Chapter 12: Good evening, Mr. Membrane
Far below, Zim moved relatively silently down a completely still and empty corridor that was the same dull steel color as the stairs that brought him there. He shivered, as much as because of the creepy silence as the colder temperature, hugging himself with invisible arms, antennae slicked back with discomfort. Stupid inferior hyuuman facility...
Zim had not been walking long, when he felt a noiseless hum fill the air; the farther along he walked, the more he could feel it. He could even feel it vibrating the floor beneath his boots. He reached out to touch the wall as he walked. The rough material seemed to pulse gently beneath the invader's gloved fingers.
Why...Why did this seem so familiar...?
He was just about to access his PAK's internal memory storage to find out, when the Dib's panicked voice filled one antenna, slicing his concentration to bits. "Zim! We've got to get out of here, now! There aren't any humans here! The workers, they're all-AH!" Dib's yelp was cut off by a loud, piercing note, a burst of static, then silence.
Zim grabbed the offended antenna in pain, but ignored the instinct to yank the device off and smash it to pieces. Instead when the static cut out, he growled, "Dib! DIB! Answer ZIM! Answer him now!" But there was nothing, nothing in return but silence. The Dib's side of the link was completely dead.
Zim stopped, yanking the device from his antenna. His intention was to throw it away-it was useless to him now-but he stopped to stare at it instead. And for the first time in his selfish, mayhem-filled life, Zim hesitated from his determined want. He glanced over his invisible shoulder, back the way he had come.
The Dib...Zim shook his head, growling at himself. This was the Dib's idea. The stoopid hyuuman could stew in his own dookie for a while.
Zim forced himself to continue forward, squeezing hard and nearly crushing the delicate coil of machinery in his fist. Stupid human. Stupid, stupid human...
He instantly forgot the boy at the sound of movement at the farther, lighter end of the hall ahead of him. He shrank back against the gently pulsing wall to his left. A large hulk of a human-shaped creature wearing a uniform indentical to Dib's came out of a doorway, a much brighter flood of light spilling out behind it briefly. Zim pressed further back against the wall, but the creature turned the opposite way, trudging down the hallway for a short way before disappearing around a curve.
Once Zim was sure it was gone, he moved again, silently, carefully, toward the door. When he reached it, he hissed in frustration. The door was large, made of heavy, riveted steel...and protected by an ID card slip. There was no Dib-human with a convenient flask of acid this time. Zim was entirely on his own.
"UGH! Stupid inferior door-portal!" the alien snarled a little too loudly, kicking the bottom of the door, hard, with a booted foot. He jumped as it shuddered. When it began to open again, he skittered back towards the wall, biting a gloved fist to hold in a yelp. Another helmeted creature identical to the first in dress but much smaller came out. It seemed to pause for a moment, as if listening. The pause was just long enough for Zim to carefully slip past. The alien grinned to himself as the door clicked shut between him and the creature, who was none the wiser. Zim threw up his arms in silent victory. Victory! Victory for ZIIIIM! he screamed triumphantly in his head.
Still grinning his invisible grin, Zim surveyed his new surroundings.
This hall was whitewalled and brightly lit, as well as significantly warmer, with a moist, sticky heat that clung in a disgusting yet familiar way to the exposed bits of Zim's skin. Baring jagged teeth in silent disgust, Zim wiped a gloved fist across his forehead, irritated.
Instantly he was struck with what a human would call 'deja vu'-an extremely rare occurance for someone with a computerized memory. Zim stilled at once, getting the sudden, distinct, but brief sense of being somewhere else, in a different time, in a different but similar place, the same gloved but significantly smaller fist making the same motion...but then it was gone, the memory slipping back into the depths of his PAK's deep memory storage.
Brushing off the weird feeling, and dismissing it as completely irrelevant, Zim continued on down the narrow, oddly lighted hallway.
The further he went, the hotter and stickier the air felt, the pulsing in the walls and floor growing even stronger, the vague, noiseless hum resolving itself into the distant growl of machinery. Not human machinery. Alien machinery, similar in pulse and pitch to...
Forgetting everything else, even the fact that he was invisible in the middle of a hostile alien she-bitch's base, the invader broke into a sprint down the remaining few feet of the hallway, hitting the door at the end full force with both hands.
It must have been unlocked, because it gave way instantly, slamming open to reveal something that made Zim freeze in shock and horror...
...
