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Against the Odds	By : SaveTheDonuts Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 1354 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: IZ universe and canon characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon. I make no money from this or I would have more than a penny in my pocket.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Warning: This is a ZADR fanfic = Zim and Dib romance. If you don’t like, just don’t read. I mean it.

Everything related to Invader Zim does not belong to me ;w;

Rated: T, because of some minor violent scenes xp

Genre: Alternative universe. Some angst but things will get better… somehow owo;;

Summary: Zim promised he wouldn't run away anymore. He would fight for everything important to him and he would return, even if things could never be the same. But, at his return, he will know time had passed too fast, not even to say Good Bye. Now, he will have to survive in an unrecognizable world in an uncertain universe, until he meet a person who will help him to keep his word.

Chapter I. Moondance

" … it will revolutionize the international transport system as we know it. The company hopes the construction of the transport routes will concluded eighteen months from this day.

The specialists of the whole world recognize that this will bring a new age between the three principal world region relationships; maybe in this way the Agreement of … "

The reporter continued eagerly praising the importance of whatever that news was about, but the boy who was opposed the television was asleep on an old and shabby sofa. But even if he was awake, he would show no interest in the events of the world and, especially, that one.

Then, gabble exploded on the screen and the slumber of the boy broke as abrupt as a balloon attacked by a needle would do. Lazily, he sat down growling looking at the brilliant and blurry origin of the interruption, rubbing his left eye while his right hand looked for something around him. When he found it, he placed on his nose bridge lenses that matched perfectly to its position. Now he could see on the screen of an antiquated plasma television, an immense multitude cheering around a high and overwhelming white building in the middle of an extensive city. All the presents were shouting jubilantly while over them there was a swarm of floating cameras strategically positioned, aiming their lenses towards the same direction, while the reporter’s voice continued giving more details about the news. Just in the moment the shot changed from the crowd to the podium installed in the wide principal entry of the building, the boy seized the remote control of the television and rapidly turned it off. Anyone in the world knew the person standing there, him and all who preceded him. By now nobody could turn on the television, open a magazine or, simply, go out to the street without the influence of certain family present in each of the social levels.

The boy checked the hour in his watch; it was 7:20 of the morning. He still had some time to shower, get to work in time and maybe to nibble something as breakfast. Why did he felt asleep on the couch? Ah, right. The shift of the morning - evening in his first work in one of the several 24/7 messenger services companies plus the night shift in a bar for three days in a row was mortal for any normal person but that’s how he joggled in life because, ultimately, there were no many options to which going out forward precariously.

Yawning, he got up slowly and stretched his body. Several conjunctures cracked with the movement and after releasing yawning again, he looked at the space of the sofa had just rested his body a few moments ago. He had the feeling of having forgotten something but dismissed it.

He went to the bath dragging his feet and once inside, the blurred and cracked mirror of the bathroom returned the image of a slender pale skinned boy but not in a sickly tone as some of his work mates get to have, his black hair was a strange black tangle of zigzagged lines falling down backward, almost touching his shoulders and to curl in his nape. And on the bridge of his nose there was mounted a small black device from which two transparent micas covered his almonds black eyes.

In those times, it was strange someone to be using lenses. In general, when someone was born or contracted some ocular problem, they would go to any clinic and in the matter of one or two hours they were out as if nothing had happened. But in his case, no operation had worked, even his own father had the same problem; it was a strange genetic mark he would have to live with the rest of his life and probably if he had children, idea he wasn’t too enthusiasm into, they also would have this imperfection.

The cold water on his skin helped him to clear his mind of the thick mist of weariness that refused to leave. He lifted the face towards the watering-can arranged improvised with tape for wet superficies to support it on its place. The water went down sinuously on the skin of his back, arms and chest where it run up some old scars, results of worst and more dangerous works he had done at some point but he had enough respect for his body to expose himself to worst stuff he had been offered countless times.

His life was out of the exciting and he was determinate to leave it like that. Now, he work normally eight hours a day at a messenger company as delivery personnel and eight as waiter in a bar, both giving him a sufficient salary to save and simultaneously not to die of starvation. Though actually, he did not need very much to survive. Money wasn’t his top priority, just to be away from the people of his past was enough and he had managed to erase every track of his existence in the last years the best he could, which turned out to be amazingly and relatively easy for someone immersed in a society where, to acquire the smallest and insignificant good, meant a risk to leave a track towards the personal information.

