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    Chapter 1: The Adorable Kitten



Ah, Summer break…

    A time for leisure, recreation, and taking ‘er easy.

    Unless you’re us.

    My name is Dipper. I’m the one sitting in the copilot’s seat, trying to read through the instruction manual. The girl sitting in the pilot’s seat hitting random buttons is my good friend Wendy.

    You may be wondering why we’re trying to start the engine of a UFO, while giant killer robots attack the vehicle with saws and claws and other sharp implements, trying to get in. I’ll admit that it seems like a bit of a departure, even for us.

    But rest assured;

    There’s a perfectly logical explanation.







    About a week earlier, Dipper picked his way carefully through the woods. Leaves rustled and branches cracked underfoot as he walked, though his eyes were locked on the radio tracker in his hand. It beeped rhythmically as it searched, and its direction meter swung about indecisively, unable to determine an exact direction.

    There was too much interference to get a solid lock; either too many hills, ridges and rocks between him and the source, too many trees scattering the signal, or a thousand other complications. To get a better fix, he set course for the summit of a nearby hill.

    After reaching the top, he set down his backpack, grasped the tracker in his teeth, and began to climb the nearest tree hand over hand. Soon he was high enough to see over the treetops, out across the cliffs, hills, and lakes of the Gravity Falls valley. The falls by the lake, with their hidden caves. The lone hill in the distance, with the Northwest mansion at its summit. The great arched cliffs, carved by the crash of an alien spacecraft, long ago in ages out of reckoning. Dipper turned his eyes Eastward. Now that he knew what to look for, he found he could easily spot the hill that buried that same ship. And with a little closer inspection, he located the Multibear’s peak, the haunted convenience store, the anomalous golf course…

    What a view. What a rush. Every time he looked at this landscape, he couldn’t help but think of how much he loved it. The weight behind it. The history behind it. The mystery behind it. He wished he could spend a lifetime here. Summer just seemed so short, and the rest of the world just seemed so small.

    Now that he was at this vantage, he found a comfortable place to rest among the branches, and pulled out the tracker again.

    It beeped louder and pointed resolutely in a new direction. He shook the device, spun it around, and checked again. It gave the same direction. This was it.

    He pulled a map of the region, and matched the rough shape of the landscape before him to the contours on the map. Then he pulled out a marker and drew a line across the map, in the direction that the tracker had indicated. Should be enough to go on for now.

    He put the marker and map back away, put the tracker back in his teeth, and began to descend from the vantage.

    Forty minutes, two valleys, and a dozen mosquito bites later, the signal from the tracker was getting stronger, and he was nearing the end of the line he’d drawn on the map. The signal had to be coming from somewhere around here… Didn’t it? He pulled the tracker back out, and checked the direction meter. It swung around a few times, and finally decided on a roughly North-East direction.

    All right! That means he was close enough to track it without getting to a vantage point. He must be close to his target now… Very close.

    He turned on his walkie-talkie again, and listened one more time to the mysterious signal.

    What was it? It wasn’t aimed at cell towers, it wasn’t transmitted on normal channels, and it was coming from off in the middle of the woods. Dipper only knew of a few things all the way out here, and none of them seemed likely to broadcast this. Gnomes and manotaurs didn’t have the tech. Magic crystals didn’t give any electromagnetic signature at all, vampires don’t do stuff like this, and Unicorns just no.

    What kind of transmission was it though? There were no words, just garbled clicking and beeping. Like the feedback from a fax machine, but faster and more rhythmic. Almost like the call of a bird, or a cricket.

    Before sending him off to check it out, Great Uncle Ford had suggested it sounded like a distress call of some kind. Like an SOS, but not in any known language. Stan and Mabel both agreed that it sounded like nothing of the sort, and that’s why Dipper was out here alone. Blagh, what did they know? Ford thought it was an SOS, and that was good enough for Dipper. What if there was some mysterious bunker back here? A hidden listening base from the Cold War? Or a crashed helicopter? Or a crashed UFO? Or a crashed soviet space shuttle with a crazy stranded cosmonaut inside?? With possibilities like these bouncing through his head, Dipper was feeling quite adventurous indeed.

    The trees were getting denser now, and thicker. This was an older part of the forest. One yet untouched by the loggers, a part that was still fresh and green and natural and…

    Then he noticed a shape off through the trees: a parked RV. He frowned, scratched his head, and advanced tentatively further. Now he saw the corner of a corrugated tin roof. That RV and that roof looked awfully familiar…

    Now he was emerging from the trees into a sort of clearing and he frowned again. Aww! This wasn’t some mysterious bunker! This was the Corduroy cabin!

    Well, it was no surprise that he happened upon it. The family’s father, “Manly” Dan Corduroy, had a certain breed of paranoia as far as it related to civilization, and a certain need for privacy. So he’d purposefully built this cabin as far away from anything as possible. It was at the end of a narrow logging road, out of sight from the town, hidden from the PTA, from the union, and from the government. As a result, his family couldn’t get internet at home, they could barely get cell service and TV, and they had to walk about half an hour to get to school. It was as quiet and secluded as any home Dipper had ever visited.

    He pulled out the marker, and was about to write “Wendy’s house” on his map, but then thought better of it. Dan took great pride that his dwelling wasn’t on any maps, so if this marked map ever fell into the wrong hands (like those of his’s in-laws) he might get annoyed. And Dan wasn’t the type of person you annoy on purpose. Not if you were smaller than a bear, at least.

    Dipper put away the map and glanced about, unsure of what to do. He wanted to find that distress signal. How cool would it be if he walked back to the shack holding an ancient artifact that he’d found himself? The glory, yes?

    But then again, what if Wendy was home?

    He’d only been back in town for a few days so far, and he hadn’t seen Wendy yet. She’d quit her job at the Mystery Shack when Soos made his wife the cashier, and, by all accounts, she’d never looked back. Why would she? She hated that job. But now that school was out for the Summer, her dad would still want her to have some work. So what was she doing now? Was she even still around?

    He hoped she was. He wanted to say hi. In fact, he’d really love to bring her along on the search for the signal. Would she like that? She usually liked stuff like that…

    But the lights were all out in the cabin, and Dan’s truck was gone, meaning that the family must be off doing something else.

    Oh well. No Wendy today.

    Dipper pulled the tracker back out, and checked it again.

    The needle swung around and pointed directly at the cabin.

    He frowned, and turned around. The needle kept pointing at the cabin. As a matter of fact, it was pointing directly at the cabin’s western side. Wendy’s room was on the western side.

    Dipper found this kind of bizarre, because Wendy was one of the LAST people he would have expected on the other end of this signal. She hadn’t even crossed his mind all day.

    He circled the cabin, keeping his distance, just to make sure that the signal was, in fact, coming from her room.

    It was.

    The tracker’s beeping was getting deafening, so he turned it off.

    Now he racked his brain. What do you even DO in this sort of situation? Do you knock on the door and ask the manliest man in town “Yo, your daughter has a mysterious radio signal coming from her room, could I investigate?” Do you call Wendy and ask “Hey I’m right outside your room right now. Are you inside your room?” She probably wasn’t home anyway, so he would have to wait for her to return before doing anything…

    Dipper wasn’t sure what the proper, polite, civilized option was here. Indeed, the longer he thought about it, the more flustered he became, so that he accidentally ended up choosing the LEAST proper, polite, civilized option: he climbed in her window.

    The lights were off, and the door was closed, and nobody was here. The rest of the house was quiet too, so he guessed that nobody was home.

    Should I leave? Dipper thought. I should leave. Should I find the thingy? Where’s Wendy? What if Wendy IS the thing? What if Wendy is the one who’s been sending out the distress signal? What if she’s in trouble, and left a tracking device for others to help her? Maybe she’s been abducted by aliens, who left a mystical device behind to attract worthy minds? Maybe subterranean mole men tunneled up beneath her bed, and set up a beacon there to send orders to their killer drones? Maybe she’d been snatched up by the government, who planned to do experiments on her and give her superpowers… Well, if that’s the case, I’ll just let it be; superpowers are always awesome.

    Geez, shut up, brain. He shook his head. You’re getting more flustered by the second.

    …Maybe she left behind some clue as to what happened?

    His eyes drifted around, and landed on her desk. There was a small blue book there. On the cover, the words “Wendy’s Diary” had been scrawled in sharpie. He bit his lip, and his hand squirmed at his side.

    What should he do? What could he do? What would you do? He hesitantly picked up the diary and opened it to the last written page, and began reading. It was dated the day before yesterday.



    June 1st:

    Dipper said he and Mabel would be in town for the Summer soon! Looking forward to seeing those dudes again. I heard they’d be staying at the mystery shack with Soos.

    And I think the Stans are taking a break from that whole Antarctic thing too, but they’re gonna be hanging around in an RV. Like getting the gang back together, right?

    Maybe Dipper or Ford will know what to do about THE ITEM. Ford would probably just want to pull it apart, so I dunno, maybe I’ll just tell Dipper. He’ll know what to do for sure.

    I’ll try a few more things, and if I get results, I’ll show up with it as a huge awesome surprise. If I don’t find any cool results, I’ll just show up anyway with a little awesome surprise.

    Note: I just love referring to it as THE ITEM. Makes it sound so cool and mysterious and vague. I crack myself up. But what do you know about humor? You’re just a diary. Why do I bother…



    What?? Dipper frowned, annoyed. That’s it?!? That’s all I have to go on? You’ve got to give me more than that, Wendy! You don’t even say what “THE ITEM” is! He fished a blacklight out of his backpack, and waved it over the page. No, Wendy didn’t seem to use invisible ink.

