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Post-Fall Falls False Starts- Chapter 24: Bingers, Peddlers, Planners, Spies

[Note: See the poster for this chapter here!]

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EVENING OF THE FIRST DAY

The walk back to base started out silent. Sarah had had plenty to say to Rob when he wasn't up to talking, but now that he was back, the verbal freedom granted by a conversational partner who wasn't really listening had fallen away. Every once in a while, his eyes darted from side to side as if the gears in his head were grinding, attempting to dredge into action mechanisms that no longer existed, attempting to link together memories reduced to static. And then he'd pinch the bridge of his nose and he'd rub his head and he'd have his eyes on the road again. A few minutes later, he'd see something- a light in a window, a street sign, a stray cat- and the whole process would inevitably repeat, triggered by something inside, half (or really more like 1%) remembered, clawing its way to the surface, coming up just short each time.

The two of them came to a stop to let an opossum with a back full of babies and a burrito in its mouth cross the road. Sarah turned to Rob, who hadn't noticed it and was instead staring absently into the sky above the buildings, and nudged him to get him to look. As he turned his head, the creature spooked and wobble-ran off into the night. Rob and Sarah's eyes met.

Only a moment later, both of them simultaneously took initiative and they found themselves darting for the forest in a rare moment of synchronicity. In five minutes the trees went from trees to familiar trees, and then from familiar trees to very familiar trees, and then, disguised by leaf cover (so well that Sarah had to yank Rob back), the row of pit traps flanking the clearing and the campsite within came into view- and beyond them, the grass and dirt of their campsite, illuminated by... firelight. A rectangular shadow wavered and flickered, cast against the trees and undergrowth by some obscured source near the fire itself.

Sarah held her breath and took an ever-so-quiet step forward. She peered from the darkness of tree cover into the illuminated clearing. One inch, two inches... she let out a sigh as the tension drained out of her. Bill sat, staring into the fire- dangerously close, for someone made of paper, to the flames, which popped and scattered in the breeze. He turned as soon as he heard Sarah sigh.

"It took you long enough! And to think I've been guarding the camp this entire time! I could have been eaten, or worse." He stood up, but his tiny legs didn't do much to increase his height.

"Or worse?" Sarah didn't feel like telling him again that there weren't many money-eating predators in the woods (or reminding him again that he hadn't even been obligated to guard the camp).

"Well, you know," he said, gesturing vaguely instead of elaborating. After a few moments of tense silence, he folded in half, tucked his legs in, and went inert on the ground. Rob and Sarah shared a glance and went into action. The former dragged the TV into position with a great deal of effort (and gave it a frustrated kick afterwards, which was thankfully too weak- Rob might have blamed exhaustion- to do any real damage.) The latter headed towards the tapes. She kneeled in front of the chest, opened the lid with the gravity of a time-worn treasure hunter after twelve months of following fragmentary ancient maps, and brushed some nonexistent dust off of the faintly sticky strip where the bulk of the uppermost tape's label once was. She had the feeling that her life would soon be divided firmly into pre-tapes and post-tapes segments, especially if the suspicion lingering in her gut about their contents was correct. Then again, those life-dividing moments had been happening on a daily basis lately, so what was one more for the pile?

The sunset stained the dirt and rocks red. Thankfully, the adjustment period between which the ground went from inhospitable to comfortable had passed unnoticed, masked by the various other sources of emotional and physical tumult that had consumed the duo's lives. Sarah turned the tape over in her hands once. Twice. Three times. Four, five. Sixseveneightnine- She turned it around so fast it made a sound like a drill spinning.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Rob, snapping her out of it. She didn't even take a deep breath- she just plunged the tape into the slot, and watched the machine swallow it up with a mechanical buzz. Then they turned their eyes (collectively three, since Rob had taken down the hood of his human suit) towards the screen as it flickered to life and pushed away the creeping darkness.

-

DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY

"Brrrrriiiiiing! Brrrrrrrrrriiiiing!"

Rob instinctively flailed to hit a snooze button that wasn't there, but his finger found its way onto something weirdly squishy instead-

"Brrriii-MY EYE!" Sarah cut off her alarm clock impression and scrambled backwards, falling over into a sitting position. Rob rubbed his eye and stretched his arms with a loud crack- it took him oddly long to get his bearings, but once he had mentally put his location, name, and goals together, he turned over to Sarah with an unamused glare.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. Sarah got that a lot.

"We have to get as many episodes in as possible today! And you know what they say about early to bed, early to rise."

"You say that like we were early to bed! We went to bed at, what, 5 AM?"

"Well, to be fair, 5 AM is early. Like, if one wakes up at 5 AM- that's 9 PM in Japan- to catch a late-night anime premiere, one's aunt might come in like, 'why are you playing that so loud? It's so EARLY and I'm trying to sleep!' Or maybe that's just me. Do you even have an aunt, Rob?"

Rob had zoned out at the word "anime" and was staring into space, eyelid on the verge of closing. Sarah rubbed her chin and her mouth curled up into a dangerous smirk.

"I know just the thing," she said.

-

DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY- VEGAS

The shopkeeper came to with a (slow) start. Staring at the ceiling of a dinky motel, he thought for only a moment that he had traveled back in time (thank goodness) to before his new role, before the apocalypse, before the Awesome Store was even a store, before he was even a shopkeeper, back when his name was just- no. No, this was a different motel, and a different art style. But how had he gotten here? His pounding head offered one clue. The half-fastened human suit hanging loosely over his shoulders offered another. The ring on his- HUH? Wait, what had happened last night?

One look out the window into the blinding light of the dawning day made him stumble back like a vampire, but it allowed him to confirm that the van was, one, right outside, and two, not outwardly damaged. The only major difference was the "just married" sign hanging precariously onto the back of the van by one side (the other side dragged on the ground). Before he did anything else, he checked the room for any woman (or man?) he hadn't noticed the first time around. Nobody. He checked his phone for photos, then remembered it was a flip phone with no camera. No luck. He checked each floor of the store, and the 3 full bathrooms, and the 2 half-bathrooms. Same old faces all present. No rings on any of their fingers or appendages. Nobody new, either.

He went to check out.

"Say," he started, leaning against the front counter, "do you happen to recall whether I was with anybody when I checked in last night?"

"I don't think so," replied the clerk.

Confusion mounting, he returned to the van and stared out of the window, trying to bring back his memories. That's right- he had decided it was time for a little break. He hadn't had a break in weeks. Months? And maybe he had activated the warp drive, or maybe Vegas was a day trip's length from Oregon in this universe. And then there was some drinking, some driving under the influence, and then, somewhere in the night, in the missing portion of his memory, he had apparently gone and gotten hitched. And he didn't know to whom. Well, whoever it was, they weren't here now. So they'd never be able to find him for child support. Then again, if nobody was there when he checked into the motel, that probably wouldn't be an issue regardless.

He fished for his keys, plunged them into the ignition, and then noticed with a start that the second ring, matching the one on his finger, was holding the keys in place of the ordinary metal key ring he had been using before last night. That sparked a memory. He reached for the glovebox and, sure enough, right on top of his expired insurance documents was a tacky marriage certificate with a near-illegible signature that was definitely his name... and a second signature in the same handwriting that read something like "Mrs. Awesome P. Store".

He stopped by the nearest public library to make a few frantic searches on the computer:

LEGAL TO MARRY VEHICLE IN NEVADA

MARRIED TO MY JOB WHAT TO DO

MARRIAGE WITH OBJECT INVALID

COULD SENTIENT VEHICLE BE LEGAL TO MARRY

After receiving "no" on 3/4 of the searches (the second one gave him results about another, unrelated problem he was starting to think he had), he sighed in relief and got back on the highway towards Oregon. Come to think of it, what kind of chapel would even marry him to a van? And probably not even a sentient van, at that! What would motivate them to accommodate a crazy person demanding a literal drive-in wedding?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a new memory surfaced- of the bill he had paid.

That made most of the relief go away.

-

MORNING OF THE SECOND DAY, BUT LATER- BACK AT CAMP

Sarah fastened the metal device onto the back of Rob's head, adjusting the clips on the top and bottom of his eye that held it wide open. "I saw this in a movie once," she said, offering no further explanation. "Comfy?"

"No," he said with a great deal of pain in his voice.

"Good. The pain stops your mind from drifting!"

"Where'd you- agh!- even get this thing?"

"Don't worry about it. now, let's get your arms tied down to complete the experience."

"Huh? Hey, no, wait a sec-!"

-

MIDDLE OF THE THIRD DAY- THE MALL

The clerk of the electronics shop shifted in his seat, staring down the barrel of the film camera pointed in his direction. The crew rearranged shelves, turned off the TVs, and fiddled with the lights until the counter was well-lit and the rest of the store shrouded in darkness. The host returned to the store with a cigarette in hand, nodding to signal to the others that everything looked alright.

It had been an offhand phone call, made the night of the fateful robbery-slash-paranormal-incident, when the clerk had flipped on the TV to get his mind off of the day's events and found himself in the middle of an episode of some show called America's Mysterious-est. The story that night was about a family haunted by a ghost dog, the only evidence of which was a pervasive wet dog smell in the foyer of their old house (built 1982). The crew hadn't actually been able to capture any evidence on tape- how would they?- so they played a badly-acted, dramatically-scored reconstruction alongside interviews of fear-feigning townsfolk and witnesses instead. He thought to himself that the whole thing didn't even break the top 1000 "Mysterious-est" things that had happened to him, much less to all of America- After the episode ended and some eating contest program came on, he googled the name of the show, found a number with which you could report tour own incident, and relayed the story with a few exaggerations here and there, you know, to boost his chances.

He hadn't expected the crew to show up so fast... and without even calling him back.

