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CodyLabs — Forest of Daggers: Chapter 20
#alien #fanart #fanfiction #ghost #robot #scifi #shapeshifter #gravityfalls #dipperpines #wendyxdipper #wendycorduroy #wendip #seeyounextsummer #forestofdaggers
Published: 2018-07-20 16:37:20 +0000 UTC; Views: 13989; Favourites: 82; Downloads: 0
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Chapter 20: Shattered Pieces
Author’s Note: One of my favorite pictures. Not for being exciting or cute or anything, but just for being COOOOOL... Look at this mess of gears and oil. Even dead, it still looks so scary... I like my unconventional OCs. That weird drum in the lower left is supposed to be its stomach/blastfurnace/whateveryouwannacallit. I also realize that I made its arm be broken in the exact opposite direction that it was in the last picture. So boo.
Not a lot of action in this chapter, but a lot of plot. Bookkeeping, you know?
What should she do?
What could she do?
What would you do?
Mabel gasped and staggered to her feet, stepping hastily away from the statue’s presence.
It may be covered in moss, chipped around the edges, and so decrepit and inert that it couldn’t possibly serve any more function than an everyday brick…
But nonetheless, it was perfectly and unmistakably Bill…
That same screeching, graceless lunatic… That same twisted tormenter of unwary minds… Master of nightmares… Hungry, greedy scourge of those oddest hidden corners of history… Sworn and deadly enemy of all peace, order, and goodness in this or any world… Murderer of billions of loved ones, and billions more that nobody loved… Hated by trillions, feared by trillions more…
Here. He. Sat.
On the ground, or rather in the ground, half-buried, with his eye still bulging out in that goofy way it always did, that stupid hat still balanced up on his pointy upper vertice, that cocky little bowtie the only clothes he’d ever worn… And though one of his frozen, scrawny, almost cartoonish hands was still obscured beneath the dirt, the other one was extended forward as if offering a handshake… That old familiar handshake… That old familiar deal…
But… But they knew he was dead…
Right?
This must be his long-discarded body. Monument to the end of last Summer; the first time in uncounted eons he’d ever had the ability to gather more than a half-dozen molecules together in his own image… The outer layer is probably hardened stone or an alloy of some type. Beneath, if she recalled, there lay some despicable manner of flesh and godless bone, doubtlessly long-rotted and disgusting by now, just the way he would have wanted it…
Mabel could remember his horror, and his evil, and everything he’d ever done with that wretched body and that enormous power… Power that was not his own, but that people had freely given him through their faith, fear, and willing deals…
Deals like her own…
Without ever taking her eyes off the sinister dead body, Mabel knelt to the ground and tried to puke. Anything to vent the guilt, and the horror, and the awful, prevailing self-loathing she always felt when she remembered that day… For she knew… She knew everything that happened, and everything that could have happened… Was all her fault…
Because her will was weak.
Robbie’s words rang through her head. Those who outlive you will remember you for your selfishness and your many tragic mistakes and NOT for your sweetness…
IT HURT…
Somehow, in the back of her mind, she knew what she was about to do now as well. She could feel her moment of weakness and desperation as it came… She knew that wretched, despairing souls like hers were the bread and butter of every breed of devil… She knew that in her desperation to bring her brother back, her senseless brain would succumb to any far-flung temptation, subscribe to any impossible hope, do any fool thing she let it…
But… She let it anyway.
As if they had a mind of her own, she felt her legs straighten beneath her, and began stepping slowly forward. I’m just gonna look at it. She lied to herself. Nothing wrong with just looking. Looking never once did anything. I can do what I want with my own eyes… I mean, this is a weird thing, right? ANYBODY would want to look at it… Right?
But when she reached it, she felt her arm raise just slightly. What am I doing? DON’T DO THAT!
As if beyond her control, she saw her hand raise to the height of Bill’s. Well, I won’t do it, but even if I do, it won’t even do anything. He’s dead. Gone. Erased. We smashed him flat out of existence, and nobody misses him, and nobody wants him back. Even if there is some fragment of him still out there in the multiverse somewhere, it wouldn’t be able to sense, let alone do anything, about one tiny handshake… Right?
And…
And why would I shake his hand, anyway? He doesn’t have any power anymore, so even if I tried to make a deal with him, he couldn’t do anything to make me hold up my end, or to fulfill his end. Dipper’s gone… Dipper’s gone and not even Bill can fix it… Not even if he still had his power, not even if I could somehow… Not even if I gave him… Not even I promised all my… Not… No, of course not.
Her hand moved just a teeny bit forward. Less than an inch left… So very, very close…
TAKE EVERYTHING I LOVE JUST BRING HIM BACK.
