AN: I own only the plot here, Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon own all recognizable characters, places, etcetera. I am merely a lowly table-head service drone who's saved up enough monies to buy herself a small clunky computer on which to type.
Chapter Two: Safety and Sanity
He enjoyed the walk up the backstairs to work. His cubicle may have been on the tenth floor, and ten flights were quite a ways, but the simple task of climbing them allowed him to focus on something other than how his life had gotten so hideously screwed up. Left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, on and on it went...
He arrived too soon on his floor, and he sighed as he made his way towards his cubicle prison. Entering it, he groaned at the pile of work to be done that awaited him anxiously on top of his desk.
"Zim, I'd like to see you for a moment." Looking over his shoulder he spotted Gaz, and knew he probably should have just slogged through the rest of the day instead of cutting it early. "Come to my office."
His squeedely spooch twisted as he made his way into the seclusion of her office. It was decorated in ebony-stained wood desks and dark red curtains adorned the walls. It reminded him of one of the stupid Earth stories he'd had to read in Hi Skool.
He took the uncomfortable seat she motioned to as she sat down behind her desk. It was a power play, he recognized it immediately. She was distancing herself from him, as well as setting herself higher than him in her leather chair to assume authority over him.
Something within he felt vaguely angry at that. He quelled it immediately, as it was an unworthy thought in both Irken and the Human culture he'd been forced to adopt.
"So, how's your life been?" Gaz asked with a forced casualness. It was obvious to him that she was uncomfortable talking intimately with anyone. It was just as bizzare to him, because it was so out of character for her.
He didn't like it when things didn't run according to plan... when things weren't as they appeared to be.
"It's been okay, I was sick yesterday..." Zim said slowly, his eyes watching her every move, trying to calculate what was going on behind those cold amber eyes.
"Yeah, that's what Dib said." she said idly, stirring her coffee with a glass rod with a frowny face attached to it. After a moment she looked at him with amusement, and fury started to burn underneath his flesh. "You're not going to rail me out for giving out your private information?"
"I like my job." His eyes narrowed to become half-lidded, an Irken symbol of intense concentration and/or anger.
"You like being the asshole, is what you like. You like having *power* over the other idiots here." There was smug satisfaction in her voice now, and he felt the burn rise to inferno levels. She sipped her coffee placidly. "My advisors think I should have fired you. You don't have the 'team spirit' according to them. Fortunately for you I don't have the 'spirit' either."
The anger levels were so high now that his body throbbed with the mighty need to release his fury upon the foolish human. An eye started to twitch involutarily.
"Yes, very." He gritted out.
"If you're done bothering me," She said with a wave of her hand, "Then you can get back to work now." She turned towards her view of the other skyscrapers outside her window and Zim found he could stomach no more of this.
"How dare you, you disgusting human! I am Invader Zim, member of the Irken Army, one of the thirty elite Invaders!" He shouted, while the voice in the back of his head chanted 'Liar'. "I am older than you in both Irken and Human years! My brain meats are vastly superior than your own! HOW DARE YOU TREAT ME LIKE I AM NOTHING!" He found himself in the end screaming, while the voice told him exactly how she could get away with it: 'You're NOTHING, Zim...'.
Gaz turned to him, with a much more familiar smirk on her face.
"Did it feel better to vent?"
"Engh?" He blinked at her, totally confused by her sudden change in attitude.
"You looked like you needed to vent. You had that 'attitude' that all my old shrinks used to talk about."
He blinked again, humilation settling in his squeedely spooch as he found that he had been so easily read and goaded.
"Yes," He muttered, not meaning it entirely. He did feel better, if only in the very slightest.
"Good. Now go back and start on Vampire Piggy."
This time her dismissal was real, and he headed back to his cubicle.
He sat down and stared at the files. Opening them he wasn't surprised to find that Gaz had written them herself. She'd always been obsessed by videogames that it was almost obvious what she'd choose to be her profession.
He sighed, and began to type in code. The numbers and information came naturally to him. All Irkens had been given advanced programming and mechanical skills. When a society like Irk sent so many people out to the edges of space, they couldn't come to fix every single problem. Converting his knowledge into creating games had been pathetically easy, if a little degrading and insulting.
