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, gore, psychological issues and angst throughout.


Dib07: Oh boy. Never thought this story would ever see an update again.


Chapter 8: Asthenia

Glass lenses catching the grey light of noon, he stood rooted to the stone paving looking up at the intimidating walls and columns. Its symmetrical shape and carefully proportioned windows and roof arches were reminiscent of its Georgian style that was conceived from the dark stones that made it. As the sun faded, Geneva would slowly transform into a hunched and monstrous castle belonging to a medieval epoch where vampires and ghouls roamed.

Even when the sun melted away to the west, the light striking its western front, the stone looked as though it had been drenched in blood.

The wing sections had been added and extended over time, and were in keeping with the dark grey stucco walls and capped windows. Upon closer inspection, every window was covered with iron bars or external grates. There was only one main entrance that was guarded day and night by security cameras and trigger sensors. The guard loitered at reception, overlooking the security monitors, but he usually sat behind the front desk, playing on his mobile phone.

And the security checkpoints started long before you even got close to the building. The parking lot was surveyed by cameras, with each car tagged by way of its licence plate. Years ago, when animal rights protestors and the overzealous media had stormed the keep, fences had been put up around the building, capped by whirling spools of barbed wire. The gates closed at night, with personnel venturing in only when they had appropriate authorization.

Dib trudged round to the ominous right annexe of the building, and looked up at the torturously high roof and steep sides. The topmost capped windows, smaller than the ones below, were also fitted with the same iron grates blotched with orange rust stains.

He didn't know why he was even looking. He supposed it was because he had never really had a good look at the building that incarcerated so much horror and misery. Had the institute always been so ugly? He remembered coming here as a child, waiting for his father to finish work, and was sure back then at least the walls had been brighter, whiter even, with light coming out of its windows.

He came to stand by the front entrance again, and just like before his feet seemed to melt to the pavement until he couldn't take a step forward.

With slow deliberation he took out the phone from his jacket pocket and redialled his father's number. He had never felt so much mixed dread should he answer this time, and the paradoxical relief if he didn't.

He did not know why he had come back. Why he was even standing here.

Carlson adamantly promised a measure of relief, should he face the demons holding him back. He wasn't so sure if he believed it.

As he stared solemnly at the phone, something rustled in the hawthorn bushes bordering the parking lot. He turned to see a squirrel jump out of mesh of twigs and scurry across the section of grass to the parking lot. He stared after it. Too late, he called, "Hey, hey wait! Can you understand me?" He ran after it, and when it dived into the hawthorn, he dived after it, shoving his hands through sharp prickles and berries. "Please, I need to talk to you! Do you know a gold weasel...? He goes by the name of..."

He stopped when he heard boots behind him.

A grey man, robed in that ominous white coat, stopped to give him a wary look as if he was struggling to recognise him. "Dib?" He asked. "Is everything... alright?"

He turned, feeling the blush rise in his cheeks. "Sorry, I... I thought I saw something. W-Williams, is it?"

The man nodded.

He wasn't sure why, but Williams unearthed something deep down, a primordial fear of doctors, needles, stethoscopes.

"You're very pale, Dib. Do you want to come inside? There's coffee in the canteen..."

He lifted muted amber eyes to the stone of the building again, throat catching, the anxiety pressing and digging.

He never thought he could hurt so much. Anger and despair had beaten him raw. Disappointment and grief remained in the ruins of the mountain he had toppled. In the night he would eternally return to the wishing well. Sometimes he wondered if he had even dreamt it.

Williams turned round, his inviting smile soft, and sad. Taking that step took more energy out of him than fighting Zim had ever done.

His chilled fingers rasped along the dirt-grey stone of the column presiding over the entrance as he followed Williams, his shadow a cold finger upon the door.

-x-

Membrane studied it from a few steps away, assessing the main glass walls and accessible door that was almost so translucent you'd need a magnifying glass to see the seams. The outer rectangular supports were inlaid with titanium, the inner steel framework a composite mixture of titanium and magnesium. Hanging from reinforced clasps in the centre of the ceiling were straps to bind and lock A01 into position from a harness should they want to.

The 'box' itself was roomy for one so small. It was 7.5 feet in length and width, with an easy height of 6 foot. The main walls were made of diamond glass, and allowed A01 nowhere to hide.

The sergeant was familiar with diamond glass, having commissioned the material to go into his tanks and helicopters. It was bullet-proof, shatter resistant, and was excellent at insulating sound.

The walls themselves could be further reinforced in case of a contagion or security, with a metal shell going all the way round it.

The professor was prattling away, "A01 will be freer to move around! It'll ease the atrophy in his muscles, and we'll be able to evaluate what his preferences are, be it sitting, standing, pacing, or whatever constitutes as relief for him." He activated an instrument on his sleeve, pausing to jot things down as he peered at the lights around the box and the fire alarm stationed above the central exit. Next to that was an override switch.

"Well?" Came the sergeant's gruff voice. "Is it to your specifications?"

The professor noted the touch of sarcasm as he quickly switched off the device on his sleeve. "...With incredible exactness!" He reached over and touched the glass wall. Even he could not ignore the incredible engineering that had gone into it.

"It looks like Satan's version of a rabbit hutch. I rather like it." The sergeant stood, rubbing the gristle on his chin as he overlooked the construct with mild amusement.

"This is where the harness will be attached." The professor curtly pointed at the clasps in the ceiling. "He'll have a latrine, and we'll regularly provide him with food and water through a slot in the wall, here."

"What if it tries to strangle itself with the harness?"

"That would be impossible. The harness can be remotely slotted away, or its length shortened depending on the situation."

"And the monitors?"

"They'll be stationed outside. Normally the telemetry leads and wires would protrude from slips in the wall." Again he showed the sergeant a millimetre gap where the walls connected to the floor. "Wireless monitoring is desirable, but in either case I assure you he will remove anything he can if he wants to. That's why I have set up these monitoring screens instead." He gestured dismissively at two screens that looked like they had been glued to the glass. "Remote reading! When he is in the room, sensitive receptors will monitor and track his vitals without the need of wires and such!"

"Whatever." But he was looking for flaws, imperfections. What weaknesses the devil would find, he would make short work of.

"Even in the unlikelihood that A01 does somehow manage to get out," the professor continued as if he had read the look on the soldier's face, "there is nowhere for him to go! He'll still be detained in this room and the main door will be locked! And only those with a keycard are granted access! He can also be transported from here to the observation room without fuss! The vents to his room will release a mild gas that will render him immobile for a time."

