Debacle R Chapter 3: Price to Play, an invader zim fanfic

Debacle (R)

Summary:

All his life Dib has wanted to capture Zim and gain the victory and fame he always wanted. When his wish comes true however, not everything falls so comfortably into place.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

Warnings:

Dark themes, psychological issues and angst throughout.

Chapter 2: Price to Play

Behind him came the eternal clicking and clacking of a clock tacked to the topmost part of the featureless wall. It was the only furnishing in the spaces of white and grey, save for the metal contraption he was strapped to, the dark windows looking into his world, and the wearisome, primeval machine blipping and bleeping at his side.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Blip bleep.

He wearily opened his eyes, bony limbs sporadically shivering or rattling from the airy coolness that kept brushing over his skin. Reaffirming the blank walls and the blank blemishes of the observation screens put new cracks and dents in his otherwise fragile armour. They had all gone home, unless the screen was purposely darkened so that he could not see who remained, watching.

The surveillance camera was the only other deviation in the room's plain and intimidating vacuity. It stared back with its little green light, its black lens filled with his anxious stare.

There was a plate of venting high up on each wall, and before him was the door that had frequently spilled out men in hazmat suits with their cryptic tools. His eyes compulsively settled on the shiny steel door as he speculated on what might be on the other side of it, and how far freedom might be. It might be just on the other side, or down a corridor with nothing else in his way.

He really needed to pee.

The invader looked dubiously to the ceiling looming down from above, as if half expecting the Armada to come blasting through it and pull him out.

Lean, pale green toes and claws flexed in the cool, ventilated air, the lack of fabric pressing around the digits an unwelcome and unfamiliar sensation.

Trying to squeeze his wrists out of the restraints offered the same consequences as before: his hands simultaneously burning and tingling from his previous efforts, the rub marks having darkened with bloody stains, the flesh breaking and peeling as the skin came away. His claws prickled from the lack of circulation and his feet were alternatively numb, cold or fiery with tingles and sparks.

He glanced down to re-acknowledge the white plastic tag secured around his ankle, encoded with a registration number and the lab name 'A01,' and for twenty minutes he rattled and twisted and beat himself against the bonds, causing the metal of the chair-platform to shake and creak. The PAK clunked and whirred with equal protesting.

Breathing hard, sweat forming and then dripping down his pointed chin and pinched forehead, he remained in that lastingly uncomfortable position with legs slightly spread apart. Trying to bend forwards against the nylon strap to escape the cramp of sitting in one place for so long did nothing to relieve the agony. The only thing that broke the monotonous pain was the occasional spurt of shivering.

Tick tock clacked the clock.

Blip bleep went the monitoring machine.

His antennae could only listen to the reaching silence beyond these irritating rhythms, save for the wish-washing hum of his PAK and the steady, cold breath of the ventilation. The room stank of his sweat, air purification, and the synthetic coldness of all things manmade.

Hard, shiny eyes of fuchsia settled on the camera and its blinking green light.

From the darkest prescient, he could feel them watching behind the dark glass, like one could feel a bad dream on the rise.

Events prior to his capture flashed to the forefront of his mind when there was very little else to dwell on, and he strained against the cuffs with renewed desperation as pain shot up and down his arms. Rivulets of dark bottle green dripped down the steel pointed armrest to its holding strut, and then to the metal seat beneath. Dabs of green were simultaneously flecked or dotted on his skinny thighs, the pale silvery floor and the screen of the monitoring unit.

Since the chair/table/thing was bolted to the floor, no amount of struggling or thrashing could unearth it from its central point, but this never stopped him from trying.

"Get me out of here! I command you! Any of you! You'll rue the day! I'll... I'll get you all for this! Even if it means coming to every little house or privy or whatever it is you call homes..."

Zim rattled to a stop, chest toiling with hard, thirsty breaths, oily sweat coating his skull and the skin of his collarbone.

His mind would sooner suppurate from tedium at this rate. Sitting here for hours was enough of a torture when he thrived on mental stimulation and activity.

His bladder was going to burst, but letting go, and fouling the seat he was cuffed to was more appalling.

