DISCLAIMER: It's Jhonen Vasquez's, though he's too emo to claim it, and Nickelodeon and Viacom's, though they are too embarrassed to admit it's theirs. So I guess, if you want it, you can have it, because poor Zim has a home nowhere but at Hot Topic and in the hearts of the fangirls. But he will live on. Ah…I digress…

Chapter 3- Strange Dormfellows

The little SIR dragged Zita down the hall by one hand, screaming nonsensicalities nonstop. In another time, at another place, it would have annoyed Zita to no end, but now, despite the rather surreal conversation she had just carried on with Zim, she was feeling a little scared. As they traversed straight corporate halls, the little robot and Zita, she took in many an interesting and strange sight. The entire building reminded her of the business end of Axion Labs, where Dib's father had made groundbreaking discoveries as well as filmed a children's series, but with undeniable alien influences. She'd been to Axion on a field trip once, thought it was lame, but what she wouldn't give to be learning about the fifteen uses of bran cereal as applied to nuclear physics now.

Soft voices, telephones ringing, and the occasional rage-filled outburst of a frustrated phoneslave washed over her from many an open door, through which she could see nothing but cubicle farms, old coffee mugs stained with use and dead potted plants. Fluorescent lights gave a harsh glare to the white hall, and she sighed, knowing the havoc it wreaked on her complexion. She had prided herself on keeping a tan even in this apocalyptic dystopia; that was all shot to hell now, as she doubted she'd ever see light of day again.

She emerged from her musings long enough to realize they were boarding an elevator. GIR pressed his hand onto a pressure pad near the door and next thing she knew her stomach was dropping as the elevator plummeted down at breakneck speed. The little robot squealed in delight even as the forces hurled him to the ceiling. A few very horrific moments later, she and the robot emerged on what appeared to be the ground floor.

"God, GIR, I know you're a robot, but BE CAREFUL. That messed up my hair, and I doubt I'm going to get a blowout here for a long time," Zita complained, more out of habit than anything.

"CHEESEBURGERS!" replied GIR, brushing Zita's hair away from her face then mussing it into a fluffy halo.

She paused to pull a compact from her purse, patting at her hair before looking around in abject horror. Zim had told GIR to take her to her living quarters. What he hadn't said was that these living quarters barely compared even to the local motel in comfort. She was standing in a dimly-lit hall, carpeted with the same gray carpet as upstairs. The walls down here, in an attempt to be decorative, she supposed, were covered in horridly lurid wallpaper. Closed doors stood at regular intervals, and at the end of the hall she could make out a sort of living area. It was to this living area that GIR pulled her.

Ugly upholstered chairs dominated the area. There was also the ubiquitous coffee pot (it would seem these workers could not live without caffeine) and a small TV tuned to an alien game show that mostly consisted of answering questions, then dropping various carnivorous animals on the contestants' heads. What shocked Zita most, though, were the people sitting in the chairs.

Torque Smackey. At one time she'd harbored a major, squealy schoolgirl crush on him, but she hadn't seen him in at least two years, ever since The Beginning. Still, she was momentarily horrified at herself for letting him see her like this.

Gretchen. Zita had to dig for her name, but there it was. She'd been a little, insignificant thing in skool; so pitiful that even Dib, who had been desperate for human contact, had paid very little attention to her.

A man with a goatee and earring. Good God, thought Zita, is that our guidance counselor? Zita wasn't familiar with him, having been remarkably well adjusted in skool. And, after all, he had disappeared in his first year on the job. No one knew what had happened to him. Zita had heard some stories, mostly from Dib (so mostly crazy), but she knew it was strange to see him here.

Finally, there was another man, older than the first, in a trench coat. He was casting suspicious glances around the room and mumbling to himself. He looked vaguely familiar, but Zita could not identify him.

As she walked into the room, no one even glanced up. They continued to watch the Irken game show with a glazed single-mindedness that disturbed her more than a little. Of old, when she'd walked into a room, everyone had wanted to talk to her. Seeing Torque like this threw her off especially; he'd used to be vital and energetic, always ready to lift something.

They snapped out of it when the GIR unit ran to the TV. "SCARY MONKEY SHOW!" he screamed, and changed the channel. Odd that that stupid monkey was the only scrap of Earth culture left.

