the steady continental seventy — xi

Turns out the Horton provides a pretty good breakfast. Dipper munches his way through a ham omelet and takes a couple donuts back with him to the room, having come down a bit later than everyone else (and Mabel had spent forever in the bathroom). He steps into the heavily air-conditioned room and finds Mabel sitting cross-legged on her bed, Soos' laptop in front of her and a power cord snaking across the floor to an outlet. The door to the other room is open but there doesn't seem to be anyone inside.

"Have you seen Pacifica and Wendy?" he asks.

"They went with Grunkle Stan to get stuff from the RV." Mabel makes a sound of frustration. "Dipper, make the internet work!"

He pulls the laptop around so he can see the screen and checks the wifi password printed on a neat white card. "That's a 'one,' Mabel, not an exclamation point."

"Well, I was excited," she says, taking the laptop back.

"What are you looking up?"

"I'm not, I'm going to message Brendan since Grunkle Ford deep fried our phones." Her fingers clack on the keys with great enthusiasm.

Dipper still isn't sure what to make of Brendan. Not that they've met, but Mabel's infatuations tend to burn twice as bright, half as long. The last thing Dipper wants is to have to dump this dude on Mabel's behalf, only for Brendan to turn out to be as psycho as Gideon. And maybe that's not fair; maybe Brendan deserves a real chance. But Dipper can't think of a single positive experience that came out of Mabel's flings last summer, and he already misses the relief he felt for the duration of her single-and-loving-it stretch.

He feels a twinge of guilt at that last thought. Here he is getting more tangled up with Pacifica every passing day; it's not fair to expect Mabel to be the third wheel forever. She's been an absolute champion of a third wheel for months now.

"I bet he already messaged me," Mabel says. A notification sound validates her assumption. "Oh ho, Mr. Brendan, so eager! People will talk— oh…"

Dipper watches as her local inbox catches up with the cloud, filling with what must be at least two dozen messages. She's paging through them too fast for him to read them all, but there's a lot of question marks.

"Geez. Is he really this clingy already?" Dipper says with a frown.

"Hey, he's a good guy! Cut him some slack," Mabel protests. "He just got off to a really rough start and he's trying to make up for it. He's worried, it's sweet."

Dipper sees three messages in succession: 'sorry you don't need to answer' and, 'I mean obviously, you probably went to bed early right' and finally, 'did I say something wrong?'

Yikes. It's embarrassing and Brendan is clearly trying way, way too hard, but his awkward textual flailing resembles Dipper's own track record with girls far too much for comfort. In fact, Dipper finds himself ardently grateful that he hadn't owned a cellphone last summer to text Wendy with. If he had, it would have looked… well, probably like this. Awkward and sweaty even in the digital milieu.

Still, Brendan is coming across a bit desperate in Dipper's opinion. "Don't you think he's coming on a little strong? I mean, that's your thing."

"Right?" Mabel grins happily as she types away. "What can I say? I guess I'm just irresistibleeeeeeeee!"

"Yeah, no. Not buying it."

"Come on, Dipper. You of all people should go easy!" Mabel bunches her arms up in her extremely offensive impression of him spazzing out. "Uh-uh, oh, Wendy! I'll die if I can't worship you without Robbie blocking my view! I think everything you do is hot, burp in my face again!"

"I don't do that!" he says stridently, only to torpedo his own denial when he adds, with great resignation, "…Anymore."

Mabel drops the act and fixes him with an unimpressed look. "Dipper, you're so much better with Pacifica. See what happens when you stop getting in your own way and let me set you up? I'm a romance ninja."

"Oh, I get it. Because you think you had something to do with me and Pacifica—which you didn't—I'm supposed to trust you as an expert."

"How about you trust me as your sister who's allowed to date who she wants?" Mabel counters.

Dipper wasn't prepared for her to bring out the big guns. Time to back off. "I was just saying," he tells her mildly.

"You'll see. You'll be BBFFs in no time," Mabel predicts. "The extra B stands for Brendan!"

