A/N: And we're back! Revelations await us in the chapters ahead, gentle readers; I hope it lives up to the hype, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls and TSW are still not mine.

This chapter's soundtrack is The House Of Black And White by Ramin Djawadi.


After nearly half an hour of agonized swimming, close-calls with monsters, and one or two near-drownings, Stan finally managed to haul himself out of the freezing water and up onto the coarse sands of Solomon Island's southern shore – where he promptly collapsed.

Normally, this swim would have been the easiest thing in the world for him, even at his age. After all, he'd only been about fifty feet from the shore when the boat had finally sunk, scant minutes after Lorraine had rocketed away; compared to the time when he'd been handcuffed to the steering wheel of a hearse and driven off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, these shallow waters would have been a piece of cake. But then, Chesapeake Bay hadn't been infested with monsters at the time, and the gangsters who'd cuffed Stan to the wheel of that car hadn't beaten him quite as viciously as Lorraine had. He hadn't had time to take stock of all his injuries, but the simple act of dogpaddling for shore had left his limbs practically singing in agony.

Plus, against his own better judgement, he had decided to take Utterson with him – partly because Stan didn't have the heart to let him drown, but mostly because he needed information. Because Utterson was barely conscious and sporting even worse injuries than Stan, he was essentially dead weight, and it had taken every last drop of his strength to keep the old bastard's head from slipping beneath the water as he'd towed him all the way to this desolate little cove. On the upside, the ocean had quickly reverted to its usual calm and was once again as still as a mirror, allowing Stan to limp back to shore without having to worry about being knocked down by waves or swamped by the tide (did Solomon Island even have tides? God only knew it wouldn't have been the strangest thing about this place)

From what Stan could see in the feeble morning light, they'd wound up at the foot of a vast stretch of cliffs, several feet high at the very least. The beach here was barely six feet across, but reassuringly free of Draug; from what little he'd managed to learn from Dipper's hurried explanations, it seemed the fishmen preferred to set up spawning grounds on wider beaches within reach of settlements. Every now and again, a Draug warrior might trudge across the deeper waters in the distance, but they almost never got within fifty feet of Stan's current resting spot, so for now they were safe.

And less than a hundred yards from his current position, a gigantic column of rock towered over him, stretching several hundred feet into the Fog-shrouded air. Squatting atop this weather-beaten pinnacle and partly hidden by the sheer bulk of the rock it had been built on, was a lighthouse; from this angle, it was just a stucco-walled cone glaring down at the becalmed waters of the ocean, but there was no mistaking the faint beam of light issuing from the uppermost windows, sweeping back and forth across the horizon. Even though it was morning, someone had the light going, so presumably, there was still a keeper inside.

Stan would have gladly started running right then and there; after all, even if Dipper and Lorraine hadn't been heading there, it was the only possibility of shelter within walking distance. Unfortunately, the nearest way of accessing the lighthouse was a narrow rope bridge crossing from the island to the pinnacle… and from the looks of things, the nearest path from the shore to the top of the cliffs was at least a couple of hundred yards to the west – right through Draug territory. Worse still, Utterson had mentioned that the clifftops leading to the lighthouse were infested with zombies; no problem if you were travelling alone and in full health, but damn near suicide if you were recovering from a beatdown and dragging an unconscious man along for the ride.

From what little Stan could tell without the aid of a mirror, he wasn't fit to be travelling. His ribs were broken, his chest was purple with bruises, his arms were battered and scraped from futile attempts at shielding himself, his bruised legs were weeping with at least a dozen shallow cuts (courtesy of Lorraine's boots), and he was certain that he'd broken a toe or two. Every inch of his face throbbed with pain: his right eye had swelled to the size of an overripe peach, his lips tasted of blood, and his left cheekbone felt misshapen – either because it had swollen out of shape or because Lorraine had broken it. All things considered, he was just lucky that he hadn't gotten the dentures punched out of his mouth.

Meanwhile, Utterson was even worse: both his legs had been broken and now were bent at sickening angles; his nose had been practically caved in, and blood was now cascading down his face in coppery red streams; several of his fingers had been blasted off, and the only thing that had prevented him from bleeding out had been the fact that the wounds had been instantly cauterized by lightning. Also, he was covered in electrical burns.

