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Not wanting to press Lopside too much at a time, I left him and decided to give myself some time to spend with my brother. He greeted me fondly with a "Hi Topsy!" and a pounce against my chest. He licked my face and I licked his head back. He whipped around and came back with a rope dangling from his mouth, his yellow tail swaying in a huge arc behind him. "Wanna play tug?" he asked brightly.

Laughing, I obliged him, going easy on the young pup and even letting him win a couple times. Dizzy had a bad habit of turning and swinging the knotted end of the rope into my face, but I didn't mind that either... too much.

He tired me out quickly and I was soon lying down with him jumping and climbing on top of my shoulders like I was some kind of golden furred hill. "How's Fatty?" I asked, meaning how the dog was teaching him.

"He's alright, I guess..." he said with a slight whine as he settled himself on my back. "He keeps telling me I should eat more."

I laughed, "Well, you want to get bigger don't you?"

"Big like you, brother?" cried Dizzy, stomping his paws into my back flesh.

"Uh..." I hesitated, unsure. He was my brother, but I didn't know how these things worked, and my height seemed very unusual, even in the yard. "I think you can be big like Fat Gut, if you wanted."

Dizzy made a gross retching noise. "I don't want to be like Fat Gut! He can barely move. I want to be tall like you, Topsy!"

I grimaced, torn between lying and killing his enthusiasm. "Just do your best at the food dish, and I promise you'll get bigger, Dizzy." I said.

Dizzy barked his excitement and danced on my back for a few moments before leaping off, his hind feet really digging into me and making me yip. My brother... I was glad that I had decided to only have one of them.

The afternoon passed pretty uneventfully. I spent more time around with Lopside and got him saying a few more words for the things he drew, but he still seemed a long ways off from putting words together. The humans came and served us dinner. I ate because I was famished but remembered to save a mouthful this time. An hour later two lab techs came again and played with us dogs. I sat and watched Dizzy, Spinner and some of the young dogs play fetch and got a decent belly rub out of the affair before they left. Things looked to be settling down for another quiet evening and perhaps our first dry one all week. I went into the dog house to sleep away the first half of the night.

But I was awakened suddenly with both of Pink Nose's paws on my neck, shoving me. "Topsy! Topsy! The gate is open. Spinner and Dizzy are gone!"

As sleep muzzled as I was, that sobered me up right quick. "What?" I asked sharply with a yap. "What do you mean the gate is open?" I wondered how that was even possible

Pink Nose just whined and shook his bottom, looking up at me with fear and confusion in his own eyes.

I tried to summon up what I'd learned from Fatty, Terrier-face and Fat Gut in the past weeks. "Show me." I said with a deep woof that seemed to calm Pink Nose just a little.

Outside, I could see plainly that the gate was ajar with the aid of moonlight. I gasped at the sight of it and the implications. "How..." I muttered and then closed my jaw. There were dogs gathered around the partially open gate and a couple of the younger ones were already on the other side of it, sniffing around and marking on the opposite side.

I didn't stop to think that this might be a unique opportunity to break loose of the world I'd been confined to most of my life. Well... I suppose the thought did cross my mind. But what I was really concerned with was maintaining order. I was the only one in the pack with a real job and that job was a simple one: Watch out for everyone else and keep them safe. I didn't know what would happen to dogs that left the yard and that fact alone was enough for me to decide to get everyone back in the yard and keep them there. At least until we could decide what to do.

Fatty, Fat Gut and Terrier-face were among the crowd at the gate. They were probably the reason why half the dogs hadn't already fled outside the gate, but they didn't know exactly what to do and even as I jogged across the yard, I could see another young dog filing through the ajar gate.

"Get everyone away from the gate!" I barked loud and deep towards my betas. One good thing about the dog's chain of command, I didn't have to repeat myself. Breathing a little heavily, I arrived at the gate as the three large dogs were throwing their weight around and getting the others to cooperate. Pink Nose was just behind me - and slightly more winded - and I said to him, "Help me get those pups back inside."

