Consequences there will be, as Dib soon will find out.
Happy to see that you're back for this chapter, and hope you're excited to see what kind of surprise Zim has been planning for Dib. Here's a spoiler: It isn't a nice surprise.
"*Ding dong*"
Both Gaz and Dib, who were sitting on the couch, gave a half-hearted look toward the door, from where the sound of the doorbell had come from. They then returned to blankly staring at the tv, which was currently airing an ad for foot warmers. While their silence before had been out of mutual respect, it had quickly turned into awkwardly waiting to see if the other would answer the door. The tension only grew, as the ringing continued, and they both stubbornly acted like it wasn't there.
Gaz was the first to break, as the sound was becoming more infuriating than just annoying. She first tried giving Dib an annoyed look, trying to nudge him toward answering the door. Dib ignored her to the best of his abilities, as her eyes started to bore into the side of his skull. In the end, Gaz got tired of staring, and let out a dissatisfied sigh.
"...Aren't you gonna get it?" She muttered, finally asking the question that they both knew would only lead to something terrible. But unfortunately for her, Dib had already prepared a comeback.
"Well, you're the one whose technically sitting closer to the door, sooooooooo…"
Gaz stared at her brother with what could only be described as morbid curiosity, as she wondered if he really was willing to go down that route.
"We're sitting on the same couch." She said, with a bit of disbelief in her voice.
"And you're still the one who's closer to the door." Dib calmly explained, deciding that he would rather die on that hill than leave the couch.
"Dib, I swear if you make me leave this couch, I will-"
Her threat was promptly cut off, as the ringing of the doorbell suddenly became constant, echoing throughout the living room, making it practically impossible to focus. While she tried to hold out in the hope that Dib would be the first to break, it became visible clear that she was the one who was the most affected by ringing. Her body was shaking as she stared at the tv, and her breathing became heavy and filled with frustration. Dib on the other hand was doing quite fine, and could easily take listening to the sound for hours.
"Diiiiiib." She slowly said, pushing the name through her gritting teeth, in some vain attempt to threaten him once again.
"Gaz, I'm the one who has had to listen to Zim's screaming for several years. We both know that if one of us is gonna break…it's gonna be you." Dib calmly explained, never moving his head or eyes away from the tv screen.
"FINE!" Gaz exclaimed, before jumping off the couch and marching with furious steps toward the hallway.
"I'm gonna make you regret this, Dib." She ominously commented, before walking out of the living room.
"You can just add it to the list." He apathetically answered back, though he had the feeling she couldn't hear him.
Finally, he moved his head away from the moving pictures on the screen and silently stared at the ceiling instead. He wasn't quite sure why he was feeling the way he did. He wasn't quite sad, but just…down. It was as if his motivation for just getting up in the morning had disappeared. Which arguably was what had happened, as he hadn't talked to or seen Zim for over a week. He didn't know why, but suddenly the alien just stopped coming to skool. At first, Dib had just brushed it off as the green gremlin still being angry from the last time they talked. But as the days went by, he ended up walking over to Zim's base, to try and see if he was there. The security was still working, so he hadn't had any luck getting close to the house itself. He had tried yelling for Zim to come out, but after the neighbors started giving him more stern looks than usual, he had decided that it wasn't worth humiliating himself over. And even worse, he didn't want to look too desperate in front of Zim. If he did, Zim would never let him live it down. But in the end, all he was left with was just waiting for Zim to appear. Which he usually had a knack for, but only the most inconvenient of times.
Still, Dib could at least comfort himself with the fact that it wasn't the first time that Zim had suddenly disappeared. It had happened several times in fact. But that just left Dib more puzzled about why he was reacting the way he was. He had basically turned into a human potato, and only left the house when he had to go to skool, and even there the problems followed him, as his grades were starting to be affected. Even Gaz had started to notice and started spending more time with him. Which just usually meant that they sat next to each other in silence, but that was how they liked it. But even then, she had somewhat hinted at the fact that she wondering what was going on with him. He could easily just tell her, but…he didn't want to.
