(PT Dib AU) Burning Bridges
Written by @il-allora and I!
Illustrated by @izzydrawsforfun
WARNING TAGS: Gore, Blood, fetus killing, Suicidal idealization. Read at your own risk.
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Dib winced at the sight.
It was the same as he remembered. The tall, white building, full of harsh corners and closed doors, of secrets and discoveries. It stood, impervious to time, behind a perfectly trimmed lawn and a couple of huge statues that seemed to look down upon his meekly parked car. Dib had hoped for a different reaction, but the sight of this old place still gave him a full body shiver and an overwhelming desire to step on the accelerator.
"C'mon, pull it together," he chastised himself. "You need this job."
It wasn't the first time he'd had to pump himself up before walking into work. In fact, most times he had to. However his past pep talks had rarely felt so necessary, for multiple reasons.
Getting hired here wasn’t the hard part at all, in fact. After spending years having to infiltrate the building for various reasons, he’d eventually known all of the ins and outs, and that—coupled with how lax the hiring policies were for janitorial staff—meant it was easy for Dib to get a job here without even having to do an interview. Despite this, he’d really rather find work anywhere else, no matter how difficult—but he was simply running out of options.
He had lost another job. That wasn't surprising; it happened almost every month. By now he was always searching for more work, even when employed, just to have somewhere else to go. However, with every new place he was fired or laid off from, the hunt became harder and harder. Job opportunities in this city were running dry, and he knew he had to do everything in his power to keep this new one—no matter how much he hated that he had to come here, of all places.
It had been surreal enough to apply for this job after nearly losing his apartment again. As always, it started with the past due services bills piling up, then maintenance bills, then he was given an eviction notice. This time he did try to save his ass, for a change; he needed the place to keep his tech.
Of course, he could just hop in his car and move to another city. But that would also mean moving away from...
"Okay," Dib whispered to himself, gathering his remaining inner strength to step out of the car. He couldn't let his thoughts wander to him again. Not now.
The car door squeaked noisily as Dib got out. He flung his backpack over his shoulder and slammed the door shut. He cast his eyes to the building, barely able to deal with all of his mixed feelings.
As he walked towards it, he could almost see a younger version of himself, trying to get in to see his dad on one of the few occasions where he bothered. It sent chills down his spine, as he now repeated the steps for the first time in almost a decade.
Beyond his personal history with the place, rumor held that strange experiments had been going on at Membrane Labs for years. Some were to further science for the elites, promising eternity for those who could afford it. After all, how did Membrane pay for those impressive perpetual energy generators, cures for diseases, and synthetic water for underdeveloped areas of the world? How did the cash flow in for all the philanthropic work?
There were a vast array of conspiracy theories involving each of Membrane Lab’s programs: mass media manipulation; reptilians paying for a secret space program; Membrane belonging to the Illuminati or working with the CIA; experiments with mass teleportation corresponding to mysterious disappearances in his staff; frequent changes of security protocols within the labs tied to genetic manipulation experiments; monsters; and self-experimenting.
In the end, Dib could only pull evidence for one such possibility. After all, he was living proof that the world’s greatest scientist did in fact self-experiment. The rest of the conspiracy theories mostly came out of left field and, while they caught his mind’s eye from time to time, still weren’t enough to bother following up on.But now, during the long walk towards the entrance lab on the back of the building, he lied to himself: "Think of the opportunity. I could investigate the strange disappearances or the genetics experiments."
In all honesty, he wasn’t interested in uncovering any secrets. It was just a good job and he needed the money. He really, really did.
Dib sighed, placing a hand on his forehead, and said to himself, "I've reached a new low.” It was humiliating to knock on the door of a building that belonged to the same man that had kicked him out of his fake family. Even though this wasn’t his old house, he could still imagine Gaz at the door, saying “You’re an idiot” before she slammed it closed.
And it had been a recurrent thought since he applied, to encounter Membrane and his sister again..
Maybe seeing how Dib preferred a minimum wage job to what the professor had in mind for him would be a nice comeback in itself, a way of spitting in his face. Dib could say a few things, too, on how Membrane had fucked up, how Dib was a failure and living proof of his mistakes. In his mind’s eye he spoke his side of the story, his feelings pouring like venom on his family. His dad. His clone. “Look at me,” Dib would scream, “you made me, take responsibility.”
Or maybe not. Maybe it was better to keep a low profile. He needed the money, he needed this job. Was he already shooting himself in the foot by thinking of ways to get fired?
