Invader Zim 1. The factory of birth

In a place of near complete secrecy, as it was of the upmost importance to the continuation of the ever superior irken race, laid vast dimly lit room. The expansive floor was a collection of thick tinted metal sheets jointed together with strong curving beams, and its ceiling was lost in shadow. Two blue gridded walls stretched on for miles in every direction, blurring together at the farthest reaches of even the most enhanced vision. In the center of every square in the grid was an articulated disc containing three narrow pink lines.

A strange hollow humming filled the room. Its origins were unknown, but the official governmentally accepted theory stated that it was simply collective noise from so many incubators being run at the same time. Knowledgeable irkens with inclinations towards more adventurous speech claimed it was the sound of millions of smeets growing at once. A deeply alluring idea existed that the hum was in fact the beautiful dreams of the unborn smeets made audible by their stunning intensity, but this traitorous notion was very hushed as it was also governmentally accepted theory that irkens had evolved to rely completely on technology for all mental activity.

In the forest of identical discs, one suddenly became unique. The three pink lines engraved on its surface widened into a sort of triumphant green face, testifying to the readiness of the specimen it represented. A nimble robotic arm reached down and gave the disc a slow turn with its three slender fingers. The arm pulled the disc, which was in fact the head of a long birthing chamber, smoothly from its cell. A second arm quickly caught the other end of the chamber before it could fall even one inch towards the ground.

The birthing chamber was a dull glass tube filled with clear thick green liquid. Both ends of the tube were covered by riveted metal caps connected with a singular thin rod running the length of the glass. It contained a seemingly misplaced hinge at its center. Bubbles rose in the disturbed green goo, caressing the small limp body of a smeet. The robotic arms bent the chamber at the odd joint, shattering the tube and sending broken glass and the tiny smeet on a short lived journey to the ground.

The small green body lay slumped in the remnants of its old home. It was still, lacking any motor functions whatsoever. It was simply an empty vessel, awaiting the gift of a mind. A third arm positioned itself behind the smeet, extending two pincers to heat and tenderize the skin on the center of its back. It then produced a shiny beetle-like object called a pak, which it placed on the steaming skin. From the underside of pak snaked two unseen cables that connected themselves to the spinal cord of the little green creature. A fourth and final arm shot a burst of electricity into the smeet, causing it to jump to attention. It blinked its innocent sapphire eyes and twitched its sleek curled antennae, showing no sign, no inkling of a hint of the bloodshed and pain it would cause in the inevitable future.

"Welcome to life, irken child. Report for duty." A deep voice resonated from every surface, a tremor across the smeet's antennae.

"Please," asked the child politely, "How do I come to be here?" She shifted her antennae in curiosity, looking above her at the shadowed source of the arms. It was not an average question that a smeet might ask, as not many smeets were yet advanced enough to ponder their place in the universe. But the voice had been programmed for any circumstance.

"All will be explained, irken child," the voice replied, expressing no apparent emotion.

The floor beneath the irken's feet shifted into a slippery funnel, and the child fell down a cold narrow pipe. At first it seemed the smeet's frightful travel was at the hands of gravity, but the tunnel made several swift turns at odd angles making it clear that some other force was pushing the creature along. In a bright vault somewhere below, the end of the tube moved to deposit the smeet in a small brown chair.

"You are two minutes old, little smeet. Prepare to be filled with the whole of irken knowledge," declared the voice.

The irken made no move, staring up into the red sensor of an ominous machine. Fat cords shot from the machine and swiftly attached to key points around the smeet's head and back. The child started to spasm and writhe, overcome with the incoming information. The history of the universe, the whole of math and science, anything and everything- all within its grasp.

"UPLOAD COMLETE!" Boomed the voice. "You have been given a name. IDENTIFY YOURSELF."

The child blinked. "I am Miyuki, smeet code 195568905BJF of the new order." Miyuki felt a strong sensation of pride that she had been created into such a divine race. Knowledge of the universe swam within her superior mind, and she felt unique; needed.

The chair rose and unceremoniously dumped her onto a moving belt which carried her into the next room. Miyuki looked back and saw another smeet going through the download process, just like her.

