Cipher [A Gravity Falls Tale] #Wattys2016

Ten

They were so close. Using Bill's help, Ford had pushed their project three whole days ahead of schedule, and now, the first official test of the gateway was only a couple of days away. Ford had phoned Richard Northwest, telling him this good news. The latter had seemed pleased and promised Ford that only fame and fortune awaited him if he experienced success.

Of course, for the first test, they were only planning to send a crash dummy into the portal. Even despite Bill's hand in design, Ford and his muse agreed that human error was unpredictable. It was important that they remained careful and didn't send a team in until they were sure it was working properly. Besides, Bill reasoned, even if it was working properly, no one could know for sure what lay on the other side.

Fiddleford, though, was growing increasingly concerned by the day. He began to let Ford know about his feelings, stressing the importance of contentment and not rushing. McGuckett strongly cautioned against being overly ambitious, but Ford dismissed most of his warnings. The man had suffered from serious trauma recently. He was probably just scared. Once he saw what his-- no, their, Ford reminded himself-- creation could do, he'd be won back over. It was only a matter of time.

The night arrived. The portal was ready to be fully activated. The alien drive power source was running smoothly on nuclear waste. The construction was finished. The thing would hopefully not blow up when they turned it on. In fact, Ford was so pleased with their progress that he called for a celebration. Being so ahead of schedule, one night off wouldn't matter much to their project.

Fiddleford had fallen in love with the food at Greasy's, so they celebrated their, even though Ford had offered to take him to somewhere fancy, like the new aquatic themed restaurant th at had just opened. Instead, they were seated at the bar table in Greasy's, eating what Ford hoped was a pork roast.

"More coffee?" asked the waitress. Ford grunted an acknowledgement as she filled up his cup. At least Greasy's had bottomless coffee. Otherwise he'd be running up quite the tab.

"Ah, that was deee-licious," complemented Fiddleford, pushing his plate away from him. "Thanks for the meal."

"It was nothing," said Ford. "Tonight, we celebrate our accomplishments. Tomorrow, we rise to the ranks of the greats!" He raised his mug with the toast, "To us and our success!"

He looked to Fiddleford, but the young engineer couldn't meet his gaze. "Ford, listen, I..." he struggled, searching for the right words. "I don't know about all this. We've gone at a breakneck pace, pushing past the boundaries of known science, dealing with technology we can't hope to understand-- does none of this worry you? We've completed decades worth of work in a few years, and I'm not sure we're going at this the right way."

He pulled out a napkin he had drawn a graph on, titled "Probability of Failure." "I think that we're in danger of some sort of error. You're brilliant, but surely you can't expect something to go wrong."

Ford, at first feeling a rush if anger at his partner's lack of faith, calmed himself. Fiddleford was acting nervous and agitated, behaviors he was exhibiting more and more often. He was worried again, and all Ford had to do was soothe his fears.

He glanced at the chart, and Bill, being in the back of his mind, instantly began bringing up data and figures that countered McGuckett's fears. "These are all well founded," he admitted, "but you see, you calculate that we've made errors at these junctures, whereas I've been assured that our data is correct. It's just a matter of calculating the right data--"

"Who has assured you?" Fiddleford demanded.

"What?" asked Ford, somewhat shocked they were having this conversation again.