Chapter 4: Information

Stan began his day tiredly as normal, bags under his eyes as he went and took a shower to wake himself up.

After he was done he goes to the front door and finds a newspaper on the porch. Stan picks it up and the first page headline read: STAN PINES DEAD?

Slowly, he picks it up, reading the article. He grunts as he walks back into the house and throws the newspaper on the chair in the living room he had set up. With a sigh he goes and gets himself ready for his little business to open up, him putting on his shirt and tie with his now traditional fez. As he was walking to the kitchen to get some coffee the phone rang, so he picks it up and heard a familiar voice.

"Stanford?" it was his mother's voice.

Stan clears his throat, trying to make sure to change his voice. As children he knew how to mimic his twin very well, and the latter could do that same as well. "Hi, Ma." Stan greets on the phone, a little gruff version of Stanford's voice.

"Oh, thank God I got a hold of you!" she cries out with relief on the other end. "Did… did you hear about Stanley…?" she sounded as if she was going to cry.

"Yeah… I did…" Stanley replies, putting sadness in his voice. "How are you and Dad holding up?"

There was a small sigh on the other side. "Well… your father, well, we know how he treats his emotions…"

So he doesn't care…

"When we found out it was from drunk driving… of course your father would say that Stanley had it coming…" there was a choked sob and it nearly broke Stan's heart. "But… he's still my little boy… my youngest out of you three kids… I thought by now Stanley would've swallowed his pride and come home… work at the pier or something…"

Stan was a stubborn man, he always had been. Stanford even became more stubborn as time went on, especially from recent events. Shermie has always been stubborn, probably passing that family trait down to his own family. That was the one thing that Stan had refused to do… he didn't want to go home where his father kicked him out… where he first lost his twin brother.

"Yeah… Stanley had always been a stubborn jerk…" Stanley says on the phone. "I know he felt bad for what he did in the past…"

"And because of your father's damn pride there isn't even going to be a funeral."

Stan's heart drops. His father really didn't care enough for him to even have a funeral…? Not that it mattered because as soon as his parent's would've seen him they would realize who he really was.

"Not… not even anything for him…?" Stan asked quietly, almost losing his Stanford tone.

"Well, I am going behind your father's back and I'm sending you flowers to place where Stanley… had the accident." His mother replies, now in a slightly more hushed tone.

Stan gives a small, sad smile. His mother would do that. She appreciated his personality and who he was, he may have not been as intelligent as Shermie, and especially Stanford, but his mother always treated him like he was just as smart. The way she was talking almost made him want to stop his whole act and tell her that he was alive and doing okay, that her little boy was making something out of himself with a business.

But he couldn't… he had a mission to do.

"I'll make sure I arrange them and send you pictures, Ma." Stan tells her, his voice cracking slightly.

"Stanford…" his mother says quietly. "Please… please take care of yourself and visit… it wouldn't hurt your research to leave for a little bit, right?"

With a heartbroken facial expression, he outright lied to his mother, something that she herself does quite often with her job but this time he felt horrible, "I'll try to visit soon, Ma."

There was a rushed goodbye from her end and the sound of the phone hanging up. Stan stood there for a moment, hearing the long, drawn out tone of the phone. Slowly, he puts the phone back into its cradle and began to compose himself.

With a deep breath he goes to the section of the house that he made into his shop and flipped the sign to say it was open.


"Trust no one? Does that include you?"

Ford asked Layla the serious question, him with narrow eyes at her. They had already left the building that they were in and were moving across rooftops. Layla had lines set up so she could travel between the buildings as efficient as possible.

"That's up to you," she tells him honestly once she made sure everything was clear. "If you want to put your trust in me, that's fine, but if not that is fine too." She then gestures to behind a panel. "Now, go change. You need to be less recognizable." Layla ordered, her electric blue eyes looking fierce.

