Zim didn't even notice Gaz leave in Tak's ship as he was far too engrossed in having the computer do a complete scan of all his internal and external systems trying to find out what had happened to him when the human female fondled his antennae. Just thinking about the incident made him shudder in both disgust and pleasure.
"Are you finished yet?" He asked the machine in irritation.
"Processing."
He could have sworn that the computer was trying to mock him by taking longer than was necessary. Yawning, he felt his eyes drifting closed of their own accord. As far back as he could remember he had never felt anywhere near this exhausted, he had always taken the required three hours of sleep once a week by having his Pak simply induce it with the right chemicals, never before had those chemicals not been consciously controlled. To make matters worse, his whole body ached in a strange way as if he had just swum a mile in paste.
"Zim will go rest and be back to check on the results later." He suppressed another yawn.
There was no response from the temperamental computer.
The green alien turned and shuffled slowly to the elevator and was taken to his room. Once there he headed straight for the only furniture in the room, a somewhat large bed covered in red sheets with a black invader symbol in the middle. Flopping down face-first, he was asleep in seconds.
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"MASTA MASTA MASTA! MASSSTAAAAA!"
Zim slowly opened his eyes so he could better aim his fist at the offending robot jumping on his back, who subsequently went flying across the room to smash against the wall before getting back up ant teetering around in a daze.
"The room is a big swirly pop!" Gir cried gleefully and began to enthusiastically lick the walls.
Zim moaned, but pushed himself up. 'How long have I been sleeping?' he asked himself. Wandering back into the lab, he asked the computer the same question.
"You slept eight hours, sixteen minutes, and fifty seconds."
"WHAAAT?" He screamed, "I have never slept so long in my LIFE! Tell me! What did the Dib-sister do to me last night!"
"Uh… well…"
"Spit it out!"
"She… uh… you… well, the pleasure sensors in your brain were forced into overdrive, completely overwhelming your nervous system and causing a… umm…"
"A what?" Why couldn't the stupid computer just say it already?
"The closest analogy seems to be the human orgasm."
Zim was silent for a moment. "Eh?"
The computer somehow managed a sigh, and pulled up a definition on the screen. Zim quickly scanned it and his face of mild confusion turned into disgust.
"Yuck! That cannot be right! I am not a filthy human worm-creature, there is no way I can experience anything like this orangeism you describe. You must be mistaken." He crossed his arms in defiance.
The computer made to attempt to correct his mispronunciation, "My scans are correct, and so is my analysis."
"Phah!" Zim tentatively reached up and brought a finger to one of his antennae. No change. He tried petting it with his finger. Still no change. He then braced himself and tried stroking it as Gaz had. No change.
"Hmmf! Then how come nothing is happening now?" He spoke in a mocking tone, but silently pondered the question himself.
"Perhaps it takes a female?"
"Nonsense." He waved it off, "I have gotten into fights with females who have pulled on my antennae plenty of times."
Again the computer sighed, "Maybe you are attracted to this human female?"
"NO!" He retorted a little too fast, "It's just my Pak malfunctioning! That's it!"
"Yeah, right."
"SHUT IT!" He yelled and turned to stomp off, taking the elevator up to his ship. Maybe some tinkering would clear his head.
Once up there, he noticed that Tak's ship was no longer in his base. He shrugged, 'I guess the Gaz-human has left,' he thought, 'Pity'. Zim was looking forward to her keeping Gir occupied while he did other things. Playing video games with her was fun, the way she could destroy the most powerful opponents in only a few minutes, the way her fingers moved with deadly accuracy on the controller, the way her skin shone with the bright red blood of the bully by the mall, and that glare that could put out a sun… wait just a minute! What was he thinking? The Irken shook his head violently. He. Did. Not. Feel. Attraction. To. The. Human. Female. No. No way. Never Ever. Her amber-colored eyes looking him over in his new clothes, the small smile she had given him.
