A/N: An important note about time: I think that for most of the mentions of years in the show, the human lengths of time are given, even when Irkens are talking. Evidence of this: in The Trial, Zim causes a five-year blackout on Irk when he's born. Then, when he's been training under the surface of Irk for ten years, he causes a second blackout that, as the Control Brains say, lasts "seven years," so the blackout should end when Zim's 17 years old.

According to Jhonen (well, according to Wikipedia according to Jhonen, and I foolishly trust Wiki, so that's the canon I'm going by), Zim is 16 Irken years and 159 Earth years old, which means that the Brains are predicting the future if they know when the blackout ends. Either that, or the five years, ten years, and seven years mentioned are, for the audience's convenience, in Earth time. That would mean the first blackout was half an Irken year long, Zim caused the second one when he was one Irken year old, and the second blackout was seven-tenths of an Irken year.

So I pretty much figure that most of the time, when Irkens refer to years, they're translated into Earthen years. After all, how could Zim have ruined Tak's life "fifty years ago" if he's only sixteen? Most likely, it was fifty Earth years ago, or about five Irken years.

xxxxx

In Short Supply

Exoskeletal Extension

xxx

The Control Brains' records of the last five smeets brought to life before the disaster on Horrible Painful Overload Day, 16 Irken years ago: A NOTE FROM THE BRAINS: After randomly generating an Irken smeet's personality, we, the Control Brains, take it upon ourselves to denominate him/her with a name reflective of some aspect of his/her physical self and/or personality, and to encode him/her with a career path where he/she would most likely excel. However, an Irken smeet, if he/she is dissatisfied with his/her assigned career path, may request to transfer into another path and receive training for it instead. Thus, we also encode each smeet with our suggestions as to which duties he/she is less or more suited to perform.

What you see below is not a full record of the unique data programmed in each smeet's Pak, but merely his/her name, his/her original encoded career path, and an excerpt of our suggestions.

Presenting the records in this abridged manner merely makes running the Irken Empire easier for everyone.

name: BUFFER career: MILITARY/Guard

suggestions: You are unsuited for abstract or advanced thinking, and will only be able to follow simple orders. A tendency to sit in the same place for a long time will make the duties of a Guard ideal for you. However, due to your lacking intelligence, you will most likely not notice anything but the greatest disturbances, and thus it is our sincerest hopes that you will not be entrusted with guarding anything more important than, for example, a broken wrench. Do not expect many promotions. If you are short enough, we recommend switching into a Drone career, as that will more closely fit your level of skill.

name: RED career: MILITARY/Soldier/Pilot

suggestions: You have a quick, tactical mind that will serve you well during battles when swift decisions are needed, and your inclination towards understanding complex machinery will help you repair or upgrade ships. For the latter reason, you could also excel as a Mechanical Technician if you do no wish to pursue a Military career. Unfortunately, you suffer from a lack of confidence in your independent decision-making skills that makes you unsuitable to hold a command position. We suggest you get used to the idea now. You will never, ever be a leader.

name: PURPLE career: DIPLOMACY/Diplomat

suggestions: You have absolutely no mechanical skill. If you wish to take a Scientific career, do not become an Inventor or a Technician. However, your personality is well suited for uncovering large cultural trends, whether they are in Irken or an alien society, and with training your social skills will be strong enough that you could be a fairly successful debater or mediator. Your strength lies in discovering problems and coming up with solutions, rather than implementing these solutions. For this reason, we also urge you not to take a Military career.

name: MERK career: ARTISTRY/Architectural Artisan

suggestions: Your inclination towards mathematics and physics will assist you greatly in the designing of buildings and structures. Unfortunately, your imaginative skills are limited to more imitative styles and thus your architectural designs, while functional and practical, will never be entirely unique. We recommend that you seek long-distance commission-based partnerships with Invaders, as your imitative skill will be useful in helping Invaders design bases that resemble architecture native to the planets they are conquering. While you are ill suited to most careers outside of Artistry, you might find modest success as an Inventor if you invest your time in designing the bodies of spaceships and other vehicular craft.

name: ZIM career: FOOD SERVICE/Shift Manager

suggestions: While you are well qualified for nearly all professions in the Food industry, you are best suited to Shift Manager. With your commanding personality we expect you to be promoted quickly along an administrative path. Assuming you attain a respectable height, you have the potential to rise very swiftly to the esteemed rank of Frylord. If, for whatever reason, you do not want a Food Service career, you would also be suited to many other careers, though we recommend Mechanical Technician or Inventor. However, your temperament is not fit to handle heavy weaponry. Please, for the good of Irk, never take a job that would require you to operate large guns.

xxx

Nail wondered what was taking so long.

