DISCLAIMER: I do not own Code Lyoko!
A/N: This was by far the longest and most taxing chapter that I have written thus far! A lot of plotline goes on, and it will get very interesting! But don't just take my word for it; read for yourself! Part one of the Season Finale begins…now!
Episode 120: The Cabin (1)
The next morning…
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Yes, Principal Delmas?"
"Yes, this is he."
"Yes, my name is Rebecca Winthrop. I'm calling in regards to my daughter Taelia. She's fallen ill, and is now going to see a specialist, so she won't be attending classes at Kadic for the time being until the doctors are able to diagnose her illness."
"Ah, I see…very well. Tell Taelia we hope for her speedy return."
"Absolutely,sir. Good bye, now," Jeremy breathed as he hung up the phone and had to bite his lip to keep from chuckling. The voice synthesizer could come in so handy sometimes… As Jeremy turned back to his laptop, he jumped when his cell phone buzzed, and he picked it up quickly when he saw Jacob's name on the caller ID. "Hey, what's up?"
"You at the Factory?" he asked breathlessly.
"No, I'm in my room. You can come down if you want…" Jeremy said, and just as he finished, he heard a knock on the door , and he barely had time to say, "Come in," before the door opened and Jacob was standing there, breathless, with laptop in hand. "Okay…is something wrong?" he asked as Jacob sat down and began typing furiously.
"No, not at all," Jacob said as his fingers continued to fly over the keys. "Come on…" he muttered as he furiously typed in a command code and waited expectantly. His laptop pinged a moment later and he grinned. "Yes!" he hissed triumphantly as he punched his fist in the air.
"I'm lost…" Jeremy said slowly as Jacob laughed.
"I finally got the SuperScan modified to accept one of the two sets of coordinates we found in the data cache. It took me a while to figure it out, but they correspond to a location in the Network…" he explained as he pulled the Holomap up and switched over to the Network view. "Let's see where you go…" he mumbled as he punched in the coordinates and hit the Enter key. A moment passed as the computer processed the location, and then the Holomap view began to move as the image zoomed in on the specific location. Jeremy and Jacob watched as a large gray sphere became visible, and Jacob nodded simply, as if it was what he had been expecting.
"Uh-huh…that's what I thought…" he whispered as he scrolled the map around to try and get a better view.
"Here, I got it…" Jeremy said as he took the laptop gently from Jacob and began to type, pulling up a scanning program and typing in the coordinates of the Replika. A moment later, the thing was scanned, and Jeremy nodded as the laptop pinged. "Now…let's see what we have here…" he muttered as he pulled up the results. "It's a Replika of the Mountain Sector…" he pointed out as Jacob furrowed his brow slightly.
"Why on earth would the coordinates of a Replika be in Antea's file?" Jacob thought aloud.
"I'm not sure…but this other set of coordinates is too long to be a set of coordinates for any virtual location… Maybe the Replika has something to do with them?"
"Maybe…" Jacob trailed off. "Have you tried searching a global map yet?"
"That was the first thing I tried," Jeremy replied with a slight trace of dejection in his voice. "No dice."
"Maybe not coordinates, then?" Jacob asked, and Jeremy bobbed his head ever so slightly up and down before he replied.
"Maybe…" he replied. "You know, that's not a bad thought, actually…" he muttered. "I'll get to looking into that," he added as Jacob smiled.
"Good. With both of us working on this it'll be a lot easier. How do you want to go about exploring this Replika?" he asked after a moment. Jeremy just sighed before he replied.
"Well…we've got finals tomorrow, so that won't do us a whole lot of good to do it tonight…how about tomorrow night?" he asked, and Jacob nodded.
"It's settled then. Tomorrow we go to find out what XANA's been keeping from us…" he said in a confident tone as he thought about what they could possibly find. "She couldn't be alive, could she? Not after this long…" Jacob thought to himself as he bid Jeremy good night and went off towards his own room. He still had some investigating to do…
Working late into the night, Jacob was sitting with his laptop going through every inch of Antea's file; hoping to find something; anything that might help him connect the dots. He searched Franz and Antea Hopper, and immediately got a bunch of hits. He scanned through the first few, furrowing his brow as he read.
