Rated M for occasional language.

This story, and the first chapter in particular, makes liberal reference to Project Carthage. As a disclaimer, while I understand it was referenced in the series of (mostly untranslated) novels and to a degree in Code Lyoko Evolution, the information I use will come from the original series, as well as some personal conceptions. I make no claim of having the most accurate interpretation.

It has been a very long time, I will admit, since I have attempted a multi-chapter fanfic. I hope you enjoy.

ECHOES OF ECHOES:
Finding William Dunbar

a Code Lyoko fanfic

PART I: ALL WE'VE GOT
CHAPTER I: JEREMIE

"Mr. Belpois, do you know where you are?"

The young man looked around. It was a nondescript room, dimly lit, with no one in it but him. The walls might have been a shade of green, or that could have just been the light that the single fluorescent bulb cast out. There was a mirrored window in front of him, like something out of a crime show. A lanky, unkempt face – his own – looked back at him. He certainly had not been this unshaven the last time he saw his reflection, so he was either very far away or he had been asleep for a very long time. There was no door that he could see, and when he attempted to turn to see if there was one behind him, he discovered he was chained to the chair.

"No," Jeremie admitted.

"Can you tell me what day it is?" The voice that he heard was not intimidating. It was a light voice, moderately high-pitched, with a hint of croaking tones underneath it. Likely a male, probably over fifty. The voice did not scare him, nor did the situation he found himself in, truthfully. It was actually rather interesting. "Mr. Belpois?"

"July 25th, 2018," Jeremie answered. It was a guess. It had been July 20th the last he remembered, but the stubble on his jaw was at least five days' worth.

"You guessed," the voice responded simply. "But you are correct."

"Are you going to tell me the answer to your first question?" Jeremie asked.

"I am asking the questions, for now," the voice responded. How predictable. "However, to answer some questions presumptively, no, you are not under arrest, and you are not being charged with a crime. You will be free to go as soon as you answer a few more questions for us."

Jeremie's hands chafed at the restraints on his wrists. "Well I'm certainly not in a position to argue," he said. "Go ahead."

"Tell me everything you know about Project Carthage," the voice said.

Again, how predictable.

"I imagine I know quite a bit less than you do," Jeremie found himself responding. In the mirror, he could see his eyebrow arch. He hadn't intended it to.

"That isn't what I asked," the voice responded. He was not angry, or even impatient. In fact, he almost sounded amused. Almost.

"Project Carthage was a military program intended to intercept enemy communications," he recited, almost by rote. "I'm not certain on the time scale. Or even, really, which enemy they meant. I presume the Russians, some time around the Cold War, but I'm not familiar with the specifics of the project itself. Only with… the remnants. I think you already know this."

"How did you become familiar with Project Carthage?"

"Oh, I just sort of stumbled into it," Jeremie said. He was almost successful in shrugging as he said it. "The same way any twelve year old becomes familiar with the discarded remnants of unconstitutional government projects. I was snooping around in places I shouldn't have been. I was interested in robotics and I figured the old abandoned factory would be a prime place to find components. I wasn't wrong. I just happened to find other things along with them."

The voice was silent for a few moments. "Let me… ask something more specific," he said. He was less amused now, perhaps bordering on impatient. "How did you know what what you found on Île Seguin was Project Carthage?"

Jeremie had to take a moment to compose his thoughts. It had been a while, after all. Fourteen years, in fact. "I found the diaries of Franz Hopper," he finally replied. "He had built the-"

"How?" The voice was sharp now. No, not sharp. Just… eager. Excited, even. "How did you find them?" For the first time, Jeremie got the sense that the voice didn't know the answer to the question he asked. Jeremie was surprised. Certainly if he knew everything else, he knew about Aelita. But if he didn't, Jeremie didn't want him to know.

"What happens if I don't answer that question?"

"Then you sit here and rot." The voice was harsh now, an angry wheeze. He could hear the hot rush of the speaker's breath come across the speakers in a tinny echo.

"They were in a locker at a metro station. I don't remember which one," Jeremie finally said. "Mr. Puck gave me the key."

"Mr… who is Mr. Puck?"

"An elf," Jeremie said plainly.

A sigh buzzed through the speakers. "I do not understand why you feel the need to be so coy," the voice said. "I have been nothing but generous with you."

