The Big Con
Chapter 7: It's Not Me—It's Them!
They all had to lean on the door—it must not have been open for ages. The hinges gave a rusty groan of protest, the bottom of the door scraped what felt like a ton of junk, and slowly they forced an opening big enough to worm through. A streetlight glowed a hundred yards away—but its feeble light was enough to show them the horror they had fallen into.
"Wendy! Is that you?" Dipper wailed.
"Me? I'm OK, dude, but you and Mabel—"
Dipper gawked at Mabel, who was standing with her hands clasping her cheeks and her eyes wide with horror. She had changed just like Wendy!
Gasping for air, Dipper looked down at himself. "But—but I look the same. I mean, I haven't changed the way you two—"
Mabel finally found her voice: "Dipper! How'd you grow so tall?"
"Huh? Mabel, you're looking over my head. Here are my eyes!"
"Dude," Wendy said, "you're pointing at your chest! OMG, you're only like three inches shorter'n me now!"
"But you're like a head taller than you were!"
"Wah-wah-whoa!" Mabel said. "Okay, let's get this clear. Can we walk closer to the light?"
"I don't know if I want to," Wendy confessed.
But they did, until it showed as much as any of them cared to see. Dipper held up his hands to quiet the worried murmurs of the other two. "Okay, okay. So—each of us looks the same to herself or himself as they always did, right?"
"Yeah," Mabel said. "I'm still the same. But you guys—"
"It has to be an illusion," Dipper said. "Look, let's each describe the others. I'll go first. Mabel, you're the one who's taller! You're all sort of stretched out. And your head is only half the size it should be. Open your mouth. You've still got your braces, but now they're like little machines almost, with silver wires connecting them. Your sweater's still the shooting-star but it has, I don't know, texture now! And why is it so lumpy?"
"Grappling hook," Mabel said. "It feels so heavy now! And it doesn't just sort of disappear inside my sweater anymore. What's up with that?"
"Girl, my axe is givin' me problems, too," Wendy said. "Usually it just, like, tucks into the sheath on my back, under my hair, and I can't even feel it until I reach for it. Now it's like solid back there. Dipper, am I—am I like, a monster?"
"Oh, no, Wendy," Dipper said. "You're—well, you're beautiful! You still have your long red hair that reaches down to your knees, you still have your freckles, and you haven't stretched as much as Mabel, but you look a little taller. Your legs have, I don't know, more shape to them, and you have bigger boo—uh, a bigger, bigger—"
"You have a bigger bust," Mabel said. "A real figure."
"Oh, man, I wish! Okay, Dipper, you nailed it, dude. You're like, I don't know how to say it, rounder. Not fat, not fat, kinda skinny in fact, but your head's smaller too. Your clothes are the same, but you're right, there's a texture to them now. And I can see pockets in your vest with bulges in them."
"Wendy," Dipper said, holding up his hand, "How—how many fingers do I have?"
"Five, man. Hey, so has Mabel!"
"So do you."
"No way!"
"Hey," Mabel said, "Here comes somebody."
"Let's step back into the shadows," Dipper cautioned.
From where they stood concealed, they saw a motorbike—a little one, though—and heard it blatting its way down the street. When it went past, they saw that the rider was—was, well, like them. More—rounded. His arms had two distinct parts and weren't noodly at all. He stopped for a couple of moments at a stop sign and bent over to do something to one of his boots, so they got a good look.
When the little bike had growled off, Dipper said, "I think we're in some weird other dimension, guys. Either we've changed to look like the people here, or else there's some kind of illusion spell on us so that others see us that way."
They trudged back to the warehouse. The sky was starting to lighten. "We must've moved in time, too," Mabel said. "It wasn't even midnight when the ghost showed up."
"I'm afraid we could be anywhere or anywhen," Dipper said.
"And we don't even have a tape measure!"
"Uh—am I missin' something here?"
Dipper sighed. "Long story, Wendy. Ask me about it later."
They could tell now that the sun was rising off behind a range of hills. In the pre-dawn light, they saw that the warehouse looked abandoned. They had shoved the door open against a collection of accumulated mud, leaves, and a clutter of fast-food wrappers. Dipper squinted upward. "What's that written on the front?" he asked, pointing up above the tall sliding doors, which were chained shut with heavy, rusty links.
"Hard to read, it's so faded," Wendy replied. "M . . . c . . . capital G . . . u . . ."
"McGucket!" Mabel exclaimed. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!"
"Chill," Wendy said. "It's McGusset's."
"McGusset!" Mabel said. "I knew it all along!"
Dipper said, "That must be the name of the guy who designed the ship experiment. The one the Admiral couldn't quite remember."