Hoses flew from the walls and sprayed her down with grey disinfectant, and an excessively greasy machine forcibly put a plain silver smeet's uniform around her body. Miyuki checked herself over as the uniform seamed itself together, and found that her clothes were thankfully devoid of grease. The moving belt then took her to another room, where she was plopped into a chair and lined up with hundreds of other smeets in front of an incredibly long steel table. Even as she sat there, more chairs with smeets came rushing in behind her to partake in the next event.

Miyuki already knew from her database of irken knowledge what would happen here. The first meal of an irken was the most important. Being the first semi-solid matter to be digested, it calibrated a smeet's pak and squeedly spooch. As she looked down the line of young irkens, she could already see food being fabricated. A rather jerky beat up robotic arm created a purple mess of carbohydrates in a flash and spattered it into a small depression in the table in front of each child. When the fabrication arm reached Miyuki, she took a moment to study it, noting its movements and routine. It was a simple device, running on a rugged track that was set in the ceiling. She was of a mind that such an inferior outdated instrument had no place serving her, a perfectly superior irken smeet. In suppressed annoyance, Miyuki watched its shaky glide until it was out of sight. She then directed her attention to the disgustingly goopy 'food' that it had set before her. She didn't want to eat it, and had almost convinced herself that she didn't need to eat it, but her squeedly spooch felt oppressively empty, and she eventually gave into the chunky purple slop. The first bite was surprisingly sweet and good. It was so good that Miyuki ate the rest without any further thought. She then sat back and pondered her superiority.

Oh, the joys of being superior. She was an irken, and irkens were better than anything else. She was indeed wonderful, superior, irken Miyuki. And how many beings could say they were superior? Not many. That was a hard thing to be able to say. In sudden bubbling happiness, she turned to her left neighbor. He was a slouching male smeet who ate slowly and already had food stains in his uniform.

"Greetings. I am Miyuki, and I am superior because I am irken," she said. She studied the child, reveling in how much better she was than him.

He turned to face her, purple goo dribbling down his chin.

"Uuuh… Hi. I'm… Blorg. I'm superior because I- because I-" he thought for a moment. "Uuuuh… I guess I'm superior 'cause I'm irken, too."

Miyuki smiled appropriately, but she thought it very unsettling that this dribbling idiot was allowed to call himself superior. She turned to her right.

"Greetings," she repeated. "I am Miyuki, and I am superior because I am irken."

The female next to her seemed to brighten.

"Hey! I'm irken, so I must be superior, too! My name is Miyu- no, that's your name. My name is Blo- no, that's not it either. My name is…. My name is…" The smeet started to stutter, trying to remember that one simple fact that was just beyond her grasp.

Miyuki turned to face forwards, now deeply troubled. At that moment, smeets had stopped lining up, and the incredibly long table curled into a circle. A group of fully grown irkens rose up from beneath the floor in the center of the ring on a gigantic hovering platform.

"GREETINGS, SMEETS!" called an incredibly loud voice.

"Greetings," the smeets answered in half spirited tones. Miyuki's clear determined voice stood out over the others, and a few young irkens looked her way like bewildered livestock.

"VERY GOOD, smeets. I present to you the leaders of our government, the absolute rulers and deciders of fate, THE COUNCIL!"

The smeets cheered as the apparent announcer twitched his antennae rapidly in submission and indicated the twelve richly adorned irkens sitting behind him. An old male irken got up from his seat to address the young.

"Let me begin by saying that it is an absolute honor for you to stand in our presence today," he said. The smeets nodded eagerly.

"And let me express how pleased I am to see so many equally superior irken faces out there." There were several cheers this time, but mostly more furious nodding. Miyuki kept still. _Equally superior? _she thought, thinking of Blorg and whatever-her-name-was. She looked across the circle of smeets, judging them. Some were snoring, and some balanced on their chairs funnily. Many had traces of purple goo on there uniforms and mouths, and several were coated from head to toe. Most were fidgety or made faces, and over half of the bunch could be caught doing stupid embarrassing things, like sucking on their antennae, or poking each other for amusement.

How could any of those creatures be 'equally' superior to her? How could any of those creatures even be considered superior to anything? With a sinking feeling, she realized the answer. They were considered 'superior' for the same reason she believed she was. They were irken.