"All this... for A01's comforts." Carlson gesticulated dryly, his expression set and rigid.

"Let's not forget the security!" He hit a button, and a heavy shell of metal snapped around the room's exterior glass, turning it into an ominous black box.

"Humph." He walked around the structure, his boot heels making sharp, clacking sounds. "I want that imp blindfolded when its being transported to and from rooms! Understand?"

"P-Pardon?"

"You heard. I don't want it knowing where it's going. What if it can manipulate things, objects, energy...?"

"I c-can arrange..."

"Good." The sergeant pasted on a painfully fake smile. "It's pleasant to know you aren't as nutty as you first appear. But as much as I would love to chit-chat, results don't formulate themselves, do they...?"

"No." He admitted sullenly.

His smile belied his intent. "Tell me professor, do you know what that thing did to your son? What damage it did to him, psychologically, and physically?"

Membrane turned to him, dark goggles as opaque as his demeanour, and Carlson could literally feel his tinder-frail confidence falling down like cornstalks. The professor was all talk, scripted rehearsals and scripted convictions.

"I read the psychiatry reports. Apparently you were detained for two weeks for child abuse." Knowing that he had the scientist's attention, his scornful smile widened. "Why don't you talk to him, professor? You should listen. He has an awful lot to say."

-x-

When he woke, scrunching his eyes tight and then opening them in a series of rapid, watery blinks, he was so sure he was still dreaming. Struggling upright, the restraints chaffing and shifting against raw ankles and wrist, he irritably blinked away the fog. The room's insipid lights cut into his eyes like flares, the grim pale walls providing a consistently sterile and menacing box of a world. He whisked a glance around the place, checking every corner to find that he was alone, the stationary camera and blipping monitors his only attendants.

Brimstone eyes glared at the same door he had scrutinized down to its every last rivet. He felt the static rise off him when the door handle wobbled in tune with the throbbing in his head, but the handle met the same impermeable resistance of the internal magnetic lock despite his best efforts. He snorted at his own ineffectual reach, the rage tapping into his system like the ignition of an engine.

He took a breath, and harshly let it out again.

Lifting his antennae, he listened to the regular exhales of the ventilation and the gentle humming from his PAK. Monitors blipped and bopped away to his right, with telemetry leads and wires connecting him to their cold, stationary screens that underscored everything his body was doing.

"H-Hey?" He started, voice a shivery, choked mewl. He tried to rub a cheekbone against his bandaged shoulder to relieve an itch, with his wrist coming up short. He could swallow without feeling spiky barbs down his throat, and the overwhelming thirst and pain had sunken to more comfortable levels.

What did you give me, Membrane? What was really in that tea?

The smells were a nauseous mix of dry ventilated air and antiseptic. And there were other smells he didn't want to recognise; the musky aroma of sweat and stale urine.

The gown chaffed like rough polystyrene across his skin, and stuck to his sweat like sticky flypaper. The dingy material would habitually drift down his good shoulder, and he could never really get warm.

Was it day or was it night? Where was Gir? Was his base still intact, or was it a pile of rubble?

He was somewhat confident those bumbling tenants for critters would eventually find their own way out, he had given more than a few of them an inbuilt navigational array with enough prosthetic claws, jaws and antlers to cut their way out if they had to. But most of them had been pretty stupid despite his best efforts.

The fire rose up again, and rage pouring in like magma, but close behind it and melting his walls just as quickly was panic.

I can't lose it... Must focus... my ship can't be far...

They needed a sizable chamber to hold the Voot, but he had never seen the building from the outside to get a sense of its scale, or how many rooms it might contain, and knowing that the Voot was out of reach, that it might always be out of reach, made him sink fast and suddenly.

A little ways beyond the despair was a suffocating vacuum.

Eyes darting around the ever-shrinking room, he levelled a dark glare at the camera. The point of his chin dug into his collarbone.

Focus!

Crack the glass damn you!

Pain was an electric hand arching through his head and heart.

The camera made a shuttering noise from inside its black casing, and the green light punctually died.

His smirk was pale and fleeting as he rested his head against the soiled pillow, sweat dripping off his burning chin and forehead. The token success was only a derisory shred of satisfaction when he could not blow doors down.

That'll piss 'em off.

Desolate shutters slid aside, and the misery returned when he could not shut out the horrors.

He did not know what they would do to him next.

Time was what he needed, and time was also what he was up against.

Converting energy from the monitors took concentration and time, and if he took too much, they would know about it. Take too little and it wouldn't be much good for anything, especially when the PAK was slowly but surely draining him at the same time. It took more than its fair share to perform multiple, ceaseless functions. Like an industrious nervous system it never stopped dissolving toxins, mending damaged tissue, attacking invasive bacterial cells and sending energy to his organs while it regulated temperature, heart rate, pain levels.

He refused to believe there was nothing he could do.

Lifting his right hand, he observed the clunky intricacies of the manacle weighing on his tiny wrist while his mind endlessly trawled through the possibilities of escape. An engineer by nature, he tiredly looked at the door again, noting its design and functionality, but it was the restraints that were emblematical to his physical situation. He scoured the hand and ankle cuffs for faults, scanning the seams for anything he could exploit, and when there was nothing to take advantage of, he tried to forget that he knew there was nothing he could do.

He could barely reach over to touch the concrete plaster encasing his arm without feeling the responding tug of the manacle. The massive bursts of pain had receded to a dull ache that only seemed to travel to the ulna and never beyond it. He could not feel his hand, and he hoped that was normal when the plaster could just be constraining the circulation.

While the spasms in his lower body remained inconvenient tortures, he had his imagination to pass the time, of which scientist to go for first, and how he would go about destroying them, only for it to shatter when the vents gave off a different sound, hardly noticeable to the untrained ear, then there was this cloying, acrylic smell.

The sense of change signalled their approach…

He sharply looked to the ventilation, knowing it was the same gas he had smelt before, the same stuff that softened his reactions, and made him feel drowsy.

When he heard the heavy sound of locks unlocking, with the door snapping open, it evoked a horror that had never truly settled. He reflexively tensed up, skin breaking into a cold sweat, antennae alternately laying flat in fear before flailing erect in aggression. He tried to move into a more dignified position made impossible by the plaster cast, and was only able to perch slightly upright on one elbow.

From the door stepped in the wolf, his steel grey eyes sharply evaluating every little thing. Zim recognised the predatory animal in the man, and the lust for destruction honed and mastered through whatever brutality the man had faced as a forge moulded a sword. The human had killed before. He could see it in his eyes. Both of them were survivors. Warrior recognised warrior, despite the echelons of difference between them.