For a terrifying second, Dib stared back at the alien guns like a scythe-haired deer caught in the headlights of an incoming truck. Then the message to run, helpfully delivered by a laser blast nearly clipping his right ear, hit home. He spun around to dart back the way he had come, but he was too slow-a sheet of metal had already come down, blocking the exit. Behind him, on the other side of the room, was another doorway, the only other way out, and it was getting the same treatment. Dib hauled around and sprinted for all he was worth toward the other door, but though it was moving slower than the other, it was still closing too fast-he wasn't going to make it-
But then he had an idea, a desperate, crazy idea born out of watching far too many action movies. Ripping off his helmet, he half threw, half slid the thing along the smooth linoleum, like a bowling ball, toward the closing metal plate...
Just when he thought it wouldn't work, that he was going to be target practice after all, it did, catching underneath the thick sheet of metal, creating a gap just wide enough...
Dib threw his lanky form into a desperate, feet-first slide a major leaguer would be proud of, narrowly avoiding a hail of laser fire. Thanks to his skinny frame, he managed to slide underneath the gap with a breath of room to spare, wrenching the helmet with him.
The wall of metal came crashing down, cutting off his pursuers. In the quiet, darkened hall beyond, Dib scrambled away from it, to lean, panting and trembling, against the coolness of the opposite wall.
As his heart slowed back down to a normal pace, he pushed the helmet away from him-it was useless to him now, just a partially crushed, bent piece of junk. Just like he could have been. He shuddered at the thought, pressing his face into gloved hands.
"I'm getting too old for this shit." he mumbled, then smiled weakly at his own lame joke. When he calmed down enough, he pushed himself to his feet, pressing his fingers to his ear, to make sure Zim's device was still there. When he was sure it was, he said, quickly and shakily, "Zim, we've got to get out of here now. There aren't any humans here; the workers, they're all-AH!"
He was cut off by a loud, shrill note, shrill note, shrill enough to feel like someone was stabbing his eardrums with tiny knives. He yanked the device off, dropping it to clap his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to block it out. As quickly as it had come, the noise stopped, leaving a painful throbbing and ringing in its wake.
When Dib recovered, he dropped to his knees, gingerly picking up the device. It was useless now; whatever the sound had been, it had shattered the tiny blue ball, leaving the little thing lifeless and dead in Dib's hand. There was no way to contact Zim now, to warn him.
Cursing, Dib pushed himself back to his feet, leaving the little device inside the ruined helmet. He was completely on his own now.
He closed his eyes as he walked, trying to summon to mind what he had seen of the floor plan. While his memory was good-better than that of most kids his age-it wasn't photographic. He opened his eyes, glancing around as he walked. He figure he was in one of the lesser used auxilary hallways; if memory served, the place was full of them.
This one was not a straight shot; the hall seemed to gradually curve to the left, as if this inner part of the institute was oval, rather than rectangular.
The hall was as eeriely empty as the previous staircase; nothing living (save for Dib) or otherwise occupied the narrow space. No boxes of stuff waiting to be moved to its proper place. No long forgotten extra pieces of equipment sitting against the walls collecting dust. There didn't seem to BE any dust, as a matter of fact. The walls and floor were spotless, shiny steel.
Slightly creeped out again-a feeling that was steadily growing with each step he took-Dib absently touched the wall to his left. He jumped, surprised to feel a steady vibration in the metal. He had been walking for long enough now to have gotten away from the vats; another machine was causing this.
More curious now than creeped out or afraid, Dib kept his fingers to the wall, hurrying to follow the mysterious vibration. As he went, the hall forked off occassionally, but he ignored it, intent on following the steadily strengthening vibration and the hall's curve...until he almost ran smack into one of Scattermoon's henchmen.
He froze, hoping for a second that he had somehow been missed. Too late, the not-human-whatever-it-was turned to face him, stiffly, almost military style, wrist lifting...
Dib didn't wait for it to finish aiming; he ducked and bolted around the creature, not following the wall anymore just running in the opposite direction, once again for all he was worth, wishing he had something, anything to defend himself with.
With no metal sheet to block its way, the thing pounded right along after Dib. Lucky for the boy, though, the creature's running aim was shit. The lasers shot to the left of him, over his shoulder, past one of his knees, blackening the shiny metal walls but not harming Dib...until he slowed to skid around a sharp corner. One bolt clipped his left shoulder. The boy cried out, clutching his shoulder, stumbling into the left-hand wall, which gave way under the unsuspecting teen's weight.
He landed hard on his injured shoulder, drawing a pained groan. As he scrambled into a sitting position, the opening he fell through sealed itself shut, leaving him in complete darkness-but only for a second. Lights blinked on, casting an orangey-red, rusty tint on everything.
