re: dereliction
The door opens to reveal a catwalk that splits in two directions, forking to run along the walls to the left and right. At first Dipper thinks there are some spots in his vision from looking at someone's flashlight, but after a second or two of staring into the darkness beyond the doorway he realizes there's a greenish-blue light emanating from somewhere in the warehouse. The black paint flaking off the steel walkways is tinted by the strange light just enough to make the railings and ceiling anchors visible even outside of the flashlight beams.
Ford turns off his flashlight and steps onto the catwalk. It rattles with every step, the steely reverberations loud in the empty space. "There!" he says, pointing upwards. "The perfect vantage point."
Higher up on the left wall, just barely visible in the faint light, is what appears to be a crane. Dipper looks more closely and can see that it's mounted on rails that run the length of the warehouse, a hook dangling from the center of its wide bar. Ford is focused on the cab of the crane, a chipped-yellow construction with a dirty glass window overlooking the warehouse floor. Below, rows of high industrial shelving stretch out and disappear into the gloom.
"What's that light?" Pacifica whispers near Dipper's ear as the rest of the group follows Ford into the warehouse.
"I don't know," he whispers back. "Maybe we can see it from up there."
This proves to be a more challenging task than expected. The staircase up to the cab of the crane has partially broken from its moorings and is twisted out of shape, possibly from an impact. The group is held up as Ford tests it with his foot. It shakes a little but seems fairly sturdy until he puts his full weight on it; another of its anchors pops out of the wall with a crunchy shower of brick dust.
Ford quickly retreats to the stable portion of the catwalk. "Too structurally damaged," he decides. "We may have to go around to the other side."
"Or do we?" Mabel says slyly. When they turn to look, she's standing behind the group with her braces glittering in the eerie greenish light, her grappling hook hoisted in one hand.
"Well done, Mabel!" Ford quietly compliments.
Mabel zips up to the cab with Ford's handheld camera tucked under one arm. Grunkle Stan has been left in charge of Headsy, a task he has accepted without comment—given his attachment to the wax version of himself, perhaps he simply understands these things. They all wait in the dark for Mabel to return, eyes straining in the strange light.
"Okay, that is pretty cool," Pacifica admits after Mabel grapples her way up.
"I know, right?" Dipper says. "She saved both our butts with that thing, more than once."
"I want one."
"I guess we could ask Grunkle Stan where he got it."
"None of your business, that's where. A man's got a right to own a grappling hook. And black gloves. And maybe a ski mask or something, but it's completely legal to have them, not that I do or ever have, if anyone asks," Grunkle Stan says.
"Uh, we'll check online," Dipper tells Pacifica.
He stands perfectly still and tries to tell if he can hear anything, anything at all. Maybe he's imagining it, but he thinks he can make out a low, distant drone, so low that it may be at least partially infrasound, below the range of the human ear. Infrasound is theoretically linked to ghost sightings and feelings of depression and unease. If only he had recording equipment… Well, that would go on the list of stuff he'd take for his own expeditions.
Mabel comes back to the door of the cab and jumps down into Great-Uncle Ford's arms. "Did you see anything?" he asks her.
"There's a glowy portal thingy!" she says excitedly.
"Like the one in the lab?" he says intently.
"No, this one is all green-blue instead of white-blue. Yours was prettier. This one looks like someone spilled it."
"Like someone spilled it?" Dipper says, confused.
"Yeah, like an accident. It's shaped just like that stain on the rug outside Grunkle Stan's room!"
"Ohhh, like Soos' birthmark!"
"Almost exactly like that. And there's something inside it."
"Then it's irregular," Ford surmises. "Naturally occurring, possibly unstable. If it's being blocked, that may explain why it hasn't closed yet. At least we don't have to worry about running afoul of anyone trying to maintain it."
This quickly turns out to be an inaccurate hypothesis.
Finding the portal is easy enough—it's a big, glowing green-blue rip in the dimensional fabric, or something like that. Dipper isn't sure how it works, but who is? They go back to the offices and enter the warehouse from the lower section, winding their way through the dusty shelves and stacks of boxes filled with scrap and industrial equipment, all of it obsolete and rusty.
Near the end of the room the shelves come to an abrupt halt; the floor suddenly slopes downward in an incline of cracked concrete and scattered boxes. It's like a sinkhole, a depression that has knocked over everything standing on that side of the warehouse. In the middle of the pit is the portal—or 'aperture.' Ford is picky about his terminology, and 'portal' implies it's intentional, something created. It's quite a sight, an amorphous, flickering hole in space with constantly shifting borders.
Of even greater concern is the thing sticking halfway out of the tear.
Dipper ends up crouched behind a stacked pile of crates. He's not sure what those crates contain, he just knows that they're large and heavy and wrapped in dusty plastic. They make him feel slightly more secure, like they might be able take a hit or two if something happens. Which seems like it might be a possibility at this point. At least Pacifica is there with him, so he knows she's safe. Or as safe as any of them are.
