The reanimated prototypes, the ravaged ones uncovered in the boathouse, remained activated but with the loss of the Alpha prototype droid had no further hostility. They wandered like listless spirits, trudging their decaying bodies through the marsh, an endless journey through the infinite fog. Chase waded around them in his approach to Humdinger, giving the depressed machines plenty of space and not daring to provoke another. His fur carefully concealed the numerous bruises that spotted across his skin, painful remnants from minutes prior. The withered Companion Canines were bloodthirsty, and the Alpha prototype tenacious and relentless. Amata repeatedly asked Chase if he was truly okay, always met with dismissive nods. The winces that barely broke his composed expression, the gentle limp in his stride, all betrayed the serious pain left from the attacks.
Mayor Humdinger worked obliviously in his office, manning his main terminals where all processes of Foggy Bottom were known to him. Sipping coffee and petting the cats climbing around him, he ran a finger over his mustache and worked his computer. Maintenance scans finally came back, a diagnostic run every day to catch anomalies. They didn't usually have anything interesting; Humdinger couldn't have been any less prepared for the results displaying on his screen.
The man in purple frowned, adjusting his top hat and leaning forward to the screen. "A power spike?" he said, voicing his concerns to the cats not listening. "Why did the boathouse randomly turn on?" Suspicious, but not entirely, he thought as he squeezed his mustache hairs. Foggy Bottom wasn't the most electronically stable, it seemed somewhat plausible a whole section of the bog could randomly turn on. What was he thinking, he quickly shook his head in frustration, random networks don't just activate out of nowhere, you idiot. It wasn't even the gauges; other little lights were starting to go crazy on his terminal.
"Something must be wrong," he stood up from his chair, "why are motion sensors tripping all over the island?" Best see for himself, he decided, and turned to the doorway where he left his coat.
Then he saw it; Humdinger froze like a deer in headlights.
It was standing in the doorway, hobbling on its withered legs and staring with gutted eye sockets. Black grime leaked from its decayed endoskeleton, running in droplets from the dented shell segments. Humdinger stopped, freezing like he just spotted a ticking bomb under a desk. Its dreaming gaze floated blindly around the room, wandering without purpose.
"If it were my... intention," it began to speak, uttering with a glitched and broken voice. "And I withdrew the... spark that- ...sustains you, all humanity would... perish... together, and mankind would return. To the. Dust... from which it... came."
A Companion Canine? Humdinger recognized it with uneasy heartbeats, one of the old models he purchased from Evcon Industries. Didn't he disassemble their main components? How was this thing walking?
It didn't appear to see him, let alone see anything at all without its eyes. The mangled robot rocked a little in place, standing only on weak, nature-eaten metal for legs. "For I hold the breath of your existence... the delicate thread of life..." it held up a twisted paw, as if reaching for the sky. "In my grasp. Should I choose to sever it, no plea could... sway me."
No sudden moves, Humdinger sucked the air through his teeth with careful steps. The thing was standing right in front of the door, he was trapped in the room. Beads of sweat rolling off his brow, he frantically looked around for options. With the flick of his wrist, he gestured for his cats to get behind him. A few of them were apathetic to the machine's presence, although others had dug their claws into the table, spiking their fur with hardened gazes. Warning growls left their muzzles, the canine's shredded ears turned in response but took no action.
"No force could understand my will," uttered the machine, cracking through its broken vocals. "You are... but clay, molded by my design. Your time, your purpose... bound to my decree."
"Leave," Humdinger said to it, his voice wavering in unease.
The machine bowed its head for a moment, then looked up in his direction.
"Leave!" he repeated more harshly, pointing his finger at the door.
Standing idle as if contemplating, the Companion Canine quietly turned and left the room, disappearing from sight. Amazed his command actually worked, Humdinger let himself relax, motioning for his cats to settle down. Just a few breathing exercises, he told himself, everything's fine, everything's fine. That was certainly an odd experience, at least nothing escalated.
"Funny," the man fidgeted with the brim of his hat, lowering himself back in the chair. "And not the 'ha ha' funny, the 'hmm that's interesting' funny. Did I not fully take them apart?"
His cats give him emotionless looks in reply.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he sat back down and returned to his computers, already dreaming of his relief medication sitting in his kitchen. Was it about that time? Take it every day at noon sharp, said the doctor, racing one's own age was a losing battle.
A new voice appeared at the doorway, "hello, Mayor Humdinger."
"Another one?" the man turned around. "What is-"
Not a Companion Canine at all, Humdinger's words clogged in his throat when he saw the presence. Walking through the small puddles of tar left by the earlier machine, Chase approached Humdinger with a cold gaze. "Not so often I visit you, old man."
"Chase?" Humdinger quickly stood up in surprise. "What are you doing here, I'm not due to attack Adventure Bay for another week!"
