A/Note: Finally, we're getting to the good bit! Or. almost, anyway. Just
bear with my eccentric work schedule a little while longer and this
falderal will start to make a little sense, okay?
--
Chapter Twelve: Hope and Trust
Zim's mouth was uncomfortably dry. He'd been aware of this since beginning his fruitless tirade at Dib's little sister, or whatever she was, and this new revelation about the current state of the planet hadn't helped any at all. It was sort of ironic in a way, an almost frighteningly sane voice in the back of his half-crazed mind noted. He, Zim, was the epitome of outside alien threat. The Supreme Invader, pride of the Irken Armada! (The Tallest themselves had only been able to trust he, ZIM! With this mission, after all.)
With all of his machinations and resources, he'd never been able to successfully doom this spinning ball of filth whimsically referred to as the Earth. However, the forbearer of his most hated rival and persecutionist had apparently managed to create something that would bring about the very thing that Dib had fought against.
And.. it was that delicately brittle-seeming little girl? Dib's "sister"?
Zim couldn't help himself, he began to laugh. It started out as a soft, unwilling chuckle and finally burst forth as an eye-stinging, air-robbing manic howl of pure amusement. He leaned forward, hands resting on his knees for support as he let loose another dizzying cry of hilarity. His shoulders shook with the effort of the outburst, and his breath finally left him so that he finally was only admitting soft painful wheezes. But still he laughed, watching the humans until his own amusement squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
Dib turned towards the sound, and fixed the diminutive alien menace with a disapproving glare. "What, Zim!?" he demanded, simultaneously worried and enraged, "Just WHAT is so funny!?" The alien laughed all the more, confusing the boy. Zim was exposed, without his disguise or method of transportation. His fried pak advertised his vulnerability and alien-ness as effectively as a billboard could ever hope to. Zim was helpless as, if not more than the rest of them, and they'd all been informed that they were going to die. For the entirety of his short career battling the irken, Dib had waited for this unwelcome sound. Zim was laughing, wholly and heartily. Laughing as if he'd finally won the long battle between them.
Dib refused to admit that he'd had nightmares about Zim's laugh. He'd known that one day the battle would be over, and one of them would be left victoriously cackling. He'd feared from the first time he'd actually seen the alien that it would, in the final reckoning, be Zim. Especially once he'd realized he was hopelessly outmatched in regard to age and experience.
But why was Zim laughing? Dib could understand how the alien would count himself the winner if he'd had a way off the planet. If Zim could abandon it and just wait for whatever it was that Gaz had unleashed to do his work for him, THEN he'd have something to laugh about. But the sorry-looking wreckage of the Voot was scattered about a small charred crater a few yards away. Zim's pak dredged forth the useless shorted-out metallic legs like some sort of cybernetic vomit. Zim's own body was dirty, bruised and battered. He was as doomed as the world he'd sought to conquer. Had the events pushed the alien over the proverbial edge?
Dib's hands convulsed into fists and he ran over the shove the giggling alien demandingly. "WHY!? Why are you laughing, Zim!?" he cried, grabbing the irken's thin shoulders and shaking him. Zim's eyes finally cracked open, a pair a narrow toreador red slits of mirth. There was no desperate insanity evident in their depths, instead there was a brushstroke hint of something terribly sane, something nearly infinitely amused. Zim caught his breath, gasping slightly. "Funny? But it is, Dib. It really is."
Zim reached out and grabbed the boy around the shoulders, turning him to face his family and holding his free hand before him as if making a grand presentation. "Behold, Dib! Professor Membrane! The man without whom this world falls into. CHAOS!" Zim guffawed, echoing the Professor's own introduction at nearly every function he attended. The older man's face fell a bit more in shame as his son stared at him sadly, finally understanding the source of his rival's laughter.