"You… kept me unconscious for five days," Jeremie said. "I don't even know how you rendered me unconscious. I don't really remember what I was doing before I was here, so probably drugs..." Jeremie stopped as a thought occurred to him. "You aren't even with the government, are you? You're… you're one of the people. One of the ones who worked on Project Carthage. And you want to know what Franz Hopper did with your work. You want to get back to it. Well you can't. It's gone, and not even I can get it ba-"

"Shut up!" The voice was hissing now. "It has to do with the girl, doesn't it! The daughter! You're protecting the daughter!"

"It's been over twenty years! What do you hope to accomplish? What do you want?" Jeremie was screaming now, trying to stand up to pull himself out of his restraints. There was a thumping, a deep ominous thumping from somewhere just beyond his perception. The glass began to shake. A crack appeared in the window, fracturing his reflection. He pulled and pulled, trying to break free, as static hissed over the speakers. The window cracked and cracked again and then shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. A wolf broke through, snarling, spit flying from its teeth into the air, mixing with the glass. It looked like glitter, everywhere, as the wolf lunged at Jeremie and snapped at his face.

Aelita awoke in a start.

The clock on the table next to her told her that it was 3:07 in the morning. The red numerals were the only light in the room, aside from what little moonlight made it through the blinds. There was someone in the bed next to her, sleeping soundly. She listened to their breath for a few moments, in and out, in and out, until her own breath slowed.

She touched her face. There was no stubble, nor any bite marks. In the dark, she fumbled for the phone. It was July 14th, 2018. Yesterday had been Friday the thirteenth, and she clearly remembered having gotten home from work, making dinner, playing a little while on the piano, making some tea, and going to bed early. It was Jeremie who was next to her, just as he had been every night for the last four years. He probably hadn't gotten home that long ago, since he tended to work late. As such, he was sleeping like a rock. Even if she had screamed, and she wasn't sure she had, he wouldn't have moved. She placed a hand softly on his shoulder, just to feel the warmth. He was sticky, and so was she, she realized. It was summer in London, an unusually sweltering and unforgiving summer this year. She suddenly wanted to take a shower, but for a moment, she remembered once seeing a wolf in the shower as well. She shook the thought from her head. The wolf dreams no longer had any teeth.

But then, it had been a very long time since the last wolf dream. Twelve years, in fact. She got up and took a shower anyway. It was cold, it made her chest shudder, and it felt good.

When she got back to the bedroom, a towel loosely wrapped around her waist, Jeremie was sitting up on the bed with his glasses on. He was clean-shaven, which somehow made her feel relieved. "Oh, I'm sorry if I woke you," she said softly.

Jeremie stared at her for a moment. A hint of a smile played at his lips, but then he spoke and his voice was solemn. "Are you alright?"

She sat down at the edge of the bed and looked at him. He was concerned, and that was sweet. To tell the truth, some strange part of her always enjoyed making Jeremie concerned. It made him pay attention. "I just had a bad dream," she said softly. "It's alright."

"It's this damn heat," Jeremie said. "If we had wanted it to be this warm we would have moved to Rome."

"You were the one who insisted on London," she reminded him. "Perhaps we should have gone to Rome instead, the same weather but at least I speak the language better there." She feigned annoyance in her voice but she was smiling as she said it. She didn't mind London at all.

"What was the dream about?" Jeremie's brow was still furrowed.

"Well… I was you. And I was tied up..."

Jeremie raised an eyebrow. "And this was a nightmare?"

Aelita laughed. "My wrists… your wrists were tied to a chair, but it was an interrogation. It was in a room like in the crime shows, with the mirrored window. There was a voice speaking over a speaker, asking about Project Carthage." She trailed off and thought for a moment, wondering if it was worth it to mention all the details. It would probably just stress him out, but he would be able to tell if she was lying. "He was pressing for details about how you had found out about Project Carthage, but you didn't want to mention me, so he got angry and… turned into a wolf, I guess? And then I woke up."

"A wolf?" Even in the dim light she could tell Jeremie had gotten paler. "Like… like..."

"Yes, Jeremie," she said with a sigh. "Like… before."

Jeremie leaned forward and crawled over to her, his eyes wide. "Aelita… this..."

"Oh, it was just a dream, Jeremie." She turned away, genuinely annoyed this time. She shrugged away from his hand as she felt him about to touch her shoulder.

"It was never just a dream," he whispered.

