11: Artificial Agents and Adept Advisors
YUMI
Yumi never slept in – even on weekends. It was as if her internal biological clock forbade her from snoozing past seven thirty in the morning. She headed downstairs to find her mother already sitting at the dining room table, with a cup of green tea in her hands and working on the daily crossword puzzle.
Mrs. Ishiyama was the epitome of the phrase 'the early bird gets the worm'. She was always up before everyone else, either preparing meals or out for a jog. And her physical appearance reflected her lifestyle; despite being in her mid-forties, she still had the look of a young woman.
"Good morning Yumi. I wasn't expecting you to be up so soon after yesterday's long trip."
"Oh, I don't really feel that tired."
"That's fine. I have today's paper for you right here. Just give a minute to get your breakfast ready."
Yumi took out the daily Sudoku and skimmed over the other contents. There wasn't anything of interest. Most of it was regarding the upcoming presidential elections and more controversy over Zinedine Zidane's headbutt at the FIFA World Cup. Her mother returned with a bowl of rice, miso soup and a small tofu and fish dish.
"Itadakimasu"
"You're welcome."
Yumi picked up her soup with both hands, blowing gently over the surface. Miso soup always seemed to soothe her. She took a sip and found that it was still quite hot and not too watery or salty. Just right.
"Mom?"
"Mother," Mrs. Ishiyama corrected, insistent on maintaining formalities.
"Sorry. Mother?"
"Yes?"
"Are you busy today?"
"Not really. I was going to grocery shopping after dropping off Hiroki at John's house in the afternoon – that is if he ever gets up."
"Told you buying that new PSP for him was a bad idea."
Mrs. Ishiyama chuckled. "Oh come on. It was his birthday, he was getting good grades and I haven't been receiving as many calls from the principal on his deviant behaviour. I still don't know what influenced him to pull those cheap tricks."
Yumi had a fleeting idea in her head that undoubtedly included Odd.
"Anyways, I'm free for the morning."
"Okay. I was…wondering if you could–" Yumi struggled, feeling uncomfortable in asking for help. While she wasn't as fiercely independent as Jeremie, she still preferred to resolve things on her own. But even she knew that it was best to seek parental guidance on mapping her future; since they have already faced a similar situation in their lives.
The university and colleges fair had been insightful. Yumi obtained some information regarding scholarships, residence, etc., and attended all of the presentations from the schools she showed interest in. Still, she felt slightly uneasy. After all, this was a long-term commitment educationally and financially. And she didn't want to mess up.
"–could you go over some university stuff with me?" There. She said it.
Her mother was surprised. Unlike with Hiroki, she rarely had to keep an eye on her oldest child, who liked to handle things by herself. And she never had a problem with that in all these years. Yumi's teachers praised her academic record, and it seemed that she was becoming more social as well, as she started hanging out with a group of friends.
Mrs. Ishiyama smiled. "Of course. How about after you finish your breakfast? I'll go wake your father. I'm sure he'll have some advice to give as well.
"Sure, that'd be great."
"And Yumi. I know you like to work things out on your own, but if you ever need anything, don't hesitate and let us know. We'll always be there for you."
As Mrs. Ishiyama left the dining room once again, Yumi mumbled a soft 'thank you'. She knew that she could always count on her parents, but hearing her mother actually say that made her smile.
ULRICH
Chemistry labs were fun; save for the occasional explosion or leakage of corrosive acid. On the other hand, lab write-ups were not fun, especially on a Saturday morning.
Odd and Ulrich were once again huddled in front of one of the library's computers. They had completed most of the analysis parts the previous day, and were hoping to have their report printed off by lunchtime. There were better things to do on weekends.
Like reading, which was quickly becoming Ulrich's favourite pastime as the chilly weather outside made football less appealing. Of course, he wasn't perusing over the works of Orwell, Tolkien or even Margaret Atwood; but more along the lines of Misashi Kishimoto's manga Naruto
Ulrich had become drawn into the wonderful ancient world of ninjas, epic clashes between good and evil and giant talking frogs. Yumi had lent him the first ten volumes of the series. His favourite character by far, was Sasuke Uchiha, for being the quiet-yet-totally-badass type.
