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codylabs · 6 years

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Chapter 12: Escape to the Hard Life

Links: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Wendy awoke.

Just outside her open window, she heard her brother running the lawn mower. Doing it early in the morning was just his way of reminding her that she had promised to mow the lawn. But since she’d procrastinated for so long, he got a bigger allowance for doing it instead.

Ugh. I forgot again. Rub my face in it, why don’t ya?

She didn’t even bother opening the drawer of her dresser, because all her clothes were lying on the floor where she’d left them in the past week. She’d meant to get the laundry done yesterday. And the day before that. But she always just said ‘I’ll to it tomorrow’. But then the tomorrows came and went, and the laundry never got done, and her plans always bumped on back to ‘tomorrow’ once again.

Ugh. I’ll do it tomorrow.

So she crawled out of bed and into her cleanest dirty shirt, and began to prepare for the day.

When she came out of her room ten minutes later, with a backpack full of gear and an armful of armor, her dad was reclining on the couch watching TV.

He wasn’t looking so great. Juan’s mom had scratched him in the shoulder, sawed him in the leg, and threw him against the side of the house. He was still hurting pretty badly, and simply couldn’t find a way to sit that didn’t tweak something somewhere.

But Daniel Corduroy was a very manly man; such mortal pains were trivial to beings like him. He didn’t complain or whine. He threw no fuss whatsoever. He just kept the bandages where they were, kept the ice against it, and watched TV like normal. WHAT’S A LITTLE PAIN? He thought. I’VE HAD WORSE. WAIT, MAYBE I HAVEN’T… OH, SHUT UP ME!

Wendy aimed for house’s front door, which meant walking directly between him and the TV. She expected her dad to mutter some annoyed remark at the interruption, like usual. But instead, he broke his eyes entirely away from the screen, reached for the remote, and turned it off. “HEY.” He said, and gave her his full attention.

She stopped walking, and turned to face him. “Hey.”

“DIDN’T SEE YOU YESTERDAY.” He grunted. “WHERE WERE YA?”

“Oh, just…” She glanced around, trying to think how to put it. “Well… We were looking around, trying to figure out where the killer robots came from. And… Well… Yeah.”

“FIND ANY ANSWERS?”

“…Yeah.”

“WHERE?”

“It’s… Uh…” She hesitated to say it. “…Kind of a need-to-know basis…”

“…YOU… WAIT… HUH? YOU’RE GONNA KEEP A SECRET FROM YOUR OWN FATHER?!?”

She glanced about nervously. “Well… I kind of have to. Just… Trust me, it’s for the greater good that it stays between as few people as possible… It’s… We said to keep it a secret. We promised… I promised to take some very… Very amazing and scary things to my grave… And I wouldn’t betray that.”

This made a bit of sense to him, but it still annoyed him. He frowned up at the ceiling for a few seconds, and took a deep breath to calm his great annoyance. “SO.” With a mighty and obvious effort, he moved on. “WHO’S ‘WE’?”

“Huh?”

“WHO DO YOU TRUST THAT MUCH? MORE THAN ME?”

“Uh… I… I do trust you dad, it’s just… Okay, uh… The Pines men… Uh… Stanley and Stanford. Remember them? Used to own the Mystery Shack…”

“A’COURSE.”

“And Dipper, their great-nephew… I was with him all of yesterday.”

Dan nodded. “OH YEAH. THE LESS-GIRLY ONE. TELL ME ABOUT HIM.”

“Huh?”

“… YOU’VE BEEN SPENDING A LOT OF TIME WITH THE KID. TELL ME ABOUT HIM.”

“He’s… Uh… He’s a good man.” She stated simply.

Dan pondered this for a moment. “…MAN?”

“That’s right.”

“…HE’S BUILT LIKE A GIRL HALF HIS AGE.”

“Oh yeah?” Wendy fished her brain for some great comeback. “Well… Eh.”

Dan considered this. It seemed wrong to him that of a pair of mixed twins, the smaller one would be the boy. And it seemed further wrong to him that said boy would be given such a share of respect and trust. It seemed even further wrong to him that the boy’s obvious shortcomings would be so consistently and totally overlooked… Dan didn’t want to think too hard about all this though, because he knew he was probably wrong… But still.

He looked back up at the ceiling and took another deep breath, while he endeavored to drag his mind back on-topic. “HOW MUCH LONGER IS THIS THING GONNA TAKE?”

“Like… Solving the mysteries of these robot things?”

“MAKING SURE THEY DON’T DO THIS NO MORE.” He pointed to his bandages. “HOW LONG ‘TILL YA BEAT ‘EM?”

She shrugged helplessly. “Like, I don’t know! This isn’t a war, dad! We don’t have an enemy that we can stand up to, it’s just a bunch of… Wild animals, we don’t even know how many! And this isn’t a job, either! I don’t have a schedule to keep or a wage to earn… I’ve put maybe 40 hours into this mess just this week, not including the time I spent recording in my diary or with you at the hospital. And we have NO idea how close we are to solving the mystery, and even LESS idea WHAT to do once we solve it…”

“40 HOURS THIS WEEK?” Dan frowned.

“Yeah.” Wendy grunted.

Dan considered this, and decided to remind her of her second priority. “YOU KNOW, YOU STILL NEED TO GET A JOB THIS SUMMER.”

Wendy closed her eyes. She had been meaning to forget that part for a while now. Her hands balled into fists within her pockets. “Yeah.” She grunted again. “I know.”

“HAVE YOU BEEN LOOKING FOR A JOB?”

“No.” She admitted, as politely as she could manage.

“YOU KNOW YOU SAID YOU WANTED A ‘GOOD’ JOB… THAT MEANS YOU NEED TO SET YOUR SIGHTS HIGH. YOU NEED A RESUME… YOU FINISHED THAT YET?”

“No.” She admitted.

Her dad frowned. “HAVE YOU EVEN BEEN WORKING ON IT?”

She took her balled fists out of her pockets. “No.” She admitted.

“…HAVE YOU STARTED IT?”

“No!” She spat.