"No…no…already know that…shoot, why is it that everything we know from the school's file on Franz is on the Internet but nothing else is…?" he growled, beginning to get frustrated as he blinked and all of a sudden saw a headline from an old newspaper article. He opened the page and looked at the publishing date, which immediately piqued his interest. "June 6th…why do I know that date…?" he asked himself as he stared at the screen…
—Flashback—
"June 6th, 1994. Day 1. I've been discovered; my enemies are after me! They're hunting me down for the information I have on Project Carthage. I fear they want its secrets to turn it against humanity… they are coming for me. I do not know if there is any way to escape, nor do I know how much time I have…I have to hurry…"
"June 6th, 1994. Day 897. They're still after me. I feel like they're always watching me…I'm running out of time…I need more time…I have to save her…"
"June 6th, 1994. Day 1049. I've given up all hope of bringing Antea home at this time…my only choice is to escape. I hope that one day; if she manages to survive…I will be able to find her. For now, all I can do I focus on saving Aelita…"
— End Flashback—
"Of course!" he exclaimed in realization as it hit him why he knew the date. "It's the day Hopper repeated over and over again! Just not in the same year…this was a decade before…" he observed as he continued reading…
Jacob had actually gone through the cache of Hopper's diary entries that Jeremy had saved on disc, and listened to many of the entries. He and Jeremy learned from listening to them a few times that the Time Reversion program was not perfect in the beginning by any means; in fact, most events were not undone when Hopper first used it. It was only once he found the program and perfected it that it became the effective tool the gang was used to in the present. This reasoning was why when Hopper used the Time Reversion over and over, it did not rectify Antea's kidnapping, because Antea's kidnapping had already long taken place and due to the first Time Reversions not fixing the problem, the subsequent ones would only undo what had happened after the previous Time Reversion. (Basically, the next Time Reversion only undoes the events following the previous one when they are used subsequently, if that makes a lot of sense to anyone. Because Antea's kidnapping happened long before the first Time Reversion, the next 2500 or so Reversions could do nothing to fix it.)
"Now…what do we have here…?" he said as he continued to read…
Government Raid on Scientist's Cabin
-Article written by Miles Ignatius Blackwell-
Earlier today, authorities report that a government task force raided the vacation home of esteemed scientist Waldo Schaeffer…. The cabin was heavily damaged in the raid, and it is not known if damages will be paid It is also not yet known what they were searching for, but witnesses report that Schaeffer's wife, Antea, was taken from the home forcibly. A full investigation is set to follow, and authorities are saying that evidence collected in the raid may lead to treason charges against Mr. Schaeffer…
"So they did take Antea…" he muttered as he took a closer look at the photo of the Hopper cabin that was below the article. He looked at the backdrop and furrowed his brow as the wheels turned quickly in his head. "Wait a minute…that's the French Alps…" he muttered as he pulled up a 3-D world map on his computer and zoomed in on France. He took the zoom further in until he arrived at the French Alps, and then did a coordinate check. Comparing them with his notes, he found… "Aha! At least part of this second coordinate set matches the mountains. But why would they be longer…?" he mused as he shut down his computer. "Oh, well…I'm not going to be of any use if I stay up much later…" he yawned as he curled up in his bed and fell asleep…
Meanwhile…
"Master, we've tried everything…" Taelia said miserably. "You won't get any more information from…"
"Silence!" XANA hissed as Taelia shrank back in fear. "You will go back to the base and do whatever you have to in order to get the information we want! And you'll do it now!" he growled as he shot a laser bolt at Taelia and she devirtualized from his sight. "That information is imperative to my plans…" he thought to himself as he plotted his next move…
The next day…
"Afternoon, man!" Joey grinned as he high-fived Jacob, who smiled, albeit a little distantly. Joey caught this and gave him a strange look. "You okay? You seem a bit out of sorts. Exams go okay?"
