Chapter 11: The Mad Scientist

"I'm coming, Stan!"

Suppressing my fear for what might happen, I shot forward towards Stan. In the moment, I had spotted a taut rope next to him, leading up to something in the trees. If my guess was correct…

"Stan, duck your head!"

Stan wasted no time in complying with my request, and immediately ducked his head. In my right hand I wielded the machete that Stan usually carried on him. However, he had handed it over to me for protection since he was carrying Mabel.

In one, precise swing, the machete's blade cut through the taut rope just as the giant monster came barreling forward, only a few meters away from us, his claws raised above his head as he went to kill us.

WHOOOOOSH-SLAM!

From above the treeline, a giant log swung down, smacking the monster in the side and sending it barreling to the side. One of the trees had fallen on its side, and so a jagged stump lay in its place.

SHICK!

The monster roared in guttural pain as it landed squarely on the stump, which impaled the giant being. Its arms flailed around wildly for a few moments as it screeched in desperation.

Over the course of moments, its flailing lessened, and eventually stopped. The creature was dead, slumped against the stump.

I was shaking uncontrollably. I had almost met my grisly death, and only the grace of a random trap stopped me from getting mauled by that….thing. I didn't dare try and get a closer look at the monster in this torrenting storm, nor did I have any wish to hang around longer than was absolutely necessary.

"Gah….Urgh…"

I realized that Stan was still stuck in the bear trap. From what I could see, his leg was bleeding profusely from the ankle down.

"Fucking...christ…."

I was terrified of seeing an adult in such a vulnerable position, especially the one that was looking over us. Stan brought his face up, pain written all over it.

"Dipper...get me out...of this!"

I got down and began inspecting the device. Luckily, it seemed to have a release latch, which I pulled quickly. Stan groaned loudly in pain as the metal claws unlatched from his ankle. He threw himself a couple feet away from the bear trap and grabbed his ankle, sucking through his teeth.

I released a shaky breath. Now that Stan was reasonably okay, I went over to check on Mabel. After checking her over for any serious wounds, I sighed in relief. Aside from a few bruises from hitting the ground hard, she was relatively fine.

I stood up, looking around, surveying the area for any more potential monsters. To our fortune, it seemed that only the chirping crickets and the sound of rain hitting the treetops above were present.

Why the hell was that trap there?

That was the prevalent question in my mind. Logically, it wasn't that much of a mystery. It was likely that whoever laid out that giant log trap had also planted the bear trap, for the purpose of catching both big and small monsters alike. However, the fact that the giant trap did not have a trigger of any sort besides cutting the rope was the problem at hand...

"We need to get out of here." I urged myself. That trap had been nothing short of a miracle, and I was not anxious to push my luck. I went over to Stan once more to check on him. Almost instinctively, I looked down at his wound at the ankle, and regretted doing so. Several gashes were present on the sides of his ankle, with blood staining his shoes and skin. It was still bleeding excessively, which worried me greatly.

"Stan, do you have any extra cloth?"

"No…"

I rubbed my forehead, thinking. The wound would have to be wrapped up tightly to stop any more blood from leaking.

My shirt, I thought to myself. Of course, it'd need to be torn up a bit to wrap around the ankle properly.

I looked at Stan while taking off my shirt. His head leered back slightly as he was surprised by my action.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna use my shirt to wrap around that wound. Can you tear it up a bit so that I can wrap it around your ankle?"

Stan nodded.

"Sure…" He winced in pain, having accidentally put more pressure on his wounded ankle than he should have.

As I got my shirt off and handed it to him, he took it and tore it from the collar down. I took up the shirt and wrapped it around his ankle, securing it with a knot. Finally, we had recovered from a grim situation.

I took a moment to think as I sat Stan against a tree. We were in a precarious situation. Now that Stan was injured, he could definitely not carry Mabel, as that would put weight on his wounded leg. I would have to do that myself. Or maybe…

I looked at Mabel, and once again anger welled up in my chest. I couldn't stop thinking about how much she fucked up our situation.

This is all her fault, I thought to myself. Why are we risking our lives to carry around this psycho bitch?

