Zee rolled onto her belly with the device in her hand and her expression to be one of surprise. "Oh! Uh,"she held it out to Zim, and to he releif, there was a female Irken who took a moment to realize what happened and waved to him. "Just talking with Poot"
Zim glanced at her then at Poot who appeared even stubbier than that last time he'd seen her. "Greeting Invader Poot, " he said with a tinge of distaste. She was, after all, a far better invader than him, and by golly he knew it. "Salutations Zim." began Poot, of course leaving out Invader, "I must admit, I'm surprise to find Zee's Sporka partner to be you of all Irkens"
Zee instantly took back the device, "Poot! Shut up"
"Zee, I've told you this before, anybody would of been better. Like, Dooky, or Grappa, or Nen, or Stink, or even Koot"
"POOT! SHUT YOUR FAT-HOLE!" Zee hollered. "Besides, your brother is a complete kurd. At least Zim how to make a female feel good." she added with a wink at Zim. "Koot is not! At least he has his own planet"
"Zim has a normal shaped head"
"Koot's an INVADER"
"Yeah, but have you spoken to Sack about him? Hmm? I wonder how their Sporka is going"
This time Poot didn't have any retort. "Anyway, since you neglected to ask, I'm having a wonderful Sporka"
"Yeah?" she glanced at Zim. "So how far along did you guys get"
"See for yourself!" said the ecstatic Poot who held the device out at arms length to allow Zee to view her well rounded figure and the nursery behind her.
"OH NO WAY!" Zee screeched which was followed by a few more moments of incoherant squeels.
"Yeah I know! Alexovich is such a great pohpi!" she oozed."What about you? Lemmi see your big ol' belleh"
Zees face suddenly fell as well as her antennae. Zim felt his SqueedilySpooch plummit, "Uhm..we haven't reached that point yet"
"Pfft. What? What have you been doing? Watching soap-operas"
"Noo.."Zee then stood and lumbered towards the basement stairs. Both she and Zim knew that she about to spill whatever it is Zim is doing wrong, but Zim could only take his seat on the bedding and watch her go.
As soon as Zee was safely alone, she sat upon a glass jar and opened the one next to her to grab a handful of skittles. "He's just...blah, you know"
"Blah?" Poot laughed, "You mean like, he just sucks"
"Ugh, noo. He just doesn't seem to have much of a libido is all"
"Oi"
"Yeah, that and..this is his first Sporka"
"Oh noo. Uch! I told you to hook up with Sneakyonfoota! From what I hear, he's good"
Both of them giggled, "Yeah, well everybody knew he had his sights set on Glot"
"Eh well, still. Maybe he just doesn't know how, you know? Has he even done anything to let you know he's not completly stupid"
"He's not stupid! And yeah, when we were raiding the candy store"
"Raiding a candy store? Zee, if you had a mate with his own planet, you wouldn't have to raid candy stores"
"Anyway, he licked some jelly from my finger"
"Ooh! He's soo Fabio-licious." said Poot sarcastically.
"Ugh, Fabio. He's complete Smook by the way. But I don't know what's wrong. Maybe it's me"
"Has his chip been overrided"
"Whudda-whut"
"Oh well no wonder! You putze! When he first became an invader, they put a chip in his pack to hinder his hormones and keep him form becomming distracted. It should of been removed when he was reassigned to food service, but then again, the Tallest really hate him, so they probably wanted him to be mateless forever"
"Ri-igh, okay. So how do I like, shut it off or whatever"
"Well, since it isn't his planet, there isn't any pak centers there, so you might have to go in and shut it off yourselves. But you know what"
"No, do tell"
"If you're this far into it, and you suddenly let him loose, it could be dangorous"
"What? Dangorous how"
"Well if you're not ready, and he's all excited, he might force you"
"Oh please. I've been trying to get him going for days now. I'm the one you should worry about"
"Hah, well then, just crack his pak open and start poking stuff"
"What?! I can't just start messing around with his pak! What if I kill him"
"Oh no. You can't kill him like that. It would have to be completely detroyed beyound repair or have it stripped of his downloaded personality"
"What I somehow delete it"
"Unless you can emit electrical charges, don't worry about it. Just get it done before it's too late"
"Allright, thanks. And send some pics, okay"
"Will do. Talk to you later."
