IZ: Ten Years- Chapter 2

The next morning light had flooded into the windows of the museum. Zim was plotting his escape. He was doing it all in his mind. “If only someone threw in a pencil and paper in here.” Zim said trying to think. The glass tube had a compartment on the bottom where things could be shot up to him. Sadly some people would mistake it as a garbage disposal and then need to have the whole tank cleaned. “Okay, escape, go to vents and er… escape? Wait, wait… get out of this tank, go to the vents.” Zim gestured over to a ventilation shaft behind him. “Then go to Dib’s office, find GIR’s power supply case, repair his control circuitry unit, get out of here…” Zim’s voice trailed off as he watched Dib walk down the hall, obviously heading to his office like every morning. Dib starting going past Zim. “Hey! Hey Dib! You weren’t serious about those scientists were you?” Zim asked his hands against the glass. Dib grins coldly and Zim grows uneasy. He then turns around smiling normally at him. “Nah. But I do have other things in mind.” Dib pondered and walked away. “Uh okay…” Zim raised an eye at him. Dib finally was out of sight. “Now where was I? Oh yes, all I need is another foolish earth child to open the top again.”

“Hey, hey you! Hey! Hey! Yeah you!” Zim was shouting at a chubby kid who finally turned to look at him. It had turned afternoon and the museum was open. The kid walked over and looked up at him in the purple liquid. “Hey there little alien!” he said with his L’s sounding like W’s. “Yeah whatever. Can you press those buttons over there behind me?” Zim said pointing behind him. “Why little alien? You gonna do a jig fo’ me?”
“Uh sure. Just press those buttons in the order I tell you.”
“Okies!” the kid waddles over and sees the buttons. He lifts his finger over the control panel.
“Red.”
The boy presses the red.
“Blue.”
The boy presses the blue.
“Green.”
The boy presses the green.
“Orange.”
The boy presses the orange.
“Black.”
The boy presses the black. Then a computerized voice comes from the panel. “Incorrect, Loser.” Then a tazor like rod opens up from a compartment and lunges at the boy, shocking him. He screams and runs when the tazor gives him the chance. “Curses Dib changed the code.” Zim muttered and clenched his fist. “Another month to figure out what it is.” He sighed.
A couple of teenagers walked by with empty sodas and noticed Zim’s compartment. “Hey this is not a garbage disposal!” Zim shouted, as they were about to open it up. He grabbed their attention and they began staring at the floating alien held in the tube. Mostly everyone’s reaction was staring at him. Zim remained still in the liquid. They leaned in closer and tapped the glass staring at him. He didn’t move a muscle. They leaned in closer to his face. Zim suddenly screams like a maniac at them. They shriek in fear and run, some fall over. “Hehehe! I amuse myself.” Zim snickers at the cowering humans. Then an orange haired man walks over to his tube with his hands behind his back. Zim immediately frowns and looks irritated. “Keef! Leave me alone!”
“Hiya Zim! You know, even though you were really an evil alien that planned on destroying all mankind, your still my friend!”
“Cute… now go away! Before I call security!” Zim snapped. “You can do that here?” Keef looked around. “No I wish. But I don’t want to see you… now that I can’t do stuff to your legs anymore.” Zim spun around crossing his arms while Keef looked confused but then grins. “Happy Birthday!” he pulls out a present from behind him. Zim looked over his shoulder. “I don’t celebrate birthdays, and it’s not even my birthday!”
“I got you a present!” Keef walks over to the compartment and opens it up. He puts the present inside, closes the slide, and presses the button to shoot it up to Zim. He catches it as it shoots up from the bottom. “Ooh neat! I mean… filthy primitive human presents.” Zim said as he ripped it open. He pulled out a Rubik’s cube. “What the heck is this?”
“It’s a Rubik’s cube! A puzzle where you try to get the same color on each side.” Keef explained. Zim looked at it oddly. “You got to mix up the colors first by turning the sides.” Zim starts turning the cube’s sides for a while. “I don’t see the reason why any human would want to play this for hours… Whoa!” Zim sees the colors completely mixed up. “I also got you something else!” Keef pointed to the box. Zim let’s go of the Rubik’s cube and pulls out a book from the box. “Magic Book?” Zim reads the title then looks over at Keef questionably. “Yeah! Remember the circus I talk about? They do magic tricks there! They’re so cool! Like this one trick where they cut this rope and it fixes by itself, and this other trick where they saw this lady in half, and this other trick where the guy disappears and reappears somewhere else, and-“
“SILENCE! Yes, yes fascinating magic tricks and… wait. Disappearing and reappearing somewhere else?” Zim’s eyes widen as he grows with interest. “Yeah it’s so, so cool! Just read it!” Keef says then begins squealing excitedly. “Really?” Zim looks at the book equally excited. “Well it was nice of you to visit Keef but you must be going now.” Zim says signaling him to leave as his eyes still lay on the book. “Oh alright buddy! Bye!” Keef walks away smiling and humming. Zim opens the book and reads the first few lines then he looks around shiftily and reads it with his back against the humans.