The clapper was up. The host looked him in the eye. It went down with a 'SHLACK!', and someone called "Action!"

"Tell me what you saw yesterday," said the host, his voice deep, authoritative, and theatrical.

"Alright, uh," replied the clerk, his confidence suddenly in the gutter, "well, it all started out as a normal afternoon in the shop..."

-

EVENING OF THE THIRD DAY (OR MAYBE THAT'D BE THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD NIGHT? I DON'T KNOW, THESE TITLES ARE A LITTLE CUMBERSOME ANYWAYS, BUT THE GIMMICK CONTINUES UNTIL THE END OF THIS CHAPTER)- CAMP

"And they're coming around the final corner!" Sarah whisper-shouted so the two of them could still hear the dialogue. "They're gaining on the end credits!"

Rob caught himself for a moment on the screen. That made some emotions surface, but it was difficult to be emotional with the running commentary.

"This is the end of the Wattersons!"

It hadn't been. But it had been the beginning of the end for him-

"This is the final stretch, folks! Less than a minute left! And one, two- AND THEY CROSS THE FINISH LIIIINE!"

The credits rolled, and Season 2 was over. Sarah hollered and pumped her fist in the air, flopping backwards onto her back on the ground. Rob stared at the screen as the tape blinked out into darkness, then turned, finally finding the mental power he needed to verbalize all the complicated feelings that the last episode had stirred in him.

"Hey."

"Yeah?" She sat up.

"How come you're taking this so well?"

"Huh? Whaddaya mean?"

"When I found out that everything I had ever known was a lie," he looked up at the sky, slumping his shoulders, "I had a total breakdown. It totally changed everything for me. I fight to think I'm real, I'm independent, even though in my heart, despite everything, I know for sure that I'm not, and I never will be. Do you know how hard that is? How much keeping that secret messed me up? Why are you not a bit more concerned? You just found out your entire existence is a contrivance for the sake of somebody else's stupid story!"

For the first time in a long day, Sarah fell silent. She was deep in thought, that much was certain; Rob was never quite sure what was going on in her head. When they first met, he had assumed nothing, but now...

"I dunno. I guess it's that I always liked to think of my life as a sitcom. So now that I know it is, what really changed? Nothing, except I guess that I'm not pretending anymore."

"Doesn't it bother you that the real world is out of reach? Don't you feel hopeless?"

"Escapism is aaaaall about staving off feelings like hopelessness! And if there was an escapism contest, I'm not bragging, but I would definitely win."

"So it's not that you're not bothered, but that you're burying the despair you feel under the carefree facade you've invented for yourself."

She raised an eyebrow. "Has anybody ever told you you could be a psychoanalyst? Especially, like, one of those guys from the turn of the century who thought everything traced back to daddy issues?"

He pinched his temple and took a long, labored inhale.

"Let's start on Season 3," he said.

Just then, something somewhere rumbled, rattling the ground. A a thousand wingbeats stirred into motion as birds departed from the trees and power wires. It was far away enough that Rob and Sarah only felt a faint vibration underneath them, and the wrecking ball making its steady way across town was far from their minds as they shrugged off the now-ambient humming and returned to their all-important task: watching cartoons.

-

EVENING OF THE THIRD DAY- APPROACHING THE BORDER OF ROADKILL COUNTY

The first stars of the night were only just peeking through the sunset-stained clouds when the red van, stripped of all matrimonial flair, pulled into the lot of a horror movie-looking gas station, the first in miles that offered diesel. The paint on the walls of the attached convenience store was hardly there anymore, the sign was a rusty wireframe stripped of all lettering, and the only hint that it was even in business at all was a flickering neon "OPEN" sign hanging in the window (not that it was easy to see- the window was caked with yellowish translucent stuff that wasn't very nice to think about).

The shopkeeper pulled up next to the diesel pump. He looked left. All clear, nobody down the road for miles. He looked right. All clear, nobody in the woods.

He got out and looked left and right again for good measure. He made sure his scarf, coat, hat, and sunglasses were firmly on so as to avoid creating a new urban legend. Then he inserted his card, a pre-loaded debit burner he had picked up at a truck stop a few miles out of Vegas, and reached for the nozzle handle---

"HEY!" a shrill voice rang out. "What do ya think you're doing? You can't do that here!"

Rather than conceding and putting the nozzle back, he hurriedly shoved it into the tank. Sure enough, no authentication system, and the stuff came right out. If he could get enough in there to just make it to town-

"That's how you get the cops called on ya," said the voice, now attached to the gas station's attendant, who emerged from the shadow of the facade of the store with his hands on his hips. "You're from out of state, eh?"

"I know, I know, that's the law," the shopkeeper stalled. "But nobody's actually going to arrest me for pumping my own gas!"

-

NIGHT OF THE THIRD DAY- HOLDING CELL

"You aren't serious!" cried the shopkeeper as the cell door clicked shut in front of him. He leaped forward and clutched the bars, shaking them (which didn't do very much given the sturdy construction) and making pleading eyes at the back of the head of the officer on duty. "That law is never enforced!"

"We take self-service very seriously in Oregon."

"Where am I, the bizarro dimension? I have somewhere to be. Surely you can show a little sympathy for me. Do you accept bribes?" Wait. That was a bad thing to say in his position, but it just came out. "That last one was only a joke, Officer," he backpedaled with a forced chuckle. And then he back-backpedaled. "...Unless?"

She was occupied, squinting at his fingerprint, which lacked any of the expected features and instead looked something like an amorphous blob. She had never encountered anything like this in all her years with the force...

"Are you listening? I can offer you something greater than a simple bribe," he began, switching into his old mystical personality from way back when- or was it only a few weeks ago? Time had flown. "The items in my bazaar have the potential to transform your life in spectacular and unknowable ways. I'll cut you a deal- 100% off on any item. I ask only for my freedom."

"That's still a bribe, sir," she said.

Crap. It was, wasn't it?

-

MIDNIGHT OF THE THIRD DAY

"Dipper, look, we really have bigger stuff to think about right now! How are you still worried about this?!" Mabel cracked one eye open. The unfamiliar new sleeping setup was hard enough to get used to, but the blanket Dipper was sitting under with a flashlight wasn't nearly thick enough to avoid lighting up the entire room. He tried to pull the blanket off, but ended up getting a little tangled in it and settled for just responding from underneath.

"I can be worried about two things at once! Actually, I can be worried about way more than two things at once. I am worried about more than two things at once. There are like a hundred things I'm worrying about, right this second."

"Go outside if you're gonna have the flashlight on."

"But I'm almost finished with Manhunt Plan C! Look, I promise I'll be done soon."

"You said that 2 hours ago!"

"Dude. She's right," came Soos' voice from somewhere Dipper couldn't see from beneath the blanket. "If you don't go to sleep, that thing can't happen where you wake up and realize the incredibly terrible stuff that happened was all just a wacky dream!"

There was a sigh followed by the sound of him burying his face in his hands. The flashlight shut off with a click and he curled up into an indignant- but exhausted- ball. He tried again to pull the blanket off, but gave up a second time and was off into an uneasy sleep, looking like a misshapen dumpling and clinging the Journal to his chest, in only a matter of seconds.

-

NOON OF THE FOURTH DAY- THE MALL

There was a pleasant lull in the electronics store. Thankfully, the whole debacle with America's Mysterious-Est was over, and, providing there was no deceptive editing, the clerk didn't think he'd come off too bad in the episode proper when it aired. He closed his eyes and breathed in real deep. When he opened them again, he jumped back- the host of the show was standing in front of him, staring him down, flanked by a boom mic operator, cameraman, and assistant.

"Ah!"

"You up to talk to us again?"

"Again? What for? Did you lose the tape from yesterday off a boat, or something?"

"We did a little digging. We want to get your testimony from the first incident."

"The first incident?"

The host produced an issue of the Gossiper. On the second page, a few missable sentences sat sandwiched between two ads for car repair.

"STOLEN TELEVISION- Today, a suspicious figure- pictured- broke into a store in Gravity Malls through a display case and made off with a television and portable generator. A $700 cash prize will be available to anyone who can return the stolen goods in working condition."

The picture in question was a black and white phone shot of a computer screen displaying grainy security cam footage. The clerk took up the paper and squinted at it. He didn't remember placing that ad. He had... forgotten about the whole thing with the broken window until the host had brought it up. Who had broken it, again? The image was too indistinct to really bring anything to mind. And he'd assumed that missing TV from the display had just been sold. Hey, why didn't the paper mention the name of the store?! That could have been free advertising! Or, depending on the results, $700 advertising.

"We spoke to three people who were there that day, but none of them seemed to be able to recall," said the host. "You were working when it happened, right? You remember?"

He didn't. It was like the entire core of the incident had been wiped clean, leaving only the before and after. He opened his mouth to respond honestly, but found a story coalescing in his head. They had no way to verify the truth of anything he said. He could make this an episode to remember, and maybe even drive traffic to the shop. Business was tough as a small town's second most eminent TV peddler.

"Sure I remember," he lied. "It was just so bizarre I've just been trying not to think about it."

The host snapped his fingers and the assistant promptly set a fold-out chair down behind him. "Bingo," both the host and the clerk thought at the same time-- for opposite reasons.

-

AFTERNOON OF THE FOURTH DAY- HOLDING CELL

Night had come and gone on the cold little bed in the dinky little cell of some podunk police station that the shopkeeper didn't know the name of. After hours of solitude and frantic brainstorming, a defeated-looking man in handcuffs came up to the cell, escorted by two officers.

"Let me guess, he's in for jaywalking?" the shopkeeper grumbled.

"Larceny, breaking and entering, and two counts of murder," replied one of the officers. "You're going to be transferred to await your hearing and he'll take your place."

Freedom! Wait, transferred?

