BOOM. HAPPY THURSDAY EVERYONE. So this is the second to last chapter of this fic. I know! Such sads. Very frown. But on the good side this chapter is a WHOPPING 4,850 WORDS LONG.
I KNOW. I CAN FEEL YOUR JOY FROM HERE. Seriously this chapter is super long because, well, like watching a horror film on TV the last thing you want is for intense and dramatic scenes to be ruined by commercial breaks. And as this chapter is one giant long super dramatic scene it really needed to be this long. Plus this is kind of a reward for all the people who put up with me vanishing for like three years.
So yeah. Enough jibba-jabba foos. READ ON.
When Dib woke up that morning he had been pretty sure, within the seventy five percentile range, that the earth was not going to be utterly destroyed that day. However he supposed there was a time and a place for everything and as he weaved in and out of the city traffic like a madman, whilst praying to all four gods of chaos, he hoped today was not going to be one of those days. Because if today did happen to be the day that the earth was utterly destroyed any future xeno-archeologists digging through the ruins of the post-destruction earth would probably find some evidence somewhere that he, Dib Membrane, was completely and totally responsible.
And it was all because he couldn't keep his nose out of someone else's business. How had he ever, ever convinced himself that going through the personal files of a paranoid alien with major trust issues was a good idea? No doubt the irken had made sure that he got notifications the moment anyone accessed those files, which was probably how he got to the house so quickly. Or not. Really how Zim found out would be of little consequence once everything Dib ever knew was on fire.
Well it wouldn't really be on fire. If his inner math and his dad's horror stories were correct, and usually they were, the earth would be sucked into a singularity which would then expand to a black hole which would crush everything that used to be planet earth into something smaller than a Higgs-Boson particle.
So everyone would have a bad time, basically.
Dib knew that whatever Zim had planned it was bad. Very bad. And furthermore he knew that the irken had all the technology in the world to do it with. He also knew that he couldn't do this alone. Zim was furious and if Dib couldn't talk him down he needed someone who could help him restrain the irken soldier. He had seen what could come out of Zim's PAK, those long spider-like legs with tips so sharp they could spear him in an instant. He needed someone who was brave, someone who wouldn't care Zim was an alien and someone who he could work with.
There was really only one choice.
As Dib ran his second red light in a row he again thanked whatever supreme being that they allowed him to do so without having the police screaming on his tail and grabbed his phone from his pocket, holding down the on button and screaming into it, "GLADOS, PHONE GAZ RIGHT NOW!"
"Phoning Gaz." The phone replied in it's usual, slightly sardonic sounding tone. "Also you should scream all your commands, it's great to be screamed at. Very helpful."
Dib almost growled at the phone. Seriously, what was it with sarcastic AI's lately?
The phone rang for a few moments, then suddenly clicked. "Dib this better be good, I'm about to do a live Jerk stream for Undertale Two, The Bloodening."
"Okay Gaz, you need to listen very carefully to me. Are you listening? This is really, really important."
"... what happened." It wasn't a question. It was an expectation that she was about to get very, very angry.
"Okay, firstly..." He knew this was technically smashing through that wall of trust that Dib had built with Zim, or rather this was more like running over the bits of wall left with his car, but at this point the damage had been done. One more let down probably wouldn't hurt either way. "You remember that green skinned genius kid?"
"Zim? What about him?"
"Gaz, prepare yourself for this. I'm not saying he's an alien but..." Dib gulped. "He's an alien."
There was a moment of silence. Perhaps it was while Gaz was mourning the death of her brother's sanity. Dib certainly hoped not.
"I'm calling dad."
"NO! NONONO!" Dib swerved around a large humvee as he panicked, "Don't you dare do that!"
"You've lost it, Dib." Her tone was a strange kind of angry. It was both furious at his statement and yet almost... disappointed. Dib could feel that tone. It was the same tone she had used when he had been committed years and years ago. "That kid is not an alien. He's weird but not an alien."
"No, really, he's an alien. I know how this sounds but you've gotta believe me, especially because he's planning to blow up PEG."
That drew another moment of silence out of her. "What, right now?"
"YES RIGHT GODDAMN NOW! I'M SERIOUS GAZ WE'RE ALL IN HUGE FREAKIN' TROUBLE HERE AND YOU GOTTA HELP ME STOP HIM!"