No, they weren't going anywhere…

…until they'd had a chance to catch their breath.

Stan knew full well that this was probably the worst thing he could possibly do under the circumstances, and he could already hear his long-departed parents screaming blue murder at him for even thinking of doing something so stupid while wounded… but he had to try. He needed to find Lorraine again, even if he didn't stand a chance against her in combat, even if getting to the lighthouse might kill him, even if the two might already be gone by the time he got there. But he had to try, if only to make sure that they weren't walking into a trap, if only to make sure that whatever magic that was working on Dipper hadn't gotten any worse.

Right now, he still had the blaster and Lorraine's mysterious cache of weaponry; the blaster and the grenade would work well enough against the Draug, and the handgun and knives would work against the zombies; if any Council troops decided to mess with him, he'd still have the taser and the piano wire in reserve. And if he ran into Lorraine… well, he had Utterson. Maybe, if he couldn't get any answers out of the old bastard, he could at least distract her by giving her the man who'd ruined her life.

And that's another thing you and me are going to talk about once you're fully conscious, Stan thought grimly.

Groaning, he hauled himself to his feet, scooped Utterson off the sand, draped him over his aching shoulder in a fireman's lift, and began the long, painful, staggering journey to the path up the cliffs…


Not for the first time that summer, Mabel wished that she'd figured out a way to make waterproof sweaters.

Unable to keep up with the boat, she'd tried to follow Lorraine ashore, hoping against hope that Grunkle Stan would be okay without her. However, she'd been quickly outpaced – no surprise there: after all, Lorraine had magic power and an inexhaustible supply of rage at her fingertips… and after spending several minutes trying to catch up with a speedboat, Mabel was running on empty. Her reserves of Mabel juice were empty, her adrenaline was going the same way, and her sweater had absorbed so much seawater that it might as well have been made of lead.

Tired, soaking wet, and still stinging from the impact with the water, she could only watch helplessly as Lorraine and Dipper vanished into the distance, leaving Mabel alone somewhere in the southwest of the island.

Seemingly miles from any roads or pathways, all she could do was stagger uphill, into a sparse patch of forest dotting the southwestern edge of the island. She knew that Dipper would probably be trying to steer Lorraine in the direction of the lighthouse, but she'd no way of knowing if he'd have had any luck in talking her into it, or where they'd be headed otherwise. Unfortunately, Mabel had seen the shambling, desiccated figures of ancient zombies lurching through the trees, and she'd known she couldn't stay. So, on she went – not knowing where to go next except onwards.

Eventually, she reached the other side of the forest and found herself on the edge of a river sluggishly oozing out into the sea. By itself, it wasn't all that impressive, especially with the ocean almost eerily calm, but Mabel dimly remembered that they'd passed this way on their first circuit of the island; the map had called this "Miskatonic River," and its mouth had been called "Innsmouth Point." If Mabel remembered correctly, Innsmouth Point was perhaps a mile east of the lighthouse.

Of course, she couldn't simply travel there in a straight line: Innsmouth Point was still miles and miles to the south of her, and without a boat, she'd be stuck trudging along through monster-infested beaches. However, she also recalled that, during her first pursuit of Lorraine down Solomon Road, she'd happened to cross a covered bridge over a shallow river trickling down from Black Goat Woods; though it had been quite dark out by then and she'd only had a few seconds' glimpse of the river before she'd stepped into the gloom of Miskatonic Bridge, she clearly recalled that the river had been clear of monsters for some reason.

Maybe the river was the safest route from here: if she could travel upstream, maybe she could get back onto the road, dry out, recover her strength, and continue onwards. With a little luck, there might be a path leading from Solomon Road to the lighthouse. If not… well, once she'd had a chance to catch her breath, how hard could it be to cut across the countryside?

So off she went, staggering along the western bank of the river, shying into the depths of the forest whenever roaming zombies or Draug crept into view, darting back towards the river's edge when they passed by. With Mabel as tired as she was, noticing the monsters ahead and ducking out of sight before they could see her wasn't easy, especially once the forest began to thicken and the first inklings of mountains began creeping up around her. Thankfully, after about fifteen minutes of walking, the river began to narrow into a shallow stream gurgling downhill.

