***

". . . . Hey she's coming around!"

"Can you hear me?"

"She blinked!"

"Think that's good enough?"

"Yeah, probably."

"I don't know. Let me try this . . ."

"Get that damn light out of my eyes!"

"Yep, I'm convinced. Okay, people, on three!"

The ambulance doors slammed and the siren's wail echoed through the night.

***

Later. . . . .

***

"OW!"

"Sorry, miss."

Gaz jerked away from the attentions of the ever-too-concerned nurse. Sorry my ass! "It hurts!"

The nurse, whose nametag simply stated TESS, held her hands away defensively. "Of course it hurts. You have a severely fractured collarbone. But regardless of how much it hurts, it needs to be bandaged!"

Gaz still shook her head distrustfully. Already in the hospital only forty five minutes at most and rather than waiting in the emergency room in agony, they immediately rushed her in for treatment. The rush-about hadn't given her time to prepare her head for the annoying ministrations of nurses who made a lot of wholly embarrassing demands. As far as Gaz was concerned, hospitals were nothing more than sick freak shows. Take off your shirt, take off your pants, don't move during the CAT scan, oh darn you moved we have to do it again, sit still while we ram this needle into your hip. No, no, of course it won't hurt. Drink this water, turn your head, stick out your tongue and cough for me. And when you had to perform even the simplest natural function, all of those white clad women with napkin shaped hats came running and waving their arms in panic. Don't go in there! Go in this thing! Oh you'll ruin everything! Gaz knew the whole nauseating experience from top to bottom. This wasn't the first time she'd been to a hospital and it wouldn't be the last.

"Leave it alone! It hurts too much to touch."

The Tess creature got a bitchy attitude for that retort. "Excuse me, miss, but you refused the morphine. You refused all painkillers offered to you."

True. Unhappy with the irrefutable argument, Gaz shut up. God, she wished there was something more interesting to look at. These blah white shades of her hospital room weren't doing a thing for her. If only she'd be conscious while they were bringing her in here she could have asked to be taken to the children's ward. At least the walls had colorful pictures on them even though they were of cartoon characters.

"Go away."

"Miss. . . ."

All right, enough with this respectable address system. "Gaz. My name is Gaz."

"Gaz," Tess attempted once more at the gentle persuasion she'd started out using. "Please. It'll be all over in a little while and I'll go away."

If it'll get rid of her. Reluctantly, she put her good arm down. The nurse began working on her. Clucking her tongue, the nurse kept shaking her head. "You certainly are a difficult child."

She returned the favor. "You certainly are a difficult nurse."

Finishing with the gauze, the woman made a screwy face at her. "The doctor will be with you in a minute." She stood and started to leave the room.

"Hey wait!" Gaz called after her. "Why do I have to stay? Can't I go?"

"Sorry." Tess smiled tightly, trying to force as much motherliness into it as humanly possible. "The nature of your injury and circumstances in which you received it prevent us from releasing you. If you need anything, press the nurse's button." Opening the door, the nurse left, grinning to herself. Walking down the wing, the smile fell from her face and she muttered, "Brat."

Back in her room, Gaz relaxed against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "What the hell is she talking about? Doesn't anyone speak English around here?" Everything had happened so fast. All she could think about was the excruciating pain radiating from her neck to her chest and shoulders. She found herself wondering about her father. Where was he in all this madness? Would he come? Did he know she was in the hospital? Worry churned in her head. I should call him, yes, hit the nurse button and tell them to call my dad.

There was a knock on the door.

Must be the quack. Resisting a moan of despair, Gaz painfully turned her neck toward it. "Come in."

The door opened a crack and a young woman poked her head in. Gaz performed a double take. Not just any young woman, it was THAT young woman. "Hello?"

Gaz wiggled her fingers on her limp arm in the best gesture of greeting she could muster.

The woman smiled tentatively and closed the door behind her, unconsciously looking around the place before settling her eyes back on the pale girl in the hospital bed. She extended her hand. "I'm Bella." She looked Spanish although it looked like there was probably some Asian in there too. She was incredibly attractive. Like a model almost.

"Gaz." She didn't returned the offered handshake, only gave a nod. Struggling to sit up, she added, "Are you okay?"

