Chapter Two: Working on a Code
"I just wish I knew what X.A.N.A. was up to." Ulrich said as they stepped out of the old factory. "I'll feel a whole lot better when I knew what he's got in store for us."
"Yeah." Yumi said just as they each climbed down the ladder and into the sewers once more.
"Well we have an exam to take, and we can't be late to class. Mrs. Hertz said that this test will be 10% of our final grades." Jeremies said as he took hold of the handlebars of his scooter.
The ride back to the school was quiet, as Ulrich, Odd and Jeremie all prepared themselves for the approaching exam.
When they finally reached the school, Yumi said, "I'll see you guys later. I have to get to Mr. Fumet's history class. See you."
"Bye, Yumi." Ulrich said as Odd and Jeremie simply waved.
Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich continued to Mrs. Hertz's science class, and they had barely taken their seats when the final bell rang.
"Good afternoon, class! As you all should know by now, today you have an exam. I hope that you all are well prepared for it. Seeing as you've had two weeks to study up, and review all of your notes. But enough talk, take out your pencils. When all of the exams have been handed out, all talk should cease. You will have a total of two hours to finish your exam. And when you do complete it, you are free to go back to your dorms. Okay, all exams are out. You may begin...now!" Mrs. Hertz said as there was a sound of exam booklets opening.
When Jeremie had opened his exam, the very first question that he read was, "What is the chemical formula for Nitrous Oxide, or more commonly known, Laughing Gas?"
"This is too easy," Jeremie thought as he wrote down the answer, N2O.
After about an hour and thirty minutes, Jeremie had finished his test, and remembering what the teacher had said, he got up, and walked up to Mrs. Hertz's desk.
"All finished, Jeremie?"
"Yes, ma'am." Jeremie said when he turned in his completely finished test.
"Okay, Jeremie, you may go back to your dorm."
Going back to his seat, Jeremie sat down. Then taking out two sheets of paper he addressed one to Ulrich and the other to Odd. All that he wrote on them was: Meet me after the exam!
He slid the two sheets toward Odd and Ulrich who took the papers and put them into their pockets. Then getting up, he walked towards the classroom door. When, "Oh, Jeremie, before I forget, here's your hall pass. You'll need it if you get stopped in the hall."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hertz." Jeremie whispered as he took it.
In the hall, Jeremie walked up the stairs that led to the boys' dorm.
"Jeremie Belpois! Do you mind telling me why you're out of class?" A voice sounded from right behind Jeremie. And when Jeremie turned around, he wasn't at all surprised to see that it was Jim Morales.
"Hello, Jim. I was just on my way to my dorm."
"And why?" Jim questioned.
"Well I finished my science exam thirty minutes early. And Mrs. Hertz said that if we finished our exams, then we could go back to our dorms."
"Yeah, my eye. What's the real reason that you're out of class?"
"I already told you, Jim. I even have a hall pass." Jeremie said as he handed Jim the hall pass that Mrs. Hertz had given him.
"Good enough, now get to your dorm, and don't let me catch you walking the halls until classes are over? Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir." Jeremie responded as Jim handed the hall pass back to him.
"Good, now get going!"
With the warning Jeremie raced off to his dorm. Once outside his dorm room, he pulled out his dorm key and fitted the key into the lock on the door. With a turn of his wrist, Jeremie was in his room, and he locked it back as soon as he was in. After about ten minutes of lying on his bed, Jeremie looked over at his computer. Getting up he walked over to it, and sat down at his student desk.
"Aelita, it's Jeremie, again. Do you read me, Aelita?"
"Hi Jeremie, how was your exam?"
"Oh it was okay."
"Where are the others?"
"They're still finishing their exams. I just got done early. So I cam back to my dorm." Jeremies said as he opened a computer program that made a little digital picture of Aelita to appear on the screen.
"Jeremie, is there something on your mind?" Aelita asked, and he noticed that she looked worried.
"Well in a way, there is. Do you think that I'm smart enough to defragment the materialization program?"
"Of course you are, Jeremie! I have faith in you! You've just got to believe in your own abilities, Jeremie!" Aelita said with a smile.
"Okay, Aelita, I'm going to try something real quick. So don't go anywhere."
"Alright, Jeremie."
"Okay, let's see...Hmmm...That file doesn't have the bug, Aelita, do you have access to files on my computer?" Jeremie asked as he exited out of one file and opened up another.
"Yes, why? Do you need help with something?"
