Switch
By Cybra
To Flying Star: Eventually, I will finish that one fic I promised you. In the meantime, I hope this suffices since your fic "Crossed Circuits" gave me the plotbunny.
Disclaimer: Code Lyoko is Antefilm's. All hail the French.
Aelita sat down at the computer, typing in a very specific sequence of keys and sliding on a headset. Her heart pounded, and she took deep breaths to try to calm it.
"Jeremy? Are you there?"
A window popped up on the screen with a 3D representation of a rather average looking blond boy wearing glasses. He smiled at her. "Good afternoon, Aelita. How was school?"
She leaned forward, resting her head on her hands and smiling at him. "Pretty boring. I can't wait until you can come and stay."
"Why's that?"
Aelita paused, trying to word her wishes carefully. "Having you there would make things more…interesting."
Jeremy tilted his head curiously to one side. "Probably in more ways than one. And in ways that wouldn't be easy to explain."
"I suppose you're right." Aelita grimaced.
"Still, going to a real school was a fascinating experience."
"If you didn't mind sitting in boring classes for hours on end." The smile returned to Aelita's face.
It was hard to believe that only a year ago she had connected to the school's network and, while surfing the Internet, found a rather curious and naïve e-mail pen pal who went by the name of "Jeremy." He'd had an insatiable curiosity about the most mundane of activities, somehow endearing him to her rather than worrying her into thinking he was some sort of online stalker.
Then one day a strange window had appeared on her screen with a rather frantic boy, spewing forth apologies for his rudeness, revealing himself as her rather odd pen pal, and begging for her help.
After enlisting (more like begging) the help of her friends, she did give him her aid. And read him the riot act after they had finished, which he at least had the grace to sheepishly endure.
Jeremy, it seemed, was not an actual person in the traditional sense of the word. He was the sole inhabitant of a virtual world called "Lyoko," which was controlled by a demonic artificial intelligence bent on humanity's destruction called "XANA." Apparently, any damage that XANA did to the real world, Jeremy could undo by deactivating the towers XANA used and resetting time. Ordinarily, Jeremy could do all of this on his own, but, starting a year ago, XANA had decided it'd had enough of Jeremy's meddling.
Enter Aelita, Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich, Jeremy's new allies and champions.
The main problem was Jeremy had no offensive weapons. He could use Shapeshift and flee or do some minor damage but was essentially useless in combat. However, Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich, the regular fighters in Lyoko, were the ones entrusted with keeping Jeremy from getting deleted. Aelita would go occasionally but, like Jeremy, had no real offensive weapons, just Synthesization which allowed her to manipulate the landscape by giving up fifty lifepoints.
A knock on the door. Aelita turned a bit. She saw the webcam twitch out of the corner of her eye as Jeremy tried to see over her shoulder. Whether due to foresight or personal reasons, whoever had programmed Lyoko, XANA, and Jeremy had given Jeremy the appearance of a perfectly ordinary boy. Anyone who might have barged in unannounced would think that she and Jeremy were simply friends conversing via the web.
"Come in!" Aelita called.
Yumi poked her head in. "Hey, you busy? Oh! Hi, Jeremy. Didn't know you were here."
"Hi, Yumi," Jeremy greeted, nodding his head.
"No, I'm not busy. Not yet anyway. Jeremy and I were just talking." Aelita smiled and blushed a bit, happy that she was turned away from the unblinking eye of the webcam at the moment.
Yumi stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "Odd and Ulrich wanted me to get you for dinner." She waggled a finger at Aelita, smirking knowingly. "Don't think we didn't notice you skipped last night."
Aelita squirmed. "I forgot! Honest! We were working on the anti-virus, and dinner slipped my mind…!"
She heard Jeremy's guilty voice come from the speakers behind her. "I made you forget dinner last night? I'm sorry, Aelita."
"Jeremy, it's okay!" She turned around and smiled reassuringly at what Yumi called his "guilty puppy" face. "You didn't mean it. Both of us really thought that anti-virus program was going to work."
Most of her free time over the past year (when Yumi hadn't successfully dragged her away from the computer or Jeremy hadn't told her to walk away from the screen before she got eyestrain) had been spent trying to materialize Jeremy. For there was a way to stop XANA for good: to shut it and Lyoko down. But to shut down XANA with Jeremy trapped in Lyoko was a death sentence for Jeremy. So she and Jeremy had started to attempt the seemingly impossible: to make computer data flesh and blood.
And they had done it, too. For an entire day, Jeremy had walked among human beings, gone to Kadic Academy, felt the sun on his face, eaten, slept, all of the little things humans took for granted. She had a picture of them, taken in a photo booth, to prove it.
But nobody except those two along with their friends remembered it, for XANA had attacked during Jeremy's "weekend pass" and forced them to reset time. As if that weren't enough, it had implanted a virus in him, forcing Jeremy to return to Lyoko. If XANA were ever to be shut down, Jeremy's body would shut down as well.
Aelita clenched a fist out of sight of the webcam.
"Still, without enough energy to replenish yourself, your systems could be damaged, some of them might even go offline," Jeremy cautioned, blue eyes looking deeply concerned behind his glasses.
Yumi glanced at Aelita, obviously having a vague idea of what their mutual virtual friend had just said but requesting confirmation before she misinterpreted anything. Jeremy had a habit of translating biological functions into machine or computer functions, a habit they were going to have to break before he was materialized for good.
"If I don't take proper care of myself, my body's not going to like it," Aelita simplified.
"That's what I thought he said." Yumi grinned at Jeremy. "You've got to stop doing that. It's not normal around here."
"Sorry." A sheepish blush on digital cheeks.
The Japanese girl shook her head. "Jeremy, you're too innocent for your own good sometimes. When you get here, we're going to have to beat the girls off with a stick. You'll be their little pet."
"Why?" A genuinely curious look. "I'll be materialized as a human, not a dog."
They couldn't help themselves. The question sent Aelita and Yumi into a fit of hysterics, which only seemed to puzzle poor Jeremy even more.
"C'mon, Aelita. Let's get you downstairs before Ulrich and Odd think we've died. Hope you don't mind, Jeremy."
"Not at all."
Aelita smiled at her virtual friend. "I'll be back after dinner."
Jeremy nodded. "I'll see you then."
She left her room, closing the door as the window on her screen winked out.
Jeremy stretched from his cross-legged position on a glacier. The Polar Region had always been his favorite region on Lyoko, and he always came here whenever he wanted to contact Aelita since it seemed he could concentrate better.
He switched forms to an Arctic fox, trotting across the landscape. He didn't feel any pulsations nor did he "scent" the code of any of XANA's monsters, but he would rather have the form of something light and fast in case trouble did come his way.
"When you get here, we're going to have to beat the girls off with a stick. You'll be their little pet."