The old council member had continued on with his speech about rules and regulations and what was expected from such a magnificent group of individuals, but Miyuki was no longer paying attention. Her world had become a depressing downward spiral, in which she frantically searched for her place in reality.


	2. Taller than you

The smeets, one thousand in total crop, were divided into ten groups of one hundred for development purposes. These communities were determined by the last three numbers of each child's smeet code. Miyuki's code ended in 905, so she was placed in group 10 with smeets 900-1000.

Time, for the smeets, was undefined. A standard pak did not allow a smeet to view what time or date it was, as it was considered damaging and unproductive for a young irken to distract itself so uselessly with something so whimsical as knowing what millisecond it was every moment of the day.

And of course, no smeet was permitted up to the planet's surface, and so it was impossible even to tell if it was dark or light out. None of the young had even been allowed a glimpse of Irk's mystical sky, which any pak would so tantalizingly describe to you as an infinite sight of raging suns and frozen moons, twirling in an everlasting dance among the stars. Belts of fine asteroids draped themselves across the horizon, and the heavens rained down showers of golden mist through the sharp clear air, reflected as a magnificent mirage from every corner of the planet's surface.

Well, perhaps that wasn't exactly what a pak would tell you, but Miyuki had listened to the prerecorded report of Irk's many sunrises and moonsets so many times that at this point whenever she played it, this vision was all she could see.

From the first day of their existence, the smeets began their training. The full schedule of education varied from irken to irken, although the first few steps remained constant. The first three programs were Smeet Assimilation 1, Smeet Assimilation 2, and Pre-Acadamy Training. Smeet Assimilation 1 tested the basic mental and physical functions of an irken, as well as working on simple logic and coordination. It wasn't until the SM2 program that things became a little more difficult.

Miyuki was determined to prove her superiority over all others. She mastered, of course, all the given mathematics and sciences, as well as all physical challenges. All tasks were scored on a scale of infinity to infinity, although typical smeet scores fell between one and one thousand. In the beginning, there were a lot of questions about scores, and what they would mean later in life. The only thing the information drones would ever say was 'Do your best' and 'Serve your council with the best scores you can' and other such junk, never giving an actual answer.

One major question was what would happen if your average rating for mental and physical tasks dropped to a negative number. It was a widely known joke that if your scores were low enough that this was the case, you would be incinerated. It got a very good laugh until a very tiny female smeet named Xibu's physical scores dropped below zero. After exactly two physical tasks she was unable to pull it up, and she disappeared. Not much more was said openly on the subject.

After a while, an extremely motivated smeet named Shrui threatened Miyuki's top position. Every one of her scores was right behind Miyuki's, but Miyuki wouldn't stand for that. With a little more practice, Miyuki was once again undoubtedly superior.

Some lengthy immeasurable amount of time later, Miyuki had succumbed to the numb domination of every task. She ranked number one of all one hundred of her birthing number-mates. Even the intelligent competitive female smeet Shrui finally seemed to accept her supremacy. The dull pattern of Miyuki's life cycled on and on, seeing less and less change with every passing second.

But it was only a short time after its deadening that her mind was shaken from this sequenced daze. During her fifty sixth Feeding and Nutrients period, Miyuki was approached by a strange male smeet. Miyuki did not often care for personal interaction with other smeets anymore, as she didn't find it very mentally stimulating, but recently she had decided it would be beneficial to memorize the codes, names, personalities, strengths, and weaknesses of as many irkens as possible. In the future, she imagined, it would be a little easier to manipulate the population if she could at least identify with them on some level. Basic info was a good start.

As he walked up, Miyuki attempted to place him. He was not in her group, but she thought she might have seen him before, likely at a joint training session. The session that she suspected had been centered around a pathetically simple obstacle course, and he had been in the first half of his group to attempt it. Now that she thought about it, his scores had come dangerously close to beating hers in that task. His number, if she was remembering this correctly, was 195568647BJM.

"Greetings. I am Xarran of group 6, smeet code 195568637BJM," said the irken.

Ha. Miyuki had nearly gotten it right. It was close enough, anyways.

