22 Short Stories from Gravity Falls - Story 19: The Fiddle and The Ford

Summary: Based off of Stanford's logs in the REAL LIFE Journal 3, this story follows him and McGucket working on the bunker that would eventually house the Shapeshifter.

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Story 19: The Fiddle and The Ford

It was a late August morning in the year 1981. Stanford Pines and his assistant, Fiddleford Hadron McGucket were having a breakfast of Ham sandwiches when McGucket brought up a question.

“I’ve been thinking Stanford,” he said, “Do we have some sort of fail-safe plan?”

Ford took a sip of his coffee, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean, assuming that the portal works in the manner you’ve been saying it will, and it opens a gateway to this, “Weirdness Dimension,” which is where all of Gravity Falls’ weirdness comes from, do you have a plan for what to do next?”

“Simple my friend. We explore it, take photos and document it. And then publish it and soon we’re both off to Stockholm to receive the Noble Prize and launch our careers.”

“I know that,” said McGucket, “But what if we make things worse?”

Stanford looked on at him, “And how so?”

“Well, what if the portal creates more breaches in this rift between the dimensions and causes more beings to leak into ours. And what if we capture one and it ends up being too tough for us to contain down here.”

“Well, you do have a point there.”

“And that’s not all. What if these beings are exposed to some unknown disease that we’re not immune to? If it was to escape, we could be looking at a biohazard of unbelievable proportions.”

Ford put his hands on his head, “You’re right. That definitely is a risk we cannot take without having a plan.”

“Exactly,” said McGucket, “If we’re to advance any further with this project, we need to be ready for it. We’ll need a place where we can contain any specimens we find, so that we can study them safely but that they don’t affect the population or the environment.”

“So, what are you proposing?”

“A bunker. Not just any bunker, but a full-on laboratory. One that’s away from our base of operations here, and one that’s as far away from the town as we dare go. I know this may take longer to do, but we need to be ready and take the proper precautions before we go all test monkey with this.”

Stanford sighed. He knew McGucket was right even if it meant that work on the portal would be halted, “Well, we better get started on this now if we’re gonna get back to work on the portal.”

While Ford recorded his logs about the proposal in his Journal, McGucket set out to find the perfect spot to build the bunker. He soon returned having found a spot and took Ford with him to check it out.

“Why under this tree?” he asked.

“Simple,” replied McGucket as he knocked on it, “This tree is hollow. It’s the perfect spot to build the entrance to the bunker.”

“How long do you reckon this may take?”

“If we start now, we might be done before winter.”

“Alright, I’ll get the shov-”

“No, no, let me handle this,” said McGucket, “I came up with it, so I’ll build it.”

“You sure?” said Ford.

“Trust me, I’ll be fine.”

With Ford’s best wishes, McGucket began work on the bunker. He created a complicated but brilliant plan for how everything would work and how it would function. Ford came by many times during excavation to check out the progress. He always was astonished by how far he’d get with it. But one day, he spotted a bunch of Lumberjack working on the bunker with McGucket.

“Uh, excuse me?” said Ford to one of them, “Did my partner FiddleFord McGucket employ you gentlemen to help him?”

“Uh, I think so,” he replied.

“Well, did he tell you what this digging is for?”

“I don’t know. I forget.”

Ford asked multiple other lumberjacks if they knew about him and McGucket’s plans, but it was almost like they all had forgotten why they were here. Eventually, he ruled the whole experience as being a result of his overworked imagination and left McGucket be to finish the bunker.

Several weeks after the initial idea was proposed, McGucket had finished. He brought Ford down to show him it.

The two walked down the stairs and into the bunker part.

“So, this is where it all starts,” said McGucket, “When we’re here spending several days studying the specimens we capture, we can rest here rather than trek back to the shack. This can also be used in case we get nuked or in case our specimen escapes and destroys the planet.”

Ford laughed, “I think it’s more likely those darn commies will nuke us rather than us releasing an Earth ending beast into the ecosystem.”

“Well either way we’ll be ready.”

Crawling through a tunnel, the two entered a room of square shaped retractable pillars with symbols all over them.

“Now this part is the security room,” said McGucket, “There’s four symbols on these cubes that you need to press and if you accidently press or step on the wrong one, it’ll be the last mistake you ever make.”

McGucket purposely stepped on a symbol which caused the door behind them to shut and make the pillars start moving in a manner designed to squish an intruder.

“Please tell me you know the code!” yelled Ford.

“I do, don’t worry,” said McGucket. He handed Ford a piece of paper with the symbols on them.

The two then raced around the room and pressed the 4 of them in time. The next door opened and the two raced through it just as the room behind them was crushed.

“That was insane!” yelled Ford, “We could have been killed!”

“Exactly,” said McGucket, “But we didn’t because we know the code. An intruder or specimen trying to escape wouldn’t. They’d get crushed and in turn, our secrets will be safe. I got the idea off of that Russian puzzle game, Soviet Cubes.”

“Kind of reminded me about you cube puzzle more,” said Ford, “I might have to put the rest of my grant money down here. This place is more impenetrable than any bank on Earth. Plus, there’s no long lines.”

McGucket then showed Ford the observation room where they could study creatures from a safe distance.

“We can also yell rude and offensive things at them given it’s soundproof.”

“I like the way you think Fiddleford,” said Ford, “Hopefully they’re not easily offended.”

The two laughed as they walked through a closet into the final room of the bunker.

“And this is the storage room,” said McGucket, “Here we can store the specimens we capture and sleep well knowing they can’t escape.”

“But what about the dirt wa-”

“An illusion. Behind that dirt is bedrock with reinforced steel. Nothing, not even radiation can escape from here.”

“Well, McGucket, I gotta say, I’m impressed. I had my doubts at first about this whole endeavour but you’ve proven me wrong. Well done.”

McGucket smiled, “Thanks Stanford. Now, you wanna get back to work on that portal.”

“Sure thing buddy. But first, what’s that?!”

McGucket looked to where Ford was pointing. It was a skeleton.

“Oh, that’s a moleman,” he said, “No lair is complete without one.”

“Oh yeah,” said Ford. The two stood silently as they stared at the skeleton for a bit.

----

On second thought…may want to remove this skeleton. Hopefully none are alive…

As Ford finished writing that sentence in Journal 3, he imagined all the uses that having a bunker would do to his research. Little did he know though, that he would never get to use that bunker for what it was built for. And he sure enough didn’t know that he very soon wouldn’t even be here, sleeping in his own bed, in his own home, in his own dimension.