The room was thick with smoke when Zim woke up. His entire body ached and he was once again tethered to a table. He could barely see a foot in front of him, but he could hear Dib rustling around to his left. "Dib?" Zim immediately regretted opening his mouth, hacking smoke out as quickly as it came in.
Dib came into view, waving smoke out of the way. He looked exhausted. His coat was covered in soot and grease. "Sorry..." The alien sounded genuinely apologetic.
"What the hell happened?" Zim managed to choke out. What had Dib done to create this much of a mess? He tentatively sat up, sending tools clanging to the floor. An unfamiliar weight on his back kept him attached to... something, if not the table. Not that he could see, that is.
"You almost exploded," Dib said, matter-of-factly.
"I almost what?!" Zim let out another round of hacking coughs. "Exploded?!"
"Yeah," Dib waved the smoke out of his face again. "It was my fault. I promise I'll explain everything."
"Why do I doubt that?" Zim wheezed, "Can we at least go back to my house?"
Dib hesitated for a long while. After nearly two minutes, he nodded, unlatching Zim from the table and grabbing his arm. Zim would tolerate it, if only because he could barely stand, let alone traverse the smokey halls. They eventually found themselves in an elevator, letting only a little bit of smog in with them.
The elevator let them out in Zim's living room. Why he had an elevator to a maze-like alien laboratory in his living room was beyond him, but hopefully that was something Dib would answer.
"Finally," Zim collapsed on the couch. Familiarity. "Explain, alien."
"A 'Thank you' for saving your life would be nice."
"I can't thank you if I don't know what you did. The last..." Zim glanced outside and decided it was mid-afternoon. "Few hours, have been sort of a blur."
"Okay. First of all, I need you to take some deep breaths. Focus on your breathing, not on my words." Dib was really playing doctor now. Zim shut his mouth and glared at the alien. "Unless you want to explode for real this time," Dib continued, perching himself on the coffee table. "Please?" he added, exasperatedly.
"Fine," Zim let out the breath he'd been holding, "But only because I couldn't hold my breath much longer."
~
"What do you mean, the entire time?!" Zim snapped. Dib paled, realising what he'd said. He should have just played the experiment angle. Zim was swaying again, but Dib was just out of reach to catch the smaller Irken.
"I should not have said that," Dib mumbled, head in his hands. He was not about to watch Zim fall to the ground. All of his work... "I should not have said that!" A thud resounded around the room as Zim's body crumpled back onto the table. The invader's eyes were glazed over and a small but noticeable tendril of smoke snaked out of the overloaded PAK.
"This is what you get for reducing the power levels of your PAK so drastically, Zim." Dib was frantically searching through drawers and cabinets for the tools he needed. Why was nothing labeled?! "What am I going to do?" He muttered to himself, laying out the tools he had found on the table where Zim's lifeless body was laying.
He had almost no experience working on PAKs. The closest he got was those prototype spider-legs he was using. The only conceivable way he could think to save Zim would be to restore full power, and therefore full functionality, to the PAK. A risky move, but better than just letting him explode. He set to work.
Smoke began to fill the room from the malfunctioning PAK. He managed to pry it off and get it open with more than a little force. Ten minutes to restore full power. Simple, Dib lied to himself, Anyone could do it. All he had to do was comple—
~
"Why did you only have ten minutes?" Zim interrupted. He was lying on his stomach now, his right hand aimlessly running across the PAK. Dib couldn't fault him, it was sort of new to him after all.
"That's how long you can survive without your PAK."
"Survive?" Zim paled, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, the PAK is sort of like a... brain. Or something. We have brains too, and organs. But the PAK is what makes you, well, you."
"What does that matter to survival?" Zim had dug his hand under the PAK, lifting it ever so slightly off of his back. Dib fought the urge to get him to stop. What was the worst that could happen?
"I don't... exactly... know." Dib furrowed his brow. "I think it's got something to do with sustenance. Like if you went a few weeks without eating?" Dib shrugged, "Sort of like that, but ten minutes without your PAK and it's game over."
