This is only a translation. The original story belongs to: Temnyy prorok and can be found at ficbook readfic / 1286704

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Location: Planet Irk

Off-planetary materials research department: laboratory

" Voices... few voices... Trembling... Quit shaking me!" Thought Dib " Laughter... something is shaking me again. I can't understand what they're saying. Wait... I just heard my name... They said my name! But Who? Wait a minute, I remember that voice... I can't catch anything else. I can recognize many languages from hearing. but... I still can't open my eyes, I'm not sure I even want to... I can hear something weird, some kind of squeaking noise... ultrasounds maybe... They're getting closer to my head. Ow! My ears! That goddamn sound! My head... It feels like someone is hitting me with a baseball bat... " Dib screamed.

"It's breathing!" Rose an echo from above.

"He's an idiot" Said another voice' this time more clearly.

"Where did that speculation came from?"

"This one is abnormal."

"Him... I can't see how... Zim?"

" Truly, I can't comprehend what's so interesting about him? It's just a regular warm-blooded monkey, only less hairy.'

They began talking to each other, as if there was no living thing in front of them. Dib slowly began to regain his consciousness, the ability to understand came to him like a reaction from a pierced bubble filled with hydrogen peroxide. ( T: A violent reaction with a big boom) Dib moaned hopelessly after he managed to open his eyes. The first things he saw were two greenish man with piercing red eyes, dressed in white lab coats, with high collars reaching above their noses, through Dib knew they didn't have any. They slowly turned towards him and bursted out with laughter a second later. One of them approached the creature.

" We didn't opened that channel in your brain so you could just whine! One of your kind started doing these sounds too and in the next minute he was dead. We had to decompose him to atoms, so he wouldn't stink and them sell him to the other labs."

"Do you want to end up like him?" Suprised Dib shook his head in negation, as much as he could. He was lying on a white round table, with protruding two blades on each side of it. His hand and legs were motionless, despite not being tied up to it in any way. He seemed to be sticked to it.

" Speak up!" Ordered the one closer to Dib

" Tell me your ID number!"

" No, it's too early for that." Said the second one

" Check it. We should check it anyway, it's part of our responsibilities. I repeat: What is your identification number?

Dib gathered all of his strength, that he managed to collect during the short time he was awoken. He clenched his teeth and with a strangled, choked voice he began to ask as many question as possible: " My name is Dib. The last thing I remember is that I was at home. What the hell is this ID number? Detach me from this table and give me a phone! I want to go home you ho-ho-horrible aliens!"

"Hmm... Yeah, that's a good reaction. Yes, we also want to go home after 48 hours of work. Ugh! Firstly we had to go all over our heads, to purge Zims nervous system from all toxic substances. They brought him here even though we're kind of terrified of this guy. Anyway, it's not important. And then they brought you here. Yeah... There is no place like home!. Isn't that right buddy?" They both began to laugh.

"It's not funny! You can't compare us..." - Dibs speech was interrupted, by the closer alien.

" Let me give you some advise, you overgrown monkey, stop resisting and start answering all the question politely, when they're asked.

Two blades popped out of the selling and began to move towards the human. From the other side of the door, if they could be even called that, reached hysterical screams: " You have no right! I brought him here! According to the irken law, there should be a quarter left for me! Me Zim!" It seemed that he was further provoked by someone because from the aliens mouth flew an endless series of swear words in both earthly and alien origin,like an epic verbal diarrhea.

" Zim!" Shouted terrified Dib " Zim, you bastard!"

" We know his name " Said one of the white covered irkens " We ensure you"

" You'll get your quarter. We'll even give you acces to the energy sector, so you wouldn't splatter blood over the floor and walls, but only if he'll survive the upcoming experiments." He said to Zim "And now get him out of there before he'll destroy half of the building! Wait outside like a good 'invader'..."

Silent swearing could be heard as he slowly walked out.

" Well excuse me! You% # & ! of Tallest!" The door closed behind him.

" Experimmmmmments? On me?" Dib mumbled with a trembling voice.

" You spelled it wrongly, but yes you're right." - Said the one that spoke previously to Zim.