Anger ballooned in her chest and she stood up suddenly, clenching her fists. It was this time, she wanted to say. But she couldn't. Instead she just began to cry. "Please," she found herself saying.

Jeremie did not get up to hold her, though she could tell that he wanted to. "I… I'm sorry. That was stupid to say." His voice was small. Hearing it just made her angrier, and more scared.

"Oh, god damn it, I… it's been twelve fucking years, can't it be fucking over?" She let her knees give way and crashed back onto the bed. Jeremie still did not touch her. "Can we never escape?"

"Is… there anything else I should know about the dream?" Jeremie's voice was still small, and she still couldn't stand to hear it.

"It was… in the future. July 25th, I remember distinctly. But whoever it was had captured you on the 20th and woke you up on the 25th," she said. She could remember Jeremie's voice saying the date. It gave her goosebumps.

"That's next Friday," Jeremie whispered to himself. "What about the voice? Did it sound familiar?"

In spite of herself, she thought about it. It had sounded familiar. "It was…" It was a voice she had heard before, she could feel it. But not in a long time, someone at the foggy beginnings of her memory. It was someone who spoke a lot, and she felt like she had trusted whoever it was, as if they were a benevolent authority. Not her father, but someone similar. Someone at Kadic? Jim? No, it wasn't gruff enough. But thinking of Jim made the answer hit her like a ton of bricks, even though saying it aloud just made her more confused. "It was Mr. Delmas?"

She finally turned around to face Jeremie, whose eyebrows had about flown off his forehead. "Oh Jeremie, it had to have been just a dream."

"Yes," Jeremie said with a nod. "But… I think tomorrow I'm going to get in touch with Sissi anyway."

Somehow Aelita could not find it within herself to tell Jeremie not to.

–

It was not the fact that Sissi Delmas had ended their conversation with "I'll be right there" and showed up at his doorstep within hours of calling that surprised Jeremie the most. It was not that she informed him within minutes that she was in medical school. It was not even that she said she had lunch with Yumi on a semi-regular basis. No, what surprised Jeremie the most was that Sissi Delmas told him that she preferred to be called Elisabeth.

"I just don't think Sissi is a doctor's name," she said with a wrinkled face. "Oh, don't look so aghast. Middle school was a long time ago! People change, Einstein." At the last word, she grinned. "Anyway, I've been talking nonstop! Let's go get some coffee or something."

It was eight in the evening on a Saturday. The only place in London that was serving anything besides beer was Starbucks. Jeremie ordered a cafe au lait – or rather as Starbucks insisted he call it, a "Misto," and Elisabeth, to Jeremie's surprise, ordered a black coffee. She had struck him as someone who liked her coffee overly sweet, but he decided not to say anything. They sat down at a table in the corner; outside the night was black and the street was full of throngs of people making their way to and from various pubs. The sounds of their migration – distant laughs, scuffs and stumbles on the concrete, and even faint singing – could barely be made out even over the quiet murmur of the few people in the coffee shop. There was something about the room, however corporate it might have been, that quelled the chaos of the outside world.

"I had you pegged as a tea kind of guy," said Elisabeth with another grin.

"Nope," Jeremie said. "Coffee is what keeps me functioning. Always has." He laughed. "You remember how sleepless I was in middle school."

"It has been a very long time, Jeremie Belpois. I hardly recognize you. You're so tall. Even your face is different. Such a strong jaw." She giggled. "Good thing Aelita isn't here. I just mean to say that you've grown up so much. We all have, I suppose. But what made you move all this way?"

"Oh, Aelita and I… just wanted a change of scenery, I suppose." Jeremie laughed. That was putting it lightly. "We've been here for four years now."

"What is it that you do? Don't tell me. You work with computers."

Jeremie could do nothing but nod. "You got me. I'm a programmer at the London Stock Exchange. It's all pretty fast-paced stuff, it keeps me busy." His supervisors generally discouraged getting into specifics with what he did; he hoped Elisabeth didn't press any farther.

"Does Aelita work with you? That would be cute!"

He chuckled. "No, she's actually a sound engineer. She works at a recording studio, and she actually makes a little music herself. Speaking of jobs, I… have to admit, I was surprised when you told me you were in medical school."

