Haven Days
(January 2020)
3-Strange Disorder
Secure transmission to Chief of Agency from CCM-9:
This will confirm that BA-01, SAB, has received the sample under highest isolation protocols via MPA. Good luck. It is a strange one.
Dr. Stanford Pines folded his hands and brooded. The cryptic bulletin told him that Fiddleford McGucket—soberly attired in an unremarkable dark suit and conservative tie, looking perhaps like a distinguished scholar (which in fact he was) had left from Tokyo aboard what was recorded as, and recognized by air controllers everywhere on earth as, a military cargo plane bound for LAAFB, near LAX.
Stanford had personally asked Fiddleford not to go. "You're too valuable to risk," he'd said.
With a smile, Dr. McGucket—to give him his actual title—had said, "No one's irreplaceable, Ford. I think the aircraft is the most reliable in the world." He was like that. When delivering lectures or conducting labs at the Institute, he was soft-spoken, though with a noticeable Southern accent, and expressed himself well. In private, or at moments of stress or surprise, his hillbilly voice took over. Now he smiled—his beard was now well-trimmed and sans Band-Aid—and said, "I reckon the onliest thing we have to worry about is breach of containment, an' if that happens, it'll all be over faster'n an ax choppin' a rooster's neck fer Sunday dinner."
There was that. Should the biological containment unit develop even a tiny flaw, the explosives surrounding it would not only destroy, but sterilize and at once vaporize, the contents.
Along with the airplane.
But . . . it would be quick.
"Keep me posted," Stanford said.
Except for short cat-naps at his desk, from that point on he did not sleep at all during Fiddleford's trip to and from Japan. The flights themselves took approximately twelve hours each way. Fiddleford's time on the ground in Tokyo, or more specifically at Yakota AFB, was only six hours, total.
Security required that for all that time Fiddleford had to remain OOC. The Agency could not afford to show any interest whatever in the nominally military flights. No unusual radio traffic, no extraordinary tracking measures.
During the time between falling into the Portal and appearing from it three decades later, Ford had picked up the knack of sleeping when he could. Still, a day and a half after having received notice that the package was on its way, Ford hardly moved from his chair at his computer, ate very little, drank nothing but water, and took as brief restroom breaks as he could. He was dozing for about the fourth time (no nap longer than two hours) when the secure line buzzed, startling him.
He snatched up the receiver with one hand, press the scrambler button with the other. "Hello?" he said, making it a question. This was actually one of a range of greetings he might have given, each one actually a code. "Dr. Pines speaking" would have meant "Our line may not be secure. Give me a response indicating your estimation."
"Pines residence, Ford speaking," would have meant "Call me on the secondary secured line immediately."
"Pines residence, who is speaking, please?" would prompt the caller to ask "Is this 555-717-0000?"*
"You want the restaurant," Ford might say. "Try 717-1430." That would tell the caller to try again at 2:30 PM.
Or, well, a whole range of different coded greetings. "Hello?" merely meant, "My instrument shows a secure line. Yours?"
A woman's voice replied, "Is it a good time?" Which meant "I'm on a secure phone, too."
Ford relaxed. "Hazard," he said. "How is your passenger?"
"We'll have him on the ground in the arrival area on schedule," Amy Hazard, now a Deputy Director of the Agency, replied.
"Condition?"
"One, one, A plus," she said. Fiddleford was well, Fiddleford was fit, the dangerous cargo was safe, and soon the scientist and the pathogen would arrive at the laboratory.
"Outstanding," Ford said. Then, in a kinder voice, he said, "My deepest thanks, Amy."
"You're welcome, Stanford. I enjoyed flying that plane. Orders for me?"
"If you agree to the conditions, the Valley," Ford said.
"Sure. I'll stay there for a couple of days." Which meant she was committing for the long haul in Gravity Falls.
"I'll be happy to see you," said Ford. Which meant he would be happy to see her. He had far rather have her on hand as his immediate second-in-command than either Agent Powers or Agent Trigger.
He hung up and then got up from his desk chair, a little stiff. When he returned upstairs, Lorena said, "You need a shower, a shave, and then at least four hours of sleep."
"What time of day is it?" he asked.
"Past eleven in the morning, dear. Would you like lunch?"
