Cognitive Dissonance
An action packed romantic Invader Zim epic
By LejindaryBunny
Author's note: Hiya all you readerish beings, hello Invaders, Tallests,
humans and just plain creepy creatures. I am here with the express
purpose to introduce myself, the writer, and the fic which you are
probably about to read. If you want to, go ahead and skip to the story,
I don't blame you. As for the rest of you, here goes.
About the title:
Cognitive Dissonance is the depression, confusion and anger that can
occur when a person attempts to hold two conflicting ideas or beliefs
at the same time. I'm sure you'll see how it applies to the story.
About chapters:
It's my first Invader Zim fanfic unless you count that poem I wrote
which I encourage you to read and review. It's probably going to be
a very long fic. Like around thirty chapters or so. Maybe more.
Chapters are no definite length, being anywhere between two and a
squidillion pages. When I'm on an obsessive kick (like now)I tend to
post every one or two days but otherwise I'll have at least one chapter
up every two weeks. Unfortunately I am completely unable to update on
weekends. The reason for this is my father, who you'll hear me rant
about. He used to be a communist, then an anarchist, then a socialist.
He is deathly paranoid of the FBI, CIA, and Hackers. So I don't get
to use the net at home. Sadly, he does not believe in aliens nor does
he wear a tin foil hat, but I digress.
About the story:
It focuses on Zim and Dib, obviously, as you read in the summery. It
also contains an outlaw Irken babe. Said babe is indeed a character
integral to the plot, but be not disheartened because I am a seasoned
writer and know how to make an original female character with out her
being a Mary-Sue. Neither of my two favorite boys will be getting
together with her because this is a nice cute/angsty slash fic. BUT
that romance is accompanied by another plot, a sinister, terrible
world threatening plot. Aliens the like of which not even Zim has ever
seen have come to Earth with the intention not to conquer but to
destroy it. All will have to put aside their differences and band
together in order to defeat this really scary menace.
About me:
My name is LejindaryBunny, shortened to LejBun, or just Bun. Whateva.
It's not my real name, my real name is Greer. Rhymes with Fear. I will
be your writer so please leave your seat belts unbuckled, do NOT fasten
your tray in the upright position and hold on to your squeedly-spooch
because I am CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY. I only am able to check my e-mail
once a week but I do reply to all, and I mean ALL letters sent to me.
I love talking to people so write to me if you feel so inclined.
About Other Stuff:
Three stars *** denotes change in scene or in point of view. Any words
that are blatantly not English are Irken and most like swear words.
Lastly I urge you to picture all this in anime stytle, becuase
otherwise it's just a little odd. Now the story.
Disclaimer: I don't any of Jhonen Vasquez's characters. I do own Kiir
however, and, and not even the Almighty Tallest will be able to save
you should you in your infinite human patheticness attempt to steal her!
Chapter I... In which Dib is depressed, Zim watches TV and several
unexpected things occur.
Dib lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling in the dim but somehow
violent light which buzzed unpleasantly from his idle computer monitor,
the only source of illumination in the room. Yesterday he'd been in a
whirl of Zim-related frenzy, saving the world from genetically altered
spiders that sucked people's brains and left them mindless zombies.
He'd only been able to save about half of his class from them, but
there really wasn't much of a difference. Dib shuddered. He hated
spiders, though that hadn't seemed to matter yesterday when he'd done
battle with them. Dib was depressed. He was always depressed the day
after fighting with Zim, when the world returned to being perfectly
safe and normal all because of him. One-hundred-fifty-six times to
date he had rescued them all and not once was uttered one word of
thanks or congratulation. They were only free to bully him and mock him
because he said so. The day he lost to Zim was the day that they would
all realize how right Dib had been, that he wasn't crazy and had saved
their miserable lives one stinking time after another. Maybe one day he
just wouldn't bother. He'd just watch the alien's plan unfold, dooming
the human race to extra-terrestrial subjugation.
But in his heart Dib realized that he would never do this, he's
always climb out of the pit of despair just in time to save the world
again and be cast back down into darkness. It was what always happened,
year after year, since he was thirteen, and now he was sixteen. He even
had a name for it, 'post-near-apocalyptic-letdown'. In layman's terms
it simply meant that he felt depressed because everyone on earth owned
Dib his or her life and they were shoving dirt up his nose and his head
down the toilet instead of worshiping at his feet and basking in his
glory and greatness.
Glory and greatness? Dib chuckled morbidly to himself. What glory and
greatness? He was the skinny, too-smart, gothy nerd kid that nobody
even noticed existed. He shook his head, snorted.
"Glory and greatness," he muttered. "I sound like Zim, arrogant."
Maybe he'd been spending a little too much time near the alien, maybe
his personality dysfunctions were contagious.
But in the end were he and Zim really that different? Ah, now there
was a questioned he'd been pondering to death recently. Maybe the only
discrepancy was that Zim was trying to conquer the human race and Dib,
out of some bizarre and more than likely misplaced sense of racial
loyalty was saving it. A thousand stupid, clichéd sayings flashed
through Dib's mind. 'Know thy enemy', 'keep your enemies closer'.
Closer than what? He had no friends. No one outside his family ever
spoke to him, and even his father and sister seemed to avoid him. The
one being that cared whether he lived or died was Zim, and Zim wanted
him dead.
