Haven Days
(July 2020)
11-Trial by Jury
Jheselbraum stood—if she stood, she wore a long robe and it was hard to tell if within it her feet even touched the floor—and gazed at Ford with seven unblinking eyes. "We have been watching."
Ford turned and gestured toward, uh—nothing. He was no longer in the classroom building at the Institute, but in a, um, knobbly purple cave? The air seemed to thrum with an odd vibration. "What—where are we?"
"This is a place I know in your valley. It is lined with crystals of amethyst. I have come because the dimension-demon Cipher has reached a crisis point."
"What happened to him?' Ford asked. "He couldn't be suffering from a full infection, not this soon, not even if he inhaled—"
"The boy is safe for now. Your friend the scientist McGucket and he are in a moment of stopped time. You are there, in body. Your awareness is here in the cave. You are imagining yourself in your body, because humans must do that."
"Please answer my questions," Ford said. "What happened? Why did Billy come to the Institute? It's miles from—and how did he get out of Gravity Falls?"
The Oracle raised on thin, long-fingered hand. "The Axolotl is here."
The powerful entity she mentioned materialized, or at least shimmered into visibility—perhaps it was only a reflection—beside the Oracle. Or at least its frilled head did, with the rest of the body still invisible. "I can explain that," said its strange, inhuman, yet very quiet voice. The alien face smiled, or at least the corners of its mouth quirked up. "I . . . keep an eye on Bill Cipher."
"Then please," Ford said, "please tell me."
"Why don't we ask him to join us?"
Ford's body might not have been there in reality, but he knew his heart pounded, miles from where his consciousness, well, "stood" is probably the wrong word, but from where he perceived himself to be.
A momentary golden glow, like a faint, transparent yellow balloon, appeared and then coalesced into Bill Cipher, this version about two feet from apex to base, complete with black bow tie, tall top hat, and cane. He didn't appear in his old jaunty attitude, though, but clutched his cane with both stick-figure hands. His slitted eye twitched as he turned his gaze toward Ford. "Fordsy," he said in an oddly subdued voice. "Frilly. Uh—Oracle, I guess."
"Bill Cipher," the Axolotl said quietly. "You have a chance to plead your case. Your mortal vehicle stands in peril of death. Your influence on the child Billy is the cause. We are ready to hear what you have to say."
"The boy too," said the Oracle. She made no gesture or movement, but with another shimmer Billy Cipher stood superimposed on the hovering image of Cipher. "Uh—" he said.
Cipher had faded almost to invisibility, but his voice came from Billy: "This isn't fair. The kid was trying to help."
"Let us hear from his human side," the Axolotl said. "Tell us what brought you to the place where you tried to help Stanford Pines."
Now the voice was Billy's, unsure and frightened: "I—he—I knew something bad was happening. Because of the pan—pandemic." He swallowed. "I saw, uh, I imagined, I guess, the thing, the disease vacuum? Overheating and, uh, blowing up. I tried to call Fordsy, Dr. Pines, I mean, but his phone was off, and, uh, I knew I had to get there. I rode my bike and, um, they tried to stop me from leaving the checkpoint, but, um, somehow I got past."
"Why didn't you tell Dr. Pines?"
"I, my—the body gets tired. It, my bicycle helped, but when I got to the place, the college, I knew it was too late, that the, uh—the transdimensional portal intake was overheating." The boy's one eye blinked. "Uh. I don't know how I knew that. Uh, I kind of knew where the emergency hose was, I don't know how I knew and, uh, it was hard to turn it on, there's a red steel wheel that's like a steering wheel and I had to hang onto it and pick my feet off the ground to get it to move at first, and then the water started."
"Now," said the Axolotl, "let Bill Cipher speak. Cipher, explain what Billy has told us."
