A tall child walked at a brisk pace through the tumbleweed streets of a beat-up town, pulling a bright red wagon full of various electrical and mechanical equipment along behind him.
Chained to the wagon's handle was a liver Doberman, which kept up at a somewhat odd pace, taking long strides and getting ahead of the child before stopping abruptly, waiting for him to catch up before it once more strode on ahead, paused again, and so on.

The duo's path was purposeful, cutting straight through alleys and backyards to get where they were going as quickly as possible.
Doppler was on his way back to where the time machine was currently stashed.
He'd already sent most of his equipment along ahead, and could have easily done so with the rest, but had decided that it might be a good idea to drag the bare essentials back along with him, just in case an interesting-looking spot popped up.

Unfortunately, beyond a graffiti trash bin that he ended up dumping out before dismissing it, nothing really caught his eye, and he found himself standing at the open doorway to a dilapidated house.
He'd stored the machine in the cellar, but first he had to collect a few cameras he set up inside.

After stepping inside, the dog behind him continued to jangle the bells on its collar as it circled itself in the yard, the wagon's wheels squeaking while being dragged by the canine's leash.

Doppler passed by a couch without even looking at it, picking up a fist-sized black sphere that sat between an old television's antennae.
He wasn't particularly quiet about it, rattling the entire set as he unstickied and unwedged the object from its location.
Upon ripping it out, it began to disappear from his hands in a shower of fading particles, and it was only upon turning around that he finally noticed the stranger sleeping on the couch.

Huh.
So that's why the door had been left wide open.

He stared at the napping person for only an instance, not bothering to even discern whether or not it had been awoken by the noise, before shrugging to himself and heading further into the house, proceeding to pick up more of the small round cameras.

Doppler had stepped through a door into a rather...ruined bedroom, and was busy extracting another sphere from a collapsed portion of roof.
He'd climbed on top of a tall bed that was not only split in half, but had been ripped open, its stuffing spilling out and springs sproinging every which way while one of his feet kicked at them, the other perched on top of the headboard as he extracted the camera.

He was waiting for it to disappear when he noticed something in the doorway.
It startled him for an instant, and the sphere's particle fade paused, even reversed a little.
The boy cursed when he realized it was just a cat, and the rest of the particles quickly disappeared.
He'd bet some of the footage on that one was going to be corrupted now, dagnabbit.

Carefully, he clambered back off of the bed, standing at the foot to stare at the cat.
He crouched close to the ground, rocking between soles and toes, his arms slipping over his knees as he opened up a palm to it.

It was really a rather beautiful cat; its tail was so exuberant, and its fur looked so soft that he'd really like to stroke it, or even just pat its head.
"Heya," he greeted in a gentle voice, peering at it curiously while awaiting some sort of reaction.