"These things need names."

Dib and Gaz trekked along a deserted street, their SIRS trailing behind. Gaz stopped at the sound of her brother's voice, which had so rudely shattered the eerie silence of the landscape. She scowled at him, but wasn't annoyed enough not to answer.

"I'm not sure it would be a good idea."

"Sure it would." Dib squinted at his robot, currently disguised as a black lab. "I mean, we can't just go around saying Hey, you! Do this!' forever."

"I suppose you're right..." admitted Gaz. "Though I still feel like something about that is wrong..."

"Just give it a name already."

Gaz sighed and stared at her SIR. "Fine. From now on, your name is DIV. DIV is an Indian name meaning evil,'" she added to her brother.

DIV grinned, and her normally dull eyes glowed red beneath her disguise. Suddenly, she shifted from a golden retriever to a German shepherd.

"Are we going to kill the humans?" DIV queried, her voice low and raspy.

"Er, maybe." Gaz's grin faltered slightly. "Okay, Dib, your turn."

"Um." Dib stared at his SIR unit, which was giving him a glassy, expressionless look. It seemed as though the thing's battery was missing a few volts.

"Take your time," muttered Gaz. Her moodiness had apparently returned the moment the two left the ship.

"Sorry. Any ideas?"

"Stupid?"

"Er, no." Dib stared long and hard at his SIR unit. "I'm kind of partial to Rei."

"Fine. It's a good name." Gaz sighed. "Now that we've gotten that over with-"

Rei suddenly shifted to a greyhound. Dib grinned; he'd always liked that breed. Rei saluted as best he could, and his eyes glowed red.

"Let's go get those filthy humans," it hissed.

"Ooh, Rei, do you want to help me kill them?" whispered DIV.

"Not unless Master wishes for them to die. Protocol must be followed, no matter what our personal feelings might tell us."

"Will you two shut UP?" Gaz hit them both on the back of the head. "Now let's keep walking. It's almost light out."

The group made slow progress. Mostly, it was Dib who slowed them down. His humanoid legs provided less than half a meter's stride, and the others continuously found themselves stopping to wait for him to catch up. It was all rather irritating.

And as sunrise bathed the land in a bloody red glow, Gaz abruptly turned off the road and headed for a partially-collapsed building. The others followed her, some more easily than the rest.

"We have to stop here for the day," announced the Neptunian, her mental shields flickering. "The sun's going to fry us if we keep going."

"Gaz, Dib," crackled a voice over Rei's intercom, "are you secure?"

"Of course, 777," Gaz assured him, sinking down behind a boulder. "You have our position, I'm assuming?"

"Of course." There was a tapping sound, and a holo-screen projected out of Rei's head. "You are ten miles away from the skool. Tonight, continue north by northwest. You veered off-course a bit because of the debris. Zim is monitoring the humans; I'll turn you over to him."

"Who said they could use MY head for a computer?" growled Rei irritably, twisting around in a vain attempt to see the screen.

"SILENCE!" ordered Zim, whose head had just appeared on the holo-screen. "Gaz, the humans are organizing. Apparently, a humanoid creature is leading them on some kind of quest. The details are fuzzy at best, though. Humans have disgustingly non-literal text."

"Zim, we can rant about humans later," sighed Gaz. "Just tell me whether or not we have to get to their base before tomorrow."

"Based on the communications," interrupted Tak, replacing Zim on the screen, "time is of the essence. I suggest utilizing your SIR units for your benefit."

"And that means what, exactly?" queried Dib, eager to get in on the conversation.

Tak rolled her eyes. "Dib, your SIR unit has spider-legs. Use them to move fast. Gaz, you know what to do already. Make sure the human doesn't get himself killed, will you?"

"Of course," breezed Gaz as her brother made rude gestures at the screen. "We'll be fine. Oh, and Tak?"

"Yes?"

"Is 777 okay? He's, er, normal now. Did he get hit on the head with a heavy, blunt object or something?"

