A/N: I'll try and keep with this story for once... This is set about 10-11 years after the Lyoko Warriors shut down the computer. This actually started as a writing prompt in class: "What if your favorite work of fiction wasn't all it was cracked up to be?"
I guess that gives you a hint at to what to expect...
Enjoy!
Chapter One:
It had gotten dark so quickly that day…
Giselle stood pensively, shifting from foot to foot, glancing into the inky darkness, and then down to the metal slat that acted as a threshold between her and the abandoned factory. In the distance, if she squinted, she could see the factory beyond the bridge; a hulking beast, darker than dark, with faintly glowing eyes that stared forever forward. Below the bridge, stagnant bay water swirled and tumbled, reeking of low tide and sewage. Supposedly, no one had been in here for the last ten to twenty years; it had been abandoned because of a poisonous gas leak, or something. ( But you could never be sure of the truth with high-schoolers…)
It was the end of summer; fat and sluggish breezes grabbed at her clothes and strawberry blonde hair with grimy paws and shoved more of the stench of the water up her nose.
Behind her, a gaggle of giddy and anxious girls murmured and laughed. One girl, with clear grey eyes and red hair shoved a weighty flashlight into Giselle's clammy palms.
"Now be careful," she said, "and remember, you have to stay in there for an hour. Don't go chickening out!"
Giselle was too nervous to respond. Why did she even take the stupid dare in the first place? This surely wasn't worth fifty dollars…
She stood there, petrified with fear before half a dozen hands pushed into her back and drove her forward into the dark.
With each step Giselle took, her heart pounded faster and faster; making blood rush in her ears. With each footfall, a metallic clang resounded around her and goose-pimples brushed up her arms and neck like someone had poured ice down the back of her shirt.
She rubbed each hand dry on her jeans before turning on her flashlight. Suddenly, the area around her was illuminated. Giselle was meandering down the bridge; not even inside yet.
She turned around to find the girls that had resigned her to her fate had fled. Only a video camera was left in their wake, a red light flashed intermittently. It was recording.
She should have known.
Once inside the building, she started to realize that it wasn't that bad in there. It smelled salty and dusky, reminiscent of an old library in a sleepy seaside town. If only it was a library…
The building was sturdy on the inside, and although dusty, the place was in good shape. Windows lined the walls in front and behind her, and above, Giselle could see a cat walk system that went around the walls and crossed the middle in four different places. In the distance, crates were stacked up to at least three times her height. At the room's end, she saw a large metal door with and old style mechanical lock. Did it still work?
To the right of it, a green light glowed and dimmed sporadically. The light whispered and called her name out of the corner of her eye until she just had to go over to investigate it.
Within touching distance, Giselle could see a long-forgotten metal button underneath the light. A bronze coat now gave way to silver metal where repeated contact wore it away. She ran her thumb over it; the button was smooth and cool under her thumb.
'Let's hope green means go,' she thought. Giselle swallowed her heart back down to where it belonged and pressed the button lightly.
"Aieeeeee!" She screamed. Under her feet, an engine roared to life. After a few moments, her fragile composure settled back down on her shoulders.
It was an elevator; she could tell from the whisper coming up below. It came to a stop with a light "clang!" In front of her, the doors rolled back to reveal the elevator cabin, lit with old fluorescent bulbs.
Seeing no other place to go, Giselle stepped into the elevator and pressed the only button in it.
Just as smoothly as it had came, the elevator slid back down into the unknown; a place where Giselle really shouldn't have been.
"So lemme' get this straight," Aspen drawled, "you'd like me to go back down to that crazy factory with you?" Giselle's best friend (and on again off again girlfriend) laid sprawled out on her stomach on her bed. Her hair wasn't in a ponytail like usual, so her ink black hair was loose across her shoulders. One of the many red streaks in it fell across her face, but refused to move out of the way.
After the events at the factory (which had happened a full week earlier) Giselle didn't believe herself at first. But after milling it over in her mind for a few days, she had come to the conclusion that she had really seen what she saw. So, she recruited the help of the only computer geek she knew well. (But Aspen would never let herself be called a geek by anyone but Giselle.)
"Yeah, I would," Giselle replied sternly.
"What the hell was down there then?"
"You wouldn't believe me…" She looked away.
"Oh please," Aspen groaned, "At this point, I think I'll believe anything. You come running and screaming into my room at five in the morning on the first day of school; whatever you need to say must be important."
Giselle took a deep breath, and then blurted out, "I think there's a computer in the basement below the factory!"
"You think?" Aspen furrowed her brows. "Did you see it?"
"I did! It's one of those old retro ones with a huge monitor," she said with enthusiasm.
"Then, there is a computer in that basement."
