Author's Note

Content warning: drunk Irkens/humans ahead.

Chapter 26: Of Drinking Games and Dead Air

If there was a God, he was having a hell of a laugh at Dib's expense.

That's all he could think as he sat in the cell, as far away as he could from Zim, pressed up against the wall with his chin in both hands.

Countless instances of being shepherded through different prisons and shoved into a diverse selection of cells had wearied Dib to the point of exasperation. It was strong enough that it very nearly overshadowed the sensation of failure.

Everything always fell apart at the oddest of times, too. When things were going just a little too smoothly. When the dreaded voice in the back of Dib's head cropped up to ask: Was this it? Was it this easy?

No. It was never that easy.

Getting Zim medical care wasn't that easy. Getting back to Earth wasn't that easy. And now, as he was learning, getting to Irk's Head Control Brain wasn't that easy.

This time, though, the universe decided to kick things up a notch. After all, what could be funnier than seeing Dib shoved in yet another jail cell? Ah! Seeing Dib shoved in yet another jail cell with the one individual he wanted to see the least.

Said individual was currently sitting petulantly on the other end of the cell, knees pulled up to his chest as he glared out through the bars. Aside from the occasional cough, he didn't make a sound.

For a city designed by a technologically advanced alien race, Dib was somewhat taken aback by the almost dungeon-like nature of their confinement.

He had been swiftly removed from the warehouse that had received the shipment from Vort, seeing only a glimpse of his surroundings. Irk's capital city was enormous, industrial, and completely bathed with an almost-nauseating shade of pink that was cast from its sun.

From there, he was quickly ushered into the wing of another building through a set of double doors. Through there, the guards beelined towards yet another, larger set of doors that opened into a long corridor.

The space was constructed almost entirely of concrete. The hall went on for a few hundred feet before turning a corner. At the end was a plain, simple jail cell and a closed door adjacent to it. Gone were the lasers and forcefields, replaced instead by thick, narrowly spaced bars.

There were some similarities to the other cells he'd been in, though. Just like the others, this one was dimly lit and almost frigidly cold.

Dib rubbed his upper arms with his hands, trying to quell the goosebumps that had appeared.

"Are you just going to spend this whole time sulking?" he said flatly, sneaking a side-eyed glance over at the Irken.

Zim responded by readjusting his position so that his back was turned to him.

Dib had noticed that he was wearing some gaudy military uniform, complete with a mark on his forehead and some sort of device that spanned from the lower ports of his PAK and met at his chest.

"What are you even doing here? What did you think was going to happen?" he went on, his voice husky.

"That's rich coming from you, Dib-filth. I could ask you the same things."

Dib narrowed his eyes. "Well, I couldn't just do nothing. I had to try to save Earth. I thought I could reason with the—"

A loud creaking began at the end of the corridor and echoed down to where the two sat. What followed were the sounds of clacking boots on the concrete flooring and ended with two tall Irken guards standing in front of their cell.

The first had a staff in one hand and Dib's backpack in the other.

They didn't address Zim nor Dib. Instead, the extent of the attention given to them was a vague gesture towards the cell. They seemed somewhat anxious, their already enormous eyes wide and antennae on end. They spoke roughly in their native tongue, eventually retreating into the other room opposite the cell. There, they continued their conversation.

After a few moments of this, Dib began to notice Zim's facial expressions changing slightly as he listened in. His eyes narrowed a bit, and his one useful feeler perked up, raising bit by bit as it strained to hear.

"What are they saying?" Dib whispered.

Zim shot him a nasty look but didn't answer.

Dib thought he could pick up on some words. He heard Vort easily enough and something that sounded suspiciously like Meekrob.

Meekrob…

Why would they be talking about Meekrob?

Despite knowing how little help he'd be, Dib still continually glanced at Zim for any further changes in his expression.

Finally, the two guards walked out of the room, and without so much as a glance at their prisoners, stalked back out through the monstrous set of doors.

"What was that all about?" Dib asked, staring as best he could down the hall until it cut off around the corner.

Zim scoffed at him. "Plans to ship you back to the exact same Vortian prison I just snuck you out of, Earth creature. You have no idea what you have gotten yourself into!"

Dib clenched his jaw, entire body going tense. "Yeah? So? What about you? Your little plan didn't exactly work out, either."