Muttering a few choice words about wet socks, Mabel stepped off the bank and splashed into the shallows of the river, clawing her way up the embankment with any handhold she could find, finally lurching out into the less-than-ankle-deep waters of the stream.

Immediately, she could see why there weren't many monsters in this part of the island: the stream was at the bottom of a seven-foot-deep trench running through the hills, and with mountainous crags and cliffs rising alongside those hills, there weren't too many places for the monsters to go; zombies probably wouldn't be able to climb the embankment, the Draug would only end up being channelled directly into the Black Goat Woods, and the Ak'ab probably didn't like water, being bugs and all.

She was safe – for the time being, anyway.

But as Mabel paused for breath, leaning against the root-studded walls of the trench, hoping that she'd be able to keep herself from nodding off, she couldn't help but notice the glimmer of light on the water at her feet.

By now, it was almost midmorning: the sun was soaring high over Solomon Island, but with the Fog still surrounding it, the daylight was as pale and cold as an old fluorescent; true, you could see the island a lot better by day, but you definitely wouldn't expect to see bright yellow sunlight on the water. Curious, Mabel looked around and realized that the light wasn't streaming in from above at all – for the stream was still penned in by trees and mountains and probably wouldn't be seeing uninterrupted sunlight until noon.

No, this light – or whatever it was – was coming from somewhere directly ahead of her, just upstream from her current position. She couldn't see it clearly from her current angle, but it was glowing bright enough to be seen from around the corner, tinting everything around it a vibrant gold.

Mabel would have been more than happy to ignore it. After all, she was tired, sore, out of provisions, and still dripping wet, and even once she was recovered enough to get moving, she was headed straight for the lighthouse. This insatiable curiosity business was Dipper's gig, and even if he was too young to carry on with it at the moment, Mabel wasn't up to filling in for him… and more to the point, Dipper still needed her help; true, Mabel didn't think that Lorraine would hurt him, but the two of them were up against unknown odds.

None of Winter's notes had mentioned what was in Old Man Henderson's hidden archive – and considering all the nasty things that had happened to people who'd been building on his land or reading his books, the two of them could be walking into a trap. The best thing to do was to ignore the light, catch her breath, climb out of the trench, head straight for the lighthouse, and leave this investigation until Dipper was safe and back to his usual age.

And yet, against her better judgement, she found herself lurching clumsily uphill towards the light. The trench curved slightly as it crept uphill towards the Black Goat Woods, and as Mabel rounded the corner, she caught her first glimpse of Miskatonic Bridge from below, a squat little wooden cube crossing the trench. And just a few feet below the bridge, dug into the wall of the trench, was-

Mabel's descriptive vocabulary briefly failed her.

As far as she could tell, the source of the light ahead of her was a large cave in the wall of the trench, its edges clustered with lush vines, ivy, and flower; even the riverbed around it was thick with reeds and grass. And everywhere she looked, there were bees, dozens upon dozens of them, buzzing from flower to flower and filling the air with a low, humming, soporific drone. Though it all, the golden light shone, turning the darkened nook as bright as day, blazing from the cave ahead like a miniature sun.

And beyond the golden light, past the inexplicable greenery and ever-present bees, Mabel found herself peering in on a scene that couldn't have possibly been real: beyond the mouth of the cave, the passageway opened out into a vast underground chamber lit entirely by golden light, stretching impossibly onwards in all directions. For thousands upon thousands of feet it went on, until Mabel found herself seeing what looked like a skyscraper in the distant reaches of the cave… but as her eyes adjusted to the dazzling light, she realized that it wasn't a skyscraper at all, but a tree – taller than the Burj Khalifa and wider than the Pentagon, its gargantuan trunk and branches dotted with millions of tiny window-like shapes and patrolled by lumbering clockwork men. And swarming across the golden void between the branches, there were bees, humming in perfect harmony until their drones sounded almost like a voice.

Sweetling. Come closer: we must speak. Your mind may survive this experience. Gravity Falls has taught you much and hardened your thoughts; you may escape madness yet. Come speak with us.

Mabel was dimly aware that the morning-chill had been replaced by a balmy summer warmth; her clothes were dry now, and the lingering ache that had been rippling across her skin ever since she'd been flung into the ocean had vanished; and though her head throbbed with the sound of buzzing bees, she felt calm – impossibly calm.

