Aiden's eyes reflected the lines of binary rolling by on the screen in front of him as he leaned over Alex's shoulder. In a window a little to the left of the center of the main screen, an overhead camera showed Ashley, Ginger, and Sam stepping into the Scanners, the doors hissing shut behind them. Alex began typing, and three more windows popped up, each showing a digital, wire-frame rendition of his friend's separate Lyoko forms. The wire-frame models started to slowly spin as a dull humming sound started below their feet. Aiden's purple eyes narrowed in suspicion as the models started to fill in as Alex rattled off stats into the mic on the headset.
"So..what? These scanners just read into you, disassembling your every fiber and molecule, then transport you to a virtual world, leaving no incarnation of your physical body behind? Because that seems a bit ludicrous." Alex's mouth twitched upwards into a ghost of a smile, giving Aiden the impression that Alex had once had the same resounding disbelief echo around inside of him. He suddenly felt oddly guilty for doubting the boy sitting in the high-backed yellow chair.
"Ludicrous." Alex's smile spread across his face as he turned towards Aiden, transforming into an odd sort of leer. "A very accurate word for what's happened here the past few days." He sighed, and Aiden saw the sudden transformation of a teenage boy into someone who had pressure beyond his years sitting on his shoulders.
"You look tired." Aiden noted, as Alex scrutinized the screen in front of him. Aiden glanced at it and saw that the supposed virtualization process was nearly complete.
"...virtualization." Alex tapped the Return key on the overly large keyboard in front of him a final time, then turned to Aiden, exhaustion lining his face. Even his normally brilliant green eyes seemed duller, and Aiden had only really seen them once or twice.
"You could say that." Alex said, leaning back in the chair with a quiet creak of the springs. "I haven't really gotten much sleep the past few days. What with Aelita's memories being implanted into Ashley, I've been trying to find a way to get rid of them, but...no such luck." Alex then glanced coyly over at Aiden, grinning devilishly. "But you know that already, don't you?"
"Aelita...Schaeffer, right?" Aiden asked, ignoring the jibe and pacing over to the Holomap of Lyoko. "She lived in that house in the woods with her father, that professor who disappeared. I didn't need Ashley to tell me that one. Why are her memories inside Ashley? I thought Schaeffer was long gone?" Alex's grin faded, to be replaced with a small frown.
"Why do you say that you didn't need Ashley to tell you that one?" He asked suspiciously.
"Because of my cousin." Aiden rolled his eyes and scuffed at the floor with his shoe. "Elisabeth."
"Who?"
"Sissy."
"Still not ringing a bell, man."
"Delmas, Sissy Delmas? She graduated with her, Schaeffer, a few years ago. She isn't good at keeping her mouth shut, but her ears are ALWAYS wide open. And it also isn't very hard to put two and two together." Alex grinned.
"Oh god, I've heard stories about her. Is she really as bad as they say?" Aiden chuckled.
"Probably worse, to be honest with you. I remember this one time-" Aiden was interrupted by a blipping sound that came from the terminal. "What's going on?" He said, striding over to look over Alex' shoulder.
"That would be our friends. See?" Alex pointed to a map onscreen, where three dots were.
"You're lying." Alex glanced up at him and shrugged.
"Thought as much. Well, go see for yourself." He waved a hand towards the open trapdoor leading down to the scanner room next to the far wall, and turned his attention back to the terminal. "All right, the Tower is directly to the East of you.." Aiden cast one last look at the terminal, then moved towards the metal hatch.
Sam took off before Alex even had a chance to finish his sentence, Ginger and Ashley following close behind him. The three friends dashed Eastwards, down the narrow forest pathway, as Alex kept relaying information to the via the comm.
"Alex, c'mon man, cool it with the information, will you?" Sam sighed, interrupting his friend as Alex paused shortly to take a breath in between words. "This isn't our first time going to deactivate a Tower, you know."
