"So, since you're the only Invader still working on your mission..." Tallest Red folded his spindly fingers together, grinning at the screen. "That makes you the perfect candidate."
Zim perked an antenna. "Perfect? Why, yes. Yes I am." A satisfied pause. "Wait, what do you mean I'm the only one still—"
"The Invader Apprenticeship Program!" Tallest Purple spread his arms wide, catching Red on the chin with an oval gauntlet, and sending him to the floor. "We send you a smeet, you teach it the ways of invading, and... good stuff happens!"
Red got to his feet, rubbed his chin, and shot Purple a sour look. That gave Zim time to shake off his astonishment. "I couldn't be more honored, my Tallest. But acquiring the necessary facilities for my base on such short notice might be—"
"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Red glanced at Purple, who shared his grin. "The gestation tube should arrive at your location any day now. It comes with a Pak, so have fun activating it. We're counting on you, soldier."
"So it's not even—" The screen went dark. "My Tallest?"
The base jolted as something crashed aboveground.
The gestation tube—thick glass with two metal bracers and no openings—had cratered into Zim's front walk unscathed, thanks to the airtight metal crate taking the brunt of it. After liberal application of a plasma crowbar to pry off its entry-burnt exterior, it made an excellent distraction for GIR.
While the little robot crammed packing peanuts in his mouth, Zim inspected the contents of the tube. He had it suspended between two robotic arms deep within the base, and walked in slow, scrutinizing circles beneath it. No defects showed from inside the green translucent liquid; just a fully-developed juvenile Irken, ready for activation.
Zim returned to the crate and jumped in. He hunted around in the styrofoam until his hands met cold, curved metal. He hopped out, flicked packing material off his antennae, and carried a dormant Pak to the main console.
The Pak showed no data upon inspection, besides built-in life support and memory backup functions. Nothing unusual, as smeets were pumped with the whole of Irken knowledge mere minutes after Pak attachment.
Zim touched two keys on the console. "A copy of my Pak data should more than suffice. It's even better than the whole of Irken knowledge!"
A metal tube snaked down from the ceiling, lampreyed onto Zim's Pak, and lifted him off the floor a few feet. An identical attachment connected with the smeet's Pak. Zim input the command, hit Confirm, and got buzzed at.
"Yeah, no, that's not gonna work," said the base computer.
Zim peered in the direction of the disembodied drone. "What? But why?!"
"The new Pak blocked the connection. Something about stopping an influx of corrupt data."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Zim growled and kicked the air. "Fine! Cancel the procedure." He detached and landed on his feet, while the tubes snaked back into the mess of pipes overhead.
Grumbling, Zim opened a console panel, and started connecting wires to the new Pak. "A copy of my database will have to do for now." He pressed a button, and the transfer began without a hitch. "It's loaded with three years' worth of invasion information, anyway."
With the Pak ready, and a spinal drill built from online blueprints, Zim faced the gestation tube suspended in midair. GIR, Minimoose, and Skoodge stood in attendance behind him.
"Computer," Zim said, ready by the console. "Break the tube."
The triple-pronged robot arms, moving for the first time in sixteen hours, clanged the tube against the floor. A crack appeared, the tube split, and the insensate smeet plopped to the floor in a surge of green fluid.
Zim operated the spinal drill from the console. The machine lowered from the ceiling and jabbed the smeet's back, boring two precise holes in its spine. Another button press, and a mechanical arm shoved the Pak into place.
Zim ran up to the smeet, and pressed the top spot of its Pak inward. A quartet of different-colored, touch-sensitive buttons appeared. He tapped out a manual activation code, each button flashing in sequence. Considering the staggering price of a Life-Giving Surge Cannon, hacking for the code proved more efficient.
The buttons all lit up at once. Zim stepped back as they vanished.
"Activating," the Pak intoned, and jolted its fleshy shell to life.
Blue electricity arced, then faded, leaving the room silent. The smeet remained prostrate.
