Nice long chapter for you to make up for the previous short ones :) Also, explanation. Sorry if it's a little unclear. Enjoy!

Also, to clarify, this is one explanation. "Dib is insane" is still perfectly valid too :P And I intend to keep it that way. Feel free to pick whichever you prefer, you can't get it wrong.

CHAPTER TEN
Time Limit

The next time the black faded away again, Dib stubbornly kept his eyes closed. The pain was still there, a dull throb that made him wish he could have unconciousness back. It was joined now, however, by a sharper stabbing pain at the back of his skull, which felt extremely tender where it was resting against... a pillow?

Dib could also feel the sharp, tingling pain of scrapes and a couple more tender spots indicating bruises all up and down his body, too. A body which, at least, didn't seem to be in a straight-jacket or any other kind of binding anymore. Small blessings, I guess.

"Are you going to sleep forever, human?" Dib sighed internally as he recognised Tak's harsh tone; she was pissed and impatient and, despite the very different accent, sounded weirdly like Zim when she was. Probably because pissed and impatient were only beaten out by arrogant whenever Zim talked.

At least Tak was probably still better than a mental institution. Assuming I'm not still there or something.

"No, Tak, I'm not going to sleep forever, but it'd be nice if you give me time for my head to stop hurting first."

He didn't even have to open his eyes to see the scowl that met that; he could see it quite clearly in his head. "I doubt that will happen any time soon. You hit your stupid, fragile little skull on the pavement when you decided that the middle of the day was a nice time for a nap."

Dib finally cracked his eyelids open, peering out... and seeing basically nothing. "Glasses please?"

Tak handed them over without a word, though Dib imagined she probably rolled her eyes. As he moved his arms to take them from her and slip them on, he catalogued another pain to add to the list. A localied, radiating ache near the crook of his elbow, not big... either Tak had injected something, or drawn some blood.

"Should I be worried about you poking me with needles?" Dib asked, slipping his glasses on and sitting up cautiously, wincing as his head objected to the movement anyway. He blinked blearily a couple times and then, looking around, saw they were in his room.

"I had to make sure you weren't carrying any filthy diseases that you might pass on to me, after that little scene back there."

"So?"

"So what, dirt-boy?"

"Did you?"

When his question was met only with silence, he turned to stare at Tak, startled. When he saw her looking away uncomfortably, shifting slightly from foot to foot, startled turned into suspucious.

"Did you?"

"Not... a disease. You're surprisingly healthy for being from such a fragile and useless race."

It was clear Tak had tried to put the usual scorn into the statement, but it felt flat and weak. She was evading the question.

"What did you find, Tak?

She scowled. "Nothing important to you, human. Even if I told you, soon you won't know or care anyway. It just means I won't find anything else regarding Zim here."

That caught Dib's attention. "You found out why nobody else remembers Zim? But... wait, what? Why would you find that y looking at my blood?"

"Because, stupid dirt-child, you're going to forget him too."

Dib thought back over his recent bouts of dizziness and wished it were harder to believe, but even before he'd passed out they'd been getting more frequent. It sounded far too plausible that they would end up running together until there weren't any moments left where he'd remember Zim.

"Okay, so... what did you find in my blood that's causing it, then? And why isn't it affecting me the same as everyone else?"

"Didn't you hear me, idiot child? You're going to forget everything anyway. Trying to explain it would be a waste of our time."

Dib's eyes narrowed. "It's my mind, Tak, and my blood, and I deserve to know what's going on. Failing that, I would take this opportunity to remind you that I have very, very easy access to water. It certainly wouldn't be wasting your time any more than you already are, which, by the way, if you're so keen to get out of here now, why are you still here?"

"... because GIR won't listen to me."

The statement was barely audible, but Tak immediatelylooked liked she regrette saying it anyway. Dib just stared at her, stunned.

"You're still here because the insane robot who doesn't listen to anyone won't listen to you? Why do you even CARE?"

"Because, insolent fool, I need to get a copy of his memory disk if at all possible. I can't get anything coherent out of him, but I know he saw something, and I need that information. He won't let me anywhere near him, though, since my first attempt to get it out. He says that only you and Zim get to tell him what to do."

Dib snorted. "As if we ever got to tell him what to do." Tak glared.

"Nevertheless, I need to try. For that, I needed to wait for you to wake up. Filthy fragile humans, wasting my time..." The last was a mutter, and Dib wasn't sure he was meant to hear it, so he chose to pretend he hadn't.

"Oh yeah? Well I'm not going to tell GIR to do anything until you tell me what you found."

That made her hiss and narrow her eyes, hands clenching into fists by her sides, but she gave. "Fine, dirt-boy," she snarled. "I'll tell you what I found. I found nanobots, specifically, very finely-tuned memory removal bots. They're programmed to high activity shortly after release and then only maintenence-level activity thereafter, for the most part."

They're designed to be used on sleeping beings who aren't actively using the memories stored, so if you were awake when they were released, it would probably have the effects you've noticed. The initial period failed, and they've been trying to catch up ever since. For everyone else, they went in, removed all memories specifically of Zim and Irkens, and let the brains themselves fill in the gaps."

"If they're not very active now, though, how'd they make me pass out?"

This seemed to make Tak look a little edgy, almost... guilty, and she looked away. "I think my presence made it worse. They're also designed to stop outside stimulus from causing the memories to resurface, and no doubt I remind you of Zim, being Irken as well."

"How long until I forget him entirely."

"I don't know." It seemed to pain her some to admit it. "You should have already done so. I can't predict how much longer it will take. Maybe a week, maybe two. Maybe two days. And before you ask, dirt-child, it's too late to get them out of your system. They should run out of power in a month or two, though."

Dib was silent for a moment, considering that. If he could find Zim before he forgot, he should be able to hold on to enough until the nanobots died. If he couldn't... he tried not to think about that.

"Alright, I'll help you get a hold of GIR, then. But only on one more condition..."