About an hour later, Dipper finds himself wandering a small art gallery in the Pearl District, his feet squeaking on the tile floor. Along the walls are carvings that remind him of the totem pole at the Shack, though he isn't sure if they're from the same culture. The girls are at a nearby salon and he's just killing time looking at art he can't afford. The employee behind the desk doesn't seem to mind his loitering, her face buried in a magazine (perhaps a kindred spirit of Wendy's).

Dipper isn't in need of a haircut at the moment, or at least not one as expensive as what the girls are indulging in. Given he wears a hat about ninety percent of the time, any high-end stylings would be wasted on him. Without a phone to keep himself amused while he waits, he's forced to find other ways to waste time; hence, the gallery. He also can't wander.

He steps out to the sidewalk. It's a warm day, even in the shade, and the sun rebounds with a blinding intensity off nearby cars and windows. Most of the buildings around him are one-story, though a very modern apartment building nearby looms overhead, its grey sides dotted with orange-painted balconies. Portland doesn't just look modern, it feels modern, its progressive aesthetic nearly all-pervading. Sometimes the illusion breaks in the form of old bricks, peeling paint, and the occasional shuttered storefront, but by and large the city is the polar opposite of Gravity Falls. It's strange to know that they reflect the same nation, never mind the same state.

Dipper is hardly a rural kid. He lives in Piedmont, surrounded by Oakland. He's spent his life in suburbia, with large cities always nearby: San Jose, Sacramento; he's been across the bay to San Francisco plenty of times. But Portland exists in the world of the summer—the world of Gravity Falls. The steel crush of the city seems strange and new in that context. This is a side of Oregon he has never seen before, as new to him now as the endless evergreens had been at the start of last summer.

His view of the city block is interrupted when a pair of hands descend over his eyes. "Guess who?" Mabel chortles.

"Even if I didn't know your voice, your hands smell like gummy koalas," Dipper replies.

"Hee hee, yeah." Mabel drops her hands. "Okay, now turn around."

Dipper turns to see the girls have finally exited the salon. Mabel's hair looks mostly the same in terms of style and length, though it looks especially sleek and well-groomed. Wendy's hair still falls below her shoulders, but Dipper thinks there's at least a few inches taken off the bottom, and it has a volume it usually lacks, curling at the ends and around her ears. They look good—not radically different, but good. They look fancy.

"And may I present, an even cuter Pacifica!" Mabel says with great pomp, spinning aside to reveal the other girl.

Pacifica's heart-stoppingly beautiful features are still below the familiar even bangs, her hair a curtain of perfect blonde; but where that curtain before swept behind her ears and cascaded down her back, it now falls straight to just below her chin, where the strands curl gently inwards. Her new hair frames her face, no longer held back by her ears and its own weight. The proximity of the blonde to her eyes makes their blue seem even deeper, and the graceful curve of her neck is fully revealed.

There's something softer about her overall appearance, something difficult to put into words. It's as if the regal length of her former hairstyle was a representation of her attitude and standing, every luxurious well-kept inch as fine and gleaming as the gold she would inherit (figuratively, that is. Dipper doubts the Northwests kept their assets in literal gold). She looks lighter—maybe freer.

Or maybe Dipper is just applying the trajectory of her life to her hair, like that's poetic or things work that way. Mabel and Wendy don't look less 'free' with their longer hair.

Bottom line, she still looks great.

"You look great," he says.

Pacifica's shoulders lose their tension. "I know," she says, brushing one hand across the bottom of the golden strands. "I'm still getting used to it, though."

"I have to admit, I'm kind of jealous," Wendy says. "I bet you can run through the woods without getting caught in anything. You look fast."

"It's not too late to go back in!" Mabel points out.

"Uh, no, it is," Wendy says bluntly. "That's as much as I've ever paid for a haircut and it's not happening twice."

Pacifica comes closer to Dipper, her hands still feeling the shape of her hair. "Seriously, how is it?"

"It's really nice," Dipper tells her.

