Future Tense
(July 2018)
16-Dirty Work
Dipper got the impression that Ford was living in his shielded lab beneath the Shack. A tray held dishes and a glass, along with food scraps—a salad bowl with a few shreds of lettuce, a plate with a corner of a roll and the skin from a chicken breast, with scattered grains of rice, a tumbler with a quarter-inch of water in it, probably melted ice from a glass of sparkling water. A blanket draped over the only comfortable chair in the room, and a pillow rested on it. Ford, normally fastidious, had not shaved and his chin bristled with five o'clock shadow.
Not entirely to Dipper's surprise, Ford had quickly isolated the stoneware crock in a containment cage—like a small-animal cage but wired for electricity and equipped with a black box of electronics that shielded it even within the shielded room. It sat on the floor, off to one side, humming with a faint electric buzz.
"Thank you," Ford said, visibly sweating as he checked the shielded crock with an anomaly detector. "It's neutralized for the time being. That was resourceful of you, although I really wish you had consulted me first. This might be extraordinarily dangerous."
"We took care with it," Wendy said. "Any news on this end?"
"Rather grim news," Ford said, his expression haggard. "We found something, or rather the Gnomes did. You won't want to see it."
Dipper and Wendy looked at each other, both sensing how disturbed Ford, good stoic Ford, must feel. "A body?" Dipper guessed in a low voice.
Slowly, quietly, Ford murmured, "Bones of a child. The Gnomes tunneled in from behind the yard and reached the old foundation of the pool. They discovered what I believe to be a decayed satchel—barely scraps now—and within it a skeleton huddled in a fetal position. The bag, the satchel, whatever it was, kept the material from excessive degradation, so—well. In short, Fiddleford was able to isolate a sample and is extracting and analyzing DNA. He'll compare it to an existing sample of Punt DNA to see if there's a match."
"From Mr. Punt?" Dipper asked, surprised.
"No, no, from a cousin in New York, a criminal. I won't specify his crimes, but his DNA was processed about three years ago. If the child was related, we should be able to tell. If the boy was a Punt, well, I hope we can go further from there."
"Creepy," Wendy said, hugging her upper arms.
"How about the link between Punt and the Trianguli Obumbratio coven?" Dipper asked.
Ford adjusted his spectacles. "Mason, you discovered an odd corner of lore that I have never heard of," he said. "The Magistri Mundi, yes, most scholars of paranormality know of them. Of course the name means 'Master of the World," world in this sense meaning the, um, mundane realm, the realm of human activities, as opposed to spiritual dimensions. The master the adherents served is a purely theoretical entity, a force more than a personality, that can give its followers power over material things."
"Shadows of the triangle, Dr. P," Wendy said, stressing the word 'triangle.'
"Yes, yes, certainly suspicious," Ford said with a frown. "Bill Cipher may—just may—have been involved, if not in the overall philosophical movement, then at least in the Shadows subset. That's far from impossible. In those years Cipher was always invading people's dreams, tempting them with offers of knowledge and achievement. I learned that to my everlasting shame and regret when for a time I accepted him as my Muse."
"What are the odds that Cipher was the Master?" Dipper asked.
Ford made a scale of his two twelve-fingered hands. "Fifty-fifty, perhaps. After all, the triangle is a universal human symbol, and not every triangle is meant to evoke Cipher. Sometimes, as Sigmund Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar."
"Huh?" Dipper asked.
Wendy said, "As opposed to a phallic symbol." She couldn't help giggling. "Dipper, you don't have to blush!"
"Sorry!"
"I will have to—very carefully, of course—examine this container before even advancing a hypothesis. You're reluctant to get in touch with Billy Sheaffer?"
Dipper said, "I will if you tell me to. We chat online or by text three or four times a week, and right now he's really moody and unhappy. His body's going through changes, and the girl he's been friends with is sort of drifting away from him. He's a little fragile emotionally, and I hate to—"
"I understand," Ford said. "For the time being, we'll do the best with what we have. Thank you again, and if you don't mind, take this." He handed Dipper a small flat device, about half the size of a cell phone. "Keep it with you tonight, and if I need help, I'll press the panic button to signal you. Come down as soon as you can, but use extreme caution, and before you enter this room, make sure you're talking to me."
"Maybe I'd better just stay with you," Dipper said.
"No." The refusal sounded gentle but firm. "A sealed container like this—well, it could be a great many things. And most of them involve risk. I know what I'm doing, and I'll exercise every caution, but if you will merely listen for the alarm to go off, that's as much as I can in conscience ask of you."
Wendy asked, "Will the shielding around this lab keep anything bad from busting out?"
Ford nodded. "I think there's no danger of any creature or force escaping."
Turning to Dipper, Wendy said, "Get the air mattresses from the closet, and I'll get our sleeping bags from the car. Dr. P, don't argue with us. We're gonna sleep in the next room just in case you need us in a hurry."
So much for getting lucky tonight, Dipper thought, immediately feeling a pang of guilt.
About an hour later, Dr. Fiddleford McGucket's genetic analyzer was in the experimental stage. So far it had worked splendidly, though the task he had assigned it was a sad one. As soon as it had finished, he fed in the results from the DNA record of Warren Punt, a first cousin, presumably, of Burnwald's father.
McGucket whistled. He picked up the secure phone and called Ford, who answered immediately: "What have you found, old friend?"
"Rounding up, twelve per cent," McGucket said. "That there little fellow was sure-enough a Punt. Reckon we could git our hands on a sample from Burnwald his own self?"
