the steady continental seventy – ii
(underneath the golden grain)
Dipper clutches the walkie talkie, fascinated by Great-Uncle Ford's report. He wishes he could be in the trailer, but there's not much space back there. Besides, Mabel and Pacifica wouldn't let him, he's pretty sure. That's a little too antisocial, even for him.
"The falloff began as soon as we crossed the barrier," Ford says. "Almost straight down the graph, a nearly immediate seventy percent! We lost another twenty percent within the first five miles."
"Wow… How can it possibly reach all over America, or even the globe?"
"The physical process of Weirdness Magnetism must only occur close to the barrier… However, it's clearly in effect far past that, even if it's not a literal physical pull. I think we need to consider that it's a cumulative effect."
Dipper thinks that sounds plausible. "It could build for years!"
"Even centuries, or millennia! There are many odd things in the world outside the valley. Perhaps only the things which is exhibit the strongest corresponding signals find themselves caught in the gravity, if you'll pardon my unintentional pun."
Dipper nods enthusiastically, even though Ford can't see him. "What if the repulsion is also cumulative?"
"The repulsion remains purely theoretical," Ford cautions, "but I've been thinking about it. It occurred to me that trucking records might be useful. Do drivers who deliver to the valley avoid it afterwards? We have ample evidence that people can come and go at will. Whether they ever choose to return might be data worth pursuing."
"Do you think the barrier is collective, like the signal might be?"
"I have my doubts. If the barrier were indeed an aggregate of multiple sources, I think we would expect to see an uneven circumference. Smaller bubbles overlapping should give us a scalloped edge, but we've seen no indication of that."
This brings them back towards the 'chicken or the egg' problem of Gravity Falls' origins; they still don't know if the alien craft granted the valley its strange properties or if it was drawn to the weirdness already existing there. Mathematically speaking, the source of the magnetism should lie at the field's center, which casts doubt on the UFO being the field's originating point. When Bill had been trapped by the barrier, it had been centered over the town, not Crash Site Omega.
"We need to measure the perimeter again in case it's changed over the years. I've been putting this off in favor of getting established, but it needs to be done," Ford says. "After that, we'll figure out how to chart the dome. Assuming the ground doesn't impede the barrier, it should be equidistant from pole to pole."
Dipper immediately pictures a hot air balloon with a custom sensor array, or maybe a retrofitted crop duster. Either could provide the necessary data, though each would require its own approach. Of course, the problem of cost would rear its head once again…
He's about to share his thoughts with Ford when a shadow falls over him. He looks up and sees Mabel standing there with both arms out against the sides of the RV like a human barrier. Her expression is displeased.
Dipper assesses her thoughtfully. Slowly, he brings the walkie talkie back towards his mouth.
She snatches it out of his hand just as he's about to speak. "Heya, Grunkle Ford! It's me, your favorite Mabel," Mabel says sweetly into the receiver. "Dipper's gonna take a break for definitely important road trip stuff."
"Understood," Ford says. "I'll radio if anything comes up, but I expect the numbers to level off from here on out."
"Roger roger roger, over and up!" Mabel releases the button and tucks the walkie talkie somewhere into her sweater.
"Hey!" Dipper protests. "What if Ford—"
"Seriously, Dipper?" Mabel sighs. "We're supposed to be having fun!"
"But… there's nowhere to sit up there," he says feebly.
He finds himself pulled to his feet, marched down the hall, and forcibly shoved into one of the table seats next to Pacifica. Last summer, this wouldn't have been a problem, but after a year's worth of his growth spurt there's not a lot of room. Luckily, Pacifica is small enough to fit between him and the window, albeit with quite a lot of body contact. Not that he's complaining.
Mabel flops down in the seat next to Wendy, leaning into her older friend with a sociable disregard for personal space. "Look who decided to join us!" she says.
"About time," Wendy says.
"I was going to," Dipper tells them, "I just needed to go over some stuff with Great-Uncle Ford."
"Yeah? How's that going?" Wendy says with interest.
Dipper starts to tell her, only to realize as the words form in his head how deeply uninteresting a populating spreadsheet is to anyone who doesn't already understand its significance. "Uh, he's measuring how Weird things are outside the valley."
"Aren't they going to be weird wherever we are?" Wendy jokes.