She had hailed Tallest Purple a quarter degree ago, asking to land, and he hadn't responded yet. No one had responded.

Finally, her transmission was answered. Not by an Irken, unfortunately—it was one of those annoying automated answering systems. A computer.

"Uh, sorry for the wait. Tallest Purple's kinda distracted right now," the computer said. "I'm trying to get his attention."

Nail sighed. "Fine. Just keep trying."

"Will do."

She slouched down in her seat, glaring dully at Earth through the view screen. "What is he so distracted with, anyway?"

"I dunno if I'm at liberty to say. The Tallest's doing secret mission stuff."

"I see," Nail muttered. "Can I at least ask who your master is?"

"Sure!"

Nail waited.

"Well?"

"What?"

"Who is your master?" Nail growled.

"I am the one-third Macintosh, two-thirds Irken computer system of the Earthen base of Exile Zim." Macintosh? What was Macintosh?

Nail's antennae perked up. "Exile? He isn't going by Invader anymore?"

"Naah. Turns out the Tallest were just lying to Master about that."

Well, it had certainly taken Zim long enough to figure it out.

So, this only gave credence to Nail's worst fear. Somehow, this had to do with Zim. Tallest Purple had said she was supposed to do an exoskeletal extension, and he'd also said it wasn't going to be on him, so unless there was a third Irken in Zim's base right now (not likely), she would probably be doing the surgery on...

No, she refused to consider the possibility until it couldn't be avoided anymore. In any case, she was still performing an illegal surgery at the orders of a Tallest, which meant she couldn't very well refuse if she didn't want to be executed for participation in the black market.

Although the possibility of fatal malpractice wasn't ruled out...

"Okay, I think he's answering now," the computer said.

Nail sat up straight and told her ship, "Initiate identity distortion signal!" Her ship's computer beeped twice to let her know that her transmission would be altered so her voice and face would be unidentifiable.

A moment later, Tallest Purple's face appeared on the view screen. "Hey, what took you so long?"

"Ergh..." Nail could ask Purple the same thing; it didn't usually take half a degree to answer a transmission. "I'm... sorry, my Tallest. I tried to warn you before I came that the trip would take me ten days..."

"So? Why are you late, huh?"

Nail blinked. "Uh... I'm not."

"Really?" Purple looked confused. "Oh. Yeah. Okay. Good job."

"Thank you, my Tallest," Nail said patiently. She'd always thought Purple was the duller of her two leaders, but it wasn't like she could choose which one she had to do business with now...

"Well, if you're here on time, why haven't you landed yet?"

Nail resisted the urge to sigh. "I'm waiting for your permission to land."

"Oh. Go ahead."

"Thank you." She ended the transmission before she muttered, "Idiot." She wouldn't usually say anything against her Tallest, even in private, but it had been a long flight and she'd run out of her good snacks two days ago. She had been making do with chocolate muffins from Shloogorgh's. The chocolate was a lie.

But beggars can't be choosers, no matter if she was hungry, and no matter if she had to work for her least favorite Tallest. She should be honored to be working for a Tallest, no matter which one it was. Besides, this was the only profitable work she could do. For now.

Less than two more years...

Nail steered down towards Earth, skimming just under the clouds—lucky for her she'd installed a cloaking device a few weeks ago—scanning the blocky buildings below for the one that emitted an Irken energy signature. Zim's base wasn't hard to find; in the unnerving two-toned red-violet dawn, the base radiated a welcoming green, the same color as dawn on Devastis, just bright enough to be visible in the dim morning. It was a terrible imitation of Earthen architecture, but Nail grudgingly had to admit that on this world, the Irken style was a comforting sight.

Perhaps she'd thank Zim for the momentary comfort by anesthetizing him before she killed him.

The roof split open, and she lowered her ship into Zim's base.

xxx

Purple was in the hangar when Nail arrived. Not that he'd exactly been waiting for Nail. He'd just realized that he was completely out of uniform, and he'd left all his armor in his Spittle Runner. He wasn't about to let some black market surgeon think that he considered this to be anything less than a pure, solid, legitimate, Tallest-approved business transaction. Torso armor, waistbands, hover belt, outer skirt... he just managed to get everything on before Nail's ship descended and landed.

