Marionettes
Chapter One:
The weight of the armor grew on his shoulders and chest as he traced bloodied footprints through the detritus. Ash stung his eyes, leaving smears and black lines across his cheeks. The air was foul, and the bitter toxicity from the roiling fumes and plasma leaks left a nasty aftertaste in his mouth.
A shadow danced to his left. He wildly aimed the canon in that direction, only to see shiny embers silently gutter and jump across the remains of a slumped and broken wall. A trailing, thin tube dangled in the greasy haze from an overhang of wall. Tension turned his reflexes into something jagged and unbearably tight. Every whisper had him snap towards it, the heat was fooling his eyes and mocked his hearing. Though he sensed an end on the approach, he could not let himself believe in anything other than the moment.
You took everything I had away from me.
I'm here to return the favor.
Side-stepping through plasma puddles and debris, his targeting red lens dropped over his left eye to pick up biological leftovers from the creature's retreat. As thunder convulsively racked the sky, with falling stars igniting distant horizons, he did not take his eyes off the choked and smoking ruins of what had once towered over his life.
Signs of little triangular shaped boot prints were harder to distinguish in the wreckage, but his targeting lens easily picked out partial imprints of a heel or the stud of toe as if the invader had been running for cover.
He carefully bent down and touched the residue with a finger. It was oily, slightly tacky and still warm.
He took a shuddering breath, the dawning excitement becoming harder to suppress.
I've got you now.
A door creakily opened on a broken hinge in a doorframe standing without walls. Coiled tubing that had been lashed to the ceiling like living centipedes now lay twisted on the floor, their internal glow erratically pulsing and dimming.
He looked over every dark corner as he slowly drew to full height, the barrel of the gun following the direction of his eyes.
A flame burst upwards, sending sparks and wisps hurtling, and as he whipped around, face bathed by its carnal heat, he felt something rush him from behind. He snapped round, firing blindly, eyes seeing nothing but dazzling white from the muzzle's flash.
He felt the barbed metal point bite down, knife-sharp, bypassing armor as if it was about as protective as paper. It retracted in an instant, but the agony swelled, with his shoulder blossoming with crimson. With the cannon's retort thrumming in his ears and eyes, pain exploding across his arm, he turned, not knowing which way to point, and saw burning eyes of fuchsia dart sideways, leaving bright ruby tails. He fired almost blindly, dirt and cement flying spraying upwards.
There was a shriek, metal prosthetics clanging against debris.
The sudden burst of hope was sudden, and dangerous.
As the smoke cleared, Dib crookedly standing; gun-hand shaking, revulsion and horror settled deeper when there was nothing to see but bricks and falling ash.
There was a crunch – a boot heel on broken tiling.
He almost didn't react in time, raising his arm a fraction of a second too late to block the snapping kick. The violence rippled through his body, legs almost giving way, and for an instant their eyes met. Bloodied lips were ripped back to expose a wall of grinning teeth, fury and desperation a mad aura set in glowing eyes of fire.
Zim broke away, pivoting on his PAK legs like a dancer before lunging again, his hammer-punch directing all his unleashing rage, the reverberation ringing through Dib's body and plating.
Try to cut me down.
But it's you who'll have further to fall.
He snapped open the cannon's compartment and a bright electrifying EMP pulse bled into a surrounding bubble that painted them in pale, whitish pink. Zim's fury was wiped clean away in the instant, eyes filling with alien disparity as the light threw them into alternating shades and cascades.
-x-
Battling against gusting winds that squalled up flurries of ice and snow, he stopped by the wire fencing bejeweled in beads of bluish ice that ran across the grounds to leaning and hunched ramshackle stables. His flashlight shone on the blinking detonators running along the perimeter, checking each one until it became ceremonious and routine after a fashion. When he at last came to the gate's entrance, he saw with dull revelation that the board with the words 'KEEP OUT' had been torn off its rusted nails. Following the cone of honeyed light, he saw the board some ten yards out in scattered bits across the drive.
The red sun, gormless and somnolent, winked its last farewell as it faded behind a menacing wedge of black trees.
Staggering in through the front door with snow on his shoulders and woolly coat, he pounded his snow-clad boots on the threadbare mat to dislodge the ice. Shifting off his coat and leaving it to hang from a peg, dripping, he trudged through the doorway into the kitchen and dumped wet grocery bags on the table.
The checkout girl hadn't taken him too seriously when he asked if they sold any rat poison. By the nervous way she kept looking at him, bluish eyes wide and staring, he started to uncomfortably believe she might know him. Quickly scanning his card and grabbing his bags, he stumbled out as quickly as he possibly could.
