GIR was down in the lab again. He scratched his head, wondering why he had come down, when there was something like a whisper in his ear. Go closer, it seemed to say.
"You sound familiar!" GIR said. He was standing in front of the swirling yellow portal on the wall. It didn't occur to the robot that this should be strange, seeing as Zim had never fixed it after the explosion.
It's a lovely portal, isn't it? the voice in GIR's head said. Step inside. It's nice in here. GIR couldn't place the voice. It wasn't Zim, but it really did sound familiar. Come on in, the voice said. We have waffles here. And tacos. Tacos! GIR didn't need any more urging. He ran into the portal, which closed behind him.
Gaz had finally become sufficiently annoyed with Zim and left his house, much to the alien's delight. She now sat at the kitchen table at her house, picking at the spaghetti on her plate. Her fists shook with barely-suppressed rage and she raised her fork to take a bite. Then she dropped it and gritted her teeth.
Professor Membrane walked into the room and fixed his own bowl of pasta. "Hello, Daughter!" he said. "Just came back from the labs to have dinner with my offspring! The transit of Venus is still going on, and we decided to watch it in shifts. The alignment won't be as well-analyzed in my absence, of course, but sometimes sacrifices must be made for the sake of one's descendents!" He sat across the table from Gaz and seemed to notice her mood for the first time. "Why, Daughter! You seem more wrathful than usual tonight."
Gaz trembled with rage. "I've been without my game for a day. A whole day. I've never gone this long without playing Vampire Piggies. NEVER!" Her eyes erupted in flames and she pounded viciously on the table.
"I see. And what happened to your game, then? Surely you haven't misplaced it-I rarely see you without that delightful game in hand, Gaz!"
"Dib took my game cartridge and then vanished, leaving behind a mysterious note that wasn't in his handwriting."
"Hm." Membrane took a bite of spaghetti and looked around the near-empty kitchen. "Say... something's different around here."
Gaz shrugged. "I just told you that Dib's missing. He's been gone since last night. That's why the kitchen still isn't clean."
"Ah! My son. Missing! That's it. I wonder where he went off to?"
"Wherever it was, he took my game with him and someone else wrote that note."
"Ah, well, he'll be back by dinner." Membrane seemed entirely unconcerned.
Gaz raised an eyebrow. "It's dinner now."
"Is it really? It seems like it was noon only seven hours ago! Well, there you have it-time flies when you're making discoveries for SCIENCE! Well, he'll turn up eventually. He always does!"
Gaz scowled. "But I need my game."
Membrane snapped his fingers. "I've GOT it!" he announced. He pulled some sort of blinking device from his pocket. "Here, take this tracking device. Filled with and powered by the totally realistic-sounding element DIDONAI-VIVERE, it will lock on your game cartridge and show you the exact coordinates of it!" He handed it to Gaz.
"And... you just carry this around?"
Membrane laughed and reached across the table, ruffling his daughter's hair. "Of course I do, Gaz! You'd be surprised at what I fill my pockets with for science!"
Gaz walked sourly down the sidewalk, holding the tracking device in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Membrane had left after dinner to go back to his lab across town and continue watching the transit. Gaz had figured that he wouldn't mind if she left left during the night to track down her brother who was very possibly the victim of a kidnapping.
Gaz peered at the blinking green arrow on her tracking device, then looked up and scowled. It was pointing directly at Zim's house.
Back where I started, she thought in irritation. This whole thing is pointless. I feel like stupid Dib. She dropped the tracking device in her pocket and marched up to Zim's house for the second time that evening, rapping sharply on the alien's door. A few seconds passed before Zim, wearing his disguise, opened it and peered out at her.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"We've been through this!" Gaz shouted. "I'm back, and this time I know that you've got Dib-or at least my game cartridge-in here somewhere. Take me down to your lab, Zim. NOW."
Zim stood in his lab with his arms crossed, staring through narrowed eyes at a blank computer screen and refusing to say anything. He was still wearing his disguise but that annoyance barely registered in his mind. He could hear that horrible little human girl behind him, pressing buttons on some primitive Earth device. Zim's computer had done a decent job of fixing the base but it wasn't finished yet, and the girl had forced him to let her come down. Zim clenched his fists in anger. It was bad enough that she had come earlier to pester him before he could finally get rid of her. But now she was back and Zim did his best to ignore her, having gotten tired of telling her repeatedly that he had no idea where Dib was.
