Space Trash - Chapter 9 - Aperfecttimeforscreaming (GraveCounselor) (2024)

Zims PAK gives his limp mass a full body shock. His legs splay out and go rigid, then slump. Black spots like holes in the world dot Zims vision as breath returns to his system. He groans, wheezes long and hard to refill his chest. His head hangs low, gasping body muppet like in slumping posture. Steadily, bright green returns to Zim’s face, replacing the cool hues of suffocation.
He eagerly drinks life-giving gasps, and glances the room blearily in search of the source of his torment.

Zim feels his extremities tingle numbly, his fingers and his toes. He curls and uncurls them. With arms pinned tightly to his sides by the chairs' metallic bondage, he finds himself unable to throw the static from their ends.
Had Zim's PAK been in full operation, he would have NEVER allowed this to happen. He should not have been so easy to incapacitate. Inability to do as he wishes resets Zims focus to anger.
He shakes the fog from his skull. Tries to picture in his mind the image of wires, connecting his organic brain back up to his PAK, and all his connections jostled back into place. Zim imagines it into reality for himself, blinks rapidly as if it had really happened.

A loud ringing dominates the room, deep and booming, like rubber boots stomping on a massive window pane. Keefs living corpse, beating the front of the tank again.

A tall figure passes Zim to his left, the air that rolls off of him brings his stink to Zims perked antennae.
Dibs sweaty sterile odour is the smelling salt that drags Zim wholly back to the present.

When Zim remembers the indignity of his position he begins a shout that turns into a cough, that turns into a miserably raw coughing fit. The pain of it makes his sore head spin and his innermost sutures ache, as if the hot blood packed veins lacing his being are struggling not to rupture.

Zim lifts his hanging head.
“ You -”
The Irken glowers, breath caught and gum flashing. His red eyes set upon his enemy like missile caps.
“Why did you agree to that worms demands!? Do you not see you’ve made the situation WORSE?!”
Raising his voice is enough to make Zims pitch crack.

The booming reverberation stops, as if Keef somehow knows that Zim is no longer in mortal peril.

Dib stands with his back towards Zim and faces the decontamination cabinet.
He taps the progress screen with his finger to see how much of his weapon has been sanitised; In such a small amount of time, it is not even halfway decontaminated.
The bat/plasma-shot rifle, without the fuel in its chambers, with Keefs blood still trapped in it’s metal seams, is useless to him for now. Dib will not have time to retrieve it before they depart for the rendezvous.

This revelation feeds into Dibs’ festering ulcer of a mood. Shoulders hunched, he stalks his way back over Zims seat where he finds the Irken wriggling.
He rubs his jaw with hasty pissy thought as he stands, watching Zim.
“It’s not, actually. It won’t be worse.”
Dib seethes.
“What would be worse, is me being continuously distracted by the asinine problems you keep causing.”

The Irken squints at Dib for a moment and stops trying to squirm himself up and out of his restraints. Zim scoots his chair backwards, a snarling expression on his face as Dib advances.
Zim knows Dibs anger leads to rash choices, turning the otherwise conniving monkey into a beast of impulse. If he can keep Dib going a while longer, surely there will be a lapse in his judgement. He will need to sleep. At some point. He will need to rest, and that will be all Zim needs.
The plan is working, he’s throwing Dib off his game, and soon a window of opportunity will open itself for him like sky in the eye of a great and mighty storm.

He spits hatefully.
“Don’t be stupid. You gave all the bargaining power to your enemy, in some foolish attempt to humiliate me!! WHICH I'M NOT ! NOT HUMILIATED !”
Zim pants, haggard, squirming requires more effort than he can expend.
A tragic lack of potential momentum makes it futile, so he stops. For a while.

Zim deigns it upon himself to elaborate his point, to make it clear to the wrathful hominid.
“I played my role!! I arranged the disposal of your enemy! Keef will be taken from the base, never to disturb us again!
Which You’re WELCOME FOR."

"The very least you could do, is run your foolhardy errand without me! Take one of the Zim bots with you, surely that will suffice.”

“HA! And what, give you an opportunity to pry the subjugator off?!”
Dib sets his shoe on the arm of Zims chair to hold him in place, and speaks down to him.
“Not gonna happen.

- And, for the record, you still haven’t helped me get Keef out out of the base.
We’re in the process of that. Consider this a penalty for not obeying me the first time, huh?”

“ I HARDLY THINK EXPOSING ME TO THE HOSTILE SURFACE OF YOUR TERRIBLE PLANET IS A WISE WAY TO DEAL WITH MY SUPPOSED “ IMPUDENCE ” !!!”
Zim shouts back, being loud where he cannot be violent.

“I disagree. I think it’s the perfect opportunity to show you just how f*cked you’d be without me.” A grinning Dib leans over Zim.
“And I think, it doubles as a nice opportunity for some obedience training, don’t you?

“NO! I DON'T’!”
Zim lashes out, chin lifted and teeth grit, loathing how Dib looks down on him.
It’s beneath him to flash fangs at Dib and act out as an animal would, but Dibs smugness unglues him from his rational self.
“ ZIM IS NOT SOME KIND OF–OF, SHOWPIECE! !! FOR YOU TO PARADE BEFORE YOUR PEERS!”
Zimss face heats and he flexes his useless fists beneath the strap. He wants to skin Dib alive with nothing but the most basic tools of claw and teeth.

Dib hums, and pulls his foot back from the arm of the chair.
“No you’re not. And, that’s probably the best part. Knowing that you’re some kind of insectoid supercomputer. Beholden to my will, and hating every minute of it.”
He laughs with detached casualty as he taunts.
“You really should just, give up. Play along. For your own sake, roachboy.”

Zim resents being dubbed the title of such a meaningless and filthy creature.
If it was for his sake and the worth of himself, to fight for himself, Zim could see it no other way. He had to fight against Dib’s demeaning presence, for his own sake.
Face wrinkled with lines of DEEPLY etched frustration, Zim rages.
“I will NEVER submit to you!! Not for this! Not for ANYTHING!! These delusions of control will be decimated the very moment I GET OUT OF THIS!!!! HHHN!! CHAIR!!!r!”

In the face of such terrifying Irken intimidation, Dib simply shakes his head.
“Would you quit squirming so much?”
He glances Zim over as if inspecting a wounded animal, and sneers in judgmental disappointment.
“Last time I checked, your wounds weren’t going to heal for another 36 hours. With all your frantic wiggling around, it’ll take a f*cking week!”
He puffs air through grit teeth, his tone light and mocking as he suggests;
“It’s almost like you’re doing it on purpose. Scrambling for excuses to slow down my research.”

“Zim did not volunteer to be probed and gutted and stuffed and explored! No matter how fascinating I am, there is NO justification! YOU THINK I WOULD JUST LET YOU?? ZIM IS SACRED! ZIM IS MAGNIFICENCE ITSELF! DEFY ME- Go ahead– go AHEAD defy me!! SEEE WHAT happensssss””
Zim hisses. It’s then that he strains, his head pulls back, chin trying to reach and teeth snapping bite into the thick metal swathed around his torso.

Dib steps away from Zim with a flat and tired look upon his face. He stalks his way towards one of the base's delivery chutes, and rolls up the cotton sleeves of his black hoodie.
“Computer, grab a nice big syringe for me. Serum number 374.”

The base drones out a dutiful “Yes Master”. A moment later a rectangular box ascends from the chute, floating on a platform of rose tinted light.

Dib deftly snatches the box from the stasis beam, and unfolds the lid open in plain sight. He hides nothing from Zim, obviously unveiling the tool as an intimidation tactic. Inside is a needle of brutal length and a vial full of dubious clear fluid.

“I don’t think so, Zim.”
Dib taps the bubbles to the surface of the syringe as he speaks, and shoots a little bit of it out onto the floor.
“But, here’s an idea. I’m going to give you two options. Either you can come with me NICELY; or… I can paralyze you with agony so extreme, you won’t even be able to focus on your own breathing.”

Zims’ head flicks quickly towards Dib.
“You think I can’t handle a little bit of pain, Scum?”
He sneers, scoffing at the tactic.
“ I’ll metabolize that serum like it's a girly ranger cookie! Zims tolerance for pain is legendary, you can’t break me with pithy threats of so called “agony”. I’ll NEVER agree to this!”

Dib smirks, postures highly and mightily.
“Cute. I’ve had over a decade to figure out what exact chemicals do harm to an Irken nervous system, and you think that I’m threatening you with a half assed formula?”
Dib shakes the needle tauntingly as he steps forward. The game is rigged, his to win.

His hand snaps forwards and clasps the headrest of Zims chair, easily reaching over the short Irkens to pull Zim close and hold him still.
“It’s specially formulated to attack your pain receptors. It’ll make you feel like you're the sole victim of an electrical fire. Like your flesh is being gnawed all over by a billion vermin with acid in their teeth. I derived it from one of the venoms you had stowed away in your specimen collections.

You really want to die on this hill? Fine with me. I wasn’t going to move on to stress trials until next week but… since it’s me and you, I think I can make an exception.”

Zim tries to imagine what it would be like to have every single one of his nerves in a suspended state of pain. He can easily imagine that- doesn’t know why the ghost of the feeling is imprinted on him.
Chooses not to think about it.

His ferocity melts, switches to something meeker. Zim breathes steadily, straining not to panic. As he looks at the needle tip shimmering in green light, its contents ominously inches from his body, the Irken glares up its sharp tip and whinges bitterly.
“That's not f air . I’ve done as you asked! You MUST give me the tools to fix my PAK!”

“OHHOOHOH! YOU THINK SO?!”
Dib booms as he leans in close.
“You really haven’t! If anything, you complicated things! If you hadn’t butt in on my call, Lazarus wouldn’t have even known you were here. It’d be me making the exchange, with none of this coercive horse sh*t.
I would have sorted our deal out myself , but, oh well! I guess you just live to make things more difficult for everyone, don’t you Zim?”
Dib scowls as he hangs over Zim. He brings the needle closer to Zims neck and speaks to the air between Zims antennae.

Dibs words, Zims smooth green skin crawling response.
“Now. How would you like to do this?

In extreme unbearable agony,

Or are you going to be cooperative for once in your f*cking life?”

“I’VE BEEN COOPERATIVE!!”
Zim insists unrighteously, fervent that he has been helpful.

Dib wants to be mad, truly and genuinely wants to be intimidating, but finds himself distracted. So close to Zim, Dib can smell the sharp chemical lemon scent of Zims dissidence.Old and familiar, whiteboard chalk, an empty sticky wrapper of a sucked clean freezer pop. The little black hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Even though they are being watched, and Zim is itching to eat his throat out, he can’t stop his mind from wandering.

What would it be like to close the gap? To taste Zims sweat? To feel the Irkens lips against his own, alive and scowling, instead of dead and numb? What would it be like to kiss this Zim, instead of his unconscious body?

