Domo Arigato, Miss Roboto: You Keep This Love

Welcome to beginning the revised, ADULT version of Domo Arigato, sequel to the more humorous Invader Scorned.  I realize that this story may come as downer to those of you who read Scorned and enjoyed it's light-hearted juvenile humor, but that's tough. The following was meant to be a pretentious angst ridden descent into psycho-ville. Besides, there shall be smuttiness and graphic violence. Now who doesn't like that?

Recommended soundtrack for this:
The Idiots are Taking Over (NOFX), This Love (Pantera), Opiate (Tool), either Deep or Closer (NIN), & Girl's Not Grey (AFI)

Chapter 1: You Keep This Love

The computer screen gleamed and flickered as Dib scrolled his way through the latest updates on the Swollen Eyeball forum. Most of it was crap on the last known sighting of Fish-boy, who he actually knew as Dirge from him Biology class. The only freakish thing about the guy was the fact that Dirge liked showing off his webbed toes, which looked more like duck feet than anything remotely fish-like. It was stupid things like the whole "Fish-boy" debate that made Dib embarrassed to call himself a paranormalist.

He sighed and leaned back into his chair, wondering if he should debunk the dreaded fishy menace and smash the dreams of some kid obsessed with proving that Fish-boy was real. A kid who craved to be recognized, to be praised, and who only wanted to enlighten the world to the danger that only he could see. Then again, Dib was sick of enlightening the world... He was just sick of everything. He was sick of saving the world; he was sick of being a (insane) genius; he was sick of debunking; he was sick of this; he was sick of that...

And Dib was especially sick of people.

They wouldn't let him be alone anymore. He couldn't escape from all the wanna-bes and haters orbiting him like crazy moons spiraling into a dying planet. The way they would talk was driving Dib's already straining sanity to its very breaking point. They wouldn't let a single detail of his life slip by without comment, no matter how trivial it was. They pecked his life apart with all the precision of starving vultures. The kind of food he ate, the clothes he wore, his favorite color, what TV shows he watched, even whether he wore underwear or not was the subject of intense debate among both Dib's fans and his classmates. Yet the all-time favorite topic they talked about was Dib's love life. Or rather, the seeming lack of one.

It was painfully obvious to everyone that Dib, renowned paranormalist/surgeon/superhero/rock star1, was single. And, despite the amorous efforts of the fan-girls, it looked as though he was perfectly content to remain single. Or maybe...

Dib wasn't deaf. He heard each barely whispered rumor that followed him down the halls. And saw the way they'd stare at him. And he also knew Torque and Chunk would beat the living shit out of him if they didn't know he could snap their spines with a flick of a finger. All because people assumed that if a sixteen year-old boy wasn't happy with beautiful women constantly flinging themselves at him, something queer was going on. The more observant ones remembered the way he used to stare at Zim all the time, ignoring the fact that he and the alien hated each. Instead, they'd notice something odd about the way Dib kept ignoring the little weirdo for years and the way Zim nearly humped him in half after that stupid hamster rampage. The really bright ones added it all together and, within a span of twelve minutes, the entire High Skool had come to the conclusion that Dib Membrane was one serious closet case.

The sickening part was, for once in their collectively stupid lives, Dib's classmates were right.

"Nearly five fucking years!" he snarled aloud. "Spend five fucking years screaming your head off and pointing out the alien sitting right in the front of the classroom, they call you crazy. Let a rumor start about you being gay and they're willing believe anything!

Dib slammed a hand against his armrest. "Just once, I'd like to go to the mall and not be hounded by fan-boys. Or marriage proposals! Would it kill them to leave me alone for once? Is it too much for me to ask for some privacy!" The chair skittered backwards as he got up to pace and rant. "It's not fucking fair! I've bent over backwards for those morons! I've been wasting the best years of my life saving their sorry pork-butts long before they even knew it! I gave up any chance at a personal life so the Earth would be safe! And what does it get me? A world full of IDIOTS! I'm surrounded by MORONS! And I starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston! Stranded on a primate planet!"

"Quit whining!" Gaz roared from her bedroom. "And stop bleating punk."

Dib's mood deflated from flaming anger to moody angst. He may have the fame, the money, and the fans, but he still never got any respect from his family. In Gaz's opinion, he'd gotten even more annoying as time passed. But at least she didn't pester him about the rumors. If his dad ever found out...

He slumped back into his chair. It was going to be impossible to explain this to the professor with his old-fashioned and frankly Puritanical ideas about intimate relations. Dib had already prepared himself for the worst. Stashed near the front door was a rather extensive list of hotels and fast-food places stuffed into a duffel bag of clothes, readied for a quick flight. And that was just if he told his dad about the gay thing. He didn't want to think of what would happen if he brought up those other inclinations. Dib shuddered, thinking about the dream that haunted him lately.