Where Dib had fallen through, there was no door, just a smooth, dull steel colored wall. A shard of icy panic went through Dib, making him forget his pain in favor og jumping up and running his hands on the wall, looking for a pressure switch, anything to make the opening appear again. He didn't find anything. The wall remained as solid and immovable as, well, a wall.
When his panic subsided, he noticed three things. First, the walls seemed to bow outwards, creating an oval shape much like a garlic bulb. Second, the air in here was much hotter and stickier than the air outside. Third, the vibrations he had been following were strongest in here, and accompanied by a loud, low pitched humming growl-like some sort of weird alien machinery.
Once again more curious than afraid, Dib turned around...to a sight that would make any Trekkie piss their pants.
A large workstation and chair that certainly wouldn't have looked out of place on the Enterprise sat in the middle of a circular depression in the middle of the floor, surrounded by red tile. To the right of the workstation was a big screen, its surface dark; in front of it was what looked like one long, rectangular window, covered with sheets of metal to block from view whatever it looked out upon. Just like...
"An observation deck?" Dib asked out loud in disbelief.
"Correct." Dib nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden sound of Scattermoon's voice. For a horrifying second, he thought she was in the room with him-then he noticed the big screen again. Scattermoon, in her human disguise, stared back at him calmly.
She looked at him with something close to a smile on her face. "It's just like you to come snooping while I'm away."
"Observation deck?" Dib repeated, as if he hadn't heard her, a hard knot of dread forming in his stomach. "What do you need it for?"
The small almost-smile turned into a smirk. "What, the oh so clever paranormal investigator hasn't figured it out yet? Very well. The answer is better shown than found out, anyway. And since you're already here..."
The last words had barely left her lips, when the sheets of metal at the front of the room began to lift, revealing a clear pane of glass. Mesmerized, the feeling of dread in his guts growing stronger, Dib moved forward, to stand in front of the newly revealed glass. When he reached it, the metal had finished its rise, giving Dib an uninhibited view of what lay beyond.
It was a giant, dull gray machine, whose twisting metal form went all the way to the ceiling far above. Near the lower middle of it, directly in the observation deck's view, was what looked like a giant oval glass tank, standing on one of its ends like some monsterous gem nestled within the twisted guts of the alien machine. The tank wasn't empty; it was little over half full of what looked horribly like-
"Blood, Dib. Human blood. No wonder your race has such horrible nightmares about other creatures taking it from you. It really is a very useful resource, for clever girls like me who know how to manipulate it."
Dib clapped a hand over his mouth as his stomach roiled, threatening to make him throw up. "T-That's beyond sick. Even for an alien." he managed to gasp, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrible machine. He didn't even want to know how many humans Scattermoon had bled dry to fill it that full.
"Now you know just how stong my desire to stay alive is." Scattermoon's voice was beyond frigid. Beyond inhuman. Alien, in the worst, most terrifying way possible.
Dib tore his eyes away from the awful tank; he was leaning up against the cooler glass in a vain attempt to get his rebelling guts under control, when he saw it. Far below, on the platform circling the base of the machine, was a familiar shape, obviously green despite the sickening reddish glow from the tank. And something else, a horribly familiar glint of metal...
"Zim!" Dib gasped, completely forgetting about Scattermoon, hands thudding helplessly on the glass. It was no use; even if he yelled and banged on the glass with all his might, Zim wouldn't be able to hear him. It was just too far.
Dib's hands doubled into fists, his head thunking hopelessly on the glass. Then something in his peripheral vision caught his eye...
...
Zim bared his teeth at the twisted mass of machinery and its tank, a low noise similar to his earlier purring but much more menacing burbling out of his throat as the memory clicked into place at last.
This was Irken technology-technology cannabalized for the purification of human blood ickies, but Irken nonetheless. In its proper state, the Vortian-made machine produced a fluid necessary for a developing smeet to survive and develop outside a birthing drone's body.
How the inferior Scattermoon-creature got its filthy hands on such precious technology, Zim didn't know, but as the Irken approached the ladder access to the platform above, there was only one thought in his head: to destroy it. Everything else paled into insignificance, even the Dib.
A gloved fist tapped the left side of his suit, deactivating it was four spindly PAK legs extended out silently, carrying him up the ladder to the platform twice as quickly as hands and feet could.
The platform was completely deserted. That should have aroused the suspicion of someone antennae-deep in enemy territory, but Zim had eyes only for the glittering control panel on one of the four metal pillars that fed into the top of the machine, far above.
The control panel had no outer security at all, just a glass cover that lifted easily enough, exposing vital circuitry.
