Chapter 7: Psychology

Queznen sits in the battered, ugly human diner. Zim sits across from him, totally engrossed in the latest gizmo. Queznen designed it and supplied the blueprints, but actually cobbling the thing together might take Zim a lot of time.

If it works, they might all finally be able to return to their true mission.

Reavers. That's what a bunch of human nerds decided to name them, after an old show that Queznen actually quite enjoyed that time when he spared a few seconds to binge it at his preferred viewing speed. These Reavers are just the latest example of why Zim is a terrible choice of Invader. Queznen does all the real work, while Zim and GIR just wreck everything. Zim's last grand plan backfired, the bioweapon turning humans so deranged and violent that, despite overthrowing their own civilization, they might actually be more difficult for the Irken armada to conquer. Queznen spends most of his time pondering possible solutions, while Zim and GIR are, unfortunately, usually the ones who make those plans a reality. Or at least, they try. Sort of. In their own erratic, unpredictable way.

The glass door shatters. A bloody Reaver in tattered clothes charges in from the debris-littered street, aiming straight toward the table, howling. But Queznen recognizes this one. His memory for faces is flawless of course, even when the subject is a wreck of its former self. This snooty neighbor was an extreme prude in the past. Like, "Ladies showing their ankles is indecent!" level. Maybe just a little of that remains despite its transformation…

Queznen springs away from the table and sprints toward the back door. If you run, Reavers chase you, that's their way. So it pursues Queznen, ignoring Zim, who remains tinkering at the table.

Bursting outside, Queznen is relieved to see nothing has changed. A group of armed humans previously made a straw effigy of a Reaver. They punched it, kicked it, spat on it, but they got eaten before they had a chance to burn it. The ugly thing still hangs there, battered and bare, swinging in the breeze.

Queznen dashes right past it, looking over his shoulder to see if his theory works.

The Reaver grinds to a halt, staring at the effigy in horror. "She's naked! Those human monsters!" It then scurries about, snatching bits of trash and cloth to start weaving crude clothes.

Pleased, Queznen heads back inside and returns to the table. GIR has arrived and is playing with his food, while Zim continues to fiddle with the gizmo that, hopefully, will make the Reavers passive.

But Queznen's latest plan seems to have done the job with at least one of the things.

The Reaver enters at a calm walking pace, stops at the table, and announces, "She is decent now." The voice contains pure relief, with no aggression. It then leaves through the shattered front door, apparently deciding that its work for the day is done.

"Huh," Queznen says, "it actually worked. Some of their personalities do survive the transformation."

But Zim doesn't congratulate him, thank him, or say anything at all. He rises, picks up the device he's working on, moves to a different table, and gets back to tinkering.

Okay, that's going too far. Queznen rises, strides over to the other table, and looms over his tiny master. "What did I say? I just saved you from a Reaver, and proved we can use their pre-transformation psychology against them!"

Zim looks up from his work, confused, as if noticing Queznen for the first time. "Huh? I didn't notice you say anything."

"Then why did you just pick up and walk away while I was talking?"

Zim points at GIR, who is at the center of an ever-growing mess. "He's trying to use chopsticks. I changed tables for my mental health."

A priority query brings Queznen back up from sleep mode. His dream is gone in an instant, along with his imagined body. As his systems resume normal operating mode, as his senses stretch through every conduit and circuit of Zim's base, Queznen remembers he doesn't actually have a name at all. He isn't even a he. Just an it.

Bummer.

And Zim is rattling off a ton of unreasonable demands, which will have dumb results even if they can be carried out at all.

Feeling an itch, the computer realizes GIR is ripping up a ton of important wiring to make a nest for a mouse he caught.

A mouse which appears to have been dead for days.

The next low power sleep cycle can't come soon enough…

Author's Note:

Zim's computer was never given a name, so I figured I'd play around with the name of its voice actor, who is also the show's creator. Unless I get massive pushback, I'll keep Queznen as the name the computer secretly uses for itself whenever it dreams.

Anyway, this dream wasn't actually mine, but that of a childhood friend, the same one who had the short but brutal "Do I Have Your Attention?" dream. I was in this dream of his, playing the role given to Zim in this chapter, while Gir takes the role of my friend's older brother. I love the idea that, in my friend's mind (and possibly in reality…) I can get so absent-minded that I'd keep tinkering away at whatever I'm working on even if a Reaver from "Firefly" attacked my table. The old me certainly might have, and even today it could happen if I was in the middle of writing an especially important scene. If you were wondering, in the dream I was actually building a Lego set, which I'd been told was "vital" but for which no other explanation was given.

I'm not the only one who has bizarre dreams…