“NO!” In her peripheral vision, she saw somebody sprint headlong out of the bushes. Before she could turn her head or even draw her hand back in shame, Grunkle Stan had tackled her off her feet and came to a stop in a clumsy roll, his niece wrapped tightly in his arms. “KID WHAT’RE YOU DOING?!?” He almost screamed at her, as he staggered back to his feet, with her head clutched against his chest, and a baseball bat held out like a sword in his free hand. His eyes locked on the statue as he continued to retreat. “DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ALMOST DID?!?” He yelled. “BECAUSE I SURE DON’T! HOW’D YOU FIND THAT THING ANYWAY? AND WHY HAVEN’T WE EVER SEEN IT BEFORE?!? I mean… Come on kid, you can’t be that dumb! You know better than to play with… Play with…”
He realized she was barely even listening. She’d gathered 2 big fistfuls of his shirt, and was clinging to them tightly, weeping her eyes out. “I… Oh… Hey, sweetie, calm down. It’s okay…” He stopped walking, dropped the baseball bat, and hugged her with both arms. “It’s okay. I’m… I’m not mad at you…” He realized out loud as she kept weeping. “…I… I get it… I…” A tear rolled down his own cheek. “I remember…”
“What have you found?”
McGucket hadn’t been expecting visitors, so having one more or less appear out of nowhere startled him significantly. He dropped his Dremel and spun around to view the entrance of his lab, his heart racing in a way unsuitable for men of his age. “EHH!” He gasped. “Ooh! Heh… Heh, heyowdy g’monrin’ Ms. Corduroy. Yeh… Yeh scare’t me…”
“Yeah, well.” The girl took another step beyond the door, and wiped her nose before returning her hands to her pockets. “You didn’t answer the doorbell.”
“Ooh. Right. Musta been the… The music…” McGucket squeezed past some large toolboxes over to a wall, and tipped a large cabinet aside just long enough to reach past it and turn off the record player.
The loud, ubiquitous bluegrass that had flooded the lab faded off. In the dull silence that followed, McGucket turned back to his visitor, and removed his hat. “Eh… Eh, ‘bout what happened… I… Uh… I’m really… I dunno what ta say…”
“Don’t…” She coughed. “Don’t say anything then.”
“Eh… Uh… It’s… Wull, how yeh feelin’? I heard yeh got ‘bout nuked yerself…”
“I’m fine.”
“Heh… Uh… Wull, it’s a relief ta see ya up an’ about anyhoo… I thought… You were supposed ta stay in bed or…?”
“Stuff it. I’m fine…” Wendy glanced about the lab. “So… Anyway, I heard you were the one who ended up handling salvage…”
“Uh… Yeeeeh… Yeah, I been a’ tinkerin’ with all them fiddlyjinks…”
“…Fill me in?”
“Oh… Okay…” McGucket led the way deeper into the dense clutter of the lab, and pointed around to various pieces and parts of alien technology lying or hanging about. “We buried most of the saucer… But I cut out onea the reactors…” He pointed to a starfish-shaped device hanging over a workbench. “The one that didn’t’ scuttlefunk itself, a’course… I took all the Uranium out, justa be safe… An’… Let’s see… Ah yeh!”
McGucket pointed to a high shelf, where some large alien drum had been tied down. Several long electrical cords trailed from it to the outlets near the floor. “An' up thar’s ona them gravity-perplexin’ engines… Not sure quite how it works, but I kin operate it half-proper…” To demonstrate, McGucket picked up a small remote and an empty aluminum soda can, then pressed something on the remote. The engine up on the shelf began to hum, and the can floated up into the air, crushed itself, and dropped into a trash basket on the floor. “DANG IT!” McGucket bent back over the remote. “Meant ta recycle that…”
“Hmm…” Wendy nodded. “You reprogrammed it into a tractor beam.”
“Eh… I s’pose I did…”
“Good start…” The girl reached into her jacket, and produced a blue book with a pine tree on the cover. She opened it to somewhere near the middle, and jotted something down. McGucket noticed the words ‘Final Solution’ printed large across the top of the page. He thought that sounded a little ominous, but before he could inquire, she closed the book again.
Fortunately, he wasn’t curious for long. “McGucket.” She said. “Could I ask you a favor?”
“Sure…”
“…Okay… Uh…” Wendy snapped her fingers, trying to remember. “My backpack. First I’ll need my backpack. Did you ever pick that up? It would have been next to the pilot seat in the saucer…”
“Uh… I think so…” McGucket wandered back into a cluttered corner, and rooted through a mess of cardboard boxes labeled ‘contaminated’. Finally he located the item, and almost threw out his back trying to lift it. “Knee-hornin’ noggin’ figs! Whataya have in here?”
“A machine.” She helped him lift it onto a workbench, where she unzipped it, and removed something the size of a motorcycle engine. “We’re gonna need this.”
“Eh?” McGucket frowned. “Whaddaya mean ‘we’? And what is that?”
“Some kind of computer…? Dipper and I got it from some alien robot ghosts…”
“Alie--??”