He rubbed his palm over his face. "I think I'll opt for the shower, shave, and sleep. Thank you for putting up with me, Lorena."
"Well, I love you, so I guess I'm committed," she said, giving him a quick kiss.
One hot shower, one quick shave (he'd given up using fire and now used a McGucket micro-razormajig instead), and one snack—Lorena had made him a turkey sandwich with a small salad and a bit of yam casserole—he climbed into his own bed and fell asleep almost at once.
Billy Sheaffer's parents had debated the invitation for their adopted son to come and live in Gravity Falls. The public announcement of the outbreak of a gravely serious disease in early January had worried them, but then it was far away from the United States.
Stanley had talking them around on his to-do list. In favor: though he would be remote-schooled, Billy would also have the tutelage of Stanford Pines, holder of multiple earned and honorary doctorates. He would have close friends in the Pines twins to help him adjust and get along. Most of all, he would be safest from the coming pandemic here. If the Sheaffers wished, they could relocate to the Valley as well for the duration. Clean mountain air, healthy surroundings, many interesting things to see.
But no one in the States was terribly alarmed—yet—and Billy's dad, a professor at a local college, didn't feel that he could desert his post. Maybe, he said, the disease would weaken or not even develop in the States, and if so, life would go on as usual.
Ford did not tell them, not yet, but he sincerely doubted that. He, along with the heads of three national and three international organizations, had sent dire warnings to the powers that be, only for the powers that be to tell them they were alarmists, there was no danger, and not to make a word of this public or their funding would be cut.
That last wasn't a worry for the Agency, which had been set up from the beginning to be independent of the Government. Its finances were secure, ample, and no one in the Congress, the Supreme Court, or the White House could touch Agency money, which originated mostly from an international range of patents derived from paranormal or even alien technology.
But the Sheaffers, like Alex and Wanda Pines, were deeply concerned. Alex's partners in the IT company agreed that he could take a working sabbatical—essentially a year off, but he'd put in four or five hours a day online—IF (a big if, you see) he agreed not to request a raise during or for a year following the sabbatical and if he did not claim vacation days (except for the company-wide ones) for the year off. He'd work from home for at least four hours a day, five days a week, excepting only New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Wanda and Alex sat at the breakfast table one January morning and talked it over. "What do you think?" Alex asked.
"I'd rather be close to our children," she said.
"What about the house? We can't just leave it empty."
"Your uncle Stanley called," Wanda said. "He has a tenant who'll live here and keep the house in order. Extremely trustworthy."
Reluctantly, Alex said, "We'd have to interview him first."
"Her," Wanda corrected. "Her name is Frieda Massenger, and she works for some government agency."
"Oh," Alex said, immediately understanding all the sentences that Wanda had left unspoken. Unlike their son and daughter-in-law, they did not have touch telepathy, but decades of marriage had given them something close. "Well. Let me make a call."
He called not Stan but Ford, who said mildly, "Oh, yes, I know her. A career woman. She's very handy and observant. Your house will be safe if she sublets from you for a while. I'm sure any rent you charge will be acceptable."
Translated from Ford, that meant, "I endorse her as a member of my Agency. She's got years of experience, can gain the upper hand in a fist or weapons fight with human adversaries, and can confront and face down even paranormal threats. She will know at once if there's any threat, and she can prepare and shelter in place easier than the two of you could. You don't have to pay her, but have some money set aside in case of any repair or maintenance expenses."
"How long could she stay?" he asked.
There was a long pause. "Unless things turn around, and I fear they won't, prepare for the full year."
Alex thanked him and hung up. Then, to Wanda, he said, "Looks like we're going."
At what had become an incredibly secure biological-containment laboratory in Oregon, Fiddleford and two trusted assistants worked with the virus sample. The first thing that Fiddleford cobbled together was what he called the Hound Dog, a device at first the size of a suitcase, in its second iteration only as big as a toaster, and in its final miniaturized form a hand-held wand that would not have looked out of place at Hogwarts, except it was formed of titanium, esoteric crystals, and a killing chamber about the size of a thimble to dispose of any virus it sucked up. If any free virus were present, the device would snuff it up, signal its presence, and render it inert.
So far they had managed to keep all the virus specimens contained. The assistants were breaking down its genome and examining its physical constitution.
