Oh, lookie here--another chapter of this story, while JoeMerl's Journalism homework remains woefully incomplete. I'm sure Professor Goldschmidt will be proud.

JoeMerl is pleased to see so much interest in this story, and the speculations people are making in the reviews. He is so easily amused. And just to explain, in case one or two people did not understand--the letter Louie sent was in reference to Zim's insane laughing fit when he asked Ms. Bitters about Dib's absence. JoeMerl points that out a few paragraphs into the story, but just wanted to make that clear.

Well, if you're excuse me, I have to go and beat the author with his textbooks until he actually gets around to reading them. It not that I care whether or not he fails academically--it's just I have nothing else to do.

Chapter Three
Fraternal Bonds

Dear Log:

Sitting in class right now, listening to Ms. Bitters go on about doom. Really must figure her out sometime, but at the moment I am still busy with Project Z, and now with Project D started...well, it will be a while before I get to her. She seems to pose no immediate threat to humankind, at least as long as we still have suicide hotlines and anti-depressants.

Arrived to class late today. Was hoping to get some work done on Project D before skool started, but bus was attacked by a GFiB. Or GFiBS, however you write it. That's another project I want to start, but of course the SEN already has agents on that, not to mention the normal authorities. It was Dad's drones that wound up saving us, of course. I'll remember to thank him if I see him anytime soon.

Random note: According to Aki, Subject Z asked Ms. Bitters about some kind of strange creature before I arrived. Something called a "dig-beast." Nobody could understand what he was talking about, apparently causing the subject to begin laughing insanely for unknown reasons. Whether or not this information is important is hard to determine, but my attempts to antagonize the subject about it seem to induce extreme anxiety. Though he did this in front of the rest of the class, perhaps I was not supposed to hear it? Will cross-reference data with SEN database later.

—Excerpt from the Log of Ajunt Mofman, dated 25 August, 10:25 AM.

The bell rang. Ms. Bitters did not seem to notice, and continued her word-speakings, which had somehow descended into a rant about the hyuman economy and how their monies would soon be so worthless people would have to capture Earth-rats to use as toilet paper, or something; in any event, the class merely all stood with the bell and began to file out, leaving the Bitters-thing to continue her rant alone in the empty and darkened classroom. I wondered vaguely if she would notice.

I kept my eye on the Louie as he rose from his seat, grabbed his things and loaded them into his back-PAK. In a moment, though, I found it hard to keep my eyes on him; after a mere three paces from his desk, a crowd of kids were around him, walking with him to lunch.

"Hey Louie!" Keef said, his eyes as wide as his grin.

"Heeeey Lou," Zita said, stepping forward as he passed her desk. She blinked a few times at him in what seemed to be a deliberate way, but one I was unable to interpret. She was joined by Sara, who rolling her eyes, and a few other students. I held back for a bit and then followed from a short distance behind them all, straining my antennae and PAK microphones to hear.

"Hey Keef," the Louie-boy said, punching the annoying child on the arm. At first I thought I may have misjudged his strangeness--punching Keef was certainly a common activity among the skoolchildren, and a perfectly understandable one as well--before I saw from his expression that it was clearly meant to be a friendly gesture. Hyumans do that sometimes, bizarrely--use violence as a form of affection. A fact I had learned from watching the hyuman entertainment and news programs, which often spoke of mates and biological relatives attempting to kill one another.

"Hey, do you wanna sit me with me at lunch today? My mom packed me tuna fish sandwiches, we could trade snacks and it would be so much fun!"

"Oh, sorry, Keef, I can't, I--"

"--will sitting with me and Sara at ourtable, right?" Zita said, suddenly spinning around so that she was walking backwards in front of Louie, smiling at him while sending Keef a look that could have frozen a Slor-beast in its slime trail. Keef's smile faltered slightly at the look, a fact that gave me a sudden swelling of affection for Zita.

Louie gave a small, nervous smile. "Uh, sorry, Zita. I'm sitting with family today." He shrugged in an apologetic kind of way. Zita sulked, falling back to allow him to pass her. Keef quickly ran up to replace her at Louie's side.

"Ooh! Can I sit with you guys today?" he asked excitedly; I could have sworn I almost saw tears forming in his huge brown eyes. It was rather disturbing.

"Uh...if you want to risk it."