I could barely see her as a sibling at this point. And how could I? As far as I knew, I had never had any past experiences with her. I never knew what she was like before this hellhole. Maybe she was the same, possibly different…

Regardless, the prospect of carrying this person any further made me clench my teeth in seething anger. I glanced over to Stan, who was looking at his ankle. Maybe I could convince him that we could leave her…

Snap.

My head swiveled towards the sound of a branch snapping. I began to shake as I thought about what horrors were awaiting us the longer we stayed here. Without further hesitation, I slid both my arms under Mabel to pick her up. The issue of this woman could be delayed. For now, the most pressing matter was to find safety.

After Stan had gotten up, we continued in the direction that we were previously running.

10 minutes later…

"What the hell is that?"

This comment from Stan immediately put my guard up. I ducked behind a tree, but Stan waved his hand at me, signaling it wasn't an immediate threat. Relieved, I got up from my hiding place and walked over to where he was. He pointed forward, where I directed my gaze.

Ahead of us, through a break in the trees sat a giant warehouse with one part in ruins, a barbed wire fence running around it. It was over 3 stories tall, and looked somewhat abandoned, with broken and boarded up windows. However, there were extra defenses laying around the perimeter. From where I was, it was difficult to make out, but I could definitely identify blatant pitfalls, with leaves thrown over facade ground to make it look like solid ground. There were even those same X-shaped sharpened sticks that I had seen at the town from before. It seemed to be a popular defense nowadays, especially against larger monsters (at least, that was what I speculated they were for). Shocking to me was that, upon closer inspection, there were robotic machines patrolling the inner parts of the compound, each one armed with some sort of melee weaponry

"We definitely want to avoid this place. There's a more likely chance that the owner of this place is readily available to kill the nearest sign of life than offer cookies."

I nodded. After the past encounters with people we'd met, there was a higher ratio of people willing to kill than to help.

"What should we do, then?" I asked him. Stan contemplated for a moment.

"We might need to move around-"

"INTRUDERS!"

You have to be pulling my fucking leg, I thought in a mix of indignation and fear as I heard the single word blare out through a speaker out of sight.

As soon as the word rang out, a plethora of the robotic machines came storming out of the compound, straight towards us.

"Shit, shit! How did we get detected?!" I said aloud in panic. Stan pointed to a pole jutting out at one end of the warehouse, which I found to be holding a variety of security cameras aimed in all directions.

"That's how." Stan said in a grim tone. "Now let's get the hell out of here!"

I nodded, and in a moment swiveled around, ready to make a swift escape.

Bzzzzzz.

And yet, as I took only one step forward, I heard the sound of buzzing coming from my left, then in an instant, three sharpened sticks at been shot in a line in front of where I was planning to run. I looked up to see one of those machines hovering in the air with blades spinning rapidly above its main body.

"Is that a damn helicopter?!" I shouted. However, the only thing resembling such characteristics was the blades themselves. There was a cylinder jutting out of the bottom, aimed at my general figure. That is where I assumed the sharpened sticks came out from.

"Don't...Don't try to run, shortstocks! You will enter the compound! The compound! The...the compound! Talk is in order! NOW! Especially you, shirtless fruitcake!" The voice seemed to be emitting from some sort of radio device embedded into the machine.

What the hell have I gotten myself into? I thought. Of course, I wanted to keep my life, so I nodded fervently, laying Mabel on the ground below and putting my hands up.

"Alright! We'll comply! Just don't kill us!"

Good thing Mabel will be left here, I formulated, thinking about my clever plan. I noticed her stirring earlier, which means she will wake up and can help find us a way out of that compound-

"Bring the girl, numbnuts!"

Shit.

I picked up Mabel and, along with Stan, began walking towards the compound slowly, followed by the entourage of machines.

As we had entered the compound through the large gates, we proceeded through the courtyard straight towards a set of rusty-looking double doors leading into the warehouse. Approaching the door, I felt nothing but dread and uncertainty. My nerves were on edge as I occasionally glanced up at the machines following us with ever-watchful eyes.

Of course, I had a terrible experience with being taken prisoner once before, and I sure as shit didn't want to deal with any more gruesome occurrences or fanatical cults.

Two of the robots came forward, using their bodies to push open the doors, and Stan and I entered into a very large space. In it, an absolute mess laid before us.