"LIES!" Zim barked back, standing up. "The guards have no idea what they're doing! They can't fathom the relationship between me and the Tallest! The Tallest probably kept it secret from them! Yeah! Their brilliance is so… brilliant, even I can't understand it sometimes!"

"Listen to yourself!" Dib turned to face him head-on.

Zim's eyes shone in the dim lighting of their cell as he followed suit. "No! You listen to yourself! You don't even understand the predicament you're in! You can't just waltz into the capital city! It's a miracle they didn't kill you on sight! Stupid, stupid hyooman!"

Once again, they were eye to eye. Just like on Vort, Dib's mind was steadily beginning to brim with anger. The more he argued, the worse it got. He tried to come up with a retort but struggled to gather any words.

Finally, he dropped his shoulders. A heavy sigh followed, and he took a step back from Zim. "We're not getting anywhere with this," he said. "Look, I'm not gonna change your mind, and you're not gonna change mine. We both want to get out of here, so instead of fighting, we should be trying to think of a way to escape."

"Are you suggesting we work together?"

"Do you have any better ideas?!" Dib demanded, the ire from before creeping into his voice.

Zim opened his mouth, then closed it again. He crossed his arms. "Fine."

They both fell silent, mutual disgust plastered across their faces.

Eventually, Dib turned and looked at Zim expectantly.

He stared back at him, raising one brow. "What?"

"Well… aren't you going to use some of the lasers and stuff in your PAK? You know, to blast us out of here?"

Zim twisted his face further into frustration. "These bars are impervious to plasma, lasers, and almost any other weaponry you can think of. Not many cells are meant to keep in Irkens, but these ones are."

To demonstrate his point, a single PAK leg appeared over his shoulder and shot a blue gleam out at one of the bars. Nothing happened.

Dib looked closer at the bars. Indeed, they looked unlike any metal he'd ever seen on Earth. His inspection also revealed some faint scorch marks from what must have been past attempts at escape from other Irken prisoners. He deflated. "Well, then what are we supposed to do?"

Zim thought for a minute. "The guards from before. One told the other that you will be retrieved tomorrow morning to be sent back to Vort. When they open the cell door, we'll ambush them and make our escape."

Dib's face contorted doubtfully. "That's your plan? You really think that's the best time to try to escape?"

"Do you have any better ideas?!" Zim shouted, derisively parroting Dib's words from before.

He paused for a moment, then sighed. "No…"

Zim went on. "Based on what I heard, they should be arriving in approximately twelve hours. That gives us until then to figure out how to get past them."

They both fell silent again, thinking. Dib was thoroughly unconvinced that their plan would actually work, but he didn't know what else to do. He figured if they were actually going to ambush a burly set of Irken guards, then at the very least, they needed something to arm themselves with.

Zim had nothing to worry about. He was constantly armed with a plethora of weird, alien weaponry in his PAK. Dib, on the other hand, had nothing but the shirt on his back. He didn't even have his backpack—

Dib's brows popped up, followed by his chin as he looked out through the cell bars and immediately eyed his backpack, hung up on a hook in the doorway of the office the guards had emerged from. They hadn't even bothered to close the door.

"They just left it…" he said in disbelief. Why would they leave it there? Why wouldn't they close the door? Was it some sort of trap?

"What are you going on about?" Zim said, cutting into his train of thought.

"My backpack! It's right there, in the office!"

"And?"

"Well, there might be something in there I can use to defend myself! If you could use your PAK legs to get it, I can—" As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Dib stopped, realizing the chances of Zim actually providing this favor were slim to none.

As if to prove this point, Zim offered him a deadpan stare.

Dib was sure it was his way of shooting down the suggestion. Then, to his shock, a thin metal limb very slowly inched its way from Zim's top port.

It passed through the cell bars easily, then curved at its joint when it approached the doorway. For a moment, Dib was worried it would accidentally close the door, but Zim managed to navigate it through at the last moment, as gracefully as a seasoned sewer threading a needle.

Finally, poised in front of the backpack, it slowly lifted it off the hook.

The heavy bag slammed to the ground, making Dib jump. The noise echoed throughout the room.

Instantly, the mechanical leg whipped back into Zim's PAK. They were sure a guard would burst in. Several seconds passed in silence.