Our wisdom flows so sweet, said the bees. Taste and see…

Fascinated, not entirely sure what she was doing, Mabel crept closer, into the golden light and into the midst of the bees…


Dipper could tell at once that he was dreaming again.

He couldn't recall how he'd fallen asleep; last he remembered, he'd been tucked up tight against Lorraine's shoulder as she'd galloped off into the wilderness and wishing that he could be literally anywhere else. However, there was no mistaking the fact that he was dreaming: not only was he once again moving effectively on autopilot, but he was now viewing things from an adult height, and when he reached out to touch something, he could clearly see that he was wearing white gloves.

In this dream – this memory, really – Lorraine was marching towards the Overlook Motel, striding across the blazing wreckage of the parking lot in full uniform despite the simmering heat.

For a moment, Dipper thought that he was finally getting to see how she ended up dead in Room 13, but then Lorraine reached for a phone at her belt; as far as Dipper could recall, Lorraine hadn't had a phone on her at any point during their time together in the real world, nor had it been among the belongings that Stan and Mabel had borrowed from her.

"This is Asset Totenvogel speaking," she whispered into the phone. "Clearance code 108-Helios-Omega."

Was it Dipper's imagination, or did she sound even wearier than usual?

There was a hiss of static from the other end, and then the voice of the talent scout – now better known as Colonel Utterson – issued from the depths of the speaker as if from a million miles away. "You're going to have to speak up, Lorraine," he said. "We're having a lot of trouble picking up on your signal through all this Fog."

"I'm calling to report that the situation on Solomon Island is even worse than initially believed: we've also got an incursion from the Hell Dimensions on the island's south-eastern coast. The beachhead is an old motel. Current scuttlebutt among the Bees is that this is somehow connected to some long-vanished occultist by the name of Theodore Wicker; sending compiled biography details now."

There was a pause, as Utterson digested this information. "Do you have a means of crossing the beachhead?" he asked quietly

"Yes, sir; Room 13."

"Then I'm hereby authorizing you to investigate; if there's a means of shutting down this invasion from within, you need to find it."

"But sir, I've counted a hundred members of Gaia's Chosen visiting the motel in the last hour, and all of them ended up entering the portal in Room 13 before leaving. If they haven't found a means of shutting things down-"

"Just do your damn job, Lorraine. I'll expect a full report within the next twenty-four hours; oh, and if I found out you've wandered off the job again, I'll be forced to cancel your annual leave. I've seen those long around-the-world trips you've been taking; I know how precious that time alone is to you, Lorraine, so don't try to call my bluff. Utterson out."

Lorraine sighed deeply and hung up.

As she trudged joylessly through the hail of volcanic ash towards the open door to Room 13, Dipper's sleeping mind was racing to join the dots; whenever this conversation had occurred, obviously the Council hadn't been fully aware of what was going on at Solomon Island, so it had presumably taken place right after the Fog had first appeared around Solomon Island – in other words, late October of the previous year.

But what had Lorraine been doing between now and then?

And what were those "long around-the-world trips" that Utterson had mentioned?

Meanwhile, Lorraine arrived at Room 13 with little ceremony; finding the familiar door standing in the middle of the room, she stepped forward, grasped the handle with a faint sizzle of burning cloth and scorched flesh, and swung the door open wide.

And on the other side, Hell itself stared back.

A blasted volcanic wilderness simmered under a sky as red as blood, a nightmarish landscape broken only by the decomposing remains of things that had been dragged in through the portal – road signs, cars, even a perfect replica of the motel itself. And in the distance, across the ashen-grey mountains, strange, monolithic shapes could be seen dotting the horizon, vast ziggurats of ancient machinery that Dipper had never seen before.

And on the flanks of these glistening pyramids, faint shapes could be seen writhing in agony. Lorraine drew a pair of binoculars from her utility belt, but Dipper could already tell that they were human beings; a closer looked revealed that none of them were held in place by anything other than masses of intravenous tubing, and yet none of them could escape… and some of them looked oddly translucent. Indeed, some even seemed to vanish as Lorraine looked at them, fading away into nothingness with tortured howls of pain.

"It's real," Lorraine whispered. "They really do prey on souls."

