Uh, oh. I made Gaz like Zim. (I don't own those guys, I'm not special enough.) That can only lead one place. I'm so horrible. I hate myself. (Hits self in head) Bad Melissa! Baaaad.
Inevitable ZAGR…OF PAIN! Also, in order to understand this chapter, you have to know my 'pak' theory. Ok, I think that the reason Zim is so eccentric is because of his pak. All Irkens have paks. They have translators and stuff in them. Also, a Tallest -> Brains -> Irkens link makes all Irkens think the same as the Tallest, or the way the Tallest want them to think. Zim gets his opinions through his pak. But his pak's broken, so it horribly distorts and magnifies all his opinions.
I do have the end of this, just not on yet. It's at my Website, which you MUST GO TO!!!
Two weeks later
Zim lay on Dib's roof, and looked at the stars. Dib pointed out the constellations. Zim found the fact that humans found shapes in the stars amazing. For an Irken, the stars changed position all the time. Very few ever stayed in one place for any amount of time.
"That's Ursa Minor. The little bear. Over there is Ursa Major. The Big Bear. Some people say they look like Bears, some say that they look like Dippers." Zim laughed.
"Your people think that dippers and bears look the same? HA! Primitive humans."
"Oh, shut up. At least we don't base our Gov't on height."
(Zim, no longer having all his opinions automatically downloaded into his pak, now kinda understood the stupidity of this)
"Well we aren't planet bound. Your space ships. Ha! You can barely even make it to your own moon. That's not a ship, it's a RAFT." Dib had nothing to say to this. Zim's technology, while outdated by Irken standards, was still years ahead of Earth's. He changed the subject.
"Could you do something for me? Gaz's birthday is coming up. It's on September 29th. She's got every game made by humans. Is there any chance that I could use Irken technology to make her something else? Is your stuff compatible with ours?"
"Yes, for some reason, my technology is compatible with your puny Earth machines. And you can use my base. But you've gotta come down into the labs. I figure you've been down there before, and I haven't been dissected yet, so I can trust you for now." Zim's fake purple eyes looked into Dib's amber ones. And Dib saw sincerity there. He smiled.
"You can trust me. Truth be told, I haven't thought of dissection in a while. I guess it got old"
"Ms. Bitters yelled at you for drawing it, more likely." Dib blushed, remembering the drawings he used to do. He still had a few of them in a box in his room, along with sketches he did of Zim, slug people, and bigfeet. He wondered why he didn't throw it away.
"Wanna go work on it now?"
"Ok. I was thinking about something with attack squirrels!"
"With nut-lobbing action." The two boys laughed as they made their way down off the roof. Gaz sat in her room, not even noticing as one, then the other flew past her window, to land with a crash on the ground. She was writing in her journal. She wrote with the practiced ease of someone copying down notes. But inside, deep within the shell she had built around herself, she felt emotion. It burned at the thick walls she had built to keep it in. And it grew.
'Zim comes over almost every day now.' She wrote. 'At first, Dib thought it might have been a trap, and I'm sure Zim must have thought the same. But now they laugh and joke like pre-skool friends. I guess I should be glad that Dib has someone else to rant to now. But I kind of miss it.
'And it seems like I'm jealous of him. But why should I be? Friends are no good. They're just human. And humans will disappoint me. Like mom did. I guess that's why I like Zim so much'
She stopped dead. She stared wide-eyed at the last line. Why had she written that? She scribbled over the black ink, covered it so hard that the ink pooled, and drained through onto the next page. Silently, she resumed writing.
"Tell me again. You humans celebrate your own births because why? Irkens have no such obligations. I don't even know how old I am." Dib rolled his eyes.
"Ok, we celebrate our birthdays because we are glad that someone we love has come into our lives. Like I love Gaz, so I'm glad she was born. So I celebrate the anniversary. And celebrating means gifts. That's how it works on Earth."
Zim thought for a moment in silence.
"So, that means YOU have a birthday, too, right? When is it?"
"Oh, it's already passed. It was back on August 24th." Zim's eyes widened. "Wasn't that the day I-" Dib nodded.
"Yup. That's the day I locked you in the girl's bathroom. And than you stuck me in the air conditioning vents." Dib laughed. "Man, don't feel bad. Had I done that to you, I would still be laughing about it today. Hey, remember that time you came to school covered in meat? I laughed so hard I almost threw up"
"Remember that time I hit you with that water balloon? That decimated the whole city. You humans regenerate fast." (Really, it's amazing that they could be friends after all this)
"Remember that time I got trapped in your space ship? And Gaz had to come get me? And then you came into Bloaty's? You were scared to death by those awful robots!"
"Remember the time you sucked me into your head? It's scary in there."
"And you left me in there."
"Well YOU gave me to the nightmare creatures!"
Dib tackled Zim, and they rolled around the base, wrestling like little kids. After a minute, Zim released his spider legs, which lifted Dib up by his shirt. Zim stood haughtily, grinning at his defeated friend.
