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.
Dib07: Sorry it's been so long, I just wanna say how astonished and over the moon I am by your support, it really encourages me to keep on going. I've had some ups and downs lately, and I know some of you are going through a really tough time right now. I know this story isn't exactly the best place to escape to, but hey, I can try and entertain you for as long as you'll let me! And if you'd like updates, please review! I want to know if this story is still being read! I find it hard to post sometimes when I don't know if this content is any good. Anyways, please enjoy!
guest: Yeah, I heard that rumour about FFN too. I've stopped posting so much on this platform, and I am trying to use A03 more instead. I'm glad you're still jumping into FFN to read this, since the ads and site itself dosen't make it easy. Hope this chapter finds you well, and I really hope you enjoy this one!
Anon: Yes, the Zim fandom has gone really quiet, and I guess it's partly because there's no new content like the comics, and that FFN isn't as awesome as it used to be. Thanks for reminding me not to be discouraged by it, luckily I have you all to keep me, and this story, going! I will try to update this on A03 once it's finished! *fingers crossed!*
Frail Illusions
"Someone… call an ambulance!"
"You… you shot him!"
"Dad! Dad look at me! You're gonna be okay!"
"The professor has clearly lost his damn mind! I had to intervene! What kind of a man releases a dangerous organism into the world?! The consequences would have been disastrous! No one would be safe!"
"Dib, put pressure here, don't let go!"
Williams still couldn't believe it. The silence that followed, filling their lives so completely, was suffocating. The panic and delirium went on in his head long afterwards, and whenever he closed his eyes, he could still picture Carlson pointing his gun at the professor.
"Not happening… n-not happening..." Dib's eyes were glazed blank disks, his face and cheeks alabaster white as if he had just been pulled out of a freezing ocean. When the ambulance arrived, Torrent and Williams had to hold Dib back between them. "Please! Let go of me! I need to be with him!"
"Easy, Dib. They know what they're doing. He'll be okay."
"Where are they taking him? Let me go!"
It was too painful to say to him there and then that criminal allegations would be charged, whether the professor lived or died, but there was something in Dib's wild behaviour that made him keep his arms around him.
Membrane seemed to have transformed as he lay there on the stone cold floor, face down. He was no longer the indomitable force and iconic totem of control and order. He didn't stir, even when Edward checked his vital signs. The ambulance arrived, and studious paramedics stowed him onto a stretcher. Membrane didn't look much like Membrane anymore. His goggles had cracked in the fall, and the large voluminous breathing mask over his face was unsettling. He was then stowed away into the back of the ambulance, reminding Williams of a coffin snugly fitting into the back of a hearse.
"But… but we saw smoke coming out from the side of the building…" Torrent stared emptily, looking about as unplugged as Williams felt.
"There was no fire." He spoke in numbed autopilot, his senses about as absent as his mental capacities. "The professor caused a distraction using a smoke generator… it wouldn't have taken much to disguise a disaster…"
"Jesus..." Was Torrent's summation. "He nearly managed to hurry everyone out the building… and almost released the alien. But why? Why would he do this?""
That seemed to be the ongoing question everyone was asking. The professor could be cold to the point of indifference when it came to the indemnity of scientific territory, but being reckless was not in his nature, or his code.
"He'll live, right?"
"We need to wait for answers, Torrent. I'm sure he'll be fine." He said that to calm him down, and anyone else who asked, when he had clearly seen where the bullet had entered Membrane's chest.
"Was Carlson right? I mean… should he have done that? Was he trying to protect us?"
"I cannot say…" He felt more than a little cowardly when he didn't know what to say, that taking sides was as dangerous as it was stupid.
Carlson left one of his orderlies in charge to oversee the procedure, while the man himself had gone to transfer the alien back into its pen. The police would soon be swarming the area, but the doctor had a feeling the story would be fabricated to keep the alien out of speculation.
When the ambulance had taken his father away, Dib had leaned bonelessly against the wall, rocking himself back and forth like a small child. He looked spaced out, frazzled even, as if his brain had simply imploded.
Williams was not very good at reassuring people, or being particularly sympathetic. He had spent too long studying the structure of the cardiovascular system, biological compounds and their chemical transitions. The irony was not lost on him that he was proficient in cardiology, yet still did not know how to truly care and love in the human sense.
"He's going to be okay, Dib. I'll find out which hospital they've taken him to, I promise." It was very likely Dib couldn't even hear what Williams was saying. His skin was porcelain white, and he would rattle continually. The doctor pulled off his white coat and laid it over his shuddering shoulders. "Let's find you someplace warm, where you can sit down."
"Don't touch me!" He swatted Williams away, mouth pulling into a leer. "You were in on it! You all were!"
"You think we had a hand in any of this, kid?" Torrent snapped.
Dib's eyes flashed, tears rolling down his chin. He came forwards suddenly, about to take a swing at him, when he staggered, head falling forwards. Williams managed to catch him before he hit the floor. Between them they managed to bring Dib into a vacant room, sit him on a bed and remove his boots and jacket before bundling him up in thick, woollen blankets.
Torrent, with sweat still running down his beet-red face, scratched at the back of his neck, his ear drums still ringing from the head-splitting alarms, and the gunshot. "The professor must've hijacked the system, and rigged the cameras…"
Williams couldn't believe it, either. What a way to burn your future to cinders... "Would you please be quiet, Torrent? Can't you see that the poor boy is in shock?"
