Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Hours?”

  “It seemed like hours,” she replied, now sounding less sure.

  Chauncey shook his head. “It’s only been moments…at least I think so. There was something huge coming out of the mist at me, a hurtling machine with bright yellow lights. And there was a city…”

  “I didn’t see anything like that.”

  “It seems even staying together is no defense against whatever terrors this place…” He cocked his head, listening.

  Penelope also listened. At first she heard nothing but her own breaths. Then it came to her, a soft rhythmic padding of paws. It was hard to tell from which direction it came, but as it drew closer they turned toward it. A shadow formed in the mist before them and resolved itself into a familiar form.

  “Spyro!” Chauncey cried.

  “Oh, it’s so good to see you, Spyro,” Penelope said, rushing to the Bull Terrier, sniffing his muzzle to make sure it was him.

  “Likewise, mates!” Spyro agreed heartily, tail wagging and his mouth gaping in a great grin. “Seen anything of the Guv or Sergeant Beefsteak?”

  “Not a glimmer,” Chauncey replied.

  “We’re looking for Gearhead too,” Penelope said.

  “Gearhead? But he ain’t…” The powerful Bull Terrier snorted in disgust. “Leave it to that stump of a pup to get himself back in trouble after he’s been sent away from it. Well, no denying his spirit. He can take care of himself, I suppose, but he’s still got to be found.” He looked around. “Any idea where we are?”

  “Wherever we are, it has something to do with the machine Lord Cerberus was working on,” Penelope replied. “Gearhead said the cylinder was a ‘time disruptor,’ so maybe this has something to do with that Time Machine he’s always going on about.”

  “Wish Gearhead was here,” Chauncey said. “He’d probably be able to tell us where we are, and how to get out of it.”

  Spyro nodded. “Yes, smart as a whip, that one.”

  “Too smart by half,” said a voice that seemed far away.

  Spyro, Penelope and Chauncey whipped around in time to see Quigley materialize out of the mist. Close behind him was the stolid form of Sergeant Beefsteak.

  “All right, we’re all back together again, so let’s keep out wits about us,” Quigley said.

  “All except Gearhead,” Chauncey said.

  Penelope related her last memories at the gasworks.

  The Bearded Collie sighed deeply. “I should have known that scamp would find some way back into the fray. As you say, though, he is as smart as a whip, and I think he may doing better with the nature of this infernal place than we are.”

  “Infernal?” Again, Chauncey looked worried. “Do you think, then, there is a chance we’re…among the sleeping? That would explain why I didn’t see Anubis to guide me over the…”

  “Don’t be daft, Chauncey,” Quigley snapped. “Shall I give you a good nip to prove how real this place is?”

  “No, Guv,” Chauncey shot back, the thought of being chastised at his age filling him with more dread than this place ever could. “It is just that…well, this ain’t London, is it?”

  “No,” Quigley agreed. “But it’s somewhere.”

  “So, what do we do now, Guv?” Spyro questioned.

  “We do what we have always done when in dire predicaments,” Quigley replied. “Share information and use our Creator-given intellects and instincts to move forward.”

  One by one, the dogs of S.T.E.A.M. shared their experiences in this realm that seemed out of time and beyond space. They had all had fleeting visions of places that could not possibly exist in the world with which they were familiar, as well as machines, devices and events. At times, it seemed they peered briefly into worlds that were mockeries of their own, worlds aflame, beset by disorder and confusion, bereft of the Pax Britannia they helped to maintain, the rule in dominions of palm and pine which gave the world stability, peace and freedom.

  They had seen terrifying vistas of worlds in which dogs had no role other than as mindless pets, or no role at all. They had glimpsed worlds in which dogs and cats were devoured by Companions who were no better than beasts themselves, as well as dystopian realms in which dogs ruled over all others with boundless savagery, untempered by the compassion of First Dog, the wisdom of Anubis, or the mercy of Gelert.

  They had encountered dogs who passed through them as if they did not exist, and dogs who fled from them as if they themselves were one of the ghosts that so often terrify dogs. Sometimes they had been able to contact these spectral manifestations of the other realms, but most of the time they seemed separated, as by a veil that could not be physically penetrated.