Excitedly, she reached into a back pocket of her uniform and drew a battered looking notepad; on a fresh page, she frantically jotted down ALTERNATE METHOD: SEEK THEODORE WICKER'S RITUAL, MODIFY ACCORDINGLY. ONLY WAY TO TRAVEL INTO HELL DIMENSIONS WITHOUT AGARTHA; INNSMOUTH ACADEMY MIGHT HAVE MORE INFORMATION.

"Just in case," Lorraine muttered anxiously to herself. "Just in case. Just an emergency backup."

As if to reassure herself, she flipped back a few pages until she reached one marked with a red piece of tape; judging by the worn corners of the page, she'd been turning back to this one several times in a row, worrying at the edges with trembling hands much as she was right now.

THE WORD IS "SPARAGMOS," the note blared. THE KEY IS IN NIGHTMARES.

Below the heading, a long list of addresses had been jotted down and crossed out: Tabula Rasa, London; Kumiho Hotel, Seoul; The Dream Palace, Kaidan District, Tokyo; the Overlook Motel, Solomon Island; the Franklin Mansion, Solomon Island… and the last on the list, the only entry that hadn't been crossed out, was SHADOWY FOREST, ROMANIA.

JUST ONE MORE CUT, a new addition in fresh pen blared. YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT FOR THIRTY YEARS; IT'S WORKINGDON'T GIVE UP NOW.

"Soon," Lorraine whispered aloud. "Soon…"

What the hell does "sparagmos" mean? Dipper wondered.

And then, for the briefest of moments


Dipper was awake.

Immediately, he was worried – but only in a vague and distant way: he wasn't fully awake, just drifting out of sleep long enough to realize where he was before abruptly plunging back into unconsciousness. If anything, it was more like dreaming than being asleep.

Why am I so tired? He wondered. Is it something to do with the transformation? Is it wearing me out?

Through half-lidded eyes, he scanned the surrounding area; he was lying on the floor of what appeared to be a large circular room; at the centre stood a rickety elevator cage, but other than that, the room was empty.

Indeed, Dipper was lying on the floor because there wasn't a single piece of furniture in the entire room; the pillow he'd been lying on was just Lorraine's bundled-up jacket. And while he thought he might have been draped in a blanket, it turned out that it was just his oversized shirt and jacket. By now, Dipper's clothes were so big on him that it was a minor miracle that he hadn't lost his shorts on the journey over; his shoes, meanwhile, were now lying several feet away, too massive to accommodate his miniscule feet.

Not for the first time, he could only marvel at how small Callum must have been in life; even Dipper hadn't been this short and skinny at five… but then, Dipper had been brought up by two parents with jobs that at least paid well enough to put food on the table. From what he'd seen of Lorraine's memories, her job barely paid enough to care for herself, much less a small child. He could only hope that he wasn't going to experience Callum's own malnutrition once he was finished transforming – after all, Solomon Island was dangerous enough already without adding the threat of starvation into the mix.

On the upside, Lorraine appeared to have built a fire on the stone floor, so at least Dipper was dry and warm by now.

Lorraine herself was standing at the door, furiously massaging her temples as she peered into the distance. "Shouldn't be here," she muttered to herself. "This was a bad idea; another Bee could be along any minute… this was such a bad idea…"

Tired as he was, it took a while for Dipper to work out what she was talking about, but eventually, he found himself glancing upwards… and realizing that the room was just the first floor of an entire tower.

They were at the lighthouse.

Now, if Dipper could just stand up and start searching the room, he could find the hidden archive; he could track down the bit of evidence that would get Lorraine to see the truth; he would save the day… but he couldn't; even though he was lighter than he'd been in years, his body felt as if it was made of lead, forcing him down under the weight of his own ponderous limbs.

In the end, he was too tired to rise. All he could do was lie still, let the warmth of the fire wash over him, and allow his eyelids to slowly flutter shut as he drifted back into a sleep deeper than any he'd known before.

It'll be okay, he thought wearily. I'm in no hurry. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute. Everything I need to find will still be here when I wake up. Mommy will make everything right.

wait a minute, what did I just…


Not for the first time that day, Ford wished that he'd taken the opportunity to leave the academy when he'd had the chance.

