Loading packages.
It was very early and the room was bathed in darkness, but she didn't care. She loved the darkness; some even said she thrived in it. Plus, she was getting that patch.
Scanning software.
Initiating programs.
Preparing Slave System.
Several soft clicks could be heard as her fingers moved fluidly across the keyboard. A collection of beeps followed as she watched a number of readouts and loading bars flash by.
Establishing net.
Syncing with external servers.
Connecting...
Connection established.
She was in.
Her fluid movements increased in activity as a website appeared. The login screen quickly took its place and her software was eating away at its defenses in seconds.
Running Slave System.
Firewall disabled.
System trace detected.
Proxy disabled.
Monitor disabled.
As the system security finally failed, her sharp eyes focused on the files before her and her hands flew so fast across her keyboard that a sound akin to gunfire could be heard. A soft beeping of a different tune began to blare as her computer recognized and began to attempt to slow down the tracing software.
System trace: 42%
Mainframe accessed.
File directory accessed.
Her breathing—barely noticeable by this point—seemed to stop all together as she typed in the desired words into the directory.
File located.
Downloading...
A buzz went off as the trace ran past fifty percent and she muttered a swear under her breath as she began to cover her tracks.
System trace: 67%
Downloading...
Database accessed.
Download: 26%
Deleting...
She bit her lip unconsciously as records and logs began to be purged from the database while her download continued to run at lightening speed.
Download: 66%
Deleting...
System trace: 99%
Shit.
Download: 98%
Data purge complete.
Error found.
Damn it!
Connection lost.
"AGHHHH!" Gazelene Membrane roared as the website blacked out and her home screen appeared with the Slave system beginning its shutdown procedures. She wouldn't get in legal trouble of course, her software had erased all of her data signatures.
But she hadn't gotten the patch.
Now she would have to wait until it went up for public download tomorrow...
Watch the beauty of all our lives passing right before my eyes.
"Ms. Membrane?"
"Hn?"
"Ms. Membrane, would you care to explain the system error displayed on screen three?"
Gaz eyed her professor with the lightest of death stares and the man paled considerably. Her eyes flickered to the screen on the wall at the front of the lecture hall and she snorted.
I hear the hate in all your words.
"As if I would waste my time on something so simple..." She said scathingly.
All the words that make us hurt.
Dead silence.
"Ms. Membrane-"
"What the dirt-child means..." A voice rang out like thunder alongside the professors stunned exclamation. "Is that the solution lies within the sub-routine under the fourteenth line on the third section of the data."
More silence.
"Ah..." The professor, like the rest of the room—Gaz included—was left speechless at the uncharacteristic outburst from the universities quietest pupil. "Moving on...we will now begin to go over level input and graphic algorithms prior to starting the design project Friday..."
As the class went on and the teacher droned his students and himself deaf, Gaz found herself thinking of something other than her games.
She was thinking of Zim.
He had certainly changed since he had fist arrived on earth and started those silly fights with her brother all those years ago. His pink dresses—superior Irken uniforms—had stopped fitting his rapidly growing frame around middle skool. Unwilling to let them go, Zim had tried to manufacture his own version with supplies from local stores.
A very memorable day of embarrassment after and the alien had sadly come to the tragic realization that his uniforms were a thing of the past.
A simple black suit had come in shortly after; throughout his entire first year of high skool, Zim had been seen in nothing but his black suit with its Irken red shirt and emblazoned black tie. Some had called it attractive, others had called it easy cash.
Gaz clearly remembered the day Dib had been bothering the green creature about global domination plans just before a pair of bullies had shaken them both down for any spare change. Zim had gotten both eyes blackened and lost his jacket.
The next day he had shown up with his freshly cleaned jacket as if nothing had ever happened.
Neither bully was ever seen or heard from again.
Following that particular incident, Zim had started working out in the gym. His exquisite line of black suits had soon been replaced by an equally long line of gym pants and hoodies and sleeveless shirts. Whatever benefits sugars seemed to do to Irkins—she had noticed Zim only ate the deserts in the cafeteria during lunch—protein seemed to do even more wonders.
The once skinny green figure had quickly filled out to the point that accusations were made of Zim taking steroids. He was by no means an Olympian in training, but he had certainly gained large quantities of muscle mass in a rather short time. Dib had rapidly applied at a nearby—and rival—gym in order to remain competitive with his foe after a particular beat down that Gaz still treasured deeply and Dib still saw a therapist for.
Sophomore and Junior year had seen Zim on numerous sports teams as he was brought into the skool social hierarchy. His workout attire had toned down considerably and while still present, Zim had begun to wear open-collared shirts with rolled sleeves and slacks with loafers.
It was no secret to anyone by Zim and Dib's senior year that alcohol had no ill affects on the young man with the 'odd skin condition.' Dib had even informed her that Zim had admitted that on his planet, human-made alcohol was very similar to Irk's form of nutritious drink.
What a human would give to get healthy off getting wasted, Gaz mused.
Message received.
Gaz drew out of her mental reminiscing and looked down at her computer in surprise—though she hid it well.
You seem to be very enthralled in the ceiling little Gaz.
Gaz glared at the screen and typed a reply.
Creep.
A momentary pause before a new reply appeared on her screen. Her face colored and she sputtered briefly before closing her laptop in outrage.
"Ms. Membrane, do I need to take executive action to deal with your disciplinary actions?" The professor demanded as he stared at the purple haired female.
Gaz's eyes flashed red.
"Ms. Membrane, you are excused for the rest of class...please tell your aunt I wish her a speedy recovery..." The professor said dully as his eyes also flashed red. The purple haired girl stood up and stormed from her back corner of the room to the middle where Zim was lounging.
"Get. Out."
The Irkin raised an eyebrow.
"Witnesses won't save you. Move!"