"We'll be fine!" Ashley chirped from in between Sam and Ginger. "We have some great firepower, after all!" She grabbed her staff from her back, twirled it above her head for a few seconds, then smashed it onto the ground as she ran, vaulting over Sam's head and leaving a scorch mark on the ground for Ginger to quickly sidestep. Ashley landed in front of Sam on the path, tucked into a roll, and continued running a good ten paces ahead of him. She looked back and winked at him, laughed, and sheathed her staff.
"Showing off never got anyone anywhere!" Sam called hotly up to her, a little irked that she had taken over as the 'leader of the pack'.
"Neither did running slowly!" Ginger laughed gleefully as she dashed past him, leaving Sam well behind the two girls.
"Firepower isn't what I'm worried about." Alex said into their ears in a hushed tone of voice as Sam fumed. "It's the fact that Aiden's here." Ashley frowned as she ran.
"Kinda rude to be saying that while he's right next to you, dont'cha think?"
"I sent him down to the Scanner room, don't worry."
"Whoa, what? Why?!" Sam yelped, panicking.
"Calm down, he isn't being virtualized. I have no intention of exposing Aiden to the Supercomputer any more than he already has been." Ashley blushed furiously, suddenly glad she was ahead of everyone. "He didn't believe how you all were on Lyoko, so I opened the Scanners and sent him down there to inspect that you're not actually hiding in the rafters or something. But I only have a few seconds before he comes back up that ladder, so I'll tell you this. I've glanced ahead on the map, and the Tower is heavily guarded, by some heavy-duty things. Megatanks, they're called. Imagine an 8-ball that splits open and fires a huge laser in every direction. There are four of the things, and Belpois doesn't have any more information on them than what I've already given you. X.A.N.A. got rid of that video."
"Okay, thanks for the heads-up, but why tell us this like something's gravely wrong?" Ginger asked.
"Because these Megatanks are INCREDIBLY tough. If Sam and Ginger get devirtualized, I'm going to have to send myself in. Ashley, you'll want to try out your Creativity here. It's just too risky to have you in the heat of the battle with these things. But if I get devirtualized, and Ashley can't get past the Megatanks..."
"...then you'll have to send Aiden in." Ashley murmured, realizing the problem. "Aiden will be the only one that can be sent to try and clear a path for me, and we can't risk myself against two or more of the things, seeing as I'm the only way to deactivate that Tower."
"Exactly. Which is why you need to be incredibly careful. We can't have Aiden set foot on Lyoko. None of us really know him well enough to trust that he can get the job done, and if he doesn't? If those possessed dogs don't tear us limb from limb, he'll be invulnerable to any Return-to-the-Past trips we decide to make. It'll have been a waste, a terrible mistake."
Aiden stepped into one of the Scanners, shivering at the eerie atmosphere. This was the third one he had examined, and he was confounded. There was no trace of either Ginger, Sam, or Ashley. There didn't seem to be a secret hatch underneath any of the Scanners, no way to clamber up and hide in the high ceiling of the thing, no secret doorways...fuck, this was insane. He glanced around the golden inside once more, then stepped out, fully intending on going back up to Alex and demanding to know if there were any other places where the three teenagers could be hiding, but instead his gaze settled on the domed hatch in the middle of the Scanner room. Never mind asking Alex; this must be it. There was nowhere else they could have gone without making a terrible noise with the elevator. He stepped out of the Scanner and went to examine the hatch. It looked simple enough to open; a simple twist-and-pull. But where did it lead? Aiden knelt next to it and took the wheel in both hands and, grunting with the effort, slowly started to pull.