"Transferred where?"

"We're working out the details."

"Perhaps you'll put me in the hands of professionals this time."

That got him a sharp glare. Despite the conviction he could have sworn he felt when he made that remark, the officer's gaze was burning into his skin, so his eyes automatically moved out of its path. The keys on the wall- with some sort of long implement, he could lift them off the hook and bring them through the bars. He had plenty of long implements... back in the van. None here. He didn't even have a spoon to dig his way out over the course of several years Alcatraz-style. At least the prison would have spoons. No! No, he wasn't going to prison over this!

They were opening the cell door now to make the exchange. They were preparing to put him in cuffs again. He had to find an opening.

"A lawyer! I demand an attorney! How is any of this standard procedure? I just pumped my own gas! I've done that plenty of times and nothing has ever happened to me before! In Oregon, in Jersey, in the Nightmare Realm, everywhere!"

"That statement can and will be used against you."

"I swear, it's almost as if this is all in the name of of comedic effect! Surely you can see how ridiculous this looks."

"It isn't a laughing matter, sir."

It was over. The handcuffs clicked onto his wrists before he could protest, sending a chill up his arms. Where to go? What to do? They were pushing him out into the lobby. He resisted, but they pushed harder. Nowhere to run. He couldn't drive with his hands behind his back, and besides, the van had been left behind at the gas station. They'd only taken his keys just before he went in the cell. It was either still there at the station- out of walking distance- or languishing in some mystery tow yard. Was this the end of the line? It couldn't be. There were folks counting on him back home. Surely that fact alone should give him the motivation (and following that, some kind of bright idea) he needed to break free. But nothing was coming to him.

He could make a run for it, but what good was running with his middle-aged-man-who-spends-all-day-sitting physique?

He could try and talk his way out of it, but what would he even say?

He could go through the legal proceedings and exonerate himself, but that would expose him as "not from around here"... and given the events of the previous two days, the judge might just sentence him to life for his odious crime.

The lobby lights were too bright. Or maybe that was the anxiety. Something, something, think of something. Think of something.

His eyes wandered by chance to the window and-

There it was. Right outside. The van. It was close enough to touch, parked haphazardly half-up on the curb rather than in the parking lot out front as if the driver had swerved off the road in a hurry. Why would the police bring it along? How did the police bring it along? No, it didn't matter. He found just what he needed, as their eyes (or headlights) met, in that moment: hope. And a bright idea, or rather an obvious idea that had escaped him through a combination of tiredness and a disguise that was just a tad bit too immersive- the sort of disguise you could easily forget you were wearing. He had a way out. The trade-off? He'd give these people a story no one would ever believe.

His hands were behind his back, and, luckily, so was the zipper of the human suit. With a swift movement graceful in its practicality but ungraceful in its everything else, suddenly the handcuffs were on the floor, hanging limply around the deflated wrists of an empty husk.

"HASTA LA VISTA!" He yelled, giving into whimsy for only a second (though he realized shortly after that promising to be back was irresponsible in a situation like this.) Flinging the door open, gasping for fresh air, rounding the corner so hard his heels burned, he left a trail of fire (metaphorical) in his wake. He didn't listen to the frantic cries of the officers behind him. Thankfully, this story wasn't in first-person.

"What just happened?"

"Where did that fire come from?!"

"HOW DID THAT VAN GET HERE?"

"HE'S GETTING AWAY! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

As the red van peeled down the highway at 25 miles over the speed limit, back in business with a vengeance, the shopkeeper didn't even have time to think about how it opened up and started without keys.

-

EVENING OF THE FOURTH DAY- TOW YARD PHONE LINE

"Yesterday you took in a red van, unknown make, no license number. Weird texture. From Gas-Em-Up near the county line. Right?"

"That's right, Officer."

"And what happened to it?"

"Nothing happened to it."

"You're sure nothing happened. Nobody came in and drove it out of there?"

"Not unless it drove itself out, ma'am."

"Can you check to make sure it's still over there with you?"

"Can do. Why the fuss?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you..."

-

LATE NIGHT OF THE FOURTH DAY

Bill had quietly joined in on the watch party an hour or so ago, but not to the benefit of Rob and Sarah. He didn't laugh at any of the jokes. In fact, he didn't really react, period. As The Nuisance came to a close, he surprised the duo by speaking up and reminding them, to their dismay, of his existence.

"So, this is some sort of, what, amateur filmmaking project?"

Sarah just looked at him. She was about to explain everything, but when a sigh escaped her mouth instead of the start of her intended sentence, she realized it wasn't worth it. "Yeah," she lied. "Think it's good enough to get me into film school?"

Bill scoffed. "Hardly. Your shot composition is too flat."

-

EVEN LATER NIGHT OF THE FOURTH DAY- POLICE STATION RESTROOM

"America's Mysterious-est tipline. How can I help you?" The voice on the line was tired and gruff, and no wonder; it was midnight.

"Hii," said the officer, speaking quietly into her cell phone and trying to avoid the echo restrooms were prone to. "I'd like to report a story. It happened, uh, just yesterday. I want to stay anonymous, is that fine?"

"Just fine. What's your story, and where are you located?"

"It's going to sound completely crazy-"

"The crazier, the better, ma'am."

-

EVEN EVEN LATER NIGHT OF THE FOURTH DAY

"Now lie down."

Rob did so with a grunt, and a few moments later Sarah joined him. They laid in silence for a long moment, faces pointed up at the clear night sky.

"What am I looking at?" Rob asked.

"The stars. Have you ever seen the stars?"

"Have I ever... seen the stars? Hasn't everybody?"

"I mean on purpose."

Had he ever looked at the stars on purpose? Why did it matter? But the answer might have been no. He had most of his memories back, but large swaths of his life were absent. He wasn't really an amnesiac- there was just nothing that had ever been in that space.

"I think I preferred the stars back home," he said.

"Ooh. That's deep."

"No it's not. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just... one of those things."

She went without replying at first. When she opened her mouth to speak again, Rob expected something philosophical, but instead-

"You know the episode The Dream? What if we connected our minds and then tried to lure-"

"NO! No!" Rob stood up and stormed off. Then he realized he had nowhere to storm off to, kicked the pillow-shaped rock, and laid right back down, but this time facing away from Sarah. "No," he grumbled again.

"It's good to have you back to normal."

He fake-snored loudly to avoid having to respond.

With one more season on the horizon, Sarah closed her eyes contentedly and didn't even notice the generator jolting to life for a moment, nor the surge of electricity that swept through the valley and set the air abuzz. Bill did notice the generator coming to life, but since paper wasn't conducive to electricity, he felt nothing else and thought nothing much of it.

-

MORNING OF THE FINAL DAY- SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS (NOT THAT SOMEWHERE)

With a crackle, a sputter, and the revving of a diesel-powered portal engine that sounded just like a diesel-powered regular engine, the van, out of the range of the police chase that had sprung up the previous day, lurched through the gap between the Nightmare Realm and a quiet woodland road. The opening subsequently snapped shut with a loud hiss. It was quiet here. Now the shopkeeper had to get to Sarah and Rob. Wait.

Where were they?

They were in the woods somewhere in the vicinity of Gravity Falls, unless they had moved, which was a real possibility. Even discounting that, there were hundreds of miles of woods around Gravity Falls. All he had to go on was the direction he'd watched them walk last time he was here- about a week ago. At night... and he had arrived through a portal right next to them. They didn't know that was a coincidence! They probably thought he could do it anytime! Now he had a needle, a haystack, and the attention of two different police forces, one of which could probably kill him before he was born if they got access to the portal engine. He had to do his best to avoid acquiring any other enemies around here. Why, then, was there a feeling in his gut telling him things were about to get even worse? He looked over at the disposable bowl of Prophecy-O's he had poured for himself (bought, of course, from the general store back at the Gas Giant in the Nightmare Realm). So that was why. Oh no.

He put his finger to his temple and tried to peer into the future in order to pick out some sort of location, but the Prophecy-O's went to one's stomach, not one's head. Trying to use his stomach was no use either; his gut instinct hardly had any kind of directional inclination, and though he was able to hear a short rumble, he knew nothing of how to interpret it. Maybe it meant he was pointing the right way? The wrong way? Maybe it just meant he was still hungry?

A car behind him honked and subsequently passed to his left, reminding him that he was stalled in the middle of the road. He hit the gas. He considered booting up the old GPS gathering dust on the dash in order to get his bearings in better shape- but then a sticker on the back bumper of the car ahead of him caught his eye.

"WHAT IS THE MYSTERY SHACK?"

That wouldn't have meant much on its own, but just up ahead, where the small road merged onto a larger road that merged onto the highway, there was a billboard, too, a small crew standing around it and stripping off one ad (a bright and shiny one, probably new, for something called Gideonland) in favor of another that wasn't totally visible yet- but the last word of its header was "SHACK". The directions to get to it weren't totally legible either, but there was definitely something in the first line about taking the next exit.

Even that wouldn't have meant much on its own, but the shopkeeper's stomach lurched unnaturally when he saw it: no doubt an effect of the Prophecy-O's, and the most potent one yet, too. He decided then and there that he'd take their cue. Before long, he had merged and merged again,

and the exit was in sight in the distance,

and the furthest thing from his mind was the idea that perhaps the lurch was not one of encouragement, but of warning.

(Or maybe something in between.)

-

MORNING OF THE FINAL DAY- MYSTERY SHACK PARKING LOT

A red van pulled into the parking lot three hours before opening time. Storm clouds circled overhead, their fringes glowing red and yellow from the light of the sunrise.

The forecast for today had been bright and sunny.

Somewhere in town, a flipped coin landed on its edge.

