A/Note: Thanks a lot to you guys who've reviewed! Especially those of you
who keep poking me and telling me to finish! I NEED that kind of
encouragement to remind me to keep going, lol.
Chapter Thirteen: Fusion and Fission
Gaz sat quietly by herself as the others worked. Who knew how much time they had? The bizarre hybrid machine that they were so feverishly constructing was to produce the massive amounts of power that she was expected to somehow pit against the strange thing that she'd released. How long ago was it now? Her watch insisted that it was closing in on an hour, but it felt more like years since those events.
She wasn't even sure how she'd made the first thing. Would she be able to create a similar monster, but one opposite in nature? She shivered slightly and hugged her knees to her chest. She was pretty good at fixing mechanical things, her gameslave, the television, the odd alien spaceship; but she didn't offer to help complete the modifications to P.E.G. And none of the others asked for her assistance, for that matter. They seemed to be too caught up in a very loud, very verbal discussion over just whose idea for how to complete the fusion of terran and irken technology should be used.
Finally Zim seemed to win the argument, apparently by screaming "We're doing it my way because I've had more than a century more experience with this sort of equipment than either of you have!" loudly enough to make the entire complex shake viciously. A few shocked moments afterward, Dib's voice commented "So just because you're older..?" in a much more docile tone.
Gaz sighed unhappily and reached a small pale hand down towards the ground. She hummed tunelessly as she traced a few random symbols in the dust and dirt that had been tracked in from the outside world by its would-be rescuers.
Above the yawning bay of the P.E.G. chamber, the multi-layered dome shook and separated. As the translucent roof retracted, thick claw-like metal arms shot down into the facility, digging into the smooth golden walls. With a great groaning of strained metal, Zim's base began to lower itself into position at the apex of the P.E.G.'s estimated energy output field.
Dib stared up in awe at the carefully balanced mass of alien hardware as it began to send out large conduits into P.E.G's frame and down into the output of the enormous generator. Somewhere in the back of his mind it occurred to him subconsciously that if he were just a little older, the sight might seem a little bit obscene. "Are you *sure* this is going to work, Zim?" he whispered.
The alien in question shot him a superior sneer and gave a brisk, almost militaristic nod of assent. "Of COURSE it will work. When have any of my ingenious plans failed?" Before Dib could answer, a very loud, very *wrong* feeling shudder passed through the entire complex, shaking it to the core of its frame. Zim grinned in embarrassment. "Don't answer that." he urged, just before a resounding thud echoed up through P.E.G.'s large reactor chamber from the infinite-seeming depths below. "I said not to answer that!" Zim screeched, stomping his small booted foot down on the helpless platform beneath him as if that would stave off the sounds of some part of the plan that had possibly gone horribly wrong.
The door to the elevator slid open, and Professor Membrane stumbled into the reactor. "For the sake of the three laws of motion, WHAT was THAT!? Is everyone alright? Dib? Gaz? Little. er. alien-thing?" Dib raised a hand in mute reassurance towards his panic-stricken father as Zim fidgeted.
".alien. thing? THREE laws of. Pah!" Zim growled, shaking his head clear of the stupidity that these humans spouted for the moment. "We are all reasonably well for being horribly doomed. As for that sound.. uhhhehh..errr. I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Professor Membrane and his son unintentionally shared a moment of identical reaction as they rolled their eyes heavenward and shook their heads to clear them of the random inanity that the alien was spouting at the moment. "Well, whatever it *wasn't*," the professor mused, "We had better find out before we try to start P.E.G. up. Perhaps the diagnostic utilities and sensor array can tell us something. I'll go see what I can find out."
Zim straightened and extended his remote communications transmitter as the tall human exited, his superior blood thrilling at once again being in control of the operation. "GIR! Status report!" A brief pause punctuated the gleeful squeal that the dysfunctional robot used to open his statement, which touched upon such vital information as the average sinus-pressure capacity of penguins, the number of unpopped hamsters stacked end to end that it would take to reach the moon, and of course the drastically pertinent price of a weasel-shaving in china.