"Yes, I need help checking all the files from the materialization program. I need to pinpoint exactly where the problem is. So could you help me run full scans on the files?" Jeremie asked as he ran another scan.
"Yes, Jeremie."
"If you find the problem, alert me right away."
"I will."
"Okay. Hey I don't remember this file ever being here. This has got to be it!" Jeremie said as he ran a complete scan on the foreign file. While the scan was running, someone knocked on the door.
"Jeremie, it's us! Can we come in?"
"Hold on, Ulrich!" Jeremie got up and went to go unlock the door. "Hey Ulrich, Yumi. Where's Odd?"
"He went to go feed Kiwi. He said he'll be here as soon as he can." Ulrich said while Jeremie went back to his computer.
"Hey Jeremie, you promised us you'd take it easy."
"I will, but come here! I think that I've found the bug."
"Really! You mean...we'll be able to shut down X.A.N.A. soon?" Yumi asked as she sat down on Jeremie's bed.
"Yeah, now all I've got to do is find the anti-virus. And that may take a while. Wait! Let me try something!" Jeremie said typing in what he believed to be the possible anti-virus. "It's going to work! It's working! It worked!" Jeremie yelled and jumped to his feet. "It worked!"
"Yes!" Yumi exclaimed as she jumped up as well to her feet. "I can't believe it!" She yelled throwing her arms around Ulrich's neck and kissing his cheek.
Speechless for a moment, Ulrich slowly recovered, "Yeah, way to go, Einstein! Now will you be able to materialize Aelita?"
"Not quite. Now I've got to run a test on the materialization program. Okay, Aelita, you can stop running scans. I found the problem. I'm going to test the program now." Jueremie said as he sat back down at his computer. "Let's see. The last code that I tried looked like it worked, despite the virus, so I'll try that."
He then started typing in the code for the materialization.
"Code: EARTH"
Ulrich and Yumi crossed their fingers while Jeremie pressed the enter key, once again, a little digital photo of Aelita popped up onto the moniter.
And closing his eyes, Jeremie heard a faint ding and reopened them. He saw a green checkmark. "It worked! I can hardly believe it! It really did work!"
"I'll call Odd." Ulrich said as he pulled his cell phone out, "Odd. Get to Jeremie's room, now! We've got to celebrate...no I won't tell you what we're celebrating until you get here!" He hung up and whispered, "He's on his way."
A few minutes passed by, when Odd walked into Jeremie's room, "What's going on?"
"Hold on. Aelita?"
"Yes?"
"I don't know how to tell you this, but...we're waiting for you here!"
"Really? You mean that I'll soon live on your world?" Aelita asked, exasperated.
"Yes!" Jeremie said, and Ulrich, Odd and Yumi all picked him up and placed him onto their shoulders.
"Yeah!"
"Oh I just can't believe it! Oh, just think me and you will actually be able to touch, and maybe even kiss." Aelita said as Jeremie was set back on the ground.
"Well, I'm sure we could, but...ah..." Jeremie stammered turning a bright shade of pink.
"You can do that, but first you have to be materialized into our world. Jeremie, do you want us to take the final plunge right now?" Ulrich asked Jeremie, who was still blushing.
"Not yet, we still have to enroll her into our school, we have to create a false identity for her, as well as a fake family."
"Leave the enrollment to Ulrich and me. I can say that Aelita is my very close cousin from Holland. Her name can be Aelita...Aelita...Aelita Lyoko. There we go!" Odd said matter-of-factly.
"Okay, but still I want to wait to take the plunge until tomorrow. Aelita, if you can get to the passage tower in the forest region. And after class tomorrow, we'll travel to the factory, and you'll take your first steps on earth." Jeremie said as he began digging through a pile of CD disc that were blank.
"Okay, Jeremie, I'm off."
"Okay, Aelita, we'll see you tomorrow." Jeremie said as Aelita set off for the nearest passage tower. "I'm going to download the code onto this disc for easy access, I can't believe that it's almost over!"
"Yeah, we know what you mean. Two years of fighting against X.A.N.A., and two years of travelling to and from Lyoko. Helping Aelita get to the activated towers." Yumi said as tears of happiness came to her eyes. "It's almost over!"
"Yeah, Lyoko was like a second home to us." Odd said as he flopped down on Jeremie's bed. "But it'll be nice to be able to live normal lives again."
"Well it's time for dinner." Ulrich said, checking the time on his wrist watch.
Jeremie and his friends all got up and walked to the door, Jeremie being the last out of the room. And with one last look at his computer, Jeremie locked his room.