A/N: This is a long chapter, but there isn't really a good place to split it up. Also, the idea of Gaz watching Zim's early memories is not a new idea to Fanfiction, but has probably not been done in this way.
Thanks to those who are following this story, to Kaylee Or Something and Zerg170 for posting a review. Its very encouraging and is awesome motivation to keep things moving. You guys ROCK!
"Six Tangos coming in bearing zero-six-zero, two-by-two formation. One hundred yards."
Crack crack. "Make that four Tangos in cover, taking suppressive fire."
Thump, thump, thump. "I.F. outbound."
Gaz watched her GameSlave's display as she sat next to Dib and Zim in the cafeteria. Looking through her character's sniper scope she watched as Zim's mortar rounds walked up the enemy infantry formation. Two more went down. "Adjust twenty yards right." She spoke as she moved quickly toward her two o'clock direction.
Thump, thump, thump went Zim's GameSlave, and his APC slowly moved forward along the road. They were practicing a light jungle map where the Assault Walker and most heavy armor could not maneuver freely and was easily brought down with hit-and-run rocket strikes from infantry moving in the heavy tree line. Zim was actually getting better with the Armored Personnel Carrier as long as he moved at a crawl while firing, and a little bit faster if he only focused on the road to get to the next position. His role right now was providing indirect fire with the mortar tubes to knock out Gaz's targets. Her role was to direct Zim's fire into the jungle before those targets could reach the road and get a clear line-of-sight on Zim with their shoulder-fired rockets.
The tactic they were developing for these kinds of terrain was not to destroy the enemy forces in the field, but to get Gaz's sniper closer to their spawn points where ammunition and health resupply posts were located and plant proximity mines. Then she would pull back into cover and wait for targets to make their way toward Zim or secure game objectives while he played distraction further down the line. They were playing to Gaz's strengths right now, being unnoticed and underhanded. Her strikes were constant, invisible and spiked without warning when a mine exploded, like a storm's wind. Zim's "strength" (or weakness depending on the circumstances) was being a very visible and localized point of chaos spewing out overwhelming and often unnecessary force, like a tornado.
The wind and the whirlwind.
In fact that was now their CWZ user names. Naturally Gaz came up with Zim's after the first evening. And just as naturally it took three more days for Zim to figure out one for Gaz. But the time had paid off as it suited her favorite style of play. Moving around unseen while her victims felt her presence as they went down.
It was now Friday and over the week they had improved Zim's handling of the control interface drastically, and were now developing coordinated tactics for various conditions they would have to face in the upcoming competition. The two had stopped playing against solely game controlled units (although those were usually present on any multi-player map to make things more interesting) and were now engaged with players controlled by Zim's base computer.
They paid no attention to Dib, and he was not happy with the situation. He had nothing he could rightly complain about either. Dib knew this because he had watched Zim's house from nearby bushes for the first couple of nights, and it was just Zim and Gaz sitting on the couch jabbing at buttons and occasionally a verbal jab at each other. He had stopped his constant surveillance when he discovered his bush happened to be one that the neighborhood dogs frequently marked. After all, Dib had only so many changes of clothes he could go through in a week.
It was nearing the end of the lunch period and Dib gathered his garbage and leftovers to throw away, sighing as he did so. Gaz's response was to call out a warning about air support and Zim's GameSlave answering with a near beam of tracer fire into the virtual sky from his turreted autocannon's 50 rounds per second. A tiny shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rocket joined the spray before Gaz switched back to her character's sniper rifle.
Dib walked away talking to himself as quietly as he could while he headed to his next class early. He felt torn in two about all this. On the one hand, he was glad his dear sister was interacting with another living being and not so isolated, even spending time outside the house. Unfortunately it was at Zim's which was bad in Dib's book, and the evil alien was not to be trusted. Zim always had some vile scheme or experiment up his sleeve. On the other hand, he was very occupied with Gaz's preparations for the CWZ convention which meant that Zim's plots to conquer Earth seemed to be put on hold, which was good. To top it off Gaz actually sounded, well, like she had a smallest spark of life within her again and wasn't only the embodiment of doom and wrath. Just mostly. Being excited (even if she was pretending otherwise) about this convention seemed good for her. But why did it have to be with Zim?