    Hmm… Well, maybe she says what THE ITEM is somewhere else. Maybe she wrote down where she found it, or what it looks like, or what it does.

    Dipper flipped to some place near the start of the diary, and started reading.



    January 4th:

    Well, another boyfriend in the discard bin! I realized that Joe never actually looks me in the eye. He was always glancing down at my chest instead, so I think we all know what he’s thinking. Today I got fed up with him, and I was all like “Dude, you’re a perv. Get out of my life.” So now he’s out of my life. I don’t know if I should feel offended by how he thought about me, or feel like a jerk for how I treated him. I guess I’ll settle for a mix of a little of both, ha ha.



    WELP! Dipper slammed the book shut, put it down on the desk, and turned away. This wasn’t Ford’s Journal, or some textbook he was reading here. This was an actual diary. This was somebody’s life. A girl’s life. The life of a girl he liked and respected. He shouldn’t read this.

    But… He glanced back at it. He had to. Didn’t he? If she was in trouble, there had to be something useful here. Not just… Personal biz. He opened it very hesitantly and read the next entry.



    January 5th:

    Okay, NEWS FLASH! Turns out the Gnomes are still missing a queen. And today, they decided to kidnap Candy Chiu to serve the regal role. She was about as happy about it as Mabel was, but there was one crucial difference: Candy didn’t have a Dipper to save her.

    However, there was another crucial difference: Sometime since last summer, Candy invented a “Pepper Spray Bomb Vest.” Basically, if she ever takes off her jacket without entering the 8-digit access code, everyone in a 30ft radius gets gassed in the face and writhes in pain for a couple hours. Fact: no fewer than 182 gnomes can fit within a 30ft radius.

    I thought the idea for the device was really cool, and asked her if she could build me one. But it turns out that to use it, you have to build up this crazy tolerance to pepper spray. After seeing how many ghost peppers that girl eats for lunch every day, I decided to pass.



    Oh. Wow. Some of it was at least sort of useful. That’s good to know. He read the next page.



    January 7th

    That does it.

    I’m now 99% sure my teacher Mr. Fredricks is a ghost.

    Everyone just tries to ignore him going transparent and disappearing every once in a while, but what you CAN’T ignore is his striking similarity to an outlaw who was lynched in 1872 and buried in the same place as my home period classroom.

    (I actually researched this at an actual library. Looked up old dusty records and everything. I feel really proud of myself.)



    January 8th

    That exorcism trick Dipper taught me really worked.

    But we didn’t get to go home, because they just sent a substitute, and he was an actual human.

    Fooey.



    Dipper scratched his neck, and blinked.

    Apparently, things never did calm down here. Gravity Falls was Gravity Falls all year, not just the Summer; there was still plenty to do. Dipper felt a pang of guilt that he wasn’t there for this. Things were happening here; big, important, dangerous things, and he wasn’t there for it! Ghosts! Gnomes! Stuff! And Wendy and everyone else were all right in the middle of it! They could all be in danger…!

    Could they fend for themselves? …Well… Sure. Of course they could. But he couldn’t help but wish he were there for every minute of it.

    Dipper turned forward a ways, and landed on a page with no date, that looked like some kind of appendix.



    Okay, from now on, I’m going to record all my mosquito bites on this page. I know that sounds completely insane, but I’ve actually noticed that they make words every now and again. On the off chance that tiny brainless bugs with poor spelling skills know what they’re talking about, I figure this could be important.

    CQOK BELOM (The first letter might be an L, but they wrote it crooked. ‘Look below’ maybe?)

    A ZIIIFTER BATCHES (I don’t know what a ziiifter is, but a whole batch of them sounds bad.)

    THEY CUT THE TPFE (Did they mean ‘the tree’? Which tree? There’s like a million trees.)

    TI_____AITH (They wrote this across my shoulders. I couldn’t read the part in the middle.)

    BEWARF (Soooo close. Literally two more bites would have turned that last F into a E. Soooo close guys.)

    THOU ART RIGHT TO FEAP (probably meant ‘fear’ there. Why do prophecies always have to be so vague? You know what, I don’t even care anymore.)

    DEEP IN THE JUNGLF YOU WILL FIND A KEY GUARDEB BY CREALURES THAT WATCH FROM TEH TREES. (This itched like HECK.)



    The next page was back to the normal format.



    March 3rd:

    For some reason, today I loved everything I hate about high school. Mainly because it was just so hilarious the way it happened.

    Okay, so I forgot to pack myself a lunch this morning for reasons, and when I got to school I didn’t have much cash. So I was looking through the cafeteria menu, and score! For some reason the nachos were at a HUGE discount, and I got a big ‘ol plate for practically nothing.

    But when I sat down to eat them, nobody would sit near me and everybody was kind of glancing at me sideways. Suddenly it all clicked: Nachos are so cheap because they’re taboo now! The yellowish triangular chips remind everybody of Bill Cipher, so me having a plate was basically chowing down on dozens of effigies of a super-powerful chaos demon. Which is a problem for some reason. Everyone was just looking at me and poking fun and I got super embarrassed.

    But I was more annoyed than embarrassed, so I started eating the nachos more and more aggressively and noisily and laughing manically and chewing with my mouth open, because hey, the day is already ruined right? Why not have a great laugh while it happens? The chips actually started tasting better when I imagined they WERE Bill.

    But then somebody called the cops and they rushed into the school and started tasing me because I wasn’t “never minding all that.” It made a huge scene. I got sent to the school counselor, the cops got sent to the principal’s office, and I was all sore for the rest of the day.

    But that gave me an idea.



    March 8th:

    I’ve been eating nothing but nachos for the better part of a week, and now the taboo is broken! Everyone’s eating nacho chips now, and laughing about it too. And I’m some kind of hero or junk. After all, why should we be afraid of HIM? He’s dead, as is his dominion in this Earth.

    If you’re somehow still around, Billy, and are reading this now, then screw you, mate! There are things in this world worth being afraid of, and YOU are NO LONGER one of them! And if you’re reading this now, you’d better watch your back, little buddy. We’re gonna be standing over you with blunt objects and big grins someday soon, and hell is waiting for you at the end.

    On a totally separate note: now the cops can’t tase anybody within 25ft of school property. So that’s nice. Kind of a load off, y’know?



    March 9th:

    As I was daydreaming in English class today, I finally figured out why helicopters don’t have ejection seats. Kinda obvious in retrospect.



    March 23rd:

    I’ve been working with Lee and Nate making “Bill sux” graffiti everywhere, but today I realized how stupid and immature that is, so I think I’ll stop. Eating nachos is one thing, but ruining the town and causing lots of people trouble? I feel really bad. I should really apologize to Sheriff Blubbs, and maybe the mayor or something. I just wanted a laugh, and for people to stop being afraid. I didn’t mean to make a mess.



    “Hmm…” Dipper shrugged, and turned somewhere else in the diary. This one was a more recent page:



    April 12th:

    Ghost pepper diet going “fine”. Still not immune though, apparently.



    April 13th:

    Well, dear diary, last night’s adventure was pretty darn crazy. It was violent and eerie and NSFW, like something out of a cheap horror movie. Gotta put it down while it’s fresh.



    Dipper wasn’t sure what NSFW meant (Never Sample Filthy Water?), but the part about cheap horror movie sounded fun, so he read on anyway.



    It all started when Dad and the bros went all the way to Boring for the weekend for a wrestling tournament. But I had homework, so I was left with the place all to myself! Or so I thought.

    I was walking home, all alone, in the dark, just minding my own business. Suddenly the air got super chilly, my vision got all blurry, my flashlight stopped working, and this super tall, super thin, super bald guy was suddenly standing in the trees. This perp had real pale skin, no mouth or eyes, a real swanky black suit, and he was just staring at me.

    I wasn’t sure what this bald dork wanted, but I had my axe on me, so I was all like “Fool, you got another thing coming.” I pulled out my axe, started laughing like a maniac, and ran after him. I guess he’s not used to people fighting back, because I was almost on top of him before he reacted, and then he seemed super startled and disappeared into the trees.

    Way I figured it, this guy was purposely trying to be as scary as possible, so I figured I might as well give him a taste of his own medicine. So I stripped down to my underwear, covered myself in mud, and started yelling and waving my axe like an insane psychopath. I mean, what’s scarier than that?

    Anyway, what came to what, I chased him around the woods for about half an hour.

    At first all he did was complain that I didn’t give him a flashlight and a head start. Then, after about 15 minutes, he started saying that I was actually scaring him and to please stop. Then by half an hour, he was begging me to stop and cowering. At that point I just jammed the axe into a tree next to his head and promised to “find where he sleeps, rip out his soul and feed him to his family” if he ever showed up here again. He seemed pretty panicky, and promised he never would.

    Jerk.

    I’m not scared of this guy, and I don’t think he’ll come back, but I’m gonna sleep with a chainsaw tonight just in case.

    I wonder how much of this stuff I dealt with back when the Blind Eye was still around. I wonder how much I once knew but forgot. I wonder if people like him ever got me before I knew how to be strong. It chills me a little, I’ll admit.

    But I ain’t gonna let cue-ball know that.



    Oh. Well. Dipper blinked and set down the diary, wanting to remove the images it had put in his head. He wasn’t getting any clues this way, just a lot of… Weird… Stuff. And although it sounded pretty interesting, it would be far better, (and a thousand billion times politer,) to get them straight from the horse’s mouth.

    Wendy’s mouth, that is.

    Honestly, he couldn’t wait to hear those stories.