"Oh, no. The oxygen on this planet is so scarce, it doesn't have any effect on him. He had one hell of a hangover right after you left, though." Tak hid her smile with a gloved hand. "Take care."

Gaz saluted, and the screen flickered off.

"Dib, you'd better rest up," ordered the Neptunian, tugging at her hair. "We're not going to be sleeping for awhile after this. I'll keep watch."

"But don't you-"

"I'll be fine. You look exhausted. Sleep."

Dib obeyed. When he laid down against the crumbling wall of their shelter, he felt his eyelids close like twin guillotines. Before that thought finished crossing his mind, he was unconscious.

"Do you think they'll be able to get in?"

"Maybe. More than likely, they'll have to fight their way in."

"Then why did you send them?"

"Because they can handle it."

Tak and 777 exchanged a few more words and broke apart from their heated argument. The former went back to monitoring the skies, the latter to fixing up a SIR unit. Tenn met his clouded gaze and decided not to ask what he was thinking. She concentrated instead on rewiring a portion of the Vortian warship's weapons system. If things went as 777 expected, they could be needing those weapons very shortly.

"Tenn, I thought I told you not to name your SIRS," 777 began impatiently, his eyes flickering over the group of robots clustered in the doorway. "They've started developing free will."

"It's not so much free will as it is a hive mentality," Tenn murmured, careful not to set her leader off on a rant. Since his little hangover, he'd been a much more argumentative creature. "Only Bit has anything resembling free will."

"They won't be as eager to serve now," muttered 777, his spidery fingers twisting wires into their receptacles. "If I were to attack you now, they might not want to shoot at me. They're beginning to understand the consequences of taking life."

"Why should that be a problem? You'd never attack me." Tenn's voice rose a notch in volume despite her best efforts.

"But say I did. You might be dead before your SIRS decided to go after me. THAT'S why it's a problem, Tenn."

"So what do you want to do? Rewire them? Wipe their memories so they can be reprogrammed into the perfect little servants?" The words had more bite than she would have liked.

"You wouldn't let me even if I tried." 777's voice softened. "And I suppose they're like family now. I noticed how you outfitted them all with paks."

"I couldn't resist," admitted the Irken. "And I named them after my friends back home. Of course, they're all dead now."

"I thought so." He smiled. "You gave me the idea to fit the human's SIR with spider-legs. And who knows? Maybe the SIRS will make better servants if they can judge situations for themselves."

"Dib, don't touch the antenna. It's very sensitive."

The dying sun bathed the area in a warm glow. Gaz utilized the remaining daylight to train her brother in the art of riding SIR units. It wasn't working too well.

"For the sake of the GODDESS," snapped Gaz impatiently. "Dib, it's not too hard. Look, Rei's even holding level for you. It's like riding a bike."

"Yeah, a bike with a HEAD," complained Dib, fidgeting and falling off again.

"Rei, restrain him." Gaz put a hand to her forehead and heaved a sigh.

What resembled a straightjacket flew out of Rei's back, quickly twining around Dib's body. Rei reeled him back in, tightly securing him for the ride. Neither he nor the others took heed to Dib's screams of protest. Desperate times called for desperate measures, after all.

Gaz quickly slipped onto the back of her SIR, and they were off. Dib stopped screaming and started muttering under his breath when it became apparent that no one was listening. Gaz, easily astride DIV, grinned into her hand.

DIV's own legs resembled tentacles more than spider-legs. They bore Gaz a good foot higher off the ground than her brother, and either they were a faster method of transportation, or Dib was just really heavy. Dib didn't take kindly to this second idea.

"We should be there in about fifteen minutes," announced Gaz awhile later. "You two can slow down a little. We don't want to alert anyone to our presence."

"Of course," chimed both SIRs, and they reduced their speed significantly.

"Now, Dib, we're approaching the skool from the south. The computer showed that their only blind spot is a tower by-"

"Couldn't we just walk right in as refugees?" Dib pointed out. "After all, as far as anyone knows, we're just two kids lucky enough to have escaped the blast with our pets."

