Chapter 7

Salvation?

Zim was quicker than he realized. After all these months of travel and battle his reflexes and aim were impeccable. He emptied his entire revolver into the giant naked man who sounded like a robot, and he hit his mark each and every time. Holes opened up in the guy's chest, but much to Zim's dismay he noticed that there was something silvery behind the man's skin. Yep, definitely a robot.

The bullets had not done anything to slow the man's relentless attack. Zim knew that there was no chance of reloading and trying again. Besides, what good would it do? No, the only thing he could do was run, which he did. The naked man's footsteps were hollow against the ground, and they never varied their stride. There was no doubt in Zim's mind that this thing was going to catch him and destroy him.

He rounded a corner, hoping to gain a little ground, when he literally ran someone down. They fell to the ground, tangled in each other's bodies. When Zim pulled himself away he saw that it was Mad Dog DD.

"Hey, watch where you're going, buddy," DD said.

"You!" Zim shouted.

"Yeah, so? Do I, like, know you or something?"

Zim pushed himself to his feet and grabbed DD by the hand. "Come with me if you want to live!"

DD yanked his hand back. "I'm not queer. I'm not going with you."

"Free booze!" Zim yelled.

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

The Terminator came crashing around the corner, and as soon as he saw DD he reached out his hand and grabbed the Mad Dog by his head.

"Hey! What's going on?!" DD cried.

Those were his last words. DD's skull splintered, and his head collapsed under the Terminator's grip.

"No!" Zim yelled. After all this effort, and DD was doomed to die anyway? How could this be? Zim was smarter than he'd ever been, and he'd put so much thought into this. How could this plan have failed?

The Terminator gave another gargled war cry, and he charged at Zim, eager to crush his head, too.

Zim waited for the words "to be continued" to appear at the bottom of the screen. He liked it when that happened because it gave him a whole day to figure out how he was going to get out of a cliffhanger, but they never came. Time did freeze, though, just like it did back when he'd been confronted by the Romans. The Terminator paused in mid-air, his arms outstretched to grab Zim.

Zim looked around, and sure enough, there was Future Zim . . . except this time he looked different. He still wore the cool outfit and the sword, but his face was criss-crossed with scars, and he was missing a few fingers. One of his eyes was covered in a patch. Was he a pirate in the future? And dammit. Of all things, why did he still have the soul patch?!

"You have no idea how badly you've fucked up this time," Future Zim said. "This time the Zardoz future is overcome by the Terminator future. The evil robots, of course, win. However, they've discovered if you save Mad Dog DD, their future will be unwritten. They're going to keep sending Terminators back in time to stop you until you can definitely save DD."

"Well, I can't really do that now. Look. He's dead." Zim pointed.

"I can see that. You have to figure out a way to stop that from happening. Again."

"No, screw you," Zim said. "I've had it with this crap. Here you are, jumping around time with the ability to freeze everyone in place. Why don't you do this stuff? You're clearly enough of a bad ass to do it. You took on a legion of centurions the last time I saw you. Come on, man! You can do this!"

"No. Any change I make can be undone. You, however, are a constant. No matter what timeline you're in, you always remain the same. Any change you make is permanent, don't you get that?"

"But you are me," Zim said.

"Not yet," Future Zim said.

Zim rubbed his forehead. "You're giving me a headache."

"The best cure for it is to just do what I tell you," Future Zim said.

"Fine. What do I do?"

Future Zim smiled. "Where did you put the time machine?"