He knew he should probably work on his base but he couldn't concentrate with the human standing there. Also, he couldn't remember exactly where his tools were. He couldn't even be sure of what tools he needed.
"Why are you even trying to find Dib?" he burst out. "He was probably kidnapped by Bigfeets or something. I say good riddance! Now I really am very, very busy."
"I'm looking for Dib because he still has chores to do!" Gaz replied. "And he stole one of my games! I'm trying to track it down now with this thing Dad gave me."
"You can't track anything with inferior human technology!" Zim sneered, turning around. "Irken technology is the only thing that is good at tracking. I'm using it now to locate GIR. He's gone missing... again."
Gaz looked at Zim's tracking equipment, on which a message popped up. "Your superior Irken technology isn't working," she noted. Zim fumed.
"Just because the reading makes no sense doesn't mean it's broken!" he snarled. He pounded his fist on the console, but the reading stayed the same. It said, 'Location of subject not found. Last known coordinates: three feet to your left. Have a nice day and try not to get yourself blown up for once!'
"Actually, mine says the same thing about my game cartridge," Gaz said, holding up the tracking device. "Except for the thing about blowing up."
"Stupid computer," Zim muttered. "I do not blow myself up all the time."
"What's so special about the place 'three feet to your left'?" Gaz asked. The only thing to Zim's left was a wall. And an ugly wall at that.
Zim waved the question away impatiently. "Oh, that's my broken cootie portal-" He realized that that was something he probably shouldn't be telling a human and hurried to correct himself. "I mean, NOTHING! There's nothing there! Especially no portals. In fact, it is specifically portal...less. Strictly without portals! I AM NORMAL."
"A portal, huh?" Gaz said, considering it. "Well, that's where both tracking devices say Dib and your stupid robot went." She sighed. If there was anywhere her idiotic brother would end up, it was inside a poorly-made alien portal.
"So what if it is a portal?" Zim challenged. "And I'm not saying it is. But if it was, it would have exploded. And even if this hypothetical portal hadn't exploded, you would never be able to hypothetically turn it on!"
Gaz calmly walked over and pulled a large, obnoxiously-obvious red lever. Zim stared in disbelief as the yellow, flashing portal sprang up, apparently not hypothetical or destroyed in any way.
"Heh," Zim said. "Look at that."
"So where does this lead?" Gaz asked.
"Nowhere that concerns a cake-sniffing human!" Zim snapped. "Who LISPS!"
"I don't lisp."
"And that makes you that much more disgusting! I have tolerated your presence long enough. Leave now, and I may spare your pitiful life!"
"I need to find my brother." Gaz started toward the portal and Zim laughed.
"You foolish human child! You're just going to walk into the portal? It leads straight to the World of . It's filled with COOTIES!"
"I'd gathered that."
"Your inferior chemical composition would not be able to handle the strain of entering into another world!"
"Are you finished?"
"Yes. So go ahead through the portal. I shall immensely enjoy watching you explode."
Gaz turned and walked straight through the portal. Zim's eyes darted to the red lever and his hands itched to pull it, turning off the portal and trapping the annoying human inside to be torn apart by rabid cooties. But he still had to find GIR, who had apparently gone into the portal.
Reluctantly he took a deep breath and stepped inside...
...only to come out on the walkway in front of his house. He glanced behind him to see the yellow portal glowing on his front door. Well, this couldn't be right... he had programmed the portal to lead to the World of Cooties! What had gone wrong?
"What's wrong with your portal?" Gaz asked, coming up and voicing his thoughts. "We're still in the city. Wasn't your portal supposed to lead to another world or something?"
"Silence!" Zim interrupted. "This is exactly how I planned it. Now begone with you! I must find GIR."
"You're helping me to find Dib," Gaz said.
Zim stared, wondering how anyone, even a human, could possibly be so dense. "I am not! I'm here to find GIR and once I find him I'm leaving."
Gaz crossed her arms. "I said, you're helping me to find Dib."
