Debacle (R) - Subject Zim
Summary:
All his life Dib has wanted to capture Zim and gain the victory and fame he always wanted. When his wish comes true however, not everything falls so comfortably into place.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.
Warnings:
Dark themes and angst throughout.
Dib07: You guys are... AMAZING! Thank you for reviewing, sending your support and just being awesome! I love returning to this series because of you, the reader, the fan! It just makes it all worth it!
Also, please COMMENT if you want me to continue the next chappy!
Guest
Thank you so much! Dib's going through so much, all at once. Getting into his head and taking the journey with him was bittersweet.
Zimothy
It is difficult, getting into a character's head when they don't truly ever reveal too much in the TV show. So in a way, it was exploratory for me, to take that time and dig that little bit deeper, because every character has a reason to do what they do. If it truly was about fame, than Dib would be too shallow a character, and we know that's not all that he is. And ah yes the animals, that was fun! I cannot wait for you to experience this chapter and I hope you enjoy it!
Guest
I love your analysis! There's nothing better than putting the pieces together! I love that you like Zephyr! Cybernetic weasels are the best! And yeah that robot dog, I chose something that scared me, and the dog was the result. Glad it had the effect I wanted! Also I have poured into your review and I totally understand. The story is pretty dark and its gets worse, luckily with not as much explicit 'cringe' as last chapter, but more real 'horror' if that makes sense, without giving away too much! From your words of support, I will from now on give you everything as I write it. I will not hide or erase anything. It does reinforce themes, and add that depth, even if it opens wounds for us and the characters. And yes, I will give fair warning. My only concern is how do I do this without giving it away? XD I totally agree about mentally preparing for it. I will do my best to help in this regard. And THANK YOU for being honest, supportive and just generally boasting my confidence! Wish I could give you a name, cuz I dedicate this chapter to you!
Ika
I am so so sorry I haven't got back to you yet! I am a crappy friend! I will reply to your last review, no matter what! I am slowly catching up to other messages and replies and yours is the last! Wow this year has been CRAZY! And it sounds like yours has been too! And you have two cows! I need to catch up with you so badly! I hope things are getting a little better your end, I really do. I thought my life has been up and down, but you've been through so much recently. I wish you all the best!
Falling Awake
He was briefly aware of his son, of gormless eyes staring out of shiny glass as his pale face peered at them through the window. Carlson's hand was on the boy's shoulder.
He has seen everything...
As if some internal cord had snapped in the boy, Dib turned and fled, leaving the sergeant to watch the drama play out with a glass of whiskey in-hand as if he was wearily surveying a drab and forgettable rehearsal.
His resolve rose up against crushing demoralization. "Williams! Secure the bleeding! That blanket, bring it here!"
Torrent stood completely still as if his boots had been screwed to the floor, and it took a few hours later for the professor to realize that it hadn't been shock that had frozen the assistant, it had been fascination.
He let Williams get close enough to clamp towels and medi-padding on the mostly severed arm that hung with no support, and once Torrent had cranked into something resembling movement, he handed over a plain white blanket that instantly soaked up the blood.
Zim's chest wasn't rising, and the monotonous single ringing of the ECG was a reflection of his own panic. Zim was rag-doll soft, head limply falling in whatever direction his body was steered in as the professor handled him.
The oval mask of the ventilator was three sizes too big, and left a gap below the Irken's bony chin as he enclosed it over a face that was suddenly more grey than green.
Panic was new to him. He warded off sentiments and the remotest of feelings to an automated degree, knowing there was no place for it when science brooked no room for emotional irrationalities that might otherwise hinder precision and effort.
A tremor was present in his voice. His decisions and actions were clumsy, unfocused.
He looked to them, seeing that they were just as baffled.
"The blankets, Torrent! You think one little sheet is going to help?" The rage he exhibited turned the assistant to jelly. He rushed around to bring more, padding fleece blankets over Zim's twigs for legs and a body that concurrently shook and trembled.
Aluminium sheeting would have been ideal, as it trapped up to 90% of radiated body heat by design.
He had severed the brachial artery, with Zim immediately losing consciousness. Humans lost consciousness in as little as 15 seconds when the artery was severed, and died of blood loss within minutes.
He tried not to list the detrimental and unfavourable outcomes that were already storming through his head.
Froth bubbled up from A01's mouth and dribbled across his chin and cheeks. Emerald lined the bottom of the mask and went running down the Irken's neck.
When the ECG alarmed a critical warning: of sinking blood pressure and a crashing heart rate, the Irken went into another seizure, limbs going completely rigid, the PAK glowing vivid red. It was almost as if the Irken had been hit with a full dose of lethal electricity. Even as the professor held him, feeling the static rise off the creature, he was not affected in the same way.
The ECG suddenly reported double figures, rising blood pressure...
Carlson's mouth could not have dropped open any faster. "Did... did that thing's PAK just self-defibrillate...?"
"He's not breathing!" The professor's voice echoed in the room. "Gawp at miracles all you like, Carlson! But if we don't get oxygen into him, it's over!"
"Do you even know where the trachea is, and can you calculate the depth?" Williams was already capping an endotracheal tube to a machine equipped with a mechanical ventilator and air bag.
Yanking off the oval mask the professor tipped Zim's chin back and slipped the line down his throat, but assessing how far to go in was difficult.
To make sure it was in the creature's lungs and not somewhere in the esophagus, Williams pushed aside a sodden blanket and plugged the listening pieces of a stethoscope into his ears, straddling the chrome metal disk against the creature's motionless sternum.
The two scientists fell silent, tensely listening for signs of respiration.
The ECG pings became prodigious ticks, the bpm again falling to the lower 30's. The professor tensed, heart beating hard as his stomach twisted to knots. If it continued to fall, if it should stop, they had no idea if the PAK could keep kick-starting Zim's heart, and what governed its limitations.