Being dethroned of his uniform was perhaps the next greatest loss after capture. It removed him of all dignity and distinction, dissolving his honour with the immediate removal of his belongings - belongings that signified strength as much as integrity. Without them he felt significantly smaller and significantly more vulnerable. He had always gone to great lengths to make sure he looked his best. It was a part of him, it exemplified him... and now…

He grunted, trying to shift over to get comfortable, and couldn't. He felt the warmth budding between his legs.

Please, no! No!

He could not bring his knee any closer to hold it in no more than he could hide the atrocity of the act. Dark yellow swelled between his loins before it ran off the seat and down the metal legs to the floor. He squeaked, staring at the amber liquid as it continued to swell and pool and run, suffusing the air with the strong stink of ammonia.

The escaping liquid was hot against the icy coolness of his thighs, and this embarrassment made warm flushes rise beneath his glassy eyes. Drip by drip, amber liquid trickled off the sharp edge, intermingling with the tick tocking of the wall clock and the blip blipping of the little computer monitor.

-x-

He woke with a start; eyes flying open when he felt something heavy and solid land on his chest. His mind scrabbled to the fore, believing that Zim had broken out and had finally come for him.

Shiny, inquisitive cyan circles looked back from the dark, and the little robot put a hand to its mouth to try and suppress the giggles.

Dib propped himself up on his elbows, scythe of hair coming to dangle before his eyes as he took a breath. "Am I still dreaming?" He ran a hand over his eyes and face, feeling the sweat there.

"I guess so." Came the gentle sing-song voice of the robot.

He reached for his glasses on the bedside drawer and slipped them on.

Gir lifted a hand in a wave. "Morning!" He chirped.

Dib begrudgingly looked to the bedside clock to confirm the accuracy of the robot's announcement. It was morning, by insomniac standards. It was three o'clock.

"You're not supposed to be here." He stared, blinking, wide eyed at the apparition.

Gir just continued smiling as if there was nothing abnormal or significant about his visit. Dib barrelled him aside by tossing back the covers and leapt to the window, parting the curtains with a jerk. The roads were deceptively quiet and empty, vacant of sirens and cop cars, though he half believed they were on their way, and would surround the house given enough time.

He turned to see the robot watching him from the bedcovers that had fallen over his head. "You gotta go back! No one can see you, understand! I don't want you here!"

"Why?"

"Just go away! Go back to wherever you came from!"

"Can I stay with you?"

"What? No! You can't!" He reluctantly turned from the window, ears tuned to the sirens he was certain he'd hear. He flung his arms wide, hoping to intimidate and herd out the stubborn robot from his domicile. Gir only laughed that tinny, joyful laugh, and clapped his hands as if he was watching a theatrical spectacle put on especially for him. "You think this is funny, do you?" He took the robot's slim and surprisingly warm hand in his and helped to encourage him down from the bed. Gir hit the floor with a bit of a thud but then happily followed the human as Dib led him across the dark landing and down the stairs.

He slid back the bolts, unlocked the door and opened it to a cold and starless night. Without any fanfare he pushed Gir out onto the porch and slammed the door shut, sliding back the bolts and locks before trudging up the stairs with a hand anchoring him to the banister rail. He worked his way to the top, feet shuffling forwards, and when he entered his bedroom, Gir was waiting on the bed with that same sunny smile.

"What? But how did...?" His eyes flashed to the open window.

"Your bed is very bouncy!" And he started to jump up and down it, his metal weight causing the springs and wood of the bed to violently creak and squeak.

"No! Stop that! You'll break it!"

Gir stopped, coming to land with a final plonk.

"I don't want you here, understand? Do you want to get captured and torn apart?"

The roboparents were currently being cut up and broken down into categorical lumps and parts. Though they had started to break down anyway over the years, with Zim depending on them less and less, they had still erupted from their side-rooms like sentries and attacked the investigation team. Russ ended up with a fractured arm, and Gus had been upended to lie, dazed and concussed, but Carlson had pushed forwards and filled both the robots with lead. Robo-mom still gave that ghastly smile even with her head split open to emit sparks and wires, her voice box giving the same sermon on a loop: "By Golly, what a mess! Better fix you upppp!" Until Carlson shot the cord in the drone's neck, severing the head from the body to finally shut it up.

"Like on TV?"

"No, not like..." He stopped, pawing around his glasses to massage his overly tired eyes. Then he gave the robot's succinct statement a second thought. What had he seen being broadcasted on the numerous computer screens down below in a lair still humming with alien activity? Dib drew his hand away. Maybe Gir had been sitting watching the usual humdrum of cartoons, and was none the wiser. It was a mistake to expect anything from him.