Time flew so quickly alone in this cubicle. He'd been forced to set up an alarm to remind him when he could leave the building. Thankfully his team had been well trained not to bother him unless it was dreadfully important. Nothing was, fortunately, important today, and so as the alarm rung, he calmly shut down the computer and headed back home.
He hated the ride home on the pipe system. Crowded with sweaty humans, the filth nearly sufforcated him. He'd have to scrub himself extra vigorously tonight, he thought, as someone drooled on him.
************************
Dib was concerned. It was not unusual for him to be concerned. He'd always been concerned about the Earth's welfare if it hadn't been for his vigilance over the skies searching for alien life.
It was abnormal, however, for him to be concerned over the alien he was supposed to be fighting against.
Zim had seemed --- odd, when he'd come to visit last night. His skin had become blotchy, patches of paler green sprinkled over his face. It looked like patches of dead skin. He wondered if Zim had looked in a mirror recently --- but seeing as the Invader still used a toilet to access his lab, and had never really had to actually *use* a bathroom, he doubted it.
It was unusual too that Zim had not awakened as he entered. The fact that the Irken was sleeping was also troubling. He'd never seemed to need it. He'd seen Zim go through days working on one nefarious plot or another through his hidden camera in his labratory, and not once had the Irken stopped for more than five minutes.
The computer system must have been malfunctioning, why else would Zim bother to toss him out physically? It seemed improbable. Zim had always had top of the line equipment when he'd known him. The house had not changed at all from the last time he'd been inside, nearly ten years ago. At the rate that human technology ALONE moved the house would have been terribly outdated. He couldn't imagine how bad it would be for a space faring society as advanced as Zim's was.
Could he have been abandoned here, he wondered. Or perhaps his race had been wiped out, leaving him alone....
These questions got him nowhere, Dib decided, and he'd just have to get them answered through another visit to Zim's base.
********************
"Master, you don't look so well." G.I.R. said quietly.
Zim blinked and froze bent over the motherboard he was trying to repair. G.I.R. never spoke quietly unless it was important anymore.
He had not looked into a mirror for a long time --- not after smashing the last one a few months back. He avoided human waste extraction areas like the plague now.
He looked into his reflection made in G.I.R.'s chrome finish, and blinked. The patches were all over his face now...
He peeled off a glove and found the strange sections there to. He poked at one and was not surprised to find that it flaked away. He'd only molted before when the other planets surrounding Earth aligned correctly... he wasn't due for another in at least another eight and a half Earth months.
These irritations worried him, because now recognized how tired he'd been recently. So wrapped up in his depression and work he'd not paid it much attention. How could he have been so foolish?
There were few diseases that could effect Irkens, and after extensive research he'd found that there really weren't any Human viruses that could do so either... When the sores had first appeared three months ago, he'd determined them a harmless nuisance and continued onward in his work. Now, however, this sudden fatigue, alien to his species practically unless in the most dire of situations, was setting in. The two could not possibly be unrelated.
He would have to return to Irk... the Tallest had not precisely banned him, and they were the only place that would have anyone who could take care of him....
His thoughts seemed to broadcast a message back to Irk, because immediately an 'urgent' message flashing on his computer from Irk. He'd started to ignore the updates from his home planet, unless in the midst of fits of incredible boredom. Reading about home made him want to go there... and what was the point if he were only going to be humilated in the very streets? He'd rechecked his logbooks from previous years, and found that the Tallest had put quite a few of them on the large screen in the arena of Conventia or the Massive. Bad enough that the Tallest despised him, worse still that his whole planet thought him nothing more than a clown!
He had not told the computer to open the message, but it opened on its own, which surprised him.
"Attention: All Invaders. Attention: All Invaders are ordered to return to the Massive immediately for reassigning and or reinstatement. All Invaders ---" Zim snapped off the repeating message.
It was a distress call. What in the many galaxies could possibly be a serious threat to the Irken empire? This worried him, even if he was not on good terms with his fellow species.
