2:45 P.M. Wow, I've been writing in this thing all day! If I keep this up I'll fill it in a week! I knew that getting a new journal for my observations and notes was a good idea. Apparently Zim's new plan for world conquest is to destroy us by unleashing cooties over the Earth. I would tell him that cooties don't exist, but this is going to be hilarious. And then when his plan fails miserably I'll expose him as an alien to the world.
"Class, we spent the morning discussing the Great Fire of London. I'm assigning a ten-page research paper about the fire. Go ahead and start writing it now. I don't want to hear a peep out of you for the rest of the day." Ms. Bitters drifted over to her desk and sat down behind it.
Dib glanced around at his classmates. Some were rifling through their notes from the day but most were playing tic-tac-toe with their neighbors. Dib raised his hand.
"Yes, Dib?" Ms. Bitters asked wearily.
"Um... when's this paper due?" Dib asked.
Ms. Bitters raised an eyebrow. "For you, Dib? Tomorrow."
The class snickered at Dib's stunned look. "But... but Ms. Bitters," he said, "that's not nearly enough time! I haven't done any research, and I need to write an outline and a rough draft..."
Ms. Bitters wasn't impressed. "Keep talking and I'll make it due in five minutes," she snapped. Dib shut his mouth obediently and stared at his desk. "Any other questions?" Ms. Bitters asked.
"Yes!" Zim said. "Must this 'research paper' be written in the human language?"
Ms. Bitters stared at him for a moment. Then she said, "No more talking!" and sat staring at the class like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. Dib frantically searched through his papers but knew he didn't have any notes on the Great Fire. Throughout the lesson he had been writing in his journal instead of paying attention. He'd have to do all of his research at home on his laptop. In the meantime, however, he could write in his journal some more!
As usual, Zim walked home rather than ride the smelly bus. Humans and their stupid wheeled land vehicles! According to Irken standards, if a vehicle couldn't fly and/or shoot lasers, then it wasn't worth bothering with.
"GIR? GIR!" he called when he walked in through his front door. "Any news?" Every day he checked to see if anyone had come by the house.
"I learned how to skip rocks!" an excited robot voice replied. Zim ducked a millisecond before a stone sailed over his head and crashed into the television, causing a shower of blue sparks. GIR ran into the room, searching for the rock he had thrown.
"I meant, did anyone come by today?" Zim asked in frustration, ignoring the smoking television. "We can't afford any breaches in security!"
"Nope! House's been all empty!" GIR said. "I bin watchin' the videos!" He opened a laptop that had been sitting on the couch and showed Zim a YouTube video of a cartoon dog dancing.
"Uh huh." Zim quickly lost interest and headed down to his lab. GIR found his rock and followed, sticking the dirty black stone in his mouth. Zim stopped in front of his computer consoles and rubbed his hand over them. For the first time that day he could finally relax. Well, as long as he ignored GIR. He pulled out his contact lenses and yanked off the itchy black wig. He hoped he could conquer Earth soon, so he would never have to wear that stupid disguise again.
"Now... for my new plan!" Zim laughed and immediately began designs for his idea. He needed a way to pull all of the cooties in existence into one place, so he could spread them over the Earth as he saw fit. Hm... a portal! He would build a portal, so he could simply open it to the World of Cooties. He was fairly sure there was such a world. There had to be. The portal idea was ingenious! This was undoubtedly his best plan yet. And the Dib human didn't suspect a thing!
Dib was torn. Should he watch the new episode of Mysterious Mysteries, which had had previews promising ground-breaking discoveries in paranormal study, or work on his research paper? Well, the paper was due tomorrow. And he could always tape the show. Using all the self control he could muster, he hit "record" and turned off the TV. Then he grabbed a snack, plugged his laptop into an outlet so it wouldn't run out of power, and started working.
"My teacher never gives us research papers," Gaz said when she came into the room and saw what Dib was working on. When he didn't reply she went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. "Well, I'm ordering pizza from Bloaty's."
Dib turned around. "But you just ordered pizza yesterday!" he said.
"What's your point?"
"Well, don't we have some left over?"
"Yeah. So?" Gaz finished dialing the number and put in her order. Dib shrugged and went back to his work. If Gaz was set on getting another pizza, he didn't want to be the one to stop her!
