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ckret2 · 2 months ago

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Chapter 90 of human Bill Cipher and the Mystery Shack having entered an uneasy alliance against their shared enemy: the government. Agent Powers begins to suspect his date "Goldie" is hiding something; but it's impossible to tell who to trust when the rest of the town is hiding something too.

Boy is the town ever hiding something.

A lot of somethings, as it turns out.

(There's a code in this chapter! If you're not an eager code-cracker, don't stress about figuring it out, the solution's given later in the chapter. If you are an eager code-cracker, you oughta solve it first before you read the rest of the chapter.)

####

Powers usually woke up before his alarm; but today, the alarm dragged him out of a dream to blink blearily at the thin predawn glow filtering through the thin motel curtain. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about. Something about triangles that glowed like the rising dawn.

The bed seemed bigger than it had the night before. Colder. He was suddenly acutely aware of how lonely his life was.

The motel room didn't have a coffeemaker or microwave. He remembered being frustrated by that oddity in another local motel last summer. Strange how he could remember details like that, but so little else about last summer's investigation. He'd get something at the police department.

He cleaned up, dressed, put his case file in his briefcase, and headed out.

####

"You're an early riser, Agent Powers," Sheriff Blubs observed. "Still on Washington time?"

"Washington is in the same time zone as Oregon," Powers said. "I rise with the sun. Keeps my circadian rhythm regular, keeps me sharp on the job."

"I meant..." Blubs petered out, shrugged, and sipped his coffee.

The police department's coffee was bad, but got the job done. The food on hand appeared to be slightly stale bagels and very fresh donuts. Powers would have to get a proper breakfast later.

"Find what you were looking for at the Mystery Shack?" Blubs asked.

"No," Powers sighed. But, admittedly, he'd been distracted. "But we're not done there yet. We're expecting more specialized equipment from HQ."

Blubs nodded. "Always something going on there," he muttered. "Think you'll arrest Stan Pines again?"

"Hm. According to Mr. Ramirez, he's out of town."

"Huh! Is he?"

"Allegedly. Traveling the world with..." He trailed off, fully registering what Blubs had said. "Sorry—'again'?"

"Like when you brought him in to interrogate last year?" Blubs said. "I assumed nothing came of it, since you let him go without any charges."

He had no recollection of arresting Stan Pines last year. He had no recollection of arresting anyone. He didn't even have the authority to make arrests unless he had reasonable grounds to suspect someone had committed a federal felony. And yet, something about the claim itched at the edge of his brain, like trying to remember what had triggered a case of déjà vu.

The sheriff and his deputy had been Powers's liaison with local law enforcement last summer. They'd been friendly and helpful through the whole investigation. If anybody might know what had happened and be willing to help...

He turned to Blubs. "Sheriff Blubs, did anything that you might call... unusual happen last summer?"

Suddenly Blubs couldn't meet Powers's gaze. "Well uh—never mind all that." (Déjà vu prickled at the back of Powers's mind again. Hadn't Blubs said something like that a few days ago?) Blubs took a deep sip of his coffee. "Say, do you like those donuts? Durland makes 'em!"

"Does he."

"Best donuts in Gravity Falls, if you ask me! I'm trying to watch my weight, but, hoo. Just can't resist his donuts."

Powers almost tried to push Blubs back toward his original question, but...

Have you asked anyone if anything weird happened here last summer? Try it. They act like they didn't even hear you. It's strange.

... maybe not.

####

A steady beeping interrupted Dale's sleep. He slapped his alarm clock, hit something flat and glassy instead, and opened his eyes to see what it was. He was in the car with Trigger, who was also asleep; had they both nodded off?

Last night's memories came rushing back. The old lady. They must have fallen asleep because of the coffee!

She must have used decaf.

Dale blinked at his tablet to see why it was beeping.

"Oh!" He swatted Trigger's shoulder. "Trigger!"

"Mrgh?"

"I've got the missing flash drive's signal again!"

