Despite the serious matter at hand, the trip to Evcon Industries was gratefully short, but the true difficulty of the journey had nothing to do with the drive itself. The home base of the company was more akin to a fortress standing in a barren parking lot, eclipsing its massive shadow across the entire street. The main logo of the cooperation shone proudly off the building for every passerby in Adventure Bay to see it; a silent message that their presence was to be revered.
Ryder parked his RV in the weirdly empty parking lot, "alright pups, stay out here. I'm gonna-"
"I wanna see robots!" Rocky already shut down his entire vehicle and jumped out.
The boy watched his puppy spring ahead with a defeated sigh, "well never mind then, I guess we're all going."
"Where's all the cars?" Chase looked around the heat-soaking field of concrete, puzzled at its distinct lack of other vehicles. "Don't they have employees who need to park somewhere?"
"Can't say I know, Chase," Ryder shrugged, mentally preparing himself for whatever chaos they were about to step into. "As they say, be on ye' toes."
The desolate nature of the outside was in stark contrast to the actual interior of the building; the three were washed over with cool air and the ground turned to finely polished tile. The lobby of Evcon Industries was slightly empty, but a professional type of empty, a room that glowed with power even with a few potted plants on the edges. Nothing was dirty, Rocky could see his own reflection in the floor, and even the smallest tapping of their paw steps faintly tickled their ears.
They approached the desk in the center, where what appeared to be a Boston terrier in a fine silk jacket stared blankly into a computer screen. Their motions were dead and subtle, not a hint of life in the overworked, underpaid expression.
"God, even the receptionist is a robot," Chase said without thinking.
"Excuse me?" the terrier looked up, flashing a questioning glance at the officer. Chase immediately recoiled, looking as if he just witnessed the sky itself collide into pieces. Rocky flashed him a slow, perplexed look. Dogs in employment wasn't unusual for Adventure Bay, but under the banner of Evcon Industries, Chase couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
Ryder laughed nervously, leaning on the table. "Uh, excuse my German shepherd, we need to speak to your CEO."
"Mr. Martyr is not seeing anyone right now," her expression sneered, venomous from Chase's remark. "You need to make an appointment."
"There's no time to schedule anything; we're here as law enforcement. There was an attempted break-in at the bank, we believe the culprit possessed some form of Evcon tech. Also, the access panel he hacked into was left fried and we don't have the capabilities to fix it."
The terrier barely gave him a passing glance, looking back down on her keyboard. "If you wish to settle these matters, I can give you the number to our legal team. You can discuss this with our lawyers."
Ryder tapped his fingers on the table, a sliver of his patience unraveling. "We're not taking you to court or anything, we just need help on fixing the tech. We need to talk to your lead technician."
"Sir, I'm giving you every response I'm able to give within my clearance," the terrier said, leering up at him. "Now is there anything else I can help you with?"
Twitching ever so slightly, Ryder opened his mouth to fire off some words when the far doors suddenly opened with heavenly light. The leader stopped in surprise, taking sight of the well-dressed grinning boy standing with his hands confidently on his hips. His brand-new voice sang into the lobby, "that's quite all right, Brianna, I can take things from here."
Rocky glowed with awe and raced to meet him, leaving Chase rolling his eyes disdainfully. The technician walked to Ryder, already holding out his hand to shake.
"The PAW Patrol in the flesh," the boy laughed, smelling of fine hair gel. "Welcome to Evcon Industries, I came down here as quickly as I could."
"Justin Martyr," Ryder shook his hand joyfully. "You knew we were coming?"
Chase tilted his head with an unamused expression, "he probably has some robot scanner or something that caught us driving here. Or some... hyper advanced DNA tracking that picked us up the moment we-"
"Ah... no," Justin said. "I actually saw you on the security cameras."
"The cameras, of course!" said Ryder, gleefully entertained. "You're surrounded by such crazy technology for so long, you tend to forget the simpler things."
