Dimension 52

Dimension 52

(View the other chapters here [Chapter 1][Chapter 2][Chapter 3])

Chapter 4:

Despite Prismo warning he couldn’t bring Ford home, he had done it. Fortunately Ford had done so without the use of the Dimensional Portal. It’d been a year and a half since he’d been stranded, but at last, he was back in Gravity Falls.

It was one of those rainy summer days in a part of the woods he recognized as fairly close to his house. He could get back and resume his life where he’d left off. The first thing he intended to do was to disassemble that damn machine that’d sent him on this trip in the first place! After that, he’d give Stanley a piece of his mind, probably using his fist, since that seemed to get through to Stan.

Ford reached the clearing where he’d built his house, but something seemed off. There were a bunch of signs pointing to his house labeled “Welcome to the Murder Hut!” and “Admission only $20.” Some of the signs advertised a “Madame Mystery.” Ford also noticed several other new decorations outside his house, such as the beginning of a totem pole around his antenna, and numerous satellite dishes of his had been taken down too. Over the Back door was a sign labeled “Tours” and over the side entrance was “Gift Shop.” Ford stormed up to the front door and knocked on it urgently. He was fairly cross at this point, but he heard footsteps approaching the door. The door was swung open grandly by a woman in quite the unique sense of style. To put it simply, she was dressed in what looked to be a cross of business woman and like how mom used to dress. She was probably the one called "Madame Mystery" since she seemed to be going for some kind of psychic look.

Her looks however, were not the thing that surprised Ford, that was her reaction. Her eyes immediately lit up and she swept him up in one of the biggest hugs he’d ever seen. She’d managed to physically lift Ford off the ground and was swinging him around with her eyes squeezed tight against the tears rolling from her face. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you Dipper,” she said.

The name filled Ford with instant dread for a simple reason. He wasn’t Dipper, and he didn’t even know who this Dipper person was. He didn’t know how to break it to her. As she opened her eyes and took another look at his face and it turned out he didn’t have to.

She instantly dropped him, and her bright and cheerful tone was suddenly icily cold when she spoke again. “You’re not Dipper. Who are you and where is my brother?”

Ford was struggling to put the pieces together and remained silent. The woman looked angrier than Ford had felt earlier. “WHAT AREN’T YOU TELLING ME? YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHERE HE IS!”

Ford looked so helpless as he just starred sadly at that woman who seemed to lose so much energy shouting at him. She was on the verge of tears.Her voice quavered as she asked him again. “Just give it to me straight, okay? I’m already lost without him.”

After a moments silence the woman’s emotions finally won over her. She leaned over a nearby counter and burst into tears. Ford could make out “I failed you again” and “I’m so sorry” from repetition alone. Whatever happened to her was obviously traumatic.

Ford was never good dealing with emotions, especially other people’s. He decided his best course of action would be to let her cry herself out, and then ask her what was wrong. After that perhaps he could see if she could help him out of this dimension.

It took a while for Madame Mystery to stop crying. After she finally stopped, she excused herself to the bathroom to wash off her face, and rejoined Ford in the kitchen. Her eyes where still red and puffy from crying. She did her best to smile as she sat at the table with him. It just wound up looking fake. “As long as you’re here, you’re my guest. You want anything to eat or drink maybe?”

“Just water would be fine. I think we have some more important things to talk about.”

Madame Mystery nodded her head and left the room. A moment later she returned with a glass of water for Ford, and what looked like a glass of apple juice for herself.

Ford begun, “So can you tell me your name, and who this ‘Dipper’ is?”

Madame Mystery nodded, “My name is Mabel Pines. Dipper’s my brother, my twin brother. ”

There were many things Ford expected to hear. but that was not one of them. From the look Mabel could see on his face, this was quite obviously not one of them.

“Sorry, it’s just that... my name is Stanford Pines, and I have a twin brother too.”

It had been an hour since he’d arrived. Ford and Mabel had reached some pretty similar conclusions about their universes. Some differences were irrelevant while other differences led to a few interesting revelations. The first Ford had was that judging by the shooting star design she had on Mabel seemed to be one of the symbols from Bill’s wheel. When Mabel handed him Dipper's journal the silver pine tree with the carefully painted '1' told a similar story. The similarities to him didn't end there as apparently Dipper had fallen through his own portal, which meant he'd most likely made his own deal with Bill. The portals themselves might even be the same design. At this point Mabel and Ford had moved down to Dipper's lab, the entrance cleverly hidden behind a vending machine by Mabel.