"Arrrgh!" he muttered to himself as he walked down the hallway. A guy could be driven crazy going around in circles like that. Perhaps Gaz was right and he should take a break from his Zim-mania.
Zim on the other hand thoroughly enjoyed watching Dib's inner conflict out of the corner of his eye during his lunch practices with Gaz. It was definitely worth holding off on the hypno-chicken operation to see the Dib-stink squirm over nothing. Plus he actually liked wrecking pretend havoc with the human girl. She was good, and for the first time in his life Zim was content with the whole teamwork thing. Yes, the alien invader thought to himself, this is definitely a good thing.
Gaz just focused solely on the game. She didn't want to question why Zim was the way he was, or think about how he could be so idiotic and yet have bouts of intelligence. She didn't want to think about that stupid keepsake drawer she stumbled on at Zim's place either. Or that Zim was becoming as good and perhaps eventually even better than her at this game. Or that she didn't mind having a partner and for once the invader made a decent teammate. Or think that the green skinned alien was actually measuring up lately. And she definitely didn't want to think about how much she inwardly denied enjoying playing with Zim along for the ride, antics and all.
So Gaz just focused on her GameSlave and slipped back into the zone before lunch could end. After all, in another week the two of them would be ready to utterly destroy the competition. And that would truly be a blast.
Gaz parked her Jeep in the usual place in front of Zim's house and the two climbed out of the vehicle. As she walked around the front of her Jeep a crash erupted from the front door of the house and Gir rocketed outside.
"GAAAAZYYY!" the dog-disguised robot screeched in sheer joy launching into her on jets of blue flame. "GAAZY's HOME!"
Gir caught Gaz just below the rib cage. She spread her hands out to break her fall, earning her cuts and scrapes on her palms when they landed ten feet away.
"GIR!" Zim yelled. "What have I told you about greeting the Gaz-zilla?" He was now rushing over to help his partner up.
"I don't knowww," came the response while Gir held a death-hug on Gaz as she tried to push him off and get back on her feet with some dignity intact.
"You were told to not do anything that could break Gaz! I told you yesterday, the day before, and this morning too! Why do you have to be so... so... you?" Zim ranted.
Yeah, look who's talking Zim, Gaz thought. Like two demented peas in a pod.
"But I like Gazzy," Gir exclaimed as Zim tugged on his legs.
"That's okay Gir," Gaz grunted between squeezings. "But if you don't let me go, how will you bake me my muffin?"
"MUFFINS!" Gir cried out and blasted back into the house.
Zim grabbed her wrists and helped Gaz back up onto her feet. "Are you broken?"
"Nah," she returned examining her slightly bloody palms. "Just a few scrapes."
"Well, let's hurry up and get you to the medical bay."
"It's nothing, Zim. Really," she said as they entered the house.
Zim opened the drawer and casually tossed her a transponder collar which she just as casually caught in an injured hand. She was just grateful for being distracted by her cuts and Gir's antics. She didn't want to remember what she knew about that drawer. So no one noticed that the gem-like sphere embedded in the collar made contact with her cut palm. It took only the barest trace of blood for the DNA sampler to analyze and no time at all. Neither Zim nor Gaz noticed the small sphere touching Gaz's injury flash from slight green to the deepest of reds as she placed it in her pocket.
Zim quickly led her to the couch and pushed a button causing it to rise in the air and expose the lift platform underneath. "What's the rush? Its just a scrape." Gaz inquired.
Zim just pointed toward the kitchen as they walked onto the platform. Through the doorway Gaz could see Gir shoving a doughy mass shaped like a jackhammer into the kitchen stove. It still had an air hose attached. "Uh, right," was her only reply as they descended into Zim's base.