"Huh?" Jacob asked as he blinked and focused on Joey. "Oh, yeah…they went fine, man…just got a lot of stuff on my mind…" he muttered as Joey nodded knowingly.
"There's something you're not telling me, isn't there? Do you know something about Taelia? I heard Delmas say she's ill, but somehow I don't believe that…" Joey trailed off as he saw Jacob spacing out again. "Dude! What's…?" Joey never got a chance to finish his statement, because the next time he looked up, Jacob was gone. "What is with him lately…?" Joey wondered in frustration. His best friend was all spacey and now he was avoiding questions too. "Something's not right…"
"Unh!" Jacob grunted as he collided with something solid and fell backwards to the ground, his padded laptop bag flying off his shoulder. He heard a flurry of apologies as he blinked and looked up to see Ulrich holding out a hand to help him up. Jacob took the extended hand gratefully and smiled as Ulrich handed him his laptop bag. "I was just looking for you, Jake," he said quickly. "Jeremy says we're ready to go if you are."
"I'm ready," Jacob replied, his senses immediately snapping into overdrive. "Let's rock!" he said as he and Ulrich headed to meet the others at the park sewer entrance…
Once everyone had arrived in the Park, Jeremy nodded and began to speak, with Jacob standing to his left. "Okay. Today we're going on an exploratory mission to visit the Replika that lies at the coordinates we retrieved from XANA's data cache. Now, I know that we don't know what we're looking for, so anything you find is crucial. We don't know what secrets XANA has hidden here nor do we know what they will lead to, so we have to be on our guard at all times. You follow?" Six nods. "Good. Let's get this show on the road then…" he muttered as the eight Warriors headed for the Factory…
Once the gang arrived, Jeremy sent the rest of the gang down to the Scanners while he prepared the virtualization procedures from the Computer Lab. Before he began, he heard Jacob's voice come over his headset for just a moment.
"Hey, Einstein, I was going to tell you…"
"Not now, Jacob," Jeremy replied. "It's go time!" he grinned.
Transfer Odd, Transfer Ulrich, Transfer Yumi!
Scanner Odd, Scanner Ulrich, Scanner Yumi!
Virtualization!
Transfer Aelita, Transfer William, Transfer Marth!
Scanner Aelita, Scanner William, Scanner Marth!
Virtualization!
Transfer Jacob!
Scanner Jacob!
Virtualization!
A minute or so later, the entire gang, save for Jeremy, of course, was virtualized in the Skid hangar, and rushed quickly onto their Teleport Spots.
"Ready, guys? Energize!" Jeremy said calmly as the gang vanished in the customary columns of light and appeared a moment later in their seats. Aelita took the controls and sighed deeply before flicking the switches.
"Here we go everybody! Vertical propulsion!" she said as she flicked the throttle. "Cast off! Full steam ahead!" she said as she piloted the Skid out of the North Pole and over the Digital Sea. She hit the throttle, and a moment later the Skid dived into the Digital Sea…
Once the Skid burst from the Access Gate, Aelita flicked the lights and sonar on and set the throttle to cruise control, and then sat back in her seat, allowing Jeremy to take the controls.
"Okay, guys, I'm programming the coordinates of the Replika into the autopilot because we don't know the exact way there. This Replika seems to have some sort of cloaking field around it so you won't find it until you're almost on top of it. There's a Data Hub near you that you're going to take, got it?"
"Yes, Jeremy; we see it now," Aelita affirmed as she rotated the Skid to vertical and prepared for descent. "Hyperfluid aspiration in three seconds…"
The Skid blasted out from the hub a moment later, and Aelita sighed as she looked at the GPS tracker. They were getting awfully close to the Replika, and there was… All of a sudden, the Digital Sea turned scarlet as Aelita looked around and saw a school of Eels approaching from the east. "Right on cue…" she laughed sarcastically as she flicked the release switch. "We've got company, children," she chirped with a chuckle. "NavSkids away!"
