OKAYS well it's time for a cool and super awesome update from MEEEEE. The person writing this. Yeah I'm very exhausted, been running around all day for things and nonsense.
Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter! The response about the myth thing was very fun to read about from you guys.
Anyway I won't chatter on cos I know ya'll be eager to read. SO READ. GO FOR IT.
Dib stood across the street looking over to the foreboding, bizarre home of Zim. The alien was at skool and would be all day. This was the only time Dib could put his plan into motion. It was a simple plan on paper but he had no illusions that to actually carry the plan out he would have a lot of work to do.
Namely he would need heck an alien computer language in under a few hours, max.
He sighed heavily, his long trenchcoat blowing against the stiff winter wind. The sky was a gloomy, ominous grey threatening rain against the world, or perhaps even a heavy snowfall should the temperature drop low enough. The leaves were leaving the trees though they hadn't all gone just yet, making them seem withered and skeletal. All signs were pointing to Dib to go the heck home and finish playing Eldritch in the warmth of his apartment.
His fist clenched tightly and he strengthened his will. He wouldn't be scared off by the possibility of failure, no matter how bad the signs may be.
Dib stepped forward and strode towards the home, the heavy weight of the backpack on his shoulder feeling greater with every step. The gnomes turned as he approached the fence but he ignored them. He knew that they wouldn't shoot at him without provocation. Even so, his whole plan hinged on one thing at the moment. If it failed he knew the gnomes would turn on him. As stupid as they looked those tiny, beady black eyes that followed him slowly as he approached the door unnerved him.
He knocked and hoped to whatever Gods were listening the right person answered the door.
It seems at least one of them was paying attention.
The door opened and there stood a little green dog, or at least, someone pretending to be a little green dog wearing a large Christmas hat, complete with blinking lights. Dib smiled widely in thanks.
"Hello Gir!"
The robot didn't respond, then it cocked it's head. "Meooow?"
"No, Gir. Dogs say woof."
"Oh. Woof."
"Right. Well I'm here to do that thing." Dib rolled his hand slowly. "You know. The thing. With the computer."
"Thing?" Gir cocked his head to the other side, "Master didn't mention a thing."
"Are you suuuure?" Dib leaned forward. "You might have missed it, it was a Christmas thing."
"I like Christmas!" Gir nodded excitedly. "Okay! Come in and do the thing. I'm gonna make bacon. CHRISTMAS BACON!" And the robot quickly ran off into the house.
Dib stepped inside and closed the door quickly. He had done it. He felt a little bad about exploiting the obviously malfunctioning robot but it was for the greater good. Zim's greater good actually, so really, he was helping the robot do his duty! Though more and more he was coming to the conclusion that Gir was actually designed to be disruptive, possibly at the very orders of the Tallest.
The man's face set into a momentary scowl. He wished he could punch those stupid Tallest faces for what they had been doing to Zim and who knows how many other young irkens across the galaxy.
The home was, as Zim had previously reported, covered in tacky Christmas decorations that blinked obnoxiously or simply creeped Dib out. The Membrane household was not one for celebrating Chrtistmas all too often thanks to his father's hatred of Santa. Still, they made at least a half-effort to put a tree up and some simple decorations. This level of dedication was kind of sickening, no wonder Zim was so irritated with it.
Dib moved on into the home and took out his laptop, eagerly looking around for something to place it in. He had every kind of connector cord he could buy and hoped that Zim's system used at least one of them. He was just approaching the large TV to see if he could plug it into the back when it happened.
"Hey."
Dib froze. He'd forgotten that Zim's computer actually had a working AI that could talk and interact with things around it.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm... here to do the Christmas thing?" Dib braved as he looked up to the ceiling made of metal pipes and wires.
"Yeah, I'm not stupid like Gir. What are you actually here for?" The voice sounded bored, almost irritated. It reminded Dib of Karen, his father's lab AI. What was it with computer AI and being mildly irritated all the time?
Dib didn't have a reply to give the computer. He knew he couldn't lie because he'd be thrown out the house and his plan would fall apart. He couldn't just rely on the foolishness of Gir or the long built up trust he had with Zim. The AI computer of the house was possibly the most logical, straight forward thing in Zim's entire home. However it seemed it wasn't all too interested in protecting it's master, after all, it had let him in and out of the house unscathed before and even now it wasn't kicking right into defending the alien's secrets.
"Alright, I'll be straight with you." Dib announced as he moved back towards the couch. "I'm here because I need information."
"Last time you were here you contacted the Tallest." The AI sounded like it was trying to guess his motives. "Do you want to talk to them again?"
"No, no. I never want to talk to those two again," Dib grumbled out, "I want to know what that device on Zim's back is."
There was a sudden silence from the AI. "... I see." The next response however was sharp. "Why?"
Dib drew out a small notepad and a pen from the backpack, hoping that the computer hadn't noticed the laptop and hacking equipment he had stuffed in there. "It's important. I'm trying to help him."
"Help him?" The computer sounded almost amused. "Why? You do realize he's here to destroy this planet, right? Or he thinks he is anyway. It doesn't really matter to me."
Dib had to admit the coldness of the computer wasn't appreciated. He suspected however that, like most AI he'd seen, it was focused only on what it was supposed to be doing which most of the time didn't contain caring for the person they were doing it for. That was the problem with AI, or a least it was from what his father had told him. You could make them do anything but making them do it because they cared was almost impossible. You couldn't make computers care.
That was why Dib was here. Because he did care. He did give a damn. And when Zim was surrounded by nothing but machines he needed someone like Dib, a living thing, to tell him he did matter.