This annoyed Dan even more. He stared up at the ceiling for a few more seconds, and breathed deeply again. He looked back at her again. “THIS IS YOUR LIFE, WENDY. YOUR GAS MONEY, YOUR DRIVER’S INSURANCE, YOUR CAR SOMEDAY, YOUR COLLEGE IF YOU WANT…”

“I know, but… There’s always stuff that… Look, it’ll GET done, dad! I’ll get a job. I will! Just…” She gestured to the armor she had in her hands, then to the door. “There’s other stuff to do…!”

“THERE ALWAYS IS! BUT IF YOU REALLY WANTED THAT JOB, YOU WOULDN’T JUST COME HOME AND WATCH TV LIKE YOU DO! YOU WOULD WORK FOR IT!”

“Yeah. Thanks. I will.” Wendy turned and made for the door.

“LOOK, I KNOW YOU DON’T WANT ME REMINDING YOU, AND I KNOW IT’S YOUR LIFE, BUT I CAN’T JUST SIT BY WHILE YOU BLOW IT!” He bellowed. “YOU’RE RUNNING AROUND CHASING GHOSTS, AND YOU THINK THAT LETS YOU GET OFF RESPONSIBILITIES! I CARE ABOUT YOU, WENDY! SOMETIMES IT SEEMS I CARE MORE THAN YOU!”

“Sure…” Wendy grunted, stepped out the front door, and slammed it shut behind her.

Ugh.

The job… Her dad expected her to have a job… It wasn’t a huge expectation, really. It was perfectly reasonable… It just happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s cool. She didn’t want to deal with this. She didn’t want to think about it. She wanted nothing more than to forget all about it. She was so… Very… Done.

She eased herself down onto the front step, pulled out her phone, and began to check through her recent messages.

-Nate found a way to make paint cans explode! Come to the football game tonight so we can totally terrorize it! -Lee

-Why aren’t you texting me? I thought you wanted to go out again! -Joe

-Free subscription to our weekly newsletter! Simply call 8005554592 with credit card information -$$Win Win Baby$$

-Robbie says he can give us a ride to the forest today. Ready to roll out at 10:00. -Dipper

-I still love you, btw. >3. -Joe

-Oops, I mean <3. -Joe

-Credit Union Fraud Center: Fuel tax $38.83 on card 6800 of your account. If valid reply YES, if fraud reply NO. To opt out reply STOP. -Credit Union Fraud Center

-3 people liked your status update.

-I understand the urgency of the matter. I’ll be at 412 Gopher Avenue on the 10th. -B.Blandin.

-I’M MOWNG THE LAN AND GETING YOUR ALLOWANS! NYEH! -Bro

-Your library book ‘Cryptids: Pseudo-Science or Reality?’ has been overdue as of 05/14/2012. Return by yesterday or pay the full buyout price. -Gravity Falls Library

-Did I mention I found a way to make paint cans explode? Instant graffiti! -Nate

She scrolled through the messages. The words entered through her eyes and into her subconscious, but they didn’t get much further than that, because she didn’t care what they said; not even a little.

This wasn’t important. This wasn’t relevant. This was just her friends, her family, and the whole of the rest of society, trying to get in at her. Trying to get a piece of her. Vying for her attention, her time, even her money… Everybody wanted a piece of Wendy, everybody was saying something different and confusing, and the only method she had to survive was to retreat: shut it out and ignore it.

She began to delete texts.

Only one really stuck out to her, and she kept it.

-Robbie says he can give us a ride to the forest today. Ready to roll out at 10:00. -Dipper

There it is.

The mission. The plan. The duty. The purpose. There was one thing at least which was tangible and real.

Here in this normal life, where everything was ordinary and routine, here was where reality was at its most confusing, most burdensome, most troubling and depressing. But in that other life, where everything was crazy and hectic, where so much good and evil hung in balance, that was where things started to fall into place. That was where she stopped being confused, and could finally stand tall enough to stop being lazy. She could forget her family, her ex-boyfriends, her responsibilities, her laundry… It freed her. This crazy life was the one place where she knew how to live.

That was the life she loved.

-Ready for pickup now. She texted Dipper back. -I’ve got my armor if you’ve got yours. See you in a bit.

Dipper tossed his backpack and armor into the back of Robbie’s van, where they clattered to a stop on top of Wendy’s. Dipper slammed the doors back shut, and made his way toward the front of the vehicle.

“So… Like, where is this place again?” Robbie was saying, as he pulled out his phone and opened the ‘maps’ program.

“Oh, you know, just… Back in the woods.” Wendy shrugged. “Uh… Head South on Befufftlefumpter Avenue, and I’ll let you know from there.”

“Oh… Okay.” Robbie put away his phone. When he noticed Dipper standing at the door, he gestured toward the back seat. “Hey, you can sit in the back, little man.”

The back seat was stuffed chock-full of edgy, gothic clothes, edgy, gothic skateboards, edgy gothic musical instruments, candy wrappers, and edgy, gothic candy wrappers. “Great.” Dipper grunted, and began shoveling the junk aside, just to make room to sit down. Robbie started the engine before he’d finished, and lurched down the road toward the forest.

From there, the trip passed in a boring sort of way. Up in the front seats, Wendy and Robbie chatted about the most recent death metal albums, arguing about whether the songs had lyrics or were just screaming, theorizing as to what those lyrics might be, gossiping about the personal lives of the band members, etcetera. Dipper tuned out after a few minutes of this, then opened his journal and looking back over the notes from their first visit.

The first time, they’d only made it into the metal forest about half a mile. Then the underbrush and accumulated malice of the sharp leaves got so painful that they couldn’t continue. This time however, Wendy’s improvised suits of armor should be able to get them as far as the needed; far enough to reach the alien coordinates.

‘Betty and Barney’ said they’d set up ‘fortifications’ there. With any luck at all, the place would hold some answers.

The pavement ended after about ten minutes of driving. The gravel ended about ten minutes after that, and then the van was bouncing and rocking its way along narrow, overgrown dirt roads, up into the hills and deeper into the unknown.

The road took one final bend toward the old logging areas, and here they instructed Robbie to stop. This was the closest such roads reached, so they’d have to continue on foot from here.

Dipper and Wendy hopped out of the van and circled around to the back, where they began to unpack their equipment, and suit up.

“Hey…” Wendy remarked. “Why’s there a third backpack in here?”

“Huh?” Dipper looked down at it. “I don’t know. I thought you put that here.”

