The Discount Smeet by Dib07
Summary
It all started when Dib went to an alien market to buy supplies. He didn't realize he'd be coming home with a smeet. Only, the young smeet becomes Dib's whole world, and the human space explorer soon has to defend Zim against all those who want defectives dead.
Warnings
Sci-fi adventure. Light swearing. Peril. AU. Blood and cadaver mentions.
Declaimer
I do not own Invader Zim. However this idea and story is mine.
This gorgeous DAMNRIGHT GORGEOUS story picture I am using is not mine, it has been lovingly made by Alicartin! Please do not use without her permission. Thanks for reading!
A/N:
Hello again! It has been awhile since I last updated and I apologize and apologize again. I know there have been a few fics I've kinda given up on, but I am never giving up on this. I will write this story to the bitter end. And thank YOU for the reviews. They've encouraged me MASSIVELY and just lately, over the last week this story has been getting a lot of love, and it helped me edit this chapter and get it out there for you to read!
RoboCat
Oooh your praise is too much! Thank you! I hope you enjoy this chapter too!
Yep sure is
Don't you worry, this update has come to the rescue and I hope it does not disappoint!
rammy
'Zim's gonna be a real badass someday' oh my god don't you know it! This story can go one of three ways, and yeah. Yeah!
Guest
Well, some sick psychic powers would really help Dib at this point! Maybe he needs to buy some skills or magic or drink some radioactive water to help him find the true POWER! Because... he could really do with some!
OkinaYume
Thank you so much for spending the time to read this, and leaving some honest critique. Discount is nowhere near my usual quality in terms of storytelling, you've got me there. I started this story as a light-hearted casual project, because honestly, after writing Saving Zim (which soon turned into a military project) my brain just wanted to veg on something, something that I could have more fun with, with less of the seriousness. So yes I did cut corners, but I'm glad you enjoyed what it offered regardless, even if it wasn't quite what you were looking for. And despite its flaws, I'm so happy you find it addictive and something to get into and just enjoy! 'Will there always be an age gap? Will Zim become the wild invader he was in the show?' Oh, he's gonna grow! No other spoilers, but oh yeah! We're gonna get there!
'I CANT BELIEVE YOU PULLED 65 THOUSAND WORDS FROM A DREAM' I know right! Me and my dreams! When you write ZIM for 4 years straight it's kinda hard not to have dreams about him! Just last night, I dreamt that old Zim went on space adventures with Professor Membrane. Now THAT was a good dream!
Thank you thank you, your words mean THE WORLD and please I really wanna hear back from you at any point, even if it's further along in the story! :D
Edit
Guest:
Hi there I just wanna apologize for any harm or offence I may have caused. With a disability myself I meant no offense and I have removed my bad choice of words. Thank you so much for your support and for enjoying this story! Also, I gotta thank you a million for loving Rath! I really like him, even though, uhhh, it's an unpopular opinion at the mo - but I hope HOPE next chapter I can get to show you so much more about him! The poor guy is just doing his job, AND even though it doesn't seem like it, he is doing this for Zim's benefit! Well, in what HE thinks is right by Irken principle! So thank you for the review and setting me on the right path. I need a little help sometimes because really I wail on the keyboard without thinking. Oh and I'd love to hear your thoughts here on out! Thank you again you are a star!
Chapter Twelve: Destined
He dreamt of the nothingness, of the stars combing back beyond the flames of the engines as he steered ever forwards. Sometimes his hand would be floating idly over the many bright consoles as he made sure all was well. Other times he was running across a deck as fire chased him to the emergency hatch.
When he woke he was surprised to find himself home, and to hear the passage of cars and whimsical birdsong outside. The vast emptiness remained in his head, as well as the underlining panic all pilots feel when there is nothing but their ship and the cold death outside.
The tiny creature would be there, snuggled in his arms, his eyes closed in sleep.
He was not used to this peace. This quiet. He expected a warning to flash up on a console screen, for Blue to request his attention, but there was no danger to be had.
He reached over and ran a caressing finger down the Irken's impossibly smooth and impossibly soft baby skin. Zim stirred, closed eyes jerking, but he did not wake. Like his human father, his bad dreams had chased him all the way to Earth too. He'd sometimes spring wide awake, planting his claws on the mattress as if to stop himself from falling.
The baby did not sleep very well. Dib slept long hours, and Zim seemed to find this tedious. Exhausted from the illness he had obtained since his imprisonment on Flaxier 19, he had slept and slept, as any baby should, really. But now that his sniffles were lessening, his sporadic fevers ebbing, he seemed to be sleeping less, and often napped or dozed beside his father where the dreams found him between the cold, discomforting hours just before the sun rose. Several times Dib woke to find the smeet staring back at him from spooked eyes, the soft baby wrinkles wet with tears. Dib would pick him up and rock him. Zim would soften, soothed by the bedside light and the human's cuddles. It was strange how the night frightened the Irkling, but it was not the dark itself that worried the baby, for he knew Zim could see through thickest black. It was the lonely stretches of nothing, of being comparatively alone with your thoughts as the clock senselessly ticked. It gave one too much time with which to think.
Keeping him coddled against his chest, Dib leaned back down to sleep for a third time, Zim babbling out worried noises. Cradling him with both arms, he let Zim drop his heavy head on his chest. His heartbeats calmed him sooner; the melodic sounds washing out those bad worries, and together they'd find solace again.
-x-
Wearing squishy soft clothes of pale raspberry with a soft grey cardigan on top, Zim was busy filling in a colouring book. Those fine motor skills of his were rapidly being defined – and refined – with alien speed. Never did he colour over the thick black lines of the horses he was colouring in – horses he had never seen in person – but he was colouring them in all sorts of wild and superficial colours. A mustang would be a vivid pink, a piebald a pretty gold and blue, and a French trotter all done up in splendid purples and reds. It kept him busy for hours.