Williams's heavily lined face was grave. Torrent stared down at the alien lying limply on the girth of the professor's enormous arm. Flaccid claws protruded from a leaf of blanket, hanging limp as if the tendons had been cut. He had to wonder what should happen if they tried to perform CPR on a creature that had a metal dome on its back.
When the airbag was manually compressed, Williams listened to the perceptible rush of air hitting the alien's lungs in enervated cycles that were easy to hear with the stethoscope, almost as if there was nothing between him and the chest wall.
"Well?" The professor snapped angrily.
"Oxygen is going into A01's lungs..."
The professor didn't just slouch; he sagged as if something in his spine had snapped when he saw Zim's chest finally rise in response.
The intercom crackled and Carlson's less than amused voice sounded through the speakers. "While you're all there, can anyone report back on the arm and how it's healing?"
Torrent perked his head up as if he had just snapped out of a daydream.
The professor didn't even react to the comment. His goggles were focused only on the ECG's hilly lines as he listened to Zim's automated inhales as Williams clenched on the air bag. When the bag was fully inflated, the doctor hesitating to press on it again to see if the alien would start breathing on his own, nothing happened.
The numbers on the ECG began to reluctantly climb in ones and twos, steadying at 60 after five minutes, with 'a low blood pressure' warning that did not mollify the situation or his panic.
"Its not so tough." Torrent muttered.
Williams stared daggers at him.
The professor's voice wavered unsteadily. "The bleeding..."
The doctor stepped forwards. "I will tend to his arm. Torrent, wrap your hands around the padding and keep as much pressure on the bleeding as you can. Professor, clench on the air bag every three seconds after the lungs exhale. Be gentle with the pressure. Too much will overfill A01's lungs and too little will starve the brain of oxygen."
The professor seemed reluctant to take up the duty, but after a moment he nodded and took possession of the air bag.
Torrent resentfully knelt by his superior to put pressure on the wraps cocooning the break in the arm, feeling the warm wetness as he squeezed. "It had better not wake up and attack me." He grunted.
Williams was acquiring tissue forceps and a surgical suturing kit from the metal table. "Is A01 showing more signs of a seizure?"
The professor could hear his own heart thudding in his ears above the click of steel instruments as Williams gathered up the tools. The heavy stone of anxiety in his chest had dropped down to hit his stomach. The specifics, the science of the problem was easier to verify, but he couldn't even get the words out.
He suddenly didn't know what to do.
Williams returned, and his concern was back, causing his cheeks to turn brick red. He leaned down and assessed the creature's temperature under the blankets. "He needs to be kept warm. If we move him around too much, we could be doing more damage."
"O-Of course."
When the professor heard the abruptness of Carlson's demand from the speakers, he hoped the sergeant would stay in the observatory, and wouldn't impede them. "What is the PAK doing? Tell me!"
Since the PAK was vital in revealing Zim's health and had less to do with the sergeant's barking, the professor lifted some blanket away to expose a section of PAK. The port lights were blinking slowly as if there was unseen bulb dimming within. Under the professor's supervision, Williams removed his gloved and tentatively rested the tops of his fingers on its chrome surface. "It's hot to the touch."
Carlson sounded even more impatient. "What the hell does that mean?"
"For all we know," said Membrane, counting the seconds before pumping air into Zim's tiny lungs, "it's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing." More quietly, he said to Williams, "When he wakes, he'll be in pain... He needs painkillers, something with properties that are less likely to harm him..."
"And dilute the efficiency of the PAK?" Carlson seemed able to hear him perfectly, or he had the uncanny ability to read lips. "You don't know what's going on inside that machine! It's more astonishing than I'd ever dared imagine! My God, just think of what we can do with it!" There was a chink as they heard him put down his glass tumbler. "I want you scientists to wire the critter's PAK and monitor it around the clock as soon as you've patched it up! No excuses!" And the intercom promptly shut off.
But Membrane was already turning to his assistants, hand automatically compressing on the air bag. "Williams, begin reattaching the arm. A splint will be required. Torrent, if you relax the pressure by a millimetre I will have you cleaning toilets for the rest of your career!"
-x-
His bare feet whispered, velvet soft, along the smooth metal floor. Chilled claws clutched the loose gown at his chest as channels of corridor stretched unendingly ahead.
Along cool and chilly silver walls were doors mirroring doors.
Something was coming, something he couldn't quite see. Whenever he looked behind him the way back was robbed of light, and he could not see past the impregnable black.
He approached a door, hoping it would lead him to safety.
Throwing his claws on the door's lower panel, he pushed, opening to a cluster of computer screens and bright monitors bleeding pinks and purples. The slender faces of the Tallest appeared in every one, their voices filling the chamber from a thousand auditory speakers.
"Look, we'd love to grant your request, but we think you're insane - untrained."
"Zim, on Hobo 13 you'll be torn limb from limb!"
"You've done nothing but rain horror down onto the Empire since you were born."
"This is the Empire's finest hour! And you're in charge of watching everything from this circle! Do us proud, Zim!"
"Oh, Zim? Defective, all the way. This Evaluation's just a formality so they can get rid of him officially."
Their harsh scrutiny reached in, claws splitting open his walls.
He shut the door on the memories before he could hear anymore, and breathlessly stumbled into the cold corridor, slapping claws on the steel wall before he could collapse.
Grasping a shaking hand into a fist, clenching on his escaping resolve, he slowly looked ahead.
Standing here, glued in place, felt more terrible.
Plodding forwards, the cold seeping into his feet, he shoved open another door. White scrubbed walls glared back, with a metal platform perched and gleaming in the centre. Pristine metal cusps on the foot and arm rests parted open, the ice of their metal chrome shining under glaringly cold luminescence.
He fell back, PAK and elbows smacking into the door that had swung closed behind him.