Pacifica seems unconvinced but doesn't ask again.

They eat lunch at a burger place that has all the hallmarks of a hipster joint: the wooden-everything offset with stainless steel, stools instead of chairs, paper towels instead of napkins, a few mild swear words on the menu, and something local on tap. Dipper watches with amusement as Pacifica brushes her hair back in a futile gesture at least three times, unconsciously interpreting the forward motion of the hair hanging near her chin as her former long locks escaping over her shoulder and threatening her food. She really is trying to get used to it.

From there, it's a short walk to the TriMet station. They pay at an automatic kiosk and board a train on the red line, the city flitting past the windows: streetlights and windowpanes, crosswalks and cloth awnings. At some point, the train dips into a tunnel and they whoosh through the earth, the occasional light flashing past as the sound of the train turns in on itself, loud and erratic. They exit at an underground station, the train pulling away with an electric keening as it shoots into the dark towards its next destination. The far wall is a granite installation with a core sample that runs the length of the station, serving as a geological timeline. Dipper looks it over in fascination.

"Aww, why'd they have to use the boring lava?" Mabel says with a snicker, pointing at the part that says, 'BORING LAVA OF CORNELL MOUNTAIN.'

An elevator at the end of the corridor takes them back to ground level and they walk to the entrance of the Oregon Zoo. Two orange ticket kiosks crouch beneath an awning, a building nearby advertising for memberships. They pay the entry fee and pass through the gate.

Mabel eagerly unfolds a map as they loiter just past the gate, other guests streaming past them. They are in the middle of a wide asphalt plaza; to the left, Dipper sees the gift shop and to the right is a restaurant with a peaked roof and the kind of pacific-northwest wooden construction that always reminds him of the Shack. Multiple paths separate ahead, bending around some kind of enclosure.

"Let's go look at a bear or a lion," Wendy says. "I wanna see something that could eat me."

"You can't get eaten yet," Mabel replies. "I'm supposed to meet Brendan at Pacific Shores."

The paths of the zoo are scenic and sometimes even elevated, overlooking other portions of the property. They amble beneath the shade of trees, sometimes passing or mingling with other groups of people, the sun beaming through the branches and rustling leaves, the sound of strollers and sneakers on the asphalt keeping time. Dipper isn't sure they're taking the most direct way to their destination, given that Mabel has the map, but he doesn't mind.

When they reach Pacific Shores, Dipper doesn't need Mabel to point Brendan out. He has to be the guy with the shaggy black hair falling to his eyes, looking awkward but in a handsome way with both hands shoved into his pockets, wearing a flannel shirt that's way too heavy for the weather. No wonder Mabel is into him-they're clearly on the same sartorial wavelength. It's hard to say that Mabel has a 'type,' considering the sheer variety of her last-summer crushes, but if she did, then Brendan is a hundred percent what Dipper would have imagined Mabel's type to be. Brendan must be a regular kid, since otherwise Mabel would have been bragging about his vampire powers or whatever, but he looks like the teen heartthrob in a supernatural romance.

Mabel waves wildly in Brendan's direction. It takes him a moment to notice her; when he does, his face lights up. "Hey!" he says, hurrying over to them. "You found me."

He goes right up to her, but they don't hug. Instead, there's a supremely awkward silence as the other three stand by while Mabel and Brendan share an excited gaze, eyes locked to each other. Dipper looks away, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Apparently, Mabel was being truthful when she said they weren't quite dating yet, but it seems like they really should be.

Thank goodness for Wendy. She sticks her hand out between the two besotted teens, breaking the tension. "Wendy Corduroy," she says.

"Brendan Cager," he replies, shaking her hand. He turns to Dipper. "Dipper, right? Wow, you guys really are twins."

"Uh… thanks?" Dipper says.

"It's a compliment," Brendan assures him.

"Brendan, you rapscallion!" Mabel laughs with a demure wag of her hand.

Dipper isn't going to unpack any of that; not even going to try. "Okay. Nice to meet you, man."

