Hey Spacejerk

Rule of Three

The hoverscreen's chosen spot on the ceiling was far enough from every wall of the room that Dib could not reach it. Not from a precarious perch atop the sink, not leaping from his pallet, and not even after shimmying to the top of the cell's bars and reaching out an impressively short distance from the top. He couldn't even splash it, cupping handfuls of water and flinging them fruitlessly at the ceiling. The ringing in Dib's ears competed with, but couldn't quite drown out, Zim's hateful shrieking.

The only relief he could muster came by wrapping the pancake-thin pillow around the back of his head, but this only dropped the intensity by a few decibels. Briefly, he considered sticking his head down the toilet to see if water blocked Zim's unnatural pitch any better, but abandoned it after a brief inspection. The bowl never held more than a couple of cups' worth at a time. And the sink had no plug, so that was a bust.

Curled up on his pallet, clinging to the pillow, Dib couldn't help wondering how Dad hadn't come for him yet. Surely it had been long enough. At the very least two days had passed, if not more, and he could barely be late home these days without Security raining down on him.

The tracker was gone. He stared at his leg and wondered how he hadn't even noticed. The heavy black band around his ankle had been the source of a ridiculous amount of misery, so prison cell and Zim kidnapping or no, how had he overlooked its absence?

Silence fell, sudden and thick, pressing in on his ears with near palpable pressure.

Well that's that. The idiot blew my eardrums to hell. I'm deaf now.

This hypothesis fell apart as the hoverscreen detached from the ceiling and drifted down to him with the notification of another message, the irritating blat, blat, blatclearly audible.

Dib hesitated. Had it been ten hours? That had definitely felt like a very long time, probably two or three, but not ten hours. It was getting harder to discern passage of time, but that could not have been ten hours. Not even close. What would the next message be like? How else was Zim going to punish him for his letters? His eyes drifted to the DECLINE button.

In that moment, he realized he hadn't felt utterly abandoned by existence for a solid... however many hours that Zim had been screaming at him.

He jabbed ACCEPT so hard that he sent the screen backward.

Zim appeared on the screen, still bedraggled, but smirking this time. "Heh, your parental unit's HomeDrone sounds pathetic if you can give it the slip. A thoroughly incompetent security system. You would think he would know someone like you needs much heavier guarding to be restrained. Fool. Keeping you out, contained, or giving you the slip requires extraordinary measures."

Dib exhaled hard like he'd been punched in the gut and he wasn't even sure why.

Zim jerked, choking slightly, then glared at Dib. "Not that I was ever unable to do all of these things and more. I could have crushed you any time. I was just waiting for the most opportune time, which may well be soon. I tire of your pathetic paper scribbles. The only reason I read them any more is that you are handing over valuable information.

"You see, Earth-Smell," Zim purred, a gloating smile on his face, "You are handing over information most enemies wouldn't offer under torture. There are places in this world where the water is thick in the air and could kill me? Places where the water comes down in an endless torrent? Well. I will incorporate this information into a new design, an experimental armor that will filter the air and deflect all water. I will not be killed by mere environment, and all the earth films that say I will are stupid and don't know anything about Irken determination!"

Zim paused for a minute, and narrowed his eyes at the screen. "What would I do with a long legged bird? Obviously I would take it to my labs and scan it to see if it has any usefulness in my plans, then hand it over to GIR for whatever he wants to do with it. He has quite a collection of creatures I have no use for, now. Some of them he pretends are his friends. Some of them do not survive his 'friendship.'" He shuddered. "Hideous thing, this friendship, every time I see how it works I find it is more and more dangerous. Perhaps," he mused, tapping his chin with a claw, "Perhaps I can find a way to weaponize it. Yes. I think I will research friendship."

Dib rolled his eyes. Yeah. Just don't tell Keef about that project.

Zim shuddered, grimacing. "Keef must never discover this research."

The screen went blank, and Dib put a hand over his stomach. His gut still ached, and it was different than the usual hunger.

Zim thought he was a credible threat. Zim had always said Dib was just a foolish, easily defeatable Earth child, but what Zim did spoke louder than what he said. Zim laid elaborate traps into wormholes for Dib, built entire virtual reality chambers to coax information from him, and even treated simple Skool fundraising competitions against Dib with the same deadly seriousness he brought to his plans of planetary destruction.

Blat. Blat. Blat.

Dib glanced up, blinking. The screen hadn't gone away. In fact, there was another message waiting for him. Three in one day? Was Zim getting tired of his waiting game? Dib accepted the message.

Zim stood in the middle of a large pile of envelopes, teeth clenched and murder in his eyes.

"My mailbox was overflowing with suspicious looking envelopes! The mail delivery drone questioned my normalcy!" Zim arched his back and inhaled deep, then leaned forward and roared, "Stop sending me letters! Stop it! When I find you, I'm going to take every one of these and cram them down your air tube! And I will find you! As the very last thing I do on this planet, I will find you and make you pay!"

.....

Note: I'm a lot closer to the wedding date and I'm still working on furnishing/decorating the house we moved to. So a warning, if things go dead quiet around Mid-October through late November, it's because I'm in the middle of wedding whirlwind. Fun side note, I got to meet up with Ffnet user EndlessMemories, old high school friend I hadn't talked to for ten years, the person who first explained to me what fanfiction even was. I got to point at her and yell, "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT," as she laughed her head off. Good times. Many thanks to Misty for our "word war" that spurred me to write a new chapter, and for feedback on the story and this chapter.