Withered hands, mottled and claw-like, sprung from behind. He darted out of reach, only to spin round and confront the monster wearing military fatigues.
When he went to scream, no sound came out.
As the man's rasping claws came down: talons whistling through the air, he dived for a door and flung himself through it.
He heard the chink and clink of glass, and smelt the strong effluvium of chemicals bubbling. A white-robed scientist stood at a table filling up hypodermic needles from bubbling vials marked with the crossbones symbol. Torrent looked his way, lips curving into a cruel and delighted smile.
When he turned back, the door had gone. What replaced it was a featureless white wall.
"Well, well little mouse." He stood, watching him, needle in his slender hand. A drop of yellow oozed out of its impossibly sharp point. "If I were you I'd hold still."
"No, no, get away!" He backed into a cabinet, and more hypos fell, clattering onto the floor around him like knives.
"It won't hurt!" The human's long and devouring shadow fell over him as he approached. When Torrent groped for Zim's arm, his rough fingers clamped onto his wrist like forceps digging into bone.
"Get off me! GET OFF!" Claws flung in an arc, catching the man's hand, with blood scattering his cheekbones in droplets of red. He felt Torrent's violating touch weaken, and he was free, free to fall out the door and straight into a net that closed over his world. The amiable face of the professor looked back at him through the net's hexagonal mesh with disconcerting formality.
Spinning round and round on its axis was the PAK. The smooth inner half revealed secretive spinal slots that brimmed from within.
The sergeant emerged, his gaunt and grey face moving into the light, but when the man stepped out of the shadows, it was his rival. Pale and jaded eyes glared out at him from shiny lenses. By his side was the mechanical death machine disguised as a dog. Its chrome teeth were long white icicles, its eyes apertures of blood.
Dib planted a foot on the PAK to stop it from spinning. "Where do you think you're going, Zim?"
Claws uselessly slashed at a net that wouldn't tear. Failure was a smothering weight.
Dib slung the net off him only to push his knee into his stomach. Cold fingers were wrapping around his throat like rope. The young man's mouth curled into a smile. In his other hand was a surgical scalpel. He playfully twirled it about in his forefinger and thumb, but the gold ingots of his eyes were dark. "Which part of you shall I stick it in first, Zim? How much can you take before you finally die?"
He tried ripping and clawing at the hand holding his throat, a hand that may as well have been carved out of stone.
"How about here?" The blade's slightly curved point dangled over his abdomen. "You might not even feel it."
The tip sunk in, he snapped his eyes open, and scream was in his throat. He was in a grey haze where a milky white ceiling materialized above him. It stung his eyes, forcing them shut, but there was a deeper agony mauling him where the knife had gone in.
He blinked, woozily trying to push himself to focus while his vision was a blurry mess of incoherent blobs and sparks.
His senses screamed at a pain he couldn't adjust to, didn't understand...
That was when a giant hand of black latex and plastic swarmed into his still-adjusting vision, and the brittle scream that flew out of him was a hoarse and terrified wail.
"Easy, little one. It's just me." The deep, calming voice of the professor drifted from above, beyond the painful fog.
Every part of him was a reluctant weight he couldn't move. Unwieldy claws of his right weakly flexed, touching upon strange and unfamiliarly soft material beneath him. The comfort was something else he couldn't understand. He was sure he was lying down, and that was also new.
When he tried to reach across and explore the side of him that was radiating pain, his hand connected with more soft, yielding blanket. As he stupidly looked through muted eyes, desperately trying to understand, the lumbering, tall figure of a man gazed demurely down at him. The fog wasn't clearing, and he was only able to smell the stink of his own breath and the odour of plastic. His antennae - his compass and sensual navigator - were just as impossible to lift.
He had never known such exhaustion...
I'm drugged... they've drugged...me...
His throat and tongue were swollen protrusions and lumps, with thorns of about every length and size digging into his chest and airway. Any movement, however minor, sent his body and legs into spasms.
If it wasn't for the fire eating through his arm and throat, and the awful thirst, he might have better understood what was happening, but his slow and stupid brain just didn't want to know.
The tall white shape would sometimes move, his blurry periphery would catch it, and he would helplessly flinch which ignited more pain and fire.
The voice echoed, as though distorted. "Your throat will hurt for awhile. I put an intubation tube in your airway to keep you breathing."
"Y-You...?" He rasped, trying to woozily look up at dark and reflective goggles that towered above. He tried to get the rest out, but it dragged those thorns deeper into his throat and lungs.
His vision glazed over, the blobs were spreading across his sight.
There was something pressing heavily on his face, but he couldn't even move his hand to find out what it was. Tubing followed and tugged against every subtle turn and incline of his head: the weight of it was terrifying.
"How many fingers am I holding up, Zim?"
Turning his head even slightly incurred sharp pain behind his eyes, as if fragments of glass were knocking about inside his skull. He blinked, looking up at the shifting fingers that had suddenly sprouted before him.
Everything was blurring again, blobs seeping and blackening into indiscernible lumps. He didn't want to fight it, only to slip away with it. He wanted to be free, free from the memories not bound by this physical prison of a body.
"Zim...? Zim, stay with me..." The words broke apart into something meaningless. Voices became bubbles in the blue, floating up before dispersing like silk.
"The goddamn thing sleeps like sleeping beauty! What's wrong with it?"
"Blood loss, extreme stress and dehydration have exhausted his body, Carlson. He is a living, breathing organism that needs rest, food and fluids to live, just like any other life form. The more he sleeps, the faster he will heal."
"Your boy clearly stated that this thing doesn't need sleep!"
"You think my son observed A01's every waking moment? There are things Dib could not possibly know. Going only on his information is folly!"
"You could never trust your own children, could you?"
He sunk all the way, the bubbles faded, and the nightmares returned in and old and familiar forms.
