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Service Dogs | Season 1 - Episode 1

January 25, 2026

Episode 1

In 2026, on Earth in the City of Lenape Bows, an alien or alien-human hybrid child wanders the streets aimlessly. A beat cop spots her and radios dispatch with a description and asks about any recent disappearances. They say there are none and ask him to bring the child in. However, the child has disappeared, so he pursues on foot. He sees her entering an old, abandoned building and goes in.

The room is dark, damp and smells like an unmaintained swimming pool. He unclips a device from his belt and throws it in the air - it’s a drone which illuminates the room and reveals multiple children strapped to hospital beds with IV drips, probably keeping them sedated. Some are human, some aren’t, but most are hybrids. Not knowing what he stumbled into, he calls for back-up.

Minutes later, Detectives Xorlocke and Doran Navarro review the crime scene amidst CSI and EMS personnel. Whoever did this is long gone. Some of the children are revived but they’re not fully coherent. Doran asks who the last person or people they saw were. One of the children says “a man with a scar”.

“What kind of scar?” Xorlocke, who is of alien descent, asks.

“On… on his eye,” the child stutters.

Doran asks if he was human. The child nods and the detectives shoot each other a glance.

“Can you describe his eye?” Doran presses the child.

“It was… milky.”

Doran shows the child a picture of a man with a milky eye and a scar running vertically through it.

“Is this him?”

“Yes,” the child says after being whisked away by paramedics.

“Lovely,” Doran says to Xorlocke, who is more than familiar with the man in the photo - Dan Navarro. Doran’s twin brother.

Back at the precinct, Xorlocke and Doran whisper-argue about their next move. They’re loyal partners but know they need to report Dan’s involvement to their Captain, Sarah Fennec who is an old timey, no-nonsense veteran from the Schkrung war.

Xor says he’ll give her 24 hours to look into it but if she can’t find any answers, he’ll have no choice but to tell Fennec himself. Doran thanks him and leaves for the day.

Due to lingering post-war shortages, gala dinners no longer existed. Still, people could book communal venues for birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and the like with sufficient notice. This is what Doran’s stepfather, Biff, did to celebrate his wife, Sally’s, retirement.

The venue was the appropriated manor of the former Schkrung Mayor - a sprawling mansion with servant quarters, infinity pools, stables, spas, observatories, aviaries, all the good stuff - now converted into a rentable community hall.

Doran was fashionably late but just in time for her mother’s speech. Her mother, a prominent leader in one of the fiercest insurgency cells, spoke about the war and reminisced about how human and Earth-born aliens including destitute working-class Schkrung fought to liberate their world from the Evil Schkrung Empire.

She dismisses the modern critiques of Doran’s generation who believe that their side had it easy due to a home advantage and the Schkrung’s dwindling resources. She pays her respects to the fallen insurgents during multiple battles she fought in... which modern history books gloss over in order to bury the hatchet with the Schkrung so that both sides can enjoy the benefits of various fair-trade bilateral agreements.

Doran finds all this extremely boring since she’s heard it millions of times before and makes her way through the crowd to find her brother. Dan is dressed in a fancy glimmering suit. His date is slender with long hair and in an equally mesmerizing red dress which makes Doran feel under-dressed in her street detective attire - a shirt, brown jacket, and jeans - but only for a second, because she's here to work.

Family was great and all but there were bigger problems such as clearing her brother’s name… unless he was a child trafficker, in which case she’d be more than happy to perp walk him herself.

She asks to speak with Dan privately, he smiles and says it better be quick. She asks him point blank about the warehouse with the kidnapped and possibly tortured children and he tells her to drop it because she’s in over her head and will likely be killed in the process.

Refusing to take no for an answer, she handcuffs him..

-which is just an expression because in this world there is advanced technology, so what she really did was place a button on each of his hands which paralyzes him from his shoulders to his fingertips-

…and escorts him from the premises, creating a huge scene and ruining her mother’s retirement party.

At the station, Dan is ushered into an interrogation room as everyone around stares at his own sister bringing him in as a suspect. She leaves him there and exits the room to notify Fennec but is stopped by Xorlocke in the hallway. He thanks her for making his choice easy and appreciates the difficulty she had with her own choice.