Had Yumi meant that figuratively or literally? He really didn't like the idea of wearing a collar like humans made their pets normally wear. Nor did he really enjoy the idea of watching girls get hit with sticks…
Humans, even if they were your friends, were so confusing sometimes.
Like Aelita. He knew there was something different about her. He felt something akin to friendship but stronger. He always wanted to ask her about it but hesitated since it did not seem like the topic you brought up with the person that strange emotion was centered around.
Maybe he should talk to Yumi? She seemed to understand this sort of thing quite well. But, no, anything he said to Yumi could ultimately get back to Aelita. The two girls were very close.
Odd and Ulrich? The pair didn't normally have access to a computer, but it wasn't impossible. He could contact their cell phones if he grew desperate enough. Whether Odd would take him seriously or not was doubtful, but Ulrich might be useful.
Making a mental note to try and contact the two boys later, Jeremy's nose twitched at the "scent" of blocks. He turned his full attention farther up the ice bridge to see two blocks heading his way.
XANA wasn't currently awake, but its monsters were still allowed to run free with their basic instructions: delete Jeremy. Fortunately for Jeremy, as long as XANA was asleep, XANA's monsters weren't that intelligent.
He glanced over his shoulder and sighed. He'd come too far along this stretch of ice to backtrack and find a place to hide before the blocks spotted him. And, unlike a real Arctic fox, his blond fur would stick out against the white ice. (Shapeshift changed his body's form but, unfortunately, his coloration took on the same color as his hair, and he had blue eyes. Not particularly useful when he needed camouflage.)
He rejected taking bird form. It would take too long to get off the ground with nothing to launch himself off of, and he'd rather not get shot during that time. It was days like this that he wished the water in the Polar Region didn't act like the open areas in the other three regions, which lead to the Digital Void. He would've liked to have been able to swim away.
The blocks froze before increasing their speed towards him.
"I'm not in the mood to play today," he told the blocks, his voice growling.
Jeremy raced forward, nimbly leaping out of the way of two laser shots. He leaped forward, shifting forms in mid-leap, and slid along the ice on his newly acquired seal's belly between the two blocks.
One block shot the other block. Jeremy sent the first block into the water as he passed by with a flick of the tail.
There was an itch in the back of his mind, alerting him that Aelita wanted to make contact. He sent her a "Just a minute!" message as he shifted forms again.
This time, an elk tore his way across the ice bridge, leaving the damaged block to eat his snow. Within minutes, the elk skidded to a stop in front of a deactivated tower, shifting to the form of a human boy as he did so.
For some bizarre reason, the towers were never able to recognize Jeremy when he wasn't in his base human form. There were days when that was very, very inconvenient.
He passed through the wall and walked to the center of the tower, allowing himself to be carried up to the higher platform before sitting down. He focused on his link to the real world.
"Sorry that took so long, Aelita. A couple of blocks wanted to play."
Aelita gazed worriedly at her virtual friend. She and the boys had just gotten back from dinner. "Blocks? Has XANA woken up? Maybe I should run a scan…"
Jeremy shook his head. "No, XANA's still asleep. Its monsters are still programmed to go after me though."
Ulrich leaned over Aelita's shoulder to get a better view, frowning deeply. He'd never heard of Jeremy having to fight monsters between XANA attacks. "You need any help?"
The virtual blond gave a small smile and shook his head. "Don't worry. Without XANA being in direct control of them, the monsters aren't that smart. I've been avoiding them for years. It's when XANA's active that I really need your help dodging lasers."
"But you're sure you're okay?" Aelita pressed.
A reassuring smile. "I'm fine, Aelita. They didn't even touch me."
Ulrich laid a hand on Aelita's shoulder—the hand that Jeremy seemed desperate to put there himself—as she sighed quietly with relief.
Odd broke the tension in true Odd style. "So, what'd ya do? Turn into a lion and claw 'em?"
Jeremy laughed. "Nothing so spectacular. I just let them shoot at each other and made one of them take a bath."
"Heh. Guess they aren't that smart when XANA's asleep," Ulrich commented, grinning wryly.
"Their orders are to shoot me, not outthink me. Of course, I'm not going to complain. I'd rather not have to bother you everyday because I got cornered by blocks."
"C'mon, you know we'd love to go block hunting," Odd said, wrapping an arm around Ulrich's neck. "It's a blast."
"Maybe for you. I'd like to sit back and do more research on your world, thank you."
Aelita laughed. "Finally, a boy who talks sense. I thought I'd never see one of those."
"What are you talkin' about?" Odd demanded. "You've got two sensible guys right here."
"You, Odd? Sensible?" Yumi asked, entering the room. "Since when?"
Ulrich looked back over his shoulder. "Oh, uh, hey, Yumi."
"I thought you wouldn't be back until tomorrow," Jeremy asked, the webcam twitching to try and see her.
"Got permission from my mom to bring back a treat." She held up a plastic bag. "Mom's chocolate chess pie. Gotta be better than whatever it was they were serving in the cafeteria. And I smuggled in some more dog biscuits for Kiwi. Whatever you do, don't eat anything from the fortune cookie box."
"Real food!" Odd pounced, missing as Yumi pulled the bag up and away. "Hey!"
"You gotta share, Odd!"
Ulrich, Aelita, and Jeremy laughed at the exchange.
A few minutes later, the humans had settled down with their chocolaty treat, and Kiwi (retrieved from Odd and Ulrich's room by Odd) was munching on a dog biscuit that bore a disturbing resemblance to a sugar cookie. (Little wonder Yumi had cautioned them not to eat anything from the fortune cookie box.)
"Hey, Jeremy, we were wondering if you'd like to be materialized for a few hours this Saturday," Ulrich said after swallowing a bite of pie.
Jeremy turned his attention away from asking Aelita about the pie to Ulrich's statement. It was obvious that he was, understandably, very eager about the idea of spending a few hours outside of Lyoko, yet he said quietly, "If it's not too much trouble…"
Ulrich gave a careless wave. "The girls are going to do a Girls' Afternoon Out thing, so Odd and I thought you'd like to come and hang out with us. Do guy stuff."
"Guy stuff?" Jeremy looked beyond perplexed. He looked downright baffled.
Yumi waggled a finger at the two boys. "Don't go teaching him any bad habits. If he stays as he is now, we'll have that added protection all over again."
When Jeremy had been materialized, he had accidentally offended Theo though how he had done it nobody could figure out. Jeremy had been stuttering out apologies, trying to look as harmless as possible, when—before anyone from their group could intervene—Emily had stepped between the pair and told Theo in no uncertain terms to stop being a bully. As Theo had tried to argue back, about four more girls (including Millie and Tamiya) had come to help Emily teach Theo a lesson, demanding how he could pick on the new boy who had been nothing but sweet to everybody.