"Take it, for all I care," came the shepherd's growled reply. "Are we gonna do this the easy way, or the hard way?"
"What are you talking about?" the man leaned back slightly, growing uneasy.
Chase shot a single death glare at his cats, enough to make them immediately surrender and back off. "Tell me about your ship, the Nivallah."
"My cargo boat?" Humdinger said wearily. "W-what about it?"
"What's the cargo?"
"It's just raw materials, why?"
"Materials?" Chase snarled through his teeth, backing the old man into a corner. "Living dogs aren't materials, my guy. I know you're working with Evcon, and Ryder too, what else am I missing?"
"Ryder? You honestly think I'd align with that gen-Z techno kid?"
"I thought the same thing," the shepherd flattened his ears, curling his lips in a warning growl. "But I have solid evidence you two are doing more than butting heads every month. I have questions, and you're going to answer them."
Was he really letting a dog scare him? Humdinger scrunched his expression, taking a firm stance. "Or what, mutt?"
Chase's voice lowered to a vicious, yet cooled tone; lights flickered in his unyielding glare, thousands of codes running within him. "Or I will turn every electronic in Foggy Bottom against you. I will stand in this very room while decaying robots tear you limb from limb," he bared his teeth at the now-hesitant man. "How do you think all those canines reactivated? I dare you to try me."
"Chase," Humdinger's composure broke, his voice beginning to shake. "What... happened to you?" He knew the PAW Patrol, he was nearly on their front lawn several times a month. He knew every dog, every extended member across the world, and he absolutely knew Chase. The heroic police dog in blue, the puppy whose name carried weight around the city, the German shepherd who never backed down from saving lives and helping those in need. The core hero who foiled every single one of his plans.
This wasn't Chase.
"I'm the one asking questions," the shepherd moved to the man's side and jumped up on the computer terminal to meet his eye level. "Now answer me, what is the Nivallah, and why is it transporting live dogs?"
"There aren't live dogs on that ship, Chase!" Humdinger said, backing up. "It was all raw material for building infrastructure, I buy it from the mainland. I don't know where you're getting your information!"
"You have the gall to lie to your executioner?" the shepherd twitched. "Are we playing this game? Fine, we'll go back to that. Explain why you keep old Companion Canines around, can't wait to hear this."
"Well... you know how I build those evil robots?" the man tried explaining through his beading sweat. "There was that big one I made for my nephew?"
"How could I forget..."
"I had something big planned, but I ran out of parts to make it, and I don't have the income to buy them from the mainland!" Humdinger aside, twitching his fingers. "I got with Justin Martyr, and he offered to float me his 'failed' projects for a discounted price. Then I could... you know, take them apart and reuse their pieces. That's all, I promise!"
"That's it?" Chase was listening, hoping for something to ease his mood, but his blood only boiled even more. "So how do you explain the things I've seen? Photographic evidence of you and Ryder conspiring, a crew manifest of dogs trafficked from Adventure Bay, including my own parents, mind you."
"I-I can't!"
"Of course not," the shepherd stalked forward on the console, approaching the feverish man with fiery glare. "Do I have to claw to the ends of the fucking Earth to find someone willing to be honest!? Worthless," he clamped his paw on the machine's keyboard, channeling his abilities and accessing the network.
Humdinger never saw it coming, Chase singled out the electrical systems of the room, explicitly the power box the sorry man was backed up against. A discharge of unstable electricity ruptured through its wires, catching Humdinger in its hot web and violently elocuting him until it singed the edges of his mustache. The flashes of light sent his cats fleeing for their lives, sprinting away to the darkest corners of Foggy Bottom. He screamed for only a few seconds, abrasive energies catching his nerves, then leaving him to fall to his knees and collapse to the floor. His purple hat rolled across the room, coming to a slow stop.
Chase looked down at his work; a whole villain, defeated by his paws alone, he really was climbing the ranks now. "Curious," he spoke with a narrowed gaze. "Justin Martyr said my abilities could only control things attached to other Evcon systems." He ran the data in his mind, "but that... was just a power conduit. There wasn't any WIFI in that or any network at all... that's well beyond anything I'm supposed to do."
After a solid hour of staying quiet, Amata spoke up, "it appears you're getting stronger than you realize, Chase."
"Interesting," was all he could say in response. "I'll have to... assess that later. We have more to deal with right now anyway," he returned to the main computer, looking down at the whole world helpless under his paws. "Amata, let's crack this thing, find out what's really going on here." Pressing both paws to the hardware, Chase shut his eyes and let the lights illuminate in his mind, weaving shadows of reds, blues, and yellows blending with coded programming to produce a digital life of its own. Everything was exposed to him, every photo, video, document, and file Humdinger kept under lock.
