Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Session Log I

The walls had no clocks. That was the first thing Zim noticed. No primitive mechanical clocks bolted to the walls. No inferior outdated digital clocks on the shelves. And no windows or skylights, either. No external methods of monitoring time at all.

Not that it should have mattered in the first place—he ran on Irk-time anyway—but accurate chronometers were essential on a foreign planet. The one installed in his PAK kept a perfect track of all time zones— 

PAK Command: Report time.

ERROR. TIME NOT FOUND.

—Or it would if Zim could access it. A minor issue. Easily fixed. Nothing to worry about. It was only a clock, but still… he needed a time monitor. Right now. Zim couldn't pinpoint why, but he did.

Fixing the chronometer could wait; he had more important matters to attend to. Grinding the Earth beneath the heel of his boot for one, figuring out where he was and how he got here for another, with a quick stop at the taco stand somewhere in between. Not necessarily in that order.

His antennae twitched at the crisp scent of freshly disinfected metal, new electronics, and good upholstery. Really good upholstery. He tried a few experimental bounces in the armchair he couldn’t remember climbing into, within the room he didn’t remember entering. A domed ceiling gently arched above his head, a checkerboard of soft lights in the curves. Perfect acoustics for the gentle music that wafted through the room—the stuff of medical offices and elevators and license evaluations. Stasis songs to pacify the anxious, the impatient, and the damned. (Perhaps this was one of those infamous dentist appointments the skoolchildren whispered of?)

The last thing Zim remembered, Ms. Bitters had been mid-lecture about how to properly knit a bulletproof vest using simple materials found around the house. Not that Zim had been paying attention; he’d completed the assignment in a third of the time using the polymer from an old bodysuit and spent the rest of the morning configuring the schematics of his gnome decoys. In the midst of this, some dirt child whined about getting a needle in their eye, the one called Smackey bragged falsely of his ‘sick knitting skills’, and The Dib… what had he been up to? He’d been suspiciously quiet that entire morning (this morning?) taking his stupid little notes and watching, always watching, that loathsome little… 

Zim’s gloved claws dug into the chair’s cushion. Dib had something to do with this; he always did. And he’d been watching more closely than usual that day, too. Constantly checking the windows and the doors, no doubt on the alert for when his pathetic counter to Zim’s glory would manifest. That or waiting for his monthly ectoplasm samples to be delivered.

It had been the start of the skoolweek. A Tuesday, because he’d skipped Monday in favor of tweaking the blueprints for Phase II: Stage 46.7 (the part with the radioactive glowsticks) and waiting for his delivery of GIR’s Plookesian gummi worms. They’d kept him waiting all day, too. Callnowia usually had much faster response time than that.

PAK Command: Report date.

ERROR. DATE NOT FOUND.

No residual burns coated Zim’s throat, so he’d never forced down that sludge of human nutrients at lunch period. Or he’d never gone to lunch at all. Shortly before the sun-zenith, Skool officials summoned him to their quarters to meet with something called a “psychologist”. Why they needed Zim’s aid in studying the logic of psychics, Zim couldn’t say.

He’d left the classroom. Marched down the hall. Dodged the faulty semi-automatic turrets above the water fountains. Turned the corner into the office wing…

And then this place.

There had to have been something in between: a walk, summoning a ride, being dragged down the hall biting and screaming, or coming through a door. Where were the doors? This room didn’t have a reception pad for teleportation—not that most human facilities even had teleportation, the savages—and there didn’t appear to be any openings in the roof. No air vents to crawl through, either. Just little pinholes in the walls piping in that music. A hairline of light cracked through the left wall, chasing the decorative blue stripe that wriggled through the lavender paint. It kind of resembled the doors they’d used in research laboratories on Vort. In fact… 

Zim took in the harsh geometry of the walls, all hard corners and bitter angles. Nothing like the scattershot and arbitrary hodgepodge of Earth’s design elements, nor the smooth and lovely efficiency of Irken architecture. This was simple. Clean cut and unconcerned with presentation. A Vortian design. Vortian furniture, too. He let his gloves skim the smooth plush of the armchair with perfect lumbar support and cushions soft enough to curl up and take a nap. Yet the cables threading the ceiling and walls, the soda machine in the corner, the proud monitor that devoured the back wall, the red and purple banners hanging from the desk next to that monitor… all of it was Irken.

Wherever he’d been taken, it was no Earth facility. He should have guessed that from the clean quarters, honestly.

“What is this?!” Zim sprang to the top of the chair’s backboard. He squinted, surveying the area and prepared to claw the eyeballs of the one responsible for these shenanigans. An Irken rival eliminating competition? An enemy of the Empire looking to make a name for themselves by assassinating Irk’s most treasured and beloved Invader? Dib? Zim couldn’t see how or why Dib would get his greasy boyhands on Vortian hardware, but at this point, he put nothing past his nefariousness. If he didn’t have a part to play in this, Zim would eat his own boot.

Something about the room’s combination of Irken and Vortian elements set Zim’s teeth on edge. A touch of Vort influence here or there could be expected—they’d assisted with much of Irk’s tech design—but not to this degree. This felt like collaboration. He glowered at his reflection in the glossy blue tile beneath him. Indeed, the place resembled a Vort break room, from back when Vortians were still permitted lunch breaks, newspapers, and other heedless luxuries. Much of this equipment became obsolete decades ago. Nobody had seen these snack machines since at least Era 24. That soda machine had to be over fifty years old but it gleamed as if it had come fresh from the factory.

“HEY! What IS this, huh?! I demand someone explain themselves this instant before I unleash the full wrath of the Irken Elite upon—”

A human stepped through the doorway. A female that bore light eye-sags distinctive of the elder-class, though none of the wrinkles. Older than most of the parental units, younger than true decrepit elders, and far younger than Ms. Bitters. She moved with the certainty of a retired commandant. Perhaps she was. But to Zim’s knowledge, most commandants didn’t traipse about in sheep hides (sweat-hairs, he’d heard them called) and colorful polyesteroids. Or maybe they did? Zim hadn’t encountered many human commandants.

“Hello there, Zim. I’m glad to see you’re finally awake. You could have just used the intercom instead, you know.” She gestured to the panel installed in the side table by the armchair. “Oh, but I’m sorry to interrupt. You were saying something about the wrath of… something?”

Zim stared a moment, frozen atop the armchair with his hackles raised like a flupwaff caught in eyelights. This didn’t feel right. What would a human be doing in a Vortian (Irken?) facility? He scanned the human again. No gills or scales or ownership tags. No sign of non-humanness. Her scent didn’t make him want to retch in his mouth like the others, if that counted.

Absently, he brushed his hand along the curve of his wig—still securely fastened, along with his contacts. Yes, still a normal human boychild as far as the interloper knew. In that moment of startled confusion, brief as it was, Zim had nearly forgotten himself. Bad form. In the midst of enemy territory, danger lurking in every atom, an Invader couldn’t afford to forget themselves. Not even for a moment.

The human still stared at him. She wanted an answer.

“Oh, er. The wrath of my…” Zim wriggled his fingers, grasping for the word. Curse it, what did these dirt creatures unleash their wrath upon? “…my masterful dodgeball skills upon the court of… dodgeballs. At recess.”

“Recess?” She considered this a moment and smiled. “Oh, you were practicing a game! Is that what this ‘Irken Elite’ you mentioned is? A dodgeball team?”

“Ha-ha! Ha. Oh yes, merely a child’s fantasy game for children. We play it all the time.” Zim’s brittle smile cracked across this face in a manner indicating childish frivolity and mirth and not at all the expression of someone soaking the lining of his wig with panic pheromones. “We have so much fun together, we children of Ms. Bitters’ class. Such fun!”

“I’m happy to hear that, Zim. Human children need to have games and play together. Some say it’s the building blocks of the whole society, did you know that? Learning how to play nicely with others when you’re little teaches you how to play nicely when you’re bigger and older. It’s all a part of learning and becoming the person we’re meant to be.” The human in the sweater approached slowly, not quite making eye contact. Zim couldn’t recall if that was a sign of deference or avoidance in humans. It didn’t mean aggression, usually, but who could tell with these creatures?

“Yes, yes, fascinating. Life’s a miracle. Can I ask you something?”

“Anyth—”

“Who are you, where am I, how did I get here, declare your weapons immediately, and where are the quickest points of exit?” One of those wasn’t a question, but whatever. “I demand to—augh!” Zim’s boot sank into the backboard’s pliable cushioning and nearly slipped out from under him.

“Oh—careful! Are you okay?”

“Fine!” Zim held a hand up before she came any closer. “I’m fine.”

On closer inspection, this hadn’t been the stablest of perches. Most human children didn’t normally stand on the backs of chairs, either, but it was a reasonable sacrifice to keep the tactical high-ground. He compromised by squatting on the chair’s backboard instead.

The human circled the armchair to meet Zim face to face. He bared his teeth at her. Up here, her head only came up to his knees. Beneath him, as all humans should be. As all humans would be.

“You seem a little tense,” she said. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“Did Zim not specify already I was fine?” His claws gripped the backboard. “I’m not ‘tense’, I just need to get back to class. We’re learning how to craft bulletproof garments. If I’m gone too long, they’ll—”

The human relaxed. “Is that all? You don’t need to worry about that. I came to talk to you for a little while on behalf of your Skool learning hub; they know all about it. There’s been some concern about you lately, and we just wanted to check up with you. You know, to be sure you’re healthy and everything’s running the way it’s supposed to.”

Zim squinted. “You’re the psychologist.”

“Yes, I—”

“ZIM needs no psychoanalytics!”

Now he knew where he’d heard that word before. Psychologist: a word Dib spoke of in bitterness and fear. A word other humans spat with derision, pity, and mockery. A psychologist was a kind of medic that one was assigned to when their brains didn’t function properly. Psychologists were for crazies and lunatics. Crazies and lunatics went to facilities and facilities had scalpels and picks and hooks to carve into skulls and remove brains. They would know they beheld no human lump of grey matter barely capable of sentient thought, but a brain leagues superior to their own. And then they would bring the REAL tools out. More scalpels, more saws. Skin peeled back and organs lifted out of chest cavities. Screaming and surgeries. Sliced open like any common plooka. And his mission! His whole mission compromised! Not Zim. Not today.

“NO PSYCHOANALTICS! None! You hear me?! Zim is normal! My brain functions at full capacity—FULL! AND NORMAL!”

The psychologist took a moment to clean Zim’s spittle off her glasses. “Who said you weren’t? It’s very normal to see psychologists. It’s just two people talking, what’s so strange about that?”

An obvious lie. If attending a psychologist were normal, humans would treat it as normal. Dib saw them, and no one—absolutely no one, ever—called Dib “normal”. Plenty of other things, but never normal.

“You’ve already been excused from class until our sessions are over, and I’ve personally notified your house. Everyone knows exactly where you are. No one will worry.” The psychologist, like most humans, kept her eyes on Zim’s face. Fool.

A communicator peeped out of Zim’s PAK hatch, ready to go the moment Zim’s boots hit the ground. It would be a simple escape: running start, blast through a door or ten, call GIR for a ride on his way out. Go home. Done. Zim glanced across the room, guesstimating how many paces it’d take to reach… the… 

Where did the door go? 

Zim stared at the wall where he’d seen the human enter before. The strip of outside light between the door and the walls had vanished. No hatch seams. No entry sensors. Nothing. A wall and nothing more.

The psychologist stepped into Zim’s line of sight. “You’re only here until the end of our sessions and then you can go home, I promise. We’ll just talk for a little while. Is that okay?” She furrowed her eyebrows, followed Zim’s line of sight to the doorless wall. “What are you looking at?”

“Uh. Nothing.” The communicator slipped back into the hatch. Zim shifted his PAK out of the human’s view. Why did she need to stare at him all the time? Did she suspect his brilliant escape plot? Unlikely; no Earth creature could parse the intricacies of Irken subterfuge. Still, he needed to get her eyes off of him. At least until he got the chance to contact GIR for emergency breakout procedures. “…Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. We talk.” He could play along for the moment. Zim was nothing if not patient. 

“Wonderful! And you know, I have a feeling we’ll have a lot to discuss.” The human worm put her hands in her pockets and laughed to herself, though Zim saw nothing amusing about the situation.

Nothing, save for the inevitable shrieks of misery when Zim shoved her through a processing cube for wasting his valuable time. The gelatinous coating for the hybrid weasels’ cocoons was on a strict schedule, and he didn’t trust GIR to apply new slime coats on the hour. This section of Phase II: Stage 42.2 needed precision on all fronts, but in timing most of all. All this presuming The Dib didn’t get his sweaty hands all over it and ruin everything. If the Skool knew of Zim’s absence, so did he. Dib would use this opportunity to— wait. 

Wait. Human eyes didn’t vibrate, did they?

“…that said, I’d say we’re ready to start,” the human finished. At some point, she’d started in on another round of prattle that Zim’s brilliant mind, too preoccupied with gelatin configurations, had filtered out. Also, she’d started doing that vibrating thing. Zim felt at least 87.3% certain human eyeballs did not vibrate.

And now not just the eyes anymore. The human’s form flashed and stuttered and jumped like film caught in one of those projector devices Ms. Bitters wheeled in when she wanted to take a nap. Zim knew this technology: a holographic disguise. Indeed, a projection upon the screen of an eye, tricking the brainmeats into viewing a false body laid over the real one. That mad and arrogant upstart, Tak, came cloaked in one. Which meant…

Layer by layer, blink by blink, the human disguise peeled away. On the last blink, an Irken stood in her place. A mess of contradictions. Not counting the long antennae, she had the height of Frylords and Commanders, but none of the muscle or presence that came with it. This one had never seen a day of basic training. A light breeze could knock her over, yet she still moved with that senior commandant confidence. The corners of her soft pink eyes crinkled when she smiled at him.

And the robe. Zim couldn’t stop staring at her robes. Not the dirty white of engineers or bio-technicians. The science robes trailing at her feet were the color of ashes, trimmed along the edges with the rich violet of a bruise.

She moved toward him.

The texture of the room changed. Or the atmospheric pressure. The gravity. Something. It still looked the same. Smelled the same. Felt the same. It wasn’t. It wasn’t the same and Zim didn’t know why. His tongue brushed the gritty sweetness of gauze and blood, but there was no blood or gauze in his mouth. His legs and arms went stiff, though nothing held them down. The space around his eyes and skull felt tight. Way too tight. Zim scratched at the edge of his contacts.

The Irken’s antennae perked. “Do you remember me, Zim?”

Zim blinked.

The room clicked into place: a Vort break room, Irken furnishings, a desk and monitor in the corner. Two Irkens. One chair. A room like any other room.

He squinted. Something about her did seem familiar, though nothing stood out. Not that it surprised him; so many witnessed the greatness that was Zim on a daily basis. He couldn’t remember every single admirer who came to call. “Eh. Should I?”

She conceded with a shrug. “That’s alright, it’s been a while. I’m not surprised that—oh, those look a little uncomfortable.” Her light purple glove reached for his contacts. “May I?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed one. The contact came away with a crack, the edges crusty and dry, as if he’d been wearing it for weeks. “When’s the last time you changed these?”

“…Yesterday.” Yesterday or something like it. Rubbing his itchy eye, Zim removed the second contact himself. He must have been so focused he’d forgotten to take them off. Turning the midnight toil, as the humans put it. He smacked the glove away. “And keep your hands to yourself!”

“You seemed uncomfortable, so I took some initiative. But if you insist—”

“Yes.”

“—then I’ll remember from now on.” She raised the crusty lens to the light, turning it over to admire the sticky backing. “It’s completely physical? The whole thing?”

Zim threaded his fingers through the synthetic man-hairs of his wig. Warm air brushed his scalp as he removed it. “Obviously.”

“My, I haven’t seen a completely physical disguise since… goodness, at least since the Snack Wars. Vintage Era 24, I love it.” When she bent down to return the lens, light winked off the little neural implants clustered behind her antennae. “I see why everyone in the military is so eager to become Invaders.” She removed the false glasses and tucked them into her robe. “It’s fun to pretend to be someone we’re not, isn’t it?”

Fun, she called it. Zim’s right eye twitched. Fun. Over an Earth-year of research and toil, of struggle and unyielding discipline. The utmost dedication to the downfall of humanity, to the lament of metropolitans and crumbling of continents, and all the time looking over his shoulder. Threats slithered under every square of concrete, tucked themselves deep in the fat of rain clouds, and glinted in billions of eyes swiveling in his direction. Everywhere. Every day. All in the name of “fun”.

Atop the armchair perch, his shadow arched across the interloper’s dumb naïve smile. The corner of Zim's mouth curled into a sneer. “Hm. Yes, I suppose from a sightseer’s point of view, the novelty of a new planet may seem, as you put it, ‘fun’.” Zim emphasized his air quotes just so she’d understand that it was not, in fact, fun in the least. “However, for SOME of us, this is no mere vacation. While you’re busy traipsing around like a tourist doing your touristy things—”

The tourist held up a finger. “Actually, I’m—”

“And interrupting a decorated military officer on top of it! I thought our elders and forerunners respected the title of Invader. Apparently, even Zim can be wrong. Well, while you’re seeing the sights and having ‘fun’, the TRUE Invaders are hard at work laying their very lives down for the Irken Empire.”

“Yes, they are. And they do.” Yet the gentle roll of her voice stayed level, as if they still discussed matters of skool and recess. She seemed to understand on a basic level. Perhaps the gravity of the situation hadn’t stuck her yet. “The role of an Invader is very important work, isn’t it?”

“The utmost. Impeding official Irken military business is a Class 20 offense. I could have you sent to the data mines for this, you know. The mines if you’re lucky. Why, if Zim felt less generous, well…” Zim chuckled darkly. “A call to The Almighty Tallest might be in order.”

“Actually, The Tallest were the ones who sent me.”

“Then, oh THEN would you truly see the folly of your touristic interloping and—” Zim paused. He squinted at the interloping tourist’s expensive science robes. And the work/travel pass she’d just pulled out of her robe pocket. “Give me that.” He snatched it.

The Tallest seal didn’t smudge when he rubbed it, nor did the hologram flicker when he poked it. The edges tasted of donut frosting with just a hint of arsenic and leather. Indeed, this had come from the hands of The Tallest. Personally.

“I am Extract—”

Zim spun on his heel to jab his finger in her face. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF!”

“Of course.” The intruder bent her head. “I am Extractor Foma. In spite of that little bit of fun with the disguise, what I told you before is still true. I’ve been sent for a personal evaluation, due to some… concerns about you. We discussed it, The Tallest and I, and together we decided you were due for an appointment. This sort of thing’s usually done over a call, but I felt that a personal visit would be best in this situation.” Her PAK opened to drop a data tablet into her hands. “No better way to get information than direct observation, right?”

Zim tilted an antenna. “Isn’t that a six-month trip?”

“More or less. Two, with a N.Y.O.O.M. drive.”

“And you…” Slowly, his eyes grazed over her. He sat, and the two Irkens watched each other a moment, face to face. “You came all the way out to a top-secret outpost to check in with me?”

“I did. Everyone working remote assignments gets one of these remote calls eventually—the Invaders, Researchers, Infiltrators, and so on—you know, to be safe. But you’re an exceptional case, Zim. Exceptional cases have exceptional requirements.”

“Yes…” It all came together now. “A disguise to aid in observation maneuvers. Not the worst plan. Sounds like a little much for a progress report, though.” Zim gestured at the oddly large facility (or whatever) around them. The retro Irk/Vort look alone must have cost a fortune. Maybe the evaluator felt nostalgic and it was just personal taste. “But then, I am a special case.”

Foma nodded. “Absolutely.”

With a specialized mission such as Zim’s, the information gathered would need protection, too. The Irkens couldn’t let valuable data float through the streams where any yokel with a dish and a cipher suite might pick it up. Oh, his poor Tallest. They must have been gravely concerned about him if they’d sent an evaluator of such high rank. Zim resolved to double the number of personal reports at the end of this.

“Pity you came all this way for nothing, though.”

The evaluator blinked slowly. “How so?”

“Zim needs no evaluation. My greatness shines clear for even the most casual observers, so surely you’ve noticed the astounding feats and triumphs I’ve accomplished. The mission so far is a complete success. Zim’s grade is S++.” He shook her hand and motioned to where the door probably should have been. “Well, have a safe trip back, wear your seatbelt, and be sure to check out the gift shop on your way out, it’ll be a crater next week. I’ll send you a Probing Day card.” He wouldn’t, but it was the statement of the thought that counted.

Zim waited for the evaluator to thank him for his time and leave.

The evaluator did not thank him for his time and made no motions to leave. She wrote notes on her tablet instead, which was poor time management on her part. She had the entire trip back to write the final log of how astounding Zim’s progress had been. “I’d love to give you an S++ but—”

“Buts?” Zim chuckled. “There are no buts. The presence of buts is unnecessary, just like your presence. You got your footage, right?”

“Right.”

“Logged your observations?”

“I have.”

“Taken notes?”

“Oh, yes. Extensively.”

“Then you’ve all you need, evaluator.”

“True,” she said. “Everything except the interview portion. I still need to understand how you feel about the mission to have a full picture. I couldn’t report back to The Tallest with an incomplete report, could I?”

Also true. They would accept nothing less than perfection. Luckily for her, Zim had the solution, as always. “I can give them my own evaluation, personally. In fact, call them right now.” Zim put his hand on his hip and waited. The monitor stayed blank. “Well?”

“Don’t you think giving your own evaluation report could be a little biased?”

Zim rubbed his chin. “No? Why would it be?”

That said, Zim called The Tallest with personal reports of his latest plans, revised blueprints, progress, promising discoveries, and formal complaints about the significant lack of mech armies on his doorstep at least twice a month, local time. All standard protocol. A formal evaluation might have different requirements. Besides, The Tallest would never take the word of some data drone over their best Invader.

“Think of it as a collaboration,” Foma said. “You and I work together to tell the complete story of what you’ve been doing down here for the past…” She double-checked the data pad. “I believe it’s been nearly two years, local time?”

“First of all, Zim is a perfectly capable storyteller with no need for collaboration.” Especially not from some squishy observer with little to no military experience or the fickle nuances of the Invasion process. “Second of all, it has NOT been nearly two years but precisely one year and…” 

And how many months? That annual hideous business with the “snow” hadn’t happened again, nor the Halloween candy-zombies. So less than eight months, more than five.

PAK Command: Report exact time; Invasion Duration
ERROR. DATA NOT FOUND.

The evaluator waited while Zim shuffled through his PAK’s data files. “Is there a problem?”

“The only problem is that you exceed the time frame. This planet’s cycle isn’t nearly that close to finishing yet.”

“Well, the sun does move quickly here, so I rounded up. But you’re right, accuracy is best.” A holographic calendar sprouted between them. Foma flew through the weeks with a flick of her finger. “You landed exactly one year, seven months, two weeks, three days, aaaaand ten hours before this session, Local Time. One year, nine weeks, and eight days, True Time.” She isolated the cluster of Zim’s mission days from the calendar and let them spread outward.

Zim watched the mission year shrink to months. Months collapsed to weeks. Weeks disintegrated into days. The clean line of days stretched wall to wall and compressed into tiny boxes just to fit into the room. Every single one of those days was a day he hadn’t yet conquered the Earth.

“When we look at it all spread out, that’s a long time to be away,” Foma said. “Isn’t it?”

Larb. Stink. Flobee. Skoodge. All Invaders below his caliber. All Invaders in the final stage of their missions, if not already done.

“Yes, well, a secret mission is a delicate process, evaluator. These things take planning and…” Zim glanced at that endless line of days. “…time. The process of evaluating and preparing a planet is always a challenge. Even with missions as easy as Larb’s.” Irk’s sake, they might as well have just given him a Vort senate seat. “But these are no normal circumstances.”

The evaluator nodded. “Earth can be a difficult planet to live with.”

“Much less conquer.” Zim swung his legs over the side of the backboard with a huff. “Under the circumstances, I’d say I’ve made good—no, excellent time for an Irken working under these deplorable conditions.”

One of Foma’s antenna perked as she scribbled notes. “Can you describe some of these conditions for me?”

“Where do I start? They’re COUNTLESS! Burning liquid projectiles from the sky, putrid dog-beasts of teeth and drool and carnage, the wretched unyielding stink EVERYwhere—eugh, that constant, CONSTANT stink! Oh, but that’s only the environment. Then there’s the absurd complications of human behavior and rituals. All their stupid little holidays and courtships and friend-groups and international communications—whatever happened to one nation on one continent?! Just smash everything into a collective city-state; it’s not that hard! That’s to say nothing of the festering pig-smellies themselves.”

“The humans.”

“The humans.” A shudder ran from his shoulders to the tips of his antennae. The scent of them stuck to him still—fluids and mud and toilet matter and ink and digestive gasses and whatever else those third-tier sapients rolled in that day. “I’m sure you’ve encountered the shuffling horde by now. Seen them huddled in their crude little hovels, drooling over feasts of boiled flesh and peeled roots, oozing and dripping from their pores like the slugs they are.”

“I kept my distance through most of the observation stage,” the evaluator admitted. That explained her ignorance of the hardships Zim had suffered here, though he couldn’t say he blamed her. Given the option, he’d keep these things at firearm’s length too. “But I did meet a few. The one with the bulbous head seemed—”

“Yes. DIB.” The word spat through Zim’s teeth. “I’m not surprised that’s the one you saw. The Dib-human has been a thorn in my side from the minute I touched down. If not for the meddlesome interference of his meddling, I would have had the planet under Irken control months ago. But his eyes are always upon me, watching, waiting for Zim to make a mistake. HA! He’ll be waiting forever; Zim never makes an error!”

The evaluator began to write faster.

“It began as a mere inconvenience, but as of late, the human-child has redoubled his efforts. Nothing to truly threaten the might of an Irken Elite, of course. Even at the height of his ability, his counterstrikes are but mild setbacks. Distractions at worst, and trifles, at best.” Zim put his hands behind his back and paced along the edge of the backboard. “Yet these trifles build a blockage in the artery of my mission trajectory.” He tossed his head and barked another laugh, short, sharp, and sure. Paced faster. “Little does the foolish worm know that it is HE who slithers into my clutches. That’s right, into the very heart of my plot. Then—ohh, then he shall—WAUGH!”

His boot slipped on the fabric and the backboard rushed out from under him. Zim’s claws scrambled for purchase. A PAK leg shot out to snag the chair. Too late.

Wind whipped at his cheeks. The tile rushed up to meet him. Zim pulled back, braced for impact and— 

Zim sat up in the Vortian armchair.

The evaluator knelt beside him, tucking a blanket behind his back and over his lap.

“Oh hey, thanks. It was getting a little cold in here.”

“You’re welcome, Zim.”

The extra cushioning against his back soothed the sharp pain in his shoulder and the aches that shot through his spine when he moved. He must have been sitting in this stupid chair for too long. “‘Pinnacle of Vortian furniture design’ my rotted spooch.” The blasted thing had given him a horrible cramp.

Zim rubbed the knot at the back of his skull and let himself sink into the blanket. Little tufts of fluff tickled the bottom of his chin. If Zim didn’t watch himself, he might fall asleep. “Mmm, this is heated, isn’t it? Nice.”

“I like to think so,” Foma said. “It’s Fweezian.”

He leaned back, carding his claws through the fur lining. “Made by Fweezians or made from?”

“Both, I think.”

“Nice.” Zim cleared his throat before another yawn crept up. “But enough rest and relaxation. Where were we? Ah, yes, Dib. The Dib who slithers innocently into my clutches. The Dib, heedless of the ingenious plot that lies in wait for him. Handcrafted and devised by none other than ME! ZIM!”

A grim chuckle rumbled through Zim’s chest. The chuckle built to a laugh until it exploded into a Victory Cackle, full and soaring and great with joys of promised bloodshed. “Then! Ohhh, then that human shall rue the day he dared cross Zim’s path!”

The evaluator looked up from her tablet. "Why do you keep doing that?"

"HE SHALL—" Zim paused mid-rant, antenna perked and one fist still in the air. "Do what?"

"You said 'the day he crossed Zim's path',” said Foma. “Not 'my path'."

"No I didn't."

"I'm sorry, but I'm quite certain that you did."

"Feh. You're certain of a lot of things, that doesn't mean they're true."

Foma stood and dipped her head. "That is an excellent point. Computer? Replay minute seven-point-eight-five, if you please."

The giant monitor fuzzed. It showed Zim and the evaluator from a few minutes ago. Watching, Zim couldn't help but think he looked disproportionately small in the footage. True what they said: the camera subtracted five inches. "And then, ohhh then he shall rue the day he crossed Zim's path!" cried Past Zim On Camera.

Current Zim In Real Life blinked. He processed this for a moment and shrugged. "It was a slip."

The evaluator blinked back and didn't say anything. She didn't seem especially convinced.

"Okay, maybe that one time just now, but that doesn't mean I always—"

"I have noted at least six instances of you referring to yourself in the third person. And that's only when I bothered to start counting; I know there were at least a couple more." She glanced back at the monitor. "We could check, if you like."

"No." That number had been rounded up and over-estimated. But running through all of these supposed instances would only be a waste. "What about it, anyway?"

"Just curious. It seems to be a unique habit of yours. It's an interesting way of talking about yourself. Sometimes it's almost as if you're talking about someone else. Someone who isn't Zim. I only wondered if it meant anything."

"It doesn't."

"Alright."

Absurd. How could Zim name himself and mean anyone but Zim? There could be only one Zim.

As she walked by, Foma let her hand linger on the backboard of the chair. “How is your back feeling, by the way? That looked like a painful fall.”

“What?” Zim leaned across the arm of the chair and craned his neck to keep her in sight. Bad idea. Pain shot through his left shoulder when he moved it. Why hadn’t the painkillers kicked in yet? “I didn’t fall.”

On the monitor, Past Zim slipped off the back of the chair and fell PAK-first on the tile. Past Foma rushed to his side and said his name a few times. Past Zim didn’t seem to hear her.  After a few more tries to rouse him, Foma gathered him up and set him back in the chair with the blanket.

Behind his chair, the gleaming tile had been cracked. A pale pink bloodstain squiggled beside it. Zim’s fingers trailed across the sharp twinge in his spine all the way up to his PAK’s dented entry hatch. How hard had he hit the floor?

Foma returned in a hoverchair she’d fetched from the little research station. It hadn’t been properly calibrated to suit the planet’s gravity, jerking and pitching as it settled across from Zim. “Does this sort of memory lapse happen to you a lot?”

“You need to fix that chair before it throws you through a wall,” Zim told her.

“I’ll keep that in mind. But about the memory—”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Zim, I really think—”

“What are you, an evaluator or a med-drone? Get on with the interview section so we can finish and I can get back to work.”

“If you’re sure you’re alright…” Still eying him as if he were an injured smeet, she settled into her chair and called up a holoscreen. “We left on the subject of this ‘Dib-Human’. I understand this has been your opposition throughout most of the mission?”

“Correct.”

The evaluator opened her mouth, thought, and closed it again. She frowned. The holoscreen zipped through a series of candid Dib snapshots. It landed on a shot of Dib poking a dead (undead?) bird with a stick. She squinted. Frowned more. 

“Um. I haven’t been on Earth a long time, so I could be wrong.” Her gloved finger tapped the crest of Dib’s hair-spike. “Isn’t… isn’t this just a human smeet?”

Zim scoffed. “There is nothing ‘just’ about that human, I can assure you. Nothing like the others, either.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” the evaluator told him, “but now that you mention it, what about the others? I went through your submitted data logs and couldn’t find any of the standard information. What’s the humans’ sapient class?”

“Low. Class 5 at best.”

“So, aside from the special exceptions, they’re not very clever.”

“Is that not what I just said?” What was with her and the listening problems? 

Foma turned her chair toward the holoscreen’s short list of mission logs. Reaching up, she pulled the holographic calendar down from the ceiling. “In that case, I truly can’t understand why you’ve dragged out your time this way.” She folded her hands in her lap as the chair hovered closer. “Now, I know caution is important, and I understand that your The Dib complicates the process. I do. But Zim, I really have to emphasize that it’s been over a year .”

Zim hopped to his feet. “Oh, come on! You can’t—” The chair cushion wobbled under him and the pain in his back lurched. Okay, maybe not the best plan right now. Slowly, he settled back into his seat. “You can’t expect me to wrap up the planet for the Armada in under a year, that’s absurd.”

“Maybe not, but you ought to have more than this. The planet catalog doesn’t even have basic atmospheric data.”

Indeed, the entries under Earth/Urth appeared more… barren than Zim would have expected. Odd. He had submitted initial findings from his first recorded month here himself. Atmosphere, weather patterns, snacking prospects, geological features, vegetation, all the basics. Had they gotten lost somehow? After all, the entries for Valentine's Day and human height-to-stupidity ratios were several pages long. Some of it had to have gone through.

“It’s an error in the data entries,” Zim decided. “Nothing more. Take it up with Records.”

“It’s not only the data entries. Hearing you, I have to wonder: if your nemesis is such a problem, why not eliminate him?” Foma held up a hand as Zim began to protest. “Or if that’s not ideal, why not abandon the learning facility entirely? The local research lab must have some worthwhile information. If the humans aren’t smart, it wouldn’t be a problem blending in even among the smartest of them, right?”

“Uh. I… well, that’s technically true, but—”

“Actually, if you really wanted to keep the school-grub persona, why not pose as the spawn of a human in power? All it would take is a standard elimination/emulation program. It comes standard in most Spittle Runners.”

A Spittle Runner Zim did not have. The way she phrased it, it almost sounded as if Spits came standard for Invaders. He scratched the edge of his collar. “I could have, but you see…”

Foma sat expectantly. Waiting. Staring.

This was pointless. Why theorize and debate on the possibilities of what he could or couldn’t have done? The data logs could be resubmitted personally with a trip to the home base. Everything Zim hadn’t cataloged himself still rested in his computer and GIR’s memory files. (Presuming he could track down GIR in time.) The majority had been reported to The Tallest themselves; the Empire already knew this information! Besides, the only reason the evaluator couldn’t find the standard Invader Sapience Class and Environmental Reports was a glitch in the system or some idiot drone in Records.

In fact… Zim squinted at the data logs. In fact, the whole thing was— 

“WRONG!” Zim’s mighty finger of correction pointed at the log folder. “Look! Look and behold the typos in the very title of your folder catalog! THIS ENTIRE THING IS WRONG!”

Foma looked for herself. She even pulled the folder down to eye-level so they could both investigate. “It is?”

“I—are you BLIND?! Right there—Earth is still labeled ‘Unclaimed’!”

“I can see that, Zim.”

“So you knowingly dragged me over basic material for no reason? I don’t believe this! There’s no telling how much time I’ve lost with your pointless…” He unclenched his fist, glaring at the windowless walls. “How long have I been here?” Zim's chronometer wasn't working. It should have been working.

"Since the time I brought you here."

"I—" Zim stopped himself. It could have been an hour or a day or ten years, but it was too long, whatever it was. Time lost arguing was time missed. "Release me. Now. I can't stay here, I have work to do! IMPORTANT work—work the likes of your feeble sciencey mind could never comprehend."

"You do?" The other Irken blinked her soft pink eyes slowly. She leaned forward, curious. "What sort of work would that be, Zim?"

"Fool. You know the name of Zim and not of his magnificent exploits? I am ZIM—Invader Zim. Keystone to the downfall of planet Earth and handpicked by the Almighty Tallest themselves! And you and your so-called ‘evaluation’ are keeping me from my mission."

Foma tilted her head. "Invader? Is that your encoding?"

"Is that not what I said? Was Zim not clear?" The idiocy of this one. The gall. The ineptitude. Zim spoke slow and enunciated. "Invader."

"No, I heard you very well." Foma shook her head and smiled at him in a way nobody had ever smiled at him before. It was sad, and it was gentle and… kind. It was very kind. "Oh, but Zim. We both know that's not true."

The room pinholed. 

His tongue flopped in his mouth. Dry. Useless. Stupid.  

“I… you… but we!” 

Words. Not enough words. So many words inside Zim. No words coming out of Zim. Just gibberish. Gibberish and junk.

“We JUST went over—”

“I can see that this is a difficult subject for you. That’s alright. These things take time.” Her smile was so, so kind. “We’ll come back to it when you’re ready.”

“No.” Too little, too late, Zim’s tongue came back. “No, we’re settling this RIGHT n—”

END OF SESSION I.

Chapter Text

SESSION LOG II:

Someone had fired up a grease fryer somewhere. Or gotten take-out. It was hard to tell with only one fully functional antenna to filter the scent. No problem with sound, though. They swiveled toward the sound of rustling paper bags, and Zim turned to find the evaluator placing a basket of curly fries on the table between them.

She’d ordered a six-pound basket fresh from the heart of Foodcourtia and still steaming. The curly fries spiraled deep into themselves, a lushly breaded feast sparkling with salt and spices. Enough to feed a whole nest of drones.

A just and proper reward for a job well done, and a boon that any Invader of Zim’s caliber deserved. Still, his hand hovered above the basket, hesitating.

Foma swallowed her bite of jellybean burrito and licked the excess cake frosting from her fingertips. Of course she’d ordered jellybeans. Why was everyone in science and research such a health nut? “What’s the matter, is your hand bothering you?”

No. But the last time Zim said no, the nosy thing picked at him forever with “are you sure”s and “that looks painful”s and “but it’s broken in six places” and other such nonsense.

Zim gritted his teeth against the ache of knitting bone and tendons. Joints snapped and popped like sheets of bubblewrap. “It’s functional. That’s enough.” Really, the hand only bothered him when he twisted his wrist to the right or moved the broken shoulder too fast.

PAK Command: Report progress—skeletal reconstruction.

METACARPAL RECONSTRUCTION… 95% COMPLETE.
RADIUS RECONSTRUCTION… 83% COMPLETE.
SCAPULA RECONSTRUCTION… 76% COMPLETE.

Still stuck at 76%. Around 60%, progress had slowed to a crawl before freezing entirely. Zim rolled the undamaged shoulder, frowning at the creak of metal behind him. A PAK leg poked out of the dented hatch, curled up and crumpled like a trampled fry.

He shoved a fistful of fries into his mouth. “Just so you know, I’m only eating this to be polite. I finished my monthly rations three days ago; that’s all I need.” More than enough with the extra boost of solar energy the local sun beamed into his PAK. One of the very few things this place was good for. “There’s no need for all this—” Zim paused to swallow a second fry load. “—this decadence.”

Foma plucked out a fry for herself. “Snacks help a healing body. There’s no point going back to work if you’re not at your best.”

“I’m always at my best. You, on the other hand…” Zim tossed a dismissive gesture at the frail and tenuous thing on the floor beside him. How she’d managed to get through the observation phase intact, he had no clue. “They’re your fries anyway.”

“You need them more than I do.” She arched her neck to see the network of dark veins that crawled from the base of Zim’s throat to his dented PAK. “I’ve never seen anyone’s PAK short out that way. Sorry again about your leg.”

Zim shoveled more fries into his mouth. He didn’t want to talk about the PAK leg again. He didn’t want to discuss how it had stabbed straight through his own hand or why it had turned on him in the first place. He didn’t want to theorize why the anesthetics were taking so long that he had to rely on snacking to beat back the pain like some smeet fresh from the vat.

And Zim especially didn’t want to talk about why he didn’t remember any of it.

This had not been how the evaluation was supposed to go. The Tallest had sent their best evaluator to witness the splendor of Invader Zim and all the fruits of his labors. And what had she beheld? A soldier with a malfunctioning PAK leg and a shattered shoulder.

At best, it appeared as if Zim had gotten sloppy with his maintenance routine. If a soldier couldn’t keep up with the basics, what did that say for the rest of their duties? At worst, it implied that his PAK might be…

There had to be a way to fix this. Zim could fix anything, and he’d fixed far worse than this. He just needed an opportunity. A chance to remind the evaluator what sort of Irken she was dealing with.

“I planned on sharing the fries anyway,” Foma said. “I thought a taste of home might be nice, and besides, you’ve been working hard lately.”

“Yes. As any Invader would.” Zim narrowed his eyes, daring her to contradict him.

She didn’t, though she did trade the burrito wrap for her data tablet.

“Your snack offering is appreciated but unnecessary. We’re trained to resist the plight of homesickness, and trained better still in the art of isolation.” Crossing his arms, Zim leaned over the table. “I passed both of those simulations with flying colors, you know. In Invader training.”

Foma smiled at that. “Yes, I know. Top ten of your squad, right?”

“Ah, so you DO know of me! These little evaluation games of yours perplexed me for a moment—yes, even a mind as powerful as Zim’s can be perplexed. But there's not a soldier in all the Irken Empire who doesn't know the name Invader Zim. Not one soul unaware or untouched by the marvels unleashed by my INCREDIBLE hand." He lifted his incredible hand for her to behold. Not the broken one, the other one.

"I can't argue with that." Foma skimmed her notes, shaking her head in helpless wonder. "You have led a fascinating career so far. Short, but… my, absolutely fascinating."  

Zim grinned. "Short things grow, evaluator."

Zim’s clawtips scraped the bottom of the fry basket, searching for one with the coils pressed tightly together. Those always had the best flavor, and good flavor meant efficient nourishment. The fried fats and crunchy coating already soothed the ache in his shoulder.

PAK Command: Report progress—scapula reconstruction.

RECONSTRUCTION 84% COMPLETE.

Good. He’d be back to normal in no time.

“I still don’t see why you’d order Shloogorgh's for homesickness,” said Zim. “It’s not like Foodcourtia was ever my home.”

Or anyone else’s, for that matter. A great hub of commuters, temps, salary slaves, taxis, tax-tickers, prison workers, convoys, caravans, and hotels, Foodcourtia sat as a place for refueling and respite. A rest stop on the road to bigger, better places. Only the guy who’d conquered the planet actually lived there, and even then, Zim couldn’t be sure. He’d never asked. Sizz-lorr had never been much of a conversationalist.

Zim’s antennae pressed low against his head as he swallowed down the last of his fries. To get curly fries that crispy, the oil had to be hot. Very hot. Skin-searing, blistering, sizzling, bubbling-through-bone levels of hot.

“It may not have been your home, but you still spent the last two and a half cycles of your life on Foodcourtia,” Foma pointed out. “Seventeen years is a decent chunk of time, I’d say.”

Zim put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Ah yes, my temp job. A mild blip in the radar after Operation Impending Doom 1. Heh, I broke records with that, you know.”

The evaluator’s eyes peered over her tablet. “As I understand, you broke a lot of things.”

“I did! As a matter of fact, I personally caused more damage than any Invader. Not any Invader on the team, mind you. Not any Invader of my generational brood. Oh, no.” Rolling onto his stomach, Zim rested his head atop his interlocked fingers and let his legs wave in the air. “The Control Brains AND The Almighty Tallest confirmed that I, Invader Zim caused the most damage to the planet than any Invader in the recorded history of Irk. Ever! Victory for Zim! And it wasn’t even snacktime yet.”

Slowly, Foma’s eyebrows knit together. She stared at him with her mouth slightly agape.

Zim did tend to have that effect on people. He decided to allow her a moment to gather herself.

She looked from the tablet to Zim and to the tablet again. “Uh… Zim?”

“Yes?”

“…Nevermind. Go on.”

Nobody had to tell him twice. “Of course, that’s just the structural damage. My overall kill count nearly doubled that day—numbers even the headliners of Devastis couldn’t match.” Zim polished off the last of the fries while he paused for questions.

The evaluator hunched over her tablet, her stylus a whirl of activity as it rushed to catalog the enormity of Zim’s greatness. Her free hand gestured for him to keep going.

“Naturally, before graduation, I broke multiple records on Devastis as well. In addition to high scores in isolation training, I ranked superb in explosions, collateral damage, biological collateral damage, and victory cackling.” In fact, Zim ranked in the top five for the longest victory cackle performed by an underclass Elite. Nobody liked a braggart, however, so Zim kept that part to himself.

“I’m curious; were those done on or off the clock?”

Zim shrugged. “Details. Now, you’ve already cataloged the extraordinary progress of my official mission for Impending Doom 2—BUT! What you may NOT know is that on the side, I also found the time to annihilate the planet Mars, toppled my rivals on Hobo 13, and foiled a misguided planet jacking. Yes, it’s been a marvelous career, and I gladly reap the benefits.” He drummed his fingers along the edge of the table, watching their shadows play over the grease stains. “And the setbacks.”

The stylus slowed to a stop. Foma sat back up. “Setbacks?”

“Hm. No victory comes without a price. I am admired across the galaxies, but with admiration comes… jealousy. Bitterness.”

Tak’s spiteful grim face shadowed Zim’s memory. And Sizz-lorr, threatened by Zim’s sudden rise to prosperity. It was sad, really: Irkens so insecure, so resentful, it drove them to lies. Lies about their own Tallest. What could drive an Irken to do such a hideous thing?

“Sometimes I wonder,” he quietly said, “how many others out there have let their love and admiration of me fester into something else.”

Foma tilted her head and twitched her antennae. “Does it ever upset you? When you wonder about these things?”

“Upset? Me? Of course not! Though occasionally, I…”

He paused and touched the crook of his right antenna, the crumpled one that hadn't stopped shaking since… the time when it hadn't shook. Maybe that antenna always shook? He looked at his evaluator and the rest of the sentence crept back into his throat like a coward. But Zim was no coward. The evaluator had come to witness Zim, and witness she would. He cleared his throat and this time his voice didn't cower.

"Occasionally Zim wonders if people don't like Zim. Even one as amazing as I can have doubts—isn't that silly?" He laughed, waiting for the evaluator to see the absurdity of that statement and laugh with him.

She didn't. Odd, for one whose job it was to observe and understand things. Maybe she took her job too seriously. Foma took a few notes. "Well, I—”

"You." Zim blinked rapidly. Why did the air feel so dry in here? "You like Zim. Don't you?"

Foma tapped the stylus against her chin. "Hard to say when we haven't known each other for very long, but… yes. Yes, I do."

"You do? Eh—of course you do. Everyone likes me." If she liked him, why wouldn't she laugh at his joke? It was a funny joke. Zim was hilarious; he made people laugh all the time. “You acknowledge my greatness and yet deny my superior comedy skills?”

"I'm sure you're very funny, Zim. I'm not laughing because I don't think it's silly. We think all sorts of different things about ourselves and how other Irkens think of us. We're all supposed to work together; it's our natural instinct. Sometimes we self-evaluate to see if we're working the way we're supposed to.” She steepled her fingers thoughtfully, not quite gazing at Zim but not avoiding him either. A pacification gesture. “But it can also be hard to evaluate yourself, especially when you don't have the right training or the tools to help you. I happen to have both. That’s why I’ve come to help."

Zim drew back and narrowed his eyes. "Invaders need no help."

Foma tilted her head. "They don't? Then why do they have SIR units? Or Computers? Who sends them their supplies and equipment?"

"That's not ‘help’, that's doing your duty. It's basic abetment."

"I don’t see much of a difference. Our duty is to assist each other in order to support the Empire; it’s in our coding. Smeets need assistance from the nanny-bots and training modules to become big strong soldiers."

"And if we spoke of matters concerning smeets, that might matter. In case you haven't noticed, I am no smeet."

“I never called you one, Zim. But we both used to be one, didn’t we?”

This slog through what the both of them already knew grew old fast. “And now we’re not. It’s in the past, and the past is done with.”

“It is in the past, yes. But done with? Ah, well…” Foma eyed the crooked spider leg sticking out of Zim’s PAK. “I’m not so sure about that part.”

“Do not speak of Zim’s past as if you know it. You know nothing of me—nothing! But I…” Zim let his voice lower to a vicious simmer. “I know about you. You’re a liar.”

Foma perked both antennae.

“Don’t think that I’ve forgotten the filthy lie dripping from your foul drippy teeth. At the very least you could admit it.”

Even now, she stared back at him as if innocent. As if she were confused. What an act. Well, this little performance was over. Done.

The evaluator moved to speak. Before another word of hers soiled the air, Zim leapt upon the table. Empty cartons and soda cans spun away with a kick.

Zim’s teeth clicked inches from her face. “LIAR.”

A spare soda can went rolling past Foma. Without looking, she grabbed it and set it beside her. “What is it you think I lied about?”

“Don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not.” She put her antenna up to the can, tapped it twice, and cracked it open. It didn’t even sputter. “If you’re accusing me, I should know what I’m accused of. I’ve said a lot of things; which one are you upset about?”

Zim clenched his fist until it shook. “You know which one!”

“You can’t even bring yourself to say it. Can you?”

He didn’t have to dignify that. He didn’t have to do anything. This was a file-and-rank researcher. Nothing more, nothing less. Zim didn’t owe this liar an answer. He bared his teeth and hissed.

“I haven’t lied to you, Zim. Not once. However,” Foma sighed, “there has been a lot of lying happening lately. Sometimes people lie to each other, and other times, we lie to ourselves. Or we tell lies to each other to help us lie to ourselves." Arms resting on the table, she rubbed at the Irken insignia printed in her soda can. "It's not always bad to lie, I think. Irkens lie to survive, and we do it all the time. What’s an invasion or an infiltration besides one long lie?”

