The Discount Smeet by Dib07

Summary

It all started when Dib went to an alien market to buy supplies. He didn't realize he'd be coming home with a smeet. Only, the young smeet becomes Dib's whole world, and the human space explorer soon has to defend Zim against all those who want defectives dead.

Warnings

Sci-fi adventure. Light swearing. Peril. AU.

Declaimer

I do not own Invader Zim. However this idea and story is mine.

This gorgeous DAMNRIGHT GORGEOUS story picture I am using is not mine, it has been lovingly made by Alicartin! Please do not use without her permission. Thanks for reading!


Tigersfury: Ah, twas indeed!

Yep sure is: Nope, nope not cancelled! Noo nooo!

8confusedspider8: Thank you so much for discovering this! Hope yofu enjoy this latest instalment!

Naga: Yeah that part was dark! AND...DARK! But oh SO necessary! XD Hope you enjoy this sweeter chapter!


Dib07: Hi there all! It's been way too long since I last updated and I sincerely apologize. I had never meant this story to be left for so long, and don't worry, this story isn't cancelled or discontinued! I've been having some life issues. It's nothing major, but things have got on top of me lately, and I've been trying super hard to get this story out. I will finish it post-haste as soon as I can! I know you guys have been patient, and that you have been the BEST audience ever! Whenever I updated Saving Zim Epilogue you were all gunning for Discount! And I don't blame you! Cute baby Zim trumps anything else! So here we are! Again sorry for the delay! I hope the next update comes sooner than expected too! XD

Oh, as a side note, I am AMAZED and gobsmacked at the reviews suddenly pouring in for Saving Zim Epilogue to be updated! I cannnot ignore the sheer need and demand for this story to be continued. Honestly I had no idea it would be missed so much! So thank you all for sticking by it, even after all this time! And here I was thinking we were getting tired of a old crouchy Zim! XD I think I was very, very wrong thinking that! Thank you for your massive support! I will endeavour to answer your requests! Readers and reviewers come first, always.


Chapter Eleven: To Be Kind

"Rath? What are you still doing here? Your docking warranty has expired!"

"Yes, yes." He replied idly, his crimson eyes never wavering from the visual display. From the visual screen he watched that strange young human scrutinize the object he had found in the bathroom, admiring and loathing the device he had found like a curious giant inspecting a rather strange and unwelcome beetle that was especially grotesque. The lens was fish-eyed, lending Rath a bending view of the human's bland room. There was a big white trench standing up against a tiled wall. No, not a trench. It was a bathtub.

Axel stared long and hard at him through the open hatch of Hazmat. Though he was of a sleek and handsome length, he still needed to cling to the outside rails to peer in. Hazmat wasn't one of those low bearing scout ships. You needed a portable step ladder to climb to the cabin, or failing that, a quick swing on your PAK legs would do the job.

"White leper. Get going." Axel muttered before lowering himself from the rim of the cabin. Rath heard him, like he heard everything, and some things he chose to acknowledge, and some he chose not to.

"So you found my observer device." He said with a twist of a smile. "What will you do now?"

Dib looked less than his best as the human wobbled thick and full into the frame of the spy camera. He was growing strange dark stubs of hair on his chin. Wasn't that peculiar? And his eyes were bloodshot. Why did humans have so much white in their eyes: backed with little dark pupils? And why did they sprout so much hair on their heads?

He curtly clicked his claws and the visual screen folded into thin air. He leaned back, gnawing angrily on his lower lip.

He did not like the way he had left things.

And Irkens hated loose ends.

He must have been mad, giving that smeet to a human who lived in an uncharted solar system left untouched by the Empire's violence.

Defectives weren't born very often, even less surviving past adolescence. If they survived at all, the Empire weeded them out before they even reached the Academy. It was a quiet and covert business. They were put in a room. The PAK yanked out by an officer, the body recycled and the PAK put in a chute that made its way to the grinder. Rath was one of the few that had survived this genocidal process, but only just. Since his younger days the Empire had improved the administration of what was a perfect soldier and what wasn't. Smeets were being discovered earlier and earlier of any imperfection. They were eliminated while they were still in incubation, or hours or minutes after activation. If it wasn't for Rath's exemplified martial prowess, he too would have ended up like the rest: to be broken down and recycled. The Empire wanted reliable killing machines that would function tirelessly, obediently. Nobody wanted a wonky screw in the great design.

But he had to be careful. Always, that little smeet was sending out a signal in his PAK to the Empire that basically said: 'I'm here! I'm alive!'

