Code Lyoko:
The Diitto Generation
Part Seven:
The Return to the Past
Author's Note: Three months ago to this day I posted the prologue and first two sections of this story. More than 100,000 words later, I am barely nearing my estimated midway point for the first two 'seasons' of the story. In three months, I've encountered so many wonderful readers and reviewers, and because of you I continue to upload new sections so regularly. I cannot thank you enough for all of the views and reviews. I do take great care with this story, reading each section at least twice before uploading it in search of errors and plot inconsistencies (within my human limitations) to make sure that my beloved readers get the best that they can. Anyway, I am quite proud of this section, and hope that it's worthy of being posted on this significant date. Let the plot thicken~
Waldo (Section 7.1)
Jeremie Belpois centered himself before the camera embedded in the monitor of the supercomputer. The lab behind him was shrouded in darkness, only the faintest traces of light flickering in the background as if from the small flame of a candle. The glow of the computer monitor illuminated Jeremie's youthful face, his blond hair, as he adjusted his glasses quickly before beginning to speak.
"I can't even begin to fathom how something like the return to the past was made," the eighth-grade boy began, staring intently at the screen. "To be able to control time itself, even within limitations, is unheard of. And yet, via the supercomputer, I have in fact sent my friends and myself back in time on countless occasions."
Pausing briefly, Jeremie reached for a small object in his lap and held it up to the camera. One of the earliest mobiles, its glowing screen claimed that the time was 3:17 in the morning and showed the date. Jeremie began to speak once more as he held the cell phone within the sights of the camera.
"For the past week now, it has been 3:17 in the morning. One week ago I and the other Lyoko warriors woke to find that we were the only ones awake. The flow of time had stopped, and everything but the supercomputer and us had frozen. Thus I was able to conclude that Xana had launched another attack – only, instead of freezing us, we were left as the only ones awake. Over the past few days, Aelita and I have come to the conclusion that Xana did do something to the return to the past to cause this mess. But, as of the moment, we still don't know how to unfreeze time."
"Jeremie, spend a little more time explaining how Xana intended his attack to go," interrupted a voice hidden from the sight of the camera. Glancing sideways, Jeremie set down the mobile in his hand (which had served its purpose by showing that it had been frozen onto one time) as a second person came into view of the camera. The ninth-grade Yumi Ishiyama had short black hair parted on its side and wore a black turtleneck. She moved to stand behind Jeremie's chair, leaning over his shoulder to look into the camera.
"It was originally your theory, Yumi," Jeremie said, glancing back at the older girl. "Why don't you explain what we think happened?"
"Fine," Yumi muttered, not seeming too happy about speaking into the camera. However, her eyes were held in such a way that hinted that, regardless of whether or not she wanted to participate in the video log, she had already resigned herself to the task. "Two weeks ago, or what should be two weeks ago, Xana attacked. Jeremie and Aelita immediately knew that the return to the past was at the heart of the attack, since – well – everything aside from us is frozen in time, but for a little bit we didn't have any idea why Xana would try to alter the programming of the return to the past.
"We tossed around several ideas before settling on mine. Jeremie thought that Xana wanted to render the return to the past useless, thus making his attacks more dangerous. Aelita guessed that he was trying to make us, the Lyoko warriors, oblivious to the return to the pasts as everyone else is. Doing so would make it much harder for us to combat him, since we wouldn't be able to remember individual attacks – if we even remembered the supercomputer at all after Xana was done with us. Odd came up with the ridiculous idea that Xana was trying to strengthen himself through the return to the pasts and that he just accidentally froze time in the process. Ulrich just thinks that the return to the past broke itself, since there doesn't seem to be any trace of Xana on Lyoko anymore. That is to say, he doesn't believe Xana isn't involved – he just doesn't think he is responsible – or something . . ."
As she uttered her final words, Yumi's face slowly grew slightly pinker, and she reached up to rub her neck, smiling slightly. Jeremie rolled his eyes and grunted, and Yumi instantly seemed to snap out of her brief daze and continue.
"Anyway, I wasn't able to come up with a reason for why time had frozen initially. We all agreed to come up with one possible reason, as previously mentioned, and posed them to one another three days ago. After listening to everyone else's ideas, I became inspired by Aelita's and Jeremie's – by far the most reasonable. Since we have all been scanned into the supercomputer, we are irreversibly connected to it. There wouldn't be a way for us to not sense them if the program were to be launched. However, because the return to the past has been a priceless aid in our battle against Xana, it was worth the risk of trying to disable it. But core programs can't just be done away with, and Xana must have known that, so he decided to do away with us. If we were frozen permanently, then Xana wouldn't have to worry about us anymore. Thus, he made his modifications to the return to the past program, launched it, and inadvertently froze everything but us instead."
Yumi turned back to Jeremie. "Was that good enough?" she asked.