His little claws were very dextrous, and he could hold a pen and write his name in his native alien language or in English, and he happily copied whatever he saw, drawing the big rectangular shape of a house on Dib's electronic tablet, or the horses he'd been colouring in, and he even drew an almost exact copy of Blue Thunder's chassis from memory.
Gaz watched, arms folded with that studious frown. Her disapproval was loud, even when her words were silent. Often the baby had to be bundled in blankets because he could not keep warm.
So far everything they'd tried to feed him had ended in failure, more or less.
Bread? Vomiting.
Rice? Vomiting.
Milk, boiled, just wasn't enough. A normal baby, perhaps, but Zim's growing brain needed real sustenance and nutrients necessary for the building blocks of growth and normal development.
They needed to train him to use that PAK, but it was of little use if he did not have the strength necessary to wield it.
And even colouring in horses got boring after awhile.
After the sixth time they'd sat beside him, supporting him as he leaned over a bowl to eject the latest meal his body could not handle, Dib got too scared to try him with anything new, be it a crumb or a morsel.
From the effort of being constantly sick, he became unusually pale, and quiet, no longer chirping so happily.
Gaz filled a baby bottle with the fattiest milk she could buy, and massaged his skinny shoulders as he slurped it down, holding the huge bottle for him with her hand. At first he was reluctant to suck from the tip, clamping on the rubber instead with his gummy mouth, but after some gentle encouragement he was weakly and steadily sucking it down.
"Make sure he doesn't drink it too fast." Dib said, giving her a warning look. "He'll get colic."
She groaned. She couldn't believe she'd stepped into this whole mother/auntie/whatever role. God her brother was hopeless looking after anything but himself. When they'd been given a puppy by their father, it had run away because Dib had forgotten to feed it when it was his turn to fill the bowl. And when he'd stupidly found a dead baby bird that had fallen from its nest, he had cried and cried.
"He's fine Dib. Let him drink. He's fucking hungry."
He really enjoyed the milk, but could only manage half the bottle. Gaz tempted him with it again one hour later when there were no signs of colic or nausea. Babies needed to be fed every two or three hours, and she was pretty sure her brother hadn't obeyed this rule.
She was also pretty sure baby Irkens needed to be fed consistently too. They needed the energy, especially with all this speedy development going on inside.
Shivery, but more alert than he'd been earlier, he cuddled closer to her as she hesitantly read from one of her old favourite stories. She was not used to spending time with anyone, or anything, and it took her awhile to lighten up and mellow. Though this pale green thing her brother had stolen/adopted was alien in every sense, he was too fucking cute to ignore, shove and lay cold eyes upon. His magenta eyes were these huge, colourful things that drank in her reflection, and his antennae bobbed and dived and rose as if they mirrored his cognitive thinking every second; of which he must be doing a lot of, as he readily absorbed everything he could lay his eyes on.
He was a very fast learner, and as he grew more confident, his true character was beginning to show. He was very cheeky, and liked to push the boundaries again and again. If you told him not to do something, he would go out of his way to do it. Not out of spite, but out of curiosity because he simply 'wanted to try it.' Like a baby animal, inquisitiveness was everything, and it was also the best way to learn. But even in a short time, after he'd explored every room and every crevice and every cupboard, he grew bored and wanted to go outside. He could see things going on beyond his relative reach (and comprehension). People walking by, cars rushing along the road (cars he squealed at – he had a love for anything mechanical). He wanted to go out there, and see and explore and experience.
"No, no, Zim Zam. They'll see you, and take you away." Dib tried explaining. It was not the first time they'd had this conversation.
"But I wanna go out there!" And the baby would stomp and point.
He was going to be incredibly headstrong, Gaz could tell.
She turned a page, reading from the first paragraph. She did not enjoy hearing herself read, it was strange on her tongue, but quickly she sunk into it, happy that the baby was so attentive to her and the story. He loved stories that had bravery, and stories that had monsters and dragons and robots.
She hadn't wanted to touch that metal contraption on his back, but it was difficult to hug him without coming into contact with it. And despite being a creature of surprising intelligence, he was very clingy. He would huddle up to her, and before she was aware of it she'd brought her arm around him.
Earlier, Dib had taken him outside onto the second storey balcony where he could see the colourful line of traffic without being seen. The smell and chill of the night air had excited Zim as he listened to the dark songs of a seemingly other world that was so different to the daytime. Then he presented him with his old childhood telescope.
"Here, peer into the eyepiece and tell me what you see!"
Zim bumbled up to it, straining to reach the eyepiece that his antennae could barely touch. Dib lifted him carefully, balancing him underneath, and the smeet peered up into the stars with the help of the telescope's powerful magnifier.
Dib came in when she was partway through chapter 2 with pages and pages of nutritional information sticking out of his fist - he must have just printed them out.
"Porridge." He said suddenly without any context. "We should try him on porridge."
They'd boiled the milk to hell, hoping it wouldn't hurt the baby's alien equivalent of a stomach. They were terribly unsure exactly what internals Zim even had, and what he could and couldn't digest. Shamefully, since losing the baby formula, and the disaster of other foods, Dib had hardly given him anything but boiled milk.
"Porridge? Why don't you just give him a full English breakfast and see what happens!"
"Hey! You're not helping, and you have no idea what I've been through! At least you didn't have to rock him to sleep when he was feverish! Or change his diapers! Or... or dunk him in water thinking it was safe!"
Gaz hung back, stung by the dark grief her brother was exhibiting.
Zim was watching too, his antennae rising and falling independently as if he was worried, or deliberating.