A sudden blipping sound tore Alex's eyes away from the map onscreen, where he had been keeping a careful and metaphorical eye in the sky for his three friends. He tapped a few keys that pulled up a window of security feeds. His eyes drifted over every one of the visuals, then his gaze rested on the feed from the Scanner room. His body went rigid, and he half stood up from the chair in disbelief. Aiden was pulling the hatch open; the one that lead to the Supercomputer's housing. Alex's heart pounded in his ears. Aiden seeing the Supercomputer wasn't the problem; it was the fact that he was so fucking curious. What if he pulled the plug while Sam, Ginger, and Ashley were on Lyoko? What would happen to them? Alex gave frustrated sigh and leapt out of the chair, only to nervously dance back and forth lightly on his feet. What could he even do to stop Aiden? He'd certainly demonstrated how skilled a fighter he was. Alex knew he stood no match. He angrily kicked at the floor, then twisted back around to see where Aiden was. He blinked, his mind not registering what an empty Scanner room and an open hatch meant for a few seconds. Then he sprinted for the elevator, not noticing the faint beeping coming from the window behind the video feeds and the faint voices coming in through the discarded comm.
Aiden unclipped the harness and let himself fall lightly to the cold metal floor of the room, enjoying the sense of espionage that came with it. He glanced around and saw, in one corner, a small, blinking red dot. A camera, no doubt. He scratched his nose and waved at it. Not worried if Alex found him down here or not, he looked away and started towards the two-tiered Supercomputer that had risen out of the floor in the middle of his descent into the room. It was pretty impressive, but very old. Technology-wise, anyways. He stood in between the elevator door and the Supercomputer, looking up and down at its magnificent, glowing body. Then he spotted a small insignia, about even with his torso. When he moved in to get a closer look, however, it slid apart, revealing a handle that extended outwards towards him, seemingly beckoning for him to get closer. He froze suddenly, eyes locked onto the dark panel behind the handle. He kneeled in front of the panel and reached his hand under the lever, bending his wrist at a slightly awkward angle, and after a moment's hesitation, slowly ran his thumb along the backside of the panel. Suddenly, far above him, a faint rumbling started- that could only mean Alex was coming to stop him. His frown deepened into a scowl as he stopped thumbing the back panel. He withdrew his hand, reached out, and placed it firmly on the black and gold handle, which was startlingly cold, but halted before pulling. What would happen to Ashley, Sam, Ginger? He closed his eyes, clearing the ominous whispers from his head, and then pulled, hard, without giving the matter a second thought.
Alex tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator made its way downwards. Could this thing go any slower? God only knew what Aiden was doing in the Supercomputer's housing. Suddenly the bulb above him flickered and faded, and the elevator ground to a halt, plunging Alex into total darkness. He opened his mouth slightly and blinked a few times, incredibly unsure of what to do, but the light simply flickered back on after a few seconds, and the elevator began its unbearably slow descent once more. Shit. What the hell had just happened?
Ashley, Ginger, and Sam were all hurled to the ground as a violent tremor ripped down the forest pathway.
"What the hell was that?" Sam said, picking himself up and looking around. "Alex, everything okay?"
"Sam, he's been gone for a good few minuites now." Ginger scoffed, pulling herself up with the help of a nearby boulder, then leaning down to help Ashley to her feet. "What makes you think he's going to respond now?"
"Because of that!" Sam yelled, running forward and grabbing the girls, nearly yanking their arms out of their sockets. "We've gotta move, come ON!"
"Sam, what-" Ashley cut herself off as she caught only a glimpse of the terror chasing them, her throat seemed to seal up on itself,. "Ginger, behind us!" She screamed, pushing herself to start running faster.
"Fuck, I see it! What the hell's going on?" She panted back, fear filling her eyes as she stole another look at the heart-stopping scene behind the terrified trio. The entire Sector seemed to be devirtualizing itself behind them. Trees, boulders, the winding paths themselves- everything was disappearing seconds after they ran past it.
"It's gaining on us!" Ashley shrieked, looking down at her feet. The path was dangerously close to disappearing right out from under them, leaving them with nothing but the Digital Sea to fall into.
"Sam, grab Ashley's hand!" Ginger shouted as she took his arm into a death grip. "Ready?"
