Irken Flu
Gaz was nearing level 14 of Pig-O-Tron, and just as the Pig Lord was launching a Lard Bomb at her character, Dib said something.
"I'm beating level 13! Don't bother me!" she said.
"Gaz…"
"I'll destroy you if you make me die," she said. She dodged the Lard Bomb.
She heard a gagging sound and looked up just in time to see a wave of vomit coming toward her. She clutched her precious DSi to her chest in time to prevent it being soaked in bile.
Gaz sat dripping, every nerve in her body twitching for revenge. "So help me, you won't see another day," she said, but then she stopped as she realized what was happening right in front of her eyes.
Dib stood before her, shaking and slightly green in the face. His arms were wrapped around his body as if to hold off a chill. Even his hair drooped.
"Sorry Gaz," he said. "Zim did something to me. I feel horrible."
Gaz rolled her eyes. "Zim again? You can't blame the flu on Zim."
"It's not the flu. He injected me with something."
"Whatever," Gaz said. "Take a shower and go to bed. Dad will be home eventually – maybe."
Dib's face went white, and he sat down on a chair. He put his oversized head on the table. Gaz noticed a large splotchy rash on the back of his neck. It pulsated, rising and falling with a rhythm unrelated to Dib's breathing. She reached out to touch it, but she lost her nerve at the last moment and pulled her hand away.
"Dib, are you ok?" she asked. All she received for an answer was a groan. He reached up and scratched the rash. Greenish-white puss oozed from it.
"Gross. I'm calling Dad."
"Don't bother Dad," Dib said. She ignored him and pressed a button on her phone. Video Dad soared into the room.
"Gaz, I'm very busy saving the world. This had better be important." An explosion occurred behind him. "Stabilize the experiment!" he yelled amid screams. "If the Pigs-Bosun particle escapes we're all doomed!" He turned back to the screen.
"Dad, there's something wrong with Dib."
"I know honey, but try not to hold it against him. It's not your brother's fault he's insane. Why are you covered in oatmeal?"
"Dib did it," she said, and brushed at the vomit.
"Is that a new fad? Are you children oatmeal painting?"
"No," she said. "He threw up on me. Look." She pointed toward Dib. Video Dad moved forward.
"What's that on his neck?" the Professor asked.
"A rash, I guess. It's gotten bigger since I called."
"Hmm… Mrs. Semtry, hold all calls and experiments." Another explosion occurred behind him. "Saving the world will have to wait."
He hung up and Video Dad retreated to its alcove. Gaz sat near Dib, making sure to be behind him and out of vomit range. She felt like she should comfort him, but she didn't know how. She wished Dad was here; he always knew what to do.
"Dad's coming home," she said. It was the best thing she could think to say.
"I told you not to bother him," Dib said.
"Since when do I listen to you?"
Dib just sat there. The greenish cast had returned to his skin. She sat uncomfortably, waiting for their father and covered in vomit. She wanted to go clean herself, but she was afraid to leave Dib.
The Professor swept into the room in his larger-than-life way. "Dib, look at me," he said, his deep, rich voice filling the small kitchen. Dib looked up. His eyes were glassy and bits of oatmeal clung to his chin, even though most of it had landed on Gaz.
"I don't feel well," he said.
"I can see that," the Professor replied. He wetted a kitchen rag and wiped his son's face. He lay his hand across Dib's forehead. "You're burning up with fever."
He lifted his thin son effortlessly and shifted him to get a better grasp. "Gaz, get the door. No, not the front door. Get the lab door."
He tried to avoid the rash, but he accidently bumped it and green, luke-warm ooze leaked over his arm. A pungent sour smell filled the room, and he barely managed to hold down his lunch. He moved Dib into the laboratory. The lights came on automatically, and he settled the boy onto a medical bed. He busied himself attaching various monitoring machines.
"Zim injected me with an alien virus," Dib said. "He said he wanted to see how it affects humans."
"My poor, insane son," the Professor said. After washing the gunk off his own arm – just in case Dib was contagious – he drew some blood and began a few tests.
"Gaz, run upstairs and fetch me ice and some towels. I need to bring his fever down."
"Dad, is Dib going to die?" Gaz asked. "Not that I care or anything."
"Of course not honey," the Professor said. "I won't allow it."
When she returned with the supplies, she caught a quick glance of her father standing over Dib with his sunglasses in his hand. He wiped tears from his eyes. Gaz hadn't seen his eyes since her mother's funeral. Now she was really frightened. Fear wasn't something Gaz was familiar with, and she didn't know what to do with it.
"Dad? What do you want me to do?"
He put the goggles back on and took the towels from her. He placed ice on the towels and folded them over to make a cold pack. He removed Dib's shirt and placed a cold towel under his armpits. He needed to cool the vital arteries. He placed another over his head and across his neck.
He hesitated. "Gaz, go upstairs."
"Please don't make me leave," she said. "I want to be here if…"
"Ok, but turn around for a few minutes and give him some privacy." She did, and he pulled off Dib's pants. He placed a cold pack over the femoral artery. Dib whimpered and tried to remove the towel.