"What?" Trigger sat bolt upright. "Where is it?"

"It's..." Dale frowned. "Ten feet in front of us?"

They looked out the windshield.

A goat, chewing a branchful of leaves, stared at them.

They exchanged a look, then scrambled out of the car. Trigger shouted, "Hey!"

The goat startled and galloped for the woods.

"Stop! Halt! Come back here!" Trigger ran after it.

Dale started to follow, turned around and jogged back to the car, retrieved his keys and phone, locked the car, and then sprinted to catch up.

####

Powers's phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered, "Hello?"

"Hey!" Dale's voice sounded breathless. "We'll be in a bit late! We're in hot pursuit of the flash drive!"

"Excellent," Powers said. "'In hot pursuit'?"

"I think a goat ate it!"

Faintly over the phone, Trigger's voice said, "Which way'd it go?"

"Uh... left, go left!" To Powers, Dale said, "By the way—thought you should know, we saw Goldie come to the Mystery Shack around one in the morning last night."

Powers's stomach flipped. That was after he'd dropped her off. "What? Why?"

"Don't know. Just thought you'd want to hear."

Baffled, he said, "Thank you. Keep me updated," and ended the call.

"Hey there, lover boy!" Durland elbowed Powers, startling him. He waggling his eyebrows. "Lazy Susan says yooou had a little date last night!"

Powers felt the back of his neck heat up. Gossip traveled fast in a small town. "Er—yes." Not very professional of him, but. "Someone I met in town a couple of days ago named Goldie." (What had she been doing at the Mystery Shack so late?)

"Oh, Goldie!" Blubs said. "Well! He's just a delight."

Powers gave him a quizzical look. He? "We... might be thinking of different Goldies."

Durland said, "Short brown gal? Big yellow hair and a gold tooth?"

A memory from dinner flashed through his mind's eye: a loose golden curl that had come loose and dangled softly in front of her eye; her gold tooth peeking out as she smirked like she knew something no one else did. His stomach flipped. "I... yes, that's her."

"Yeah, we know 'er! We're in the club for—"

"We're in a social club," Blubs cut in. "H—shhe's been looking to get out and meet new folks, I'm glad she ran into you."

A club? Why would a tourist join a club in town? "Is she... local? I was given to understand... well, I suppose I assumed she was a tourist." She'd talked like an outsider. Like it was her and Powers against the rest of this strange town. But then, she'd also talked like she knew this town well.

"Oh, she's an out of towner, but she's staying over at the Mystery Shack for a while. Old colleague of Stanford's, I think," Durland said. He looked at Blubs. "How long is she staying, did she say? Was it for the summer?"

"Could be. I don't think she's mentioned," Blubs said. "That place really fills up in the summertime."

Why hadn't she said anything?

If she was Stan's colleague, why hadn't he turned her up during their investigation into Stanford Pines's background? (Why had he investigated Stan Pines? He tried to remember.)

Why had she had him drop her off somewhere else, so far from the shack?

What was she hiding?

When Blubs stepped out of the room, Powers turned to Durland and said, voice low, "I need to ask you something. It's important."

"Sure! What is it?"

"Has there been anything... odd happening in town?" he asked. "Possibly paranormal in nature? Maybe involving the Mystery Shack?"

Durland's face immediately closed off. "Oh! Ohhh. Uh—never mind all that. Hey, Bluuubs?" He hurried from the room. "Do you need some, uh—help with the paperwork?"

Powers's eyes narrowed.

He flipped open his case file to skim while he waited for an update from his men—and a jolt shot up his back. There were only three pages in the folder. Where was the rest of it? He checked his briefcase, then rushed outside to check his car. He'd let Goldie read the file; had she...? No. He didn't want to think so.

He drove back to the hotel.

####

As soon as he unlocked the door, he saw a disheveled pile of papers lying on the dresser. He sighed in relief. They must have slid out of his file before he put it in his briefcase. He'd been distracted that morning. Careless of him. (He always seemed to be strangely careless in this town.) He put the papers back where they belonged, shut his briefcase again, and turned toward the door.