"I didn't mean it like that." She said, as close to an apology as he'd ever get.
"It's just... I have this A.I. on my ship. You remember Blue, don't you?" She nodded slowly, vague as she was about his ship, and its technological oddities and complexities. "She said from her database that smeets need highly concentrated foods that promote growth and brain development. And he's..." he dropped his voice to a whisper in the hopes that Zim couldn't hear, "he's a runt as it is. He's probably behind on normal development."
"What do you expect when you take smeets to Earth? Without knowing anything about them? You barely even bought clothes for the little guy!" She would not whisper, or speak softly.
"That's because I had to do everything in a rush, remember? Rath might or might not be coming, and Zim is no closer to using those strange, weird PAK legs!"
"Are you seriously thinking about pitting him against this...Rath?"
"No!" He shot back. "I just want to prove that we don't need that albino!"
"Right. And here Zim is, vomiting up everything we give him."
Zim squeaked up. "Zim can build things!" He even lifted his hand, pointing a finger in much the same way an adult would do.
Dib barely gave him the attention or the appreciation he was looking for. "No, honey. You're two weeks old."
The smeet had opened his mouth, ready to add to his ideas when Dib's rejection hit him hard. His antennae dropped down to hang limply over his shoulders.
"Just buy a gun! Or one of those tazer zapper things!" Gaz put the storybook down.
Zim squeezed out from under her arm and padded his shuffled way from the parlour to the hallway. The machine on his PAK had felt strangely heavy since they'd brought it up. He couldn't escape its weight, or the driving intensity that seemed to grow from it.
Slowly he went up the stairs, pausing now and then because the steps were so steep. Behind him the arguments continued, with barely a breath spared between them.
-x-
In the dark of the room he stared into the mirror, half expecting to see the torment reflected back. Behind him that hole opened up, and from that hole came the torrential echo of a hundred whimpers and cries as little hands clawed for the sky.
Not one of them had taken control.
Not one of them had tried.
They'd all failed, and most had died.
Never would he allow a powerlessness like that to govern him again. Never would he feel that cold panic: that roiling, falling helpless void.
Dib and Gaz were downstairs arguing, about him.
He snorted out a little exhale as he stared at the tiny figure in the mirror. He could feel the pathways open from inside, shutters sliding aside to allow the steel-sheathed forms to come spilling out. Two by two they emerged, arching upwards with stiff, reluctant co-ordination. It took substantial amounts of willpower and energy to keep them active. It made his chest and head ache if he kept them engaged for too long, especially all four, resulting in dizzying spells and relentless nausea, but he could not quit, could not fail. It did not matter how small he was. He would not fail like those others. They'd lain there, defeated. Rough hands had scooped him up, and for a singular moment he thought his suffering would end. But those rough hands had served only to magnify his weakness.
Like growing lengths of ivy, the prosthetics slowly emerged, two opening out on each side like wings of bone, but draw them out all the way he could not, though he pushed himself desperately to do so. What was the POINT if he could not USE THEM?
Further out they came, and when he felt them begin to slide back: begin to falter and retreat, he rammed them back out in growing anger. Pathways he now struggled to keep open. The cacophonous pain lashed through his head; momentarily blinding him as shivers wracked his irresolute frame.
His antennae picked out subtle vibrations long before the sounds came. Someone was plodding up the stairs.
"Zim?" Came his father's soft call.
He staggered under the weight as the PAK forcibly reeled in the legs. He stared back at his exhausted mirror image, silently asking his gloomy visage why this was so hard.
It took another moment for him to straighten, remembering to dock his antennae back as they had suddenly gone to wilt forwards.
Dib opened the door, inviting a stream of sunshine to come sweeping in.
Zim put on a weak smile but when he moved towards Dib, he shuffled more than walked.
"Hey there, Zim Zam. Let's try practising those PAK legs of yours today, okay?" His eyes flashed over him for a moment, spying around perhaps, for signs of what he had been doing. He noticed that Zim hadn't got out his toys and he hadn't left blocks of Lego to get under his feet.
Yesterday he'd got them all out, using the blocks to build warships, alien buildings he had seen on Flaxier 19, and of course Blue Thunder.
The beige teddy: the favourite of his growing collection, had been left on the table downstairs when the smeet been simultaneously coughing and swallowing milk down his throat. "You still tired?" He asked, noting the smeet's repressed mood and shuffling demeanour.
"No!" He smiled again, this one coming out weaker than the first. "I'm ready!"
He couldn't fail; he could not disappoint his father.
He would prove to them – to him - that he wasn't broken: that he was perfect.
The purple leaves, capering just above him, had glittered with gems of light from an alien sun.
'Here! Just take him!'
'I cannot! The smeet is a defective! What kind of life will it have, if it grows?'
'Then... then what do I do with him?'
'You destroy the smeet before you get anymore attached. Defective smeets don't tend to survive very long. So what will you do?'
In the storm of their words, he had bunched his claws into Dib's clothing, feeling as helpless as he'd been at the bottom of the void.
Rath, though Irken, moved with a strange, mysterious grace, his intentions shifting, his eyes as capricious as blood storm clouds. Whenever Zim's eyes fell his way, he saw only disgust in reply under the awning of purple leaves.
'I hope you have not made the wrong decision.'
Dib had taken a long time to reply. 'Yeah. Me too.'
"That's it. Slowly. Slowly!" His father stretched his arm outward to mimic the metal arm steadily emerging. It was coming out in a smooth, tidy fashion: half of its cold steel being revealed by inches. There was nothing obstructing its passage except for the deliberation of the owner itself. As soon as the creature lost a chip of concentration, the leg snapped right back in, forcing him to start over. Zim felt the looming cut of frustration. The soft smile he had happily made was now lost beneath the hard edge of concentration, his antennae rigid lines set upright. Every time he tried, and failed, the next attempt got harder.
