WARNING: All faint of heart, stomach or squeedily spooch, turn back now. This is the chapter that earned the story its M rating.

and yeah, I don't own the IZ universe, but Night SO owns Tak in this scene . . .

Memory download: (continuation)

"You remember our story, right?" I ask Cor.

"Of course," he replies. He gives Tak a stimulant injection, and we both stand there, waiting.

Finally, her eyes flicker open, and she looks around groggily. Then she sees me and she's wide awake. "You -- how did you get --"

"Him," I say, jerking a thumb toward Cor. Now Tak's eyes are really huge; I didn't think they could get that big.

"You're -- you're . . . "

"Zim," Cor says smugly. "And you will address me as Master Invader Zim."

"But what -- how --"

Cor looks to me. "Dib, you tell her."

"Of course," I say, inclining my head respectfully toward him. Tak stares up at me, both curious and horrified. "It appears you've been unconscious for several years. The Irken Armada conquered Earth about a month ago. Fortunately for me, I was working with Zim when the notice came through, and he offered to save me if I would be loyal to the Empire. I took him up on it, and they offered me an excellent position. There was only one thing they didn't offer that I asked for."

Silence falls for a couple seconds. Tak starts looking nervous. Finally, she asks, "What was it?"

I smile, a sadistic expression that might not be accurate to the Dib, but I don't think she's logical enough to realize that now. "I spent all those years chasing Zim, trying to catch him and cut him open so I could see what his guts looked like, but he always got away. I figured the least they could do for me is give me a decent substitute."

I an see the dawning horror on Tak's face, and I have to stop myself from breaking character by bursting out laughing. I've got her right where I want her now.

I pull on my gloves and pick up a pair of scissors.

"No! Please, I'll do anything you want!" she screeches.

"Then be quiet and lie still," I say coldly.

"I'm an Irken Elite! You can't do this to me!"

"You're a filthy traitor," Cor (or shall I call him Zim?) hisses. "You have no rank. You're nothing but a body and a PAK that hasn't been scrapped yet." He's good at this.

I cut away her clothes. She has a scar across her chest that looks like the result of being clawed in a fight. I set aside the scissors and pick up a scalpel.

"Where would be best?" I ask Cor.

"Down the midline, starting about there," he says, indicating a point just below the bottom of Tak's breastbone. "Then horizontal incisions, top and bottom, so you don't have to tear the skin to peel it back."

She's quiet now, watching the blade as I hold it poised over her body. "How deep?" I ask.

"Not very," Cor replies. "You don't want to go too far into the muscle layer this time."

I move the knife to the place he pointed out, just letting it touch her. I glance up at her face. Her eyes are closed and she's breathing deeply, trying to prepare herself for the pain. I wait until she looks a little less focused before I press the blade in.

It's amazing how easy it is to slice through skin with the proper tools. I have to be careful not to cut too deep or let her avoid the blade by sucking her stomach in, but aside from that, it's almost effortless. The gooey green blood wells up quickly in the cut, making a bold line across her abdomen. She makes it a lot easier by staying quiet, or, as she probably thinks, refusing to give us the satisfaction of knowing how much pain she's in.

In all honesty, I don't care how much this hurts her body. I know what it's doing to her mind, and that's plenty. I told Cor I want her awake and aware as long as possible. It'll be interesting to see how long she can go without medication.

I have the three incisions finished, and I peel the skin back with forceps, using the scalpel to slice through the membrane holding it to the muscle whenever necessary. There's not much blood, and I can see exactly how the muscles are laid out, which direction they'd pull if tensed, everything. Their deep bluish-green is masked somewhat by the pale connective tissues that hold them together.

"This is incredible," I mutter, tracing the curve where two muscle groups meet admiringly. I know it's something the Dib would do, and it probably hurts Tak like crazy.

"The physiology of a truly superior race," Cor says. "Go ahead and cut through the muscle layer. You can examine her muscles more closely after we're done with the major organs."