Elisabeth threw her head back and laughed. The entire coffee shop turned to look at her, as did several people outside. She paid no attention. "Of course it does," she said between gasps for breath. "It surprises everyone. I ran into… who was it? Someone from Kadic… oh, it's on the tip of my tongue… it was Milly Solovieff, remember her? She was at my hospital for an appointment and she saw me in my scrubs and about fell over, she was so surprised. Her jaw literally dropped, and I laughed just like this, I just think it's hilarious how people react when they see me. 'Sissi Delmas, the airhead, a doctor?' You better believe it!" She took a deep drink of coffee to calm herself, and then continued on.

"I went through so many ideas of what I wanted to do… a dancer, a fashion designer, a model… but it was my mother who casually said one day that I could be a surgeon, the way I was so nimble with my hands when I sewed. It kinda stuck with me. So I looked into it, I tried it, and here we are." She held her hands out wide. "I'm going for gynecology and obstetrics, I've got about two years to go still. But they all love my in my department. So much that they let me out of a shift to go visit an old friend!"

"Sounds like things are going good, then?" Jeremie felt himself smile, and it was an earnest one. Thinking back to middle school, Sissi had been one of those people who was really only happy on the outside. He couldn't remember a time he heard her laugh the way she just had.

Elisabeth nodded. "I'm enjoying things. I feel… successful. It's a good feeling. Oh, and Yumi says hello! But I'm sure she'll be miffed to find out you reached out to me of all people before calling her." She playfully swatted Jeremie on the arm, smiling all the way. "Why wasn't Aelita able to come out with us? Is she still working?"

"Yeah, one of her clients likes to record at night, he says his 'art' is better at night or something," Jeremie said. "She and I tend to work odd hours. I'll get called into work at all hours to work on some project, and since she has a lot of high-profile people who need the studio at so many different times, it's actually a little hard to get a whole evening with each other anymore. But we're used to it."

"You were always such a power couple," Elisabeth said. "It's so incredible you've been together all this time. Soul mates."

Jeremie felt his cheeks burning. "Yeah," he said in a sigh he had not meant to make. "Say…," Jeremie began, staring into his coffee. "How's your dad doing, by the way?" He hoped it had sounded casual.

There was silence. Elisabeth took a drink of coffee, then set the cup down on the table and still didn't say anything. Jeremie looked up, but she was looking out the window. "Oh… he's fine," she finally said.

"I… I'm sorry if I-" Jeremie began, but Elisabeth raised a hand to cut him off.

"Listen, Jeremie, can I tell you something? I'm actually really glad you called when you did. I needed to get away for a bit. My father… he and I have always been pretty close. But recently, well… he left Kadic."

It sounded strange for Elisabeth to end such a charged moment with just those words, but at the same time, it seemed almost unthinkable that Jean-Pierre Delmas would be anywhere but Kadic Academy. Or at least, it ought to have been unthinkable. Jeremie had been thinking of the dream the whole time. And it made his stomach feel like it was full of rocks to hear that Mr. Delmas was no longer working at Kadic primarily because it meant he could be working somewhere else. "Where… does he work now?"

"He won't tell me." Elisabeth was frowning. "He always tells me everything, but he… he won't tell me where he's working. I guess he must work for the government, if he can't tell me, but… I just can't think of a government agency that would hire a sixty-eight year old middle school principal for anything that… well, important. It's not like they're doing classified work at the Ministry of Education."

Jeremie felt like he wanted to die. Elisabeth kept going, ignorant to the relentless torture she was placing Jeremie through.

"So I called Jim and made him tell me what he knew. Jim can't say no to me. He didn't know much, but he said my dad is doing investigatory work into old, classified government files. He doesn't know why they wanted my dad either, but Jim did tell me that they tried to recruit him too. But Jim wouldn't leave Kadic." Elisabeth sighed. "My dad won't talk to anybody now. My mother is worried sick, but I can't stand to go see her because she just stresses me out. I even went back to Kadic, to see if anyone else knew anything, but… all our old teachers are gone. They've all left within the past year, too. Even the gardener is gone. And remember Yolande, the nurse? She's at my hospital now, but she won't talk to me."

Suddenly, Elisabeth reached out and grabbed Jeremie's hands. "Do you want to know what I think? I think something is going on. I think there's something about Kadic that we don't know." She brought her voice down to a whisper. "I think… something paranormal. There are ghosts in Kadic. I know it."

Jeremie blinked. If even for just a moment, his stomach felt lightened. He had to hold in laughter as he looked into Elisabeth's eyes. She had no idea how correct she was… or how terribly, terribly wrong.