Under other circumstances he and Zim might have been good friends. It
seem they shared a lot of the same general views of humanity, that it
basically completely sucked. Maybe he should just let the Irken have
what he wanted. Earth was such a stupid planet anyway, what had the
world ever done for Dib? Maybe, he thought darkly, he should even join
Zim, it would, after all be no problem to conquer the world with the
both of them working together. It wasn't even that the thought of
untold teeming masses shouting 'Hail Lord Dib' was particularly
alluring. But maybe after the conquering was all over and done with he
could convince Zim to take him off the planet, because really, he was
very, very tired of the Earth.
Dib's train of thought always seemed to wander onto this general
track whenever he was in one of his sullen moods, but then it would be
swiftly and humiliatingly derailed as he remembered that were he to
knock on Zim's door and suggest such a course of action the alien would
most likely just shoot him out of spite. And then laugh.
'Pathetic human worm-baby'. Those were the words that Zim most often
said to him, and everything else had the same demeaning gist. 'You are
scum, you are inferior, I hate you, go die in a hole'. That was how the
only person who responded to him at all felt.
Wasn't it just so great to be alive and Dib. Maybe he should just
march up to Zim and ask to be shot. He was sure to be happily obliged.
Life was like a black hole. It sucked. He ran a hand angrily through
his untidy black hair. It seemed that no matter what he did he would
always be unhappy, as though it were simply the natural order of things.
Like he was the punch line of the universal joke.
He couldn't stand being in his room any longer, it made him feel like
a caged animal. He stood up suddenly and violently, nearly tripping
over his own feet. He shook himself, yanked on his boots and jacket
and threw open the door. He skulked downstairs, through the living room
past Gaz who was oblivious to all but her Game Slave, and out the door.
He didn't bother telling anyone where he was going, no one cared and he
didn't even know anyway.
Outside it was just past sunset, when the world was cast in purple
blue shadows and you'd only be able to see alright for the next few
minutes. It was windy and late autumn, the air teased at hints of snow.
Dib sighed and trudged down the sidewalk.
He was walking in a vaguely northward direction, toward the skool. He
supposed he might sit in the park for a while if he didn't decide to
change directions before he got there. He felt so strange. It was like
right before lightening struck, as though there were needles inside him
just below his skin, and they were trying to escape. It was a feeling
like something was coming, just waiting for the right moment to spring.
***
Zim was not quite so depressed as his rival. He had thrown his
traditional post-defeat tantrum yesterday upon returning to his base.
He had thrown things, kicked them, berated Gir, screamed Irken
obscenities at the top of his voice, as well as a few Earth curses he
had inadvertently picked up. He had stormed to his lab where he hit and
kicked equipment and generally made a complete mess of the place until
he had passed out from exhaustion. He felt much better upon waking up
that morning. His violent outbursts always gave him an outlet for his
anger and tension, and tended to help put things into better
perspective.
So today he had skipped skool and just relaxed on the couch watching
television while his computer and repair bots patched up the lab. He
was watching the Sci-fi channel, partly hoping for some world conquering
inspiration, but mainly because he liked to mock the pitiful human
suppositions about space, and aliens and advanced technology. He rarely
even bothered to mock Star Trek however. That show was just to boring,
lame, a yawn, so peace loving and optimistic and all that quazdoodle.
Not even the Klingons or the Romulans were really that interesting. But
Zim had been in luck; today they weren't showing any of the squidillion
iterations of Star Trek, or Quantum Leap, or Mysterious Mysteries, or
Crossing Over with John Edwards, or even X-Files. No today they had been
showing a six hour marathon of the Twilight Zone, which was Zim's
favorite of all the pitiful earth shows. It was dark and twisted and
messed with one's head.
The Irken Invader chuckled to himself. "To Serve Man, a cookbook." The
episode that was ending had been about aliens who came to Earth and
convinced the humans that they were friendly. Then they shipped them
back to their home planet to eat them. Zim snorted. Funny, but definitely
disgusting. Who would even want to eat nasty worm-baby flesh?
He lifted the remote and muted the commercials. Unlike Gir he didn't
want the pathetic humans' pitiful attempts at brainwashing passing
through his antennae. His mind wandered as sprawled on the couch his
ruby eyes ignored the irritating light flashes of stupid ads.
Unsurprisingly his thoughts fell on the previous day's defeat, and
more specifically it's orchestrator.
The human called 'Dib' had been a constant thorn in his side since
the beginning. If it weren't for that one single boy he'd have
conquered this miserable planet at least a hundred times over. Granted,
one or two of his insidious plots had fallen apart due to Zim's own
miscalculation or oversight, but more often then not it was Dib. It
should have been horribly humiliating to continually lose to one of the
filthy inhabitants of this planet, but then, Dib never seemed to quite
be the average human stink-bag. He was almost, a worthy opponent.
Zim's show came back on, ending his errant train of thought before it
had gotten a chance to run over any maidens in distress tied to the
tracks. He turned the volume back up a moment late, missing most of the
introduction.
"...but things are rarely what they seem in, The Twilight Zone," said
the black and white figure on the screen, the human thing they called
Rod Serling.
Doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo doo.
His view of the television was suddenly and violently blocked by Gir,
flying into the room at a million miles per hour and landing on Zim's
face.