One entity within the base did notice the change in the collar's transponder signal. Computer did its duty, grumpily updating its recognition and authorization codes and voice print IDs. It had much more important things to do than this. Another celebrity was adopting some young kid from the backwoods in the middle of nowhere. The online tabloids were reporting that this one had been raised by badgers instead of wolves. Now that was worth looking into...
A brief update was posted on the main screen in the computer lab and quickly vanished.
New Base Personnel Registered: Gazlene Membrane
Status: Invader Operations Counterpart... Full Access Granted
Security Clearance Authorized: Imperial Military Grade Three.
It seemed the most appropriate classification to apply to the Membrane girl given that they had been working together for the past week. Nothing in its database really matched exactly. Of course with Zim running things that was perfectly normal. Computer had also figured a grade three clearance to be sufficient for the time being. It wasn't that high anyway, and any partner of Zim's would need to get caught up to speed on at least the basics of various operations, numerous other happenings and material available. So it got a head start on the paperwork and sent it off for processing. It had taken ten seconds to get the forms approved, no problem. Computer was the one after all that had to deal with bureaucracy and supply requisition. It had become fluent in the ways of wheeling and dealing. With Zim for a master, it had to know how to get things done. It could even get through Earth paper-pushing at need. Now that was something to be proud of.
Besides, if something happened to Zim the computer could always bump up Gaz's clearance to just about anything needed for the mission to continue. You just had to send in the right number of forms. After all, its not like organic eyes were part of the bureaucratic process. Far too slow and inefficient. Just computers sending forms to other computers.
Now back to the Badger kids, the computer thought. That's hot news!
Gaz's most minor of injuries was treated quickly while Zim removed his disguise and muttered to himself about Gir's constant recklessness. He was now wanting to run a full scan to check for broken bones and organ damage just to be safe. Gaz of course protested such as idiocy. If she had been that injured she would have either noticed or been unconscious.
Zim countered that she was there, the scanner was also there, and she had been given a hug-of-doom by a crazy and affectionate robot. There was no way her mere human senses could be as definite as his superior Irken medical technology. Gaz told him to stuff it. He told her that the scan had finished while they were arguing. She threw a chair. Zim ran another scan on himself.
After they got that nonsense out of their system, the two walked into the computer lab where Zim had two desktops hooked up back-to-back so they could begin on those versions of CWZ. This was new to Gaz. It was a similar setup to their GS4's with the base computer playing opponent characters. She had to admit that she wasn't as used to the mouse and keyboard controls since she had always been a GameSlave freak. Also new to her were several auxiliary features that would prove useful regarding the mini-map for plotting positions to share with teammates and other command-and-control goodies. Mostly unnecessary in her solo-player point of view, but their opponents would know how to use them so they needed to as well.
The desktops booted up and the Human and Irken began their session. Gaz had to admit that the graphics were much better than the GS3, but her new GS4 was pretty close, but the desktops could still display a far greater field of view. Regardless, with the modifications Zim had made to the GS4 it surpassed most Earth civilian computer models. After all, most didn't have encrypted satellite communications, touch-screen keyboard interface, blah, blah. After all, it was equipped from parts from Zim's remote Pads which were really an extension of the base computer itself. Plus it could play games. After all, you had to have your priorities in order.
After about two hours Gaz was getting the new control hotkeys down. It was a bit simpler than the multi-button commands sometimes needed on the GameSlave, but still needed getting used to. She was playing as her usual sniper riding a Scout GEV and running far ahead of Zim's Walker. He was sitting opposite her and was already in the zone.
Well, Gaz silently pondered, you can't really call what ever that is in-the-zone. It's like whenever Zim gets in any walker a switch flicks on in his head and he's immediately on fire. No, that doesn't do it justice either. Zim absolutely shines. Why can't he do that in anything else? And let's not get started about in real life where he can be such an idiot. And his tactics when I let him off the leash and he really cuts loose is absolutely insane. Everything he does is just so wrong, but he pulls it off brilliantly. No one can predict it, defend against it, or adapt to it, or even emulate it in return. Gaz smiled to herself. She guided her character out of the area.
