They were at the library, one of Camo's iffiest places to be. She loved books, yes, but libraries . . . it felt odd to her. Number one, they almost never had what she wanted, and number two, if you dropped off on a library book, you wouldn't have eternity to get back to it. You'd have to hope they have it again when you come back.
"All right, guys, today is the big day," Dipper said, pulling the old laptop from the bunker out and setting it on the table. "Soos finally fixed up the laptop. If this thing works, we could learn the identity of the Author and unravel the greatest mysteries of Gravity Falls." Camo found herself wondering, would it void her contract with Stan if Dipper went searching for answers and she just happened to be there when he discovered them? "You ready?"
"Oh, I'm ready, baby." She pulled up a pop-up book and used it to emphasize her point.
Dipper opened up the laptop and turned it on. Property of F. Who was F? An idea bubbled in her head, but she pushed it away. She'd figured out leaps and bounds pretty recently, and her brain was tired of answer hunting. Not that she would tell Dipper that. He would make her work even if she did tell him.
The computer started up, and they watched with bated breath. It went through a cool graphic and then showed a picture. A triangle with five circles, one in the middle and the others around, filled the screen, along with the word WELCOME. She frowned and copied it onto a piece of paper, figuring it would be useful in the future.
The twins, meanwhile, did their secret handshake, involving a lot of flesh-slapping. Then the laptop let out an ugly beeping noise and turned red. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS FORBIDDEN. Then it asked for an eight-letter passcode.
"Ugh! Of course, a password," Dipper groaned.
"Don't you worry, bro-bro. With your brains, Camo's detective skills, and my laser focus, there is literally nothing that can distract us from . . ." Piano music started to play, and Mabel's eyes went wide. "Did you hear that?"
A blond boy with puppets was singing a song to little kids. Camo rolled her eyes and, while the twins were focused on Mabel's most recent crush, she experimentally tried a couple possible passwords, including password and Stanford, just to make sure. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately—it would be kind of difficult to explain how she knew it) neither of those was the password.
Mabel used her pop-up to accentuate her feelings again: this time, love.
"Just when I was getting over Mermando, of course, you show up at my doorstep," Mabel said, her eyes wide.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot about Mermando. Did not care for Mermando," Dipper said, looking for a dictionary.
Camo frowned. "I saw the guy, like, once, and he got offended when I called him a mermaid. That's literally the only thing I remember."
"Pretty much all there is to know." He walked back over with not a dictionary, but a cryptology book. "Okay, this cryptology book says there's 7.2 million 8-letter words. I'll type, you read, Camo tries to think up new ones. "Okay, Mabel? Mabel?"
She'd ran away to go see her new crush. Camo sighed. "Revised plan: you type, I read, Mabel procrastinates."
"Gotcha."
They set to work. "Uh, no, not password, I tried that. Um, absolute? Abstract? Academic?" None of them were the code. "Maybe we need to do better."
Mabel came back with a petrified expression on her face. "So, how'd it go?" Dipper asked.
"Dipper, Camo, how hard do you think it would be to write and compose a sock puppet rock opera with lights, original music, and live pyrotechnics by Friday?" Camo decided not to be surprised by that as Dipper freaked out.
"What? Mabel, are you serious?"
"I don't know what happened," she shrieked. Her eyes were wide open with stress, just like Dipper's always were. "I got lost in his eyes and his ponytail and I'm going to be so embarrassed on Friday if I don't have anything."
Camo rolled her eyes and tried more passcodes. "But what about cracking this password?" Dipper asked. "You know, Mystery Twins? Plus Camo?"
"If you help me with this for just a couple of days, I promise I'll help you with the password. Please. Pretty please. It's for love, Dipper." She glanced over at the younger girl's eyes and saw just how wide they were. She barely held back a scoff.
"All right, okay," he said, falling for it.
Camo huffed. "Fine, I'll help—as long as one of the characters gets to be tough and it's not totally fluff. I have the perfect song pre-written for that."