Finally, Zim summoned the limb again, hooking it on one of the arm straps. He pulled it closer to the cell, stopping when it was just on the other side of the bars and could go no further.

Dib stuck his wrists out of the cell and unzipped the bag. The first thing that greeted him was a sack of very stale donuts from Skoodge. He took them out and set them on the ground next to him.

He returned to the backpack, removing everything out that would fit between the bars. His water bottle. The laptop, with the flash drive still stuck in the USB port. Several wrinkled pieces of clothing. He was getting to the end of it, feeling more and more frustrated by the apparent uselessness of the items within.

He reached the bottom, suddenly withdrawing his hand a little when his fingers brushed against something unfamiliar. He peered into the depths of his bag, then slowly pulled out the bottle of vodka he had stowed away long before. Realization dawned on him, and he sat back, dumbstruck. Then, he shot a mischievous glance towards Zim.

"Hey, Zim? You ever had human alcohol before?"

"Heh?" Zim said around a mouthful of donut. He squinted at the human suspiciously, then at the thing in his hands. "How is that supposed to help us?"

"It's not," Dib said, not elaborating. He had all but forgotten what he'd originally been looking for, entranced by this discovery. He twisted the cap until the seal broke and paused to take a very brief moment of deliberation.

In any other circumstance, guilt or logic or any other name for his moral compass would have demanded he put the bottle back and focus on the task at hand. This was not the time to be experimenting with booze he'd stolen from his home pantry. Right now, though, the facets of his conscience felt far too overworked, bordering on burnt-out apathy. They simply echoed back a resounding why not?

He attempted to casually take a swig of it, hiding behind the façade of a veteran drinker. He involuntarily shuddered a bit as the liquid burned down his throat and settled coldly in the pit of his stomach.

Zim noted this with aloof arrogance and scowled.

Dib ignored him and took another, slightly more natural-looking sip.

It was rather ironic that alcohol thievery gave him as much of a thrill as it did. After flying in a starship, walking among enemy alien races, and being stuck in prison, he still managed to feel the rush of good old-fashioned, dumb teenage rebellion. It was guilt-tinged and wrapped in senseless excitement. After all, he had stolen from his father's liquor cabinet.

In that moment, though nearly every other immature teenager had long before experienced the same feeling of omnipotence in the face of deviance, Dib reveled in it. A tiny voice deep down—perhaps the very last of his critical thinking that hadn't been bludgeoned by exhaustion—told him that it was artificial and entirely temporary. Be that as it may, though, he didn't care.

Without even thinking, he offered the bottle to his nemesis.

Zim scoffed and smacked his hand away. "Do I look like I want to poison my insides? Pah!"

Dib shrugged and took another sip, undampened by Zim's sardonicism.

However, the human's unusual apathy towards his response only served to irritate and confuse the Irken. Zim snarled and turned his back to him.

Maybe twenty minutes passed in silence, and Dib took the occasional swig from the bottle while continuing to rifle through the contents of his backpack. Gradually, he could feel his tensed muscles beginning to slacken. He glanced at Zim from across the cell and was hit with a strange sort of vertigo.

The Irken, who had obviously been sneaking glances at Dib, quickly averted his eyes.

Dib squinted at his annoyed face. "Are you sure you don't want any, Zim?"

He turned around and eyed him nastily. "Of course I am!"

Dib merely shrugged in response. "Suit yourself…" Then he paused for a second. "No shame in being afraid."

Zim froze in dismay. Then, he got up off the ground and stomped over to Dib.

The boy had begun to slouch a bit where he was sitting. Juxtaposed by Zim's ramrod straight posture, it actually made the Irken appear taller for once. "What did you say?"

Dib smiled slyly and took another drink. Before the bottle could make its way to his lips, though, a gloved claw snatched it away from him. Dib looked mildly surprised, and then grinned up at Zim.

The Irken caught sight of his expression and stared apprehensively at the bottle of clear liquid. Very slowly, he tilted the bottle forward slightly and tasted some of it with the tip of his wormlike tongue. Immediately, he gagged and glared at Dib's unchanging expression. "How can you drink this swill?"

He shrugged and held out his hand to reclaim his bottle. After a moment of hesitation, Zim turned away from him and held it over his head.

