C o d e - C r I s I s

Episode 1

M I C – C H E C K

It's getting late, thought Jeremy. Perhaps Aelita had trouble with the bus schedule; it wouldn't be the first time. Digitally she was several decades his senior, but the real world was still, in many ways, a mystery to her. If she had gotten lost, he'd try not to rub it in. As time went on he began to worry. He would always worry. Every time they had a date it would go through the same cycle: he'd have an idea, she'd have a idea, he'd want to go out together while she always wanted to 'catch up later'. She was very 'cool' now. It'd been 3 years since they'd shut down X.A.N.A, and after what it had cost them Jeremy wanted nothing more then for Aelita to be happy, any way she wanted to be.

But still, he'd worry.

The sun had started to go down. Jeremy sighed, it must have been at least an hour by now. She had said she'd be with 'friends'. Not their friends, of course, her friends. They seemed nice enough, but like Sissy they considered Jeremy and the others a bit 'odd'… which reminded him, he hadn't seen Odd in while.

His watch beeped. A timer he'd set had gone off, but he'd been so busy worrying he couldn't remember what he'd set it for. Then he noticed the time.

"What on earth…?" he whispered. Time always seemed to drag on whenever he was waiting on Aelita, but in fact not much time had passed at all, maybe half an hour. The sun was low, but not low enough. The light he was looking at; the burnt red glow emanating from the horizon that he thought was the sun setting was in fact the city itself. It was getting dark, but only because thick clouds had passed in front of the real sun, making the strange glow more apparent with each passing minute. But he didn't panic, Jeremy was never exactly on the 'pulse of the community', so to speak. Whether it was Mardi Gras, Spring Break or just a movie premiere, he'd be the last to know, as usual. Chances were Aelita was right in the center of it, living it up. She'd changed since they had abandoned the factory.

At first she was sullen, deeply depressed about Franz Hopper – her father who, after so many years lost in the Digital Sea, appeared at the end of their war to sacrifice himself to defeat X.A.N.A. For many days after she wouldn't leave Hermitage - her father's old house - and every time Jeremy and the others would stop by they would hear her crying behind locked doors. At school she was silent, barely ate, and soon went from a straight-A celebrity to white noise. She avoided everyone, even Jeremy.

Then one day she changed. She woke up happy and eager, surprising everyone with hugs, giggles, and kisses (catching Jeremy particularly off-guard). In no time she was commanding attention from teachers all over school, but still keeping her grades high and profile just low enough to keep away unwanted attention. After all, it took the combined efforts of the entire team - with a healthy dose of her and Jeremy's programming skills - to maintain Aelita's identity. They didn't want too much investigation. So her grades were good, but not honor roll or Valedictorian good; she made sure never to get in trouble, so there was rarely need for a parent-teacher conference either. But sometimes the presence of a relative was non-negotiable, fortunately they lucked out with 'Uncle Jean'.

Jean Aimé was a derelict who claimed to have been an actor,and this may have been true since he was actually quite good at playing his role (when he was sober). He was tall and a bit wiry, but looked quite good when he cleaned up. Yumi provided him with some of her father's old suits. They hung off him a bit but he was able to pull it off with his height. He was very generous, asking for only the occasional meal in return for his performances, and he slept in the factory, upstairs on one of Odd's old mattresses. They didn't worry about the computer, they'd sealed it off well, and when Jean wandered it was usually off to some odd job in town…

Jeremy was letting his mind wander again. He checked his watch, only another 15 minutes had passed, but still…he studied the city's glow. Now there seemed to be more noise coming from it; a parade perhaps? He shook his head and tapped his cell-phone tentatively. Should he give her a call? The 'new' Aelita didn't like calls, and usually had her phone off anyway. He sighed, frustrated. He didn't know why she would keep doing this. Maybe he just bored her. Maybe the whole team bored her now, or maybe they just reminded her too much of that she'd lost. Whatever the case, Jeremy was sure she wasn't coming, and he'd been working on an old program, just out of curiosity, that could…

!!….RING…!!

