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    Chapter 9: Echoes Underground



    They descended hand over hand down the narrow rope ladder, down into the depths of the alien ship. At first it was just a shoulder-width triangular vent, barely large enough for a man to fit through. But 10 meters down, the vent opened out into a massive space, the size of a football field, if not larger. They paused to put on headlamps.

    Wendy looked down.

    She saw Dipper’s hat and the hunch of his shoulders illuminated brightly below her, but beyond that, the distant floor remained concealed in deep darkness.

    She looked to the side. Massive pillars, as big around as a bus and bulging with machinery, stretched the height of the entire place; from their level at the ceiling, and all the way down into the black.

    One might suppose they were inside a factory or an engine of some sort, but everything here had a strikingly foreign nature about it. Whereas human machines often consisted of flat panels, hard edges, straight bolts, and hard structure, this had a smoother feel about it. Every panel here was curved, every seam unique, every edge precise. As if it had been made by artists instead of engineers… No, as if its engineers were solving problems whose solutions required a level of artistry. As if in order to perform its function, this ship required nothing less than perfection.

    Wendy might not have noticed all these details right away, but the look and the shape and the feel of the place did strike her immediately, and it told her no, this was not something familiar. Neither was it natural, and neither was it human. This was, most certainly, an entirely alien place.

    There was a mile-wide alien saucer buried in this very valley. And nobody knew.

    Part of her was annoyed that she hadn’t noticed it before, part of her was annoyed that nobody had told her before, but most of her was just glad she was seeing it at all. How many people had been let in on this secret? Ford told Dipper and must have told Stan, Dipper probably told Mabel, as he should, but… Was that it? More likely than not, she could count the number of people who knew on her fingers. Only a few people, in all of history, had ever been given this gift. And she was one of those. When she realized that, she stopped feeling annoyed, and started to feel honored.

    They trusted her. Ford did, and most of all, Dipper, or rather Mason, did. Mason trusted her with not only his real name, but all of this… This greatest of secrets. This treasure.

    Just to stand and see it, she felt honored indeed.

    She was grinning from ear to ear, and she shuddered a little bit to try and calm down. Dipper felt the movement in the ladder, and looked up at her. He smiled, and his cheeks were a little red.

    Did he still have his stupid crush? She was pretty sure he did. Was he trying to impress her? She was pretty sure he was. Was it working? Well… Yeah. She was pretty sure it was.

    The ladder ended on some kind of raised platform, and their feet made a deep, echoing ringing as they landed. Wendy cupped her hands and hollered “Yo, we come in PEACE, homies!” off into the blackness. The echo came back to her, from a million directions and in million ways, some faint, some loud. “homies HOMIES homies… Homies homies…” Came the distant whispers. “Wow.” She chuckled, and turned back to her companion. “Hey, speaking of peace, what’s there down here to worry about?”

    “Sudden drops, sharp edges, bat bites…” He listed. “Oh, and armed security drones.”

    “Armed huh…? ALRIGHT JERKS!” She called out again into the darkness, and hefted her magnet gun. “Never mind about the peace thing! We come appropriately armed and dangerous, so you better watch your shiny metal butts!”

    “Shush!” He laughed.

    “All right, all right. Which way then?”

    Dipper demonstrated the route down to the maintenance access level, by using the magnet gun to repel down one of the pillars. He messed up for a moment near the bottom, and ended up on his back, with scrapes on both his knees. By the time he got to his feet, Wendy had landed cleanly beside him, without a scratch. She holstered the magnet gun, and continued on toward the nearest door.

    As he followed her, Dipper paused to glance back at the pillars in the enormous central room. Ford’s studies had identified this place as the engine room, and those pillars as the artificial gravity nacelles. Once upon a time, those nacelles were the mechanisms that propelled the machine.

    This ship had none of the clumsy baggage that human spacecraft required: no weighty fuel, no clumsy rockets, no disposable stages… All it needed was the reactors to produce its raw power, and that raw power was used to fall… Imagine a mile-wide ship, held in space, falling forever. But it didn’t fall downward. With its great engines tumbling the physics around it, it could fall forward, backward, sideways, even up if it wanted. ‘Down’ was nothing but a choice to this ancient race. They’d gained victory over the very ground beneath their feet.

    What tragic irony that, in the end, they’d died by impact with this very ground. They hadn’t beaten gravity at all. It had come back with a vengeance, and slayed them to a man.

    “Oh YEAH! Alien for sure!” Wendy announced from the next room.

    He followed her in, and they stood regarding a strange body slumped over in a seat.

    Most of its uniform had rotted or decayed away along with its flesh, leaving nothing more than a broken metal oxygen helmet, and a strange set of bones. Its ribs and spine looked vaguely humanoid, but its 4 arm/leg/limbs were all structured like long, fingerless tentacles. If alive, Dipper guessed it would be sort of squid shaped, and would stand… 7 feet tall? 8? Bigger than a human.

    Wendy gently reached forward and removed its helmet. The head below had a long, ovoid skull, with 3 eyes, no nose, and a mouth that opened sideways.

    “So rad.” Wendy whispered. “But he’s not made of metal… He’s just a regular ol’ meatbag like us… Or he was, lol.”

    “Yeah.” Dipper admitted.

    “So…” Wendy scratched her head. “So where do the robot creatures tie in with all this? You said this was another lead on the whole thing…? I agree with the ‘aliens did it’ sort of angle, and that makes sense, but… But they’re organic.”

    “Well…” Dipper pulled out Ford’s tablet, opened one of the files back up, and showed it to her. “When Ford was last down here, he downloaded a lot of system data from the ship’s computers… And I was looking through it all, and I found some weird stuff in both the life support and security logs from just after the crash.”

    “Woah… You can read alien-ese?”

    “Heck no! …But there’s an app for that.”

    “There’s an app for WHAT?” She looked at the app’s screen, and saw ‘McGucket Labs’ across the top. “Oh. McGucket. Okay. Let’s see…” She read for a minute, then scratched her head. “Nerd is a second language to me.” She admitted. “Walk me through this.”

    “Well…” He pointed to the screen. “Almost everything in the ship died in the crash. Most of the passengers, most of the scientific specimens… But there’s a 3rd area of the ship, used for transporting ‘organic cargo’. And The cargo area must have been even less shielded from impact, because literally everything down there died… Except…”

    She noticed what he had. “Except everything in sector 43…”

    “Yep.”

    “Meaning whatever they had in sector 43… Must have been made of sterner stuff.”

    “Yeah. So if they were transporting metal life… That would be the first place we should look.”

    “Makes sense…” She nodded, then pointed back to the app. “Oh hey, can that dealio translate anything alien?”

    “Yeah… Well, not spoken language, but any writing or computer code, yeah.”

    “Great! I found some writing on the wall back this way; see if it can decode that!”

    Dipper followed her around a corner, to a wall that he remembered from his first trip down here (he’d taken a selfie next to it, in fact.) A large section of it was covered in alien writing: weird squiggles, triangles, and dots arranged in sentence sort of shapes.

    “Maybe… Let’s see.” Dipper took a picture of it, and tapped a few commands on the tablet. “Level 1.” He read. “Uncertainty Drive Engine.”

    “I’m not certain what you’re driving at.” She joked.

    “Level 2.” He continued. “Probatorium.”

    “The… Wait, what?”

    “Probtorium.”

    “Meaning…?”

    “Probe-atorium. I guess ‘place where probing is done’.”

    She considered this for a moment, then burst out laughing.

    “Well… It’s only a rough translation.” Dipper complained. “I guess they have a single word for ‘biological study lab’. And the app translates it to probatorium because that’s the closest match it has…”

    “PLACE FOR PROBING!” Wendy guffawed. “ALIENS, M I RITE?!?”

    Dipper started laughing too.

    “All right, all right.” Wendy brought herself together. “What’s level 3 then?”

    Dipper checked. “Level 3: -@[]N&8-@[]Y:.I.gD:+L-n >YD:+L” He tried to pronounce it, and gave up.

    “What the huh?” Wendy clarified.

    “It can’t be translated. That means it must be a name of some kind.”

    “Oh. Maybe that’s the passenger deck?”

    “Could be. The subscript says ‘used :-Ig:ND:V, half price’, which sounds like it’s some kind of… Advertisement for a store?”

    “Passenger deck most certainly…” Wendy pondered this. “Meaning this must be a civilian vessel…”

    “Yeah…”

    “How about this last bit?” She pointed to another patch of writing on the same wall. “This part actually looks like graffiti… Like some dork with orange blood wrote it in his own blood.”