They'd been at it for nearly an hour.
Gaz sat on the sofa to watch this sad spectacle, and whenever Dib happened to look her way, he saw that same contemptuous frown, served with the occasional headshake. She obviously had other ideas, but Dib refused to give up.
"A little more! You're doing good!" Dib had no idea how to go about this, only knowing to give the smeet healthy encouragement as every dad should. When the deadly metal snake was three-thirds of the way out, Zim bowed his head a little, distracted? Maybe? Tired? And the prosthetic snapped all the way in – long stretches of tedious effort ruined in a single moment.
The smeet gave a loud squeal, which caused Dib to flinch. It was a similar sound animals made when in pain.
Dib straightened his legs and felt a muscle tinge and cramp. "Well done! I think we'll call it a day."
"That was hardly an hour!" Gaz threw up her hands. "And he still isn't using properly those PAK things of his!"
"He doesn't have a lot of control over them."
"He needs to! All Irkens can control them, right? So why can't he?"
"Don't you think we're pressurizing him a little too much? He's just a baby!"
"If you mollycoddle him, Dib, he'll have no chance to defend himself. Even if your new pal Rath doesn't come, he still needs some understanding of his Irken heritage."
Her brother wanted to protect Zim from himself, as if not learning about his abilities would keep him cute and soft forever. But sometimes you had to give things a good hard push. Animals did it all the time in the natural world. Chicks had to fall out of their nests in order to fly. Young antelope had to run as soon as they touched dirt, or be eaten. And baby whales had to swim or drown.
"One more try!" He begged her as soon as she left the couch to approach. Gaz did that heavy headshake again, but sit back down she did.
"One more try." She agreed, saying it through clenched teeth.
Zim stood at the ready, but in military rest, as if he had seen someone doing this on TV, or it came to him instinctively.
Dib sighed, and looked at the smeet's eyes: eyes that boasted so many colours. In them was the cosmos they had left behind. And they were full of absolute trust.
"All right Zim. We're going to do this again, but we're really going to mean it this time." He felt really mean coercing him like this, but there was no denying the pressure he felt from Gaz, and the pressure from that other unknown quandary that was just beyond every nightmare, and behind every waking moment.
He wanted the little thing to be with him, always. He was prepared for the cost, prepared for the secrecy, of living two different lives to keep the alien safe, even if it meant retreating to the stars, forever. That one dream kept him balanced on that hope. To have Zim as a comrade, stern and loyal: and dependable. But if Rath took him, made him into a monster, a monster that was broken...
The smeet tensed as he commanded his shaky body to reengage those PAK prosthetics.
It was one thing for Zim to eek out a PAK leg or two, but keeping them outside the ports was another matter. It probably took a lot of brain power and concentration to keep them operational. The other times they had flown out were accidental – triggered by emotional or PAK reflex, and this was no good if Zim could not control them.
Really, he was quite happy to let things be, and teach Zim the wonders of Earth life, and all there was to see and experience. Though Rath was nowhere in sight, his unseen presence was wholly felt, like a cold shadow marring the daylight. Every time Dib woke, he feared today would be the day, and when nothing happened, he suspected he might run into him after opening a door, or looking up and seeing his ship floating in the sky. The more training he gave the smeet, the less confidence he began to feel as he slowly faced up to what the smeet was... what Zim was capable of, and that, no matter what he tried, they could only ever be soldiers: destined to be taken away: and melded into what the Empire wanted.
Dib cupped a hand over a closed fist. "Concentrate Zim. You can feel what releases them, what triggers them, can't you?"
It was hard, teaching a creature to use implements humans could not. How could he understand what it felt like, what taxations it took on the mind? What strengths Zim had to pull?
The Irken was tiring: soft little dimples of lethargy were appearing under his eyes. His hands were minutely shaking until he brought them into fists which dissolved the weakness there. But he didn't relent. Spacing his socked feet out a little more, he took a semi-crouched position as if the PAK had started to weigh a great deal more.
Easing his fingers through the fingers of his other hand to mimic the sword-like prosthetics emerging, Dib encouraged him to make the same progress. The steel-tipped snakes made a swifter appearance this time where it once took some fifteen minutes for Zim to gradually manipulate one or two out of its ports.
He's trying to use all four at once? Dib thought, puzzled and a little derailed by this.
The quadruplet poles eased free of the PAK, sliding out at the same speed and length. It looked like a complicated affair. No wonder Irken heads were so big - to house a large brain that was capable of handling these mental gymnastic feats.
Inches by inches they came. Zim was beginning to sweat through the soft baby clothing.
Dib did not wish to praise him too early in case he ruined the progress. It was hard enough for a baby bird to use its clumsy wings, a young horse to use its long sticks for legs, but this was another dimension of skill: having to use and operate eight limbs independently of each other.
It was so easy to give in, and let the imaginative smeet have a little bit of playtime – as young animals needed some recreation. As it was, Dib had spent much of the morning wiping up milk spillages. Zim had started firing dollops of milk at Gaz by using his spoon as a catapult.
"That's it!" The four clumsy metal poles kept emerging, spilling out like gangly, limp eels. What age were these baby Irkens meant to use them, and how often? The word DEFECT kept flashing through Dib's mind. What if defects found this ability harder? What if their brains had less strength to maintain these abilities? What if it hurt? Concentrating on math all day, without sleep had given Dib many a headache during his school years. He imagined this to be like that, only twenty times worse.
"This is so slow!" Gaz huffed behind him. He imagined her to be rolling her eyes. "Just as well you have a soldier! If this was anything else this would take centuries, not years! Just drop him from somewhere really high up and see what happens. Either he'll end up as a splat, or he'll land on these PAK legs of his, like a cat or something."