There were millions and billions to dote on, so it would take awhile for the Empire to notice, and shrug its attention Zim's way, but once the Empire did, it would send an ambassador to go and check for such rogues that had escaped registration. Despite how almighty and perfect the Empire liked to think it was, it had its fair share of deserters and those who didn't fit certain criteria. And they had to be removed. Nothing could go wild from its leash for long.

And if the Empire found that an Irken was on an enemy planet...being fostered by aliens...and that Rath was ever involved...

Well.

Killing the smeet would remedy this of course.

Removing its PAK would disengage the signal. But he wasn't as cold hearted as all that. Not when he could have a viable Irken as his comrade and shield. Defectives sought other defectives. Strength in unity and all that mumbo jumbo. And there was a satisfying need to toughen something that was faulty; something that might cause some justifiable ruckus in the system. It was a long shot. Not hardly worth the effort and risk, others would say. But still, it was hard to let something as unique as him be murdered as all the rest.

Zim belonged with him.

He was nearly done working on the device that would disguise the smeet's faultiness.

Rath started up his ship's engines. One more detour, just one more, and then he'd speed all the way to Earth.

-x-

Time seemed to hang suspended between them for long moments as bright cartoons flashed from the TV. The tiny creature lay seemingly paralyzed on the floor of the carpet, its tiny claws knotted into even tinier palms, its wide eyes wincing from an unknown pain. Light from the TV washed white upon the jade pallor of its skin.

Dib stared at the metal device that had come loose, seesawing just a few feet away. Absurdly it made him think of toys that had these connective parts, and that, when dropped or pulled, they came apart easily. A quick click and they went back in again.

The little trinity of ports in this metal device spurted strong pink a moment and then died to a dull grey as if the bulb inside it had decided to just stop working.

It can just...come off? Just like that?

He blinked stupidly.

Was every Irken built like this? Could every PAK come off? And if so, what did it mean for the Irkens who carried them around like backpacks?

There was a low sullen beeping sound, slower than a metronome, but just as ardent and continuous. At first he wasn't sure if it was coming from the TV, the PAK device, or the baby alien. It was just there, and impossible to ignore.

When Zim next looked up at him, glowering from wincing eyes, he saw fear in them, fear and mistrust amongst the pain.

Dib shook his head clear, the dream still too full around his eyes and ears and thoughts. He bent down, and scooped the PAK into his hands. It was warm and rather heavy for one so small to carry. The two dark holes on its flat side coincided with the ports that were vertically aligned in the baby's spine.

He knew that the PAK was vital somehow. Every Irken carried one on its back, as if they could not live without it. He firmly believed that this spherical egg-shaped thing behaved like a toolbox; a backpack if you will. And that it was a useful way of carrying their weaponry, and well, those spidery awful looking leg things.

Zim rose to his little knobbly knees and then stopped, his antennae strung low, but taut. In under a minute his skin began to turn mottled and greyish as he looked anxiously at his foster father, but he looked at Dib as if the human had turned into a snake. His breathing turned heavy and difficult as if he was under strain, but his eyes remained haunted, watchful.

Dib stood back up, and approached him with the PAK held upright in the palm of his hand as if he was carrying a bowl. He got the strong foreboding that this device was a little more important than a simple container of tools and the like.

"I'm so sorry. I...I had a bad dream." His voice was half choked in regret. He hadn't meant to throw Zim off him like that.

Zim did not take his eyes off him once.

"Hey, what's gotten into you? Have I hurt you?" He went to touch him, and Zim miserably yowled. He looked uncomfortable, and confused, like an animal that had hurt itself and didn't know where or why the pain had come. "Is this supposed to come off, little guy?" He lifted the PAK a little. The Irken reached for it, but then drew back, clutching himself with sudden cold. His eyes went wider, and lost their focus on Dib as if something else had robbed his attention. When he next took a squeak of breath there was this long, scratchy death-wheeze.

Dib certainly did not like the sound of that.

He went round to the back of the smeet, and held the PAK up towards those mirrored holes in the baby's spine, but he had no idea which way up it was supposed to go. He had seen the PAK on him long enough to surely know by now if the two pink mantle ports of the shell were on the bottom or on the top, but for the life of him he suddenly could not remember. Did he just click it back into place? Should he shove it in?

The PAK abruptly took over, as if being in close proximity of its host woke up internal connectors. Twin tubes snaked out like roots, and sunk into the holes in Zim's spine. Then the PAK latched on, like a metal parasite, and Dib swore he saw it tighten. The marriage of Irken and machine wasn't a tidy, smooth affair, even if the tubes went back in without a hitch. Electricity bolted through the smeet's tiny frame as if he'd been hit by a strobe of lightning. Antennae pointing to the ceiling, his limbs shaking, Zim squawked out in agony. Then there was a stillness and the baby blinked some before looking around, hardly believing it was over.