The evening passed uneventfully. Dib even managed to get two slices of pepperoni without Gaz threatening to tear his limbs off, which was something. She must have been in an exceptionally good mood. Or maybe she felt sorry for him, although that seemed unlikely.
Dib worked steadily and by 11:30 he felt he had a decent enough rough draft. It was two pages short, though. He picked up his pen and chewed on the cap. This was insane! He somehow had to write two more pages, then edit it and make a Works Cited page. And he couldn't think of a single thing more that he could write about the Great Fire.
Putting his laptop aside he stood and stretched, then headed into the kitchen to find something that might keep him awake-no matter how hard he tried to focus, he could feel himself nodding off. He opened the fridge, took a look inside, and groaned. Of course the only soda they had at the moment was caffeine-free. He closed the fridge with a snap and opened the cabinet instead. Coffee? Blech. He hated the stuff. But if it was the only thing that could keep him awake, he had to try it. He set up the coffee maker and went back to his work. Soon the smell of brewing coffee filled the downstairs. It smelled delicious, but Dib wondered if he'd be able to make himself drink any.
At around 2:00 in the morning he hadn't gotten much closer to being done. Also, he had caught himself dozing off more than once. With a resigned sigh he got up and went back to the kitchen, where the coffee stood ready. He poured some into a mug.
"It'll keep me awake," he told himself, and choked down a sip. Okay... so it wasn't that bad. But it still wasn't good, either. He was about to take another reluctant gulp when he paused, thinking he had heard something in the garage. He stood listening, then put his mug down and cautiously made his way over to the garage door. There it was again! Two thought's flashed through his mind-either Tak's ship was acting up again (which would be a HUGE problem, because it now had the ability to fly), or Bigfoot had gotten back in. Either way, Dib had to get out there. He ran to the coffee table in the living room and grabbed his camera along with its memory chip, which was lying next to it. Just in case.
Quietly, he went back to the kitchen, opened the door, and stepped into the garage.
Minutes later, far from Earth, a computer screen on the Irken Massive blinked and a new message popped up.
"Hey, it's our anonymous source!" Tallest Red said, peering at the message.
Tallest Purple hurried over. "Ooh! What's it say? And... uh... who is our anonymous source?"
Tallest Red facepalmed. "Nobody knows. That's why they're anonymous."
"Right. Right. Oh, I knew that!" Tallest Purple silently added the word "anonymous" to his ever-growing vocabulary. "But... but shouldn't we know who they are? I mean, we are the rulers."
Tallest Red shrugged. "Well, as long as whoever this is follows our orders and helps to rid us of the disgraceful plague of the Irken Empire that is Zim, I really don't care who they are."
"Fair enough," Tallest Purple replied, and together they read the short message.
'Stand by for new instructions, My Tallest. There's been a slight change of plan. All hail the Irken Empire! :)'
Tallest Purple stared at the message. "Do we know anyone who knows how to use smileys?" he asked.
While Dib spent an all-nighter trying to get his paper done, Zim worked all night on his portal. He was confident that this time his plan was going to work.
He had found a way to amplify the power of his portal at least tenfold. He had to work quickly, because soon a planetary alignment, which he had learned about on the Internet, would begin. The humans called it a "transit of Venus," where the planet Venus crossed between the Earth and the sun. Apparently it was a rare event. Zim had used his telescope to check the planet, and found that the transit carried enough power to run the portal by itself. He planned to harness the power and use it to make his portal stronger.
Zim finished his preparations seconds before the transit, which would last for several hours, would begin.
"This is it, GIR!" Zim said to his robot. "Soon the vilest germs that the Earth has ever seen will be at my command!"
"You gots COOTIES!" GIR squeaked. Zim shook his head.
"No, GIR. I don't have them... yet. But with this portal-" Suddenly the telescope beeped and Zim pressed his eye to it. "YES! It's starting, GIR!" He reached over and pulled a large lever. "Yes... and when the portal opens... the dawn of Earth's destruction will be upon us!"
"Destruction is fun!" GIR cheered.
The portal sprung open on the wall. It seemed to bloom out of thin air, flashing brightly, a glowing spiral of various shades of yellow.
"Portals are swirly..." GIR said in awe.
