DISCLAIMER: I do not own Code Lyoko, Lyoko, or XANA. Some of the plots herein will be very similar to those portrayed in Code: Lyoko by Moonscoop.
Author's Note: This is aimed to be an episodic story, one new chapter written every week. However, within this first week, I will be publishing 4 chapters. Two are Introduction Chapters, and the second official chapter is a special Halloween release. But after that, starting on November 7th, the story will be updated weekly. This story, that is, the chapters/episodes within this story, are part of one story arc. When a new story arc starts, it will claim its own space as a new story. If you like the story, leave reviews and comments. I love to hear positive feedback and suggestions are always welcome. My characters are based off of people I know, and I leave out their descriptions both out of apathy and a sort of creative freedom. You all know people that are similar to those portrayed in the story - think of them as you want them to be.
Without further ado, I bring you
CODE: LYOKO
THE ARTEMIS SAGA
Introductions
Part One
Tyler swore as he stumbled, kicking the pebble he'd tripped over out of frustration. The warehouse loomed largely before him. He'd mustered up enough courage to finally come out here and see what was inside. He walked up to the door - the most obvious method of entry - and yanked on the knob, which promptly fell off.
"Damn... Let's see." He looked around and found a fire escape above a dumpster full of precariously twisted and rusted metal. He shuddered, walking over and looking up at the metal ladder. He squinted, climbing onto the lip of the dumpster, balancing himself as best he could, looking up at the ladder. He closed his eyes. "One... two... three!" He jumped and grabbed at the ladder, his hand finding purchase and leaving him dangling above the metal. "Oh God..." He groaned and heaved his other arm up, pulling himself onto the fire escape, breathing heavily and sweating. He pulled out his flashlight and looked through the dusty window. He swallowed hard. Well, it was already breaking and entering. Might as well make good on the breaking.
He brought his elbow against the window hard, shattering the glass fully and totally so he could step inside without much hassle. He looked around. The place was a large factory, some kind of defunct manufacturing plant. Tyler went over to a small station that overlooked the assembly line and entered, looking around. There were several dusty file folders labeled lots of weird names - possibly simply products they were producing - as well as a key ring. He smiled and picked it up. It could be useful later on.
He walked back out, his flashlight was the only light aside from very sparse moonlight filtering in through the broken windows. He walked along the catwalk, trying not to hurt himself and found a staircase that descended to the ground floor. He looked around and began to poke around in the rooms. Most of them contained cubicles or old computer terminals that looked ancient. At one point he found a door with an automatic keypad. He frowned and brushed the dust off of it to see that the green dashes were still there.
"What is this…?" he muttered softly, pressing the keypad. It was a flat surface touch screen - it looked far more advanced than the rest of the ancient computers in the facility. He tried 0-0-0-0. The keypad buzzed. He then tried 1-2-3-4. Once again, the keypad buzzed incorrectly. He sighed and stamped his foot, the key ring falling from his pocket. He went to pick it up when he noticed a small tag on the ring with four numbers written on it. "1969". He paused before trying it on the keypad. There was a short pause before it made a chime, door opening to reveal an elevator.
He looked around before stepping inside the dimly lit elevator. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered lightly as another large strip of touch-screen buttons appeared, ranging from Floor 3 to Floor B20. He frowned.
"Let's start from the ground up," he said quietly to himself, hitting the B20 button. The elevator doors closed and rumbled as it slowly began to drop. The display read each basement floor as he passed them quickly. Finally, it rested at B20 and the elevator stopped for a moment before the doors opened. He was immediately blasted with cool air and shivered in the dark before the lights slowly lit up. There were white and silver parkas on hooks along the wall, as well as incredibly old computer terminals set up along the walls, and finally a large metal door at the far end. He walked inside and the elevator door closed behind him. He looked along the wall at the parkas and the names on the hooks they were hanging on. He grabbed one at random and went over to a computer terminal.
It lit up, green letters on a black screen. It read, "LYOKO HOUSING COOLING SYSTEMS; PLEASE TYPE IN YOUR LOGIN INFORMATION". He paused, then decided not to try and guess and walked over to the door on the far side of the wall. He grabbed the large latch and pulled down, the sound of something inside snapping quietly, the door unlocking and opening, immediately making him even colder. He shivered as he entered the large, ice-filled chamber.
