Prelude to Tragedy
It was dark. Just an empty room that was seemingly devoid of any kind of motion and life. Silently time ticked by, yet nothing in the room seemed to change—that is—until a single ray of light came from above and illuminated a man. The man just sat there, eyes closed, waiting for something. He was well dressed and he gave off a sense that he was in possession of a large sum of money. His long brown hair dangled off of his shoulders. The sharp red suit he wore was made of only the finest materials available. It was extravagant, even going as far to have a handkerchief folded up in his jacket's outer pocket. His body posture was perfect, back straight and pressed up against the back of his chair. His legs were crossed; because of this his right foot dangled in the air. His shoes were black; Italian made, custom most likely.
He must have decided that he had waited long enough, and he slowly opened his deep chocolate brown orbs. He made no other moves. He continued to sit straight in his chair, his hands in his lap. Finally the rest of the room became lit, revealing many pieces of art by only the greatest of artist in a large cylindrical tower, a little red light by every masterpiece in the room. A smirk formed on the man's lips.
It was time.
"Welcome gentlemen," the man's deep voice rang out throughout the large room. "Shall we begin?"
"Yes," a voice answered from the direction of a painting that looked like it was by Picasso. The little red light by the painting lit up, revealing that that was indeed the speaker.
"What shall we discuss this time?" the man in the chair spoke again.
"It is time that we should review our past actions," a voice offered.
"I second that."
"As do I."
The man in the chair gave no hint that he was annoyed with the other members' plan. With little to know emotion he responded, "Very well gentlemen. We shall do a reassessment."
"1962. Some of our families joined together for the purpose we are still striving for today. The cold war between the United States and Russia created many technologies and a new breed of scientists emerged. 1962 was also the year the APARNET was developed and Waldo Schaeffer made himself known."
"Yes, yes," a voice complained. "We have heard this before. I move that we condense this tale. If anyone wants to know the details they should access the network."
"I agree."
"Yes, we are all busy people; let's stay on the topic at hand."
Slowly, but surely everyone mumbled their consent.
"As you wish," the man in the chair sighed, letting a little emotion slip through his barrier. Could it perhaps have been a sign? Or was it just simple annoyance? Regardless he quickly edited his monologue, pertaining to the one subject that plagued them. "Waldo Schaeffer was approached by us in 1973 after he created the first graphical user interface, or GUI, and was persuaded to our cause."
"2 years later while working for us he meets his future assistant, Antea Hopper. The two form an intimate relationship and they go steady for 2 years. Waldo then proposes in January of 1977. They marry six months later. At the time this was a favorable moment for us. Waldo and Antea Schaeffer were brilliant. We had hoped that any children they had would become committed to our cause."
"Waldo and Antea then moved to Alaska where the isolated terrain would give them the privacy they needed to work. In 1979 Antea became pregnant with their only child. April 19, 1980, Aelita Schaeffer was born. She was reported to look like her mother, even having the same unusual pink hair color."
"1984, our luck turns sour. Waldo Schaeffer starts asking questions more frequently and becoming more aggressive. He hacks into our network and learns of our plan. Quickly, we mobilize trying to stop him before he escapes. The mission ultimately failed, but not without a reward. Antea Schaeffer was captured, but Waldo and his daughter escaped. Waldo then proved to be more difficult to track than anticipated. He never stayed at any one place for longer than a couple of months."
"His trail went cold from 1986 to 1994. In that time he spent many hours working in secret in Paris suburb as a teacher at a local academy. Somewhere in that town he developed a powerful super computer and continued the research that we had assigned him. He stole most of our information on Project Carthage and continued working on the eXtensible Abrogative Neural Algorithm, XANA for short. It seems that Waldo changed XANA's purpose, but the artificial intelligence either didn't take to kindly to that or it was infected by a primal virus."
"We were finally able to track Waldo down at the academy. He had changed his name to Franz Hopper and developed a new technology that seemed to allow time to flow backwards. It was the small discrepancies in space time around the city that the machine made which allowed us to track down Franz's general area. Our scientist predicted from the disruption made that Franz used the loop over 2000 times to repeat the same day."