Bella rushed over. "Hey, hey, don't move. I got it." She elevated the bed for the young girl and then pulled up a nearby chair. "I'm fine . . . thanks to you."

Thrown offguard by the woman's unusual kindness, Gaz deliberately let all expression go from her face. "Yeah. Some dumb luck that was."

Bella's smile fell, giving into the gravity of the situation. "Do you remember anything?"

Gaz thought. "A little."

"Good because you'll have to tell the police what happened. I already gave 'em a statement," Bella explained. "So all they need is yours."

Oh excellent. Cops. Gaz hated the cops. One too many times she'd been escorted home in a squad car for breaking curfew. Probably knew her on a first name basis down at the station. If things didn't go from bad to worse in another second . . . Gaz closed her eyes.

Bella mistook it as a sign of exhaustion, although it was half the truth. "But I told them to leave you alone . . . you know, till you're up to it."

Thank God for that at least. Gaz opened them again. "Those guys. What happened to them?" Simply mentioning them brought a new twinge of pain coursing through her. She winced.

Bella noticed and felt sorry for the girl. "They're here too though they've got cops guarding their butts. We hurt 'em too bad, hon. That guy you clocked is going to need physical therapy before he walks a straight line again. Same with the one I did in."

"Why were those creeps chasing you?"

Bella shrugged, getting angry with the simple motion of her hands. "Who the heck knows? I was just walking home from the ATM when they started chasing me. I thought by taking a short cut around the lake would ward 'em off. Unfortunately it didn't work."

Gaz eyed her. "You don't seem too upset by it."

"It's happened to me before." Bella settled back comfortably in the chair. "One of the downsides to living in a bad neighborhood is you get used to this kind of shit - pardon my language."

Gaz shook her head.

"Anyway," Bella continued. "I'm sorry that bastard hurt you. I tried to stop him."

The young girl smiled weakly. "We can't all be Wonder Woman." Pause. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Bella shrugged. "Me too. Kinda wish I'dve gotten hurt too. That way I don't have to feel bad sitting here in one piece while you're a little broken doll in a hospital bed."

Broken doll? Indifferent to the comment, Gaz shrugged with her good shoulder. "I've been in the hospital before." God, I want to get out of here, she added mentally. This plastic smell is driving me crazy.

The young woman continued. "Well, I just came to make sure you're all right, well, you know what I mean. And to thank you again. Not for getting hurt but . . . oh, I am so bad with words." She smiled apologetically.

"Nobody's perfect." Gaz dismissed all of it. "It's nothing."

Bella stood and her smile became warmer. "You're such a modest kid." Unexpectedly, she leaned over and gave Gaz a kiss on the cheek. "I'll check on you later." Winking, she breezed out of the room.

Finally.

Gaz lowered the bed and met eye to eye with the ceiling again. That was a nice lady, she thought. She didn't even get nosy and ask me what I was doing out there in the middle of the night. Fighting back a moan of pain (it was starting to get pretty bad) Gaz shut her eyes and concentrated on anything else BUT the intense throbbing. Rare these days to find someone who was truly grateful for the things you did in this world. Still even as grateful as she was Bella was all right, Gaz couldn't help wondering about her actions. Good Samaritan and Gaz Membrane weren't two choice phrases that went synonymously with one another.

I must be insane, she reasoned. Those guys were huge and I'm barely bigger than a fourth grader. What was I thinking? I must have been out of my mind . . . Simply put it was the human thing to do. But why did it have to hurt? Why did all the good things a person did in this world have to hurt so much? Even poor Ghandi got kicked around for all his troubles.

Excellent, she thought derisively. I'm comparing myself to a historical figure who did a hell of a lot more than whack a punk in the back with a lead pipe . . . and he wouldn't even have done that anyway. Ugh. It's like doing nothing good hurts less than doing something good. I think I liked it when I didn't care so much.

Damn it, she thought as she felt herself drifting off. I hope when I wake up my spleen isn't missing . . .

***

"Gaz, c'mon!" Dib shouted up the stairs. "We're going to be late!"

Gaz came down the stairs, her small hand sliding along the banister. Her usually narrow eyes opened up a little more when she saw the angry impatience in which her brother regarded her with. "Why do you have to have a mouth?" she asked peevishly, moving around him and heading out the door.

