"Damage report on the Dib!"
The words were out of Zim's mouth before he fully finished materializing from the computer's teleportation ray. The tiny alien glowered up at the row of five blue tubes and their bubbling insides- all were empty, except the one directly before him. The one that held his precious human slave. Zim glared angrily at the painful sight of Dib's pale body wrapped in diagnostic equipment and fine metal traceries and wires. Delicate mechanical arms with keen tools were visible now and again, swaying above the curve of Dib's white shoulder as they moved- frantically trying to piece together torn muscle and ruined internal organs. A monitor to the side pinged with a slow but regular bleep- too slow, Zim gritted his teeth, too slow...
FILTHY ROBOT! All YOUR fault...
SUBJECT IS COMATOSE FROM SHOCK AND SEVERE DAMAGE. SEMI-SPINALIS DORSI, SPINALIS DORSI, LONGISSIMUS DORSI ALL TORN. LUMBORUM ON RIBS TEN AND TWELVE SEVERED. BURN DAMAGE TO THE UNDERLYING BONE STRUCTURE: C9 to T6 ALL APPEAR DAMAGED. BOTH LUNGS PIERCED OR SURFACE BURNED FROM LASER FIRE. ESTIMATED REPAIR TIME WILL BE THREE WEEKS, MINIMUM. ADDITIONAL: THE NANNITES INSTALLED IN THE SPINAL COLUMN HAVE DROPPED TO 35% FUNCTIONALITY. SYSTEM STABILITY CAN NOT BE ASSURED AT THIS TIME EVEN WITH FULL REPAIRS. ALSO. OUR STOCKS OF HUMAN PLASMA AND BLOOD ARE CRITICALLY LOW. URGENTLY RECOMMEND OBTAINING OR SYNTHESIZING REPLACEMENTS.
Zim staggered back from the tube, fingers fanned, eyes wide. His lips rippled around his teeth; he snarled, swore viciously, and ground his heel into the floor. When I get my CLAWS on you, GIR... "THREE WEEKS? UNACCEPTABLE! Give me alternatives. NOW."
UHM... THERE -ARE- NO ALTERNATIVES, UNLESS YOU WANT HIM PARALYZED FOR LIFE...
"Put a time enhancement field in effect inside the tube! That should speed up the healing process, correct? Replace the damaged muscle with synthetic fiber grafts, reroute as much impulse carriage through the undamaged tissues as you can and install additional processors to the cerebellum and brainstem to manage the load! It's not that DIFFICULT!"
It's not DIFFICULT, but... Master, this work is INCREDIBLY delicate and his system's already experienced severe trauma... installing NEW hardware may push him over the edge!
"SILENCE! You're MY servant! You do what I say! I want him fully operational in a WEEK, do you hear me? ONE WEEK! You do WHATEVER IT TAKES to make that happen!" I'm beginning to lose PATIENCE. This should have been FINISHED by now.
The computer gave a frustrated sigh. AT LEAST GIVE ME REPLACEMENT STOCK TO WORK WITH. The edges of the blue containment tube began to glow a soft lavender- the time field slowly being brought to life, wrapping around the inside of the tube, and its unconscious occupant.
"We don't have TIME to go get any." Zim shoved his sleeve up, baring the green thinness of his left arm. "HERE. You take whatever FLUIDS you need from MY amazing self and reconfigure them into an appropriate substance for the HUMAN."
He ground his teeth together as the computer sank a needle into his bicep- roughly, he thought- and closed his eyes as he began to feel his blood tugged backward against his veins... he watched the pink fluid moving up the plastic tube, rising into the ceiling. Rising out of him.
Zim began to feel dizzy. He struggled to keep his feet, his tiny insectile legs quivering. He fought back, grasping his lower lip between his teeth, staggering where he stood. He was IRKEN, and no WEAKLING; yet deep in the back of his mind something small and scared whimpered, but Irken blood isn't at -all- compatible to human...
---
The needle pulled free, the tiniest wet sound as it left his skin, and Zim turned back to face the tube where Dib slept submerged. Along the curved blue surface of the tube Zim could see his own reflection, a tiny thing at the base of the human's feet.