They walked out of the library, Dipper obsessing over the laptop. "Man, I can't wait to get to the bottom of this laptop. We're close to something big here. I can feel it."
She could feel something, too—the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. She shivered at the thought that something bad was coming.
They spent the next couple of days working, working, working. By day, making puppets and writing songs and sewing (including Dipper sewing himself by accident). By night, though, the preteen was spending all his time on that laptop, trying to figure out the code. She would've lightened the load, but . . . she didn't want to ruin her own sleep schedule.
"Alright, the play is going to be called 'Glove Story—A Sock Opera'. Just a warning, people's eyes will get wet, cause they'll be crying from laughing, from how tragic it is."
"I don't think you understand how emotions work, Mabel," Camo pointed out from where she was writing songs by the armchair.
Dipper, trying to pull a sock puppet off his cheek, said, "Yeah, that . . . that sounds great." He coughed up a couple pom-poms.
"Come on, Dipper, you just got to roll with Mabel's craziness," Wendy said from where she was hair-drying socks. "It's what makes life worth living."
"Puppet boy, puppet boy," Mabel sang, looking at her picture of Gabe, "You're the boy I loooooove!" Everyone joined in with the last word, sticking the various puppets laying around them into the air. Camo was having a lot of fun with the Camo puppet in particular, with its cute little outfit.
Stan walked by just then, said, "Not even gonna ask," and walked back away.
Late at night, she was woken up by the light, yet angry, sound of beeping on the roof. She groaned and rolled over on her bed. I must be a really light sleeper, she thought as she shoved her glasses on her face and went to go yell at Dipper for still being awake.
She was in the process of climbing the ladder up to the secret spot when she heard a familiar voice say, "I think I know a guy."
Bill.
She looked around. The world had turned black and white, except for her. Last time this had happened, she'd woken up, so she assumed she'd fallen asleep and her body was probably going to wake up on the floor with a welt on her head. She sighed softly.
"Well, well, well," Bill said. She crept a little further up the ladder, just far enough that she could see the yellow triangle. "You're awfully persistent, Pine Tree. Hats off to you." He tipped his hat, and gravity changed so that she had to hold onto the ladder in order to not fall into the wall.
"You again!" she heard Dipper yell, though she couldn't see him from her current vantage point.
Bill asked, "Did you miss me? Admit it, you missed me."
"Hardly. You worked with Gideon. You tried to destroy my uncle's mind."
The triangle floated out of her view. "It was just a job, kid. No hard feelings. I've been keeping an eye on you since then and I must say, I'm impressed." His voice distorted at eye on you and she assumed he went big and red.
"Really?"
"You deserve a prize. Here, have a head that's always screaming." She could hear the yelling, although she couldn't see it. "The point is, I like you. Maybe not as much as I do your friend Hourglass, but I like you enough. How's about you let me give you a hint, huh?"
Hourglass. That's what he'd called her last time. Should she be worried by that comment?
"I only ask for a small favor in return," Bill continued. She could see the blue lighting of the blue deal flame. She remembered that from when he'd used it with Gideon.
"I'd never do a favor for you. Don't forget who defeated you last time."
"Right, you 'defeated' me." She could hear the air quotes in his voice. "Well, if you ever change your mind, I'll be here for you, ready to make a deal. Hey, want to hear my impression of you in about 3 seconds?" She heard him screaming chaotically, and, with a flash, the world returned to normal. She could hear Dipper screaming way up there.
Somehow, she hadn't fallen to the floor and injured herself. Instead, she'd managed to accidently shove her head through one of the rungs on the ladder. With a grunt, she was able to free herself, thankfully without falling to pain.
She went down the ladder and rubbed her eyes. Surprisingly, she wasn't tired, despite waking up and staying up in the middle of the night—probably because Bill's powers put her body to sleep. Anyway, she made her way to breakfast, where Mabel and Stan were sitting there.