Yes, he and Zim had become friends, and maybe a little closer than that, but he still didn't need Zim. At least, he didn't think so. The alien had needed him, that much Dib was clear on, and he needed him to prove that aliens exist, that Dib understood too. But the longing he felt to see that ugly green face, was something he hadn't felt before. He didn't even want to argue or fight with him. He just wanted to see, and maybe talk to him. But he didn't know why. He shouldn't need that. He shouldn't need Zim, not like that. So why was he feeling that way?
Dib was pulled from his thoughts, as he realized the ringing of the doorbell had finally stopped. He could then hear Gaz opening the front door, soon followed by the door closing.
"Hey Gaz! Have you…have you seen Zim recently?"
Whether because of his thoughts or just by chance, he had felt the sudden need to ask his sister about Zim. He had started to realize over time that she might be closer to the alien than he had previously thought, so it wouldn't hurt to try and ask her.
"No, not really. I don't usually monitor his every move. I thought that was your job?" She asked somewhat sarcastically, but it seemed like she was occupied by something while talking. Dib guessed that it was probably related to whoever was at the door. Still, he had hoped that she might have been able to give him some kind of hint of where Zim was. On the other hand, she was right about keeping track of Zim being his job. A job he was doing a very poor job at.
"Oh…okay. Who was at the door anyway?"
"No one."
"What?" Dib asked somewhat suspiciously, turning around just at the right moment to face Gaz as she walked into the living room.
"Yeah, kinda weird. But whoever it was, they left this." She nonchalantly explained, while holding up something in her arms. It was just then that Dib noticed that she was carrying some kind of package, poorly covered in tape and out-of-season Christmas wrapping. Dib stared at the package with a look of concern and curiosity.
"What…is that?" He asked, not sure whether it was a prank by one of the neighborhood kids or just a delivery that had gone to the wrong address.
"It's a box."
"I know that it's a box Gaz, I'm asking what's in the box." He asked again, a little more urgently that time.
"Well, there's at least three layers of wrapping you're more than welcome to rip apart to try and find out."
Even though she tried her best to sound disinterested in the mysterious package, her actions betrayed her words, as she started fumbling around with the box, inspecting each side to try and find something. And to her own surprise, she did find something.
"Wait. There's some writing on this side." She said while flipping the before-mentioned side up top.
"Writing? What does it say?" Dib asked as Gaz had gone silent while trying to decipher the words. Even from the couch, he could see that the letters were written in some kind of pink paint and that the words themselves seemed to be nearly unreadable.
It took a moment before Gaz answered back, but what she said seemed to surprise Dib more than it did her.
"It says 'To The Dib'."
Dib's heart nearly sunk, as there was only one person who ever called him 'The Dib'.
"Are you…are you saying that it's from Zim?" He asked, with disbelief in his voice. He hadn't seen Zim in over a week and then he suddenly just leaves a package for him at his front door? He didn't know why but could feel that there was something weird going on. Strangely enough, he was also feeling something…that felt very familiar. Dib could easily have spent some time trying to figure out what feeling it was if he wasn't suddenly taken back to reality by his sister talking to him.
"Hey, Dib. It's making some kind of noise."
"...Could you be a little more specific?"
"Don't you think I would if I could tell-...wait…" She then took the package up to her ear, trying to listen to the supposed sound she was hearing. Dib was just about to mention that maybe she was just going insane when she abruptly continued her sentence.
"It's a ticking sound." She explained, with a hint of confusion in her voice. It only took a moment before Dib managed to put the pieces together.
"Wait…you're telling me that you're holding a box…that came from Zim…which is ticking-"
"And was meant for you." Gaz quickly injected, finishing Dib's sentence.
There were a few seconds where they both just stared at each other, and in those few seconds, Dib realized what that feeling, that he had felt ever since seeing the box, was. It was his sixth sense. The one that always alerts him whenever Zim tries to kill him.