The mental pain, it was excruciating. Oh yes.
Zim gave a classically pained groan and retracted the device. "I think he means he's ready." At Dib's quizzical expression, the irken shrugged. "What can I say, after all this time, he's beginning to make sense. And before you ask, yes it does worry me. Exceedingly." Dib chuckled quietly and motioned to his sister to join them. Gaz shook her head. "This is where I should be. I'll be waiting here for you guys to get P.E.G. going. Don't let me down, hm?" She gave them a slight smile, allowing it to touch her eyes for a moment before she turned and faced the long tunnel of the reactor. "I'll wait right here." She repeated, keeping her back to them so that the tears that had begun to run down her face wouldn't be visible.
Dib started to step towards his sister, then halted. The hand he had extended fell to his side, then tightened into a fist. With new resolve in his own eyes, he looked up at the confused alien. "Let's go."
The two of them followed Membrane's path back into the control room, where the Professor began checking readouts and monitoring indicator lights that flashed and sparkled in exciting patterns over the otherwise impassive gray screens. "It looks like we've only lost one system during connection. The power regulation isn't going to be working anytime soon of its' own accord and I rather doubt we have time to fix it." The world-famous scientist bit his lip in consternation as he turned to face his small audience. "I believe everything should work, but with no way to control the power levels we could quite possibly blow ourselves to atoms unintentionally."
Dib pulled a chair over next to an important-looking station and climbed awkwardly up into it. "Well, let's get started. Tell us what to do, Dad." Zim squinted at his long-time enemy. Professor Membrane stared quizzically at the boy, as if he wanted to ask if Dib hadn't heard him correctly. Dib gave the two of them a lop-sided grin and shrugged. "Hey, we're dead if it doesn't work anyway, right?" Membrane and Zim traded 'what the hey' expressions and pulled up chairs of their own. The crash-course in ridiculously massive energy production had begun.
Gaz watched the long tube-like arms of the reactor core as they trembled, then began to rotate. A slow steady whine began to build up as P.E.G. shook off the effects of her long sleep and stretched her groggy circuits. Almost in answer, a lower-pitched hum of activity crackled from above. Gaz sniffed loudly in the cavernous solitude of the reactor. That awful aching feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn't going away. She knew that this effort wasn't going to work. But they would try anyway. They would all try, because that was all that was left for them to do. There was *almost* enough power now.. almost..
In a few seconds, the entire chamber to quaking, bursting with wildly arcing currents of power. Gaz stepped forwards, towards the very edge of the platform. It felt very solid. So reassuring and safe. Gaz closed her eyes and reached her hands outward. She could feel it, the darkness slipping around the world. It was almost to the opposite pole, where the destruction would begin. Her 'child' that she had created with her anger and hopeless hatred would kill every living thing on the planet unless she could stop it. She had to try, even if it felt hopeless. She had to, for the sake of her father, for her brother. and for that stupid idiot alien and his moronic robot.
Gaz set her jaw and reachedfor the energy that was cascading around her like a fountain. 'Please work. Please wo-' The chamber began to shake more violently around her, and her eyes flew wide open in fear.
No.
An immense wave of heat surged upwards towards her vulnerable perch as she watched.
NO.
The com link on her watch blazed to frantic life with her brother's voice, screaming at her to get to safety as Zim's voice screamed something just as urgent at his idiot sidekick, who was sitting right on top of the explosion's path.
NO! NO! NO!
Suddenly something grabbed her and pulled her back. There was a deafening roar and horrible heat, then merciful oblivion. When she came to, a pair of large pinkish-red eyes dominated her vision. "Dib! She wakes!" Zim shouted over his shoulder, presumably to her brother. It occurred to Gaz that Zim's voice should have been a lot louder than her ears were telling her it was. In a moment, Dib's sooty, bruised face joined Zim's over her. "Gaz, can you hear me?" he pleaded, picking up her hand. She couldn't find her voice, let alone the energy to nod her head. She settled for giving her brother's hand a gentle reassuring squeeze. Dib smiled tearily and smoothed back his bedraggled hair.
