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: Thank you for your support and patience. I know this was a long time coming! This update is for Meadowfox who eagerly requested it! (still love the GIF you made! I hope this chapter is a little something to thank you!)
Chapter 13: Angel
He ran his father's electromagnetic keycard over the recognition panel. The panel lit up and the door clicked open. He stepped in, predatory eyes searching, and when he shut the door, he allowed himself a moment to breathe.
The house was basically a certifiable index of categories, each room designated for a purpose and nothing else. One room still had its long, impersonal metal surfaces, with typical glass beakers on shelves alongside flasks and dispensers. Strange, colourful pink plants, looking like ferns of a kind, sat on the windowsill. Their leaves were glittery, as if they were laced with gems, or covered in some kind of fungus.
The main parlour was cosier, with less of the stellar clinical sharpness that he associated with all things science. He remembered playing with little plastic animal toys on the floor while a baby Gaz looked on, strapped to her buggy.
He paused a moment, affording a view of the lake through the window. He stood in a familiar yet unfamiliar place, feeling more like a stranger in his father's domain. Finally he approached his study and gave it a brief, undiscerning look before going for the drawers. One of them was locked.
No problem. For a lock-picker. He thought, sadly aware that Zim had pushed him to learn pretty much every illegal vocation going. Slipping the bobby pin out from his pocket and bending it into a 90 degree angle, he teased it into the lock. Gently he turned the pin, the lock turning with it.
There wasn't much in there, least of all the confession he was looking for. There was a vacuum-sealed pack of white liquid vials, so tiny they looked as though they were meant for hypodermics, and there was another packaged thing in another plastic bag that happened to be a bundled up and packaged ventilator and IV kit.
After finding nothing helpful, Dib dropped into the swivel chair to access his father's computer. He drew out the USB from his pocket, and stared resentfully at it. Well. Here goes. He plugged it in to see a log-in screen requesting another thumb print. Almost robotically, eyes blank irises of copper, he planted his thumb on the little access panel on the screen.
The computer opened up its files, and he was looking at a page full of spreadsheets and archive files, each one dated and time coded. He looked for anything telling, anything obvious. There were just so many files… some of them going back months… years…
One of them contained a horrifying video of his mother. He had already clicked on it before he realized. She was sitting up in bed, in the parlour where Membrane had moved her so that he could keep a close eye on her.
"It's progressed. I am sorry…" Membrane began to her, and Dib snapped off the video before he could see and hear any more, but listening to him through the auditory speakers was like hearing a ghost, and he felt overcome and speechless.
He recorded that? Why? How could he do such a thing?!
Another recording stood out, it was more recent, and he clicked on it. He drew back when he saw his father staring back at him from the screen.
"I assume this is you, my dear son, currently watching this old video of mine!" His father was sitting on an old wooden desk chair, behind him the beautiful and handsome cabin parlour with the snow raging outside the window. There was a fire crackling away in the old hearth he never usually used, and Dib could just about see the bed posts of his mother's old bed directly behind him.
"I would bet my laboratory that you are currently wondering what this is all about! But where would one begin? Ah, silly question! At the beginning, of course!" His low, deep rumbling laughter was unmistakeable. Dib was so stunned, so pulverised that he could barely make sense of what he was saying. "After all, documentation is necessary! And so are nature's miracles!" He then paused to adjust some settings that only he could see before shifting through a sheaf of papers. "Now let's get down to business. But first. An apology. You were right, son. He did have the answers. All along."
"What?" He wanted to pick up the computer and shake it. "What do you mean?"
"I have been working on a very difficult disease. I've tried everything. From deconstructing its DNA, to isolating its chemical compounds. Your mother died too suddenly for me to even begin to help her, and to this day it still eludes and frustrates me that science is no closer to curing the rare type of cancer she had. I began to think there were no solutions. Then something happened one day."