"Life is often much simpler than we make it," Justin pointed with his finger, name-dropping one of the many quotes and phrases used in his marketing.
No one could stop Rocky diving under Ryder and sprinting to the technician's pant legs, uncontrollably wagging his tail. "Mr. Martyr, sir! I've read your magazines! Are you really inventing artificial super fossil fuels?!"
"Oh, you... you brought your dogs," a slightly uncomfortable chuckle left him.
"Of course, we're technically on a mission right now," said Ryder, bending down to pick up the mixed breed. "There was an attempted robbery at a bank and one of your wall panels fried itself. We were hoping you... could fix it?"
"Oh yeah, totally, I could do that in my sleep."
"Great!" Ryder said, cheering up. "And... another thing. I wanted to ask you about... um," he trailed off slightly, searching for how to word his question. "The world is... advancing, quite rapidly, as I'm sure you'd know better than anyone. I enjoy practicality, but my PAW Patrol just... can't really keep up."
Chase turned his ear to eavesdrop, unsure of whether to be offended or not.
"Now, my dogs can do a lot of things, along with the others across the world," the leader continued. "But I don't have... a hacker."
"A... hacker dog?" Justin repeated the odd phrase, narrowing his eyes by a hair.
"Yeah, a dog that can hack. Given the direction the world is going, it might be useful to adapt and find someone with those abilities. Given the roadblock we're already in right now, I'd say it could be time."
"Hm," the CEO nodded to himself. "Walk with me, won't you?"
The group moved with stride into the factory, traversing through the reflective hallways decorated with plants and posters. "It's certainly nice to see a friendly face for once," Justin said, a faint sigh emitting from you.
"We saw the protestors," Ryder followed behind him. "You aren't going so well in reputation, it seems."
"It wasn't supposed to be this way. We needed sufficient space to build our Voxide factories, and Adventure Bay was the only option."
"Voxide?"
Rocky chirped up from behind, "it's super-fuel. Artificially powered carbon; they're trying to invent energy to grow enhanced biofuels, which'll lead to perfect renewable energy! It's a whole green movement!"
"Oh, you read our blog," Justin looked back at the dog, genuinely impressed. "You've probably seen our current projects around town, the smart technology and everything attached to it. We could spend months making smart fridges and smart light bulbs and... well who knows, maybe a smart closet if we got creative enough. But none of it made us truly happy, we wanted to make the world a better place... and it all started with Voxide, our plan to create clean, renewable energy sources hundreds of times better than fossil fuels."
Raising an eyebrow at his fellow companion, Chase suddenly understood why Rocky idolized Evcon so wholeheartedly. The entire company was supposedly moving toward greener futures for the Earth, which just so happened to be Rocky's entire motivation for getting up in the morning. Even if the AI production was questionable, anyone trying to make the planet healthier automatically won over the mixed breed's support.
Justin continued, "we knew people wouldn't be very accepting of us moving in out of nowhere, so I got with my board of directors. We devised a plan to create a gift for Adventure Bay, a peace offering of sorts, something we could give to your citizens to say 'hey, we're really not that bad.' Everyone can go home happy, and we can work on our Voxide production in peace."
"What was the gift?" Ryder crossed his arms, immersed with curiosity.
He hesitated before speaking, Justin adjusted his coat and averted eye contact, holding out his arm to stop the group. Pointing with one finger, he directed them into a room off to the side, opening a sliding glass door into a densely equipped lab.
"This is my main hub of operations," he said. "Please don't touch anything..."
Ryder followed Justin over to his main workstation, but Chase and Rocky slowed their pace to breathe in the sheer music of the future before their very eyes. Rocky walked a smidge faster, seemingly on the verge of imploding with excitement with every piece of technology he looked at. Every last little device sitting on the tables, every piece of tampered machinery left idle on the workstations, the mix glowed with squeaking glee as if he had walked right into his own dream.
Although faintly amused at his brother's excitement, Chase's smile dimmed approaching a poster tacked to the wall. It very clearly displayed blueprints for a jungle of machine and intelligence taking the shape of a dog.