    Over the past 9 months, they’d talked over the phone many times. He was on call to consult when she and Soos had gone to talk with the Shapeshifter. He had brainstormed with her on ways to deal with Gideon. And he’d helped her translate some ancient runes here and there. She’d really stepped up in the adventuring business after last summer, and he thought that was awesome. But from her diary, it seems that he’d only heard half of it. There was more… How much more?

    He looked around her room one more time. He saw posters, maps, portraits and dartboards hung on the wall. He saw books, papers, pencils, a black light, and Blind Eye memory capsules sitting on the desk. He saw weapons and tools leaned against the wall and stacked behind the bed; axes, binoculars, shovels, a crossbow, a machete, even one of Ford’s spare magnet guns.

    Good grief, she HAD been busy.

    If she wanted to see him, and if she had something to show him, as the last page suggested, then where was she now? Was she in trouble? Or was she just… Away?

    His eye settled on one final tool, this one hidden high in the rafters: a security camera looking down at him. She might’ve gotten it from Ford’s bunker, or from the abandoned convenience store, he didn’t know.

    But its little red light was on. Which means wherever Wendy was, she was recording now. She was watching. She must have seen him reading her diary.

    He sighed, set down the diary, and put his hands in his pockets. He could feel his cheeks getting warm. Second day back in the falls, and he’d already made a huge fool of himself. What are the odds?

    “Sorry.” He told the camera, and turned to leave. What else could he do? At the open window, he stopped to survey the empty surroundings.

    Suddenly, another voice rang out. “Oh, but not as sorry as you’re going to be.”

    A giant, leafy, green mass fell off the roof and landed about 3 feet in front of him. The diary had already prepared his mind to expect a monster, so seeing this here scared the living daylights out of him. He jumped backward, and almost lost his balance. The green mass stood up to human height, reached up its enormous hands, and removed its head. Below the leafy disguise was a face he hadn’t seen in 9 months. Dipper sighed, relieved.

    She spat some grass and leaves out of her mouth, and began removing the rest of the camouflage. “You know.” She said. “After last Summer, I started finding myself right in the center of all kinds of crazy stuff. I don’t know why it just started; maybe it’s because the Blind Eye isn’t running around wiping us anymore. Maybe it’s because I started going out looking for Weirdness, not waiting for it to come to me. I don’t know, but it all adds up to me stocking up some really weird stories. Some of them are crazy. Some are cool. Some are embarrassing. How many of them did you read?”

    “Uh…” Dipper fidgeted. She was frowning at him, and her eyes said this was no joke. Was she annoyed at him? He didn’t really know, he couldn’t quite tell. She removed the last of the camouflage, and tossed it aside. “Uh…” He said again, trying to remember the stories he’d just read. “Uh… Just one REALLY weird one… The… The one with the… Faceless guy…”

    “Oh, you’re SO in for it now.” She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. “That was one of my most awkward stories ever. You know what this means?”

    “What…?”

    “You’re gonna have to pay. Pay big time. You’re gonna have to tell me one of YOUR most awkward stories. Fair’s fair.”

    Dipper set his jaw. “Brain-swapping carpet.” He sighed, without hardly thinking. “Mabel and I switched bodies for about 8 hours last Summer, and ran around trying to ruin each others’ lives. I held my pee the whole time. Held her pee. Held the pee I had. Ugh. I don’t know whose pee it was, but I didn’t use the bathroom and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

    “Go on.”

    “And I guess she held my pee too because I really had to go when we switched back. And Grenda and Candy were there too, and everyone was jumbled around. And I think in the back of my mind I wish I was Grenda because that was the one time I ever had muscles. And I know how it feels to be a girl and I want to forget. And McGucket was there too and now I know how it feels to have really terrible teeth. And Soos was there and he was a pig and…”

    “Oh my! Did you ever switch him back?”

    They stood there frowning at each other for a few seconds.

    Then Wendy’s mouth twitched into a smile. Dipper realized she was joking and his mouth began to twitch too. Then they were both smiling. Then they were both laughing. Wendy was laughing at the story, and Dipper was laughing out of relief. She wasn’t mad at him. She really wasn’t mad.

    “Good to see you, Wendy.”

    “Good to see you too, Dipstick.”

    She was glad to see him! That’s nice.

    “Uh…” Dipper scratched his head. “Sorry. The—“ his words began tumbling over themselves, as they often did when he was distracted and overwhelmed. He pointed to the tracker, then to her room, then to her diary. “Radio. Track. Me. Here. Room. You. Trouble. Thought you clue. Diary. Bleh. Ugh. Confused. Read Diary. Sorry, I should have axed first. But I didn’t think to axe, and…”

    “Don’t worry about it. I get it. Friend of yours starts sending out a mysterious distress signal, she’s asleep on her own roof in a homemade ghillie suit, you don’t see her, you want to find out what’s up… It’s fine.”

    “I should have axed before coming in your window…”

    “Asked. ASKED, dude. With an ‘S’. Not axed. Calm down man, you’re letting the faceless dude story get to your head.”

    “Oh. Uh. Yeah. Uh… That image.”

    “Me chasing a monster in my underwear?”

    “Yeah, uh… Man, that’s not going away anytime soon, is it?”

    “Yeah.” She shrugged. “The image of you in Mabel’s body is gonna stick with me too. That’s some funny stuff.”

    Dipper tried to stop squirming.

    There was awkward silence for a minute.

    “Uh.” Dipper said, pulling out the radio tracker. “I read the last page of your diary first. Are you behind that mysterious radio signal I picked up…? Is this about…” He made his voice go all deep and gravely, and made quotation marks with his hand. “’THE ITEM’? Is that what’s behind that freaky signal?”

    She smiled a cunning smile, as she climbed in through the window.

    “Oh yes.” She said. “THE ITEM. I’ve been waiting to show you THE ITEM for a while now. Yes, THE ITEM is what you’re looking for. I’ve been using an antenna to amplify it a little bit, but in the end, THE ITEM is the source of the signal. I assume you’ll want to see THE ITEM now?”

    “I’d very much like to see THE ITEM.”

    “I’ll show you THE ITEM then.” She reached under her bed, and removed a small metal crate, like something you’d see at a military surplus store. It was latched up tight, and had an antenna attached to one end. She set the crate down on top of her bed, and her fingers worked at loosening the latches. Dipper sat down across from her, excited. What was it? A dinosaur? A magic crystal? A bomb? An alien? “Dipper…” Wendy said. “Behold… THE ITEM!!”

    The box was empty.

    The box also had a circular hole cut in the bottom.

    “I thought you said THE ITEM was in there?”

    “The item was in here! Where’d the item go??”

    “We’re not doing the deep gravelly voice anymore?”

    “Okay, this is actually serious now. The… Ha ha!” She laughed nervously. “Ha ha! The item is… Ha ha! Okay, the item is gone. The item is loose. I didn’t think the item would be able to chew through solid steel, but… There ya have it. Turns out the item can chew through solid steel. Good to know.”

    Dipper held the box up to the light to examine the hole. The edges were jagged and sharp. “Uh…” He frowned. “Mind telling me what the item is, exactly?”

    “Oh, you’ll know it when you see it.” She walked over to her desk, opened a drawer, and removed two thick pairs of leather gloves. “And you’ll wanna wear these.” She tossed him a few, and donned a pair herself. She also picked up the magnet gun.

    “Right.” Dipper frowned. “So it cut a hole in the bottom of the crate, and the crate is too heavy to move… That means to go anywhere, it would have to cut a hole in the floor too…”

    “YEAH that’s it!” Wendy snapped her fingers. “Help me move the bed!”

    They moved her bed. Sure enough, where the crate had been, there was a big tear in the rug, and another one cut in the wooden floor.

    “Under the house.” They said in unison, and bolted for the window.

    Their boots hit the ground outside, and the started circling around the cabin in opposite directions.

    “Okay, you’ve still got that tracker?” Wendy asked. “It can tell the direction of the signal?”

    “Yeah. You think it’s still emitting a signal?”

    “It’s been signaling for the last 3 days, I don’t know why it would stop now.”

    Dipper checked the tracker. “Looks like it’s still under the house. Northern side. And… It should be trapped under there, I guess. Unless it can dig, or if it can open the little door out of the crawlspace… How many doors are there? And can it dig?”

    “I’ve never seen it dig, but I’m guessing it’d be just dandy at it. As for the hatches, yeah… There’s one hatch on my side, and another on yours, so I think that’s it.

    “Okay.” Dipper said. “So now there’s only two places it can get out. Unless we waste too much time, and then it can dig out who-knows-where.”

    “Yeah.” Wendy nodded. “Okay… Here’s how we’re gonna do it: you’re gonna get inside the crawl space over there, I’ll get in over here, and we’ll close the hatches up tight behind us. Then you make a big racket to drive it over my way. Soon as I have a clear shot, I’ll snag it with the magnet gun. You got a flashlight?”

    “You know I do.”

    So prepared, they entered the dusty, spider-webby, claustrophobic space between the ground and the cabin floor. Dipper from one side, Wendy from the other. It was so short down here that he had to crawl on his belly, being careful not to hit his head on the floor beams and the water pipes below the furnace. Although the leather gloves protected his hands, the dirt, splinters and cobwebs quickly covered his elbows, knees, neck and face.

    His nose filled with dust. He sneezed. From the other side of the darkened space, he heard Wendy’s voice. “Ha! You sneeze like a kitten!”

    He frowned and shook his head. He’d never come up with a good retort for that.

    As he scanned the darkness with the flashlight beam, he began to make a racket on the ground with his free hand, and hollering things like “Show thyself, you item! Go on and git, item! Where are you, item?!? I’m coming for ya!”

    He made his way toward the northern end of the building, where the tracker said it was.