Torrent looked down at Dib's blank face with less concern and more suspicion. The young man's amber eyes were wide with pain, and his bloodied fingers had become claws as they dug into his shoulders beneath the blankets. He pressed himself into a ball, shivering with cold as he mindlessly muttered and moaned.
Surely the professor's own son would have known if he was keeping something from the rest of them.
Someone needed to tell Gaz, his slightly unstable sister, what had happened, and he wasn't going to volunteer.
Dib's shoulders heaved as more wretched sounds spilled out of him. Williams was there at his side. "Easy, Dib. They'll do all they can for him. You know they will. It'll be okay."
Torrent wondered if that was what he said to all his patients right before he anaesthetised them for surgery, regardless of the outcome.
Williams offered Dib a cup of water, and in the other hand a little paper cup containing two blue pills. "Here. Just a little something to take the edge off."
Dib took them in that same mindless, unhinged way, swallowing them down with water. They watched him begin to drift off, his look of lunacy less apparent as sleepiness replaced the haggard eyes of the insane.
-x-
Williams made his way back down to the basement to see strangers dressed in official uniform snapping shots of the scene with their cameras. About half a dozen cops stood around various 'tagged' areas, talking leisurely to one another, with none of the panic and tension of earlier. You'd hardly think anything untoward had happened here, minus the blood stains soaking the flagstone floor.
Carlson was overseeing the investigation team with brusque nods and gestures. He had strapped a belt across his thigh as a tourniquet, and only when he walked did the slight limp give the game away.
A detective was taking notes. Carlson was happily providing the details. "Mad bastard tried to steal our animals and research… set off the alarms… spooked the staff… sick stuff."
Williams felt it necessary to step in, and tell the detective what had really happened, before Carlson turned his way, considered his slack-jawed expression, and found it distasteful. Williams paused, and stood there, feeling just as powerless as the animals in their cages. Admitting that Carlson was twisting the story, and that an alien had nearly been set loose into the world would spark something he had no way of controlling. He was a practitioner, happy to be in the driver's seat of an operating theatre, where medicinal innovations were his only jurisdiction. Standing up to Carlson was not in his best interests when he had no idea how much the sergeant could hurt him in kind.
The professor's own words floated into his head. 'One must never get too involved in the subject… or the emotional side of any duty. There is only the job at hand.'
"Doctor." Carlson's eyes flashed. "How's Dib holding up?"
"He's in shock."
"That's understandable, given the professor's betrayal. You weren't in on it, were you?"
"No, of course not."
"Because if you are, or anyone else for that matter, I will find out." The threat was as certain as his cold, cutting smile.
Williams walked away, beginning to wonder why he had even come down here, when his eyes strayed over to the wall and jumble of crates where the 'weasel' had fallen. A young cop, barely looking old enough to drink alcohol, stood by the brick wall, overlooking his notepad. Williams drew closer, trying to appear unconcerned despite the worry threatening to supersede it.
By the wall lay the little weasel. There was no sign of armour, only a normal looking creature with malformed jaws. He jarred to a stop, took a thin, sudden breath, and scooped it into his hands.
The cop watched, a little baffled. "One of your escapees?" He asked.
"Oh, yes." Williams breathed, certain he would be pulled up for questioning.
"Quite the breakout, I hear."
"Oh?"
"You need to use better locks on your cages. If it wasn't for your supervisor," and he flicked his eyes at Carlson, "it would have been pandemonium. I don't think the public have forgotten the last breakout of lab racoons."
Williams slowly nodded. "Yes." What has Carlson been telling them? He wanted to press a little deeper, and ask what Prof. Membrane had been 'involved in,' then thought it better to leave things be.
"I hear you have an 'alien' too." The cop continued, looking no more interested or surprised as if Geneva having a 'real alien' was just too farfetched to be believed. "And that crazy kid Dib captured it. It was all over the news. Is it… true?"
"I must return to my duties." He said, tucking the animal into his arms and hurrying away.
-x-
The flourishing stars bloomed across the welcoming nightscape as he flew in the cocoon of the Voot Runner's warmly lit cabin. A giant of a planet drifted by, its girth encased in a band of swirling and vibrant storms.
He was happy to dote on the notifications whenever they flashed for attention, with Gir irritably nudging his elbow and pointing excitedly at things so ordinary he otherwise would have hardly registered them. "Lookatit! Lookatit! It looks like a horsesie!"
"It's just another nebula, Gir! You must have seen thousands of them by now!"
There was a sudden harsh ticking in the cabin, tick tocking relentlessly through the glowing instrumentation. He knew it somehow, registering some deep fear on a primal level, and wanted it gone as he searched frantically through the notifications and screens for its cause, when the console's screens all began to display the same white-walled rooms and metal doors.
He reached for the controls, the tick tocking wracking him to splinters, when he jerked against a sudden, unforgiving resistance. He was in the woods with winds of snow breathing down from above while he was stuck fast to the iron bracelet steadily working its way to the bone in his leg, the winter snow his blanket, his grave… every struggle making the teeth bite deeper as he helplessly watched Dib's figure slowly disappear behind a silent curtain of snow.