There was a rumpled paper on the floor with bright red writing on it.

He picked it up. A short message had been written with a thick marker, the large letters filling the page: "STOP DIGGING UNLESS YOU WANT TO LOSE ANOTHER AGENT."

Another agent?

Powers called Dale, tapping his foot anxiously until he picked up. "Dale! Are you alright?"

"As... as well as I can be, sir." He was breathing heavily. "A little winded. That goat's nimble—"

"What about Trigger? Is he still there?"

"Uh...? Yeah, he's nearby."

"Are you sure?" Powers demanded. "100% sure?"

"H... hold on." A few seconds of panting, and then he said, "Yessir, right here. I've got him by the hand." (Powers heard Trigger quietly ask, "What are we?")

"Good. Have either of you seen anything suspicious, anything at all?"

Trigger leaned closer to the phone to say, "I believe I saw a gnome, sir."

"I didn't see it," Dale added.

"He had a pointy red hat," Trigger reported gravely. "I could have punted him."

Didn't sound like something capable of vanishing a federal agent. "Very well. Watch each other's backs closely," Powers said. "And let me know if anything happens."

Dale said, "You got it, sir."

He hung up and studied the message again. He flipped it over; on the other side of the paper was a flier, prominently headed "Gravity Falls MUSEUM," with a calendar of activities from May. (Apparently, on Wednesdays children could try "gravel panning.") Somebody had scrawled a message on the paper in pen:

TYQ FOP

DYEIGNQL LS FAOE LLY BZYMQUFUW LYVQ DIGQ VQRIJI SAG AG LIYQ

OFWYQ KIM RYJF QWIE

Gibberish. And nobody in his team knew how to crack ciphers...

But he knew somebody in town who did.

He hesitated for just a moment; then dialed the number Goldie had given him last night.

####

Just around the corner of the motel, Stan was pressed to the wall, catching his breath. That had been a close call. He'd arrived at the motel after Agent Powers had left for the morning, picked the door lock, returned the highly classified documents Bill had pilfered, and dropped in the threatening letter Mabel had written; but he'd only barely gotten back out before Powers pulled into the parking lot. He hadn't expected Powers to return nearly so soon. (He half wondered if Bill had planned it that way. He seemed like the kind of con artist who would work throwing a partner-in-crime under the bus into his plan.)

He tiptoed past Powers's door, then ran down the block for his car.

####

Bill was dragged from sleep by the feeling of his burner phone buzzing under the couch cushion. Not already. He'd barely gotten to sleep. He'd only just started his second REM cycle. He groaned, yawned, picked it up, and tried to sound perkier than he felt. "Yello?" He stifled another yawn. "What? No, no, I'm up. Been awake for hours.

It was the call he'd been expecting. He sat up, suddenly much more awake, grinning broadly. Right into his trap. So far so good. He stretched, only half listening while Powers explained the situation. "A cipher? Yeah, sure, no problem." He grabbed a skirt and tank top, "If it's that urgent, I think I can clear my schedule! Meet you at Greasy's?"

He stuffed foundation and mascara into his umbrella, thumped down the stairs—nearly tripped in his haste—and thudded on Soos's door as he passed. "It's showtime!"

####

When Powers arrived, Goldie was already outside the diner, leaning by the door. (Had she come from the Mystery Shack?) As soon as he was out of his car, she called, "Hey, Bermuda! Making me wait for you?"

"I got here as soon as I could."

She was less made up than last night, and he realized with a sudden burst of warmth that yesterday she must have gotten gussied up for him.

His attention caught on one of her earrings as it reflected the sun into his eyes. Odd; she was wearing the same aqua green triangular earrings she'd worn yesterday—one had a gold star on it—but he hadn't noticed there was a bright gold eye painted on the other triangle. Surely he'd just missed it, though; why would it have gained an eye between last night and today?