A misnomer at best, and a gross oversimplification at worst. Zim rolled his eyes. “Deception and lying aren’t the same things.” And neither was invasion.

“No, but you can’t quite do one without the other. Empires need sacrifice to function smoothly. One of those sacrifices is the truth, and so Irkens tell lies. I don't." Foma’s gaze shifted from the can to Zim, and it snagged him like a fishhook. "I tell the truth, Zim. I only tell the truth." She smiled a little. "Not everyone likes that very much."

“Uh-huh.” Zim crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow. “So how do I know you’re not lying about not lying?”

The evaluator sipped her soda while she thought about it. “Well… I suppose you don’t. You’d just have to trust me. That or do a credentials check, but that’d take a lot of time to—”

“I demand you open communications with The Tallest immediately!”

Zim should have done this a long time ago. A simple call and The Tallest would set this right, one way or another. If she really had come with their approval, then there wouldn’t be an issue with a progress report. They could clear up that silly little issue with the missing data files from his mission, too.

Yes, The Tallest would set things right. They always did.

“I don’t suppose I could talk you out of—”

“Absolutely not.”

She sighed. “Alright, if you insist… Computer? Place a direct call to The Almighty Tallest, please. Exigency line.” Foma rose from the floor, smoothing out her robes to shake out any excess jelly beans. With a curl of her fingers, the hoverchair floated closer, ready to receive her. “But I don’t think they’ll be very happy with us calling them again.”

Again? Zim turned to the monitor. 

A list of the computer’s call history clung to the bottom of the main window. There had been at least five open communication calls to The Tallest. The longest had lasted over an hour. The shortest had gone for ten minutes. And every call from today.

Had Foma been speaking with them earlier before Zim arrived, or…?

The monitor cut to an oblong room dominated by an enormous chalk-dust pit that sparkled under muted blue lights. Dust clouds shrouded the camera lens, obscuring everything but the tall familiar silhouette in the center.

“That had better not be who I think it is.” A hand dusted off the lens to reveal Tallest Red’s frown in 264k high definition. “Aw, you have GOT to be—really?” Both hands slowly dragged down his face. One red eye peaked through his fingers to glare at Foma. “Really ?! Come ON!”

Zim couldn’t help the smug grin on his face. This evaluator was really in for it now! Two seconds in and The Tallest were already unhappy and he hadn’t even told them what she’d done yet. It was almost enough to make Zim feel sorry for Foma. Almost.

The shmeepish smile crawling over Foma’s face was nothing short of satisfying. The long stalks of her antennae bent low in apologetic salute. “It appears so, My Tallest. Apologies for another interruption so soon, and at such a delicate time. You see, Zim—oh!”

Zim shoved her off-camera with both hands. “ZIM can speak for himself!” Before anyone dared stop him, he hauled himself into Foma’s hoverchair. It took a couple of jumps, but he did it. “My Tallest, there’s been an UNSPEAKABLE mistake!”

A pair of wiggling antennae popped out of the chalk beside Red. “Oh, no. Tell me that’s not who I think it is.” Slowly, the top of Tallest Purple’s head breached the chalk bath.

What vicious eyes Zim’s Tallest had! Foma must have come back into frame.

“I thought we made it clear last ti—” Red glanced at his co-Tallest trying to sink back into the dust. “Oh no you don’t.” At the last second, he caught Purple by the head and hauled him back up.

Purple spat a mouthful of warm chalk dust at him and hissed, “We just did this fifteen minutes ago.”

That had to be an exaggeration. Fifteen minutes ago, Zim had just regained consciousness. Fifteen minutes ago, he’d been tending to his shattered clavicle and mangled PAK leg. Perhaps the time difference between worlds hadn’t been calibrated right and time seemed shorter where they were. Or just a joke. Tallest Purple always did have a wonderful sense of humor. He often laughed at Zim’s jokes even before Zim even realized he’d told one.

“I’m sorry if this one—” Zim jabbed a thumb at Foma dusting herself off behind him. “—has been harassing you, My Tallest. Not that I can say I’m surprised. The evaluator has proven herself to be the stubborn and meddlesome sort. Meddlesome and untrustworthy.”

Tallest Purple clicked his tongue. “And here we go.” He fell back into the chalk and began a lazy backstroke around the bathtub. “I hate reruns.”

Their patience ran short today. Zim decided to cut to the chase. “Already she’s sown the seed of her vile lies. Lies about you—yes, YOU, My Tallest!” He nodded at Red’s groan. “Hard to believe, I know. And yet—”

“No.” Tallest Red held up one hand and rubbed his temples with the other. “No, we are not doing this again, Zim. Look. We’re talking about her, right? Foma, the one by the vending machine.” His frown deepened as he side-eyed her. “The one who said she could wrap this up fast?”

Foma raised a finger to clarify. “Relatively fast. The process does still take time, and I did warn you this would take several attempts.” She nodded to Zim, then to them. “I appreciate your patience, My Tallest. It will all be worth it in the end.”

Tallest Purple let himself sink backward into the chalk bath, propping the heels of his feet on Tallest Red’s PAK. “Well, it better. I’m getting pretty sick of this conversation; it was fun telling him the truth the first time, but sheesh.”

“My Tallest,” Zim tried again, “the evaluator—”

“Doesn’t lie,” Red finished. “Pretty sure she doesn’t even know how anymore. Some kinda trauma-filter… glitch… thingy. Or whatever.”

“But if you’d only heard the blatant—”

“I told you, Zim: we are not doing this again.” Red batted Purple’s wiggly foot off his shoulder. “Here’s the clip-notes: No, the work pass isn’t fabricated. Yes, we both signed it.”

Zim sat up. “But—”

“No, you’re not getting out of the evaluation or the interview. Yes, you heard right.”

“Okay, but she said—”

“And no, Extractor Foma isn’t lying.” Red narrowed his eyes. “No, not even about that.”

Purple shook off a flurry of chalk dust. “Especially not about that.”

“But—but she…” Zim swallowed hard. The Tallest weren’t in a mood for “buts”. New angle. Just reroute the question. Make himself clear. “You don’t even know what I was going to say she lied about!”

The Tallest exchanged a glance.

A shadow of a smirk twitched on Red’s face. “Yeah? Then what is it?”

Foma curled her fingers tight around her tablet and edged forward. Her wide eyes darted between Zim and the monitor. For someone about to be revealed as a filthy liar spouting lies of filthy, she seemed awfully optimistic.

“Your evaluator, Foma…” Zim scratched absently at the back of his neck. Even repeating it didn’t feel— No. He shook his head. No, feelings were for smeets and shmoopsters. The Tallest had to know. Someone in their trusted ranks could not be allowed to spread these rumors and get away with it. “She claims that I, Invader Zim, am not an Invader. Which of course is absolutely—”

“Right,” said Tallest Red. “Totally right. You’re not an Invader. Great. Glad we cleared that up.”

Purple’s head poked over Red’s shoulder. “Wow, he actually said it this time.”

“He did!” Foma clasped her hands together with an excited little hop. “This is fantastic progress. I truly think this time we—”

Tallest Red held up a hand. “Yeah, well, next time you wanna make progress, get him to wait more than five minutes before you call back. Better yet, don’t call back at all.”

The monitor went dark.

Zim stared at his reflection floating in the black void of the screen. Words had been said, but they didn’t go together right. Somehow, somewhere, Zim had misinterpreted. Or misheard.

It really had been a bad time to call. He’d been too eager. The Tallest had been too preoccupied with essential matters of state and Empire to fully discuss the issue. On bad days, everyone tended to say things they didn’t really mean. Even The Tallest.

The evaluator’s shadow fell over the hoverchair. Zim didn’t look at her.

“The Almighty Tallest are infallible,” he said to the empty monitor. “Immaculate in every judgment.”

“Yes, they are. All the time. I don’t think there’s an Irken alive who loves their Empire as much as our Tallest.” Foma knelt to eye level. “Would you like to talk about what just happened, Zim?”

Zim pulled his legs under him and clutched the hoverchair’s armrest.

“Okay. In your own time.”

Foma waited.

Irkens could be quiet sometimes, they could smile, they could even be calm, but not all three at once. Not for this long. She reminded Zim of the time he found a pool of water—a pond, the humans called it—in a clearing. From the air, it'd looked like a big coin in the grass: shiny, grey, and flat. Impeccably smooth and serene, not even a ripple. When the Voot crashed into it, the water burned through his skin until he saw muscle tissue.

The easy listening music wafting through the speakers shifted into a new song. Something with long sleepy horns and twinkly chimes.

She wouldn’t let him sit silent for long. Soon would come another question. Or worse, she’d just wait and stare at him some more. Ask him how he was feeling or something. Why did it have to be Zim under interrogation all the time when he hadn’t even done anything? Let her answer questions for once.

Yes. Zim possessed the questioning chair. He would ask instead. “What are YOU thinking?”

“I’m thinking about The Tallest,” Foma said. “They’re both very kind, aren’t they? I saw them with you at The Great Assigning, you know. The whole Empire did.”

Finally, something that made sense. “So you saw, then. You saw The Tallest assign me my mission as an Invader.”

“I saw them assign you a mission. I saw them assign you a planet. But the only one who ever said you were an Invader was you. You wanted to believe your own lie—so, so very much—that The Tallest were kind enough to let you keep on believing. For your sake, everyone in the Empire let you pretend and we all pretended along.” That terrible gentleness softened her face again. “After everything you’d done, our Tallest still showed you mercy.”

Of course they had. The Tallest adored Zim. His decision skills and stratagems were unparalleled. His brain the envy of Irk. Upon very rare occasions, however, Invader Zim sometimes found himself in a position to regret his decisions. Prompting the evaluator to say what she thought stood among those decisions.

“The Almighty Tallest wouldn’t lie.” Zim’s gaze shifted from the hoverchair’s armrest to the toppled basket from Foodcourtia. One of the curly fries had been smashed underfoot. He chose to examine the vending machines instead. “Not without reason.”

“No, they wouldn’t. When a Tallest lies, it’s for the good of the Empire—some little mercy to soften the truth.” Pressure weighed on the armrest. Foma’s hand didn’t touch his, but it rested inches away. “The truth is hard, and more often than not, the truth is cruel. And necessary.”

 The evaluator pulled herself up to full height. Too high to see her face without Zim craning his neck. “Even a Tallest’s mercy has limits, and I’m afraid that limit has been reached.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “It is my duty now to show you cruelty. I’ve come for the truth, and I will find it.” The claws of her glove stretched. “I will extract it.”

Both of Zim’s antennae stood rail-straight.

He’d seen those gloves. For the first time, Zim looked and saw and remembered. He remembered the skim of those pond-grey robes across the interrogation floor. He remembered the gentle curl of her voice in the churning chaos of Devastis’s barked orders and explosions.

Until today, they’d never met. Zim knew her as the voice that welcomed Elites into the interrogation simulators. She’d visited an Elite training session to introduce the simulation programs personally. Apparently, she’d been running late, because she’d still had blood on her gloves and viscera clinging to her robes.

“You’re Extractor Foma!”

“Yes.” In a lower voice, she added, “Could’ve sworn I said that when I introduced myself…” Foma drummed her fingers along her arm. The tips of her antennae twitched at the fresh dose of alarm pheromones in the room. “Do you remember me a little better now?”

“You’re the head of Information Extraction.”

Other species knew the practice by another word. Torture, they called it.

“Are you here to hurt me?”

“That,” Foma said, “is entirely up to you.”

Somehow, that didn’t bring Zim much comfort. “Don’t you usually interrogate enemies of the Irken Empire? You don’t think I’m…”

“That’s a big part of my job, yes. Not all of it. Please don’t misunderstand; this is not an interrogation.” Her words came slow and deliberate. “This is still an evaluation.”

Zim narrowed his eyes. “The interrogation simulators were evaluations, too.”

The semi-annual exams tested a future Invader’s resistance to the worst of the worst tortures foreign hostiles had to offer. None of it was real—not that the brain or the PAK could tell the difference. Zim’s final interrogation lasted forty-seven years in a Zorathian laboratory; on the outside, it had been only two hours. Thanks to the discrepancies, the sims couldn’t mark the time correctly.

“How do I know this isn’t one of those?”

“Why in Irk’s name would I come all this way just for an interrogation sim? Traditional extraction wouldn’t even work in this situation. You’ve been trained to resist it; that’s the entire point.” Skimming through her tablet, Foma smiled. “You scored high in most of those, by the way. Well done.”

Empty compliments. True, but empty. Zim already knew he’d been among the best of Elites and didn’t need a fly-in to tell him that. Confirmation of the scores didn’t go unappreciated, though.

“A sim wouldn’t be worth the trouble, I think. We can’t completely replicate personal interaction. Simulations aren’t real. Right now, you need real. Plus, you’re a flight risk and—” Foma leaned against the side of the hoverchair, rubbing the hip she’d landed on when Zim shoved her. “I’m sorry, but may I have my chair back, please?”

It was just as well. The Vortian chair had cozier cushioning and the hoverchair's lumbar support kept irritating Zim’s neck. Zim hopped out and reclaimed his rightful seat.

Foma settled in with a sigh. “Where were we?”

“You feared my masterful escape skills.”

“Right. If I’d brought you aboard The Forthright and you left our session early, why, there’s no telling the damage you could cause. And with tens of thousands of informants aboard?” She shook her head. “That’s a breakout waiting to happen. After seeing the havoc you’d left on Judgementia—”

“I remember that! Heh, oh yes.” Zim cupped his chin in his hands with a happy sigh. “The Tallest sure know how to throw a surprise party. They even let me fly The Massive afterward.”

Foma pulled up a file in her tablet and furrowed her eyebrows. “The Tallest were very thorough in their recap of that incident. I’d been sent an invitation to that, you know. I couldn’t get away; you know how work is. What a shame. I’d have loved to see the Judgementia incident for myself.”

Zim grinned so wide his left eye twitched a bit. “Yep. What a party.”

“Amazing.”

“It was.”

The hoverchair drifted closer as Foma leaned forward. “A generation’s worth of collateral damage and casualties. Horrors beyond belief. You’ve caused the worst disasters in living memory, and think you deserve a parade for it.”

“Party. Not a parade.” If she’d come for an interview, she ought to at least get the details right.

She gazed at him with absolute wonder. “Zim, you might be the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

“Yes,” said Zim. “Yes, I am.”

“There’s so much to learn from you. I wish you could come aboard Forthright, but with a PAK like yours, who knows what would happen to the sim modules? Those things are an expense and a half to replace.”

Since when had expense ever been an issue for the Irken Empire? It had limitless resources. Zim thought back to his time in the Vort science labs and the research teams that had thrown themselves into all-nighters, proposals, and bribes. From the start, Foma visiting on location had seemed strange. Nobody came all the way across the universe on personal interest alone, flight risk or no flight risk. Not unless they had no choice.

Slowly, Zim smiled. “Your department ran out of funding, didn’t it?”

Extractor Foma’s eyes widened. Stared at him a second. She tossed her head and laughed—a full-bodied sound louder than she’d been all day. “Okay, you got me. We could use more monies over in Information Extraction.” The last of the chuckles petered out with a sigh.

“Thought you could pull one over on Zim? HA! Nice try. Indeed, it is to laugh.”

Zim lounged across the armchair, investigating the curvature of his claws in the light. Huh. When had he broken a claw tip? "Your fascination is understandable, Extractor. Still, it’s rather excessive for—”

Something tugged at his back, and he heard the slow drag of ripping fabric. Turning, Zim discovered the loose damaged PAK leg had punctured the upholstery. Tufts of blue stuffing tumbled down the backboard and into his lap. He tried to draw the leg back in. The leg gave a brave little twitch and went still.

Still staring at the wounded chair, he asked, "What did you mean before? When you said 'a PAK like mine' couldn't come aboard?"

A second of hesitation drifted between them.

"We don't know the effects that a defective PAK would have on the system." Foma's voice casually pushed on as if she'd mentioned a crack in the wall or a stain on the floor. "You are defective, and I have come to fix you. To try, at least." As if it were obvious. As if she hadn't just accused Zim of being the second-worst thing an Irken could be.

"You said you came for an evaluation." The leg wouldn't go back in. Not even when Zim pushed. Why couldn't it go back in the stupid hatch?

"Yes. That's what I'm here to evaluate. Nobody knows if Irkens with defective PAKs can be debugged at all, but I—”

"No." Zim squeezed the guts of the chair in his fist.

How did this place get airflow without air vents? Maybe they’d been hidden under equipment or camouflaged in the paint. He couldn’t find the door hatch or any evidence that he hadn’t imagined a door in the first place, but this place had to have an entry point somewhere.

Foma’s stylus slowly spun through her fingers as she considered his answer. “No, you don’t think it’s possible? Or no, you don’t agree you’re defective?”

Both. 

“I…” Zim’s tongue tangled up in his mouth.

Neither. 

“I, uh.” The stupid-mouth disease was back. 

I don’t know.

That didn’t make sense. How could he not know? Zim was Zim. Zim was amazing and Zim knew everything. If he didn’t know, that meant Zim couldn’t be amazing. Which he was. Zim was brilliant. So brilliant that the ignorant went blind in sight of him. Yes. Yes, of course. The blind could not see Zim. If they could not see, they could not understand. Those who couldn’t understand were ignorant. A pity.

But Zim had no time for pity. Zim had things to do. Grand, incredible things. He had armies to humble. Cities to crumble. Feats to stagger the stars and strike The Tallest breathless with wonder. Things he could never do if he stayed.

“I’ve got something to do.” Zim’s arms braced against the chair. “I need to go.”

“Why?” A cable weaved out of Foma’s PAK to retrieve the tablet. She leaned into her chair, posture slack with both hands in full view and empty of weapons. “What is it you have to do?”

“Homework,” said Zim. “There’s an essay due this Friday.”

He turned away. Invader Zim didn’t need to explain himself to the likes of her. Not her or anyone.

The only thing Zim had to do was return home before the mission became compromised. The weasel cocoons still needed checking, and that essay about moose biological functionality wouldn’t research itself. He still had until this Friday morning to finish it; plenty of time. Probably. (Friday came… tomorrow? Today?) 

He hadn’t already missed it, had he? Skool legends spoke of Ms. Bitters allowing a lateness extension, but only fools gambled their futures on rumors and fables. 

If Zim’s grades fell behind, everyone would notice. Low grades marked deficiency and inadequacy in humans. Zim always received high grades, because of course he did. He’d received an S+ in Elite training, the way any fully functioning Elite would. Why would he not win the same success on Earth?

“GIR?” Zim tried his communicator again. “GIR?!” 

Still no signal. Not even static anymore. It was always something with that robot—loose wiring, insubordination, random explosions, that weird monkey obsession, and the screaming. How could anyone concentrate with that constant screaming? Who could ever tolerate something that loud, that annoying? Nobody. 

As soon as Zim tracked GIR down, repairs were in order. After the essay, of course. 

“Ah, of course. Can’t forget the homework.” Foma spoke slowly, the way one spoke to a flighty little bobblefink. That smile returned—still kind, still gentle, but now something else… sad.

Sad for him. She pitied him. Her. This spindly scientist, barely better than a desk drone. This feeble creature that by all rights ought to be stuffed underground somewhere with the elders and all the other obsolete equipment. She. Pitied. Him.

Zim rose upon his three good PAK legs. “Let me rephrase that.” He pounced. Metal limbs landed hard on the backboard and bit deep into the leather. In one swift motion, Foma's chair became her cage. “I am leaving to do my homework.” A rotary drill popped from his PAK to hover at the edge of her neck. “And I’m leaving right now.”

She began to say something, but the drill poked her throat before another word dropped. 

“No! No, ZIM speaks now!” His scream peeled and cracked at the edges. “This assignment is worth twenty percent of my entire grade! TWENTY !” Trembling PAK legs rattled upon the chair. Zim’s breath wheezed through his dry throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry.

The extract—the evaluator hadn’t moved. Frozen in fear, surely. Surely. Her eyes trailed from the metal limbs to the shiny grooves in the drill.

“Foolish, coming alone and unguarded. No guard, no security robots. You truly thought you could subdue ZIM with only yourself? Any Irken fresh from the smeetery could snap you in half without even trying. You’ve seen my scores from the Academy.” A blow torch slid from the PAK hatch and snapped to life in a bright, hot breath. Zim’s eyes narrowed in a dangerous squint. “You know my work, and you know what I can do to you. And I will the moment you even THINK about trying to stop me.” The tip of the drill poked Foma’s cheekbone. “You are not my commander, you are not my Tallest, and you can’t stop me. I’m leaving.”

Foma blinked. “Okay.”

“DON’T you try and—oh.” Zim withdrew the drill and snapped the blow torch off. “Well. Good, then!” He coughed into his fist and held his head high. “I’m pleased to see you finally see reason, evaluator.”

Zim crossed his arms, waiting. Nothing happened.

“Um.” Foma pointed at the PAK legs surrounding her breakable skull. “I need to put in the access code to get out of lockdown. May I stand?”

“Very well—but no tricks! I’ve got my eye on you.” With his hands on his hips, Zim marched close behind as Foma rose and crossed the room. The hoverchair zipped ahead of them to settle beside the monitor, ready for further orders.

Foma tapped in a key code and turned to let the computer’s lasers scan her PAK. “Begin reverse lockdown procedures, please.” She tapped in a second code and turned to Zim. “It takes a couple of minutes for the whole thing but—” Something unlocked overhead. “Ah, there it goes. It will be open soon.”

“Good.” Zim would’ve preferred something more concrete than ‘soon’ but it would do. If nothing substantial happened in the next five minutes, he could always raise the stakes again. Cut off an arm, maybe. That usually worked. 

In all likelihood, the door that Zim remembered led to some side-room or snack closet or something. The real door must have been above them the whole time. He should have searched harder for unwieldy seams in the ceiling.

He felt eyes on him again. Zim turned to meet Foma’s gaze.

“Hm.” She frowned with a shrug and returned to the computer. “Oh, well. They did warn me not to come,” Foma murmured to herself.

Zim’s good antenna twitched. "Who?" Not that he cared.

"Oh, everyone. I did a few interviews to prepare for our session today—help me understand who I'd be dealing with.” Her fingers threaded through a file collection, minimized it, and set it aside. A sizable collection, from the look of it. “I had to put in multiple requests with The Almighty Tallest to come here. One request a year, every year, through every rejection. Just for you."

"Hmph. Of course they rejected you.” The Tallest knew better. They’d known better all along.

"A pointless safety hazard, they called it. In the end, I had to sign several dozen waivers in case you… well, did what you tend to do. They told me you couldn't be helped."

"I have no need for your 'help', therefore I shouldn't—"

"No, Zim. Not shouldn't. Couldn't. I think they gave up on the idea that you could be salvaged a long, long time ago.”

Zim frowned. Salvaged?

Broken things needed repair. The outdated required updates, and neglected or overlooked things needed maintenance. Salvaged things had gone past the point of no return. Only the wrecked and ruined needed salvage. The evaluator had misspoken. Misremembered. Misunderstood. Zim didn’t need salvaging. A tune-up, maybe. A little maintenance, perhaps. Everything needed a little maintenance now and then.

“Everyone else told me more or less the same. The Frylord of Foodcourtia told me—quite passionately—that you were a lost cause. Your supervisor from the Vortian science division told me I had better things to do than 'prod at a defective runt too defective to know he's a defective runt'.” Foma tilted the chair to view her little office, full of notes and research and supplies for on-location work. The snack and beverage machines implied that she’d been prepared to stay with him for weeks or months or more. “Prime Commander Poki laughed in my face, and your assigned nanny-bot… goodness, I've never seen a robot cry that hard before. At the time, I thought they’d all just given up too soon. Then again, who knows you better than them? They all knew you for cycles; I’ve known you for an hour at most."

The domed ceiling drew away and let the night in. Clouds rolled across a dark violet sky dotted with stars and satellites. Bitter scents of oncoming rain clung to the wind rustling Zim’s uniform.

A thin staircase unfolded to lead Zim up and out of here and back to his mission. Back to work. Judging by the moon’s position, it was around 1600 hours, local time. Twelve hours before Skool began again. Before the whole thing started over.

“But you know? Despite what everyone said, I still never thought I’d live to see an Irken soldier run from a challenge.” Foma’s shoulders shook with a little chuckle. “It’s nice to still be surprised.”

The music’s placid synth and languid horns clapped out all at once.

Zim whipped around. “Excuse me? I am NOT running.”

“Walking, then.”

“You know what I mean!”

One by one, the vending machines darkened and went quiet. The only sounds left were the hum of the computer and the wind through the trees.

“Do I?” Foma glanced over her shoulder and arched an eyebrow. “Because personally, I don’t know what else to call it when someone’s offered a chance to improve and won’t take it. I’m glad you made your feelings clear early, though.” The chair turned back to the monitor. “If you don’t want to be useful for your Empire, I can’t make you. Nobody can.”

“Hey! I never said I didn’t want—Zim doesn't need to improve on what obviously needs no improvement!” A tune-up was different than an improvement, though. Or enhancements. “However, I could understand some…” He glanced at the limb curving out of his PAK hatch. “…maintenance. I could do that.”

Slowly, lights flickered out. The click of the keyboard echoed through the room. Framed in the lonely light of the computer monitor, Foma skimmed through data files and missed messages.

Zim approached the stairs—bulky metal blocks built for longer legs—and started to climb. One step. Three steps.

On the fourth step, Zim paused. Gripped the handrail. Thought of obsolete hard-drives and dysfunctional mainframes and how he’d need to update GIR’s information processor soon.

He looked at the clouds smothering the moonlight for a little while. Looked back at Extractor Foma.

The Extractor’s eyes didn’t leave the monitor. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I would like it if you left now, please. I don’t want it to rain inside my base.”

“Well.” Zim rubbed his shoulder. “I don’t need to leave right now if it’s going to rain.”

“Mmm, better to leave now and beat it by the time you get home.” A weather report sprouted in the corner of Foma’s monitor. She nodded and flicked it away. “It’ll be storming a long time, I think. Weather aside, it is a cute little planet. Good luck, soldier. Have fun with your human nemesis.”

The neural implants beneath Foma’s antennae pulsed and flashed. Cables slid out from under the desk and made her jump when they clamped into her PAK.

Zim climbed back down the stairs. “Hey, I said I’m not leaving yet.”

WELCOME BACK, EXTRACTOR. The monitor played a merry little jingle. PAK MEMORY UPLOAD AND BACKUP 100% COMPLETE. BEGIN PLAYBACK: Y/N?

Foma took up her tablet, along with two others she’d stored in the desk drawers. “Let’s start where we left off. Observation Day 3, hour 17:45.”

“Hey. Hey!” Zim scampered to the Extractor’s side, waving his arms in her face. “Still here! Review the mission after it’s over. HEY!”

The implants went dark and Foma unplugged with a jerk. “Oh! Sorry, I thought you left. Is it the rain? I can drop you off on my way back if you like.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said your assignment isn’t over yet.”

She gave him a flat look. “Computer? Minute 16:02:56.”

The monitor cut to a picture-in-picture of Past Zim brandishing a live blow torch centimeters from the Extractor’s face. “I’m leaving,” said Past Zim.

 Current Foma tapped her chin. “That sure sounds over to me. If you don’t want to continue, I see no point in—”

“I never said that!” Zim jumped on the desk and shoved himself in front of the monitor. Frozen in time, Past Zim brandished the blow torch over his head. “I meant that I’m leaving… later. We can keep going.”

“You mean now you want to continue the session?”

Zim nodded.

For a moment, it appeared as if she’d dismiss him and go back to her notes. Something in Zim’s stance stopped her long enough to consider it. “I don’t want to restart only for you to back out again in the middle of things. You say you’ll leave ‘later’. That ‘later’ can’t come whenever you decide the work’s too hard. I won’t play these games with you.”

“What, you’re backing out just like that? Abandoning the post that YOU begged The Tallest for? I thought you said you’ve been asking to evaluate Zim’s magnificent and fascinating brain for years!”

“I have…” Foma chewed the end of her stylus and glanced back at the monitor. “But it’s still the middle of Invasion Season. I’ve got my other duties on The Forthright—informants to interrogate, infiltrators to debrief, trainees to process. We might finally get a Meekrob aboard; I can’t miss that.”

Zim gestured to the entirety of Zim. Not an easy job with just two arms, but he did his best. “You can’t miss this either!”

A third of the lights flickered back on.

Foma steepled her fingers. “You have two options: we end now or we continue until the evaluation—the ENTIRE evaluation is over.”

No room for negotiations. Do it or don’t.

He nodded. “Very well. We continue until the evaluation is complete.” Zim straightened his posture—the very model of a functional Irken soldier.

Foma smiled, but her appraising eye still lingered over the crooked leg poking out of Zim’s PAK. “Before we start, there’s something else.

Of course. Officials never let things be simple.

“When you’re confronted with…” Her fingers fidgeted, searching for the words. “…facts that are a challenge to process, your PAK reacts. It lashes out—violently.” Foma’s eyes traveled from the twisted metal limb to the network of scars in Zim’s neck. “I’m concerned you’ll hurt yourself again.”

“Heh. Is that all? I can handle it. It takes more than a little short-out to hurt Zim.” To prove it, he shrugged his damaged shoulder and it only made his eye twitch a centimeter. “What’s a little pain to an Irken Invader?”

“I should warn you: information extraction is a difficult process. Always. Even when you extract that information from yourself. Are you prepared for that, Zim?”

Zim glared. “I just said I can handle it. Are we doing this or not?”

“And how do I know you won’t back out again?”

“I guess,” said Zim, “you’ll just have to trust me.”

Foma’s long antennae pricked. After a second, she grinned.

Metal clinked and whirred as the staircase retracted and the roof resealed itself. Overhead, the checkerboard of lights sprang to life while vending machines brightened and hummed along to stasis songs piping from the speakers.

Zim’s shoulders relaxed at the hard clank of the locks. With the facility back in lockdown, the session officially restarted. He sat himself on the Extractor’s desk, waving his boots over the edge while he watched the monitor.

Foma had never paused or muted her PAK’s memory feed. Unedited footage of Zim fishing GIR out of a dumpster kept rolling in the background. Not exceptionally good footage, either. Judging by the blurry zooms, she’d performed the observation phase from a distance.

He turned as the feed cut to Zim’s quest for Plookesian gummi worms. “So what now? Do we keep talking, same as before?”

“Soon, but for right now—” Foma snapped her fingers to summon a thinner connector cable from the monitor. “I would like access to your PAK for a brief moment.”

Zim hesitated. The only ones officially qualified to go poking into another Irken’s PAK were Technicians, Control Brains, and The Tallest. Maybe also smeetery techs, sometimes?

Then again, if Foma had written the program for interrogation simulations, she had to have experience in PAK programming. And since she’d come for a PAK evaluation anyway…

On the surface, it sounded legitimate. Zim eyed the wiggling cable warily. “What are you going to do?”

“Fair question.” The Extractor flipped the tablet around so Zim could see the notes and schematics of the plan. “First, a memory scan and upload. With all the memory errors I’ve observed, I’ll need copies for replay later. How does that sound?”

Memory banks and data transfer. Surface level stuff, far from anything that resembled the deep code. Nothing too different than the retrospective during Zim’s surprise party on Judgementia.

“That sounds… acceptable.” It still got Zim’s spooch feeling a little smooshy, though. “What else?”

Foma’s fingers moved down a bullet-point. “Then—with your permission, of course—I will disable your mood dampeners. I think they might be the cause of a bad data cycle. Part of it, anyway. You feel things very strongly, Zim, even with the dampeners online.”

In the schematics, filthy water built behind a little animated dam.

“If the emotions are allowed to flow freely…” The dam disappeared with Foma’s finger tap, and the water streamed clear with little branches and mud floating out of sight. “We can clear out the gunk. There’s a lot of build-up in there, I think. So, with your permission?”

“That’s it?” The way she talked, Zim had thought it’d be something intrusive, like nerve stapling or something. His entry hatch slid open. “Be quick about it, though.”

Electric tingles nipped and zipped down Zim’s spine when the cable clamped down. The Extractor’s hand caught his head as it tipped backward and his body went slack. In the corner of his eye, he watched her set him against the wall to support his head and return to the tablet. He hadn’t felt any of it.

Truthfully, Zim never liked this part of PAK connection very much. It did feel better to have something solid under him instead of being scruffed mid-air before shmillions of peers. Shmillions of peers and all their bright little eyes in the dark.

“And… there,” said Foma’s voice above him. “Dampeners offline. Brace yourself, please. This will hurt in a moment.”

Shmillions of peers had come to Judgementia from all corners of the Empire and beyond just for Zim. Everyone loved a good party, and a party in honor or Zim must have been the invitation of the quad-cycle. Anyone who was anyone had been there.

Parties were good things. All eyes on Zim, as they should be. Good things made Irkens feel good. …So why didn’t Zim feel good? Everyone else had felt good—many of them smiled. Some laughed. Zim remembered laughing too, though he hadn’t always wanted to.

So many came to that party. So many eyes. Eyes upon eyes upon eyes. A nebula of eyes, and Zim hanging limp in the light of the Control Brains, watching his memories broadcast for all to see.

The monitor beeped. MEMORY DOWNLOAD INITIATED.  

Zim licked the edge of his teeth. His chest felt tight. He tried to grip the edge of the desk but he didn’t have control of his arms anymore so they just hung there, useless to Zim. Useless to the Irken Empire. Useless to absolutely everyone and everything, those awful stupid arms. In the corner of his eye, Zim saw his antennae drooping. He squeezed his eyes shut.

The surprise party started out fun. It hadn’t ended that way. Somehow, somewhere, the party went bad and everyone had to go home, and by the end of it, Zim hadn’t wanted anyone to look at him at all. He’d been glad to finally go to his home base and cloister himself deep underground.

Pressure in Zim’s chest clawed into his neck. Couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t—

“Breathe,” Foma said. “Slowly.” She waited for the exhale. “There we are. Is that any better?”

It was. A little. He swallowed hard. “How much longer is the upload?”

“Three minutes. We’re almost halfway done. You’re doing wonderfully, Zim.”

Not that long. In the meantime, Zim just had to think of something else. His mission or nachos or—

“You’re the new Skool psychologist?”

Zim knew that voice. He’d heard it almost every day since the night he landed. Next to his head, the monitor’s playback of Foma’s memory scan passed into Observation Day 4, Hour 09:58:03. The visuals came through clear and crisp now. Observation Day 4 had graduated from distance observation to fieldwork encounters.

Upon the monitor, Past Dib stood in the Skool hallway. Extractor Foma, cloaked in her human disguise of glasses and sweat-hairs and fluffy wig, stood beside him.

 Already, the human seemed to sense something wasn’t right. Past Dib’s stance turned wary. “The new psychologist isn’t supposed to come until next month.” He stood on tiptoe and squinted behind his enormous ocular enhancements. “And what’s with all the neural-nodes in your head, huh? Huh?”

“I’m early.” Past Foma smiled. “And those are my hearing aids.”

“In your neck? Come on!”

Zim smirked. Unsurprising—if The Dib hadn’t been fooled by Zim’s brilliant disguises, he could never be tricked by a mere Extractor’s. He’d always suspected the ocular “glasses” enhancements had something to do with it. According to GIR’s television research, glasses offered an intelligence boost. 

“And if you’re the school psychiatrist, how come I’ve seen you lurking around the neighborhood for the last week?” Reaching into his coat pocket, Past Dib brandished a snapshot of the disguised Extractor sitting in City Park and clutching a limp squirrel. The squirrel had seen better days. Past Dib took a step back and looked her over again, shielding himself with his briefcase. “Who are you really? Another lamia? We have enough lamias. And… and how come you sound like an ASMR video?”

Past Foma adjusted her glasses, eying the briefcase with amused interest. “I’m so sorry, cloaked juvenile, but I’m afraid I don’t know what those things are. I’ve come to talk with you a moment about Zim. And, if it suits you, make a deal.”

Zim frowned. Tallest pass or no Tallest pass, nobody had given her the right to move in on an Invader’s quarry. Not that he cared what happened to the putrid little mammal; it was a matter of principle. The Dib was Zim’s to menace. No one else’s.

On the monitor, Past Foma drew closer to Dib and knelt to his eye level.

Zim glared.

The Extractor’s chair swiveled around. Foma twitched the tips of her antennae and frowned. “You smell upset,” she said. “How are you feeling right now?”

“Impatient.” Zim clenched his teeth. “How much longer?”

“A little under two minutes.” Antennae still twitching, Foma returned to her tablet. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t lie to me in the future.”

Past Dib gripped the briefcase tighter. He’d just finished a monologue about spirits, goat-demons, faeries, and other creatures that liked to offer ‘deals’ that always went wrong in the end. “How do you know Zim, anyway?”

“Well, I don’t know him personally, but I would love that to change,” said Past Foma. “If you could give me his base’s coordinates, the hours he’s most likely to disable his shields, sensors, and security drones, and a copy of his class schedule, it would be immensely helpful.”

Zim chuckled. As if anyone could simply waltz up to Dib and ask him to betray his dearest and most detested rival. The human stuck to Zim like roadkill on a Sumpian runway. He’d never give him up without a fight.

Past Dib’s briefcase lowered an inch. “…and what do I get?”

“You get to save the planet from an alien invasion. Zim is out of your business and out of your solar system for the next two hundred Earth-years.” Past-Foma thought for a moment. “Or until the local sun explodes. Whichever comes first.”

Past Dib stared at his feet. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a containment sphere of the radioactive mucus Zim had lobbed at him a week before. He studied the mucus sphere, studied Past Foma’s expression, and frowned. “ What’s the catch? You fairy folk always have a catch.”

“No catch. You’d be doing us and him a favor. You’d just happen to get something out of it, too. You see, your alien friend—”

“He’s NOT my friend.”

Past Foma smiled. “My mistake. You see, Zim isn’t well. We want him to get better so that we can take him home where he belongs.”

“We?”

The halls had been empty the whole time, but Past Foma made a show of looking around anyway. After a triple-check, she lowered her glasses. The holographic disguise blipped out and her bright pink eye winked at him.

“You’re one of—”

The disguise blipped back in. “Yes.” 

The Extractor’s brazen honesty would be her demise one of these days. It had been an amateur’s mistake, revealing herself that way. Now that he knew her true Irken identity, Dib would turn against her—perhaps whip out those sleep-cuffs of his.

Zim stretched his neck closer to the monitor. Any minute now.

“And… and you’ll take him away? Forever?”

Any minute now.

“To the best of our ability, and as far as your lifespan is concerned, yes. Forever. As compensation for the trouble, you and your planet will get an immunity pass—from the Irken Empire, that is.” Past Foma shrugged. “Anyone else wants the place, you’re out of luck, I’m afraid.”

Something beeped in the background, and Foma had begun talking again. The memory upload must have finished.

Zim didn’t care about that. He watched the screen and waited.

He waited for Dib to chuck his briefcase at Foma’s head. To whip out a Membrane Labs™ shrink ray and try and shrink her down to stomping size. Zim waited for Dib to declare everlasting fealty to Earth and never give quarter to any Irken, even at the cost of another Irken. Waited for Dib to alarm the other humans of the alien threat in their hallway.

He waited for Dib to run away.

He waited for Foma to get sick of waiting, shank Dib in the spleen, and extract the information from him the old-fashioned way.

Zim waited for something—anything—to happen besides—

“Deal.”

The mass in Zim’s chest rocketed into his throat and ballooned, swollen and ugly. Little spirals of smoke coiled through the air. Zim’s throat ached and his vision blurry as his spooch turned in on itself. The sharp scent of hot metal hit his antennae. His PAK was overheating.

“I’m so glad you decided to make the right choice, Zim,” the Extractor said as she removed the cables from his PAK. “It really was the right one.”

Feeling came back to Zim’s limbs and nervous system. He still couldn’t breathe. 

“Just like that.” Zim’s voice seemed to drift far away, as if another Zim in another place had said it instead. “He didn’t even think about it.”

Foma nodded. “Truthfully, I wonder if your nemesis had gotten a little tired of the game, himself.”

The scent of heated metal filled Zim’s mouth as it open to argue or scream or demand. Instead, the room closed in on him and his sight went bla—

END OF SESSION LOG II.

Chapter Text

SESSION LOG III:

The good news was that Zim hadn’t broken anything—bones or otherwise—in the overheating incident. He’d burned a nasty scorch mark into the desk top, but no more than that.

Extractor Foma covered it up with a filigree cloth that matched the banners. Some fancy trophy scavenged from some palace of some dead world nobody knew the name of anymore. It had been sitting at the bottom of a storage drawer for decades, lodged between the moisturizer and a charger cable. “I can finally put it to use,” she said. “A good excuse to redecorate.”

A pointless exercise, in Zim’s expert opinion. At a glance, he still saw the scorch mark’s wiggly black edges poking out of the lace like a squashed bug nobody bothered to clean up. Redecoration, indeed! More like a flimsy cover-up: a temporary solution for a permanent problem. Even if nobody had to look at it, the mark was still there unless Foma replaced the desk completely, it would always be there. Redecoration instead of replacement was a fool’s errand, and he gladly told her so.

Foma tucked in the cloth’s tassels so they wouldn’t shadow the Empire’s insignia. “You don’t like it?” She looked over her work with a frown. “I think it looks nice. The burn mark blends in with the violet parts of the lace, see?”

Zim rolled his eyes. “As ‘looking nice’ is of any consequence. The desk is still damaged.” The damage couldn’t be undone. It existed and wouldn’t go away no matter how many doilies Foma yanked out of some Aranian’s spinnerets. “If it’s still scorched, it doesn’t count as redecoration at all. You should just get a new one.”

Smoothing out the banner wrinkles, the Extractor considered this. “So you’re saying if the desk can’t be fixed, it ought to be replaced?”

 “I’m saying the desk looks horrible and ugly no matter what you do. Your efforts of interior design are feeble at best and pathetic at worst.” Zim paced the length of the wall, eyeing the filigree cloth with a sneer. It did nothing to improve the desk at all. If anything, the scorch mark made the cloth look worse. “…Why don’t you replace it?”

“Try calling in an insurance claim and ask me that again. Besides, I’m not uprooting my entire system for a cosmetic flaw.” Her hand patted the flat top hard. “It still holds my equipment. It still had three support walls, twelve compartments, and a flat surface. The desk is still a desk. It functions; does it need to do anything else?”

It needed to stop being an eyesore was what it needed. “You need to take better care of your equipment. It reflects poorly on your part, Extractor.”

At first, Zim’s impenetrable logic and expert assessment of the situation seemed to sink in. But instead of agreeing with him, Foma observed, “You’re awfully concerned with my furniture.”

“You shouldn’t let your property fall into disrepair.” Which had been the whole point in the first place. “What would The Tallest think if they’d called and saw that burn in the metal?”

“How would they see it with the cloth over it? It’s under the camera and the monitor.”

Details. “They could demote you or assign a pummeling or worse. If you get fined for this, just remember I warned you, Extractor.” Zim grimaced at the mark’s black tendrils. Somehow, it’d gotten even uglier in the few minutes he’d stopped looking at it.

“I appreciate the concern.” Foma leaned against the wall with her datapad, watching Zim finish his second lap around the room. “And this is a good sign for you, I think.”

“Of what?”

“Of you starting to take responsibility and understand consequences.”

Zim snapped around and crossed the room in a quick march. “Hey! Hey, don’t you try and staple this on me, it’s your desk! I’M not the one who can’t be bothered to replace their own equipment.”

Such hollow excuses for her own sloppiness. Shameful. He’d expected better of the higher ranks, and— And why was she taking notes about a desk, anyway? Zim’s two good PAK legs raised him to look over Foma’s shoulder.

The privacy filter blacked out the text the second Zim made eye contact. He frowned at the jumble of censor bars and blinking UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS messages. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be saving that for when the maintenance session starts again?”

“Hm?” Foma glanced over her shoulder and highlighted a censored block of text. “Oh, we’ve already started.”

“What? But we haven’t even been talking about—”

“How did the scorch mark get there, Zim?”

Most of Extractor Foma’s sessions worked that way. They had beginnings and endings, but she rarely—if ever—told him where those endings began or where the beginnings stopped. The way they bled in and out of each other, Zim doubted it made a difference either way. Nothing marked or separated the sessions the same way nothing marked or separated the minutes, months, or years.

Zim's chronometer still wouldn't work. That still didn't seem right to him. Even if there were issues with his PAK, a simple clock function barely used any processing power. Chronometers ran quiet, simple, and easy; timekeeping was no different than breathing regulation. He could have understood if it had malfunctioned or been damaged in one of Zim's courageous and daring exploits, but in that case, Zim should have ended up with jumbled numbers or glitched text. Time that moved backwards or else jumped five decades ahead or told him it was Cactus Thirty-Five.

But no. The PAK behaved as if Zim never had a clock. As if Irkens were never programmed with clocks.

After a while, Zim began to wonder if he'd made the whole concept of clocks up himself.

And so, one day—assuming it was daytime—Zim finally gathered his courage and did it.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Always, Zim."

"What…" It felt so stupid. And if it turned out there was no such thing as clocks or chronometers, he'd feel doubly stupid despite the fact that Zim could never be stupid. What one felt and what was true could be two different things, though. "What time is it?"

"Local or True?"

"Both."

"19:56, local. 33:05, True. Why do you need to know?"

"Just wondering."

She always wanted to know the reason why when Zim asked for a precise time. Zim never had an answer. Not a real one, anyhow.

In the pits of his spooch, Zim knew he had a concrete reason, a good reason, an absolutely imperative reason to know the time, but whenever he approached that reason, it fell from his fingers like blood through a grate.

Zim eventually settled for the next best thing.

“What day is it?” he would sometimes ask.

And Foma would tell him, “Oh, today is what the locals call ‘Wednesday’.”

She never asked Zim why he wanted to know the date, and that was good with Zim. Just knowing what day it was, it turned out, was enough.

On Sunday, Zim learned the Extractor had indeed told him the truth, before. The debugging sessions weren’t anything like interrogations; that part became clear almost immediately.

In an interrogation, someone bombarded you with questions and strong persuasions, and you answered those questions whether you wanted to or not. When they didn’t like your answer, the questions and persuasions intensified.

Interrogators extracted information from your mouth with a pair of pliers and a vice. “This is,” Foma explained, “more like extracting fruit from a branch. It can be gently plucked, or it falls on its own. Naturally. After your PAK overheated, I’m cautious about direct questioning and—”

“I told you, I can handle it.” Zim gestured to all of himself: still standing, intact and ready for the worst the Extractor could throw at him with her feeble throwing arms that probably weren’t good at throwing at all. “Ask Zim anything!”

“Later.” She smiled at Zim’s glare. “I’m glad you’re enthusiastic, but if you overheat every twenty minutes we’ll be here all cycle. We’ll get there when we get there, don’t you worry. Right now, no hard questions. Just talk.”

“About what?”

Foma tipped the hoverchair back and gestured before her. “About whatever you want. The floor’s all yours, Zim.”

In other words, free assignment. 

It had been so long since Zim had given a speech without a formal prompt. Communications with The Tallest involved mission reports, status updates, and progress briefings with or without visual aids depending on whether GIR had devoured said visual aids. Communications with his fellow Irkens rarely lasted beyond five minutes. The pitiable peers often excused themselves or politely ran away screaming when it became clear that they could never match the boundless superiority of Zim. Overwhelmed with shame and too intimidated to even meet Zim’s eye, they cast themselves out of his shadow in sheer humiliation.

As of now, Extractor Foma held the record for the longest uninterrupted time speaking to Invader Zim without screaming, flailing, random acts of violence, or attempts to flush oneself down the toilet. This, Zim decided, was the Extractor’s most admirable trait. Despite her flimsy physique, and despite knowing the chasm of mind-bending awesomeness of his presence, Foma stayed and looked and listened, and didn’t even flinch when Zim’s melodious voice reached its highest pitch.

It took guts to stand in the shadow of Zim for so long. Guts and a desperate need for department funding.

Thus, over the next few hours, Zim outlined the recent modifications of Stage 54.2 of his latest and greatest plan. Most of those hours dedicated to explaining the proper methodology of injecting weasels with atomic goo without getting bitten on the eye.

“The trick,” he whispered, “is a hover-field AND gloves. The good kind, none of that cut-rate Gellaxian junk.”

She examined the blueprint Zim had drawn on the candy wrapper. “The hover-field or the gloves?”

“Yes.”

“I see!”

On Monday, Zim extrapolated the horrors of Skool recess and the chaos of the local City grid.

Tuesday, Zim displayed his mastery over what the humans called a “Reubecks Cube”. Extractor Foma had been very impressed.

On Wednesday, they ate sandwiches and engaged in a heated debate over which alien species were the ugliest of them all. Foma argued that ugliness on the outside and inside should be counted together and averaged for a cohesive portrait of true hideousness. A stable philosophical argument, Zim admitted, and if they’d been discussing philosophy or biology, she would have had a point.

True ugliness, however, was a question of aesthetics and wrongness. Regardless of whether the Gharries of Sphagnus VI were babyeaters or not, they still regulated their body temperature like a civilized species, possessed the correct number of eyes and Zim didn’t feel the urge to vomit on sight. (Not vomiting on sight, they both agreed, played a significant factor.)