    Dipper frowned. So it did. This part was faded, discolored, and written in a rough scrawl instead of carved into the walls like the others. Definitely handwritten… He angled the tablet, and took another picture.

    “Specimen has escaped.” He read. “Is changing forms.”

    They paused for several seconds while this sank in. Then they slowly turned toward each other, and locked eyes. “Now where does that ring a bell?” She asked, and tapped her chin thoughtfully.

    “We lost sight of each other for a minute back there.” Dipper whispered suspiciously. “What did you say your middle name was? I’m Mason, by the way.”

    She made the sign of zipping-locking her lips. “Blerble…” She nodded. “But… But Ford found Shifty as a baby! Newly hatched from an egg! Didn’t that come up at one point? How is he…?”

    “I don’t know… Maybe… Maybe they had multiple shapeshifters in containment here and they… You know… Or maybe… Hey wait a minute, let me look at that again!” He scrolled through the files on the tablet, found the one he was looking for, and handed it to her to read.

    “Still don’t speak nerd.” Wendy admitted.

    “Okay.” Dipper nodded. “So, the ship went down, most everything died, blah blah blah. But the life support broke down too. By the time it restarted, nearly everything was dead. Either from the impact, or from the life support failure. Now look at the security report.”

    She looked. “Ah.” She nodded. “Only a few ‘specimens’ survived; from sectors 2, 3, 5, and 8. And all of those sectors had a breakout at the same time…”

    “That’s because the stasis system stayed broken permanently!” Dipper explained. “So everything that was still alive got free!”

    She noticed something else. “Oh, wow. That one survivor from sector 8 sure caused them a lot of trouble… Looks like they never got it contained. And why does it say ‘data not found’ over and over?”

    “I was confused by that too…” Dipper said. “But now I’m thinking that that one survivor from 8…”

    “Oooooh yes…” Wendy nodded. “Granny Shifter…”

    “Exactly.”

    “Ooh!” She growled. “I knew I hated her snobby kid, but now I think I hate her even more… She escaped, she beat up the drones, and then wiped their memory of everything!”

    “Yeah… And oh! Look at this later log! It says the system started taking orders from a living officer again! Even when the first log says the officer died! That means she not only wiped their memory, but also took control of them!”

    “Wow… Well then, let’s check out sector 8!” Wendy bounced to her feet, and headed off in the direction of the probatorium. “Maybe there’s some other dead shifters we could pr— I mean study.”

    The ship’s hallways were winding and curved, and the rooms were rounded and uneven, as different from human architecture as could be conceived. It was almost impossible not to get lost down here. Dipper tried to use his compass for some sense of direction, but it didn’t exactly work when they were so near the engine room coils. He tried one of the few maps Ford had made, but those were nigh pointless as well, since the man had never bothered to explore much more than the maintenance level.

    They eventually found themselves in a wide, gently curving tunnel, which seemed like it could run the entire circumference of the ship. The outer wall of the tunnel was lined with rooms, and all the doors were thick, armored, and secure. Writing above the entry door labeled this as ‘probatorium sector 4’, and the rooms were labeled ‘4-01’, ‘4-02’, ‘4-03’, etc.

    They must be in the right place.

    They began peeking through the rooms, and everywhere they were met with the same sight: tubes, chambers, tanks, and crates. Some broken and some intact, some big and some small, but all were accompanied by something dead. Skeletons, bones, mummified skin, empty shells, or just stains… All of them were lying twisted and broken.

    Besides for a change of skeletons, it was largely the same story for sectors 5, 6, and 7.

    But when they got to 8, things got interesting. Everything here was totally ransacked, and all the tanks were empty. There were claw marks on the walls, heavy doors bent off their hinges, stains on the walls, and ubiquitous broken glass underfoot. Dipper noticed some 2-meter-wide spheres lying in a corner: broken security drones. “Woah.” He mumbled. “This is the place all right.”

    Inside the sector 8 sample rooms, they found rows upon rows of broken, shattered stasis tanks, in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and thicknesses. Dipper used the tablet to start translating the labels by the samples.

    “001-Photosynthetic fungus. Unintelligent, asexual (spore capable, contained), harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “002-Parasitic fungus. Unintelligent, asexual (spore capable, contained), harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “003-Herbivorous vertebrate. Learning-capable, male, harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “004-Herbivorous invertebrate. Learning-capable, female (infertile), harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “Hmm…” Wendy looked over at one of the larger tanks. “How about this one?”

    “What about it?”

    “The glass.” She pointed to the floor. “In all the other tanks, the glass is lying on the inside, meaning something broke in, probably to eat the stuff inside… But with this big one, the glass is all outside; meaning something broke out…”

    “Uh… 148-Omnivorous pseudo-vertebrate, recovered from 4.0 134.1-46’\. Intelligent, female (pregnant), testing ongoing…”

    “Ah.” Wendy smiled. “Looks like we found our suspect.”

    Dipper nodded. “Granny Shifter.”

    “Naughty naughty.” Wendy kicked the glass. “Look what you did to this place, girl! You’re more trouble than you’re worth…” Wendy looked around now, to take in the whole room. Besides for the stasis tubes and some scary-looking lab equipment, there was really only 1 interesting thing in the room: another alien skeleton, reclining in a seat, staring back over its shoulder with lifeless sockets.

    In front of the body, there sat an intact computer terminal.

    “Say, is that working?” Wendy asked, pointing to the computer. “Maybe there’s some videos or pictures, or… Testing logs or something!”

    “Worth a try…” Dipper shoved the skeleton aside, and sat down where it had been. Then he plugged the tablet into the terminal, and waited for a moment. Soon, words appeared on the screen.

    -searching for network connection:

    -warning: terminal not connected to network.

    -view local files?

    He pressed yes.

    -230 data files found

    -displaying:

    -001: data not found

    -002: data not found

    -003: data not found

    He began scrolling down the list. Everything had been wiped. Every scrap. There was no information on anything anywhere. But then, when he reached about halfway:

    -146: data not found

    -147: data not found

    -148: text file

    -149: data not found

    -150: data not found

    He clicked on 148. The tablet thought for a minute while translating it, indicating there must be a lot of language and grammar to decode. While it finished, Wendy pulled up a small stasis tube to use as a stool, and sat down next to him. Then they began to read…

    -date: 14/06/2094-46’\

    -Hello, Captain &:V->GN[], commander of Colonial Vessel 6.18’\.

    -Yes, I know it’s you. Who else would make it far enough to read this? Who else would be so curious and so driven? You made it through the storage areas, past the reprogrammed drones, all the way up to the Probatorium, all the way to my very room! You probably even found my exact stasis tank, and now are reading this log.

    -You must think you’re so clever, Captain.

    -But in fact, you were only too predictable.

    -I knew you would find a way out of that room. You probably came out through the pneumatic cargo chutes, didn’t you? Yes, all the other ways were sealed off.

    -By coming here, you thought you could finally find out who and what had cornered you in there. You wanted to know what was trying to kill you, and how to defeat me. And here you are, looking at the blank files in the very lab where once they probed me. You realize now that you have been played.

    -You, Captain, have always been a slave to your ego; a slave to the admiration of others. So while your friends and your crew are locked in the depths of your wreck, paralyzed with the fear of the threats beyond, who else would step forward as savior? Who else, among all the cowering men, would be so eager to prove themselves a hero, and help his friends escape?

    -You want to know what I think? I think you’re no hero. I think you stepped out to prove yourself, because in your soul, you know that this was all YOUR fault. Your mistakes, and your ego, have gripped and clawed at this ship, dragging it down into darkness. Turning curious minds to greed, twisting innocent missions into theft, allowing even greater evil to infect. Many things worked together to crash this ship: the planet’s gravity, the anomaly, the mutiny, the prophesy, even %6[]-L:V itself… But in the end, YOU crashed your ship, Captain. You, and your evil mistakes.

    -You have made several mistakes.

    -1st mistake: you overstepped your mission, hoping for glory. You used the uncertainty drive to explore deeper into the past of dimension 46’\ than you had been commanded, and began to collect dangerous and various samples from ancient times.

    -2nd mistake: you failed to report back with your time and location. Nobody, past, present, or future, will ever look for the vessel when and where you have wrecked it. They will never come to save you. Even if you somehow live today, you will never see home again.

    -3rd mistake: you collected ME as a sample. You may have known my abilities. You may have known my intelligence. But you chose not to understand, and you treated me as nothing but an animal. Only now, when your security system turns on you, and your own classified files get wiped, and I start to write in your own language, do you start to comprehend how quickly I learn, and how well I mimic my prey. Only now do you comprehend the caliber of enemy you face.

