Another loud and deliberate knock roused the Invader from his work just below the Earth's surface - growling, he groped blindly for his wig in the near pitch-dark and stumbled off in the general direction of the elevator. Pipes clanged unpleasantly through the chaotic labyrinth that was his secret base, containment tanks readjusting themselves under the eye of Zim's halfhearted computer system, as the Irken made his way up to the hostile Surface above.
Today, of all days, had his security system failed? How dare it? ZIM had so much to do! His latest, surefire plan for world domination was currently lying in an unwelded metal heap on the table in his main lab. It should have been finished. But the giraffe incident earlier that day had delayed work considerably, and now there was no time to spare! And yet here was ZIM, sparing time, as if sparable time somehow grew on Earth trees! ZIM had far more important things to attend to than his mere front door!
Grinning sourly at his predicament, Zim stepped into the kitchen and then into the living room.
The surface of Earth was quiet save for the gentle patter of a misty December rain. Vaguely toxic water ran in little rivulets down the window panes; GIR, dressed in his green dog suit, stood with his face smushed up against the glass, the curtain draped over his head.
"GIR! Who is it?!"
The costume's head swung around until its eyes were level with Zim's. "I dunno."
"It isn't Dib?"
"Nope."
"No?" A snarl of relief and disgust passed over the Irken's face. "Who else would have the insolence to approach MY house? And why," he continued, glancing upward to the tangled pipes criss-crossing the living room ceiling, "is whoever-it-is still STANDING?"
"She's got a licking stick," remarked GIR from the window.
"Don't interrupt me, GIR. COMPUTER! Run a diagnostic on—"
Zim jumped at the sound of a sudden third knock just behind him. Extremely annoyed by now, he flung open the door and stared menacingly out.
He found a complete stranger staring back at him: a figure about twice his height, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a tan raincoat, face obscured by a ridiculously wide-brimmed hat with a feather stuck in the band, getting soaked in the slowly steadier rain. A white stick of sugar poked out from an expressionless mouth. Zim stared for a few more seconds, just for good measure, and then shut the door again.
"…Huh. Computer, run—"
"I already did that," yawned the house.
"Oh? Well, then, tell me—GIR, don't touch that door—tell me why my lawn gnomes did not detect and dispatch this intruder!"
"She's not an intruder."
Zim tried awkwardly to look angrily in several directions at once. "What do you call it, then?!"
A massive sigh rocked the hollow building, and the computer replied, "She's Irken. Your security system is trained to Irken biology. Otherwise, it'd attack you all the time, see?"
"DO NOT BORE ME with the details of what I ALREADY KNOW," yelled the indignant Invader, "when you have yet to answer my—she's IRKEN?! What? How? I—GAH!"
He stormed the few feet back to the door, and cracked it just enough to see out. The intruder gazed back at him with a wide-eyed curiosity as if every move he made was a mystery to her. She tipped her hat up ever so slightly, and, now that Zim knew what to look for, her whole eyes were clearly a striking shade of garnet, glistening like gems as was the standard among Irkens. Her wormlike tongue wrapped around the candy in her hand, pausing for a moment as she said:
"Hello, Zim."
Zim blinked suspiciously.
"Hello."
"May I come in?" the stranger asked.
"No. Go away."
"Why not?"
Without wasting a moment on thought, Zim replied, "Because there's only room for one Irken on this planet. Never mind my house. Go away, I said."
"I'm not here to stay. I just need someplace to rest while my voot cruiser recharges. You're sure I can't just hang out in your living room?"
"I'm sure."
"I want to talk to you."
This was a phrase Zim wasn't exactly used to hearing, and he paused to parse its meaning just long enough for the stranger to loosen the door from his hands and step inside. Her hat, in its efforts to protect her from the sting of Earth's weather, had absorbed an excessive amount of water and now dropped from her hands into a soggy and pathetic heap on the tile floor. GIR hopped gleefully down from the windowsill; he crossed to his spot on the couch and switched on the TV. The stranger stood beside him and patted his lime-green head absentmindedly.
