I do not own any of the characters or related logos. They belong to Jhonen Vasquez
Chapter Two: Explosion
Dib woke up in a hospital bed. He couldn't feel the bottom half of his left leg, the one the shock ring had been on. He almost got up to feel it with his hand, but was stopped by a doctor.
"Woooow, there, buddy. You okay? You're not, like, throwing up toxic ants or turning inside-out, right?" The doctor asked. It was clear he was used to working with children.
"Ummm...Nope, not since last week with the toxic ants. I once turned inside-out, but my sister helped me with that," Dib answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. The doctor just chuckled and showed a huge, fake smile. He got more serious when he spoke.
"Alright. Good, good. Now, you're probably wondering what happened. There was an extremely small explosion due to broken gas pipes in the room you were in. Your dad and sister are coming soon. Your sister, as I'm sure you remember, is in the hospital, too. Heheh, she put up a fight to get to see you...heheh..." The doctor gave Dib a fake smile. Dib sat up, and tried to swing his legs over the bed.
"I have to go see Gaz! This is really..." He stopped. He only felt one leg hit the ground. Before he could look down, the doctor forced him back down.
"Hey, hey, buddy! It's okay! She's coming. You just relax." The doctor assured him. Despite the doctor's fake smiles and reassuring tone, Dib was alarmed. His voice came out quietly.
"Why can't I feel my leg? Tell me!" Dib croaked. The doctor gave Dib a kind of nervous, sympathetic look. Before Dib could demand answers, his dad made a grand entrance, almost breaking the door off it's hinges.
"Son! They told me what happened to your leg, and I-"
"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LEG? SOMEONE LET ME SIT UP AND SEE IT OR JUST EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED!" Dib yelled in desperation. Gaz hobbled in, an IV attached to her arm.
"Dib," She said,"Look down." Dib sat up and looked at his left leg. He was covered by a blanket, and felt his leg. It was a bit sore, and he had a feeling they had put him on a lot of painkillers, or it would have hurt more. He felt down where his leg was. Just after his knee, his hand hit the mattress, where his leg should have been. He felt around the area, not finding where the rest of his calf was. Alarmed, he ripped the blanket off and threw it onto the freakishly smiley doctor, who looked rather sad at the moment. Dib's pupils got tiny. The lower part of his leg, up to about six inches about his ankle, had been blown off in the explosion. He tried to say something, but a tiny squeaking noise came out instead. Membrane cleared his throat, and picked up a large suitcase he had brought with him.
Gaz looked at her brother. She had been right. The rings could overload, but she hadn't thought they'd explode when they did. Someone could survive losing a leg, but if her's exploded, her head would be blown off. But Dib was free of his, and he could tell their dad, and Membrane would surely find a way around it, wouldn't he? She also excepted the fact that her brother had just saved her life. She hated nice, squishy feelings associated with events like someone's leg getting blown off trying to save you.
Zim sat by Gir on the couch. Ever since the Dib threat had been eliminated, he had become a bit lazy. Gir had even noticed Dib's absence. Things had been peaceful for the last few days. Zim even didn't yell at Gir for leaving the door open. It was border-line boring. The computer interrupted the silence.
"Zim! One of the shock control rings has exploded."
"Eh?"
"Look!" The computer said, sounding irritated. The TV was turned onto the news. An Asian woman was doing a report, standing in front of the hospital:
"...The boy, who's name has not been released, lost the lower half of one leg in the explosion. Investigators say the explosion was due to faulty pipes." The computer, satisfied with the amount of information given, turned the TV back off. Zim jumped up.
"C'mon, Gir! Get on your little brother disguise! We're going to visit Dib!"
"He's so nice!" Gir purred, throwing on his little brother disguise. Gir used the small rocket-blasters on his feet to get himself and Zim there. Zim walked into the hospital, a bit nervous. Dib would often taunt him about doctors and nurses finding out he's an alien. He walked up to the reception desk. Trying to look innocently as possible, he cleared his throat.
"Excuse me, but do you know what room a boy named Dib is in? I'm...Here to visit him."
"Dib...?"