He traced around the edge of his own face in the curved blue glass with his fingertip, perversely fascinated by what he saw. His reflected eyes were wide, smeet-bright and round. He was so -small-.
I hate you.
His pak pressed something into his hands. Something like a hammer, a ponderous heavy blunt thing.
I hate you.
He closed his hand around it, feeling the grip creak under his fingers' pressure. Rage and strength swelled in his arms.
I HATE YOU!
He SLAMMED the object, with all his might, into the watery reflection of himself.
The tank exploded in a bitter shower of fluid and glass shards.
And behind the shattered glass Dib hung, naked and unaware.
---
MASTER. MASTER! ATTENTION!
Zim responded with a dazed mumble, his cheek pressed to the floor. His spider legs emerged from his pak and lifted him off the cold gradiated metal. The tiny alien stroked his antennae for comfort, deeply confused; he didn't remember fainting, but he must have done so. Memory moved hazily through him. The blood loss. Yes, it must have temporarily drained his strength.
And behind the shattered glass Dib hung, naked and unaware...
The alien twisted around on his skittering legs with a gasp, his eyes flaring- but the tube was sealed and smooth, gentle liquids within continuing to bubble slowly around the human's frame.
Zim exhaled loudly- then opened his mouth to complain at the computer for taking so much from him, for WEAKENING him DELIBERATELY!- but the AI cut him off.
I AM RECEIVING AN INCOMING TRANSMISSION FROM A RESISTY SHIP.
The Irken scowled into the air. Yes, there HAD been a ship nearby, hadn't there?... Oh, GREAT! Fantastic! PERFECT! He felt like dooky, Dib was offline... could there BE a worse time for them to bother him? "I'm in no mood to speak with those little weasils right now. Stall them."
I -HAVE- BEEN. FOR THE LAST TWENTY MINUTES. THEY SAY THEY'LL OPEN FIRE IF YOU DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE IN PERSON.
"... In the name of..." Zim sighed wearily. "All right, all right. I'll take it on the bridge..." He still felt weirdly sick and dizzy; at least his pak legs did not tremble. He dangled tiredly from them, and allowed them to carry him forward, through the door.
More delays, more PROBLEMS...
---
Zim's pak-legs compressed to lower him toward the control console at the heart of the ship; he stabbed at a round pink button, and frowned up at the huge floating screen that hung above a coiling seabed of grey cable. The screen flashed to life and a grey face appeared on it, the visage of a creature with twin horns protruding from its skull and a pair of green goggles strung across its face. The creature twitched occasionally, shifting nervously around in its squeaky chair.
"Irken Zim responding to incoming transmission... what do you nuisances want NOW?... oh, wait, it's YOU."
Zim gritted his teeth. Vortians. Zim DESPISED Vortians. They were so TWITCHY, they made HIM twitchy to look at them... and this one was PARTICULARLY bad in that respect.
This particularly twitchy Vortian bared its jagged teeth at him; it liked Zim about as well as he liked it. "Yes, Irken scu... er... RENEGADE... It is I, Lard Nar, leader of the fearsome Resisty!" He pumped his fist in the air, melodramatic, then coughed out loud, as if embarrased of itself. "Er... I wish to speak once again with the human Dib."
The Irken sneered across the link. "He's not available! Bother us some OTHER time!"
Lard Nar's green goggles narrowed suspiciously. "And may I ask WHY he's not available?!"
"You may NOT."
"Now listen here, Irken, if you've DONE anything to him...!"
Zim raised himself on his mechanical legs and pointed a sharp claw at the screen. "Save your hollow threats for the quivering fools of the ARMADA, Lard Nar- I still remember YOU from my stationing on Vort. Twitchy little beast. Don't bother to worry your pointy little head about this; I'll have Dib CONTACT your annoying self as soon as he's BETTER, all right? Now GO AWAY! The longer I stand here listening to you BLITHER, the longer it will take me to make Dib get back to NORMAL!" Sullen, he dropped back down toward the console, radiating resentment.