“Nope.” Wendy reached over and picked it up. “Well, there’s nothing even in it except some old glitter…”

“Oh, okay… Wait, what?”

They were interrupted from their discussion by Robbie, who had followed them around to the back of them van. “Woah.” He blinked, as he regarded their armor. “Is all that really necessary?”

“Oh yeah.” Dipper told him.

“Eh.” Wendy shrugged as she pulled the leather gloves and composite gauntlets over her arms. “We’ll see. But it can’t hurt, right?”

“Uh… So… Look…” Robbie shrugged, and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Like… You know that I wasn’t a chicken the last time you guys went out there. I actually did want to come.”

“I know.” Wendy hiked up her leggings, and tightened the belt. “But you were wearing flip-flops.”

“Well… Look. I’m wearing boots this time. And I’m still not chicken.” Robbie gestured down to his boots. “I, like… I heard what happened to your dad. I heard that this thing really hurt him. So… Like, that sucks. And I want to help. I want to do this. I do.”

Oh… Dipper realized. That third backpack must be his. He was planning to come along the whole time… What did Wendy have to say about this? He looked over at her.

Wendy lowered the shoulder pads into place, and cinched the straps up around her waist. She glanced sideways at Robbie. “You really want to risk life, limb, and skin out in a deep, dark forest where the leaves are literally thousands of knives?”

“Is that what this is?” One of Robbie’s eyes was completely obscured by his hair, but the other one got really wide. “Like, what kind of knives? Do they slash or just stab?”

“Umm… Yes.”

“Woah…” Robbie blinked. “That’s… Like… Hardcore.”

“And it’s what we’re dealing with.” Dipper told him. “Hence the utterly necessary armor.”

“Yeah.” Wendy threw the chainsaw chaps across her back, and buckled the legs around her wrists. “I mean… You can come if you want, but…”

“UH…?” Dipper looked up at her, wondering if she really meant that. Robbie was useless, right?

“Oh yeah? Hey, look!” Robbie slipped back toward the front of the van, and came back in a minute covered head-to-toe in ultra-edgy, ultra-gothic black leather. He was also holding his mom’s sawed-off shotgun. “I got this!” He told them.

Dipper snorted. “You look like a… Like… I don’t know, like Catwoman or something.”

“HEY!” Robbie snarled. “At least I don’t look like some junior-high flag-football-dropout superhero-wannabe!”

“Is that what this is?” Wendy tied her hair back to make way for the helmet. “I always fancied we were more of… Post-apocalyptic rhino-hunters.”

“Well… I mean… You look fine, Wendy, but this guy’s helmet is bigger than his torso!”

“You know what?” Dipper snapped. “Fine! I look ridiculous! I’ll admit it! But at least I AM going out there prepared. You just got all your stuff just now, and shotguns don’t even work on these things!”

Robbie turned toward him, and frowned. “You’ve got some MOUTH, don’t ya, ya snobby little pipsqueak?”

“Woah, dude.” Wendy was about to put on her helmet, but instead she set it down and put up her hands to ward off a potential fight. “Back off…”

“You know what? You think you’re so much better than me!” Robbie stepped past Wendy and shoved a finger in Dipper’s face. “You always have, and now it looks like you always will! Dipper’s the smartest! Dipper’s the bravest! Dipper’s the hero! Dipper’s the manliest little snot-nosed 12-year-old brat on the face of this whole stupid Earth! You think you’ve got it all together huh?”

“I’ve never said that or thought that!” Dipper took a step forward, and didn’t flinch even a little. “All I’m saying is that we can’t use you if you’re not prepared! You didn’t even pack anything in your backpack!”

“Dudes!” Wendy repeated. “Chill!”

“You just want to kiss me off again? Treat me like pointless trash, just like you always do?” Robbie said.

“Wouldn’t you, in my place? What AM I supposed to do with you?!?” Dipper lost his temper. “Robbie, the ONLY halfway-competent thing I’ve EVER seen you do is hypnotize Wendy!”

There was silence for a good minute.

Dipper thought through what he’d just said. He wished he hadn’t said it, but too late now. He closed his eyes, bit his lower lip, and balled his fists. Why can’t I ever just shut up?

Robbie took a step back, and his eyes fell to the ground.

Wendy didn’t say a word. She just donned her helmet, and turned away.

Robbie and Dipper looked at each other.

“Well.” Robbie finally grumbled. “I guess the winners write the history books, huh?” And then he turned away, went back around to the front of his van, and climbed in. The engine sputtered a few times before rolling over, and then the vehicle lurched to life, turned around on the narrow road, and started back down the hill.

Dipper and Wendy hiked in silence.

“Sorry.” Dipper finally said.

The word wasn’t half out of his mouth before Wendy interrupted him. “Dude. That’s what you say every single time that whole hypnosis thing comes up. You always just start apologizing! Well look, I forgave you! See? I’ll do it again: I forgive you. Just like the last, like, four times. So ease up already, okay?”

“Oh… Okay…”

“Only one thing: I forgave Robbie too. So don’t go dragging him back into this. We’ve all moved on. We’re all sorry. And nobody’s more sorry than him. Nobody wants to move on more than him.”

“Yeah… I guess… Sorry.”

“Yeah, I heard you the fifth time.”

“Sorry.”

“Sixth.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. I get it, I just… Yeah.”

“And look.” Wendy said. “Don’t get hung up on this sort of stuff, man. You’re sweating bullets over the distant past, when all you really need to do is chill out, calm down, and stick to what’s important.”

“But… Aren’t my friends… My relationships… You? Important too? Like, I mean… I’m just… I don’t know, I was a jerk to Robbie wasn’t I? I should apologize to him, huh?”

“Look dude, that’s none of my business. But you know what is my business?”

“What?”

“The one thing we’re both good at, dude. The mission. Tell me: how close are we to the metal forest?”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah.” He reached up underneath the armor’s chestpiece, where he’d put his map before setting out today.

It wasn’t there.

“Uh…” He checked his back pocket, his front pocket, and all the other little chinks in the armor. He could’ve sworn he left it in here somewhere… “Uh…” He repeated. “We should be pretty close… I guess… I mean, I must’ve forgot my map but we should know when we get there, right?”