His phone went off - and that was putting it lightly. Usually he kept it on a gentle vibration setting (spending most his time in libraries), but somehow it'd been switched to the maximum setting – full volume and a shake that almost rattled him out his chair. He quickly pulled it out and checked it, no name, and he didn't recognize the number. '968-5673', that was very curious. It wasn't even from the same country, but who knows where telemarketers are being outsourced from these days? He dismissed it, reset the ring volume and vibration, and cancelled the call. He'd only had some breadsticks and soda, but still decided to leave a tip. Just as he was about to get up, the phone rang again, this time sending him feet-over-head backwards in his chair - it was back at full power, again! A few tables over were two girls, one with a headset. They chuckled a little but were polite enough not to stare or point. Jeremy blushed as her fumbled back into his seat and pulled out his phone again. It was the same number: 968-5673. A very insistent salesman. Muttering fake-swears, Jeremy decided to take the call, even if it just meant saying 'no thank you' to an answering machine; but when he pressed the button the phone turned off.

"What the…" he started, then remembered the girls sitting not 8 feet away "…doodle?" he finished. They laughed again, a bit louder this time, but hushed quickly, pretending to read their menus. He thought about turning it back on, maybe to hear from Aelita. But, angered by her tardiness and the annoying caller, he decided he had better just leave it off. Feeling very defeated, he picked up the stray coins that had escaped during his crash and prepared to leave. Then, from the horizon, a loud screech echoed towards the plaza. It sounded like tires, and a loud crash soon followed it. Jeremy had heard accidents before, and hoped no one was hurt, but otherwise wasn't much shaken. Then there was another.

And another, and another.

Coming from red glow, mixed in the screeching of tires and the faint smell of burn rubber, were loud, angry shouts, yells, and then screams. Near him people were stopping in the streets, cars and all, getting out to look and listen to the spectacle in the distance. Jeremy noticed the cars wouldn't pass the lights headed towards the glow; they were afraid. Even more disconcerting was the fact that there were no cars on the other sides of any of the intersections; no one was coming from the direction of the glow, no people, no cars, nothing. And then, against all reason, his phone rang again, maximum power.

NOW he was worried.

He slowly reached for his phone when all of a sudden another rang: it belonged to one of the girls next him. She picked up and checked it. "968…" he heard her say; the same number as his. Then the girl's friend, the one wearing a headset, also had her phone ring. She picked it up and said she'd received the same call. From the streets he heard more phones start to ring. Not just more, ALL of them. Desk phones in stores and restaurants, cell phones, pay phones, car phones, even emergency phones - EVERYTHING was going off at once. And then they started to glow – bright red, like the city. His phone rang again, even from inside his coat pocket he see the glow. The shake rattled his bones all the way into his skull. He took it out. Of course, it was the same number: 968-5673. It echoed in his mind. It must mean something, he thought. He decided the simple thing to would be to check the numbers themselves, see if they spelled something. Fortunately he could still access the web on his laptop, and checked a bookmark for a site that did just that (he had embarrassing amount of free time these days). He typed in the numbers and the website compiled a list of what they could mean. As he scrolled through the list he quickly regretted his site choice; none of them made sense! He thought the site's program would have enough sense to filter out the gibberish answers, so he closed the page and decided to do it himself. He was a genius after all.

The sound of phones was almost deafening, people were turning them off and even throwing them away in panic, but the noise didn't stop. Meanwhile Jeremy had gotten out some pen and paper to deduce the number's meaning for himself. Nine stood for W, X, Y and Z. All consonants, fair enough, Z and X were unlikely and it would be a three letter word and would most likely fit together with the second world to form a message. Six was M-N-O, and eight was T-U-V, the next letter had to be a vowel, and since W-O-T, V, U weren't words, he went with a 'Y' instead. Y-O-U was the first word, 'you', made sense, now for the second. Five is J-K-L, it was a four-letter word and probably a verb or some action. Once again he had three consonants, and the second number was six, meaning 'O' was going to be his vowel again. Okay, so 'Y-o-u L-o…".

He didn't even have to finish.

