Saving Zim by Dib07

Summary:

He was almost autumnal in a sense, as if he had lost the leaves of youth and didn't quite know what to do as a chill swept in. There was a gloom in his eyes, and a new slouch to his shoulders. When he held Dib's gaze in the rear-view mirror on the way home there had been something in his eyes, something that he couldn't quite say.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

Cover art beautifully made by TheCau! All credit goes to her, please do not use without his permission, thank you :)

Warnings:

Character angst. Drug use.


Dib07: *slides another update your way*

Zimothy: Funnily enough I shared those exact thoughts with his downward spiral with Dib just blowing him off when Zim is so desperate for help. When I look back, I can see why Dib is so hung up on guilt. The butterfly effect is so painfully true! And ahhh I am over the moon you're excited to see your favorite parts and enjoy them all over again! That brought the biggest smile to my face!


Trapped

Zim remained slumped on the command chair without having the motivation to move or even lift his antenna. His mind was elsewhere, sometimes racing, sometimes halting altogether. Sometimes he couldn't even think at all as he stared blankly at the screen from hollow eyes.

His PAK was a draining battery that could never be recharged. He wasn't quite sure what this would do to him. He'd fought against its cybernetic inhibiters, enabling his weak half to take command, a thing not often done, or done without consequence.

There was a biological autodoc scanner down in his med lab that would determine exactly what was happening to his body, but he was too scared to see it in print and too scared to know exactly how he was deteriorating.

He already knew the outcome. What more did he want to know, or care to see?

A wiser Irken would probably say that knowing of said problem would help prevent said degeneration, but this still would not provide him with a definite solution. The computer could dispense pills to make it all a little more... comfortable, but if he were given more time, what exactly would it achieve?

He stared impassively at the computer screen, feeling chilled, yet not bothering to seek a thermal blanket or even to verbally give the command to raise the temperature of the room.

The inevitability would be harder to hide, harder to ignore. Alone, and stuck on an enemy planet without intervention, there were few solutions, and no escape. The suffocating knowledge had followed him wherever he went; days overcast by the realities while Dib took him on trips and paranormal excursions. He had spent so much of his life fixing and repairing instruments, machines and ships. The irony that he could not fix himself pressed on him like a leaden bubble.

There had always been the dream that he'd die on the battlefield in some great war. Instead, he was contemplating death by old age, or being killed by his own devoted S.I.R unit.

He dwelled on his probabilities, an analyst by nature, and wondered if it would be better to die violently and quickly by the hands of a malfunctioning S.I.R unit or bow to a slow, degenerative death as his functions stopped one by one.

If he chose the former, Gir may no doubt 'wake up' from his glitch, only to see what he had done.

I do not want to die slowly like some feeble, malfunctioning elder. I could try and do the PAK's adjustments myself, but I don't have the required technology or skill. If anything, I could make the PAK worse, and make my end... even more painful.

He knew nothing about the inner gerios or the fatal layer behind the contraptions to access his delicate life support and memory drives. Get it wrong and he was basically fucking up his own brain and heart function.

He had heard rumours that Tarsh – an Irken subordinate who used to work as a marker (that the humans would call a sharp shooter) had done some fiddling with his PAK. He had appeared on trial – and though Zim was not one to watch court-martials, he sometimes watched proceedings and ceremonial tribunals on the screen when there was a lack of any current task. Tarsh had been sitting in a chair before the Control Brains as he was unable to walk, stand or even talk coherently except in babbles and drooling splutters. His head had permanently leaned to one side, his tongue hung out of lax and rubbery lips with his antennae not moving as they should. His PAK still functioned on the outside, but apparently he had messed up his wiring, and had come away with cerebral haemorrhaging. It was a mercy when they put him to death so that he did not have to live that way any longer, but he was executed not for his disability, but for the illegality of PAK tampering.

Have to think positive. Have to get through this. I will NOT be beaten!

He thought of requesting a specialized tech surgeon to do the work, but they would refuse for fear of treason. For that kind of repair without permission from the Tallest was illegal. A runt who never grew in stature or status was deemed unfit for any repair by default.

Whatever his options, he was running out of time, but there was still one thing he had to try, even if it might eventually end in failure.

He had to save Gir.

Ironically it was a damn sight easier just to destroy the little robot. Gir was an insane, retarded child, but the robot was his child nonetheless. He needed to secure Gir in some form of cage and then he could pool all his resources together and just try. The extra work would no doubt hasten his own clock, but he'd rather do that than do nothing at all. Irkens were programmed to be productive, programmed to keep busy and see the best in every bad situation and he was no different. While he could still move and breathe, he would work towards solutions until the bitter end.

