It's Been Thirty Years

Chapter 9: Goodbye Home, I'll Forget You

The night rolled in over the hills as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. All was silent in the Mystery Shack as all who inhabited it, both permanently and temporarily, were fast asleep.

Blendin lay on the couch downstairs as it was the only spare place left in the aging structure that was fit for rest, what with all rooms now occupied with friends and family.

Deep into his slumber, Blendin swore he felt a tap on his shoulder. Awakening, his hunch was correct.

"Di...Dipper?" he said in a tired voice, "What are you doing and why are you up?"

Dipper sighed, "I'll explain in a moment," he said, "Just follow me, but quietly."

Reluctantly, Blendin got up and followed Dipper, who led him into the gift shop. There he watched as the boy opened the entrance to the old staircase behind the vending machine. He wanted to speak, but Dipper wouldn't let him until they reached the laboratory which lay 2 stories below.

"Okay Dipper, care to explain what the heck you're doing at three in the morning and why you dragged me into it?"

Dipper looked through an old box underneath one of the old, long silent machines that lay in the damp and decaying lab that once belonged to his great uncle.

"Oh, thank goodness," he said, "It's still here."

Dipper pulled out of the box a gun like device. It had a tall red tube connected to a small golden box and a long transparent bulb.

"Wha...what on Earth is that?" asked Blendin.

"I'll explain in a second," replied Dipper, "But when I tell you to, cover your ears, okay?"

Still confused, but trusting Dipper's word, Blendin nodded his head. He watched as he connected the device to an old radio. Dipper flipped the knob on the old device several times until he got the right frequency. He then did the same thing with the knob on the gun. But he wrote a word using it.

"Okay, now!" he yelled.

Blendin and Dipper both covered their ears and got down as the gun lit up and emitted through the wires and out through the radio antenna, a huge and ever-growing circle of blue light. Once it did that, the gun fell silent and the light turned off. Dipper got up and turned to Blendin.

"Do you know who I am?" he said.

"Uh...you're Dipper Pines, right?" replied Blendin.

"Exactly."

Upon hearing that, Dipper threw the gun to the ground, smashing it. He stomped on it repeatedly until he was certain it could never be salvaged and then threw it into a small garbage can nearby.

"Okay, two questions," asked Blendin, "What was that thing? What did it do? And why did you just break it?"

"That's three questions."

"I...I'm not good at time math, okay!" yelled Blendin.

Dipper sighed, "That's...that was a memory gun. I used it to wipe my memory from everyone's mind. It was a trick I learned from my Grunkle Ford. If you connect the memory gun to a radio and set the frequency correctly, it can be used for mass memory wiping. I set the frequency to the regular human ear, which is why I told you to cover your ears because I needed you to remember me. And, I broke it so that no one else could use it."

Mabel had thought she destroyed the last memory gun in existence on her and their 13th birthday. But in reality, Ford had kept one in the basement just in case. Only Dipper knew about it.

"Blendin, we're going," said Dipper with a heavy heart, "Right now."

"Okay, I may not be the smartest time agent in the business, but even I can tell there's a huge problem with what you just did," said Blendin, "If you could wipe the memory of your existence from people, then why didn't you just do that and live in this timeline?"