A/N: Waaaargh! Sorry once again for the hiatus: family events ganged up and ambushed me for the last three months. I'm so grateful for all of you still viewing, reviewing, favouriting and following in spite of all my delays. Northgalus2002, Krista Perry, Hourglass Cipher and Guest - thank you so much. This chapter is something of a transition to get us started again - also, a means of ensuring that the chapters don't completely explode like some of my other stories. I hope you enjoy.
Anyway, without further ado, the newest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy.
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is not mine. About the only thing I do own are the typos and the hiatuses.
It took a long time for Dipper to stop crying, and by then, Mabel was already carrying him away
Truth be told, she would have liked nothing better than to have explained literally everything to him right then and there, but by then the sounds of shouted orders and booted footsteps was already creeping swiftly closer, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before the agency's hunters finally caught up with them. Besides, it was clear to her that Dipper wasn't in any fit state to have any more bombshells dropped on him: his escape from the command centre, combined with the past twenty-odd minutes of flight, terror and tears had left him almost unconscious in her arms. In the end, all she had to do was hold him close, keep him secured, and start running.
Fortunately, the agency hadn't deployed helicopters to search the town just yet, otherwise she would have been spotted very quickly: as far as Mabel could tell, most of them were either protecting the damaged command centre or being diverted to the edge of the forest – presumably to help out the agency troops still engaged in battle with the gnomes. So, for the time being, Mabel had the advantage; with a little help from her purloined stealth amulet, it was more than enough to get her and Dipper off Main Street and into the dilapidated labyrinth of rubble and near-featureless ruins that were the mainstream of Gravity Falls these days.
Once she was sure that nobody could see or hear her, she paused just inside the door of a partially-collapsed house and tapped experimentally at her commlink. "Ford?" she whispered. "Are you there?"
There was a muffled expletive from the other end of the line. "Yeah, I'm here," Ford replied, still wincing at the static. "I'll probably be shaking bullets out of my prostheses for the next few days, but I'm here… and currently exiting the command centre ASAP. Listen, I'm glad you called: I found Dipper, but he obviously didn't recognize me through all the implants because he bolted the moment he saw me-"
"It's alright, Ford, I've got him. Trouble is," she continued, over the audible sigh of relief, "where are we supposed to take him? The Mystery Shack isn't safe anymore: even if we didn't have a hole in the wall and a bunch of gnomes still fighting it out with any human unlucky enough to still be within spitting distance of the woods, the agency will almost certainly be keeping tabs on the Shack by now."
"Hrm. I do have one or two possible refuges left around Gravity Falls that the agency doesn't know about – and even if they do, they probably aren't going to reach them any time soon."
"Wonderful! Where are they?"
"Er… that's the problem. The reason why the agency aren't going to reach the safehouses anytime soon is because they're in the middle of the forest."
Mabel's heart sank. "…oh god," she muttered. "Would any of these safehouses happen to include your old bunker, by any chance?"
"I'm afraid so, yes."
"And is there any chance that your other secondary bases survived the gnome activity these last few months?"
There was an embarrassed pause on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, Mabel," said Ford at last, "but the bunker's the only one they haven't ransacked."
"And with good reason! The Shapeshifter is still down there, Ford, remember?"
"Look, I know it's not exactly the most welcoming place in the world right now-"
"- but it's the only place that's still functional, I know, I can already guess. I trust you've been keeping it maintained and stocked?"
"Absolutely. It'll be safe so long as we don't stray too deep into the lower levels."
"And as long as the power generators don't break down from neglect. Again."
"That happened exactly once!"
"Twice, Grunkle Ford. I remember the second time well enough because it took a full week before my hearing was back to normal, another three before I was able to turn my head to the right again, and about five months before I could walk without creaking."
"Good gravy, you act as though I couldn't repair the damage. Speaking of which, how are your joints feeling?"
"Well, I don't have any pain in my elbows or knees, so the cartilage restoration's still going strong. With that in mind, it shouldn't be too hard to get Dipper over to the bunker by the time you've finished getting the place up and running. With any luck, Schmebulock isn't using my route as a thoroughfare. In the meantime, once you've gotten the external defences online, prep the surgery; we need to make sure those agency bastards didn't do any serious damage to Dipper. Oh, and make sure the Shapeshifter doesn't start thawing out while you're at it."
"Yes, Ma'am," Ford quipped, and promptly signed off with another ear-stinging burst of static.
The noise must have been louder than anticipated, for as Mabel crept out of hiding, Dipper stirred in her arms. "Where… where are we going?" he murmured sleepily, eyes opening ever-so-slightly.