"No, that's right. His leg got partially blown off." (A/N: This is a reference to the episode "Dib's wonderful life of Doom" Not the leg part, the Dib not having a last name part)
"Ooooh. Room sixty-five. Oh," She leaned in and whispered,"Be careful around a few of his visitors. There's a little girl, also a patient, who attacked someone earlier for snapping at the boy." Zim nodded. He knew that a little girl visiting Dib that was a patient there too meant Gaz, but why would she be defending Dib? He got into the elevator, Gir following. Gir was delighted with how the elevator moved. He seemed sad to get out.
"C'mon, Gir. We're visiting the Dib child." Zim ordered, stepping off at the fourth floor. He approached room sixty-five. He could hear voices inside. A few he didn't recognize (He assumed these to be different doctors and nurses), but three he did. One of the three was Professor Membrane, another was Gaz, and the last, Dib. Zim nervously opened the door. Everyone in there (Nine people, not including Zim or Gir), looked at him. Dib and Gaz had a glint of hostility in their eyes, but Membrane seemed delighted.
"Hello! You're Dib's little foreign friend, aren't you?"
"Yep. I here to, um... Visit Dib. How is he?" Zim asked.
"I'm right here!" Dib yelled, sounding exasperated.
"Good," Zim said,"But..um...I can't breathe if there are too many people in a room with me. Maybe you seven should leave," He pointed at the doctors, nurses, and Membrane. They quietly decided to continue the conversation in a different room. Dib and Gaz glared at Zim, a cold hatred in both of their eyes.
"Zim, now that that thing exploded, I'm going to kill you." Dib said, narrowing his eyes.
"Dib-stink, I just came to see if part of your leg really was blown off. I wouldn't be surprised if it did. The shock control rings are set for shocking the wearer for certain thoughts and feelings, but can only take so much. Apparently, they explode when they're overloaded. You survived because you were already in the hospital, and it was on your ankle," Zim sneered. Dib and Gaz caught the implied message that if Gaz tried overloading her's, her head would be blown off. Gaz desperately wanted to hurt Zim, but she knew the necklace wouldn't let her.
"Zim, can I ask you something?" Dib asked.
"You just did."
"No, I mean, something else! If the shock control rings- that's what you called it, right?- use electricity to shock people, why hasn't it killed Gaz or I or messed up our spines?"
"The rings use electricity to manipulate pain nerves, so you feel pain. A normal electric shock, like what would kill someone, just travels through their body. It's set to not cause any long-term damage. Of course, I could always change that," Zim added. Gaz focused on staying indifferent. If she let the ring shock her now, when she was still recovering, it could do damage, no matter what Zim had just said.
"Then why did it hurt Gaz? And when I got sick in school?" Dib asked.
"Because it was overloaded. Not severely enough to explode, but enough that it malfunctioned. What she felt was a normal shock." Zim said, and added,"But what about your leg? Lemme see it!" Zim sounded like an exited little kid. Dib glared at him darkly, and lifted the blanket. This revealed what Membrane had in the suitcase.
"Oooh, cool!" Zim yelled out upon seeing the metal replacement. Dib's lower leg had been replaced with a metal one, specially designed by Professor Membrane for the occasion. He started poking it, and Gir ran up to look at it. Dib kicked Zim.
"Oops," Dib murmured sarcastically, and added in an innocent voice,"I guess I don't have complete control over it yet." Gaz laughed upon seeing Zim thrown a few feet into the air and land on his butt. She laughed more and more, until it was quite noticeable. Zim narrowed his eyes.
"When's the last time your ring shocked you, anyway?" Gaz slowed her laughing enough to answer.
"Not since I've been in the hospital, actually," She said, laughing more.
"Did they put you on medicine to help pain?" Zim asked. Gaz nodded. She had stopped laughing, and now just occasionally giggled.
"The painkillers must be messing with how your body functions, so the shock control ring can't figure out what your thinking and when," Dib observed, lifting his left leg back onto the leg, with some difficulty. Gaz snickered, when Gir burst out into insane laughter. Zim looked a little irritated with him, but ignored Gir's laughing. He rubbed the spot on his chest where Dib had 'accidentally' kicked him.
"Sleep now, pathetic human! You may think you're back in control, but I've still got your sister," Zim growled. Gaz burst into another insane laughing fit.
"H-He's not asl-eep!" She laughed and laughed. Dib and Zim both gave her a suspicious look.
"You think that's also the medicine they have her on?" Zim asked Dib. Dib shrugged, and Gaz calmed down a bit. Yeah, I think it's the medicine, Dib decided as Zim walked out. Gaz started laughing again when she looked out the door.