"... he's not an alien, Dib."
"Look, that's pretty much secondary right now, okay? Either way Zim is planning to blow up PEG, or... I don't know do something with PEG but it's bad. I'll explain later I'm almost there. Come as soon as you possibly can."
"Dib listen-"
Dib didn't listen. He hung up the phone with a tap of the screen and that was that. Gaz could be mad at him all she wanted later, as for right now he was hoping that, if only fueled by her rage at Dib going 'crazy' again, she would find her way to PEG as soon as possible in an attempt to doom him.
He only hoped that whatever it was Zim was planning to do, maybe he could talk him down from it... or at least find a way to stop him by force. Doing so wasn't exactly out the bounds of his jurisdiction as a counselor. They had told him that if he needed to he had full right to go in and stop a child who was being violent or utterly unruly. Not by any extreme force of course, he couldn't just beat them. But certainly he was allowed to stop them from hurting themselves or others.
However his training had covered kids, human kids. Not trained irken invaders who were practically armed twenty-four-seven.
As he simply ran his car through the locked fence gate that surrounded PEG he skidded to a halt and took a moment to breathe.
The air was cold and yet he was sweating buckets. That horrible churning, twisting sensation in his stomach was telling him that this could very well be it. This could be the end of the world. For real. Not just some imagined fever dream of a paranoia teenager but real, in the flesh doom for the entire Earth. And to think people even now had no idea how much danger they were in.
He recognized the irony of his position. As a child he had wished for nothing more than this exact situation. And yet now, as an adult, it was here and he was terrified. He was actually shaking as he got out of his car, his legs weak under him. He pulled on his coat hoping that at least the warmth of the heavy trench coat would maybe make him feel like less of a cowered. It didn't. But it did help with the shaking a little.
He looked up at PEG. It was truly a huge monstrosity of a thing, very much in the Membrane-style, as it where. A vast glass dome with numerous pipes filtering out from all around it. However while it towered several stories above him, it was really only a hint at its true size. It actually went for miles deep underground where it became a vast mass of snaking pipes, wires and metal that were all somehow supposed to make sure it produced the promised perpetual energy. Dib had heard that his father had been inspired by Cave Johnson's Aperture Science labs over in Utah.
It was certainly a crazy enough idea.
The problem of course was immediate. Where the hell was Zim? Within a structure so huge the tiny alien could be anywhere and considering how very fragile PEG was he could be in any number of the weak spots of the generator, planting explosives or who knew what else.
Dib had to steel himself. The fate of the world was in his hands. If he could stop Zim he would be the savior of earth. A title he had coveted since childhood. And yet he knew he would only be a paper champion at best. He had, after all, been the one to cause all of this.
The man forced his legs to move. One after the other, right leg, left leg, towards the entrance to PEG. A quick swipe with his Membrane Labs ID card and he was in. He was greeted with a blast of old, dusty air that seemed to be mixed with the smell of old grease, oil and chemicals which he hoped weren't poisonous. Thankfully the lights inside were still on. Dim, obviously in some kind of power save mode, but they were on. He stumbled forward into the small but open space that once served as an employee maintenance entrance as the deep cold of the abandoned generator gripped his face causing him cough harshly.
"ZIM?" His voice echoed through the building and, driven simply by some faint childhood memory of when he was last there, he took a corridor that he was sure lead towards the central singularity control room. If Zim wanted to cause the maximum amount of damage possible, it would best be done there.
"ZIM ARE YOU," -cough- "HERE?" He waved his hand in front of his face and wished he had brought contacts. He could practically see the grim building on his glasses as he pushed forward. Suddenly he came out onto a vast opening, like the inside of a giant metal tube the size of an opera hall. This was the main generator chamber. From above, through the grim covered windows some spears of light managed to filter down, illuminating the billion floating particles of dust that flitted through their bright beams. Huge long catwalks stretched randomly across the opening, going further and further down until they too vanished like all things into the shadowed void of the lower depths of PEG.
Dib couldn't help but spot, far above him, large, perfect hole cut out of one of the lower windows of the dome. Zim's obvious entry point.
The air was dead. Nothing moved, though the place was far was quiet. Somewhere within the building there was a constant hum of something. Metal groaned against metal and there was the sound of something, something deeper down in the generator, skittering like a the claws of a rat on steel plate.
