**Chapter 3**
**(a grim fate)**
I stood on the front porch of Dib's house, contemplating weather or not I should ring the doorbell. I had never been to Dib's house, and for good reason. I was just a little intimidated by his dad, Professor Membrane, this great scientist. I was always a little shy around even remotely famous people, and especially Dib's dad. I tugged on the sleeve of my heavy black sweatshirt, which I had put on in an attempt to cover up any sign that I had a Pak. Squinting slightly, I pushed the doorbell and held my breath, praying with all my might that Dib answered the door instead of his Dad.
*WHAM* The door hit the wall as it was slammed open.
"What do you want?"
I stood, staring dumbfounded at the girl standing in the doorway in front of me. She was a few inches shorter than me, had dark purple hair, and was wearing the meanest scowl I had seen in a good long time.
"I… Um… Is Dib home?" I asked, still staring at the girl.
"Upstairs." She said, leaving me at the doorway and flopping on a nearby couch, grabbing her Game Slave 2 and furiously playing away.
"Um… thanks… I guess." I mumbled, scooping up Gir and walking inside, closing the door behind me and looking for the stairs. Once I caught sight of them, I scampered across the room and bounded up, looking around frantically for Dib. Upstairs, all I found was a hallway of closed doors, one of which had Vampire Piggy Hunter II pictures all over it, and the other which had a UFO poster. I guessed that the UFO one was Dib's, so I knocked on the door lightly.
"Um… Dib?"
The door swung open, Dib standing there, looking confused. Suddenly he smiled. "Rem! Hi! Um… Hi!"
"Who was that girl downstairs?"
"Oh, Gaz? She's my sister. She can be a little intimidating at times, but really she's--"
"Oh, cut the small talk, Dib, I need your help." I shoved past him, closing the door behind me and locking it. I was still holding Gir under one arm, but he wasn't squirming anymore.
"Erm… help?" He asked, looking quite startled after my outburst. "With what? Did… YOU HAVE ZIM'S ROBOT!"
"Duh. That's what I need help with, sort of." I put Gir down on Dib's floor, taking off his make-shift leash which I had made out of a jump-rope. Gir immediately unzipped his costume and jumped out, running laps around Dib's room.
"You know that backpack thing Zim has?" I asked Dib.
He squinted slightly. "Yes…"
"Well, look at this." I said, lifting up the back of my shirt and sweatshirt, revealing the Pak connected to my spine.
Dib gasped. "Y-You're an alien like Zim! You're one of them! AUUUUGH!" Dib tackled me, pinning me down on the ground, thrashing at me like crazy.
"AAH! NO, IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! DIB, GET OFF! I'm not an alien, okay?" I yelled at him, tossing him off of me and panting. "I'm not an alien! I found Gir on my windowsill and took him home, and he gave me this Pak thing. It… It attached to my spine and I can't get it off. Gir said it was a 'present from Master'. And I….. I just need help….."
Dib stood there, with an odd look on his face. A look that was a combination of confusion, anger, and sadness.
Suddenly, Dib spoke up: "Zim… uses that 'Pak' think as some kind of utility gadget… I've seen him use it before, he's even used it on me once or twice."
"Well, what does it do?"
"I've seen him use it as like some kind of transportation before, looks like spider legs, and as a communication device, among other things. There was this whole organ thing a while back… Man, were YOU lucky to have been sick that week!"
"Oh." I said, slightly relieved, albeit confused about the organs. I was worried at one point that the Pak might have been some kind of explosive. "But then why did he give ME one?"
Dib shrugged. "Don't ask ME how his twisted little mind works. Here, let me see it again."
I lifted up the back of my shirt again, and Dib poked at the Pak with a screwdriver that was conveniently lying next to his bed.
"Maybe I can just… Tweak this here…"
"OW! Damn, dude, seriously!"
"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Dib said, and then sighed "Well, that thing's not coming off anytime soon. I have no idea why Zim did that to you. It's odd though…"
"What's odd?"
"Well, Zim's Pak looks like this…" Dib grabbed a piece of paper and drew a quick sketch of Zim's Pak, and then handed it to me.