"I...think...Gir...just...threw up...all over...Zim!" She choked out between laughing. Dib wasn't sure if he preferred Gaz on or off painkillers. Then again, the painkillers were the reason she wasn't getting shocked, so it was probably better she was on them. A minute later, the doctors and Membrane came back in. Dib motioned for a doctor to come closer, and whispered,
"I think you put Gaz on too many painkillers. She's acting weird."
"Kid, that's not the painkillers. After she attacked the doctor from earlier, we put her on stuff to calm her down." The doctor replied. Gaz had attacked the doctor because he had been trying to accuse Dib of being some type of bomber.
"Oh, come on!" Gaz had wailed,"He's like, thirteen! And the police said it was from faulty pipes!" She had opened her eyes wider, a tell-tale sign she was angry.
"Shut up, kid. I have the right mind to say you're in on it too!" The doctor had growled. Gaz opened her eyes completely, then tackled the doctor. No other staff had been in the room, but they heard the struggle and came in with Membrane. They seemed quite aggravated when they saw what happened, and were talking about transferring her to a psychiatric ward. Membrane surprised everyone by saying,
"A grown man accused my grade-school aged children of being suicide bombers, while no one else was in the room. Plus, Gazlene is on so many medicines right now, it could have been any of them. I'm shocked and ashamed such a high-quality hospital is wasting their time lecturing a little girl on something so excused, and not figuring out what they should do about their dysfunctional staff!" He had kept his voice firm, but hadn't raised it. The staff looked a little guilty, and they took the 'dysfunctional' doctor out of the room, and dropped the matter.
Zim walked into his house and went to the lab. Perfecting the shock rings was something he had really been interested in. He was making notes and observations when the computer broke the silence.
"Someone is trying to establish a video link. Are you going to talk to them?" Zim looked up from his notes.
"Yeah, sure. Put them on the screen." The screen sprang to life, color coming on. Zim was slightly surprised to see the Tallest on the screen. He saluted.
"My Tallest! I didn't call you," Zim explained.
"As surprising as that is, we know," Red said,"But we wanted to know more about the shock control rings you've been working on." Zim jumped up from the chair, looking proud.
"I can send you a copy of my notes, but I need to tell you something about them."
"Hmm?"
"If they're overloaded, they'll explode. There's a good and bad side to this. If someone intentionally overloads it, it'll explode and they won't be controlled by it. The good side is that if you put it on someone's neck, it'll kill them if it overloads, so it won't matter if they're overloaded. That's if the overload is severe, and it can't work through it. If it's minor, the shock control ring will just release a burst of electricity. It usually does this, but normally, it directs the charge to manipulate someone's pain nerves to put them in severe pain. But this charge is just random, and is like getting hit with an electric bolt of some form." Zim said. Red and Purple both looked at him for a few moments. They both seemed mildly surprised that Zim had managed to design such a device.
"Zim, you said you had gotten the idea from some other thing, right? What was it again?" Red asked. Purple echoed,
"Yeah, what was it?"
"An old Vortian military weapon. Of course, I had to do a lot of adjustments. I'm not surprised they never used it, because it had a ton of flaws, and was kinda weak. After some adjustments, like building one using Irken methods, it worked fine." Zim explained. Red and Purple seemed surprised.
"I don't remember ever hearing about Vort working on something like that..." Red murmured, and added,"Send us a copy of your notes, research, and one of the shock control rings. Make sure it includes everything." With that, the Tallest cut the transmission. Zim gathered all his notes and an extra shock control ring he had made. It didn't have a DNA sample of bio-signature programmed in, so it was basically harmless. He put all of this into a machine, and copies were sent to the Tallest.
The doctor seemed to consider Dib's question. Dib had asked when he was getting out, because he had found out Gaz was being released from the hospital the next day.
"Weeell, your leg is going a lot better than we had predicted, especially because of having the fake leg, even if it wasn't put on by professionals," The doctor added at the end. He was referring to the fact that Membrane had put the metal replacement on Dib himself. The hospital staff ha told him not to, and that he wasn't a professional, and he almost listened, until he found out what the hospital had planned on doing. They wanted to replace the missing part of Dib's leg with something that resembled a spring, and didn't want to put it on for another six months. Membrane wanted them to use his, but they refused, saying that his wasn't 'professional'. He had just connected it in about twenty minutes while none of the doctors or nurses were in the room.
