My computer got a virus. Good news is I didn't lose anything. Even better news is that it made me get off my arse and post this! Enjoy
Zim lay on the bed in his cell. As far as these things went, it wasn't a bad cell. The door was very strong and the bed was lumpy, but it was brightly lit and large enough. Zim wriggled, trying to get into a more comfortable position as his PAK was starting to dig into his back. Finally getting into a comfortable position Zim stared at the wall. He was so close to the ship he could feel it! He grinned. He would steal the ship and be out of this stupid country, and this stupid time zone. The entire planet was just stupid!
Zim got up and started pacing/ kicking the room. He was so tired of the entire planet, and how he kept getting locked up by primitive humans! They weren't even half as capable as the Dib monster. Zim stopped. There was a name he hadn't thought of in a few years. The Dib creature wouldn't even have been a thought yet. He idly wondered for a few seconds whether or not he should kill the Dib monsters relations when he escaped, but decided he would much rather just go home. It wouldn't be too hard to kill him now Zim knew so much about the humans, having been stuck with them for around 30 years!
He punched the wall, that was 30 years he would never get back! 30 years in which he could have been helping the empire, or enslaving the humans, rather than being stuck on a pathetic lump of rock filled with stupidity and torturers! He screamed and started hitting the wall harder.
Zim collapsed down to the ground, exhausted by his previous outburst. In 30 years he could have taken over the whole stupid planet. He punched the wall one more time then sighed. At least the Dib wouldn't have gotten any stronger during that time, while Zim knew he had. It would now just be a matter of tearing the child's throat out, rather than playing with him as Zim had done previously. Why hadn't he just killed the creature from the start, anyway? Maybe he would even try reformatting GIR again. He smiled, remembering the stupid robots antics, and then the disaster that had been his previous attempt. Maybe not.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by a scraping sound at the door, as a hatch was pulled open and a plate slid through. 'Eh?' he asked, wandering over to it. Just some food. Human food. He recognised a sausage and what could possibly have been either mashed potatoes or solid, white water. There were also some over boiled grey peas. To wash it all down there was even a glass of water provided. Zim shuddered at the sight of the tray and took a few steps away from the poisonous variety. All humans just wanted him to die.
He wandered back over to the bed and lay down on the mattress, staring at the ceiling and thinking of nothing. Two hours later the lights went off.
Zims breath froze in his throat. The lights were off. The lights were off. Why had the lights suddenly gone off? He tried to breathe again, but the liGHTS WERE OFF! Were they going to come for him? WHEN were they going to come for him? He started to breathe again, fast and shallow, panicking at the lack of light and the way the darkness made him think about the other place. He felt a tingling in his regrown antennae, and flattened them against further assault. He rolled off the bed, not expecting the sudden drop to the floor that hadn't come in Germany, and ran over to the door.
At the door came a sudden shock as Zim put his bare foot into the cold watery potatoes and got the sausage burnt onto him. He screamed and fell back, cursing the humans and their food in a mix of French and Irken. When he had finished scraping the food off his foot and onto the concrete, he realised he had snapped out of the panic. He went back and sat on the bed, then started laughing. There was plenty of light in the room, seeping in from under the door. He just hadn't noticed it before.
Still giggling quietly Zim lay back and eventually fell into a light doze.
On the second day, Zim had managed to prepare himself for the shock of the lights going out, and so was able to remain calm in the few seconds it took for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
By the fifth day he wasn't even flinching when the lights went out, though was hoping that the humans would give him something to eat soon that didn't contain meat. Or was watery.
On day six scientists came into the room to "examine" him. He was fine with the measuring tapes, but when they started to bring out needles and scalpels he put up enough of a fight so that two guards were called in to restrain him. Once the scientists were finished, they left the room bruised and worrying about the way he hadn't been eating.
This worry was taken care of on day seven, when some of the humans came in and tried to force Zim to eat the food. He spent the rest of the day either vomiting or curled up in bed. On day eight he managed to get them to listen for long enough to tell them what he could eat.
On day eleven, after breakfast, Zim felt incredibly tired, then woke up in the evening feeling stiff and with a line of stitches running down his torso. For the rest of the days he refused to eat any food they brought for him.
On day sixteen he was taken out of the cell.
Zim trembled slightly as he was led handcuffed down a brightly lit corridor by a soldier. He knew he shouldn't be scared, because what else could the humans do to him? Pah, there was nothing these human could do that he hadn't lived through with the Nazi's. He kept trying to reassure himself, though the shaking kept getting worse and worse.
Eventually the soldier stopped him in the middle of the corridor. He knelt down to look Zim in the eye. Zim recognised him as one of the humans from earlier. 'Are you okay?'
'Yes. Of course Zim is okay. Let's just keep going!' Zim tugged away down the corridor.
The human shrugged and stood up, pulling Zim along after him as he went. 'It's not that far away, anyway.'
Zim tried to not let that sound foreboding.
When they finally stopped outside a closed door, and Zim was pushed inside, he nearly lost his balance at what he saw in there.
It was the ship. Inside the exceptionally large room, was the ship. Zim almost jumped in joy at the sight of it. He had spent the past week planning how to get out of that room so he could try and find the ship, and now the humans had brought him to it! Sure, he was in handcuffs, but those could be broken easily! He would be gone before the day was out!
Zim quickly stifled a giggle, receiving a look from his guard. 'We have brought you here to answer some questions about this spaceship, so don't get any funny ideas about escaping. While we don't want you to die, these men' he indicated the armed soldiers standing around the perimeter of the room, 'have been ordered to shoot to immobilise if you do anything we find suspicious.'
