The Northwest Mansion in Gravity Falls was exactly what the "Possible" part of my brain expected: a monument to the kind of wealth that makes you think you can own the weather. But to the "Campbell" part of my brain—the one that had seen every episode of the show—this place was a ticking time bomb of bad karma and ancient curses.
"Sheila," I whispered, stepping out of the team's "Social Studies" van. I was wearing my best 'consultant' attire, which mostly involved a slightly more expensive vest and an extra-large espresso. "Scan for geometric anomalies. Specifically, anything three-sided and wearing a top hat."
["Spectral readings are quiet, Danny,"] Sheila reported. ["However, I am detecting a localized 'Ego-Field' so strong it's actually warping the local Wi-Fi. Also, Jenny's internal scanners are currently locked on Pacifica Northwest with 99% accuracy. Her 'Rivalry' sub-routine is at maximum output."]
"Great. Try to keep her from laser-drilling the marble statues."
The team followed me up the grand staircase. Ben was looking around for a buffet; Danny Fenton was twitching, his ghost-sense letting out tiny, rhythmic puffs of blue; and Jimmy Neutron was currently using a handheld scanner to analyze the "molecular decadence" of the gold leaf on the walls.
Pacifica Northwest met us in the grand foyer, flanked by her parents, Preston and Priscilla, who looked at us as if we were a particularly interesting breed of livestock.
"You're late," Pacifica said, though her eyes lingered on me a second longer than was strictly professional. "The 'occurrence' happened in the ballroom again. Every portrait in the room turned upside down, and the silverware started reciting tax law."
"Reciting tax law?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's a new one. Usually, it's just 'Get out' or 'Beware.'"
"It was very boring," Pacifica muttered.
We entered the ballroom. It was a cavernous space, filled with the portraits of long-dead Northwests. True to her word, every frame was inverted.
"Okay, Brain-Blast time," Jimmy said, his hair-loop vibrating. "The inverted portraits suggest a localized gravitational inversion, but the tax law indicates a high-level cognitive mimicry. It's not a ghost. it's a... Digital-Ethereal Hybrid."
"Wrong," Danny Fenton said, his eyes glowing green. "It's a ghost, Jimmy. But it's a ghost with an agenda. It feels... cold. Not 'Ghost Zone' cold, but 'Forgotten' cold."
Suddenly, the lights flickered. A single, golden triangle appeared on the wall—not the real Bill Cipher, but a flickering, low-definition projection of him.
"OH, LOOK AT YOU!" a voice crackled, sounding like a radio from the 1920s. "A ROBOT, A GHOST, AND A BOY WITH A TOASTER ON HIS HEAD! THE NORTHWESTS ALWAYS DID HAVE THE BEST PARTIES!"
"Bill?" Ben gasped, his hand going to the Omnitrix.
"NOT QUITE, KID! I'M JUST THE REMAINS! THE SHADOW! THE... RESIDUAL DATA-DEMON!"
The projection laughed, and the silverware began to swirl in the air, forming a jagged, metallic tornado.
"He's a fragment!" I yelled over the din. "Pericles' 'Anchor' event in Crystal Cove must have shaken loose a piece of the Cipher-code! It's trying to rebuild itself using the Northwest's latent greed as a power source!"
"I've got the tornado!" Jenny shouted. Her pigtails transformed into high-powered vacuum turbines, sucking the silverware out of the air before it could hit anyone. "Danny! Find the source! My sensors say the code is anchored to the family crest!"
I looked at the massive stone crest above the fireplace. "Jenny! Boost my signal! Jimmy, I need a 'Logic-Loop' to trap the code!"
"On it!" Jimmy pulled out his bubble-wand, but this time he'd modified it with a series of Galvanic prisms. "Jenny, interface now!"
The two geniuses worked in perfect, high-speed synchronization. Jenny grabbed Jimmy's hand, her metal skin glowing with blue data-streams. They pointed the bubble-wand at the crest, and a lattice of pure, white logic-fire erupted from the prisms.
"NO! MATH! MY ONLY WEAKNESS!" the shadow-Bill shrieked as the logic-loop closed around him. "THE ANGLES... THEY'RE ALL... FORTY-FIVE DEGREES!"
With a sound like a hard drive crashing, the projection vanished. The portraits snapped back to their original positions. The ballroom went silent.
Pacifica stood in the center of the room, looking shaken but impressed. She walked over to me, ignoring the rest of the team.
"You handled that... remarkably well," she said, her voice dropping to a lower, softer register. "The others were... useful, I suppose. But you were the one who saw the pattern."
She reached out and adjusted my collar, her fingers lingering for a beat too long. "Maybe Gravity Falls isn't so boring after all. I think I'll be spending more time in Middleton. For 'research' purposes."
Behind me, I heard the sound of a metal fist clenching. Jenny was standing perfectly still, but her eyes were a deep, pulsing violet.
"We're leaving," Jenny said, her voice sounding unusually mechanical. She skated forward, grabbed my arm with a grip that was just a little too tight, and began to pull me toward the exit. "The mission is complete. The insurance risk is neutralized. We have 5th period Algebra in twenty minutes."
"Wait, Jenny—!"
But I was already being towed out of the mansion at thirty miles per hour.
As the van pulled away from the Northwest estate, the team was silent. Ben was eating a stolen Northwest hors d'oeuvre; Danny Fenton was staring out the window; and Kim was looking at me and Jenny with a look of profound, sibling-based amusement.
I looked at the 'Low-Stakes' meter. It was at a steady 15%. The 'Bill' fragment was gone, the Northwests were safe, and the mystery was solved.
But the 'Interpersonal Complexity' file was currently glowing red.
["Danny,"] Sheila's voice rang in my ear. ["I've updated the dossier. Pacifica Northwest: Role: Recurring Antagonist (Social). And Jenny's internal cooling system is currently trying to vent enough heat to melt a glacier. I suggest you buy her a very large, very cold smoothie."]
"Low-stakes, Sheila," I whispered, rubbing my bruised arm. "Low-stakes."