-

MORNING OF THE FINAL DAY- TWIN XL MOTEL- GRAVITY FALLS OUTSKIRTS

The crew of America's Mysterious-Est had bought out half of the tiny motel for a couple of days. They had to check out today, but the usual torpor of packing up was slightly abated by what was a vanishingly rare occurrence for the show: a new story, fresh off the "presses", and for that matter, it wasn't even a day's drive away from their current location!

"Today we're looking at bright, clear skies in the Roadkill County area," spoke the weatherwoman on TV in the background as the sun fought to send its rays through the thick gray bed of clouds gathering en masse outside the motel window. "Dress light for a high of 77 and a low of 65."

Somewhere in town, a cat jumped off a ledge and fell on its back.

-

MORNING OF THE FINAL DAY- AT CAMP

"One more season to go. Unless they released a season 7 while we've been gone," joked Sarah, starting up the generator and getting into position. "So we watch this today... and then what?"

"Good question," replied Rob. "I assumed you'd have some reckless idea."

Sarah did have a reckless idea. In fact, she had something like 300 reckless ideas. But she kept that to herself.

A few drops of rain fell, but the trees caught them before they could hit the ground. Thunder rung out in the distance. Then thunder rung out, a little bit closer.

Somewhere in town, a gumball machine dispensed a jawbreaker.

-

MORNING OF THE FINAL DAY- MYSTERY SHACK ATTIC

Today is so my day, thought Mabel, bolting upright in bed as if straight out of a dream. It's a party! That means I'm going to do karaoke like nobody's business!

Dipper, stirred out of his sleep by the sound of her climbing out of bed, thought, "Today's the day of my manhunt. I hope things don't go dramatically wrong and ruin everything for everyone. And I hope I don't die, or get severely injured, or do something embarrassing in front of Wendy, or fail to lift something that's not that heavy and make everybody laugh at me. "

"Huhh? Come on, forget about the stupid manhunt! We just had a whole adventure yesterday, isn't that enough for you?"

He jerked back in surprise. "Since when can you read minds?"

"You were thinking out loud, genius," she replied. "There were quotation marks around it and everything."

He had gotten 9 hours of sleep, but the dark circles under his eyes made him look like an insomniac.

A bolt came down hard on the Shack's lightning rod.

Somewhere in town, for just a second, too short for anyone to notice or care, 2+2 equaled 4.000001.

-

MORNING OF THE FINAL DAY- MYSTERY SHACK PARKING LOT

A crowd of people turned up before the doors had even opened, the most any little town could be expected to muster up for this sort of celebration. The sensible folks wore raincoats or carried umbrellas. The majority of townsfolk got soaked.

The shopkeeper had his window halfway down and watched from the shadows as people poured in. He told himself he'd stay for an hour or two, see the omen out, and then go into the woods on foot to avoid a repeat of the gnome incident, if no serendipitous clues turned up during the reopening ceremony. Or was that too dangerous? Nah, Elmoreans were hard to kill. A little voice came from- well, it sounded at first like the inside of the van, but after flinching and looking frantically around, the shopkeeper noticed the voice had actually come from a girl standing outside the van, too short to see from the window, looking up at him with a smile.

"Is this a food truck, mister?" she asked.

If an adult had asked the same question, he would have been tempted to give some sarcastic retort, but instead he shook his head. "No," he said, though back in Elmore the answer would have been yes. To some surprise on his part, his salesman instincts kicked in and the back doors of the van slowly creaked open.

"I sell things much more interesting than food." He gestured to the back doors with his thumb. "Take a look inside," he said, unwittingly sounding like a kidnapper. Unbeknownst to him, it wasn't just his words that were giving off that impression.

Mabel peered sideways out of the window as the townie girl climbed in and looked around.

"Grunkle Stan! There's a suspicious kidnappy-looking van parked outside!"

"A what?"

-

IN THE WOODS, IT WAS MORNING, THEN FOR A SECOND IT WAS NIGHT, BUT THE BLOOD-RED MOON VANISHED AS QUICKLY AS IT HAD ARRIVED AND THE SUN SHONE AGAIN... NOT THAT YOU COULD TELL THROUGH THE STORM- NORTH OF CAMP

Rob and Sarah had abandoned the camp clearing a few minutes ago for a denser, darker patch of forest where the rain fell sporadically through gaps in the tree cover. The push cart had come in handy in transporting the viewing setup, and the center of the storm was elsewhere, so from their perspective it seemed rather manageable. They might have thought differently if they knew about the coin, and the mathematical glitch, and the blood moon that had just been up at an astronomically questionable time of day for a few seconds. But they didn't know.

"You could get electrocuted like that," Bill remarked from his seat on top of the TV as Sarah fumbled to try and get the season 6 tape back in amidst the sound of sporadic raindrops. He didn't sound particularly concerned for her. The tape deck clicked shut with a whirr, and the final stretch began, postponed only by a clap of lightning not more than 20 feet away from the new watch party location.

-

MYSTERY SHACK PARKING LOT

The girl picked up a large pink teddy bear with a "PRESS ME!" mark emblazoned on its heart-shaped left paw. She pressed down on it excitably, but rather than the line the factory had intended long ago, "I'm un-bear-ably adorable!", it let out a sound that resembled a tortured screech marred with analog distortion. She tossed it down, screamed, and ran for the door. It continued screeching at full volume for several seconds before its voice weaned off gradually into a quiet buzzing noise, eventually coming to a stop entirely.

Coming around the side of the house to avoid making his grand entrance in front of the crowd just yet, Stan heard the girl scream, and saw her a moment later fleeing the van with tears in her eyes. He had an uncharacteristic thought- maybe this was serious and he should just call the cops on the guy. No, no, that was too drastic. And the cops might already be here for the grand opening. And they were useless. Or worse! No, definitely worse! Anyway, that was plan B, or rather something weird at the end of the alphabet with all the misfit letters like Q and X- point was, he hadn't even tried out plan A yet. And he had everything he needed for plan A right here, no cops needed.

The first thing he noticed stepping up to the back door was that the van was larger on the inside. So not just a kidnapper, a... magic kidnapper? That didn't bode well.

"Ah," said a voice from the far end, "Welcome to my humble shop. Please, take a look around!"

Stan could only see his eyes- or were there only eyes? He found himself angrily making eye contact with said eyes, so much so that he didn't register that the guy had said anything until several seconds after he was finished speaking.

"Who do you work for, buddy?" Stan asked, taking a look around. "And how many people have you kidnapped today already? You got a quota?"

"Kidnapped!? You have the wrong idea! I'm a salesman! These are my wares, and this isn't only a van- it's my traveling cabinet of curiosities! My bazaar of the bizarre on wheels! My family-owned independent sole proprietorship!"

"So you're some kind of rival doing business in my parking lot." He stepped forward, hand on his wrist as if about to roll up his sleeve. "That's even worse!"

"............Worse than kidnapping?"

"You're here to mooch off the success of another man on his big day. That's real bottom-feeder behavior. And if that wasn't enough, you're parked illegally, too."

"Illegally? But-"

"You telling me you didn't see the sign?"

"What sign-?"

The shopkeeper pulled his head back into the cabin and looked out the window to see a large, prominent, and apparently hastily-made sign tacked right next to the parking spot, reading "NO PARKING HERE ESPECIALLY VANS- VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED, FINED, ARRESTED, FOUND GUILTY, AND SENTENCED TO LIFE"

"Ah... I could have sworn that wasn't there when I parked."

"Been there since opening day back in 1931." replied Stan, who had just put it up a few minutes ago. "Look, be out of sight before the festivities start or something bad'll happen to you." He raised his fists. "And by something bad, I mean I'm gonna put you in a full-body cast," he added for good measure. "And by put you in a full body cast, I mean I'm gonna beat you up," he added for even better measure.

The shopkeeper was about to just give in- but the view out the windshield made it clear that pulling out would require running over, at best, a person or two, at worst, a huge chunk of the crowd.

"I wouldn't make that sort of threat if I were you," he said.

"You talk a big game, but if you hurt an old man, you're the one who's gonna look guilty!"

"I would never." He paused for emphasis. "But I have things in here that would."

His attempt at ominousness was immediately aided by a loud crack of thunder outside. It sent a flash of light through the windshield and illuminated his silhouette, hood and all, which struck a little bit of fear into Stan's appendix (it wasn't really scary enough to make it to his heart.) With that, the shopkeeper pulled out of the shop area, back into the driver's seat.

"I'll be on my way," said his voice from on high, which would have frightened a 17th-century peasant unaware of the existence of PA systems and secretly startled Stan a little as well. "Unless you want to go where I'm going and turn me into a real kidnapper, you should leave."

Stan didn't know where the van was going, but he definitely didn't want to be there. (Unbeknownst to him, the shopkeeper didn't know either.) He turned to leave, but not before he caught sight of a chunky 24-karat gold bar sitting on a velvet pedestal, adorned with its own little spotlight and not even any kind of display case. C'mon, leaving something like that out in the open was a serious liability. Surely nobody could be blamed for-

"I see you have your eye on the Selflessness Bar," spoke the shopkeeper from the back, dropping into mystical mode again. "It has the power to expunge all greed and self-regard from the heart of anyone who touches it!"

He yanked his hand away as if pulling it from a fire, clasped it behind his back, feigned ignorance, and stepped out of the van, kicking the door closed as soon as he was on solid ground again. "Get outta here!" he yelled. A few folks apparently thought it was directed towards them and turned to leave, but Stan herded them back into the lot like a sheepdog. The last thing the shopkeeper heard before everything went wrong was Stan's voice, quieter now and further away. "Woah, woah, woah, not you! I was talking to him! Stay, stay!"

Then, as portended by the previous paragraph and nothing else, everything suddenly went wrong.

The first bolt came down on the van's hood.