"I'm clear," Gaz told Zim. She had learned early on to stay clear of Zim when the time came to let him cut loose. Team kills were a hazard and Zim really racked them up along with everything else. "Armor column at you're eleven o'clock, air support flanking at your three, one mile out. Mechanized infantry support dug in due north. Have fun."
Zim red eyes brightened and grinned from "ear-to-ear" (since Irkens didn't have ears) and even his antenna looked perky as he went into full destructo mode and charged in like a rampaging bull laughing like the maniac he was. He didn't care at these moments about mission objectives, team goals, or much of anything past the category of 'does it move?' and 'can it go boom?' That was Gaz's job, and that was where she shined.
Before she would start skirting around the disaster zone that was Zim, she took a minute. Sometimes its just nice to sit back and watch chaos reign supreme, she thought to herself. Whirlwind, our competition isn't going to know what hit them.
After a few minutes a loud boom echoed through the underground base and Gaz looked at Zim. Although she had been down here on several occasions over the years, she wasn't at all familiar with it. This was Zim's domain. But even to her this didn't feel like one of Gir's kitchen explosions. Red alarm lights began flashing and caught Zim's attention.
"Computer! What is happening?" he demanded.
"Master. Another containment breach in pod seven beta," the computer droned, sounding bored.
Zim got up. "Gir!" he howled, "how many times have I told you to leave the napalm squirrels alone!?"
"Napalm squirrels?" his partner asked.
"Yeah, spits fire. Didn't turn out like I planned," Zim shrugged the question off. "You should stay here while Gir and I deal with this." He ran off muttering. "Those things get everywhere. Such a pain to clean up. Gir! Prepare the neurotoxin spray! Computer, quarantine the lab!"
"Yes, Master," came the reply. With that the doors to the room slammed shut behind Zim, leaving Gaz alone in the sealed computer lab. "Um, computer? Will this take long?"
"Mostly likely not, unless they get in the ventilation system again. Then it can take hours."
"Hours!?" Gaz protested. "If they can get in there, what if they get outside?"
"Then it could take days."
"Okay, computer that ain't happening. Has Zim sealed off the perimeter yet?"
"Of course not. He's Zim." No further explanation was necessary.
Gaz shook her head. There was no way she was going to spend the whole weekend locked in this room. But she couldn't exactly give the computer orders. She was just a guest on Zim's base. But maybe she could make a suggestion. "Computer, perhaps you should go ahead and lock up the base since Zim forgot to mention it."
"Yes, Mistress. Base lockdown initiated." Faint groans, clicks, and slams were heard far off around the base.
Mistress? What's that all about? Zim must of gone overboard with the guest side of that IFF transponder as well as the intruder side. That actually makes sense knowing Zim. I could so just see him doing that on accident too.
Gaz figured she ought to call her worrisome brother and let him know she might be late getting home tonight. She pressed a small button on her wristwatch. Dib's face appeared a moment later.
"Gaz! Are you okay? Did Zim plant nanobots in your brain? I can-"
"Shut up, Dib!" Gaz scowled extra heavy. What is it with Dib always assuming Zim's trying to put stuff in my brain? "I'm fine but I may be getting back a bit late. Some of Zim's squirrels got loose and he has to deal with it. Seems he's doing something with neurotoxins, so I'm sealed here with Computer under quarantine until it clears and I've put the rest of the base on lockdown. Nothing gets in or out. That means you, Dib."
She paused long enough for that to sink in and continued before he could utter something stupid. "I'm just letting you know I'm okay. Now relax and go do whatever else you do, but if you even think about coming here or say anything other than 'good night, Gaz' I'll save one of those napalm squirrels, drop it down your shorts then give you an atomic wedgie every day for the next year."
