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The Irken Anatomy	By : ladylaguna Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 4135 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Zim and all related characters - Viacom... All unrelated characters � Jenn L. No profit is gained from this writing.

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At first, Megami was completely lost and confused. But she began to feel... things. How she knew they were there, she didn't know, but she could reach out and grab them if she concentrated. When she thought of the “files” Vermeil spoke of, they appeared before her. Knowledge... Information... She then realized that she was accessing Vermeil's own knowledge; everything he had stored within his own pak. Could she access his memories?

Just concentrating on “his memories” yielded little. What would it take? Were they locked out to her? She just wanted to know how he had managed after Dib left him, cowering under that table...

Something came to her. Just a glance, but it was there. It was painful... She tried to recall other details about the event. His room. The screams. How wild Dib looked...

And the memory finally opened before her. She was there in the room with him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Once the sound of the Fuck Pig's footsteps could no longer be heard, there was silence. Silence and silence and silence and the smell. A dark ring of blood began to encroach on his room, soaking into the carpet. But still he did not dare move. His legs cramped, arms became stiff, eyes heavy. Leaning against the wall, he stared at the bright square that the sun made on the floor. It moved across the room with the passage of time. Vanished... And then it became dark. Still, he did not move.

Sometimes he cried. But mostly, he didn't.

A few days passed. The smell grew worse.

He heard the front door open.

“Every single one,” a voice said.

A heavy sigh. “Well, we should bury them. Don't want ghosts hovering around here.”

Things were shoved around. Low conversation Vermeil couldn't quite pick out... And then footsteps in his doorway.

Gretz's wrinkled old face came into view. “Little Prince!” he cried, smiling. Standing up straight, he called out. “The Little Prince is here. He lives and breathes!”

A few more pairs of legs entered the room. Gretz leaned down again. “We are glad to see you alive, Little Prince. How long have you been here? Come with us, we'll give you a warm bed and a hot meal.”

Vermeil did not move. His body had forgotten how, it seemed. Nor did he respond. They called their strongest man (the Kixsmirin were a relatively small and weak race) to lift his desk away from his head and lift his body away from the wall. Still curled into an awkward ball, Vermeil allowed them to take him where they may. His eyes were unblinking as they moved through the family room... No bodies were there. They were instead lined up outside the front door.

Tenn was there. But he only knew it was Tenn by her dress, the cast... Her head was nothing but a mass of blood and pulp.

Covering his face, he sobbed and heaved.

He was taken underground, to the Kixsmirin city. He'd visited before, with his friend Raxsel, but never stayed long. It was cool and damp and (of course) dark...

They deposited him in a small room, where he curled up on the pallet and stared at the wall.

They brought him food but it went uneaten. He did not move. A couple of days passed.

Raxsel entered. She was older than him, wiser... That was why he had always liked her. Sitting behind him on the pallet, she rubbed his arm comfortingly. “Everyone's worried about you,” she said. “What happened to you... it was a horrible thing. But your family... would they want you to shut down like this? Would they want you to give up?”

He didn't answer. Only continued staring at the wall. Unblinking. But he heard her words; his antennae flickered in recognition. And that was all she felt she could do at that point.

The days turned into a week. Raxsel returned with something under her arm. “We've cleaned everything up, Vermeil. I thought you might like to have your console.” He didn't answer, as was expected. Sitting the small computer on the thatched mat beside the pallet, she flipped it open. It filled the dark room with its brightness, causing Vermeil to wince as he looked at it. Finally, for the first time in half a month, Vermeil spoke.

“I'm the last Irken alive.”

After a moment of retrospect, Raxsel replied, “Maybe.” Sliding her stubby fingers along the edge of the console's screen, she smiled sadly. “I do read about them being slaughtered all the time on the Fednet. Maybe that's what happened to your family. Bounty hunters. Or just plain hunters.”

He knew who had slaughtered his family. His jaw went taut. Though he couldn't help but ask, “...Fednet?”

“Mmm-hmm. Your family didn't let you read the Fednet postings?” She tried to take his console to the Fednet's main page, but it seemed to be locked out. “...strange.”

Shrugging, she got to her feet. “You just call if you need anything, Vermeil.” And she took her leave.

For many hours, he stared at the error screen. What was the Fednet? Why wasn't he allowed to access it? Did they think he was unable to handle it... Reading about slaughtered Irkens? Tzin's mocking words came back to haunt him...

“Spoiled rotten Tallest clone... You'll never amount to anything... A stiff wind would blow you over. You're a waste.”

He wasn't sad that Tzin was dead. He deserved it for what he did to the Fuck Pig. But Tenn never did anything to him. Why did Tenn deserve it?

The matter at hand came back to him. The Fednet. Sitting up, he pulled the console into his lap. There had to be a code on that system keeping him from it. He could unlock it if he tried!

That took many hours of research and work. But by dawn of the next morning, he'd broken many of the locks on his system. The Fednet finally unfolded for him. His research also taught him that his Irken tech could be tracked, so he managed to erect a fairly stable encryption.

