"A compressor model n-453h" Zim dictated.
"Com-pre-ssor" Driver wrote.
"A one-ton magnet. Preferably, already cut in five parts"
"One... tonnn... five... parts"
"And also, five cathodic pseudo-blasting peromorphic conveyors"
"Uhhh... yeah, I got it" she nodded as she wrote down an approximation of what she thought she heard. "Never heard of 'em, what do they look like?" she asked him.
"Here" he slid the blueprints across the small table they were both sitting at so she could see them: a machine resembling a space capsule was drawn in white lines over blue paper. Zim pointed at the couple of tube-cables running from its top to the bottom.
"They convey the magnetic energy from the magnets to the gravitational accelerators and back" he explained.
"Ahhh, yes. That's about what I imagined. Say, why don't you add some spikes on the top? Maybe shaped like horns? Or a crown?" she suggested.
"What for?" Zim asked.
"To intimidate whoever we find on the other side" she smirked.
"Ooh, good idea, human!" Zim smiled back at her; he pulled the sheets of paper back towards himself and applied the due changes with a pencil.
"I think we can use a regular small spaceship as the shell to cut down time and cost" she reflected as she read through the to-buy list. "And compressors like this are quite common. But where are we going to find a one-ton magnet and the... pseudo... morphic things?"
"Oh, I can assure you there is a market for both those items" Mister Krassmann intervened, approaching her from behind. "How about we check Tiyo's space market? I'm sure they'll have what we're looking for there"
"Good!" Zim exclaimed, "and, what about the equipment for the construction?" he then asked, his scheming fingers intertwining.
"I have a suggestion for that, also. You see, I happen to be the owner of a secret laboratory on a small, deserted planet. No one has used it in quite a long time, so I'm afraid it might be a little dusty, but otherwise the equipment is up to date and more than sufficient to get the job done"
"Hehehe, everything is going so perfectly!" Zim giggled, rubbing his hands together. "So close to success! Oh, I can already see it!" he gloated. "Aaah, I gotta say, it's nice to have some evil henchmen of my own again!"
Mister Krassmann and Driver exchanged a perplexed look.
"I beg your pardon?" he asked.
"Yeah, Zim, if anyone's the henchman here, that's you" she pointed out.
Zim shot her a furiously outraged look.
"How DARE you-" he started, but Krassmann intervened before he could open fire on her and start a fight:
"Now, now, no one in this operation is a henchman. And no one is a boss either. This is a partnership. I'd like you to think of all the three of us as collaborators on an equal field. Is that agreed upon?" he spoke with his usual mellifluous voice, highlighting all the words indicating 'collaboration' and 'equality' as much as he could with a series of elegant twirls or his hands.
"Sounds peachy to me" Driver nodded in agreement.
Zim, on the contrary, sulkily crossed his arms.
"I should be the boss here..." he mumbled.
"Oh, should you?" she questioned sardonically, "I thought you liked taking orders from me…"
Under the table, she gently nudged his foot with her own. At her touch, Zim's legs immediately shot up to his chest, and he growled at her with a mix of annoyance and embarrassment.
"Turn down the banter, you two" Mister Krassmann jokingly reprimanded them, "you'll have plenty of time for that on your way to the market. Ah, yes! About that, my dear" he then addressed her specifically, "I would like to briefly speak to you of something. In private. Outside the ship, if you don't mind. It's about our previously-arranged work plans. A matter of minutes, really".
That last part seemed to be directed more at Zim than her. And surprisingly, Zim made no protest to that.
"Sure. Go ahead" he placidly with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"I'll come in a second" she smiled at Mister Krassmann, who made a little bow, tilted his hat, turned around and walked out the small kitchen, presumably headed towards the ship's exit.
When the sound of his steps faded and Zim was sure he wouldn't be heard, he turned to her:
"What's he want with you now?!" he spat in a decisively non-placid way. So the mask had come off, uh?
"Dunno" she shrugged, "maybe he wants his share of kisses. It would be awkward to do it in front of you".
As expected, Zim looked at her with widened eyes, disgusted and horrified.
"Y-you're just messing with me, aren't you?!" he stammered.
Driver got up from her chair, leaned down towards him and planted a little kiss on his forehead.
"Quite perceptive today, aren't we?" she giggled.
Zim squeaked at that, wiping the spot she'd just kissed.
"I'll be right back, henchman" she teased him. She turned around and followed Mister Krassmann.
"I hope you don't come back, ever!" Zim shouted behind her back, making her giggle yet again.