"Someplace safe," Mabel assured him.
"But what… what's…"
Dipper's eyelids fluttered wildly as he struggled to regain consciousness, without much success; now that the adrenaline of the last few minutes had finally worn off, the side-effects of the medical anaesthesia were already reasserting themselves.
"What's happening?" he mumbled at last, and once again Mabel heard the fear and grief building in her brother's voice. "…doesn't make sense, Mabel… none of it makes sense… I need you to… explain it to me…"
"I will; trust me, everything's going to make sense, just as soon as we get to safety, okay? Then I'll tell you everything, I promise."
Dipper sighed wearily, fading back into unconsciousness once again. "Wanna go home," he whimpered. Then, just as quickly as he'd awoken, he was asleep.
Not for the first time that day, Mabel had to stop for a minute and take a deep breath before the enormity of what she had to do overwhelmed her. She'd already revealed the truth to Dipper, but now she had to bring him up-to-date with everything; how the hell was she supposed to tell him that there was no home anymore? How was she supposed to tell him that his parents, his best friends, his crush, even Grunkle Stan were all dead or worse?
And in the end, she could once again only sigh deeply and resolve to deal with that little catastrophe when she actually could. For now, she had to make her way to the bunker and hope that there it would be safe enough to reveal everything… and that Dipper would be able to cope with it.
He'll be fine, she told herself. He's dealt with situations just as bad, if not worst. He was at ground zero of the apocalypse, remember? He survived Weirdmageddon for three straight days while the rest of Gravity Falls was being petrified and dragged off to the Fearamid. Once he's had some time to get his bearings and digest everything, he'll be okay. It's what's going to happen afterwards that should really worry you…
And somehow, Mabel would have felt so much better if she'd actually been able to believe a word of her own rationalizations.
Sighing, she held Dipper close once again and took off running as quickly as her well-worn legs could carry her.
"Is this going to take much longer?"
"Just finishing the final stitches, sir. The serum will be ready within minutes."
Director Powers leant back against the bulkhead and muttered a few less-than-directorial words. He'd had to do a great many undignified things in his lifetime, including some of the more surreal moments he'd spent undercover, but none of them were quite as embarrassing as having to sit in full few of his men as a blank-faced orderly sewed up the hole in his guts. As director, a certain degree of poise and isolation was required of him in public, and few things spoiled this façade more thoroughly than being left slumped in a hallway, badly-wounded, shirtless and covered in blood while bewildered agents stared at him. But it had to be done.
True, sewing up his belly wouldn't do much at this point: Bloody Murder Mabel had proved herself worthy of her moniker more than a thousand times over in the last few hours, and her last bit of evidence had left Director Powers with more than enough internal damage to leave him out of commission for the next five months – at least. Needless to say, Powers couldn't afford to spend any more time in a hospital bed, not when there was an important retrieval operation to take charge of.
And the duty of capturing Dipper would have to be performed by Powers himself – not his deputies, not his operatives, but him.
Polonius Northwest would not accept excuses.
Bill Cipher would not accept excuses.
The punishment for losing the subject would be terrible enough on its own, but if it was discovered that Powers had been lying in a hospital bed while his hunters were out searching for Dipper Pines… well, even if they did find him, Bill would exact more than just a pound of flesh in payment for laxity. The way he saw it, Powers had two black marks on his record so far: the failure to anticipate the attack on the command centre, and his equally disastrous failure to prevent the escape/rescue attempt. The only way to wipe the slate clean and ensure that he would still receive the gifts that he had been promised would be to – once again – deal with the situation personally, ideally before Bill realized that his chosen vessel had escaped.
Hence, the serum.
Bill had been generous indeed with his blessings. Among the priceless artefacts donated by Polonius Northwest in the early days of his partnership with the agency had been a sealed urn, over eight thousand years old and filled to the brim with a strange fluid. Chemical analysis indicated that this substance was mutagenic in nature, and – much more surprisingly – somehow still as potent as it had been on the day it had first been contained. Tests of the liquid's effect on living organisms had been nothing short of remarkable, imbuing test subjects with brief-but-astronomical boosts in strength, speed, stamina, and regeneration, along with more than enough superficial mutations to do the work of an entire psychological warfare division; in fact, the less-cooperative subjects had been so empowered by the process that it had taken the combined efforts of an entire company of heavily-armed soldiers to subdue them long enough for the substance to wear off.