"Maaaaaaaaaaaster!" the robot chirruped, "the computer wants to taaalk
to yoooooooooooou."
Zim pushed him away. "Get off me Gir!" he snapped, sitting up. "What
does the computer want?"
"Ummmmmmm..." he thought seriously about it for a moment, trying to
recall what had been so urgent. Then he got distracted. "OOO! The Scary
Monkey Show is on!" He grabbed the remote from his master, switched the
channel and collapsed on the floor, his attention irreclaimable.
Zim grumbled, getting up and walking through the kitchen to his lab
to see for himself what was going on. Probably nothing. Probably a
stupid skragging false alarm.
His lab was nearly rebuilt, which made him happy. The lab was a bit
of familiarity so far away from anything resembling normal.
"What is it computer?" he demanded, fully expecting nothing important.
"The scanners have detected a spacecraft," the droning voice said.
He grinned. Perhaps the Tallest were sending him some new equipment.
"Is it Irken?" he asked excitedly.
"Negative."
he frowned. "Well then what is it?" he asked impatiently.
"Origin unknown, craft is not in database."
Zim sat heavily down in his command chair. Not in the database. How
could it not be in the database? The system had catalogued the entirety of
all know craft types, in and outside of the Empire as well as
prototypes and theoretical craft. Zim immediately dismissed the theory
that humans had suddenly discovered how to build interstellar craft, the
monkey men were just too stupid. That would mean that this was
something so far outside the empire that no one had even heard of it
before, probably from the other end of the quadrant. Oh how the Tallest
would exalt him if he discovered and conquered an entirely new race.
He was grinning again, manically. "Can you get the thing on screen
computer?"
"Confirmed."
The large monitor in front of him switched on, displaying a picture
of Earth's orbit, wherein a strange ship was approaching. It was the
weirdest thing Zim had ever seen. It was white and shiny and disk
shaped, with small, multicolored lights around the circumference.
"ITS A PAPER PLATE AT CHRISTMAS!" Gir shrieked at his elbow.
Zim shot out of his chair with a yelp, landing back in it with a thud,
his lithe body tensed, panting. He glared furiously down at Gir who
he hadn't known was in the room. "Never... do... that...AGAIN!"
The SIR unit blinked, then wrapped its arms around his neck. "Eye
loave yew!" he squeaked and then ran around the room singing the word
'cheese' repeatedly at the top of his voice.
Zim gritted his teeth. Sometimes he suspected that the Tallest had
given him a defective unit, before realizing that it was blaspheme and
that they wouldn't do it anyway. He turned his scowl back at the
monitor. Sadly, Gir was right, it did look astoundingly like the
resource wasting things humans called 'paper plates'. The thing it
looked most like however was a human science fiction stereotype of a
UFO. He watched it for a moment. It seemed to be coming out of orbit
to land on the planet.
"Computer, can you determine the craft's course?"
"Analyzing... course determined. Heading for city park. Touchdown,
ten minutes."
"The city park? By skool?"
"Affirmative."
Zim smirked. "Computer, prepare to secure perimeter, I'm going out."
***
Dib was sitting on the bench in the dark. It was a perfectly clear
night and all the stars were out, little points of light where, far
away billions upon billions of other creatures were living. He sighed
and panned his gaze across the sky. It occurred to him as he looked,
that Zim's star was not visible to the naked eye. Something about that
struck Dib as rather sad, that the Zim was so far away from his home
he couldn't even see where it was. Dib wondered if Zim was so busy
trying to conquer this planet that he didn't get homesick or lonely.
Then he wondered why he was feeling sorry for the Invader.
Dib noticed something bright streaking across the sky, a comet. Make
a wish, he thought to himself sarcastically. Yeah, I wish my life didn't
suck quite so badly. He watched it fall, getting larger and larger,
which was strange as it should be burning up entering Earth's
atmosphere. Was it going to fall near where he was? Should he be
afraid of getting squished.
And then he saw it was slowing down.
His eyes grew wide at this impossibility, and wider still as he began
to be able to discern the shape. It was no comet. It was a flying
saucer.
His first thought was that it was really odd for Zim to be doing
anything the day after one of his plans failed. But the closer it came
the more he was able to discern that it looked absolutely nothing like
the Irken technology he'd seen Zim use. If anything it looked like a
cheap prop out of a cheesy fifties B-movie.
Craning his neck up like a the gawking teenage UFO enthusiast he was
Dib realized one more thing. It really WAS going to land on him.
He scampered back nearly tripping over himself and dove into the
bushes.
The saucer landed slowly and gently, with a humming, whooshing sound,
coming to rest seemingly on a cushion of about six feet of open air.
It was about a hundred and fifty feet in circumference and twenty feet
tall.
Dib watch through the shrub branches a hatch opened in the craft.
He was about to run over, to greet or denounce the occupants, but
something stopped him. Maybe it was the little common sense he possessed
bringing itself to bear as it so frequently did on any situation, maybe
it was his current cynicism, or maybe it was what he saw step out of
the ship.
The creature was over eight feet tall and sort of barely humanoid. It
was featureless and seemed to be made of thick, glowing orange ropes or
cables, intertwining to form mockeries of human limbs. It had two long
legs, and swinging whip like arms attached to a central stalk or trunk,
and a heard, inset with eerie, perfectly round, perfectly white,
glowing eyes.
