maturity is overrated
Mabel doesn't know what she's looking at, but it sure is a cool and super science-y device.
"What is it, Grunkle Ford?" she asks. She puts her hand on the humming part of it and grins as the vibrations travel through her body and her vision blurs.
"It's a mass spectrometer of my own design," he tells her proudly. "A bit more compact than what you'll find elsewhere." He cups his chin, eyes narrowing in thought. "Or it used to be. I suppose these days they've either caught up or exceeded it."
"W-w-w-w-hhhhaaa-t-t-t a-a-bbbbout-t-t-t thi-i-i-i-s p-p-p-aart-t-t-t?" Mabel buzzes as she shakes with her eyes crossed.
"That's the power supply. Obviously, it needs some rebalancing," he says, making a note in his journal.
Mabel removes her hand and staggers woozily away from the machine. "Let's put something in it!"
Grunkle Ford tucks his journal away. "That's the plan. If I'm going to adapt my Quantum Destabilizer as a power supply, I'll need to identify and isolate certain anomalous materials. I already have a few in mind."
Mabel looks at him, grin turning uncertain. "Ha ha… It's not more unicorn hair, right?"
"Absolutely not. If I never see another unicorn, it'll be too soon," he says brusquely. He goes over to one of his new cabinets and starts setting things out on the metal table nearby. "The valley of Gravity Falls was created by a crashed alien ship millions of years ago, and it's still there, beneath the ground. I used to pirate it for spare parts, and I don't see any point in letting it go to waste now."
"Oh, yeah, the aliens." Mabel remembers Dipper telling her about the ship. "I bet Dipper went crazy over that."
"He was excited when we went," Grunkle Ford recalls with a small smile. Then the smile vanishes. "He saved my life that day. And in return, I asked him to uproot his life. I told him it was for his sake, but… in truth, it was for mine. I saw so much of myself in him. Too much, I think, that isn't there. Things he's better off without." Grunkle Ford shakes his head. "Besides, my claim that your parents would be happy to lose their son so he could stay here and apprentice with me was… presumptuous, to say the least. I dread to think how that conversation might have gone."
Even so, Mabel isn't proud of the way she had handled it. "I'm sorry I ran away with your rift thingy. I was really dumb about it."
"We both were," Grunkle Ford sighs. "If I'd just told everyone about the rift instead of keeping secrets, the whole thing could have been avoided. We each played right into Bill's plan. And I can't even say it was for the first time."
Mabel can't stand to see her grunkle like this. She hops forward and wraps her arms around his right arm, looking up at him. "It's alright, Grunkle Ford. It all worked out!"
It works: He snaps out of it and ruffles her hair. "That it did. Anyway, I'll have to figure out some means to move the materials back here. Stanley sold my truck years ago."
Mabel brightens. "Soos has a truck! He'd totally let you borrow it."
"He does strike me as the accommodating type." Grunkle Ford piles a bunch of gizmos into a duffel bag and hoists it over one shoulder. "Tell Stan I'll be back this evening, assuming all goes well."
Mabel hesitates. She knows this sort of science expedition is Dipper's thing, but does that mean it can't be her thing sometimes? So maybe she isn't super interested in mass spectromo-whatsits or aliens. They are cool, sure, aliens are neat and all the stuff in the lab is, too, even if she doesn't understand all of it and knows she'll just get bored if someone tries to explain. But she is into adventuring and she is into family and Grunkle Ford is family and why should he have to adventure alone?
"Can I come?" she asks, making her eyes big and pleading because that usually works.
Grunkle Ford looks a little surprised, but says, "If you'd like. The spacecraft is very impressive if you've never seen it before. After I was attacked and nearly imprisoned, it's lost some of its luster for me," he says, mouth turning downward. Then, as if remembering she's still there, he adds, "But I'm sure you'll enjoy it."
"Who's ready for a niece-and-uncle alien thingamabob hunt?" she says with a smile, pointing a thumb towards herself. "This gal!"
They go upstairs with Grunkle Ford's equipment and Soos tosses them his keys without hesitation as he takes a group of tourists deeper into the Shack. They drive through the town, shopfronts and houses rolling past. Mabel waves to Durland and Blubs, waves again when she spots Tambry coming out of the hair salon, and even waves to Bodacious T (though she avoids making eye contact).
The buildings end quickly and soon they are driving down dirt and gravel county roads. The cliffs of the valley loom on either side while mountains blot the horizon ahead. Pine trees dot the fields in clusters and long lines; the forest proper begins at the far sides of the crops that bracket the road, rising up the elevating terrain like a timbered tidal wave perched over the pastoral plains. They pass the petting zoo and the mudflap factory. Mabel puts her hand out the window and swims it up and down through the warm summer air.
"I call it 'Crash Site Omega,'" Grunkle Ford tells her as they wind through the countryside. "The ship's Hyperdrive is what powered the portal."
"And that's what Grunkle Stan stole all that goo for," Mabel says.
"Precisely. But as I don't wish to keep stealing radioactive waste whenever the town's power grid is insufficient—especially since they've clearly increased security since I last helped myself to the stockpile—an alternative is needed. Now, I believe Dipper and I encountered the last remnants of any active security countermeasures, but we still need to be careful. Stick close to me once we're inside."
"Like white on rice!" Mabel promises.
About twenty minutes later she's standing on a wide green hillock nestled square in the middle of farmland. She stamps on the ground experimentally, but it doesn't sound hollow. Maybe the dirt is too deep?