She tightened her grip on Jeremie's hands and furrowed her brows. "I know how it sounds. Yumi made the same face you're making. But she wouldn't tell me to my face I was wrong. And you won't either, will you?" She leaned in close, almost nose-to-nose with Jeremie. "Do you want to know the real reason I came all this way so quickly? I think you know something too. You and Aelita and Yumi… you were always together, always disappearing places. And why is it that when you all came of age, you got as far away as possible? Ulrich went to Germany, Yumi told me. Odd Della Robbia is in New York City or something. No one has seen or heard from William Dunbar in years. Yumi left and only came back this year because her mother is sick. You both dove into college and then bolted to London as soon as you were done. Well I want to know what's going on. I want to know what you know."

Jeremie and his friends had told Elisabeth Delmas the truth at least three times, if he recalled correctly. Not that she remembered, but still, what could once more hurt?

"Well, alright," whispered Jeremie. "Can you keep a secret?"

–

Elisabeth stared at the ceiling with her head laid on the back of Jeremie's sofa. "I guess the ghost theory was pretty dumb, huh?"

"Well… I suppose, all things considered, it makes just about as much sense as the truth," Jeremie said.

"So… this… XANA thing… it's gone, right?" Sissi turned her head to look at Jeremie and Aelita, who sat next to each other at the dining room table.

"Yes," said Aelita. "This was all… long ago. 2006. We thought it was all done." She had been there when Jeremie and Elisabeth came back. She had not smiled since she first greeted Elisabeth. In fact, at the moment, she looked rather sick.

"But you think my dad is somehow involved in trying to find out about all this stuff? About Aelita's father and all the things he did?"

"I think that's a fair representation of my hypothesis regarding the situation," said Jeremie. "I just can't imagine why they're doing it now."

"So, are you some kind of psychic, Aelita? With your dreams?"

"No," she firmly responded. "I just… I don't quite know what happened last night. Usually I had dreams like that because I was stressed, or they were repressed memories breaking through… or because XANA was messing with my head. But XANA is gone and I can't remember the future, so it looks like the first one." She turned to look at Jeremie, her lips a thin line across her face. "I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here."

"Doesn't this… concern you at all?" Jeremie got out of his chair and walked over to the window. It was midnight by now, and the throngs of people were even larger and even rowdier. He could hear shouts even from the third floor. He could not look at Aelita, but he could feel her gaze prickling at the back of his neck. "This can't be just a coincidence. I mean, we can't… we can't ignore the consequences forever. This was really big stuff we were involved in."

"We're not involved in it anymore," Aelita said resolutely. "It's done. If they wanted us, they could have certainly found us. They would have come for us first. What does Yolande Perraudin have to do with anything we did? If they're looking for anyone, they're looking for my father. And they aren't going to find him. But if they want to waste their time looking, they can be my guest. I have my own life to live now." The room was silent for a moment. "And so do you, Jeremie."

"You sound just like Yumi," Elisabeth said quietly. "She wouldn't have anything to do with it. She got up and walked away when I told her what I told you." She trailed off, but audibly grumbled about being "left with the bill."

"Of course I do. Yumi hated it all," Aelita recalled. "It drove her away from her family, got her in trouble, almost killed her at least four times… she and I were always the targets. Some of us got it harder than the others."

It was as if an icy dagger had been plunged into Jeremie's back. "What's that supposed to mean?" He whirled around, his glasses flying off his face. He had been louder than he meant to, and Aelita gasped. "What, like I just had a grand old time, playing around on a computer? Like I didn't spend every waking moment of my life consumed with life and death at my computer keyboard? And now I just want to take a leisurely fucking stroll down memory lane for the fun of it? Is that what you're implying?"

"Well, no, I-"

"We knew this would happen, Aelita. Why the hell did we move in the first place? Why did we all move? So it would be harder to find us! And, hey, you know why I insisted the UK over Italy? Because the UK was thinking about leaving the EU. And they did, so here we are, outside of European jurisdiction. They want to get to us, they're going to have to get through His Majesty, and the French haven't gotten past him since 1066. But how do we know they haven't gone after Ulrich? How do we know they didn't lure back Yumi? What did happen to William? We inherited your father's legacy. That's just the way it is. If they're going after people we care about, then-"

"Oh, get a hold of yourself, Jeremie!" Aelita leaped up and marched over to Jeremie, meeting him face to face. Her cheeks were red. "What is this, some sort of global fucking conspiracy?"