    Eventually, he heard a clicking and a scuffling and a buzzing, and the whatever it was darted off in Wendy’s direction.

    Off through the cobwebs, a blue flash of arcing electricity lit up the darkness as Wendy fired the magnet gun. There was a humming from the gun, and a loud metallic clank as it successfully grappled something, and Wendy hollered “I GOT IT! Okay, let’s come on out!”

    Dipper turned around and made his way back the way he’d come. He eventually found the door out of the crawlspace, squeezed through it, and found himself back in the sunlight. He looked down at himself. He was covered in dirt, cobwebs, and other such filth that resides in places where people don’t go. Man! What fun! What a joy! What a lovely day! And I’m doing it with Wendy! That makes it even better.

    When he rounded the final corner of the house, he found Wendy just as filthy as he was (or even more; hair has a way of accumulating cobwebs.) She was turned away from him, her gloved hands cupped over something. “Dipper…” She said quietly, as she turned around and opened her hands. “Behold… THE ITEM…”

    Dipper frowned, and took a step closer.

    It was a robot.

    It was shaped a little bit like a kitten, but with dull grey skin, brightly shining red eyes, little clawed tank treads on its hands and feet, and no ears. Instead of ears, it had a row of antennae in line with its shoulders, like a lion’s mane. As Wendy handled it tightly with the gloves, it squirmed and scratched and swung its tail like a club, but it wasn’t strong enough to escape. From its head came a raspy hissing noise.

    “Hey, shush shush.” Wendy hushed at it. “We’re not gonna fight you. We’re not gonna eat you. Wouldn’t even wanna, I swear.”

    “Dude.” Dipper stared at the item, his eyes wide and his mouth open. “It’s a robot.”

    “Yeah.” Wendy smiled and poked at its nose (or where a nose would have been; it had no nose.) “A little cat-rat-bot. Yes you are. Yes, you’re a good little Item, aren’t you?”

    The robot opened its mouth and hissed angrily at her.

    It wasn’t a normal mouth. Instead of teeth, tongue, or gums, it had a series of hooks, a conveyor, and a row of razor sharp sawblades. This frightening apparatus made a loud buzzing sound as it spun up to speed, extended out its head about an inch, and latched onto Wendy’s glove. She shook it off. The robot appeared to give up, leaving only a small scratch in the tough material.

    “Yeah.” Wendy nodded. “Watch out for the saws. Leather gloves always.”

    “Yeah. Makes sense.” Dipper blinked and shook his head. “But look at that mouth! It looks like it could actually cut and eat stuff… Does it?”

    “Oh yeah he does. He eats. Here, let’s go inside. I’ll show you.”

    A few minutes later it was back in its crate. They had reinforced the bottom with some sheet metal from the roof, so it couldn’t cut through the bottom again. Instead, it was attacking the wall with its saw. Tiny little sparks flew around it, and there was a piercing screeching noise.

    “Huh… He’s cutting through the box again…” Dipper called over the noise.

    “Play with him. Distract him. I’ll be right back.” Wendy went off toward the kitchen.

    “Uh…” Dipper poked his glove in at it. “Hey buddy. How’s it going? You little… Uh… Little robot cat, you… You’re… Uh… Man you’re weird. Who built you? Did McGucket build you? The government? Aliens? Come on Item, you gotta work with me…”

    It clicked loudly at him, jumped up, and bit his glove. The saws cut a gash in the leather before it let go and fell back into the box.

    Dipper got an idea.

    He ran over to Wendy’s desk, grabbed a pencil, and poked the sharp end in at the robot. Its eyes lit up a bright, annoyed red as it looked up at the offending tool.

    “Hey buddy? You wanna sharpen a pencil today? Can you do that for me?”

    The idea didn’t work.

    Wendy came back into the room holding a bucket of nails.

    “Where’s my pencil?” She asked.

    Dipper pointed dejectedly toward the pencil-sized pile of sawdust beneath the robot.

    Wendy laughed. “Yeah, I tried that too. Don’t sweat it. Well, he really likes nails. You want a nail, Item?”

    It did want a nail.

    Its saws sliced and ground the nail into smaller pieces, then it pulled those smaller pieces inside with the conveyor. Another buzzing noise continued from its stomach even after the nail was all gone, which Dipper figured must be smaller grinders deeper inside it. It extended its tongue, a little magnetic roller, and licked up all the leftover iron filings.

    When it was done, it seemed tired. It glanced up at the sun coming in through the window, turned around in a few circles, lay down, and extended its tail straight upwards. The tail unfolded into a wide circle of solar panels, which then angled to catch the sun. The robot itself appeared asleep.

    Wendy and Dipper sat down on the bed and stared at it for a couple minutes.

    “Dude.” Dipper said. “This is the weirdest robot I’ve ever seen. It’s like a real animal, but made of metal instead of fleshy stuff. I’ve never even see McGucket build something THIS good.”

    “I know, right?”

    They were silent for a couple more minutes.

    “Where’d you find it?”

    “Out in the forest.” She said. “Its tail was caught in a bear trap, so it couldn’t recharge without the solar panels. It must’ve been dying or something. I pried open the bare trap, and this thing ran off. It was mostly out of power though, so I got it home easily enough. It found the wall outlet and started sticking its teeth in it. There was some sparks, and it got better pretty quickly.”

    “Its tail was caught in a bear trap? This thing is tough…”

    “There was a big dent in its tail. But as it’s been eating metal, the dent disappeared. Crazy, huh?”

    “Yeah.” Dipper scratched his head. “So… Are you… We… Someone… I… You… Gonna keep it, or what?”

    “Well, if I wanted a pet I would have gotten something that can’t chew through a steel crate.” She shrugged. “Or my phone or my doorknob or the roof, for that matter.”

    “Fair enough.”

    “In fact.” Wendy said. “The whole plan today was to get it off my hands. It’s been sending out that distress signal ever since I found it huddled up in the woods. So I think it got lost or something, and it’s trying to phone home. Candy Chiu gave me that antenna to boost the signal. Which I guess is how you detected it from all the way over at the Shack.”

    “And you were expecting somebody to come looking for it… Who were you expecting?

    “I had no idea. My first guess would have been McGucket. My second guess would be some other evil mad scientist. My third guess was that this thing is like a cub or something, and that a mommy cat-rat-bot that would eventually come rolling out of the trees looking for it.”

    “And when I came by…” Dipper completed the story. “You were hiding up on your roof just in case mommy cat-rat-bot turned out to be the size of a bear.”

    “Exactly.” She nodded. “I also rigged up a net. That way if mommy turned out to be smaller, like maybe R2-D2 sized, then I would catch her in a net and have two of them… You know, for science.”

    “For science.”

    They once again fell silent. Wendy glanced up at the sun.

    “Well.” She said. “It looks like about 4:30 now. We gave momma all day, so I say we kill the long-range antenna, and get back to this tomorrow.”

    “Makes sense.”

    “Say.” Wendy said. “What do you think Mabel would think of this thing?”

    “I don’t know. She’d probably try to name it.”

    “It already has a name. THE ITEM, remember? Nice and ominous and vague.”

    “She won’t like that. Too impersonal. She’ll call it… Jessica. Or Sparkles. Or Buzz-Saw-Louis. Or something.”

    “Eh.” Wendy shrugged. “Well, you guys won’t mind if I stop in tonight to show it around, do you? I was kind of planning on it anyway, but it seemed polite to ask ahead of time…”

    “No, come right on over!” Dipper smiled. “The Stans just got back into town earlier today, so we were gonna have a big ‘ol campfire. Soos is bringing dawgs and s’mores, the Stans are bringing stories, and with you there, I guess we’ll have some more stories, as well as a cat-rat-bot!”

    “Stories, s’mores, robots and dawgs.” Wendy nodded. “Sounds like a wild night. Well, what are you bringing, then?”

    “Uh, well…” Dipper scratched his head. “Why, I’m bringing Mabel, of course.”







    Off toward the spooky end of the Forest, in a thicket of pines not so very far from the Mystery Shack, the entrance to a hidden bunker stood secure.

    It had been over 30 years now since the dusty old lab had been buried and built in secrecy, and there were few people today who remembered it even existed. Of those who remembered, there were fewer still who knew their way past the security locks, and who might be able to get inside. And of those who could, not one of them wanted to. For within the structure’s furthest, deepest corners, surrounded by impenetrable bedrock and sealed by airlocks and a maze of hydraulic presses, there was contained a single terrible monster.

    He was frozen now; the safest, easiest, most humane solution they could ever manage. The cryogenic equipment kept his cells suspended in a delicate balance between life and death, somewhere beyond sleep, beyond a coma, beyond awareness or consciousness, but yet not quite death.

    He would be in enormous pain when next he awoke. And chances are, he would be bitterly, furiously angry, for he remembered the people that had sealed him here, and he wanted more than anything to repay them in equal measures for his own suffering.

    But the equipment was durable. The pipes were reinforced with steel and insulated asbestos wrapping, the circuits were sealed and waterproofed, and there was perhaps triple the necessary number of perpetual-motion generators needed to maintain the liquid nitrogen vats.

    Everything had layers of protection and redundancy, so that total failure was almost impossible. If the monster ever was to be thawed, it couldn’t happen by accident. Somebody would have to find their way past the security to the control room, and purposefully access the controls.

    Today, somebody accessed the controls. The security system hadn’t tripped, the cameras hadn’t seen anything, and none of the doors had even opened, but still the perfect silence was broken by the working of fingers on the keyboard, and the darkness was broken by a few red status lights flashing, as the cryogenics deactivated.

    He began to thaw.

