Gaz sighed as she came back into Zim's base... she'd gone after Jack, but the newly formed hybrid barked at her to leave her alone for a bit. She knew Jack wasn't mad at her, so it was easy enough to not take it personally.
She looked at Zim...he was stuck in the same spot, staring at the door with a pained expression on his face...There was something that she and Jack had missed here...
She went over to Zim, he had collapsed to his knees on the ground, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. She waved a hand in front of his face and watched as his eyes seemed to shift towards her.
"Zim?"
"Gaz...what...what did Zim do? Jack Lynn...she...she hates Zim."
Gaz looked at him searching...he seemed genuinely lost.
"Zim...can you tell me how you were born?"
"Born?...What of Jac-"
" I promise you this is important. It plays into what just happened with Jack. Im trying to help, but I need you to answer my questions."
Zim looked down at his hands and nodded.
"Zim...was not born. Hatched. In a smeetery...Zim was grown in a suspension chamber...all Irkens have been."
"What was your hatching like? How do you know about it?"
Zim shrugged. " I remember it."
"How...hiw do you remember when you were born?"
" I remember before I was hatched too...but not much...mostly just floating and data downloads...painful without a pak."
He gestured to the thing on his back.
"How was it painful?"
He turned his head to show her a circular scar on the back of his neck.
"Data is downloaded to the brain via the nervous system...Zims pak is connected...but as a smeet, downloads were done with electrode to the spinal cord."
" They electricuted you!? As a feotus?!"
Zim shrugged.
"Yes, that is how it's done...but my smeets will not endure this...they will be protected by their mother's womb. And Zim will protect my smerts and my mate... But Jack Lynn does not want this..."
" Zim...what about when you were hatched? what do you remember?"
"My tube was cracked...like an egg...my nutrient tube tore from my belly, lots of blood...I could not move, my pak was installed... then...nothing. Zim woke up from a big shock. Electricity to activate pak."
" Did you fucking die!?"
Zim shrugged.
"It is done with all smeets."
"But you were a baby!"
" I was...two Earth years old? Maybe four."
Gaz was shocked at this.
"So...have you even ever seen an actual Irken baby?"
Zim shook his head.
"Only time I saw new Irkens was on the conveyor belt we were hatched on...we were sent to new stasis chambers to learn after that...Zim emerged just before maturity to begin physical training."
Gaz sighed...no wonder he didn't know what to feel about babies.
"What about your instincts? What do you feel when you think of a baby Irken?"
Zim shook his head. " Those instincts and urges have been locked away. Dont know what to feel."
Gaz really did pity Zim in this moment...what an awful place to live, this Irk.
"Okay...Zim...Jack is mad because you came off as insensitive...she loves babies, she would never want those things to happen to her children. The way you reacted, it seemed like you thought it was ok."
Zim looked confused.
"It is not ok? Why would they do this then? Its been done for a thousand years."
"Zim...children are little, and defensless...their elders are supposed to protect them, not harm them. They need love and nurturing...it doesn't sound like anyone even took care of you, just stuck you in a tube and pumped you full of data."
Zim digested this a moment...defensless? Little?
"Ive only ever been this size though..."
"Zim...think about it...do you have any knowledge of how your kind breeds?"
"Yes, Zim learned just last night."
"What? Last night? Jesus Zim.." Gaz pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath.." Okay...so you're how old? You've went your whole life not knowing these things?"
"I do not know my age in Earth years... But on Irk I am 27."
" Okay...well that's a thing. Why haven't you ever been taught?"
"No need. Reproductive systems sre all surpressed, we had cloning."
"Okay...that makes sense...sort of...so back to my point...You know about breeding now, yeah?"
Zim nodded.
"Ok, so you know that the babies come out of the female, yes?"
"Yes."
"Ok, good!.. How many babies do Irkens have at once?"
" 6-8"
"Holy shit!...Are they live births."
" Smeets are born in eggs, and the eggs are in a protective sack...Smeets hatch in the eggs then fight their way out of the sack...the strongest survive and are born."
Gaz was struck dumb at that...these Irkens...they were brutal. As far as she was aware only sharks were born like that on Earth.
"Ok, well thats... horrifying...But can you imagine 6-8 babies...your size coming out of Jack? At once!?"
Zim's eyes widened in realization. Gaz nodded.
"Yeah Zim, babies are little...look." She took out her phone and showed him pictures of human babies.