  Quigley was quiet for a long moment after the dogs finished relating their individual experiences. His eyes were half-closed, sensed by the others rather than seen through the thick fur of the Bearded Collie’s head. In these moments of meditation, they knew the folly of trying to talk to their alpha, for he was quickly and quietly sorting out all the information gathered, separating wheat from chaff, deducing and inferring, efficiently and logically eliminating the impossible and exploring the improbable.

  “We seem caught in the eye of a cyclone,” Quigley said after awhile. “A time cyclone. Gearhead called the device stolen by Lord Cerberus and installed in that infernal machine a time disruptor. As we know, Companions are overly dramatic, prone to illogic, but I’ll put my trust in Gearhead anytime, at least anytime technology is involved. He has an understanding that eludes most dogs. We’ve been transported from London and caught between worlds.”

  “Between worlds?” Spyro said, tilting his head in confusion. “Ain’t there just one world, Guv?”

  “Evidently not,” Quigley replied. “We’ve seen worlds where history has taken odd twists, where even nature’s laws are all topsy-turvy. Our world is one amongst those myriad worlds.”

  “How do we get back?” Chauncey asked. “To ours, I mean.”

  “I’m not sure we want to,” Quigley said.

  “Excuse me?” Spyro opined. “After we find Gearhead, we should make every effort to return home.”

  “What about Lord Cerberus and Lilith?” Quigley said. “The dogs they brought with them? We may be here by happenstance, but you may rest assured our enemies are not. Lord Cerberus activated that machine with the intent of fleeing our world, where we surely would have run him to ground. We must make every effort to…”

  Quigley was alone. The ubiquitous fog swirled around him, blown by no wind he could feel, and the others became as mist themselves, swept away like a river fog. For a moment, the Bearded Collie was stunned into silence, a rare event indeed. He found his voice and started calling his companions.

  “Save your breath for prayers,” a smooth voice murmured.

  Quigley spun one way, then another, unsure of the source.

  “Not that prayers will help you,” the voice continued. “First Dog, Anubis, and even your sainted Gelert—naught but broken idols upon a shattered altar.”

  Two shapes coalesced in the mist, one large, the other smaller. Lord Cerberus made Quigley seem no bigger than a pup. The cat at his side wore a top hat, a white collar and a maroon bowtie.

  “What have you done with my friends?” he demanded.

  Lord Cerberus’ laugh was hot oil splashing against cold metal.

  “How little you understand this place,” Lilith said.

  “What is this place?” Quigley asked.

  “It is a region of Lord Cerberus’ creation,” Lilith explained. “To use as he pleases.”

  “Brought about by his activation of the Time Machine?”

  Again, Lord Cerberus uttered a mocking laugh.

  “Your ignorance is unrelieved by that cone-headed Corgi, a dog as stupid as the Companions whom you needlessly revere.”

  “We are charged with their protection and…”

  “By a misguided dog millions of years dead,” Lilith snapped. “Companions! Dogs! They are all inferior! Lesser species f
it only to serve Lord Cerberus’ majesty.”

  “Lord Cerberus cannot speak for himself?”

  “You are unworthy.”

  Quigley lunged at Lord Cerberus. He was half the other’s size, but he hoped to end the peculiar dog’s reign of terror with superior fighting techniques and the element of surprise. As his jaws closed around Lord Cerberus’ throat, the huge dog vanished. His mouth was filled with cold, dank mist.

  “You have no power here,” Lilith said as she vanished.

  Quigley whirled about, saw Lord Cerberus and Lilith. He did not attempt another charge.

  Lord Cerberus regarded him with disdain, black lips curved into a sardonic smile, eyes bright with an inner glow. The eye-like markings above and below seemed also watchful.

  Lilith’s acid-green eyes gleamed.

  Three shapes emerged from the mist and stood behind Lord Cerberus and Lilith—Mordred, Urias and Sykes.

  The Bearded Collie took a step back..

  “He could kill you, but why?” Lilith said. “Better imprisoned forever, contemplating your failure, the futility of fighting a god.”

  A trilling noise caused the hairs along Quigley’s spine to rise. It was the same sound they had heard during the battle at the gasworks when the machine was activated.

