Chapter Text
i.
Professor Membrane had studied hundreds of thousands of things. He was constantly studying. In fact, the small creature in his arms right now was going to help him, whether it wanted to or not. It would be a long term study, something that would likely take decades to prove. He looked at the little thing, wiggling around in his arms, crying out for attention. Its skin was the exact same shade of sunkissed tan as his, dark hair already showing signs of having a mighty cowlick in the centre, brown eyes unfocused in a way Membrane was sure indicated the future need for glasses. In short, the thing was a perfect clone.
That was until the thing wiggled over and Professor Membrane saw the strange squiggles on it’s back. It looked like some sort of writing, maybe a pictogram of sorts. Nothing he recognized and Professor Membrane recognized everything. No matter what, it was something the elder man knew for a fact he did not have. Interesting. This would prove to be a fascinating experiment.
Several hundred space sectors away, a creature that was technically, functionally immortal but still generally a child was slammed down on a sparring mat. Were the room any quieter, he would have heard the nervous system on his back start to click in a way it really shouldn’t have. And as soon as it did, if anyone ever bothered to check, a few words in tiny, swirling script appeared right above the PAK. But nobody ever did.
ii.
Dib Membrane’s love of all things super- or para-natural either stemmed from a fusing of childhood imagination with his father’s scientific experiments, or the fact that the strange symbols on his back were probably a sort of soulmate mark in a language that was unspoken on earth. He didn't know which answer was true but he certainly knew that his father wasn't a fan of either. It never bothered him that he didn't know what it said or what sort of person would be the ones to say those words. Instead, he let the curiosity fuel him while he tried to become the sort of adult his family could be proud of.
As any good member of the Membrane family would Dib was studying physics as his (first) major in university. His stellar grades, slowly blossoming social life, and the fact he stopped constantly going on about aliens and ghosts and vampire bees kept his family from asking too many questions (He still brought them up occasionally, but only to Gaz, and only in private). He still didn't get along with his father too much, but at least dinner was more civil and Professor Membrane was willing to come to the occasional ceremony honouring his son.
Instead of a minor, Dib had elected to do a double major, except that the second major was a fun program he found called “Modern Languages and Cultural Studies Major” which let you pick two different languages to take to the senior level. He had some ideas on what he wanted to focus on, but Dib did take advantage of this as a chance to take introductory courses for as many as he could. If anyone asked, he would say it was so he could better speak to the many people Membrane Labs was trying to protect. In reality, though, it started as a way to confirm no modern person spoke is soulmate’s language. He learned more than his fair share of the earth’s tongues and could stumble his way through a handful more if the conversations were kept simple. It only proved that his words were not anything current. And then he delved into linguistic history, idly daydreaming of perhaps time travel involving his lover’s meeting. He studied anything that had a solid alphabet for long enough to exclude it and then moved on. When even those options were exhausted, Dib did the nerdiest thing he could think of and learned a bunch of fictional languages and their alphabets just to exclude them too.
While it proved that there was something extra interesting going on with Dib’s markings, his family did their best to ignore the implications. Professor Membrane himself had no soulmate marks, and Gaz had one, platonic pink, across her knuckles. It said “Hi, baby!” and was a perfect match to the “plllffffbgb” that was on Dib’s knuckles. Since Professor Membrane had none of his own, he was perfectly happy to not care about them and focus his science elsewhere. Gaz too just didn’t give a shit. The only thing she cared about was just how funny it was when she punched Dib with the soulmate knuckles. And while she had been with him enough to know Dib was right about at least 60% of the things he obsessed over, she didn’t give a shit about that either.
So when Dib called her, a weekend while in his first year of uni, asking if she could meet at their childhood home instead of at his dorm or on campus, she responded with an “ugh I guess.” Gaz got home only about 20 minutes after he did which was just long enough for him to set up. She walked into the house to find a map taped up on the wall in their living room. There was coloured yarn attached to pins, some blurry photos, and her idiot brother looking at his display with a maniacal grin.
“Okay, what the hell is this?” She has to get right up next to it to see that it was a map of his university campus.
He leaned up against the map and lovingly stroked a yarn connecter. “My progress… I’ve come up with a lead.”
“Oh ew, don’t say it like that.” Gaz jumped over the back of the couch and slumped into her usual seat. “You still stalking kids you think might be supernatural?”