    And a voice spoke, remarking: “You were meant for so much more…”

Description

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    Chapter 1: The Adorable Kitten



Ah, Summer break…

    A time for leisure, recreation, and taking ‘er easy.

    Unless you’re us.

    My name is Dipper. I’m the one sitting in the copilot’s seat, trying to read through the instruction manual. The girl sitting in the pilot’s seat hitting random buttons is my good friend Wendy.

    You may be wondering why we’re trying to start the engine of a UFO, while giant killer robots attack the vehicle with saws and claws and other sharp implements, trying to get in. I’ll admit that it seems like a bit of a departure, even for us.

    But rest assured;

    There’s a perfectly logical explanation.







    About a week earlier, Dipper picked his way carefully through the woods. Leaves rustled and branches cracked underfoot as he walked, though his eyes were locked on the radio tracker in his hand. It beeped rhythmically as it searched, and its direction meter swung about indecisively, unable to determine an exact direction.

    There was too much interference to get a solid lock; either too many hills, ridges and rocks between him and the source, too many trees scattering the signal, or a thousand other complications. To get a better fix, he set course for the summit of a nearby hill.

    After reaching the top, he set down his backpack, grasped the tracker in his teeth, and began to climb the nearest tree hand over hand. Soon he was high enough to see over the treetops, out across the cliffs, hills, and lakes of the Gravity Falls valley. The falls by the lake, with their hidden caves. The lone hill in the distance, with the Northwest mansion at its summit. The great arched cliffs, carved by the crash of an alien spacecraft, long ago in ages out of reckoning. Dipper turned his eyes Eastward. Now that he knew what to look for, he found he could easily spot the hill that buried that same ship. And with a little closer inspection, he located the Multibear’s peak, the haunted convenience store, the anomalous golf course…

    What a view. What a rush. Every time he looked at this landscape, he couldn’t help but think of how much he loved it. The weight behind it. The history behind it. The mystery behind it. He wished he could spend a lifetime here. Summer just seemed so short, and the rest of the world just seemed so small.

    Now that he was at this vantage, he found a comfortable place to rest among the branches, and pulled out the tracker again.

    It beeped louder and pointed resolutely in a new direction. He shook the device, spun it around, and checked again. It gave the same direction. This was it.

    He pulled a map of the region, and matched the rough shape of the landscape before him to the contours on the map. Then he pulled out a marker and drew a line across the map, in the direction that the tracker had indicated. Should be enough to go on for now.

    He put the marker and map back away, put the tracker back in his teeth, and began to descend from the vantage.

    Forty minutes, two valleys, and a dozen mosquito bites later, the signal from the tracker was getting stronger, and he was nearing the end of the line he’d drawn on the map. The signal had to be coming from somewhere around here… Didn’t it? He pulled the tracker back out, and checked the direction meter. It swung around a few times, and finally decided on a roughly North-East direction.

    All right! That means he was close enough to track it without getting to a vantage point. He must be close to his target now… Very close.

    He turned on his walkie-talkie again, and listened one more time to the mysterious signal.

    What was it? It wasn’t aimed at cell towers, it wasn’t transmitted on normal channels, and it was coming from off in the middle of the woods. Dipper only knew of a few things all the way out here, and none of them seemed likely to broadcast this. Gnomes and manotaurs didn’t have the tech. Magic crystals didn’t give any electromagnetic signature at all, vampires don’t do stuff like this, and Unicorns just no.

    What kind of transmission was it though? There were no words, just garbled clicking and beeping. Like the feedback from a fax machine, but faster and more rhythmic. Almost like the call of a bird, or a cricket.

    Before sending him off to check it out, Great Uncle Ford had suggested it sounded like a distress call of some kind. Like an SOS, but not in any known language. Stan and Mabel both agreed that it sounded like nothing of the sort, and that’s why Dipper was out here alone. Blagh, what did they know? Ford thought it was an SOS, and that was good enough for Dipper. What if there was some mysterious bunker back here? A hidden listening base from the Cold War? Or a crashed helicopter? Or a crashed UFO? Or a crashed soviet space shuttle with a crazy stranded cosmonaut inside?? With possibilities like these bouncing through his head, Dipper was feeling quite adventurous indeed.

    The trees were getting denser now, and thicker. This was an older part of the forest. One yet untouched by the loggers, a part that was still fresh and green and natural and…

    Then he noticed a shape off through the trees: a parked RV. He frowned, scratched his head, and advanced tentatively further. Now he saw the corner of a corrugated tin roof. That RV and that roof looked awfully familiar…

    Now he was emerging from the trees into a sort of clearing and he frowned again. Aww! This wasn’t some mysterious bunker! This was the Corduroy cabin!

    Well, it was no surprise that he happened upon it. The family’s father, “Manly” Dan Corduroy, had a certain breed of paranoia as far as it related to civilization, and a certain need for privacy. So he’d purposefully built this cabin as far away from anything as possible. It was at the end of a narrow logging road, out of sight from the town, hidden from the PTA, from the union, and from the government. As a result, his family couldn’t get internet at home, they could barely get cell service and TV, and they had to walk about half an hour to get to school. It was as quiet and secluded as any home Dipper had ever visited.

    He pulled out the marker, and was about to write “Wendy’s house” on his map, but then thought better of it. Dan took great pride that his dwelling wasn’t on any maps, so if this marked map ever fell into the wrong hands (like those of his’s in-laws) he might get annoyed. And Dan wasn’t the type of person you annoy on purpose. Not if you were smaller than a bear, at least.

    Dipper put away the map and glanced about, unsure of what to do. He wanted to find that distress signal. How cool would it be if he walked back to the shack holding an ancient artifact that he’d found himself? The glory, yes?

    But then again, what if Wendy was home?

    He’d only been back in town for a few days so far, and he hadn’t seen Wendy yet. She’d quit her job at the Mystery Shack when Soos made his wife the cashier, and, by all accounts, she’d never looked back. Why would she? She hated that job. But now that school was out for the Summer, her dad would still want her to have some work. So what was she doing now? Was she even still around?

    He hoped she was. He wanted to say hi. In fact, he’d really love to bring her along on the search for the signal. Would she like that? She usually liked stuff like that…

    But the lights were all out in the cabin, and Dan’s truck was gone, meaning that the family must be off doing something else.

    Oh well. No Wendy today.

    Dipper pulled the tracker back out, and checked it again.

    The needle swung around and pointed directly at the cabin.

    He frowned, and turned around. The needle kept pointing at the cabin. As a matter of fact, it was pointing directly at the cabin’s western side. Wendy’s room was on the western side.

    Dipper found this kind of bizarre, because Wendy was one of the LAST people he would have expected on the other end of this signal. She hadn’t even crossed his mind all day.

    He circled the cabin, keeping his distance, just to make sure that the signal was, in fact, coming from her room.

    It was.

    The tracker’s beeping was getting deafening, so he turned it off.

    Now he racked his brain. What do you even DO in this sort of situation? Do you knock on the door and ask the manliest man in town “Yo, your daughter has a mysterious radio signal coming from her room, could I investigate?” Do you call Wendy and ask “Hey I’m right outside your room right now. Are you inside your room?” She probably wasn’t home anyway, so he would have to wait for her to return before doing anything…

    Dipper wasn’t sure what the proper, polite, civilized option was here. Indeed, the longer he thought about it, the more flustered he became, so that he accidentally ended up choosing the LEAST proper, polite, civilized option: he climbed in her window.

    The lights were off, and the door was closed, and nobody was here. The rest of the house was quiet too, so he guessed that nobody was home.

    Should I leave? Dipper thought. I should leave. Should I find the thingy? Where’s Wendy? What if Wendy IS the thing? What if Wendy is the one who’s been sending out the distress signal? What if she’s in trouble, and left a tracking device for others to help her? Maybe she’s been abducted by aliens, who left a mystical device behind to attract worthy minds? Maybe subterranean mole men tunneled up beneath her bed, and set up a beacon there to send orders to their killer drones? Maybe she’d been snatched up by the government, who planned to do experiments on her and give her superpowers… Well, if that’s the case, I’ll just let it be; superpowers are always awesome.

    Geez, shut up, brain. He shook his head. You’re getting more flustered by the second.

    …Maybe she left behind some clue as to what happened?

    His eyes drifted around, and landed on her desk. There was a small blue book there. On the cover, the words “Wendy’s Diary” had been scrawled in sharpie. He bit his lip, and his hand squirmed at his side.

    What should he do? What could he do? What would you do? He hesitantly picked up the diary and opened it to the last written page, and began reading. It was dated the day before yesterday.



    June 1st:

    Dipper said he and Mabel would be in town for the Summer soon! Looking forward to seeing those dudes again. I heard they’d be staying at the mystery shack with Soos.

    And I think the Stans are taking a break from that whole Antarctic thing too, but they’re gonna be hanging around in an RV. Like getting the gang back together, right?

    Maybe Dipper or Ford will know what to do about THE ITEM. Ford would probably just want to pull it apart, so I dunno, maybe I’ll just tell Dipper. He’ll know what to do for sure.

    I’ll try a few more things, and if I get results, I’ll show up with it as a huge awesome surprise. If I don’t find any cool results, I’ll just show up anyway with a little awesome surprise.

    Note: I just love referring to it as THE ITEM. Makes it sound so cool and mysterious and vague. I crack myself up. But what do you know about humor? You’re just a diary. Why do I bother…



    What?? Dipper frowned, annoyed. That’s it?!? That’s all I have to go on? You’ve got to give me more than that, Wendy! You don’t even say what “THE ITEM” is! He fished a blacklight out of his backpack, and waved it over the page. No, Wendy didn’t seem to use invisible ink.