Seriously, could he get any cuter?! This misplaced jealousy of his was so, so apparent, and he wasn't even remotely aware of it! Seeing him getting all bashful for her made her feel all giddy and mushy inside. Whatever it was that Mister Krassmann wanted to discuss with her, she hoped it would be very brief so that she could go back to the most adorable alien she'd ever known as soon as possible! And to be truthful, she already had a strong hunch of what that was going to turn out to be...
She pressed a button next to the exit door: it slid open, and a flight of stairs extended under her ship down to the floor of the big parking lot it was parked in. It was technically daytime now, but the sunless landscape of Ghjitif-89r was the same as always, covered in nightly black and veined with the blood red of its own magma.
Mister Krassmann waited for her at the stairs' base, with his back turned and his hands joined behind it. He was whistling a happy time, like he was bidding good morning to the dark world around him.
"What did you want to tell me, Boss?" she asked as she climbed down the last step.
"Ah, here you are, my dear" he said as he turned around. His tone feigned surprise, but she was pretty sure he must have heard her releasing the stairs and walking down them. "I wanted to quickly discuss with you our yearly Hempzin Season Operation".
Figured.
"I am uplifting from your delivery duty for this year" he announced. "You are going to accompany Zim to the marketplace to fetch the parts needed for the machine instead"
"Oh!" she exclaimed. She tried to feign a confused, worried surprise, but she was already ecstatic at the idea of spending more time with Zim alone. "Are you sure? Are you going to carry out the deliveries by yourself? Will you make it in time?"
"Don't you worry about that! We've already completed the most strenuous part yesterday, when we loaded the cargo. I'll be taking our quick ship, so it won't mean too much of a delay. And as for the reason why, well, Zim doesn't exactly seem to me like the most patient fellow. I didn't want to upset him by making him wait for us to carry out all of our duties first"
"Heh, yeah he can get a little... hysterical" she giggled. "Good call".
So that really meant that she was going to be alone with Zim for an entire trip? This couldn't have possibly been more perfect! It would have given her so many opportunities to escalate their relationship even further! Sure, Zim's adversity to intimacy and openness was so severe it could be described as akin to an allergic syndrome, but they'd made so much progress! And who knows, maybe if they were stuck in such a confined space for days she might actually get a chance at… getting serious, so to speak...
"I must say, it seems to me like things are going pretty well with him" Mister Krassmann brought her back from her reverie. "If you allow me to say, he seems to be pretty taken by you"
"Haha! Is he?" she asked, her cheeks blushing and her mouth stretching into a smile. "I mean, he doesn't hide his emotions very well, I suppose…"
Oh, how good it felt to have a third person confirm it! It made her really feel like, in all but name, they were an actual, recognizable couple!
"You really did an excellent job on him so far!" Mister Krassmann nodded, looking satisfied and proud. "You should absolutely maintain your conduct on this next trip!"
It took her a few seconds to process what he'd just said to her.
And as she understood, her smile gradually faded away from her lips, as well as the warm, tipsy sensation she'd felt inside up till then.
"... 'job'? What 'job'?" she asked.
"Ah-"
What a rare occurrence: Mister Krassmann miscalculating a person's reaction to his own words. Even rarer was the expression of confusion painted on his face. She was pretty sure she had never heard him stutter, either, however briefly.
He tried to fix that mistake by acting as his smiley and jovial self, but the result was rather awkward:
"Ah, you know, the- don't you remember the agreement we made back in my car? That you would keep an eye on him, ensuring he would work for us?"
Oh! That... had completely slipped from her mind, somehow. But, yes, now that he mentioned it, she clearly remembered having agreed to that.
"Well, yes, but I didn't think that was a... 'job', sir" she weakly replied. "Officially, I mean…"
"I might have gotten my vocabulary mixed up" he changed his tone again. His posture and voice became looser, like he was playing the whole thing off as an innocent misunderstanding. "It was more of a request to offer him an incentive to collaborate with us. Yes, I believe that was the term I used, 'incentive'" he nodded, implicitly seeking her agreement.
That phrase sounded even worse. It made her heart thud in her chest.
"… you mean like a prostitute?" she murmured.
Her words completely took him aback, even more so than the first time:
"A PR- a prostitute?!" he exclaimed in an almost offended tone. She'd never seen Krassmann being so expressive: his golden eyes were wide in shock and it almost looked like his big mustache was shaking. It would have been funny if not for the context around it.
"Oh, God, NO, not at all! That's not at all what I meant! I was simply referring to our usual, and I must say respectable practice of ingratiating our new collaborators and clients before we can fully trust them!"