Membrane probably wouldn’t even recognize him, anyways.
Dib stopped by the back entrance and took a deep breath.
“C’mon, man. Since when are you this fucking dramatic?” he said to himself, scratching the back of his neck until it hurt.
Distracted by his thoughts, he bumped into a large man guarding the back entrance to the labs.
“Name and position,” the man said, and his menacing, penetrating gaze almost made Dib forget his fake name.
“Fred Hans, Janitor Level 3,” he squeaked out, presenting his fake ID.
The man looked between Dib and the ID, silently measuring him, and Dib almost swore he heard a mechanical whirring coming from the security guard’s head. As soon as Dib caught the odd glint in the man’s left eye, he turned and led Dib in. The man brought him past four security posts. After granting Dib an access card and clearance pass, the man signalled toward the changing rooms and disappeared.
Dib let out a shaky breath as he finally entered the dressing room. He sat and put on his uniform. Blue overalls; knee- high boots; gloves up to his elbows; a gas mask with NBC filters; a cap that required him to pull his hair into a low bun (no easy feat, it took a lot of manhandling even though he’d come prepared with about a thousand hair pins); and safety goggles he didn’t put on, since they didn’t have his prescription.
A small, angry-looking woman entered the room,
“Frank Hem??” she said in a soft, snooty voice, looking at a clipboard through her half moon glasses.
Dib felt a little bothered by how they couldn’t even get a fucking fake name right, even though he’d tried to find the most foolproof one around. Still, he nodded. She pointed at the fourth cart stocked at the side.
“Everything’s ready, the professionals need cleanup in sector 4-O.” She still wasn't looking at him. “The aisles have maps, you’ll find it in the fourth underground, this is floor six. Take the elevator with your security card and flash your clearance to the cameras. As you go in the threat is biological, make sure your filters are on. Good day.” With that briefing, she turned and left him to his own devices.
This made Dib wary. Though he wanted to avoid getting nosy on the job, he couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in here. His mind raced; each time he heard voices in the corridors, he froze for a moment and found himself walking a little faster. Once in the elevator he realized that, if he didn’t need an escort, it meant that Membrane had put more money into advancing his bio security. As far as Dib knew, he had been scanned, measured, weighed and fingerprinted before he ever managed to cross the turnstile.
His fingerprints hadn’t even been in the local databank, despite being Membrane’s son. This wasn’t news for him—he had known about it since he was a child—but it was still another sour droplet to add to the acid ocean inside his chest.
Fearing the angle where his thoughts were headed, Dib focused on his surroundings. His eyes stopped at the camera in the corner of the elevator, and immediately looked down.
“What an amateur, wanna give them your ID too?” he huffed, frowning at his hands. His face felt red all over. Had they seen him? Would...he...recognize him if they had?
“He wouldn’t care if he did”, said the voice at the back of his mind and it stung in his chest. “Are you looking for his attention?”
Dib sighed when the elevator came to a halt. Pulling at the clearance card at his neck, he got out to find his way around the underground floor.
As soon as he stepped into the vacated area full of danger signs and blockades, it became more apparent that whatever science was happening here had gone very wrong. Blood pooled on the floor and stained the hallway walls, and a pale liquid had been spilled on the counters, floor and (somehow) ceiling. Probing the gooey substance between his gloved fingers, Dib saw it was greasy enough that most cleaning products wouldn’t get it off. He had to read the bottles on his cart and test a few products before he managed to find one that could get everything done.
Dib scrubbed the floors and walls on autopilot, jumping at every distant door opening and closing, wishing he had been less of a coward and actually smuggled his phone and headphones inside as he’d been planning. He was ready to deal with most everything this place had to offer, as he’d seen it all at some point in his youth: horrible man-made monsters escaping and rampaging their way through the staff, energy experiments blowing up in people’s faces, Taco Tuesday, the overwhelming grind of bureaucracy...but the one thing he hadn’t expected was the silence.
Silence. His worst enemy. In truth, recently it had become even worse than...his actual worst enemy. It kept creeping in on him at the worst times and serving pain like a syringe straight to the veins.The Demon was louder in the silence, sure, but his other thoughts were too, and these days he didn’t like either of them. And especially in a place like this, the same Membrane Labs he’d grown up breaking into visiting, the deeper he went into his own thoughts, the more he couldn’t help but dwell on his history with his...clone.
And more bitterness settled in his chest.