She stood there, in ZIM's base, breathing ZIM's air, in ZIM's way! He stomped past her back into the kitchen.
"Er..."
"YOU MAY, I suppose, spend your idle time sheltered from this planet's horrible precipitation here in my base's front to humanity, and afterwards IMMEDIATELY LEAVE. Do not touch anything. I have work to do, and therefore I sadly cannot waste time interacting with you." His face was a mask of grim finality. "Goodbye, Invader."
"I'm not—"
He was already riding the elevator back down before she had a chance to finish.
Doors slid open; bridges unfolded, as Zim pushed the distraction above out of his mind and turned his welding torch back to the mechanical heap lying on his work table. The plan. The invasion! The only thing ZIM cared about was right in front of him, right under his fingertips. That meddling human's demise was only a day away - thank the stars it wasn't HE who had turned up on ZIM's doorstep!
The sound of metal footsteps announced the approach of GIR, sans costume, the same stupid grin on his face as always. Zim glanced up.
"GIR! About time. Hand me that iridium power cell - I want to test the connections."
More clanking metal on metal. The glowing cell pressed into his gloved hand - as its reflection gleamed in his eyes, he thought about the massive power he held there, compressed into such a tiny cube, and a smile contorted his face. Zzzt! The machine's limbs - it was now obvious that it had limbs of some kind, although it was not yet clear why - flailed in spasms of power as electricity arced from one leg to another.
Then Zim paused, setting the power cell down on the table, his antennae twitching in annoyance.
"I thought I told you to stay upstairs."
The female Irken waited patiently for him to turn around before shrugging helplessly. "I know...well...I've never been very good at following orders," she mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck, just above her PAK. "Call off your SIR, Zim." The little robot was in the process of giving her a bone-crushing hug, chattering to himself.
Zim snickered. "You can't be that great an Invader, then, can you? And you thought you could take this mission from me? That's adorable...disgustingly so."
"I'm not an Invader. I tried to tell you."
"A LIKELY STORY," roared Zim. "I'VE been saying that for YEARS now. It's what Invaders do! You understand, don't you, er...um...what's your name, again?"
The girl stared blankly back at him, and, completely unfazed, changed the subject: "Why are you so afraid of someone stealing your mission, hm?"
"Afraid?" he scoffed dramatically. "ZIM is not AFRAID! If you must know, an Irken called Tak was something of a nuisance a while ago, and I just don't feel like dealing with that again."
A soft laugh escaped her. "Heh. Tak. One reject targets another. Ah, well, such is life."
"What kind of talk is that?"
"Never mind. What are you building?"
In spite of himself, Zim grinned and lifted his chin in pride. "You're curious, are you? Let me inform you that this contraption, OF MY OWN DESIGN, although far too complicated to explain to you now, is the key to finally defeating that miserable human Dib who keeps interfering with my invasion! It is powered by an iridium core and is indisputably lethal to any―"
"Does it have a name?"
She had walked over to the table and begun toying with one of the machine's spidery legs.
"NO. Well, GIR has given it a name, but..."
He trailed off. GIR looked up happily from the spot he'd chosen on the floor, his tongue poking out from his mouth. "Mecha Giraffee!"
Zim shuddered. "Too soon. Still too soon, GIR."
The visitor yawned suddenly, leaning backwards on the table and gazing at Zim from half-veiled eyes. "I could never be an Invader," she said.
"I've already said that. And explained why."
"I mean," she continued meaningfully, "I would hate to be on a planet all by myself, like you are...surrounded by people, but all alone still...because you know they'd hate you if they ever knew what you really were...although, you seem to have a decent friend here," she added, rapping her knuckles on GIR's head.
"Hah. Friend." Zim spat out the word like poison. "You are right - Invaders don't have friends. And we're better off for it! We don't NEED friends. We are the best of the best."
