While he's out, Zim contemplates.
Those two should be fine by themselves. Dib will probably just sleep, which will help his injuries heal quicker, and whether GIR knows it or not he's quite capable of following orders when he wants to be.
The Irken concentrates on the surrounding area now, on the rubble and the corpses and the utter dilapidation that make up this new Earth. The churning in his squeedly spooch starts up again almost instantly, getting worse and worse as he ventures farther into the belly of the beast he created.
Every time he goes outside for supplies he feels this. Had there been a choice, he'd have sent GIR out here, but then again the little robot's attention span would never survive without Zim. And someone needs to stay with the dirt-worm, just in case he takes a turn for the worse.
Besides, the sinking feeling is far less intense than it was the first time. So maybe this is a warped version of what the humans call 'therapy.' Maybe, in the long run, this will help him.
But for now, in the short term, he's lucky there's no one around to see his discomfort.
Not that he cares much about his pride anymore. After all that's happened, there's no need for it. He has no one to impress, no one to frighten, no one to…to destroy now. His mission, while by accident, has been a success (though again, instead of pride his zarnl blarg contracts with regret).
The only ones he has now are the two he's never had to pretend for. And in this the invader allows a swirl of affection to form in his breast. He's grateful to them for letting him be himself.
He halts abruptly in the middle of the road. Without realizing, he's been walking in a well-known direction this entire time.
Directly in front of him is what remains of Dib's home. In another show of Professor Membrane's ingenuity, the house had been reinforced by a supposedly-indestructible material, weapons defenses, and force-shields of the human-known strongest type.
But apparently none of it stood much of a chance against the explosion.
Granted, the grand majority of the house has made it through, but the front wall and windows have been scorched-dented and broken, respectively. The weapons have been irreparably gutted, and the rest is left to be seen.
The little Irken has no trouble getting inside (the door actually falls off its all-weather-enhanced hinges at the lightest wiggle of the handle). He's only been in here a few times, and though there might not be anything edible in here by Irken standards, this will likely be his best bet for something the Dib can consume. Plus, the boy's Father's labs might have something at least moderately useful.
Creeping farther inside, he is surprised and rather impressed to find that very little of the house besides that side facing the blast has been damaged.
Entering the kitchen, he opens the refrigerator and is relieved to find it a little more than half-stocked; come to think of it, he remembers Dib mumbling something in his sleep about his Father hardly having the time to sleep, much less grocery shop.
Summoning the robotic arm from the depths of his PAK, he reaches in, grabs the food, and hands it to the mechanical limb to stow away. With all of the electricity down for this long, he wonders how it's not rotten already, but considers the Dib-human's Father probably planned ahead once again.
He takes all of it. They'll definitely need it, even if he himself won't be able to eat most of it. Its primary function will be to help Dib get his strength back anyway.
Moving on to the freezer, he sees that the ice box is stacked high. The robotic arm grabs several ice cubes at a time and dumps them into the PAK, in a separate, frozen storage compartment. The water will do them nicely, indeed.
When he's finished there he raids the cupboards. Another success, and with most of this being edible! This goes down the PAK-hatch, too.
Working his way down the hall, he stops when he gets to the Membrane children's opposite bedrooms. He feels his curiosity brewing, urging him to take even a quick peek into the rooms of his former enemies.
It's an invasion of privacy, though, and in the case of the Dib-sister, especially… Not only would it be like he was dancing upon her grave, but—he shudders—knowing her, she'd haunt him for the rest of his days.
He turns away from her door, but in doing so stands front-and-center before Dib's. He doesn't think the boy will mind, not really, and he'd probably describe it all in detail at some reminiscent point or another anyhow.
Turning the doorknob, he steps into the twelve-year-old's room without a sound. Posters of paranormal phenomena cover the wall; books, action figures, files, empty Spell Drives, and other knickknacks cover every available space; and although the computer is unresponsive like everything electronic back at the base Zim is sure it would show the Swollen Eyeball Network's website.
This room pulses with a stark loneliness that pierces Zim's soul.
Just as he would have expected from the world-shunned outcast.
The poor child…
He takes his leave of the room as hastily as possible. Far too depressing in there. At any rate, he doesn't think he would have found anything very worthwhile amongst that hoard of collectors' items and case studies.
The last room in the house with even the smallest bit of worth lies at the end of the hallway: Professor Membrane's lab. While he used to feel above using such inferior Earth technology, now that he has no alternatives he doesn't mind anymore. This equipment will do just fine.
Introducing himself fully to the rather large circular room, he doesn't truly know what he's looking for. Something to help them, yes, but...what exactly that would be, he really doesn't know.
As he's looking around, the invader notices something strange about the angle of the scientist's chemical station. When he and Dib had been working together to kill the Bologna Virus that time, he'd been too stressed to notice before. But now that he is in no hurry, he finds a peculiar slant to it that he swears wasn't there any of the times he'd been there.
Bending down, he follows the slant to its origin and is nonplussed to find a white-as-the-floor, giant envelope under the leg. Using his robotic arm to help him, he lifts the thick, heavy desk leg and swipes the envelope from underneath.
Reading the faded outer-print as "To My Children," Zim cannot help the small pang he feels in his zarnl blarg. On occasion he finds himself wondering what having parents would be like, and this happens to be one of those moments.
And it is in this daze that he opens the envelope and examines the contents within.
When he finishes, his mind snaps back to reality.
The flurry of propositions, grants, data-notes, and personal letter come flooding back.
All falls to the floor as Zim crashes to his knees.
This can't be happening…!
A/N: The mystery of Zim's finding will be explained next chapter, so no worries there!
Sorry I didn't get this up sooner! I had an A.P. Physics test to study for on Thursday, then yesterday I went to an impromptu dance, and today I was working on my A.P. U.S. History flashcards all day (I hate those stupid things!)... XP
And yes, I know Zim was able to feel the water vapor from the refrigerator, etc., and not get burned, but as Jhonen Vasquez says in the commentary of episodes after "The Wettening" in regards to continuity, "'He's covered completely in paste all the time.'" XD So there you have it.
If I forgot anything else...guess I'll come back and fix it! XD
Thanks so much for reading!