A short Author's note:
The Easter Egg contest is here, in this very chapter!
If you can the first person to spot the reference to popular horror novel, I'll put your character in the story!
^_^ Won't that be fun?
Audience: *Groans*
Pah. Who asked you, anyway?
Just send me your characters name, gender and general mood. (Pessimistic, Optimistic, Cynical, etc.)
Even if you can't get the answer, send me your character and I'll put it in a big magic hat to be drawn from whenever I run out of ideas for my own characters. ^_^
So, without further ado, the show:
*Bows gracefully*
Chapter 6: Search and Seizure
Dib could make out their eyes in the pitch-blackness of Zim's lab. A pair of empty green ones beside him and narrow red ones a little ways above him.
"Perfect. Just perfect."
Zim leapt down onto the floor next to Dib, retracting his mechanical legs.
"Computer, bring base power back online."
The darkness remained for a moment, then two, then three. Zim cried out his command a second time, a large tone of agitation in his voice.
"COMPUTER! Bring base power back online."
Nothing happened.
Zim had to be the most incompetent person Dib had ever seen, and he was about to inform the Invader as to that fact when he heard something in some far off corner of the lab. From the sudden silence beside him, he guessed Zim had heard it to. Dib strained to hear what it was. It was till going… it sounded like… kind of like…
"Clicking?"
Zim heard it coming. The steady click of metal striking metal, growing steadily louder and faster at it drew nearer and nearer until it seemed a crescendo. The clicking, clacking noise warped and shifted, until it was coming from seventeen different places at once. Zim knew what it was. He had heard it thousands of times before. On the training grounds of Devastis, across the corridors of the Massive, even in his own base as often as he cared to remember. Dib, too, recognized the sound, if not as quickly as Zim, and the same thought entered both their heads.
Zim wasn't making it.
Then, without warning, the sound stopped, and the lab was deathly silent.
It was the last thing Dib remembered before he lost consciousness.
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Jarka sat in his command chair, a rare smile painted on his face. He could hear the history archives now. Captain Jarka, responsible for the recovery of Project Darkness Flame and the capture of the most dangerous threat ever to befall the Irken Empire. His mind played out the award ceremonies he'd attend and the promotions he'd receive, and how the Tallest would finally give him the recognition he deserved. His thoughts were interrupted by a tightbeam transmission from the surface. The bridge's view screen activated, revealing the ship's chief security officer. The bottom half of his face was hidden behind an eerily Professor Membrane like collar. Behind him, various soldiers and engineers could be seen dismantling hardware and loading it onto the matter transmitters for transport onboard the Majestic.
"We've got most of the salvageable components isolated. They should be onboard within the next couple of hours. What did you want us to do with the rest of it?"
"Activate the self-destruct. We can't leave anything lying around for the natives to grab and reverse engineer."
"As you say, sir."
The transmission cut and Jarka turned towards his head technician.
"Check up with the Detention Block. I want to see how our friends are doing."
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Zim opened his eyes, his vision fuzzy and irregular. He blinked twice. He started to become aware of the pain in his back as a pulled his body upward until he sat fully upright. As his vision began to clear, he noticed a large white circle staring at him.
"I was wondering when you were going to get up."
Zim underwent a momentary panic. He knew that voice.
"What have you done, you vile stink weed? Where am I?"
"I was really hoping you'd be able to tell me that."
Zim blinked furiously until his vision returned to its traditional clarity. He observed his surroundings for the first time. 8x6 room, benches built into the sides, open doorway protected by a shimmering blue force field.
"A detention cell."
Dib scowled.
"That's great Zim. Now could you tell me something that maybe I didn't figure out after being here for fifteen seconds?"
"Ha! Liked I'd tell you anything that might aid you in escape."
"Excuse me? You're trapped here too."
"Yes, but this is an Irken detention cell. My detainment is obviously a mistake."
"That's a pretty big mistake."Zim grew quite as he searched for an answer. The prison guard walked in front of their cell, talking on a communicator. Dib tried to listen in without looking like he was trying to listen in.
"Yeah, they're fine. No, no adverse side affects… at least not yet.
Absolutely.
The alien? Seems fine, but we don't have a lot to go on in that respect, of course.
Not sure. He didn't take the EMP too well; Lid's got him in a stasis tube for damage assessment. Yeah.
I'll let him know. Okay, will do."
The guard lowered his hand away from the communicator. He stared at Zim for a few seconds before he turned to walk back to his post. He stopped when Zim screamed at him.
"GET BACK HERE! Do you know what you've done? Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea what the Tallest are going to do to you? How dare you do this to ZIM! I DEMAND that you release me IMMEDIATELY!"
The guard shook his head. It was sad, in a way. He returned to his post, Zim's ranting fading into the background until it was a barely audible whisper.
"Guess you're not as famous as you thought, eh Zim?
"BE SILENT!" Zim seemed to be close to his wits end.
Dib, fearing the alien might snap and enter a bloodthirsty rage, remained quite. Zim started to pace the floor of his tiny cell.
What was going on? How did the guard not recognize him? It was true that he was on a top-secret high priority assignment, but…
The thought hit Zim like a train. They were rebels! A pitiful band of Irkens had risen up against the Tallest for some reason or another. The rebels had obviously found out about him and his secret mission! They hoped to strike a horrible blow against the Tallest by capturing their prize Invader and stopping Operation: Impending Doom II! Zim smiled to himself. It was a bold idea, but now that he was missing, the rebel scum would soon feel the full wrath of the Irken Empire as the Tallest themselves, along with the entire Irken Armada came looking for him.
The rebels didn't stand a chance.
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Lid slipped his hands into the remote gloves stationed in front of the stasis tube. Two robotic hands dropped down from the top of the tube and began to mimic his movements inside the greenish liquid. Lid bit his lower lip as he began to twist the gloves around. Inside the tube, the robotic hands had opened a small hole on the Pak and were inserting various probes and scanners into it in an attempt to assess the damage level. Next to the consol, a small screen, filled with continually scrolling Irken characters, displayed all the information they found. A small microphone extended from Lid's pack, resting just in front of his mouth for an audio transcript of the exam.
"This is scary. Level 3 ocular implants, personal cloaking device, regenerative abilities, organic computer interface, venom sacks, Terchon grafted skin, psionic implants… legs and arms have been augmented almost beyond recognition. I'd say the techs on 409-B went a little overboard on this guy."
Lid pulled one of the probes out of the Manslayer's Pak, replacing it with a transistor pad. He inserted the pad into the tiny maintenance hole, and activated the charge in an attempt to spark the transistors back to life. He stared at the screen again, looking for results. He found that the probe still remaining inside the Pak had uncovered some new information.
"Now, this is weird. It looks like there are two separate AI routines. The current one looks very similar to SIR coding… a little choppy here and there, but SIR coding for sure. This second one is a little deeper in… looks a lot more stable. Maybe if I…"
Lid pushed the probe in deeper, trying to unearth more of the mystery program. As he pushed down into the node, he heard a sharp crack come from the Pak. He snapped his head up to look at the Manslayer. Several lights on the Pak were blinking, the light distorted eerily by the translucent green liquid. He looked back down at the view screen.
"…The Hell?"
Irken characters were flying past the screen, almost in a blur. Lid could only make out one phrase as it raced by.
"Program "Barlow" Initiated."
Lid summoned a communicator from his Pak. Something was wrong, and Jarka had to know about it.
From inside the tank, the Manslayers eyes sprang open. No longer the dead, empty pits Dib had seen on Earth, these eyes were different.
These eyes screamed for blood.