    Hmm… Well, maybe she says what THE ITEM is somewhere else. Maybe she wrote down where she found it, or what it looks like, or what it does.

    Dipper flipped to some place near the start of the diary, and started reading.



    January 4th:

    Well, another boyfriend in the discard bin! I realized that Joe never actually looks me in the eye. He was always glancing down at my chest instead, so I think we all know what he’s thinking. Today I got fed up with him, and I was all like “Dude, you’re a perv. Get out of my life.” So now he’s out of my life. I don’t know if I should feel offended by how he thought about me, or feel like a jerk for how I treated him. I guess I’ll settle for a mix of a little of both, ha ha.



    WELP! Dipper slammed the book shut, put it down on the desk, and turned away. This wasn’t Ford’s Journal, or some textbook he was reading here. This was an actual diary. This was somebody’s life. A girl’s life. The life of a girl he liked and respected. He shouldn’t read this.

    But… He glanced back at it. He had to. Didn’t he? If she was in trouble, there had to be something useful here. Not just… Personal biz. He opened it very hesitantly and read the next entry.



    January 5th:

    Okay, NEWS FLASH! Turns out the Gnomes are still missing a queen. And today, they decided to kidnap Candy Chiu to serve the regal role. She was about as happy about it as Mabel was, but there was one crucial difference: Candy didn’t have a Dipper to save her.

    However, there was another crucial difference: Sometime since last summer, Candy invented a “Pepper Spray Bomb Vest.” Basically, if she ever takes off her jacket without entering the 8-digit access code, everyone in a 30ft radius gets gassed in the face and writhes in pain for a couple hours. Fact: no fewer than 182 gnomes can fit within a 30ft radius.

    I thought the idea for the device was really cool, and asked her if she could build me one. But it turns out that to use it, you have to build up this crazy tolerance to pepper spray. After seeing how many ghost peppers that girl eats for lunch every day, I decided to pass.



    Oh. Wow. Some of it was at least sort of useful. That’s good to know. He read the next page.



    January 7th

    That does it.

    I’m now 99% sure my teacher Mr. Fredricks is a ghost.

    Everyone just tries to ignore him going transparent and disappearing every once in a while, but what you CAN’T ignore is his striking similarity to an outlaw who was lynched in 1872 and buried in the same place as my home period classroom.

    (I actually researched this at an actual library. Looked up old dusty records and everything. I feel really proud of myself.)



    January 8th

    That exorcism trick Dipper taught me really worked.

    But we didn’t get to go home, because they just sent a substitute, and he was an actual human.

    Fooey.



    Dipper scratched his neck, and blinked.

    Apparently, things never did calm down here. Gravity Falls was Gravity Falls all year, not just the Summer; there was still plenty to do. Dipper felt a pang of guilt that he wasn’t there for this. Things were happening here; big, important, dangerous things, and he wasn’t there for it! Ghosts! Gnomes! Stuff! And Wendy and everyone else were all right in the middle of it! They could all be in danger…!

    Could they fend for themselves? …Well… Sure. Of course they could. But he couldn’t help but wish he were there for every minute of it.

    Dipper turned forward a ways, and landed on a page with no date, that looked like some kind of appendix.



    Okay, from now on, I’m going to record all my mosquito bites on this page. I know that sounds completely insane, but I’ve actually noticed that they make words every now and again. On the off chance that tiny brainless bugs with poor spelling skills know what they’re talking about, I figure this could be important.

    CQOK BELOM (The first letter might be an L, but they wrote it crooked. ‘Look below’ maybe?)

    A ZIIIFTER BATCHES (I don’t know what a ziiifter is, but a whole batch of them sounds bad.)

    THEY CUT THE TPFE (Did they mean ‘the tree’? Which tree? There’s like a million trees.)

    TI_____AITH (They wrote this across my shoulders. I couldn’t read the part in the middle.)

    BEWARF (Soooo close. Literally two more bites would have turned that last F into a E. Soooo close guys.)

    THOU ART RIGHT TO FEAP (probably meant ‘fear’ there. Why do prophecies always have to be so vague? You know what, I don’t even care anymore.)

    DEEP IN THE JUNGLF YOU WILL FIND A KEY GUARDEB BY CREALURES THAT WATCH FROM TEH TREES. (This itched like HECK.)



    The next page was back to the normal format.



    March 3rd:

    For some reason, today I loved everything I hate about high school. Mainly because it was just so hilarious the way it happened.

    Okay, so I forgot to pack myself a lunch this morning for reasons, and when I got to school I didn’t have much cash. So I was looking through the cafeteria menu, and score! For some reason the nachos were at a HUGE discount, and I got a big ‘ol plate for practically nothing.

    But when I sat down to eat them, nobody would sit near me and everybody was kind of glancing at me sideways. Suddenly it all clicked: Nachos are so cheap because they’re taboo now! The yellowish triangular chips remind everybody of Bill Cipher, so me having a plate was basically chowing down on dozens of effigies of a super-powerful chaos demon. Which is a problem for some reason. Everyone was just looking at me and poking fun and I got super embarrassed.

    But I was more annoyed than embarrassed, so I started eating the nachos more and more aggressively and noisily and laughing manically and chewing with my mouth open, because hey, the day is already ruined right? Why not have a great laugh while it happens? The chips actually started tasting better when I imagined they WERE Bill.

    But then somebody called the cops and they rushed into the school and started tasing me because I wasn’t “never minding all that.” It made a huge scene. I got sent to the school counselor, the cops got sent to the principal’s office, and I was all sore for the rest of the day.

    But that gave me an idea.



    March 8th:

    I’ve been eating nothing but nachos for the better part of a week, and now the taboo is broken! Everyone’s eating nacho chips now, and laughing about it too. And I’m some kind of hero or junk. After all, why should we be afraid of HIM? He’s dead, as is his dominion in this Earth.

    If you’re somehow still around, Billy, and are reading this now, then screw you, mate! There are things in this world worth being afraid of, and YOU are NO LONGER one of them! And if you’re reading this now, you’d better watch your back, little buddy. We’re gonna be standing over you with blunt objects and big grins someday soon, and hell is waiting for you at the end.

    On a totally separate note: now the cops can’t tase anybody within 25ft of school property. So that’s nice. Kind of a load off, y’know?



    March 9th:

    As I was daydreaming in English class today, I finally figured out why helicopters don’t have ejection seats. Kinda obvious in retrospect.



    March 23rd:

    I’ve been working with Lee and Nate making “Bill sux” graffiti everywhere, but today I realized how stupid and immature that is, so I think I’ll stop. Eating nachos is one thing, but ruining the town and causing lots of people trouble? I feel really bad. I should really apologize to Sheriff Blubbs, and maybe the mayor or something. I just wanted a laugh, and for people to stop being afraid. I didn’t mean to make a mess.



    “Hmm…” Dipper shrugged, and turned somewhere else in the diary. This one was a more recent page:



    April 12th:

    Ghost pepper diet going “fine”. Still not immune though, apparently.



    April 13th:

    Well, dear diary, last night’s adventure was pretty darn crazy. It was violent and eerie and NSFW, like something out of a cheap horror movie. Gotta put it down while it’s fresh.



    Dipper wasn’t sure what NSFW meant (Never Sample Filthy Water?), but the part about cheap horror movie sounded fun, so he read on anyway.



    It all started when Dad and the bros went all the way to Boring for the weekend for a wrestling tournament. But I had homework, so I was left with the place all to myself! Or so I thought.

    I was walking home, all alone, in the dark, just minding my own business. Suddenly the air got super chilly, my vision got all blurry, my flashlight stopped working, and this super tall, super thin, super bald guy was suddenly standing in the trees. This perp had real pale skin, no mouth or eyes, a real swanky black suit, and he was just staring at me.

    I wasn’t sure what this bald dork wanted, but I had my axe on me, so I was all like “Fool, you got another thing coming.” I pulled out my axe, started laughing like a maniac, and ran after him. I guess he’s not used to people fighting back, because I was almost on top of him before he reacted, and then he seemed super startled and disappeared into the trees.

    Way I figured it, this guy was purposely trying to be as scary as possible, so I figured I might as well give him a taste of his own medicine. So I stripped down to my underwear, covered myself in mud, and started yelling and waving my axe like an insane psychopath. I mean, what’s scarier than that?

    Anyway, what came to what, I chased him around the woods for about half an hour.

    At first all he did was complain that I didn’t give him a flashlight and a head start. Then, after about 15 minutes, he started saying that I was actually scaring him and to please stop. Then by half an hour, he was begging me to stop and cowering. At that point I just jammed the axe into a tree next to his head and promised to “find where he sleeps, rip out his soul and feed him to his family” if he ever showed up here again. He seemed pretty panicky, and promised he never would.

    Jerk.

    I’m not scared of this guy, and I don’t think he’ll come back, but I’m gonna sleep with a chainsaw tonight just in case.

    I wonder how much of this stuff I dealt with back when the Blind Eye was still around. I wonder how much I once knew but forgot. I wonder if people like him ever got me before I knew how to be strong. It chills me a little, I’ll admit.

    But I ain’t gonna let cue-ball know that.



    Oh. Well. Dipper blinked and set down the diary, wanting to remove the images it had put in his head. He wasn’t getting any clues this way, just a lot of… Weird… Stuff. And although it sounded pretty interesting, it would be far better, (and a thousand billion times politer,) to get them straight from the horse’s mouth.

    Wendy’s mouth, that is.

    Honestly, he couldn’t wait to hear those stories.