Theo had been forced to apologize and scamper off lest he further anger the females.
Poor Jeremy had been confused, Ulrich and Odd had been in hysterics (Aelita had called them "absolutely useless"), Yumi had been trying not to laugh, and Aelita…
…well, Aelita had gotten over her jealousy relatively quickly.
"We wouldn't have needed those other girls to step in if Ulrich and Odd hadn't sat there laughing like a pair of hyenas," Aelita grumbled, stabbing maliciously at her pie.
Okay, so maybe Aelita still wasn't completely over it.
"Still, having those other girls as our watchdogs isn't a bad thing. If Jeremy starts slipping, they'll chalk it up to some sort of quirk or something. And if someone starts hassling Jeremy, and we're not around, they'll have to face the wrath of a small squad of girls." Yumi grinned. "And nobody wants to take on a group of girls."
"Except another girl. You're forgetting about Sissy. She was suspicious of Jeremy," Ulrich pointed out.
"Hmm…you're right."
The webcam twitched towards Aelita again. "Are you okay, Aelita?"
Ulrich watched as she jerked with surprise and smiled at the boy on the screen. "I'm fine, Jeremy. Why?"
"You're mangling your dessert."
Everybody stared down at the paper plate in Aelita's hands. Sure enough, the piece of pie looked as if a fleet of kankerots had run over it. Odd snickered.
Aelita turned as pink as her hair before saying, "Eh…I like my pie all mixed up. It tastes kind of like one of those sundaes they serve in town."
More snickering from Odd, which was quickly joined by snickering from Yumi and Ulrich.
However, Jeremy seemed intrigued. "They sell sundaes that taste like pie?"
Ulrich placed a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter (and closed his eyes to avoid Aelita's "say anything, and I'll kill you" glare) as Aelita explained.
Odd had to admit that there were worse ways of spending a Saturday. Hanging out your guy friends was definitely far from the bottom of the "Things I Want to Do" list. And while going to an abandoned factory to pick up the last member of your group wasn't exactly normal (he'd be the first to admit this), it was necessary in this case.
He and Ulrich stood down in the scanner room as the middle scanner whirred, its doors closed shut. The girls had already gone off on their shopping spree. Jeremy himself had activated the materialization program, remotely operating the supercalculator.
The scanner whirred and whined as their visitor arrived from Lyoko. A moment later, the doors hissed open, smoke billowing out.
Jeremy sat on the floor of the scanner, eyes closed and head bowed, his entire body limp. The first time this had happened, their group—Aelita especially—had nearly hit the roof with worry. Now, however, they all knew it was simply part of the procedure. After all, Jeremy had never had a human body before, so he had to take a moment to gain control of it.
The fingers of Jeremy's right hand twitched. Odd saw Ulrich take his hands out of his pockets, getting ready for what would come next. Slowly, Jeremy opened his eyes and scanned his surroundings before lifting his head and smiling at them.
"Welcome, sir, to your all-expenses paid vacation to Earth!" Odd chirped. "I'll be your tour guide, Odd—"
"Ha ha, Odd," Ulrich said, rolling his eyes and helping a stumbling Jeremy to his feet. "You okay, Jeremy?"
"A little queasy but that's normal. It's a rough trip, materialization."
Ulrich grinned. "Yeah, we know what you mean. De-virtualization's no fun either. You get used to it though."
"Good to hear." Jeremy held perfectly still for a minute before he gently tugged his arm free of Ulrich's grip. Obviously, he now had his center of balance.
"We've got to bring you into the real world more often. It'll help."
"Yeah!" Odd chirped, grinning. "All you have to do is just tap into the school's computers and schedule us more free weekends…"
"No, Odd," Jeremy and Ulrich said as one.
Odd shrugged, grinning cheekily. "Just an idea." He placed a hand on his chin. "Now what to do? The girls have pretty much forbidden us from all of the fun guy stuff."
Jeremy tilted his head to one side. "I've been trying to find information on what you're all talking about when you say 'guy stuff,' but I haven't had any luck."
"Oh you know, burping contests…"
"…prank calls…"
"…flirting with random girls…"
"—That's not on the list, Odd!—pulling pranks in general…"
"—You're no fun anymore, Ulrich—eating contests…All the fun stuff that girls would never do." Odd grinned then pouted. "But Yumi and Aelita threatened to skin us alive if we taught you any of that stuff."
Jeremy looked even more confused, but Ulrich grinned. "There's still the arcade. They didn't scratch that off our list. And you and I can still have the burping and eating contests. Jeremy can be our impartial judge. As long as he doesn't participate, Aelita and Yumi can't kill us."
"Ooh! Loophole!" Odd slung an arm around Jeremy's shoulders. "What do ya say, pal?"
Jeremy gave a small smile, curiosity evident all over his features. "It would be interesting."
"You'll have a ball. Trust us." Odd grinned maniacally. "So, what's first on the agenda?"
A growl from Jeremy's stomach. Jeremy looked surprised, clearly unused to the sound, before looking embarrassed.
"I think what comes first is we get something into Jeremy before his stomach eats itself," Ulrich laughed. "We'll just grab something from the snack machines for now and grab actual lunch later."
"Sounds good to me," Odd said with a nod as Jeremy nodded in silent assent.
The trio walked towards the elevator, discussing their plan of attack for the next few hours.
Aelita's fingers twitched towards her cell phone for not the first time in the past ten minutes. She wanted to make sure everything went okay with the transfer yet knew that if something had gone wrong, Ulrich and Odd would have called.
On the flip side, she also wanted to make sure Jeremy was alright. Leaving him alone at the tender mercies of the two boys seemed as if she had left him to the wolves. While she was sure she had given the two boys strict enough instructions which would keep them from doing anything particularly foolish (or from teaching Jeremy some rotten habit that would be hard for him to break when he realized how vulgar it actually was), the pink-haired girl was sure that they would find some way around them.
After all, boys would be boys.
"Aelita, I'm sure they're fine," Yumi said with a laugh. "They'd call if they'd gotten themselves into hot water somehow."
"I hope so," Aelita grumbled. "Odd and Ulrich know better. Jeremy's basically a tourist and won't know he's in trouble until he's in a real fight. Only here on Earth he doesn't have the option of shifting to cheetah and running away."
"He'll do okay. He'll probably avoid Theo like the plague this time around though." Yumi held up a maroon dress. "Hmm…definitely more your speed."
"At that price? Not likely. My parents would have kittens when they got the bill."
Yumi winked. "I think Jeremy would like it on you."
Aelita blushed hotly but retorted, "I could wear garbage bags, and Jeremy would think I looked all right. He doesn't know any better."