“This… This is the final solution. We’re gonna head back down into Crash Site Omega—”
“We? Meanin’… Meanin’ you and me? I don’t much like that place…”
“WE.” She emphasized. “You, me, Ford and Stan if they can, my dad if we need to. WE head back to Crash Site Omega. Then we find that control room again, we reinstall this, and that’s where YOU come in. You start the reactor back up. And then You reprogram the big ship’s engines, just like you did with this little one.” She nodded toward the pop can-crushing-artifact. “And you use it to smash the entire alien ecosystem. Kill everything. So nobody will ever be endangered by these creatures again… So nobody will have to die like Dipper died… And so he didn’t die for nothing.”
“…Oh.” He nodded with a small voice.
There was silence for a moment.
McGucket opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then scratched his beard stubble awkwardly, and strummed his ringers across his ribs like a nervous tick. “Y’know, I… I get that yer goin’ through a lot, an I’m real sorry about the radiation an--”
“Hey. Chill. He’s dead, all right? You don’t have to dodge around the issue, and you can’t hurt my feelings… And it you think there’s something wrong with me, there’s not. This was the plan the whole time, it’s just, like, super urgent now. So… Just keep talking about the salvage, alright?”
“All right… Uh… Wull… Wull, the ship ain’t all we salvaged…”
“I know…” Wendy nodded. “…Where is she?”
McGucket led the way even deeper into the lab, past a few doors, and into what probably used to be the Northwests’ master bedroom. The room bore little resemblance to its former purpose; toolboxes and cabinets now huddled toward the corners, the walls were covered in layers of prints and scribblings, and almost half the floor area was occupied by a single, enormous workbench. A hump the size of a multi-bear rose in the middle of the workbench, covered by an enormous, stained tarp.
“She’s right here…” McGucket pulled the canvas aside, to reveal the dead body of the robot lion.
She/it was in pieces now. An arm, a leg, its entire saw mechanism, and all of its internal ‘organs’ had been cut off and pulled apart, now strewn to the side in semi-orderly fashion. Probes and wires and lab equipment had been invasively plugged in to some of the pieces, and others had been spray painted or marked with tape. Its oily black blood stained the table and floor.
“Sorry, the, uh… It mighta been a little messier than I figgered takin’ ‘er apart…” McGucket mumbled. “Kinda got pieces everywhere, and I’m not rightly sure where they all go. It’s pretty… Uh… Confusin’ down in there…”
“How’d the autopsy go beside for that?”
“Eh… Fine. Fine. I took a lotta pictures, did a lotta tests. Spent a good while a pokin’ and a ponderin’, and… Wull, I think I got most’ve ‘er gibblets figured at this point. Know what does what. So… Well, I learned a right lot from this lass. It’s… Wull, I don’t wanna bore ya in the particulars…” McGucket reached under the workbench, and produced a small stack of jumbled, mismatched papers. “Yeh kin ponderize them notes if’n ya want…”
Wendy took the stack, and opened it to a random page. “Right…” After reading for about a minute, she pursed her lips and asked. “Just curious, how many words did you make up while writing this?”
McGucket looked where she was pointing. “’Self-replicating’ is a real word.” He protested. “So is ‘alloying’.”
“Alright then, how about ‘scrapaflappers’, ‘galvmatronics’, and ‘sassafrassin’umburgflibbin’umpligumter?”
“…Ooh… I guess I did made a few up… But they’re pretty intuipparent, don’t ya think?”
“Hmm.” Wendy held her tongue as she tucked the notes into the journal. “’Peer review’ is a thing, right? That’s not some outdated thing that they just teach you in school and then it turns out it’s not real… Right?”
“Er… Uh… I guess I’ll re-dictaflerize it once I have the time…” McGucket mumbled. “But… Uh… But even if I ain’t too purty at explain’, the tech inside her is a step beyond anything I’ve ever seen… The pipe dream of every engineer since Da Vinci… If this lernin’ got out inta the world… It could change robotics, change manufacturing, change energy storage and material recycling… Change war… I… I got about 3 dozen patents drafted up now… And more on the way once I get ‘er… Baby-maker… Figured…” McGucket timidly reached into a drawer, and gently removed an enormous stack of blueprints. But he held them away from his body, as if they were covered in plague.
“…Patents…?” Wendy muttered.
McGucket looked up at her with a little frown. And when she met his eyes, she saw no insanity in them. “I reckon this feline could make me a billionaire.” The old inventor told her. “But it aint’ right, seein’ as how I didn’t make ‘er. An’ I didn’t discover ‘er. An’ I sure as heck didn’t bring ‘er down… So… Ms. Corduroy, I been meanin’ ta ask ya… The patents… The money…” He held the blueprints out to her. “You… You want ‘em?”
Billionaire…
Wendy the billionaire…
What a thought…
“Heck. No.” She stated flatly.