"When he's -better-? Is something WRONG?" The Vortian's fingers dug into the padded armrests of his chair; popping another few stitches open without realizing it.
"It's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! I won't say it again- GO AWAY!" Zim stabbed the red button to end the transmission, and then twisted his fingers left to the blue triangle to accelerate the vessel's stardrive- he just wanted to LEAVE THE AREA as quickly as he could. Once his instruments showed he had left the Resisty a good thousand light years behind, he sighed and let his appendages carry him backward, clambering into one of the pair of Relaxy-chairs stationed on the bridge.
Retracting the legs into his pak at last, Zim sank deep into the plush leather of the chair, wearier than he'd felt in years. He twisted onto his side, and sighed deeply; Dib usually took this chair, and it retained a faint hint of the human's smell still.
Absolute silence, breathless and unbroken, surrounded Zim.
Zim's fingers dug into the yielding material, and he pressed his cheek close to it, a tiny squeaking sob escaping his throat against his will. His mouth twitched at this admission of remorse. But there was no one there to see, no one to know, so he could indulge one measly moment of grief, couldn't he? He was TIRED, he was ALONE, his mind HURT, and he -wanted-...
Oh, how MUCH he -wanted-...
Dib.
A week?
A whole miserable WEEK without Dib?
Stupid, wretched, HORRIBLE -GIR-...
GIR!
Zim pushed off the chair, his weariness receding. How could he have FORGOTTEN? He STILL had to deal with GIR... !
Gir will PAY for keeping Dib from me.
----
"I am VERY, VERY angry with you." Zim scowled down at his hapless robot slave.
Gir blew a raspberry at his master and drifted and bobbed around playfully inside the bright cylinder of orange energy surrounding him. His body spun and rebounded in slow motion; his jaw hung slack in a happy, brainless smile.
Zim ignored this, though his left eye began to twitch. "And I've made up my mind about what I'm going to DO about it."
"OoOoh!" The tiny robot surged forward, pressing his face into the field. Sparks of orange and yellow flooded the joints of the little SIR unit, making his body jerk violently. Yet he still grinned - a horrible death's head grin - and sang in a voice distorted by the horrific energy: "Thingy gonna eeeeat Dib's head!"
Zim physically RECOILED. "You... DARE...!" He HATED Gir, oh Tallest he absolutely HATED him, how he wanted him to FEEL that hate and DROWN in it... the Irken snarled, a vile energy lashing out from within him in an eyeblink... and it just bounced, slid off the crazy robot like it was nothing at all. Malevolence spread across Zim's face then, twisting the Irken's geometric features into a bitter mask of fury.
"... Very well, GIR. You BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF! COMPUTER! Kindly throw this USELESS EXCUSE FOR A ROBOT off my SHIP and summon my OTHER henchman to me! At least I know I can trust HIM not to BREAK MY THINGS!" The Irken twisted away, fuming.
Gir sniffled, lifting one tiny hand to wave a pathetic goodbye before the floor yawned open beneath him.
---
He tumbled through rings and plastic tubes, pushed and shoved out and out by invisible forces. It was all Gir could do to keep his concentration together, keep his limbs attached; keep his mind focused in the purposeful serenity of Duty Mode.
His master- both of his masters!- were in such terrible danger... he knew it right now, but it was so, SO easy to FORGET...
The little SIR wrapped his arms around himself and curled up small, a tiny silver pinball bouncing in the darkness between the walls and down, down, down into the dark as the computer flung him out to the void.
He twirled through space for long seconds before finally catching himself with his feet-rockets. His arms hung slack at his sides, his pink square tongue dangled out of his mouth.
The absolute freezing cold, the bombardment of frigid radiation, the miniscule particles ripping pin-point holes in his tiny body as they raced through the darkness: none of these mattered to Gir. He felt no pain, feared no cold, and the radiation merely tickled his hollow circuits.
But his master's blood-red ship accelerated into the twinkling night, and Gir was left behind.
----