Infante- Chapter 1

April 6th, 2001
ZiM's lack of activity is bothering me already. He is obviously still growing accustomed and planning, as he is new to the planet. Although, I witnessed him 'hanging out' with Keef today. Trying to blend in, huh, ZiM? Huh? Huh?
--

He'd been gone for a little while now. Not that it was very strange. He tended to disappear for a few days on occasion, for whatever his stupid reasons were. Not that it wasn't suspicious, but give him a few more days… a few more weeks… a few more… month…s….

Dib gripped his thick ZiMLog while he sat at his desk. He didn't dare to pry into the alien's business when he disappeared, anymore. It usually wasn't something important. ZiM'd probably tripped down the stairs and fallen unconscious for a few days. Still, Dib couldn't help but wonder. Wonder why the Irken had seemed to give up, a year ago, back in seventh grade. He'd gotten just a bit quieter. Still loud, still always spitting insults, but he lacked the old vigor.

And then there had been the real oddity:

Gaz.

His sister had stopped coming home after school the past few months. A little fifth grader out there on her own had made him anxious, but he knew his sister could protect herself. Still, Dib had worried. He worried endlessly. Pushed it down, didn't ask her, to avoid a beating. On month three of her absence, she didn't return home all night, instead of coming home late, she didn't at all. Showed up the next morning. Dib could hardly contain the bubbling mix of anger and concern that he felt in his gut.

The next afternoon, Dib had followed her.

Right to ZiM's house. Wait. What?

He swore his jaw had dropped to the sidewalk when she just walked up the alien's yard without a single laser firing her way. She had slammed the door behind her, not being stealthy in the slightest. She'd… she'd been willingly walking into ZiM's house for weeks, Dib realized, then and there. He couldn't wrap his head around why. He almost questioned her about it, almost blew up, but her dark foreboding stare stopped him. Dib knew his sister, by now. Still, when she was out he checked her room for any bugs and kept staring her down at the dinner table, trying to make sure no experiments had been performed on the girl. She was just a girl!

And ZiM's disappearance correlated with Gaz returning home on time… so… Dib really wondered where the Irken had been. Still. What he really wanted to know was the reason, about his sister. Why? What could she possibly want? If it was just to get away from him, then...

WhyZiM's house?
--

April 8th, 2001
Keef has gone pretty much bonkers. His eyes are all red. He holds a dead squirrel in his hands all day long. What did the alien do?
-Powers of hypnosis?
-Does he possess these?
--

He'd fallen asleep at the controls. Nearly bumped into the Massive. WAIT! The Massive? He was… here? That was faster than expected. He was fully awake now, and jerked his head up, and he grunted in surprise.

ZiM had left Earth around three months previously, and he'd managed to accidentally stumble across his leader's army of war ships, the Irken Armada. He'd expected a journey that was double what he'd done so far, so this was a nice surprise, to say the least. Well. Somewhat nice.

He had planned to go back to Irk. He wasn't sure about facing the Tallest, just yet. Not after what had happened last year. The Irken shook his head to clear the doubt away. No! He was an Irken Invader, even if barely, he was one. He could not hesitate. The light on ZiM's console was already flashing, signaling a call from the Massive. They were obviously wondering what he was doing, who he was, and where he was headed. He was in an Irken Voot, after all. A unique one, as he'd built it himself. He wondered if that would give him away.

Still, he accepted the transmission and sat up straight in his seat when the Tallest appeared on screen. However, he didn't salute. The two blinked their eyes wearily at him, they were waiting for one. But ZiM wasn't prepared to give them one. Not yet.

"Ahem." The Irken cleared his throat. "My Tallest. I had no idea you were in the area. Sorry about the intrusion, I must be on my way back to Irk, n—"

"That's an invader uniform you're wearing," Purple rudely interrupted, a straw hanging out of his mouth. ZiM wondered what kind of soda he was drinking—don't get distracted, now.

"And you're waaaay too far out to be just going back to Irk." Red added. They were suspicious. He knew they would be. He would have to weasel his way out of—

"You wanna ride?"

ZiM's antennae perked up in surprise. "Wha…?"

"Yeah, I don't know you, soldier, but you look tall-ish, so why not?" Purple gave a shrug. ZiM had never seen his leader so lenient before. It... occurred to him, something so impossibly horrible, he thought he would be sick (or maybe he was just nauseous, it could be unrelated). Perhaps they were like this with real… tall… Invaders… they talked to him as if he was on their level. They hadn't before because... well. Things had been different back then.

And they didn't recognize him. That was a bonus. He wouldn't call himself tall by human standards, but for Irken standards, it wasn't half bad. ZiM hung up the call—still without saluting—and revved up the engine as the Massive opened up its docking station.

The ship was exactly as he remembered it from his brief glances of the thing, and the blueprints of it he had studied…. In order to take control… no. Bad memories. Though the door to his Voot opened dramatically with a satisfying amount of smoke, ZiM himself stumbled out of the ship, holding his head, his eyes unfocused. The Irken was getting pretty tired of being sick. It wasn't something life threatening, he was just so sluggish. His head hurt and felt like it was full of the sickening human goo called mucus. But he knew it wasn't, because he wasn't human. He had to stop comparing things to human culture. He wasn't on Earth anymore, no one out here would understand it.

But now, standing up for the first time in three months had him feeling almost dead. He really had exposed himself to too much human for too long, and now it had sit in the enclosed ship with him for a while... ZiM had never felt so sick and dying in his entire life. He couldn't see, or hear, or smell. He could barely feel the ground beneath his feet. Maybe it wasn't there...

ZiM stumbled so much that he slipped on the side of his boot and fell over, and through the rushing noise in his head, all he could hear was GIR's high pitched mournful wailing. An arm caught him, a small, stout Irken was holding him up, pulling him up to his feet, but ZiM couldn't see him. His vision was blurring, fading in and out around the edges…

"ZiM?" He could hear a voice say. Maybe it was the short guy in front of him… mmmmaybe… it was… his own thoughts calling him to wake up… "Hey, ZiM, snap out of that. You okay?" ZiM shook his head in response.

"No, I think… I… eeuugh…"

He collapsed on the floor in a heap, unconscious.