Now that he'd noticed it, it was a reassuring sight. He saw that symbol everywhere back in Washington: over opera houses, on the gates of graveyards—even on the ceiling of the Bureau of Covert Investigations' lobby, surrounded by rays of brassy gold. When the BCI first formed, the All-Seeing Eye had been part of its logo—before the Department of Cover-Ups had hastily passed down an order to change it to their current eagle-and-magnifying-glass logo, and then covered up the order. But it hadn't been worth it to renovate the old art deco building's decor, and the Eye of God still benevolently watched over the agents.

As Powers opened the door for Goldie, he asked, "Did you call me 'Bermuda'?"

"I'm dropping a hint! I think you'd look nice in Bermuda shorts."

"O-oh."

She flashed him a brilliant smile as she swept past. "When's the last time you took a vacation, anyway? The beach in town's a lot nicer without a suit on."

In spite of everything he'd heard this morning—it was a relief to see Goldie again.

He could ask about the shack later.

Every booth and half the counter were filled up; they were seated at the end of the counter. Powers sat between Goldie and the crowd, trying as much as he could to shield their conversation from eavesdroppers. "Busier at breakfast than dinner."

"Oh, yeah, Greasy's is the hottest coffee spot in town."

"Is it that good?"

"Dunno. I prefer tea," Goldie said. "It's got more to do with the celebrity endorsement than the coffee itself. Fiddleford McGucket used to hang out here, chain drinking coffee pots. Now everyone wants to get coffee where the great inventor McGucket used to—but now that he's made it big, he doesn't come here himself anymore." She scoffed. "Doesn't that figure!"

"Ah, yes. McGucket." He'd been surprised to see that name in the news. "When I was in town last year, I heard a great deal about a local homeless man who squatted in the junkyard—an 'Old Man' McGucket. A relation of Fiddleford, or...?"

"That's the same guy."

"Huh. The man the locals described didn't sound like a genius inventor."

"He wasn't. A year ago, as far as anybody in town knew, he was just the village idiot." Goldie shrugged. "And all the sudden, the Northwests lose all their money in some kind of fraud deal nobody can make sense of, and now he's living in Northwest Manor!" She let out a disbelieving huff, and Powers was sure he detected skepticism in the cock of her brow. "I guess you can never tell, can you?"

He studied Goldie's face—so beautiful, so intelligent, smiling at him like he was the most fascinating thing in the world. Hiding just how close she was to this town. Pretending she had nothing to do with the Mystery Shack. "I suppose you can't."

Once they'd ordered breakfast, Powers showed Goldie the threatening letter and the note on it. She studied the code critically. "It's not a simple substitution cipher," she muttered. "It can't be anything complex, not if they're just scrawling it on a museum handout and throwing it away like trash. Maybe Vigenère—you need to know a code word for that one. Either they have a standard code word we'll never guess; or, they made it something simple that the recipient would know to look for... Got a pencil?"

Powers fished around in his briefcase for a pencil and handed it over. Goldie pointed at the flier's heading—"Gravity Falls MUSEUM"—underlined the word "MUSEUM," which was larger than anything else on the page, and muttered, "Worth a shot." She drew a complicated grid lettered A to Z along the top and left sides, crossed with vertical lines and horizontal lines and diagonal lines, then wrote the word MUSEUM over and over above each letter in the encrypted text—MUS EUM MUSEUMMU... She tried to explain how the cipher worked as she set up her grid. It flew over Powers's head.

"Now let's hope I grabbed the right word." She started out needing to trace the grid to find each letter, but the farther she got in the message the less often she had to look at it, until she'd translated the whole thing:

HEY BUD

REMEMBER TO LOCK THE PNEUMATIC TUBE ROOM BEFORE YOU GO HOME

UNSEE YOU NEXT WEEK

She pushed the paper over to Powers—"It's not a lot to go on."—and dug into the omelet that had arrived while she was translating. "What does 'unsee' mean?"

"I have no idea." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It looks like somebody wrote on a scrap paper they had on hand."