"You spent all that time saving the Earth, Dib. Saving it so that your parental unit could destroy it, using your little sister as his weapon of choice." Zim leaned on Dib's shoulder, chuckling weakly again. "I couldn't have done better myself. Congratulations!" Zim called mockingly. "I really do wish that I'd thought of that one myself!" Looking wounded, Professor Membrane collapsed into a sitting position, still holding his daughter protectively.
From a little ways away, Zim's robot slave sat quietly in the grass. Something was wrong, he could feel it down in his circuits. GIR stared around him at the mixed reactions exhibited by his companions. Shock and humility from Dib's father, fear and dread from Dib himself, amusement from the Master and horror from Gaz. The little robot, 'advanced' as he was, took in everything around him, silent for once. The ideas and emotions ticked over in his sadly sub-standard processors, and for once his thoughts were of the events going on around him instead of capering gloriously in the elysian fields of absolute random ignorance. "It will snuff out all life." Gaz's voice repeated in his mind.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" GIR screamed suddenly, leaping up from the place in the grass where he'd been sitting and running over to Professor Membrane and Gaz. Frantically, the little robot pulled at the girl's arm. "Make it stop! Make it go away!" GIR pleaded, desperation running rampant in his voice. "Don't let the bad thing kill everyone!" The robot's large cyan eye cams watered as he leaned against the girl and her surprised father. "You made it. Make it go away.?" GIR whispered. Gaz shook her head silently and buried her face in her humiliated father's arms.
Dib pushed Zim away and looked hopefully at his father. "Dad? Can *you* stop it? There's got to be something we can do. isn't there?" Professor Membrane blinked slowly, pushing aside the shattered remains of his ego and looking past it, at his son and daughter. Gaz raised her face and watched his eyes for his reaction. The two of them stared at him dependently, hardly daring to hope. Even after all of this, they still wanted to believe that he had all the answers. He'd started this problem, they trusted that he might know how to fix it. After all, he was their father, and even without the recognition of the rest of the world, he was a miracle worker to them. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Membrane reached once more for the great repository of knowledge that lurked in his brain.
"What Gaz has created would seem to be a form of energy creature, for lack of a better term. It's barely theoretical, so we're going to have to wing it in our approach. This wave of energy must travel over the entire globe before commencing its' true objective, is that correct?" Gaz nodded at the question slowly, watching as her father began to step back into the role he had forged into a phenomenon of 'Third Law' Science; almost absolutely indistinguishable from magic. It was an eerie display without the cushion of his familiar façade of a spotless lab coat and shielding goggles. It was almost as if, after a long term of hibernation under his own 'persona', the true Professor Membrane was beginning to re-emerge.
"Alright, we're dealing with a wave of energy. That's the simplest way of basing our defense," Membrane continued, setting a bemused Gaz down beside him. He stood and began to pace quickly back and forth across the short grass, addressing his odd audience and doing his best to ignore the still smilingly amused.. thing that stood next to his 'insane' son. "We need a second energy wave, of equal magnitude to the first and of the exact opposite charge. That will cancel out both waves and leave the planet unscathed."
Zim smirked. "Wow, no wonder they call you 'Professor'." He muttered sarcastically. "And where are we going to get the power to generate this positively-charged wave?" Dragging the ruins of his spider-legs, Zim strode with nazi-like efficiency over to the tall man and crossed his arms. "As much as it pains me, I think that I will have to assist your *pathetic* efforts if I intend to be the one to destroy this miserable world and live to proclaim my genius to the Empire." Stunned, Membrane stared down at the alien. Sheepishly he looked back to Dib, whose eyes positively glowed with hope and vindication. "Before we go any further, I humbly apologize, son. And I think I do know where we may be able to get enough power."
For two distinct reasons, Dib smiled broadly at his sister. Slowly, she began to smile back.
******
"Wow, so this is P.E.G.," Dib gaped admiringly, staring down into the gold- hued metal depths of the Perpetual Energy Generator's long support structure. He'd never actually seen the device in person before, having been imprisoned by Zim during its' short unveiling. "Do you really think it can produce the kind of power that we'll need, Dad?"