"Yeah, I know, he never takes the thing off." I said. "Now I know why…"
"Anyway, Zim's Pak looks like that, but yours is almost completely different. I've seen other Paks before, one on this alien named Tak, and it was almost identical to Zim's… But yours….. Wow." Dib was getting excited again. I could tell that I was going to be there a while.
"Wait, you said it attached itself to your spine? Ouch. Well, I'm almost sure that Zim's is attached to his spine too, so that just might mean something…"
"What? What something?" I asked.
No reply.
Too late now. I had lost him. Dib was off in "Paranormal Happy Land" and there was no bringing him back at this point. The only thing I could do now was wait.
"Here, follow me…" Dib grabbed my hand and dragged me across his room, Gir running around my ankles, in his doggy suit again. Dib let go of my arm to open the door, fumbling with the knob.
"Um, Dib… I locked it."
"Oh, oh yeah. Heh…" Dib unlocked the door and swung it open, racing down the stairs. I was trying as hard as I could to just keep up with the guy.
Dib turned a sharp corner and swung into a room I hadn't noticed before. I ran in after him, and found myself staring at who else but Professor Membrane.
"Dad! I need to use your lab!" Dib was saying to Prof. Membrane, looking as enthusiastic as ever. Professor Membrane sighed and glanced over to his son, then turned back to whatever experiment he was working on.
"As long as you don't explode any more atomic gene splicing plasma rays, it's fine with me."
"Dad, that was almost a year ago…"
"And I only hope that it remains a year ago, and not something that may happen this very afternoon!" the Professor said, whirling around on his swivel chair, holding up a metal key ring with great flourish.
"Have you any idea how unstable those plasma rays are, son?! Just the thought of my cold fusion powered DNA producing plasma ray EXPLODING in a fiery inferno is enough to terrify ANY man!" I gulped, still staring at the Professor.
"Here you go, son! Make sure you don't kill yourself OR your little friend!" Professor Membrane said, handing the keys to Dib.
"Alright, thanks dad! C'mon Rem! So much to do, so little time!" Dib yelled over to me, already out of the room and rushing down the hall. Enthusiasm seemed to run in this family.
I still stood there, slightly shocked that Dib could get this energetic. Professor Membrane, sitting near me, sighed.
"My poor, insane son."
~*~
"This place is… huge!" I gasped, looking around in wonder at Professor Membrane's lab.
"Yep. What were you expecting, some store-bought chemistry experiments set up in our garage?" Dib laughed at his little "joke", but I wasn't paying attention.
"Now, where is it?… AHA! Dad's old DNA analyzer! C'mere Rem!"
I reluctantly walked over to Dib, not quite sure what he was going to do with the painful-looking device. Before I could stop him, he grabbed my hand and thrust it into a slot. "You should feel a little prick… That's all…
Just like he said, I felt a tiny, quick jab, right in the center of my palm. I pulled my hand out, rubbing it slightly, frowning that Dib hadn't really warned me about what he was going to do.
"What was THAT all about?" I asked him, still rubbing the tiny dot in the middle of my hand where the device had poked me.
"Oh. This thing's a DNA analyzer. It just took a tiny sample of your blood and it's analyzing the traces of DNA in your blood cells. Now, I'm just doing this to see if my theory is correct…" He trailed off.
"What? What theory? Dib, you have a theory?" I searched his face for any traces of comprehension, but he was just standing there, smiling at the little machine. I frowned again. Now didn't seem like the time anyone should be smiling, especially not Dib.
The device beeped slightly, and Dib smiled even wider. He rushed over to one of the many huge computers lining the laboratory, and plugged the DNA analyzer into a slot, using a wire he pulled out of the back of the device.
Instantly, the huge screen attached to the computer flickered on, showing something that looked remotely like what we looked at under the microscope in science, but with numbers and random letters streaming along the sides. I looked again at the part of the screen that showed the microscope-stuff. It was pretty nasty, compared to the little freeze-dried, dead amoebas we looked at in science. The screen showed several large clumps of spaghetti-ish stuff twisted together and stuck inside of what looked like bubbles inside of bubbles, with various other blobs sprinkled in here and there. I stared at the spaghetti things, and I realized that they were clumps of DNA. However, they didn't seem to be acting very… DNA-ish. They were twitching, and seemed to be crumbling apart before my very eyes. After a while, I realized that the other blobs that were sprinkled in among the bubble-like things were pushing through the bubbles, attacking the DNA. They were causing large portions of the DNA stuff to fall off, and those parts were replaced by what looked like the parts that fell off, only somewhat blurry and greenish.