It walked smoothly, almost languidly down from the craft and a few
paces across the grass. It seemed to have a strange, light absorbing
halo of darkness around its form. Something about it scarred Dib deeply,
and he wished he'd brought his camera.
The thing made an odd sort of trilling noise, sharp and uncomforting,
and a second alien creature stepped down from the saucer. This one was
smaller only slightly, and its eyes were a creepy electric blue. They
made a few incomprehensible noises to one another and the first one
made a small, slight gesture in Dib's direction. He froze as both
creatures slowly turned, moving nothing but their heads, to look
straight at where he was hidden with their terrible, luminous eyes.
Nothing moved, no sound was made. Bead of fear sweat ran down Dib's
face. And suddenly they winked out of existence, gone like they had
never been there. No ship, no aliens, no smoke or transporter beam.
Dib sat, speechless.
***
As the area around the park, though not the park itself was rather
heavily populated even at night Zim had to walk there to avoid
attention, or rather, to rum there as fast as his short legs could
carry him. But he was too late. He saw the craft descending while he
was still a good distance from the park. He cursed, and picked up the
pace. he reached the edge of the human tree exhibit and ran on, coming
to the clearing where he'd seen the craft come down.
But he skidded to a halt, and found that there was nothing there. No,
not quite nothing. He heard a rustling in the brush behind him and
turned to find a skinny, pale boy with dark hair and glasses peering at
him through the darkness. Dib; somehow Zim wasn't surprised by his
presence.
"Come to meet some friends Zim?" the human asked with a sharp,
cynical edge in his voice. "You just missed them."
Zim blinked. Just missed them? How could they have taken off without
him noticing? Then he smirked. So Dib thought the aliens were allies
of his, or something. "Ah, so where'd they go?" he asked casually.
Dib gave a sneer and a shrug, as though he didn't believe that Zim
didn't already know. "They just disappeared," he said, eyebrows slightly
arched, a human gesture Zim interpreted to denote mild confusion.
The Irken frowned. "It just vanished? The whole ship?" he asked,
slightly puzzled himself.
"The ship and the aliens," Dib nodded. "So tell me Zim, what race
were they?"
"Well what did they look like?" he asked with a confident smirk, and
hoped that Dib thought he was taunting him, rather than actually
trying to get the information.
"oh, about eight feet tall, looked like they were made out of spongy
orange tentacles, big glowing eyes." He crossed his arms, and muttered,
"Really frigging creepy."
Zim had never heard of any race that looked remotely like that. He
leaned against a tree. "So they just disappeared did they?"
The boy nodded again and rolled his eyes. "So you finally decided you
couldn't conquer earth all by yourself did you?" He chuckled.
Zim scowled. "I did no such thing, Dib-human, I am more than capable
of subjugating you pathetic worm babies myself."
"Oh yeah?" Dib snorted, "Then what are they doing here, hmmm?"
Zim favored him with the truth, just to see his reaction. He shrugged
imitating the human's own apathetic gesture. "I don't know, I have
never encountered such a race."
***
Dib blinked. Not only were the aliens NOT Zim's friends, he didn't
even know what they were? Somehow that didn't do anything to reassure
the human, true, they COULD be friendly, but they sure didn't look it.
They looked anything but harmless. Of course, there was also the
possibility that Zim was lying, anyway.
"Is that so?" Dib asked, incredulous. "I thought your almighty Irken
empire knew everything."
The alien grimaced. "This race will be subjugated as easily as your
own puny earth creatures."
Dib snorted. "Guess it'll be a while then."
Zim glared at him. "You know nothing, worm-baby."
"Oh yeah, then how come I beat your spiders single-handedly yesterday?"
"It was luck that your filthy human air fresheners destabilized
their genetic structure," he pointed out wrathfully.
Dib dropped the subject. After all, it had been blind luck that had
helped him discover that. "Yeah, well it looks like you might have a
little competition for Earth now, if that's why these aliens are here."
It was meant to simply be a glib remark, but as soon as it was out of
his mouth Dib realized what a grave and true concern that it was.
"No one will conquer the earth but I, Invader Zim," he stated
arrogantly, "For the glory of the empire I-" He was cut off suddenly
by a shrill bleeping coming from a device on his belt. He looked at it,
and then back up at Dib. "I will deal with you later."
Zim turned around and swaggered hurriedly away. Dib considered
following him, but he was simply too drained. He turned around and
headed home. He'd come back tomorrow with his equipment and examine the
landing site.
***
As soon as Zim was out of the human's sight he took off running at
full speed. His computer linkup had notified him, there had been a
perimeter breach at his headquarters. He needed to get there as soon
as possible to deal with the problem. It could be anything from a stray
cat to human investigators to the creatures Dib described.
The last thing Zim expected to find when he got to his base was the
thing that he found there.
There was an Irken Voot Cruiser crashed on his front lawn.
To be continued...
Well, there you have it, chapter one. Who are these strange aliens and
what is their plan? Has Gir been flying Zim's ship or has someone from
the Empire come to visit? Will Dib find anything at that landing site?
Just how many more hypothetical questions am I going to ask? The
answers to some of those questions in the next exciting installment of
Cognitive Dissonance!