Dib surmises that he has been in too much close contact with Zim over the past few hours, and that it must be doing something to his brain. It is the presence of something meaningful and real in place of the hollow ache of absence he was used to. The chaos of life breathed into a dead world. His stupid sh*tty mind is deprived of enrichment, and he is too sleep deprived to stay on track.

Zim searches Dibs' eyes for mercy. He feels the moment holding for too long, picks up on the tension of Dibs stare, the intensity of it. His black brows lowered, eyes centred on the will to pounce. Dibs stink hangs over him, the smell of his salty porky body odour, of old body spray and medical wipes. Zims glare lifts to reveal aggressive confusion, his thin lips part to grimace. He thinks;
“ Is this a new intimidation tactic?”

Dib is wanting of something. Zim teeters on the edge of understanding what it is, but just when epiphany rears its ugly head, he denies himself. Zim tries to jerk away.
In the process of jerking around, his throat is scratched by the needle tip. The nape of his neck bleeds slightly.
Zim winces, his breathing hitches with the worry that even a small wound could start the unworldly pain that Dib promises.

Zim's lemony aggressive pheromones give way to something candy-like, almost like the sticky honey of a medicinal cough drop. He tenses his sore guts, and swallows the fearful spit in his mouth. Warm blood slithers down Zim's neck towards his collar.
He speaks quickly and plainly;
“Don’t be absurd, that’s hardly a choice at all, earth Pig. Under the threat of being subject to your vile and primitive experimentations, I will carry out your commands. At least, what commands I deem are reasonable. Of your so-called “claim of conquest” , and nothing more.”
Zim mocks, spitting his words and forcing them out, just to get Dib and that daunting needle farther away from himself.

Dib hums with condescending mirth, he taps the needle tip against Zims neck, poking but not stabbing that raw line of bright pink blood as he goads.
“That’s not good enough, Zim. I want to hear that you’re going to obey me. I need your word. I need to hear you say it, and I need to believe it. Anything less than that and I’m sending your annoying ass to pain town.”

Zim growls stubbornly, scowls deeply. He catches the reflection of his glaring contact shielded eyes in Dibs glasses. If he can’t focus he can’t plan his escape. Everything rides on the ability of Zims brain to function, it is his only remaining asset. If he is to be unconscious again, if he is to be so greatly debilitated that he loses the ability to control his body, there will be no opportunities at all to take advantage of.

Dib taps Zims neck again, this time a little bit harder, a little less carefully.
He speaks to Zim toyingly.
“Hurry uuup or I’ll choose for yoooou .”

Growling with deep loathing remorse, Zim folds.
False eyes narrow further and Zims voice lowers seriously.
“I will obey you. This one, miserable time, I will obey you. But know that once we are back safely within the base I will exact the full force of my wrath upon you. There will be no mercy, only PAIN.”

Dib draws back the needle with a deep chuckle. He looks down on Zim with a sarcastic grin;
“I’m already in pain, man. You need better threats.”
After a beat of observation, it appears that an idea plants itself in Dibs mind. He leans over the side of Zims neck. He sets down the needle on the empty arm of Zims chair, and mutters to himself;
“Hmnn. I wonder.”

Zim fights to get so much as a single hand out from under the long flexible strap restraint, tucked around his body like the sides of a metallic blanket, all so that he MIGHT get ahold of that clumsily placed syringe.

As if not even noticing Zims attempt to do harm, Dib grabs the front of Zims skull to hold the Irken still. He nestles his face between Zims chin and shoulder so that his mouth hovers over the fresh wound.
Zim feels the heat of breath on his bare skin when Dibs lips and teeth part, and as he extends his flat pink nub of a tongue to lick him.

Dibs spit stings and bubbles where the fresh wound is grazed, but that tongue goes lower, following the blood trail to its end. That thin pink river leads over Zims arteries to a candy stripe of blood collecting on the sealed upper lip of Zims metal collar. Dibs grotesque oral curiosity compels him to clean this up himself. All the while while holding Zims head still with the pressure of his spidery fingers and thick palms.

All Zim can do is choke on overwhelmed squeaks of disgust, and strain to resist the hold.
In moments his thoughts stop . Zim’s body holds still, petrified by the stinging caress of flat wet human tongue.

Dib pulls back with a breathless laugh, enough so that he can see Zim, and Zim can see the stain of his life fluid blushing the gaps of Dibs flat enamel teeth.
“Mhhn. Funny, thought it’d be sweeter.”
He lets go of Zims head by pushing it back roughly against the padded seat and snatches up the needle as he retreats.

Zim bristles all over. After a moments breath, recovery from his shock, his face scrunches in extreme repulsion.
The Irken gags in disgust and tries to wipe his human spit licked neck off on anything, even though the feat is nigh impossible (anatomically speaking).
“REVOLTING!! Are you trying to give me an infection? Do you know how disgusting the human mouth is? How much bacteria resides in it?! I'M IN RECOVERY, YOU PIG!!”

Dib laughs at Zims reaction, satisfied.
“You’re not going to die from a little bit of spit, Zim. Not if you haven't died from the implants." As he licks his teeth clean he turns back to the needle kit and puts everything back inside.

"Calm down, it’s just a little scientific curiosity. You can’t tell me you’ve never tasted one of your lab subjects.”

“OF COURSE I HAVEN’T TASTED ANY OF MY LAB SUBJECTS!!”
Zim lies, impassioned. Of course, some experiments had been food, and not his own nemesis. That was crossing a line.

Dib grins snidely as he squirts out the contents of the needle into the disposal hatch of a lab table.
“Suuuure you haven’t.”

“ZIM WOULD NEVER!!”
Insisting is immediate, he’s never crossed that line, never thought about it, never thought of Dib that way. Not really. Not in any serious capacity, and certainly not now. The cooling saliva on his throat catches circulating air, and causes Zim to stifle a shiver in his guts. When was he last violated so intimately? Internally, the sour Irken laments. It has been too long.

Zim had last indulged his base urges one Irken cycle ago, while he’d been on tour in the Theta Union. The Resisty tour ship had docked at a play port; a place for various alien races to gather and explore their carnal senses. Zim had hired a taller, almost Irken looking alien, as his entertainment for the evening.

At first this taller creature had tried to sit in his lap and frot against his groin, to press its mouth to his skin, to flutter its segmented tentacle like antennae over him- but Zim had other plans.
The unpredictable touch of sentient others had never been welcome. The natural urge others had to grasp for Zim had never meant much, not to him. Not from strange beings, with no true appreciation of Zim.
With his knowledge of how others sought to use him, Zim required control to obtain completion. Domination, ensuring his own pleasure.

So, he'd proceeded to bind, gag, and make use of his hired concubine. He’d paid good monies treat them as he wished.

Things had ended well enough. He’d caused his plaything no real harm, done nothing illegal. Yet, when the transaction had concluded, a nude and f*ck high Zim had been forced to stop his hired plaything from making an attempt on his life.

How much sooner would they have tried it, if he’d been trusting? If he’d been so weak as to want or even crave touch? Vulnerability didn’t exist in his world, and never could. Too many wished his torment, his capture, his end. No amount of pleasure would ever be worth letting his guard down. This was no trouble, however. He didn’t mind the thrill of watching a sexual conquest squirm for him like a bound dying animal.

Zim resents that Dib would perform such an openly lustful act against him, knowing that Dib is only one of many seeking to torment him. Has no wish to utilise Zims true value.
As the memory stings in the lobes of his wire laced mind, he hisses.
“Try that again and I will swallow your tongue.”

“You’re still really bad threatening people, aren’t you?”
Dib chuffs in amusem*nt. He goes about his task as if he wasn’t beginning to contaminate the hall with his lusty pheromones, and feeds the needle kit back to the transport canister from whence it came.
“Computer, release Zim from the chair. And grab him that disguise box.”
He commands.
“This will be easier if he blends in.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!!!”
Zim yips as the restraints retreat back into the sides of the chair. He pushes back and launches himself back onto the floor with a clap of his heels.
The action causes him to land unsteadily, but is quickly corrected. He stands better, stiffly but not as hunched over. Hurt but not as hurt. It would benefit him to relax and let his body heal, but the situation will not permit it.

Dib is right to suggest that Zim will feel better with a more suitable disguise, and that competency burns him.
As Zim wipes his neck clean with the heel of his glove he asks haughtily.
“Computer! At what stage in earth's solar rotation are we?”

“It’s the time of year when temperatures are at their highest and daylight predominates. You might remember it as “summer”.”

Dib kicks the box of clothes haphazardly in Zims direction as he approaches the gigantic acid tank. Inside this, Keef simply floats in place at the front of the glass, still and gormless.

Zim stops the box’s sliding momentum with his boot and returns to his task. His antennae twitch, he listens out for what Dib is doing, not wanting to be caught unaware.
With slightly shaking claws, he sorts through the box for something summer casual. That's what humans wear when it is hot out, to his recollection. Blending in will lead to the lowest chance of exposure and allow Zim to do what must be done.

Dib stands in front of the tank with arms crossed, pondering what sort of container he’ll need to transport Keef. His mouth skews to one side, and hums, assessing;
“He’ll need to be unconscious. Anything else will be too messy.

Computer… inject Keef with six doses of Asominoketamine”

The Base AI hesitates to do ask, pinging out something like an error sound as the control panel for the tank gently pulses with red light.
“Uhhhh….Are you sure you want to do that? It could kill him.”

Dib claps his hands together with a laugh and glances upwards.
“Oh, good! Either way, problem solved.”

The computer concedes, the blinking red fades away with a quick affirming blip.
“Executing command.”

The mechanical housing above the tank clicks and moves, whirring as it comes to life. Six limbs like insect legs fold up from the bottom of the tank and encircle keef on all sides. Each one is tipped with a sturdy syringe point.

Zim shakes the dust out of a button up shirt he thinks will serve him well. The clothing will mostly obscure the miserable shackle around his neck, and supply him with the much needed “summer vibe” he desires. When he hears the tank behind him whirring he hastily pulls on ratty red hawaiian shirt, and scurries over to watch.
“How dare you try to kill him without inviting me to watch!”

“I never said you couldn’t watch.” Dib chides in amusem*nt, chin in his hand as he watches, curious to see what Keefs reaction will be.

“You could never KEEP me from watching, Dib beast.”
Zim asserts as He deftly buttons up the front of the shirt. Never taking his eyes off the tank.

The two watch in fascination as six needle armed legs strike forwards simultaneously and stab into Keef.
Keef does not flinch. He does not feel pain from being stabbed with six three inch long needle tips. Through the haze of green fluid, the two men watch the serum drain from storage beakers, and inject deep into the tissues of zombie Keef.

“Hey,” Dib pipes up.
“How come the bortholax hasn’t eaten through the robot arms?”