The worst part of being theoretically capable of anything, Dib thought as he scrubbed at an especially sturdy grease spot on a wall, was lacking the resources and will to make his projects a reality. And that certainly was part of the problem for him, part of the reason he kept falling into chasm after chasm with no meaningful progress in sight, but deep down he knew he couldn’t keep blaming Nature and The Powers That Be for his bad lot in life. He was a mess, he’d always been a mess, and even if his luck magically decided to turn a 180 and shower him with everything he needed to succeed in life, it would all go to waste. It happened every time a small opportunity presented itself; why wouldn’t it keep happening on a greater scale?
Maybe this pessimistic outlook on life wouldn’t get him anywhere. It certainly didn’t help that he expected failure in everything he attempted. Still, how could he look at things any other way? Growing up, he’d constantly been told by Membrane (and the whole of society as well, to an extent) that he couldn't manage anything in his life, that he was a screw-up and a waste of time. No wonder there was a point where he actually came to believe it. And once he did, it had stuck with him.
Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You’d be like Membrane. Don’t forget it.
Dib sighed deeply, rubbing away at a tough stain. A part of him wanted to flee from this place, drop whatever he was doing, maybe jump out of a window just to get it done quicker. The rest of him wanted to find Membrane and punch him in the face for being an absent parent, for lying, for having made Dib at all, for the years of neglect, for using Gaz against him, for taking advantage of a society that didn’t know better, and for tearing him down at every turn.
The voice came on loudly. “He wouldn’t care, no matter what you do to offend him. He’s moved on without you. The world has.”
This was going nowhere. Like always, the bottomless pit of bad thoughts that Membrane inspired led only to absolute despair. And Dib wasn’t drunk enough right now to bother
Replacing his heavily stained gloves with clean ones from the janitor cart, Dib grabbed a bucket and started going through the three or four operating tables in the cleaning area. Most just had a ton of utensils strewn over them, which he dutifully collected. A couple had suspicious meat pieces on them, but they were all stained with the same fluids as the rest of the place. As he tried to flee from further thoughts of Membrane, however, Dib let his gaze fixate on the stainless steel of the tables and felt a memory arise from the depths of his subconscious, like a noxious bubble of gas surfacing in the murky waters of a swamp.
Until only a few years ago, he desired nothing else but to see Zim cut open on one of those.
Dib shuddered. “Oh, fuck.”
He’d been doing such a good job of not thinking about him. And now, in a moment of weakness, the floodgates cracked open and the cascade of thoughts came rushing in.
He hadn't come.
Dib gripped the bucket handle with a painful tightness.
Once again this week, Zim had missed lunch time. Dib had waited until the last moment possible, risked coming late into work, just hoping for a visit...but nothing had happened.
Leaving aside his (honestly, ridiculous) feelings of betrayal and worry, this pattern was starting to seem weird, and Dib was aware of how tremendously wrong it sounded for him to find this switch in attitude from the alien alarming. After all, hadn't he been hoping for a long time now for Zim's odd behavior to change?
From day one, Dib had known the lunches were a bad thing. No matter how pretty, well put together, and delicious they were, they came from Zim, and they would inevitably have a horrific reason behind their existence and lead to a terrible outcome. What their purpose even was, Dib had yet to find out, but he was sure the lunches were bad.They had to be.
And now the lunches were gone.
Why, then, wasn't Dib happy about it?
His stomach growled angrily. It had been doing so for a couple days now. Although Dib tried to splurge a little extra on food (he’d even gotten a whole pizza slice from a local Bloaty’s no less than a day before), his stomach kept protesting. And the pain in his chest didn’t help matters much.
Dib bit his lip. Seemed like one of his theories about the lunches was correct, after all. Zim did want him to get used to them, enjoy them, expect them every day, just so he could yank them away without warning and laugh at Dib’s stupid, eager, hungry face.
He could investigate this further. Could dust off his old spy drone that had broken long ago, try to repair it and send it to check on Zim. He could drop by after work, confront Zim, maybe raid his fridge or something, make sure he was...okay...
But he wouldn’t. He knew what this meant. Deep down, he knew what this had always been: just an elaborate joke by Zim. And showing up at his door, or even sending over a spy drone that Zim would probably find and crush again in a matter of minutes, would just reveal his hand. Reveal how much this stupid ploy actually got to him, how much he’d gotten attached to the daily little visits, the carefully wrapped packages, the wonderfully tasty food. And Dib had some pride in him still.