Dib caught the door as she tried to slam it closed. He followed her. "Look, sis, nothing personal or anything but if you've had as many detentions as I've had you'd understand." Pause. "No, wait, you do."

Okay, that was going too far even for him. Gaz whipped round and locked fierce snake eyes on him. Dib shrank back. Her message gotten across, she continued on her way with her older brother tagging along. God, she wished he'd go away . . . or make some friends at least so he wouldn't have to walk with her to skool everyday.

Meanwhile he kept chattering the whole way to the intersection. ". . . and then there's that picture of Nessie. I mean, it's a fake right? Compare it to all those other pictures, and you'd think . . . Wait up, Gaz. I have to tie my shoe." Dib stopped and dropped to one knee. Completely oblivious, Gaz kept going.

"Gaz! Stop!" Dib called after her sternly. "You can't cross the street by yourself!"

Gaz stuck out her tongue. She was feeling impetuous and she was still really mad at him for making her rush. "I can do whatever I want." To illustrate her point, she stepped off the curb.

"Gaz Membrane!" Dib yelled at the top of his voice. Several people in the area stopped what they were doing to stare. Even Zim, who was on the other side of the street heading toward skool, halted and stared at him. "Get back here!"

Ignoring him, Gaz started to cross. Eager at the prospect of doing it alone and not having to rely on anyone made her bold. She paused, figuring since there weren't any cars coming at the moment she could afford to do so. She smirked at her fuming brother who'd run to the curb and was glaring at her. She waved. See? the wave meant. I can do it. I don't need your help. I can do it all by myself.

Suddenly his expression went from one of annoyance to panic. "Gaz get out of the street! GET OUT OF THE STREET!"

"Why?" The inquiry stuck in her throat. Suddenly things started to change. The world lost its color and sound. There was a red sports car coming her way only in this colorless world it was dark gray. She could see the driver's eyes from where she stood frozen. They were wide and blue - the only hue that managed to emerge from the ashen world. Mutely, she was aware of a loud blaring noise accompanied by a high-pitched, insane shriek. Something hit her from behind, knocking her over. The smell of petrol and hot asphalt filled her nostrils as she rolled over its rough, almost sandpapery surface. Her whole vision filled with charcoal darkness. For a horrible second, she'd feared she'd gone blind.

Slowly she rolled over from her side to her back. Painfully she heaved herself up, propping her upper body with her arms. Groggily, she called, "Dib?" Her head was pounding and when she looked at one of her hands, it was bloody. So were her legs. One of them was stiff and a stabbing pain shot up to her hip when she tried to move. Blinking hard and shaking her head, Gaz looked around. "Dib! Where are you?"

The sports car had swerved off the road and crashed into a telephone pole. Glass was everywhere and steam was shooting up from the hood. The driver pushed out the door and fell out onto the pavement on his hands and knees. Someone rushed to his side. Gaz looked around again and then she saw her brother. He was lying several feet away, sprawled out in the middle of the road. His face was turned toward her despite the frighteningly large pool of blood forming beneath his head. He moved his hand, trying to touch her. "Gaz . . ." it came not as a sound but as a movement of his lips.

Understanding, Gaz forced her battered body to crawl toward him. She was barely aware of the crowd that was forming around them. The ambulance and the police cars arriving went unnoticed. All she had eyes for was her brother. "Dib!" she cried when someone knelt beside her and restrained her. "Dib! DIB! Let me go! DIB!!"

She cried his name until they loaded her on a stretcher. Refusing admonishments to lay down, she instead focused on the one taking her brother away. Unable to see him anymore, because of all the paramedics surrounding him, Gaz tried to jump off the stretcher despite her bad leg. A lady medic simply put her in restraints. Searching wildly through the chaos, she spotted Zim standing by the open ambulance doors to the vehicle they were taking her brother away in. For a moment their gazes met. His eyes were blank and emotionless. Hers were desperate and full of tears. Softly she mouthed, "Please."

Almost as if he understood, Zim climbed into the ambulance containing her brother. Paralyzed by her own immobility, she could only watch as the siren wailed and pulled away.