As I watched this miracle of science taking place on the screen, Dib spoke up, interrupting my thoughts. "See, now those clumps of long things are your DNA, and they're surrounded in your blood cells, inside the nucleolus of the cell's nucleus," he pointed at the screen, indicating the outer bubble surrounding the DNA as the cell and the inner bubble as the nucleus. "Those… blobby things are some kind of highly advanced disease, which came from that Pak. They're attacking your DNA and replacing whatever it attacks with some kind of foreign DNA."
"Oh," I replied, understanding what Dib said, but still in denial. "but wouldn't that mean that… That I'm going to…"
"Yep. Change. I'm still not certain WHAT exactly you're changing into, because it's too early on to tell, but my guess is--"
"I get it now…" I interrupted. "I'm turning into what Zim is! Oh God….. I'm….. I'm turning into an alien."
"Yep," Dib said, still smiling. I felt like I could strangle him. Who smiles at times like this? Who?
"And at the rate those blob things are destroying your DNA, I should be able to tell for sure in….. oh, two weeks."
"Two weeks?!? That long? Isn't there some way that you could- Why the heck are you smiling like that?!?" I shouted at Dib, who was smiling wider than ever.
"Don't you get it?" he asked excitedly. "Zim's trying to turn you into an alien!"
"Aaaaand?…"
"Well, obviously, He's trying to, I don't know, make another minion out of you or something. BUT, once you're Irken, and you can use that Pak, you can help me battle Zim!!!"
He stood there, smiling at me, even though I still didn't get it. "And… how would I do that?" I asked, trying not to sound as stupid as I felt.
"Aw, c'mon Rem! Remember what I told you? Zim uses that Pak like a utility backpack!! Once you can figure THAT thing out, we can beat Zim using his own technology! It's genius!" He said, looking like he had already defeated Zim.
"Well… I… No! No Dib, that's where you're wrong! I am NOT going to help you with this little plot you have here!"
"But Rem, we--" "I don't care Dib! There's no 'We' in this little plan of yours!" I was yelling at him, tears now dripping down my cheeks, even though I wasn't sure why. "I'm not helping you… I… I don't want to be an alien…" I fell to my knees on the floor, realizing how toddler-like I was sounding. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that Dib was still in the room staring at me.
"Rem, I'm… I'm sorry." Dib said, looking both sorry and disappointed. "You… you don't have to help me. But really, I can't help you otherwise. I wish I could, but obviously, there've never been any other cases of this, so there isn't any known cure…" Dib trailed off, now looking me in the eyes. I knew he was right, and I knew I probably should help him, but I wasn't anywhere near ready to actually do that. "I could take you to my dad, but he wouldn't do anything to help you. He doesn't believe in aliens or anything like that. He just wouldn't believe us…"
He trailed off, and put his arm on my shoulder in a feeble attempt to comfort me. I swatted it off, and rose to my feet once again. "Fine. Then I have no reason to be here. I'm going to go home and figure this thing out on my own." Hot tears were burning in my eyes again. "Er… Thanks for the information Dib. I guess I'll see ya' around," I said, even though I was furiously mad at Dib. I wasn't about to let him know that, however. I stormed away towards the exit and grabbed Gir, whom I had tethered to a nearby machine with the jump rope I was using as a leash. I hurried out the door of the lab and across the living room, where Gaz, the girl I had met when I first came to Dib's house, was still playing her GS2 on the couch.
I was full-on sobbing now, running across the room and out the door, closely followed by Dib, who called after me: "Wait! Rem! I'm sorry! I really am!" He trailed off, watching me run down his walkway away from his house. Gaz stopped playing for a moment and glanced over to Dib.