The stares of those passing by seemed to follow him as he made his way to the car, and only when he shut the door and driven away did he start to draw breath.
Turning away from the soggy grocery bags, he gazed through the porch windows to watch racing sunset colours arch across the lake; the surrounding trees bordered in witchy black. Before long there wasn't much more he could really make out beyond his pale reflection.
As the lambent colours began to turn colder, he could hear the animals whooping and screaming like things hellish and lunatic as if they were newly emerging from a secret coven. It was no surprise the old woodland still stirred superstitious tales of werewolves and vampires.
"Ever heard of that story?" His father had unguardedly asked.
"What story?"
"The one where the boy cried 'wolf' too many times?"
He ritually placed the food in the fridge and the tinned goods in orderly lines along the cupboard shelf. Instead of rat poison he'd bought antifreeze, its main ingredient containing colorless and odorless ethylene glycol.
When he heard a sound, or thought he heard something, he stopped, hand on the orange he meant to place in the fruit basket, eyes riveted to the kitchen door that led to the shadowy foyer. The sound came again, a rusty creak from the wind as snow purred along clattering roof tiles. It took awhile for the tension to slide away, and for the headache to recede, but his senses remained vigilant and finely tuned to something almost militaristic and incisive.
Flipping the kettle's switch, he procured a plastic tray, a plastic saucer and cup as he listened to the water boil. He opened the drink's cabinet and stared somberly at the collection of various dark bottles. He then decided he would go without for tonight, but just as he closed the glass cabinet he changed his mind and took one of the whiskeys at random. Popping the cork from the burgundy bottle, he poured himself a healthy shot and finished it in one swallow. The dose brought the warmth back to his icy fingers a few instances later.
The icy wind made the roof rattle like old bones, and sometimes he imagined he could hear wolves prowling around the chimney, trying to find a way in.
He had believed that isolation was a healer, offering safety and control when he had battled his way through the stigma he had never escaped. Being wrong had never felt good, even on the lowest levels where humiliation and shame could still be swept up before anyone noticed.
There is no gold at the end of the rainbow.
Dreams don't really come true.
He poured himself another more-than-generous shot and paused to wipe the liquid dribbling down his greying stubble.
When he heard something clawing the front door, (the alcohol brewing in his belly affording false courage) he hurried to the foyer, threw on the porch light and peered, blinking, through musty windows. The light, pale and whispery, skinned the outside porch in ashen yellow, illuminating the worn deck chair and single plant pot. On the step was last week's newspaper, still unread with a rock placed on it to keep the wind from blowing it away. As he flicked dark eyes of gold this way and that, he saw the bundle of fur sniffing about the deck, its thick, feather duster of a tail stripped in bands of brown.
He threw the door open and waved his arms wildly at it. "Get away! Scram!"
The racoon sluggishly turned round to discern him as if a human being so far removed from his natural environment had no business ordering it anywhere. Its little flinty eyes continued to watch him for a moment before it finally turned away and scarpered off the deck to vanish completely into the surrounding black.
Dib stood, silhouetted in pale yellow, listening to the lonely hum of the telegraph poles far above, with trees angrily creaking and moaning just beyond his sight.
When he returned to the tepid warmth of the house, he shut the door and leaned with his back against it, reconsidering the dark and chilled interior of what was now his. The oak panels, unadorned and undecorated, seemed to hold obscure reflections. Willowy cobwebs hung between the looping iron curves of the gothic chandelier that dominated the foyer's austere ceiling. He turned his tired eyes away and returned to the kitchen where there was more light and warmth.
Picking up the heavy bottle of antifreeze he carefully poured a tiny measure of its clear liquid into a measuring cup. Judging the amount a little too excessive, he poured a tenth out before adding it to a cup with boiled water. After giving it a prolific stir he added a tea bag and two hearty tablespoons of sugar.
He deposited a singular dry waffle straight out of its freezer box and onto a white paper plate. He stared at the reinforced paper shaped into a plate, remembering how flimsy and cheap it felt when he had been forced to eat off one while having to drink from a paper cup you'd only give to toddlers.
"This is for your own good. I can't have you hurting yourself, or those around you."
As the eaves trembled beneath the weight of snow and wind, it took him a moment to realize they weren't really voices. He took the tray and proceeded to the chilled and dingy foyer where the old, ugly chandelier cast its many shadows, its eye-shaped bulbs flickering and spurting like candles about to go out.