"Our field agents were lucky enough to track him down one day, but he escaped once again. We no longer have any leads. The Time Loop technology was never found. The purpose for it is unknown. XANA's code has since been found scattered across globe. Retrieval has also been difficult. Many parts have since been erased, due to crashes of some of the personal computers infected and security around some of the supercomputers and mainframes. There has been no news of Aelita and Antea has been isolated for 25 years."
The room was silent for a moment. The man didn't even seem winded. His voice had never faltered, a mistake never made. He was absolutely perfect. Perfection was a standard that he had become accustomed to. It seemed expected and normal. So normal that the many members of the organization didn't notice or no longer cared.
"Is that all?" one asked haughtily.
"That is all I know for I am merely an observer," the man replied. A little sarcasm was weaved in his tone, but no one seemed to notice.
"Very well then, this meeting is adjourned I think."
"Yes of course, a pleasure as always gentlemen."
The members continued to excuse themselves, offering pleasantries to the others as they left whatever terminal they used to communicate. Finally they were all gone and the man in the chair moved from his seated position, breaking his statue like stance. He made his way to the door, but by the time he approached a butler or servant of some kind had opened the door for him.
He walked down the hall of the complex. He seemed to know where he was going. His eyes were half-closed. He was moving efficiently, every step precise, a movement not wasted. He almost reached the end of the corridor until he was approached by another man.
He was wearing a black suit. His head shaved bald and pair dark sunglasses covered his eyes. An earpiece was in his right ear, probably connected to some hidden radio. He was carrying a manila file folder in his right hand and his actions seemed rushed, like he was attending to an important manner.
"Sir."
"Yes what is it?"
"We searched the suburb where Waldo Schaeffer was last seen as you requested."
"And?" the man asked, there was obviously a reason for this, if nothing turned up the matter could've waited another day.
"Something turned up."
The man gave up his folder as he continued. "There was no sign of the supercomputer or Waldo Schaeffer as expected, but we did find a girl with pink hair. She is 10 or so years too young, but pink hair isn't that common and been only found on one other person besides, Ant—"
"Antea Schaeffer," the man finished for his employee.
"Yes sir, what do you want us to do?"
The man paused for a bit as he took some time to think. "Submit a full report and then monitor the girl. Waldo was playing with time. We don't know the full extent of what he could've done."
"Shall I alert the other members?" the man asked.
"No, those fools will be too rash in their decision. Remember what I have said time and time before, we are merely observers to the changing world. This matter can wait. We need to make sure we have to right person before I have to clean up another mess for those ignorant people."
"Yes sir."
The man took his leave, quickly walking away to follow his orders. The man flipped his hair before continuing to his destination. The atmosphere changed, to almost like a brooding state. This was different though, instead of anger it was an evil-like pleasure. A smirk formed on the man's lips as single thought ran through his mind.
"So it begins."
Author's Note: I would just like to thank anyone whom has taken the time to read this prologue. This is a little idea I developed a couple of days ago. I was reading a story when some ideas started coming together. On that note I would like to than optimus304 for allowing me to use some of the concepts of New Dawn. Optimus's story is very good so I would go check it out if you haven't, after you leave a review (I'm just saying).
Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko. This story is was also written to be non-profit. The elements of New Dawn that I will use belong optimus304, who I have asked permission for the use of.
I would also like to inform the readers who are still reading this some general information about the story's current status. As of 1:00 am 09/07/09 this story consists of a Prelude and a mess of jumbled ideas. If all goes well and couple of reviews are dropped, the process of me designing an outline will be started. At this crucial time there is also room for anyone who would like to beta the story and help contribute, maybe a co-authorship if you're daring enough. Also anyone else, please leave ideas if you want. I know some people have opinions of what they would like to see if a season 5 of Code Lyoko existed and I would love to hear them and implement them into the story if I could. My main goal here is not only to write for the pleasure of it, but to also try and provide an enjoyable reading experience.
Any grammar mistakes, suggestions, constructive criticism? Let me know in a review.
P.S. Also I know this prelude isn't as good as it should be, probably a little boring, but I wanted to set the ground work, and if this story starts moving along, I'll try to rewrite it.
P.P.S. Did anyone like the name I gave XANA? I think it works pretty well.