Episode Eight : Communications Age

Soundtrack: The Police's "Contact" (Mostly for Jeremie)

This is a… slightly weird episode, one of those that I'm pretty sure would never happen in the show. Again, more focused on the overall plot then XANA's latest attack.

Taidine

Chapter One: The Initial Broadcast

The weather was grey, chill, and clammy. Against the dull air, any color stood out as glaringly as a neon sign: the remaining, vividly red-and-orange leaves clinging to crooked branches, the green grass of the Kadic grounds, or a bright red backpack, beaded with dew, that one student had carelessly left outside the dormitory.

Inside, the air was drier and warmer, although not by much; Jim was stingy with the thermostat until the calendar actually told him it was winter. Most students, therefore, were lumps under their blankets. Other beds were conspicuously empty – for instance, the room belonging to the editor-in-chief of the Kadic Weekly had not been occupied all night. Or, in the boy's dorm, where the erstwhile occupant of one pristinely made up bed sat instead at a desk, peering through his glasses at a laptop screen alive with code.

This scene is a familiar one. The scene that followed was not.

The boy, dark circles under his eyes hidden behind large glasses, typed with the adeptitude of a certified nerd, and the code on the screen danced to the rhythm of his keys. But as he paused for a moment to brush back the blond hair falling over his face, the code did not. To the boy's small "uh?" of surprise, it began to speed up, streaming incomprehensibly across the screen, until the numbers melted together into a single message, glowing faintly green.

JEREMIE:

COULD USE SOME HELP IN LYOKO.

AELITA

Jeremie stared at the message on his screen. That's not right. Why would Aelita be in Lyoko? Why would she use a text message when it was just as easy to get a video linkup?

The message on the screen dissolved into rows of ones and zeros. For a moment, binary – the most basic of all codes – swarmed across the laptop, then arranged itself into a new message.

I WOULD HURRY IF I WERE YOU, JEREMIE.

This message was unsigned, but at the bottom was an eye-like symbol, three unmistakable concentric circles.

Jeremie gasped and slammed his laptop shut. "Odd!" He shouted in a strangled voice, slipping the laptop into a messenger bag and tossing a handy paperback book at the lump on the bed opposite his. The small, white dog napping at the foot of the bed had time to lift its head and growl before the human sleeper sat up, dumping the canine to the floor. From improbably spiked hair to purple pajamas, Odd was every bit as eccentric as his name suggested. "What? Am I late for class?"

"No, we need to get to Lyoko!" said Jeremie, slinging the messenger bag over his shoulder. "Call Yumi, I'll get Ulrich."

Odd, frowning, climbed out of his bed and began rummaging for his cell phone. Jeremie slipped out of the dormitory room and began pounding on the next door over.

"Who is it?" Called a gruff, surly voice.

"Ulrich!" Jeremie pressed his head to the door, unwilling to speak loudly, "We need to get to the Factory!"

"Can't I have one day?" Ulrich complained.

Odd wandered into the hall, pinning a cell phone between his ear and shoulder. "I can't get Yumi," he squeaked, "How about Sissi?"

Ulrich's door opened. "Yumi went to the computer lab after the dance. She said she had some homework to get done. I'll go see if she's still there."

"Let's not get Sissi and Kloe involved if we can avoid it," Jeremie said, mouth taut. "Odd, you're with me. Ulrich, find Yumi. I think XANA's captured Aelita!"

- - - -

The computer lab was the newest and most popular addition to the Kadic campus. At this time of morning, technically the monitors ought to be alone, humming to themselves in silence. But of course, they were not.

Yumi lifted her head off the keyboard, eyes gritty. Black hair fell in front of her face; she pushed it back with one hand. She must have fallen asleep over her homework, and no real surprise – yesterday had been a long day.

Wondering how much work she had finished, she rubbed her eyes and peered blearily at the computer screen. There was a jumble of numbers and letters, probably from her head hitting the keyboard. She scrolled up. And up, and up.

Line after line of what looked like computer code.

Yumi shook her head briskly and minimized the program. She must have opened it by accident; hopefully she hadn't ruined anyone's project. A few clicks of her mouse found her own homework document, nearly done and neatly saved.

Only then, confusion and fear subsiding, did Yumi relax enough to become aware of another sound in the seemingly empty lab – the click-click-click of a person typing.

Stealthily, Yumi slipped out of her chair, her black clothing and graceful motion creating the air of a stalking panther. Keeping low, she glided down the banks of sleeping monitors, deftly weaving between treacherous folding chairs and wire-laden desks. The typist was sitting at a computer chair near the front of the room, a tall girl with short, choppy blonde hair whom Yumi recognized immediately and somewhat irritably. "Kloe. What are you doing here?"

Kloe started, nearly knocking over her chair and barking one thigh against the edge of the computer desk. "Ow! Geeze, you're quiet. I don't know, what are you doing here?" She fixed Yumi with a glower.

Yumi stared straight past the accusatory expression, eyes fixed on the computer screen. It was full of letters and numbers that looked suspiciously like code – and suspiciously similar to the document that had been open on her own computer a moment ago.