"Where is he?" Gaz demanded. "I want to see him!" She struggled to get out of her father's arms but he refused to put her down.

"Yes," her father agreed. "We've been waiting long enough dealing with your incompetent hospital staff! I want to see my son!"

The poor lady at the desk regarded the man and his hurt little girl with a degree of sympathy. She looked like she wished could tell them. Gaz didn't care about any of that. She wanted to see her brother and she wanted to see him NOW. Nothing else mattered.

"Professor Membrane?" A doctor approached them. "Are you the father of Dib Membrane?"

"Yes. Where is my son?"

The doctor gave a long-suffering sigh. "This is never easy. Professor, I'm afraid I have bad news." The man paused to take his horn-rimmed eyeglasses off. "Your son. . ."

Just then the double doors to the emergency room opened. Two harried looking hospital staff members were hauling a small green skinned person through the lobby. All that kept him from destroying everything with his bare claws were the humans hanging on to his arms. Gaz gave a start. It was Zim. He was yelling. "NO! YOU LIE! YOU LIIIIIIIIEEEE! LET ME GO, PITIFUL HUMANS! HE'S FAKING IT! HE'S GOT TO BE FAKING IT! YOU'LL SEE! YOU'LL SEE!!!!!!"

They let him go. Zim fell to his hands and knees right there on the emergency room floor. From the loft of her father's arms, Gaz stared in numbed shock. It took a long time for the image her eyes were seeing to reach her brain.

The alien was crying.

And then suddenly, she knew now. Knew the truth the nurse and the doctor had been trying to make them see without using the agonizing words to do it with.

Her brother was dead.

***

The Next Day in the Middle of the Afternoon . . . . . .

Zim exited the comic book store and then rolled his eyes, holding the door open as he did. "Gir, I said it's time TO GO!"

"Aw, but master!" the robot whined, his squeaky voice muffled by the head of his green doggie suit. He held up a plastic wrapped graphic novel. "I want this one!"

Zim snatched it up and squinted at the cover. "I don't think so Gir. It looks too violent."

"Violent is good!" Gir protested. "It's got lots of destruction and a really pretty girl in it!"

"A pretty girl?" Zim repeated, staring at his servant in complete bewilderment. He carefully undid the scotch tape enclosing it and slipped it out. Pretending complete disinterest, he flipped through it. His eyes bugged out at the carnage spreading out across the pages. "Gir, this is horrid! This character has no moral value whatsoever! Look," Zim showed Gir a picture. "See? Now can you tell me what this person is doing? Does that look heroic to you?"

Gir looked, shrieked and covered his eyes with his paws.

Satisfied, Zim flipped it shut. "Now put it back. I saw no pretty girl in there."

Gir opened it again when he had handed it back. "No pretty girl? Aww. No fair." He slipped it back in the plastic. "The hero must have killed her."

"Gir, what did I tell you . . ." Zim sighed and used his index finger to rub between his eyes to ward off a headache. "Heroes aren't supposed to kill the pretty girl." Sighing, he just waved Gir away. "Just put it back, okay?"

"Kay!" Gir skipped back into the comic book store. Faintly, Zim could hear Gir tell the comic book guy what he'd said. After a minute, Gir came back out. "That guy says you're weird."

"So is he, selling crap like that." Zim reattached the leash and tugged Gir along. "C'mon, we have to go."

"Why?" Gir whined. "You said we could have fun today! And the day before that and the day before that . . . "

"I get the picture, Gir."

"So why do we hafta go? I wanna have fun right nooooooow!" Gir woke up cranky this morning. He usually got like this after consuming large quantities of pizza the night before.

"We have to go," Zim said very patiently. "Because remember that little device I stuck outside of town? Remember that pretty little thingy I stuck on that tree? I have to go check on it to make sure it's still working." He was talking about the monitor he'd invented to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. With enough data on how much air pollution was affecting the plant life on earth, he could work out a way to possibly reverse that. Now that he'd personally adopted earth as home, Zim felt an obligation to try to save it. If an Invader could conquer a world, couldn't he use the same amount of might to save it?

Oh the irony. I used to scream, "This place is just begging to be destroyed!" when I really should have been screaming, "This place is just begging to be saved!"