He slid off the command chair with stiff and tired limbs. "Computer... I... I need to prepare a reinforcement chamber... and I require your assistance."

"Yes Master."

He tried to barricade any thoughts of what might happen to Gir after he was gone, and where the robot might live if he could be corrected. Dib may very well adopt the robot, or at the very least try to absorb everything the Irken owned for himself.

That would never happen: not one shred of his tech could fall into enemy hands. A massive computer shut-down sequence was necessary once he knew it was time. He had followed military protocol all his life. This one last act would be no different.

-x-

Zim chose a suitable repository room that once accommodated a large supply of hoarded human detritus. The computer dispensed of the mess, crushing it down to little cubes before depositing them in a giant recycling room for renewed material. When the room was cleaned up and brightened, Zim began fitting in panels along the interior of the wall that were made out of cronisis – a metal that resisted high temperatures and physical force. Many parts of the Massive were made out of this exact material. As a result of its popularity with the Irkens, it was becoming rare, and acquiring more of it was nearly impossible. He was forced to reuse panels in other parts of his base for this one chamber. Even the floor and ceiling had to be covered with the stuff to prevent Gir from escaping.

During the operation, Zim stopped numerous times; sure he'd either pass out or vomit up something. His legs and hands were always shaking, and his heart kept skipping and faltering in his chest, bringing back the rubber-band of pressure across his lungs. When he blinked, bright star-shapes appeared, floating just out of his periphery.

The computer continued to set the panels systematically using big grappling claws for hands that extended from the ceiling. Zim dubiously watched, wondering if this new cage would work at all, and dreading the moment when he'd have to trap the robot in here. Gir was the closest thing he would ever have to loving and caring for something, and even if that love was misguided, he was responsible for Gir, and was afflicted with a very real sense of protection as any father would feel over their child, even if that child bordered on the fictitious. For in this giant dome of metal, wading through data, missions and duties, Gir's voice had provided company in an otherwise cold and systemic world.

While the machines worked, Zim selected a blank disc from his library and slotted it into a recorder. For seven or so minutes he perfected his message, saying about as much as he cared to say. Once the duty was complete, he ejected the disc and waved it briskly in sharp, trembling claws. "Store this away, and when the time comes, play it across every audio amplifier this place has."

"And what 'time' will that be?"

"Just do your job!"

"Very well, Master." And an elongating grappler arm tried to gently take it from Zim's stiff claws, nearly dropping it in the process.

It took nearly all day to get the holding chamber ready for its occupant. When it was complete, Zim inspected it one last time, making sure all the seams were fully melded and reinforced and that the panels weren't dented during the operation. He had almost wanted something to go wrong so that he wouldn't be able to go ahead with the plan.

The room was exceptionally large to hold something so small, and there were no furnishings and no light fixtures, with only a tiny window nearest the main door. The door was reinforced: permitting one entrance and exit under four locks.

Baiting Gir was the easiest thing imaginable.

Selecting an assortment of snacks, Zim put them onto a tray and carried it to the farthest corner of the room and left it there. He returned to the upper floor and into the lounge. His crimson uniform still smelt faintly of burning glue and metal, but he doubted Gir would notice. As it was, the robot was watching TV with that same all-inclusive ignorance. He was watching a cartoon called Billy and Mandy.

"Gir. Your dinner is ready. It's waiting for you."

"Dinner!" He looked round at him, smiling.

"Yes Gir. Now follow me." He sharply turned with his hands behind his back and proceeded to the alcove behind the bookcase where he could access the stairs. He did not like using the confined space of the conduit with Gir standing abreast from him.

He descended the stairs with a nonchalant air, but his eyes still flashed towards the robot repetitively.

"What is it?" Gir asked behind him.

"What's what?"

"The dinner?"

A cord inside him began to unwind. "Oh, you know. The usual crap you like so much."

"Oh Master! I love you!" And he flew into him, arms encircling his midsection. Zim froze, arms and body tensing as if he'd just stepped on a landmine, anticipating those innocent little cyan eyes to flash to red. He tried not to panic, even though all he wanted to do was panic.

"Yes, G-Gir... I love you too." Reinstating his authority felt like he was taking a blind leap over a cliff. "Now let go of me, or your food is going to get cold!"