He had to keep some pride. If he let Zim erode away even that, he would collapse, and without Dib to stop Zim the world would also collapse, ground under Irk’s mighty boot.
And his father would be right. Dib was never good for anything, after all.
“Lunch break!” resounded from the little speaker in his cart's handle, snapping him out of the depressing daydreaming session. Dib grumbled: he was not done with this area and would probably have to come back after lunch.
“You’d be done already if you weren’t thinking so hard about the alien you wanna fuck. Now you may risk getting fired on your first day from being too slow. Nice going, genius.”
He hurried to put everything in order, or in as much order as he could, before pushing his cart to the side and heading to his changing station. He tossed his dirty clothes aside and took some clean ones before heading to the section appointed as the canteen on the fifth floor. Dib got on the elevator along with everyone else, pressed up in the middle.
The small talk going on around him was giving him a headache. Most times the Demon voice at the back of his mind was vicious and oppressive, and it sure had been present several times through the day already, but this was one of those times where he actually felt like shit without its help. Although, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise when the sense of worthlessness arose while he was scrubbing the floors at his successful parent’s enterprise.
At least the surroundings were nice, he thought as he arrived at the serving area. The cafeteria was spacious and clean. The only points of contention for him were the many monitors blasting Membrane Labs ads, posters of Membrane everywhere, and most egregious of all, the large sign with a list of corporate ethics/safety rules on most walls, which he couldn’t help but find amusing. Membrane and ethics… Right.
Almost absentmindedly, his eyes drifted to the visage on the posters. Membrane looked older, gray in his hair, wrinkles about his forehead. Even if his face was half covered, Dib could easily make the rest of his features. Dib pondered their height. They must be the same height by now, unless his malnutrition had managed to halt that. It had made Dib’s eyes larger and sunken into their sockets,even if he could see they were the same pale amber as his father’s. At least the facial hair was something he didn’t see Membrane growing, at least not if it was as patchy as Dib’s. Dib looked down at his hands, long, bony fingers and chipped nails, reddening about the tips…
He sighed, and looked away. As had many of the other meandering thoughts that assaulted him throughout the day, this one was going nowhere.
Once by the serving area, he grabbed a tray, making sure to keep his head as low as possible and waiting for the other staff to go before him to minimize the chance of being recognized. The smell of good food inundated the area. Looking at the variety of amazing looking dishes on offer, Dib felt his mouth water despite his heart’s protests. He could at least eat well if he managed to keep this job.
Emboldened by the one positive thought he’d had all day, Dib went to serve himself once the coast was clear. Daringly, he decided to go for some grilled chicken thighs, fried saffron rice, green salad and an apple, the exact same combination of dishes Zim had brought him more than once. Sure, Zim’s meals were always arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner inside brightly colored tupperwares, wrapped in nice-smelling and clean dish towels, and he also got to eat them in the privacy of his apartment, but...
It was best not to dwell.
Looking for a place to sit, briefly crossing glances with the other staff who happened to stare his way, Dib felt as he had in high school for a moment. Finally he found a table at the back, where he sat alone. He began fiddling with his food, cutting a bit of chicken and portioning out the rice, trying to mathematically calculate the best possible part of the meal to start with. It had suddenly become important that this meal was good. He needed this to be good. He needed it to be better than...
Finally, fearing his meal would grow cold if he kept stalling, Dib loaded his fork and brought it to his mouth.
It was good. It was really good, Membrane clearly had skilled staff working at the kitchens; the food tasted just as nice as it looked and smelled, and going by what was on Dib’s contract, he knew he could have second or third servings if he wanted.
...
...And yet....
He swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat. He took another forkful, then another, then couldn’t stomach any more. His throat felt blocked, his body had grown tense. He tried to cover his face with a hand, hoping no one would notice the quiet whimper forcing itself from his lips.
It was good, but there was something missing. Something huge missing, that made it almost unbearable after a few bites. Something he couldn’t really pinpoint, though deep down he knew what it was.
“Fuck you, Zim,” he whispered, pushing the plate away.
Now he was sure. This was Zim’s plan all along. Zim didn’t even need to put anything in his meals, didn’t need to do anything but come dutifully every day and bring Dib something Zim knew he could reject; and in such a nicely presented way that was sure to touch Dib where it hurt. And it had worked. It had worked so well that his body now protested the absence, because despite Dib’s vigilance and hard-fought attempts not to fall for Zim’s ploy...his heart was weak. It was weak for Zim. And once his heart fell for the stupid green alien, his body was sure to follow.
