Chapter 9
Chris' eyes opened warily. Night's long dark hands had streatched through his room, deepening shadows, dimming even the school's outer lights.
'What few it has,' Chris reminded himself grumpily, and sat up. He hated nights like this, when he couldn't get any sleep. He usually wound up sleeping through his first couple of classes, only to either get detention when the instructor noticed or he'd get jumped on by Yumi for not trying to get more.
He rolled over, and tried to get back to sleep. He managed, but it wasn't a comfortable sleep.
Molly stared at the ceiling. Why did it matter if Ulrich fell for her and not Chris? Lord Xana's instructions didn't make any sense to her.
She sighed and rolled over, trying to get to sleep. It worked, but only to a point, and she soon found herself awake again.
"Great." She muttered angrily, and stared out the window. When the sun's first light began to creep over the school, she'd fallen into a blissful sort of sleep.
"You know, you should probably go to the infirmary if you're not sleeping well-" Jeremy cut off as Chris turned a dull glare on him.
"I've been in there enough." Chris muttered unhappily, taking a bite out of a piece of toast. With that he glanced back down at his tray, and immediately considered asking the kitchen staff for a cup of coffee.
"Y'know, we could shoot him for a wildlife film when we get into biology," Odd quipped quietly to Ulrich, who stifled a laugh. Chris contrived to look hurt and failed as a wan smile spread on his face.
"Do I really look that bad?" He finally asked, and Odd only nodded in return. Chris sighed and returned to his cereal as Molly sat down. "And she doesn't look much better," Odd remarked, earning a scathing glare from both Ulrich and Chris.
Chris went back to eating his cereal as Ulrich talked to Molly about the previous day's science assignment. 'If she is a spy for Xana, she's gotten as little sleep as I've gotten.' The thought brought a smile to his face, and he looked over at Jeremy. "How's your number one doing?" He asked suddenly, and Jeremy looked up, blushing furiously.
"She's, uh, she's okay." Chris nodded, and turned back to his breakfast.
"Kind of a sudden thing to ask, wasn't it?" Ulrich asked Chris later during PE. Chris shrugged.
"Just trying to be social. And it was the only thing I could think of." Chris lowered his arms and rolled his shoulders.
"So, bad dreams?" Ulrich asked after a moment, and Chris shook his head.
"Nope. Just can't get comfortable." Chris dribbled the soccer ball for a moment before passing it to Ulrich. "Kinda like sleeping on a pile of rocks."
Ulrich chuckled. "You get used to it."
"I'd better." Chris skidded to a stop, blocking a shot from Ulrich as Jim blew his whistle. "Almost over, almost-" Chris cut himself off as his beeper started going nuts.
"Oh, great. Xana's timing just gets better and better." Ulrich grumbled, and looked at Chris.
"Anything important next class?" Chris inquired after a second, and Ulrich shook his head. "Nope. You?"
"Math test. You get this one." Chris headed for the building, leaving a surprised Ulrich behind him.
"Scan Odd! Scan Ulrich!" Jeremy's fingers flew over the control panel. It was sometimes more difficult than others to figure out what Xana was planning, certainly, but nobody'd even seen this coming.
Of course, Xana usually went for large and grandiose with his schemes, not small and subtle. Taking over a manufacturing plant tended to make the news, but nobody'd actually noticed until a random cargo inspection yielded several active, grumpy Block-Bots. Nobody had been killed, thankfully, but almost a dozen such crates had been distrubted.
"Don't you just love Xana's sense of timing?" Odd asked, and Ulrich stifled a groan. "Look, Odd, just because you get out of English doesn't make it any better."
"Okay, yeah, the killer robot thing is a little much, but anything to get away from a spelling YEOW!" Odd leaped aside as a hornet nearly took his head off. "Man, normally they start shooting, but these guys..."
Ulrich split into three images with a triple attack, dropping another pair of the annoying flyers. "Just keep 'em off Aelita!"