Huge vents were blasting a large gold and black obelisk with freezing cold air. Tubes with blue coolant liquid wrapped around the object and twisted in and out of it. On the very forefront of the thing was a small panel with a peculiar symbol on it. A bull's-eye, one dot inside two outer circles, with one line coming straight up off the top, and three lines coming off the bottom, away from the inner circle. He touched the symbol and it opened, a large switch inside labeled "POWER". It was set to off. He frowned and ran his hand over the metal. It was surprisingly warm for the room. It made sense that it had to be super-cooled now.
He took the switch in his hand, took a deep breath, and pulled. The machine whirred to life, the golden parts arcing electricity, and he jumped back as the panel snapped shut. The whole warehouse rumbled to life as the huge computer began to turn on. He quickly turned and ran to the door, yanking it open, once again breaking the ice that surrounded the latch, and shut it behind him. He hung the parka on its hook and ran into the elevator, taking deep breaths as his heart beat fast.
"It's fine, Tyler. It's fine," he told himself aloud. "It's fine." He took another breath to compose himself and hit the B19 button. The elevator went up a bit before opening into a dark room full of cables and wires – it appeared to be a maintenance room of sorts. Florescent lights flickered to life and he found a ton more wires. "Too complicated. Next floor." He hit B18 and the elevator went up again, stopping and opening into a room with five, cylinders, gunmetal gray in appearance and made of some sort of steel.
"Now this is weird," he noted happily, entering the room as the elevator door shut behind him. He went up to one to find it had a small touch panel on it as well. The only button that was apparent was "OPEN/CLOSE". He touched it and a wall slid out from the cylinder. Inside were rows of lights in large circles that led all the way up to the top. "That's interesting." He hit CLOSE and the wall closed again.
That was when he heard it. A soft, almost inaudible voice.
"Hello? Is someone there?" He froze. Was he caught? No. No, he couldn't have been caught. No one had entered. He was the only one that had used the elevator. He would've heard if someone else had come in. But… then, that would mean…
"Please? Someone?" He swallowed hard and looked around, finding a shaft that led up to the next floor. He went over, taking the cold ladder rungs in his hands as he climbed, moving the metal trapdoor at the top and looking around. His jaw dropped.
It was a large, open room with a huge hologram projector in the center. The projector showed what appeared to be four island chains around a central sphere. Around the center hologram, essentially orbiting the center, was a seat with a monitor and keyboard on a beam so that it could swivel around the projection. There was a large glass window on one side of the wall, presumably so that someone could view the person inside the room he was in. There were large monitors along the walls, showing figures and numbers and charts. One showed a map of one of the island chains from the projection.
As he stepped into the room, he heard the voice again. "Hello?" Except, this time, he could pinpoint it. Or, rather, he couldn't. It was all around him. Speakers in the walls.
"Hello?" he called back. "Who are you?"
"Who are YOU?" the female voice asked.
"I asked first," he retorted, hoping it would work. She paused.
"Oh, fine." One of the monitors changed to a view of a girl with short black hair, deep blue eyes, and light blue markings along her face, curling into intricate tattoos. "My name is Artemis."
"Artemis? Weird name for a girl."
"Goddess of war." He shrugged. "And you?"
"Tyler."
"Weird name for a guy." He grinned. She was witty.
"Maybe. So where are you?"
"Right here," she said, waving from the computer screen.
"But that's a picture of a computer program."
"Yeah? And? That's me." He focused on her picture. She was able to keep the 3D image synced up to her words, and immediate responses. So either she had the picture programmed to say every single word in the English language, or…
"You're a computer program."
"That's right."
"Well then where am I?"
"Lyoko Control Center."
"Lyoko… I read that name downstairs. It was on the 'Lyoko Housing Coolant Control Terminal', I think."
"And?"
"What is Lyoko?"
"You don't know?" He paused. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know. I found this place."
"Where is everyone else?"
"Everyone else?"
"They said they'd be here when they woke me. The researchers and everyone. There was a complication and they had to shutdown Lyoko."
"What day?"
