Chapter Text
Zim opened his eyes and looked up. Skoolchildren were gathered around him, their eyes focused on his face. Before he could say anything they all pointed, as a group, down the hall. Zim stood and followed their pointing fingers with his eyes. There. Dib. DIB! Standing there at the end of the hall, holding the PAK! Immediately Dib turned and bolted around the corner, out of view. Zim pushed past the group of onlookers and chased after him. He urged his feet to run faster, FASTER. He had to catch up! He had to retrieve his PAK! He had to-what?
He skidded to a halt in an open area packed with human kids. He turned around and around, his eyes darting about the room; but although Dib was crouching nearby in the shadow of a pillar, Zim could not see him.
Zim drew himself up to his full height. "GIVE ME BACK MY PAK, DIB!" he shouted. "I need it to LIVE! Without it I can only survive for ten minutes and the countdown has already started! I am NOT going to expire on this filthy planet because of you!" Zim paused. Everyone in the room was staring at him. With a cough, he backtracked. "Ehh... forget all that 'need my backpack to live' stuff. Yeah. Um, it's just that... uh... it was full of potatoes, and I love potatoes."
Dib, listening from his hiding spot, said to himself, "This thing's even more important than I thought!" He gingerly cradled the PAK and looked up at someone's approach. "Oh, hi, Screa-"
"CUT!"
The harsh syllable caused everyone, including the newly-arrived Screamy, to whip their heads toward the sound. A man with a megaphone was pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. "Zim. You did it again. Okay. For. The. Last. Time. The line isn't 'full of potatoes,' it's 'full of sandwiches.'"
"Eh?" Zim picked up a packet of papers from the ground and flipped through them. "I don't see where it says-Oh. Heh. Right there." He threw the papers back on the ground. "Very well. I am ready with the correct line!"
"All right, let's try this again. Take it from the beginning of your rant." The man with the megaphone cleared his throat. "'10 Minutes to Doom,' scene two, take forty-three. And... ACTION!"
Screamy, who hadn't left the stage, suddenly yanked the PAK out of Dib's hands and held it up. "HEY! ZIM! I HAVE YOUR BACKPACK THING! LOOK! I HAVE IT!"
Dib stood up and reached for the PAK. "Screamy, give that back! You're ruining-NYAH!" He tripped over Screamy's foot and sprawled on the ground.
"D'oh, that's DEFINITELY not in the script!" Zim yelled, gesturing towards Dib and Screamy.
The man with the megaphone cringed. "CUT! AGAIN!"
Dib got to his feet and took the PAK from Screamy. "Sorry, Mr. Smithee," he gasped to the director. "Can we start again?"
"We shouldn't have stopped in the first place," Zim muttered. "There is NOTHING wrong with replacing 'sandwiches' with 'potatoes'!"
"NO," the director, Mr. Smithee, said to the alien. "NO, NO, NO, NO. We're reading the script VERBATIM. Verbatim: GOOD. Improv? BAD. Okay. We'll have a bit of a break and then try it again. Take five, everyone!"
Zim marched off the Skool Interior set and over to a table where he poured himself a cup of Irken bug juice. Dib sighed and dropped the plastic PAK prop, picking up his own script and walking over to the director. "Hey, Mr. Smithee, since we're on a break... can I talk to you about one of my lines?" He opened the script and looked through it until he found the right page. "See, right here, where I'm supposed to call Dad. Instead of saying this, maybe I could-"
Mr. Smithee's cell phone blared out an obnoxious ringtone and, ignoring Dib, the director answered it. "Hey! Yeah, it's me. Yeah. Mm-hm. Uh huh. Yes. Really? Really! Huh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Hah. Okay! Ciao." He hung up and walked over to a device that Dib hadn't noticed before, from which some paper was printing. It looked like a fax machine or something. But those had been outdated ages ago... Mr. Smithee picked up the stack of papers and stapled them together. He looked up and called, "Hey! Zim! Get over here!"
Zim came over from the refreshments table and Mr. Smithee handed him the stack of papers, at the same time picking up a mug of coffee and taking three large gulps. "The network just called to say they had made some changes to the script. Here's the new one." Zim, looking a bit irritated at being talked to like this, flipped through the script. Dib took it from him and looked through it for himself, wondering why Mr. Smithee hadn't given him one. He paused.
"Wait, this isn't right," he said. "This says I die right here!"
Mr. Smithee took another gulp of coffee. "Oh, yeah, that's one of the rewrites. You're FIRED."
"Wha-"
"The network wants you outta here so they changed the script to have the PAK attack and kill you! Zim survives, though, so it's cool."
Zim yanked the script back and read part of it. "HAH, Dib, look!" he laughed. "You don't even die onscreen!"
"They... they killed me off?" Dib cried. He grabbed the script back once more and stared at the words swimming before his eyes. "And I don't even get a tragic, onscreen death?"
Mr. Smithee shrugged. "It's nothing personal, kid. It's just that everyone HATES you. Ratings are suffering and we're pretty sure it's your fault. And we don't have enough of a budget to film your death scene."
Dib couldn't even begin to process what he was hearing. "But... but... this will ruin the show!" he said. "Who'll stop all of Zim's stupid world domination plans?"
"Oh, we've already got that taken care of," Mr. Smithee said indifferently. He pushed a button that opened the doors to the studio. "Here she is now!"
A red-headed teenage girl with a flamethrower burst into the studio with a scream of, "TWEEEEERP!" She waved the flamethrower around, letting out a stream of fire that luckily didn't get close enough to burn anything. She went over and leered at Zim. "I've got some CHORES for you to do!" she said. "And you don't have any fairies to do the work for you!"
Mr. Smithee beamed. "Zim, meet Vicky, your new nemesis!"
Dib gaped at the newcomer. "What? You're replacing me with her? But she's from a completely different show!"
"Yes, yes, and it might be a little strange at first, but come on-with great writers and an experienced director you can make anything work!" Mr. Smithee said.
"You're not experienced, you're the new director." Dib narrowed his eyes.
"Rude," Vicky snorted.
Dib clenched his forehead. "Why don't you go ahead and fire Zim? He gets paid more than I do, anyway!"
Mr. Smithee waved his hand uncaringly. "That's because he's Irken," he said, as if this should be explanation enough. He scowled at Dib. "What are you even still doing here, anyway? You've been fired! You're through, kid! You're done! Beat it!" He and Vicky both pointed towards the studio doors.
Dib felt as if he would melt under their gaze. Why was the world suddenly spinning? This couldn't be real. They couldn't really be kicking him off... There was no way... He clutched the script to his chest until it crumpled under his hands, then his shoulders drooped. He dropped the script. And, without another word, he started to plod toward the doors.
"BYE DIB!" Screamy shouted in the otherwise silent room, waving furiously. He hadn't left the set. "I LIKE YOUR NAME: DIB!"
Dib didn't turn around. He stepped out of the studio, and the doors slammed shut behind him.