"Hey, I'm Puppet Stan," Mabel said in a funny voice with her Stan puppet. Stan, reading the paper and taking a big swig of coffee, didn't even look up.
"Still ignoring this."
Dipper came in, yawning and rubbing eyes as dark as bruises. "Hey, Mabel," he said tiredly. He yawned again. Stan abruptly set down his cup and stared at his nephew.
"Whoa, bag check for Dipper's eyes," he attempted to joke. "Nobody?"
"Are you okay?" Camo asked, a slight bit of concern tinging her voice as she leaned over the table to look at him, passing the Mabel Juice. She gagged slightly as she smelled the sheer amount of glitter in it. (Yes, glitter has a smell now. It didn't until she met Mabel.)
Mabel looked down at her brother, annoyed. "Dipper, I told you to get some sleep last night. Here, wake up with some Mabel Juice. It has plastic dinosaurs in it."
"It's like if coffee and nightmares had a baby," Stan commented with a disgusted expression.
"That was then adopted by a pound of glitter," Camo added.
Dipper pulled the two girls out of the room, away from Stan. "Guys, listen. Last night I had a dream with Bill in it."
"Wait, hold up. The triangle guy?" She formed a triangle around her eye.
"He said he'd give me the code of the laptop if I gave him something."
Camo cleared her throat and looked Dipper straight in his heavily-bagged eyes. "Uh, that's not what he said," she told him disapprovingly. "I was there, since your incessant beeping woke me up. He said he'd give you a hint, but he didn't say what it was about."
"You say that like I'd actually trust Bill."
"Don't worry, bro," Mabel said. "Today is the day that the Mystery Twins are back in action. I'll help you crack that code. I just got to hand off my puppet stuff to my production crew."
"Production crew?" both Dipper and Camo asked at the same time.
Candy, Grenda, and Jason, of course, showed up covered in socks, stickers, and with boxes of hand tools. Why would Candy need a handsaw?! Jason was in the best condition, out of the three of them, but he was also the smart one, so . . . there was that.
"We read the script. Very emotional," Candy said.
"I cried, like, eight times," Grenda added.
Jason nodded and softly said, "Yeah, it's really good."
"Hey, ladies." Huh. That was an unfamiliar voice. She spun around to see Gabe, Mabel's most recent crush, rollerblading up with a dumb grin. Kinda reminded her of a low-budget Several Times.
"Gabe!" Wow, Mabel's eyes got big.
"I was just blading by. Helps me dry out my ponytail after a shower." He took of his helmet and shook his hair, causing all three of the people of the production crew gaze at him longingly.
Mabel ran over. "It's so great to see you. I was just working on the world's greatest puppet show. It has puppets."
"Your passion is so refreshing, Mabel, unlike the girl from last night's puppet show. Single-stitch on one puppet and cross-stitch on the other? I was like, uh-uh."
"Cross . . . huh?"
Jason hummed. Huh, was he picking that up from Camo? "Well, it depends if it was a stylistic choice. If it was done to contrast the two puppets, then maybe it would've been cool."
"Not at all," Gabe replied. "Naturally, I deleted her off my cell phone contacts list."
"Naturally," Mabel said with a very fake smile. She was now very nervous, it was clear. She giggled nervously to prove this point.
Gabe looked at her and smiled, "I know you won't let me down though. Based on what you said the other day, you must be a puppet expert."
"You know, Gabe, you look pretty sweaty," Grenda said. "You should really take your shirt off. Right? Aren't we all thinking that?" Jason looked like he was trying very hard not to agree.
"Later, ladies." He put his helmet back on and rollerbladed away. That would be a fast mode of travel . . . if she didn't have the worst sense of balance ever.
As soon as the blond-haired, creepily pale-blue-eyed boy was out of sight, Mabel spun around and shouted, "We got to up our game, girls. Did you hear that thing he said about the stitches?"
"Cross stich and straight stitch. They're pretty basic," Jason said with a frown.
