Planet Protectors: Hard Times/Chapter Two

Deep at the end of the Planet Protectors' Starboard Ship lied a glowing teleportation pad that lit the otherwise dull corridor as Gary the guide dog formed into the room, stumbling slightly. He took a deep breath, gently closing his eyes and sighing; despite nearly being choked by a terrifying Tiger just a moment ago Gary tried hard to let it go as he had business to attend to. He was about to begin his journey but paused as he took notice of his feet; he was missing a sandal! ("Huh... Did I drop it on my way to the bus station? Nah... I would've noticed, surely.") Gary looked behind him to see if it was there. ("Perhaps I dropped it when that Tiger dude grabbed me... Not that I'd go back and get it.") Gary was about to continue but flinched as a light object hit him on the head. "Ah." It was the sandal. "Teleportation pads, always with the lag..." He slipped on the sandal and began his stroll down the corridor.

The corridor was not too long; it was only a few steps away from the main hull of the ship. The walls were painted with a smooth but shiny dark green finish and embossed with light green transparent tubes that transported a supply of energy around the ship, powering the various rooms that it contained. Gary glanced at the tubes in caution, suddenly reminded of a previous visit to the ship where he witnessed Polly flying face first into one of the tubes, shattering it. As a consequence, the ship was temporarily unable to move and was in a stasis of blackout until Rufus was able to patch it up. Considering his relationship with the Planet Protectors was relatively poor at the moment, Gary decided to proceed with extra caution, taking slow steps against the overly polished floor so as not to stumble any more. ("Hm... Jack must've just cleaned in here. It looks like he's had a field day on this floor...") Gary pondered to himself, taking a moment to observe his reflection in the floor, adjusting the fur on his head that had misshapened thanks to the sandal situation.

Gary made his way to the end of the corridor, pausing awkwardly for a brief moment as he waited for the transparent doors to automatically open. The guide dog stepped through into the main hull of the ship, pausing for a moment with his eyes not knowing where to focus their attention. There were Helper Bots scurrying from one room to another carrying various bits and bobs. One Helper Bot whizzed past Gary, holding a cup of tea in one hand and a potted cactus in the other. Gary watched in confusion before being pushed aside by a Monkey and a Bat frantically chasing after the bot. There was a dapper desk positioned towards the end of the room, cluttered full of papers and various nicknacks including a ball of yarn and a small collection of pens that no longer worked; evident from the fresh ink stains that formed on the edge of the table and dripped onto the floor.

In the corner of the desk lied a computer monitor; considered outdated technology by many animals. Positioned in the middle of the desk was the Planet Protectors insignia; a shield with three conjoined dots representing Scott, Cindy and Rufus. The insignia was actually a passageway into a secret storage device; it was capable of retracting into the desk and revealing a small storage area. Gary wondered what was inside; his mind suddenly recalled of a previous moment of urgency in the ship where Cindy secretly opened the area to retrieve her ID badge. Naturally, being the shifty animal he is, Gary continued his shifting streak by shifting his eye to take a peek into the insignia and thus taking notice of an apron that was stored inside, but failing to see anything else.

The guide dog strolled over to the desk and frowned at the sight of an empty chair behind it. The desk belonged to Audrey, the Planet Protectors' somewhat trusted receptionist who appeared to be absent from her duties. "Audrey? Are you there?" Gary peered over the desk to find the short Cat kneeling on the ground, heavily focused on a collection of system units stacked together in an opening behind the desk. Audrey glanced up to the guide dog (who was still peering over) and stumbled onto her back in shock. "OH! Hello, Gary. Can I help you?" Audrey is usually keen to help but in this scenario her focus returned to the system units. "Just give me a moment, I have no idea how to get this thing working..." Audrey collected a group of wires in her hand, each colour co-ordinated to a corresponding hole in the system. She placed the blue wire into the pink socket and sighed. "Ah, that should do it." Audrey grabbed onto the hinge of the desk, supporting her as she calmly raised to her usual fixed standing position.