“It’s kind of hard to tell, but if you pick individual trees and look real close…” Wendy picked up a rock, and pitched it at the trunk of a tree up ahead. The impact made a loud metallic ‘BONG’ sound. “You can tell them apart.”

“Huh.” Dipper squinted around at some of the other trees, and saw that they were standing right at the end of the organic forest. Past here, there was a few hundred feet of mingled growth, and then the full-metal started in quickly. “We should, like… Paint a line or something.” He suggested.

“Yeah…” Wendy pulled out a rattle can of paint, and drew a long red stripe on the side of the nearest tree. Then she dabbed her finger in some of the excess paint, and wrote the words ‘DANGER, KILLER ROBOTS BEYOND THIS POINT’ above the line. “There we go… Ooh, wait. In case anybody’s coming the other direction…” She swung around to the other side of the tree, and wrote ‘YOU MADE IT OUT ALIVE. YOU DA BOSS’.

“Great.” Dipper nodded. “Now… Ugh, oh man… I forgot my map. How we gonna find the coordinates?”

“We’ll just find it with our razor-sharp senses, willy intellects, and cunning instincts.” Wendy promised, with utter confidence.

“Uh… Does that work?” Dipper frowned.

“HECK no.” Wendy pulled out her own map. “We’ll just use mine. Where’d you say it was?” She pointed to a point on the map. “Here?”

“Yep… So… That way.” He pointed to the South-East.

“That way.” She confirmed, and started into the trees.

And so they continued. They passed through the forest’s outer regions, where the trees were further apart and the air was clear. They reached a small creek; the same on from their first visit. But this time they didn’t follow it; they crossed straight through, and continued on without stopping. Their destination lay beyond.

A few minutes later, the forest grew thicker and became immersive; the air smelled like iron filings and odd chemicals, normal moss and grass had disappeared entirely, and the clicking and buzzing of wildlife replaced the ordinary birds. Indeed, the whole world seemed ever-so-slightly colder and greyer. This place was alien in every way.

Their armor really started to prove itself. Their ears began to fill with clattering, scraping and tapping, as the razor-sharp branches and leaves assailed them and bounced off. Blow after blow was warded off by the armor plates, and more and more nicks and dings and scratches and abrasions appeared in the surface. But each mar was only surface deep; none of the blades were getting more than a few millimeters into the plastic, as their branches simply weren’t stiff enough to push them deeper.

Working wonderfully.

But this constant barrage wasn’t the hardest part of the journey. The ground beneath their feet was becoming… Strange. It wasn’t a flat surface anymore, or even what passed for ‘flat’ in normal forests. This was uneven; rough; chaotic. Every available surface was either a root, a branch, or some ancient deadfall. The heaping masses of living and dead metal rose and fell in miniature hills and valleys below them, entwining with itself, and hiding all else, even the dirt and the rocks. The ecosystem had consumed the very landscape.

There came to a point where a thicket of trees and bushes formed a sort of short cliff, and the only way to walk through was to climb a few feet up a tree, do some tricky footwork across the bows, and descend the other side. Wendy climbed up ahead of Dipper, wrapped an arm around a higher branch, and extended her other down to him. They gripped each other’s wrists, and she hauled him up beside her.

“Ugh.” Dipper said. “Why’s everything getting so… Like… I mean, where’s the ground?”

“If I had to guess…” Wendy looked around. “I’d say the actual ground is about 5 or 10 feet below the roots and logs we’re walking on. But just, like… When the old trees topple over, new trees use their remains for food, and grow right in the same place. And then those new trees-on-trees fall over too, and more grow on top of them, yadda yadda, right? …So over the years…” She steadied herself against the trunk, and jumped across a short gap. “It just stacks on top of itself.”

“Uh… That makes sense…” Dipper made the same jump right behind her, and would have lost his balance if she hadn’t caught him. “Why don’t normal forests do that, then?”

Wendy shrugged. “Normal forests do that too. Especially the old-growth forests, where my dad takes us hiking… That’s how I know.”

“Yeah, but… So why is this place such a tangled, deep mess? Normal forests are usually pretty flat.”

“I dunno… It’s probably because there’s no forest fires around here. In normal forests, a big ‘ol fire washes through about every 50 years, and cleans up all the deadfalls.”

“Huh… Yeah… And it might be because rain and water doesn’t dissolve or wash the rotten chemicals away.” Dipper theorized. “Everything is… Everything’s all solid. Normal life is based on liquid water, so things kind of… Rot away easier. But here, it’s all frozen in place. Static.”

“Ooh, that’s a good theory.”

Wendy reached a place where they could descend out of the tree, and back down to the ‘ground’. So she took a jump, aiming for a patch of grass. But when she landed on it, it gave way beneath her with a loud snap and creak. She lost control of her descent, and began falling further than intended.

“Wendy!” Dipper yelped.

But she didn’t fall far; only up to her armpits.

“Agh! DANG it!” She winced, as she tried to get her elbows under her. “Ow.”

Dipper descended more carefully, ran up to her, and offered his hand. “Are you okay?!? Did… Like… Did anything stab… Uh…”

“Ugh…” She took his hand, and pulled herself out of the hole. “Oh, ow, that’s gonna leave a bruise. Take note: this is all very hard. It hurts to land on.”

“Yeah… Are you okay though?”

“Uh… Yeah. I’m fine… I’m not skewered like a pig, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Err… Yeah… Okay.”

Wendy looked back down at the hole. The grassy landing pad had been growing in a gap between two fallen logs. When she’d hit it, the impact had knocked the smaller vegetation loose, leaving a sort of tunnel. Down in the gap, they heard something alive move about, then clatter away from them, off through the ground.

“So…” Dipper frowned. “If the forest is made of a whole bunch of stacked logs, are there tunnels and gaps all through it then? Like, I’m sure this isn’t the only place where the grass is loose.”

“Yeah… It’s like… Like a ‘Super Plumber Bros.’ game.” Wendy said. “We have to hop and jump between platforms, because there’s pits and spikes and crumbly parts everywhere below you.”

“It’s kind of scarier when it’s not in a video game.” Dipper noted.

They stood staring for a minute.

“So…” Wendy said. “Are we gonna go down there, or what?”

“Uh… Well, did you see anything cool down there?”