Wait, skittering?
Dib looked down over the railing before him and instantly regretted it. The feeling of vertigo was like a slap in the face for being such a moron as think looking over the edge of something that went miles down was a smart idea.
And yet it gave him his answer. From that quick glance he spotted what he was looking for. Deep down, lighted by something blue coming from one of those spider-like PAK legs, was Zim. Dib had seen him for only a moment, vanishing into a corridor but he knew what level he was on and his hunch had been right. Zim was hunting for the singularity control room.
And of course, Dib almost let his legs buckle out from under him right then and there.
Dib made his way towards the nearest maintenance ladder and began climbing down as fast as his terrified limbs would allow, forcing his body to keep pushing forward out of a desperate sense that he had to do something.
More skittering. He reached the catwalk that Zim had been on and began by trying to walk across it. Then it turned into a jog. Then a mad run as the weight of what was happening began to feel heavier and heavier on his shoulders.
"ZIM, STOP!" His voice echoed uselessly off the walls of the vast chamber. It was answered only by more of that rat-like skittering noise echoing from down a dark, barely lit corridor ahead of him. As he ran Dib spotted a sign to his left. It was rusted and covered in dust but the black letters on faded white still stood out clear as day. 'PEG Singularity Control Center – Warning: No Unauthorized Access'
The counselor remembered there being a large security door between himself and that particular room, hopefully that would slow Zim down just enough so that-
The sound of screaming metal cut through the air, followed by an electronic sounding cackle and a low hiss. So much for slowing the alien down.
Dib's heart was pounding in his chest as he pushed himself ever onwards. Images of screaming faces filled his mind. People being literally torn to shreds by the gravitation pull of PEG, the world crumbling in on itself. Apocalyptic visions that he knew were only a tiny, mortal glimpse into the true reality of what 'planetary collapse' actually meant.
It would be Zim's anger given form. It was a horrific prospect.
Dib turned a corner and saw that the door had been literally blown off its hinges. Considering it was made from five inch thick vibranium it was actually kind of impressive. Before Dib pressed on he took a moment to draw out his phone once more. With a quick tap of his fingers he sent possibly the worst text he'd ever written to his sister. 'In PEG. Sigl ctrl rum.'
The councilor shoved his phone into his pocket and took a moment t breathe. In-out-in-out. In his mind he did everything he could to psyche himself up for this. He was trained to talk people down from things. He was trained to handle out of control kids. Zim was just another lost child, another kid who needed someone to help him. Just because he was armed to the teeth and completely prepared to decimate the entire planet was not a factor here.
… well maybe it was but that didn't change the base facts.
Dib gripped his fist tightly and ignored the urge to throw up. Then he turned and walked into the room slowly.
The room looked like something out of NASA. Rows of computers lined up on desks, all facing one huge window. Beyond the window was a blindingly white room in which lots of complex looking machines moved about. However that wasn't what really drew the eye. The main focus of the room was the huge black sphere floating in the middle of all the complex machines. The black sphere was perfectly still but even so there was something inherently wrong about it. It looked as though someone had punched a perfect hole in the fabric of reality revealing nothing but the infinite void behind the paper-thin walls that kept the universe together. It was almost maddening to look at and as such Dib was glad he had something more solid to focus on.
Namely the tiny, thin silhouette of the irken soldier standing in front of the vast window.
Without a sound Dib made his way down the steps that separated the door from the lower rows of the control center. Though the moment he reached the last step, he stopped.
"I knew you'd follow me here." Zim's voice was colder than the anything in the facility. Colder than Dib had ever heard it. There was an unnerving steadiness to it that set the hairs on Dib's neck standing up. "Good. You should be the one to die first."
"Zim-"
"When this entire filth ball of a planet is turned into nothing but the pinprick of an quark maybe then people will finally respect the name of Zim. What do you think, Dib?"
Dib's stomach flipped. Zim had never spoken his name alone like that. It was always Dib-monster, Dib-stink, Dib-beast. Never just... Dib.
"Zim you can't do this. All these people-"
"MEAN NOTHING TO ME." Zim finally turned and locked his gaze onto the human.
The counselor held back a gasp. He could see it in Zim's eyes as clear as day.
Zim had given up hope.