Once they were done staring at each other, Gaz was the first to promptly drop the box at her feet, before practically jumping into the hallway, away from the living room. Dib didn't have that luxury, so he settled with crawling over the couch and hiding behind it. It was fortunate that they both reacted as fast as they did, as it only took a second or two before there was an explosion, that just happened to come from the box.
The explosion made the house shake for a moment and left Dib and Gaz with ringing in their ears. They only opened their eyes, when they felt a thin layer of dust fall down on them. Dib was the first to peek from behind the couch, with Gaz leaning in from the hallway soon after. They both stared at the spot where the box once was, and where there was only a hole in the floor. Again, they both were silent and stared at the hole, but Gaz quickly cut the silence short-
"What did you do." She sternly asked, looking up at her, having already decided who was the most likely cause for why Zim had sent a bomb to their house.
"W-why me!?" Dib replied, still somewhat stunned from the explosion. But he couldn't help but also feel that he was somehow responsible for their situation.
"Oh yeah, because this is definitely someone else's fault! I don't have time for this, tell me why Zim is sending bombs to our house, or I swear to god Dib,"
"I don't know, okay! I haven't spoken to, or even seen him in nearly two weeks."
"Well, when was the last time you two spoke," Gaz said, making it clear that Dib better come up with an explanation soon, or else she wasn't going to ask so politely next time.
"Uhm…" Dib muttered as he tried his damndest to try and figure out why Zim was angry at him. Still, he could easily be panicking more than he was. The only thing that kept him calm was the understanding that only Zim could disappear for several days, and then try to kill him. Something that kept the situation a little more comprehensible than it would otherwise have been. But that didn't change the fact that he still couldn't figure out what was going on with Zim. The last time they talked he had already patched up their most recent argument with donuts, so perhaps it was something that had happened before that.
Then, he suddenly remembered something.
Soft. He had called Zim soft.
…Could it? No, of course not. I know it's Zim, but considering how he had been acting recently, sending a bomb is drastic, even for him. Or maybe…
Dib suddenly breathed in a large amount of air, before dramatically letting it out, which did little more than annoy Gaz.
"So?"
"It's just a theory but…this whole bomb situation is maybe related to the fact that I called him…soft." He slowly explained, crumbling into himself with each passing word. Gaz in return just blankly stared at him, making it impossible for Dib to guess just have disappointed she was in him.
"In my defense, I didn't think he took it that personally at the time."
"...He sent a bomb to our house, DIB!" She loudly exclaimed, before pointing at the spot where the bomb had been.
"There's a hole in our floor, and probably in the ceiling too-" She mysteriously stopped her sentence, and just stared up at the ceiling in silence. Dib didn't notice it at first and just kept talking.
"I know, I know! But don't worry! I'm gonna get Zim under control, I just…need to find him first…Gaz?" He asked, finally realizing that she wasn't looking at him, or even moving.
"Well, I think you're gonna get the chance to find him soon enough." She casually muttered, making Dib look up at where she was staring. It was then that he saw the giant, pink letters painted on the ceiling, right over the explosion. Which mostly likely meant that they came from the explosion itself. The words themselves spelled out the sentence; COME FIND ME DIB!
"...How did he even do that?" Dib asked after having vacantly stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
"Not what's important right now." Gaz sternly said, moving her sight down to Dib, who did the same.
"What's important is that you find Zim before he sends enough bombs to turn the entire house to splinters."
Dib wanted to object, but he couldn't disagree with the fact that they should probably hurry.
"You're right. If I know Zim, he's probably already preparing at least five more, just in case we didn't see the text the first time." He noted, in a somewhat grim tone. He stood for a few moments with his hand on his chin, forming a plan of action. Luckily, he had spent a better part of his life dealing with Zim, so this time should be no different.
"Okay, I know what to do. Follow me!"