"Uh. Okay. Good night, Gaz." came the cowed reply. Dib reluctantly signed off.
Gaz sat down in a chair in front of Computer and closed her eyes for several minutes grasping the bridge of her nose. She took in a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "Computer, you've worked with Zim this whole time. Why is he so…so…"
"Defective?"
"Well, I would have said idiot, but yeah."
"Mistress, Zim is not technically an idiot. He is a defective. PAK serial number 1242-G43-JK217 is malfunctioning."
This was news to Gaz in ways she couldn't even ponder right now. "And a PAK is important because?"
"A PAK is a standard utility device grafted to every Irken upon hatching and activation. It serves as a secondary electronic brain and regulates several bio functions. Included are his identity and personality as well as storage for most immediately essential tools and equipment," the computer recited. "Zim's PAK however was also supposed to be an advanced experimental prototype. It did not meet expectations and proved to be defective."
Gaz was stunned at learning this. And that the computer was so being to free to share. "So Zim is, well, the way he is because some regulatory glitches in his personality? Can't he fix it or get a new one?"
"No, defectives are deactivated. Yet somehow fortune always seems to favor Zim so no attempt to do so has ever succeeded. However, repairs to the personality matrix would be very destructive, possibly causing total erasure. He would not survive any attempt. Even if a replacement could be done, the person known as Zim would be destroyed."
There were too many questions forming in her head at the moment, so she asked the one that was poking around for the past week. "Then why is it when he gets in the walker in our game he does so well? He's unbelievable!"
"Yes, Mistress. It is an anomaly due to the experimental nature of the PAK. It seems that piloting walker class assault vehicles is the only time his PAK begins to function anywhere close to it's design parameters. The personality regulation still is barely functional, but the rest of the processing and analytical functions approach their actual potential. It is tragic in a way, as it is the only time he can taste the greatness he could have been if he had not been a defective. And the only time he can operate at his truest potential. It is also the reason he was reprogrammed after the Irk disaster and banished to Foodcourtia."
Gaz was having trouble keeping up. She knew about Zim's performance on Irk, but not what happened afterward. "What do you mean reprogrammed and banished? He's an Invader on a mission to conquer this planet. He's been trying for years."
"Zim's PAK was reprogrammed for the fast food industry and banished from Irken military service. He quit his exile when he learned about Operation Impending Doom II. Zim was then given his assignment when he wouldn't take no for an answer."
Gaz inwardly face palmed. Oh God, Zim would so do just that too. "So why did they send him to Earth if it was on their target list? That makes no sense." Gaz was starting to get a real bad feeling about now.
"They didn't know about Earth. I've got his orders here. They literally sent Zim off the edge of the map and told him to conquer a planet that wasn't supposed to exist. Here are the original records."
Zim. Gaz's mind was spinning now, fitting the few puzzle pieces she had together and her eyes were starting to open. You poor fool, Zim. She could start to feel a crack open in her steel heart.
Oh God, this mission is everything to him. It's all he has. It's all he is. And he's not even registered as an invader. His PAK is still programmed to be a dang food service drone! Its like asking a pizza delivery guy to go conquer a whole planet single handedly with minimal support. And yet he's nearly succeeded time after time. If another Invader had been sent here on a real conquest mission and backed up like an invader is supposed to be we never would have stood a chance.
If he ever finds out… it would destroy him. Perhaps that's why he doesn't know. I mean a blind person could see it if they checked up on it, it's right there in his service record and original orders! No planet listed. Just an empty sector of space. Perhaps it's not that he's an idiot to not see, but that somehow he knows on some instinctive level that finding out would kill him. Anyone can refuse to know something that they really don't want to know, can't they?
Why didn't they just deactivate him? Why did they toy with him all these years? How could they do that to my friend?
Oh CRAP! How the hell did THAT happen? How did he sneak in there?
