'So unless you want to die a slow, lingering, painful death, you will ALWAYS use protection when you interact with other pitiful, worthless lives to create new pitiful, worthless lives.' By now all the children were so terrified of sex that most of them would be abstainng for the rest of their lives. Except for Zim, who was thinking over the information the teaching drone had imparted.

'So you're saying that certain diseases can kill humans slowly, with enough time for them to come crawling to some other person for a cure to an almost incurable disease, only to die later.'

Ms. Bitters looked a bit surprised at this. 'You seem to have grasped the idea that all human life is meaningless and the only reason for living is to die. You will pass this entire year. Everybody else, unless you try harder to grasp this simple concept, you will be repeating this horrible year for the rest of your pathetic lives.' The bell rang. 'Now leave. I am sick of staring at your faces.'

AFTERSCHOOLATZIMS

'GIR, we need to find a human to test on. You must come with me tonight.'

'Awwwwww, I was gonna go to a rave.'

'Are there humans at a "rave"?'

'Ummmm, no. Wait. Yes. No. There are piggies. And junkies.'

Zim sighed. 'Are these "junkies" humans?'

'Yes. They give me candy' He reached into his head. 'You want some?' He held out a few pills with smiley faces on them.

zim remembered the last time GIR had given him some junkie candy. He had been sick for days, and he had a feeling he might have done something to embaress himself in front of the Tallest. They hadn't been able to talk to him for a week.

'No. Never again. Just help me to capture a "junkie" human. I wonder if they are a sub-species.'

ATTHERAVE

'GIR man, great to see you again. But I think your friend might be too young to come in.'

'Don't worry. He's with me. We came to find a junkie!!'

'Ok. You can both go in. All the junkies are out the back in the bathrooms. Look out for needles.'

'YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!' They both entered the building. Zim immeiately covered his noise recievers.

'GIR! HOW DO YOU PUT UP WITH THIS NOISE?'

'HUH?'

'LET'S JUST GO FIND A JUNKIE' He pulled GIR away from the crowd of girls he was dancing with. Or that's what Zim thought he was doing. He could have been having a fit.

They both entered the back area, which was crowded with an oppressive sense of uselessness and stoner aura, where they had passed the point of getting a high, and were now just trying to stay ahead of the low that would inevitably come. A few had hit that low and left forever, but more came in every day, to take the place of those that left. Some had also left to get clean, but some had left after reaching for the ultimate high, and had never come crashing down. It was an ugly cycle, with new ones coming and old ones going, having a Sine-wave effect on the numbers of them.

Zim shuddered at seeing them. 'The armada couldn't come soon enough, GIR, to wipe these filthy humans off the face of the planet'

'Uh-huh'

'I'm glad to see you agree with me GIR.' He stepped on a needle and broke it. He looked at it and was glad he had on his boots. He grabbed a junkie that was thin, pale and bony looking. It didn't even notice when Zim shoved a thing around it's wrist and pressed a few buttons, sending it to the base. None of the others looked up, or even noticed the bright flash of light that came with it leaving. Zim and GIR left the same way, and still no one noticed.

BACKATTHEBASE

Zim was experimenting with the blood that came from the junkie. He had placed a bit of the "Irken Flu Cure" into the sample, and was pleased with the results. He brought them up on a screen.

'GIR, come here.' GIR looked up, but kept playing with his rubber moose. 'See these things here, they are being destroyed by the cure for the Flu at a phenomenal speed. But are they just in the junkies blood, or are they in everybodys? I must capture more humans to test it on. GIR' he looked and saw GIR was trying to force feed a burritto to a monkey, 'stay here and look after the junkie human. I am going out to look for more test subjects.' He picked up some needles so he could take blood from the humans he found

He exited by the lift and went to the Voot Bay. He would land it somewhere, then take blood from people he saw on the streets. He decided that some part of the city would be best, because in the city there were many different types of people, especially at 1:09 at night.

He parked his Voot in an alley, making sure to remember which buildings it was between. He didn't want a repeat of that horrible time with GIR and the dancing Mexicans. When he left the alley, he was accosted by a woman wearing less than the normal amount of clothing, and more than the normal amount of makeup.

'Hey, sweetie. You lost your way? Want me to help you find it?'

'No. Zim is not lost.' He remembered what these creatures were. 'Go away sex-drone. No, wait. Give me some of your blood.'

'Anything for you, Cutie. But it will come at a price.'

Zim grabbed a handful of bills from his PAK, and gave them to her. 'Now let me have some blood.' He handed her a syringe.

She placed it in her arm and drew some blood for him. 'There ya go, Honey. Call me if you need anything else. And be careful walking around by yourself. A little thing like you could get into a lot of trouble round here.'