Zim scoffs as if it is an obvious thing.
“I coated them in a neutral material. You have to create something to resist the dissolvent before you can store it inside anything. Rule number one of working with volatile acids stink-ape, always work three steps ahead.”

Dib nods, lower lip popped out as he does as he quietly contemplates the conditions around Zims unexpected competency.
Zim was not always so thorough with his experiments, but it’s clear Zim hadn’t constructed the bortholax under any kind of pressure. It must have been more of a curiosity project, maybe a smaller part of some destructive chemistry hobby.

As the two speak Keefs body grows sluggish and eventually stills.

Dib reaches up to the tank and taps it a few times with his fingernail. When Keefs body doesn’t respond, Dib still isn’t sure he’s sedated.

“So…is he, incapacitated?”
Zim asks head tilting to one side, eyes squinting. He too taps the glass with his claws.

Keef twitches to shift in the vat. The man is directly in front of them, so SO close to Zim. Some part of Keef senses the presence of Zim, and with what power remains in him, he lashes out.
With a flurry of blows unlike any other before that moment, the muscular torso beats upon the front face of the tank, barely giving the glass time to ring.

Zim falls back with a loud screechy squeak. Dib watches wide eyed as the 5 inch thick barrier warps alarmingly with the resonant waves of force hitting it. The surface of acid at the top of the tank sloshes violently.

Fearing unprecedented disaster, Zim hurriedly commands the base;
“QUICK!!! STICK HIM AGAIN!!”

The mechanical arms click and whir hastily as they stab with the speed of a switchblade knife being flicked open. Needle tips pierce Keefs latex flesh and pump him with four more doses of the chosen sedative. The pain of the process is not enough to turn Keef away from trying to destroy the tank. He does not detect the pain at all. Does not stop.
Keef swings wildly as the arms withdraw from him, he whacks one with his mangled hand. The machine trembles and shakes, and the mechanism hiccups, flinching before it is drawn back into its slot.

“Jesus, where is he getting this energy from?”
Dib asks, watching as the second dose kicks in.

Zim grunts as he sits up from the floor. Repeated falls and injuries and stresses have begun to make it impossible for him not to show pain. As he struggles to rise he glares up at Dib, and suggests.
“It’s part of his… biological structure. He’s imbued with the natures of that verminsome, red ick. Red ick is resistant to most sedation processes. It’s not impossible to freeze one for travel, but it requires more potent drugs. Or an extreme cryochamber. And finesse, of which you’re lacking.”

Dib turns to face Zim, notices the trouble his subject is having, and for fear of Zim hurting himself, reaches out to help him up.
He lilts with sarcasm.
“My bad for not knowing how exactly to handle a previously unheard of lifeform.”

Zim swipes at the incoming hand, moments before turning over onto his front and pushing himself upright.
“Yes. It is your bad. You should differ to Zims judgement on this and all other things.”
He pants, one hand on his thigh, body shaky as he turns back to face Dib. Zim moves from his hands and knees back to his feet with all the grace of a geriatric and replies.
“You know nothing. Your decision making processes are like that of a baby to me. An impetuous, sh*tty, horrible little baby. ”

“Says the 3 foot tall space vermin having a hissy fit.”
Dib mutters as he retracts his hand.
He turns away from Zim as coldly if he had never intended to help in the first place.
“Computer, take Keef and the collected Keef matter and deposit it inside one of the sterile storage drums.”
Scratching the black hair of his scruffy chin Dib speaks to himself.
“That should work as a quick temporary solution, right? Something to go from point A to point B, that’ll be tricky for him to break out of. He doesn’t seem to have extreme super strength, or he would have broken out of containment just now.”

Zim knows better, but says nothing.

Keefs torso loses its uncanny buoyancy and sinks to the bottom of the tank like a meaty rock. Zim thinks, if Keef had been strong enough to cause the glass to warp, then Keef is likely stronger than him.

Irkens can lift about 10 to 50 times their own body weight, depending on their build. Zim himself holds a record in the Devastis archives for being the first shorter under 4 ft able to lift 24.8 times his own body weight.
It had caused immense muscular damage and incapacitated him for a few short hours, but it had been worth it.
He knows that the tank would be more than strong enough to contain an Irken stronger than him and offer no route for escape. He doubts that one of his own kind could even cause the glass to warp, he built it as such.
Zim admits to himself alone that he is marginally impressed by the display of strength. If Keef were a four legged beast and Zim were some ignorant analogue farmer, he might consider tethering Keef to a wagon.

As the minutes wear on, Keefs movement slows to a dead stop.

The lid of the tank cracks open with the smoothness of an industrial antique. It groans as plates grind against each other, releasing a lime-aid plume up into the whirring fans. Above, a long hydraulic arm unfolds in trisected components, and reaches down towards Keef with a clawed machine hand. It wraps around Keefs limp body and pulls him steadily to the surface.
Meanwhile, a canister is placed inside a large containment chamber to the right of the tank. It clamps into place for stability while a slurry of blood and body chunks is poured from a tube, into the open top of the pot like drum.

When Keefs body breaks the surface of the acid it is brought to rest for a moment on the lid of the tank. A nozzle appears and sprays him down with a neutralising agent to return the bacteria to a handleable state, and to render the acid inert.

Zim pretty much understands this process, so he focuses on his disguise. He slides the bunched up buttoned shirt flat across his back as if draping a shawl. The fitting goes unseen. His PAK lifts, disconnects. and reconnects to his spine ports. Burning through the fabric and reconnecting before the doom clock can even get the spare seconds it needs to activate. Zim does this smoothly and without concern, it is as natural as scratching an itch.

As he buttons up the collar of the shirt over the band of metal around his neck, he notices Dib is watching him.
“Eyes on your work, Dibfilth.”
Zim sneers. He glances away from Dib with his chin raised prudishly.
“I thought you wanted to be in charge.”

“I am in charge.”
Dib growls bleeding arrogance as he turns his whole slouching body away from Zim to watch the container.
“ I just wanted to see how you do… that.”

He specifies by vaguely gesturing to his back.

“Bother with your studying of Zims fascinating mechanisms at some other time.”
Zim harps.
“It’s not hard to figure out. For what little brainpower you have, even you could solve such a simple puzzle.”

Dib gets huffy and self righteous, casual arguing, he rallies;
“Is it though? I think a lot of things humans do are obvious, but you wouldn’t see it that way.”

Keefs' neutralized body descends from the top of the tank, carried in that thick metallic claw, accompanied by the trumpeting metallic groans of a mechanism seldom used. His body dangles, heavy like a doll made of sand bags.

The headless body is crammed without care into the prepared vessel, folded inside in what ways it can be made to fit, pressed and scrunched down to the point that the force results in crunching sounds. The compacted body has its feet pressed down into the cylinder by the container's descending lid, cramming all parts of Keef inside the drum with a wet squelch. It bubbles faintly as the pneumatic press sucks air out and fully seals its contaminated insides. Keef has been compacted down to the size of a large pumpkin inside the thick industrial drum.

Zim stares at it for a moment, squinting perniciously at the off-purple metal container before offering his helpful critique.
“This is too obvious. Isn’t there some way you could make it more, ehm. Inconspicuous?”

“It’s not going to get seen by anybody!”
Dib argues impatiently.

“But what if it DOES? You don’t know that we won’t get pulled over by one of your planets loathsome law enforcers! It’s best to prepare for the worst case scenario, so as to not be caught with ones gloves off!”
Zim spits, arms crossed and off put by Dibs haste.

Dib shakes his hands through his hair and growls.
“Fine. FINE. Computer, solutions?”

“Uhh. I could, spray paint a biohazard symbol on the side of it.”
The computer offers.

“Sure!! We’ve got to go like- NOW! So make it quick!!”
Dib orders.

Zim watches a laser printer arm rise out of the barrel dispensing station and etch a biohazard symbol onto the side of the drum. He rubs his gloves together and grins.
“INGENIOUS!! Glad I thought of it.”

“You did not-”
Dib inhales shapely. Pushes his fists to his sides. Stares Zim down balefully.

Zim, blinks vapidly. He cares not for Dibs anger and turns towards the container.
“You said we should get going, yes? Move with purpose, lest we lose our window to be rid of this blight!”

The glass door of the dispenser slides down out of the way to open. Dib grabs the barrel by one of its handles on the top side, and lugs it from the platform with laborious effort. Zim thinks that Dib could have ordered the computer to do so, but speculates that maybe Dib needs some kind of outlet for his obvious rage.
Better Keef than him.

When the barrel falls sideways to the ground, Dib proceeds to kick the thing, rolling it down the dark hall of the laboratory, where it eventually bumps against the open doorframe.

He pushes past zim, shoving the invader out of his way with a frustrated thrust of his palm, before fulminating;
“How about you worry about not getting discovered as the hideous mutant ant that you are, and leave the rest to me?”

Zim glowers, squares his hunched shoulders and lifts his chin. His pain prevents him from keeping pace with Dib and so he settles for a slow strut. As he follows behind he retrieves the sunglasses from his PAK. With a quick flick of his wrist, he snaps them open, and sets them upon his face. They click into place, taking advantage of the metal reinforcements in his skull to clip on magnetically and stay in place.
“ Zim would, but. This “keeping your secrets hidden” business? Isn’t something that you excel at.”

“Stop talking out your ass man, how would you even know that?”
Dib sneers reflexively, defending himself with a glance over his shoulder.
“You’re paranoid Zim, look at you. What do you need the sunglasses for if you’re already wearing contact lenses?”

Zim hacks a little laugh before answering.
“I’m not going to this little meeting of yours all dressed up like I WANT to be there! This will protect my eyes from your horrible sun, and allow me to pose with dramatic discontentment. It enhances my body language, Dib. Though, I guess as someone who has never been an actor, you would never have realized that significance on your own.”

“I don’t NEED to know how to be an actor, Zim. I just Lie . There’s no drama to it. There doesn’t need to be.”
Dib is clipped and curt. He leans over to pull the barrel upright, and to drag it to the mouth of the lift.

Zim steps into the elevator first with a huff.
“It’s not drama, it’s embellishment, to aid believably. Just because you don’t see the merit in adding credence to a ruse doesn’t mean-”
Zim barely has time to move out of the way when Dib rolls the heavy barrel into the confines of the lift space.
“HEY!!! WATCH IT!”

“Watch yourself.”
Dib counters, lumbering in after the barrel and putting his foot on it to keep it from rolling around.
“Computer, take us up to the garage!”

Zim curiously squints, his antennae twitch under his wig and he asks;
“Since when did my base get a garage?”

Dib elaborates snidely.
“Since the person who owns it decided it needs one.”

Zim and Dib exchange a glare. Zim vows to himself once more that when the base is his again, he will make Dib suffer the very worst of it's torturing devices.
Though, he will be keeping the garage. That’s a good idea.