Marth and Odd chuckled in unison as they broke off and cornered the first two Eels. "Well, how you want to take them, buddy?" Odd asked with a grin.
"Like this!" Marth replied as he launched a torpedo barrage at the two monsters. They, however; were able to swim through the smoke cloud unscathed, and Marth growled in annoyance. "Or not…" he said lamely as Odd laughed.
"No, not like that at all," the blonde pointed out as he swerved to avoid a lightning bolt from one of the Eels. He just avoided the bolt and then did a complete three-sixty loop as his finger twitched on the button and he shot a torpedo at one of the Eels. It shrieked as it turned, but could not move out of the way in time and exploded in a shower of sparks. Odd grinned as Marth scowled. "And that's doing it with style!" he grinned as Marth growled.
"Oh, style doesn't mean anything, stupid!" Marth shot back as he faced the second Eel and just let the blasts fly, shooting torpedoes and lasers like nobody's business. Amazingly, one of the blasts managed to hit its mark, and Marth grinned as the Eel exploded. "Told you…" Marth said as Aelita heard this over the headset and laughed.
Meanwhile, Ulrich, Yumi and William had the other two Eels circled in a three-on-two slugfest, but the Eels were proving decent adversaries as Ulrich launched a shot that the Eel he was chasing dodged, and as it turned its head back to fire a lightning burst at him, you could almost see the laughing smile on its toothy face as Ulrich violently swerved to avoid the shock. He looked over at William, who was still chasing the second Eel, and then in the mirror at Yumi, who was right behind them, and all of a sudden he got an idea…
"Hey, William, drive your Eel left towards mine, and we'll try to box them in. Yumi—"
"I know what to do," she grinned knowingly as she swerved off from formation. Ulrich smiled as he turned right to force his Eel towards William, and the two brutes looked almost like they were on a collision course. Just before they would have collided, they both turned north and away from harm…or so they thought as Yumi popped up in front of them both and smirked as she popped off two quick blasts that vaporized the Eels in an instant.
"And that's how you execute a plan," Ulrich grinned as the trio resumed formation…
As the other five headed the long distance back to the Skid, Aelita drummed her fingers on the console as she waited for them to return. She was just about to radio in and wonder where they were when the Skid retched sideways and the lights flickered. She shrieked as she looked out the window and saw the menacing claws of a giant Kalamar stuck into the side of the Skid. She saw the drill in its beak begin to whir and head for the window of the pilot's compartment. Aelita closed her eyes and prepared for the worst when she saw a flash through her closed eyelids. When she opened them, she saw the Kalamar writhing as sparks surrounded its body, and as it burst into pieces she looked out and saw Jacob give her a thumbs-up from the NavSkid.
"Couldn't leave you with that thing on your own, could I?" he said with a smile as Aelita sighed and nodded when the other five NavSkids came into view. She waited as they positioned their braces, and when she felt them click into position she hit the controls and said, "Recovery…" as they reattached themselves. She sighed as the Sea returned to its regular sea-blue color, and she began to inch closer to the blinking dot that signified the Replika until she felt the nose of the Skid brush the Access Gate. Aelita smiled as she threw the brake and flicked on her com-link.
"Hey, Jeremy, time to do what you do best," she smiled as he flexed his fingers and went to work, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
"Okay…do this…and then this…and maybe this here…and…got it!" he said finally as the sphere shimmered before the Replika's cloaking field vanished and it came into full view. Jacob nodded and clicked his tongue as the gray shell appeared. Jeremy continued to type away as he worked with some lines of complex coding, and a moment later he muttered, "Yes…" as the digital lock flashed green. He sent the key to the Skid, and Aelita smiled as she received the data.