His family had told him so many things about his past, the past of their society. Tenn especially... But the Fednet told very different stories. At first, he didn't believe a word, but as he traveled from site to site, the pieces began to fall together.

The Irkens were NOT a benevolent race... and his parents were NOT kind and giving leaders. While most of the Irken people regarded them with rapt admiration, many feared and hated them. The memories he had told so much of a different story. Even ten years later, he remembered the last time he saw his Tallest Red... As Tenn was carrying him to the ship, his “father” had waved sadly, wiping a tear from his eye... He didn't recall where Purple was, but he was probably doing the same.

And now they were dead and nobody would know the truth.

Over the ensuing weeks, Vermeil took to the task of cleaning up their reputation. He began to write more flattering articles, submitting them to any site that would take them. Lurking various message boards, he formed multiple accounts dedicated to defending them. He had been taught the Fed language as a smeet, but he began to dip into other languages so that he could argue with other aliens more effectively.

He would do his parents proud. Tenn proud...

When Raxsel came to visit, she was encouraged by Vermeil's improvement. He occasionally ate. Though he refused to leave that room. His console.

With more digging, he stumbled across a group of posts in a language he'd never seen before. Surprisingly similar to the Irken language... He went about dissecting it. In a few evenings, he'd managed to translate it. Most of it seemed to be nonsensical. Poems, talk about celebrity happenings, the like. But one post really got to him:

“Do you sometimes wonder if you're truly alone in this universe?”

And a mailbox link.

In the poster's own language, he replied. He couldn't help himself.

“I am the only one of my group left alive. Sometimes I wonder if there are others like me... out there, somewhere...”

That evening, a reply came.

“A will to live-- A need for self preservation-- exists in all creatures formed by the hand of the Goddess.”

Some characters had been replaced with those more Irken in origin. Vermeil caught on quickly. Perhaps it was a trap, but his replies couldn't be tracked... And neither could those of his penpal. He sent a reply, replacing a few more characters. This game continued for about a week until they were both communicating in pure Irken. Finally sick of being coy, Vermeil sent a final message:

“Please tell me I am not alone.”

After a (seemingly) long wait, the answer:

“You are not alone, comrade.”

Relief washed over him, causing him to shudder and collapse atop himself. He cried for a long time, alternately laughing and wringing his little hands.

From there, the written replies got much longer. They both divulged details about themselves, little by little, until they truly became what could be considered “friends.” Her name was Lapis, she said... She had been a scientist for the Empire so long ago. When the cataclysm came, she had been fortunate enough to escape Irk's destruction. She knew she couldn't have been the only one, so she went about carefully fishing for clues. Others, she said, had contacted her. Some continued to write; others disappeared, probably victims of whatever bounty hunter they had run afoul of... She said that, right now, hope was the most important weapon they had. Knowing there were others made you want to survive, in hopes that you'd meet them someday.

“I want to help you,” Vermeil said. She agreed that this would be a wonderful idea. Part of his reason for doing so was because he didn't entirely trust her yet; he was smart enough to know that Irkens fetched a handsome price on many markets, and many would gladly set up such an elaborate ruse to pull in the more cautious ones. For this reason, he didn't tell her everything about himself right away. He used a code name and lied about his age.

Though, despite this, he still had a great deal of hope. When he began to assist Lapis in her endeavors, he heard from others. He knew that some of them HAD to be real... right?

He was finally coaxed out of the room. Excitedly, Vermeil told Raxsel about his activities. There were others! He wasn't alone!

“That's good,” Raxsel replied, smiling down at him. She ran the back of her hand over his cheek, soft fur caressing his pale skin. “What are you going to do about it?”

Good question. Would he sincerely just continue on this way, playing penpals with all of these scattered Irkens? In the end, other than raising morale, what good would it do?

He continued to speak with Lapis. Though she finally joined him in real-time chat, she refused to accept direct video requests. Of course, this made him suspicious... When asked why, she simply replied, “My camera doesn't work well. All of my tech is cobbled together; I'm sure you understand.”

Regardless of this, he became addicted to her. Everything she said to him filled him with joy and hope and... what was this? This feeling in his gut? He couldn't stop thinking of her... He looked forward to speaking with her every day. When he woke, he immediately checked his mailbox to see if she had written.

“You're in love, silly,” Raxsel told him. She looked a little put-out by this... But she was the daughter of an elder. They would never allow her to be with an outsider. Though she and Vermeil had done things that only mates do... long ago, before his family had died... it was just practice, really. Fun.

Frowning, Vermeil replied, “But what if I'm in love with a lie?”

“You've been lying too, haven't you? Maybe you should take a 'leap of faith,' as it were.”

After a great deal of thought, he did.

“I haven't been entirely honest with you,” Vermeil finally told Lapis.

A long silence. He was sure that, if she was really who she claimed to be, she was filled with fear. “Is that so?” she finally answered.

He told her his real name... and his real age. And he told her that he loved her.

She only mocked. “You're just a smeet. You don't know what love is.” He began to reply with a healthy paragraph explaining that he knew exactly what love was, but she interrupted.

“Your name is Vermeil? And you're sixteen?” A pause. “You're lying.”