Then the man smiled. His thin composure was there, but the violence was just beneath the surface.

Zim slowly straightened as much as he could, his upper lip curling to reveal a line of pink teeth. "I don't want you in h-here! Get out!"

"You look as bright as a button! What an amazing little imp you are!"

"I'll impress you. Just untie me and I'll show you what I can do!"

That brought out something of a genuine smile from the sergeant. "I see you have humour. Now isn't that cute."

The door opened to admit the doctor. He was carrying a chart of some kind, and something else accompanied him on wheels as he pulled on the handle. It was some kind of white, heavy duty machine that was broad as much as it was wide, with a whole host of buttons, but he was more aware of the white stethoscope dangling over Williams' bony shoulders.

"What happened to the camera? Why is the light off?" Carlson gave it a short, dismissive look, seeing nothing out of the ordinary until he started tugging open the side compartment to look at burnt components. "Cheap piece of shit!"

Zim watched, coasting his hand over his chest as much as the restraint would allow. It was safer to conceal fear, to tune them out. He thought he was ready for them, but the terror rose unequivocally, filling him with a desperate, mindless need to run... to scream...

Williams was putting latex gloves over long, bony fingers, "Are we getting another camera in here? This session must be recorded."

"What… what are you beasts up to?" His midsection suddenly felt very cold.

"So eloquently you speak." The sergeant turned away from the camera for a moment. "I keep asking myself, why did you choose to infect America? Why speak the English language? What's so special about it, hmm?" He gave Zim the fullest smile with the Irken going a shade paler. "Once the scientists have their… sciencey science out of the way… you and I can finally have a heart to heart." And Carlson snapped the compartment of the camera shut.

"You think you scare me? I've faced bigger monsters than you!"

Williams put the chart to one side and removed a device from the big hulking machine he had wheeled in. Looking similar to a metal hairbrush with a screen, he waved it slowly over the hissing, jaw-snapping Irken from a safe distance of about two feet. "His fever's gone down significantly…" He paused, looking at the readings. "His vital signs are on the rise…"

"See what I told you? This thing's incredible!"

You haven't seen anything yet. Zim promised, keeping his frightened eyes on the sergeant at all times, and only sparingly kept track of what the other human was doing.

A new camera was wheeled in by Edward who wore a hazmat suit. Once it was installed, Zim fetching wary looks between them, Edward made a swift exit. But the presentation of the new camera seemed to be their signal to continue. Williams and Carlson became pillars of dominion crowding round. The sudden press of the doctor's rubbery fingers touching his forehead drew a frightened shriek out of him, the alarming, invasive contact eliciting pained memory, of those fingers going places they shouldn't... and the fear made his bones rattle.

He exploded forward, teeth clattering on air, with the doctor lunging back just in time.

"Feisty, aren't you?" Carlson was still perversely smiling. He stepped closer, and knelt beside him, flexing a nylon strap between sinewy hands. "Remind the professor not to lessen the amount of restraints, won't you Williams?"

"Get closer, I dare you!" Zim snapped. "You can't do anything to me if you have no hands!" He flourished his teeth again, antennae rising like flagpoles, really hoping he could unburden the sergeant of a few fingers, only for Carlson to snap his head back with the heel of his palm.

Blinding lights filled the pinks of his retinas.

It was a typical technique he had been taught in the Academy, one short, hard jolt to the head or neck to daze... to stun...

The stars were bright wild zapping eruptions in his eyes.

"Carlson... that was too violent!"

The sergeant didn't back off. "The pipsqueak's fine! He has enough spark in him to start a fire!" He was busy binding Zim's skull to the secondary latches in the mattress beneath his head after throwing aside the pillow and then went about shortening his ankle and hand strap. A simple adjustment limited the tethers until the cuff was as tight as he could make it just short of snapping Zim's wrist in two.

They watched the alien helplessly push against the tethers. "Don't c-come near me! Just… just let me go!"

Annoyed, the wolf turned to the cardiologist. "Well?"

"Restraining A01 like this isn't ideal…."

"And if the imp bites you, you'll be quarantined! Do you have a death wish with an interstellar disease?"

"This is why biopsies are crucial! Organ and tissue samples will show us more in-depth information and bacterial culture analysis."

"Yes, yes, in the interests of disease, blah blah." Mocked the sergeant. "Just hurry up and take samples for god's sake! I need to inquest this fuck and…"

Zim snapped looks between them, sinking. No, no!

Williams was shaking his head. "The professor doesn't want us rushing into…"

Real fury edged the sergeant's demeanour. "He isn't in charge of this operation! I thought you'd be jumping at the chance! You're a cardiologist on the brink of new discoveries! So what are you waiting for?"

Williams shrugged, his expression noncommittal.

"No!" Zim choked. Stay away! Don't come near me!

It took everything he had not to call out for Gir.

The doctor was wrangling out a tool from his arsenal of pockets and compartments. When Zim managed to tear his eyes off the smirking sergeant, he paled, jaw dropping when he saw the cutter in the man's gaunt hand. When the doctor spoke, he was not addressing the Irken, but the audience behind the observation window. "I am going to open the cast and exam the arm to see how it's healing."

In moments he was back on the platform's cradle with the surgical saw hovering towards him, the professor preparing to cut into his arm. He could almost see those glittering metal teeth and taste the cold metal of the gag pressing on his tongue. Icy numbness reached in, paralyzing the embers that had been there moments before, his heart pounding as fast as hummingbird wings.

Panic was that destructive flood that annihilated an Irken's senses and logic... He thought he had mastered something to the effect of pushing it back before it could consume him, thought he might be able to withstand its cancer.

Williams eased the little bulk of the cast out of its sling, the saw hazing to become a bright pink laser that ran a neat line down the breadth of the cast to the joint across his bent elbow. Once the laser reached the end where little green claws protruded, the doctor discarded the device and, using his hands, gently pried the cast open.

He wasn't sure he wanted to look even if he had been free to do so. Blood, guts and broken body parts he had come across on the battlefield, and he had shut his eyes to distance himself from Mils. The seconds Mils had bought them had been... necessary, as he and Skoodge got away, but the crying screams hadn't been so easy to escape.

As he timorously looked through slit eyelids, heart painfully thudding, he tried to turn his head to see what they were looking at.

It wasn't the bloodied spectacle he'd expected.

