"Gir!" shouted Zim to his ever-present robot companion. "Time to rocket out of here!"
Gir snapped to attention and then went horizontal, igniting his jets to keep him aloft. The door opened, Leela and Fry bursting in just as Zim climbed aboard Gir and the two of them blasted through the hole that Zim had lasered in the wall.
"Onward to vengeance!" yelled Zim as he held on, Gir jetting through the bustling 30th century streets at breakneck speed.
"Damn it!" yelled the Professor, now awake, as he elbowed his way past Leela and Fry to see the damage done to his business. "More things I can't pay for! Well, let's get after them!"
The Farnsworth group spilled out into the streets and began following the smoke trail left behind by Gir, who continued to speed away from the Planet Express building towards the library Zim thought he had seen during one of his outdoor excursions last week in this stink place. Gir zipped towards the front stairs of the edifice at full speed and jetted just above the ground, intending to pull up and execute a perfect two-point landing; but being Gir, he throttled down a tad too late, and the Irken duo wound up bouncing up the stairs like an Old West cowboy on his bucking bronco.
"Ooof! Owww! Ouch!" complained Zim as he was jostled up and down, only coming to rest when Gir leveled out on the top stair and sped through the front door like a miniature train, jets still going strong.
"Gir! Stop! STOP!" commanded Zim, holding on for dear life.
"Okey-dokey!" squeaked Gir, instantly cutting his jets - and sending the unprepared Zim flying, the green meanie tumbling head over heels.
"Aaaahhhh!" cried Zim as he was hurled towards the far wall, finally impacting it back-first and upside-down, the Irken subsequently issuing a loud groan. His PAK bore most of the brunt, but Zim was still dazed as he slid downwards and landed none too gently on his green skull, the invader finally flopping over onto his stomach and lying there face down.
Gir was slightly scratched up and sparking a bit, but not too banged up. By now he had regained his cylindrical feet and was ambling giddily over to Zim, the droid smiling mindlessly.
"C'mon, master!" he said. "No time to sleep!"
He shook Zim gently with a metallic hand, trying to rouse him, but Zim was awake.
"I'm awake, Gir!" snapped Zim at his minion as he rolled over. He looked up and saw the slight hurt in Gir's face and then softened his voice as he rose.
"It's OK, Gir, we just need to work on your braking. Now, let's see which of these monkeys can help us around – the library!" hissed Zim.
"This isn't the library, it's the museum," came a hoarse voice from behind them. It was owned by a grossly overweight, dark brown human female wearing a blue uniform and sitting behind a much too small desk.
"Museum?" mused Zim, looking confused. "How will that help me?"
"Well, what are you looking for?" replied the enormous woman in the tiny blue hat, who probably could have swallowed Zim whole if she chose. He thus maintained his distance while staring intently at her.
"I need to find a way back to my own time!" he shouted, pointing right at her. "And I need books to show me the way!"
"Hell, you don't need no books," she croaked. "Just go all the way down the hall and take a left, and you can ask some of history's greatest minds for help!"
"Eh?" he mouthed, unsure of how minds could help him.
"Just go down the hall and ask Albert Einstein, he'll tell you," she croaked again, her throat expanding like a frog's after she had spoken.
"Very well, giant frog woman," said Zim, "I shall inquire of this Albert Einstein how I can return to my own time!"
And with that he turned on his heel and made his way down the corridor, with Gir following close behind. They passed a giant bronze sculpture of an ancient Spartan, a giant handmade bronze teakettle, and a giant bronze squid before making their way into the Hall of Minds.
The room was filled with shelves upon shelves, and on those shelves were jars upon jars, and in those jars were living, breathing human heads. Heads of all great past heads of state, science, and celebrity, with some of them here for more than a millennia. Zim looked around, a bit overwhelmed, and decided that the sooner he could get out of here the better.
"You there!" he commanded, pointing at the nearest jar. "Head! Tell me where I can find Albert Einstein!"
The head Zim had pointed to looked displeased and even disrespected.
"I have a name, you know," said Leonard Nimoy, his famous name etched in bronze on the wooden base of his jar.
"I have no time for guessing games!" admonished Zim. "I need to find Albert Einstein – now!" He shook his angry black-gloved fist at the Star Trek legend.
"My name is right ..." started Nimoy.
"No guessing games!" snapped Zim.
"But it's ..."
"No guessing games!"
"Fine," said Nimoy. "He's over in that corner. And I'm Leonard Nimoy!"
"That voice …" came another, muffled voice from one of the shelves. Zim heard it and looked around, but he couldn't ascertain just which head it came from. He began to walk towards the area that the head called Nimoy had indicated, when he heard a rumbling noise, as if something was being pushed along on one of the shelves. He spun around and looked, but could see nothing. He resumed his course.
More rumbling. More looking. Still nothing. Zim had almost made his way to the corner when there was one last rumbling noise, a voice saying "Whoa!" and then ultimately the sound of crashing glass.
Zim looked back to see former major league baseball slugger Johnny Damon - or rather, his head - looking like he/it did in his/its wild man days with the world champion Boston Red Sox. The head was lying atop its base surrounded by pools of fluid and numerous glass shards, none of which had inflicted any wounds.
"Hey, what was that about?" said Damon, directing his voice upwards to the shelf where the head had once rested, a bookcase collection marked above its top shelf with a capital letter 'D'. Zim blinked at the Damon head, then cast his gaze upwards to the spot where it had once rested. He could make out another jar, somehow moving under its own power, pushing its way up front from the second row. His jaw dropped and he wanted to clean his contacts, but then he realized he wasn't wearing them.
Zim saw a stupid, scowling white face decorated with stupid eyeglasses, and a stupid shock of scythe-like black hair emerging from the top of the jar. And the head they were all attached to was big - as big as Zim remembered, bigger perhaps than all the other heads in the room. He managed to pull his jaw back up and utter a single word, one he had never expected to say again.
"Dib?"
TBC