"Yeah, for sure," Brendan says.

Pacifica introduces herself with the aloofness she often uses on strangers. "Pacifica Northwest."

"Oh, yeah, from Malibu," Brendan says as he shakes her hand.

"Is your family here?" Mabel asks him.

"Yeah, they're around somewhere," Brendan says with a slight stammer. "Anyway, what do you guys want to see first?"

"The seals," Pacifica says immediately. When Dipper blinks in surprise, she says, "What?"

"I didn't know you liked seals," Dipper replies.

"Seals are adorable, Dipper. Everyone knows that."

"You heard her. Move out!" Wendy says.

Underwater viewing is at the bottom of a ramp, the concrete of the ceiling molded in uneven crags to simulate natural rock. The blue light of the sun breaking through the water beams down into the viewing space as seals glide soundlessly past the thick windows, the scene at once beautiful and strangely eerie, a silent film playing out beneath some shallow ocean. One of the seals descends to peer curiously at Pacifica, who lets out a very Mabel-esque squeal at the beast's proximity that Dipper finds even more adorable than the seal.

Wendy kneels in front of the window as a seal corkscrews around in the water, looking at her from different angles with its wide marble eyes. "Okay, I get it now," she says to Pacifica.

Despite his preoccupation with watching the soft wavelengths of distorted light play across Pacifica's perfect face, Dipper can't help but overhear Mabel and Brendan talking nearby.

"Are your family at a different exhibit?" Mabel is asking.

"Sort of," Brendan hedges.

"It's okay if you don't want them to meet me, if it'd be weird or whatever," Mabel assures him.

"What? No, you're amazing! They're the ones who are weird," Brendan says. "Well, Mom is pretty cool. You already met Benji. They… aren't actually here right now."

"You came by yourself?"

"Yeah. I told them I was going to meet some friends, and they, uh… I mean, maybe they assumed it was some different friends." Brendan sighs. "Look, I just don't want to tell my dad."

"I remember," Mabel says sympathetically.

"If he knew he'd make things so much harder. That's all he ever does," Brendan mutters.

Dipper is beginning to feel guilty for listening in. "Are you done communing with the seals?" he asks Pacifica.

"These seals are precious and I would die for them," Pacifica declares as a seal slides past the window, slowly turning in a lazy barrel roll.

"Noted, but let's hope it doesn't come to that."

The rest of the zoo is fun, and not so crowded they have to wait to see anything. They visit the elephants, see some monkeys, take turns pressing their hands to a mold of a polar bear's paw, eat some ice cream. When the train takes them back to the city, it's still a couple hours before dinner so they wander through some of the shops. Dipper's spent enough time at the Shack to be allergic to tourist kitsch at this point; buying a Portland snow globe or keychain just feels like becoming someone's rube to fleece, and he's watched too many people become Stan's.

They're strolling down the sidewalk when Brendan suddenly stops in his tracks, Wendy nearly walking into him. "Oh, no. No way," he groans. He frantically looks around, spinning in place and putting one hand up to the back of his head, using his elbow to hide his features. "Quick, get inside before he sees us."

"What?" Mabel is looking all around, clearly confused. "Who sees us?"

"Yo!" Someone suddenly shouts from up ahead. "Yo, I see you, bro!"

"Ugghhhh…" Brendan drops his arms, his expression indicating that, whatever this is, he's already way over it. "Just… I don't know, don't make eye contact."

The man that approaches them is huge and hairy. He lumbers out of the crowd in expensive sneakers, his bleached-blond hair spiked forward and his eyes hidden behind a pair of Noakleys. He's got a red cap flipped backwards and an oddly familiar-looking green basketball jersey. He points at Brendan with one thick finger, a bottle of sports drink in his clenched fist.

"I see you, little Cager. Why you ignoring me, bro? I feel like you're being disrespectful."

"I'm not ignoring you," Brendan grumbles, slowly turning around. "I'm out with some frie—"

But the big guy has gone completely still, paling even beneath his spray tan. "Hold up." He looks at Pacifica, then Dipper, then Pacifica again. "You… You…!"