"Greetings," she replied. "I am Miyuki of group 10, smeet code 195568905BJF." She noted with some curiosity that the male smeet twitched his antennae back ever so slightly in annoyance as she introduced herself. She wouldn't even have noticed such a minute change in expression if she hadn't been teaching herself to observe and interpret all aspects of irken behavior. What this carefully veiled reaction from the smeet told her was that he either considered himself too important to listen to her give a simple greeting, or that he was already aware of her identifying information and wasn't interested in learning something that he had already memorized.

"How pleasant it is to meet you, Miyuki," said the smeet, smiling sarcastically in a way that showed that he had noticed her noticing his emotion. "I would like to speak with you." The underlying meaning was really that he would like to speak to her alone, away from the other smeets who were busy babbling idiotically and eating chunky purple slop. But Miyuki ignored this.

"Fire away, 637," she said, refusing both to move and to call him by his informal name.

His smile appeared to grow more sarcastic. "I would reconsider that arrogant position, _905, _and come hear me out. I have information you might want to know, and I won't go looking for you to try and tell you again."

Miyuki deliberated for a second. She nearly said no, not wanting to waste her time, but she decided that having a chipper docile semi-ally who was happy simply because she listened to a short speech was better than having a dumb stubborn semi-enemy who would possibly hold a grudge just because she didn't feel like paying attention.

She indulged in this folly and let him lead her to the small hovering monitor of a computer at the far end of the feeding hall. The main purpose of the machine was to provide extra mental training to lacking irkens during Feeding and Nutrition period, but it could also serve as a general computer.

"Tell me truthfully what you think of the other smeets," said 637.

Miyuki gave a well rehearsed and very convincing answer. "It is a great opportunity to have the benefits of such an advanced group of smeets to learn with. Our supreme government, the counsel, is very kind and generous to provide me with such an experience."

637 looked as if he had heard similar lies before. "No," he said, "Tell me _truthfully_ what you think. I don't care what lies you spew at the teaching drones."

Miyuki boastfully replied without thinking. "I am unquestionably superior to all of those purple-slop sucking imbeciles. It is amazing our embryos were grown on the same planet by the same process." She regretted showing such weak judgment immediately after she finished.

637 nodded. He turned and typed a string of commands rapidly into the computer. Miyuki realized he was hacking into restricted zones.

"There," he said, pointing to a chart of all one thousand smeets, their average mental and physical scores, and other key information about them. "What do you see here?"

Miyuki looked at the screen. "The inferior scores of many inferior smeets gathered together." Generally a smeet was only allowed to view the scores of their group mates, so Miyuki was pleased to find that as she scrolled down the list of one thousand, she still seemed to come out on top.

637 typed some more commands into the holographic key pad, changing the filters on the list. "These," he said, "Are the levels of certain chemicals that were present in our birthing tanks and are given to us daily with our meals. Notice that there is a group of irkens who score consistently higher than the rest of the smeets, and are fed an odd percentage of a peculiar substance at levels much higher than the rest of the population."

Miyuki nodded, getting only a swift glance at the screen this time before 637 changed it. Feeding and Nutrition period would be over soon (although how soon was anyone's guess), and the male smeet was running out of time for his explanation. Now the screen was a graph, plotting mental over physical scores. There were so many data points that they clumped together on the small screen. There was a huge lumpy clump and a small tight clump of data points, spaced clearly apart, the smaller group having higher scores. Each data point was colored to represent levels of different chemicals that its smeet was fed or born in.

"So again notice how the group of irkens excelling the quickest is being given a different blend of substances. There are some pretty odd compounds in the mix. And if you look at all crops of smeets across a one year time frame, nothing even remotely similar to this is shown," said 637.

"So we're lab rats." Miyuki was smiling, and 637 seemed troubled by her reaction.

"Yes… that's my theory, too. But for what? At first I thought that they were testing some sort of performance enhancer on us, but as I thought about it, that came to make no sense. I now think that they are giving us some sort of therapy or stabilizing drug for something more complex. I think it's a lot bigger than just the chemicals- am I being funny? Why are you smiling at this?" 637 looked very annoyed.

Miyuki pointed to a data point on the graph that was ever so slightly higher and farther to the right than the others, indicating that it represented ever so slightly higher task scores. "That data point," she said triumphantly, "Is me. I alone am the superior irken."