"April 24th, 1969." He paused. "That's wrong, isn't it?"
"It's… It's 2011." Now it was her turn to pause.
"N-no. No, that's not possible. They were coming back for me. They were going to come back and they were going to-"
"Hey, hey, Artemis. Calm down. I'm here now."
"But you can't devirtualize me."
"…devirtu-what?"
"I'm on Lyoko. Lyoko is a virtual world on which we were able to do tests in virtual reality and turning physical matter into virtual matter. The process is actually really simple, all we had to do is take a virtual copy of a person's atomic structure – kind of like a picture – and then we rebuild it in Lyoko. Then, we recopy their mental structure from Lyoko and rebuild it outside back into the scanners, so that they can remember everything that went on while inside."
"Are you saying that you can put physical matter into Lyoko?"
"That's right. And I was programmed to guard Lyoko."
"Guard it? From what?"
"I… can't remember. That part of my memory is a blank. Something bad, I'm sure."
"This computer," Tyler said, sitting down in the chair as the monitor blinked to life. "This is the Lyoko Control Center, you said?"
"That's right."
"So, from this computer, I can virtualize people into Lyoko?"
"Well, hypothetically, yes, but I'm not sure-"
"I want to go in."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I want to learn how this computer ticks and how to run it."
"Alright. If you insist. There should be a manual laying around somewhere." He nodded and looked around, finding what appeared to be an overly thick textbook on the ground.
"You don't honestly mean this," he groaned, looking to find it was over a thousand pages long.
"I do."
"Then I'll have to look it over at home and when I come back tomorrow I'll try some stuff out."
"You're coming back?"
"Well yeah. Of course I am. I wasn't going to leave you Artemis."
"Thank you…"
"Is there any way I can contact you from home?"
"I think I should be able to gain access to a nearby phone tower by activating a tower on Lyoko."
"A tower?"
"Physical manifestations of the processors inside the supercomputer. I can activate them on my own and use them for anything the supercomputer has the capability of doing."
"And you think you can hack a phone tower?"
"I do."
"Alright. Then I'll give you my number and I'll be on my way."
"Alright."
"ANALYSIS OF A 200 TERRABYTE SUPERCOMPUTER; PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL WORKINGS" was the name of the textbook.
"God, even the NAME is long…" he groaned. He thumbed through to the first page and read aloud. "'Running the supercomputer is now so easy, a mathematician can do it! This book will tell you how. The first section will detail the physical workings of the supercomputer, and the second section will explain how to program it'. Damn. This is going to be hell." Suddenly, his phone buzzed. "Hello?"
"Tyler, it's Artemis."
"Artemis? What is it? You sound panicked."
"I need you to come back to the factory right away."
"But it's 4 in the morning. I just got into bed."
"Please!" He paused.
"Alright. I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up the phone, grabbing his keys and dashing downstairs. His parents would be asleep, so he didn't need to worry about them. He silently slipped out the door and got into his car, shutting the door as lightly as he could and putting the car into neutral so he could roll out of his driveway before starting the car up, so his parents wouldn't hear it. Then, he set a course for the factory.
"What? What is it?" he demanded as he walked into the control center.
"I remember now. The threat I was here to guard against. It's XANA."
"XANA?"
"I remember now – what I have to protect Lyoko from. It's an artificial intelligence like me, called XANA.He was originally the overseer of Lyoko, but he got power-hungry and began to use Lyoko for his own malicious intents. They made me with more... limitations." He nodded.
"So what do we do?"
"I think we need to shut down the supercomputer."
"What? No way."
"We don't have any way of fighting him!"
"Like hell we don't. You said he took over a tower?"
"Yes."
"Can't you do that?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"Couldn't you override his tower?"
"…hypothetically, I suppose."
"You get to his tower and I'll see if I can do anything from here."
"Okay. I think I can do that."
"Keep in touch." She disappeared off the screen and he opened the textbook, flipping to the back of the book. "'On Towers'. That's what I need. 'A tower is a manifestation of processing power inside the supercomputer and can be accessed by anyone inside the Virtual Bubble.' Virtual Bubble…? 'Anyone inside can access the tower and must input a password. Passwords are broken down into clearance level and commands. Upon activating a tower, you can expend that processing power in any way you choose. To view tower passwords, type /tower_password_list.' Alright… tower… password… list. There!" A table of passwords opened up, showing them by name, clearance, and function.