The surgeon leaped out of the ship (a model Purple didn't recognize—probably customized) and saluted smartly. "I humbly await your orders, my Tallest."

Purple could see why Nail had gone through such pains to distort the transmissions; both indigo-eyed and female, she'd stick out in a crowd of Irkens like a naked Vortian. She wouldn't be hard to catch if a squad of Police Soldiers learned about her underground activities and decided to hunt her down. Beyond that, she also had a very prominent face piercing, and—although Purple was probably the only one who would think this was significant—she was about 85 units tall. Just within what should have been average height, 80 to 120 units. "So you're Nail, huh?"

"Yes, my Tallest. At least, that's the name I go by for the time being," Nail said. "I did not gladly pursue this line of work. It's simply the only way I can make a suitable living over the next two years."

"Why? What happens in two years?"

"The Control Brains will allow me to take the test to become an Invader."

Before Purple could get Nail to elaborate, she gave him an odd look. "My Tallest? Is there a reason you don't have your..." She gestured at her wrists, searching for the right word.

Purple looked at his forearms. "Oops." He'd forgotten to put his armored gauntlets on. "No reason! I just kinda... forgot them... Gimme a moment, okay?"

Purple hurried over to his Runner, opened it, and searched the junk on the floor for his gauntlets. When he got them on and turned around, Nail was still looking at him strangely. (It was remarkably similar to the look Red kept giving him these days, whenever he said something suspicious.)

To move things along and to stop her from staring, Purple asked, "So how much taller can you make someone?"

"It depends on the customer's..." Nail quickly corrected herself, to keep from suggesting that she thought she'd be doing surgery on Purple, "er, the patient's original height, my Tallest." She hesitated. "Perhaps if you gave me a range, I could estimate how much I could do..."

"Say, Zim-height." No point in hiding it now.

"Oddly specific," she said, but didn't seem surprised. "I could make him... sixty-five or seventy units, given enough time." She didn't say it as if she relished the idea.

And Purple didn't like it much either. Irkens seventy units in height were still short, but they weren't short short, they were tall short. Zim didn't deserve to be tall short. Purple had read in an old report he'd found while in the recharge chamber a couple of days ago that Irkens only had to be thirty units to grow eggs. "Don't let him get any bigger than forty units."

Nail just barely sighed in relief. "Gladly, my Tallest," she said, bowing. Purple wondered if there was a specific reason she didn't want Zim taller, or if it was just the general: nobody wanted Zim taller.

"Can you do it now?" Purple asked. "I want to get this over with."

"As you wish. However, I must request that my... patient be anesthetized and unconscious before I begin the operation," Nail said. "It's simply a convention for a procedure like th—"

"YOU!"

Purple looked towards the shout. Zim was standing in the open lift, staring at Nail. Based on the way his antennae were set stiff almost straight back and his teeth were bared menacingly, he wasn't happy to see her.

Nail looked panicked. "Don't you dare say—"

"What are you doing in MY base, Tak?!"

Nail—Tak?—screeched furiously. "ZIM! You complete idiot! I'm going to KILL you!"

"Nuh-uh!" Zim got up on his Pak-legs, ready to fight. Nail/Tak responded by shooting out her own Pak-legs, so Zim pulled out a laser, so Nail/Tak pulled out two—before anything could start, Purple got in the middle.

"Cut it out, both of you!" he said, and glared at Zim. "Especially you."

Purple turned to Nail/Tak/whoever. "What's going on here? Tak? Is that your real name?" No wonder she'd wanted Zim unconscious before he saw her. If Zim already knew her, he could identify her and give her name to Purple, and Purple could track her down later that much more easily and toss her in jail.

Glaring nervously at the ground, she nodded. "Yes, my Tallest. It is."

The name sounded familiar... "Hey, haven't I seen you before somewhere?"

Tak/Nail nodded again. "A fifth-year ago. I contacted you to say that I would take over Earth and fill it with snacks."

"Oh yeah." Purple remembered now. He'd been sorely disappointed when Zim contacted the Massive to say he'd stopped Tak. "Pity you didn't do it."

"I could do that!" Zim said. Purple and Tak ignored him.

"How'd you end up in the black market?" Purple asked, studying Tak more closely, comparing her to the Invader trainee who'd once promised him a planet full of snacks. "And—hey, are you taller?"