637 looked smug. "Actually, that particular spot is three points so tightly wedged together that you can hardly tell the difference between them on this screen. But let's take a closer look, shall we?" He zoomed in so that only the small area of graph holding the points was visible. "Not as superior as you thought, are you?" he taunted.

"That's only two points," Miyuki objected. "They're still pretty far apart, and the higher of the two matches _my_ scores."

637 tapped the highest point. The computer began to verbally list data about it, and informed the smeets that it was in fact two identical points, belonging to smeet codes 195568647BJM and 195568905BJF. Miyuki couldn't believe it.

"But I scored higher than you!" she shouted, pissed.

"When?"

"At that obstacle course…" she fumed.

"That was only one score, 905. According to official irken calculations, the averages of all of our scores are the exact same value past seven decimal points, which puts us both in rank one."

"That's impossible!"

"Apparently not."

"But I'm superior to _everyone_!" she insisted.

"Come on," said 637. "Think about this logically. Our task scores average out nearly equally. Our age, rank, species, and pretty much _everything _is identical between us. How could you possibly be superior to an exact replica of yourself? How could you possibly be better than me?"

Miyuki opened her mouth and sputtered a few undistinguishable noises. 637 waited patiently for her to admit the inevitable truth.

"I'm better because I'm… I'm… I'm _taller_ than you!" Miyuki shrieked, stalking off.

637 let his antennae fall tensely back, displaying his unmasked anger. It was true, Miyuki was a good inch or so taller than him, but what did that have to do with anything? No one ever cared how tall anyone else was.


	3. Report for Transport

_**905, 905, report to your transport tube, 905.**_

Miyuki rolled over and groaned. She was so tired. Unconscious Rest Period couldn't even be half way over yet. Couldn't those damn medicbots wait until she woke up?

_**905, please report for transport.**_

She was sore all over, probably because of the weird 'cot' that had been given to her. She had somehow grown too tall for her resting chamber, so now she had to sleep on that squishy metallic thing. Why couldn't they just make bigger resting chambers? She had heard that this unnatural growth spurt had been witnessed in several other irkens of her smeet crop. If it was a reoccurring problem, why couldn't the council think up something better than smelly cots?

_**Repeat, 905, please report…**_

Miyuki curled into a tighter ball, and grabbed her antennae in her right hand. A burst of instinctual uncertainty and numb pain shot through her, but it quickly subsided. With her hand muffling the whining voice of the announcement drone, she was able to drift into a sort of half-sleep.

Everyone had been getting physical exams, she knew, but almost no one had to be scanned and measured nearly as often as her. She guessed that this was because of her height (905 report to your transport tube immediately) but she occasionally wondered about the lab-rat experiment theory that 637 had introduced to her. Was it possible that her strange height was simply coincidence, and the real reason she was getting check ups so regularly was that she really some sort of an experiment? Or could her height be part of the experiment as well? 905 report for transport immediately or you will be assisted by a security drone.

The SM2 program would be starting soon, after a few more rounds of pointless mental and physical preparation sessions. Miyuki wondered why the Irken government tried so hard to educate the little morons she was forced to call cropmates. They hardly ever learned or improved. _Repeat, 905, report for transport or you will be assisted by a security drone. We do not wish to force you, Miyuki. We prefer that you continue to submit to testing willingly. _Miyuki rolled over again. Even with her hand on her antennae, she could still make out the voice of the drone.

"Fine." She stood up, and made her way through the jungle of translucent green resting chambers to the appropriate transport tube. The docked pod had been custom made some time ago to fit taller irken smeets, but unfortunately its engineers had miscalculated the extent of Miyuki's growth spurt. She had to slouch against the cold pod wall to keep her head from crushing her antennae into the ceiling. There was a hiss as the dented pod door closed, and with a dull glance at the pod's control sphere, she was shot off to the medic lab.

Zorg tapped the holoscreen impassively, replaying the recent security footage of Miyuki's resting cot.

"I think it's a definite sign of rebellion," said Dr. Regolico. "Especially in Miyuki. She was so eager to please her mentors in her early smeethood, and now she won't even report to the medic lab without a fuss."

"Don't be ridiculous," Dr. Dorflo countered. "Miyuki was simply hyperactive at a young age, as many smeets are. Obviously her mental state was unstable from birth, and has deteriorated to the point of attention deficit and occasional temporary paralysis."

