"Dib! Dib wait!" Dib had no desire to deal with anyone right now, especially not Zim. How could the Irken have been so, unbelievably stupid? So thoughtless? So fucking heartless? There was no reason for Dib to ever want to hear that loud, grating voice ever again.

"Don't fucking talk to me. Ever." He didn't turn around despite the flurry of PAK legs clinking on tile that echoed in the hall behind him.

"I know you're upset, but really it isn't that big of a deal-" as Zim tried to defend himself, Dib could stand it no longer. He had let Zim off the hook too many times. This was bullshit.

"August 29th." Dib said the date through gritted teeth, eyes narrowed.

"Wait... no this is December, isn't it?" Zim looked to Skoodge and Voel who had followed in the pursuit of Dib, though the Membrane Clone noted how neither jumped to Zim's defense.

"August 29th is the day that thousands of humans died. That is the day a military AI decided that humans were a problem and launched weapons indiscriminately into cities and countries alike. You should know that date, Zim, it has been covered every year in class."

"Yes well, it's just that you said it so suddenly. You confused me." Zim had the gall to look offended by Dib's comment.

"Earth used to be a whole lot fucking better than it is now! There never used to be military grade drones running the halls of the elementary school! There were never government officials getting deployed for something like lice! Our space program took a huge hit because we were having to put all of our funding into defense to stop another attack like that! We used to give out candy and chocolate on Valentines and now it's slabs of meat because meat is considered a more valuable product after so many animals were contaminated by the radiation. "

"Okay, you are upset. Zim can see that-"

"No!" Dib cut the ex-Invader off once more. "This isn't quirky, this isn't cute. You betrayed me Zim. I trusted you! I have stuck by you ever since you got banished here and you go behind my back and do this!? What the fuck were you even thinking!"

"Why don't you take a moment-" Skoodge was going to make an attempt to defend Zim, but Dib wasn't about to hear it. The last Irken he trusted would be Skoodge- the scarily competent Invader.

"Don't you daredefend him!" He could feel blood rushing to his face, his eyes were burning. Everything felt like a bad fever dream.

Zim was supposed to be his friend.

"It's not as bad as you are making it out to be!" Zim tried to insist but his logic was falling on deaf ears. Dib could barely stand to look at him.

"You have no idea how bad it is! You can't even begin to understand-" he was tripping over his own words. He couldn't fathom the level of backwards logic Zim was using to justify what he had done. This wasn't some sort of misunderstanding. All of the Irkens had vocalized an understanding of the events of the past. They all seemed to know about the disaster- the after effects still plaguing Dib's home.

"Dib, please." He heard that heavy, clunking, metal step behind him. He felt his blood freezing in his veins. All at once that cold, synthetic voice caused a wave of nausea to wash over Dib like a bucket of frigid water had been thrown in his face. He had never noticed before how unfeeling and inhuman that voice sounded- devoid of life. "Do not yell at him."

"You have a shit ton of nerve to talk to me after what I found out." Dib's voice felt like it might cut out at any moment, though he was able to stay eerily calm. Yelling would prove nothing to an unfeeling machine.

"Do not be upset. I am nothim."

"You are made from him."

"I am not a monster; we are friends."

"We are not fucking friends. We never were. You inserted yourself into my life like a virus that wouldn't go away. You were in my home..." the more he thought about it, the more his stomach churned. "Myfamily was with you." The horror set in, leaving him light headed and weak.

Oh God...

His family had been right in CB's clutches. He could have gotten in the lab and just...

Moira... his dad...

Even Gaz...

Gone.

"I would never hurt your family-"

"Bull-fucking-shit!" Finally, Dib whirled around on his heel to face CB. The mask, pallid skin, the other worldly glow of the lights on the helmet- it all had some sort of dissonance to it that caused Dib's eyes to hurt. His vision was already blurred from the tears stinging in his eyes. He couldn't stomach looking at Zim's abomination any longer than he had to- but he needed CB to see how little Dib cared about him in the moment. "Diego Isandro Bolivar."