"Look I... I think that thing on his back is part of why he's so... like he is." Dib was sure of it, especially after the way he had reacted last time he had asked about it. "I need to know everything you can tell me about it."
There was another long pause. Then suddenly a corner of the room opened up and from deep under the house an elevator rose up.
"I cannot tell you about irken technological secrets. It is against my programming to do so." The AI announced calmly. "However, due to the circumstances of Zim's, heh, mission, I am not obliged to stand in your way if you were to say, try and access Zim's private terminal."
Dib blinked in shock. Was the computer seriously giving him a pass? Just like that? Did anyone on this planet other than himself actually give a damn about Zim at all? Well, he supposed Gir did in his own weird way... which was even more confusing considering the little robot was also just another AI.
"Aren't you worried I'll use this information to expose Zim?" Dib had to ask, almost a little angry that the computer was so willing to turn over Zim's secrets.
"You've been here before, so has your blood-relation. Neither of you have taken any further steps to expose Zim's identity, therefore, I calculated that you either don't want to or no one on your planet will listen to you. Either way the calculated percentage of you using this information to expose Zim is only ten percent." There was a pause. "Before you said you wanted to help Zim. You don't seem to be lying about that, even if I don't understand your motivation. If you believe you can help him, I won't aid you or stop you as long as I can continue to operate within my primary perimeters."
"Okay, well, thanks I guess." Dib stood up, but even as he did so the computer cut in quickly.
"But I warn you. Try to damage my systems, this house or anything else and I will stop you. Permanently. Zim may be incompetent but I am not."
Dib felt his stomach turn over. "Yeah, sure. I'm just looking for information, nothing else, I promise."
The elevator ride was perhaps longer than it should have been, or at least it felt that way. Dib's mind was racing with thoughts about what he would find, even though at the same time he felt as though he was just blatantly invading Zim's privacy. But when he had asked about it Zim had exploded on him. There was no way the alien would ever open up about something like this and Dib had to know, or Zim may never overcome his issues.
His stomach wouldn't stop twisting at the thought of the information he was about to gather. But his curiosity was far more overwhelming. That young boy with the alien obsession within him was demanding that he know.
This was for Zim's greater good. Right?
The elevator stopped and Dib walked out into a strange looking room that reminded him of the inside of an egg, though it was dimly lit from sources that seemed built into the very walls, casting everything in a dull, pink glow. It was large, oval shaped and surrounded by various computer screens and other bits of technology. The seat in the middle was curled up and deeply cushioned and as Dib walked around it he saw that there was a small indent on the back in the very shape of Zim's backpack. Bizarrely his first thought was that it would make a great gaming room.
Dib shook his head, he couldn't sit around marveling at the room for too long. He had work to do. He quickly got his laptop and began using the various USB and connector wires to hook it into any port he could possibly find. It didn't take long for a connection to be established, which itself was pretty amazing considering this was utterly unknown alien technology. Then again, his dad's systems weren't exactly street-legal themselves and could basically hack into anything on earth.
He sat cross-legged on the floor as he began hammering away at the keyboard, running every hacking program he could find. Uplink, Defcon, Darwinia, anything that he thought could help he threw at the alien system with full force. The AI had said it wouldn't stop him, but it certainly wasn't making it easy to decrypt the alien files.
And, suddenly, he got in.
The computer made a slight 'ding' sound and a screen popped up with a long list of files, all of course written in Zim's strange alien language. Dib however was not to be put off. He knew that there had to be a translation device somewhere, otherwise why would Zim always hand his homework over written in English? Dib quickly began telling his laptop, through frantic hacking of course, to look for anything that was written in English and files associated with it.
Again it took another long, tense moment in the dark, oval room before his programs began returning results to him. Several long lists of scanned documents came up, written in Zim's language and then another just like it, printed into English. Grabbing the program Zim had used to do such a thing, the man applied it to the long list of written irken files that had cropped up and, slowly, piece by piece, the documents began to translate.
Dib's eyes widened as he read the first line and he suddenly realized just why the AI had directed him to this very computer.
'Journal Log Entry: 0115967.M21. I have arrived on this planet call Earth.'
OH NOOOOO. LOOK AT THAT. DIB IS LITERALLY READING ZIM'S JOURNAL. This cannot end well I bet but telling you just keeps you all on your toes for the next chapter! Bwahaha!
Anyway this is truly the REVENGE OF THE REFERENCES after leaving them out for so long.
Eldritch - A totally kick butt game you can buy on Steam which is a Lovecraftian roguelike. I occasionally stream games of me playing it (and failing) on twitch.
Karen the AI - Karen is a Spongebob reference, specifically Plankton's computer wife. I giggled at the thought of Prof Membrane having Karen the computer wife boss him about in his lab.
Uplink, Defcon, Darwinia - More vidya gaem references! These are three fantastic games made by a small British developer called Introversion, who were an indy dev before being an indy dev was a thing.
0115967.M21 - This is a more complex reference. It's actually a date calculated by the dates used in a tabletop game called Warhammer 40k of which I'm a giant nerd for. It basically boils down to 01 being the first day, 15 being the irken month, 967 being the year and M21 being the millennium in which it takes place. So it's the first day, month fifteen in the year 20,967 cos M21 is like saying '18th century' which covers the years 1701 to 1800. Yeah, a complex reference to make but keep it in mind as it'll be important in the next chapter.
Anyway I'm excited to see what you guys make of the house AI specifically in this chapter. I wrote it as kind of a cold, uncaring guardian figure in Zim's life. I actually thought of a whole one-shot thing concerning this very angle that I will probably not write, at least, not until I finish up everything else I wanna do.
SO YEAH, hope you all enjoyed and had a fun time reading and leave me some feedback if you'd be so kind! Till next week true believers!