I don't own Invader Zim okay? I know it's been a little while since I updated this one, maybe not as bad as some of my other ones but still, it's been awhile. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!
Zim started the car and began to drive through the desert, jumping over rocks, bumps and various tumbleweed and mesquite tree leftovers. This car had seen a lot and he knew it could take it. "Okay is there a map or something here? Did one of those fools leave a smart phone?"
"A what?" Purple asked.
"A rectangular thing that has a touch screen and works a lot like a computer. Most all of them have this thing called 'Google Maps' on there. Look up Devil's Tower Wyoming." Zim ordered.
"Well there is that Sedona place." Purple said. "It says it's only about a 6 hour drive from here. One of the crew members mentioned needing to leave early to drive 9 hours into Wyoming." Thinking that Red didn't have much time, he wanted to make sure Zim did whatever he was planning to do as soon as possible so that Red could get the help he needed.
"Look at the route. It's to the south. And I know for a fact that Las Vegas is south of here." Zim sighed.
"And just what is that?" Purple asked irritated. "In case you have forgotten Zim, we don't know as much about this area or planet as you do."
"Well you may have gotten a glimpse of it on the way down maybe. If you recall a big town with a gold building, black pyramid, and a ton of other human structures, think for a second of what that means. More people to notice us. More chances for all three of us to end up in that hell hole I was in." Zim scowled. "But between Sedona and Devil's Tower, Dib described some phenomena called vortexes that based on what he described, I think we can use to harness and send a distress signal to any factions that may be loyal to the Irken Empire. Or just call some Greys for a lift. They don't care."
"But they are foul mouthed perverts who like rectal probing whatever species they get ahold of." Red moaned from the back.
"Hmmmmm, risk of rectal probe or being carved up on a cold dissection table?" Zim said as he took the smart phone from Purple and looked at the directions given. "Wow, this route has us passing near the Bonneville Salt Flats. That might shave some time off. Especially now that this thing has nuclear power."
"What?" Red asked.
"It's a local feature that the humans bragged about racing cars on. That's fossil fueled internal combustion engines. This may not have all the design of the cars they talked about but the power source will help us overcome that issue. Like I told you guys, I had been trapped here for 20 years and had nothing to do but observe and read old magazines. Now it's time to put that waste of my life to use with my Invader training to get off this Miyuki forsaken rock. Sometimes the shortest route is not the best, especially if we are trying to be discreet. If we stay on the interstate system then we may not be too noticed when we get to the few big cities we have to pass..." Zim mused.
Purple looked at Red, then to Zim and out the window to the desert landscape that they passed by, wondering just what was going on. Zim was never this calm and rational. He couldn't argue Zim's points, even if some of them like driving on a busy human roadway in what was bound to be noticed did scare him. Then again Zim had reported that humans could be oblivious and sometimes the best way to hide from them was to not to try to hide but just follow the crowd. They often did not notice things like that. I won't be relaxed until we are off this planet. He thought as he looked at the smart phone that was the map and saw the estimated time they would need to get there. Fifteen hours. Just too much time to try and get a distress signal out. But it's the only chance we got. Purple sighed as he looked out the window, tapping it in amusement.
Gaz looked around the scene of the crash and where Dib was bit. The escape pod was in sight. No dust storms blew in, so there would be some prints and if they were recent, that would lead her to where the Tallest and Zim were hiding. They could not take her down. She was going to get them back and make sure that Dib got the justice he deserved. If there was one skill she had developed from gaming was that she could notice subtle changes in an area that could be a clue to something bigger. In the corner of her eye when she was first at the site with Dib, she had remembered an old broken down minivan off in the distance with a few corpses in it. People often got lost and died in the desert from dehydration or drug overdose all the time. An old beat up van was not on the top of her priority list at the time. However, it might have still ran. Zim wasn't completely hopeless, he knew enough and he seemed to calm down from what Dib would rant about when he had come back from his labs and Zim had successfully probed into his motives You should not have left him with old psychology books and magazines if you didn't want Zim to know how to mind fuck you bro... Gaz mused as she looked over the desert landscape. Scanning the area, she noticed the minivan gone, but a pile of corpses left behind. "Men!" She yelled.
"Yes Mi Lady!" One of the guards saluted in terror.
"Over there was a minivan before we left. I don't expect that many of you would have seen it. Did anyone get the license plate?" The men shrugged. "I thought not. Well these corpses were left. Take them and look for ID. This will tell us who these people were and we can try to find a matching vehicle in their and their relative's registration. See if any missing persons reports were filed for these people. Gaz headed to the escape pod and noticed some recent changes. "Looks like the fuel that was in the escape pod may have been taken. I'll need a scientific team to determine what it was. We might notice traces of it." With this, Gaz pulled out her satellite phone and called Dib. She figured he would at least appreciate an update.