"Excuse me?" The unfeeling metal monstrosity tilted its head to the side trying to feign confusion- an act that only made Dib even more upset.

"Do you remember him? Diego Isandro Bolivar?"

"I... I do not." The hesitation was making Dib seethe. "Unless you are talking about yourself or your father-"

"He was my grandfather. His name was Diego Isandro Bolivar, my dad was named after him." The name 'Membrane' had been something his dad had added to make them sound 'more scientific' in his own words. "He died before my dad was born. He died because you killed him."

"I... I am sorry for your loss." it seemed that Dib had stumped CB for the time being. He didn't recall CB every being at a loss for words before, but maybe being faced with the crimes he had committed in the past was causing some sort of short circuit. "But I did not do those things. I am not the same computer. The individual components that were used to construct me are not my identity."

"You sure could have fooled me." Dib spat the words in the construct's face. "You are always inserting yourself into technology you deem inferior. I am supposed to just smile and wave away all the times you have possessed my thing? My car? My phone? The Syndicate ship!? And through all of this you have the fucking audacity to pretend we're friends? You don't have the capacity for friends. You. Are. A. Murderer. I can't believe I ever fucking apologized to you about Tak's ship."

"I told you: LEO and I cohabitated peacefully in the Syndicate ship. I did not hurt him. You can ask!" CB sounded oddly desperate.

"And what about that other stuff? What about all the spying you've been doing on me since the very beginning!?"

"I was not trying to spy- I... I..." it did not seem to be an error causing CB to stumble on his words, but rather, the AI seemed truly upset. "I wanted to talk to you more because I have always found you interesting. Father always said that you were the cleverest human to ever live. I admire you." That... that was something Dib had never heard before.

Zim?

Zimheld him in high regard?

Zim thought he was the cleverest human?

Well it was far too late for flattery to change Dib's mind. If Zim really thought so highly of him he would never have delved into Earth's ugly past for his own, twisted sense of self satisfaction. What sort of friend gave life to your killer and then kept it from you? That was fucked up even by Irken standards.

"You can't admire anyone. You are a cold, unfeeling machine. You only know logic and calculations. Q was right about you from the very start. The first time I met him he tried to warn me that I was working with something that could never care about my wellbeing. He knew what you were from the fucking start!" Dib looked over at Q who was simply watching everything unfold with a blank expression. It was a little odd that he wasn't grinning, drinking up the misery like it was his very life-force. (Which maybe it kind of was?) "You saw this all coming, didn't you?"

"I am going to say: yes."

"I should have listened to you." Dib turned to go back down the hall. "I won't be lied to by my so-called friends any longer. I am going to tell Captain Rose what you did."

"Wait no!" Voel finally spoke. Dib had not talked much with the Almighty Tallest since he arrived. Honestly, Voel had been kind of stand-offish since the beginning of everything (and he was a little intimidating to just approach out of nowhere). "I understand that you are upset, okay? ...But we need CB to help us save our home. He is the only thing we have that can train our Rebellion to fight. If we don't use him, our people will be torn apart by the Irkens under the Control Brains. We need him."

"Oh yeah? Well, what if I wanted to use a Control Brain to help save Earth? Would you be happy?" Dib shot back. Voel faltered for just a moment. It was Zim who actually spoke, though for the first time in a while, he was quiet, unsure of himself.

"I... He... he is a Control Brain..."

"Zim that'sworse!" Dib was completely in disbelief.

"But we still need him. You are understandably upset, but we need CB. If the Captain finds out she will shut him down. If we fight her on it, we lose our Syndicate backing- what little of it we have at least." Again, Voel was trying to appeal to Dib's reason. But the clone knew he had just not made an apt enough comparison. If Voel was overlooking the Control Brain aspect of CB then Dib would have to think of a better way to express how deeply this hurt him.

"Would you be arguing the same if I was trying to team up with Xia?" He didn't turn around but he could hear the sound of PAK legs unsheathing.