The thing in the aperture is… Dipper is honestly at a loss to describe it. It's not quite a classical dragon and it's not quite a big snake: It's all scales and spines and no discernible eyes, nose, or mouth as far as he can tell. For all he knows they're looking at the tail of something, or some other kind of appendage. But it doesn't really seem like a tail. It moves like it's sensing the room, seeing or feeling or maybe even tasting. Dipper could swear that it deliberately elongated in Grunkle Stan's direction when he accidentally kicked an old screwdriver across the floor. Whatever it is, it's blocking the aperture with its bulk, and Ford believes it's preventing it from closing.
Mabel probably already has a name for the Thing, but no one is talking much. Ford kneels behind the last row of shelves, taking a reading with one of his smaller devices. They wait for him to finish.
"The aperture isn't stable," he says quietly, tucking the instrument away. "I'm almost positive that it will close if we remove the obstruction."
Grunkle Stan says what they're all thinking. "The 'obstruction,'" he begins, complete with sarcastic air quotes, "is made of muscle and spikes, Ford."
"Yes. This will be… problematic."
Dipper knows it didn't exactly work out the last time he tried it, but it's still best to be methodical. "Should we try talking to it first?" he suggests.
"Not this again," Pacifica says, her tone making it clear he's hopeless.
"Hey, it's worth a shot!" he says defensively.
"Kid, for all you know you'd be tryin' to talk to someone's butt," Grunkle Stan points out.
"Heeee… butt," Mabel repeats, nudging Grunkle Stan in the side. Then they're both laughing while Dipper glares at them.
"Butt or not, Dipper is correct. We should at least attempt to communicate. Good thing I still have my dimensional translator." Ford goes over to the edge of the crates, stopping just short of revealing himself. "Hello there!" he shouts. "Can you understand me? We mean you no harm!"
The Thing pulses a bit like a worm, or a squid's tentacle. It moves across the floor until it is pointed in the direction of Ford's voice, its spikes grating against the concrete.
"Ah, good, you can hear me! You seem to be lodged in the dimensional tear; do you require assistance?"
Three glistening red spikes fly hissing through the air and imbed themselves with a thunk into the side of the crate stack.
Ford withdraws. "I don't need my dimensional translator to understand that."
"Do you think it's intelligent?" Dipper asks, trying to ignore the fact that Pacifica's fingernails are now sunk into his arm.
"I doubt it, but I can't say for certain. What's important is that we know it's hostile. Now, to remove it!" Ford pulls a journal out of his coat and begins scribbling furiously, no doubt concocting a plan of action.
Dipper reaches into his vest to do the same and is stopped mid-motion because Pacifica's hands are still tight on his arm. "Are you okay?" he quietly asks her.
She seems to realize what she's doing and drops his arm immediately. "Why are these stupid monsters always trying to kill us?" she hisses, fixing a frosty glare in the general direction of the Thing.
"It could just be territorial, or frightened," Dipper guesses. "Or, you know, it's a monster."
"Then how do we beat it?"
"Great-Uncle Ford will think of something," Dipper says confidently.
"What, you don't have anything in your dumb book?" she says, tugging at it.
He tightens his grip on it possessively. "No, and I told you, it's not dumb! It's not even the same book."
"You should read from it. Maybe you actually could bore this one to death," she suggests, leaning into his space with narrowed eyes and a teasing bent to her lips.
Even now, with the Thing wriggling ominously nearby, his heart still skips a beat at her proximity. "Or, maybe it would be so interested it wouldn't want to kill us anymore," he counters.
"Yeah, that would totally happen," she deadpans.
Ford snaps his journal shut, drawing their attention. "I believe I have a workable plan of action, and it's going to require all of us to pull it off."
Dipper eagerly opens his journal, ready to take notes from the master. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Pacifica silently mocking him by exaggeratedly mimicking his eager stance. Mabel snickers somewhere behind him (so does Grunkle Stan). Dipper is determined to ignore Pacifica, but when she starts pretending to write in a journal it's too much.
"I don't look like that!" he tells her indignantly. "…Do I?"
"Yeah, pretty much. I guess some people might think it was cute," she says flippantly.
He can't be mad at her when her teasing is so harmless (and what a difference that is, from how it used to be). "Anyone I know?"
"You wish," she snorts.
"Ahem…" Great-Uncle Ford breaks into the conversation with an impatient clearing of his throat. "There is still a monster and an unstable aperture, yes? The business at hand?"
"Sorry, Great-Uncle Ford," Dipper says, embarrassed by his lapse in focus. There are probably better times to be flirting, all things considered.
Ford begins to lay out his plan as the eerie light pulses through the dark and grimy confines of the warehouse.