"Yes!" Jeremie threw his arms up, raising his voice into a shout. "What do you think got Jean-Pierre Delmas out of Kadic? He would have stayed with that school if it was on the goddamn Titanic. And you think every single person at that school that ever had contact with us, except the only person who previously worked for the government, up and leaving within a year is just a coincidence? Nurse Yolande and Michael the groundskeeper certainly didn't know your father! And Jim says Mr. Delmas is looking into old classified files. What files do you think Mr. Delmas is qualified to look into? Ones involving former employees of his, maybe? Ones that took place miles from where he's worked since practically the dawn of time?"

"Jesus Christ, Jeremie, how paranoid are you? Have you been this paranoid this whole time?" Aelita took a step back from him.

"I don't think I'm being unreasonable, I really don't! I think you're refusing to acknowledge the truth because you don't want to go back. You want to just close the door and plug your ears and pretend it never happened-"

"We were at Kadic twelve years ago! You don't think people wanted to retire, or move on? You don't think Mr. Delmas maybe wanted a better paycheck? Life does not revolve around middle school, Jeremie! It is over! We have to separate ourselves eventually! What are you proposing we do? Drop everything, leave our jobs and our apartment and just… go back to the Factory and do what? Snoop around? Try and stop them from looking into stuff that has been done and over with for over twenty years? What is there to even find from Project Carthage that would present any threat to us?"

"XANA." The voice was quiet and tinny, but it stopped Aelita in her tracks. She turned around to see Elisabeth holding up her phone, as if she had been recording their conversation. Or rather, sending it to someone. The voice, Aelita realized, had been Yumi's.

"What… what do you mean?" Jeremie stepped closer to the phone, standing next to Aelita.

"Anyone who knows enough about all of that to know that Kadic is involved, that we were involved, already knows everything about Project Carthage and all the government stuff. What they don't know is what Franz Hopper did with it afterward. They probably know about the Supercomputer, but they don't know how it works. They don't know about what Franz Hopper built over their foundation. And they want to know about XANA. Back then, when this all started, computers were rare. Now, they're everywhere. If I was the government, and I wanted to have an edge on the enemy, I would want something like XANA." Yumi's voice sounded angry. Bitter, even – as if she couldn't stand to say what she was saying.

"Franz Hopper created XANA to destroy the weapon Project Carthage built," Jeremie said. "But now… XANA is the weapon they want."

"XANA is gone," Aelita said. "They can search all they want, they won't find him either." She was just as bitter as Yumi.

"If they get into the Supercomputer, they can find traces," Jeremie said quietly. "You can't really delete things from computers without physically destroying them. The multi-agent systems I built erased XANA from the network, but the data it had collected in stored in Sector 5, that's still there. And my system itself, that was built to detect all of XANA's signatures, that's still there. XANA had backups saved on the Supercomputer that I erased, but there are still echoes… really, echoes of echoes, if you know how to look. A programmer of even moderate-to-advanced caliber could construct a rough facsimile that would be… something to go on."

"Well sure, they could build a program that acted like XANA with instructions, but it would take someone who was intimately familiar with my father's unique coding and programming patterns to build something that had genuine artificial intelligence and could act by itself," said Aelita.

"Unless… they had access to the kinds of traces XANA left in the brains of humans," Jeremie said, his voice hollow. "If they had access to the ways that XANA altered neurological activity in order to overwrite the minds of people with its own intelligence, that could be reverse-engineered. XANA possessed lots of people… like all the teachers at Kadic, at one point or another, or..."

"Or like William?" Yumi's voice was no longer angry. It was terrified.

The words Elisabeth had said earlier, almost as an aside, came back to Jeremie like a freight train. No one has seen or heard from William Dunbar in years. Jeremie and Aelita turned to each other in unison, eyes wide and full of fear. There was no more anger in Aelita's eyes, no bitterness in her expression. Just defeat. And exhaustion. Aelita was tired. Tired like Jeremie hadn't seen her for twelve years. But she knew, just as he did, that there was no longer any doubt. No longer any other option.

Jeremie pulled out his phone and even though it was generations removed from anything he had in middle school, his thumbs found all the contacts he needed without thinking. Ulrich, Odd, and even Yumi and Aelita, and then the words he thought he had laid to rest long ago.

"S.O.S. XANA"