Interstellar Flights

“Ah, yes, sir,” a middle aged man muttered into a phone yellowed with age, “Er…no…sir…” he continued, clutching the phone to his ear as though his life depended on it. He almost seemed to panic as he started searching through files upon the phone’s request. Beads of sweat fell down his face, and fogged his glasses. His black scythe started drooping slightly with the weight of precipitation.

Suddenly, he paused. “Sir...Atlantis…doesn’t exist.”

And that was it. Loud, angry yelling suddenly filled his eardrum and he was forced to pull the phone back from his ear.

“WHAT YOU DO MEAN ATLANTIS DOESN’T EXIST?!” was the cry from the phone, “ARE YOU CALLING ME NUTTERS?”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s what you’re doing,” another man with bright red hair sniggered from across the room.

The man with the phone merely glared at the redhead, before hesitantly bringing the phone back to his ear. “No, no, of course not.” There was a pause, during which the likely question the phone would ask would be ‘Then what ARE you saying?’

“Well, I’m just saying that Atlantis was sunken into the sea many thousands of years ago,” the black haired man muttered, trying to find a way out of this situation. This was the worst customer he’d had all day. No, scratch that. This guy was better than the lady that wanted to go to ‘Hogwarts’.

…Much better.

There was silence for a moment before, “Ok, ok great!” the man with black hair said. “So, you’ll be going to Majorca, then? I’ll book you a flight right away, sir!”

With a flourish, the man hung up the phone. He certainly looked victorious.

Again, the man with red hair sneered. “You take your job too seriously, Dib,” he said, not looking up. He was too busy tinkering with some sort of mechanical object laid out on his desk. It almost looked like a little toy robot.

“Well,” Dib said, shuffling some papers and sticking them up on a tall pile of books and papers. The topmost ones were clearly used for traveling purposes. Things like ‘Plan today; don’t waste your life away!’ Were plastered on them. Somewhere in the middle there were self help guides. Clearly this man hadn’t liked where his life was headed. What was strangest of all, though, were the books near the bottom. There were covered with years of dust and seemed completely forgotten. These books boasted things like ‘Aliens Exist!’ and ‘Bigfoot: What’s With the Belt Sander?’  “I can’t help it that I want to get promoted, Jack.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Jack muttered, putting down the little toy robot and looking up at Dib. “I think you just like saying ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ all the time.”

Dib seemed stumped as to what to say to that. “Yeah, well!” he said, looking away from his fellow employee.

Both of them worked at “The Amazing Vicky’s Travel Agency!” Which guaranteed customer satisfaction, or the employees would be fired.

Oh yeah, Vicky was a great boss.

She also seemed to specialize in picking employees with broken dreams.

“Well what?” Jack asked dully, placing his head on his hand, using his free one to roll the little robot around.

“Well,” Dib said, thinking about it. He never really had to question why he worked as hard as he did, “I do need to make money. Bills don’t pay themselves.”

“Course’ they don’t,” Jack said, lying back, “But I don’t recall you caring too much about it when you were first hired.”

The other man raised his eyebrows, before adjusting his glasses. He had worked there as long as Jack, about – ah what was it? – seven to eight years. That sounded about right. “What do you -” he began to ask, but was suddenly interrupted by the ringing of Jack’s desk phone.

The man swore. “You know, if I was the evil ruler of Earth, I wouldn’t have to take this sh-”

“Yes, we know, Jack, you have big dreams!” another voice suddenly interrupted. It was a young man, at least ten years younger than Jack and Dib, carrying a tiger-striped coffee cup and looking as though he had just gotten back from lunch. Unlike Jack and Dib, he was smiling, and this look of good-cheer was merely intensified by his bright yellow hair.

Jack merely stuck out his tongue at the new arrival and picked up the phone. His tone instantly changed, “Hello, and thank you for using ‘The Amazing Vicky’s Travel Agency’! My name is Jack, how may I help you?”

The young man chuckled and muttered to Dib, “Great actor, isn’t he?”

Dib nodded and chortled lightly before looking uncomfortable. What was Jack going to say, anyway? Something about what he was like when he came here. He hadn’t changed all that much, had he?

….Had he?

“S’matter, Dib?” the blonde man asked curiously.

“Oh, ah, nothing…” Dib said, wishing his phone would ring or something. There hadn’t been very many customers coming in person, either. Anything would be good. He shook his head and looked over his pile of books. He could get some filing done.

Yeah, that would be good.

Quickly, he started searching for something not yet done. Through the brochures and the travel books. He suddenly paused at the self-help books, however, a strange look coming over his features.

“Ah, Calvin?” he said abruptly, causing the blonde man to look at him curiously. He had started walking away from Dib and towards his own desk. Jack was still chattering with the person on the other side of the line.