"That may be possible. At the debate, he drank from a bottle of water. At my suggestion Stanley salvaged that and I advised him to preserve it. I'll have it sent straight to you. You're not on campus alone?"
"Not hardly. Chesley is guardin' the door, and I got the night man, Hervey, keepin' watch over the security system for the whole dang building. Nothin' so far. Quiet evening."
"I've told Stanley to make sure the bottle is secure and untouched. I'll call him and see if he can bring it to you."
"Okee-dokee, Ford. Lissen, though—I dunno if Burnwald could rightly be charged with any funny business in this little tyke's death. He wouldn've been jest a li'l shaver back when it happened. Reckon that it'd be his daddy who was responsible, but he's dead. Still, if Burnwald's been gettin' rich by playin' like he's this poor little kid all growed up, don't let him get off Scot free."
"We'll do our best," Ford promised.
"Let us!" Mabel said.
"I dunno," Stanley muttered. "I'm kinda tired but running an errand like this just might be dangerous."
"I've got my grappling hook!"
Teek, at Mabel's elbow, added, "Let me borrow one of your baseball bats."
"Ha! Good man! OK, I think you knuckleheads would be safe enough. Mabel, don't drive your car, though. Teek, you drive, let Mabel be the lookout, OK?"
They agreed. Stan had carefully put the capped, nearly empty bottle in a paper bag. He dug it out and said, "Don't open the bag until you hand it over to old man McGucket. You get the idea you're bein' followed, you call me, y'understand?"
"The bag feels empty," Mabel said. "What's in it?"
"None of your beeswax," Stan said. "Let McGucket worry about that. Listen, kids, you drive over, drop this off, and then drive straight back, got me? Call me soon as you've done it, and call me again when you get back home. And watch out for anyone trying to trail you. Here, this is McGucket's secret phone number. And if you gotta call me, use the Stan-S line, not my normal one."
"Sure, sure," Mabel said. For over a year, every member of the Pines family had two cell phone numbers, one the normal one, the other an encrypted one—the S meant "secure."
Mabel drove her Rav4, Black Beauty, to Teek's house, where they changed to his silver Focus. "Keep it at the speed limit," Mabel said. "I'll make sure nobody's following."
Twilight had settled in, and Teek switched on his headlights. Despite Mabel's urging, Teek drove sedately. Mabel kept up a constant commentary on an imaginary police radio: "Heading out of town, due east! A suspicious vehicle is behind us. Wait, it's a lumber truck, probably not a bad guy. Ugh, there's Punt's stupid billboard! We're crossing the East Bridge, the coast is clear ahead. Nobody behind us . . . through the cliffs and out of the Valley . . . Turning onto the highway . . .. Headlights behind us, Teek, take evasive action!"
"I don't think they're following us," Teek said. "That car didn't come out of the Valley."
"Keep an eye on them, anyway!"
It turned off after a few miles, and the rest of the way, no headlights appeared to be pacing them. Before long Teek reached the Institute, but Mabel insisted that Teek drive past the campus, make a U-turn, and come back. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"There was a car coming toward us," she said. "The U-turn shook them. I wanted you to wait until there weren't any other cars around before turning onto the campus."
They didn't have the high-security remote, so they parked as close as they could to the front entrance to the main building. Mabel called McGucket's secure number and he said, "You just wait where you set till I kin come down and open up for you. Then hustle over to me with the bag, and you git on home. Be there in two shakes."
"Everybody's being so suspicious!" Mabel said. She speed-dialed Stanley, and when he answered, she said, "We're here, and everything's OK. Talk to you later!"
In about half a minute—two pretty long shakes, Mabel thought—they saw McGucket unlock the front door. Both Teek and Mabel hopped out and hurried over. "Here you are!" Mabel said, handing the paper bag over. "Who's that?"
"Night watchman," McGucket said. "Thanks, Mabel. Now git back to the Valley and don't let nobody run you off the road."
"Not on my watch!" Mabel said.
McGucket hurried back inside, the watchman double-locked the classroom building door, and Mabel said, "Hey, Teek! Let me drive on the way back, all right?"
The very moment that McGucket probed the dregs of water in the plastic bottle—when anyone drinks from a bottle, some saliva backwashes in—and about thirty miles away, Burnwald Punt paused as he sawed with his knife at the thick steak on his plate. He frowned, staring at something that no one else could see, something that lay out there far beyond the restaurant.
"What are they up to?" he muttered. He forked a chunk of rare steak into his mouth and his jaws worked as he chewed it. "They got something of mine. What do they have?"
Unusually for him, Punt pushed the plate away and raised his hand. "Over here!" he yelled, making heads turn. Probably some of the other diners recognized him from the TV. They murmured.
The waitress hurried over. "Yes, sir?"
"Check," he said. "Wait, how much is it?"
"Thirty-eight—" she started.
He handed her two twenties. "There."
"You haven't even finished half—" the waitress began.
He ignored her. She muttered, "Thanks for the one-dollar tip!"
He paid no attention. In the well-lighted lot behind the restaurant, his driver, Mick Mitchell, sat in the car, eating a sandwich. When Punt ripped the back door open, Mitchell started so violently that he dropped his food. "Sir!"
"Start the engine," Punt said. "Get me back to Gravity Falls. Now!"
"I spilled some—"
"I'll dock your pay for it. Dammit, get moving. Now!"
Knowing that objecting would only land him in deeper trouble, Mitchell put the limo in gear and headed back to Gravity Falls.