The lift opens up to a circular platform near the home entrance to the garage.
Dibs addition to the base structure is built in much the same way the house is, out of metal and tiles and wires.
Through the dim light Zim can see wallpaper made to look like fake brick work, peeling away from the walls near the floor, water damaged. Through its cracks it shows the Irken metals of the walls beneath, bleeding plum rust.

The majority of the rectangular space is taken up by wheeled vehicles. Largest of these is a rectangular box covered in a tarp, smallest is some sort of muddy dirty bike, also covered over with a fitted black tarp. The only uncovered vehicle is an outmoded grey car. A boxy and mean looking thing, likely built before the advent of the smartphone.

Before Zim can get a closer look at the small collection of automobiles, the scent of the space seeps under his wig and offends his senses. The place is perfumed by the fragrant florals of rotting corpses.

Zim covers his mouth, and heaves as he steps off the platform.
“AUGH!! IT STINKS IN HERE!”
He reaches up to grab the sides of his wig, and pulls it tight against his skull to try and block it out with plastic and hair spray.

His lens covered eyes dart around, surveying the space in search of its disease. To his horror, he looks to his left to find the wall patch-worked with macabre trophies of deceased preserved animals. Mammals mostly, a weird mutated lizard of some kind, a mummified monkey with its back half sewn to the approximation of a fish. Under this is a blood stained metal work station, accompanied by a stack of 3 large black tupperware containers, labelled “bone tubs”.

Zim moves further from the bins and watches Dib lug the heavy canister off of the elevator. “Thank the brains you had the decency to keep your grim and disgusting hobbies outside where they belong!!”

Dib turns Keefs drum onto it’s side and rolls it towards the car.
“It’s pretty clean actually, if you know what you’re doing.”
Dib refutes, grunting as he kicks the drum, careless towards its living mash of contents.

“How long ago did you slap this crummy little shack onto the back of my base?”
Zim asks as he looks around.

“A few months after I moved in. Then,”
Dib grunts and lays the drum against the side of the car. He uprights himself, and takes a moment to breathe.
“I found a car that suited my purposes. Had the base print a fake licence plate. Tricked out some defensive stuff to throw in it.”
Dib pats the roof of the slate grey Oldsmobile Intrigue with a prideful sigh.
“This baby doesn’t look like much, but she’s practically a tank.”

The front door is yanked open and Dib releases the trunk hatch. A pneumatic hiss betrays the reality of those modifications, and the back storage quickly lurches open.

Dib then bends over to grasp the barrel of Keef, and holds it with both scrawny arms. The man grunts, and by some miraculous feat of nerd rage, lifts the heavy canister up and into the open hatch of the trunk.

While Dib struggles, Zim inspects the vehicle and tries to figure out its secrets. He walks around its back bumper, taking note of subtle lines between the panels of the cars slick black shell.

“This thing has… projectile weapons? Hidden near the wheel wells? Curious that you haven’t disguised them as secondary headlights, I always thought they’d be easier to aim from the bumper of a car. “
Zim muses.

“I have an auto aim system, it targets the heat or motion of whatever is in the range of the scanners, then locks on. Earth tech doesn’t have a whole lot of protections against Irken weapons, so I thought I’d take advantage.”
Dib answers as he drags the arm of his sweater across his sweaty brow.

“Hmnf.”
Zim sticks his nose up at it, ducks under Dibs arm and goes to climb in the drivers side.
“How lazy.”

“Yeah, well, It’s not YOUR car is it?”
Dib hip checks Zim out of the way and gets into the drivers seat.
“You’re riding shotgun.”

“ I’m a better driver than you are!”
Zim barks as he stomps his boot into the metallic tiles of the floor.
“I should drive!”

“You couldn’t even reach the pedals.”
Dib grins meanly. As Zim sets his hand on the doorhandle, he glares.
“Get in the car!”

Zim looks across from Dib at the thick pile of trash sitting on the passengers seat, and his expression contorts with horror.
“ONLY THE DRIVERS SEAT IS CLEAN!”

Dib sighs heavily.
He swipes the broad side of his forearm across the butt of the passengers seat, a cursory job, but enough that he himself finds the situation suitable. He turns back to Zim with a flat and unimpressed stare.
“Ok. It’s clean, now get in.”

Zim, still scowling, folds his arms authoritatively.
“You call that clean?! I’ve seen more pristine toilet bowls at interstellar rest stations!”

“I DON’T CARE!!”
Dib fumes, throwing his hands up.
“You should be glad I’m letting you ride in the front at all! Or, do you WANT me to throw you in the trunk with Keef!?”

“NOOO! I don’t want to be trapped in the trunk with Keef !!”
Zim whines angrily.

“Didn’t think so. Now, get in the f*cking car.”
Dib grabs the handle to the drivers side door, and slams it abruptly shut.

Zim stomps and fumes, spitting foreign curses as he walks around the front of the car, pouting and miserable. He yanks the passengers side door open, crawls into the seat, and buckles himself in sourly. Zim slams the door shut with enough force to rock the vehicle and test its suspension.
“I hate you and I’m going to saw your legs off.”

Dib inserts the key and twists to start the ignition.
“Sure, give me an excuse to make myself gun legs, we’ll see how well that goes for you.”
He clicks a button on the rear view mirror, and puts his arm over the back of Zims seat to look behind himself. The facade of an automatic garage door folds open, parting sideways down the middle like the wooshing doors of the underground base.

The dashboard of the vehicle lights up, interior panels of white and blue lighting make their presence known, showing off what parts of the car Dib had adjusted to suit his needs. From outside the black tinted windows, you would never know the difference.

Dib backs the car out into the alleyway, Zim leans away from the armpit that opens over his head. Zim is barely shielded from the smell of Dib by the layers of clothing between him and sweat slick skin. He is glad for the way his wig dulls his olfactory senses, but sneers at the affront regardless.

To distract himself from the offending pit below him, Zim inspects the cars interior.
It’s cleaner than the house to be certain, but not by a wide margin. Cans and the wrappings of fast food containers litter the inside of the vehicle, even the seat under him is not without fault. It stinks of old cigarettes, its spongy grey velvet fabric stained with the yellow afterbirth of nicotine addiction. After snapping the metal buckle of his belt into place, he slides his gloved hand over the seat, and feels a sticky residue dragged through his fingers. The seat has been splashed with layers of mysterious fluids, uncarefully swiped clean for months, perhaps years. Though Dib had taken the time to swipe the most obvious debris off of Zims seat, more is lurking beneath it. Zim is grateful that his booted feet dangle off the floor.

All this, to say nothing of the smell. Of sweat musk, body spray and drugs. Of something burnt and of things in a slow state of greasy decay. Dib may have tricked out the vehicle to do any number of interesting things, but it would not undo Zims opinion of it being a slightly interesting refuse bin.

As the vehicle rolls out into the alleyway, these articles of garbage crinkle and clatter and rattle with varying degrees of soft sound, like an orchestra of forgotten refuse screaming to be cleaned.

Dibs control over the goings on may be questionably thought out, but Zim acknowledges internally that he cannot change it. In much the way that one can not argue with a warden, he cannot sway Dib to change his course of action. A terrible sickening tension comes over Zim, to know that escape is such a difficult path to set himself on, that he is bound to the side of some unstable animal, is maddening. His hands become restless in his lap, gripping each other, thumbs rubbing over fingers. He can't live like that- and he wont.

Zim turns his head to gaze out the window, his vision so obscured by his height that he can only see the roofs of buildings, the tips of trees and the grey unlit bulbs of daytime street lamps..

As the car rumbles out of the alleyway Zim watches the faded green of his base, the worn shingles, the rusted metal, slowly sliding out of sight. Seeing his home for the first time in years. His eyes settle on the pointed roof, its panels tightly folded shut, and he gripes;
"This is so primitive. It'd be so much easier if you'd just let me drive us in the Voot."

As Dib shifts gears he scoffs and goes on a mocking tangent.
"Oh GEEZ Zim! Why didn't I think of that, huh? That is such a BRILLIANT idea! In fact, why are we even doing this? Why don't we just, dump Keef's body onto the side of the road, and take off in your teeny tiny playschool ass spaceship towards the f*cking HEAVENS."
His voice is dripping with thinly veiled contempt, before he looses a curt huff of resignation.
"Listen man, if your Voot was an option, none of this would even be happening to me. That thing is long gone.”

Zim sits there listening, lips parted, mouth open in a small gawking angry frown.
"My Voot is gone ?"
He breathes. His lip twitches to disbelieving smile as memory tickles the back of his mind, malformed and blurry, indecipherable.
All other mockery is forgotten under the mountainous disappointment of knowing he is without his precious interstellar vehicle, his pride and joy.

As Dib pulls up to the first stop light, his spidery pale fingers clack at the plastic buttons of the dashboard to set in motion a cacophony of aggressive sounds. He turns on the CD player and the speakers of the car project angry sounding “music” if it could be called that. It seems to soothe his nerves. Dib speaks over it.
“Trust me, that was the FIRST thing I looked for."

"It can't be GONE.”
The irkens' gloves crinkle as he wraps them into tiny fists and shakes them.
“I left it HERE! Where else would it be?! What have you done with it?! It can't just be gone!"
Zim insists. Gripping his head with one hand he wheezes under the weight of his concerns.
"You pulled it apart for- SOMETHING- didn't you?!! And now we are trapped on this Brains-forsaken rock, with you stacking risk on top of risk!- What of the authorities?! What if we get pulled over Dib- HUH?!!"

About to interrupt Zim's searing accusations of Voot tampering, Dib's mouth snaps shut. His knowledge of the outside world comes reeling back to him.

Zim may be real, his dreams may be within sight, but SO much blocks the path between Dib and his end goal.
Mostly, the laws of the country he lives in.

What if a cop finds his car suspicious? What if Zim does something to get them pulled over? The little tyrant is just barely keeping himself in his seat, Zim's capable of split second chaos. Do I have my wallet? Yes. What about the fake vehicle registration papers?

Dib's mind begins to spiral, not remembering if he had transferred it out of the RV or not.
Quickly Dib reaches over, popping open the glove compartment to peak in for the legal documents he needs.

The glove box opens, and under various useless paranormal crane game prizes and a couple expired granola bars, Zim sees the steely flash of a glock. His eyes go wide with the dawning realisation that Dib has seated him so close to a real weapon.

As soon as Dib can confirm he's got his papers, the hatch snaps shut. Dib ignores the gun.

After a moment of holding breath, Dib exhales.
"If we get pulled over, you keep your f*cking mouth shut. Or I’m going to kill you for real."

“That’s hardly necessary. Zim is no snitch. Did my being a key member of an Irken resistance group slide through your greased brain lobes so easily?
To alert the authorities of my plight would only make things worse. Being trapped in this foetid earth vehicle is bad enough as it is-”
Zim shakes his head, and turns back to Dib with a pointing finger.
“DON’T distract me!!! TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO MY VOOT, THIEF!”