"I'm doing no such thing!" Zim turned and began to walk away from her.
"Fine," Gaz said with a shrug. "Then I'll just go back to your stupid lab and turn off the portal with you inside."
"Go ahead," Zim sneered. "It didn't work anyway. We're still in the real world!"
"If we are, then why couldn't the tracking devices find Dib and GIR?" Gaz challenged. "Besides, your house is destroyed here."
Zim froze mid-step and turned around slowly to see that his house was in ruins. The scorched walls were crumbled and the only thing still in moderately good condition was the door on which the portal hovered. He gasped in horror. His house hadn't been like that before! Either something terrible had happened since he'd been down in the lab, or they really were in a completely different place.
Also, Irken technology was the most reliable in the universe. If the portal hadn't led anywhere, then why couldn't his computer track down GIR? Zim hated to admit it, but the scary human girl was right. If she shut off the portal, he'd be stuck here with no way to get back.
"All right," he said grudgingly. "You may accompany me while I search for GIR." He started walking again without bothering to see if the human was following. The first chance he got he would ditch her somewhere.
Zim soon found that he wasn't looking for GIR so much as fuming and feeling sorry for himself. Because of Gaz he was now one antenna short and was trudging through this strange world, which at first had seemed like the usual Earth but was looking different every second. There were people about, and they kept staring at him like they thought he looked weird or something. Well, duh-he was wearing his disguise but he still had green skin and no ears. And he was lacking a nose. But humans usually didn't notice those things. He continued on, not really caring where he was going but hoping that he wouldn't get lost.
Gaz pulled out her tracking device again but the green arrow was spinning crazily instead of being helpful and showing which way to go. She had no idea what was wrong with it or how to fix it-besides game systems, electronics just weren't her thing.
"Any idea where we are?" she asked Zim. Not that he would know.
"WE are exactly where we SHOULD be!" Zim replied.
"And were is that?" Gaz was still irritated that she couldn't play Vampire Piggies, and she figured that she might as well try to make whatever conversation she could with this idiotic extraterrestrial.
"Shut your noise tube, Human! I grow weary of your incessant chittering!"
Gaz rolled her eyes and looked back at the tracking device. The arrow hadn't stopped spinning. She looked back at Zim. "You know something about electronics, right?" she asked. "My tracking device isn't working anymore."
Zim scoffed. "You see? Human technology is worthless!" He took the device, looked it over, and tossed it back to Gaz. "I, ZIM, would never stoop so low as to attempt to fix such a pitiful machine!"
"In other words, you have no idea what's wrong with it." Gaz stowed the broken device back in her pocket. "Well, how are we supposed to find anyone without it working?"
"My incredible Invader instincts have never been wrong! We go..." Zim looked around and pointed in a random direction. "THAT WAY! GIR is certain to be over there!" He marched off, humming to himself. Gaz sighed and followed, turning her attention to observing her surroundings. This place looked like the city where she lived, although the buildings seemed to be a bit different. However, unlike Zim's house, all of these buildings were still standing. She and Zim passed by the library and Gaz noticed that there were many more people crowding its doors than usual.
Zim frowned as they walked, determined not to let little Gaz know how uncertain he was about this. His portal had obviously messed up, because this definitely was not the World of Cooties. So where in Irk were they? This place seemed enormous, too. How were they supposed to find GIR and Dib? No, wait. He was only looking for GIR. Gaz was trying to find Dib. Stupid humans. Zim kicked at the ground crossly. GIR could be anywhere! Was he supposed to search this entire-this entire-whatever it was-to find the crazy robot?
They passed by the Skool and Gaz stopped to stare at it. From the glow of the streetlights she could see that it looked pretty much the same except that the lettering at the front had changed-some idiot had misspelled it as "School." Gaz considered it. With the tracking device broken, they had to start their long search somewhere. Might as well be the Skool.
She changed direction and started toward it.
"Where are you doing?" Zim demanded.
"We're going to look around the Skool."
Zim seethed. "I am the leader of this exhibition!" he shouted. "NOT YOU!"
"Do you mean 'expedition'?"
"NO! We keep going this way. I am the Irken Elite! OBEY MY ORDERS, HUMAN! Follow me!"