McGucket sighed. “But… They’s yers. Yers by rights more than anyone’s… Yeh earned it, an—”
“Those patents belong to Dipper.” Wendy said. “As does the responsibility of deciding what to do with them. Me? Nah… I’m not… Smart or nerdy enough to know what to do with all of it.”
“Yeah.” McGucket sighed, and (in an almost relived way) crammed the blueprints back into the drawer. “Me neither.”
“So…” Wendy put her hands on her hips, and turned back to the robot. “McGucket. I… Uh… Got a question.”
“What’s ticklin’ yer thinker?”
“Well… The… Dipper’s fight… Dipper fought this thing…” She spread her arms to indicate the enormity of the beast; saws the size of dinner plates, claws like steak knives, shelled in overlapping plates as impenetrable as a tank. As long as a small car, and ever-so-slightly heavier, with a back the height of a grown man’s chest. “How.” Wendy said. “How? This thing could wrestle an Humvee. And win… And Dipper had my friggin’ axe… How…? How did he defend himself… Defend me… Against that?”
“Yeh… Yeh sure you wanna talk about this?”
“Yes.” Wendy opened the journal to a new page, and wrote ‘Robot Duel Tactics’ across the top.
“Kay… ‘Kay, well when I first saw her, I woulda sworn by silly dumb luck…”
“Sounds like him.”
“But the more I started pryin, the more types a things I saw what don’t happen on accident… So now I think he knew what he was doin’… At least… Knew it well enough to ad-lib some strategy…”
“Sounds even more like him.” She grunted.
“See, he musta stuck them logsaw chaps in ‘er chompers right at the beginning…” McGucket pointed to the shredded white fibers he hadn’t yet untangled from the saw mechanism. “That woulda distracted her, annoyed ‘er… And now see here.” McGucket led the way around to the other side of the monster, to show Wendy some dents and scars in the right side of her neck. “She was missin’ one a ‘er lookers; made ‘er blind as a bat ta ‘er right side. So he was able ta get in close here, probably dodge whenever she took a swipe. An’ by the look a’ somea these marks, I’d say he actually climbed up on top of ‘er, and chopped down like that.”
“And that worked…?” Wendy frowned. “Just beating her with an axe?”
“Shucks no; none of these even made it past the outer layer… But… But there does appear to be a weak point in her armor here…” McGucket pointed to a small chink on the back of the creature’s neck. “Beats me how he found it in the first place, but once he used the axe ta snap loose a few antenna… That gave ‘im a clear shot at it…”
“Okaaaaay…”
“Then he musta jammed a branch in there, then got ‘er to flip over somehow? I’m hazy on that bit. But somehow he used ‘er own weight ta drive the branch in far enough ta start fibblerpatin’ with ‘er main wiring bundle (basically ‘er spine). That woulda paralyzed ‘er rear legs, and I’ll reckon the fight woulda been one-sided from there…”
Wendy took a minute to write all this down. “Hmm… How long did this fight take?”
“Eh? I dunno…”
“Right…” Wendy flipped a few pages back, and stared for a moment. “I’ve just got one last question then.”
“Wassat?”
“Somewhere in all this technology… Giblets… Organs… Whatever you call it…” Wendy waved a hand toward all the oily machinery lying about the workbench. “Did she have some kind of… Onboard teleporter?”
“Eh? A what?”
“You know… Teleporter… Like in Star Trek?”
“What’s a ‘Star Trek’?”
“Never mind, just… Something that can beam you from place to place instantly…? Disappear and appear somewhere else…? It would make a bright flash of light…?”
“Eh… Oh yeah, I think I saw that in an anime one time…” McGucket scratched his head. “I dunno what a device like that would look like in real life though… I figger somethin’ like that would chow through alota power, so it would have to be pretty big… So I, I doubt it…”
“Hmm.”
“What’s confoundin’ ya ta ask?”
“Because…” She flipped the journal back to Dipper’s pages, where he recorded the specifics of ‘Juan’. “Remember that little cub we brought in, about a week ago?”
“Yeah…?”
“Well, when his mom first came by and tried to kill us, Juan sawed Mabel, and so Ford was about to kill him with a magnet gun… But right before he pulled the trigger, there was this crazy bright flash of bluish light, and when we all got our wits back, he was gone without a trace. None of us have seen him since.”
McGucket frowned.
“And that’s not all.” Wendy continued. “During Dipper’s fight… With… With the mom… This thing… Well, I was unconscious for the whole battle, but then when I woke up… I was woken up by a flash of blue light. The same thing! And then I saw Dipper… Die… And… And some… Some of his last words, his last words, were ‘She Cheated!’ Now… So… SO! So what did that mean, huh?!? How do you ‘cheat’ in a duel to the death where there are no rules?!? What would have happened if she hadn’t ‘cheated’? What does the blue light have to do with anything? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?”
