Being Human

The Seismic Weapon

I knew she would never hold to her promise. Her kind never have.

What do you think of her now? She will call her whole species to the surface at this rate!

Remara's anger stuttered, her rage lapsing as furious whispers hissed swarmed around her.

"Hah!" Zim cried. "Victory! Oh sweet mother of Irk, this is even better! I am ingenious!" He rounded on Remara, grinning so hard his teeth grated against each other. "Am I not ingenious?" He cried.

"No you aren't what have you done?" Remara shouted, surveying the room. The floor had strange ripples in it now, and in some places gaping holes. The ceiling bent inward, and many metal tubes had burst, spraying cloudy substances into the room. None of this seemed to matter to Zim, who stood waiting for recognition of his brilliance. "What did you do?"

Zim chuckled, brushing debris from his uniform. "For once, little Glass Flow, I concede I was misdirecting my attempts. Just now you reached a stunning degree of heat output, but it seems you can go no higher. And even that is not nearly enough to cleanse the entire surface of the planet. According to the Computer's calculations, I would need an army of creatures like you to do such a thing."

"You can't get to them and they won't listen to you even if you did." Remara glared, pulling the ugliest face she could think of along the entire side of the cell.

You are fools to think that this means she is trying to end us. Look at her. She doesn't even know what she's done.

Whether she knew what she was doing or not, she will in a moment, and then what? We let the Earth be overrun as they try to burn out every shadow?

Remara's temperature dropped as she collected herself off the walls of the cell and back into a solid form. They were here. They were watching her. What had she done? What were they talking about? Were they going to attack her now? She had nowhere to run!

"Of course I can get to them," Zim purred, stroking his console. "You never told me about this little ability." He spun back to the screen, claws clicking across the keys. "Look, this sonic frequency-I've been looking at this all wrong! Hah! That language you spoke, you have an entire language that-given the correct frequency and intensity-causes massive seismic shifts in the earth's crust. As we speak this entire city is reeling from the largest earthquake on record!" The monitor above Zim flickered, dimly displaying an emergency report with the words "Largest earthquake on record!" in bold red lettering.

Remara's eyes dropped to the first photo in the report. The one of the local Skool building, half of it now collapsed. Tendrils flew to her mouth and she held herself still, stricken.

"Just imagine!" Zim threw his hands up toward the ceiling. "In a few moments, I can replicate this noise a hundredfold! A thousandfold! This miserable rock will split open completely. Glass Flows will come pouring out, sweeping across the surface! I will tell them all their enemies, the Wraiths, have taken the appearance of humans! Burn every human! Burn every shadow! Sweep the surface clean and start again! And then my Tallests will descend and recognize the brilliance of their most loyal servant, who led the core of the planet against itself and won! I am ZIM!"

Whether or not she understood, the time for talk is done. She has brought on us the disaster we feared. The balance will shift irreparably, and we will cease to exist.

She succumbed to her passions, and now the Earth suffers. She must be extinguished.

Dozens of eyes flashed in the shadows of the room, behind broken tubing and crumbled walls, under fallen crates and from every hole in the floor.