The alien took a step towards the human, his fist clenched tightly and somehow he seemed bigger and far more dangerous than he'd ever been before. This was an invader, Dib realized. This was the solider that the Tallest wanted him to be. Uncaring. Unfeeling. Murderous.
"THEY ARE WORMS BENEATH THE POWER OF ZIM." The alien screamed at Dib. "AND THEY'RE ALL GOING TO DIE."
"You don't have to do this." Dib spoke quickly so the irken couldn't interrupt him. He had to break through to Zim somehow, before it was too late. "Please. Zim. If you destroy the singularity you'll destroy everything in a heartbeat. There's no way you'd be able to escape."
"Don't you think I know that?" Zim raised his left arm slowly and for the first time Dib saw that there was a metal brace wrapped around his arm. On it was simply a small, red button. "Once I press this, my PAK will immediately go into self-destruct mode. It will release a twenty megaton photon blast that will destroy everything here and unleash the full force of the singularity upon this pathetic planet, killing every last living cell upon it."
Silence hung heavily between the two of them as Dib quietly processed this and Zim allowed him to do so.
"... so this is a suicide."
"I have no regrets." Zim snapped back. "Irken honor states that suicide is a viable option for a soldier as long as I take an enemy down with me."
"And is that what I am now? The enemy?" Dib put his palms out towards Zim. "Is that all I am to you?"
"You filled my head with lies." Zim spat at the human, but his voice was rising once again. "You tried to turn me against my Tallest. I almost bought into what you were telling me but I saw the truth. You're just like everyone else. You just want to expose me or use me for your own amusement, don't you? DON'T YOU?" He pointed an accusing finger at Dib but for the counselor he might as well have stabbed him with it. "ALL YOU EVER CARED ABOUT WAS YOURSELF!"
"No, that's not-"
"I THOUGHT YOU HAD HONOR!" Zim screamed, his voice finally breaking from the cold, forced stoicism of before. Now Dib heard it, the scared, hurt child in pain. His voice was quaking like it had done in the lab. Zim was talking in short, heaving breaths and as he spoke he practically choked on his words. "I THOUGHT MAYBE, MAYBE SOMEONE WAS FINALLY ON THE SIDE OF ZIM. MAYBE I HAD SOMEONE I COULD TRUST. MAYBE I HAD SOMEONE WHO LISTENED TO ME!" He took a step back, "But no. No. You never cared. No one ever cared. Zim is..." His arm slowly began raising up and his voice became low and unstable. "... Just another defect. The empire cannot have defects."
"Zim, don't!" Dib took a sudden step forward, his arm held up as if to grab the irken. Zim reacted swiftly, his finger moving quickly to the red button but as Dib froze, he stopped.
"I'm sorry!"
"LIER!"
"I'm sorry." Dib put his arm down slowly and, again slowly, he moved down onto one knee. He needed to speak to Zim on his level, not command him from above like so many in his life had done.
"Zim, please, listen to me." Dib kept his voice as cool as he could but inside he was desperately trying not to throw himself on Zim and wrestle that brace off the irken's arm. He couldn't resort to violence, it would only guarantee that Zim would never, ever trust him again. "I broke our bond of honor. I broke our trust. It was all my fault and I'm sorry. You're absolutely right to be angry at me, but this suicide, this killing of everything. It's not the right answer."
"And what else is there?" Zim's finger was shaking on the button, causing Dib to become extremely paranoid that he'd press it purely on accident, even to the point of slowly, carefully raising a hand. "What else do I have left? You saw my journal. I can't go back to them, they don't care about Zim. I can't do anything. All I have is my honor and this one final act that perhaps my people will remember me by other than just a joke."
"I understand what-"
"NO. NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, HUMAN." Zim screamed at Dib, causing the counselor to retract his hand. "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE!"
"Yes, he does."
The new voice caused the two to look suddenly up at the entrance to the control room, with Dib's heart both jumping for joy and falling flat on its face knowing what would happen if he survived this.
Gaz stood at the top of the desk rows looking for all the world like some kind of angry stone monolith. Her expression was utterly unreadable, though some small part of Dib's brain was telling him that if she hadn't already torn his head off at this point she was most likely going to be on his side. But that also meant that she was only saving the head tearing until after they had stopped Zim from killing himself and seven billion people.