“Uh…” She reached back into the hole, and came up holding some fat, round plants. “Nothing but some… What are these? Fruit? Mushrooms? I don’t know. But they were down there.”

“Heh. Okay.”

She shoved them in her backpack, and they continued onwards above ground. High in the treetops above them, a small herd of five-armed ‘monkeys’ glance down with curiosity. Dipper waved up in a friendly way, but the harmless little animals didn’t respond. Instead, they just went back to cutting up and eating little bits off the tree branches.

After a while, they sat down beside a log to rest for a minute. Dipper reached into his backpack and pulled out his walkie-talkie. Ford had been kind of nervous about them going in alone, so it would be good to let him know everything’s all right. Hoping the signal would reach, he pushed the radio’s button and began to speak. “Hey Ford, just calling to let you know we’re all—”

As soon as the radio signal left the device, the forest leapt to life around them, and the teens realized that they’d accidentally wandered directly into the center of a large herd of pony-sized robot creatures.

Dipper hadn’t even noticed them ahead of time. Their spiny backs and long heads were colored and textured in an identical brown/grey to the rest of the trees, and the solar panel arrays on their tails looked a lot like those of the living bushes.

Nearly perfect camouflage. Perfect for sneaking up on people and attacking.

But they didn’t attack. If anything, they seemed as confused and startled as Dipper and Wendy were. Most of them stood in place with their antennae out, scanning side to side. The others watched the scanning ones, unsure if they should be panicked or not.

Dipper could see that no attack was forthcoming, but he didn’t want to provoke them anyway, so he turned his walkie-talkie off entirely, and returned it to his backpack.

One nearby creature seemed to notice them visually. It turned toward them, and approached until it was about 10 feet away. The teens stood up slowly, ready to fight or run if it did anything aggressive. Dipper wasn’t sure if they were in danger, however. Unlike the robot lion, which was sharp and hooked all over, this creature appeared entirely unarmed. It had no saws in its mouth, just a set of clamp-like jaws. Even its feet lacked claws; the fingers were short and stubby, almost like hooves.

Dipper supposed it could try to ram them with its gigantic, long head, but other than that it appeared perfectly harmless.

“So…” Wendy said. “It’s a herbivore, or what?”

“Well, it doesn’t have saws… Yeah, I think it’s harmless.” Dipper took out a disposable camera, covered up the light to prevent startling it with a flash, and began snapping pictures.

Wendy remembered the ‘fruit’ in her backpack. “Uh… Hey big guy… You want this?” She pulled out the food, and held it out to the creature. It shied away at first, then its antennae perked up, and it took a few steps closer. “Okay.” Wendy said. “Yeah. Herbivore.”

“It’s just, like, a robot deer or something.” Dipper said, and took another picture as it got close.

Then the creature opened its mouth. There was another mouth inside its mouth, and this second system shot outward about two feet and snagged the food out of Wendy’s hand.

“AGH!” Dipper yelped.

“Woah!” Wendy jerked her hand back.

The robot held the fruit in its first set of jaws, and began to grind at it with a drill bit in its second. When it was through, it took another step toward them, as if asking for more.

“Okay…” Wendy said. “Yeah. Still a robot deer… It just…”

“It has a head that looks like a Xenomorph.” Dipper observed, and took another picture.

“Yeah.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“No.”

“Just kind of weird.”

“Yeah.”

“Kind of freaky.”

“Yeah.”

It took another step towards them. “No.” Wendy said, as the deer/xenomorph thing got closer. “NO. Nothing more. No more fruit or stuff. Go away.”

It extended its second mouth again, and turned to Dipper. Okay. He thought, suddenly nervous. Its head is 4 feet long. That means its mouth can pop out 4 feet. Which means it can probably reach me from here… And it can definitely reach my…

The mouth shot out again, aiming for Dipper’s camera. He jerked it out of the way as fast as he could, and the deer’s drills did nothing but nick the chest of his armor.

“Hey.” Wendy stepped forward. “Shoo. Come on dude, shoo. Shoo. No more food. Take your weird long drill head, and take it way out of here. Go on, git.” She put a hand on top of its head, and pushed it away. It shook her hand off, and took another step inward.

“HEY!” Wendy yelled at it. “SHOO!”

It didn’t have ears, so the yelling was slightly less than effective.

“Yo.” Dipper brought his gauntlet down on top of its head. Not quite a punch, but almost. “Shoo!”

Its body was very hard and tough, so a measly half-punch wasn’t all that effective either. It turned toward him.

“Okay, look stupid thing.” Wendy said. “I’m like, up to here with your crap right now. Why don’t you…”

Just then, her words were cut off by a sudden noise, coming from the North; a clattering, and banging. The robot deer froze, extended its antennae all the way, and looked off in that same direction. All the other deer in the forest did similar.

The noise changed to a grinding, abrasive noise; the sound of saws.

All the deer tucked their long heads down close to their bodies, fanned out their solar panels like warning flags, and sprinted off through the trees to the south. In a matter of seconds, they were gone, and all that remained was some flattened grass, and some pictures on the camera.

Dipper and Wendy turned toward the sound of the noise, and crouched down behind a tree trunk. “You think that’s…?”

Wendy nodded. “Dude, I bet it IS! Let’s go see!”

They carefully began to crawl their way through the trees, staying behind logs and bushes whenever possible.

The finally stopped about 30 feet from the sound, and made themselves as hidden as possible.

“Magnet guns.” Wendy told him.

They both drew their weapons. (Not to use, just to have.) Dipper drew his camera as well.

And then they peaked over.

A deer robot lay on the forest floor, mangled and broken. Two full-grown lion-bots stood over it, digging into its torso with their massive saws. Sparks, debris, metal shavings, and bits of oil flew all over the place, as the deer’s motors, batteries, and functional parts slowly but surely disappeared into its killers.

The lions were pleasantly ignoring the humans for the moment, so they got comfortable and kept watching. Dipper lined up his camera, and began snapping pictures, while Wendy took a good look at the creatures themselves.

One was Juan’s mom. It had the damage that her dad had given it in the fight, as well as the ‘mom parts’ that Mabel had first pointed out.

The other was ‘male’, judging by the lack of these same parts. The male was slightly bigger, with a slightly shorter torso, longer antennae, and lighter coloring.

