Chapter 3: ¡Alas!
"Get up Irken, scum!" yelled a deep voice from inside the dark room, Zim got up startled, it wasn't the first time he dreamed about Dib, but that dream had been so weird. Usually he dreamt about when they were kids, specially, when they met, somehow those were good times. Specially truth when compared with this hell.
Normally, Irken didn't sleep, rarely they got sick and they could bare a lot of time without eating, all thanks to the pak in their backs; it was the best non military progress from the whole Irken race, it controlled all the necessities and organic functions, however, without the required maintenance, they started to lose their abilities, forcing them gradually to return to the necessities they had left behind, needing feed and rest regularly. After all this time, in which he couldn't give maintenance to his pak, it was only natural that soon or later he got back to the primitive necessities.
He was tall, considerably taller than what he had been 15 years ago, at the beginning he had been confused about why he had grown so much, but a careful analysis from his computer had determined that the low gravity on earth plus the general environment of it, had made him grow, after all, none other invader had passed so much time out of Irk. He had been 14 years on earth and 1 year in this hell named Vort. In this hell he had acquired some wounds that simply didn't heal, he had been cut, burn, hit, even he had lost half of his antenna, all the days he was forced to get up after a few hours of rest, and now the abuse marks were in his entire body.
At the beginning they had forced him to work as a scientist, just as the vortians had been forced to work for the Irkens, they thought it was an ironic punishment. Nevertheless, after some "accidents", they considered that Zim was too "counter-productive" working in laboratories, so now he limited to do whatever they told him to do. His whole world had become in getting up every day after almost no rest, do all kind of heavy and humiliating work, bear the punishments and tortures and go to rest for a little while, ready to start all over again, in a new day, doing exactly the same, until the day he died, or so, did the Vortians thought, because he knew they will pay, he would make them pay with his own hands someday.
It was weird, he never was a team player he didn't even like the company in general, but after a year, maybe the loneliness was starting to affect him, just maybe. So, in one of those days in which everything had gone particularly awful; he started to think in everyone who was special to him, and he just found out, there was none, he had focused, searching inside of him, and nothing was there; sometimes, when he looked at one of Vort's moons, he remembered Gir. He missed him a little bit, it was truth that Gir always bothered him beyond belief, but he had been his only companion in all the years he was on earth.
But it didn't matter; Gir was in a well hidden box or at least, what was left of him.
¡Alas, Poor Gir!
Poor Gir, the vortians decided that all sir units were dangerous and that they couldn't risk to leave not even one that seemed so damaged, Zim thought he had lost him forever when some guards took Gir to a building; he felt something inside break when he saw the small metallic body wrecked in one of the garbage cans, he thought he would cry when he held Gir's head close to him while he said to him with the last of his energy "Master, I can't see you!" while the teal light turned off. Zim hugged whatever it remained of him and laughed softly, he was so silly for being sad. "Gir is a sir unit, sir units doesn't die, they just need to be fixed!" he thought and when he made sure no one was near he took most of the remains and hide them, he couldn't fix Gir, he couldn't even give maintenance to his own pak, but someday he would have access to a laboratory like his own and he would repair Gir, he would repair his pak and he would never feel tired, hungry nor lonely again.
A year ago
"SMELLY HUMAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT MY BASE?" Zim's yelling was heard from his laboratory underground to the living room in the surface in which Gir was watching the Angry Monkey Show while drinking a chocolate and bubblegum milkshake. Zim saw the video camera in the human's hands, what a nerve! Not just he stole information; he took the liberty to tape it all! "COMPUTER CLOSE ALL EXITS, DON'T LET THE HUMAN GO OUT!", the base went to a bright red, alarms started to sound and exits started to close, however, Dib was way too fast and had done this kind of things way too many times, he escaped before everything closed, he put the video camera away and kept running, Zim chased him without that much effort through the closing exits (it took them too much time to close, perhaps he should check them later), after just moments later they were in the kitchen, "Robo-parents, go for him, don't let him escape!", Robo-mom and Robo-dad came out of nowhere, she had a wood spoon in her hand and he had his pipe "Young man, you must be friend of our son, why don't you stay for dinner?" said Robo-mom and before Robo-dad could even speak Dib took it's hand and crashed it against Robo-mom and making both of them crash against the wall, hard enough to prevent them to get up; almost in no time Dib arrived to the living room; "Gir stop him!" yelled Zim when he saw Dib had arrived to the living room, "YES MASTER!" yelled the robot with a deep voice while his eyes glowed with a bright red and jumped off the couch, leaving his milkshake behind and standing before Dib in a fighting position, who just passed by his side "Bye Gir" said Dib, he didn't stop and didn't glanced back either, "Bye Dib" said the little robot with his teal lights glowing again and waving his hand Dib's direction, who was heading to the window, Zim got to the living room's door just in time to see Dib jumping off the window, "AGH! GNOMES, DON'T LET HIM GO!" Dib was amazingly agile, but after so many years doing this kind of things it was only natural, in a very short period of time he passed all the gnomes, he even stood on the fence and took his video camera off to tape briefly the furious face of Zim who was watching him from the broken window, Dib just waved his hand before starting to run to his house, which wasn't too far from there. "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" yelled Zim, he hit his forehead with his hand out of pure frustration and after a moment he sighed heavily, he frowned and without saying anything else, he left and put on his human disguise (the same wig and lenses he used to wear), he looked clearly annoyed, but without a word he went to Dib's house.