I didn't wait for confirmation before stepping out of the gate onto ground I'd only ever tread while being led on a leash. The puppies and young dogs looked up at me, tails mostly between their legs. Most of them could tell that I wasn't in the mood for games. With Pink Nose backing me up, it wasn't so difficult getting the pups to cooperate and walk back into the yard. As we herded them in, however, something Pink Nose had said kept me perturbed. Spinner and Dizzy weren't just outside the gate nor could I see them in the crowd inside the yard.

As I brought the pups in, I noticed Lopside sitting just inside the gate. He was staring at something shiny and metallic on the ground. With posturing, I tried getting him to move back a little more, but it was plain that he wasn't going to be moved except with physical force. Sighing, I ignored him for now.

My mind was still reeling with the fact that the gate, which was never opened without a human and never at night, had opened as if by some mystical force. Add to that the obviously missing younger members of the Talkie...

"Who here knows what happened?" I asked abruptly, looking at the other four dogs, three of whom had their backs protectively against a small crowd of wide-eyed observers.

"It was Lopside." Said Fatty simply.

"What?" I fumbled and then stole a glance back over my shoulder where the heavyset shepherd-mix still sat unmoving. "How?"

Fatty shrugged his wide, rounded shoulders. "He just did. He jumped up on the gate, messed around with it for a while and then some part came off."

"A part came out?" I repeated. This all still seemed so strange. How could Lopside of all people have done such a thing?

Fatty nodded, his chin all but flowing into his heavy protruding chest. "It landed in the grass, then the gate opened." Fatty paused, looked at Lopside behind me, then added, "He's just been sitting there since."

Pink Nose spoke up into the silence that followed. "The gate was already open when I woke up. Spinner stepped on my ear as he left the house. I think Dizzy came and got him..." My fur bristled just a bit. "I saw them leave. They went right out the gate and didn't stop. They went around the corner and that's when I came and got you." Pink Nose was staring at me intensely, questioningly. He was full of fear and anxiety for his brother. Spinner and Pink Nose were even closer than me and Dizzy. But I understood his sentiments perfectly.

I took a second glance at Lopside by the gate and made up my mind. "First, we have to find Dizzy and Spinner. We can deal with Lopside later."

"Who knows what could happen to them out there..." said Terrier-face wide-eyed. I snapped at him for silence. I know he meant well enough, but Pink Nose shuddered deeply at those words.

"They're going to be fine." I said as confidently as I could. "We'll get them back and then we can all think about the gate and the things outside."

Fat Gut spoke for the first time. "I don't see why we should bother. Dizzy and Spinner are bound to return eventually. Let's let them scout for us."

The enormous dog sat with his forepaws wide spread around the girth of his torso welling up under him. Right now the sight of his corpulence just made me mad. "Yes." I said bitingly, "Let's let our least experienced members go wandering off into the unknown. Just to spare your fat ass walking around for a few minutes!"

Fat Gut met my eyes levelly. Clearly he thought this was a suitable arrangement. Furthermore, he wasn't afraid to defend his ideals. "They're always running around anyways. Let them run around out there." He said, nosing his snout vaguely off past the gate, shaking the wadded collars that ringed his neck and piled on his brisket.

Fatty fidgeted nervously. "Fat Gut has a point..."

"Fat Gut has nothing except too much weight on his paws and too much fat in his head!" I barked angrily and stood, fur bristling. The truth was that I didn't trust Spinner and Dizzy to have enough sense to make it back on their own. Also, we had literally no idea of what dangers might lay outside the fence. For all we knew, the fence was there as much to keep bad things out as keep us in. "We're done talking about this." I snapped and strode forward, asserting myself. Again, I felt glad for my imposing size and the reactions from the others as I stood over them, even Fat Gut... especially Fat Gut.

"Pink Nose and Terrier-face, you're with me. Fatty, Fat Gut, stay here and make sure no one leaves." To punish Fat Gut, I added, "Fatty, you're in charge."

The second fattest dog cringed just a little and looked nervously at the more immense Fat Gut. "Topsy..." I stared him down till his words dissolved in his throat. "Alright. I'll keep everyone in order."

