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Dib puts the car in park and flicks off the headlights. With the engine still running, he turns to Zim.
“If you’re not ready, we don’t have to do this. I can text them and cancel. We’ll just go home.”
Zim, so anxious his teeth are vibrating, shakes his head. He has spent most of the long, long ride to the Dib-sister’s base trying to keep from screaming. The upholstery under his claws is a shredded mess. It’s lucky that Dib’s car is a shitheap already.
“Are you sure?” Dib peers at him. “You seem really freaked out.”
“N-nonsense. I am simply charging my energies, to be at peak performance for the social event.”
“Miz—”
“I SAID I’M FINE!” Zim shouts. He kicks the dashboard so hard it rattles, to emphasize how fine he is.
“Uh,” says Dib. “Okay.”
Dib shuts off the car, and Zim grabs his backpack from the back seat. It’s early evening, and the encroaching sunset makes everything seem sharper, more vivid, defined and emphasized by the growing shadows. Heat shimmers in the air. Zim can smell exhaust from the nearby freeway and barbecue from someone’s backyard. At least, that’s probably barbecue.
Gazlene Membrane, now entering her second year of grad skool for computer engineering, lives in off-campus student housing across town from Dib’s apartment. The complex is a confusing maze of mid-nineties architecture and overgrown, ambiguous topiary, crowned by trees that crowd out the sky. Zim and Dib get lost between courtyards, and Dib has to call Gaz for directions.
“Well?” says Zim, when Dib pockets his phone. He holds his breath, hoping the Dib-sister has become enraged enough to retract her hospitality and they can go home.
“She’s sending Iggins to get us.”
“Iggins?”
Muttered curses and blippy sound effects herald the arrival of the human in question. Iggins trips along in mismatched sandals, hunched over his gaming device, oblivious to the world. He barely lifts his eyes to acknowledge Dib’s greeting, and merely grunts in response to Zim’s self-introduction, but he starts leading them through the foliage with easy confidence.
“Must… finish… level… Shit! Goddammit!”
“I don’t understand,” Zim whispers to Dib. “Is this your sister’s minion? Has she enslaved his mind with that device?”
“They’re roommates,” Dib whispers back. “They hate each other, but they’re working on a thesis project together? It’s pretty weird. And no, he’s always like this. I think I’ve only seen him twice without a screen in front of his face.”
Iggins takes them in what feels like a circle but turns out not to be, then up an unmarked set of stairs. They arrive at Gaz’s third-floor apartment sooner than Zim had anticipated. Iggins unlocks the door one-handed, pushes it open with his foot, and there they are.
“Hi,” says Tak, from the couch.
Not for the first time, Zim wishes GIR were here. But that would blow his cover for sure, and he’d only just managed to establish a detente with Tak when they last met…
THREE DAYS AGO, AT THE LOCAL MOVIE THEATER
Everything Zim thought he knew falls to pieces.
Then Dib says, “Miz, this is Tak, my sister’s friend.”
Zim tries, but he can’t form words. He settles for, “Ghhhhhm.”
“We’ve met before.” A sinister smile crosses Tak’s black-painted lips. “What an unexpected pleasure to see you again, Miz.”
“Wow, that’s a coincidence!” Dib says. Dib is the stupidest, most useless, most oblivious flesh-bag on this whole stinking planet. Zim has never hated anyone more. “I was thinking that we should all get together sometime. Do you know if Gaz has plans on Thursday night?”
“I think she’s free,” Tak simpers. “Now. You wanted to order, Miz?”
Their eyes lock, each trying to stare the other down. Tak arches an elegant brow. Zim smiles a teeth-baring smile.
Zim says, “I’ll get the jumbo popcorn. With extra grease.”
“Hey.” Dib rubs the back of his neck, shifting from foot to foot as he looks between Tak and Zim. Iggins has headed for the back of the apartment; they hear a door slam after him. “So, uh...”
“We brought gifts,” says Zim loudly. “Gifts of FOOD, as tribute for our host. Where should I put them?”
Gaz has appeared in the hall, as deadly quiet as ever. She’s grown, but not as much as Dib. Zim unzips the middle pocket of his backpack and shoves it toward her.
“What the hell is this?” She wrinkles her nose. “Chicken noodle soup?”
“Impressive, isn’t it? There are three varieties.” Zim preens. He’s such a thoughtful guest. Also, they were starting to get sick of it at home. Even GIR.
“Ugh,” says Gaz, but she takes the cans and boxes and starts putting them away in the kitchen. Zim, Dib, and Tak look at each other for another awkward moment.
“I need to use the toilet,” Zim announces, and takes off in the direction where Iggins vanished.
Once in the bathroom—it’s a mess, not that Zim expects perfect hygiene in a gamer den—he runs the sink and stares at the mirror. Just as he’s starting to calm, he hears hushed voices from down the hall.
“...didn’t think he’d actually fall for it.” Gaz.
“He didn’t. I swear he’s plotting something.” Tak.
“You know we’re talking about him, right? I don’t think he’s ever carried off a plan.”