"The generator exploded, but I guess you knew that already." He smiled at the exasperated expression on Gaz's tired face before continuing. "Dad.. he realized what was going to happen before we did. He ran down and pulled you out just in time. He's kinda banged up and his back got a bit burned. He took most of the punishment that the explosion sent your way. He's awake though, he'll be okay."
The unsaid "Until IT comes back" hung in the air uneasily between them. Gaz squeezed her eyes shut, willing the pain and guilt away. Her dad loved her. He really loved her. It really didn't make any difference to him how she was created, what she had set upon the world.. He would do no less for her than he would for Dib. Their dad was willing to die for either of them at a moment's notice. It was both wonderful and humbling at the same time.
Zim's voice intruded on the silence. "What do we do now? Your generator is destroyed and what's left of my base is in orbit. I am loathe to admit it, but.. I am out of ideas for what action to take now other than prepare ourselves to die like proud soldiers." Gaz didn't open her eyes, she didn't want to see her brother's face. His silence spoke eloquently enough that he had no clue how to proceed, either. It was rather tempting just to give in and wait for their fate.
But could she just lay here, waiting for the warmth of the Earth to be extinguished?
The two boys jolted in surprise as Gaz suddenly sat bolt upright with a gasp. Her eyes were wide and luminous with the shock of a major revelation, and her lips parted in a stunned 'O' of amazement. The empty feeling was gone. It had finally gone! "I know what to do.." she whispered softly, almost to herself. "Dib.. take care of Dad until I get back." She raised her face to his for a moment, and squeezed his hand once more. "I love you guys."
She caught the sight of Zim, studying their awkward moment of bonding with an expression akin to barely-disguised horror. "And Zim.." she began, noting with satisfaction that his eyes widened to the size of flying saucers at her newfound attention. She smirked slightly. "You're an idiot."
Then she seemed to fall, almost in slow motion, straight through the floor of the control room and out of the sight of the astonished observers. "Dib. your sister is unequivocally strange." Zim muttered softly. Dib nodded.
A/Note: Well, we're almost to the end! And don't worry, GIR's fine, folks!
Chapter Thirteen: Fusion and Fission
Gaz sat quietly by herself as the others worked. Who knew how much time they had? The bizarre hybrid machine that they were so feverishly constructing was to produce the massive amounts of power that she was expected to somehow pit against the strange thing that she'd released. How long ago was it now? Her watch insisted that it was closing in on an hour, but it felt more like years since those events.
She wasn't even sure how she'd made the first thing. Would she be able to create a similar monster, but one opposite in nature? She shivered slightly and hugged her knees to her chest. She was pretty good at fixing mechanical things, her gameslave, the television, the odd alien spaceship; but she didn't offer to help complete the modifications to P.E.G. And none of the others asked for her assistance, for that matter. They seemed to be too caught up in a very loud, very verbal discussion over just whose idea for how to complete the fusion of terran and irken technology should be used.
Finally Zim seemed to win the argument, apparently by screaming "We're doing it my way because I've had more than a century more experience with this sort of equipment than either of you have!" loudly enough to make the entire complex shake viciously. A few shocked moments afterward, Dib's voice commented "So just because you're older..?" in a much more docile tone.
Gaz sighed unhappily and reached a small pale hand down towards the ground. She hummed tunelessly as she traced a few random symbols in the dust and dirt that had been tracked in from the outside world by its would-be rescuers.
Above the yawning bay of the P.E.G. chamber, the multi-layered dome shook and separated. As the translucent roof retracted, thick claw-like metal arms shot down into the facility, digging into the smooth golden walls. With a great groaning of strained metal, Zim's base began to lower itself into position at the apex of the P.E.G.'s estimated energy output field.
Dib stared up in awe at the carefully balanced mass of alien hardware as it began to send out large conduits into P.E.G's frame and down into the output of the enormous generator. Somewhere in the back of his mind it occurred to him subconsciously that if he were just a little older, the sight might seem a little bit obscene. "Are you *sure* this is going to work, Zim?" he whispered.