I didn't say anything else. I turned with a tail flourish and heard the two I'd selected come up behind me. I knew that Terrier-face was going to be a big help, but I hoped Pink Nose wouldn't slow us down too much; he was only in marginally better shape than Fatty, and Fat Gut would probably have hardly managed to get around the corner of the building before needing to stop for a break. However, as I walked, I was aware of the weight of my flanks and the deep fat coating my ribs shaking side to side with each step. I hoped that I wouldn't slow us down too much as well.

"Close the gate" I said to Pink Nose as we crossed the threshold. The chocolate furred lab leaned on it and the towering portion of fence rotated as if by magic to fit back in place with a clang. When it did, Topsy added nervously, "Topsy, it won't open again."

That made me turn and look, but I remembered seeing the apparently essential metal bit that had fallen off and I could see it still in the grass, twinkling in the strong moonlight. "I don't think it's locked. Let's move out."

I let Terrier-face lead the way. "Fatty said he saw them go around the corner."

I sniffed the ground and detected the slight tang of paw prints, confirming the story. I was thankful that we wouldn't have to split up yet. And as we got further out from the yard and things began to look stranger, I stole a glance back and realized with a shock just how small a place our world was.

I shook my head, trying to bring back some of my doggy focus. Now wasn't the time for idle reflection. The grass under my paws was fuller and greener for the lack of abuse outside the yard. However there was a worn path made by the passage of humans twice daily from the gate and around the corner of the building. I walked in this. It felt more comforting because I'd tread it before, even if at the time I had been in the company of humans. To my right was the fence and the tall trees of the forest beyond. To my left was the rising sheer side of the brick made research building. The space in between was bare save for the grass which was mown, but otherwise unkempt with wide patches of crab grass and even full blown weeds in places. I didn't begin to feel too nervous until we made it around the corner.

Naturally, there was the green/grey door which led inside. That was where the path ended. "You don't think they could have gone inside..." murmured Pink Nose.

I turned and looked at him. He was shaking and his sheathe smelled like he leaked a few drops. I had to remember that he was barely a year old, but it was hard to give him too much lenience, I was still only 10 months myself. "I don't think so." I said and then sniffed at the ground, trying to pick up more paw print scent signatures.

Terrier-face looked at the tall door and shook his head once. "I don't think they could have made it in there." He looked down past the new side of the building and the continuing grassy lane between it and the fence. "Besides, look at all that space to run around down there."

I sighed. I didn't detect anything, but I knew - just knew - that my brother would have just kept going this way. Eager for an adventure. I sighed again and walked off the path. The others now following me.

I was feeling a little leg shakiness as well by the time we were halfway to the new corner of the building. I looked back over my shoulder once and regretted it. The yard, of course was no where to be seen. I felt horribly exposed and vulnerable for the first time in my life. Not that I'd never felt vulnerable before, granted, but this was new and I had no clue if my opponents out here might be dog, human or something else entirely. I focused on my breathing and where I was going. So far, our path was linear, but I'd developed no good sense of direction living my life in a confined space. I was not confident of my ability to lead us home if the path diverged much more than the darkened, grassy alley we'd experienced so far.

Pink Nose and I started at a strange sound from the other side of the fence. Both of us, followed by Terrier-face fetched up against the wall of the building, smooth and featureless as always. My heart was yammering in my chest and I knew that my anxiety was putting the others on edge. "Let's... take a short break." I said and sat down where I was.

Pink Nose seemed grateful and if I were perfectly honest, I was grateful too. The by-now familiar cramps in my hind legs were starting up, replacing the burn I used to feel when I had been much lighter. I could walk it off still, but it was becoming more and more a deterrent to exercise as time went on. Pink Nose and I breathed heavily and Terrier-face lifted his face into a light wind, snuffling. "It's so strange... not to smell dog." He commented.

I thought that the breeze was nice and fresh smelling myself. "Let's go." I said.

We reached the corner, but the shape of the building didn't allow us to see beyond until we'd cleared it. I was really expecting another corner, and another and maybe another beyond that. For all I knew, the world was a long corridor of grassy lane, bending endlessly into infinity. The illusion was shattered when we breached that last side of stone wall.

Ahead of us was more grass, but it was a much richer green - grey - and lacked the patches of crab grass. Ahead of us there were also small trees and circular patches of pink gravel which surrounded them, and the terrain was molded slightly into small rolling dips and mounds. But that was as nothing to the fact that ahead of us, the tall fence which separated our human shared world from the wild of the forest beyond ended. The building ended too, just a little beyond. And stretching out beyond both of those was a huge flat expanse the likes of which I'd never seen before.