Dib watched, astonished and nervous.

The PAK... was it like some power supply? If so, where did the power come from? And how exactly did it serve the Irken?

The dull grey ports in its mantle blazed into a comely pink. The light bulb inside had turned back on. To mirror this returning vitality, Zim's skin returned back to a jade shine. His breathing was also back to normal – thank god – and there were no deathly noises coming out of his tiny chest.

Could they not live without these devices?

He tried to imagine living life eternally hooked by some great machine on his back. It was just too awful to imagine. A good hard push and these things came right off.

"Does it hurt?" Dib went to put a hand on him, just to rub him up and down, but Zim flinched, little body tensing. "It's okay. That was a shock for both of us." He tried again, and this time the little smeet did not flinch when he touched him. His skin felt chilled, as if he hadn't the energy or the life to warm himself should the PAK be absent. "I had a nightmare." He continued, looking for forgiveness. At his words, Zim softened again. He knew of nightmares too. "Can you... can you control this thing on your back?"

The smeet's spherical eyes glittered a little as he pondered the question. Then he shook his head.

"Maybe I can teach you? You've already used it accidently a number of times." He smiled to placate the alien, but Zim did not smile back. The fall, the dislocation of his PAK, it had been sudden, painful and frightening. Like the feeling of being pushed off a cliff, and being victim to the long fall. He also seemed suspicious of his new father – it was an inherent Irken fear - as the human had accidently discovered his main weakness, and placed him in a kind of terrifying vulnerability.

Dib cast his eyes to the clock on the mantle. Half four in the morning. He'd slept, but the sky was mostly a dark, brooding blanket, with just a slither of silver moon warming one quarter of it. Zim started to shiver aggressively, overcome with vulnerability and cold. Dib wrapped the little thing in his warm fuzzy gown and cradled him tightly to his chest. A soldier he was carrying, that was for certain, but a baby soldier nonetheless who was smaller than most, and wasn't born as perfect as the rest. But when he sat back on the sofa, Zim seemed to sit on a certain element of growing distrust. He pushed against his father, meaning to wriggle free. Dib loosened his grip and let the smeet slide down his lap and scramble to the floor.

There was a knock. Dib rose blindly, sucking in breath. The police were here! Who else would arrive so early in the morning? The knocking on the door continued. Zim made a terrified little squeal as he dove underneath the curtains. He had sensed them coming long before he had. It was something he'd lean on implicitly in the future.

Rath. Could not be Rath.

Open the door and find out. It's not like he doesn't know where you live. I think he outsmarted you from the start, Dib old buddy.

He opened the parlour curtain a little and peeked out into the dim light of moonshine, his tired eyes trying to source the intruder, but his front doorway was covered by brick wall and bush from this side. He turned into the hallway, thinking of just grabbing the baby, and his keys, and making a run for it out the backdoor when he could hear his sister shouting from outside.

"Dib! It's me! Wake your sorry ass up!"

Gaz? Hell, she probably had about a dozen cops or soldiers at her back, guns pointing at his front door. She'd sell him out for cold hard cash. But when he cranked open the door, ready to see these villains in blue uniforms, flashing badges and guns, he was daunted to see that it was only his sister standing on the welcome mat. He was so glad to see her, and not guns and cops and white aliens that he wrapped his bony arms around her. Gaz blinked, equally surprised by this sudden display of affection. She patted his back woodenly, not sure how to react. "Dib? What's gotten into you?"

He took a step back, eyes pragmatically checking the vicinity for anyone looking even the slightest bit suspicious. He thought he saw something lean and white standing perfectly still by someone's distant garden wall, but when he looked, there was no one there. Just a flag pole. He lifted a hand and used it to rub at his eyes behind his glasses. He was so darn tired.

"Do you still have it?" Gaz pushed past him as if he weighed about as much as a packet of beans. She was carrying a big plastic bag, he saw. It had G&G written on it in a typical supermarket slogan.

"You mean the baby?" He asked, sounding quite gruff in turn. He would not stand for her calling Zim an 'it.' He shut the door, but not without giving the sleepy street one more hard, cold look. There was nothing menacing to see. Was he just paranoid? He supposed one had to be, when they were hiding an alien from the world. He closed the door. "So." He began, "Where's the platoon of cops you promised? The handcuffs? The straight jacket? I'm walking free, Gaz. Doesn't that trouble you at all?"