"We're one," Cipher said. "I mean, usually Billy's in charge of the body, but I'm there, always at least in the way-back of his mind. I don't have to tell him things any longer If I think it hard enough, he knows it." Billy looked up at Ford. "Fordsy, I'm not omniscient. I never was, but I know things without knowing how I know, you know? Ha. I saw, foresaw, the particle stream blowing up the works, and then a backfire, and a major Rift would open, and your dimension would implode."
"You did not take the boy's safety into consideration," the Oracle said coldly.
"He is me," Cipher said. And then his voice became Billy's: "We're the same. I knew what I had to do. I knew it might . . .." Billy's voice trailed off and became Bill's again: "Might kill me. Us. I still, we still, had to do it."
"Why did you have to do it?" asked the Oracle.
"Because Dipper and Mabel and Stanford and even Stanley, all their lives depended on it, and, uh, they—"
The voice, now sounding like Billy's and Bill's words overlapped in a strange harmony, faded. In a whisper, he finally finished: "they're my friends."
"Did you reason your actions out?" asked the Axolotl.
"No. I, uh, it was, uh, I mean—" Billy halted and then the image of Bill became sharper. "I felt what I had to do. I felt it with my emotions."
The Oracle broke in: "When Dipper was dying and you restarted his heart, why did you do that?"
"Because—because—he would have died. The world would have, have ended. And I—was afraid."
"Because," the Oracle said in a level voice, "if that happened, you would die, too."
"Yes. No, too. I—I never knew—I never had a friend," Bill said. "Only minions. And the Axolotl told me I could have a second chance. My crime was destroying my own dimension. I could go back and not do that. I could—I could—I could be more than I am, better than I am. I've tried."
Ford cleared his throat. "This is difficult for me to confess, but Bill—and Billy too—have helped us in so many ways. His actions probably saved our dimension. Once my philosophy was 'Trust no one,' but now I ask, I implore you, to grant him forgiveness, to . . . to trust him."
Silence lay heavy for what felt to Ford like minutes but probably was, objectively speaking, mere heartbeats. Then the Axolotl said, "What the boy did has seriously weakened his human body. It has been poisoned. Nothing human medicine can do may save him."
Bill Cipher said, "No, don't say that! It—what about me?"
"What about you?" asked the Oracle.
"Could you let me take the toxins into my physical form?"
"That will erase you from existence," the Oracle replied with a strange half-smile.
"Don't do that!" Billy exclaimed. "I—we—that part of me let me know that my friends needed help. It let me find the hose. If I hurt myself doing it, that's on me, right? Don't give somebody else my punishment. Just let me go. It's enough if I saved my friends."
"Don't say that, kid," Bill's form said. "You have your whole life to live. I've hung around for a trillion years, I've seen it all."
The Axolotl said gravely, "Stanford Pines, let us leave this up to your human judgment. One of the two, Billy Sheaffer or Bill Cipher, must go. You decide. Tell us which of them must die."
Ford turned pale. "That's inhuman!" he said. "How can I? How can anyone have that power over others? If it comes to that, I refuse to select either. If someone must pay with his life—take me instead!"
"Billy Sheaffer, Bill Cipher, you will remember none of this."
Both of them faded from view.
Sadly, the Oracle said, "Stanford, I thought you were wiser."
Ford made fists and let his arms dangle at his side. "At least," he said hoarsely, "let it be quick."
Everything went. Not black. Not vague.
It just went.
"—Ford, give the word an' I'll hit the ding-dong self-destruct switch! The empty dimension's oscillating an' it's gonna blow!"
"Uh. Hit the switch," Ford said.
The whole building shook as a visible shockwave burst from the power well and expanded, rippling the grass, rattling all the windows. "I think we done it," Fiddleford said. "Jest barely in the nick-nack of time, too. Hang on, hang on . . . yeah, the empty dimension done imploded on herself. And the computers are showing a hundred per cent efficiency on th' quantum-rift removal. That part of the pandemic looks like that's all she wrote—what's the matter?"
"Just a little vertigo," Ford said. "See how Billy's vital signs are."
