The Mauser put his fake corgi head back on.
I wanted to go back to my TARBONE, my little home away from home. I had just purchased a copy of Chicken Soup for the Time Traveler's Soul, and I wanted to try the bean and bacon recipe on page 42. Instead I was being dragged through a gold corridor lined with leather sofas designed to look like pet beds.
As we passed them, Time dogs growled and fought each other over bones and squeaky toys in a most uncivilized manner. So fierce were their growls as they clamped it between their jaws that I thought they would kill each other. A few of them eyed me with suspicion, muttering as we passed.
Howlifrey Immigrant followed us closely behind, making me distrustful of her continued presence. Why was this terrier assisting the Mauser, and why was the Mauser assisting me? What did both or either have to gain from my freedom?
Okay, so not freedom per se, since I had a leash, but I at least wasn't in the Kennel.
Suddenly a blue Lhasa Apsa stepped in our way.
Sonicwood, head of the Dog Cellars winery!
"Where are you going with that prisoner," he growled.
"I am merely taking him on a walk," said the Mauser. "Don't want him dirtying up the Kennel, you know. I shall be replacing him forthwith."
This was clearly a lie, since our disembodied forms in the Kennel never need to use the loo, but Sonicwood nodded, and we walked quickly past him before he could remember that detail.
We passed another lounge, passing Council Dog Geogirl2014 as she rolled on the floor, back and forth, on a particularly smelly patch of scent.
"The behavior of your fellow Time Dogs is a bit suspicious today," the Mauser mumbled through his mask. "Don't you think?"
"Ruff," I said in response.
He suddenly rubbed himself up against a wall. "I am feeling the effects of this strange force myself. It seems that some...power is causing us to revert to a most primitive-" And then he meowed extremely loudly.
"Tsk tsk, Mauser," I said. "You betray your disguise with that most undoglike sound."
"Quiet fool! That's exactly the reason I let you out! This thing must be stopped!"
"But how?" I asked.
"I thought you were the dog of ideas."
I paused. "Let's run around the park!"
The Mauser frowned. "And how will that solve or problem?"
"I don't know, but it will be fun!"
The corgi head looked like it was frowning at me. "Seriously."
"There are many health benefits to exercise. Weight loss, regulation of digestion and blood flow, the stimulation of brain chemicals!"
He sighed, tugging on my leash. "Come. We must investigate this disturbance closer."
And he tugged me down a corridor where a pair of Time Dogs proved that they were not TARDIS or TARBONE trained, by...you don't want to hear that part, do you.
"You might be wondering why I am freeing you," the Mauser said in smug tones. "When it would be so much more (slurp) delicious to let you rot in the Kennel, wrongfully framed for the theft of the Frisbee of Forever."
"Not really," I said. "You already told me you were trying to stop-"
He waved his paw dismissively. "Yes, yes. But there is something more than just stopping the downgrading of our intelligences."
"Yeah?" I asked eagerly.
"The problem is, I wasn't the one who stole that Frisbee, which proves to be vastly more convenient for you than it is for me."
He tugged the leash hard, hurting my neck as it brought me to my feet.
"I detest inconvenience, Woof. The Cat Ship cannot travel anywhere without the Frisbee's power."
Gripping my neck, he shouted, "Where is the Frisbee, Woof! I must know!"
"I haven't the foggiest!" I cried. "I was in the Kennel!"
He jerked the leash. "Wrong answer!"
"It's true," I gasped.
He frowned, accepting this, but doing so angrily. "Where did you see it last!"
"In the Park!"
The Mauser hissed in fury, shaking me. "This is no time for jokes!"
"Mauser," I cried. "You know a powerful force like a white hole, even when limited by the frame of a Frisbee, can only be contained within an equally powerful field...one with really great hot dogs."
Now he understood.
"Oh," he breathed. "The Park!"
"Yes!" I said, wagging my tail as I thought about those hot dogs. "I'm surprised you didn't know."
"Well. I always assumed such a contrivance to harness the all powerful Frisbee, but..." He frowned. "Of course I knew! You can't travel centuries through space and time in a machine such as mine without knowing the basic principles of how it operates! I was only testing you!"
The Mauser did not lead me to the park. Instead, he dragged me down a long narrow triangular corridor, glancing back and forth to see if he had been observed.
"What are we doing, Mauser?" I asked. "This isn't the right way to the-"
"Silence, you fool!" he snapped. "We're being watched!"
"By whom?" I asked, but he shushed me again.
A few paces down this strange corridor, we stopped in front of a round door, and he put on a metal glove, pointing a digit at its lock. It let out a low hum, and the door popped open.
"A sonic claw!" I exclaimed.
"Shush!"
And then we were standing in an access corridor cluttered with maintenance tools and equipment.
"Those shapeshifting Zygoats are expecting us to be at The Park. We must access the passage by this less monitored route."
He opened a gate at the end of the corridor, and we were looking out across a long metal beam hundreds of feet above the ground.
All around, I could see nothing much in the way of purchase, only massive skyscrapers in the shape of drumsticks and leg bones, decorated with windows and slight concrete ridges.
"The Zygoats!" I cried as he pulled me out across the beam. "Of course! That's who stole the Frisbee of Forever!"
"I'm afraid it's more complicated than that," the Mauser said with a reluctant frown.
I gawked in astonishment as he dug a large glowing Frisbee out of his vest.
"You see, I summoned the Zygoats to assist me in the Frisbee's retrieval. It was thanks to their regression gas that everyone around here is acting so strangely. Imagine my dismay when the object failed to respond to me."
"Its powers can only be wielded by a Time Dog," I said. "That's why I was imprisoned."
"Not exactly," he said. "It was only a ruse. An illusion I created to give the appearance of it working. To get the true Time Dog to provide the correct activation."
Out in the wind and the cool air, my head got clearer, and I felt more like myself. "You're mad, Mauser. I will never help you."
"Oh yeah?" he mocked, casually flinging the Frisbee off the side. "Then fetch!"
Without thinking, I leapt after it, a suicidal dive with nothing but a plaza full of statuary and concrete plant boxes to break my fall.
The Mauser let out a cackling evil laugh, but it turned to a cry of horror when he realized he was still holding on to my leash.
He flew off the edge with a scream.