Dib clutches to the steering wheel, reliving the disappointment. His ire towards Zim refuelled.
"I was surprised they didn't level the entire Base, wipe your existence off the planet! You think they wouldn't take your ship!?
If anything, the authorities took it as junk, or for parts. I dunno, maybe they even auctioned it off! That's what happens when your car gets impounded."

Zim doesn’t register that his ship was taken, he won’t even humour the thought. It has no use to him.
The why of things is irrelevant as far as the empire is concerned, and Zim roots himself in the present. In what he can do to correct the course of his glorious life.
The harsh truth of Dibs words bounces off Zims thick skin like a stone off a lake, and The Ex-Invaders mind turns to plotting.
He will not soon forget the shiny block of black metal lurking inside Dibs junky dashbox. He will need to find his opening, and to take it unflinchingly. It may be his one and only shot to enact a correction of power.

Zim turns to watch Dib drive, the tension of his hands gripping the wheel, his focus on the road. The bags beneath his eyes. Dib reaches up and anxiously scratches flakes of peeling skin from his neck. His burns from the slime pool have resulted in an all over dry skin effect, a sunburn without sun. Meaning that he suffers the symptoms without gaining any colour. He peels and cracks, like a dead olive fish rotting on a beach, flies circling.

Zim stills his gloved hands at his sides to grip the seat, he looks away uncomfortably and curls his lip in disgust. For a moment Zim says nothing, until it seems like some kind of switch has been internally flicked.
Having remembered the secrets Keef revealed about Dib, his cruel curiosity compels him to pry. He holds his head high, unbothered, and jeers;
"How would you know what happens to impounded vehicles, trash-Dib? Would this have anything to do with a certain mutilation?”

Chin lifted righteously, Zim asks;
“Pre tell- what motivated you to hack a dead body to pieces? Were you anxious to see the inside of a padded cell again?"

Dib's loathing dissipates to cold dead air. He tries his best to control his body language but his microexpressions are a dead giveaway that Zim hit a nerve. The right side of his mouth grimaces just enough to notice, the lid under his right eye twitches.

How f*cking dare Keef make more of a mess of his life. His past, like a bloated dead body, tied too clumsily to stay submerged, washed back on shore in a stinking, waxy, fatty state of putrefaction. Keef feels like a messenger; repeating old knowledge that Dib can never truly get away from the constraints of humanity.
It seems fitting Keefs nothing more than a meat lump in a barrel with a biohazard warning stamped on the side.

"Really? You act like Keef was telling the truth about me, Zim. No one who smiles that much is trustworthy."
Dib grinds his teeth wracking his mind for a proper reply. Something that wouldn't give Zim some type of psychological advantage over him, but something to satiate the nosy roach.
The vicious part of his animal mind yearns to bash Keef's image in tandem with his skull.
"It was obvious he was just trying to make me look bad, make you scared of me.”
Dib posits, snarkily.
“Well, scared of me in ways he wanted you to be. That sleezy piece of sh*t wanted to f*ck you, and saw me as a threat. "

Zim bristles in revulsion. To be reduced to something as disgusting as Keefs mate twists his sore guts in ways he is unprepared to deal with. He could do worse, but he deserves better.
“Of course, anybody in their right mind would feel such a way towards Zim. But…..Euch."

"The nerve of that creepy hominid; to assume I had not reached my peak of maturity. How my age of flourishing urges isn’t plainly obvious to your kind, is why you all deserve to be crushed beneath my boot. Another reason on the never-ending list of why .”
He reaches up to rub under his shades with pinched fingers, and kisses his teeth in disdain.

“You didn’t have to goad him with your “ I f*ck so good, basically the best guy to ever f*ck ” speech.”
Dib jeers, doing a nasally flamboyant mockery of Zims own voice.

“HE ASKED! And I AM . I COULD NOT let him sit there and treat the almighty Zim as he would some dumb worm child!"

"Don’t be so stupid. Of course I had to boast about my skill. Nothing less would have set the record straight with that grinning husk of consciousness.”
Zim rolls his eyes so hard the motion can nearly be seen through his sunglasses, the sticky sickness of hateful emotion bubbles in his mutated guts.
“Vapid as Keef may seem, he is despicably honest. How else could he have the nerve to pose such a lurid question?”

Dib grins, teeth flashing in the light of the sun, wet with spit as he fulminates.
“Yeah? You think? Does that snivelling boy scout seem like someone who wouldn’t accuse anyone outside his twisted realm of normal , of being some kind of antichrist?”
Dib points at Zim without ever taking his eyes off the road.
“He’s wrong. And you’re wrong to believe him.”

A laugh, less than genuine, rushes past Dibs lips.
“I mean, come on- what happened to being the superior life form? You want to put your faith in some nearly brain dead mutant sludge? Keef was jealous of me. He even admitted it.”

An obscene sense of pride begins to fill Dib. Reviewing the strained conversation in his head, he replays Keef's confession over and over again. Why shouldn’t Keef be jealous? Zim is his, and has always BEEN, his alien. That's why Dib can operate on him. That's why Dib can seal him away from everyone else. That's what the Subjagator is for.

“ Jealous ?! OF YOU?”

Zim hacks a laugh.
“HARDLY. What have you done that’s worthy to be jealous of? You’re living your life coiled inside my base like a venomous vlormpsqig, riding off the high off my space dust. That’s hardly anything to be jealous of!”

The pride Dib reflects on glimmers in his mad eyes, a respite from the growing anxiety of the meeting ahead. Dib snorts a little bit, voluntarily leaving his reverie to dismiss Zim.
"You know f*ck all about me, man. And you don't NEED to know. You're the test specimen here, not me."

Zim shuffles uncomfortably in his seat, one hand reaches up to fiddle with a button on his floral print shirt .
"That's what you think. I don't need a lab to trap you, OR to extract the truth of your failure!”
As he mocks he viciously swipes crumpled napkins out of the cupholder.

The Irkens eyes narrow as he puts on an accusatory tone; Probing with his words in the tense silence of Dibs denial.

"But I know you did SOMETHING to ruin your own reputation. I will find out what that something is, and you will rue having ever tried to lie to me. Zim is too clever to be fooled."

Dibs lips flatten to a thin pursed line.
“Not too clever not to crash land on your own lawn though. Right?”
He turns the car towards what seems to be a thickly wooded park. The vegetation is yellowed and browned, choked out by a lack of rain and the relentless sun.

Through skinny trunks of manicured dry trees, Zim sees rows of stones, oblong boxes, sheds, and upright pillars. Tightly condensed graves that go on for blocks, with yet more space to fill. The entire area, fenced off by rusty black gates and brick columns.

Zim huffs in the place of conceding and brushes off the dig easily.
“It was a tactical move. Given uh… limited. Options.”

As they drive along, an open cemetery gate swallows the pavement of the main road. Dib turns the wheel to roll his metal battle cart forwards, through the gate and into a parking lot big enough to rival those of wally mart, or some other type of big box store.
Dib parks near a thicket of manicured dying plant life, far from the tall religious building that dominates the western half of the parking lot with its stone guards and long shadows.

“Poor planning. That’s what it was.”
Putting more force onto the gear than he needs to, Dib puts the car in park.
Dib stares forward onto the rolling land of grim stones, mind wandering.
"Why do you keep asking anyway? What’s it matter? When has my reputation ever meant anything to you?"

Zim leans back in his seat. He checks his claws as if he can see them through the shiny material of his smooth black gloves.
“Oh it doesn’t. It just… disgusts me to see you so certain of your floundering foolish plans."

"Our conversations are so much more fun, when you’re suffering.”

Dibs face crinkles. He leans back slightly in his chair, hands returning to the steering wheel, as if to ground himself. His fingers impatiently tap the warm pale pleather.
He looks to Zim with wide eyes, expression tinted with intimidation, he swears.
“Keep talking, roach. I’ve got a mind like a vice, and I’m definitely going to remember all your taunting once I’ve got you back in my lab.”

Zim kisses his teeth and waves Dibs threat off with a quick series of flicks.
“Whatever! I’ll get my way in time, things always work out for Zim.”

Dib rolls his eyes and checks the green digital clock built into his dashboard. Disappointedly, he realises that they have arrived with minutes to spare.
All that hassle to wrangle Zim into place, and he still wound up with time to kill.

He looks back at the road with pessimistic impatience. When watching the road becomes too dull and Dib’s eyelids began to feel weighted, he turned his gaze back towards the graveyard. Watching waves of heat come off the baking pavement and distort the world. The earthen tombs in front of him begin to waver, grey blurry and mirage like.

He blinks the illusion away. A lack of sleep and his only sustenance being coffee, a couple of Adderall, and a pastry over the past few days, is beginning to catch up with him.

The angle of the sun overhead is such that the nearby scrimpy treelings provide little shade. The rays of earth's nearest star beat down on the metal roof of Dibs car. It takes little time for the interior of the vehicle to match the sweltering heat of the outside world.

Zim tugs at the primly buttoned collar of his loose fitting shirt, and opens his mouth to huff uncomfortably.
“Blistering moons of smorb, has this rotten world of yours gotten hotter in my absence?”

Zim glances over to Dib, who sits in the drivers seat fiddling with a single white cylinder little bigger than a pen. This stick of paper, leaves, and cancer, is brought to Dibs lips.
Held dryly between them as he searches the compartment of the drivers side door with one blind hand.

Dib shrugs, resigned to their condition.
“It’s an inconvenient truth.”

Zim grunts unhappily and unbuckles his seat belt, allowing himself to be more mobile.
“Well I’m going to overheat if this persists! Don’t you have some kind of basic temperature control in here?”

“I sure do.”
Dib replies, doing nothing to ease Zims discomfort. He holds up his lighter to the cigarette in his lips and flicks it. A bright purple flame appears for a moment out of its silver tip, and Dib inhales to drag the destructive smoke into his lungs.

Zim suspects this must have some form of calming effect, for Dibs exhalation of said smoke comes out contented and unhurried. The lighter is chucked back down from whence it came.

Smoke circulates the stuffy space, hitting Zim with a wave of familiar nauseous smog. The kind that billows out of bars and cheap motels, that permeates the Dib infested areas of his pilfered base.

At first Zim had suspected that it was merely part of Dibs new scent, but now knowing that it is caused by the insidious paper stick clutched between Dibs long rough fingers, revelation hits him.
Zim swats the air to wave away the growing cloud of smoke in front of his face, and gags dramatically.
“MUST YOU POLLUTE THE co*ckPIT WITH MORE THAN YOUR OWN WRETCHED BODY ODOUR?!”

Dib, with a vicious little glare, reaches to the side of himself and clicks a button. The drivers side window rolls down. It’s crack wide enough so that when he takes his next inhalation and breathes out, he can force his breath through the gap. Zim assumes Dib does this so that he can not be seen through the tinted glass, but it is not enough justification to forgive him for his noxious habit.