Hours past by that seemed like nothing for the long-lived alien in the tube. Ten years of his life under captivity reminded him of his ten years as a young irken, an eager, impatient little irken that wanted to see the surface of Irk. It was really boring underground just downloading information, pretending to be in combat in military simulations with a holo-visor over your eyes. Zim grew very impatient one day and decided to go and see that surface. He let Skoodge come along on his journey and near the end used him as a distraction against a Dermis Prowler Security Droid. Skoodge was very good at distracting as always especially when Zim gave him a head start by throwing him down a corridor, the security droid attempted to hurt little Skoodge a lot as it’s prime function. But what mattered to Zim was seeing the surface. Zim started growing this motivation to escape once more just by reading this human book.

It grew dark again and nobody seemed to be around his hall. The lavender light illuminating from his tube helped him read in this darkness. Then he felt a presence nearby. Zim’s antennas stand up and he looks away from the book seeing Dib leaning over curiously from the side of the tube. Zim quickly shuts the book and puts it behind him. “What’s that book about?”
“None of your earwax Dib human!” Zim snapped.
“Come on. What is it?”
“Nooothiiiing!” Zim’s voice rose as Dib tried looking behind him by circling the tube. Zim kept turning his back against him by kicking in the liquid. He then pressed the book against his chest and hunched over away from Dib looking tensed. “It’s nothing interesting really! It’s about err… pie.”
“Pie?” Dib looked at him with disbelief. Zim makes a few grunting noises before he replies, “YOUR HEAD’S STILL GARGANTUAN!”
Dib now looks at him aggravated for a long time. “Anyways, Zim, tomorrow I am going to surprise you with something… Just to let you know.”
“Oh goody a surprise… “ Zim said then murmured to himself holding the book tighter. “Me too…”
“What was that?”
“Whatwaswhat?” Zim responded really fast.
“What that… what?”
“What are we talking about?”
“Um… uh. I gotta go.” Dib said gesturing behind him. He turned around and walked away, disappearing into the darkness. Zim listened intently to make sure he was far off. “Phew. That was too close.” Zim sighed looking at the front of the book. He started skimming through the pages to where he left off. He finally found the magic tricks for disappearing and reappearing. “This is it!” He read the first few lines, and then the shocking part that said the trick was just an illusion. He stared dumbfounded at the words. “Illusion?” he nearly chocked on those words. Had all this reading been just a waste of time? He grew nervous and kept reading on to see how this was just an illusion. Had he been a fool to think he could just disappear and reappear from places? He read the whole thing and realized he had to set up the trick to do any of it. It was all for show. “Filthy human stink beast and their hoaxes.” He threw the book and it drifted off somewhere in the tank. Zim had lost his motivation and floated limply in the purple fluid. He slowly shut his eyes to let time pass by sleeping, even though it wasn’t required. He only did it when all hope seemed lost.