"Don't worry, son! This leg part will work just as well, if not better, than your real leg. Not to mention that it's a thousand times better than the spring they want to put on your leg..." The staff wasn't too happy when they found out what Membrane had done, but this was overpowered by the respect and astonishment that came when they found out how well it had worked.
"So maybe in a few days?"
"I'd say you can go home the day after tomorrow." The doctor said, flashing his signature smile. Dib was glad he was going home soon; He couldn't stand the doctor's huge, fake smile. But, being in the hospital had good sides. For one, he had begun to plan on how to help Gaz with her shock control ring. He had at first thought he should tell his dad about it, but would he really help? Dib remembered how Membrane had 'helped' when he had cursed Gaz with the shadow hog. But this wasn't a disease not curable by science. This was a precious device that could kill Gaz at any moment.
Gaz couldn't directly voice her annoyance at Dib not helping her yet, but it showed in some things she did. The rooms door was busted open, as Membrane came in (Making a grand entrance, as usual. Dib decided his father was on camera too often.).
"Hello, my son! How's your leg?" Membrane asked. The doctor went to check some statistics, knowing Dib wasn't going to pay much more attention to him.
"It's great. I'm getting used to moving it. I can walk smoothly enough that people don't even notice my leg if it's covered by clothing," Dib said. This was nice, because people tended to ask questions when they noticed the lower half of one of your legs is made of metal. In the few times Dib had gone outside his hospital room since he got it on, children stared. It was really irritating.
"It's good to hear that! You'll be out of this hospital in no time, at this rate," Membrane exclaimed, seeming cheery. Ever since the explosion, Dib was reminded of the shock control ring stuck on Gaz's throat whenever he saw his father. He still wasn't sure what he should do about it. Part of him wanted to make Zim remove it, but if Zim managed to get one on his throat, he'd be worse off than before. If he told his father, could he help? That seemed to be what Gaz wanted to do, but she couldn't say it out loud, because she would definitely be shocked. If Dib didn't find a way to destroy all of the shock control rings and their blueprints, he could easily see Zim finding a way to rule the world with them.
Visiting hours ended, and Membrane was told to leave. Dib told the doctor he wanted to go to sleep. He was left alone after that, and lay awake, thinking. His father could possibly be able to destroy or deactivate the ring without killing Gaz, but how long would it take? If Membrane went overboard, Gaz would kill Dib. Dib could try removing the necklace himself, but he'd probably decapitate Gaz in the process. If he did that, he'd be arrested, and he had a pretty good feeling Gaz would come back as some type of demon creature to haunt him. The idea of forcing Zim to deactivate it was out of the question, because Zim may just put another shock ring on him, and on his throat this time. The best option seemed to be telling his father.
The last full day in the hospital was mostly spent talking to doctors about his leg, making sure it wasn't slowly killing him, or something. The day after that, he packed his stuff and prepared to leave. Gaz was released the day before, so she was there when Membrane drove them home. Both children knew the only reason their father was paying so much attention to them was to check on Dib's leg. This was just another project to him. It wasn't a surprise when he had to rush off to the lab almost the moment they got home.
"Wait! Dad!" Gaz yelled. Their father stopped for long enough to listen to whatever Gaz was going to say.
"What? Be fast about this, I have to go!"
"Dib wants to tell you something really, really important!" Gaz said. Their father looked expectantly at Dib.
"Um...I..." Dib stumbled.
"He knows why I had a seizure! Hurry," She growled at Dib.
"D-...Dad...Gaz's seizure was because of her necklace...Because...It was cursed! Yes! And I bet she'll start believing in paranormal stuff if she can't get the cursed necklace off soon!" Dib lied. He knew he couldn't tell his dad that an alien put mechanical shock devices on them both. He'd never believe that. His dad didn't look too convinced, but Gaz had caught on.
"OH MY GOD, DAD! IS THAT BIGFOOT? AND ALIENS! AHH!" Gaz yelled. Membrane's eyes got wide.
"This is more serious than I thought! C'mon, daughter, I'll remove the necklace- that isn't cursed because there has to be a scientific explanation- if you can't," He said, ready to go to drastic measures to make sure both of his children didn't go insane. He called his secretary and said he'd be a while. He carried Gaz to his home lab.