Zim knew of his feelings. Zim had known what would happen. This was the most horrific plan he’d ever devised, and the most effective one by far.
But, as always, there was that little corner of Dib’s mind that refused to admit the obvious.
“Maybe something happened to him. Maybe something went wrong”, the tiny voice whispered in a worried tone.
“Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup.” Dib and the Demon voiced the same plea.
“Go to Zim’s house. You need to go. Maybe he needs you.”
“He doesn’t. He never did, and never will.” The Demon was louder this time, but Dib wasn’t disagreeing.
There was no reason to go and confirm his suspicions. He didn’t wanna look Zim in the eyes and watch him laugh in his face. He wouldn’t give him that pleasure.
A loud news segment blared on the cafeteria TVs all of a sudden. Desperate for a distraction Dib decided to watch the broadcast, even if it happened to feature his better self’s hateable mug.
What seemed to be a late night’s live recording of Membrane exiting a police station quickly filled the screens. Surrounded by news anchors, Gaz standing meekly by his side, his face betrayed a tiredness Dib hadn’t seen in years. It gave Dib a smidge of joy to see him like this, he wasn’t gonna lie.
“As you’ve heard, the body found in the woods is that of my long-lost son, Dib Membrane. My daughter and I identified him a couple hours ago at the coroner’s office,” Membrane began.
Dib’s eyes widened.
“The cause of death is still under investigation, and considering the body’s state, we will be holding a closed casket funeral. It will still be open to the public, however—we will be holding a public funeral—and we do hope you can offer us your presence and respect in this trying time. As to our shareholders’ pressing need for an answer, we will continue working as we have. Our efforts to make the world better and more available for everyone through innovation are still our main objective,” he said. “I will make the papers official in due time, but for now I can advance that the future of Membrane Labs will be in my daughter’s hands. She has proven time and time again to be a capable executive and a brilliant scientist. Thank you all for your time, but we should go make preparations to say goodbye to my son.”
The screaming questions kept coming as Membrane saluted the public and let the security guards escort him and Gaz towards his vehicle. The censored picture of a mangled corpse came up as the anchor rambled further about last night’s case, but Dib couldn’t make sense of the words.
Dib’s hand went slack and he dropped the fork he was still holding. Blinking was painful when he managed. He could only register that the loop had resumed and there was a murmur among the people at the lunch hall.
He was...dead...
He was dead to the world, divested of his identity completely for legal purposes. Disposed of in the woods… He had officially died and didn’t exist. What had been an informal fact for years on end was now a reality.
Dib hadn’t realized he was walking until he stopped at the elevator, pressing his card to go to the final floor of the tower. Walking on autopilot, guided by memory alone, he was on his way to his father’s old office.
A heavy weight settled on his chest and it was becoming hard to breathe. His hands were sweating. Every one of his impulses said that he needed to find his clone to get answers.
“He killed a nobody and you think he can’t actually dispose of you. It’d be easy. Convenient.” A whisper inside his head.
“But I need answers,” he retorted faintly, his vision blurring. Everything seemed to be stifled by Membrane’s words: Goodbye to my son.
“He has to say goodbye to my face,” Dib insisted angrily through his teeth.
The elevator stopped and the music interrupted his thoughts, making his head pound in pain. He looked around as he climbed out, and walked to a door at the end of a long hallway filled with devices and laboratories of all sorts.
Would Membrane even be around? The question assaulted Dib as he walked around like a zombie, poking in and out of empty areas as he tried to juggle his memory. He wasn’t sure if it even mattered, or what he’d exactly do if he found out—
“I don’t like this, dad.”
Gaz’s voice from the office at the end of the empty hallway.
Dib walked faster. A tight, painful lump had formed in the middle of his chest, seemingly trying to pull him back.
“This isn’t about what you like or not, Gazleen,”
Membrane’s voice sounded cold and angry. Dib froze in place, suddenly terrified, the lump taking control over his limbs and bringing his movements to a screeching halt.
“But Dib’s still—” Gaz began in her usual raspy, seething tones. She sounded especially miffed, somehow.
“Dib is dead, Gazleen.” Dib felt dizzy. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Footsteps came towards the door. Despite Dib’s desire to stand his ground and face this man, even spit in his face, the primal fear inside him was taking the lead and pulling him to find shelter. He quickly sneaked into a side lab, leaving the door slightly ajar to watch them from the darkness.