His father turned away from the screen and the desk, allowing Dib to see the rest of the room, and in that bed, tied to tubes, was Zim. It looked like he was fast asleep, he was lying on his side, looking white around the edges but otherwise fine. He was absurdly wrapped in cotton blankets and throws. Gir, of all things, was doodling on his PAK, and drawing silly little faces with crayon on its mantle. Zephyr was there, sitting on the windowsill and peering at the snow like a lazy household cat.
No, no! This isn't...! It can't...! He stared, blinking at the screen, at the disclosing evidence and truths that were as damning as bloodied fingerprints at a crime scene. Dib swallowed, feeling like a washed up survivor lying, near death, on the shore.
How…. How is this real?
Isn't it obvious? You saw the date! I left Zim to die in that man trap! I thought he'd pulled some magic trick, like he always does... and… and… escaped… But the 'hows' and 'whys' kept chasing their own tails.
His father blithely went on, addressing the screen. "The metal poisoning was extensive, but it wasn't that so much as the infection. His immunity went into overdrive, attacking the bacterium as it spread through his system. It's still in him to this day."
He stared, unable to compute what Membrane was saying, much less the meaning behind it all.
"At first, I couldn't get it off. It snapped back on his leg on the first attempt... I recognised the design... I saw the diagram on your wall." He looked directly at him in the screen as he said this. "His PAK was frozen shut. It burned my fingers when I went to touch it..."
Dib suddenly wanted to close the laptop, and walk away, but all he did was shrink back into the chair, mind going dark.
"Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochete bacterium." Membrane continued. "The PAK rushed it. It is alien to the host, and has not encountered it before. The immune response triggered inflammation, worsening the damage. Zim has no natural defences; his body has solely opted for the PAK to do the work. His fever wouldn't go down. I knew that if I interfered, I'd be fighting against the PAK's system: the very thing keeping him alive."
Maybe it was the blood pumping through his veins, the cold pain of shock and confusion, or the perfect obliteration of his senses, when Dib felt torn out and empty. His eyes were telling him one thing, his heart another. "I don't care." He groaned at his father, at the screen. "Just tell me why!"
"His immune system triggered something else. A chemical that destroys all and any foreign and malignant cells, cancer or otherwise. But it can only happen in this state, when the PAK panics. It is disconcerting," he demurely added, "to realize that any new element or device will be treated as an enemy in his system, the PAK systemically attacking anything perceived as a threat. The same reaction applies to medicines, perhaps even foreign devices like a splint inside his arm. And if the PAK were to malfunction, it would turn against him, attacking itself as much as its host."
Yes dad but why? You had him in your estate! Your home! And you didn't tell me?!
"The reactive serum in his blood attacks cancerous cells; it is a behaviour from the PAK's automated defences that is otherwise dormant in his cybernetic system." There, he paused, looking a little deflated. "I… I injected him with her cancer cells. I had already tested his blood cells with the cancer in a petri dish to make sure. I am… I am amazed at the response! This knowledge, this miracle, it's what I have been looking for! Now that I've found it... I do not know what to do with it." He looked off-screen, towards the sleeping Irken. "He is the solution. It is not what I expected... what kind of an exchange it would mean... when I have been chasing after it all my life..."
Dib's eyes were suddenly swelling with tears. He missed her, more than words could ever describe.
"I know I have kept my distance, son." Membrane said more tenderly as he looked at him through the screen. "I have been trying to find the solution all this time, and not just because I miss her. It is because this type of cancer is genetic. You may already have it. But if I give Zim up, if I hand him over, the cure will be destroyed."
There was a squeak behind him as Zim began to rouse.
"Oh hoo! Awake are we?" Membrane said cheerily, turning towards the befuddled Irken.
"Y-You…?" Zim squeaked.
The video ended, and he sat there, head falling into his hands. You, you never said anything! Does anyone else know? He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Panic was rising; the ones who could give him the answers he needed were all disappearing.
He slowly cranked himself into a sitting position, bent scythe of hair flopping down in front of his eyes. Soft dappled sunlight played through the glittery windowpanes as the light slowly filled the room.