"What is that?"
"That is a human smeet."
"It is...cute? It has no teeth...how does it-'"
" It doesn't. Its defenseless. Its parents must protect it. It can't feed itself, it cant talk, it doesn't know anything. The parents have to care for it, feed it, teach it...Now imagine the things that happened to you happening yo this baby."
Zim looked up at Gaz in horror. His face went pale, closer to Jack Lynn's color. His big eyes went even wider and his antennai shot up and were twitching.
"Gaz...thank you...Zim never knew...I wonder... Computer, show me irken smeets"
"This is all I could find on Irken smeets"
The screen began flipping through horrible images of tiny little baby Irkens in test tubes...wires and tubes jutting out of them.Tens dozens of rows of tubes with smeets floating in them like specimens.
Some videos showed them being "Born" or hatched as Zim put it...their tubes were literally cracked open like eggs, letting the smeets fall out and hang from the umbilical cord and wires until the cord ripped and the tubes and wires pulled out of them...just for them to land in the shattered glass.
Their cries sounded so similar to a newborn baby human...Zim and Gaz watched in horror as the babies squirmed and writhed, screaming in fear and pain...Once on the conveyor belt, they went down to the next step where they were roughly repositioned and forced onto their stomach, their limbs held down by robot arms...Then, the Pak was "installed". A literal drill was used to make two holes in the babies spines...then the pak was brought down, wires writhing out of two holes on the side that would be against the back, and shooting into the babies spine. Most of the smeets were dead at this point, their tiny limp bodies jostled around like rag dolls...
Then they were electricuted and revived...Before they could get another cry out, wires attatched themselves to the pak. Suddenly, the smeet would stop crying and go limp. They were dropped back onto the belt and put through a scanner...The scanner would process, something in Zim's language would be shown, and the smeets were tossed into different containers...funnels...leading to vaccune tubes...thats how they sorted them...
"Zim...this...this is horrible."
Gaz turned to see Zim crying. Light purple tinted tears ran down his cheeks as he stared open mouthed at the screen.
"They... they're so small..."
Gaz put a hand on his shoulder, not knowing how else yo offer comfort. Suddenly, Zim pointed at the screen.
"That... that's me."
Shocked, Gaz turned to look where Zim was pointing...did he know by the label on the tube?
"Computer, show smeet Zim."
The screen changed, and showed a smeet in one of the tubes, what had to be medic Irkens talking about him in their language. The little guy was awake, and crying, reaching out towards them from behind the glass.
"Zim...what are they saying?"
Zim looked pained, and angry.
"Computer, translate for Gaz."
The video was now dubbed in English and Gaz felt like she'd been ounched in the gut.
"Why is it doing that? why is it so alert all of the time. Its always wanting attention." " Its defective, it should be incinerated." "We cant, its a clone of General Zig. We just have to hope for the best. Zap it again and put it to sleep. I hate it when it looks at me."
Gaz winced as she saw baby Zim electrocuted until he was unconscious...he was so small...he looked like he would barley be more than she could hold in her two hands. His skin was lighter but still a pretty green...like easter grass...his tiny hands and feet, hos little antennai...those big glossy red eyes...he even had a chubby little baby belly and cheeks...How could they be so evil!?
Zim skipped to his hatching...He was wide awake before being cracked open, he clung in fear to his cords, trying to hold himself up from falling...but he was just a baby, his head was still too heavy for his little body. The machine arms began shaking him, trying to get him loose...when that didn't work, another came in view and tried pulling and prying him off...then hitting him!...when that didn't work, he was zapped.
He hung from his cords screaming until they ripped out, and he fell with a wet thud into the broken glass. His cries became sharper as he writhed in the glass...making scraping noises as his dark green blood pooled under him. Gaz watched thw hole ugly process until Zim was being electrocuted to be revived...Covered in bruises and cuts at this point, a shard of glass sticking out of his cheek...The tiny baby sat up, and hugged the arm that had just electrocuted him...and it zapped him again.
From there, the poor thing was scanned...Zim read the label it gave him.
"Defective"
Gaz watched as Zim wasn't thrown into a funnel...but into a container full of dead babies...zim crying on top of their bodies.
Zim shut off the screen and burried his head between his knees in the fetal position...Gaz hugged him as they both cried...her silently, and Zim with heavy, loud sobs.