Back in the base's medical bay, Dib lay back as the anti venom, antibiotic and painkiller cocktail flew through his veins. He had calmed down a little since his father started work on examining his DNA to see if there was a better therapy that could be done and Gaz was out in the field, on the hunt for Zim and what could be assumed the Tallest. "Dad was right," He told himself as he focused on the television on the other side of the room, trying to turn his thoughts from the frustration he felt. He ignored the news as his interviews had been broadcast so many times he couldn't stand it anymore. He settled on a channel that played nothing but old cowboy movies, wanting to have a break from space for a while, having been there recently himself and lay back and maybe sleep. As he started to get comfortable, a ringing was heard from his pocket. "What the?" He asked as he pulled out his phone.
"What a way to address someone calling you." Gaz said. "I have a field report."
"You caught them?" Dib smiled.
"Not yet. But there may be ways we can do it fairly easily. There was a minivan filled with dried out corpses that most of us didn't pay much attention to. I was one of the few that knew that thing was there. But we took the corpses for study."
"Okay. Why would we need to study them if they were dead before the Massive attack?" Dib asked confused as Gaz sighed.
"Because I suspect that Zim somehow took the fuel from the Escape Pod and took that minivan and are headed somewhere to get a message out. Obviously they can't escape the atmosphere in a 25 year old run down piece of shit minivan anyway. No thrusters or anything that could enable that was taken from the pod, just the fuel."
"How did you know where the fuel was?" Dib asked.
"I learned Irken from all the times I had to save you from Zim's base as a kid and from all your studying of him." Gaz said. "But what we will do the corpses is some classic CSI digging. Look at the IDs, see what was registered to them, and their family members as well. See if any missing persons reports in the area were filed mentioning a car that matches. You know, basic detective work. Now I do need from you, where in the hell would they go to get their signal out, so we can keep an eye on the area."
Dib smiled at the fact his sister was asking him for his help and expertise. His family respecting his intelligence and knowledge was something he had waited forever for. "Well there are a few places I can think of west of the Rockies that would have a few spots. There's the whole vortex thing in Sedona. People get "good vibes" off it but it could be an interdimensional portal or just some sort of wormhole that people are picking the vibes off of. And there's been a lot of alien sightings in that area."
"Okay." Gaz said. "So I'll send a few agents to Sedona."
"But that's not the only one and I am only guessing with the Sedona vibes thing on that is what it is. I was thinking of studying that while I was in the area but I also don't know how well some of those new age hippies there will take to it. We're dealing with spirituality there to them, not astrobiological extraterrestrial life or cryptozoological life forms." Dib said.
"A Saucer Moron would say you committed a nasty foul by destroying the Massive and affected their spirituality." Gaz sighed. "If you need to study something and want to do Sedona and crack that fine. I say the new age hippies might be mad you kill their business. I was there once while driving around Arizona. 7 bucks for a sausage biscuit at their McMeaties. Everything in that town is so overpriced because of how profitable that 'mysterious vortex' is. Who knows, scientifically explaining it you can make that town as affordable as every other place in Arizona besides Phoenix or upscale sides of Tucson."
"Since when did you know a lot about Arizona real estate?"
"Since I was looking for a state to start my game production company and Arizona's tax rates on businesses are cheap." Gaz said.
"Well there's tons of businesses in Vegas for that same reason." Dib said, trying to convince Gaz to not move too far way.
She sighed. " No offense Dib but I didn't spend four years of college learning programming and design to be your sidekick. Yes this pay is good at this job and I am good at it, but I have like 50 more years to live and I would like to do something of my own. I am not being attached to you or Dad's name. My Membrane family legacy will be my own. Got it?" She said.
"Got it." Dib said. "Well, there's Roswell but honestly that is just because of the crash there... Gravity Falls Oregon would be too wooded to get a good signal out..."
"If we're going on that route, why not Devil's Tower?" Gaz said sarcastically.
"Why not! Sure it was the site of the visit in that Close Encounters movie..." Dib began as Gaz growled.
"You spent the whole first grade year watching that movie. I still have nightmares about those tones." Gaz growled. "But if you want to try it, fuck it. Why not. I'll get ahold of the highway patrol and state police of all the neighboring states and such an tell them what to look out for. A nuclear powered minivan should be pretty easy to spot. Well sleep you bastard."
"Love you too Gaz." Dib sighed as he hung up and laid back.
"So, you have a few locations those Irken scum may be heading to. You know with the Resisty's help, we can scan thousands of miles in a heartbeat." a Vortian said from the foot of his bed.
"AHHHHHH! Lord Nar!" Dib yelled. "Just what are you doing here?"
"Seeing if you thought about our offer yet." He smiled as he flipped through the channels on the TV. "Nothing good on..."
So how was that? Good? Bad? Short? Long? Let me know in a review. Yes, I used real places in the west with paranormal connections. Yes it is nearly 7 bucks for a sausage biscuit meal at Mcdonald's in Sedona. Arizona isn't that expensive as long as you aren't in posh areas of Phoenix or Tucson and they have great business tax rates, like Nevada does. So that's some fun IRL facts in this story too. Other than that, remember to read (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,
otherrealmwriter
aka
Realm.