Zim grabbed the syringe from her, and walked off, muttering under his breath. A few blocks on he saw a man in a suit leave a restuarant. Men in suits were usually of a different class than the sex-drones and junkies. He ran up to him. 'You. Suit Man. I request some blood.'

The man turned around and saw Zim. 'Shouldn't you be in bed, or at your house. Do your parents know your up this late?'

'Yes, of course they do' he lied. 'Now, would you give me some of your blood?' He held up a syringe.

'You shouldn't be playing with things like that. You could hurt yourself.'

Zim sighed at this humans stupidity, then shoved the needle into his leg and took some blood, then ran off as fast as he could.

After he had run a few more blocks, he was forced to a stop by hitting a leg clad in leather and chains. He knew from watching tv with GIR that these humans were more dangerous than the suit men, the sex-drones or the junkies. He picked himself up and hoped they hadn't noticed him. They had, and one of them had pulled out a pocket knife.

'You should watch where you're going, punk.' He picked Zim up by his collar and slammed him agnaist the wall. Making his PAK hit the wall painfully. Now the other beasts of leather had gathered around. 'Why don't we teach him a lesson?' He put the knife through Zims hand. 'He's already lost one finger, why don't we make that more?' He twisted the knife. Zim growled at him. 'Think you're tough, eh?' Zim felt other hands grab at him, and then they moved the entire scene into the alley next to the bar they had been at. He felt the hands drop him. Then feet started to kick him, steel capped boots going into his ribs. He heard a few cracks and felt something get punctured. They stopped kicking him after 5 minutes. Zim lay there and panted for a bit, tasting blood on his tongue. He then saw the one with the knife lean down and grab his hand.

'I hope you learnt a lesson tonight.' Then he cut off Zims middle finger, stood up, and ground his heel into his hand, breaking most of the bones in it. Zim whimpered at the pain. They all exited the alley, laughing and joking. He heard someone mention 'making the freaks finger into a keychain.' Zim hoped they were talking about his skin colour, and hadn't noticed his wig fall off. He pulled it back on his head. At least he had gotten some blood from one of them while they were beating him up. He never noticed the PAK attatchment with the syringe come and attack him. Now all Zim had to do was rest and wait for his body to stop being broken.

AFEWHOURSLATER(ABOUT10)

Zim was walking a bit stiffly as he entered the labs. GIR was still there, and so was the junkie. That was good. The last time he had left GIR to look after something the whole base has been destroyed and his brains had nearly been sucked out. It was a horrible eperience.

He put the blood samples into the microscope. They all had the same thing inside them. 'It must be a vital human condition. If I can infect enough of them with the Cure then they'll spread it round to other humans. Thanks to my brilliant research, I know that the Cure will be easily spread through human bodily fluids. The cure for us wil be the death for them!'

He walked over to the junkie and injected a measured amount of the Cure into it's system. Then he injected something else that would knock it out and make it forget anything that it had seen, though it seemed to be only interested in its headache.

'GIR! Help me remove the junkie from the base. We will also need to infect other humans.'

'Are we going back to the Rave?' Zim looked up to see that it was the next night, and he had been down in the base for hours.

'Yes GIR, we will go back to the rave, and we can infect all the humans there.'

'Hooray!!!!!'

AFEWMONTHSLATER

'GIR! The Dib beast alweays ruins my plans! You must help me to destroy him' Zim had forgotten all about the "Infect the Humans and Make them come Begging for a Cure" plan, and went on with other plots. His finger had grown back, so he didn't even have that to remind him.

'Shhhhh. I'm watching the news'

'Wha? Oh well. Might as well watch it too. To understand these...'

'Shhhhhhh' GIR shushed him.

The news-anchor was speaking. 'A man on the brink of death has survived after being kissed by his wife. Mr. Burke was dying of AIDS when his wife kissed him. The next morning all traces of the HIV virus were gone from his body. This is not the first miraculous cure of this sort.' A picture came up on the screen. A picture of a person Zim recognised.'This former junkie was cured of HIV he got from a used needle, after a day and night he can't remember. A whole party full of infected ravers was also cured, one night a few months ago...' The rest of the story was blocked out by Zim screaming.

Inspired by The Amazing Race, and all those ZADR. Yes, this had started out as a different story. I might write that other version one day. Everything after AFEWHOURSLATER was written the next day, so please excuse the difference in writing style, or the way it seems a bit rushed. I hate writing for GIR. I can't do the hyper stuff.

In other news, does anyone know the name of the fic where Zim was beaten up by these kids who were after Dib and lost his memory. I think there were werewolves in it somewhere. I'e been looking for it for days and can't find it, so I would be grateful if anyone who knows its name could tell me what it is.