"Ready!" He said, clasping Ashley's hand in his as they ran. Ginger closed her eyes, concentrating so hard that her hair started to change into the smoky substance contained within the capsule on her back. She slowly started to run faster, ahead of Sam, pulling him with her, and Ashley along as well.
"Ginger, slow down, we can't run this fast!" Ashley called frantically from the back, feet flying under her. Suddenly she stumbled, and pitched forward with a small scream. This was it, for certain. There was no getting back up from this one; she doubted there would even be anything left to fall on by the time she reached the ground. Suddenly, up ahead, Ginger's eyes snapped open, and she twisted sharply, pulling Sam with her into a cloud of smoky substance. Ashley felt herself be snapped forward at an unnatural speed, and she looked up to try and see what was happening. She was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of a cloud of dark, rich smoke right in front of her face, swallowing Sam's head, back, leg, arm, but then the smoky tendrils extended around her and she knew nothing more.
The door of the elevator rattled open, revealing Aiden standing in front of the Supercomputer, back to the elevator and hands at his sides. Alex haltingly stepped forward and Aiden turned towards him, eyebrows raised, moving away from the Supercomputer and revealing the part Alex most needed to see. Alex's heart froze in his chest as he saw the lever pulled downwards. Frantically looking all around, he saw no glowing on the enormous machine, no shimmering yellow lines, heard no faint humming or electronic blipping, no nothing. He turned to Aiden, rage pumping through his entire body. Aiden opened his mouth to say something, calm purple eyes seemingly registering nothing, no knowledge about what he had just done.
"You BASTARD!" Alex roared, tackling Aiden to the cold metal floor. "YOU'VE JUST KILLED MY FRIENDS!" Aiden looked up at Alex, stunned by the incredible amount of anger fueling his actions, and the contrasting amounts of pain, guilt, and mortification locked away behind his eyes.
"Shit." Aiden grumbled as the two locked eyes. His subconscious was going to have a field day with this one. Then Alex's fist slammed into his face.
Ashley struggled slightly in the dark, finding it odd that she had no need, no want to breath, nor see, nor hear anything. Good thing too, since she wasn't able to do any of those things. She could still feel herself rushing and writhing along at an inhuman speed, through some dark, unknown place, the only real thing being the feeling of Sam's hand gently yet firmly clasping hers. Sam. She shook her head, or at least, thought she shook her head. Her body rushed on.
Alex stood up, breathing heavily. A smattering of blood covered the knuckles on his right hand. He looked down with hatred at Aiden, who looked back up at him with a mysterious, purple stare. He hadn't defended himself. He hadn't even tried to. And now his nose was broken, the damnably curious shit. Alex turned and walked over to the Supercomputer, and threw the switch to power it back on. There was a brilliant blast of golden light. On the floor, Aiden cringed and covered his eyes. When he opened them, the door to the elevator was locking behind Alex. A few seconds later, he heard it start to grind upwards towards the laboratory. Aiden gingerly pulled himself into a sitting position and gently wiped the blood away from under his nose, wincing slightly at the sensitivity. A fresh trickle started as soon as he pulled his wrist away. He slowly stood, watching his hair flop lock by lock down into his eyes as he moved with painful slowness. A drop of blood rolled off the curl of his top lip and fell to the metal floor, where it hit with a soft 'pit'. He stood and brushed his long hair out of his eyes, which was still neat even after the beatdown he had endured. Aiden gently wiped the blood away from the top of his lip once more, leaving a second smear of dark red on his arm, paused to glance at the Supercomputer one last time, mind still in overdrive, then started instead for the harness that was dangling a few feet away.
Ginger burst out into the unusually bright light of the Forest Sector and crashed headfirst into ground, letting go of Sam's hand as she landed unconscious a few feet away. Sam fell to the ground with a weak yell that used up the very last of his energy, landing hard on the forest floor. Ashley was the last to burst out of the black smoke that vanished into thin air behind them, stumbling over Sam and drunkenly taking a few steps before crumpling to the fading ground, blackness overtaking her vision once more as another tremor shook the world around her.