"Yay!" Keef said, balling his hands together in front of his chest and nearly jumping with glee. Louie's mouth curved into another one of those small smiles; he looked, if I had to judge his expression, amused.

Clearly not normal,I thought. Unless this Louie was plotting some sort of clever trap for the Keef-beast to fall into, this was, I thought, an unpresedented and ridiculous action--inviting the Keef to one's table, allowing him to sup with you during your few moments of peace in the day! I knew from experience how foolish it was to show him any affection. I watched with narrowed eyes as the Louie, still smiling and listening to Keef's inane blather, put his arm around the smaller boy's shoulder for a brief pat on the back.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We reached the hyuman feeding facility, where Keef, instead of disappearing with his inferior bag of inferior Earth-food to join his equally-inferior geek-friends at the inferior table designated to them as a sign of their inferiority, stood beside the lunch line and followed Louie as he progressed through it to the place where where the skool-monster distributed foods to those willing to eat their disgusting garbage. I arranged that Zita as well as a few other hyumans should be between myself and the Louie, but that I could still be close enough to hear what he was saying with relative ease.

Unfortunately, they did not say much, at least of any note; the only thing I was able to deduce was more startling evidence that Louie and the Keef-creature had some sort of non-one-wanting-to-kill-the-other relationship. By the time Louie had reached the front of the lunch line, the two of them were planning a sleep-over at the Keef-monster's house. A sleep-over! This Louie was apparently willing to go and spend an entire twelve hours (or more!) at the house of the Keef and his equally-annoying parents and brother. Clearly, I decided, he was completely insane.

Of course, the Dib had been insane too, if in different ways.

The Louie received his disgusting food; he spoke to the large and ugly female food-slave for a moment; I heard something about "new color" and "shame that net hides it," and the drone's sour expression gave way to a small smile before she put an extra cube of green jelly-goo on his tray. He smiled and moved away, Keef running joyously behind him, to the other side of the lunch room. I followed him with my eyes as best I could, but the pair soon vanished in the herd of chattering Earth-monkeys.

"I said, what do you want?!"

"Whuh?!"

I had reached the front of the food-line without noticing; the large, imposing woman standing behind the counter was glaring down at me, her serving spoon in her hand. I gulped.

"I would like..." I looked down at my choices "some of the disgusting green goop with some of the Vosgarian horcix blubber, please."

She raised the lid of one beady eye. "You mean the mashed potatos?"

"Uh, sure. Why not? And, uh--" I decided on an experiment, remembering what the Louie had done "--might I add that your arm-hair looks particularly thick and coarse this fine morning?"

I gave her my widest, most Keef-like smile. She gave me an inscrutable look and let my glop and horcrix blubber fall onto my plate, splattering onto my face. I winced slightly at the tiny burns of hyuman food.

"Hmm," I muttered, turning away with my tray in hand. I began to walk in the direction that Keef and the Louie had gone. About halfway across the cafeteria, I suddenly saw Keef soar over my head through the air, coming to crash on top of a table several feet away, splattering its shocked occupants with food.

Deducing that following Keef's trajectory was a good way to start looking, I walked in the direction he had flown from, just as the Elliott-hyuman had run up to help Keef up and bring him to the skool infirmary. I soon located Louie in a corner of the cafeteria that seemed mostly empty; I took that advantage to snap up the unoccupied table right behind him, so that I had a perfect vantage point of the back of his head. He was alone at his table with one other person, but I could not see them, as Louie's body was blocking it from view.

"...wouldn't do that. Now look!" Louie turned slightly--I ducked under the table quickly, but he was motioning instead across the room at Keef, who was practically being carried out of the cafeteria by the hyuman teacher.

"Whatever," came another voice, almost a growl. "If he wouldn't be so damn annoying all the time--"

"He's my best friend," Louie said, a bit hotly, turning back to the unseen person. "I wish you'd show him some respect."

The person laughed; I had to agree with them, the idea of giving Keef "respect" was rather ridiculous.

"Louie, he has the IQ of a GFiB and spends his whole day shooting me moon-eyes. I'm not going to respectKeef."

"Well, you could at least be nice to him," Louie said. He sounded sulky. Almost like Dib, I thought, with another unconscious wince. "He's always nice to you."

"Yeah, yeah. And why don't I just marry him while I'm at it, then?"