On a very primitive level, using obsolete software he had found during the war, Zim's PAK was connected to the house computer. And in a stroke of genius brilliant even for his great mind, he mentally ran through the computer files, until he found what he was looking for: Virus 2.0.
Pulling a smaller, tentacle-like cord out of the bottom of his PAK, he attached it to the bottom of the panel...
The scrape of metal on metal, to Zim's right had him twisting around, PAK legs coming up defensively. There was a threatening glint of silver, then a metal creature indentical to the one that tried to kill them at the Dib's house pulled itself up onto the platform. As Zim's eyes narrowed in contempt at it, green lights on either side of its oval body blinked, then turned bright red. As Zim's jagged teeth bared in a sneer, its glinting back opened up, and two slender arms tipped with wickedly sharp blades came out. They swiveled into an 'attack' position as the creature moved-glided really-forward on its four other legs.
Zim growled defiantly even as he shrank back, his own deadly PAK legs looking like smeet's toys compared to the creature's long, vicious-looking weapons.
What happened next, happened almost too fast for even Zim's inhumanly quick ruby eyes. His antennae registered the faint sound of shattering glass far above, then a white and black blur suddenly barreled into view, slamming into the creature, throwing it shrieking over the side of the platform.
Dib let go of the fire hose, slamming boots first into the metal of the platform. For a brief second, he felt a thrill of victory-he made it, all in one piece!-then his full weight followed his feet at an awkward angle, making him stumble, and just as quickly he found himself teetering dangerously, looking down at the broken body of the silver creature-
A cold PAK leg shot out, hooking around his middle and yanking him back. Dib grabbed onto it instinctively to keep himself from falling back the other way, looking over at its source in surprise.
Zim caught his eye and grinned back in a way that would have made ten year old Dib shudder in horror. It made sixteen year old Dib shiver too-but in an entirely different way. Dib felt his face heat up as he jerked away from the ice-cold metal appendage, standing on his own two feet once more.
Zim behaved as if he didn't notice, putting away all four legs as he disconnected a cord from the control panel. The second he did, a shrill alarm similar to the blast of sound that had taken out Dib's communication device went off, accompanied by bursts of white light far above.
Dib's stomach dropped to join the dead silver creature on the floor below. "What did you do, Zim?"
"I did what was necessary, Dib-stink." Zim replied. The coldly proud, almost smug look on the Irken's face was eeriely out of place, but Dib had no time to analyze. The alien blood machine was malfunctioning in the most spectacular way possible, an unseen force tearing it apart from the inside. Cracks were appearing in the celing above, as well as the walls and the machine itself. They had to get out of here, now.
He grabbed Zim's gloved hand, dragging the smaller alien along with with him as he ran down a walkway attached to the platform. At its end was a door, a cold silver door that beckoned to the desperate boy like the gates of heaven itself.
They burst through it, heavenly cool, humidity-free air swirling out to meet them. When Dib hesitated, Zim turned right, pulling impatiently on the hand that still held his in a near-death grip. "This way, Dib-lost."
Dib didn't hesitate to take the alien's direction, nor to burst into another run, pure adrenaline fueling his legs. The machine was at the heart of the building; when it and the room it was in collapsed, the rest of the building would follow like a train of dominoes. If they were inside when that happened, they would be dead meat, along with everything else in the place.
They rounded a corner-and almost ran headfirst into a small knot of Scattermoon's lab creatures. Dib froze, heart jumping into his throat, but his fear was unnecessary. The things seemed confused, deadly, life-sized puppets listlessly waiting for an order from a master they could no longer hear or feel. They just stood there, in the middle of the trembling silver hallway hallway, stiff, completely unaware of the danger. As Dib, with Zim right behind, skirted around them, he almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
A short sprint later, and they hit stairs. The shaking was even worse, and as Dib's foot hit the first step, the shriek of tearing metal rang out through the hall, and cracks began to spiderweb across the ceiling.
Dib gave it his all as he climbed the stairs, but though Zim continued to allow Dib to pull him along, he was slowing them down. His shorter legs were not meant to take stairs at the rate Dib's longer ones were taking them.
The stairs shuddered violently, as a deafening rumble echoed up from below, followed by a crash. The cracks in the walls and ceiling deepened, but unlike in the hallway below, they held.
"Zim, we're running out of time. I've got to carry you." But as Dib bent to scoop him up, Zim growled, making a disgusted face.
"Zim is not weak! Zim does not need to be carried like a smeet by YOU, pit-i-ful HYU-man!"