Zim coughs at the smoke, fans the air in front of what would be his nose, and continues his berration.
“Do you know how to take care of a single thing? My base, your car, that gangrenous stick like body of yours- it’s all polluted!”
Zim reaches forwards towards the dashboard, his pointy fingers aimed for what seems to be some kind of air conditioning dial.

Dibs hand suddenly jerks forward to stop him, swiftly smacking the back of his palm.

“HEY!”
As the Irken withdraws he lets out a surprised shriek.

Dib holds his cigarette in his off hand and quickly blows smoke out the crack in his window. “Don’t. f*cking . Touch. Anything. The last thing I need is you setting off the security system.”

“I’m not going to set off your basic little safety features- I’m TRYING to make the heat in here more bearable! If you don’t want me doing it, do it yourself!”
Zim rubs the back of his smacked hand with a snarl.

Dib looks away from Zim with a scoff and without even seeing the dials, flips the air conditioning switch. This is a different button from the one Zim had been reaching for.
Like a petulant teen, the smoking son of a Membrane gripes;
“Whatever.”

Cool air rolls out of the tilted plastic air grates.With it, comes the smell of well tended internals, chemicals and oils, that (to Zim) smell sweet and familiar.

Dib had mentioned that the car was imbued with Irken mechanisms, but Zim had not expected such pleasantness.
The ex invader keeps the sour look upon his face while settling back into his seat, sitting up on his folded knees so that he can better watch the parking lot entrance.

Cool air soothes warmth beaten brows and stops the descent of sweat from speedily pouring off Zims bang shielded forehead. The Irken bides his time thinking about how to sever the Subjugator collar from his spine. Maybe he could do it with a skinny enough knife. Perhaps a scalpel.

As Dib silently sulks, Zim leaves himself to the miserable task of waiting for it to be over. He longs for Dib to be detangled from his antennae and for Keef to be remedied from his life. Forever.
Nothing would be more appreciated than the peace and quiet of productive solitude.
Zim crosses his arms and peers out the window, his gaze only being high enough that he can see the yellowed leaves of sun scorched tree tops and the triangular peaked roof of the hundred year old morgue.

Zim has never understood human religion or the reverence that lower species have towards death. The human mind is connected to no higher force of power, not machine linked like the mind of an Irken. When the body dies, the mind goes with it. Both things of organic matter, doomed to decay into rot and dust, to become the stuff of dirt and sh*t. Nothing but feed for voracious worthless little microorganisms.
To be nothing and to become nothing again, to leave an impact in fallible memories, to leave nothing but a stone slab and a cold black box in the ground. It is nothing to be exonerated, and even less to find reverence in.

It confounds Zim that humans could put faith in any kind of higher power, knowing the fate that awaits them. Invisible energies from fairytales of morality passed down through flimsy paper tomes. It's a domination method to glean inspiration from. Weighing their pitiful lives against a feather has the power to build and raise human nations.

Zim imagines that humans must do it as a means of coping with their meaninglessness, for their lives amount to little. Even the memories of the greatest among them have been reduced to 2D caricatures over the course of time. Zim can list the names and titles of every Tallest who ever lived. Knows every known fact about each of them, their entire lives from emergence to induction to the collective.

Zim is glad that he is Irken, that his mind will one day be added to their company. He has so many questions to ask them, so many ideas to share. Surely his addition would aid in the propagation of future Irken victories. His contribution will one day set generations of smeets alight with curiosity of the universe. Affirming his worth, confirming his place within it.

But more than that, he is comforted that he will not end up cold and alone in the dirt like one of the decaying apes that surround him. It is his destiny to amount to something incredible. That Zim has not reached that point is surely a sign of greatness yet to come.

Zims musing is interrupted by the motion of another vehicle on the suitably dead main road. A large white van comes rolling off the busy freeway. As it comes coasting down, Zim curses it.
“ Ohhh , I HATE unmarked utility vehicles- no labels to tell me what’s inside them or what they’re for- what is it? What are they hiding in there? Who gave them the right to be so infuriatingly inconspicuous?”

Dib looks at the dashboard clock and snubs out his cigarette in an overfilled fold out ashtray.
“You were quiet for almost 5 minutes. Congrats on the new record.”

Zim gets up off his knees and settles back down onto his butt, obscuring himself from view so as to not be seen. His anxiety spikes, but when he looks over to Dib, he notes that the mans expression is unchanged. Epiphany spurs Zim to inquire hastily;
“Thats him. That’s your contact?”

“Myep.”
Dib answers, without so much as looking at the Irken beside him. He reaches out to twist the volume nob, snuffing his music to silence, until all that remains is the low crunching of wheels on tarmac, and the humming of the air conditioning unit.

The van pulls up on the left side of Dibs car, leaving 3 metres of space between them. Zim observes its wholly generic veneer. Not a sticker or bump or characterising feature in sight. A stark white box on wheels, pristine enough not to draw attention. It could be anything, and belong to anyone.

Just like Dibs car the vans windows are blacked out, making it impossible for Zim to clearly see its driver. However, he can make out the rough silhouette of the person at the wheel. The shape, the movements, it’s all familiar.
The fear of exposure gnaws at his squeedillyspooch. Fear of the unknown, fear of what is known.
Dib wants to rip him to pieces and display him before his peers.
This is one of those peers.
How quickly will this stranger turn on Zim? Will they know what he is? Will they be the next to harm him?

Dib turns to look at Zim, intensely serious, he demands;
“Whatever happens, I want you to stay in the car.”

Zim thinks back to the gun in the glove box, and wonders if this is the time to use it. Paranoid hesitation stays his hand.
Not yet, not quite yet, you can’t screw this up Zim

“Zim!”
Dib calls, snapping his fingers loudly, diverting the Irkens' attention.
“Promise to stay in the car!”

Zim twitches to look at Dib, sweat streaked and wide eyed, antennae quivering under his wig.
“Yes! Fine! That was my plan all along anyways!”

Dib doesn’t seem so sure. Suspicion lingers on his features even as he turns to look out the driver's side window. To observe the other driver.
He kills his engine seconds after the van kills its own.

With a clunking metal snap, the front door to the van cracks open.
A european style vehicle, the driver on the right hand side instead of the left.
Sitting in the drivers seat is a short young man with multiple piercings and a silvery stubbled jaw. His eyes coloured an intense pink, an artificial look on a human. He sits there for a moment, thighs spread and leaning forward, looking down on them from the high seat.

Lazarus glares directly at the drivers window, towards Dib. Through the clear animosity comes a smile creeping across his thin lips. Its ghastly intimidation causing the scar tissue on his lower right jaw and cheek to pucker, forming creases of lopsided dimples.

Lazarus pulls the keys from their slot and pockets them before hopping down.
He is clothed in shades of black and grey greens, protected by slick layers of latex morgue gear. His arms are shielded by rubber gloves and long slick deep green splatter sheethes. Hair spiked wildly, dyed a shocking bubblegum pink, matching his eyes.

On his torso Lazarus wears a waxy apron, under which is some form of lab coat buttoned all the way up to his throat. Around his throat hangs a pair of gunmetal goggles with acid green lenses, a look Zim instantly recognizes from the video call.
When the stranger speaks, there is no doubt that the man outside is there for them.

“Well well, if it isn’t my old pal mothy, back at it again. How’re you enjoying the great metropolitan outdoors? Does it pale in comparison to your dank roach cave? ”
Lazarus goads.

Zim sees Dib scoff and shake his head at the old nickname, enjoying it.
A bad feeling zips up Zims spine like a chill. He can’t place it, but it agitates him.
He instantly dislikes this “Agent Lazarus”.

Dib takes a deep breath to ready himself for an unpleasant interaction, and goes to push the door open.

Lazarus’ kicks out a thick black boot, slams into the side of the vehicle, denting the side and holding the door shut.

“f*ck! DUDE!!”
Dib screams at the closed window, fuse lit. He jams his fingers into a button to roll down his window, pressing so hard his finger strains white with the force. The moment he gets the gap wide enough, he fumes;
“You’re one to talk, I’m surprised The Swollen Eyeballs haven’t dispensed with a team of vampire hunters! You’re so pale I can practically see through you.”

“Oh, please. You know just as well as I do that eating an entire clove of garlic is part of initiation.
There are more signs of Vampirism than generic traits of albinism, you ableist skitzo.”
Lazarus speaks with the same air of superiority he did on call, the effect amplified by a sort of persistent mean grin, crocodilian in nature.
“I mean, the outright nerve you have, to contact me right in the middle of an experiment. Are you hell bent on destroying every single career opportunity I find, Mothy? Is that it?”

Takenaback, Dib fakes apathy, sneers, and leans on the door handle.
“Am I supposed to call your secretary to book appointments now? I don’t keep track of what you do, Laz.”
He pokes his head out the window confrontationally.
“I don’t care what you get up to. f*ck your career. What about everything I lost, huh? You can’t seriously stand there and act like you’re the only victim in all this. What happened to leaving it in the past? Or, were you just, lying about being more mature, more “professional”?”

Lazarus lowers his boot. Both feet on the ground, levity sucked out of his breath, he gets in Dibs face. His red eyes, sharp and pernicious.
“I was professional from the very moment we met. You were the only thing in my life spurring me to be impulsive. To act unwisely. To push myself, to test unknowns before they were ready for human trials. Or, do you not remember what happened when we tested out my serum on that poor, dead, trust fund kid?”

Dib does not withdraw, but his face scrunches up in return. Hatefully.

Lazarus speaks low, hushed. Hissing as he recounts;
“ I warned you that the revivification serum was experimental. And you, rushed me. I made what mistakes I made, because you wouldn’t give me the time I needed to research properly.

I ran away from your mess because it was the only rational thing to do. What happened was your fault, and your fault alone. The fact you have any anger towards me, for something you pushed me to do is…”

His scarred face skews to one side, his light eyebrows lift in an expression of condescending pity, and Lazarus chuffs a laugh.

“Well. It’s funny, frankly. You can sit there and blame me for saving my own skin, but it doesn’t change where you ended up. It doesn’t change the fact you abandoned me. That you were alive all this time, and only reached out for my resources.”

His tone goes numb, cold, his smile dull and sad.
“You only contact me when you need something. You don’t know how to keep friends, do you? You didn’t speak to me for years, Dib. Not a message, not an interaction, not a notification or a like or a message or a joke- no congratulations when I got my job at the university hospital, when I graduated. Nothing.”

Zim watches from the passenger seat, his legs folded up towards his chest, his arms folded over his knees, chin resting atop them.
Antennae lifted as much as they can, given the limited space under his wig.
Absorbing the knowledge. Learning. Judging.

Dibs lip twitches as he scowls, withdrawing back into the car.
“Oh, please. The f*cking second I stopped bennefitting your work, you dropped me like a boron control rod.”