The cure… he thought, eyes drifting shut. But how can… how can one drop of good ever come from such… evil?
The sunlight swelled and then faded, and still he sat there, tracing his finger along the deep, sorrel grains in the wood.
When mom died, I ended up hating everything, one way or another. It was you, Zim... it was always you who kept me going despite it all.
Gir came in through the parlour, having used the window to get in, since he seemed to know the place pretty well. He would often come in this way bearing gifts, like a mouldy flower, sticks glued to a bit of paper, or the old femur of a long dead animal. This time he carried a shiny penny, almost like the ones he used to throw to the bottom of the well wishing for useless wishes.
At first he couldn't say it. "Gir... do you remember that day, in the snow? When Zim got his leg stuck...?"
Turning my back on you was easy. Turning to face you isn't.
I thought I was 'righteous.' That it was morally okay to do evil to fight evil.
Gir looked unsettled. "Master… couldn't get up…"
Even if the tin-hollow robot had the memory of a goldfish, the loss of Zim was still very strong. Not knowing what else to do, he knelt down and brought Gir into a stiff hug when he wasn't how, only to find how easy it was to wrap his long arms around something so little. Gir knew something was wrong too. He would come and go with his usual playfulness as if the world could never hurt so simple a mind, but as recently as the last few days, the robot seemed just as lonely as he felt.
"I can't find him." The robot said, looking at him in a pained, confused way.
"He's trapped in Geneva." He said, only to then sigh in exasperation. He wanted to tell Gir what Williams had told him, that Zim didn't have much time left. He owed him the truth, whether he would understand it or not, but every time he went to say it, to start explaining, the words died on his tongue. "How do I get him out, Gir?"
"What about his friends?"
He stared at him "What friends?"
"Dem friends in the woods and trees and stuff?"
He threw Gir a look, about to dismiss him as one would unconsciously disregard the eligible observations of a child, however astute they might be. Then it clicked, and he sucked in a breath. "Zephyr... But he's in Geneva too."
"No! He escaped!" Gir raised his metallic hands. "I helped!"
He stood up, there was suddenly too much energy in his legs and he needed to move. Pacing was too much of a conscious habit. "But... the animals all ran off, going their separate ways... They could be anywhere by now! And I have no idea where Zeph…"
"The weaselly weasel made his house in the woods!"
His head felt light enough to float off his shoulders. And what will one tiny weasel do? He stopped himself, remembering those pretty jaws that one very tiny weasel had. And there was something about his intelligence that gave him the chills.
Zephyr could get through certain obstacles, but he hadn't seemed all too able to escape Zim's base. Maybe Irken material was just a little too tough on those freakin' massive gnashers? He suddenly started laughing at the very idea of being led by a tiny itsy-bitsy critter as it chomped its way through a wall or two.
It started to rain. He leaned by the TV cabinet, drunkenly staring out of the window. Rain streamed down the glass in thousands of little trickles.
He thought of that cold grave up on the hillside, with rain trickling down the lettering written in stone.
"Could you lead me to him?" He turned as he asked, glasses askew on his nose. The robot phased in and out for a moment as his eyes struggled to adjust. He felt vaguely ridiculous for even asking when Gir could take him on a merry stroll to absolutely nowhere, visiting every goddamn toadstool, bird's nest and berry bush. He also knew he would be going back to the very place where all the pain started, where he had magnified all his hate.
"Yes!" Gir replied delightfully.
"Great." For once, he managed a small smile. "There's just one thing I gotta do first."
-x-
The console was alive with that iridescent alien glow. He approached it, the wind buffeting his hair and jacket. He had left the ship's system online to hack into the Voot Runner, a task that happened to take a hellish amount of time.
He approached it, mind heavy with what he now knew. All those animals… his father's secrets… Carlson's control. The approaching horizon. Being the only one left.
When Zim came, he had soared down from the skies like the Angel of Death, spreading mayhem and carnage. It was power, in all its alien splendour, and Dib had seen him and everything about him as a threat, refusing to understand anything about why he was here, and why he had come.