The resulting reunion of amputated bone and flesh had brought about extensive swelling, so much so that the blackened arm hardly looked like it was a part of him.

Carlson's dry and sardonic smile twisted into a darkening, disappointed grimace.

The doctor gently manipulated the atrophied limb after removing the metal splint to determine how bad the swelling was on each side. The original cut had joined, leaving a dark, ragged ring of blackish green. "Can you move your claws for me, A01? Try to wriggle them."

All he could see was Mils crouched there behind the rock, holding a mangled stump of what was left. Panic unfurled, flinging open doors within that he had spent long years trying to close.

"A01?"

The numbness was a coat of armour, a suffocating bubble to safeguard him, the simulations interweaving and co-existing with reality until life was something of a stale and bitter existence.

Self-destruction had been the release... Survival the bitter, unsavoury outcome. But he could not hide the hopelessness welling up in his eyes.

"Do you feel pressure, here?" He watched the doctor gently tap a finger below his elbow.

Undecided on what to reveal, what might happen to him either way, he snarled and snapped his eyes shut to hide the pain. "Get y-your grubby mitts off m-me! I don't want to be touched by the likes of you!"

The doctor gently eased the swollen arm into the accompanying sling to request scanning instrumentation from a communicator in his collar.

Carlson's bewilderment extended for several more moments as he silently digested what he was seeing. His eyes flashed over to A01's trembling body and then to his arm with plain disgust on his face. When he spoke, his anger was thunderous. "You can't make a prognosis Williams!" Then, in moments, "A01 switched off its healing capabilities! This is a deliberate act to stop us from studying the PAK!"

Williams's had his own concerns. "We need to x-ray the bone to see if it has fused, but we really must get A01 on fluids intravenously, even a feeding tube. He's rapidly losing weight, and his healing might depend on nourishment, and we cannot be sure until we've tried..."

"It's a trick, can't you see that?! That thing's toying with us!" Infused, like fire set to dynamite, the sergeant angrily glared at the PAK before his gaze transcended into something tainted with greed. "What does the mechanism's OEM reading say?"

The OEM machine stood for 'Overall Equipment Monitoring.' It was the gold standard for measuring machines and computers in the similar way the ECG recorded Zim's heart activity and blood pressure.

Williams gave the monitors a look. The telemetry pads adorning the PAK were as numerous as the ones decorating Zim's chest. Every pulse and heart movement was recorded and monitored by the ECG while the OEM tracked and picked up the smallest motes of energy from the PAK, down to the faintest wavelength, with the data meticulously stored and filed.

"The device is warmer by three degrees, and the monitor's recording more activity since yesterday. Perhaps it's delivering energy, or systematically organising cellular reactions like something of an immune system..."

Carlson's thunder: "Where is the energy going? What's it doing, and why!"

Zim gently opened his eyes, watching them discuss and deliberate his vitals as if they were interesting annotations of music. He couldn't bring himself to imagine what they'd do, what part of him they would poke and prod, and how much pain this would cause. Helplessness was a weight that was steadily crushing him into smaller and smaller pieces.

Whenever Carlson looked his way, there was hunger in his eyes.

The x-ray device was carefully held over his arm in the sling, and he could not see what they were seeing as the humans deliberated and fussed.

A sheaf of flimsy gown slipped down the bone of his shoulder.

Carlson was staring, his cutting smile turning sour. "This will not forestall my research! The chief of National Security will not tolerate any delay!"

Teeth sliced through the bottom of his lip. The blood welled up immediately, caressing his tongue in sudden, sweetening warmth.

They mustn't make the connection!

Their hot, oily smells were too strong. He felt sick. His military instincts hounded him to remain bitterly impassive, robotic, but he wasn't so sure he could last. His head was swimming, focus hazing in and out as if he was peering at the world through a snowglobe. Neat little claw points penetrated the skin of his palm as he gripped it into a trembling fist. It was all the power he had left.

Williams was quickly fastening the broken arm in something that felt similar to plaster to keep secure and stable. Then he began unravelling tubes and plucking apparatuses from plastic packets, with Zim trying to ascertain their intentions. Williams was arranging a long and very thin black tube that looked like something you would connect to a TV... but there was a huge assortment of attachments, cutting tools, microscopic camera parts, different lengths of insertion tips... screens... camera feeds... iodine bottles, cotton pads... tiny little glass pot things...

What did they want?

When would it stop?

A button was pressed and the thin mattress he was on coasted upwards behind his shoulders and PAK, forcing him into a sitting position as he madly shivered.

Ice was growing in his spooch and chest.

Carlson positioned himself beside the Irken's weaker side. "Shouldn't the imp be lying down for this?"

"For the myocardial biopsy, yes, but I think it'll be more comfortable for now if we start to..." His words faded into a voiceless hum as Zim internally fell.

This can't be happening! They'll rescue me! Not long now! I prepared for this! I just have to hold on! They'll be here!

Without being conscious of the gesture he looked to the door, body shivering with shock and cold.

The doctor was unbuttoning his gown and pushing it back to access his chest. Using a pen, he began marking certain places.

"Stop…" But his squeak was small.

Deeper within, past the fires and indomitability still holding, parts of him began to shut down, to disappear into the static.

"Is the PAK giving you all this gusto, or is it your own power?" Asked the sergeant beyond the enclosing fog.

I hate you, I fucking hate you!

The doctor held up one end of a long, black tube, and figured it was better to talk to the creature and explain the process in the hopes this would discourage resistance. "Ao1, this will go down your throat, and you'll likely feel some discomfort. It's equipped with an ultrasonic probe so that when it passes your oesophagus we'll be able to view the condition of your digestive and intestinal tract..." He gestured at the screens set up beside him. "These will show us the video feed from the cameras. Once we have gathered sufficient information, I will make microscopic incisions here and here with a hypodermic extractor. The penetration sites will be so tiny…"

Zim couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"...to better detect abnormalities, blockages, inflammation... and the biopsies will be microscopic, I assure..."

"I'm n-not sick...!" His shout had the physical effect of a push and the doctor actually leaned away. "You're doing this to me! Does the word 'unnecessary' mean anything to you fucks?!"

Carlson laughed. It was a bitter, raucous sound. And he was armed with that miniature metal gagging device – the one they had used to force open his jaws with before.

Zim saw it coming, but was unable to do anything with his head strapped to the mattress. "N-not th-that! No...! No!"

Hard, cold fingers clawed at the corners of his mouth. Carlson drove what felt like a metal file between his teeth and into the roof of his mouth, causing him to yelp at the pain. Metal clamps, pulling on his cheekbones crashed in between his teeth, the cold of the metal sending his nerves into spasms.

