So...

I found myself being frogmarched down a Steampunk city. Actually, I don't know if I was frogmarched or not, as I had never seen a frog march before, but I felt like a frog being pushed forward.

I wasn't handcuffed, so that was good. I wasn't planning on running, though. This was...a good thing. Right? Aren't you supposed to go to the police station for help if you get lost? Hopefully, this was like the pretty depictions of the Victorian era, and free of the negative aspects, like indentured slavery, children in factories and sweatshops, and unwashed masses.

I assume it was Steampunk. Why would the world make sense, after all. The streets were relatively clean of rubbish, and absolutely no one jaywalked. No one. Everyone walked along the raised side walks, while horses and buggies filled the streets. They even used the left lane to go forward, so it was clearly a parody of London somehow. The clothes were...out there. It looked like Victorian, but with wider skirts for the ladies. And the gentlemen's attire was...different, but I didn't know enough about fashion of that time to pinpoint what it was...some had ties instead of cravats... And almost everyone was wearing gloves. Like, even the less fancy people. The Asian influence was still here too, with about one in four people wearing clothes that I would expect to see in a history book from different Asian cultures. I didn't know nearly the same amount of detail about those clothes, but I was detecting subtle differences, such as how the kimonos were tied and some of the men's clothes were different. They wore gloves too, by the way. Some only had a glove on one hand, but everyone either had a glove on, or their glove nearby.

Oh my gosh. Was I flashing people with my naked hands? Was I streaking, right now, in front of children who shouldn't be looking at a stranger's exposed naked hands?

I hoped not. I already had enough social anxiety.

I did not see a single smartphone. Electricity wire. Windmill. Radio. Radio tower. Not a single weird glass plasma ball that looks like electricity zapping inside, and will go to your fingers when you touch it?

That wasn't here either.

What would I do in a world with no internet?

There were streams of people everywhere, though everyone parted like my two walking buddies were the plague, so they probably were really the law enforcement of this...alternative dimension or something.

I put my naked hands into my robe pockets. I was being taken in for Jay-walking. What would the charges be for indecent wrist exposure?

The...Deputy Constables did not speak to me again. I didn't know if they were cops or not, but the survival instincts in me basically just told me to keep quiet and get as much information as possible.

It was beginning to dawn on me: I was not sleeping. My slippers were those grippy plastic/rubbery kind, and I felt every uneven cobblestone bump and every brick sidewalk jag against my little tootsies.

I was in another world.

"Is he still following us?" Hawthorne whispered to Yu Lin.

"I think he has gone?" she said, but did not sound confident.

For being in another world, I thought I would feel more...something. Wonder? Fear, definitely, but even that was muted. Terror? Enlightenment. Something!

Maybe...this was shock.

Is this what shock felt like? Probably, yeah. All I felt was the need to blend in and get as much information as I could before they realized I was literally an alien.

The Constables froze, clearly on guard. They evidently had been partners so long they didn't need to speak to each other to communicate when things got tense. Too bad I had only known them about 10 minutes, cause I had no idea what they were worried about.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

I watched a Japanese-looking man with samurai armor and a sword strapped to his waist walk by and nod to the constables. I would sell my sister's guinea pigs for a history book right now.

The woman holding my hand behind my back tightened her grip on my arm.

Perhaps the samurai and the Victorian coppers don't get along after all. Maybe she was afraid he would steal me or something.

Was it in my best interest to call for help?

I waited too long, and the Samurai guy walked away without even looking at me.

"Please, let's continue our journey." the woman constable said softly in her vaguely Chinses accent.

"Let's pick up the pace, shall we?" Deputy Constable Hawthorne agreed, in clipped and pretty British.

There were a lot of people in this city. My little slippers were starting to slip off, and I gripped furiously with my toes to prevent that. If Jay-walking was an arrestable offense here, I wonder if there was a crime for walking barefoot. The people were talking around us, but very muted and hushed in the presence of the Constables.

The city was done in reds and browns and greys, with copper and brass gas lamp lights for lighting the way at night. Despite the copper and the brass, everything looked low-tech.

What if I couldn't get back?

What if being a world traveler was illegal?

What if no one believed me, and I was left here forever?

What if these people around me were fundamentally different from the humanity of Earth? What if they had a completely different moral code?

The problem was too big. I needed to try to find ways to survive first. Maybe...I could use my smartphone and solve advanced math problems. I had no idea how to charge my smartphone though. It wasn't an infinite solution, but if I wowed the natives and tricked them to thinking I was magic or something...

The Constables stopped suddenly. "Drat, we missed the light. We'll have to wait for the next one." said Hawthorne.

"Missed what?" I asked. I was from a world with higher technology. There should be some advantage if I could find it...

"No, that was the last train out of this station for the night." Yu Lin said.

Hawthorne growled displeased in his throat. "If not for the Sect's man, we could have hightailed it."

"I am sorry. If I was not here, you would not have to worry."

I coughed nervously. I felt like I was spying on a private moment suddenly. Cops were supposed to be inhuman figures. Not people with a compelling backstory. I felt like I had wandered into a tv show about two cops from vastly different viewpoints and social-ecological backgrounds who work together and slowly start to fall in love or some other rom-com mess.

"I don't care about the Sects," Hawthorn said, with conviction. I wish I had seen season 1 of this detective drama where he hadn't wanted a new partner after his last one died or something. "You're the best partner I ever had. We can find another train. Just trust me, like I trust you."

I wish they had tv here, so I could explain how very much this suddenly felt like a midbudget tv show made a decade ago or something.

The bother from being from a high tech world and stranded in a low tech world. No one would understand vague tv references.

The tall man adjusted his silvery tie, and withdrew his pocket watch. Was he checking the time...

And all my thoughts about Low tech disappeared as a hologram emerged from his fob watch. With his gloved right hand, he twitched his fingers and scrolled through, and I realized the hologram was three dimensional and interactive.

I realized that he swiped from something that looked like a text, to a map, to model of a city, including the streets and where we were standing, all projected there above his fobwatch, as he scrolled through, fingers moving expertly until he did something, and a silvery thread wound through the 3-d model. "I found another route. We can catch the Morning Valley Train if we hurry to East West North Station South! We'll have to hurry, because Morning Valley Train is the last of the day too. It's about 150 miles away."

They both looked at me.

As they did, I saw something pulling out from a raised building with tracks coming out of it. It was a train, on a raised track, directly over that little channel where the almost tangible steam was. This was the train they were trying to catch, and we had missed it. Something hissed, like a boiler overheating, there was a powerful "TOOT TOOT" of an antique train whistle, and then the train, which had been slowly rolling, kicked it into high gear. It accelerated like one of those fast bullet trains in Japan and zipped overhead at breakneck speeds. I had no idea where that train was going, but it would get there very very quickly.

All my daydreams of crushing the little ignorant people of a low tech world were destroyed. My smart phone probably looked like something their grandparents used.

"Only a 150 miles," Yu Lin mused. "We will have 10 minutes to arrive to the station, if not less." she hedged. "If it was only us..."

I smiled "I can keep up. I'm fast! You don't have to restrain me. I'll go with you. My head does feel a little funny. Must be that steam stuff."

No way was I going to Oliver Twist my way away from help. They had 3d fob watches.

I was a stranger in a strange London parody world. My superior smartphone did not have a project hologram feature. I was staying with the people who seemed vaguely like cops, because it was better than running away and being hunted down.

Besides, what if they did another cute cop show scene, where Yu Lin reveals her mother thinks she is in a relationship and Hawthorne has to agree to pretend they are dating? I needed to know: Will they or won't they?