Read it? Review it!
An action packed romantic Invader Zim epic
By LejindaryBunny
Author's note: Hiya all you readerish beings, hello Invaders, Tallests,
humans and just plain creepy creatures. I am here with the express
purpose to introduce myself, the writer, and the fic which you are
probably about to read. If you want to, go ahead and skip to the story,
I don't blame you. As for the rest of you, here goes.
About the title:
Cognitive Dissonance is the depression, confusion and anger that can
occur when a person attempts to hold two conflicting ideas or beliefs
at the same time. I'm sure you'll see how it applies to the story.
About chapters:
It's my first Invader Zim fanfic unless you count that poem I wrote
which I encourage you to read and review. It's probably going to be
a very long fic. Like around thirty chapters or so. Maybe more.
Chapters are no definite length, being anywhere between two and a
squidillion pages. When I'm on an obsessive kick (like now)I tend to
post every one or two days but otherwise I'll have at least one chapter
up every two weeks. Unfortunately I am completely unable to update on
weekends. The reason for this is my father, who you'll hear me rant
about. He used to be a communist, then an anarchist, then a socialist.
He is deathly paranoid of the FBI, CIA, and Hackers. So I don't get
to use the net at home. Sadly, he does not believe in aliens nor does
he wear a tin foil hat, but I digress.
About the story:
It focuses on Zim and Dib, obviously, as you read in the summery. It
also contains an outlaw Irken babe. Said babe is indeed a character
integral to the plot, but be not disheartened because I am a seasoned
writer and know how to make an original female character with out her
being a Mary-Sue. Neither of my two favorite boys will be getting
together with her because this is a nice cute/angsty slash fic. BUT
that romance is accompanied by another plot, a sinister, terrible
world threatening plot. Aliens the like of which not even Zim has ever
seen have come to Earth with the intention not to conquer but to
destroy it. All will have to put aside their differences and band
together in order to defeat this really scary menace.
About me:
My name is LejindaryBunny, shortened to LejBun, or just Bun. Whateva.
It's not my real name, my real name is Greer. Rhymes with Fear. I will
be your writer so please leave your seat belts unbuckled, do NOT fasten
your tray in the upright position and hold on to your squeedly-spooch
because I am CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY. I only am able to check my e-mail
once a week but I do reply to all, and I mean ALL letters sent to me.
I love talking to people so write to me if you feel so inclined.
About Other Stuff:
Three stars *** denotes change in scene or in point of view. Any words
that are blatantly not English are Irken and most like swear words.
Lastly I urge you to picture all this in anime stytle, becuase
otherwise it's just a little odd. Now the story.
Disclaimer: I don't any of Jhonen Vasquez's characters. I do own Kiir
however, and, and not even the Almighty Tallest will be able to save
you should you in your infinite human patheticness attempt to steal her!
Chapter I... In which Dib is depressed, Zim watches TV and several
unexpected things occur.
Dib lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling in the dim but somehow
violent light which buzzed unpleasantly from his idle computer monitor,
the only source of illumination in the room. Yesterday he'd been in a
whirl of Zim-related frenzy, saving the world from genetically altered
spiders that sucked people's brains and left them mindless zombies.
He'd only been able to save about half of his class from them, but
there really wasn't much of a difference. Dib shuddered. He hated
spiders, though that hadn't seemed to matter yesterday when he'd done
battle with them. Dib was depressed. He was always depressed the day
after fighting with Zim, when the world returned to being perfectly
safe and normal all because of him. One-hundred-fifty-six times to
date he had rescued them all and not once was uttered one word of
thanks or congratulation. They were only free to bully him and mock him
because he said so. The day he lost to Zim was the day that they would
all realize how right Dib had been, that he wasn't crazy and had saved
their miserable lives one stinking time after another. Maybe one day he
just wouldn't bother. He'd just watch the alien's plan unfold, dooming
the human race to extra-terrestrial subjugation.
But in his heart Dib realized that he would never do this, he's
always climb out of the pit of despair just in time to save the world
again and be cast back down into darkness. It was what always happened,
year after year, since he was thirteen, and now he was sixteen. He even
had a name for it, 'post-near-apocalyptic-letdown'. In layman's terms
it simply meant that he felt depressed because everyone on earth owned
Dib his or her life and they were shoving dirt up his nose and his head
down the toilet instead of worshiping at his feet and basking in his
glory and greatness.
Glory and greatness? Dib chuckled morbidly to himself. What glory and
greatness? He was the skinny, too-smart, gothy nerd kid that nobody
even noticed existed. He shook his head, snorted.
"Glory and greatness," he muttered. "I sound like Zim, arrogant."
Maybe he'd been spending a little too much time near the alien, maybe
his personality dysfunctions were contagious.
But in the end were he and Zim really that different? Ah, now there
was a questioned he'd been pondering to death recently. Maybe the only
discrepancy was that Zim was trying to conquer the human race and Dib,
out of some bizarre and more than likely misplaced sense of racial
loyalty was saving it. A thousand stupid, clichéd sayings flashed
through Dib's mind. 'Know thy enemy', 'keep your enemies closer'.
Closer than what? He had no friends. No one outside his family ever
spoke to him, and even his father and sister seemed to avoid him. The
one being that cared whether he lived or died was Zim, and Zim wanted
him dead.