"Aw…you're not giving him enough credit. Yeah, he's a guy. Yeah, where he comes from doesn't exactly give him the best practice for social interaction. Still, he probably notices this kind of stuff better than most guys." The Japanese girl grinned wickedly. "Or at least he notices on you."
Aelita gave her friend a playful shove. "Go away. Go find something in the darkest shade of black you can find for Ulrich."
"Hey!"
The two girls laughed and turned back to the rack, sifting through the garments and idly chatting.
"Seriously though. You and Jeremy. And be honest."
Aelita examined a particularly garish tiger-print blouse for a moment longer than normal. "Well…" She blushed hotly and gave a small smile. "He is cute…"
Yumi grinned. "And…?"
"…I do like him…"
"What about him?"
Aelita frowned. "I don't know. It doesn't exactly come up in conversation."
The Japanese girl stared. "You mean you two aren't together yet?"
"Uh…no." Aelita gave Yumi a quizzical look. "Why?"
Yumi had the grace to look embarrassed. "Odd set up this stupid betting pool. He said it'd take you two three months. Ulrich said six. I said you two were already together."
Looking back, Aelita decided that her reaction to this new knowledge was quite mature and appropriate:
She smacked Yumi on the arm.
Jeremy waited on a bench while Ulrich and Odd meandered over to the snack machines. They had asked him to wait there while they selected something they wanted him to try without his prior knowledge.
Understandably, he felt a bit worried.
However, he obliged their request and tilted his head back to stare up into the sunny blue sky of Earth, watching wispy white clouds drift across the vast blue plane. Clouds never ceased to amaze him. In Lyoko, there were no clouds since Lyoko had no need for them.
And in Lyoko, there were no birds.
A blue jay zipped across the sky over his head, enjoying the sunshine. Automatically, he mentally focused on the blue jay form, accessing the part of his mind that activated Shapeshift.
But nothing happened. On Earth, he did not have his wondrous ability to change forms. When he became human for good, never again would he majestically soar as an eagle above the landscape. When he became human for good, never again would he tirelessly race as a wolf through the forests. He would be trapped as a human until the end of his days.
'Would you prefer to be trapped in one form and enjoying the beauty of a world full of life or trapped in a world alone and able to change your form at will?' part of his mind sneered.
Given those options, Jeremy had to sadly wish the eagle and wolf and other animal forms goodbye.
'Besides, I'll be here with Aelita…'
A blush spread across his cheeks.
And a face appeared before his eyes.
"Gah!" Jeremy tilted his head forward and turned around to face the owner of the face.
It belonged to a brunette girl with glasses, older than the human form he himself had. She smiled pleasantly at him. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you there. I just don't think we've met before."
Actually, they had, but Emily did not remember it.
Jeremy shakily held out a hand. "Um…I'm Jeremy Belpois, Odd's cousin."
"Emily." She took his hand and shook it. "You new?"
The blond shook his head. "No, just visiting Odd."
Emily raised an eyebrow and looked about. "How nice of him to just leave you by yourself."
"He's going to come back in a minute…" Jeremy protested, knowing just how pathetic that sounded as soon as it was out of his mouth.
She walked around the bench, and he turned so he could keep his gaze upon her. Maybe it was just from being on Lyoko and fighting for his life every day, but he sensed danger.
Emily placed her hands on her hips. "Well, it's still rude of him to do this to you." She smirked. "So let's have a little fun with him, hmm?"
Jeremy shook his head. "No, I think I'll just wait here. It's no big deal."
"C'mon. You don't want to be a doormat your whole life." She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. "Look, we'll only mess with him for an hour. Then you guys can go back to whatever you were planning to do."
Jeremy had little choice in the matter as she pulled him along, flagging down a group of girls.
"Hey, everyone! I want you to meet Jeremy! His cousin Odd left him all by his lonesome."
The blond decided to focus on nothing but his feet, hoping by looking completely harmless and subservient they might find him boring enough to leave alone. "Hello."
No luck. The girls greeted him and murmured that "Odd's just being a jerk. Don't worry about it." Some even declared minor threats to Odd for "ditching such a nice guy."
"Ladies," Emily said with dignity, "I propose we kidnap Jeremy for the next hour in revenge."
"Hear, hear!" one of the girls yelled.
Jeremy paled as the group swarmed towards him.
Give him kankerots. Give him hornets. Heck, give him mega-tanks.
Where were his defenders when he needed them?
"Well, Jeremy, you look like a Cheetos kind of guy," Odd chirped, wide grin on his face. He had closed his eyes for a few moments due to the position of the sun shooting its rays directly into his retinas. "May I offer you some of the cheesy—Hey!"
Ulrich had stopped dead in his tracks. Since Odd's eyes were shut, he hadn't been able to notice and stop before bumping into the brunette.
Odd glared at the back of his friend's head. "What gives?"
"Odd…" Ulrich said in a horrified tone, pointing ahead of him.
The purple-clad boy blinked and followed the finger to where Jeremy was sitting.
…Only Jeremy was nowhere in sight.
The bag of Cheetos hit the ground as Odd clutched the sides of his head. "Oh, man! Aelita and Yumi are gonna kill us!"
"And that's if we're lucky," Ulrich agreed, looking around for any sight of the missing materialized virtual being. "If we're not, Aelita's not going to just kill us, she'll draw it out and make it the most painful and humiliating experience we've ever had."
"And of course he doesn't have a cell phone!" Odd wailed. He threw his hands towards the sky and tilted his head back. "Why'd you have to wander off, Jeremy!"
As if cued, Ulrich's cell phone rang. He pulled it out and paled. "It's Yumi."
"Lie," Odd said, flailing his arms. "I'm sure we can find Jeremy. I mean, where's he gonna go?"
Ulrich answered the phone. "Hey, Yumi." He paused, listening. "Oh, we're fine. Having a blast!"
The boy in purple rolled his eyes a bit but said nothing lest he give away the entire thing.
"Yeah, transfer was fine. Jeremy? Uh…he's…um…well, he's in the restroom at the moment." Ulrich glared as Odd slapped his forehead. "I'll tell him you guys called when he gets back!" Pause. Ulrich paled. "No, you don't have to wait! You can just try again a little later." Odd chewed his nails as Ulrich started to sweat. "Okay, take care. Bye."
Beep. The call ended with the press of a button.
"Split up or stick together?"
"Split up's quicker, but all off-campus stuff has to be buddy system. Getting caught means we're stuck on campus next time we have a free weekend. What if Jeremy meandered off-campus without us?"
"Crud, you're right." Ulrich made a snap decision. "We split up and search the grounds first, call the other when finished with your sweep, and then we leave the campus. Hopefully, Jeremy hasn't wandered too far."
Boop…The dial tone greeted Yumi's ear as Ulrich hung up after his hasty goodbye. "Okay, that was weird."
"What's wrong?" Aelita looked up from her serious contemplation of a rather nice blouse and vest combo.