    -But you will never comprehend how much I hate you, Captain; no, it is too great for words.

    -4th mistake: you did not listen.

    -You should have listened to the passengers and colonists, when they told you enough was enough. They told you to set down the colonies beforehand, and allow them to safely leave the ship. But instead you brought them along, and now the last will soon be dead.

    -You should have listened to the engineers, when they told you the uncertainty drive had been damaged in the mutiny. They told you the ship was decaying beneath you, the engines were becoming unstable, and that improbable things could start to happen.

    -You should have listened to the scientists, when they told you this section of the universe was converging on an anomaly. They brought this to you as a warning, but you took it as a challenge.

    -You should have listened to the nightmares. The men would wake up in the night, screaming their fearful prophesies, of dark destiny, foul paths, and great enemies. The nightmares got more and more frequent, more and more evil, but you made yourself blind to their meaning until it was too late.

    -You should have listened to the oracle. She spoke… Why didn’t you hear? You fool, Captain! You willing victim! You arrogant stain! You irreverent mortal! You sightless murderer!

    -You listened to none of them. And now, Colonial Vessel 6.18’\, your pride and joy, is no more.

    -5th mistake: to escape the room you were sealed in, you unlocked the pneumatic transport tubes. By now, I will have used these same tubes to get in, and slay every one of the survivors. Your second-to-last mistake killed them.

    -6th and final mistake: you activated this terminal, and read this log. It has sent a signal to the security drones, and they now know you are here. By the time you’ve finished reading this, they will be in the room, watching you. I do hope you’re not too surprised when you turn around.

    -As you now see, everything here is your fault. Every death, every destiny, every pain… It has all been charged to your account.

    -Die now in guilt, Captain &:V->GN[].

    -I’ll see you in hell shortly.

    Both Dipper and Wendy sat back very slowly.

    They both glanced down at the skeleton that had been sitting in this seat. It was looking over its shoulder, and they noticed that it was wearing the remains of a uniform, and that its ribs were all cracked open.

    The Captain.

    “Well.” Dipper said. “The rest of the story just tells itself, doesn’t it?”

    “Say.” Wendy said. “That whole kill-the-captain-when-he-turns-around program… You don’t think that’s still active, do you?”

    Dipper concentrated very hard, and realized he could make out a faint humming noise: the sound the drones make when they hover. And then he made out a reflection in the screen in front of him: the red triangle of one of the drone’s eyes.

    “They’re behind us, aren’t they.” Wendy sighed.

    “Yep.”

    Neither of them turned around. They just sat there for several seconds, staring at the reflection.

    “So… What’s their deal?”

    “Okay.” Dipper said. “Uh… They’re big flying spheres… Travel in pairs… Vulnerable to EMP… Lots of weapons… One thing you need to remember about them: they scan for hormones, adrenaline, and biological signs of hostility. If you feel fear or panic, they know you’re an enemy, and attack you. If we want any sort of chance of getting out of this without a fight, we need to breathe deeply, stay calm, and control… Our… Fear!”

    “Wait. Hold on.” Wendy frowned. “That makes no sense!” An amused grin spread over her face. “Even if you’re an enemy, if you don’t feel fear, they leave you alone?? That’s a stupid design!”

    “Not the time for critique!” He gave a worried hiss. “Just stay calm! Control your fear!”

    “Control my fear?” She scoffed. “I ain’t afraid of something that ignores me when I ignore it!”

    “We’re kind of in danger here…!”

    “Why? I ain’t even, like, nervous. No adrenaline or nothin’…”

    “W-w-well, they could be in kill-on-sight mode since they think we’re the Captian…! They could… They could…!”

    “Woah! Dude, you’re freakin’ out on me! Just calm down; stay chill.” She pulled out her magnet gun slowly and calmly, and charged it for a pulse. “We can take these guys, right? If there’s just two, you shoot the right one, I’ll shoot the left one. Okay? On three.”

    “O-okay…”

    They tightened their grips, and took deep, level breaths. “One.” Wendy rehearsed her actions in her mind: dive for the floor, come up in a roll, make for cover. This would work. It would work. “Two.” As Dipper unplugged Ford’s tablet and returned it to his vest, he realized Wendy was right: scanning for fear WAS a dumb idea. Like, what if you had an agitated passenger and a calm enemy? It would annihilate the wrong one, that’s what! “Three.”

    They jumped up at the same time, spun around, and fired their magnet guns.

    There were 4 drones. Their pulses shorted out the first two, but then the ones behind them advanced forward, and extended guns. Yep; they were definitely still running the kill-the-captain-when-he-turns-around program.

    The drone on the right fired some kind of explosive shot.

    The projectile hit the computer terminal directly where they were sitting, and tore it into smoking shreds. But the two humans were no longer sitting there; they had dived for the floor, and made for a nearby rack of stasis tubes.

    The next drone fired off another shot, though it exploded on the rack, and did nothing but shower broken glass around.

    Seeing they needed a better angle, the drones held their fire for a moment. One began to move to flank them.

    Wendy saw it coming around the right, and turned to fire.

    But the drones had learned. The hostiles are using deadly electromagnetic weapons. They reasoned. We must stay out of the weapon’s path by any means possible. Since the hostiles have poor reaction time, we can dodge fairly easily. So this drone darted back to cover right as Wendy pulled the trigger, and her pulse went wide.

    But Wendy was learning too. They fear the guns now. She realized. They respect them. I can use that to buy us some time. Careful to keep her body hidden behind the rack, she poked her magnet gun up over the top like a periscope, and began firing it as fast as she could, hoping to hit something by dumb luck, or else just get the drones to retreat.

    But the drones learned again. The hostiles are hidden behind some lab equipment, and we have been programmed not to damage the lab equipment. But their electromagnetic weapon is no longer hidden. We can easily disable it without danger. Several small lasers unfolded from their bodies, and focused forward. In a few seconds, Wendy yelped with pain, dropped the magnet gun, and shoved her hand in her mouth.

    “What’s wrong?” Dipper asked.

    She pointed to the gun. It was glowing red-hot.

    “Oh.” Dipper held his own a little tighter. “Uh… Take mine! Keep laying down cover fire while I figure a way out of here!”

    She took the gun, and winced when it touched her right palm.

    “Your hand okay?” Dipper asked.

    “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little burn.” She poked her head above the rack for just a fraction of a second, and she learned again. They aren’t attacking anymore. They’re just sitting there on the other side of the rack. Which means they must be at a total loss of how to attack. Or maybe they’re waiting for me to attack again, and leave myself or my gun vulnerable again. Or maybe… Maybe they’re waiting for backup. “Come on dude!” She encouraged Dipper. “Find us a way out of here!”

    A way out? He realized he may have spoken out-of-turn. The room had only one door, and there were 2 drones alive and kicking between them and it…

    Wait; they had a magnet gun! Which means they could just make their own door! A moment later, he noticed a wall panel that looked thinner and looser than the rest. Perhaps it was a hatch of some kind?

    “Okay give me the gun back! I’ve got an idea!”

    She did.

    Dipper hooked the gun tightly under one arm, hooked his other arm around the stasis tube rack, dug his feet into the floor, and pulled the trigger. The tool jerked strongly in his hand, as the force beam threatened to either pull him off his feet, dislocate his shoulders, or both. He gritted his teeth and dug his fingers in, hoping that he was strong enough. But the strain lasted only a second, and then the targeted panel popped loose, leaving a hole in the wall big enough to crawl through.

    The panel itself flew through the air towards him. He closed his eyes and brought his arm up to block it, but it never hit him. Instead, it stuck itself firmly to the magnet gun’s tip, where it stayed like some kind of shield.

    Dipper looked down at it, and realized this wasn’t an entirely bad development.

    “All right then…” He said. “Get behind me! We’ll make a break for it on three!”

    “Come on man, you got this!”

    “One… Two… Three!”

    The drones saw them jump out, and fired their weapons. The rounds exploded on Dipper’s panel, doing no damage. The hostiles are escaping, and using their weapon to hold a shield in place. They saw. So we cannot attack them with projectiles. However, they cannot attack us either… Melee is now appropriate.

    The drone’s bodies slid open, and their manipulator tentacles shot out and wrapped around the shield. Dipper released the trigger, and let it fall off the gun.

    By the time the drones realized what had happened, the humans had disappeared into the wall, and were crawling as fast as they could up an air vent. The drones rushed forward, and reached up the tube where they’d disappeared. One of the tentacles brushed against Wendy’s retreating boot, but by the time it actually curled to grasp it, they had scrambled out of reach.