From the moment the hood had been fastened over his head, he'd been completely oblivious to the journey he'd been taken on: not only was the black bag completely opaque, but it was also impossible to hear anything through it; even his sense of touch and direction went dead, leaving him unable to tell if he was standing up, sitting down, walking, travelling by car, or simply teleporting. Needless to say, he couldn't even guess at where they were going or how they were getting there.

All he knew was that the hood stayed on his head for the better part of an hour, during which he had no sense of what might be happening outside the bag that had imprisoned his senses. The next thing he knew, the hood was being yanked off – revealing that he was no longer standing in the middle of Innsmouth Academy library.

He was sitting in a steel chair in the centre of a huge pyramid-shaped chamber, surrounded by walls of sandblasted concrete, polished steel, and plexiglass. As far as he could tell, the place was almost completely empty except for a few odds and ends scattered around him; with only the chair, a desk, and a few banks of strange circuitry built into the walls and floor, the room looked as if it could comfortably accommodate the entire Mystery Shack and still have enough room left over for a good chunk of the parking lot…

…and yet it was nothing compared to what the room's lone window looked down upon: outside, a vast complex stretched away into the distance, its length and breadth almost incalculable from where Ford sat; as far as he could see, it looked to incorporate wonderous offices decorated with sumptuous modern art, vast armouries and barracks for the thousands of blue-uniformed figures swarming the facility, research laboratories that practically glistened with wall after wall of jarred specimens, and other, even stranger rooms – all of it built around a single gigantic pyramid-shaped concourse the size of a stadium. And wherever he looked, thousands upon thousands of Illuminati operatives flooded the complex, everyone from guards to scientists, from field agents to executives; it was exactly as Ford had feared: he was outnumbered.

More worryingly, he also appeared to be strapped to the chair.

However, just as he was ready to find a way to get at the cutting laser he'd hidden in his left boot, there was a muffled whirr of a door hissing open and shut behind him.

Then, he heard footsteps approach, and a moment later, a woman stepped into view – slender, graceful, perhaps thirty-five or older; also, she was flanked by two gas-masked bodyguards and surrounded by a haze of old-school hip-hop blaring from a phone in her hand.

"Welcome to Brooklyn," she said mildly, her voice blasé beyond the boundaries of reason. "Have a good ride? I should hope so: we don't give just anyone the black bag treatment these days. Then again, it's even rarer for someone like you to be taken straight to the head offices instead of getting hung up to dry in Questions and Answers. Crying shame, if you ask me: Erin Mahler is so disappointed she isn't getting the chance to pick your brains herself, but it looks like you've been reserved for the tippy-top of the pyramid. You don't get more rights than that level of authority."

This was not what Ford had been expecting: in his experience, most jailers and/or interrogators didn't dress in tailored blue skirts, nor did they wear glistening white stilettoes with wing-like anklets. With her immaculate makeup, perfectly styled bob haircut, cut-glass fingernails, delicately sculpted cheekbones and coruscating platinum tresses, the stranger looked more like a fashion model than anyone who could've ordered a kidnapping, and her distinctive Valley Girl trill only made her seem a million times more dubious.

In fact, she looked uncannily like the pop star that Tambry had been obsessing over when Wendy's friends had introduced themselves to him – Lady Goo-Goo or something like that.

However, as the mystery woman drew closer, Ford could clearly see the golden pyramid medallion dangling from her neck: regardless of how outrageous this woman might look and sound, she was still a member of the Illuminati, and judging by the bodyguards she'd brought with her, she had to be pretty high-up in the organization.

"Where am I?" he asked. "What do you want with me?"

"You're in the Labyrinth," Lady Goo-Goo replied. "Our New York base of operations; like I said, you're incredibly lucky. Most people outside our ranks don't get this far unless they're deep undercover or due for a bullet in the head. Truth be told," she added, "I'd shoot you anyway and have you shipped off to a pig farm upstate before you start to stink, just to be on the safe side. But then, it's not up to me: my boss – well, my boss's boss's boss's boss – wants a word with you."

"Then… you're not the boss?"

"Of the entire Illuminati? Oh, honey, don't I just wish. No, I'm just regional administrator and director of field operations; Kirsten Geary, at your service."

She extended a hand in Ford's direction, clearly not caring that he couldn't return the handshake with his arms strapped to the chair.