However, homework still proved to be the most time-consuming activity of the week, and Ulrich felt as if he never had the time to do anything else.
Fortunately, the chemistry lab was essentially the only thing he had to hand in next week. And so Ulrich looking forward to a great day of reading. He was curious as to what was underneath Kakashi's mask…
"What was the final pH of the solution? Eight?"
Odd's voice snapped Ulrich's train of thought. "Huh?"
"The final pH for the last experiment was eight, right?" his friend repeated.
Ulrich looked down at his lab notes.
"Er…actually, it's eight and a half, so that makes it a weak base."
"Yessiree boss," Odd replied happily as he typed in their results. "Alright. Onto the next part…aww man."
"Oh come on, it's just the conclusion. And then we're done."
"Just the conclusion? Ulrich, it's the longest and boringest part. First we have to summarize our findings, then discuss errors and deficiencies. Plus we have to answer some textbook questions."
"We should get started then."
"I liked it better when we just filled an entire page with random stuff as our conclusion and handed that in."
Ulrich chuckled. "Odd, you know Mrs. Hertz expects more from us this year. Random b.s. isn't going to cut it. And the errors are more or less the same for all labs."
"Guess you're right. We could say something along the lines of 'human measurement error resulted in either a slightly more acidic or basic solution'…and stuff like that."
"Sounds good," said Ulrich as he flipped through the pages of his chemistry textbook for the lab questions.
ODD
"So, moving a bit off topic…"
"Can we not?"
Odd ignored him. "Halloween is coming up in two weeks."
"Yep," Ulrich replied while scanning the table of contents.
"You know, it's a good thing Principal Delmas is allowing us to get dressed up this year. Makes it more festive," added Odd.
"Yep."
"Apparently there's going to be a prize this year for the best costume."
"Yep."
"And then there's that dance at night in which Aelita's the DJ for."
"Yep."
"So…you planning to ask Yumi out to the Halloween dance?"
"Yep," said Ulrich as he finally found the page he was searching for. He looked up to see Odd with a goofy expression on his face, before realizing what had just happened.
"Wait. No. Uh–"
"Relax, I'm just kidding around."
"I dunno." he mumbled. "I mean, it's just a Halloween dance. It isn't like, prom or anything. There's no walking up to the girl's house and fancy formal stuff like that. It's more like a fun get-together type of event. And Aelita's performing, so all the more reason to go and support her."
"Fair enough. But, you know she likes you right?"
"Aelita?"
Odd smacked his head. "No, Yumi."
"What? No. We're just good friends."
"Uh-huh." Odd remained sceptical.
"Really. There's nothing going on between us." Clearly, the discussion was moving from one type of chemistry to another.
"Ulrich, I'm not sure if you've noticed it or not–"
"Can we just get back to the lab? It's almost ten thirty."
"Alright. But just to let you know…Yumi likes you for being you."
JEREMIE
"Morning Jeremie," said Aelita as she walked into her friend's room. To her left was a poster of the great theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, above a bed with unkempt sheets scattered about. A small closet, wooden drawer and a bookshelf stacked with textbooks and scholarly journals occupied the opposite side. There was also a small table near the window that was largely occupied by a wide computer monitor.
"Morning," her friend replied cheerfully as he closed the door behind her.
"So, how was the robotics club?"
"It wasn't all that bad. Got to know a couple of senior students and talked a bit about programming applications.
"See?" Aelita nudged her friend "Told you it'd be worth your while."
"Fine. You were right. How was your SubDigitals rehearsal? I thought it ended at seven thirty? I didn't see you at the cafeteria last night. "
"It does. And it was great meeting and practicing with the band. I even got to listen to a demo of one of their upcoming songs, and it sounds pretty amazing. Then Bryan took me out to this really good Vietnamese restaurant, so that's why I came back late," she responded animatedly.