With a grunt Ford gathered the clothing items that Layla gave to him from the trunk from earlier and goes to behind the panel. He ditched his brown trench coat, throwing it to the side as it landed with a heavy thud. Ford still wore his dress shirt, but ditched the black tie he had, and he puts on the long, black coat. Surprisingly it was the same size as his brown one… He kept the goggles around his neck, ready to be put on when needed to be. The inside of the coat had a holster for the gun that Layla had given him, so he slips the odd device in it. There were also pockets, and there were a lot, so he could carry some other things, so he used a pocket to put the cell packs in.

Ford then walks out from behind the panel, adjusting the collar of the coat. Layla pushes past him and finds his brown coat and black tie, using a lighter that she took out of her pocket she went to go burn the articles of clothing before Ford stopped her.

"Hold on a second!" he shouted at her, his voice panicked.

"What? Sentimental value over a coat?" Layla snaps, her eyes narrowing.

Ford then goes through the pockets of his brown coat, pulling out the lighter from Stanley, a picture of the two as kids on a little broken boat they had found, and the picture of the whole family in the living room of the pawn shop. He was glad he stopped her for burning the items…

"Okay… go ahead." Ford whispers as he puts his recovered items into his new coat. He kept the pictures and the lighter in a pocket that was the closest to his heart. Soon he heard a small roar of a fire, his coat being destroyed.

Layla then stomps on the coat, putting out the fire. She then rushes back to Ford and gestures with her left hand to follow her. Together the two run to one of the devices that Layla had set up to propel herself to another rooftop.

"We only have a small window of opportunity ahead of us," she informs him. "If we don't get to it now we will have to wait another year for it to open."

"Open…?" Ford echoed, his eyebrow raised. "A year…? What the hell are you talking about?"

Layla turns to him, a bright smile on her face. "Well, we have to leave this dimension and go to a different one." She says smugly.

"Wait… what?!" Ford cried out as Layla jumps from the roof, the device propelling her across a fine cord to get to another rooftop. However, when she made it to the other side she had disappeared. Ford frantically looks around, desperately trying to look for a different device. He finds a remote and he makes a grab for it, pushing a red button. The device from the end of the cord makes a whirring sound and zips across, coming back.

The device stops, the cord vibrating. Ford encloses a hand around it, it being very small. It was only the size of a bar of soap, it a solid black, and it had various buttons on it. With a deep breath he looks over the edge of the building he was on, seeing the tiny lights at the bottom. His heart pounded, he wasn't afraid of heights like Stanley but it still made him uneasy that this tiny device was supposed to support him.

He was larger than Layla, probably had two feet in height against her and about a hundred pounds of weight more than her. She had been running for God knows how long, and she was extremely thin from not eating properly, so of course this device would support her.

"Are you coming or do you want Cipher to get you!?" Layla screams from the other side. It only seemed like it was her head floating there, her poking her head out of the invisible portal. "Hurry! You only got about thirty seconds left!"

Without thinking Ford takes a deep breath, gripping to the device with dear life, and steps off the roof. The wire bends because of his weight, just like he suspected it would, but it still shocked him to the point where he almost let go. He zips across the wire, just as fast Layla had, his stomach probably still somewhere on top of the roof.

He screams as he nearly crashes into Layla, but she dodges and soon Ford hit a soft wall, him letting go of the device and collapsing onto the ground. Ford groans, putting a hand to his head, the world spinning around him, him feeling like he was going to vomit. Groggily, he gets up, seeing Layla trying to suppress a smirk on her face.

"Wow… so graceful, Ford." Layla giggled. There was a soft hum sound and in a flash of a lime green light the cord with the device suddenly disappeared.

"Where… are we…?" Ford asks, him looking around his completely new surroundings.

The sky here was a bright red, looking almost like blood. Streaks of black accented the sky, looking almost cloudlike. They stood on a small grassy hill, the wall a tower of some soft grass clippings bundled together. The air felt much thinner, Ford feeling like he needed to take more breaths then what he was used to.

"We're in a different dimension," Layla replied simply as if it were obvious, gesturing the area with her hand. "This one should be a little safer… Cipher wouldn't have announced your arrival here quite yet."