-x-
Williams was on his sixth cup of coffee. He sipped from it without looking, his scrutiny exclusively on the printed read outs he held in one hand.
The tissue samples were fed through the computer, samples consisting of skin and blood with fragments of bone that were then stored in cryogenic storage for preservation.
The metals and minerals found within the creature's composition were fairly normal in regards to human biology, but he had expected remnants of migratory circuitry, or something relating to A01's cybernetic nature. They had found nothing but tissue. Looking inside its body with an endoscope was something he wanted to push on with, and maybe then they'd see something. Performing a spinal tap this early in the proceedings was a precarious procedure, given that they did not know how important or different A01's spine might be when it had a machine attached to it.
And that wasn't all...
The atmosphere in the mess hall varied, most of the scientists were quietly contemplating what they had seen, while others were spooked and rattled. Before the regenerative testing, they had been onboard with Carlson's ideology and methods, but a certain tension was climbing, as if, during the testing, they had crossed some forbidden, moral ground and not all of them knew where they stood.
Williams didn't look so pleased or enlightened either. He stared at the readouts as if he was overlooking his own dubious health chart, scratching his forehead and oftentimes lifting his glasses to then rub vigorously at his eyes.
Edward had sat down to yawn and drink the hot but tasteless coffee the chef robot was serving, but was in no hurry to go home.
The fact that they had nearly killed their subject remained the loudest unsaid statement in the room. Though the sergeant was to blame, no one was brave enough to challenge him about it.
A laptop lay open on the table across from Williams and the others, and they were free to take a look. It was LIVE camera feed from the subject's room, with the professor monitoring the creature for any changes. Prof. Membrane warned that nobody was to go ahead with any interrogations or further research until A01 had regained complete consciousness and that his temperature and heart rate had gone back down to normal levels. Williams had seen the irregularities in the ECG for himself.
As the creature's vitals recovered, the unsettled malcontent lifted too, but disappointment still suffused the general mood, as they now knew that they could no longer take from A01 freely without consequence, and that the mechanism on its back had sudden and unforeseen limitations.
Edward, who couldn't help his own nagging curiosity, had covertly sneaked a look over Williams's shoulder to see at least some of his notes and observations by a pile of numerical columns and chemical readouts. Scratchy words on paper, hardly legible, could just be made out:
Based on Dib Membrane's accounts, the machine on A01's back is most likely a functioning life support that doubles as a weapon of sorts, and if that is true, where does its power come from? Every machine needs energy to function, even if its battery powered, nuclear or takes in light. If A01 deteriorates by refusing to sustain itself on food, water, what is there to say that the PAK won't cease to function, or take from the nearest energy source, such as A01 itself? If this is true, as it has yet to be seen, this may make the PAK more parasitic than protective.
Summary: does A01 feed off the machine? Or does the machine feed off A01?
Edward coasted away before Williams noticed his prying, but the old doctor was so engrossed in the printed readouts that there was a good chance he wouldn't even have noticed an earthquake.
Observing the unusually quiet team that had been a gaggle of excitement not long before, Edward was the first to crack the ice. "When are we gonna publically announce this thing to the world, and all our findings?"
The media was a persistent force outside Geneva's gates, and though some were starting to trickle away, the public didn't truly know what it was they really had, and they were taking sides, one side going by Dib's bloated reports and their own stiff and scrupulous testimonies, while others insisted Dib's credibility was flaky at best; he was known as 'the boy who cried wolf.'
Carlson seemed totally unaffected by the exhaustion plaguing the others as if he was made out of the same circuits and wires as the robot chef. "Could you imagine the panic when the media gets wind of A01's military nature? We buckle down, and tell the public nothing. A01 is American property, and we can't afford to have anyone breaking in and stealing our discovery."
Edward folded his arms, leaning on the counter. "But...what do you suppose is in its ship? Maybe there are weapons in there that we can't possibly imagine?"
"Like diamonds?" Torrent suggested, which had Carlson chuckling.
They had tried shocking the ship in an attempt to overload its defences, and when that proved futile, as if the ship's shields fed off the electricity they were inevitably dousing it with, they tried an electromagnetic pulse instead. Carlson had been loathed to try the EMP method, worried they'd damage it, and render the ship useless. But when the ship seemed to shrug this off too, Carlson grew more frustrated as if the ship's affront was personal.
Rick chased the paw print decorations on his mug with a thumb. "Discovering a humanoid-like creature has a one in trillion possibility, given the long and convoluted evolutionary thread that made us..."
Edward was in total agreement. "A01's environment must have dictated its evolution. Those eyes, and the feelers it has... I wonder if its home planet has other animal organisms, with similar conditions to Earth? Is it a hot world do you think, or a cold one? What kind of sun does it have?" Edwards looked to each of them, seeing that they were lost in their own stupor. Williams was so absorbed in the readouts that it was doubtful he had heard anything they were saying. "Doctor...? What do you think?"
Williams's reply, when it came, was hesitant, and he ignored Edward's question entirely. "The cells are more complex... the enzymes react faster than ours... The computer has detected different pheromones, and a fibrous elasticity in the skin..."
Edward wrapped both hands around his Styrofoam cup and asked something a little different in keeping with Williams' interests. "So, what's the deal with the alien having green skin and blood?"
Again, Williams didn't look his way or seem particularly confident in his reply. He seemed to have lost all anger towards Rick as well, though Rick was avoiding him and his observations any way that he could, "There's a chemical solution in the blood, with varying molecules that carry oxygen and haemoglobin..."
"I've heard of lizards having green blood... Zombies too." Dryly commented Torrent who preferred to stand and not join in as he stalked around the kitchen, going through the drawers and cupboards for anything worth eating. Carlson was watching too: he was the wolf bordering the outskirts, singling out the weakest, and keeping tabs on their behaviour. He had sat down across from them with a newspaper spread across his lap, but Torrent knew he was only pretending to read from it.