The smile on Jeremie's face started to fade. It sounded like those two were…
"And he said we could do this every week–"
Double whammy.
"But I'd be paying next time. So, what did you want to show me?" asked Aelita, still smiling.
"Well…you know the files we got from Sector 5 yesterday?" he said as he headed towards his desk.
"Mhmm. Bryan said that they were the missing half of what he had–"
"What?"
"It turns out his father left behind some documents to Project CARTHAGE, which were separated as some security protocol. So he's only got half of them; we retrieved the other half yesterday."
Hmm, this is interesting. So that's how he knew about the supercomputer.
"He even showed me a – a picture of my mother. She's…"
"Did he tell you what happened to her?" the boy inquired, to which Aelita shook her head.
Jeremie was slightly disheartened. He wanted to be the one to break the news and impress Aelita with what he had read up last night, including new details on the supercomputer's origins and evidence that her mother – Anthea Hopper was alive somewhere.
"Bet he didn't tell you what XANA stood for," he said with a hint of hope.
Aelita looked curious. "No, are you implying that…XANA is actually an abbreviation?"
Jeremie nodded, feeling better now that he still had some tidbits of information to divulge as he logged on to his computer.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Aelita leaning in with interest. Her shoulder was almost touching his. Jeremie tried his best to disregard the churning sensation in his stomach and kept his eyes on the computer screen.
He opened one of the documents. The large, bolded title said it all.
NATO Executive Order X – ANAA.
And right underneath it in smaller letters:
"Artificial NATO AntiSoviet Agent." the boy stated.
"Hmm, I guess that…kind of makes sense. Bryan did mention that XANA started out as a program to disrupt Soviet attacks. And the 'X' –"
"– the Roman numeral for ten. NATO's tenth executive order."
Jeremie scrolled down and continued. "The first couple of pages give a general gist of things. It basically covers what Bryan said already; that the goal of this project was to design a system that could eradicate threats from the Soviet Union. There wasn't much about LYOKO itself though…"
"Well, my father never intended to create LYOKO. That was more of a side project, so it wouldn't be on the official Project CARTHAGE records."
"True. Anyways, I also wanted to show you several images." The first photograph was dated in 1974 and showed roughly twenty individuals.
"Are those the people involved with Project CARTHAGE?" asked Aelita.
"I believe so. And look who's in the middle."
It was unmistakably Aelita's father. He was wearing a lab coat and grey shades. To either side of him were two younger individuals – one male and one female – also wearing lab coats, looking quite pleased with themselves. And behind them were a bunch of casually-dressed personnel.
"The caption says that the man to the left is Dr. A. Green – Bryan's father. And the woman on the right is Dr. G. Peterson."
"What about the others?"
"Administration and office workers."
"Wait, would it be possible to find out if any of them are still around nowadays?"
"Probably not. Bryan said that it was only the three scientists that actually worked on developing the supercomputer at the abandoned factory. Plus, since they were all working on such a confidential project for NATO, it's very likely they've been reintegrated into society under different aliases, making it nearly impossible to track them down."
Aelita nodded. "To protect themselves and the secrets of the operation."
"We know that your father is somewhere within the DigitalSea, but we're not entirely sure how he got there. And Dr. Green is – unfortunately deceased. What I'm most interested in, is what became of Dr. Peterson. She was the other associate of Franz Hopper. If she's still alive we were able to find her, then she would definitely–"
"– know what happened to Project CARTHAGE. And possibly how to rescue my father and stop XANA as well," finished Aelita.
"Exactly my point. Something's bothering me though."
Aelita's eyes darted from the computer screen to a frowning Jeremie. "What's that?"
"Bryan said there were only three WayTowers created to allow the three scientists and their children into LYOKO. Do you think that Dr. Peterson ever had a child?"
AELITA
"Maybe. But then, that means that they also have a prefabricated LYOKO avatar, just like Bryan and me."
"And it'll probably be a generically powerful one as well. I mean, Bryan could take apart XANA's forces on his first try. Imagine the three of you guys together. XANA wouldn't stand a chance. Bryan said you're the most powerful LYOKO warrior."