“So after your brother disappeared, what exactly did you do?” Ford asked.

“For the first couple of weeks I spent all my time down here as I tried to fix the portal. After a while I was forced to go out into town and they wound up noticing I looked similar to my brother. I put out the idea that he’d gone off into the woods to look for something and left the shack in my hands. A missing persons report went out, the case went cold about a year ago. They thought I might have been responsible for my brother's disappearance, which meant sitting through quite a bit of investigating. Their final conclusion was I got too shaken up by the whole ordeal. I think there's still reason to believe they'll come back and arrest me. If it comes to that I don't think Dipper will ever come back.”

She looked at Ford with tears in her eyes and continued, “I need to be there when he gets back! I need to tell him I’m sorry!”

Mabel had begun to cry again but she pulled herself together and asked Ford, “Can you fix the portal, please?”

Ford knew full well fixing the portal would be a bad idea, but she was so fragile he couldn't just say no. A functional portal might also get him home. Should the world take priority, or two world-weary souls?

After a long pause, Ford looked at Mabel and said, “I’ll try my best.”

After taking a look at the portal and Dipper's journal one large, terrible conclusion was clear. Dipper’s portal was very different from his own, and he’d have to have all of Dipper’s journals if he even wanted to have a hope of fixing it properly. Looking at the consoles there were circuits there that he had no idea why they’d be there in the first place! It was as if Dipper was given an entirely different set of schematics to build off of. Or maybe he just thought differently when it came to solving the problems that were inherent in Bill’s original design. The best he could do would be to jury-rig it and hope that it holds together for long enough to get Dipper here to fix it himself. Plus there was a significant risk of him creating an interdimensional rift if he did that.

Since Ford had moved out of the theoretical zone, Ford had learned a bit more about interdimensional physics in the past year and a half. Despite not being able to get it to full efficiency he could likely minimize the danger. He rewired as much of it as he understood and jury rigged a few new things. One component that might prevent a rift and another that would hopefully create a stable portal to Dipper through a link to his bio signature.

After three days he was ready to show his hard work to Mabel. He really hoped that this would work and bring back her brother. Then perhaps he could get home himself.

“So Ford, before we fire this thing up, I wanted to give you this.”

Mabel held in her hands a crimson red sweater.

“It's a gift for all you've done for me. I know it won't be enough, but thank you.”

Mabel gave Ford another hug as he wondered if these invasions of personal space were going to be a multidimensional trend. He flipped a few switches on the control panel as a steady hum emanated from the portal. Ford entered the portal room then called out, “Mabel, stay back and watch the controls for me, okay?”

“Okay Ford. WAIT THERE’S A WARNING LIGHT!”

The call came out too late though. The portal sent off a dangerous wave of energy, temporarily stopping gravity. Ford floated up and got a clear view of an electrical explosion from the control room along with the sickeningly familiar feeling of being dragged toward the portal. Ford screamed out in distress, “NO, NO, NO, NO!”

Gravity had seemingly recovered for Mabel, who was now running into the room with a rope. "I'm not letting this happen again!" she shouted while throwing an end of it to Ford.

He caught the rope and could feel Mabel trying to pull him back in. Sadly it was clear that if she kept at it she'd get pulled in herself. “Shut it down! Don’t worry about me! Stopping the portal from destroying the shack is more important!”

Mabel looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "No, I can still save you! The lever's just a few steps back, I'll shut it down, I can make it!"

Ford knew there wasn't a chance of that happening. She probably knew too and simply wouldn't admit it. “I’m going to let go, and you’re going to push that button, okay?”

“NO!”

“I’m letting go in 3!”

“PLEASE!”

“2!″

“DON’T!”

“1!″

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!”

“0.″

With that Ford let go. Mabel fell far back and landed right next to the switch. He felt himself being sucked into the portal again. There was only one thing left for him to say. "I'm sorry."

A moment later he was gone. Then the room became completely silent as Mabel shut down the portal.

…