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.

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.