Minutes to Midnight
Chapter 3: That New Kid
Gaz groaned as she walked down the stairs into the kitchen at seven in the morning. She was not a morning person. And to get up before noon was beyond her. She cursed school, then after some thought cursed the human race as well for deciding that educational learning should occur before the sun was even fully up. It was sort of ironic considering her father had made those changes in the 'Name of Science.'
"Good morning daughter!" Professor Membrane said cheerfully. Gaz mumbled her own greeting as she prepared a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
"Good morning son!" Professor Membrane said just as cheerfully. There was no response. "Good morning son! Good morning son! Good morning son!" Professor Membrane said cheerfully.
"DIB!" Gaz shouted, getting quickly annoyed by the infernal repetition of the machine floating before the table. "GET DOWN HERE! DAD NEEDS YOUR AUDIO CONFIRMATION!"
Dib, moments later, half dressed and hair a mess, flew down the stairs. "Morning Dad!" He shouted as he fearfully glanced at Gaz, expecting another punch after seeing her angry expression.
"Have a good day at school kids!" Membrane said and then the screen shut off as the recording ended. The floating screen then slid into a slot in the wall. Dib, seeing that Gaz wasn't going to hurt him, ran back up the stairs to finish getting ready for school. Minutes later and he appeared slightly more dressed and quickly grabbed his own morning nutrition filled breakfast of the entirely unhealthy cereal that was stocked in their house.
As soon as he was done, Dib got his keys and the two Membrane children were off to school.
"Good morning class" Mr. Stevens said as his students began to trickle into the classroom. They were all bleary eyed and half asleep as it was, but with an hours worth of educational facts shoved into their lives, he was sure they would be awake and ready for their next class.
Gaz, personally, wanted to find the man responsible for the idea of education and throw him into the darkest, deepest nightmare she could find.
"Today we have a new student that will be joining us!" Mr. Stevens said enthusiastically. "Coming all the way from Yekatrinburg, Russia is Sohzu Tajiki" The teacher said and welcomed in an averagely tall teen with slicked black hair, piercing electric blue eyes, and slightly pale skin. He was wearing a simple red hoodie over a faint pink muscle shirt with red skinny jeans and faint pink converse 'Chucks' completing the very weird outfit. Glancing around the room, the boy saw Gaz and his eyes widened and he trembled faintly. It was so faint that Gaz doubted he noticed and knew had she not been staring at him she would have never noticed it. Normally, she wouldn't have cared because people, especially guys, did that all the time. But for some reason she felt this was different, it wasn't so much that he was scared as he recognized her, but how could he if he had never seen her before?
Shrugging it off, Gaz went back to her game as the teen, Sohzu, sat near the back of the class in one of the open chairs. Throughout the class, Gaz had the feeling of being watched, yet every time she glanced around, she didn't see anyone looking at her. It followed her throughout the day. The only recurring theme that she could find was that Sohzu was in all of her classes.
"Gaz?"
Snapping back to reality, Gaz realized she was sitting in her seat across from Dib at lunch. "What?" She snapped, having been edgy and moody all day.
"You ok?" Dib asked, noticing Gaz was not only not playing her Game Slave, but she was also acting off, like she was too busy thinking about something. Gaz was never concerned about anything, much less anything to make her not think about playing her Gameslave.
"Fine Dib" She spat, then shoved his greasy tray full of equally greasy food into his face, which fell into his lap. Snarling, she left the cafeteria, heading for the outside eating area, which in the middle of winter wasn't very populated. Enraged even further that she could still feel someone watching her, Gaz spun around, only to see Sohzu sneaking up behind her.
"You!" She snapped and the boy froze, his blue eyes freezing in surprise at being caught. "What do you want?" She demanded as she advanced on the black haired teen.
"Uh..uh...uh" The boy stuttered as he backed up, only for something to beep on his wrist.
"Sir, the diagnostic check of the remains of the ship after the crash is complete. The ship's antenna-" A robotic voice said
Gaz's eyes widened as the boy slammed his fist down on his comlink. "Y-you?" She said in surprise. Normally she wouldn't be freaking out over an alien in her school, there were weirder things inside the building after all, but what the fact that he looked so human is what really shocked her.