"Basically a virulent attack on the respiratory system," one reported. "Similar to SARS, but rapid and progressive. Responding to it, the human immune response will often create a cytokine storm, and that has a high chance of being fatal. And there's something worse."
Fiddleford rubbed his eyes, tired from peering through various advanced microscopes. "Tell me."
The other assistant, like a guilty toddler, didn't seem to want to confess, but at length she did: "Dr. McGucket, the virus has a very strange component, a, well—a paranormal one. We think that an infected patient has at least a thirty per cent chance of being dimensionally shuffled."
"Let me set down." Fiddleford clasped his hands to keep them from visibly shaking. "What you're a-telling me is that this pathogen might could yank a human being right out of this dimension and into another'n. I got that right?"
"Yes," the assistant said. "At the same time the patient may be delirious or unconscious, struggling to breathe, he or she might vanish for nanoseconds or longer. And might pass into the unviable dimensions for long enough to—well."
"To die," Fiddleford said. "Just a-flickerin' in an out of the dimensions, huh?"
"An observer might not even be able to tell," the first assistant said. "Or—the patient might vanish for good."
"Fer bad," Fiddleford corrected. "I seen somethin' of those other dimensions. Earth-like ones are in th' minority, I reckon. Lots of 'em, most of 'em—survivability would be . . .."
He trailed off, and the second assistant suggested, "difficult?"
Fiddleford shook his head. "Zero," he said.
And meanwhile, Dipper and Wendy went snowshoeing.
It wasn't a sport that either particularly fancied, but they needed time apart. Soos was frantically worried about Abuelita, who insisted on staying with her granddaughters, nieces, and nephews down in Mexico. "I will be fine," she said with all confidence.
"But Abuelita, they tell me there's like a plague coming!"
"There is a very good hospital close by. I feel fine. You keep the childrens safe and do not worry about me. I will be back in the spring."
Finally, Soos promised, "I'll call you every other day."
It was partly to get away from Soos's despair that Wendy and Dipper took off on a clear but cold morning. Manly Dan had built a few small vacation cabins dotted here and there, most of them outside the Valley, but one or two perched in scenic spots where they were unlikely to attract the attention of Manotaurs, the Gremloblin, killbillies, or other paranormal critters. The Hide-Behind would probably check the cabins out, but no one would ever know, so that was OK.
Fishin' Camp 5** was such a rental cabin, and Wendy had a key. From the Shack the trail there led for about three miles through the hills, then down a long slope to a rocky shelf overlooking a pool in the Sidewinder River, a smaller tributary of the main river in the valley.
The stream cascaded over piles of rounded black rock, then the bed widened out—fifty feet across just below the cabin—and from the fishing dock that Dan had built or from a rental boat, tourists could fish for bull and rainbow trout and, in season, Trembley salmon, the only salmon that swims upstream to spawn backwards, tail-first. There were also chub, whitefish, and cutthroat trout, an introduced species. Avid fishermen loved the spot.
But right now, in the middle of January, the place stood empty. They reached the cabin with their breath pluming in the cold air, Wendy unlocked the door, and they very quickly kindled a fire in the big fireplace. "Dad doesn't rent this one in the coldest part of the year," Wendy explained as they settled on the floor close to the fireplace. "Well's all frozen up. No electricity, bathroom's an outhouse. Which reminds me, I better go kindle the little stove there in case one of us has to go."
"I don't think I've ever seen a real outhouse," Dipper said. "Just the Outhouse of Mystery."
"You're not missing much."
"I'll go light the stove. You warm up."
"Thanks, man. OK, take some newspaper and a bundle of kindling. It's one of those potbelly kind of stoves. Check the ash hopper—it won't have much in it, Dad cleans everything out before the first hard freeze—and if there is any ash, use the shovel and dump it down the hole. Real careful, crumple the newspaper and stack the pine strips and small kindling on top. Get that started, and when the pine's burning, toss on about four of those hardwood logs under the lean-to on the outhouse side. Won't need much 'cause we won't be here long. Oh, wait, let me come with you."
They had to shovel some crusted snow away to open the door. The rustic restroom was nearly too small for two of them, but they squeezed in. Dipper smiled to see that Dan had put a standard toilet seat on the wooden bench—it was a one-holer outhouse—but when he lifted the lid, he saw that beneath it the hole was diamond-shaped. And dropped way, way down. "Deep," he said.
