--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Min took a step, her metallic spiderlegs sweeping around her and stabbing at the air in front of her in one lightning-quick motion. She paused and steadily exhaled as the exhaust fan overhead cast a dark shadow on her. She took another step on the riveted floor, her face stiff with concentration, as the metallic legs again swept and lanced at nothing. Every movement was calculated, smooth, practiced.
It was good that Zim and the human weren't around. They left a while ago to go do Irk knows what on the surface, which was fine with her. That way, she had the arena to herself, and she didn't really feel like trying to explain away how she knew Irken military hand-to-hand exercises. And, she was going to go crazy down here if she didn't find something else to do besides research...
She crouched down and, using her back spiderlegs, leapt into the air. Flipping once in a flurry of silver metal, she stabbed menacingly on the ground, driving both needle-sharp tips of her front spiderlegs into the floor, into a space about the size of an irken torso. The entire chamber shook with the reverberating clanging sound. Pulling her metal legs out, she stared blankly at the dent she'd made in the metal floor. Immediately, she thought of Zim and what Dib had said about the skool fight. Oh, slark, she thought, lowering herself back to the ground. It was happening to her, too. Choking back her concern, she began the exercise again, this time more forcefully, trying to keep her mind clear. The tips of her spiderlegs whistled though the air as they moved, snapping into each jab like a cracking whip. Best not tell anyone, she thought warily.
Going through the repetitive motions, her thoughts strayed to the incident in the medical ward. She had tried to play it cool around the human, to play it down as though all irkens knew how to tend wounds like that. The truth was, she actually had no idea what she was doing in that medical room. What was worse, if she had made one mistake, Zim would've bled to death, or would've been blinded, or slark knew what. Not that it should've bothered her. One less objective for her to complete. But, when she looked at him, saw his helplessness, something inside her was wrenched, and a voice in the darkened corners of her mind seemed to scream out, telling her what to do. It was as though she'd done it thousands of times before, and just didn't remember it. To make things worse, she actually LIKED taking care of him. What was wrong with her?
Her spine bending backwards, she bent into a bridge as her spiderlegs swept along the ground in half-circles, splitting the air with the sound of a rippling steel cable.
"It's what I do?" Why did she say that to Dib? As long as she could remember, she was nothing else but a soldier. She wasn't a biologist, or physician, or smeet tech. If she were, she wouldn't be there right now, following orders she wished she didn't have to follow.
The metal legs caged around her protectively, and she jumped back to her feet as they exploded into a set of perfectly timed high and low slashes that tornadoed around her body.
She was getting tired of the facade. Tired of acting meek and harmless. Tired of pretending to be a victim. Hell, the entire mission was torturing her. She just wanted to end it. At least NORAMAL irken soldiers had a code of honor to adhere to. No one had bothered to tell her it was different, now that she was an elite. She was practically being ordered to play on the trust of another Irken. To deceive him. To steal information from him. And, eventually, to kill him.
The whirlwind of metal stopped, and her spiderlegs retreated back into her pak. Min stood there, panting slightly, watching the fan cast shadows around her. She swallowed hard; she had actually made herself sick with disgust. But, she had her orders, she thought sullenly. What could she do? Tell them no? Possibly. Her conscience would be clear, she could even get to know Zim the way she really wanted to, but she'd be dead to the rest of the Empire. There was no coming back from refusing an Invader's mission. She took some heavy steps to the curved wall, and leaned against it, sliding down and curling up against it on the floor.
A tree. That was the first thing she had seen when she landed on that planet. If you wanted to call it a landing. There really wasn't much left of her cruiser afterwards. A glitch in the landing program was responsible for that. A hell of a way for an Invader to start off a mission, she thought bitterly. When she stumbled, coughing and cursing, out from the wreckage, she saw it; the first earth creature she'd ever seen. Huge clouds of green, yellow and red leaves billowing in the night wind, lashed to the ground only by a hard brown stem. She stared at it for what seemed like forever. It was beautiful, and what made it even more beautiful was the fact that it was actually a living thing. Right then, she had started to have doubts about her mission, and her doubts only grew as she explored. Humans, animals, trees, streets, cities... Where any other Invader would view them with haughty contempt, she looked on with amazement. Was it possible to fall in love with a planet? She'd had held herself up in Zim's underground base for the past 350 hours because she didn't want to see what she had been ordered to destroy. She sighed in disgust and stared up at the silhouetted exhaust fan in the ceiling. Why did they even need this planet, anyway? It was so far from the rest of the Empire... and far away from the Control Brain...