“Yeah?” Calvin said, sipping his coffee cup.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Dib asked quickly, surprised at his own question. He didn’t even look Calvin straight in the face, instead staring at the pile of books in front of him.

“Huh?” Calvin said, looking confused, “Oh, I dunno. Everything, I guess. I used to pretend to be everything. Especially dinosaurs.” He chuckled, “Though, I guess that’s not really a valid career, eh?” Despite the chuckle, there was a mild look of sadness on his face.

“Ah, so you used to do that with your friends?” Dib said, smiling weakly. He never had friends.

Well…not really. Could he consider? ...No, that was stupid.

At this, Calvin deadpanned. “Oh, I-I guess you could say that,” he muttered, suddenly looking at his coffee cup with intense remorse. “Yeah…friends…”

Looking extremely confused at this reaction, Dib was about to press further when Calvin turned away towards his own desk. “Sorry - work,” he said, quickly, burying himself in various travel papers.

“Bu-” Dib started, before he stopped himself. He should be working, too, shouldn’t he? Both of his coworkers were, and he didn’t want to be the only one not doing so when Vicky came and checked up. Course, Jack was usually the slacker, not him.

“Right…” Dib muttered to himself, looking over the new forms for the few people that he had set up trips for that day. He quickly pulled the correct ones together, getting a pen and whiteout at the ready.

But the form didn’t get filled out.

It stayed the same way. Staring at him with its ready-to-be-filled-out lines.

Dib had picked up the pen, and was holding it above the paper, but for some reason he really didn’t feel like connecting the ball-tip with it. It was like it wasn’t worth it.

He sighed, and let the pen drop from his hands. Maybe he was just tired. Tired – that was it. He was working too hard.

Dully, he pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t feel tired, but – but maybe.

Maybe what? He asked himself shoving his glasses back on his eyes and placing his head in his hands. Slowly, his eyes drifted over to his stack of books. There were so many. He hadn’t noticed their steady rise in all the years that he’d been here. There were probably books there from when he was first hired.

A blank look came over his features. What had he been reading when he first came here? He pulled his hands through his hair, frustrated. It was obvious, wasn’t it? He should know.

…Why didn’t he just LOOK?

Almost instantly, his eyes shot to the bottom of the books. They were….

Paranormal.

Of course.

He looked at them for a moment, trying to find some hidden meaning to them. Trying to figure out what Jack had meant in connection to them but...

“Of course, of course, I’ll book it right away,” Jack wrapped up the conversation on the phone before hanging up, dropping the sweet attitude immediately. “Well, screw this, I’m going home.”

“What?” Dib suddenly said, snapping out of his stupor. “You can’t just go home!”

“Especially since it’s almost the end of my shift!” Calvin piped up, shoving the work out of the way and standing up angrily. “I even took a late lunch!”

“Boo-hoo,” Jack said, without interest, “I’m going home.” He suddenly gave a violent and phony cough, “I’m sick.”

“You horrible -” Calvin started, but Jack just waved it off with a flutter of the hand, and he was out of the door.

Dib was aghast. He couldn’t just go home! …But he had.

“He’s so…evil,” Calvin said, gritting his teeth and pumping his fists.

“He’s just a jerk,” Dib said dully. He really wasn’t in the mood to be angry.

Sighing, Calvin messed up his hair and headed back to his desk, preparing for a long night.

“Listen, Calvin,” Dib said, “Go home. There hasn’t even been a customer, you know?”

“Well…” Calvin said, pretending to hesitate, but it was obvious to Dib that he desperately wanted to leave. “Ok, see-ya tomorrow, Dib!”

And with a quick grabbing of a few objects and a short wave, Calvin, too, was gone, and Dib was alone in the office.

Alone, that was familiar. He rolled his eyes. Well, at least this would give him time to…ah…read?

…Great.

With extreme irritation, he attempted to pull one of the paranormal books from underneath the huge pile of crap. Needless to say – it didn’t end well.

Stacks of books and papers flew across the room as the tower fell. Dib let out a stream of extremely loud swearwords. It wasn’t like anyone was there to hear him.

“Ahem,” a voice from the door said. It was feminine and extremely disturbing to hear after destroying half of your desk, on purpose or otherwise. “What happened here, Dib?” it snapped.

Quickly, Dib straightened up and faced the direction that the voice had come from. Much to his dismay, it was who he had thought it was – Vicky, his boss. She was a thin, slightly muscular woman with her red hair tied up in a ponytail. She rarely wore any formal clothing, and this made her look much more approachable than she actually was.

“I was…looking through…travel…” he muttered, not finding the words.

Vicky laughed coldly, but suddenly stopped, seeing that Dib was the only one there, “Where’s Jack?” she said. She knew that Calvin’s shift was up, but Jack’s wasn’t.