He knew she'd do it too.
As if to defy her, the PAK legs crept all the way out past the last knob that marked a pole-arm's end. They lay there like mindless things: four long silver tails that were nine times the length of Zim's tiny body.
"You've... you've done it Zim!" He congratulated, marvelling at the spindly constructs lying without purpose at the Irkling's retreat.
Like a dog enticed by the ghost of its own tail, Zim turned to look at them, but the PAK legs swept along the floor in the opposite direction, avoiding his discernment, and then, like a snapping mousetrap, they contracted and flew back in, causing the youngling to stagger and fall on his face from the force. For a moment Zim looked about ready to burst into tears, but he held himself steady, and lifted himself up, but he was shaking - from effort, rage or exhaustion.
"You are such a mother goose!" Gaz stomped to the fore and picked the little bundle up before he had started to recover.
"No, GAZ!"
She threw her arms upward, keeping the dangling baby out of his desperate reach. "I won't hurt him! This PAK of his is more sophisticated than you think!"
"You only think that! We don't know for sure!"
She huffed and walked out of the parlour still holding the baby raised out of reach. As Dib predicted, she went up the stairs and paused at the highest point, lifting the smeet over the banister rail. Her brother ran back down to the bottom, arms raised to catch the Irkling.
"Don't do that!" She hissed down at him. "Or this is never going to work!"
Dib grimaced, showing the bottom line of his teeth. Reluctantly he took a heavy step back, readying to pounce forwards when the time came.
Gaz took a breath. "Okay Zim. Ready?"
He snuffled out a whimper as he looked down, his little feet dangling helplessly in the air.
If this was what it took to prove himself...
He gave a quick nod.
She opened her hands and let him fall.
Dib dived forwards, arms raised.
Metal branches snapped out of the PAK: each point penetrating the ground to anchor itself in, leaving the smeet to hang blissfully in the middle: like a spider comfortably cradled in its web. The suspension protected the Irkling from barely feeling the results of the fall, for the PAK legs took the load, like wings that buffeted the legs before they touch-downed.
They kept Zim suspended three feet from the floor, but Dib was caught in the web of legs, stuck in the middle. There were evenly and widely spaced gaps to slip through, but it was the horror of the moment that stunned the space explorer.
Aware of the limbs hunched around them both, Zim stared at his own constructs, his big bug-like eyes blinking, the left antenna raised. Whatever had manipulated them, ended, and Zim plopped safely to the floor, the legs slipping quietly away in a blink, and Dib was free before he'd even caught on to the fact.
"See?" Purred Gaz's voice from up top.
"Never do that again with him!" Dib roared back.
Zim felt a wave of conquering relief. He'd done it, hadn't he? He'd proven them wrong – he hadn't failed! He'd done it!
He grinned, eyelids banking low as the euphoric victory smashed through the doubt.
He looked up at her, at Gazzy, and watched the ceiling and banister rail fall and mesh with the girl standing there: oiling into a swirl of strange psychedelic colours. Blackness tipped in, and he tipped with it.
Dib noticed the sudden limpness, of the smeet's head falling heavily against his arm. Zim's eyes rolled into the back his skull before the lights in those eyes went out. "ZIM!"
Gaz hurried back down and this time even she could not suppress the guilt that rose, uncontested.
When she joined her stricken brother, she rested a hand on the baby's forehead. "I think... I think he's just fainted."
Dib glared at her, his eyes as hot as red pokers. "JUST fainted?! Do you not take anything seriously anymore?"
As they looked him over, both humans morbidly stupefied, they noticed that the pulse in the smeet's carotid artery was especially pronounced.
Gaz pinched the baby's chilled hand for a response. "You can remove this PAK thing, right? Maybe if we pull it out and push it back in again..."
"No! We can't do that! Imagine taking your brain out and then fitting it back in again!"
She ran a hand under his baby shirt to feel his chest. The smeet's core temperature had dropped radically in as little as seconds. "Maybe he's just exhausted? Let's get him warm. You can shoot daggers at me later."
Of which Dib was doing already.
-x-
His eyes fell on him every other moment for changes – of which there were none. Zim, all bundled in fleecy blankets, remained unnaturally inert and boneless in his arms. They had no idea if this was some sort of coma, or if this was just natural sleep.
Gaz gave him a guarded look whenever she and her brother met eyes. This is your fault too. Went her unsaid challenge.
The baby's waning temperature had risen, thanks to the blankets and the shot water bottle they'd slotted beneath him.
Dib's insides were knotted tight, the plunge of guilt tightening them ever more. Perhaps smeets who were as young and as premature as Zim were not supposed to undergo heavy PAK labour until they were older, and stronger. Maybe the toil was harder for a defective who had to work twice as hard to achieve the same results as their healthier peers.
"Hey." Gaz's voice was softer. "He'll be okay." Before her brother could pounce on her, she added; "We're just not giving him enough to eat. Maybe you were right about Blue, and that they need high protein or super condensed carbohydrated foods to give them that energy."
The voice in his head grabbed this opportunity to mock him. Rath would know! He'd give that smeet the laziest fucking look and know what to do.
Yeah, like throw him in the nearest trash can. He always said rearing smeets was hard, and barely worth the time when you had normal soldiers to train.
Zim's outside the circle of normality, where everyone is labelled as 'broken.'
Gaz wasn't going to sit here, and procrastinate. She drew herself to her feet. "The last thing we gave him was milk. I'm going to go prepare some more for him." She lingered, as if awaiting some acknowledgement. He did not give it, so she huffed and walked away.
Dib waited until he could hear her shuffle about in the kitchen before he let himself slump under the weight of grief. Zim was no different from a tiny doll. Everything was limp, from his body to his tiny hands.