He then started running over to the stairs leading up to his room, with Gaz following right behind him. Even she had to acknowledge that there was no one better than Dib when it came to finding Zim.
But just as they reached the stairs, Dib stopped right in his tracks and turned to look at Gaz with a worried expression.
"Shouldn't we do something about the paint and the…you know…hole."
There were a few seconds of silence between them before Gaz answered.
"...Nah."
With that, they continued up the stairs and went directly into Dib's room. While Gaz stood at the door and looked around the dark, messy room, Dib walked over to his computer desk and sat down. As he started pressing down on the keyboard, Gaz lazily made her way over to him, looking over his shoulder at the screen.
"Uhm…What exactly is it you're gonna do?" She asked, as whatever knowledge she had of computers, was inadequate in helping her decipher what it was Dib was doing.
"I'm gonna check my spying-I mean surveillance cameras! Yeah…surveillance." He muttered, trying his best to not think about how much 'surveillance' he had done on Zim over the years.
"...Okay, I'm just gonna ignore that. But I'm not sure how a few cameras are gonna help us find Zim."
"Just give it a moment…aaaaaaaaaannnd…done!" With one dramatic, he pressed down on the enter key. At first, nothing happened, and Gaz wondered what her brother was making such a fuss about when suddenly the sound of a computer rebooting rang throughout the room. Then slowly, a bunch of screens came up from behind Dib's computer, and a few out of the walls. They all moved like the heads of a hydra, and wrapped themselves around the computer, forming into a wall of screens, that when they turned on, lighted the entire room up like a bunch of lanterns. While Dib looked at his work with satisfaction before continuing to type away, Gaz instead looked with a mix of concern and bewilderment.
"I keep forgetting how many screens you have in your room." She commented, with a sense of worry.
"Pretty cool, I know," Dib replied with pride.
"It wasn't a compliment."
"...Whatever." He muttered annoyed, before continuing his work, with many windows popping up on the screen, which he kept periodically closing or moving to a different screen, like a scene straight out of an over-the-top hacker film. Then finally, something came up on one of the screens that were different from the rest, which Gaz could easily recognize.
"There, isn't that Zim's house?" She asked, moving right behind her brother and pointing right up at the screen.
"Yep. It's capturing live footage currently, but considering the words from the package, I'm guessing he's not just going to stand on the front lawn and wait for us."
"Then why are we looking at it?"
"Because I'm assuming that it was either Zim or maybe Gir that delivered the bomb, which would mean that someone would have had to leave the house. So if I just move the footage backwards, we should end up finding something. Eventually."
And just as he had said, the footage on the camera started moving backwards, slowly speeding up the more they waited. Luckily, they didn't have to wait long before a certain green alien appeared on the screen.
"There!" Dib exclaimed, pausing the footage as fast as he could. Just as he had theorized, on the screen was Zim on his front lawn, with the same poorly packaged box in his arms.
"There's that little green idiot," Gaz muttered bitterly, not exactly appreciating nearly getting blown up.
Dib then pressed a button, and the screen started moving again, showing Zim walking down the lawn, towards the sidewalk. But then, strangely enough, he stopped mid in his tracks. Then he looked directly up at the camera, sending a slight shiver down Dib's spine. But whatever fear he felt was quickly alleviated when Zim put the box down and started making grimaces at the camera. While Gaz couldn't help but find it somewhat amusing, Dib felt less humored.
"Alright, I think we can just skip this part." He said, before speeding up the footage. To his annoyance, even as the footage moved faster and faster, Zim kept standing on his lawn, making gestures and faces. Dib was willing to give it a few seconds, but those quickly passed and he started becoming more and more frustrated.
"How long do you think he's going to stand there and taunt you?" Gaz asked curiously.
"W-why do you think he's doing it to me specifically?!" He asked back, though Gaz didn't respond. Not that she needed to. Still, he couldn't help but feel a little worried about the fact that Zim knew about his secret cameras. Well…of course, he knew that there were secret cameras, but Dib didn't expect him to know where exactly they were. He was starting to think that Zim might have planned the whole situation a little more thoroughly than he had expected.