Third letter would be 's', the forth letter 'e'. His heart sank into his stomach. It had been three years, THREE YEARS. He almost could have cried. It can't be, he thought. It just can't be. But it was, of course it was. He wished it were a hoax, the cyber-prank to end all cyber-pranks. Hell, he would've settled for the Y2K bug. His phone rang again, but unlike the others this one was quiet, and slow, almost taunting. He knew Jeremy HAD figured it out, that he knew exactly what he'd see if he opened his phone. So he did, he opened his phone, and he wasn't disappointed.

He was terrified.

The sound of the phones died out. They were still ringing, of course, but to Jeremy his entire world had just gone black. All he could hear was his heartbeat, all he could see was the phone - all he could see was the eye, ITS eye. X.A.N.A's eye.

He was sweating, his hands shaking. The cell felt like a bar of wet soap in his hands and he dropped it as easily. He backed away, falling back into his chair. He couldn't hold back anymore, the tears were coming now. He buried his face in his hands, then he heard a click. Over to his left, of the girls have opened her cell phone, like him, frustrated with the mysterious signal. She saw the eye and swore at it - it was meaningless to her after all. Her friend told her to ignore it, saying it was 'just some joke', but the girl didn't care. She put the phone up to her ear and pressed the answer button. Even if Jeremy could have moved fast enough, there was nothing he could have done.

It was as if a choir of banshees shrouded in bats had all just gotten a hot poker in the backside, Jeremy would hear Odd later describe it. Windows cracked and collapsed, glass cups and pitchers exploded, fish-tanks, street-lights, everything that wasn't stone or steel shook apart, even the people. The sound wasn't just loud, it was painful. Jeremy shredded a napkin to bits small enough to stuff in his ears and clasped his hands to the side of his head. Even then the sound still pierced through. It was breathtaking, as if it were coming from everywhere, from inside his own head trying to break out. His blood and bones were shaking like they were in a blender, even his nails felt like they would shatter. He had his eyes shut tight, and it was a good thing too; his glasses didn't last very long. He shook his head to get the pieces off of his eyelids, and thanked God he never decided to go with contacts. The pain, the sheer intensity of the sound never lulled, never reached a peak you could adjust to, it only increased. He knew he had to get out of it soon or it would kill him, like the girls…The one who answered the call had been writhing on the floor in agony, her phone had literally exploded into her ear and she was bleeding profusely from the head. The other, who'd been waring the earpiece, didn't move at all.

From the instant the sound began she'd been frozen, mouth agape, eyes wide. The tears that flowed from her open eyes soon turning into trickles of blood that ran down her face and from her ears. He hated himself for thinking it, but Jeremy actually hoped she wasn't still alive. Time was running out, he had to think! Where was he right now? Some restaurant, outside at a shaded table…restaurant…he needed to find a way to seal as much sound off as possible…seal…freezer! They had to have a freezer inside! He started towards the inside, but stopped by the girls. He'd already decided the headphones wearer was dead - she'd collapsed onto the table and thick pool of blood was spreading. No one could survive that much blood loss from the head. The other girl, who'd fallen to the ground, wasn't moving, or breathing. He was worried about taking time to check, but if she was still alive… Taking a few deep breaths to brace himself, he removed his hands from his ears and got down to check for a pulse. He'd underestimated just how much of the sound he'd really been blocking out, but he held on. It turned out she was breathing, very labored, and her pulse was weak. Even more difficult was that she was at least 6 years older than he was and Jeremy hadn't grown much in height in the last few years. But working out with Odd and Ulrich had much improved his frame. Grabbing her tightly under the arms he started to drag her towards the kitchen.

The restaurant had thick concrete walls which dampened the sound, but not by much. Jeremy felt a moistness in his ears he was worried was blood, but a quick check revealed as just sweat. Weaving the girl through the tables wasn't easy - they were placed much closer together inside than out, and while she wasn't too much taller than Jeremy, her girth more than made up for it. Finally they made into the kitchen. The hum of the machines didn't do much to dampen the sound, but Jeremy hoped the freezer would be better; he doubted he could survive dragging the girl through the streets to another safe spot, assuming there was one. It seemed all the chefs had cells phones they couldn't help but answer. There were several bodies around the kitchen, but there was no time to check them now – he was starting to get lighted headed. They made it to the freezer door and Jeremy opened it. He was welcomed by a cool refreshing breeze, and the loud turbulent whirs of the fans did well to cover the sounds. He checked the temperature and set a timer; he didn't know how long X.A.N.A would keep this up, but he didn't want to freeze to death either. He set it to turn off automatically after an hour, of course if it were somehow connected to the internet and X.A.N.A hacked it he could seal them in kill them just as easily. But there was no more time, just no…more…time.