"What are you thinking, doctor?" Carlson asked, his eyes watchful and sombre.
"...that alien life is more like us than we thought..." Williams set the readouts down for a moment, his gaze downcast. "Typically there can only be two types of life forms. Silicon based, and carbon based. However strange alien life can be, it is still limited by the same physical and chemical laws that make us. Alternative biochemistries are possible within the realms of possibility, but A01 is a carbon-based life form, just like you and me."
"So we're fundamentally related?" Edward asked, leaning forwards.
"Yes, and no." Williams returned affably, "The environment A01 came from influenced a completely different evolutionary direction. Convergent evolution is where creatures face similar environmental pressures and universalities of life. A01 has features attuned to its environment; dimly lit places would produce huge eyes to drink in extra light, and antennae to perceive greater sound and distance that might also help it detect pheromones and hormones, like our tongue does for taste."
"That's fucking creepy." Torrent remarked.
"Maybe these Irkens lived underground before interstellar travel," Williams dreamily continued, "to escape from cosmic rays, predators, or from cold temperatures. Its skin and tendons are more sinewy than ours; allowing greater flexibility over raw strength, and A01 has a lighter but strong skeleton, but with less insulation to protect its internal organs. Its metabolism is faster than ours, so A01 burns through energy more rapidly. It explains why it does not like the cold."
"So what is it? Insect, or mammal or...?"
"A blend of both it would appear." The doctor mused, lifting off his glasses and holding the metal stem with a forefinger and thumb, "I wasn't sure mammalian insects could exist, but we have seen nature on our own planet do similar things. Take the platypus for instance, a mammal that has reptilian attributes."
"You mean those things that lay eggs?"
The tired doctor continued, ignoring Torrent's frequent interruptions. "These 'Irkens' might have been more insectoid in nature, but, adapting over time, they could have taken on mammalian traits that were more suitable or adaptable to their clime and other evolutionary pressures. It doesn't have a robust circulatory system, and has a weaker respiratory system as well. I don't know if it's an individual weakness, or a species limitation, but the mechanism on its back seems to adjust and alleviate its organs accordingly. Dib stated that this 'Zim' couldn't live long without this PAK, which strongly suggests that A01 is completely dependent on this cybernetic construct, and has been for some time."
They had seen how quickly A01 had deteriorated. The creature's strength, equated with the invulnerability of the PAK it bore had dissolved instantly. But what they had not been expecting was the automated surge of energy that the PAK had utilized to restart the Irken's heart.
Torrent was just as baffled as the others. "I don't get it, living with this major flaw on its back. Anyone can pull it off."
Williams turned to give him a tired look. "Have you tried pulling it off, Torrent?"
"Urm, no..."
"Lucinda got close enough, and see's still in hospital. Besides, it's less about getting it off and more about being close enough to disarm it. A01's obviously been built to be aggressive, as it must protect the machine it bears. It can't stand any of us touching it, and it's clear that a good nudge won't loosen it. If it's attached within the creature's spine, and Dib managed to grab hold of it, as stated in the files, one can assume that it can be safely removed, like taking a key out of a lock perhaps. But how the two function together and apart is yet to be seen."
Edward was sceptical. "I don't believe Dib did acquire it. Who's to say what's true in his files when he's the only one who's written it?"
There was an appreciative murmur in the room. The young man with the scythe of hair gave uncomfortable vibes. He was more ghost than human, and would often stare at them from haunted, dark eyes. He spoke little, having no inclination to socialize or 'fit in.' A few had heard about him from the newspapers, often for delinquency and anti-social behaviour.
Edward posed the question. "Why would something evolve, only to be incapable of living without a cybernetic accessory?"
Williams was quicker to reply. "To surpass one's physical limitations, it is not beyond the impossible to realize frail mortally can be surpassed with the help of external aids and devices. We humans are doing it right now. Take my glasses for example. I can't see without them." And he demonstrated by placing them back on his nose. "There are those who need pacemakers. Metal splints. Artificial limbs. Intelligent life forms would look beyond their natural boundaries, and not just limiting biology, but the limitations of own planet. It took 3 billion years for life to evolve on Earth, and for us to develop the technology to build computers. Imagine what an advanced species can do if they are older, evolved faster...? Had better resources?"
"Doesn't anyone else want to know where it came from? What its home planet looks like?" Edward asked.
At that, Carlson made his opinion known. "What does it matter where the imp came from? You could chat with A01 all fucking day about what colour the damn trees are on its planet. Hell, ask how yellow its sun is, what fucking fruit it likes to eat and where it likes to tuck down for the night! We are after its military assets! That PAK might be a computer that is picking up our conversations to send back to its bug-eyed bastard cousins! Fuck its diversity and fuck its religion!"
But Torrent was watching Williams. He knew the old man long enough to know that he was hiding something. Whenever something troubled him, he fussed and fiddled with his glasses and went quiet even when he had a lot to say. If the doctor had discovered some super power, he was sure he would just as readily announce it to the others. He was the only one who had stayed with the professor when A01 had quickly gone downhill, and that phrase was an understatement. A01 had nose-dived down that proverbial hill.
"Hey, old man." He said, approaching him and briefly looking at the sheets of paper that were nothing but indecipherable numbers and scribbles, "wanna head out and have a drink with me?"
-x-
The surface was drawing closer as he floated. There was pain beyond the bubble of refuge, and when the windshield of his Voot started to crack, the stars burning crimson, the windshield broke and the shelter of sleep evaporated. He slowly opened his eyes, but there wasn't much to see except an engulfing blur. His senses, shackled in fatigue and static, took longer to adjust.
He felt like he'd been wrapped in cotton – it was a strange and comforting sensation made even more absurd by the incredible softness and warmth. As he drifted, he was convinced that he was still dreaming.