"Give it back, Zim," Dib said, getting to his feet. He suddenly felt remarkably dizzy, as if he'd just been blindfolded and spun several dozen times.

Zim easily sidestepped him and gingerly tipped the bottle back. Before the boy could grapple for the bottle again, Zim took a big gulp. Like Dib, he shuddered noticeably.

Both were unaccustomed to the taste and feeling associated with alcohol, but for different reasons. Dib was an adolescent boy who had never tried it before now. Zim… well, Zim was an alien who had never had any prior inclination to research such substances on Earth.

Watching the amused expression return to Dib's face, Zim defiantly held the bottle with both hands and took another slug of its contents, ignoring the sensation as it burned down his throat.

Dib casually snatched it from him afterwards.

They spend the next hour passing the bottle back and forth, snide smirks melding into wider and goofier smiles as the minutes lengthened.

-x-

After an untold amount of time later, the ambience in the cell became notably calmer as the burning liquid sloshed in their bellies and fogged their minds. The hostility between them faded away, replaced instead with what had to be the most natural conversation either of them had ever had with one another.

"Remember when you made that really slow explosion? And launched me into it?" Dib asked. He was lying on his back with his hands tucked beneath his head.

"Mmmhhmm," Zim hummed. He, too, was lying down and staring up at the ceiling from a few feet away.

"That was really dumb," Dib said dopily, chuckling a bit.

"Nope, it was ingenious," came the breezy rebuttal, as if he were correcting Dib's grammar. He covered a light cough with the inner part of his arm, then thought for a moment. "Remember when I sold more Poop candy than you?"

"I mostly just remember you sulking over the 'mystery prize'."

Zim shifted a bit, suddenly interested. "Mystery prize? What was it?"

"Y'really don't remember?" Dib slurred. "It was a can of tuna."

Even at the edge of his periphery, he could see Zim's expression deflate a bit.

"Y'know, I've been wondering…" Dib went on. "How'd you even find me in that prison on Vort? Like, how did you know I'd be there?"

Zim took another drink from the bottle and clunked it down on the hard concrete. "I'd installed a tracking chip 'n your head three years ago."

At Dib's stunned silence, Zim began to giggle. It was very quiet at first, mostly evident by the subtle shake of his shoulders, but then it steadily rose until he was practically falling over himself.

After a solid minute of looking thoroughly disturbed, Dib reluctantly started to laugh as well.

"And you remembered that, but you couldn't remember whining about a can of tuna for three days?" Dib said, laughing a bit harder.

Instead of getting defensive, Zim simply doubled back in laughter.

Dib joined him, and the two went on deliriously.

Zim's laughter now was starkly different from the typical, maniacal cackling Dib had heard over and over again throughout their time knowing each other. This was a continual burst of squeaky, mirthful giggles. Somehow, it felt more natural to Dib.

It was as if Zim had been putting on a façade for years, and it was all tumbling down now. Even so, he couldn't deny that a major source of his entertainment was directed towards Zim's intoxicated state. It was odd seeing this goofy side of him.

Suddenly, a loud hiccup interrupted Zim's laughter and silenced him. Dib shot him a sideways glance and offered a lopsided grin.

Zim took another sip from the bottle and passed it to Dib without making eye contact. It had gotten far easier to drink as time went on and their senses became fuzzier. Even so, Dib held up his palm in an "I'm good" gesture.

The night wore on, but if the cell was truly as cold it had felt before, neither Zim nor Dib felt it. The two were now sitting propped against the wall with the nearly empty bottle acting as a buffer between them.

Zim had fallen uncharacteristically quiet, aside from the occasional cough. He was drunker than his human counterpart, and it showed. Not only was Dib visibly bigger and taller than him, but he had stopped drinking quite a while before. Zim, meanwhile, had continued to take swigs from the bottle routinely, even as his vision became blurrier. His usually stiff posture was now completely absent, and both antennae hung lazily down his back.

Both were lost in their own thoughts.

Dib's mind felt cool and relaxed, as if a hiatus had been put on nearly everything he'd been worrying about. It had been a very long time since he had felt even marginally at peace with himself. He closed his eyes, tapping the ends of his fingers noiselessly against the floor of their cell. Then, he sighed.