That did the trick, and Gir let go. Zim continued marching into the brightly lit and warm recesses of his inner sanctum. This is the last stretch. If Gir can last this long without going into duty-mode, then I've done it!

"Pigs!" Gir chortled behind him, throwing up his arms.

They reached the holding chamber. The controls by the door, ready to be utilized, pulsed a promising pale pink.

"In you go, Gir. Your food is just a little ways inside." Zim said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the doorway.

Gir peered inside, standing a little too closely to him. "In there?"

"Yes, yes. Go on, Gir. I don't have all day." They looked at each other. The soldier was then doomed to realize that this might not work at all, that he might have to fight in his weakened state to try and shove the robot inside.

Then Gir said: "Okay!" And he went straight for the far tray loaded with waffles, pots of syrup, tacos and peanuts.

Zim hit the switch and the door slammed down, initiating the four-lock sequence. There was a tiny window in the door for him to look inside. He watched Gir approach the plate and begin to stuff his face with food. He did not seem any more aware of the room than he'd been upon first seeing it.

He leaned against the door by the little window and rested his head against the palms of his gloved claws. He just needed to customise some components in the hopes of illegally switching out Gir's faulty parts for 'modified' ones. This could be achieved by having the computer remove said parts from Gir within the contained room, posting them out as per request by using secret slots for the tubes and apparatuses.

He was hit by another fit of coughing as he stood by the controls, forcing him to hold his chest while something burned inside. There was a soft and tearful voice through the door. "Master? Master is that youuu? Where'd you go? It's lonely and dark in here."

Zim took a breath and tried not to flinch from the pain. A set of claws reached to hold onto the door to steady his wobbling legs. "This... this is only t-temporary, Gir. I need... I need to find a way to fix you."

"But... but there's no TV in here."

"Yes. I know." Sweat went rolling off his pale smooth forehead, and some of it dripped onto his pink collar. He began to walk away from the door with less of a march and more of a wobble as Gir's pleas hounded after him.

"No! Master! No, don't go! I'll be good! I'll be goooood!"

Zim kept going until he could no longer hear Gir's whimpers, only the deeper, contiguous humming of the base.

When he returned to his workshop, the pain was grinding deeper, his walls were beginning to crumble inwards, and fatigue would roll up out of nowhere. It became increasingly impossible not to simply drop into a corner, curl up and fall straight to sleep.

As Zim brushed aside screws and metal scrap across the work surface from previous attempts and devices to clear space, the computer impassively asked. "The box of deceased Irkens is still in the lounge. What do you propose to do with them?"

"Dispose of them!" Zim said. "I don't care! They may be heathens or defects for all I know!" He caught himself, suddenly guilty as if he had crossed some moral line.

"Very well." Returned the computer. "I shall dispose of them discreetly through the sewer system."

"No. Have them deported back into space in caskets. Let them float through the stars or something." It was enough. At least they would not become recycled Fall material or star ship fuel.

"As you wish."

He blinked, a thought emerging from his seesawing pit of panic. Tipping up his chin and eyes, he looked at one of the power sockets in the wall. Don't go there. He warned. You don't know what you're doing.

Picking out the items he had chosen from various utilities he lined up the primary instruments and began to adjust a delicate cryosphere. Once all the shining struts were aligned in their slots, he put it down and reached for a screwdriver. Most of what he needed was salvaged from other machinery, namely parts of his own base and that of other devices, including the robots he had plans of using to destroy mankind, disposing of their most valuable parts to save one S.I.R unit. He did not mourn the loss, only finding it irritating.

Lowering goggles over his eyes he connected glyph-optics together to form a live cable, and as he went to connect that to a modulator, he was thrown into fierce bouts of coughing that left him dizzy and breathless. Every time he tried to breathe in, the coughing came on harder as if he was only refuelling the fire burning his lungs.

His legs felt like they were in standing in cold water, there was no feeling in them, while the power socket in the wall was becoming more favourable by the minute.

I could just... try...

The disparaging thought rose up like a sudden storm cloud. You wanna fry yourself to bits?

Anything but this pain...

Using gloves that were soppy and wet from the sweat leaking through the fabric, he flicked out a cable from the underside of the PAK and jammed it into the socket. Lifting internal locks to his neuron connectors, the energy came in one hot crashing wave of electricity. It was too much.

"C-Comput..." He couldn't finish. The coughing was so violent that he ended up vomiting. The cable snapped free, socket port and PAK cable sparking. He fell over the surface of his workstation, sending tools and implements flying. "Oh Irk..." He spluttered out more dark green that ran down his lips.

