Author's Note: Please read and review, guys - especially review! I haven't gotten any feedback in a long time, and it would be nice to know if absolutely anyone is following this. At least they could offer some constructive criticism, yes? So even if your review consists of "great!" or "shut up, this stinks," I'll still appreciate it immensely.

This is going to be just a tad bit short, this time.

Log 5: What We're Looking For

Az watched the monitor carefully, making sure every word that she overheard was being recorded. She tapped a few buttons on the strange device, reflecting the dim light in that room as only things of such high technology could do. She glanced back through the other bits of data the hidden camera and microphone had picked up, but there hadn't been anything yet - nothing that concerned her, anyway. She had hacked into Zim's computer system and had taken an extra copy of GIR's schematics - she couldn't make heads or tails out of the little blue sheet of paper, but it had been a source of great excitement for her current roommate. Even then, the two of them were building a new SIR unit - one based off GIR's internal wiring and personality matrix - except tuned down in terms of stupidity, but not by much. Zerk felt the whole ordeal of having a stupid unit was quite entertaining.

"Have you found anything?" asked Zerk, glancing over Az's shoulder. She looked at the bits of encoding that made up another computer system - but nothing in those files held any record of any importance. There were a few mentions of certain scientific activities - something named 'Pig Mouth' or other - but it just bored Az, really.

"Nothing like you said we'd find," said Az, jumping to her feet. She walked to the kitchen doorway and glanced back at her friend with a smile. Zerk was just as green-skinned as Zim was, although far taller. Her antenna had piercings through like earrings, and she had a small scar under her eye. Other than that, Zerk was probably the friendliest Irken you'd find anywhere in the universe - or so Az thought. The human leaned against the kitchen doorway.

"Want anything?" she asked, nodding towards the alien-esque fridge.

"No," said Zerk matter-of-factly, taking her turn at the controls. Zerk's underground base was decorated just as normal as any other human household, although with far more screens and whirring equipment. There were also strange posters of squirrels taped to the inches of wall where no wires or monitors were fastened, and a little moose figurine that 'mooed' when you squeezed it.

"I'm getting pizza," said Az, opening the fridge and pulling out a pizza they had ordered five weeks ago, perfectly preserved. She threw a couple slices onto a plate and walked back into the main room to look and see if Zerk found anything. This time, she glanced over her shoulder instead.

"Nope, it's not in this part of the database," said Zerk irritably, pounding a the keyboard just a little harder than was required. It didn't make her too happy when she failed to get what she needed out of a machine - after all, the Armada had considered her the best mechanic in the whole universe.

"Are you sure it's there?" asked Az, sitting down beside her friend and tearing an overlarge slice of pizza between her fingers. It steamed as if it had just come out of the oven. "I mean, are you certain of what you picked up in the airwaves when you were flying around this part of the galaxy?"

"I'm certain," said Zerk, snatching one of Az's pizza slices and stuffing it into her mouth. "As Professor Membrane said - grand scientist, might I add - it's the only qualities in humankind that gives it a chance of survival." She mentioned something that sounded like "dumb," although Az was starting to get rather sleepy and was hardly paying attention anyway.

"I have to go see Zim tomorrow, right?" asked Az, stifling a yawn. The rest of her still-steaming pizza seemed to realize it was not going to be eaten, and the plate picked itself up and flew into the fridge - the door, of which, had miraculously opened as if welcoming an old friend. Az watched the mechanical feather duster clean the fireplace mantel - the actual fireplace now sporting a hologram of Bloaty the pig, sitting amidst a bright green fire that might had been made of goo, rather than extremely-excited particles. Occasionally, the computer voice would substitute something in Bloaty's looping commercial with words of its own design. Az was now listening to an old folksong about the joys of the wild plains and anchovy-and-mushroom pizza, as Bloaty drooled and attempted to dance around a drooling horde of children, all of whom were drooling about Bloaty's new drool-worthy menu addition. The green "goo-fire" flickered merrily, and occasionally threw up a few bubbles with a deep belching noise.

"We'll have to keep his eyes away from what we're doing for now," said Zerk, still hacking through computer files as fast as she could. She groped for something around the laptop, not taking her eyes off the screen, and a gloved hand closed around something small and rectangular. Zerk flipped a button and pointed it at the fireplace.

The green goo-fire was replaced with flames of deepest purple, and every now and then, little fishes leapt from one side of the grate to the other, singing haikus as they emerged, and silenced when they were back out of site. One fish seemed to be quite intent on sharing wisdom concerning giant gnats, and what to do if you find yourself in a hungry multitude of them, especially if they're trying to dip you in soy sauce.

"What about Dib?" asked Az, curling up with a pillow in her arms. "What do you want me to tell him?"

"He's on observation for now," muttered Zerk, still working madly away, "but keep his trust. After all, we've got to keep him where we want him. But once we find what we need, we can finish what we've started. It's a shame we got the Swollen Eyeballs incarcerated," she added, "they were fun to mess with."

Az was snoring peacefully now, and Zerk seemed to think it best to let her human friend sleep. After all, no one was better than Lieutenant Zerk of the Irken Armada with machines and computers, and if anyone was going to find it, it would be her. She worked best alone, anyway. She clicked through a few extra files with photographs of young children, one of whom seemed to be using a rattle quite violently on the other.

Then, she found a piece of information which looked quite promising. It was stuffed in an overfilled Recycle Bin. She restored it to a place she could open it, moved it to a folder amongst things she knew would never be deleted, and continued to read it with excited, red alien eyes.

"This is it," she whispered excitedly. "It'll take a week to get through all this, though…"

Sure enough, the file was over three hundred pages long, in tiny type, single-spaced, in codes and cross-references abound. Slowly, Invader Zerk began to decipher it. The fishes in the purple fire continued their poetry.

Do not fret because

You will not be lead astray..

Soy sauce is your doom.