"Well, Scott called me for a meeting. Where can I find him?" Gary adjusted his backpack, already impatient watching Audrey fumble around with the monitor, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. After approximately two tedious minutes Audrey finally located the power button. "Hm... Oh yes! Let me just verify it with the computer system thing..." The two animals stared around the room whilst waiting for the monitor to start up. Gary coughed, clasping his hands to his mouth; the guide dog was socially incompetent but even he could identify the gauche situation between them. "So how have you been?" He attempted to start a conversation. "Oh, good..." Audrey's focus maintained on the monitor; her lackadaisical approach to the conversation gave Gary the impression that she didn't really want to talk to him. A moment later the monitor lit up as did the faces on the two animals only for them to frown when the monitor shorted out. "I guess tinkering with the system unit wasn't my strongest idea..." Audrey slipped to the ground, kneeling once more to tinker with the system unit further.

"Uh... Wouldn't one of the technicians usually help you with this?" Gary tapped his fingers on the desk in impatience, accidentally touching the wet ink causing him to quickly shake his hand and act natural as Audrey glanced up at him. "Jack, Roary and Melissa are busy cleaning outside on the balcony." She continued to tinker with the wires, this time putting a green wire in the pink socket. "Uh... What about the scrawny one?" The golden retriever had a habit of calling the Basset Hound this nickname; mostly because he had trouble recollecting his actual name. "Rufus? He is busy with an 'anti internal combustion engine', whatever that means... a Jackal and Salamander are helping him with it." Audrey sighed at the sight of the monitor shorting out once again. "I can't get it to work. Why don't you just follow me through to the lounge?" She began to walk away from the desk. "Are you sure? Didn't you need to mark it down-" Gary caught up with Audrey but was interrupted by her hasty demeanour. "No no, it's fine. I'll get it working. Don't worry about it. Let's go now."

"Oh... Okay." Gary followed after the Cat, staring up and down the corridor. "It sure is clean around here. My nose is acting up with this strong scent of cleaning polish..." Gary, twitching his nose tried once again to spark a conversation but doubted it would work. "Not enough, apparently." Audrey pointed at a framed photo of Scott on the wall. "Mr. Scott demands that the ship is ship-shape." Gary looked at the polished photograph and shrugged. "It looks pretty clean to me? He sure has high standards." Throughout the conversation Audrey continued to walk ahead of Gary, not giving him a glance. "Yes. I placed a Red Panda on cleaning duty here but it seems she's more occupied with other... things." Audrey gave a sneaky point of her tail towards the Panda, engrossed in a flirtatious conversation with a sanctimonious Sheep.

"I see..." Gary realised it had been about ten minutes and he hadn't tried to sell anything to the Cat yet. Oh, Audrey? I have a brand new product and I was wondering if you wanted to hear about-" Audrey quickly cut Gary off his marketable malarkey; she was used to hearing this conversation on a regular basis alike many other animals the guide dog conversed with. "Oh, sorry. I just don't have the time. The monitor urgently needs attending to." With that, Audrey swiftly exited the corridor. "Oh, okay. Uh... BYE." Gary yelled down the corridor in an attempt to reach Audrey, startling the Red Panda who dropped her lunch and grumbled as the Sheep wandered away.

Gary stood outside the lounge door. It was considerably silent here compared to the main hull of the ship that felt cramped due to the multitudinous mumblings from the crowds of Helper Bots and animals. The guide dog was able to see into the room thanks to the clear glass window positioned next to the door. Gary noticed Scott sitting alone on a curved purple sofa with a table in the middle. The table was neatly laid out with two piping hot teas resting on small plates. It was clear to Gary that Scott's overly perfectionist demeanour extended around the entire ship; he hesitated for a moment before opening the door. ("Do I look good enough? Wait, what? I'm not on a date with the guy. No, no. It's fine. He called me over here.) Gary glanced down at his shirt. ("Is that a stain? Oh man... He's gonna scrub me out of existence.") Whilst Gary zoned out into his own world of anxieties, the door slowly opened. "Uh... Are you coming in or what?" Scott stood at the door, holding it open for the golden retriever who jolted out of his distracted mind. "Oh! Hey Scott. Sorry, yeah."

