The Occult Experience

Chapter Seven

/?!?\

Initially, the artificial intelligence aboard the Spittle Runner had been unpleasantly belligerent. This really only compounded the difficulty Dib had when dealing with the alien technology. First and worst difficulty being that he didn't understand the language that anything was in.

This triangle looked kinda like that triangle, and that triangle over there was missing a side, and this knob was covered in squiggly lines, which may or may not have been for grip.

But for some reason Dib didn't understand, the computer had almost been... Nice. At least, as nice as Irken technology got, so 'Nice' in this case meant slightly helpful but mostly indifferent. At least now it was receptive to his requests. Mostly.

There was a number of things it just couldn't do, and a number of things Dib wasn't ready to attempt.

He had initially been excited at the prospect of space travel. Deep space travel, not just a short jaunt up as far as the moon, then coming straight back down, well, as straight as an ocean drop could be. But reality, at least the facsimile in which Dib lived, had set in. The Rosetta stone before him had crash landed from on high, and was most likely littered with micro-tears that would leave him breathless. Literally, unfortunately.

The runner wasn't really in bad condition, and had, successfully, made a few trips to outer space, but they'd all been short trips, and Dib had been wearing pieces of an uncertified environmental protection and exploration outfit. It was a quick-fix where Dib didn't feel comfortable having one, but didn't know how to make a permanent one.

"Whadda you think? I was thinking of an oil-based semi-solid coating my dad developed a few years back, but I've only tested that on the bottom of a dinghy back when I was searching out the swamp people. But all I found were hobo's, mean hobo's. They took my dinghy, but I showed them, I showed 'em good, they got my boat, the guy at the rental place got my deposit, but I got their soup can full of change! ...Okay... On second thought, maybe I didn't get them good. Anyway, what were you saying?" Were it not for Dib's ability to focus, Shauna would believe the boy to have one of the many variations of the alphabet syndrome, that one that was spelled like a math function.

"I'm not an expert but -BANGBANGBANG- I think -SLAMSLAMSLAM- do you wanna go get that, or do you want me to -BANGBANGBANG- check it?" It was the second day of Dib's suspension, an action that still shocked Shauna. Dib may have been trying to make waves before, but he'd always acted the 'Good boy'. Her understanding said that childhood apathy similar to what Dib was exhibiting tended to be a coping mechanism that lead to some very, very unusual individuals.

"It might be one of the -SLAMSLAMSLAM- HOLD YOUR HORSES, I'M COMING! Professors secretaries or something." Dib grabbed a rag on the way to the door between his kitchen and garage and wiped off as much grease and soot as he could. The house, Dib noticed, was almost... Pleasant, without the sound of the Teevee brand television running, or the sound of his sister growling between video game blips and bloops.

Aside from the sound of the refrigerator kicking on, the house was silent. So rarely, blissfully silent.

He debated for a short moment on answering the door. He was the only person home, discounting the Lich, and so far as he knew, he was the only person who knew she was there. He twisted the handle.

Dib looked up slightly. The other person looked down slightly. Brown eyes met blue eye and red orb.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

"What the heck are-" Shauna finally stepped around the kitchen door and froze. Well, she stopped moving at least, didn't stop her from being surprised.

"Lord Ha- SHH!" Dib barely blinked and the new creature was in his home, uninvited, and shushing Shauna. He literally had a finger bone pushed up against her teeth. Which was confusing in a way, as his other hand had flesh on it, but not the one he had shoved in her face.

"Uhm, listen, uh, Dib, right? This is, uh, going to sound kind of odd, so... Do we have someplace to sit down? This is probably going to be re~ally awk~ward." Dib stepped into the kitchen and sat the rag down in the sink and grabbing the dish soap. He didn't have to turn around to hear the two sliding out chairs on the opposite ends of the table.

"Sorry about jumping in unannounced and all, Shauna, but I thought you'd be free and he'd be at school." Dib could almost picture a nonexistent eyebrow on Shauna going up, as if saying to 'Go on?'.