"Called the guys to check up on them, and Ulrich sounded…tense."
Aelita became alarmed. "Is Jeremy okay?"
"He said Jeremy was fine." The Japanese girl frowned and answered Aelita's question before she asked it, "Couldn't get him on the phone though. Still, if something went wrong with the transfer, Ulrich would've said something."
"Or he and Odd could be guys and try to fix the problem themselves thus making the situation a thousand times worse."
Yumi winced. "That, too."
"Let's pay and then see if we can't drop in on their fun."
"Want to make sure they're not being bad?"
"And to make sure Jeremy's in one piece."
Jeremy stared at what the girls had called "the greatest mall in the universe." While he wasn't sure if this was actually true, he could say with complete honesty that it was the most impressive mall he had ever seen.
Which was, exactly, one mall: this very one.
Humans bustled about, glancing in the windows of various stores, sometimes actually going inside. The displays begged the people to buybuybuy whatever they held. Neon signs and a massive skylight illuminated the massive space.
"Some place, huh?" one of the girls—"Sasha" if his memory served him correctly—asked.
Jeremy bobbed his head, trying not to gape.
Another girl—"Denise"? No, "Dana"—giggled. "I'm guessing you don't have one of these where you live."
He swallowed. "Well, no…"
At least he could honestly say that.
"Hmm…" Emily circled him, eerily reminding him of a Hornet preparing to attack. "I'm thinking earring. Left ear."
"What?" he squeaked, reaching up to grasp the aforementioned ear's earlobe.
She grinned. "It'll surprise your cousin if you do something wild like get an earring. Besides, it'll look cute."
"Oh yes!" Dana giggled, grasping his shoulders and pulling him uncomfortably close to her.
He squeaked again, trying to pull away. Now he remembered this Dana girl. Last time around, Aelita had looked as if she were about five seconds away from causing serious bodily harm to her since she especially followed him everywhere.
"A little gold hoop," the blonde girl, Rachel, said decisively.
"No way. Studs are better," Sasha argued.
"I vote for the hoop!" Dana chirped. Jeremy wanted to start running as she leered at him. "You can play with hoops."
"How about none of the above?" Jeremy asked weakly, still clutching the earlobe protectively.
Emily huffed. "You're no fun." Still, she smiled. "But we'll let you off the hook this one time." She raised an eyebrow at the girl clinging to his shoulders. "Dana, let him go. He looks like he's afraid you're going to drag him off somewhere."
"Darn…" Dana released him to Jeremy's relief. He tensed up again when she blew him a kiss.
"Since we're not going to the tattoo and piercing parlor" Emily paused for the moans of disappointment "looks like it's regular old mall-crawling."
"Like that's a bad thing," Sasha said. She shook her head, getting some of the hair out of her face before smiling at Jeremy. "Besides, we can try and learn more about our guest. Like, Jeremy, do you have a girlfriend?"
"Back off! I saw him first!" Dana said. (Jeremy had the horrible feeling that she was only half joking.)
The blond boy paled. This was going to be a long afternoon. 'Aelita! Help!'
"C'mon, Sissy, did you see him or not?"
Ulrich asked.
The girl in pink tossed some of her hair over her shoulder. "Why do you want to know so badly?"
Odd said, "Because he's my cousin. And I want to make sure he's okay."
She gave the pair of boys a look that clearly stated that she didn't believe them.
Ulrich moaned. This was getting them nowhere. "Sissy, c'mon. He's never been here before, and we don't want something bad to happen to him. He could be lost."
The brunette watched as the black-haired girl frowned deeply, obviously weighing the options of telling them anything. He also noticed Herb grinding his teeth behind Sissy as Nicholas gazed blandly at them.
"If I tell you, you have to do something for me," she told him slyly, lowering her eyelids and smiling.
"A date for info?" Odd demanded, catching on. "C'mon, that's not fair!"
Ulrich crossed his arms. "I'm gonna go with Odd on this one, Sissy. That's too far."
"A kiss then."
The two boys glanced at each other before Ulrich nodded. "Okay."
Now Herb was actually growling.
Sissy smiled. "I knew you'd see things my way. Your friend Jeremy was with Emily and her friends. They were heading towards the mall."
"The mall?" Ulrich and Odd yelped.
If Jeremy was there, that meant he had a very good chance of running into Aelita and Yumi. If the girls saw him without his guardians…
…well, Ulrich and Odd were going to be in for some serious trouble later.
"Thanks, Sissy! C'mon, Ulrich!"
The two boys turned in the direction of the mall, preparing to sprint off.
"Hold it."
Ulrich and Odd glanced over their shoulders at Sissy.
She placed her hands on her hips. "You're forgetting something, Ulrich dear."
The brunette sighed and leaned towards her.
The girl eagerly leaned towards him, puckering her lips.
Ulrich tilted his head just a bit and kissed her on the cheek. He pulled back, faced the mall, and started running, Odd hot on his heels.
"Ulrich!" came Sissy's outraged cry.
Odd grinned. "Nice one."
In spite of the desperation of their run, Ulrich laughed. "Hey, she never said it had to be on the lips!"
'So this is why Odd and Ulrich hate shopping with the girls so much. I'm gonna have to make a mental note of this.'
Jeremy was currently carrying three bags of shoes and accessories. At least it wasn't boxes. Bags were easier to carry. Meanwhile, Emily and her friends merrily chatted on about this, that, and the other thing.
To be honest, Jeremy was a bit grateful for the bizarre situation. He was learning quite a bit about human social rules from this forcibly hands-on lesson. Now if he could keep Dana off his back, he'd be set.
"So, Jeremy, you have a girlfriend back home?" Rachel asked, smiling at him.
'Back home I'm the only person there.' He shook his head and said aloud, "Nope."
"Ooh, a cute boy who's not taken!" Dana giggled. She paused for a moment and asked mischievously, "You're not gay, are you?"
Jeremy just about choked on his own saliva though how he'd accomplished it, he wasn't sure.
"Judging by that response, that's a 'no,'" Emily said, smirking. "Looks like not all of the cute guys are taken or gay."
The blond boy suddenly had an incredible interest in his sneakers. And, wow, wasn't the tiled floor of the mall shiny?
"So, got any girls in mind?" Sasha asked, continuing the pestering.
He blushed, feeling his cheeks grow incredibly warm. "Uh…er…um…"
"God, he's cute," Dana giggled.
"Dana, hush." Emily gave him a serious look. "Is she someone we know?"
His cheeks grew even warmer. "Well…"
He didn't finish his sentence as pain spread from his chest. He dropped the bags and fell to his knees, clutching at his chest over where his heart felt as if it was being squeezed. He gasped in agony.
"Jeremy! Jeremy, what's wrong!" Emily asked, kneeling down and gripping his shoulders.