My antennae perked up a bit under my wig; I leaned forward, trying desperately to see through Louie's ridiculously large hair style, but to no avail. Who was this hyuman he was speaking with? I could not recognize the voice, that low growl, but it did seem vaguely familiar. It was a female, apparently--at least I thought so. This "marriage," I knew, was some sort of mating ritual, so presumably it must have been a girl Keef would have one with; still, though, with hyumans you can never tell, the House Computer's forays into the hyuman Innernets had unearthed some very strange things. I remembered this was supposed to be some sort of relative of Louie's--I leaned forward, wishing I could see...

"I'm not saying that." A pause, then his annoyed tone softened. "Although, if you wanted to--"

"Shut up now, Louie."

"Oh, come on! I'm not saying you have to, like, date him or whatever--I mean, yeah, I'll admit, that idea is a little creepy--but you should just...be nicer to him. Just a little. Get to know him." Louie took a bite of his horrible Earth-food. "I think he'd be good for you."

"Good for me how, Louie?"

I saw another of his tiny smiles form on the corner of his lip that I could see. "Well, he might teach you to add some color to your wardrobe, for one..."

The girl scoffed; there was a pause. "I would rather date your little alien fffriend than Keef," she said finally, before I heard her take a bite out of her meal.

I felt my heart skip a beat; a tiny shock came through my PAK wires to restore it to its proper function. Alien friend. Did this mean that my suspicions about the Louie were correct?

"I'm leaving," the girl said suddenly, standing up; even then I could only see the top of her black hair above Louie's large hairdo. She turned with her tray and walked away.

I abandoned my untouched tray of Earth filth, jumped up and followed her out of the cafeteria.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!"

The girl either did not hear me or did not care to look. I ran after her without thinking, determined to collect any clue I could as to the identity of this Louie. I reached her and grabbed her shoulder. "Excuse me, Louie-friend-hyuman?"

She turned around, glaring. "What?" she snarled.

"I would just like to--" I froze and did a double-take, mouth falling open. "Gaz-hyuman?!"

She glared back, annoyed.

I looked more closely, narrowing my eyes. Yes, it was the Gaz-hyuman, definitely, but I had failed to realize it at first, because she looked quite different from how she was when I had usually seen her. Her purple hair was now streaked with black like some sort of striped animal, though still in the same disturbing shape, like the skull of some beast with its lower jaw removed and worn like a hat. Her dress was also different, but its differences were subtle--it was still black, without any sleeves, but while she usually wore some gray article under it that covered her arms, and red garments to cover her feet, now both were black as well, giving her an overall even darker appearance. The areas around her eyes seemed darker--it looked almost like the injuries hyumans call "black eyes," but I realized after a moment that it was "make-up;" just as hyumans use violence to show affection, so they seem to imitate injuries for aesthetic reasons. As she turned her skull-shaped pendent swung around her neck; it looked somehow different, in some subtle way I couldn't quite figure out. She was also wearing small ornaments on her ears, as some hyuman females did, that had the same look as the necklace.

For a moment I was flabbergasted; I gaped, and her narrow-eyed, frustrated look grew darker. "Well?"

"Um--uh--h-how are you today?" I asked, forcing a smile onto my face, unsure of what to say.

Her look was not as friendly. "Ugh. You're that stupid friend of Louie's, aren't you?" she asked, walking towards the trash can and dumping out her food. I rushed after her again, my brain and PAK racing for some way to respond.

"Friend? Why, yes! I am Louie's friend, if that's what you're willing to believe. And speaking of which, how do you know Louie, eh? Tell me!"

"Ugh. He's my brother?" she said, in that sarcastic tone hyumans reserve for saying what they think should be patently obvious for everyone to see.

I stopped in my tracks; she kept walking. I gaped after her. "Brother?"

"Yeah, brother. Don't they have those on your planet, Zim?" she asked, not looking back as she stomped off down the hall.

I stood frozen for a moment, unable to speak. "But--but--that doesn't make any sense!" I cried, grabbing at my wig and nearly tearing it off in frustration, almost forgotting that I could not show my antennae no matter how angry I was. "The Dib is your brother, your only brother! How could you have another one now just because I--AGH!"

Suddenly I was thrown against the cold, hard wall of the skool building, and the Gaz-hyuman was holding me there, her face much closer to mine than my feet were to the ground. "What did you say?" she hissed, her eyes, always narrowed to almost nothing, now slightly more open just so she could narrow them again in a somehow more horrifying way.