    The hostiles have escaped. The drones realized. We are not equipped to deal with this. What do we do now? Should we send patrols into the air shafts? Or should we resume our normal power-saving mode, now that the probatorium has been secured? What does the security officer have to say about this?

    They attempted to contact the security officer. But he’d been dead for a good long while now, and so he didn’t really have any input. So, the drones automatically gave up, and decided to resume normal operations. They exited the probatorium, and fell back into their ordinary patrols.

    But they remembered the two escapees. There had been a tall, calm one, and a short, agitated one. Both subjects were carbon-based, aerobic, terrestrial vertebrates. Both were of an entirely unknown species. Both had moderate speed and strength. Both were highly intelligent and dangerous. The drones assigned them both a threat level of 16, and remembered their bio-signatures. For future reference.

    Dipper and Wendy kept crawling through the tunnel’s pitch dark for several minutes, never stopping, never slowing.

    Finally the tunnel widened out into a larger area. They stood upright, stumbled around until they found a wall, and slumped against it for a moment to rest. The only sound in the perfectly dark, perfectly still, perfectly empty space was their deep, ragged breathing, and the thumping of their hearts.

    “Sorry for losing the magnet gun…” Wendy sighed after a minute or two of rest.

    “It’s fine… I’ve still got this one…”

    “Okay…” There was silence for a minute more. “I guess we can come back for it some other time, right?” She asked hopefully. “After the drones leave, and it cools down enough to touch…”

    “Yeah. We can stop there on our way back out. And this time, no touching the booby-trap-terminal.”

    “Yeah, no kidding… Say, where are we now?”

    Dipper turned on his headlamp.

    The light illuminated a large, low-ceilinged room filled with machinery. The wide, sloped ceiling was covered in small honeycomb-shaped tubes, which were each filled with stacks of small, hexagonal crates.

    “Looks like parts storage…” Dipper said. “I remember those little crate-type-deals from when Ford and I were last down here.”

    “What were you doing last time? Exploring?”

    “No. We were getting glue.”

    “…Glue?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Glue.”

    “Yeah.”

    “As in glue.”

    “No… Super glue. I mean, like, ultra-glue.”

    “So… You were looking at your shopping list, and you were like ‘okay, we’re going to the mall to get some poster-board, to House Depot to get some plywood, and the ancient alien spaceship to get some ultra-glue. Be home in time for dinner.’”

    “Well… Yeah… But it was the most epic shopping trip ever though.”

    “Mm…Okay.”

    Dipper rubbed his sore arms. “Are you… Uh… Are you having fun?”

    “Well…” She shrugged. “I’ve definitely had it to HERE with killer robots.” She held her hand above her head.

    “Yeah.” He sighed. “It’s been a killer robot sort of week, hasn’t it?”

    “But heck yeah.” She smiled, reached over, and ruffled his hair. “I’m having loads of fun, dude… You did pretty good back there.”

    He smiled, and re-adjusted his hat. In the dark, she couldn’t see his cheeks getting red. “Yeah… You too… And… I’m having fun too…”

    Then they heard a noise, from off toward the distant end of the room. The sound of something large being moved, and a stack of crates falling over.

    “What was that?” Dipper asked.

    “Kill the light!” Wendy hissed, and pulled him off to hide behind one of the room’s pillars.

    Now everything was dark and silent again. They tried to breathe as quietly as possible.

    The room’s newest arrival was still out of sight, but it was making a quiet, almost robotic noise as it made its way further into the room: the noise of motors flexing and whirring, and metal feet clicking against the floor.

    “Aww, not another killer robot…” Wendy whispered. “If this keeps up, I’m DONE. Just DONE.”

    Dipper noticed something now: the room wasn’t totally dark. There was a faint red ambience, shining across the walls. Now the robotic steps were getting louder, and he could see a single red light, coming slowly towards them. What had one red eye, and robotic legs? He only knew of one thing.

    “Not just any killer robot.” He whispered. “The lion. Juan’s mom. It’s here.”

    “What the heck?” Wendy growled. “Are you sure?”

    “It’s missing an eye.”

    “Crap.” She whispered. “Crap… Okay, I’ll stun it with the magnet gun when it gets close. And we make a break before it can restart. That’s a foolproof plan, right?”

    “Umm… I guess…? How’s the charge on the magnet gun?”

    She checked. “The battery is pretty good… Probably 6 pulses left in it…?”

    “Okay… Let’s do it.”

    They leapt out, and fired the gun.

    The red light turned off, and the robotic sound stopped.

    But then a voice rang out. “EH?” The voice asked. “Wuzzit? Howzit? Stanford? Stanley? That you??”

    Dipper turned on his headlamp.

    The beam of light illuminated an old man, wearing overalls, a tattered hat, a headlamp, and robo-suit pants. He was trying to move his legs, but appeared frozen in place.

    “McGucket?!?” Dipper asked.

    “Eh?” The man squinted at them, and brought up his hand to block his eyes from the light. “Whozit? You an alien?? I beg yer mercy, great sir! I’s was just…”

    “No, it’s just us.” Dipper laughed. “Sorry.”

    McGucket recognized the voice. “The Pines kids?”

    “Yeah!” Dipper said. “I mean no! I mean Wendy! Wendy and I.” He shone the headlamp around to show him their faces.

    “Why were you wearing a red headlamp?” Wendy asked. “We thought you were a killer robot!”

    “Red light saves yer night vision.” McGucket explained. “Why’d yeh think I was a killer robit?”

    “Well… Long story.” Dipper said. “Umm… Hey, sorry about that.”

    “Yeah!” Wendy said. “We’re, like, SO sorry for EMP-ing you! Did we freeze your robot legs? I’m so sorry…”

    “Eh… Yeah…” McGucket undid the straps on his thighs and ankles, and pulled free of the mechanism. It fell over behind him. “I kin still walk though… Wait a minute…” He looked at them, and noticed that they were alone in a dark, secluded room. “Say, were you kids havin’ a roman’ic moment down here? I’m right sorry for in’eruptin’…”

    “What?? No!” Dipper looked at Wendy.

    “What?? No! We were…” Wendy looked at Dipper. “We were exploring the… Probing. Place.”

    “Yeah. Then we crawled through a tube and now we’re here.” Dipper said.

    “And we were fighting killer robots.” Wendy added.

    “Yeah. And complaining.”

    “We were complaining about how many killer robots there are now.”

    “Yeah. There’s killer robots everywhere now. And we were complaining about it.”

    “That’s when you showed up.”

    “Ah.” McGucket looked back at his robot-pants. “I getcha… There have been a right lot of killer robots lately, ain’t there? Almost as if we been stuck in some sci-fi alternate universe where killer robots are more likely…”

    “Umm.” Dipper said.

    “Yeah.” Wendy said. “Except that’s weird.”

    “So why are you down here, McGucket?” Dipper asked.

    “Ah!” McGucket smiled wide enough to show his gold tooth. “Wull! I jist got ta thinkin’ about what transpirified last night with the robit-lifeforms, and figgered we needed a more surefire way to fight ‘em! So I slapped together a high-penetration fusion plasma beam, but when I tried to fire it, the gull-durned thing exploded! So I figured that in order to properly bond and seal the nuclear combustion pressure chamber, I need an adhesive stronger than man has known… Somethin’… Extraterrestrial.”

    “Heard it.” Dipper nodded. “It’s purple when it’s leaked and dried. Look for that.”

    “Good grief, it’s not a spaceship, it’s a glue store.” Wendy facepalmed. “Captain &:V->GN[] would be turning in his grave…”

    “Welp.” McGucket looked around. “One a’ these crates gotta have some, right? Though would you kids mind carryin’ the glue for me? I’m not so strappin’ without my pants…”

    “Sure.” Dipper said.

    “And I got your pants.” Wendy scooped up the apparatus, and draped it across her shoulders like an iron scarf.

    “Why’d you kids say you were down here?” McGucket asked.

    “Uh… We were originally down here to investigate the metal life.” Dipper recalled. “You know, like Juan, that kitten-tron we showed you? And the ecosystem he came from. We think they might all have arrived on Earth aboard this ship, and we wanted to find out how and why.”

    “Yep. We got pretty sidetracked though.” Wendy added. “But it was a pretty epic sidetrack, so no regrets.”

    “The metal life, eh?” McGucket nodded. “Hmm… Have you seen sector 43 yet?”