He trembled with pain.
Where had it come from? He'd been out of Lyoko for longer than this when they'd first discovered his virus.
His virus. If it was acting up this badly, then XANA was awake and lashing out at him via the virus that connected them!
He gasped out a name, "Ae…lita…"
"Aelita?" Emily questioned in confusion.
However, he heard Emily then demand of her friends, "Does anyone have Aelita's number? Maybe she knows what to do."
"I do," Sasha said. "Hopefully, she has her cell on her."
Had Jeremy not been feeling so bad, he would've assured them that she always had her mobile phone on her.
Beep-beep-beep!
Aelita pulled out the slim pink mobile phone and looked at the number. "Sasha's calling me?"
"You have Sasha's number?" Yumi asked.
"We're working on a project for Mrs. Hertz's class together." Aelita pushed the Talk button. "Hello?"
"Aelita, something's wrong with your friend Jeremy!"
All that registered with Aelita were the words "wrong" and "Jeremy."
"Where are you?" she demanded.
"We're down by Accessorize Your Life."
"Yumi and I will be right there." Aelita shut off her cell and turned to Yumi. "Call Ulrich and Odd and tell them to meet us at the factory. Something's wrong with Jeremy!"
The pair of girls broke into a run, heading towards the escalator.
As the Japanese girl pulled out her phone, she asked Aelita, "Why aren't they with Jeremy now?"
Aelita finally realized that the person on the other end of the line who had given her the information on Jeremy's health had not been one of their group. "I'm going to kill them."
"I wouldn't, Aelita. If they're dead, they can't protect Jeremy on Lyoko." Yumi turned her attention to her cell. "Ulrich, where are you two and why aren't you with Jeremy!" A pause. "Never mind, just get to the factory right away. We're gonna have to virtualize Jeremy as soon as we get there, and XANA will probably have company waiting." She paused again, obviously listening to Ulrich's response, before disconnecting.
Aelita and Yumi pushed their way down the escalator in record time, running towards Accessorize Your Life.
'Hang in there, Jeremy,' Aelita begged silently. When she spotted the group of girls hovering around a trembling blond boy on his knees, she yelled, "Here!"
Dana turned to look at them, frantic. "He was doing okay until just a few minutes ago!"
"It's okay," Yumi told them. She looked down at Jeremy and swore as Aelita knelt beside the boy. "Aelita, can you find Jeremy's medicine?"
Aelita quickly caught on and made a cursory search for the phantom medication. "No, Odd probably has it. And I don't have any of it on me."
"Medicine?" Emily asked, looking guilty.
"Odd told us that Jeremy sometimes has attacks," Yumi said quickly, kneeling down with her back to Jeremy as Aelita wrapped the pain-stricken boy's arms around the Japanese girl's neck. "We try to keep some of his medicine on hand just in case. We thought he was just hanging around with Odd and Ulrich today, so we didn't bring some."
"I-I kinda kidnapped him. I'm sorry!" Emily yelled.
"It's not your fault. He probably forgot to tell you when you started showing him around," Aelita told her, wanting to be angry but not being able to muster the energy. (That and the fact that they were blatantly lying to Emily made Aelita feel a bit guilty.) She held Jeremy in place as Yumi stood and grasped his legs. "We're going to meet Odd halfway back. Let's go, Yumi!"
The pair of girls—materialized virtual being on one of their backs—dashed towards the exit. It was going to be a long run to the factory.
"S-Sorry…" Jeremy mumbled through what must've been agony.
"It's not your fault," Aelita gasped out between pants. "Once you're in Lyoko…we'll run a bio scan."
'It's going to be okay. It has to be.'
Odd turned towards the elevator door as they
opened. The elevator revealed Yumi with Jeremy on her back, the
other blond moaning pitifully.
"Yumi, we—" Ulrich started to explain.
Yumi cut him off. "Later. Get in the scanners. I'll follow you guys in a minute."
Odd and Ulrich practically leaped into their respective scanners. Odd watched Yumi kneel in front of the third and basically peel the virtual boy off of her back.
'Oh, man…'
"Aelita, we're ready!" Yumi yelled.
Odd heard Aelita's voice announce over the intercom, "Transfer Odd…Transfer Ulrich…Transfer Jeremy…"
The doors of the scanner closed shut.
"Scanner Odd…Scanner Ulrich…Scanner Jeremy…"
The interior of the scanner lit up. Odd felt every nerve start to tingle.
"Virtualization!"
Odd's nerves did little tingling dances as the scanner disappeared and the Forest Region appeared before his eyes. He landed in a crouch beside Ulrich and Jeremy.
The virtual boy fell to his knees, gasping. However, he seemed much better than he had been a few minutes ago.
"Are you all right, Jeremy?" Aelita's voice asked.
The blond boy rose to his feet, brushing off the blue tunic he wore. "Much better than I was."
"Good. I'm sending you, Yumi."
Odd looked up at the sound of virtualization. (He could never tell how to describe the sound, but he always knew what it meant.) Yumi dropped to the forest floor, landing with well-practiced ease.
"Everything's okay, Aelita," Jeremy told her. "Yumi made it."
"You're not though," was the pink-haired girl's grim response. "Your lifepoints are low. There's a tower to the northwest, not far from where you all are. We'll wait until your health regenerates before heading towards the activated tower."
"Right," Ulrich said.
As they broke into a run, Odd joked, "I don't suppose you've gotten those vehicles to work yet, huh?"
"If I did, do you think you'd be running right now?" was the growled response.
The feline laughed nervously and kept running. Oh, boy, were he and Ulrich in trouble.
Jeremy ran just behind Ulrich with Odd and Yumi just behind him, allowing his guardians to form a protective triangle around him in case of attacks. He wasn't sure just how low his lifepoints were, but they were probably far too low for comfort if Aelita's tone of voice suggested anything.
"No monsters in sight," Yumi reported.
"There's none on my screen either," Aelita confirmed. "This has 'Bad Sign' written all over it."
"It's okay, Aelita. The tower's just ahead," Ulrich said.
"All right then. Jeremy, I'm going to do a bio scan as soon as you're in position."
"Okay."
The tower had a "moat" surrounding it. Ordinarily, Jeremy would have simple shifted to something that flew in order to reach the tower. However, he chose this time to take the "steps" that Aelita had created on a previous trip to Lyoko when it had been obvious that he wouldn't have been able to take to the air fast enough without being shot down.
He jumped onto the tower's island and turned to face the others. He waved them forward, "C'mon in."
"We can go in there?" Ulrich said, surprised.
"I don't see why you can't."
One at a time, the others started hopping up the steps behind him.
Satisfied, Jeremy turned and entered the tower, passing through the wall.
He walked along the walkway to the circular platform, hearing the wall allow one of the others in behind him.