Grunkle Ford moves a large rock and uncovers a metallic passage that sinks into the dark. "It's an exhaust shaft," he explains.
"Wow!" Mabel says, suitably impressed. "Did you fall down that?"
"No, though I came closer than I would have liked." His flashlight reveals the wooden ladder hanging against the strange metal of the shaft. "Be sure to hold on tight. It's a very long drop."
As they descend, Mabel takes in the size of the thing. It's an eerie space made of metal that reflects the light oddly. There are enormous symbols etched all over. The aliens might have been good with technology, but they'd been terrible at decorating.
"Grunkle Ford," she says, breath jolting as she climbs down the ladder, which is stupid long, "why didn't they ever come back for their stuff?"
"That's a good question. Honestly, I don't know," he tells her. "This craft is roughly thirty million years old. One can only assume if a search party was coming, they would have been here by now. But keep in mind that it's a very big universe. Things that get lost out there tend to stay lost. I'm lucky to be an exception."
It's spooky inside the ship, but Mabel's been in worse places. Once they reach the floor, her flashlight illuminates curving walls and bulkheads, fluid architecture that's hard to mentally arrange into rooms and passageways. She walks over and traces one of the symbols with her finger. The metal is rough in some spots and smooth in others, and the shape of the lines is weirdly compelling.
"What do all these shapes mean?" she wants to know.
"Fiddleford and I were never able to make too much progress with their language. Some of the carvings seem to be decorative, some were for instrumentation that's long gone, and I believe others are much like what you would find on a human ship, such as directions, or warnings."
Mabel looks upward; the ceiling curves like an abstract sculpture and folds into another part of a wall, which narrows into a column. The effect is dizzying, like vertigo. "Bleh… This place is making me all pukey."
Grunkle Ford is noting something in his journal. "Yes, the design isn't anything humans would find comfortable. Now, I need some of the craft's wiring for my generator project, but there's a problem. The metal here is far superior to anything currently used on Earth, but it's been exposed to oxygen for so long that it's starting to corrode anyway. I need to find a sealed room, somewhere the damage has been minimized."
Mabel isn't listening. Still dizzy, she goes over to lean against the wall, only to see a little symbol that looks like a puking alien. "Ha ha ha! Gross! Grunkle Ford, look, I'm throwing up like this alien! Bleaaaarrrg!"
He looks more concerned than amused. "Sit down for a second and take a few deep breaths," he advises, coming over to her.
"No, Grunkle Ford, I'm just kidding. See? This alien is totally losing its lunch." She points at the symbol, grinning widely.
Humoring her, he leans over to look. "Hmm. It does look like it's vomiting. Could be coincidence. Or…" He presses his hands to the wall and slides them back and forth. His fingers find divots on both sides of the section.
There's a loud crack and a hiss and the section springs upward and disappears into the ceiling. Through the new passageway is a small room with a round, almost conical design that's sort of like looking into a seashell. It's filled with pipes that disappear into the far back and a big metal contraption that's sunk into the floor.
"Mabel, you're a genius!" Grunkle Ford exclaims. "You've discovered a hidden bathroom!"
Mabel stares at the ominous machine. "Wait, this is where aliens poop?"
"And how!" Grunkle Ford pulls out a screwdriver and begins prying at some of the curving wall panels. "Corrosion is limited. Excellent!"
Mabel goes over to the alien toilet and tries to figure out how it works. Failing to make any sense of it, she does a handstand over the central pipe, hair dangling downwards. "Mom was wrong: I can do a handstand on the toilet."
"Careful not to drop anything. There's no telling where that pipe leads," Grunkle Ford says absently as he extracts a long greenish wire from the wall.
Mabel amuses herself by pushing various buttons while Grunkle Ford gathers up everything he needs. The fact that this thing is an alien toilet is both awesome and disgusting (disgustingly awesome?). She tries to get it to flush, but either it doesn't work at all anymore or it never flushed in the first place.
"Too bad it doesn't work. Dipper would be totes jelly if I went in an alien toilet," she remarks as they leave.
"I'd say go for it, but I'll probably be coming back," Grunkle Ford tells her with a chuckle.
It takes him a few trips up and down the ladder to move all the salvage he's collected. Mabel helps as much as she can, but after her second trip up she's exhausted. They pile it all in the back of Soos' truck and soon they're driving on the county roads back into town, dust and gravel rumbling crunchily beneath the heavy tires. The sun has almost set; the world dims beneath low violet light and the dark shadows of the cliffs. Mabel's head droops towards her chest. The steady rocking of the vehicle and the low grumble of the engine sends her eyelids fluttering closed as the toil of the day overcomes her innate energy. She leans over until her head is resting on Grunkle Ford's coat. He is warm and smells like metal shavings and oil.
She floats away; then, she floats up, closer to consciousness but not quite there. She's somewhere else, with the same coat smells but not the same air or engine sounds. There are arms beneath her.
"She fell asleep on the drive back," a voice says, tones warm and precise. "I thought it would be best not to wake her."
"Big day, huh?" another voice says. This one is rough and acerbic, but still familiar and pleasant to her.
"Very. Thanks to Mabel, I found exactly what I was looking for. I should be able to get us off the grid within the month."
"The kids are like that. Either getting you into trouble, or getting you out of it. Or both. Usually both."
There's the soft thump of shoes on old wooden stairs and the creak of a door. She settles into cool sheets and sinks until she's gone again.
Maturity is Overrated by Dikembe (Jeremy, 2015)