"Halt!"

Dib froze. Shit. He turned to face the voice that addressed him, and saluted. An Irken approached him. He was roughly the same height as dib, and his eyes shone blue, although he looked almost as uncertain as dib felt.

"Tik invader 33589" he returned dibs salute and waited for his response.

"Bid invader 23986," he recited.

Luckily he had forged himself a fake identity, if it was a good one, it would work. Tik swallowed the lie and proceeded.

"I am currently monitoring this level, where are you supposed to be?"

"My apologies" replied dib "I am a new recruit. I'm supposed to be on level 9"

Tik noticeably relaxed.

"Thank Irk, I'm new too. It's so easy to get lost in here."

"Yeah I know," thankgodthankgodthankgodthankgod "do you know how to get to level 9?"

"The archives?"

"Yes."

"I thought that Lod was on duty there?"

"Actually," dib swallowed and took a gamble "she...was reassigned."

Tik nodded.

"The quickest way back up to the archives is through the 13th section."

Dib listened intently as Tik explained the directions, anxious to get up there and out of the massive as soon as possible. He smiled and thanked him when he said goodbye, and hurried off in the direction he was pointed in. there was something odd about him, Tik later decided. It was either his height or his mannerisms… Or maybe it was his accent.

/oooooooooooo/

When dib arrived at last at the archives, he was exhausted. He wanted to lean against a wall to rest, but he knew if he showed any sign of weakness, he would immediately give himself away. He approached an Irken who was roughly the same size as him, and stopped. She was slender and had bright yellow eyes.

"Invader Lod" he saluted "Bid invader 23986, here to repair the mainframe."

Her eyes narrowed

"I haven't been informed of this," her voice was full of suspicion.

"Of course not, how could you, the mainframes down."

"No it isn't, I was updated just 10 minutes ago."

"And since then it has died. Look do you want to sit around all day or let me do my job?"

He knew the only way to make this work was to bluff confidence. Irkens respected confidence.

Reluctantly she nodded, unlocked the panel on the wall, and pushed him towards it.

"You have ten minutes,"

"I'll be done in five"

Dib wasn't at all sure that he would be done in five, but thought it better to keep her appeased. She wasn't as gullible as her peer. Besides, he needed to work fast, according to the spittle runner's computer, Irkens received a general update from the mainframe of the massive every twenty minutes, and from what Lod just told him, he only had ten minutes anyway. He opened his makeshift pak, and removed a small device that looked like the one Zim used to open the door to Kurt's base, and pushed it into the electronic interface which protruded from the wall. "Please god" he thought to himself "please let this work" and he let it run the numbers. Minutes passed slowly. He was sweating beneath his disguise, and he could feel the eyes of Lod on the back of his head.

SYSTEM ACESS appeared on the screen and he breathed a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was download every file relating to Zim, and maybe set up a remote access point to the archives. Also not a bad idea to key himself and his ID into the system to strengthen his disguise in case anyone checked. He was sure the minute he left the archive that Lod would.

DOWNLOADING ZIM ARCHIVES EST TIME: 02:35 MIN

Dib squeezed his hands into fists, his heart thumped in his chest. This was going to take too long! He began punching at keys to set up the fake ID, and remote access point.

DOWNLOADING ZIM ARCHIVES EST TIME: 01:30 MIN

Ok, fake id complete.

"You're taking too long" Lod said accusingly.

"Almost done"

DOWNLOADING ZIM ARCHIVES EST TIME: 00:59 MIN

Remote access point set!

"Where did you say you were from again?"

"I didn't."

"Your accent is very strange"

"Yeah I know" oh no is it that obvious I'm not from irk?

"Where do you have to be from to get an accent like that?"

"Fot 315 alpha." Earth.

This seemed to satisfy her.

DOWNLOAD ZIM COMPLETE.

"Done!" he ripped the device out of the archive and it zipped back into the pak on his back. He saluted her.

"Alright."

She eyed him as he walked down the hallway, trying to look as normal as possible. The minute he turned the corner, he checked there was no one in sight, and then leaned against the wall breathing heavily. After about 5 seconds he was standing straight, determination in his eyes. He bee-lined down the corridor at a faster pace.