It was the parking lot, of course. But I'd never seen such a thing and the sight of its alien features terrified me. I almost imagined it like some terrible black swamp, with its slick, almost shiny surface, that would pull you down the instant you stepped on it; not that I honestly had any real concept of what an actual swamp was other than the primordial fears baked into me by my genes.

One thing was clear, however upon viewing the vast open space ahead of us which lay beyond a last stretch of grassy lane. There was no longer any straight path to follow. Dizzy and Spinner's scent track suddenly seemed like an imperative to find. "We could be out there all night looking for them..." muttered Pink Nose, echoing my thoughts.

I snorted agreement. "Sniff around. We need to find their trail." I said, although it was obvious. In the corridor, it was not such a hard task to find the scent of recent paw prints, despite our lacking skill in the art of tracking. Terrier-face found it and Pink Nose and I also picked it up where he stopped. We kept our heads low as we began to follow.

Passing the fence, which stood on a rise overlooking a shallow dip in the landscaping, I saw that it extended a huge distance to the right, keeping the forest at bay. It eventually turned and raced forward again and it was easy to see that the fence must encompass the entirety of this vast new area. Pink Nose was quick to pick up on this fact. "It's like a really big yard..." he said, lifting his head a little.

I grunted and walked forward, concentrating on the delicate scents of paw prints teasing my nose. Tracking is not something dogs are born knowing how to do, despite how popular media tends to portray us. And despite the fact that I could indeed detect the smell of a paw print otherwise invisible in the grass, I'd had no use for this skill so far in my life. Not even in play, when most every dog I knew was easily detectable by sight from within the yard.

We got a break when we reached a small, trimmed bush sitting in the gravel dip of the landscape; the gravel bits were painfully hard on my untested paws. A dog had marked on the bush. "Spinner!" Pink Nose exclaimed, and indeed, the mark was his without a doubt.

I lifted my head above the bush and scanned the scene left to right for as far as I could see, however and I couldn't even detect any movement.

Pink Nose however did spot something. Sitting up and looking beyond the bush, he yapped. "Look at that!" I turned, because he was not looking in the direction of the continuing landscape that ran parallel to the fence, but instead out across the parking lot.

"What are you looking at, Pink Nose?" I asked. I couldn't see much beyond the parking lot. The few interspersed lights that lit it were enough to interfere with my normal night vision.

"It's..." Pink Nose hesitated and squinted across the distance. "I think it's... another building."

Another man dwelling... Who would have thought, yet now that I looked above the lights, I could indeed see the hulking dark shape of it, blocking out the lowest stars. A sense of mystery surrounded me as I gazed at it with blank eyed fascination.

Terrier-face whined a bit as his resolve weakened. "I don't like being out here, Topsy..."

I swallowed. I didn't particularly like it either. Nothing was familiar, everything infinitely mysterious and no answers were forthcoming. I honestly didn't know what half of what I was looking at even was. But I said, "I know, Terrier-face. But we have to get Dizzy and Spinner. We can talk about all this later..."

I let my sentence hang. Later... as if any of this would make any more sense with the mere passage of time. I strode forward towards the asphalt. "Where are you going, Topsy?" asked Pink Nose. "I thought the scent trail goes this way."

It did, from the signs of Spinner's marking, but I had a strong hunch. "If they were over there." I gestured with my nose to the line of landscaping ringing the parking lot. "We would be able to see them. They might have gone that way, but I think they are over there now. They're faster than us."

Pink Nose began to whine a bit, but I turned on him, snapping. "Don't you want to get Spinner back before he gets into any trouble?"

The chocolate furred, paunchy labrador sighed and rose, his spine creaking a bit as he did. He said nothing and began to follow me as we all turned to cross the alien black field.

The stuff was hard and cool under my paws, and not at all wet or slick like I'd been expecting. It was a little unnerving. "Maybe its frozen?" Pink Nose offered.