Jeremie nodded. "Of course," he said, meeting Yumi's gaze briefly to address her. "So, that is how we came to be frozen in time. Aelita and I have begun to try and make modifications of our own to the return to the past program. We believe that our only chance of getting out of this mess is to launch a modified version of the return to the past. The regular one doesn't exactly work – it appears that time needs to be flowing in one direction, so to speak, in order for it to be reversed. Since time is at a standstill, we have no way to reverse it through the means presently at our disposal-"
Jeremie paused, mouth slightly parted, as Waldo paused the video player on his desktop. The sixth-grader was sitting at his desk at Kadic, head propped against his right hand and somewhat unfocused gaze fixed on the screen. "Well?" he asked the girl standing behind him. "What do you think?"
"Mom needed to grow out her hair," Kokoro said bluntly, crossing her arms over her chest. For the past week, Waldo had been scanning the video he had gotten from Lyoko for clues hinting how to fix the return to the past. Not surprisingly, he hadn't encountered anything of true value, aside from the knowledge that Xana had messed with the return to the past before. When Waldo had shown Ulrich and Aelita the video, both had been baffled by it. Neither of them could remember such a Xana attack, which was understandable given the ending of the multi-entry video log. Unable to resist, Waldo forwarded the video to the last entry and started it.
Jeremie appeared in the chair in the lab once more, illuminated by the glow of the supercomputer's monitor. His hair was slightly disheveled, similar in length to Franz's. It was obvious that several weeks had elapsed since the first entry of the log.
"Well, I've done it. At least, I think I have. I won't ever know if I've successfully altered the return to the past to take us back to before Xana froze time. According to the simulations I have been running, we will all lose our memories. I cannot explain why this will happen, but it might be because the return to the past was not designed to make such large jumps. I did make some major alterations to the base coding, but if the program works as it should any changes I make should be lost since they would have been implemented at a time after our jump."
Jeremie paused briefly, then continued, sighing before he did so. "Likewise, there is no way to guarantee that these logs will remain after I launch the program. However, I will attempt to cloister them deep into the supercomputer's memory component, which reacts differently to the return to the pasts than many of its other parts. I think the video logs, which I will condense into one entry so that they do not get separated from one another, will be safe there. Though I doubt that I'd ever find them again; unless someone were to scan the data within the supercomputer specifically in search of everything related to the return to the past – and I can't fathom why anyone would do that – it will probably remain hidden away."
Again, Jeremie paused. He took a deep breath. "I hope that nobody ever sees this. The past six weeks were a nightmare in more ways than one. Though a couple of us would probably disagree . . ."
The video log ended there. Waldo closed the application that had played it, then rotated in his seat to meet Kokoro's gaze. "Really – did you get anything out of that?" he asked her.
"What did you skip over?" Kokoro asked.
"My dad updated the log whenever he had a new idea – nothing of importance. And Yumi never appeared past the second entry – even though there were several background voices on occasion. There was one entry before the one you saw when my dad simply stated that he was frozen in time." Waldo paused and then blew a small raspberry, disappointed. "Are you are sure that you got nothing out of that?" he asked Kokoro for the third time.
"I'm just as confused as everyone else, I can assure you that," Kokoro grumbled. "You must have been wrong. My mom doesn't control my reactions as Mr. Dunbar controls Matthias's. Even then, he only acts like a lovesick puppy on Diitto – thank goodness. I'd have killed myself if he started doing that crap here at school . . ."
Waldo turned away from Kokoro, beginning to type on his keyboard. "Oh well, it was worth a shot."
"It was," Kokoro admitted, sounding somewhat lifeless. Waldo could tell that she was also disappointed that her mother had not reacted upon seeing herself in the video log. Anything, even a seemingly random emotion, would have been better than nothing. "If that's all, then-"
"Wait, no, I wanted to ask you something else," Waldo said quickly. He hastily brought up the prototype programs of the three vehicles he had haphazardly put together over the past week. The one furthest to left was a sleek black motorcycle. It had one dark blue wheel, and bright blue lightning marks on its sides. The middle vehicle as a skateboard, primarily white, with green edges and the mark of Diitto etched in green on the top. The third vehicle had the strangest shape. It resembled a platform with handlebars, and was dark green in color. The platform sported the mark of Diitto in silver.
"Oh, you finished the vehicles?" Kokoro asked, leaning forward to get a better view of the tiny rotating figures.
"Not quite. But I'm almost done with them. Matthias claimed the motorcycle, Franz the skateboard, and I'd be most comfortable with the wing. I'm going to make modifications to the underside so that I'll still be able to read pulsations while on Diitto so long as I fly low enough to the ground."
"I see," Kokoro said stiffly. "And-"
"What do you want me to make you?" Waldo asked quickly, cutting Kokoro off before she verbalized the realization that she didn't have a vehicle while Franz, Matthias, and Waldo did.