She walked into the kitchen, all casual like as if she owned the place. She set the heavy bag down on the table. Maybe the handcuffs were in there, and the straight jacket.

"Where is it?" She repeated. She looked fucking pristine for turning up so early and out of the blue. Hair all straightened, the bottoms turned into purple curls, her eyes coldly looking out from black mascara, cheeks so pale they were white. She looked a lot like a porcelain doll, with those dark staring eyes from a perfectly oval face that had always been delicate. But frail she was not.

"Look, Gaz..."

She turned to him, looking indifferent. Looking calculated. "I've sat in my car, most of the night, you know. Thanks to you."

"Good for you." He returned sarcastically.

She sneered at him, sneered at him like one of those Irkens he'd seen on Emporium. "I was sitting outside a police station! I had to think about what to do with you, Dib!"

"How is that any different from what you do every day?" He countered.

She lifted her hands in exasperation. "God! You drive me crazy!"

"What else is new?" He stood in his gown, arms folded, eyes flinty and sharp. Compared to her he looked and felt shaggy. Like he'd just been dragged through a good half a dozen hedges.

"I came to..." Gaz sneered again, her dark eyes of stormy amber looking about herself for a moment. "...help with the...thing."

"You mean the baby." He was not convinced. "And why would you do that Gaz? When you've been sitting outside a police station all night, considering my worth as a brother?"

"That alien is going to get you killed! I want to protect you from your own idiocy! That was why I sat and procrastinated! But locking you up is not going to change your stupid ways, is it? It'll only make you miserable and more crazy and I don't want that! And as heartless as you think I am, I'm not keen on the idea of the cops hurting tiny baby...alien things."

If that was her way of 'impressing' him, she had a long way to go. He had to give her some credit, he supposed. She struggled with human empathy, and she was a bit too logical and cold to really understand the heart of what he did and why. "What changed your mind?"

"Well. It's kind of cute..."

"Come again?"

Now she looked mad. "I said it looks kind of cute, Dib! Alright? And I usually can't stomach cute things! Besides, you'll only get into more trouble if I don't help, and who knows what dumb things you'll do when you're not supervised!"

This riled him up, more than he let on. God he hated her sometimes, which contradicted his usually mild and calm temperament. He loved his sister, more than anything, but she couldn't put any faith in him. She took to the strong path, and that was fine and dandy, but it had turned her into stone, and made her find faults with anyone else.

"What's in the bag?" He snapped.

She looked at him, narrowing her dark-rimmed eyes. He was upset. He had this sulky air to him when something or someone had jarred him. "Last I came, that 'baby' of yours barely had rags for clothes. You owe me some sixty bucks."

He came forwards reluctantly, and peered into the plastic bag. It was full of toys, and tiny oh so tiny clothing for things delicate and dainty. He picked one out. It was a little white fleecy hoodie with a baby lion stitched on the front. He looked at her, something new and warm in his eyes, replacing the steel of his suspicion.

"You haven't been getting much sleep, have you?" Her biting words mellowed on the instant. Gaz could see the dark bags under his eyes, and noticed the trembling in his hands. "You're gonna make yourself sick."

"I've got a responsibility."

"What happened to you, Dib? You never were one for close guarded secrets. Now all you do is hide things from me."

He blushed a little at that, and looked away, that anger spreading across his eyes just as readily. She could tell how fiercely he protected the alien. And that he was indeed keeping secrets. There was something he wasn't telling her. Something big. And what could carry more significance than a baby alien from another world? He was a stranger to her now. He'd been to many strange worlds, and he had got stranger with each approach into space. His boyhood years had gone, and he'd returned to Earth, different in so many ways, yet he still looked like the brother she so loved. He had that tendency to be goofy, and short-sighted, but there was something that had hardened his heart. And in his eyes, there wasn't just stubbornness and anger. There was a certain edge of fear to him too. She had a feeling it wasn't a fear of the press, or the cops.

'Stay out there too long Dib, and you won't know how to return to your life here on Earth.' She had told him once. He had stood on the steps on Blue Thunder, about to go out there again, a lone pioneer travelling through endless abyss. He was brave. Braver than she. Her feet would remain on the ground, where she belonged. His head had always been in the stars, but adventures had their dangers. Now he had brought something from the abyss back with him.

She was always afraid he'd lose a piece of his humanity, being up there, in the void, for too long. She hated their father for going along with Dib's space exploration, and funding him and anything he could possibly want and more. Both of them were obsessed with making the impossible, possible. They'd forgotten long ago what was actually important.