It was the same way every night. Always, he'd found himself in a cold autopsy room under the dim flicker of fluorescent bulbs, surrounded by a claustrophobic arrangement of trays, cabinets, and equipment. As Dib wheeled in a body-laden gurney, the tang of industrial cleaner and old blood that hung in the air assailed his senses, a lingering taste long after he woke up.

Just as he had done in every time before, Dib went through the exacting sacrament of un-strapping the arms, then the legs, and finally the torso. When he slid the body over onto the examining table, he'd re-strap it down in precision ritual. Not that there was any need for restraints on the body yet, because green skinned frame had a narcotic limpness as he adjusted a buckle.

Though those eyes had no pupils, there was a sedate and expressively empty red under the drooping eyelids as Dib stared down at his victim's face. His hands traced tender patterns over the reptilian skin that quivered and tensed under the touch of a latex glove. Always nearby was a steel tray that held an assortment of glinting sharp instruments laid out on a plain cloth. Picking a scalpel, he leaned over the table and began to press it into the flesh...

Snapping back to reality, Dib jerked his hand off his crotch and started pacing again as he tried to clear those bloodstained visions out of his head. He knew it was sick just wanting that, even if it was Zim. But Dib couldn't help himself anymore. He had to admit that this fixation with the alien had always been a little extreme, but now it was becoming so bad that Dib saw Zim everywhere he went. Windows he passed by had half-seen red eyes. A faint blur of green seen in a crowded hallway. Some nights he wake from a dream so vivid that he'd have sworn it was real... Things had reached the point where Dib was genuinely beginning to wonder if he was crazy. After all, what sane person would obsess over a monster that wanted to kill them?

"I must stop thinking like this!" Dib snarled quietly to himself. "It's not healthy! It's not normal!" He paused. "Then again, I'm not even sure what normal is anymore. There's just too much freaky shit going on in my life. With all those tabloid jerks hanging around, I can't get enough time alone to deal with this crap. But if I don't something about it soon, I'm going to end up the John Wayne Gacy2 of SCIENCE! And I don't even like SCIENCE!"

Waltzing out of his room, Dib wracked his brain for a solution. "It must be all this exposure to weirdness that's causing these...desires. This may also be the root behind my mistaken belief about being a homosexual as well. Therefore, if I want to stop these feelings, I have find something- no! Someone- normal and sane to counteract the freakish influence. But I wouldn't want anyone to have to live my life! Besides, what if I'm wrong? What if I really am a gay sadomasochistic xenophile with extremely homicidal medical fetish?" He plopped down on the couch. "It would be unethical to put a girl through this sort of experiment! Yet I have to know the truth! There has to be some way to test this without hurting anyone..."

Did idly flicked the TV on and, deep in morbid brooding, surfed through the channels. He stopped on a random midnight movie of the week. For some bizarre reason, the feature flick happened to be The Rocky Horror Picture Show.3 Even more bizarre was the fact that he just happened to click on it right at the scene where the demented Dr. Frank-n-faurter was addressing his "unconventional conventionist" about his latest creation.

"... you are about to witness a new breakthrough in biochemical research... and paradise is to be mine!” He basks in the applause It was strange the way it happened... suddenly, you get a break... snaps his rubber glove All of the pieces seem to fit into place. It took an accident to make it happen. AN ACCIDENT! And that is how I discovered the secret. That elusive ingredient, that... spark that is the breath of life... Yes. I have that knowledge! I hold the key to life... ITSELF! You see, you are fortunate for tonight is the night that my beautiful creature is destined to be BORN!"

Suddenly, inspiration struck Dib with the mighty force of a wet-towel to the ass in the locker room of Fate.

"That's it..." Dib stood up, body surging with brilliant vigor. "Oh, what a fool I am! Has my disgust with my father's conformist SCIENCE left me so blind to the very fact that the key to my salvation has been at hand all along! But now I see the solution! My eyes are open and the power lay at my fingertips!" His face darkened as he smiled manically. "Let them all enjoy their pathetic rumor mongering for now... By morning, they shall all see the new Dib! The Dib that should have been! And the last laugh shall be MINE!"

"Dib!" Came the snarl from upstairs. "If you don't stop being such a drama-queen, I'm going to rip out you lungs!"

Too elated to care about his sister's threats, Dib bolted down to his father's lab to begin working on what maybe his only chance at having a normal, Zim-free life.

***

1 See Invader Scorned!  Or ask the Blorch...

2 Yesh! My version of Dib is one sick little puppy...

3 Just when you thought you've escape V sneaking in a RHPS reference...