“Besides, all carnivores are babyeaters. A universal factor like that doesn’t even count.” Zim leaned over the hoverchair’s arm. “Now, humans— those are ugly, and they get uglier by the hour, let me tell you.”

“You have. Extensively.” Foma flipped through her field pictures of the humans shuffling through their native habitat. Sheer professionalism kept her revulsion in check, but she still couldn’t help cringing at the particularly hideous specimens. “Oh my, they are a sight, aren’t they? Are the humans babyeaters as well?” She thought about it a second and laughed. “Silly question. Of course they are.”

Slowly, Zim climbed the back of the hoverchair and perched on top. “Worse than that. The stinkbeasts weaponize their putrid filth-meats, too! Oh yes, Extractor.” He scooted closer and leaned down, for Foma’s eyes had widened in alarm of such a prospect. “Ah, but fear not. Between the impenetrable walls of this Irken fortress and the terrible might of ZIM, there is no need to dread the bombardment of sizzling bacons or…” He shuddered. “ Baloneys. ”

She edged back as Zim hovered over her. “What sort of animal is a baloney?”

A grim laugh bubbled in his mouth. “Innocent, ignorant Foma. Baloney is no animal, no mere earth-creature. Baloney…” Dark shadows crept across the eaves of Zim’s face as he stared into the bottomless well of memory, grim and solemn with the bitter aftertaste of tribulation. The bitter cafeteria-ey aftertaste. “Baloney is an experience .”

“What… sort of an experience?”

“The WORST kind. The debacle began in the Skool cafeteria. I, Zim, innocently sat being innocent, minding my own wholesome business designing a debilitating pandemic in my incredible brain, when out of nowhere The DIB throws an ENORMOUS slab of baloney meat at my head and—”

Zim’s insides went heavy, all gunked up and sticky and bad. His spooch twisted the wrong way. The tips of his claws gripped the chair as if they could sink into something sensible and drag him back to anger. Somewhere stable. Somewhere normal. It didn’t happen. He pulled himself tight against the chair’s backboard.

When Zim opened his mouth to speak of the horrors of baloney DNA, his brain circled back to Dib. When he thought of Dib, the anger crested and crashed into something deeper. Something worse. Whatever cleansing rage still lingered inside of him got drowned in the waves of Other Things. Things Zim had no name for or didn’t want to give names to.

 “And?” Gently, Foma unstuck Zim’s claws from her chair. “What happened after he threw the bologna at you?”

“…Zim wishes not to speak of that creature.”

"I've noticed that mentioning your The Dib upsets you."

"And why wouldn't he? The Dib is an upsetting and repulsive creature. The very thought of his mealy face stamped upon that bloated head is enough to make one retch with retching noises." A little growl broiled in the back of Zim’s throat. His antennae lay so flat, he felt the tips brush his shoulder-blades. "I have never made my feelings toward that THING anything but clear."

"There's more than one way to be upset. I think he might upset you now in a different way." Foma tipped her head upward to look Zim in the eye. After watching him for a moment, her face fell with a sigh. "I'm sorry. It's hard to lose a nemesis."

It might have been an empty platitude. It likely was. But then, someone the Extractor’s age had to have had fought at least one nemesis. Fought and won, if she’d lived to tell about it. Zim doubted it had been anything like this. Irken nemeses were supposed to die or surrender. Ideally, both. "It's not just that—I don't… I DON'T care about that rotten stupid little—he's…"

"Then what is it?"

"I'll TELL you if you'd let me! He." Zim hissed through his teeth. "He didn't even think about it."

Foma chuckled under her breath. "Well, of course he didn't. Why would he?"

Zim glared at her. Or tried to. Against that wall of gentle understanding and soft eyes, the glare fizzled out until he didn’t even have anger to hold onto anymore. So he glared at the wall instead. He hated that stupid ugly wall with its stupid ugly paint. That wall was the WORST.

“Zim, I…” Foma’s voice trailed into another sigh. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but you need to remember the basics, here. Your Dib is still a native of a planet you came to conquer. A member of a species you came to destroy. His job is to protect his own kind, the same way it’s your job and my job to protect our own kind. I would have done the same thing in his place.”

Zim continued to unleash the might of his terrible and fiery glare upon the wall.

“Do you need a moment?” Extractor Foma seemed to take Zim’s silence as a yes and settled into her chair.

Above her, Zim clutched the top of her chair and glared at the wall as he waited for Dib to go away from his head. Or the PAK memory drive. Whichever worked better. He wondered if this was part of being broken and wished the maintenance would finish already so he’d be fixed.

A watery haze fogged his oculars: the awful bile of an oncoming emotional overload. “Extractor.”

“Yes?”

“I think I’m going to be sick.” A thin trail of watery eye-vomit dripped down his cheek. Too late; it’d already started.

Foma took a cleansing cloth from her PAK and draped it over the chair beside Zim’s hand. “Well then, you go ahead and be sick for a little bit.”

She wasn’t surprised or disgusted, though she really should have been. Smeets and drones and lesser species got sick. Not Invaders. At least, not where it could be seen and not with this much eye-vomit. If anything, it seemed as if she’d expected it.

Foma offered an apologetic shrug. “I did warn you this would hurt.”

They didn't always talk about Zim, and Zim didn’t always need to be the one to talk. Sometimes the Extractor told him stories about her time in The Snack Wars or what Foodcourtia looked like before Irk improved it.

One Sunday session, she told Zim a story about how she spent five months convincing a Fweezian priestess that her deity was dead. A silly thing to have to convince anyone, because the armada had obliterated the moon earlier that year. Miyuki had taken the shot herself. Footage of it replayed across the galaxies for weeks, and the Empire had footage from at 12 unique angles, including Thrilloscope and Pherovision. Thrilloscope wasn't enough to convince the priestess, and though she eventually shared where the egg caches were, she believed in the moon until she died toothless and weeping in the corner.

For some reason, Foma stared at Zim an awful lot during that story, even though a delusional moth had nothing to do with him. Perhaps she wanted to know he'd been paying attention.

Foolish. Zim always paid the utmost attention to detail.

Friday, she asked about Dib again.

Zim still didn’t want to talk about Dib. Zim didn’t really want to talk about Zim, either.

“Would you like me to share another Tallest Miyuki story?”

Zim shook his head.

“I think you may need a rest. And I need to catch up on my reports…” She stroked her chin in thought. “Would you like to sit with me while I watch the backlog from work? Infiltrator Choop caught a Blob insurgent last month.”

“…the drippy kind or the squishy kind?”

“The jiggly kind. And Choop brought the Flouridian acid blend.

“Okay.”

The Blob didn’t scream as much as Zim hoped it would when it slowly dissolved in the acid vat. Still pretty funny, though.

“No.”

The Extractor sighed. “Are we really going to do this every time?”

Zim crossed his arms and glared at his boots. If the word “no” didn’t translate, body language would have to suffice. He’d said no last time, he said no this time, and meant it both times.

“Snacktime is mandatory, Zim. Don’t make me pull rank on you. I don’t want it to come to that, but I can and I will.”

Empty threats and bluster. She’d need to do better than that. As Foma’s footsteps approached his chair, Zim pushed himself deeper into the cushions, hissing. “You can’t pull rank on me. I’m an Invader; I outrank you .”

Probably. If Invaders didn’t rank above High Extractor, then they had to be at equal rank. Zim hadn’t actually bothered to check the rank hierarchy in years since Invader topped most of them anyway.

Extractor Foma stood with her hands behind her back, one antenna twitching in thought while she plotted the next move. Preparing a debate about rank, perhaps, or more ramblings about that absurd theory of the Invasion mission being a hoax.

“I ate my rations for the month and that extravagant fry hoard, in addition to the sandwiches and chip clusters AND the gumdrops that you insisted upon. I may have humored you in the spirit of mediation, but now you go too far.” Zim’s great claw of finality jabbed in her face. “I tell you now as I told you from the start: ZIM NEEDS NO SNACKTIME!” He needed no pity snacks either. “I’ve eaten more than enough to sustain until the end of the cycle with the way you’ve insisted upon this indulgence.”

“Most Irkens would jump at the chance for a healthy snacktime so above their height range.”

Zim huffed. “Most Irkens have the self-discipline of a chew-shmoop. I ate three whole days ago and I do NOT need to eat again. The scheduled Invader rations—”

“Don’t apply here,” Foma finished. She settled on the arm of Zim’s chair and smoothed away the claw marks he’d left in the upholstery. “Other Invaders still have their dampeners online and have not already agreed to dedicate themselves to the bettering process.”

“I agreed not to abandon the session, but I never agreed to stuff myself like a—”

“You’re bleeding again.” Foma dabbed the blood pooling on the fabric behind Zim’s back before a stain set in. “You wouldn’t get hurt so much if you’d calm down a little.” She frowned at him. “And heal faster if you ate.”

In his scrabbling, the wound in Zim’s side had reopened—the one he’d gotten last week. Or yesterday? Injuries came and went and were forgotten and reappeared so often Zim couldn’t keep track. He’d never had to. The PAK should have covered any and all healing processes, but it hadn’t worked right since…

Zim’s antennae perked. Since he’d come here.

“Did…” He glanced over his shoulder where two out of three PAKlights glowed a steady warning pulse. The same code used in the med-bay repair centers. “Did you do something to my repair system?”

“The auto-repair, yes.”

“What?!”

Foma blinked as if she didn’t understand what the big deal was. “The emotional dampeners block stress signals for emotional pain; it usually siphons them into other emotional signals like rage or… well, mostly rage. Unfortunately, the body doesn’t know the difference between physical and emotional stress. Pain is pain as far as the PAK is concerned.” Her eyes scanned the string of minor cuts and bruises Zim had collected in the past weeks. (Had it been weeks or days? Months?)

That explained why the neck bruises still hadn’t gone away. “You could’ve said something.”

“I didn’t think it would matter—we’re in a breakroom, not a military theater—but somehow you’re just that determined to hurt yourself.” She shook her head. “I wish you’d let yourself heal. Or at least not fight me on it every time; there are better uses of your energy. And mine, for that matter.”

Zim rubbed the scrape on the back of his neck. The glove came away clean, though it still felt like a tooth had lodged itself in his muscle tissue. “I’m still not hungry.”

“Bodies don’t always know when they’re hungry,” said Foma. “How about this: we’ll both have slooshies. Nothing too fancy, and I can even do straight sugar for you. No flavors, just the essentials.”

“Slooshies are illegal.” Consumption of a Tallest’s Favored Snack was a Class 8 felony. When the Extractor gave him a tired look, he countered, “Invaders are law-abiding, and I am the model of an ideal Invader. A clever ploy to lead me into temptation of frozen delight but not clever enough!”

“I have a snack permit, why would I even have the machine without—” Foma considered Zim’s expression and conceded. “Sugarwaters it is, then. Two liters.”

Zim slammed his fist into his hand. “Absurd! I refuse no more than half a liter.”

“One liter.”

“Done.”

“I want it gone by the end of this session, Zim. Don’t just nurse it for the rest of the week like you did with the popcorn.” The Extractor fished spare coins out of the jingling pouch in her pocket. “I’ve never seen an Irken so against…” She squinted at the vending machine.

Coins clanked at the bottom and the machine beeped twice as she pressed the buttons. The insides creaked as the gears shifted. Nothing dropped.

“…against eating. It’s starting to worry me. Do you believe, perhaps, that you don’t deserve the basic—oh, Irk’s sake!” She gave the vending machine a kick. When that didn’t work, she kicked it harder.

The coin return spat a paperclip in her face and the vending machine went dark.

She pressed the sugarwater dispenser one last time in case sheer force of will could spook the machine back into functionality. “Always something with this thing. Suppose I’ll need to replace it,” she muttered to herself, likely calculating the costs and shipping time in her head.

Too much time and too much cost, judging from her expression. If the Extraction department didn’t have funding to replace simulators, it didn’t have funding for fancy vintage vendors either.

Zim sat up, watching from his chair and listening to her grumble under her breath. This sudden influx of frustration surprised him, though he supposed it shouldn’t have. As with most tallers, her patience only ran as deep as the snack reserves. That or she’d already spent her patience reserves elsewhere, though he couldn’t imagine where. Zim had been a model rehabilitatant.

Perhaps she’d never grown accustomed to broken things. Living in an S-class ship attended by drones and underlings, surrounded by equipment fresh off the factory floor that could be replaced with a word, her resilience had withered. A common plight for tall Irkens in management, in Zim’s experience. One little thing went wrong and they fell to pieces. Sad.

“How do you feel about sodas instead?” Already she’d moved on to another machine. How quickly tallers fell to hopelessness.

Once again, it fell to Invader Zim to take matters into his own hands. He dusted himself off and sprang from the chair. “Feh. Save the sodas for another day, Extractor. Today, we WILL have our sugarwaters!” 

A pair of work goggles snapped over his eyes as two legs and a multitool emerged from the PAK. Zim flipped to the tool’s drill-bit and went to work unlatching the vending machine chassis.

Extractor Foma drew away, watching with one hand clasped against her chest. When the first screw hit the floor, she flinched as if it’d been a grenade pin. “What exactly are you going to do?”

“Repair it. Obviously.” Zim’s third PAK leg yanked the plug while the other two gripped the chassis and removed it. Storing the fallen screws, he snickered at the way Foma watched him two vending machines away. “You’re ridiculous. This is no soft weebly Skutch you deal with, no, THIS is a TRUE Invader accustomed to far worse than a mere malfunctioning vending machine.” He pointedly ignored the jet of freezing sugar the dispenser spat in his face. “Why, some of my own equipment’s even more outdated than this E-24 relic and they break down at least once a month.” More like once a week these days, but whatever.

When nothing exploded or caught fire, Foma edged closer to examine the naked guts of the machine. A smile flickered over her face. “So you are aware The Tallest gave you outdated equipment, then?” She pulled out the datapad and scribbled a note. “Tell me more about that.”

Zim gripped the sides, pushing himself higher to examine the gears. They looked okay at a glance, but the scent of burnt metal and sugar told him to look closer. “Hm? Oh yeah, I figured it out when you mentioned the other Invaders’ E-26 Spits. Made sense.”

Foma’s voice perked a whole octave. “It did?”

“Of course it did. The Tall—” Zim switched on the goggle lights. Better. “The Tallest knew that even on a secret Invader mission, a mind busy and brilliant as my own gets bored easily. They added an additional challenge to make it interesting.”

In the corner of Zim’s eye, Foma peered inside to see for herself. “Ah. Well, I guess that’s one way to look at it. Zim, I don’t want to discourage you, but—oh!” She dodged the hiss of sparks above her head. “But I think this one might have always been broken or defective or something. It’s acted strange since I installed it.”

Zim rolled his eyes. “It’s a vintage machine; what did you expect? It’s not broken, it’s old. Old things break.”

“And things that break are broken.”

“Broken things get fixed.” A dollop of coagulated sugar plopped onto Zim’s goggle lens. “You could help instead of just watching, you know. It’s your machine, and it just needs some part replacements and lubricants.” When she took too long to respond, he wiped off the sugar and glanced back at her. “You programmed an entire brain-meld simulacrum and you can’t even fix a simple vending machine?”

Foma narrowed her eyes. “I programmed software; it’s completely different. Obsolete, defective, and damaged machines all break, but they break for different reasons.” She knelt to squint at the webbing of circuitry threaded behind the display panels. Her glove skimmed a dusty drive hatch. Its corners had gone soft—melted from overheating one too many times. “You can fix trauma damage, but a defective machine’s defective from the start. It’s not a hardware problem, it’s a software problem.”

It sure didn’t act like a software problem. The machine had worked fine until today—slow on response time, but it was an old vendor. Zim plucked out a burnt coil. The mechanical issues weren’t even that complicated. Some new coils and tubes, maybe a fresh power core and tube chutes, and it’d be good as… well, not new. Lightly used, maybe.

Gently, Foma nudged Zim’s broken PAK leg away from the machine’s glowing power core before it punctured. “Even if you repair the gears and refill the lubricants, faulty software still can’t tell the parts what to do.”

“Maybe,” said Zim, “ if this were a software problem. You gave up too soon, that’s all.”

“I notice you’re very invested in repairs all of a sudden. You didn’t have a problem replacing the burnt desk.”

“No, I told you to take better care of your stuff—what do you think repairs are? Besides, that happened before I knew how stubborn you were about keeping old things.”

“I don’t like waste.”

Weeks into the process, Zim could sense by now when the Extractor was steering a conversation about one thing into a conversation about a totally different thing. Not this time, thanks. They could talk about Zim when Zim’s hands weren’t full of flammable glucose and gears and oils.

Zim’s hand reached out to deposit a rusted screw into the pile. “Even if it IS a software issue, nothing is stopping you from fixing that instead.”

“Oh, I tried. While you were out cold from one of your episodes, I tried poking at the configuration files. It’s so different than what I’m used to, though.” She handed him a smoldering wrench as Zim moved to the circuit boards. “I modeled the interrogation simulators after the same software we used when I worked in the smeetery.”

“From when you programmed the smeetery nanny-bots?” She’d never struck him as the robot type. Zim supposed he could see the link between robots and simulator A.I. but it was still a big jump.

“No, from when I was a Smeetery Supervisor.”

Zim had traversed every inch of the smeetery in his great hunger for Irk’s daylight. (Or moonlight? That month might have been nighttime.) Never once had he seen another Irken aside from the janitorial drones. “There’s no such thing.”

“Not anymore, no. The Tallest retired that encoding, oh… it but be about two-hundred and fifty years, now. I must have been around your age when the program was decommissioned—you’re what, a hundred and twenty-four?”

“Hundred twenty-six.” Not that it mattered; above ground was above ground.

The longer Foma talked about Foma, the less time Zim had to talk about Zim. He wiped down a crystallized heat pump, checking for rust. “So did you supervise the smeets or the nanny-bots that watched the smeets?”

“The smeets. Drones too, but mostly smeets. Robots were for security back then. The clutches themselves had Irken caretaker drones. My main job, the real work, was quality control. I kept the Empire healthy by keeping the smeet population healthy.”

The display light had fried when the motors iced over. Zim tossed out the spent bulb and fished through his PAK for a replacement. It wouldn’t be an exact match, but he had a similar size, and a bulb was a bulb.

Keep the population healthy, she’d said. Used to debug software in smeeteries—what sort of software?

Zim screwed in the new bulb. He had to wriggle it to fit it all the way in. “You rooted out the defective smeets.”

“I did. Marking, evaluating, sometimes deleting if Lutt was on his snack break.” Voice proximity and gut instinct told Zim that she was looking at him again.

Zim pushed himself deeper into the machine and kept his eyes on his work.

“I worked quarantine in Observation Hub B with the ambiguous cases, along with some still waiting for a deletion date. To tell the truth, most of them didn’t need thorough evaluations. Defectives are obvious: exploding processors, fan vents missing, legs growing out of the chest. You can tell at a glance when you know what to look for. Usually.” The vending machine echoed as she drummed her fingers along the sides. “But not always. Quarantine was for close reappraisals and minor debugging before they got to the Education Plug. Hub B didn’t bite as much as smeets in Standard Issue, so that was a bonus.”

Foma’s boots clicked across the floor—hard, then soft as she moved from the tile to the carpeted area beside the monitor. From the other side of the room, she continued, “You’d be surprised how many Irkens appear defective at first when all they need’s a surface debug and reassignment.”

“That’s what happens when you give up too soon.” Zim wormed his way out of the pinions, taking care not to get his antennae caught. The crooked PAK leg scraped against metal as he went.

A light blinked above Zim’s head in the hollow shell of the machine’s display, despite it being unplugged. A remote link. She must have decided to tap into the software after all.

The hoverchair hummed to life as Foma climbed into it. “I would like to tell you a story about one of the first defectives I met.”

No surprise there. If they didn’t discuss Zim himself, sessions usually devolved into a storytime sooner or later. At least it might serve as good background noise while he worked.

“He wasn’t the first, but the first that left an impression. Decent height for a six-minute-old. One antenna longer than the other and the eyes didn’t match. Cosmetic and harmless quirks. The eye issue we could understand. This happened just a few decades after the genetics department introduced the purple strain to the gene banks, and all the kinks hadn’t been sorted out yet.”

Zim pulled his head out of the machine and rubbed oil off his cheek. “Then what was the malfunction?”

“Couldn’t breathe.” Foma cupped her chin, leaning on the chair’s arm with a sigh. “Or, he thought he couldn’t. The spiracles worked fine—he wouldn’t have lived two seconds after activation, otherwise. But Smeet #946-8b acted like he’d been born with lungs or gills, and he’d grab at his neck and flail all over the place. I still remember how he’d grab my hand while his little red and blue eyes bugged out.” The tips of her claws fiddled with her coat collar. “If I’d had the authority or the height-class at the time, I would have accelerated his deletion date. I wish I’d said something to the High Supervisor.”

The hoverchair drifted into the snack area, slowly circling to where Zim worked. “When I tried to talk him down, he wouldn’t respond to my voice or calming pheromones. Barely reacted to snacks. I’m amazed he didn’t starve to death. Oh, and speaking of snacks…” Foma’s hand reached into the vending machine’s storage chamber and plucked out a liter of sugarwater. She tapped it against Zim’s shoulder as he crawled back into the machine. “I believe we had an agreement.”

Zim’s free hand gestured to the dark monolith of snack supply around him. “Later. I’m busy right now.” Something cold and wet pressed into his palm.

“You can multitask.”

“Ugh, fine. Fiiiiiiiiine.” Zim yanked his head out just so she wouldn’t miss the great roll of his eyes to signify that it was not, in fact, fine. He stomped to Foma’s chair, stabbed the straw through the waterpouch, and sipped. “There. Satisfied?”

“Yes, thank you.” Foma selected her own waterpouch—blueberry flavor—and punctured it as she let the hoverchair recline. It looked cozy.

Zim glanced back at his cushy Vort chair. Did it know how to recline too? He’d never checked.

For someone in such a lazy position, she didn’t seem very relaxed. “The PAK couldn’t process that it wasn’t attached to an Amphibbinaut or something. I don’t think,” Foma said, “there was a moment ##946-8b wasn’t in pain. He was online for two days, but every minute of those days must have been awful. The smeet breathed on his own the whole time. He just couldn’t realize it.”

Zim slurped his sugarwater and shrugged. “Yeah, so? Irkens suffer all the time; it’s life. If they can’t take it, no big loss.”

Everyone knew that. The head of Extraction most of all. The whole purpose of the job was to inflict suffering, and Zim couldn’t see why this particular instance would unsettle her so much.

“It’s…” She glanced at him and away. “It’s not exactly the same thing with smeets.”

“How? They’re just other Irkens but smaller.”

She squished the waterpouch in her grip and licked the edge of her teeth, trying to find words. She didn’t succeed. “I don’t really know. It just is. Pain should be a means to an end. It's a teaching tool, or a way to get information, or stress relief. Maybe a laugh for team morale. What happened with 8b did nobody any good at all. Worse, in fact.”

“Worse, how? If it couldn’t breathe, that’s the smeet’s problem.” Something in the Extractor’s gaze gave him pause. For a moment, Zim wondered if they truly still only spoke of smeets and not of Zim, somehow. A silly, fleeting thought. Zim stopped being a smeet over a century ago.

“It didn’t stay that smeet’s problem. The others in quarantine laughed at the funny flailing dance #946-b8 did; they loved it. And keeping forty-eight smeets happy is a good purpose, I guess.” The Extractor turned to Zim, and his reflection bent in the curve of her soft pink eyes. “It’s good they were happy in the little time they had.”

Zim chewed his straw. “The time they had?”

“The others in Observation Hub B liked the dance so much they had to try it, too.” Foma’s fingers dug into the waterpouch until liquid beaded at the top of the straw. “The trouble isn’t that defectives exist, Zim. The trouble is that defectiveness spreads. Maybe the whole thing had been harmless imitation or maybe the whole clutch lost their minds with the suffocation delusion. The only way to tell would’ve been individual assessments, and for quarantined smeets, that would have been a waste of resources. We did the only thing we could do.”

Foma’s antennae drooped with a sigh. “It’s like they say: one is a statistic, a million is a tragedy. What a waste.” She tried to lift the mood with a smile, but the smile wasn't strong enough, so her face never quite got there. “It’s hungry work.”

Hungry work. A term Zim had heard a few times before. Gashloog spoke of it in fear of The Foodening’s approach. Prime Commanders on Devastis mentioned it once or twice when debating the worst planets to be stationed on, and the Invader trainee manual called the isolation of the job the “hungriest of work”.

He’d never understood what it meant, though. His clever and astounding brain had always been too preoccupied with being astounding to fret about the specifics of vocabulary. Zim considered the term now, however, and as he thought, Foma watched him.

She cleared her throat and righted the hoverchair. “High effort, low reward. You start the job hungry and end it hungrier. Smeeteries were like that. I’m not surprised the job was retired.”

“Of course it was. If defective smeets can be identified on sight 90% of the time, there’s no point wasting Irkens on it; that’s what robots are for.” Zim ran some quick math. Two centuries ago would have been stage four of the Snack Wars. Irk would’ve needed a population boom and fast. “Such pedantic methodicalness slows Irk. Slow is weak.”

“Illness is weaker.”

Behind him, the vending machine waited with open doors and bare circuit boards. It still had a long way to go before it could go back to dispensing delicious sugarwaters and ice-sprinkleys, but without a replacement freezer-drive, there was nothing else Zim could do. He retracted his tools and functional PAK legs and wiped off the filth the machine had left on his skin.

Zim nudged the vending machine shut with his foot. The door bounced on the latch and slowly reopened. “If Irkens function, they function—if they were that defective and broken, someone would notice. Anything else is obviously a minor error. It doesn’t matter.”

Until a little while ago, nobody had entertained the idea of Zim being defective, meaning the PAK couldn’t be that defective. It had minor errors. Quirks. Quirks could be repaired or overlooked. They didn’t matter—couldn’t matter. Besides, The Extractor wouldn’t have bothered traveling all this way to repair what couldn’t be repaired.

“Yes.” Foma handed him a fresh towel as her hoverchair passed him. “But minor errors can build into major errors.”

“Come on. One little flaw’s not worth slowing down the whole system—that’s just stupid! The old system was inefficiently slow with its sluggish… inefficacy.”

“Hm. That’s fair. The job had a high turnover rate, too. Almighty Tallest Miyuki said the risk of smeetery workers becoming attached or oversensitive ran too high.” Extractor Foma sucked up the last of her sugarwater and chuckled. “As always, she was right. I couldn’t see it then, but how could I? From her height, Tallest Miyuki saw things above our heads that we couldn’t see yet. All I could do was trust that wherever I ended up would be where I belonged.”

Zim turned to follow the Extractor back to the sitting area but something yanked him back. Hard. Gritting his teeth against the pain shooting down his shoulder, he glanced behind him. The crooked PAK leg had caught the vending machine’s dispenser.

The hoverchair turned. “Are you—”

“Fine.” Skin had torn somewhere along his spine. When he moved his shoulder it sounded like someone stomping over broken glass. Zim swallowed hard. “I’m fine. What were you saying—” Deep breath. Better. “About where you belonged?”

“Encodings—are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes.”

The Extractor frowned at the crooked PAK leg jutting from Zim’s back, but she didn’t argue. “Encodings put us in the optimal place to serve our Empire, whatever stage of life we’re in. Nobody stays in one encoding forever.” She angled her neck to see the PAK glistening between her shoulders. “Smeets become Soldiers who become Elites who become Invaders who become Overlords. Or they become Scientists or Warden Supreme. Some become Tallest. Encodings take us forwards or…” The chair reversed, coming to hover at Zim’s side. “…they can take us backwards. But they always place us where we’re meant to be. Do you understand me?”

Zim sipped his waterpouch and considered it. He rubbed his chin, smearing oil and sugar residue along his jawline. “Yes… yes! Like how I was always fated to be encoded as an Irken Invader.”

Foma’s smile dimmed. “Zim—”

“I know what you’re going to say,”

“Zim, we’ve been over this.”

Zim stomped his foot. “Because you won’t listen to me!”

“I’ve been listening closely, Zim, but I’m afraid I can’t agree with something so blatantly untrue.” Her soft voice settled over him like dust, as much a part of the air as the background music. Trying to coax him back to somewhere calm, even though Zim had no reason at all to be calm. Not about this. “When we called The Tallest-”

“The Tallest assigned me as an Invader. Invaders received no decommissions, no dismissals.” The situations were nothing alike.

There had been a misunderstanding—a mistake. Some sort of data glitch somewhere in the logs. Everyone knew Invader Zim. Everyone else knew of his mission. They’d seen—no, they’d cheered when he called to announce the Mars proposal. Everyone else accepted Zim was an Invader. Why couldn’t she?

Information Extraction was a science (kind of). Science needed evidence. With enough evidence, the conclusion couldn’t be denied. 

“I’ve been on my mission for over a year. There are records and check-ins and—PROBING DAY!” Zim grabbed the arm of Foma’s chair, legs passionately swinging at the air under him. “If I were not an Invader, why would The Tallest evaluate ZIM on Probing Day?”

“This last Probing Day?” She frowned and began to scroll through her notes. “I… don’t think I’ve been briefed on that one.”

“HA! As I suspected, your extracted information is…” He leaned in and paused for effect. “…Faulty .” Zim grinned at her shocked little blink. “Oh, that’s right. Faulty like the faultiest of Vortian antiviral programs!”

“It’s an easy check.”

The giant monitor woke with the flash of Foma’s neural nodes. The cursor breezed through a frozen timeline of Zim’s uploaded memories, searching for the right one. It landed on a looping video of a slow explosion quickly turning into a very not-slow and exceptionally painful regular explosion.

 “Ooh. That looks a little uncomfortable.” She turned to Zim. “Did you receive a pummeling that day?”

Zim puffed up bigger than the puffiest of puffy things. “As a matter of fact, Zim did NOT!”

“Oh, wonderful! In that case, congratulations. What was your token reward for passing?”

Zim slipped off the hoverchair. “The what, now?”

The footage flipped between The Tallest observing the wreckage of Zim’s base and Zim starting repairs to his computer. “I don’t seem to see it in here…”

“Oh. Well.” Zim cleared his throat. “I decided on my reward later, so they sent it. Later. It got lost.”

Foma turned the chair around to stare at him. She blinked.

Zim nodded. “Mm-hmm. In the mail. In space.”

“The token reward that’s teleported directly into an Invader base… got lost in the mail.”

“In space. The space mail.” Straightening his back— “AGUH!” …Slowly straightening his back so as not to re-tear the skin, Zim held his head high. “However, I needed no token of appreciation. Simply knowing that I had passed Probing Day and successfully pleased my Tallest was all I needed.”

Foma leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “Was it?”

“You doubt the word of Zim?”

“It’s just that I find it hard to believe. What happened to your base, there? It seems a little…” She gestured to the monitor. “…blasted into smithereens.”

Zim glanced at the smoking crater and shrugged. “A small setback with the Probing Day project. I had the base fully repaired within the week.”

A week and sixteen days with a severe overdraft of the supply budget and the Computer working double-overtime, but who was counting?

“There are always hiccups in the name of progress. A little sacrifice is necessary in the career of an accomplished Invader such as myself.”

Foma’s hoverchair drifted closer. “Sacrifice. That’s an interesting choice of words. And it makes me wonder…”

Memory footage of Operation Impending Doom 1 replaced the wreckage of Probing Day.

Slowly, the camera panned from Zim’s command seat in the Frontline BattleMech to Irk’s razed and battle-torn surface. Flames licked the smoking skyline as the masses of Irk undulated and pulsed in planetwide panic. Half of them scrambled in a mad dash for damage control. The other half just lay scrambled. Under the chorus of screams, somebody called for a medic. Detached PAKS roved in packs, searching for new bodies to attach to while the Harvesters chased them over the corpse piles. It was pandemonium. Chaos. Madness. Honestly not bad for a first day.

“Do you believe the complete annihilation of the Irken capital was an appropriate ‘sacrifice’ for your career? Or the complete upheaval and cancellation of Operation Impending Doom? The single greatest disaster on Irken soil in over thirty-thousand years, maybe? Hundreds of thousands of soldiers wasted. Trillions in collateral damage that still hasn’t been entirely repaired.” Foma’s finger pointed as the footage rewound to Zim jumping out of a painted circle and scampering towards the nearest BattleMech. “And all because you couldn’t do as The Tallest asked of you.”

Zim tilted his head, blinking at the footage of a flaming Irken running headlong into a cluster of fuel tanks. In two seconds, one flaming soldier became fifty-six flaming soldiers, seventeen imploded fuel tanks, and one less snack bar.

He blinked back at Foma, who for some reason, didn’t seem especially pleased with what she saw. In fact, she seemed as if she might be sick.

Zim shrugged. “Sure, it sounds bad when you put it that way. But The Tallest—”

“You’re in charge of watching everything from this circle!” Past Tallest Purple pointed to the painted circle with both hands. It had been painted in reflective neon with arrows pointing at the center. Underneath, someone had labeled it CIRCLE FOR INVADER ZIM. ZIM STANDS IN THIS CIRCLE.

“The Tallest gave you a direct order that you decided to ignore.” The Extractor tilted her head with a slight frown. “If you only needed the satisfaction of pleasing your Tallest, why did you leave the circle?”

“I…” He glanced between the monitor and the Extractor. “Decided to take initiative.” That’s all he’d done: seen a scenario that could’ve been improved, and then improved it. A couple of things just happened to be on fire a little bit during the improvement.

“Alright. Can you explain why you felt it was your place to take initiative when your orders were clear?”

“Don’t leave the circle,” said Past Tallest Red. “Stay RIGHT there!”

Onscreen, Past Red hovered away while Past Zim remained.

Past Zim did as he’d been told and stood still. In the shadow of ships and tanks and soldiers and mechs, he stood in the little circle painted just for him. Waves of movement crashed all around as he stood still and watched Operation Impending Doom go on without him.

CRACK!

Zim looked down to see the collection of chips and wires clutched in his fist. He’d snapped the motherboard in half. Zim didn’t remember breaking it. He’d forgotten he was even holding it. Little splinters of gold, fiberglass, and splodite poked out of his glove. Nobody had made motherboards with splodite for years—the only planet that grew it exploded cycles ago. Nobody could find motherboards like this anymore, much less make one.

And the machine couldn’t work at all without a motherboard.

The tips of Zim’s antennae trembled. “It’s common for The Tallest to have a secret test of character.” His eyes flicked between the monitor, the Extractor, and the broken pieces in his hand. “Invaders act independently according to their best judge—STOP looking at ZIM that way!”

“What way?” Foma asked.

“Like I did something wrong.” Like he was something wrong.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Oh. Do you think there’s something right with nine-hundred thousand casualties in an inaugural Invasion launch before the first ships even break the atmosphere?” Nothing had changed in Foma’s volume or tone, but warmth dwindled from her voice like an unfed fire and left Zim alone in the dark.

She’d become unhappy with him? No. No, impossible—Zim brought joy and laughter to all. The Extractor needed cheering up. Perhaps a reminder that all Irkens made mistakes.

Smeets. She liked those. Yes, smeets would lift her spirits. Zim didn’t know yet how to turn the conversation there, but he’d think of something.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to.

“You know.” Foma tapped her chin in thought. “That pile of bodies in the northwest corner—see it? The big one. It puts me in the mind of another incident.” Her teeth flashed in a tight smile. “Would you like to see?”

“Uh. Not really—”

“Let’s look at it together!”

The memory footage rewound 2x, 8x, 12x faster. Past Impending Doom 1, past Vort Team 12, even past the Education Plug and Zim’s quest to see the sun.

It landed in a pitch-black room lit only by three bright lights of a freshly activated PAK. Past Zim stared at the ceiling, seven minutes old and wondering why the lights didn’t work. Horrible Painful Overload Day.

With a gesture, Foma focused the camera on the chute above his head. Something dangled there, wriggling desperately in the dark. She turned up the brightness.

Two thin little stalks kicked at the air. Legs of the smeet Past Zim had shoved back into the delivery chute. As the minutes tipped into hours, the legs kicked harder, wilder. Claws scraped the metal as the chute thumped and bumped like a dryer full of bricks. Until it didn’t.

The thumping went quiet and the legs didn’t wiggle anymore.

Past Zim crossed his tiny arms in the silent room. “Hello? It’s dark in here. I’m bored! Helloooooo?”

“It took thirty-seven hours for someone to open that chute. This is hour twenty-nine, if you’re wondering.” Foma pointed at the bloated bulging throat of the choked delivery chute. “You know, most don't build up a body count at least until they've breached the Education Plug, yet here you are with two hundred and ninety-five.” It was a kind thing to say, and she said it sweetly, but something between the syllables left a bitter aftertaste. “What a record-breaker you are."

A long time ago, Elite Zim had asked Commander Poki whether friendly fire, misfires, accidental fires, and less-intentioned-than-usual explosions still went toward an Elite’s body count.

“Depends,” Poki had told him.

Before Elite Zim could ask what it depended on, she’d thrown him out of the executive bathroom and firmly instructed him to bother his sub-commanders instead. His sub-commanders had suggested Zim try jumping off the Punishment Cube, which didn’t seem particularly relevant.

In the end, Zim never did find out whether unintentional expirations counted or not. He guessed it had something to do with direct causation versus outside factors versus luck versus collaborative effort. True accidents needed more than one participant. Ships didn’t crash for no reason, they crashed because someone—or several someones—messed up somewhere.

Zim’s eyes traced the delivery chute to the limp robotic arms dangling from the ceiling to the download chair still waiting for the next smeet to drop. “They probably wouldn’t have wasted so many smeets if the smeetery drones hadn’t been dismissed.”

The long stalks of Foma’s antennae waved in thought. “Maybe. But if Almighty Tallest Miyuki felt that retiring the smeetery encodings was for the best, it was for the best. She understood the untapped potential of most things; Irkens most of all. ‘Everyone is good for something,’ she liked to say.” The hoverchair dipped low to land beside Zim. Her gaze swept over him, appraising but not unkind, as the warmth returned to her voice. “That’s why she reassigned the smeetery workers—the High Supervisor all the way down to the drones—instead of decommissioning the Irkens themselves. Tallest Miyuki loved her Irkens a great deal. Even you.”

What a strange specification. Always nice to be reminded, Zim supposed, but of course she had. Why wouldn’t she? And the way Extractor Foma said it as if Miyuki were the exception instead of one among billions who adored Zim… It was odd. And it made his insides feel odd, too. He felt the broken motherboard in his hand and closed his fingers tight around it. Of course Miyuki had adored him. The same way the current Tallest did. The same way everyone did. Circuitry shrapnel pierced his gloves. Zim smiled.

The monitor cut to Zim’s last memory of Miyuki. The former Tallest bent over the curled horns of some Vortian, both of them concerned with some dumb thing that had nothing to do with Past Scientist Zim.

“And how,” asked Foma, “did you repay The Tallest for this love?”

Easy question! “I crafted my very own modern marvel of bioengineering for her. An indestructible creature centuries ahead of the curve of whatever archaic garbage the rest of the science teams were up to. Ooh look, here he comes!”

Zim bobbed on his heels at the sight of his very own Infinite Energy Absorbing Thingy. The little blob jostled in Past Zim’s hands. Very chubby, many jiggles. Fresh from the vat, its jiggling operated at maximum capacity, only one of its many superior qualities.

The Extractor blinked slowly at the monitor as the blob sloughed towards Miyuki. Its little mouth stopped being so little. The blob’s maw stretched wider and wider, rivulets of slime dripping from the corners of its mouth.

“And what happened next with your absorption creature, Zim?”

Zim blinked. “Uh.”

“What’s the matter?” She leaned forward, shadowed by the vending machines as she stared down at him. “You were there. It should be an easy question. What happened next?”

“Uh, well. It…” Zim glanced away.

This place sure did have nice music. The kind of stuff they played in superstore galaxies and elevators and execution floors and bathrooms sometimes. Lots of cute little flutes and cheerful horns to offset the smooth synth keys and squelch of slime and screaming and the crunch of bones and chitin. Oh, and some of those little island drums, too! In music, they called that kind of thing a counterpoint. Had to hand it to Foma. She had good taste.

When Zim looked at the monitor again, Past Zim stood smiling in bloodstained science robes as colleagues surged around him in a sea of panic.

No Tallest stood there. The longer Zim watched the screen, the more he wondered if anyone had ever stood there at all. Everyone certainly looked upset. He wondered why. Accidents happened in the science labs all the time; why create such a fuss over this one? Lots of fuss over nothi—

Fingers snapped centimeters from Zim’s face. “Stay with me.”

Zim frowned at The Extractor. When did her chair start hovering so close? “But I didn’t go anywhere.”

“I’ve been reviewing the memory footage and comparing them with my notes.” Foma browsed through the datapad, highlighting as she went. “There’s a pattern here, and it isn’t the incidents themselves that concern me: it’s the aftermath.”

Lights of Foma's neural implants flashed in sequence.

Five different frames of Past Zim lined up upon the monitor: Horrible Painful Overload Day, the Energy Absorbing Thingy meeting Miyuki, the Energy Thingy meeting Tallest Spork, Operation Impending Doom 1, and (for some reason) Zim remotely piloting The Massive, even though that one wasn't a crime and would’ve delighted The Tallest if Zim hadn't been intercepted by…

“I told the ship to do that! And in case you're wondering, I'm using your computers to project this hologram of me and to control your leaders' ship.”

…by certain complications.

In all five pictures, Zim stared into space, eyes wide and teeth gleaming in a cheery little smile.

"The aftermath is always the same. If you'd shown some remorse or guilt or fear or… anything, really, this would only be a matter of serial war crimes. Freak accidents at best, a pattern of sedition at worst. Even prideful rebellion I could understand." Foma glanced at the frame taken seconds after Spork's devouring. "It's not unheard of for Irkens to, er, test a new Tallest. The strange thing with you is that it doesn't seem to register at all. As if it never happened."

Zim's brow wrinkled as he glanced between the Extractor and the screen. He felt something wet at the back of his head. When he reached to touch it, his gloved fingers came away bright pink.

"It's all mysterious damage that just happens to blossom around you. How did those battle tanks explode? Why are these soldiers in body canisters? Oh, how did Spork's severed foot get into my hand?" Her antennae perked. "Oh, you're bleeding." She fetched a disinfecting cloth from her PAK. "Let me get that."

“You—hey!” Zim tried to dodge the wet cloth, but it caught him anyway. “You’re living in the past, Extractor.” Trips down memory drive could be a fun afternoon, but this was just absurd. “It already happened. What’s the point of dredging up Zim’s past this way? I thought the point of this whole thing was going forwards, not backwards.”

“I wanted to widen the scope so we could see the full picture. To appreciate the extent of your…” Her lips pulled apart in a thin smile. “…sacrifices. Because now I have a question for you. A sort of thought exercise.”

Extractor Foma’s grey robes pooled around them as she settled on the tile next to Zim. Idly, she picked up a stray conductor wire that had fallen out of the motherboard and examined it. The wire coiled around her fingers as she gazed at the open vending machine’s burnt bulbs and spilled sugar crystals, all the little working pieces that couldn’t do their job.

“Imagine for a moment that you are The Almighty Tallest. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” He’d had plenty of practice.

“Wonderful. Now, imagine as Tallest, you see how these little incidents, friendly-fires, and body counts, all of these Irken losses always pile around one particular soldier. A soldier with opportunities that anyone else in his height-range can only dream of.” She gave the conductor wire slack, letting it drape down her wrist, out of one hand and into the other. “Are you still with me?”

Zim nodded.

The wire tangled through Foma’s fingers. “Then this soldier decides to use these opportunities to ruin what should have been the crown jewel of Invasion Season. And you remember that this soldier has constantly ignored and defied your orders, even banishment. You realize this soldier shows no sign of stopping this behavior. Now, imagining that you are Tallest, Zim…” She snapped the wire taut. The copper fibers strained. “Would you decide to reward such a soldier by making them an Invader?”

Zim glanced at the conductor wire and twiddled his fingers. “Maybe.”

“May I ask why?”

“I don’t pretend to understand the fathoms of The Tallest’s fathomless brains.” With a casual shrug, Zim reached out and plucked the wire. It twanged a perfect B-minor. “If everything The Tallest do is for the best, there’s no point in questioning them, is there?”

The Extractor considered this. “No, I suppose not.” She glanced at the vibrating wire and raised an eyebrow. “If they’re always correct and always have the Empire’s best interest at heart…” She laughed. “Well, it is kind of pointless, isn’t it?”

Zim fell back with a sigh and let himself laugh too. “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. None of this memory dookie even matters because The Tallest are the ones who gave me my mission. It overrides everything!”

Foma nodded as she slipped the wire into her pocket. “And the Tallest don’t make mistakes.”

“Right.”

“What a shame the mission was never real to begin with.”

Zim threw back his head with a groan. “AUGH! We’re going in SPIRALS!”

“It does seem that way.” Foma drummed her fingers along the tile in thought. “Alright. Why don’t we try to sort out this misunderstanding together?” She smiled at Zim’s slumped shoulders as the monitor scrolled through the memory replays. “Don’t worry, this one will be short.”

Short was a matter of opinion. Zim eyed the holo-calendar sprouting from Foma’s datapad. “This better be the last time we go over this.” He’d been promised repairs and PAK maintenance, not nitpicking assignment definitions and pedantics. “I’m sick of these rerun talks.”

“I understand. With luck, this will be the last time we need to do this.” Foma fixed him with a stare. “But you really must work with me on this.”

“Fine.”

“Is it fine, or are you telling me what you think I want to hear?” She followed as Zim’s head turned away. “Because if it isn’t, we’re just going to end up here again. I’m only asking you to try. Can you try for me?”

“Okay, fine, I’ll try!” Zim breathed out and unclenched his fists. “Can we get on with it?”

The monitor split-screened into two looping tracks of memory footage. Foma plucked a set of dates from the holo-calendar, folded them into her hands, and scooted closer.

Opening the left hand, she held up the first date. A holographic mini mushroom cloud bloomed above it. “Okay. This is one week after the Operation Impending Doom disaster.” Foma released the date and let it hover beside memory footage of Past Zim hanging limp before the Control Brains.

She pointed at the encoding identification in front of Past Zim’s face. “This is your re-encoding as a Food Service Drone.” The finger drifted to the right, where a team of Guards rudely plopped Zim on the dirty Shloogorgh's floor. “And this is three days after your re-encoding. Thirty-five years ago, True Time, when you began banishment service under Frylord Sizz-lorr. Do you remember these incidents?”

“That was a temp-job. As in, temporary .” Impatiently, Current Zim tapped his foot. “Would I be here on Earth if it were not temporary?”

“Answer the question, please.”

“I remember.”

He remembered in chunks and shards, and some of those chunks were gooey in the center or foggy around the edges, but it was there. A long and storied career such as Zim’s didn’t leave much room for a pointless temp-job. A job meant to be finished and discarded and forgotten.

Zim might have forgotten it entirely if other Irkens didn’t insist upon constantly bringing it up. He sneered at the monitor, where Past Sizz-lorr crashed through the Skool roof to snatch Past Zim by the skull like a smeet.

The memory footage froze on the bridge of The Futile. Past Zim stood silhouetted before Sizz-lorr’s computer. His computer monitor read IRKEN FOOD DRONE ZIM PAK#1053r404.

The second date drifted from Foma’s hand to hover under Zim’s identification number. “This is four months ago when your Frylord called you back to Foodcourtia to complete your sentence.” With a snap of her fingers, the datapad projected the stats and health readings for IRKEN FOOD DRONE ZIM PAK#1053r404. “And this last one is from a few weeks ago when our session restarted.” She opened the sub-heading details. “Now, the encodings for all three of these dates identify you as a Food Service Drone: class F. Can we agree on this?”

Zim glanced between the three dates. He clutched the broken motherboard pieces in his fist and nodded.

“I need audio confirmation for this, please.”

“That.” He ground his teeth. “That is the technical read-out, yes.”

“So Food Drone is your encoding?”

“I didn’t say that.”

The Extractor rubbed her chin. “That’s strange. Why would you be identified and encoded as a food drone if it wasn’t your encoding? I know it isn’t a misread or a data error.” She flipped back to the Brain chamber. “You were intentionally re-encoded for snack services. Three present witnesses can confirm.”

An unsaid question dangled at the end of that statement: Do you want to contest those witnesses? Those being two Tallest and a Control Brain.

“But encodings can still be reversed!” The crooked PAK leg scraped against the vending machines as Zim took a step backwards. “If they couldn’t be reversed, I wouldn’t have bothered coming to The Great Assigning in the first place.”

Foma thumbed through the datapad without taking her eyes off Zim. “Of course they can be reversed. But there’s one thing I don’t understand.”

On the monitor, all three footage samples collapsed into a single image. The food drone encoding grinned down at him with a mouth full of jailbar teeth. It blazed so bright it washed out all the colors of the wall and the desk and the stupid filigree cloth.

Zim looked at the floor. Mirrored in the blue tile, the encoding grinned there, too.