Gaz did not make friends. She kept people out. But the flawed alien had somehow accidentally forged something with her. Perhaps the elements had been there all these years waiting for the right combination. Their partnership wasn't exactly a friendship at all, more of an alliance, but Zim was the best friend she had. Gaz just hadn't realized it until now. And now there was no going back.
That was the real reason Gaz kept people out. Once some one got in she could never leave, only become left behind which would wound her heart. That was why she had such heavy armor surrounding her and kept everyone at a distance. But she couldn't go back now, especially not after this terrible knowledge. She couldn't abandon Zim after everyone else in the universe had tried to cast him off or get rid of him. Unfortunately she didn't know how to go forward either, and Zim wasn't the make-me-a-friend type. He was supposed to be an invader after all. Friends wasn't in the job description.
"Computer? Can you show me Zim? From the beginning?"
"Yes, Mistress. His PAK records his memories and are downloaded each time he sleeps for maintenance."
Gaz watched as the highlights of Zim's life passed before her sight on the large monitor before her. She saw everything with opened eyes. As she watched the Planet Jackers steal Earth to throw into their sun, a tear crawled down her face as she watched Zim deliberately take a savage beating as a distraction while Earth was freed from its fiery fate. Gaz realized she was watching a hero sacrifice himself for the good of the mission. A delinquent, stuck-up, pig headed, egomaniac of a hero saving Earth for all the wrong reasons. Namely so HE could destroy it later, but one none-the-less.
And Gaz realized something else at that point. If it wasn't for Zim, she would have died long ago had the Earth been burned up along with everyone else. The only reason she wasn't dead was because of Zim, and she was the only human who had a clue. This alien who repeatedly failed in his mission to enslave or destroy Earth had successfully saved it, on more than one occasion too. If he had been smart he would have let it happen and then claimed the credit for himself.
Gazlene Membrane was alive because her alien friend was a relentless, uncompromising, proud, fearless, dedicated and wonderful idiot.
It was hours later and Zim had finally finished cleaning up after the squirrel escape and decontamination. He canceled the base lockdown and walked into the computer lab and WHAT WAS THIS!? HOW DARE SHE! Zim was enraged seeing Gaz at his place before his computer core accessing who knows what.
"What are you doing?" he cried in his shrillest voice, pointing a finger at her. "Did you think you could snoop through ZIM's files just because you were invited into my lair? Are you in league with the Dib-stink!? GET OUT! Get out of my base and don't come back!"
Gaz had jumped at his voice. She knew she was busted and Zim could be almost as paranoid as Dib.
As she drew near he noticed something he had never witnessed before. Tears on Gaz's face. Whatever she was looking at caused her to cry. Her, the Gaz-zilla! As she passed, Gaz stopped next to Zim.
"Just so you know," she told him in a quiet voice without a hint of threat, "I didn't go digging for anything behind your back. Your computer decided to show me some things so I could understand you better. But you are right, and I wouldn't like anyone poking their nose in my memories either. I am sorry, Zim. I promise I will made this right somehow."
With that Gaz Membrane, probably the most talented and intimidating agent of doom Zim had ever known leaned in and planted a soft tender kiss on his cheek. Zim shrank back expecting the traces of watery stuff from her lips to burn his skin. Instead his cheek tingled like a sensation of dancing.
"What was that for?" the alien nearly shouted, confused and in way over his head at the moment.
Gaz looked at the floor. "Long time ago you saved my life, Zim." she carefully spoke. "I never knew until now. I guess it's sort of a tradition thing." Then she slugged his arm. "And that is for all the times you tried to blow up my planet with me on it!"
And with that Gaz ran out of the room and out of the base, just like Zim had demanded of her. Within a few hours of realizing she had something that could be sort of categorized as a friendship, she had been rejected. Even if it was just an overreaction on Zim's part.
Zim was irritable, feeling territorial, and was just plain confused. He had had a long day, and sadly it didn't seem like it was over yet. He was definitely going to have a very long conversation with that blasted computer. Then perhaps tonight a small test release of the hypno-chicken operation would help him blow off some steam.