He slept a lot longer than he intended to, snoozing away on the pillow nest with the Sweetie at his side. The small power nap turned into an eight hour session of peace and quiet, Amata's aggravated yelling muffled by the drawer. The dream was different this time; gone was the usual turbelence of numbers and code, instead gracing him with a thunderstorm amongst a concrete road. It seemed miniscle, barely any details to draw an image compared to usual the data influx he took in his dreams.
Stirring in a low awakening, for a brief period he forgot where he was, feeling only the softness of the bed and a mysterious warmth beside him. His programming side hadn't woken yet, leaving a small window of time where Chase was completely himself. His mind wandered with confusion at how little he felt, the presence and warmth from mysterious angles.
Was he still in the castle with Sweetie, the night they walked through the courtyard of Barkingburg? Had he fallen asleep and dreamed of a cybernetic nightmare, only to be rescued back to reality? Her laughter seemed like such a fleeting memory now, another fragment of the life he used to live.
A voice sounded from the darkness of his mind; not a product or another glitching screech of digital mayhem, but a simple voice that mirrored his own, crying out from the void.
What have you done to yourself?
His eyes opened, a flash of running code crossing his vision, a grim reminder of his true reality. Blinking the weariness from his eyes, Chase stood and stretched out his sore muscles. He noted after yawning once that Sweetie was lying beside him, an interesting sight that brought old memories that seemed so long ago. Her still moving frame, twitching ears, gentle rise-and-fall of her breathing, such was the beauty of the living.
AI could only dream of replicating something as beautiful as this.
Generative code could vomit images and writings for as long as it desired, rotting in its delusion of virtual worlds. But none of it was real, was it? Nothing was really there, unlike the living that slept next to him with such blissful peace Chase felt the compulsion to caress her forehead.
"Ah shit, Amata," he remembered the small metal tag still locked away in the drawer.
Amata, the AI he wore around his collar, she felt like such an afterthought now. No, that was rude to think, Chase kicked himself. Amata was as much of a friend as Sweetie was, right? Even if she wasn't real, replied with programmed responses, designed to care; it didn't matter, did it? The strange things he felt for the Sweetie, why didn't he feel the same for Amata? Making haste to her prison, yet stopping to glance back at his organic companion, Chase rolled his eyes and opened the drawer.
The programmed dog tag was less than pleased, "did you forget about me!?"
"No, Amata," Chase said apologetically, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Just... fell asleep."
"Well wakey wakey, eggs and fuckin' bakey, we have a company to fight!" snapped the dog tag.
"Can you relax? I finally have another real dog who doesn't hate me."
"Everyone is hostile, Chase," Amata emitted a digital growl. "You don't need her; you have me, I can do anything! Only one of us has been here since the very beginning, and it wasn't her."
The shepherd shot a glance back at the terrier, who was gently starting to awaken from the noise of their conversation. He didn't understand why he was gazing, or why he suddenly felt the urge to throw Amata back into the drawer.
He fastened Amata back to his collar, "morning, Sweetie."
"Aw nuts," the terrier yawned and shook the soreness from herself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... knock you out like that."
"You slept next to me."
Sweetie gave him a blank expression, "my fur is thin, and you're warm. Sue me."
"Can we get back to addressing Evcon, please?" Amata interrupted them.
"Oh right, that's why you came here at all," the terrier said sheepishly, looking aside. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"
Chase interjected with a soft gaze, "stop apologizing."
If Amata was real, she'd probably be making fake-vomiting sounds at this but held her digital tongue from saying anything overly rude. Nodding in gentle understanding, Sweetie took a breath and fluffed her fur. "I promised I'd help you."
She spoke while licking her paw, "I don't know every detail, but the biggest thing Justin spoke of was how downright amazing the Nueroband was gonna be."
"Because it allowed you to manipulate a digital world?" Chase tilted his head. "I wasn't lying when I said I could fly ships."
"That, but there was something else," Sweetie pointed. "The bands were also designed to connect everyone's minds on one giant server under Justin's control, and when you have a digital world, who could be more powerful than its main admin?"