"You are taller!" Zim said, and skittered past Purple on his Pak-legs to lean over her. "You were almost my height when you were on Earth!"

Tak grimaced. "Don't be ridiculous, I was at least fifteen units tall!"

"Negative five at most," Zim said stubbornly. "How'd you get so tall? Doing surgery on yourself? Eh?"

"No! That's impossible!" Tak said. "I grew, Zim. I had a growth spurt. I suppose you wouldn't know what one of those is, would you?"

Zim flinched, just slightly drawing back on his Pak-legs. "D... Don't be ridiculous! Everyone knows Irkens stop growing after an era! You couldn't have—"

"I'm eight years old, you moron."

All the anger dropped out of Zim. "What?"

Purple was surprised as well. Tak didn't behave like she was so young. Slark, she was barely more than a smeet. She was half Purple's age, and she'd already tried to take over a planet and learned how to do an illegal surgery. When Purple was her age, he and Red had been tricking Drones into hang from their knees out of windows by telling them that it'd stretch their spines.

Zim retracted his Pak-legs and stood in front of Tak. The top of his head didn't quite reach her crotch. "You grew that much?"

"How tall are you, Tak?" Purple asked.

"Eighty-seven units," Tak said. If she had been fifteen units a fifth-year ago—or even if she had been negative five—she could certainly have grown that much. Seventy to ninety units in seven hundred days wasn't that outrageous of a growth spurt, especially not when an Irken was seven or older. Smugly, Tak added, "My projected height is one hundred and nine units."

What, so she knew how tall she was going to be? How was that possible? "What's projected—"

"Excuse me, my Tallest," Tak said suddenly. "I apologize, but before we proceed, I'm afraid I must find something to eat. I've lasted the past two days on Shloogorgh's chocolate muffins."

Purple was about to say that she had no reason to complain if she was eating food from Shloogorgh's, of all places, until he noticed Zim unconsciously shudder. Okay, so maybe the muffins weren't so good. He'd have to ask about them later. "Fine, you can have some snacks. Then we get this stupid surgery over with."

"Thank you, my Tallest." Tak saluted, and then headed directly towards the lift. She apparently knew which way to go.

Zim jogged to keep up with her, eying her back suspiciously, and Purple trailed after him. "Hey, Tak," Zim said, his voice very conspicuously lacking in malice. "Have you ever tried Doritos?"

xxx

Tak hadn't tried Doritos before.

She didn't like them.

After Tallest Purple and Zim had finished laughing at her reaction and Purple had forced a reluctant Zim to give her some decent snacks, Tak found herself answering a barrage of questions. (She chose to ignore most of Zim's, which Purple didn't object to.)

What's a projected height? When an Irken is born, the Control Brains encode several things into its Pak: a name, a personality, a job with suggestions, and a projected height. In the same way that the Brains analyze an Irken's personality to give it a fitting name and job, they can analyze the Irken's DNA now to estimate how tall it'll be. The estimates are almost always correct, give or take three degrees. Tak believes they started doing it about eleven years ago, which was why Tak got a projection and apparently Purple didn't. She thought Purple would have known about it, he is the Tallest.

Why is Tak in the black market if she wants to be an Invader? For some reason, she can't get a good job. She's qualified to be a Soldier at the least, probably a Captain or even a Pilot, but the Control Brains refuse to encode her to be anything other than a Janitor until she's taken the Invader test, which they won't let her do until she's full height, in two years. At least she's not a Janitorial Drone. So since they won't change her coding, the only way for her to take a job better than Janitor is through the black market. She met an old Irken who taught her how to do exoskeletal extensions, he wanted to pass on the craft before he went to the voids, and so she's been doing that. The pay is very good, as one could well imagine. Tak wouldn't be doing it if there were any other way she could make enough monies to stay alive.

How are they done, anyway—do surgeons need a special program for them? Actually, no programs exist to instruct a computer on how to do exoskeletal extensions. If any known programs existed, the Control Brains could track down computers executing the program and arrest both the patient and the supplier of the program. All extensions are done by surgeons who have learned the procedure. The surgeons least likely to be caught have memorized the procedure with their actual brain, rather than letting their Pak memorize it. That way, the Control Brains can't find the information while a surgeon's Pak is plugged into a recharge chamber.

Does Tak have it memorized with her brain? Only parts of it, but enough parts that if the Control Brains access what's in her Pak, they won't be able to tell what it means.