"I thought you didn't want me along at all."
"I DON'T!" Zim crossed his arms. "If we go to the Skool, it's because I decided to!"
Gaz raised an eyebrow.
Zim quickly changed direction. "I'm getting tired, human worm-baby. I command that we go to the Skool!"
Gaz led the way up the stone steps and through the Skool doors, which surprisingly weren't locked. She kept an eye out for familiar scythe-shaped hair or the sight of black coattails whipping around a corner, but the building seemed deserted. For the first time, Gaz considered the note she had found. If it wasn't in Dib's handwriting, who had written it? What if her brother had been kidnapped? Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to be wandering around a deserted building in the darkness with a possible kidnapper on the loose. Then again, she could handle anything that came her way. As for Zim, as incompetent as he was he had to have some kind of laser gun thing with him. After all, he was an alien.
Gaz went to where she knew Dib's classroom was but it was empty as well. Even the creepy teacher was gone.
"They're not in here!" Zim said exasperatedly. "We'd be able to hear it if-wait, who are we looking for, again?"
Gaz sighed. "Dib. And your annoying robot."
"Yes! If GIR was here I'd have been able to hear him before I entered the building. Now I'm leaving to continue my search ELSEWHERE!" The alien turned and began marching away. Gaz followed, wondering how she was ever going to find Dib and her game cartridge.
Suddenly she kicked something with the tip of her foot. The glass object rolled across the floor and Gaz went over, picking it up. It was a bottle with a few dregs of silvery liquid in the bottom. She hadn't noticed the bottle earlier, and the contents were like nothing she'd ever seen. She put it in her other pocket, thinking it was something her dad might like to examine.
Zim stopped to wait for her and looked immensely irritated about it. "I should just leave you behind, Snot-child! You're slowing us down and it's your fault I'm in here looking for my robot!"
"I'd say it's your fault for building the portal in the first place."
Zim scowled. "Well... your skull is stupid!" he said, and walked away. Gaz wondered if he meant her skull necklace or her actual skull. Whatever... it didn't matter.
They left the Skool and continued down the sidewalk. It had grown even darker and now Gaz's flashlight was essential to be able to see where they were going. There was no one out anymore and the search was proving fruitless. Zim was just about to pull out his radio and try to contact GIR, wondering why he hadn't done that sooner, when he suddenly felt a tug on his arm. He whirled around to snarl at Gaz, but she was looking at the nearby bushes. They were rustling slightly.
"I think there's someone in there," she said quietly. She stepped toward the bush and Zim realized he could hear a low voice coming from the shrubs, as if someone was muttering to themselves.
Gaz crept up to it, then yelled, "Freeze!" and crashed through the leafy barrier.
"AAAAUUUUUGGGHH!" the person on the other side of the bush screamed, falling backwards in fright. Stuck in the ground was some kind of device and, crouching next to it, was Dib, looking scared out of his mind.
"Gaz!" the self-proclaimed paranormal investigator said in relief, then looked confused. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing." Gaz crossed her arms. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Dib."
"But how did you get here?" Dib asked. "I don't even know where 'here' is! It's not our town, and I've been trying to get some information about what this place is but I don't have my computer. I've tried talking to people but they've all run away screaming, which I guess isn't that different from normal but it hasn't been very helpful. All I have is one of Dad's locator devices-" he motioned to the thing on the ground "-and I've been trying to use it to figure out where I am, but it's not working."
Gaz rolled her eyes. "Tell someone who cares," she said. "Just give me back my game and then come home to clean the kitchen."
"Your... game?" Dib fished in his pocket and pulled out Gaz's game cartridge. "Oh! Oh, sorry. It must have fallen into my pocket. I didn't realize I had it..."
"Just come on, Dib." Gaz snatched her game and led the way out of the bushes. Dib grabbed Membrane's locator and followed. He froze when he saw Zim, who was searching through an overturned garbage can for something.
"What's HE doing here?" Dib screeched, pointing furiously at the alien.
Zim spun around. "I'm looking for my robot!" he said. He held bits of metal in his hands and started wiring them together as if he knew what he was doing.
