When The Past Becomes The Future

Pups Have Fun

That night, temperatures dropped below -15 degrees. It was so cold that Ryder told the pups to come into the Lookout for the night. But just as quickly as the temps went down, the temps rose, going from -20 that night to 50 degrees that morning.

"Hey, Rocky!" said Chase passing by the eco-pup. Rocky was currently working on Ryder's Pup Pad, well, his new one. Marshall, being the clumsy, adorable pup that he is, tripped and fell. Ryder instinctively threw his Pup Pad into the air to catch him. There was a loud crash as it fell. It broke into so many pieces, that it all had to be thrown away. Ryder was very sad about it, and Marshall looked like he was afraid Ryder would kick him, but he stayed at his owner's feet, spouting profuse apologies.

"I'm sorry Ryder. I'm such a stupid pup. If I wasn't so clumsy, you'd still have your pup pad." he cried.

"No, Marshall, it's not your fault. I should've just let you fall," said Ryder, still very upset with the dalmatian. "Then I'd still have my Pup Pad." Marshall looked up at his with tear-filled eyes, then ran out of the room, sobbing. Rocky had been eavesdropping on the conversation.

I'll build him a new one, even better than the one he had before! Rocky thought, rushing off to his pup house. He pulled out the best spare parts he had and got to work. The incident had happened last night, and Rocky was too upset about what had happened at the hospital to sleep.

So all night, he worked on Ryder's pup pad.

"Do you wanna come ice-skating with me and the rest of the pups?" Chase asked, peering into Rocky's pup house.

"In a minute," called Rocky from its depths. "I'm almost done with my latest invention."

"What is it?" questioned Chase, stepping inside. Rocky came from the back and gently pushed him out.

"You'll see soon," he said, smiling a bit. "I'm not letting anyone know about it yet."

"Ok, but don't stay too long. The Bay's frozen over, and it might melt soon," he said, padding away. Rocky went into the back to retrieve the master chip for the whole pad. It was as small as an ant, and Rocky got his smallest pair of tweezers to place it directly in the center. He had the pup pad hooked up to a monitor. It was spitting out code very quickly, so quickly that even the best coders couldn't read it. Except for Rocky. He had always been a genius when it came to coding. Rocky paused the code and entered more seemingly random lines into it.

Then Zuma came inside.

"Hi, Wocky! Whatcha doing?" he asked.

"Look, I'm making a new pup pad for Ryder. He is very upset about his old one breaking and all," he said proudly. Oh, wait, no one was supposed to know about this yet. But I strangely don't mind Zuma knowing about it. What's going on? Rocky thought trying to orient his thoughts. Zuma licked him on the cheek as he passed by him, making Rocky blush.

"Wow! It looks so cool!" he exclaimed.

"Thanks," Rocky mumbled shyly, blushing ever harder, looking down at his paws.

"When will it be done?" Zuma asked turning to face Rocky.

"I just need to add a couple more paragraphs of code into it, and I'll be done," he murmured.

"Can I help?" asked Zuma.

"Why don't you skate with the other pups? I'm sure they've asked you to go ice shaking with them. Besides, you love ice skating." Rocky asked, surprised.

"I just weally.. want to help you today." Zuma stammered, not meeting Rocky's eye.

"Well, okay. You can put in the last paragraphs of code in," said Rocky, stepping away from the Pup Pad.