- - - -

The Factory was warmer then the dormitories, kept heated by the workings of the great computer at its heart. Odd, in his flimsy pajamas, was intensely glad of this as he and Jeremie entered the elevator. "So, are you going to tell me what's up now?" He asked.

Jeremie shook his head, but contradicted himself by speaking. "I got a message on my laptop. XANA's captured Aelita."

The elevator doors hissed open. Odd stepped aside to let Jeremie exit and trot over to the monitor of the supercomputer, then stepped back in and pressed the bottom button. It lit up; the doors closed, clicking and locking.

A moment later, they opened again – not onto the creamy glow of the scanner room, but the darkened computer lab and Jeremie, looking deeply concerned. "I have to go with you," said the computer operator. "Into Lyoko."

- - - -

"Okay," said Kloe, leaning back in her chair. Nonchalance under pressure was one of her specialties. "I came down here to work on the newspaper, check some e-mails from my cousin. This stuff got into my head, and I started typing it. I don't know what it is or where it came from, although…" She tapped her forehead. "I feel like I should. Any other questions?"

Yumi scrolled up and down restlessly. "It looks like a virus," she said vaguely.

Kloe scrunched up her eyes, searching for patterns. "Why?"

Now it was Yumi's turn to take on a glazed expression. "I think it's how a virus should look, that's all," she said at last, fiercely. "I should show it to Jeremie."

"He has a class in five minutes," said Kloe unthinkingly – that wasn't knowledge from some mysterious source, just ordinary reporter nosiness, but Yumi shot her a look that suggested no-one should know that much about someone else's schedule unless they were much better friends then Jeremie and Kloe.

"Aelita, then?"

Kloe nodded in a docile way, taking a rectangular device from around her neck and plugging it into the hard drive of the computer. A blue light came on; she saved the code and pulled it out again. "Yeah. Let's go."

Yumi lead the way out the door of the lab and across the lawn to the dormitories. Kloe followed, putting her thumbnail drive back around her neck and tucking it into her coral-colored shirt.

They stopped in front of a plain brown door, amidst a hallway of identical doors. Yumi knocked firmly.

There was an aching silence. Yumi raised her fist to knock again when the door opened and a tousled pink head poked out. "Yumi? Is everything all right?"

Kloe peeked around Yumi's shoulder and waved, answering before the black haired girl could. "Yeah. We both typed a ream of code – the same code – on different computers just now and would like to know if we're possessed or just loco."

"Hm?" Aelita lifted one pink brow.

"I'll explain," said Yumi, "can we come in?"

- - - -

Jeremie looked at one open scanner tube, took a deep breath, and stepped in. "Are you sure about this?" Odd asked, stepping into the next tube over.

"Pretty sure," Jeremie answered, but couldn't say any more. The doors shut and the lights rose; a phantom updraft made his hair stand on end. Bright light flashed, and was replaced by a racing black tunnel, striated with red. The disassociated pseudo-pain of dematerialization tore through him, then faded into sight, sound, and that weird, unique sense of code. Virtualization.

The streamers of mist wreathing this peak of the mountain sector swirled away as a pair of wire-framed silhouettes phased into being, color and definition spreading over them like paper burning in reverse. First to complete the transfer was Odd, purple outfit complemented by cat paws and a tail in the same shade; he dropped a few feet to the ground with a practiced grace. Jeremie, less coordinated, dropped a moment later, decked out in blue and khaki, vaguely medieval garb and pointed ears; Odd grabbed his arm to steady him as he landed, preventing him from falling on his stomach.

"Hey," the catboy ventured, "That's not what you usually look like in Lyoko…"

"Huh?" Jeremie peered down at his outfit suspiciously. "Oh, I guess I'm still using Aelita's template. Shh." He closed his eyes, moving his head from side to side, scanning the landscape. A look of confusion segued into a look of worry. "She's not here."

"No, really?" Squeaked Odd, "I could have told you that, Einstein."

"No, she's not anywhere on the network!" Jeremie protested, "The code…"

"You didn't check before you virtualized us?" Odd exclaimed, surveying the mist-shrouded area.

"I did," Jeremie argued, "She showed up on the map. Either someone messed with it from outside or XANA's managed to get to my mapping program…" He stopped, opened his eyes. "It's a trap."

Brilliant deduction, Jeremie. The voice seemed to emanate from the mist wreathing the landscape. Deep and faintly vibrato, there was no possible way to mistake it for Odd's.

The mist swirled over to the right. Jeremie whirled, feeling the code coalesce. At the same time, something thudded through the landscape – the first pulsation of an activated Tower.

The sound of an object virtualizing was loud in the stunned, misty silence. Expecting a monster, Odd aimed, sighting along his wrist. But the wireframe silhouette was that of a human.

Color and shadow slipped over the gridded skeleton.

Odd, for once, didn't ask questions. "Laser arrow!"

Jeremie gasped out, "Wil-"

Then golden light consumed the world.

What did XANA say to convince Jeremie to come into Lyoko, exactly? Darned if I know, but it must have been pretty convincing.

Taidine