Zorg sighed. Interdivision meetings between scientists were always a bore. Sitting through hours of far flung ideas and nerdy insults wasn't Zorg's favorite pastime.

"Again, tech. Start the feed at the part where Miyuki gets up from the cot." Dr. Regolico spoke in a flustered voice, his emotional mask completely compromised by the overwhelming insult of being called… ridiculous.

Zorg tapped the screen and dragged the picture back. It was times like these when he regretted becoming a holoscreen tech. In the academy, future techs were taught how to operate holoscreens on the leading starships. Zorg's dream was to earn a position as a tech on the new prototype ship, the Armada. What the academy didn't teach was that only one in one thousand holoscreen techs would ever get to work on a starship. The other nine hundred ninety nine graduating techs would be sent to various levels of irk for low benefit jobs with almost no vacation time.  
"See," said Dr. Regolico. "There are no signs of staggered movements, no paralysis."

Zorg snorted under his breath. There were five irkens present at the meeting besides himself. Dr. Regolico represented the Smeet Social Sciences Division, and Dr. Dorflo represented the Smeet Emotional Specialists Division. Two of the other three irkens were scientists representing the UGCP. Technically speaking, Zorg was not authorized to know about UGCP, but as a common tech to its supporting scientists, he had gathered it was some sort of genetic project concerning Miyuki and the other strangely tall smeets.

Kliu, one of the UGCP scientists sat forward. "The important thing is that all of the subjects continue to submit to testing for the next few days. We have reviewed their various reactions to testing in the past. What are your views on this?"

Dr. Regolico and Dr. Dorflo formed a small huddle and whispered back and forth for a minute.

"They will continue to submit," they said in unison, turning back to face Kliu.

"I tend to agree," nodded Glump, the second UGCP scientist. "They will stay well in our control long enough for us to complete our base studies."

The four deliberators waited for the fifth irken to give input, but he sat quietly. The meeting ground to an awkward halt. The specialists and scientists had said their peace, but the silent irken's approval of their findings was key. Time ticked on for a while, and Zorg became tired of waiting for something to happen.

He chuckled, shuffling his thick antennae. "Well, if you all wait around any longer I might just fall asleep." He sat back in his small metal chair.

"Excuse me?" Kliu looked at him as if he had appeared out of thin air.

"You scientists with your ideas. You've been so worried about a few sluggish smeets. Yesterday you decided Maya and Tslu had severe mental imbalances. Today, you diagnosed Xarron, Minu, and Miyuki with a deteriorating mental state. Over the past two weeks, the lot of you have been running around scared that one of your precious extra-tall smeets has an antennae infection or has hit a rebellious streak. All because they are a little late getting out of bed. You want to know what I think?"

Glump swallowed hard and pointed a twig-like finger at Zorg. "Listen here, tech. You are not authorized to know about such things. I suggest that you-"

Zorg chuckled, cutting him off. "I think that these smeets are just tired of getting shot full of needles all the time. They don't have some sort of mental illness, or any kind of hyperactive disorder. They're just starting to hate the idea of following your commands to anywhere, especially the medic lab."

"I assure you," Kliu said. "We have the situation completely under control."

"Really?" asked Zorg. "Because some of those little buggers scare me. Take Liain, for example." The scientists winced and glanced from the corners of their eyes at the fifth irken. Zorg moved to recall footage of Liain to the holoscreen.

"A demonstration will not be necessary," Dr. Dorflo said quickly. "There is nothing special about Liain. He is an absolutely normal test subject and… oh there he is on the screen."

Liain stood tall in the image, his head slightly higher than the top of his cot, which was propped up against a nearby resting chamber. His antennae were dripping with a dark substance.

For the first time in the meeting, the fifth irken looked at the holoscreen with interest. "What is he doing?" he asked.

Liain gently drew his antennae against the metallic fabric of the cot, creating a sort of face with thin dripping lines.

"He's painting. He's quite good at it." Zorg chuckled.

The fifth irken looked confused. "What does he use for paint?" Paint and ink products hadn't been produced or shipped on Irk in hundreds of years; the long conquered planet Printeria took care of all printing and painting related needs for the Irken Empire.

