Chapter 3 – Confrontation
"GIR stop! Stop! I order you to stop!"
Zim yanked down on his antenna and ducked as GIR ricocheted by his head. The robot had been jetting around the room for two days now, and Zim was beginning to become irritated.
GIR screamed, in fear or mirth, it was hard to tell the difference, and dive-bombed desk, sending empty cans of poop cola spinning.
"Weeeehooooo I catch you monkey! I catch you good! I'm dancin' in the hospital!"
"GIR!" Zim crawled over and picked up the cans, and began frantically stacking them in the corner. "Stop this messy-making behaviour! They could be watching right now, I have to show them I'm in control, they should see that they are dealing with the Irken elite-GIR put that down!"
Zim extended his PAK-legs and leapt to wrestle the chocolate bar from GIR's hands, where it was being used to draw a pretty smiley face on the wall. GIR screamed and fled. Zim scrubbed at the smeared insignia.
This is Zim's office, six days after he decided to take the initiative against his scheming Nemesis. It has changed. It is emptier, for one. Every piece of electronic equipment has been stripped out, with the exceptions of the main control terminal and, depending on your definition of 'electronic' and 'equipment', GIR. It's cleaner, too. Every surface gleams. Sometimes the gleam reflects off Zim's eyes in a frightening way.
Zim, steps back to glare at the wall and dare it to not be pristine. He has not left his office much, they could infiltrate it in his absence and do stuff, and even Zim has long ago had to acknowledge that his advanced robot henchman lacks the attention span for guard duty. He has not eaten much, but his body is in adequate upkeep. His mind, however, is showing distinct signs of fraying around the edges.
GIR is still himself as much as he ever was. He ran out of rocket fuel mid-somersault and clattered to a halt in front of the door as it slid open. It shut quickly behind the visitor. The look on her face had the inconceivable effect of sobering GIR from his anarchic thoughts.
Zim spun at the sound of the door and turned his glare onto Venn.
"I didn't authorise your entry."
"I work here. I'm always authorised."
Dib was just starting to get the subtleties of Irken facial expressions. Zim had never really bothered. In his defence, most never had to try; instinct and programming should have provided everything an Irken should need to know. Put a random Irken drone in front of Venn now, and they would flinch and cower away, trying to make themselves look as short and non-threatening as possible. If looks could kill, Venn would have had her eyes tightly shut as she entered the shiny, bare room. Death was too quick.
Zim gestured off-handedly "I assume you're here because you want to apologise."
Twitch. "I'm here to ask you once more to reconsider. This is dangerous. It sets a terrible precedent. It goes against every principal of the Empire. It's un-Irken." She kept her voice steady, but it dripped with blood she ached to spill.
Zim hissed, 'un-Irken'?! ME! I am attempting to save the Empire from a most dire and horrible threat! Of course," his hands curled into fists, "these are desperate measures that I am forced take now, but only because present resources are useless! In the end it will all be worth it. Un-Irken, ha! I am Irken! I AM ZIM!"
Venn's own hands clenched and un-clenched erratically. He brain and most of her internal organs wanted to be violently sick. She started to speak, stopped, began again and stopped. She shuddered, and grudgingly decided to take a different approach. Abomination or not, he was still her superior. That thought burned black-red in her mind. It made her want to break things.
"Surely, surely you don't need it to work in my department though, do you? Anything could happen; they're such fragile creatures. Why not keep it here, have it work under your supervision? I'll even send you some equipment for it." The neasea had passed, leaving sickly trails. She could not force herself to smile, but she kept her face steady.
"No!," Zim glanced about the room, eyes darting "I can't risk infiltration... the machines, they have eyes..."
… that seemed to be it.
"Oookayy." Venn hadn't given up. Her very existence was under threat. He wasn't a real soldier. He was barely even Irken, whatever delusions to the contrary he held. He was forcing her to taint herself, working with conquered scum as if they were worth something, as if they were equal. He was shorter than her. She dug her claws deeper into the fabric covering her palms. The brain-damaged robot was trying to pull out its optics, with some limited success.
She hadn't given up. But she wasn't going to win this one. It was time to step back, to regroup, to re-evaluate.
Zim was still muttering to himself. She sighed, "I'll send it in."
She locked her eyes on the human as she left and pointed it to the door.. She didn't really want to touch it. As she raised her arms to adjust her holo monitor, twin streams of blood seeped out from under her gloves.
The door opened.
The door closed.
For the first time since the destruction of Earth her invader and defender stood face to face.
Zim's thoughts went through three stages when he saw Dib. The first stage was that someone had made a mistake, this was the wrong human.
Clean, but in a disinfected rather than hygienic kind of way. The clothes were all wrong. Trenchcoat and t-shirt gone, non-descript slave garments instead, marked in several places with the numbers
4-667. Hair was too short. Glasses were plastic and too thick. He didn't linger on the facial expression, but it probably wouldn't have made much difference if he had. Zim was hardly very proficient in his own species' subtle physical hints and cues, although Dib's expression at this point could hardly be called 'subtle'.