The alien in question shot him a superior sneer and gave a brisk, almost militaristic nod of assent. "Of COURSE it will work. When have any of my ingenious plans failed?" Before Dib could answer, a very loud, very *wrong* feeling shudder passed through the entire complex, shaking it to the core of its frame. Zim grinned in embarrassment. "Don't answer that." he urged, just before a resounding thud echoed up through P.E.G.'s large reactor chamber from the infinite-seeming depths below. "I said not to answer that!" Zim screeched, stomping his small booted foot down on the helpless platform beneath him as if that would stave off the sounds of some part of the plan that had possibly gone horribly wrong.
The door to the elevator slid open, and Professor Membrane stumbled into the reactor. "For the sake of the three laws of motion, WHAT was THAT!? Is everyone alright? Dib? Gaz? Little. er. alien-thing?" Dib raised a hand in mute reassurance towards his panic-stricken father as Zim fidgeted.
".alien. thing? THREE laws of. Pah!" Zim growled, shaking his head clear of the stupidity that these humans spouted for the moment. "We are all reasonably well for being horribly doomed. As for that sound.. uhhhehh..errr. I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Professor Membrane and his son unintentionally shared a moment of identical reaction as they rolled their eyes heavenward and shook their heads to clear them of the random inanity that the alien was spouting at the moment. "Well, whatever it *wasn't*," the professor mused, "We had better find out before we try to start P.E.G. up. Perhaps the diagnostic utilities and sensor array can tell us something. I'll go see what I can find out."
Zim straightened and extended his remote communications transmitter as the tall human exited, his superior blood thrilling at once again being in control of the operation. "GIR! Status report!" A brief pause punctuated the gleeful squeal that the dysfunctional robot used to open his statement, which touched upon such vital information as the average sinus-pressure capacity of penguins, the number of unpopped hamsters stacked end to end that it would take to reach the moon, and of course the drastically pertinent price of a weasel-shaving in china.
The mental pain, it was excruciating. Oh yes.
Zim gave a classically pained groan and retracted the device. "I think he means he's ready." At Dib's quizzical expression, the irken shrugged. "What can I say, after all this time, he's beginning to make sense. And before you ask, yes it does worry me. Exceedingly." Dib chuckled quietly and motioned to his sister to join them. Gaz shook her head. "This is where I should be. I'll be waiting here for you guys to get P.E.G. going. Don't let me down, hm?" She gave them a slight smile, allowing it to touch her eyes for a moment before she turned and faced the long tunnel of the reactor. "I'll wait right here." She repeated, keeping her back to them so that the tears that had begun to run down her face wouldn't be visible.
Dib started to step towards his sister, then halted. The hand he had extended fell to his side, then tightened into a fist. With new resolve in his own eyes, he looked up at the confused alien. "Let's go."
The two of them followed Membrane's path back into the control room, where the Professor began checking readouts and monitoring indicator lights that flashed and sparkled in exciting patterns over the otherwise impassive gray screens. "It looks like we've only lost one system during connection. The power regulation isn't going to be working anytime soon of its' own accord and I rather doubt we have time to fix it." The world-famous scientist bit his lip in consternation as he turned to face his small audience. "I believe everything should work, but with no way to control the power levels we could quite possibly blow ourselves to atoms unintentionally."
Dib pulled a chair over next to an important-looking station and climbed awkwardly up into it. "Well, let's get started. Tell us what to do, Dad." Zim squinted at his long-time enemy. Professor Membrane stared quizzically at the boy, as if he wanted to ask if Dib hadn't heard him correctly. Dib gave the two of them a lop-sided grin and shrugged. "Hey, we're dead if it doesn't work anyway, right?" Membrane and Zim traded 'what the hey' expressions and pulled up chairs of their own. The crash-course in ridiculously massive energy production had begun.