"Do not," Voel's voice was very cold, "say that name in my presence. "

"That is what I fucking thought." Dib had his confirmation. He had struck where it hurt, in a wound still fresh. He took off down the hall, he was ready for this to be over. Using the machine that had willingly killed so many people that his planet was still reeling from the aftermath - that was too much of a knife in his back. Zim had never hurt him like this before. Dib hadn't thought his friend- no- his former friend was capable of such a blatant disregard for him.

He kept running through the Syndicate base, trying to focus on what needed to be done. Trying not to think about all the times he had spent talking to CB late at night about the Irkens and the universe. He tried to push memories of movie-nights with Zim out of his mind. This wasn't something he could bring himself to forgive. This hurt. This really, truly hurt. Maybe his subconscious had mistaken his emotional pain for physical because he had somehow ended up in the medical wing. Maybe he was too distracted to properly navigate.

"Hey Cadet Membrane!" Pawl, the felinoid medic that had arrived on the Solar, waved as he came in. Dib had been spending a lot of time in the medical bay. Partially due to the combat training, and partially for personal reasons. "You look a little frazzled. Is something wrong?"

"I... is Lor busy?" The words were out of his mouth before he even had the time to process them.

"I mean... probably..." Pawl looked him up and down for a moment, "but I think he needs a break. Hang on, I'll grab him." The Syndicate had been pretty receptive to Dib ever since he first joined. At the beginning, Captain Rose had been reluctant, but now she was pushing him harder than ever. Dib actually enjoyed training with them, the Syndicate had a wide reach in the universe, and the education they offered was the most exciting thing Dib had in his lifetime (including the time Dib fought using Venus as a weapon). There was so much beyond Earth- but despite all of that, despite all the bullying and cruel jokes growing up- Dib loved his home. The fact that someone he called a friend would risk everything...

"Diego?" Pawl had returned with Lor in tow. The raven-haired doctor looked completely floored by Dib's sudden appearance. (Either that, or Dib looked worse than he though.) "You look pale, do you need something to drink?"

"Something with alcohol, maybe." Dib scoffed. "What is that drink you were going on about the other day? The pangalactic gargle-blaster?"

"Yeah... how about no? I think we need you conscious. " Lor looked to Pawl and some sort of silent conversation must have taken place between the two because Pawl nodded to him and Lor looked back to Dib. "I was just heading out for a walk; you want to come with me?"

"Actually? Yeah. Kind of." The cold winter air sounded surprisingly good after all of the heat that had built up in his face from his anger. Though, the cold often made his piercings sting in his face. (This time of year, Dib allowed his facial scruff to become more of a beard- though Captain Rose had him keeping it trim and nice. Any guard against the cold was welcome.) Dib followed Lor to an exit he had no idea even existed and they somehow found themselves leaving from the back room of the History building. "Wait does this base link to multiple academic buildings? I thought it just had the entrance in the Science Building closet."

"There are like a dozen or so entrances scattered through all of the major structures. It is so Captain Rose isn't late to any of her meetings."

"I thought she only taught science..."

"She has lunch meetings with human faculty friends she has made." Lor shrugged. "As much of a pain as this crash landing was, I think she'll miss Earth. We all kind of will. I know I will. But my favorite human is Syndicate now, so I don't have to worry about leaving him."

"Kyle from your Research and Analysis class?" Dib smirked. He was starting to feel a little better as the chilled wind struck his face.

"Yes. He takes the best notes." Lor took Dib's arm, steering him down a path to one of the emptier areas behind the main part of the campus. The snow has mostly been cleared off the main pathways, but since it was still actively snowing, this little area was already covered with a decent dusting. Dib felt the satisfying crunch of snow under his boot as he and Lor walked until they found a little area with a partially covered bench, overlooking a frozen pond.

"You can warm up the bench you know." Dib made a motion to represent lasers coming from his eyes.

"That would set it on fire." Lor responded, sounding amused.