"That's not much help," Goldie lamented. "Anybody who's visited the museum since May could've grabbed this calendar—and whoever grabbed it first wrote a note on it and passed it to somebody else. Anyone could have sent this to you." She gestured at the paper. "Maybe you guys can dust it for prints?"

"That takes longer than most people think. And we've both touched it now."

He reread the message. Pneumatic tube room...

Slowly, he said, "I think the museum has pneumatic tubes. I remember seeing them last year."

"Did you?" Goldie's brows shot up. "Huh. Isn't that convenient."

"It is." There couldn't be many other places in town with pneumatic tubes. Maybe the post office, but he doubted it. "This may have been written from one museum employee to another. That would narrow down the suspects..."

"Mind if I come along?" Goldie asked.

Powers gave her a puzzled look. "To?"

"The museum! I don't think I've ever been to the museum! You've got to investigate it, right?" She grinned crookedly. "You know how much I love to see you at work."

Powers tried to ignore the flush creeping up his neck. "I can't allow that. If whoever sent this threat is there, this could be dangerous. I don't want you in harm's way."

The cheeky grin slid off her face. Seriously, she said, "Then that's exactly why you need me. You don't expect me to let you walk in there without any backup, do you?"

She had a point. If Dale hadn't called him yet, he and Trigger were still pursuing the goat. He wasn't sure he could trust the police here.

He wasn't sure he could trust Goldie, either.

But she was willing to admit there was something strange in this town when nobody else was. He wanted to trust her.

And she was right. He did need backup. "Okay; but I want you to stay near the exit." He took out his phone and texted Dale's number to Goldie. "And if anything happens—get help."

####

Goldie promised to stay upstairs, looking at the exhibits; and Powers followed the pneumatic tubes to a staircase, down into the basement...

...and through an immense wooden double door, flanked by lit braziers and framed in an arch of stones, which had a carving depicting two hands cradling an eye that had been X'ed out with blood red spray paint.

Which was a weird thing to find under the museum in a town with barely 5,000 people.

He'd heard rumors about a secret society in the Pacific Northwest whose symbol was an eye with a red X through it—one of the rare secret societies that actually managed to keep its secrets. Was this...?

He eyed the lit braziers nervously—had somebody been here recently?—but closer inspection revealed the flame was actually fueled by gas. Perhaps they were always lit. Dangerous, in a museum filled with old, dry papers and fibers; he began to wonder whether the museum was a mere extension of whatever this was, and not the other way around.

He pushed through the door.

Stone subterranean chamber, more lit braziers, a life size wood carving of a robed man with outstretched arms and a crossed-out eye on his chest standing in front of what looked like a shrine. Powers wasn't one given to flights of fancy, but if he were asked to imagine where an evil secret cult might meet, he'd be hard pressed to think of anywhere more perfect than this. All it was missing was a stone table for human sacrifices.

And the room was filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of pneumatic tube canisters.

He picked a few up. All of them had names written on them, a few labeled "(VISITOR)" or "(TOURIST)", most followed by the word "MEMORIES". He recognized a couple names from his investigation in town. He tried to pry one open and couldn't. What was in these things?

He found a filing cabinet near the carving, with a paper taped on top that read, "TOP SECRET! Do NOT open unless you're permitted to see the Society of the Blind Eye's secrets! (That means NOT YOU, Jeffrey!)" Ah, well—eye with an X through it, they would be called the Blind Eye, wouldn't they.

Powers pulled open the top drawer. There were only a couple of files in this one: one contained what looked like a list, again written in code; the other held what looked like blueprints to some sort of weapon called a "Memory Gun"—and if the notes on its usage and repair in the following pages were anything to go by, the Blind Eye had one of these things and was using it regularly.

As he flipped through the blueprints, a browned, square piece of paper slipped out of the folder and fluttered to the floor. He picked it up. It looked faded and aged, smelled like coffee, and was criss-crossed by diamond creases. Jumbles of incomplete diagrams and letters covered the paper.