"You have the WEIRDEST friends…"
**(a grim fate)**
I stood on the front porch of Dib's house, contemplating weather or not I should ring the doorbell. I had never been to Dib's house, and for good reason. I was just a little intimidated by his dad, Professor Membrane, this great scientist. I was always a little shy around even remotely famous people, and especially Dib's dad. I tugged on the sleeve of my heavy black sweatshirt, which I had put on in an attempt to cover up any sign that I had a Pak. Squinting slightly, I pushed the doorbell and held my breath, praying with all my might that Dib answered the door instead of his Dad.
*WHAM* The door hit the wall as it was slammed open.
"What do you want?"
I stood, staring dumbfounded at the girl standing in the doorway in front of me. She was a few inches shorter than me, had dark purple hair, and was wearing the meanest scowl I had seen in a good long time.
"I… Um… Is Dib home?" I asked, still staring at the girl.
"Upstairs." She said, leaving me at the doorway and flopping on a nearby couch, grabbing her Game Slave 2 and furiously playing away.
"Um… thanks… I guess." I mumbled, scooping up Gir and walking inside, closing the door behind me and looking for the stairs. Once I caught sight of them, I scampered across the room and bounded up, looking around frantically for Dib. Upstairs, all I found was a hallway of closed doors, one of which had Vampire Piggy Hunter II pictures all over it, and the other which had a UFO poster. I guessed that the UFO one was Dib's, so I knocked on the door lightly.
"Um… Dib?"
The door swung open, Dib standing there, looking confused. Suddenly he smiled. "Rem! Hi! Um… Hi!"
"Who was that girl downstairs?"
"Oh, Gaz? She's my sister. She can be a little intimidating at times, but really she's--"
"Oh, cut the small talk, Dib, I need your help." I shoved past him, closing the door behind me and locking it. I was still holding Gir under one arm, but he wasn't squirming anymore.
"Erm… help?" He asked, looking quite startled after my outburst. "With what? Did… YOU HAVE ZIM'S ROBOT!"
"Duh. That's what I need help with, sort of." I put Gir down on Dib's floor, taking off his make-shift leash which I had made out of a jump-rope. Gir immediately unzipped his costume and jumped out, running laps around Dib's room.
"You know that backpack thing Zim has?" I asked Dib.
He squinted slightly. "Yes…"
"Well, look at this." I said, lifting up the back of my shirt and sweatshirt, revealing the Pak connected to my spine.
Dib gasped. "Y-You're an alien like Zim! You're one of them! AUUUUGH!" Dib tackled me, pinning me down on the ground, thrashing at me like crazy.
"AAH! NO, IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! DIB, GET OFF! I'm not an alien, okay?" I yelled at him, tossing him off of me and panting. "I'm not an alien! I found Gir on my windowsill and took him home, and he gave me this Pak thing. It… It attached to my spine and I can't get it off. Gir said it was a 'present from Master'. And I….. I just need help….."
Dib stood there, with an odd look on his face. A look that was a combination of confusion, anger, and sadness.
Suddenly, Dib spoke up: "Zim… uses that 'Pak' think as some kind of utility gadget… I've seen him use it before, he's even used it on me once or twice."
"Well, what does it do?"
"I've seen him use it as like some kind of transportation before, looks like spider legs, and as a communication device, among other things. There was this whole organ thing a while back… Man, were YOU lucky to have been sick that week!"
"Oh." I said, slightly relieved, albeit confused about the organs. I was worried at one point that the Pak might have been some kind of explosive. "But then why did he give ME one?"
Dib shrugged. "Don't ask ME how his twisted little mind works. Here, let me see it again."
I lifted up the back of my shirt again, and Dib poked at the Pak with a screwdriver that was conveniently lying next to his bed.
"Maybe I can just… Tweak this here…"
"OW! Damn, dude, seriously!"
"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Dib said, and then sighed "Well, that thing's not coming off anytime soon. I have no idea why Zim did that to you. It's odd though…"
"What's odd?"
"Well, Zim's Pak looks like this…" Dib grabbed a piece of paper and drew a quick sketch of Zim's Pak, and then handed it to me.