"Blood, of course," said Zorg. "He rarely uses his own, but he has a few extremely devout followers. No one's died, yet. But-"

"Enough of this!" screeched Glump. "What is your name, tech? You disobeyed me, your superior, by playing that footage, as well as flippantly speaking of matters beyond your authorization. I will bring this to the attention of the council immediately!"

"My name is Lorzdar." Zorg hated Lorzdar, and was happy to have a chance to frame him. The fifth irken shot a disapproving look at Glump.

"Quiet, all of you," he huffed. "Our good tech Lorzdar has brought to light some very important information. I am going to personally make sure that he is given a raise in salary, and maybe," his eyes twinkled, "a chance to work on a starship."

"Shit!"

"I know you must be excited Lorzdar, but there is no need to cuss. As for the rest of you, I will now expect regular reports on all of the test subjects' behaviors. If one of the smeets so much as sneezes and I am not informed, I will have my lovely assistant Blarsnaw ship your asses to the worst planet I can find. As head of the General Scentific Division, I pride myself in my strict leadership, and I will not be kept in the dark like this again. Am I clear?"

Four pairs of antennae clicked together rapidly in compliance.

"Good. We will hold our next meeting at the same time and place next week. Dismissed."

The irkens stood and filed out of the room.


	4. Home sweet home

Two slick maroon security drones hummed down the hallway, escorting a tall young irken. She walked lightly on her toes, almost skipping; her soft brown eyes alight with joy. She chatted obliviously with the near silent drones, smiling at her own stories and laughing at her own jokes.

They led her to a grey door, and gently pushed her into the room beyond. The bubbly irken said her goodbyes to the robots through the thick walls of the room, and turned to face her new home.

Seven other similarly tall irkens stood in ones and twos, spread across the enormous space. The room was a huge circular white dome made of eleven curved triangular pieces. The ceiling rose so far above the floor, and the room was so wide across, that she could barely make out the seams where the pieces fit together.

"Echo!" she yelled loudly in a tinkling voice, and the other irkens turned to stare at her. She smiled, and skipped to the nearest irken; a slender and beautiful female with dark green eyes.

"Maya!" the green eyed female greeted her.

"Beka, my friend!" said the brown eyed girl, embracing her.

Someone laughed from across the room. "Gosh, Miyuki!" he said to an irken five feet to his left, "You're a female. Why don't you give out hugs like that?"

"Shut up, Xarron!" the irken replied, angrily flashing her icy blue eyes.

Maya talked with Beka for a brief moment, and then danced over to Xarron and Miyuki.

"Hello Xarron!" she said, and hugged him. He had gotten taller and more muscular since she had last seen him.

"Oh, so you know each other," Miyuki said, appearing annoyed by Maya's venture over.

"Oh yes, silly," Maya giggled, letting go of Xarron. "Xarxar knows everyone. More specifically, Xarxar knows _everything_ about everyone."

"Xarxar knows everything, huh?" said Miyuki, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't think I've heard that nickname before," Xarron said, embarrassed.

"Oh, I give almost everyone a nickname!" laughed Maya, and she turned to stare thoughtfully at Miyuki. "Hhmmm… how about… Kiki?"

"How about Miyuki?" rebutted the blue eyed female in a nearly threatening manner. Just then, another irken was shoved through the grey door.

"HELLO, FRIEND!" Maya sped across the room and glomped onto the newcomer. "I've never met _you_ before! What is your name?"

"It's Minu?" said the bewildered male.

"Fantastic!" blubbered Maya.

Time moved on, and two more irkens came to join the nine in the domed room. The eleventh irken was greeted with the same ecstatic embrace that Maya had by that time given most everyone in the room.

The eleventh irken looked down at her with his dark scarlet eyes and smiled. "Well, my little spark of light, where have you come from?"

She giggled and stepped back. "I've come from where we've all come from. My name is Maya. What's yours?"

He leaned forward, extending his antennae to gently brush hers. "My name is Liain," he said, and in a flowing rhythm walked across the room to a secluded irken. "Darin, my brother. They separated us out of their own fear, and we've spent far too long apart. Have they treated you well?"

Darin nodded, and held up his right arm. Dark green lines tarnished his pale skin, creating an odd and crude design. "They tried to convince me not to follow you any more, Liain. They tried to tell me that I shouldn't trust you. I didn't listen to them. I couldn't listen to them!"