"Hah, yeah, I mean…" Dipper goes quiet as the implications of her jest hit him. What… if she's right? What if their own emissions are skewing the data?
Wendy snaps her fingers a couple times in front of his face. "Dude, you with me?"
He looks desperately to Mabel. "Mabel, give me the walkie talkie, I need to tell Great-Uncle Ford—"
"Shut your butt, coconut!" Mabel sings.
"I'm serious! I need to tell him something!"
Mabel's eyes narrow warily. "Tell him what?"
"Just go," Pacifica says.
Dipper looks at her. "What?"
Pacifica is looking out the window with her arms crossed tightly. "Just tell Stan to pull over and go back to the trailer if you don't want to be here."
Dipper doesn't understand. "I… Are you mad at me?"
Wendy covers her face with one hand.
Mabel holds up the walkie talkie. "If it's really important, what does Grunkle Ford need to know?"
"Personal Weirdness Magnetism," Dipper says. "We might be affecting the data."
Mabel presses the button. "Grunkle Ford? It's Mabel again."
"Everything alright?" Ford says.
"Yeah, Dipper just wants to ask if our personal magnets might be messing with your science stuff."
"You can tell him there's no need to worry. I've already set the spectrometer to filter out the unique wavelengths of everyone in the RV, as well as the RV itself," Ford replies.
"Cool beans. See you at Upside-Down Town!" Mabel lowers the walkie talkie. "Fine?" she asks.
"Yeah, fine," Dipper says reluctantly. He just wants to talk science with Ford for a bit, he isn't going to spend the whole trip that way. The scientific work is vital.
"Kids! We're passing the yarn ball, if you like that kind of trash!" Stan yells.
Mabel jumps up and gestures to Pacifica. "You at least gotta see it!"
Dipper stands up so Pacifica can make her way to the front, slumping back into the seat with a resentful slouch once she's gone. Wendy also declines to watch the yarn ball pass. She's probably seen it plenty of times, Dipper assumes.
"What's their deal?" Dipper complains. "We're going to have plenty of fun at all the stops. I just want to help Great-Uncle Ford when I can."
"I know, dude," Wendy says agreeably. "Did you tell Pacifica that? Or did you kinda-sorta-maybe blow her off when she was trying to get her smooch on?"
Dipper is about to retort that of course he told her that, but the words dissipate from his tongue as he remembers that, no, he assumed she knew that. When she was holding his hand it probably wasn't because she just wanted something to hold on to. Especially considering they were alone in the back, complete with a privacy curtain if they wanted it. She must have seen it as an opportunity.
"I kinda-sorta-maybe blew her off," Dipper mumbles. Still, he isn't quite ready to surrender the point. "But what Ford is doing really is important, okay? I'm not just messing around!"
"If he really needs you to be on the radio for math or whatever, you do what you gotta do," Wendy says with a noncommittal shrug.
This only serves to make Dipper feel guilty, because the fact is that Ford doesn't need Dipper to be active on the radio. He's just recording data right now, a process which is mostly automatic. Barring any emergency which would necessitate Dipper's help, there's literally nothing Dipper can do or say that can't wait. Their short conversation was almost pure speculation.
"I wasn't trying to ignore her," Dipper explains.
"Hey, I believe you," Wendy says, "but my tommy gun don't!"
Her hands come up from underneath the table and out of nowhere she has a Nyarf gun; Dipper takes a foam dart right to the forehead. He recoils and covers his head with his arms as she bombards him with all seven darts in her toy gun. The second she has to reload he frantically searches for a weapon to counterattack.
"No fair! Where's mine?" he asks.
"It's not my fault you packed like an idiot," Wendy says reasonably, and proceeds to blast him with another full magazine of darts.
It isn't too long after the very one-sided dart fight that Upside-Down Town comes into view around the bend of the road. In the time since their last encounter, the house has been restored to its proper position and looks no worse for wear. The proprietor comes out and watches the RV as Grunkle Stan parks it, ready to supervise this uneasy détente.
"Alright crew," Grunkle Stan says as he kills the engine, "remember, this is a truce. Don't play too rough with anything, and when you go through the giftshop… buy somethin'." He looks like the words are causing him intense physical pain. "Keep it small!" he adds as the kids disembark.
