Calamity Crossroads


21-One Last Thing

Dipper groaned and closed his eyes, then immediately opened them again. "Wendy?"

"Sh-sh," she said. "Where have you been?"

"I—don't know. Was I gone?"

"You didn't just have a nightmare, man," she said, leaning down to kiss him. Oh—he lay in his own bed. Their own bed, in the house that Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford had found for them and Mabel during their college education. "You were just—out. Ford told me what to do and how to watch over you."

"What's wrong with my arm?"

"Sorry, Dip, that's an IV. You were asleep for like four days. No, five days."

"Seems longer—"

"Will you promise me to lay still for a few minutes? I'll be right back."

"If you'll swear that I'm not dreaming, and I'm really back."

"Honest and truly, you are," she said. "Just wait a minute or two." She left him alone, and he looked to his right and saw the metal stand with a suspended bag of some yellowish solution, slowly dripping. Then he realized he was starving.

The bedroom door opened, and Ford came in, sporting a five o'clock shadow that was almost a gray-streaked brown beard but looking relieved. "Here, I'll take care of that."

Deftly, Ford removed the IV needle and immediately bandaged the spot. "Thanks," Dipper said.

"Look in my eyes. Follow my finger with just your eyes, don't turn your head. Good. One last thing. Let me think, let me think. All right, what secret did you tell me when I demonstrated the weirdness-magnet nature of Gravity Falls with jelly beans?"

"I told you my real name," Dipper said. "Mason. Uh—can I go to the bathroom?"

"Let me help you. You'll probably feel a bit shaky."

Dipper had to lean on him a little, but they made it and he took care of his needs. Then after he washed his hands, Ford helped him back to bed. Wendy had returned, and she was holding her phone. "He's OK," she said into it. "Hey, Dip, Mabel's on the phone. She wants to talk to you." She handed it over.

Dipper, sitting on the bed and waiting for the dizziness to fade, took it. "Hi, Mabel—"

"Don't ever do this again! If you do I—I'll make Tripper bite you in the butt, see if I don't! Oh, Dipper!"

"I'm OK, I think," Dipper said. "Just really hungry and—"

"What do you want?" Mabel asked. "Tell me, what do you want? Stat!"

Dipper glanced at Wendy, who had sat next to him and put her arm around his waist. He asked, "Uh, what time is it?"

"Nearly five in the afternoon," she said. "Tuesday afternoon."

"Five o'clock!" Mabel said on the phone. "I just got out of my last class. So if you want anything, you'd better tell me now because I—"

"Sis? How about a big vanilla milkshake and a burger?"

"You got it! You can owe me. I'll be home in half an hour. What do Wendy and Grunkle Ford want?"

Dipper asked. Wendy asked for a burger and soda, Ford just wanted a burger, lettuce and tomato only.

"Gotcha! Bye! And don't leave again!" Mabel hung up.

Blinking and feeling fuzzy in the head, Dipper muttered, "I've missed classes—"

"Don't sweat it, man," Wendy said. "Ford wrote an excuse for you—"

"I called it a severe virus," Ford told him. He winked. "I do have an M.D. and a letterhead with my office address and—" he patted the pocket where he always kept his computer phone—"my office telephone number."

"Could I have a drink of water?" Dipper asked. "My throat is really—"

"Coming up," Wendy said. She brought him a big glass, and he drained in in four gulps.

"That was . . . crazy," Dipper said. "I'm glad it's over."

Wendy glanced at Ford, her green eyes troubled. Ford's mouth tightened to a thin line. "Um . . . about that. I'm afraid it isn't over. Not yet."

Dipper groaned. "What?"

"Bill Cipher is still in one of the dimensions, where he shouldn't be. Admittedly, he has no physical form, but his intelligence is there, free-floating, pure energy, though intangible. He's, um—"

"Essentially a ghost," Dipper said. "I know what it's like. Uh—which dimension? There were so many scrambled up!"

"It's one separated from ours on both the time line and the reality scale, but not very far, multiversally speaking. I've identified it as Dimension 46'\**. In that one, you and Mabel are twelve years old, twins—"

"Good, I hated being her older brother," Dipper said.

"What?" Wendy asked.

Dipper took her hand. "I'll tell you about it later." He asked Ford, "Do I have to go into that one?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Now, as you know, the Nightmare Realm—"

"If I know it, why do you have to tell me?"

"Sorry, teaching got me into a few odd habits. Anyway, that interdimensional froth wraps itself around a barely sub-infinite number of other dimensions. Um—you remember how I unintentionally opened a rift to the Nightmare Realm?"

"You didn't do it," Dipper said. "That happened when the Portal brought you home. It overloaded and the energy burst or something tore a rift open. You contained it, and I was supposed to keep it safe. I was the one who failed."

"Nope," Wendy said. "Cipher tricked Mabel, and she gave it to him."

"But she didn't know what it was—"

Ford cut him off: "There's always more than enough blame to go around." He waved a dismissive hand. "Bygones. I do have a means of opening a very temporary rift that will feed directly into the Nightmare Realm, but someone must go to Dimension 46'\**, where it's 2012, and win the trust of Dipper Pines. I'm afraid you might be the only one capable of that."

"You mean physically this time, right?"

"Semi-physically. Pataphysically, as defined by Professor Maxwell Zelveren-Hamer in his work Eine Erläuterung der Theorie-Pataphysikalität in bezug auf eine Fülle von Realitäten—"

"Food!" From the living room Mabel's voice and Tripper's excited yipping announced her return with a bag of burgers and a drink tray with two enormous milkshakes and a soda. It was just in time to cure Dipper's hunger pangs and let them all escape from a lecture that no one could understand, anyway.