Twenty minutes later, he was ready to leave. Wearing a long black sleeved shirt, made of a material that kept the user in a decent temperature whether the environment was cold or hot, dark blue jeans, red scarf around his neck and with one mega-toast in the mouth he left the safety of the house. His lenses had disappeared, they attracted too much unwanted attention so now he saw the world throw extremely thin contact lenses, making them less visible than the normal ones but terribly difficult to take care of, one shove in the transport or stumble they would fall and never to be found, incident he had lived repeatedly throughout the years.

One step out and a blast wind hit his face as every morning, disturbing his humid hair backward. Scanty a few meters from the door there was a motorway line where vehicles looking like small planes with tiny wings hovered a few centimeters from the floor running to not less than two hundred fifty kilometers per hour, in perfect synchrony thanks to the computers aboard and a high and thick containment rail delimitated the traffic and any accident that could happen.

Lifting his sight, high white buildings crowned by dark vegetable green spots surrounded the zone as part of an ecological permanent program, but he couldn’t avoid to relate the sight as a strange and massive harvest of broccolis. A flock of birds crossed the sky next to long lines of air vehicles, around perpetual shinny lights galaxy and infinite colors announcing products, news and whatnot. The sun shinned with the midday intensity but to that lower city level, only some missing rays of natural light could reach.

Turning around, he closed the door of his house with a strong tug, sending a jolt to the ruined construction and to a few centimeters from his feet, a piece of brick smashed against the floor. Anyone would wonder how such a small and insignificant house, that over the pass of time kept cracking like a dry bon could have survived years of changes and urban remodelings. But nobody asked, in this place no one cared and didn’t like questions to be asked, as casual as they were. While nobody get into foreign business, everything went on wheels; a place that he had found perfect.

It was getting late, he had to hurry if he did not want to run up with the first rush hour of the day in the subway.

… … … … … … … … … … … …

- Hey! Juna! - The boy listened behind him after getting to the discharge area in his work. Then, he faced a brunette girl, of kind and happy face, dressed in a dark blue denim with a big messenger bag hung at his side with a wide "Homing pigeon" printed on it and filled with dark packages and thin white cylinders with the company logo. It seemed disproportionate compared with its owner and he always had the sensation that any stumble would send the young woman noisily to the floor. - You survived, as always – The girl commented with a wide smile. - I thought you would stay asleep - She said poking him in the ribs.

- Me too, I woke up in time because I left the tv on, Freed. – Juna said walking throw a hall, accompanied by her to receive the orders of the day.

- Hey, did you see the news? – She asked filled with enthusiasm - Wow! An international transport system! I didn’t think it was never gonna be nothing but a myth. I wonder what the Membrane Company had to do to build it.

'At this point, who would dare to contradict it? ' He thought tartly. Juna continued walking along the corridor just half listening to his companion. Though he knew very well the importance of this system of transport, he preferred that the persons around him could keep it down.

Seeing the impassiveness of her work buddy, Freed crossed the arms on her chest and pouted. - God would come to Earth and you wouldn’t give a damned about it.

Juna just laughed after the comment - You know I don’t care about whatever happens around me. As long as I have food and a roof on me, I am happy.

- Because of it you will get to nothing - The young woman add, maliciously smiling at a Juna briefly fallen in hopelessness.

At the end of the hall a wide counter stuffed with papers on one side, the other one full of packages and below it there was an opening to which Freed approached and unceremonious she emptied the content of her bag careless. Juna clearly listened something breaking inside the packages but it was not his problem.

- Martin – Juna called from the counter to a figure moving behind a waterfall of transparent pipes that transported at dizzy speeds dozens of red, white and blue capsules – what’s for today? - The figure behind the pipes turned out to be a bearded medium age man, his right hand was coved by a blue glove with a line of buttons along it.

- Eh! Juna, still among the living I can see – The man said jocularly behind the ### - Give me a sec - He added finding quickly two electronical note tablets, which he gave to each of them. - You might be young, but how the hell you stay up?

- Based on a rigorous diet of express double coffees, donuts and sodas. - The boy joked taking his respective tablet.

Freed read the screen of hers and a moment later she groaned.