Gir pulled out a weapon from somewhere behind him like magic. "What's this?"

Dib watched, the colour draining from his cheeks as he watched the little robot wave it up and down in one hand. It was a beautiful weapon of black and white, the alloys and carbon a deep, pulsing blue that wavered and rippled like the shadowy waves of the ocean. Its muzzle was blackened by the fusion it had blown out.

"Gir! Drop it!"

Gir obeyed instantly, and dropped the weapon to the bed sheets. Perhaps his obedience was no fluke, and that Zim had invented some sort of fail-safe command should the robot pick up something harmful or hazardous.

He came over and swiped it before the robot had second thoughts, but it was a weight he wasn't ready for. The fusion weapon was salvation, something to safely hide behind; a tool to condemn the threat and end his misery and break the chain. It had also become an icon of capabilities, endings and dark roads he hadn't fully seen to comprehend.

The weapon was too heavy to be held one handed. He remembered fighting against steel webs to snatch it, and the sudden, delirious feeling when he had clawed at it with sweaty hands; he remembered the taste of power when he had finally swung it round to face his enemy.

He deposited it away in a drawer, throwing out clothes to make it fit, and then throwing clothes on top of it to hide it. But the effort of rushing to acquire the gun from a deranged childlike robot had caused the pain to resurface, and he clutched at his side. Hiding it to an almost automatic degree had been nothing short of unbearable. There was nothing mendacious in revealing it, and he could have gone to his father, or even to Dr. Williams to have them treat it, but he was also aware of Carlson's all-seeing eyes, and what he might think of the PAK-incurred injury, and what he might do. Perhaps Carlson might cast him into a room too, and examine him for ways that might benefit and strengthen the military.

Survivalist's paranoia overrode his pragmatism sometimes, but after long tireless years trying to outlive and outlast a battle-hungry alien monster, his wary suspicions overruled him, even now.

"You're leaking." Exclaimed the robot.

Dib looked down to where the robot was pointing. Crimson had appeared as dots on the carpet at his feet, and as he watched, more droplets appeared. Cursing, he threw off his flannel pj top to see the bright scarlet that was slowly saturating the layers of gauze.

Turning his back on Gir and leaving his blood-spotted top on the carpet, he hurried to the bathroom and ripped a towel off the rack to wrap around his midsection. His bare foot connected with a porcelain soap dish that had fallen during the fight and it bounced across the tiled flooring.

He knelt on the floor, holding the towel to the injury, staring without seeing.

He heard the tinny chimes of metal feet and slowly turned to see Gir standing in the doorway, looking in on him with something that could have been worry. His appearance was still something of a surprise – an alien construct peering around his very ordinary home.

"You know you can't stay here, Gir. I can't hide you."

The robot opened his chassis and presented the saggy and wrinkly green doggie outfit. As if defying Dib's assertions, he stepped into it, zipping up the suit. The dog's mix-matched eyes stared woefully back at him.

-x-

porcelain soap dish that had fallen during the fight and it bounced across the tiled flooring.

He knelt on the floor, holding the towel to the injury, staring without seeing.

"You know you can't stay here, Gir. I can't hide you."

"The bone structure is surprisingly normal." Dr. Williams stood before his small group of colleagues before a screen, the projector throwing the alien's torso x-ray on the whiteboard. They were the privileged first to be looking inside the creature besides Dib who had used field tools at the time, but they did not act terribly privileged or even that fascinated. They interrupted him at every opportunity, with some of them theorizing idiotic fantasies of their own. Williams would point with his accompanying ruler and re-direct their attention to a specific feature or noteworthy attribute to the creature's unusual structure time and time again before another banal question would interrupt him. "The subject appears to have a strong singular tibia without the supporting fibula, as if evolution or selective development has refined its skeletal composition. It has fewer ribs, as if we are looking at a minimalist's approach to bone structure. We have a pelvis, we have the humerus and radius but again without the ulna. The vertebrae and skull are similar to ours, but the bone density remains an anomaly until we do a biopsy."

Some of the scientists leaned forward a little in their seats; others hung back, still making up their minds.