"Don't worry, Mabel, your crew can handle it." Grenda pulled out the Grenda puppet and pulled a little too hard, ripping off the arms. "Oops."
Candy, looking concerned, asked, "How many eyes does a face have again?" She held up a sock puppet covered in googly eyes.
Camo sighed and walked over to her friend. "Thank you for helping, Jason, you'll be the one saving this project," she whispered in his ear. He shrugged and smiled softly.
"I got it. I got it," Soos said from where he had all the set pieces roped to the top of Stan's car. "Oh!" It snapped, and he and the pieces fell to the ground, the car alarm starting. Wendy rushed over to help. "I'm not okay."
Mabel screamed. "Ah! Okay, I'm back on fabrication. Get me my lint roller."
"Whoa, hey," Dipper said, grabbing his sister and making her spill puppets everywhere. "You just said you were going to help me."
"Dipper, this sock crisis just bumped up to a Code Argyle! The laptop can wait."
"Mabel, do you seriously think that your—"
Camo grabbed him on the shoulder and said, "Whoa, calm down, dude. I'll help you, okay? No need to escalate things further. You both have priorities, and I don't want it to drive a wedge between you two."
"But, Camo! I need your help!"
"She just volunteered to help me!"
"But—the sock crisis—!"
"Camo!"
"CAMO!"
She huffed loudly and shoved both twins away. "You know what? If you two are going to be like that, then neither of you get my help. I'm leaving." She stalked off furiously and went to her room to stew.
Both of them were selfish jerks! But, then again, they were preteens, so she supposed she couldn't get too mad at them. Then she screamed through gritted teeth again because she hated when she rationalized things when she wanted to be irrationally angry! She always did it!
With a sigh, she thought about pulling out the stuff from under her bed—but then she thought better of it. Her deal with Stan said that if she went searching for information, then it was her fault. But there was nothing wrong with putting together the pieces she already had.
Stanford . . . Stan knew a Stanford, but he was Stanley. So, who was this Stanford guy? She figured it unlikely she already knew him, since that would've been kind of obvious. Stan wasn't Stanford Pines, she wasn't even sure he was a Pines at this point, but whatever.
Why would he take someone else's name? It seemed kind of pointless. Stanford Pines . . . a memory triggered, of a paper underneath her bed that she hadn't bothered to read in-depth. She bit her lip, considering the morality of it. Would it make the deal null and void, or was it fine, since she must've already seen it? Ugh, she hated morality crises too. They made her insides feel like mush.
She decided not to do anything for the moment. If she remembered the paper well enough, oh well, but she wasn't going to go searching . . . yet. She promised Stan that much.
Sighing, she left her room, rubbing her head. Then she heard a strange banging coming from the stairs. She frowned and walked into the room, giving Dipper a weird look. What was up with him? "Hey, Dipper? What was that noise?"
"Oh, don't worry about it," he said flippantly in a very un-Dipper-like way. She frowned slightly and watched as he went to the fridge. "Human soda. I'm gonna drink it like a person." He opened it and poured it into his mouth waterfall-style, but he started laughing midway, so it fell out of his mouth. He moved it up to his eyes, and she recoiled in disgust.
Not Dipper. Definitely not Dipper. Then, who . . . ?
When he shook the soda off his face, she noticed that his eyes were strange. Looking straight on, they looked normal, but when he turned away, they became faintly yellow and slitted. Oh. Bill. Dipper must've been tired enough that he gave him over. She sighed.
Then where was Dipper?
Bill existed someplace else, though she couldn't fully remember what he called it. She just decided to think of it as the astral plane, because that sounded science-y enough. So, if Bill was now in Dipper's body, then was Dipper in the astral plane? But how would she be able to access that place?
Bill was talking to the air, and very clearly not to her. She frowned slightly, and an idea perked up in her head. When Mabel left, followed by Bill, she held up a hand and said, feeling rather awkward, "Dipper, if you're in here, I think I figured it out. Either Bill has possessed you, or I'm going insane and so are you. Just know that I know and am not sure how to talk to you, but I'll figure something out."