- Crap! No, Martin. My deliveries are at every corner of the city.

- I am sorry, Freed. - The man answered taking a couple of packages of adobes size. - But you already know how this is organized: " All the deliveries are arranged according to the computer judgment " - Martin and Freed said at once.

- Yes, I know. Stupid computer - She murmured - Aww … How bad. And you, ray boy? where did you get? - Freed asked looking over Juna's shoulder.

Juna open out the addresses list and, after reading them, he smiled widely. ‘Ha! Lucky him!’ Almost every place was closely together from there. That only meant one thing, this day he could go earlier. ‘Blessed bastard’ Juna listened behind him.

- Juna, lets exchange routes! And next Monday I cover you on second shift, please. – Freed implored.

- No way. I need to rest and I am sure one of your boyfriends will wait for you for a while. - He said walking towards the sending module, smiling smugly while Freed looked at him with killing eyes.

… … … … … … … … … … … … …

The afternoon was closing into the sunset while Juna looked at the very familiar cracks of the roof over the couch; they have always been there, growing and lengthening in all directions and didn’t show mercy to the wretched cap of plaster. Maybe, some day, a piece would fall down lethally on him while he was sleeping but in that moment he didn’t care much, he only wanted to lie on the furniture. Though it was not only an old shabby sofa, it was also his bed when he came tired from work (which was the majority of the times), his dining room, his favorite hacking station and, especially, his shabby sofa. That furniture was the only he had bought (from the second hand) for this place, everything else had been left since his former owners died long time ago.

In the morning, Freed without knowing it had made him remember the reason why he came back to Central City. Culpabily, he had allowed himself fall in relaxation. He hadn’t done much since his return. Back then, he couldn’t afford the cheapest of the available rent rooms without sacrificing his savings, remembering that small house lost in the middle of the city he decided to prove luck. Inside that place, he didn’t imagine there would be a security system installed, specially active and ready, but it didn’t represent an obstacle to cheat the sensors. They were still active, but while nothing extraordinary occurred, he didn’t have to worry.

He turned around and faced the television dark screen. “Think, Juna. Think. Now it is a good moment to use you skills'. He murmured looking at his vague reflection on the screen. Back then, he tried to get into the Principal Information Central and modify all of his information from the root but even to him, that task was like demolish a granite wall with a rubber hammer. He closed his eyes, listening to the local silence. Maybe he might search in the network later, there had to be something useful somewhere.

The silence in the house was absolute, except the low constant noise of the highway. But, over it, a sharp sound arose from an indefinite point, like the constant hiss of an express pot that increased worryingly every moment. Juna opened the eyes and got up of the couch, he looked for the noise source sharpening his ear. Just when the sound became louder and seemingly more nearby, something exploited on his house making it tremble from the foundations. Plaster fragments fell down of the roof and a dust cloak filled the air, forcing him to get out of the building, coughing strongly, covering his head with his arms.

Still drowned by the dust, he lift his sight towards the top of the house once outside, he saw a line of smoke falling from an imprecise point in the sky up to justly the center of the roof.

“My computer!” his mind shouted. Doubtless, he got into and rapid and agilely went to the first floor not caring if the house felt on him. If he lose it, his best weapon against the world would be gone.

The air remained loaded with gray dust from the most distant room in the upper hall. He sighed; whatever it was that had fallen, it didn’t on his important belongings room. Before daring to sneak into the destroyed room, he tried to identify any suspicious noise but only debris falling from the roof on a metallic surface could be heard. It didn’t seem dangerous, so cautiously he looked into the room. The dust was thicker than in the corridor, the light of the quarter was tinkling phantasmagorically and in the center, just below a showy hole in the roof, there was a white capsule of a refrigerator size, humbled silently and immobile on the floor. This, definitively, it was not a terrestrial ship.

The rational part of his mind was asking him to get rid of whatever was thT thing. But the boy’s instincts and curiosity played deaf ears to the requirements of his reason and he advanced towards the strange capsule.

Reaching his hand over, he tested the air on the surface to know if it was safe to touch it and not feeling heat, he dared to place the palm on the capsule. It was cold to his surprise and after examining it closer he found it was intact, completely smooth, without any scratch or crack that could testify the violent landing.

