Apparition
(October 25-31, 2014)
10 Consequences
The light was dim—the cars' headlights sent angled beams in different directions, and a weak light shone over the gas pumps in front of a country store fifty yards down the road—but in the swirling dust, Dipper saw everyone was outside of the cars. The Stutz lay in the ditch, canted at an angle, and beside it the middle-sized thug held onto a kicking, yelling Angelique while Mabel danced around slapping at him.
The other two guys, the big one and the one Chazz had called Mike, had ganged up on Chazz. "Hold him!" Butch yelled as Chazz flailed away and Mike tried to grab his arms. Dipper saw that Butch held something, a stick, a short club, and anger boiled inside him. He ran forward. Chazz spun and landed a punch right in Mike's face, sending the thin boy reeling back into the ditch. Butch, murder in his eyes, stepped forward, drew back to slug Chazz with the weapon—and grunted in surprise when Dipper grabbed his arm.
He tried to shake Dipper loose, but Dipper clung on with his left hand and hit him hard in the stomach with his right, making the air oof out of him. "Come help me!" Butch bawled. Mike didn't respond—he was sitting hunched over on the ground with a hand cupped over his nose—but the middle-sized one let go of Angelique and came blundering over.
Chazz spun on his heel and slugged him, sending him staggering.
"Two on one! No fair!" Butch shrieked.
And the headlights of a slowing car shone on them all. Brakes creaked.
"Break it up!" The no-nonsense voice came from a uniformed man stepping from behind the wheel of the police car.
An elderly voice came from the other side of the Stutz: "Officer, I saw it all. That's my store down there. Three of these boys were manhandling a girl!"
"That would be Angelique Flannigan!" Mabel said. "Here she is!"
"All right, all right, stand over here, ladies. Now who's who?" the policeman said.
Butch blustered, "These guys jumped me—"
"He's a liar!" Chazz snapped. "Angelique, are you OK?"
"I think so."
"The big one's got a billy club," the old man's voice said.
"Drop it," the policeman said, striding forward.
"My uncle's the Deputy Chief!" Butch growled. "You're about to get in big trouble!"
"I doubt it." Another man had climbed from the passenger seat of the police car. "I'm the Chief of Police!" He went straight to Mike, who was still sitting bent over. "I know you, Kowalcyk. What happened, punk?"
His voice was unclear because of his smashed nose, but Mike said, "Butch said he wanted to get Angelique drunk and—"
"You dirty fink!" Butch raised the club as if he were going to throw it at Mike, but the cop slammed down his own nightstick hard, cracking it against that wrist, and with a yowl Butch dropped the weapon. Dipper stepped on it and kept his foot pressed down. It was a sawed-off baseball bat, he realized, its business end swathed with electrician's tape.
"Where's the other one?" the Chief asked.
"It's Crash Collins," Mike said, his voice blurry. "Hep be! My dose id bleeding!"
"He run," the older voice said. "Down the tracks, back toward town."
"We know where he lives," the Chief said. "Oswald, your mom's brother won't get you out of this. You've been warned plenty. This time they'll throw the book. You're eighteen—you're not a kid now."
"My uncle—"
"Girl's dad's a bank manager. I think that trumps a Deputy Chief," the policeman said. "Mister, you got a telephone in that store?"
"Yes, sir, sure do!"
"Call the police station and tell Landvick to send two cars out here. Get a tow truck for the Stutz, too."
"Yes, sir. Here comes somebody else, though."
Dipper looked around. Another old-timey car had pulled off the dirt road behind the police car—he didn't know makes and models, and not even the information he'd gained from Wendy, who was a bit of a mechanic, helped him out. He was surprised—not much, but still—when the adult Pacifica got out. "Chief Alverson?"
"Yes, Miss, that's me."
"I'm with Children's Services. Two of these young people are in my charge. That boy and his sister, over there in the white dress. May I take them?"
"I'll need to get statements from them."
"I'm going to the Finnigan's house. If you like, I can take Angelique as well."
"And Chazz," Angelique said.
"Well, ma'am, they can drive there in—uh. Wasn't there a Ford around here?"
"I didn't see no Ford," the old man said.
The policeman seemed to phase in and out mentally for a moment, then said, "Well—yeah, I guess that would be OK. I'll come around tomorrow morning to take their statements."
"Get in, please," Pacifica said, walking back and opening the doors of the car. Dipper and Mabel squeezed into the front seat. Chazz and Angelique got in back. "No questions," Pacifica said primly as she started the engine.