"Well, I don't know about that," Aelita shrugged. She looked down at her hands. Elemental manipulation: earth, wind, fire, water. And when combined, form energy. She had yet to try out her newfound fire or water abilities, of which the latter Bryan had suggested to avoid using.
"Don't you find it odd that Bryan said he came over to Kadic apparently to free you from the supercomputer. But he said that he wasn't any good in programming."
"Umm…okay?"
"I mean, it took me several months to compile Code: EARTH. I'm not sure how he could've gotten you out of LYOKO in the first place without any aptitude in writing scripts.
"Are you trying to imply something?"
"To me, it seems like he has some other…ulterior motive for being here."
"And he does," said Aelita forcefully. She had no idea why she suddenly snapped back, standing up for someone she had just met recently. "He – he also wants to stop XANA from achieving its objectives. Just like the rest of us."
Jeremie was taken aback. "Sorry, I didn't mean–"
The girl shook her head, feeling ashamed of raising her voice. "No, it's…it's not your fault. I know he's holding something back from the rest of us. He even said so himself. But…I just trust him."
"As do I. After all, he's proven instrumental in our fight against XANA."
Aelita nodded. "I just wish we knew the entire picture though. Every time we uncover more about the supercomputer, more questions pop up as well."
"Yeah. But I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it eventually," said Jeremie, which earned a weak smile from his friend.
"Speaking of pictures, there's one more thing I want you to see," he added as he scrolled down to the last page. It was another scanned photograph. Only this time, there were only two people in it.
Aelita recognized them immediately. "Mom and dad," she whispered. Both of her parents were smiling and standing in front of a snow-covered building that looked vaguely familiar…
"You're in the picture as well," said Jeremie, grinning.
His friend looked confused for a moment, before noticing that her mother had a hand over her very round tummy, which was sticking out of her parka.
"Well, that's about it. But I'm sure there's more in Sector 5."
Aelita slowly nodded. "Yes. We definitely have to go back to CARTHAGE," she said, still staring at another proof of existence of her mother. Her parents looked content and peaceful. If only she knew what had caused her family to completely fall apart…
BRYAN
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
Bryan put his copy of Nineteen Eighty–Four down and looked out the window. It didn't look like that bad outside, but he simply didn't feel like leaving his room.
His phone suddenly began to vibrate. Bryan frowned. Who would be calling him? He took his feet off his desk and reached for his mobile device.
"Hel–"
"Why the bloody hell have you not called for over a month?" yelled a girl's voice from the other end.
Bryan held the phone several decimetres away from his ear and laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head. At least it wasn't a telemarketer
"Heh. My bad, I – I kinda forgot," he said sheepishly.
"You forgot? God dammit Bryan. Do you know how…how–" the other end cursed, before lowering her voice down. "– worried I was? I miss you, you know. You could've at least sent out an email or called me every now and then. I thought that – that you…"
The boy instantly felt a pang of guilt. He knew he had forgotten something very important. "Yeah, I know. I'm really, really sorry Val. But I got to Kadic safely. A…a lot has happened this past month. And you know me. I've got the worst short-term memory in the world," he said.
He heard a sniffle and what sounded like a light giggle from the other end. "Yeah well, that's good to hear. Just – just make sure you don't forget this time. Write it down or something."
"Gotcha," he replied as he wrote a note his agenda.
"Anyways, how are you doing Bri?"
"Not too bad. School's not too difficult and I made a couple of new friends. Guess what I'm reading in English class."
"Hmm…is it something by Shakespeare?"
"No."
"Is it boring?"
Bryan laughed. "Umm…no."
"I meant for sensible and sane people."
"Ouch Val, that was kind of harsh."
"Sorry. You know I hate English."
"You're not skipping again, are you?"
"No. I'm being a 'good girl' like you told me to. I'm staying awake in class, handing in homework on time and to the best of my ability. And I stopped sulking and flipping desks over."
"Splendid. Keep it up," Bryan said as his friend let out a groan.