At first sight, the middle of the warehouse was clustered with even more of the same contraptions that were currently trailing behind Stan and I, all of them zooming around to perform some specific task, from building unknown mechanisms to stockpiling materials of many types. On the edges of the warehouse, however, I noticed workstations of different types, from mechanical workshops to closed-off libraries, and each station seemed to have the same quality of disarray. Further up, catwalks lined the edges leading around the sides of the compound, with a couple of derelict-looking doors on each side of the second story.

So many machines, and you couldn't bother to program one of them to do cleaning? I thought ironically.

Regardless of the messy setup, I couldn't help but wonder how these machines had been built, where they had come from. I had a feeling that would be answered, based on where we were heading.

After much prodding, we were directed towards a door that led to a flight of stairs leading upwards, onto the catwalk above. I opted to try and glance around inconspicuously, attempting to scout out any routes of escape. However, every possible path or route was blocked or overseen by one of those bots.

I leaned over to Stan, whispering in his ear, which was a tad bit difficult since I only went up to his waist.

"See any ways out of here?" I uttered. Stan shook his head.

"No. We can't do shit with these damn machines watching us."

I had the same feeling, despite asking Stan ahead of time.

We were caged in.

That realization only served to heighten my fear.

Finally, we found ourselves in front of one particular door on the west wall of the compound. As Stan and I came to stand in front of the door, I felt my nerves grind to the edge of my skin.

Who the hell is this guy?

Did he make these things?

What is he gonna do to me?

That was the overarching question in this situation. Our fate was undoubtedly sealed to whatever this individual decided to do to us, and based on my past history with people, I was nowhere near sure that he didn't have something sinister in mind.

"Come in."

I heard the raspy voice utter from the other side of the door, sending a deep shiver down my spine. Yet, I complied, reaching for the doorknob and turning it.

Crreeeeeaaakkkk.

The door opened up to reveal a well-sized room, but an absolute mess. Scraps of metal, wood, plastic, and many other types of material were strewn around all over the place. The factory windows on each wall of the room had several cracks and broken frames. Furniture, at least what was identifiable as such, laid around as torn pieces, from half-collapsed chairs to desks filled with gashes and slices.

And at the far end of the room, someone was hunched over some sort of unfinished invention.

"Eh...part here must be there...no...there!...Eh…"

As the door's creaking reached the cretin's ears, he raised his head, looking up towards me.

"Oh...you two...or three...or four or five or twenty or five-hundred-sixty-four…"

The hell is this freak talking about? I wondered to myself.

He hobbled over to me like some sort of hunchback creature, breathing heavily. As he came closer, I was able to get a better look at his unsightly being.

He seemed to be of a darker skin color than others, which made me assume he was Hispanic of some sort. Beyond that first observation, I also noted that he seemed to have extreme malnutrition, as his clothing barely clung to his gaunt figure. A nearly-torn brown baseball hat sat on his head, as if he had forgotten about it on there entirely. I could just barely make out some form of a question mark on his shirt, which was just as torn as the hat, and his beige cargo pants had black stains all across them. He seemed to be wearing no shoes, and I noticed that his feet looked bruised and torn, most likely from scraping by the rough materials that littered the floor.

As he came up to inspect me, I was very much creeped out by how his eyes dashed around rapidly, as if inspecting every element of his environment, absorbing information at a constant pace. His face turned from extreme suspicion and aggressiveness to understanding within the span of a few seconds.

"You, you, I've seen you before, I know it!" He muttered under his breath as he looked me over, further creeping me out. He then directed his gaze towards Stan, giving him the same rundown.

"I also...also know you! A feeling of authority, but of promise as well! As well!"

I could see Stan in clear discomfort from this wretched person's close interaction, but there was nothing we could do. The bots kept their gleaming cameras aimed straight at us as this guy was looking us over.

Finally, he receded back to the ground, hunched over and glancing between the two of us as he connected various parts of metal and plastic with his mangled hands.

"I see...I see. I see I see I see I SEE!" The cretin proceeded to laugh maniacally, then stopped as abruptly as it had started, his eyes still in constant motion. "There is so much, SO MUCH potential here! We can do so much...So much!"