From a little higher up in the superstructure, finishing the arduous process of removing the now-useless spider-like legs from Zim's pak, Professor Membrane nodded. "I certainly hope so, Dib. I'm not entirely sure about the volume production, though. P.E.G. was designed to be an endless *source* of energy, not one of limitless power. Energy sustained forever is a bit different from producing a massive excess of it. However, it's our best bet." Mentally, he added 'And our only bet, for that matter.'
Throwing off the uncomfortable pause, he continued. "No other large source of energy exists in the city that wasn't interconnected with the main circuits." He didn't add that the lack of any sound from the battery- operated radio would indicate that the blackouts were much, much more widespread. No sense in worrying the boy unnecessarily.
Zim sighed in relief at the weight loss before putting in his two monies on the subject. "You're forgetting Zim's base. When the power loss was detected, the base's breakers should have disconnected it from the local power sources."
From his perch below, Dib glared daggers of doubt up at the smug alien. "If you have your own power generators, Zim, then why steal energy from the city?" Zim strode purposefully away from the ruined remains of his spider- like mechanical legs to sneer back at his enemy oft-turned ally. "Why should I not? Taking it from you makes YOU weaker." His eyes narrowed slightly before he continued. "Besides, that energy is only used for the facsimile house part of the base. All the better to blend in with! INGENIOUS, isn't it!?", he demanded rather than asked. The Dib's face scrunched up strangely as he attempted to comprehend Zim's fantastical reasoning.
Neglecting Dib for the moment, Zim returned his attention to the boy's father. "GIR should be back with it any moment, and using my *incredibly* advanced irken knowledge, it shall be me, ME, who boosts your P.E.G. thing's output to the required levels." A series of thunderous crashes began to sound in the distance. "Hm, that's probably GIR, now." Zim mused as he turned towards the exit and began leading the humans back outside, where the monstrously doggishly transformed THING that was his house/base was running towards them; cars and trees and a few nameless hobos no one would miss being crushed by its' passage.
Zim turned to grin with unabashed pride at the stupefied humans. "I can tell you're impressed."
Chapter Twelve: Hope and Trust
Zim's mouth was uncomfortably dry. He'd been aware of this since beginning his fruitless tirade at Dib's little sister, or whatever she was, and this new revelation about the current state of the planet hadn't helped any at all. It was sort of ironic in a way, an almost frighteningly sane voice in the back of his half-crazed mind noted. He, Zim, was the epitome of outside alien threat. The Supreme Invader, pride of the Irken Armada! (The Tallest themselves had only been able to trust he, ZIM! With this mission, after all.)
With all of his machinations and resources, he'd never been able to successfully doom this spinning ball of filth whimsically referred to as the Earth. However, the forbearer of his most hated rival and persecutionist had apparently managed to create something that would bring about the very thing that Dib had fought against.
And.. it was that delicately brittle-seeming little girl? Dib's "sister"?
Zim couldn't help himself, he began to laugh. It started out as a soft, unwilling chuckle and finally burst forth as an eye-stinging, air-robbing manic howl of pure amusement. He leaned forward, hands resting on his knees for support as he let loose another dizzying cry of hilarity. His shoulders shook with the effort of the outburst, and his breath finally left him so that he finally was only admitting soft painful wheezes. But still he laughed, watching the humans until his own amusement squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
Dib turned towards the sound, and fixed the diminutive alien menace with a disapproving glare. "What, Zim!?" he demanded, simultaneously worried and enraged, "Just WHAT is so funny!?" The alien laughed all the more, confusing the boy. Zim was exposed, without his disguise or method of transportation. His fried pak advertised his vulnerability and alien-ness as effectively as a billboard could ever hope to. Zim was helpless as, if not more than the rest of them, and they'd all been informed that they were going to die. For the entirety of his short career battling the irken, Dib had waited for this unwelcome sound. Zim was laughing, wholly and heartily. Laughing as if he'd finally won the long battle between them.