Driver couldn't believe her ears. Ingratiating. It was like watching someone dig his own grave, only he was shoveling all the dirt right in her face. That conversation was making her feel like barfing.
So she smiled, albeit very awkwardly, in an attempt to end it right there:
"No, no, it's okay! I get it!" she reassured him. "I overreacted! It's my fault! It's all right, really-"
"My Driver, please" Mister Krassmann reached for her hands and held them up in his.
"You know I care about you, don't you?" he pleaded.
Driver looked into his eyes: everything, from his expression to his voice, seemed full of sincere affection and regret for her. But it did very little to actually make her feel better.
"Yes… me too" she sighed. And she was being completely truthful.
"I just wanted to make sure your… will wasn't faltering"
"My will to what?" she frowned.
"This operation could be the gate to the life we've always striven for! If we play our cards right we'll be unstoppable! I just wanted to remind you, as your elder and mentor, not to let your emotions derail your focus!" he spoke with sudden, excited fervor.
They stared into each other's eyes in complete silence for a few moments. His eyes had a sort of glimmer to them behind the concerned, corrugated frame around them. That amber color looked so very wrong on a human's irises, even more than usual.
She didn't know what exactly he could see in her own eyes, but she hoped it wasn't her discomfort.
She cleared her throat, and tried to add a confident edge to her voice:
"If you mean I might forget the money, then I haven't. I never do. I might be young, but I'm still a professional. I'll bring Zim to the market. I'll make sure he builds the machine. And I'll make sure he'll let us use the machine. He'll get his Earth, and we'll get our money. Everyone will be happy".
Krassmann looked clearly elated at her words and was about to speak, but she continued:
"However, please don't address what's between me and Zim ever again. That's… my department, alright?"
He looked at her for a moment with what looked to her like uncertainty. But then, he smiled with his usual joviality. Maybe he considered the question closed.
"I shan't. I swear so. I trust you thoroughly, you know that" he squeezed her hands one last time and finally let them go.
"Thanks. And thanks for your concern" she nodded.
He nodded back at her; then, his hand searched the left inside pocket of his jacket.
He handed her a small piece of paper: a single rusty old key was wrapped inside of it. And on the interior of the paper itself, there were numbers and letters handwritten with ink.
"Those are the key and coordinates for the laboratory I mentioned. Make sure you're not followed nor seen on the way there" he smiled.
"Sure" she smiled back. "Is that all?"
"I believe so. Well then, I'll be on my way. Bid Zim goodbye for me. I'll catch up to you as soon as possible. Have a good trip. Good luck".
He held out his hand, and she shook it.
"Good luck to you too" she said.
Mister Krassmann turned around, a smile still lingering on his face, and walked away. She watched him walk all the way out of the parking lot, without turning his back once, as he usually did.
Now that he was gone, Driver felt comfortable enough to exhale the deep, rage-filled breath she'd been holding so far.
Just how… how dare he imply her affection towards Zim was all about the money?! All the while implying it had all been his idea, too! How infuriating! And how embarrassing. How could he imply something like that while talking down to her with that paternal voice?! Disgusting!
Besides, after all that talk of 'equal-partner-companion-radery', that hypocrite had referred to Zim like he was nothing more than the target of a scam! How could he?!
She turned around and climbed up the stairs with heavy, angry steps. Whatever. He could think about them whatever he wanted to think. Their relationship was sincere. Of course it was! For one, it had started when money wasn't even involved. And, as of now, like on the first day, they were deeply attracted to each other. There was a great feeling between them. Everything was going absolutely great!
The more she went over those self-reassurances, the less truthful they became to her own judgement, to the point that when she reached the top of the stairs not only had her shame and anger persisted, but a feeling of profound doubt had joined in on the party.
To be perfectly fair… this relationship of theirs had only started because Zim was dead drunk at the moment. And not even a day after that, they had both at least thought of killing the other. And after that, she had practically had to force him into intimacy. And…
… at one point, even if only partially, money had become the reason why she'd kept on seeing Zim, hadn't it? When she'd agreed to host him in her house, so that the ship she used for her work could be fixed as soon as possible.
And what about the fact that she'd lied to him to keep him with her, telling him that there was no way to contact Krassmann? The definition for that was… well...
"… 'scam'" she concluded, without even realizing she was speaking.
She abruptly halted halfway down the main corridor in her ship. Suddenly, all that shame and anger she'd reserved for her Boss was redirected inwards.
Driver pushed a big guilty lump down her throat. Zim was sitting on his assigned chair in the control room, unaware of her presence in the dark corridor behind him. The thought of turning her heels and running away, never to see and confront a person again, had never been more tempting.