Jeremy heard Odd whistle. "Wow. This is kinda neat."
The virtual boy walked to the center of the platform, allowing a stream of data to lift him to the upper platform.
Another whistle from Odd.
Jeremy landed lightly on the upper platform before calling down, "You can come on up."
"We'll be right there," Yumi told him.
A few seconds later, the three warriors of Lyoko joined him.
Jeremy moved to the center of the upper platform. "Okay, Aelita. I'm ready."
"I'm starting the bio scan."
Jeremy automatically stretched his arms out as he hovered above the platform, a vague probing sense sweeping over his body.
"And we miss out on this when we're outside," he heard Odd mutter in awe.
Aelita's fingers drummed on the command chair's arm. Readout after readout popped up for her perusal as the bio scan hunted for any problems XANA's virus had caused when XANA had toyed with it.
An alarm sounded, and a horrifyingly familiar red exclamation point appeared. "Oh, no…!"
She started to hurriedly type, scanning the red flagged lines of code. "No no no no no!"
"What's wrong?" Yumi asked.
"Jeremy's code's all bugged up," she moaned, reading the code's results. "XANA really did a number on him through that virus."
The bio scan completed, showing the last of the glitchy code.
"I'm surprised the tower let him in, it's so bad." Aelita hunched over the keyboard.
"Can you debug it?" came Ulrich's question.
"Good question. Wish I had an answer." The pink-haired girl looked at a new window that appeared, Jeremy's face in it. "Jeremy, this could take hours to fix!"
"XANA's attack seems to be against me alone this time," Jeremy said. "Unless we're all missing something."
"It did seem pretty quiet…" Aelita muttered mostly to herself. "Still, we'll have to be on the lookout. Sooner or later, XANA's monsters will be showing up while we're trying to fix this."
Jeremy gazed seriously at her and asked quietly, "Aelita, how bad is it?"
Aelita gazed mournfully at him. "Your maximum number of lifepoints has been reduced, but the worst is that entering the Lyoko code will delete you."
"So Jeremy can't shut down the tower!" Odd demanded.
"No."
She thought she heard Ulrich swear.
"Odd, Ulrich, and I will go outside and keep watch while you and Jeremy try to fix this," the Japanese girl told her. "Just hurry it up, okay?"
"We'll do our best," Aelita said.
Aelita turned her attention back to the code as she saw Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi leave the tower, leaving Jeremy alone.
"We'll fix it," Jeremy assured her. "It can't be as bad as trying to find an antivirus."
"That's what I'm hoping for."
A screen appeared before Jeremy. He placed his palm upon it, leaving a palm mark which the computer scanned.
JEREMY
The system still recognized him in spite of the buggy code. Excellent. That was a step in the right direction. After all, just because the tower had allowed him inside didn't necessarily mean that he could access the system.
"Okay, Aelita. Ready."
Jeremy frowned as he started to manipulate the data, the frown growing deeper and deeper as he saw the bugs.
No, this was certainly not a quick fix.
He slid the different windows around, hunting for a good place to begin on his end. He could see where Aelita was working and didn't want to interrupt her.
Finally, he found a glitchy piece of code that looked promising. He dove in with single-minded determination.
XANA wasn't going to let them play with his code forever.
About ten minutes in, three krabs walked into view, blasting away at the tower.
"Protect the tower!" Ulrich ordered.
Yumi leapt into the air and deflected one shot with her fan. She threw it towards one of the krabs and scored a hit but not on the target. The fan flew back to her.
"Laser arrow!" Odd shouted, firing three shots towards the injured krab.
Ulrich raced forward towards another of the krabs as the first blew apart. He jumped up, bounced off of a tree, and landed on top of the attacker, stabbing it directly in the target.
Yumi and Odd finished off the third krab even as the second exploded.
"Too easy," Yumi muttered.
"Way too easy."
"More krabs are heading your way," Aelita announced though she sounded a bit distracted.
"Yeah, I figured that'd be the case," Odd wry commented, cocking the arrow launcher on his wrist.
More laser fire. Ulrich deflected it with his sword.
"Shield!"
Odd's shield—a new feature that Jeremy had programmed himself since the feline'd had no defenses at all before—deflected more of the laser fire.
Yumi continued blocking shots with her fan. "This isn't good!"
"It's about to get worse! Hornets at ten o'clock high!" Ulrich called.
At the same time, the krabs entered the clearing, continuing their assault as the squad of five hornets swooped in.
Ulrich cried out in pain as a lucky shot hit his shoulder, causing it to spark. "Aelita, we could really use some good news about now!"
Aelita's fingers stabbed the keys as fast as they could, inputting line after line of code.
"We'll have to make a break for the activated tower," Jeremy told her.
"No! We're almost finished!"
"You can finish it up while we're running. Ulrich and the others sound like they're getting hammered."
The pink-haired girl moaned but consented. "Fine. Just don't input the code until I say so."
"All right." The window with Jeremy's face disappeared.
"Jeremy's coming out of the tower, guys. I'm going to finish up the debugging while you all head towards the activated tower."
"Where's the activated tower?" Ulrich asked, his voice sounding strained.
"North of you." She paused. "Jeremy's lifepoints aren't at one hundred percent. You'll have to be extra careful."
"Don't worry, Aelita," Odd said, sounding flippant in spite of the danger. "Your Prince Charming is in good hands."
'I know he is, but that's not what I'm worried about.'
Jeremy exited the tower, leaping down the wooden
steps and ducking down behind Yumi as the geisha blocked shots that
would have damaged him.
"Let's go!" Yumi yelled to the other boys.
"Go on ahead! We'll keep these guys busy!" Ulrich shouted.
The virtual boy turned and ran towards the north, Yumi directly on his heels. He shouted back, "Good luck!"
He didn't hear the response if there was one. Instead, he kept up his flat-out run. He wasn't sure how buggy his Shapeshift ability had become thanks to XANA, so he wasn't willing to risk shifting to something faster.
"I'm almost done!" Aelita told them.
Laser fire blasted all around him and Yumi. Jeremy zigzagged as he ran while Yumi started running backwards to block the hornets' fire. Apparently, the hornets had decided to move in on the real target as opposed to playing with Ulrich and Odd. And they'd brought friends.
"Done!"
"Can you upload the fixed code into Jeremy?"
"Not without him having to hold still."
"We'll do it in the tower before I input the Lyoko code," Jeremy said, feeling bizarrely calm in spite of the life-or-death situation.
The forest floor pulsed with XANA's "heartbeat." It grew stronger and stronger as he ran towards the source.
He heard Yumi cry out in pain twice as she was struck with two lucky shots. Jeremy stopped and looked over his shoulder to see his protector far behind him.
Yumi glanced over her shoulder, somehow knowing he had stopped. "Keep going! You're almost there!"