Dib refused to admit that he'd had nightmares about Zim's laugh. He'd known that one day the battle would be over, and one of them would be left victoriously cackling. He'd feared from the first time he'd actually seen the alien that it would, in the final reckoning, be Zim. Especially once he'd realized he was hopelessly outmatched in regard to age and experience.
But why was Zim laughing? Dib could understand how the alien would count himself the winner if he'd had a way off the planet. If Zim could abandon it and just wait for whatever it was that Gaz had unleashed to do his work for him, THEN he'd have something to laugh about. But the sorry-looking wreckage of the Voot was scattered about a small charred crater a few yards away. Zim's pak dredged forth the useless shorted-out metallic legs like some sort of cybernetic vomit. Zim's own body was dirty, bruised and battered. He was as doomed as the world he'd sought to conquer. Had the events pushed the alien over the proverbial edge?
Dib's hands convulsed into fists and he ran over the shove the giggling alien demandingly. "WHY!? Why are you laughing, Zim!?" he cried, grabbing the irken's thin shoulders and shaking him. Zim's eyes finally cracked open, a pair a narrow toreador red slits of mirth. There was no desperate insanity evident in their depths, instead there was a brushstroke hint of something terribly sane, something nearly infinitely amused. Zim caught his breath, gasping slightly. "Funny? But it is, Dib. It really is."
Zim reached out and grabbed the boy around the shoulders, turning him to face his family and holding his free hand before him as if making a grand presentation. "Behold, Dib! Professor Membrane! The man without whom this world falls into. CHAOS!" Zim guffawed, echoing the Professor's own introduction at nearly every function he attended. The older man's face fell a bit more in shame as his son stared at him sadly, finally understanding the source of his rival's laughter.
"You spent all that time saving the Earth, Dib. Saving it so that your parental unit could destroy it, using your little sister as his weapon of choice." Zim leaned on Dib's shoulder, chuckling weakly again. "I couldn't have done better myself. Congratulations!" Zim called mockingly. "I really do wish that I'd thought of that one myself!" Looking wounded, Professor Membrane collapsed into a sitting position, still holding his daughter protectively.
From a little ways away, Zim's robot slave sat quietly in the grass. Something was wrong, he could feel it down in his circuits. GIR stared around him at the mixed reactions exhibited by his companions. Shock and humility from Dib's father, fear and dread from Dib himself, amusement from the Master and horror from Gaz. The little robot, 'advanced' as he was, took in everything around him, silent for once. The ideas and emotions ticked over in his sadly sub-standard processors, and for once his thoughts were of the events going on around him instead of capering gloriously in the elysian fields of absolute random ignorance. "It will snuff out all life." Gaz's voice repeated in his mind.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" GIR screamed suddenly, leaping up from the place in the grass where he'd been sitting and running over to Professor Membrane and Gaz. Frantically, the little robot pulled at the girl's arm. "Make it stop! Make it go away!" GIR pleaded, desperation running rampant in his voice. "Don't let the bad thing kill everyone!" The robot's large cyan eye cams watered as he leaned against the girl and her surprised father. "You made it. Make it go away.?" GIR whispered. Gaz shook her head silently and buried her face in her humiliated father's arms.
Dib pushed Zim away and looked hopefully at his father. "Dad? Can *you* stop it? There's got to be something we can do. isn't there?" Professor Membrane blinked slowly, pushing aside the shattered remains of his ego and looking past it, at his son and daughter. Gaz raised her face and watched his eyes for his reaction. The two of them stared at him dependently, hardly daring to hope. Even after all of this, they still wanted to believe that he had all the answers. He'd started this problem, they trusted that he might know how to fix it. After all, he was their father, and even without the recognition of the rest of the world, he was a miracle worker to them. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Membrane reached once more for the great repository of knowledge that lurked in his brain.