GIR sat on the floor in front of the TV, his tongue out and feet wiggling as he stared at the monkey, all duties forgotten. With the robot thus fixated, Zita found the courage to speak.

"Torque! Gretchen! How long have you been here? What's been going on?" Zita was full of questions, and she flung them at the two most familiar people in the room with almost no preface.

"Two years," sighed Torque. "Two long years, Zita. The first place Zim destroyed was Skool. I think he was looking for Dib, but he didn't discriminate…he took us all."

"We didn't know what happened to you," added Gretchen. "He took all of us, the whole class. We're the only ones left out of them as far as we know; the rest have all been shipped to Foodcourtia. Something about not enough employees for something called the Foodening. Zim said we were lucky to remain here; I don't know if I believe him. But at least we have regular hours. Zim never did find Dib, or Ms. Bitters."

The man in the trench coat spoke up. "Ha! Dib. What I wouldn't give now to have listened to him."

"Who are you?" Zita asked, more than a little puzzled.

"My name's Bill. Bill Mulder," the man answered. "I am…er, I was a paranormal investigator. Came to your class for career day once. So many bright, promising students, and I got the one crackpot child who believed in aliens. Can you believe it! With Count Cocofang on the loose, this kid was raving about Irkens. And, like a fool, I didn't listen. In hindsight, he had the best instincts I've ever come across."

"Aliens," reflected the guidance counselor. It suddenly occurred to Zita that his name was Mr. Dwicky, and once she remembered it she had to stifle a giggle at it. "That's what got me into this whole thing in the first place."

"Aw, don't start AGAIN," Torque complained. "I think you're the one who needs counseling."

"No, I want to hear," Zita said.

"Well, when I went on sabbatical that year, I wasn't really on sabbatical," began Dwicky.

"Yeah, we figured that," Torque interrupted. "Dib said you'd left to live in an alien utopia. The rest of us reckoned you'd started a new job as a high-class pimp."

Dwicky gave Torque an odd look. "Well, Dib was much closer to the truth. Actually, he was spot on. Well, there was that one time…never mind. The point is, after that night with Dib in the woods-"

Torque snorted. Dwicky ignored him with the seasoned martyr look often worn by anyone familiar with working around middle school children.

"After that, the Plookesians took me in as a native. We traveled from planet to planet for a year. But they were far too idealistic…in the end, they were conquered by the Irkens as well, with the same super weapons they had given Zim, actually. When the Irkens found me aboard the Plookesian ship, they sent me here. I daresay Zim remembered me, if his rage at seeing me was any indication at all."

"Wow," Zita said. "That's crazy."

"Yeah," Dwicky sighed. "We all laugh now to think we didn't believe in aliens. But when I think what I put Dib through in the name of psychoanalysis… I didn't realize for days that I still had his only documented proof of aliens. I know it's mentally unhealthy, but I can't help but think this whole invasion could have been prevented if not for me."

"Don't, Dwicky," barked Bill. "We all feel guilty, don't make it worse. God, what I wouldn't do to see that kid again."

"Yeah," chimed in Torque. "He approached me about aliens once; I laughed at him."

"Me too," echoed Gretchen regretfully. "The worst part is I knew what it felt like to have someone laugh at you. It happened to me all the time. I always thought, even for his craziness, he was pretty cute, though."

Torque mock-gagged. Gretchen glared.

"I sent him to the crazy house, for God's sake," Zita said. A new emotion had welled up inside her. She felt bad. She, Zita, felt bad for the way she'd treated anther human being.

"Well, there's no sense in this. Zim's the common enemy now," opined Bill. "As small as a skool child and twice as deadly…and that's saying something. At any rate, we'd better get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day. I heard the dispatcher say we're to be selling hats to the residents of Assheadia tomorrow."

"Oh, Gods," groaned Torque.

As the Crazy Monkey Show wound to a scintillating finish (monkey scratching butt, big surprise), the little GIR unit remembered its duties. Snapping to red-eyed attention, he led Zita down the hall to one of the shut doors.

"This is your room," he said metallically. "I'M GONNA PLAY WITH THE FISH!"

He ran down the hall toward the elevator flashing aqua and screaming the whole time, leaving Zita to undress and lay down on the one very hard cot. She sighed as she awaited what was to be the first grim morning of many.