The PAK was showing no aberrant signs, which gave him hope. It was the only hope he had.
"Why were you so tough on yourself, Zim Zam?"He asked softly. The smeet must have felt groggy after the first dozen attempts, but he had not complained or shown any sign that the efforts had been affecting him in a detrimental way.
Irkens were innately and stupidly proud, and babies seemed to share this same injurious trait.
Yesterday, Gaz had sparred with him. Zim had taken that seriously too. It was supposed to be a 'mock' affair, testing his reflexes, of which he did really well for something that was a little over two weeks old.
Gaz had got rougher: pushing him, as she did to everyone. She cut up his path, causing him to trip, and he'd been quick to get back up again, sidestepping the same move she employed before cutting around her with insane speed only an Irken adult could muster. But then he just stood there, losing focus, and he ended up cushioning the blow of the rubbery stick she used as a teaching pole.
"Use your PAK!" She'd shouted then as she had earlier. "You can stand in a defensive stance all day and it won't do you any good!"
He'd spaced his feet out, priding himself on balance: standing on the heels of his toes. She had rushed to meet him and he spectacularly dived, turning onto his PAK and slipping across the floor through her feet. As he sailed under her, he racked a claw across her shin. Gaz had given him the stink eye. Zim returned it with a cheeky grin. But the more he practised, the more he leaned on his Irken nature, the more he abandoned his toys, his babyhood. Dib did not want to lose that.
And that baby bug sure loved electronic equipment, especially computers. There had been no hope to save his super computer – or so he had thought. Zim had eyed it up and marked it for execution early on. Dib had been quite upset, but chose to let things be. Hours later, with that hairdryer ripped of all its working parts, he had combined them - and that very same butchered computer was up and running, proving more efficient than before, but every now and then, say once every few hours, it would glitch and freeze. It would resume again, only for it to do it hours later.
Gaz soon returned with a bowl of hot porridge instead of the milk she had promised. It plopped and simmered. She left it on a tray to cool on the lounge table close by, hoping the smells would entice the baby to wake, but Dib wasn't sure how far ahead she'd planned with this, as Zim was clearly still not responding to any of his stimuli.
"Gaz?"
"What?" Came her sordid retort.
"The phone, please sis."
She looked hard at him a moment, trying to suss his intentions. Then she shrugged, and handed him the phone from the transceiver. Keeping the smeet carefully cradled against his chest using an arm, he called his father's close acquaintance that dealt with things such as satellite traffic, and government voyager trajectories and moon expeditions. That way Dib always had a clear path whenever he planned to leave Earth's orbit. When the call was patched through, he said with some shakiness to his voice: "Smithy? Smithy is that you? Can you sweep my area for any unusual activity? Any heat signatures, extra emissions, that sort of thing?"
Smithy was pretty good at getting back to him on trajectories and current flight paths, be they space-related or commercial airline related. "Uh let me look. Nope, nope nothing in your area, just that satellite passing over Washington. Why, what's the concern?" For even Smithy knew that the ship – Blue Thunder - was safely docked in the professor's private hangar.
"I just wondered. Checking for uh... UFOs."
He could hear the pleasant crackle of Smithy's laughter. "UFOs. Good one."
After an amiable chat, Dib ended the call, his hand resting heavily on the smeet for a long time after.
Once upon a time, when there had been no baby alien to spoil their strained friendship, Rath had been considerate, and respectful. Every time they convened, the albino did a smart bow of the head, and his charm and hospitality was a comfort to the wary human after months of lonely star-travel. He was one of the first Irkens the human had truly encountered, and he was grateful for the fact when the other Irkens he met thereafter were hostile. Like deadly and beautiful predators, so too were the Irkens.
Many a night he and Rath sat under the sweeping passage of star ships, talking about their respective planets, what a shithole the planet Junka was, and what the latest technological marvel was for space travel evolution. Dib had learnt to be wary, even in Rath's chilled company. When home was another dimension away, and you were the only one of your kind, you had to be careful. When he ordered a drink: a cocktail of something alien, he never took his eyes off it in case someone spiked it, and he took slow, leisurely sips to avoid getting drunk, of which Rath did a lot of. He drank cocktail after cocktail as if he was in a hurry to forget his life's personal displeasures.
Rath carried scars, inside and out. Dib never really got to know him. He wasn't sure anybody could. Rath may have smiled, may have laughed and slighted the human for his shape and look, but he always kept him at a distance. Irkens seemed imprisoned by their way of life, and the battles they wore inside.
He missed those nights. After warring through intergalactic traffic, slipping and jostling through strange and unfriendly crowds, he missed just sitting and talking with Rath over some weirdly tasting exotic beverage. At least he knew his place with him. Now he had no idea which side he was on. And should he expect things to be any different? Once you stole a hatchling from a gruff and suspicious race, it was kind of self-explanatory.
But there was no sign of him. There had only been the tracker he'd found – if it had ever been a tracker. Everything else had just been in his head. And now, after this, he truly had to come to terms with the cold reality that he knew nothing about fostering a smeet. All along he had suspected another plot, beset by Rath; imagining him to be moving his chest pieces one place forward.
But Rath wasn't the enemy here.
"What are you going to do?" Gaz asked as if she could track his thoughts from the turbulence reflected there. "Dib, he's just resting. We did push him hard. He'll be fine."
'You humans are infinitely soft, aren't you? Rescuing every little broken thing you come across as if it's yours to save.'
He screwed his eyes shut.
Zim had remarkable untold potential. He'd witnessed it. The young, tiny thing could adopt tactics in a split second. He'd pushed himself like no other baby could have done. Maybe babies just sat in chairs, and watched simulation after simulation for years before they even started physical training for their bodies and PAKs, and Zim had flown beyond even that in mere days! He may be a defective, something made different. And, as if he'd turned a key in a lock, opening the door, he knew now why Rath wanted him.