Now a lean man was looking back at her, eyes dark and as strange as the stars he sought. He'd gone too far this time, in her heart she knew, and he'd put his hand in Pandora's Box.

She would wait. She was very good at playing the waiting game and sooner or later, he'd tell her exactly what kind of trouble he was in.

True to her suspicions, he did not answer her. "And you'll help me and Zim, how?"

"By being cruel, but kind, for the both of you. So, where is he?" She planted her delicate hands on her hips.

He pointed towards the parlour.

She didn't hang around, and went waltzing in.

It didn't take long to spot this little, trembling huddle under a skirt of curtain overhanging from the window. She lifted it up and watched the thing stare back from shimmering eyes. Gaz growled to herself. She had never seen herself as a kind and motherly figure, and struggled to show gentleness. It came to her awkwardly.

"You're Zim? Right?"

The baby had backed into the wall. Its pale green skin showed not one shred of clothing. Did it not like to wear clothes? Did it overheat or something? But the way it shivered made her suspect that it was feeling very cold.

"Back off." Came this tiny squeak of a voice.

She blinked. Did this baby just rebuff her? It hadn't done anything of the like earlier.

Gaz made a move to get closer. His antennae lurched upright and he yelped a frightened shriek at her. A wary wild animal would have behaved no differently, but there was an intrepid look in its eyes that warned her to keep her distance.

Dib was there – the protective father – and scooped the little thing into his hands as if it weighed not much more than a teaspoon of sugar.

"I wasn't going to hurt him." Gaz stood up; watching the way Dib pressed the baby closely to his chest. The metal sphere on its back was glowing a hot vivid pink.

"He's just...not used to anyone else."

"Do you just let him run amok in the house? With no clothes on?"

"I had to wash his clothes. He only had the one pair. The rain made him...sick and sticky."

"Honestly, brother." She rolled her eyes. "Don't you know anything? Here. Let me." She turned towards the plastic bag, opened it wider, and brought out the white fleecy hoodie with the sleepy lion on the front, complete with white and grey stripped pants with a thin grey vest to go underneath. "You've got a lot of blanks to fill in for me." She was saying as she held up the tiny clothing.

Dib rocked the little thing in his arms. "I guess so." That stubborn evasiveness again. He had grown completely attached to the baby of his own choice and devotion it would seem. When he was allowed free rein of the stars, he seemed to get himself into deeper and bigger trouble. And yet he could not understand why she didn't hold the same fascinations, and why she had never wanted to go into space even for the briefest of visits.

"Well? What is it? Does it have a species name?"

"He's Irken."

"And do they tend to be a peaceful, fun-loving race that only wants to help and serve?"

He hesitated, looking stricken. "They tend to lean on the dominant spectrum of things."

"Meaning?" She pressed tartly.

"They're hatched, and bred to be soldiers. But this one's broken."

"Dib. Saviour of the Broken." She looked nonplussed. "Found your true calling, have you?"

"Lay off!" He shouted.

"I was only joking. I said I was here to help, so here I am. Set him down so we can at least put on some clothes on the poor thing."

Dib gave her that old reluctant look he often gave her when she'd asked him to do something that involved a nasty trick of some kind. Old childhood habits never really went away. He set Zim on the kitchen chair by the table that made the smeet look all the smaller. The tiny green creature looked to Dib for protection, for reassurance. It had that uncertain look babies had when they'd been taken from their mothers and families too soon. They'd turn out insecure, bad mannered, and clingy. Gaz had known a young husky dog with behavioural problems purely because the owners had taken it from its mother when it had only been five weeks old. It needed to learn correct behaviour from its own species.

"You say it's broken. Broken how?" Gaz asked. She made to slip the vest on over its head, but the alien flinched, shying away as if she was a threat.

"He wasn't born right. Rath said that his PAK..."

"Pak? Is that what this thing is called?" She pointed at the metal bulge on its back. Luckily she did nothing stupid like tug at it.

"Yes!" He blew out a loud sigh. "Will you just shut up for one second and let me do the talking for once?"

Gaz blinked, surprised at his backlash.

He took the clothing from her with that same checked anger, and started putting it on the smeet. He never carried his temper over to the alien. He was careful, patient, guiding tiny, thin arms through the sleeves. Zim was smiling happily, showing that one tooth that often hung over his bottom lip. He squealed when Dib paused to tickle his tummy. Gaz waited and watched, amused at this fatherly display of affection Dib was showing. He never had much interest in humans, or girlfriends for that matter. Hunting after the paranormal was all he was ever invested in, that and yearly space travels that limited his social status to nothing. She just hoped things would turn out okay, that this remarkable friendship would work. But she knew in her heart that it couldn't.