“Hey, calm down feller, it’s all—”
“And so… So I was thinking about all of this, and I’m thinking these creatures must have some sort of emergency teleporter! It doesn’t have to be very big, or very powerful. It doesn’t have to move them very far… Just far enough to evacuate a building… Just fast enough to get the advantage on an enemy, just long enough to strike the final deadly blow… Just enough to ‘cheat’…”
“I… I don’t know…” McGucket turned back to the scribblings on the wall, and put both hands on his forehead. “I don’t know… I swear there was nothin’ like that in there… I… I don’t even know what a teleporter would look like… Nobody’s ever… Built… Anything like that…”
“You sure? Nobody?”
“Well… I mean… Ford and I stole ourselves a hyperdrive node from Crash Site Omega back when we was building that confounded portal… That might have been small enough to fit in ‘er chest… But it’s not here… And… That device worked to open a portal across dimensions… Not at all like yer talkin’ about…”
“Well then…” Wendy stuttered. “Think even smaller…” She flipped to another page of the journal; one of Dipper’s pages, from near the start. “Like… Maybe… M-m-maybe…” Her voice lowered, as if she barely dared to speak these words. “T-t-tape… Tape measure size…?”
McGucket sighed, and gestured inclusively to the body. “I been in and out of this thing for days now… I pulled out everythin’ mysterious I saw on the x-rays. I can tell ya the brand a’ bacon and beans she likes fer breakfast… And I ain’t found anything like that…”
Wendy sighed. “Ugh… It’s fine… Never mind.”
“I mean, I ain’t got everythin’ figgered yet, so I’ll keep lookin’…”
“I said never mind.” Wendy closed the journal, and returned it to her jacket. “The less you know about what I’m thinking… Anyway, dude. Stay chill, see ya around.” She turned to leave the lab.
“…’Chill’? Whassat? Some new-fangled kid phrase?”
She paused, and sighed quietly. “’Chill’ is what I used to be.”
“HEY POINDEXTER!” Stan hollered into the walkie talkie.
A weary, growling voice responded. “Go away Stanley, unless it’s something more important, which you know it’s not…”
“Yeah, it actually is.” Stan grunted. “It’s about your niece.”
Ford sighed. “Stanley… I’m… I’m busy… And you know I’m no good with kids…”
“Yeah, well I’m no good with ailing grandmothers and panicked Soos, but guess what I’ve had to deal with all week? And besides, she doesn’t need you, she needs what you have.”
“…Well, it’s not ready… You know that… And what’s the sudden urgency, anyway?”
“Well.” Stanley dared a glance down at the girl in his arms. She met his eye with a silent plea to don’t tell them what I did. “We made a little vow of secrecy… Her and I… So that’s private. You don’t get to ask questions.”
“What. Happened.”
“Here’s what you’re gonna do.” Stanley commanded. “You’re gonna meet me at the vending machine with a jackhammer. I give Mabel to you, and you show her what you’re working on. Maybe try the process on her. You give the jackhammer to me, and I’ll do what I will. Then we leave well enough alone and move on with it. How’s that?”
“Rrr… Fine.”
They were in the gift shop within a few minutes, waiting for the lab’s secret entrance to unlock.
When it finally did, Mabel found herself staring. Because this didn’t look quite like Great Uncle Ford.
“Geez…!” Stan frowned. “Get some sleep, poindexter… Are you okay?”
“I’m fine…” Ford looked down at himself, and coughed once. “I’ve… I’ve traveled the multiverse, Stanley… I’ve had much worse than this.”
“Yeah, well, radiation poisoning makes you just as dead as mantis-person virus…”
“We said we wouldn’t talk about Dimension C-134 in front of kids.”
“Fine, just…” Stan took the jackhammer, and gave Mabel an encouraging nudge. “Just take care of yourself, bro…”
“Yeah…” Ford took Mabel’s hand, closed the bulkhead behind him, and started down the stairs. The world was suddenly quiet, dark, and close. The only light was the small flame Ford held with ailing hand, the only sound the metallic clanking beneath their footsteps, and the dry hacking of Ford’s throat, and his sniffling as he wiped blood from his nose with a stained handkerchief.
Mabel hobbled after more hesitantly, unsure what to expect. “So…” She finally spoke up.
“Don’t get your hopes up.” Ford cut in suddenly. “This isn’t a solution. This isn’t healing. This isn’t even life…”
“Well… What is it? What are you even doing…?” Mabel asked. “I didn’t know what you’re doing down here, so why would I…”
“It’s all we have.” Ford tapped a code into the control panel to summon the elevator. When they stepped in, he hit a button she’d never noticed before. “But please. No matter what you see, don’t be happy. And don’t be hopeful. This is a kindness to you, and nobody else.”
The door opened on 2: Ford’s study.
The first thing Mabel noticed was the huge computer standing in a corner, with all its flickering green screens and big brass control panel.
The second thing she noticed was the coffin.