"Yeah, I know, he never takes the thing off." I said. "Now I know why…"
"Anyway, Zim's Pak looks like that, but yours is almost completely different. I've seen other Paks before, one on this alien named Tak, and it was almost identical to Zim's… But yours….. Wow." Dib was getting excited again. I could tell that I was going to be there a while.
"Wait, you said it attached itself to your spine? Ouch. Well, I'm almost sure that Zim's is attached to his spine too, so that just might mean something…"
"What? What something?" I asked.
No reply.
Too late now. I had lost him. Dib was off in "Paranormal Happy Land" and there was no bringing him back at this point. The only thing I could do now was wait.
"Here, follow me…" Dib grabbed my hand and dragged me across his room, Gir running around my ankles, in his doggy suit again. Dib let go of my arm to open the door, fumbling with the knob.
"Um, Dib… I locked it."
"Oh, oh yeah. Heh…" Dib unlocked the door and swung it open, racing down the stairs. I was trying as hard as I could to just keep up with the guy.
Dib turned a sharp corner and swung into a room I hadn't noticed before. I ran in after him, and found myself staring at who else but Professor Membrane.
"Dad! I need to use your lab!" Dib was saying to Prof. Membrane, looking as enthusiastic as ever. Professor Membrane sighed and glanced over to his son, then turned back to whatever experiment he was working on.
"As long as you don't explode any more atomic gene splicing plasma rays, it's fine with me."
"Dad, that was almost a year ago…"
"And I only hope that it remains a year ago, and not something that may happen this very afternoon!" the Professor said, whirling around on his swivel chair, holding up a metal key ring with great flourish.
"Have you any idea how unstable those plasma rays are, son?! Just the thought of my cold fusion powered DNA producing plasma ray EXPLODING in a fiery inferno is enough to terrify ANY man!" I gulped, still staring at the Professor.
"Here you go, son! Make sure you don't kill yourself OR your little friend!" Professor Membrane said, handing the keys to Dib.
"Alright, thanks dad! C'mon Rem! So much to do, so little time!" Dib yelled over to me, already out of the room and rushing down the hall. Enthusiasm seemed to run in this family.
I still stood there, slightly shocked that Dib could get this energetic. Professor Membrane, sitting near me, sighed.
"My poor, insane son."
"This place is… huge!" I gasped, looking around in wonder at Professor Membrane's lab.
"Yep. What were you expecting, some store-bought chemistry experiments set up in our garage?" Dib laughed at his little "joke", but I wasn't paying attention.
"Now, where is it?… AHA! Dad's old DNA analyzer! C'mere Rem!"
I reluctantly walked over to Dib, not quite sure what he was going to do with the painful-looking device. Before I could stop him, he grabbed my hand and thrust it into a slot. "You should feel a little prick… That's all…
Just like he said, I felt a tiny, quick jab, right in the center of my palm. I pulled my hand out, rubbing it slightly, frowning that Dib hadn't really warned me about what he was going to do.
"What was THAT all about?" I asked him, still rubbing the tiny dot in the middle of my hand where the device had poked me.
"Oh. This thing's a DNA analyzer. It just took a tiny sample of your blood and it's analyzing the traces of DNA in your blood cells. Now, I'm just doing this to see if my theory is correct…" He trailed off.
"What? What theory? Dib, you have a theory?" I searched his face for any traces of comprehension, but he was just standing there, smiling at the little machine. I frowned again. Now didn't seem like the time anyone should be smiling, especially not Dib.
The device beeped slightly, and Dib smiled even wider. He rushed over to one of the many huge computers lining the laboratory, and plugged the DNA analyzer into a slot, using a wire he pulled out of the back of the device.
Instantly, the huge screen attached to the computer flickered on, showing something that looked remotely like what we looked at under the microscope in science, but with numbers and random letters streaming along the sides. I looked again at the part of the screen that showed the microscope-stuff. It was pretty nasty, compared to the little freeze-dried, dead amoebas we looked at in science. The screen showed several large clumps of spaghetti-ish stuff twisted together and stuck inside of what looked like bubbles inside of bubbles, with various other blobs sprinkled in here and there. I stared at the spaghetti things, and I realized that they were clumps of DNA. However, they didn't seem to be acting very… DNA-ish. They were twitching, and seemed to be crumbling apart before my very eyes. After a while, I realized that the other blobs that were sprinkled in among the bubble-like things were pushing through the bubbles, attacking the DNA. They were causing large portions of the DNA stuff to fall off, and those parts were replaced by what looked like the parts that fell off, only somewhat blurry and greenish.