Sometimes, Dib seemed to forget that he was a human being, faced with human limits.

"Okay." She said. "Who the hell is this Rath?" She was tired of playing the 'waiting' game after all; tired of being patient, only for her brother to stubbornly refrain from expanding his tale. Was he ashamed? Was it hard to explain perhaps? Or was he afraid? She tried to read him. He used to be this little predictable boy who couldn't hide a secret, and couldn't contain his emotions. Whether he was happy or sad, she knew. Now this young man was reproachful. Guarded, and wary. Like the distant stars. Seen from a distance. But never truly known.

But when she brought that name into question, a distinct shadow loomed over her brother's face.

She looked at this Zim of his, forcing herself to lighten up, and even smile when he gazed inquisitively her way. She was aware that this thing carried diseases. Alien viruses not known to this world; and that opening herself up to her brother and his new pet may very well doom them.

Does it eat flesh? Or is it more like some placid animal that likes fruit?

It was strangely like a bug. It had these long, sleek black antennae that bobbed and flexed and tensed frequently like whiskers on a cat. It had great, bulgy bug eyes of starry crimson that seemed to see all. Its frame was very bony and very delicate. It probably bled yellow sludge too, just like a bug. Why couldn't he have adopted a baby tiger or something instead? But no. That would have been too normal.

"Rath. Rath is... another Irken. An adult." He eased the pants on. Zim seemed to try and help by pulling them up before Dib could. Then he was grabbing the creamy white hoodie but had it back-to-front. Dib turned it back round again. "It goes on like this, see?" He told the little thing as if it had half a brain with which to think. Zim babbled some happy noise when it went on, and plucked at the new fabric with ductile claws. Then he hugged himself, as if pleased with the enriching warmness the clothes were making him feel. He had been cold after all.

Dib quickly explained to her how he had hoped to pass Zim off, inundated with sudden responsibility and ignorance to a baby alien's care and needs. He had gone to Rath, an albino Irken who had docked on a military governed planet. He went on about quadrant systems and planet names and races, most of which went over her head. She tried to imagine where he'd been, what he'd seen, but found it hard to even picture it without imagining the scenic qualities of Earth in some way.

"Rath is about this high." He made a gesture with his hand, angling it above his waist. "He's white, with these mean, squinty eyes that pierce straight through you. He walks with a limp, but I doubt he ever had an injury."

"Okay." Gaz said, trying to sound interested. She did not want to put him off, and honestly was engaged even if it was hard for her to convey it. She knew he could not be making it up. Her brother was many things, but a liar was not one of them.

"At first he didn't want Zim. Said he was a defective, and that all things weak and broken are better off flung to the wayside. But then..." He shrugged, gloomy in thought. "But then he changed his mind... thought there might be a way to conscript Zim into the service of war by faking this...defectiveness of his. He wants me to get him stronger. Strong enough, anyway, to be Irken."

"You're telling me that these are military creatures Dib? Don't they have other talents? Other hobbies?"

"No. No they don't." He spoke as if he knew well enough what they were.

"And why does Zim have to go into service?"

"I didn't know what else to do at the time! I just sorta shrugged at the idea. Lions are supposed to be lions. Irkens are supposed to be Irkens. I thought...I thought this Rath knew best. But I've been doing some more thinking. And I have reason to believe he could be spying on me."

Spying on you?

Her brother was no doubt highly paranoid, and who wouldn't be, after taking a creature from its home to a place it didn't rightly belong? None of them had been on Earth long. And Dib, well, he'd always been the suspicious and uptight sort on any normal given day, sure that people were watching him, and taking notes. Being in space so long had only embroidered this issue. Personally, she would have hated being in so big a space ship, alone, left to hear the creaks and the groans as the vessel laboured through a lonely black void that tempted death. Who knows what imaginations and demons it conjured.

"So... what makes this little baby you have a defective? He seems fine to me, I guess." She knew she was talking out of her ass. It probably had a whole library of diseases and crippling issues, none of which she could see from the outside. Its great oval bug eyes were clear and starry, and so expressive. It showed no signs of sickness, but her reluctance to believe otherwise remained grounded.

"Here. Hold him." He said suddenly. He lifted the little thing under the arms, leaving its tiny legs to dangle.

"No, no Dib I really don't want to."

"Too bad," he said, ignoring her disgust, "if you wanna help me, here's your chance."