As he turned around, a light caught his eye—not the yellow-red flicker of the braziers but a sickly digital glow. There was a computer monitor against the wall, its screen black but for a glowing green X'ed out eye. It sat atop a box labeled "↓INSERT↓"; the label pointed toward a pneumatic tube canister half-slottered into what looked like an oversized battery holder.

Powers scanned the room to make sure he was still alone; then pushed the canister fully into the holder.

It clicked and locked in. The green eye disappeared. The screen displayed a slender woman in her late thirties with coppery hair and a couple of figures in red robes partially visible in the shadows behind her. Metal cuffs bit into the sleeves of her well-worn flannel shirt, pinning her arms to a heavy chair; as she struggled to free herself, a camera swung from a strap around her neck, but somehow Powers doubted she was a sightseeing tourist. She snarled at the video camera recording her, "Where am I?! What do you think you're doing?! If you don't let me go, I swear I'll strangle you with your own stupid red bathrobes—"

An unseen person with a deep voice and a vaguely British accent said, "Be calm. Cooperate and this will all be over soon."

"Like hell am I cooperating! Let me go!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs, "HEEELP—"

One of the robed figures behind her stepped forward and clapped a large, meaty hand over her mouth. The deep voice said, "All we want is for you to tell us one thing: what is it that you have seen?"

The meaty hand tentatively uncovered her mouth so she could reply, then jerked out of the way when she tried to bite him. She snapped, "Nothing! I haven't seen a single stupid thing! You dragged me in with a bag over my head—"

"Did you not run into town, screaming in fear, claiming you were being chased by... some tall, faceless monster?"

"I—What? What does that have to do with—?" Her eyes widened. "What are you, the monster's cult?"

"Quite the opposite." The recording camera moved closer to the woman's face. Someone else snatched the woman's camera away by the neck strap. "Just be calm, think of that faceless monster... and in a moment, you'll never think of it again."

"What do you mean?" The rage slowly drained out of the woman's face, leaving only fear behind as she stared directly into the camera's lens. "What does that thing—? Don't! Don't—"

The recording ended. Static snow filled the screen. What in the world had Powers just watched?

He removed the canister from the slot and the screen went black. The label on the canister read "MRS. CORDUROY MEMORIES". He knew about the Corduroys; the eldest daughter worked for the Mystery Shack.

He had a report on Raina Corduroy's 2009 disappearance in his folder.

There was a date written on the tube canister. It was three days before her disappearance.

Goldie had told him Dan Corduroy was scared of something in the trees.

He flipped open the folder on the Memory Gun; held the canister up against a similar-looking part of the blueprints labeled "MEMORY CANISTER"; and read the other labels on the blueprints: "ELECTRIC TAPE (STORES MEMORIES)," "MEMORY SPECIFIER," "RADIATION BULB (DISASSEMBLES NEUROLOGICAL PATHWAYS)"...

And in a moment, you'll never think of it again.

It couldn't be possible.

He grabbed another memory canister laying on the right corner of the console. "MR. AND MRS. GLEEFUL MEMORIES." He'd visited a Gleeful Auto Mart just a few days ago.

He popped it into place. The screen lit up.

A woman with gray-streaked dusty brown hair sat on a plush pink sofa, sobbing into a tissue and struggling not to hyperventilate. A man—it was the Mr. Gleeful from Gleeful Auto Mart—wrapped an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. The angle was low, aimed at their knees, as though the camera had been left on a coffee table.

"It was awful," Mrs. Gleeful sobbed, "he was—he was lifting things and—throwing them around like some kind of poltergeist, or—or a demon— I've never seen my little Giddy that furious before, I've never seen anyone that furious before..." She grabbed a fresh tissue. "He's—he's got some sort of devil in him, we need to call a priest or a doctor or something—"

"Now, now, honey." Mr. Gleeful held her tighter and patted her arm. "You don't mean that. He's always been a mite tempestuous, you recall; and he's just practicing with those new powers of his—"

"Well I want those powers gone!" She pounded her fists on her bony knees. "Those powers and that awful book and—and—" She burst into heaving sobs again, flung an arm around her husband, and buried her head in his shoulder. "I just want my sweet little boy back."

