Memory download: SRM with Tak

It's been almost two days since I left her alone with that horrible high-pitched noise. I'm ready for anything when I walk into that room, from a foaming, savage thing to the same nonchalant attitude she gave me before.

The first thing I see as the door opens is her antennae, drooping over the edge of the table, still held by the clasp. She hears me enter and they perk up slightly.

"Back already?" Her voice is quiet and hoarse, as if she's been yelling the entire time I was gone. Probably trying to drown out the tone in her head. I don't respond. I was too friendly last time. I don't want her thinking we have any kind of understanding.

I set up the mixtures I've brought on a cart where she can see exactly what I'm doing. She'll have a millon questions, but I'm not answering them.

"What is that stuff?"

And here comes the barrage.

"Are you listening to me?"

I turn up the volume of my music as I draw the dose of my latest SRM preparation. I walk over to the restraining table and program it to readjust every .05 seconds as Tak's shape changes. Well, it'll get tighter as needed. I'll have to loosen it myself when she changes back. I'm not taking chances.

I cut away the sleeve on her right arm. She won't need clothing anymore anyway. I raise a vein and plunge the needle in, forcing every drop of the solution into her blood. With the higher concentration, she'll change much faster than Syre did.

"What is that? What does it do?" Her questions are curious, not really panicked, and I find that annoying.

I sit down on a stool a few feet away and watch. Her biosignatures are already changing. She's not registering as Tak anymore. She feels the changes, her limbs growing shorter, the restraints moving with them. The clip falls off her antennae as they shorten and uncurl. I pick it up and snap it back on.

"What is this? What did you do to me?" The voice is definitely not Tak's. I grin. So annoying, yes, but her reaction . . . it's even better than Purple discovering the purpose of HLD.

"Is this . . . it can't be . . . how did you . . ." I enter a command in the tablet, and a mirror descends from the ceiling and turns so she can look at herself.

She screams as she stares into a face I know she finds horribly familiar.

"No! You can't do this to me! It's not possible! It'll -- NOOOO!" That voice is annoying. I'm sure she/he/whatever would shut up if I revealed that it's just temporary, but I'm not saying anything.

"I can't be Zim! I'm Tak. I'm Tak. I'm not Zim. I'm not male. I'm not. It's a dream, it has to be a dream. What did I have to drink last night? Maybe it was the noise . . . I'm hallucinating. I'm not Zim."

"You sure sound like Zim." I just had to say that.

"But I'm not Zim. Even if I look like him, I'm not." There's a clunk from the depression in the table where her PAK rests. Her eyes widen. There's a side effect I need to iron out. The changes in her DNA caused her PAK to detach.

"Make it stop," she wails, turning to me.

I just close my eyes and shrug. If it doesn't reverse within ten minutes, she hasn't got a chance. I'll just let her rot in here until the three weeks are up. Being Zim for ten minutes would probably scar her more than two and a half weeks of physical torture anyway.

As the six-minute mark passes, I notice her starting to change again. Her eyes become more and more purple, her antennae lengthen and curl at the tips, and she starts getting taller and a bit thicker-limbed. With a wet chunk, her PAK reattatches. She's Tak again, complete with raspy voice from yelling so much.

And she's panting. Her body isn't showing signs of serious physical stress; this is purely psychological. I guess I will be doing experiments on her after all. And I just thought of the best way to kill her . . . the best way anyone has ever devised. It's so exciting I can barely wait until her three weeks are up.

"Here comes the BOOM! Haha, how you like me now?" - P.O.D.

Entry: Taking a break from DNA formualtion modeling for a new SRM. It gives me a headache how defective Zim is. All that time on Earth and he hasn't even sent us a DNA sample of the dominant native species. I have to work from images, which aren't very good and which don't provide me with enough detail. Perhaps if I upload some memories from Tak's PAK I can get a better idea of what to aim for, maybe have a couple computer techs build me some 3-D models.

Right now, I have something worked up based on Irken DNA, and it looks sort of similar to a human, but not similar enough. I've succeeded in creating very low-set, short, thick antennae, but I can't make them turn into anything that looks convincingly like ears. The nose is beyond me as well; I need to outcross to a race with something similar if I'm going to manage anything like what the humans have. Also, the sheer amount of flesh on some of those things amazes me. They must have amazingly strong bones to support so much weight. Even the thinner ones would make rather heavily-built Irkens.

Brilliant idea: I'll just pay the traders to grab me a pallette of DNA samples (and images to go with them) when they get my music. That way, I can work with the real stuff. It'll take a while to get, but the process will be so much faster once I have it.

"Got money, I'll do anything for you." - NIN

Entry: The DNA samples should be in with my next music pack. Now comes the hard part: I need data from Zim's PAK. I've assigned one of our info techs to find it for me; supposedly, it wasn't deleted like it should have been after his EET because the Control Brains overrode the protocol when they went crazy. There are supposed to be safeguard systems that block out any Zim-originated data from the central network, but a good tech like the one I've got should be able to work around that.

I approved the final plans for my ship today. I've been working on getting one built for the past month or so, partially because I would like to have my own transportation and also as a backup computer system so I can destroy the data on my main computer if it ever gets compromised, without losing anything important. They don't usually inspect ship's computers anyway.

The pay raise that comes with Master rank is so useful I can't even begin to describe it. I still never have quite enough money, but that's because I have such a voracious music habit and am always working on projects that aren't legal enough to get past the finance drones without getting me in trouble. At least I don't spend all my money buying expensive black-market snacks.

Memory download: File quarantine

My tech came through, and faster than I expected. He brought me a drive today with practically all the data that was in Zim's PAK when his trial took place. He also got me recordings of all his transmissions to the Tallest since then. I've been prepping a non-networked system for the past few hours, and now I'm just waiting for the upload to complete. I've even got a pair of good VR goggles hooked up to it, so I can experience his world. I could have done a direct link into my PAK, but the risk of spreading the corrupted data and thus turning myself into some sort of half-Zim defective is not one I'm willing to take just to torture Tak more effectively. This could be dangerous enough as it is.

Entry: I've been listening to "Fall Awake" and reading old journals for half an hour now, just to remind myself of who I really am and what my life is like. That creature is insane! I have only met one other Irken that crazy, and he was at least smart about it! Zim is just an idiot. He believes he's a top-notch Invader! He actually thinks he's admired! I just can't comprehend that. Tak won't like it either, I think. Of course, she might, if you think about it from a certain perspective. Will I let myself be that twisted?

Yes, I think I will.

"I can't wait to hear you scream." - Misfits

Entry: DNA samples are in. I've got a pretty good idea of the coding for the human SRM I'm working on. I wonder if I could . . . hm. Not sure I want to go that direction. What would be worst? What is the single worst situation Tak could find herself in, ever? I know it would involve Zim, and probably that human he fights with all the time, but what, exactly, would it be?

Entry (part B): I know exactly what I'm doing. I need to run a few tests so I can get a version that will stay PAK-compatible.

Memory download: (streaming)

Uhh, don'twannatyperightnow. I finally got a PAK-friendly working version, after doing nothing else for four days. I used some random prisoner, and he freaked out when he realized what had happened, just like Tak did. But anyways, things are coming along. All I have to do is force some medical tech to watch a couple hours of those recordings I have in the data quarantine and we should be good to go in that area. But I have other plans for Tak first. After all, she still has ten days to live.

"Darkness never seemed to shine so bright." - Juggernautz

A/N: I know the ending of this story now. Some of you might hate it, but it's not like I had a choice in the matter.