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Dib
walked home from Skool that Friday afternoon, wondering why ZIM had missed
class two days in a row. Perhaps ZIM had another evil plot going on… another
attempt at destroying his brain? He just had to know…
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Donning
his ninja-camouflage-gear (from NanoZIM, you know), Dib pocketed a mini-camera
and set out to find out what ZIM was doing…and maybe get a picture without him
seeing…
As
he was running through the city, something blew past him. Dib stopped. There
was no car or anything in sight. How could a gust of wind with the force of a
vehicle going 80 come from nowhere? Every other inch of the surrounding area
was silent, and no trees had rustled. What was going on?
"Hello
Dib," said that familiar voice, drawling out his whole name. Dib whipped around
the see ZIM in front of him, out of costume, standing on the bubble-domed
cockpit on some sort of very complicated spacecraft. The little robot was near
the controls, eating cupcakes.
The
spacecraft was the 'Advanced VootRunner.' The glass dome in front of the
cockpit was still present, and the insides still ebbed a strange magenta color,
but the VootRunner was significantly larger. There was an expansive cargo hold,
currently half-full of strange devices – flashing, glowing, and beeping – that
were very alien. A large, triangular mirror was positioned on the roof of the
cargo bay, shimmering. The mirror emitted such a bright surge of light that Dib
hardly noticed when a long black cable wrapped itself around him and lifted him
off the ground. There were two of those cables, one on each side.
"VootRunner!
Up!" ZIM commanded, and two jets appeared from the hull and blasted them up. To
his amazement, Dib realized that he, ZIM, GIR, and the spaceship were inside a
shimmering orb that allowed view of the outside world in a distorted version of
its true self.
GIR
was banging on the controls, but the ship did not respond to his actions. It
was following ZIM's voice patterns, not the buttons. ZIM's magenta eyes
narrowing with triumph, and he smirked evilly, but Dib tried to show no fear.
"VootRunner,
return to base," ZIM said, and as the spaceship complied he turned to Dib, who
was still suspended in the air. "Quite an interesting night it has been for you,
eh foolish human? It gets better… don't worry."
Dib
tried to think of something throw back at the smug alien that wasn't cliché.
"You can't keep me prisoner forever, ZIM, I'll escape… but in the meantime, Gaz
and my dad will know I'm gone!"
The
Irken said nothing, but pressed a button on the triangular mirror. A beam of
light shot out and, after trying to make sense of the broken, silver, fluxing
world that was spinning around him, Dib discovered that the beam had gone into
his house.
"What
have you done, ZIM?" Dib shouted.
ZIM
walked to the mirror and did something to the back of it. The device became
parallel with Dib, and shot a beam of light at him. After wincing and expecting
death or extreme pain, Dib opened his eyes. Magenta eyes, green skin, antennae…
he was looking at ZIM… wait…no…
Dib
was looking at himself. He shrieked.
ZIM
laughed. "Stupid earth monkey! Are you afraid of a simple holographic
projector?"
The
boy became slightly less freaked out. "H-h-h-holo…?" he stuttered.
ZIM
nodded, sighing impatiently. "What I have here is the perfect holographic
projection. It creates images that are completely solid, and that can be
control only by my voice, much like the Advanced VootRunner here." The alien
paused for effect. "Have you realized what I am doing? The projection sent to
your house… Oh, come on. Even such a filthy human stinkbeast such as yourself
should have figured it out by now."
Dib
had figured it out as ZIM was talking, but now the Advanced VootRunner had
landed and the hologram projected on him faded. ZIM detached the cable that was
still tightly securing Dib's arms to his side and threw him down a tube. Vowing
ZIM's destruction, Dib reached the end of the tube and fell into a glass tube
in a large and hi-tech laboratory-type room. Everything was magenta. The tube quickly
filled with green goo. Dib gasped, but instead of going into a
frozen-person-thingy sleep, he just hovered there, breathing oxygen from the
sludge.
The
alien slid down a tube that led to the 'house' level garbage can. Dib narrowed
his eyes at the platform at the base of the tube, ready for ZIM to go back up.
ZIM walked over to Dib in the tube.
"I
just thought I'd let you sit in the waiting room before your…utter
annihilation! MWAHAHAHAHA!" ZIM ceased his laughing. "It was inevitable.
You were doomed from the instant I arrived, Dib. Just think of this as
premature fate, earth monkey."