No response. She really hoped she was right, because otherwise she was crazy.
She followed Bill outside, where Stan was driving Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Jason to the show to prepare. Bill was standing there, talking to the air again. "Ha! Welcome to the Mindscape, kid. Without a vessel to possess, you're basically a ghost."
Mindscape. Huh. That was a good term.
"Oh, hi, Dipper, Camo, there you two are," Soos said.
"What up, dude?" Wendy asked. "You two want a ride?"
"Yeah, sure," Camo answered, then looked over at the empty space and tried to make a motion that both made it so she didn't look crazy but could possibly signal to Dipper to follow them. This was really awkward.
As Bill was buckling in, he turned to the window. "But how can you stop me if you don't exist?" He cackled madly and closed the window. Soos drove off, and Camo sat there and contemplated life itself.
They all were sitting in the front row, Camo having plopped herself next to Stan, as far from Bill as she could muster. Mabel ran over, saying, "Hey, guys, you all made it."
"Are you kidding me?" Stan asked. "I would never miss whatever this is."
"By the by, Mabel," Bill said—was he even trying to sound like Dipper?—"where'd you put my Journal again?" He blinked discoordinatedly. She shuddered. How had no one else noticed.
Mabel answered, "I used it as a prop for the big wedding scene. I still need a reverend though."
"Hey, what if I play the reverend? I mean, someone's got to hold that Journal, right?"
"Great! Let's go."
Camo joined them. "And I'm guessing you'll need help backstage. I'm happy to help now that you two are getting along better." She tried not to shoot any strange looks at Bill. As they ran behind the curtain, it moved slightly behind them. Huh. How was Dipper able to manipulate real-life things if he was basically a ghost while in the Mindscape? Also, how was—wait, no. Now was not the time to think scholarly thoughts.
The show started, opening onto a pretty good set. However, she wasn't thinking about that. She anxiously tapped her foot under the pretense of being on lights. "Dipper," she hissed under her breath. "If you're anywhere near me, please figure something out. Bill in your body is really creepy. Actually, Bill in general is really creepy."
Then, after a couple moments, she saw a floating sock puppet. She squeaked slightly and backed up. "Wait, wait, it's me, Dipper!" the sock puppet said. His voice echoed slightly.
"Huh. Vessel. That makes sense. So . . . I was right! Bill did possess you! Wait." She paused and glared at the puppet. "You idiot! Why would you let him possess you?"
"I didn't know he was going to possess me!" he said in his own defense.
She sighed. "Of course he was, this is Bill we're talking about. Anyway, any ideas on how to get him out of your body?"
He sounded embarrassed, but sock puppets couldn't blush. "Uh, no, I was hoping you would."
"Well, just hold on for now. Maybe try and contact Mabel? She usually helps you."
"Okay, good idea." The puppet fell lifelessly to the ground, so she guessed that he had left. She sighed again and rubbed the bridge of her nose wearily. Dipper was such an idiot sometimes.
The intermission started, and she had to hope that Dipper managed to contact Mabel successfully. Sure enough, Mabel came by and said, "Change of plans. Dipper's a sock now—"
"Yeah, I know."
"—so you two are going to cover the voices for me while I get the book, okay."
She gave the girl a double thumbs-up and went to go join the floating sock puppets. "Gabe, you're back from the war," she said in what she hoped was a Mabel-ish voice.
"Yes, I am," Dipper's voice, slightly deepened, replied. "Want to kiss and sing at the same time?"
"Okay."
They made their puppets kiss, and she felt her face going red. She had the feeling that Dipper was, too, even though she couldn't see him. This was so embarrassing. "I hope this kiss never ends," she said in her Mabel voice as the puppets continued to make out. Experimentally, she tried waving her hand through the space in front of her, where she assumed Dipper was.