Ford tilts his head. "Wait… how many dimensions does Cipher have control over?" he asks her.

Layla sighs. "Okay… let me rephrase this… where we just were was a pocket dimension, as is this one. There are many pocket dimensions within one large dimension." She explains, her eyes lighting up. "Bill Cipher controls this whole main dimension, and thus controls the sub dimensions. And there are small holes within these pocket dimensions to transfer to another in the same main dimension. These small windows are only open for short periods of time and they're practically invisible to the naked eye, unless you know what you're looking for."

"Where does the dimension of Earth fall into?" Ford then asks her, curious about this new findings.

Layla bites her lip. "Well… it is part of a whole different main dimension, a more powerful one that Cipher wants control over." She then fidgets uncomfortably. "And he isn't going to rest until he controls it… it is the key dimension for universal domination."

Ford looks at her, him skeptical. "Really…? Universal domination…?" his voice was filled with disbelief. He's seen and heard of many crazy things, especially during his time in Gravity Falls, but now this was sounding like a stretch.

She glares at him. "I'm serious, Ford! Think about it! Why does Cipher only have a spiritual form while on Earth? Because it is too powerful for him to get full into."

"That's why he wanted me to build the portal…" Ford whispers to himself, a hand to his chin. "It's literally a hole in the interdimensional wall, where he could slip in easily…"

"Time Baby controls Earth's dimension and the sub dimensions there…" Layla then adds. "Time Baby doesn't like Bill Cipher, so he is making sure that there is no way he can get through by any means. Until… well, geniuses like you and my father came along."

Ford growls, "Do not lump me in with Dr. Bartek." He gives Layla a hard look.

Layla returns the look. "Look, my father wasn't only just a medical doctor… he studied dimensional travels as well…" she then glances away but then adds, "Okay, Mr. Poindexter, you seem to know a lot on my father… why do you think it took so long for him to be caught and why when authorities found the bodies they were all in extremely large groups?"

Ford looks at her, baffled. He runs a hand through his brown hair, thinking about the missing people from over the years. Once he thought of a way, he whips his head to Layla in horror. "No…" he whispered. She nods grimly, confirming. "He didn't…"

"My father used the people that failed or were deemed worthless for his experiments and sent them over various dimensions, for his other experiments so to speak." Layla confirms, her face set in a neutral expression. Her hands were in tight fists, as if she was trying to hold back something.

Ford grabs her shoulders, making Layla's eyes widen. "How?! How the hell did he do it!?" he demands angrily. "I had to build a portal… so did he…!?"

She glares at him as she slowly and gently removes his hands from her shoulders. "I honestly don't know… when I was sixteen he had sent us both here, no doubt to get away from the authorities. There were some of Bill's minions, so my dad ran away with his research, telling me to run the opposite way. I haven't seen him since…"

"How long… have you been here, Layla?" Ford asks her, his voice a lot more calm than before.

"I've been here for sixteen years…" Layla replies sadly, her eyes darkening with memories of her past. "Why he brought me with him to these pocket dimensions I have no idea." She then begins walking down the hill, the wind blowing her jet black hair behind her. Ford follows her, his brown hair being blown and his coat.

Ford catches up to her, "If you don't know… how do you know so much about these pocket dimensions?" he asks, her keeping her eyes forward and not even making a glance at Ford.

She abruptly stops and fetches into her coat and pulls out a series of papers, all written in an odd language. "These." She states. "For the past sixteen years I have been breaking into multiple facilities stealing these, it took a damn good while to learn to read this and even speak it." Before Ford could try to get the papers from her she had stuffed them back into her coat. "Obviously Cipher and my father made some sort of deal… so naturally my father was the natural target and I was left alone… until I started breaking into places."

Layla continues walking and Ford follows. He couldn't help think that she had her own level of high intelligence as well, forcing herself to learn interdimensional languages. Layla probably inherited her father's genius, but the mad scientist aspect Ford was not so sure, he barely knew the woman.