But curiously, although they’d never even seen this male before, it still had some damage; damage they didn’t give it. The plating on its right side was dented and twisted by a big, burned crater, partially exposing the hydraulics beneath. As if somebody had hit him with a grenade or a flamethrower or a… Laser blaster or something.

“Hey.” Wendy whispered.

“What?” Dipper looked over at her.

Wendy pointed to the blast mark, and shrugged. “Eh?”

“Uh…” Dipper frowned at it, and then shrugged. “Maybe there’s creatures out here with built-in ray guns?”

“…We should look out for that.”

“Yeah.”

And then Dipper’s phone rang.

Ford nervously drummed the six fingers of his hand against the table, while he waited for his great-nephew to pick up. What’s taking so long? Dipper’s usually pretty punctual about answering…

“Hey!” Stan called from the next room. “Did you ask Dipper yet?”

“Trying now!” Ford covered up the speaker and hollered back. “Just calm down Stan; it’s probably no big deal…”

“But it could be a big deal!” Stan reminded him. “You need to get a hold of him!”

“But he’s not picking up! He’s—”

Ford suddenly remembered just where Dipper was: an alien forest where the dangerous creatures heard and smelled through radio and electrical signals. Wait a minute, why is his phone even on at all? Ford wondered. If Dipper had any sense at all, he would have shut it off entirely. If anybody called him, the signals it shared with the cell tower could give away his position… Oh well. He must have just forgotten.

WAIT A MINUTE! Ford frowned as a new thought entered his mind. I just called him! Oh dear… I might have actually have put him danger, just by doing that… Oh my…

Ford was about to hang up, when suddenly Dipper’s voice sounded over the speaker. “HEYGREATUNCLEFORD THISREALLYISNTHEBESTTIME COULDICALLYOUBACK?”

“Dipper! I’m glad you’re all right! Listen, this is fairly imp—”

“NOTTHEBESTTIME!” Dipper repeated. “WENDY! HIDE DOWN THERE! I’LL FOLLOW YOU! GO GO GO!”

He heard the sound of a magnet gun discharge over the line. And in the background, was that the sound of saws?

“I’ll make it fast!” Ford promised. “Dipper, have you—”

Dipper hung up.

“Have you seen…” Ford looked at the phone for a second. He really had just hung up. He must actually have been in trouble… Ford closed the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. In the parlor’s new silence, he finished his sentence quietly to himself. “…Have you seen Mabel…”

A few hours earlier, Robbie’s head bounced side to side as his van rolled its bumpy way back down the roads, leaving Dipper and Wendy at the end of the trail at the top.

As he drove, a great many dark and edgy thoughts were going through his mind. Dipper is such a jerk… I could beat him in a fight… I wish I had… He just cheated… Wendy and I could have made it work… I didn’t mean to hypnotize her… Well, kind of… Well I only half meant to… Has Wendy ever forgiven me…? And what’s with those two now? They’re doing all this stuff together alone, and Dipper got rid of me today just because I’m intruding on their ‘alone time’... If they didn’t mean for me to come along, why would they throw in a 3rd empty backpack?

Wait a minute, they said it wasn’t theirs… Who packed it then? And why would they pack nothing but some glitter?

“Hold on.” Robbie mumbled, as he glanced over his shoulder.

To his surprise, he didn’t see the back of his van. He saw a young girl’s face, about 2 inches from his.

“HELLO!” She announced, more than loud enough.

“Ah geez there’s a kid in here!!” The van almost crashed into a tree as he stomped into the brake pedal. When the vehicle was safely back under control and stationary, he turned back to address his stowaway. “What the heck? Why are you here?!?” He asked. His brain worked through this new development. “You stowed yourself away in a backpack…? Wait, that doesn’t even make any sense! How did you load it into the van while you were still inside it?” He demanded.

What’s her name again? He racked his brain. I don’t quite remember, she’s just kind of the ‘Girly Dipper’ that set me up for a date one time… Well, I hate Dipper but I like girls, so… I don’t know…

“Oh, pshaw! You crack me up sometimes!” Girly Dipper rolled her eyes upwards as she leaned one cheek into her elbow with a mysterious grin. “Sneaking myself past the closed and locked doors from inside a backpack… That was the easy part! The hard part was fitting a pig in there too!” She produced a full-grown pig, which promptly emitted a loud snort.

“AGH! PIG IN MY VAN!” Robbie tried to stand up, and bumped his hair on the ceiling.

“And if you’re wondering how I did that… Well.” Girl Dipper smiled again. “You should really check out my YouTube video: ‘Mabel’s Guide to Showing Up in unexpected times and Places’.”

“Uh…”

“Yeah! It’s super informative! And a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. A true classic.”

“Okay…” Robbie sat back down hesitantly.

“So… Riddle me this, my gnarly old friend.” She abruptly changed the subject. “I guess Dipper and Wendy don’t want you going on their thing, huh?”

“Uhh…” Robbie squirmed rebelliously. “I didn’t even… Like… Wanna go on their stupid thing anyway. If I wanted to roll around in knives all day I would’ve just ransacked my dad’s morgue…”

“Well… If you don’t want to do that, how would you feel about helping me collect stuff?” She reached into her sweater and pulled out a map, scrawled all over Dipper’s handwriting. “Not as much danger, but the work is more important. And we’ll make lots of new robot friends!”

“Huh?”

“See, sometimes I don’t think Dipper trusts me.” The girl admitted with a shrug. “Maybe he’s right not to… Sometimes. ‘Cause we all do silly stuff that’s not very smart… But… But this time, I think he’s wrong. ‘Cause see, he wants to, like, kill the robot creatures and stuff like that… And I don’t think that’s really all super ethical or whatever. So I… I have another mission. A happier, funner mission… So what do you say, Mr. Buddy-Pal-Chum-Friend-Pal?” She gave him a gentle little punch on the shoulder. “Would you consider being my dark, edgy chauffeur/bodyguard for a day?”

“Uh…” Robbie frowned. “Uh… I guess…?”

“Awesome!” She squealed.

“SQUEE!” The pig squealed.

The girl then reached over Robbie’s shoulder, and put the van in ‘park’. “Let’s go do this thing!!”