"Digital Key activated," she muttered as a beam of light shot from the Skid and impacted the Access Gate's lock. The lock blinked after a moment and the Access Gate began to slide open with a slow creak. After a few moments, the tunnel was open and Aelita drove the Skid inside the tunnel…
When the Skid blasted up from the Digital Sea, Jacob looked around and for a moment saw nothing. He furrowed his brow and then all of a sudden looked up. That's when he saw the flat undersides of the Sector floor, and when he squinted he could make out the purple coloration of the rock. "Mountains…" he mumbled as Odd pumped his fist and let out a cry of jubilation.
"Yes! Mountain Sector, here I come!" Odd laughed excitedly as Aelita finally maneuvered the Skid up and over the top of the Sector, and Ulrich looked down, scanning for a Tower.
"Aelita, to your right," he pointed out as Aelita nodded and changed course towards the Tower Ulrich had seen. She steered the Skid close to the Tower and pulled the brake as she typed a command into the keypad.
"Docking…" she said as the pink swirls pulsed out from the Skid and surrounded the Tower. A moment later, she added, "Skid secured," as the Tower's aura changed from white to green. Jeremy sighed as he ran a diagnostic check and nodded when everything came back normal.
"Okay, who's ready for Translation?" he asked as Jacob nodded calmly and raised his hand. "Let's see…Jacob, Aelita, and…Ulrich," he decided as Odd whined in disappointment.
"Aww! I wanted to go!" he complained.
"Odd, remember! We don't even know where this Supercomputer is or what the story even is with this Replika! I'm sending those three because they can keep their cool best under pressure!" Jeremy reminded him as Odd grumbled.
"Okay…" he growled a little dejectedly as Jacob sat back gently.
"We're ready when you are, Einstein," he said coolly as Jeremy nodded.
"Okay, I'm running the Translation program…" he said as he punched in the command. Aelita and Jacob heard him growl a moment later though, and none of the three disappeared from their seats.
"Jeremy, is something wrong?" Aelita asked as Jeremy hissed out a reply and…it sounded like hit the desk…before explaining.
"I've got an Alert message!" he replied with a growl. "It's weird; I've never gotten one like this before…It's asking for some sort of character sequence…" he muttered as Jacob sat in his seat counting numbers, letters, and symbols in his head for a moment. He finished, and looking up at his control screens for a second, asked: "Jeremy…how many characters is the sequence…?" Jeremy looked up in slight confusion from his keyboard, counted the blanks, and issued a short and confused reply.
"Twelve characters…why?" Jacob went over his calculations a second time before muttering to himself: "38 degrees north, 21 degrees west, and…54 degrees up…" Jeremy's eyes widened as he heard the last word, and Aelita added, "Of course! Length, width, and depth!" Jeremy's gaze suddenly glimmered as he understood, and he pulled up the data cache information, scrolling to the second set of coordinates and nodding when everything finally made sense.
"That's it! They aren't just global coordinates! That's why the first two numbers matched up and yet the extra numbers were still there! They're SPACEcoordinates!" he exclaimed as Jacob nodded heavily.
"Exactly! That's where we're headed!" Jake grinned as Jeremy quickly plugged in the coordinates to the Translation program and watched as it blinked and the Alert bubble turned from red to green. Jeremy let out a gleeful cry of success, and added, "Here we go, guys!" as the program fired up…
Translate Jacob, Translate Aelita, Translate Ulrich!
