Chapter 3.0: The Life Never Lived
….
"Look at my giant snowball, mommy!"
"Stay near the house, darling!"
….
"…ASHLEY!"
"Huh? Oh, what?" Ashley blinked rapidly and sat up straight, trying to clear her head. Her blurry eyes swam back into focus, revealing Sam, Alex, and Ginger staring at her from all sides.
"I asked you if you thought we should just go back to the factory, since our research is going nowhere...are you sure you're feeling well?" Alex said concernedly from across the wooden table at which they sat. The table was covered in books. Ashley blinked. That's right, they were in the library. Researching Waldo Schaeffer and his alias…Franz Hopper, that's what it was.
"Erm...I…uh…" Ashley stuttered nervously, embarrassed that she had no idea of what was going on around her.
"Are you O.K.?" Ginger asked from her left. Ashley turned to her, seeing even more books. "You've seemed a bit off ever since the Scyphozoa went after you yesterday."
"I'm fine…it's just that…" Ashley sighed, and held her head in her hands. She felt someone put a hand over hers, and looked up. Sam had reached across the table from where he was sitting next to Alex and had placed his hand softly on hers.
"It's all right, Ashley. Tell us what's wrong. We're all friends here." She smiled slightly but pulled away from Sam nonetheless, sitting straight up in her chair once more. She saw Alex stiffen, and she shook her head at him. He relaxed a bit, knowing that she was O.K. with her decision to tell the others what was going on.
"The day that the mystery program entered me through the Data Stream, I had a strange dream. All blurred, but it had clear audio. The voices…they…well, I just couldn't place them. Still can't, actually, which is the weird thing. I can remember everything from my childhood, but not these voices. There were three of them, the voices: a man, a woman, and a little girl…a family. I thought nothing of it, didn't think it to be terribly important, so I brushed it off. Yesterday, though, before I woke up on the floor of the Scanner Room, I had…another…one of the things. Dreams. Visions. Whatever you want to call them. I still couldn't see anything, but the same man's voice was saying something…I can't really remember…and then…somebody started playing the piano. In the vision."Ginger and Sam looked at each other worriedly, while Alex just stared at Ashley. He hadn't heard about this part before. Ashley cleared her throat slightly, then continued. "This morning, I woke up to the same piano melody…I think it was…some childhood tune, I can't really place it right now…and right now, I just had a new one of the things…I heard the little girl talking to her mother…they were outside…" Ashley sniffed slightly, causing everyone to look up at her. They saw a tear roll slowly down her face. "I think…I think I might be losing my mind…" She let out a few frustrated, tear-choked sobs, then took a deep breath and continued, albeit a bit shakily. "I think…that the reason I've been having more of these things since yesterday is because of what the Scyphozoa tried to do to me. You see, I've been…mulling it over. While the Scyphozoa had me, I was seeing one huge vision. Images were flying by too fast for me to see, and even the audio was too garbled…like an old tape was being fast-forwarded…but I managed to pick out two images, one of…a wolf…and one of what looked like a small girl laying facedown in some snow…I…" Ashley stopped to wipe the tears away from the brims of her eyes. She looked around sadly at her friends, and took a long, shuddering breath before continuing. "I think that when the Scyphozoa tried to take whatever the mystery program that attacked me in the Tower injected me with out of me, it…pulled whatever it is up to the surface of my mind. Do you follow? When it was on the bottom, recently placed there, it was sort of suppressed; I had more control over it. Now that it's at the top, I've lost any control I had over it when it was at the bottom…which would explain the increase in the…let's call them visions." Sam and Ginger just stared, brows slightly furrowed, but Alex nodded in agreement.
"I understand. It's like the Scyphozoa, by trying to steal whatever it is, took away the lock and chain that was protecting Ashley from it." He stood up, and walked around the table to face his friend. "This means that it's now floating around free in your mind. You have no control over it. And it's not your fault. If anyone's to blame here, it's me. I integrated you into the program. And trust me; you're not losing your mind. Going crazy is much more complicated than this." He smiled slightly, and looked down into his friend's tear-stained face. "I should know, after all." Ashley chuckled weakly, then shakily stood up and buried her face in Alex's shoulder, crying softly.
"I did the right thing, didn't I?" Her voice was muffled by Alex's shirt and her own sobs. "I touched the screen, I did the right thing! So why do I feel like I'm going insane? Why just me?"
"I don't know." Alex said, hugging her tightly as she cried. "I don't know. But I promise you, I will find out. Hey, hey, look at me, come on, now." Alex pushed Ashley away from him and held her out at arm's length. Ashley sniffled, and wiped away the tears from her face using her arm. "We're going to the factory right now and we're going to figure this out. O.K.? I promised you, and I don't break promises. But I need you to calm down. Can you do that?" Ashley nodded, wiped away one last tear, took a long, shuddering breath, and was quiet.
"I suppose we have to start putting the books back…" She said quietly, and turned around. To her surprise, however, she found the wooden table to be completely empty. Ginger and Sam stood side by side in front of her, smiling at her.
"We're here for you." Ginger said, moving forward to hug her.
"Even for the little things." Sam said quietly, staying where he was. Ashley smiled at him over Ginger's shoulder, and he smiled back. Deep down inside her, she felt a strange feeling. She didn't know what it was, but she didn't care. She was glad he did, however.
"I'm sorry you guys had to see me like that." Ashley said quietly, as the group moved through the woods behind the Admin. Building, on their way to the passage to the sewers in the park. "I don't know what came over me. I suppose it was just the stress. I've never been through anything like this before."
"Hey, it's fine." Alex said, looking over his shoulder at her. Ashley was walking a bit farther behind the group, on her insistence that she needed some time to think. "We all have our moments."
"I suppose."
"So, Alex, what do you think you can do to help Ashley?" Sam spoke up, looking over at Alex as they walked.
