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“Go get me a soda.” Dib waved a hand before sticking the handle of his screwdriver in his mouth to use the wrench. Two saluted with an ‘of course, master Dib!’ before hurrying off.
The virus was working well. He’d put Two in goggles, and ordered him to behave normally outside of their chambers. The other Zims hadn’t noticed- he was still keeping tabs on possible dissent in his inner circle, and Two only interacted with the Zims under Dib’s careful watch, so none of them suspected anything. It was remarkable, how little Two had actually changed in behavior after the virus outside of Dib’s chambers. He still publicly fawned just as much as before, but other than almost slipping once or twice by calling Number One a Dib and getting an electroshock from his Pak for it, Dib wouldn’t have known anything was amiss.
It was kind of cute, honestly. He’d adored Number One, so it was easy to reroute it, even now that he knew he was ruled by a Dib.
“Your soda.” Two held out the soda, and Dib spat out the screwdriver, holding his hand out for it.
“How many are left in the stores from the ransacked Voots?”
“Um.” Two had to think for a second as he pushed up his goggles again. Dib liked seeing his blue eyes, fuzzing with code every ten seconds. “Eighteen.”
Dib chugged it down, crumpling the space-metal in his fist. “Ugh, we’ll have to restock when I send the Zims out, before they self-destruct themselves.”
“Of course, Number One.”
“I wonder how many 100 can carry. He’s a beefy guy, y’know? Probably enough to stock up the Void for a year.” Dib clicked his tongue. “Maybe I should make him a cargo mule instead of just blowing up all that good possible grunt work.” He looked up at Two, who was staring at him. “What’re you looking at?”
“You, oh most wonderful Dib.”
Dib pushed himself up, squinting up at Two’s face. Unconsciously, he rose himself up on his tiptoes, but they still weren’t quite even.
Two’s face was... flat. Even as he listed off praises, his eyes remained still and his mouth never moved past a straight line. He was so much more animated with the other Zims. It was part of the disguise to keep them all in the dark for as long as possible, (Dib was working on a speech for the reveal, actually, and he planned to tape their reactions) but...
Dib never thought he’d miss a Zim acting Zim-like.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Because you wanted me to.”
“What? No I didn’t.” Dib waved his hand in front of Two’s face. Two didn’t blink. “Why do you think I wanted you to?”
“You commanded me to listen to your Pak. Your Pak tells me that you enjoy me looking at you.”
“That’s stupid.” Dib raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms and popping up on the Pak legs so he could more efficiently look down at Two.
“I only obey your commands, Number One.”
“Well, stop looking at me, then.”
Two obeyed, swiveling to stare at the wall instead. Dib bent forward to examine his Pak. It was glowing a clear, virus-controlled blue. So why...?
“Go over to the console, I need to check you up.” Dib snapped his fingers, and Two marched over, dutifully standing underneath the scanning helmet.
Nothing irregular. Two’s brainwaves were a little flatter than they used to be, but that was to be expected. Dib drummed his fingertips on the keyboard.
“So you say that it’s coming from my Pak.”
“If that was what I said.”
“It was.”
“Then it was.”
“Stop toying with me.” Dib narrowed his eyes. “I might just send you out first, you know. Blow you into a billion goopy-gorey alien bits.”
“Whatever you wish, oh magnificent and lovely Dib.”
It was Dib’s turn to stare. ”What was that last one?”
“Dib.”
“No. Last two.”
“Lovely Dib.”
Dib hopped up on the console as the helmet retracted from Two. His expression was as emotionless as it always was around Dib now. The words had no weight to them. Borne of an overzealous bit of coding back when Dib had been unsure he’d have enough Zims to pull this all off and had been a little stir-crazy from isolation. That was all. He really should just delete that subroutine.
But the flattery was nice. He heard it from the other 99 of course, but he liked it most from Two, because Two had been the only one that had interacted directly with him much.
“Tell me how you feel about me, Two.”
Two tilted his head, eyes giving a quick, cursory glance over Dib’s body. “You are perfect. You are wonderful. You have given my life a meaning that it did not have before when I was weak-minded and ignorant irken, but I have been remolded for your purposes, oh perfect Dib. I wish nothing more than to help you accomplish the destruction of the irken empire throughout the multiverse.” His tone was smooth as butter, and without any of the manic inflection jumps that made him sound like a Zim.
“Good. Good, that was exactly what you were supposed to say,” Dib muttered, the back of his head thudding as the Pak warmed. It happened so often that most of the flesh had burnt, but it healed well enough he didn’t pay attention to it anymore. “Is there anything else?”
“You are correct. You are perfect. You are correct. I love you. You are perfect. You are correct.”
Dib’s fingers dug straight through the metal of the console. “What did you say?”
“You are correct. You are perfect.”
“No, no that middle thing. You- you didn’t say that. You shouldn’t say that.”
Two blinked. “But you are correct and perfect, my-”
“No. No, no, no.” Dib hopped off the console and tugged Two down so he stood above him. “From now on, you just call me Number One, got it?”
Two nodded. “Understood, Number One,” he intoned. No idea he’d said anything strange.
Maybe Dib needed to wipe him again. Maybe he should just pull his Pak off and see what on Irkth had made him say that. Two stared up, unblinking.
Dib pulled down his goggles and sent him out to distract the other 99 again.
He didn't want to look at him.