Those thoughts passed as quickly as they'd arrived. It was the Dib, he was sure. His invader blood began to march to a familiar beat, here was his old Nemesis; from back before offices and treachery. His foe, his enemy; the anti-Zim. For a few seconds nothing had changed, the old gleeful evil smile spread across his face. His blood sang; here is the opponent, here is the battle-ground, here is the invader, here is the confrontation. He was ready to launch into his speech, Dib would tremble in fear when he heard his evil, evil plans.
And then stage three reared its ugly head.
His evil plan was that he had a problem, a big problem, and he'd called the Dib-human here
to
help
him.
It was a horrible thought that hadn't once occurred in all the time since he'd first had the idea. It dislodged the grin and sent it tumbling into the abyss. His blood went quiet and stood aimlessly, staring at its feet.
GIR had managed to yank one eye loose, and was holding it into the socket backwards. Whatever was in GIR's head was apparently hilarious.
"So," he stared into Dib's face. It had settled into a blank hundred yard stare. "You're probably wondering why I had you brought here," the wheels of his mind span wildly, but the hamster had long since fallen out.
Dib blinked and focussed on Zim. An expression flickered by too fast to be easily identified. "Wondering? Yeah, I guess you could say that, Zim."
Think, invader, think. "Hehehe, well it seems I have a small prob- a minor inconvenience has occurred. Is still occurring, in fact. I appear to be under attack from some sneaky enemy, blocking communication between myself and my superiors. Unfortunately I have been... unable to flush them out." He snarled as the shameful words crawled out. Desperate measures indeed.
Dib blinked through the thick lenses. "You can't think... I'm not, Zim, I'm not spying on you or messing up your machines or whatever it is you think I've done! I don't have any reason to, in case you haven't noticed, I don't have much to gain from capturing you any more, you already took my planet, I think what's left of the human race knows aliens exist by now!" He was shouting in a rather high-pitched bark, and his face had started turning that red colour humans made sometimes, probably for camouflage.
Zim was taken aback. Why was he so upset anyway? He was- Oh, of course. Heh, humans were so dumb. He chuckled, "oh Dib-human, poor stupid, stupid, stupid Dib-human. Of course I don't suspect you! I already defeated you, and besides, your tiny brain could not possibly do anything to interfere with a ship of the great Irken Armada. I merely thought that perhaps you, as a sneaky spying cheating inferior being, could provide some understanding of how their horrible minds work, thus providing me with the information required to track them down and tear off their limbs."
Dib had faded to a slight pink colour, but he was looking at Zim with narrow eyes and gritted teeth. "You... I'm... I see. I see, Zim. That's what you meant. I see. Of course. You defeated me already. How stupid of me to have forgotten."
"Yes, yes how very stupid." This was going well. Dib was far less trouble than he'd been before being conquered. Gripped by the euphoria that comes from seeing first hand the evidence of one's job well done, he decided to reach out, "I see that being part of our great empire has taught you well, Dib. I can see that you finally understand the Irken superiority to all other life-forms." Zim smiled fondly to himself in the glow of the majesty and might that he was such a vital component of.
Dib smiled. It hurt to look at. "Yep, alien superiority... yep."
Zim grinned back. This was going really well. Those resistance groups and equal rights campaigners were morons! The other species wanted to be conquered; they just had to be enslaved a bit before they could realise it! "Indeed. I admit that I'm a little jealous, Dib. You get to experience the grandeur of the Empire as a complete outsider. You can truly appreciate its incredible power, something which to myself is purely mundane."
"Gugh," and the tiny, tortured sound of teeth under pressure.
"Yes, yes, words fail you in the presence of your saviour, I know. But you know Dib, you were a worthy adversary. Of course, you never had a chance in the face of an elite Irken invader, such as myself, but for a few seconds there, you were almost a very small thorn in my incredible side." Zim could tell Dib appreciated the compliment; he'd started breathing very hard.
"And now, the greatest honour a pitiful human such as yourself could ever hope for; to assist the great ZIM. I know this must be a proud moment. There's no need to thank me, please just try not to get any human eye-water on my things." He guided Dib back to the door and into shoved him out into the corridor.
As the door slid shut, Dib turned and blinked at him.
"You-"
The door closed.
"Wow, master, you made crazy Dib all crazy-er. Ah think he's gonna try ta destroy yoo. Where did ma eye go? I just put it back in ma head..."
Zim sighed and wondered why he had been so generous. Letting the human work on the Armada was one thing, but those kind words Zim had bestowed upon him. Of course Dib could be, well not an ally of course, but a useful tool. Still, that was no excuse for niceness.
He needed to be back in the fight. He was losing his sharp edges.
That was definitely it. He wasn't lonely. He wasn't bored.
He stared into the void of space through his one small window, and didn't hear the door alarm that was announcing his second visitor.
Author's Notes: I liked writing Zim here. I read a lot of 'Zim conquers Earth then meets up with Dib' fanfics, so I wanted to try something slightly different. Going from there, the idea of Zim being so typically insensitive and Dib being so mad but not able to strike back appealed to me. Thus: this chapter.