He flew awake, a harrowing scream escaping his chest, the restraints going taut against him. No! Not here! Not again! For wild, frenzied moments he battled in desperation as hopelessness cut deeper. The unremitting claustrophobia was back, as was the stink and nauseating terror. Not here…! I'm not here!
Familiar agonies came to light as he addressed the cradle again, locking him in with its cold teeth and claws that could tip him upside down from the casual whims of a lunatic. With wide, unseeing eyes he inexorably took in the featureless walls of his prison from this forced upright position. His antennae absorbed the abrasive sounds of the clock tick tocking, and precarious blip blop of the nearby monitors and machines. It was as if nothing had happened, that Zephyr and Membrane had been but illusions he had only dreamt of as the fever violently worked its way through him.
His skin felt like mottled, shredded potato peel and his bones felt close to crumbling into finer splinters. His head pounded, as if he had been rammed unapologetically through a meat grinder. He remembered the sprinklers, with Carlson whacking him over the head with some kind of electrified cudgel.
It had happened, right? He hadn't dreamt it. Zeph, that rude little weasel had been right in front of him…
Being stuck and welded to a metal cradle didn't give him the luxury to broaden his quest as to why Zeph and Membrane had seemingly collaborated… though it hadn't been the first time.
He looked down, and wished he hadn't. His legs were in their usual accustomed restraints, (well, almost) with the tag featuring his lab name fitting more loosely around his right ankle, but his left leg was positioned at an angle from the other, and there was an obvious black dotted line drawn across it just below the knee. His eyes watered as panic tore and screamed through him.
For a moment he fell inwards, drawn to the dotted line and nothing else. He took a breath that was almost a sob.
He was a cracked mirror infused with so many tiny fragments that it was impossible to see where all the pieces once fitted.
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, remembering the way Membrane had fallen. Whatever you meant to do, Albert, you're just as foolish as the rest of them…!
Zephyr had looked at him with despondent despair… as if he hardly recognized him…
Two by two they walked into the Ark...
… Why… Why did I help them?
Those FOOLS!
As his vision adjusted, he noticed the long metal table situated before him. There was a suspicious looking jar with suspicious looking black things in it, floating there without flippers or fins. They tapered from end to end, having no other features save for their flat, undulating bodies. The mere sight of them, here, in this room without explanation, caused that awful dread to flood in again, panic bulldozing his restraint. Lying innocuously beside the jar was a long rod with a protrusion on the end. The cattle prod…
He pulled and struggled futilely, anger wrapping him in chains he couldn't break.
I hate them all! Weasels and all their ilk are all so stupid...!
This what you get! You knew they were useless and stupid from the beginning! But you couldn't help yourself, COULD YOU?!
He had come across the weasel, lying in a trap where its leg had got stuck. He had turned to it with disgust, when it was dumb enough to fall into something so blindingly obvious. But when he had turned to leave, it stirred, its ragged voice drawing him to a sudden stop.
'No leave,' it barked in plain tongue, 'help. Please! I do anything.'
He had snapped back round, revolted by its helplessness, its power to do little else but beg.
They're all so pathetic. He thought as he had stared at the crippled, pleading weasel. Where are your weapons? How can you let these humans do this to you?
The humans seemed to hate them at every turn, and Zim could not fathom the reason, only to then see it as an opportunity.
I can use them… I can show them how to defend themselves… it'll give the humans something to worry about while I take over this fucking planet.
Membrane had sat there by the bedside, having that same power over him as he had the weasel. '… do you know what the most underappreciated virtue is, Zim? Why, it's stubbornness! The most successful creatures on Earth are, in essence, stubborn!...'
His eyes drifted helplessly to the things floating in the jar again, and when he tried to see what else was on the table, he noticed a shiny metal square of a cigarette lighter with the embossed American flag. It stood small but proud beside the jar.
He hung his head, eyes closing as his body succumbed to more febrile shakes and spasms. His spooch was a knotted thing, he had long gone past all forms of hunger, with pain a winding, momentous existence.
The door to the outside world had stood open… he had felt the cold wind on his scabby, bruised cheeks, but he had simply stood there, dumbfounded and stupid, like Zephyr in the trap.
Self-control was his only shield now. No amount of shouting or crying or begging would get them to stop. He could only try to endure such predators that had echelons of patience and cruelty.
He could feel a tingling buzz in the back of his skull. The PAK was responding to his internal distress that seemed to have the run of the place. He had pre-programmed the PAK to delay if not reduce the amount of chemicals and blockers it infused into him, but it wouldn't be long until the conversion turned into recycling. The PAK and its symbiosis with his natal side was not designed or built with the host's deficiency in mind. Maybe it would continue to recycle his own chemicals and energies to continue its job, killing him from the inside out, or maybe it would pull back, cease its assisting functionality, and let things run its course.
He had no idea which it would be.
The Elite lifted his heavy head when he heard the swish of security doors open, the sergeant entering. He had to physically wrench himself conscious to become more alert.
The sergeant glared at him, arms folded. "Good morning, sunshine. Maybe I didn't hit you too hard after all. How's the skin? You don't stink quite so much now that you've stopped sizzling."
Zim stared back, teeth set in a long, leering snarl.