“If our Almighty Tallest truly called you back to be an Invader, why didn’t they re-encode you as one?”

“It was a busy night. With—” The logo’s greens and yellows wriggled over Zim’s boots. Zim backed away and turned back to Foma. The encoding hologram hovered in the palm of her hand. He was surrounded. “With so much happening, they had no time for symbolic gestures.”

“They had time for Invader Tenn.” The Extractor’s datapad displayed the Control Brain cables snaking into Tenn’s PAK in an underground war room somewhere. “Someone in warfare management didn’t update her encoding when she received her invasion assignment. After receiving her SIR Unit, Tenn reported for an upgrade to Invader Class A. The process takes five minutes at most. They had plenty of time.”

“Like I said, a lot went on that night. The Tallest forgot.” He glanced behind him, where the logo’s jailbar smile crawled across the tile. Zim inched closer to the Extractor. “The Tallest forgot; it’s an error.”

The monitor went black and the holo-screen vanished. Under the shadow of vending machines, Foma’s eyes gleamed like spotlights. “An error. That’s your reasoning?”

“Well, technically—”

“No. It’s an error or it isn’t. Your reasoning is that The Tallest—The Almighty Tallest—made a mistake.”

Zim’s ‘spooch dropped into his boots. “Well—”

“A mistake concerning the biggest event of the most important campaign of the generation, if not the Era.” She squinted. “Are you implying that they are not, as you said, ‘infallible and immaculate in ALL their judgement’?”

“What? No, I—”

“Because it certainly sounds that way.”

Had it gotten hotter in here? He thought he scented burning circuitry, but Zim couldn’t be sure. All the smells melted together—disinfectants, leathers, upholstery, stale uneaten snacks, coagulated sugar, blood, rust, copper wiring.

“Well, it’s not!”

Zim’s flat antennae tingled at the sharp tang of panic and the bitter bite of contempt and the subtle overlay of doubt. It smelled like all of the alarm, attack, and retreat pheromones tangled together. Pheromones from who, Zim couldn’t tell. They could’ve been scent signals from two seconds ago or two years ago. Zim never could read pheromones right.

“No, I MEANT—if you’d listen, I just. I meant that it… It slipped their minds. That’s all.”

Foma blinked slowly. “I thought you’d been given an important secret mission. Seems hard to forget.”

“I made a surprise appearance.” Zim’s tongue slipped in and out of his teeth. “So I wouldn’t have been in the listings. It got lost in the…” He glanced at Foma’s unmoved expression. “…in the shuffle. I said from the beginning it’s a records problem.”

“The Tallest know all their Invaders, records or not. Encodings can be changed at any time, not just during the Assigning.” Foma’s boots echoed with her approach. In the corner of Zim’s eye, the pond-grey robe spread like talons. “They weren’t too busy last month, last week, or last year.”

“Then it’s something else.”

“Such as?”

He felt himself sink to the floor and press his back against the armchair. Pulling his legs in close, Zim rested his chin on his knee. “I don’t know.” He glanced at the unplugged machine full of drinks that had long gone warm. “Something.”

There had to be something.

“The Almighty Tallest told you themselves that you’re not an Invader. What more do you need?”

Extractor Foma waited for an answer.

The minutes passed without one.

She knelt to Zim’s eye-level. “I see two options here: either you are encoded as a food drone, or The Almighty Tallest are wrong.”

“I don’t like those options. I demand new options.”

“Those are the ones you have.” Her robe brushed so close Zim could see the faded pink stains in the threads. “Are The Tallest wrong?”

“It is a logical impossibility for The Almighty Tallest to be wrong.” Zim recited it word for word.

He said it the same way he’d read it in the Education Plug and heard it in the download chair. The same way he felt it in his heart, PAK, and spooch every second of every day. An undeniable truth: The Tallest Cannot Be Wrong.

Extractor Foma nodded. “Good.” She scribbled a quick note on the datapad. A smile grew in the corners of her mouth. “Very good.”

“It… it is?” Zim brushed his wilted antenna out of his face.

It didn’t feel very good. Then again, he didn’t scent any of those weird pheromones anymore; that part was a little better. And The Extractor sounded pleased, so… maybe it was good after all?

He decided to ask to be sure. “I did good?”

“We should end the session here, I think. You’re close to another overheat. I’m enforcing another mini-snacktime and… yes, I think you’re due for a nap. You’ve earned one.”

She hadn’t answered the question.

Zim frowned. “But I DID do good?”

Foma turned to him, and her little smile bloomed full and warm, sweet and oh so proud. “Yes, Zim. You did good.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, careful not to burn her fingers on the PAK.

Zim leaned into her hand. It was so strange. People surely must have told him all the time, yet Zim couldn’t remember the last time someone told him that he’d done good.

Then again, there was a lot he couldn’t remember lately. And he felt tired. Maybe he really did earn that nap.

Foma sat at the edge of the armchair, letting Zim rest his weight on her side. “You did very, very good.”

 END OF SESSION LOG III

Chapter Text

00:58.34 SECONDS.

The Button dully shines in the light, bright red as a gumball. Zim’s fingertips try to crawl to it. It hurts. He tries anyway. Zim’s hand inches towards The Button. Little pops and cracks and snaps of splintering bone echo in his ears.

00:55.12 SECONDS.

It’s close. The Button is so close and Zim wants to press it. He can’t remember why. He doesn’t remember what it does. But it’s important, and he has it for a reason. A good reason. He wishes he knew what that reason was. If he presses it, maybe his hand won’t hurt anymore. Maybe he’ll breathe again without getting stabbed in his insides. The ragged scorch in his throat will go away. Breathing won’t hurt. Moving won’t hurt.

Yes. That must be what it does. The Button makes Zim not-hurt. Maybe. He’s not sure. The Button does something very important. It belongs to him and he can use it whenever he wants. He’s supposed to use a Button when he’s in trouble and then it can get him out of trouble. It can make everything okay.

It’s so close.

00:52.57 SECONDS.  

Zim’s broken fingers twitch a centimeter closer. Almost. A little more. Just a little more and—

A boot nudges Zim’s hand away. Out of reach.

00:51.07 SECONDS.  

Out of time. Time is what the numbers mean.

00:49.34 SECONDS.  

The numbers are important. And they’re going down. They shouldn’t be going down.

Zim can remember a time when all he wanted in the world was to see time. To have numbers.

00:48.07 SECONDS.  

Now he understands that wanting numbers was a mistake. Zim needs to make the numbers stop. Go up. Go away. Something—anything but go down.

00:46.55 SECONDS.

The boot beside Zim’s hand shifts, light sliding off the glossy leather. It’s wet and slick with a slight pink sheen. It matches the pink splotches on the floor and on Zim’s hands. So pink in here. Like a sunrise exploded all over and left a big mess. Zim wonders if he made this mess. He makes messes sometimes and it makes people very mad at him. Maybe that’s why they won’t give it back. But he needs it. If he can promise to clean up the mess, maybe they’ll give it back. If he asks nicely.

00:45.00 SECONDS.

With all his strength, Zim tips back his head. Slowly, his eyes roll up and up and up from the shiny boots to the legs to body to head.

Haloed in a blazing light, the long silhouette towers him, watching. Slim antennae flick with interest at the slow twitch of Zim’s jaw. Zim can’t see their eyes, but he knows they’re watching. Zim doesn’t care about eyes, just the hands.

00:40.00 SECONDS.

Zim’s eyes widen. He forgets The Button. He forgets the pain in his hands and his spine and the burn in his chest. He forgets everything. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except those hands high above his head.

The hands are even shinier than the boots. They hold a smooth metal object. A PAK. Coils of wire drape through the fingers, sparking at the tips as they twitch in a blind search. For Zim.

The wires are looking for Zim. There is no need to search, Zim is right here!

00:39.26 SECONDS.

Zim is right below it. If his spine worked right, if his arms remembered how to move, if his hands didn’t hurt so much, he could reach it. The PAK is not far. All he has to do is stand up. If only he could remember how.

Muscles in Zim’s legs twitch. He barely feels it. Zim’s neck lolls forward, smushing his cheek against the cold sticky tile. It’s so hard. Feels like treading water through a gelatin fog with his body all wrapped up in spider silk. Hurts.

00:35.46 SECONDS.

Zim’s fingertips reach upward, crackling with the shift of bones. “G-ggizigv…”

Four legs reach out of the PAK’s metal carapace, stabbing blindly at the air. Grasping for purchase. For its host. For Zim. Zim’s PAK belongs with Zim. He needs it.

The silhouette shifts closer, antennae perked. Yes. They have antennae like Irkens. Like Zim. They should understand. The shiny hands hold the PAK tighter. The hands do not give it back.

But Zim needs it. Why can’t they understand how much he needs it?

00:30.00 SECONDS

He tries to speak. “G-ggizigvvvZi… PAgiiv…” Words drip between his teeth in a swampy mush of syllables. In the corner of Zim’s eye, his tongue curls and flops out of his mouth, thrashing like a fish in the puddle of drool. Everything tastes like bubblegum and battery acid and clean floor.

His mouth tries to make words his brain doesn’t know.

No words. Just feelings. Terror. Need.

Give. PAK. Zim.

00:20.23 SECONDS.

With one solid heave, Zim;’s body crashes forward. The tips of his fingers squeak and scrape against the shiny boots. Zim. PAK! GIVE. GIVE PAK ZIM.

00:18 SECONDS.

Slowly, the shadowed Irken tilts their head as if confused. Their smile doesn’t seem confused at all. The figure regards Zim as it kneels to investigate the pinkness pooling around them. The shiny hands are still holding the PAK.

Give!

It’s inches from Zim’s grasp, but Zim’s hands don’t know how to move anymore. The PAK’s cables drag lifeless across the tile.

PAK.

00:17 SECONDS.

GIVE!

00:16 SECONDS.

ZIM! PAK!

GIVE ZIM!

The Irken says something in a garble of bright noises and curious little trills. A bright crescent of a smile glints down at him.

00:12 SECONDS.

Give. GIVE. PAKGIVEZIMPAKPAKPAKGIVE.

00:10 SECONDS.

The silhouette’s head turns to the PAK. A shiny glove runs over the PAK legs all curled up tight against themselves. They twitch even harder than Zim. Sounds like needles shivering.

00:09 SECONDS.

One PAK leg stops twitching.

GIVE. PAK. ZIM!

PAK. GIVE. A wordless sound drags from Zim’s throat. GIVEZIM. Slowly, one finger arches to point upward. It cracks when it moves. That’s okay; Zim’s hand doesn’t hurt anymore.

00:08 SECONDS.

Zim can’t feel the shattered carpals or the dry scrape of air in his throat or the chill of the floor on his cheek. He can’t feel much of anything at all.

00:07 SECONDS.

Darkness closes in around him. Why is it so dark when the lights are still on?

00:06 SECONDS.

ZIM… PAK… GIVE…

00:05 SECONDS.

The kneeling Irken’s smile fades away. Their finger curiously trails from Zim to the PAK.

00:04 SECONDS.

YES. GIVE.

PAK ZIM GIVE GIVEPAKZIMPAKGIVEPAKZIMGIVEZIMZIMZIMPAKGIVE

00:03 SECONDS.

The Irken leans in closer. Laughs.

00:02 SECONDS.

Coils of wire trail across his spine. A gloved hand reaches over Zim’s back. A port clicks.

“Well, why didn’t you say s—”

Zim screamed. He jolted upright and ran, flailing blindly in the dark. Metal and plastic clattered and collapsed around him as he scrambled. Tile squeaked under his boot. He broke to the right and collided with a hard metal object. Zim’s fearsome Irken claws lashed out to rake the hard shell of…

Slowly, Zim opened an eye. A refrigerator.

He stared at it, mouth still agape and gasping, like some pathetic mammal seeing a wormhole for the first time. Since when did the break room have a refrigerator? Refrigeration was a primitive storage method for primitive wormbeasts too stupid to master perennial sustentation and instant food transferal. That, or too wretched to afford vending machines or a decent food larder.

To Zim’s great and immense knowledge, no respectable Vortian owned one and no Irken needed one, not even for novelty’s sake. There was only one reason anyone owned a refrigerator.

Zim nudged the door open with the tip of his boot. The warm, dark fridge eased open. Empty. Only rusted metal shelves, fake bottles of mustard, and an unopened can of chicken beaks that smelled vaguely of hamsteaks.

Irkens only owned fridges for show. To fool unwary eyes into believing that one was the type to own a refrigerator—one piece of a larger disguise. An Information Extractor wouldn’t need this level of detail for a temporary base. A particularly meticulous Infiltrator, maybe. A location disguise this exhaustive would only be used by… Zim frowned. By Invaders.

Outside, the clouds shifted. A thin wash of orange light spilled through a four-square window and across the dingy green walls, and for a moment, it felt as if someone had trapped the room in amber. Zim shifted to his feet as he scanned the perimeter. The walls leaned together in a facsimile of human architecture, too perfect in its angles to be of human origin.

Zim glanced at the toppled chair at his feet. He must have knocked it over in that moment of panic. Three matching chairs flanked a round table in the corner where someone had stacked a centerpiece of empty chip bags, pizza boxes, and half-empty tubes of pimple cream. Flecks of bacon bits, pizza crust, and taco shell crumbs dusted the floor. Posters lined the dirty wallpaper in joyous proclamation of consuming Earth Food at regular intervals. An upturned pop-up book covered a pile of half-eaten weenies under the oven.

Brushing aside the taco crumbs, Zim ran his hand across the checkered tile and stared at the toilet covered in bootprints. The seat had been kicked off its hinges. He breathed in the musty air, watching dust motes drift through the orange light. Sunset.

This wasn’t the break room. Zim jerked his hand away from a stray empty Poop Cola can. He knew this place. “Where…” No, this wasn’t right. He didn’t know this place at all. “Where am I?”

His antennae perked at the sound of boots on linoleum. Zim lunged backwards, tumbling into another chair. With a screech, he scuttled up and over the seat to dive under the table. Snatching the chair's backboard, Zim dragged it inward for a makeshift barricade.

The boots stopped beside the table, and a soft voice chuckled. “Don’t you know?” Extractor Foma’s face peered through the barricade of chair legs and plush cushions. “You’re in your home base, Zim.”

“What? No, I’m—” But the refrigerator, the posters, the strategically placed toilet by the sink… it did look like his base’s kitchen. Under the mold and dust and rotting cheese, it smelled like Zim’s kitchen, too.

But how? No Invader, not even one as busy as Zim, would ever let their base of operations fall into such a squalid state. An occasional dishevelment or blood splatter after a busy night, sure, but nothing like this. Not for so long. Zim’s finger cut a clear trail through the dust on the chair. This wasn’t disrepair, this was sheer neglect. Nobody had been here in weeks. Maybe more.

In the quiet of the kitchen, a clock ticked away the seconds. 18:00 hours. A dusty Earth calendar on the opposite wall proclaimed it to be September. Frozen precipitation accumulated in the corners of the windowsill and landed on the dirty glass—snow, they called it.

“This is Zim’s base?” It didn’t feel like it, and not just from the grime and mold.

Indeed, the physical shell looked and smelled like Zim’s base, but it wasn’t the base he knew. It felt different… changed. Hollow. Wrong. Zim’s base, but not Zim’s home. His home shouldn’t have felt so empty. So dead.

“Of course it’s your base. Whose else would it be?” Foma’s hand reached under the chair barricade.

Zim yelped and shoved backwards.

The hand withdrew. “I’m just adjusting the chair a little bit. Would it be alright if I sat in this one, or would you like me to use a different chair?”

“Why can’t you use your own chair?”

“I don’t have it with me at the moment.”

Zim yanked his barricade back into position. “I’m using this one. It’s mine.” All of them were his, and nobody had given her permission to touch Zim’s things in Zim’s base. Not to his recollection, anyhow. But he also didn’t like the idea of the Extractor standing over the table, or worse, sitting on the floor beside him. It would be rude to refuse chairs to a visitor. “Use the other one. No, not that one, the one by the toilet.”

“Okay.” The boots walked away. After a moment, they returned, dragging along the stray chair. Foma wiped off the mustard stains and cookie crumbs and adjusted the chair a fair distance from the table, just far enough for Zim to see her face. “I think you may be feeling a little upset or confused. Would it help if I stayed back here for now?”

“There is nothing wrong with Zim!” snapped Zim.

“I didn’t say there was. You’ve been through a great deal lately. It’s normal to feel a little vulnerable, especially after an interrupted rest period. There’s nothing wrong with being upset; what matters is what we do with that feeling.” Foma settled sideways with her arms and chest resting atop the backboard. “Now, you can choose to take that feeling and make it into something functional.” She shrugged. “Or let those feelings control you and hide under a table all night.”

Glaring, Zim huddled against his chair barrier. “I am not hiding.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m—” He glanced at the stalactites of gum and nacho cheese fused to the bottom of the table. “I’m checking for mold.”

She sighed. “I’ve asked you before not to lie to me, Zim. If you can’t be honest, we’ll never—”

“I SMELL it! The smell is no lie.” Crinkling his lips, Zim could taste it in the air. “The wet dinge of this place clings to the baseboards like the slime trail of a slimy Slogslug. There is mold here, can you not smell it?”

Foma adjusted her gloves—a cleaner, brighter pair than she’d had the last time Zim saw her. She must have switched after the last session. “I can if I try. I suppose I’ve gotten used to the scent. Is mold the only reason you’ve decided to sit under the table?”

“There are infinite reasons to sit under a table. Stabilization, for example.” Zim placed his palm under the table to demonstrate the delicate art of furniture stabilization. He chose not to concern himself with the mysterious soft squishiness between his fingers. A new table might be in order after all this.

Foma’s hands folded over her knee. “I heard you scream earlier,” she gently said. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

In the time they’d been speaking, the orange wash of light had shrunk to just four yellow squares crawling across the floor. Soon, even that would be gone and they’d be alone in the dark. Zim edged to the rim of the table and stared into the kitchen that didn’t feel like his kitchen—a lonely place of dirt and shadows, of cobwebs, crumbs, and dust. The Dib had often spoken of places where creatures had expired but left a part of themselves behind. Haunted, he’d called it. Did someone need to die for a place to be haunted? Or could it happen on its own?

He slid his fingers down his back to touch the warm PAK between his shoulder blades. One metal leg still poked out bent and crooked. Only two out of three PAklights worked. Warm air rushed through his fingers as the vents valiantly fought the threat of another overheat. It wasn’t perfect, but the PAK was there and it was his.

Above his head, the soft pink light of Foma’s PAK glowed behind her and sent her shadow under the table after him. Antennae flat and twitching, Zim pulled his legs in close and frowned at the silhouette with bright eyes and shiny gloves. He squinted at her. Zim’s ocular implants should have adjusted to the dim light by now. Then again, Zim’s body should have done a lot of things it didn’t do anymore.

“Did…” Zim followed the shine of Foma’s gloves up to her shaded face. He traced his fingers along the hot vents. “Did you do something to my PAK?”

The bright eyes blinked. “Yes, I disabled your mood dampeners and accessed your memory files, remember? You were there for it.”

“No. Not that. My PAK, it—it wasn’t attached.” Zim’s fingers closed around the tip of his crooked PAK leg. The edges were dull and rusted, like a ship left to the elements for too long. Or a blade that had been through a fight. “My PAK wasn’t on me and—”

GIVE! ZIM!  

“They were holding it! They would—wouldn’t give it… I was…”

Dying. Zim had been dying with seconds left on the life clock.

Foma’s antennae perked straight, and in the dim light, Zim thought he saw her frown. “Do you mean someone had taken your PAK from you?”

Yes, that must have been it. Zim nodded. Someone had taken it. How else could they have gotten it?

“Nobody’s forcibly taken your PAK in the time you’ve been with me, Zim. I can tell you that for certain.” She glanced at the toilet with the broken hinges and covered in boot marks. “Though I did hear you screaming in your sleep. Do you suppose it might have been a d—”

“Irkens don’t dream.”

Dreams were the wasteland of a primitive mind. Nothing but junk data mashed up and regurgitated as fluff and nonsense for baser species that still needed sleep to live. During the odd hibernation mode, one might get picture shows in their heads, but those weren’t the same thing as dreams. Irkens lived and slept in cold hard facts. Irkens didn’t have dreams; they had reruns.

“That’s not what I was going to say, though with your faulty memory callback, it wouldn’t surprise me if you did end up the first Irken to dream. You’re so full of surprises.” The chair creaked under Foma’s weight as she shifted in the seat. Her fingers kept twitching and fidgeting with the ends of her sleeves. “No, I was about to suggest that a defective recycled PAK like yours might have a greater chance of replaying the old owner’s memories.”

Zim frowned. A recycled PAK? “Impossible. There is no Zim but Zim.”

“Oh, it’s very possible. Most PAKs are recycled at least twice before they’re retired, and yours had—sorry, I don’t have my notes with me—I believe… three owners before it came to you. In any case, it’s common to receive reruns from the old user’s data.” Foma’s fingers curled around the chair’s backboard as she leaned closer. “What exactly did you see?”

And they said Zim had listening problems. He had to tell this one something five times before it stuck. “I already told you: someone had possession of my PAK and wouldn’t return it. I was on the ground and couldn’t move while they just…” He met Foma’s widening pink eyes. “…they just watched. Extractor?”

The mold and dust fused with a new scent—subtle, smooth and acrid, like the fires from the City Crematorium. Foma cleared her throat and turned to him. “Yes?”

“Why do you smell so alarmed?”

“It’s an alarming thing to think about.” Foma traced her fingers along her own PAK and shuddered. “It’s possible you lived someone’s memories of enemy combat. I know the Fweezians have been known to—”

“No moth. Two arms, two antennae.” The body shape he remembered—something tall…slender? A tail maybe?—didn’t fit the Meekrob or Rats or any of the classic standard enemies of the Empire. “And they knew! ” Knew what removing the PAK would do him. Knew how long it would take. Waited down to the last second and… “They watched me deactivate.”

“And yet,” said Foma, “here you are alive, safe and sound. Not a mark on you. How could that have happened?”

“Do not question ZIM! This happened! It happened!” Zim’s tired throat cracked his voice and betrayed him. Made him sound deranged—a fussy delusional smeet in need of a nap. Zim was no smeet, needed no nap, and suffered no delusions. The sound of his own voice echoing back through the walls of his base—when did he return to the base, anyway?—that part bothered him.

“It happened,” Zim said again. Softer, this time.

“Oh, no doubt. That absolutely happened to someone. What I’m not sure of is if it happened to you. My, it’s dark in here. Let me just…” Foma’s silhouette straightened and brightened the PAKlights so that they could see each other. “Is that too bright?”

“The light’s fine, and it did happen. I was there!”

“Yes, the owner of the PAK was indeed there.”

Zim glared at her.

Foma ran both hands over her head and closed her eyes. “Alright.” She rubbed the base of her neural nodes and took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s try and sort this out.”

Not much to sort. Someone had Zim’s PAK and wouldn’t return it. Done.

“Zim, if someone removed your PAK by force, believe me, you’d know. We both would, especially if it had happened recently.” She pointed at Zim’s back. “Look for yourself.”

He shot a sideways glance at his flickering PAK and rubbed the smooth skin on his neck. Smooth, unscarred, and unbroken as the day he’d dropped out of the vat. The veiny scars had vanished completely. Zim’s last few days of feeding and napping must have healed it faster than he thought.

“An Irken’s PAK is fused to their spinal cord. If someone yanked yours off without properly detaching the ports, they’d have pulled off much more than just a PAK. You’d be missing the better part of your spine and shoulders.” Foma grimaced. “Trust me, it’s not a pleasant sight. They don’t just pop off, so I don’t see how—”

“Mine can,” Zim said. “And it did, once.”

The Extractor perked up. “Is that so?” She gripped the chair’s backboard, leaning over the side. “Can you tell me more about—”

“A mild port attachment error; it’s got nothing to do with this.” After so much progress in the evaluation, Zim saw no need to remind his evaluator of his mission setbacks. Talk of Zim’s mission only led to fallacious talk of… other things. Besides, it had only been a near-death experience. Nothing huge. “The PAK’s recovery was so simple, why I—ha, I practically forgot all about it.” He laughed at how very simple and easy and not at all traumatic it had been. Such a silly little memory.

“The recov—you actually had to recover it, then.” Drumming her fingers along the chair’s backboard, Foma connected the dots. “Are you telling me an alien species took possession of your PAK?”

“Momentarily. They didn’t get inside.” Judging from the residual memories of Bigfeets and vampire bees, though, the PAK might have gotten inside Dib a little bit.

“I should hope not. I don’t suppose that might be the incident from your reruns?”

“No. This was different. No human held my PAK.” At least, Zim didn’t think so.

The visions had all been so clear moments ago, but in the calm dark of night, they faded and thinned. When he tried to call it back, the rerun slipped through his grasp like hands of the Smoke Folk. Had there only been one presence there or two? More? “I think…” Two antennae, two arms, two legs, two eyes. Round head. Not short. “I think an Irken had it.” He met the Extractor’s gaze again. “Are you sure you never—”

“As I’ve said, I don’t work with hardware. PAK removal is a delicate process. I may know the basics for analysis, but I’m no Technician. Without a code, I can’t get that kind of access.” She left the chair to crouch on the floor a few feet from Zim’s table. “The only way I’d know your PAK access code is if—why, if you’d told me yourself!” She laughed at the thought. “It’s nice to think you’d trust me with that kind of data, but let’s be serious.”

She had a point. Sharing sugarwaters and trading war stories during maintenance sessions was one thing, but direct PAK access codes… The only ones Zim trusted with that sort of data were Zim’s own minions and The Tallest themselves.

Someone had done it, though. “But Zim remembers…”

“You’re slipping into third person again. I think,” Foma offered, “the stress may be getting to you.”

“No, I’ll get it. I… It happened and I remember…” Shadows. Bright lights in the ceiling and pink on the tile, and… He blinked. And some other stuff. He’d remember the other stuff in a second or five.

The second or five passed. “Zim, you could have ‘remembered’ any number of things. It could be from the PAK’s old owners or some memory you boxed away cycles ago. If it really pops off as easily as you say it does, there are dozens of possibilities. It could be anything from enemy capture to an overenthusiastic Elite team-building exercise. If we ran through every possible scenario, we’d be here all night.” Foma offered him a slight, apologetic smile. “And honestly, I’d rather continue this conversation in a formal session instead.”

“This isn’t a maintenance session?” Odd. It had all the trappings of a session: sitting, talking, staring, and asking questions that made Zim feel all gunky inside. Everything with Extractor Foma turned into a session talk sooner or later.

“No, of course not.” She gestured to the dark kitchen around them. “I only hold sessions in the designated rooms. It’s not safe, otherwise. We’re taking a break.” She tisked. “Well, I was. You’re supposed to still be in sleep mode. That’s where you should be headed right now.”

Zim shook his head. He’d had more than enough napping, and had never been particularly fond of the concept in the first place. Going unconscious for hours or days at a time while the body lay unmanned and unsecured was just asking for trouble. He’d never understood why his fellow Irkens wasted monies on something as stupid as a nap pass. You might as well pay someone to throw your keys down a sewer pipe.

Thankfully, Foma didn’t force the issue. “I thought you might feel that way. If you keep getting these kinds of reruns, it wouldn’t do much good anyhow.” She edged closer to Zim’s chair barricade. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

The pipes groaned and shifted in the walls of Zim’s hollow base. He stared at the blobby shadows of chairs, trash cans, and toilets in the kitchen that didn’t feel like his anymore. A half-forgotten place from another life. Another Zim. A Zim that hadn’t cared about maintenance or PAK memory recalls and just wanted to maintain the weasel cocoons.

“How did—” Zim paused at the sight of the Extractor’s concerned expression. She’d been so relieved and proud, before. Relieved that she hadn’t stayed in vain and put her faith behind the right Invader. Proud of his progress and growth—of him.

Not remembering how he got to his own base was something a crazy defective would do. Questions of where the Irk/Vort breakroom had gone or why his kitchen had so much dust and mold or why he felt like throwing up were the questions of a backslider. They didn’t matter. Probably just symptoms of ripping out of sleep mode too fast.

“Zim—” No, wrong. “ I might have another memory… gap… thing. We weren’t here last time.”

“I thought you might rest easier in a more familiar environment.” Foma shrugged. “Shows what I know.” Careful not to make any sudden movements, she reached through the barricade. “It doesn’t seem comfortable under there. Aren’t you cold? Why don’t you join us in the existence parlor?”

“The what?”

Foma rubbed her chin. “That’s what they’re called, right? You know, a recreation room but for a residential building?”

For a new arrival, it had been a decent try. Zim tried not to laugh at her ignorance. “They call it a living room. A parlor’s different.”

He stepped out from under the table, his good antenna twitching at the faint sound of laughter and music in the other room. Light glowed through the crack under a quick-install door—one of those polymer alloy designs used in minimum-security prisons and office buildings.

With a click of Foma’s remote, the door slid open and Zim finally saw her in the light. At some point, she’d traded the official Extractor robe for the long purple sweater she’d worn with the human disguise. “Oh, I see. What’s the difference?”

“Parlors are for show.” Zim stepped through, squinting at the wallpaper. The room stood the same as he’d left it. Cleaner, quieter, and bordered by a My 1st Prison™ Happy Tickles Electric Fence, but mostly the same. “You live in a living room.”

On the TV, Schmoopsy cried out in delighted surprise at a sneaky blooping from Floopsy. It looked like an episode from early Season 4, after the duke of Rainbow Junction outlawed all blooping, but before getting blooped to his senses. Zim knew someone who loved this insipid tripe. Liked tacos and squirrels, and the stuffing of crusted pizzas. He searched the room for some sign of his robot—streaks of pizza sauce, half a mudcake, or a stray chunk of animal flesh.

Instead, he found three young Vortians staring back at him from the couch. The tall one in the center jumped up and pointed. “That lady’s back—and she brought the loud guy!”

His littermate tugged his arm. “Daddy says you’re s’posed to use names, Kin Khao. His name’s No-Don’t, remember?”

“Don’t be dumb, Khao Niao. His name’s Stoppit.” The tall one—Kin Khao, apparently—scratched his horn buds. “Or maybe Quittit? Khao Chao, which one is it?”

The smallest Vortling rubbed her bleary eyes and yawned. When she noticed Zim, her big eyes got bigger and she huddled close to her littermates, staring at him.

Zim stared back. Something didn’t fit here. Vortian young didn’t belong on the couch; they should have been in the lab. “Hey! Who let you out?”

The one called Khao Niao picked up a teething ring from between the couch cushions and pointed at Extractor Foma. Of course.

Foma looked between the Vortians and the glaring Zim. She blinked innocently. “What?”

“Don’t play cute, you know what. I had these prisoners secured in a containment tube, what are they doing out in the open? Any of the humans could snoop in here at any moment with their snooping eyes and sniffy noses and see them! You could have jeopardized my entire operation with your freewheeling lackadaisical prisoner husbandry. Do you not realize the INCREDIBLE danger of an unsecured Vortian running loose?” Zim’s furious pointer finger of fury pointed at the nearest Vortling.

The Vortling chewed on its titanium teething ring and tugged at Zim’s uniform. “Hi!” Her younger littermate wiggled her nose and sneezed.

Foma handed her a tissue. “We clean up our biological residue, Khao Chao. Can you give me some room, please?” She settled on the couch, next to the eldest Vortian. Frowning at the snowy night outside, she pulled the sweater in tighter and nestled in. “I doubt humans can see through a holo-shield, Zim. The entryways are locked, and you saw the electric barrier around the perimeter, what more do you want? They’re perfectly contained, just with a little legroom.”

“They’re supposed to be in their tube.” What if their father called in the middle of all this? Nobody could take the threat of existence erasure seriously with nothing to erase in the tube.

“You were sleeping in the laboratory,” Foma countered. “I didn’t like the thought of leaving you in the same room. You needed rest, and well…” Smiling, she pulled a jar of dried kidneys from her PAK and offered it to the Vortlings. “Carnivores will be carnivores, after all.”

Kin Khao sniffed the jar, politely shoved ten kidneys in his mouth, and hopped on the floor to play with a tangle of electrical cords someone had left by the table. The middle sibling shook her head and stuck with the teething ring while her little head pondered the intricacies of blooping.

But the youngest, Khao Chao, didn’t seem to notice the kidney jar at all. She hadn’t stopped staring at Zim since he’d walked in the room, and while Zim appreciated that a child so young knew the magnificence of superior Irken breeding on sight, that wide-eye stare was starting to get kind of creepy.

He squinted at her. “Why do you stare at Zim, Vortian minor?”

The Vortling chewed her lip and shrank against the couch cushion. She blinked at the two Irkens, then at her siblings who were busy teething and digesting kidneys. “Uh… um.” Khao Chao took a kidney from the jar, nibbled at it, and looked away as if nervous.

Absurd. What reason would it have to be nervous? The litter had gotten over that whole forced kidnapping thing ages ago. The Vortling probably just wanted to get back to its blooping show. Zim glanced at Floopsy sneaking up behind Schmoopsy on screen. So odd to watch without GIR started grabbing people’s arms and screaming “SHEGONNABLOOPHIM!”

Now that he thought about it, GIR should have been watching these things in the first place. No wonder the Extractor had to take over; no one else around here did their job.

Zim opened the communication link—still just static. He glared at the too-clean living room absent of bacons, toy piggies, or squeaky toy bacons. “Where’s my robot?”

“Which one?” Foma glanced at the limp parental units gathering dust in the corner. One of the Vortlings had drawn crayon schematics and happy faces all over the Father Unit’s metallic forehead and chewed through a section of its chassis. “You had several.”

Had. “My SIR Unit. GIR? GIR!” He waited for the sound of tiny metallic feet or incoherent squealing or wet chewing. A randomized song or snoring, perhaps. Zim called him again, in case GIR didn’t hear him the first time.

Extractor Foma frowned a little. “SIR Units are only assigned to Invaders, Zim, you know that. You don’t have one. You never did.”

Zim rounded on her with a hiss. “You know GIR. You’ve SEEN him! He’s all over the memory logs!”

“Volume, please.” Foma gestured to the tiny Vortian cringing beside her and chewing faster on the teething ring. “If you’re referring to your Companion Unit, he isn’t here. The last time I checked, it had been located in a place called… it’s pronounced Puerto Rico, I think? My sub-extractor went to retrieve it for you, but from the sound of his last update, that may take a while.”

“How long of a while? When did he leave?” GIR had been known to wander off on his own, but he always came back. Even if he returned late, forgot to complete the assignment, led mobs of rabid lawyer zombies to the house, or brought back a wheelbarrow of Lawson’s Peak DVDs instead of a captive, GIR always came back. He’d never been gone more than 72 Earth hours.

Pulling out her datapad, Foma did a quick skim. “I sent Smarsh to fetch it shortly after we landed, but I can’t say how long it’s been for sure. I didn’t put a timer on him. It hasn’t been high on my priorities.”

She probably had no idea. Typical. The sciencey encodings had a nasty habit of tunnel vision. Someone like Foma couldn’t see the goggles on her face unless it related to the mission. She’d be no help to him.

Zim didn’t even bother with the PAK. Its locators hadn’t cooperated since his second maintenance session. That left only one source. He glanced at the tangle of cords and wires in the ceiling. “Computer.”

The silent house stayed silent. The same dead air that had been lingering like a ghost through all the walls and circuits. Circuits that didn’t respond to Zim’s voice anymore. But the house couldn’t be offline, otherwise how could the TV…?

A skinny extension cord ran from the television to a portable power core behind the couch. It likely powered the living room and only the living room. That’s why the lights hadn’t been working in the kitchen. 

“Computer?” In a way, Zim had been right, before. “I demand you obey your master! COMPUTER!” This hollowed-out house wasn’t his House. Zim’s gaze bounced between the warm dead walls and the zombie television and the Extractor’s concerned frown and the Vortling that kept staring at him for some stupid stupid reason. “COM—”

“Your base’s computer is in quarantine, safe and functional.” Foma reconsidered that. “Well, safe, anyway. I don’t know if an AI with sass levels that high can truly be called functional.”

Kin Khao flopped on his back, tugging at a fat knot of wires. “She came and talked to The House a whole lot.” He tied the ends of the thinnest cords in a star-drifter’s knot and showed it to Extractor Foma.

“Why, what a wonderful knot,” said Foma, and she gave him another dried kidney.

“Okay.” Little kidney flecks flew from the Vortling’s mouth as he talked. “Okay so then That Lady talked to The House and The House said ‘This whole idea’s dumb’ and That Lady said it wasn’t dumb except with big words and then they talked some more and Khao Niao bit me and I told her to quit it and then the house got REALLY bright and Khao Chao said ‘It’s too bright—’” Kin Khao took a great big breath. “—and Khao Niao said her eyes hurt and started crying, and my eyes hurt too but I didn’t cry because I’M not a baby, and then it got really really REALLY dark and Niao cried even more. Oh, and your skinny glow-puppies exploded.”

So much for the weasel experiment.

The Vortling with the teething ring crinkled her eyes and growled at her brother.

The brother stuck his tongue out. “You did so cry, I saw it!”

Now Zim remembered why he’d left these Vortians in the stasis tube behind a stack of magazines in the first place. Nothing but trouble and noise all day and night. Useless little larval stage aliens, how dare they tangle Zim’s cords and besmirch Zim’s couch and stare at Zim’s face. Who gave them allowance to stare with their big nosy eyes?

He rounded on the smallest Vortling. “WHAT?! What are you STARING you hideous little—don’t you tell Zim when to shush!” Zim swung to glare at the Extractor and her feckless shushing motions. “This is MY base! In my base, only I decide when and where is the time for shushing!”

The mid-size littermate shied to the far side of the couch, sniffling and whining through the teething ring. Getting its wet slimy DNA all over the place without Zim’s permission. Making terrible high-pitched cry noises!

“YOU! Shush!” Zim’s pointer finger snapped back to the shortest Vortling and its big stupid staring face. “AND YOU! I demand to know why you stare at Zim—out with it!”

Khao Chao hugged a couch pillow and pointed her stubby finger right back. “Where’d your eye go?”

Zim slowly blinked. He only felt one eye blink. What.

Kin Khao, who had gone from drifter’s knots to tying a noose around Zim’s foot, glared at him. “He prol’ly lost it ‘cause he yells and he’s stinky!” He wrinkled his little lip to bare his teeth. “And mean!”

Slowly, Zim put his fingers to his cheek. They slid up to a hollow pit in the side of his face. Feeling around the ribbed edges, he touched something thin and ropey. An optic nerve. “Where—when did I…”

“Oh no, he must have lost it!” Foma scooted closer to Khao Niao and jangled a ring of keys in front of the sniffling Vortian’s face.

“Silly Zim, always losing things. Maybe we can help him find it. What do we do when we can’t find something?”

“Look for it,” said Khao Chao.

“After you yell at the computer,” added Kin Khao.

Wiping her eyes, Khao Niao took out the teething ring and squished her face in concentration. “You look for it in… um…” She waved a stubby hand at the keys just out of reach. “You look in the last place you found it.”

“That’s a very smart idea,” said Foma. “That’s what I would do if I lost something. Zim, where was the last place you remember—”

“The breakroom.” Zim poked at the socket. He didn’t recall losing it there, but that had been the last time he’d had dual optics.

Foma rubbed her chin as if in deep thought. “And the last place I remember seeing it was when you took a nap in the lab. But you didn’t have it when you came out of the kitchen. I wonder what that could mean.”

“Oh! It—um—it means he lost it in the laboratory!” Khao Niao waved both arms over her head. “Or the kitchen?”

“Or the elevator,” said Kin Khao. “Daddy lost his goggles in a lift once and Cousin Mein got mad at him and that’s how come we didn’t go to his wedding.”

“What good guessers! I’ll bet it’s in one of those places for sure.” Foma dropped the ring of keys into Khao Niao’s waiting hands.

The Vortling cheered and shoved the entire ring in her mouth, happily crunching her reward.

Foma leaned towards Zim, out of the Vortians’ hearing range. “I heard you hit your head on the toilet; it’s almost certainly in the kitchen somewhere, but I’m sure it’s filthy by now.” She glanced at the other Vortlings and offered a runner-up prize of spare keys before they started complaining. “It might be better to just grow a new one.”

But Zim didn’t want a new eye. He wanted his old eye back. He wanted a lot of his things back. The Extractor was probably right. If the eye hadn’t burst, then the dust, dirt, crumbs, or whatever filth it had rolled in would have scratched and smudged the lens. Even if it could be found, the eye would be unusable. Zim wanted it back anyway.

“Don’t worry, you’ll have two eyes again in no time. Isn’t that right, Khao Chao?” Foma scooped up the Vortlings, put them on the floor next to their brother, and turned back to Zim. “By the way, I’ve been wondering: where exactly did you get these sweet little babyeaters, anyhow?”

Kin Khao put down his cords and frowned. “We don’t eat babies!” He glanced at Khao Niao. “Do we?”

Khao Niao shrugged. Khao Chao didn’t seem to care and had already embarked on the quest to find Zim’s lost eye.

“You ate all those kidneys,” Foma said, “and that meat used to be alive. When it was alive, it was somebody’s baby.”

Kin Khao thought about that. “But it’s not a baby anymore if it’s meat.”

Foma’s eyes lingered on the line of needle-like teeth in the Vortling’s mouth as he spoke. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That is how many tend to think of it, yes. Why don’t you help your sister find that eye?” Glancing at Zim, she patted the free space on the couch. “Are they orphans or did you steal them from somewhere?”

Zim shot an indignant sneer over his shoulder and shook the knotted cord off his foot. “I stole nothing, Extractor. I obtained the spawn legally.” He glanced at the Vortlings as they followed their littermate into the kitchen. Their squeaky little voices echoed as they turned over trash cans and nibbled silverware. “The parent is imprisoned.”

“Ah, orphans, then. Or will be soon enough.” Foma opened a fresh document in her datapad and wrote something down. “Is the parent in design or manufacturing? I just need to know for the data stats and logistics.” One antenna leaned in Zim’s direction while he tried to peek at her tablet. This one hadn’t been censored. Indeed, she’d opened a simple itinerary log. “How much were they?”

“Free.”

The Extractor looked at him. “I thought you said you got these legally.”

“I did!”

“Unless you won a raffle prize, I don’t see how you could have gotten them free and legally.” After a moment of consideration, she added, “If you did steal them, there’s no shame in admitting—”

Zim stomped his foot. “I did not steal them. When I got the Vortian young, they didn’t have any owners besides the biological parent. They’re bargaining chips—merely one piece of the elaborate and brilliant solution initiated by me, Zim.” He hopped onto the couch, careful not to sit on the lug nuts left on the cushions. “Check my memory logs. The Vortlings arrived shortly after I took the planet Mars. Months before Larb lucked into conquering Vort.” Zim crossed his arms and locked in his checkmate. “Nobody owned them yet. Therefore, I stole nothing.”

But she shook her head. “I’m afraid the resource and logistics division won’t see it that way, Zim. All Vortians automatically became property of Irk the moment we conquered it. Unless you have a receipt or an outsource pass from a Warden, that’s technically harboring foreign goods.” Foma marked it down and settled against the couch, rolling her sweater higher on her shoulders. “It’s a minor offense, don’t worry. Compared to everything else on your list, I doubt anyone will even notice it.”

How could Zim have overlooked this legal issue? The Tallest would notice immediately! With his spotless record, even a minor offense for Irk’s most beloved Invader stuck out like a rotted spleen. This could sink the entire evaluation! If Zim didn’t finish the maintenance evaluation, he could never finish the mission.

There had to be a way out of this. “Yes, but the only reason I don’t have an outsource pass is because the parent isn’t even IN an Irken prison. He’s in Moo-Ping 10!”

Foma squinted as she mentally combed through her database. “The Gellaxis facility? What’s he doing there?” She raised an eyebrow. “And how do you have access to a private Gellaxis prison?”

“Because I transferred him there.” Zim rolled his eyes with a huff. “Clearly. Regardless, the Vortian, Prisoner 777 is outsourced to me following the clear guidelines of Irken hostage/prisoner/finder-keeper negotiations with his offspring.”

The thin ridges of Foma’s brow knitted together in thought. “Bargaining chips, you called them. Hostages. I suppose that explains the erasure button in the containment tube, but…” She turned toward the kitchen, where the Vortling litter giggled and squabbled in their search. “What exactly are you bargaining for?”

“Outsourcing.”

It wasn’t illegal to outsource prison labor from non-Irken prisons. Zim felt sure of it. Still, he didn’t like the trajectory of this conversation and wanted to double-check.

PAK Command: Reference legal databank—Irken Rules of War; Prisoner/Hostage Codes (84th Edition); Finders/Keepers-Losers/Weepers Accords, circa E-26.

The PAK clicked and hummed in vain. Too bad all of Zim’s native search engines were defunct or in quarantine.

The Extractor’s datapad lit as it snagged an access link to the television. Floopsy Bloops Schmoopsy S.14, E.45: Every Bloop Has Its Droop Part III vanished from the screen. A blur of faces zoomed down the screen of the Multi-Galaxial Prison Resource Network.

“777,” Foma muttered under her breath. The scroll froze on the mugshot of the purple Vortian recoiling in a bright photo flash. “This one, yes?” She glanced at Zim’s nod. The tips of her antennae twitched as she chewed the end of her stylus, studying the prisoner’s face. “He looks familiar.”

A ridiculous observation to make when all Vortians basically looked the same anyway, and Zim told her so.

“No.” She said it quietly, more to herself than to Zim. “No, it’s more than that. I’ve seen that one somewhere. Why would a conquered Vortian agree to help an Irken so easily? And so fast? Warden Cheepers says it took months to get complete cooperation from the Vort prisons, even with hostage pens.”

“Ha! Well, that’s only to be expected, Extractor.” Zim chuckled and flexed his claws on the armrest. “This mere Warden of yours is no ZIM. Rather than clogging the backlogged Invader requests for outsourced assistance—”

“Yes, I imagine most Irkens below Rank C would be blocked from those. Direct access to the high-level sapients is typically reserved only for the Invaders.”

The living room quieted. Foma watched out of the corner of her eye for a tell, a falter, a crack in Zim’s facade. If she searched for signs of backsliding, she wouldn’t find it. No, Extractor Foma beheld a new and improved post-maintenance Zim who did not fall to pieces at Certain Implications, and unlike his inferior peers, didn’t even need two eyes to function.

Zim casually leaned against the armrest, one leg propped up on the couch cushion. “It’s faster to cut out the middleman and go right to the source. As a master of interpersonal manipulation, I already knew Prisoner 777 ran low on blood-ties after that ‘wife tragedy’ or whatever.” He grinned. “Naturally, the remaining spawn he had left would prove especially valuable.”

She squinted at him. “How would you know something like that?”

“Pff, who didn’t know about it? The guy never shut up about it in the labs. All night, every day it was ‘dead wife’ this and ‘expensive funeral’ that, and ‘my-heart-is-a-gaping-wound-of-sorrow’ and blah, blah, and I’m all, find a new topic! I mean, we’ve all got our hobbies, but it’s called a work/life balance, ever heard of it?” 

Extractor Foma laced her fingers in a tight little ball. Her clawtips kneaded the end of her sweater sleeve. “You already knew him from…” Her eyes snapped open. “…the labs.” She sat up and turned back to the screen. “When you both worked in the labs.”

Without turning away from 777’s mugshot, she fished a second tablet from her PAK and pulled up Zim’s memory files from Vort Science Station 12. A still shot zoomed in on the Vortians surrounding Miyuki while Past Zim prepared to show off his Infinite Energy Absorbing Thingy. “You were colleagues,” Foma whispered.

Zim blinked. Who else would he be partnered with on Vort? Of course he’d worked with Vortians. Maybe more than one Irken here needed a nap. “All the easier to talk him into another project arrangement.”

Foma’s free hand extracted the Vortians from the screenshot into a separate projection. The other hand raced down lists and columns in the other datapad. “What projects did you outsource to 777 for this ‘arrangement’ of yours?”

“Eh, this and that. The Minimoose Project, a couple of particle accelerator recipes…” Zim thought. “Oh, and he dropped the schematics forThe Massive.” He grinned at Foma’s double-take. Even after so much time with him, he still managed to surprise the Extractor with the greatness of his feats. “That was when I brought The Tallest here as personal witness to the downfall of mankind.”

Or tried to. That had ended up being one of the rare times Zim’s plans hadn’t worked out the way it should have. Minutes from contact, Zim’s base lost connection with The Tallest and couldn’t regain it for two weeks. Three, counting the time it took to decrypt the signal scrambler The Tallest had put on their number for some reason.

“You convinced The Tallest to come here themselves?”

“It was a surprise,” Zim explained.

As Zim described the relatively simple method of hijacking The Massive’s power core and guiding it to Earth, the Extractor listened with widening eyes. By the time he reached the part about dragging the Tallest’s ship out of its flight path, Foma sat straight as a spire. Literally at the edge of her seat, she gripped the end of the couch.

Understandable. Not even the expert programmers could master a long-distance power core hack while they fought off a human counter-hijacking inside, repelled a totally separate human invasion outside, monitored the containment levels for a brain-eating parasite, and all before sunset.