When he gradually became aware of the blipping and ticking, he very nearly screamed. He did not want to register the noises, and did not wish to believe that he had woken only to return to the nightmare.
There was a weight on his cheeks that pressed under his eyes: a rim pressing down, digging into bony and sensitive contours.
Fighting to keep his eyes open, he noticed a black tube jutting out of a plastic dome. It took him another slow moment to realize that it was a breathing mask clamped over his face.
He tried to lift a heavy and pain wracked head to see where he was. He was lying on a pillow and mattress which he struggled to place, much less understand, and was further bemused to see cream and cotton blankets cocooning his body, with thin trailing wires protruding from the coverlets and blankets to a set of monitoring machines, machines that instantly reawakened the claustrophobia. Panic, pure and sharp, hit him like a wave of sea water that threatened to destroy his sanity.
His glazed and twitchy scrutiny continually rewarded him with the heart breaking reality of his prison. The same room of horror welcomed him back with its clinical white walls and the two black observation windows that gave restraint a whole new meaning.
The metal platform that had saturated his every waking moment in torment had been folded up and tucked away like a common work bench.
As his eyes stubbornly adjusted, vision struggling to focus, head spinning, a table stood proud and menacingly close some five steps away. From where he lay he could not see what was on it, and was unnerved to wonder what manner of tools and torture implements gleamed from the surface.
With returning tremors making his back arch, he nervously looked up at the observation windows to see that no one was there.
As his gaze settled back down, his chest hurt with renewed disappointment when he saw the camera perched on its black column, the recording light a solid and unpromising bright green as its lens studied him from a distance.
But the fact that no one seemed to be present stirred in him a novel burst of hope that scattered the looming lethargy and disenchantment.
He detected heavy breathing with his right antenna. Stiffly turning his head on the pillow, he saw the professor leaning against the wall directly beside him, arms folded over his huge chest as he slept. His ridiculously long and greying scythe of hair had been left to droop over his face.
The mere sight of the man had him bodily jerk away on limbs that didn't want to comply, the sudden reaction rewarding him with engulfing pain.
Though the tall scientist hadn't moved, he could barely tear his eyes off him. Mirroring his distress, the blips and bleeps intensified.
Please don't wake please don't fucking wake!
As the blankets wrinkled down, revealing his upper torso, he discovered an unstained and freshly laundered gown on his body. The fact that they'd been free to change him while he was unaware had boiling rage whip through his veins that reawakened the shame of what he had suffered, what he had felt when he was violated. And that wasn't the worst of it.
Wide swathes of thick gauze chiefly covered his left collarbone and shoulder. His left arm below the shoulder was encased in thick heavy plaster, supported in a sling.
He went to touch this strange white apparition on his arm when his right hand was suddenly impeded by a short, hard tug. He looked down, blinking, to see a line of thick rubbery plastic and metal connecting his wrist to a manacle. It gave him barely any room to reach over, or stretch out his elbow. His legs, though free to fidget and move more so than he had ever been allowed, were also fettered by those same black and formidable tethers.
He was able to bring his ankles together, and spread them out, but he hadn't the room to kick or bring his leg any higher than the incline of his body.
Leaning as far as he could, the weight of the mask a distressing attachment, he discovered that each tether was anchored to a heavy-duty metal clip on the floor.
It was happening again...
The hurt...
The helplessness...
...parts of him, ending up in jars...
"No, no...!" Something of a voice, wispy and weak, scuttled out of his sore and dry throat. He gave another harder tug with his right arm, refusing to accept the reality he'd woken to, that he couldn't still be in this hell...
The man beside him suddenly snorted as he stirred.
His chance was rapidly fading; thinning hopes splintering cracks about to shatter. The panic was plugging his throat and chest with suffocating pressure.
He tried to dip back into his reserves - his resolve - of what he had been taught when faced with capture... compromise...
"Hmmph?" The professor slowly leaned away from the wall and rubbed at his goggles with a gloved hand, pausing just long enough to push the scythe of hair out of his face.
He desperately pulled harder at the tether, feeling old bruises and wounds rekindle with customary hurt, but the real agony ignited from the arm encased in plaster. He was convinced angry bees were trapped inside it, and were stinging him to death.
"Ah, you're awake! Oh thank goodness!" He went to touch him. "No, no, don't struggle, you must save your strength!"
His lips curled into a snarl behind the dome of the mask's fogging plastic. "St-staay away from me!" He could not throw his arm up to shield his eyes or his shame from his encompassing white bulk, or the sight of what he had become in the reflection of those dark goggles.
"Shhh, now! It's okay! I'm not here to harm you!"
The promise was empty... a lie... a falsehood...
There would only be more pain...
The professor's hand, bulky and forbidding, came towards him, and a wisp of a scream scrapped out of his cotton-dry throat. He was trapped in a corner again, pinned in place: forced to endure what was coming...
They hid behind a stone and metal buttress, covered in blood, gasping for breath. If they stayed hidden, if they didn't make a noise, they might be okay, the enemy might pass them by.
Skoodge had lost his blaster somewhere, and Zim had half a clip left.
They were coming.
Mils sat, huddled between them, looking compulsively at his hand where claws once were, the rest of which had been blown off. A sprouting stump of his wrist remained. "Where's it gone? Where's it gone!"
"Shhh!" Zim went to shut the soldier up with the butt of his elbow when a resounding hail of gunfire screamed around them...
The helplessness, the end...
"I need you to stay calm, little one!" The hand retracted, the promise of harm not so intimate, and Zim slouched on his good elbow, slanting eyes trying to focus on the professor's suppurating image as he heaved for breath.
His indomitability, the inextinguishable flame that served as his invincibility and coat of armour was becoming thinner, translucent. He could feel himself thinning away with it. And the professor was rubbing him out all the faster.