"You have a point," Gaz admitted, albeit grudgingly.

"I see the skool," strained Dib, twisting his head around in ways it wasn't meant to go. "Can you release me now?"

"Rei, you can let him go. DIV, hologram on." Gaz dropped lightly to the ground, Dib rolling after her. "Rei, you too."

Two teenagers approached the skool, follwed by two battered-looking dogs. The sentry took one look at them and shouted for the guards to let them pass. It was the Membrane kids, after all. Wonder when they'd gotten dogs?

"That was easy," muttered Dib to his sister.

"Shut up, Dib." Gaz staggered and sank to her knees. "Water."

DIV moved to obey, but a human got to her first, handing her a warped plastic container full of liquid. Gaz drank deeply, gasping for air. Dib stared stupidly at her for a long time before it occurred to him that he should be doing the same.

He opted for a slightly less dramatic approach. He launched into a coughing fit, leaning on Rei for support. The helpful water-human handed him a flask, and he too drank deeply. When both teenagers had gotten their fill, they were led into the shade.

"You are Dib and Gaz Membrane, correct?" asked a commanding-looking man in a dusty white lab coat.

"Well, actually-" started Dib.

"Yes, we are," interrupted Gaz. "Thank you for giving us shelter. We've been traveling for a long time. Our previous community was wiped out by famine. We were lucky enough to get out alive."

"It's no problem, Gaz. We have a great abundance of food here. Our leader has provided much for us, and we're always open to the homeless." The man smiled warmly. "Are you well, apart from your hunger and thirst?"

"Pretty much so," breezed Gaz with a smile of her own. "Yourself?"

"I'm doing well, thank you." He turned to Dib. "How about you, Dib?"

"Uh, I'm okay, I guess." How eloquent. Dib mentally kicked himself in the head. "How'd you guys get here?"

"I'm not sure how most of the people got here, but I was with a group of scientists working deep underground in a sealed lab. We came up as soon as we detected the blast, but by the time we got to the surface, almost everything was gone. Our equipment went offline shortly after that." The man rubbed at his graying scalp. "I was the only one who made it here. A wild animal took the others that night."

"How tragic," murmured Gaz, trying not to smile.

"I haven't heard from your father. I assume he perished along with the others?" The scientist lowered his voice, tried to make it gentle, but the blow hit hard.

Dib gripped the glasses in his pocket. "Yes, sir. He'd gone upstairs for awhile. The three of us were in his labs. Then his equipment went haywire, and..."

Dib forced a lump of fake emotion down his throat. He turned away and let the real emotion leak through his eyelids. Gaz could take care of the rest. She was good at lying.

"The professor was gone by the time we got upstairs. Our dogs were going crazy, like they'd seen something terrifying. Of course, they're not going to talk." Gaz lowered her gaze. "We had to leave."

"I'm sorry, kids," sighed the scientist. "It seems like we all lost family, or at least loved ones. But we have to make the best of what we have left. Otherwise, what's the point in being a survivor?"

"True." Gaz pulled out her GS6. "I'd like to be left alone now. This conversation is making me distraught."

"Oh. Of...course." The scientist backed away. "If you need anything, I'm right inside the front doors."

Gaz didn't answer, and Dib was too preoccupied with trying not to cry to notice. The scientist left them in their corner, presumably to go do something important.

"Did you get that, DIV?" asked Gaz, still pounding away at her GS6.

"Of course, Mistress," the SIR unit replied, nodding her furry head slightly.

"I picked up additional information," Rei informed the teenagers quietly.

"Can't we just kill them already?" asked DIV impatiently.

"Not yet. Soon, DIV, I promise." Gaz kept her eyes locked onto the screen, but her words carried enough meaning nonetheless.