"You called your spawn-sibling for help?" Zim stammered out, clearly caught off guard by this new development. Then his head lowered and his arm raised up once more. "It matters not. Soon you'll all be gone anyway."
"It's just Gaz, Zim." Dib put his hand out once again in some tiny effort to stop Zim. "Just Gaz. You know Gaz."
"And I was being honest." Gaz replied as she slowly descended the steps. "He does know what it's like. To lose everything he believed in. I've seen it."
Dib glanced over to his sister for a moment, wondering just what angle she was playing but once he saw Zim's antennae twitch and his finger halt again on the button he decided not to interrupt her.
"Do you know what he was like as a kid?" Gaz spoke calmly, coolly to the alien. Dib thought she might have had more of a reaction upon seeing that her brother had been telling the truth about the whole alien thing but Gaz had never been one for reactions. Or emotions in general really. That or she was most likely saving her reaction until later. "He went on and on and on about aliens. He was obsessed with the idea that somewhere, out there, were other life forms." She stopped beside Dib. "And that they were all out to kill him, us and this entire planet."
Zim's antennae twitched again but to Dib's surprise he didn't make a comment. Instead his ruby eyes focused on the counselor with a sort of new cautious curiosity.
"He was so obsessed with this idea that he had to save everyone. He was bullied all through skool because he never stopped talking about how he was gonna save the earth and be this big hero." Dib had to admit even now as an adult that memory stung a little. "But obviously they never showed up. Kind of pathetic really."
Dib, even in the terrible danger they were all in, shot an annoyed glance at his sister.
"It got so bad that he barricaded himself in his room because he thought they were going to come and kill him. He lost his mind over it because, despite everything he believed in, there was no danger. No alien menace. Nothing." Gaz paused and for a moment it seemed to Dib as though she was reliving the memory herself. Her hand clenched into a fist at her side. "He was a complete idiot. So you know what we did? My father and I? We sent him to Arkham asylum so he could get better. And you know what happened?"
Zim didn't answer her, though his eyes seemed fixated on her for the moment.
"He got better. He came back. He decided instead of trying for something that was never going to happen, he would try to help people in a way that would actually matter."
The alien turned his eyes slowly to Dib, his voice was still shaking. "Is... is this true?"
"Yeah." Dib hung his head for a moment. "Yeah it is."
"... you knew failure... and you survived?"
"Yeah." Dib looked up to Zim and, thankfully, noticed that the claw hovering over the red button had moved back just a little. "I did."
Another heavy silence were the only sound was the distant hum of generators and the creaking of old machinery.
"I... I don't want to die." Zim finally stuttered out, his eyes focusing on the floor as he spoke and his voice low. "But... what can I do?"
"You can live." Gaz offered suddenly. "Earth isn't as a bad as you might think."
"You can do anything you want here. I know you love doing science. You can do that. Become something you're proud of. Not your Tallest or anyone else. Just you." Dib allowed a smile to form on his lips. "You're not a defect or a failure Zim. You're just you. And that's all you need to be."
Zim's whole body seemed to be shivering as his eyes moved from Dib to Gaz and back again. Dib could see it. Though Zim's red eyes, somehow bright against the void background of the singularity. The battle for his own soul. He seemed to be wrestling with himself, trying to decide who was right. The Tallest a trillion light years away, or these two pig-humans in front of him. His hand moved closer to the red button and Dib forgot how to breathe. Even Gaz beside him seemed to suck in air between her clenched teeth.
Suddenly Zim wailed as if he had been stabbed with something long and sharp. His hands flew up to his head and he grabbed it tightly. He fell onto his knees and sobbed loudly, taking in huge gulps of air and crying out like a wounded animal. Dib and Gaz moved forward together, Dib taking the alien by the shoulders in a half-hug and Gaz, almost unsure of how to act, simply stood by Zim's other side.
For a while Dib simply let Zim cry, or at least the irken approximation of crying as he noticed there were no tears, until it seemed every last sob and sound was gone from his tiny body other than the occasional sad hiccup. Then Zim simply curled up, his arms around his legs as he focused his gaze forward. The brace had long since vanished from his arm and the button along with it, allowing the counselor to actually breathe out a sigh of relief and to feel his heart beating again.
"I'm truly sorry. About what I did, Zim." Dib spoke softly. "I promise you though. I will never do it again. Ever."