No one but Justin saw right away what camouflaged in the darkness, the creature adorned in reflective black prowling around the room. The sound of clicking gears and mechanical whirring filled the room with initially no origin anyone could place. Chase caught sight of a moving shadow strutting behind the workbenches, spiking his fur into alarm.
"What's that?" His ears flattened, unnerved and walked back under Ryder's legs. "Sir, there's something moving in here!"
"Moving?" Justin looked at him weirdly. "What do you mean? I haven't even turned on anyth-" he stopped, a realization clicking in his mind of the hidden presence stalking them. "Oh, sorry."
He turned to the darkness, calling out to it. "Alpha, disengage! Visitors, not threats."
To the PAW Patrol, it appeared as if he were talking to no one, until a flicker of motion caught their eyes. Standing up firmly, a four-legged creature of metal casually dropped from the ceiling, gracefully landing on the floor in a dramatic reveal.
Finally, Rocky's smile faded for once in the entire visit, tension rattling him to the core. Ryder almost instinctively stepped in front of the puppies in a protective manner, but kept his cool and stabilized his breathing the best he could.
The robotic creature was shelled entirely in chromatic black metal, shiny enough for Chase to see his own terrified reflection in its face. The shepherd puppy could hardly stand in front of this thing without being moments away from bursting into a defensive storm of barking. It was nearly two feet taller than him, imitating the size of a much larger dog. To say it had a face at all was irrelevant; the machine had utterly no facial features at all, yet it scanned each of the three with studying glares. The only resemblance this thing had to a dog was its tall ears sharpened to the point, and multi-jointed tail following behind it.
"Apologies, this is Alpha," said Justin, gesturing to the shiny machine. "Quite possibly our greatest feat of engineering yet."
"Oh, he's..." Ryder twiddled his fingers nervously, forcing a twitching smile. "... fantastic! Uh... what is he exactly?"
"Living proof we can design the future, my friend," he shot Ryder a knowing smirk. "To put it quite bluntly, he's my dog. A different model of Companion Canine, a guard dog of sorts. There's only one of him right now, but we plan to mass-produce his line once we make enough money selling our 'gift' to Adventure Bay. Then we multiply him, make even more money, and finally we'll have funding for the Voxide project."
"You never answered my question," Ryder said quizzically. "What is this gift?"
In the far end of the room was a large black platform, carrying a large secret concealed with a dusty tarp. Justin sighed and came to it, visibly hesitant to express anything. Alpha followed him closely behind, moving in such perfect stride he appeared organic.
"The 'gift,'" Justin gripped the tarp, making sure the three of them were watching. "Is right here." In one yanking motion, he pulled the cover off, exposing the creation concealed underneath it.
Revealed in one grandiose gesture, beautiful life was shown before the PAW Patrol's very eyes, each of them displaying some mix of confusion, awe, and horror. The dog underneath stood still as a statue, staring lifeless ahead with a permanently fixed smile. It wore the fur of a Labrador retriever, yet not a single hair was visible; its entire body was completely, wonderfully smooth like finely polished metal.
Segmenting patterns subtly ran along its body, dividing its halves and piecing its shell into easily-accessible plates. Through the dark patterns, one could barely see a shimmering layer of metal hiding under the shell. Chase paled, although Rocky and Ryder simultaneously gawked in starstruck disbelief and stepped closer.
The rumors were true.
"It... was supposed to be a surprise," Justin said dejectedly. "Companion Canines, artificially created dogs to make life easier."
"So you are making robot dogs to replace us," Chase flattened his ears, listening closely.
"We call them CC's for short and let me tell you; we were gonna make it look like the greatest thing in the entire world. They come in over a hundred dog breeds, they never sleep, never get hungry, never make messes, can move nearly a hundred times faster and stronger than a normal dog, and every last one would have the personality of the happiest little puppy in the world. Won't even stop there, we're gonna sell customizable personality packages, letting you program entire hobbies into the thing. They can write music, print their own art, sing, all from its own AI."