Was he still in one piece? Parts of him were burning; his head was a thudding metal ball that he couldn't support.
Despite the cuffs keeping him pinned, he couldn't submit. The heat in his cramping undercarriage was all the incentive he needed to keep struggling and fighting until either he broke, or the tethers did.
Out of slanting and drooping eyes, he tried to look for the other monsters clad in white with their instruments...
"How are you feeling? Are you in much pain?" His voice, warm and soothing, was traitorously hospitable. It sent sharp flushes of hurting rage through his core.
He glared resentfully at Membrane, unable to tame the feverish shaking, but exhaustion, pain and dizziness had him eventually yield and shut his eyes. He had never been able to hold the professor's gaze for long.
Slowly, his antennae drooped to his shoulders.
He could feel his fortifications crumbling with every brick the humans tugged and chiselled out. The professor was like water to the mortar that held everything up.
The man's temptingly cordial voice kept denting his softening walls. "Your... your body is healing, and you will feel weak. But! In the meantime, I think you could do with a drink and some home cooked food!"
"No... no..." He could not speak without swallowing; each swallow was shards of glass down his throat. He kept his eyes shut. It was the only way to defy him, to resist any temptation the professor might try to entice him with.
He tightly clasped every barrier to protect what was left.
"You have a rising temperature, little one. We need to bring that fever down." The man stood up, his antennae detected it, and when he cracked his eyes open, Membrane's bulk was a towering spire that magnified the helplessness – and then his shadow passed over him as he approached the nearby table.
He paled, as if he wasn't pale enough, antennae peaking timidly as his mind rushed full-pelt to every murderous possibility and torturous tool imaginable. Membrane shifted through things that sounded like glass or metal, and in his mind he was seeing chisels, saws, screwdrivers... when the scientist picked up a little ornamental cup decorated with pearly white roses. He set it on a matching saucer and bent down to offer it as if he was inviting Zim to a tea party.
While his mind stammered and hitched at the implausible cup on its implausible saucer, the professor reached towards him again, and Zim snapped back as far as he could go, only to feel Membrane softly unclip the elastic band that was stretched taut against hot cheekbones to release him from the breathing mask.
Zim tenderly fetched in new and tormenting smells with his next breath. There was a buttery stink of old blood, and the faintest traces of ammonia. When the professor spoke, his voice was this calming and soothing resonance, and though he raised his walls before the cracks could show, his eyes burned with tears.
"I enjoy a bit Earl's Grey myself, primarily in the evenings! If there's anything else you'd prefer, you are more than welcome to ask!"
Zim warily looked to the cup and then to the professor as if the man was holding out a mouse trap that was primed to snap should he touch it.
He was determined not to shy away from the man's solemn gaze, but his armour was not holding true, and the hurt of his betrayal cut deeper and deeper. "My... m-mm arm..." It was hard to speak when there was so much gravel in his throat, "What ha-ahav you d-done...?"
The professor leaned back, chin dipping further into his collar. "Well, urm," he coughed to clear his throat, "yes," for once he seemed unsure of what to say, and his solemnity began to spread. Zim could even hear the cup twinkling against its saucer as the professor's hands started to shake. "It will need to... be in the cast for a few days... to... to... mend..." He coughed uncomfortably again, and when he spoke some strength had returned in his voice. "A splint was required to... to keep the bone properly aligned. I expect swelling and a lot of bruising over the next few days. You... urm... lost a significant amount of blood."
The man seemed to grow smaller there and then, his shoulders slumping as if the invulnerability of his character had snapped somewhere down the middle.
As if his strings were gradually being pulled taut again, he stirred back to life and nodded at the cup he was offering. "Drinking plenty of fluids and replenishing your energy is crucial to rebuilding your strength!" And he lifted the cup from its little saucer expectantly. "If you prefer, I have some hot chocolate on standby, but I don't think your spooch will be able to handle it."
He defensively flattened his antennae. The fear of poisons, anaesthetizing drugs and chemicals made him pull away, though he really had nowhere to go, with his eyes drawn to the cup like a magnet to metal.
Despite the blankets being able to conceal much of the shivering, the pointy protrusions of his knees were a clear giveaway as they shook and trembled constantly.
The professor's calming voice persisted. "You are severely dehydrated, Zim. Without fluids, you'll undoubtedly feel more light-headed and dizzy if your head isn't hurting already, and your muscles will continually cramp. The last thing I want is to put you on fluids intravenously."
Zim looked up at him with eyes so dry they hurt if he didn't blink enough. The excruciating thirst was not just unbearable, it was excruciating. Without the obstruction of the breathing mask he could smell the tang of herbs and diluted milk from the cup, but as he procrastinated, his ankles nervously fidgeting, he felt the sharp tag of his number brush against the inside of his leg, and the horror widened his eyes in tune with his inner despair.
The professor calmly waited, holding the cup and saucer in offering.
His tongue kept sticking to the roof of his mouth while his head pealed like a church bell. "Get th-that out of m-my face..." He rasped finally, seeing as how the professor seemed happy to sit there for all of eternity.
"Ahh, silly me!" Spoke the professor after a fashion as if Zim's rebuttal had prompted him to think of something else. "Two for tea is better!" He stood up again, his movements deliberately slower than normal, and Zim intensely watched, heart sickly racing as he moved things about on the table. He briefly saw the top of an ornate teapot as it was lifted and poured.
Membrane resettled into a kneeling position by the thin mattress holding his own cup and saucer, and deliberately set the other one down by the mattress within Zim's reach.
The professor then delicately sipped from so tiny a cup with his little finger poking out. "There's something about having tea after a weary day." The scientist babbled on. "Hydration is good for the mind. It keeps one alert, and sharpens one's focus."
Zim was beginning to find the whole thing ridiculous. He considered picking up the cup and throwing it at the professor's face.