"Lay still son. Your fever is dangerously high." He pulled a blanket over Dib and sat down. "You can turn around now Gaz. We have to wait for the tests now. He'll be ok."
"Mom wasn't ok," she said.
They hadn't talked about his wife's death, ever. "That was entirely different," he said. "She had a lab accident. Dib is just sick. He'll heal." But as he looked at Dib's puss soaked shirt on the floor, he wasn't sure.
After a few minutes Gaz moved over to the bed and stared at her brother. Dib scratched at the rash. The Professor caught his hands and held them firmly. "You'll make it worse," he said. The rash had spread over his right shoulder and was working its way toward his chest. The Professor took a sample of the fluid that filled the rash and ran a test to isolate the compounds that composed it.
"I don't remember mom very well," Gaz said.
"Why so interested in her all of a sudden?"
"I don't know. I guess… Dib's usually so healthy. I was afraid he was going to die. Made me think about mom."
"She was brilliant. That's what drew me to her. She was a lab assistant, but she quickly moved up to be my partner. She was the only person who ever truly understood my work."
"Great, she was smart, but what was she like?"
"She was small – almost tiny. She was an intense woman, with a hot temper. I used to call her my little lioness." He stopped, distracted by memories of the strange woman he'd loved.
"And?" Gaz asked.
"She was obsessed with aliens, just like Dib. My poor, insane wife." He rubbed Dib's hair affectionately, an unusual gesture for him. The Professor didn't care for physical contact.
"She was different from any woman I'd ever met. She used to say that she was attracted to me because I was intelligent and tall. She wouldn't talk about her past. Whenever I asked her about it, she'd try to distract me by talking about alien invasions and impending doom. Sometimes I wondered if she thought she was an alien. She used to say she had been separated from her people and ended up on Earth by accident."
"Sounds like Dib," Gaz said.
"He does remind me a lot of your mother." He pulled a locket from under his collar. "Here, your mother always wore this. You keep it." Gaz slid the locket around her neck.
A buzzer sounded behind him. "That's some of the tests. I need to check the results. Watch your brother for me."
He fussed over the test results, leaving Gaz fidgeting by Dib. "Well?" she asked when he straightened up from the desk.
"This is disturbing," he said.
"How bad is it?" Gaz asked. "What's going to happen to him?"
"It will be easy to make a vaccine for him. What's disturbing me is that it is only contagious through direct contact with bodily fluid, and the DNA in the rash isn't human. I think I owe your mom and Dib and apology.
I think," he began, and his voice rose as he became more excited. "that this is ALIEN DNA!" He held the papers high in the air as a gesture of triumph.
He heard a weak cough from Dib. "I told you," Dib said.
"Yes, son. You told me. It makes me wonder how much your mother did know after all. Gaz, I have a suspicion. I'll need some of your blood."
"O…k?" Gaz said, but she let him draw some blood. As the Professor set about setting up more tests, she turned to her brother.
"Dad," she said.
"Not now, honey, I'm in the middle of some very important scientific research." She knew she'd lost him. He'd adopted the "save the world" tone to his voice.
"Dad!" she yelled.
"What?" he snapped.
She pointed to Dib. "I think you'd better hurry."
The rash had crept up the side of his face and partially covered his mouth, swelling it partially closed. It was dangerously close to his nose and to cutting off his oxygen supply.
The Professor turned to his work, rushing to find a cure. He only had a small amount of time. He created the vaccine and turned to Dib with a loaded syringe just in time to see the rash cover his nose completely. Dib's eyes shot open, and he clawed at his face. His eyes caught his father's and he lay still. The horror in Dib's eyes tore at the Professor's heart, but he forced himself to remain calm and inject the boy with the vaccine.
Dib's face began to turn blue, and his eyelids drooped. "No," his father whispered. "Don't do this Dib. Stay with me."
The rash began to retreat, slowly at first. It uncovered one nostril and Dib fought to bring oxygen into his lungs. The rash began to recede faster, and Dib gasped for breath with the new freedom of his uncovered mouth. As the rash disappeared, the Professor laughed and hugged his son.
"See Gaz, I told you it would be ok. There's nothing science can't solve."
An alarm behind him announced that Gaz' blood tests were complete. "Just as I suspected," he said as he read the results. "Your DNA isn't entirely human either."
"What does that mean?" Dib asked.
"I think your mother was an alien," the Professor said. "This apparently makes your research legitimate science, Dib. Congratulations."
He shook Dib's hand. "Since you're feeling better, I need to get back to the office. I'll write you a note for school tomorrow. Drink orange juice and get plenty of rest."
He was gone before they'd even had a chance to say goodbye. They were used to that though. He was only partly their dad. He mostly belonged to the world.
"Gaz!" Dib said. "Where did you get that necklace?"
"Dad said mom wore it all the time. Why?"
Dib had seen the symbol on the necklace many times – in Zim's base and on the videos of his communications with the Irken leaders. The stylized alien face leered at Dib from his mother's keepsake. Yes, Dib knew that symbol well. His mother had been an Irken.