He shook his head to clear it, but it felt like his brain was floating in blood and knocking against his skull. He hoped to God it wasn't actually doing that, and he finished setting the timer. He dragged the girl inside and tried to set it up so her bare arms wouldn't touch the cold metal surfaces directly, leaning her against sacks and boxes. His whole body felt heavy now, but he almost blocked out the sound entirely, he turned and went back to close the door…and his heart sank again. There, across the room on the floor, was a chef, young, bleeding from his nose and ears, desperately crawling for the exit. He didn't know it would only get worse outside, and Jeremy wanted to stop him, but didn't know if he could make it while he felt so weak. If the cook opened the door before he could reach him the sound would kill them both, and the girl wouldn't be much safer with the freezer door still open. He knew that the cook hadn't seen them, and odds were he'd gone deaf or he'd have heard them come in the first place. Jeremy could've just shut the freezer, shut it and saved himself and the girl.

"Stop!" he shouted. It'd been three years since he'd been a hero, but he wasn't out of practice yet. The cook wasn't deaf, but may have been unconscious when Jeremy and the girl had entered. He turned to see Jeremy at the freezer and knew what they were doing, slowly he turned his body and started making his way towards them. But he was so slow - it was as if he couldn't use his legs, and Jeremy was having a tough time holding on himself. He'd lost his glasses so things were already blurry, and he knew he was starting to black out. Time was fast escaping them all. Taking a chance, Jeremy left the freezer and made his way as quickly as he could towards the cook, every step sending waves of pain through his body. He reached him and tried as best he could to bring him to his feet, but at this point he was so weak the chef felt three times heavier than the girl did. He breathed steadily and deep; he couldn't fail now. Step by step the pair made their way towards the freezer, the chef's head was hung low as he muttered prayers in Italian.

Jeremy tried to keep his eyes on the prize, but the prize's door was beginning to slide shut. He knew it would seal tightly, he remember how much effort it took to open the first time, and now he was so much weaker, carrying the cook, he didn't know if he'd have the strength to do it again. He tried to increase his pace, but the freezer door, carried only by the hot air rushing into the freezer cared nothing for his efforts. It would close, and he would just have to hope he and the chef could survive reduced, but hardly negated death pulse from in the kitchen.

That was, until he saw the shoe.

The girl's shoe. He hadn't left her near the door, she must've taken it off – taken off her shoe and kicked it into the arc of the closing door. Her aim was good, too; it landed in just the right spot as the door hit it with a satisfyingly anticlimactic 'pah'. Much relieved, the two finished their way to the freezer where, inside, the girl sat, awake and alive, with her other shoe at the ready, just in case.

"Thank you…" he whispered, sliding the cook onto some bags and the collapsing onto the floor himself. He rested his face on his arms, and with his last ounce of strength kicked the shoe out the door, sealing them in. He heard the beep of the timer activating, the hum of the fans and the compressor kicking in to replace the lost cold, but what he did not hear was X.A.N.A's cry, his sickening, mind-slaying victory shriek.

"You Lose."

After all their battles, gains and losses on both sides, that was all X.A.N.A had left to say to them. It wasn't said with any added malice, or ill will, no evil laughter (he was, after all, just a computer). It was just supposed to be a cold, unassailable fact.

You Lose.

But they hadn't lost.

There's a solution to every crisis and Jeremy knew he'd find it, just as he knew without a shadow of doubt that Ulrich, Odd, Yumi and Aelita would all be alive and waiting when he got out. If this didn't beat him, there was no way it was beating them. They were the fighters, this was their war.

And it was just getting started.

Thank you for reading Code: Crisis - episode one - "Mic – Check", Please leave a Review!

Next episode: "The - Reunion"