Chapter 7

Poll Results:

Allow the guy in and pretend to be FEA: 5 votes

Shoot the guy through the door: 5 votes

Escape out the back: 3 votes

--Author's note: Uh-oh! A tie. I'm told this means I have to do both things somehow. Forgive me if it's a bit clumsy. It's my first time.--

BANG!

"What did you do that for?" Zim whispered to Phil, who had removed the blaster from his pocket and shot through the door.

"We have to look around more."

"HAHA missed me!" shouted the voice from the other side of the door. Phil froze. Zim walked to the door and opened it.

"Sorry about that" she grinned "He was... cleaning it." Phil looked at the blaster.

The man entered the room. He was tall, lean, and clean-shaven but his manner of speaking was unsophisticated. He sounded like a native to Q450 and that meant one of two things. Either his parents were complete idiots and left Earth to live there, or he wasn't a human at all.

"I'm Norm." Phil held out his hand.

"Jack." Jack looked around. "What happened here?"

"Well, we were told to get our next assignment here but the place was empty when we arrived so we've been looking around... to see if we could tell what happened."

"Empty?! The place was empty when you got here?" Jack looked panicked.

"Yeah?"

"You idiot. Don't you remember protocol?" Jack pulled a blaster out of his pocket and started looking around.

"I guess it's been a while..." Phil looked at Zim. She shrugged.

Jack walked over to the wall and ripped out the communicator. He messed around for a moment with the wires before replacing it. "It hasn't been bugged." He then began running through the house and banging doors down. Finally, he came to the door to the garage and kicked it in. Phil put his finger on the trigger of his blaster, ready to fight Jack.

"OH SHIT! Norm! Come look at this! They're all dead!"

Phil walked over to where Jack was standing and carefully looked over his shoulder.

"Oh, Jeez, this is bad. This is really bad. We're in trouble." Jack went back to the communicator and dialed a number. After a few beeps, a voice responded on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Hi. This is Jack. I'm at 47."

"Jack at 47. Why are you breaking silence?"

"I'm sorry sir, but I just arrived here and everyone is dead. There's a guy Norm, he says he just got here."

"Norm is there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Jack at 47. Proceed with extreme caution. Norm is the enemy. You must either bring him in or terminate him immediately. Once you have the situation under control, return to rendezvous ASAP."

"Copy."

Jack turned toward Phil and leveled a blaster at his head. Phil squinted. Suddenly, Jack lowered his arm. Phil lunged forward to grab the blaster from him but Jack began to fall. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the ground revealing Zim behind him with her inner wrist exposed.

"YOU CAN'T JUST KILL EVERYONE! If we leave a trail of bodies we're going to have more than the FEA after us in no time!"

"I didn't!" Zim smiled and grabbed Phil's hand, shoving it against Jack's neck. "See? He still has a pulse. He's only shocked."