The teen, no alien, moved with a quicker speed then she would have guessed and knocked her onto the ground, pinning her as he drew a blaster. "Computer you fool! Now this pathetic creature knows of my disguise!" The alien roared into it's wrist comlink, which looked a lot like a pink rolex watch, though a watch nonetheless. Sighing, the alien began to bring it's blaster to bear on Gaz. "It does not matter though, this weakling won't be telling anyone anything" He said, his mistake. Gaz's eyes began slits as she snarled.
No. One. Called. Her. Weak.
Snapping her arm up, Gaz broke the aliens almost pitiful grip and decked him in a perfect, dare she say beautiful punch. Flying upwards, then downwards, the alien landed painfully on one of the metal tables that had been placed outside for students that wanted to eat during the warmer summer periods of school.
"I don't know who or what you are" Gaz said as the alien's disguise vanished, most likely it had been a hologram, and he was the same odd looking green creature she had seen the other night. "But I am going to send you to a world of true evil and fear the likes of which you have never seen before" Gaz said as she approached 'Sohzu.'
"Gah! Computer I do not understand it!" Zim complained as he walked into the lab. His digital hologram was badly damaged and he was flickering between the actual image and his natural appearance. The real Zim wasn't much better off. His uniform was torn, bloodied and scratched. His body was also cut up and bruised. "Everything went fine today until that cursed creature discovered me! Because of you I might add!" He snapped.
"If you had listened to me, you might not have gone into the human's city half blind" The computer snapped. "I tried to tell you they are a viscous race that are easily angered."
Zim stared at the Computer's screen for several moments in shock. "D-did you just...snap at me?" He said, utterly stunned. The Computer had been with him, just like Gir, his entire career. It had been on hundreds of planets and never done such a thing. It had been monotone and borderline insubordinate, but never had it actually done anything insubordinate. "ME? THE ALMIGHTY ZIM!" He roared and raised his fists to destroy the computer in a righteous rage of destruction, only to pause as his anger vanished. "Did you say 'Hew-main'?" He said, finding the pronunciation a bit odd.
"No, it's 'Hew-mon'" The Computer corrected him. "I already complied data for you to download to your PAK, but you were so exited to infiltrate the Human's learning facilities that you would not plug in your PAK before you left earlier today" The computer said.
Zim stared at the computer. He blinked once, then twice, then a third time slowly. Then he slammed his head into the console panel of the computer. Silently, he moved to a slot in the computer's console panel and connected his PAK to it, allowing the data to be transferred in. Moving over to Gir's table, he began to work on the almost repaired robot as the Computer chose wisely not to comment.
Gaz noticed Dib looking at her as they drove back home, school now over. "G-Gaz?" Dib asked.
"What Dib?" Gaz snapped, not in the mood for him right now. What was it with that freaky alien that caused her to become angry so easily? She was normally a pain in general, but to be so snappy to Dib all the time was sure to raise his 'Big brother' concerns, which would cause him to ask her questions nonstop. Something she wished to avoid, but it was obvious it was going to happen now anyways.
"Are you ok?" Dib asked for the second time in less then twenty four hours, a major no-no. "You're mad all the time and keep looking around like someone is following you" Dib added, looking just as worried as he sounded. "Is some guy trying to hurt you?" He asked.
Gaz rolled her eyes. Figures that if she was 'In trouble' it had to be a boy, and of course said boy had to be trying to hurt her. What was it with older brothers? Couldn't it be a older girl trying to hurt her? Or a teach giving her bad grades or something? Of course Dib was pretty close to the truth, though she wasn't sure if Zim was a guy or not. Wait? Did she just call him Zim? Oh this wasn't good.
"I'm fine Dib" Gaz grumbled. She needed to get all of this out of her mind. Pulling out her Game Slave, Gaz began to work once again on level 108, hoping to beat the infernal level at long last.
"Gaz?" The voice was like a cannon shot and she died almost instantly. Scowling deeply at her screen, Gaz turned to her brother.
"If you say one. More. Word. I. Will. Destroy. You." She promised in a far to calm whisper. She then returned to her game and Dib wisely decided not to say anything else to his sister for the rest of the ride home, or for that matter, the rest of the day.