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    Chapter 9: Echoes Underground



    They descended hand over hand down the narrow rope ladder, down into the depths of the alien ship. At first it was just a shoulder-width triangular vent, barely large enough for a man to fit through. But 10 meters down, the vent opened out into a massive space, the size of a football field, if not larger. They paused to put on headlamps.

    Wendy looked down.

    She saw Dipper’s hat and the hunch of his shoulders illuminated brightly below her, but beyond that, the distant floor remained concealed in deep darkness.

    She looked to the side. Massive pillars, as big around as a bus and bulging with machinery, stretched the height of the entire place; from their level at the ceiling, and all the way down into the black.

    One might suppose they were inside a factory or an engine of some sort, but everything here had a strikingly foreign nature about it. Whereas human machines often consisted of flat panels, hard edges, straight bolts, and hard structure, this had a smoother feel about it. Every panel here was curved, every seam unique, every edge precise. As if it had been made by artists instead of engineers… No, as if its engineers were solving problems whose solutions required a level of artistry. As if in order to perform its function, this ship required nothing less than perfection.

    Wendy might not have noticed all these details right away, but the look and the shape and the feel of the place did strike her immediately, and it told her no, this was not something familiar. Neither was it natural, and neither was it human. This was, most certainly, an entirely alien place.

    There was a mile-wide alien saucer buried in this very valley. And nobody knew.

    Part of her was annoyed that she hadn’t noticed it before, part of her was annoyed that nobody had told her before, but most of her was just glad she was seeing it at all. How many people had been let in on this secret? Ford told Dipper and must have told Stan, Dipper probably told Mabel, as he should, but… Was that it? More likely than not, she could count the number of people who knew on her fingers. Only a few people, in all of history, had ever been given this gift. And she was one of those. When she realized that, she stopped feeling annoyed, and started to feel honored.

    They trusted her. Ford did, and most of all, Dipper, or rather Mason, did. Mason trusted her with not only his real name, but all of this… This greatest of secrets. This treasure.

    Just to stand and see it, she felt honored indeed.

    She was grinning from ear to ear, and she shuddered a little bit to try and calm down. Dipper felt the movement in the ladder, and looked up at her. He smiled, and his cheeks were a little red.

    Did he still have his stupid crush? She was pretty sure he did. Was he trying to impress her? She was pretty sure he was. Was it working? Well… Yeah. She was pretty sure it was.

    The ladder ended on some kind of raised platform, and their feet made a deep, echoing ringing as they landed. Wendy cupped her hands and hollered “Yo, we come in PEACE, homies!” off into the blackness. The echo came back to her, from a million directions and in million ways, some faint, some loud. “homies HOMIES homies… Homies homies…” Came the distant whispers. “Wow.” She chuckled, and turned back to her companion. “Hey, speaking of peace, what’s there down here to worry about?”

    “Sudden drops, sharp edges, bat bites…” He listed. “Oh, and armed security drones.”

    “Armed huh…? ALRIGHT JERKS!” She called out again into the darkness, and hefted her magnet gun. “Never mind about the peace thing! We come appropriately armed and dangerous, so you better watch your shiny metal butts!”

    “Shush!” He laughed.

    “All right, all right. Which way then?”

    Dipper demonstrated the route down to the maintenance access level, by using the magnet gun to repel down one of the pillars. He messed up for a moment near the bottom, and ended up on his back, with scrapes on both his knees. By the time he got to his feet, Wendy had landed cleanly beside him, without a scratch. She holstered the magnet gun, and continued on toward the nearest door.

    As he followed her, Dipper paused to glance back at the pillars in the enormous central room. Ford’s studies had identified this place as the engine room, and those pillars as the artificial gravity nacelles. Once upon a time, those nacelles were the mechanisms that propelled the machine.

    This ship had none of the clumsy baggage that human spacecraft required: no weighty fuel, no clumsy rockets, no disposable stages… All it needed was the reactors to produce its raw power, and that raw power was used to fall… Imagine a mile-wide ship, held in space, falling forever. But it didn’t fall downward. With its great engines tumbling the physics around it, it could fall forward, backward, sideways, even up if it wanted. ‘Down’ was nothing but a choice to this ancient race. They’d gained victory over the very ground beneath their feet.

    What tragic irony that, in the end, they’d died by impact with this very ground. They hadn’t beaten gravity at all. It had come back with a vengeance, and slayed them to a man.

    “Oh YEAH! Alien for sure!” Wendy announced from the next room.

    He followed her in, and they stood regarding a strange body slumped over in a seat.

    Most of its uniform had rotted or decayed away along with its flesh, leaving nothing more than a broken metal oxygen helmet, and a strange set of bones. Its ribs and spine looked vaguely humanoid, but its 4 arm/leg/limbs were all structured like long, fingerless tentacles. If alive, Dipper guessed it would be sort of squid shaped, and would stand… 7 feet tall? 8? Bigger than a human.

    Wendy gently reached forward and removed its helmet. The head below had a long, ovoid skull, with 3 eyes, no nose, and a mouth that opened sideways.

    “So rad.” Wendy whispered. “But he’s not made of metal… He’s just a regular ol’ meatbag like us… Or he was, lol.”

    “Yeah.” Dipper admitted.

    “So…” Wendy scratched her head. “So where do the robot creatures tie in with all this? You said this was another lead on the whole thing…? I agree with the ‘aliens did it’ sort of angle, and that makes sense, but… But they’re organic.”

    “Well…” Dipper pulled out Ford’s tablet, opened one of the files back up, and showed it to her. “When Ford was last down here, he downloaded a lot of system data from the ship’s computers… And I was looking through it all, and I found some weird stuff in both the life support and security logs from just after the crash.”

    “Woah… You can read alien-ese?”

    “Heck no! …But there’s an app for that.”

    “There’s an app for WHAT?” She looked at the app’s screen, and saw ‘McGucket Labs’ across the top. “Oh. McGucket. Okay. Let’s see…” She read for a minute, then scratched her head. “Nerd is a second language to me.” She admitted. “Walk me through this.”

    “Well…” He pointed to the screen. “Almost everything in the ship died in the crash. Most of the passengers, most of the scientific specimens… But there’s a 3rd area of the ship, used for transporting ‘organic cargo’. And The cargo area must have been even less shielded from impact, because literally everything down there died… Except…”

    She noticed what he had. “Except everything in sector 43…”

    “Yep.”

    “Meaning whatever they had in sector 43… Must have been made of sterner stuff.”

    “Yeah. So if they were transporting metal life… That would be the first place we should look.”

    “Makes sense…” She nodded, then pointed back to the app. “Oh hey, can that dealio translate anything alien?”

    “Yeah… Well, not spoken language, but any writing or computer code, yeah.”

    “Great! I found some writing on the wall back this way; see if it can decode that!”

    Dipper followed her around a corner, to a wall that he remembered from his first trip down here (he’d taken a selfie next to it, in fact.) A large section of it was covered in alien writing: weird squiggles, triangles, and dots arranged in sentence sort of shapes.

    “Maybe… Let’s see.” Dipper took a picture of it, and tapped a few commands on the tablet. “Level 1.” He read. “Uncertainty Drive Engine.”

    “I’m not certain what you’re driving at.” She joked.

    “Level 2.” He continued. “Probatorium.”

    “The… Wait, what?”

    “Probtorium.”

    “Meaning…?”

    “Probe-atorium. I guess ‘place where probing is done’.”

    She considered this for a moment, then burst out laughing.

    “Well… It’s only a rough translation.” Dipper complained. “I guess they have a single word for ‘biological study lab’. And the app translates it to probatorium because that’s the closest match it has…”

    “PLACE FOR PROBING!” Wendy guffawed. “ALIENS, M I RITE?!?”

    Dipper started laughing too.

    “All right, all right.” Wendy brought herself together. “What’s level 3 then?”

    Dipper checked. “Level 3: -@[]N&8-@[]Y:.I.gD:+L-n >YD:+L” He tried to pronounce it, and gave up.

    “What the huh?” Wendy clarified.

    “It can’t be translated. That means it must be a name of some kind.”

    “Oh. Maybe that’s the passenger deck?”

    “Could be. The subscript says ‘used :-Ig:ND:V, half price’, which sounds like it’s some kind of… Advertisement for a store?”

    “Passenger deck most certainly…” Wendy pondered this. “Meaning this must be a civilian vessel…”

    “Yeah…”

    “How about this last bit?” She pointed to another patch of writing on the same wall. “This part actually looks like graffiti… Like some dork with orange blood wrote it in his own blood.”