"Yes, but it would be warmer." Generally, Dib hated the cold. When he was younger, he was convinced the government had created winter specifically to spite him. However, now that he was an adult, he realized the government had created winter to spite everyone. Snow was nice for about three days and then it quickly lost its luster.

"You look a little better," Dib looked down to see Lor staring back up at him with icy blue eyes.

"I think getting out is helping." Dib looked back over the frozen pond.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Dib sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes. "Maybe..." It might help to tell someone. Dib trusted Lor, they had been spending a lot of time together since Dib's discovery that Lor was an alien. Dib took a deep breath, he put a hand to Lor's shoulder, meeting his gaze. "Do you... know about the incident on August 29th?"

"Of course. The radiation levels on your planet still haven't evened out in many places. It seems to still be having an adverse effect on a majority of Earth's populace." Dib shivered, he could pretend it was the cold, but the chill inside him was far more biting. Something about Lor's sentence just left him feeling queasy all over again.

"Y.. yeah..." Dib pulled his arms around himself as if that would help warm the frozen pit of his heart. Lor noticed the shivering and pulled Dib closer to him. His body temperature was higher than that of a human, Dib wasn't sure how Lor had convinced anyone in the medical profession he was anything other than an alien. Otherwise, it would just seem like Lor had a constant fever.

"Do you need to go back in?" Lor sounded concerned.

"No. I kinda like it out here..." Dib didn't know what to say. He was having trouble putting into words just how he felt. He was so angry, but also just... sad. Since childhood, Zim had been Dib's arch-rival-turned-best-friend. They had spent hours trying to one up each other. Zim had given Dib a cause. On the lonely nights when Dib's father would work late, it was Zim who kept Dib company. For a while Dib had seen Zim as a threat, but as he got older, he realized Zim was one of the only constants in his life. The very idea that Zim could stoop to such a level...

It kinda hurt.

"Zim must have unearthed the computer that caused the disaster. " Dib's voice cracked, his eyes stung and he wasn't sure why he was falling apart like this. "And he u-used it to make CB." He took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice. "That thing killed my grandfather... I remember grandma talking about him..." he hadn't thought about his grandparents in years. He hadn't thought about the sad look on his grandmother's face when she would recollect the days before that fateful night. The way she would look at his father's robotic inventions with both fear and disappointment.

Dib wasn't sure when he had started crying, but the next thing he knew, Lor was hugging him tightly as tears were leaving freezing streaks along his cheeks.

"That must have been really hard..." Lor's voice was sympathetic, warm. Dib tried to pull himself together but the thought of Zim using that... that thing... made him fall apart all over again.

"I'm sorry I don't even know why I'm upset like this-" Dib started to talk but Lor shook his head.

"You don't need to apologize; emotional displays are healthy; especially in times of great duress." Arms tightened around Dib's shoulders (Lor had to be floating or something to reach, because they had quite the height difference). "Zim is your best friend, right?"

"I... thought he was." Dib mumbled bitterly, resting his cheek on the top of Lor's head.

"So him doing something like this must have been difficult to swallow. You have every right to be sad. Honestly, I'm happy you came to me to talk about this."

"You and Gaz are about all I have left to trust." He felt tired. Part of that could have been from combat training with Captain Rose, for sure, but a vast majority of the fatigue was emotional. Dib felt as if he had been hit by a bus. "And you lied to me for like two months about not being an alien."

"I did. But I apologized. " Lor smiled just slightly.

"You did." It all seemed so far in the past, chasing Lor like a suspect, interrogating him with CB, trapping him with Zim. It had been less than a year, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Now he was a cadet in a space military, helping save Zim's home planet from immanent destruction. "But you guys never looked into the computer that tried to kill us all..."

"I mean we looked to make sure it was still inactive, which it is." Lor admitted. "We would have destroyed it had it been online."

"It is online. Kind of. It's CB. I have to tell Captain Rose." Dib finally lifted his head back up, looking down at Lor.

"She'll shut him down for sure. " Lor replied. "Something that dangerous can't be associated with the Syndicate. She can't ignore protocol." That made sense. CB was a danger. He needed to be shut down before he remembered the grudge he had against the humans.