"Thanks for coming over with such short notice. Please, take a seat." Scott gestured his hands towards the sofa, seating himself and allowing his jagged striped tail to rest comfortably. Gary stumbled onto the sofa, stubbing his toe on the table's leg and crossing his legs to numb the pain. "Uh... Interesting position you have going on there." Scott frowned. "Haha, yep! Never been a fan of stretching my legs. Hold on." Gary dropped his sandals on the floor. "So, are you ready for our meeting to begin? I made us tea, I hope that's okay." Scott took a sip of his tea and sighed. "Ah, just what I needed." Gary had his usual awkward closed mouth expression on his face the entire time; he had no idea what tea party world he just walked into. "Oh, sure. You wanted to talk about my relations with the Protectors, right? Geez... I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys about Lana-" Scott raised his hand. "No, no, it's okay. I recognise that our crew can be quite... unreasonable. Myself included, honestly. I wasn't too happy to hear about the distress Polly was under, but rather than cutting you off entirely I-" Scott paused. "Well, Rufus thought it'd be better to hear from your side and understand why you did it and what we can do to avoid it in the future. Information like this is extremely important, Gary. If we had knew about Lana beforehand, we could've prepared for her arrival and calmly dealt with the red light situation."

Gary scrunched his lips in discomfort. "I understand that, but at the end of the day I am a business guy. I have to withhold information and put a price on it so I can afford to live. Maybe I should've told you beforehand that I had information you may be interested in..." Scott gave a gentle nod as he placed his tea on the plate, carefully realigning it. "I understand that you have relations with both parties, Gary. Though it concerns me that you are more than willing to sabotage our plans by feeding information to Velocity; we're trying to protect planets after all." Scott folded his arms against the table, leaning closer towards Gary causing him to raise his eyebrows. "You do realise that by withholding information you are somewhat responsible for our failure to preserve planets? That thousands of animals are in captivity indirectly due to your decision to withhold information from us?" Gary thought about what Scott said for a moment and shrugged it off. "Hey, maybe you guys should've tried harder on your missions then.

"Scott raised up from the chair, his once calm nature left him in an instant. "Are you serious?!? I cannot believe you're blaming us for this! We try our hardest to foil Velocity's plans so that every animal can live freely and the best you could do is co-operate Gary! Would it hurt you to think about anything other than profiting?" Scott had his hands firmly placed on the desk, towering over the shivering guide dog who nervously held his backpack against his face as a form of protection. Scott was startled by the fear and in realisation of his anger steadily returned to his seat. "Yes, I do need to charge for everything, Scott. Don't you see how hard things are for me? I only charge the prices I do so that I have enough money to keep my business afloat and buy the basic necessities in order to survive! You have no idea what it's like to live like I do." Gary had barely touched his tea. He was a little distracted by his emotions.

"I may not know what it's like, but just because I live in a privileged environment doesn't mean I don't know what it's like to feel hurt." Scott placed his tea aside and sighed. "It's been around ten years since I first met Sabre... Cindy and I formed a small environmental preservation club that Sabre later joined after taking interest in me. We were dating before he joined our club but it seemed he was interested... Or maybe he was just trying to get in my good book. I don't really know. He was a lot different back then... As time went by, Sabre became progressively vain. The idea of founding the Planet Protectors infuriated him as we didn't intend to profit from it; it was important to Cindy that helping others came first." Gary tapped his fingers on the table, ever impatient. Scott took notice of this and tried to wrap his short story up. "All in all, Sabre left me with the decision to choose to stay with him or help my sister with her company. You can guess what decision I made... Things only got worse from there." Scott grasped at his tea, huffing in frustration, his tea cooling in the process. "I don't get it, why are you so bothered about him?" Gary shrugged his shoulders; all the golden retriever wanted was to get this meeting out of the way as the feeling of discomfort lingered over him.