    Dipper frowned. So it did. This part was faded, discolored, and written in a rough scrawl instead of carved into the walls like the others. Definitely handwritten… He angled the tablet, and took another picture.

    “Specimen has escaped.” He read. “Is changing forms.”

    They paused for several seconds while this sank in. Then they slowly turned toward each other, and locked eyes. “Now where does that ring a bell?” She asked, and tapped her chin thoughtfully.

    “We lost sight of each other for a minute back there.” Dipper whispered suspiciously. “What did you say your middle name was? I’m Mason, by the way.”

    She made the sign of zipping-locking her lips. “Blerble…” She nodded. “But… But Ford found Shifty as a baby! Newly hatched from an egg! Didn’t that come up at one point? How is he…?”

    “I don’t know… Maybe… Maybe they had multiple shapeshifters in containment here and they… You know… Or maybe… Hey wait a minute, let me look at that again!” He scrolled through the files on the tablet, found the one he was looking for, and handed it to her to read.

    “Still don’t speak nerd.” Wendy admitted.

    “Okay.” Dipper nodded. “So, the ship went down, most everything died, blah blah blah. But the life support broke down too. By the time it restarted, nearly everything was dead. Either from the impact, or from the life support failure. Now look at the security report.”

    She looked. “Ah.” She nodded. “Only a few ‘specimens’ survived; from sectors 2, 3, 5, and 8. And all of those sectors had a breakout at the same time…”

    “That’s because the stasis system stayed broken permanently!” Dipper explained. “So everything that was still alive got free!”

    She noticed something else. “Oh, wow. That one survivor from sector 8 sure caused them a lot of trouble… Looks like they never got it contained. And why does it say ‘data not found’ over and over?”

    “I was confused by that too…” Dipper said. “But now I’m thinking that that one survivor from 8…”

    “Oooooh yes…” Wendy nodded. “Granny Shifter…”

    “Exactly.”

    “Ooh!” She growled. “I knew I hated her snobby kid, but now I think I hate her even more… She escaped, she beat up the drones, and then wiped their memory of everything!”

    “Yeah… And oh! Look at this later log! It says the system started taking orders from a living officer again! Even when the first log says the officer died! That means she not only wiped their memory, but also took control of them!”

    “Wow… Well then, let’s check out sector 8!” Wendy bounced to her feet, and headed off in the direction of the probatorium. “Maybe there’s some other dead shifters we could pr— I mean study.”

    The ship’s hallways were winding and curved, and the rooms were rounded and uneven, as different from human architecture as could be conceived. It was almost impossible not to get lost down here. Dipper tried to use his compass for some sense of direction, but it didn’t exactly work when they were so near the engine room coils. He tried one of the few maps Ford had made, but those were nigh pointless as well, since the man had never bothered to explore much more than the maintenance level.

    They eventually found themselves in a wide, gently curving tunnel, which seemed like it could run the entire circumference of the ship. The outer wall of the tunnel was lined with rooms, and all the doors were thick, armored, and secure. Writing above the entry door labeled this as ‘probatorium sector 4’, and the rooms were labeled ‘4-01’, ‘4-02’, ‘4-03’, etc.

    They must be in the right place.

    They began peeking through the rooms, and everywhere they were met with the same sight: tubes, chambers, tanks, and crates. Some broken and some intact, some big and some small, but all were accompanied by something dead. Skeletons, bones, mummified skin, empty shells, or just stains… All of them were lying twisted and broken.

    Besides for a change of skeletons, it was largely the same story for sectors 5, 6, and 7.

    But when they got to 8, things got interesting. Everything here was totally ransacked, and all the tanks were empty. There were claw marks on the walls, heavy doors bent off their hinges, stains on the walls, and ubiquitous broken glass underfoot. Dipper noticed some 2-meter-wide spheres lying in a corner: broken security drones. “Woah.” He mumbled. “This is the place all right.”

    Inside the sector 8 sample rooms, they found rows upon rows of broken, shattered stasis tanks, in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and thicknesses. Dipper used the tablet to start translating the labels by the samples.

    “001-Photosynthetic fungus. Unintelligent, asexual (spore capable, contained), harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “002-Parasitic fungus. Unintelligent, asexual (spore capable, contained), harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “003-Herbivorous vertebrate. Learning-capable, male, harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “004-Herbivorous invertebrate. Learning-capable, female (infertile), harmless. Recovered from 4.0-134.1-46’\.

    “Hmm…” Wendy looked over at one of the larger tanks. “How about this one?”

    “What about it?”

    “The glass.” She pointed to the floor. “In all the other tanks, the glass is lying on the inside, meaning something broke in, probably to eat the stuff inside… But with this big one, the glass is all outside; meaning something broke out…”

    “Uh… 148-Omnivorous pseudo-vertebrate, recovered from 4.0 134.1-46’\. Intelligent, female (pregnant), testing ongoing…”

    “Ah.” Wendy smiled. “Looks like we found our suspect.”

    Dipper nodded. “Granny Shifter.”

    “Naughty naughty.” Wendy kicked the glass. “Look what you did to this place, girl! You’re more trouble than you’re worth…” Wendy looked around now, to take in the whole room. Besides for the stasis tubes and some scary-looking lab equipment, there was really only 1 interesting thing in the room: another alien skeleton, reclining in a seat, staring back over its shoulder with lifeless sockets.

    In front of the body, there sat an intact computer terminal.

    “Say, is that working?” Wendy asked, pointing to the computer. “Maybe there’s some videos or pictures, or… Testing logs or something!”

    “Worth a try…” Dipper shoved the skeleton aside, and sat down where it had been. Then he plugged the tablet into the terminal, and waited for a moment. Soon, words appeared on the screen.

    -searching for network connection:

    -warning: terminal not connected to network.

    -view local files?

    He pressed yes.

    -230 data files found

    -displaying:

    -001: data not found

    -002: data not found

    -003: data not found

    He began scrolling down the list. Everything had been wiped. Every scrap. There was no information on anything anywhere. But then, when he reached about halfway:

    -146: data not found

    -147: data not found

    -148: text file

    -149: data not found

    -150: data not found

    He clicked on 148. The tablet thought for a minute while translating it, indicating there must be a lot of language and grammar to decode. While it finished, Wendy pulled up a small stasis tube to use as a stool, and sat down next to him. Then they began to read…

    -date: 14/06/2094-46’\

    -Hello, Captain &:V->GN[], commander of Colonial Vessel 6.18’\.

    -Yes, I know it’s you. Who else would make it far enough to read this? Who else would be so curious and so driven? You made it through the storage areas, past the reprogrammed drones, all the way up to the Probatorium, all the way to my very room! You probably even found my exact stasis tank, and now are reading this log.

    -You must think you’re so clever, Captain.

    -But in fact, you were only too predictable.

    -I knew you would find a way out of that room. You probably came out through the pneumatic cargo chutes, didn’t you? Yes, all the other ways were sealed off.

    -By coming here, you thought you could finally find out who and what had cornered you in there. You wanted to know what was trying to kill you, and how to defeat me. And here you are, looking at the blank files in the very lab where once they probed me. You realize now that you have been played.

    -You, Captain, have always been a slave to your ego; a slave to the admiration of others. So while your friends and your crew are locked in the depths of your wreck, paralyzed with the fear of the threats beyond, who else would step forward as savior? Who else, among all the cowering men, would be so eager to prove themselves a hero, and help his friends escape?

    -You want to know what I think? I think you’re no hero. I think you stepped out to prove yourself, because in your soul, you know that this was all YOUR fault. Your mistakes, and your ego, have gripped and clawed at this ship, dragging it down into darkness. Turning curious minds to greed, twisting innocent missions into theft, allowing even greater evil to infect. Many things worked together to crash this ship: the planet’s gravity, the anomaly, the mutiny, the prophesy, even %6[]-L:V itself… But in the end, YOU crashed your ship, Captain. You, and your evil mistakes.

    -You have made several mistakes.

    -1st mistake: you overstepped your mission, hoping for glory. You used the uncertainty drive to explore deeper into the past of dimension 46’\ than you had been commanded, and began to collect dangerous and various samples from ancient times.

    -2nd mistake: you failed to report back with your time and location. Nobody, past, present, or future, will ever look for the vessel when and where you have wrecked it. They will never come to save you. Even if you somehow live today, you will never see home again.

    -3rd mistake: you collected ME as a sample. You may have known my abilities. You may have known my intelligence. But you chose not to understand, and you treated me as nothing but an animal. Only now, when your security system turns on you, and your own classified files get wiped, and I start to write in your own language, do you start to comprehend how quickly I learn, and how well I mimic my prey. Only now do you comprehend the caliber of enemy you face.

