Jesse knows he's not asleep, not even halfway. Not after so much coffee it feels like a bump of his own blue; not after the events of the last two days. Everything perfectly normal: Shuffle past a sea of silent brown faces, pretending to ignore each other as you open the secret James Bond door to the underground. Mumble at Cancer Man, receive a grunt in return. Might as well be another wagesucker punching a time clock. Just another morning like any other, the day after you've watched your boss empty a man's life out in front of you.

That shit'll wake the dead.

Except here he is, ready to pinch himself. Because Mr. White is wearing his biohazard suit but it's not even zipped up, sitting at one of the desks as he scribbles frantically in a notebook. And something that looks like a bunch of tin cans held together through mere magnetism and sheer force of will is flying around the lab like the love child of Speed Racer and Speedy Gonzales, literally bouncing off the walls.

He descends the metal staircase like he's diving into maple syrup, nearly stumbling on the final step as the jumble of metal screams past him. It stops, resolving into a tiny figure.

"We're bakin' cakes!" it screeches before zooming away, once more a blur.

Jesse's confusion is only outmatched by disbelief. "You built a robot?"

Mr. White ignores him, feverishly muttering as he continues to scribble. Finally he stops, staring at the paper in front of him.

"My God." He looks up at Jesse, not even seeing him. "It's perfect."

"What are you talking about? What's perfect?"

"One hundred percent purity." He says it with such awe and reverence. "The kind that's only achievable in theory - never practice. The moment you expose it to air - oxidization! Back down to five nines. At best!"

The tin can rolls up to Jesse, craning its tiny neck and fixing him with its blank stare. "HI COW!"

"What the hell -"

"BYE COW!" the thing shrieks, and rolls away.

"Because it's unstable, you see?" The wondrous rapture on his old teacher's face reminds Jesse of those creepy audiences on the Jesus Sunday Power Hour. A trembling finger stabs at the hastily scrawled equations. "But this - it maintains integrity right up until the moment of ingestion. I never would have believed it was possible. But there it is!"

Jesse turns and looks at the bouncing tin can, currently sticking its head into one of the aluminum tanks. "OOOOOOO!" it shouts. Then it does it again. And again, until Jesse looks away with a growing headache.

"Mister White - seriously, this is -"

"The new normal." Walt starts to hand him the paper, then changes his mind, grabbing a fresh sheet. "I'll make up a process sheet for us to follow. Simplify it a bit."

Jesse should be offended.

He's too busy looking for hidden cameras.

He finally gives up and gets changed. It's harder than usual to keep his mind on the job, and not just because of bloody thoughts: He keeps thinking he sees a shadowy figure on the fringes of his vision, but it vanishes every time before he can get a bead on it. He knows he's not asleep, or high, and he's starting to wish for either or both. This is paranoia without the fun.

Walt's muttering at him from across the table, but Jesse barely registers. Too busy staring at their finished product, as clear as the sky, dark as the deep blue sea. It makes that first batch they made in the RV look like the scum from a bathtub reject. His mouth is actually watering and he has to swallow to keep from drooling, knowing his partner is watching his every move as they break it up and shovel it into Tupperware crates.

He doesn't want it anyway. Old habit talking.

They're washed up and back in street clothes before he can find the nerve to speak. "Mister White."

Walt blinks and focuses on him, looking almost normal. Whatever that is. "Yeah."

"Are you -" He nearly laughs at it all. "Are you okay?"

"No, Jesse." Walt's voice is gentle, his gaze one of pity. "I have cancer. I'll never see my daughter grow up. My wife left me when she found out I manufacture substances of mass destruction. I was indirectly responsible for -" He blinks and cocks his head, like a pondering bird. "For the death of hundreds of people."

"You said that wasn't on us." Jesse knows he should be glad to hear this and yet it's all he can do to keep from grabbing Walt and trying to shake some sense into him. And he's not even talking nonsense yet.

"I said a lot of things." Walt shrugs. "It's obvious the cancer has gone to my brain, and I'm quite insane. So I'm just gonna..." He makes a vague gesture with one hand. "Roll with it."

That didn't take long.

"But I see it too!" Jesse hates the whiny pleading in his voice. Try as he might, he can't stop caring. "You're not crazy -"

"Oh." A fraction of the old condescending sneer makes its presence felt. "So now you have a degree in psychiatry?"

"I don't need a degree to see a freakin' robot flying around our lab," Jesse insists. "Or this impossible batch of blue we just cooked up. I know you're smart, but - dude. There is no *way* you came up with this on your own."