Her thoughts were shattered as an image flashed into her mind. Her own struggling wrist being lashed down to the arm of a metallic chair. She could feel the coldness of metal behind her and the pressure of multiple hands holding her down against the chair. She screamed in protest. It seemed almost too real. Her head lurched backward hitting the arena wall with a dizzying impact.
"...Irken growth is monitored by the Control brain. It's signals, extending far out into space, control and limit Irken development within the bounds of the empire." An eerie whispering voice began to drift past her ears.
Without warning, the visions continued. Her other arm was lashed down. Then her ankles. Then her neck. She was struggling futily in the chair, pleading with the invisible forces to stop. Min pressed herself against the arena wall, groping along the sides, her eyes wide with confusion and fear.
"If an irken were to be taken outside Control Brain space, the effects of the signal would eventually wear off, anywhere from three months to five years later... This includes any mental conditioning or physical restraints..."
In a blur of motion, the hands were gone, leaving her panicked and alone. Her small green frame strained against the steely restraints even as they began to cut deep into her skin. Glassy-eyed and hyperventilating, Min collapsed to her side on the arena floor, still lurching against the wall, trying to back away from the scene in her mind. She stuggled, screamed and pleaded for them not to leave her alone... with It...
"If the control brain is sentient, then a whole new factor must be introduced to the equation. A factor that includes the separate, and possibly dangerous, motives of the Control Brain itself..."
Green haze. A whip-like tendril floating towards her. Her brain burning. Writhing. Screaming. Not being able to stop it. As everything around her faded to black, Min realized dully that she was the one that had been whispering:
"The Devastis Factor..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was nighttime when Dib and Zim returned to his house. They'd been out mallratting, which was Dib's term for standing around the local commercial center and laughing at the hideously dense human consumers as they hustled by. At first Zim found the idea disgusting, but eventually admitted that just watching the poor deluded stinkbeasts WAS kind of entertaining. That, and it took his mind off of Min for a while. "You heading home, huh?"
"Yeah, It's pretty late, and I still have homework to do." Dib said, glancing up and down the street. Zim blinked and narrowed an eye behind his lenses. He'd been doing that the entire way back. "What's the matter?"
"Uh, nothing. I just have this weird feeling someone's watching us." He suddenly yawned wide and shook his head. "Maybe I'm just tired."
"Pitiful humans, can't stay awake longer than 18 hours." Like HE had room to talk. Zim smirked, starting up his front walk, past the security lawn gnomes. "Go get some sleep. You look like you've been though hell and training pits." Zim hadn't started splicing Irken and English until a year after his exile. It just kind of happened; he started slipping from one phrase to the other, sometimes in the same sentence. This Irkenglish slang was no mystery to Dib, who was used to it by now. Dib waved and started towards his own house, and Zim closed the door behind him. "GIR!"
"MASTER!" The insane robot poked his head out from under the couch cushions, where he had been perfectly hidden. He held an open jar of peanut butter in his robotic paw, and was messily scooping out giant gobs of it, swallowing them in single gulps. Zim cringed, suddenly thankful he hadn't flopped down on the couch like he intended to.
"Gir, where is Min?"
"Mmmph!" Gir said through a stringy gob of peanut goo. He buried his face into a throw pillow to wipe it from his lips, then looked back up and happily chirped "She's sleeping!"
"Sleeping?"