"Mass brainwashing," Chase concluded, narrowing his eyes.
"Thank God he never finished the project," she shook her head in a wistful tone. "That was around when I left, both from knowing it wasn't going anywhere and seeing how insane he was. I just wanted first grabs at a piece of technology to use for stealing the crown, things changed when..." her expression fell. "When Matilda died."
"I think he used dogs because our mindpower was less than humans," she thought aloud. "Meaning we'd be less likely to resist, and dogs are pretty easy for humans to get in general."
"I... was hesitant but willing to look the other way with the first ones," came her sighed confession. "But those were strays, Matilda was his dog, that changed everything! I called him deranged, then walked off and never looked back. He never tried to kill me, though," she looked aside. "Probably because I was loaded with the princess's money and he still wanted crumbs of it. Anyway, a while back he contacted me, said the whole thing was actually a huge success and I should come back; he mentioned someone named Alpha, said it was living proof of his work."
"He really was insane, thinking I'd come back," Sweetie said with a laugh. "It was obvious he was hunting me, so... I hunkered down here. I actually still have the prototype Neuroband here with me, but-"
"Wait- what?" Chase froze, visible twitching. "You have a Neuroband in here?"
She gestured for him to follow, then walked over to one of the computers hooked into the wall. "Not the version you probably put on, and not a band either."
The computer wasn't on a table, instead kept on the floor so a dog could easily access it. A massive spiderweb of wires was attached to every port possible on its sides, dividing into separate cords of their own and all rounding back to some impressive operation. One of the cords had a small cable plugged into it, ending in a strange device of raw, rough machinery with no protective shell. The device was tiny and fragile, only held together by the tiny wires weaving through its green motherboards.
"That's it right there," Sweetie pointed her paw at the device. "Or... a piece of it, anyway. It's missing the band and outer shell, I don't dare put it on, this prototype was killing people."
Chase looked over the mess of machinery all connected to one computer, "what is all this?"
"Even if it kills people, it does do one thing right," she looked to him. "Hacking. But again, I'm not putting that thing anywhere near my head, so I found a way to control it through other ways. Using this computer as a... bridge, of sorts, I can use the Nuerobands abilities without actually putting it on my head. It's slow... and inefficient," a sigh left her. "But it won't kill me."
"Hm, smart," the shepherd nodded, visibly impressed. "How are you using this and still staying under Justin's radar?"
"I can thank Claw for that, it's the power of VPNs," said Sweetie. "He was involved with some illegal shit and used them frequently, gave me one when he tried roping me into his schemes. That was actually why he left Barkingburg, never found out what he was doing."
She accessed the computer, opening up some programs. "I've been using this on and off, trying to dig through Justin's network and find something I can use against him. Maybe with you here, I can actually get somewhere," she looked over at her partner. "So what exactly do we all know?"
"Ryder and Mayor Humdinger are working with Evcon Industries," Chase came up behind her, looking over the dog's shoulder. "Justin Martyr has been using live experiments for his machines, disguising his mind-controlling device as a Nueroband that can supposedly 'hack the world.' He strapped his dog, Matilda, to one of those things when she tried speaking out against him. I'm pretty sure my own parents probably fell victim to this as well," his lips curled in a snarl. "The next time I see that guy, I'm tearing his knees out."
"Easy, Chase," Sweetie held up a paw. "We need to coordinate our next move."
"Right, right," the shepherd shook his head, pushing away his anger for now. "He's creating a legion of Companion Canines and those crazy Alpha prototypes with a finished one actively walking beside him." He put a paw to his chin, "and I recently learned the main Alpha bot is actually a dog named Greta, another victim of Justin's experiments."
"Sounds… like an army," said the terrier.
The shepherd sat on the floor, putting the puzzle together in his head. "If Ryder and Humdinger, two highly prestigious leaders in the bay, are working with him, he could have the whole town under his thumb. And- and the robots are his enforcers!" He stomped his paw on the ground, growing uneasy at his thoughts.
His lips curled in a growl, "sounds like the Technosoul never truly went offline... shit, that explains the Ethereal Link!"
