-1
Code: Oblivion
Chapter 4- Data Retrieval
7:32 AM
Jeremie and Yami's Dorm
The next day, Aelita woke up and saw that she was in Jeremie's bed still but that someone had pulled the covers over her. Huh? So it wasn't just a dream. Damn it!" she thought sadly. She then heard a soft snoring and jumped up to see if it was Jeremie. But it was only Yami. She decided to just sit in the computer chair and mope until either Yami awoke or someone else came to get her. She sighed and leaned back, her tears coming back again. Why did you have to do that Jeremie? Xana would never try killing me. He wants my memory. And you knew that yet you sacrificed yourself anyway. Why? She thought. At that moment, Ulrich and Odd knocked on the door and Yami woke up and just said, "Come in."
"Morning Aelita, Yami." Ulrich said. Neither him nor Odd had gotten much sleep and both were a little tired.
"Hey." Yami muttered. Aelita just looked at them. "Where's Yumi?" Yami continued without looking down from his bed.
"She's on her way." Odd said.
"……." Aelita still hadn't uttered a single word.
"When did Aelita get here?" Ulrich asked, noticing a teary-eyed Aelita on the chair.
"She ended up on Jeremie's bed last night and I didn't have the heart to wake her up." Yami explained.
"So what do we do now?" A depressed Yumi asked, walking in the door.
"I don't know." Ulrich replied, sitting on Jeremie's bed and closing his eyes.
"Shut down the supercomputer so no one else is killed because of me." Aelita said finally.
"What!" Yumi said.
"Don't tell me that you forgot about your virus. Did you, Princess?" Odd asked.
"No I didn't forget. But now Jeremie is dead! All because of me!" She shouted, "I don't want any more people to get hurt by Xana."
"So you would take your own life and make Jeremie's sacrifice be in vain."
"Stay out of this Yami." Aelita said.
"I may not know much about this Lyoko, but I do know that Jeremie gave his life so you could have your own." Yami continued, "I also know absolutely nothing about your group dynamics, but when someone sacrifices themselves, you don't just throw your-!"
"I don't care! Someone died. Someone very dear to me!" Aelita cut him off, and started to blush a little when she realized what she said. "He died, and when we first met we agreed that if anyone died we would shut off the supercomputer!"
Yami was now getting mad, and hopped up from his bed and down in front of Aelita. "How dense are you? Do you know why Jeremie sacrificed himself to save you?"
"No, but-." She started.
"Because he wanted you to have a life of your own. I know how you feel." Yami said, "This isn't the first death I seen, you know. My mother, father, sister, and grandparents died. I know it hurts, but if someone lets themselves be killed you don't kill yourself."
"You don't get it, Yami!"
At this, Aelita saw Yami pull his hand back and slapped her. Hard.
"Hey!" Odd started. "No Odd, I was about to do the same thing." Yumi said.
"Yes I do! I've been through so much death, it ain't funny. And yes, I did want to die after most of those deaths. But I never once thought about killing myself, you have a chance to live so don't throw that away." Yami said.
Realizing how hard he hit her, he sighed. "I didn't mean to hit you that hard but I had to get my point to you." He said, placing his hand on her shoulder. "I know it hurts. Believe me, I know for a fact." He continued softly.
At this, Aelita just broke down sobbing. "It's not fair! It's just not fair!" she sobbed.
"No, it's not fair. Not fair at all." Odd said.
"Wait, just to get this straight, Lyoko exists on the supercomputer. Right?" Yami asked.
"Yeah, why?" Yumi replied.
Smiling, "Perfect. Okay, here's what I think. Jeremie, when he fell into this void, was deleted. But no matter how powerful the computer, you can never completely erase something from a computer once it's been downloaded." He said.
"Wha..whats your point?" Aelita asked, still crying.
"Even if Jeremie was truly deleted, we can still get him back through data retrieval. And it just so happens that data retrieval is my specialty." He said, grinning slyly and cracking his knuckles.
"So your saying that it's possible to find Jeremie in the supercomputer's data and bring him
back." Ulrich said.
"Exactly. We just need to know where to look, and I should be able to bring him back."
Yami said.
"How long have you known this?" Odd asked.
"I've been thinking about it for a while now. It shouldn't be that hard to find him, especially since I'm quite proficient with computers." Yami answered.
At this, Aelita looked up at him and asked, "Do you really think it's possible to bring him back?"
"Of course I do." He grinned.
"Then we should go now." She said, standing up.
"I don't think that's the best idea. It's my first school day, and I really don't want to miss it.
But I promise that we can go after lunch. That okay with you?" Yami said, looking at her.
"I guess so, but immediately after lunch." Aelita said, smiling slightly.
"That okay with everyone else?" Yami asked looking at them.
"Yep, we'd prefer sooner but we can wait a little bit." Yumi said.
"Okay then, after lunch it is." Yami said.
As they all got up to get to class, Yami placed his hand on Aelita's shoulder. She felt it and
turned around to face him.
"Look, I'm not trying to upset you or anything but I can't promise you anything. Deleted
data can be corrupted. For all we know, this Xana might have already found and brought
Jeremie back but to fight for him. But I promise you that I will do everything in my power to bring Jeremie back. But I need you to make a promise of your own." Yami explained.