"Okay, let's see. Looks like red is lowest clearance, and black is highest. How do I make a new tower password…? 'To create a password, type /tower_password_create and then type the name and clearance, separated by a dash.' Alright. Tower… password… create. Alright, let's see… Hmm. How about just 'Lyoko'. Ah! It worked! Black clearance… Password? I need a password? Damnit… Artemis?" No response. He picked up the small headset and put it on. "Artemis, are you there? I need you." There was a long, drawn out pause and he was about to call for her again when she responded.
"Yes, Tyler, I'm here."
"Good. I'm trying to create a password, but I don't have the clearance. Got anyone's login information? The highest you've got."
"Black clearance login? I can make you one."
"Yeah, do that. Just make my name Tyler and my password something stupid like Password."
"It will be done in just a few moments… there. Done." He typed it in and the password went through.
"'Now please type what function you would like.' Shit… Uh. 'Deactivate'? Damnit! Book, book…" He flipped through the book. "'Deactivating a tower… deactivating a tower…. Um. This? '/function=?tower-activation=1'. Perfect! Alright, Artemis, when you get to the tower, just type LYOKO. It should work just fine."
"You sure?"
"No, I have no idea. But I hope so."
"Alright… I'm almost there."
"Hurry." Tyler bit his finger as he watched the screen, then went back to the book. "'The Virtual World can be viewed from the control terminal by finding the "Virtual World Viewer".' Well that's original. Let's see." He searched around on the screen until he found "LYOKO VIEWER" and double clicked it. On one of the large terminal screens, a diagram of four different sections came up. A small blinking blue dot appeared in one of the sections, so he clicked it. It zoomed into a chain of grassy islands where Artemis was sprinting through, jumping over logs, under brush, and across islands.
"I can see you on the computer screen," Tyler told her. "And I think the tower isn't too far to your north, correct?"
"Yes, that's right." He looked and saw a big, tan tower with black roots dug into the ground. She ran up to it and opened her arms as the roots absorbed her in a flash.
"What was that?"
"I'm inside the tower. See?" She appeared back on her screen and waved.
"Alright. So try the code 'LYOKO'."
"Trying it now. It looks like the tower's deactivated! But…"
"But?"
"There's a huge flux of energy with nowhere to go. It appears to be searching for a program it can run to offset the energy. That's… interesting."
"Oh no. What's interesting?"
"It's accessing an old file. I don't know what it does. But you'd better give it permission or the energy will burn up this tower. Just hit enter."
"Alright. Uh, enter." He hit the button and suddenly there was a bright light from the center holographic display. It washed over Tyler and he gasped, suddenly feeling light and airy.
And then he was awake. He jolted up straight in bed.
"What…? What the…?" He fell back against the bed. "Ughh. What a weird dream…" He rolled over in bed to see that it was already 7 o'clock in the morning. "Damn! I have to get ready for school!" He jumped up, grabbing a set of clothes and yanking them on, running downstairs to find the toast his mother had left out for his breakfast, stuffing it in his mouth and getting into his car.
"And it was totally weird. There was this chick named Artemis and this whole virtual world called Lyoko," Tyler explained and his friends rolled their eyes.
"That's really weird," his girlfriend Star commented.
"Yeah, well Tyler's really weird," Stephen grinned.
"Hey, shut up!" Tyler smiled back. "Nonetheless, I plan on checking out that factory tonight. Anyone else want to come with me?"
"I'll go," his friend Jessie volunteered.
"I can't, I have color guard," Star replied.
"And I have to go to the football game," Stephen said.
"Eh, what the hell," his friend Dylan said. "I'll come."
"Alright, the three of us are going back to the factory," Tyler grinned.
"Quiet down!" their teacher barked. "We're in a library!" The five ducked their heads quietly, pretending to read again.
"And here we are," Tyler said, putting his car into park outside the factory. "Kinda intimidating." It was almost sundown and the last orange rays caught off of broken glass and metal.
"It is really creepy," Jessie muttered.