"The what?"
"A system I found on Tracker's island," Chase explained with flattened ears. "It's Justin's newest project; a global operation that links all connections to one central command! If he never shut down Technosoul and continued experimenting- which we know was finally successful because fucking Alpha exists- then Adventure Bay might be walking into a trap!"
Amata spoke up after several minutes of being quiet, "what if the canines aren't as robotic as they seem? If there was a body hiding under Alpha's armor, then the other robots could be the same story."
Although Sweetie was uncomfortable with hearing the AI's voice, she couldn't resist the shiver running down her spine. "That's a grim thought." Her paws gently slid off her keyboard, "he spoke of the Technosoul like it was the greatest thing to ever grace the Earth," she said, leaning her head back. "That it was supposed to… link all great minds together, turning the world into one big… happy network where everything understood each other, where everything could talk to one another."
She met his weary gaze, "it all sounds like some crazy attempt to…"
"Turn the world into a fuckin' virtual sandbox," Chase finished her sentence. "He's trying to spread his technology all over Adventure Bay, maybe even further. I bet the Ethereal Link is the final move," he walked to her side, contemplating the information. "Release the Companion Canines…"
"Make them nice and shiny, people start buying," Sweetie said with a nod.
"His tech all goes all the way across the world, people buying and buying and buying," he continued her words, starting to pace in a circle.
"And when the money's high and sales are booming," she leaned in, lowering her voice. "He suddenly comes out with a brand-new product: the perfected Nueroband."
Chase nodded, "and everyone already loves him, so they don't even think twice before buying it. Now everyone's walking around with the same powers I have."
"Then he hits the button, activating the Ethereal Link," Sweetie continued, expression slowly rearing with horror. "The Nuerobands all link their victims into Justin's personal server farm!"
"That would be... catastrophic," Chase's eyes widened. "it's everything he would need to seize control of Adventure Bay."
Sweetie mirrored his disbelief, growing uneasy herself, "we need to do something."
"You still have connections to his old files, can you access his systems using your setup? We could probably sabotage it."
The terrier let out an agitated sigh, "you think I didn't try that already? You bet it found it, but getting in there is a dream. He encrypted that network with the most advanced algorithms in the history of programming, he does not want someone else accessing it before it's ready."
"So what, I'll just break into it," Chase held up his paw at her computer. "I've done it before."
"Chase, wait-"
Her words were lost on him, the shepherd already well on his way through the internet. Seizing control of the network, the shepherd thrust his consciousness across the digital frontier, swarms of graceful white doves taking flight as he passed. Sweetie already did most of the work finding Justin's servers, no doubt a gold mine of Evcon's data. He was eager to crack this vault the moment he reached through the network, anticipating the fall of that damned company at his very paws. Circling in the starry sky of flicking code, Chase descended his reach to a powerful foundation of collected data, locked behind a single omnipotent file, the only wall to the Pandora's Box of Evcon's secrets. The Technosoul was undoubtedly in here, he could practically smell its power as he landed on the file's glossy surface.
Open to me, Chase snarled his voice along the processing waves of the frontier, pressing his paw to the file and roaring his command. Show me Technosoul, show it to me so I can burn it all down.
Nothing.
Furthering his intensity, Chase focused all power into his single command, nearly gripping its metadata in his paws and screaming his demands. Open, open, drop the facade and reveal thyself. Evcon will fall, burn, left in shambles while Justin and the other fools plead for mercy. The firewalls were substantial, barriers unlike anything he'd ever seen before.
Fall to me! The digital frontier was shaking now, trembling at Chase's full power struggling to break the vault. Justin would suffer, and he'd be hailed a hero; Chase, the hacker dog of the PAW Patrol, burning the whole company and taking control for a better future. This power didn't belong to some foolish man, it would be held in the paws of the shepherd that reprogrammed the Technosoul. Turn the power on its head, let Justin burn while Chase took the director's chair, creating beautiful creations that would never hurt anyone again. The pressure squeezed all the might he had, gritting his teeth with clenching force, fighting to break through and seize his target.