"Will you come down with me after class to check it out? I wanna see if you can turn it on."
Aspen smiled a bit, and then sat up. "You got yourself a deal. Meet me near the vending machines after class."
Aspen got to the machines first; her last class was a useless study hall that managed to evolve into a sing along. After that experience, she decided it might just be best to get the hell out of there.
She was much more dapper now that it was later in the afternoon. Her hair had been tamed into her classic ponytail, and she wore lime green skinny jeans with a gauzy black blouse with tiny skulls all over it. Her blue glasses were pushed high up on her nose, Aspen was nearsighted. Slung over one shoulder was a beat-up canvas backpack that held a few schoolbooks and her old netbook.
Aspen picked at her manicure as she waited; Aspen loved to try peeling it all off in one go.
Giselle came jogging up to Aspen in a cream sweater and a pink skirt. Aspen admired her figure not so subtly as she arrived.
The computer geek got up smoothly and waved hello.
"How exactly are we going to get to the factory from here anyways," Aspen asked.
"The way I got there on my dare," she replied.
The pair started walking into the woods slowly, in no rush to get to the factory. The crazy legend surrounding that factory (albeit unrealistic) got into their heads. Even talking about it would be enough to make some people as pale as bone.
"Which would be?" Aspen stopped in her tracks.
"Through the sewer," she mentioned nonchalantly.
"Oh how fun," Aspen grumbled.
In the daylight, the factory was nowhere near as ominous as it was the night of Giselle's dare, but it wasn't exactly rainbows and unicorns. The hot sun only made the stench of low tide worse and Aspen wrinkled her nose in disdain.
"If there's no computer down there, you really owe me bigtime." Aspen growled.
"I hope so too..." Self doubt had began to seed itself in the recesses of Giselle's the computer still there? Her thoughts whirled.
"Earth to Giselle~" Aspen waved her hand in front of Giselle's face a few times. "Want me to carry you," she joked.
"No!" Aspen had managed to make her turn bright pink. She pushed Aspen away and ran ahead into the factory and heard Aspen yell behind her.
"Good god," she panted, "at least warn me first!"
"Sorry..."
Aspen didn't respond, she just kept walking forward into the factory. In the afternoon, the sun shone fully through the windows, creating massive squares of light on the concrete floor. Archaic dust and grime turned gold in the sun and floated up and down peacefully. It was hot; at least ten degrees hotter inside the abandoned factory.
Aspen whistled admiration through her teeth. "Where-to, miss tour guide?"
"Behind that big metal door is an elevator to the computer I saw." Giselle pointed to the rusty old door. In normal light, it looked even more dangerous, now that you could see its age.
The loud screech from the elevator's motor was less fierce as well.
As the elevator lowered, Aspen whistled the comical sound of a bomb dropping, but stopped when her companion glared daggers at her.
"What? There's nothing better to do!" She put her hands up defensively.
The doors rolled open as smoothly as last time, and the computer was still at the desk, staying toasty through hibernation with a blanket of dust.
"Talk about retro," Aspen murmured, "it makes Thomas look brand new," referring to her netbook from 2007.
"Will it work?" Giselle inquired.
"Let's find out." Aspen pushed her glasses up onto the top of her head and then started working; dusting off the three monitors and hunting down the monitor that could turn it on. The filter was covered in dust, but Aspen had packed an air can to clean off everything. None of the wires were corroded or broken, and even the keyboard seemed functional.
From what it looked like, the computer was made in the 1980's, but built piecemeal. Like one of the world's first computer junkies made their own computer from used parts of others. Aspen still had no idea how much power the computer had, but it couldn't be much by 2015's standards. The main monitor was an old tube monitor, but the one to the right and left were flat screens. 'Something's not adding up here...' Aspen thought.
After dusting her clothes and hands off, she pressed the startup button on the tower under the desk. After a few minutes, the computer belched up some dust and flickered to life with disheartening noises.
Behind the screens, a massive light brightened the room; a massive glowing orb above the floor, with hundreds of holographic lights floating around it. 'That really doesn't add up...' Aspen noticed.
Behind Giselle, another light (a warm incandescent) came up from the floor. "Aspen, take a look over here!" The second light came up from a hole in the floor with a ladder coming up, to the left of the elevator. Giselle started down the ladder cautiously.
"This just keeps getting weirder..." Aspen took a look down the hole.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
"What, Giselle?" Aspen asked, head still in the tunnel, watching Giselle.
"I didn't say anything..."
"Then who did?"
"Hello? I can't see you! Can you get in front of the monitor please?"
"Holy shit-" Aspen coughed, "Giselle, get up here now..."
"What's wrong?" Giselle's voice was very worried now.
"T-there's a girl on the middle monitor!"
Dun dun dun... To be continued...