Alex shakily walked towards the terminal, face pale. His palms were clammy and he felt like he could throw up any second. His eyes burned, and his mouth twisted into an odd sort of grimace as he swiped his arm across his face to get rid of a few hot tears. This was all his fault. He collapsed into the high-backed yellow chair, shuddering as he glanced at the comm laying discarded on they keyboard. All his fault. He shouldn't have let Aiden go into the Scanner Room like that by himself. He should have known Aiden would open the hatch and discover the Supercomputer. He cursed himself again and again. Another hot tear carved a path out along the side of his nose, curling around under it and dripping off the tip of his top lip into his mouth. Salty. He closed his eyes for a few brief moments, trying to push all thoughts of the memories he had made with his friends out of his head, then reopened them and sat up straight in the chair. Clearing his throat, he placed his hands on the keyboard and looked up at the screen. He blinked, not exactly understanding what was going on. The window where the map of the Forest Sector should have been was empty, no wire-frame models of trees or rocks, no indicators of life, nothing. He glanced at another window, new onscreen than when he had last left the terminal. "Forest Sector emergency deletion interrupted with 98.7% corruption. Searching for backup data…" it read, with the ellipsis after 'initiating' scrolling endlessly. He glanced at the third and final window on the main screen, the one with Ashley, Sam, and Ginger's ID cards. Black-and-white. Empty. A dead weight filled his stomach as he looked, and it only seemed to grow the longer he stared. He only managed to tear his eyes away as a blipping sound came from the terminal. He glanced over at the window showing the endless ellipsis. "Backup data found. Forest Sector Recovery Sequence Beta found. Initiating Recovery Sequence Beta." A beat of hope coursed through Alex as he waited a few seconds for something to happen, but instead the large screen flickered suddenly and died completely, along with the Holomap next to him. Alex scoffed in disbelief, pain lining the sound. So much for the fabulous Supercomputer. He turned to get out of his chair, fully intending to head back down to the Supercomputer's housing and shut it off for the final time, but movement from the screen stopped him and he glanced back at it. The screen rolled back to life, and when the image was crisp, a progress bar appeared. It filled slowly and jerkily, like the Supercomputer was having a problem processing whatever it was processing, but eventually the bar hit the end and disappeared, to be replaced with a new window, the only one onscreen. "Forest Sector Recovery Sequence Beta initiated. Beginning recovery." An ellipsis blinked at him for a few seconds, then another line of text appeared. "Searching for remaining life forms…" Alex's heart caught in his throat, and he spun around in the chair, eyes glued to the screen. This ellipsis seemed to last a lifetime. Then it stopped, and more text appeared. "Search for surviving life forms completed. Results: Four variables. Denomination: Unknown. Status: Unknown. Attempting to locate." Alex's eyes felt hot again, but he couldn't move even if he had wanted to. "Located. Attempting to initialize mapping system." A window popped up next to that one, filled with only static for a few seconds. Suddenly it blinked and was replaced by a very small wire frame alloy representation of what looked like a nearly circular island floating high above the Digital Sea. Alex's eyes widened. That must be what remained of the Forest Sector. The last two percent. Four identification markers appeared onscreen, pointing to three clustered dots near one end of the island and another grey dot at the other. Alex attempted to try and identify the tags, heart racing, but every time he pressed a key the system made a terrible beeping and nothing would happen. He was locked out. Nothing was left for him to do but watch. More text appeared. "Attempt to identify life forms failed. Recovery cannot continue do to error code 3x/bC9. Attempting full revival of all life forms. Workaround code 87-02fl."
Aiden had just heaved himself onto the floor of the Scanner Room when he heard an exclamation from Alex drift faintly down to him through the comm. Aiden frowned and wiped his nose softly, leaving a fourth red streak down his arm. What was going on up there?