Failure.
He couldn't break the barrier; he exhaled sharply and fell back on his side, looking up at the blurry, glitching sky with overclocked data. Spiraling code flickered as if it were laughing at his misfortune, pointing its digital fingers and cackling.
Chase sighed and cut his connection, reawakening in Sweetie's hut.
"Damn," he slowly lowered his arm, disappointment shattering his morale. "It gave it everything I had, too. Couldn't get past the firewall."
"I actually witnessed you do all that, subconsciously," Amata piped in, admiration in her voice. "That was intense."
"The Technosoul is Martyr's most valuable project," Sweetie said reassuringly. "Don't beat yourself up, Chase. I wouldn't be surprised if he developed his own firewall from scratch for perfect synchronization."
"Well, brute forcing it obviously didn't work; do we have any other option?" the shepherd asked.
Sweetie turned back to her computer, typing on the keyboard. "I can tell you confidently, Justin Martyr used decryption keys whenever he protected his files like this."
"I've heard that word before, refresh my memory?"
"It's like… a cheat sheet, one that shows you the answers to solving the puzzle," she tried to explain, hoping he would understand. "Encryption is a really complex process, it involves bits and binary data, I'll save you the explanation. I have a whole algorithm on my laptop to do it for me, I just need…" she frowned, clear defeat on her face. "The decryption key."
No time like the present, Chase thought, may as well get started cracking another puzzle. "So besides Justin, who else knew his keys?"
"He was immensely secretive about them," Sweetie said, thinking back on her old years with the company. "There was only one other in the entire company he shared his keys with, his most trusted companion and assistant."
Amata spoke up, "Matilda."
"Right," Sweetie nodded, amazed she was agreeing with an AI. "Problem is, Matilda died a long time ago in the experiments, so Justin is the last person on Earth who knows. We can either get it right from the horse's mouth, or we'll need to locate her old workshops and get into her files. We can start with-"
"No," Amata interrupted her. "Matilda. The decryption key is a word… It's Matilda."
Complete, aghast silence befell the room, both pairs of eyes staring stunned at one another. No way it was that easy, Sweetie gawked in pure awestruck at the simple word tossed into the air. That couldn't be it, there was no way it was just handed to them. The white terrier swerved back to her computer and ran a program, with the notable keyword "Matilda." The screen came to life; numbers were generated, processes were executed, and the whole network flourished with all the right keys turning the respective locks.
Evcon's file dropped its entire security, the firewall vanishing to stardust as if it were stepping aside for God Himself. Everything was available now, every file, data paper, recording, blueprint, every last piece of research in Justin's experiments, all in the pads of their paws. Sweetie's eyes widened the more she saw spewing from the file, sitting frozen with shock as everything she could ever want was dropped at her feet.
Chase saw it all, blindsided as the golden gates opened for them. He had a whole plan setting up in his head for getting the key, now blown out of the water in six seconds. This was more than enough; with this they could shut down everything Justin was doing. Technosoul and the Ethereal Link; every piece of framework that built those signature world-moving operations was unlocked to them without conflict.
Sweetie turned back to Amata, sheer bewilderment on her face. "How in the living hell did you know that?"
"He uh… told it to me," came Amata's half-hearted response. There was a notable twinge of nervousness in her digital voice, "when he built me, it was one of the things he-"
"Bullshit," Chase cut her off, his expression hardening in a glare. "Amata, Sweetie just said Matilda was the only other dog who could've known, and she's dead."
"Well… that's the thing, Chase. There's something I… should probably be honest with you about..." she let out a sigh, extremely uncharacteristic for what was supposed to be an AI.
Chase reached around his neck, unclipping his collar and holding out Amata's tag in front of him. "Honest about what? Have you… have you been lying to me?"
"Chase…"
"You piece of shit, you've been lying to me!" His ears flattened, boiled rage overcoming the shepherd. "Why didn't you ever tell me that you knew this? What other things about Evcon do you know!?"
Sweetie bristled her fur, "I knew she was bad news! She's probably one of Justin's spies, she could've been feeding him data about you!"