"See here, and here?" Williams slapped the point of his ruler at specific places. "Obvious signs of injury and repair. The bone hasn't fused so smoothly or perfectly, allowing bumps to form. This creature may heal successfully upon injury, perhaps faster than we can, as Dib claims, but the scarring remains of past traumas." He hit the button for the projector and another image flashed forward. "The sternum has been broken in two different places. The site of injury has fused, but the line where the cracks appear remains." He hit the button again. "Take a look at the spine. Here we can see two large vertical holes in the thoracic and lumbar column. There are slight deviations in the bone formation as protrusions around the site. This could be an abnormality, an evolutionary trait, or the body's accumulative response to the machine welded there. It might even have been manufactured for the machine…."

As per usual, Torrent interrupted as if he could not wait a millisecond for his turn to speak. "What about its little clothes? Was there anything useful in its personal affects?"

"Well, there was an item in its glove." Williams turned to look at him, lifting his lip in an annoyed grimace.

"Fucking gloves! It wears fucking gloves and booties! I can't believe...!" Torrent stopped in mid-sentence when he saw Williams watching him coolly.

"We have put the articles of clothing in a containment room for further study." He said for the benefit of the others who had yet to learn this. "As for the item found, it was a pink marble."

"Have you scanned it for weaponry?" Carlson had refrained from sitting down during the session, and had his hands working into the backrest of the chair before him. His hands looked like the old, calloused talons of a vulture.

"It's a plain, common marble, most likely from an ordinary toy store." Williams said in the chance this would end the discussion about the marble in its entirety.

"And the clothing itself? Anything unusual?" Carlson's eyes sunk into his like daggers. Wherever Williams went, he could not escape his insatiable and hungry scrutiny.

"It was stretchy. And warm, like thermals." He answered, "And hardy, quite tough to damage. Torrent here tried to poke a needle through the material. The needle couldn't penetrate it." He presented them with a short video of the scientists Ben and Rick holding up the tiny pink attire and examining it as if it was some strange and cryptic archaeological artefact. Giving them a few more moments to take in the video, Williams clicked it off.

"And this... marble? What did A01 intend to do with it?" Clapped the abrasive voice of the sergeant.

"Why don't you ask it?" Williams said, retaining that patient smile, ruler poised, ready to continue.

Then Ben started. "I can't believe it! We have a real alien! I never would have thought...!"

"Oh, it's quite certain we have something authentic, yes," Williams replied mildly, "although the term 'alien' is up for debate. What is an alien, Torrent?" He winced a second later, wishing he hadn't asked him of all people to elaborate.

"Something that flies around in flying saucers." Came his first-rate answer.

There was a hoot of laughter from the others. Williams ignored them and continued in his mild and patient voice, "An 'alien' is a creature that is foreign to our world. Its basic compounds may be different, such as its biological nature and behaviour. It's all to do with genetics, Torrent: something that has had to live under a different sun, on a different planet, with a different atmosphere and a different food chain. That is an alien by definition and not by ambiguity."

"Whatever." Torrent said, arms folded.

Carlson was meanwhile looking at the images of the subject's interior with a studious and disgruntled air, his lower lip poking out. Lately he had been given to sucking on cocktail sticks, much to the annoyance of the others.

The insides of the 'alien' looked much more ordinary than they had been expecting, and the sergeant had hoped to see something a little less ordinary than blood, bones and organs.

Torrent said to no one in particular. "Professor Membrane's son has been dealing with this 'thing' all these years! Who knows if it stayed in any one location, and didn't spawn eggs somewhere?"

"Just remove that PAK device from the creature!" Cut in Carlson.

"Yes, but how is it attached? And why? Is it an enhancement? An integral cybergenetic implant?" Conferred Williams.

The door burst wide, and the scientists jumped from their seats. "Forgive me! I am late!" Called the professor, swinging the door at his heels so that it explosively slammed shut behind him. "I hope I did not disturb you all! Continue, Doctor Williams!" He chose a chair near the back row and made a fuss getting into it.

"Yes, thank you professor for joining us. We're just going over the x-rays we've taken earlier today. We managed to scan its soft tissue too."

"It squealed." Torrent nudged Ben beside him. "As if the MRI was going to attack it."