"Let me do the virus scan."
Ford, feeling strangely disoriented, watched Fiddleford lean over the boy, who still lay unconscious, his head propped on a cushion, his body under a thin blanket. Fiddleford used a specially calibrated anomaly detector, and absurdly, Stanford half-expected his old friend to say crisply, "It's the virus, Jim! Get him to sickbay!"
No, that was the old Star Trek TV show, the ship's doctor, what was his name? "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an M.D.!" McCoy, that was it. Funny the things he remembered—
"Something real weird's happening," Fiddleford said. "Tale a look and see what you think."
Ford, still feeling disoriented, looked at the screen. He stepped back so the device could image Billy's whole body, sole to crown. It glowed a dull yellow, but—a red line was slowly working its way up from his feet, like a laser beam, and above it the figure looked cloudy and troubled and below, where it had passed, Billy's tissues glowed a sold, reassuring yellow.
"I think," Ford said heavily, "something must be clearing impurities from his body."
"Whatever's wrong with him," Fiddleford replied, "he ain't got the infection, thank the Lord for that."
Ford focused with difficulty on the COVERT-19 test screen. Full negative. "That's good, anyway," he managed to say.
On his own anomaly detector, the red line reached Billy's head and passed through. A minute later, the boy opened his eyes and croaked, "What happened?"
"Glad you're still with us," Ford said.
"I'm a goin' to get suited up and run check the power well," Fiddleford said. "No more steam comin' out of it. I'll see if anything's left o' the portalmajig."
As he left, Billy sat up, and Ford sank down to sit beside him on the floor. "How are you feeling?" he asked the boy.
"Sort of . . . weak. And confused. I think I had weird dreams. Did I stop your device from blowing up?"
"Just in time," Ford said. "Thank you, Billy."
Billy licked his lips. "Uh, it was, you know, him who gave me the idea."
"I know," Ford said. "I know." He got up on shaky legs. "Can you walk?"
Billy pushed himself up and stood. "I think so."
"Come with me. There's a vending machine in the break room. I'll buy you a soda."
By the time Billy had finished his can of Pitt, Fiddleford returned and Ford helped him take off the helmet. "She's a goner," he said cheerfully. "Nothing much left. Even th' power cube's burnt out, never had one do that before. Had 'em explode, but not burn up. Well, what're we gonna do with this here young'un?"
"Tell people that he's a hero," Ford said.
Fiddleford tilted his head. "You feeling OK, Ford?"
"Better do a quick scan."
It was negative.
So—why did he have the strange feeling of being here and now and elsewhere and elsewhen at the same time? He'd never felt so vague, only half-real, even when he had been lost in the innumerable dimensions of the Multiverse.
Fiddleford drove them back to Gravity Falls. Halfway there, Billy said, "My bike." Then he bit his lip. "It's not really mine. It's an old one from the Shack. I think it used to be Wendy's."
"It'll be fine where it is," Fiddleford said. "We'll send somebody out fer it."
"You," Ford said, "are going to have to spend ten days in one of the quarantine units, Billy. But Fiddleford and I will be your roommates, so you won't get lonely."
"Midnight," Billy said in an odd voice.
"Huh?" Fiddleford asked.
"Sixer. Fordsy. You have an appointment at midnight," Billy said in the same oddly high-pitched voice. "I'll be there to stand up for you. If I can."
Ford felt a chill. That had been Cipher, he was sure of it.
So if Billy Sheaffer had come through, and Bill Cipher had come through—
Maybe the Axolotl's only letting me get back to the Falls so I can say goodbye.
Billy nodded off, going to sleep instantly in the way that only kids do. As he pulled off at the quarantine plaza, Fiddleford glanced at the boy and then softly asked Ford, "Did you get any of that?"
"I'm not sure," Ford said. "Just . . . not sure. Thanks for driving, Fiddleford. And for—" he paused. "For all the rest."
Midnight.
What would happen at midnight?
To be continued