As she did so, the two bodyguards began hurriedly sweeping the area with handheld devices, scanning every last inch of the room – though it was impossible to tell if they were looking for bugs, bombs, or both. More worryingly, they also scanned Ford, even though he'd probably already been scanned once already just to get this far.

"The reason why you've been brought here," Geary continued briskly, "is because a certain figure at the absolute tip of the Pyramid – higher than the regional administrator, higher even than the Talking Heads – wants to talk to you. Somehow, Mr Tall Dark and Wrinkly, you've managed to get the attention of someone that nobody's ever met in person for the better part of a century, and he's arranged for a private meeting."

Ford blinked in astonishment. "That's why you kidnapped me? That's literally the only reason why you snatched me off Solomon Island – just so the supreme leader of the Illuminati wanted to speak to me?"

"Certainly seems like it. So, what's your secret? Napalm? Sarin gas? International assassination contracts? Mass murder? Because I've been trying for close to three fucking years to get the attention of this guy and he's barely given me a word or two over the PA system. What did you do?"

"Don't look at me, ma'am, I'm just as clueless as you are. Who is this tip of the pyramid, anyway? I mean, I don't expect you to tell me why he ordered me captured or what he's planning on doing with me, but you have to have some idea of who he is and what he looks like."

"Your guess is as good as mine: if he even has a body, he's never shown it around the Labyrinth. Most of the time, he's just a voice echoing around the concourse; our agents don't get to hear from him except in PA messages and the odd personal phone call. Whatever you did to get his attention, you're very lucky."

"Yep," Ford sighed. "That's me in a nutshell. Lucky."

"Jeez, every party needs a pooper. With an attitude like that, you're liable to crash and burn within a month; I'd offer you some peyote, but the sharp end of the pyramid needs you wide awake and answering questions, so we'll just have to skip the pep-ups until the end of the conference."

"Peyote? From the look of you, I'd have said you were a cocaine person."

"Cocaine is for people who don't know how to work with a purpose; peyote is for people who don't know how to stop."

"I'd have thought that was what marijuana was for."

"Nah; weed is for people who can't afford the good shit and can't be bothered with ketamine."

"Oh."

"And what about you, old man? You got any vices of choice?"

"I had a few when I was younger."

In truth, Ford had only experimented with drugs once or twice before he turned thirty-nine, courtesy of the small marijuana crop that Fiddleford had kept at Backupsmore. Then, of course, he'd met Rick Sanchez while blundering across the multiverse and things had gone completely crazy; by the time he finally got tired of Rick's innumerable attitude problems, Ford had tried just almost every single drug invented in human history, along with quite a few that had never left the garage lab – to the point that he'd gotten used to shaking a blizzard of coke out of his pockets at the end of every night. Getting clean had been messy, but then, being hunted across dimensions by Bill Cipher's flunkies had left him with no choice in the matter.

"Good to hear," said Geary, clearly not caring. "Try to keep that in mind during the meeting; when you're dealing with upper upper upper management, it pays to have a bad habit you can focus on. If nothing else, it stops your brain from pouring out through your ears. Oh, and try to mind your manners: the Talking Heads can give me a nosebleed whenever I talk out of turn; who the hell knows what the tip of the pyramid's capable of doing?"

She eyed the bodyguards. "Are we done here?"

"Room checks out clean, ma'am, as does the guest."

"Peachy. Let's give 'em some privacy, boys."

The two bodyguards nodded and made for the door, followed closely by Geary.

However, just before she reached the periphery of Stanford's vision, she turned and added, "I don't often say this, but… good luck. If you survive this, maybe we'll do lunch."

Then, she was gone, leaving only the hiss of the closing door in her wake. And in the dreadful pause that followed, the window directly across from Ford suddenly turned opaque; moments later, the lights went out as well, plunging the room into stygian darkness.

There was a monstrous silence, deeper than anything Ford had ever encountered; he'd had the misfortune of encountering many strange and eerily quiet places in his long and far-too-colourful life, but none of them – not even the Realm Of Total Stillness – were as terrifying as this, because this wasn't any mere absence of sound, but the silence of a held breath; this was the nerve-shredding silence of anticipation. Any minute now, something was going to happen, and there was no way of telling if this something was good, bad, or instantly lethal.