Zim grumbled but did as he was told and packed up his things. The humans on either side of him snickered as their friend was being forced to go to his untimely doom. Wiping some of his slightly longer black hair out of his face, Zim followed Gaz out of the class room while the teacher continued to drone on as if nothing had ever happen.
"Really!?" Gaz demanded as she shoved Zim against the nearest wall, her face furious and her other arm cocked back and ready to deliver a blow that Thor would envy.
"I thought you would find it amusing," Zim said calmly despite the danger.
Gaz said nothing, but her grip tightened around Zim's collar.
"You did find it amusing!" He hissed in victory as she crushed his wind pipe in outrage while her blush returned in force.
"I. Will. Doom. You." She said, clipped, as her face drew close to his own and her eyes narrowed.
"I find pain to be sexy," Zim teased as he leaned towards her, his own eyes alight with anticipation and glee.
"Fuck you."
Gaz closed the distance and brought her lips to meet her boyfriends in a harsh and brutal collision that slowly toned down to a tender moment. Her hands released Zim's throat and came to rest on his chest while his own hands moved to wrap around her waist and thread through her hair.
The two drew closer to one another as the kiss grew more heated; Zims hand dropped from her waist to grab her ass and she moved a hand to rake through his hair—and subsequently his antennae—while Zim began to move them towards a nearby—and well known—janitors closet.
It had been a freak thing, their relationship.
Dib had gone off to Harvard for a year, but had recently transferred to their father's new University of Science. Gaz had no interest in science, her brother, or any combination of the two; she had gone to a nearby and local college offering a degree in computing.
"You really had to kill my aloof vibe earlier didn't you?" Gaz demanded after Zim finally released her mouth in favor of her neck.
Zim had already been there, studying "a dabbling of aeronautics and a few other simple majors on the side." As far as she could understand, the 'other simple majors' Zim was 'dabbling' in consisted of everything from automotive and engineering to medical and literature. The fully adjusted alien invader was studying every major and minor the college offered in its vast degree catalog.
Among that list was computing.
"I could not help it," Zim said as they crashed into a shelf of cleaning supplies rather roughly and groaned as Gaz let out a deep and very appealing gasp of pleasure. "Zim loves to rile you up." He said with a naughty smirk before returning to her neckline with even more gusto than before.
They had tolerated the others existence at first, but partner projects had rapidly brought the two together until they ended up...well together.
"You-" Gaz let out another 'ahh' noise that Zim loved so much, "really just need to leave me alone..."
Gaz was still Gaz of course.
"Really?"
A delicate nip right there.
And Zim was definitely still Zim.
"Y-ye-yes you f-freaking alien!" Gaz stammered in half-denial, half-plea as she felt herself fiddling with her pants at the same time.
"You want me to..." His unnatural tongue made a long and curving trail from her neck all the way to her hip, "...leave you alone?"
"Fuck yes..."
"What was that my little Gaz?" Zim inquired while lifting his tongue off her body as he grinned so hard that Gaz—if she were in a good mental state—might have wondered if something had torn inside his mouth. All she really noticed was that Zim had already unbuttoned his shirt.
"Don't. Fucking. Stop."
They were lounging in her apartment later that day, laptops open beside them and a bowl of skittles between them as the television blared some random episode through the surround sound speakers.
"We really should tell Dib at some point," Zim mused as he lazily played with Gaz's hair. The girl grunted into his neck and continued to sneak skittles from the bowl in his lap and up into her mouth.
There had been an unspoken truce between Zim and Dib at some point senior year. A promise to stay out of each others lives and just get through the last few months of their shared education. Their long standing feud had already been dying, Zim's last attempt at world domination had been just before they had left middle skool. After Zim had effectively left Dib's life, her brother had never been the same; at least not psychologically.
"I'll tell him when I can trust him not to have an aneurysm."
Dib still chased after the paranormal, but Zim had been the closest the young scientist had ever come to really dealing with the unnatural. With that route dried up, Dib had slowly begun an evolution of his own accord. His 'online friends' had stopped messaging him until the point came where he had simply deleted his account. His weekly big foot hunts had simmered down until they were replaced with robotics and math club meetings.
"He's your brother."
"Trust me, I'm aware..."
Zim sighed and kissed her forehead, "I just dislike the secrecy," He said at last.
Gaz rose an eyebrow and stared up at him in such a disarmingly attractive way that Zim almost forgot what they were arguing about. "This is coming from an alien who has been hiding on earth for almost two decades?"
"Every time there is a holiday where we can spend a large amount of time together, it is ruined by your brother wanting to see you." Zim actually sounded a bit bitter and upset now as he looked down at his girlfriend. "I want to be with you for your silly Earth celebrations Gaz."
Gaz frowned lightly and offered him her laptop, the Slave system software already open and running. "Get me my patch before its released in ten minutes and I'll consider it."
Zim looked confused, "Why not just wait ten minutes?"
"Because I can't just let you get away with being correct without punishment...now move."
Zim grinned and kissed her before he held up a flash drive that he had been keeping in his pocket. "Zim knows his love well, no?"
Gaz's eyes were gleaming.
Zim's face became alarmed. "Gaz-"
She jumped him and the two fell back onto the couch in a heap of flesh as Gaz showed Zim exactly what she thought of his present. A few hours later and Gaz and Zim had just started to drift off on the floor by the couch when Gaz was notified by voice mail that she had a meeting with the complex owner the next day.
Something about twenty seven noise complaints over the past several hours.
Blue balled bastards..., Gaz thought cruelly as she curled tighter onto Zim's body. He had already passed out from sheer exhaustion—a vainer part of Gaz enjoyed that fact—and she had no problem using him as her personal pillow.
As she finally drifted to sleep, Gaz was left with one final thought.
How the hell do I tell Dib?