  A hissing sound made Quigley look up. Snitch descended from the turbulent mass, a steam-pack strapped to him. Goggles covered his eyes. It was a technology forbidden for canine use. Snitch’s head was almost split in half by a sycophantic grin. His needle-sharp teeth glinted wickedly.

  “Lord Cerberus, I have found it!” the breedless dog exclaimed.

  The huge hound looked to the cat at his side, brow furrowed.

  “It is true, My Lord Cerberus,” the cat purred. “A world where dogs and cats are blank slates upon which you may inscribe your glory, mindless pets waiting for an iron paw to unite them.”

  “Companions?” Lord Cerberus croaked, his voice harsh.

  “Fools!” Snitch cackled. “As witless as…”

  Lord Cerberus silenced the excited mutt with a burning glance, then looked again to Lilith.

  “They will be ignorant of the danger in their midst, My Lord Cerberus,” the cat said. “Until it is too late.”

  “Satisfactory,” he said in his grating, unnatural voice.

  Lilith looked to the others: “Come, there is much to do.”

  Lord Cerberus looked to Quigley and smiled.

  The trilling ceased.

  Lord Cerberus, Lilith, and the others vanished. At their disappearance, Chauncey, Penelope, Spyro and Sergeant Beefsteak coalesced out of the fog. Most were alarmed and agitated, but not the dog from Scotland Yard, who appeared a little bored.

  “Where was you, Guv?” Spyro asked. “Where was all of you?”

  “You were the ones that vanished!” Chauncey accused. “I was left all by my lonesome to face Urias and Sykes!”

  “I was left alone,” Penelope said. “Then came Mordred!”

  The hiss of escaping steam made them all look up.

  “Looks like Snitch’s in trouble again,” Sergeant Beefsteak said laconically. “Oh, yes, I, thought everyone gone, but all I saw was a big-headed dog looking like he’d seen a ghost.” He paused. “I suppose the ghost was me.” He paused again. “And that young pup with the fez.”

  “Gearhead?” Penelope exclaimed. “You saw Gearhead?”

  “Where is he, Sergeant?” Quigley asked.

  “Faded away, he did,” the big dog explained. “Said something about ‘feeling’ home was near, but I don’t rightly know what the young fellow meant by that.”

  “What I meant was that I was drawn from the Rift by a sense of the familiar,” Gearhead said as he bounded out of the mist.

  “Gearhead!” Penelope cried. “Is that really you?”

  “But it was merely a pseudo-psychic impression caused by an artificial anachronistic manifestation,” Gearhead continued.

  “Yeah, it’s Gearhead all right,” Chauncey snorted, his eyes a little dewy, though he hid them by squinting.

  “Sounds like he had dinner at Dr Johnson’s,” Spyro quipped. “Tell us, Gearhead, what would a regular dog have said?”

  “And explain this Rift, as you call it,” Quigley added. “More importantly, how we can follow Lord Cerberus out of it.”

  “When I saw Sergeant Beefsteak and the big-headed dog, I felt drawn to another place, what I thought might be our own time period,” Gearhead began. “It was really a facsimile of our own time, but existing in the same time period which we inhabited briefly, one more than a century in advance of our own.”

  “And this Rift?” Quigley prompted, knowing it was always important to keep Gearhead on task.

  “We are currently outside time and space,” Gearhead explained. “It is a rip in the fabric of the universe.”

  “Quigley likened it to the eye of a cyclone,” Penelope said.

  “Yes, that is very apt,” Gearhead agreed. “Different times, past and future, swirl around us, and other Earths, some much like our own, others vastly different. However, this is a temporary fissure, created by the Time Disruptor. It is closing fast. If we do not escape, we shall be trapped.”

  “Back to London then,” Chauncey said. “That’s the ticket!”

  “To protect Queen and Country,” Spyro agreed. “If the Empire is no longer menaced by Lord Cerberus, we have no jurisdiction.”

  “We cannot let Lord Cerberus escape!” Penelope cried. “If we cannot bring him to justice, we must bring justice to him.”