Dib nearly flung himself off the wall in shock. “Absolutely not! What do you take me for, Gaz?” He shook his head and jumped onto the couch beside her. “I’ve been watching for signs, and I’ve finally found them.”
Oh god. “Them?” She didn’t even want to know, but she had to ask. Had to see this trainwreck herself. “Who is ‘them’?”
Her brother had the decency to look bashful for half a moment. “I’m … not sure yet, Gaz. But I know there is something. I’ve seen all the signs, checked and rechecked my calculations. Something is up Gaz, and I need your help.” Dib gestured around the map.
She pulled out her phone to send a text to… well to nobody at the moment, but Gaz didn’t want her brother to know she was mildly interested. It was the first week of October and this would be a welcome distraction from her high school senior blues. As soon she had opened her phone and tapped it a little, she closed it again and glanced at the map. Dib’s weird little pictures didn’t look like they were of people, but they were too blurry to make out from this distance. “What calculations have you done?”
Dib leapt off the couch and pointed to a pin beside what Gaz thought was the Engineering Quad. “There have been instances of fluctuations in the magnetic field near the Interdisciplinary Sciences building.” He gestured to another near what might have been the artist’s studios. “Increased amounts of negative energy near here, for no reason.” Dib tapped the North Library Pin. “Gravity has been doing some bunk ass shit here, I’ve been trying to keep track of all the fluctuations but there have been too many to count.”
“So what do you think it is?” Gaz pulled her phone out again, this time opening a game and making sure he could see it. “You know better than to bother me with nonsense, Dib.”
He laughed a little and toyed with one of the strings that had come loose. “I’m not quite sure yet, but would it be too much for me to say, Aliens?”
iii.
Zim had been enjoying as much of his time stuck in his Voot as possible. It took a while to learn how to tune GIR out, but that happened somewhere around month 4 and ever since Zim had been trying to catch any sort of output waves from his destination planet. He’d covered GIR’s mouth with some tape, used the robot’s antennae to catch the local radio waves, and then jerry rigged an extension to his Voot’s internal communications system so he could listen through that instead.
The things he was hearing sounded like terror on his auditory orbits, at least until GIR started screaming again and he decided that this “one-oh-three-point-nine hot rajio” was much better. For approximately the first 30 seconds, he had no clue what was going on or what anything meant before his PAK kicked in and started analysing the noise, automatically translating it into Irken for him to understand. As soon as it did, though, he caught on quickly to the format of the radio. Some of this human-muzak would be played, occasionally being attributed to an artist drone and given a title. Every handful of songs the show’s hosts would cut in with some commentary, perhaps things that could have been considered a witty anecdote.
GIR had quickly picked up the basics of most of the songs the humans would play and was singing them around the tape still sealing his mouth. “MMMMM BOP, BA DUBA DOP BA DU WOP, BA DUBA DOP BA DU WOP, BA DUBA DOP BA DU WOP.”
Zim figured that maybe the dulcet tones of the Hanson brothers would be a better lullaby against the stark eternal night of space if his robot would stop singing the chorus on repeat from the beginning to the end. At least it was entertaining enough that he barely noticed when month 5 of Voot-contained travel had nearly ended.
The most telling thing that even more time had passed was when one host started a segment that Zim found entirely confusing at first. “Hello again listeners, It’s ya boy Chaz McFlickwick back for the Early Morning Show. Now I want to get into today’s chat topic early.”
Sometimes the ‘chat topics’ were highly helpful in learning the culture of the humans. Zim did his best to listen intently, waiting for something that could be useful. Unfortunately, none so far had been “What is your greatest weakness?” or “How likely to submit to an alien invasion are you?”. Zim listened with the hope that perhaps this one would be useful to him.
“Today I want to hear about your best university of college stories. What did you learn about yourself or your friends? Let’s hear all about it! Text in or call at 999 999 1039.”
Zim wasn’t quite sure what this university or college was, but the follow up questions sounded interesting. Would people learn their greatest weaknesses or fears at this University or College? At the moment, GIR was powered down, asleep, thankfully, which meant that Zim could focus for once. He listened intently to all the stories being related from listeners to the show’s host, trying to make up for the mistranslations his ship was bound to make.
