Invader ZIM: Public
Access
Zim's gaze flicked from left to right, his bulbous head
sweating under the Earth's filthy, disgusting sunlight. He had to admit, amongst the vile,
dirt-encrusted… things which seemed to infest this planet, the
half-developed, filthy, filth-children his stature had forced him to surround
himself with had to be one of the most…filthy.
"And that…" hissed Miss Bitters, positioning herself
directly between Zim and the sanity-sustaining view of the clock, "…is why, in
no more than ten years, all of you will be stuck in SOUL-destroying
relationships, forced to work MEANINGLESS jobs to fill the ravenous mouths of
the offspring you, no doubt, will have spawned, thanks to your disgusting,
carnal urges…"
With that, eliciting a heartfelt sigh of relief from Zim,
the bell cut Bitters off mid-sentence, her acidic ravings drowned out by the
sudden clamour of escaping kids. Zim,
letting as many of the germ-ridden bodies get out of his way before bothering
to move, breathed a long sigh of relief, swung his legs around the side of his
seat, and wandered out of the door.
"And now…" whispered Zim to himself, remembering his vital
mission on Earth with a sinister grin, "…the invasion CONTINUES!"
Dib, having packed up this week's issue of 'Paranoid Media
Worm', was just in front of the diminutive Irken as he left, laughing as evilly
as he could.
"What'd you say?
Something about… invasions?
Awfully suspicious, Zim…" snapped the human child, turning and waving a
skinny finger under where Zim's nose, had he possessed such a vile, ugly
protuberance, would have been.
"Did you HEAR that?" yelled Dib suddenly, turning back to
his classmates, most of whom were preoccupied with the coming weekend. "He just SAID he's planning an
invasion! Proof! PROOF, I TELL YOU!"
"Yeah, Dib. Whatever." Muttered The Letter M, rolling his
eyes. The other kids either completely
ignored Dib's paranoid ravings or whispered insulting comments about the state
of Professor Membrane's son's sanity.
Zim, breathing yet another sigh of relief, sidled over to Dib, leaning
as close to the boy's ear as he could.
Dib, slightly concerned, backed off.
"Your pathetic planet will never know what hit it…"
whispered Zim, fully aware that he was fuelling his arch-enemy's paranoid
rants, but unable to stop himself. The
very idea that a… a… 'human', could foil the intricate plans of a brave Irken
soldier, chosen by the Tallest to invade a secret planet, no less, simply made
Zim laugh uncontrollably.
This he did, for the entire fifteen-minute walk home. People, for some reason, looked at him
funny.
"MASTER!" screamed an incredibly high-pitched voice,
sounding to Zim something like a comic artist and colourist being repeatedly
battered in the crotch by another, skinnier, artist. Zim shook his head derisively.
What a truly ridiculous concept.
This planet was beginning to have an adverse effect on him.
"Hello, GIR…" said Zim, cautiously opening the door and
waving aside the ever-present robotic parent units. The tiny information retrieval robot had been known to break
things in his absence. Things which
then exploded…
Thankfully, this was not one of those occasions, and Zim was
simply greeted with a huge hug. After a
few minutes of indulging his assistant's idiocy, Zim began to try to struggle
free of the malfunctioning SIR unit's grip, only to discover that he was
attached to nothing more than GIR's dog disguise, and that the robot had snuck
away some time ago.
"I have a good feeling about tonight, GIR…" said Zim
cheerily, letting his backpack lift him onto the sofa.
"Ooh! Why's that?" asked the
high-pitched invasion assistance tool, looking up from his beloved rubber
piggy.
"I don't really know…" replied Zim, tapping at controls on
his pack's computer panel. "I just have
a feeling that my next plan, whatever it may be, will really break the
resistance of these pathetic, doomed Earth-things…"
"Ooh! Ooh!" yelled GIR, hopping from
one leg to the other in his excitement.
"I've got a plan! A plan! A plaaaaaaan!"