A groggy, annoyed grunt escaped the throat of the smeet as he wriggled uncomfortably in the human's arms. Dib gave a gasp. He tried to hold in the relief. "Zim! Hey! Can you hear me?"
Those gossamer eyes slid open, alighting on the human's face. He made to sit up, the many blankets folding down in wrinkles. Dib coasted him upright with the help of a hand.
"Hey twinkle." Gaz said, using a sudden affectionate nickname she seemed to have plucked from thin air. "You had us worried."
Zim gave them long, blank glances. Those antennae came to life, soaring back up in gradual inclines.
"Did I f-fail?" He asked in a tiny squeak.
It was the last thing he expected to hear. At the same time, it began to unlock a lot of dread. "What? No, no Zim! You didn't fail!"
Before he could question him anymore about it, Gaz moved the tray over, the porridge having cooled. "Here, make sure he eats."
Stirring the mixture a little, Dib offered him a spoonful.
-x-
"Look Zim!"
A magnetic aura flittered through the sky in ribbons of green, ruby and purple. Keeping him bundled in his fleecy jumper, Dib walked out into the dark of the garden with him snuggled in his arms. Zim pointed, making little pleased sounds. The lights dappled his skin, coating him in its reflective greens and purples.
"Pretty!"
"It's the aurora borealis, or what we call the Northern Lights." He said, squeezing his little body tight. Though what the lights were doing here, so far south, was a mystery.
They spun and weaved like a tapestry through the ink of the sky: bending and shimmering like water without substance. Space travel had its wonders, its deep nebulas and hostile beauties of another world, but Earth's simple beauties were all the majesty one could want.
"It's the Earth's magnetic field. It protects us."
Zim stared in rapture, his eyes greedily soaking in the colours.
There was a crunch behind them. The bulky figure of Gaz came into view wearing her winter coat. Her breath plumed in the air.
"I'm heading off home." She said before he could get a word in. "I'll be back tomorrow. And yeah, me and twinkle are gonna play with some... uh... toys."
Dib offered her a sincere smile. "Thanks, Gaz. I appreciate everything you've done. You've shown me a lot today. And so has Zim." He gently rubbed a finger into the baby's rib, causing the thing to giggle.
Gaz dipped her head forward in a nod. "Yeah. Just, kiss him goodnight for me, would you?" She turned to go, ashamed maybe, of her actions earlier.
"Hey." Dib called. "You can kiss him goodnight now."
She turned, looking sheepish a moment, and not all that committed. Then she approached, and gave Zim a peck on his left cheek. "G'night twinkle. Be good."
The baby chuckled, holding onto her finger a moment.
Gaz smiled back, "You damn cutie." She said.
Together they watched her dwindle into the night.
Something dark breached the moon, a cloud, moving sullenly across the zenith of sky, but it had little to no impact on the shivery aura of the Northern Lights.
"Every day, I thought I understood you a little bit more." Dib whispered to his antennae. "Now, I realize how blind I was." They looked up at the ebbing and strengthening light, where there seemed no end to the sweeping alien iridescence. "Achievement is not everything. We may win our victories, but it's what we do that makes us. Failure is nothing to be ashamed of. We don't always get the result we want. Be who you want to be Zim. You don't have to impress anybody."
"I want to impress you!" He said, tapping Dib on the nose.
Dib gave him another little squeeze. "You do, every day. Now let's hop back inside. It's chilly out here."
He turned round and went back into the house through the open kitchen doorway Gaz had used.
She must have turned off all the lights as she left, because the house was in total darkness.
Cursing, he reached for the light switch. When he felt it under his thumb, he flipped it up, but nothing happened. It was just as well he was saturated in Zim's comforting port lights or he may never have known where to go but bump and fall into every stick of furniture.
Perhaps the Northern Lights made electricity go a bit screwy or something.
Zim, who hadn't much energy to fidget when he was snuggled in his arms, began to shiver and squirm, and he emitted a frightened whine.
He heard a snap of fingers, and the room blazed into cold fiery purples. Standing in the centre of this phantom glow stood a lean figure.
"Gaz? I thought you..."
The white Irken stepped into the purple and opened his red eyes. His hands were perched at ease beneath his PAK but he was no longer wearing the robes. He was in uniform that was weaved in black and gelded purple.
Dib froze, his hands squeezing the smeet in an ever tightening grip. He took a step back as if this would ameliorate things somehow. Rath took a clacking step forward. His staff floated weightlessly beside him, looking more like a lethal cudgel than a simple walking stick.
In the bane of the purplish light hunched a small robot - its eyes as bloody as Rath's. A kind of bulky weapon was perched on its right arm: and the muzzle of this gun was pulsing.
The albino cocked his head, smiling the same silky smile that had once won Dib's trust. "You know why I've come." He spoke in fluid English. Even without the translator, Dib could understand his every word.
"No." He said, his voice a pale croak. "I sent no signal! Y-You said I could keep him!" A wind was picking up; he could feel it, even as they stood in the pulsing dark of the kitchen.
It was not the most suitable of battlegrounds.
"To what end?" He took another step. It was a slow chase, but a chase all the same. Dib knew he was cornered. Rath's pursuit would be relentless: his idle and leisurely handling of the matter meant little when he feared that the results would end the same.
He'd seen what Rath could do to armed chieftain Irkens without raising a claw.
His scythe of hair flapped this way and that. Forces swirled around his feet, making his jacket rise and fall like wings. "Please! Please he's... he's..."
