On board the Cool Vortian Spaceship Thingy 2, a particularly twitchy Vortian fidgeted in his elevated control seat at the center of the bridge. His left foot jumped and bobbed against the metal support of the chair. The armrests, once nicely padded, were a mass of shreds near the base, from nervous picking of the alien's sharp fingers. He fretted and frowned and hmmMMmmed to himself.
He could feel it in his knees. They ached, his knees, they HURT: a slow, building burning hurt- always a bad sign. The worst.
"Something's very WRONG," Lard Nar bobbed his head, muttering. "That piece of Irken refuse was hiding something. I'm SURE of it. Yes, true, the Zim that I remember from long ago was touchy, impatient and rude... that's not changed, I guess, except... no! Something WAS different..." He stroked his chin with his fingers.
Cone-shaped Shloonktapooxis interrupted. "Hey, uh... leader-man? We're pickin' up somethin'..." His tiny round face beamed, square tongue dangling loose from the left side of his mouth. His purple body curved gently as he tapped a button with his proboscis.
Lard Nar twisted toward his lieutenant, eye-goggles flaring. "A -signal-?"
Shloonktapooxis's body swayed. "No! I mean we ACTUALLY picked UP somethin'! Check it out!"
The main viewscreen flickered, tranquil starlight replaced by the grimy green interior of the Cool Vortian Spaceship Thingy 2's loading bay. There was a tiny robot sprawled lifelessly on the floor, riddled with holes that leaked thin threads of black smoke.
Lard Nar's whole body leaned forward, forward, forward, his hands clenched around the bare metal edges of his ruined armrests. His knees were throbbing fit to explode now; he gritted his teeth against the pain. "...I know that shape- that's an Irken SIR unit! But that was a line that went out of production AGES years ago! Something about a tendency to eat their operators...What's it doing HERE? It must have come from that ship..." He twisted again, to his left this time. "Helmsman! Can we still get a trace on the Irken's ship?"
They could.
"Good! Quickly then, before they get too far ahead! Lock on and -follow- them! We'll get some answers yet!" Lard Nar hopped to the floor, grimacing at the effort, but determined to keep up a stoic front. " I'm going to go downstairs and personally examine that little robot! This could be IMPORTANT!"
---
A green spark popped and fizzled inside Gir's ravaged frame, somewhere inside the smouldering ruins of his chest. The tiny robot stirred and shuddered.
Somewhere deep within he -knew-:
Master needs me!
----
The truth was that Gir had never been intended to work at all.
Almighty Tallest Red fought desperately to control his giggling as he screwed a black eye-lens into the empty socket of an old SIR 52A unit- the ones that had gone hideously out of style about the same time Tallest Blotchy first had his thumbs cut off, some 400 years prior. So Zim wanted a robot, huh... Boy, he was gonna GET one!
An intangible spirit hovered above the scene, watching patiently. Waiting for its moment. It waited so long for such an opportunity.
Gently sifting through the trash can with his emaciated fingers, Red found another eye-lens and fitted it into place. The inside of the SIR unit was empty, as completely empty as a dry soup-can. Whatever electronic innards had been meant to fit inside the robot were clearly long gone; the inside of the SIR's shell was smooth, blank, and devoid of any circuitry that could have possibly BEEN connected to anything else anyway. There was no way it could have been made functional.
Red quickly flashed a message to Purple, who shifted backward and slipped him a bit of skirt-lint on the fly while Zim wasn't looking: a paperclip, a couple of low-denomination Irken moneys, and some candy. Red dumped these into the empty SIR, and screwed the top on its head. Zim would never have a clue, and by the time he figured out he'd been gypped- if it ever occurred to him- he'd probably be smashing into some asteroid anyway...
The spirit slid closer. From its vantage point it could see the spirals of thought rolling around the heads of the little Irkens and their masters; the boredom/frustration/anticipation building around each soldier who waited impatiently for their moment, their robot, their unleashing. The excited energy in the room was a tangible glow- most powerfully so from Zim, Zim, crazy little Zim with the demon sprouting hell inside his head.
It had all been arranged. The spirit would take shape, would throw himself on the fire for the sake of reality...
CLANG.
The dead SIR was unceremoniously dumped to the floor by the Tallest.
And the spirit moved over the face of the lifeless robot.
Gir sat up and spoke.
"Gir, reporting for duty."
And then the NOISE came howling in.
---
"Be careful!" Lard Nar shrieked, holding his arms out wide. The two Bulkies behind him drew back nervously to either side of the open door frame. "It's IRKEN, so we don't know what it might do!"
The little Irken robot in question was ... moving. Specifically, it was sitting up and looking at them oddly, its metal head tilting to one side with a creak of bending hinge and a blankly curious expression. Sparks fizzled and popped from within it every so often, and the loading bay was hazy with a brown fog of burned oil.
The Resisty and the robot stared at each other uncertainly. Lard Nar's knees were trembling. The Bulkies' big hands spasmed in anticipation of violence, ready to protect their fragile, jittery leader.
All at once Gir burst into tears.
The Bulkies mentally 'awwwed!' and started to step forward, but Lard Nar stopped them again. "WAIT. These things are DANGEROUS..." But the little SIR wept and wailed and pounded the floor with tiny half-broken fists, and the Bulkies were overcome. One of them stepped past their anxious Vortian leader and plucked Gir off the floor, cradling the tiny machine gently.
"Yooou gotta help my master!" Gir sniffled, eyelenses watering. "He gonna do bad stuff! He gonna hurt Dib! His brain got holes like cheese!"
Lard Nar startled. "What? What did you say?" He scuttled over painfully- his legs had never worked right since he'd broken them both escaping from the Irken prison on Vort- and tugged Gir away from the Bulky. "Are you Zim's robot? Did you come from their ship?"
Gir flung himself against Lard Nar's neck, nuzzling into the Vortian like a weary child. "You smell like lint!" he mumbled.
The Vortian gulped, gingerly cradling Gir with his arms- what else could he do? He struggled to regain some dignity, coughed loudly. "Uh... er... right... I guess that's a yes... uhm... WELL. We're already tracking their ship, so we should catch up to them soon!"
Gir was already asleep.
- - -
(A/N: Ugh. I hated this chapter. It was really hard to write for some reason. But now it's done, hurray!)
jrandomlurker-at-yahoo-dot-com