Mr. Gleeful grimaced uncertainly and murmured, "I don't think I could get that book away from him if I tried." He picked up the camera—not a camera, Powers realized; the "memory gun" was designed to take recordings—and aimed it at himself and his wife. "Don't give yourself a headache crying, sweetheart; you won't worry about him anymore." He squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. "And I'm sure he'll make a better first impression on us with those powers next time."

For a second, she could only sob hitchingly into his shoulder; but then she asked, voice tiny, "Next time?"

Mr. Gleeful squeezed his eyes shut.

The recording ended.

Mr. Gleeful clearly knew what the memory gun did. He'd used it voluntarily. On a suspicion, Powers searched his wallet for the business card Mr. Gleeful had given him.

His name was Bud Gleeful. HEY BUD.

Goldie had sent him to Gleeful Auto.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Bud Gleeful was a mind wiping cultist and owned the best car dealership in the county. All the same—Powers turned so he could see the door from the corner of his eye, watching it warily, as he picked up the next canister.

It had Preston Northwest's name. He was one of the most important people in town. The patriarch of the richest family in Oregon—until last summer. Descendant of the town founder—allegedly. (Powers had gone undercover at last year's Northwest Fest and seen a few things that made him doubt the credibility of the Northwest family history—but nothing firm; and he couldn't very well interview that ghost now. Something shady was going on, but that wasn't his department.)

He clicked the canister into place. The screen lit up.

The memory gun turned back and forth as Preston paced back and forth in front of his manor's windows, delicately holding a narrow stemmed glass of what looked like bubbly white grape juice, but was probably much stronger. The deep vaguely British voice was back: "Would you explain what exactly it is you called on us for, Mr. Northwest?"

Fuming, Preston said, "Some... child dug up the truth about the town's founder—as well as the founder himself! This is unacceptable!"

"It certainly sounds traumatic," deep voice agreed. "Then you'd like us to... 'liberate' the child from the burden of this memory...?"

"No no no, you don't get it—the founder is still alive! Still alive! Just... running about out there!" He ran a hand through his $300 haircut. "I can't imagine how, he must be over two hundred years old, but—well, you know what this blasted town is like!"

"Intimately," deep voice said distastefully. "Then you want us to erase the child's knowledge that the founder is alive. And perhaps yours? You seem... distressed."

"Wh—?" Preston whirled around to stare at deep voice in outraged offense. "No, not me, you fool! I want you to find the founder, and make him forget his history! His whole life, if you have to!"

There was a pause. "That isn't how we operate, Mr. Northwest."

"I don't care!" Preston began pacing again, taking a deep drink from his definitely-not-grape-juice. "I could have you broken up in an instant if I wanted—nothing in this town runs without the Northwest Family's stamp of approval, and don't forget you're using the facility my grandmother commissioned—so if you want to keep operating, you operate how I say!"

There was a longer pause. The deep voice said, slowly, menacingly, "You really do seem very upset, knowing about this man running around in the woods. You really ought to forget all about him. And us."

"What?" Preston turned again; but this time, his eyes weren't on the speaker, but staring straight into the gun. "Oh no. You can't! You know you can't, how do you think you'll afford all your little custom canisters without my money?!"

"I don't think we'll need to worry about finances."

"Of course not," a clear female voice said. The gun swung around to frame Priscilla Northwest, standing in the doorway at the far end of the room. She said evenly, "As we discussed, I've arranged for your society to continue receiving its annual donation from the Northwests. You have nothing to fear."

Preston gaped at his wife in disbelief. He didn't even notice that the gun was slowly turning to aim at his head again. "Scilly? How do you know about— But— But why— How dare you—"

"You're too wound up over this," Priscilla said evenly. "You need to get it off your mind, darling. You're going to give yourself frown lines."