Dib even managed to roll his eyes. "Shut up, Zim." The smaller alien yelped in surprise as he was scooped up anyway, and, after a second, swung up on Dib's back. The Irken clung to the boy's neck for dear life as Dib continued their desperate charge up the stairs, taking them two at a time, barely feeling the weight of the alien on his back. Behind them, the cracks on the ceiling and floor raced along as more and more stress was put on them. Dib forced himself to ignore it and focus instead on his feet and the square of light above, signaling the freedom and safety of the outside.
The square had grown to the size of one of his hands when all hell broke loose.
A siren shrieked somewhere above, along with a female voice whose words were lost to Dib, drowned out by the siren and another crash below. Zim, however, stiffened on his perch on Dib's back.
"What did she say, Zim?" Dib panted. When the alien didn't answer, he yelled, "What did she say, Zim?"
"A critical malfunction of all vats in Area 6, Dib-deaf!" Zim yelled back, but there was real fear beneath his usual venom and irritation.
Dib's knees went weak as the implications hit home. The chemical vats...He tripped on one of the steps, hitting the next hard with his knees. Before he could recover, there was a sickening crack right above them. Dib cringed, fearing the worst-
Zim sat up, all four PAK legs shooting out to pierce and fling the chunk of ceiling away from them. As Dib stared, three sharp fingers dug into his scalp and yanked hard on his hair.
Zim's voice, several octaves higher than normal, cut through the noise. "Get up, Dib-worthless! Get Zim out of here!"
Dib pushed himself up, and, ignoring his screaming knees, attacked the stairs again, two, sometimes three at a time, Zim now fending off chunks of collapsing ceiling with his PAK legs, until finally, finally the square of light resolved itself into a door. Dib slammed through it, then another, into sweet, clean air and sunlight.
Zim jumped off of Dib's back, looking over his shoulder as he did. "Dib!"
Dib twisted around, just in time to see the entire top half of the building collapse into the bottom half-and to see something bloom out of it, almost in slow motion.
"Get down, Zim!" When the froze alien didn't move, Dib shoved him down, throwing his lankier form over Zim's and curling in on himself.
Seconds after, the shockwaves from both the collapse and the explosion hit, threatening to tear Dib off of Zim. Then came the debris and heat, tiny bits of hot metal, wood and glass bit into Dib's skin, followed by burning heat...then something slammed into the back of his head, and everything went black...
It was over, almost as quickly as it had started. When the Dib didn't move right away, Zim shoved at his chest impatiently. "The Dib-stink can get off of Zim now."
The Dib didn't react. "Dib?" Zim wiggled out from under the boy and pushed him over, onto his back. He rolled over bonelessly, still not reacting. Something close to panic gripped Zim's spooch as he shook the human's shoulders. "Dib?"
Nothing. Was he...? No. A quick check of the human's heart organ told him it was functioning properly. Just unconscious, then. Zim cradled the Dib's head in his hands, telling himself he was just checking for damage. His gloves came away wet with blood.
A choked noise Zim would never admit to making clawed its way out of his throat. Wiping his gloves carefully on Dib's jumpsuit, he called up his communicator from his PAK. But that just made it worse. Jerking his eyes away from the smears of crimson on the once pristine white of the ripped jumpsuit, he shrieked into the communicator, "Gir! Bring the Voot, now!"
"Yes, my master!"
Though there were sirens just behind where Zim sat with Dib, no one saw the small spacecraft appear, nor the slender clawlike apparatus that gently lifted the unconscious boy and the trembling alien into its belly...
...
At Zim's base, Zim had Gir help him settle the almost lifeless boy on the couch. Yanking his eyes away from the too pale face, he snapped, "Computer! Run a complete bioscan on the Dib-human!"
"Okay..." the computer sighed. A red light scanned the human from head to toe. As the computer considered, a sudden wave of dizziness had Zim grabbing the couch. For the first time, he became aware of his own injuries, and just how much power he had used up from his PAK over the past several days...
Finally, the computer rattled off a list of injuries, but Zim only zeroed in on one word: nonfatal. The Dib would live. Zim felt as if a weight had been lifted from him. "Fix the human, computer." His voice came out too small, too weak, but he felt too tired and too numb and too vulnerable to notice.
He crawled onto the couch with the boy and curled up there next to his reassuring warmth, pressing his head against the boy's chest. He grabbed Dib's arm and pulled it over him like the world's thinnest blanket, then let the comforting thumping of the boy's heart organ take him away, his PAK slowing its processes down into rest mode...
A/N: Wow, I think I may have accidentally killed some of you with the ridiculously long wait. Apologies! Darn school didn't give me any time to write. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, and that you haven't completely forgotten about this story :).