"Computer, bring up any news articles in the past six months that could possibly be related to the distress beacon." He ordered the computer.
The computer groaned and whined about aching circuits as it slowly sorted through files, before coming up with a list. At the top was the breaking of the Irken Planetjacker treaty. The Planetjackers had solely been interested in preserving their planet until now. From what he read in the article, their sun had finally become unsalvagable, and now they had transferred their considerable fleet of ships into an invasion force. They had (somehow) determined that where Irk currently resided was the optimal place for *their* planet, and thus the battle had begun.
There had not been a battle between the Irkens and the Planetjackers in nearly a hundred years... and from the horrible Irken casualty lists, they were far more advanced than their forefathers that he'd learned about as a smeet... and even more advanced than when he'd met up with them ten years ago.
It dawned on him that he was suddenly very useful to the Tallest. He had the most recent experience with the Planetjackers... and had actually sucessfully defeated them singlehandedly.
He quickly tried to get a connection up to the Massive, only to find that he was blocked. Scowling, he looked at the entrance to where he kept the Voot Cruiser. He'd not had need to use it in eight years, but using the best technology he could find on this backward mud planet, he'd tried to keep it in the best condition as possible. Theoretically it went faster now, after four years of hard labor that he'd spent building engines of his own design, using the conviently free component specs from Membrane Labs.
He could, if these engines worked, reach the Massive's current location, with luck, on the outside of two weeks. Once he was out of Earth's system, he might even be able to contact the Massive ahead of schedule and assist them...
He was of use again... He was an Invader!
*************
When Zim didn't call in sick or even show up to work for two weeks Gaz became worried. The head designer of their latest game had disappeared at a most inopportune time.
Fortunately for her, she knew someone who could track down Zim. A quick speed-dial assisted call to her brother, and he was out searching like a bloodhound for her programmer...
*************
The base was still standing, much to Dib's relief. The last time he'd gone in search of Zim after a long abscence, all he'd found was a deep hole in the ground. He wondered if that skin cancer of Zim's had possibly killed him. He hoped not, because a two-week rotted alien body was not of much use...
He denied the idea that he'd actually miss the short alien if he'd disappeared again.
He entered the darkened house, and failed to spot Zim. A layer of dust had settled over everything, increasing Dib's worry that Zim really had died...
"HIYA!" Screeched a voice behind him, and he whipped around to spot G.I.R. waving at him. The robot looked like it'd been through some hard knocks, of course it was over a decade old.
"Where's Zim?" He asked, straightening out his coat.
"Master went away." G.I.R. pouted.
"Where?"
"I don't know." G.I.R. shrugged.
Dib nodded, sensing he wasn't going to get anymore information out of G.I.R., and headed towards the toilet that lead to the operation center of the house.
Entering the toilet and flushing himself down the tubes, he recalled how many times he'd fantasized about making it this deep into Zim's labs. If it weren't for all the decaying machinery, Dib would have thought it a dream come true. Now the place just looked sad and lonely.
Entering the main floor he recalled that the computer was voice activated and could interact. Taking a deep breath, he looked around once for Zim, before focussing on the large screen infront of him.
"Computer, locate Zim." He asked.
"Invader Zim is currently off planet." Dib's guts fell.
"When did he depart?"
"Approximately fifteen days, eight hours, nine minutes, and fifty-three seconds ago."
"His destination?"
"To the Massive, currently orbiting planet Irk."
"Computer print me out a copy of the coordinates..."
****************************
Well, finally! The plot's actually moving! Zim's ill and headed towards Irk. War is being waged between the Irkens and the Planetjackers, and why DID Dib ask for the coordinates of Irk? Hmm? Bet you can guess the last one.
Some may wonder about Zim's great leaps in mood, even greater than his usual ones. Let's just say that Zim's more than a little unstable right now, all which will be explained... hopefully, as I don't REALLY have control over this fic. My fingers are just kinda putting stuff down for me. I have no idea, really, what they'll think of next.
And for the five people who reviewed the last two chapters: Poop!soda for you! *breaks out the case and passes them about* Please people, I NEED reviews or I will EXPLODE. Seriously. I'm not joking. If I explode, this story doesn't continue and THEN where will you be?