She chocked, and put a hand to her mouth. “Sorry.” Ford put a hand on her shoulder, completely ignorant on how to soften the blow. “Yes. That’s him. Don’t worry, the container is properly sealed, so he won’t smell… We just don’t really have a place to put it at the moment, so I keep it down here… Keeps me focused…”
“Dipper…”
“Come. This way.” Ford ushered her past the casket, and over toward the computer. When they reached it, he had her sit down in a comfortable, padded little chair. The screens lit up with the words:
>PROJECT MENTEM BOOTUP COMPLETE
>PLEASE SELECT MINDSCAPE INTERFACE OPTION OR INSERT SUBJECT INTO SCANNING HARNESS
Ford then opened a drawer, and removed a strange helmet, which trailed a thick black data cord off to the main computer. He put the helmet on her Mabel’s head, and clamped itself in place around her cheeks, while a new message appeared:
>ALERT: SUBJECT SECURED IN SCANNING HARNESS
>ALERT: SUBJECT BRAINWAVE DETECTED
>SELECT OPTION:
Mabel stopped reading the messages; they seemed too nerdy and confusing. Ford was typing now, but she turned away.
> MINDSCAPE INTERFACE WITH STORED BACKUP
> SELECT BACKUP FILENAME:
> MASON_PINES__
>SCANNING FOR COMPATIBILITY…
> COMPATIBILITY MATCH
>INITIATING MINDSCAPE INTERFACE
> COMPILING
> 1%
> 2%
> 3%
> 4%
>ALERT: INITIATE REM SLEEP TO CONTINUE
“Hey…” Ford propped up some pillows around her to keep her upright. “This… Might hurt a little bit, it is the first time I’ve actually tried it, but… But you need to go to sleep. I’ll be watching the whole time, so… If anything starts to go wrong, just start dreaming about the color turquoise, and I’ll pull you out… Okay?”
“Oh… Kay…?”
“Okay. Close your eyes…” He pushed another button.
>INITIATING REM BRAINWAVE DRIVING INTERFERENCE
> INTERFERENC SUCCESSFUL
> REM SLEEP INITIATED
> 5%
> 6%
> 7%
> 8%
There was now a strange thing leaning against an RV somewhere in the aptly-named town of Boring, Oregon. It was a thing that looked and acted to all the world like the gothic teenage band musician known as Robert Stacey Valentino. But the resemblance stopped at the surface. Just beneath that rough, embittered, sarcastic exterior, there lay a highly intelligent, highly dangerous, totally alien thing.
An intelligent, dangerous, alien thing which was now feeling happy and content, because for the first time in his entire miserable life, things were finally looking up.
For the first time in his life, he could take deep breaths of the fresh, clear air. He could spread his arms and soak up the gentle warmth of the sun. The wind and the rain were pleasure he hadn’t even imagined, to say nothing of the trees… The tall, green, beautiful trees, whose roots and trunks and swaying leaves brought light and life to the very landscape. And the people too; nobody attacked him, nobody questioned him, nobody hated him, in fact, people liked him! And the buildings were smooth and clean and comfortable, so much so that he hardly dared touch them at first, for fear of mussing up some piece of sacred art.
He had a bed!
He could read books! Good books! Not the constrained, limited picture books for children, the likes of which Stanford used to drip-feed him; these were real books. Novels, journals, encyclopedias, the rich meat of so much knowledge, and an infinite number of forms to peruse, enough to fill not only his memory but his imagination as well.
But most of all, there was the sky.
The sky was bright, blue, and the voluminous stretch of its infinite expanse filled him with wonder, passion, even such high and lofty fantasies; an elation that words could not capture…
Freedom…
What a word… What an idea…
Freedom…
For the first time in his life he knew what this word meant, and he was smitten with it.
And, of course, there was also the food.
For once, he was eating as much as he wanted, and anything he wanted. Pizza, soda pop, apples, berries, bread, juice, steak, eggs, squirrels… Anything he wanted, really. No more beans. Never again those blasted beans. On this new diet, he felt himself growing stronger. As if for his entire life he’d been malnourished and sickly, but without anything to compare it to, he’d never realized the fact.
Was he growing bigger? Maaaaybe… It was hard to tell precisely. He spent most of his time shrunk down to Robbie’s size, where no external change was visible. But it seemed that every time he morphed into this disguise, it was slightly more difficult. The lattice structure of his sinews and flesh had to collapse further and further into a higher density. And he found he could no longer mimic the little things like gnomes, pigs, and dogs; he could only go so small, and then he hit a limit. And that limit seemed to be slowly rising.