"NNNOOOOOOOO!" He wailed out loud, and silently wondered what she was doing.
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The youngest member of the Membrane household woke up and stretched lazily, pleased that her brother had managed to not burn down the house overnight while trying to rewire his surveillance cameras over the belt-sander in the garage.
Her moment of tentative happiness was short lived however as the loud thumping of her brother's large feet down the hallway and his voice interrupted the quiet.
"I did it! I did it! I finally got footage of bigfoot! He's real! Now everyone will see that I wasn't lying! I have proof! Proof! I –"
Thunk. Bump. Bump bump bump.
Scrunch!
"Dammit!"
Her father's voice could now be heard from the kitchen, "My poor insane son, someday I will figure out how to fix you, but for now… breakfast!"
Gaz groaned. Just another typical morning. She briefly wondered what a typical morning was like at Zim's house, but brushed away the notion at the thought of Gir. With that crazy robot, nothing was typical. She sat up and got dressed. It only took her three minutes to dress, brush her hair and teeth, and apply a small amount of waterproof makeup, but by the time she got downstairs Dib had finished his breakfast and was moping over his broken tape. Professor membrane was still in the kitchen, but took no notice of Gaz as she made her to the cupboard to grab the box of cereal. She shot an annoyed glance at her father, he somewhat greeted Dib but didn't even seem to know that she existed half the time! Grabbing the cardboard box, she froze. It. Was. Empty.
"DIIIIIIBBB!" She hollered, "You are so dead!"
He took no notice as she slammed the box in the trash and turned to her father.
"Hey dad, I need to make some toast for breakfast because Dib ate all the cereal."
"Uh huh," He nodded absentmindedly, "Just a moment daughter, I am performing important science! on this machine and its functions!"
The toaster exploded, spraying shrapnel that managed to miss the two humans standing in the room.
"Grrrrrr!" Gaz growled. Today was not going well at all. She made do with a few pieces of bread with butter smeared on them, not something she terribly enjoyed. After the explosion her father had mumbled something other than an apology and whisked away to his lab.
Then when she was beginning to think she might at least eat her breakfast in peace, Dib walked into the room and took a seat at the table, rambling as usual.
"I really had him Gaz, I really did this time. I was so close, so close! If I just hadn't tripped…"
"That's nice." Gaz stuffed the rest of a slice of bread into her mouth and tramped up the stairs to her room. She could still hear Dib's annoying voice through the closed door. Pulling out her GameSlave she zoned out everything but the sounds of vampire pigs being remorselessly slaughtered. Just as she had relaxed into the game and was about to finish the level, the screen suddenly went black and the little green light turned off. She froze. No. Way.
Her following roar of frustration shook the house and sent a small flock of pigeons a block away into frantic flight.
A frenzied search of the house later and her frustration only grew, there were no extra working batteries in the whole house! Dib had been watching TV by actually getting up and pressing the buttons! The small reactors within her stuffed animal robots weren't compatible with the GameSlave. She would have to walk to the store.
Dib barely got his mouth open before Gaz promptly stated "Batteries." And slammed the front door after grabbing a light-weight coat.
He sighed, at least she wasn't going to Zim's.
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Her trip to the video game store was even worse than her morning.
As she was walking through the downtown part of the city, it seemed that for every street she had to cross she missed the walk signal by less than three seconds and had to wait several minutes to cross. Then at one intersection she had made it halfway across when an old lady in one of those big red scooters ran over her foot. Gaz bit her lip to both keep from yelping and pushing the 300-pound idiot into traffic. The lady continued on without even noticing. With her foot throbbing, Gaz continued several more blocks, and at a particularly long wait for the light to change a group of seven young men crowded onto the curb, several making contact with her personal space, all smoking and laughing and jeering loudly at other young women walking by. She clenched her fist and breathed as little as possible, knowing that if she tried anything here, that cop on the other corner would see and probably arrest her. They wouldn't have fresh batteries in jail.