In the meantime, Zim was admiring the blueprints of his finished project. Nearly two months of the most dreadful turmoil, only for it all to be solved with a one-night-worth of work! The answer had been so simple to figure out, too, once he'd applied himself! His anxiety from before now seemed so senselessly silly! But in the end, all that mattered was that his amazing genius had finally bore its usual fruitful… its genius fruits!
With all his problems so close to being resolved, he wondered if he should contact the Almighty Tallest and give them the good news that his mission could finally be resumed. Then again, he concluded, he would appear much, much cooler if he already had his spatial-sack-jumping machine to show off. Oh, the faces they would make seeing that! They were going to be so, so proud of him! He couldn't wait to see them again, a sentiment that they, no doubt, reciprocated!
Yes, if he wanted to look good in front of the Tallest, he needed to first get rid of the present problems. Two of which were just now talking outside the ship, probably plotting against him. How hard was the life of an Invader! Everyone was always, constantly trying to bring his awesomeness down! Or, in this case... to exploit it.
He scoffed, thinking back to the corny speech that the Krass-monster-thing had given them about being 'partners'. Did they really think he was that much of a gullible pushover? That he couldn't see past their act? Why, seeing through other people, especially of species different than his, was exactly what his job as an Invader entailed! And as he knew very well, no alien could ever be trusted under any circumstance: the Krass-man's monstrosity, 'hidden' behind his appearance of an old, kind man, was so laughably blatant! And as for the girl-human and her disgusting, insignificant, sweet, soft, warm, comforting effusion… well, uh… let's not… think about that now.
The point was, he was not going to be anybody's 'henchman'! On the contrary, he was gonna flip the script on them, exploiting them until he had the machine in his hands, only to keep it all to himself. As if he would ever leave Irken-made technology available for use to a bunch of nasty alien criminals! Still, as easy as they were to trick, he had to be careful. For one, it would have been good to know whatever they were talking about that required his absence. Without being seen, of course. And he knew just what to do...
Moving quickly, he jumped down his chair and passed from the tiny kitchen in the back of the ship to the control room in the front. He got on the pilot seat and turned the control panel on.
How foolish had it been of them to let him repair the ship unsupervised! Though he couldn't start up the engines without the key, he now knew the code to start up the monitors, thus giving him access to the outer cameras: he turned the windshield of the ship into a display with the click of a button, then opened the program with the outer cameras.
The windshield-turned-screen displayed eight different cam recordings, aligned in two groups. And there they were, the two plotting aliens, talking in the parking lot in an image on the bottom left, being recorded from the left side of the ship. Good: from there, they couldn't see him operating the control panel.
Zim selected the image, which enlarged to occupy the entire screen; the visual quality was relatively high, but unfortunately he couldn't see but the back of the human, and worse of all, they were too distant from the microphones to hear what they were saying: even when he turned the volume all the way up, all he could hear was a low, chattering rubbish, undecipherable except for the odd, short word. Moreover, the ship's program lacked a lip-reading program! Oh, curse you, you outdated alien technology!
Still, he tried to follow the scene as well as he could, nearing his ear to the speaker: at first, they seemed to be talking rather normally, smiling and laughing and all of that disgusting, slushy junk, until, strangely, it appeared like the… like the Krass-man was disoriented by whatever the human had said.
He didn't know what he was saying exactly, but he was clearly stammering. What could the human have possibly said to throw off Mister Perfect-Monster?
The conversation carried on like that for a couple more exchanges, until apparently the human spoke an 'Upsetting Thing Number 2', at which the Krass-man made an appalled expression, exclaiming the only longer word that Zim managed to hear: 'pro-stee-tute'.
He vaguely remembered having heard it a couple of times back on Earth, but didn't remember what it meant. Later he would have to investigate it, because it seemed rather important to the conversation. Could it possibly be referred to him?
After that, the Krass-man's facial expression changed to a pathetically pleading one. Out of left field, the monster grabbed the human's hands and looked right into her eyes.
Zim felt his heart practically stopping. He gawked at the screen, completely appalled: was he… was he doing what Zim thought he was doing?
The human and the monster talked more quietly for a while, holding each other's hands like that. In the end, the Krass-man smiled at her in apparent relief: they had probably resolved whatever unrest the human had lifted up.
Zim would have killed to know what the human's facial expressions were. Was she mad at the Krass-man? Oh, he so, so hoped so, but… what if… it was the complete opposite?