“You underestimate him. When I knew him—”
Who could they be discussing? Another Invader, perhaps. Zim bristles at the idea of some random muscling in on his mission. But why would Tak speak so openly about it with humans?
He switches off the tap. The voices stop.
When he returns to the front room, the others have gathered around the table and are debating how to spend the evening. The bookcase facing them is crammed with manuals and board games, their subjects ranging from candy to dragons to robot bartenders. Products bearing the Official Bloaty’s seal are conspicuously represented.
“Nah, I’m sick of card games,” Gaz is saying as Zim walks in.
Dib says hopefully, “We could do character creation again. That was fun.”
“That was forty minutes of you mansplaining how your stupid parapsychical research guy could fit in the Vampire Piggy Hunter universe, and then calling us rigid and elitist because we wouldn’t let you make up original skill categories. No thanks.”
“It’s called having an imagination, Gaz—”
“Whatever. I want to play something with a point.”
Tak clears her throat. “There’s always. You know.” She indicates a large box on the top shelf.
Gaz rounds on her. “But that one takes forever!”
“Not if we play in teams and use the presets.”
“Hmm.” A speculative gleam enters Gaz’s eye. “You may be onto something. What about combat mode?”
“I was thinking,” and here Tak switches to speaking in human tabletop RPG jargon. Zim’s antennae had perked at the mention of combat, but whatever Tak is talking about is too boring to follow. Is this seriously how she spends her time now?
“Okay,” says Gaz, at last. “You’ve convinced me, but I reserve the right to shut it down if it gets stupid. Guys! We’re playing Eldritch Doom.”
Since Zim has never played and Dib’s memories of the game are blurred at best, they split onto separate teams. Dib is assigned to Tak, and Gaz takes Zim.
They spend a good quarter-hour going over the rules, which are needlessly exhaustive even in truncated form. Multicolored dice are involved, and charts, and far too many cardboard tokens. There are pencils. There is a campaign briefing that Tak reads in a formal voice. It seems so primitive, and yet so… complicated.
“We’re going to win,” Zim informs Gaz.
“Tch, obviously.”
Tak says something right into Dib’s ear, a casually intimate gesture that makes Zim want to staple her lips together. Dib laughs, a genuine, helpless laugh that Zim rarely hears, and scribbles on the scratch paper between them. Zim amends it to stapling her lips together and then ripping them off.
“Cool it, Miz,” Gaz hisses. “We need to concentrate if we want to beat them.”
“Right,” says Zim vaguely, watching Tak write a response that makes Dib snort and take up his pencil again. “We’ll grind them into dust.”
“Oh, brother,” Gaz sighs, hiding her face in her hands.
The game proceeds. The plot, once the trappings are waved away, is fairly simple. Each team has two concurrent, related goals: (1) cause the apocalypse by summoning their respective patron deity, and (2) thwart the would-be summoners of rival deities. Zim and Gaz’s deity is Hoghagathuma, the Slumbering Pig-Demon, haunter of the deepest, deadest stars. Dib and Tak’s is Zzyzx, the Custodian Beyond Description, who appears in mortal guise as a skool janitor.
Gameplay consists largely of rolling dice, making calculations, and moving their figurines around on the board. The rules are consulted often and occasionally fought over. Zim is so focused on defeating Tak that he forgets to be bored. At some point, though, everyone seems to look up in tandem and realize that they’re hungry.
There is a scramble for the kitchen. Gaz microwaves pizza bites. Dib pours chips into bowls. Tak claims a liter of cola for herself. Zim finds an unopened box of sugar cubes. Sufficiently refueled, they attack the game anew.
Things are going swell. Eldritch Doom is chugging along towards its conclusion. Dib and Tak’s character has failed to light the city landfill on fire, displeasing Zzyzx, and Zim and Gaz’s character is about to pull off a major butcher shop heist for the glory of Hoghagathuma. But then…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”
A spooch-curdling shriek issues from Iggins’ room, accompanied by crashing sounds. Zim leaps to his feet, upsetting the game board, his teammate, and his dignity.
“I’m going to murder you,” Gaz snarls. It’s not clear who she means.
Iggins screams again. Zim finds himself huddled behind Dib’s chair, clinging to the frame. Dib moves his arm to pet Zim’s back, automatic in his offer of comfort. Zim leans into the touch.
“Iggins!” Gaz stomps off. “There better be a good fucking explanation for this!” They hear her kick down his door. Zim accidentally makes eye contact with Tak, and notes an unreadable expression on her face.
Gaz returns, trailed by two figures. There’s Iggins, screenless for thrice but intact. And there’s...
“Master!” GIR chirps, chipper as ever despite the new gaming-device-shaped dent in his head. Leaves stick out of his joints.
“Roomba Butler! What are you doing here?” Zim avoids the gazes of everyone in the room.
GIR pouts. “I got lonely, so I followed you and Mary. Now I’m in business!”
Gaz says, “That’s your roomba, huh? I’ve got a few things he can clean.”
They don’t finish the game. However, by the time they leave, the bathroom looks a lot nicer.