"In the zappy power thingy. She was doing like--" And Gir broke into a clumsy martial-arts-type kata still holding the jar of peanut butter. "And then she was like-- EEEAAAAAGGGHHH!!" Gir screamed at the top of his lungs, mouth wide open and flailing his stubby arms. Zim held down his wig, trying to cover his antennae, and scowled that the little exhibitionist robot. "And then she was like--" The blue glow in his eyes faded to black, and the deranged metal thing fell limply onto the throw pillow, peanut butter splattering everywhere.
Zim let go of his wig. "You heard her screaming? I-Is she all right? Tell me! Gir! GIR!!" No answer. Gir had actually shut himself down to prove his point. Zim knew better than to take anything Gir said seriously, but the thought of anything happening to Min made his squeedily-spooch tighten. Stupid human emotions, impairing his judgement again. She was probably fine. All the same, it wouldn't hurt to check...
"Min!" Zim's voice echoed around the arena walls. The droning of the electrode in the ceiling was his only response. The circulating shadows from the fan played along the walls and seemed to blur the outlines of things. His red eyes squinted against the shadows: he'd taken off his disguise on the way down into the lab. Stepping though the hatch, he glanced around the arena. His eyes found the outline of a slender green figure slumped against the back wall. "MIN!" Zim sprinted across the metallic floor and knealt next to her, lifting her head and shoulders with one arm. Min's body was limp, draped over his arm. Her head rolled dumbly to the side, and she let out a pained sigh. She was alive, she was just unconscious. Without really thinking about it, Zim gathered her into his arms and stood up. Just a few weeks ago, he wouldn't have been able to do that, light though she was. He would've had to run out and find a transport or something else that could carry her. But this didn't occur to Zim now. All he was concerned about was getting Min to the medical ward.
"Computer! Full medical scan! NOW!" Zim screamed, laying Min carefully onto the glowing cot-like bed. The beeping of the life monitor started up almost immediately.
"Awww. I don't wanna..." The speakers whined.
"DO IT, INFERNAL MACHINE, or you shall face digital doom like never before!" Zim growled threateningly.
"Alright, alright..." The laser line shot out again, this time sweeping the cot, with Min on it. A holoscreen popped up beside Zim. "Physical status: No detected afflictions or injuries." The voice on the speakers droned. "Mental status: Psychological trauma. Subject is in a state of severe mental shock."
"Mental shock? What did this to her!?"
"Insufficient Data." The speakers mumbled.
Zim growled. "Then tell me what I have to do to get her out of it!"
"Subject might respond to mild shock-inducing stimuli. Commonly called 'snapping them out of it.' Something as simple as hearing a familiar voice may be enough, but it depends on the case. Otherwise, subject will remain unconscious indefinitely."
Zim looked down at her. "Min..." Her slender frame didn't move. He leaned over the glowing white cot, his face close to hers. "Can you hear me?" Not even a twitch of her antennae. Ruby eyes pleading, Zim reached up and stroked the side of her face. "If I ever figure out what did this to you..." His eyes led upward to the holoscreen. "Computer, use the new psychic interface technology and scan her memory. Maybe I can find something useful that way."
"Unable. Behavior patterns have been altered. Engineered mental block present. Unable to circumvent."
An engineered mental block? Why would anything want to block her memory? He looked back down at the irken female, trying to puzzle it out. Nothing actually happened to her in the arena, or the computer would've told him. So what scared her so much? And what kind of memory was being blocked? Maybe that WAS what terrified her. A memory of something that happened to her in the past.