Dipper is about to head for the entrance when he notices Soos hanging back by the RV. "You coming, Soos?" he asks.
"Uh, yeah, I'm just sticking close to Stan this time," Soos says a bit nervously. "Don't want to end up sleeping in a cornfield again, heh heh!"
"Right, yeah. Sorry about that," Dipper says sheepishly.
Dipper finds the thrill of Upside-Down Town diminished on the return. This has to do with its novelty wearing off, but there's also the lack of a rush provided by successfully talking to a girl. He's not looking for girls to talk to this time, so there's not much to do besides move through the inverted house towards the giftshop. Once there, he follows Stan's instructions and purchases a small snow globe with an upside-down house in it. It's weirdly unseasonal and he kind of enjoys that, imagining being in Gravity Falls in the winter for once; the town and the valley are so inextricably linked to the summer that he finds it hard to picture. He steps out the back and starts to walk around to the front, intent on going to the trailer and getting an update from Great-Uncle Ford.
He is surprised to find Pacifica sitting on a rock not far from the RV. She's holding a branded mug in her hands and is spinning it idly around. Dipper didn't think anyone had gone through the house faster than him.
"That was quick," he says as he approaches her.
"I didn't go in," she says primly. "The whole house smells like puke."'
"Yeah, that makes sense." He gestures vaguely down the road. "The next stop will be better. Probably." He's a little unsure on the order; he doesn't remember Log Land very well, and the corn maze is kind of underwhelming. See one corridor of corn, and you've pretty much seen them all.
Dipper glances over towards the trailer. Ford has stepped out and is standing on a stepladder, tightening something on the roof with a ratchet. Dipper is about to head over and talk data when Pacifica speaks again.
"Do you think this is a waste of time?" she asks.
"What?" He turns away from Ford, his full attention on Pacifica again. "What do you mean, you want to go home?"
"No. I mean I'm…" She sighs and sets the mug down between her feet. "I mean I can't really get away like this. It's like I'm running away three times, from Malibu, from Piedmont, from the Shack."
"It's not like we don't have reasons," Dipper says.
"I guess."
Dipper fidgets with his snow globe. After a few moments of silence, he says, "Maybe we should make a deal."
She eyes him curiously. "What kind of deal?"
"I know we said we were going to talk about this stuff some more, but why do it now? We're on the road, so let's forget about it. This is our vacation from vacation and we just won't talk about anything serious until we get back." This sounds reasonable enough to him, if a little self-serving.
She purses her lips thoughtfully. "Are we not going to talk about it because we're not going to talk at all? Are you going to avoid me the whole time?"
Dipper rolls his eyes. "I haven't been avoiding you."
She isn't buying it. "You didn't even want to hold my hand!"
"I was really into some science stuff! Sometimes there's science to get into, I'm Great-Uncle Ford's assistant!"
"And I'm your girlfriend!"
"I know!" he retorts, and it comes out more loudly than he intended. He looks over his shoulder, worried they're causing a scene. "…Maybe we should make a deal not to fight, either."
But the fire has left her as quickly as it came. "Whatever," she mutters. "Go talk to Ford, I don't care."
Except she obviously does. Dipper is starting to understand that they had very different expectations for this trip. "Hey, this is just the first stop," he points out. "We're going to be on the road for days!" He holds out his hand. "Come on, we'll talk to Great-Uncle Ford for a minute and by the time we're done, I bet everyone will be ready to head out."
"So it's the deal?"
"Yeah. Deal?"
She stands up and takes his hand. "Deal."
Ford is tinkering with some of the equipment when Dipper and Pacifica reach the trailer. "Everything is still in order," he says. "We'll need to tighten these bolts periodically. I've made a note of it."
"Any big changes?" Dipper asks.
"Not yet. Falloff has been steady for the last half hour or so. We could see another drop once we exit the county. If so, I'll be curious at what point it occurs."
Ford and Dipper talk a little more about the results, but at this early stage there isn't a whole lot to share. The rest of the group leave the upside-down house a few minutes later and reconvene in the RV.
"Everyone on, go, go!" Stan barks, gesturing as they all go up the short steps.
Mabel pauses at the door. "What did you do, Grunkle Stan?" she asks him suspiciously.
"Nothing!" he retorts.