"What Gaz has created would seem to be a form of energy creature, for lack of a better term. It's barely theoretical, so we're going to have to wing it in our approach. This wave of energy must travel over the entire globe before commencing its' true objective, is that correct?" Gaz nodded at the question slowly, watching as her father began to step back into the role he had forged into a phenomenon of 'Third Law' Science; almost absolutely indistinguishable from magic. It was an eerie display without the cushion of his familiar façade of a spotless lab coat and shielding goggles. It was almost as if, after a long term of hibernation under his own 'persona', the true Professor Membrane was beginning to re-emerge.
"Alright, we're dealing with a wave of energy. That's the simplest way of basing our defense," Membrane continued, setting a bemused Gaz down beside him. He stood and began to pace quickly back and forth across the short grass, addressing his odd audience and doing his best to ignore the still smilingly amused.. thing that stood next to his 'insane' son. "We need a second energy wave, of equal magnitude to the first and of the exact opposite charge. That will cancel out both waves and leave the planet unscathed."
Zim smirked. "Wow, no wonder they call you 'Professor'." He muttered sarcastically. "And where are we going to get the power to generate this positively-charged wave?" Dragging the ruins of his spider-legs, Zim strode with nazi-like efficiency over to the tall man and crossed his arms. "As much as it pains me, I think that I will have to assist your *pathetic* efforts if I intend to be the one to destroy this miserable world and live to proclaim my genius to the Empire." Stunned, Membrane stared down at the alien. Sheepishly he looked back to Dib, whose eyes positively glowed with hope and vindication. "Before we go any further, I humbly apologize, son. And I think I do know where we may be able to get enough power."
For two distinct reasons, Dib smiled broadly at his sister. Slowly, she began to smile back.
******
"Wow, so this is P.E.G.," Dib gaped admiringly, staring down into the gold- hued metal depths of the Perpetual Energy Generator's long support structure. He'd never actually seen the device in person before, having been imprisoned by Zim during its' short unveiling. "Do you really think it can produce the kind of power that we'll need, Dad?"
From a little higher up in the superstructure, finishing the arduous process of removing the now-useless spider-like legs from Zim's pak, Professor Membrane nodded. "I certainly hope so, Dib. I'm not entirely sure about the volume production, though. P.E.G. was designed to be an endless *source* of energy, not one of limitless power. Energy sustained forever is a bit different from producing a massive excess of it. However, it's our best bet." Mentally, he added 'And our only bet, for that matter.'
Throwing off the uncomfortable pause, he continued. "No other large source of energy exists in the city that wasn't interconnected with the main circuits." He didn't add that the lack of any sound from the battery- operated radio would indicate that the blackouts were much, much more widespread. No sense in worrying the boy unnecessarily.
Zim sighed in relief at the weight loss before putting in his two monies on the subject. "You're forgetting Zim's base. When the power loss was detected, the base's breakers should have disconnected it from the local power sources."
From his perch below, Dib glared daggers of doubt up at the smug alien. "If you have your own power generators, Zim, then why steal energy from the city?" Zim strode purposefully away from the ruined remains of his spider- like mechanical legs to sneer back at his enemy oft-turned ally. "Why should I not? Taking it from you makes YOU weaker." His eyes narrowed slightly before he continued. "Besides, that energy is only used for the facsimile house part of the base. All the better to blend in with! INGENIOUS, isn't it!?", he demanded rather than asked. The Dib's face scrunched up strangely as he attempted to comprehend Zim's fantastical reasoning.
Neglecting Dib for the moment, Zim returned his attention to the boy's father. "GIR should be back with it any moment, and using my *incredibly* advanced irken knowledge, it shall be me, ME, who boosts your P.E.G. thing's output to the required levels." A series of thunderous crashes began to sound in the distance. "Hm, that's probably GIR, now." Zim mused as he turned towards the exit and began leading the humans back outside, where the monstrously doggishly transformed THING that was his house/base was running towards them; cars and trees and a few nameless hobos no one would miss being crushed by its' passage.
Zim turned to grin with unabashed pride at the stupefied humans. "I can tell you're impressed."