‘How I get this open?’ Juna thought, analyzing every thin and almost imperceptible line between plates, finding a thin and small one with strange set of symbols at one of the capsule extremes. Just below the line of symbols there was a small screen not wider than the surface of his thumb. Passing his fingers on it, the screen blow in a pink dark tone, a few symbols spread out and suddenly the capsule slowly opened with a decompression sound.

Taking a step backward, Juna observed that in the interior, as white as the exterior part, there was someone.

Resting on its left side, there was a thin and slender figure, almost in fetal position, completely naked. His skin was uniformly light green, it had three long black and sharp clawed fingers in every hand gathered near his face without nose, eyebrows, hair or ears. Two thin black antennas rested on its cranium. Juna wonder the creatures gender, his thin and delicate facial features were not helping him very much to guess. In its back there was installed a strange silver semispherical device connected to the capsule by several metal cables. Looking aside of the device he found a long and very marked scar that went from the shoulder it was leaned on to the hip. Juna imagined it was a disastrous and definitively painful wound.

Time went by and the creature didn’t seem like to awake. The curiosity pushed him to stretch the arm and touched the strange shoulder. He got surprised, he couldn’t remember anything so soft and smooth in his life; though it was slightly cold, it was a very pleasant sensation. Then his attention returned to the thin antennas and his hand touched carefully one tip of them. He withdrew the hand rapidly when creature snicked and changed position; now it was leaned lightly on his back, as much as the device in his back allowed it.

A few seconds later, the creature’s eyelids disturbed and then his eyes opened slowly. They were completely smooth bright red surfaces and, with certain light, they seemed pink. Juna felt nervous, he didn’t know exactly where were they looking at (or maybe it was like earthling insects that had a peripheral vision?). Someway, when they blinked he knew at once the creature’s glace was on him. The crimson eyes looked at him an instant and a slight smile was drawn on his face.

Juna fall hypnotized by the alien eyes and the smile this one had in his lips, there was something warm in them, thus he did not notice when the thin arms of the newcomer spread on his shoulders, crossing behind in his nape. He felt paralyzed when a slight tug pulled him down while the alien got uncomfortably near his face, violating his personal space.

- Dib - The lips green whispered. ' Dib? But how …?! ' In the confusion, Juna half-opened the mouth in protest but he only managed to shriek pitifully; an instant later he regret it when the alien mouth joined his in a delicate kiss, letting the strange tongue start searching his. The human’s brain fall in short circuit, his first half-conscience reaction was to push the other away but his arms were frozen supporting him on the capsule edge and they refused to react.

“Error system. Memory reload” a metallic and grave voice could be heard from inside the capsule, then an electrical-like sound followed. The alien interrupted the kiss with a deep inhalation arching the back; he closed tightly his eyes with the arms still crossed behind the human’s neck, receiving a torrent of information from the capsule towards his pak.

After the violent load of information, the alien breathed agitated and slowly his mind began to analyze his current position. What was it? Shouldn’t he be resting inside the capsule? He was laid on something … warm and … that was breathing? He raised the face and looked at other, being in shock with the eyes fixed on him. The visitor’s face twisted in a hatred and repugnance expression and Juna, unable to help it, was pushed violently falling noisy to the soil over the rubbles of the roof.

The cables connected to the back of the alien were realized rapidly. Jumping, the stranger got out of the capsule and straitening menacingly before the paralyzed human on the floor, not minding his own nudity. He ducked and pulled the boy from his shirt neck, with a strength the alien didn’t seem to have, raising him and slamming him against the wall.

- Worthless earthling worm, how you dare to touch Zim?! - He shouted, venomously spitting every word on the human’s face.

- I … just, I didn’t want … - Juna couldn’t help to babble, what the heck he could say? He didn’t do anything. Just a few second, the alien was the tranquility and tenderness reflection but what he had in front of him was a demon with clear intentions of killing him painfully with the whatever he had in reach and those claws didn’t make him feel less worried.

A bip called their attention and Juna clearly could listen again to the same metallic voice of a few seconds ago.

