Red was back to watch Dib go. He stood behind Zim with Purple, and undoubtedly the two of them flicked messages to each other. Zim hardly even took a moment to wonder what they were saying to each other; he only had eyes for his human.

The guards were shoving Dib around a little more than was strictly necessary, especially considering that the human wasn't resisting. They were tormenting him in a dozen tiny ways: dragging sharp-filed claws across his tender skin as they snapped shackles onto his thin wrists, pinching him hard as they cuffed him at his ankles. They had seen his disrespect for their Tallest and it had not pleased them.

Dib himself looked miserable and not any better after vomiting. His skin had a thin sheen of sweat; Zim wondered if it was from illness or from the fate he was imagining for himself. The wormbaby had a frighteningly vivid imagination. Zim knew that from first-hand experience. He thought that Dib was probably regretting it now. It would be better not to think of what was coming.

Eventually the guards herded him to the teleport pad set at the center of the room. Dib stood there looking pale and cowed and miserable. His hands hung in front of him pathetically. He looked like a wet, miserable bird, with feathers flat from fear. Zim caught his eye and was shocked at the depth of it. Dib, at eleven, had been amazingly easy to read if you knew how to look; his eyes and posture and the quirks of his mouth told volumes and gave away secrets. As he had grown, though, his face gone narrower, sharper, and hadn't spoken as easily. It had been, Zim remembered, disappointing.

Now that same vulnerability was back. The deepness to the eyes, the sad half-open mouth, were features he remembered from when Dib was eleven and still hopeful, still bursting with passion.

They looked at each other. It was goodbye.

A moment later the human disappeared in a crackle of pink energy. He had been given to the research vessel named Proby, Zim knew; a fairly low-ranking ship. It was close to the edge of the cloud of ships that surrounded the Massive. It offended him slightly. Dib was the most dangerous enemy Zim had ever faced… he deserved better.

Zim lifted his hands slowly, turned the palms to where Dib had stood. He clenched his fists- I still have you…

Then he let them go, slowly. His hands were empty now. He thought… what next?

Zim jumped as guards surrounded him. They were all taller than he was, and it was difficult to see over their heads, but standing on tiptoes he could just see Red and Purple. The crimson-clad Tallest waved to him cheerily. "We've got something special planned for you, Zim! Just go with the guards!"

The small Invader had no chance to respond as the surrounding Irkens began to push at him. He hissed and jabbed with his elbows and managed to extract a small amount of personal space for himself. "What are you doing? Do not crowd ZIM!" he howled indignantly. There was no way he could see the eager, hungry glances Red and Purple traded. Even if he had he wouldn't have taken note of the danger.

No one spoke to him or looked at him, although they gave him a little bit of space. Zim growled to himself irritably. Well, they would regret it when they saw how the Tallest favored him. He wondered what his next post would be, if they would assign him to scout for vulnerable planets as potential targets for Operation Impending Doom Three. That wouldn't be so bad…

It took a long time to reach the auditorium. The place was packed to the brim with screaming Irkens and recording equipment. The guards thrust their way brutally through the crowd, making for a raised platform at the far end of the room. Zim was no help at making progress; he only had eyes for the crowd. He jumped to see them and waved his hands furiously and lunged for the spaces between his escort. It did not occur to him to be surprised at the fuss being made over him; it was all that he had expected.

Red and Purple were already there, waiting on the platform. Behind them, hunched and gleaming, were five control brains. The light flashed on their photosensors.

It took a few minutes, but the guards managed to force their way through the roaring audience. One of them simply picked Zim up and thrust him upwards and over the edge. He scrambled the rest of the way on his own, lashing out to kick the guard in the eye deliberately. The taller Irken turned his face away but Zim's boot still punched the delicate membrane painfully inwards. When he turned back there was murder on his face and his purple eye was beginning to swell and glisten with fluid. Zim smiled down at him condescendingly.

He turned to the crowd and flung his head back to receive their screams and benediction. He smiled. The sound blasted everything dirty and uncertain out of his head, wiping away the uncertainty and improper shame to replace it with jubilation. This was everything he had wanted from his victory. Not the blur of emotions and the feeling of emptiness, but… this.

Unseen by Zim, Red flicked his spindly fingers at the guards. The squad split, circled behind the platform, and stood in the spaces between the brains. The guard Zim had kicked ran his claws gently under his injured eye, glaring at the smaller Irken's back.

Red glanced around, noting the positions of his soldiers. His spindly green fingers twitched minutely; the head soldier immediately took note of his nonverbal cues and directed her troops to close around Zim with a quick series of hand signals.

The Invader was startled to feel hands close around his upper arms, and was incensed to find himself being dragged backwards across the platform. He struggled fiercely, stabbing his elbows backwards and kicking. "Hey! HEY! How DARE you lay hands on the person of ZIIIIM! The Tallest will punish you for this! I will see your PAKS liquefied for this!"