Under other circumstances he and Zim might have been good friends. It
seem they shared a lot of the same general views of humanity, that it
basically completely sucked. Maybe he should just let the Irken have
what he wanted. Earth was such a stupid planet anyway, what had the
world ever done for Dib? Maybe, he thought darkly, he should even join
Zim, it would, after all be no problem to conquer the world with the
both of them working together. It wasn't even that the thought of
untold teeming masses shouting 'Hail Lord Dib' was particularly
alluring. But maybe after the conquering was all over and done with he
could convince Zim to take him off the planet, because really, he was
very, very tired of the Earth.
Dib's train of thought always seemed to wander onto this general
track whenever he was in one of his sullen moods, but then it would be
swiftly and humiliatingly derailed as he remembered that were he to
knock on Zim's door and suggest such a course of action the alien would
most likely just shoot him out of spite. And then laugh.
'Pathetic human worm-baby'. Those were the words that Zim most often
said to him, and everything else had the same demeaning gist. 'You are
scum, you are inferior, I hate you, go die in a hole'. That was how the
only person who responded to him at all felt.
Wasn't it just so great to be alive and Dib. Maybe he should just
march up to Zim and ask to be shot. He was sure to be happily obliged.
Life was like a black hole. It sucked. He ran a hand angrily through
his untidy black hair. It seemed that no matter what he did he would
always be unhappy, as though it were simply the natural order of things.
Like he was the punch line of the universal joke.
He couldn't stand being in his room any longer, it made him feel like
a caged animal. He stood up suddenly and violently, nearly tripping
over his own feet. He shook himself, yanked on his boots and jacket
and threw open the door. He skulked downstairs, through the living room
past Gaz who was oblivious to all but her Game Slave, and out the door.
He didn't bother telling anyone where he was going, no one cared and he
didn't even know anyway.
Outside it was just past sunset, when the world was cast in purple
blue shadows and you'd only be able to see alright for the next few
minutes. It was windy and late autumn, the air teased at hints of snow.
Dib sighed and trudged down the sidewalk.
He was walking in a vaguely northward direction, toward the skool. He
supposed he might sit in the park for a while if he didn't decide to
change directions before he got there. He felt so strange. It was like
right before lightening struck, as though there were needles inside him
just below his skin, and they were trying to escape. It was a feeling
like something was coming, just waiting for the right moment to spring.
***
Zim was not quite so depressed as his rival. He had thrown his
traditional post-defeat tantrum yesterday upon returning to his base.
He had thrown things, kicked them, berated Gir, screamed Irken
obscenities at the top of his voice, as well as a few Earth curses he
had inadvertently picked up. He had stormed to his lab where he hit and
kicked equipment and generally made a complete mess of the place until
he had passed out from exhaustion. He felt much better upon waking up
that morning. His violent outbursts always gave him an outlet for his
anger and tension, and tended to help put things into better
perspective.
So today he had skipped skool and just relaxed on the couch watching
television while his computer and repair bots patched up the lab. He
was watching the Sci-fi channel, partly hoping for some world conquering
inspiration, but mainly because he liked to mock the pitiful human
suppositions about space, and aliens and advanced technology. He rarely
even bothered to mock Star Trek however. That show was just to boring,
lame, a yawn, so peace loving and optimistic and all that quazdoodle.
Not even the Klingons or the Romulans were really that interesting. But
Zim had been in luck; today they weren't showing any of the squidillion
iterations of Star Trek, or Quantum Leap, or Mysterious Mysteries, or
Crossing Over with John Edwards, or even X-Files. No today they had been
showing a six hour marathon of the Twilight Zone, which was Zim's
favorite of all the pitiful earth shows. It was dark and twisted and
messed with one's head.
The Irken Invader chuckled to himself. "To Serve Man, a cookbook." The
episode that was ending had been about aliens who came to Earth and
convinced the humans that they were friendly. Then they shipped them
back to their home planet to eat them. Zim snorted. Funny, but definitely
disgusting. Who would even want to eat nasty worm-baby flesh?
He lifted the remote and muted the commercials. Unlike Gir he didn't
want the pathetic humans' pitiful attempts at brainwashing passing
through his antennae. His mind wandered as sprawled on the couch his
ruby eyes ignored the irritating light flashes of stupid ads.
Unsurprisingly his thoughts fell on the previous day's defeat, and
more specifically it's orchestrator.
The human called 'Dib' had been a constant thorn in his side since
the beginning. If it weren't for that one single boy he'd have
conquered this miserable planet at least a hundred times over. Granted,
one or two of his insidious plots had fallen apart due to Zim's own
miscalculation or oversight, but more often then not it was Dib. It
should have been horribly humiliating to continually lose to one of the
filthy inhabitants of this planet, but then, Dib never seemed to quite
be the average human stink-bag. He was almost, a worthy opponent.
Zim's show came back on, ending his errant train of thought before it
had gotten a chance to run over any maidens in distress tied to the
tracks. He turned the volume back up a moment late, missing most of the
introduction.
"...but things are rarely what they seem in, The Twilight Zone," said
the black and white figure on the screen, the human thing they called
Rod Serling.
Doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo doo.
His view of the television was suddenly and violently blocked by Gir,
flying into the room at a million miles per hour and landing on Zim's
face.