Tentatively, Zim reached down and grasped her hand, bringing it up and holding it against his chest. Her long slender fingers curled around his. Looking down and studying it, he blinked as he noticed a thick ring of dark green skin around her wrist. Scar tissue. Something sharp had sawed into her skin, but it was long healed. He looked and saw her other wrist had it too. Two sharp cuffs, around her wrists. Restraining cuffs? "Oh, God." Zim said dumbly, realizing what that meant. He'd been right. Someone did something to her a long time ago, and against her will. Hence, the restraining cuffs. But, what could have been so terrible that the MEMORY of it would leave her like this? He could think of some things, and his organs twisted at the thought of them. At the thought of them happening to HER. He reached down and lifted Min's limp shoulders from the cot, wrapping his arms around her and holding her, not really caring anymore what it meant. Humanity or Irkenity be damned. "Min... I..." He wanted to say that he wished this hadn't happened to her. He wanted to command her to come back. To yell, to scream, to threaten like he would have years ago. But, no words came. Words wouldn't work; she wouldn't be able to hear them anyway. But what else could he do? Laying her gently back down onto the cot, he stopped inches from her face, and did the only other thing he could think of. His hands clasping her shoulders, he pressed his own lips against hers. His eyes, at first open, slid shut, and his antennae fell backward. Disgusting and squishy? Hardly. Hell, he'd wanted to do this for slark knew how long, he just never admitted it to himself. His kiss deepened, Zim's lips capturing more of hers. His hands ran down her arms, and Zim had to consciously stop them from going anywhere else, leaning on the cot with them instead. This was torture, he thought, his hands gripping the sides of the cot. Slowly pulling his mouth away from hers, he looked sadly at her. If only she were awake...
"Uhhhh..."
She mumbled and stirred. Zim's eyes widened. "Min? Min!" He placed a hand on her shoulder again, and Min jerked at the touch, sending Zim back in surprise. Her eyelids blinked open, and the ruby orbs underneith wandered up to meet his.
"...Zim?" She said softly. "Where am I? What happened?"
"You're in the medical ward. I found you in the arena, on the floor, and brought you here. I guess I managed to, uhh, snap you out of your stupor." He grinned stupidly. A mild shock, indeed!
Min sat up on the glowing white slab and looked at him, confused. "What stupor? I was in the arena one minute, and... Wait, I remember blacking out, but... Why did I?" She blinked in confusion, reached up numbly and rubbed the back of her head, flinching as she touched where it had hit the arena wall. "OW! Oooo, maybe that's why. I've gotten so clumsy lately--"
Zim glanced at the marks on her wrists, his smile fading. "Yeah. That's right. You must've hit your head." He mumbled. Maybe it was better she didn't remember anything about it. Irk only knew what would happen to her if he reminded her...
"Zim?" Zim looked back up, into her eyes. "Umm, thanks, Zim. Thanks for helping me."
"No need to thank me. It was the least I could do after you healed me..." Zim said warmly. Min was the first to break the gaze, staring at the floor instead. Those last words seemed to hurt her, somehow. "...Did I say something wrong?"
"No, it's just... Why do you have to be so nice?" She said sadly. Zim wasn't sure what to say to that. Min sat up at the edge of the cot and stood up slowly only a few feet from him. "I'll be all right now. I just need to walk it off."
"Just don't strain yourself..." Zim said, a smirk starting to form on his lips. The reference to their encounter in the hallway was not lost on Min, who glanced at him and blinked, bright green filling her face again. Now why did he have to bring THAT up? She'd tried to drown out that instant under reams of data, as well as the strange feelings that came along with it. What was wrong with her? She'd never acted that way when she touched another irken before. 'Course, Zim wasn't a normal irken, either...
"Hm, what's wrong with your face?" Zim said, reaching down and cupping her burning cheek. She jolted backward at his touch.
"Uhh, nothing. I'm just, eheh, just going to go out and walk this off like I said I would. If you need me for anything, I'll be in the communications chamber." She said, sidestepping out of the room, her eyes still on Zim. Before she disappeared around the corner, she stopped. "By the way, y-you look good in black..." She chattered quickly, and was gone.
Zim stood there, dumbfounded. Why was she avoiding him? Maybe she just didn't like him, he thought, frustrated. Maybe he'd already managed to freak her out with his human tendencies. Maybe Dib said something to her. He better not, he thought bitterly. He looked good in black? Why would she avoid him, and say that in the same breath? He heaved a frustrated sigh and started towards the door himself. Whatever it was, something was making her act strange. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. Prak, it was hard to tell what HE was thinking, half the time. Stupid human emotions did that to him. He froze in the doorway at that thought. Min. Maybe she...
He shook his head. "Heh. Wishful thinking, Zim."