They set him on his feet before the control brains, hands conspicuously close to their weapons. Zim tried to edge back towards the crowd and was held at bay with the electrified prongs of a taser.

Red flitted around them to the front of the stage and held up his arms, gesturing for silence. Abruptly the crowd quieted, encouraged by the security robots firing lasers into their midst. Even the guards by Zim stood to attention. Zim himself, still irate, looked about and began to sneak towards the front again.

"Loyal Irkens soldiers and civilians," Red began jovially. "You are here to witness a most happy occasion. Today, the Irken who has long been a thorn in the side of the Irken Empire will be crushed! We have before us the infamous Invader ZIM!"

It was short and sweet; Red knew that the Irkens were hungry for destruction and that postponing the matter too much could only lead to trouble. The audience erupted in a cacophony of screams, shouts and boos. Red glided smoothly back, grinning to himself. It was the end at last.

Zim, as ever, tuned out the harsh words that sealed his fate. Hopping forward once more he evaded Red's startled grab to wave both arms furiously at the crowd. "Thank you, thank you!" he screamed. "ZIIIIM is PLEASED to be the object of your ADORATION-"

Behind him Purple smacked his palm against his forehead. Red clenched his teeth and gestured the guards forward before Zim could say anything else. The small Invader was dragged scrabbling and screaming back to stand between the control brains.

No one had the chance to speak again, because the control brains went into motion at once. Thick cables snapped from open hatches to connect to ports in Zim's pak. A white nimbus of energy spread around them and his tiny body spasmed, then fell limp, like a drowned kitten.

What the audience did not see was this:

Zim was being torn, shredded, his mind hacked into pieces and turned over and over. The security on his pak had given way to the massive power and authority that the control brains held. It was programmed in all Irkens that the security codes on the pak should give way before their commands, and this was what happened now.

Zim's mind spun into insane darkness, crying weakly, not understanding. He had no idea why this was happening to him. He felt a part of himself, a memory, be flayed away into from him and examined; and in his mind he worried at the hole it left like a dog would chew its stitches. What? He wailed into the emptiness around him. Why is this being done to Ziiiiim! Why do you destroy your loyal soldier!

The control brains did not respond to him directly. Zim could sense them though, like Dib believed humans could sense ghosts; he could feel the flicker-flash of information passing from brain to brain. –species sympathies- he caught, and –Deep hormone imbalance- Uuncorrected by pak- Query: why? –Response: integral hardware damage- unsalvageable -Decision?

Decision?

He understood that judgment was being passed, although he did not understand why.

Termination…

And he felt himself pulled, funneled, shot down a dark tunnel. All his thoughts were crunched down into a pulp and then pulled again, so thin that everything he was thinking was visible, distorted and hideous. He was reliving things, fights, encounters- he was straining desperately to live- he was hallucinating too, remembering things that had never happened. He had wanted so much to devour Dib, to consume everything that made the human himself, to hold him close forever. Now Zim was being eaten himself. He clutched at the streamers of himself, screaming, raging. No, no, no, you cannot do this- you cannot do this- I am… I am Zim!

The brain that had taken his data was not listening. He could feel parts of himself detaching, could feel emptiness encroaching where once he had had memory. He wanted it back, he wanted everything back. He wanted all of the ugliness and the hate and the losses. He wanted his victories. He wanted Dib back.

He wanted… he wanted…

Humans were so good at killing each other. So fucking good at it. It had surprised him, to see how good they were. He couldn't have been better at it if he tried. He couldn't have been better than them if everyone in the world had come before him and knelt at his feet and allowed him to fire a laser through their brains. And so it had been so easy, so God damn EASY, to just let them do it once they started; just to keep their pathetic war rolling, just to twist the alliances and pile kindling on the rising conflicts, just to keep the peace from ever being made. It had been so EASY to make the human race destroy itself that he had wondered how he had ever missed the obviousness of it. He watched them slaughter each other and whooped with joy at the effectiveness of it. And then when it was over he thought…

What now?

He wanted…

Who?

Irkens were not supposed to fight death, at least not when it was dispensed by their superiors. They were creatures that ceded control of everything to those higher than them in the chain of command, and the average Irken would give his life with as much grace as he could if it was what his leaders demanded. And they demanded it, constantly; they killed the worst and the best in their race, the gentle idiots and the idealists and the artists and every other exceptional personality that squeezed through the screening the paks went through at assembly. Zim was not ordinary; he had never been. He had been shaking the system since he was first animated and he had never stopped; now he did his level best to keep himself alive, with the mad rage of an animal fighting death. He screamed his name madly again and again to the control brain that was dispassionately filing him away. He had imagined so much more for himself than this. By the end, he had lost his name and he had stopped imagining anything.

The crowds, rioting, cheered his death. Red and Purple laughed, slapped each other roughly on their shoulders, screamed with joy until they were out of breathe. It was finally, finally over.

END OF CHAPTER 11

The end of the story is far from near…

May 13, 2005