He paid complete attention to the incoming audio while the host recounted one person’s story of learning that they were terrified of spiders. Zim wasn’t entirely sure if the computer had translated this “zpider” word correctly, but he had no doubt he would recognize the creature if he was to ever see it. He was unsure if every human was afraid of zpiders, but he’d exploit it as much as possible. There was another story sent in about a human who had attended a full semester of class, while not actually enrolled. Supposedly, the human didn’t realize until the final examination when the instructor could not properly give a grade to the student. Zim sort of stopped paying attention there, too focused on remembering that humans were apparently not attentive enough to notice something as simple as that. He was sure that that would come in handy as it likely meant humans are entirely stupid.
The final anecdote that was relayed to the radio station was one that confused Zim for all that it was useful. Human schooling seemed similar to Irken, if only if it was way worse, less militarized, and really dumb. Apparently. This story revolves around a person spending “all nighters” in the school’s library with another person. The term all nighter was confusing, did humans need to power down often? Unless the translator in his PAK was malfunctioning, he would assume so. Knowing that would give him a big advantage, Zim could go weeks without powering down.
He was on board with the story until the host mentioned that the person telling the story had apparently “met their soulmate” with the other person in the library. Were library’s only for two humans at a time? What is this “soulmate”? It was obviously a term for a person, but Zim didn’t know enough of this earth language to have a proper translation.
All of this together was interesting and foreign. The fact that Human-muzak was so varied, which had been outright illegal on Irk, was nothing compared to the apparent variety of experiences on Earth. In order to properly blend in, Zim felt he would need to see some examples of how humans truly lived. Based on the stories the radio was sharing, it seemed that one of these Universities or Colleges would be his best bet for that.
iv.
Class was dragging on. Not that it was a surprise. Dib flicked his pencil over his hand with a flourish. The professor was explaining some topic that should have been common sense, and they’d taken 50 minutes of the 80 minute class so far to do so. Rather than make a fuss or being all over the internet, Dib decided to get all the assigned questions for the week all the done. They hadn’t even taken more than half an hour.
Dib dropped his head onto the desk he was sitting in, trying to keep his heavy sigh as quiet as possible. It’s not that science like this (specifically, this class was physics: fluid dynamics) was boring , it’s just that it was easy. If you were made to be good at science, then it wouldn’t be interesting, right?
Dib has told his dad that, right after he found out he was a clone in an effort to get a little more freedom in his interest. It had worked so it must make sense, and therefore it’s not his fault that this lab class was probably at the bottom of his list of interests. Honestly, the only reason he could drag himself out of bed today was the second language class that came next.
After doing what Professor Membrane would describe as “growing out of childish fantasies”, Dib fought back by taking lessons in other languages. He started with French, figuring it would be the closest to Spanish which he knew already, and by the time he graduated he could speak those, English, and was getting started in German and Navajo. Sure they weren’t what he had hoped to be spending his time doing when he was a preteen just discovering the world and the idea of post secondary schooling, but at least it wasn’t 100% what Membrane the Elder wanted. This was Dib sticking it to the man.
When the physics prof finally started doing something interesting enough to be worth listening to, Dib was so bored he could barely keep his head up. German 212 could not come fast enough, he thought as he watched the prof bring up a video of experiments done in a lab somewhere. Maybe if the class had started with this, he’d actually be interested in paying attention. Dib sighed again and tried to decide if maybe he should dip early, grab a coffee before making his way to the german room.
And then the power went out. It wasn’t like a flickering light suddenly burnt out, or like someone had just flipped the switch for the lecture hall. All the lights in the room, even the small flickering ones on the emergency signs went out with a low buzz. For a room that seemed quiet before, this was a deadly silence.
But it wasn’t just silence, this was a sign.
Dib quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket, hissing slightly when the too bright screen blinded him. Adjusting the brightness and pulling up his texts, Dib hunched down in his seat and tuned out the slowly picking up chatter of his classmates.
[Power’s out, Gaz.]
[You know what this means.]
There was a moment before he saw the typing icon show up and he figured she was already getting ready to glare at him.
[If the power wasn’t out here too, I'd tell you to expect a knuckle sandwich when you get home next.]
Wait the power was out downtown too?
[This is too big an area for it just to be a coincidence.]
[So, what]
[You think your alien finally landed?]