He came back a couple of hours later, somewhat beaten up, his clothes were slightly tore up, and his wig was out of place, he couldn't retrieve the video camera, but he would try again tomorrow. When he approached his base he knew something was out of place, mainly, because his roof was destroyed. He ran inside and almost bump with the huge spaceship that was in the middle of his living room. There was some noise at the other side of it, and when he looked for the source, he found Skoodge, who was trying to repair said thing. "In the name of Irk, what is happening?" Skoodge looked at him right away, the horror and desperation were clear in his face, he stood in front of Zim, "ZIM THIS IS TERRIBLE! WE HAVE TO LEAVE! THERE IS NO TIME!... Why are you so tall?... NO, IT DOESN'T MATTER NOW, WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!" he said terrified while he was trying to pull Zim to the spaceship, Zim was not very surprised when he saw Gir already inside of it, he pinched the brick of his nose in annoyance and shut his eyes hardly. "WHAT IS GOING ON!" yelled Zim irritated, "THERE IS NO TIME FOR EXPLANATIONS!, GET INTO THE SPACESHIP" screamed Skoodge while he kept trying to get Zim into the spaceship, but when he saw Zim simply frowning without moving, he knew he had to explain; he was a total nervous wreck, rubbing his hands compulsively to try to calm down, "Z-Zim, we have to go, we're not safe here; they will come, we can't let them to find us, Zim" "Who Skoodge, Who are coming?" he fondled his hand in a claw-shaped fashion and the frustration in his voice was clear as he spoke, just like when he talked to Gir in those moments I which the robot managed to really infuriate him. Skoodge wanted to go now, but he knew that if he wanted Zim to move, he had to explain the whole situation, but there was a lot to explain, unfortunately, the time was over.
The door opened suddenly and two vortians got inside, behind them, their spaceship was visible in the middle of the street. Skoodge's face showed the absolute terror he felt and desperately he pulled Zim to make him enter to the spaceship, and this time he did it. The vortians started to shoot at them, but it was useless as soon they were protected inside of the spaceship. While he was inside, Skoodge used the canons in the spaceship and when it hit one of the vortians, he exploded; his blood and remains were all over the place; "NOOOOOOO!" screamed his partner. Skoodge wanted to go now, but instead of just leave, he charged another shot and made sure to damage the vortian spaceship, so he couldn't follow them, the vortian just watch them as they fled.
"WHY THE VORTIANS ARE CHASING US!" yelled Zim while he was a few centimeters to Skoodge's face and pulled his uniform, Skoodge was trying to fly as fast as possible. Gir was just watching to the space, with his face and hands pressed against the glass and made soft noises like "Oh", the Irkens barely noticed that he was there at all. Skoodge knew that if he wanted Zim to cooperate with him (even if it was minimum cooperation anyway), he had to give the entire explanation of what had happened.