She didn't feel anything, except maybe a slight tingly sensation. Then she felt something like a very light, ghostly slap on her arm, and she had to stifle giggles. So, he was right there, and he wasn't very happy about her waving her arm through him.
The cake was having some issues. She assumed Mabel was up there, getting the Journal, having difficulty with Bill.
They reached the big wedding scene. "I'm giving you away," Dipper said as the Stan puppet. "You are a woman now. Waddles, the rings." The pig shoved his face in, holding little rings in his mouth, but Dipper broke character to say, "Wait, what? Oh no."
She looked up and shrieked as the giant cake fell nearly on top of her. She scrambled out of the way, leaving room for Mabel and Bill to duke it out over the Journal. She sat off to the side, a Dipper-possessed puppet next to her (thankfully, she obscured it to the audience so they couldn't see him). They both just stared as they fought.
"Get out of my brother's body, you evil triangle!" Mabel shouted, on top of her "brother".
She noticed Stan leaning in with a camera.
Mabel smacked Bill on the face with the Journal and ran away. He got to his feet and said, "You can't stop me. I am a being of pure energy with no weakness." He grunted and dived for her.
"True, but you're in Dipper's body. And I know all his weaknesses."
"What do you mean, 'his' . . ." Bill was cut off by Mabel tickling his armpit. He cackled, then writhed around on the ground. "Aah! Body spasms! What are these?"
Mabel started running away. "A little note about the human body. You haven't slept in over 24 hours. Also, I got a full night's sleep and I'm on four mega shots of Mabel Juice." The two ran around in circles. Camo and Dipper just sat off to the side, watching the proceedings. She wished she had some popcorn. Bill couldn't keep up with her, duh, and ended up collapsing. She saw the puppet go limp off to her side, and Dipper opened his eyes.
"What? Yes! I'm in my own body and it's just as underwhelming as I remember. Everything hurts."
Camo took the opportunity to walk over to the twins. An evil cackle was heard, and the now Bill-possessed Dipper puppet said, "This isn't the last you'll hear of me. Big things are coming. You can't stop me."
He kept saying that. What did he mean?
"I'm sorry, Gabe," Mabel said softly. She pulled out the switch and exploded the fireworks, since the possessed puppet was laying on them. Fireworks went everywhere, amidst the crowd and into boxes of puppets. Watching the burning puppets fall was kind of beautiful, in a sadistic kind of way. Even more satisfying was Gabe's broken-hearted expression as they burned in the sky around him.
The three of them looked out at the audience. "Don't worry," Mabel said. "I've seen enough movies to know this is the part where the audience thinks it was all part of the show and loves it. Cue applause!"
Everyone booed and filed out. Gabe stood up with an icy expression of anger. "Gabe!" Mabel said nervously. "Stick around for the wrap party? We got mini-quiches."
"Don't speak to me, Mabel. You've made a mockery of my art form. Let's go, my loves." He walked away, making out with his puppets. She recoiled in disgust.
"Did he just make out with his puppets?" Dipper asked, sounding as confused as she felt.
Hesitantly, Mabel said, "I might have dodged a bullet there."
"Yeah, that's, like, narcissism, but confused narcissism," Camo agreed, warily watching where he'd left from. Still, Candy went running after him with her weird face paint.
Dipper turned to his sister and said, "Mabel, I'm sorry about all this. It's my fault your puppets got ruined."
"Well, one of them survived." She pulled out the Mabel puppet. "And she has something to say to you. I'm sorry, Dipper. I spent all week obsessing over a dumb guy. But the dumb guy I should have cared about was you. Mystery Twins?"
"Mystery Twins." They fist-bumped, and Dipper pulled back at the sickening crunch his hand made. "Ow! What did Bill do to my hand? Ah!"
Camo pointed out, "Slammed it with a drawer and stabbed it with forks, if I remember correctly."
"Come on, guys, let's go home."
"Seriously, I need to go to the hospital!"