Invader ZIM/JtHM crossover. Not appropriate for children due to violence (duh!) and language.
As always, the characters in this work of fanfiction were appropriated with neither the consent nor approval of their original creator, Jhonen Vasquez, or copyright holders Slave Labor or Nickelodeon.
IMMUNITY: Chapter One
by rueyeet
No one ever believed him.
After so many years, he should have been used to it. His best chance to show everyone--the world, his classmates, his father--that he wasn't some lunatic chasing urban legends and old wives' tales had vanished in a truly spectacular explosion the day that he'd finally cornered Zim. Even the megalomaniacal little alien had had to admit that he was finally, inescapably caught. Unfortunately, Dib hadn't known that the Irken military thoughtfully provided all of their soldiers with a self-destruct device. He'd only just had time to dodge behind the empty lunch counter before half the cafeteria was taken out by the blast, leaving not so much as a trace of Zim's existence, not even a bit of residue for samples. Stunned, he'd stood rooted until it occurred to him that all of the advanced alien technology Zim's base offered was his for the taking. Dib had run all the way to his enemy's lair. Apparently the Irken Empire had thought of that, too. It was all gone--the house, the underground secret base, even the gnomes. Only some rough holes in the ground and in the walls of the neighbors' houses gave any evidence that anything had been there at all. That--and a screw-like device about the size of his fist.
He'd never managed to figure out what it was or what it did, aside from the homing signal. He imagined that Zim's beloved Tallest had probably thrown one heck of a party upon receiving that particular transmission, though. Of GIR, there was never any trace.
Life after that had been pretty much like life had been before Zim came to Earth: a constant struggle against the doubt and ignorance of everyone around him, without a single real hope of ever being able to prove them wrong. At least, not unless the Irken Empire suddenly changed its mind and decided to be interested in Earth. Part of him hoped that they would. He'd come to look at those few years of his life as the good old days.
Dib had certainly tried to pursue his dream of becoming a paranormal investigator, but it had become progressively, painfully clear that it wasn't the kind of thing that kept a roof over one's head. Still, it had given him a wide range of what other people saw as "marketable skills," so he was able to land a job in the city forensics department, combining his knowledge of science and investigative techniques to do something that would make a real difference. He had introduced new methods and technologies that had streamlined the department's operations, radically improved the accuracy and speed of DNA analysis, and teased admissible evidence from even the smallest traces. Yet, vexingly, he wasn't held in any higher respect for this, even if they recognized his intelligence. He was still weird mad-scientist Dib, puttering away in the lab until the wee hours of the night, appropriating the department's resources for his own personal research.
Not tonight, though. Tonight the usual freakish creatures and reports of alien sightings were not his concern. Dib was tantalizingly close to finding the person responsible for the citywide killing spree that had left so many victims so messily, sickeningly dead.
Dib couldn't quite remember when he'd become so obsessed with the case. There had been a point where he realized, over yet another solitary lunch in the corner of the break room, that nothing from any of the killings--and by then, there had been a staggering number of them--had come through the lab. Asking around, he'd discovered that no one seemed to be in charge of the investigation, though everyone had plenty of speculation to offer. Bit by bit he had begun to collect the files, asking people if they minded if he took a look, or simply rifling through their overflowing inboxes after hours. Those files now occupied an alarming amount of space in the spare filing cabinet in the back corner of his cramped little office. After it occurred to him to look, he had found that the number of missing person reports had risen dramatically as well.
At first, he'd been unable to understand why nothing had been done. How could everyone just ignore that many murders? As he digested the information, though, the apparent negligence became clearer. The sheer volume of incidents had made proper investigation practically impossible. The morgue couldn't keep up, so autopsies were not performed; often the only documentation of an incident was the initial police report. And the locations, circumstances, and victims were so random that there were simply no leads. There was no M.O., either--the killings had been performed with such an astonishing variety of weapons and implements that no pattern could be inferred. In fact, other than the sheer volume of deaths, there was nothing to indicate any link between incidents at all. It was as if the city had suddenly become home to a convention of deranged spree killers.
In short, no one had done anything because no one knew what could possibly be done.
Next to this, his preoccupation with the world's many unresolved mysteries paled. Next to a full-scale alien assault, this was the most real and immediate threat he'd ever seen. Maybe more so--everyone these days knew someone who knew someone else who had fallen to this mysterious predator. And he was the only person, apparently, who was in a position to do anything about it. Dib hadn't felt so vital, so alive since he had been the only thing standing between Earth and the might of the Irken Armada.