The van's engine roared to life and it shot forward, leaving a trail of fire in its wake, on track to plow through civilians left and right- left and right, indeed. It dodged to the right first and narrowly missed a couple of teenagers loitering in the center of the lot, perhaps imbuing one of them with a lifetime fear of vans that would take years of therapy to unravel. It dodged to the left and sliced with precision past a mother holding a crying baby.... but too far to the left. When the van pulled back to the right, its back bumper swung with all the force of 300 horses' power into the side of the building, caving a massive hole right through the wall, exposing the living room interior and sending a dramatic boom echoing for miles around. The falling debris knocked loose inside of the house by the impact narrowly missed the twins as if some hand had ensured mass destruction everywhere but where they stood. Stan heard the noise and turned around- but he, and everyone else with their eyes on the spectacle, found themselves suddenly blinded as an enormous second bolt made landfall in the center of the parking lot, which at this point was positioned directly below the eye of the storm. For just one moment, day was night, and left was right. And then the lightning was gone and the rain was pouring harder than it had for the entire day. Harder than it had in all of 30 years. Maybe harder than it had since the Late Carnian Stage.

Stan pulled off his eyepatch. The covered eye was significantly less blinded than the other eye, which made him the only person who could see (if not well) in the entire lot. "DID ANYBODY CATCH THAT LICENSE PLATE?!" he yelled, but no one answered. They were all too stunned. "He's gonna pay for this," he muttered under his breath. "Or at least his insurance will-!"

There was a conspicuous set of two trails of fire (literal) heading right into the woods. There was no time to grab an umbrella, or to think about how the fire was blazing despite the pouring rain.

"Grand reopening's postponed! Everyone get outta here!" he yelled. The group of people from last time just stared at him. "This time I mean you!" That seemed to work, and as the crowds came out of their stupor and started to filter out, Stan turned on his heel and ran so fast that a few days in bed would be needed in short order to recover from the incoming back pain.

In the midst of the chaos, the twins ran for it as well, following the same trail, and as they made their way out of the vicinity of the Shack, the storm followed.

-

TWIN XL MOTEL

"We might'ave to stay in another day," slurred the host, eyes on the TV screen and empty bottle of something PG-13 in his hand. "Who wants t'go out to the office 'n renew the booking?"

The two camera operators sharing the one-bed room with him both avoided making eye contact. Outside, rain pelted the ground like machine gun fire. The scene on TV wasn't much better. Some lady reporter was rambling on while huddling in a car surrounded by even heavier rain. You couldn't really hear her, but every now and then one or two words managed to slip through the cacophony.

"Jimenez... .... ... a hit-....-run today.... shack... ... day .... .... reopening .... if .... .... a red van .... no license ... report to ...."

The host turned his head. A red van? They had just gotten a tip about something like that, right? He fumbled for his notepad where he had jotted down the details. That was near here! And they were showing on TV, barely visible through the rain streaking down the car windows, some trail where a red van had just driven off into the forest.

"Nobody wait for me!" he called, and before anyone could ask him where he was going, he, an umbrella and a camera in hand, was gone from the room in a flash, stumbling at as fast a speed as he could muster.

The low-quality "found footage" vibe was all the rage these days, right?

-

ROADKILL COUNTY OUTSKIRTS- GOVERNMENT VEHICLE

The comm device, encrypted as its signals were, let out a loud crackle and a hiss, knocked out of commission as thunder flashed in the woods ahead. Powers reached to switch on the backup system, but his hand jerked back when a jolt of static electricity shot from the plastic switch into his hand. He stared down at it for what felt like forever, distantly recalling learning about good and bad conductors in his seventh grade science class... no, it was probably nothing. He touched it again. No shock this time, but the backup system still didn't activate. He pressed it again. Still no backup system. That was all right, there was the backup backup system. This had to be serious- they'd never had to use the backup backup system before.

"Where was the button to turn on the backup backup system?"

"That would be a switch," Trigger replied.

"Where was the switch to turn on the backup backup system, then?"

"Don't recall. It was a switch, I remember that much."

"You said so."

"I remember what I said. It was only five seconds ago that I said it."

Powers located a switch, albeit an unlabeled one, that seemed correct. As he reached to flip it, though, it slid along the bottom of the communication device, just out of his reach. His eyes narrowed and he reached out for its new position. It evaded him yet again.

"I've never seen anything like this," he said.

"Like what?" Trigger replied, looking out the window.

"Not there! Here." Powers gestured to the switch, which had by then settled back in its original position. "It was moving only a moment ago."

"Switches are meant to move. What use would a switch be if you couldn't flick it?"

"It was moving this way." He traced its path with his finger, face full of increasing desperation. "Have you ever seen a switch do that?"

There was no answer.

"Perhaps I was hallucinating. More investigation is needed," said Powers, returning to professional posture and wiping the confusion off his face. He flicked the switch, readying himself to hear the familiar voices of their team back in Washington. The backup backup system didn't activate.

The storm grew thick around them, and for a second the rain was so heavy that you couldn't even see a few inches past the windshield. The GPS' screen went black as it abruptly rebooted. And then the rain cleared...

MYSTERY SHACK PARKING LOT- GOVERNMENT VEHICLE

"Holy mackerel. Look at the GPS. We traveled 15 miles in a few seconds! Looks like we've found the town we've been looking for. You'd have to be insane to think something fishy isn't going on here."

"Well, something is going on. That's why we came, after all."

"Correct."

Powers zoomed in on the GPS, with the location of the signal they had detected last night pinned on its little map.

"What are the chances? We're here!"

"The chances? Well, they were vanishingly low a moment ago, but right now they're 100% given our location."

As the windshield wipers fought valiantly against an enemy too strong for them, they pushed aside the torrent just long enough for the two agents to see a man in a suit hightailing it for the woods, surrounded by shocked onlookers, a destroyed wall, and two trails of fire that the rain just couldn't put out.

Powers turned to Trigger with a stern look, not that he usually had any other look. "Agent Academy tactics 101: running away is something a guilty person does. Let's tail him."

Ensuring their weapons were in place, the duo abandoned the vehicle in the parking lot and followed after the man, unknowingly becoming the fifth party in an hour to head in that very same direction.

-

WOODS, 95 MPH

The shopkeeper had meant to gently press his foot down on the gas pedal and put his hands on the wheel and steer slowly through the crowd, giving them plenty of time to move out of the way, until he could get back onto the road and find somewhere else by the forest to park. That wasn't what he did. He didn't even have the chance. His foot never made contact with the gas pedal at all, and his hands never made contact with the wheel. He didn't have time to realize he was moving before his back slammed hard against the seat, then the left wall, and then what would have been the right wall if his seat belt didn't hold him back. The airbag would have puffed up in his face, but as it turned out, it was broken.

"HELP! I'M NOT DOING THIS!" he called, but the screams and the rain and the engine drowned him out. He wrenched the wheel around. He stomped on the brakes again and again and again. Nothing worked.

He thought first to scramble for the door and get out of the van, but then he remembered his potentially universe-threatening merchandise and, with the wind whistling in his ears even through the windows, dove into the back just before the first swerve, cushioning the fall of several precariously-positioned fragile items on the shelves. He closed a haunted jack-in-the-box just before the monster within could spring out and bite his head off. He grabbed a bowl of planet marbles as the vehicle swerved again, and caught all of them before they could hit the ground, like in one of those programming tutorial games. Before he could get to his feet, he was abruptly buried under a mountain of cheap off-brand clothes (not magical ones or anything) as he felt the van's path straighten beneath him, though any relief was short-lived; only a few moments later, the lefts and rights started right back up, this time intensified by the feeling of rough forest terrain under the wheels. As he sloughed off the mountain of clothes and writhed in the darkness, he thought he might burst with the intensity of his body's palpitations. He didn't exactly have a heart... but something was beating.

He looked down to see a pulsating heart in a jar he had unknowingly grabbed in the chaos. He set it aside onto the shelf with the other jarred body parts, and the newly stable position seemed to calm its BPM, even with the van's angle changing unpredictably from moment to moment. When everything was either on the ground (no further to fall) or strapped down on a shelf, the shopkeeper stepped over scattered items and item piles, sweeping aside the curtain between the driver's seat and the shop. He had meant to buckle his seatbelt, but just then, the van came to a stop entirely. Its headlights switched off. Too frazzled to even think through what could have happened, he peered out the window, and saw-

-

NORTH OF CAMP

Rob and Sarah were close to the finish line. About half a season left to go, and then they'd be free. Free to do what? They weren't thinking about that, but they'd certainly have to think about it after the show was over, Rob's memories were back, and their focus was open to be used for other things. Bill was napping on the ground behind the TV as one episode ended and the next began. Suddenly, the ground shook... so lightly that only Bill felt it.

"Did you two feel that? Don't tell me we're having an earthquake, too. Just my luck."

Sarah paused the tape, and Rob restarted it only a moment later. "Feel what?" Sarah asked.

"The ground is shaking-"

As the words made their way out of his mouth, they became aware of a vibration below them that was slight at first but rapidly growing in intensity. Sarah shut off the tape, and they looked around, on edge- whatever was causing the ground to shake was coming right towards their clearing. Rob was the first one to see the headlights in the dark woods.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" he yelled. "THERE'S SOME KIND OF CAR COMING RIGHT FOR-"

They didn't have time to get out of the way. The van barreled into the clearing as if acting on its own, headed right for them, and then, at the last second, sparing a duo who choose the worst out of "fight, flight, or freeze", swerved just out of their way, screeching to a stop just behind them and changing their fate by a mere couple of inches.

"Uaaah..." gasped Rob, what was probably supposed to be the word "us" trailing off into incoherency. "Uh... auh..."