According to Polonius, this fluid (which had been classified as teratogenihydratexyln, or "the serum" for brevity's sake) had been meant exclusively for use by their most-trusted agents, ideally if eliminating Mabel or Stanford Pines proved impossible via normal methods – always a possibility considering the latter's cybernetic augmentation and the sheer ruthlessness of the former. But now…
The medics had warned Powers there would be side-effects, yes. The regenerative effects of the serum didn't distinguish between healthy cells and cancerous tissue: he'd seen the autopsy reports on some of the less-than-fortunate test subjects, the ones who'd been admitted to the test chamber with a skin lesion or two at the most and left at stage 4 – if they left at all. Metastasis was inevitable, prolonged and insidious, for as long as the serum was active, users wouldn't notice anything amiss with their bodies; it was until the effects wore off that the newly-expanded cancer became truly devastating.
At this late stage of his condition, Powers would be courting death by taking the serum: if he didn't find Dipper before it wore off, Bill's vengeance would be the least of his worries; at best, the metastasis would leave him with days to live – and at worst, hours.
But if he succeeded… well, the reward would be more than worth the risk. Once Bill had claimed the body of Dipper Pines as his own and regained all his old abilities, he would have it within his power to halt the cancer's progression, even reverse it. Powers wouldn't need much time in the long run, just long enough for the geneticists to finish their work on the immortality treatment and guarantee Powers' indefinite survival.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," he grumbled.
"Sir?"
"Nothing. Are we ready for the injection?"
"We can begin immediately, sir… but I still think you should leave the task of finding the subject to Agent Kierke and his-"
"Objection noted," Powers snarled. "Now give me the damned shot and stop wasting my time."
Nodding obediently, the medic reached into the briefcase by his side and, as his assistant began prepping Powers' arm for the injection, drew out the vial of oily black serum that was now his sole means of achieving victory.
He barely felt the sting of injection; if anything, all he felt was a faint chill as the needle slid cleanly through his flesh. But as the plunger descended, Powers swore he could see the veins in his arms turn pitch-black as the serum raced through his bloodstream. And then…
Then there was pain – of a sort, a boiling caustic burn rippling across his extremities, harsh enough to draw a hiss from his lungs but not strong enough to elicit a scream. Then, there was merely a tingling, bubbling sense of discomfort as the first charges made themselves known, as bones temporarily shifted beneath his skin and unnatural shapes oozed from his flesh like rising dough.
The onlookers drew back in horror, and the medic dropped the syringe with a gasp as his former patient slowly rose from his seat, now sporting appendages heretofore unseen in nature.
But Powers only smiled – a smile that began on his face and stretched almost to the back of his skull, an all-encompassing picket fence of jagged fangs. His eyes were open now, truly open to his place in Bill Cipher's plan; yes his eyes were opening from head to toe, new ocular growths staring out at the world with tiny triangular pupils the colour of burnished gold. Muscles like steel cables rewove themselves across his body, and bones that had previously been as brittle as old clay now grew stronger than steel… and as Powers' maw gaped open with sick elation, new sensory organs sparked into life, swiftly tracing the path of Dipper Pines across the corridor, out through the hole in the wall, and into Gravity Falls.
A mad, giddy laugh escaped his jaws. Bill had truly favoured him with his blessings by granting him this serum when they'd cemented their alliance; he'd given Powers his trust, and in return, Powers would give him the perfect vessel. Dipper Pines was out there, and now there was no escaping his true master's reach.
Oh yes, Bill would have his prize.
Dipper wasn't sure when he awoke or what had roused him; he didn't recognize his surroundings, nor did he remember how he'd found himself here.
Truth be told, he wasn't really awake: his eyes were halfway open and he was dimly aware of his surroundings, but his body seemed too heavy for him to rise, his mind too lethargic to really take in the world around him. For the time being, he was hovering on the border between sleeping and full consciousness, always fading back into slumber just when he was on the verge of becoming wide awake. Every now and again, his memory would stir and remind him that something important was meant to happen, or that something earth-shattering had occurred in the last few hours, but every time he tried to remember exactly what he needed to know, it all went slipping through his fingers like sand through a strainer.
Don't worry about it, he told himself. Just enjoy this while it lasts. Any minute now, mom's going to knock on the door and wake you for school. So don't bother trying to remember. Don't think about it: just lie here and sleep while you can. Just sleep…
And for a while, he did.
He lay, happily drifting in and out of consciousness, aware of the pillow beneath his head and the blankets layering him, but of precious little else. And he stayed that way for quite some time – up until a voice from somewhere just beyond the fog of lethargy abruptly shattered his reverie.
"Jesus, Ford," said the voice. "Would it have hurt you to have tidied this place up?"