"What?!? You do realise that I'm in love-" Scott corrected himself. "I was- I was in love with him, right? We were together? I don't know how much he told you but-" Scott scoffed before Gary interrupted him. "Dude, it's been ten years. Don't you think it's time to move on? I'm no counsellor but it's obvious there's a problem here-" Scott's eyebrows furrowed in bafflement as he stared at the half-witted guide dog projecting what he perceived as nonsense to his face. "How am I supposed to move on from my ex when he founded a company specifically aimed at destroying the environment and the lives of those who inhabit it just to spite me? That I live every day of my life with a looming weight of guilt for it all? I can't help but feel somewhat responsible for every single animal that Sabre's ruined the life of... If I hadn't have broken up with him... Maybe things wouldn't have been so bad..."

Gary recognised that Scott wasn't doing too well and was about to remark once more but stopped himself, lifting his finger up to say something but pausing. Scott's head drooped down as Gary thought of what he wanted to say. "I'm... Sorry, Scott. I didn't know the extent of your relationship... Sabre said he 'knew you well' but that's all he ever alluded to. If you want my opinion, it's not your fault at all. None of this is... Sabre can be real ignorant." Gary chuckled, causing Scott to crack a small smile. "I know... But if things had just worked out..." Scott was interrupted by Gary once again. "...You'd be in a toxic relationship? I don't mind Sabre, he's a great guy, but man, I couldn't date him, heh. He's far too self centred and I'm sure he wasn't perfect when you first met him... Uh... I'm not the greatest at this..." Gary stumbled on his words. He wanted to comfort Scott but he wasn't used to this kind of scenario. "No, Gary, you're doing great. Thank you." Scott smiled, taking another gentle sip of his tea.

"...No but Scott, don't you see? If you maintained your relationship with Sabre, you wouldn't have been able to change him. You wouldn't have met Rufus, or Jack, or Sonar. You wouldn't be here right now. I'm not sure what you want going forward but I'm sure you can get it." Gary noticed a change in Scott's attitude. He had returned to his original relaxed position from the start of their meeting. "I'm just... After all this time... I'm still struggling to process it, is all. I know it's been a long time but considering I have to deal with him on an almost daily basis, I feel somewhat justified." Scott shook his head in disapproval and tutted. "Not only that, but he's hurt so many animals close to me... Sonar had to deal with his corrupt personality and now he's out to get her kind. It's so hard to fight someone you once loved." Whilst listening to Scott the guide dog noticed that he had eased up a little too. "Man... I'm sorry I was so rash. It must be real hard to do that, especially with all the media attention, I can't go anywhere without seeing some kind of news report about you. I'm just a shadow to the galaxy; nobody ever notices me..." Gary noticed the awkward silence and tried to lighten the mood up. "Hey, maybe I have a knack for this whole 'talking about your problems' thing. What do you think?" Gary grinned as Scott raised from his chair.

"Hah, perhaps you have! Thank you for listening to me, Gary. It's not often I get a moment like this to just talk. Hm... Maybe our crew could benefit from some guided meditation? I know a Jackal on our team who meditates often. Perhaps they could run it. You could come along too, Gary. All that aside, would you like some more tea?" Scott collected the teacups from the plates and headed over to a counter at the other side of the room. "Yes, please." Gary watched with intrigue as Scott placed a spoon in the grip of his tail, using it to precisely stir the teas. "Just my special method, that's all. It keeps the tea at a warming temperature. Now, back to the meeting." Scott placed the teas down. "Be careful, they're piping hot." Gary recoiled his hands away from the tea after hearing Scott's warning.

"I understand that your living conditions are less than ideal Gary... So I have a proposition that could benefit the both of us and it's rather quite simple. You are free to charge us for information so long as we are given the option to hear it in the first place; any information on Velocity that could benefit our missions or impact fellow Protectors, such as Polly, is vital to us and we need to know it as soon as possible. I want to support you Gary, but the others struggle to do so when your sense of humour often spurts at the wrong moments, making a joke out of your hard times in life often gives us the wrong perspective from you but I understand. Please Gary, make sure to tell me when you're struggling and I'll try my hardest to sort something out for you, so long as you stay trustworthy with us."