  “Strictly speaking, I am not of your pack,” Sergeant Beefsteak said. “As a sworn officer in Scotland Yard’s Canine Investigation Division, however, I am obligated to continue the pursuit of Lord Cerberus and his pack for crimes against the public order.”

  “We must follow Lord Cerberus, if we can.” Quigley looked to Gearhead and received a nod. “But not merely for reasons argued by Penelope and Sergeant Beefsteak. Given the nature of his sudden appearance in London, it is likely Lord Cerberus came to our world in much the same way he is fleeing to another. He was countered by S.T.E.A.M., but what if this new world has no such protectors? Our mandate is to protect the Empire, but thousands of years ago we were given another mandate, to protect the weak, to guide the Companions, and to always stand for justice, no matter what. I don’t know about all of you, but were I to turn my back on that ancient duty it would be time to give up my post and put on a leash.”

  The resolve he saw in the eyes of the dogs of S.T.E.A.M. made him proud. He looked to Sergeant Beefsteak.”

  “As I said, sir, I got my duty,” the police veteran said.

  “Well done, all,” Quigley said. “Gearhead, lead on.”

  Chapter 7: The Reluctant Witness

  Present Day

  Otay, California

  Earth 1

  The garish livery of a San Diego MTS bus, red sunburst on dazzling white, was incongruous in dim-lit Otay; it rumbled out of sight. The unincorporated area south of Chula Vista had once been a boomtown, site of various factories, making such items as watches, brooms and pipes, home to a weekly newspaper, and even boasted a vibrant literary society. All that was gone, replaced by thrift stores, greasy-spoon taco shops, and houses to which the elements had been unkind and vandals with spray cans even more so.

  After sunset, the dismal streets were roamed by outlaw packs, dogs who reviled the teachings of First Dog and Anubis, animals whose only instincts were toward violence and survival. The cats of Otay were no better, organized into clowders always on the watch for food or the opportunity to victimize lone animals. Like their canine counterparts, they refused to recognize any spiritual guide, in their case Primal Cat and Bast.

  Packs and clowders ruled the streets, alleys and abandoned buildings, wary only of each other and the Companions of Otay, who were also lawless. True, there were law-abiding Companions in Otay, just as there were decent dogs and cats, but they all knew better than to venture out after sunset.


  “What a wretched hive of depravity and villainy,” Groucho remarked. “You can smell the fear in the air.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Smokey purred in his gravelly voice. “It quite reminds me of home, nights in Kiev and Odessa.”

  “Then I understand why you shipped out,” Groucho said.

  They were being watched by dogs and cats in concealment, and had been since shortly after entering Otay. The watchers were wary of the newcomers because they knew what had happened to the trio of bully-dogs who challenged the two cats immediately upon them crossing into their territory. Those dogs were off somewhere in the darkness, nursing both wounds and pride.

  The outcome of that surprisingly brief battle with the pack had been twofold—other gangs were reluctant to start a skirmish that might lead to blood and humiliation, and solitary wanderers in Otay were more likely to speak to them, discretely of course.

  In the last two hours, they had gathered much information that would be of interest to Levi and his pack. As they had surmised from the data plotted by Little Kitty, Otay was indeed the epicenter of the strange trilling that had blanketed the South Bay area. Due to the proximity of the sound, most animals in Otay and in Chula Vista south of Orange Avenue had heard the trilling, whether they were indoors or out, but, as in central Chula Vista, it had not affected all equally. Most animals felt some uneasiness at the sound, but others, mostly dogs, were profoundly affected, either transfixed or terrified. From solitary cats and dogs who tended to haunt the outlying areas of Otay, they eventually honed in on the intersection of Third and Zenith, what had once been Otay’s community center, back in the days when Otay had been a community.

  “Not much here,” Groucho commented.

  “No, here is evil,” Smokey countered. “And much sadness.”

  The Calico and the black-and-silver tom were on the northwest corner of the intersection, outside the spill of harsh sodium light from the only streetlamp for at least a block in any direction. Behind them was a strip mall, half the windows boarded over and all the other businesses shuttered closed except for a place that sold fish tacos and drugs. The northwest corner directly across was littered with flowers and candles, extending halfway over the sidewalk, a tribute to a fallen little Companion.