Min took a step, her metallic spiderlegs sweeping around her and stabbing at the air in front of her in one lightning-quick motion. She paused and steadily exhaled as the exhaust fan overhead cast a dark shadow on her. She took another step on the riveted floor, her face stiff with concentration, as the metallic legs again swept and lanced at nothing. Every movement was calculated, smooth, practiced.
It was good that Zim and the human weren't around. They left a while ago to go do Irk knows what on the surface, which was fine with her. That way, she had the arena to herself, and she didn't really feel like trying to explain away how she knew Irken military hand-to-hand exercises. And, she was going to go crazy down here if she didn't find something else to do besides research...
She crouched down and, using her back spiderlegs, leapt into the air. Flipping once in a flurry of silver metal, she stabbed menacingly on the ground, driving both needle-sharp tips of her front spiderlegs into the floor, into a space about the size of an irken torso. The entire chamber shook with the reverberating clanging sound. Pulling her metal legs out, she stared blankly at the dent she'd made in the metal floor. Immediately, she thought of Zim and what Dib had said about the skool fight. Oh, slark, she thought, lowering herself back to the ground. It was happening to her, too. Choking back her concern, she began the exercise again, this time more forcefully, trying to keep her mind clear. The tips of her spiderlegs whistled though the air as they moved, snapping into each jab like a cracking whip. Best not tell anyone, she thought warily.
Going through the repetitive motions, her thoughts strayed to the incident in the medical ward. She had tried to play it cool around the human, to play it down as though all irkens knew how to tend wounds like that. The truth was, she actually had no idea what she was doing in that medical room. What was worse, if she had made one mistake, Zim would've bled to death, or would've been blinded, or slark knew what. Not that it should've bothered her. One less objective for her to complete. But, when she looked at him, saw his helplessness, something inside her was wrenched, and a voice in the darkened corners of her mind seemed to scream out, telling her what to do. It was as though she'd done it thousands of times before, and just didn't remember it. To make things worse, she actually LIKED taking care of him. What was wrong with her?
Her spine bending backwards, she bent into a bridge as her spiderlegs swept along the ground in half-circles, splitting the air with the sound of a rippling steel cable.
"It's what I do?" Why did she say that to Dib? As long as she could remember, she was nothing else but a soldier. She wasn't a biologist, or physician, or smeet tech. If she were, she wouldn't be there right now, following orders she wished she didn't have to follow.
The metal legs caged around her protectively, and she jumped back to her feet as they exploded into a set of perfectly timed high and low slashes that tornadoed around her body.
She was getting tired of the facade. Tired of acting meek and harmless. Tired of pretending to be a victim. Hell, the entire mission was torturing her. She just wanted to end it. At least NORAMAL irken soldiers had a code of honor to adhere to. No one had bothered to tell her it was different, now that she was an elite. She was practically being ordered to play on the trust of another Irken. To deceive him. To steal information from him. And, eventually, to kill him.
The whirlwind of metal stopped, and her spiderlegs retreated back into her pak. Min stood there, panting slightly, watching the fan cast shadows around her. She swallowed hard; she had actually made herself sick with disgust. But, she had her orders, she thought sullenly. What could she do? Tell them no? Possibly. Her conscience would be clear, she could even get to know Zim the way she really wanted to, but she'd be dead to the rest of the Empire. There was no coming back from refusing an Invader's mission. She took some heavy steps to the curved wall, and leaned against it, sliding down and curling up against it on the floor.
A tree. That was the first thing she had seen when she landed on that planet. If you wanted to call it a landing. There really wasn't much left of her cruiser afterwards. A glitch in the landing program was responsible for that. A hell of a way for an Invader to start off a mission, she thought bitterly. When she stumbled, coughing and cursing, out from the wreckage, she saw it; the first earth creature she'd ever seen. Huge clouds of green, yellow and red leaves billowing in the night wind, lashed to the ground only by a hard brown stem. She stared at it for what seemed like forever. It was beautiful, and what made it even more beautiful was the fact that it was actually a living thing. Right then, she had started to have doubts about her mission, and her doubts only grew as she explored. Humans, animals, trees, streets, cities... Where any other Invader would view them with haughty contempt, she looked on with amazement. Was it possible to fall in love with a planet? She'd had held herself up in Zim's underground base for the past 350 hours because she didn't want to see what she had been ordered to destroy. She sighed in disgust and stared up at the silhouetted exhaust fan in the ceiling. Why did they even need this planet, anyway? It was so far from the rest of the Empire... and far away from the Control Brain...