"Master..." The word hung in the air. "I advise you use the biological scanner!"

I can't! I know what I'll see! What you will diagnose!

His spooch grumbled and hurt. Each cough shored more fluid up his throat.

Zim drunkenly fell more than staggered along the floor while feverish shivers tore through his body.

He waited for it to pass, thinking that it must surely pass.

The glowing sequins on the floor sparkled hypnotically, and he sunk closer and closer to them until he was floating amongst painfully bright constellations that fervently pulsed inside his head. When his eyes drifted open, he found his hand in front of his face, his legs twisted and tangled under him. He had no knowledge of how he had ended up flat-out on the floor, cheek lying in a smelly pool of something sticky, wet and cold. He tried to sit up, coaxing a weak and heavy body to move.

Raising himself upright into a sitting position was exhausting. His head would sink down again like a weighted iron ball and his voice was as breathless as his lungs.

"Computer... wh-what t-time is it?"

"It is exactly 8:38 noon time."

The answer surprised him. Zim planted a gloved hand soiled in sweat on his forehead. "Weather... re-report..."

"Cloudy, with a touch of frost. Temperatures will be hitting a low 4 degrees Celsius."

"M-my coat..."

"Yes Master."

The sidewalk would move slowly and jaggedly to the left or the right, and he would swerve along with it, often holding out his hands whenever he felt his balance tipping and swaying. He would constantly check that his contact lenses were safely sealed around each fuchsia eye by tapping at them, and he would touch his head with the same erratic motions to confirm that he had a wig there.

Shadows passed him by, some of them veering so close he was sure they would walk into him. Loud, angry surrounding vehicles would roar and flash past: their colours flashing bolts of noise and diesel.

The path was a rocking platform trying to throw him off, giving him the uneasy sense that he was walking on a swaying ledge with a deep drop on either side. He was not sure of anything anymore and that had its own sweet purgatory reserved for hapless and inhibited soldiers.

Several times he stopped, holding his head as another surge of dizziness threatened to upend his balance and any strength left in his legs. He could not remember why he was out here, and why he had left home. What was the mission? What was his plan? He'd had it, just a moment ago.

Zim turned round, the world revolving with him, wondering if he should hurry home when he suddenly couldn't recall the way back.

He threw a fist against his head as if sufficient self-punishment would recover his memory.

He turned again, the street sickeningly spinning even when he wasn't moving. The cars rushed on by, their headlights narrowed, concentrated cones of light that went straight into his eyes. He swiped the air in front of his face instinctively, but he couldn't shift the dizzying spots and specks of white and black blinding his vision.

He approached a stunningly tall human to ask for directions, only to discover that the human was a street lamp.

Zim went in another direction, hoping to escape the swaying and turning, and a car beeped its horn at him when he wandered out onto the road. He jerked back onto the pavement, shivering.

The first few drops of rain started to patter coolly onto his unprotected neck. The droplets slithered down his collar where he began to feel a mild burning. As he looked up, his eyes half blinded by headlights, he felt more stinging rain hit his face. The mild discomfort slowly turned the panic dial. His eyes widened and he backtracked until his PAK hit the wall of an office building but there was no roof to shelter him. Rain carried a pungent smell he had learned to hate as much as to fear as its autumnal stink filled his nostrils.

Taking a direction and hoping it was the right one, Zim blindly ran.

Further up the sidewalk was Gary who habitually freelanced around town. He stood at a vender, buying coffee and a box of donuts. The thin awning of the venue kept him safe from the rain, and he was using his folded umbrella as a walking stick.

"Thanks for the coffee." Gary said, taking the hot cup from the vender when Zim blundered into him. He dropped the coffee, hot, sizzling liquid splashing onto the cold pavement. Zim fell over, scuffing his knees and palms of his gloved hands. "Hey! Watch whereya going you idiot..!" Gary yelled, waving the folded umbrella before promptly stopping and staring, words falling short as if he had been hit over the head.

Zim tried to get back up, the task proving difficult. His spooch roiled around, burning liquid filling his mouth and throat.

Gary pointed, shouting, "Oh my god! It's a... it's a...!"

He blinked in disbelief when he saw one of his eye contacts floating in a puddle. As he looked at Gary with Gary looking at him a gust of wind knocked his wig clear off, exposing his antennae.

He ran without looking, and someone swerved to get out of the way. Gary pushed past them, waving his umbrella over his head and yelling.

