Author's Note: I intend on making this chapter far longer, and hopefully the trend will continue. I finished Half-Blood Prince early Saturday afternoon (would have been morning had I not fallen asleep - how shameful!)
Please read and review as I continue on so that I know it's actually interesting somebody. I realize not much has happened yet, and I've been pretty mediocre, but constructive commentary always helps! Thank you.
Log 3: You're Not Alone
Dib threw his school things unceremoniously to the floor of his room. It was rather messy - there were posters of his favorite paranormal beasts, unfinished experiments, and multitudes of unsorted notes scattered about on the floor, all focusing on Zim and his plans for Earth destruction thus far. Dib figured he had the most extensive collection of true alien information on the planet now, especially since the Swollen Eyeball society had been disbanded and thrown in the asylum. He was working on a new brain for Tak's old ship - the Irken one just wouldn't do, and uploading his own mind into the machine had been a complete and utter failure. His mind was just too amazing for a machine to handle, Dib thought, and resolved to slowing building one himself.
He absentmindedly rubbedthe raw, healing flesh on his hand. If that stupid girl hadn't been so intent on showing Dib what he had already knew, he was certain the skin would have flaked off itself, and he wouldn't be smarting nearly this much. Dib made a mental note - by mental, he wrote it on a Post-It and glued it to his laptop screen - so as he could remember to hardwire the shock emulator to get her instead, or at least wreak revenge on Zim's pathetic attempt.
"He's such a bad liar!" Dib cried aloud, adding another piece of information into the personality matrix. "Honestly, as if any idiot couldn't see right through him! I still can't see how no one thinks his green skin is weird! And his lack of ears! HE HAS NO EARS!"
Dib angrily pounded on the keyboard as he typed up the last characteristic for the night. He was making such a racket that he didn't hear someone knocking gently on his door. When the stranger got no reply, it let itself in and stood carefully behind Dib's angry figure, who was powering down his computer and allowing Tak's ship - soon to be completely his own - to rest and absorb the new information he had just completed. It wasn't until a pale hand had covered his mouth and thrown him from the chair that he actually paid attention. Dib shook his abnormally large head to clear his vision as he lied there on the floor, and looked up at someone who looked extraordinarily anodyne. She wore a slightly crazed grin beneath her hooded eyes, and had the slightly sinister look of someone who had a whole lot more inside her than out. Other than that, she wasn't dressed strangely - no more out of place than Gaz was - and didn't seem all that threatening.
"What was that about!" cried Dib angrily. He was certain he had seen her before - in fact, he was sure she was one of the girls that sat in the desks behind him, one of the girls who often whispered aloud. He could remember only one other thing - he never recalled her calling him stupid at any point, and that certainly was a plus for conversation, if she hadn't just rudely broken into his room and kicked him out of his seat. She sat in the spindly rolling desk chair instead, looking down at him as if finishing her own impressions of him silently, and took a few minutes of glancing around before she spoke.
"Dib, I apologize for my rude interruption," she said quietly, crossing her legs as if she were some sort of CEO at a business meeting, "but I was afraid you'd do something stupid, and I cannot let you make judgments about me before I've had my chance to explain things."
"Explain things?" asked Dib loudly, his eyes bulging. "You just came in here and violently pushed me out of my chair! What's to explain - you think I'm crazy too, is that it?"
"No, Dib," she said seriously, glancing out the window as if checking for eavesdroppers, "I think you're quite sane. In fact, you're the only other human I can talk to about the Irken threat, as everyone else thinks there is no difference between a known alien and a boy with a skin condition."
If Dib's face showed any inkling of the excitement that ran through him that moment, it would have scared this strange visitor to the point of insanity. A million questions began to form in Dib's mind - but before he could utter a single word, the way she glared at him made him close his mouth at once, and he knew it wasn't the time to wonder about how she had come to realize the truth, just as he had. Nevertheless, Dib could have screamed for joy - and probably been sent to the asylum anyway by his slightly worried father figure.
"I recently confronted Invader Zim, as we call him, on another matter. I intend on visiting his base within the next twenty minutes to investigate and - there isn't another word for it - spy. You see, I've recently found that there is another Irken invader at our school by the name of Zerk, and, you see, both are very dangerous and need to be apprehended."
"You're inviting me to come?" asked Dib incredulously. "Of course you are! I've been in his base thousands of times - I'm sure you want to hear all about it..."
"I'm sure you've been in there a few seconds every now and then," said the stranger quietly, "but you've never had much class in the matter, have you? Idiots must be approached with extreme stupidity... So much stupidity, that it becomes intelligence. I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about... Yet, that's why I've come to you, Dib. You're not alone." She sat back in the chair lazily, her eyes roaming every inch of the ceiling, glancing into every corner.
Dib leapt up. "I can help you! I know his greatest secrets - we can stop him once and for all! And this other Invader... She can't be any worse than Zim!"
"How wrong you are," said the stranger wisely. "Zerk is different, but different isn't always better." She fumbled around in her pocket, and pulled out a small business card. "Zim knows me by the name of Secret Agent Moose. I want you to refer to me as Az."
Dib took the card, still buzzing with a thousand questions he wanted to ask this intelligent classmate. He glanced around as if attempting to attain inspiration on how to voice his next few words. "What do you want me to do now?"
"Now that the Eyeballs have been destroyed," said Az slowly, "it's up to the two of us. Dib, I want you to get the smallest surveillance camera with input and output modes you can from Membrane's lab. Get one that doesn't send much of a signal so Zim can't track it. I'll leave it in Zim's base so we can keep an eye on him as we finish Zerk off as well."
"Who is this Zerk?" asked Dib, leaping up, his hand on the doorknob. "How come I haven't heard of her before?"
"She's a whole lot more adept at hiding herself," Az said, glancing around Dib's room again. "But don't worry. Everything will turn out fine."
Az stood up from the chair, and as silently as she had walked in, began to take her leave. She didn't seem to notice, Dib realized later, that a small moose-shaped trinket had fallen from her pocket. He hoped that it hadn't meant anything to her - there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the squeaky toy, and he hadn't realized it until she had left. He tossed it onto his shelf of junk which faced his desk and laptop computer. He didn't feel like working on the ship tonight - instead, he wired the monitor up to receive signals from the small camera and began to watch. He was sure Az didn't know it was turned on yet, and this way, he could figure out - or at least had a better chance - of finding if Az was really as trustworthy as she claimed she was.
Unfortunately, she had thrown the little penny-sized camera into her pocket, and Dib could only see darkness. Occasionally he heard a humming noise - Az must have been singing, because occasionally he heard her high-pitched voice talking aloud, but it was never loud enough for him to hear clearly. He scribbled down a few of the things that she said as she was on her way to Zim's house, but it was nothing peculiar. Just something like, "dumb, sign, and moron" - but those weren't words Dib hadn't heard before.