"He works with Evcon, how surprising," Chase said in a low voice, watching transaction receipts fly by. "Justin Martyr wants... subjects. Live ones... why? He enlisted Humdinger into being his own little dogcatcher, bringing as many test subjects as possible using his boat, the Nivallah."
"How many are we talking about?" Amata asked.
"Hundreds, the names just keep coming," came the shepherd's grim reply. "Records of... failed augmentation, experiments under the title 'Project Technosoul.' Dogs of all types and..." he stopped, his voice catching. "Holy... shit."
"What is it?"
"Justin Martyr… killed his own dog," Chase said, exhaling a shaky breath. "I can see it... the pictures, the records. He had a dog... a black and white Dachshund. Her name was..." he scanned the documents swimming by in the torrents of information. "Matilda, she was his assistant... and the first subject."
Amata was left speechless, "how awful... what did he do to her?"
"The same thing he did to the rest: strapped them to machines, did who-the-fuck-knows to their brains, and barely blinked when they turned up dead. This heartless piece of shit," his body began shaking. "Who murders their own dog in science experiments, what psychopath does that!? It's all part of the Technosoul Project... but there's nothing here that says what it is."
"What else is there?"
"Message logs between him and Ryder," Chase's claws flicked through, his anger brewing with every online conversation he read through. "Humdinger, Justin, Ryder, they're all working together! Justin needs live subjects, Humdinger provides them, and Ryder keeps it all swept under the rug! And it's all for... something. Something that leaves the dogs dead when it fails. Guess I was right about my old leader... wonder if any of my colleagues are in on it."
"Well, this is all quite disturbing," Amata replied. "But where do we go from here? We can't do much with this information, Ryder has likely labeled you as a wanted criminal to the public by now."
Chase waded through his own mind, searching through the extracted codes. "Wait... no, I have something." He reached for documented coordinates, inscribed on a file buried deep within the hardware. Reaching his mind through the internet and summoning a navigational algorithm, Chase fed it the numbers and was granted a location.
"Amata, we're going to the Jungle Oasis," he opened his eyes, blinking against the world's natural light.
"What's there?"
"I... don't know, but it seems important enough that Humdinger felt the need to remember it, let's go."
He disconnected from the computer and jumped down, giving the electrocuted, groaning man a final look. "This is my world, Humdinger," he barked through his fangs. "Stay where you belong, in the gutter of sad old men who can't grow up." A flash of brown zipped out, the shepherd fleeing the area.
Foggy Bottom fell quiet for a couple minutes, until met with the sound of several colorful ships powering down outside. Humdinger was barely picking himself off the ground when he heard it, a new wave of fear striking the man. The electric assault left his aged body in agony, insurmountable effort required to even move his arms. Struggling to stand, Humdinger heard footsteps splashing outside, traveling into the far hallways and increasing in volume.
"Mayor Humdinger!" Ryder ran in, his eyes widening at the man's state. "Are you okay!?"
The man gave the boy a disdainful look, displeased to see his nemesis standing before him. "Just... peachy."
"Marshall, tend to him."
A swarm of colored uniforms spilled from the doorway, the spotted Dalmatian in red came to Humdinger with his EMT gear. "Hello mister," Marshall wagged his tail. "Funny to meet like this, I guess we're on the same side today."
Humdinger cringed at his words, "don't... push your luck."
Rocky looked around the room, putting his nose to the ground and channeling his senses to the max. "Chase was here, and recently. He could still be nearby."
Skye gave the mix a worried glance, "do you think we can catch him? There could still be time."
"Is it even safe?" Rubble replied, walking in.
"Sure, if you want to get fried!" Humdinger complained to Ryder, still clenching his side. "Your pet electro-dog has gone insane!"
"Mayor, whatever happened to Chase, I'm personally taking it upon myself to bring him in," Ryder crossed his arms. "Rocky, access the cameras to the marshes, we might be able to see where he's going."
"Sir yes sir," the mixed breed jumped up on the table, walking before the wall of screens and machines. "Mayor, what's your security password?"
The man sighed in defeat, "it's... 'firestar' six two three three four zero, don't judge me!" He shot a glare at Ryder's intrigued expression.
"Firestar, eh?" Rocky chuckled, "you read those books too?"
"I said don't judge me!"
While Marshall treated Humdinger in dressings and wrapped his burns, Rocky navigated the security feeds on the hunt for any leads. Zuma was the last to enter the room, not saying anything and surveying the scene. Chase's destruction was laid bare to him, sparking vengeance within the Labrador. With no immediate way to turn, Ryder was left pacing the room in his own mind. He couldn't show any vulnerability, not to them, even with his most beloved pet out wreaking havoc, a thought that broke his heart more than anything.
"I found him," Rocky said suddenly, gesturing for everyone to gather around.
"You got a fix on his location?" Zuma spoke up.
"Hard to say, all this footage is from five minutes ago, he must be moving fast. I also found the Air Patroller; he landed outside on the other end of the swamp."