#The Forest Of Daggers #Gravity Falls #wendy corduroy #dipper pines #shapeshifter #see you next summer #wendip #wendipweek #wendy x dipper #fanfiction #fanart #scifi #alien #robot #ghost

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rhosinthorn · 7 years

Text

No Job is Worthless

Okay friends, this has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with me getting up on the proverbial soapbox, so if you’re here for the writing, feel free to move right on by.

Mkay, now that we’ve got everyone here, let’s begin.

‘Tis that time of year again: summer jobs/internships/co-ops, you name it. And some of you probably slunk off back home because (once again?) you didn’t land anything. You spent all year in classes, worked your butt off, applied to everything and anything that looked remotely related to those things you were learning in classes…

And you got nothing.

Nothing but form rejection letters from careers sites, interviews that never got back to you, and a whole bunch of disappointed hopes.

Or, potentially worse, you have that shiny new degree in your hands, fresh from the printers and not even framed yet, and you have nothing. No job prospects, no hopes other than maybe one of those applications you filled out might come back any day now. But in the meantime you have bills to pay, parents/family members to answer to, and potentially a mountain of student debt breathing down your neck.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

My major in college was chemical engineering. It was a pretty great school, does a lot of cutting edge research. Highly selective, the whole thing.

I worked for 3/3 summers in college, plus on campus during the year. (Career Center, just doing glorified cut/paste type things on a computer.)

Here’s my summer jobs:

Pool technician at a local amusement park (post Freshman/pre Sophomore)

Research at a lab on campus (post Sophomore/pre Junior)

Cashier at an arts & craft store (post Junior/pre Senior)

They sound really relevant to my field right? I was putting my degree to some use? Maybe?

Not really. Let’s break them down.

(Below the cut, for those who are scrolling by)

If I’ve still got you, let’s go over these jobs.

Pool Technician:

Fancy title, right? Sounds like I’m doing important things.

I sort of was. Behind the waterslides and lazy rivers, every waterpark has these guys lurking in the background. We’re the ones who make sure there’s nothing sharp on the slides to hurt you, picks up your lost change from the bottom of the pools because you left it in your pockets, and makes sure there’s nothing that will make you sick in the water.

Every morning, one of us would walk each and every slide to check that no repairs needed to be made. Rain or shine, we had to walk up or down the length of them. We would have to sweep or vacuum any pool that needed it, and scrub the scum lines off the walls. It was often cold, wet, or rainy because I lived in the NE USA. Only one pool had a vacuum, one of the smaller ones, so if the wave pool had to be swept? Yeah, I was going for a swim.

While one of us was out there shivering and probably swearing, the other was making the rounds of the pumphouses, changing filter baskets, checking on the chlorine levels, and getting things up to the right levels of chemicals in the water. Each state has their own minimum chlorine levels in public pools, and sometimes they vary depending on the type of attraction. It’s the technician’s job to make sure we meet those levels, and that we keep records if the state auditors come knocking.

Sometime in the early afternoon, after the park’s been open and there are screaming children running everywhere, the afternoon person took over, and kept an eye on things all by themselves, since it was just monitoring chemicals and responding to incidents at this point. (Yeah, the lifeguards call us if someone has an “accident”. We get to clean it up & deal with the fallout.)

So, in short: sort of relevant to what a first year chemE would have learned that first year (I did mostly math & chemistry with a few gen ed type courses). All in all, not a bad summer job for the resume, right?

Summer Research

Now, I’m going to clarify this with the following statement: you get out of research what you put into it. Most people do not make money from research. Especially students on summer jobs.

This was a last minute panic job for me. I knew the professor, had done some stuff in his lab during HS (long story, ask me another time if interested), and was pretty much able to finagle myself into the internship with lots of sweet talk and splitting funding with some others who weren’t able to do a full time commitment to the lab that summer (one was taking classes, the other was TAing).

Now, this was theoretically a ChemE lab.

I knew this when I was getting in, but they do mostly bio research. Weekly updates were full of things about cells, PCR, gene expression, the whole nine yards.

The last time I took bio anything was junior year of high school, and it was generic AP Bio. So, vastly underqualified but willing to learn? Yeah, that was me.

My fellow lab-sufferers were more qualified due to classwork/experience, but I was already friends with one and grew to be close with the other out of shared misery. Together we got something done, though I don’t really see how what I worked on helped, since my greatest help to the lab was being an extra pair of hands. (And a neat freak- the PI seemed like a hoarder and the lab had junk everywhere. The three of us summer interns spent a whole week making the place presentable before summer safety inspections. And reorganizing the chemical cabinet.)

But I digress. I did a lot of bio things that I don’t really understood, was even more of a typical college student than I usually was (food was a scarce thing that summer due to several reasons, and the college-provided housing was terrible), and learned that a career in research was not a good option for me.

So, let’s see. Research is a respectable option, taught me that research is not a career path to pursue...not a bad summer experience. Decent resume material.

Cashier

This one was pure desperation. I got the call for an interview going into finals week, nearly cried with relief, and set the interview for the day after I moved back home.

Pulled into the parking lot, and there’s a big STORE LIQUIDATION SALE sign on the outside. Bodes real well for my summer job plans, right?

So, turns out, the store is closing, but they’re opening up across town. The staff is supposed to go with them, and I was being hired to help with the closing. However, if they liked me, and I wanted to, they might take me with them when they left. Oh, and could I start tomorrow or the next day?

I went with it. None of my managers had ever not liked me, and even if they didn’t take me, I had something and would deal with what comes when it came.

But they took me with them, and I spent half of my summer learning how stores are organized and set up. We walked into this new store and it had all of the fixtures (aisles & the unmovable stuff) set up, but nothing else. Five days a week, we’d all be there, putting up shelves/hooks, labeling everything, and then setting out stock. I set one aisle six times in three weeks because we had opened as soon as we had most of the store ready, but we couldn’t leave empty shelves, so the existing stock was arranged nicely to cover the empty holes. After we opened again, it was the usual retail humdrum. Stock, answer questions, work the register. Rinse and repeat.

At this point, I should have probably had a “real” job experience. Internship, co-op, something that looked pretty on my resume, so when I waved it at employers they would say “Yeah, this kid’s qualified.” My grades weren’t 4.0, but they were respectable, and I hadn’t just been sitting on my butt.

And thus, I went into my senior year, praying for the stars to align and a job to appear in time for graduation.