Kokoro perked up, standing tall again and as she brought one hand up to her chin. She rubbed it thoughtfully as she gazed mindlessly out Waldo's window. "Do I have to get a paint job over one of those, or can I ask for something new?" she asked.
"What do you have in mind?" Waldo asked. "Something new might take longer to make, but after spending all week on these things I think I'd be able to do it."
"Then make me a glider," said Kokoro.
"Like, a hang glider?" Waldo asked, reaching for a piece of paper and a pencil so that he could draw a rough sketch of the first thing that came to his mind. A large triangle with its bottom longer than it's other two sides made up the frame. He sketched the harness, then turned back to Kokoro, who was smiling faintly at the paper.
"Red, please," she said, using a verb she rarely tacked onto the end of her phrases. "And will you make Katja one, too?"
"Yeah, sure. Should I make hers yellow?" Waldo asked.
"No. She doesn't need any more sunny happy yellow. Just don't make it purple or anything that doesn't look good with her Diitto costume," Kokoro said, wearing a slightly cruel smile.
"Err, okay," Waldo said, once again adopting the wariness he usually wore when around Kokoro. "I'll do that."
"Good. I'll be eagerly awaiting your results," Kokoro said, heading for the open door. "See you later, Waldo."
"Bye," Waldo said, turning back to his computer screen and closing the vehicle programs. As expected, his cell phone began to vibrate; Waldo fished it from his pocket, answering it as he stood and began to shuffle around his room in search of his backpack.
"Waldo, I want to leave for the factory now," Franz said, voice unusually stiff. His tone bewildered Waldo. Franz had been in a good mood earlier in the day. He'd even taken the initiative to throw a peanut at Chorter during lunch (and amusingly Chorter had blamed Chad instead, who had been unlucky enough to be walking past him at the time). In fact, Franz had been especially hyperactive during mealtimes all week long. His bright behavior had begun during dinner the day that everyone had moved back into Kadic Academy. It had been after Valentina had dragged a less-than-enthusiastic Matthias to the group's usual table, claiming that if they could eat together at home peaceably then they were on good enough terms to eat together at school.
"Okay, I'm coming. Where should I meet you?"
"By the manhole. Be quick."
Waldo glanced at the screen of his phone and saw that his brother had ended the call. Distorting his face in bewilderment, Waldo stuffed it back into his pocket and then began to pack his laptop. Once he, Franz, Nancy, and Matthias got to the factory they would send Franz and Matthias to Lyoko's core in search of the return to the past. Franz had made quick work of teaching Waldo to use the Lyoko-DL, and he'd had almost every afternoon that week and the end of break to teach Nancy how to maintain a stable connection. (Especially since Aelita had essentially confined the three of them to the Hermitage after their disappearing act the previous Wednesday. She had been very angry with them for going to the factory to test the Lyoko-DL during the last Xana attack. Being grounded (and not having to deal with any more Xana attacks) had given the three kids lots of computer time. Waldo had accomplished a lot in the form of his vehicles while Franz had coded himself a simple arrow-reloading program.)
Locking his room, Waldo stole down the hallway in the direction of the stairs. He passed Ivan's open door on the way, and stopped briefly to say hello. Ivan, seated at his desk, turned to meet his gaze with his usual blank expression, and returned the greeting. Waldo then continued on his way. Ivan had been acting somewhat strangely since his return from Russia. Before he had left, Ivan had been greeting Waldo in a friendly manner just as often as Waldo greeted him. Now Waldo was the only one to say hello, and when in the presence of his family Ivan wouldn't even make eye contact with him. Waldo considered the foreign student's actions very odd, but he didn't have much free time to muse over them.
Once outside, Waldo scanned the area to make sure there were no hawk-eyed teachers present before heading to the manhole. Franz and Matthias were already there, facing opposite directions. Matthias was gazing off into space while Franz was playing with his phone. Waldo listened to the tension in their steps as they turned to him. He supposed it was nice that they had gotten along for almost two weeks before remembering that they hated one another . . .
"Nancy's almost here," Franz said.
"Cool," Waldo replied. He couldn't stop a tiny smile from crossing his face. He was so close to getting the source code of the original return to the past from Lyoko. With it, he would be able to fix Diitto's return to the past. Since Xana's slow start – the effect of him activating Diitto towers remotely – was bound to wear off any time now as he overcame the security code that gave him that slow start, a working return to the past would be an irreplaceable asset during his attacks.
Before they knew it, they would beat Xana, rescue their parents, and life would return to normal. Waldo was sure of it.
Author's Note: I hope you liked it! Unfortunately I probably won't have the next section up until Friday after I'm done with my school week . . . don't hate me too much . . .
Oh, and the video log was recorded after Aelita was materialized in the beginning of season two but before episode 30 when the group learns that the return to the pasts do strengthen Xana. (Poor Odd. His theory wasn't completely ridiculous!)