When Zee returned upstairs, Zim was laying on the couch and appeared quite displeased. "So, did you have a good chat"
Zee knew why he seemed upset, and it was perfectly excusable. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I think I can fix your lack of libido"
Zim sat up, "My lack of libido? What are you saying"
"Nothing bad! It's just..you don't seem like you're really interested in Sporka is all"
"I am! I'm excited! But maybe I'm just not up to your standards. Maybe I'm just not leaping at your feet like Sklud did maybe"
"Zim, please. It's not like that! And no, he didn't leap at my feet. He'd have to be away from them to do that"
Zim exhaled with annoyance and slid down from the couch. "Did you consider that maybe, this is as excited as I get"
"Zim, I've seen you excited, this isn't it. Please, just let me try. Maybe your chip hasn't been overrided"
"Nonsense! It was overrided when the Tallests condemned me to Fry-hood"
"Maybe not"
For a minute or two Zim stood a few feet away from where Zee stood, glaring. "Fine. But don't mess anything up!" he pointed then turned with his pak facing her.
Zee surpressed an excited squeel then approached him with her hands raised. She gently pressed the red panels which opened and reveled the bowels of Zims pak. She inhaled, then exhaled before reached in and pressing the button which allowed for the whole pak to split in two allowing it to open like the hood on a car. It popped open, the red panels dimmed and revealed all kinds of wires, lights, buttons, and anything else you could and couldn't imagine inside of his pak.
"Do you know what to do"
She sighed, "N-no."
Zim turned, slightly annoyed, "Look for a small white chip with a sleepy-irken icon. Hold down both buttons on the sides untill the icon disapears. Zee nodded and ZIm turned.
She scanned the mess of tech. until she found it, "Hah, it's still turned on." Zims only reply was a grumble, so she did as she was told and then the icon did disapear. She quickly closed the pak and took a step back waiting for Zim to suddenly become Fabio. When he turned, they only looked at one another.
"Well"
"Well what"
"How do you feel"
"Like I want to beat something up"
Zee raised a brow ridge at him, then sighed, "I guess you were right. I'm sorry, Zim"
Zim didn't reply, she guessed he was absorbing this moment, but when she looked up, he was gone. She turned in a circle, "Zim? I said I was sorry! Please don't leave"
She stood where she was in the complete silance. "I didn't leave." she spun around and was face to face the new, meniacle looking Zim. He stepped closer and Zee stepped back, he stepped closer and closer until she was standing in the middle of the bedding. For a few moments, they locked eyes, but then Zim suddenly turned away, "If that's all, I'm going to finish the buildings"
Once again Zee felt like shouting and smacking him a few times, but she only rolled her eyes and plopped down. "You should restrain yourself form extrenuous movements." he advised then turned to face her long enough to look her over and leave.
The next day, as soon as the air warmed, Dib leapt into his clothes and was out the door before Gaz could utter a single complaint. He first ran into the garage, then ran inside of it after recovering from impact to fetch the needed tools to track and possibly capture Zim and whoever else may be with him. He quipped himself with is satelite mapper, hand-cuffs, a tazer, and his binoculars, then was on his way to the nearly deserted part of town on his old mountain bike since his alternate mode of transportation was lost in the dust wall. As he rode around the hell-bowl, he wondered whether SilverShadow was watching him at that moment or had only told him she would be to convince him that he should investigate and to boost his confidence. He had plenty of time to mull this over since the ride would take about fifteen to thirty minutes, ten if he had his moter bike.
When he finally arrived to the threshold of what was once Main Citysburg, he stopped and caught his breath taking in the ghostly scene before him. Most buildings were two or three stories at the tallest and were condemned severely. Carefully, as if he would awaken a hoard of hobos, he pedaled through unsure of where he was suppose to start. After riding a few blocks and finding nothing himself, he stopped again leaning his bike against an old cd shop and took out his mapper. He leapt in his skin when the device chimed loudly in greeting. Dib looked about quickly to make sure he wasn't beeing watched, or like in some horrer movie, a mob of hobos wasn't stampeded towards him. Nobody was, so he activated the thermal grid and waited as the area was scanned and the info was sent back to him. When it had finished there were plenty of red specks, some mobile. He showed up as a lime green dot against the navy blue backround, and what quaked his spine was that there was a red dot a few yards away from him. He stared at it, listening to see if he could hear, but there was nothing. With a few taps the screen zoomed in, and to his releif, the dot was stationary and was around the corner far enough that he could sneak by. Silantly he mounted his bike with the mapper in hand and pedaled softly glancing at teh device every once and a while to make sure he wasn't being followed. When he was safely distanced from any red dot he began to zero in on each of their locations for any suspicious, tell-tale movements. A few were inside buildings while others were outside and moving about slowly. Dib couldn't help but chuckle. These people had absolutley no idea that they're being watched, he thought.