"They can generate their own artwork?" Chase said, a twinge of fear in his voice.
"It's not perfect, but yes," Justin nodded. "It's quite hard programming creativity into something never initially designed to express it. We've been working on these things for months. The original model," he tapped his fingers together, looking down on the Companion Canine. "Was a lot different, to say the least. We just made an endoskeleton and put a dog suit on it. It... kinda worked, but maintaining them was too difficult."
Chase leaned to whisper in Rocky's ear, "you're telling me we were about to have fake dogs walking among us?"
In the most subtle of motions, Alpha nonchalantly turned his shiny head in Chase's direction, standing idle with inner thoughts unknown.
"The newest model utilizes our most recent technology," Justin continued. "Instead of fursuits, we build the shell directly on the machine in segmented pieces."
He touched a finger to the dog's head, tracing down the dividing line cutting its face in two halves. "When maintenance is required, we can just open its faceplates where needed, or it's leg, shoulders, whatever."
Faceplates, more like armor, Chase thought to himself, nervously glancing at Alpha. He should've kept the stupid fursuits, why did these things need armor? He hated to stare, but Alpha technically wasn't alive so Chase forgave himself. The dark machine stood off to the side, but not coldly still like the average idling machine. He showed the faintest of movements around his chromatic body, twitching his metal paws, gently moving his tail, turning his cutting ears discreetly in all directions. It all gave the illusion of some malicious entity masterfully imitating a dog's behavior, yet something more was hiding beneath his soundless mask. Just watching him made Chase sink with an unnerving feeling, just what was this intimidating robot capable of? Justin had verbally ordered it to stand down, what would've occurred if he hadn't?
It was all too much; the Companion Canine staring into his soul with lifeless eyes and Alpha lurking nearby was on the verge of giving Chase a panic attack. Eager to not break down in front of his family, Chase turned away to face a workstation, pretending to be interested and hiding his fearful expression.
Rocky instead walked the opposite direction, approaching Alpha curiously, yet carefully. "So do you...understand me?"
Alpha faced him and stared down the grey puppy, mindlessly watching with no eyes or mouth to express emotion. Gulping down his own nerves, Rocky held out his paw to shake, watching his own trembling reflection in the robot's face. Alpha looked down at the offering paw, looked back at Rocky, then coldly turned away to watch Chase's movements.
"This was supposed to be our peace offering," Justin was still talking to Ryder. "A golden gift to Adventure Bay so they'd leave us alone."
The leader asked the golden question, "so what happened?"
The technician faced him with a cross expression, "what happened was some rat backstabbed me, they leaked the project to the general public and the surprise was ruined. To make matters worse, they completely defamed the CC's and spoke of them as if they were war machines! I wouldn't even dream of making robots that could hurt people!"
"That's why everyone's protesting," Ryder said with a nod. "They think you're making weapons."
Chase had to speak up, "people also don't see AI-generated art in a good light right now..."
"You should make a public statement," Rocky said, looking the sleeping robot up and down.
"I need to, but they won't take my word alone. I need to wait for the CCs to finish development so I can actually show them off and prove they aren't malicious. Until then, I just have to grit my teeth and push through the public harassment."
Ryder gave him a supportive smile, "if you help us with this bank situation, we can put in a good word for you. They'll listen to us; we've saved them at least a hundred times."
"Right right, so uh... what was the problem again?" Justin said, blankly looking around.
Twitching faintly, Ryder put his hands together. "The... break-in, at the bank?"
"Right, so you said he broke the tablet?"
"Not broken," Chase said aloud. "He tried to hack it or something; thing works perfectly but it's connections are fried."
Justin waved it off, "oh that's nothing, I'll just get you a Neuroband."
"A... what?" Ryder blinked with confusion. "We don't need anything fancy, if you could just drive with us to the bank then-"
"Not possible, too much work to do."