He flinched immediately - her hand was on his shoulder and he couldn't shake it off.
"Do you really believe that?"
"Of course I do," he snarled. "Why else would I say it?"
"Because you're hurt," she whispered. "Because they've hurt you." She towered over him. "Because you know what this is: a joke."
He tried to pull away once again, but she would have none of it. "You're a joke, Zim. They're laughing at you."
She paused, and let him back away, which he did in no uncertain terms. He stared; she stared; they looked right through each other. Then, suddenly, the visitor stretched out her hand, catching his gaze, almost smiling - a smile that started out innocent, but curled into the same scheming, dramatic simper Zim had worn only a few minutes before.
"Let's make them stop."
Silence.
Not a silence Zim was please to have. An awkward silence. An expectant, impatient, hopeful silence. He stared at the Irken in the tan raincoat, thinking to himself for once instead of out loud.
Then he moved back to his work table and resumed building his machine, his back to the visitor.
"...Z-Zim?"
He didn't look up.
"Get out."
More silence. But this was the silence he wanted. Powerful. Final. He concentrated harder. The girl stood there behind him for almost a minute, breathing unevenly, her jaw working as she swallowed whatever half-formed words were trying to climb out her throat.
She turned to leave, but paused at the elevator door, taking a deep breath. Zim groaned inaudibly.
"The Tallest...really should be more grateful for you, Zim."
Of course they should, thought the Invader. No - they ARE. What do you mean, SHOULD?
"I mean, you...you're defective, Zim. Everybody knows that. You're not...chained like the rest of Irk. You obey them because you want to."
She sighed. "The Empire's making enemies by the dozen. Some of them with armadas of their own. If the Irkens as a whole were ever set free from the Control Brains, most of them would probably abandon ship - but YOU'D stay. You already are." The doors slid open, and she stepped into the elevator. "Just thought I'd say that. That's all."
Up. Out. GIR was somehow already at the door, holding out the still soggy hat she'd dropped in the corner. She smiled as she took it from him. She opened the door, stepped out into the torrential rain. She vanished.
It was a few moments after that when Zim noticed what was missing from his table.
"GIR! GET DOWN HERE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY IRIDIUM CELL?! THOSE ARE EXPENSIVE!"
"Nuthin'," drawled the robot as he fell from the ceiling. "I never seen it."
"YES YOU - wait - waaaiiiiit - OF COURSE! HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?!"
He leapt onto the table in a frenzy, searching his (now entirely powerless, useless and a complete waste of time) project to confirm. "I KNEW there was some motive here! SHE STOLE MY POWER CELL! AAAAAAAAGH! CURSE Y―Oh, I don't even know her name!"
"WELL, CURSE YOU ANYWAY!"
Aboard the Massive, lounging about the communications bay, the Almighty Tallest were howling with laughter.
"He didn't notice!" gasped Red. "He didn't even notice - couldn't even tell to be suspicious!"
"Oh, he was being suspicious. He's just that terrible at it!"
Purple hovered closer to the viewing screen, gazing at the muted feed of Zim kneeling on a table yelling to no one. A satisfied look was plastered on his green face. "And you said constantly monitoring Zim's security footage was pointless!" He gave Red a shove, knocking him into an Irken grunt. "First we had that highlights reel, and now this - strategic information!"
The footage rewound itself until the visitor was back on screen, standing dumbfoundedly behind Zim.
"Ah, Zim," Red sighed. "If only you could have asked where she was going - but that would have been asking way too much of you."
He glided across the floor to one of the communications specialists, standing at a panel full of knobs and levers. The Irken stood and saluted sharply.
"You, send out a transmission to the fleet: tell them our little renegade is out in the vicinity of Earth. We want her caught before she causes any actual trouble. And for Irk's sake don't tell Zim - we don't need his 'help' now any more than we did with Impending Doom One."
The specialist shuddered, before turning to his panel and relaying the Tallest's message to the entire armada.
"This shouldn't take long," Red giggled.