The roof of his mouth shortly began to feel wet. His tongue went to lick the area, tasting hot, syrupy copper.

Williams' bark even had Zim flinching. "That was unnecessary, Carlson!"

"What, you wanna wait for the bastard to open its mouth politely?" He looked like a cat licking feathers off its lips.

"A01 can understand you! Ever heard of asking?"

"Whatever. Hurry it up."

Zim did not want to process what was coming. Static laced his eyes in black lines. The strap digging into his forehead was loosened, but only so that they could tilt his head back to expose his throat. His tongue was the only weapon he had left as he tried blocking their unsolicited admission, but Williams merely pressed down on his tongue with his gloved finger and a cold, stiff tube went slipping and sliding in. He choked, trying to expel what felt like a centipede with an incredibly long body slithering down, inching its way deeper.

Fade... erase memory...

Don't want...

Can't process...

Must shut down...

The stars returned, magnified against the velvet dark.

A door smacked open so hard it dented the opposing wall and Membrane rushed in like something of a train. "What are you doing? Not without me, I said! Get that out of him!"

Carlson gave the professor the blackest of looks. "You'd better have a damn good reason for interrupting!"

Membrane was beside the Irken, resembling a great white wall shoring against his blackening vision. His voice was a hand pulling him out of the dark. "Try to relax, Zim. Breathe. It's not obstructing your windpipe."

He anxiously took a breath, and his clenching throat and chest muscles relaxed a little as welcoming air filled his lungs, the obstruction slithering deeper, but he was also aware of how much of this gas he was breathing. They were dumping it into his room. He didn't know what it did, and why it made him feel detached, foggy…

Membrane looked at the sergeant before resettling his attention on Zim who was about as white as the mattress he was strapped against. "You seem to keep forgetting how much smaller this creature is to the size of humans! The bio-retrieveoscope could have damaged his trachea!"

"Do you take me for a fool?" Growled the sergeant. "You have tech falling out of your sleeves! I've read your profile, and heard wind of your kooky techniques! Your nanotechnology is hardly a secret! Why don't you pull that one out of your sleeve?"

"It… it was a prototype!" He said, not wavering. "It was too expensive an enterprise, and was easily lost once the patient passed it naturally through the gastrointestinal tract! It was never designed to microscopically retrieve samples either!"

The sergeant saw the lie but decided to go along with it. "Well now, I suppose if A01 shits it out, we wouldn't get any biopsies."

A furrow reappeared on Membrane's forehead like a crack running down the side of a mountain. "No biopsies! Not one!"

Swallowing uncomfortably, feeling the tube hanging there in his throat, Zim helplessly tried to reach his mouth, but couldn't get so far as his collarbone.

Carlson stood, hands on his hips, face reddening. "I'm sick of your obstructions! I don't want to hear your stupid reasoning either! How hard is it to jab a needle into an organ and take teeny, tiny samples? We'll thread a catheter through a vein if you want! Or just take a whole fucking leg!"

"Not here and not now!" The professor loomed, making Carlson appear all the smaller, and for a moment the thin equity that once held them looked about to shatter.

"We are recording, gentlemen, and Ao1's heart rate has hit the roof. I suggest you tone it down." Williams piped up. He had been carefully threading the tube deeper, allowing it to settle before slowly pushing it through Zim's oesophagus.

The two men went quiet, both suddenly looking incredibly abashed.

"I am terribly sorry." The professor went back to Zim's side. "That was… unprofessional of me."

Zim started taking faster sips for air.

Is this really happening?

He won't let me go...

I don't understand...

The professor retrieved something from his pocket that looked like a remote control to some 7th generation Playstation console.

"For the records," Williams continued demurely, "The bio-retriever has inbuilt cameras that can detach from the main instrument, with harvesters that can collect microscopic samples of the digestive tract, and what Dib calls 'the squeedly spooch,' which seems to function as the alien's stomach, kidneys and liver combined."

"Squeedly spooch. What a stupid name." Hissed the sergeant.

"…Once we've collected the samples, the harvesters will reattach to the main instrument again." Continued Williams. "The myocardial and lung biopsies will be after…"

"… I have analyzed and personally examined the PAK." Carlson cheerily concluded. Then he moved away to lean against a wall, looking unnervingly confident as if he knew he would eventually get what he wanted. "We are getting what we want, professor. Like it or not."

There was a moment of hushed quiet as the humans watched the banked screens that showed very little but darkness and fuzz. Zim was too low to see the majority of what they were seeing, and even that was too much.

"How far down are we?" Asked the professor in a noncommittal, deadpan voice.

"We're near to the brachiocephalic trunk now…"

The professor turned to the six screens showing dark walls as though the endoscopic camera was travelling through subterranean tunnels deep in the ocean.

One micro camera separated to travel through fleshy worlds where blood cells moved and gushed like millions of apple-green flotsam.

"There are signs of an esophageal stricture," Williams observed, pointing at dark rivets that didn't look particularly revealing. "Could be caused by reflux or advanced age..."

They intently watched the screens, Williams guiding the tube past purplish throbbing channels that could have been anything to the untrained eye. Carlson certainly couldn't make heads or tails of it. "Well, Williams? Give us something!"

Williams passed the sergeant a look before diverting his gaze to the screen.

"I see." The man snapped round like elastic, eyes hard as bullets as he addressed the professor. "Don't want to say anything in front of the imp, is that it?"

"Please compose yourself, Mr. Carlson!" Membrane seemed no more concerned for the sergeant's anger. "We must keep A01 as calm and as quiet as possible."

"Whatever." He scooted closer to the screen Williams was intently watching, but there was nothing impressive to see, and there was decidedly little or no evidence of any visible circuitry or infinitesimal wires he had come to expect. A creature strapped to a machine surely had to reveal something of its cybernetic marriage? But there was nothing to suggest a technological fusion between inorganic and organic materials, so where was it? Maybe such fusions did exist in certain areas of the body, residing furtively, like glowing particles in the circulatory and nervous system?

"We need to cut A01 open, see where the..." The sergeant's walkie talkie suddenly went off at his belt, crackling and hissing. He whipped round, pulled it out of the pouch and began yabbering at the caller before promptly exiting the room through the security door.

Zim watched his retreat, shoulders sagging a little, the weight of the cast heavy, but the weight of his PAK seemed heavier still.