'Yes, yes.' Zim said, ignoring the human's threat and warning. 'When do I get on the ship?'
The human sighed. 'Follow me.' He led Zim to a small room off the side of the main hangar, where several white coated scientists were standing around, examining some of the data pads that had come from within the ship. There were soldiers on guard in the room as well. His guard took Zims handcuffs off. 'You will be staying with these scientists today, answering any questions they have about anything. If you don't co-operate with them, then you'll go back to your room for the next few days. The more you co-operate, the more you'll be allowed out of your room.'
Zim had already gone towards the scientists, after his immediate reaction of shrinking away from the men in the white coats. As soon as he got to them, the scientists started asking him questions, like "what is it used for?", "what material is it made of?", and "how does it turn on?' Zim answered the questions in as vague a way as possible, trying not to let the humans learn too much about the advanced technology. It wouldn't do for him to go back to his own time, only for the humans to have advanced so much that they would be harder to defeat. While he answered questions, he was also wondering how he could use this to his advantage.
The data pads themselves would be quite useless in any attempts he might make to escape his cell, or in his stealing of the ship and get away. He looked around, but decided that it would be impossible to get to the ship from where he was standing. It was too far away, and he would be shot five times before he even made it halfway across the floor. But hadn't the human said something about his co-operation allowing him to be let out of the cell more often? He just needed to co-operate with the humans, and seem friendly until they let their guards down enough for him to escape. He grinned. It was a brilliant plan, and one that could never fail. He turned back to the scientists, and threw himself into working with them, or bossing them around and showing off how much smarter than them he was.
It took two weeks. Two long weeks, where Zim answered questions and helped the scientists. Two weeks where Zim was glad of the patience he had acquired in the past years. Two weeks in which it was only the thought of eventually getting out that stopped him from driving a screwdriver into the smug face of the scientists who called him "little greenie". Two weeks of acting nice and "co-operating" before he was allowed to view one of the escape pods from the inside.
So, so close to victory. He laughed as he clanked the chains around his ankles, there to prevent him from running off, or something. He didn't know how the humans thought they may help, but he would still be able to fly the capsule even if they had him blindfolded and tied to a chair.
'What are you laughing about, little greenie?' The human grinned down at him.
'Nothing, uh, look at that! It's glowing!' He had found these humans to have the attention span of a smeetling. If you pointed out something new to them they would completely forget what they had just been doing.
'I wonder what it does.' Zim grinned at their stupidity. It was just a cup holder.
While the humans were gathered around the cup holder, marvelling at its glow and wondering as to its function, Zim was looking around the pod. It seemed to be a bog-standard escape pod, nothing more than a tin can with engines and a control panel. He wondered if it would even be able to make it to France, or if the rigours of atmosphere travel would be too much for it. He had been caught out that way before, trying to make it to the tallests in an escape pod. He had had a lot of time to think about his (admittedly few) mistakes, and that crash, along with getting too close to the STORD while it was in operation, was one he didn't want to repeat.
Zim looked over at the scientists as they made a louder fuss over something else, then turned back to studying the ship. Before he had time to actually figure out exactly what the small sign on the wall underneath the ventilation shaft meant (stupid translator was starting to break down now, too), his shoulder was grabbed and he was pulled over to the control panel.
'Do you realise what this means?' The hand waved wildly about, nearly hitting another scientist who was happily fiddling with the parking gear. 'We have space travel! Think about everything we can do with this technology! With this machine and you we'll be able to-'
'Hey!' The scientist who had recently avoided a blow to the head shouted over the other one. 'We're not supposed to tell it.'
'Oh yeah.' The scientist let go of Zims shoulder, allowing him to take a closer look at the control panel. Apparently this wasn't just a standard issue escape pod. There were the tell tale signs of improvements made to allow it to fly under the radar and in the atmosphere. He bet that the floors and some of the wall panels were removable. You didn't get much for transporting goods, and smuggling was always a good way to get excess cash.
Zim grinned. At least now he knew he would be able to get to France in the escape pod. All he had to do now was get the humans to leave. Zim searched around for a reason for all the humans to leave the rather cramped ship, rather than just shouting "look out there!" and hoping they left, which he knew they wouldn't fall for again, not after they had ignored him the third time he had used it to try and steal some wires he had thought might be useful.
He started examining the controls. "Start", "Stop", uh, possibly that one was "fried egg lasers." Definitely something with lasers, anyway. Stupid translator, but lasers could definitely be useful. Oooooh, door control! Well, now he could lock them out. But to get them out so he can lock it. Hmmmm. Aaah, "Press for emergency air supply." Could humans breathe ammonia? They were hopelessly limited when it came to air sources so probably not. Of course, Zim couldn't either, but he had a respirator that was (hopefully) still working.
Zim pressed the button. The gas started leaking from the vents in the walls, thick and white and choking. Zim removed the respirator from his PAK and attached it to his face while the humans ran about and panicked, fleeing the suddenly murderous ship. Zim laughed as he watched them run out, then closed the door behind them. He quickly started up the engines, firing lasers randomly about the hangar, watching the humans run and hide from his almighty power! He would probably be able to cause more damage if he shot something that could blow up! Or, uh, he was trying to stop the humans from keeping hold of advanced technology! When he was satisfied with the amount of destruction he had caused, he fired straight at the roof, blasting an escape hole in the ceiling and leaving the hangar. He was about to head straight for the STORD when he paused. Maybe he could have a bit of fun while he was here. Make up for all that the humans had done to him, as well.
Zim grinned and stared at the humans running around frantically, eying them in the laser sights. Thank the Tallest for smugglers.