"So . . . what do we do?"
Dipper turned to Mabel. "I guess first we ought to go back inside and try to get a little rest. Then after daylight, we have to see if we can find any place to get information. Man, I wish I had the Journals here! Or at least the slip of paper with my incantation notes."
They got back inside—the darkness was still heavy there—and forced the door as far closed as they could. Dipper took out his cell phone and used its flashlight function, but the gloom swallowed the glow. They went back into the place—the back wall seemed to have offices or something. None of the doors were locked, and at last they found a light switch.
It didn't work.
"Electricity's off, I'm sure," Dipper said.
But there was a desk and a chair and file cabinets. Mabel rummaged and came up with a flashlight—and it worked.
They took turns shining the light on each other. "You look weird, Dip," Mabel said, shining the light above his head. "But not weird in a monstery way. Now that I'm getting used to you, you actually look OK.'
"You look kinda hot," Wendy teased. "In a weird way, like Mabel says."
Dipper groaned. She would say that when I've been transformed into some other-dimension creature!
But it gave him an idea. He took out his camera and with its built-in flash he took photos of both Wendy and Mabel. Then Mabel took one of him.
"Wow," Wendy said, staring at the picture of her. "I do have boobs! But the rest of me's so ugly, man!"
"No, it isn't," Dipper said. "Now that I'm getting used to it, you—well, you look h—you look really good."
"Say it!" Mabel said, poking him with both fingers again. "Say she looks h-o-t, hot!"
"Lay off, Sis!"
"Hey, Dip," Wendy said. "Check it out, dude!"
He stared at the picture on the camera's back screen. "Is that me?"
"It's this dimension's version of you, I guess," Wendy said. She squirmed. "This axe is really uncomfortable now!"
Mabel had taken the flashlight and had gone out scouting. "Guys! Come and look!"
They followed her voice. At the far side of the warehouse stood ranks of strongly-built shelves, each about five feet above the next lower one. The bottom two were cluttered with what looked like computer components and electronics, though all jumbled up. On the third one up, though, was furniture—easy chairs and sofas. "We can nap up there!"
"It'll be a climb," Wendy said.
"Nope! Grappling hook!" Mabel took it out—it tangled in her sweater, and she complained, "That's not supposed to happen!" She fired it and scored a hit as its grapnel caught between the corner brace and the third-level shelf. She grinned and threw the switch.
The line tautened, but it didn't lift her off the ground. "What the hey?" She moved closer, and the little rewind motor whined, but it didn't have enough power for her weight. "Why is this happening?"
"I think we probably weigh proportionately more here," Dipper said. "We don't notice it because our muscles have been scaled up, but the grappling hook—well, it's feebler in this dimension, maybe."
"I got it, dudes," Wendy said. She took hold of the line, swung herself up, and rappelled up the corner post.
Impulsively, Dipper and Mabel began to chant, "Wen-dy! Wen-dy! Wen-dy!"
"You guys," she said from above them. She unfastened the grapnel. "Hey, there's a ladder over there in the corner! Just a sec."
"Don't fall," Dipper cautioned. He took the flashlight from Mabel and helped guide Wendy over. She stooped and picked up something rolled up. Then she came back, hooked it over the edge of the shelf, and unrolled it. It was an escape ladder, ropes holding wooden treads.
"Test it out," Wendy said.
Dipper knew that Mabel would want to go first. And she did, climbing hand over hand. "This is fun!"
He followed. It wasn't fun. The ladder swayed and he felt as if it would tip him off at any moment. But the girls helped him up at the top.
"We got one short loveseat and two sofas," Mabel said. "Wendy and I got dibs on the sofa. Dip's on the loveseat!"
The furniture had been covered by canvas dust-sheets. Fortunately, because when they moved the canvas, clouds of dust floated up, making them all sneeze.
They stretched out—Dipper found that his head rested on one of the loveseat arms, his heels propped up on the other arm. I must be taller, he thought. I should be able to fit between the arms!
His second thought was that he'd never be able to calm down enough to sleep.
His third was Where am I? as he woke up a couple of hours later.
Daylight filtered into the warehouse from a row of small windows running around both sides of the structure. It was mostly empty—an oil drum stood here, a long uncoiled chain lay there, other debris scattered about.
Mabel was making her little sing-songy sleep sounds. Wendy lay on her side, her axe on the shelf right beside the sofa. Dipper quietly got up and climbed down. It might be worthwhile taking a look outside now that it was light enough to see.
He pushed the door open again, easier now that they had bulldozed the dirt and trash partway out of the path. He stepped outside and stopped in his tracks.