"Maybe..." I said, but doubtfully. To me, frozen was the ice cubes that we sometimes received as treats on the particularly warm days of summer. The black stuff on which I was treading wasn't like that... But it was at least better than sinking; however, I did still pay attention to my footing as we crossed the seemingly vast distance between the two buildings.

Instinctively, we stayed away from the yellow pools of light the sparse lot lights spilled here and there. When the shadows seemed thin, we slunk by quickly. I still didn't feel comfortable out here in the open like this. Ironically, I had far more eyes on me in the yard than out here, but I wasn't aware of that fact at the time. I was a little bit calmer at the halfway point and calmer still by the time we reached the far side of the lot. Overall, I was feeling more comfortable about being outside the yard by now since nothing dangerous looking at all had appeared. I might have even been in the mood to look around if it weren't for the stitch in my left haunch spreading slowly up my side. I'd carried it silently so far, but Pink Nose was breathing open mouthed for the brisk walk all this way.

I had to face it, we were very out of shape, but nothing in the yard could have prepared us for the demands of these kinds of distances. I was immensely glad I'd decided to leave Fatty and Fat Gut behind. "Let's have ourselves a breather." I said and the other two agreed wordlessly.

Of us three, Terrier-face obviously held up the best. He appreciated the break, but didn't need it like I and Pink Nose did. I stretched my hind leg out over the ground, grateful that here was a grassy portion of terrain rather than gravel.

"If I'm slowing you two down, just go on without me." said Pink Nose after a little bit.

My leg was still complaining, making me wish that I'd stretched or warmed up before this chase had begun. "You're not slowing us down." I said absently.

Pink Nose shook his head. "You two could move faster if it weren't for me... I can't believe they both came this far!" panted Pink Nose.

I looked at Pink Nose directly. If he didn't have a tendency to get like this, he'd make a fine beta; although three in a pack our size was already pushing it. "Look," I said sternly. "None of us were obviously prepared for this, but we've got to do the best we can do. Spinner and Dizzy couldn't have gone on forever and I'm sure that we cut them off coming across the black stuff." I paused and pointed my nose down at him. "I need you to stay with me. Spinner needs you."

That seemed to calm him down some. After a few minutes, we got up and walked carefully around the side of the large, imposing building none of us had ever seen before.

The thing was similar, but not identical to the building we knew; not that we even know but one side of our building mind you. It was taller for one and looked newer. Some of the doors were made of glass as well rather than steel, though there was obviously no clear way to open any of them. There were lights on in the front, so we avoided these naturally and went around the side. Like our building there was a lane between the building itself and the fence. However as we closed in on this, we saw that beyond the fence was not more impenetrable forest, but instead more indescribable things.

The thing that really struck me was not the broad road which ran away from the facility beyond the fence. Hell, I hardly noticed that. What I did notice was the horizon, visible in a very narrow strip between the trees in the direction the road flowed, and the fact that it was filled with stars somehow fallen to earth. I stopped while the other were moving on, filled with wonder. Yellow twinkles in the distance, unimaginably far away. Many, many parking lots away. Why were those stars there? I wondered, as I looked at the distant city. And I noted one thing more at the sight. "How big the world is!"

Pink Nose yapped as he picked up another mark and confirmed our heading and I had to forget about the horizon stars for now. We'd wisely gone to the side of the building closest to the lane Spinner and Dizzy would have clung to if they'd circumnavigated the parking lot and now we had confirmation of the hypothesis. "They have to be on the other side of the building." said Pink Nose, now leading the way.

I didn't say anything. I'd experienced too many unexplained things tonight to take anything for granted.

But the narrow twisting lane was indeed identical to the one behind the other building, maybe a little wider. There was also more litter here for some reason. I paused and had myself a couple good laps at a can containing something remarkably sweet. I jogged to keep up with the others. Pink Nose was too fixated now to sniff about and Terrier-face was too anxious in general. The scent of the two AWOL pups was quite plain now. I didn't even have to lower my nose all the way to pick up their paw prints; they had evidently meandered a bit to pick at the garbage. They were close.

We heard them before we saw them. As we came to the last corner, however, I held Pink Nose in line. He protested, but I had a strong reason. It was because I could hear other dogs' voices in addition to Spinner and Dizzy's.