Twenty minutes later, Fennec personally arrives to take Doran off the case because she’s too close to the prime suspect.

Doran protests but Fennec tells her she did well and that she now needs to go home and get some rest, because it’s late and she has a full load of other cases to crack tomorrow.

Doran walks out in a huff - and why wouldn’t she? She probably just alienated herself from her family forever after years of already being distant from them.

Back in her apartment, she can’t sleep so she gets dressed, straps her energy pistol, and hits the streets for some answers.

On her way back to the scene of the crime, the abandoned kidnapper warehouse, a flying van subtly approaches her from above and pulls her onboard via tractor beam.

Inside, the van looks like what you’re probably imagining - dark with black lights, lab equipment, high tech computer stuff, and a few scientists and black ops guys.

They restrain her and force her on to a chair but ask if she’s comfortable. She says she has no time for games and asks to leave.

They say they can’t do that until she hears them out. Accepting her lack of choices, after beating herself up for not watching her vertical 6, she asks what they want.

“We need you to let your brother out,” one of them says.

She laughs and asks if they want her to break him out of police custody and join their ragtag band of child traffickers who he is clearly involved with.

“We knew you’d say that,” their leader replies and turns on a 3D projection for her to watch (and listen to, smell, and be completely immersed in, because again, they have super advanced technology in this world).

Here, we learn that:

They’re part of a joint task force which is part of the planetary defence department,
They act as advance scouts who use tech and stealth to uncover off-world and Earth-based threats to society,
They are known as the Service Dogs - an insurgent cell from the war which forged alliances with enemies of the Schkrung in order to defeat them,
The other insurgents were against this alliance because they expected any off-world help to be conditional,
However, the Earth was just one primitive backwater and utterly no match for the might of the Galactic Schkrung Empire so a decision was made to accept help in order to beat the Schkrung
The Schkrung were beaten but the insurgent leadership knew they’d have to return the favor some day,
However, they couldn’t share this directly with the public at the time due to what they saw as the inability of the average Joe to understand the Earth’s desperation,
So, the post-war government which included many insurgent leaders revealed their plans but hid the key points enormous amounts of boring detail, so the public didn't ask any sensitive questions out of a sheer disinterest,
In reality, the Earth’s conditional allies weren’t interested in resources or wealth extraction anyway, they needed someone willing to do the black bag, clandestine, and covert work so they could have plausible deniability and also enjoy security and safety by nipping certain problems in the bud

Seeing this, Doran accuses them of handing the Earth’s sovereignty back to another group of warring aliens and swapping their old Schkrung overlords for new masters.

They tell her she’s wrong because their allies don’t believe in conscription - from experience they’ve dealt with desertion and treachery at great cost. They only work on the principle of self-preservation i.e. if the Earth doesn’t want to be dragged into a galactic war, it should be willing to use its tools to prevent it - one being diplomacy and the other being espionage and stealth-based threat neutralization.

Doran let all that sink in before she responded, which was uncharacteristic of her.

“So how did Dan get involved in all this?” She finally asks.

The main guy removes his mask smiling and asks how estranged from her family she really is if she doesn't know this about her own twin brother.

He says all will be revealed in exchange for Dan's immediate release from police custody.

“No!” she replies. “I shouldn't have even asked. I’m a police officer and unless the law changed in the last 10 minutes, kidnapping children and keeping them sedated in a dank, rusty warehouse is still a crime!”

“Alright, we don’t have time for this. We’re letting you go. Listen to this on the way there, and have him out by the hour. We didn’t kidnap those kids. We were trying to catch the people who did.”

Doran received a transparent file the size of a postage stamp and placed it on her temple. It was a file authorized by the chief regional cadre from Planetary Defence explaining the mission: infiltrate the child trafficking ring, gain their trust as soon as possible, and capture them in a sting operation.

After being ejected from the Service Dogs flying vehicle, Doran arrives at the police station in the morning, acting as normal as possible. She attempts to simply leave the door to Dan's holding cell ajar but she's stopped by a colleague who wants to confide something personal to her in the kitchen.

Pretending to care takes longer than expected so she pretends to be nauseous and runs to the bathroom. On the way there, she passes by the block of holding cells, sneakily unlocks the door and hopes Dan doesn't bolt and cause a scene.