Aelita and the boys vanished in a flash of sparks, and a few seconds later appeared about ten feet over the ground, just like Jacob had guessed they might. They appeared in a burst of light and fell to the ground, landing in a fluffy pile of snow. Jacob yelped at the sudden cold and jumped up, shaking the flakes off of him as Aelita smiled in jest and then looked around to see where they had landed…
As Aelita looked around, she saw a hilly landscape, dusted in soft snowflakes that continued to fall from the dark, ominous clouds. They were in a small valley between several looming, snow-capped mountain peaks, and the long grass, weeds, and wildflowers around them intermingled with the stoic pine trees gave a sense that no one had been here for a very long time. As Aelita continued to gaze around, her eyes finally came to rest on a small cabin, set against the peaks in a small…almost alcove of sorts. As she looked closer at it, she noticed that several boards were missing from the roof, and that the crumbling remains of the door and window trim were scattered around the perimeter of the house. The little shack truly looked a wreck, and it was clear that no one had inhabited or even come to this place in a long, long time…
"What is this place…?" she whispered in slight shock as Jacob cast his gaze onto the cabin…
"What the…?" he muttered as he looked around. What he saw was like looking at a photograph. He just couldn't quite place it… "That's it!" he muttered suddenly as realization hit him. "Aelita…" he said softly as she looked at him in confusion, "…this is your parents' cabin…" As he said this, she looked at him slowly before nodding her head and turning for the door. Jacob and Ulrich slowly followed ad when Aelita reached what was left of the door, she pushed the base aside and watched it fall to the ground. It caused a little pile of dust to fly up as it hit, but when the dust settled, Aelita coughed softly before walking through the front door…
The entrance hall was coated in dust, and the wallpaper had faded over time so that the pink was almost unrecognizable. Aelita looked around as they walked through, and when they turned left and entered the main room, she barely glanced around before a blinding pain hit her and she dropped to her knees…
—Flashback—
"Mommy, there's little white dots falling from the sky!" a young Aelita giggled as she watched in amazement at the snowfall.
"I know; isn't it pretty?" Antea asked as she smiled at her daughter.
"Yes, Mommy! Can we go out and play in it?"
"Not yet, little one…" she smiled. "We'll wait until morning when it covers the ground…"
"Okay, Mommy!" she chirped as Franz stood back and smiled mysteriously…
—End Flashback—
"Aelita…Aelita…" Jacob murmured as he shook her shoulder gently. "Come on; answer me…" he said quietly as Aelita blinked blearily and opened her eyes. She focused after a moment and stood up shakily. "You okay…?" he asked as she wearily nodded.
"Yes, I'm okay…" she said softly as she shook on her feet before steadying herself. "I've been here before…" she murmured as Jacob nodded.
"I thought so…" he replied as Ulrich stood and watched the exchange silently. "It's the cabin that your mother and father kept a long time ago…"
"Yes…before she disappeared…" Aelita said in a whisper as she looked around and saw a faint seam in the wall to their left… She walked over to it as Jacob watched in interest, and placed a hand on the wall as if she always knew what to do…and ran her finger along the seam until she found a small handhold, and pulled on it. Jacob watched in wonder as the wall creaked before the wall gave way and the seam widened. All of a sudden, the section of wall flew back and Aelita nearly fell backwards as a passage leading down…probably underground…was revealed. Ulrich's mouth opened into a small O and Jacob just walked over silently, looking down and seeing a ladder like the rungs leading to the sewers. He stared at it, and then Aelita, who just looked back at him simply. "Something in my head told me it was here…" she replied simply as Jacob began to climb down the ladder. She and Ulrich follwoed suit, and when they got to the bottom, Jacob looked around warily, seeing a sewer system that reminded him of home as he opened the com-link.
"Jeremy, do you have any maps on a sewer system under the mountain cabin?" he asked, and Jeremy's fingers ran over the keys briefly before he spoke.
"Um…yeah, here it is," he replied as he pulled the schematics up. "The bunker was added after Franz and Antea bought the cabin. You need to go…left," he told them as they followed the western tunnel. Before long, the tunnel began to lighten slowly, and as the trio exited the tunnel and came into the room it opened into, all three Warriors gaped in shock…
"Oh…" Ulrich started.
"My…" Aelita continued.