Only occasionally did he happen to look at the monitors. He wasn't too sure he wanted to look at his insides in every level and detail. Not that it made much sense to look at. He gathered that the professor and doctor did, as they were looking raptly at the images as if they were watching an intense, edge-of-your-seat soccer match.

"Hmmm, I'm getting some resistance..." Williams said suddenly as he toggled with the line.

"How so?" The professor murmured distractedly.

"Don't know... we're still in the digestive tract. Maybe if I disengage another camera and enter here…?"

What are they looking for?

"There's an opening. Take it through there before it closes."

There was a lot of pulsing, movement, things squeezing and pushing, tubular walls glowing like the walls of his base... Particles, like inverted stars or black snow, streamed past one of the cameras. From the aggravated sigh the professor made, Zim had a feeling the black stuff wasn't normal.

Williams stopped adjusting the tube, allowing the retrievers to continue on. "Getting more resistance... strange... it's like the retrievers are in an electrical current..."

"I'm adjusting their speed." Membrane muttered absently as he toggled some buttons on the controller.

The urge to resist, to fight came over him suddenly, maybe they weren't pouring in enough gas, or he was becoming immune to it, he didn't know, and he didn't care. The manacles bit back, he was faced by the same crushing realization that he was trapped, that struggling only presented exhaustion, breathless gasps and lines zapping in his eyes.

"Easy, Zim." The professor planted a heavy hand on his bandaged shoulder. "No harm will come to you. Two minutes more. That is all I ask."

He reluctantly stopped struggling, trying to hiss his frustrations around the tube and gag.

One of the screens stuttered with static. The 'glow' was becoming more common, this pinkish light travelling up and down fleshy warrens and pulsing passageways. It really was like looking into the labyrinths and catacombs of home...

"It's like he's glowing from the inside…" The professor said softly.

"It must be some kind of fluorescence… maybe electromagnetic radiation? I see patches of it..." Williams angled the camera closer to some kind of dark spot when the camera abruptly went dark.

"Bioluminescence, I believe, Williams. Do you think it's the PAK causing the interference?" The professor observed, "Reacting to the tube and cameras as if they were a foreign substance?"

"I… I don't know… Honestly I've never seen anything like this…"

Zim's smile was weak and short-lived. At least something was still working.

The next screen fizzled out, leaving only two to see by.

"See here?" Williams noted the soft, uniform glow. "That is the connection, though I don't know how... It's concentrated in the capillaries, maybe even in the arterial walls…"

There were more bumps and fissures along the walls and floors, of tissue folding in on itself.

Zim decided he'd seen enough and closed his eyes. Their medical panorama was pretty much over anyway with one screen remaining as Williams struggled to see as much as he could with the last camera bobbing down apertures and indiscernible pink glowing alcoves.

"I'm taking a sample." Williams said without waiting for the professor to give the authority.

Zim chewed and toyed with the metal gag propping his teeth open. The roof of his mouth had gone completely dry, his tongue some beached thing left to shrivel and die. There was no reason to scream, it wasn't like they were physically hurting him, but he could not help but feel reprehensive, terrified of what they would discover, and how they'd use it against him.

Tears, hot and sticky, streamed down his cheeks, leaving wet passages along the ruts of his collarbone.

"Well done, Williams. Gently take it out of him now… steady…"

He could feel the revolting tube retracting, and the awful slithering feel. He must have greyed out, because he was suddenly coughing raucously, head trying to drop down, throat convulsing on what he could still feel. The gag was removed, there was no tube that he could bite down on, but his throat went on clenching as drool ran copiously down his chin. He was too busy coughing to see what Williams was doing with the retriever tube, but he gathered he was disconnecting the samplers and putting them in bio-hazard boxes for analysis.

The professor undid his wrist cusp using a tiny magnetic key. Though the man's benevolence did not extend to the cuffs on his ankles, he could finally touch his face, run the drool off his chin and stretch out that annoying kink in his shoulder.

Williams passed him a plastic cup of what could only have been water, but Zim growled in-between the retching and the coughing.

They were watching him very carefully. At first he thought it was because they were expecting him to fight back, and try to escape, but he was beginning to realize they were waiting to see if he would harm himself now that he had one hand free.

The professor hesitated, and meticulously chose his words as if he was careful not to frighten him further. "I apologize for having to put you through that. I'm going to take you somewhere that's relatively less... traumatic. There are blankets, you'll be warm... but I need to give you some medical assistance..."

Zim warily looked to the professor, eternally bewildered, helpless, scared...

"Zim...?"

Darkness spilled in like a fast-acting poison, not just in his eyes, but through his destabilizing core.

He began to wildly shake his head, causing sparks to fly in his eyes and skull. "I can't...! I c-can't...! Not a-again! I just can't...! Stop doing th-things to me!" He pinned the claws of his shaking hand deep into his shoulder. He was too shaken to notice the men jump towards him, the professor's enormous hand trying to pry the claws loose. He groped senselessly at what he should do but nothing seemed to stick, nothing seemed to help. His imperatives and duties seemed no more substantial than paper lanterns, and when the scream left his throat, his vocals ripping at the seams, the inner powerlessness pained him beyond any suffering they could put him through.

Can't... I can't breathe!

"Trust me, little one. Tomorrow is going to be different."

He didn't know what that meant. What anything meant anymore. The walls he had taken so long to build began to subside and crumble under the weight of futility and despair.

I want to go home...

He had been here before: forced to trust in him when Membrane could just as easily be an enemy servicing some other purpose. He had greyed out between fever dreams of ice, of falling... waking to hear the steady hiss and crack of logs burning... of a musical box playing rustic, clunky notes... "Though the world may try to define you, it can't take the light that's inside you…"

Williams looked to the professor, confusion causing his wrinkles to deepen. "What do you mean, when you said, 'tomorrow is going to be different?"'

It was suddenly very quiet.

Zim forced his eyes open, and watched the man's huge hand tackle his claws. Realizing how hard and how tightly he was gripping, he released his hold to see blood coating their sharpened points.

The doctor was watching with growing fear, waiting for those claws to snap shut on the professor's hand like a mousetrap.

"I meant nothing. Nothing at all." The professor stood up and started wheeling over one of those gurneys with more buckles and straps running down each length and breadth.

The wary Elite settled tired eyes on it while Membrane removed the sticky telemetry pads and attached tiny, soft button like ones that had no protruding wires. There was a sudden pause in the blip-bleeping, but only for two minutes when the symphony resumed using a wireless design.

Through the years the professor's indiscernible facade had never changed, his white coat was as uniform as his demeanour at times, but what about the man inside? How much had changed?