    Over the past 9 months, they’d talked over the phone many times. He was on call to consult when she and Soos had gone to talk with the Shapeshifter. He had brainstormed with her on ways to deal with Gideon. And he’d helped her translate some ancient runes here and there. She’d really stepped up in the adventuring business after last summer, and he thought that was awesome. But from her diary, it seems that he’d only heard half of it. There was more… How much more?

    He looked around her room one more time. He saw posters, maps, portraits and dartboards hung on the wall. He saw books, papers, pencils, a black light, and Blind Eye memory capsules sitting on the desk. He saw weapons and tools leaned against the wall and stacked behind the bed; axes, binoculars, shovels, a crossbow, a machete, even one of Ford’s spare magnet guns.

    Good grief, she HAD been busy.

    If she wanted to see him, and if she had something to show him, as the last page suggested, then where was she now? Was she in trouble? Or was she just… Away?

    His eye settled on one final tool, this one hidden high in the rafters: a security camera looking down at him. She might’ve gotten it from Ford’s bunker, or from the abandoned convenience store, he didn’t know.

    But its little red light was on. Which means wherever Wendy was, she was recording now. She was watching. She must have seen him reading her diary.

    He sighed, set down the diary, and put his hands in his pockets. He could feel his cheeks getting warm. Second day back in the falls, and he’d already made a huge fool of himself. What are the odds?

    “Sorry.” He told the camera, and turned to leave. What else could he do? At the open window, he stopped to survey the empty surroundings.

    Suddenly, another voice rang out. “Oh, but not as sorry as you’re going to be.”

    A giant, leafy, green mass fell off the roof and landed about 3 feet in front of him. The diary had already prepared his mind to expect a monster, so seeing this here scared the living daylights out of him. He jumped backward, and almost lost his balance. The green mass stood up to human height, reached up its enormous hands, and removed its head. Below the leafy disguise was a face he hadn’t seen in 9 months. Dipper sighed, relieved.

    She spat some grass and leaves out of her mouth, and began removing the rest of the camouflage. “You know.” She said. “After last Summer, I started finding myself right in the center of all kinds of crazy stuff. I don’t know why it just started; maybe it’s because the Blind Eye isn’t running around wiping us anymore. Maybe it’s because I started going out looking for Weirdness, not waiting for it to come to me. I don’t know, but it all adds up to me stocking up some really weird stories. Some of them are crazy. Some are cool. Some are embarrassing. How many of them did you read?”

    “Uh…” Dipper fidgeted. She was frowning at him, and her eyes said this was no joke. Was she annoyed at him? He didn’t really know, he couldn’t quite tell. She removed the last of the camouflage, and tossed it aside. “Uh…” He said again, trying to remember the stories he’d just read. “Uh… Just one REALLY weird one… The… The one with the… Faceless guy…”

    “Oh, you’re SO in for it now.” She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. “That was one of my most awkward stories ever. You know what this means?”

    “What…?”

    “You’re gonna have to pay. Pay big time. You’re gonna have to tell me one of YOUR most awkward stories. Fair’s fair.”

    Dipper set his jaw. “Brain-swapping carpet.” He sighed, without hardly thinking. “Mabel and I switched bodies for about 8 hours last Summer, and ran around trying to ruin each others’ lives. I held my pee the whole time. Held her pee. Held the pee I had. Ugh. I don’t know whose pee it was, but I didn’t use the bathroom and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

    “Go on.”

    “And I guess she held my pee too because I really had to go when we switched back. And Grenda and Candy were there too, and everyone was jumbled around. And I think in the back of my mind I wish I was Grenda because that was the one time I ever had muscles. And I know how it feels to be a girl and I want to forget. And McGucket was there too and now I know how it feels to have really terrible teeth. And Soos was there and he was a pig and…”

    “Oh my! Did you ever switch him back?”

    They stood there frowning at each other for a few seconds.

    Then Wendy’s mouth twitched into a smile. Dipper realized she was joking and his mouth began to twitch too. Then they were both smiling. Then they were both laughing. Wendy was laughing at the story, and Dipper was laughing out of relief. She wasn’t mad at him. She really wasn’t mad.

    “Good to see you, Wendy.”

    “Good to see you too, Dipstick.”

    She was glad to see him! That’s nice.

    “Uh…” Dipper scratched his head. “Sorry. The—“ his words began tumbling over themselves, as they often did when he was distracted and overwhelmed. He pointed to the tracker, then to her room, then to her diary. “Radio. Track. Me. Here. Room. You. Trouble. Thought you clue. Diary. Bleh. Ugh. Confused. Read Diary. Sorry, I should have axed first. But I didn’t think to axe, and…”

    “Don’t worry about it. I get it. Friend of yours starts sending out a mysterious distress signal, she’s asleep on her own roof in a homemade ghillie suit, you don’t see her, you want to find out what’s up… It’s fine.”

    “I should have axed before coming in your window…”

    “Asked. ASKED, dude. With an ‘S’. Not axed. Calm down man, you’re letting the faceless dude story get to your head.”

    “Oh. Uh. Yeah. Uh… That image.”

    “Me chasing a monster in my underwear?”

    “Yeah, uh… Man, that’s not going away anytime soon, is it?”

    “Yeah.” She shrugged. “The image of you in Mabel’s body is gonna stick with me too. That’s some funny stuff.”

    Dipper tried to stop squirming.

    There was awkward silence for a minute.

    “Uh.” Dipper said, pulling out the radio tracker. “I read the last page of your diary first. Are you behind that mysterious radio signal I picked up…? Is this about…” He made his voice go all deep and gravely, and made quotation marks with his hand. “’THE ITEM’? Is that what’s behind that freaky signal?”

    She smiled a cunning smile, as she climbed in through the window.

    “Oh yes.” She said. “THE ITEM. I’ve been waiting to show you THE ITEM for a while now. Yes, THE ITEM is what you’re looking for. I’ve been using an antenna to amplify it a little bit, but in the end, THE ITEM is the source of the signal. I assume you’ll want to see THE ITEM now?”

    “I’d very much like to see THE ITEM.”

    “I’ll show you THE ITEM then.” She reached under her bed, and removed a small metal crate, like something you’d see at a military surplus store. It was latched up tight, and had an antenna attached to one end. She set the crate down on top of her bed, and her fingers worked at loosening the latches. Dipper sat down across from her, excited. What was it? A dinosaur? A magic crystal? A bomb? An alien? “Dipper…” Wendy said. “Behold… THE ITEM!!”

    The box was empty.

    The box also had a circular hole cut in the bottom.

    “I thought you said THE ITEM was in there?”

    “The item was in here! Where’d the item go??”

    “We’re not doing the deep gravelly voice anymore?”

    “Okay, this is actually serious now. The… Ha ha!” She laughed nervously. “Ha ha! The item is… Ha ha! Okay, the item is gone. The item is loose. I didn’t think the item would be able to chew through solid steel, but… There ya have it. Turns out the item can chew through solid steel. Good to know.”

    Dipper held the box up to the light to examine the hole. The edges were jagged and sharp. “Uh…” He frowned. “Mind telling me what the item is, exactly?”

    “Oh, you’ll know it when you see it.” She walked over to her desk, opened a drawer, and removed two thick pairs of leather gloves. “And you’ll wanna wear these.” She tossed him a few, and donned a pair herself. She also picked up the magnet gun.

    “Right.” Dipper frowned. “So it cut a hole in the bottom of the crate, and the crate is too heavy to move… That means to go anywhere, it would have to cut a hole in the floor too…”

    “YEAH that’s it!” Wendy snapped her fingers. “Help me move the bed!”

    They moved her bed. Sure enough, where the crate had been, there was a big tear in the rug, and another one cut in the wooden floor.

    “Under the house.” They said in unison, and bolted for the window.

    Their boots hit the ground outside, and the started circling around the cabin in opposite directions.

    “Okay, you’ve still got that tracker?” Wendy asked. “It can tell the direction of the signal?”

    “Yeah. You think it’s still emitting a signal?”

    “It’s been signaling for the last 3 days, I don’t know why it would stop now.”

    Dipper checked the tracker. “Looks like it’s still under the house. Northern side. And… It should be trapped under there, I guess. Unless it can dig, or if it can open the little door out of the crawlspace… How many doors are there? And can it dig?”

    “I’ve never seen it dig, but I’m guessing it’d be just dandy at it. As for the hatches, yeah… There’s one hatch on my side, and another on yours, so I think that’s it.

    “Okay.” Dipper said. “So now there’s only two places it can get out. Unless we waste too much time, and then it can dig out who-knows-where.”

    “Yeah.” Wendy nodded. “Okay… Here’s how we’re gonna do it: you’re gonna get inside the crawl space over there, I’ll get in over here, and we’ll close the hatches up tight behind us. Then you make a big racket to drive it over my way. Soon as I have a clear shot, I’ll snag it with the magnet gun. You got a flashlight?”

    “You know I do.”

    So prepared, they entered the dusty, spider-webby, claustrophobic space between the ground and the cabin floor. Dipper from one side, Wendy from the other. It was so short down here that he had to crawl on his belly, being careful not to hit his head on the floor beams and the water pipes below the furnace. Although the leather gloves protected his hands, the dirt, splinters and cobwebs quickly covered his elbows, knees, neck and face.

    His nose filled with dust. He sneezed. From the other side of the darkened space, he heard Wendy’s voice. “Ha! You sneeze like a kitten!”

    He frowned and shook his head. He’d never come up with a good retort for that.

    As he scanned the darkness with the flashlight beam, he began to make a racket on the ground with his free hand, and hollering things like “Show thyself, you item! Go on and git, item! Where are you, item?!? I’m coming for ya!”

    He made his way toward the northern end of the building, where the tracker said it was.