He passed out into Sarah's arms from the adrenaline, his head lolling back despite the lack of a neck. After checking for a heartbeat (there wasn't one), she thought of giving CPR- and for once in her life, she wasn't even thinking about the romantic implications of that sort of thing. But she didn't have to. He was breathing. She kept her body stationary and turned her head to look up at the driver's side window of the van. The shopkeeper's eyes appeared in the darkness within not too long after.

"I can't believe it," he said, "what are the chances?"

"...The chances of what?"

He didn't have time to answer. He was distracted by the sudden presence of others at the edge of the clearing- and not even anybody he had wronged today. Today, at least. Before he knew it, the area was surrounded by a solid wall of displeased-looking gnomes.

Oh no, he thought.

The leader of the gnomes stepped forward and brandished a finger in his face from several feet away. "Look who decided to show his wheels in this forest again," he sneered. "You've been served!"

"Served? You guys have a court?"

"What's a court? I've never heard that word. We have a gnourt-"

The shopkeeper clamped a hand over his own mouth to stifle laughter at that, but it was too late and a conspicuous noise slipped out anyway.

"It's no laughing matter, you psycho," said the leader. "Let him in, boys!"

He snapped, and two gnomes in the circle stepped aside, parting the wall for a third gnome, slowly stumbling forward and using two sturdy sticks as crutches. His left leg and both arms were wrapped tightly in bandages. The leader hurried over to stand beside the injured fellow.

"How do you plead to vehicular assault charges?" spoke the leader.

"WHAT?! YOU MEAN I DIDN'T EVEN KILL HIM?!"

That sent a gasp rippling through the growing crowd of gnomes.

"I think that little statement has bumped your charge up to attempted vehicular gnomeslaughter." The leader squinted. "You aren't gonna like the standard sentence for that."

"Wait, wait, I'm requesting an attorney. Do you have attorneys? Oh, no, hold on, don't tell me they're called gnattorneys or something."

"Of course not. That'd be ridiculous."

"Thank goodness."

"You two, go find him some willing gnourt-appointed gnefense attorney!" barked the leader to the pair from earlier. "They'll be back soon and then we can continue with the- crap! Call off the trial! Call it off! There's a guy with a camera coming! We are NOT getting busted for vigilantism! Everybody act normal, normal!"

The gnomes broke formation and split up into several groups, conversing among themselves about things like the weather in a routine that seemed rehearsed. This whole thing definitely made the shopkeeper wonder about the legitimacy of his trial. He didn't have long to mull it over, though, as a man he didn't recognize, 6'5'', soaking wet, covered in mud and bruises from a variety of stumbles, traipsed into the clearing brandishing a handheld camcorder left and right too fast to get more than a couple frames of clear footage in between long stretches of motion blur. When he saw the van- about 30 seconds after he would have noticed it without his tunnel vision- he trained in on it with the camera, ignoring the gnomes, and Sarah and Rob, entirely. Speaking of Sarah and Rob, one was watching in silent awe and the other was unconscious in her arms.

"Who are you, buddy?" the leader of the gnomes tugged on the newcomer's pants leg. He didn't look down, but he did hear the question, and, not worrying about where it came from, maybe assuming it came from the van, answered it.

"I'm Bill...Eavitt... from America's Mysterioush-est. Mysteriousest. It's a show. TV show... It's... on televiision."

"Hm?" said Bill (the bill), sitting up on top of the TV at the sound of his name. Sarah shoved him into Rob's backpack.

"Oh! The guy from that show Dipper likes!" a new voice spoke up. Bill, or rather Mr. Eavitt, turned around as Stan, the fourth party to make it to the clearing, arrived. Followed shortly by the fifth-

"I do not like that show! I watch it because it's, like, so bad it's funny! It's cheesy and totally fake!" Dipper stood up from behind one of the bushes at the edge of the deeper woods, lured out of hiding by that remark about liking America's Mysterious-Est that had apparently wounded his honor. He held a pair of binoculars; how long had he been there, exactly? "But this, on the other hand? Stan! Look, gnomes! I told you! There's weird stuff in these woods!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know about all that stuff, kid," said Stan, secretly wishing this reveal had happened at a more climactic moment.

"HUH?"

"I wanted to call it Bill-Eavitt-or-not... I changed my name... to make that the title, when I pitched the thing... but the suits shaid no. No, but we'll make the show. But! You can't- You can't call it that," mumbled Eavitt, not really paying attention. Stan marched up to the driver's seat window of the van, which just wasn't starting no matter how many times the shopkeeper twisted the spare keys in the ignition. Running away wouldn't work this time.

"I- it wasn't what it looked like," he said, putting his hands up. "My foot didn't even touch the accelerator, you have my word!"

"What were you pressing it with, your hands? Can't see very well out of the windshield like that! That would explain why you SWERVED INTO THE SIDE OF MY DAMN HOUSE!"

"I don't know what happened!" He needed to come up with something. What was there to do? Well, there was ol' faithful... "Perhaps this would ease your worries?" He said, taking his emergency cash briefcase from below the shotgun seat and passing it to Stan, desperately hoping-

"What is this stuff, Monopoly money?"

Crap, it was Elmore money.

"Um, no, never mind, wrong briefcase. I meant to- I meant-" he looked into the store area, searching for something that would make a good bribe-

The gold bar? No, Stan already knew to avoid that.

Skull with a crystal eye? No, that would make him look like a murderer.

Haunted fridge? No, how would he fit that out of the window?

He looked left, right, up down. There had to be something. There had to be-

"Freeze! Hands up, all of you! We're with the federal government!"

For the first time in what was probably 10 minutes but felt like 2 hours to all present, the clearing was silent enough to hear a pin drop. Even the rain froze in midair, afraid(?) to hit the ground. Rob stirred and opened his mouth, but Sarah silenced him before he could break the silence.

The shopkeeper gulped. The feds were after him? All he had done was pump his own gas and then break out of jail and then cause immense property damage... come to think of it, maybe they had a case. But, to his shock, they didn't come after him. They walked up to Stan.

"Great that you two are here!" he said, trying and failing not to sound sarcastic. "This guy-" he gestured to the van- "just did a hit-and-run on my house, business, and property!" He attempted to make those sound like three separate things.

"Er, no, we detected unusual signals coming from your-"

The shopkeeper suddenly came up with an idea. It came into his head like a bolt from the blue, and it was genius, uncharacteristically genius, or at least it would be if it worked. If it didn't work, it would be very, very stupid. Two birds, one plan. He interrupted them.

"Officers, I suggest you forget about everything you've seen here today," he said, dropping all panic from his voice as best he could. To his relief, it came out sounding convincing. Well, he'd see if it was convincing enough.

"And who are you to tell us something like that?"

"I'm your superior," he said.

-

WOODS- EVEN FURTHER NORTH OF CAMP

The break in the stillness had, paradoxically, given Rob and Sarah a chance to slip out between two stunned clusters of gnomes and roll off into the forest. Rob had spearheaded their escape. He didn't know what was happening, and he had no chance of figuring it out from only the menagerie of unusual and thoroughly rain-soaked people gathered in the vicinity, but he had the feeling they'd be better off away from all of that. They didn't say anything as they made their way northwards, arriving by coincidence at a little cave that offered some shelter from the downpour.

"Nobody even mentioned I was there," said Sarah. "I feel like I'm invisible or something."

"That's a good thing, right? Let's get in the last few episodes and then we can put all this behind us."

He reached for the generator. Nothing happened when he tried to turn it on. Waterlogged.

"No!" He shook it as if trying to bring it back to life, and received an electric shock that made him crumple into a ball on his hands and knees. "No, no, we were almost done!"

"Your memories are pretty much back, right?"

"I have to see it," he said, desperately opening the tape player. "I have to see how it all ended. I have to see it again. I have to. Otherwise this has all been for NOTHING!"

"We'll get another one! It's okay!"

He had his fist raised above the TV as if about to take out his anger on it, but instead he took a deep breath, withdrew his arm, and buried his face in his hands.

"We were so close," he groaned.

"We still are close!"

There was no noise, save for the pouring rain outside, for about a minute.

"What was up with the, um, the whole thing, back there?" Rob spoke up. "Like, why were all the-"

"I dunno. It all just sort of happened."

Their moment of calm was disturbed by footsteps, and a very disheveled-looking Dipper, covered in mud and leaves, stepped out of a thick patch of trees and pointed a shaking finger at the two of them, his jaw dropping. "YOU TWO! From the- from the-" he didn't seem entirely in his right mind. "You're the ones from the- you're- you're my manhunt targets!"

"Oh my gosh, he's been hunting us!" said Sarah, more excited than Rob thought she ought to be, given the situation. "So, I'm Sarah, and this is-"

"Rob? Rob... the cyclops?"

"How do you know that? You've never even met me! There are people who have known me for years and still get that wrong!" Rob spoke up... and he also sounded a bit more excited than he ought to be, at least at the sound of his name coming out of a "stranger's" mouth. But, unlike Sarah, he attempted to conceal it.

"I knew it! I knew the eye on the poster wasn't some drawing mistake! See, Mabel? I told you so." He turned around. Nobody else was there. "Mabel?"

"She wasn't there when you came out," offered Sarah. "I don't think she was there back at the clearing either."

Dipper looked back at the woods, then back at Sarah and Rob, then back at the woods, then back at Sarah and Rob. The rapid motion made him stumble like an unstable spinning top. "Uh, I should go find my sister, can you two, like, stay here so I can... um... no, that's stupid, why would you listen to me?"

"We can do that," said Sarah.

"What? Really?"

"We don't have anything else planned."

"Uh-" Dipper paused, blinking, then blinking again. Something inside of his head had run into a processing error. "Uh, okay. Wait there!"

He ran back off the way he came. Sarah and Rob shared a long glance with one another.