"Get it off my...?" His broken, dazed laugh was cut off sharply by the end of the recording.

Tape after tape of this. This was pretty obviously some sort of secret society that had been wiping people's memories around town—but to what end? What was the pattern? A woman who'd seen a monster, the parents of "child psychic" Gideon Gleeful (was he a real psychic?), the disgraced descendant of a fraud of a town founder... and if all of these recordings were like that, and if there were hundreds of recordings...

He looked down at the canisters scattered across the console—and spotted a fourth one. Name turned directly toward him, almost as though it wanted him to find it. "GOLDIE LOCKE (VISITOR)".

A chill ran down his spine.

He plugged it in.

Goldie was in the same chair where Mrs. Corduroy had been restrained—wearing a rumpled white button-up and an undone black tie, hair disheveled, teeth bared, one eye squeezed shut tight in pain, the other wide and furious. Her arms weren't strapped down like Mrs. Corduroy's had been; instead, they were wrenched behind her back. Apparently someone had restrained her first and then flung her into the chair.

She was already talking when the recording started: "—it doesn't matter what you do to me! Threaten me any way you want, I won't talk!"

"Talking is exactly what we don't want you to do, Ms. Locke." The deep voice was back, although sounding a little rougher than in the other recordings. (It was clear there had been a struggle; Powers hoped Goldie had broken his nose.) "And we'll make sure you never do."

Goldie flinched, both eyes opening. "You're going to...?"

"No, not that. We don't use such messy methods. It's enough to make sure you don't remember your current assignment—or anything that could lead you back to it."

"My team will be looking for me—"

"Your team won't remember you. We'll be dealing with them shortly." The gun lurched a foot closer to Goldie's face. She flinched again in fear. "I hope your life is flashing before your eyes, Ms. Locke! Because this is the last time you'll ever remember it!"

Her wide eyes got wider. “Wait—! No! Whoa-whoa-whoa wait wait stop STOP STOP—"

The recording ended.

Leaning on both hands over the console, Powers stared into the static snow with mute horror.

######

(Post-TBOB changes: added half the sentence "and don't forget you're using the facility my grandmother commissioned" to suggest it was Abigale Blackwing who built the big stone chambers under the museum. The rest of Preston's statement was the same, since I'd already decided the Northwests were bankrolling the Blind Eye—Abigale was just a bit of serendipity. And I think that's it? This chapter was impacted more by the official Gravity Falls coloring book than by TBOB.

PSA: this is the first chapter from Powers's POV, which means it's the first chapter that almost exclusively calls Bill "Goldie" and "she/her." So, a reminder: canon has exclusively called him "Bill" and "he/him" since 2013, and so do I except when I'm writing the POV of characters who don't know who Bill actually is. You, reader, know who Bill is.

I've had trouble in the past with commenters using the wrong name/pronouns for Bill just because he's been stuffed inside a body he does not identify with; so, don't let a chapter from a character who's wrong make the situation worse, please. Thanks.

Anyway!! We're shifting into conspiracy mode y'all. Wish Agent Powers luck. I'll be interested to hear y'all's theories on where Bill is going with all this; some parts of the hints/foreshadowing have been more overt than others.)

#(please look at the little pictures I spent too much time on them)#(me: 'hey guys if i add backgrounds in any more art before March i need you to put a skunk in my inbox.' me in march: *does this*)#(hey guys if i add backgrounds in any more art before April i need you to put a skunk in my inbox.)#(as much of the art as possible was photoshopped from screenshots or traced; otherwise this woulda taken me 3 months instead of 3 days.)#(i never claimed to be an honorable artist)#bill cipher #human bill cipher #agent powers #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #(didn't realize until i looked at all four pictures together that it's just. the moms. it's all mom lore. this is the mom lore chapter.)#(one of these things is not like the others; one of these things does not belong: 👩👩👩⚠️)

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