"Don't." Zim replied in a slight growl. "There will not be a second chance."
"Yeah, seriously Dib. Don't." Gaz agreed in a growl that was at least ten times more dangerous than Zim's.
"I won't! I swear."
"Swear it. On your honor." Zim added, fixing Dib with a sharp look.
"I swear it on my honor."
Zim turned his gaze to Gaz. "And what of you? Do you swear not to reveal anything about Zim?"
"What?" Gaz raised an eyebrow at the alien. "Are you seriously-" She glanced to Dib, who, from behind Zim's back, simply gave her a nod and a look that said 'please, please agree'. She sighed and nodded once. "Fine. I swear it on my honor."
Zim, for the first time since he got here, seemed to smile. "Good." The smile faded away and he kept his gaze on the floor. Another long stretch of silence settled in before he finally spoke again in a small voice. "Zim would like to go home now. I... I have some thinking to do."
The counselor nodded and let him go, standing up. "Alright. But... will I see you again next Thursday? One o'clock?"
The alien seemed to consider this for a moment and then nodded. "Fine. Zim supposes your talks are somewhat useful."
As they all began walking out towards the doorway, Gaz put a hand up to Dib's arm and grabbed it tightly. Quietly she hissed into his ear, "We're going to your place and you are going to tell me everything. Everything. From the beginning. Or I will send you to such nightmarish realms of pain that even making deals with Bill Cipher won't get you out of them."
Dib, too exhausted to even take the threat seriously, simply let our a wry smile. "So... we're ordering Bloaty's, then?"
AND SO IT ALMOST COMES TO AN END. I really hoped you guys liked the extra long chapter because while I did like it as a whole, there were certainly some parts I didn't enjoy. The beginning with the car probably could have been done better and I would have liked to build more on Zim screaming at Dib, but hopefully when read with chapter 20 it still works. Also the end. The end is the bane of all writers as we should all know at this point. We all hate endings. Curse you ending.
BUT I did like Gaz's comparison speech and the general feel of the generator. I had to kind of remind myself what it looked like, but also, I took some liberties with the innards because why not. The same with the singularity core and all that. I mean why not, right?
So here's everyone's favorite part! The references!
GLaDOS - The wonderful GLaDOS from the Portal series. Great set of games btw, you should all go and play them right freakin' now.
Undertale - I've never actually played Undertale but a good friend of mine has and actually looks kinda fun. Also I giggled thinking up that sequel name.
Jerk – A reference to the popular streaming gaming side Twitch. I also have a Twitch channel. I also can't stream games right now because Comcast are jerks who can't build proper modems.
Not sayin' it's aliens - DIB'S NOT SAYIN' IT'S ALIENS. BUT IT'S ALIENS. I mean seriously it's obviously aliens.
Cave Johnson/Aperture Science - Another portal reference! YAY! Cave Johnson is gonna make the lemons that BURN THE SINGULARITY DOWN.
Vibranium - Vibranium from the Marvel comics. Cap's shield is made out of it and it can only be found in Wakanda. I don't know why I know all this but I do.
Photon – FIRE THE PHOTON TORPEDOES. Star Trek. Because obviously gotta squeeze in a trek reference. Also did you know photons are a real thing? Like not even kidding they really are a real science thing. Science is awesome.
Arkham asylum – Also gotta make that Batman reference, though I actually thought up 'Arkham' because I was going for another H.P. Lovecraft reference but it worked out both ways! YAY!
Bill Cipher - Gravity Falls! Because yes! Also that line went through several revisions before deciding on the Bill Cipher reference.
The singularity room - A somewhat reference Half Life 2/HL 2: Episode 1. Kind of based upon it but not? You'd get it if you played the game. Which you should. It's a damn good game.
So yes that was your extra big, double sized, special issue chapter for ya'll. One more chapter left to wrap up everything. I hoped you all enjoyed the ride to this point because I gotta admit I had fun writing it all.
ANYWAYS. Leave your thoughts in forms of nice reviewy-shaped feedback and seriously tell me what you thought of the extra-length chapter and if/how it worked for you because kinda considering going back to this style perhaps? Anyway yeah. THANKS FOR READING AND SEE YOU NEXT TIME FOR THE GRAND FINALE.