"Pretty neat trick you used earlier." Carlson exclaimed at length, "Why did you wait so long to deploy it?"
The claws of his right squeezed tightly, knuckles whitening. His hatred was as corrosive as magma, spilling over and burning out the fear, but every time he held firm, rebuking the human's attempts to coerce him, Carlson only grew more enticed, as if this was all one big game to him.
I'm just getting started I burn up all that I choose you can't confine me think I'm losing my mind… Finally he dragged out a humourless chuckle from his dry throat. "How's the leg? Is it still holding on?"
Carlson was smiling, "Fooling us with a 'toy' marble, resisting us at every opportunity… fortifying your ship… employing the sympathy of the professor… calling on the aid of little forest critters… my oh my…! What a bag of tricks you have!"
"That's what y-you get for messing with things you don't understand!"
That made his toothy smile emerge again, the sergeant clearly enjoying the control. He coolly noted A01's antennae droopily resting over its tiny and trembling shoulders, with more ribs showing from the sagging collar of his shambolic gown. "Still defiant, aren't we? How much pain can you truly handle, I wonder?"
"You can't do anything to me! I'm far too valuable!" Zim glared at him, a growl rumbling in his throat. The defiance almost always encouraged a pleased smirk from the man, and it drove the humiliation deeper.
Carlson continued. "You know. I have this hunch you've always worked in the shadows. A wolf in the dark of a forest is a dangerous opponent. But take away his forest, throw him into the light, and he's nothing more than a frightened, desperate mutt devoid of his senses."
That got a reaction. "You know nothing! You and y-your filthy kind are all the same!"
It was hard not to admire the guts of this creature. Even when faced with threat, pain, humiliation, A01 did not seem much to care, unless a lack of self-preservation was a factor in its upbringing, or it psychology. "Oh? I understand evil well enough. I've studied it. Ground it up. Spat it out. Once I strip away your pretend bravado and your ill-believed nobility, you'll discover that you're nothing at all. I don't really care why you came to Earth. Your purpose and your culture are all irrelevant. Your only worth is that PAK you carry. And soon, your only care will be the mercy I inflict."
He could see that he had hit a nerve. Zim's eyes flickered. Finally, a crack.
Carlson chuckled, shaking his head dismissively. "They left you here, didn't they? Why else aren't they coming to save you?"
The anger bloomed like a rose, claws fetching on the steel of the platform's armrest, and Carlson's smile widened. "You're just as impertinent as the rest of them!" A01 growled. "Forgive me if I can barely listen to your boring, insipid rubbish!"
"Must be a shame, to lose to a boy you fought against for so long."
The change was instant, as if he had prodded the creature with a knife. A01 began to twist and push against the restraints with unhealthy persistence even though the subject had attempted the same valueless attempts hundreds of times before, earning more bruises where the manacles tore and fractured bone.
"It was personal, wasn't it?" Let's see how deep this crack goes…Carlson leaned comfortably against the table, looking down at the alien. "You've fought him since fourth grade, if Dib's accounts can be believed. You must have been really incompetent if you couldn't even kill a child."
Cords stood out in the alien's thin neck, chest rapidly pumping in and out. Whatever fatigue had settled over A01 had disappeared as brimstones of hellfire burned in the creature's widening and glittery eyes. The hate in them was tangible.
"What does that make you, A01? I have your ship in my possession, and your little 'house' I can pick apart at my leisure. The ship's tech is impressive, suggesting advanced sophistication and complex engineering, but you are a total contradiction of that." He let the silence build between them, half expecting A01 to defend himself by saying something. Carlson patiently continued, enjoying Zim's hesitation, "I think you're either a trainee who doesn't understand the equipment you've been endowed with, which is odd considering the solitary nature of your mission, or something else is afoot. Perhaps your main objective was to merely spy on us, and murdering a child would warrant attention, enough perhaps to compromise you." That catlike smile again: making his eyes dangerously glitter.
Zim watched as the man calmly walked round the table, admiring the various items and picking them up only to put them back down again.
He came to the jar of black things listlessly floating in brackish yellow waters. "You've made mistakes too. There are a few public reports of a little purple spaceship flying around town. Fanatics even reported a 'green alien' dropping through the roof and into their convention. Pretty hard to believe a trained 'invader' such as yourself can be so careless."
Curling his toes, fighting against the rising dread that tried to dismantle his poise and self-control, Zim's skin flashed helplessly with sweat.
"I think the pressure was just too much for you. And Dib was getting more dangerous, wasn't he?"
"F-Fuck you!"
Carlson's smile kept on growing, like the tapering grin of the Cheshire cat. He would go around the table, eyes alighting on his prey before delighting himself with the tools on offer. "I think your nervous system is a lot more sensitive than ours." His voice was soft and honeyed, as if he was happily chatting away to an endearing friend at the grocery store, "I can cut the answers out of you anyway I like, and take my time too. You may think that I'll be easier on you, since you're 'one of a kind' and all. But I don't do easy."
"What have you d-done to him?"
"To whom?" He asked without the faintest surprise.
"Albert, you stinkin' fool!"
"More of your false bravado again? Is it a defensive tactic of yours, or were you trained to behave like that?" He looked genuinely interested.
"Come closer and I'll tell you which it is."