Zim paused. The PAK was about an inch off of his back now. He craned his head back to look at the metal lump and visibly shuddered, pulling his hand back and letting the device secure itself back onto him.
"So why do I have one? I'm not an alien. I might be a robot, though. The jury's still out on that one."
"Hold on, I'm getting to that part," Dib sighed, this was going to be rough.
~
All Dib had to do was locate and completely disassemble the entire power supply mechanism. And then he would have to reassemble it with the proper components in place to ensure full power usage. Child's play, really.
As he worked, his mind strayed. How had Zim gotten it to such a low power state in the first place? How was he surviving with just the bare minimum? He got the PAK open, finally. He rummaged through it, standard invader gear. There was a remote item replacement unit, he hadn't seen one of those in years. Zim also had a long-range communication transmitter like he suspected, which was significantly bigger than Dib's short-range one.
He dumped the contents of the PAK out and looked inside again for any sort of maintenance hatch. There had to be something right? He felt around and his finger finally caught on a latch. That had to be it. He flipped it open and carefully pulled out the components he found inside. How much time did he have?
~
"So there's stuff in this thing?!" Zim interrupted again.
"Can I tell my story or not?" Dib adjusted himself. This short table wasn't exactly the most comfortable seat in the house. "Besides, you saw mine. It had stuff inside."
"Yeah but, like—" Zim's hand returned to the PAK, searching now for the entrance to the storage compartment. "I'm not supposed to have one. Why would it have stuff?"
"Because you—" Dib groaned, stretching. His back popped as he did so. Zim finally figured out how to open the PAK, and a click echoed through the mostly silent room.
"This is awesome" Zim breathed, shoving his hand into the PAK's storage compartment.
"WAIT!" Dib all but screamed, launching himself off of the table and onto Zim, who squirmed under the unexpected weight.
"What!?" Zim squeaked out, wrestling his arm out from underneath Dib and glaring up at him.
"If you let me tell my story," Dib closed the PAK with a sigh, and weakly slid off of the couch and onto the floor. Saving Zim from himself was evidently a full-time job. "Then you would know why recklessly rummaging around in that thing is incredibly dangerous."
"Fine, tell me. Skip the boring parts."
"The boring parts are necessary, Zim."
~
Skipping the "boring parts", Dib had finally gotten the power module reconfigured. Sure, it was messy. The soldering was definitely not his best work, and his cable management was abysmal, to say the least. It certainly didn't help that smoke was filling the room faster than Dib could work. He figured at least some of the circuitry was fried, but he couldn't be sure until he tested it. Speaking of which...
His ten minutes were nearly up, so Dib haphazardly shoved the power supply back into the PAK. He tossed the gear back in as well and closed it up. If Dib had done everything correctly, it should automatically reconnect itself to Zim. He waited.
Dib had to wait a few seconds longer than he would've liked, but eventually metal cords snaked themselves out of the PAK and found their way back into Zim. Coiling around his spine, they quickly retracted, securing the PAK back onto the tiny Irken.
It took nearly a minute for the thing to reboot. Thankfully it wasn't emitting smoke anymore. Something had to be fried, though. It shouldn't take this long to perform a simple restart. Even operating on low power it had been quicker that first day.
Zim didn't wake up after the PAK rebooted. Dib decided to give it five minutes before he panicked. He checked the invader's vitals, made sure he was breathing. It was all good, so Dib assumed it had to be lag associated with a broken component, or the body readjusting to having a fully functional PAK attached to it.
Fears dissuaded, Dib allowed his thoughts to stray again. Namely to this morning. It had been quite the shock to hear Zim sleepily slurring his words between Irken and English when he woke up. Without the PAK's full functionality, he supposed it wasn't regulating his language output. Hence the cow-fee, or whatever Zim had called it. Caffeine and sleep seemed to be suitable replacements for power.
Speaking of power— the PAK definitely needed charging. He plugged it into a convenient cord on the desk. Only moments later, Zim finally woke up. Dib wondered if that had been the issue the whole time. With one problem solved, Dib set about returning the tools to whence they came, while Zim blearily opened his eyes.
