The hours wore on, and Dib was soon asleep; an adrenaline shock, unless I missed my guess. The exhausted sleep of a captured animal on its first night in a hostile habitat, and I only wished I could join him in it. But however unforgiving this clear-sided cell may have been to my earthen friend, it was infinitely more so for me. I knew, that the moment I allowed any of them to get close enough to jab me with one of those wicked syringes, I was as good as dead—better.
In an attempt to keep myself awake, I spent my time looking around, cataloguing my surroundings and eavesdropping on the conversations of the scientists, of which there were always two or three present. Our chambers sat alone in the center of a much, much larger room, ringed with banks and banks of computers and other rather questionable-looking instruments of scientific discovery. A single door in or out of each chamber, and a single large one in and out of the main room, though there was a smaller emergency door tucked away between a pair of computer banks. The scientists were all occupied in analyzing the blood sample they had liberated from Dib, and many appeared interested in continuing tests on him, but they had orders from higher up to analyze samples from both of us before going on. And if I had anything to do with it, they'd never get those samples.
Knowing my luck, I would soon have very little to do with it.
A meal arrived about the time Dib woke up, although I wasn't so sure it could even charitably be called food, at least of the human variety. Dib randomly picked at his, but I refused to touch mine. It smelled funny, and it was a different kind of funny than my fellow prisoner's smelled. So I delicately pushed the plate away, sat back on my bed, and crossed my arms obstinately over my chest. The scientists sat about muttering and theorizing about why I wouldn't eat, but only I knew the reason: I wasn't stupid. That "food" was laced with something to make me go out fast, and I wasn't taking it.
Time continued to pass. It was mostly silent in our cubes, either Dib or I attempting to strike up the occasional round of small talk, which quickly fizzled and died, assuming it started at all. As they say, denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and Dib and I were swimming it. I wasn't the only one eyeing the observation cameras and the exits, trying to determine the best route of a breakout. And I wasn't the only one who came to the inevitable conclusion that, barring some freak accident, we weren't getting out under our own power. I could tell it in Dib's posture, on the second day, in the way he leaned against the wall or lay prone on the bed. The kid was taking it hard, and I felt bad for him. I would have sworn he would have been one of those types who are overly optimistic about it all through the whole thing, only to lead us oppressed humanoids to freedom at the last minute. Ah, you know the type; you see them in movies all the time. They're the heroes.
Where Dib remained a lump on his cot, I took to pacing about my cell, trying to stay awake and having a reasonably good time confusing the hell out of my observers.
"That one's behavior is erratic," I heard one remark to another on one occasion. "Is it typical for the females to refuse to eat and sleep—"
"And defecate?"
"—On a regular basis like this? And man, you are gross!"
"Oh, shut up. I don't know."
I had to carefully school myself to remain indifferent, which wasn't really hard because by now I was exhausted, but it was pretty funny. I was fading fast, though, I could tell. I had to force myself to remain upright and mobile, because if I went down, I would be fast and hard, and I wouldn't wake up for a while.
"Alex, what are you doing?" Dib asked me at one point.
"Trying not to go to sleep."
"Why??"
"I don't know."
"Okay. Whatever."
More silence after that, and as if I couldn't stop it, I slowly took a seat on the edge of my cot…slowly stretched out on it, tucking my arms under my bit of pillow and supporting my head…slowly closed my eyes…and quickly dive-bombed into a deep sleep.
XxX
My eyes snapped open an indiscriminate time later, and I bolted upright, glad to find the uncomfortable slightly padded plastic of my cot still under me. There was a pain in my arm at the elbow, accompanied by a small puncture wound. I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. Yep. It was over now. I looked up to find Dib staring at me.
"Did you know your blood is purple?" he asked warily.
"Strain," I dismissed it weakly. "Starvation. I haven't eaten. Could be it." He stared warily at me.
"If you say so…" he said slowly, but I could tell he didn't believe me. I couldn't find it in myself to care.
That problem taken care of, I glanced around. The gentle hum of machinery and murmur of a few scientists had been replaced by the incessant jabber of MANY scientists. The room seemed to be filled with those red and purple-coated Irkens, all of a moderate height. (Random fact for ya, there.) A big monitor had emerged high on one wall, displaying a twisting triple-helix strand of DNA. My DNA, I was sure. Muttered snatches of conversations reached my antennae, just flashes of it, because the volume of the sound was overwhelming.
"—Thought it was a double helix—"
"—Doesn't look human to me—"
"—Almost Irken, unless I miss my guess—"
"—Someone contact the Tallest, they need to know—"
My face blanched, and thanks to my wonderfully advanced technology (insert biting sarcasm here please, thanks!), so did my holographic one.
"Something wrong, Alex?" Dib asked, sounding concerned.
"There's so many of them," I ad-libbed, doing my best to sound terrified.
"Yeah, I know," he agreed. I looked rapidly around the room, eyes stopping on the doors, which were majestically sweeping open. Again, silence fell like a wave as the Tallest entered side-by-side, glancing around imperiously. They stood head and shoulders above all but the tallest of the scientists there—well, the scientists and me. As I slowly got to my feet, stock-still and staring, they stared right back. Er, check that; Red stared back. Purple looked bored.
"Well?" Red snapped. "What's the deal? You said something was up. Do you have results for us or not?" The tallest of the scientists snapped to attention, giving them a smart salute before gesturing up at the screen.
"We don't have all the results you requested yet, my sirs," she said, holding up her hands to forestall a response. "But, that's just because we just acquired the samples for the female, and…well, they're a little unexpected."
"What do you mean unexpected?" Red demanded, turning to look at the screen. "That DNA looks Irken…does the other's look like that?"
"No, my sir," the scientist said excitedly. "That's what's up! We're almost sure the DNA is…well…Irken. Or something very like it." Red stared at her.
"So run a scan. We have the DNA of every living Irken on file, see who matches it the closest."
"We've already started it, my liege," she said. "We'd assumed you'd want us to. It should be done any minute now." The scarlet-clad Irken nodded, and I sat back down on my cot. I had never known it could be so hard to act ignorant, and it was really hard to not look more apprehensive than just a creature among aliens. For effect, I pressed close to the window where Dib was.
"What's going on?" I hissed. I knew that the Tallest, at least, could speak English, but I wasn't sure if any of the other Irkens could.
"I don't know," Dib said with a shrug. "It doesn't look good, though."
"No. It doesn't."
"Scan done, my Tallest!" one of the others reported suddenly, swinging around in a chair to face them, face apprehensive.
"And?" Red prompted.
"Well…um…the closest DNA match we found is…yours, my sir."
XxXxXxXxXxX
Hah! Cliffhanger! XP Read and review, please, and maybe next time I won't put off updating for so long! XD