"It's quite a sight, isn't it, GIR?" Zim said. "Now to find those cooties!" He pressed a button on the console that controlled the portal. Nothing happened. Zim paused, then pressed the button again. And again. "Broken!" he shouted. "GIR, go up to the house. Your malfunctioning circuits must be interfering with the portal or something!" He pressed the button once more, but this seemed to be more than the machine could handle. There was a low rumbling sound. Zim backed away from the controls. "GIR, I think-" Before he finished speaking, the rumbling stopped. And then the portal promptly exploded. Zim screeched and dove behind the console, dragging GIR with him. When the noise stopped, Zim peered over the console and stared in dismay.
The wall where the portal had just been was covered in scorch marks. His entire base was wrecked... again... and it looked as if it would take ages to fix.
Suddenly a yellow light flashed where the portal had been. It flared, then sent out a bright white beam that washed over Zim, GIR, and everything else in the room, then sped through the wall. What was that? Zim wondered, and waited a second before standing. "Well... well, that didn't work out quite the way I planned. Come on GIR, let's-"
He was interrupted as the base's computer voice came on. [Incoming message for Invader Zim!] the computer announced.
Zim immediately jumped to a single conclusion. "THE TALLEST!" he cried. "They must be calling to check on me! And this place is a mess..." He looked around at his ruined lab, then said desperately, "Computer! Tell them I'm not home!"
It was too late. The video screen at the front of the lab lit up and the Almighty Tallest came on, staring around.
"Zim!" Tallest Red said. "We were just checking in to see what happened. Some sort of white light flashed through our ship and we figured it was from your lab."
"Er, yes," Zim said awkwardly. "My apologies, Tallest. I was building a portal, and it exploded."
Tallest Red stared. "Why on Irk were you building a... never mind. Uh... you said your, uh portal exploded? It must have been the Resisty!"
This time it was Zim's turn to stare. "The... Resisty?" he said. "But aren't they-"
"It's something we wanted to warn you about!" Tallest Purple broke in.
Tallest Red nodded. "Yes. We've gotten intel that the Resisty sent out a fatal virus to all our computers and-"
"A VIRUS?" Zim screamed. Immediately, he stripped off his gloves and doused his hands in a generous amount of the Irken skin sanitizer he kept on the console.
"A computer virus, germaphobe," Tallest Red sighed. "The Resisty sent out a virus to cause all Irken computers and equipment to explode. It's specifically targeted to Irkens, as well."
"The explosion targets a specific race?" Zim asked.
"Yes. That's what I just said."
"Is that possible?"
"It's an explosion!" Tallest Purple burst out. "Would you feel better if we said 'No'?"
Tallest Red continued on. "It's an enormous, atomic explosion, and it's set for-wait, what time is it now?" He turned around and the Irkens in the control room held a whispered discussion. The Tallests turned back to the screen. "...right. Everything's going to explode at exactly, um, 3:12 A.M."
Zim looked at his clock. "But that's five minutes from now!" he cried. "And... and my portal already exploded."
"That must have been a malfunction in the virus," Tallest Red said logically.
Zim gulped. "So, what do I do?"
"You have to turn off everything!" Tallest Purple commanded. "Shut down the entire house. Turn off everything made by Irkens, including your SIR unit. Then, uh, go far away from your house and stay away until you get the 'all clear' signal!"
"And... this'll keep everything from blowing up?" Zim asked.
Tallest Red nodded. "Yes, but hurry. You only have four minutes now."
"Thank you, My Tallest!" Zim said. He was about to cut the transmission but paused. "Wait. If the Resisty planned to destroy us by sabotaging our computers, why did they tell us the exact time they're programmed to explode?"
"Because... because the Resisty's useless at planning a rebellion!" Tallest red spluttered. "We have to go now. Good luck surviving and stuff." The transmission abruptly ended and the screen went dark. Zim immediately ran around the room, turning everything off.
"Computer!" he yelled.
[Huh?] the computer said.
"The Resisty sent out a virus to cause all Irken technology to explode at 3:12. You have to help me to-"
[What!] the computer interrupted. [You're saying I'm supposed to explode in three minutes? Aw, man... why am I always the last to know these things?]
"Just shut everything off!" Zim shouted.
[Even the security?] the computer asked uneasily.
"Yes. Everything. And shut yourself off, too."