"Unfortunately, remembering part of the procedure with my brain means that the memory may be flawed, which increases the likelihood of surgical errors," Tak said. "I've yet to seriously injure or kill a patient, but I feel I should warn you ahead of time that there is considerable risk involved in exoskeletal extensions..."

"Stop right there," Purple said. "That reminds me. Tak, you don't like Zim, do you?"

"Ehm, we have a... negative history, as you may recall," Tak said carefully.

Zim wasn't as delicate. "You destroyed my base!"

"You destroyed my career!" Tak shot back.

"You destroyed my best lawn gnomes!"

"You destroyed almost an entire generation of Invaders in one attack," Purple said flatly. He turned back to Tak. "So you don't like Zim."

"Er, no, my Tallest."

Zim opened his mouth, but Purple covered it with a gauntleted hand. "Understandable," he said. "But there are some things you need to know before you start the surgery."

"Yes, my Tallest?" Tak figured Purple felt the same way about Zim as she did, if the fact that he and Tallest Red had banished Zim to begin with was anything to go by. Given that, he was hopefully about to explain why in the Firmament he wanted Zim taller to begin with.

"If Zim comes out of this dead, crippled, severely impaired, mentally damaged—I mean more than usual—traumatized, with damaged or rearranged organs, or otherwise in a condition where he can't dance, you will be arrested, you will not get a trial, and you will be EXECUTED for high treason." Purple had never looked so dead serious before, not in all the footage Tak had ever seen of him. "If I ever find out that there are so much as tabloid rumors that I've been on Earth, Zim's getting an exoskeletal extension, or anything else having to do with him and me is going on, the same applies. It'll be your life. I don't care if you did it or not, I'll assume it's you. If you try to find out from me, from Zim, from Zim's computer, or from anything else why Zim needs this extension or what the purpose of the mission I've given him is, you're dead again. Capisce?"

"Uh..." Tak gulped. "E-excuse me, my Tallest... but... but what does... 'kapeesh' mean?"

"Never mind! Do you understand me or not?"

"Yessir! I understand perfectly!"

"You'd better."

Zim's eyes were slightly narrowed from what had to be a cruel smirk under Purple's hand, the magenta-red glowing in dark triumph. Purple glanced down at Zim. "And I don't care how much you want to brag, if you tell Tak anything about the mission, I'll... do something bad to you, too. Take away your busted SIR or something. Got it?"

Looking slightly alarmed, Zim saluted enthusiastically.

Purple turned his gaze back on Tak, dropping his hand as he did. (As soon as his mouth was uncovered, Zim stuck his tongue out at Tak. She tried to ignore it.) "So, can you get started now?"

Weakly, Tak said, "I think I'm going to need some more snacks, my Tallest. To... fortify myself."

"Fine." Purple pulled a jar of Duper Dip out of his Pak—where had he found Duper Dip?—and handed it to Tak. "Eat as you walk. We're going down to the med bay."

"Yes, sir." She only had the bag of Doritos to put the dip on, but she discovered the chips weren't so bad if they had the dip. Nervously, she got on the lift in Zim's living room, clutching her jar and chip bag as if she could use them to protect her from Zim and Purple.

This made absolutely no sense. Why would the Tallest go through so much trouble to defend Zim from Tak? Zim was probably the one Irken least deserving of any protection. Purple himself had mentioned one of his worst crimes, killing all the other Invaders in Operation Impending Doom I.

More questions followed the first. Why was Tallest Purple giving Zim another mission? What was the mission? Why did he want Zim taller? Why had he said on the transmission ten days ago that Tallest Red couldn't find out about this mission?

Why hadn't he been wearing part of his uniform when Tak had arrived? Why did he care whether or not Zim would be in a condition to dance?

How had Purple lasted the past ten days on Earth with no company other than Zim? Tak knew full well that there was nothing, absolutely nothing interesting for an Irken to do on Earth. What had he done to entertain himself, alone with Zim, so far from the attentive eyes of Tallest Red and the Irken Empire?

Tak wondered whether or not there was a very good reason for her to like Tallest Red more than Tallest Purple.

The lift stopped and opened onto a level of the base that Tak had never seen before, but recognized from the blueprints Mimi had given her by hacking Zim's computer. She oriented herself based on the map stored in her Pak, and headed towards the med bay. "I'll have to anesthetize Zim before I can start," Tak said. "That will take two to three degrees, and then the procedure itself will take fifteen to twenty degrees."