Dawn came uneasily. The newcomers were welcomed with hesitation. This long after the Event, it was rare to see even one survivor wandering, much less two children and their pets. Suspicions flared, and rumor gave way to fear.

"Excuse me, but do you know where we can find food-" Gaz's smile faltered as she watched the subject of her query hurry away.

"Don't bother," sighed her brother, cleaning off his glasses on the hem of his shirt. "We should just find out where their leader is and have a little conference."

"I don't know if we should press on so soon," murmured Rei. "From what I can tell, human children aren't encouraged to become politically active."

"That's good," breezed Gaz. "I'm a Neptunian. Let's go."

Despite Rei's whispered protests, the group started off to seek out the community's mysterious leader. Dib had better luck in getting people to talk to him, but by nightfall, the group was no closer to their goal.

"I'm bored," whined DIV. "I wanna kill the humans!"

"Shut UP, DIV!" hissed Gaz, clamping a hand over the SIR's mouth. "Dogs don't talk!"

"Humans are idiots," snarled DIV, speaking through closed jaws. "They wouldn't believe it if I walked around without my hologram. One word would convince them I'm a new breed of Doberman."

"They're not quite that stupid, DIV," murmured Rei, looking about furtively. "One of them looked at you strangely and ran away."

"That doesn't mean anything." DIV glared in Rei's direction. "Honestly, Rei, you've gotten so cowardly since we touched down. What's wrong with you?"

"I'm providing a contrast to your demeanor," he replied mechanically. "In effect, I'm acting as a conscience for our owners. You know, so they get to hear both sides of the story."

"Well it's stupid," snorted DIV. "I want to kill them now."

"Stop bickering, you two," sighed Gaz. "And no, DIV, we can't kill them until we find fault with them."

"They all deserve to die," hissed DIV in Dib's ear. "They betrayed you from the start, the humans did. They all deserve to die. After all, isn't that what you wanted?"

"No, I wanted humanity to start over," Dib asserted. "Any human left over after the initial detonation is a worthy being."

"So why are we here?"

"To determine if we screwed up and missed some of the assholes."

"But that doesn't fit in with your plan."

"Shut up. I already have ENOUGH voices in my head."

DIV frowned, but she obeyed nonetheless. Dib could see her discontent, but he pretended not to notice. Gaz just sighed, and Rei was too preoccupied with information retrieval to pay attention to the drama flaring up around him.

"Okay, so we have no idea where to find this 'leader' person," Dib sighed. "Now what?"

"I think we should find a secluded area to report our progress," announced Gaz, tucking her GS6 into her pocket. The root cellars sound pretty deserted."

Gaz led the way into the dark, damp area called the root cellars. It was a storage room or sorts where the community kept a large majority of their food supply. For some reason there were no guards to get past, but then again, the deep blackness of the cellars would have deterred most would-be thieves. Dib felt immediately at home.

"Gaz? Dib? Why's it so dark?" A holoscreen popped out of Rei's head, displaying a translucent image of 777's head. "Hello?"

"Sorry, 777." Dib turned on a flashlight. "We had to go into the root cellars. Can't risk someone finding out about our mission."

"No luck finding the leader of this community," reported Gaz, ever the efficient one. "It's like they don't exist. Can you give us a fix on a likely location?"

Tenn's face replaced 777's. "Our readouts say that the Leader is positioned somewhere in what's left of the Skool. There's a classroom that appears to be completely undamaged. Tomorrow, I suggest you check it out."

"Thanks, Tenn." Gaz pulled out her GS6. "After we rest awhile, we'll head out."

"Um, guys, you better watch out," murmured Skoodge's image, suddenly butting out Tenn on the screen. "Scanner says there's a group of humans approaching fast."

"Nice robot."

"Bye!" The hologram disappeared, and Rei struggled to regain his disguise.

"I don't know what you're talking about, human," laughed Gaz, not bothering to turn around. "This is a perfectly normal dog."

"Yeah. A dog whose head opens up," piped up a younger-sounding voice, a female.