    Eventually, he heard a clicking and a scuffling and a buzzing, and the whatever it was darted off in Wendy’s direction.

    Off through the cobwebs, a blue flash of arcing electricity lit up the darkness as Wendy fired the magnet gun. There was a humming from the gun, and a loud metallic clank as it successfully grappled something, and Wendy hollered “I GOT IT! Okay, let’s come on out!”

    Dipper turned around and made his way back the way he’d come. He eventually found the door out of the crawlspace, squeezed through it, and found himself back in the sunlight. He looked down at himself. He was covered in dirt, cobwebs, and other such filth that resides in places where people don’t go. Man! What fun! What a joy! What a lovely day! And I’m doing it with Wendy! That makes it even better.

    When he rounded the final corner of the house, he found Wendy just as filthy as he was (or even more; hair has a way of accumulating cobwebs.) She was turned away from him, her gloved hands cupped over something. “Dipper…” She said quietly, as she turned around and opened her hands. “Behold… THE ITEM…”

    Dipper frowned, and took a step closer.

    It was a robot.

    It was shaped a little bit like a kitten, but with dull grey skin, brightly shining red eyes, little clawed tank treads on its hands and feet, and no ears. Instead of ears, it had a row of antennae in line with its shoulders, like a lion’s mane. As Wendy handled it tightly with the gloves, it squirmed and scratched and swung its tail like a club, but it wasn’t strong enough to escape. From its head came a raspy hissing noise.

    “Hey, shush shush.” Wendy hushed at it. “We’re not gonna fight you. We’re not gonna eat you. Wouldn’t even wanna, I swear.”

    “Dude.” Dipper stared at the item, his eyes wide and his mouth open. “It’s a robot.”

    “Yeah.” Wendy smiled and poked at its nose (or where a nose would have been; it had no nose.) “A little cat-rat-bot. Yes you are. Yes, you’re a good little Item, aren’t you?”

    The robot opened its mouth and hissed angrily at her.

    It wasn’t a normal mouth. Instead of teeth, tongue, or gums, it had a series of hooks, a conveyor, and a row of razor sharp sawblades. This frightening apparatus made a loud buzzing sound as it spun up to speed, extended out its head about an inch, and latched onto Wendy’s glove. She shook it off. The robot appeared to give up, leaving only a small scratch in the tough material.

    “Yeah.” Wendy nodded. “Watch out for the saws. Leather gloves always.”

    “Yeah. Makes sense.” Dipper blinked and shook his head. “But look at that mouth! It looks like it could actually cut and eat stuff… Does it?”

    “Oh yeah he does. He eats. Here, let’s go inside. I’ll show you.”

    A few minutes later it was back in its crate. They had reinforced the bottom with some sheet metal from the roof, so it couldn’t cut through the bottom again. Instead, it was attacking the wall with its saw. Tiny little sparks flew around it, and there was a piercing screeching noise.

    “Huh… He’s cutting through the box again…” Dipper called over the noise.

    “Play with him. Distract him. I’ll be right back.” Wendy went off toward the kitchen.

    “Uh…” Dipper poked his glove in at it. “Hey buddy. How’s it going? You little… Uh… Little robot cat, you… You’re… Uh… Man you’re weird. Who built you? Did McGucket build you? The government? Aliens? Come on Item, you gotta work with me…”

    It clicked loudly at him, jumped up, and bit his glove. The saws cut a gash in the leather before it let go and fell back into the box.

    Dipper got an idea.

    He ran over to Wendy’s desk, grabbed a pencil, and poked the sharp end in at the robot. Its eyes lit up a bright, annoyed red as it looked up at the offending tool.

    “Hey buddy? You wanna sharpen a pencil today? Can you do that for me?”

    The idea didn’t work.

    Wendy came back into the room holding a bucket of nails.

    “Where’s my pencil?” She asked.

    Dipper pointed dejectedly toward the pencil-sized pile of sawdust beneath the robot.

    Wendy laughed. “Yeah, I tried that too. Don’t sweat it. Well, he really likes nails. You want a nail, Item?”

    It did want a nail.

    Its saws sliced and ground the nail into smaller pieces, then it pulled those smaller pieces inside with the conveyor. Another buzzing noise continued from its stomach even after the nail was all gone, which Dipper figured must be smaller grinders deeper inside it. It extended its tongue, a little magnetic roller, and licked up all the leftover iron filings.

    When it was done, it seemed tired. It glanced up at the sun coming in through the window, turned around in a few circles, lay down, and extended its tail straight upwards. The tail unfolded into a wide circle of solar panels, which then angled to catch the sun. The robot itself appeared asleep.

    Wendy and Dipper sat down on the bed and stared at it for a couple minutes.

    “Dude.” Dipper said. “This is the weirdest robot I’ve ever seen. It’s like a real animal, but made of metal instead of fleshy stuff. I’ve never even see McGucket build something THIS good.”

    “I know, right?”

    They were silent for a couple more minutes.

    “Where’d you find it?”

    “Out in the forest.” She said. “Its tail was caught in a bear trap, so it couldn’t recharge without the solar panels. It must’ve been dying or something. I pried open the bare trap, and this thing ran off. It was mostly out of power though, so I got it home easily enough. It found the wall outlet and started sticking its teeth in it. There was some sparks, and it got better pretty quickly.”

    “Its tail was caught in a bear trap? This thing is tough…”

    “There was a big dent in its tail. But as it’s been eating metal, the dent disappeared. Crazy, huh?”

    “Yeah.” Dipper scratched his head. “So… Are you… We… Someone… I… You… Gonna keep it, or what?”

    “Well, if I wanted a pet I would have gotten something that can’t chew through a steel crate.” She shrugged. “Or my phone or my doorknob or the roof, for that matter.”

    “Fair enough.”

    “In fact.” Wendy said. “The whole plan today was to get it off my hands. It’s been sending out that distress signal ever since I found it huddled up in the woods. So I think it got lost or something, and it’s trying to phone home. Candy Chiu gave me that antenna to boost the signal. Which I guess is how you detected it from all the way over at the Shack.”

    “And you were expecting somebody to come looking for it… Who were you expecting?

    “I had no idea. My first guess would have been McGucket. My second guess would be some other evil mad scientist. My third guess was that this thing is like a cub or something, and that a mommy cat-rat-bot that would eventually come rolling out of the trees looking for it.”

    “And when I came by…” Dipper completed the story. “You were hiding up on your roof just in case mommy cat-rat-bot turned out to be the size of a bear.”

    “Exactly.” She nodded. “I also rigged up a net. That way if mommy turned out to be smaller, like maybe R2-D2 sized, then I would catch her in a net and have two of them… You know, for science.”

    “For science.”

    They once again fell silent. Wendy glanced up at the sun.

    “Well.” She said. “It looks like about 4:30 now. We gave momma all day, so I say we kill the long-range antenna, and get back to this tomorrow.”

    “Makes sense.”

    “Say.” Wendy said. “What do you think Mabel would think of this thing?”

    “I don’t know. She’d probably try to name it.”

    “It already has a name. THE ITEM, remember? Nice and ominous and vague.”

    “She won’t like that. Too impersonal. She’ll call it… Jessica. Or Sparkles. Or Buzz-Saw-Louis. Or something.”

    “Eh.” Wendy shrugged. “Well, you guys won’t mind if I stop in tonight to show it around, do you? I was kind of planning on it anyway, but it seemed polite to ask ahead of time…”

    “No, come right on over!” Dipper smiled. “The Stans just got back into town earlier today, so we were gonna have a big ‘ol campfire. Soos is bringing dawgs and s’mores, the Stans are bringing stories, and with you there, I guess we’ll have some more stories, as well as a cat-rat-bot!”

    “Stories, s’mores, robots and dawgs.” Wendy nodded. “Sounds like a wild night. Well, what are you bringing, then?”

    “Uh, well…” Dipper scratched his head. “Why, I’m bringing Mabel, of course.”







    Off toward the spooky end of the Forest, in a thicket of pines not so very far from the Mystery Shack, the entrance to a hidden bunker stood secure.

    It had been over 30 years now since the dusty old lab had been buried and built in secrecy, and there were few people today who remembered it even existed. Of those who remembered, there were fewer still who knew their way past the security locks, and who might be able to get inside. And of those who could, not one of them wanted to. For within the structure’s furthest, deepest corners, surrounded by impenetrable bedrock and sealed by airlocks and a maze of hydraulic presses, there was contained a single terrible monster.

    He was frozen now; the safest, easiest, most humane solution they could ever manage. The cryogenic equipment kept his cells suspended in a delicate balance between life and death, somewhere beyond sleep, beyond a coma, beyond awareness or consciousness, but yet not quite death.

    He would be in enormous pain when next he awoke. And chances are, he would be bitterly, furiously angry, for he remembered the people that had sealed him here, and he wanted more than anything to repay them in equal measures for his own suffering.

    But the equipment was durable. The pipes were reinforced with steel and insulated asbestos wrapping, the circuits were sealed and waterproofed, and there was perhaps triple the necessary number of perpetual-motion generators needed to maintain the liquid nitrogen vats.

    Everything had layers of protection and redundancy, so that total failure was almost impossible. If the monster ever was to be thawed, it couldn’t happen by accident. Somebody would have to find their way past the security to the control room, and purposefully access the controls.

    Today, somebody accessed the controls. The security system hadn’t tripped, the cameras hadn’t seen anything, and none of the doors had even opened, but still the perfect silence was broken by the working of fingers on the keyboard, and the darkness was broken by a few red status lights flashing, as the cryogenics deactivated.

    He began to thaw.

    And a voice spoke, remarking: “You were meant for so much more…”