"The target is three meters northwest, seven negative meters." Zim's thin antennas raised in alert.' Six meters …. Seven meters … Then, this place … It seems that Calie hid it in this pigsty.' Dropping the human unconcernedly, who fell on the floor, he walked towards the capsule. Inside there was a control panel, after tipping some commands, two secret drawers were opened, inside one of them there were three black packages wrapped in a thin transparent coverage. Tearing the first wrapper and leaving it fall inside the capsule, he extracted the content and unfold, with a strong jolt, pants that he proceeded to put them on. He repeated the same movement with the other package, which turned out to be a tight long sleeved and high neck shirt and finally, the last package contained an attire with red details that, after having put on it, it covered his torso and went down like a skirt to his hips. From another drawer, he reached a pair of black boots and a couple of long red gloves that allowed his claws to come out from the tips.

Juna stayed still and mute while the alien got dressed, he felt like a cornered mouse, any noise or movement in false might attract the mortal attention of the cat. But he couldn’t help to follow each one of the stranger’s movements, there was something that attracted him though given his situation it might only be fear.

Completely dressed, Zim took a small device from a corner of the capsule with a small screen in the center and he approached to the small external plate that Juna had touched previously passing his thumb on it. The capsule closed and began to bend rapidly up to the amazing appearance of a common dark gray and normal portfolio, exempting for a black symbol on one of its sides, which Juna compared with the face of the irken.

Forgetting completely about the human, Zim took the portfolio and went out of the room, following the locator in his hand. In his mind, something wasn’t clicking. This place didn’t look alike, but the corridor, the stairs, the disposition of the quarters, even that horrible sofa were telling to him that was the right place, but it couldn’t be.

A noise took him out of his ponderings and turned around; the human was following him to a prudent distance and now that he thought about it, he didn’t seem to be very intimidated. Normally, the humans would flee scared when they saw something different, verified hundreds of times. Maybe this human was stupider than he seemed to be.

‘This is too similar’ Zim murmured, observing the surroundings while he kept following the direction the locator indicated. After passing throw a wood door half eaten away by the termites, he got to the dark basement and turned the lights on. The place was completely empty; the floor was covered by a thick cap of dust and white chunks of the roof. Seeing the excessive extent of the space he knew it was, or had been, he still had to verify it, Dib's house.

The locator guide him to the very center of the basement showing a brief message: Objective located. He stored the locator in his pak and from there he extracted a thin blue square of his palm size, with chromed spheres in each quoin. Placing it on the indicated point, he pressed a button on the lid of it. Activated, four hooks got out from the squares, digging deeply into the soil. The four spheres, hovering, separated from the square and shoot powerful laser beams at the floor, then they moved cutting the hard soil of concret in a perfect square. After finishing, they returned to their original position and producing a slight buzz, they lifted the cap of concret and positioned it next to the space that had been left.

Without hesitating, Zim extracted from the inside an old box not bigger than a watermelon. In the interior there was a strange silver thermos of which a small antenna sprout out. With some rapid movements he managed to open it, unfolding the inert body of a small robot.

Juna observed the whole procedure silently, fill of curiosity for the strange actions of the irken. But when Zim extracted the robot of the box he wonder how he knew it would be there. How that robot got in there? Who and why had done it?

Zim touched the metal antenna, but the robot didn’t react. Growling, He made himself comfortable in the floor to activate manually the SIR.

- Who are you? Why are you here? – Zim suddenly asked looking around him while his hands were still busy withdrawing a small metallic plate from the SIR’s chest.

- Eh … Juna, I … I just live here, by the moment - Juna got startled when the irken voice sound so he just shyly answered even if he had the same questions. He lifted defensively the arms and tightened the muscles of his legs if he had to run away.

Zim didn’t care much of the human’s presence, but he couldn’t stand him to be in that place. Though, if Calie had followed his indications, it didn’t mean that place was still his. By the way, where would they be? Thirty years for the human was much and in this period of time they could do many things, especially someone as Dib.

- Where is Dib? – The irken asked poking the old circuitry of the SIR. In outline, the SIR was fine, but he didn’t think the deterioration could be that so much, even this SIR could be in good conditions for fifty human years. Maybe the mad robot had done something improper while he was gone.

- Dib? Er … which Dib? - Confused Juna answered. He could deduce this alien had been in the Earth before but, when?

- The owner of the house, you big idiot, what other Dib?! - Zim shouted, dazzled.

It didn’t help much either, up to the date there was more than one person officially with that name and owners of that house. If the alien didn’t know about the other Dibs then there was one option left.