"Torrent, please." Williams sighed, looking less composed and more frazzled every time his inferior had to interrupt or throw out an incompetent comment or two. "We're all excited and nervous respectively. This is a historic event that people will talk about for years to come, but it is not the arrival or the 'knowing' of the alien that should captivate us. It's what we can learn from it. Now." He clicked a button, and the projector threw up a new image of the alien's internal organs. "What we see is a slight aberration of biological formation. The subject has a heart, two lungs, and what appears to be a stomach and intestines. But there seems to be no liver, no spleen, no pancreas or kidneys."

"Where's the penis?"

Williams let out another angry sigh. "Torrent."

"I'm serious!" His remark earned a few additional giggles from his peers. "How do we know if the thing's even 'male?' You've all seen the slit between its legs, right?"

"What if it has laid eggs all over the city?" Ben looked pale.

"Please! You're all being very childish!" Williams lowered the ruler, looking from one unruly scientist to the next while Carlson stood amongst them, sucking on his cocktail stick. "You should all be apologizing to the professor and the sergeant for your behaviour, especially you Torrent! We are under a lot of pressure to exact results," before Carlson decides to bulldoze the place, "and you are not helping!"

"Sorry." Torrent said, pretending to look sheepish.

"It's quite alright." The professor wasn't even paying attention, and ignored the screen of A01's internals that would otherwise have made a xenologist's jaw drop. He was busy adjusting and flattening out the remotest of wrinkles on his labcoat sleeve before assessing his digital watch for the twentieth time.

"As for the blood sample," Dr. Williams continued, trying to regain their attention by holding up a very tiny vial of sloshing green, "We'll need to extract as many of these samples as we can, preferably before the next few trials. So far as we know, this creature isn't carrying any diseases known to us, but the computer is still crunching on data, and I suspect more will be revealed to us in time."

"What about this piece of hardware?" Carlson spat out his soggy and chewed cocktail stick and replaced it for a new one. "It's a ticking time bomb for all we know!"

"That still remains our greatest unknown variable. Professor?"

The man looked up suddenly as if he wasn't part of the discussion. "Oh yes! Of course!" He stood up to address the assemblage of men in fellow white coats. He hit a near-seamless button within the material of his collar and a three dimensional image popped up before them. It was the blurry image of the PAK the giant MRI had taken. All you could see was a metal oval dome, but the edges were fuzzy, including the main structure. Nothing was revealed inside, as opposed to the labyrinths of data visually exposed from any other machine or device that was scanned in the same way. "See here? The strange metal casing seems to protect it from the imaging devices, as though it is shielding the interior from external tampering! I am not surprised. This is something truly sophisticated!"

During the session, Carlson's expression had hardly changed, but now he looked up, one eye widening slightly, his bushy greyish eyebrows curving into a wedged formation.

The professor hit his invisible button and the blurry image of the PAK disappeared. "We are the pioneers of delving into the constitution of something truly alien for the first time in history! And it might just be our one and only opportunity! I suggest we focus more on simply studying it, and learn what it has to teach us! Cracking it open may spell doom for us all! Or nothing at all!"

There was no round of applause. They merely looked at the esteemed professor with something bordering on apathy. "You do realize there's an Armada coming, don't you?" Carlson spat out his cocktail stick. His eyes flickered to Williams even though he was addressing the professor. "Who knows how long we have until more of these... things... arrive. The military must be ready to defend humanity!"

"But this is a living creature."

"Just whose side are you on?" Carlson spat at the professor, causing the other colleagues to flinch.

"The side of science!" The professor spoke with that same easy and casual tone. He didn't step down, or even flinch. "You may have jurisdiction over our funding and resources; and you may even use brute force if it comes to it! But what you don't have is us! You can take Zim away, but if you do, you'll have no one qualified to study him!"

No one spoke in the growing silence. Carlson was suddenly beetroot red in the neck and cheeks, his mouth opening and closing like a fish that had ended up on dry land. His fists were clenching, his knuckles whiter than ice.

"Gentlemen." Dr. Williams stepped forwards, his soft voice doing little to break the ice that had so suddenly formed, but his voice at least seemed to torpedo and henceforth shatter Carlson's rising aggression, and what he might have done in that moment. "Read over Dib Membrane's files again. You never know. We might find something that'll help us, come the morning."

At once the men started grabbing their things and quickly leaving through the door. Carlson pushed some of them out of the way as he stormed out, slamming Torrent against the wall of the corridor as he went.