a meditation on the cost of love, Invader Zim style
by J. Random Lurker
Chapter Four: Captive
DAY ONE: (Dib)
... I knew.
This is all my fault.
Saturn is burning...
It's all my fault.
The Massive, flanked by a hundred thousand ships, is lazily carving its way toward Earth through the back end of the solar system.
They must have brought the whole fleet...
Ring A warps and distorts. Then it melts.
Make it STOP...
The rings are gone. Titan explodes under heavy fire, taking humanity's best hope of outer colonization with it. It's true, we never made it that far... but we WANTED to. We were trying so hard. So fucking hard...
... I'm referring to the human race in the past tense...
I know it won't do me any good, but I can't help it. In a second I'm beating the console, wild and random. Planets burning bodies choking buttons flaring and beeping, slap punch kick stop it, stop it, STOP IT godDAMN you STOP IT! I scream myself hoarse and I don't stop until I'm out of breath and shaking and smelling smoke and somewhere I fall down again, sliding down in front of the console and there are tears on my face and the cables slide under my arms and around my chest and slide up my thighs and grip my neck and I just sigh and shut my eyes tight...
I won't fight.
I can almost -feel- his malice in the thick mechanical fingers locked around my neck when the cables haul me off the floor and off my feet. Zim. The same feeling, the shiver of the hairs on the back of my neck, as if he were actually holding me. But that's crazy, isn't it... No, I'm sure of it. I know. Zim's got to be here somewhere, he MUST be. A ghost in the machine, watching. Listening. Probably enjoying every second of this.
Another cable-arm swings into my line of sight, three fingers and a laser-lens between them that begins to gleam with sharp pink energy. The length of the cable sways hypnotic, serpentine,shivering eagerly.
I'm going to die.
Everyone's going to die, yeah; but the rest of the world has two more blissful ignorant days. The light from the ships won't reach here until after the Armada's already paved us over. As the only person on this planet who knows enough about the Irkens to really fight them, I probably have a few hours left, if even that. I could try to run- hell, Zim might even let me reach the surface- but what's the point? We -might- be able to hold off a surface invasion, but that's not how this works. They'll just boil us alive from orbit. Short of a miracle, there's nothing that we can do. We have no time. We have no weapons. We don't have anything.
And it's my fault. I let go of the fight, and Zim never did. I deserve to die for that alone.
All I can think about right now is Gaz. Gaz and Dad. I mean, it's human, isn't it? Dad's anti-Santa arsenal and mountain fortress. Been there for years. Goes deep below the surface, almost like a supersized version of this rotten little place. This place and that are probably the only structures on the planet that have a prayer of surviving the bombardment. They can use the weapons there to defend themselves. At least, I could save THEM...
His voice emanates from a speaker hidden somewhere, bounces and echoes off the huge chamber walls. God, I hate it when he pulls theatrics. Ten minutes.
One cable unloops enough that I can slip an arm free. Even seperated by billions of miles, we can read each other's minds. He's giving me time, because he knows it won't do any good. The enemy that takes pity on you is the you should fear the most... does the condemned have any final words?
I shove back my sleeve and twist the dial-face of my watch toward my vision, tap a button. A tired pair of eyes squint back at me when the connection's made. "What -is- it, Dib..."
The mechanical fingers at the back of my neck twitch. Just reminding me they're there. I pull in my breath and blurt it out. "Gaz, you need to get Dad and go to the northern stronghold RIGHT NOW." Just listen to me for ONCE in your goddamn life, shut up and LISTEN, I'm the big brother, DO WHAT I SAY!
She doesn't say anything, just opens her eyes fully to glare at me. This is my cue to talk fast before she hangs up on me. The cable that was threatening me dips its head and starts moving... slowly slowly going around behind me, oh-so-subtly fitting itself to the back of my head. Nice. He can blow my brains out any time he wants. GodDAMMIT, Zim... ! "I'm inside Zim's base. The Armada is coming, okay? We don't have TIME. It's REAL, Gaz. It's coming." In a panic, I scream out. "Show her, Zim! I don't care! Show her!"
I hear him chuckle. The back of my head is getting warm.
The screen at my wrist flickers into static, then into the image of the Armada. In miniature, in crystal clarity, the Massive punches straight through the heart of Jupiter and... the planet just pops. Like a balloon. All the gases losing cohesion and scattering. The Massive glides smugly through the middle, untouched.
As the image flicks back into our direct link, Gaz is still silent- but her face has lost all color. She just looks at me, wide-eyed. Questions I can't possibly answer flash across her face. How do you know what about you are you coming what am I supposed to tell Dad how can you dump this shit on ME what are YOU going to DO...?