Fortunately, he doesn't but, before he can reach the exit, Xorlocke happens upon them.

The three of them just stare at each other for a few tense seconds assessing their conflicting next moves - Dan wants to run, Xorlocke needs to stop him, and Doran needs to stop Xorlocke.

The standoff ends as they all go their separate ways cautiously; but just before he can reach the exit, a pair of uniformed officers notice Dan and wonder whether he really was the same guy in holding. Was he being released as a suspect? Were they not informed? To be prudent, they begin to approach and question him but before this can happen, a commotion is heard from the squad room.

“Traitor, you let him out!” Xorlocke yells out and points at Doran. “Mole in the department. We gotta mole in the department!” Everyone stares at Doran and starts converging around her.

Using this distraction, Dan sneaks out of the building and Doran is apprehended by her colleagues.

Later that day, Dan is picked up by the Service Dogs and they commence damage control on their operation. The kidnappers will assume he spoke to the police when they find out he spent the night in jail and the Lenape Bows Police Department will be hunting him too. His commanding officer, D'Vante Jones chastises him for being reckless but Dan says they could use the situation to their advantage - the LBPD will likely put out a BOLO on him and tell the media he's a wanted fugitive. They could use this notoriety to seek sanctuary from the kidnappers and re-enter their ranks.

Jones says they'll assume he spoke to the police and very likely torture and kill him first before feeding his body to a wood chipper. Dan says they might but it’s possible he’ll manage to talk his way out of it.

Back at the station, Doran sits in the same holding cell that held her brother a few hours ago. Fennec decides to keep her there overnight until they can assess what's really going on.

Defeated and furious, Doran runs multiple scenarios in her mind about escaping, and using the Service Dogs to find the kidnappers. She runs out of scenarios until she remembers the postage stamp-esque communications device implanted in her brain. Reasoning that it could allow for two way communication, she simply thinks about using it to send a distress call out and sure enough, it works.

“Congratulations Navarro, you figured out how to use our tech, something my actual psychiatric services canine uses to tell me when he's hungry,” a voice on the other end says.

“Dan?!” she asks. “Where are you?”

He tells her there's no time for a proper reunion because the kidnappers are growing more suspicious by the minute. If they want to stop them, the police will need to work with the Service Dogs. Doran sighs and asks what she should do until then.

He says the hardest thing she can do - be patient.

Less than an hour later, Doran watches Jones and Fennec have a heated argument in the latter’s office. Two suited men, who are no doubt plain clothes Service Dogs guard the door.

Fennec leaves her office, claps her hands and assembles everyone in the squad room. She tells them the Feds are here and that they’ll be part of a joint taskforce to capture the kidnappers.

The plan is basically to put out a fugitive alert on Dan advising the public that he is armed and dangerous. The point of this is to convince the kidnappers that he didn’t snitch. The hope is that they pick him up and bring him to their hideout. Once there, the tracking implant in his neck should allow the taskforce to find him and the criminals.

Doran asks about vigilantes and bounty hunters who might want to capture Dan, dead or maimed, and claim a reward from the police. Fennec says that’s a risk they’ll unfortunately have to take. Jones nods in agreement.

In the heart of the city, Dan wanders aimlessly until several hours later he’s accosted by some thugs who pull a gun on him and walk him to an alley. As expected, they rough him up while confirming his identity. He fights back but it’s six against one so it’s not long until he starts bleeding internally after repeated kicks to the stomach and kidneys.

However, just before he can pass out, the vigilantes are shot dead from a ground vehicle and Dan is dragged into it and driven off.

The vehicle arrives at its destination - another dingy, rust-covered, abandoned warehouse. The kidnappers exit the vehicle with Dan and reveal themselves to him. He’s met some of them before so they ask if he’s alright. He says he’s been better and thanks them. They pull their guns on him and the lead guy says, “no problem… By the way, what did you tell the cops?”

Unmarked cop cars race to the warehouse after being led there by Dan’s tracking implant, however, they get stuck in traffic. They can’t turn their sirens on because that would tip off the kidnappers. So, Doran, Xorlocke, Jones, and a few others proceed on foot.