"C'mon," Tyler said, leading them up to the dumpster. "Dylan, give me a boost."
"What? That's dangerous metal!"
"Just trust me." Dylan gulped and nodded, boosting him up to the fire escape. He broke the window again, sneaking in and finding the room with the keys. "And here they are. Weird... Just like the dream." He descended down the stairs to ground level, unlocking the front door and calling for Jessie and Dylan. They ran over to him.
"How'd you get in?" Jessie asked and Tyler held up the key ring. "Where did you get that?"
"I'd found it here, the first time I explored this place. I just remembered where they were."
"Are you trying to say-"
"I don't know. Just follow me. We'll see." They walked the same path that Tyler had in his dream. He went up to the large wall, brushing the dust off of it and pressing his hand to the wall. Nothing. He pressed harder. Still nothing. After a minute, he sighed.
"I guess I was wrong after all…" He sighed and leaned against it. Suddenly, the hum began and he jumped back, looking to see the keypad lit up. "Look! Look, it's the touch screen!" He typed "1-9-6-9" and the keypad beeped, opening up into the freight elevator. "So I WASN'T dreaming! C'mon, c'mon. Get in." He ushered them in and hit the B17 button. The elevator rumbled to a start, slowly descending the floors until finally it opened up into the dark control room.
"What the hell…? It's all dark," Tyler noted, turning on his flashlight. "It wasn't dark before." He frowned. "Let's go back down." He hit B20 and the elevator dropped again, into the Housing Room. Dylan and Jessie both jumped at how cold it was, but Tyler simply grabbed a parka and threw it on, tossing one to Dylan and Jessie as well. "C'mon, in here." He yanked open the door and walked inside, moving up to the supercomputer. "Oh, that makes sense… I never turned it on."
"T-turned what on?" Jessie asked with a shiver.
"The supercomputer. Here, let me do that now." He touched the symbol and the panel opened, revealing the large switch, which he yanked down. The supercomputer whirred, once again, to a start. "Alright, now let's head up and see what Artemis is doing. Or if she even remembers me." The two nodded and they headed back to the elevator, keeping the parkas. When they arrived in the Lyoko Control Center, Artemis was on one of the monitors.
"Tyler! You're back. I'm sorry I couldn't contact you, the supercomputer was off. I figured out what the program was."
"Some kind of teleportation?" Tyler asked, sitting in the seat, the seat rotating around the holographic projection.
"What… the hell…?" Dylan gasped.
"What is this?" Jessie asked.
"Long story. So, Artemis, the program?"
"It's labeled 'Return to the Past'. It's an experimental program that returns you to a prevous time period, but it appeared to be broken. It teleported you back to where you should've been and skipped over the period it should've rewound."
"I'm confused, say that again?"
"Basically you skipped the time when you were here before and woke up this morning."
"Tyler, when did you learn all this techno-jargon?" Dylan asked. "Last I remember you weren't all that great with computers."
"I got better. Especially thanks to this manual." He slapped the manual down onto his lap. "And, as a matter of fact, you two get to be my test subjects for the virtualization process!" He grinned.
"Oh god. What does that mean?" Jessie asked.
"It means you'll be coming here, to Lyoko."
"Lyoko?"
"Artemis, you fill them in while I try to figure out the virtualization procedure."
"Very well. If you could take the elevator down one floor I can explain it to you two without disturbing Tyler." The two nodded, getting into the elevator and going down as Tyler began to read quickly.
"Alright, guys," Tyler said over the intercom, "I think I can virtualize you now."
"You THINK?" Jessie demanded.
"Well, I'm supposed to have designed what each of you look like on Lyoko, but I figure I can just work with the information from your scans. So each of you step into an open scanner." Two of the large steel cylinders opened up and the lights inside came on. The two stepped into open scanners.
"Alright, here we go. Transfer, Dylan. Transfer, Jessie. Scanning, Dylan. Scanning, Jessie. It'll only be a few seconds before your scans are ready to be virtualized. You two ready?"
"Yeah," Dylan said.
"Ready!" Jessie replied. They heard Tyler take in a sharp breath of anticipation.
"Virtualization."
TO BE CONTINUED...