Another smirk. He was enjoying this way too much. "Don't tell me? You feel remorse?" Carlson asked, watching the alien's gaze waver, and revealing something more. "And what does an alien 'soldier' do with remorse these days? Do you… feign it? To lower the enemy's guard?"
"Like I care what you think."
"Always the tough one." Carlson seemed no less delighted with Zim's concrete obstinacy. "And using his first name no less. My oh my. What an acquaintance you and Membrane must have had. I suppose you have tea with weasels too?"
"You are all my enemies." Zim's growl was dark and guttural.
"Is that so? I don't believe you." He turned to him, smiling. "You backchat your enemies because you still have hope. You think there's a way out, so long as you bide your time. But the only thing I can give you is pain. Cooperate, and I'll make things easier. Resist me, and you'll be punished. Understand?"
His claws convulsively clutched on air, wishing he could get them into Carlson's thick and ugly neck.
"I'll take that as a 'yes.'" Carlson paused briefly to turn on a little radio on the table before assertively turning back to the Irken. The radio started to play Chopin's 'E minor prelude.' "I assume you tempted the professor with something. An exchange of Intel perhaps, or a piece of technology. And you had it all planned, right under my nose." His steel eyes glinted at something darker. Zim grimly watched, teeth locked tight. "It's a wholehearted relief that he revealed his intentions when he did." He chuckled to himself. "Any further along and he may have actually hurt this whole operation of mine!"
Zim lifted skewered and drunken eyes and said with more strength, "Kuuss ef ieür!"
The language was course, harsh even to his ears, his vocals emitting a chirpy growl hard to emulate. In light of the creature having an unnerving capability to know and speak any language, Carlson was certain he had just heard A01 speak in his native tongue, and it was just as ugly as the creature that spoke it. "Come again? I thought scratching a blackboard with a fork was bad…"
"Like your language is any better…" He breathlessly challenged.
"Touché." Carlson felt something stir in his crotch. "How long have you and the professor been collaborating behind my back?"
"I… I don't know what you're talking about."
"Did you seduce him? Hypnotise him? Or was he in on it from the very start? Membrane saw the potential of your PAK and wanted it for himself. Why else would a father knowingly go against his son by helping the very enemy he's been trying to destroy?"
"Go ask him. As far as I'm concerned, you're all fu-fucking crazy…"
When Carlson struck, Zim's head snapped to the left, the sound ringing across the room. Zim audibly sucked in a breath, the child-like, raucous moan coming out moments after.
Carlson leaned close to his ragged, wilting antenna. "Why Membrane?" He asked. "You lie, but you don't cover yourself very well, do you? I've seen the way you are around him. Was it freedom he promised you?"
"Yeah. Sure. Why not?"
His fingers sunk into the creature's throat, feeling the nauseating pulsations of the artery as he squeezed. Zim all but managed a squeak before the breath was cut from him, claws of his only hand bouncing uselessly in the cusp. "You see this dial?" And he brought his other hand up to Zim's watering, narrowed eyes as he turned an imaginary dial with rigid fingers, "It is up to you how much I increase the pain." He paused to let this run through the alien. "If you're good, everything will be fine! But if you're bad…" He watched Zim's eyes widen as he turned the imaginary dial clockwise. "You should be more careful."
He could feel the creature futilely struggling, helpless as a fly caught in the spider's web. Only when the ECG started to alarm did he finally let go, feeling the satisfaction as the Irken gasped and choked madly for air. A darkening blemish was already forming on its shuddering throat where his thumb and the ball joint of his fingers had dug in. Sweat trickled down its chilled, peeling skin.
"Do you like pain? Does it attract you in some way?" Carlson asked as he calmly stood back.
Zim listlessly wilted against the restraints and telemetry leads, head bowed as his body shuddered, chest heaving, tears dripping from eyes that barely opened.
Carlson remained patient while he waited for Zim to get his breath back, knowing that the pauses in-between could be just as torturous as the torture itself. "There now. Silence is golden." He teased, watching Zim flinch at last when their eyes met. "Good imp. Will you cooperate now?"
Zim sliced down on the moan he might have made, a moan that might have had a voice. "You d-don't scare me…" He was beginning to lose focus, unsure how best to endure when Carlson took pleasure in his defiance, and turned his armour so easily against him. The PAK had already absorbed all it could. The device was getting hotter, and was something of a burning oven now dumping its own waste back into his system. He could already feel the toxins building and congesting.
His squeezed his eyes shut when he thought of Gir, his ship, the tech and the half baked critters he would hand over in death or in quick and easy surrender…
Catching his breath, he settled dark rimmed eyes on the sergeant.
Zim… I am… Zim…
Untouchable… elite…
Mind is just a program… Memory just files to be erased.
Carlson's voice was brisk and sharp. "You are all alone, little imp. Wherever your leaders are, wherever your 'Armada' is, they cannot help you now. You are intelligent enough to know that your situation isn't good, and that cooperation is your only option." He folded his arms over his chest, looking relaxed, sated. "But it isn't all bad. Think of a world where mechanised tanks will patrol the cities against the enemy! Mankind will flourish! All thanks to your wonderful gift!"
"Mechanised t-tanks?"