Yet as Zim’s incredible tale continued, Foma’s wide pink eyes stared not at Zim, but beyond him, unfocused. She kept glancing between Zim and the shot of Past Zim’s old coworkers, even though Vortians were barely part of this story. The camera zoomed in on the second coworker: the grey guy with the nervous tic who’d screamed a lot and didn’t like being on fire. Zim mostly knew him from that one time the Vortian had jumped on a table during lunch, called Tallest Miyuki a tyrannical monocrat, then slipped on his own Vort dog and fell off the table. Vortian jokes were weird like that.

Foma’s mouth thinned into a flat grim line. “They were both with you on The Massive design project.”

With a twitch of her finger, the television split-screened between Zim’s work friends and a Vortian ship. Not a bad piece of equipment for a homemade vessel, honestly. Inside it stood a patchwork crew of offworlders, all of them apparently captained by Zim’s old coworker (Pon-Fard or something?) in the pilot’s seat.

“Oh hey, it’s the other guy.” Zim smiled at footage of the fidgety little Vortian digging his nails into his captain’s chair. The Vortian’s eyes nearly bugged out of his goggles while his mouth wildly screamed muted orders. “Looks like he’s doing pretty okay for himself.” Good for him.

“You could say that. Our friend Lard Nar now leads a resistance movement against the Irken Empire.” Someone needed to introduce Extractor Foma to breathing exercises, or get her a hobby—something relaxing, like game hunting or antiquing. Maybe a re-education seminar if Foma’s faith in the Irken Empire had been shaken so easily. She acted as though this crop of agitators actually posed a threat. This bunch couldn’t compare to a Skool cafeteria food fight. A footnote in a daily news scroll, if even that.

Zim shrugged. “These uprisings pop up and get shot down all the time. I admit, they’re usually not stupid enough to dare attack a ship as mighty and great as The Massive, but still.”

Upon closer inspection, he could actually see the Empire’s flagship in the reflection of the rebels’ windshield. No sign of the rest of the armada, though… odd. The Tallest must have wanted to savor this particular shot for themselves.

Still, such effort seemed unusual for such a low kill count. “What was the final count on this thing? Twenty? Fifty?” Zim raised a brow at Foma’s grave expression. “…Fifty-five?”

“None,” she said.

“Impossible!” So impossible Zim had to laugh. “Even if they managed to escape The Massive’s gravitational pull, there’s no way to escape that and evade the rest of the armada.”

“No. Not unless The Massive had been forcibly dragged out of The Irken Armada’s range of protection.” Foma’s fingers drummed the kidney jar beside her. It sounded like a little rainstorm on a windowpane. “And not unless The Massive already had her weapons disabled and also lost complete navigational control.” Her claws squeaked across the glass. Foma’s eyes flicked up. “Because its power core had been hacked by a pirate signal from a planet nobody would think to block. A planet like Earth.”

Zim’s smile crashed.

“And it’s… interesting,” she said, “that a signal hack of this scale could only work using delicate information. If someone had leaked the schematics for The Massive, for instance. From someone who just happened to be on the design team.” Foma’s eyes narrowed. “Someone who also just happened to be former colleagues with the leader of a resistance movement. A resistance movement that just happened to be en route to engage The Massive herself. A flagship left disabled and defenseless as it floated right into the resistance’s clutches.”

Zim blinked as his incredible brain scrambled. “Wait.”

“But the interesting thing—the truly fascinating thing here—is the two Vortians that staged the attack and leaked the schematics for The Massive ALSO staffed the science team that oversaw a lone defective Irken scientist. An Irken who just happened to create a blob that devoured not one, but two Almighty Tallest.” Foma’s mouth stiffened into a rigor mortis smile. She gripped the kidney jar and rattled the dried organs inside. “And it’s quite interesting that you—yes, you, Zim—just happen to be giving the family of one of these Vortians safe harbor in your base.”

“Wait.” Slowly, the implications pooled together and dawned on him. The very idea was absurd. Yes, individually, the pieces made sense, but… “Surely you don’t think that I had anything to do with—”

“Truthfully, Zim, I don’t know what to think.” Extractor Foma folded her gloved hands in her lap and regarded him evenly. “However, I do know what I’ve seen. I have seen a specific string of coincidences that fit together very well. Too well, perhaps, to only be coincidences. And I know that when these coincidences are brought together, they begin to look very much like collusion.” She blinked at him slowly. “Or treason.”

Despite there being no truth to it, despite the fact that Foma had only stumbled across a crazy coincidence, despite knowing in his heart he was no traitor to the Empire or his Tallest, Zim flinched. He didn’t mean to, he couldn’t help it. But only the guilty flinched.

And she saw it, of course. That familiar and patient sympathy softened her face for a moment. There and gone in a flash. Zim didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. One could never tell with her.

It wasn’t fair. He’d been doing better—she’d told him he’d been doing better. The maintenance sessions had been working like they were supposed to. All of it, only now to come to this: the only thing worse than defection.

“There is more than one kind of defective, did you know that?” Foma’s tone shifted, calm and conversational. Patient and thoughtful. The voice used to stave off panic and stabilize moods. Normally, that voice came with a smile. Not now. “Some Irkens are defects, and some Irkens decide to defect—to leave the Empire. Some are both. Not all, but some.”

The television darkened as Foma flipped through her data logs. Onscreen, images of filthy Vortians and their filthier colleagues shrank and were put aside. Frozen shots of Operation Impending Doom 1, Tallest Spork in the shadow of an energy absorbing blob, and The Massive thrown into disarray replaced it. Zim would have preferred the Vortians.

Foma eyed the looping footage of The Massive and her crew pitching wildly in the dark of space. “It is an unfortunate fact that defection and treachery tend to overlap in many cases.” Her gaze traveled from the flagship, to Lard Nar’s ship, to Zim. “I can’t help but wonder if this might be one of those cases.”

“It isn’t.”

“Are you sure about that?” The Extractor asked. “Because if it is, I will find out sooner or later. You do not want it to be later. If you have something to confess, I suggest you do it now.”

“I don’t! I didn’t!” Thousands of rebuttals—alibis, loyalty meters, the fact that 777 couldn’t be that smart or that stupid, the simple truth Zim knew in his core—piled over themselves. They all crowded in his mouth trying to get out at once, and he ended up not saying any of them at all. “It’s NOT—I… I admit once in a while I, Zim, may have a lapse of judgment… Wait.”

But how could that be true, either? Zim’s judgment was nothing short of pristine. Perfect. But without a lapse of judgment, how did he find himself in this situation? The Extractor, perhaps, had jumped to conclusions, but it’d do him no good pointing that out. That would just sound like he tried to dodge the question instead of making a very important point. Extractors—a High Extractor, especially—cared about the truth and nothing else.

When the truth still sounded like a lie, what was he supposed to do? “I didn’t,” Zim said again.

He had the evidence. His Computer had years’ worth of proof of Zim’s innocence, but the Computer wasn’t here. No Computer, no GIR, not even the robo parents. His own PAK wouldn’t work with him. Zim had only one ally in this house.

Foma’s antenna twitched impatiently.

Now, even that one ally teetered on losing her trust in him. In the space of ten minutes, all his progress unraveled and the patient, understanding Foma had been replaced with an Extractor who didn’t trust Zim at all. He needed the first one to come back.

Zim clenched his fists, gripping the couch cushions to steady himself. Blinked his one eye hard. “Zim is—I am no traitor.”

Outside, the snowfall had thickened into a blizzard. The wind whipped across the lip of the house’s false chimney and made the roof creak.

“I think,” Foma slowly said, “that I believe you. From what I’ve seen, and what I know of you…” She glanced between Zim and the clutter the Vortling had left behind. “Yes. Yes, I believe you.”

Zim gripped the cushion tighter. “You do?”

“It’s likelier that you stumbled into a Vortian conspiracy by accident. Or they tried to weaponize your defective traits. Or the whole thing really is a coincidence and none of these things are related at all. I don’t know; I can only guess.” Foma opened a communications window and highlighted a call list of The Almighty Tallest, the Supreme Warden, several Interrogators, and something called Bribes, Bribes, & Chives Inc. “But I can find out soon enough.” She wiped the Vortling’s drool off the teething ring and put it with the kidney jar. “That collateral of yours should speed up the process.”

It almost felt too easy. Zim didn’t trust it. “So you don’t think I’m that kind of defective?”

“Mmm… no. Disaster seems to follow you wherever you go; it stands to reason Earth would be no different. Friendly-fire just comes with the package.” Foma’s gaze shifted back to the screen with the Vortians, Miyuki, Zim, and Zim’s energy blob. “Even schmillions of lightyears away, you manage to hurt us.”

Hurt? Zim’s mouth opened and closed on its own. No, Zim didn’t make his Empire hurt. He couldn’t. He was Zim.

Extractor Foma couldn’t bear to look at Miyuki and the blob for more than a few seconds. The screen flipped back to the Impending Doom 1 footage. “But I don’t think you intended any real harm to your Empire. Not with The Massive hijacking, and not with the rest.”

“Yes!” Zim’s antennae twitched. “I mean—no.”

No, Zim didn’t make his Empire hurt. The Tallest would have been delighted to see the demolition of Earth. Miyuki would have adored the Energy Absorbing Thingy. Just because those plans weren’t completed with 110% efficiency didn’t mean they were bad. No, Zim didn’t—couldn’t do bad. He served his Empire with fidelity, splendor, and pride. But did that mean he’d done them on purpose? He supposed so, but there had only been confounding variables along the way. Things he didn’t predict.

“No.” Zim shied back as Foma turned to consider him. She didn’t seem especially impressed. “No, those were accidents.”

But Zim was Zim. Zim was perfect. Perfect Irkens didn’t cause accidents. Zim didn’t cause accidents. But he didn’t hurt his Empire on purpose either so that made them something… else? Zim didn’t hurt. Right?

And yet, the Extractor held a long list of times Zim hurt the Empire. Perhaps someone had forged it or mishandled the numbers. Saw the snack bowl as half-empty. No, Zim didn’t hurt The Irken Empire. He made it better. Friendly fire still was friendly. Good fires.

“I made the fires better.” Zim shook his head. He didn’t understand.

He’d done well. If he’d done so well, why did his allies run from him and be on fire all the time? Why couldn’t The Tallest smile at him the way they’d smiled at Larb? “A test of character, or…?” No, that had to be it. If Zim had ever done any real harm, they would have done something. Banishment, maybe.

“This is your re-encoding as a Food Service Drone…when you began banishment service under Frylord Sizz-lorr.” 

This was silly. He was being silly. Zim wrapped his arms around himself, pressing into the couch cushions. He arched his neck up and stared at Extractor Foma, waiting for an assurance that he was being silly. Any moment now, she’d laugh and say that everyone made mistakes, even great Invaders. He waited for her to tell him that he'd stirred himself into another fit and worried about nothing. Foma knew him. She knew how to read Irkens, that was her job. She’d tell him it was nothing.

Foma watched him the way some humans watched sportsball games, quietly and with great intent. Both antennae tilted in his direction. “Those ‘better’ fires,” she finally said, “burned down half of the Capitol. Did they not?”

“I did—Zim didn’t mean—” In the corner of his eye, Miyuki glowed translucent in the cheeks of the Infinite Energy Absorption Thingy. The one that he made. The one that had devour—oh, Irk. “I didn’t mean for…”

“But,” Foma’s voice whispered beside him or a thousand miles away, “it still happens. Doesn’t it?”

Yes.

“No. No, I—Zim is amazing?” Zim beheld his own hands. Hands that had created disas—marvels. Wonder—horri…incredible marvels! “Zim is amazing,” he said again.

Zim could not cause bad things if Zim was amazing. Something had happened with Zim’s memory. Yes, his memory went wrong all the time. A slight smile crossed his face. Nothing bad had happened. They’d exaggerated.

“Jealous, all of them…” Crafting wicked little stories in their ugly little brains of lies and treachery. Pure slander to turn Zim’s allies against him! A plot that obviously stretched beyond the shallows of simple Irken rivalry and into the waters of other species. Even the offworlders, obsessed by their envy and ashamed of their own filth, had designs on him. “And of course… of course the Vortians knew the might and wonder of Zim once they met me.” It was all coming together—the right way this time. “They tried to harness my mastery of destruction and science. Well, they’ll need to work harder than—”

SHINK.

The needle pierced Zim’s hand, pinning it to the couch. It stayed there, even after Foma released it. “Don’t,” she calmly said.

It happened so fast, Zim hadn’t even felt it. He didn’t have time to scream.

He stared at Foma. Stared at the needle. Nestled between the bones of Zim’s hand, the long metal skewer glinted in the flickering light of the television. It looked like the surgical pins used in biopsy, but bigger. Zim tugged his arm. It wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t you do that. Don’t bury yourself again. Stay here.” Her voice flowed slow and soft. Calmer than a quiet pond. “Zim, I want you to look at the screen, please.”

Zim looked. At the Vortian-led resistance party in hot pursuit of The Massive. Fields of fire roaring across Irk and the ruination of Operation Impending Doom I.

  Do you think there’s something right with nine-hundred thousand casualties in an Invasion launch?

A great maw enclosing around his former Tallest.

“How did you repay her for this love?”

A slow stinging sensation grew between his fingers. Zim’s tongue zipped in and out of his dry mouth. His gaze flicked between Foma and the television’s collection of Zim’s crim—accide…accomplishments? Of Zim’s finest—

It hit.

Pain ripped through Zim’s hand—sharp searingscreamingbiting—HUGE. His vision winked in and out. Muscles twitched and bunched and twitched and tore apart and sweet Irk his handhishandhisHAND.

The PAK did nothing. No anesthetics to ease him. No nanites in his bloodstream to heal him. Nothing. Everything pinholed: the whole world was Zim and Zim’s HAND and the shivering fingers and the leather breaking under his claws and his throat closing in on itself.

A voice broke through it. “That looks like it hurts,” Foma observed. She tilted his head towards the screen. “These things happened, Zim. And you hurt your Empire because of it. Maybe not on purpose, maybe for a good cause. Still, they happened, and they happened because of you.”

Zim’s trembling fingers slipped on something wet. His good eye trailed down to the pin and the pink soaking into—

“Hey.” Foma snapped her fingers. “Stay with me, now. Look at me—do not look at the hand. The hand doesn’t matter. Look at me.”

A weak groan trickled from his throat. Zim’s eye rolled up to Foma.

She fixed him with a stare—firm, but not unkind. “Do not,” she whispered, “bury this again. You’re too good for that.”

“I…” Zim swallowed hard, squinting through his blurred vision. “I am?”

The Extractor drew close. “Absolutely. You’ve done so well so far, Zim. Don’t let that progress go. You’re so close. This may be one of the most important moments of your life—be present for it! Don’t block this out.”

He opened his mouth to say something. A fresh wave shot up his arm. A raspy squeak trickled out of him.

 Foma nodded. “Ohh, I know.” She took a cloth and patted the pooling liquid in Zim’s empty eye socket. “I know it hurts. But I need you to hone in on that hurt. Do not shut this out. Stay with it—accept it. And then we can move on. Okay?”

Wet sticky couch stuffing bunched between his clenching fingers. Zim’s eye darted between his hand and the screen and Extractor Foma’s patient, gentle smile. He swallowed a wince. “…okay.”

“Now, you need to understand that actions have causes and effects. Not all the effects you cause are good.” She gestured toward the TV again. “Sometimes those effects hurt our Empire—your Irken Empire. Can you honestly find anything good about the incidents on the screen?”

Not immediately. Not clearly. “I-it wasn’t—I didn’t want…” If he thought a second, maybe he could but his hand—SEARINGblazingsqueezingthrobbing—his hand wouldn’t let him. There had to be something but he couldn’t think of… there had to be. “I did my best! I wan—I only wanted to serve my Empire. Help my Tallest.” He loved his Tallest. Zim loved his Tallest so, so much. “I tried.”

“I know, Zim. And it’s good that you tried. We don’t always succeed in the way we want to when we try, do we? Not even you.”

Muscles in Zim’s pinned hand twitched. He hissed and kept his eye on the screen.

Foma nodded. “If you don’t look at your hand and don’t have to see it, you can almost imagine the pin isn’t there. You can pretend the pin doesn’t bother you or remember a time before the pin went in your hand.” She shook her head with a little chuckle. “But it still hurts, doesn’t it?”

Zim gulped and nodded.

“As much as you’d like to have not eliminated an Almighty Tallest, you are directly responsible for the loss of two.”

But he LOVED his Tallest! Zim would never hurt his Tallest. But the energy absorption blob… the blob he created… He’d never hurt his Tallest on purpose, but—

“You can do this, Zim,” Foma said. “I believe in you.”

It was a nice feeling, Zim thought, to be believed in. Even nicer to know that they meant it.

“I’d like you to answer me this time if you can. Is there anything good in these deeds you’ve done? Is there any good in the demolition of Operation Impending Doom 1? Or pirating an Armada flagship? In the devouring of two Tallest?” Foma’s hand lightly rested on Zim’s shoulders. “Is there any good at all in hurting your Empire?”

“No.” Zim’s shoulder shuddered in a fresh wave of agony. “…no.”

“Who did these things that hurt your Empire?”

“But I only—”

“I need an answer, please.”

He gritted his teeth. Tried to ignore the screaming of his hand. Couldn’t. “I did.”

“Alright, then.”

The pin slid out of Zim’s hand. He screeched.

Foma’s face broke into a smile. “Oh, it’s alright. The pin’s out. We’re done; it’s over.” She took his trembling bleeding hand in hers and swept over the wound with a towel. Reaching back, she retrieved gauze and healing gel from her PAK. “I’ll bet that’s still pretty painful, huh?”

Agonizing. “A little.”

After a quick second’s debate, he dared a glance at his hand. The puncture looked so small. Just a little smaller than a pencil tip. He glanced at the gauze and cringed. With his PAK’s healing capabilities compromised, they’d need to do this the savage way. Disgraceful.

Foma patted his shoulder. “I wish we didn’t need to bring it to this point, but you can be so determined to get hurt. But then, a little hurt can be good sometimes. These things you’ve done happened, and there’s no taking it back.”

The television went blank. Zim still felt sick. “Could the hurt I made be any good?” 

Foma thought about it. “We can learn from it. It’s always good to learn; it helps us go forward.” With her free hand, she cleaned another streak of eye discharge. “What you feel now is normal. It will pass. It won’t fix the past, and there’s still damage to undo, but it will pass.” She smoothed healing gel across the wound, pressed the gauze against his palm, and wrapped it with a bandage. “You did very well, by the way.”

Zim gingerly touched the hollow part of his face. “Do you still have those regrowth capsules?”

“Oh! Oh my, with all the excitement I forgot all about your eye, I’m so sorry.” Foma offered a translucent shiny red orb. It reminded Zim of the fish eggs he’d seen in that documentary about the sharks and clownfish. “Same color to match, right?”

“Yes.” The eye capsule went down hard and slimy.

“You may not feel like sleeping, but try to get some rest anyway. It will help the new eye grow.” She tucked the Fweezian blanket over his shoulders. “I know you’ve had a rough time, but the worst is over, I think. We’ve had a breakthrough.”

The living room lights dimmed as the Extractor turned towards the kitchen.

“Wait, where are you going?” Zim dug his claws into the fur. Not that he feared being alone in his own base, but it didn’t feel safe. For her. It wouldn’t be safe for her. “You shouldn’t wander by yourself in a base full of unsecured Vortians.”

“The Vortlings are asleep, and I’ll be another room away. I need to make some calls.” Foma glanced over her shoulder with a bright crescent of a smile. “You concentrate on getting some sleep.” She vanished into the dark of the kitchen.

The wind had stopped. Outside, high crests and low valleys of snow gathered in the windowsill. It looked like piles of ice cream, or maybe shaving cream. GIR liked eating shaving cream. 

Zim watched the snowfall until there was nothing in the glass but a block of white. He missed his robot.

Chapter Text

SESSION LOG IV (Side A)

Zim cracked one eye open. Then the other. Both seemed to work, though it took a few blinks to focus his optics. The flickering monitor light caught the blue accent stripes in the lavender walls and cast the corners of the room in sharp relief. He drew the fur blanket off his head and blinked at the enormous shadow looming over the vending machines. His. Zim’s shadow stood so tall the tips of his antennae touched the ceiling. So big it conquered the entire wall. So big one might never see the little Irken attached to it.

A cold sugarwater waited for him in the cupholder of the plush armchair. Was it supposed to be a reward or a bribe? Or just that bizarre consumption regimen the Extractor insisted upon? It didn’t really matter; he wasn’t thirsty anyway.

Somewhere between closing his eyes and opening them again, he’d been brought back to the break room. This strange match-for-match replica of the same break room used by Vort Team 12 once upon a time, when Vortian and Irken scientists alike shared the same space. The place where they knocked back energy powders in the vicious crunch to meet the deadline for The Massive’s design presentation. 

It smelled more of office and less of mammal sweat, had fewer tables, and the wall didn’t have that dent from when someone headbutted through a blueprint and into the drywall, but more or less the same. The old break room used to have clocks too—four of them, and all in different number languages and time zones. Zim supposed without a work schedule, this room didn’t need them. Why keep clocks with nowhere to be?

Not for the first time, he wondered why the Extractor bothered with such a painfully accurate replica in the first place. Foreign retrofit materials came rare and expensive after the Vort takeover. For someone whose department needed funding, she didn’t act like it. Maybe she’d worked out a deal for second-skin materials, or took out a loan. He wanted to ask her about it, but…

Zim peered over the armchair’s backboard. At the far end of the room, Extractor Foma’s neural nodes flashed in bright erratic spurts as she watched numbers scroll up the monitor. Every few minutes, she spoke a number or two and checked the multiple data pads on her desk before returning to the screen. She’d either been sucked into the vicious world of competitive Sudoku or was fighting a bidding war. Both activities known for turning even the most docile drones into bloodthirsty ravagers. Zim’s break room question didn’t seem worth it.

In the corner of his eye, the shadow of Zim’s crooked PAK leg coiled across the glass of the broken vending machine. With the front chassis closed, nobody would know at a glance anything was wrong with it. Zim knew better. It didn’t function, and it never would again. Not unless someone found a motherboard to replace the one he’d broken. He recoiled at the scent of burnt coils and coagulated sugar. Anything inside worth salvaging had spoiled days ago, but might have been saved if someone moved them to cold storage, like a refrigerator.

Zim had a refrigerator in his base’s kitchen, but the kitchen didn’t work either. The whole base didn’t—

He shrank down into the fur blanket. Zim had better things to worry about than faulty equipment. Like the invasion. Yes. Yes, he had a mission to get back to.

But how was he supposed to complete an invasion mission without a base? Or a computer? Or a SIR unit? All the weasels he’d prepped for Phase II: Stage 42.2 had all exploded. And Zim had been missing from Skool for so long, the humans had to have noticed by now. Especially if Dib…

A sick, empty feeling gnawed at Zim’s spooch. He drew the blanket over his head and went back to sleep.

Sleep, Zim decided, wasn’t so bad after all. He couldn’t remember why he’d been so opposed to the idea.

Sleep mode ran quiet. Peaceful. No questions. No answers. No arguments. No confrontations. No disgusting children staring at him, no empty houses, no filthy backstabbing nemesis unraveling every scrap of progress he’d sewn together.

Nothing at all. Just sleep.

It was nice to sleep.

With someone trustworthy to keep watch, sleep was safe. It was nice to be safe, too.

“Do you want him in physical or simulation?”

Sometimes at low tide, when the sleep waves went thin and shallow, Zim surfaced. Sort of. He’d rise to a strange milky place between awake and not-awake. Aware enough to know things happened around him, but asleep enough not to know what. Impressions without outlines.

“Physical, but keep it light for now. Tell Interrogation they can raise it to 1.3 if he gets difficult, but I doubt we’ll need it. He hasn’t seen his litter in almost a cycle; most of the work’s done for us.”

Sentences without subjects passed overhead like freight ships dragging cargo to unknown and unimportant places. Dinner orders for double combo meals with extra churros. Status updates. Casualty stats. A whispered debate about child visitation negotiations and something called “candy methods” versus “stick methods”.

“Tell him to take Interrogator Froosh along. He needs the experience, and there’s safety in numbers.”

“Yes, my Extractor.”

“Oh, and try to contact Invader Larb one more time before you start. He might have something.”

“Yes, Extractor.”

Once, between the sleep tides, Zim got the odd feeling of being watched. His antenna twitched at the hum of a hovering camera monitor. He opened one eye, squinted at the bulky Irken staring back at him through the screen, and closed it again.

“Huh. So that’s him?” The voice in the monitor chuckled. “Doesn’t look so tough to me.”

“Of course not, Cheepers. He’s asleep, and you wouldn’t know a security leak if it shot you in the face.” The blanket folded back, and Foma’s hand reached in to take Zim’s floppy wrist. She unwrapped the bandages, rubbed a thumb over the healed wound, and set his hand back down. “If you’d seen him at the beginning, you—”

“I would’ve kicked his head in and fixed the whole thing in five minutes.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” The eye roll was practically audible.

“He’s drone size! You’re telling me it took months to wrangle an undersized def—”

Foma shushed the monitor and whispered something harsh about letting Zim sleep, followed by scolding certain parties for getting sloppy with their prison security.

The monitor whispered back that certain other parties were too shrimpy to have opinions of their tallers’ prison protocols.

Zim hissed at both of them, dug deeper into the blanket, and went back to sleep.

If Irkens had to suffer reruns of events that had already happened, then those reruns ought to at least be fun. Or useful. Even the scary ones were better than the boring ones, but only the PAK got to choose the channel.

Zim’s data banks suffered centuries of dusty old reruns. A constant feed of nonsense clips of nothing: Playbacks of training exercises and trivia drills in the Education Plug. Wiping down his ship’s pilot stick after GIR drooled hot dog juice all over it. Reviewing Devastis high scores while Elite Tallest Red held screaming matches with Elite Sponch over stats and kill counts. Their squad surrounding Elite Tallest Purple as he detailed how to tell the difference between simulated and physical torture sessions and why Skoodge’s face was worse than both combined. That one time a hideous dirtchild lashed Zim to a tetherball pole. Stuffing his organs back inside him after some feckless moron forgot to label all the landmines. Normal dumb stuff.

It had been said that the point of reruns was to refresh old data in case it became relevant again. It had also been said that reruns were the PAK running prediction scenarios and picking out what an Irken needed for those scenarios. All silly superstitious nonsense born of superstition and silliness. Reruns were randomized. You might luck out with memories of how to carve oneself out of a stomach the day before they got devoured. More likely, you just relived being disemboweled by scavengers for no reason. Still better than this long thread of nothing events from nothing days. Blank sleep ended in a blink, but this time-suck of reruns took forever.

“This is taking forever!”

Even the reruns knew it.

“It's been at least a forever and three quarters,” grumbled the rerun of Tallest Purple.

“Yeah, seriously,” added Rerun Red. “You made it sound like this was gonna be quick. Like some kind of off-duty project you could knock out in a weekend. It’s been at least ten weekends, Foma. Ten weekends isn’t quick, it’s the opposite of quick!”

Their voices floated in the aether behind Zim’s incredible regrown eyes. No visuals… odd. A memory he didn’t remember well, perhaps? Zim had a lot of those.

“I thought you just said you’re almost done.”

The Tallest were Almighty, but not infinite. Not infinite in patience, and not infinite in mercy either. Not even in their most generous of moods. Not even with their best and most favored Invaders who should’ve been farther along in the invasion process.

“It’s not like—” Rerun Purple paused to swallow the rest of something. “—like we don’t have other stuff to do. I’unno why you need to drag it out. If it’s not working, it’s not working.”

Zim flinched in his sleep.

He hadn’t been that long to decimate all of mankind, had he? Zim utilized his time to the best of his incredible ability. There’d been no unnecessary production breaks or progress gaps; each day broke ground on new plans, mobilized current plans, or finalized an old plan. He worked, and work meant progress.

But perhaps Larb’s easy-mode Vort assignment had set an unrealistic precedent of what good progress looked like. Or perhaps none of the other Invaders got saddled with a spur in their spooch constantly meddling in their designs. None of the others had a Dib breathing down their necks, peeking in their windows, or sniffing at their standard-issue rations.

One year. Nine weeks. Eight days. Four hundred and eighty-nine days in all, before the evaluation put him on hiatus. Skoodge took Blorch in a third of that time.

How far could Zim have gone by now without some putrid Earth creature getting in the way? Or the savage skin-melting weather? Or his equipment backfiring or his own minions gone AWOL or his slow communication lines delaying deliveries by precious days or. Or.

Or maybe.

“Even if you repair the gears and refill the lubricants, faulty software still can’t tell the parts what to do.”

Or maybe it was Zi—

No. No, that couldn’t have been it.

The reason didn’t matter. Regardless of the excuse, Zim still had a four hundred and eighty-nine day mission and nothing to show for it. No wonder The Tallest had grown impatient. How could he have let it happen? To claw out this once in a generation opportunity and then squander it by whittling away the hours like some sort of whittle drone.

“Besides,” continued the rerun of Tallest Red, “if you did as much as you say you did, then he oughta be subdued by now, right? So just do it now and get it over with.”

“It’s a delicate procedure, My Tallest.” A new voice. Extractor Foma’s. “I understand your frustration, but I’m afraid almost done still isn’t the same as being done.”

Wait. Why would Zim remember his evaluator speaking to his Tallest before the mission’s hiatus? That could only mean…

Zim opened his eyes, squinting through the glare of the giant monitor reflected in the vending machines.

At the end of the room, Foma’s silhouette stood tiny below the gigantic frowns of The Almighty Tallest. “We’ve cracked a critical point in the debugging process, but we need more than a crack. With…” She paused as Tallest Purple’s frown deepened. “Without a solid break, he still won’t understand enough to appreciate what’s happening to him. Trying it now could mean another relapse. Or worse.”

It hadn’t been a rerun after all. Zim chuckled under his breath. How absurd! Why would Zim remember his Tallest being upset with him?

“As much as you’d like to have not eliminated an Almighty Tallest, you are directly responsible for the loss of two.”

Zim gripped the collar of his uniform, fingers clenching and unclenching the flexible material.

“Who did these things that hurt your Empire?”

A silent moment passed on the monitor. The Tallest looked at each other. Red leaned back with a skeptical squint. “Worse, how?”

“Worse than Operation Impending Doom 1,” Foma said. “At the very least.”

Zim slid out of the Vort armchair. The heel of his boot bumped something hollow and cardboard—an empty carton from Shloogorgh's. It still smelled of grease and salt. Foodcourtian snacks lasted forever, consumable weeks after leaving the fryer. They were made to buy in bulk, designed to outlast sieges, feed multi-lightyear treks, and withstand bad poetry slams. He’d learned that when Gashloog taught him how to work the fryer during Zim’s temporary banish—his senten—

Zim’s work assignment.

IRKEN FOOD DRONE: CLASS F.

The temporary work assignment done as punish—as compensation for the unforeseen complications of Operation Impending Doom 1. The one he’d been relieved of when Zim proved his endurance and passion for his true calling at The Great Assigning. The temporary work assignment waived when The Tallest showed him mercy.

Mercy was a finite resource, true, but Zim knew his Tallest. He loved his Tallest. And The Tallest knew Zim, too. More than anyone they knew and understood Zim’s potential, in spite of his transgressions. It’s why they’d offered him a second chance.

“If you were Tallest, would you reward such a soldier by making them an Invader?”

No, he wouldn’t. Not unless he had a good reason. Zim didn’t know that reason, but he didn’t have to. He only knew he’d been given an incredible opportunity. And what had he done with his four hundred and eighty-nine day opportunity?

Peering behind the chair, Zim craned his neck to see the wall-sized Tallest staring into the break room. They’d called, yet nobody had woken him up or summoned him. Judging from the speakers’ low volume and Foma’s hushed tone, they hadn’t planned to invite him into the call anytime soon. Not that he looked at all presentable for a high audience in the first place. Zim frowned his reflection: growth bags under his shiny new eye, crooked antenna, wrinkled uniform, scuffed boots, and a crooked PAK leg angled above his head like a defective signpost. What a sight.

It sounded like he’d caught Foma in the middle of a progress report of the… evaluation? Were they still in the evaluation stage? They must have been. The Extractor told him twice it wasn’t an interrogation, so what else could it be?

Then again, if Foma wanted to deliver good news, wouldn’t she want to wake him up to show off the results? It could be she wanted to save the big reveal for the end. She’d sounded intent on completing the process before doing anything else. Her colleagues had warned her not to come. They’d called Zim a lost cause. The impatient fools. Short-sighted simpletons, all of them. What would they know? None of them were debuggers or evaluators. Little wonder they’d given up so soon. But not the Extractor.

“I believe in you.”

Zim smiled. Not the Extractor and not his Tallest, either. The Tallest allowed her to come in the first place; they’d known the truth before anyone else.

Even so, the grace and patience of a Tallest had limits. For Invaders and Extractors, alike.

Foma sat stiffly in her hoverchair. Her voice held the same calm even flow, but the tips of her claws dug deep into the armrest. “We have the choice of doing this fast or doing this right. With all due respect, My Tallest, it’s far better to do it right. Zim’s loyalty is imperative.”

Edging closer, Zim saw the determined glint of her pink eyes as she glanced at the columns of notes and data in the monitor’s sidebar. The light winked off a pale scar that he hadn’t noticed before: a messy crooked thing that ran jawline to neckline. Either an old war scar he’d never noticed or a souvenir from an exceptionally fussy Vortling.

“If I learned anything last night, it’s that we absolutely cannot lose Zim. We need him, and we need him with us.” Her finger tapped the desk with a conclusive thunk. “Besides, I couldn’t uproot now even if I wanted to. His Box is already—”

Zim’s foot bumped a half-empty soda can.

Extractor Foma turned and acknowledged him with a nod and a slight smile.

That was all the invitation he needed. A stack of documents tumbled in paper flurries as Zim skittered up to the desk, the broken PAK leg bumping and scraping the wall as he went. He didn’t have an address planned but he could always wing it. “Hey, how’s my head look?”

“It’s—”

“That’s what I thought.” He smoothed down his antennae, but the crooks and kinks re-kinked themselves sooner than he could straighten them out. Whatever, if he kept them low nobody’d notice anyway. Clearing his throat, Zim took his place next to the Extractor’s chair. “My—”

Foma held up two fingers for pause and gestured towards the monitor. “Um, if you’ll pardon me a moment, My Tallest?”

“Sure, whatever.” Tallest Red clicked his tongue and fell back against his chair with a belabored sigh. “Don’t take all day, huh? We’ve got important stuff to do.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

While The Almighty Tallest conferred amongst themselves in matters of Empire and territory—with occasional snickering—the break room came back to life. Lights flickered on section by section as the hidden speakers eased into a breezy little elevator song.

Foma’s chair turned and lowered itself until the tips of her boots bumped the tile. She leaned down to fold her arms over her knees, a centimeter shy of Zim’s eye level. “Well, there he is! I was wondering when you’d decide to get up. The new eye came in well, I see. Oh, and your hand is so much better!”

Always with the needling of status and health reports, this one. If it already healed, it didn’t matter anymore. Zim rolled his eyes and pushed himself on tiptoe to see behind the hoverchair. Two PAK legs pushed out to give him an extra boost, but without a third, it unbalanced his weight and dropped him to the floor again.

He bounced on his heels and waved his arms at the monitor, but they didn’t see. The Tallest had their backs turned to him, absorbed in a small model tower constructed of pocky sticks. Surely architecture planning could wait until later. Zim waved harder. “My Tallest! Hey! MY TALLEST!”

Still nothing. Why did they not hear—? Zim glared at the crossed-out speaker symbol at the top of the monitor. “You dare mute me? Me, Zim?”

Foma looked between Zim and the computer. “Well, yes. It’s not polite to listen in on someone’s private conversation.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you deny The Almighty Tallest access to one of their own operatives?”

“Of course not; they can un-mute us whenever they like.” Foma took a moment to straighten her back and crack her shoulders. “You came in when we needed a recess anyway. We’ll get back to it soon. But what about you? Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine, I—”

“Do you need anything?”

Zim had to scoff. What a question. He barely knew how to start. What didn’t he need? He needed his base back, for one. He needed his base of operations in operation, he needed his minions present and on-duty, he needed his mission back on track, he needed his PAK at full capacity, and before he did any of that, Zim needed to pass his evaluation so he could assume his rightful place as Irk’s star Invader.

Fortunately, he could tackle all those things at once with just one thing. “I need to speak to The Tallest.” His eyes bounced between the Extractor and Tallest Purple licking frosting off a tower spire. “Now.”

“You will soon enough, but I’m afraid you can’t right now.” Extractor Foma gestured to the atlas of notes, numbers, charts, illustrations, and session logs on her desk. And also a drawer of assorted fabrics… forensic samples? “You caught me in the middle of a progress report, and I don’t want to derail it. If you can wait until the end, you can—”

Zim bit back a hiss. “I can speak now. The presentation’s about MY progress, isn’t it?”

“Among other things, yes.”

“Am I not Zim?”

She nodded.

“Then who is better qualified to speak on the behalf of Zim than Zim? Zim is me!” He patted his own Zim-chest of his own Zim-self.

“You raise a good point,” Foma observed, “but I still don’t want to go on a tangent. I had an outline and everything. Now that you’re awake, I wonder if there’s another compromise we could find.”

Not likely. A good compromise was like a tie: nobody won and everyone walked away unhappy.

“Maybe instead of telling The Tallest about your progress, you could show them instead?” Foma tapped her chin. “They certainly weren’t happy about you disobeying orders so what if…”

“Nobody’s given me any orders.”

“True. Oh!” Foma snapped her fingers and sat up, all smiles and sparkle eyes. She could do propaganda posters if the whole information extraction thing didn’t work out. “What if we showed them how good you are at waiting patiently? Huh?”

Zim crossed his arms and scowled. “You’re just trying to mollify me into some sort of state of mollitude.”

 She laughed. “Yes. But I’m not wrong, either. I think it might truly impress them to see how you’ve changed. After all, in The Tallest’s last call, you hijacked my chair and demanded their attention. I don’t think they seemed happy about that.”

As if The Tallest concerned themselves with a little hijacking. It didn’t even count as a hijack, he gave it back in the end. That said, Zim had been trained in the art of stealth: a hallmark in an Invader’s repertoire. Blitzes spoke louder than bargains. If he surprised even The Tallest with his sneaky stillness, it could indeed impress them.

At the start of all this, Foma had proposed the evaluation as more of a collaboration. Working together to tell a complete story. If Zim had done the damage the Extractor insisted that he’d done, a collaborator could prove useful.

“But I can still talk to them later, right?”

“That’s up to them,” said Foma. “But I’ll gladly open the floor for you if they allow it. Does that sound fair to you?”

It did, though the idea didn't thrill him at all. It felt as if he lost more than he’d gain, and the commanders of an entire empire ran on a tight schedule. What if the presentation talk used up all the time and didn’t leave any for him? He supposed he could always recapture the conversation as a last resort.

“Your proposal is acceptable.” Zim nodded to himself as the plan drew together. “I will lie in wait and when the time is right, I, ZIM shall rise from the shadows of discretion! I, the empire’s model of the Irken soldier, perfectly smelted from the core of the smeeteries. I, the very pinnacle of—hey, what’s that?”

“Presentation aids.” Foma reached into the strange pile of fabrics she’d taken from the drawer and pulled out… Zim. Not the real Zim (for of course there could be one and only Zim) but some sort of soft fabric facsimile of Zim.

It had two little arms and hands, complete with tiny leather gloves, and antennae made of stiff fuzzy ribbon. Its big glass eyes shimmered when the light hit them, and when Foma moved it, the eyes sloshed and rolled around like a dead fish in a washing machine. They were so big they took up the whole head and left no room for a mouth. The little fabric Zim came with an oversized PAK, yet no legs—its insides were hollowed out, which the flesh Zim was thankfully not.

“You forgot the legs. And the meats.” A statement that Zim needed more snacks, perhaps? An indictment of defection? He poked the Cloth Zim’s uniform. “Why do you present The Tallest with an incomplete Zim?”

“Watch.” Foma’s hand slipped into the empty uniform and the cloth Zim—it moved! It waved its little hand at him and nodded and everything.

“AUGH!” Zim jumped back, squinting at this fabric doppelganger. “What sort of trickfoolery is…?” Flesh Zim jabbed Cloth Zim where the squeedlyspooch should have been and felt Foma’s palm on the inside. The thing moved as if possessed by one of those… not-alive things. A ghost. It might've been the work of one of those "squeegee boards". “Have you been meddling in stuffomancy?”

The Extractor huffed. “Don’t be vulgar. This is the latest technological marvel introduced to the Empire. They call it…” Grinning, she made Cloth Zim waggle his little antenna. “…a puppet. They’re all the rage.”

“I see!” What wonders would The Irken Empire dream up next? Zim tapped his double’s glass eye. It didn’t have eyelids, so it stared blankly at everything all the time. Kind of like a corpse without all the rotting and smelling and such. “So, you’re telling them good stuff, right?”

A mere formality of a question, for Zim’s maintenance sessions had all gone perfectly. He’d done everything that had been asked of him with minimal screaming and orifice leakage. There could be no un-good stuff to report, surely. But in the last however many days (months?) he’d spent inside the break room, Zim had learned that different Irkens sometimes held very different opinions for the same events.

As seconds passed without a response, Zim began to fear this might be one of those times. “It is good stuff? Right?”

“I’m telling them the truth,” said Foma. “As for what parts of it are good or bad, well, that’s all in how we decide to see it.”

Setting the Zim puppet aside, she reached back into her drawer to fish out a large glass cube, another smaller cube, and a slightly bigger Irken puppet. It almost resembled Sizz-lor, except this one had a smile sewn on his face. So really, it didn’t look like him at all. (Maybe if someone bolted Skoodge’s face to Sizz-lor’s body?)

Zim watched her test the cloth Frylord’s stubby arms—complete with velcroed spatula—and frowned. Hopefully she didn’t plan on recreating Zim’s entire life cycle with these cloth Irkens. They’d be here all week.

Foma lined her supplies on her desk, just out of sight of the monitor camera, and nodded to herself. “That should do it. Are you ready to show The Tallest how much you’ve improved?”

Zim nodded.

The monitor unmuted. “—like a Kerillian death cruiser hit him right between the eye stalks.” Almighty Tallest Red tossed the empty glass over his shoulder as a team of drones scrambled to catch it. “It's not like I have all day waiting for this dork to put his organs back in his chest cavity so I say to archduke—oh hey, she’s back.”

Tallest Purple ignored him, still focused on his skyscraper of blueberry pocky. The tower wobbled ominously on the table drone’s head as the tip of his tongue slid another stick from the middle. He twirled the pocky in his mouth, narrowing his eyes when the structure trembled once. Twice. Stayed firm. “HA!” He twirled the pocky stick in Red’s face. “Try and beat THAT.”

Extractor Foma flicked a thoughtful antenna at the pocky tower and cleared her throat. “Apologies again for that delay, My Tallest. Now, if we could resume from where we left off? It won’t be long.”

“Better not. It’s already been…” Tallest Red yanked a pocky stick from the tower and called over his shoulder. “Hey, sundial! How long’s this call been?”

The drone with an enormous crystal dial belted to her head examined her shadow on the floor. “Uh, nine minutes, ten seconds, and thirteen micro-seconds, My Tall—”

“NINE whole minutes already! And that’s not even counting your little snack break or whatever.” He held up a hand before the Extractor could apologize again. “Just get on with it.” Red side-eyed Purple, who squinted at the jenga tower with steepled hands. “My turn’s not gonna be for a while anyway.”

“With pleasure, sirs. As I was saying, it’s in our best interest to keep Zim close and within the Irken Empire. We’ve reached the point of no return now that his Box has progressed.”

Tallest Red yawned and fell back into his nest of pillows. He buffed his magnificent clawtips on his chest plate and held them up to the light. “Uh-huh…”

Foma nodded to herself. “Mm.”

Out came Cloth Sizz-lor with his tiny paper hat, bobbing along the bottom of the monitor. Foma performed some sort of puppet necromancy to make the little Frylord salute to the camera. “Why, look who’s here, My Tallest!” the Extractor cried. “It’s little Frylord Sizz-lor.”

“Sure, tell him to get me an order of—” Almighty Tallest Purple did a double-take. Both antennae went straight up, eyes wide and a pocky stick hanging halfway out of his mouth. “HEY!” The table drone went flying as Purple kicked him off-screen, jenga tower and all. “Hey! Hey Red, look it’s Sizz-lor except better because he’s a puppet! He’s got the stupid little hat and the ugly apron and everything. Re—RED, are you looking?”

“Yeah I s—”

“Look!” Tallest Purple’s great and mighty head swooped closer to the monitor. Even at close range, he didn’t notice Zim standing right next to the chair. Zim’s stealth skills would be a marvel to behold if he weren’t too stealthy to behold in the first place. “Red, look, you see it?” 

Tallest Red smacked the finger poking his eye. “Yes, I see it already! Sheesh.” He raised an eye ridge at the puppet. “What’s he holding? Snacks?”

“It can’t be snacks, it’s clear inside, see?” Purple stroked his chin. “Unless it’s a box of invisible snacks. Or microsnacks?”

“Let me answer that question with another question.” Foma moved Cloth Sizz-lor closer to the camera so that The Tallest could see the glass box he held. “What do we do with the sad that we feel?”

Purple held up a finger. “Lock it up and never look at it again.”

“Absolutely correct, My Tallest.” Foma tapped the top of the glass. “This is Sizz-lor’s S.A.D. Box. As we all know, Irkens back up all their experiences—everything they’ve ever seen, heard, or felt—in their PAK’s memory files.”

She pulled out a handful of marbles painted with sad frowny faces, barfing frowny faces, and tiny voice bubbles demanding to speak to the manager. “Sometimes we collect memories that are a little heavy. It could be a memory of losing your fleet, for example.” Foma dropped a marble in Cloth Sizz-lor’s open PAK. “Or the devouring of a Tallest.” Five more marbles. “Or maybe that time you were captured by the enemy and spent eight years in a carnivore meat market after they discovered Irkens regrow limbs and you just had to wait for someone to get you because all the retrieval ships got caught in the blockade…” Foma’s right eye twitched. She added twelve more marbles. “Or the time you dropped your ice cream sandwich.” Two marbles.

Zim’s head poked over the desk. One of the stray marbles rolled into his hand. He scratched at the paint and wondered how many marbles losing a nemesis got you.

“These memories are how we learn, and when added to The Collective Memory, they also teach the rest of the Empire. They’re far too important to delete.” She piled the rest of the marbles in Cloth Sizz-lor’s PAK.

The more marbles she dropped in, the heavier the little PAK became. By the time Foma added the last five, Cloth Sizz-lor leaned so far back he almost fell off her hand.

“We can’t carry all that around with us all the time. These feelings and memories are too big and heavy. At best, they’re a distraction from our work. And at worst…” One last marble clacked into Cloth Sizz-lor’s PAK. He wobbled and tumbled off Foma’s hand and onto the desk. “Oh, that’s it for our Frylord. Who will make Ultimate Donut Burger Ice Cream Supreme Explosions for his Tallest now?”

Purple gasped.

Red shook his head. “Tragic.”

“And preventable.” The Extractor gathered up the puppet and all the feelings marbles. This time, she transferred the marbles from the PAK to Cloth Sizz-lor’s little glass box. Slowly, the puppet balanced out and shifted upright. “There, much better.” Foma smiled and patted the tiny fabric Frylord on the head. “Now with everything in its place, he can go back to making lots of fries!”

Cloth Sizz-lor held up his aluminum spatula in triumph, eager to get back to work. Zim humphed and poked the puppet’s stuffed legs. Either the Extractor didn’t know the real Sizz-lor very well or the real Sizz-lor had a too-many-marbles problem.

“Of course, every Box is different for every Irken. Some don’t have anything in their Box at all, and some stuff it until it overflows. Sometimes,” said Foma, glancing between The Tallest, “Irkens even drop their Box and all their feelings spill out—usually when it’s not locked correctly or stored well. And naturally, someone who knows how…” Foma flipped open the top of Cloth Sizz-lor’s Box and plucked out a sad-face marble. “…can extract those hidden bad feelings.”

Tallest Red humphed under his breath. “Sure, but what’s all that got to do with Zim?”

Zim humphed. Finally, someone had started to ask the real questions. He understood the need to over-explain, but Foma really didn’t do herself any favors keeping The Tallest in suspense when they’d invested themselves so deeply into Zim’s progress.

Red stretched the thin metal cord of his spine, rolling his shoulders to readjust his position. “You’re saying there’s some kind of… thing with his Box? Is it defective or cracked or what?”

“That’s the thing, My Tallest. I don’t believe it is at all.” Out came the Cloth Zim. He waved at the camera.

“Oh, hey.” Tallest Red chuckled under his breath. “There’s one of him, too. Kinda big for a Zim, though.”

“And he doesn’t have a mouth,” added Tallest Purple. “I like this version. You think we can trade Zims?” That Purple, always a kidder.