Zim raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's nice
to see you're finally making an effort, GIR.
Is it suitably fiendish?"
GIR nodded emphatically, his antenna waggling around as his head moved.
"Yeah!
Yeahyeahyeah! First, we round up
ALL the fish…"
Zim's eyebrow rose even further.
"Fish? Why would we
want this… fish?"
GIR simply grinned.
"That's the clever part.
When we've got all the fish, we HAND THEM OUT TO THE PEOPLE! And then they'll all sing, and dance, and
WEAR HATS…"
Zim sighed, as his sidekick rambled on.
It looked like he was going to have to come up with something on this
own, then. For all his enthusiasm, Zim
couldn't help but feel a little disenchanted with the whole situation on
Earth. The weak, pathetic specimen of
humanity known as Dib somehow seemed to foil every plan, every scheme he ever
had. And the Tallest always seemed so…
bored… when he reported to them. An
inferior, less patriotic Invader might have thought that Red and Purple, exalted
leaders of the mighty Irken Empire, didn't care about their most prized soldier. Zim, however, knew that they must simply
have important matters on their minds.
Why else would they keep redirecting his calls to Foodcourtia Pizza
Express?
"Okay, GIR…" hissed Zim, finally, a vein on his head
throbbing slightly. "We'll just put that
one on the back-burner, okay?"
GIR nodded, then inexplicably leapt sideways, sliding into
the kitchen. Amidst the crashes of
broken pottery, Zim could hear the phrase 'back-burner!' repeated at quite
incredible volume and speed. The Irken
shook his head.
"GIR, if you've quite finished, we HAVE A MISSION HERE!"
yelled Zim, his temper thankfully coinciding with one of GIR's occasional
moments of obedience. Red eyes glowing,
the information retrieval unit sprung to attention at his master's side.
"Yes, master!
Awaiting orders…" said the machine, his voice having dropped in pitch
somewhat. Zim picked his way over
broken plates and scattered cutlery in the kitchen, finally reaching the
dustbin and hopping in.
"What do these drooling stink-beasts rely on for their entertainment,
GIR?" asked Zim, as the tube-lift shot through layer after layer of the Earth's
crust, heading for the subterranean centre of operations of Zim's one-Irken
invasion force.
"Fish?" ventured a squeaky voice from behind Zim. Turning, the diminutive Invader sighed,
seeing that his robot's eyes, shoulders and chest were green again. In this case, green seemed to denote
'idiot'.
"Exactly." Answered Zim, without thinking. "Wait… no, why would they… the answer is
'television', GIR. They practically
worship those primitive, flickering boxes.
The FOOLS!"
GIR squealed in excitement.
"Wheeeheehoo! TV! Can we watch the scary monkey?"
Zim held a gloved hand to his forehead.
"I thought they cancelled that… Anyway, imagine what would happen if every 'television' show,
across the entire PLANET, were to display subliminal messages of submission to
the Irken army?"
"Total, global domination, SIR!" answered a deeper voice, as the faint
reflection in the lift-tube changed from green to red. Without even bothering to turn, Zim nodded
happily. "Exactly, GIR. Tonight… WE INFLITRATE THE BROADCASTING
STATION!"
Dib gasped, holding his binoculars even closer to his eyes
in amazement, as the roof of Zim's house split in two, revealing a squat,
roundish craft, which rose on purplish plumes and shot away into the night
sky. Shifting position in the prickly
bush providing tonight's observation post, Dib's face broke into a malicious
grin.
"Leaving your house unprotected, are you, Zim? When they write the story of your capture,
that'll be your FIRST MISTAKE!"
With that, the human hopped out of the laceration-inducing undergrowth,
snagging his trenchcoat on a branch and hitting his face hard on the concrete
pavement. After a few moments, Dib
clambered to his feet, brushed himself off and sighed, looking carefully at the
empty house, trying to figure out a way to gain entry.
"Well, we're both allowed one mistake…" muttered Dib. "And at least I have EARS."