Virtualization: Mike

Aelita burst into tears and buried herself in Jeremy's chest. For once, the blonde was not frozen by contact from her, and neither was he speechless, like his fellow Lyoko warriors. "So you're saying, Aelita's mom is not only Alive, but she built another XANA, or in this case, AELITA, and is being held a virtual prisoner by the CIA?" (A\N there was no way I could think of to sum this up quickly that didn't sound quite a bit far-fetched, but hey it's a fanfic, so if you don't like it, tell me in the reviews.) I looked at Jeremy, considered what he'd said, and replied, "Yup. You pretty much hit the nail on the head there Jer. Aelita? Can I say something to you?" Tears still rolling down her cheeks, choking down sobs, she nodded at Mike. "I never thought I would find you. Anthea told me you and Franz were dead." A fresh sob escapes Aelita's throat. "But now that I've found you, I have all the more reason to try to rescue her, so that you and her can be reunited at last." Aelita looked up at Mike, her eyes wide. She then proceeded to walk over to him, and embraced him. After a moment, she walked back over to Jeremy, and looked right in his eyes. "You know we can't shut it down now, right?" The others replied in unison "Of course not." Mike walks over to Jeremy " Since we're down here, we need to install this." He pulls a flash drive out of his pocket, it has a XANA symbol for the connector. Jeremy takes it in his hand, and examines it skeptically, "What is this?" Jeremy asked. "It's a storage device for the super computer, Franz Hopper's own flash drive if you will. It contains something Anthea said would be helpful." Jeremy plugs it in.


The Lab

Jeremy sits in the control chair for the super computer, and has a certain pinkette hop in his lap. He blushes, then regains control of his senses and brings up the flash drive on the main screen. "It's a kind of super scan! It'll take me a while to figure out exactly what it's scanning for, and it looks to be somewhat unfinished. Also, there is some sort of a digital signature here… " Aelita looks at the digital signature open in the editor, "Jeremy, that header leads me to believe that this is the identifier code for my mother. This search algorithm is intended to help us find her on the network!" "Aelita you're a genius! It's a 2 part scanning function, one part looks for CIA systems, and the other part looks within the systems for a digital signature. I just have to put in my replika scanner code, and reconfigure it to utilize these CIA system markers, and it'll find CIA systems on the net!" Jeremy exclaimed. "Yes, but Jeremy, look at how big this digital signature is, we'll have to activate a tower to run the second part of the scanner function if we're off in a CIA system somewhere." "Yes, yes we will Aelita. But using the supercomputer for this, I think is a noble purpose, something your father would approve of." Yumi pipes up, "So this will be similar to when we were finding replikas, but we'll be infiltrating CIA computer systems? I'm assuming they'll be protected?" Jeremy looks at her, slightly crestfallen " I hadn't even considered that yet. Yes I suppose they will be protected, and well protected too. The scanning program's CIA system parameters only seem to get us access to the systems, not control. We'll have to fight our way, and maintain a foothold to run the Anthea scan portion." Much to Jeremy's chagrin, Aelita hops up out of his lap, and starts to pull him out of the chair. "Jeremy, this is wonderful news for sure, but it can wait until tomorrow. We've been here for 2 hours now and I'm tired. Let's head back to the dorms, and mike, you and I can begin to fill in the missing code for the search function tomorrow." Jeremy nods in agreement "Yeah, we'll head back for now, but tomorrow, we'll definitely get that search running, and also, we should virtualize Mike ont Lyoko, just in case we need to use a return to the past." They all murmur general agreement, and head toward the elevator. Mike has a gleam in his eye, thrilled at the prospect of becoming virtual, but apprehensive at the undertaking they had all just begun.


Mike and Jeremy's room, that night

"So I noticed you and Aelita are pretty close, huh?" Mike asked Jeremy, with a sly grin on his face. "I don't know what you're talking about. We're best friends!" " Yeah, best friends my big toe. I can see you're Coo-Coo for cocoa puffs for her. " "I- is.. is it that obvious?" "To everyone but you two, apparently, yes it is." Jeremy lays back in his bed, and sighs, taking his glasses off. "You should do something about it Jer. I can see she likes you too." "You really think so?" "Yeah, I'm an outsider, been here for a day, and to me, it's more obvious than the choice between chocolate and dog shit." Mike turns out the lights, and crawls under his covers. "All I'm saying Jer, is you're just wasting precious time now, time that you could be spending closer to Aelita." "Well Mike, we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and a long journey to find Anthea. I'm sure if Aelita is at all interested in me, though I can't imagine why she would be, she'll make her intentions known. Good night Mike." Mike sighs at this, "Good night Jer." I guess I'm just going to have to get Aelita to make the first move, since captain oblivious here doesn't have the self confidence to do it.

I stopped writing this one for a while, and I just sat down and wrote the rest of the outlined plot for the entire story. This is going to be fairly long, so you're all in for the long haul. Please remeber R&R!