They stared at the screen for a while longer, before Zim finally disappeared from the screen. Quickly Dib sprang to life and changed the screen to show footage from outside their house, focused on the front door. As expected, Zim showed up and neatly placed the package in front of the door. But what they didn't expect, was that Zim didn't press the doorbell. Instead, he took some kind of small device from his PAK and latched it on the doorbell. After that, he walked away from the house and disappeared from view. They both looked somewhat confused at the screen, and it was only when Dib checked the time from when the footage was recorded, that he was able to realize what had happened.
"Uhm…wasn't he supposed to ring the doorbell?" Gaz asked.
"Apparently not. I think whatever that alien device he placed was what triggered the doorbell. Its purpose was probably to allow Zim to get away before we opened the box, and instead do something in the meantime."
"Why would he need to do that?"
"Well…it's Zim so…-" Dib turned around in his chair and looked up at Gaz with a worried expression on his face. "-most likely for something bad."
Gaz let out a tired, long sigh and rubbed her eyes. She had hoped that Zim was done with his whole 'take over the earth' phase after all that had happened between him and Dib, but apparently, her stupid brother had somehow managed to reignite that gremlin's destructive tendencies. And best of all, she had ended up being roped into whatever it was Zim was doing. Just great. She would berate and blame Dib for it all if it wasn't for the fact she had inadvertently helped the two become closer, therefore leading to whatever argument they had. In truth, she should have known better than to think making the two get along would stop them completely from being idiots.
"That's just…great." She said, with the spite she held for the situation clear in her tone.
"What now? Zim's gone, and we have to way to find out where he is." Gaz continued, looking to her brother for answers. She wasn't as skilled in dealing with Zim as he had become.
"That's not completely true," Dib said, garnering a curious look from Gaz. He then turned back to the computer, and as he tapped away, a few of the screens moved closer and turned on, several of them revealing footage from different views pointed toward their street. It didn't take long before Dib managed to compile a bunch of footage that had managed to capture the alien, as he went on his way to who knows where.
"...Dib?" Gaz asked, with the tenderness of a loving sister, which should have been Dib's first clue that he wasn't going to like where the conversation was going.
"Yeah?" He innocently answered, his eyes focused on the movements of Zim, as he went down past house after house, making his way further down the street.
"I could understand the cameras at Zim's house, and even at ours, but…why do you have so many cameras on the street?"
"What? Oh…those cameras." He slowly muttered, trying his best to come up with the most rational explanation possible.
"Well, it's…to let me know if Zim is coming near our house, obviously! So I can prepare for when he's coming, or check if he's leaving the area." He explained with a frantic tone, before falling silent, hoping that Gaz wouldn't question him any further.
She stared at him silently, judging whether she should leave it alone or pry more answers out of him. At first, she was willing to leave it alone, but as they continued to watch, Zim walked farther and farther away, and yet the cameras continued following him. Gaz felt that she needed to say something when Zim had walked through several streets, and yet the cameras were still there.
"Dib…how many cameras are there?"
"...A few…" He quietly said, trying his best to avoid eye contact with her, even as she leaned over his shoulder to look him in the eyes. The cameras continued to follow Zim, and Gaz was bordering on getting impressed by the sheer scale of what she was witnessing.
"When did you even have the time to set them up?"
"You'll be surprised how much free time you have on your hands when the only people you talk to are your dad, your sister, and an evil alien," Dib answered, with a somewhat disgruntled tone.
"It's that…it's that camera filming from inside a house?"
"Don't think about it."
After some time, the cameras had managed to follow Zim all the way out of their neighborhood entirely, and toward the outskirts of the city. It was right at a road that seemingly lead nowhere, that they lost Zim. Gaz had an inkling of hope that her brother had a drone or something that had followed Zim, but Dib already knew that there wasn't anything more that they could do.
