Chapter 11

IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE, OR SADISM!

This was a familiar scene. Byron and Zim were in the infirmary again. The only difference this time was that it was Zim who was performing the first aid. He'd bandaged up the gash on his forehead and was massaging a healing gel into Byron's ankle.

"Wow, he really did a job on you, didn't he?" Zim asked concernedly.

"No," Byron laughed, "I tripped and busted my head on something. Gave my ankle a good ringing too. Dib tried to hit me with an air tank, so I nailed him in the stomach!" The pair laughed amusedly at the little anecdote.

"The foolish Earth-stink is creative, I'll give him that. But he is no match for us! I almost pity him because of how pathetic he is!" Zim laughed.

"Yeah," Byron said, "Hey, you wanna' go get a burrito before we take care of Dib?"

"Yeah, why not?"

The two headed to the lab's galley for a snack. Meanwhile, Gaz was sitting in the viewing room watching Dib thrash on the table while in the throws of a nightmare. After a few minutes, she remembered what Byron had told her and she got up from her seat. She walked out into the hall, made sure the time was right and ran into the lab.

"Dib! Dib, wake up! We're getting out of here!" Someone was trying to shake Dib awake and was yelling into his left ear. He opened his eyes and saw the worried face of his sister Gaz. She looked very panicked and was fitfully trying to undo the straps on the table. "I've come to save you, Dib!"

"Really?" He asked with a slur in his voice. His head was still pounding and he felt like there was a spike in his forehead.

Suddenly she stopped and smiled. "No!" Out of nowhere, both Zim and Byron, burritos in hand, walked into the room and the three of them had a good laugh. "I warned you about stealing my pizza and cola, didn't I? I warned you about interrupting me while I played my Game Slave, didn't I? But no! You wouldn't listen, and now look what's happened!"

"I can't believe you fell for that on the second time!" Zim cackled, his long tongue lolling out of his mouth. He caught his breath and took another bite from his burrito.

"Oh, but it wouldn't have worked without the amazing acting talents of our wonderful Gaz!" Byron cheered and clapped. "Such a wonderful delivery, Gaz. I almost believed you cared!" He handed her a burrito, "I figured I get you one while we were there."

"Thank you, Byron," Gaz groaned and bit into the burrito. As usual, it tasted like pork.

This was all too much for poor Dib. He'd had such an overwhelming day and now his sister, of all people, was allied with the traitorous human and his alien counterpart. He lay there on the table in excruciating pain and wept. He wept bitter tears.

Byron walked up to Dib and gently placed a finger under his eye. A single, tiny tear ran down onto his finger and Byron, with great zealous, jammed the finger into his mouth and exclaimed, "Oh, your tears are delicious! They're so bitter and yet I love them!" Told you they were bitter tears! Byron placed his hand on Dib's shoulder and carefully lowered himself down until he was face to face with Dib. He looked up and said, "I need a few minutes to talk to the patient alone, please."

Understanding fully, Gaz and Zim walked out of the room and the door shut behind them. "So, what have you in store for me, you monster!" Dib yelled angrily.

The grin left Byron's face immediately. "Now Dib, it's that kind of negativity that will turn this joyous and privileged experience into a terrible and painful, nightmarish, LIVING HELL from which there will be NO ESCAPE!" He yelled. "So, be nice, and I'll let you live. Resistance will be noted."

"How can you do this?"

"Easy, I just get out of bed in the morning and have a bowl of choco-flakes. Everything else just comes naturally," he laughed.

"But why? Why sell out your own species?"

"MY OWN species? This coming from the person who, up until right now, was convinced I was a vampire! Please, you of all people should understand why I'm doing this. No one here loves me. My parents are horrible people. No one cares about me and everyone who knows me scorns me. I'm an outcast, much like you, and I've had enough of it. 'My own' species doesn't want me, so I don't want them! The only one to accept me, other than your sister, was a fucking alien! Most people would kill themselves in this situation, but I'm much stronger than that, Dib," The entire time he spoke, Byron had his hands intertwined behind his back. He paced back and forth in front of Dib and stared at him with his chilling gaze. Every so often his eye would twitch or a shudder would run up his spine. "Instead of killing myself, I'll kill everyone else. I'll spare only the few who are kind to me: Zim and your sister. It may be a short list, but they're far more important than the rest of YOUR lot!"

"You're willing to wipe out the entire planet? But think of all the women and children. Think of all the babies that have yet to have lives," Dib pleaded.

"Babies?" Byron asked with another frightening twitch. "You want to talk about babies? Being a baby isn't an excuse! They may be young and innocent now, but they'll grow up. They'll just grow up to be exactly like the previous generation; wicked and filled with hate. Twisted into the very thing that twisted them! It's a very sad truth, I'll admit to you. I DO, after all, have feelings and a soul. I understand your plight and, under different circumstances, might have been sympathetic to your cause. But it goes without saying that man is a plague upon this glorious planet and what we're doing MUST be done! Don't think of it so much as the greatest act of genocide ever known to man. Think of it as a new beginning for this planet. I'm saving you all from yourselves!"