As I watched this miracle of science taking place on the screen, Dib spoke up, interrupting my thoughts. "See, now those clumps of long things are your DNA, and they're surrounded in your blood cells, inside the nucleolus of the cell's nucleus," he pointed at the screen, indicating the outer bubble surrounding the DNA as the cell and the inner bubble as the nucleus. "Those… blobby things are some kind of highly advanced disease, which came from that Pak. They're attacking your DNA and replacing whatever it attacks with some kind of foreign DNA."
"Oh," I replied, understanding what Dib said, but still in denial. "but wouldn't that mean that… That I'm going to…"
"Yep. Change. I'm still not certain WHAT exactly you're changing into, because it's too early on to tell, but my guess is--"
"I get it now…" I interrupted. "I'm turning into what Zim is! Oh God….. I'm….. I'm turning into an alien."
"Yep," Dib said, still smiling. I felt like I could strangle him. Who smiles at times like this? Who?
"And at the rate those blob things are destroying your DNA, I should be able to tell for sure in….. oh, two weeks."
"Two weeks?!? That long? Isn't there some way that you could- Why the heck are you smiling like that?!?" I shouted at Dib, who was smiling wider than ever.
"Don't you get it?" he asked excitedly. "Zim's trying to turn you into an alien!"
"Aaaaand?…"
"Well, obviously, He's trying to, I don't know, make another minion out of you or something. BUT, once you're Irken, and you can use that Pak, you can help me battle Zim!!!"
He stood there, smiling at me, even though I still didn't get it. "And… how would I do that?" I asked, trying not to sound as stupid as I felt.
"Aw, c'mon Rem! Remember what I told you? Zim uses that Pak like a utility backpack!! Once you can figure THAT thing out, we can beat Zim using his own technology! It's genius!" He said, looking like he had already defeated Zim.
"Well… I… No! No Dib, that's where you're wrong! I am NOT going to help you with this little plot you have here!"
"But Rem, we--" "I don't care Dib! There's no 'We' in this little plan of yours!" I was yelling at him, tears now dripping down my cheeks, even though I wasn't sure why. "I'm not helping you… I… I don't want to be an alien…" I fell to my knees on the floor, realizing how toddler-like I was sounding. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that Dib was still in the room staring at me.
"Rem, I'm… I'm sorry." Dib said, looking both sorry and disappointed. "You… you don't have to help me. But really, I can't help you otherwise. I wish I could, but obviously, there've never been any other cases of this, so there isn't any known cure…" Dib trailed off, now looking me in the eyes. I knew he was right, and I knew I probably should help him, but I wasn't anywhere near ready to actually do that. "I could take you to my dad, but he wouldn't do anything to help you. He doesn't believe in aliens or anything like that. He just wouldn't believe us…"
He trailed off, and put his arm on my shoulder in a feeble attempt to comfort me. I swatted it off, and rose to my feet once again. "Fine. Then I have no reason to be here. I'm going to go home and figure this thing out on my own." Hot tears were burning in my eyes again. "Er… Thanks for the information Dib. I guess I'll see ya' around," I said, even though I was furiously mad at Dib. I wasn't about to let him know that, however. I stormed away towards the exit and grabbed Gir, whom I had tethered to a nearby machine with the jump rope I was using as a leash. I hurried out the door of the lab and across the living room, where Gaz, the girl I had met when I first came to Dib's house, was still playing her GS2 on the couch.
I was full-on sobbing now, running across the room and out the door, closely followed by Dib, who called after me: "Wait! Rem! I'm sorry! I really am!" He trailed off, watching me run down his walkway away from his house. Gaz stopped playing for a moment and glanced over to Dib.
"You have the WEIRDEST friends…"