Wendy was busying herself with the metal stovepipe. "Yeah, you kinda have to blast and drill away some rock here. Dad just wanted to do it one time. OK, I'm checking to make sure we don't have a soot build-up here, don't want any chimney fires . . . nope, very clean. Dad keeps everything clean in his buildings except our house! That's tight. And that. Let's build a fire. Go round to the side and on the left gather up a handful of pine for kindling."
The stove, though relatively new, looked like something from an old-timey Western. Except it was tiny, only about fifteen inches from legs to top plate. Wendy put in some crumpled paper, piled on some pine lightwood, and used a propane lighter with a long neck to set the fire. The pine caught quickly, she piled on more, and then Dipper brought in four split lengths of well-seasoned applewood. Wendy put them into the feed chamber, shut and made sure the fire door was securely fastened, and then said, "There we go. We'll close the door and let it warm up."
She paused outside to make sure the chimney was drawing well—blue smoke came out through the rocket-nosed exhaust, with a round wire cage to catch sparks—and said, "I know you're thinking that's a tiny stove, but in there it doesn't need to be large. In half an hour, you'll be amazed how comfy it is in there."
It was getting more comfortable in the cabin, too. It was incredibly simple: one room about twelve feet square, with four bunks built into two of its walls, plus a back room that was a kitchen (larger wood-burning stove in there, along with a narrow table and built in-pantry shelves in the wall, pots and pans hanging from a beam, plates, utensils, and glasses in a cabinet opposite the stove).
"Yeah, you gotta rough it if you come here for a week's fishing," Wendy said, guessing Dipper's reaction. "Funny thing is, that's part of the appeal."
"Eloise says that people go to Minnesota in the dead of winter to walk out onto a frozen lake, drill a hole, and go ice-fishing," Dipper said.
"Yeah, fishermen are kinda crazy," Wendy said. She unpacked some blankets that were concealed beneath one of the bunk beds, and they sprawled in front of the crackling fire. "Oh, man," she said. "I never in a million years thought our first year after college would turn into this. How bad's it gonna get, Dipper?"
"Pretty damn bad," he said. "If Grunkle Ford is right, it'll be grim. He thinks the country's already lost its best chance to avoid the pandemic. His people are predicting maybe half a million to a million and a half victims dead, depending on the severity and the people's reactions."
"I'm scared," Wendy said. "For my aunt Sallie, and for our friends in college, even for Billy Sheaffer if he can't come up and shelter with his folks. I'm feeling kind of helpless."
"Look on the bright side," Dipper said, managing a smile. "Soos has filled up a whole room with toilet paper!"
Wendy shook her head. "I love the big guy, but really? Like toilet paper would be in short supply?"
"Who knows?" Dipper said. "All I know is that we're going to keep each other safe. And Mom and Dad are coming up, at least until we see how bad this will be. And . . . I love you so much."
"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say," Wendy told him. She reached for his coat button. "Getting' too hot in here for all these clothes, man. Let's do something about that."
In a hospital ICU room not all that far north of them, up in Washington State, an old man who had been on the trip of a lifetime to visit Japan, where many years before he had been stationed while in the service, fought for his life.
The doctor in charge of his case said, "I don't know. It's pneumonic, but not influenza. It's more like SARS, but tests are negative—dear God!"
The patient had opened his eyes as wide as he could. He could not scream because he had been intubated to help his breathing.
His eyes were red. Solid red. Like bubbles of blood, no pupils or irises. The skin on his face bubbled and flowed. Mercifully, within seconds he flat-lined and seemed to crumple in on himself.
"What the hell was that?" the doctor asked.
"It was like he . . . burned up," a nurse said.
They didn't know, because such things were beyond the view of science, but for a few instants the patient had not been in the real world at all, but sprawled on the surface of an incredibly hot planet in one of the fire dimensions.
He had died of the disease.
But he had been cooked.
*Not the actual number, of course. If you call it, a squadron of Agents will appear, rough you up, and tell you never to call it again.
**There is no Fishin' Camp 1, 2, 3, or 4. Dan just thought that tourists would be more likely to rent it if he told them, "Last one available, folks."***
***He was right, by the way.