"The metal in your PAK… its substance is fascinating. It repels all our endeavours to scan it. With just a piece of it, to deconstruct… to study and reproduce…" He coldly smiled. "Your legacy is something to be proud of! You… on the other hand," and his smile considerably cooled. "…you don't seem particularly tough." His eyes lingered on him. "Your body suffers a whole host of weaknesses. Acidic water, alkaline based chemicals and some foods we 'humans' cultivate. You can't stand cold temperatures, or tolerate much pain beyond what your prevailing stubbornness dictates. That tells me your reliance on that machine o' yours is paramount. I don't need stupid scientist reports to tell me how amazing it is."
"Of course your primordial brain would come to that conclusion." Zim hissed. "You keep lowly harmless beasts in cages."
"Why do you care what we do to the crawling critters on God's green earth?"
"I don't." He returned, but his voice was quieter than before.
Carlson saw it as another distraction "Perhaps we could help each other. You tell me what the metal in your PAK is made of, what it does and how, and I'll postpone the subtraction of each of your limbs."
"Touch it," Zim warned, "and it'll explode." His apathetic gaze seemed to disarm the man, for Carlson's smile dropped, and there was clear hesitation in his movements, but it wasn't long before he recovered, and discerned him with that icy and inscrutable smile.
"You remind me of an old black and white movie I watched when I wasn't much taller than you. The monsters looked a lot like you too, green Martians with fucking eyes the size of dinner plates. They came in their machines, attacking Earth like a sledgehammer, and before you knew it, the whole world was burning. But as soon as you freaks opened your windshields and breathed in our air, you all disintegrated. Poof!" And he wildly gestured for good effect, causing Zim to snap back in his platform. "Beneath your tech, you're softer than an ant beneath the pressure of my boot."
Carlson looked to the cattle prod and started to run his callused, bony fingers over its metal stem.
He's toying with me! Playing me for a fool! Zim suspected what truths or lies Dib had already said about him. "I don't answer to cowards." He leaned against the restraints, trying to look and be as fearless as he could make himself appear.
"Is that so?" Dry, mocking laughter hit his antennae. "Maybe you can be persuaded…? After all manners obviously don't work for rude little imps like you." Carlson came a little closer until his rancid breath was gently blowing hot air onto Zim's chilled face. With slow and playful deliberation he walked his fingertips up the Irken's chest where his jaws couldn't reach, watching the Irken hopelessly flinch and yelp.
"Get off! Get your stinkin' meats off me!" He tried to twist his head round to desperately bite any part of the human he could reach.
Carlson was quickly discovering how effective mere touch was when he plucked a sheaf of skin from Zim's shoulder, painfully twisting it with his forefinger and thumb. Much of the creature's skin was sore with pock-marks from the sprinklers where water had settled and left soft and oozing macerations, especially around the groin and neck area. "How many of you bug-eyed parasites are out there, infiltrating the cosmos?"
Zim shrieked, teeth clamping hard. When Carlson let go, he rasped: "More than a schmillion! This piece of dirt you call Earth is nothing but a speck for the Armada!"
Carlson leaned back, smirking. "I know how it works, little imp. Lie enough, and it becomes truth. It becomes both a weapon, and a shield. But do you even know what truth even is anymore?"
Cold fury burned through Zim's veins. "F-Finding and killing imbeciles like you while preparing the filthy planet for conquest is easier than you might think!"
The sergeant crossed his arms, looking suitably bored. "That's where you get to help me, little imp. Your PAK is clearly engineered to resist invasive approaches when our machines can't penetrate far enough to scan anything past its shell. I'm guessing this 'Empire' you devote yourself to would consider giving you amnesty if you allowed us to understand it a little better."
"The PAK is… is nothing special!" He gasped. "I just carry it around for… for…!" His fleeting smile, fake and trembling, was the clearest giveaway Carlson had yet seen, "…For, for… carrying equipment!"
"Were you trained to lie? Or is it just your nature?"
"I'm NOT lying! The PAK just does as I t-tell it! Like a lamp or something! I ju-just turn it on, you know? You… you really want to know w-why I came here? How many planets I've infiltrated?" Zim continued desperately, "Assignments? Missions? I'll tell you the distances I've travelled! What kind of place Nexus 14 is like!"
Carlson leaned forwards. "If you don't help me, I'm going to cut… here." And he traced his finger over the dotted line across his leg. "After all I'm sure you can live quite comfortably with only one leg. The ravenous scientists will have something to sate their insatiable curiosity, and I will be much happier knowing it'll be a lot harder for you to escape."
Zim's snarl broke into something terror-filled. He pushed his head against the back of the platform but there was nowhere to go.
"I have a theory." Carlson patiently continued.
"What… w-what is that?" He was struck in the eye, the instant was over before he had barely registered it, with his head snapping back against the platform. The pain was electric – storming behind his eye and through his frayed antennae. He almost wished in that moment that he had blacked out.
"Hmm. Not bad." Came the sergeant's bitter observation. "Your PAK just lit up like a Christmas tree."
What… what just happened…?
He tried to come back, to will his eyes to open as his claws and limbs violently shook. It took stubborn moments as the room wavered back into swimming focus.