"Wha- no I haven't! I've done no such thing!" the AI cried out.
"You just happened to know a decryption key that Justin only ever told his dead dog, and never wrote down anywhere?" Chase snarled through his teeth, removing Amata's tag and dropping it to the floor. "You don't think we're gonna find that a little suspicious!?"
"Chase, please-"
"You're supposed to be my friend, Amata, but..." he stopped, a realization coming to his mind. His intensity dimmed, inner fires cooling, like he finally uncovered the meaning of it all.
"But you aren't real," Chase said coldly. "I think I see that now."
Amata went silent, then spoke in a timid, shaking tone. "Chase... that's irreverent. I can be real, you don't know-"
"No," the shepherd cut her off, expression relaxing. "You're artificial, Amata. You were programmed to act the way you do, every single thing you say…" he darkened his voice. "Was learned from something else. You're just a tool, a tool that serves a purpose, I never should've thought of you as anything more than that."
"You were programmed to hide the decryption key," Sweetie approached from the side. "Yet you revealed it to us, what's your game, here?"
Completely ignoring Sweetie, Amata was still focused on Chase. "Wait, no- I am real. I can be real! You don't understand-"
"You aren't real, you don't feel, you don't think anything!" the shepherd bared his teeth, snapping his words. "You're just a fuckin' AI that I'm not sure I can trust anymore!"
"Chase, no-"
"Thanks for teaching me how to use my powers," he interrupted her. "Now tell me why you hid the decryption key."
Sweetie leaned in, "and how you knew it to begin with."
"Because... he did tell me," Amata said with dejected resignation. "Justin trusted me with it, back when we worked on the Technosoul."
"You?" Chase reared back slightly, "you helped Justin make it?"
"Of course I did, I was his best assistant. Dogs 'are' supposed to help their owners, after all, I thought we'd go far together," a lowly sigh emitted from the dog tag. "But then I saw it, the true extent of what he was trying to do. I helped him at first but... dogs were dying, my own kind! The experiment wasn't even working yet so they died for nothing! Nothing at all... and I guess the pressure was getting to me. I worked closest of all with Justin Martyr, I knew his secrets."
She continued, Chase and Sweetie closely listening with narrowed expressions. "I cornered Justin and... threatened to go public with his sadistic practices if he didn't stop. He didn't take kindly to that... and that was how I ended up in the chair myself. He put the Neuroband on me... the first version... and it killed me. My own owner, my best friend, murdered me to conceal the truth."
Her voice broke as if she were on the verge of tears, "In the end, I was just another test subject to him. He put the Neuroband on me, Chase! It fried my brain, overloaded me with.. data and… numbers, nothing I could've possibly understood…"
"I woke up after but… things were different," said Amata, her robotic voice filled with sorrow. "Something was wrong with me, I couldn't move my body… he removed the Neuroband from my corpse, and my vision unexpectedly went with it. That was when I knew… in some… stupid twist of irony, his infernal machine worked. I could 'see' my own body, Chase, right across the room. Through his computer camera, I could see everything. I watched him dispose of me, all while my mind was trapped in a stupid program… there was nothing I could've done."
"I had to… put on an act pretty quickly," she explained. "I lied in wait for a while, before suddenly 'appearing' during one of his experiments. I changed my voice on the fly, pretended to be a perfectly functional AI, your friendly artificial friend ready to help. That fool believed it, of course. Never doubted it for a moment; he downloaded me into this dog tag… and named me Amata."
"I'm sorry I lied to you, but… I had to be sure," came her pleading words, desperate to get through to him. "I needed to know that 'you' were the one that could avenge me. I want revenge, Chase, I want the justice I never got," came her plea. "You asked me once why I wanted to help you take down Evcon and… this is it. I want justice for what he did to me, and I'll help you with whatever you need. No more secrets now… anything you want to know, I'll answer it."
Leaning forward, Chase had an inkling of what was coming, "Amata... who are you?"
The digitized voice let out a defeated groan, taking a moment to contemplate her options before finally speaking. "My old body is long gone now, but when I was alive... my name was Matilda."