"Whassa matter with you, Dib-worm?" Zim slurred, misinterpreting the gesture. He shifted his weight so that he was facing him.

"Nothing. As a matter of fact, this is the first time nothing has been 'the matter' in a very long time. Y'know…" Dib tried to process his own sentence, wondering if that combination of words even made sense.

Zim nodded somberly, though, as if Dib had just imparted some incredible wisdom onto him.

The Irken turned his head away from Dib, so that that all the boy could see of him were his droopy feelers brushing against his PAK. A couple minutes passed, and he vaguely wondered if Zim had fallen asleep.

Then, he squirmed slightly, and the uninjured antenna rose just a bit. "Y'know… I never properly expressed my gratitude. For… saving my life, I mean…" He seemed to have trouble forming the thought; the strange idiosyncrasies in his speech collided with his drunkenness.

Dib perked up, staring inquisitively at Zim's back. But the Irken had gone silent again. Then:

"Invaders dun' hold such… sentiments." Something caught in his throat at the end of the sentence and he dipped his head down. His voice had brusquely shifted to a peculiar, almost bitter tone. He was quiet for a moment, pondering his last words thoughtfully. Then, in a very soft voice, "Thank you, human."

Dib stared at him, dumbfounded. His lips pulled down at the corners.

He thought about what Skoodge had told him. "He has a right to know."

Without thinking, he emulated the very same glance Skoodge had given his laptop after speaking those words. He knew showing Zim the recording would destroy him from the inside out.

Once more, though, Skoodge's voice echoed in his mind, contesting the thought. "He'll have to accept it eventually. He's more resilient than you think he is."

Dib drew in a breath and bit down on his tongue. Then, before he could lose his nerve, the words spluttered out.

"Zim… there's something I really need to show you."

The Irken lifted his head ever so slightly. He turned around.

"I mean, I should have shown it to you a long time ago…" Dib went quiet as he lifted the laptop off the ground and opened it.

Straightaway, he struggled to accurately type in his password. Most of it could be attributed to anxiety rather than tipsiness, though, as his hands trembled noticeably over the keyboard.

When he finally managed to type it out correctly, he was instantly greeted with the recording, set up and ready to play. Just as it had been when he'd last opened the laptop.

Numbly, he realized that Zim had found his way over and was sitting against the wall beside him. His busted antenna was almost touching Dib's arm.

Before he could allow his rational mind to make a brief appearance from beyond what liquid courage had been bestowed onto him, Dib pressed play.

His knee-jerk reaction was to look down at the ground, away from Zim and away from his computer. The grunt-like noises of the Irken language rose from the speakers.

A couple minutes in, he spared an accidental glance up at the screen and realized it still had the subtitles up. Of course, they weren't really necessary for Zim, but he didn't dare budge.

The video rolled on, and Dib couldn't bear to look at the Irken beside him.

He heard the smattering of voices, some deeper and some higher. Some louder and some a bit more distant. He didn't know the language, but he'd heard the recording so often, he felt as though he might as well. Every lilt and pause had been branded into his memory.

At last, the speaking tapered off, and white noise took over in its absence.

Dib ventured a glance over at Zim for the first time, immediately trying to gauge his reaction.

The Irken's face was perfectly still, both fuchsia eyes somewhat glazed. His lips, however, were pursed tightly.

"Zim?"

"Lies," came the nearly inaudible response. He hiccupped softly.

"Zim, I know this is hard for you to a—"

"LIES!" Zim erupted. Placing his hands on the ground in front of him, he unsteadily made his way to his feet. "Thuh Tallest wouldn' ever say that! This… this is wunna your schemes! Yeaah! You're tryna sabotage me, or somethin'!"

He pointed accusingly at Dib, wobbling a bit from the effort.

"What are you talking about?" Dib demanded. Though his voice slurred a bit as well, it was nothing compared to Zim's. "You're saying I faked it? W-how the fuck would I have been able to do that?!"

Zim stammered for a bit. "I-It's easy tuh fake these things! Dun act like y'haven't done it before!"

"Zim," Dib said, beginning to get angry. "Your Tallest don't care about you. What you want to do now is a suicide mission. I can't just let you kill yourself over them. Listen to reason!"