Chapter Two: Safety and Sanity
He enjoyed the walk up the backstairs to work. His cubicle may have been on the tenth floor, and ten flights were quite a ways, but the simple task of climbing them allowed him to focus on something other than how his life had gotten so hideously screwed up. Left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, on and on it went...
He arrived too soon on his floor, and he sighed as he made his way towards his cubicle prison. Entering it, he groaned at the pile of work to be done that awaited him anxiously on top of his desk.
"Zim, I'd like to see you for a moment." Looking over his shoulder he spotted Gaz, and knew he probably should have just slogged through the rest of the day instead of cutting it early. "Come to my office."
His squeedely spooch twisted as he made his way into the seclusion of her office. It was decorated in ebony-stained wood desks and dark red curtains adorned the walls. It reminded him of one of the stupid Earth stories he'd had to read in Hi Skool.
He took the uncomfortable seat she motioned to as she sat down behind her desk. It was a power play, he recognized it immediately. She was distancing herself from him, as well as setting herself higher than him in her leather chair to assume authority over him.
Something within he felt vaguely angry at that. He quelled it immediately, as it was an unworthy thought in both Irken and the Human culture he'd been forced to adopt.
"So, how's your life been?" Gaz asked with a forced casualness. It was obvious to him that she was uncomfortable talking intimately with anyone. It was just as bizzare to him, because it was so out of character for her.
He didn't like it when things didn't run according to plan... when things weren't as they appeared to be.
"It's been okay, I was sick yesterday..." Zim said slowly, his eyes watching her every move, trying to calculate what was going on behind those cold amber eyes.
"Yeah, that's what Dib said." she said idly, stirring her coffee with a glass rod with a frowny face attached to it. After a moment she looked at him with amusement, and fury started to burn underneath his flesh. "You're not going to rail me out for giving out your private information?"
"I like my job." His eyes narrowed to become half-lidded, an Irken symbol of intense concentration and/or anger.
"You like being the asshole, is what you like. You like having *power* over the other idiots here." There was smug satisfaction in her voice now, and he felt the burn rise to inferno levels. She sipped her coffee placidly. "My advisors think I should have fired you. You don't have the 'team spirit' according to them. Fortunately for you I don't have the 'spirit' either."
The anger levels were so high now that his body throbbed with the mighty need to release his fury upon the foolish human. An eye started to twitch involutarily.
"Yes, very." He gritted out.
"If you're done bothering me," She said with a wave of her hand, "Then you can get back to work now." She turned towards her view of the other skyscrapers outside her window and Zim found he could stomach no more of this.
"How dare you, you disgusting human! I am Invader Zim, member of the Irken Army, one of the thirty elite Invaders!" He shouted, while the voice in the back of his head chanted 'Liar'. "I am older than you in both Irken and Human years! My brain meats are vastly superior than your own! HOW DARE YOU TREAT ME LIKE I AM NOTHING!" He found himself in the end screaming, while the voice told him exactly how she could get away with it: 'You're NOTHING, Zim...'.
Gaz turned to him, with a much more familiar smirk on her face.
"Did it feel better to vent?"
"Engh?" He blinked at her, totally confused by her sudden change in attitude.
"You looked like you needed to vent. You had that 'attitude' that all my old shrinks used to talk about."
He blinked again, humilation settling in his squeedely spooch as he found that he had been so easily read and goaded.
"Yes," He muttered, not meaning it entirely. He did feel better, if only in the very slightest.
"Good. Now go back and start on Vampire Piggy."
This time her dismissal was real, and he headed back to his cubicle.
He sat down and stared at the files. Opening them he wasn't surprised to find that Gaz had written them herself. She'd always been obsessed by videogames that it was almost obvious what she'd choose to be her profession.
He sighed, and began to type in code. The numbers and information came naturally to him. All Irkens had been given advanced programming and mechanical skills. When a society like Irk sent so many people out to the edges of space, they couldn't come to fix every single problem. Converting his knowledge into creating games had been pathetically easy, if a little degrading and insulting.
