Chapter Two

Pushing a wheeled dustbin in front of her, Gaz slowly made her way though the service entrance of the Massive. Her lip still curled each time she did this. A long time ago, this was how she used to slip into places ahead of Dib, but the words had long ago lost any thrill. Long ago, as in twenty years long ago.

That was when the raiders had sold as slaves the last remaining humans in the universe, the few who survived that long, nightmarish space voyage. Most aliens in the universe were more civilized than to trade other living creatures as slaves, but this, of course, did not apply to the Irkens. The Irkens were always more than willing to acquire additional bodies to work to death in return for minimal food and shelter.

To thwart her captors Gaz refused to learn any skills or follow any orders. This didn't work for long; the Irkens had truly diabolical ways to break the will of any human. Eventually they forced her into into service as a janitorial drone, which required very few skills, practically no training, and which got her even less respect than most slaves.

Gaz still had enough backbone left to be horrified. When first confronted with what her future was to become she had fought this indignity madly, but Irken discipline soon convinced her that struggling and rebellion were only making an already bad situation much worse. Slowly she began to settle into a routine, gritting her teeth against this mockery of a "job" more suited to a kindergarten dropout or a brain-damaged monkey.

Even on earth Gaz had always looked down to avoid seeing all those stupid grins on all those idiotic faces, but up here she had even more reasons to do this. She had no desire to meet, or even to see, any of these hated beings that considered themselves her "owners." It also meant she wouldn't be punished for not doing her job; she was under strict orders not to miss any empty drink containers, discarded snack bags or fast food wrappers.

She now spotted an empty chip bag and paused long enough to stoop over, pick it up, and drop it into her dustbin. Gaz knew a race as technologically advanced as the Irkens was capable of devising an automatic waste disposal system; she suspected they only wanted to humiliate and degrade the humans as much as possible.

As she approached the Convention Hall and heard the riotous cheering inside, Gaz groaned.

This place got stupider every day.

--

Much as she tried to block it all out, Gaz couldn't help noticing more excitement than usual in the Hall today. She soon realized a third Tallest was being enthroned, or whatever they called it up there.

Yes, Gaz still called Irk "there." She adamantly refused to call it "here," as did the rest of the humans, those shallow, happy-go-lucky idiots who still kept looking for some "bright side." Gaz forced herself to remain as angry as she was on the first day she set foot on Irk; she figured that as long as she did this, she wasn't giving in.

As Tallest Amber stalked out onto the stage, the cheers that greeted him threatened to raise the roof. Gaz shook her head at the stupidity of the Irkens who actually welcomed yet a third useless ruler, one who would gorge himself on snacks, make self-praising speeches, and shoot still more of them out of the

airlock whenever it suited him.

--

Amber was exactly as tall as Red and Purple, but the difference was that Amber was much younger and so had not reached his full adult height. His antennae were unique among Irkens, leaning slightly forward very briefly, then sweeping sharply backwards in a long scythe shape.

Something or other now made Gaz think of Dib. Odd, she hadn't thought about him for 20 years. At least he had died when he did, right before he would have had any success in life. It wasn't as if he would have deserved success... the sheer bullshit he could babble on about for hours, each theory wilder and more idiotic than the last one...

Reincarnation had to be the craziest one of them all. "You keep saying 'Why bother,' to everything, but just listen a minute, Gaz. Many old religions believe that when you die, you come back again in a different body, and you're at the same point you were when you left off. If you work hard all your life for something but die before you can get it, you will still receive it... in your next life! If you never help anybody else, you could be stuck doing something really boring in your next life! Video games are really just toys, you know, and - " Only when Gaz nearly sent him to his next life then and there did he shut up.

Gaz now shook her head to clear it of the irritating memory and walked on.

She couldn't help hearing the older Tallests trying to outdo each other in sucking up to Tallest Amber; they both knew this newest member of the ruling class would some day soon be taller than either of them.

"I have taken the liberty of ordering this for you," Tallest Red fawned, as he offered Tallest Amber a heaping bowl of cheese powdered popcorn. "I know how much you like it!"

"Have a pop mixed with shaved ice!" Tallest Purple broke in, passing Tallest Amber his own drink without tasting it. "They're called 'Icies'!"

"And after that, would you care to sample our newest snack, chocolate covered corn chips?" Red wasn't letting Purple upstage him.

Not to be outdone, Purple added, "Did you hear about this even newer snack, deep fried, er, uh... candy bars! I will command the kitchen drones to prepare a batch especially for YOU!"

"And this evening there will be a LASER show in your honor!"

"Oh but that's just the opening act for the much better SMOKE MACHINE show... "

Tallest Amber burped and reached for more snacks, licking his lips with a long snake-like tongue. Gaz groaned loudly and pushed the wheeled dustbin faster away from that sickeningly obvious display of sucking up. She never liked going anywhere near the Tallests, and this day was the worst yet.

At this point, Tallest Amber finally noticed the garbage drone. Having finished Purple's Icy, he dropped the cup on the floor. He cleared his throat loudly and began counting the seconds until she came back to pick it up.

She was slow to come back, but certainly she wasn't slow about snatching it up. As he watched her hastily walking away, Tallest Amber narrowed his eyes. She wasn't treating him with the respect due him as a Tallest. She would need additional discipline.

He would definitely keep an eye on that one.

The Beginning

(A/N) We haven't had a really big end of the world for a while now, have we?

And to anyone who was disappointed when Dib died painlessly... and I KNOW you're out there... I will NOT. Apologize!

You're listening to radio station K - RMA! Dib vs. Gaz IS! the OTC at THIS radio station, the One True Conflict.

That's "Conflict," NOT "pairing"! "Pairing"? What's a "Pairing"? Is that like in "Thank you ladies and gents; I'm a-pairing every night this week!"?

And the next number after this is a request for something that does NOT involve Gaz; in fact I've got three of them right here now and I'm... juggling... them... whatever one... Uh! I DON'T drop and break... (SMASH!) Oops! will... be the one I... (SHATTER!) Uh oh! will put on NEEEEXT!! (That was close.)

And here is the SURVIVOR! The tribe... has... SPOKEN!

I would have played it quite a while back actually, but a couple of bricks got hurled through the studio window so we had to stop and kinda, you know, sweep up the mess...