He went to reach for the little ornate cup, feeling the responding tug of the cuff tighten, and paused mid-grasp, undermined by self-control and the desperate, maddening thirst.
His tongue had become a swollen sock that filled his whole mouth, and his head pounded constantly. He could feel his skin pulling taut against bone, and already particles of skin were beginning to flake off onto the pillow.
He looked to the professor, his fearful reluctance transmogrifying into resentment.
He recognised the professor's gesture.
It was another exercise in trust.
But the terrible thirst wasn't so easy to ignore, and even his willpower had a hard time shaking it off. His throat was desperate for relief, and his body had become a hollow cavity where everything madly throbbed and resonated.
His clawed fingers reached for the cup, his middle claw rasping for the thin, decorative stem-like handle. He lifted it from the saucer, throat helplessly clenching at the anticipation – at the mere thought of having a drink. He had to hold fast when all he wanted was to glug down the whole thing.
He lifted it closer, feeling the warmth seep through the material to his claws. But touching it revealed that it was not made of porcelain or any kind of ceramic. It was plastic. Plastic would neither break nor shatter, and would not provide him with a shard of material to inflict self-harm or harm others.
"You will have mealtimes from now on. All provided for of course!" The professor sipped from his ridiculously tiny teacup. "...And you'll have recreational activities! There are only a few things they're allowing me to provide, but I have a remarkable collection of books on science, philosophy, and astronomy that you can read to your heart's content!"
"B-Books?" Anger temporarily burned across his wary fuchsia eyes. "Why would I read s-such drivel? If you give me any one of your dis-disgusting 'books' I am g-go-going to e-eat every p-page..."
"Because you like the flavour, or is it an essential part of your diet?" There was a furtive wink behind his goggles as he lifted the teacup in jest.
He swore he was smiling behind the wide brim of his stupid collar.
Zim momentarily lowered the cup, squinting one eye at the professor, trying to gauge if there was something more meaningful behind the gesture.
He's just trying to trick me, hurt me, get behind my shields...
Soon his attention swung back to the cup and the fumes rising from it. Fragrances, delicious and warming, wafted against his narrow nasal slits.
Pride and dignity became awfully small matters when thirst was so devastatingly powerful.
He tipped the cup towards dry, blistered lips, recoiling and similarly wanting it, expecting his throat to erupt with pain, and that, in moments he would be twisting in agony as the liquid started to eat away his insides. But, upon the first swallow, the tea was like silk to his parched throat, and he suddenly couldn't get enough. It dribbled down him, lashing his chin and throat in Earl's Grey as he gulped and loudly swallowed.
"Not so fast..." The professor reached over and took it off him mid-swallow.
He tried to lunge after it when pain clobbered him over the head, forcing him to lie back down as stars burned and flashed and burst behind closed eyelids. There was momentary and blazing darkness that reached in to pull him under, and he tried to fight it before it could grip him any tighter.
"It's alright, don't panic..." The professor's voice, an anchor in the storm, had a touch of worry to it, "take things a little slower. Is it a headache...? Or is it...?"
Zim realized that the professor couldn't quite finish his sentence.
How much of him was revealed in little annotations of data? His biology something of a butterfly collection to scrutinize and draw conclusions from?
He opened his eyes fractionally, and when he felt the professor gently apply a finger of pressure on the artery in his wrist, the rage returned, seething and boiling.
They had taken everything from him!
The sanctity of his body had been defiled.
And now even this bastard had tainted and mutilated him!
He wanted to put all the memories into little boxes, and seal them so tightly even he could never get them open again, but the hurt was there as a clear and lucid reminder, the nightmare wasn't ending, the walls were shuffling closer and closer...
He closed his eyes; he was in the cabin of the Voot Runner, overseeing all the sparkling controls and dials. The windshield smoothly closed over the cabin; safely cocooning him at last. He reached forwards, feeling the tug on his wrist as he reached for the dial to ignite the engines – a dial he couldn't quite reach.
"Zim…?" The words were motes of sound he couldn't fully translate, and something pinched the skin on the back of his hand, hard, causing him to snort and hiss. Cracking his eyes open, he felt himself being gently lifted into a sitting position. The professor's huge girth of an arm had just become his support and cushion.
Another cup was presented before him, and its aroma was not in keeping with that of Earls' Grey. It was tangy, almost medicinal. It was pressed against his dry and blistered lips while he was still ruminating its existence, and instinctively he started to drink, astonished at how good it tasted.
Swallowing took effort, but the thirst propelled him to gulp as much as he could, and in seconds the cup was taken away again, only coming in short intervals: limiting his gulps to ragged, intermittent swallows.
"You'll throw up if you guzzle it down like that, Zim. Take your time. You can have as much as you want, but I can't have you drink it all at once."
It tasted of berries and lavender, with helpings of ginger and peppermint. Maybe it was some kind of cold tea, or diluted medicinal liquid mixed with stuff, he couldn't quite tell, and didn't care so long as it didn't hurt. His throat wasn't in perfect working order, and he helplessly kept swallowing and dribbling even when he wasn't drinking anything.
His left arm, tucked away in plaster and sling, complained every once in a while. He wasn't sure what they'd done, what the professor had done to him. He couldn't feel the claws of that hand, or twitch or turn his wrist, but maybe that was because of the cast preventing the nerves, and him from moving it.
Once the immediate and tormenting thirst was over, Zim sagged against the professor's arm, eyelids wilting. A haze was settling over him again.
He could hear something, a hitch of breath, a shudder going down the great arm that propped him up.
His antennae detected drops of moisture, just before they fell.
Dib07: Just as a reminder, if you want this continued, please please leave a review! ;3 I pour everything into each update and if no one is reading this anymore I don't know if its worth continuing. So the next update is up to you! Have an awesome day!