The drive back to town was nearly silent, except for soft murmurs from the back seat. Pacifica stopped in front of Angelique's house. "Chazz, you and Angelique go inside and tell her folks what happened."
They waited at the curb until the couple had vanished.
Then Mabel said, "I still have her other dress!"
"No, you don't," Pacifica said. "You didn't notice, but she was wearing the original dress when she went inside. The red one's back in the box, good as new."
"What? But she—she didn't change," Mabel protested.
"Time Squad voodoo," Dipper said.
"You are so smart." Pacifica started the car. "By tomorrow they won't remember that you two were ever here, nor will anyone else. Chazz will be the hero—as far as he or Butch or any of them will ever know, he jumped on the running board of Butch's car and clung on until they got to the railroad crossing, then he managed to force Butch to stop and held them off until the police got there."
"But without us—"
"Something really bad would have happened. That's why we brought you into this. We knew Chazz and Angelique needed more help than was available to them in real time. Speaking of time, come on, we're running out of it." She stopped the car in an alley, and they all got out, with difficulty—the space was narrow. They squeezed past, following her. Dipper glanced back around. The car was gone.
"This looks weird, but just follow me." Pacifica walked through a brick wall.
Mabel and Dipper held hands and did the same.
Mabel II waited inside, suited up in her TPAES uniform. "I was starting to think you'd be late!"
"Just in time. The police chief went out with the squad car."
"I used Flannigan's name when I made the anonymous call," Mabel II said. "OK, this is going to be a little unsettling. Five, four, three, two—"
FLASH.
When the mists cleared, Mabel said, "I think we've been here before—Globnar!"
They stood in a glass-walled cubicle, and beyond it a sort of arena could be seen—though no contestants engaged in struggle there.
"No Globnar in this time line," Mabel II said. "Because Time Baby didn't get regenerated here. He's reassembling himself, and it'll take another seven hundred years or so. And he's going to be so cranky!"
Mabel looked baffled. "But—we—I mean, Blendin came back and got us and we figured a way—"
"Th-th-that's right," said a familiar voice. Blendin stood behind them. "I-I-I did get you to h-h-help trick Bill Cipher in your own time. B-b-but h-here I didn't think of that. I was the o-o-only TPAES officer left. So I-I-I've recruited a d-dozen more and got the squad operational again. I'm h-holding things together until Time Baby can come b-back."
"You're gonna hold on for a thousand years?" Mabel asked. "What are you, immortal?"
"I-I-I resent that! I-I'm very well behaved!"
"Boss," Mabel II said, "she said immortal. With a T."
"Oh. Oh, I see. Well, we don't know if we're immortal or not, but we do operate outside of T-t-time m-most of the t-time. So we don't r-really age all that f-fast. For instance, these two agents are th-thirty years old, b-but this is the y-year 2314 according to y-your time calendar."
"Nice perk," Mabel said, winking at her older self.
"All right," Pacifica said. "Our report, Boss: Mission accomplished, but it was close. Mabes, get the reading up."
"Say what?" Mabel asked.
"I'm on it," Mabel II replied. She worked at what seemed to be a holovision computer, studying readouts. "All right! Angelique and her sister got back together that December. The sister stayed in Greentown and went to the local college."
"And Chazz married Angelique!" Mabel said.
"Um—no. But they were good friends, and he got over his infatuation with her, and he did marry and he became a pretty famous writer. He and his wife had four children and one of them—yes! Grew up to do what needed to be done. Dipper lived."
"Wait, what?" Dipper asked. "I died here?"
"Not now," Pacifica said. "It's changed now."
"But—what was this all about?"
"We c-can't t-tell you," Blendin said. "That's a time secret!"
Mabel II said, "Angelique got married to a nice guy and had a great life. Oh, look—the Finnigans and the Reicharts did follow the investment advice they got in the letters we forged! They both rode out the Depression in comfort."
"Money does help," Pacifica said.
"So—all that's left is to send you guys back to your own time line," Mabel II said.
"Wait, wait," Dipper said, waving his arms. "Are we going to remember this?"
Pacifica and Mabel II looked at each other.
Blendin said, "S-sort of. You won't have much time detail in your m-memories, though. And there's s-still a time loose end you'll have to s-settle, b-because to get your time help, we had to involve the t-two of you. There'll be a kind of t-time echo when you go to your s-school dance."
