma suggested. "Not necessarily something that will drive us around; just something strong enough to withstand the wave and float us to the top?"

Rocky jumped on the idea. "That might work! Do we have anything like titanium? Would the smart-adaption metal work?"

Gizmo sighed. "Unfortunately, no. We don't have nearly enough readily available. And we'd still need a way to shore."

Ryder had been thinking for a while and thought he had formulated a possible plan. "What if the pups all got their flight packs, you got in Skye's helicopter, and we all went up to the top of Mount Ashton? Then when the Rim breaks, I get in the harness and we fly up ten feet over the tsunami wave, and fly out some to get away from the splash when it meets in the middle. Then we can use some type of raft like Gizmo suggested earlier, add a method of propulsion, and we can float our way back home."

The black Lab's eyes lit up. "That… could work!"

Everyone cheered.

"Yes!"
"Way to go Ryder!"
"Woo hoo!"
"Yeah!"

The only pup that wasn't celebrating was Rocky.

"And how do we get all those superconductors, magneto-discs, and other stuff up there safely away from the wave? When it comes it'll all be destroyed and we'll still have no way to shore."

The group let out a collective groan. He was right. They didn't have a way to do that. Any platform they would take to the top of the mountain would be at the mercy of the water.

Suddenly, a shout sliced through the air, growing louder. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

"Rubble!" everyone exclaimed as he flung into the group, crashing directly into Marshall. The two tumbled into a heap, groaning.

"Marshall, are you okay?"
"Rubble, what happened?"
"Are you hurt?"
"Should I grab the first aid bag?"
"How'd you do that?"
"I'm okay!"

Finally, Tracker ran up as well. "¡Lo siento mucho! I'm so sorry! I didn't know that button would do that!"

"It's okay! I'm just a bit dizzy," Rubble reassured.

"What happened?" Ryder asked the potcake.

"Well, we were checking out las alas del avión, and then Rubble found a remote control! He pushed a button and the wing folded up completely flat, just like an accordion! It was asombroso! And then he was standing next to it and I was curious what the other buttons could do, so I pressed one, and the wing popped back out to normal, flinging Rubble over here!"

"Wait, so the wing flattened itself? How?" Skye gasped.

Gizmo slowly started nodding his head. "They work the exact same way your normal rescue pack wings work. The smart-adaption metal collapses down into a flat plate for easy storage, then expands back out."

Chase was still skeptical. "But can it really shrink down that much?"

"It works the exact same way your emergency vehicles work when they turn into your emergency shelters. The motors and everything inside literally flattens into the floor. Then it returns to its previous shape when it transforms back," Gizmo explained.

"You're kidding," the German shepherd gasped.

"What did you think happened to your wheels and motors?"

"I dunno, but definitely not that!"

"So why do these wings do that?" Zuma inquired, bringing everyone back to the topic at hand.

Gizmo thought for a moment. "If I had to guess, I think these were designed to make flying cars. I remember reading about an old experiment to do it once; they were going to attach them to the side of a car and see if they could get up to liftoff speed. They couldn't, so the project was scrapped. And good riddance too. Wings are so clunky."

"So basically we're down to a pair of collapsible wings. So all we need is something that can hold us all that'll get us up to takeoff speed!" Skye cheered.

"Yes, but we don't have anything that could get us up to takeoff speed," Gizmo sighed.

"And what speed is that?" Tracker inquired.

"Usually around 175 mph for small airplanes," Skye responded.

Rocky felt a chill run down his spine. Something was beginning to make his gears turn, and it was on the tip of his tongue, "Wait… so something going at 175 miles per hour could work, right?"

"That's for a small plane with proper weight balancing that's specifically designed for flying, though. Anything we get together would probably need to be going much faster."

Rocky shivered with anticipation. "So what about something going, say, 400 mph?"

"That would work. Why? Do you have something in mind?" Gizmo questioned.

"Wait a second- you don't mean-" Chase gasped in horror as it hit him.

Skye was the next to catch on. "No way…"

"Oh yes," Rocky grinned. "It's time to make some modifications to the Bullet Express."

And so the story continues...