Dib thrust his hands into his pants pocket and dug around until finally extracting a small pepper shaker. One never knew when he would be confronted with a bland meal that required a little spicing up. It had served him well in the past.
"...You're going to snort pepper?" the ship's voice inquired from Dib's laptop.
"Duh." Dib cocked an eyebrow. "What did you think I was going to do?"
After a pause it answered, "It was a fifty-fifty guess."
Dib shrugged and shook a small pepper pile onto the palm of his hand. "Ready?"
"Huh? Oh!" A few hasty bips and clicks later, a message appeared on Dib's screen: "Guest is requesting permission to share control of your computer. Grant access? Y/N?"
Dib pressed 'Y'.
"Okay, ready!" the ship replied.
Dib turned away from the screen, lifted his hand to his face and took a big whiff.
"Ah... ATCHOO!"
"AHHH!" Dib-ship cried as the visuals on the nano-ship's screen spun rapidly, ejecting from the cerebrospinal fluid into the open air at incredible speed. Bits of fluid clung to the porthole window, as well as a few actinobacteria that had hitched a ride. The nano-ship's windshield wipers dispensed with them. Dib-ship concentrated on taking back control when-
"ATCHOO!"
-it shook with the impact of something hitting it from the right side!
"ATCHOO!"
Another hit! Each additional sneeze sprayed thousands of particles of pollen, dirt, dead skin, and plant fibers into the air. All shooting through the air at 100 miles an hour.
The nano-ship's navigation screen jolted violently under the constant bombardment of fast flying germ projectiles.
"AUGH!" The nano-ship's porthole glass cracked as a giant mold spore hit it dead center. Flashing red danger lights preceded a system warning message that the thruster engines had taken extensive damage. Dib-ship wailed, "It's gonna crash!"
The nanoship fell into a death spiral.
...And fell.
...And fell some more.
"...Well," Dib-ship mused, becoming accustomed to the spinning screen after a time. "I forgot that at the microscopic level the distance to the ground is a lot further away."
Taking his time now, he carefully looked over the nanoship's control panel and decide the big red button marked Emergency Parachute was worth a try. He activated it and released a rectangular yellow parachute, across which were written the words Real Science! The nano-ship jerked at the sudden pull against gravity. It's slowed decent landed it safely down in a corner of the room.
"Ugh," Dib rubbed away the remaining itch under his nose using the back of his forefinger. "I forgot how effective this stuff is." He wiped his hand on his pants and turned back to his laptop. "You still there, Ship-me? Did you crash?"
"Perfect landing," it replied.
"Great," the human typed a few commands. "Dad has an enlargement ray in his archives. Gimme a second to find the file-"
"Access restricted," a mechanical voice from the ceiling informed him.
"-and hack my way around the security program-"
"Access restricted," the voice repeated.
Dib frowned. He tried again. "And hack my way round the security program..."
"Access restricted. One last attempt remaining."
Dib blinked. Why couldn't he find the backdoor he'd installed? Was this a new firewall? Or had the service hole been patched up? He hesitated a second before sending out a computer worm to install a new door, only to have it explode into a hexdump of random numbers and letters. To the right of the dump was a message:
Son there better
not be any ultra
Peepis destroyin
g the city when
I get home!
"...That time wasn't even my fault," Dib muttered. "Dammit, Zim!"
The plan had been for Zim to create havoc in the city, spreading fear and panic and further undermining the people's faith in humanity's current leaders. Zim had liked this plan. Zim had approved of this plan. Zim had started marching the Megadoomer towards the busy city streets with every intention of carrying out this plan. He cackled and raved about how he was going to crush the puny Earth vehicles under his mighty feet, snap telephone poles in half with his iron fists, and blast towering buildings into piles of rubble with his shoulder mounted missiles. He imagined himself standing proudly atop the rubble, surveying the fire and smoke of destruction with satisfaction.
"It looks like the end of the world..." the Dib would whisper in awe, standing at his side and taking in the same view.
"It's only the beginning," Zim would reply, grinning and looking sideways at the human. "Teaming up with you... wasn't such a bad idea after all."
The worm baby's mouth would slowly stretch into a smile. "Back atcha, Space Boy. This is only the first of many worlds we'll conquer together."
"Hah!" he'd laugh at the human. "What makes you think you're coming with me to the next one?"
The Dib would sulk and gaze up (somehow despite the fact that the human was taller than he was) imploringly into Zim's eyes. "Don't you want me?"
Zim felt his squeedly spooch do a little jump at the earnestness behind the question.
"Mmm... Maybe," he'd reply and his grin would widen. He'd cross his arms and lift a slender claw to tap his chin, as if thinking it over. "But I could use a little more convincing..."
"We'll go down in history as the conquering pioneers of the galaxy." Dib would stand tall and thump his own chest confidently. "They'll make commemorative statues of us at every capital city, force school children to read about our exploits in historical literature, and our names alone will inspire enough fear and respect to subjugate entire species!"
"Yeees," Zim smiled dreamily. "Our legacy will be glorious... BWAHAHAHAH!"