"It's too late." I say in answer to all of them. My voice cracks. I wish I could say goodbye. I wish I could say I loved her. I wish she would say she loved me; I would really like to hear that before I die. But we're not that kind of family, and we never have been. So I say what -needs- to be said. "GO."
She goes.
Bye, Gaz.
The next few minutes pass in a blur. I'm shoved, pulled and shunted, tossed and flung; something always has hold of me, and it just... doesn't matter any more. Eventually I drop to the floor somewhere, rolling to an ackward stop against something smooth and metallic. The cables pull back from me and disappear, letting me pick myself up, catch my breath.
What I've been dumped next to is a ship. It stuns me stupid for a second as I stand there staring, trying to understand why Zim is even letting me SEE a ship at this point. I end up giving this little shrug: you can never understand my amazing brain! he told me once.
At first glance I take the ship to be the Voot Cruiser, but once the surprise clears I realize that can't be the case- this is different. The side engine pods sit differently and the back of the ship is elongated. I walk over and put my hand on it.
Something far, far below me gives a sudden teeth-rattling THWOOM. It's the sound of bad things; nothing GOOD sounds like that... and my first panicked thought is earthquake!. The room shakes, the floor VIBRATING under my feet, hard enough to toss me against the side of the ship. A strange, sterile voice begins to shout Irken words; I don't recognize them. I lift my head and shriek over the recording, "ZIM! What the hell was THAT?!"
His voice wraps around me from everywhere. "Your cue to leave." Chuckling. "Unless you prefer to be here when my base collapses in 30 seconds."
Oh, FUCK you...
I feel my eyes slitting. "Lemme guess. If get in the ship, you're going to fly me into the sun or something."
"Heh heh heh, suspicious little Dib. It's a very, VERY simple choice. You can get in the escape ship I'm so GENEROUSLY providing you... or you can die."
"Some choice," I growl.
"Choose -quickly-."
I throw my hands up. "Okay, FINE, Whatever...!"
The bubble-glass windshield rolls back to admit me. I climb in, and settle; entirely NOT surprised when the cables swing around the back of the chair and strap me down with about seventeen coils of cabling.
I try really, really hard not to think about how it feels. Not to think about the way my heart rate jumps as the cables squish my body down into the thick, clean leather padding... ... shit, it's not working...
As the windshield closes in front of me I sigh, "I'm gonna end up in the cesspool again, aren't I?"
Zim just laughs from somewhere inside the console. It's a strange laugh, too- not the sawing maniacal cackle I expect, but a soft amused sort of chuckle.
Which worries me more than anything. I wriggle a little as the console lights and the ship begins to move. It manuevers itself through a tube and up, up... finally bursting through from an exit several blocks away from the surface house and rising fast. I watch the city slide out of view with morbid interest.
A short time passes- around 20 minutes. The ship breaks through the stratosphere and slides effortlessly into open space. It's ... well, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it was beautiful. I missed this SO much... and as last hours go, this has been pretty good so far. The cabling is tight but... in a good way; the stars are gorgeous, their infinite gold light pure and unchanging, undistorted by gravity.
The faint whirr of the ship's 'air conditioning' and my own breathing are the only sounds; except for a faint pink glow from the dashboard controls, there's no light. It's weirdly peaceful. I surrender into it, tipping my head back. The sense that Zim is near- that his will is infused into everything around me is incredibly strong, stronger as I let my guard down. I feel... like I'm inside him, somehow. "How are you doing this?"
He sounds mellow now, probably because he knows he's got me. "Oh... do you mean how I seem to be reading your thoughts and seeing everything you do?" The cables around my waist flex tighter- like he's closing his arms around me... I bite my lip and try to think about the corpses in the tubes, the outer planets burning...
"I didn't take all my monitoring devices away with me when I left, you know. A few hints put you on the track I wanted. And from the moment you entered my base you entered ME..."
My face goes hot, but my brain sparks, making a connection. "The file in the laptop!"
"You begin to get the idea. Yes, that file contained... shall we say... a piece of me. From there I spread when you so kindly downloaded it directly into the central processor. From there I retook the entire base, able to see your every move. I knew you'd want to break in once you knew I was returning."
"You're in this ship then too." I get it. "Wow, I really fell for it, didn't I?"
"As I knew you would." A cable slides delicately around my neck, squeezes down... "And now I control you, too."
An arm unfolds from above me and seals a padded plastic cup over my nose and mouth...
- - -
I wake up in the dark, with a sore throat and my hands tied behind my back. Some kind of metal harness holds my wrists and arms and wraps across my chest in thick bands. I can't smell anything weird and don't feel like throwing up so he must have used halothane instead of nitrous or ether... geez, it's bad that I actually know the difference between airborne sedatives, isn't it? It's probably good that I slept though; my head is clearer than it's been all day. I don't think I could have been out too long; Zim would not let me sleep through the destruction of Earth, I'm pretty sure.