"So… you're about thirty two years old then?" Ford asks casually, a slight smirk on his face as he adjusts his glasses. "What an odd coincidence, I'm that age as well." he gives a chuckle.

Layla whips her head to glare at him as she continued walking. "Don't you know it's rude to ask a woman her age?!" she shrieks at him. She whips her head forward again, but couldn't help but have a small grin on her face as she walked.

"That is why I honestly have no idea what my mother's age is." Ford laughs, causing Layla to laugh along with him.

The two walked into a small village-like area. On the outside walls of the small huts were large posters that were yellowed, faded, and torn from the elements. Layla completely ignores them but Ford stops to look at them. They were wanted posters…

The first poster was of who he recognized was Dr. Bartholomew Bartek. Dr. Bartek in the poster looked old, with heavy stress lines and bags under his eyes, a thick beard, and his hair was actually long in length but the color wasn't shaded in, so Ford assumed it was white. Underneath his picture was something written in a different language, but the one thing Ford recognized was the triangle with a single eye… Bill Cipher.

"Come on, Ford!" Layla calls out, walking toward what looked like a tavern, her feet stopping in the soft looking green grass. She then notices what he was looking at. "Wait…!" she starts running towards him.

The second poster was of Layla, much younger, most likely at the age of sixteen. Her hair was colored dark to represent her jet black hair, and it was much shorter, about down to her chin. Her eyes looked wide with youth and nervousness, her nose slightly upturned in a pixie-like way. She had much more freckles on her cheeks than she did now, but the dominant feature of the freckles being under her eyes and over the bridge of her nose was present then and now.

Layla shows up and rips both posters down, crumbling them in her hands and throwing them to the ground. She repeatedly stomps on them until she finally takes out her lighter and sets them aflame. After she was done she glared at Ford with such intensity that he flinched, almost like a child being scolded.

"That… was a little excessive, Layla…" Ford comments softly, both his hands up in a surrender position. His brown eyes were wide, and he gave a slight frown.

"Come on… I know a guy that can get us some inside information about how much Bill Cipher has spread about your capture." Layla mutters, grabbing Ford's wrist and pulling him toward the small looking tavern.

They entered the tavern, the place filled with multiple creatures. Some looked like insects, others looked like some kind of reptile, and others looked like humans but with translucent skin. Ford looks around, looking uncomfortable, some of the creatures eyeing him oddly. He follows close behind Layla, who held her head up high and went straight to the bar.

Layla then begins talking in an odd tongue, the bartender nodding and handing her two shots of some thick looking purple liquid. She passes one to Ford, who eyed it warily. She takes the shot with a straight face, asking again in the language for another.

Ford sniffs the liquid, scrunching his nose in disgust. He then puts his tongue in the liquid, and surprisingly it tasted fine, almost like a grape. Ford takes the shot, the liquid hitting the back of his throat.

"What are we doing here…?" Ford asks Layla, who was already on her third shot. "Don't tell me it's to get drunk…"

"I'm waiting for my inside guy." Layla responds, taking out a small looking gray device. The screen on it was lit up, her tapping on it. It looked like very futuristic technology. "Ah… he's here." She smiles slightly.

A large someone then sits next to Layla, wearing a black coat and hat, covering itself mostly. It muttered in the language that sounded like what Layla was speaking, her responding fluently. In a matter of minutes the conversation went completely over Ford's head, not knowing what the two were talking about.

Layla then whispered to Ford, "The good news is that Cipher hasn't updated this dimension about you yet." She takes another shot.

"You're going to get drunk…" Ford comments, pointing at her row of empty glasses.

"It'll take a hell of a lot more than these to get me drunk." She responds, taking yet another shot.

Suddenly a gun was then pointed in Ford's face by the being that was talking to Layla. Layla jumps up, her own gun in her hand pointing at the being. They both started arguing, Layla sounding upset.