The panic was there again. He had to hack into the Voot. "You coming, Gir?" He asked, looking at him. With the robot following, he slung himself into Tak's old cockpit, its musty, decade-old smell strong in his nostrils. He used to take it for a spin, when getting the hang of the thing was one tremendous learning curve. But he had simply stopped using it.
He reverently ran his hand over the smooth contours of the dash and command chair. He could have explored worlds beyond this one, but even when the opportunity was there, his heart refuted it almost immediately when he hadn't wanted to leave Gaz, or his father behind.
With the afternoon light creeping over the ship's hull, Dib drew up monitors. The computer's AI was capable of dissimilating code, but the process of hacking into the Voot was almost impossible, even with Irken tech. He had hacked into the bastard's base in the past, earning himself a limited view of his rival through the microscopic lens of a planted camera until it was inevitably discovered.
The screens and monitors brightly popped up in welcome, and he had to look in a particular direction or move his hand in the right way to register said screens. It was a demanding interface, but luckily Tak's computer could overtake his foolish endeavours and correct his mishaps before it became a nuclear disaster.
He threw on Mozart's Lacrimosa that was not without Zim's influence, and gave the belly and stern thrusters the softest of touches. The garage roof opened, he pulled back on the thrusters, and the ground rolled away, the craft taking him away so gently, with the world shrinking away, the city a toy town for ant-like vehicles. Little rivers mapped the valleys and forests in bands of silver. As he picked up speed, the clouds turned into rock, with the wind trying its damndest to hurl his ship around.
Without any nearby objects in space, it felt like you were hardly moving at all when you were going at maximum speed, until you got close to something like a space station, that could come at you at light speed.
The forward and reverse thrusters were powerful things. But there was no 'stop' button. You could cut the engines, but from the momentum of whatever speed you were going, you had to balance the forward and reverse thrusters in order to actually stop.
He increased the thrust, the ship's twin tails of blue violently cutting through the sky. The fires of the stratosphere above welcomed him like the gates of hell, slathering the windshield in red. When he was sure something would fail, that the engines would cut out and he'd drop like a stone, he thought of Zim, of how many times he had done this, how many times he had looked death in the face, and pressed on anyway.
He made it through, the tumultuous fire passed, and he drifted freely into a dark and weightless space.
But it was not the escape he wanted. He never thought he'd ever want to run away from his own kind, his own duties, but as everything became more frantic and despondent, the promise of space and its isolation was even more desirable.
Sequins of stars, vivid and bright, winked at him from impossible distances – distances that the ship could easily take him to. Irken tech was hard not to appreciate, especially when it made human innovation look childish and clunky by comparison.
A message popped up on the left-sided screen, 'Access to Voot Runner's database successful. Do you wish to proceed?'
"Yes!" He impatiently watched the screen change, and new notifications came up in flashing ribbons of Irken scripture.
He could now remotely access all of the Voot's records, and all incoming and outgoing files, with limited manual control. He should have done this a long time ago, just to see the look on Zim's face when he remotely cut his ship's engines, and have it plunge to the ground with him still inside.
He looked at the results to see that Zim had sent out various distress messages and emergency transmissions, most of these requesting tools and equipment. His last contact was to the so-called: Tallest. He'd seen them briefly before, remembering how tall and gangly and mantis-like they looked, and to him they hadn't seemed especially smart.
"Computer. Contact the Tallest." He said. He wasn't sure how ready he was to see their ugly, lurid faces, but he was past caring at this point.
They appeared onscreen as per his request, and they looked as tall and as gangly as he remembered. One of the two had bright red eyes that made him think of freshly spilled blood. The other glared at him from vivid purple, and when they were widened, they nearly covered its entire face.
Aside from their gaudy robes, spindly bodies and cartoonish eyes, they still carried a certain menace.
"What the…?" They were talking in their native tongue, but the computer translated their verbal communication with nothing lost in the transmission. The one with the huge red eyes flourished his claws at the screen. "What the heck are you?"