As I cut through her stomach muscles, Tak finally starts to break. Her breathing is fast now, and every time I push the scalpel, she lets out a little cry. Her eyes are closed, but that doesn't stop the tears. I look up at Cor and sign to him that I don't want her in quite that much pain. He alters the mixture of fluids in her IV, adding painkillers. By the time I finish the third incision, she's more relaxed, though I've noticed she refuses to look at anything but the ceiling. The mighty rebel Tak can't even handle seeing her own guts. If only I could come up with an excuse to put that mirror back over the table . . . too bad I didn't put it in place before we woke her up. I'll have to remember to do that next time.

I pull back the muscle layer to reveal a glistening mass of organs. I have a general idea of what most of them are; I've had to learn the basics of anatomy over the years, but I have to feign ignorance to play my role accurately.

I poke something rounded and brownish. "What's that?"

"The filpet," Cor replies. "It's part of the squeedily spooch, and it filters toxins out of the blood."

"What about that?" I ask, indicating a pale, spongy-looking mass.

"That's the oroplasic foop, another part of the squeedily spooch. It produces a lot of the enzymes for digestion and such. You can go ahead and remove it."

I try not to smile too cruelly as I lift the flat, floppy organ and start cutting away at its conncections to the rest of Tak's body. Her eyes are closed, and she's breathing fast. I can see the lower connections of the muscles that expand her air sacs, and I pause to watch them tense and relax. I've never done anything quite like this before, and I'm finding myself amazed at some of the small wonders of the Irken body.

Cor's voice cuts into my thoughts. "Incredible, isn't it?"

"Yes," I say. "It's fascinating."

"You see why I say we're one of the most highly evolved races that ever existed?"

"Definitely." With that, I resume my cutting. A few more careful movements of the blade and the organ comes free. I hand it to Cor, who drops it in a clear plastic tray next to Tak's head.

And she had just opened her eyes, too. That shocked expression is exactly what I was looking for. She's staring at the slimy lump of tissue, obviously trying to wrap her mind around the fact that it's part of her body lying in that tray, a part that had never even been exposed to light before today.

We go through the same process with most of her digestive system, removing anything that won't cause too much blood loss. By the time we're done with our list for the day, about a third of her squeedily spooch is piled in the tray.

"I think that's enough for now," I say as I hand Cor another gland to add to the pile.

"I agree," he says. "I'll go ahead and knock her out so she won't be squirming around, messing things up for tomorrow."

"Fuck you," Tak hisses as he fills a needle with anaesthetic.

"That would be much more threatening if it were biologically possible," I remark as he jams the needle into her neck. I see her take a breath to respond, but the chemical overwhelms her before she can say anything.

I sigh in relief. "Finally. I have got to get out of this body." I take a bottle and a fresh syringe off the cart and give myself a shot of the reversal trigger for the SRM. I added that aspect just for this application; it wouldn't do for us to be limited by time the way we would with a normal one. I hurriedly pull off my clothes before the change gets too intense.

By the time I'm done getting dressed, Cor is his usual self again, too. He checks to make sure Tak is still unconscious while I get a carrier. We unstrap her and lay her on it. Cor fits her with a mask that will keep her out until we get her to the new room. We can't take any chances on a creature like this waking up unbound, even if she has been cut open and is missing all her nonessential organs.

The room we move her to has more extensive equipment; it's a vivisection lab, instead of the torture facilities I usually use. We lock her into a frame that allows full access to the whole body; it even has a PAK shell that pulls the PAK away from the subject's back a little bit to allow access to the attachment points and cables. It also won't let her move at all, and it's fully adjustable so we can fix her in any position we want.

"Anything else?" Cor asks me.

"Not tonight," I say. "Just make sure she's not gonna wake up before we come back tomorrow."

"Already taken care of," Cor says with a smile.

"Then I think we're done for today."

I glance back at her as I leave the room. In that position, spread-eagled in a metal rack with her abdomen laid open and a lot of her organs missing, she looks absolutely pathetic.

I turn out the light and slide the door shut.

I'm definitely doing the Empire a favor.

"There's always some killing you've got to do around the farm." - Tom Waits