Something seems off...

Chapter 5

Wirt just considered himself lucky that the elevator ride didn't include the two other siblings. It was already relatively awkward being squeezed together with one person more than the place was designed for, and the constant energetic aura the two other kids gave off could only result in a very uncomfortable journey. Still, it was only a quick trip after all, and the underground laboratory they reached was well worth it.

"Seeing as you have time travelled and witnessed some pretty strange stuff already, I don't see the point in keeping this place a secret from you anymore." Dipper told an amazed Wirt.

"Even though Uncle Ford will probably skin me alive for having shown you this place without his approval. He's a bit paranoid."

"What did you just say?"

A bear of a man stepped out from behind a metal partition, ragged trench coat and broken glasses being the only things distinguishing him from the grumpy old grunkle Wirt had previously encountered. Well, apart from the lack of stomach fat, he added in hindsight.

"You have thirty seconds to prove that you are not a threat before I blast you from my lab."

The man had pulled out a pulsing, glowing, very sci-fi looking gun. Wirt's paralyzed mind could only formulate that thought before it went as blank as his police record. Dipper, fortunately much more attuned to these kinds of situations than he was, stepped between him and the gun without any hesitation.

"I checked, they're clean! They went through some sort of time vortex in the woods, and they just need help!"

"They?"

"My little brother Greg." Wirt squeaked out.

"He's upstairs with Mabel."

The man didn't move for a few seconds, before finally letting his gaze and arm fall with a sigh.

"I do wish you told me before bringing people down here, Dipper."

He turned around and beckoned the two teens. They followed him, their footsteps and the occasional beep of machines the only things interrupting the silence.

"Well I wish you would come up to see us more often." Wirt heard Dipper whisper.

Behind the partition lay an even larger room, and lights blinded Wirt not so much by their brightness than by their sheer number and colour range. A confusing array of whirring, beeping and screens were set out in the room, as well as a puzzlingly empty wall at the far end of the room. The two other people present navigated around the various machines with ease, stepping over wires and ducking under pipes. Fearing that his natural clumsiness will, as of always, get the better of him, he decided to take the longer yet safer route following the monitors lined up against the wall. He still managed to trip and nearly fall flat on his face, though.

He finally got to the clear spot where the boy and his grunkle were waiting for him. They had struck up a conversation interesting enough so that they hadn't noticed his little incident earlier on, and seemed so deep in it that they barely acknowledged his presence.

"So that's all I know for now, anyway. Is there anything you can do about it? "

The older man cleared a chair and sat down. He seemed to have gained a few years in the short amount of time that he had been gone, the blue light from the nearest monitor not doing anything to help the pallor of his face.

Dipper walked up to him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, but it was irritably swatted away as the man regained his vigour.

"Look, Dipper. I made it clear with you. Unless absolutely necessary, I don't want to deal with either demons or other dimensions. If it can help you in any way, I can tell you this looks awfully like an interdimensional wormhole, and for some reason, these kids were spewed back up in their home-dimension after a few years. But that place, it is somewhere where time is dramatically slower than here. They're very lucky to have not popped back up after the sun died, or something like that."