[Okay. Fine. I've been wanting to have a break.] The lights around the room began to flicker off.
"Wait!" Zim shrieked. "First take me up to the main house. Then shut yourself off."
[Sheesh, make up your mind,] the computer grumbled, but the elevator opened obligingly and Zim hurried inside. He broke out in a cold sweat as the elevator climbed upward excruciatingly slowly. At last it came to the house and Zim crashed out through the toilet. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled into the TV room, where GIR sat staring at the broken television as if he were watching an intriguing show. Zim blinked. He hadn't even realized that GIR had left the lab. Whatever.
"GIR! We have to go! Now!" he shouted.
"But-my show!" GIR protested. Zim grabbed him by the metal arm and pulled him out the door.
"I have to shut you off, GIR," he said. "We have to get away from here." As they ran down the walk, all the lights in the house switched off. Somewhere in the back of Zim's mind it registered that he had forgotten his disguise, but he couldn't go back to get it now. Besides, it was dark and there weren't any humans out at the moment. As they ran, Zim slid open a secret panel in the back of GIR's head and pressed a small red button.
"YAY!" GIR cried happily. He went limp and Zim carried him, continuing with his fast trot.
Zim had no idea how much time was left until the explosion. He only knew that he had to be as far away as possible. His robotic spider legs sprang from his PAK and he scurried faster, turning onto street after street and not bothering to check for landmarks or signs to keep track of where he was. He vaulted over a wooden fence and into someone's yard.
A series of loud barks caused him to turn around and see some sort of vicious-looking black and white dog tearing toward him with slavering jaws. The dog jumped and its teeth would have snapped closed on Zim's foot if he hadn't jerked backwards in time. The dog lunged again, and with a yelp Zim climbed through the next few yards until the frenzied barking had faded.
Zim paused tensely. This yard was dark and quiet, with no sign of dogs or humans. He relaxed and dumped GIR on the grass. The deactivated robot was getting heavy. His spider legs retracted and he dropped into a sitting position, plucking at the grass in worry and irritation.
"Stupid Resisty," he muttered. "Stupid explosions. Stupid GIR. Stupid, filthy humans and their stupid, filthy dogs." He pounded his fist on the ground until his squeedly-spooch stopped feeling like it was tying itself in knots and he could think more clearly. He considered his situation. Well, he couldn't sit here all night and let some human come along and see him. Glancing around for a suitable shelter, he caught sight of a wooden deck extending from the house. There was a small amount of space under it, and it looked like it would keep him well-hidden. "There!" he said. "Come, GIR. We shall take refuge under there until the Tallest call again." He took GIR's metal arm and dragged his minion over to the deck, crawling under. It suddenly occurred to him that he should turn off his PAK to keep it from exploding, but he decided against that. There was nothing the Resisty could do to sabotage the superior technology of an Irken PAK! It would be safe from viruses.
Zim crouched in the darkness under the deck, shifting to make himself more comfortable. He was ready to wait there all night if he had to, or until he got the "all clear."
Meanwhile, up on the Massive, the two Tallests howled with laughter as soon as the transmission to Earth was cut.
"He fell for it!" Tallest Purple said, tears streaming out of his eyes. He struggled for breath.
Tallest Red was laughing equally as hard. "As if the incompetent Resisty, what a stupid name, could ever pull off something like an exploding computer virus!" He paused. "But you know... I almost wish they had."
"We could've accidentally called too late to warn Zim!" Tallest Purple laughed.
"That would've been a shame... oh, well. Can't have everything." Tallest Red started snickering again.
Suddenly Tallest Purple realized something. "Hey!" he said. "If all of Zim's technology is turned off, how's he gonna receive any sort of 'all clear' signal?"
Tallest Red waved the question away. "Doesn't matter. I wasn't planning on sending one anyway!" The two Tallests laughed again.
"Do you think Zim'll turn off his PAK, too?" Tallest Purple asked excitedly.
"Hm... I don't think we'd be that lucky... but we can always hope. Anyway, this should have been enough of a distraction. Knowing Zim, he'll leave his house completely unprotected for the rest of the night!"
A/N: The Computer talks in brackets rather than quotes because it's not a real voice. There are slight changes between this chapter and the version on dA, but nothing major.
