Six-Fingers

Fiddleford Homer Mecc grew up in big family of candle-makers in the vicinity of what would one day be Gravity Falls. Times were hard, and sometimes the only way the pioneer family could draw sustenance was by reading stories together around the fire. Fiddleford sometimes ate the books; with his demigod constitution he could digest the paper. He survived, when many of the other children died.

At fifteen he ran away to the coast. He found a rough-looking saloon by the waterfront, and he strutted in, trying to look tough.

"What do ya want, kid?" asked the barkeep.

"I'm lookin' fer work on a ship," said Fiddleford.

"Hah!" said the barkeep. "Ya look like a landlubber to me, and ya smell like tallow, not tar."

"What's that thing on your beard, candle-maker?" asked a tough customer, coming nearer.

"This is my lucky stripe. I've had it on my face since I was a baby, born with it on my chin, my mother says," said Fiddleford.

"What's it good fer?" asked the barkeep.

"It's made of a tough stuff what never wears out. It has glue on the back what never loses its stickum. When my beard grew out I just kept it on the beard."

"I want it," said the tough customer. "Give it here."

The man reached for the strip, but Fiddleford grabbed his wrist in one hand and slammed it to the bar.

"Nobody touches my lucky stripe," said Fiddleford.

The tough customer backed off, rubbing his wrist. "Hey, this guy's strong as a bear."

Another man in a dark blue coat came up to Fiddleford.

"I like the cut of your jib, mate," said the man. "I'm Jake, the Pirate King. How'd ya like to join me crew?"

"Sure as shootin'," said Fiddleford.

"What's yer name?" asked Jake.

"I'm Fiddleford Mecc – I mean," he looked under the bar for an inspiration for a tougher-sounding alias, and spotted a tin bucket being used as a spittoon. "I'm Pirate McGucket, what spits in a bucket."

He aimed a shot of spit into the container, which gave out a ring when it hit.

"Welcome to my crew, Pirate McGucket," said the pirate.

McGucket spent a few years as a pirate, going up and down the West Coast looking for trading ship prey. He even became a pirate captain himself. But the living for pirates in a sailing vessels fell off as more steam-powered ships came into use.

McGucket heard of the gold discovered at Sutter's Mill in California and became a prospector for a while. He never struck it rich, so after that he became a naturalist and explorer. It turned out he was a skilled artist (a talent he inherited from his mother, Callisto/Mabel). He traveled around the country, exploring and selling his wildlife sketches for a living.

Finally, in 1865, he felt drawn back to his home region, which was now called Gravity Falls. All the Meccs had died or moved away by this time and their candle business was gone, but he fixed up the old abandoned house as a place to stay. He continued to call himself McGucket.

He explored the region and found many curious things. In all his travels, he had never discovered such a place. Investigating creatures like gnomes, floating eyeballs, and vampires could get dangerous, but with his strength and wilderness skills he was more than up to the challenge.

He bought a set of three journals with burgundy covers and brass corners, and added a numbered six-fingered hand decoration to the cover of each. He began filling them up with notes and sketches.

One day, he found a pair of brown bib-and-brace overalls in a hollow stump. He tried them on instead of his worn-out clothing and found they fit. He knew there was nothing in the pockets when he put them on, but later when he reached into a pocket for his handkerchief he felt a crinkly piece of paper. He pulled out a note of currency.

"Hoo-wee!" McGucket said. "Magic money pants!"

The bill turned out to be for negative twelve dollars, less than worthless, but he put it into his wallet anyway. It might be worth something as a collector's item.

McGucket began to have dreams where a odd triangular-shaped being visited him. This happened every night for weeks. It repeated "618, 618, 618" and showed him a ring with ten spaces in it. Only one space was filled, with the six-fingered hand symbol on his journals. He recorded all of this on a page in his second journal.

It also recited a summoning formula, which he recorded on the next page. On that same page, he sketched the creature as it was depicted on the negative twelve dollar bill in his wallet.

He decided to try out the summoning. As directed, he put out candles in a ring within a birch wood where the tree patterns looked like eyes. He recited the formula, ending with "Backwards message, backwards message, backwards message."

There was a sense of time slowing down and flowing backwards, and the world around turned gray. The yellow triangular being appeared.

"Hi, Fiddleford McGucket," said the entity.

"Who are ya?" asked McGucket.

"I'm going back to my code number for now, for security reasons," said the being. "Call me 618."

"What do ya want?" McGucket asked.

"I'd like to show you more of the mysteries around here, Six-Fingers. In return, I'm going to need your help to find some people. They're associated with those symbols I showed you on my ring."

"I only saw the one symbol," McGucket said. "My own journal-cover thingy."

"That will change as we get more information," said the being. "I've made an open channel from the future to this point in time. A loop-back like that is risky, but it will save time in the long run."

"I don't reckon I follow ya, but I'll help ya so I can larn more about this region," said McGucket.

As time went on, the relationship between 618 and McGucket seemed to grow into friendship. They went underground to see a cave full of dinosaurs preserved in sap. McGucket sketched them, especially the pterodactyl. He built a church over the site, with an eye-like symbol over the door that suggested 618's single eye.

Eventually, once 618 decided he could be trusted, he was shown the secret entrance to an underground base with two floors, the first filled with amazing technology and the other with a portal the being said would lead to other worlds, once it was given some maintenance repair and recharged.

He built a simple, triangular-wedge-shaped cabin over the underground site, and moved in there.

McGucket was fascinated and set himself to learn all he could about the science, mathematics, and physics behind this advanced technology. He copied the activation code settings; Entity 618 insisted that he spread the diagram out over his three separate journals, for security.

McGucket added, on one of the pages in a symbolic code of his own, "The portal when completed will open a gateway to infinite new worlds and herald a new era in mankind's understanding of the universe. Plus, it will probably get girls to start talking to me finally."

There was a girl in particular in town he had his eye on, Kate Everclean. His growing confidence with technology let him start a small company of his own; he finally was able to talk to her, date her, and marry her. Unfortunately his secrecy and obsessions led to her leaving him within a year, but not before they had a son together; she got custody. In anger, he built his first attack robot, modeled on the pterodactyl he had seen. It created a lot of destruction in town, but it was never traced to him.

"I only saw two symbols," McGucket said. "My own journal-cover thingy and a pair of glasses."

"That will change as we get more information," said the being. "There are a couple of kids we need to get into the area. I don't have symbols for them; they aren't even born yet. Before that, we need a relative of theirs here, so that their parents can send them to stay with him in the summer of 2012."

"I don't reckon I follow ya, but I'll help ya so I can larn more about this region," said McGucket.

"Find out what you can about a man named Stan Pines," said 618. "He will become the grandfather of the children one day. I'm not even sure where he lives. Somewhere on the East Coast. I need to find out now so I can take steps to get him here."

Many years later, McGucket was able to report, in a dream, "Yes-siree, 618. I found the man, Stanford Pines. Seems he had a bit of trouble with the law, and there was some records I could get hold of with your fancy tools here. Seems he's in jail in Columbia."

"All right," said 618. "I'll start pulling some strings to get him free."

In jail in Columbia, Samuel Pines, alias Stanford Pines, alias Stanley Pines (which was actually his twin brother's name), was trying to be buddies with his cell-mates Jorge and Rico.

"Jorge, Rico, you're the two best Colombian prison friends a fellah could make.

Jorge said, in Spanish, "I hope he dies."

Rico said, also in Spanish, "Yes."