"Some of the lower-downs are trying to stick me with clean-up duty on the planet of broken glass. So I'm kinda skiving off work, was wondering if I could hang around here until they get that planet's death gods to take care of it?" Dib turned off the water and grabbed a different, clean rag to dry his hands with.

"There's a planet of broken glass?" Dib turned around and saw an interesting sight. Shauna had her head down on the table, cradling her skull and chanting 'No!' over and over again, and the new guy was leaning back, almost to the point of tipping over, and chewing on a pencil.

"Kind of. The planet looks like it's covered in broken glass, and it kinda is, well, was. The bacterium's on that planet were the same kind in your bones, slowly breaking down and rebuilding them, and eventually they kinda evolved on that planet. The people there are-were, were kind of strange, since they communicated through these series of chime-like noises. Nothing soft about the world, hellish, really, but a beautifully musical people... Well, were, was, whatever." The odd fellow blew out, sending the pencil flying into the air before catching it again in his mouth. He had failed to inform Dib that the entire planet had been alive, and that the 'Individuals' were, at best, symbiotic, and at worst cannibalistic. The downside to a one-resource planet, where the only food is technically someone else.

Dib shook his head, forcing himself to focus. This was absolutely fascinating, but that didn't tell him about the person sitting at his table.

"What's your name, anyway?" Dib's hand slowly crept up, fingers twitching slightly as he tried to catch that one sickle-like cowlick that stood above the rest.

"We call him lord- SHH!" This time the ever stranger, well, stranger, put his left hand against Shauna's teeth in an attempt to shush her.

"OW-OW LEGGO LEGGO ME! Rabies! Rape! I need an adult!" Dib snickered as the demon jumped in place, fingers held firmly in her maw.

"Any-way, I can introduce myself." Dib blinked. How did he go from standing in front of Shauna to back sitting across from her? Dib rubbed his temples, the other guys hand was bleeding, so it had happened, it just... It just didn't make sense.

"I can't give you my real name, because then someone will just pop up here in the kitchen and try to force me to work there on the planet of Broken Glass. So that means you get to call me Ji-... Naw, used that already, how about Bil- No, used that one too." The demon, who was neither Jim or Bill, tapped his chin a few times. "Al. You can call me Al, I've never used that alias, yet. Nice to meet you Dib, my name's Al."

Dib stared at Al as he reached out to him. Hesitantly, Dib reached out and shook the bony claw offered to him.

Just as things were starting to calm down, his house was turning into a halfway house for lazy demons.

"So, eh, Al, why do you want to be here and not... anywhere else?" Dib opened the fridge and pulled out a loaf of bread. Second nature had him checking the label, making sure it wasn't Super Toast. From behind him he heard a 'Fwit!' sound, some clinking, and Al laughing.

"Sorry Shauna, 'Eye' thought you'd move. Eh, Shauna here supposedly needed some help, so I'll be giving her a hand. Also noticed you might not be as boring as I thought."

"And the truth, lord Ha-"

"Al, call me Al. This is a lot closer to that one place they want me to go do stuff than they'd think to look. I hope." Dib put the two slices of bread together and sat down at one of the free sides of the table.

"And, y'know, Shauna here's not certified to teach you magic." Dib put the sandwich down and stared at the demon. Shauna pulled the pencil out of her eye socket and stared at the demon. Al's foot slipped out from under the table and he fell backwards.

"What? This is why your teachers tell you to not lean back in your chairs... What?" Al stood up and waved his hand in front of Dib's face. "Hello?"

The new silence in the house was less blissful, and more uncomfortable.

"Hello?"

AN/ Another character, not so new, but one I can have a lot of fun with. I recently had to completely restore my computer, and got into an unpleasant battle with viruses practically from the get-go. Makes me so damn happy that I have all my important files on flashdrives with CD backups.