"It doesn't matter 'what I am.' Your Zim's leaders, right?" He returned.
"That's an Irken ship you're using! And how do you know Zim?" The purple one asked, looking perturbed.
"Hey, you're that 'Dib' he goes on about! That large head of yours kind of precedes you." Red commented.
He ignored their narrowed, lingering stares and the curious but intimidating way they glared back at him. "Are you guys even coming? You know, to conquer Earth?"
"Is this a trick question?" Red asked. "Did Zim set you up for this?"
"This… human creature is straight to the point, isn't he?" Said Purple.
Dib didn't have time for their analysis. "Zim's been captured."
When they smiled, he could see the coldness in their empty grins. Even so, their frivolous attempts to exhibit emotion was about as convincing as a dead man's smile. "Captured, did you say?"
"Yes. Well? Aren't you going to send in reinforcements?" He looked at each of them in turn, expecting a little more concern.
"Reinforcements?" Purple's laughter was like claws racking across a chalkboard. "Even if we had the resources, we're not wasting it on a defect! Now get lost and don't call us again!"
"W-Wait!" Dib cried just when Purple was about to cut off the transmission, "What do you mean 'defect?' He's one of your soldiers, isn't he?"
"Look, we exiled him, okay? We dumped him on 'Earth' to keep him as far away from us as possible. I understand the misfortune that we picked your planet, but we didn't realize it existed at the time so…" Sighed an exasperated Purple.
"You… you exiled him?"
He could not imagine for one minute that Zim was some forgotten and reviled soldier. It was typical of an invader to live a life of isolation, and to have limited funds and tech, but Red and Purple's revulsion of Zim was obvious.
The picture he'd painted of his rival was beginning to unravel: revealing an altogether different image he had been unable to see, hadn't wanted to see.
"But… they're gonna kill him! They have his PAK!"
"Why do you even care?" Red growled.
"Besides," Purple added, "when someone tries to force open a PAK, it's designed to explode if the soldier in question hasn't done the job already."
"You're just gonna leave him here?" He couldn't believe it, even as they peered back, totally indifferent.
"Well, duh! That's the whole point! Now stop calling us!"
The transmission abruptly ended, and Dib sat back, stunned. Outside the windshield, the stars painted the dark in miniature crystals.
The thought was a painful one. Did I really ever understand you at all?
He looked achingly at the stars strung out across the velvet dark, stars that had once held so much awe and wonder. His mother had taught him the names of the constellations, and shown him Mars through her telescope. He had wanted to share every new discovery and wonder with her.
He had since learnt that wishing and dreaming were poisonous things. He used to believe there was a heaven up there, when science had coldly and logically eradicated his every belief.
You were alone. You were always alone, aside from Gir. You continued to obey your leaders, as desperate as you were to survive. You were running out of options. They banished you, but you didn't give up.
We all grasp for some kind of significance. You crashed through life trying to hold on, trying to survive...
But I can't help but think you were relieved when I finally stopped you.
"You have full access to the Voot Runner." Tak's voice said. "Do you wish to access its flight controls?"
"No." He waved off the notification. "Not yet. Keep me linked in, no matter what."
-x-
The forest was full of floating auburn, russet and gold as if autumn still danced on soft winter winds. Ivory steps of snow clung to the base of skeletal trees. His polished boots sunk into it, his ears filled with sleepy birdsong and the whispery creak of trees.
An ancient grave or rune from another time stood like a crooked tooth on the outskirts, its carved lettering effaced by lichen, weather and time. He had once believed that an alien had marked or chiselled its mysteries onto the stone, only for his father to deduce such vandalism by blaming hooligans and witches holding their séances.
Gir in his dog costume went rushing across the leaf litter. Dib tucked his hands in his pockets, not expecting the world to be so colourful out here.
"Promise me you'll never profit from someone else's misfortune... that you'll do the right thing..."