He paused in mid-cackle. Something was off. He listened intently. Silence. Something was missing. It was the absense of human architecture crunching beneath his battle-mech's feet. He sat blinking for a moment as his fantasy dissolved. His Megadoomer had stopped in front of a small, two-story, purple house. "Eh? This is the Dib's residence. What is it doing in the middle of the city?" He then looked around, noticing that the rest of the houses that usually surrounded his old nemesis's abode were there as well. He looked further and found the tall office buildings, bank tower, and other sky scrapers still miles off to his left. He pondered this a moment and then nodded, having come to the only reasonable conclusion.
"Yup. The city officials must have seen their doom and destruction coming, somehow uprooted themselves and the Dib's neighborhood, then translocated places. I was not aware that these Earth worms possessed such advanced technology..." He chuckled darkly. "But this will only delay the inevitable!
In typical Zim fashion, instead of correcting his course, he decided to act instead as if he'd meant to arrive here all along. He opened a line of communication to the human's laptop and began to hail him.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Dib! Dib! Dib-hyooman! Hey!"
Dib jumped back. He'd just been talking about the crazy alien. Creepy.
"Zim?" he frowned, and adjusted his glasses. "Wh-What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong!" the Irken announced. "Everything is exactly as it should be."
"...Okaaay," Dib dragged out the word as he tried to make sense of this. "So why are you here?"
That was a good question. One Zim hadn't thought far ahead enough to have considered. Being baffled made him upset. He gestured dismissively in the human's direction, "Your stooopid house in my way!" Zim snapped.
Dib double blinked and then slowly propped his arm up at his elbow, so he could lower his chin onto his fist. "Were you trying to entertain illusions of grandeur and walk at the same time again?"
Zim blushed at having been caught. He waved his arms in indignant denial. "Nonsense! Lies! Slander!"
Dib made an awkward snort as he choked on a laugh that escaped through his nose. He remembered the Dib-ship was watching them quietly in the background and decided to have a little fun. "If you miss me that much you could just tell me, you know," he leaned forward slightly. "You don't have to go out of your way inventing excuses to spend time together."
Zim's face convulsed into grotesque expressions. "I object to this defamation! Who would want to spend time with a big-headed pig-smelly?"
"You're here, aren't you?" Dib grinned.
Zim hissed and spat in between angry unintelligible Irken sputterings. He was getting redder and redder and it was all Dib could to not to burst out laughing in his face.
"I... I'm sorry," Dib bit his bottom lip to calm himself down. It wasn't good to tease him too much. "I wasn't trying to upset you. Please forgive me."
Zim sat staring at the human's happily smiling face for a few seconds. His hot rage began to cool. In it's place was left that familiar tingling. "Hmph! Zim accepts your groveling. Now, tell me why you've brought out your nano-ship."
Dib's smile drooped. Did it suddenly become enlarged on its own? He spun his head around and scanned the lab. Nothing. He turned back to his laptop. "What are you talking about?"
"I had planned to steal and/or destroy it later," Zim replied, as if such a course of action was natural. "So I attached a tracking device to it. It's been inside your body up to this point, but now I sense it over there."
The Irken pointed over Dib's shoulder.
Dib considered continuing to act dumb, but decided against it. It was all too accurate to be a bluff on Zim's part. "Oh, that nanoship. Well, you know, you never know, you know? Could come in handy for something, sometime. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, right?"
"But why do you need it now?" Zim pressed on. "You wouldn't have extracted it if you weren't planning on using it soon."
Why did he have to pick now of all times to be observant? Dib wondered. He decided to be as truthful as possible without giving away his hidden motives.
"I'm going to modify it."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
Zim's antennae flicked back and forth in contemplation. It was a good answer, but something still troubled him. He stared at the human for a while, then finally nodded, having come to another amazing conclusion. "Alright then, I'll help you."
Dib's eyes widened. "Hey, wait, I didn't ask-"
"If I let you use those clumsy meat hands you'll probably break it," he retorted.
"Hey! I rebuilt your Megadoomer from scrap, remember? Don't look down on meat hands!"
"And look where it's brought me! It's your fault I'm here in the first place."
"Don't blame Doomy for your poor navagation skills!"
"Don't tell me what to-" Zim paused and narrowed one eye. "Doomy?"
Dib blinked, then realized what he'd said. "Oh, uh... that's what I started calling your Megadoomer while I was working on it. You know," he rolled his wrist in an encouraging gesture "I'd say things like: 'I think I'll work on Doomy today', 'I wonder if Doomy's compatible with this?', 'Here, Doomy, fetch!'"
"Doomy can fetch?" Zim asked with astonished eyes.
"No... but it was worth a try."
Zim's face pouted in disappointment. "Oh. Well, anyway, I'm coming in. Don't touch anything until I get there!"
"Zim, wait! At least remember to-" the transmission cut off "...activate the cloaking device."
Dib sat in silence for a moment, wondering what he should do next.
"Well," Dib ship's voice emanated from the laptop. "I'd say that went well, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up," the human stood ran a hand through his hair. "It's fine. He doesn't know the real reason we're doing this. Once it's done, there'll be no further reason for him to stay. He'll go create havoc in the city while we go inside my brain and find the chip."
"Just remember your promise," the ship warned.
"It'll be fine," human Dib reassured him. "I'll behave."
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed chapter 13! You've all guilted me re-reading this story in order to spew forth a new chapter. I cringed so much! I've gone back and made some changes to past chapters. Actually, LOTS of changes.
BIG HUG to Sweetums128neo, my one loyal fan of this story throughout the years xD
