Author's note: Here it is at last, for anybody who's still waiting. Sorry for the ages-long delay, folks.

There was something exceedingly lovely about Irken engineering. It spoke to Dib, from the first blueprint draft he'd been able to pilfer from his father's lab to the clumsy replicas he finally got a chance to study in college. There were mysteries about Zim's ship that the entire community of the planet's scientists had yet to unlock. They pulled it apart, hemmed and hawed, sent it to different labs all over the world, and were still left scratching their heads. Even his father had given up after about ten years, saying that it would take a lifetime to discover all of its secrets, and his lifetime was far too precious to be wasted on just one project. Dib had only to look at it long enough, and he could somehow innately understand how it all worked.

Or at least he'd thought so until now.

"Goddamn!" The fuel thing-ama-giggies weren't lining up with the. . .other doodads. It had taken Dib six months to smuggle the one fist-sized part out of a lab in Germany. If he didn't know better, he'd almost think the scientists there had been playing tennis with it – all of its smaller metal tubes seemed to be bent out of shape. He estimated that he only had half an hour before he was discovered and the past six year's work was flushed down the drain.

The doors hissed open – Dib stiffened, certain that it was one of his father's colleagues, coming to check on why the security cameras were down.

It was Simmons.

Dib breathed a sigh of relief. It's just Simmons, and he's got Zim. Those fake clearance cards actually worked.

"Bring him here." Dib ordered. Simmons obediently carried Zim over and set him down in Dib's arms.

It had been about a year since Dib had tracked Simmons down. Nobody had missed the scientist-cum-janitor after his mysterious disappearance. In fact some of his colleagues at the Chicky-Lickey (which was the only place he'd been able to get work these past six years) were secretly relieved – the guy put them on edge somehow. But now he had a chip in his head, courtesy of Dib, which made him a perfectly obedient slave.

"Now go sit in the corner, and. . .stand on your head or something." He waved Simmons away.

"Sure thing." Replied Simmons perkily. No matter how many adjustments Dib made to that chip, he couldn't get rid of that creepy personality.

He set Zim on the floor. The holo-disguise that Dib had made to help Simmons sneak him out of the habitat made him look like an oddly-shaped package wrapped in brown paper. Dib smiled. For a moment he wished that it was brown paper – he would have the pleasure of unwrapping Zim like a big present.

Finding the button at the back of the holo-disguise collar he'd made for Zim, Dib deactivated the disguise.

"Zim! Zim! Wake up!"

Slowly Zim opened his eyes.

"Dib?" He asked.

"Yeah, Zim. It's me." Dib reached to the collar of his own holo-disguise, shutting it off for the first time in years. His real face was only for Zim now.

Zim smiled weakly and reached up to touch his cheek.

Carrying Zim into the vootcruiser, Dib set him down on the passenger's seat. He leaned over to take one long, slow kiss. Zim sleepily hiked up his clothes, and though he was sorely tempted by the offer, Dib had to tear himself away.

"There isn't time, Zim. . .still have to fix the ship."

Zim seemed to realize where he was for the first time.

"My ship!"

Sitting up, Zim took quick stock of the controls. A few light touches on the panel brought the machine to life.

"Computer?"

"Yes, Zim?"

"Fix the ship!"

"Okay. . .working."

Dib gaped as long mechanical arms shot out of the ship, grabbing the parts laid out on the ground and feeding them into the ship's body.

"Some of the parts were damaged." said Dib.

Zim took no notice. One of the computer panels showed a detailed diagram of the ship – there were some parts shown in red that Dib recognized as sections that needed repair.

"As long as the nanobot hive hasn't been destroyed, the computer will take care of it." Stated Zim.

The diagram showed small streams of blue particles whizzing through the ship's circuitry, re-building their way through the damaged sections until the entire ship blinked green – whole, healthy, and ready for lift-off.

Zim turned smugly to Dib.

"Now, where were we?"

There wasn't much to say. Dib kissed him passionately. He has to pull away once again before things could go too far.

"Still have to take care of one more thing." Said Dib before hopping out of the ship.

Approaching the door panel, Dib plugged a command by-pass into it and let it perform its program. The hangar they were in now was deep underground – there was little chance they would have been able to blast their way out even if the ship's weapons weren't completely drained. Dib waited for the device to hack its way into the system and find the code to open the hangar doors and let them out onto the surface.

Blood no doubt pooling in his head, Simmons balanced obediently upside-down at the corner of the room. Dib looked at him.