Opening the door to the stone-weathered stairs leading down, he paused, flicking on another light that brought the tiny passage out of dark obscurity. The door down at the far end was locked, the heavy bolts slung across large black iron sheathes.
He knocked back the bolts and brought out an old key that had a long stem decorated in Celtic loops. Slotting it in and turning it, he heard the satisfyingly clunk. With a push from the heel of his hand the door swung open.
Trudging over to the plain wooden table that stood against drywall, his old leather boots thudding softly across stone, he placed the tray down, and was more than a little surprised when he could not hear the usual hollering and screaming.
The smell was infinitely stronger. He could have provided a bucket, but there was satisfaction in seeing the invader piss and defecate himself.
"You're quiet, Zim." He took time arranging the paper plate and cup. When he finally looked over, he realized with a roll of the eyes why.
Oh. I forgot I sealed your big mouth with a gag.
The creature peered back from glittery eyes that darkly reflected the cold light in the room. Seeing the hateful fuchsia renewed his own deeply burning resentment as kindling transformed dying embers. "Awake are we? Do you feel like talking this time?" In no particular hurry, he ventured round the room slowly, rechecking everything as routinely as a machine. False light from the snow poured in through the tiny window just below the brick ceiling, highlighting the cold sterilized metal of a suspended robotic claw that hung from a suspension box screwed to the ceiling.
He could hear him gnawing and grinding miserably on the rag, with those tattered ugly antennae nervously falling and rising. He had never liked the way they twitched and oscillated, and acted more like individual entities all of their own.
The machine he had affectionately named Vince was purring nicely. He reached out and adjusted the dials by two percent, smiling at the green and happy numbers.
There were more disparaged groans and grumbles behind his dirt of a rag.
"Do you think we're all marionettes, Zim? Forced to play out our characters on a stage where our scripts are already written for us?" He knew the question would be too philosophical for the Irken to understand, let alone answer. He gave 'Vince' another pat and drew over to the surgical table close by to run scarred fingers along its surface, feeling the icy smoothness and the long sloped rivulets that dipped towards the centre where waste and blood would ultimately collect.
I didn't ask for any of this.
I wished upon a star. So many times. But it never came true.
Dad always said emotions were for children. He was right about that, at least.
He could feel those fuchsia eyes following him wherever he went. When he picked up one of the scalpel tools, the keen tip sharply shining, he heard Zim utter a frightened moan through the rag's material.
I'm learning all of your tricks, Zim.
He approached slowly, the forbidden arousal something of a novelty that perfectly complimented the heady rush of triumph. Zim shrank back, eyes turning to glittery, threatening crevasses, the left eye black and swollen from where he had punched him. He stood two feet away, hearing the purring growls rumbling from the little imp's throat.
It's difficult to ignore your fate when it's towering over you.
Claws bare of their velvet gloves flexed and strained uselessly from heavy cuffs. With every turn and twist of his head the collar and chains would tinkle and rattle. Already the cuffs binding his wrists and ankles were leaving marks on his bonier, more delicate contours, but it was the shoulder pads that kept him fixed in place. He had sterilized the metal nails first before sinking them through, having researched how far to push them to avoid hitting main arteries, blood vessels and nerves. Placing them perfectly between the clavicle and scapula hadn't been easy, but once it was done, he connected the studs with pads in case he ever wanted to remove them.
He had to guarantee his safety. He liked to believe Zim had no chance of getting out of the carefully customised and designed bindings, but he was all too aware that overconfidence had done more harm in the past.
Dib stooped just low enough to roughly pull out the rag. The Irken started dry coughing when he swallowed down stale air that stunk of piss, shit and sweat. That weird, perverted tongue of his would dangle from his lips like a straw, and whenever his twig of a leg shifted and fidgeted across the hard flooring, the metal ankle-fetter loudly rattled across soiled stone.
The heavy cast on his leg was tainted in piss. Dib gave it something of a brief, dismissive look, having no immediate intention of changing it.
He ran his eyes up and down such a slender, bony body that was immaculately small and delicate in every sense. The silken skin that possessed something of a shine had begun to turn paler as the creature started to seemingly shrink in this little home-built chasm. Fatigue and desolation bordered his dark, glittery alien eyes.
Dib had been both disappointed and annoyed at how childlike and innocuous his sex was. The Irken had something that looked like a vagina, with no hair or stubble. It was the only part of the creature that brought home a feeling of nagging resentment and regret.
"How's your textbook narcissism holding up?" He couldn't help but smile at the suddenly frail monster now stripped and desecrated. "What's wrong? Has your voice gone hoarse already?"