For what felt like decades, the silence stretched onwards, though it couldn't have lasted longer than thirty seconds.

Then, just as Ford thought he was going to scream, a voice rippled out of the darkness.

"Stanford Filbrick Pines," it said. "Born June 15, 1954. Died July 1st, 1972. No surviving relatives. No surviving genetic data. No means of cloning, resurrection, or reincarnation." There was a pause, and then the voice added, "No fucks given."

The voice was cold, flat, almost mechanical, and seemed to emerge from everywhere at once, rippling out from all four walls and rumbling beneath his feet; as far as Ford could tell, the voice sounded male, but given that curiously synthetic edge to its tone, it could have belonged to almost any possible gender identity… assuming that the speaker was human.

"And yet here you are," the voice continued. "Alive and well, somehow… and claiming to have arrived from another dimension. Even in the Secret World, such things are not unheard of, but most are easily dismissed as lies and/or delusions. Normally, I'd have been prepared to dismiss you as another crackpot, but according to my sensors, you are also registering a very consistent level of Weirdness exposure. Crackle-crackle, goes the Geiger Counter."

"You know about Weirdness?" Ford echoed.

"Enough to recognize what I can see on your soul: you've been possessed, haven't you, Stanford? The power of Christ compels you."

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"Keep doing what? The test chamber is currently being cleaned; only janitorial staff will be allowed entry until the flamethrowers have been disassembled."

"That! Those non-sequiturs you keep using. Actually, who even are you?"

"I'm glad you asked that, Stanford. Because if I'm right about you, it means you and I have a mutual… acquaintance. Once, I called him my dearest friend; later, when our home burned around us, I called him my greatest enemy; later still, he descended so deep into obscurity that only a handful of people in this dimension ever heard of him. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

"I don't know what you're-"

"Rest assured our mutual friend has been dead since the early 20th century. I made sure of it. Ding dong, the witch is dead. However, that raises a very interesting question concerning you, Stanford: how is it that you bear thirty-year-old scars of possession when the only creature that could have left such scars has been dead for a century?"

The bottom very slowly fell out of Ford's stomach as the clues finally began slotting into place. "You mean-"

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste…"

And suddenly, light was pouring in from all corners of the room, streaming along the floor and trickling down the walls like water, forming a glowing shape in the very centre of the room – until at last, it erupted into physical existence with a flash of light that Ford could see through his closed eyelids.

When the light faded, a worryingly recognizable figure was hovering over him – six feet off the ground and ten feet tall.

True, this shape held no cane in his spindly hands, wore a necktie instead of a bowtie, and the hat that hovered over his highest point was a homburg rather than a top. Most distinctively of all, it was coloured a dazzling shade of deep-sky blue instead of the familiar gold…

…but that didn't change the fact that it was a dead ringer for Bill Cipher: a floating triangle with four spindly limbs at its sides, a brick-like base, and a single glaring eye at its centre – an eye currently fixed on Ford.

The blue triangle stared down at him with undisguised amusement.

"I am the Pyramidion," he proclaimed. "I am the All-Seeing Eye In The Sky. I am the beating heart and the fevered brain of the Illuminati. I have been watching you ever since you set foot in our academy… and I would like to make you an offer."

Ford stared uncomprehendingly up at the monster now towering over him, half expecting the dreaded handshake alight with blue flame to appear at any moment. This was a nightmare, he told himself, it had to be taking place entirely in his mind; this couldn't be real – it just couldn't be.

"An offer?" he echoed weakly.

"You've been snooping around classified Illuminati history, asking questions on things most of our operatives never hear about – about Gravity Falls, about Glass Shard Beach, about Atlantic Island Park. I'm prepared to give you all the answers you could possibly desire… but in return, you will tell me everything you know about Bill Cipher. So... do we have a deal?"


A/N: Care to guess what happens next? Furnish me with your theories!

For everyone else, there's the riddle:

Yfg dszg rh gsrh mld?
Hlnvgsrmt szh gsildm gsv xziwh rm zoo wrivxgrlmh!
Lmv mznv pvvkh ivkvzgrmt lm gsv yivvav:
Gsv Svinrg - gsv Low Nzm!
Ivnvnyvi, mlg zoo Low Nvm ziv zorpv, zmw gsv Svinrg orpvh dliwtznvh...