And so he went to work. He visited the sites of the killings in his off hours, picking up even the tiniest fragment that might provide a clue so long after the crime scene crews were gone. He went down to the morgue and examined the more recent corpses, taking what notes and samples he could. He analyzed every bit of hair, every partial print, every fiber, every particle of every substance he had collected. He entered the data into the systems he had devised, looking for connections. And slowly, ever so slowly, he was able to draw a few fragile conclusions.
The murder weapon was often improvised, like the spork used in the infamous Taco Hell incident. Anything and everything became a tool of violence, or was modified to the purpose. Curiously, though, only a few of the murders involved guns. The victims had been dispatched in endless permutations--stabbed, slashed, beaten, bludgeoned, gouged, strangled, maimed, blown up, and even tortured--but only very, very rarely had they been shot. At least not with a gun--there were several incidents involving a bow and arrows.
However, there did seem to be a marked trend towards the use of knives. The same two knives, in fact--what autopsies had been done supported this, and Dib had added some of his own examinations to be sure.
Most of the fibers Dib had been able to pick up from the victims that did not match to their own clothing were black. He began increasingly to feel like the similarities he was uncovering were not coincidence; that a pattern was emerging.
Only a few of the victims had been sexually assaulted, a depredation that was often associated with serial killers. That had been the most uncomfortable expertise Dib had had to acquire to pursue this case. As he refined his data mining with further details, he found that the sharp implements those unfortunate souls had been slain with were not the same knives favored in so many of the other killings. In fact, the marks left by these blades were very unique. Dib swallowed nausea. Someone out there had designed tools specifically for this. Those incidents had started somewhere over a year ago, and ceased several months later.
He was coming more and more to the conclusion, however improbable, that the same individual was responsible for all of the innumerable deaths the city had seen in this wave of killings. This person dressed in concealing black, yet routinely left bodies out in the open and sometimes even killed in broad daylight. Such carelessness could point to a desire to be caught, or to general stupidity, or perhaps to insanity; yet the range of lethal implements used pointed to no small amount of creativity, and sometimes even to a macabre sense of humor. Only the sexually motivated killings didn't quite seem to fit.
He'd tried to discuss this theory with his colleagues, only to have it dismissed as just more random speculation. No one was willing to have a serious conversation on the subject, and people seemed to forget the details as soon as he'd shared them. Soon he gave up.
Tonight he would finally see if he was right. He had finally collected enough samples from enough different incidents for a meaningful DNA analysis.
Carefully, he fed the samples into the computer one by one, logging each one with the incident numbers he had assigned. He went to make another pot of coffee while the system isolated the DNA sequences and collated the vast amounts of data. After what seemed like an interminable wait, the results were available.
There were a mere two distinct DNA profiles across the entire set of incidents! He was right! And--yes--he saw that one of the profiles was associated almost solely with the sexually motivated incidents. A copycat, then. It occurred to Dib that the cessation of such incidents might not be fortunate coincidence. But--more or less--he was right!
From here it would be possible to begin to track the two perpetrators down. Dib quickly requested a probable physical description from the DNA workups. According to the computer, both suspects would be of average height and light build, dark of hair and eyes. Not unlike himself, Dib thought wryly. He told the computer to run the DNA, prints, descriptions, and other physical evidence against the national crime databases. Fidgeting with impatience, he absently sorted through his files as the request was processed.
The sky outside grew discernibly lighter as he waited. The early birds would be into work within the hour. Damn it, he didn't want to have to wait another night for this! It wasn't his fault the FBI's servers were slow! Come on, he silently implored the computer, come on...Finally the computer bleeped in success. Quickly, Dib skimmed the results.
The second suspect, the one who'd molested his victims, was most likely one James ---. From what the query had been able to pull, he was your standard troubled kid with a record of disciplinary incidents and socialization issues who had proven unable to form satisfactory relationships in his adult life. Not much mystery there. Dime a dozen. Interestingly, a missing person report had been filed on him around the same time the associated killings had stopped. Apparently his mom had noticed when he didn't come home to his room in her basement. That case remained officially unsolved, but the routine DNA sample collected from his room matched. Dib smiled grimly to himself. Looked like Mr. ---- wouldn't be giving anyone any more trouble, and at zero taxpayer cost.
For the primary suspect, however, there was nothing. Not a single sealed juvenile record, not a single arrest warrant or traffic stop. As far as the world of law enforcement was concerned, he didn't exist. It was as if the guy had gone from being a perfectly law-abiding citizen to an amazingly prolific spree killer overnight. Dib shook his head, incredulous. Such a thing was unheard of. No one went from having no previous issues, no record, no nothing, to...that. There were almost always indications, red flags, something, once all the records were available.
But there weren't any. There was nothing at all.