"Zim… the Irken empire… is gone" Zim's expression softened for the confusion of what he just had heard and let go of Skoodge's clothes, not before of giving him a look of complete skepticism, so he waited for him to ended his explanation. "Every planet we conquered, Zim, every race, all of them, rebelled against us; now they follow the vortians. They conquered Irk a few years ago, took control over the Massive and even executed the tallest; after that, they started to hunt every Irken one by one… they have killed almost everyone, when they arrived to Blorch, the planet that I conquered; they tried to kill me, but the slaughtering rat people protected me, they said that they will ever protect me. I knew almost everyone was dead and that I couldn't do anything for any of them, but I was hopeful that you were still alive; that's why, that's why I left Blorch to come and look for you, to take you with me to Blorch and save you from them" Skoodge stopped talking, talk about all that was very painful, he didn't want to get into details of how he watched so many Irkens die, he didn't want to get into details of how terrible the battle in Irk had been, and how humiliating was to know that his home planet belonged to another race, and specially he didn't want to get into the details of the public execution of the tallest, which was used as a warning to every Irken alive.
"What happened to Irk?" asked Zim, more seriously than he ever had been. "It has become into the new military base of Vort" said Skoodge briefly, they had a tranquil trip in awkward silence until they arrived to Blorch, some hours later.
"That is Blorch!" said Skoodge enthusiastically, breaking the silence and leaving the awkward feeling behind, for a moment. Zim couldn't believe it, Blorch wasn't the chaotic hell that other Irkens had told him about in the military academy, in fact, it looked like an utopia, and that was verified when they landed. The slaughtering rat people, though not very bright, had resulted to be very loyal and obedient. They had built several statues honoring Skoodge, "The best ruler in Blorch's history" read the steel sheet in Irken language. Zim couldn't help but feel a little bit envious; they had had the same time, and Skoodge, not only had conquered Blorch in so much less time, but he even had transformed it into a utopia… an empty utopia.
"Ehm, Skoodge, where is the rat people?" asked Zim, with a half shut eye and an open eye; Skoodge didn't understand what had happened to the rat people, they should be close, they should be greeting him, but the city was empty.
Suddenly the realization hit him like a bucket of ice cold water in the face, "ITS A TRAP!" yelled Skoodge and took Zim's hand to run back to the spaceship, Gir ran at his side with his hands up in the air screaming "Weeeee!", Skoodge didn't know where they were going to go, but the most important thing was to get out of there, tough it was too late, the spaceship was confiscated; in one moment, dozens of vortians circled them, pointing them with their weapons. Slowly, shyly, the slaughtering rat people were coming out of the houses.
"Why? You said you'd protect me!" the pain for the betrayal was there in his voice, "They kill, they destroy, they say if we protect, they kill rat people and kill Skoodge… sorry sir" said one with his raspy and forced voice with shame and guilt on it.
Filled with pain, Skoodge hanged his head; the vortians arrested them immediately. "HOW DO YOU DARE TO TOUCH ZIM!" screamed Zim while resisting with all his force to the vortians, Gir basically surrendered and walked willingly to the vortian spaceship, surely without realizing what was going on. Skoodge was still, he knew it was a lost cause, and that whatever was going to happen to them would be the worst they had lived so far.
¡Alas, Poor Skoodge!
Poor Skoodge, he risked his life to protect his planet and race, all in vain. Desperate to do something for his people, he risked what was safe to try to save Zim, oblivious of the fact of Zim being already safe. The vortians tracked the Irkens with the reports found in The Massive, however, Zim was probably the only one who was not in said reports since he was an exiled Irken. ¡Alas, the irony! Sometimes are the well intended the ones who cause the greatest damage!.
Zim remembered bitterly what had happened a year ago, his life had been a hell since then and all because Skoodge had dragged him out of his base and straight towards a trap; nevertheless, he hadn't seen Skoodge since then, as soon as they were brought to Vort, they were put to work in different hemispheres of the planet.
But that day, the military forces had mobilized, all the spaceships were flying to somewhere, he didn't know what had happened, but he saw when almost all vortians left a base without surveillance, finally a chance to escape from hell. As soon as possible he went for the box in which he had hidden the remains of Gir. He was so excited, that there was neither pain nor tired muscles, he was only focused on leaving Vort and return to the only planet he could have a little bit of peace: Earth. Entering wasn't difficult, there was not even a soul in the entire base; he was just hoping his luck wasn't over yet. He looked all over the place, until he found it, it was amazing how the luck that he didn't have in all this time, was now there, in that specific day. "A SPACESHIP!" he screamed enthusiastically and got inside immediately, "I should go for Skoodge… MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA" said seriously just before laughing loudly, filled with euphoria he left. When they notice he was gone, he would be on Earth.
End of the third chapter