Jeremy didn't hesitate, continuing his run towards the tower.
A few minutes later, he heard Aelita yell, "Yumi!"
Glitchy code or no, Jeremy had no choice but to Shapeshift. Now running on all fours in cheetah form, he raced towards the tower.
"Jeremy, hurry. Odd's just been devirtualized, and Ulrich's down to twenty lifepoints!"
Laser fire struck the ground all around him. He could "smell" the hornets above and behind him, struggling to catch up.
One shot struck his back, and he gave a feral scream of pain. He stumbled for a moment but recovered quickly.
"Sixty-five lifepoints left!"
It was that bad? Worse than he'd originally thought.
"Ulrich's on his way, but I don't think he's going to make it!"
Jeremy was struck again in the leg. This time, he rolled along, screeching in pain.
"Jeremy!"
He shifted to a turtle and pulled himself into the shell. While not really an excellent defense, the turtle's natural armor did negate some of the damage as the hornets passed overhead.
"Fifty lifepoints left!"
Jeremy closed his eyes and shifted to a wolf this time, leaping out of his crouch and continuing his run. The cheetah was faster, but he was heading towards a more dense area of the Forest Region. He needed something with more maneuverability.
The hornets flew in for another pass, resuming their attack.
The blond wolf leapt across a log, straining for every ounce of speed.
"Ulrich, stop those hornets!" Aelita yelled.
"I'm on it!" came the shout from somewhere behind him.
Jeremy barely acknowledged the sound of one of the hornets exploding. He could see the tower, and the pulsations beneath his paw pads were growing stronger.
Just…a little…closer…
A laser struck him in the back as he leapt over a fallen tree. He howled and hit the ground rolling.
"Forty lifepoints left!"
He rolled to his feet and resumed his run.
"Ulrich has just been devirtualized!"
"It's okay! I made it!"
He skidded to a stop and shifted back to human before entering the tower. He ran to the center of the platform and allowed himself to be carried to the upper platform.
Landing, he stood in the center. "Aelita, I'm in position!"
"Uploading the debugged code…"
Aelita saw Odd cross his fingers. She silently agreed with the sentiment.
This was the moment of truth. If her programming had been too much of a rush job, they were in for some serious problems. Jeremy had no way of defending himself in the tower. If XANA took it out while they were fixing bugs, Jeremy was dead.
The red exclamation point appeared as the hated tone sounded.
"No!" she cried, slamming a fist down on the arm of the command chair.
She'd overlooked something. She'd have to hunt back through the code to find it now.
"I'm deactivating the tower."
"Jeremy, no!" she yelled, the sentiment echoed by three other voices.
"Aelita, the longer XANA has a tower activated, the more chances it has of gathering up power to activate more and launch other attacks," Jeremy quietly told her. "I have to shut it down."
"Jeremy, you'll delete yourself!"
The input screen appeared before Jeremy. "It's okay, Aelita."
"Just give me a little more time!" Aelita pleaded.
Jeremy placed his hand on the panel, leaving his palm print.
JEREMY
He opened up a view of Aelita and the others. He knew they were seeing the window he used to communicate with them with, and they gazed desperately at him.
Jeremy bit his lower lip.
CODE
"Jeremy, please no!" Aelita begged.
He gazed sadly at her, wanting her to be the last thing he saw. "Goodbye, Aelita."
LYOKO
All about him, the tower started to shut down.
But Jeremy didn't see much of it as his world ended.
"No!" Aelita grabbed the microphone of her headset. "Jeremy! Jeremy, answer me!"
But he wasn't answering.
Sobbing, she pressed "Enter" on the keyboard. "Return to the past now…"
The familiar white light swept over them, allowing them to see everything that had happened in reverse as time rewound itself to the pre-selected time.
"I can't believe he's gone," Ulrich said, breaking the silence after several minutes.
Aelita gave another sob and turned her head to look up at them.
She'd cared deeply about the virtual boy. Now she would never be able to tell—
Her thoughts ground to a halt as she stared at Yumi.
"What?" Yumi asked, sniffling herself.
"Wh-What's that on your shoulder?"
The Japanese girl raised her hand up to pluck off…"A hair." She squinted at it. "I think it's one of Jeremy's. It must've come off when we were running here."
Aelita's eyes widened. "Yumi, get that down to the scanners, now!"
"Huh?"
"I have an idea," she said, turning back to the supercomputer and typing furiously away.
She heard Yumi jog over to the elevator.
"What're you doing?" Odd asked, sounding a bit choked up.
"Even a single strand of hair contains the complete genetic code for a human being."
"So?"
Tears were running down her cheeks as she continued to explain, "So there might be a chance that Jeremy's hair contains his entire computer code."
Ulrich's eyes widened. "You're going to recover him based on that?"
"It's a shot in the dark, but it might be possible."
"Aelita, the hair's in the scanner."
"Good. Starting the process."
As the scanner started to read the hair, Aelita leaned towards the screen to study the readouts. "It's working!"
Yumi exited the elevator and rushed over to them.
A minute later, a new window popped up.
Jeremy's smiling face appeared before them. "Hi, Aelita."
Whoops and other wordless exclamations of joy echoed behind her. She started to laugh while crying.
"Aelita, why is there water on your face?"
Aelita smiled at him. "Don't worry about it, Jeremy."
Jeremy gazed quizzically at her. "Are you sure?"
Her smile widened. "I'm positive."
Jeremy sat on a bench between Aelita and Yumi, Ulrich leaning over the back of the bench, while Odd went to grab the bag of Cheetos from the vending machine. Ulrich and Odd had been more than contrite about "losing" the virtual boy, and Aelita—though she'd told them she'd be slow to do so—had forgiven them. It really hadn't been their fault that Emily had decided to try to be a friend to a seemingly lonely boy.
"So, did you enjoy the mall at all before all the craziness started?" Yumi asked.
Jeremy smiled. "It was actually very interesting to watch all of the people."
"Emily and her crew didn't notice anything weird about you this time either?"
The blond shook his head. "They didn't seem to notice or care. They just thought I was shy. Though Dana kept trying to get me to…'open up' I think is the term she used, but her methods made me uncomfortable."
He saw Aelita frown a bit, but Odd returned before he could ask about it.
"One bag of Cheetos!" the other blond chirped, holding out the bag. "Trust me. You'll love them."
Taking the bag with extreme caution, Jeremy opened it up, pulled out an incredibly orange food (that couldn't possibly be natural), and gingerly took a bite out of it. He jerked in surprise at the taste but found himself eating the rest with gusto.
The others laughed.
"Can I call them or what?" Odd asked, grinning. "He's definitely a Cheetos kind of guy."
Jeremy laughed as well.
It felt good, if only for a few moments, to be truly alive.