Foma tapped one of the feelings marbles with a hard little clack. “Most memories are solid. Perspective or perception might change, but memories of the event itself doesn’t.” She took a different frowny marble from the desk—this one made out of some sort of rubber. “Zim’s memory fail-safes are nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Denial to the point where the event may as well not exist, and it applies to everything, regardless if those events occurred ten cycles or ten seconds ago. His memories mush together and shift until they’re something else entirely.” The frowny marble squished between her fingers, warping the rubber until the frown stretched into… either a smile or someone trying not to vomit. It kind of reminded Zim of the Skool Class President.

Tallest Purple tilted his head at the second box on the desk. Double-walled and reinforced by steel brackets, the glass cube sported a host of deadbolts and padlocks. A Moo-ping 10 of a Box.

“That one’s supposed to be Zim’s?” asked Red. “Keeping all his junky data locked down like a… secret lockdown place?” He glanced between the box and the puppet Zim. “No wonder he’s a wreck, that thing’s way too big for him.”

“Especially with those dumb little arms!” Purple laughed. “He can’t even carry it. Nobody could drag that thing around all the time.”

Tallest Red popped a can of cookie dough and chugged it. “Tch. Nobody that short, anyway.”

On Foma’s desk, Cloth Zim struggled and failed to lift the glass cube. He couldn’t get his arms around two sides. He tried lifting it from the bottom, but it was too heavy to lift. It moved a tiny bit when he shoved it with his puppety shoulders but not far. Why Cloth Zim didn’t simply hire someone else to move the box or use a pulley instead, Actual Flesh Zim had no clue.

“An excellent observation, My Tallest.” Extractor Foma plucked at the puppet’s antenna as she made it open the box’s giant lid. “Boxing’s a vulnerable process; you can’t put something inside without opening it first. Every addition risks a containment breach, and Zim filters so much data he'd need to add items constantly.” Cupping her chin, she leaned on top of the glass box, letting the Cloth Zim prod at one of the chunky padlocks. “I couldn’t see how he accessed such a tightly secured S.A.D. Box so often or so quickly. The problem was I’d kept thinking of him as a normal Irken.”

Zim pushed himself up by the ball of his foot to see farther over the desk. The filigree cloth tickled the underside of his chin. In the corner of his eye, he still saw the scorch mark under the lace. He frowned.

When he looked back up, he found the Extractor gazing back with a slight smile. “As we’ve all learned by now, Zim is no ordinary Irken. I assumed it was a matter of a high-security lock, but that’s not quite it.”

The locks popped open and Foma dropped Cloth Zim inside. The lid slammed so hard Zim’s teeth rattled.

“It is a tough Box, but he’s not carrying it. He’s in it. Everything else, everything he filters, is outside. Nothing touches him unless he lets it in first.” Foma knocked on the five-inch-thick glass. The sound echoed and bumped the Zim puppet inside. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” She sounded impressed.

The Almighty Tallest frowned at the little cloth Irken sitting alone in his glass cube and staring back with little glass eyes. An unsaid thought traveled between them as they exchanged looks. The more Tallest Purple meditated on this particular thought, the more he frowned. He nibbled a pocky stick he’d been keeping behind his left antenna and pointed at the glass box. “He’s in his Box.” His voice had gone oddly quiet. “Like. All the time?”

“I believe so.”

Purple’s frown wrinkled into a grimace. “Ew.”

“It’s not unusual to Box oneself after a hard time. Usually, it’s healthy—a moment to regroup, recoup, and reorganize. Kind of like a conscious hibernation.” Foma angled her head down, and her soft understanding smile found Zim as he stared at his puppet self. “But we all need to come back out sometime, don’t we?”

Zim hunched his shoulders, glanced at her, and back at the box.

Tallest Red beckoned a fresh bucket of popcorn to the couch. “So you just gotta open his Box and dump him out? Doesn’t sound too hard.” His tongue skewered a line of popcorn kernels and dropped them into his mouth. “Sounds like you shoulda been done already.”

“Oh, it’s not hard at all. I’ve already done it… my, I’ve lost count how many times. But once he’s out of the Box, he hops right back in and locks it, and I need to start all over again.” The hoverchair tipped back as Foma took the glass box into her arms and set it in her lap. “Ending the extraction process early means he’ll fight even harder to go back in. Done in a new unstable situation, piled on what he’s already been through? I can’t say what’ll happen. With Zim’s track record…” She trailed off to let Zim’s past speak for itself.

The Tallest exchanged another look. Neither appeared too happy. “Then what are you going to do?” asked Red.

Foma lifted her hand to reveal a crack in the glass—a tiny starburst point jutting out in all directions. It reminded Zim of the scorch mark. Or a star. Maybe an explosion from far away. All the same thing, really. The Extractor pulled a small hammer from her PAK and hit the crack point-blank.

The glass box shattered. Puppet Zim tumbled out and into her waiting hand.

A slow grin eased across Purple’s face. “Nice.”

“I like to think so.” Foma winked and waved one of Cloth Zim’s little hands. “With the progress we’ve made in the last few sessions, he’ll be back with us in no time.”

Tallest Red nodded. “And you’re still sending the footage when this whole thing’s over, right?”

“With backups, multiple angles, and full audio, My Tallest. It should be sent the moment the project completes.”

Footage? Zim blinked at the blank ceiling, full of hidden speakers and hidden wires and gears. Yes, the break room had been recording the whole time, hadn’t it? With that and the memory data from both of their PAKs, there’d be plenty of footage. The Extractor used it to review memory errors, but Zim never considered that footage might be saved or shared. The Tallest technically owned all of it already, he supposed. They owned everything.

But why keep them waiting? The Tallest already grew impatient for updates and wanted their footage. Now would be the perfect time to display Invader Zim’s spectacular growth and devotion for his Empire.

He smacked the desk. “Hey.”

Foma nodded. “Ah, there’s one more thing.” The hoverchair shifted aside to give Zim the floor. Or the desk.

Finally! This one really did prattle on for forever and a weekend with the chance. Zim’s time had come. He clambered onto the desk, revealing himself at last, and stood at attention with his hands clasped behind his back.

Tallest Red rubbed at a smudge on his gauntlet.

Zim shifted his shoulders higher and waited for The Tallest to acknowledge him and the superb skill in the art of stealth, silence, and forbearance the likes of which they’d never seen.

And waited some more.

Tallest Purple chewed his pocky as he flipped through an old cupcake catalog. Strawberry-lemon cream icing was in vogue again, apparently.

Zim cleared his throat. “Greetings, My Tallest.”

“WAUGH!” Purple almost jumped out of his skin. “Where’d you come from?”

Foma looked up from storing the puppets in their drawer. “Oh, he’s been here since we came back from break.”

“No he hasn’t!” Purple’s glare flicked from Zim to Foma to Red and back to Zim. “Has he?”

“Couldn’t have.” Red considered it. “Unless he was asleep… or dead. Maybe he was dead.”

“Oh-ho! I am and always have been VERY alive, My Tallest.” With a sweep of his hand, Zim displayed all of himself and working organs. “You simply didn’t notice due to my guileful stealth as I waited.”

“He’s done a wonderful job of waiting quietly,” Foma added. “All I had to do was ask nicely. Beautiful work, Zim.”

“Yes,” said Zim. “Yes, it was.”

“And you’ve been there and quiet the whole time?” Red conferred with the sundial drone. Exchanged a glance with Purple. Blinked at Zim slowly. “Huh. Not bad.”

Zim quietly vibrated in delight.

“Not to change the subject…” Foma twiddled her fingers as if the idea had just sprung to mind. “…but I wondered if we could rediscuss that funding issue when I got back?”

Red glanced at Zim again. “Mm. We’ll think about it.” He reached for the control panel. “Sign in when you wrap up—seriously, don’t forget that footage. Later, Foma.”

Zim lurched towards the monitor. “My Tallest?”

They’d seen—surely they’d both seen how well he’d done. Zim did a good job. His evaluator said so, and the evaluator didn’t lie, so it had to be true. Zim did a good job! Now was the allotted time for “good job, Zim”. Or “excellent work, soldier”. Maybe even “your improvement is the best we’ve seen in the history of the Empire, we can’t wait to get you back to invading, and also we’re sending you a new cruiser”. A standing ovation or five would be pretty neat, too.

“My Tallest?” Maybe they didn’t hear him. “MY TALLEST?!”

Almighty Tallest Red glanced over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed as he looked Zim up and down.

The transmission cut.

Zim blinked. They’d forgotten to say goodbye to him.

Come to think of it, had they ever given him a formal sign-off before? An immediate example didn’t spring to mind, but so many of Zim’s communication signals had cut off unexpectedly before they’d had the chance. Feeds unstabilized at long distances. This must have been one of those times.

Yes. That was it. Zim frowned at his reflection in the void of the monitor. It had to be it. That “later” had really been meant for both of them—an implication Zim would receive all he deserved at a later date.

The Tallest’s eyes had lit up in surprise and gotten so big when they’d seen how quiet and obedient Zim could be. No, not only surprised. Impressed. As if they’d never seen such behavior from him—as if it should have been impossible.

But why? Perhaps Zim suffered the occasional foible, but he’d always striven to be a model soldier. No one could question that. The Tallest had to know that. They knew him—him, personally—out of trillions of soldiers. How many others did they actually call by name? They’d known his voice in the crowd of The Great Assigning before Zim even graced the stage. Why, then, be so surprised at a basic obedience display? Had they forgotten his amazing skill set? The crooked PAK leg clacked and creaked as Zim shifted his shoulders to sit on the desk. Had he given them a reason to forget? A reason to doubt?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Once he’d completed his improvement and maintenance, it would all be in the past. Upward and onward. The stats would sort themselves out and he’d be back at work.

The music had switched over at some point. Something with peppier horns and whispery ethereal synths, more shopping mall than elevator. Foma’s foot bounced with the tune as she reviewed the session logs. Zim’s uploaded memory data—the compressed archive of all he’d seen and felt, all the secrets no longer secret—scrolled along the bottom like the high-scores reel. Right now, it’d passed the Scientist assignments and dipped into Elite Invader training.

Foma folded her arms on the desk and leaned forward. She glanced between Zim and the old stills of the Tallest before they were Tallest. “It’s different now, isn’t it?”

In her left hand, she held a data pad with several open windows, each window labeled IRKEN FOOD DRONE #1053r404. For an awful moment, Zim feared that question would dip into the dark pit of another. A pit bleak and deep, filled with things Zim’s spooch knew was not and could not be true, and he braced to do battle against it. In the corner of his eye, glass shards of the model box sparkled in the fluorescent lights.

“It’s different,” Foma slowly said, “and it can be hard too, can’t it? The way things change for us. The different ways they can change for others.” She smiled. “But change can be good, even when it's a little hard. Changing means we’re growing and settling into the places we’re meant for.”

“It’s not easy to get there.” Zim hadn’t stopped looking at the glass.

The Extractor nodded.

Zim’s crooked PAK leg scratched against the desk, catching the lace cloth. Before he could untangle it, the Extractor unhooked it herself. An unnecessary gesture, but Zim supposed he may as well let herself be useful. “No, it wasn’t easy.” He grinned and flexed his limber fingers, ready for whatever lay for him in the next assignment. “But I always knew I was meant to be an Invader in the end. And now I am.”

Extractor Foma’s antennae rose slowly. “Oh.” That rosy glow in her pink eyes dimmed as a quiet understanding crawled across her face and settled there. It was an expression he’d never seen in her before: Disappointment. “Oh, Zim.”

“You said—” The question he didn’t want to answer nipped at the back of his boots. “Okay. Alright, maybe there’s a quirk in my encoding but—BUT! But you didn’t say that.”

She blinked at him.

“You SAID what we’re meant for, not what we’re encoded for.” Those could still be different things. Nobody ever said they absolutely couldn’t be different things. Exceptions to the rule had to have happened. Yes. Exceptional cases for exceptional Irkens. Zim was exceptional. “And I’m meant to—” He clenched his fist. “I AM an Invader.”

Extractor Foma gave him a long flat stare and didn’t say anything to that.

Zim stared back and didn’t blink.

The background music shifted into a groovy mellow samba as the monitor switched off.

“Alright.” The Extractor rose to her feet, smoothed out the wrinkles in her grey robes, and stored her hoverchair under the desk. “Come with me.”

She led Zim across the break room and through a door in the wall where there had been no door before. It hadn’t materialized or revealed itself. The door was simply there after not being there.

Zim asked her where the door had come from. He asked if it was some sort of hologram or hidden-seam system or if the walls had unsealed themselves. The Extractor didn’t answer.

The break room fed into a sparse grey hallway without corners lit by a sallow white glow. Something like a tunnel, something like a throat.

Their footsteps echoed, despite the closeness of the walls. “Hey, where are we going?” Zim glanced behind them, where the break room had shrank to a dot in the distance. Had they walked that far already? “Are we going back to my base?”

Foma didn’t answer him. She didn’t even look at him.

He’d expected more of those probing questions. Or statements he couldn’t refute. A confrontation. Scolding. Yelling. She’d never yelled at him before, but everything had a first, and everybody yelled at Zim eventually. Screaming and yelling came naturally to Irkens. Screams meant danger—running from it or causing it or both at once. Zim would’ve preferred screaming about now. It’d be better than nothing.

The silence went on for forever or the next ten steps. Same thing.

She’d said before that Zim had improved. Everything was moving along the way it was supposed to. They were supposed to be almost done, but “almost” wasn’t the same as “done,” and “done” felt farther away than ever.

Zim wondered if she’d exaggerated or overestimated their progress, earlier. Maybe they’d stumbled on another setback. Maybe they had to start from scratch all over again. Or maybe she just planned to walk with him through an infinite hallway until the end of time and never talk again.

Zim tugged at her robes. “Hey.” He tugged harder. “Hey!”

The empty hall breathed wider into a new room with a new door open and waiting for them. Behind it, the room was empty. It seemed about the size of Ms. Bitters’ classroom without all the Skool things inside. Geometric foam covered every inch of the walls, and though it stood empty, it didn’t echo when Zim stepped in.

Extractor Foma stood in the doorway, but didn’t follow him.

Zim poked one of the little foam spikes. The spike sank into itself and slowly rose again. Obstinate little thing. “What is this?”

It didn’t look like a prison cell and didn’t smell like an execution cube. The place bore no sign of saws, needles, knives, hammers, bed straps, chains, chemical containers, or electromagnets used for physical information extraction, either.

Foma leaned forward, her shadow shrunken by the harsh light. “I need you to understand,” she said, “that I am not giving up on you.”

Zim smiled at that.

“But.”

The smile shrank.

“I don’t see how we can continue when you’re not willing to be honest with me.”

“What?!” Zim whirled on her with his teeth bared. Enough patience, enough silence, He’d been patient enough to last 700 quad-cycles, plus interest. “How DARE you imply I’ve been anything but honest! For the past… however long it’s been I’ve done nothing but allow you to drag me through this labyrinthine cycling labyrinth of talk and more talk.”

"Yes. We've talked for a long time, haven't we? Too long, perhaps. I think…” She considered Zim's face a moment. The disappointment he'd seen before had gone away. She just sounded tired. "I think you were right before; we've been going in spirals. As of now, I've done all I can do, and said all that can be said. I think the rest might be up to you."

“But—”

Foma shook her head. “Zim, you can’t even give me your identification.”

“I—” Panicked outrage bubbled in the back of Zim’s throat. He swallowed it. “I—but—have you not heard me? I AM ZIM!”

“Your full identification.”

“I am Irken Invader Zim! PAK number 1053r404!”

Extractor Foma stared at him. She didn’t argue, she didn’t sigh, she didn’t even offer that sad smile she seemed so fond of. Instead, she blinked at him once and closed the door. “When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.”

Chapter Text

SESSION LOG IV (Side B)

The room was forty steps.

Forty steps top to bottom. Forty steps left to right. Forty steps right to left. Forty steps bottom to top.

Zim walked all of them. Then he ran all of them. Twice.

Running faded back to walking and the walking stumbled to sitting and then back to standing. Standing shifted to strolling, the strolling jolted into running and walking and running until the process evened out to solid steady pacing. A sharp fast clip of steps that wouldn’t wear him down, but wouldn’t bore him to death either.

Zim paced the east wall sixty-seven times, the north wall sixty-nine times, the west wall eighty-two times, and the south wall somewhere between ninety-one and twelve-hundred and six times. The southern wall, he thought, had been the one with the door. Or maybe the northern one? He didn’t really know anymore.

All the walls looked the same, and when he looked at them for too long, Zim’s eyes felt fuzzy. Stiff grey foam jutted from the walls in blunted pyramid spikes and inverted trapezoids. Elegant purposeful geometries warped and wrapped around themselves, full of strange pits and hills and prongs and valleys. Frustratingly pliable, the little pyramids bounced back from Irken claws and PAK legs. The walls absorbed physical assault almost as well as they absorbed noise.

The metal tip of Zim’s dysfunctional PAK leg twitched and spat sheets of sparks across the carpet. A lonely sound without an echo. Like all sounds here. The foam walls drank in sound before it got the chance to breathe. They smothered the harsh bite of Zim’s screams. They devoured the click of his claws. The plush endless carpet drank down his footsteps before he made them.

It was quiet here.

No music. No echoes. No background hum of electronics or air filters. Sound came from Zim and only Zim. He heard the creak and hiss of PAK fans and drivers and vents. The low gurgle of his organs shifting inside him. The gentle creak of regrowing bones. Zim heard the rising staccato of Zim’s own vocal cords making words or songs or demands, but the sound of his own lonely voice in the void frightened him sometimes.

He didn’t hear a door open. He never did.

Still, the next time Zim turned around, the Extractor stood there. It was the first time he’d seen her in four-thousand seven-hundred and forty-nine steps (give or take).

“I’m ready to come out and talk now,” he said.

The Extractor blinked. “What is your name and encoding?”

“Irken Invader Zim.”

“Okay.”

And she was gone again.

Zim tried bargaining:

“You know, if you let me leave, I might decide not to tell The Tallest about this crazy little experiment you’re running.”

“I don’t see how this is supposed to be part of the evaluation process when you’re barely here to evaluate anything.”

“...Ah, the silent treatment, is it? Ha. Well, Extractor, two can play at that ga—SPEAK TO ZIM! I DEMAND YOU OPEN YOUR NOISEBOX AND SPEAK TO ZIM!”

Zim tried logic.

“You realize that you’re on a delicate time schedule, don’t you? A whole Information Extraction department is out there waiting for you to come back. And besides, the longer you leave me in here, the longer you force The Tallest to wait. You’ll lose all your favor and your chance to get more funding.”

Zim tried bribery.

“Okay, but it’s not that hard to get more monies, you know. We could collaborate. With your people skills and my insurmountable talent, skill, and intelligence, we could corner the trade markets. Also, I know how to count cards.” It had gotten Zim a lifetime ban from Cashinova, but bans were more a suggestion than a hard rule. Besides, he could always hack the cameras. “Think about it: you, Zim, the crown jewel casinos of Cashinova, a fast cruiser, and a heist for the ages!”

Zim tried bribery he could actually fulfill.

“I’ve got a simulation deck of my own back at my base. A slightly older model perhaps, but I brought it back to working condition and I know how to build one, too. In fact, I’ve run a full lifetime scenario on the Dib-human. You thought Zim forgot his Invader training for interrogation? Why Extractor, you wound me! The scenario worked perfectly, if you’re wondering. If new interrogation sims are what you really need, I could build one for you. Why, I could build dozens. Hundreds! Materials? No matter, I’ve done plenty on budgets far smaller than yours—leave the logistics to me. Think of it: twenty—no, forty new sim decks for Information Extraction, you can keep all the monies you would have spent, and…” Zim paused for effect, for he knew this was the deal-maker. “And we still continue the rest of the session and you dig out all the questions you want. Ask anything you want of me. Zim fears no interrogation!”

“What is your name and encoding?” she asked him.

“Irken Invader Zim.”

“Okay.”

“Aren’t you worried, Extractor? You didn’t leave a vending machine in here and forgot to bring any snacks. What if I use up all my nutritional supplements and need more?”

Though that seemed unlikely, considering how much he’d been snacking lately. Odd that after all that fastidious nagging about Zim’s eating habits she’d cut him off now. Then again, hadn’t most of those been recovery snacks after overheating and injuries? Instead of storing energy, Zim’s body might have spent it all for healing since the PAK couldn’t do it.

Not that it mattered either way. Zim had gone years between snacks before, and those had been far smaller rations than the excess Foma offered. He could do it again, no problem. He didn’t feel hungry anyway. Not really. It wasn’t like he’d formed an unhealthy snack attachment or anything, but it’d be nice to have a sugar water in the meantime.

As a fortunate side-effect of Zim’s… subcompact bone structure, he required only a fraction of the sugar, fats, salts, and such that soldiers twice his height needed. During the blockades of the Snack Wars, Irkens suffered months or years of snacklessness, and they’d lived just fine(ish). And that had been even before the PAKs had all been modded with solar adapters. Now, on sun or moonlight alone, soldiers lasted cycles upon cycles without so much as cracking a soda can.

Zim ran his fingers through the foam walls’ little bumps and valleys, following the wall up to the ceiling. No sign of a light source, though the room was brightly lit. Did it run on UV-lights, like the military facilities? He couldn’t say. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if the old break room (he missed the old room) had UV lights either. For certain, neither room had windows. The last time Zim saw windows had been in his base, but the night sky had been swallowed up by snow clouds then.

Maybe, he thought, Foma had more than one reason for Zim’s strict snack regimen. If the PAK couldn’t synthesize anything this whole time…

“What…” Zim frowned at Extractor Foma and pointed where he guessed a lightbulb would be. “What kind of lights are these?”

Foma twitched an antenna. “What is your name and encoding?” She smelled of frosting, salts, and fruits.

Zim walked the left wall sixty steps.

Zim walked the top wall eighty-two steps.

Zim walked the right wall fifty steps.

Zim walked the bottom wall twenty-eight steps.

Zim realized his right foot hurt. He reached down into his boot. The inside felt wet again, and when he took his boot off, it made a noise that reminded him of stepping in a mud puddle.

He rubbed his right toe-claw so it wouldn’t hurt so much anymore. The second he touched it, the claw snapped off. Zim watched the slow trickle of blood seep into the foam carpet. It kind of smelled like bubblegum. GIR liked chocolate bubblegum, as Zim recalled. It had been a while since he’d seen GIR.

Zim pulled the boot back on. It felt a bit sticky inside, but he’d gotten used to it.

Zim stood up and walked the bottom wall thirty-six steps.

He tossed the foot-claw in a pile with all the others.

“What is your name and encoding?”

“Irken Invader Zim.”

The foot-claw grew back. It gave him an idea.

What if this time, Zim didn’t wait for it to fall off on its own? The Extractor liked to talk to him over snacks. She gave him more snacks when he got injured. So what if…?

CRACK.

Zim clutched the wet broken claw in his hand and frowned. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea after all. After all, the other claws had come off and she hadn’t said anything about it. Maybe because they grew back so fast? Or because toes weren’t enough to fuss over?

He could fix that.

Zim eyed the crooked PAK leg jutting out of his back. He looked down at himself and smiled.

Extractor Foma stood in the center of the room, frowning as she took in the scenery. A trail of bright pink boot prints marked her path, and the leather squeaked when she walked. In a different room, the puddles might have splashed.

Her eyes—paler than the puddles but darker than the teeth floating in them—widened at the splattershow of blood and bones and chitin and coolant and wires and the cocktail of liquids leaking out of Zim’s PAK. Zim’s own loose eye stared back at the toe of her boot. The optic nerve twitched. Bits and pieces of Zim lay scattered across the quiet room: some cleanly broken, most torn or ripped right out. The corners of Foma’s mouth twitched as if—yes!—as if about to say something.

Zim bounced on his heels and grinned at her in a broken patchwork of bloody teeth.

He had her now. Foma couldn’t leave him here like this. He’d forced her hand into repairs or another snacktime. At the very least, she’d demand to know what happened here. Yes, she would gape in horror at what Zim had done to himself. She would reprimand him about the mess he’d crafted (Zim crafted the best and messiest of messes) or lecture him about mangling Irken property without a permit.

The Extractor crossed her arms and shook her head. A frown twitched across her face.

Yes! This was it!

She spoke with the flat detachment of a smeetery nanny-bot. “1053r404.”

Zim flinched. Nobody had called him by his serial alone since he’d breached Irk’s surface.

“What is your name and encoding?”

That didn’t seem like a fair thing to ask when Zim was missing half of his teeth and the better part of his tongue. From her expression, though, Foma didn’t expect him to do it in the first—

Zim sat up whole, healed, and alone.

Not one rip in his uniform, not a tooth or a toe-claw out of place.

His fingertips breezed over the tiny chitinous hairs of his antennae. Both of them stood straight and firm as the day he was activated. Hadn’t one antenna been crooked before? Zim couldn’t say for sure. He thought so, though. It explained the multiple errors in his pheromone reads.

There had been so many times when other Irkens heard what he didn’t hear. Smelled what he didn’t smell. Saw what Zim didn’t see.

“Your mission’s all a big LIE.”

Or knew things that Zim’s glorious brain didn’t know.

“For your sake, everyone in the Empire let you pretend and we all pretended along.”

When someone knew a fact that everyone else didn’t, that was called a secret.

“They gave up on the idea that you could be salvaged a long time ago.”

But when everyone else knew facts that you didn’t, that was a conspiracy.

“We think you’re insane—uh, untrained.”

Or a joke.

“Knock knock.”

Zim waved him off. “Not now, GIR. I’m thinking.”

…Wait a minute.

Zim turned to see GIR flip off the doggy hood of his disguise. He toddled to Zim’s side and knocked on his knee cap the same way he used to knock on the door. “Knock KNOCK!”

“How you get in…” Zim frowned at the seamless walls. “When did you get back from Puerto Rico?”

“Knock knock!” GIR hit Zim’s knee harder. “KNOCK KNOCK, KNOCK KNOCK, KNOCK—”

“FINE, fine!” Zim’s yell fell flat. No echo, no reverb. Might as well have not said anything at all. “Who’s there, GIR?”

“Disappearing cow.”

Zim glared. He didn’t have time for this nonsense.

GIR smiled back expectantly, wiggling in anticipation. He giggled into his doggy paws and wagged his little felt tail.

Zim sighed. “Okay, disappearing cow who?”

No answer.

“…GIR?” 

Silence.

Zim looked around the room. He was alone. “GIR?” he asked the foam wall. The wall didn’t respond.

Could Irkens get reruns when they weren’t in hibernation or sleep mode?

Such a thing had never been documented, but then it might have never been tested. The idea wasn’t impossible, just unverified. It could be possible. And given the last few… days? Hours? Weeks? Whatever. Given recent events, the concept had merit.

Unless he’d fallen asleep and didn’t know it? But he couldn’t imagine himself going back to sleep mode so soon after the last one. Not long ago he’d hibernated on his couch in the living room of his empty…

Zim shook his head. Focus. 

Even if reruns could happen in a conscious state, reruns were all things that had already happened, presented the same way they’d happened. Unless corrupt memory files could overlap or invade current data processing—no. No, that still didn’t seem likely. And without any way to test or verify, Zim gained nothing with aimless hypotheses.

One thing he knew for certain: Zim wasn’t sleeping. Nobody could sleep through this deafening silence. But if not that, then what?

Zim experimentally squished the toes of his boots and ran his tongue along the edge of his teeth. He still had a full pair of claws for each foot. Full set of teeth. Claws and teeth and fingers grew back fast, but not that fast. Not unless he’d been here for months, and he hadn’t.

Had he?

No, he probably hadn’t.

Even if he had, no amount of time could heal PAK damage on its own. The fluids needed a manual transfusion, and loose wire reattachments required soldering guns, bare minimum. The process—especially for an older era model—demanded a PAK technician, which the Extractor certainly was not. As far as Zim’s body was concerned, the whole thing never happened at all.

One might have expected he’d be used to it by now: these blips, these memory gaps. Like falling off of the Vortian armchair, but no memory of impact. No evidence, save for a dented PAK, the gnawing pain in his shoulder, and spiderweb cracks in the tile. The top of the chair couldn’t have been over five feet. How did he hit the floor hard enough to crack the tile? And that hadn’t been the only time. He’d seen the footage of his PAK short-circuiting and breaking his hand in five places but didn’t remember it. He recalled the scent of smoke and overload, but not much else. Zim supposed it made sense. A bad enough overheat could fry recent memory files like an onion ring. Couldn’t process those files with the SAD Box either.

Zim rubbed his palm over his PAK’s dented hatch. The tips of his fingers followed the path of the crooked PAK leg, feeling where the joints bent backward and the hairline cracks in the finish, until he found the sharp tip at the end. The one that had ripped through his own hand.

“When you’re confronted with facts that are a… challenge to process, your PAK reacts. It lashes out—violently.”

A defense mechanism against a breach of the Box, perhaps. He couldn’t name any other time his own PAK turned on him. But then, he’d never given it reason to.

Dented metal squeaked under his gloves. Zim gritted his teeth. In the stale silent air, it sounded like Ms. Bitters’ nails on the chalkboard.

By now he’d grown accustomed to the steady churn and bubble of his guts, but the PAK… That constant cacophony on his back never kept a decent rhythm. The drives dragged and groaned and clicked and creaked and squeaked while fans roared and hatches rattled and since when had this thing been so loud? Loud loud loud LOUD LOUD and it never STOPPED.

“Shut UP.” Zim clutched his antennae in his hands and scrunched into a ball.

Didn’t work. Too loud. Still too loud.

The metal limb flopped and squealed with every little shift of his shoulders. There was no move he could make, no breath he could take without the PAK reminding him it was there.

“I command you to shut up!”

In the corner of his eye, the shadow of the PAK leg coiled in the crooks of the ceiling to point down, down, straight down at Zim. The audacity. How dare it point at him?!

No chunk of metal and wires could intimidate Zim! He gnashed his teeth and pointed right back. “Don’t you try and turn this around on me! This is all your fault! YOU’RE the one that got me into this whole… this—this…ARAUGH!”

The PAK. This whole time, it’d been this stupid PAK. All the time. Every day. Every error. Every fault. Every fried wire and all the friendly fires and explosions and the rows of body bags and Tallest’s disappointed eye-rolls and nobody sitting with him at snacktime. Miyuki in the cheeks of an Energy Blob. Dozens of lost signals he would never get back. Smoke rising from the flames of Impending Doom, coagulating until Irk’s daylight went dark. Foodcourtia.

And all of it—ALL of it— because of that incompetent chunk of metal between his shoulders. Even now, it conspired against him. Even now, the PAK tethered him to these four walls.

“Why are you still broken?!”

No. Not broken. Something had to break before it could be broken. Something had to happen to it first. But when something never worked in the first place, it wasn’t broken. Just defective.

“This is all your fault,” he hissed at the PAK again. The PAK was defective, not Zim. Zim was the PAK and the PAK was Zim, yes, but Zim was also Zim. The memory files and drivers and SAD Box didn’t work right, but nobody said anything about his brainmeats. Zim’s brainmeats still worked the way they were supposed to, so the problem hadn’t been all of Zim, just part of him. The part that needed debugging and refused to cooperate.

The back of Zim’s skull throbbed. He could name the memory gap when he fell off the armchair, but there had been so many others. Too many to keep track of. Some gaps from after the sessions started, some gaps that had happened months or years ago. Time didn’t like being near him for long and jumped minutes, hours, days ahead without telling him.

Mysteries happened between those gaps. Dislocations. Sprains. Gashes and cuts and skin mending and unmending in the space of a blink. Zim glanced at the clean floor where he’d torn himself to shreds not long ago. Foma hadn’t been especially troubled or surprised by the sight of bits of Zim strewn all over the place.

“Somehow, you’re just that determined to hurt yourself.”

In Zim’s defense of Zim, nobody could blame him. Like all Irkens, he’d been trained to attack and destroy obstacles and enemies. This enemy just happened to latch into the ports in his spine. He wished he could just detach the insolent thing.

“Give PAK Zim!”

On second thought, no he didn’t.

As a minor curiosity—not because he wanted to use it, not because he needed to use it, but a curiosity and nothing more—Zim rolled down his glove. He stared at his bare wrist.

The self-destruct button wasn’t there. Not on the opposite arm either.

Zim frowned. He was positive he’d had a button.

Well. Pretty sure.

Mostly sure.

Call it a gut feeling.

A phantom pressure of the button’s vein-thin housing frame lingered on his wrist. Twitching his fingers, Zim could almost still feel the little clamps and wires snaking through his veins and into his explosive-when-necessary PAK and his impossible-to-pick-in-45-pieces brains.

No, he’d absolutely had a button. It had been his graduation present—technically, everyone’s graduation present.

At the base level, a button kept one’s PAK and body out of torture chambers and autopsy centers, and keep Irken secrets out of enemy hands. But anyone who’d received one knew a self-destruct button was also a symbol. A promise. A declaration of trust between The Tallest and their Invader. The trust that an Irken had the wisdom to know when a mission was salvageable… and the trust that an Invader would do the right thing for themselves and their empire.

Nobody, not even The Tallest, chose the time of their own activation or deactivation. At best, someone past their 300th year could apply for voluntary dismissal, but even that could be rejected. Nobody chose something that important for themselves.

Nobody except Invaders.

Zim stared at his bare wrist. The room felt smaller all of a sudden.

Could his button have been taken away from him? There wouldn’t be a reason for it, not unless he’d been reassig—

Anyway.

The button had always been a worst-case-scenario sort of thing. Most days, Invaders barely thought of it the same way they didn’t think of the squeeze of their spooch. Zim had only considered using his button once, when he first arrived.

Or. Had he done it twice?

The first time had been the first day of Skool, he remembered that for sure, and… and there’d been one other time. Recently. But he hadn’t been captured by Dib or his fellow human stink-creatures. The only other reason he could think of would be desperation for some reas—

“GIVE! PAK! ZIM!”

In a suck of breath, Zim saw it all again: the darkening room, the sickly taste of the floor mingling with his own drool, a pair of pink bloodstained gloves holding an upturned PAK, and the Irken silhouette looming over him.

“Are you sure you never—”

“I don’t work with hardware. PAK removal is a delicate process. I may know the basics for analysis, but I’m no Technician. Without a code, I can’t get that kind of access.”

The Extractor had explained why it was unlikely. She’d explained the difficulty of doing it and how it would be impossible to forcibly remove a PAK. But she’d never actually said that she hadn’t done it. And Foma had stopped Zim’s one direct question before it finished. No need to lie when nobody asks the question.

Still, she’d made a valid point about the PAK’s removal. Even in the reruns, Zim’s spine stayed intact. It had been detached, not forced off. The only ones who could’ve authorized the codes for that would be Zim himself, and The Almighty Tallest. And The Tallest surely wouldn’t. Surely.

Something moved in the corner of Zim’s eye.

He turned to find Extractor Foma sitting several feet away with her back against the pointy pyramids of the wall. Watching him. How long had she been there?

Sweet scents of honeycake smoothies and jellybeans clung to her and covered the clinical smell of the chamber like an oil film. She’d just come from snacktime. (Zim missed snacktime.) When Foma noticed Zim watching her, she smiled with the same kind eyes she had in the maintenance sessions. The same eyes as when she’d pinned Zim’s hand to the couch, too.

She didn’t move to meet him closer, and Zim kept his distance.

The two Irkens observed each other from opposite corners of the silent room for a while.

“I didn’t get someone else’s reruns,” Zim told her. “You’re the one who was holding my PAK. Weren’t you?”

Extractor Foma’s antennae raised half a centimeter. Intrigued, but not especially concerned. Her fingers reached into the crannies of the foam wall and pulled out something pale green, curved, and smelly. One of the toe-claws Zim had ripped off.

She examined the browning flesh at the end of the claw and slipped it into her robe pocket. “What is your name and encoding?”

He rubbed his bare wrist where the self-destruct button should have been and stared her in the eye. “Irken Invader Zim.”

Foma nodded. “Alright.”

And Zim was alone.

When Zim finally went back to Skool, he'd need an alibi. Everyone would want to know where Zim had been for the past week (or months or years). The rules of low profiles aside, his job required blending in smoothly and seamlessly; a face in the crowd but not invisible.

Zim could never be invisible, even if he wanted to. Everyone saw him when he walked into a room. All eyes on Zim all the time. A classroom of billions of eyes high in the gallows of Judgementia's theater. A billion crosshairs trained on him, waiting for the main event. They would notice if he never returned.

He would, Zim decided, tell them he hadn't been feeling well.

But if they thought he'd been sick they might ask what disease he'd had. Ask for hospital records and demand parental calls and notes from home. A paper trail. Evidence. No evidence meant more questions.

Questions on questions piling upon each other in a delicate and perilous stack. Questions biting at his heels, sniffing at his tracks, digging him out of the safe little place he'd made out here away from everyone. Questions didn't stop. They kept coming until they got an answer. No. They kept coming until they got the correct answer. The true answer. Whether Zim wanted to or not. Questions roved in packs, bitter-toothed and voracious.

"I didn't feel well," Zim told the foam walls, "because I became emotionally compromised."

"Is that so," Ms. Bitters would say as she arched over him, too tall to touch behind her desk fortress. "And why was that?"

"My dog ran away from home and never came back," he would tell her.

Yes. That should do it.

The best lies were the ones that told the truth a little bit.

Was there really a difference between wounds the PAK gave Zim and wounds that Zim gave Zim? If somehow the PAK really was out to get him, wouldn’t it make sense to examine it detached so it couldn’t hurt him?

Maybe she’d only disabled a defective defense system—stop another attack before it started. She’d given it back, after all. Maybe it had already started acting up, and detaching the PAK had been the only way to stop it.

How long had Zim’s own PAK been sabotaging him behind his back? Dumb question. It’d been too long, no matter what.

A small part of Zim argued that he shouldn’t be complicit in his own sabotage. That he shouldn’t hurt himself this way.

“What is your name and encoding?”

But he couldn’t seem to help it.

“Irken Invader Zim.”

He hoped she could forgive him for that.

Foma left again when he wasn’t looking and without saying goodbye. He’d almost gotten used to it by now.

Not worth worrying about. People never said goodbye to him when they left. If Zim were human, he might have called that rude. But Zim was Irken, so he didn’t care.

“I am Zim,” Zim told the north wall. “Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

The sound of his own voice got old ages ago. Better than nothing, though.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

And after a while, his throat felt dry.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He’d get used to it.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

Invaders could get used to anything.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

Even this.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He said it at different volumes.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He said it in different tones.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire!”

He said it to the west wall.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He said it to the east wall.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He said it to the ceiling.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He said it to the floor.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

He said it in his head when his voice gave out.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

Yes.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

This would work.

“I am Irken Invader Zim, sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Empire.”

This basic education technique had been tested and proved thousands of times. It would work.

“My name’s Irken Invader Zim…”

Repeat a simple fact until you understand it completely.

“…sent by the Almighty Tallest…”

Until everyone around you understood, too.

“…to conquer the planet Earth…”

Until it became true.

“…in the name of the Irken Empire.”

Because it was true.

“I am…”

It had to be true.

Extractor Foma had come for the truth. It was her job to root out the truth, no matter how ugly or uncomfortable or fowl, for the good of the Empire.

They both wanted the same thing. They wanted to serve their Empire. They wanted Zim to improve.

And yet, here Zim remained. The session—because this had to be a session—still continued. They weren’t done. Why weren’t they done?

“What is your name and encoding?”

There could be only one reason: she didn’t have the truth yet.

“I’m number 1053r404—”

And yet, neither of them had lied. He didn’t, and she couldn’t.

“—Irken Invader Zim.”

If you only said what you knew to be true, that couldn’t be lying.

Right?

Zim’s antenna threaded through the foam spikes as he smushed his cheek on the wall. It sounded like rubbing sandpaper on gravel and smelled like Zim. Everything in the room smelled like Zim at this point. He missed the burn of old electronics in the guts of his base, and he missed the mixing scents of new leather and cleaning agents from the break room, and he even missed the rank stink of human filth and muck. Most of all, he missed smelling things that didn’t smell like Zim.

He’d never thought it possible, but Zim felt sick of Zim. As if in agreement, the PAK whirred and hissed a jet of hot air from his fans.

Zim closed his eyes against the bright light. “I’m Irken Invader Zim.” In the wide silence, his voice sprouted small and frail. “Sent by the Almighty Tallest to conquer the planet Earth in the name of the Irken Em—”

“I KNOW, already! Jeez, I heard you the first fifty times.”

Zim’s antennae pricked.

That voice.

“If you could’ve just said that in the first place, you would’ve saved me a lot of trouble, you know?”

THAT voice.

“On the other hand, I guess it wouldn’t really matter unless I got you to say it in public or when I had my recording stuff out—oh! Wait, let me get my laptop real quick. The Swollen Eyeballs are gonna pop when they see this; the whole place is a goldmine!”

“Dib.” The taste of the dirt-child’s name rotted in Zim’s mouth. “How dare you appear before Zim.”

Except he hadn’t. Zim kept his eyes shut and didn’t lift his head because there was nothing to see. Dib wasn’t here. Zim’s incredible mind, underfed and under-stimulated, had conjured up some sort of mind-phantasm in the guise of Dib. A ghost-Dib.

If he waited a few minutes, it would vanish on its own, the same way everything and everyone else did. Yeah. That would do it.

Zim waited.

He heard nothing more from the ghost-Dib who wasn’t Dib and not there in the first place. Had it vanished? Perhaps Zim’s scathing verbal wit had shamed Dib (it wasn’t Dib) into silence?

Well, good. That shambling collection of limbs in a cowskin coat OUGHT to be ashamed—with his swollen head bulging with lies and filth and ugliness and betrayal and LIES and no respect whatsoever for the theater of rivalry or the role of nemesis. This repulsive little mammal with its weak little bones and meat and hair was so busy regulating its own body temperature it left no room for honor or tradition or almost two Earth years of dedication to his cause because he didn’t care about anything at all, especially Zim who didn’t care about Dib either, and how dare he, how dare he, HOW DARE HE show his face to Zim now? Now, of all times? He—

No.

No, this… this was stupid.

Nobody was there. Zim sat alone, the same as he’d been a moment ago. His spectacular mind was playing a trick on him. When he opened his eyes, he would see four walls, himself, and his shadow. Nothing more, nothing less.

In the silence, someone breathed with humid little lungs and shifted in non-combat boots. “I—”

“You’re not here.”

“Hey! I am so here! And it wasn’t exactly easy, you know; those laser turret thingies hurt.”

Zim gritted his teeth. “You’re not here, Dib. There’s no way you could’ve gotten through security.”

He’d never seen the specs for Foma’s temp-base, but even janitorial drones knew how Information Extraction prided itself in security and defense. Just delivering pizzas to The Forthright required thirteen background checks and five verified passwords. (According to Gashloog, everyone aboard had to order food at least a week ahead of time because of it.) The High Extractor’s temporary base followed a similar protocol, judging by that fancy multi-lock system he’d seen earlier. Besides, Dib was louder than a Shrieking Sirenoid in a fireworks factory even without a quiet room. Zim would have heard his feet on the floor, or a door opening, or a wall being sliced through, or something exploding somewhere.

“There’s no way you could’ve gotten in,” Zim told the shadow on the wall that couldn’t belong to Dib. The shadow with the long scythe of head-fur cresting over his enormous skull.

Absolutely-Not-Dib chucked in a manner he presumed smug. Pretentious worm. “Oh, I have my ways. I’ve been here since the last time that big hatch opened. Actually, I should probably call home—I shoulda done it a while ago but I got distracted by all that weird alien stuff in the walls and kinda forgot. Gaz is probably worried about me by now, but I can’t get a good signal in this place. You’d think an advanced alien race could at least get wi-fi or…”

As the Probably-Not-Really-Dib rambled, it became clear there could be only one way to banish him. Zim had to prove once and for all nothing stood there.

Zim’s eyes snapped open and glared.

Dib, or something like him, stared back. He held his briefcase with both hands, standing by the wall and hunched over like the business drones waiting by the City bus stop. Light skimmed off his coat when he moved, like an eel with two legs and bad hair. Sweat leaked through the pores of his nose and the back of his neck. The stink of him curdled under a scent-mask—that “deodorant” thing.

He didn’t vanish when Zim blinked. He didn’t fade into the air. He yelped when Zim grabbed a handful of hair samples just to be sure.

Indeed, the Dib-human was here. How dare he.

Dib shifted from leg to leg. “Okay, so.” He couldn’t hold Zim’s gaze for more than a few seconds. Glancing at the wall, he took a deep breath. “I get it if you’re mad I sold you out or whatever, but she said she was gonna help so I figured it was fine, since either way I got to save the Earth and all, plus it’s not like you didn’t have it coming, and anyway how was I supposed to know that psychologist counselor lady was going to do all of that freaky stuff so it’s actually not my fault.” He took another breath and thought a second. “Wait, does she even have a degree? You’re not allowed to be a psychologist without a degree.”

Zim blinked. What did body temperature have anything to do with anything? 

He tossed Dib a casual sneer. “Fool. Irkens have no need for frivolous tokens like these ‘degrees’. Our superior capabilities are inherent.” While humans clung to empty signifiers and wall trophies, you knew an Irken’s rank with a glance and a name. No one received their encoding—and by extension, their name—without earning it. An Invader could only be an Invader if they’d been qualified to be one. Simple as that.

“However—” Cracking his back, Zim turned and stood to face the human. “—if we did indulge in these paltry little papers, I can assure you a High Extractor would host an assemblage of degrees FAR outnumbering that of any human science drone. So many that your pig-stink would become even stinkier, sweating out ALL the fever sweats from all the degrees.”

Dib gave him a funny look, though Zim had said nothing funny. “You uh, do know people get fevers because they’re sick, right?”

“I know that!” Zim snapped. Did everyone presume Zim didn’t do his research? Did even his nemesis underestimate him? Even now? Perhaps the disguise of a simple skoolchild worked too well. “And I also know the fever furnace doesn’t make you sick, it burns up the sickness to kill it where it stands.” Setting one’s own body on fire with their internal furnace was an odd defense mechanism, but whatever. “Fevers make you better when you’re sick, stinkmeat.”

The human considered that for a moment as he looked Zim over. “Are you sick?” he asked.

Zim opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. Clever Invaders knew a trick question when they heard one. He turned up his chin and dismissed him with a sniff. “It’s a routine wellness and maintenance session.”

“Huh. That’s weird.” Dib’s briefcase popped open with a flick of his wrist. All his junky little tools and documents shuffled and clinked as he rooted through his toolkit. Slowly, he pulled out a glass jar. Zim’s eyeball floated inside, surrounded by nebulae of grit and dirt drifting through the preservation fluid.

Zim recoiled with a hiss. He took another step back, feeling little foam cones poke his shoulders. “Where did—”

“In your base.” Dib held the jar up to his face, examining the optic nerve as it dragged along the bottom. “I dunno much about your freaky alien body, but I’m still pretty sure when you get better you’re not supposed to lose body parts.”

The base? But how did Dib get to the base from…? Zim shook his head. Nothing to do about it now; he’d bomb that bridge when he came to it. “So you snatched up a slice of Zim for a trophy. No matter.” Zim laughed, short and sharp. And just to prove he meant it, he laughed again. “Your pathetic evidence will shrivel into nothing long before you can show anyone anything.” Assuming the auto-destructs in the implants still worked. “And I didn’t lose the eye, it fell out.”

“Isn’t that the same—”

“And supplemented just as quickly by a new superior eye! Ha—do you see, Dib? Zim improves by the hour, replacing and upgrading into the likes of which your nightmares can never comprehend!” A little victory cackle burbled in Zim's mouth. “What do you have? Those laughable ocular enhancements hanging off your ugly large and bulbous head that’s also ugly?”

Dib squinted at him. He repeated Zim’s sentence to himself under his breath a few times, squinting harder. “…you mean my glasses?”

“And they do a poor job of mental enhancement, too. I thought you’d have figured out by now that the ‘skool psychologist’ was nothing but a disguise. Either the Extractor fooled you better than I thought, or you’re stupider than I knew.” The latter, probably.

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering: what’s an extractor supposed to even be, anyway?”

Zim rolled his shoulders and looked away. “Classified.”

If Dib hadn’t figured it out, Zim wasn’t about to help him. Not that it’d help. The myopic little minds of offworlders never could grasp the job. Most of them simplified extraction as “torture”—for weaker species called any small moment of unpleasantness torture—but in truth, information extraction was exactly what it claimed to be. It collected information. Sometimes with espionage, sometimes by asking nicely, and sometimes by asking not-so-nicely. Depending on the subject, the process fluctuated anywhere between mildly uncomfortable to excruciatingly uncomfortable.

“Information extraction is a difficult process, always,” Foma had told him. “Even when you extract that information from yourself.”

The root of Zim’s antennae trembled. Dib’s rank scent must have been getting to him. “What are you doing here, human?” His glare settled over Dib—not a sear, but a steady simmer. A gentle growl rumbled behind Zim’s teeth. “Come to gloat and collect your para-spooky photocopies, I suppose? To interrogate me when you presume I’m in a weakened state?”