Both Chase and Rocky looked at each other with questioning expressions. This guy had time to ramble on about how incredible his projects were but couldn't come down to a bank less than five miles away for a few minutes? Even Rocky, the mix who started off excited to see the factories and advancements, was now wearing a skeptical expression.
Reaching into his desk, Justin rummaged through the mess he swore up and down was organized, producing what seemed to be a metallic headband. Near-microscopic pieces of machinery adorned its band like jewelry, tightly compressed with quality alloys and wire.
"Let's make a deal," Justin said, approaching Ryder with the band. "I... need something tested, and I think it'll solve both of your problems."
Ryder looked at the odd piece of tech with a doubtful expression, "what do you mean?"
"You said you needed a hacker dog, right? Well the problem is, there's only ever been two of them. The first one got intel on something he really shouldn't have and was found dead the next morning. And the second... is in federal prison."
"Jesus..." Chase said, alarmed at the mental image of a dog behind bars.
"I don't have any hackers... but I do have this," Justin held up the Neuroband as if it was the key to solving cancer. "It's primarily a maintenance tool, but it can also access most Evcon tech directly into 'debug' mode. To put it simply; with this, you can hack that tablet into fixing itself."
"You're... joking," Ryder reached out and took the headband. "Are there tools in it or something?"
Justin crossed his arms, sucking air through his teeth. "No, and here's the nutty part. You control it... with your mind."
"My mind?"
"That's what I said."
"Did you just tell me I can access Evcon tech with my mind?"
"It's not even really that new, you'd be surprised," Justin said, getting mildly annoyed with the skepticism. "I've designed them to be worn by law enforcement, it's the only way I can get them through all the lawyers. You see, that thing can go through locked passwords, if I try selling it to normal citizens, it's gonna be a PR disaster."
He stepped forward, approaching Ryder with the puppies listening. "I need my public opinion restored and my tech tested in the field, and you need something to restore Evcon machines and hacker tools for your patrol. Here's the deal, I give you the Neuroband for free, and in return you integrate it into the PAW Patrol and be nice and heroic while wearing it."
"So in the narrowest terms," Rocky spoke up. "You're sponsoring us for better technology?"
"That's just business."
"But you said it has to be worn by law enforcement," Ryder said, still puzzled. "I have many titles, but I'm not a..." he slowly looked to the German shepherd below as an idea clicked in his head. "... Police officer."
Chase realized everyone was looking at him, his vision widening and darting around with alarm.
"Chase, wanna wear a Neuroband?"
The shepherd stared at the boy in disbelief, appalled that the question even came his way. "Uh... sir, I must protest," said the puppy, kneading his paws nervously. "I'm happy to be... on the case, but I don't know how comfortable I'll be wearing that."
Justin rolled his eyes, "oh come on now, you can hack stuff with your mind, doesn't that sound cool?"
"I think you should do it," Rocky said with a shrug, looking at his companion.
Chase stammered over himself, sweat pooling under his paws. "I- I don't know if I'll even be able to work it."
"Oh, no worries, let me give you something," Justin walked to a small safe and unlocked it, pulling a tiny sheet of metal.
Everyone in the room saw it, all met with bewilderment. Ryder tilted his head, "a... dog tag?"
"Not a dog tag, my friend, this... is Amata," he got on one knee, gesturing for Chase to lift his head. "An AI assistant to be of service, she can answer any questions you have, and she'll always be right on your collar. She's just as knowledgeable on Evcon tech as I am, think of it like you're talking directly to me whenever you want."
The puppy took a step back, his ears lowering. "Ryder, I don't know if I want to do this, isn't this thing untested?"
"Yes, and you get to be the tester, now put it on," the technician said, voice slipping into agitation.
"Chase, we don't have time for this, we need to get back to the bank," said Ryder, growing further annoyed with the wasted time. "Now grab them and let's go."
"Don't worry, kid," Justin reached out to him, holding the AI tag and Neuroband, seeking to dress the puppy. "Everything's going to be fine, just hold still..."