Zim chanced a step forward. The smeet's notched antennae perked straight up, and it sprang to its feet.
Zim twitched, standing behind the smeet, then adopted a stiff military posture. "Welcome to your life, smeet. I am Zim, and you will obey my every order from this moment onward." He folded his hands behind his back, while the smeet stared at Skoodge, standing with GIR and Minimoose nearby. Skoodge smiled and waved. "As your first assignment, you will give me a status report. Now!"
On that command, the smeet did a swift about-face in the direction of Zim's voice. Round jade eyes practically dominated its pale green face as it fixated on the other Irken.
"I'm good!" The smeet spoke with squeaky enunciation and a big smile. "Real good!"
Zim regarded the tiny creature staring into his eyes. It was no taller than GIR. "Excellent! Now, state your name."
The smeet replied with sheer delight, "I don't got one!"
"Eh? But how can you not—" Zim stopped, then facepalmed. "Of all the things to forget. Your Pak didn't come with one, did it?"
The smeet shook its head. "Nope!"
GIR danced up to the smeet. "Let's call him John Henry!" he said, while the little Irken made grabby-hands for the loud robot with the shiny lights.
Zim picked up the smeet and moved him away from GIR. "Let's not." That didn't stop GIR from walking a few steps over to continue his ogling. "This is my prized apprentice, the future of the Irken elite. He needs a name that will strike fear into the hearts of every filthy subspecies in existence. A name like Zim! But not Zim. Only I can be Zim."
"I heard there's another Skoodge," Skoodge said, walking up to join them with Minimoose perched on his head. "So it's not like our names are special, or anything."
"Don't be ridiculous," Zim said with a sneer. "If I name him with that kind of attitude, the apprenticeship program will fail before it even begins."
While Zim crossed his arms and ruminated at the floor, GIR took out a rubber piggy from inside his head. He zoomed it around like a fighter jet, complete with machine gun noises. The smeet followed the toy's every move, enraptured.
"I've got it!" Zim pointed at the smeet. "Your name is now Heat-Death-of-the-Universe!"
The smeet was too busy chasing after GIR to pay attention, as the robot pretend-flew the piggy-plane into another room.
Zim turned to Skoodge, who'd been standing there, watching everything. Zim opened his mouth, ready to rant, and a loud crash made him close it. Sirens blared, and Zim wrenched his attention to the source of the noise.
Red lights flashed from the room GIR and the smeet had just gone into. The macro-filovirus room.
Zim ran into the room, and screamed. He'd mutated filoviruses into ten-foot-tall flailing monstrosities to consume the human populace. At that size, they didn't melt organs; they simply beat everything to death. Their containment vats, freshly shattered, leaked protein-rich fluid in the wake of their stringy terror.
Zim ducked and rolled to avoid GIR as he flew his way. The robot made a SIR-shaped dent in the door frame. A fat spaghetti limb whipped around one of GIR's legs, and he shrieked with laughter as a macro-filovirus yanked him out to bash elsewhere.
The smeet was clambering up the control panel in the middle of the room. He'd evidently used the suspended animation release lever as a foothold. As he swiped for where the pig had landed, on the highest point of the panel's sloped surface, another macro-filovirus slithered toward him.
"No!" Zim ran for the control panel, only to get smacked to the floor by another flailing abomination. He sat up as the macro-filovirus lunged a filament at the oblivious smeet the Tallest had entrusted with his care.
The smeet latched onto the pig. His face lit up in triumph, right before the macro-filovirus struck it out of his hand, inches from taking off his head. The rubber pig bounced, landed legs-up, and was still.
The smeet's happiness vanished as he experienced disappointment for the first time. He whimpered, large eyes brimming with tears, and deployed his Pak legs in laser formation.
The smeet let out a piercing scream, and started blasting every macro-filovirus to crispy crunchies. GIR clanged to the floor near Zim as the one holding him was zapped to ash, but Zim couldn't take his eyes off the smeet's destructive fury.