"I can create a program to try and permanently suppress the mystery whatever inside Ashley that's causing the visions. I can't do anything major now; I actually need more information on the mystery whatever itself, which can only mean one thing. I need to run some tests…" Alex's voice began to fade away. Ashley's vision started to blur. She grabbed onto a tree
"Daddy?"
to support herself, and looked up to try and tell the others to hold on a second, but she couldn't seem to form the words. All she could do was stare groggily at the three blurry figures that were her friends, and her only source of help, walk off into the thick tree line. Now, the only thing she could hear was her heartbeat
"I'm going up to my room."
pounding in her ears. She closed her eyes and slid down the tree to the tangled mess of roots and weeds at the bottom. Perhaps sitting down for a few seconds would help her feel better. She opened her eyes. Her vision was still blurry, and she could no longer see her friends. She tried to make a
What's that? Was that a car?
"All right, come out of there!"
Oh no.
sound, but found that she was still unable to. Ashley stood up, but her legs gave out under her and she quickly found herself on the ground once more. She thought she heard something clatter to the ground beside her, but with the pounding in her ears, there was no way to be sure. She rolled onto her stomach, lay there for a few seconds, then got onto her hands and knees and started to crawl off in the direction of where she thought her friends had gone, eyes tightly shut in order to avoid nausea from the blurriness of her vision. After a few tense minutes of crawling along, she tried opening her eyes again. Still too blurry to see. Her legs felt better though. She shakily stood up, and started to feel her way through the trees.
"There." Alex pointed ahead of him to the manhole cover located in the middle of the clearing. Sam moved ahead and, grunting with the effort, moved the manhole cover to the side with a grating sound that echoed down the dark shaft.
"Ashley, come on." Ginger called behind them. When she received no response, she turned around, and, to her surprise, found that Ashley was no longer behind them. "Ashley?"
"What?" Alex turned around, eyes scanning the small clearing. "Where's Ashley?" Behind him, Sam straightened up.
"I don't know! She's gone!"
"We must've lost her in the last five, ten minutes maximum." Sam said, starting to jog towards the thick line of trees from where they had come. "I'm going to go look for her."
"Do it fast, Sam. The Superscan just picked up an activated Tower." Alex called after him, as a beeping sound started from inside his bag. "We'll meet you and Ashley at the factory."
"Right." Sam called back as he disappeared into the shadows of the forest. Alex reached into his bag for his laptop, and, upon pulling it out, read the Superscan's alert out loud.
"Activated Tower in the Ice Sector, coordinates read 16 degrees east, 40 degrees north." He shut his laptop and slid it back into his bag, then motioned for Ginger to go ahead into the shaft. "Ladies first. We've got work to do."
Ashley opened her eyes again. The blur seemed to be fading from her vision. She could make out thick rays of sunlight ahead. Was she approaching a clearing? How long had she been walking? She plodded ahead. She tried to call out, but was still unable to. Suddenly, she was hit by a wave of nausea. She started to tumble forward, her arms flailing wildly. She felt her left arm hit what felt like a leafy wooden post, and she clamped her hand around it in order to keep herself from falling. She retched. Her right hand scrabbled about below her, searching for ground that she could land safely on. Finding none, she was forced to let go of the post and stumble forward a few steps. She didn't make it far, however. Her foot
"Daddy!"
caught the edge of something sticking up from the ground, and she crashed down onto her right side. This only brought a fresh wave of stomach-churning nausea. She lay there, queasily squirming until the feeling had passed. She tried to get up, but this time was plagued by a sudden sharp pain in her head. She found herself able to cry out, and did so, her arms giving out and letting her fall back down once more. She groaned in pain and slowly
"The Men in Black are here!"
rubbed her temple until the feeling went away. Actually, she felt much better now. She blearily opened her eyes, and was surprised to see that the blur had faded completely from her vision.
Ashley's brief cry echoed more than she thought it would. It was even heard inside the run-down house, where a grimy electrical socket in the foyer had already started to leak a mysterious black fluid.
Ashley found herself staring at her hand, which, aside from a few scrapes and dirt stains, was fine. Underneath, however, was a smooth, yet overgrown flagstone. She looked up, and the first thing that caught her eye was a tattered pink curtain fluttering beyond a pair of disproportioned shutters and a pane of shattered glass. She was at the Hermitage. She stood up, and looked around curiously. How odd. Why was she here? How had she gotten here to begin with? She closed her eyes, trying to remember the vision she had just seen, feeling as if it was partly the vision's fault she had wound up here after stumbling blindly through half the damn forest. The Men in Black…who were they? She didn't know, but this time, she could remember an image…there were two grown men dressed in black suits and black sunglasses staring up through her window at her (but this isn't my house) from exactly where she was standing. She shuddered. The feeling she had gotten from staring at those men…what a terrible one it was. She glanced around to reassure herself that there was nobody else but her here, then started to walk towards the porch. If the others had continued on to the factory, then it'd be quicker to go through the passage to the sewers here than to go and hunt her way through the woods to the manhole in the clearing.
Sam picked up the camera from the forest floor and wiped a streak of mud off of the lens cap. It was Ashley's camera, all right. He put it around his neck to ensure that he wouldn't drop it, and looked around. This must have been where she had gotten left behind. But where could she have gone? He wondered where she could have walked to that was within a five to ten minute radius of where he was. Back to school? No, too long a walk. She didn't beat them to the clearing, that was for sure, so there was only one other place she could have gone. Sam turned and began to run once more with the camera now thudding against his chest, the beat combining with his pounding heart.
Ashley stepped around a small overgrown shrub, and was met with the mysterious black door. She blinked, overwhelmed with a sense of serious déjà vu. Well, duh. She chuckled to herself. Had she forgotten the jump back in time? Smiling, she tugged at the edges, and it opened with only a low squeak. She stepped inside, turning and pulling the door closed behind her. Before she managed to get it closed all the way, however, a pitch black shadow rushed in. She gasped, the door forgotten completely, and backed into the corner; the shadow blocked her way into the sewer passage. The thing lunged forward. She screamed, the sound bouncing off of the cold cement walls.
Alex stopped walking and looked back, brow furrowed. Ginger, who was now a few feet ahead of him on the narrow walkway, stopped and turned to him.
"What?"
"Nothing, I…It's just that I thought I heard somebody scream back there."
"Now you're hearing things?" Ginger said, her voice heavy with scorn. "What are we coming to?" She turned with a small laugh and continued to walk on. Alex, after a moment's hesitation, followed.
Sam froze, a cold chill spreading throughout his body. Someone had screamed. A girl. Ashley. He ran forward, adrenaline now driving all he did. He burst through the trees into the clearing where the Hermitage sat, shouting Ashley's name.
"Ashley? Was that you? Ashley, where are you? Are you O.K.?" He paused next to the porch, holding onto the weathered banister in order to catch his breath. He glanced up at the porch, half hoping to see Ashley there, but all he saw was the Hermitage's front door, tightly shut. He blinked. Wait a minute, tightly shut? He closed his eyes. Before the return to the past, when they had visited the Hermitage, Alex had opened the front door…and paint chips had fallen off the doorframe when the doorjamb scraped against it. He opened his eyes again, and leant forward to try and get a glimpse of the porch next to the door. There were no paint chips on the stained wooden planks. He straightened up, now knowing where Ashley was, and hurried around the stairs to the back of the porch. He sidestepped the same shrub covering the entrance to the sewers that Ashley had sidestepped mere minuets ago, and nearly split his head open on the edge of the metal door, which lay slightly ajar. He stepped back and pushed the door open the rest of the way, throwing daylight into the narrow passage. He cried out. Ashley was lying on the cold cement floor, unmoving, eyes closed. He rushed forward, her camera swinging from the cord around his neck.
"Ashley!" He said worriedly, lightly patting her cheek. "Ashley, are you O.K.? Wake up! Come on, now." She stirred slightly, her head moved to the side a bit. Relief washed over Sam like a cool breeze. "That's it, come on. Wake up." Her eyelids slowly parted. "Thank god." Then Sam was overtaken by revulsion. He jerked upwards, stumbling out of the passageway into the Hermitage's rear garden. Ashley stood up, purple electricity crackling around her clenched fists. She growled distortedly, the odd symbol in her eyes pulsating. "Ashley, please, no!" In front of him, Ashley raised her closed fist, then thrust it towards Sam. Purple tendrils of electricity shot at Sam like bullets. He got his arm halfway up to his face before the electricity struck him. Sam's scream echoed through the woods around the Hermitage. Bird wings fluttered. Sam thudded to the ground, the camera making a hollow thumping sound on his chest. It bounced once, then fell to the ground beside him. The last thing he saw was a flock of birds flying away as fast as they could. Then the blackness came.
Ashley looked at the body in front of her. The boy had once been her friend, but no more. She lowered her hand. Now her only friend was her master. And she would do anything for her master. The symbol in her eyes pulsed twice. She turned and rushed down the sewer passageway.
Alex landed hard on the cement floor of the factory. He straightened up in time to see Ginger fall right next to him. She skidded a bit on the dusty floor.
"Get the elevator ready." Alex said, fishing his mobile out of his pocket. "I want to call Sam, see how he's doing." Ginger nodded and walked over to the elevator shaft. She pressed the call button, and with a deep 'clunk', the elevator started to rise up to ground level. A few feet away, Alex held his iPhone up to his ear. It rang once, twice, three times. He stood there for a few more seconds, impatiently tapping his foot.
"You've reached Sam." Sam's voice sounded in his ear. "Please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I'm available." He ended the connection and turned to Ginger, who was standing inside the elevator. It had just come in.
"He didn't pick up." Alex said with a hint of concern in his voice. He pocketed his phone, and walked into the elevator to stand next to Ginger. "I hope nothing's wrong. I'll try again through the terminal when we're in the lab." He reached over and pushed the button that would send the elevator down to the lab complex.
"You can do that?" Ginger asked, slightly impressed. The metal covering rattled down in front of them, and the elevator shuddered downwards as Alex smiled slyly at her.
Ashley burst her way through the hatch that led onto the factory bridge. The symbol in her eyes pulsed. She, with the help of her best friend, her master, heard the elevator start to whirr down the shaft.
"You know what you have to do! Buy yourself time!"
She nodded, the symbol pulsing. Her master was right. If those fools arrived in the lab complex before her, she would never complete her mission. She ran forward, moving at inhuman speeds, leaving a small trail of shadows behind her. The shadows, when she got too far away, disappeared. She leapt off the landing inside the factory, her hair fluttering slightly as she was held in the air for a few brief milliseconds. Then she fell. She hit the floor with a resounding crash, cracking the cement around her. Since her master took away all pain, she was able to get up very quickly. She moved over to the elevator shaft and saw that the cables were still moving. They were still not at the lab complex. Excellent. The symbol in her eyes pulsed. She drew her arm back, then smashed her clenched fist into the elevator call panel. It shattered under her electrified punch, bending the metal panel inwards and sending pieces of red plastic from the call button skittering across the floor, some even making their way into the elevator shaft. She looked up in time to see the cables grind to a halt with a shower of purple sparks. She smirked, a lock of hair falling across her face. The effect was quite terrifying. She moved away from the now useless elevator and started to run towards the blue door that would lead her to the turbines room and the lab complex.
Ginger screamed as the elevator jolted harshly, then stopped moving all together.
"What just happened?" She squeaked, a note of hysteria permeating her voice.
"Not sure." Alex said, repeatedly pressing the two buttons on the call panel inside the elevator. Aside from a deep clunking sound, the buttons had no effect. "Something must have gone wrong. We have to get out of here, in case this is one of X.A.N.A.'s traps. He looked up at the ceiling, and spotted the emergency escape hatch. "Look!" He said, pointing. "We can get out through there. You boost me up so I can open it and get through, then I'll reach down and pull you up after me." Ginger nodded, and moved to the center of the elevator. She formed a stepping-place with her hands, and Alex put his shoe in it. He judged how much force he should use, then pushed up off of the floor, hands outstretched, and burst through the escape hatch above. The hatch split down the middle and the two small doors swung open onto the elevator roof, the sound echoing in the dark shaft. The open escape hatch let a musty smell into the elevator; one Alex wrinkled his nose to. He felt Ginger wavering below him, and grabbed the edges of the escape hatch in order to lessen some of the weight Ginger had to hold up. "I'm going to pull myself up. Give me a last boost on three?" Ginger grunted in agreement. "All right." Alex redoubled his grip on the edges of the escape hatch. "Three!" Ginger heaved him upwards as Alex pulled with all his might on the sides of the hatch. He slid easily through the hole, and dragged himself onto the metal roof of the elevator, careful not to disturb the elevator cables.
"You O.K.?" Ginger's voice floated through the hole that led back down into the interior of the elevator.
"Peachy. It wasn't very hard, and there's plenty of room up here. I'll pull you up in a second; let me get myself adjusted." Alex positioned himself next to the hatch in his knees. As he shifted while trying to find a comfortable position, something crunched underneath him. He lifted up a knee and saw what had made the odd sound- he had put his weight down on a piece of red plastic, and it had shattered. Red plastic? How odd. He stuck his head into the elevator and looked down at Ginger. "Here, catch." He tossed some pieces of the plastic down to her. She caught them in her cupped hands and looked curiously at them.
"What are they?"
"Pieces of the ground floor's call button. I guess we know why we stopped."
"Someone smashed the elevator's main call panel!" Ginger gasped, realization spreading across her face. "But who would do such a thing?"
"My guess? Someone possessed by X.A.N.A. that wants to get inside the lab complex while we're not there. That must've been why X.A.N.A. activated that Tower."
"But who did he possess?" Ginger asked, letting the pieces of plastic fall from her hands and clatter against the metal floor of the elevator. "And why?"
"The only way we'll find that out is by getting to the complex." Alex said grimly, turning his head to look up the shaft. "We didn't go far enough down the shaft to reach the lab's door, and we're not high enough so that I can see light at the top of the shaft." He turned his head back towards Ginger. "Either way, looks like we're in for a long climb."
What was that sound? Sam grunted , trying to move his body. Ah…damn, that hurt. He groggily opened his eyes. Double vision faded away to reveal a brilliant blue sky spotted with singing birds bordered by a weather-stained roof on his left, and tree branches on his right. That's right, he was at the Hermitage. The Hermitage…because of Ashley. He groaned in pain, pulling himself up to a sitting position. Something bumped into his left side, and he looked down. Ashley's camera. He felt a twinge of sadness. He looked up, and saw that the door to the sewers was wide open. He tried to stand up, but found he was unable to just yet. That was some shock that had coursed through him; he wasn't surprised that he hadn't regained full mobility. He shifted to the left a little bit to free his right pants pocket from underneath him. He reached into the pocket and pulled out his mobile, which, aside from being a little warmer than normal, hadn't been killed from the electricity. He pressed a button, and his phone went to speed dial. Numbers toned rapidly in his ear, then the ringing began. Pick up, pick up, pick up…
"Can you see anything?" Ginger called up to Alex, who was just a few rungs above him.
"I think I see some light, actually. We're getting close. What about you? Can you still see the elevator?"
"Not at all, and, to tell you the truth, it's a bit frightening."
"I don't mean to be cliché…" Alex chuckled as he climbed. "…but don't look down." Ginger groaned.
"Terrible. You're terrible, that's what you are." They continued climbing in silence.
Sam groaned, ending the connection. This was the third time he had tried to call Alex, and he still wasn't picking up. He moved his leg slightly, assuring that he was regaining mobility in them. He pocketed his phone and rolled over onto his stomach. Ashley's camera dug painfully into his chest, but he couldn't worry about that right now. Alex and Ginger could be hurt. He pushed his upper half off of the ground with his arms, keeping his knees on the grass. He leaned back, and successfully positioned himself on top of his legs. Now for the hard part. Using one hand, he balanced against the ground as he stretched each leg out behind him, one by one, to make sure they wouldn't cramp up. They didn't. He brought his legs in, curled them underneath him, then pushed upwards. He rose off of the ground and, a few second later, with only a minimal amount of tingling, he was standing up straight once more. He hobbled over to the entrance to the sewers, and leaned against the outside wall. He pulled his phone out of his pocket again and hit the number that started the speed dial for Alex. He wanted to try one more time before he went totally out of the reception area.
Alex's phone gave off four Tri-tones, each one in rapid succession.
"Can you get yourself out?" He called down to Ginger, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he looked down the shaft at his friend.
"Yeah, I'm good." Alex walked a bit away from the elevator shaft, and checked his phone to see what had made the noise.
Signal Found
Sam: 3 Missed Calls
"Shit."
"What?" Ginger asked, pulling herself onto the factory floor. "Wow, am I ever glad to be out of there."
"Sam's called me three times, no voicemails. Oh, wait, here he is again." Alex said, as Sam's caller ID showed up on his screen. He accepted the call, and put the phone up to his ear. "Hello?"
"Alex, finally! Why haven't you been picking up? Were you underground or something? I mean, seriously! I called you three times!"
"Hey, calm down." Alex said reassuringly into the phone as Ginger walked over to him. "We're in the factory. Someone smashed the main call panel for the elevator while we were on our way down to the lab. We actually just finished crawling out of the shaft; we had to climb up the whole thing back to the ground floor because we weren't down far enough to access any part of the lab complex via the elevator doors."
"I know who did it. It's Ashley. She's been possessed by X.A.N.A. . I found her at the Hermitage, unconscious, then she woke up and shot electricity at me and knocked me out cold. I don't know how long I've been out, but I think it's safe to assume long enough for her to trap you guys in the elevator shaft."
"Oh, shit."
"What?"
"She's being controlled by X.A.N.A. ."
"I know, I just told you."
"No, I know, what I mean is if she's being controlled by X.A.N.A., then X.A.N.A.'s obviously possessed her to get her onto Lyoko by herself when none of us are around to save her from-"
"…the Scyphozoa." Sam said in a hushed tone of voice.
"Yeah. And it only gets worse." Alex said, motioning for Ginger to follow him as he began to run towards the turbine room's access door.
"Why?"
"She trapped us about seven minutes ago, and virtualization doesn't take more than a few seconds if you know what you're doing."
"Alex, you have to get to Ashley right away." Sam said, a steely coldness in his voice. "A lot of time has passed, and if we're too late…"
"I know, I know." We're on our way to the turbines room. Sam, we need you here. Hurry up!"
"On my way." Alex ended the call and skidded to a halt in front of the access door. It was wide open.
"Dammit! Come on, Ginger, there's no time to lose!" He started running down the cement steps.
"Why, what's going on?" Ginger said worriedly, following him. "Is Ashley all right?"
"She's been possessed by X.A.N.A., and she's most likely already in the clutches of the Scyphozoa." Alex panted, as he dashed into the steamy innards of the turbines room. "Which is why we're running- I have no idea how little memory Ashley has left!"
My staff…is…too far away…hgnh…
"Where are we going?"
"To a world…where…we will be safe. You and I. Forever."
N…no…my memories (these aren't my memories)…don't take my memories again…
"Dammit." Alex cursed, an icy hand twisting his stomach into knots. "Oh, damn." He typed furiously, bringing up one of Belpois's tutorial videos while the countdown continued to run in the background.
"What are you doing?" Ginger asked worriedly, shifting her weight repeatedly from one foot to the other.
"Setting up a delayed virtualization process for the both of us. Ashley is about to go over the halfway mark, and sending you in alone would be too risky." Alex exited out of the video and set the comm. headset on the keyboard. "It's ready." He said, running over to the hatch in the floor and yanking it open as another countdown started onscreen. "Ginger, hurry. If you're not in a Scanner when the countdown reaches zero, you'll be left behind." Alex disappeared down into the Scanner Room, and Ginger quickly followed him.
*…517, 516, 515, 514, 513…*
Sam paused to catch his breath right outside the passage leading to the Gym. Ashley's camera swung wildly from around his neck. Why didn't he just leave it here? Ashley could come back and get it later; all it was doing was slowing him down. The instant he finished contemplating the action, however, he was overcome by a sense of shame. How could he even think that? He straightened up and ran on. He was almost there, no need to slow down now.
*…498, 497, 496, 495, 494, 493…"
The Scanner doors closed with a thud in front of him, and the whirring immediately started up once more. His shirt fluttered around his waist. Alex felt himself be lifted off the floor. The delayed virtualization process was much faster than he was. He shivered, knowing what was coming next. He felt his hair be blown back and he closed his eyes. The white light grew brighter and brighter, eventually seeming to render the action of closing his eyes useless. The screaming inside the scanner grew to a ludicrous pitch, digging into his brain. Then everything relaxed. He let himself go into the light. The whooshing started.
*…475, 474, 473, 472, 471, 470…*
Sam breathed a sigh of relief, thankful to be off of the scrimpy board connecting the factory bridge's access ladder to the sewer tunnel from where he had come. He ran over to the ladder, and began to climb. He couldn't even waste a single second.
*…466, 465, 464, 463, 462, 461…*
Ginger hit the ice floe below her with a thud. Her black boots must've prevented her from slipping, because if she had attempted this in the real world, she would've fallen flat on her face. A few feet off to her right, Alex landed with a thud and a grunt. She turned to face him, still impressed by how his Lyoko manifestation looked so much like him.
"So what's the plan?"
"Free Ashley." He said, starting to run. She followed close behind.
"But what about the Tower?"
"I checked the Superscan before starting up the delayed virtualization process; it's deactivated itself. X.A.N.A. must've only activated it for the manifestation of the polymorphic specter, and now that he has Ashley, he's got no use for the thing."
"Understood. So where is Ashley, exactly?"
"I programmed the delayed virtualization to send us close to where Ashley is on the map I saw on the terminal of where she virtualized herself. It was a little buggy, so I couldn't find the exact coordinates. I do know that the Scyphozoa has her near some ice cave, however. It's not far from here; the path we're looking for is located inside one of those things ahead." Alex pointed to a large cluster of ice blocks on the landscape ahead of them.
"So one of those is a cave?"
"No. All of them are caves; just our luck. But one of them has a path that'll lead us directly to Ashley and the Scyphozoa."
"So we're playing guess-the-cave?"
"Looks like it, unless Sam can get to the terminal before we waste too much time."
"Let's hope he does." The two friends ran on, desperately hoping that they would find Ashley in time.
*…430, 429, 428, 427, 426, 425, 424…*
Sam sprinted across the ground floor of the factory. He glanced back at the elevator shaft as he ran, and saw that the call panel had indeed been shattered. He skidded to a halt in front of the access door to the turbines room. Almost there. He started down the steps.
*…416, 415, 414, 413, 412, 411, 410…*
Alex and Ginger jumped up onto a raised part of the ice floe.
"There are the caves!" Ginger said, pointing. "I can see one already."
"Let's go, then, no time to waste!" Alex kept jumping up onto higher parts of the ice floe, until he had reached the raised part that held the entrances to the caves. "Shit…there are tons of them..."
"We've got to start looking." Ginger said, jumping up next to him. "How will we know we've found the right one?"
"Most of the caves are just a small space in the ice block. The one we're looking for is a little smaller and leads much farther back than the others. You'll be able to see a significant difference in the lighting inside the cave as well."
"I'll take the right side." Ginger said, pointing. "You take that side." Alex nodded in agreement, and they both headed off.
*…348, 347, 346, 345, 344, 343…*
Sam sat down in the high-backed yellow chair. He looked on the terminal's screen, and saw the countdown. Ashley was dangerously close to zero, much more so than she had been last time. He glanced on the map of the Ice Sector that was to the left of the countdown, and saw her. Ashley. The map was buggy, unable to give Sam the exact coordinates of where the Scyphozoa had Ashley. But there seemed to be a tunnel leading to her…so if he traced the tunnel back to its starting point, that would be…there. His eyebrows raised in surprise. Alex and Ginger were racing around in the caves. What were they doing? He realized that they may not have known that they would have to hunt for the correct cave, and sighed. If only Alex had looked a bit more carefully at the map before virtualizing himself! He looked back at Alex's symbol. Oh, he had just passed it! Sam placed the comm. headset in his ear.
"Alex, stop moving. You're right next to the right cave."
"Sam! When did you get in the lab?" His friend's voice came back, surprised. "And which cave is the right one, again?"
"The one on your right. I just got here, actually. Hurry! Ashley's dangerously close to zero."
"What's the countdown at?" Sam glanced on the opposite window.
"Nearing the 300 mark. Get going!"
"On our way." Onscreen, Sam saw Alex's symbol move into the cave where the tunnel to Ashley was. Ginger's symbol followed Alex's, and they soon were both moving at a rapid clip through the ice tunnel.
*…311, 310, 309, 308, 307, 306…*
Alex heard Ginger scream once more behind him as he slid down the tunnel at a dangerous speed. Thankfully, the inside of the tunnel was rounded like the inside of a pipe, so there was nowhere to smash to a sudden stop at.
"Ginger, how you doing?" He shouted back to his friend.
"I'm slightly terrified, but otherwise, just dandy!" She screamed back, the sound intermingling with the sound of scraping ice. Alex squinted ahead – they were going down a long straight section now – was that light?
"Sam, how close are we to Ashley?" He called.
"The exit is right in front of you!" Sam radioed back. "But I warn you, it's a bit of a drop. Brace yourselves!"
"Ginger!" Alex shouted as the pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel started to expand. "How good are you with falling from dizzying heights?"
"Not so great!" Her response echoed back.
"Then you're gonna hate this!" He screamed, as he flew out of the end of the tunnel. He felt the ground under him disappear, and suddenly he was freefalling. He heard Ginger shriek in terror as she fell over whatever edge he had fallen over. He screwed his eyes tightly shut as he saw the Ice Sector spinning around him. Ginger wasn't the only one with a slight fear of heights. Suddenly, he hit something hard enough to cause his eyes to fly open and the wind to be knocked out of him. He momentarily saw whiteness spinning crazily below him, then hit the ground with a yell of pain. He slid a few feet due to the impact, then came to a slow stop. He groaned, slowly getting to his hands and knees. Suddenly Ginger landed on top of him, throwing him back onto the ice. He let out a yell of surprise, and they both slid a few more feet across the ice floe. "Get off…" Alex groaned, shoving Ginger off of his back. "Damn, that REALLY hurt."
"Did you just call me fat?" Ginger grumbled from her place on the ice. "Because if you did, you'll get away with it. I hurt too much to move."
"You both lost 30 life points!" Sam said in their ears. "Stop whining about your pain and get to Ashley already! Her countdown's at 228!"
"Oh, shit!" Alex exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. "Where is she?"
"Look behind you!" Alex and Ginger both turned 360 and saw, 20 feet away, Ashley in the Scyphozoa's clutches. The Scyphozoa itself was surrounded by four Bloks and three Kankrelats.
"Ginger, go behind me!" Alex shouted, sprinting ahead of her. "I'll take care of the monsters! You get to Ashley!"
"Right!" Ginger started running behind him.
"Ice Ball!" Alex shouted, firing off an Ice Ball at the Kankrelat directly in front of him. It hit, resulting in the Kankrelat's imminent death. Alex formed another Ice Ball and was about to shoot it at a Blok, when a sneaky Kankrelat shot a round of laser fire at him. Two shots caught him in the leg, causing him to crash to the ground, and another hit his chest. Alex cried out in pain.
"Alex, you just lost another 30 life points! Be careful, you're down to 90!"
"I'm doing my best, Sam! There's just too many!"
*…148, 147, 146, 145, 144, 143…*
Sam bit another piece of his thumbnail off. He hadn't chewed his nails in a long time, but the stress from the situation had brought the old habit back. He screamed in frustration as Ginger's ID card flashed red and dropped life points.
"Ginger, 25 life point loss! You're down to 95! What's happening?"
"The Bloks won't let me or Alex get through to Ashley!" Ginger's voice came back. "Alex is doing the best he can; he just took out another Kankrelat, but the Bloks are too much!"
"Use your paralyzing smoke to immobilize one of the Bloks, then destroy it!"
"Right!" A few moments of radio silence let another nail be chewed off in nervousness, then he saw Ginger's ID card take over a Blok's; she had done it.
"Good job!" He said shakily.
*…122, 121, 120, 119, 118, 117…*
Ginger didn't have long to celebrate, however. Just as the Blok's remains were scattered all around her, she was already having to dodge laser fire from another Blok. She unsheathed a Shadow Sword and swung around her in a violent 360, managing to take out the last Kankrelat.
"Ginger, good job! There are only the three Bloks left!" Sam's voice echoed in her ear. "Try getting close to Ashley! She's gone below the final hundred mark; you guys are cutting it way too close!"
"We're doing our best!" Alex shouted, countering an ice beam from the Blok closest to him with a powerful Ice Ball. "It's no tea party over here!" He quickly sidestepped to avoid several rounds of rapid laser fire, only to get hit by a stray set of Fire Rings from the Blok Ginger was dueling.
"Alex, 50 point loss!" Sam shouted in their ears. "Be careful, you're down to 40!"
"Ginger!" Alex shouted from the ice, ignoring Sam. "Hurry, throw me your Shadow Sword!"
"Catch!" Ginger flung the sword she was currently fighting with towards Alex, and unsheathed her last one from her pack. Alex leapt up and caught it, then flung it with all his might towards Ashley and the Scyphozoa, just as the two Bloks in front of him unleashed a vicious barrage of Fire Rings towards him. Ginger turned just in time to see her Shadow Sword harden into a pitch-black colored substance as it spun towards her captured friend, the blade now thinner and sharper than anything she had ever seen. Next to her, Alex let out a yell that was cut short by a small whooshing sound. She had no reason to turn and look; she knew he had been devirtualized. Her sword made one final, graceful 360 in midair, then reached Ashley and the Scyphozoa. It cut through all of the tentacles binding Ashley to the hideous monster, small red drops of memories leaking out from the sliced appendages. The Scyphozoa screamed in pain as Ashley thudded to the ground, eyes closed. Ginger saw her Shadow Sword embed itself in an ice block directly behind the Scyphozoa, who was already starting to flee. The blade faded back into the mysterious shadowy substance, thus losing its grip on the ice block, and clattered to the ice below.
*…74.*
The whirring started from a high, whiny pitch, then died down rapidly to the normal, steady hum as the Scanner doors burst open with a cloud of steam in the dark Scanner Room. Alex stumbled out amidst a pool of golden light, the steam roiling around his feet. He wanted to lay down on the cool metal floor, but there was something more important on the line right now. He moved over to the ladder that led up to the lab and began to climb.
Sam let himself relax, sliding down a bit in the high-backed yellow chair. Alex had done it, and just in time too. Thank god. 74…that was way too close. On the main screen in front of him, X.A.N.A.'s eye-symbol appeared in the window containing the information on Ashley's memories, pulsed once, then disappeared, taking the whole window with it. Sam heard something behind him, and turned the chair to see Alex climbing out of the hatch that led to the Scanner Room.
"How is she?" He asked, slowly making his way over to the terminal.
"Fine." Sam responded, returning the chair to its normal position. "You cut the tentacles just in time; the countdown on my side stopped at 74 out of 1000. That was way too close."
"You're telling me." Alex groaned, leaning against the side of the high-backed yellow chair. "Did Ginger take care of the Bloks? I know they got me good."
"No, actually…" Sam muttered, straightening up and leaning forward. "She's still fighting. Ashley's just gotten up and seems to be trying to help…oh, no, there goes Ginger…" Alex shifted slightly to see Ginger's ID card twirl and disappear, leaving Ashley alone with the two Bloks. "Ashley, I know you're weak from being held by the Scyphozoa, but can you take these monsters? I'm starting the Devirtualization process, but you need to fend for yourself in case the Scyphozoa comes back."
"Don't worry, I'm fine." Ashley said, twirling her staff rapidly in her hands to block laser fire from the monsters in front of her. "But why not just let me be devirtualized by the monsters?"
"I…I'd really feel more comfortable if I devirtualized you…" Sam stuttered over the comm.
"Oh, Sam. Thank you for caring, but the fastest way out of here is to lower my staff. Be sure to be in the Scanner Room to help me…if the return trip is anything like last time, then I want someone there to make sure I don't get a concussion."
"All right…understood…" Ashley smiled. There went that feeling again, somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She lowered her staff. The Bloks continued firing. She gave out a few short grunts as multiple rounds of rapid-fire lasers hit her full on in the chest, then she crumpled to the ground. She blinked, and gasped one more time, looking up at the dark black-and-blue void above her that represented the sky in the Ice Sector. She shifted her head slightly, and saw her torso disappearing. Beyond that, the Bloks were scuttling away. They had lost. Her smile was the last thing to fade away.
Ginger stepped slowly out of her Scanner, head spinning. Dammned Bloks. She heard someone on the far side of the room, and turned to see Sam clambering down the ladder.
"Sam…and Ashley…?"
"She let herself be devirtualized by the Bloks; she didn't want to wait for me to devirtualize her." Sam said, leaping onto the metal floor. Ashley's camera swung from around his neck. "That's her, right there." He pointed to the Scanner right across from Ginger's, the only other one in the room that was making noise. The whining increased in the room once more, then died back down to normal pitch as the doors opened with a puff of steam. Ashley stepped out amidst the steam, holding her head. Sam and Ginger rushed over to help her.
"Are you O.K.?" Ginger asked worriedly as, on the opposite side of the room, Alex began climbing down the ladder.
"How is she?" He called, as he made his way onto the floor. "Did she faint again?"
"No, I'm fine." Ashley said, taking her hand off her head and cracking her neck. Everyone winced. "The return trip wasn't so bad this time, even though the Scyphozoa managed to take more out of me than before. I think that the first time was definitely the worst, and I'll just get used to it. Just out of curiosity, at what did my countdown stop?"
"74." Sam said grimly.
"Cutting it a bit close?" Ashley scoffed.
"Yeah, well." Alex said, grinning. "We had to climb our way up the elevator shaft after you trapped us in there; at least we had an excuse!"
"Wait, what?"
"You mean you can't remember?" Alex turned to Sam with a puzzled look on his face. "So after a person is de-X.A.N., they lose all recollection of events that transpired while being controlled by the polymorphic specter. Interesting."
"Well, you certainly acted out." Sam chuckled, turning back to Ashley. "You nearly electrocuted me, trapped your other two friends inside the elevator shaft, virtualized yourself straight into the Scyphozoa's clutches…I mean, geez!"
"Hey, at least I have an excuse!" Ashley said, laughing.
"Ashley, are you sure you're feeling better?" Alex asked.
"Yes, I told you."
"Then you won't mind me asking if you saw anything this time around?" Ashley's brow furrowed as she thought.
"I didn't see anything…but I remember hearing voices. The same man's voice. And the girl's. They were talking about some sort of world…I don't know. But when I was at the Hermitage, I had a vision…and I remember an image. No voices, I can't remember those, just an image. It was of…two men, dressed in black suits…I was looking out of…oh, you remember that shattered window in the little girl's room? The one that looked out into the front yard? I was looking through that one, only it looked like it hadn't been broken yet, and the men in black suits were standing in front, looking up at me." Ashley finished with a sigh, and looked around at her friends. "It's all very confusing…"
"I agree." Alex said, stretching. "I'm in the process of decoding the video diaries that Belpois left behind. I uncovered some last night, but they were damaged. I couldn't pick up a thing from them; I had to discard them. I'm hoping that I can find out more about what's happening to you through them, though." He nodded at Ashley. "For now, through…It's getting late. We should head back to school; we're going to miss dinner."
"You would think about food at a time like this, wouldn't you?" Ashley laughed, lightly punching him on the arm as they began to walk towards the ladder.
"You glutton." Ginger giggled.
"What can I say? I can't be hungry after battling the evil minions of a diabolical computer program that's hell-bent on taking some memories from my best friend?"
"Well, I'll give it to you." Ashley smiled. "After all, you do have an excuse."
*Later that night, back at Kadic*
Sam strummed out a few chords on his guitar, then sat down on his bed in order to read some sheet music next to him as Alex popped his back in the chair at the desk.
"I'm glad I got this back from Ginger…but dude, seriously, that's really gross. Almost as bad as Ashley." Sam made a face at Alex, who only chuckled.
"Gross it may be, but it's really relaxing. You should try it sometime."
"No thanks." Sam played a light introduction to some song Alex had never heard before, and sighed. "Music can sooth even the most savage of beasts, after all."
"I don't doubt that, but I don't think a guitar can help reduce pain in your lower back." Sam chuckled.
"No, I suppose not." A few seconds of Sam tuning his guitar went by, then several electronic blips sounded from Alex's computer. "What was that?" Sam asked, continuing to tune his guitar. "Did your program rescue another one of the video diaries?"
"Apparently so…"Alex said, starting to type. "And it's not all buggy! It runs! Come here, look!" Sam placed his guitar down on the bed and moved silently next to Alex, who was looking at his computer screen. There was a window open, with a picture of that Belpois kid on it; this was presumably the video diary.
"Go on." Sam urged Alex.
"Debugged playback." Alex hit a key on the keyboard, and the video started playing, but Belpois's face just fizzed and popped, with no sound except static. "Oh, damn…this one's buggy too…oh, no wait, here we go. It was only that part that was affected." Alex hit a few more keys, then the video began again from a different point.
"…X.A.N.A. was able to escape the Supercomputer. Franz Hopper, however, brought Lyoko back to life and saved his daughter by restoring Aelita's memories and her missing fragment that X.A.N.A. took from her. This means Aelita is free; she is no longer linked to the Supercomputer. Unfortunately, so is X.A.N.A. . Shutting down the Supercomputer will do nothing anymore. X.A.N.A. has indeed become more powerful, but I don't think he's invincible. We will continue to fight, all of us. After all…fighting X.A.N.A. is our job." Onscreen, Belpois gave a small smile, then the screen cut to black.
"So…what did we learn from this? It seems that we heard all of this before, back in the laboratory, before the return to the past." Sam said, flopping back down on his bed.
"Oh, we learned nothing new." Alex said, turning in the chair to face Sam. "But I confirmed a suspicion."
"And that would be?"
"Let me explain. With the video we saw in the lab, we had nothing to go off of; only our trust of Belpois, which, let's admit, was pretty small at the time. But now, I can back up some of what Belpois said with fact."
"How?"
"With dates, for one. The timestamp and date on the video diary that we just saw is different from the one we saw in the lab, radically different. And age doesn't lie. Belpois clearly looked younger in the one onscreen, and in the lab, he looked older."
"So what can you confirm?"
"I can confirm that X.A.N.A. escaped the Supercomputer once before, and that the original Lyoko warriors managed to destroy it and shut down the Supercomputer. I can also conclude that X.A.N.A. escaped by using the Scyphozoa to steal Aelita's memories, one of the two apparent keys to Lyoko."
"And how does this help us? We already knew that, we just didn't have anything to base it off of."
"Sam, think!" Alex said, starting to get a bit frustrated. "We can conclude from what we just saw and from what we saw in the lab before the return to the past that X.A.N.A. used the Scyphozoa to attack Aelita- and ONLY Aelita- so that he could get her memories, one of the two keys to Lyoko. Once X.A.N.A. had both keys to Lyoko, he was able to escape the Supercomputer!"
"Wait…" Sam said, stating to get it. He sat up slowly. "If the Scyphozoa went after Aelita and only Aelita for her memories, one of the keys to Lyoko…and now, the Scyphozoa is going after Ashley and only Ashley…then that means…"
"…that means that we now know what the mystery program injected Ashley with." Alex finished in a hushed voice. "It injected her with another person's memories…and that person is…Aelita Schaeffer."
~Fin
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