She crosses her arms and stands her ground, refusing to get on.
He glances nervously over his shoulder. "Look, I, uh, had to use the can and might've clogged it. And flooded it. And broke a couple fixtures when I slipped. It coulda happened to anyone! I just don't want Holden to know it was me, not while we got a ceasefire. So get your butt on board."
Mabel relents and clambers up into the RV. Soon they are back on the Redwood Highway, driving towards their next destination as the trees flit past outside the windows and the road rumbles steadily beneath the tires.
Dipper steps up front for a second as the other kids move to the back. "What's our next stop?" he asks Grunkle Stan.
"Log Land," Stan says. "Try not to look at all the trees on the way there, you don't wanna wear yourself out."
"That's good advice, Mr. Pines, super wise," Soos says, missing Stan's sarcasm completely.
"Is that really all there is to do there?" Dippers says.
The only thing Dipper remembers about Log Land is the 'log on a stick' vendor. Like pretty much all the tourist traps, they hadn't been there very long on account of the quick getaway necessitated by Stan's revenge.
"Me and Reggie used to go down the log flume backwards," Soos tells him. "They kept kicking us out, but I'm gonna say it was worth it."
"Oh, yeah," Dipper says, now recalling the log ride.
Accordingly, he also remembers the girl he rode it with and the confrontation the next day. Oof. Well, this time he isn't trying to forget about Wendy, and he has a girlfriend. No more deeply uncomfortable reveals at Mystery Mountain.
Though, thinking of Mystery Mountain—
"Grunkle Stan, we're definitely not going to Mystery Mountain, ri—"
"Nope," Stan grunts. "They're under new management, but that's still a hard pass."
"New management?"
"Me and Ford stopped there on the drive out of town," Stan says, referring to his and Ford's original departure from Gravity Falls in the wake of last summer. "Sent 'em back to their own universe. Turns out spider-people and regular people live together all peaceful there, so Darlene's in real trouble. Good riddance."
"Oh, cool," Dipper says, feeling kind of left out. "I guess we don't need to ride Trambience again."
"If I wanna take a nap that bad I can ask Soos for his life story."
Soos accepts this with his usual good humor. "Who am I, but another wayward seeker lost in his own narrative?"
"That wasn't an invitation."
Dipper leaves them to it, heading to the rear of the RV. He narrowly avoids taking another dart to the face as it turns out that Mabel, better prepared than he, has packed her own dart gun and is engaging Wendy in a close quarters battle. Given the tight boundaries, their fight is mostly just emptying the guns into each other at point blank while laughing. Keenly aware that he is unarmed, Dipper quickly moves past them to the very back seat, where the curtain is drawn; he ducks through it to find Pacifica there, sheltered from the Nyarf war.
"Forgot to pack a dart gun too, huh?" he commiserates.
"As if I'd ruin this complexion with dart welts," she replies.
The curtain blocks direct sunlight from the front of the vehicle, leaving the two of them mostly in shadow. The sudden brightening of the space is therefore starkly apparent; Dipper looks out one of the small side windows and sees that the steady backdrop of the forest has given way to farm fields. Vast swathes of wheat ripple in the wind, whipping past the window with an amber brilliance.
Dipper reaches out and takes Pacifica's hand. "Guess it's just you and me," he says.
She gives him a sideways look. "Trying to make up for earlier, huh."
He smiles self-consciously. "Is it working?"
She relents, her hand curling around his. "Yeah, okay."
They sit together in their sheltered space, aware that their closeness will inevitably be broken by someone else in such close confines, but comfortable, nonetheless. Maybe it's just the deal they've made, but it seems to Dipper that Gravity Falls is even further in the rearview than it really is, that the road trip is becoming a world unto itself and it moves with them, its momentum self-sustaining. He would go anywhere, as long as she was going too. The grain whistles by the window as they speed towards the next destination, towards the future, as if time is the road and they are spinning down its gentle curve. Maybe that's the truth of the road trip—the journey is a destination all its own.
Acres of golden wheat flash by, a tawny blur glowing under the light of the afternoon. The RV traverses an open road that unspools beneath a wide, blue sky, somewhere in the heart of Oregon.
an open road that unspools beneath a wide, blue sky
reubens accomplice — underneath the golden grain