The wind whipped his scythe of hair back and forth, the trees rasping and wavering like so many hands reaching for the sky. The sun peeked through wild, tussled foliage and silhouettes of brooding rock. Banquets of toadstools grew in white or red-capped clumps. Under the snow and leaf litter were old metal carcasses from Zim's various constructs. He had never got to see them completed, and remained mysterious artefacts that nature was breaking back into her roots.
"Stay close, Gir." But, as he feared he might, Gir went running off, chasing something that was probably his own shadow.
How am I going to find one tiny animal in this place?
It was hard to stay motivated, harder still to keep from folding inwards. Another hour, another day, and they would remove another part of the Irken.
As he walked, he came to the old wishing well. It stood like before, having weathered every storm nature could throw at it. He had come to it as a child with all the hope of a drowning sailor looking for land.
He peered over the stone's edge and into the hollow, wet darkness. He had dropped hundreds of coins down there, each offering getting more desperate until he ended up parting with his mother's ring and some other trinkets he hoped might work when the letters went unanswered.
The forest was steeped in folklore. Zim had been drawn to this very well too, and he now wished he knew the reason why.
He fingered the coin Gir had given him in his pocket. He rubbed his thumb across its smooth surface, its other side dented and dull. After making the wish, he tossed it in, listening as it hit the bottom with a dull plop.
Dib continued on his way. Gir had long gone. Without the robot's idiotic wisdom, he wasn't sure how to go about calling for a beast that had insane levels of self-awareness and intelligence. He cupped his hands around his mouth and started calling anyway. "Zephyr! Zeph! Are you out here?"
The wind whipped his call to tatters. Birds chirped or cawed indifferently. He always felt like he was running backwards – never getting any closer to anywhere.
"Zephyr!"
A badger was watching from the shadows of an elm. From this distance it was hard to tell if there was any intelligence behind the stare, or if it was simply an ordinary badger that happened to find his intrusion as peculiar.
He slowly turned towards it so as not to frighten it away. "Urm..." God I feel stupid trying to ask an animal a question, "Are you from Zim's base?" The badger showed no recognition. "Do you know where Zephyr is?"
The badger cocked its smooth and striped head. "...Tires?"
He swallowed past the lump in his throat, his heart suddenly lighter than air. "No, no tires here! Can you help me?" The badger turned around and began to scamper away on its short, bumbling legs. The left fore and hind were made of metal. "No, wait!"
The chubby badger was surprisingly nimble, fluidly jumping over logs with the ease of long practise. And he was pretty sure he could hear it chant 'tires, tires, tires' as it went. He ran after it, feeling the noose of heartache begin to untangle.
The badger was getting further and further away, his hand reached for its vanishing profile, and his heart screamed at a hope fast fading, the chance to save Zim falling into a black pain brought to light by his own ugly selfishness.
The badger became a blur, the tears made it harder to navigate, his foot caught on a root and he went crashing to the ground. He did not feel the sting when his knees raked across buried stone.
I believed in your every lie. You smiled at me behind your mask. Your pain made it easier for me.
Look at me now, Zim.
I've destroyed everything to prove something I didn't really want.
He pounded a fist into the dirt.
I'd give everything to save you now.
There was a snuffle close beside him. He looked up, eyes so translucent that they turned the badger into a dark and blurry smudge. The badger stared back. It was cocking its small head at him. "Do you not know how to run?" It asked.
Dib crawled backwards to give himself some space from the talking badger. It was impossible to read its little beady eyes and there was no expression to speak of, "I... I tripped..."
From beside the badger stepped out a little golden weasel with bright oil drop eyes and a remarkable set of teeth.
Dib's relief filled him all the way to the top, leaving him giddy and light-headed.
"I heard you calling." Zephyr didn't appear as pleased. He periodically sniffed the air as if he was repulsed by the stench Dib carried with him. "We do not want you here. You belong to pillars of metal and concrete."
"Have you seen any tires?" The badger calmly asked.
Zephyr passed the badger a reprimanding look. The weasel easily made a fifth of the badger's size but it was obvious who was in charge.