"Hey…" Mabel puts her hands on her hips and peers closely at him. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

He takes a step backwards, as if Mabel's words are pushing him away. "Dude, that voice! I know that voice, bruh!"

"I remember you," Pacifica says sharply.

"Nope! I'm outtie." The big guy spins on his heel and strides rapidly away, reaching up to give them both of Grunkle Stan's favorite fingers over his shoulders. He disappears around the nearby corner, leaving them staring after him.

"That's right," Brendan says slowly. "You met Chortley before. I forgot."

"He looked better under a pile of cans," Pacifica sneers.

"I forgot!" Brendan begins to laugh so hard he has to bend over, putting his hands on his knees. "The look on his face!"

"Feeling pretty lost back here," Wendy says.

"He's actually a werebear," Dipper tells her.

"Dude, is this another adventure I missed out on?"

"It was more of a mini-venture?"

"I thought you said he was from California?" Mabel says to Brendan.

"Chowchilla, I think. Maybe they really do just call him that?" Brendan shrugs. "He spends the summer moving around Oregon like a lot of people. Everybody comes up for Woodstick. Still, I don't know why I keep running into Chortley."

"Super unlucky," Mabel snickers.

Dipper is trying to assimilate all this new information, the nature of which is making him quite suspicious. "Wait, you know the Werebear?"

Brendan stiffens and doesn't meet Dipper's eyes. "What? I don't really know Chortley, he's like an acquaintance. He's a jerk."

"How odd and yet completely unremarkable that we also know Chortley sort of," Mabel says loudly.

"But… you said Woodstick, right? The Woodstick Festival? Have you been to Gravity Falls?" Dipper says.

Brendan is looking very uncomfortable. He opens his mouth, but Mabel steps in front of him and interjects, "Oh my gosh, Dipper! We should do the thing!"

Dipper's train of thought is derailed. "What? The thing?"

"You know, the thing! With the flyer and that creep, Gideon."

"Really, now?"

"It's still an hour and a half before we're supposed to meet everyone," Mabel says. "That's enough time for a showdown."

"Maybe. Are we ready for a fight?"

"Like you need to ask," Wendy snorts.

"A fight?" Brendan says hesitantly. "Like… with words, or…"

"I literally punted this kid like a football," Wendy tells him.

"We'll see," Dipper says. "He may have goons again."

"I miss that about being rich," Pacifica says wistfully. "The goons."

"You don't need goons, you got me," Wendy boasts. "Come on, let's go drop in on Gideon."

"Okay, but take it easy," Dipper cautions her. "This is Portland—if we get arrested, Sheriff Blubs isn't here to let us walk because he's too lazy to process us."

"Yeah, yeah, big city rules," Wendy lazily replies. "I get you."

Dipper hopes she does. Living in Gravity Falls her whole life has given Wendy a somewhat skewed perspective on what's acceptable and what she can get away with. Her impulsive drive to Piedmont is proof enough of that.

They take a Wunder cab to the north of downtown, past a highway into an industrial area that's nothing but rows of trailers and big buildings with aluminum sides. Dipper found Gideon's address on the internet: 3299 Northeast Argyle Street. The driver drops them off in front of a two-story warehouse that looks pretty much the same as every other warehouse in the area. The entrance is a sliding glass door on the side across from a mid-sized parking lot that has a surprising number of cars in it. Only a small sign above the door lets Dipper know he's in the right place: THE GLEEFUL COMPANY.

"I was expecting something fancier," Mabel admits as they cross the lot.

"So who is this guy?" Brendan asks her.

"An ex-archenemy who tried to kill Dipper, ruin Grunkle Stan, and trap me in a toxic relationship," Mabel says casually.

"Huh. You, uh, used to date?"

"That's your takeaway?" Wendy laughs.

Brendan shrugs, blushing slightly. "Just wondering."