I have all my clothes on, and I have a -brutal- erection. I'm hoping I get a chance to beat Zim to death with it.
I find I can move and stumble up to my feet, but I still cam't see. I walk until I bump into something- one pace exactly. Ow. Dammit, my NOSE... I turn, and wiggle my hands so I can feel the surface. A cold smooth, featureless wall. Mmph. Must be a cell. I turn around again, not sure if I can't see because there are no lights on or because I'm blindfolded, and put my cheek against the metal. I feel more than a little stupid, rubbing my face against the wall like this, but after a couple of nudges I can see light, so I keep going.
Huh. It wasn't worth it... It's a cell, all right. A tiny one, too, maybe 7 by 4, white and sterile and completely featureless. I can't identify a light source. I can't even see the outlines of a door, or an opening in the ceiling. There is one four-inch circular shuttered-grate that appears to be an air-vent.
I frown and put my ear to the metal, to see if I can hear anything. But there's nothing. It could be insulated. I strain onto my tiptoes and peer through the tiny grate. I can't feel it, but apparently the box is moving because I can catch snatches of lights passing by beyond.
I brace my back against one wall and lift a leg up, kicking at the featureless whiteness. "ZIM! Zim, you STUPID LIZARD! LET ME OUT! DO YOU HEAR ME? LET ME OUT!" BANG. BANG. BANG! The metal thunders darkly under each blow of my boot's thick rubber heel. I try all four walls, spinning around and kicking each one in turn. I bang on the floor too for good measure.
Nothing happens. Well, not NOTHING- now the walls are dirty with bootprints. And now my throat REALLY hurts.
Right then, one side of the box suddenly pops open - the seams were in the corners, I see- and a small horde of tiny, determined-looking Irkens in strange armor reach inside and yank me out. They wrestle me to my knees, guns and sharp-ended staves poking my ribs and trained on the back of my head, shouting incomprehensibly. I feel like Gulliver, but I don't think they'd get the reference.
As much as I can without moving my head and pissing off my guards I look around, but it only adds to my confusion. They've brought me to a ... lounge? There are tables here, tables and chairs all in slick, retro-future curved white; white tile floors and a gigantic monitor covering most of the wall.
There's a figure sitting in one of the chairs; I can see the back of his head, his antennae, the rest hidden by the chair back. Is it Zim? I feel my blood pressure rising at the thought...
After my guards are convinced I'm settled and immobile, one of them- must be a captain- breaks away and approaches the figure. His antennae flickers as he speaks, then bows. He moves back to me and flaps his hand, barks something at his men. They eye me warily, but step back.
The figure in the chair sets down a drink on the table. I gasp in surprise, recognizing the gauntlet on his hand.
Flashback to a few years ago: the first time I ever saw the Irken Tallest in person. Zim had gotten in some kind of trouble, and he'd left orders for his crazy little robot Gir to contact their leaders. They were ... bizarre looking to say the least. Big buggy red and purple eyes, absurdly breakable waists that looked like naked bone in armor, rounded chests, pencil-thin arms ending in giant round white striped gauntlets. And they FLOATED there, staring blankly at me while the robot babbled about something or other. None of us could understand each other.
I shake myself out of the recollection. This figure is probably Tallest Red, then...the stripe on the gauntlet matches. We're not gonna get very far if we can't speak each other's languages.. and where's Zim, anyway? He should be here GLOATING at me with his zipper teeth grinning and rubbing his claws together in anticipation of my horrible painful doom...
The Tallest gets up, hovers out from around the chair, and just... looks at me, linking his arms behind his back, thoughtful. I glare back in return- what does THIS guy want? and try to ignore the cramps moving through my shoulders and forearms from the strict restraints.
The Irken slips an emaciated finger under my chin, lifting my head. And then all the rest of me. I feel myself staring. ONE FINGER, and he's pulling my entire body upright, off the floor, off my FEET... over his head... with just one finger that looks like it'd break if you breathed on it.
I had no -idea- the Tallest were so strong. I hang there, bound and balanced on a finger-tip. I get the message. He could probably kill me with that one finger, too...
Then, then... as he looks at me with that strange interest, he suddenly opens his mouth and smiles. A zipper-toothed gleeful smile.
"Did you MISS me, Dib?"
- - -
A/N: BWAHAHAHAHAH!! cough...ahem.
Some truly excellent fan-art for 72 has been produced: see gorogoro's stuff at deviantart!
Thanks to everyone for their patience. I tried to Nano in November, but that didn't go so well as work suddenly accelerated. As a result, I put off doing any fanfiction for that month... but hopefully this chapter was worth the delay.
jrandomlurker(at)yahoo(dot)com