He plopped the little thing into her lap. The same obedience and trust he showed to his father, he did not show to her. Instantly he tensed up, eyes taking on a more suspicious gaze that dimmed the stars in those gossamer orbs of swirling fuchsia. A beauty he was, so smoothly and softly curved with a slender frame and a strong skull. Even his motions emphasized this svelte, delicate grace. He even felt fragile. The PAK ports, all three of them glowed a healthy pink from within. Its quirky black antennae seemed to feel the air like fingers. She could see a tiny subway of delicate green veins running through its neck and wrists and collarbone, proving how thin and young its skin was. Its bones were light and frail. She could have said it weighed about as much as a kitten.

Shyly the baby looked at her before swiftly looking away again – and its gaze one of acute intelligence. She could see now why Dib held him so dearly. Slowly she raised a hand, and the baby Irken regressed a little, doing this uncertain little scowl. She placed her fingers on the back of his head, and stroked him. It had been so long since she'd felt any kind of sentimentality or love for an animal. She smiled the slightest. It was hard to stay cold. Hard to stay indifferent. The Irken did not relax, but the antennae curled and lifted, showing attentiveness perhaps, or understanding. He was feverishly warm to the touch, his skin feeling impossibly smooth.

She could imagine him growing into something equally as bony and as slender, with hard eyes that could be just as beautiful like cut petals. This thing, of all chubby eyes and chubby smiles, could be an adult in as soon as a year, or a decade. What was their growth span like? Their maturity? And what was their life span? Mere days, years, or centuries?

He flinched and shied every time she stroked him.

Dib went on. "So far as Rath told me...defectives have faulty PAKs. A PAK is that device in his spine. It's like some cerebral neurological symbiosis between his body and a computer, I guess. And every so often, I suppose an Irken comes out of the hatchery imperfectly, kinda how nature gives out runts. Zim'll be susceptible to complications later in life."

"And how could your Rath know all this?"

"Because...because he's a defective too. He knows what it's like, and how the Irken Empire treat them." Gaz was shaking her head, not quite onboard. "Imagine the PAK like a shiny new laptop." Dib tried to explain. "It needs to link up to the internet so it can get updates, and can be scrutinised and examined by its makers; the government say, to make sure all is honky dory."

"Right." Gaz said, understanding that perfectly enough.

"But the laptop is corrupted. It doesn't quite log on, so it's harder for the officials to check it, and not all updates go through smoothly. And because his PAK is harder to control, it makes him harder to be indoctrinated, say. These Irkens have real core feelings. They're not the drones the Empire wants them to be. They are able to think a little clearer than what they're supposed to. And because of this, they adopt self-preservation, when Rath says that Irkens are taught to be hive thinkers and hive thinkers only. But apparently these PAK's also control the immune system, his organ metabolism, and his rate of growth. So we'll see how he grows and if he'll stay healthy."

"Dib...this sounds pretty..."

"Crazy?" He ended for her. Zim was watching him, looking appalled that he had been left discarded on a stranger's lap.

"Yeah. Crazy. You do like to put your hands in Pandora's Box and ask for the consequences later, don't you?"

"I was only thinking of him."

"You're not going to tell dad are you?"

"I already made it clear what I think of that."

"And how are you feeding this little skinny thing?"

"I had bought Irken formula with me, but had to dispose of it upon re-entry in case dad's scientists and engineers discovered anything leading to his discovery. They go through my ship with a fine toothed comb. In the meantime, I gave him milk that had been well and truly boiled."

"And his skin? Last I saw him, it was peeling off. Like he'd been burned. You said it was because of the rain."

"Yes. The rain." Was all he'd say. He looked distant for a moment, his mind miles and miles away. Then he blinked, and he was back in the room. Despite how tired and haggard he looked, frayed at the edges most certainly, his amber eyes shone a strong gold she hadn't seen in a lifetime. And he smiled. "I know I acted rashly, and I know what I've gone and done might just be the end of me, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Zim would have died if I had done nothing."

"Dib. You're too soft-hearted."

"And maybe that's just what an Irken needs." He smiled again, adding as if to mock her; "I'm not sick and I'm not coughing blood. Guess he's not infectious to humans after all."

"So far as you know." She jibbed. "You might break out into purple spots as soon as tomorrow, and so will I."

"Will you stay the night?" He finally asked, looking crestfallen the next moment.

"Sure." She said. "What the hell. Are my old things still kicking around or did you throw them in the garbage?"

"No, I held onto them."