"Oh, were you?" Pacifica drawls.

"Leave him alone, guys," Mabel chides them. "Don't worry," she tells Brendan, "we only went out a couple times and it was the worst."

Dipper must admit, the nondescript building isn't exactly Gideon's style, though maybe they don't know Gideon as well as they used to. Inside, the lobby is a plain room with a beige laminate floor and acoustic tiles in the ceiling. A circular desk is manned by a single receptionist who peers curiously at Dipper from beneath a wealth of frizzy blonde hair.

"Can I help you, honey?" she says with a pronounced southern twang. Either Gideon managed to hire the only secretary in Portland from the deep south, or his accent is transmissible.

"Yeah, we need to talk to Gideon," Dipper says.

"Mr. Gleeful isn't here today, but I can take a message if you'd like," she says. "Or, he should be in tomorrow, I could make an appointment."

Dipper can't decide if he's relieved or frustrated. "Let's make an appointment."

She taps at her computer for a moment. "Sure thing, hon. I can get you in at two o'clock, that sound alright?"

"Sure, two o'clock is fine."

"I'll put you in for two, I just need a name."

Dipper hesitates before answering. Does he want to lose the element of surprise? "…Mason," he says.

"Okay, Mr. Mason, Mr. Gleeful will see you at two o'clock tomorrow."

"Thanks," Dipper says as he turns to leave.

They reconvene outside, the summer sun momentarily blinding when they step out of the shade of the awning.

"You think he's really not here?" Wendy muses. "Maybe he's messing with us."

"Nah, he'd mess with us to our faces," Mabel says.

Pacifica reaches up to brush her hair back, an action which hitches in midmotion when her fingers meet the end of her hair near her chin. She quickly crosses her arms, trying to play it off like that's what she meant to do in the first place. "I hope you have a plan, 'Mr. Mason,'" she says to Dipper.

"Just go in there and confront him," Dipper says with an uncertain nod. "…Okay, we might need more of a plan."

They toss a few ideas back and forth on the trip back to the hotel, but no one really knows how Gideon is going to react, or what they'll be up against. It's a short wait until Melody and Soos show up to take everyone to dinner; in the meantime, Mabel has to say goodbye to Brendan, if only temporarily.

"Ten o'clock, got it?" she says. "I'll be right outside!"

"Got it," Brendan says. "You really need to get a new phone."

"No texting makes the heart grow fonder…" Mabel says slyly, looking up at him through lowered lashes.

Wendy has already wandered away, and Dipper figures Mabel could probably use the privacy; it's not like she got any alone time with Brendan today, assuming that's what she wants. Dipper still doesn't know what to make of their relationship, if it can be called that. Last summer, Mabel would have probably proposed to Brendan by now. Twice.

Dipper turns his back to Mabel and Brendan; Pacifica follows suit. "What do you make of them?" he asks her quietly.

"He's totally her type," Pacifica says.

"See, I thought her type was any male roughly her age and breathing."

"Then her taste has improved, because he's really hot. But, like, in a really approachable, Mabel-type way," Pacifica notes.

Dipper isn't sure how to take that. "Oh. Uh, what am I?" he says tentatively.

"Mine," Pacifica asserts.

That night, they eat at the barbeque place Melody had mentioned before, crowding around the wooden countertops and wolfing down pulled pork and brisket. It's nice to have the whole Shack crew in one place, trading stories and poking fun at Grunkle Stan. Dipper nearly falls asleep on the ride back to the hotel, his stomach full and his eyelids heavy.

When he gets out of the shower, Mabel is already asleep. He pads over to the window and looks out at the glittering cityscape, watching car headlights scroll across the streets. Gideon is out there, somewhere, maybe looking at the same skyline. Dipper shakes his head, frustrated by the thought. He's been building up Gideon in his mind, preparing for another confrontation like the ones last summer, but the truth is that he doesn't know what's going to happen. He's not even sure he knows who Gideon is anymore.

He crawls into bed and shuts his eyes, knowing he'll soon find out.