"Maaaaaaaaaaaster!" the robot chirruped, "the computer wants to taaalk
to yoooooooooooou."
Zim pushed him away. "Get off me Gir!" he snapped, sitting up. "What
does the computer want?"
"Ummmmmmm..." he thought seriously about it for a moment, trying to
recall what had been so urgent. Then he got distracted. "OOO! The Scary
Monkey Show is on!" He grabbed the remote from his master, switched the
channel and collapsed on the floor, his attention irreclaimable.
Zim grumbled, getting up and walking through the kitchen to his lab
to see for himself what was going on. Probably nothing. Probably a
stupid skragging false alarm.
His lab was nearly rebuilt, which made him happy. The lab was a bit
of familiarity so far away from anything resembling normal.
"What is it computer?" he demanded, fully expecting nothing important.
"The scanners have detected a spacecraft," the droning voice said.
He grinned. Perhaps the Tallest were sending him some new equipment.
"Is it Irken?" he asked excitedly.
"Negative."
he frowned. "Well then what is it?" he asked impatiently.
"Origin unknown, craft is not in database."
Zim sat heavily down in his command chair. Not in the database. How
could it not be in the database? The system had catalogued the entirety of
all know craft types, in and outside of the Empire as well as
prototypes and theoretical craft. Zim immediately dismissed the theory
that humans had suddenly discovered how to build interstellar craft, the
monkey men were just too stupid. That would mean that this was
something so far outside the empire that no one had even heard of it
before, probably from the other end of the quadrant. Oh how the Tallest
would exalt him if he discovered and conquered an entirely new race.
He was grinning again, manically. "Can you get the thing on screen
computer?"
"Confirmed."
The large monitor in front of him switched on, displaying a picture
of Earth's orbit, wherein a strange ship was approaching. It was the
weirdest thing Zim had ever seen. It was white and shiny and disk
shaped, with small, multicolored lights around the circumference.
"ITS A PAPER PLATE AT CHRISTMAS!" Gir shrieked at his elbow.
Zim shot out of his chair with a yelp, landing back in it with a thud,
his lithe body tensed, panting. He glared furiously down at Gir who
he hadn't known was in the room. "Never... do... that...AGAIN!"
The SIR unit blinked, then wrapped its arms around his neck. "Eye
loave yew!" he squeaked and then ran around the room singing the word
'cheese' repeatedly at the top of his voice.
Zim gritted his teeth. Sometimes he suspected that the Tallest had
given him a defective unit, before realizing that it was blaspheme and
that they wouldn't do it anyway. He turned his scowl back at the
monitor. Sadly, Gir was right, it did look astoundingly like the
resource wasting things humans called 'paper plates'. The thing it
looked most like however was a human science fiction stereotype of a
UFO. He watched it for a moment. It seemed to be coming out of orbit
to land on the planet.
"Computer, can you determine the craft's course?"
"Analyzing... course determined. Heading for city park. Touchdown,
ten minutes."
"The city park? By skool?"
"Affirmative."
Zim smirked. "Computer, prepare to secure perimeter, I'm going out."
***
Dib was sitting on the bench in the dark. It was a perfectly clear
night and all the stars were out, little points of light where, far
away billions upon billions of other creatures were living. He sighed
and panned his gaze across the sky. It occurred to him as he looked,
that Zim's star was not visible to the naked eye. Something about that
struck Dib as rather sad, that the Zim was so far away from his home
he couldn't even see where it was. Dib wondered if Zim was so busy
trying to conquer this planet that he didn't get homesick or lonely.
Then he wondered why he was feeling sorry for the Invader.
Dib noticed something bright streaking across the sky, a comet. Make
a wish, he thought to himself sarcastically. Yeah, I wish my life didn't
suck quite so badly. He watched it fall, getting larger and larger,
which was strange as it should be burning up entering Earth's
atmosphere. Was it going to fall near where he was? Should he be
afraid of getting squished.
And then he saw it was slowing down.
His eyes grew wide at this impossibility, and wider still as he began
to be able to discern the shape. It was no comet. It was a flying
saucer.
His first thought was that it was really odd for Zim to be doing
anything the day after one of his plans failed. But the closer it came
the more he was able to discern that it looked absolutely nothing like
the Irken technology he'd seen Zim use. If anything it looked like a
cheap prop out of a cheesy fifties B-movie.
Craning his neck up like a the gawking teenage UFO enthusiast he was
Dib realized one more thing. It really WAS going to land on him.
He scampered back nearly tripping over himself and dove into the
bushes.
The saucer landed slowly and gently, with a humming, whooshing sound,
coming to rest seemingly on a cushion of about six feet of open air.
It was about a hundred and fifty feet in circumference and twenty feet
tall.
Dib watch through the shrub branches a hatch opened in the craft.
He was about to run over, to greet or denounce the occupants, but
something stopped him. Maybe it was the little common sense he possessed
bringing itself to bear as it so frequently did on any situation, maybe
it was his current cynicism, or maybe it was what he saw step out of
the ship.
The creature was over eight feet tall and sort of barely humanoid. It
was featureless and seemed to be made of thick, glowing orange ropes or
cables, intertwining to form mockeries of human limbs. It had two long
legs, and swinging whip like arms attached to a central stalk or trunk,
and a heard, inset with eerie, perfectly round, perfectly white,
glowing eyes.