He remembered the wind whistling through the eaves of the building, the crack and pop of the logs burning in that old and cronky fireplace.

He was being lifted, mattress included. The two men were lifting it, and placing it and him on the gurney. More buckles and more straps were lashed and tightened over previous ones. He watched with a kind of automated expectancy, though it was the journey ahead that worried him.

"The blindfold, professor…" Williams reminded with a sigh.

"Oh yes, of course."

No, no! I want to see!

The growl rumbled out of his throat as the thick, black material was carefully adjusted over his eyes.

Then the double doors opened, and fresh, chilled air hit his face through the blindfold. The wheels of the gurney squeaked under him as the professor and Williams pushed it along between them. More comfortable without the belt strapped to his skull, he was able to shimmy up on one elbow even if he couldn't see what lay ahead.

Though blind, eyes cramped in darkness, he could almost feel the windows strung along the corridor to his left as he passed them by, and feel promising ribbons of honey-pale sunshine lacing his chilled, dry skin and toes. The atmosphere was different, his antennae perceiving changing air currents, his nasals smelling that chlorine stench with hints of human odour, factory cellophane and fresh paint, on top of which was the stinking sweat of his body.

He heard something immense slide open – its bulk and signature swish signalling that it was a magnetic door. The air was suddenly warmer; the shock of it made his claws and feet sting.

"Wh-where...?" His voice was a splintered rasp.

He could already imagine the pit he was about to be thrown into.

"It is more of a temporary accommodation – it is not the comfiest of places, but it will give you a little more freedom..." Membrane stopped mid-stride to remove the blindfold. Though the unfavourable shape was of modest size for a human, to Zim's elfin size 'the box' was monstrous in every dimension. Pristinely sharp edges and glaringly steep sides made it look like something of a personal mausoleum made entirely of glass.

You're not putting me in that!

He felt Membrane nudge him, encouraging him to look elsewhere, to focus.

A camera was posed on the wall, looking directly at the glass walls, and beside it was a control panel.

Within the box's enormously colossal expanse was a table with looped clear tubing, a catheter, a blue roll of medical tape and a bottle of clear liquid.

The professor was turning to Williams. "I can carry on from here. How about brewing us some tea?"

"Tea?" Williams replied, looking confused as if Membrane had just hit his head and was walking around with a concussion.

"Two sugars, please. Thank you, doctor!"

Just as Zim was considering just how deeply human stupidity went, the magnetic door to the room violently swished open and shut as the doctor left. There was a snapping click as bolts snapped home within the steel.

Locked, clocked, fucked...

"Have you ever been on IV before, Zim?" Membrane's voice had turned soft again.

He struggled to determine what it was he was being asked. "Can't... can't remember..." As soon as those haggard words left his lips, there was the vaguest memory of a silver line in the dark, of something linking his body to warm liquids. His mind was skipping, like a needle hopping on a turntable that was spinning too quickly to process anything.

"It will be a little painful at first. Once the catheter is secured, I can give you fluids directly into your bloodstream. I could localize the site first before I prepare the needle and tubing, but I do not know what you might be allergic to."

"F-Fluids? What f-fluids?" In the pandemonium, the inner chaos a seething rollercoaster of hysteria and panic, he couldn't think, and tiredness was setting in like a fast-acting sedative.

"Based on your biology, glucose and a little bit of saline will help, and the fluids will be purified. I'll only be introducing a small measure at a time in case of a reaction."

The professor was wheeling him inside the box. At once sound was different, with an echoic effect. The glass simmered and glittered all around him.

"Don't do this to me, you wretched horrible bastard...!" He tried to push up with his legs, unable to lift himself from the gurney's embrace. The PAK was pressing heavily into his spine, the ache growing into something more defined and constant.

"Listen to me," his voice grew stern, "if you allow me to administer fluids, you'll feel better. Your PAK needs the resources necessary to work, isn't that so?"

He dropped his chin, eyes trying to see him for who or what he was. "And how would y-you know that?"

His stubbornness seemed to draw amusement from the professor, for he was chuckling away to himself. It was a warm, cheery sound rising up from his chest.

Madness runs in the family, I suppose.

After a moment his voice grew solemn again. "Just a guess. Now. I'll need to apply a tourniquet to pronounce your veins. It'll make it easier if I know where to insert the line."

"You're insane. Just like that pig weasel son of yours..." He couldn't bring himself to finish, the fury choked him, teeth grinding on themselves. His PAK rippled with crimson for a moment, of which the professor noticed when he reached towards him. Zim pulled miserably against the restraints, using the cast as a rudimentary shield to protect his chest. He didn't care if he was shaky, starved, he could still fight! But when he felt the scientist wrap and then tighten a blue tourniquet around his arm just above the elbow, the unwelcome sensation cutting off his rage as much as the blood supply, the fear was suffocating. "No...!" Not again! His grimace tightened, heart racing.

Strength... he needed strength... but to resign himself to their control, their ways...

Why did you save me, Membrane? Only to do this to me?

The claws of his hand arched inwards, pain of another kind striking him from every angle.

You let them hurt me. You broke my arm! You're one of them! You were always one of them!

He demurely gazed up at those undisclosed goggles, and at his own tortured reflection staring back from a swallowing abyss.

"Would you rather drink what I give you?" Membrane asked in that irksome and patient way.

Zim only growled. He knew that he wouldn't.

'... do you know what the most underappreciated virtue is, Zim? Why, it's stubbornness! It's the foundation – that inner fortitude that keeps us moving forwards! It defines species survival. Resistance. Adaptability. The most successful creatures on Earth are, in essence, stubborn!...'

His claw was turned, palm up, and he winced when he felt the heat of Membrane's fingers through the rubber gloves. The unsolicited, defiling touch of the professor palpating the area he meant to invade broke more of his self-control. Everything inside wanted to twist and pull to get away, with claustrophobia rushing him into a corner. The cool and sudden wet of the alcohol wipe running across his elbow and wrist unsettled his deepest roots. His arm felt so thin in the grip of the man's enormous hand. He sensed the scientist hesitating.

Those mysterious dark goggles revealed nothing. Nausea rushed down his sore throat to his spooch.

"It's just to get fluids into you, Zim. If you had imbibed when I asked, I wouldn't be forced to do this."

Words were not enough to divulge the anger. So he set his teeth together and hissed.

"I couldn't agree more." The professor said candidly as he inserted a rubbery IV tube into the glucose bag that hung from a metal pole he had prepped.