    -But you will never comprehend how much I hate you, Captain; no, it is too great for words.

    -4th mistake: you did not listen.

    -You should have listened to the passengers and colonists, when they told you enough was enough. They told you to set down the colonies beforehand, and allow them to safely leave the ship. But instead you brought them along, and now the last will soon be dead.

    -You should have listened to the engineers, when they told you the uncertainty drive had been damaged in the mutiny. They told you the ship was decaying beneath you, the engines were becoming unstable, and that improbable things could start to happen.

    -You should have listened to the scientists, when they told you this section of the universe was converging on an anomaly. They brought this to you as a warning, but you took it as a challenge.

    -You should have listened to the nightmares. The men would wake up in the night, screaming their fearful prophesies, of dark destiny, foul paths, and great enemies. The nightmares got more and more frequent, more and more evil, but you made yourself blind to their meaning until it was too late.

    -You should have listened to the oracle. She spoke… Why didn’t you hear? You fool, Captain! You willing victim! You arrogant stain! You irreverent mortal! You sightless murderer!

    -You listened to none of them. And now, Colonial Vessel 6.18’\, your pride and joy, is no more.

    -5th mistake: to escape the room you were sealed in, you unlocked the pneumatic transport tubes. By now, I will have used these same tubes to get in, and slay every one of the survivors. Your second-to-last mistake killed them.

    -6th and final mistake: you activated this terminal, and read this log. It has sent a signal to the security drones, and they now know you are here. By the time you’ve finished reading this, they will be in the room, watching you. I do hope you’re not too surprised when you turn around.

    -As you now see, everything here is your fault. Every death, every destiny, every pain… It has all been charged to your account.

    -Die now in guilt, Captain &:V->GN[].

    -I’ll see you in hell shortly.

    Both Dipper and Wendy sat back very slowly.

    They both glanced down at the skeleton that had been sitting in this seat. It was looking over its shoulder, and they noticed that it was wearing the remains of a uniform, and that its ribs were all cracked open.

    The Captain.

    “Well.” Dipper said. “The rest of the story just tells itself, doesn’t it?”

    “Say.” Wendy said. “That whole kill-the-captain-when-he-turns-around program… You don’t think that’s still active, do you?”

    Dipper concentrated very hard, and realized he could make out a faint humming noise: the sound the drones make when they hover. And then he made out a reflection in the screen in front of him: the red triangle of one of the drone’s eyes.

    “They’re behind us, aren’t they.” Wendy sighed.

    “Yep.”

    Neither of them turned around. They just sat there for several seconds, staring at the reflection.

    “So… What’s their deal?”

    “Okay.” Dipper said. “Uh… They’re big flying spheres… Travel in pairs… Vulnerable to EMP… Lots of weapons… One thing you need to remember about them: they scan for hormones, adrenaline, and biological signs of hostility. If you feel fear or panic, they know you’re an enemy, and attack you. If we want any sort of chance of getting out of this without a fight, we need to breathe deeply, stay calm, and control… Our… Fear!”

    “Wait. Hold on.” Wendy frowned. “That makes no sense!” An amused grin spread over her face. “Even if you’re an enemy, if you don’t feel fear, they leave you alone?? That’s a stupid design!”

    “Not the time for critique!” He gave a worried hiss. “Just stay calm! Control your fear!”

    “Control my fear?” She scoffed. “I ain’t afraid of something that ignores me when I ignore it!”

    “We’re kind of in danger here…!”

    “Why? I ain’t even, like, nervous. No adrenaline or nothin’…”

    “W-w-well, they could be in kill-on-sight mode since they think we’re the Captian…! They could… They could…!”

    “Woah! Dude, you’re freakin’ out on me! Just calm down; stay chill.” She pulled out her magnet gun slowly and calmly, and charged it for a pulse. “We can take these guys, right? If there’s just two, you shoot the right one, I’ll shoot the left one. Okay? On three.”

    “O-okay…”

    They tightened their grips, and took deep, level breaths. “One.” Wendy rehearsed her actions in her mind: dive for the floor, come up in a roll, make for cover. This would work. It would work. “Two.” As Dipper unplugged Ford’s tablet and returned it to his vest, he realized Wendy was right: scanning for fear WAS a dumb idea. Like, what if you had an agitated passenger and a calm enemy? It would annihilate the wrong one, that’s what! “Three.”

    They jumped up at the same time, spun around, and fired their magnet guns.

    There were 4 drones. Their pulses shorted out the first two, but then the ones behind them advanced forward, and extended guns. Yep; they were definitely still running the kill-the-captain-when-he-turns-around program.

    The drone on the right fired some kind of explosive shot.

    The projectile hit the computer terminal directly where they were sitting, and tore it into smoking shreds. But the two humans were no longer sitting there; they had dived for the floor, and made for a nearby rack of stasis tubes.

    The next drone fired off another shot, though it exploded on the rack, and did nothing but shower broken glass around.

    Seeing they needed a better angle, the drones held their fire for a moment. One began to move to flank them.

    Wendy saw it coming around the right, and turned to fire.

    But the drones had learned. The hostiles are using deadly electromagnetic weapons. They reasoned. We must stay out of the weapon’s path by any means possible. Since the hostiles have poor reaction time, we can dodge fairly easily. So this drone darted back to cover right as Wendy pulled the trigger, and her pulse went wide.

    But Wendy was learning too. They fear the guns now. She realized. They respect them. I can use that to buy us some time. Careful to keep her body hidden behind the rack, she poked her magnet gun up over the top like a periscope, and began firing it as fast as she could, hoping to hit something by dumb luck, or else just get the drones to retreat.

    But the drones learned again. The hostiles are hidden behind some lab equipment, and we have been programmed not to damage the lab equipment. But their electromagnetic weapon is no longer hidden. We can easily disable it without danger. Several small lasers unfolded from their bodies, and focused forward. In a few seconds, Wendy yelped with pain, dropped the magnet gun, and shoved her hand in her mouth.

    “What’s wrong?” Dipper asked.

    She pointed to the gun. It was glowing red-hot.

    “Oh.” Dipper held his own a little tighter. “Uh… Take mine! Keep laying down cover fire while I figure a way out of here!”

    She took the gun, and winced when it touched her right palm.

    “Your hand okay?” Dipper asked.

    “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little burn.” She poked her head above the rack for just a fraction of a second, and she learned again. They aren’t attacking anymore. They’re just sitting there on the other side of the rack. Which means they must be at a total loss of how to attack. Or maybe they’re waiting for me to attack again, and leave myself or my gun vulnerable again. Or maybe… Maybe they’re waiting for backup. “Come on dude!” She encouraged Dipper. “Find us a way out of here!”

    A way out? He realized he may have spoken out-of-turn. The room had only one door, and there were 2 drones alive and kicking between them and it…

    Wait; they had a magnet gun! Which means they could just make their own door! A moment later, he noticed a wall panel that looked thinner and looser than the rest. Perhaps it was a hatch of some kind?

    “Okay give me the gun back! I’ve got an idea!”

    She did.

    Dipper hooked the gun tightly under one arm, hooked his other arm around the stasis tube rack, dug his feet into the floor, and pulled the trigger. The tool jerked strongly in his hand, as the force beam threatened to either pull him off his feet, dislocate his shoulders, or both. He gritted his teeth and dug his fingers in, hoping that he was strong enough. But the strain lasted only a second, and then the targeted panel popped loose, leaving a hole in the wall big enough to crawl through.

    The panel itself flew through the air towards him. He closed his eyes and brought his arm up to block it, but it never hit him. Instead, it stuck itself firmly to the magnet gun’s tip, where it stayed like some kind of shield.

    Dipper looked down at it, and realized this wasn’t an entirely bad development.

    “All right then…” He said. “Get behind me! We’ll make a break for it on three!”

    “Come on man, you got this!”

    “One… Two… Three!”

    The drones saw them jump out, and fired their weapons. The rounds exploded on Dipper’s panel, doing no damage. The hostiles are escaping, and using their weapon to hold a shield in place. They saw. So we cannot attack them with projectiles. However, they cannot attack us either… Melee is now appropriate.

    The drone’s bodies slid open, and their manipulator tentacles shot out and wrapped around the shield. Dipper released the trigger, and let it fall off the gun.