~
"And you know the rest," Dib shrugged, "You woke up and started coughing. We came up here and I promised to explain everything."
Zim was still lying on his stomach. Dib hadn't bothered to get off the floor, finding the carpet much more comfortable than the table. The two were eye to eye, and Zim looked completely... irritated. Not the emotion he expected.
"You did not just tell me I have to charge this thing."
"Very rarely," Dib wasn't sure if Zim's focus on the details was a blessing or a curse. At least he hadn't exploded. Again. "Usually while you sleep. Unless you don't sleep, that is." Dib thought back to his days in the academy, regularly pulling all-nighters to finish all of his homework. "I imagine you've done so before, without realising it."
"I feel like I would know if I was."
"Not if you're asleep," Dib reminded him. "Regardless, that's why you shouldn't go rustling around in there. In my haste, I never closed the maintenance hatch. You've essentially got an exposed, fully charged power supply that easily could have killed you with barely a touch.
Zim shuddered, finally sitting up. Dib took the cue to stand and walked to the other side of the table. "I... don't understand. You said I have all of this alien tech in my house, that I've got it on my back. You told me my brother was a robot. How did I not—" Zim paused, looking Dib in the eye, almost fearfully. "Am I an alien?"
How should he respond to that? Yes? Should he lie? No, you just happen to have all of this stuff in an insane coincidence. Zim looked damn near terrified. "Zim..." Dib fiddled with the holo disguise unit. His appearance rapidly flickered between human and Irken. "Just... stew in it. Come to your own conclusions. Take your time."
"So I am?"
"That's not... necessarily... what I'm saying." Dib's squeedilyspooch tightened. He was not about to go through the repair process again. "Think about it," he repeated. "Let me know what you come up with."
"I have thought about it!" Zim hopped off the couch, frustratedly pacing across the living room. "A. It doesn't help that you keep fiddling with that thing. You're going to give me a seizure AND an identity crisis." Dib took his hand off the holo disguise unit almost on impulse. "And B. You gave me an entire ten-minute story about how you had to fix the alien device that's attached to my spine in an alien laboratory that's been hidden beneath my house for years! Either I'm a robot, an alien, or the victim of the world's cruelest joke."
"Please don't overreact," Dib's voice was weak. The stress of the past day— the past few days— was finally getting to him. "I really don't want to go through all of that again."
"And another thing!" Zim rounded on him, staring him down with what must have been days of pent-up frustration. "I'm sick of you telling me to calm down! What's that about? I'm allowed to get frustrated!"
"Not about this," Dib sighed. What if he just showed Zim the video? It would explain everything... "Five years ago you—"
"Stop that! You're talking about me like you know me more than I know me. Five years ago I was in sixth grade, in Ms. Bitter's class. I was a normal kid then, and I'm a normal kid now. I think." Zim massaged his temples. "My point is—" Zim narrowed his eyes. He stared at Dib like he was a stranger.
"Are you okay?" Dib hesitantly reached out across the coffee table. If the Irken fell over again, there was no way he'd be able to catch him. But it was the thought that counted, right?
"That... was weird."
"What?"
"Nothing! Nothing," Zim shook his head, "My point is, uhh, thanks. I guess. For saving my life. I guess."
"But you were just— I thought—"
"Nevermind that," Zim's brows were still furrowed in confusion. Dib began to wonder if there was more wrong with the PAK than he initially expected. "I seem to recall you offering me a spaceship ride."
"Are you serious? Right now?" That was a horrible idea. One of the worst, even.
"No, you can take your time, I don't know. Prepare yourself. Or whatever." Zim's eyes were unfocused. Whatever was going on with him, Dib wanted to restore his memories sooner rather than later. At least Zim would be able to fix his own PAK then, if he was able to alter it before.
"I'll think about it. Take some time to rest, you just had two near death experiences, after all."
"Whatever you say," Zim shrugged, sitting back down on the couch. He stared at the blank TV, intently watching the pitch-black screen. Dib shook his head and retreated to the kitchen. Far enough away that he didn't feel creeped out by Zim's odd behavior, but close enough to jump into action should something malfunction in a deadly way.