"...Wait, why isn't Zim on the screen? Where is he?" Gaz asked, for once hoping Dib had some kind of stupid plan-b, that only a crazy person could come up with.
"I'm sorry, but there aren't any more cameras wherever he's going. We could go maybe out and search the last place he was, and-"
"No way am I walking around in the middle of nowhere, looking for someone that might not even be there!" Gaz interjected, having no interest in searching in the middle of the night just to find Zim.
"Well there isn't that much else we can do, so unless you have a better idea then…wait."
Dib's attention was focused on something on the screen. He leaned forward, his head nearly pressing up against the computer. He narrowed his eyes and studied the picture for a few seconds, with Gaz looking on in confusion. Before she had the chance to say anything, Dib eagerly pointed at something on the screen and turned back to look at her.
"Look! That sign!"
"Wow. A sign. What else do you see? A tree?"
"It's not that! It's what's on the sign." Dib clarified, inviting his sister to look closer. She rolled her eyes and begrudgingly leaned forward. She looked at where he was pointing, and sure enough, there was a sign. But then she noticed what probably had gotten her brother all excited.
"...Hey, it says 'junkyard'."
"See! That was what I was trying to say." Dib said, before turning his attention back to the computer. He started typing, and another screen blinked to life.
"While the sign isn't very specific, if we just follow Zim's trail, we should be able to guess that the junkyard in question is…here!"
On the newly lit screen was a map of the city, with a spot marked with a red circle. The spot in question was a junkyard, sitting on the outskirts of the city.
"...It would be like Zim to go to a junkyard," Gaz commented, consciously trying to hide her relief that they finally had a proper idea of where Zim was.
"Then we have a destination. I suggest that we get going as quickly as possible. I don't want him to finish whatever it is he's doing there." Dib said, before rising from his chair and walking toward the door.
"We?" Gaz exclaimed, just as Dib reached the door, making him stop abruptly.
"I'm not going."
Dib turned around with a surprised look, trying to see if she was joking or not. But of course, she wasn't.
"W-wha…what do you mean you're not going?"
"Whatever is going on with Zim, is between him…and you. So you can go and deal with it." She coldly explained, making it clear she wasn't to change her mind. Though Dib couldn't help but try.
"...Are you serious? I thought you were on board with this! You wanted to find him as well, and now you're just backing out?!" Dib asked, trying to make her understand how stupid she sounded, in an attempt to persuade her.
"Yeah, be he…wanted you to find him. Not me. So unless you wanna deal with his hissy fit when he sees that I tagged along, then I think I'm just gonna stay here.
"Ugh…uh…" He wanted to say something against her, but he couldn't help but feel that she was partially right. It wouldn't surprise him if Zim did get angry if Gaz came along. And he might also be the reason for why any of it was happening at all, so he thought that maybe he should just own up to it, and deal with the problem himself. Besides, he had dealt with Zim alone more times than he could count, and that was back when he wasn't as tame as he had been the last few months. And maybe it was all just a big misunderstanding that he and Zim would talk out and…yeah, that part wasn't going to happen.
"*Sigh*...All right. I'll go. But if Zim kills me, then you're the one who gets to explain to dad to you let me walk to my doom alone."
"Deal." She casually replied, which for others would sound disturbing, considering the subject of her brother's death. But for Dib…it was good enough. He then turned back around and opened the door.
"Hey." She said, interrupting Dib as he walked through the door. He looked back with a tired expression, wondering if she was gonna joke about his death, or make a sarcastic comment.
"Not that I think he's actually gonna try to kill you, but…good luck."
Consequences there were Dib, consequences there were. If you want to find out what Zim is doing, then…you're gonna have to wait for the next chapter. Sorry. But I hope this chapter will satisfy you until the next comes out. I know it took some time before this chapter came out, but you know how life is. Always messing with schedules and productivity. Hope you're having a good day, and that you will stick around for the next chapter!