-

BACK TO THE CHAOS

"If you think we'll believe that, you'd better have something up your sleeve to prove it. What agency are you claiming to work for, hm?" Powers crossed his arms.

"Well, that's a difficult question to answer. My branch is so high up in the hierarchy that even its existence is entirely hush to lower-clearance agents."

"...And what's it called?"

"The SPF. Ever heard of it?"

"Well, no."

"Exactly."

He produced an ID card and flashed it to the agents, who gathered in to take a closer look, forgetting momentarily about Stan. He normally would have taken the opportunity to run for it, but the situation had a sort of stupefying effect on everyone in the clearing, and so he just watched and held his breath.

"It says here you're a janitor," deadpanned Powers.

"A janitor is a euphemism for someone who cleans up things the masses aren't meant to know about," he lied. "As I said, I suggest you forget all about your business in this town and tell your higher-ups you have orders from the top. They'll know what happened." That was also a lie, but it was one that would at least buy him some time to get out of here. And if that earlier, interrupted remark about unusual signals was anything to go by, maybe getting rid of the agents would help fix his standing with Stan, too.

"Am I understood?" asked the shopkeeper.

"Sir, do you really think we're going to fall for a bold-faced lie like that?"

"...I think you'll regret talking back to your superior. Especially since this is all being caught on camera-" he looked over to see Mr. Eavitt on the floor, camcorder in the mud next to him- "by which I mean, um, my security cameras."

"You go talk to him," Powers gestured at Stan, "I'll handle the van situation."

"You'll do no such thing!" The shopkeeper felt himself slipping into panic again. He had to bring out bigger guns. What could make the agents leave? What could make everyone leave? He looked over his dashboard. He racked his brain. He went through every memory he'd made since high school. Something had to be able to help. Something had to-

"Agents, are you wearing acid-proof vests?"

"That doesn't concern you-"

"That's a shame."

With a yank of an emergency cord next to the driver's seat, the back doors of the van burst open and something much larger than Euclidean geometry permitted, something with the worst parts of a spider, an abomination, and a crab, covered in oozing eyeballs across its inky black carapace, clawed its way out and let out a hiss that rattled the van windows and sent birds flying left and right. The thing plunged one pereiopod into the deepening mud and spat forth a jet of acid from one eyeball that felled a formidable pine tree as cleanly as a well-aimed axe swing.

In an instant, the crab, the shopkeeper, and the van were the only three sentient beings left in the clearing. And then, as the crab scuttled off into the woods to do whatever it was that things like it did, only the van and its keeper were left.

What had even happened today?

The shopkeeper did something he very rarely did, at least when sober. He got out of the van and looked around. He confiscated Mr. Eavitt's camcorder and leaned the man himself up against a rock in a sitting position. He looked north, where two sets of footprints and the wheel tracks of a pushcart stretched into the darkness. There were plenty of other footprints, too- the many tiny prints left by the gnomes, Dipper and Stan's small and large prints, and one set of prints left by one agent (carrying the other.) But he didn't follow any of those. Lifting up the edges of his robe so it didn't drag on the ground, he followed Sarah and Rob's trail through the newly-muddy woods, which smelled of rain that had only just come to a stop. The prints led up to a small outcropping- almost a cave- and visible underneath it were the two of them, huddled together on a rock to avoid the muddy ground.

"You two," he said, taking a deep breath, "we have a lot to talk about."

-

MYSTERY SHACK

The grand reopening had been officially postponed, and Dipper had made his way back to the Shack to look for Mabel. The good news was that she was there; she'd abandoned the "manhunt" earlier to help Wendy and Soos put up a tarp over the Shack's new "entrance" before the rain could do too much damage to the living room upholstery. The bad news was that all four of them had been drafted into an un-decoration task force by Stan, and it had taken several hours to put all of the party trappings in storage, long enough for the sun to set and for all the footprints- the ones that would have acted as Dipper's guide back to the cave- to wash away.

"I found them. I think I could find them again," he muttered.

"Sure you did, bro-bro."

"I'm serious! They were there, and he was a cyclops!"

"Are you seriously trying to guilt me for doing something actually helpful instead of going on your stupid wild goose chase?" She turned around, sitting the karaoke machine down with a thump in the corner.

"I- I'm going out for a walk."

"Stan, Dipper is trying to go out on his manhunt again!!"

"Give it a rest for tonight, kid!" came Stan's voice from the other room. "You can do it tomorrow!"

"But they won't be there tomorrow! They'd have to be stupid to wait that long!"

"So, let me get this straight, you think they'd be waiting for you now? Why?" Mabel was asking the same question Dipper was thinking, and he didn't have an answer. He just had a ton of questions. Questions that the ice cream cone and the cyclops might be able to answer. And those answers were about to just slip through his fingers. But what was there to do? Go upstairs, fake going to bed, and then climb out the window? Sure, that would work. He could definitely do that.

"I'm going upstairs to sleep," he announced loud enough for Stan to "incidentally" hear him. Then, without even putting any effort into looking casual, he marched upstairs to the attic bedroom and loudly closed the entrance behind him. From the window, the Shack sure looked a lot taller than it did from the ground...

-

CAVE

Sarah and Rob said nothing. They were expecting the shopkeeper to carry the conversation, which was fair. He was the adult here. He didn't know much about how to be comforting, but he could certainly try.

"You should come back to the store," he said, extending his hand. "You know. Dry off, have something to eat. I don't have much at the moment, you'll have to forgive me. But it's better than staying out here and catching a cold."

"Where's this coming from all of a sudden, old man?" asked Rob, squinting skeptically.

"That's a good question. I'll explain, but I'd rather do it indoors, if only for my own sake. I don't like standing." He thought that made him sound pathetic, so he opened his mouth to add something to make it more palatable, but he couldn't come up with anything, so he just closed it again like a goldfish (not that his mouth was even visible). "Are you... coming?"

They looked at each other again. Had they developed telepathy since they last encountered him or something? Whatever the look meant, they eventually got up and followed him back through the woods to the resting place of his home, business, and property. It was a little banged up from the wall impact earlier, and the rubber on the back tyres looked more burnt than he remembered. He opened the back door for them and hoisted himself into the driver's seat, then peeked through into the shop.

"Excuse the mess," he said. "Now, where should I begin? Oh, yes. I believe my van has gained sentience due to a lightning strike."

"That's not where you should begin," said Rob.

"Well, I just want you to know that I am a reckless, irresponsible driver... but not that reckless and irresponsible."

"What?"

"Oh, right you weren't there for all that." He squeezed his temples. "Please excuse me, I need a hard reset. Yes, a hard reset. Something like one day I can spend just thinking. No responsibilities, no stress, no one seeking revenge or trying to arrest me, just time to think. A day of that, and then I should be all right."

"What?" Rob said again.

"The van knocked a hole in the side of the Mystery Shack. I'm wanted by two different police forces and perhaps the federal and gnome governments. Sarah, I talked to your aunt, I think we have potential. Oh, yes, and Elmore is currently having a civil war."

The silence was audible. Eventually, Rob spoke up again. "....What?"

Okay. So none of those made a good place to start. But every time he searched for a new place to start explaining, he'd go further back and further back until he looped around and found himself in the realm of the unexplainable again. He realized by the fifth loop that he was just sitting there and staring at them in silence. Thankfully, they weren't running away. There had to be something that could break the cycle. The skull? The magazine rack? The gold bar? No, he needed a topic of conversation, not some magic item from the sales floor! Or maybe...

"I- you two have been through a lot. I should really make it up to you, so how about this? You two can both pick something from the shop. You know, on the house."

"Really?" asked Rob, incredulous.

"What's the catch?" asked Sarah.

The shopkeeper raised one nonexistent eyebrow. "No catch. Why... why would there be a catch? Do you doubt my sincerity?"

"Oh, I thought you were doing the bit," replied Sarah. "You know."

"The bit?"

"You mean it was a coincidence? The phrasing? This whole "pick something" idea?"

"I don't know what you-"

"Forget I said anything," Sarah said with a suddenly-red face, turning away and looking through the items for sale, most of which were still scattered all over the floor. She picked up a golf club and examined it closely from five different angles. "What's the curse on this thing?"

"No curse. That's a normal golf club. Cursed golf clubs would be on the second floor."

"THERE'S A SECOND FLOOR?"

"Just take the elevator. Hold on, I'll come in and show you the way..."

While the shopkeeper navigated over the piles of items and over to the shelf that, when a certain book was pressed in, would slide aside to reveal an elevator, Rob dug through some of the more mundane items. One of them caught his eye, but rather than immediately taking it, he paused, his hand hovering above it, and had something he didn't like to acknowledge- a miniature crisis of conscience.

"Hey, uh, old man."

The shopkeeper turned around.

"I've stolen from you and destroyed your merchandise before. Doesn't me taking this free thing you're offering put me even further in debt to you? Are you really just going to forgive everything, just like that? Put us back on a blank slate for no reason? Even though you know I- or, heck, we- could take advantage of your generosity? That's stupid of you."

He sighed and waved his hand. "Don't worry about it," he said. "You're a teenager."

Rob pulled his foot back instinctually to give the shelf in front of him a sharp kick, but just before it made contact, the shopkeeper's remark settled in and he restrained himself. He was a teenager. What did that even excuse? Surely not all the crime, or that incident he conveniently didn't mention in which he killed the shopkeeper, albeit in an alternate timeline. But maybe it excused the way he felt. He hadn't aged; nobody in Elmore really aged. But he had always thought that his awareness of that fact enabled him to change, to grow up.

He didn't feel very grown-up right now.

"In that case, I want this," he said, pulling a grappling hook out of the pile of miscellany.