/000/

He made it to the hangar in less than twenty minutes. In no time he was in the spittle runner, and requesting take-off.

"Ground control; please state your name and rank for clearance"

Dib suppressed the urge to say major tom, and dutifully recited his fake name and waited.

"Clearance granted, please exit the hangar on the right hand side at 2wk-"

Ground control mumbled out instructions, but all dib could think about was getting out, and looking through Zim's file.

When he had finally made it past the hangar doors and a good distance from the massive, he turned off his disguise and pulled the fake pak off of his back. His hands shook as he took the small device, and inserted it into the computer. He was nervous. His palms were sweaty, and he rubbed them on his jeans. His heart was beating too fast, and he felt sick. It was the moment of truth. He would finally find out what happened to Zim, but he wasn't sure if he was ready. What if Zim really was dead? He had always told himself that this was only a mission for closure, that once he'd found out if the he was alive or dead it wouldn't matter anymore, he'd be ok with it either way, but it was all lies. Lies he been telling himself to make himself feel better. If something had actually happened to the little green menace he didn't know what he'd do. His chest felt tight as he scrolled through the files. He opened one. No, not that one. He opened another.

It took him a while to get to the one that held the information of Zim's current condition and whereabouts, but when he did he breathed a sigh of relief.

Invader Zim

Status: Defective, Living.

But his relief was short lived.

Holding: Irken Central Laboratories.

Condition: removed pak, preserved body, life support.

His breath caught in his throat. Oh no oh no oh no. he was alive that was good news right? His heart hammered in his chest.

Almost without thinking he set a direct course for irk, and set off at 5wk.

/0/

The massive was only three weeks from irk, but those were the longest weeks of his life. He tried to keep himself occupied to keep his mind off Zim, but it kept wandering back. A few times he had to resist the urge to read through some of Zim's more personal files, but he resisted, it didn't seem right for him to snoop. Eventually he decided that he would at least read the file about Zim's current condition and holding. He needed as much information as he could to be able to break him out. What he found chilled him to the bone.

It seemed that Zim was being experimented on in this facility. It was ironic, hadn't that been the very thing dib had wanted for so long? His stomach twisted. How dare they.

Apparently they were trying to extract information from him, somehow? They didn't seem sure where the information was, whether it was in his brain or in his pak. Multiple tests were being run to figure out which one it was. There were a lot of difficult Irken words the dib had never come across before, and he didn't understand a lot of what he read, but it seemed the only way he was going to save Zim, was if he disguised himself as an Irken scientist. He could key himself into the schedule as a newbie to study him, and hopefully get him out.

/000000/

Lod felt there was something wrong. That technician, Bid or whatever, had seemed very odd. In fact, he hadn't seemed Irken at all. His accent was weird, his composure was off, and his mannerisms were odd too. She was going to look him up.

/0000/

Dib spent the next few weeks studying Irken biology and science. That was easy, he was super smart after all, but he also had to work harder on his Irken and accent too. He'd gotten lucky last time, but he wasn't going to risk it again. He had to be perfect.

By the time dib reached irk, he was exhausted from late nighters and cram studying. He was fairly confident that he would pass a lot better this time and that gave him hope. When the giant planet finally came into sight, his jaw dropped in awe. It was several times larger than irk, and had 4 moons, one of them almost as big as mars. Below was a cluster of buildings, a network of lights and spacecrafts. For the first time, he felt uncertain that he would fail, and end up like Zim in a test tube. He gulped and flew into orbit.

DISCLAIMER: DON'T OWN INVADER ZIM OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS

Hi! Ok I know this chapters a bit short, but the break was in a good place, and I didn't want to leave you too long with the cliff-hanger at the end of the last chapter! I'm hoping to have another one up soon, but no promises… the next chapter will have Zim in it! Yaay!

If you liked it, REVIEW! It really encourages me to write more, and sooner when I know people are enjoying it J

* shia labeouf voice* Just do it!

mia out~