"That's an hour and a half to two hours, right?" the base computer asked.

"Er..." Tak's Pak converted the time to Earth measurements; Irkens counted rotations in 220°, and a full rotation of Earth was 24 hours, or 1440 minutes, which meant there were 11 Irken degrees to 72 Earthen minutes... "Actually, that's an hour and forty-eight minutes to two hours and eleven minutes."

"Oh." The computer paused. "Now I'm all confused!"

"It's part Macintosh," Purple explained flatly. Tak wondered again what that meant.

As they reached the med bay, Purple said, "Computer, since you did the original surgery on Zim, you're in charge of making sure Tak doesn't do anything to mess it up."

"Yes, my Tallest."

Original surgery? What was that supposed to mean?

Purple looked at Zim. "And you'd better not complain about anything. I don't know why you would, since we're going to all this trouble to make you taller, for Irk's sake..."

Zim saluted happily. "Of course not, my Tallest! I would gladly go through the worst pain in the universe in order to complete this procedure!"

"Oh yeah, that reminds me. Tak, you can't do any permanent damage, but feel free to make him hurt a lot."

Zim's smile disappeared. "Hey!"

Tak smirked. "Computer, if you would kindly restrain Zim."

"Will do."

Zim yelped as several metal arms scooped him up and latched him to a table. "Computer! You're not supposed to listen to HER! Let me g—mmfph!" The rest of his complaint was cut off as more arms shoved a tube with a sedative gas in his mouth and covered his eyes so he couldn't breath.

"Thank you, my Tallest," Tak said, beginning to feel a bit less like she was being punished by this and more like Zim was, which was how the universe should be. "Although Zim most likely won't feel anything until he wakes up."

Purple shrugged. "Eh, whatever. Just let me know when the extension thingy's done." He turned to leave.

"Wait! Where will I find you?"

Purple hesitated. "I'll be in the SLP chamber. But you can't go down there. Computer?"

"Yeah?"

"You tell me when the extension's done instead."

"Mmkay."

Zim didn't stop struggling and finally fall unconscious for a little over two degrees, which Tak spent sitting across the med bay from him and enjoying watching him flail. When he was finally still, she undid the straps over him, took a scalpel out of her Pak, and dispassionately slit open his clothes to get access at his full body.

She didn't get much farther than the magenta overshirt and pink undershirt before stopped, gasping in alarm. "What is that?!" she squealed, staring in baffled shock at the long slit from Zim's mid-torso almost down to his crotch. For a moment, she almost thought that she'd accidentally cut him open while cutting his clothes, but there was no blood and it didn't look like a wound.

"What, you don't recognize it?" the computer said. "You should have one too, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Tak pulled out a second pair of gloves from her Pak, bright yellow and much thicker than the standard black ones. She put them on before she prodded at the slit with the flat side of her scalpel, pulling it slightly open. Whatever it was, it looked like it was supposed to open like that; there was skin on the inside, too. It wasn't a rip. Tentatively, she started to push open the other side with one finger.

"Well, you're a female, right? All females have those."

"What does that—" Tak fell silent as she remembered something—uncovered some diagrams in the biological files of her Pak, anatomical diagrams that hadn't applied to Irkens for perhaps thousands of generations. She jerked both hands back with a disgusted screech. "Ew!"

"Whaaat? It's just a vajayjay."

Tak didn't even ask why the computer was saying it that way. "Why does Zim have one?!"

The computer didn't answer for a moment. "I'm not at liberty to release that information."

"Why not?"

"It's got to do with Master's secret mission."

Well, wasn't that beautiful. "Does this have to do with that surgery that Tallest Purple said Zim had before?"

"Yeah. It was to do this."

Which meant that, for some reason, Purple wanted Zim to have layer organs.

Tak had been working the black market long enough to know that anything that can be made, is made, anything that can be sold, is sold, and anything that is made and sold, is somebody's fetish. Tak had received quite a few requests to do genital assignment surgeries, requests she always turned down because she didn't know how. It wasn't her place to question other Irkens' interests, as long as she was paid.

Even so... Zim. Taller. With layer organs. Zim.

Tak put on a third pair of gloves before removing the rest of Zim's clothes (thankfully, there were no more... surprises) and starting on the exoskeletal extension.

She wondered if she'd ever be able to bring herself to salute Tallest Purple again.

xxxxx