Whilst Scott outlined his proposition, Gary appeared to be at complete ease for the first time in a long time. "That sounds good with me. I wish I didn't have to resort to Velocity for cash, but..." Scott nodded. "Yeah. I know. Sadly we can't even afford to pay our own workers here as maintaining the ship is an expensive process. The best we can do for Planet Protectors is give them accommodation and privileges in their status with the public. Saving animals is all I need as motivation, personally." Scott looked down at his shimmering badge in confidence whilst Gary hesitated for a moment, not knowing whether to speak or not but went ahead anyway. "You know, I never intend to be rude or pushy with how I speak to you all... I'm sorry if it's came across that way. Like you said, I guess I just use humour as a way of dealing with things. I'll try and be more considerate before speaking in the future, but I'm not the best at these social cues..." Gary grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "It's fine, Gary. I really appreciate you taking the time to attend this meeting. I'm glad we've been able to talk things out." Scott went to place the finished teacups and plates into a cleaning device that was built into the counter.

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about, Gary?" Scott returned to the table, polishing the minuscule stains that were left from the teacup plates vigorously. "Hm... Not really. So I promise to let you know of any information I may have and try to word things better when negotiating the pricing. I'll tell you when I'm short on cash too?" Scott nodded, pressing the glowing button on the middle of his belt, allowing him to place the rag he was polishing the table with into a holographic storage device that recoiled into the belt. "Yes, that sounds great. Thank you once again for visiting Gary. I hope this marks a positive turnaround for your relation with us Planet Protect-" Scott's speech suddenly faded as he took notice of a basset hound standing outside of the lounge door, knocking ever so slightly. "Ugh... Give me just a moment, Gary." Scott opened the door in frustration.

"How long have you been waiting there?" Scott attempted to greet Rufus the basset hound who appeared to be in a common state of anxiety. He ran past Scott whilst pulling his ears and running back again, spinning on his one foot and nearly falling flat on his face. "UH... About 10 minutes but THAT ISN'T THE ISSUE!" Rufus pulled at Gary's shirt whilst the golden retriever stared at him perplexedly. "What's going on, Rufus? You know I booked this lounge right?" Scott pointed at the 'occupied' sign on the window of the door. "Uh... Yeah. I booked it for you, remember? On our tablet... You need to come with me right now, please!!" Rufus pulled at Scott's vest in a futile attempt to move him out of the lounge. This was the first time Gary had witnessed Rufus in this state; he didn't have a great understanding on what was going on nor did he know how to approach the situation but being able to cheer up Scott a moment ago, he attempted to help Rufus.

"What is the problem dude? We can't help unless you tell us..." Gary shrugged his shoulders. He tried. There was an attempt. "It's Jack!! He's floating out in space!!!" Rufus ran out of the lounge and into the corridor. Scott and Gary glanced at each other in confusion for a brief moment before chasing after him. "What do you mean he's floating out in space? We have a gravity barrier activated. How on earth did he bypass it?" Scott caught up to Rufus whilst Gary stumbled behind them, slipping his flip flops on and bumping into a startled Salamander in the process. "I have no idea! One moment he's cleaning, and the next he's floating up in space! Here..." Rufus fumbled with the button on his belt, his eyes fixated on the ground beneath him so as not to trip up like he usually does. He loaded up a holographic image of the situation at hand that followed the three as they walked. "How on Friscora did you get that image?!?" Scott gasped, his pace and concern increasing. "Uh... I may have panicked and posted it on social media..." Rufus grinned out of embarrassment. "It was just a reflex reaction, I swear! I was about to post on your behalf anyway, but I accidentally snapped a photo when I saw Jack..." Scott hung his head in shame, shrugging it off and softly chuckling at the basset hound to keep him at ease. "Woah, that's a real high quality display." Gary remarked but noticed the glances of disapproval from Scott and Rufus. "Sorry. Not the right time. I get it."