Inside the kidnapper warehouse, Dan is strapped to a chair and bleeding from the nose, no doubt the result of a few Gitmo-esque interrogation techniques. There’s a few guards watching him and Dan tries talking to them but they stonewall. The lead guard then brings a child out and says he’s going to decapitate that child unless Dan confesses what he’s done.

Dan tells him to wait and asks how they’d know whether or not he’s lying either way. For example, if he says nothing because he really didn’t snitch and has nothing to confess then the child would die for nothing. Alternatively, if he says he snitched even if he didn’t, then he and the child would still probably be killed anyway.

Without realizing he’s stalling, the kidnapper engages him and says he’s in no position to make demands. He has no choice but to trust that they’ll keep their word.

As they’re talking, Dan catches a glimpse of some service dogs stealthily infiltrating the premises but quickly looks away so the guards don’t spot them.

He then tries to stall some more but the lead guard loses patience and fires his gun next to Dan’s feet. He says unless the next thing he says is what they want to hear, he and the kid are both dead. Dan starts to talk but before the sound waves can leave his mouth, the kidnapper is shot in the neck and some of the blood enters Dan’s mouth.

Doran, who fired the shot from one of the beams on the ceiling, holsters her weapon and screams for Dan to get down. He yells back “how?” I’m strapped to a chair!”

A firefight (more accurately a futuristic high-tech plasma fight) ensues and luckily each blast misses Dan. It’s over within seconds, the remaining kidnappers are apprehended, the place is secured, Dan is untied, and back-up arrives.

Outside the warehouse, emergency medical services and forensics scour the area to process the crime scene. Dan is being examined by paramedics as Doran arrives and asks them to standby while she talks to him. They protest but she shoots them a ‘please don’t try my patience today’ look and they back off.

“How did that child identify you, Dan? What were you doing to those kids?”

“Nice to see you too,” he replies.

He sighs and tells her he was working undercover after the Service Dogs started looking into an orphanage where children started disappearing. Apparently, some humanity-first extremists infiltrated the place and began abducting alien and hybrid children. His mission was to infiltrate those infiltrators and find where they were taking the children and what they were doing with them.

However, since he couldn't just ask, he had to first earn their trust. Sure enough, they gradually became more casual with their nationalism and racism in front of him. He pretended to be open to their beliefs and spend more time with them after work in order to forge a friendship with them. Then, they started testing his commitment to the cause by having him subtly reduce the children's food portions, threaten them with corporal punishment, act unnecessarily cold towards them, and eventually doctor their records to reduce their chances of adoption.

“You did what?!” Doran exclaims.

“I didn't raise a hand to a single one of them! And what was the alternative, Dor? Let a few kids get adopted while the others keep disappearing?!”

He reveals that if he orchestrated ten failed adoptions, they would bring him into the fold as a member and divulge all their secrets. Also, he was halfway there and after another five he would have seen their operation, gathered evidence, called in a raid, freed the children, and probably have the kidnappers charged unless they somehow died in a mysterious accident while they were in Service Dogs custody.

She asks how he knew they weren't killing the kids and just sedating them. He tells her because one of them basically told him so while they were out drinking one night after work. The plan was never to kill them but to sterilize the aliens and alter the DNA of the hybrids in order to remove all traces of non-human DNA.

Doran is speechless. Dan apologizes but insists they would have eventually put a stop to that.

Jones arrives and says “but eventually came sooner thanks to your involvement, Detective. Let's talk tomorrow. Our organization could use someone like you.”

Dan tells her not to listen to him because he's an idealist and only works in the gray zones to prevent good agents from crossing lines they’ll never be able to un-cross. She says maybe that's not a bad thing and lets the paramedics tend to him.

She then walks up to Xorlocke and thanks him for the distraction in the squad room. If it wasn't for that, Dan wouldn't have been able to return to his team, pose as a fugitive, be captured by the bad guys and eventually get them all arrested… except for that one guy she killed but that was OK.

Xor asks if that's what he did. He adds that he was just trying to get her fired because he didn't need the competition. She laughs at his joke and punches him in the shoulder.

The next morning, Doran meets with Jones in Service Dogs HQ and accepts a job offer with them.