Leap of faith. Leap of faith. “I swear that I am not.” And he sent a picture of himself.

Several minutes passed. “I can't believe it. You're still alive. After all these years.”

Tenn always told him he was special. Tzin mocked him for being the “spoiled rotten Tallest boy.” But in the end he always felt he was just the smeet, the little boy everyone took care of... Nothing really amazing. But Lapis's sentences began to drip from the screen. She was amazed, she was in tears, she couldn't believe they still had a Tallest!

“I'm not a Tallest,” Vermeil replied indignantly. Tzin was twice as tall as he. Though Tzin was dead now... Maybe he really was the Tallest.

“You don't understand,” Lapis replied. “It doesn't matter how tall you are. The rules have changed. The fact that you are still alive proves that we can endure. We can unite and rebuild... It's not just an impossible dream.”

From there, Lapis began to make more plans. Dreamed of bigger things. She sent Vermeil all of the information she had. All the Irkens she'd located. Names, ships, planets... A world began to open to him.

At Raxsel's urging, Vermeil began to help out around the city. To repay the Kixsmirin's kindness. He mostly did manual labor at first. Gretz wasn't getting any younger, however... and soon took Vermeil in as an assistant of sorts. Vermeil was consulted for anything that required a lot of thought and planning. Because he was an elder, Gretz feared looking feeble to another Kixsmirin. They occasionally spoke about Vermeil's people; he was interested in anyone's perspective on the issue.

Gretz spoke plainly, as he always did. “The Irkens, they were a horrible people. Conquering every planet that held interest to them... They stole technology from those smarter than them, and imprisoned or killed anyone that dissented. I am only thankful that we live humbly underground, and our planet is so cold. Otherwise they would have come for us as well.”

“So... you hate us.”

“Oh no, child.” Sitting gingerly on his pile of soft pillows, he gestured for the boy to sit nearby. “Hate gets you nowhere. And besides, they've earned their comeuppance, haven't they?” He hesitated to say that Vermeil's family had earned comeuppance as well, but the point was obvious. Slumping, Vermeil stared at his crossed legs. “I offered your family kindness because they offered it to me. I saw that even Irkens could be generous.”

Veloixs's mountains contained a very rare and expensive ore. The Kixsmirin, being largely self-sufficient, had no use for it... But they also did not wish to deal with most of the traders that came and tried to mine it. After repeated rebuffs, the traders began to grow more violent. The Kixsmirin were also a peaceful people, and had little means of defending themselves...

A chance meeting in a marketplace led Tzin to offer his protective services in exchange for free mining of the ore and a place to live. After meeting Tzin's little “family,” Gretz found the arrangement to be favorable. Soon Dwicky became involved, and the Plookesian network's influence enveloped the planet.

“We haven't been threatened in many cycles,” Gretz finished, petting Vermeil's head affectionately. “Though we do not have many reserves left... We might be forced to let strangers come on-planet and mine for us.”

“What if... I found more Irkens to come and do the job for you?”

That seed took root and blossomed. Lapis seemed encouraged by the idea, and they began to compose a plan for accomplishing it. Leading them to the planet seemed foolhardy; if anyone piggybacked a signal, they could easily find Veloixs for themselves. Instead, Vermeil decided that he must go fetch them. He'd have to finish his flight training and venture out into space...

The ship that Vermeil called home for so many years was wrecked; all of the most valuable pieces had been ripped off. Of course, the Kixsmirin had no use for those parts. The Fuck Pig must have stolen them.

Luckily, he still had a mostly intact Shuvver. Transplanting parts from the gutted Viral Tank proved to be time-consuming work. Every night he excitedly reported his progress to Lapis and she cheered him on. Though, as the days and then weeks passed, he saw her less and less.

When she didn't show for two consecutive days, Vermeil nearly lost all will to continue working. Where had she gone? Why was she pulling away? Had he done something wrong?

At first, he was too elated to see her around when she came... She asked about his work and he reported to her, happily as always. But the more often she was absent, the more anxious he became. He finally demanded answers.

“What did I do wrong?” he cried, almost desperate for resolution of this problem.

“Nothing,” she replied without hesitation. Though silence followed after that. He prodded her and she finally came clean. “I have been very sick, Vermeil. I did not want to discourage you from this very important endeavor...”

“Sick?” More suspicion. “Is your pak malfunctioning?”

“You could say that,” Lapis replied. And then she changed the subject.

The conversation haunted him. Who was she really? What was she keeping from him? If she really was who she claimed to be, why all of this secrecy? There had to be something more to it.

And so, very carefully, he went about trying to break through her encryption. This too proved to be slow work... Slower, in fact, than his work on the Shuvver. The ship finally saw completion and he readied to take off.

The morning he was to leave, Raxsel fretted over him, making sure that he had plenty of ore and other supplies to help him survive. “Don't hesitate to come back,” she pleaded. “Don't take any stupid risks.”

“Living is a stupid risk,” Vermeil replied. She simply rolled her eyes and sighed, but let him go.

He didn't inform Lapis of the fact that he was leaving. Two could play at the lying game.
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The Irken Anatomy