But guess what?

Life’s not a fairy tale, and I walked out of graduation with an expensive piece of paper, and a whole lot of worries.

My now fiance had taken a job in one city, and we were determined to go together, especially since it was critical that he be employed. Two days after graduation, he, his family (who are visiting), and I are all settled in our cozy new two bedroom apartment in a different state from the one I grew up with, and I still have no job.

Here’s where the craft store came through for me. I was able to get myself transferred (and a small promotion!) to a store about half an hour from where I now lived. It was going to pay the bills and keep me busy while I looked for a “real” job.

Turns out, the (non-manager) staff was terrible, they kept scheduling me for night shift which meant I was stuck in rush hour traffic for an hour instead of half an hour, and the customers were awful. My mental health was going down the drain because I’m in a strange city, know only my fiance and my coworkers (who I didn’t really like), and I never see him because I’m scheduled 5-9 and don’t get home before 10pm most nights. Plus, we were short staffed, so the chances of me getting called in some weeks were pretty high, even though I was only part time. Great for extra money, but not when it’s getting eaten by the gas stations so I can get there.

So, after the night where I spent my fifteen minute break crying in my car, I decided that I was done. And my job search, which had previously been focused on full-time with benefits, changed to anything to get me out of the hellhole.

Lucky me, I am a very desirable candidate in the minimum wage arena. I got a call, had an interview, and I was now a pharmacy technician.

Life was better. My schedule was manageable, I didn’t hate everyone I dealt with. I had found a church to attend, my fiance and I had adopted a kitty, and there was hope. Not a great life, but a tolerable one for the time being.

I was there for about a month and a half when I got The Call.

Around the same time as I was looking to leave the hellhole, I had interviewed with a temp agency that specialized in scientific staffing. Nothing ever came of that interview because the company decided not to fill the position that they had advertised, but apparently they kept me on file.

Which was great, because when another company came asking for a similar position, they called me. I did a phone interview a day later, and would have started immediately if I wasn’t already scheduled at the other place.

Because it was a temp job, I decided to keep my part time job, but limit it to weekends only. They were quoting me 1-3 months of work, just to lighten the load during a busy spurt. Fine, I said. Keeps me connected with my field, just another line on the resume. It’s close to my field and a great experience.

That was December 15th.

In February, the manager of the connected department who we worked closely with sends me an email summoning me to his office. I am (rightfully?) terrified, and arrive. As soon as I am seated, he informs me that his underling is moving several states away and he wishes to steal me from my manager, who is okay with this move. This would be a full time, permanent position, with benefits.

Due to some complicated agreement between the company and the staffing firm, I’m still temporary, but will go full time within the month hopefully. But in these six months I have been fully refreshed in my job search, gained a ton of experience in two different areas of work, and made contacts that could help me.

So, where am I going with all of this?

Two things.

One: Don’t lose hope. It’s scary and disheartening to be without relevant jobs. It makes you doubt your self worth, your education, and a whole lot of things. But things work out. Keep putting in applications, keep going to interviews, and keep on believing that you will get there someday.

But the thing that triggered this post (which was not supposed to be this long, sorry!) is thing number two. Which comes in a part a and a part b.

Part a: Don’t. Stop. Working.

I have two friends, one who graduated with me, and one who I only know from online. Friend #1 was pretty much my male counterpart in my field. He, unlike me, scored a six month internship that ended in December and chose not to go full time, and is now living at home. From what he tells me when we manage to chat about things non-anime/manga related, he’s still looking for full time/benefits positions, if a little half-heartedly. (I can’t judge, because my job search was fairly half-hearted at times.) He’s living at home with his family and doesn’t work even part time right now.

My second friend is still in school. She’s looking for a summer job and mentioned that she might throw in her towel for a relevant job and look more towards a job that will pay bills but not get you experience.

I’m going to tell you what I told both of them. And now I’m telling it to you, as part b.

All jobs are useful in some way.

Take the pool technician job. I learned in a hands on setting about sanitization in a public place, kept detailed records for state audit purposes, and even did a nifty little side project about measuring flow rate in the pipes.

Or the research job. There, the skills were things like, collaboration with team members, literature research, and laboratory skills.

Craft store? Operations and logistics, customer service skills, defusing difficult situations, teamwork...and then at the other store, the one with the bad staff, I learned about some basic personnel management (it was a very, very tiny bit of supervising- just managing everyone’s break schedules and who was at the register when), and prioritizing which battles to fight.

Pharmacy. I learned meticulous accuracy (you do not want to be giving the wrong person the wrong pills, and heaven help you if you miscount), more customer service skills, and a bunch of stuff about how that side of the healthcare industry really works.

Those things I just listed? They’re what I call soft skills. Soft skills are the ones you learn on the job, just by being there. Everyone expects you to work a cash register. That’s why those jobs look bad on a resume if you’re going for a “professional” job. But when I go into an interview and they ask me all of those weird questions about problem solving and past experiences, I can tell them that I learned how to respond quickly and calmly in a trying situation because when 50+% of your registers go down, it’s a Sunday shopping crowd, and EVERYONE has a coupon they want to use, you have to think on your feet and reroute the crowds & cashiers onto non-affected registers and come up with workarounds that minimize customer experience as much as possible. If we’re talking about teamwork and collaboration, I can say that I had an experience with what a previous manager referred to as “the most hostile staff she’s ever worked with” (we were both new to the store at the time) and did my best to preserve the peace while not compromising on my job performance or customer services.

So, to sum it up all jobs are important and don’t give up. Take whatever job you can find, and be the best damn employee you can be. I’m reasonably certain that any of my past managers would give me a good reference if they were called because I did my best and didn’t just show up and do what was needed to get by. Use every opportunity that you can grasp and turn it into something that makes a good talking point. Volunteer, minimum wage, full time job...by working/assisting, you show that you can be a good employee. You show that you have survived a work environment and absorbed what skills can be taught there.

If you’re working at McDonalds, it’s a lot more than flipping burgers and asking “do you want fries with that”. Think of all those fancy buzzwords and put them on your resume and talk about them in your interviews.

I’m no expert. I don’t have it made. This is just my way of making the best of the situations I’ve been given, and it seems to be working thus far. We’ll see.

#long post #rant #life skills

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