Trying
desperately to escape this ordeal alive, Dib began wriggling inside the tube.
He couldn't manage to move more than a few centimeters; this was thick ooze.
All seemed lost. The goo did soften the cable's grip on Dib and the cord slid
off him and hovered about him.
Through
green-tinted vision and blurry glass, Dib could see the tiny robot, GIR,
standing on the outside of the tube staring at him.
"Oooh!
Wiggly wormy!" Then, without further explanation, GIR dropped to the metal
floor and began squirming around like an earthworm worm on the pavement. Dib
watched the robot with interest. What use is a robot that appeared to have no
superior intelligence at all? Or maybe he was hiding his true self…but all that
wiggling said otherwise.
"Hey!"
Dib yelled into the green mass. His words came out as bubbles, but the robot
seemed to have heard him.
GIR
got up from the floor. "Hellooooooo! Would ya like me to sing the Doom Song?"
the little thing asked. Dib shook his head. Such an eager request from such an
insane robot could not be a good thing.
"Would…you…like…to…get…a…treat?"
Dib said slowly, annunciating all his words in case GIR was somehow
understanding him from the bubbles he emitted with each word. He was heavily
relying on this robot's obvious insanity.
The
little robot thought for a moment. "Is it chocolate bubblegum?" he asked the
floating human. Dib figured a Brain-Freezy was what the robot wanted, so he
nodded as best he could. GIR yelped with joy and went over to the tube control
console and random poked buttons. After a nerve-racking minute of the tube
ceiling coming down on him, the tube slid open and the ooze instantly drained.
He sputtered, and took in several grateful breaths of real air.
"Come
on, let's go get the chocolate bubblegum," Dib muttered as he attempted to
detangle himself from the black cord which had wrapped itself around him during
the draining. GIR yelped again and pulled him to the exit.
Just
as the two reach ground level, ZIM came from another part of the underground
lair with a mean-looking device in his hands. His eyes were smug.
"Ready
for some doom, Dib?" ZIM's gaze found the tube empty and contents gone.
Clenching his fists, ZIM growled. Then he saw the platform to the house come
back down from the ground level. He leapt onto it and flew upward.
Dib
ran though the house, but he turned when he saw the holographic projector
sitting on a table in the front room of ZIM's house. Dib grabbed the first
thing that came to hand – a strange lamp – and hurled it at the machine.
Sputtering and sparking, a message appeared on a screen in the broken
projector's side: Transmission Ended.
"Yesssss!"
Dib hissed, and he turned to see GIR in his dog disguise.
"Ummm….
Let's go and get that…" Dib couldn't remember what they were getting, but he
knew they had to hurry or ZIM would catch him. "…. That thing!" Grabbing hold
of GIR's tiny dog arm, Dib pulled him outside and into the street. As Dib
yanked GIR along toward his house, he could hear a cry of rage echo from ZIM's
house.
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"Whew,"
Dib sighed. They were in front of his house, home free. It was about dawn. More
than twelve hours since he snuck out. His ninja outfit was in perfect order, if
not a bit soggy. Grabbing enough money for a large Chocolate Bubblegum Brain-Freezy
from his pocket, he gave the currency to GIR.
GIR
looked up at him. "This is Chocolate Bubblegum?"
"No,
go buy one," Dib explained, then he turned to go inside his house.
"I
had fun t'day, thanks!" he could hear the dog cry after him. Acknowledging the
words with a hand movement, Dib walked, exhausted, over the threshold into his
house. Gaz came down into view, and looked at him.
"You're
awake already? I thought you were sleeping… Anyway, go do something quiet. I'm
on the last level." Gaz turned and went off, the GameSlave emitting various
noises.
Dib
smiled, not even remembering what his sister just said. The projection of him
was obviously gone. He was very tired. He climbed up into his room and
collapsed into his bed. Even though he had accomplished nothing with this
endeavor besides nearly dying, Dib had an idea for a new machine…
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Note:
This is done. One chapter. That's it. The new machine will be mentioned in
'Cousin Shy.' I know that when I wrote this, 'Cousin Shy' wasn't up yet, and I
have no intention of re-uploading this just to fix one thing. Anyway, did
anyone like the Advanced VootRunner? It was inspired by a Lego model I tried to
build of the VootRunner that turned out to be the 'Advanced VootRunner.' I,
personally, like it a lot.