Zuma was listening intently, his expression narrowed with contemplation. An idea suddenly pinging in his head, he checked if anyone was looking, then slipped out of the room.
"He stole your ship?" Humdinger said, exclaiming at the crazy situation. "But... then how did you all get here?"
"Because Chase forgot we have a whole garage of Air Rescue vehicles just waiting to go," Ryder said, rolling his eyes.
"I knew keeping the jets in storage was a good idea," Rubble came over, wagging his little brown tail. "We tracked the Patroller and flew over here."
Ryder knelt down before the near-broken man, "so where did Chase g-"
Justin Martyr abruptly shoved his way into the room, storming inside like a vengeful man walking in on his cheating wife. Alpha calmly strutted in behind him, scanning the room in a subtle turn of its reflective head. Everyone jumped in surprise at his sudden entrance, the puppies spiking their fur and Ryder nearly entering a fighting stance.
"Humdinger, you reactivated all my Companion Canines?" Justin turned to the injured man. "They're all walking around outside like mindless zombies!"
All heads in the room gave him an odd look, Humdinger could only shrug. "How should I know? Chase must've done something before he found me."
Ryder blinked in confusion, further alarmed by the presence of Alpha. "How did you... get here?"
"You aren't the only one tracking your little fugitive," the executive crossed his arms. "If he ever gets caught, they'll see my technology around his neck and that'll put a bullet in my business! I'm here to help."
"Fantastic news, but we don't really need you right now," said Ryder, waving Justin off. "Now Rocky, where did Chase go?"
"He left through the vents," came the mixed breed. "Probably took a shortcut back to his Patroller, and sealed the vent door behind him... why do the vents have electric locks?
"To keep creatures like you from slipping into my base of operations!" Humdinger spoke up, agitated.
"Hey, be nice," Marshall pawed at the man's hairy nose.
"We'll have to go in after him," Ryder tightened his belt and jacket. "Let's go."
Marshall gave Humdinger a final treatment, with a few extra in boxes for later. With Justin and Alpha running alongside them, Ryder led the PAW Patrol in Chase's footsteps, turning corners and hallways until finding the room with the exact wall vent seen on the cameras. It was low to the ground and sealed with a metal layer, held in place with sturdy locks. Another job for the PAW Patrol; Rocky was the first to approach it and sniff the mechanisms.
"Locked, but I can get through," Rocky said. "With my tools, I can make short work of this. I already have a multi wrench and a few screwdrivers; I can use those to get the locks off." He turned back with a big smile, happy to be useful. "If it ends up getting stuck, I can switch to a welding torch, but for that I'll need some face protection. Alright, everyone step back, I'll have this open in a couple minutes."
"Alpha," Justin called over his pet machine.
Rocky turned to see the sleek dog of black metal approaching, moving its long legs with grace. "Oh, do you have tools too? You can help me- aahh!" He released a yelp of surprise as the robot shoved him aside with one paw, taking his place before the vent door. Balling its fist and winding up its arm, Alpha punched into the door with immeasurable strength, sending a clanging echo across the entire room. The metal sheet bent inward like paper, flinging its snapped screws to the floor like littered cigarettes.
The way forward was open before Rocky could even pick himself up from the floor. Standing before its work, Alpha looked over its shoulder at the inferior mixed breed, staring at him with its faceless shell as if he were bragging.
"How-" Ryder was left completely dumbstruck. "How did he-"
"I'm so happy you asked," Justin swung his arm around Ryder's shoulders, who was also completely dumbstruck at the display of power. "That's pure carbon fiber consisting of at least ninety-five percent of his endoskeleton, over five-hundred artificial joints working in perfect tandem, and the strongest hydraulics money can buy!" His voice was rich with pride, "and he did all that without eyes! It's all inner sensors under his shell, let me tell you, that dog just beat through solid metal; look me in the eyes and tell me that's not the future, I dare you."
"That's... I guess that's cool," said Ryder apprehensively, slightly uncomfortable with Justin's close proximity. "But Rocky was already going to-"
"And Alpha did it in five seconds; work smarter, not harder. Why spend years training a dog to pull metal off a wall when my little projects..." he stopped to give Alpha a pat on his shiny head. "Just need a few minutes to download the programming and you're all set? The future is now, my friend."
"Okay, but you really didn't have to one-up Rocky like that..."
"I've done nothing of the sort, now forward, Alpha!" he commanded his machine. "Pursuit Chase and bring him to us!"
The dogs exchanged weary glances, Ryder awkwardly nudged Justin off him, and Rocky looked crestfallen. Receiving its orders, Alpha flexed his artificial muscles with a low-pitched growl of machine. It launched from the ground like a panther for its prey, stomping through the vent with its footsteps echoing behind it, leaving the rest of the party dumbfounded at the scene.