"Wh…what's that." Aelita asked.
"Stay strong. Like I said, all deleted data can be retrieved. But when something is erased, it might become corrupted." He replied. "I just thought I should warn you before hand."
Aelita just nodded and headed off to class. But Yami stayed behind a bit to grab his keys.
x0x
Later that day
Everyone was in the cafeteria, eating silently. But while they were thinking, Sissi decided to come over.
"So where's the nerd of the group." Sissi asked snottily.
"Shut up, Sissi." Aelita said bitterly.
"Why? I want to know where he is." Sissi replied.
"If you must know, he's working on a project to see if he can make earthworms smarter. But he needs a test subject and wants to know if you will be his guinea pig." Yami said, smiling.
"And just who do you think you are? Wait, your that kid who took my diary from me yesterday." Sissi said.
"If it was yours, then why did it say 'Ulrich' on the cover?" Yami said, grinning.
"Well, I...I. Oh shut up!" Sissi shouted, storming off.
"Hehehehe, idiot." Yami said.
"I wish she'd leave us all alone." Aelita muttered.
"She can't take a hint." Ulrich said.
"I've gathered that much from three encounters." Yami said.
"Yeah, third times the charm. But anyway, we going now?" Odd asked.
"Yes, but first we need to get out without anyone spotting us, mainly Sissi." Yami replied, crossing his arms. "And we need to do this now, because I can tell the teachers are getting a bit suspicious."
"I noticed that too. Not a good sign." Yumi said.
As they finished eating, Yami started wondering what he just got himself into. A supercomputer, a virtual world, and demonic AI bent on ruling the world with an iron fist. How the hell was he supposed to juggle school and all that? Not easy. But he would try nonetheless.
"Well, let's go." Aelita announced after they were all done eating.
"Fine by me. Though I'd rather not miss any classes today, I did make a promise that I intend to keep." Yami said, smiling.
Okay, lets go then before someone notices were gone. Namely Jim." Yumi said.
"Jim?" Yami said.
"Annoying gym teacher and caretaker of the school. Trust me, we don't want to get caught by him." Odd said.
"I'll keep that in mind." Yami said slowly.
As they head toward the factory, Yami noticed that the forest was quite pleasant when an evil computer wasn't chasing you. The other half of Yami's broken sword was lying on the ground. As they passed it, he picked it up and stuck it in a tree for the time being. Yami also started wondering if he had just made his very first promise that he would not be able to keep. Sure, he was an expert in data retrieval, but he knew nothing of how a virtual world worked. For all he knew, Jeremie was deleted and then pushed onto the internet. If that was the case, then finding and restoring Jeremie's data would be like searching for a needle in an ocean. Next to impossible. But he made a promise and intended to keep it at all costs. When they arrived at the factory, Odd was starting to get annoyed as no one talked on the way there. Simple reasons: Yami was thinking, Aelita was moping, Yumi still felt a bit guilty, and Ulrich was just tired.
"Would someone please say something before I go insane!" Odd shouted, " It's too quiet!"
"Shut it Odd, this isn't the time." Ulrich scolded.
"So do you really think you can bring Jeremie, Yami?" Yumi asked.
"Hard to say, so many things could have gone wrong. So many places he could be, if he is even on this supercomputer. But I should be able to at least track him down and find his location. But even with my skills in data retrieval, I've never worked with a computer as powerful as the one here." Yami stated, "But I will try."
"Lets just hope Xana didn't beat us to Jeremie." Ulrich said.
"Yeah, because if he did, I won't be able to bring him back." Yami said.
"Well, Xana never was on the ball. He probably thinks Jeremie went kaput and now is plotting how take out the next." Odd said, "An it might be…..YOU!" He shouted, jumping in front of Aelita and scaring her half to death.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaa!" Aelita screamed, being rudely jolted for her thoughts and now breathing heavily.
"Ahahahahahaha! Oh that was good; you should've seen the look on your face. Priceless." Odd squealed with laughter.
"Okay then, exactly why did you do that?" Yami said, looking at Odd and raising an eyebrow.
"Because she's so easy to scare and it's really fun." He replied.
"Really? Well be warned, cause that'll sooner or later come to back to bite you in the rear."
Yami said, stepping into the elevator with Aelita, Ulrich, and Yumi. "What goes around comes around."
"And get your butt in here, we don't have time to mess around." Ulrich said.
"Oh all right." Odd said, frowning.
Sighing, Yami said "Let's get this started then, shall we."
"Are we going to need to go to Lyoko? Because if Jeremie is indeed in the void, we'll need to find him there. Though I don't know how we're going to manage that." Aelita said, leaning on the wall.
"Ulrich said something about a sector that housed this Xana character's data. So I say we check there, first." Yami said. "So to answer your question, yes. But I don't know how you guy's are going to get there, seeing how I don't know how to run the program to get you on."
"You mean virtualization? Aelita can do that." Yumi said.
"Self-virtualization to be exact, but one of us will have to stay here. And I have to go, since only I seem to be able to access the interface." Aelita said.
"So who's staying behind?" Yami asked.
"I will. Ulrich is better at fighting then me and Yumi can defend Aelita if necessary." Odd
said.
"Okay then. Aelita, start up the program and I'll take over from there." Yami said.