It took a second for Dib to even register the audience he had. "You escaped! How? You look… good! Are you hurt?" He asked. Carlson had shot him, several times. The armour must have braced the impact, for Zephyr didn't show a single mark.
"Is that what you came here to ask?"
"No! I'm sorry! I... I came because I need your help! We need to get Zim out of Geneva right now!"
"No." Zephyr drew back, ears flattening. "I tried once already! I will not go anywhere near your butchering kind again! You're a human! You get him out!"
The badger sat down on its haunches. "Why you want him out?"
Dib felt the weight returning, rods of steel pulling on his shoulders and chest. "Because it was me... I put him in there."
"I know." The weasel hissed, needing no other explanation. "You're human." He spat.
The badger looked between them, a furrow appearing along his muzzle. "The human got us out, Zeph."
"We would have managed." The weasel returned, his attitude reminiscent of the Irken who had sheltered him. "Get out of here, beast, and go back to your noisy, stinky machines!" They turned their backs on him, and started to trot away.
"Please! I don't know what else to do! My dad, he... he tried to fix things, and I just stood there! I stood there and watched and did nothing! I'd… I'd do anything to take it all back!"
Zephyr spun round to face him. "That's what you humans do! What you always do! Once you rip up and destroy something, you realize the mistake too late. You try to sow more seeds. Plant more trees. Start 'breeding' programs to put back the animals you destroyed! It never ends! You'll never be sorry!"
Dib recognised the pain and fury behind those tiny little eyes. The badger looked back. Only now was he beginning to realize why its left foreleg and hind were all metal. With the badger's obsession with tires, he could safely assume that he had been hit by a car, and left to die on the side of the road. Zim must have found him, took him, and repaired what he could.
But he felt something else about Zephyr.
"You... you were a lab animal, weren't you...?"
The weasel hissed, hair coming to stand on end, tail bristling. He could feel the thing about to pounce, and maybe he would lose a nose or both of his eyes for his efforts.
He continued anyway. "The facility has hundreds of animals there! If you help me, we can get them all out!"
The weasel hissed and spat like a cat whose tail had been trodden on. It stamped its little feet, lips trembling around those enormous teeth. "You propose 'we' get them out?"
"Yes! I'm just not sure yet how to…"
"Don't you have a plan?"
Dib tried to hide the wince before it completely betrayed him. "I need to map out the building, the exits, cameras… We won't be able to do this twice if we make a mistake!"
They watched him silently. A gelding strip of metal remained around Zephyr's neck, and he had a hunch that he still carried the armour, and that it could reactivate. His father's designs never failed once they had been perfected.
"I was fortunate to get out with my life." The weasel chirped. "The human tending over me left when he was radioed to go elsewhere. Getting out the window was easy, but getting Zim out of that concrete nightmare won't be. You'd better have a good plan."
"I will." He said.
"When do you propose we do this?" The weasel then asked, but the request was not a soft one.
"Tomorrow night." As he said this, he didn't know how Zephyr would determine the time, when the critters didn't exactly wear watches…
When Zeph spat the next word, Dib felt tingling cold shoot up his spine. "Ever whistled, human?"
"Whistled? What? I don't..."
Then the badger and weasel scarpered away together, almost flying over the leaf strewn carpet and foliage like liquid. Sharing a seamless invisibility all wildlife seemed to share, they disappeared into the undergrowth, barely leaving a track.
Dib remained on his knees, looking to where they had gone. "Wait…! But… but I…!"
The emptiness came back with all of its crushing weight, loneliness an indiscriminate agony that welcomed him again.
He slowly stood up, not even bothering to brush the leaves and dirt off his knees. When he swallowed, the lump almost made him choke.
Not far from him was a broken mantrap, its hinges rusted, undone. His gormless stare lingered on its agonizing cold metal... then he blinked, gaze dropping to the pools and puddles of rainwater as they rippled and swelled. The soft rain misted his glasses into kaleidoscopes of raindrops as he hurried back the way he had come.