Her thoughts were shattered as an image flashed into her mind. Her own struggling wrist being lashed down to the arm of a metallic chair. She could feel the coldness of metal behind her and the pressure of multiple hands holding her down against the chair. She screamed in protest. It seemed almost too real. Her head lurched backward hitting the arena wall with a dizzying impact.
"...Irken growth is monitored by the Control brain. It's signals, extending far out into space, control and limit Irken development within the bounds of the empire." An eerie whispering voice began to drift past her ears.
Without warning, the visions continued. Her other arm was lashed down. Then her ankles. Then her neck. She was struggling futily in the chair, pleading with the invisible forces to stop. Min pressed herself against the arena wall, groping along the sides, her eyes wide with confusion and fear.
"If an irken were to be taken outside Control Brain space, the effects of the signal would eventually wear off, anywhere from three months to five years later... This includes any mental conditioning or physical restraints..."
In a blur of motion, the hands were gone, leaving her panicked and alone. Her small green frame strained against the steely restraints even as they began to cut deep into her skin. Glassy-eyed and hyperventilating, Min collapsed to her side on the arena floor, still lurching against the wall, trying to back away from the scene in her mind. She stuggled, screamed and pleaded for them not to leave her alone... with It...
"If the control brain is sentient, then a whole new factor must be introduced to the equation. A factor that includes the separate, and possibly dangerous, motives of the Control Brain itself..."
Green haze. A whip-like tendril floating towards her. Her brain burning. Writhing. Screaming. Not being able to stop it. As everything around her faded to black, Min realized dully that she was the one that had been whispering:
"The Devastis Factor..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was nighttime when Dib and Zim returned to his house. They'd been out mallratting, which was Dib's term for standing around the local commercial center and laughing at the hideously dense human consumers as they hustled by. At first Zim found the idea disgusting, but eventually admitted that just watching the poor deluded stinkbeasts WAS kind of entertaining. That, and it took his mind off of Min for a while. "You heading home, huh?"
"Yeah, It's pretty late, and I still have homework to do." Dib said, glancing up and down the street. Zim blinked and narrowed an eye behind his lenses. He'd been doing that the entire way back. "What's the matter?"
"Uh, nothing. I just have this weird feeling someone's watching us." He suddenly yawned wide and shook his head. "Maybe I'm just tired."
"Pitiful humans, can't stay awake longer than 18 hours." Like HE had room to talk. Zim smirked, starting up his front walk, past the security lawn gnomes. "Go get some sleep. You look like you've been though hell and training pits." Zim hadn't started splicing Irken and English until a year after his exile. It just kind of happened; he started slipping from one phrase to the other, sometimes in the same sentence. This Irkenglish slang was no mystery to Dib, who was used to it by now. Dib waved and started towards his own house, and Zim closed the door behind him. "GIR!"
"MASTER!" The insane robot poked his head out from under the couch cushions, where he had been perfectly hidden. He held an open jar of peanut butter in his robotic paw, and was messily scooping out giant gobs of it, swallowing them in single gulps. Zim cringed, suddenly thankful he hadn't flopped down on the couch like he intended to.
"Gir, where is Min?"
"Mmmph!" Gir said through a stringy gob of peanut goo. He buried his face into a throw pillow to wipe it from his lips, then looked back up and happily chirped "She's sleeping!"
"Sleeping?"