"The Irkens won't like it. They think he is key to helping save their planet." Dib wasn't sure why, but the realization that Captain Rose would completely shut off CB wasn't making him feel any better. At least, not in the way he thought it would.

"Well I can kind of see why. Irkens have a strong link to technology. They have a vast well of knowledge attached to their neural system, but it needs to be controlled and regulated by an external force. It is both their greatest weakness and greatest strength."

"But why would Zim even use that computer!?" Dib's stomach was in knots, his eyes were stinging again.

"Because he was desperate. Irken technology probably wasn't taking to less advanced computers. Sadistic as it was, that machine was the pinnacle of human innovation." Lor was surprisingly calm. Dib wasn't sure what he had expected, maybe Lor to yell and get Captain Rose himself. But he remained level-headed. "I am not excusing what Zim did, it was wrong. But... he was probably acting out of desperation. I doubt he was thinking at all; nevertheless, thinking about how it would hurt you. What he did was wrong, but the way you described your relationship, I don't think he did it with malice. He doesn't seem to have the best grasp of repercussions on his best days, so it's doubtful that he considered them when he was at his worst."

"I mean..." Dib trailed off. He remembered how erratic Zim had been acting in the days before he had started CB. While his Irken friend wouldn't tell him what was wrong, Dib had seen him lose his luster. Zim would spend days inside, refusing to interact or go to school. He wouldn't talk much and when he did it was very cold, angry. He would disappear for long periods of time until one day he seemed back to normal and had begun discussing upgrades to his security system. With Zim being that down and out, it was entirely possible the realization of what his actions would mean to Dib, had never crossed his mind. "It still doesn't make it right." Dib was at a loss.

"No. It doesn't. " Lor agreed. "But you would probably do the same if it was Earth at stake."

Would he? Dib thought about Earth being taken over by aliens, how he would react if only the Control Brains or Xia was the key to his planet's survival.

(He had only met Xia twice, but even in his hypothetical situation, she was intolerable.) Would he go to them if it meant saving Earth, even if Zim would be devastated?

Yes. He absolutely would do anything to protect his home, his family. It was one of the main reasons he was upset. He had trusted CB around his family only to learn that a part of him was a confirmed killer. At any point in time CB could have...

"Lor, what if he had hurt my family?" Dib looked to Lor who had snow dusting his dark hair.

"Do you think he would do that?" Lor met his gaze.

"Before I knew the truth? I had thought about it only at the beginning. He never seemed aggressive, he and Gaz actually got along. It is just scary to think at any moment he could have seized control of my dad's lab or something. It is full of all kinds of crazy weapons- whether they were intentionally weapons or not- they could have hurt a lot of people." Dib was mad, but the frigid winter air was helping cool his temper. "I wonder how much of that murderous AI Zim actually used..."

"Hard to say, but he doesn't act like the original AI, I would think. Even if Zim used some of the same hardware, it's how CB developed that matters. After all, you're a clone, aren't you?" Lor gave a little shrug. Dib had never really discussed that he was a clone before with Lor save for a brief mention of it during his health screening to get into the Syndicate. Dib had enhanced strength and reflexes, despite wearing glasses, his other senses were increased. He was his dad's prized work (though apparently Moira had been the genetic consultant on the project, which was frustrating to learn.) "Genetically identical to your father, but you are pretty different people."

"We really are." Dib shivered again and Lor pulled a little closer. As he did so, Dib felt his phone still in his pocket. He pulled it out, looking down at Lor. "Hey do you think you could do me a favor?" He tried to force a mischievous little smile.

"What...?" Lor looked concerned as Dib wagged the phone in his face.

"Can you hit a moving target with your laser eyes?" Lor's eyes widened as he looked thoroughly perplexed.