"Come here, Simmons." Dib ordered, arms crossed.

Simmons fell over, got up, and obeyed. There was no sign of intelligence in that vacant smile as Dib studied him, but there could be detected in his eyes a definite trace of. . .fear.

Dib coolly met Simmons's eyes. He would be leaving Earth now, and he wouldn't be bringing Simmons with him – they both knew that. Over the course of his chip-induced enthrallment to Dib, Simmons had suffered though enough humiliating indignities to expect the worst.

It was possible that Dib might order Simmons to go drown himself in the nearest men's bathroom toilet once he was gone – this was in fact what Dib was contemplating that very moment.

"Simmons. . ." Dib began finally, looking him straight in the eyes. "Go back and wait in the corner. After I leave you're free to do what you want again, EXCEPT, you're not every going to force anyone to do anything ever again. You need to, I don't know, try to be a better person. Help people. Stop being such a creep. You used to be a good scientist – try to be more like my dad, or something. Got it?"

"Okay." Replied Simmons.

Dib sighed and waved Simmons away. He really couldn't predict what Simmons would do once he left, and it worried him, but he'd done his best. Dib wouldn't say that it was his humanity that had stopped him, but for some reason it just wasn't in him to commit cold-blooded murder.

"Thank you." Added Simmons, before he went back to his corner. Dib hoped it was a good sign.

The hacking device made a series of chittering noises which told Dib that its task had succeeded. It was, in theory, the last barrier to their escape. Dib's breath hitched and he could practically taste the cool light of the distant stars that would fill their view soon. Plucking the device from the door panel, he hurried back over to the cruiser and jumped in.

Zim was at the helm. The door closed behind Dib, and the ship lifted itself up off the floor. The doors on the ceiling of the hangar parted, leading to a corridor of solid stone where they passed several more such gates of reinforced steel, each gliding open to let them pass. They rose up and up and up.

Some of the doors were quicker to part than others. It was the last, by Dib's reckoning, that looked like it was going to take the longest. They waited. It didn't open. Dib tried to breathe normally.

"Can we blast through it, or batter it, or. . .something."

Zim stared at the gate as though it wasn't there, as though he couldn't see it. It wasn't there – it couldn't be there. Closed, strong, impenetrable if the build of the other gates has been anything to go by. He didn't reply.

"Someone is trying to open a channel," informed the computer. Zim blinked. He looked down at the console dully for a few moments, then finally chose a button to press.

After a few moments, during which a message pop-up informed them that the computer was deciphering alien communication signals, a window on the viewscreen opened up with a feed.

It was Professor Membrane.

"You may have hacked the other gates, son, but you forgot that the outer exit is controlled from its own SEPARATE mainframe."

Behind Professor Membrane, the other scientists in the research wing sat working at their stations. They were a diligent bunch, only a few stopping to gape at the feed on the screen that Professor Membrane was watching.

"Oh yeah, you're right." Dib didn't try to wonder what would happen to them now. Something bad, he knew. He stared blankly at his father.

Professor Membrane looked down at the panel in front of him. He punched a series of buttons.

The last door opened.

Zim took them up without hesitation, out into the clear air beyond, headed for the stars.

In the room behind Professor Membrane, red alarm lights turned on and began to blink slowly.

"Does this place have any defense mechanisms?" Asked Zim.

"Yes, but I'm shutting them down right now," replied Professor Membrane, still occupied with the computer console.

The sky spread out before them, the stars welcoming them to their freedom.

"Where will you go?" Asked Professor Membrane.

Dib was numb. "Irk, I guess," he replied.

"No, not Irk," said Zim. "This one has foreign genes." He gestured to Dib. "He is defective. They would feed him to a tar-beast."

"Oh would they? Where then?" asked Professor Membrane.

"Somewhere else. There are places the Empire will not conquer for hundreds of years or more. Zim will find one," said Zim.

"Good. See that you take care of my son."

Zim nodded.

There was a door visible on the opposite end of the room in which Professor Membrane stood. It opened, and a cadre of armed guards spilled out, heading straight for him.

"Goodbye, Dib," said Professor Membrane

Dib was still having trouble processing it all, but he found this moment and held onto it. "Goodbye, Dad," he said.

Two soldiers grabbed Professor Membrane by each arm just as the feed cut out.

There was a low windy noise as the ship escaped the atmosphere. When they were out into space Zim pressed a few buttons and they sped up.

No missile could reach them now.

They were free.

The end.