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Chapter Four: Midnight Thoughts

After allying with Dib, the days became very repetitive and monotonous. Most days, Zim would go to Skool for about six hours, while I would stay behind and examine his latest evil plan for vulnerabilities. Every afternoon, he would return home—well, I should just call it "the base," for that freaky house was certainly not a home—and try to initiate the plan. Then, Dib would come in and stop it, and I would help in some way or another, usually by tampering with equipment or ignoring any duties that Zim assigned me. However, during the sweet six hours Zim was out of my life every day, I became accustomed to doing a lot of thinking…

Which, when I reflect on it, probably was not the greatest idea. Whenever I was bored or had grown tired of studying Zim's plans for flaws, I would sit on the pink living room couch, lean my head back against the soft cushions, and sink into my own thoughts. The main theme of these was my sadness, of course. As I said earlier, in the beginning, I did not consider myself to be depressed. However, after a year or so of living with my "condition"—I think I will call it that from now on, for I did not simply feel sad, but rather I lived in sadness—I finally realized that it was truly depression. Anyways, whenever I had these "thought sessions," this overwhelming wave of anguish washed over me, and I quickly found myself drowning in it. My only life preserver seemed to be questioning this feeling. I would wonder why I felt this sadness, and where it had come from.

"Why was I born sad? Can one really be born sad? No, one cannot. But I was not born."

By asking myself these questions, I felt like I was undermining my condition. This usually helped me push the tide out, making the waves much more manageable. However, there was always one question that I could never get out of my head. It was the question that I could never truly dismiss. It was the question that threatened my existence. It was the question that I wanted the answer to the most; yet all along, I had known the answer—I just had not wanted to admit it.

How do I fix myself?

It took me seven years to realize it, but now I know—I was never broken. And you cannot fix something that is not broken. Then again, you cannot always fix something that is

broken….

There was one other thought that roamed around my head every once in a while that I could not ignore. It usually came in a quick flash. It would race across my mind, this fleeting presence. Then it would rush away again, as if standing in the center of my mind for too long would poison it, just as it seemed to do to my other thoughts. This thought was, dare I say, beautiful, and it was the only one that ever got me the closest to happiness. I could never quite feel it fully within myself, no matter how hard I tried. Nonetheless, I knew it was supposed to make me feel happy. I knew it was a good thing.

This thought was Gaz.

Gaz was—well, I guess she still is—the younger sister of Dib. But she was not important to me because she was the sister of my ally. She was important to me because she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She had gorgeous, short hair, with lovely bangs that almost appeared

spiky. Her hair was a deep purple, and it always made me think of the word "midnight" when I saw it. Her hair represented her personality quite well, as did her signature skull necklace. She was a twisted, scary, almost sadistic girl. She hated humanity and the Earth; also, she did not seem to care about alien invasions or even the prospect of impending doom. All she cared about were video games.

The irony of the whole situation was unbelievable. I had fallen for a girl who was very similar to the master that I hated. But, that is life for you—it likes to mess with your mind. Especially mine.

As I am sure you could guess, I met Gaz through Dib. He had been, once again, trying to sneak into Zim's base. However, Zim had captured him and teleported him into our space station—well, I should say Zim's space station. I was just allowed inside of it. Anyways, Gaz had come over to the base to get Dib so she could go out for pizza. RoboMom answered the door for her, but Gaz was impatient. She pushed the robot back into the house and walked in. I was sitting on the couch when she arrived, pretending to be guarding the house like Zim had instructed me to do. Even though I was not supposed to let anyone in, I could not destroy her, for Gaz was not just anyone. I fell for her the moment I saw her. Those gorgeous purple locks, her arresting brown eyes. My breath was taken away by her—if I actually breathed, that is. Nonetheless, even if I had not fallen in love with this intruder, when do I ever do what Zim tells me to?