Time flew so quickly alone in this cubicle. He'd been forced to set up an alarm to remind him when he could leave the building. Thankfully his team had been well trained not to bother him unless it was dreadfully important. Nothing was, fortunately, important today, and so as the alarm rung, he calmly shut down the computer and headed back home.
He hated the ride home on the pipe system. Crowded with sweaty humans, the filth nearly sufforcated him. He'd have to scrub himself extra vigorously tonight, he thought, as someone drooled on him.
************************
Dib was concerned. It was not unusual for him to be concerned. He'd always been concerned about the Earth's welfare if it hadn't been for his vigilance over the skies searching for alien life.
It was abnormal, however, for him to be concerned over the alien he was supposed to be fighting against.
Zim had seemed --- odd, when he'd come to visit last night. His skin had become blotchy, patches of paler green sprinkled over his face. It looked like patches of dead skin. He wondered if Zim had looked in a mirror recently --- but seeing as the Invader still used a toilet to access his lab, and had never really had to actually *use* a bathroom, he doubted it.
It was unusual too that Zim had not awakened as he entered. The fact that the Irken was sleeping was also troubling. He'd never seemed to need it. He'd seen Zim go through days working on one nefarious plot or another through his hidden camera in his labratory, and not once had the Irken stopped for more than five minutes.
The computer system must have been malfunctioning, why else would Zim bother to toss him out physically? It seemed improbable. Zim had always had top of the line equipment when he'd known him. The house had not changed at all from the last time he'd been inside, nearly ten years ago. At the rate that human technology ALONE moved the house would have been terribly outdated. He couldn't imagine how bad it would be for a space faring society as advanced as Zim's was.
Could he have been abandoned here, he wondered. Or perhaps his race had been wiped out, leaving him alone....
These questions got him nowhere, Dib decided, and he'd just have to get them answered through another visit to Zim's base.
********************
"Master, you don't look so well." G.I.R. said quietly.
Zim blinked and froze bent over the motherboard he was trying to repair. G.I.R. never spoke quietly unless it was important anymore.
He had not looked into a mirror for a long time --- not after smashing the last one a few months back. He avoided human waste extraction areas like the plague now.
He looked into his reflection made in G.I.R.'s chrome finish, and blinked. The patches were all over his face now...
He peeled off a glove and found the strange sections there to. He poked at one and was not surprised to find that it flaked away. He'd only molted before when the other planets surrounding Earth aligned correctly... he wasn't due for another in at least another eight and a half Earth months.
These irritations worried him, because now recognized how tired he'd been recently. So wrapped up in his depression and work he'd not paid it much attention. How could he have been so foolish?
There were few diseases that could effect Irkens, and after extensive research he'd found that there really weren't any Human viruses that could do so either... When the sores had first appeared three months ago, he'd determined them a harmless nuisance and continued onward in his work. Now, however, this sudden fatigue, alien to his species practically unless in the most dire of situations, was setting in. The two could not possibly be unrelated.
He would have to return to Irk... the Tallest had not precisely banned him, and they were the only place that would have anyone who could take care of him....
His thoughts seemed to broadcast a message back to Irk, because immediately an 'urgent' message flashing on his computer from Irk. He'd started to ignore the updates from his home planet, unless in the midst of fits of incredible boredom. Reading about home made him want to go there... and what was the point if he were only going to be humilated in the very streets? He'd rechecked his logbooks from previous years, and found that the Tallest had put quite a few of them on the large screen in the arena of Conventia or the Massive. Bad enough that the Tallest despised him, worse still that his whole planet thought him nothing more than a clown!
He had not told the computer to open the message, but it opened on its own, which surprised him.
"Attention: All Invaders. Attention: All Invaders are ordered to return to the Massive immediately for reassigning and or reinstatement. All Invaders ---" Zim snapped off the repeating message.
It was a distress call. What in the many galaxies could possibly be a serious threat to the Irken empire? This worried him, even if he was not on good terms with his fellow species.
"Computer, bring up any news articles in the past six months that could possibly be related to the distress beacon." He ordered the computer.