"So this is it?" Dipper asked a few hours later, looking dubiously at the device Ford had handed him. It was made of some light material, the body a rectangular flat white solid with a finger grip on the bottom and on the top a thumb switch, a small readout screen, and what looked like a tube of some repulsive green liquid. The business end had three round green lenses.

Grunkle Ford sighed. "Sanchez is going to insist on a big payoff for this. Yes, this is a limited-performance portal gun. Carefully pull the thumb switch back toward you once. Don't push it forward at all. Watch the readout screen."

Dipper did, and the small rectangular screen lit up in orange: 1.

"That's your goal," Ford said. "A pocket dimension that allows you access to Dimension 46'\**. Let go of the thumb switch and this time pull it backward, let it go, and immediately pull it back again."

This time the screen showed a 2.

"Two is the other Dipper's dimension. He may or may not be infested—if he's made a deal with Cipher—"

"He's Bipper," Mabel said. "Tickle him!"

Ford ignored that. "—you'll know because Cipher can never change the eyes of a person he possesses. Chances are, though, that Cipher will merely be following that Dipper closely. All right, the homing function will let you teleport to where that version of you is at the moment. Now repeat but pull the thumb drive back three times. What number do you see?"

"Three."

"That gets you here again. Now, the plan is this: First you go to site 2 and collect the twelve-year-old-Dipper. Then you go to site 1, where you can safely open a rift and, I hope, force Cipher through it. He'll wind up in the Nightmare Realm. Then you may return Dipper II, we'll call him, to his dimension and finally use the portal gun's setting 3 to return here. Clear?"

"Uh, one thing," Dipper said. "How do I activate it?"

Ford slapped his forehead. "Oh, how stupid of me! Once you've set the destination—the number will glow for about five seconds—then and only then press the thumb drive forward. A glowing green portal will open, you go through, and it immediately closes behind you."

"Got it."

"Repeat everything, please."

Dipper did. Twice. Then he kissed Wendy and said, "Be right back."

"Sibling hug for luck!" Mabel said. She whispered in his ear, "Don't make me come and get you!"

"And remember," Ford said, "in the pocket dimension—Bill's departure gate, let's call it—Mindscape rules apply. Together you and Dipper II must find a way to rift Cipher to the Nightmare Realm."

"Let's do it," Dipper said.


The first attempt took him directly to a strangely familiar and at the same time unfamiliar attic bedroom. Same triangular window, different painting on the wall—a mountain scene. In one bed Mabel snored away. In the other a tense younger version of himself sat up.

"Don't say anything!" Dipper whispered.

"Not again!" the Dipper II groaned.

"He's mine!" buzzed a high-pitched voice, and there was Bill Cipher, top hat, cane, and all, buzzing around the younger boy's head.

Dipper said, "Come with me, kid, if you want to ditch the triangle. I'll take you where he can't bother you."

"Uh—"

"Trust me," Dipper said. "Right this way."

"Don't listen to him!" shrieked Cipher, his voice like the whining of a mosquito.

"If it'll get me away from him," Dipper II said, jumping up from his bed. As Dipper himself had done at twelve, he slept in his clothes.

"Come on," Dipper said. "The portal will close as soon as we get through."

He fired the portal gun a second time, this time set for 1.

"Nononononono NO!"

The two Dippers stepped through—

Into what seemed to be a cylindrical room, floored and walled with white, the ceiling overhead a dizzying flow and swirl of neon colors. "Did we get away?" Dipper II asked.

"Wait a second and see. You look terrible."

"He won't let me sleep," Dipper II moaned.

"This is the Mindscape," Dipper told him. "You can do whatever you think of. You can create things by imagining them."

"Ha!" Cipher had puffed into reality, larger this time, at least as tall as Dipper. "Thought you'd get away that easy, did you? Hang on, you're—no, wait, he's—what do you think you're doing? This kind of messing with dimensions is impossible!"

"Bill," Dipper said. "You got through when all of us were jammed up by accident. This time, though, you're going out on purpose."

"You're crazy! I oughta make you into corpses and then—"

"Let's set the place on fire," Dipper said. "What do you say, Dipper?"

"Uh—"

"Fire?" Cipher screamed. "You wouldn't! You couldn't!"

Dipper pointed his finger. "Like this!"

"No, no, no! Cipher spun crazily, but around him a cylinder of flame had appeared.

"Help me!" Dipper said. "Fire's the one thing he can't stand. Hey, Bill! Think about your family!'

"HOW DID YOU—"

The cylinder contained him, and Dipper II made it hotter. Dipper concentrated: Rift to the Nightmare Realm, Rift to the Nightmare Realm—

"Narrow it! Burn him!" he yelled to Dipper II.

"YOU MEAT SACKS! I'LL DESTROY YOU—AND YOUR LITTLE UNIVERSE, TOO!"

"Escape hatch is under you. Burn or leave!" Dipper yelled, joining his imagination to his younger version's.

With a parting shriek, Bill spiraled away, like water down a drain. The Rift closed, the fire tornado wisped out, and—

"He's gone?" Dipper II asked. "Are—are you me?"

"I can't tell you anything about that," Dipper said. "Watch out for Bill, though. He's gone for now, but before the summer's over, I think you'll meet again. Remember, and tell Mabel, too, when the time comes—he can be beaten. We'd better get out of here, this place is getting unstable. Back to the Shack."

They stepped into the attic bedroom again. Dipper II said, "I've got so many questions!"

Dipper knelt. It was weird, but then, Gravity Falls, man. "You'll have to find your answers yourself," he said. "We all do. Take care, man. Better not even fist-bump. But you're OK. Have a great summer."

"Are you-?"

Dipper didn't, reply, but opened portal number three and walked through.

He stepped into absolute darkness, except for the little orange display.

Which read REFUEL.

Uh-0h.