"Maybe?" He didn't sound sure but that just added to the fun. "But I've not really tried-"

"Hit it!" Dib tossed his phone out over the lake and Lor took his glasses off making an attempt to hit the tiny black box mid-air. With considerable effort, the lasers struck the phone mid toss and the flaming remainders sizzles through the ice of the lake. Of course, Lor had also hit a few branches of nearby trees, leaving burns steaming in the melted snow. "Nice shot." Dib put an arm around the startled Lor's shoulders, surveying the damage.

"Was it?" Lor's mouth had been drawn into a straight line, looking rather unconvinced.

"It wasn't bad." Dib gave a little grin. He reached up wiping the rest of the snow out of Lor's hair.

"Why did we just do that?" Lor put his glasses back on and crossed his arms across his chest, squinting at the little hole in the ice where the remains of the phone had fallen.

"CB has my phone hacked."

"Ah." He leaned a bit into Dib. "So then what will you do for a phone?"

"My dad will buy me a new one. That one was outdated anyway. And I destroy my phones all the time. Everyone in the family goes through them fast. I dunno what Gaz does to hers but she's replaced it three times this year."

"Until then, I can get you a standard issue Syndicate Communicator." Lor offered. Dib was excited by the prospects of a space-phone.

"Do you need to go back to work?" At the mention of the Syndicate, Dib realized he and the doctor had been missing for quite some time.

"Probably?" Lor gave a noncommittal shrug. "But you looked so upset, I figured you needed someone to talk to."

"I did..." he steered Lor back toward the main campus. "Thanks."

"You would so the same for me, I hope." He grinned up at Dib.

"I would." Dib leaned down, pressing his nose against the doctor's before briefly brushing their lips together.

It was true. Dib had never really had a lot of friends, but ever since Zim had helped him catch the Syndicate, Dib had gotten more social. For some reason it was easier to talk to aliens than his own kind. That had always been the case, even as a kid, Zim had been Dib's closest companion.

He just thought Zim would have known better than to dig up Earth's dirty past. It hurt that his best friend since childhood would have been so thoughtless.

But maybe that was all it was?

Thoughtlessness.

As they re-entered the Syndicate Base, Dib and Lor were almost instantly greeted by Carrius.

"There you both are, the Captain is calling a meeting." Before Carrius could even finish his summons, there was a commotion from the hall.

"PLEASE PLEASE LISTEN TO ZIM!" Zim dropped down from the ceiling where he must have been searching for Dib in the vents. (Dib wouldn't fit, but that just summed up Zim's logic.)

"Good," Dib ignored the pleas, "I need to talk to her anyway."

"Wait! Dib, please try to understand Zim!" Zim was in a fit, but Dib ignored the panicking Irken and followed Carrius down the hall.

"I promise I do not remember anything prior to Zim creating me." It seemed CB was still using his body. "Please, Dib... I am scared to be uncreated." Dib bit his lip, teeth catching the metal of the lip ring, as he tried to stop himself from responding. Carrius looked over, visibly confused.

"Are you guys having some kind of fight?" Before anyone could answer they nearly collided with Captain Rose and Captain Fluorine who were heading the opposite direction.

"There everyone is." She looked at the group, large blue eyes narrowed as she surveyed the anxious expressions on the Irken's face. Dib wasn't sure where Voel and Skoodge had run to, but chances were they weren't far. "Your Tallests are already in the meeting room. This is important."

"Before we get started, I just need to tell you something." Dib raised his hand slightly to get her attention. The Captain turned to look at him.

She'll shut him down for sure.

Lor's words resonated with him.

"What is it?" The Captain's voice broke Dib from his thoughts.

"Oh um..." he took a deep breath. "I broke my phone when Lor and I were hanging out. Do you think I can get a Syndicate Communicator?"

"Yeah we can get you set up for one." She waved her hand dismissively and Dib could hear the relief as Zim let out a breath he had been holding in. "We have communications with a ship trying to land here so it will have to wait."

"Right." Dib nodded. He felt a clawed hand grab at his.

"Thank you-" Zim began, but Dib jerked his hand away.

"I'm still mad. What you did was fucked up. It's just not worth losing your planet over."