Aelita ran. She hated this part of the job, the running. There was no telling when one of the kids would fall trying to defend her. Even though they simply went back to Earth, it still scared her. To her, de-virtualization would mean death, and she tended to remember that fact.
She also remembered that Jeremy was working to rectify that situation, but for the time being, she ran into the tower.
"Deactivating tower..." She muttered softly, as the tower shut off.
"All right. Return to the past, now!" Jeremy's voice echoed, and Aelita sighed. One more time behind her. She briefly wondered how long it would be before it was the last time.
Chris rubbed his temples, as Yumi frowned at him. "Problem?" She asked him cautiously.
"The whole lack of sleep thing doesn't get any better with those time jumps. Ugh. If nothing else, it makes them worse." Chris looked up at her apologetically. Yumi sighed and took his hands in hers.
"Go to the infirmary and get this looked into." Chris shook his head at the suggestion. "Yumi, I'm not going back and having the Doc take more pokes at me-"
"Chris, please." Yumi leaned in close and looked him in the eyes. "I care about you. A lot. You're very special to me, to Ulrich-" Chris snorted at that, but said nothing- "To Odd, to Jeremy and to Aelita. They'd be upset if anything happened to you, and I-" Yumi chocked on the words as tears crept into her eyes. "I just don't know what I'd do without you."
Chris felt his own eyes begin to water. "Yumi, I-" His words cut off as Yumi leaned in and kissed him lightly, for just an instant.
Yumi looked at Chris' face, which was rapidly darkening into a deep red. Nearby conversations had come to an abrupt halt, but neither of them noticed. Yumi held him tightly, and Chris struggled mentally to figure out exactly what he was feeling. He sighed with a bit of defeat. "All right, Yumi, if it means that much to you. Lead the way."
"Can I come in?" Ulrich asked Chris later that night, and Chris looked at him.
"If you must."
Ulrich winced. "I do something wrong? I thought we were friends now."
"Long day," Chris muttered from in front of his computer. "And I'm kinda distracted."
Ulrich blinked, and looked over Chris' shoulder. "You and Odd, sometimes, I swear. Can't understand what you see in those things."
The 'thing' in question was the game flashing past on the computer screen. Silver was blowing up enemy ships with a small ship of his own. "Your call, Ulrich, but my games aren't what you came to talk about."
"Yumi kissed you today."
Chris winced, the kind of wince that signified a certain amount of 'Oh, great, how'd you find out'. He killed his game and turned to face Ulrich. "You heard about that."
"Yeah, rumor mill's been going since this afternoon." Ulrich sat on Chris' bed with a frown. "What happened?"
"She managed to get me to visit the infirmary about my sleep problems." Chris looked out the window, his face starting to tint red all over again.
"Emberass you a little?"
"Apparently, you can't actually die from embarassment. And I'm not sure I want to." Chris held up his hand helplessly. "I like Yumi. Like her a lot. I...words aren't enough to describe it."
Ulrich chuckled. "Well, just know this: If you hurt her, the rest of us will get you."
"Only after I'm finished taking it out on me." Chris turned back to the computer and restarted his game.
"Sol-Deace? What's the story with this one?" Ulrich asked from behind him.
"Think 'Xana in Space' and you've got a pretty good idea."
Molly sat outside Chris' room and waited for Ulrich. She heard the boys laugh as Ulrich emerged. "Hey, thanks for waiting." Ulrich smiled down at her.
Molly had heard a song recently, and recalled some of the words as "There's something in his smile". True enough for Ulrich. There was something in his smile that made Molly feel safe, cared for, wanted, things that Xana certainly never gave her-
-she shook her head as she fell into step with Ulrich. That wasn't right, she shouldn't be thinking about Lord Xana that way, shouldn't-
"You okay?" Ulrich asked, and she nodded. "Yeah," she admitted (albeit falsely), "Just all this business about Chris and Yumi."
"Yeah, I know." Ulrich smiled, and Molly knew she should be trying to focus on her mission, on finding ways of bringing Xana's enemies down-
Her hand found Ulrich's, who gave her a shy smile and an affection squeeze of the hand.
-But all that could wait.