Double Crossed (Invader Zim)

Chapter 4

(Zim's P.O.V)

Before

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"It still feels strange to invite Dib to our base." I'm talking to Gir, but this time I don't mind that he isn't listening. Talking out loud is much easier than thinking, and I don't want to look like I'm talking to myself. Even though I technically am.

"But we trust him now, Gir. Which means that he is not an intruder," I continue. "Okay, Gir?"Gir gives me a thumbs up, but he probably wouldn't have stopped Dib even if he was an intruder. Again, his methods of evil confuse me.

The sound of shuffling breaks me from my thoughts. A coat, or something similar, dragging across the floor. "Dib?" I call out.

There's a sharp pain, and before I know it, I'm on the floor, my vision swimming. Gir is screeching, but it sounds like a giggly screech. It stops suddenly, but I don't know if it's because he shut up, or because that was most likely the moment I blacked out.

---

When I open my eyes, there's a bright light directly above me that forces them closed again. The room smells excessively cleaned, almost to the point of being sickening. I try to lift my head, but I barely move it before exhaustion forces it to bang back onto the surface below me. I feel elevated. And cold. Once again, I force my neck up, and a quick glance shows that I'm shirtless. That's why it's cold. Luckily, my pants are still on. Over my bare torso there's a clear sort of tarpaulin material with a hole in the middle, exposing my stomach. I'm smack in the middle of a room, with windows around all the walls, people coming and going around the corners, rushing through the halls of what looks like some sort of hospital.

A door opens to my right and I close my eyes and lower my head, pretending to be out. Footsteps get closer until they're right at my side. There's mumbling, though I assume I'm just groggy and can't hear correctly. Someone grabs at my eyelid, prying it open and shining a flashlight at my eye. I abandon my fake sleep and try to grab the light out of their hand only to find that my arms are held down. A glance at the human next to me shows me that I'm elevated, most likely on some sort of table.

I struggle to get off, finding that my legs are pinned as well. I flail my head around, as that's the only part of my body that I can actually move, and see a glint of metal near one of the humans. A tray with scalpels and syringes on it. This is an autopsy table.

One of the humans grabs a scalpel and begins cutting a line down my chest to my stomach. I scream in agony, burning with fury. It had to be Dib, didn't it? And yet, later I would be proved wrong. But for now, I need to think quick, or I'll be gone for good. An uncomfortable hunch that I'm laying on top of, and the absence of a lifeclock tells me that I still have my Pak. Good.

Discreetly, the new time warping mechanism slithers out and connects to my hand. Without looking, I type in the temporal coordinates of the night I was deceived by Dib. Or so I had thought, but again, I only knew what was happening in the moment.

A mechanical whir fills the room, and the human with the scalpel recoils from the table. My metal legs come out of my Pak and break the binds on my limbs. I jump up, and just before anything vital falls out of the gaping slice in my torso, I disappear into time.

The passage I'm in is blue and white, and spiraling, making me dizzy and sick. Luckily, the zip away from the present has somehow cauterized the cut on my body. No need to worry about losing my Squeedilyspooch then. I seem to be able to walk along some sort of pathway that branches off to dozens of other times. I'm standing next to a pathway with the coordinates I typed into the device in my Pak. The pathway seems to be a collection of every moment in time, and walking further along would get me farther into the past or future. For a moment, I consider moving forwards into the timeline. I could see the outcome of my actions, and find the easiest way to conquer the Earth. The possibility of knowing exactly how to get what I want is so tantalizingly close. But then again, if I go to those times without doing this first, I could cease to exist as soon as I walked through one of those doors. I reluctantly decide to ignore the other paths and march into the door that I came for. The day that was almost three weeks ago, and, I believed, has lead to this moment.

The spinning of the tunnel seems to accelerate as I walk further down the path, and suddenly, I'm falling, into a void of nothingness, into what I can only assume is my only chance at living. When I land, it's not with a crash; in fact, I seem not to land at all, as if I were always standing here. In my house. I must have gone through the right path, though. Why am I not at the Dib's home?

"Gir!" I call out. Nothing. Why wasn't he here? Oh, hadn't he left before I went out? I go down to the lab, though the entrance sticks slightly, slowing me down. Strange. Once I'm down, I sit, arms crossed, in my chair. "Computer! What day is it?"

"Saturday, May 15th, 2025."

So I did come back to the right day. Then why am I here? "Computer, are there any beings with a similar molecular structure in this time period?" I demand. Perhaps both me, and the Zim from this time period are here.

A map shows up on the screen. "One similar being has been found here," the computer answers, circling a spot on the screen, and zooming in to show the Dib's house. "Perfect," I mumble, smiling mischievously.

Once I'm back upstairs, I grab a copy of my disguise. Even if I'm only here for a short while, I don't want to be discovered. That's what I'm here to prevent. But once the lens is close to my eye, it starts to suction towards me, seeming to bend further than it should be able to, almost as if it were trying to escape something. I force it away and throw it to the ground. "Computer!"

"Yes?" the deep voice comes from all around me.

"Why is my disguise acting strange?" I ask, keeping my hands away from the other lens that I hadn't yet touched.

"Your being is from another time period. Because of this, trying to put the disguise on in this time period will cause it to cease to exist in this reality. The suctioning feeling is the disguise morphing to become part of your time period."

Great. So I can't put on my disguise or else the Zim in this time period will lose his and then he'll be caught, bringing me back to square one. Now I need to sneak around without a disguise. And because I brought myself to the exact moment Dib and I befriended each other, by the time I'm there it will be too late, and-

"Augh! Fine! Minor hiccup! Everything's fine," I growl, though my tone of voice would indicate other feelings. I bring out the time traveling device from my Pak and connect it to my hand once again. I begin typing in coordinates, but the screen flashes red and makes a derogatory beep. "What is this?" I groan, pulling at my antennae. I bring my hand closer to my face to observe the machine, only to find that it's malfunctioned, and the one time I used it was apparently now my last. I resist the temptation to grab something and toss it across the room. How could it have malfunctioned? I did everything perfectly!

Now twice as aggravated, I shove the device back into my Pak and march through the door. I'll just have to convince the Zim in this time period that his decision was wrong, and everything will go back to normal. But in the meantime, I need to keep from getting caught.