Dib took Gaz's arm and pulled her behind him. "Keep away from him, Gaz! He's an-"
"-an alien. I know. You don't have to keep telling me!" Gaz pulled away from Dib. "It's not like he's all discreet about it. Now come on, I'm sick of this place."
Zim darted in front of them. "I don't know what you thought you were going to achieve by coming here, HUMANS!" he said. "I will never let you back into my base! You might take pictures or sabotage it or-"
"You were in his base?" Dib demanded of Gaz.
"Shut up, Dib. It's where the portal was."
"And you will both pay for intruding into my lab!" Zim shouted, at the same time that Dib asked, "What portal?"
Dib looked at Zim. "And I wasn't in your lab, alien-freak!"
Zim crossed his arms. "You must have been. You're here, and the only way to get here is through my portal."
"You've both mentioned a portal," Dib said. "Gaz, what is going on here?"
"Zim built a stupid portal to another world, and apparently it broke and exploded," Gaz replied.
"The Resisty infiltrated my computers!" Zim shouted in self-defense. "I mean, uh... what portal?"
"Wait, let me get this straight," Dib said. "You built an inter-dimensional portal... and it exploded? Zim, the effects of that could be unpredictable! Remember the portal that led to that Nightmare World on Halloween?"
"This is completely different!" Zim snapped.
"No it's not!" Dib looked like he was freaking out. "This could be a catastrophe! The explosion could've sent out a beam that would... I dunno... create an alternate reality or something!" He suddenly stopped and looked around. He took in the city, which was similar-but-different. It looked normal at first glance, but there was something wrong with it. "Y'know, actually... actually... that would explain where we are."
"HAH! Foolish human. I do not possess the power to create an alternate dimension!" Zim shook his head. "You really are stupid, Earth-" he paused. "Earth-um... what's your name, again? Doesn't it start with an R?"
Dib stared. "You're kidding, right?"
"It doesn't start with an R? Then... it starts with an S! Definitely an S."
"It's DIB! Geez, Zim, we've been mortal enemies for months!"
"Dib, then. I knew it started with an R."
Dib was about to correct him but Gaz cut him off. "Just ignore him. I want to go home now."
"Right," Dib agreed. "We're leaving, Zim, and then we're destroying this portal of yours!"
Zim blocked their way again. "You're never getting back in my base! I won't allow it. You'll be stuck in here forEVER, Dib and Raz!"
"Gaz."
"PITIFUL HUMANS!" Zim looked intent on blocking their way until Gaz stepped forward, brandishing her fist.
Zim cringed, at a loss. He couldn't decide what to do. If he let these two humans, his archenemies, go back to the real world, they might wreck his base (more than it was already wrecked), and expose him as an alien. They might also shut off or even destroy the portal before he and GIR could get out. And if he tried to keep them in here, there was no telling what Dib's sister would do. But what did he care? She was just a human girl. He was about to say so when Gaz looked at him angrily and fear for his life caused him to go against every one of his Invader instincts.
"FINE!" he said. "Go back to the portal. But be warned, you have not seen the last of ZIM! If you touch anything in my lab... or look at anything... or breathe your smelly Earth breath on anything... then my computer will... will fire swords through your SKULL!"
"We'll be sure to watch out for that!" Dib said cheerfully. "Lead the way to the portal, Gaz."
"It's this way, on the door of Zim's house."
Dib followed Gaz as she shone her flashlight and led the way back to Zim's destroyed house, where the portal was. Dib's excitement grew as they walked. "Can you believe it, Gaz? We finally have a way to defeat Zim once and for all! All we have to do is go back through the portal and close it before he can get through. He'll be trapped in here!" Dib clapped his hands in glee. "Although... if he was trapped in here he'd never be dissected and studied. And everyone will still think I'm crazy. But I guess getting him out of the way and saving the Earth is worth it. Right, Gaz? It's all about the greater good. Right? Come on, Gaz, we have to hurry if we're gonna beat Zim to the portal! Can't you walk any faster?" Gaz ignored him and kept walking at the same pace, wondering if trying to find her brother had really been the best course of action. Dib ran ahead of her, then paused. "Hey, Gaz..." he said, turning to look at her. "Um... I've been thinking. How did I get here?"
"You don't remember anything?" Gaz said skeptically. Dib shook his head.