Byron had wandered off down a path into his mind and was lost for the moment. Finally, Dib snapped him back to attention. "So what, you're going to kill us all and then repopulate the world with my sister?"

Byron gave him a venomous look. "Why do you always reach the most extreme conclusion! Don't get me wrong, your sister is lovely, but it wouldn't be possible. I'm not going to be a constituent in this species for much longer. I grow tired of my human frame and long for something better. I'm applying for a new membership. As are you! I'm about to be turning in your paperwork as well," Byron said and produced a needle from his pocket.

"You are SO going to hell for this," Dib declared!

"Hell? Hmm, I pegged you as an atheist," Byron laughed. "Besides, where I'm going, there is no heaven and hell, only an eternity with a far superior race of life forms. It will be a true, living paradise. How ironic, seeing how you've spent your life living in a fool's paradise. How could you ever think there was hope that you'd prevail against an alien invasion? Don't answer that!"

Byron limped over to another table and picked up two small vials. One had a red label and the other was black.

"What's that?" Dib asked. Deep inside, he was more afraid than he'd ever been in his entire life. He never thought it would end like this. He always expected, if he were to be killed, that it would be Zim who finished him off; not a fellow human.

"This, Dib, is our ticket, mainly mine and Gaz's, to getting out of this situation alive. I know things, wonderful and amazing things, about the Irkens. One fun little tidbit is the fact that, if it suits them, they will destroy all remaining creatures on a planet with a DNA sweep. I can't be killed if I don't have human DNA, so our mutual little friends in these bottles will help us out. I have one question for you, Dib. Now, bear in mind, you don't have a choice in whether or not you get injected, but you have a choice in, A, how painful the process will be and, B, if I let you live afterward. If you go causing trouble, this will be most unpleasant," he said and sat the bottles down next to Dib. He then reached down to his side and produced a lovely pistol.

"Where'd you get that?"

"I found it, but that doesn't matter. If you try to screw things up again, I'll just shoot you in the knees and that'll be that!" Byron said with a smile and a chuckle. "I think we've wasted enough time. Wadda' you say we get this show on the road?"

"Why the hurry?" Dib asked.

"That's a rather personal question. I don't think I'll answer," Byron said leering at Dib.

"It's that PAK, isn't it? It wasn't designed for humans to use! You're having a reaction to it and it's driving you crazy! That's why you're doing this!" Dib yelled out.

Byron quickly cupped his hand over Dib's mouth and whispered, "Bingo! The sooner I test this on you and make sure it's safe, the sooner I can use it and end my troubles. Then I can go get Tak and…" He stopped.

"Tak? She's involved in this too!"

"Oh dear, I think I've said too much! ZIM, COULD YOU ASSIST ME WITH THE PATIENT?" He called out to the hallway.

Zim walked in with a large smile and what appeared to be a couple of kiss marks on his face. Byron decided to not press the issue, but Dib felt compelled to totally obliterate the issue. "You filthy, green bastard! You raped my sister, didn't you!"

Gaz yelled from outside in the hall, "Shut up you asshole!"

"I did no such thing!" He yelled and quickly wiped the smudges of his face. "It was just kissing! And what I do in the privacy of MY hallways is none of your business! You're not her male parental unit anyway!"

Before a total brawl broke out, Byron shouted, "Enough. We'll worry about interspecies relationships later! We have pressing matters to attend to! Zim, could you please secure Dib's giant head so I can have a go at his neck?"

"My head is not…"

"DON'T START THAT SHIT AGAIN!" Byron shrieked as spittle flew out of his mouth. 'There's a thin line between a funny running gag and just plain annoying!' Byron thought to himself. "So, have you decided how we're going to do this? Slow and painful? Or…"

There was a pause. A few seconds ticked by at the pace of a dead rabbit and then Dib answered, "I give up."

Zim couldn't believe what he was hearing. "How did you do this?" He asked Byron.

"Simple, I just talked to him," he said and readied the needle. "This is gonna' sting, okay?" Before Dib could speak a word, Byron jammed the needle into his neck as hard as he could. Dib let out a terrible scream. "Ooh, I forgot to swab with alcohol first! Oh well, too late now!" He reached down and grabbed another bottle and said, "It's a glorious day for science!"

"What's that for?" Dib asked.

"This is to make you sleep so we can move you to your room, unless, you'd prefer the pipe again," he said with a grinned. Byron had grown fond of the pipe.

"No, no, feel free to sedate me!"

Then, Dib felt a little pinch in his arm and everything went black. Just before everything went silent, he could have sworn he heard a high-pitched voice saying, "You gots my burritos!" that was immediately followed by Squeek! The last thing that ran through his mind was, 'What have I done?'.

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A/N: What'd you think? Exciting isn't it? Byron's first evil rant/dialogue! He'll make a fine invader! What did you think of my little hint at a ZaGR? (By the way, I love those things!) Please leave a review and tell me what you think!