Zim ducked and weaved through the pedestrians. The shadows blurred past, partitions opening before him as he dashed down a tunnel, his boots echoing as he splashed through puddles.

Dib's words thundered through his head: They're going to find you, they're going to capture you, and they're going to kill you! Because this is the reality! I won't be able to save you when they come for you!

"Stop! Stop little creature! You're mine!" The man's frantic shouts echoed down the alley. Zim skidded and bounced off a brick wall, changed direction and ducked and weaved around or under people while Gary just barrelled through them.

The thickening haze of pain and fever made him sick and disorientated. If he fell over or stopped out of pain, it was over and Dib would be there, watching him sadly from a wall of glass.

He could hear closing boot splashes of his pursuer, but everything was a mishmash of colours, shadows, unknown passageways and corners. He collided into a trash can, knocking it over for it to spill stinking garbage over the floor. Gary, seconds behind, skidded through it, landing on his rear.

Zim darted round a corner with stars dancing and pulsing in his eyes. His chest couldn't draw in air, the fever was all he could feel and not the stinging rain as it began to dissolve his skin.

He took a moment to look round to see if the human was closing in when he charged straight into a fence. He bounced off it, screaming in agony. As he staggered clumsily to his feet he pressed a gloved hand to his side, claws coming away wet and bloody. The side of his uniform was soaked.

He looked up when he heard his approach; one eye coated in a contact lens, the other a bright vivid fuchsia that glowed in the grey dimness. Gary came round the corner, armed with the umbrella. When he lunged, Zim darted right, the umbrella's spike lashing the dirt. From the momentum of the roll he ended up on his knees, and Gary, flailing the umbrella around, struck again.

Legs of silky chrome exploded from either side of him as they curled upwards and forwards into elongated grasping pikes that were sharper than bayonets. Gary peered up at them as multiple shadows crisscrossed over his profile, his mouth opening to a scream.

Counteracting the weight of his chrome extensions wasn't so easy as he tried to rise beneath them. Gary moved back a step, not knowing where to look, his umbrella held out in front of him like a sword. Silvery spears lunged forwards as one to spear him when a small boy suddenly appeared, holding a P.E. shirt that was steadily soaking up red. The boy was crying. "Dib... stink?"

The point of the umbrella smacked him over the head and he went down, hitting the wet and muddy earth, his last eye contact falling out to expose marbled, pain-filled fuchsia. The PAK was unhappily grinding and whirring as chrome swords snapped back in. That hot poker was back, burning through his spinal ports and storming through his neurological network.

Gary stood over him, breathing hard. "You're more dangerous than you look, you fucking m-monster!" He lifted the umbrella and struck again. Groaning, Zim tried to flip onto his side to save his PAK from being hit. Gary planted a boot on the Irken's twitching hand to keep him pinned, applying weight whenever the creature began to struggle. "You stay right there while I call for backup!" He was panting, trying to juggle his phone and the umbrella with shivery hands. He was muttering strings of incoherencies. "Can't believe it this isn't real gotta call for help can't let you get away..."

Zim blinked, the drizzling rain getting into his eyes and mouth. The sky was a moving ceiling of branches that reached in and out, and in those branches were instruments that would cut and open and break him apart. When Gary raised the phone to his ear Zim raised the PAK lance and knocked the phone out from the man's hand, slicing off part of his finger. The tip of finger and phone went bouncing off into the rain and dark. When Gary dived for the umbrella, Zim dived for the fence. Activating a laser from his PAK that was more for maintenance he frantically cut wires when Gary lunged.

As he desperately squeezed through the melting opening, the hot wires cutting and scrapping along his neck and skull a bloodied hand grabbed his leg and started to drag him back. Zim looked through the wire to see green and red splattered over the man's hand.

"You're coming with me!" Gary was saying, his breath pungent with alcohol, "You're gonna answer for what you've done!"

Zim kicked a boot heel into the man's hand despite the agony branching up his side and chest. A PAK leg slammed the fencing between them like a thrown spearhead.

Gary cried out and let go, Zim managing to crawl through the opening, but when he reached the grass on the other side, the man fetched his hands around the wire fencing and tugged. It wouldn't budge. The human looked up to see the top of the fence barbed with wire. He then looked down at Zim through the metal links with eyes as dark as drains.

Zim shored up a leg and tried to stand, but he slipped back down again, his limbs shaky and numb, head twirling and reeling. The beeping began, unsettling him to the bone when the ports in his PAK started to blink red.

The rain found new potency and poured down.