"No... no. I remember trying to finish my research paper. And then... I think I went out to the garage for some reason. And then I was in this weird city, trying to figure out where I was and how to get home."
"But you don't remember how you got here?"
"I told you. I went to the garage, then I was here. I didn't even wake up or anything. I was just... here. I didn't even wonder how I got here, until now. And I've been feeling kind of weird since I've been here. Gaz! What's wrong with me?"
"You mean, other than the obvious? I don't know, Dib. But you were gone all day and I found this on your laptop." Gaz handed Dib the strange note, which was still in her pocket.
"'Something extremely important and world-threatening came up,'" he read. "'Took the ship to investigate. I'll be gone awhile. Order out again for supper.' Who wrote this?"
"I don't know. It's not your handwriting."
"I know that! I didn't write this. 'Took the ship to investigate...' Hm. Was Tak's ship still in the garage?"
"I didn't check."
"GAZ! You found this note and didn't even check if the ship was still there? This is important stuff! We have to get home right away!" He started to run again but Gaz grabbed his coat sleeve.
"Hold on! It's your turn for chores!" she said. "Do the dishes first. Then you can check the garage and do all your stupid world-saving stuff."
"But Gaz, this is-" Dib stopped himself. "Oh. That's why you came to get me. I should've known." He sighed. "All right. We should hurry." Despite his words he trudged after Gaz, who was moving faster than he was.
Suddenly someone stepped in front of them. He had familiar orange hair, but instead of bright clothes he was wearing dull black apparel that caused him to almost disappear in the darkness.
"Oh. Hi, Keef!" Dib said in surprise.
Gaz tried to wave the newcomer aside. "Come on, we're in a hurry!" she said.
Keef crossed his arms and smirked. "Look who it is. The four-eyed megalomaniac. And he brought his cream puff sister!" He winked at Gaz. "Lovin' the wardrobe change, doll face."
Gaz clenched her fists. "Wait here while I snap his neck," she said to Dib. She started to move forward but Dib held her back.
"Keef?" he said, trying to ignore Gaz's dark mutterings. "Are... are you feeling okay? You don't sound like yourself. At all. And... did you just call me a megalomaniac?"
Keef glared at Dib, then smiled at Gaz. "I'll see you later," he said to her with another wink, then left.
"If he ever does that again he'd better have a death wish," she muttered. Dib was staring off after Keef.
"It makes no sense," he said to himself. "What would make Keef act like that? If this is some kind of alternate universe... that must be Keef's alternate personality. His alternate self... and that means we must have alternate selves here. And what if we came into contact with them? GAZ! We have to get out of here!" He looked around until he spotted Zim's house. Without a word he took Gaz's arm and raced toward it, forcing Gaz to run behind him.
"If you don't let go of my arm now, Dib-" she warned. Dib quickly let her go and continued to run. He skidded to a stop when he reached Zim's door, on which the portal still glowed. Suddenly his nerves failed him.
"You, uh... you wanna go first?" he said when Gaz came up. Gaz frowned and marched right into the portal, vanishing with a flash.
"It's okay!" she called from Zim's base. Her voice was barely audible through the portal. "Come on, Dib!"
Dib summoned his courage and ran toward the portal.
It felt like he slammed into a wall. He stumbled backwards and stared at the portal, which still loomed in front of him, and reached a hand into it. His fingers met with an invisible barrier. He slammed it with his fist and kicked it, but nothing happened. "Gaz!" he cried. "I can't get through!"
Gaz emerged from the portal beside him. "What do you mean?" she demanded.
"Look!" Dib pounded on the barrier, which neither of them could see. "Ugh, Zim's behind this! I just know it! That's why he let us go so easily. Because he knew I was trapped here!"
"I can still get out," Gaz pointed out.
"It must be programmed to keep only me in," Dib said bitterly. "We have to go find Zim again and get him to fix this. Come on, Gaz."
"What makes you think I'm coming?" Gaz said.
"We're a team! We have to stick together, Gaz! I might need your help! And besides... if I can't get through the portal, you'll have to clean up the kitchen by yourself."
Gaz said nothing.
Dib took this as agreement. "Now come on, Gaz. Let's go find Zim."