When the lasers stopped less than a minute later, every macro-filovirus was gone. It was quiet, aside from the smeet's panting, as heat shimmered off his exposed Pak legs.
He tucked them away and looked around, as though seeing the room for the first time. His gaze met the unscathed rubber piggy on the floor. The smeet hopped off the control panel, scurried over, and scooped up the toy in a squeaky hug.
Zim stood and approached his new charge. Weeks of work had been reduced to scorch marks on metal, but his insides were bursting with pride.
"Your name..." Zim grabbed the smeet and raised him up high. "Is Flip!"
Flip looked down, almost three feet off the floor, and held up the rubber pig in imitation.
From somewhere behind them, GIR said, "I like John Henry better!"
Zim lowered Flip to eye level. "I'll teach you everything you need to become an Irken elite ow!" Flip had just beaned him on the head with the rubber piggy. "Don't do that!" Flip squirmed out of his grip and crawled onto his head to play with his antennae. "Hey, no! Stoppit!"
Skoodge stood in the doorway with Minimoose in his arms, watching Zim run in circles. Flip laughed as his designated teacher failed to pry him loose.
Skoodge brushed a tear from his eye and smiled. "Adorable little hellion."
Zim spent the next week teaching Flip everything an Invader should master: social media sockpuppets, animal-robot chimeras, squirrel target practice, and hyper combo finishes. Flip showed excellent progress, his high scores improving every day.
The Tallest would want a progress report soon, Zim thought, but he'd barely scratched the surface of Flip's training. The smeet had yet to experience the outside world, a vital step in his education.
But Zim would deal with that after school—he'd been absent for a week. Another day, and the faceless human education authorities might get suspicious.
"Skoodge! Keep an eye on Flip while I'm gone," Zim said as he approached the front door, adjusting his usual wig. Flip followed close beside him.
"Roger," Skoodge said from the couch, a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs balanced in his lap.
Flip, decked out in a fuchsia-colored onesie Skoodge had made for him with digital knitting needles, gaped at Zim's wig and contacts.
Zim didn't miss that round-eyed stare. "My flawless human disguise allows me to survive undetected on this wretched planet. It's an invaluable skill for every Invader."
Skoodge finished drinking the sugar-milk sludge out of his bowl. "On some planets, you can get away with just strapping rocks to yourself."
"Training will resume when I return this afternoon," Zim said. He left the house, and shut the door behind him.
Flip stared at the door as Zim's marching faded down the front walk. Then he jumped for the doorknob, swung the door open, and ran outside.
He made it three feet before Skoodge swept him off the ground. "You're stayin' with me today, little guy."
Flip flailed his legs in midair, then stopped.
Skoodge took Flip back into the house, and set him down. "I'm gonna show you this cool thing you can do with a magnifying glass and a jar full of bugs."
GIR popped out of the kitchen, holding a large mixing bowl. "But I wanna show Henry how to make waffles!" He held up his bowl of waffle ingredients: five sticks of butter, a jar of mayonnaise, and live crickets.
Skoodge turned to GIR. "But what about the nachos I was gonna make later? You'll spoil his appetite." He glanced back to Flip. "Right, little buddy?"
His little buddy wasn't there. Skoodge blinked, then slowly faced the open front door. Flip was gone. "Uh oh."
Zim sat in World History, slumped halfway down his chair. The flimsy desk surface failed to hide the middle-aged man blathering on about some ancient Earth conflict at the head of the classroom.
He tuned out the teacher's pointless droning by thinking about what Flip's human disguise should look like. The more he imagined, the more it started to look like Zim's.
Rising chatter filtered in from the hall. The teacher continued his mind-killing lecture uninterrupted as curious students crowded around the door-window inside the classroom.
Zim pulled himself up in his seat, then hopped out and headed for the door. He kicked a towering teenager out of the way; three years in the school system, and the human children were already two or three heads taller than him. He propped himself up between two other students to peer out the square window.
His jaw dropped in silent horror. Flip was walking down the hall, his Irken appearance completely undisguised. Students crammed themselves against the doors inside the other classrooms, while Flip waved and smiled at them.