"NO! YOU LISTEN TUH REASUN!" Zim yelled. He took a jerky step forward, like a newborn deer trying to walk for the first time. "You jus—" He stopped abruptly, his face contorting.

For a moment, it looked as if he were about to break into another coughing fit. Then, a queasy look passed over his face, and Dib swore he somehow went a few shades greener.

Dib cringed, two parts exasperation and one part disgust taking form over his features as he anticipated what was about to happen.

Sure enough, Zim clamped a hand over his mouth and retreated to the far end of the cell, where the noises of him sicking up half a bottle of cheap vodka made their way to Dib's ears.

He buried his face in his hands and shook his head, waiting for Zim to be finished.

At last, he finished coughing, and Dib turned around to continue arguing with him. A dull thud beat him to it, though, and right as he faced him, he was met with Zim passed out face-down on the ground.

He stood up, crossing the distance between them, and sat down next to the Irken's motionless body. Zim was breathing softly. It almost sounded peaceful, contrasting weirdly with the bout of anger he'd just displayed.

Dib knew showing him the recording would not be a pleasant experience. Even so, his old visions of it seemed to pale in comparison with what had actually transpired.

He sat there dumbly, unsure of what to do now. Eventually, he went back to the other end of the cell, closed his laptop, and shut his eyes.

-x-

By the time Dib roused himself awake and peeked at his computer, the time indicated that several hours had passed. He lifted his head, then immediately lowered it when throbbing pain hit him full force.

Behind him, he heard a low moan. "Poison… Why did I trust you? Stinking human…"

"Whut?" Dib muttered.

"You poisoned me," Zim reiterated. Another pitiful moan followed.

Dib pulled himself up on his elbows and stared at Zim through squinted eyes. "Then why the hell would I poison myself, too? Idiot."

The Irken didn't respond. He was lying on his front, head turned towards Dib. His eyes were also squinted nearly to a close.

Dib sat pressed against the wall, covering his head with his arms. If he'd thought far enough ahead to think about the aftermath, he probably wouldn't have even suggested drinking the vodka. Hell, he probably wouldn't have even brought it with him in the first place. Both choices had been spur of the moment, though, and neither had been very smart.

They both laid on opposite ends of the jail cell, nursing their respective hangovers.

Zim continually pulled at his antennae, groaning, and screwing his eyes shut.

Dib stayed sitting up, raising his head every now and then to open his laptop and check the time. "Zim?" he asked eventually.

"Hmmmm…" Zim grumbled in response.

"Do you remember… anything from last night? I mean—"

"No."

The response was curt and far louder than anything Zim had said so far. Dib looked over his arms at him, but the Irken had gone back to grumbling incoherently and massaging his temples.

"Are you sure you don't? You don't remember—"

"No."

It was spoken in the same manner, a touch more forceful.

They didn't exchange any other words. They simply waited as the hours ticked by, eventually taking out their weapons and hiding them within easy reach when the time drew closer.

Zim had pulled a small handgun from his PAK. Dib had been left to scrounge for anything he could use to protect himself, finally settling on the last of the water in his stainless-steel bottle. It was better than nothing, and he figured he could use it to briefly incapacitate any Irkens who might try to stop him. Still… even he had to admit it was rather pathetic.

Time passed, and the pounding in Dib's head slowly faded to a more manageable ache. It seemed Zim's had as well, for he had gone completely silent save for the occasional cough.

No one came.

Dib had been tracking the hours on his laptop, growing wary when the rotation time Zim had stated came and went. Then another hour trailed along. And another thirty minutes after that.

"This… this isn't right," Dib said, walking up to the bars and looking as far down the hall as he could before it turned the corner. "I haven't even heard any guards."

He waited for Zim to say something smug or mocking, but no answer came. When he turned and looked at the Irken, he seemed distracted.

"Then we're just going to have to figure our way out ourselves," Zim said finally.

"Are you serious?"

"I'm not staying in this cell with you any longer than I have to, Stink-beast." Zim began scanning the area, finally settling his gaze on the door the guards had left ajar the night before. "We can try to find anything they might have left in there. Maybe there's a key."

Dib watched as Zim copied his motions from before, when he had retrieved the backpack. A single PAK leg carefully pulled the door further open.

"Well? Do you see anything in there?" Zim asked impatiently.