"Word…" Jacob finished as they looked at a massive array of computers and technology. The room had steel walls and cords and cables were strewn everywhere. In each corner on the floor was a metal disc, slightly wider than a human's shoulder width, and all four discs were blinking with colored lights that were almost hypnotic to look at. At the center of the room was a large holographic sphere, and when Jacob drew closer to it, he saw that it was a Holoweb machine. At the center of the room was a massive Supercomputer, easily the size of the Lyoko supercomputer and then some. As he looked around, his eyes rested on a computer chair and screen, which he went over to and sat down at. His fingers flew over the keys as he powered the Supercomputer up, and when it prompted him for a password, Jacob mused for about five seconds before typing in the code 'Scipio'. As the screen blinked in response, the standard windows popped up on the screen like Jacob was used to on Lyoko, and he hit the com-link as he flew over the screens. "Jeremy, I'm going to take the controls! I found the Replika's Supercomputer! It's amazing; Franz spared no expense! I'd be willing to bet he based Lyoko off of this version…"
"I bet you're right. And if I'm right, you'll find something about Antea in that Supercomputer, especially if XANA's taken it over. Go to work; everything's calm here," Jeremy replied as Jacob took over and began funneling through files and folders rapidly, searching for any trace of evidence that could be useful to them…
About ten minutes later…
"Okay, this is getting boring…" Odd yawned as he, William, Yumi, and Marth sat on the ground in front of the Tower, keeping a close eye on the Skid. Then, a laser burst hit the ground at Odd's feet, and he jumped as a pair of Tarantulas appeared to 'ambush' them. Odd just smiled as he fired a Laser Arrow and blasted the first one without much of a fight. The second one, however; proved slightly tougher, and Odd dived forward, sliding between its legs as he shot up and fired an Arrow into the back of its head, causing it to shriek before exploding. Odd just grinned at his work. "I am so good," he laughed, as all of a sudden, the ground began to shake as massive tremors overtook the Sector. Marth's head violently snapped up as he leaped up and readied his ax. From the distance, a tall mass could be seen lumbering towards the Warriors, and as it approached, Yumi's mouth dropped open and Odd just said, "Oh, crap…"
"What in the name of Lyoko is that?" William asked in a small voice as the steam cloud and monster with it drew closer. Odd just gulped, and Yumi responded in a defeated tone:
"The Kolossus…"
"Found something!" Jacob grinned as he pulled up a map of Russia on the screen and hit a few more keys. The command caused it to zoom in over the Siberian wilderness, until it was close enough that you could see a small laboratory and bunker from overhead. "That, ladies and gentleman, is XANA's Siberian research lab… But…why…?" he muttered as he continued searching through files. "Why would XANA have files on the Siberia facility here…in Franz's Supercomputer…"
Meanwhile…
"Uh, Jeremy…?" Yumi gulped nervously as the Kolossus drew slowly closer…
"Jacob! Big problem! The Kolossus; oh wait, you don't…"
"I know what it is…" Jacob said through gritted teeth as he continued to sift through files.
"Then you know we've got a problem! Get out of there now! Give me the controls!" Jeremy hissed as Jacob continued to type.
"Hold on, Einstein…" he muttered as Jeremy's eyes grew wider. He continued to let his fingers glide over the keyboard at a breakneck pace, and all of a sudden, he opened a file and hissed, "Yes!" as Jeremy screamed, "I need the controls now!"
Odd and Yumi prepared their guard as the Kolossus bared down on them and the Skid… "This is not happening again…" Yumi thought as she prepared to throw her fans and engage the brute…
"Got what we were looking for, Einstein!" Jacob said quickly as he sent the file he had found to the Supercomputer (the Lyoko one, that is) and released the controls. As the trio was running out of the bunker, Jacob glanced at a file cabinet by the door and saw a blueprint for what looked to be the disc mechanisms that they had seen coming in. The schematics intrigued him, and he grabbed the sheet as he ran out, furling it up and tucking it inside his sleeve…
As the trio dashed out of the door to the cabin, Jacob charged an Energy Field and blasted Ulrich, sending him back in a flash of pixellated light. Aelita just whirled around and readied an orb, but waited for Jacob's signal. "I hope this works…" he thought as he and Aelita simultaneously blasted each other…
A moment later, Aelita, Ulrich, and Jacob were back in their seats, and Yumi and Willaim turned and saw this just before jumping out of the way of the Kolossus's foot, which barely kept from crushing them. All of a sudden, as the Kolossus prepared to swing at the Skid, Jeremy came over the com-link and said, "It's time to get out of here, guys!" The other four Warriors vanished in a flash of light and reappeared in the Skid. They watched in horror as the Kolossus readied to take out the Skid…but Jeremy was faster. With lightning speed, he took the controls remotely, disconnected the Skid from the Tower, and dove off towards the Digital Sea before the Kolossus knocked the Tower clean over and threw it into the Digital Sea…
The Skid screamed out of the Access Gate, and only once they were a safe distance away from the Replika did Jeremy finally muster the energy to sigh and say:
"We're going home, guys…"
Once the Skid was safely docked in the Hangar and the Warriors were safely home in the Factory, Jeremy called them all up to the Computer Lab to have a look at the data Jacob and Aelita had collected. As Jacob jumped off the Lift, he patted his left sleeve… Yep, the blueprints were still there. It worked!
