When Dory and Marlin found the sewer exit and popped out of a city street, they went straight to a café for food.

People gave them weird looks, staring as they ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, with their hair dripping and clothes slightly transparent.

"So, what's the deal with Sydney?" Dory said as Marlin dropped a few coins in the tip jar.

He sighed, knowing that question would come up. "You haven't heard of the Sydney incident?"

Realization washed over her face. "That sounds really familiar."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Short-term memory loss." She pointed at her head and smiled slightly.

He looked down at their coffees and bit his lip. "Sorry."

She shrugged. "Hey, don't apologize. But what about Sydney?"

He sat down at a booth, trying to decide where to start. "Ten years ago, I was living in Australia. I was going to school there, and pretty high in my classes. Then, things started going downhill. I met an organization, one that was trying to shut down a certain industry, PSWay."

Dory nodded, "Okay, what's that?"

Marlin chuckled and stirred his coffee. "Sorry, I just forget sometimes how much you don't remember. PSWay is an agency of, well, science. But it isn't just some old laboratory. PSWay is 'building towards a greater future' as they call it. They do all kinds of experiments and research, pretty much trying to fix everything on earth so that in the end, the world will have become a Utopia."

"That's ridiculous."

"Exactly. They have so much power in Australia, but a secret organization I had met knew something no one else did."

"What's that?"

"In an effort to make the world perfect, PSWay ended up creating more messes and more pain. They would experiment on real people, trying to fix their health problems, trying to rearrange their body cells in order to make them stronger or healthier. Every experiment ended in a death or a life-long impairment, but they wouldn't give up. Soon they started kidnapping people to do tests on, and almost all of them ended up dead.

"The organization was outraged and wanted to explode the headquarters, a terrible solution to the problem. I was young and gullible, so I volunteered to plant a bomb and blow it up.

"I was arrested attempting to escape the scene, and taken to court. After a few years in prison, they determined me innocent and let me go. But PSWay knew what I did, and still knows, so they continue to torture me to this day. The end."

Dory didn't say anything, only, "That sounds really familiar."

Marlin grinned. "Good."

The two hitchhikers went outside to a bus stop, sitting down under the shelter.

Dory checked her watch. "The next bus isn't for another hour."

Marlin huffed and stood up. "Great. Let's find another way to get to the airport."

Dory grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down. "Oh, come on. It's just an hour."

Marlin swatted her hand away, starting to get annoyed at her always trying to take charge. "Yeah, another hour of my son with those lunatics."

"Your son?"

He groaned. "Yes. My son who got taken by PSWay. We're looking for him, remember?"

"Okay, PSWay sounds really familiar."

"Okay, come one. I just poured out my whole past to you and I don't even know you."

Dory looked hurt. "Of course you know me."

"I met you yesterday." He answered.

"I feel like I've known you my whole life." She said bluntly, then turned around in her seat and crossed her arms.

"Oh please. You're acting like a twelve-year-old. I don't think it matters if we're huge buddies or not."

"Hey, lady. Is this guy bothering you?"

A group of men were waiting by the shelter beside them. They had instruments and suitcases, looked like performers.

She looked up at them. "Uh, I don't think so."

"Do you like impressions?" One said. "Okay, boys. Just like we rehearsed."

Suddenly the men were stacking up, forming the shape of a hot-air balloon.

Dory snorted, surprised. "Wow. Okay."

They started forming into all kinds of things—a pirate ship, a cat, a few words. Marlin was really starting to get impatient.

"That's impressive. But do any of you have directions to the airport?"

All the men looked at him harshly as they climbed off each other.

"Why should we tell you?"

"Oh yes, the airport. Do any of you have directions?" Dory chimed in.

The men smiled and one said, "Of course we do. At the shore. It's about an hour by foot."

Marlin shook his head, disappointed. "That's too long."

"Of course, there's a shortcut, which cuts down to about... eh, what do you boys think?"

A few men threw out some suggestions.

"About fifteen minutes," He said, turning back to them. "You just have to cut through that alley right and then you're there."

Marlin nodded eagerly. "That's perfect."

He turned around and jogged in the direction he was pointing. Their voices called to him, something about going around the alley.

"Let's go, Dory," He called, his heart lighter than it had been the whole trip.

She waved one last goodbye and jogged up to him.

"Okay, so where're we going?" She said energetically.

"It looks like we're going to be alley cats for the next fifteen minutes. The airport is next to the shore."

She pointed to the alley. "Here we are."

Marlin walked forward to go in.

"Oh, wait," She grabbed his arm. "I think we should go around it."

He almost rolled his eyes. "Why? It's just right there. They said that was the way. It'll take an hour trying to go around."

"No, I really think we should go around." She peered in nervously.

Marlin walked into the alley. "Okay, you can go around, but don't expect me to wait for you."

He heard Dory's footsteps padding behind him as he walked in. After a few seconds, he heard her stop. He turned around to see her kneeling down next to a little dog.