Zim was seriously considering stepping out of the ship to see for himself, when the two shook their hands, parting on seemingly amicable terms -though not amicable enough to kiss each other's cheeks again, and he thanked the whole great Everything for that.
The Krass-man walked away from the ship, while the human dashed back inside it, turning around and out of the camera's reach so quickly that Zim couldn't quite see her face.
Zim hastily turned off the windshield-screen and changed his seat from the pilot's to the co-pilot's, to its left, trying to assume a casual pose. He heard the ship's main entrance door sliding open and closing again. The human was walking down the corridor and towards him.
Dying from curiosity, Zim peeked from behind the chair to look at her, and all his hopes were confirmed: the Krass-man might have departed with a smile, but on the human's face was the darkest expression he'd ever seen on her.
He felt a rush of relief: phew, there was nothing to worry about after all! … What was he worried about, again? Oh, whatever. Anyway, as soon as she caught a glimpse of his gaze, she averted her eyes, pointing them to the pilot seat next to him instead.
She threw herself on the chair, put on her safety belt and started up the ship, operating the controls with aggressive, snappy movements, without saying a word and without even looking at him.
Wow, whatever they'd talked about had put her in a very, very bad mood.
"Eh... is... everything okay?" he tried asking.
"Hm?" she seemed to snap out of a sort of angry trance. She threw him a quick, distracted look before going back to the controls. "Yeah, sure" she blatantly lied, "Why?"
"Nothing! Uh... what did you and the Krass-boss talk about?"
"Job stuff" she replied, careful not to make eye contact with him.
"Are you sure you didn't talk about... me, perhaps?" he tried to frame the question as a joke, but the human didn't fall for it:
"No. Not at all" she spoke in a bored, flat tone.
He was probably not going to get anything out of the human, at least for now. So instead, he tried to change the subject:
"Where are we going?"
"To Tiyo's market, to get the parts for the machine. And after that, to a laboratory at these coordinates" she said and she handed him a piece of paper.
Upon inspection, he noticed the code written on it: just by looking at the initial letters, he could tell he didn't know the part of universe it referred to.
"On that note, please fasten your seat belt" she added, and he followed her advice.
They left Ghjitif 89-r's black and red surface, headed to this 'Tai-yo's market-place'.
Only a few minutes had passed, but already the atmosphere felt so strange without the human's usual cheerfulness and chattiness. But he doubted it would last more than a couple of hours, and a short break from her nauseating sweet-ery had been in order for a while now. Finally, some time for him to rest from her disgusting human affection!
But before he could immerse himself into that blissful, calm silence, he was still curious to gather one particular piece of information.
"Uuhh... say, human: I have a question. Note that it's completely, utterly unrelated to what you and the Krass-man were talking about!"
The human turned to him with a tired, but questioning expression.
"What is a pro-stee-tute?" he asked.
The human stared at him for several seconds in a neutral, unreadable face.
The silence carried on so long, that he started to feel uncomfortable. Was that such a bad word to say? Or maybe it was such a common word (at least on Earth), that she expected him to know it?
In the end, she answered, but as it turned out, she would have been much more merciful by not breaking that awkward silence:
"It's an organ that male humans have up their butts. And if they don't have it poked by a professional doctor once a year, they just, bam, drop dead".
Zim felt as if that sentence had literally punched him in the face.
"WHAT?! YUCK!" he cowered in his seat, "That's disgusting! Aaaah, now you've made me think of that! Why?! I feel dirty just from imagining it! How do you monkeys even live with yourselves?!"
"Sorry, that's just the truth. Say, is it okay if I shower first?" she asked him, and without waiting for an answer she set the ship on auto-pilot and got up.
"Keep an eye out for cops and bounty hunters and do NOT touch the controls, okay?" she asked him.
Then, she opened a drawer under the control panel, drawing out an ancient-looking Earth video game console.
"You can play with this in the meantime" she said, handing it to him.
And with that, all depressed and gloomy-looking, she dragged her feet into the back of the ship, disappearing in the small bathroom just next to the kitchen.
Zim looked down on the ridiculously prehistoric console. Maybe a little stupid game was just what he needed to get his mind off that horrible, horrible image the human had implanted inside his brain (as if all the other ones weren't enough!).
So that was it? That's what they'd fought about? Maybe the Krass-mann, being in human form and all, had a prosteetute that needed to be checked, and no NO NO! Do NOT think about that!
Zim turned the old console up and focused on the video game as carefully as he could, trying to push that disgusting, profane image in the darkest recesses of his mind, and hopefully out of it, eventually. Still, he was satisfied he had managed to learn what it was that the Krass-man had said that had upset the human so darn much.