His enthusiasm deflated, Dib sat back from the computer. He chewed absently on the end of his pen, deep in thought. It looked as if the rest of the case would have to be solved the old-fashioned way. He'd focused first on the forensic analysis, but there was more than one way to track down a suspect. It didn't take long to bring up the locations of his carefully numbered incident files and feed them into the department's geographical information system. In short order, he had a map of the city splattered in red dots, one for the site of each killing. Sure enough, though no part of the city had been completely neglected, there were definite areas of higher density. Dib outlined those areas, then printed out the map. Now they'd know where to look. The rest was a matter of some legwork by the detectives, and they'd put this murderer behind bars where he belonged, or maybe in a padded cell. Dib wasn't normally the vengeful sort, but he thought that if ever there was a case for the death penalty, this would be it.
The biggest case of the last five years, and he'd all but solved it! He imagined the detectives telling the TV crews how they'd never have caught the suspect without him, imagined himself interviewed on the nightly news. The city would be restored to the relative peace it had known before the killings began, and all due to his hard work and insight. In his mind's eye, a series of promotions was quickly followed by the revival of his paranormal career, respect in his true field...perhaps even the host spot for Mysterious Mysteries!
Hearing footsteps in the hallway, Dib shook himself out of his self-congratulatory reverie. He quickly made backups of his work for home, and logged out not a moment too soon. Before he could be forced to explain himself to anyone, he dodged out the other door and away. He'd write everything up over the next few days, and then they'd all see.
It was strange to drive home and realize that his customary route led through one of the killer's most heavily targeted areas. It was even worse to have to stop for gas right where the dots were most thickly congregated. Dib hurried through the transaction, wishing that the gas would pump itself faster, looking nervously around.
And then Dib saw him.
Across the street and down a building or two was a convenience store. Incredulous at his luck, Dib watched the thin man exit the store, sipping a drink; watched him stop and eye the loiterers outside distrustfully, hand straying towards the backpack he carried. Dib held his breath. The man fit the first DNA profile perfectly, and was clad head to toe in black. More than that, his every movement--the focused intensity of his gaze, and the readiness in his stance--set off every instinct honed through Dib's many years of chasing paranormal phenomena. The group outside the store glanced at the man, and away. Dib watched his hand come away from the backpack, and fish in his pocket for keys as he started to walk to his car.
Hastily Dib turned back to his own car. Seeing it fully fueled, he grabbed the receipt and got the car started as fast as he could. He pulled out, cutting someone off, and craned his head around, looking for the dingy and much dented gray hatchback. Luckily, his target had gotten stopped a couple of lights ahead, and he was able to follow the suspect into the downtown area, park nearby, and trail him down the street without being spotted.
Or so he thought. However, when he rounded the corner and looked at the sparse crowds still out after closing time, the killer had vanished. Dib couldn't figure out where he could have gotten to, not with so little cover. He waited a while, walking back and forth along the stretch of street where he'd last seen the man, but eventually had to give up. After one last look around, Dib walked back to his car. The caffeine's effects had faded, and disappointment conspired with fatigue so that he was suddenly exhausted. He drove home, threw himself into bed without bothering to undress, and was sound asleep in seconds flat.
The next several days blurred into each other, lack of sleep making it seem to Dib as if he was merely repeating the same day over and over. Each morning, the alarm roused him from fitful dreams of toe-tagged corpses silently shaking blood-splashed maps at him amidst a whirling storm of papers. Each morning, he got in late, and once at work, a dozen other cases demanded his attention. Coffee mug by his side, Dib waded his way through each day's lab work, returning to writing up his report on the mysterious killer the moment the last of his co-workers had left the lab. With painstaking care, he presented his theory, arranging the most relevant and convincing details so that no one could possibly dispute his conclusion.
Each night, when he could concentrate no more, he drove downtown and wandered around, hoping for a glimpse of the thin young man he'd seen before. Dib was all but certain that this person was the perpetrator of all of the dreadful murders so clinically discussed in his report. He knew that he should wait, that he should leave this sort of thing to the detectives and field agents, but he felt such an oppressive sense of urgency that he couldn't help himself. Maybe it was the dreams.
Dib couldn't have said how many days had passed before he saw his suspect again. Catching his breath, he swiftly tucked himself into a doorway as the man passed him, carrying the same backpack, headphones leaking the noises of music played too loud. Dib edged out and followed after, weaving through the crowds as he tried to keep the man in sight. Despite his best efforts, he lost his quarry again. He sighed, and walked back to his car.
As he unlocked the door, he heard a voice behind him. How could anyone have gotten so close without him hearing footsteps?
"Hello."
Dib's vision exploded in stars that faded quickly into the dark of unconsciousness.