-

CAVE

When Dipper arrived, sure enough, they were gone. There were footprints leading away from the cave and into the woods, but he couldn't afford to have anybody notice he was missing if he chose to follow them- who knew how long that would take? Maybe he'd have to go back with his tail between his legs, and with no evidence he was even telling the truth earlier. He pulled out a disposable camera and took a few shots of the footprints. What did that prove? If he tried to insist that the prints were proof, Mabel would definitely laugh at him again. But he was telling the truth! Maybe following them wouldn't take too long-

As he peered down the path where the footprints stretched into darkness (a set of three pairs? who was the third person?) he noticed that a bank of trees nearby had been cleaved down, their stumps sizzling with still-fresh orange acid. He heard the faint clicking of pincers.

He jammed the camera back in his pocket and ran home as fast as he could.

-

VAN

"And this is the furniture section!" The elevator stopped on the third floor, opening up into what looked like a very compact Bed, Bath and Beyond (though it was still much larger than the exterior of the van would suggest, especially given the two floors beneath it- the monster and machinery sections, respectively). "I suppose you two can use the beds, so long as you don't leave any stains. They do need to be made each night in case I need to make a sale." He hadn't sold anything from the Furniture Section in years. But there was always hope; the beds earned a much higher profit than your average cursed amulet or spiteful turtle. And they were much less likely to result in the destruction of the van, something that used to happen rather often and, as he had no insurance, always required he eat the repair costs himself.

"I haven't seen a bed in weeks," said Sarah, letting out an unhinged laugh and running her hands over one of the display beds with reverence. Rob, on the other hand, threw himself down onto one face-first without even taking off his shoes. It all made the shopkeeper feel very guilty for leaving two children to fend for themselves in a forest full of monsters. Come to think of it, why did it take seeing this to make him feel guilty about that?

He cleared his throat. "I think it's about time to mention that I'm, er, taking you back."

Their eyes were on him immediately, and before they could even say "WHAT?!", he spoke up.

"I talked to your aunt, Sarah, as I said. She noticed your absence. One thing led to another and I promised her I would find you for her. Rob, you can come, too. I assume you want to?"

Rob was about to say no. Why would he go back to Elmore? What was back there for him? He hated that town. It hated him, and so did its people. He had risked his life just to escape. And here he was, independent, rugged, frightening to the denizens of this world, and no longer just the foil in somebody else's story. Why turn around?

"No, I'll..."

He realized he'd be alone. Sarah would go back, and he'd be alone. He had been alone for a week when he first came here, so he could definitely do it again, right? But did he actually want to? Sure, there was nothing for him back in Elmore, but what was there for him here? He hadn't taken advantage of any of the world's benefits except at Sarah's behest. He had survived; in Elmore, he had lived. Well, maybe he was surviving back in Elmore too. But now, so was everybody else.

Maybe he could ask for a different world. This wasn't the only one the shopkeeper visited. What world would he pick, if he had a choice? Somewhere he could fit in, or somewhere he would stand out? Which one of those was Elmore? He had always thought of it as the latter, but compared to here, where townsfolk fainted at his presence and he had to wear a suit to interact with society in any meaningful way, he suddenly realized it came a lot closer to the former.

He swallowed. "I'll go back," he said, "just to see how things have been there since I left. This is a one-way trip, right?"

"Not necessarily," the shopkeeper replied. Rob sat up straight at that, turning around, his eye wide. Every time he had gone from one dimension to another, he had thought of it as his last chance. When he first found himself in the void, he thought that was it. When he first made it back to the real world, he thought that was it. When he (and everything else) fell back into the void, he thought that was it. When he came here, too, he knew for sure that this was his new home, that he had left his old life and his old role behind in favor of a fresh start. But this offer was different. He wasn't used to making decisions that didn't tie into some sort of grand, overarching plan for his life or survival. He wasn't used to making choices with the knowledge that said choices need not be final. These thoughts and more rushed through his head over the course of a single second, and then the shopkeeper continued. "I assume from your eagerness to leave earlier that you don't have much in the way of family or friends back in Elmore. I have plenty of universes where I can procure food; I could use an apprentice. And both of you clearly have experience stealing from people. Or at least from me." There was a hint of bitterness there.

Rob, caught entirely off guard, looked over at Sarah to see how she was reacting. She was neither outwardly shocked nor outwardly ecstatic, which were Rob's top two predictions; instead, she had her hand on her chin, deep in thought.

"Before we go back, there's something we have to do. I have one question for you."

"Of course."

"Do you have a VHS player? And a TV?"

"Y-"

"And one that's not cursed or anything?"

"Yes! Not everything I sell is cursed!" He shook his head in exasperation, then added, "Quite a bit of it is enchanted instead."

"Is the VHS player-"

"No, it's just a normal VHS player, I promise." He turned to Rob. "You haven't finished the tapes, boy?"

"We haven't finished them," Sarah responded before Rob could say anything. The shopkeeper's eyes widened.

"Oh! So you know about the contents. I feared as much when I saw you two in front of the TV... How have you handled the deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction of your perception of the nature of reality?"

"Pretty well," said Sarah.

"That's, um, quite the relief. I'll go fetch the setup for you two."

Both of them had a ton of questions to ask, but most of those questions somehow only popped into their heads when the shopkeeper was already standing in the elevator, the doors sliding closed. Well, all of that could wait until the show was over.

-

FOREST

The taser bounced harmlessly off of the carapace of the monster.

"Why'd you throw it at him, Durland? That ain't how you use one of those!"

"Don't I know it! I just panicked!"

"Here, let me show you how it's done."

The taser's electric probes also bounced harmlessly off the carapace of the monster.

It stirred, its movements alone shaking the ground, its dozens of acid-oozing eyeballs suddenly open and trained on the officers. As the importance of the hit-and-run case suddenly dropped to the very bottom of their priority list, they, as was apparently very common reaction to the thing, vacated the premises with screams they were glad nobody else heard.

-

VAN

The last frame of The Inquisition was much shorter onscreen than it had felt when Rob lived through it. He was huddled against the bedframe, curled up on his side- the TV sat at the foot of the bed, and Sarah was sitting with her legs crossed in the middle. As the credits rolled and then cut to black, Rob extricated himself and closed his eye, suddenly feeling exhaustion set in. It might have been one part of his brain fighting hard against another part of his brain, one that was attempting to launch him into a series of traumatic flashbacks. He could hear quiet screams in the distance, though they faded out of earshot after a few seconds. Maybe, he thought, he was hallucinating them.

"Maybe this is too little, too late, but I'm sorry we just kinda didn't give you a chance to explain," Sarah said, turning to face Rob. "That sucked of us. But... why'd you do everything like that?"

"Like what?" His voice was quiet and defeated.

"How do I say this without making it sound like an insult? Uh... Why'd you do everything so suspicious? Like, why did you name your alter ego-"

"Evil? Well, I'm evil. And I changed the pronunciation to make it less obvious."

"But it was still pretty obvious-"

"ONE PERSON NOTICED! One person! Did you, at the time, try and disobey me because of the name thing?"

"Well-"

"No! No you didn't. Nobody did, except the two people whose job it is to get in my way. So don't suddenly get on my case over that, okay? I thought you were over it! I should never have let you watch the-"

"I got pizza!" The shopkeeper's voice rang out over their argument as he stepped out of the elevator with a pizza box in hand. He didn't know what he had walked into, but something about the atmosphere told him he was interrupting. He took a step back. "This isn't a good time, I understand."

"Give me that," said Rob, suddenly energized. He ran over and wrenched the box out of the shopkeeper's hands, then laid it open on the bed, peering into it as if opening a treasure chest after a long and perilous quest to an isolated mountain cave guarded by a fearsome dragon with a kill count in the triple digits. "Ohh my gosh. I haven't seen a pizza in months. Can I- can I just have this? Wait, why am I asking? Nobody can stop me!" With that, he stacked four slices of pizza on top of one another, held the whole stack like a sandwich, and ran off to the corner of the room to eat them like some kind of rodent. Despite everything, though, he still left half the pizza for Sarah, and he still listened when she and the shopkeeper started their conversation back up.

"I need you to explain all the stuff you said earlier," she said. "Like about being wanted, and about- you talked to my aunt? And something about gnomes? I didn't catch any of it."

"Well, if all of that was so incomprehensible, where would YOU have me start?"

"What about who you are?" Sarah asked.

"Who I am? Have you lost your memory too?"

"No, I mean, when we've been talking about you, we've been calling you Van Guy this entire time. What's your actual name?"

That made more sense than the memory loss assumption he had jumped to. He considered just telling them, but nobody had called him by his name in decades. Nobody had gotten to know him well enough. Was it because he pushed everyone away the second they expressed a desire for anything more than a customer-client relationship? Was it because he was a career criminal who lived in a vehicle and constantly put the town in danger? When rationalizing, he normally leaned towards the option that wasn't his fault, but both of those were his fault, so he put the question out of his mind entirely and focused on a different one: should Sarah and Rob be the first people he trusted with something like this? What if this was a gateway drug, so to speak, to everybody using his name? Maybe it mattered less than they thought, since his name was...

"You'll be disappointed by it, I think."

"Disappointed? It's your name. What could be disappointing about that?"

He sighed. "You've been calling me Van Guy, you said?" He reached into his robe and pulled out his old ID card from the SPF, worn with age, stained with some substance he no longer remembered the nature of and hoped wasn't a health risk to the children. This was it. A threshold crossed. He handed it to her, feeling his face go just a little red. What was wrong with him, embarrassed about his own name?

Sarah held the card and looked down at it. It only took a few seconds for Rob to come up behind her, curious about the contents.

"William, huh?"

"Oh, William was my father's name. And it's common, these days- too common. Please call me Bill."

That made Sarah and Rob tense up.

"Actually, on second thought, Van Guy is, uh, kinda iconic, you know?" said Sarah.

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