"What?" Mabel asked.
"You'll know it," Blendin said, "when you s-see it."
"We're in a time bubble here," Pacifica told them. "When you leave, various things are going to happen here and in the past. You won't know about any of it. I'm sorry, but it has to be that way."
Mabel II hugged Dipper and Mabel. "Don't worry. It's going to be fine!"
"I'm initiating the time sequence," Blendin said from the holocomputer.
"Mabel!" Mabel yelled. "Time Baby! Calm him down with tummy buzzes!"
Blendin Blandin threw a switch. "So long, Mabel and Dipper. I'll s-see you again. In time!"
And in time-line B, in the year 2019:
Dipper reeled falling backward from the rampaging monster, but someone caught him and dragged him through an opening. The door slammed. A moment later, a devastating explosion shook the whole building. "Wow!" the nineteen-year-old boy, said, getting to his feet. "That was close! Pacifica?"
She was disheveled, her clothing torn, and her bottom lip was bleeding a little. "Are you all right?" she asked urgently. "I was so scared!"
"Y-yeah, I'm fine," Dipper said. "I wonder if that blast sent the Pain Monger back to its own dimension."
Mabel came running up, waving a strange device. "It did! Readings are clear! Way to go, Brobro!" she said. "But that was a big chance to take."
"Pacifica pulled me out just before it went off," Dipper said. He hugged Pacifica. "Thank you."
"I had to do it, Pacifica said, hugging him back." She bit her bloody lip, then added, "Because I love you, dummy!"
"Oh," Dipper said, blinking, looking into her eyes. He brushed a strand of blonde hair from her face and stroked her cheek. I—well, you know—I guess I—"
"Kiss her, you rapscallion!" Mabel said.
It was the first of thousands.
And in time-line B-1, in the year 2030:
"S-so that's the s-story," Blendin stammered. "I need more agents. If you w-want, you can all join. The p-pay's not much, but you'll live practically f-f-f-f, for a long, long time!"
Mr. and Mrs. Mason Pines looked at each other. Pacifica nodded and smiled. "OK, Blendin," Dipper said. "We're in!"
"Me too!" Mabel said. "The Time Twins! And Pacifica!" She did a victorious time air-punch.
It was the first of thousands.
And in time line A, on Halloween night in the year 2014:
"These aren't the costumes we planned to wear," Dipper said. "Where the heck did you get them?"
"Don't know," Mabel admitted. "They just showed up in my room."
The costumes were attracting a lot of attention, anyway. The twins were decked out as TPAES agents—though, to Mabel's extreme disappointment, the time tapes and zap guns were non-operational. She'd tried.
They won the award for Best Ensemble Costume. Mabel danced a good many times, with half a dozen boys, and Dipper danced once with his lab partner, Eileen. But then, as the party wound down, a girl came walking to him through the crowd—a pretty blonde girl with tightly-curled hair, wearing a red flapper dress and a big, wide smile.
"Uh, hi?" Dipper said, wondering why she looked familiar.
She didn't say a word, but stretched out her hand. He took it. She gently pulled him out onto the floor.
The DJ began to play a really weird tune—"Varsity Drag," a moldy relic of the previous century. He looked at his board in utter confusion.
Nobody else was dancing. Who knew how to dance to that crazy music?
Dipper . . . found he somehow did. Sort of. He and the blonde girl had the floor to themselves, a guy in a futuristic outfit, a girl in antique clothing. They did the wild side-stepping, hand-waving, high-kicking moves. The crowd started to laugh and clap along.
Mabel was taking pictures with her phone.
The DJ got the board under control, and the last dance he played was a slow one, a waltz. Dipper had learned that one. He took the blonde girl in his arms, she leaned her cheek on his shoulder, and they danced out the evening.
Then as the crowd began to break up, she led him outside the gymnasium of Piedmont High. She kissed his cheek. And as she walked away in the silvery light of a waxing moon, she . . . simply faded out. Became transparent. Vanished.
"Who was that, Dipper?" Mabel asked at his side.
"I—I'm not sure," Dipper said slowly. "I think maybe it was the ghost of the girl who owned that red dress you bought at the sale. Remember?"
"Yeah," Mabel said in a thoughtful voice. "Kinda. But—she didn't look like a ghost."
"No, she felt real in my arms," Dipper said. He shrugged. "Who knows. Maybe she was an angel."
Who knows?
Maybe she was.
The End