A—well, a guy, one of the strange-looking denizens of this dimension, stood in the parking lot in front of the abandoned warehouse. He might have been twenty years old or thirty, or, for all Dipper knew, forty. These strange-looking people were hard to read. Behind him was a—parked car, Dipper supposed, a battered old white van of some kind—no make or model that he could identify.
But the guy, tall and sort of dumpy-looking with brown hair, was taking photos of the warehouse, and he was muttering to himself, "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I found it!"
Well, at least they speak English!
"Uh—hi," Dipper said.
"Oh, I'm not doing anything wrong," the guy said, hurriedly turning around. "This is the place! This is what inspired McGucket's—oh, man! You too? Seriously good costume, dude. I got to take a picture of you! Okay?"
"Um, sure, dude, knock yourself out."
He stood in front of the big chained door while the guy took about six photos. "Man, I wish I was in cosplay mode. I'm Soos, ya know."
"You—you're Soos? From Gravity Falls?"
"Well, when I'm in costume—Dipper! Oh, man, McGucket's real lab and I run into Dipper Pines!"
From the doorway came Wendy's voice: "Dipper? What's up?"
"Eeeeeeeeee!" squealed the photographer. "Wendy Corduroy. OMG, you guys are great! You have to enter the contest! Ya got a Mabel?"
"Here," Mabel said, coming out the door behind Wendy. "What's going on?"
"Uh, Mabel, Wendy, this guy says he's Soos," Dipper said.
"Oh, man, you stay in character! 'Scuse me while I have a nerdgasm! Pictures! All of you pose together! Oh, man, if you just had an axe and the grappling hook!"
"Just a sec," Mabel said. She ran back inside the warehouse, and when she came back she carried both.
Soos looked as if angels had come to fly him to heaven. "Those are perfect! Who did your costuming? Who did Wendy's hair and Mabel's braces? Oh, man! You guys are headed to the con, right? Hey, how'd you get out here? Where's your car?"
"Our car?" Wendy asked.
Dipper thought fast. "We got, uh, carjacked. They took everything—all our money and junk. We just had what we were wearing. We, uh, we'd hunted out this place just like you did, and they got away when we were inside taking pictures of each other."
"Oh, man, that's tragic!" The tall guy stuck out his hand. "Hi, dude, my name's Brad Begman. Everybody calls me "Soos," though, 'cause of I really like cosplay. This is my sixth time. This time I drove by myself all the way to San Diego from Cordele, Georgia, for this. So—who are you?"
"Uh, well, this is my twin—no kidding, we're really twins—and we're from Piedmont. I'm, uh, well, my sister first. Her name is—"
"Emma," Mabel said promptly. "Emma Palm. My brobro's Diggory Palm." She ignored Dipper's furious glare. "And this is our friend Willow Cambric."
"Buuuut like you, we prefer to be called Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy," Dipper hurriedly added.
"And y'all are from Piedmont? Like Al? Piedmont, California?"
"Uh, Piedmont, Oregon," Dipper said. "Quite a coincidence. Little, small town. Not, not even on the map. So we wouldn't know your friend Al."
"Hah!" Begman laughed. "I wish he was my friend! But look, guys, seriously, you have your room reservation? Your memberships?"
"They took everything," Mabel said, sounding desolated.
"Guys, ride in with me. I have a few connections. I'll find some way to fix it up, see what I can do. Hey, I was gonna stop and grab some breakfast. You guys hungry?"
"Hun-gry!" Mabel chanted.
"Season 1, Episode 6!" chortled Brad, to the complete mystification of Dipper. "Okay, guys, you're comin' with me, climb aboard. Van's a mess, and it's prob'ly a little smelly, took me four days to drive out here. But you can crash in my room if you want, and I'll buy your breakfasts. I hope McDonalds is OK."
"Oh, it'll be great," Dipper said. "We—Willow, you ride up front. Ma—my sister and I will take the backseat. We owe you big time, Brad."
"Oh, man, think nothin' of it! We gotta stick together, right?" He paused and then almost shyly added, "Hey, my Soos costume isn't near as good as yours, but you think we might team up? I've already paid my entrance fee for the Fringe Con masquerade tonight, and it's good for up to four in a group. First prize is a thousand bucks, and I think with you three we'd have a real shot!"
Wendy spoke up: "Sure, man. We could use some walkin' around money."
"Oh, man, you absolutely nail her voice! Do me a favor? Punch the top of the van and yell 'Brad-ford!'"
"Sure, dude, whatever."
And they rolled out of the parking lot to the rhythmic punching and the chant, and Brad "Soos" Begman had yet another nerdgasm. "Man, I love Gravity Falls!"
In the backseat, Mabel looked at Dipper and mouthed, "What's McDonalds?"
And Dipper could only shrug.