If Zim had been the betting sort, he’d bet on that last guess. The points aligned perfectly: Dib had waited until Zim was alone. Until the 11th hour of the process, and after an extended fast. Waited until Zim had grown tired. Not a bad strategy, but the Dib would have to do better than that to conquer Zim. He’d called out Dib’s plan and cut it off at the pass. And from the look on Dib’s face, he knew it. Better luck next time, stink meat.

The human bobbed on the heels of his boots and stretched his neck toward the ceiling. The little bobbing motion wasn’t enough. He turned on his heel and began to pace the room. As he moved, his eyes bounced inside his glasses, studying all the topography of the room in all its little foam peaks and canyons and plateaus. His fingers grazed the wall, and he mumbled to himself under his breath. A frown crossed his face. When he looked back at Zim, it sagged.

What was he playing at? Why did he take so long to retaliate? Strange he’d need this long to plan his next attack. After all the spying and observations, Zim presumed that Dib would have prepped for this days ago. Maybe he’d dropped his notes.

Dib snapped around and closed the distance between them at a clip. “Hey, do you, uh…” He fiddled with his glasses and glanced at the walls again. “You wanna just get out of here?”

“Eh?” Not exactly the interrogation question Zim had expected. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you want to leave?” Dib gestured toward the solid wall. “We can just leave, you know. Anytime we want.”

Had he gone crazier than usual? “No, I can’t.”

And neither could Dib, or else he’d have left by now. He’d have to eat sometime, and Zim didn’t smell any snacks in the coat pockets.

“Sure you can. We’ll just leave the same way I got in. Easy.” Dib swept his hand over his head, ignoring the chunk of hair missing from the back of his singed scalp. “I bet we could do it without anyone noticing. I mean, I’ve been here the whole time and nothing’s happened.”

More like he’d accidentally trapped himself in here, and the Extractor had better things to worry about than a vermin problem. Too proud to beg for Zim’s help directly, so he had to conjure up some “deal” to benefit them “both”. Well, he didn’t fool Zim for a second. The quiet room bore no sign of break-in or entry, and Dib showed no evidence of bringing a dimensional rift-gate. In fact, the human didn’t have so much as night-vision goggles on his belt loop. No spy equipment at all.

“A likely story, Dib. You just want all the glory of exposing Zim for yourself.”

“Nuh-uh!” Dib cried a little too quickly.

“This place has rules about lying, Dib, and yours lie plain across your face. You’d already saved your planet, but that wasn’t enough for you, was it?” A smile cracked across Zim’s face at the human’s flinch. “Because you still didn’t have a trophy to brandish over all the other human filthies. No celebration from your parental unit. No Eyeball parade for Dib.” The smile grew into a grin. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I…” Dib’s flinch hardened into a fight stance, as his nubby hands closed into a fist. “That isn’t it!”

Zim cackled. “What is it, then? What else could it possibly be? The word of an Irken authority wasn’t enough for you? Had to poke your smelly nose in here to be sure? Or maybe you thought you’d get two Irkens for the price of one. Too bad Dib, I’m afraid this sale has expired so you may as well—”

“Okay, you know what? I didn’t HAVE to come here, Zim! I didn’t even wanna be here in the first place!”

“And yet, here you are. Still after your Zim-shaped trophy of Zim.”

“That’s NOT it!” But it was, at least a little. He shouted too loud for it not to be. “It’s just—” The anger evaporated as fast as it appeared. “It’s just that when you weren’t in class for three weeks and your house was still there, I got curious. So I came to check it out and broke in and now I… uh…” Dib trailed off in a slush of embarrassed mumbles.

Something told Zim he didn’t like where this was going. “You what?”

Dib rubbed his shoulder. “Um, felt… kinda. Sorta. Weird? About it? Bad, I guess?” He frowned and glanced around the room again. “…I didn’t know the walls were gonna be padded.”

Zim squinted as he pieced those sentences together. “You. You—” He pointed between Dib and himself. “—felt bad. For Zim.”

Dib looked at his feet and didn’t answer him. A yes without a yes.

Air spat from the PAK vents. Something wet and hot welled deep in the pit of Zim’s gut, curdling into a sludge that crawled into his throat and burned from the inside out. Felt like approaching the edge of another overheat. Zim didn’t care. Too mad to care. Too mad to see, almost. “Why?”

The human took a step back at Zim’s expression. “I mean, I know you’re a monstrous space demon here to take over my planet and everything, but…” He gestured to the room and the jar with Zim’s eye. “I dunno if you deserve this. She’s been hurting you, man.”

It all clicked together. Zim understood, now. This was one of those “empathy” incidents they’d spoken of back at the Academy. A particularly insidious moment when the enemy presumed some sort of relatability with you—“common ground”, it was called. This primitive waste of blood and skin actually dared to compare himself to Zim. The audacity. As if they shared a fraction of an iota of commonality between them. And how dare Dib presume himself an authority of what Zim deserved or didn’t deserve? How dare he imply Zim—ZIM, of all Irkens—too weak to withstand the maintenance process?

The whole thing was as disgusting as it was transparent. Zim laughed a bitter little laugh. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing here, Dib.”

The human still had the sheer gall to pretend confusion. Mocking him, even now.

“You,” Zim growled, “came to sabotage me.” The instant he said it, the concept crystallized before him, clear and simple as a syringe. “It’s the same as always. You’ve come to ruin my progress, ruin everything I’ve worked for and tear it all down. Not now. Not this time, Dib.”

The deceitful loved nothing more than blurring the truth. Even if the human wasn’t lying (he was), he wouldn’t understand that Zim had already vowed to see the extraction through to the end.

He’d already known the extraction process would hurt—she’d warned him it would—and Zim had agreed to it. Nothing in this process could work without trust. Trust not to back out of the agreement. Trust that it all built to a good ending. That this was all for the best. The Irkens built their empire on lies to lesser species, but when Irken gave their word to other Irkens, that word held. If Irkens couldn’t trust other Irkens, they couldn’t trust anyone.

But of course Dib didn’t—no, couldn’t—understand that. What did trust mean to Dib when he abandoned Zim to the hounds at every opportunity, even in a truce? “The Extractor came to help me improve, which is far more than I can say for you, human. What have YOU ever done for Zim, besides sow your seeds of sabotage and salt my fields of victory? You don’t fool me, Dib.”

Dib put his hands in his pockets, listening while Zim ranted in his face. He didn’t so much as twitch at the accusation. Leaning against the wall, he poked the tip of one of the little foam pyramids. “Yeah, well. I never stabbed your hand into a couch, either.” His mouth stiffened into a vice of a smile. “And if you seriously think she did that to make you a better Invader, you really are crazy.”

“HA! Shows what you know, ignorant Dib-stink! I was never an Invader in the first—”

Zim froze.

In the room without an echo, the aborted sentence clung to the air like a parasite. With the thick silence, it almost felt as if he’d imagined it. As if he’d never said it at all.

But he had.

Zim’s gaze trailed to the human’s blank confused face. And Dib heard. They’d both heard.

A lost frown crossed Dib’s face. “Wait. What do you mean you’re not an Inva—”

“Get out.”

It was a mistake. (Zim made so many mistakes.) A slip of the tongue. Yes, a minor slip of the tongue, nothing more. In his rush to anger, blind emotion had driven Zim to say things that weren’t real and weren’t true. Liars begat more lies. The Dib brought out the worst in Zim. He had to go.

Dib took a step toward him. “No, wait, you just said—”

Three healthy PAK legs branched out from behind Zim’s back. “Get. Out.”

He’d kept going as if Zim hadn’t said anything. “—if you’re not an Invader, why are you even here? What have you been doing all this time?”

In an awful rush of clarity, Zim remembered where they were. More than a just treasure trove of Irken technology, they stood in a facility run by a high-level taller who guarded the Empire’s most delicate secrets. And Zim had led Dib right into it. Led the enemy right to the Empire’s soft underbelly all over again. 

“Are those flesh nubs on the side of your face working? I said get OUT!” Zim wheeled around and slashed at Dib’s face. Screeching and trembling, he cut and stabbed at the air again and again and again. At Dib. At the walls. At the air and the floor and himself and anything else he could reach, anything else he could hurt. “Out out out OUT OUT!”

Zim slumped against the wall, breathing hard. He didn’t hear anything. No shouts of terror or pain, no death mewls, and no wet lung-breathing.

When Zim raised his head, the quiet room stood empty. No Dib. No sign of exit.

Just Zim. He was alone again.

Zim took a deep breath and settled back onto the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees and waited for his body to stop trembling. “Good.”

Back to basics. Back to quiet. Back to being alone.

It felt kind of nice to be alone again.

The feeling passed.

Zim remembered stars. He’d had a great wide universe of stars surrounding his small world of rusty walls and the musty scent of vintage Voot, and the stars scattered on forever in every direction—up and down and diagonal and looping upwards and sideways and backwards. Everywhere.

Now, he had a new Everywhere.

The room had four walls. Four directions. Forty steps up. Forty steps down. Forty steps left. Forty steps right. The room had rows of pyramids instead of stars, and the pyramids kept everything quiet. In the quiet, everything went louder. Bigger. Zim was the world and the world was Zim. A small quiet world. But his.

He didn’t know hours or decades or seconds or weeks or centuries. He knew the world. He knew the room. Zim knew quiet. Well, quiet and the gurgle of organs and the creak of bones and the wet sploosh of spit in his mouth and his defective PAK clunking and clicking on his spine. But quiet besides all that.

Zim remembered laughter, too. They’d laughed at him—they’d all laughed at him. Even if—IF—The Tallest never looked at him with pride, at least Zim could say he’d made them laugh. In that small way, he’d made them happy. It was good to make his Tallest happy.

Being good made Zim feel good. He wanted to get better—to be better—so he could feel good all the time. Besides, laughter was a happy sound, and he missed it. It didn’t feel the same doing it by yourself.

And then, as Zim studied the foam pyramids in walls, the walls parted. That was new. 

The cool light of the hallways washed over the floor, and a familiar silhouette stood in the middle of it. 

Zim blinked and wondered if his eyes played tricks on him again.

Extractor Foma crossed the room in a soft rush of fabric rubbing on fabric. The ends of her antennae twitched, taking in the scent of the room as she stopped beside Zim. She blinked at Zim and rubbed her chin. This wasn’t like the other visits, though he couldn’t say how. The Extractor’s frown felt less like a disappointed supervisor and more like a smeet with a puzzle box.

Zim frowned back. He knew he ought to warn her of the human spy crawling in her base, but Zim also knew that a dutiful soldier waited to be addressed first. Yes, he would display his newfound talent for patience and obedience first. The Empire would be glad for the warning and she would be delighted that Zim didn’t fall for the human’s filthy lies.

Extractor Foma, however, did not address Zim. Nor did she inquire about his immaculate discipline or what secrets he’d pried out of enemy hands. She wrote something down in her notes, smiled at him, and turned toward the door.

Zim’s spooch lurched. “WAIT!” He clutched the edge of her robe tight in his claws.

“Oh!” She turned with a surprised little hiss. “I’m sorry, Zim, I thought you were resting.” The alarm in her face eased into concern as she bent down to Zim’s eye level. “You do look like you need it.”

When he looked up, Zim saw himself in the reflection of her eyes: a small and weary Irken curled up on the floor with a crooked left antenna and a broken PAK leg trailing behind him. Had he always looked like that? Was this what she’d seen this whole time?

“Wait.” Zim’s voice frayed. He clutched the robe tighter. “Don’t leave again.”

Neural nodes at the base of Foma’s neck flashed at the word ‘again’. She blinked in a flash of confusion. Her eyes traveled from Zim to her datapad to the room, and back to Zim again. “Hm.” Slowly—almost carefully—she asked, “What is your name and en—”

“Irken Food Drone Zim.”

“I…” Extractor Foma’s eyes stretched wide, and the nodes lit up all at once—a switchboard of blinking and flashes and colors. “I would like you to repeat that, please. If you can?”

“My name and encoding is Irken Food Drone Zim, F-Foodcourtia sector. PAK#1053r404.” The words flowed out smooth and quick. They didn’t even hurt his insides this time.

A smile dawned across Foma’s face. “So there you are! Greetings, Irken Food Drone Zim, it’s so good to finally meet you. It took a little while, but I knew you could do it. I knew it. And you did it so fast!” She shook her head with an astonished laugh. “Did you miss me that much? It’s only been an hour.”

An hour? Impossible.

“No. No, I—” Zim rubbed his unbroken limbs and unbitten skin. He couldn’t find any of the old foot claws here either, but there had to be some sign, some evidence somewhere. “I’ve been here for days. Months! You wouldn’t talk to me when you came in, and when Dib—augh! Extractor!” He waved her in closer. “I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s an intruder in your base.”

“In my base?” Foma squinted at him. “When? Where?”

“I don’t know how long he’s been here, but the Dib, he came in here spreading all sorts of dis-GUS-ting treacherous lies! Vileness and dissent to turn your spooch inside out! Yes, he’s a tricky one, that Dib, but rest assured that I, Zim, resisted…” Zim’s face fell. “Why are you looking at me like that? You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Well, it is difficult to believe. I don’t understand how anyone could come in without my notice.” Foma offered her datapad to show Zim the clock bordering the notes. It read 05:37. “The call with the Tallest ended at four-hundred hours, local time. I left you here thirty minutes after that and went back to my computer to monitor your progress. And before the computer, I watched you on the datapad. Nobody’s been in this room but you.”

That still didn’t sound right. “What about you? You were here.”

“I’m here now, and I was here when I dropped you off an hour ago. That’s all.” She rested her hand on Zim’s shoulder. “But these quiet rooms are strange like that. They can bring things out in us that we didn’t know we had. When we’re alone with ourselves, we’re the only ones we have to talk to. Did you have a nice talk with yourself, Zim?”

Zim frowned at the empty space where he swore Dib had stood minutes (or hours) ago. “Not really.”

“It’s over now, in any case. Whatever you saw, I’m sure it’ll be fascinating when I review the PAK memory. And if you want, we can run a security check together, x-ray scan and all.” She glanced at the ceiling and clicked her teeth. “Just in case there is something in here.” Foma stood back up with a sigh. “For now, what do you say we head back to the break room so we can finalize the session?”

“You mean we’re done? Did—did I pass?”

“It’s not a pass/fail test, Zim. There aren’t grades.”

No official grades didn’t mean it couldn’t be pass/fail, but Zim decided not to fight over semantics.

“But yes, I think we’re about done, here.” Extractor Foma reached over Zim’s back, took Zim’s crooked PAK leg into her hands, and folded it back into the hatch where it belonged. Fixed. All this time, it’d been that easy. “And I think you might be ready to go home.”

END OF SESSION LOG IV: SIDE B

Chapter Text

SESSION LOG V.

Irken Food Drone Zim curled against the back of the Vortian armchair, letting his sore limbs and joints sink into the plush fabric. It was that familiar soreness of ground-based missions, running laps, or staying awake a decade longer than recommended. No deep-rooted ache of bones knitting and resetting, no sharp twinge of healing muscles. The pangs in his skewered hand had lingered hours after he’d healed, and Zim still felt a twinge if he twisted his wrist wrong. 

Only in that hand, though. No pain from the teeth he’d broken or the toes he’d snapped off or the chunks of flesh he’d ripped from himself.

He didn’t understand. Either years had passed during his time in the quiet chamber, or he really had imagined the whole thing. Could Irken brains, even those as clever as Zim’s, craft scenarios that elaborate? That real? It had felt nothing like reruns, either. Reruns fuzzed and faded at the edges, and this had been broadcast in high resolution, complete with scents, tastes, and textures. It just didn’t make sense. Something that both Zim and Extractor Foma could agree on.

“Well?” Zim cracked his stiff shoulders and sat up. His chair sat beside Foma’s with a front-row view of the monitor’s patchwork of maps, charts, and security cameras. “Did you find anything yet?”

The Extractor leaned in her hoverchair and squinted over steepled fingers while the computer finished the third security check. “Zim, you’ve been here since the first scan. You know I haven’t.”

As promised, the base had received a deep-clean sweep, complete with six x-ray thermal scans on five different levels, including subterranean. The scan stretched beyond the base’s perimeter to probe every house, shed, shrub, tree, vehicle, and suspiciously fluffy cloud in a ten-mile radius. The cameras, thermals, and microphones hadn’t found anything in the rooms, the walls, Foma’s personal ship, Zim’s base, the roof, or the vents. Both Irkens agreed that Dib couldn’t fit inside Foma’s vents in the first place unless humans could collapse their skeletal structures (Zim was 87% sure they couldn’t), but it never hurt to check. Besides, any Invader, Extractor, or Infiltrator worth their title knew that security breaches weren’t limited to break-ins. The Dib had been known to utilize spy bugs before; who knew what other loathsome tricks he had up his sleeve?

Yet the sweep discovered no spy bugs, no teleporter homing points, no sign of entry, no missing screws or discolored patches in the facades, and no unusual electronic signals besides Foma’s and a stray radio signal from a trucker being eaten alive by wolves on a Connecticut turnpike.

No trace of Dib in the soundproof room either. They’d flipped through the footage together: a full-color hour of Zim pacing along foam walls, mumbling and shouting and hissing to himself. And doing so completely alone. No Dib. No GIR. No visits from Foma until the last five minutes or so. According to the timestamps, his quiet time lasted exactly one hour, five minutes, and 45 seconds.

“But as I said,” Foma pointed out, “the PAK’s memory footage will likely appear different.” She cupped her chin in her hand and sighed at the little dent in Zim’s PAK hatch. “Pity your processors still need time to cool before we try another memory transfer.”

Zim leaned over the arm of his chair, searching the cameras for a flapping coat or cloaking glitch the scanners might have missed. He pointed at the Past Zim hissing obscenities at empty space. “Why would the PAK have a different recall? This is the real one, isn’t it?”

“The details are a little complicated, but yes.”

“Complicated how?” Complexity had never stopped her when she explained how SAD Boxes or mood dampeners worked. “If you think nobody broke in, why are you so worried about security?”

“I’m always concerned about security. I would have run scans before we left anyway. Stowaways pop up when you least expect it, and who knows what parasites this planet’s harboring? Besides, there’s more to this footage than security…” She scrolled through lines of notes in the sidebar, frowning at the timestamps. “It felt like you were in there months, you said?”

Months or years squashed into a week stretched into a decade crammed into a day, but close enough. “Sometimes, yeah. I don’t know for sure. My clock won’t work.”

Foma chuckled under her breath. “I noticed. Some time discrepancy is normal for this sort of thing but months… that sounds much too long. Days, even weeks, yes. And you’re certain it felt that long?” Before Zim could answer, she shook her head and returned to her notes. “No, of course you’re sure. When I checked on you, you acted like it’d been years. Hm. I’ve never tried this process with a defective PAK before; it may just be a log error or a stress response. It’s certainly a puzzle, but you’ve always been full of puzzles, haven’t you?”

Zim huffed and twitched his good antenna. She spoke of Zim’s PAK as if it were a Reubeeks Cube—some frivolity for the minds to toy with as it idled the hours away.

The antenna twitched again as one of the vending machines refreshed its ingredient cycle. The hour of quiet time in a scentless room had heightened his senses, and he’d found himself noticing new little details all over the room. At a swivel, Zim traced the base’s power core rumbling along to the background music, and smelled faint traces of gumballs and lollipops in the desk drawers and the wash of metallic office scent underscoring all of it. Yet in that collage of scents, Zim couldn’t help but notice Foma’s. From the time they’d reentered the break room, her pheromone signal stayed calm the entire time. It flickered and changed with interest or mild concern, but no alarm. No real worry.

“You don’t really believe Dib was ever here, do you?”

Foma waited a moment to gather her answer. “Well, when we consider the security footage—”

“Footage means nothing when dealing with the likes of that conniving dirtweasel pig. The Dib-human could have employed any number of trickeries to slip past security, like teleportation—”

“We didn’t find any evidence of teleportation, Zim. It’s the first thing we looked for, remember?”

“Then he used a shrinky ray to squeeze through a crack in the wall or projected himself into the room using some… some sort of sciencey secret human thing, I don’t know!” Zim turned away from the Extractor’s concerned frown. She looked at him like a crazy defective talking madness. Dealing with mad primitive creatures from a wild planet crawling with bone-scalding rains, everything sounded crazy to an outsider. It didn’t matter how long she’d observed the place; Zim lived here and Zim knew better. He took a breath to steady himself. “I know that human, Extractor. And I know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t doubt that one bit, Zim,” Foma said. “You know him better than I, or most of his own kind, know him at this point. If anyone could sense Dib, it’s you.”

“Then why do you refuse to believe me? You—you’re only humoring me with all these security checks and reassurances. You never even believed Dib was here at all!”

“I believe that you believe he’s been here.”

“Meaning that you think I made it all up.”

She frowned. “That’s not what I said.”

“You didn’t need to.”

Foma turned the hoverchair toward Zim, adjusting her gloves as she thought. Slowly, she clarified, “It’s not that I think you’re making it up. For one thing, that would imply you’re doing it on purpose—and you aren’t—and for another, that implies that it’s not real or that it doesn’t matter. That isn’t the case, either. It matters to you a great deal.”

This smelled like another calmdown talk. “And the part about being real?”

She shrugged. “Well, ‘real’ can be subjective sometimes. For example, when we’ve tested Elites under duress in training sims—”

“You’re changing the subject. Do you think Dib was here or don’t you?”

“It’s not that I doubt you, but without any real evidence, I find it difficult to believe your The Dib physically entered this space.” Flicking out her stylus, Foma wrote some notes and opened a new file. “And unless he’s mastered metaphysical travel or mind projection, I doubt he managed it incorporeally either. But stranger things have happened.”

With a gesture and a flash of Foma’s neural nodes, a new window opened in the corner of the monitor. In the confines of the memory file, a small army of Halloweenies scattered and bounced off Zim’s windshield. What had once been a militia of nightmares became a mash of casualties in the quest to wrench Dib from their clutches. A speedbump on Zim’s warpath to the only way out of the nightmare-world of Dib’s head. What a hideous experience. Hideous and rude. Just because Dib harbored a carnival of madness and horrors in that massive skull of his, that’d been no reason to literally drag Zim into it.

At the time, Zim’s attention focused on escape and nothing else. He’d cared nothing for the whys and hows of the place. Rewatching it now, he had to wonder if Dib’s head functioned only as a portal, or if the dimension just happened to localize in Dib’s head, specifically, or if that just happened to be what Dib’s brain-thoughts actually looked like. If there was even a difference. Still rude to drag Zim into it, in any case.

Extractor Foma tilted her hoverchair forward as she observed Past Zim hoisting Past Dib into the nightmare vehicle and storming out of the building. No commentary or opinion of the events, though her eyes sparked with interest. When Past Zim plopped out of the portal and onto the sidewalk, she paused the feed. Little lines of static fuzzed across Past Dib’s legs wiggling out of Past Dib’s head.

“Now, the part of this that I can’t understand is why this human would bother breaking in to contact you in the first place. I understand he has a history of spying but this session wasn’t exactly a secret.” Foma glanced at the ceiling as if she, too, suspected a big-headed shadow might lurk in the corners. “He already knew where you’d be and what we were doing. We had an agreement.”

Zim growled low in the back of his throat. “That was your first mistake. Agreements and truces mean nothing to the likes of him. Whatever deal you made is more worthless than Cyberflox coupons. Doubtless, the knowledge of two Irkens on his planet aroused Dib’s suspicions and he couldn’t resist.” He glared at the frozen feed of Past Zim pacing alone in the quiet room. “When he discovered the true nature of these maintenance sessions, he intervened.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Zim’s claws sank into the chair cushion. Fabric tore under his touch, springy and delicate as human flesh. “Sabotage.” Or to make him look crazy and as if no progress had been made at all. It’d be just like Dib to trap Zim in an endless session cycle, popping up when the finish line lay inches away.

“He came to stop you from recovering.” Foma drummed her fingers on the desk in thought. “Strange, he didn’t object to it at the time.” The hoverchair shifted closer. “Why do you think he’d change his mind?”

“Who knows why any of them do what they do? He claimed he…” Zim wrinkled his lip in a snarl of disgust. “… felt bad.” 

“I see.” Foma added several new lines of notes.

Zim rubbed the chair’s backboard in the spot where his PAK leg had torn a hole not long ago. No sign of a hole now. It’d been stitched, perhaps, though he couldn’t find any stitching or new seams. Maybe the hole had been smaller than Zim assumed. “Don’t get too excited. That’s what he claimed, but that doesn’t mean he told the truth. If you ask me, that pity act served as an excuse. An excuse or a littler truth to throw me off the scent of another reason—the real reason.”

“Which is?”

“There is no trophy without Zim. The humans love their trophies too, you know.” He’d seen the Skool trophy display in the hallways: a collection of garish metal cups and obelisks behind glass. No doubt Dib salivated at the thought of Zim floating defeated behind such a display glass as well. “Or it might have been simpler than that. He might have seen my progress and feared I’d return as an even greater Invader.”

“But,” the Extractor gently said, “you aren’t an Invader. Are you?”

Zim’s claws withdrew from the cushion and folded in his lap. “No. But Dib didn’t know that.” He did now. Assuming he’d been there at all. Perhaps that was why he’d left. He’d realized that Zim posed no real threat. “Even without the encoding, I still invaded his planet.”

An invader, not an Invader.

Foma nodded. “From what I observed, Dib believed you were an invader more than anyone else did. Perhaps even more than you.” Her eyes followed Zim as he tried to lean away. “That must have meant a lot.”

“Don’t insult me,” Zim snapped. “That stink-meat means nothing to me.”

Foma raised an eyebrow. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing. At. All.”

The hoverchair floated close enough to rub against the armchair upholstery. Foma leaned across her armrest, folding her arms inches away from Zim’s gloves. “Your The Dib acted as your personal nemesis for nearly two Earth years. That’s a significant amount of time to have an adversary. I find it difficult to believe it means ‘nothing at all’. Especially when it ended so abruptly.” She shrugged to herself. “I know I didn’t enjoy it when it happened to me.”

“Speak for yourself, then.” Zim scooted against the opposite armrest. “Not all of us overflow with squishy useless feelings to pick at and dissect. Any meaning about my ‘nemesis’ begins and ends with his interference with my plans.”

He gave a humorless chuckle. As if some stick-armed naked mammal could even dream to become an Irken nemesis. A hindrance, yes. Opponent, perhaps. But nemesis? Absurd. The very concept bordered on treason. Foma’s nemesis was not Zim’s nemesis and to compare the two would be absurd. “Yours was Irken, correct?”

Foma glanced up as she pulled a candy dish from the desk drawer. “He was.”

Thought so. Rival tallers fought and battled for positions all the time anyway, natural as bloodstream nanites. Sheer numbers said that at least one of those rivals had to morph into a nemesis eventually—be it for a week or a lifetime. “Then it’s not the same thing at all.”

“Of course it isn’t. All relationships are different, even the bad ones. Just like how every experience is a little bit different, and because of that, they all affect us in different ways—some small, some not so small. It happens with all sorts of species, not just other Irkens. Whether we like it or not.”  Reaching into the drawer again, Foma pulled out an elegant little scalpel. In the right setting, the shiny antique could pull double-duty as a dagger. The engraved handle and little swirls in the blue metal served no purpose besides arrogance and flamboyance. Not Irken design at all. “The only difference between a rival, a nemesis, and an opponent is perspective and circumstance.”

Looking back, The Extractor had mentioned this theory of hers before. Static fuzzed the finer details, but Zim recalled a similar attitude towards Dib shortly after they’d officially begun their sessions together.“It’s hard to lose a nemesis.” She’d been gentler than usual with him then, too.

“What happened to yours?”

Foma blinked in surprise.  One hand clutched the edge of the candy dish while the other squeezed a fresh lemon gummy roll. “Mine?”

“Yeah, did you win or what?” He made a face and shook his head at her silent offer to share.  

“Suit yourself.” Her fingers flexed along the edge of the scalpel, rubbing the little indents in the blade as she sliced into the roll. Sheets of sparkly sour candy fell into her hand one at a time. The lemony scent almost masked the fresh wave of stress pheromones. “I won by default. At the time, our team’s assignment was infiltration fieldwork deep in Fweezian territory. Minutes before our ride arrived, he leaked my location to the enemy and left me to rot. I guess he figured that he’d have lots of time to grab the Sub-Extractor title while I had my hands full with being carved out in the meat markets.”

Foma snapped up a gummy sheet with a clenched smile. “Don’t get me wrong. It was a valuable learning experience. Between the interrogations and carvings and such, I had lots of free time to quietly harvest extra information, get inspiration for my extraction simulator, and plot a little revenge.” Rubbing the gummy roll between her fingers, she sliced a new sheet. The Extractor sighed, flicked the sheet aside, and ate the rest of the roll in one gulp. After a moment, she ate the sheet too. “Such a nice revenge, too… airtight and clever in all the right places. Painful in all the right places, too, of course.”

None of that really answered Zim’s question. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised; Foma rarely liked direct answers. “So, the revenge failed.” There’d be no reason to mourn it, otherwise. “Someone else got to him first, right?”

A reedy creek hissed between Foma’s teeth. “Worse. He starved to death from the snack blockades.”

The venomous glint in her eye blinked away, there and gone so fast Zim almost thought he’d imagined it. She cleared her throat and sat back up, all calm smiles and understanding again. 

“It all felt so strange at the time. I lived and he hadn’t. I became High Extractor and he became jet fuel. Even better, by the end of the Snack Wars, I’d streamlined the information extraction process and gained the respect of Tallest Miyuki. I won in every single way that mattered, and yet it still didn’t feel that way.” Foma rubbed a smudge off the scalpel’s handle and tossed it back in the drawer. “Do you know why?”

Zim flicked an antenna. Real victory had to be earned, not given. Surviving could be its own win, but hardly the same thing. “It’s like a tie, but worse.”

“When a game’s canceled, it isn’t the same as winning or losing. The game just stops.” Foma gave him a meaningful glance. “In a way, it’s worse than losing, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Zim. “I don’t lose.”

She grinned at that. “You can’t lose if the game never ends, either. You do have a lot of drive, Zim. I’ll give you that much, and it’s really—”

ATTENTION. FOREIGN ORGANIC MATERIAL DETECTED. Exclamation points and radiation symbols sprouted across the monitor. A bright blue dot flashed in the middle of Foma’s base map in the southwest sector, on the move and fast. REPEAT: FOREIGN ORGANIC MATERIAL DETECTED.

“There!” Zim pivoted to slam both hands on the desk. Finally, proof! Now she would see. He leaned into the monitor, grinning with the sweet promise of vindication as Camera 34, SW Sec. 6 switched to reveal…

A lizard. Its sticky feet skittered across the wall and over the camera lens. It licked its eye once and vanished.

The blue dot and all the alert signals faded. Zim stared at the empty spot where the lizard had been. The Extractor’s reflection hovered above it, watching him watch wet lizard footprints dry on the wall.

“When my rivalry ended,” said Foma’s reflection, “I didn’t believe it for a long time.”

Zim glanced over his shoulder. “Just one false positive doesn’t mean anything.”

“Worthy opponents are rare, and it never feels right to leave them undefeated. It’s awful to lose a rival or a nemesis that way, but I’m afraid it happens sometimes.” One by one, the alert windows and the camera feeds and the security scans closed. “This is one of those times, Zim. I don’t think you’re ready to accept that yet. That’s normal. But the sooner you can, the sooner you can move on.”

Easy to say when the opponent had actually died. Dib remained very much alive and wiggling. Even if the second player quit in the middle of the game, nothing stopped them from coming back. Nobody had declared winners, losers, or ties. Nothing had been canceled. Not yet. No, this was a lull. A hiatus.

It couldn’t have all ended in a Skool hallway with a handshake and coordinate exchange. Dib could never let it go that easily. He wouldn’t. And why would Zim bother imagining that whole business in the quiet room on his own? Maybe he didn’t have an answer yet, but neither did she.

“It would be just like him to trick us into a false sense of security,” Zim told the blank monitor. “Leave us unprepared for when he finally makes his move.”

“I don’t really see that as a likely possibility.”

“But still possible.”

“Yes,” Foma said, “it is still possible.”

A holographic star map unraveled above their heads, covering the domed ceiling from end to end. A model of Zim’s Voot traced a dotted path from Conventia to Earth in straight lines, sharp corners, great loop-de-loops, and wiggly serpentines. It had no timestamps, but Zim remembered them well enough. Zim’s meandering route had taken six months.

A frown crossed Zim’s face. He recalled his capture and re-imprisonment under Frylord Sizz-lor. The straight shot from Foodcourtia and back had taken about three weeks, not counting the time spent escaping the planet itself. Foodcourtia’s star system sat even farther away from Earth than Conventia’s. 

“That shouldn’t have been six months.” Zim said it under his breath, barely even a whisper.

Even if The Tallest dared not speak Earth’s name, they still would have known where it was. But if they’d known, they also would have sent its route and coordinates to the Voot Runner. The path should have been a straight shot. Straight shots had planned routes. Planned routes needed a destination in mind.

“Foma? How long did it take you to get here?”

She tilted her chair back to see the star map for herself. “Two months, one week, eight days, fifteen hours, two minutes, and forty-eight seconds. Why?”

Zim shrugged. He supposed it didn’t matter much now.

Foma highlighted Zim’s route and zoomed in close enough to see all the labels and coordinates for the stars and dead planets, complete with little red stamps for all territories claimed by the Irken Empire. The Earth still hung blank and unmarked among the stars. “Even with a NYOOM drive, it’s still a long way to go, isn’t it? It’s so quiet out here. Schmillions of lightyears of dead space without even a habitable asteroid. All but one little speck.” She indicated the green dot pulsating at the end of the dotted path. A little signal fire in the black. “Somehow, against all odds, you found this perfect storm of livable chemical compounds and sentient lifeforms. Why, you’d almost think the whole thing had been built just for you. I don’t think anyone expected you to find anything at all out here. And yet…”

“You won’t get away with this, Zim!”

Behind them, the monitor booted up Zim’s memory files. Past Dib chased Past Zim through the narrow concrete arteries of the city, over fences, under bridges, across cesspools, and through the backyard of that one human with the evil pink birds guarding the lawn. The one once known as Invader Zim widened the distance and lost his pursuer fast because of course he did. Invader Zim was a marvel who outwitted and outran his rivals, master and commander and conqueror of all who dared test his might. Invader Zim won. Always. It might take him a couple of tries, his plans might need a recalibration or five, but in the end, Irken Invader Zim always won because he was a winner. Irken Food Drone Zim missed him already.

“You even found a nemesis to think about you day and night and all the times in between. You’ve been very lucky, I think.” She looked between Zim, her notes, and Past Dib careening over a garbage can to manage a three-point landing. “It’s almost too perfect. I wonder how long it could have stayed that way if…” She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. “I don’t know, if you’d managed to just be still for a little while.”

Zim blinked. “Perfect?”

One could call this planet of boiling rains, braindead droolers, pizza-pushing mutant ghost-zombies, and mile-high DVD late fees many things. On an optimal day, Zim might even call it tolerable. But even at its best, Earth stood as an amalgamation of miseries wadded together into a tangled wretched stinking mess. He couldn’t remember the last time he breathed outdoors without throwing up in his mouth a little bit.

“Perfect?!” If Zim’s taxed voice didn’t creak so much, he might have screeched. “This?” Both hands gestured at the messy collage of memories and research footage full of filthy streets and putrid little puddles. He could practically smell it from here. “THIS?”

“Yes, this.” She smiled, and Zim couldn’t help the feeling that Foma extracted some sort of amusement from all this. Not mockery—for the Extractor didn’t seem to have a normal sense of humor—but the genial amusement of watching a smeet chew its own foot. She’d expected this reaction from him.

How else could he react? The state of the planet spoke for itself. She’d stayed here. She’d seen it. Nobody with two wires to spark together knew no one would stay here willingly.

Zim unclenched his fist, took a breath, and spoke slowly. “The only good thing that ever came from this fetid place was the thought of its husk burning behind me.”

 The star map collapsed into itself as it zoomed in, planets folding over galaxies and trade routes until it all rolled into a compact little green Earth sphere. It dropped into Foma’s hand like an overripe fruit.

Her claws closed over the landmass locally known as an Australia as a tiny holographic moon orbited her wrist. “At the start of our sessions, you seemed awfully determined to return to it. You barely talked about anything else.” The hologram vanished with a snap of her fingers. “When your Frylord returned you to your duty, you caused over fifteen ship collisions and bottlenecked the lunch lines in your rush to come back to this ‘fetid husk’ of yours.”

Zim plunged his hand into the candy bowl and grabbed a Brand Name Chew™ hiding deep at the bottom. The stupid thing’s wrapper slid off in one solid piece the second he touched it. Wouldn’t even give him the satisfaction of a real rip. He settled for sinking his teeth into its crispy coating instead.

“You’re mistaking dedication to the mission for dedication to the planet. Of course I came back.” Little purple flecks sprinkled across his shirt as he spoke. “I had a job to do.”

“A job you could have completed in a few months but dragged out for two years.”

Zim bit a chunk out of his Chew and glared at her dumb fancy cloth draped over the desk. He could still see scorch marks under the lace. Again, she’d completely failed to account for outside forces constantly interfering with Zim’s plans and resetting his timelines. A part of him wanted to point that out, but he knew where talk of his mission inevitably led to.

Foma’s antenna twitched as Zim gnawed his way through the snack. She clawed through the bowl and picked out one of the lollipops. One of the swirly kinds with the marshmallow center. “You’re right, though. Your attachment was to the assignment, not the planet itself. I should have been more precise with my phrasing.”

“Are you going somewhere with all of this?”

“I think you should know this is a natural part of the re-encoding process.” Foma scrolled down to Dib’s profile picture and jotted a series of notes in bold underlines. “You may need some post-session time to fully come to terms with certain parts, but that’s normal, too.”

Zim frowned at his dented PAK, its fans still warming the backboard as it hissing hot jets of air behind him. They hadn’t stopped since the last time he saw “Dib”. He hardly noticed the sound anymore. “But I haven’t been re-encoded yet. I thought all of that stuff came from my PAK being…” Two out of three PAKlights flickered and the fans hissed louder. “…less than optimal.”

The lollipop rolled in Foma’s mouth. She sat up, folded her hands into her lap, and stared at him. Waiting.

Zim lowered his antennae. “Defective.”

Satisfied, she nodded and went on. “That’s the thing: this should have been part of the re-encoding process years ago, but it never got to finish. I actually debated this with PAKnician Wekkz while we were still in the theory stage of your debugging.” Her stylus pointed at Zim’s PAK. “He theorized hardware issues.” The stylus trailed up past the neck and shoulders to Zim’s brainmeats. “I claimed you had a software issue.”

He leaned away from the stylus hovering centimeters from his eye. “Who was right?”

“We both were!” Foma beamed and waggled her shoulders. “But mostly me. See, what you had was a firewall issue. You built these massive mental walls, and whatever tried to break them got set on fire. Things like fully accepting your re-encoding. Now that you have, the rest of the process can finally fall into place.”

“The debugging process or the re-encoding process?”

“To be specific, the mourning period of the re-encoding process.” PAK schematics and brain diagrams popped up on the monitor, along with profiles of several Irkens and the Judgementia brains. “Most re-encodings are promotion upgrades in the same field, maybe a slight rearrangement here and there. A hard switch to a brand new encoding and title is much rarer. We’re not really meant for it, and even brand new processors and drives struggle with the adjustment. It’s not an enjoyable feeling.”

To put it lightly. Thoughts of returning to fry oil and dripping toilets and the screaming hordes of offworld feeders and wearing that stupid, stupid, STUPID hat set Zim’s teeth on edge.

His shaky hands folded the candy wrapper in his lap. He glanced down at it: a smooth crease cutting straight across the paper. He made another fold, then another. Zim admired the clean geometric lines and creases in the wax paper while the words found their way out of him. “And then after readjusting, it stops and they get used to the new encoding.” 

Zim folded a top corner: a solid break between the black and yellow letters. It looked good.

He glanced up at Foma. She hadn’t answered him yet. “That feeling does stop, right?”

The lollipop rolled in Foma’s mouth, clacking against her teeth. “Well…” She took a long suck of candy juice. “It gets better.”

“That sounds like a no,” said Zim.

“It’s not a yes, either,” said Foma. “It won’t bother you so much, and you’ll get used to it, but—”

Zim sliced another fold. “There’s always a ‘but’.”

“But re-encoding isn’t a code replacement.” Her hands folded together and came apart, mimicking an invisible mushroom cloud. “More like a code expansion. Unless the PAK’s completely wiped, original encodings can’t be completely overwritten—the code is still there. In a way, I’m still a smeetery supervisor.” Foma chuckled. “Just look, I’m analyzing PAK defections like the last two hundred and fifty years never happened.”

Zim’s thumb ran over a new fold. He angled the paper inward to let the little paper triangle stand up in the air.

His antennae perked as it sank in. “Wait, so that means…” The candy wrapper crinkled in his hands. “That means that in—in a way I’m still—”

The Extractor held up a finger. “In a way,” she slowly said, “because the old code is still there from when, for a time, you were an Invader.” Her finger tapped the desk hard. “ Were. ”

Zim returned to his paper folding and said nothing. If he waited a little while, he’d go back to feeling nothing, too. Or maybe longer than a little while. But whatever he kept to himself, Zim’s face or scent or busy hands must have said instead, because when he looked up, Foma had softened again. 

“You were an Invader, Zim." She said it with devastating kindness. "And maybe if you’d managed a bit more patience or obedience, you could have grown into a good one. The potential was enormous.”

A panel of balloon lettering folded under Zim’s thumb. He flattened it down hard. “Are you referencing my file or coddling my feelings?”

Foma raised an eye ridge and frowned at the mention of coddling. “I’m stating a fact,” she told him. “You’re the only Irken in your height/weight class to reach the Invader rank. Not the only one in your generation or your Era—you’re the shortest one in the rank’s existence. Even if it didn’t last, getting that far at all was a huge accomplishment.”

Except it wasn’t. An accomplishment only counted if you could keep it. Being an official Invader for less than two years without even a decent deactivation didn’t make the score charts. Not the good ones, anyway. The Irken officially known as Invader Zim had existed for a year and a half; slightly longer than the betting pools had predicted. Most bets also predicted he’d get eaten, dissected, exploded, or all three in that time. Any of those three would have been better than Foodcourtia.

“For what it’s worth, it truly is a shame it didn’t work out differently.” Alright, now she was absolutely coddling.

Zim glared at the candy wrapper in his lap. “So you think I had the ‘potential’ to do something more than standing in a circle?” It came out bitterer than he meant it to.

“Maybe.” Foma’s tongue swiped over the tiny candy bits still clinging to the bare lollipop stick. “And we might have found out if you hadn’t stepped out of that circle, commandeered a mech, and demolished your own—”

“It was a waste of Zim!” He propped himself high, leaning over the arm of his own chair and into the borders of Foma’s. The upholstery split and burst under his claws.

The Extractor’s antennae pricked and twitched.

“If you truly believe I had potential, then you must also believe that I could have done more than stand around like a… a Plim in a petri dish. I-I could— I CAN do so much more!” Words came too fast and all at once, congealed and too thick to come out. “The devastation I could have unleashed! The worlds I could have decimated…”

“What I ‘must believe’… Hm.” Extractor Foma drummed her claws on the lace cloth and rose from her chair. “To be honest, I think that if The Almighty Tallest let you lead the first wave of Operation Impending Doom 1, it wouldn’t have been enough. The same way that becoming an Elite or an Invader or getting your own private planet wasn’t enough.” The light of the monitor winked across her pink eyes as she angled her head down at him. “I believe you want something else. Something more.”

Zim’s right antenna swiveled to follow the Extractor’s bootsteps clicking behind his chair. Defective or not, he still knew better than to insult his tallers to their face. There had to be a politer way of telling someone they’d backslid into obsolete backwards nonsense.

 Good thing he technically couldn’t see her face right now. “What sort of backsliding obsolete nonsense is THAT supposed to be?! Of course it wouldn’t be enough—we’re Irkens! We’re supposed to want more, that’s what ‘more’ MEANS! That’s the whole point of conquering. An empire doesn’t exist without more.”

In the corner of Zim’s eye, a shadow fell over the desk top. Foma’s glove gently lifted the lace cloth and rubbed the edge of the scorch mark. “There’s nothing wrong with ambition if that’s what you mean. If all of Irk’s military had your drive, we’d own the universe already.” The edge of her finger traced the black tendrils in the wood. “There’s a difference between ambition and greed, however. You want more than any other Irken asks for; something more than Irk can even give.”

Extractor Foma folded the lace over the scorch mark and smoothed out the wrinkles until it lay flat. “I think you want,” she said, “to be loved.”

Zim recoiled. “I—how could…? Why would—what kind of language is that for a taller?”

He might have expected this sort of vulgarity from average table drones or cannon-fodder foot soldiers, perhaps from a smeet still using the basic vocabulary base or an Invader who’d spent too much time with the locals. Never from someone of this height, of this rank. The word was as pointless as it was inaccurate—so slippery and imprecise that Zim had no clue which definition Foma meant, if Foma herself even knew. How could he argue the point when he couldn’t even know what the point was?

Maybe he could work backward from the context. She couldn’t have meant “squintz” or “florb” or she’d have said so. They didn’t seem applicable to the situation, either. Had casting such a wide inaccurate net have been the point? Or did none of the specific Irken classifications for feelings apply to this specific thing?

To his best guess, Foma had actually meant that Zim wanted to be appreciated. To be valued. To be thought of in a favorable light, or to do his work and have that work seen for its worth.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to please my Tallest,” he finally said. He only wanted what every Irken wanted from them. A smile. A glance. A nod. “Good job, soldier, you serve us well.” “Appreciation and love aren’t the same things, Extractor. You know that.”

Foma leaned over the side of the desk, arms crossed where the lace met the scorch marks. “Yes, I do. That’s how I know what you want is more than appreciation. You want to be loved.” She didn’t say it like an accusation. Not a joke. Not a diagnosis. Not a theory. It was not a question and there would be no debate. This was an observation no different than “the sky is pink” or “snarl beasts have five jaws”.

Zim didn’t quite know what to do with that.

Her hands moved from the lace to the banners hanging off the side of the desk. Wrinkles smoothed and settled with a brush of her glove. “You’re right; there’s nothing wrong with wanting to please our Tallest. There’s nothing wrong with wanting Irk’s attention, appreciation, or even Irk’s affection. But it’s difficult for us to appreciate your accomplishments when those accomplishments hurt us.”

“But—”

“This isn’t a reprimand,” she added. “However, you need to understand that you’ve hurt Irk, Zim. You’ve hurt us consistently and very badly, with little apology or sign of stopping. And I think you don’t—or can’t—stop because you want something we can’t give.”

“You just admitted there’s nothing wrong with ambition,” Zim snapped back. “And there’s nothing greedy about wanting my just reward for doing my duty, either. If I have potential, then it is my DUTY to use that potential. It is Zim’s duty to try!” Zim’s fist struck the desk. Shockwaves rumbled through the banners and tablecloths. The candy dish shuddered and wobbled to the side.

Foma dove to catch the candy dish before it toppled over the edge. One of the pizza gumdrops bounced over the edge and rolled across the floor. She observed its journey with a slight frown, clicked her tongue, and glanced back at Zim.

Zim coughed into his fist and opted to admire the monitor’s screensaver.

“Trying isn’t the problem. I’m concerned about your motivations.” Foma slid the candy dish to a safer spot and pointedly ignored Zim’s disapproval of her word choice. “You want love, but you want it for you— just you, and no one else. Does that sound fair to you?”

Zim took a moment to consider. “It’s fair if you deserve it.”

“What have you done to deserve it?”

He blinked and stared at her. Was it not obvious? “I am Zim.”

That in itself ought to be enough. The deserving came inherent. He could not be Zim and also not deserve all the worlds with all their treasures and accolades. And maybe everyone else could get a little something too, he supposed. A pat on the head or something. Admittedly, Zim had never really considered the everyone else part until now.

One could hardly call it a foreign concept, either. “Other stink-creatures are rewarded far more without doing anything besides exist. Smackey obtained no less than four different sports training spheres just for living to his twelfth Earth year. I’ve seen Vortians get gift baskets for failing! One of them explodes or coughs up a little blood, and suddenly there’s grass baskets and meat samples for weeks.”

“Yes. Certain species have certain customs to keep them healthy inside.” She climbed into her hoverchair and turned it towards the vending machines behind them. The perfect line of colorful rectangles hummed together, bright in the dimmed lighting and brimming with snacks for the feeding. All except for the machine in the center, all rusted and broken on the inside with burnt sugar and melted cream in the gears. Irreparable without a new motherboard.

Zim followed the Extractor’s gaze, frowned, and took up his candy wrapper again. One of the edges had gotten smushed when he’d dropped it before. Smoothing it out, he bent and angled another corner. He licked the tip of his claw and pinched the bottom between his fingers, stretching it to a tapered point. He did the same for a parallel corner. Not a perfect match, but close enough.