He knows Zim is listening, absorbing. It’s hard to ignore the rare times when Zim is silent.
What Zim doesn’t understand about the situation, about the fallout with Lazarus, is that he believes his own lies so totally, they come across as truth. Masterful gas lighting, his victimhood amplified in person.

As much as Dib doesn’t want to care, doesn’t want to let himself be played, he feels bad.
So few people have ever been on his side. Even the pretenders matter.
Lazarus isn’t a bad person. Not really. The two of them have shared scars, hopes, dreams, bedsheets and liquor.

Dib is not so inhuman that the scant few connections he manages to form mean nothing to him. No matter what he says.

“You told me, not to contact you. I respected that. You could have come to visit me, you knew where I was. Why didn’t you make the first move, if you wanted to stay in contact so badly?”

Laz shouts back, arms crossed, less detached more fervent in his passive aggressive arguing.
“You should have known better than to assume I say what I mean! You know me better than that! You should have FOUGHT to contact me.

You were all alone in that nasty old house, hoarding everything away to yourself. Wasting precious time on this- persistent delusion of yours.

I didn’t even want your help! I wanted to see you get better. I wanted to see you pursue other things, to prove me wrong or- something! SOMETHING healthy for you, that didn’t lead you down a path that you’re not even remotely prepared to handle on your own!”
A tenor of worry seeps out of Lazarus.
“You could have reached out at any time, Dib! Even if it was just asking what I was up to, or how I was doing, and you Never f*cking Did!”

Dib shrinks back into his seat, shuffling with guilt, struggling to hold eye contact in the face of that inch of raw compassion.
Isn’t it nice to know, that someone wanted you? That you could have been cared about?
You f*cked it up Dib. Just by being you, you f*cked it up.

Zim experiences something akin to jealousy, no sympathy in him for the feeling of badness that presides over the conversation.
His nemesis shed himself of any sense of oneness, putting in the least amount of effort to fit in with his kin. Even in pathetic human coupling, the pathetic sense of “twoness” that they seemed infatuated with, Dib was a failure. Clearly, he had failed his former partnership with the pink haired pixie of a scientist.
He had doomed himself to it. He was noxious.

As certain as Zim is that they are nothing alike, the thought of comparison sprouts acrid sensation. He is however happy that he can always rely on his sense of identity for comfort in times like this.

Irken Invaders require no friends, no companions. It is known that each Irken is a small part of something great, and that is enough. He doesn’t need a companion; a weakness to detract from his greatness. Zim is meant to be one with his kind in ways other than bonding.
All Zim wants in that moment is a reminder that he is still part of it.

Dib sighs heavily, and averts his gaze from his interlocutor. Guilty eyes wander across the steering wheel, and back towards Zim, where they catch themselves in the unblinking blackness of Zim’s glasses lens.
Dib looks tired, sullen. Worn to a nub of the formerly elated person he’d been mere days before.

It’s not like he looks for Zim to help, or sympathy, but Zim takes it that way.
The “not my problem” grimace Zim gives to Dib, both palms raised, is unhelpful.

Dib mouths a quick “thanks for nothing”, before running a hand back through his greasy black hair. He quickly shakes it out in frustrated resignation before leaning out his window.
“Man. I don’t know what you want from me, Wilder. Don’t give me this sh*t. This is close to being the worst possible time for it. You want to talk, we can talk later.”

Dib cracks open the drivers door, and untangles his long limbs to stand outside.
“I could have reached out. If I REALLY wanted to. But, clearly, I’m not the type of guy who maintains relationships. Or, moves on from certain things-”

Mention of said things has Lazarus tilting his head, trying to see around Dib and glance back into the car.

Dib steps around the door in response and shoves it closed behind himself, using his body to obscure the open window.
“ You knew that when you met me.”
Dibs face strains, like sorry is a word that he’d choke on if he spoke it, and shrugs his shoulders awkwardly.
“Couldn’t you just. Chill out and drop it?”

Agent Lazarus stares flatly at Dib in response. Stands there, while warm air blows dry sandy swirls of aborted dust devils across the empty parking lot.
The moment as a breath of resignation, before he speaks;
“Clearly.”
Snidely, Lazarus continues.
“Let’s get this over with then. It’s about time I met this…supposed alien of yours.”

“There’s nothing “supposed” about it. He’s f*cking green. He doesn’t have ears. He came from outer-f*cking-space.”
Dib slides his hands into his pockets, sorely missing the tool he had left back in the base, in desperate need of something to ground himself with.
He snorts bitter laughter and steps out of the way, so that Lazarus (or Wilder, apparently) could finally take a look inside.
“Take a look for yourself.”

Inside the cabin, Zim quickly shifts to uncoil from himself, to smooth out his shirt and to appear pristine. Unbothered, unconcerned, unaffected. If this Lazarus character is anything like the other members of Dibs sad disturbing little fakey fake science club, Zim couldn’t afford to look weak.

But Lazarus doesn’t bother to look. Lazarus drops his arms to his sides with disinterest, and skews his scarred lip to one side.
“You really think that peering in at it like some kind of zoo animal is going to satisfy me? After all that talk of “death machines” and “saving the earth from an insurmountable menace”?”

Lazarus quickly closes the gap between Dib and himself. Even below eye height, his air of professional chill makes Dib feel shrunken, lower, and unworthy.
“You know that’s not enough, Mothman. If I came to you with, say, a banshee that I’d wrestled back into its body, you’d want a closer look. Wouldn’t you?”

Dib looks through Lazarus. He does not deny that he is right, but holds firm.
“I want him. To stay. In the car.”

Zim could not agree more. He has no desire to be out in the open daylight. No desire to shuffle around while his belly aches with tender sutures. While his PAK wrestles to make copacetic his mutating implanted innards.

Zim crawls over the stick shift to the drivers side, words trapped between his teeth and tongue.
Don’t make me go out there! I’m not ready! I can’t do this!
All things he would never say to Dib, desperation only evident in the unhappy tilt of his lip and the worried pinch of his brow.

“ Fine.”
The word, spoken like a threat. Lazarus wisely takes a large step back from Dib before announcing.
“I didn’t want to resort to this but… if you don’t show me your asset, I’ll have no choice but to contact the Eyeballs, and take your discovery for myself.”
He bares his teeth in a wild smile.

Dibs eyes go wide, nostrils widen to huff, the hands in his pockets clench. His mind reels for want of the bat.
He’s already killed one person from his past, what's another body trapped in the pavement on his road to redemption?
He would. Would he? Kill Wilder?
He wants to.
Dibs voice comes out as a wrathful growl.
“You WOULDN’T.”

Lazarus’ reply is to cackle, a sound high pitched, but familiar. Like a remix from one of Zims old video diaries.
“Do it, or I’ll tell them you were right alllllll along. They’ll believe me before they ever believe you. And they’ll descend on you like wolves. Ripping all your work away for themselves, butchering it with their clumsy methods, handing it over to their uneducated masses of delusional freaks.
They’ll take all this away. And they’ll take IT,”
Lazarus gestures towards Zim with a slight nod of his chin.
“-away from you. Would you really want that?

What’s a little sharing between friends? Hm?”

Dib glowers, his gaze venomous. Zim can smell the anger wafting off of him, in muggy waves of stink. Defensive.

“You’re a f*cking jerk, Laz.”

Wilder shrugs, his mood suddenly spritely as he holds both hands together under his chin, jeering in sing-song tones.
“Tell me something I don’t know~”

Dib snappily twists around to face the drivers side window, and leans in to turn his ire on Zim.
“Get out of the car and say “Hi”, Zim. Someone wants formal introductions.”

Zim is equally as quick to shake his head no.

Dib needs only to show Zim the subjugator watch. He points towards it aggressively, to change Zims mind.

There’s no time for Zim to try to get out of it.
On a snap decision, he chooses to believe that getting out is his idea and that he will be fine.
His mind goes blank, urgency demands action.

Dib steps back from the door, moves towards the bumper of his vehicle.
“Don’t harass him for too long, this isn’t a party! We’re getting this thing out of my trunk, and then we’re gone.”

Zim kicks the car door open and hops out as steadily as he can.
He can’t help himself but fuss with his shirt collar a bit, trying to cover up the clear symbol of ownership he has been shackled with.
Once satisfied he looks up.

Lazarus stands there smugly, a good 5’5 in platforms. The added height of his rubbery goth boots aiding this by two inches.
Even the shortest of adult humans tower over Zim.

The brutal summer air makes Dibs stress sweat and heat sweat, drench him equally.
In the back of his mind he curses his comfort in black. He curses his choices in life. Curses that he is not able to even talk to himself about it in present company.
He hurries to pop the trunk of the car, doing everything in his power to make their interaction as brief as possible.

Zim and Lazarus stand there for a moment, evaluating each other.
Lazarus grinning his calm mangled grin.
Zim, blank faced, as unreadable as a dead beetle.

Chin raised and hands folded formally behind his back, Zim devours the chance to have the first word.
“So, you have heard of Zim. How unfortunate for you, seeing as I am THE deadliest being in the universe.”
Zim checks his claws.
“They say to meet face to face with me is to test the very fabric of your bravery.”
With one hand on his hip, he strikes a very arrogant pose. His glasses, the shirt, all of these factors aid the illusion; This is all beneath him and everyone should know it.
“You must be pretty scared right now.”

Without Zims noticing, Laz looks past him towards Dib, who is just f*cking squirming in his heat soaked skin.
“Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you, Zim. Not a whole lot about you being the MOST dangerous thing in the entire universe, but. Enough to infer that you’re something. Special.”

Zim had been one of Dib's persistent obsessions, long after he had disappeared. Lazarus had always assumed the elusiveness and unprovability of the chase had been what drove such a wildly absurd fantasy in the first place.
He still doesn’t fully believe that Zim is some kind of alien.
As he looks down on Zim, he assumes that perhaps Zim really is just a short sickly man.
That Dib mistook him for a monster.
It wouldn’t be the first time Dib had tilted at windmills.

“Yes, I am special.”
Zim blinks, unphased.
He refuses to acknowledge the weird tension in the parking lot, doesn’t humour any thoughts that he could be actively condescended towards. So he doesn’t allow it to phase him.
He doesn’t know what venomous webs Dib spun around him, or the sorts of lurid assumptions the sterile smelling scientist is implying. All Zim knows for certain is that he wants to look better than everyone there.
He rests his hands back at his sides, very naturally and human like.
“Astute of you to notice my special properties.”

“Mhnm. You’re brave too, for such a sma-”
Lazarus is cut off by the distracting wild flailing of Dibs arms.

Behind Zim, Dib desperately signals with a hand sliced across his throat, mouthing the words; “NOT THAT”.

Lazarus squints at this in boredom before returning his gaze to Zim.
He corrects; “..rt-ass. It must be troubling, being so far from your home.”

Zim’s lip tilts downwards in a subtle sneer.
“Yes, well. Those in my line of work are very comfortable being so far from home.
It’s the last thing on my mind. The first thing on it, is destroying every pitiful living thing on this overbaked rock.”