The computer groaned and whined about aching circuits as it slowly sorted through files, before coming up with a list. At the top was the breaking of the Irken Planetjacker treaty. The Planetjackers had solely been interested in preserving their planet until now. From what he read in the article, their sun had finally become unsalvagable, and now they had transferred their considerable fleet of ships into an invasion force. They had (somehow) determined that where Irk currently resided was the optimal place for *their* planet, and thus the battle had begun.
There had not been a battle between the Irkens and the Planetjackers in nearly a hundred years... and from the horrible Irken casualty lists, they were far more advanced than their forefathers that he'd learned about as a smeet... and even more advanced than when he'd met up with them ten years ago.
It dawned on him that he was suddenly very useful to the Tallest. He had the most recent experience with the Planetjackers... and had actually sucessfully defeated them singlehandedly.
He quickly tried to get a connection up to the Massive, only to find that he was blocked. Scowling, he looked at the entrance to where he kept the Voot Cruiser. He'd not had need to use it in eight years, but using the best technology he could find on this backward mud planet, he'd tried to keep it in the best condition as possible. Theoretically it went faster now, after four years of hard labor that he'd spent building engines of his own design, using the conviently free component specs from Membrane Labs.
He could, if these engines worked, reach the Massive's current location, with luck, on the outside of two weeks. Once he was out of Earth's system, he might even be able to contact the Massive ahead of schedule and assist them...
He was of use again... He was an Invader!
*************
When Zim didn't call in sick or even show up to work for two weeks Gaz became worried. The head designer of their latest game had disappeared at a most inopportune time.
Fortunately for her, she knew someone who could track down Zim. A quick speed-dial assisted call to her brother, and he was out searching like a bloodhound for her programmer...
*************
The base was still standing, much to Dib's relief. The last time he'd gone in search of Zim after a long abscence, all he'd found was a deep hole in the ground. He wondered if that skin cancer of Zim's had possibly killed him. He hoped not, because a two-week rotted alien body was not of much use...
He denied the idea that he'd actually miss the short alien if he'd disappeared again.
He entered the darkened house, and failed to spot Zim. A layer of dust had settled over everything, increasing Dib's worry that Zim really had died...
"HIYA!" Screeched a voice behind him, and he whipped around to spot G.I.R. waving at him. The robot looked like it'd been through some hard knocks, of course it was over a decade old.
"Where's Zim?" He asked, straightening out his coat.
"Master went away." G.I.R. pouted.
"Where?"
"I don't know." G.I.R. shrugged.
Dib nodded, sensing he wasn't going to get anymore information out of G.I.R., and headed towards the toilet that lead to the operation center of the house.
Entering the toilet and flushing himself down the tubes, he recalled how many times he'd fantasized about making it this deep into Zim's labs. If it weren't for all the decaying machinery, Dib would have thought it a dream come true. Now the place just looked sad and lonely.
Entering the main floor he recalled that the computer was voice activated and could interact. Taking a deep breath, he looked around once for Zim, before focussing on the large screen infront of him.
"Computer, locate Zim." He asked.
"Invader Zim is currently off planet." Dib's guts fell.
"When did he depart?"
"Approximately fifteen days, eight hours, nine minutes, and fifty-three seconds ago."
"His destination?"
"To the Massive, currently orbiting planet Irk."
"Computer print me out a copy of the coordinates..."
****************************
Well, finally! The plot's actually moving! Zim's ill and headed towards Irk. War is being waged between the Irkens and the Planetjackers, and why DID Dib ask for the coordinates of Irk? Hmm? Bet you can guess the last one.
Some may wonder about Zim's great leaps in mood, even greater than his usual ones. Let's just say that Zim's more than a little unstable right now, all which will be explained... hopefully, as I don't REALLY have control over this fic. My fingers are just kinda putting stuff down for me. I have no idea, really, what they'll think of next.
And for the five people who reviewed the last two chapters: Poop!soda for you! *breaks out the case and passes them about* Please people, I NEED reviews or I will EXPLODE. Seriously. I'm not joking. If I explode, this story doesn't continue and THEN where will you be?