The nightmare would surely shatter, this wasn't happening...

How many times must I break?

"You're shaking Zim, and this will sting some..."

His touch offered nothing evil, only support, but his heart was pounding its way out of his ribcage, his nerves crawling and screaming, and the next intake of breath hurt. "You... you can stick that somewhere else! Next time I send you to space prison, I'll make sure the cell I choose will h-have… will have…" He watched, bug-eyed, as the professor manipulated a needle that looked far too large and long for the job.

"Yes, I have been meaning to ask about that, since you brought it up." Stabilizing Zim's twig of an arm in one hand and taking care not to touch the site directly, he inserted the needle, reducing the angle as the needle went deeper. The rejoining gasp of pain heightened Zim's breathing into a squeak. "Why did you send me there?"

"Like you c-couldn't get yourself out...!"

"That's not what I'm asking."

"...To... to get you out of the way, why else?" He breathlessly stammered though clamped teeth, eyes shiny and bright.

"I thought as much." Maintaining pressure, he pulled the needle out once there was a flashback of green in the catheter's hub and kept it in place before removing the tourniquet. Securing the catheter with a length of medical tape he quickly inserted the IV tubing.

"This is b-barbaric..." He grunted and grumbled while the professor doubly secured the tubing by looping it along Zim's bony arm with more tape to reduce the strain of it tugging and pulling.

"There! That wasn't so bad now, was it?"

When he warily inspected the new gear trawling up his arm, he noticed the dapples of bruising already starting to appear.

"You went after my son." He then said. His voice so low that Zim couldn't quite catch it, and was almost sure he had imagined it. "Would you do it again?"

Militarism, fear, pride, they were suddenly at the forefront of his answer. So he didn't answer at all.

The professor dallied at the IV bag for a few more moments, making sure the IV was open and connected between patient and drip. He then fussed with his gloves for new ones and packed away the medical tools into a little zip bag. Just as Zim was beginning to hope it was almost over, the professor opened the sticky gown at his chest to check on the new wireless monitoring pads.

I will take those off, you know.

He flicked dark-rimmed eyes around the box's claustrophobic interior. In the far corner was a stack of books and in the other corner was a brass-looking bedpan that was low enough for him to sit comfortably. Between the two was a comfy array of blankets and cushions, but it looked like the sort of pile you'd give to a pet to sleep on.

Before he had got to grips with it, the gurney was being rolled further in, the IV pole dutifully following.

The door to the box swung closed, the professor was now stationed outside, with the straps releasing his ankles and wrist in the same instant. He drew upright, skin prickling at closing proximities.

Clutching the IV-tethered hand to his chest, blackness reached in, pressing from every side.

Fears tumbled around a void too big to contain them. Leaving the gurney on badly shaking legs, the panic spilled out, taking the strength from his legs as he crashed to his knees, banging them on a deceptively hard floor. He tucked himself into a corner, IV pole clunking against the glass.

"Zim!" He heard him through the box's walls, the professor peering in... "It's all right!"

Light-headed, feeling sick, he brought his knees to his chest, caught by tides of bludgeoning anger, fear, misery, exhaustion.

A thin, rattling cry came out of him.

He watched the figure of the professor move through the translucent glass in a world now separate from his. He came to a smooth, pedestal-looking computer terminal and deliberated over its controls. Music started to float out from tiny little speakers inbuilt inside the walls.

Zim nervously discerned the professor, not willing to take his eyes off him, and even when Membrane passed him a casual 'I'll see you sometime soon' and walked out through the interlocking door, he remained stiff and tense, eyes lingering on the closed door for a long time afterwards.

His chilled skin was tingling at the welcoming warmth, but the extra space he had been given felt more ominous and more frightening.

An hour he waited, for anyone to come barrelling in through that door to propose more questions, and begin more torturous tests. Sometimes his wary vigil would break; the exhaustion fogged his thoughts and dissolved his concentration. Meticulously and purposefully he plucked off each of the wireless pads and threw them disgustedly to the floor. Bringing his hand closer to inspect the tubing and catheter wedged between folds of plaster, he wasn't so sure of removing it. His show of rebellion would no doubt force him back into the platform, and though masochism wasn't so far removed from his repertoire, he was hesitant to sever any chance he had.

Then he looked to the pile of books.

They were heavy tomes, and were about as unappealing and as boring as books could get. Cocking his head a little to read the print on the spines, he noted the titles dubiously.

Against Method by Paul Feyerabend

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

Topics of the Scientific Mind by Kilm Yukt… And more sciencey science books until their capital S's blurred and merged.

Picture books with dogs and cats in them were in the pile too, with the ages of 2+ on them.

As his eyelids fell, the darkness rising to take him, the intercom snapped on and he could hear Carlson's brutish barks through the walls outside the box: "Membrane! My office! Now!"

He pulled the book from the top with his right hand, trying to open the thing by balancing it on the ugly cast so he could tear out the pages and make paper hats. While he flicked through, deciding which page he should tear out first, he noticed a letter had been underlined at the beginning of every other sentence in each book.

Page 19 of Against Method was circled, and doodled in the margin by a block of text was the crude and childish drawing of a robotic weasel.

The books must have gone through Carlson's rigorous nitpicking inspections in case there was anything suspicious, not that books should be suspect of anything, underlining certain words in informative books was hardly unusual.

Zim's furrow creased, his eyes skirting to crescents as he discerned the terse and infantile message as he followed up every underscored word from the damn library of the nine books he had been given.

F.o.l.l.o.w. h.i.m.

-x-

He stood with his back to the door, standing there long after it had closed. Silence came, in its awful completeness.

He knew the inertia would soon pass, that the pain of coping would end.

Someone was approaching from the adjoining corridor. He straightened and checked to see if there were any unfortunate wrinkles foiling the white of his labcoat.

He turned away from the door and went to answer a phantom call on the collar of his coat when he saw his son emerge from around the corner. Nervous ambler flicked up at his, the pallor of his cheeks as white as Geneva's walls. Purplish hollows hugged his eyes. Even the glasses could not hide them.

"D-Dad?" His voice was an exhausted rattle.

Tension turned his arms into concrete slabs. He wanted to approach him, wanted to hold him, but when he looked into his son's eyes, he saw what he had done in those broken irises.

It hurt to turn away, to walk without speaking.

"Dad? Dad, please!"

He kept going. The measure of his boots hitting the metal floor was a steady chime he clung to.

"DAD!"

Pace quickening, he turned the corner, shutting and locking the door behind him.