“Ah. Yeah, it is hot out, isn’t it?”
Laz holds his hand up to shield his eyes and looks at the sky for a moment.
“Global warming man. What’re you gonna do? ”

Dib lets go of the drum he’d been trying to wrestle from its place crammed into his trunk. He throws his arms out in frustration.
“Hey!! What did I say about talking? Come help me get this f*cking thing out of my car!”

“Loathe as I am to agree with him, he is right. We should get on with it.”
Zim agrees, he nods towards the trunk.
“Make with the exchange, and we will all be freed of this oppressive heat.”
He looks Laz up and down, and adds cattily.
“I hope you’re stronger than you look. Zim refuses to touch that heavy jar of putrefaction.”

Zim is certain that he could toss Keef into the back of the van himself. His PAK assures him he could not. Not in his current state.
To confirm this Zims PAK link presents him with a medical diagnostic.
Internal bruising healing slowly on foreign tissues, an update statistic on how integrated those implanted organs are to his current system. 64%. Part of him is 30% human.

Disgust compels Zim to fold his arms over his chest uncomfortably, nausea tickles at the back of his throat and in that instant, he casts a silent sneer at the dirt under his boots.

Lazarus picks up on this. Without a breath the necromancer pries;
“Oh he did that already, huh?”

Zim, scandalised, drops his arms. Hands folded into tight fists he refutes;
“I don't know what you’re talking about!”

Lazarus smirks as he makes his way beside Dib. He watches Dib hurriedly struggle to lift the barrel without help, and adds;
“Did Mothman do anything weird during the procedure? This freak has a number of,,,, interesting desires. Regarding that kind of procedure.”

“Agent Lazarus!”
Dib screams, rosy with effort and embarrassment.

Lazarus knew a lot. Lazarus knew too much.
He knew about how Zim had been the subject of Dibs first wet dreams. He knew that Dib had a collection of various masterbatory tools, half of them coloured in combined shades of sickly green and hot pink.
It was no secret what a pivotal role Zim had played in the trajectory of Dibs tastes.

Urgency in his voice, quick to get off the topic of what he may or may not have done to Zim, Dib barks;
“We do NOT need to get into that!”

Zim co*cks his head, accosted by forwardness and the outright gaul of Lazarus to catch him in his act. Zim is certain that his methods have been SEAMLESS.
His flesh heats with indignity, and he speaks hurriedly, talking over Dib.
“EVERYTHING Dib does is weird and unpleasant. Even if I DID know what you were talking about, that would be true. Does that answer your question?”

“Yeah, kind of.”
Lazarus shrugs. His expression falls flat as he watches Dib, seemingly uninterested in the topic suddenly. Careless.

The weighty metal barrel falls out of Dibs trunk with a thick metallic clang.
“sh*t!”
Dibs knees crack as he kneels down to check that the seal is unbroken. On seeing no leakage, he huffs in relief.
He picks up the handles on the sealed end and nods towards the unmarked white van.
“Help me out here, this is f*cking heavy!”

Lazarus picks up the “foot” end of the barrel with a puff, and hauls it to hip level. His thin arms strain with great effort.
“Good GOD man- You weren’t kidding. This is dense! How big is this thing? How did you–get it all IN there?”

Dib shuffles with purpose, directing Lazarus back towards his van.
“Oh- you know-”
He grunts a bit, equally unsuited to the task of moving heavy objects.
“Like, with luggage. Sometimes, you just need to- cram stuff in there!”

“WHAT?!”
Lazarus nearly drops the barrel. He bends to press it into his gut, and wraps his fingers around its underside.
“Are you saying my specimen- is all crushed up in there?!”
Breathless and irascible, he resumes carrying the load.
“WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH IT IF IT’S JUST-BONE CHUNKS AND SOUP?”

Dib laughs, all nerves, and instructs Lazarus to avoid a pothole.
“Trust me- trust me-, hah, it won’t even matter! The properties of the specimen are way more interesting than it- just keeping it intact! Don’t worry about it.”
He sweats, thinking about Lazarus backing out now, would be a disaster.
It’s perfect timing when Lazarus bumps into the back doors of the van.

Though Lazarus looks at him with a glowering snarl, Dib knows it’s too late for any of them to back out now. No one present was the kind of person who would waste their time going out into the world, and come back empty handed.
So he grins, awkwardly, and does his best to manage the majority of the barrels weight.

Lazarus shifts and shuffles, anger made worse by the force on his thin arms.Pale face pinkened with wrath. He sits on the bumper and rests the barrel on his thighs as he reaches back to open the doors.
But grabbing the handle does nothing.
A plastic on metal “kathunk” sound confirms it.
“f*ck! Goddamn it-”
Lazarus struggles to free up his arms from the task of lifting the barrel.
“I left the back doors locked, hang on,”
After a moment of frustrated shuffling, he calls;
“Zim!!”

It needs to be said that in moments of perceived urgency, mistakes are often made. Judgements are snapped cleanly by the whims of those with better things to do. In tasks both unpleasant and uncomfortable, accuracy is missed for the sake of getting it done, killing the moment and moving on.

You stop thinking, stop considering the “why’” and “how’s” for the sake of that yet unreached future, where the problem is gone from your world. A dangerous impulse. A mortal shortcoming. An adaptation adopted by those who would rather act now, than caution themselves against a worse outcome.
Fallacy is an acceptable consequence of defeating the detestable beast of discomfort.

Zim keeps close by as the two men conduct their labour, overseeing, supervising as he fusses again with the collar of his shirt. The Irken perks up at his own name, wig shifting from his twitching antennae.
“Yes??”

“Care to make yourself useful?”
Lazarus grins at Zim, heavy on sarcasm. He strains not to buckle under the weight of the drum. “My keys are in the right pocket of my apron, dig them out and get the door open!”

Zim grins in response, flashing pinkish alien teeth in the light of day and strutting forward with loft deportment.
“Me? Awh, but it’s been so fun, watching you sad skinny monkeys strain to lift a simple barrel.”
It’s good to be needed. Even better to watch the people he loathes struggle, and bake themselves in layers of black under the heat of their own miserable star. He is spoiled to have both.

He slips his gloved hand into Lazarus’ apron without another thought, and withdraws the bland jingly ring of keys.

“Yeah?? You think you could do better?”
Dib huffs, egging Zim on with a mean grin.

Zim waves his hand, gesturing for the two nerds to move back away from the doors.
“ I know I could do better. However, your problem is not my problem.”
He clambers up onto the bumper, holds the handle with one hand, and unlocks the door smoothly with the other.

It takes a great deal of effort for Zim to actually get the door open.
He figures it out by kicking off the bumper with one foot, and uses his entire body weight as leverage to make the door swing outwards.

An act that would have been so much easier to perform, if only his PAK had still been equipped with its spider legs.
Day after day, Zim misses his extra limbs in the way a bird might miss flight. Like something is deeply wrong with his ability to move. Grounded. Flightless. Ineffectual. Like he is no longer a true Irken, without them.
Zim can’t even remember the last time he’d been able to use them.

It takes no mental effort to let the familiar loss slip his mind as he drops back to the ground.
Zim prepares to stand out of the way again, just as the struggling Lazarus asks;

“Well- since you’re already feeling gracious enough to help us- with, what is not your problem-
Climb into the van- and ”
The scientist huffs, his voice tinged with sarcastic lilt.
“-make sure, I don’t trip on anything.”

“Mmm. Very well, if it will aid in the speed of this dealing of yours.”
Zim tisks and clambers back up onto the bumper.
He sees no issue with this, knowing that it is Dibs' wish that the exchange be made quickly. He hopes to win himself some points for participation, to lower Dibs' guard by being co-operative.
He’s still a bitch about it.
“Useless humans and their suuuupid lack of spatial awareness.”

He looks around the interior of the van and finds that it is near pristine. It is fully empty, all the way up to the co*ckpit with no dividing wall. The only things indicating the vehicle is used by someone at all; is a grey wool blanket spread over the floor, some kind of tool kit, and some rope. Most likely to tie down the drum with. Things that in that moment, hardly even register.

Dib groans from outside, and uses his pelvis to catch the barrel from slipping on his sweaty palms.
“HURRY UP ZIM!!”

The Irken returns his attention back to Wilder, and begins to play his role as guide.
“Okay, lift your foot, yes, blanket behind you.”

Wilder and Dib grunt under the strain as they lift the barrel up, and slide it in against the floor of the van.

“Yes. Okay. Got it. Blanket. Good, a little further...”

As Lazarus drags the barrel inside, Zim hardly notices that he is backing further into the hot vehicle.

His centre throbs as a dull irritating ache, heat baked brain distracted by everything at once. The sweat, the chemical stink of the van, the shuffling of human bodies, the itching of his antennae as they sit uncomfortably curled inside his wig. Uncomfortable.
The van is not well ventilated, and he can feel himself cooking inside of it as if it is some kind of oven.

Zim leans against the back of the co-pilot seat, arms folded over his chest, striking the most casual pose that he is able to without giving away his malady. Everything is too much.
He wishes he were reclined within the safety of his base, not baking in the back of some mobile storage cube.
He wishes even more strongly, for some kind of cold drink. Something to relive him of his discomforts. A slurpee, perhaps. He recalls having minimal negative reactions to Earths iced sugar syrups.

When the barrel sits in the centre of the carpet, Wilder stands between Zim and the doors.
He then silently holds out his gloved hand, expectantly, and addresses Zim with a single breathy word.
“Keys.”

The Irken grunts his discontentment as he slaps the keys down in Wilders palm.
“You’re WELCOME.”
Zim gripes. Then using the wall of the van for balance, begins mincing his way back out again.

Dib rubs his eyelids for a moment, discontented with the weight of them, like heavy sweaty clay globs. It’d be easier to pull another all nighter if there weren’t so much physical exhaustion involved. Muscles sore, he rolls his shoulder, and stops mid way.

From the outside looking in, Dib watches as Wilder steps into Zims path, and blocks him from the exit.
Agent Lazarus stows the keys in his pocket, and turns coldly back towards Dib.

It sends prickles of worry up Dibs damp back. A sudden awareness of circ*mstance. His focus shifts from the present to the possible.
He speaks with warry urgency, politely nervous as he steps up, and reaches in to offer Zim a hand out.

“Okay, that’s everything! Time to go Zim-”

Dib barely registers the kick to his head when it comes. A waxy black platform boot, collides with the side of his cheek, knocks the glasses clean off of his face. They clatter to the ground as Dib drops.

The moment lingers like a bad taste on the tongue as Laz unleashes a wicked and wide eyed laugh.
“Too slow Membrane!! Time to see how credible this little fixation of yours REALLY is.”

The double doors slam behind Lazarus. With the simple click of an unseen button the van locks, trapping Zim inside.