"Is it something we've read in class last year?"
"…Maybe."
"The Hobbit."
"No."
"Lord of the Rings."
"We didn't read that."
"Yes we did. It was that one with those stranded kids–"
"I think you meant Lord of the Flies."
"Oh, whatever. Is it that?"
"No."
"Then what else…oh…not that."
"You got it."
"But – that…oh god, no. Seriously? They make you read that in France as well?"
"It's a pretty good book."
"Sure it is. If you're trying to find a way of curing insomnia."
"It's good for that too. And I always find out things I missed when I re-read a book. For instance, did you know that–"
"Yes I did."
"Don't tell me you're psychic as well."
"Why?"
"Nothing." Bryan proceeded to tell her about his new school life across the Atlantic Ocean, including what happened the day before with another person he perceived to also have telepathic abilities.
"Cool. So you finally found her then," Val said when Bryan had finished his epic of epic epicness.
"Yep," he replied cheerfully.
"What's she like?"
"Yumi? Oh she's–"
"I meant Aelita."
"She's a really fun person to be around. She's also kind of amusing sometimes, since she was stuck in the supercomputer and hadn't caught on to the norms of today's society."
"Is she cute?"
"Well I did have a picture of her when she was little. She was pretty cute."
"And you said there was already a group of students that managed to free her from the supercomputer? So a top-secret complex was infiltrated by a teenage boy who just happened to be wandering around. And he also managed to create a program to materialize Aelita into the real world?"
"Pretty much."
"Bloody hell."
"I couldn't believe it myself. But it certainly saves us some time."
"Yeah. Unbelievable. So they've also been thwarting XANA's plans for over a year?"
"Uh-huh."
"And keeping on top of school as well?"
"Uh-huh."
'They're not human."
"I'm pretty sure they are."
"Anyways…are you still planning to carry out that?"
"Have no choice, right? Either I make the first move or eventually, they will. I still don't know enough though. You couldn't dig anything up?"
"Nope. I've been checking more frequently ever since you've left."
"And what about Step–"
"That little bit–"
"Language, Val."
"Sorry, sorry. You know that I hate her with every fibre of my being. And my spirit too for that matter."
Bryan sighed. "Yeah. I know. I do too. Nothing came up on her?"
"Nothing. Do you plan on telling the rest of them?"
"Definitely not. We've already got to deal with one evil obsessed with world domination."
"True. Take things step by step, right?"
"Yep. So, how are you doing these days?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. But it's just not the same without you. I – I mean…yeah."
"Aww, I miss you too Val."
"Well I miss you even more."
"Yeah, you probably do."
"Told you so."
"Alright. I don't want to rack up your long-distance minutes. How about we leave it at this, and I'll call you back some other time?"
"Fine by me. I have to go out soon. Mads needs my help today."
"With what?"
"Baking for a fundraiser."
"So she chose you?"
"Yeah. She's lost it. I'm the one who turns any pastry into a solid black rock."
"Well, you're still better than the guy who didn't know how to prepare cup noodles."
Val laughed. "You'd better call back soon."
"Don't worry, I'll remember this time. Tell my grandparents I'm doing fine."
"Got it."
"And thanks for keeping an eye out."
"No problem."
"You know you're the best person for the job."
"You're much too nice."
"Indeed I am. My kindness literally knows no bounds."
"Riiight. Okay, I'll talk to you later then."
"Yep. Later."
"Bryan?"
"Yes Valerie?"
"Love you."
Bryan paused for a moment. After all this time… "I love you too. Be safe, okay?" he said, before hanging up.
Fragmented Legacy Fun Fact 011:
Aelita's favourite book is Alice in Wonderland.
A|N's:
I wanted to do was go into more detail about Project CARTHAGE. This included coming up with what X.A.N.A. stood for, which was difficult since there were so few plausible words in the English language that started with the letter 'X'. But 'X' could very well represent a Roman numeral!
Feel free to leave a comment, and as always, thanks for reading Code LYOKO: Fragmented Legacies =)