He knew the owner of this voice. He couldn't say how, but he knew the speaker's name. Somewhere amidst the fog shrouding Dipper's head, connections were already being made: he didn't know how, but this tired, well-worn voice was somehow linked to Mabel.
No, no, don't think about it! Just lie still and sleep. The more you think about it, the worse it'll get!
Another voice spoke up. "Under the circumstances, it's as clean as it can possibly get. Besides, we shouldn't need to conduct any further surgery, so it's not like we've any great need for a sterile environment."
Once again, the faint sting of familiarity: he'd heard this voice not long ago, amidst blaring klaxons, gloomy emergency lighting and the icy downpour of sprinklers, a voice calling out for him to wait, somehow making itself heard even over the screams of dying men… and it had sounded familiar then, too, almost as if-
Don't think about it you idiot! You'll only regret it. Now just close your eyes and let yourself drift back to sleep.
"Little bit presumptuous aren't we?" said the first voice. "We shouldn't need it, just like those agency goons shouldn't have been able to break through the barrier, just like the agency shouldn't have been able to get its hands on magical artefacts, just like Bill Cipher shouldn't have been able to come back from the dead. Need I go on?"
Bill Cipher?
And just like that, everything came flooding back, every single memory he'd been doing his best to keep repressed in sleep suddenly galloping into the forefront of his brain: the sickness, the quarantine, waking up in the operating theatre, meeting Polonius and Director Powers, the realization that Bill was somehow still active, the encounter with the inexplicably-older Pacifica, the harrowing escape… and then meeting Mabel – aged and scarred almost beyond recognition. And now there was no stopping the thought that had hijacked his brain in that moment: I wasn't in quarantine for a few days; I was in quarantine for years.
Suddenly wide awake, Dipper sat bolt upright, frantically scanning his surroundings for something – anything – that could somehow force this nightmare to make sense. He took in the cramped quarters, the cobwebbed shelves overhead, the corroding pipework squatting in the corner, the moth-eaten mattress he'd been sleeping on… and long before he noticed the WARNING: FALLOUT SHELTER poster sitting on the wall, he already knew he'd found himself in the bunker.
How could he forget this place after everything that had happened here? The search for the Author, the battle with the Shapeshifter, the confession of his feelings for Wendy – no, too much had transpired for him to banish this place from his brain.
But he wasn't alone here. Sitting on the floor just a few feet away were two figures: the first was Mabel – still in her late fifties, still raked with dozens of scars, and wearing a clothes so drab and dull that it only made her look even more alien; after having seen her wearing gaudy sweaters for most of their childhood, seeing her in battered coveralls was even more bewildering than seeing her aged and battlescarred.
And sitting next to her was-
A withered corpse in a trenchcoat stared back at him with eyes of burning scarlet, its shoulders bristling with gleaming metal spider legs. It took all of three seconds for Dipper to recognize the monster that had appeared in the corridor during his escape from the agency; heart hammering, he lurched backwards across the mattress until he was pressed tight against the bunker wall, mouth opening wide and ready to scream-
"It's alright!' Mabel shouted, hurrying over to his side. "It's alright, Dipper! There's nothing to be afraid of; you're perfectly safe."
Dipper felt Mabel's hand on his shoulder, and instantly latched on to it like a drowning sailor making a grab for the last bit of flotsam in a stormy sea. "B-but," he stammered, "But I – he – what…" Too flabbergasted to speak intelligibly, he could only point at the figure hunched in the corner, trusting that things would start making sense if Mabel was here.
But instead, the withered figure got to its feet and slowly approached, arms out in a placating gesture. "Don't be afraid, Dipper," it said. "It's me. I know I've changed a lot, but I know you can recognize my voice; that hasn't changed much in the last few decades."
Dipper blinked. Once again, he couldn't keep himself from making the connection: once again, the voice was indeed familiar… and once he looked past the glowing mechanical eyes, the ragged scar tissue and the hairless scalp, the profile was still distinctive – even without the glasses.
"Grunkle Ford?!" he shrieked.
Ford nodded silently.
"But… how? Your eyes! Those spider-things!"
"Time," said Ford simply. "It doesn't stop for anyone, I'm afraid… not that the rest of the world believes it, though." He offered an awkward smile, revealing teeth too smooth and polished to be real. "It's good to see you again, Dipper."
Dipper finally let the breath he'd been holding for the last minute, and realized he was on the verge of tears again. "Could… could someone please explain things?" he asked. "I… nothing makes sense anymore, and I just need to know what's going on. Please?"