Good grief, it’s only been 4 days since my escape, and already I feel like my body, mind, and spirit have progressed more than I ever thought possible… What did Stanford used to say? When he was happy, he said he felt like ‘a million dollars’… Well that’s me right now. These have been the best days of my life…
Oh, sure, it had been pretty dangerous at first. People occasionally noticed ‘Robbie’ doing odd things. ‘Robbie’ seemed to forget the people he knew, or the facts that ought to be second nature. ‘Robbie’ seemed to be so stoned that his fingers were clumsy on the guitar. ‘Robbie’ would lash out at the people who loved him. ‘Robbie’ would retreat to the quiet of his RV to sulk for hours at a time. ‘Robbie’ used up all his parents’ internet data, researching and watching videos of the strangest commonplace activities. ‘Robbie’ didn’t seem to know any cuss words. ‘Robbie’s voice sounded ever-so-slightly off whenever he wasn’t concentrating. ‘Robbie’ really wasn’t on his A-game in the concert he’d been so excited for.
He’d tried his best to keep most of this hidden from them, and he’d done pretty well. And even when they did consciously notice something off, nobody would really go quite so far as to actually expect he’d been replaced…
No, who would be crazy enough to even imagine something like that?
And, of course, any tiny suspicions or complaints from his friends or bandmates disappeared quickly. He rapidly memorized everything Robbie once memorized. Adapted to smell like him, wore the same makeup and chemicals. Learned to walk like him, talk like him, sass like him, once he even kissed like him… And even play like him. Yes, the shapeshifter had learned to play the guitar. Learned to play it very well, actually. All Robbie’s favorite songs, he’d practiced and practiced until he was almost as good as the original. Good enough that nobody could tell them apart.
Foreseeing that he’d eventually have to mimic others besides this teen, he began to dabble in other activities when nobody was watching. Drums, bass, flute, piano, singing and dancing… He now knew everyone in the band well enough to impersonate them, at least for a while. Same for Robbie’s close circle of friends, and a few locals.
Life…
Liberty…
The pursuit of happiness…
Things, all things, were looking pretty good.
As he leaned Robbie’s form back against the RV, and watched the sun slowly rise over a little lake, the shapeshifter really did feel like a million dollars.
Suddenly, an old song sprung to his head. The nervous little inventor named Fiddleford had once played this song, long ago in the lab. The man sure did like his country… And the shapeshifter had listened bitterly to the tune back then, understanding half the meaning and half the words. But now, he knew what all the words meant. And he finally grasped the whole meaning. Almost on impulse, he opened his mouth and began to sing quietly, his voice echoing faintly over the clear, empty landscape.
“I got rid of the shackles that bound me,
And the guards that were always around me…
There were tears on the mail mother wrote me in jail,
But I’m free from the chain gang now…
…
“All the years I was known and respected,
‘Till one day I was wrongly suspected…
I was shackled in chains in the cold, freezing rain,
But I’m free from the chain gang now…
…
“All the years I was known by a number;
How I kept my mind is a wonder…
But like a bird in a tree, I got my liberty,
And I’m free from the chain gang now…
…
“I got rid of the shackles that bound me,
And the guards that were always around me…
There were tears on the mail mother sent me in jail,
But I’m free from the chain gang now…”
The door of the RV opened and promptly squeaked back shut, having just dispensed Robbie’s beloved girlfriend, Tambry… The woman limped down the steps, squinting and yawning in the morning light, as she fished her phone out of her pocket.
Tambry.
Tambry… She was special
She had loved Robbie, and now she loved him too, as he pretended to be him… But Tambry wasn’t just special to Robbie, she was special to him too. He had spent hours beyond count just sitting and talking with her these past few days. Talking about everything from her school to her home life to her dreams… These were the very first honest, sincere conversations he’d ever had with anyone… And he found himself relating to her feelings of entrapment, social pressures, longing for love… He related as a friend, as a companion, as a peer… He had a feeling, (a strange, longing feeling) that even if he didn’t wear Robbie’s disguise, and came to her as a stranger, he might still be able to be her friend…
He wasn’t sure if it was ‘romantic’ love, since he’d never felt it before, nor ever had it properly described to him… He wasn’t sure if it was regular love either… Maybe not yet… But he knew that this was one human, perhaps the first human, whom he would never, ever hurt…
She leaned back against the wall next to him, and rested her head on his shoulder. “Like, I totally didn’t know you liked country.” She smiled to his song, as her thumb danced across her phone’s screen, toggling from facepage to chirper to bumblr to facepage to chirper to bumblr.
“Oh, like, yeah…” He flipped his hair in a perfectly Robbie way. “I got talents pourin’ out my ears, baby, you got no idea… Good morning, by the way.”
“Ha ha. Good morning…” She jostled him. “Just never thought I’d ever, like, see you get more than 3 feet from Death Metal…”
“Oh, you know… Stuff gets old… How ‘bout you, Tambers? What do you, like, like?”
“Me…?” She glanced at him with a warm smile. “You never asked me what I liked…”
“Lay it on me, girl.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Like… I don’t know… Like, transcendental stuff mostly… Like, eerie sorta ooooh-oOOOOoooh type? You know?”