"Gazzy." The smeet said in a sing-song voice. But his eyes were dark and fretful. When he next looked up at her, his eyes were the colour of rose petals, and behind them was something dark and thorny. Dib lifted him off her lap before the stare persisted, and when he cuddled him the baby squealed happily, eyes bright and cheerful again. She recognised that look: the one that came before. It had seen things. Known things a young mind shouldn't know.

There was pain behind it, and anger too.

-x-x-

It squeaked and squeaked like one of those rubber chew toys you bought for your dog. Dib petted its head, and tucked the covers up to its chin. She wasn't sure if this was the sound of its laughter, or the sound of its coughs.

She had slipped into her old dark purple pjs that were a bit thin from long years of use. She had lost weight, or the elastic band had seemingly lost its tightness because she had to keep pulling the pants up.

It was strange, sleeping over her brother's, almost as if he was half a stranger. The last time they'd slept under the same roof, she had almost been nineteen and he was hitting twenty. Now things were different. She didn't know him quite like she used to. He even smelled and moved differently. The Dib she knew, the Dib she had penalised and had fun with had died the moment he'd stepped into Blue Thunder, and gone beyond the Event Horizon.

Gaz peeked round the doorframe, watching her brother tuck this tiny tiny thing into his bed that became an ocean of mattress to so small a baby.

"Gazzy staying?" Came Zim's shrill voice. His words were much more hesitant, as if he was still getting used to the human speech, and what words sounded like when he used his tongue to speak them. He pronounced words slightly differently, as if he was speaking phonetically.

"Yeah. For now. Do you... Do you think Rath will return?" He was asking it, as if this alien had a clue. But he wasn't speaking to the smeet in the syrupy way people talked to their pets. He was talking to Zim in the same serious cadence he used when he spoke to Gaz.

There came a sudden, plaintive shriek. Gaz started where she stood, and when next she peeked round the door the smeet had sat up in a flash, his tiny claws weaving into Dib's robe sleeve.

"Shhh, hey, Zim Zam. Forget what I said."

That persistent squeak again. It was definitely not laughter.

"You have a powerful device on your back Zim. With my sister on our side, I think we ought to teach you how to use it. I've seen other Irkens use them. You remember those spider legs? You activated them. It might bring you a bit of confidence."

"Don't remember how." Came that tinny reply.

"You'll get the hang of it I'm sure." In the room, Dib stroked the smeet plaintively. There was a shadowy fear in his eyes, but when he smiled it was warm and assuring. "All Irkens learn eventually, right?" Little did he know how exactly young Irkens learnt such skills. "We'll talk about it in the morning. Well, I know it is morning already, but..."

The dawn light was warming the closed curtains. It was a chilly yellow, and very much unlike the 'predawn' simulations Blue used to emulate morning light.

Zim sagged back down, but he coasted a look his father's way, as if suspicious he'd move off and leave as soon as he relaxed. "It's dark." He said. It wasn't really all that dark, but Dib gave in and turned the lamp light on.

"There." He said.

"Earth air taste funny." He said again as if to keep Dib from shepherding him to sleep.

"I'm sure you'll get used to it."

He watched his sleek black antennae bob and move. They were like velvet to the touch, not that he touched them often. They were so delicate that it was a wonder Zim did not react adversely when they lay limp across the pillow. But settle down he did, pulling the blankets up to his chin himself.

"Nice here." He squeaked. "Hate stupid rain."

When Dib lay down beside him, he had a cosy, safe look about him, but the moment the human so much as brushed against his PAK, Zim tensed on the instant, smile turning into a scowl. He was afraid. It tore up that baby look that he had, setting in the seeds of something else.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Dib said quickly, realizing how sore the smeet still was about it. He didn't know how to make it up to him. It had been an innocent accident, something he would never do again. He supposed he'd feel just as vulnerable if his arms could detach so easily. Even so, he had put the information in his pocket. Rath was prone to the same vulnerabilities.

He snuggled down, scooping the baby against his chest. Zim fell asleep listening to the human's heartbeats.

Dib's dreams at least, were kinder to him.

Zim was far older. He was a lean adult with a triumphant sort of confidence on his face. He was behind the console, guiding the ship through a vortex of lashing colour. Dib was his co-pilot. In that space, in that time, he felt like they had known each other for years.

A cold dangerous look Zim could give; it was a trait all Irkens had, with that stony stare and hard snarl. That confidence fell however, and that stony look returned when those washing bright lights hit the port side of the ship. Both of them were hurled against their seat restraints. They weren't in a swirling vortex.

They were under enemy fire, and the lightshow were laser beams from the hostile ship.