- You mean Dib, the first? - He answered timidly.

' First? Then … ' It didn’t take him by surprise, it was logic that Dib had continued with his life. He snickered after remembering an old conversation; it seemed that Dib didn’t get a baby girl, but the earthling worm hadn’t answered him.

- Whatever, where is him? – He asked again. Zim got his hand to the bottom of the SIR’s inside and pressed the switch activating it, making it shin in the same cyan blue of always.

- Master! - The SIR shouted and the small but strong arms of the robot surrounded him in a mortal embrace, cutting his breath - I missed you very much! - And he pressed more the slender chest of his owner - Lady Callie took me to many walks, there were cameras and food, a lot of cookies! And then we went to the warehouse to play often with plasticine and legos and then we went to a big and white place, it was smelling and there were many persons resting and that were not waking up and then she said to me that I had to sleep also and the dragonflies took the picnic to themselves. - It ended up by sticking out its tongue, looking at his owner idiotized. Yes, this he was the same SIR of before. Gathering his strength, the irken managed to get free of the robot inhaling strongly, trying to recover the breath.

Juna felt nervous hearing the irken’s snicker but the tensed air was cut after the outburst affection of the small robot and the maniacal stutter of it. Though it called his attention, Juna rather to answer instead of asking about it - Er … the owner of this house that you mention died a lot of time ago, about hundred year.

Zim was trying to control the SIR pushing it against the floor when, between the commotion, he managed to listen Juna's words. He stopped moving and GIR escaped from his hands. His brain took time to process the words but not the general meaning ' … What?’ Leaving the SIR out of his attention, who got up and run arbitrary, Zim got up threatening, holding strongly the portfolio. This human was making a fool of him. Nobody did that to him!

- What did you say? – He hissed, challenging the other to trick him again.

Juna swallowed hard. He perfectly knew that voice tone, that one the bullyboys of the neighborhood used when someone played smart with them and the outcome would be everything less than good. That moment he regretted not having changed delivery routes with Freed when he had the opportunity. “You could have fallen asleep in an alley between delivery and delivery. But not, you wanted to come to rest here, right? "He swallowed again and repeated himself - The owner of this house died hundred years ago.

- You lie! – The irken shouted point at him accusingly and taking a step towards him.

- I don’t have to lie. Dib I lived until the last year of last century and this house has belonged to the Membrane family since then.

'Last year? Then, it has passed over fifteen hundred years?! ' Zim closed tightly his fists while a wave of rage and frustration was accumulating in his chest. But his greatest fear was that to be true. He had to find it out by himself.

- You lie! - He shouted with all his forces - and when I get with Dib, I will come for you to tear your entrails with my own claws! - He went running out of the basement, pushing aggressively the human out of his way and getting to the principal door, he opened it with one blow. A cold blast of wind struck him but imperturbable he looked ahead: The highway, the cars, the buildings, the people, the bright lights, this was not the Earth he expected to see. Even with the technological boom on the Earth, the humans didn’t advanced that fast. A hologram covered immediately his appearance, disguising him as a teenager human of white-skin and red eyes, slightly waved black hair tied up, wearing the same clothes plus a dark red sack and a long necklace with the same symbol of the portfolio on it. With a high leap, the legs of his pak spread out taking him towards the roof of the contiguous building and from there he jumped from building to another.

Juna, who barely had time to watch the irken’s disguise, he got to the door frame, rubbing his side, not knowing what to do. He just saw the small robot going by his side. The small legs of the SIR turned into rockets, boosting it to quickly reach its owner.

Just when he began to reason what had just happened a big chunk of the roof fell down on the sofa and only a second later the alarms of the house activated.

'...Fuck ' – He growled and another piece felt a meter away from him.

… … … … … … … … … … … … …..

- Wait for me, master! - GIR shouted behind Zim, barely keeping his pace. Meanwhile Zim, as if putting physical distance between him and that house could leave behind the whole frustration that was rolling about painfully in his chest. He continue forward, jumping agilely and uninterrupted from building to building, from balcony to roof without a set course, he just want that Juna-beast as far as possible, as far he could from that damned human who had dared to touch him and lied to him, but everything was sad and obvious; he still felt worse as much as he run.