After a while he took his seat on an old bus bench and kept a tight watch on each dot. As noon approached the dots emerged from withen the buildings, surely in search of food. Some of them crossed paths and seemingly ignored each other while others stopped, maybe to convers or fight over cans. Suddenly the device beeped alerting him that one of the dots was withen viewing distance. Dib spun around searching for the dot and almost had a heart attack due to the slobbish hobo standing a few yards off staring at him. It wasn't a blank stare, or a curious stare, nor was it a stare of hate, envy,hunger or bewilderment, the stare was one without adjectives. The man stared like a dog standing stock still and staring before attacking. Dibs muscled tensed ready to flee for his life, but the hobo still didn't move, just stared. The moment Dib looked directly into the reddened eyes of the man he felt as though his chest was being punctured by many cold kebab sticks, but his muscles did not react at all. He was sure the man would attack now, but he still did not move a muscle, only his nappy hair waved lethargically in the wind as well as his tattered clothing. Finally he managed to take a step back and once he did, the hobo flinched and haunched which stopped Dib dead in his tracks. What the hell is this?, he wondered.
He dared another step which gained to further reaction from the homeless man, and he dared another and another until he reached his bike which he mounted, eyes still glued to the hobo, and quickly, as fast as his scrawny legs could manage, he rode off not daring to look back in fear he'd hit something and crash then be eaten or killed by the crazy hermit man. He rode and rode until he felt he was on the other side of the dead city uncaring if he ran into another hobo or even Zim. At that time, he just wanted to put as much distance between him and the hobo as he possibly could. Once his lungs threatened explosion, he stopped and plopped down on a worn curb and even allowed himself to lay back. He strained to hear above his panting, but he heard only himself, so he had to just hope he wasn't being persued. He layed for a few more minutes, and nothing came, so he relaxed and took a look at his mapper with a vague fear of another nearby dot. Luckily, the closest was a few streets away, so he could afford a sit-back, which he did. He watched his mapper closely ready to flee in case somebody else invaded his space again. He was about to look away and explore visually when something caught his eye. One of the dots was traveling remarkably quick and right towards him.
Do they know I'm here?, he wondered. It has to be Zim! No hobo can move like that!
Another look at the mapper revealed that they were either traveling through or over the buildings, definatly not something a hobo was capable of. Realization struck and the first thing that came to mind was to hide. He glanced about frantically and dove for an adjacent automobile which happened to missing a door as well as its bumper, lights, wheels, and hood. He ducked under the dash and waited for who ever to either pass by or find him and end his life. At first he heard nothing, then he heard what sounded like metal on cement. It must be Zim!, Dib concluded as he scrunched himself the best he could below the dashboard. Suddenly the metalic ting-ing came to a halt and Dibs heartbeat became louder. He heard nothing more and hoped that maybe he'd decided to simply walk or run and was already gone, but he wasn't so lucky. His entire body froze with a prickly tenseness that rendered him incapable of even yelping in surprise and fear as the roof of the car was peirced like paper by a pin with Zim perched ontop.
Oh god, I'm going to die! This is it! I should of had the last bowl of CocoCrunch!
The metal tip of the pak-leg slid out with an ear raking scrape and punctured another hole giving evidance to Zims reposition. He perched atop the old Kia for what felt like an hour but what was really only five minutes, then finally he leapt away and scurried off like a frightened spider. Once Dib was positive he was gone, he uncurled from below the dash but remained crouched against the car shaking and breathing in and out slowly. A few minutes of that, and Dib was ready to move on.
Okay, Zim could either be leaving his hideout, or going to it, he thought as he grabbed for the mapper he'd left in the car. According to the device, Zim had stopped at the old BillFicus building. He dared not to follow. One close call was one more than he needed, so he decided he'd follow Zims trail back to where his hide out may be. Chances are, who ever was with him was none more scary than Zim. He grabbed his bike and attatched the mapper to his handle bars and searched for a dot near where Zim came from. There were three, but two of the three were mobile.
Bingo!, Dib smirked.
He rode quickly making sure that Zims dot stayed at the BillFicus and not chasing him. A few streets later he reached the old Bluff where the train once rode through but was now old and rusted. Only a few buildings were specked around the steep crevace, others were either demolished to the ground below had given out and the building tumbled to peices smothering the tracks and anybody who may have been unfortunate enough to have been below. For a while he peeked out from around an unidentifyable building for any signs of life, but the dot stayed where it was withen the one story building with the old water tower where birds and bats came and went. Finally the front door opened and what stood in the doorway stole Dibs breath away. There stood a small Irken female, chubby and thoughtful. She stared out for a while rubbing her belly, then turned and shut the door.
That's it? That's who he brought here? Okay, so it's not as bad as I thought, but who is she? he wondered as he prayed for another peek. Then it hit him. Zims guest was a female of his own species, and she was stroking her belly.
"Oh no!" Dib groaned. "Man, of all the things!" He slid down against the building and sighed irretably. "Well, before I go crashing in, I suppose I should stake-out." he thought outloud. Dib sat for a few more minutes before remounting his bike and heading back home to fetch the necisarry supplies.