They walked in silence, Membrane at the front, Gaz following behind with eyes downcast and fists tight. Dib couldn’t even take any joy in knowing she was mad at Membrane, because she still...still...
And Membrane stood tall, so tall. Hair long, uniform pristine, posture strong and demanding of respect. Dib felt every joint in his body trying to melt with the embarrassment of belonging to an inferior clone. He looked away for a moment, unable to bear the sight, and when his eyes returned to the hallway they were both gone.
Instinctively, Dib closed the door of the lab he was hiding in and laid his back against it. He was breathing heavily, blinking away tears, his knees feeling like they’d turned to mush. He wanted to scream but his voice had abandoned him, he struggled to breathe as he slowly sat on the floor, feeling absolutely helpless.
“It was a matter of time”, said the voice at the back of his mind."They haven’t cared about you for years, why would they even keep pretending you’re alive? To them, you’ve been dead for a long time. You’re useless, you have always been useless. An entitled, proud, stupid, arrogant failed experiment.”
One last stab to his sanity as he trembled, paralyzed, on the floor. He hugged his legs, feeling like a waste of space.
He should have said something. He should have done something. Anything would have been better than cowering behind a door and letting them walk away.
“But you didn’t. You’re too weak.”
...
It took Dib a long time to open his eyes. Face buried in his knees, arms hugging his legs, he wanted nothing more than to succumb to the void. But reality slowly began to creep back in, and eventually, his head rose and his eyelids parted.
It took his vision a good while to take in the dim surroundings. Feeling lost, he tried to identify what exactly this small lab room was for, this far up on the building. A couple counters with testing equipment here and there, some computer in the far corner and...What?
Smack dab in the middle of the room, several life support tubes were embedded in the floor. The strange liquid filling them emitted an ominous blue hue. Most were empty with the exception of one, just a few feet from the entrance, where a small fetus sat developing.
The dark hair protruding out of its large head in a distinctive fashion horrified him.
He got up and approached it. Seeing it up close, the similarity became more apparent…
Dib screamed in anger for what seemed to be hours, scratching his face and wanting to tear apart his skin, punching the floor, crying, enraged.
What is a man if he’s been divested of life itself? What is an individual if he can’t afford to be unique? He was a shadow now, an imperceptible passing of air better left ignored. So he screamed and fought against the absolute nothingness left for him, the last sick gift given by his father, his creator, himself.
Maybe the voice inside his head was Membrane all this time.
Dib placed a naked hand on the tube, looking at the embryo and then at his reflection; his own amber, empty eyes looked back at him…
He growled and gave the glass one punch that felt great, then another, and another, and it exploded around his hand by the time he’d started crying and screaming again. Amniotic fluid flowed onto the floor as the fetus fell out, dragged by the current, landing not far away from Dib. He stepped forward and quickly disabled the alert on the screen next to the tube.
The small fetus started moving and Dib took a few deep, ragged breaths before stepping on its big, horrible head.
He told himself that he was saving it from having a life like his, as he heard its skull snap and crunch under his foot. He told himself that it was Membrane’s fault while he stepped on it again and again, until it was just an indiscernible mass of meat, blood, and bones.
...
The sound of the elevator music now pierced his ears. He looked at himself in the elevator mirror, gathering his thoughts, as he went down to the first floor. He half-ran most of the way through the building, in a haze, looking down to conceal his distraught state.
“Forgot something in my car,” he said before the security guard could chase after him.
At the car, he opened his trunk and pulled out his computer, a portable hard drive, several USB drives, and two rustic-looking devices he had made himself, stashing everything in his overalls. Luckily the uniform was far too big for him anyways, so he could easily carry the devices without any suspicious bulging.
Leaving a “Cleaning in Progress” sign by the cart, Dib entered the seventh floor service bathroom. Pulling out his tools inside the first stall, he set to work, starting up a program to loop the security camera feed he’d made after he found Zim’s cameras in his first apartment. There was a distant spark in his chest this time at the thought of Zim, overridden quickly by the cold void left from being stripped of his right to die.
If Dib died now, no one would know. He couldn’t even do that on his own terms. “Will anyone care if you die? Maybe all of those loved ones you have? Friends? Lovers?” the Demon parroted, digging in the wound. The tears stung in his eyes, but Dib kept focus,
He thought of Gaz and him as children, stealing food before the appointed time for dinner, fighting over the TV and spending time together on quiet nights when Gaz had hurt her little fingers designing her Teddy Bear/Security System. Odd, soft moments in the Membrane household, Gaz sleeping through the end of a movie, the three of them sharing conversation at dinner once a year, rare laughs...