"In the zappy power thingy. She was doing like--" And Gir broke into a clumsy martial-arts-type kata still holding the jar of peanut butter. "And then she was like-- EEEAAAAAGGGHHH!!" Gir screamed at the top of his lungs, mouth wide open and flailing his stubby arms. Zim held down his wig, trying to cover his antennae, and scowled that the little exhibitionist robot. "And then she was like--" The blue glow in his eyes faded to black, and the deranged metal thing fell limply onto the throw pillow, peanut butter splattering everywhere.
Zim let go of his wig. "You heard her screaming? I-Is she all right? Tell me! Gir! GIR!!" No answer. Gir had actually shut himself down to prove his point. Zim knew better than to take anything Gir said seriously, but the thought of anything happening to Min made his squeedily-spooch tighten. Stupid human emotions, impairing his judgement again. She was probably fine. All the same, it wouldn't hurt to check...
"Min!" Zim's voice echoed around the arena walls. The droning of the electrode in the ceiling was his only response. The circulating shadows from the fan played along the walls and seemed to blur the outlines of things. His red eyes squinted against the shadows: he'd taken off his disguise on the way down into the lab. Stepping though the hatch, he glanced around the arena. His eyes found the outline of a slender green figure slumped against the back wall. "MIN!" Zim sprinted across the metallic floor and knealt next to her, lifting her head and shoulders with one arm. Min's body was limp, draped over his arm. Her head rolled dumbly to the side, and she let out a pained sigh. She was alive, she was just unconscious. Without really thinking about it, Zim gathered her into his arms and stood up. Just a few weeks ago, he wouldn't have been able to do that, light though she was. He would've had to run out and find a transport or something else that could carry her. But this didn't occur to Zim now. All he was concerned about was getting Min to the medical ward.
"Computer! Full medical scan! NOW!" Zim screamed, laying Min carefully onto the glowing cot-like bed. The beeping of the life monitor started up almost immediately.
"Awww. I don't wanna..." The speakers whined.
"DO IT, INFERNAL MACHINE, or you shall face digital doom like never before!" Zim growled threateningly.
"Alright, alright..." The laser line shot out again, this time sweeping the cot, with Min on it. A holoscreen popped up beside Zim. "Physical status: No detected afflictions or injuries." The voice on the speakers droned. "Mental status: Psychological trauma. Subject is in a state of severe mental shock."
"Mental shock? What did this to her!?"
"Insufficient Data." The speakers mumbled.
Zim growled. "Then tell me what I have to do to get her out of it!"
"Subject might respond to mild shock-inducing stimuli. Commonly called 'snapping them out of it.' Something as simple as hearing a familiar voice may be enough, but it depends on the case. Otherwise, subject will remain unconscious indefinitely."
Zim looked down at her. "Min..." Her slender frame didn't move. He leaned over the glowing white cot, his face close to hers. "Can you hear me?" Not even a twitch of her antennae. Ruby eyes pleading, Zim reached up and stroked the side of her face. "If I ever figure out what did this to you..." His eyes led upward to the holoscreen. "Computer, use the new psychic interface technology and scan her memory. Maybe I can find something useful that way."
"Unable. Behavior patterns have been altered. Engineered mental block present. Unable to circumvent."
An engineered mental block? Why would anything want to block her memory? He looked back down at the irken female, trying to puzzle it out. Nothing actually happened to her in the arena, or the computer would've told him. So what scared her so much? And what kind of memory was being blocked? Maybe that WAS what terrified her. A memory of something that happened to her in the past.