"Hey, Jeremy…' he began as he took the rolled-up blueprints from his sleeve and handed them to Jeremy. "I saw some weird disc-looking things on the floor in the bunker and found these blueprints nearby. They looked interesting so I grabbed them to see what you could make of them," he explained as Jeremy tucked his glasses further up on his nose before unfurling the sheets and looking at the blueprints. "Any ideas?" he asked as Jeremy muttered to himself before looking up and replying.
"I'm not sure right off-hand," he replied, a little disappointed, "but you're right. These are worth taking a look at, especially if they were in Franz's bunker. It's not like any technology I've ever seen before…" he muttered, trailing off before delivering the best part. "But…I have some even better news!" he grinned as he pulled up the file that Jacob had found in his search of the cabin Supercomputer. "Watch this…" he said as he played the video file…
The screen went static for a moment before reverting to black, and then a fuzzy image gradually grew sharper as an overhead shot of the entrance to the Siberian lab came into view… Everything looked quiet, until some faint shouting could be heard, and the door burst open as a guard in a black suit exploded out of it into the snow, dragging a chained, blindfolded, and gagged figure along behind him. He shoved the figure down into the snow, and then proceeded to beat it, slamming punches and kicks into the trembling body. When he had finished attacking the figure, he finally pulled the sack covering its head off, and all that you could see for a moment was a flash of bright pink hair before the face turned to the camera…and a woman's face could be seen as Jeremy paused the video, zooming in on the face and enhancing the image as he did so… As the image sharpened, even though the face was older than he had seen it before, Jacob's mouth fell open, and Ulrich dropped to a knee in total shock. Aelita just shook as William and Marth laid a hand each on her shoulder to comfort her. She couldn't believe what she was seeing…it must be a mistake…
"That's not possible…" Aelita whispered as she looked at her mother's face on the screen. "No way…" she reaffirmed as Jeremy pointed to the bottom corner of the video.
"But look at the time stamp of this security footage," he said as Aelita's eyes gazed at the date and time, and she just broke down in tears when she saw it. Jacob just hugged her and told her to breathe, that it was all right as Jeremy continued. "That's no trick. This video was taken less than twenty-four hours ago. Aelita…your mom's still alive…" he finished in a quiet, choked whisper as she cried, maybe in joy, disbelief, or fear… Jacob just looked up with a steely glint in his eyes as Marth nodded and spoke.
"Then we have to bring her home. It's our mission now," he said simply as Jacob nodded.
"Yeah," he agreed. "And now we know where we're going to find her," he added as the gang, save for Aelita, who was still crying into Jeremy's shoulder, looked up expectantly at him. "We're going back to Siberia, gang…"
TO BE CONTINUED…on the season finale of Code Lyoko: Reloaded…
LW94: Well, this is it…and there's still SO many questions to be answered! Stay tuned, for the season finale!
Next time…
Episode 121: Finding Antea (2)
On the season finale of Code Lyoko: Reloaded, the gang returns to Siberia in hopes of rescuing Antea. But when they arrive, they find that pulling off the rescue operation is much easier said than done…