Zim shoved his teen props aside, yanked the door open, and ran into the hallway.
He grabbed Flip by the shoulders. "What are you doing away from the base?!" he whisper-yelled. "You're blowing our cover!"
Flip tugged on Zim's sleeve. "Come back and show me how to do the head-explodey thing, Teacher!"
"I said we'd continue training this afternoon!" Zim darted his eyes around at all the doors straining against the force of their students. His World History classmates were crowding around them.
"Awww, is that your little brother?" a girl asked. She stuck her face down close to Flip's and squealed, "He's so cuuute!"
Zim slapped her away. She crashed into a geology display, and got a bunch of geodes dumped on her face. Zim put Flip on top of his head, rattled out, "My parents called and said I have to walk the dog now bye!" and fled down the hall.
The drama classroom approached on Zim's right. He ran in, caused screaming, and emerged with Flip in Groucho glasses and a striped party hat. A pink feather boa had somehow ended up draped around Zim's shoulders. He threw it down and ran for the main entrance.
Zim burst out the front double doors, and leaned over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. He listened hard as the doors shut behind him; the teachers would be too busy herding students back to class to notice his escape, he hoped.
Flip dropped off Zim's head, and smiled up at him. "Are we goin' home now?"
Zim took Flip by the shoulders and faced him the other way. "You're going home. Straight back to the base, no side trips. I'll have to think of a suitable punishment later." He turned on his heel and reached for the door handle.
"But I dunno how to get back."
Zim stopped with his hand in midair. "You what? Just go back the way you came, it's not that far." He turned and pointed. "See that sign? Go there, turn left, and—"
Flip scanned the schoolyard from where he stood, blinking behind the Groucho glasses. "What sign?"
The school's changeable letter sign board sat a few yards away from the front entrance. "Then... how did you follow me here?"
"I smelled you!" Flip took off his party hat and wiggled his antennae.
Zim jammed the hat back down over Flip's head, looking around to make sure no one saw. During his first week of training, Flip hadn't shown any sight-related issues, but none of the lessons had required precise vision beyond a few feet. If he was using his other senses to compensate, then he needed optical implants—preferably before piloting lessons started.
Furthermore, Flip had followed Zim to school in bare feet. By some miracle, he'd missed every rusty nail, glass shard, and stray dog on the way.
"Well, I see no point in spying on the humans any longer for today," Zim said. "Let's return to the base."
Flip saluted with a squeal. "Yes sir!" He about-faced and goose-stepped straight for a hill of fire ants. Zim rushed forward, turned Flip away from the path of stinging agony, then led him down the street.
Flip's curiosity was insatiable. He ran toward a group of happy children at an ice cream truck, but Zim pulled him away. "No, Flip. Ice cream is made of burning."
A little later, Flip made a beeline for a yummy-smelling hot dog stand. Zim yanked him back. "Don't touch! Those are evil meats that will fuse to your skin, and crawl into your eye sockets!"
Mere minutes after that horror story, Flip reached for a small fluffy terrier as it trotted by. Zim held Flip out of reach. "Uh, no. Dogs are... they're creepy. Especially the little ones."
By the time the base loomed into view, Zim had Flip perched securely on his head again. The smeet had narrowly missed slicing his foot open on a rusty tuna can lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Zim grumbled something about stupid littering humans while Flip enjoyed the ride.
Zim entered the house and shut the door. Skoodge looked up from doing crosswords on the couch. "Hi Zi—oh."
Zim kept his glare fixed on Skoodge as GIR appeared from the kitchen. The robot held up a bowl steaming with corn chips and melted cheese.
"Naaachooos," GIR chanted.
"Nachos!" Flip threw off his disguise, jumped down from Zim's head, and ran straight for the snacks.
Zim walked up to Skoodge, and jabbed a pointer finger at him. "I'm systematically revoking your quality-of-life privileges."
And Skoodge said, "Aww!"