“He’s…” Dib started, wondering if he should just rat out Jack. “Sick…”

Vicky sneered, “Oh, really?” Dib stared at her blankly. “Well, fine, if that’s his game,” she said, turning around, to leave Dib alone again.

Dib breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like he still had a job.

“Oh, and you have a customer,” Vicky suddenly said, disrupting Dib’s relief. She laughed rather evilly, “Good luck with this one.”

Dib blinked as his boss finally disappeared from sight. Shrugging, he started piling the papers and books on his desk. He didn’t bother making another tower, instead he made one gigantic mound of papers on the center of his desk. It was impossible to see over. He didn’t really mind. He wasn’t really in the mood to see anyone, anyway, customer or no.

There was a mild shuffling from the other side of the desk. He guessed that the customer had stepped on some of the left over papers. “Sorry about the mess, sir,” Dib said, not really paying too much attention to the customer.

In actuality, he was still picking up the papers on his side of the desk. “What’s your name, sir?” he muttered.

“I AM ZIIIM,” the customer said, “AND I WILL RULE YOU!”

Dib nodded, staring at the cover to one of his old paranormal books, “Right, so you’re Sid Rooyu?”

“Eh?” the customer said, clearly confused by what Dib had said. “I AM ZIM! And ZIM demands an interstellar device capable of flying at several times the speed of light.”

“Sir, I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Dib muttered automatically. It was clear that he was still not paying attention in the least. Though, ‘Sid’s request wasn’t all that strange. He usually got one every few months or so. “That sort of technology hasn’t been invented yet.”

From the other side of the desk, the customer growled in frustration, “FOOL-ish huuuu-maaaan!” it shrieked, jumping onto the desk with surprising ease. Dib was surprised that he hadn’t fallen off.

However, with that act Dib was finally forced to actually look at said customer. With the first glance, Dib felt like his stomach was about to drop out. “ZI-ZIM? ” he gasped.

“Yes,” the alien hissed in irritation, “Stupid human.”

“Se-seriously?” Dib asked. He was having an extremely hard time believing this to be true, or even possible for that matter. He hadn’t seen the little alien in years.

“Will you book ZIM’s flight or not?” ZIM demanded, glaring at Dib. It was doubtful whether or not he recognized his old human enemy.

“Um, I, well…” Dib stuttered, how was he supposed to respond to that? “I…er…” He paused, and went with the only thing that seemed to make sense at the time, “I’m Dib.”

That barely got a reaction out of ZIM. Merely an eye twitch, but Dib knew that it was enough. Enough for what, though, he wasn’t quite sure.

“Fi-filthy Dib-beast, ” he spat, angrily. He paused for a moment, looking around the office, “You’re pathetic.”

Dib frowned. “Pathetic?” he repeated, looking over the papers, to the rest of the desks. Having a job wasn’t pathetic.

“Pathetic, ” ZIM affirmed in disgust, poking some of the papers as though they were some sort of creepy, slimy thing on the bottom of his shoe.

For some reason, this angered Dib greatly. Well, maybe it wasn’t so mysterious. Being call pathetic after spending years of…of working at a travel agency.

His shoulders fell, and he shook his head. What the hell was he thinking? A travel agency? He should be out hunting Bigfoot or Nessie or-or…fighting stupid green aliens bent on taking over the Earth!

He was the defender of Earth after all.  

Yeah, the defender of Earth who works with an evil genius aiming to take over the world, he thought to himself, before snorting.

“You know,” Dib said, suddenly looking very serious, “Of course I’ll get you a flight.”

At this, ZIM allowed himself a wide zipper smile. Finally, the Dib-human concedes!

“I’m just going to go grab something,” Dib said, heading out into the hallway. Whistling, he made his way over to a large water cooler. Calmly, he grabbed a paper cup, and pressed the little blue lever down. Slowly, water poured into the cup as the tank glubbed.

The water poured until it was almost overflowing. Dib didn’t seem to mind too much, though, as he headed back towards his desk. He smiled pleasantly at ZIM, which caused the little alien to cock a brow. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the sudden splash of water on his face.

Almost instantly, ZIM began to scream and run around in circles, giving off little puffs of steam all the while.

For the first time in quite a while, Dib laughed. Really laughed. “Another victory for Earth!” he declared proudly setting one foot on top of his chair.

Though, as one may expect, ZIM’s hideous screaming didn’t go unnoticed, and it was only a moment before Vicky came bursting into the room. She looked furious. “Wh-what?! YOU!” Rage prevented her from forming a coherent sentence.

“Yep!” Dib said, grabbing a few of his paranormal books, and placing them under his arm. Swiftly, he headed over to his boss, ZIM still screaming in the background.

Vicky stuttered a bit before, “Y-you, what do you think you’re-”

Dib smiled at Vicky again before shrugging, “I quit.”