Dib hesitated. He could just say no, not yet and move on. Wait for the power to come back. Go to German, pretend he didn’t notice the things happening all across town. Or…
[I’ll text you when i find them.]
Dib closed his laptop and shoved it into his bag, shining his phone’s screen around to make sure that was the only thing he had sitting on the desk, and then basically sprinted out of the lecture hall. The sun was too bright in his eyes as he exited into the building’s lobby but he didn't let that slow him down. A few other students followed him out onto the main sciences quad, but all at a much more leisurely pace. Dib slowed too, a little, once he was outside. Maybe sprinting across campus when the power is out, grinning like a madman might look a little suspicious. He slowed to a jog and tried to school his expression into something more neutral lest someone thing he had caused this.
The dorms were only another 100 meters or so ahead of him when Dib realized something. The main doors required keycard access and were totally locked when power was down. He’d have to use the emergency entrance to get to his dorm, then try to get into his room through the second keycard door, and then he’d have to try to find his tools in the mess. And make it back out again.
Not worth it.
Instead he swung around, heading for the student parking, and pulling out his phone.
[Hey how'd you feel about coming with?]
[And skip social, the most important subject?]
[If power’s out, then I can’t get into my dorm.]
[Gotta have some sort of tools for this, Gaz]
[Or you could just go back to class. Let some other idiot find the alien.]
[But where's the fun in that?]
[You know this’ll be better than social with Witerson.]
[Come get me.]
[I’m only agreeing because you're right.]
[Whiterson is so fucking lame]
That's good enough, he thought. Dib would be passing by her school on his way back anyways, and he was a little out of practice. Gaz would at least make sure he didn't end up dead. If it didn't turn out well he’d never hear the end of it but the excitement, the chance it’d turn out perfectly, made that risk worth it.
When Dib made it to the parking lot he nearly threw himself into his new nissan leaf. His bag was tossed haphazardly into the back seat, any worry for his precious laptop forgotten in the thrill of the moment. The car took a few moments to start, precious moments that he should have been out on the road. It was times like this, when Membrane’s ‘gifts’ that were more like exchanges of Dib’s freedom for some expensive but needed tool looked more and more like a wasted opportunity to exercise some freedom. And then the car started and Dib was zipping out of the parking lot, electric car and/or father based frustrations forgotten in the thrill of the chase.
The roads were mostly empty, thankfully. It meant that Dib could pick up Gaz, who was waiting out front of her school, and make it home in about ten minutes. She elected to sit in his car, waiting while he ran up and into his old room to grab everything he needed. The Membrane household technically had its own power supply, PEG-Jr down in the sub-basement, so Dib was confused to find that the blackout had reached here as well. He stumbled through the kitchen and up the stairs before getting into his room where a single window sat, letting in enough sunlight to make this viable.
Dib dropped his bag on the bed while he went to rummage in his closet, still remarkably neat since he had emptied a portion out of it to take with him to his dorm. The first thing he tossed into his bag was the binoculars he’d modded back in high school, followed by two different cans of pepper spray, a can of silly string, his old symbol notepad and a few cans of mountain dew that he had apparently left behind when he moved out. His CB radio was already in the trunk of his car, and so was the camera that came on every outing like this.
Before he could leave his old room, Dib stopped for a moment at his desk. He let his fingers drift over the wood slowly, remembering the many many hours sat here throughout his grade school years. As he reminisced, Dib pulled open the single drawer and shuffled through the contents. There was some old packs of gum, some loose queue cards, his highschool ID cards, and the one thing he was glad his dad never found out he had.
Dib pulled out the modified BB pistol gun that had remained hidden here for the past two years or so. The pellets he kept it loaded with were coated in a slightly acidic powder, and it’s biggest draw was the homemade silencer. Dib grabbed it tentatively. Would he need it? If it really was an alien, he wouldn’t want to go investigating unprepared. If it was just a dude though, he’d look like such an asshole. Besides, Gaz didn’t have a weapon. Maybe it should go to her then, to make sure she’s safe. Dib was confident despite being out of practice that he could still take care of himself.
He checked to make sure that the safety was engaged and slid it into one of the pockets of his bag. That was everything he’d need. Dib took one last look around his room, sliding the drawer shut before remembering that time was probably of the essence and sprinting back out of the house.