“Heh heh… Oh yeah…” The shifter pulled out Robbie’s guitar, and strummed a few eerie, transcendental chords. “How’s that?”
“Wow, that’s really good… You ever thought of doing a song like that?”
“Oh, I been thinking of a lot of things lately… But mostly… I’ve been thinking anything for you, Baby…”
“Ha ha!” She beamed, and turned her head toward him. “What’d you do with the real Robbie?”
She’s joking. No need to panic, I can even play it up…
“Tied him up in a closet, made off with his hoodie and his girl…” He leaned down, and rubbed noses with her in an adorable, romantic sort of way. “Glad I did too.”
She laughed. She thought it was hilarious.
Tambry’s phone interrupted them about then, as it was prone to do. When she glanced at it and saw the caller ID, she pronounced the word ‘ugh’ in that drawn out, sharp way that hip teenagers do. “Uhhhh-GUH… It’s, like, my parents…” She released him and started typing.
“Like… What do they want…?” The shifter frowned.
“Oh…” She glanced through the text. “They’re just starting to get nervous… Want me home…”
“Oh yeah, we said we’d be back by now, huh?”
“Yeah… I’ll tell them to bug off…” Tambry began to type. “Like, we’re not little kids anymore…”
“Uh…” He scratched his neck with one fingerless glove. “Actually Tambers, I think they might be right… Or… I mean… They’re not right… But don’t you think we should head back to Gravity Falls anyway?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Like… The concert’s all done… And Boring is… Really boring now…”
“Oh…” She glanced over the still lake and the few scattered houses. “Yeah, I guess so…”
“Also… Uh… I kinda sorta ran outta cash last night, and I ate our leftover pizza this morning, so…” So I’d have to eat one of Robbies’ friends soon. Which wouldn’t be a problem, but people might start to get suspicious.
“Ha ha!” She smiled as she put her phone away, and began walking around for the passenger-side door. “All right then, I guess that makes sense…”
“Let’s roll, baby.”
Indeed, they should go back to Gravity Falls.
But not for the reasons he told her. There was one thing more important to the Shapeshifter than food, pleasure, strength, excitement, relationship: he wanted a purpose. After unraveling every mystery the human form and behavior, and after mastering the uncomplicated life of Robbie, he wanted more than anything to unravel the mystery of himself. He wanted to know who he was. Ford found me in an egg, back before I could speak, before I was even old enough to remember… He never told me where he found me. And now here I am, the only known shapeshifting creature in the world. The only being like myself…
But I can’t be the only one. I can’t be alone. Something laid my egg. Somebody was my father. Somebody was my mother. I have people. Are they dead? Then I need to assimilate their knowledge and steal their stuff. Were they killed? Then I need to avenge them. Are they hiding? Then I am already one of them, and in need of their alliance. Are they very, very far away, up beyond the grand blue sky? Then I need a means to return to them; a vehicle of some sort.
Did they ever love me?
If they loved me, it seems they would leave me clues to find them…
Maybe that has something to do with the strange dreams I’ve been having…
But regardless, the answers I seek are not to be found in Boring. These answers lie in the home of my sworn enemies. They beat me once, they will never beat me again. I will have my revenge, and I will have the knowledge of my family. And THAT, poor, gullible Tambry, is the REAL reason I must return…
The shapeshifter climbed into the cab of the RV, jammed the key into its slot, and started the engine. Tambry cranked up some music on the radio, and he spun the steering wheel in the direction of the highway as he pressed the gas pedal. His voice joined Tambry’s as they sung along to the radio, but his mind was still playing a different song.
There were tears on the mail mother wrote me in jail,
But I’m free from the chain gang now…
Ford was almost asleep himself by the time the compilation finished, and the immense processing power of the human brain was utilized to run 2 minds at once.
> 97%
> 98%
> 99%
> 100%
>INTERFACE SUCCESSFUL
>READY FOR OUTPUT
>DISPLAY? Y/N
> Y
>OUTPUT_1:
Ow. That hurt. Hey I don’t hurt anymore. Wait, what happened? Why aren’t I itchy? Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I feel my tongue? Where’s Wendy? Wendy. Wendy. Wendy.
>OUTPUT_2:
Dipper?
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Comments: 7
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Oh thank the merciful fanfic gods for stopping Mabel. I hope Stan mashes that thing good.
Wendy is asking the important questions here, those blue lights have been bothering me too.
Shapey is playing house with Tambry? That's disturbing. If I know my monster-loves-human stories these usually don't have a happy ending.
For a moment I thought Ford was trying some Frankenstein stuff with Dipper but I guess this is more Inception/Pacific Rim? Looking forward to see where this is heading...
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They'll get that thing good all right.
Shifty just kind of found himself in a really weird situation and went with it. The important thing is that he's enjoying himself.
And everything will be revealed in time. Bwa ha ha HA.
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MURDER MACHINES ARE THE BEST
Incredibles was my favorite movie growing up.
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