"Shit," hissed Gaz and Dib simultaneously, and they turned around.

A tall, scarily emaciated male held a large torch in one skeletal hand. Standing next to him was an equally tall, not-so-emaciated woman with purple hair, a teenaged girl, and several frightening hi-skoolers. The man grinned at Gaz and Dib.

"So. You're going to kill us all, then?" he asked. "Are you sure about that?"

"Father, be nice," murmured the teenager. "I assume you are the ones responsible for the explosion, then?"

"Er..." Dib looked at Gaz, panicking.

"You little pricks," growled the one called Nny.

"Don't listen to him, kids," sighed the purple-haired woman. "He's just annoyed because there's not too many assholes for him to mutilate nowadays."

"How did you-" began Gaz, but one of the hi-skoolers cut her off.

"We were gouging out the eyes of some cheerleaders in Nny's basement when the bombs went off," breathed a tiny Japanese girl from behind a boy with horns. "It was lovely. Except for the fact that the place was deserted by the time we left the basement. No one writhing around on the ground screaming. Why didn't you just blow them up like any normal psychotic killer?"

"Um..." Dib gave another panicked glance toward Gaz.

"Look, kids, we should get going," announced another young man, stepping into the circle of light from the torch. "Best of luck to you destroying the rest of the assholes. We'll be somewhere in this network of tunnels if you need us. Come on, guys."

And one by one, they disappeared into the darkness. Nny was the last to go, his terrifying grin the last thing they saw before he blew out the torch.

"That was weird," commented Dib."

"I liked that Nny person," laughed Gaz. "I wonder if his daughter is as delightfully twisted as he is...She'd make a good ally."

"You scare me," muttered Dib. "Let's get some sleep."

Nightmares. Dib writhed and twisted in his sleep, trying in vain to escape the awful truths that haunted him. Flashes of his father's face, the disbelief written in his eyes as he collapsed, the hollow sound of his breath escaping his lungs. The brilliant light of thousands of explosives spreading their destructive poison into the atmosphere. Billions of people going about their lives, unaware that it would all end in milliseconds. The moment when he himself decided to destroy the very thing he had once vowed to save. A glittering knife doused in translucent scarlet. Dib's wrists burned, and he woke up screaming.

"You're sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

Dib wrapped his wrists tightly in bandages. The scars still burned, though the pain was ebbing away. He tried not to look until the stark white lines were out of sight, but he couldn't help catching a glimpse of the shallow red cuts that crisscrossed them. Bits of skin still clung to the underside of his nails, but he couldn't bring himself to clean them out yet. It made him ill just to look at them.

Gaz let him wear her gloves. She didn't say anything else, but he knew she was wondering if he would relapse.

"We should go," was the only thing Rei had to offer.

DIV didn't care enough to make any kind of comment.

The group made their slow way back up the rickety stairs of the root cellars to civilization. DIV led the way, lighting their footsteps with her eyes. They blinked in the sudden light of midday after clearing the final step, and a few people milling about gave them strange looks. Nevertheless, Dib had never been happier to see the sun.

"The Skool, then?" he asked, stretching.

Gaz nodded.

All at once, a group of people dressed in faded rags and sporting immpossibly long hair walked up. Their leader, a young man wielding a guitar, grinned sluggishly at them.

"Hey, man, groovy gloves," he laughed by way of greeting. "You lookin for the great spirit, too?"

"Um...no." Dib took a small breath and was overwhelmed by the sickly smell of pot. "Do I know you?"

"Nobody knows me, man," he declared proudly. "Only I know me. Well, my soul mate Cherry Blossom knows me, too," he laughed, hugging the spaced-out woman next to him.

"That's wonderful," muttered Gaz uncomfortably. "So. Do you four have an 'I survived the blast' story?"

"You can't kill flower children, man," giggled the other girl, shorter but with no less hair. "We live on like Mother Nature!"

"Okay. Let's go." Gaz hurried away. "Bye, flower children."