"You know… I still wanna see what you look like with your organs on the outside." He said jokingly.
"NOOOO!!!!" Yelled Dib, fighting the metal appendages. He wasn't sure that Zim was kidding. The little alien did malicious glee very well. Zim dropped him.
"I was just kidding." He said. Then he had an idea. He looked at Dib, who was still on his guard.
"GIR! Come play with Dib!" A high-pitched squeal came from the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. It was horrifying, in a funny way. Dib looked at Zim, a look of pure fear on his face. "NO! Zim, please don't! Oh…." Zim grinned.
"I'll be back in one second" He said, and disappeared into a hole in the floor.
Dib looked fearfully around him, into the shadowy corners of the subterranean room. On the ceiling, tubes and wired moved. He jumped at every little sound. Then-
In the darkest corner, two cyan circles glowed. There was a glint of metal as the little robot's mouth formed a huge smile. It advanced slowly toward the cowering Dib.
"Have you met my little friend?" Gir asked in a creepy voice.
"N-no, I don't think-"
'PIIIGGG!!!!!! PIG COMERE! I WANT YOU TO MEET DIB!" The robot grinned hugely at Dib. Then he noticed that Dib wasn't happy.
"Aww, Master's Friend not happy." Gir frowned. "I know what'll fix that. I'M GONNA HUG YOOUUUU!!" Gir ran toward the helpless boy. Just before he got there, Dib fell through a hole in the floor, landing on his butt. He sighed.
"Sorry about Gir, I haven't fixed all of him yet." Dib jumped up and whirled around. Zim stood there, grinning.
"C'mon, I have something to show you." Dib followed him to the elevator. They went up several floors. The doors opened. Dib gasped.
On a high pedestal on the center of the domed room was the Voot Runner. A metal ramp descended, and Zim walked up it. Dib followed, still in awe of the sleek machine.
"There's only one seat, so it might be kinda cramped." Zim said. Dib said nothing. Did that mean what he thought it meant?
The purple craft had its windshield open, and Zim stepped in. He sat in the half-moon shaped seat. There were two panels behind him that Dib guessed led to storage compartments. Dib climbed in next to Zim, and sat on the metal floor. It was warm to the touch. Zim hit a button, and the shield closed. The roof opened up, and the Voot shot up into the night sky. Zim's red eyes searched the horizon, and located a certain constellation.
"How would you like to miss a few days of Skool?" Dib nodded. It would give the poor teachers some time to recover. Their fighting had been awful, but their friendship had driven the teachers to madness. It didn't help that they had all the same classes.
"Well, then. Let's go see this 'bear' of yours. Big or little? I happen to know that Invader Groot is on a planet in the little…"
"Big, then. Definitely." Zim grinned, and the ship flew off onto the sky at a rate unknown to humans. Speed of light was child's play to the Irkens. But it wasn't until they were far past Betelgeuse that Zim realized that something was wrong.
For the first time since she was a little girl, Gaz cried. She hadn't thought she would miss Dib if he decided to take off for the stars, but… She looked over at the orphaned little green dog. It played on the floor in front of Zim's huge TV. The Scary Monkey growled menacingly. For the fifth time she walked to the elevator. It took her down to the same room. The computer, having an artificial intelligence, knew what she needed to see. Just to reassure herself that it wasn't just a horrible nightmare. That Dib wasn't going to come running in, babbling about how cool the solar system was, Zim trailing behind. But the words remained on the screen, glowing red in the eerie darkness.
Voot runner destroyed. Location: k-938.
Gaz blinked back tears. She had seen the Voot runner leave, barely two days ago. It wasn't the first time. Her window was level with Zim's roof. Every time he left or returned, she knew. But that was the first time Dib had been in it, his eager face looking out the shield, and grinning. He saw her, and knew that she had seen all this before. And he was temporarily upset. What he would have given to have it on tape only a month ago… And that was the last time she would ever see him. She thought of the last time she had ever seen her mother. She was in the hospital. How sad she had looked. She gave Gaz the silver skull pendant, and then the doctors had to take her away.
Gaz had cried and cried, but her tears did nothing. So she took them and built a wall around her heart. And for years nothing could get through. But this could. She sobbed like a little child, and the emotions swelled, and broke through the wall she had built so long ago. Rage, and fear and sadness filled her, and she had a thought.
"COMPUTER!" She screamed. The computer was programmed not to react to anyone but Zim, but her voice made him fear for his artificial life.
"Yes?" It said timidly.
"What is k-938?"
"k-938: Planet not yet conquered by the Irken Empire. Coordinates are-"
"Yes, yes, very good. Can you put yourself in a disc?"
"Um, I've never tried but-"
"Do it."
"OK."
Tak's ship did not like being bossed around by a 13-year old girl. Gaz didn't really care what the ship thought. At least she had Zim's computer in there too, to keep Tak from any mischief. The ship rose into the sky, and took off toward the Big Dipper.
To be continued...