Old Wu's "lab"—
A cramped storage room repurposed inside the suite—
Felt more intense than the engine room itself.
The air was thick—
With chemicals.
Sharp.
Irritating.
Mixed with—
Silas's fur.
His saliva samples.
And—
Iron Fang and the others'… "pheromone base fluids."
(The extraction process had been… humiliating enough to make even battle-hardened working dogs reconsider their life choices.)
Test tubes.
Beakers.
Centrifuge.
A borrowed mass spectrometer.
And Old Wu—
Face wrinkled like dried citrus peel—
Eyes sharper than a scalpel.
"This…"
He stared at the scrolling data.
"…is not normal."
He turned the screen toward Silas.
"Your pheromone profile…"
"…is mutated."
"Besides standard canine identity markers…"
"There are at least three unknown compounds."
"Alkaloid-like."
"Neuropeptide analogs."
He zoomed in.
"One of them…"
"Shares a 7.3% structural similarity…"
"With the residual compound from the Disguise Agent."
Silas didn't react.
Only his ears twitched.
Listening.
Processing.
Old Wu exhaled slowly.
"It's like…"
"Your 'dog scent'…"
"…has been contaminated."
"With something else."
"Something human."
"Something—"
He narrowed his eyes.
"—you."
"And then…"
"It got violently stabilized."
"By something synthetic."
He tapped the table.
"To other dogs…"
"You smell…"
He paused.
"…like a paradox."
"Familiar."
"Yet alien."
"A leader."
"And something they don't understand."
"Something…"
"Not natural."
Silas held his gaze.
Calm.
Unshaken.
"Good."
He seemed to say.
"Then use it."
Old Wu smirked faintly.
"Exactly."
He lifted a test tube.
Inside—
A viscous, pale-gold liquid.
"This will be the trigger base."
"Your unique compounds—isolated and amplified."
Then—
Another vial.
Darker.
More volatile.
"And this…"
"Is the amplifier."
"Catnip derivatives—for felines."
"Targeted pheromone frequencies—for canines."
"And…"
He coughed lightly.
"…botanical extracts that stimulate rodents and birds."
Chen Lin crossed his arms.
"So basically…"
"You're about to drug the entire ship's pet population?"
Old Wu didn't even blink.
"Incorrect."
"I'm about to orchestrate…"
"A controlled behavioral cascade."
He injected both liquids—
Into several palm-sized aerosol canisters.
Each one—
No bigger than a cigarette pack.
"These release micro-dispersed pheromone clouds."
"Effective radius: fifty meters."
"Duration: fifteen minutes."
"Low explosive yield—just enough for dispersion."
He placed them neatly on the table.
"We deploy them…"
"At key nodes along the parade route."
Then—
He looked at Silas.
"The real key…"
"…is the trigger."
Silas already knew.
He lifted his paw—
And pointed—
To his throat.
"You?"
Lin Wan blinked.
"You're going to howl?"
Silas shook his head.
Not enough.
Not wide enough.
He turned—
Tapped the map.
Speakers.
Broadcast nodes.
Across the ship.
Chen Lin's eyes lit up.
"The PA system."
Silas nodded.
"Inject audio…"
"At the exact moment of release."
Chen Lin leaned forward.
"What kind of signal?"
Silas wrote:
Gather.
Alert.
Play.
Three phases.
Three triggers.
Phase One—
Low-frequency call.
Attention.
Curiosity.
Phase Two—
Heightened stimulation.
Tension.
Excitement.
Phase Three—
Movement.
Chase.
Swarm.
Old Wu's eyes gleamed.
"I can synthesize that."
"Layered frequencies."
"Instinct triggers."
"Species-overlapping response bands."
"But…"
He looked at Chen Lin.
"We need access to the system."
Chen Lin turned—
Toward Lin Wan.
Her wristwatch—
Silent.
But deadly.
"We can hack a nearby node."
"Short-range injection."
"But we need proximity."
Lin Wan didn't hesitate.
"I'll do it."
"I'll fake a medical issue."
"Get near the medical wing node."
"You cover me."
Chen Lin nodded once.
Decision made.
From there—
Everything accelerated.
Disguises.
Placement routes.
Timing sequences.
Fallback plans.
The canisters—
Were disguised as decorative balloons.
Hidden in flower beds.
Under drink carts.
Inside display props.
Every second—
Calculated.
Every failure—
Accounted for.
And the pack—
Had to adapt.
Iron Fang.
Flash.
Boulder.
Lynx.
New training.
New rules.
They had to act—
Not like soldiers.
But like chaos.
Controlled chaos.
Iron Fang—
Had to fake excitement.
Chase nothing.
Bark at ghosts.
He failed.
Repeatedly.
Stopping mid-run—
Confused.
Existentially offended.
Silas had to nudge him—
Literally.
To keep going.
Flash—
Had to slow down.
Which was torture.
Boulder—
Kept trying to "protect" everyone.
Ruining formations.
Lynx—
Was perfect.
Too perfect.
He had to learn—
To fail.
On purpose.
Miss targets.
Hesitate.
Act "cute."
He didn't understand.
At first.
Why find something—
And pretend you didn't?
But under Silas's guidance—
He learned.
Performance.
Deception.
War—
In disguise.
And one more task—
For Lynx.
Advance scent marking.
Laying Silas's pheromone traces—
Along the route.
Invisible threads.
Guiding the storm.
The night passed—
Without sleep.
Plans refined.
Compounds stabilized.
Signals tested.
Outside—
The ocean remained calm.
Inside—
A riot was being born.
Tomorrow—
The ship would celebrate.
They would parade.
They would cheer.
And then—
Everything—
Would break.