"No," came Dib's monotone answer. "I can't see anything that far away without my glasses."

Zim pushed Dib out of the way, muttering something under his breath as he did so. Dib caught the words "useless human".

At his new vantage point, Zim squinted into the dark room. On the far end, he spotted a locked file cabinet.

Dib looked on through his own nearsighted perspective as Zim ignited a laser cutter at the end of his PAK leg. The tip of it glowed blue, then plunged into the side of the metal cabinet like a hot knife through butter.

The PAK leg finally connected back to where it started, forming a lopsided circle. A disarmingly loud clang reverberated throughout the room and surrounding area as the piece of metal fell to the ground.

Both Zim and Dib instinctively recoiled, then turned their attention to the doorway around the corner. Zim's single working antenna visibly strained to hear.

"I'll be lookout," Dib said, taking note of it. He moved closer to the edge of the cell to listen for incoming guards.

Zim returned his attention to the cabinet, rifling through the drawers with his PAK leg, occasionally spilling contents onto the floor to better identify them in the darkness.

Dib listened closely for guards, somehow both relieved and skeptical when he didn't hear them. What was going on? Why had they been so agitated the night before? Enough so that they left their office door open? For guards that protected the most important building in Irk's capital, it was beyond strange for them to be so inattentive.

The distinct clatter of keys on the ground reached Dib's eardrums. He immediately snapped his head towards Zim, eyes wide.

-x-

Minutes later, they stood just beyond the double doors, brandishing their weapons closely against their chests.

Dib had traded out his pithy form of self-defense for a small handgun he had found in another of the office's drawers after Zim had unlocked the cell.

Now, he looked down at it nervously, unsure of whether he could bring himself to use it. He'd never held a gun in his life, never mind fired one.

With a terse nod from Zim, though, he swallowed back his misgivings and braced himself.

At the same time, the two burst out of the double doors.

Dib's heart skipped a beat, sure he would be eye to eye with at least one guard standing outside.

Instead, the halls were utterly empty. Not a single person, guard or otherwise, was in sight.

"W…where did they all go?" Dib looked around. His suspicion from before came flooding back tenfold. "Something isn't right here."

Zim scowled. "Sure, complain about everything, even when it works in our favor. I don't have time for this!"

He was glancing around fervently as he spoke. Just as he was about to dash off, though, he paused mid-step. Turning back to Dib, he straightened up and cleared his throat. "I bid you farewell, Dib beast. I hope that when you die at the hands of the palace guards, it's a quick and painless death."

Dib's face contorted into a pained grimace and his fingers tightened around the little handgun. "Uh, thanks."

Zim had already turned his back on him without waiting for a response, though.

He followed his retreating form with his eyes as the Irken sprinted down the hallway and out of sight.

A heavy silence fell over the area, and Dib listened closely for any footsteps or signs of guards nearby. None came.

Even so, it did little to reassure him. He pressed himself against the wall, staring down each end of the hallway as he considered his next move. Zim had seemed to have his own plan worked out immediately upon breaking out of the jail cell.

Dib sighed.

It was easy to feel stress towards things he had smidgens of control over. This was different. It was the feeling of defeat that came with knowing he had officially done everything within his power, only to be met with dead air.

Not only had he gone above any moral obligation, but he had exhausted every ounce of effort he could muster for another person.

It was unfortunately an all too familiar sensation. One he'd felt countless times at skool around his peers. He'd experienced it at home, too. He could set up an entire presentation with solid evidence of the paranormal—and he had, many times—but it would only be shot down by everyone.

Why did I feel like this situation would be any different?

He wished he had time to answer that.

Dib's hand drifted to his pocket, tracing the outline of the flash drive.

The only instance in which he actually wanted time to reflect on his losses was the only instance where time would no longer be granted to him.

Not now.

Now, he had to turn that attention on to his main priority: finding the Control Brains and showing them the truth to ensure Earth's safety.

Taking another deep breath, he quietly headed down the hall.

Shortly after he left, a guard darted down the same stretch of hall, visibly frazzled. Clutched in one hand was a plasma blaster, and the visor of his helmet was lowered over his face.

A radio hummed from his belt; his superior officer on the other end. "Bring all guards to the perimeter of the building! Meekrobian forces have been detected on Irken grounds."