“Do—” Foma paused and frowned at Zim’s folded candy wrapper. “Do you remember the story I told you before about Smeet 646-8b?”

“…No?” 

The serial number sounded vaguely familiar, but after so many of her anecdotes, who could keep track? If the smeet didn’t have a name, it hadn’t survived long enough to surface. A failed smeet too broken and pointless to function held no significance for the Empire, and none for Zim. It shouldn’t have had significance for Foma either. Everyone had their weird fixations, Zim supposed.

“He was a smeet who thought he couldn’t breathe—as if he’d been made with gills and then dropped in a desert. It caused him a lot of pain.” The hoverchair settled beside Zim again. “He breathed fine, but he didn’t know it. Now, of course he didn’t have gills because he wasn’t an Amphibbinaut. The same way that you and I and The Tallest aren’t Amphibbinauts or humans or Vortians or Truffloids.”

“I know that! Why do you insist on drawing these pointless parallels to Zim? I’ve never held any illusions for what I am. We are no mewling heap of snivelies begging for hugs and love. We’re Irkens. We don’t need it.” He grit his teeth and swung his head toward her. “ I don’t need it.”

She only laughed at that. “You can’t need what you already have. Irkens do love, Zim, don’t doubt that for a moment. We conquer and build and kill and serve for the love of our Empire and our Tallest. Empires need more than one individual to function. A pilot doesn’t love their right ignition wire, they love their ship. In the same way, a Tallest loves their Empire, not just one Invader… or Food Drone. Ships still need all their parts to fly, though. The trouble is, you can’t seem to cooperate with our mechanics and so the system crashes.” Tilting her head, Foma shifted closer to examine the strange geometric design Zim had made from the candy wrappers. “Excuse me. What’s that you’re doing?” 

“Eh? This?” Zim held it higher. All the blues and purples shimmered along the sides as he tilted it. “Replication of some sort of Earth beast. A…” He stuck his tongue out in thought. “They call it, um, a crane.”

Foma wrinkled her brow and poked one of the delicate wings. When it didn’t explode, her finger traveled the length of the wing from where NUT— began to the base of the head where —RITION ended. “A crane? Like… like for construction?” She squinted with a little frown. “Oh! It’s got wings and you said it’s a beast? So it’s one of those… they’re called borbs?”

“Birds.” Granted, Zim had never seen a real crane or referenced his collected data for more information, so he couldn’t attest to the accuracy. He suspected the real things weren’t so pointy. “The stinkchildren were tasked to design them in what they call a ‘craft time’. That part’s a wing, and that part up there is the head.” He tilted it upside down to show her the little legs and feet. “The real ones have skin and feathers, probably.”

“I suppose the real thing flies, too. Sort of like a model, but it’s not accurate like a model. Are you going to add feathers later?”

Zim shook his head. “It’s supposed to look like this.”

Foma squinted. She hovered over the paper crane from the right angle, then the left angle. Squinted some more.

“The humans call it an ‘abstraction’. It’s an idea of a thing, but not the real thing.” Zim grinned at Foma’s perplexed expression. “It’s fine if you don’t get it. Art is subjective.”

She smiled at the precise creases and edges where the eye was supposed to be. “I don’t really understand the point of it, but the intricate design is so interesting. You’ve got a talent for this.”

It had only been a replication of the class demonstration and an excuse to do something with his hands. Still, a deserved compliment was a deserved compliment. “Do you see? One as versatile as Zim isn’t limited to destruction. I can build, too.”

She nodded. “You have a history of innovation and problem-solving.”

Potential, in other words. Potential that she saw in him, and always did. The same way the Empire did, otherwise they’d have never allowed her to come in the first place.

“Extractor?”

“Yes?”

“Do you really think you can fix me?” He set the paper crane on the edge of the candy dish. The local art slave had mentioned something about getting a prize if one manufactured thousands of cranes, but Zim had been bamboozled by promises of secret prizes before.

“You did most of the work here, Zim. I only got you to a place where repairs could happen at all.” Extractor Foma looked Zim over with a smile. “I did have doubts at the start, but with these breakthroughs, the odds are very good. This set of sessions have been promising.”

“And afterward, I can go home.”

“If I have anything to say about it, you absolutely will.”

Zim smiled back. “And The Tallest must know I still have potential if they risked sending their best out here all alone.”

“Oh, I didn’t come here alone,” said Foma.

The smile faded. Zim looked around the (supposedly) empty room. “I thought you said—”

“I never said that; you did. Computer? Track mode, please.”

The monitor split-screened to an Earth map. Four little lights pulsed in the grid, each labeled with a PAK number and identification link.

Foma zoomed in to point at the yellow dot blinking on an island above the South America continent. “That’s Sub-Extractor Smarsh—still searching for your Information Retrieval Unit, I assume. I think I may need to talk with him about efficiency later.” Her finger shifted to the northeast part of the North America marked with red and pink dots. “That’s me and you, of course.” The finger kept moving up. Up past the continent, up over the polar cap, up through the atmosphere, and into space. A white dot blinked somewhere between the moon and the Earth. “And that’s Mertz!”

The monitor fuzzed and cut to a cozy living quarters. Earth’s moon cast long strips of light through the open blinds, wriggling over a modest mini-fridge and a host of tangled wires.

An Irken drone with pale eyes slumped on a squish-sack playing video games. He looked up and gave the camera a limp salute. “Oh, hey. Do you need me yet?”

Foma shook her head. “Remain in standby, Mertz.”

The one called Mertz yawned, gave another salute, and went back to his racing game.

Though Zim couldn’t quite tell in the dim light, the shade of his uniform seemed much darker than the standard, and this drone couldn’t be here for janitorial duties if he stationed so far away. Indeed, most drone duties couldn’t be performed long distance. Whatever he did, he’d need to be on call for, not present for. Judging by that lazy posture and his 45th lap on Splatterhaus Station, he didn’t expect to be called anytime soon.

On a shelf just behind the drone, something gleamed in the shadows. Though half-covered by its carrying case, he could still make out the almond shape of the silver shell. It was just the right size for an average PAK. “That’s a mortuary drone.”

“Yes, Mertz has been my first choice for mortuary service for a few decades, now. He’s very thorough.” Foma turned back to Zim, frowning at his expression. “...What?”

“Did you bring him for me?”

She laughed. “Oh my, no! I brought Mertz for me. Well, me or Smarsh. You have a 70/30 mortality risk with a 90/10 disfigurement rate. If the worst happened, I’d need someone to collect the PAKs.” Foma pointed to the line of PAK Pods on a father shelf. “I still brought an extra for you, though. Just in case.”

That made sense. Extractors spent their careers lurking in shadows, perched behind desks, or spiking drinks. It didn’t take much to overpower Irkens who strapped all their enemies to chairs or tossed them in sim pods. As a former Elite and Invader, Zim’s threat level dwarfed that of two Extractors, high ranking or not. Still, something about the sight of those PAK Pods squished Zim’s spooch a bit.

Beside him, Foma applied a fresh nub to her stylus and wrote a fresh batch of notes. Something to do with finishing touches for a #IRK_SIM:SCEN_RUN -SESS 9 -POST -RUN 5 -SCENARIO 12:D-M. The censor filter hadn’t been applied to these. Green checkmarks decorated the paragraphs and smiley faces grinned in the margins. One little dancing gold star with sunglasses kept looping a thumbs-up. Zim had never seen a write-up about himself with smiley faces and stars before.

“When we left, I said that everyone involved would return home. You included. I try to keep my promises when I can.” Foma took one last look at the PAK pods and waved at Mertz before closing communications.

“Home," she’d said. Come to think of it, that had been the term she’d used from the beginning. Not “Irk”. Not “the Empire”. Not Foodcourtia or Judgementia or any other planet. Every time—every single time—“home”.

As in the permanent home. The final cloud storage of all PAK consciousness, memory, and personality after expiration of a body host.

Zim sank deep into his chair. Ribbons of cloth and fuzz spilled from the upholstery as his claws dragged across the armrest. “You mean home to The Collective.”

“Naturally. What else… did…” Foma’s eyes rose over the top of her datapad. The tips of her antennae drooped as the lines of her smile fell away. “Oh. You didn’t… oh, Zim. I’m sorry, I thought you understood.”

Of course. It had all been too easy. He should have seen it ages ago. Zim flinched away from the Extractor’s reach. “Even after all of that, I’m still getting deactivated?!” His voice peaked and trembled, and the sound of it sickened him to the pit of his spooch. How dare this sound be the voice of Zim. How dare this be the fate of Zim?

The question hung in the air, lonely in the company of cheerful background music and humming vending machines.

Extractor Foma laced her fingers together and took a deep breath. A moment to filter and fine-tooth her next move. Whatever calming phrase, whatever smooth rewording she searched for, she didn’t find it.

Instead, she blinked slowly and said, “I don’t know. It is a possibility, and with your record, it’s not an unlikely possibility. Nobody has decided anything yet. But if—” Foma leaned across Zim’s chair, so low her chin brushed the Vortian upholstery. “But if—if—that happens, you’ll be relieved of duty. It won’t be deletion, and it won’t be existence erasure. You will still exist, and you will still be you. Whether you deactivate seven weeks or seven hundred years from now.”

This had to be a joke. Another one of her misdirections or some way to soften the blow. “You’re telling me you did all this and didn’t even know how it’s supposed to end?”

“Ideally, it was supposed to end with you accepting that you’re no longer an Invader. Whatever happens after that is out of my hands. Nobody discussed sentencing with me. You could be deactivated, or sent to finish your sentence on Foodcourtia, or paroled or…” She shrugged with a half-hearted chuckle. “This is such a unique situation, anything might happen. However it turns out, I’ll keep helping you the best way that I can for as long as I can. Okay?”

“Okay.” It wasn’t okay at all, but Zim didn’t have a better answer.

Coming this far only to arrive at an I-Don’t-Know felt hollow, and it felt untrue. He didn’t think the Extractor tried to deceive him, but there had to be something else. Even if she didn’t have an S-class guarantee, Foma still had to have a hypothetical theory or four. A guess would be better than nothing.

“What do you think should happen?”

“Me?” Foma pointed at herself as if there might be some other Foma in the room. “Don’t be silly; I’m just an Extractor, not a Judgement Brain. We both know I’m not qualified for a decision like that. All I can give is an opinion.”

The background music rolled into a soothing tonal mix of chimes and synth. Something between elevator jingles and the we-close-in-fifteen-minutes music they played in the mall galaxies before sending out the taser mines.

Zim blinked. “And… that opinion is…?”

Foma tilted her head.

If he didn’t know better, Zim would think this was another test of his patience. “What do you think should happen?”

The Extractor’s processors clicked and whirred. Her brows drew together as if untangling a calculation or programming an exceptionally obtuse VCR. It kind of reminded Zim of Tallest Purple ordering dessert. "I’m not qualified either way. Why would what I think matter?”

Zim’s hands dragged slowly down his face. “Because I ASKED!”

The wires finally sparked. “Ohhh, it’s for personal reasons! Why didn’t you say so?” She took the candy wrapper crane into her hands, playing with its little blue wingtips. “In that case, I see two real options. The first would be a comfortable exile assignment; something engaging that kept us a safe distance from your damage radius. The Tallest already tried that, and you’ve proven your damage radius is much wider than we’d assumed. The Massive takeover proved that.” Foma stretched a finger to balance the crane on her knuckle. It wobbled there for a moment before falling back into her hand. “After your sessions with me and accepting your new encodings, I think the idea could still work. Without the denial firewall, though, I don’t think you’d get much out of it. This is the sort of thing that only works once. I think the healthier option would be to return you to your encoding.”

“Food service.” He suspected as much.

She placed the crane back on the desk. “No. Your original encoding.”

With a flash of neural nodes, a timeline of Zim’s career filed out across the monitor. The smeethood, Invader, and Food Service Drone years cut and deleted themselves as the computer shifted center and zoomed in.

Zim gazed up at a tapestry of Past Zims elbow deep in wires, goggled behind monitors, handling biological samples, coding, smoldering, dissecting, and being on fire a little bit. “You want me back in science?”

“Bioengineering, specifically. Maybe mechanics, or even design if you developed the patience for it.” Foma skimmed the timeline, taking note of the explosions and splatters of biological residue. “Under parole supervision, of course. Without the corruptive Vortian influence this time, it could work. If nowhere else, Information Extraction could always use more hands in physical research. You can handle constant screaming; that’s a fifth of the job done already.”

The monitor switched back to the desktop. Sterile columns of icons and shortcuts flanked a departmental seal that dominated the desktop. “That said, bias could have influenced my judgment by this point. What I’d like to see for you may not be what’s necessarily best for you.”

“What’s best for me, or what’s best for the Empire?”

“You say that as if they’re different things. Zim, I can’t understand why you think you’re the only one out here.” Smiling, she patted the rim of his PAK. “You have your Tallest, and me, and dozens of Brains, and shmillions of fellow Irkens with you. I wish that for once you could trust us to know what we’re doing.”

“I do!” At least, he thought he did. Probably.

Zim glanced at the hand on his PAK. Apparently, it’d cooled enough to touch, and the lingering scent of burnt wiring and stale metal had dissipated. The dent in the hatch still remained, but he didn’t see it unless he searched for it. His PAK legs hadn’t attacked him since three sessions ago and the heatsink didn’t cause blackouts. From the time he’d left the quiet room, Zim’s PAK sat between his shoulders quietly running his life support in the background without a fuss. Working with him, not against him, the way a PAK ought to.

This, more than anything else, had to be the keystone of his progress. Solid proof the work had paid off and he got better.

“Why doesn’t it feel better yet?”

“Sometimes when good things happen to us, they don’t seem good at the moment,” Foma said. “Even if we know it’s good, we still feel frightened or sad. Endings are always a little sad, I think. Beginnings, too. This is a little of both, and it’s still a process.” She unrolled the blanket from a hidden pouch in Zim’s chair and ran her fingers through all the soft folds and speckles in the Fweezian fur. “If you can, try to remember the benefit of all this. The Irken Empire will thrive. The Almighty Tallest will be pleased, and Irk herself will grow stronger for generations. So much good can come from this if you’ll let yourself see it.”

An Empire could only be as strong as its Irkens. Illness meant weakness. Weakness meant death. Whatever kept the Irken Empire from death had to be good. But when he gazed up at the domed ceiling, Zim remembered the flare of Spittle Runners, Doom Mechs, and Schroovers lifting into the stratosphere without him. He remembered his little circle on the asphalt and all the tall shadows passing over his face. Because Zim had to stay in the circle. Zim had to wait his turn. If his turn ever even happened.

“And what about Zim?” asked Zim. “What do I get?”

Foma considered it. “I should hope,” she said, “that it’s what you deserve.”

“That still sounds like a nicer way of saying I’m going to be deactivated.”

“That can’t be helped. Everyone deactivates eventually, even The Tallest. Even you. It’s our last, and perhaps, our highest duty.” She spread the fur blanket over Zim’s armrest, within reach but not crossing the boundary into his lap. Comfort if he wanted it. “Let me tell you something my superiors told me a long time ago: it’s only meat and code. At the end of the day, that’s all it is. Deactivation just separates the code from the meat and moves it somewhere new. You’ve done awful things, Zim, but you still deserve to go home to the Collective.”

In other words, Zim deserved the same thing everyone else deserved. The standard-issue fate that awaited common service drones, Elites, accident-prone smeets, Warlords, Frylords, Announcers, Wardens, and F-tier Invaders nobody cared about. A voice in a chorus. A drop of blood in a body.

“I’m not amazing,” he quietly said. It hurt more than when he’d admitted he wasn’t an Invader anymore. At least that had happened by accident. “I’m not great.”

“No, I’m afraid not.” Even Extractor Foma couldn’t pin a bright side to it. And yet, something in her eye sparkled like a coin between the couch cushions. “But…” A smile grew in the corner of her mouth. “…maybe you still could be.”

All these truths dropper-fed to him with sugars and nectars had grown too sweet for Zim’s palate a long time ago. “I tire of your coddling, Extractor. You no longer supervise Smeetery and I am no longer a smeet. If this is some attempt to dress up frywork and drudgery as some noble purpose, then….” Zim’s tongue fumbled for a suitable threat. “Then… don’t!” Eh, good enough.

Foma raised her eyebrows. “Hm. Defunct encodings have had a habit of resurfacing lately, but that’s hardly an excuse. I apologize, Zim. That was unprofessional of me.”

So was apologizing to a food drone almost half her height. Zim couldn’t tell if it had been a slip or if she thought so little of him she didn’t care about bearing weakness, but it embarrassed them both either way. “Miyuki was right. Smeet supervision made you oversensitive.”

“I prefer to think of it as personal investment.” Foma smoothed the wrinkles in her gloves, rubbing the points of her knuckles as she went along. “If an Irken still has a chance to support their Empire, I’m obliged to help them do it. Even if it takes multiple session sets to get there.”

Zim narrowed his eyes. “And you believe I can?”

“Oh yes, in a great way. If the final stage with PAKnician Wekkz is successful—and I have every confidence it will be—that doesn’t just mean you can be fixed, Zim. It means everyone can be.” Her grin had the ambitious zeal of smeets breaking the surface for the first time. “Think of it: no more smeetery deletions. No existence erasures for anyone ever again. No more lost potential, and all because of you!”

Rubbing his shoulders, Zim slid out of his chair. His muscles felt stiff and weakened from sitting so long. The ground needed to move under his feet. “How is it because of me?” Zim’s boots tapped counterpoint to the peaceful background synth as he paced along the vending machines. He squinted in the light of illuminated logos and buttons. “I’m not the one doing any debugging. That’s all you or the PAK tech or…” Or The Tallest. If the process happened under their orders, that made it their achievement. “Not mine.”

Foma cracked her back and rose to follow him. “Hm. In that case, I have a question. Can you name the first solo cruiser capable of multiple lightyear jumps carrying the weapon capacity of an Armada vessel?”

“A Voot Runner. Obviously.”

Lights brightened along the arch of the ceiling as the monitor went back to sleep. Foma’s neural nodes pulsed in quick sequence, the base of her antennae twitching in time. “Can you tell me who designed it? Or who coded the prototype?”

Referencing his PAK database brought Zim the schematics, models, prototypes, exploding test runs, and un-exploding maiden voyages, but no names. “No.”

“Exactly. Nobody worries about the builders—”

“They want results,” Zim finished. “And that’s me.

“This is a feat for the Collective Memory. We’ll remember this for as long as smeets are still implanted with knowledge.” Foma leaned against the broken vending machine, running her fingers along the darkened buttons. Her neural nodes reflected bright against the glass, and so warm against the collar of her uniform Zim smelled it from here. “Your name will be among the first ones Irkens ever learn. They will know Irk lives and thrives, and they’ll know it’s thanks, in part, to you. What you’ve done can’t be revised, and I can’t say for sure if it can be redeemed.” She wiped a streak of burned sugar off the machine dispenser. “But it can still be salvaged.”

Salvaged. The word dropped hard into Zim’s stomach. His knees wavered under him.

“There’s still stuff that can be fixed. Right?” The vending machine’s plastic buttons cracked under the grip of his claw. Low waves of panic churned under the quick throb of his spooch. “Zim’s not—I’m not ruined.”

She held up a clarifying finger. “What you’ve done, not you yourself. What’s done can’t be undone, but when it comes to the one who—”

A shadow flexed across the curved arc of the ceiling. Lights pulsed and flickered in time with the bright staccato pace of the neural nodes. Music warped and slowed and bent as if the sound itself melted in a furnace.

Foma’s antennae flattened, still twitching at the base. “We must be getting some interference. I think our session may be reaching its time limit…” She shook her head and turned back to Zim. “Sorry, where was I?”

“Uh.” Zim followed the line of dead light panels to the monitor wall. Even the screensaver had vanished. It had gone to full hibernation mode, if not shut down entirely. “Something about not undoing stuff?” His own antenna twitched at a weird scratching sound.

“Right, of course. Repairing something can only bring it back to its original state. When something is salvaged, it’s remade into something brand new—something even better.”

“A new and improved Zim.” He liked the sound of that.

The scratching noise came again. They both heard it that time, and now a low hum accompanied it. It sounded as if someone vacuumed the inside the walls.

Foma stepped back from the vending machines, squinting from the walls to the dead light panels to Zim. Metal squeaked and groaned behind her. She looked up just in time to see the shadow of the broken vending machine over her feet. “Oh, that’s a bit—-”

WHAM!

Tile cracked and rattled beneath Zim’s feet as he jumped back from the impact, PAK legs sprung and on guard. Clouds of sugar dust and debris churned through the air in great billows of white and grey. Shrapnel of glass and metal and half-melted snacks tumbled from the belly of the fallen vending machine in waves. In the corner of his eye, Extractor Foma’s fingers twitched weakly from under the machine.

Even in the rising maelstrom of scents, Zim smelled him before he saw him. The stink of it tore through the clean office like cannons. The silhouette of the hair fin arched through the settling dust clouds as the flaps of animal hide waved at his sides.

Dib walked across the back of the vending machine, coughing up little dust flecks. “Hey so, second opinion? Your therapist stinks.”

Zim circled the machine on his three good PAK legs, shadowing the human’s every movement with his own. Dib shifted right, Zim shifted right. Zim blinked when Dib blinked, inhaled when he inhaled. The Dib had managed a stealth assault, but Zim would allow him no more than that. “As if that blunt knob on your fleshy face could smell anything over the malodorous funk of your own smelliness.”

In the fragile newness of recovery mode, Zim had focused inward for so long that he’d forgotten the threats outward. Foolish. Distractions made him vulnerable—he and the base and the Irkens around him. Yes, he’d warned of the Dib threat, but he should have done it from the beginning. She might have taken him more seriously, then.

The Extractor groaned and lifted her head. Pinned from the shoulders down, she dragged her free arm out of a pile of broken glass and brushed debris from the base of her antennae. Neurotransmitters sparked and spat, and the music speakers overhead squealed with crackling feedback when she turned her head. She coughed and squinted up at the Dib creature. “...What’s a therapist?”

To her credit, Foma retained her composure well for someone who’d been proven totally completely entirely and one-trillion-percent wrong in under three seconds.

Dib had come, and little wonder. Zim was no longer an Invader, but that didn’t matter. Rank and classification meant nothing to his sort. Alien threats were alien threats. Dib would never let go of that. He could never let go of that.

“I told you, Extractor.” Eyes locked upon his prime enemy, Zim’s face cracked sideways in a grimacing smile. Something great swelled within him—something rawer than joy, taller than rage, grander than gladness, and it vibrated from the tip of his toe claw to the threads of his antennae. Vindication. What a glorious emotion. “Yes… YES! I told you, didn’t I? DIDN’T I? You doubted the word of Zim, and now see what’s become of your base: infiltrated and defiled! Maybe you’re an expert in brain-pokings, but I am an expert in Dib. I told you!”

Foma cupped her chin with her free hand. “Well. Can’t be right all the time, I suppose.” She glanced up at the human above her head. “Hello again, young man.”

Dib stared back with a small frown. His hand shifted toward his pocket. “You—”

Zim’s rotary drill sprung from his PAK before that hand moved any further. He glared.

Dib glared back. His hand withdrew.

That’s what I thought. “You see? Nobody knows the filth of this planet the way I…” Zim glanced at Foma again. 

For someone suffering the shame of a containment breach while crushed beneath eight hundred pounds of snack infrastructure, she’d been taking all this surprisingly well. He couldn’t see the state of her PAK under the machine, and though built for durability, the PAK had never been meant to take such an impact. Inappropriate emotional response could be an early warning sign of system failure. Also, swallowing glass probably wasn’t great for one’s insides. 

“Uh. Are you okay?” It felt strange being on the opposite side of that question for once.

"Oh, I'm just bleeding internally a little bit. I've had worse, but thank you for asking!" She coughed up a wet pink glob on the tile. "You're showing concern for Irkens besides yourself; that shows a lot of growth."

“Yes,” said Zim. “Yes, it does. I hope you’ve learned a little something about the dangers of coming to hostile planets unguarded. You never know what these stink-meats have hidden up their arms.”

“Sleeves.” Dib raised an eyebrow. “Pretty sure you mean sleeves.”

“Silence! You dare contradict me?!” 

And as a matter of fact, how dare he look down upon Zim from up there? As if he had any right to high ground? In one quick push, Zim launched atop the vending machine to loom over Dib. Shoulder to shoulder, the curve of his brow sat two inches above his. Indeed, Zim had grown after all of this. “What are you still doing here? I thought I told you to get out!”

Dib took a small step back from the rotary drill still jabbing at his face. “You don’t tell me what to do, you’re not my dad.”

Foma’s voice drifted up from under their feet. “How are those father issues working out, by the way?”

“Hey, that’s none of your business, lady!”

“I’m just making conversation.” Foma huffed under her breath. “There’s no need to be rude.”

Dib flapped the dust and debris out of his coat and ignored her. “Okay. I’m gonna ask you one more time, Zim: let’s just leave.”

“That wasn’t a question,” said Zim.

“You know what I mean! C’mon, let’s…” Dib gestured over his shoulder at a glowing ring on the wall that Zim didn’t recall being there a moment before. “…let’s just get outta here.”

The ring’s insides pulsed and warped in a soup of morphing colors. Sort of like the soup from the Skool cafeteria except it glowed slightly less and didn’t have that moldy smell. Zim tossed an expired yogurt cup through the ring. It flew straight through. The innards of the ring wriggled and someone on the other side shrieked, “AUGHGH MY EYE! MY DAIRY ALLERGY MAKES THIS INCONVENIENT!”

Typical human frailty.

Zim crossed his arms. “What’s that supposed to be? Some sort of a… transdimensional portal thing?”

Dib rubbed the back of his head. “I didn’t really read the instructions first, it’s my dad’s science… whatever, it’s not important.” He jabbed his thumb behind him at the dark monitor flanked by the banners of the Irken Empire. “Doing any of this was dumb in the first place but doing all of it just to go back to your evil home planet and die is… well, it’s REALLY dumb! Especially when you don’t even have to do it!”

An argument so absurd Zim didn’t bother to dignify it. He had seen the sketches of Dib’s planned autopsies. He knew better, and Dib didn’t deserve the privilege of a debate. “I don’t know what makes you think you have any say in matters of Empire, but I suggest you put a stop to it. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Zim paused to take in Dib’s stance—a fighting stance, despite supposedly coming to Zim’s “aid”. Another angle lurked in all of this, but he couldn’t say what. He glanced between Dib, the Extractor, the portal, the Empire banners, and back to Dib again. 

This didn’t feel right. Yes, Dib was up to something, but it felt nothing like his normal brand of conniving schemery, and so far the human had betrayed nothing of his real plot. Zim needed more information. It’d been years since he’d attempted anything close to extraction, but he remembered the broad strokes. Kind of. 

At the very least he remembered how to set bait. “And then what? I suppose you’d have me offer myself to your Earth authorities. Or maybe you relish the chance to do it yourself.”

“Maybe!” Dib smacked his head and tossed up his arms in an absurd flail. “ How is it this hard to tell some dumb alien he’s being dumb? I don’t know, okay? I didn’t exactly come in with a plan—maybe we’ll go back to trying to destroy each other, maybe you’ll go to space and bug someone else, maybe you’ll join the Skool play or rob a candy store, how am I supposed to know? Whatever you do, it’s gotta be better than this.”

Not that Dib had any real idea of what “this” was even supposed to be. The human eavesdropped for a couple of hours and suddenly hailed himself a master of Irken society and ethics. It explained why Dib’s speeches rang so hollow and lacked the usual passion. The effort of running that science portal… thing likely demanded more of him than he let on. No, this half-glazed trick pulled from Dib’s pocket at the last second couldn’t fool Zim. However…

Zim frowned at the wormhole pulsing at Dib’s back. Wisps of color crawled out of it in vaporous little tendrils, coiling and dissipating at their feet. Wormhole and dimension-hopping demanded levels of technical prowess that should have been well beyond the reach of any mere Earth monkey. Yet here he stood anyway through tenacity or stubbornness or sheer lack of anything better to do. 

Whatever the method, whatever the motive, Dib was not going to let this go. Not now, not ever. For the sake of his prize, he’d chase Zim all the way to Foodcourtia, Irk, or wherever Zim ended up and probably drag Irk’s enemies along for the ride. Left to his own devices, who knew the levels of damage Dib could do in his obsession with Zim? If not for Dib’s interference, The Massive would never have spun out of control, and he’d done that schmillions of lightyears away. On accident. If he actually tried to do anything on purpose… Zim hated to think of it.

Someone had to stop him. To stop him, he had to stay.

“But if I stay…” 

Zim glanced at the Extractor flattened under the vending machine. She’d never said it outright, but all her talk of Collective and duty relief implied that this chance may be his last. Even if he didn’t get a probation period—and Zim didn’t see why he wouldn’t—at the very least he’d avoid existence erasure. No matter what, Zim would keep his own little mark in history. Perhaps even create history by eliminating the need for existence erasures entirely (excepting space clowns, who deserved it no matter what).

To return with the Extractor meant returning to mark his name in the logs of Irken progress, to be among the first thousand names smeets learned in the first minutes of life, would be an honor. An honor he’d truly earned. But to return with the Extractor also meant he’d leave Irk and all her Irkens vulnerable to Dib.

Could Dib take down an entire Armada? Of course not. But that didn’t mean he still couldn’t do damage along the way. That didn’t mean he couldn’t leak all that he’d learned to Irk’s enemies, and the enemies of Irk would absolutely know what to do with it. If Zim stayed, he faced the very real possibility he’d never make it into the Collective. But keeping Dib’s grubby monkey hands in his own solar system might be worth it.

Below him, Foma’s voice murmured a small sound of surprise.

The background music stuttered and turned in on itself. Synths stretched into staticky wails over the warping strings as the track looped and layered over itself. It sounded like something had jammed in the internals. Foma frowned up at the flickering light panels where rectangles of blue flared through the ceiling. Bits of clouds peaked at the corners. From down here, it appeared as if someone had cut perfect holes in the ceiling to let the sky in. Foma’s fingers flexed in the direction of the datapad a few inches away. “Oh, that’s sooner than I expected”, she whispered to herself. “I’ll need to adjust that next time…”

Zim squinted at a chunk of blue sky dangling from the ceiling. It reminded him of the holographic shell Planet Jackers used, and he suddenly wondered if the Extractor had completely layered her base in camouflage panels. “Eh… Is that supposed to hap—”

“What is WITH you, Zim? It’s a creepy weird office doing creepy alien stuff. What do you care?” Dib stepped to the side, eyeing the dangling panel warily.

“It’s really my problem; don’t worry about it, Zim. It’s an easy error to fix.” Foma’s bones clacked and clattered like a bag full of marbles as she shifted. She glanced at the state of herself with a sigh. “After I fix the rest.”

An obvious deflection to either save face or Zim’s concerns. Likely the former. A quick skim of the state of her office told Zim what had happened: under the stress of being ripped open from the inside, Foma’s base had begun to glitch out. Irken defense prepped for outside threats, but if something had attacked it from within, all the armor in the universe couldn’t help.

Behind Dib, the portal cracked wider as bits of ceiling and Miyuki-blue paint snowed around them. Zim hissed between his teeth. The human’s very presence had literally brought bits of the Empire crashing down around them. No Irken anywhere could be safe so long as he chased Zim. 

“Whoa…” Dib backed away, the glow of the portal shiny on his shoulders. He stared at the gigantic speaker hanging from one lonely wire above him. The wire had already begun to fray. “Okay, I’m getting out of here. Are you coming or not?”

“I…” Zim glanced again at the Extractor for a moment.

A moment too long for Dib, it seemed. When Zim looked up again, he was gone. Dib never hesitated to save his own skin, though the mess had all been his doing. The stinkbeast didn’t even apologize. He didn’t even care.

“I can’t let him run free to plot whatever schemes he’s scheming within that bulbous meat stick of a head. He’ll…” Now that he said it out loud, the whole thing sounded crazy. Like excuses. Zim couldn’t help that.

“He knows too much.” She didn’t sound entirely happy with the idea.

“Precisely. Extractor, you must…” Actually, he could be in a better position to make his case if he moved the machine first.

Eyes still on the wormhole, Zim slid off the vending machine and walked a short lap around the perimeter. The fall had left a small gap between the wall and Foma’s foot. He hooked his two good PAK legs in the vending machine facade and lifted it a few inches. Metal squeaked and strained under the effort, but they held. Lights glowed in the dim shade under the machine; the PAK was fine, as suspected. “Extractor, you must understand, We may be free of the Dib human for the moment, but this will not be the end of it. His gnawing obsession for Zim will never recede, and I…” He clenched his hand into a fist. “I’m the only one who fully comprehends what he’s capable of. I must—”

“It sounds like you’ve made your decision.” Foma dragged herself out from under the gap and examined the damage. One of her legs had shattered in several places, and Zim didn’t think spines were supposed to twist in that direction. The Extractor shrugged with a small chuckle. “Not that I could stop you.”

With a snap of her fingers, the hoverchair zipped to her side and dipped down to let Foma pull herself in. She lounged across it looking like a slightly melted version of herself. “I can’t say I’m delighted by this result, but for now it may be the best I can do.” She took up the datapad—to call her ship for a rescue, most likely—and gave Zim an appraising look. “The hard part’s still done, I need to keep that in mind. That probably means the PAK evals need to be pushed to a later date, but I think that’ll be doable.”

“What do you mean a ‘later date’?” Zim glanced over his shoulder. In the short time they’d been speaking, the wormhole had collapsed to half its original size and still shrank by the second. Without Dib here to stabilize it, the core couldn’t hold.

“It means exactly what it sounds like. However, I think we can worry about that when we come to it.” With one eye on the wormhole, she wrote a quick series of notes. “And it’s good,” she said, “to enjoy the time you still have. I may be able to spin this as an infiltration mission, but we’ll see. For now, this session set’s done. Of course, you can always worry about Dib later and come back with me in the meantime if you want.”

Zim glanced over his shoulder, already mid-torso into the wormhole. “What? You say something?”

Extractor Foma shook her head with a sigh. “Just try and have a good time for me, okay?” When her head shifted, the air around her eyes shimmered. A translucent band of light encircled her eyes, and it shifted color with the neural nodes.

Zim frowned. That sort of looked like a fancier shinier version of the visors they’d used during underground training in the virtual—

The wormhole snapped shut.

END OF SESSION LOG V.

SESSION SET IX, RUN III: COMPLETE.

Chapter Text

POST-SESSION ADDENDUM.

The facade didn't last, of course. It couldn't possibly. 

Months of observation told Zim that humans generally didn't have that sort of stamina. Personal experience told him that Dib Membrane, specifically, did not and could not maintain the patience or fortitude to keep up the act for long. If for no other reason than his pride wouldn't allow anything less than a complete win.

Oh, Dib had certainly tried to maintain the illusion in the beginning. In that first new stretch of skooldays, he'd attempted a prodding question here: "Hey, have you updated your base security? She could still come back, you know." A probe wrapped in false concern there: "Hey, are you doing okay?"

Occasionally, he baited him as if Zim were nothing more than a whimpering Earth creature huddled beneath a mailbox on a rainy day. "If you don't feel safe at your base, my dad says you could… I dunno. Maybe try my place?" Those had been the worst of all—if not for  Dib's pathetic attempt at acting, then for the sheer audacity to assume Zim would fall for it. Besides, if he wanted to enter the human's nest he could do so whenever he liked, invitation or not.

It went on that way for about a month or two. Zim supposed he could credit Dib for his persistence. On his weaker days, he even found himself appreciating Dib's dedication to the act. But the curtain had to close on it sometime.

"Fine, you know what? Whatever. Do what you want, Zim."

When the local city Fun Center went up in a brilliant flare of smoke and ashes and chicken heads teleported onto dog-clown hybrid bodies, Dib regretted that request.

The first spy probe arrived in Zim’s base not long after. They traded blows and threats a skoolday after that.

Took him long enough. The fool.

Overconfidence had blinded the human—made him sloppy. In the entire time that Dib begged and cajoled and tempted him to join forces, it had never crossed his mind that Zim didn’t need a place to hide because he had nothing to hide from.

Despite what Dib chose to believe, Zim had never defected from the Irken Empire. In fact, he sent them progress reports every other weekend. Punctuality had to be top priority when one worked with Information Extraction. Worked for it? Something like that. He’d never asked for specifics. (Mostly because that meant longer calls with Sub-Extractor Smarsh and his hour-long rants about people stealing parking spots.) 

The job had none of Invasion’s luster or bragging rights, and “Infiltrator Trainee Candidate Zim” didn’t have as nice a ring to it but hey. It beat food drone duty.

Plus, it seemed to please The Tallest.

“Huh. Not a bad job, Zim.” Tallest Purple skimmed the report with one hand while plowing through a fresh donut in the other. “Keep it up. Give us a follow-up next week.”

“Absolutely, sirs.” Zim clacked his heels together and saluted his sign-off. In the background, GIR flashed his own little metal salute.

A Good Job Not Ruining Everything For Once celebratory gift basket of hot nachos, brand new camera probes, and a smiley-face glitter sticker arrived the day after his first report. That proved it. They’d been pleased.

If The Almighty Tallest were happy, Zim supposed he ought to be happy as well. Which he was, of course. Happy to serve his Empire, grateful for the opportunity to redeem himself and his reputation, and satisfied with the knowledge he kept Irk’s enemies safely tethered to their own stinkball planets. He was. Truly. Or at least, he was learning to be. It was good to try and good to learn. Zim was good, and being good felt good. Therefore, Zim was happy.

Even so… 

Sometimes—not all the time—but… sometimes when the day's work ended and his base eased into the placid lull of background noise, Zim felt his spooch clench, unsettled. Not unhappy. Not unsatisfied. Unsettled. As if he'd left his Voot code key in the washroom or forgotten to turn off a stove.

And it grew.

Out of sight, the feeling warped and slithered and prodded under his skin. Something that he should know. Or something he already knew.

He almost tried calling The Tallest about it once—

“We just did this fifteen minutes ago!”

“I’m getting pretty sick of this conversation; it was fun telling him the truth the first time, but sheesh.”

—but Zim decided against testing their patience. For all he knew, he’d already asked them about it. Without a High Extractor monitoring his memory errors with playback at the push of a button, he couldn’t know. He could always demand the PAK’s own recall, but he didn’t trust that defective thing as far as he could throw it.

Could he be relapsing? It wouldn’t surprise him because lately, a lot of things about his extraction session still didn’t fit right.

Early in the maintenance sessions, The Tallest had scolded Zim for calling them back fifteen minutes after the last attempt. Foma had cautioned they wouldn’t like being called again so soon after last time. But Zim hadn’t remembered a ‘last time’ in the break room and he couldn’t recall a ‘last time’ now. He’d spent the minutes and hours before that moment eating Foodcourtia fries and meeting the “skool psychologist”, hadn’t he?

The call history lasting longer than the time Zim had entered the break room told him otherwise. But unless they’d somehow called the Tallest four different times during the Zim’s blackouts, he didn’t see how that could be possible. Especially when The Tallest wouldn’t be inclined to lie, and Extractor Foma couldn’t lie at all. Zim couldn’t understand it. Not that any of this mattered after the fact, anyway. It really wasn’t worth worrying about.

Zim didn’t overthink it when he retired for the workday.

He tried not to overthink it on the walk to skool.

When class started, he reminded himself that technically, it didn’t count as overthinking when one just had many thoughts to think. Not overthinking. The correct amount of thinking.

One little inconsistency could never be enough to rattle Irk’s finest. Errors happened all the time, even with fully functional PAKs. It was just one little inconsistency or two. Or five. Or twelve. But Zim only noticed when he thought about them, so Zim didn’t think about them.

Or at least he tried.

“Do you remember me, Zim?”

It had been such a strange thing to ask. Yes, he’d remembered Extractor Foma when he’d thought back to Elite training later on in the sessions. She couldn’t have expected instant recall on the spot, right? Until that day, they’d only known each other across a cramped sweaty lecture hall of Elites in a presentation Zim barely paid attention to. They’d never so much as engaged in a post-lecture Q&A session. Yet she behaved as if they’d personally met before.

Maybe they had met officially but he’d been too absorbed with his own important affairs to offer his full attention. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Questions boiled in his spooch and wriggled up his spine, and the less he thought about them, the more they multiplied. Coincidences piled and beached themselves on his incredible brain, steaming and rotting the second they were exposed to the air.

“Nooooo!”

In the northern corner of the classroom, Dib cried out in anguish. Not from any efforts of Zim's, though that didn't make it any less pleasing. "Aw come on, again?! I just got a new chisel this morning!" Dib groaned over the broken stone tablet cracked in three places on his desk.

"What's the matter, Dib? I would have thought a primitive species would be used to such basic human primitive tools for primitives.” He patted his wig. “Which I… also am. One of." Zim glanced at the stone slab on his own desk. Which had not been broken, thank you. Zim didn't go around breaking everything in sight, unlike some.

Dib raised his hand and shot back a bitter look that promised swift retaliation the moment time allowed it. "Ms. Bitters? If we can't have digital tablets, can't we just switch back to pencils and paper?"

"Feh." This was what the one known as Ms. Bitters considered a laugh. "You think there’s room in the budget for pencils? I had a pencil once…"

Another budgetary concern. Zim stretched his neck toward the door window. If he squinted, he could see the reflection of one of the brand new Poop machines in the hallway. Those machines wouldn't break down in the middle of the day and need spare parts that didn't exist anymore.

Why did Foma have a working model of an old vending machine? If she'd wanted to keep the aesthetics, she could've pasted an old shell onto a new model. But no, the break room—a perfect replica from the floor plan to the food stains—had stocked legitimate and functional antiques. Without funding, how did Information Extraction's strained budget support it? Building such a perfectly detailed replica would have had to take tens of thousands of monies, hundreds of hours, and loads of research. The cost far outweighed the reward.

"I do software, not hardware.”

Unless she didn't need to commission a build in the first— 

Zim shook his head. He’d let himself get distracted again. He couldn’t afford any mistakes. Dib needed Irken eyes on him every second.

Foolish. Foolish indolence and baseless conspiracy. These were nothing but baseless worries of an Irken looking for something to worry about. Worries of an Irken with little to do and little trust in his own Empire. Zim was not that Irken. Those days were over.

Zim trusted the Empire and the Empire trusted him. More than that, The Irken Empire had offered Zim another chance he likely didn’t deserve. They trusted him with delicate information, and in doing so, trusted Zim to guard Irk’s forces and territories against those who’d tear her down and rip her asunder.

No. Zim would not allow it. He would not entertain another millisecond of these stupid distractions. No more mistakes. No more friendly fires. No more disappointment. No more embarrassment. No more.

Dib’s gaze lingered on him, smoldering on Zim’s skin like rainwater. They locked eyes like swords across the room: a silent promise the fight wasn’t over yet. It never would be, not until the day Zim stood victorious over that gargantuan head. Until that day, Dib Membrane required Irken supervision every second of every hour of every day until the day he stopped existing. 

The camera monitors, hidden microphones, and heat sensors had been an acceptable start, but not enough. After all, spy bugs could be tracked, cameras smashed, and mics muted. He had to step up his game.

Zim’s eye slid down to the chisel gripped tight in Dib’s sweaty little hand. A primitive tool for a primitive species. They’d barely managed to break the atmosphere, much less master space travel. But even primitive creatures evolved, eventually, and their tools upgraded with them. Dib’s damage capacity towered above that of his peers already. Only a matter of time before that damage grew. He would need something more than mere supervision. He needed containment.

Yes. Confinement and control. Zim needed a way to monitor this Empire threat safely, securely, and in a way so that he could still harvest the proper information reliably. Something as simple as a prison cell would never work. It’d only aggravate him, and in such dull surroundings, a creature as dangerously creative as Dib wouldn’t remain in a cell for long. Two, three weeks at the absolute most.

Naturally, Irken ingenuity and the Extraction department had fixed this sort of issue cycles ago. The Information Extraction Simulacrum V-2 ™, conceptualized by Extractor Foma herself, fit the occasion perfectly. Though useful in training Irkens’ endurance for capture/torture scenarios, the Simulacrum truly shined in its original purpose: enemy interrogation. With no physical harm to the body and infinite resets, one could extract all the information they needed. No risk of the subject accidentally expiring and a near-zero chance of escape. Even better, a total reset erased all memory of previous session runs. Even on the off-chance Dib figured it all out, he wouldn’t remember a thing. Zim could knock the whole thing out in a day or five, easy. Up to six months inside the Simulacrum leveled out to roughly an hour or two on the outside. Why, he could torment Dib for a virtual eternity!

Five desks away, Dib lifted a stick-figure drawing of Zim with all of Stick-Zim’s organs outside of his body and one eye floating in a jar. Dib pointed at Stick-Zim and grinned. Did he really think this groundless intimidation would rattle him? Ha. Zim had seen worse in training.

The idea of tossing Dib into fifty-eight consecutive vivisection sims enticed him, but Zim stayed on this miserable dirt rock for business, not pleasure. Besides, something so blatantly painful would only encourage escape. He needed Dib to stay put. Maybe instead, Zim could program something he wouldn’t want to escape from. No need to escape prison when you couldn’t see the bars.

Zim smiled to himself. Yes. Yes, a Best-Case-Scenario could work for this. An idealized recreation of Dib’s current native environment and fellow wretched humans, crafted from the ground up in clean malleable code. Zim himself would barely need to lift a finger—the Simulacrum naturally plucked data and memories from the prisoner’s brainmeats to write and re-write the program on the spot. 

Best of all, a Simulacrum already waited in the base, ready to go whenever he needed it. His personal model was an older V-1, scaled 40X40 and subject to some minor system errors, but for a small-scale job, it’d do the trick. It had worked before when Zim extracted the information of who’d thrown the muffin at his head. No reason it shouldn’t work now. Dib would be so busy slavering over the spoils of his victory he’d never even notice. Pathetic. If the very thought of Dib’s existence didn’t sicken him to the core, Zim could almost foster some meager scrap of pity for him. Almost.

Indeed, the human ought to feel honored. Few individuals could claim to be a real threat to the Irken Empire. Information Extraction reserved Simulacrums for only the most dangerous enemies.

“Don’t you usually interrogate enemies of the Irken Empire? You don’t think I’m …”

“Please don’t misunderstand. This is not an interrogation.”

Zim’s right antenna itched and fidgeted under his wig, searching for scents that didn’t exist. His spooch clenched and gurgled in an unsettled churn. Unsettled? No, no—excited! Excited at the victory sure to come from the interrogat… Wait. Would it even count as interrogation?

After all, when one already knew the answer, that wasn’t called an interrogation.

“We both know that’s not true.”

They called that a confession.

Well. Pedantics and labels could be sorted out later.

The real trick in all of this would be keeping Dib from realizing he’d been trapped. Though highly advanced in duplication and replication, Simulacrum scenarios weren’t flawless. Little signals and tells crept in through the cracks, no matter what. The time crunch between the outside world and the sims had been a problem since launch. Programming couldn’t conflate the sheer number of prisoners from countless different worlds with different suns, moons, time zones, and bank holidays. (And all that before allocating for memory gaps from hard resets.) As a result, passages of time never quite behaved themselves. The sim compensated by eliminating all the usual time markers: no windows to betray a glitched rotation cycle, no watches or clocks to track. Zim doubted Dib’s feeble brain would notice such a tiny detail, but he could never be too careful.

The churn in Zim’s spooch tossed hard, though he couldn’t say why. Perhaps some small part of him feared failure. Which was absurd. Impossible. Zim was Zim, trusted and beloved of the Empire, and receiver of gift baskets. Zim feared nothing.

The bell rang.

The stampede of muddy sneakers thundered in a mad rush to break from Skool first. Hordes of filthy children surged around the desks, screaming and tripping over themselves as they poured from doors and windows and air vents like blood from a broken orifice.

All but Zim.

Zim stared at the clock above the chalkboard. It read 9:36. The Skool budget couldn’t be bothered with new clocks or new batteries for old clocks. Now that Zim thought about it, he couldn’t recall any clocks in the hall either. Or the cafeteria. Did he have a chronometer in his base? If he had, it’d been installed for show and likely didn’t work either. The base had needed several reboots to get going again, and he’d never bothered manually resetting the time.

Dib’s hand slammed on Zim’s desk. “Well?!” He adjusted his glasses so they did that thing where the light gleaned them all spooky-like. “What is it this time, Zim? What are you up to? Another wormhole? A rip in the space/time continuum? Admit it!” His coat flared behind him with the dramatic flourish of his finger. “You’re after our clock technology, aren’t you?”

Zim leaned away from the finger, grimacing. “You—”

“Ha! Well, don’t count on it, spaceboy. Good luck getting anywhere without these !” Dib opened his jacket to reveal a pair of AA batteries tucked away with his grappling hook and ghost salt. “You might as well just give up now.”

Outside, dirt and plastic bags tossed across the blacktop in a humid storm wind. It had been raining, foggy, or cloudy nearly every day since Zim had resumed his duties. When had he last seen the sun?

Zim’s gaze trailed from the batteries in Dib’s coat to the frozen clock on the wall. He frowned. “What time is it?”

Dib blinked back at him. “Does it matter?”