It walked smoothly, almost languidly down from the craft and a few
paces across the grass. It seemed to have a strange, light absorbing
halo of darkness around its form. Something about it scarred Dib deeply,
and he wished he'd brought his camera.
The thing made an odd sort of trilling noise, sharp and uncomforting,
and a second alien creature stepped down from the saucer. This one was
smaller only slightly, and its eyes were a creepy electric blue. They
made a few incomprehensible noises to one another and the first one
made a small, slight gesture in Dib's direction. He froze as both
creatures slowly turned, moving nothing but their heads, to look
straight at where he was hidden with their terrible, luminous eyes.
Nothing moved, no sound was made. Bead of fear sweat ran down Dib's
face. And suddenly they winked out of existence, gone like they had
never been there. No ship, no aliens, no smoke or transporter beam.
Dib sat, speechless.
***
As the area around the park, though not the park itself was rather
heavily populated even at night Zim had to walk there to avoid
attention, or rather, to rum there as fast as his short legs could
carry him. But he was too late. He saw the craft descending while he
was still a good distance from the park. He cursed, and picked up the
pace. he reached the edge of the human tree exhibit and ran on, coming
to the clearing where he'd seen the craft come down.
But he skidded to a halt, and found that there was nothing there. No,
not quite nothing. He heard a rustling in the brush behind him and
turned to find a skinny, pale boy with dark hair and glasses peering at
him through the darkness. Dib; somehow Zim wasn't surprised by his
presence.
"Come to meet some friends Zim?" the human asked with a sharp,
cynical edge in his voice. "You just missed them."
Zim blinked. Just missed them? How could they have taken off without
him noticing? Then he smirked. So Dib thought the aliens were allies
of his, or something. "Ah, so where'd they go?" he asked casually.
Dib gave a sneer and a shrug, as though he didn't believe that Zim
didn't already know. "They just disappeared," he said, eyebrows slightly
arched, a human gesture Zim interpreted to denote mild confusion.
The Irken frowned. "It just vanished? The whole ship?" he asked,
slightly puzzled himself.
"The ship and the aliens," Dib nodded. "So tell me Zim, what race
were they?"
"Well what did they look like?" he asked with a confident smirk, and
hoped that Dib thought he was taunting him, rather than actually
trying to get the information.
"oh, about eight feet tall, looked like they were made out of spongy
orange tentacles, big glowing eyes." He crossed his arms, and muttered,
"Really frigging creepy."
Zim had never heard of any race that looked remotely like that. He
leaned against a tree. "So they just disappeared did they?"
The boy nodded again and rolled his eyes. "So you finally decided you
couldn't conquer earth all by yourself did you?" He chuckled.
Zim scowled. "I did no such thing, Dib-human, I am more than capable
of subjugating you pathetic worm babies myself."
"Oh yeah?" Dib snorted, "Then what are they doing here, hmmm?"
Zim favored him with the truth, just to see his reaction. He shrugged
imitating the human's own apathetic gesture. "I don't know, I have
never encountered such a race."
***
Dib blinked. Not only were the aliens NOT Zim's friends, he didn't
even know what they were? Somehow that didn't do anything to reassure
the human, true, they COULD be friendly, but they sure didn't look it.
They looked anything but harmless. Of course, there was also the
possibility that Zim was lying, anyway.
"Is that so?" Dib asked, incredulous. "I thought your almighty Irken
empire knew everything."
The alien grimaced. "This race will be subjugated as easily as your
own puny earth creatures."
Dib snorted. "Guess it'll be a while then."
Zim glared at him. "You know nothing, worm-baby."
"Oh yeah, then how come I beat your spiders single-handedly yesterday?"
"It was luck that your filthy human air fresheners destabilized
their genetic structure," he pointed out wrathfully.
Dib dropped the subject. After all, it had been blind luck that had
helped him discover that. "Yeah, well it looks like you might have a
little competition for Earth now, if that's why these aliens are here."
It was meant to simply be a glib remark, but as soon as it was out of
his mouth Dib realized what a grave and true concern that it was.
"No one will conquer the earth but I, Invader Zim," he stated
arrogantly, "For the glory of the empire I-" He was cut off suddenly
by a shrill bleeping coming from a device on his belt. He looked at it,
and then back up at Dib. "I will deal with you later."
Zim turned around and swaggered hurriedly away. Dib considered
following him, but he was simply too drained. He turned around and
headed home. He'd come back tomorrow with his equipment and examine the
landing site.
***
As soon as Zim was out of the human's sight he took off running at
full speed. His computer linkup had notified him, there had been a
perimeter breach at his headquarters. He needed to get there as soon
as possible to deal with the problem. It could be anything from a stray
cat to human investigators to the creatures Dib described.
The last thing Zim expected to find when he got to his base was the
thing that he found there.
There was an Irken Voot Cruiser crashed on his front lawn.
To be continued...
Well, there you have it, chapter one. Who are these strange aliens and
what is their plan? Has Gir been flying Zim's ship or has someone from
the Empire come to visit? Will Dib find anything at that landing site?
Just how many more hypothetical questions am I going to ask? The
answers to some of those questions in the next exciting installment of
Cognitive Dissonance!
Read it? Review it!