"Look, Marlin. It must be lost. I could call it Scruffy. It will be my Scruffy." She started speaking baby and reached out to scratch its ears.

He sighed. "Okay, Dory. That's really cute, but we need to get going. We've lost enough time as it is."

"Ow," She cried, her hand springing back. "That thing bites."

Marlin held her shoulders and led her away. "Yeah, let's not touch random house pets. Come on."

He turned and almost crashed into a chain-link fence. Barbed wire was twisted into spirals on the top and a red sign reading "Warning, electric fence" was hung on the side of it. The fence was still buzzing with power, but a fairly sized hole had ripped through. Several other ripped up fences were past it, and rings of barbed wire lay scattered about between them.

"We should've went around." He heard Dory mutter behind him.

Marlin stepped away from the fence in frustration. Nothing seemed to be going right.

"We should just go back." He was only thinking aloud, trying to come up with a solution.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Dory said. "The impressionists back there told me we'd bump into this problem. They said it would be safer to take the hour route and go around the alley."

Marlin turned to look at her. "You seriously knew this would be here? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I tried," She held her hands out angrily. "But you insisted we go the short way."

He ran a hand over his tired face. "Okay, let's just turn around."

A deep growling sounded behind Dory. Four dogs stood in front of the exit out of the alley, right behind her.

"Dory, don't look," He said, his voice quiet and steady. "Don't make any sudden movements."

"What is it?" She whispered, not moving.

"I think I've found Scruffy's mother."

The growling intensified until it turned into rabid barks.

"This way." She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the direction of the dogs. Marlin quickly shook his head when about five or six dogs more dogs had gathered behind her, saliva dripping from their teeth.

She bit her lip and looked over his shoulder. "There's one dog behind you," She whispered. "She's huge, but I like our chances better with her."

He turned around slowly to face the dog behind him. It was even bigger than the rest, a monster version of Scruffy.

Kneeling down inch by inch, he fished a metal pipe from the ground, winced as it scraped on the concrete. Like the noise was a cue, all the dogs suddenly jumped forward in unison. The biggest dog went for Marlin, still vulnerably low on the ground. He raised the pipe up as the dog's mouth gaped open onto him. Her teeth snapped down onto the metal with a clash. Marlin shoved the dog's body off him and grabbed Dory's arm. He pushed her through the hole in the fence, praying she didn't touch it. The dogs were jumping on him, their teeth tearing into his pants. His body was finally through when a pair of teeth sunk into a chunk of his leg.

He yelled in pain, losing his balance and falling the rest of the way. Dory wrapped her arms around his chest and eased him onto the ground, his bleeding leg missing the fence by a hair.

There were several other fences in front of them, all buzzing with electricity and torn through with holes. Coils of barbed wire lay scattered about, hardly leaving any space to walk.

"Can they get through?" She panted, pulling him to his feet.

He held the wound on his leg as the biggest one stuck her head through. "Not without frying themselves first."

Like he had ordered it to happen, the monster dog yelped as her fur brushed across the metal rings.

He breathed in relief. "See? They can't get us."

The dog had slumped to the ground, but soon got to her feet again, seeming only angered by the shock.

Dory backed away, instinctively grabbing his hand. The dog took a running start, leaped through the air, then made it through the hole. The rest of the dogs followed suit, and he and Dory ran.

Adrenaline was rushing through his veins, numbing the gash in his leg and pushing him faster than he thought possible. They scrambled through one hole, much smaller than the other one. The piles of barbed wire were becoming thicker, and it left tiny lines of blood on their skin. Dory was hopping through holes much more stealthily than Marlin, running ahead and brushing the coils of wire away with a crowbar. He lagged behind, whacking the dogs away with the steel pipe.

He was running backwards, still fending the dogs off, when Dory gasped in pain and fell to the ground. She had been attempting to jump through a hole, way smaller than any of the others. He stood in front of her crumpled body and jabbed the iron into a dog's neck, throwing him into a pile of barbed wire.

Kicking another dog in the chest, he scooped up a knocked-out Dory and eased her through the hole, keeping her arms and legs straight at her sides. As he bent down to go through himself, a dog jumped up and landed on his back, teeth tearing into his hair.

"Screw it," He mumbled, then tucked his arms and legs in, jumping into the hole and into the other side.

Grunting as his body hit the ground, he grabbed Dory and tore through the piles of barbed wire. The tiny thorns tore into his skin, his shoes filling with blood. The shore was visible through the last two fences, and the space between them was basically a pool of wire.

"Here goes nothing," Taking a deep breath, he ran and plunged through the fence, hurtling Dory's body over the two fences. Her body hit the sand of the shore, and he could only hope it was enough to cushion her fall. His body cut through the wire, covering him head to toe in blood.

With one last yell of pain, he threw his body through the hole in the last fence. The last thing he saw was black as his shirt brushed against the electric rings and his body crashed into the sand.