Chapter 5: Innovation

Time to test out these new implants…

Zim smiles in the mirror, gleeful that his shark-like teeth now include artificial fangs. Rigged to inject a mutagenic virus that only affects humans, he wonders why it took so long to think of the idea.

He slips outside and sneaks through his neighborhood in search of a test subject. Anyone will do, so long as they're alone. It would be convenient to find a child, since they'd be easier to grab and bite, but he won't be too picky.

Soon, Zim sees a tall man, hooded and cloaked, striding down an alley. Grinning, Zim scurries up behind him. "Do you have the time, sir?"

The man turns, and Zim lunges at his right hand. One of his artificial fangs pierces a finger and injects the virus… then Zim finds himself tumbling and rolling away. The man is strong, and reacted quickly, but he's still doomed.

Struggling upright, Zim sees the man's bitten finger shriveling and turning black. But the effect never has time to spread.

The man casts back his hood and cloak, revealing gray eyes, noble features, a heroic build…

…and a freak'n sword.

Long, beautiful, and terrifying, the sword sweeps from its sheath quicker than sight. The man doesn't hesitate in the slightest, cutting off his own infected finger.

Then those gray eyes lock on Zim.

Uh oh.

The man raises the sword, whispers something to the hilt, and the blade shimmers.

Thousands of bats swarm in from every direction, enveloping Zim and biting ferociously. He can't hear his own screams over the sound of the squeaking and their beating wings. Like piranhas skeletonizing a cow, they strip Zim down to the bone in mere seconds.

Zim awakes, shrieking and wailing.

He clamps his mouth shut and chokes off his screams the moment he realizes he's unhurt. It wouldn't do for the Base computer to know he panicked at a nightmare.

Then he figures out what likely triggered that nightmare.

"GIR! I've told you a zillion times to turn off the TV when I'm sleeping!" Staggering into the main room, where the TV is blaring at max volume, he sees GIR isn't even there.

The ground rumbles. Zim hurries to the window.

The neighbor's driveway is gone. Blinking, Zim looks closer, and determines it isn't quite gone, it has just sunk twenty feet into the ground. Smoke rises, suggesting the car parked there isn't in great condition anymore.

Zim turns in the other direction just in time to see what happened. The driveway drops down into the ground so abruptly the cars parked there are briefly airborne. Windshields break, tires burst, and car alarms blare.

A bazillion papers blow in the breeze. Zim catches one and quickly reads it.

Clearly hand drawn by the idiot GIR, these are fliers for a supposed lawn care and driveway maintenance company, offering to help shelter cars from storms and mow lawns in record time.

Gears crank, and steel hatches soon cover all the lowered driveways. That would be excellent protection from storms. If the cars weren't already trashed.

Then he hears GIR's wild cheers and laughter.

A huge vehicle rounds a corner at reckless speed. No effort was made for it resemble any Earth design, and it streaks down the street trailing a vast nightmarish contraption of whirling blades and blasting air. As GIR jerks his vehicle from side to side, the monster mowing machine swings from one side of the street to the other. Entire lawns are cut in mere seconds, along with mail boxes, fire hydrants, gardens, trees, and a shed.

Somehow, despite all the mayhem and property damage, the idiot fails to mulch even one human.

"Computer? Do you have any idea why GIR is running a fake business?"

"I didn't ask, but if I had to guess… you took away his bacon allowance."

Author's note:

This was actually two dreams. In the first, I was a disembodied observer. The cloaked and hooded figure was Aragorn, the sword was Anduril, and the dream clearly got very confused about their powers. The bats were totally out of left field. In the second dream, I got the impression the driveways lowering underground was normally slow and safe, but a crazy malfunction caused them to drop so fast every car got wrecked. The giant lawnmower thing was wild, the driver seemed out of his mind, and it felt very fitting of GIR.