"I--I didn't--"

"Dib died years before you even came to this planet. Where did you hear that name, huh? Where?!"

She suddenly shook my roughly--I let out a cry and kicked impotently, feeling my wig slide a few inches down my face, feeling the tip of one antenna exposed to the open air. I stared down at Gaz's twisted face, more scared of her then than I had ever been before. I was used to Gaz's anger, I had seen it plenty of times before--indeed, usually directed at the Dib-stink, which made it often a rather enjoyable activity to watch. This, however, was different--she looked crazy this time, half-mad, like an animal--

"I--augh--" Her hand was pressing against my neck so hard, I found it hard to breathe; I felt my PAK's vents open up, trying desperately to suck in some air, felt my squiggledy-squooch burn in my abdomen. "I--uh--Louie!" I cried, grabbing at the first lie my screaming brain could find. "The Louie told me about him, mentioned--something..."

For a moment she simply stood there, hand against my neck, my feet dangling uselessly off the floor, her eyes searching me for some sign of falsehood. Suddenly she let me drop--I fell to the floor, hard, panting, feeling my brain and squiggledy-squooch cry out in relief as the putrid Earth-air filled them with precious nutrients.

"Huh. That does sound like something Louie would do," Gaz muttered, looking away thoughtfully. I breathed a sigh of relief--just in time for her to spin back around, jabbing me suddenly in the chest. I let out a cry and backed up against the wall again, watching in fear as her face resumed its rage. "But let's get one thing straight, okay, Space-Boy? There is only a very small number of people who get to say that name in my presence, and you are NOT one of them. So you just forget you ever heard it or we're gonna have some trouble. GOT IT?!" she demanded, jabbing me again.

"Yes--yes! I got it. Ma'am," I added quickly, as she continued to loom over me threateningly.

Gaz kept her eyes on me, then spun on her heels and stormed away. As she did I once again noticed the skull necklace hopping up and down against her chest, familiar yet somehow different. I stood against the wall for a moment, watching her retreat; only when she had turned the corner of the hall did I dare to turn and run away.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"But this just doesn't make any sense," I muttered, scratching at my wig, wanting desperately to pull it off and air out my antennae so that I could think more clearly.

"Er--by the Kablooie!" I cursed, trying to squeeze the answer out of my brain, but to no avail; there simply was no logical explanation that I could think of. Dib and Gaz had been a pair of siblings in the old timeline, two and only two. Now Dib was gone, but Gaz had another brother in this new timeline. But how? HOW?! It simply made no sense!

Hmm...could their father, the Membrane, perhaps have had another child in this timeline, one who did not exist in the world before I altered it? Perhaps...but it did not seem likely. For one, the Membrane had no mate that I knew of, and hyuman reproduction would require a second person to aid Membrane in the Louie's creation. And beside, hyumans did not age that quickly--as far as I could tell, Louie was the same age as Dib had been, so long ago--er, yesterday?--when I had first used the time machine. But even if my very first change in the timeline had resulted in the Louie's creation--replacing Dib's primitive land vehicle as he rode it, causing the loss of his right arm--he should not have been so old, he should have been younger than Gaz. And the time machine could not work retroactively--the past could not be changed from a point before a change occurred.

"So what is the answer?!" I screamed, startling two children standing by their lockers as I stormed towards the exit, clawing out chunks of my wig as I went.

Whatever it was, I was going to find out.

Hmm. So you just gave him Dib's old family, did you? Didn't bother creating something original or that makes any sense?

I'm sorry, last chapter weren't you complaining that I made OCs too much?

(SLAP!)

OW!

Oh, that's always fun. Anyway, gentle idiots, you can look for another update of this dung-heap fairly soon--or not, since JoeMerl has no idea what's going to happen next.

That's not true! If anything, I have too many ideas about what's going to happen next, I just need to sort--

(SLAP!)

STOP DOING THAT!

Heh-heh. Well, be on the lookout for the next update; it will likely come after yet another horrible chapter in the "PITS" story, since JoeMerl actually has a plan for that one. And he knows you're all so desperate to find out if Mary Sue bites the dust. He's also thinking about updating "Endorsements of the Doomed," and maybe writing a few one-shots for either this or another fandom. Funny how his creative juices get so high whenever his pile of schoolwork does, eh?

In any event, leave your horrible little reviews and see you later. Bye.