Luckily, it was an easy 15-minute job to get into the main server. He searched in every folder from the root and uncovered hidden files in Membrane’s laptop. When he saw the folder named D.I.B., his hands stopped, retreating from the keyboard, but only for a moment as he dove back and he cracked his way in. Setting off a logic bomb in the server’s root and two more in Gaz and Membrane’s computers felt right and loosened his chest when he started having trouble breathing again. All they needed was a click or a command in the wrong place at the wrong time for everything on those computers to be obliterated. By then, Dib would be long gone.
He put everything back in his overalls as fast as he could, pulled his device out of the wall circuit, pushed it into his pocket, and ran out of the bathroom. By the time he emerged, the sun was setting and light rain stained the windows at the end of the corridor.
He was in and out of the elevator in a blink, pushing his used cart onto a corner and changing back into his clothes, and wrapped his hand in toilet paper to stop the bleeding he just now noticed was there. Pulling his coat on, he settled everything he’d used into pockets and the backpack with the worn Swollen Eyes symbol. Giving one last glance at the camera and pushing his broken glasses up his nose, he turned and left.
As he walked to the back door, fiddling with the hard drive in his pocket, he said “I quit,” to the coordinator. She barely looked at him, replying an uncaring “Fine, we’ll send your check in the mail.” He threw the access card and clarence badge on the floor as he went for the back door.
...
Hastily driving away, Dib pulled into traffic in a wide maneuver. Other cars honked at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He lowered his window. When the fresh air hit his face, he started taking deep breaths, trying to cope, wary of how desensitized he was.
It all finally came back in a blinding rush at a red light, full throttle. First, the crack of the small skull under his foot, making him nauseated. Short of breath, sweating and feeling as if something had punched him in the chest, Dib had to stop in a Bloaty’s parking lot to puke. He spat up bile mixed with the bits of food he had consumed at lunch.
Later, he found himself gasping for air at the supermarket—standing in line with his six-pack of cheap beer, ignoring his expenses for the month, the unemployment, the encroaching homelessness. Dib was somewhat aware of people taking a step away from him, but he no longer felt like he cared about people…
“It’ll be $4.35.”
Dib threw a ten dollar bill at the cashier and left for his car.
Finally he parked in the suburbs and pulled his laptop out, heart still beating at an irregular pace and a feeling of impending doom clinging to him. Dib silenced his phone, which was already full of missed calls and curse-filled texts from Gaz, asking what the fuck was he thinking?
To be perfectly honest, he had no idea what he was thinking, and he was pretty sure he’d be worried in the morning. It would matter then…
The first file on the D.I.B. folder he’d downloaded opened at the same time Dib managed to open his first beer.
Had he locked his car?
The subject has been incubated to a length of 10 inches—
He should've bought another beer. This fucking thing just evaporated on his lips. Dib threw the bottle out of his car window without a care, watching it shatter onto the sidewalk. Then he went for another one. And then another, and another….
—10 months old, findings show that the mixture in his DNA and enlargement of his head are abnormal—
His feet walked on their own. Where was he even going? Had he locked his car?
—insufficient response to neural stimuli. Subject will be aborted according to protocol ISO—
Ah, right, Zim's, he was going to Zim's house. Great.
Successful incubation for Subject 13. Given name: Dib Membrane.
Dib walked past the gnomes and only then realized he had the backpack in hand. Pulling it up against his chest, he pushed the door open and stepped in.
“TRESPASSER!” screamed GIR, eyes wild, jumping from the couch. Dib flicked a bottle cap onto the floor. The little robot’s eyes went back to an innocuous green, and he let out an insane laugh as he went after it.
Pushing a big red button badly hidden on the wallpaper, he sighed and watched the sofa disarm, giving way to the platform that would take him to the bowels of Zim's base. How the media hadn’t managed to barge into Zim’s house and uncover his evil plans was a wonder to him. Or was it that Dib had special access for some reason?
He wobbled on his feet, fuck, he had drunk that last bottle way too quickly… Dib pressed a hand over his face, feeling too exhausted to give a shit.