Tentatively, Zim reached down and grasped her hand, bringing it up and holding it against his chest. Her long slender fingers curled around his. Looking down and studying it, he blinked as he noticed a thick ring of dark green skin around her wrist. Scar tissue. Something sharp had sawed into her skin, but it was long healed. He looked and saw her other wrist had it too. Two sharp cuffs, around her wrists. Restraining cuffs? "Oh, God." Zim said dumbly, realizing what that meant. He'd been right. Someone did something to her a long time ago, and against her will. Hence, the restraining cuffs. But, what could have been so terrible that the MEMORY of it would leave her like this? He could think of some things, and his organs twisted at the thought of them. At the thought of them happening to HER. He reached down and lifted Min's limp shoulders from the cot, wrapping his arms around her and holding her, not really caring anymore what it meant. Humanity or Irkenity be damned. "Min... I..." He wanted to say that he wished this hadn't happened to her. He wanted to command her to come back. To yell, to scream, to threaten like he would have years ago. But, no words came. Words wouldn't work; she wouldn't be able to hear them anyway. But what else could he do? Laying her gently back down onto the cot, he stopped inches from her face, and did the only other thing he could think of. His hands clasping her shoulders, he pressed his own lips against hers. His eyes, at first open, slid shut, and his antennae fell backward. Disgusting and squishy? Hardly. Hell, he'd wanted to do this for slark knew how long, he just never admitted it to himself. His kiss deepened, Zim's lips capturing more of hers. His hands ran down her arms, and Zim had to consciously stop them from going anywhere else, leaning on the cot with them instead. This was torture, he thought, his hands gripping the sides of the cot. Slowly pulling his mouth away from hers, he looked sadly at her. If only she were awake...
"Uhhhh..."
She mumbled and stirred. Zim's eyes widened. "Min? Min!" He placed a hand on her shoulder again, and Min jerked at the touch, sending Zim back in surprise. Her eyelids blinked open, and the ruby orbs underneith wandered up to meet his.
"...Zim?" She said softly. "Where am I? What happened?"
"You're in the medical ward. I found you in the arena, on the floor, and brought you here. I guess I managed to, uhh, snap you out of your stupor." He grinned stupidly. A mild shock, indeed!
Min sat up on the glowing white slab and looked at him, confused. "What stupor? I was in the arena one minute, and... Wait, I remember blacking out, but... Why did I?" She blinked in confusion, reached up numbly and rubbed the back of her head, flinching as she touched where it had hit the arena wall. "OW! Oooo, maybe that's why. I've gotten so clumsy lately--"
Zim glanced at the marks on her wrists, his smile fading. "Yeah. That's right. You must've hit your head." He mumbled. Maybe it was better she didn't remember anything about it. Irk only knew what would happen to her if he reminded her...
"Zim?" Zim looked back up, into her eyes. "Umm, thanks, Zim. Thanks for helping me."
"No need to thank me. It was the least I could do after you healed me..." Zim said warmly. Min was the first to break the gaze, staring at the floor instead. Those last words seemed to hurt her, somehow. "...Did I say something wrong?"
"No, it's just... Why do you have to be so nice?" She said sadly. Zim wasn't sure what to say to that. Min sat up at the edge of the cot and stood up slowly only a few feet from him. "I'll be all right now. I just need to walk it off."
"Just don't strain yourself..." Zim said, a smirk starting to form on his lips. The reference to their encounter in the hallway was not lost on Min, who glanced at him and blinked, bright green filling her face again. Now why did he have to bring THAT up? She'd tried to drown out that instant under reams of data, as well as the strange feelings that came along with it. What was wrong with her? She'd never acted that way when she touched another irken before. 'Course, Zim wasn't a normal irken, either...
"Hm, what's wrong with your face?" Zim said, reaching down and cupping her burning cheek. She jolted backward at his touch.
"Uhh, nothing. I'm just, eheh, just going to go out and walk this off like I said I would. If you need me for anything, I'll be in the communications chamber." She said, sidestepping out of the room, her eyes still on Zim. Before she disappeared around the corner, she stopped. "By the way, y-you look good in black..." She chattered quickly, and was gone.
Zim stood there, dumbfounded. Why was she avoiding him? Maybe she just didn't like him, he thought, frustrated. Maybe he'd already managed to freak her out with his human tendencies. Maybe Dib said something to her. He better not, he thought bitterly. He looked good in black? Why would she avoid him, and say that in the same breath? He heaved a frustrated sigh and started towards the door himself. Whatever it was, something was making her act strange. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. Prak, it was hard to tell what HE was thinking, half the time. Stupid human emotions did that to him. He froze in the doorway at that thought. Min. Maybe she...
He shook his head. "Heh. Wishful thinking, Zim."