She demanded to know where her brother was. I lead her right to him, or rather to the teleporter which would take her to where he was. On the entire elevator ride down to the machine, I had been sneaking glances at Gaz. I tried to be discreet about it, but I failed miserably. Every time I looked at her, my eyes would get big, my mouth would curve upwards into a big smile, and I would let out a sigh of admiration. While most girls would have been flattered, Gaz was angered by my actions, and every time I did it, she would give me death glares whilst growling at me. But I did not care. She was too gorgeous and lovely and perfect for me not to stare.

And then she was gone. Once the elevator reached its destination, she immediately demanded to know which teleporter her brother and my master had gone through. I told her, not wanting to make her even angrier by withholding this information. Then she teleported out of sight.

I hardly saw her after that. There was only one other encounter between us during my first year on Earth, but it was by far our best meeting ever. She was in the base, as Zim had brought both her and Dib there to help him stop his enemy Tak from destroying Earth. He and my ally had headed out to Tak's base, leaving Gaz and me here. She was dreadfully bored, especially since we did not have any video games in the base; so, she reluctantly agreed to help us save the world. While I am sure she would have preferred to have seen the Earth destroyed, I like to think this was a moment where, for just a few minutes, I got to see the humanity in her.

Anyways, she and the base's computer devised a plan to remotely control Tak's SIR unit Mimi, using me as the controller. I was delegated this job since I was also a SIR unit, even if I refused to identify myself as such. Let us just say that I was chosen because I was "special." Nonetheless, as I pondered what I should make Mimi do, an idea came into my head. It was a powerful idea, or, rather, it was an idea that represented power. For once in my life, I could have control over something other than the unraveling of Zim's plots. For once in my life, I could do something to make myself genuinely happy. For once in my life, I felt like the master, not the slave.

As I considered my idea, Gaz demanded that I start doing things. As I looked up at her, another idea came into my head. Perhaps I had more than one chance at gaining power today. And I was determined to seize as many of them as I could.

"Only if you dance with me!"

Now, forcing someone to dance with you does not seem like a very powerful demand; in fact, it seems rather juvenile and silly. However, a dance was the way to make some sort of weird progression in my "relationship" with Gaz, while also messing with Mimi. Gaz naturally refused my request, but once she realized my persistence, she caved. She knew I was a key part in the plan that she and computer had come up with. She needed me—I suppose that that in and of itself was power. Just this once, being a SIR unit was beneficial to my well-being.

Gaz was not so much as dancing as jerking her limbs in different directions. It honestly looked rather painful to me, but she never complained about feeling any pain. But really, what fool would belief that Gaz would ever show signs of weakness? Anyways, after a while, the thoughts in my head of her and me, together, took over my mind. I could not control them, I could not shut them down. These were the waves that I could not push out. All I could do was let them wash over me, and, as it turned out, drown me.

In the "heat of the moment," as humans say, I kissed Gaz. I thought it would be more like the movies—romantic, sweet, warm, passionate; yet it was none if those things. I was a robot, and a robot kissing a human was never going to feel the same as a human kissing another human. I look back on it and feel foolish; but at the same time, I do not regret it. It may not have been what my expectations led me to desire, but it was still wonderful.

It only lasted for a few seconds, but Gaz acted like those were the worst seconds of her life. She quickly pried my small hands off of her face, then shoved me as far away from her as she could. And then she ran.

I would not see her again for nearly a year.

Was it worth it: a small, meaningless, cold, uncaring kiss, for the loss of any chance at a relationship with her? Not that I ever really had a chance, but all the power I had had that night— controlling someone else's body, whether it be Mimi or Gaz's—had gotten to my head. I had felt invincible. Even now, I still retain a bit of that feeling. Gaz showed me the beauty of being in control. Perhaps I thought maybe, now that I know what control feels like, I could use it in my fight against my condition. And perhaps that is why I held on for as long as I did.

These were the better encounters that I had with Gaz. The later ones were much less successful, and not nearly as "nice" as these. Nonetheless, I never stopped loving Gaz. I loved her from the second I saw her all the way until my final day. In the end, the thought of seeing her one more time was one of the main things keeping me alive. I wonder why I did not think about her the day I left...