Better late then never. I guess. Maybe. Zim paused to untangle the leash from around his ankles.

"Master?"

"Hunh." The entanglement wouldn't cooperate. "Gir go around me again . . . No, the other way."

"Kay." The robot did. "Master?"

"What?" There. Got it.

Gir wiggled his little tail. "Why did you cry?"

"Huh?" Zim glanced at him.

"Last night." Gir scurried to keep up with the Irken march. "You were crying."

His pace didn't falter. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied stiffly. Zim preoccupied himself with reading street signs.

Gir frowned, put off by the denial. If master said he didn't do something when it was perfectly clear it went opposite to the robot's knowledge of what he knew to be true, he became very much confused. So he persisted. "But you did! You cried! I saw you! I diiiiiid!"

Abruptly, Zim pulled the leash hand over hand until he and the little bot in a dog suit were face to face. "Drop it, Gir."

Gir shrank back. "But you . . ."

"Drop it."

Recovering, Gir smiled like an idiot. "Kay! Can I have a cupcake?"

Relieved in so many ways, Zim managed a weak grin. "Yes."

"Yay!" Happy again, Gir clapped his paws together and settled into a cheerful, skippy gait. Visions of his favorite food item danced through his head and he forgot all about his master's odd behavior. Over the years the droid had faintly noticed Zim had grown less and less amused by his antics. He was more prone to sulking than screaming, spent hours reading thick fat books instead of hunching over a computer designing strange bizarre weapons. He'd spend a lot of time quietly observing things and making little notes on an Irken notepad. The most notable thing that stood out to the mostly oblivious droid was Zim's changed attitude toward humans. Except when frustrated or angry, he addressed them as equals and more often than not acceded to humans who exercised authority. Sometimes he even fell over himself apologizing to the mailman if Gir succeeded in eating off part of the guy's shoe.

Most of these huge changes Gir took note of consciously and just accepted them without question. Master was master and that's who Gir loved. He actually liked Zim better now because he treated him more like a two year old and stopped ordering him to do things all the time. Except when he was being bad.

Leaving Gir to his inner oblivion, Zim casually took note of the newsstands. One of them bore a headline that drew his eye. Mostly because of the huge black letters.

LOCAL TEENAGER AIDS WOMAN, ENDS UP IN HOSPITAL

A smaller headline beneath it read:

Suspects in custody

Some nagging notion in him told him to pick it up. Zim found a bench to perch on after paying for it and read the article.

Around 10:46 p.m. last night, Bella Lopez, a 27-year-old woman, was attacked by two men. She had been heading home after withdrawing from an ATM machine when two men began chasing her. They pursued her to the old oil refinery near the Really Deep Lake. "They grabbed my hair and tripped me. One of them sat on me. I thought I was going to die," Ms Lopez stated to police. According to her own eyewitness account, a young teenage girl appeared armed with a weapon later identified as a lead pipe. Reportedly she struck the first man assaulting Ms Lopez before being overpowered by the second man who wrested the pipe away from her and used it to break her collarbone. Ms Lopez then in turn overpowered the man and called 911. Both men, John Herman TohaMor and J.V. Mercer, are at the General Hospital under police surveillance where the teenage girl, whose name cannot be released because of her age, is being treated. The men were charged with attempted rape, attempted robbery and assault of a minor. "She was an angel," Ms Lopez said of the teenager. "It's just not something you could ever hope for. I don't even care why she was out there so late at night. The simple fact was she was there."
A further investigation into the assault is still pending. – reporting by JOANNA HILL

"What IS this planet coming to?" Zim muttered closing the paper. "Hmm. Gaz works near the oil refinery. She would have been around at that time. . ." A feeling of dread came with those words. Quickly he hopped to his feet. "Gir, I need to check up on something. Do you think you can make it the rest of the way home by yourself?"

Gir saluted. "Yes my lord!" Without a second provocation, he turned on his jets and rocketed across town. A lot of humans saw him but barely took notice. That was the wonderful thing about these creatures, Zim thought. I can do all this weird stuff and nobody cares.

Sometimes I wish they did.

Shaking off those distracting thoughts, Zim started running in the direction of Gaz's house.

For just once I hope I'm wrong about this one.