THE ZIMVENTURES

(I know the title you clicked on, but the real one wouldn't be allowed here, so the real name of this Zimventure is . . .)

FUCK

Chapter 1: Zim Versus the Intersect

FIFTY YEARS LATER.

The government ships and helicopters hovered over the frozen sea. It had taken them many years to find it, but now they had within their grasp one of the greatest heroes of the early Twenty-First Century.

The ice cutters went deep until they found the occupants of the plane. Almost all the subjects were mangled and therefore couldn't be revived. The ones known as Fitz and Brandon were decapitated. The pilots were unrecognizable. Glen was in several pieces. All that remained of D-Dolla' was his skull, to which a baseball hat with a Confederate flag was frozen in place forever.

But Cris Zim was in one piece. They could save him. They could rebuild him. They had the technology.

They shipped him back to the black site where the Blacklist had once conducted business. One of the assistant-directors of the FBI, one Aram Mojtabai, leaned on his cane, looking regal with his hair gone to gray, a grim look in his dark eyes. He looked at the figure frozen in ice and nodded. "That's him, all right."

He ordered them to thaw Zim out, and they did so quickly. They managed to hook him up to life support and were able to make steps toward bringing him back from the dead. It took weeks, and they made astonishing discoveries about him.

When he woke up he blinked, wondering where the hell he was. The doctors were standing by, and they broke the news to him.

"We're very sorry," one said. "Your friends all perished in the plane crash. But you managed to get some interesting superpowers from being frozen for decades. You have super strength. You're bulletproof. You can jump really high, and you're so durable you could probably fall off the Willis Tower and survive."

Zim couldn't believe his luck. He grinned like a madman. "FITZ AND BRANDON ARE DEAD! YES!"

And then he woke up for real. No time jump. No superpowers. Oh well. He wondered if he could finally get some Taco Bell. He looked around for his cell phone and saw that he was in a big hospital room.

Two of his neighbors were Fitz and Brandon. Fitz did the Fitz Whistle.

FUCK.

"Don't do that," a voice to the other side said. "You're killing my head."

Zim knew who it was, but he looked anyway. It was D-Dolla', and he still wore that fucking Confederate flag hat. How could it have survived two plane crashes? Was it like Indy's hat? If D-Dolla' lost it, would it magically reappear in his possession?

FUCK.

"Did anyone actually die in that crash?" he asked.

"Yeah, idiot," Brandon said. "You killed the pilots and Glen."

Glen? Who was Glen?

Brandon must have recognized the stupidity in Zim's head. "The guy with the short arms. Great work, Zim."

Somehow D-Dolla' was the healthiest one there, and he managed to get released before any of them. He went back to farming or Civil War reenactments or whatever the unholy fuck he did when he wasn't tormenting Zim with his mere existence. Fitz and Brandon went next as soon as they could get around on crutches. They returned to their job under Harold on another top secret project.

Zim had the worst of all their injuries, and he was stuck in the hospital bed for a month and a half. There was a computer next to his bed, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get Final Fantasy on it.

When he got out, he managed to get Harold to pay him his million dollars. Harold asked him if he wanted federal and state deductions, and Zim said no.

"Are you sure?" Harold asked. His eyebrows lifted high above his glasses.

"Yeah," Zim said.

"The taxes will be very high. I cannot stress this enough. You will have to pay the IRS when April comes around."

"I'm sure." Zim had no intention of paying any taxes. Good luck finding him. He intended to get as far away from the Atlantic as possible.

That's how he wound up in Burbank, California. He dug the weather, and he got an opulent mansion near Warner Bros. He spent most of his days either going to the beach or hanging out in LA, trying to get laid. He made sure to flash a lot of money, and that initially brought women close to him, but as usual he couldn't stop talking, and they all ignored him even if he bought them expensive drinks.

Odd thing about LA: there were a lot of explosions and gunfights in the streets, even in the fancier spots. He figured they were making movies or something, but every once in a while a helicopter would explode, or massive car crashes would happen. It looked pretty real.

One day he'd crashed a wedding and was enjoying the open bar. He tried hitting on the bride, but she wanted nothing to do with him. As usual. He went to the pisser and unloaded three hours' worth of booze into a urinal.

Someone kicked the door down and rushed in, holding a gun in front of him. Zim tried to see the cameras, but there were none. Weird. Maybe he had one of those cameras in a pair of glasses.

Except he wasn't wearing glasses.

The man pushed each stall door open and pointed the gun inside. He finally got to the last stall, but before he could push it open, a gunshot went off. A hole appeared in the door. It had winged the man with the gun, who flinched back but fired through the door on this side. Someone gasped inside, and the door opened. A tall man with a curly mop of hair and a white shirt and tie—just like those Nerd Herd guys at the Buy More!—staggered out, a bloody spot on one side of his chest. He coughed blood as he fired again and again at the intruder. The attacker took one final shot and hit the Nerd Herd guy in the stomach. Both fell to the floor. The Nerd Herd guy managed to get back to his feet. He saw Zim.

"You," he barely managed to say. "I need your help."

Zim zipped up. "Nah, this is none of my business."

"My name is Chuck Bartowski. You need to find Agent Sarah Walker or Agent John Casey. I think I'm dying."

"You look pretty bad," Zim said.

Chuck lurched forward and grabbed Zim. He put a cold disc against Zim's left temple, and it stuck in place. "You're the keeper of the Intersect now. Remember. Walker and Casey."

Chuck fell to the floor, an empty look in his eyes. By now Zim had seen enough dead people to know that Chuck was dead.

Then something clicked at his temple. An insane amount of images packed Zim's head. Documents in several different languages. Fight moves. Specs for weapons systems. It was too much.

Finally the show ended, and Zim felt faint.

"FUCK," he said.

He fell backwards onto the floor and into unconsciousness.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .