Episode Four : The Birds

Soundtrack: All American Reject's "Move Along."

This is my favorite episode of the season. Not quite sure why, I just like how it worked out. Also, I thought I was very clever with the chapter titles. Anyone who can figure them out gets cookies, and, heck, I'll throw in a free piece of art. Whatever you request. Sure, why not?

A quick note; I got the impression, from the show, that William was supposed to be pretty cute and reflected this in my descriptions of him. It's not Kloe crushing on him or anything… Yeah. Okay, done now.

Taidine

Chapter One: High Angle Shots

A gaggle of geese flapped through the air, honking and cawing. Their silhouettes, shapely brown and black, formed a ragged V against the crisp blue of the early morning sky. A single cloud hung somewhere below them. It was a perfect autumn day – everything looked absolutely real, lacking the veil of summer heat, blurriness of spring humidity, or shroud of winter snow. Through this the flock tirelessly flew.

Now, below, a river became visible. It was lined by large, industrial buildings, warehouses and the like. In the center, an island dominated by an ancient, crumbling factory was connected to the mainland by a long suspension bridge, stretched like a thread over the water. It was incredibly blue water, impressive for a river that ran through the industrial zone of a sizeable city, only a shade darker then the sky it reflected. Also mirrored on its wave-chopped surface were the dark, blobby shadows of the geese, growing larger as the flock dropped towards it. They landed awkwardly, as geese are wont, but when the wings and wavelets calmed, a scene as picturesque as a postcard was revealed; a flock of elegantly long-necked waterfowl bobbing gently up and down in the blue water in front of the ancient grandeur of the Factory.

Something was wrong, though. Spreading outwards from the Factory was a dark blot, like an oil slick on the pristine water. It inched towards the unsuspecting fowl as they honked to each other and preened their smooth feathers; they paid it no mind as they slid directly beneath them. Eventually, it began to dissipate, breaking up and drifting downriver.

The sun inched up above the horizon. Suddenly, responding to some indiscernible avian signal, the flock began to paddle and flap up into the air, resuming their implacable migratory course as though nothing had happened.

But something had. They were fluttering noisily over the grounds of Kadic Junior High when the first goose faltered and plummeted from the sky.

- - - -

It was early – too early for a sane student to be up. But Odd Della-Robbia had never aspired to meet the standard definition of sanity. There was his hair – blonde, which a patch died purple, swept up into a single gravity-defying spike. There was his outfit, a belly-button shirt of purple worn over a long-sleeved shirt of subtly different purple. And there was his dog (according to some, this was a charitable name for it). Kiwi was thin-snouted, white-furred, barrel-bodied, and thoroughly disreputable. Although Odd loved him, and he could be incredibly friendly to other people Odd liked, most of the students weren't willing to make the effort, so Kiwi gained a reputation for hostility and nastiness or, at the very least, all-around weirdness.

Right now, Kiwi was at one end of a long, thin leash. The other end was held by Odd himself, who had a pair of headphones over his ears and a grin on his face. It was a beautiful day and all was right with the world… until Kiwi started growling.

"Ha?" Odd had been humming along to the music; now he broke off and lifted one earphone from his head, peering at his dog, which had begun pulling him to the right. "What is it, Kiwi?" Asked Odd rhetorically, following the insistent tugs.

Kiwi stopped at a pile of feathers and began snuffling at it, growling low in his throat. Odd switched his music off and leaned closer to figure out what it was. It was about the right color for a goose, but… "E-ew, Kiwi!" Odd wrinkled his nose and pulled the dog back from the limp animal. Kiwi stiffened, still growling, then suddenly went limp at the end of his leash. The growl segued into a whine, and the dog began rapidly backing away on his short, scrawny legs. Odd looked momentarily concerned, shrugged, and gave his pet a tug in the direction of the dorms.

- - - -

It was too early for a sane student to be up, but Jeremie Belpois had been roused by something more insistent then habit, or even an alarm clock: the electronic chirping of his laptop. As its beeps penetrated his covers, he poked his disheveled blonde head out from under the rumpled bed sheets, blinked a few times, then came fully awake with a start. Suddenly enervated, he kicked free of his comforter, flailed about for his glasses, found his glasses, jammed them onto his nose, and fell into the seat in front of his desk.

Displayed on the screen of his laptop was a faintly translucent image of an elongated white cylinder, wreathed in red mist. A series of unintelligible numbers were displayed in various parts of the screen, and they must have meant something to Jeremie, because he nodded to himself slightly as his gaze flicked back and forth behind his glasses. "Odd," he called out, "XANA's activated a Tower. Call Yumi and Aelita." He began to type.

After a moment of this, he seemed to notice the complete lack of response from his roommate. Tearing his gaze away from his computer, he looked instead at the one other bed in the room – empty. "Odd?" Jeremie rose from his chair with a growing panic. Odd's dog was gone too. "Kiwi?" That could only mean… That Odd went out to walk his dog?

Jeremie slapped his forehead. For the 'smart' one of the team, he sure could be an idiot sometimes. Walking back to his computer, he punched up four cell-phone shaped boxes, each surmounted by a portrait: Odd, with his unmistakable wry grin, a girl with vividly pink hair, a brown-haired boy looking dour, and an Asian girl with a kind of skeptical smile. There was a chorus of rings.

A light under the pink-haired girl blinked green. "Hello? Jeremie?" murmured the sleepy voice of Aelita.

"We have an active Tower," Jeremie said into the button mike attached to his laptop.

"I'll be right there," replied Aelita, and the window closed.

The next person to pick up was the black-clad cynic. "Jeremie, please tell me you're calling this early to annoy me."

"Sorry, Yumi," Jeremie apologized, "XANA's activated a Tower. Can you meet us at the Factory?"

There was a pause, then Yumi sigh. "Of course, Jeremie."

Behind Jeremie, there was a creak, as of a door opening. He spun his swivel chair; between his room and the hall beyond, leaning on the doorframe, was the grim brown-haired boy whose picture had just vanished from the screen. "I sleep right next door," Ulrich groused, "You could have knocked."

Jeremie just shrugged. "We're waiting for Odd." Odd's picture continued to ring, or rather, play techno music. Apparently the group's comic had decided to download an alternative to the shrill jangle that so annoyed Ulrich.

"He's probably wearing headphones," the brown-haired boy grumbled. Jeremie nodded vaguely. There was a noise from the hallway without; Ulrich peered around the doorframe. "Yup, he's wearing headphones."

"There's nothing wrong with my ears," replied Odd's high-pitched voice, "but my hands were full." He stepped into the room he shared with Jeremie, revealing he was indeed fully decked out in earphones and Walkman. Kiwi occupied his arms, huddled pathetically against his chest. The dog was in an even sorrier state then usual, whimpering, snuffling, and shivering. Odd put him gently on the bed, looking uncharacteristically worried. "I don't…" he was cut off by a fit of coughing that tore from his throat, doubling him over from its intensity. When he caught his breath and was able to speak again, he started over. "I don't know what's wrong with him."

- - - -

It was too early for a sane student to be up, which was exactly why Kloe Makhavi had roused herself at this indecent hour every day for the past week and headed out to the hatch in the woods, armed with only a pen behind her ear and a flash drive around her neck. This morning she was accompanied by Elizabeth Delmas, ne Sissi, because the principal's daughter slept in the dormitory next door and Kloe hadn't gotten dressed quietly enough.

"You've been going out here every morning?" Sissi shrilled, "Without me?" Kloe lifted the cover off the hatch and began climbing down into the darkness of the sewers. "You would never have found this place if it weren't for me!" Kloe reached the bottom. There were three skateboards and two scooters leans against the wall, as there had been every morning for the past week. She selected a scooter and began to unfold it. "Do you hear me?" shouted Sissi, climbing down after her. I would have found it, Kloe thought, It just would have taken me longer. She had, since her arrival at Kadic, acquired a deep dislike of the principal's daughter – probably because Sissi was an uncomfortable reminder of what she herself could have been like if her parents had been different. Despite the eye makeup, Sissi's personality was eerily similar to her own under the obscuring layers of pampering – and to add insult to injury, the priss was useful at times. So Kloe said nothing to interrupt Sissi's tirade.

The principal's daughter snapped the second scooter open, and they rattled off down the tunnel.

Ten minutes later, the pair stepped into the elevator. Sissi had succumbed into a steamy, nose-in-the-air silence. Kloe hit the second to last button and punched in a four-number access code; the elevator dropped beneath them. "So, you want to know what my friend thinks this is?" the reporter asked.

Sissi stared at the wall. "A secret plot to take over the world? That's just what a friend of yours would think. If you had any friends."

Kloe grit her teeth. Apparently the antipathy was mutual. "I've been at this school for slightly under a month. Excuse me if I don't have a gang yet. No, Elyse has been getting my code, and she thinks it's the mother of all video games."

"Hmph," snorted Sissi, "I think you've been watching too many movies. Or Elyse has no idea what she's doing. They wouldn't waste their time on a video game – at least, Ulrich wouldn't. I can't speak for Jeremie or Odd." Yumi, noted Kloe's inner reporter, didn't even get billing.

The elevator slid to a stop, hissed and clicked open. The doors slid apart ponderously, revealing the dimly lit interior of the computer room.

Silhouetted against the glow of the computer screen was a slouching, dark figure with tousled hair.

"William?!" Exclaimed Sissi incredulously.

He looked up – he was a student, black clothed and black-haired, evidently tall even sitting in the computer chair, with a certain air of casual sophistication. "Hey, Sissi. Who's your friend? I thought there might be someone else poking around the old Factory." He closed whatever he was working on with a click of the mouse and stood; Kloe noted that not only was he a good deal taller then Sissi, he even had a few inches over her, Kloe, which put her at a slight but distinct disadvantage she was not accustomed to. He was also far more handsome then any student had a right to be.

"Her?" Sissi shrugged, "Just Kloe. What are you doing here?" Kloe noted a stiffness to that apparently casual reply; Sissi was obviously equally susceptible to William's charms.

He shrugged. "Like I said, poking around." Brushing passed the girls, he pressed a button on the elevator; the doors opened, and he slid in. "I'll let you two get on with whatever you're doing, then." The doors slid shut, complicated circular mechanisms clicking and engaging, and William disappeared.

Kloe had seen him before – at a sporting event, if memory served. He didn't have the same effect from a distance. Stop it, she berated herself, you like academics, not jocks. Still… "He's unfairly hot."

Sissi pouted at the elevator doors. "Forget it," she advised, "He's smitten with that Yumi girl too."

Yumi… too? Kloe was beginning to see why Sissi loathed that girl. Pulling out the flash drive she wore around her neck, she plugged it into the computer and selected some code to copy, mulling it over.

- - - -

Aelita padded through the hallways of the dormitory in bare feet, pink boots held by their dangling pom-poms in one hand, a pair of white socks in the other. Her trademark hair looked even more tousled then usual, and she kept blinking. Sometimes she missed her virtual days – she hadn't needed sleep in Lyoko.

Jeremie's door hung slightly ajar. Inside, three boys were sitting on Odd's bed around a sad, shivering lump of white fur. "I don't know," Odd was saying, "one minute he was fine, then he started coughing. Now he's all… feverish." He stroked Kiwi with one hand and covered his mouth with the other as he began to cough himself.

"Odd, you don't sound too hot either," Ulrich pointed out.

"Allergies," the purple-clad boy squeaked.

Aelita walked into the room, took a seat at the far end of the bed, and began to pull on her footwear. "Is this XANA's attack?" She wondered aloud.

"Why would he infect Kiwi?" Said Ulrich, punctuating the sentence with a barrage of coughs.

Jeremie looked up, suddenly worried. "Unless… it's not just Kiwi. What if it's a contagious virus?"

"Nah," Odd shook his head, "Probably something he ate. Kiwi…" he dissolved into a fit of coughing and gasping for air. When he could breath again, he seemed to have lost that train of thought. "Is it just me, or is it cold in here?"

Ulrich and Aelita fixed him with worried stares. "That settles it," Jeremie said, rising to his feet. The world spun – he grabbed the edge of the bed to steady himself. "XANA's released some kind of modified bacteria, or virus. Aelita, get to the Factory now, but try not to get too near Yumi – you might be contagious. The rest of us are now in quarantine!" He made his way to the computer chair and collapsed awkwardly into it, starting to type. "I'll try to find out exactly what this is. Odd, you watch Kiwi – he has a faster metabolism, so we'll be able to prepare for the symptoms before they hit us. Ulrich, you make sure…"

Aelita, brows drawn with worry, slipped out into the hallway and closed the door behind her.