Walt's eyes narrow to slits and he grabs his coat, heading up the staircase two at a time, rattling metal with each indignant stomp. At the door he stops, hand on the knob, not looking back.

"Just do your job."

The door slams, and Jesse stands there far too long before feeling a tug on his pantleg.

"Hey nonny nonny HEY!"

He looks down to see the tin can holding an inflatable toy in its tiny upraised fist.

"Is that a..."

The can bounces again, its high-pitched voice full of pride and excitement. "It's my moose!"

"Right." Jesse looks around the room again, then back down. The thing stares up at him with blank and hopeful eyes.

"You got any treats?"

"Oooo! Funyuns!"

"Hey - that was my last bag!"

"I want toast!"

"You do? Uh...I think I got some bread -"

"And a snake! And a wombat! And a train, and a gold razor with a slice of lemon and a -"

"JESUS CHRIST WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

"...okay, okay. Geez."

"Jesus, I'm sorry. Have some fuckin' toast already."

crunch crunch "You're better than my master. You're tall!"

"...Not exactly sure how I feel about that."

"WHAT'S THAT!?"

"Uh...that's my Roomba. It's a vac- hey, wait - oh, God!"

"I like you goooood."

The new normal doesn't even last two days before Jesse comes in to find Gir duct taped to a chair. Walt's pacing around his captive, trembling excitement transformed into rage.

"My wife is in hysterics because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself!"

"I was only pokin' the baby!" Gir kicks his legs, but only succeeds in tipping the chair over. Jesse winces at the hollow clang of the robot's head bouncing off the cement floor.

"I don't care what you call it." Walt supplies extra emphasis by grinding his heel into the side of Gir's head. "You tell your 'master' that my family is off limits. Understood?"

"There is no need to tell Zim!"

The spidery form clings in the corner of the ceiling like a bat. Red eyes blink, realizing that Walt and Jesse are both staring back.

"Anything!" it concludes, the majestic pronouncement somehow deflated.

"Jesse," Walt sighs. "Meet the source of our new recipe."

He comes in the next morning having no idea what to expect. The air filtration unit is gone, replaced with a throbbing, misshapen lump of metal that shines under the flourescent like wet flesh. As for the generator, their lab is apparently now running off a fleet of nuclear-powered hamsters.

"I grow weary of this dismal facility!" A coffee mug narrowly misses Walt's head and shatters against the far wall. "When will Zim be free to reap the rewards of his labor? To march upon the conquered hordes of filthy, stinking Earth-bugs and make them cower like the vermin they are!"

"You're not going anywhere until I'm satisfied." Walt glares at the alien for only a moment before returning his attention to the open notebook before him. "The last thing we need is for my brother-in-law to see you and start concocting little green man theories."

"Zim is not a man!"

"Give it a rest," Walt mutters.

"Zim is Zim!"

"And Zim," Walt emphasizes, "is not my boss. I answer to one man, and I don't care what you show me, Gus Fring is a hell of a lot scarier than you."

Zim's eyes narrow, utterly flat and devoid of pupil.

"Tell me more of this...Gus Fring."

Jesse knows he looks dubious. "Are you sure about this?"

"Oh, please." Walt's not even looking, his greedy eyes focused on the mountains of cash in front of him. "You really think anyone's going to notice?"

Gus grins like a jovial serial killer and sticks out his hand. "Welcome home, son!"

"Darned roboparent programming." Zim growls, giving the remote control a hearty smack. "Can't seem to erase it."

"As long as you're sure the real one has been dealt with." Walt glances over at Zim, and a trace of doubt enters his voice. "Because otherwise -"

"Zim is the supreme crimelord!" The alien puffs out his chest and straightens his back, with little effect on his bearing and none whatsoever on his height.

"Hooray for you." Jesse tries and fails to keep the gloom away. "Have fun with the cartel."

"The brain of Gus Fring now resides in the body of a common darter snail! This cartel too will face Irken wrath and crumble before it like...a dry and crumbly cookie! ALL WILL KNEEL BEFORE -"

The alien runs out of breath and engages in a fit of dry and unproductive coughing, eventually squeaking out a final syllable.

"- Zim!"

*And where does it stop?* Jesse wonders.

"Pickles!" Gir shouts, and throws his arms around Jesse's leg, gazing up in rapt adoration.

Well, he supposes. Things could be worse.

At least he has a friend.