He woke up hearing tapping against the glass. “Huh? What?” he sees it is morning and Dib tapping away looking off in some direction as if he had been tapping all day. “Quit the tapping!” Zim shouted, startling Dib. “Oh! Finally.” Dib put his hand down. “What do you want?” Zim said scowling at him. Last night had got him rather moody. “Remember yesterday?” Dib pulled out that same little remote. “Yes… what a horrible day.” Zim said thinking of what had happened, making a fool of himself from believing in a stupid magic book, thinking he could escape Dib’s little museum. He grabbed the Rubik’s cube as it floated by him and started turning it while glowering at Dib. “Anyhow I’ve been working on this thing all day yesterday that will allow you to move around the museum.”
“You’re joking.” Zim said with disbelief. “No I’m serious, it’s a new amusement thing I was working on.” He aimed the remote in the distance and pressed in a code. A weird device on a cable attached to the ceiling shoots over and stops by the tube. It seemed to have a huge complex collar for the neck. “You’re planning to put me on a leash?!” Zim said insulted he put the Rubik’s cube away in a cartoonie fashion. “In a way…” Dib muttered and proceeded to open up the tube’s lid with the remote. The same crane game like robot claw came over the tube and dipped into the liquid, pulling out Zim by the head as if he was a plushie. It lowered near the other contraption and the complex looking collar snapped onto Zim’s neck. Zim could hear a few more clicks of the collar locking securely to his neck. It then settled him to the ground. The crane finally released his head and went back up to the ceiling. Zim blinked while Dib looked at him curiously. In a flash Zim began running off heading towards the entrance of the museum. “Foolish Dib thinks I, a trained Irken soldier, can’t escape from this inferior device! PATHETIC!” the small little motivation he had left had grown back quickly in his small little body. He found this as a golden opportunity. He could see the door straight ahead and a little grin began spreading across his face as he got nearer. He lunged at the door then gagged as the cable stopped moving across the ceiling and pulled him back. He would have fallen back on the floor if the cable had not been limited to him standing. “Errgh…” He turned around to see Dib standing in the distance staring at him. “CUUURSE YOOOU!” he said charging towards him. Dib just kept on staring at him with his blank face. He lunged at him but the cable automatically pulled him back violently. “ARRRGH!” Zim grew frustrated and tried reaching for Dib, flailing his arms around as if trying to claw him. “Just try to escape Zim, there is no way you can break out of this one. It keeps you from going anywhere your not supposed to go or get near.” Dib crossed his arms pleased with his work. Zim muttered angrily in his frustration and started tugging on the cable. “I’ll just test this prototype on you before I make more in the lab.” Dib said and finally walked off. Zim could recall the lab. It was as big as a classroom and was a small private part of the museum. Even though Dib had vast knowledge of science, he never really got deeply involved in there until now. Zim guessed the reason was because he was now a bored and nearly lonely man with nothing to do but invent things in his spare time. Dib did after all found this museum and thus kept him too busy to do any real paranormal investigating himself. Maybe Dib was actually getting tired of this paranormal nonsense and just wanted to settle down like any normal human being and have a family. Either way Zim could care less. But all this inventing might actually turn out to be a bad thing. What if he invents a new security system that will make you explode if it read your bio-signature? Just like the Frylord Sizz-Lorr’s security! There would be no way to escape these days! Speaking of which he hadn’t seen Sizz-Lorr for some time. “Hmm…” Zim shook his head to concentrate on the important thing. “Maybe I could still do my plan…” Zim wondered to himself and quickly ran over to GIR’s display case. He tried reaching for him but the cable had done the same and prevented him. “Come on…” Zim strained to reach but the cable just seemed to be pulling him back. He finally stopped to look around at his resources. He dug into his anonymous pockets and pulled out the Rubik’s cube. “Useless.” He looked up at the ceiling where the cable was being held. It was being held by a metal machine that clung to a long beam that went all the way down the hall. Then he looked at the Rubik’s cube in his hand. “Maybe…” he said staring at the cubes corners then back up at the cable. “Maybe I can ride this like a swing!” he grinned and put the cube away. He jumped onto the cable and began swinging around in circles. “Woohoo!”
Now you may be thinking: No you idiot! You can use the cube to bust the machine thingy on the ceiling!
Instead he is swinging on the cable like a five-year-old boy on a tire swing. But doing this plus his added weight was giving the machine a hard time to hold on. Zim kept on swinging faster and getting farther off the ground while spinning in circles then at last slowed down to a stop. “Wooohoo!” Finally he dropped as the machine gave way and broke off the beam. “Ow.” Zim groaned as the thing fell right on top of him and leaked oil on the floor that was to serve as backup energy. He got up into a sitting position and shoved the machine right off his lower torso, his shoes were dripping of oil. He quickly got up to his feet and looked around quietly then felt the collar come loose and fall off. He was free again and no one was around this time. Suddenly an extra idea for his plan brewed up in his head as he looked at the dark puddle of oil.

To be continued...