After what seemed like hours, the light changed and she was able to sprint away from the obnoxious losers. She was forced to slow down and catch her breath next to a TV store several blocks later. Looking up at the screens, she scowled. On half the TVs, the President was having a live filming of him hosting a tea party for a group of kindergarteners from an all-girls Christian school. On the other half were live broadcasts of the ongoing war in Iraq.
Children were getting killed and the President was having a tea party?
"Disgusting." Gaz mumbled.
When she finally got to the video game store her ears were bombarded with the sound of a thousand cats wailing, sirens going off, and nails on a chalkboard. At least, that's what the voice of the young woman behind the counter sounded like to Gaz.
"…I know!... Hahahahahaaa! That's so true!... he did what?... she did it?... you too? Tell me!...uh huh…."
"I need to buy these." Gaz placed the batteries on the counter along with a twenty-dollar bill.
"OH MY GOD! NO WAY!... was it good?... ooooooh!... hold on a sec, I think I've got a customer." She paused to scan the barcode and punch some stuff into the cash register and process the money, handing Gaz the change without a glance, "Way to go you!... well duh! Who wouldn't?... uh huh….."
Gaz slammed the door as hard as she could on the way out. Why was everyone being such an idiot today? She looked around at the mobs of people walking past her and the word 'filthy' came unbidden to her mind.
Then it felt as if a bucket had been dropped on the world. Water gushed from the sky so suddenly it was as if Zim had thrown another water balloon at the planet, but one glance up at the dark clouds covering the once sunny sky told her it was just the weather. She was soaked through in seconds.
Humans scurried like rats around her as she stepped out to the curb and waved at the nearest taxi. Anger bubbled up as it drove right past her, spraying muddy water down the front of her clothes, and stopped a few feet down for a tall woman wearing a big yellow sweater and with the most horrifying face of running makeup Gaz had ever seen in her life. 'Filthy and hideous and stupid' she thought.
Gaz Membrane imagined what it would be like to watch all the idiots around her scream in pain, writhing on the ground, being forced to create new and better Vampire Piggy Slayer games. She imagined taking out Dib's vocal chords and punishing her father for leaving them to fend for themselves emotionally by placing him in solitary confinement without any of his precious science! She imagined bringing a dark layer of doom to the whole doomed planet and laughing from a viewpoint where she could see the whole of the Earth tremble beneath her wrath. A flash of Zim standing beside her in glory had her reeling back to reality with a start. When did Zim factor in to this? She thought about it for a bit, and came to the conclusion that his alien technology could be the thing she needed. Again though, she found herself thinking of those eyes and the way his cooler temperature didn't bother her… her chest felt funny and warm as she thought about the sight of his bare claws and touching those smooth antennae… Whoah! 'Pull yourself together!' Gaz ordered her brain, 'I am NOT a dumb hormone driven teenager!' But he had such a nice small smile and in those black clothes…
'Ok,' she admitted to herself, 'maybe he isn't all that repulsive. At least I can say I'm not falling for some stupid jock, or some dumb human. We do share similar views of the human species. He's not entirely annoying all the time. Plus, he's kinda cu – ' She stopped her train of thought right there and refused to think any further on the subject, choosing to replay how she was going to enslave the human race and punish all those that have done her wrong.
She began walking towards the only person on the planet with the technology to carry out her plans.
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Author's note: I guess this is yet again another cliffhanger. I'll let you see Zim's reaction in the next chapter, I promise! It just might take a while…
Woo! Lots of mushy thoughts mixed in with the evil ones in here! That was quite interesting to write. Trying to keep Gaz completely in character and still have her eventually fall for Zim is turning out to be a bit tougher than I thought.
I know a lot of you out there have Dib be the overprotective and loving older brother, but for how I want this story to end it just doesn't really work having that sibling bond thing going on, so in this story Gaz really has to not like her brother, sorry.