"... he's what? Broken? A little helpless smeet?" He came with his head bowed. Every step carried weight as he backed Dib into a corner. "Hand him over. I need not explain myself again."
Dib's heel hit the wall. There was nowhere else to go.
Zim was staring back at the advancing soldier. His mouth reared back to reveal his one tooth. Almost in response to Rath's predatory advances, his PAK began to burn brighter: highlighting Dib's face and neck in ardent pink.
Rath raised an arm, his head bowed, eyes low slits, but the fire in them was profound. The claws moved towards him: one last silent plea.
Give him up.
Save yourself.
All that Rath had told him, all that Zim had shown him...
He pushed back, closed the distance, and threw his hand against Rath's chest. The Irken jolted, teeth bared.
"He's better than you! Than ALL OF YOU!" Dib moved forward again, forcing Rath back. "That's why you want him! You tricked me! Telling me those lies! Defectives are freethinkers! They can't be controlled! They can bring the whole system crashing down! Isn't that right?"
"Fletcher." The soldier called, his eyes locked on the human.
"Yes, My Lord?" The little robot appeared between them in a heartbeat.
Rath ran a claw under his chin, his intent cloaked. His sleek antennae protruded upwards in slow arcs, his eyes discerning the human from cold glass. He was not smiling this time.
"I see. We are at odds."
The PAK at his back exploded with shooting swords: instantaneously arming the adult Irken with four equal lengths of scissor-arms, each one blacker than midnight. The joints that held them: able to give the legs their swerve, flex and stability, brimmed fire that left red gashes in the air.
"Y-You'd..." He could barely get it out. Doubts, hopes, dreads, they bumped around in his head. "...Hurt me?"
The staff flew down, and Dib dived sideways. The robot open-fired, spraying the wall with bullets. Rath watched a moment, hardly moving, his scissor PAK legs splayed out like alien barbs. "Fletcher, watch your aim. Do not hurt the smeet."
As the S.I.R unit's gun powered down, Dib ran for the doorway. Rath silently greased after his retreat. Dib could not properly find speed or go on the offensive with a baby in his arms.
He tried to snap the door on him, and Rath slapped it back.
He tried to go for the stairs, hitting a wall switch as he went: a system he had installed for burglars, but the sirens did not faze the Irken.
A PAK leg ended the ordeal. Howling, Dib hit the floor with an audible smack, and Zim went rolling out of his arms.
Rath stood over the human, sliding the sword-arm deeper into the human's side until it met with the wood of the floor beneath. Splashes of red pooled around and down the tip.
"F-Father..." Zim wobbled upright, looking first to Rath's glowering rubies and then to the human sprawled on the floor.
Dib lay there, sporadically clenching his fists as pain soaked his body. Red lined his lips. "Z-Zim... go... get away!"
The smeet raised his claws to his face, eyes darting between them.
"See what they are, Zim?" Rath called as he waved a claw over his fallen father. "Weak."
"Z-Zim..." Burbled the human.
Rath put some extra weight behind the PAK leg, forcing Dib to weakly cry out. "You! Human! Must never interfere with Irken affairs! I did not want this! And you! You did not want the smeet anyway!"
"Y-You s-said that I could keep..."
Rath's ensuing scowl was a temperate one. Then his eyes flicked Zim's way. "Smeet." Came his reply in the high dialect of the Irken tongue. "Come here. I'll take you to where you belong."
Zim took two cautious steps. The little android was there, discerning the baby with absolute scrutiny from its circular red eyes. Its arms were raised, weapons poised.
But Zim did not approach. "I belong here!" He squealed, his voice in plain fluent English.
Rath tensed a moment. The staff floated towards him, and gratefully he took it one hand and stepped away from the human, forcibly yanking out the PAK leg as he did. He planted the staff's base on the bloodied floor. "I will not have this argument. Fletcher, secure him and bring him to my ship." He turned round.
It was to be his first mistake.
Pink projectiles punched into him too fast for his antennae to register, causing the soldier to stagger to one knee. He whipped round, his PAK smoking, and saw the impossible. Zim stood with his PAK armed and poised, indomitable eyes narrowing, antennae folding back with implausible resolve. Little fists shook at his heaving sides, but despite his obvious and fragile infancy, he stood - defiant.
No Irkling this young knew how to draw upon their core energies. Their brains did not and could not possess the mental aptitude necessary or to reach even minimal levels of cerebral PAK coalition.
Rath went to smile. Thought better of it.
"Stand down, Irken Zim." He replied in English. "I have come to rescue you. You are confused." He stood to brush the black sleeves of his uniform. "But attack me again and I'll court-martial you for insubordination."
The smeet unleashed another four-laser surge. Rath was ready this time, and before the projectiles connected he threw up his PAK's purple shielding. Despite being countered, Zim unloaded again. Fletcher made to move, and Rath raised an arm.
The smeet fell to his knees; the raised PAK legs shivering as they grew harder to maintain, but the defect's unconquerable spirit remained like an insufferable weed.
As much as he admired the baby's hopeless bravery, hopeless Zim's situation still was.
He hit the base of his staff, and an electrical current – barely visible to the naked eye – rushed out like water. Its effects were almost instant. All power and will and ability were cut from the PAK, and Zim bonelessly slumped to the floor like a doll, his eyes pooling into dark blanks.
"Fletcher! You damnable robot! Grab him!"
But Fletcher had been equally affected. He sat, all zoned out against the wall, eyes sparking. He would re-activate in moments, but for now he was useless.
"Must I do everything myself?" Rath raked his claws into the smeet's collar and hauled him upwards, letting his feet dangle. Zim's eyes were partly open, but there was nothing in them. He was putty in his hands.
He gave one last look Dib's way, his face strangely rueful. Then he turned, and left the way he had come with the defect carelessly held in one hand.