Gaz watched the long tube-like arms of the reactor core as they trembled, then began to rotate. A slow steady whine began to build up as P.E.G. shook off the effects of her long sleep and stretched her groggy circuits. Almost in answer, a lower-pitched hum of activity crackled from above. Gaz sniffed loudly in the cavernous solitude of the reactor. That awful aching feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn't going away. She knew that this effort wasn't going to work. But they would try anyway. They would all try, because that was all that was left for them to do. There was *almost* enough power now.. almost..
In a few seconds, the entire chamber to quaking, bursting with wildly arcing currents of power. Gaz stepped forwards, towards the very edge of the platform. It felt very solid. So reassuring and safe. Gaz closed her eyes and reached her hands outward. She could feel it, the darkness slipping around the world. It was almost to the opposite pole, where the destruction would begin. Her 'child' that she had created with her anger and hopeless hatred would kill every living thing on the planet unless she could stop it. She had to try, even if it felt hopeless. She had to, for the sake of her father, for her brother. and for that stupid idiot alien and his moronic robot.
Gaz set her jaw and reachedfor the energy that was cascading around her like a fountain. 'Please work. Please wo-' The chamber began to shake more violently around her, and her eyes flew wide open in fear.
No.
An immense wave of heat surged upwards towards her vulnerable perch as she watched.
NO.
The com link on her watch blazed to frantic life with her brother's voice, screaming at her to get to safety as Zim's voice screamed something just as urgent at his idiot sidekick, who was sitting right on top of the explosion's path.
NO! NO! NO!
Suddenly something grabbed her and pulled her back. There was a deafening roar and horrible heat, then merciful oblivion. When she came to, a pair of large pinkish-red eyes dominated her vision. "Dib! She wakes!" Zim shouted over his shoulder, presumably to her brother. It occurred to Gaz that Zim's voice should have been a lot louder than her ears were telling her it was. In a moment, Dib's sooty, bruised face joined Zim's over her. "Gaz, can you hear me?" he pleaded, picking up her hand. She couldn't find her voice, let alone the energy to nod her head. She settled for giving her brother's hand a gentle reassuring squeeze. Dib smiled tearily and smoothed back his bedraggled hair.
"The generator exploded, but I guess you knew that already." He smiled at the exasperated expression on Gaz's tired face before continuing. "Dad.. he realized what was going to happen before we did. He ran down and pulled you out just in time. He's kinda banged up and his back got a bit burned. He took most of the punishment that the explosion sent your way. He's awake though, he'll be okay."
The unsaid "Until IT comes back" hung in the air uneasily between them. Gaz squeezed her eyes shut, willing the pain and guilt away. Her dad loved her. He really loved her. It really didn't make any difference to him how she was created, what she had set upon the world.. He would do no less for her than he would for Dib. Their dad was willing to die for either of them at a moment's notice. It was both wonderful and humbling at the same time.
Zim's voice intruded on the silence. "What do we do now? Your generator is destroyed and what's left of my base is in orbit. I am loathe to admit it, but.. I am out of ideas for what action to take now other than prepare ourselves to die like proud soldiers." Gaz didn't open her eyes, she didn't want to see her brother's face. His silence spoke eloquently enough that he had no clue how to proceed, either. It was rather tempting just to give in and wait for their fate.
But could she just lay here, waiting for the warmth of the Earth to be extinguished?
The two boys jolted in surprise as Gaz suddenly sat bolt upright with a gasp. Her eyes were wide and luminous with the shock of a major revelation, and her lips parted in a stunned 'O' of amazement. The empty feeling was gone. It had finally gone! "I know what to do.." she whispered softly, almost to herself. "Dib.. take care of Dad until I get back." She raised her face to his for a moment, and squeezed his hand once more. "I love you guys."
She caught the sight of Zim, studying their awkward moment of bonding with an expression akin to barely-disguised horror. "And Zim.." she began, noting with satisfaction that his eyes widened to the size of flying saucers at her newfound attention. She smirked slightly. "You're an idiot."
Then she seemed to fall, almost in slow motion, straight through the floor of the control room and out of the sight of the astonished observers. "Dib. your sister is unequivocally strange." Zim muttered softly. Dib nodded.
A/Note: Well, we're almost to the end! And don't worry, GIR's fine, folks!