"Ford… RUN!" Layla screams as she pulls her trigger, a beam from her gun hitting her information supplier. Soon other guns were being pulled out as Ford starts running through the tavern, him reaching in his coat and grabbing his own gun. It felt odd in his hand, it was heavy and bulky feeling. As someone aimed at him, he aims as well, his hands shaking. Layla then grabs him and pulls him away just as a beam almost hits Ford.

They exited the tavern, Layla shooting behind her. A beam hits her shoulder and she screams, putting a hand to it. Ford, with his gun in his hand, aims and shoots, hitting one of the creatures square in the chest, it flying back. Layla was hissing in pain and Ford had to drag her off to the side. She wasn't running along with him, forcing him to put her on his back to carry her and starts running as fast as he could go.

"That… bastard…" Layla mutters, her breathing heavy.

"Who? The guy that shot you?" Ford replies.

"No… my information…" Layla states. "Apparently Cipher had a bounty on your head… you must be really important… it was a setup because they wanted the reward…"

Ford looks down, feeling guilty. "Sorry then that you're associated with me…" he tells her. He slowed his pace, trying to catch his breath when he sees an alleyway and runs in it. He catches his breath as he gently sets down Layla, who was holding her bleeding shoulder.

Layla glances at him, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. "No it's my fault… I probably should've went in alone…" she admits. She tries to reach in her coat but winced in pain. Ford then goes and helps her, finding something that resembled a first aid kit. "Thanks…" she whispers, shrugging off her coat, her wearing a solid black tank top, her arms covered in various thick scars. Ford's eyes widened. "It's all fine…" she assures him as she goes and starts to clean up her wound.

"I'll just be going then…" Ford then says as he slowly gets up to make his exit.

Layla then shouts, "Go where? You're gonna get killed out there!" She finishes bandaging her shoulder and puts back on her coat. "Cipher is going to find you easily, you don't know what you're doing."

"Look where trying to help me got you, Layla!" he screams back at her.

"You just like pushing people away, don't you?" Layla screeches angrily.

Ford, with his hands in balled off fists, screamed, "Yes! Yes I do push people away! I pushed my twin brother away, moved to the other side of the country and basically cut all connections with my family, I pushed away one of my good friends, and… I'm fine with it!" Ford was fuming, remembering how he ended up in a different dimension. "Because I needed Stanley's help… and we fought… I ended up here… I should never have asked him to come to Gravity Falls." His eyes were hard and full of rage.

Layla's eyes then soften, looking sad. "You pushed your twin brother away…? You cut off yourself from your family?" her voice was soft. "How can you be fine ditching your family like that?"

Ford shrugs, honestly not knowing himself. He was turning away, but she puts a hand on his shoulder. Normally he would've tried to shrug it off, but for a moment he felt an odd comfort from it.

The sky was starting to turn into a dark crimson, resembling nightfall. Layla glances around, tugging in his shoulder gently. He turns and she gestures for him to follow. She leads them to a wall of the alleyway, removing some kind cloaking device to reveal a small alcove that had makeshift blankets and pillows.

"What…?" Ford questions. "How did you know this was here?"

"Sixteen years, remember?" Layla answers him. "I set up multiple of these across everywhere so I can sleep semi-safely."

"Semi…?"

"Well, it's just an illusion." Layla explains. "I can still be heard and if someone touches the wall and feel nothing they know its fake." She pulls him in and sets up the device, a wall now "enclosing" them in. She then cracks something and a faint green light gently illuminates their tiny space. "So… we'll sleep in rotation, I'll take first watch."

Ford went to protest but she gives him a glare, he shuts his mouth and leans against a pillow that was against the wall. His eyes felt heavy and slowly he shuts them, hearing Layla's gentle humming that sounded a lot like a sound from a record that he and Stanley would listen together.

With a light grin, he falls asleep.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry about the lack of update yesterday! I just simply didn't have time! I will post a short story sometime later today if I can... I feel bad...

But thank you for reading, as always!

~Skye Hendersen~