Perfect fishhooks for hands gripped and shook in their clasps. The invader's pained stare had weight; the human could almost feel the festering hatred that sought release.
You brought out the worst in me, Zim. I may never have had the perfect life, but nothing can change us now.
Bereft of status and colourful attire, his silvery scars and dents were laid bare. Pocketed lumps and rifts hugged the alien's right calf muscle where iron teeth from a mantrap had snapped home, and the rifle bullet that had snapped his tiny collarbone had left a whitish blotch in the smooth jade where bone and skin had imperfectly knitted back together.
The plasma burns covering his back and left side were a lot slower to heal, and would leave mushy stains on whatever Zim touched or rested on. His left leg was broken in about fifteen places, leaving Dib to wonder if it would ever be useable again.
How does it feel to lose to me?
"Will at least tell me where you were going? Come on, Zim. It's an easy question." He let slip a soft smile as he reached out to touch a smooth knot of shoulder inches from the nail-pad. The Irken jerked back, chains rattling, his resentful squeak small and petty.
The agonizing temptation to hit him became even stronger.
I don't want to be the victim anymore.
"One last chance, Zim." He didn't really have to apply much pressure to provide the incentive. Hitting the cast cocooning his broken leg made Zim jolt against his bindings, shrieking like whipped dog. His breath smelt of bile. "If this is a game you're playing, you're going to lose, space jerk."
He hooked two fingers beneath the invader's pointed chin and lifted to have a better look at his face and the swelling that made his eye go all soft and puffy. Dib delicately thumbed away the streak of blood by Zim's mouth.
It was his stubborn, stupid nature to endure. The scars were evidence of that.
"I don't have to tell you anything." Zim held his stare without blinking. His voice was quiet and tense.
I don't like the way you look at me.
"You really think so?"
You look at me the same way they do.
"I can make you disappear, Zim."
"I don't believe you."
Dib let his fingers slide down a small and soft throat. The teeth flashed out so fast he barely reacted in time, with the Irken looking equally sorry that he had missed. It took Dib a second to recover and kicked at his leg again. The alien's piercing child-like scream had his ears angrily ringing.
"You are infuriating!" He got up and walked over to the table to create distance. The screams softened to breathless gasps and groans. Taking out his notebook, he quickly scribbled down what he would later add to his diary as he listened to the invader's pathetic whimpering.
"W-what do you w-want from me, Dib worm?"
His nasally voice, soft and somehow undemanding, caused him to misspell the next word he was writing down. The anger was like a rushing tide pounding his shoreline. "It's not about what I want." He put the diary away, picked up the cold metal tray and walked over. He watched the Irken take a couple of larger breaths as if he was bracing himself for whatever was to come, but his eyes remained fiery, and defiant.
Dib set the paper plate and cup just out of the Irken's reach. Zim had to be thirsty by now. He might continue to hold out, but sooner or later he had to give in.
Zim broke eye contact to peer dubiously at the rigid slab of waffle and then at the clear liquid in the cup before resettling his snarl at the human. "You're not going to get away with this!"
"Still spouting the same old rubbish?" He pushed the plate closer. "I'd eat something if I were you. I wouldn't want you to die of starvation. After all, it wouldn't be a very fitting end for an Irken 'Elite' now, would it?"
His eyes glittered, flecks of cosmic dust shining through. The machine nearby gave an unhappy clunk that made Dib turn towards it, suddenly suspecting its reliability. He drew over to it, Zim angrily watching as he inspected the coiled tubes and pulsing wires connecting the PAK to Vince. The indicated percentages were climbing; the PAK was still somehow drawing power.
He resettled a cool mask of indifference over his brief show of surprise before the Irken could see it.
You can try, Zim. Try as much as you like.
Cool, shivery fingers hit the blue button and Zim groaned, throwing his head back to hit the grey wall behind him. His hands in their clasps spasmed, he could hear bone rattling against metal, and hear the clack and clatter of the bastard's teeth.
How does it feel? To be so powerless? I can do what I like. When I like. And hurt you from inside.
"You're a fool." He heard the Irken breathlessly whisper.
"I'm a fool?" The smile cracked his lips wide open. There was something so satisfying in seeing the Irken hesitate.
An alert on Dib's phone suddenly flashed green. Someone was ringing his front doorbell. This time the annoyance wasn't so easy to hide, and Zim saw it.
He rose to his full height, passing the alien a passing flicker of indifference. "Scream all you like." He said. "No one will hear you." He turned and left, hitting the light switch on his way out.