"What the hell is up with these weirdoes wanting to talk to us?" hissed Dib, falling into step beside his sister.

"I don't know oh, crap, here comes another one."

A rather stout man with wild dreads approached with a guitar and a full band. (The drummer carried his drum kit on his back, amazingly.)

"Hi. I'm Adam," he announced, sticking out his hand. "Nice to meet you. Care for a song? My band is getting out of practice."

"DIE!" screamed DIV, diving for Adam with a knife.

She stabbed him repeatedly, but he just looked strangely at her while the wounds healed. No matter what she did, he just kept healing up. It was starting to scare her.

"Why won't you DIE!" she snarled, attempting to hack off his head.

Gaz gently pulled DIV back.

"You can't kill Counting Crows, man," she adamanted, shaking her head in terror. "They're like cockroaches."

"RUN AWAY!" screamed Rei, and they bolted.

Before long, our heroes reached the Skool. No creepy musicians assaulted them, and the flow of needless comic relief seemed at an end. Gaz and the others ducked into the depressing brick building with no further incident, and they found themselves in a virtual wasteland.

Debris covered the ground, and almost everything had been leveled. A single classroom stood in the very center of this military-prison-like compound, and a glowing red plaque on the door read "Miss Bitters."

"Shit," breathed Gaz. "That woman wasn't human."

"You didn't know that before?"

Gaz jumped. A skinny red-haired man appeared next to her, followed by a heavily tattooed, dark-haired man. The former gave a small grin and slurped a cherry brainfreezie.

"You okay, Gaz?" he asked, offering no explanation as to where the knowledge of her name came from.

"I'm fine. You just spooked me, that's all. Please stop sneaking up behind people; it makes them irritable."

"Who the hell are these guys?" demanded Dib and Rei simultaneously.

"Our inside agents," explained Gaz. "Do you two know how to get into that classroom?"

The dark-haired one shrugged. "We've been trying for a couple weeks. Lock-picking, rams, explosives, crowbars, small children, we've tried everything. We even slipped a note under the door threatening to launch kamikaze watermelons."

"That was a last resort," assured the other. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"Did you try just opening the door?" snorted Dib.

"Do you think so?" Red-head rolled his eyes. "We're going to need some alien technology to get that thing open."

"Rei, open that door," commanded Gaz.

"Got it," he chirped, sprinting to the door.

"So." Dib glanced at Rei. "While he's busy opening doors, could someone please tell me who these guys are?"

"Um..." The dark-haired man glanced at his companion. "Did we ever come up with names?"

"Scolex," he replied, raising his hand in a strange salute. "Cartoonist, insomniac, and all-around hyperactive little monkey. I specialize in convenient plot twists."

"Taxidermied," offered the other, grinning. "Cartoonist, insomniac, and all-around tattooed and pierced freak of nature. I specialize in weird characters. And close-up magic tricks."

"They're both trained in various forms of combat, some self-taught," added Gaz, a bit disdainfully. "And you wouldn't want to cross Taxidermied in World of Warcraft."

"Got it!" cried Rei, and a loud click signified his success.

"Very good," rasped a chilling voice from inside. "You are indeed worthy adversaries. Come in, come in."

Cautiously, the group followed Rei inside. The door clicked shut and locked automatically behind them.

Author's note: What awaits our heroes behind the door? just what IS Miss Bitters? why am i still bothering to keep writing these things? All this and more on the next episode of

"INTERGALACTIC SPACE WARRIOR MONKEYS!"

Heh. I kid. Seriously, guys, I'm sorry this took so long. It was my fault for starting a story arc right before skool got back in session. The next and hopefully final chapter will come sooner.

course, this doesnt mean im done with these characters. maybe ill keep adding little side-stories like i did on my jthm fics. maybe this story arc will NEVER END! MWAHAHAHAHA! i dunno. youll just have to stay tuned and hope i dont botch things too badly.

-Raven, your Friendly Neptunian Maniac