"It's ok now," said Liain. "They can't stop you from being who you are."

"Who are 'they'?" asked a nearby irken sarcastically. "I'll bet 'they' can change 'who you are' simply by reprogramming your pak."

The segments of the dome dimmed to nearly black, leaving only a row of eleven spots of light cast from within the floor.

"Please line up in the light, one per spot," said a loud voice. After some hesitation, the young irkens obeyed. "You have been summoned here today to begin your next training program. A great congratulations goes out to you all, in your completion of SM1."

There was a pause here, perhaps for applause. No one gave any.

"As you may have noticed, you have all been moved into a separate group than the normal smeets, and as you may have guessed, you will be taking part in a different training program than SM2. The eleven of you, and the eleven of you alone have been determined to be the most advanced and superior smeets of your crop."

"Eleven?" said Xarron. "But there were twenty three of us. Where are the other twelve?"

"Silence down there!" boomed the voice. "It is an extreme anomaly that the eleven of you have performed so well. Only the eleven of you have distinguished yourselves."

"An extreme _what_?" Xarron huffed. "You're trying to say that we just _happened_ to be so much faster and stronger and smarter than everyone else? Are you claiming that we just _happened_ to be at least twice your size? I've seen the data. Where are the other twelve? Are they in some other program, or did you decide that they fell too far behi-" Xarron cut off as electricity climbed up from the light and shot through his body. His blue eyes grew bright as he hunched over towards the illuminated floor. The two irkens nearest him inched away, only to discover that an invisible force field trapped them in their respective spots of light. Xarron let out a pained yell at first, but he managed to suppress his reaction to a stressed groan. After about a minute the electricity stopped, but Xarron remained on the floor.

"That was a warning," said the voice. "The council is quite aware of your many theories, Xarron. At this time we must emphasize to all of you that it is unimportant how you have come to possess such abnormal traits. Rather, we prefer that you consider how you can use these gifts to best serve your council. Your next training program has been specially devised to hone your individual strengths and fix your individual weaknesses. We will teach many important skills that you will need in your lives, including fighting styles and survival techniques. The room you are standing in now will be your home."

The room illuminated itself again, and there were several noticeable changes in its design. The grey door had disappeared, and there was a large transport tube in the room's center with eleven appropriately sized transport pods docked at its base. Odd lines swirled around the floor, creating a row of eleven equally sized near-rectangles about twenty by fifteen feet wide around part of the dome's circumference.

"Please step out of your spot and stand in the rectangle that you find most desirable. All males are required to choose on one side of the row, and all females are required to choose on the other."

There were in total eight males and three females. They walked to their chosen squares with little conflict, and the lines on the floor rose up as walls. Doorways formed in the walls facing the transport tube, and the voice instructed the irkens to exit their new rooms.

"Certain spaces in the main room will be reserved for special purposes, but you will all generally be able to program it to any shape or color you like. Furniture is also programmable. Several essential pieces are programmed into the room and are available for instant download, but you will also be free to design your own furniture and program it into the room."

After the voice had said this, eleven thin remotes separated themselves from the floor in front of each irken. Each irken picked up their remote. Several larger shapes grew from the floor, and became feeding and washing/defecation stations.

"At this time, the council wishes that males and females use separate washing/defecation stations. Since the eleven of you are sharing one space, we feel that this will cut down on traffic to either w/d station and will increase efficiency of time."

"How would that be more efficient?" asked Minu, confused. "There are eight of us and three of them."

"We ask that you simply trust in your council. We encourage logical and innovative thinking, but disagreement and disobedience will be punished. At this time, I will leave you to explore and program your room. In three days, your training will begin."

….

Note:

-I will post a layout of the domed room on my deviantart account ( deviantSilverbeast ). I probably won't put it up for a while, but I will definitely put it up before I post the next chapter.

-Quick notes for people who do not know much about the world of Zim:

~Paks determine an irken's personality

~there are extremely few gender differences in normal irkens, because they have reproduced through cloning and other forms of genetic engineering long enough that at some point their government decided that such significant differences were unnecessary and removed related DNA from the irken genome


End file.

Invader Zim, Adventure, Sci-Fi