Ginger screamed again as the powerful current raged through her body. Faintly, she could hear Ashley and Sam suffering too, but at the same time, she could very well have been imagining it. God, this pain. And just as suddenly as it came, it left, leaving her convulsing body twitching slightly on the ground. A very welcome blackness started to seep into her vision again. Then, even more brutally than before, a powerful electrical shock cleared the darkness away, jolting her back to reality, pushing her body, virtual or not, to beyond unknown limits. What the hell was going on?
Alex cleared his throat and passed his arm across his eyes again as he watched his friends' ID cards blip, one by one, and slowly fill back up to full. Whatever the recovery program was doing, it had just saved Ashley, Sam, and Ginger…incredible. He jammed the comm on and desperately tried to get in touch with his friends, trying to make his voice sound as normal and non-shaky as possible.
"Ashley? Sam, Ginger? Do you read me? You guys okay?"
Sam lay on the ground, panting and wincing as traces of leftover electric current ran through his body. He looked over at Ashley, who lay a few feet away, twitching and whimpering, her body still convulsing slightly from the electrical hell they had all just been put through. Sam raised his head a bit to check on Ginger, and was rewarded with a sharp snap of electricity across the nape of his neck, and cringed. He did, however, see Ginger leaning against a boulder, looking right back at him, electric current still crackling occasionally through her body as well. He flopped back down, relieved to know that both of his friends were okay. He lay there, still, only breathing, and the electricity seemed to subside. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. Patience. That was all this took. Just a few more calm, relaxed minuites, and-
"Hey, you guys there?" Alex's voice cut a swath of electric destruction through Sam's body as he jumped in surprise at how loud Alex was. Judging by Ginger and Ashley's shrieks of pain, he wasn't the only one shocked, in both senses.
"Guys?" Alex tentatively asked once again. "You-"
"YES, Alex, for FUCK'S SAKE, stop SHOUTING!" Sam's voice roared back at him through the comm, causing Alex to visibly wince. "Do you have ANY FUCKING IDEA what you just put us through?"
"Do YOU have any idea who just saved your fucking ass?" Alex flared up instantly, his temper getting the better of him. "Do you even have any idea what's been going on over here- WHATthefuck.." Alex jumped as Aiden put a hand on his shoulder. "Nearly gave me a fucking heart attack!" He shot at Aiden, daggers in his eyes. Aiden said nothing, instead quickly snatching the comm off of Alex's ear and placing it on his own. 'What the hell do you think you're-" Alex started, but stopped as Aiden turned to look towards him. His usually calm, unreadable purple eyes reflected something different. Despite Alex's harsh feelings towards him at the moment, he felt a pang of regret for Aiden. The guilt and sadness pooling in his eyes, cemented there by conflict inside him that was starkly visible as Aiden looked at him, coupled with the five streaks of blood on his arm and the drying blood on his upper lip and around his nostrils struck Alex as odd, different, and instead of ripping the comm off of Aiden and taking it back as he had planned to, he stopped his belittlement, letting Aiden continue what he was doing. Aiden looked at him for a moment longer, then he turned his gaze to the main screen of the terminal.
"Sam, Ashley, Ginger. It's Aiden."
Sam rolled his eyes and groaned weakly from his splayed-out position on the forest floor. "Great. No, just perfect. Just what we needed right now." He winced while getting slowly to his feet, slight electrical twinges nipping at him here and there. "What do you want?" Everyone heard Aiden sigh softly.
"I wanted to apologize to the three of you. It was I who turned off the Supercomputer." In the lab, Alex gaped at him. On Lyoko, Sam and Ashley froze, the one picking up the other, while Ginger stood shakily up by herself.
"That's what happened?" She asked, her voice icy. "You decided to lumber down there and throw the switch, nearly fucking killing us, may I add- and at the same time managing to wipe out what seems like the entire damn Forest Sector!" The last part came out as an angry yell as she thrust her arms outward, gesturing to the vast expanse of nothing but the Digital Sea beyond what they now realized was a very, very small island.
