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10
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"Come on Herve. This isn't a good idea."
"I didn't ask you to come Nikolas." Herve poked his head out from the manhole. After he saw Sissi and Odd leave, he'd followed them, intending to interrupt somehow or some way; he hadn't really bothered to fully think it out. He'd been thrown for a loop when he saw them going down into the sewers, but he'd followed.
Nikolas, hoping to stop his friend from anything rash, had followed. "Well someone had to follow you. Anyways, where are-" He paused as he climbed out of the hole. "Hey. This is my fishing spot! This is the factory where we saw Della Robbia and Aelita, isn't it?"
Herve looked around for any sign of Sissi and Odd. "Yeah, this is it alright. Now isn't that a coincidence?"
"Do you think Della Robbia brought her here because he knew it was a good spot for stuff?"
"What kind of stuff?"
"Uhh, you know. Stuff."
Herve froze. "Stuff? As in stuff stuff?"
Nikolas suddenly realized the mistake his slow thinking had made. "Uhh, wait, maybe not stuff stuff, maybe it's just – hey wait, Herve!"
Herve had made a beeline for the factory doors. Nikolas groaned and ran after him.
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Down in the computer room, Sissi had put herself over by the computer with Jeremie. In the last few minutes, two of the security doors had collapsed with enormous crash-bangs as the whatever-it-was brute-forced them down.
"I don't think they're going to get to the tower before it gets here." Jeremie said, looking nervous.
"Well what are we going to do then?" Sissi's voice was just as scared; getting a look at those strange inhuman eyes had given her a good scare, and reminder her once again that she had stumbled into a world where safety was not guaranteed at all.
"I'm not – " Jeremie stopped as his cell phone rang and he picked up. "Hello? Oh good, Ulrich, you're here. Where's Yumi? A pop exam? Greaaaat. Well, get down here quick, we've got a big problem knocking at the doors."
Ulrich said something but one of the security doors gave way with a crash and blotted it out, making Sissi and Jeremie jump. "Sorry Ulrich, I didn't catch that, another door just gave way. We've only got three left. What did you say?"
Sissi leaned in to hear, just in time to hear Ulrich's reply.
"You've got a problem upstairs too. Herve and Nikolas are in the factory."
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Ulrich kept a hand over the speaker of his phone to lessen the volume as he crouched on the upper platform inside the factory entrance. Down on the main floor, Herve and Nikolas were poking around, looking behind boxes and machinery.
"What are they doing here?" Jeremie's voice came from the phone, mildly muffled by a bang from somewhere in the background.
"I don't know, but they're going over the place with a fine tooth comb." Ulrich replied. "I'd bet a hundred euro they followed Sissi and Odd here; Herve looks like he's about ready to pop a vein."
Below, Herve vanished into a hallway. Nikolas followed after his friend reluctantly.
"Jeremie, they're headed for the stairs down."
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Jeremie let out a short, sharp swear; Sissi realized she hadn't heard him swear before, essentially ever. He looked up at her. "If they follow the hallways and passages from upstairs, they're going to end up back in the mechanical workings, and that's going to lead them…"
Sissi looked up at the security doors as another roar came from beyond the remaining three. "They're going to come up right behind that thing!" She paled as another huge crash came as another security door went. "Crap…this is my fault. Herve tried to ask me out a few weeks ago, and I turned him down. I've been talking to Nikolas in the last few days, and he's been saying how Herve has been angry and touchy ever since." Sissi looked back at Jeremie. "He must have followed me and Odd here trying to stop us from doing anything."
Odd's voice came from the speakers. "It's probably actually Aelita's and my fault too. Remember the thing Jeremie? When we had to throw them off? That was just a couple weeks before everything started."
"Thing?" Sissi asked. Another bang from the hall made her jump.
"We'll explain it later." Jeremie said, still holding the phone up. "Ulrich, get down to the scanners as fast as you can, we need you on Lyoko to get this tower down."
An affirmative sound came from the phone, and Jeremie closed it. He looked up at Sissi, taking a deep breath.
"Sissi. You're going to have to stop Herve and Nikolas. If they end up in that thing's way, it's not going to end well at all."
Sissi paled, swallowing a lump. Fear was settling in a pit in her stomach again. But she clenched her fists, steeling herself.
"Where should I go?"
Jeremie tapped at the computer and abruptly a sheet of paper printed out from above; he grabbed it and handed it to Sissi. "Here's a map of the factory. To catch up with them, you'll have to go down the access hatch to the virtualization chamber." He pointed at a hall on the map. "From there, take this hall and follow the blue arrow markings to get you back up to this level. Find Herve and Nikolas and get them away from this thing; if you can without being completely in danger, try and get it away from the security doors, there's only two left."
Sissi nodded, gripping the map. "Alright, where do I start?"
Jeremie pointed to a spot on the floor. "The hatch is there."
Sissi moved to it and grasped at the metal plate; it lifted smoothly, revealing a ladder going down. Without waiting, she climbed in and started down quickly, closing the hatch behind her.
"Jeremie, are you sure about this?" Odd's voice came from the computer, sounding extremely tense.
Jeremie gripped the console as another bang came from the security doors. "Odd, if I had any choices left, I'd take them. Right now, Sissi's the only one we can count on for this."
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