Subject 6 died last night of prenatal issues. Autopsy programmed—
"Ugh," he whimpered, and bit his lips as images of open meat, failed organs, blood, and entrails from the failed clones’ autopsies flashed in his mind. Opening his eyes to see the purple lighting of Zim’s lab in contrast to the bright lights of the shaft made him blink slowly.
There was a cannon to his face in a second and Zim hovered on his mechanical limbs, blocking his path.
“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING, YOU DISGUSTING WORM?” the alien screamed angrily.
Dib stared into his eyes, wanting to collapse in his arms, no matter if he'd find nanobots or devices on him come morning. He craved something for a moment… Just a moment...
But instead he just pushed the cannon aside without comment and crouched to duck between Zim’s mechanical limbs.
“INSOLENT HUMAN, I COULD OBLITERATE YOU FROM YOUR PATHETIC EXISTENCE, WHAT KIND OF RESPECT ARE YOU SHOWING TO YOUR FUTURE OVERLORD!!”
The rant went on and Dib could’ve answered, but he couldn’t find the energy to make the words come out.
He had to do this. Have his little piece of justice.
Almost there, Dib thought as he approached the large incinerating machine Zim had set up at the lower levels of his underground base. He knew Zim often used it to quickly scrap projects that were going nowhere. Looking at a screen that read “Incineration in Process” in Irken, he punched in the command to open the hatch.
Feeling the heat from the closeness, standing there, for a moment Dib thought about just throwing himself in. Ending it all.
Zim's hand reached for Dib’s sleeve, softly holding Dib’s wrist as he threw the backpack. It contained the hard drive, his computer and flash drives. And all that was left of the D.I.B. project files.
Dib sighed, pressing the option to close the incinerator on the screen. There was a deep silence in the room. He could swear Zim's hand was shaking on his wrist,
“Did the Dib just read Irken…?” Zim observed in a whisper, and Dib pulled his glasses off, opening and closing his mouth. Unable to put his grief into words.
Zim caught him as he fell to his knees and Dib caught Zim back, embracing his nemesis and sobbing. Unable to form a single word, he closed his eyes tightly, feeling Zim’s hand on his head and back.
“What is this? Dib, what happened? Zim demands an explanation!”
Dib couldn’t talk. The regret, the pain, the realizations and the implications for what he'd seen and done…it was all too much.
The Invader pulled away, pushing him back. Dib couldn’t make out Zim’s expression thanks to the tears in his eyes.
—defective eyesight. Still he does show the intellectual level demanded—
Dib let out a shaky breath and shook his head. Zim’s hands clawed at his arms and he huffed, pulling Dib back into the embrace. Dib cried harder, afraid that he’d remember Zim’s hands on his neck and rubbing his upper back as he yelled commands to his computer.
Sadness and love heaved in his chest as they always had, battling with self loathing and paranoia from his mind. Because this couldn’t be real and Zim hadn’t just pulled him into a hug, because he was just a disgusting human and didn’t deserve this kindness after everything he’d done. Irkens weren't kind anyway.
But if anyone in this stupid, insane world could understand right now, it had to be Zim.
----
The news anchor droned on with a preoccupied expression.
“The hacker team left a digital mess in their servers, and there’s a suspicion that a specialized team was involved in the operation."
The security head being interviewed spoke up. “We found broken containers and experiments, so it seems it was a team effort. We’ve apprehended a few suspicious individuals already, and questioning will begin shortly.”
"To remind the viewers: Yesterday, Professor Membrane announced that they finally found his long lost son, Dib Membrane. Unfortunately, the young man was found dead and the family is mourning. Is that right, Mr. Heal?" said the anchor, tapping his pen against the papers in front of him.
The old co-host nodded and continued, "That's right, Ken. And on top of having to deal with this grim news, poor Professor Membrane's private laboratory was vandalized. A lot of important research was destroyed, the attack disabled a good chunk of the computers in the building including two main servers and the private computers of both the professor and his daughter, Gaz.”
“The only lead we’ve got at the moment is about a terrorist group interested in stealing Membrane’s top secret research on human development,” the host finished “More on this story as it develops."
There was a picture of a blurred, bloody mass surrounded by glass and what looked like charred dust. Zim's eyes adjusted to the image, and his antennae dropped down as he looked at the reconstructed image of an infant human with its skull flattened and cracked, bloody black hair in a familiar shape.
The Invader sighed in understanding and looked down at the man on his lap, stroking his hair as he slept quietly.
“You made him pay,” he smiled. “Good Dib.”
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