He continued forward until his chest hurt from lack of breath and listened to the metallic steps of his companion coming to his side remaining, strangely, still. When he gathered his strength he looked around him; there was on an apartments building’s top with a concrete railing that reached his hip height.

It had to be a mistake, it had to. A network! The humans had to use wireless networks, yet! On the floor he placed the portfolio and after opening it, he exposed a small internal computer. And immediately he broke into a network. His first search threw an impressive list of pages dedicated to Dib or, in general, to the Membrane family. Many of them were recent, everyone had the same Dib's date of birth that he knew, also his death date and a summary of all his achievements in life.

He closed his fists tightly and pressed the jawbone. How the hell it had happened?! 150 years?! There had to be thirty, only thirty, crap! Why?! What had gone so wrong? How had he lost so much time?! Frustrated, he took a deep inhalation and released a cry from the bottom of his chest, digging his claws into the floor, leaving thin but deep lines in the concrete. The cry expanded towards the air and, there, it got lost. Exhausted and conquered by reality Zim stayed silently. And now… what else? For the first time he was feeling empty and insecure of himself, he had not even felt this way when he left Irk or that distant day when he let himself be captured by Dib.

He raised his face and saw the late afternoon sky dyed in intense red and yellow tonalities. In the opposite direction of the Sun that was shining in its particular bright golden tone, the sky turned dark blue going throw an endless shades that he had just seen in this planet. A fresh wind blew around him, waving gracefully his holographic hair and clothes; below, his antennas accepted satisfying this pleasant sensation, closing during that brief moment his eyes. He remained silently, without focusing his mind in anything especially.

He got up and looked over the railing. Lowering his sight, he looked at the street. He found few differences between the current humans and those of that far away time. They all were going and coming, each one occupied in their matters, completely foreign around them, doing the better they could to survive in the society that they themselves had created. It could give them a bit of credit to the earthlings, in his absence they had managed to create a decent city but he did not want to think about the city. Actually, he didn’t want to think about anything.

Zim sat down against the railing in fetal position, with the arms embracing his knees and the face buried on his arms. "Why did I come back?" He thought, maybe he should begin with that. He knew perfectly that Dib wouldn’t be waiting for him with the arms opened at the entry of his home, the life they had shared together disappeared back then, it was a scene he was ready to face. But everything turned out to be worse than the worst possibility. Dib was dead, he would never see him again, the time had swallowed mercilessly his dreams and the same reason that he had found to live. “Why did I come back?" He ask to himself over and over again, whispering the question as an endless mantra but the response eluded he completely and eventually, his words lost sense for himself. He listened to his side GIR's sharp voice asking him "Master, are we gonna sleep here?" But Zim refused to raise the face and ignored completely the robot, he didn’t have the energy to get angry, shout or any of those things he used to do.

"Anyway, what am I doing here?" He wondered mentally, looking critically around him barely lifting his face, finding anything that could help him. The railing was occupied by a dense band of green shrubs of small red flowers. In the center of the building was an access that, looking at it better, the lock was slightly rusty and the floor was covered by dust and dead leaves, he concluded nobody or almost nobody had been in that place recently. Maybe he might be able to rest there that night without being bothered, it wouldn’t be the first time he had spend the night like that, if he moved from there he might find things or places that could make him remember him and in that moment he would not be capable of assimilating it.

Tilting his face he saw GIR huddled near him against the railing, sucking one of his small metallic thumbs, covered with a rotten and scraped blanket, a blanket that in other time was pink with dancing monkeys printed on it, the SIR generally stored it in his head along with other unknown quantity of objects. Zim sighed deep and nostalgically, looking at the sky; his eyelids were weighing more as the sky was getting darker. It was a long time since he had felt that exhausted. It was a fact he had to go away again; nothing kept him there anymore but, how? The capsule he had travelled in only worked if it was put into orbit and as much as he noticed, it didn’t have energy left. It would need months to load and it was a possibility that didn’t appeal him, now. He should look for a place, one where nobody could find him, at least he had practice. An isolated place, quiet and crowdless, at the city suburbs would be fine, a point of reference. He had to find and get a couple of things before like a map, he also should… might go… maybe… and not helping it, he closed his eyes and felt deeply asleep.

… … … … … … … … … ….