    By the time the drones realized what had happened, the humans had disappeared into the wall, and were crawling as fast as they could up an air vent. The drones rushed forward, and reached up the tube where they’d disappeared. One of the tentacles brushed against Wendy’s retreating boot, but by the time it actually curled to grasp it, they had scrambled out of reach.

    The hostiles have escaped. The drones realized. We are not equipped to deal with this. What do we do now? Should we send patrols into the air shafts? Or should we resume our normal power-saving mode, now that the probatorium has been secured? What does the security officer have to say about this?

    They attempted to contact the security officer. But he’d been dead for a good long while now, and so he didn’t really have any input. So, the drones automatically gave up, and decided to resume normal operations. They exited the probatorium, and fell back into their ordinary patrols.

    But they remembered the two escapees. There had been a tall, calm one, and a short, agitated one. Both subjects were carbon-based, aerobic, terrestrial vertebrates. Both were of an entirely unknown species. Both had moderate speed and strength. Both were highly intelligent and dangerous. The drones assigned them both a threat level of 16, and remembered their bio-signatures. For future reference.

    Dipper and Wendy kept crawling through the tunnel’s pitch dark for several minutes, never stopping, never slowing.

    Finally the tunnel widened out into a larger area. They stood upright, stumbled around until they found a wall, and slumped against it for a moment to rest. The only sound in the perfectly dark, perfectly still, perfectly empty space was their deep, ragged breathing, and the thumping of their hearts.

    “Sorry for losing the magnet gun…” Wendy sighed after a minute or two of rest.

    “It’s fine… I’ve still got this one…”

    “Okay…” There was silence for a minute more. “I guess we can come back for it some other time, right?” She asked hopefully. “After the drones leave, and it cools down enough to touch…”

    “Yeah. We can stop there on our way back out. And this time, no touching the booby-trap-terminal.”

    “Yeah, no kidding… Say, where are we now?”

    Dipper turned on his headlamp.

    The light illuminated a large, low-ceilinged room filled with machinery. The wide, sloped ceiling was covered in small honeycomb-shaped tubes, which were each filled with stacks of small, hexagonal crates.

    “Looks like parts storage…” Dipper said. “I remember those little crate-type-deals from when Ford and I were last down here.”

    “What were you doing last time? Exploring?”

    “No. We were getting glue.”

    “…Glue?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Glue.”

    “Yeah.”

    “As in glue.”

    “No… Super glue. I mean, like, ultra-glue.”

    “So… You were looking at your shopping list, and you were like ‘okay, we’re going to the mall to get some poster-board, to House Depot to get some plywood, and the ancient alien spaceship to get some ultra-glue. Be home in time for dinner.’”

    “Well… Yeah… But it was the most epic shopping trip ever though.”

    “Mm…Okay.”

    Dipper rubbed his sore arms. “Are you… Uh… Are you having fun?”

    “Well…” She shrugged. “I’ve definitely had it to HERE with killer robots.” She held her hand above her head.

    “Yeah.” He sighed. “It’s been a killer robot sort of week, hasn’t it?”

    “But heck yeah.” She smiled, reached over, and ruffled his hair. “I’m having loads of fun, dude… You did pretty good back there.”

    He smiled, and re-adjusted his hat. In the dark, she couldn’t see his cheeks getting red. “Yeah… You too… And… I’m having fun too…”

    Then they heard a noise, from off toward the distant end of the room. The sound of something large being moved, and a stack of crates falling over.

    “What was that?” Dipper asked.

    “Kill the light!” Wendy hissed, and pulled him off to hide behind one of the room’s pillars.

    Now everything was dark and silent again. They tried to breathe as quietly as possible.

    The room’s newest arrival was still out of sight, but it was making a quiet, almost robotic noise as it made its way further into the room: the noise of motors flexing and whirring, and metal feet clicking against the floor.

    “Aww, not another killer robot…” Wendy whispered. “If this keeps up, I’m DONE. Just DONE.”

    Dipper noticed something now: the room wasn’t totally dark. There was a faint red ambience, shining across the walls. Now the robotic steps were getting louder, and he could see a single red light, coming slowly towards them. What had one red eye, and robotic legs? He only knew of one thing.

    “Not just any killer robot.” He whispered. “The lion. Juan’s mom. It’s here.”

    “What the heck?” Wendy growled. “Are you sure?”

    “It’s missing an eye.”

    “Crap.” She whispered. “Crap… Okay, I’ll stun it with the magnet gun when it gets close. And we make a break before it can restart. That’s a foolproof plan, right?”

    “Umm… I guess…? How’s the charge on the magnet gun?”

    She checked. “The battery is pretty good… Probably 6 pulses left in it…?”

    “Okay… Let’s do it.”

    They leapt out, and fired the gun.

    The red light turned off, and the robotic sound stopped.

    But then a voice rang out. “EH?” The voice asked. “Wuzzit? Howzit? Stanford? Stanley? That you??”

    Dipper turned on his headlamp.

    The beam of light illuminated an old man, wearing overalls, a tattered hat, a headlamp, and robo-suit pants. He was trying to move his legs, but appeared frozen in place.

    “McGucket?!?” Dipper asked.

    “Eh?” The man squinted at them, and brought up his hand to block his eyes from the light. “Whozit? You an alien?? I beg yer mercy, great sir! I’s was just…”

    “No, it’s just us.” Dipper laughed. “Sorry.”

    McGucket recognized the voice. “The Pines kids?”

    “Yeah!” Dipper said. “I mean no! I mean Wendy! Wendy and I.” He shone the headlamp around to show him their faces.

    “Why were you wearing a red headlamp?” Wendy asked. “We thought you were a killer robot!”

    “Red light saves yer night vision.” McGucket explained. “Why’d yeh think I was a killer robit?”

    “Well… Long story.” Dipper said. “Umm… Hey, sorry about that.”

    “Yeah!” Wendy said. “We’re, like, SO sorry for EMP-ing you! Did we freeze your robot legs? I’m so sorry…”

    “Eh… Yeah…” McGucket undid the straps on his thighs and ankles, and pulled free of the mechanism. It fell over behind him. “I kin still walk though… Wait a minute…” He looked at them, and noticed that they were alone in a dark, secluded room. “Say, were you kids havin’ a roman’ic moment down here? I’m right sorry for in’eruptin’…”

    “What?? No!” Dipper looked at Wendy.

    “What?? No! We were…” Wendy looked at Dipper. “We were exploring the… Probing. Place.”

    “Yeah. Then we crawled through a tube and now we’re here.” Dipper said.

    “And we were fighting killer robots.” Wendy added.

    “Yeah. And complaining.”

    “We were complaining about how many killer robots there are now.”

    “Yeah. There’s killer robots everywhere now. And we were complaining about it.”

    “That’s when you showed up.”

    “Ah.” McGucket looked back at his robot-pants. “I getcha… There have been a right lot of killer robots lately, ain’t there? Almost as if we been stuck in some sci-fi alternate universe where killer robots are more likely…”

    “Umm.” Dipper said.

    “Yeah.” Wendy said. “Except that’s weird.”

    “So why are you down here, McGucket?” Dipper asked.

    “Ah!” McGucket smiled wide enough to show his gold tooth. “Wull! I jist got ta thinkin’ about what transpirified last night with the robit-lifeforms, and figgered we needed a more surefire way to fight ‘em! So I slapped together a high-penetration fusion plasma beam, but when I tried to fire it, the gull-durned thing exploded! So I figured that in order to properly bond and seal the nuclear combustion pressure chamber, I need an adhesive stronger than man has known… Somethin’… Extraterrestrial.”

    “Heard it.” Dipper nodded. “It’s purple when it’s leaked and dried. Look for that.”

    “Good grief, it’s not a spaceship, it’s a glue store.” Wendy facepalmed. “Captain &:V->GN[] would be turning in his grave…”

    “Welp.” McGucket looked around. “One a’ these crates gotta have some, right? Though would you kids mind carryin’ the glue for me? I’m not so strappin’ without my pants…”

    “Sure.” Dipper said.

    “And I got your pants.” Wendy scooped up the apparatus, and draped it across her shoulders like an iron scarf.

    “Why’d you kids say you were down here?” McGucket asked.

    “Uh… We were originally down here to investigate the metal life.” Dipper recalled. “You know, like Juan, that kitten-tron we showed you? And the ecosystem he came from. We think they might all have arrived on Earth aboard this ship, and we wanted to find out how and why.”

    “Yep. We got pretty sidetracked though.” Wendy added. “But it was a pretty epic sidetrack, so no regrets.”

    “The metal life, eh?” McGucket nodded. “Hmm… Have you seen sector 43 yet?”