"If Ginger hadn't teleported us, we would have died." Sam growled "Do you understand what that means? The vanishing of three people in a way Alex could never explain?" In the lab, Aiden cast a soft glance towards Alex, then looked away again.
"Trust me, I know. Alex didn't waste any time or feeling explaining to me the consequences of my actions. Alex, Ginger, Ashley, Sam…I truly am sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me at all, but I need you to understand why. And after what Ashley told me about this whole shebang, I'm sure you'll want to hear it." Next to him, Alex started typing. "I'm starting up the rest of Recovery Sequence Beta to get the Forest Sector back." He said, raising his voice slightly in order for his voice to pass through the comm. "According to my coordinates, Ginger, you teleported everyone right next to the Tower?"
"Yeah." Ginger said quietly, crackling as she came through. "I thought if we could make it inside, we would have been safe."
"Technically, you would have been!" Alex called encouragingly. "According to the data here, when the Tower rematerializes, it'll become activated again. If it saved whatever X.A.N.A. does to activate Towers, I'm fairly certain it would have saved you three as well."
"Oh! Well…heh." Ginger's voice, even coming through the comm, sounded slightly pleased with herself, and Alex grinned.
"Right then, here goes. Initiating Recovery Program Beta." Next to the two boys, the Holomap flickered back to life, but where the Forest Sector would have been, a progress bar took its place. Aiden frowned at it.
"This is moving horribly slowly. How long does it say it'll take?"
"Oh, it should be finished around 3 A.M. or so." Alex said, leaning back in the chair. "But for the Tower to rematerialize, only about half an hour to forty minuites. Plenty of time to tell us what I'm sure is your fascinating story of why you nearly killed Ashley, Ginger, and Sam. Yeah?" Aiden grimaced and sat down on the cold metal rim of the Holomap's border. His heart was pounding and his palms were clammy.
"Yeah." He sighed. "Get comfortable then, because after what I say what I'm about to say, I don't think we're going to be going anywhere for a while." He drummed his fingers softly on the metal next to him.
"And what would that be?" Aiden sighed, and looked him squarely in the eyes with a gaze so full of betrayal and pain that Alex immediately regretted having done what he did two floors below. Then Aiden spoke.
"This lab complex, the Scanners, the Supercomputer…I know who built it. All of it."
"Yeah, so do we." Alex said slowly. "Franz Hopper, or Waldo Schaeffer, whichever floats your boat." Aiden scoffed.
"No. You're wrong. You think Schaeffer could have built all this?" He asked, raising his voice as he stood up and lifted his hands above his head, indicating the massive space they stood in. "He alone carted miles of wires and tons of metal into this old car factory? Dug out the lab complex with his bare hands? Put the Supercomputer and the Scanners together circuit by circuit, molded the plastic and metal himself? Do you think so, mmn?" Alex was silent as Aiden gazed icily at him. "Ashley even told me you guys found a video diary that said something along the lines of 'I have discovered one of the more fascinating properties of the Supercomputer- Return to the Past.' Did you not?" Alex nodded, frowning, seeing where Aiden was coming from. "He DISCOVERED. Schaeffer DISCOVERED Return to the Past. Which means he didn't program it. Which means he didn't make the Supercomputer, or any of this for that matter, or else he would have know that the capability for returning to the past lay inside that giant hulk of metal, wires, and plastic two floors down!"
"So you're saying that Schaeffer didn't make the Supercomputer. Okay, we get it." Ashley spoke through the comm, coming through slightly distorted because of how quietly she was talking. "So get to the point then. Who do you think built it?'
"I don't think." Aiden's eyes blazed furiously. "I know."
"Who, then?" Alex asked, slightly intimidated by the anger Aiden was radiating. Suddenly, all the fight seemed to go out of him, and Aiden slumped against the Holomap and slid to the floor, a lock of purple hair settling softly across the bridge of his nose.
"My father." He said softly, gazing up at Alex with a sad look in his eye. "My own fucking father.