Mabel patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. "I'll do my best, I promise. Where do you want to begin?"
Dipper thought for a moment. "How long has it been?"
"What do you mean?"
"How long has it been since I started quarantine?"
Mabel's reassuring grip on his shoulder briefly tightened. "Forty-three years," she replied at last.
"And… I didn't age all that time because of Bill's mark, right?" His hand flew to the livid blemish at the back of his neck, itching furiously at the mark of ownership tattooed across his nape. "Powers said I was immortal – that was why Bill and the agency wanted me; is that right?"
Mabel nodded.
Dipper took a deep breath. This was the part he'd been dreading ever since the first inklings of the truth dawned on him… but he had to know, for the sake of his own sanity if nothing else.
"Where are the others?" he asked quietly. "Grunkle Stan, Soos, Wendy – where are they?"
But Dipper could already tell from the aggrieved looks on Ford and Mabel's faces that the answer was going to be terrible.
"Are they still alive?" he asked.
Silence.
"What about Mom and Dad? Are they…"
Mabel shook her head. "I'm sorry, Dipper."
This time, Dipper couldn't even cry: he'd already had a sneaking suspicion that he'd lost friends and family, especially once Pacifica had showed up as a zombie; besides, he was too worn-out from everything that had happened in the last few hours – the terror, the confusion, the lingering effects of the sedative – to do anything more than sag in exhaustion.
"Tell me everything," he said at last. "What happened to me, what happened to you two, what happened to our friends… and if there's anything we can do about it." His spirits dipped further, and he added, "Even if there's nothing to be done."
"Are you sure?"
"Mabel, I'm done being clueless. I just want to know what happened to my life – to everything in the last few decades. Please: don't hold anything back. Tell me everything."
Mabel sighed and sat down on the bed beside him. "Alright," she said. "If you're sure." She took a deep breath, and began in earnest. "It all started right after Weirdmageddon; you remember how the mark first appeared and you started getting sick? Well, it wasn't long before we noticed the real symptoms..."
Polonius frowned, silently crushing his cellphone under his heel. Something was quite clearly wrong.
He'd no idea why. Dipper was in captivity and almost fully-harvest; Shooting Star and Sixer were on the ropes; the Mystery Shack was locked down; and with the area around the statue completely secured, it was almost time to begin the ritual: the first of the family bastards were now ready to sacrifice their corporeal existence to fuel Bill Cipher's resurrection and pave the way for his eventual possession of Dipper Pines, the perfect vessel.
So why did he feel so… uneasy?
It was true that Dipper hadn't been released into his custody yet, Pacifica hadn't returned from the command centre, and the two troublemakers hadn't been put down just yet, but… well something had to be wrong if Director Powers wasn't answering his calls.
The realization hit him very suddenly: the teratogenihydratexyln.
Ever since the serum had been first contained, it had been enchanted with spells to allow Bill and his loyal servants to sense its usage – to weed out faithless followers who abused his gifts. It was for this reason that Polonius could sense its power in use, by none other than Director Powers. For some reason, the serum was in use over at the command centre; by rights, that special potion should only be used in the direst of emergencies and never by the Director.
Something had gone horribly wrong – and was poised to get worse. Director Powers was not playing according to the rules.
Fortunately, he'd claimed a few additional operatives among the ranks of the agency for just such an eventuality. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a FIA-issue commlink, and keyed in a few well-chosen numbers.
A moment later, there was a muffled query from the other end of the line.
"You already know who this is, Lieutenant Waltramm," Polonius replied.
There was a pause, and then the Director's resident hatchet-man offered his profoundest apologies.
"That's what I like to hear. Now, I'm getting a funny feeling that things aren't going well over there. I don't expect you to answer me honestly, not while your boss is still alive and enforcing his little rules against emergency non-disclosure… but I do expect to get the services I paid for. Director Powers isn't answering his phone and his secretary isn't taking calls, so it's up to you to make sure things run smoothly."
Muffled sounds of vague agreement echoed from the commlink speaker.
"Good boy. If the situation is as bad as I suspect and Director Powers doesn't return from his little fox-hunt, we'll need to enact the contingency plan we talked about. Get down to communications and send word to Monoc Prison: tell them it's time for our special prisoner to be moved. They don't need to know where – just inform them that it's imperative that she be transferred to your care immediately."
The commlink squawked in confusion.
"Isn't it obvious? I'll be looking after her. No need to bother yourself with preparing a cell. Now get to work: I want the prisoner on a helicopter flight here within the hour. It's time that Wendy Corduroy returned to Gravity Falls…"