"A similar thing happened when the good scientists were cutting into your hand and watching it spontaneously heal. Funny though." And he eyed the alien's welts and burns left from the sprinklers, and the arm still in plaster. "You don't seem to be healing at the moment. You've turned off the capacity to do so, haven't you?"
He fished out a penknife, and the fear was tattooed in A01's eyes. "No! No please! Don't touch me!"
Carlson did not hesitate, and slashed open the back of his hand. Green poured out, splattering down the creature's thin, weedy claws and onto the dirty white of his smock and the tiles below.
The pings on the ECG started to escalate to a higher tune. "Go on." Carlson goaded. "Do that thing you did earlier. Make yourself a bubble shield!"
"R-Release me and I'll tell you all y-you need to k-know…!"
"Oh hoo! I'm not falling for that! You can't bribe or hypnotise me like you could the nutty professor!"
Zim continued staring at his slashed hand as ribbons of green ran off his claws.
"Does morality shock you?" Carlson enjoyed the naked look of fear and abandon on his paling green face. He then fished out a pamphlet from his pocket with Dib's name pasted all over the front. "Dib mentioned that you came from a planet called Irk. I'm trying to imagine a place ugly enough to spawn cretins like you. Do you control little furry critters there too?"
"B-Bastard…" He gulped, "It's… it's a place you'll… you'll never find…" White hot migraines flashed through his head as if his left eye was being helplessly skewered with nails, and his hand may as well be on fire.
"Does every one of you things wear a PAK? Or is it something gained?"
He shook his head as much as the pain allowed, teeth parting, claws tensing. "It's… it's beyond your comprehension…!" He spluttered, "You'll never understand! It's useless to you…!"
Carlson looked unfazed. "Hmm. Simple and straight forward answers are obviously beyond you, it would appear. What did Membrane offer to gain your trust?" He took a little stroll, pacing to and fro as if he had all the time in the world, with Zim anxiously staring, unable to trust or understand what he was going to do. "How does the PAK work? What might happen if I were to remove it?"
"It just… it just lights up! It does nothing else!" Came Zim's much smaller voice. The blood gushing out of the cut just below his knuckles was beginning to slow to a trickle.
"You've already demonstrated the weapons and tools that come out of it." Carlson sighed, looking irritated. He stepped over, Zim fearfully staring. He grabbed a bloodied claw and snapped it backwards. The popping of bone sounded a lot like the snapping of dry old wood. Zim screamed, twisting and turning to get away.
Figures were gathering at the observation window, but they weren't saying or doing anything, they were merely watching.
"I promised the good doctor and the other scientists that I'll be good." Carlson murmured happily while Zim gasped and sobbed, staring at a now very crooked and bent claw that stuck up and slightly backwards in a weird and freakish way. "I know exactly what you're thinking. That they'll jump to your rescue, should I be a little too violent. After all, you are an extraterrestrial, something of a miracle no less! And I wouldn't want to anger your 'Armada' now, would I?" Then his smile went icy cold within seconds. "Now tell me what I need to know. How does the PAK work?"
"You d-don't know what you're dealing with… The… the PAK will self-destruct… without a host… without an Irken to disengage protocol, the PAK will self-destruct…" He feverishly mumbled.
"And why would something like that self-destruct, hmm? Something so obviously sophisticated and complex can't be wasted. I think you're lying."
"The PAK… without me… without the PAK… it will only self-destruct…"
"Rambling again, are we?"
"You… you don't know what you're dealing with…" But the line Carlson had heard before sounded tired this time, and without the arrogance and pomposity.
"Stubborn, I see." Murmured the sergeant with that same unsettling nonchalance. "I know you're type… I've seen it a thousand times before."
Black hate rushed forwards, clamping shut every gate and breach as Zim levelled his gaze at Carlson. "I'm n-not your ppuppet!"
"Yes you are." Voice so calm, so smooth, contradicted the hand that suddenly lashed out and grasped his antenna. When he pulled, it was like he was trying to tear up a weed. Zim's eyes only saw white, tinged with a bleeding aura that trickled down like veins. The migraine was explosive, alternately numbing and destroying his nervous system.
It took him a long time to come back to a swaying and swerving world, with Carlson swaying to and fro in tune with the tilting floor and walls.
Don't want to die here…
…Don't think I'm going to make it…
The sergeant's voice was more like static in a dodgy transmission when he next spoke. Zim only got half of it, sounds were distorted, and pain kept bombing around or through his head at sudden, sharp intervals as if his skull had been bashed repeatedly against a wall.
"It's not about the individual… it's about the whole!" Spoke the Irken officer before them, "To waver, to hesitate is a betrayal to the Empire. You do not surrender!"
Carlson struck him again with a fist. Zim's head whipped sideways, blood shooting out of his lips. "Tell me, A01. When you reached for the stars, did you think of the consequences?" Came his voice in the static.
He choked out black bile, eyes stuttering open and closed as things happily seesawed. He blinked, bringing his aching head round to give Carlson a look that was crumbling. "My name is… is Z-Zim…"
The sergeant watched him pathetically shiver in its metal clasps. "How does the PAK function? Is it battery or nuclear powered? Is it kinetically driven or solar absorbent?"
If it's nuclear, my god you might explode after all! Carlson considered. Which might possibly explain why the shell is so thick to protect you from your own radioactive fuels!