" What do you mean?" I-I..." His eyesight became cloudy, the air grew hot, almost to hot. The earthling said with burning lungs - " You motherfuckers! And this number Identifi-iden-id...Ugh!

" Ah! Your number, that was just a joke, forget about it."

" Wha?" - said Dib " That was all a lie.. all of it..."

" Not all of it." Said one of them, approaching the human. " My second was just taking you by surprise. You couldn't even give it to us, even if you wanted to, not until the hexadecimal code will be fully generated. You'll do this later, otherwise Zim will get what he wants and he'll ruin everything.

" After 40 years of asking that question, I'm so tired of it, it should be changed." He turned to his companion.

" It's not for you to decide, idiot, and now off you go to the section of infectious diseases and arrange the number, cuz the filter doesn't help." He said, then with a swift motion, he pulled something from Dibs throat. It was a weird, white device resembling a ballpoint pen. Dib cried out more from the pain than shock, he didn't even noticed the object. He bagan to breathe heavily from large amount of alien air in his lungs.

" What number? You said you're kidding!" Coughed the earthling

" The joke was that we weren't kidding at all." They both started laughing again.

" Computer! Give this insolent life form the number and send him in." After that sentence he went to a marked circle on the floor, stood on it and breaking all laws of physics it lifted up with him.

" Hey! Where're you going?" Dib began coughing violently and lost the desire to say anything at all.

From the table that he was lying on, slid two blades from right and left. Moment later they were joined by two mechanical hands that moved him gracefully to the middle of the room in which there was a hole in the ceiling, from where lots and lots of different cables and wires were coming out and connected with the floor and walls. It looked like they were coming out from the patient, scattering his insides all over the room.

Table still with the human on it, turned, not moving from the place. Dib looked with horror on hypnotizing flashing lights placed all over the bottomless pit. The table made a sound,then Dib got separated from it and disappeared in thin air. A piercing scream escaped from the human when a device, separated from the wall, tightened on him forming some kind of cage, designed having most aggressive subjects in mined. In front of his face appeared few identical monitors. A mechanic voice came from the white screen - " ID " - Dib could only respond with a vague gurgling. "This isn't happening!" The monitor changed color to red, as a sign of recognized error. Somewhere in the darkness a faint red light could be seen, it was surrounding a machine then it stopped ahead of Dibs head. It released a beam of light aimed straight at his forehead. The sudden bright light blinded his, already damaged eyes.

" Light! Oh god how hot! It feels like a heated wire went straight through my brain! Eight ... What? Location ... Three ... Five ... Zero ... What is this? I can have few thoughts sanctimoniously at the same time!... Zero One Zero Nine... I can't recall my way home as well as these numbers... Hot ... "

A bright flash of light struck again somewhere between the left and right hemispheres of his brain.

"Identification Number!" The monitor repeated.

My lips ... No. I can't control them! Something orders me to speak ... eight, three, five, zero, zero, one, zero, nine.

" Affirmative!" confirmed the screen and changed the color to green with a sign " Dib: ID." The human was trying to convince himself that it was only a nightmare and he'll wake up at any moment. Breathing was hard but manageable. Then his lungs ceased to function, and his breathing stopped. Dib desperately tried to wake up as his lungs were slowly filling with his own blood, however he broke away from this thought when he heard a distant gurgling. From below, his cage began to flood. When the liquid reached his feet, Dib began to pitifully mumble to himself. " It's just a dream! It's just a dream! It's just a dream! It's just a dream! It's just a dream! Someone's gonna wake me up soon! AAAAA!" Pink liquid filled the whole room, floating both Dibs body and his hope. Panic and despair fought within him, but soon Dib noticed that he could breathe. Pink substance infiltrated his respiratory system, but it wasn't as irritating as the air in the lab. It was liquid oxygen, that Dib never experienced before. However it had another purpose.

"Damn it!" He thought, feeling the liquid on his tongue. At this moment wires disconnected from the walls, drastically changing his situation. With breaking speed they moved down draging the human with them into the newly opened tunnel, leaving in the pink liquid only bubbles that remained from his silent scream.