I didn't dare to speak up, for fear that I would anger this seemingly insane individual. He continued to hobble around the room, tinkering with parts in his hands. I only began to realize that, amongst his rambling, he had been constantly assembling parts of the same type of robots that were guarding us currently. I couldn't help but comment, as some part of me was utterly fascinated by this.

"Did you...make these robots?" I uttered.

He seemed to have heard me, and his head swiveled in my direction. I felt my veins run cold for a moment, fearing that I had angered in him some way. However, he grinned in a very disturbing fashion as he heard the remark.

"Yes...Yes I did. Wonderful machinations, aren't they? Truly wonderful...Like cake. I want cake. Yes, their cogs twist and turn, so easily to assemble and disassemble, like the layers of an onion!"

If I wasn't sure whether this person was bat-shit crazy before, I was absolutely assured now. Yet he continued on with his rant, switching topics sporadically.

"Let me...join you...on your quest! Your quest, for vengeance! For redemption!"

What?... I wondered in bewilderment. Is he…

"I can see it! In your eyes, in your body, in your soul. This quest, this journey, is to be filled with times ahead, and I want it! I WANT IT! Something is not right, not right at all...someone is fucking with these lands, it is unbalanced…"

I couldn't possibly fathom what he was insinuating behind his purpose of this, but I could definitely understand that he was…

"Do you...want to join...our group?" I asked tentatively, saying it slowly to ensure that I did not confuse or cause his wrath in some way. I had no idea that dealing with such a mentally unstable person was so difficult and stressful.

He nodded to my question fervently, hobbling around in earnest, which I had no idea someone could do until now.

"Yes! YES! We shall go together...together. All of you, important in some aspect! I can sense it! FEEL IT! I can feel- HEY!"

He suddenly shouted at something behind him, leading to a tense moment of silence. After a few seconds of staring at the space behind him, he craned his head back towards us.

This guy is fucking insane, I thought to myself.

"You can join."

I heard Stan to my right utter these words, and I was thrown into absolute confusion. I whipped my head towards him, my eyes reading 'Why the fuck would you say that?!' He turned his head towards me, his eyes saying 'What choice do we damn well have?'

When the cretin heard this, his face contorted into what I could only assume was ecstatic joy, and he began hopping in glee.

"Joy, oh joy! Let us depart!"

"W-wait! We need time to...recuperate."

In all honesty, this whole conversation had progressed too fast. Only a minute or two ago, this guy threatened us with his bots, and now he was our traveling companion. Then again, I had no room to say anything, considering who had the bigger show of force.

Hearing my suggestion, the cretin nodded fervently once again, scratching at the side of his face as he rambled to himself.

"Recuperation...I see...of course...Re-coop-er-ay-shun! Recuperation! I have...oil and- NO! You...humans...Us humans need nourishment. Water, food, shelter, the three essentials of survival!"

At the end of his ramble, he seemed to noticed the terrible state that his figure was in as he looked down in horror at himself.

"No! My body...I need nutrition! What has become of my being?! Very well."

His voice lowered from the shrieking pitch it was at before, and he hobbled over to a large pad laying on the floor. As he picked it up, I noticed it was a makeshift remote of sorts, with a screen and everything. Once again, I was utterly astounded by the creations this cretin had somehow managed to invent.

He began pressing a series of buttons on the control pad, and within a few moments, the bots behind us receded from view, and I could hear the sounds of metal clanking downstairs. With that, the cretin dropped his controller and giggled in joy, hobbling back over to us.

"Done. It is done! They will go get fruits and berries and candy and corn and milk and-"

"Okay, okay, we get it." I interrupted. Now that this person seemed to align himself with us, I found more room to not have to deal with his rambling as much. Good thing was that he didn't seem bothered by it at all, most likely because of his seemingly utter lack of social interaction or general mental wellness.

As we stood in that room, the silence began to grow awkward as the cretin stared at us both, his head twitching occasionally. I felt it necessary to break the silence.

"So, uh...sir...since you're joining us on this...quest...can we know your name?"

The cretin grinned crazily once more, his head twitching as he brought his hand up, pressing it against his chest.

"Me? Well, you can call me Buttercakes! Or -Ooh- Raspberry Mountain!"

The cretin cackled at its own bizarre humor before abruptly putting on a poker face.

"But you can call me Soos."

Upcoming - Chapter 13: The Journey's Beginning