And this would pose a problem if A01's little PAK could bring about a miniature nuclear fallout within Geneva's very walls.
A01 hung slightly to the right, head rolling without direction.
"Do you really want me to turn the dial, A01?" Carlson asked, only to stubbornly realize that the alien might not have heard him. Its eyelids flickered, with mist clouding its eyes. "Still with us, imp? I can hit you again, even up your other eye."
Painful chills rattled in and out of his bones as Zim replied: "You can't… you can't torture me…"
He raised his greying eyebrows. "Why?"
"I… I needed to… to be the best…" That stubborn and annoying smile crept along Zim's greying lips.
Carlson wasn't fazed. Just a little push more was all he needed. He turned to the table, and fished around for something in a tray. What he picked up was a bottle of alcoholic solution. Without missing a beat he splashed it all over Zim's left leg. "I'll ask again. How does the PAK function?"
Zim stared obtusely at the leg that had just been doused, his bruised, lidded eyes dark with terror.
Carlson growled it this time: "How about I take the PAK off right now and see for myself?" He went round towards its oval shape, its pinks splashing into his eyes.
He was close to touching it when Zim's much frailer voice uttered: "It's me… fool… I power the PAK…"
Carlson cocked his head at him, the answer was too simple. "Sorry, come again? I didn't quite get that."
"I power the PAK…" Zim softly said, one eye downcast, the other swelling up massively. "Remove it, and it'll be useless to you."
Carlson suddenly didn't look so certain of himself. The cretin could be lying again to protect himself, and his assets, or he very likely could be telling the truth, after all, the PAK did seem to demonstrate a strong link between the alien and its hardware. "But what directs it? What governs the PAK's software? It is software, isn't it?"
"S-Software… hardware… whatever. Links up to… me… two work as o-one…"
"But what does it connect to? You're not being very specific. If I were to say, detach it right now, what would this do to you?"
Zim tiredly squeezed his eye shut. It was enough. It felt like he'd torn a hole out of himself just to admit that much.
"How does it all physically connect?" Carlson insisted, suddenly sounding angry.
"We're not f-from the seventeenth century…" He quietly coughed without the airy smile.
A01's attempts at humour, Carlson noted, were not always accompanied by a smile, but he recognised the gesture.
The sergeant blithely watched. The extent of A01's knowledge on its own cybernetic boundaries was something he was keen on learning.
Zim squeezed his good eye open to see the obvious greed in Carlson's cold gaze. The human was already envisioning troops that could not die, troops that could rise again and again, forever defying death.
"You're not going to answer me, A01?"
"Please… I'm tired…" His cheekbone was wet from the blood dripping from his eye.
"What powers it? How does it heal you?" He reached in, tipping Zim's head back.
"Propulsion… it's all just energy…"
He grunted, displeased with the answer. "Does it amuse you? Sitting here, getting tortured? Why don't we help each other, A01? I can take you out of these goddamn cuffs, and clean you up a little. Surely you can smell your own fucking stench?"
"Z-Zim… I already t-told you…. My name is Zim…"
He let go, but it wasn't so easy holding in the frustration as he passed Zim dark, covetous looks.
Finally he turned around. Zim watched out of one darkening eye, praying the man would grow tired… would leave him alone… when Carlson reached forwards, fingers spread out to grab something else. When he lifted it, the Elite was startled to see a doll bearing his resemblance dangling from the man's gnarled hand.
"Wh-why do you have that?"
He ignored him. "I was taken to a camp in the hills of Seluram. They had few resources, and not enough guards. The prisoners were always escaping. Walls could be overcome. The guards weren't always vigilant. But the solution was simple. I'm sure you have heard of the term 'hobbling,' A01? You insects might use a different terminology for it, but I'm quite sure you've done it to your enemies. Intelligence breeds cruelty, after all." He looked the doll over, taking his time with it. "Amputating a limb isn't that hard. In fact it's easier than you'd think." He slipped a hunting blade from the holster in his belt and playfully teased its steel edge over the doll's legs.
Zim tried not to react even as he recognized the mercilessness of the enemy he faced. It took him a second to blurt the words: "No! I was tricked! I wasn't g-going to escape! Please…!"
"It certainly will be remarkable if your leg does happen to regenerate…" And he cut the doll's leg off with the knife.
"…The Armada! They're here right now! They've just entered your planet's dirty stratosphere and they're gonna blow up this place at any minute!"
Carlson hesitated, and for the briefest moment he looked towards the ceiling, half expecting it to melt away and reveal this magical 'Armada.' "Think that's funny, do you? Let's see how you'll stand up to this!"
The door burst open with men in the next instant, and Zim understood the cold veracity of the man's promise. The humans were about to enact more of their barbarism on whichever part of him they chose to destroy.
"A simple amputation of the bone, here," Edward looked just as formidable as Carlson, and wasted no time in wheeling over a modest collection of surgical tools. "Minimal bleeding… we'll cauterize the wound… but A01's pain levels will be harder to manage…"
He refused to think that this was happening.
It couldn't.
He was Zim, the soldier the Empire had so perfectly forged to be indomitable, to be invincible. There was simply no other way to exist.
But, deep down, in the maelstrom of pain and approaching madness, he wanted to tear down his own walls just to get out.