-So, this is what activated the alarms? Whatever it was, I don’t think young master found it particularly funny - Said a young red-haired woman with severe glance next to a stout aged man, grayish hair brushed backward, both dresses of uniform and long black coats, while a group of men, in cerulean suits with a shield crowned by a big silver "M" on the lapel, were entering the place caring different analysis equipments, dispersing into the building rooms that Juna had left hurriedly only six minutes earlier – I wouldn’t have guess this possible, who would say that he was hiding in the property of his own family? - She concluded, crossed the arms on his chest and observed the strange hole in the roof. It was a miracle that the house was still standing up; if the analysis team saw it appropriate they would have to demolish the place.

- Serious mistake, do not underestimate the capacity of the Membrane family members. - The man replied scanning with his eyes the place, searching for the smallest track that could help them in the search - Why do you think it has been so difficult to find him over the last four years? - Then, his attention returned to the hole. It was done twenty minutes ago when the security system of the Membrane Company had caught an unknown landing inside the limits of the city, mysteriously, without being able to calculate the landing point and only ten minutes later the alarm in one of the most antique properties of the family was activated. A security camera in the place was activated showing surprisingly the image of the boy gathering hurriedly his few belongings and a few instants later going out hurriedly. To his luck, the general security chief of the Membrane family and company was around, along with his assistant, Nazz, and once having arrived, just three minutes ago, there was a group of investigation beginning with the analyses as the procedure indicated.

- We are going to see that else the team has found - The man said going out of the ruined room and walking to the ground floor. Followed by the woman, he observed the thin cracks of the walls. There were indications that a diligent hand had tried to decimate the deterioration in vain. As long as he could see, there were no spots of blood in this quarter or in the living room (or what was left of it). Whatever it was that had fallen on the house didn’t seem to have hurt him; that gave him some breath.

Around the squashed couch, the young woman observed an investigators trio gathering samples apparently trivial, as a handkerchief tossed in the floor, an empty water bottle or some fibers of the sofa, just like in a crime scene. Maybe it was too much meticulousness used in the research but to find the boy had been the principal worry of master Membrane from the moment his son was gone. What make a boy who has everything, money, prestige, that last name and, especially, intelligence to leave his home from one day to another without a reason?

Of one of the adjacent quarters, apparently the kitchen, a man of the team came out with a small transparent box that contained a mound of calcined and completely unrecognizable remains.

- Mister Zedec, the analyses indicate that master Membrane lived here for about one year - He said at the same he touched with his fingers the center of the upper lid and it got dark, acquiring a metallic appearance. Zedec nodded slightly, allowing the other to continue with his work. 'One year? That’s not good'

- Mister Membrane is going to be mad when he finds out. - The woman commented worried. It was known that mister Membrane had a cold control on his emotions, but everything related to his son upset him easily.

Then, from a dark corridor another investigator came at Zedec holding a small screen between the hands - Sir, in the basement there is a squared hole on the floor, it looks very fresh - He said showing him the information on the screen.

- Are there any tracks? - He said, looking at the results, at another investigator who had approached him.

- Not, it seems that the boy was prepared for something like that. – He answered - We haven’t found anything significant in the garbage. But we are running some analysis not to miss anything.

It was a fact the boy was not far, but if he was prepared for any incident that could compromised his position, like this one, then the probabilities of finding him had diminished to almost nothing, almost. Now, everything they could do was to keep vigilant after any track.

In the last four years there had been in his position three different people who had done the impossible to find the boy, but they could never approach this much but this was just a lucky hit and even this way, it didn’t seem like things were to improve substantially. The boy had deceived countless times each of the security systems that the most advanced technologically company in history had implemented in, practically, all the cities of the world.

He would have to infiltrate a small group in the area and send another one to the bus and train stations if the boy decided to leave the city. Now that he thought about it, why had master Dib stayed in the Central City of the East? Or maybe he didn’t but came back? Why? He sighed and decided to put into practice his strategy. While less time wasted, it would be easier to find tracks of the whereabouts.

'Where you are, Dib the Fifth? ' Zedec thought trying to imagine where the boy might be.

In that very moment, a boy was running hurriedly throw the crowd in the narrow corridors of the subway, trying to enter into the line to leave as far as possible, a heavy rucksack was hanging on his back and a hand was grasping a dark blue cylinder.
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Against the Odds