AN: Hello, my dear readers. Well, with this whole pandemic thing going on, my academic studies have been impacted in ways which I should have seen coming. However, so busy had I been with the work that I forgot this week was spring break for me. So, I decided it best to write while I had the time and so, here you are. I hope all of you read, review, and enjoy!-Pagliacci-11

Chapter 35

It was a different time. The house was beautiful and ornate, its cupboards and refrigerators well stocked. She remembered the many people gathered at the house. Her father's many friends from work; her Uncle Paulie and his wife, Irena. She remembered how wonderful it all was. The beautiful sight of so many well-dressed people and the smell of all kinds of fantastic food from the kitchen brought back memories of that day. As pleasant as it was, Sylvia knew it was the prelude, the prelude to that horror that would happen just a couple of hours later.

Cousin Richard had just told a hilarious joke, and she was sitting with Uncle Paulie as he was busting Richie's balls as he was his habit of doing. Sylvia never understood precisely why Paulie liked to do things that way, but it was how it was. As Sylvia sat on the couch watching all the people, she remembered Terrance heading to the door to open it as he'd seen an additional car pull up. He stood there watching the car, and then he headed out. What happened next, she remembered very distinctly. There was a loud shouting match outside between a man and a woman, and then the next thing she knew, there were four loud pops.

Paulie moved as fast as lightning, taking her and handing her off to Richie, "Take care of little Sylvie! Take her to the basement and don't come out till' I say!"

Richie took her in his arms and moved quickly to the basement. He put her down at the back wall and removing a brick; he pulled a section of the wall to the side, revealing her father's wine cellar. He took Sylvia gently and put her inside.

"Richie, don't go!" Sylvia said.

Richie sighed and took out something from under his leg. It was the first time that Sylvia had seen a pistol outside of the gangster movies she had watched with her father.

"I don't want it, Richie." She said.

"Girl, take it!" he yelled, "You've got six shots. I don't come back in twenty minutes, you go out the door back there," he pointed at a small green door, "If that happens to go to Pastor David Lynch at First Presbyterian and you tell him what's happened. Repeat what I just said."

"In twenty minutes, if you don't come back, go to Pastor Lynch as Presby and tell him what happened."

"Good girl." He headed out the main door to the cellar and closed it.

Sylvia waited for a period, which seemed an age she observed her shadow go from the center of the floor to the left side. But she dared not move. Sylvia had to wait twenty minutes, and it had only been fifteen. All the while outside, she could hear something that sounded more and more like firecrackers. Sylvia desperately wanted to join the fun. She checked her Minnie-mouse watch, three minutes left. Then the last firework went off. Admittedly she was a bit sad that she had missed the fun that was happening outside. Suddenly she heard hurried running above her. Maybe it was Richie coming to let her out.

"Are you sure she's here?" A voice said from outside.

"Yes. She's got to be. The entrance to the cellar is somewhere." It was the voice she recognized as Aunt Anthea's.

"If it's here, we'll find it. Jacobson, Brant, Galloway, down here!" the man yelled.

Sylvia immediately called out, "Aunt Anthea! I'm here!"

She heard Anthea's voice on the other side of the door, "Sylvia, sweetie, how did you get in there?"

"Cousin Richie put me in here when the fireworks started! Please let me out, I'm scared!"

"Sweetheart, where's the handle to the cellar?"

"Cousin Richie pulled a handle behind a brick. It's in the wall."

Soon the door opened, and she saw Anthea point to her. A man in black came in and took her, and as he headed off upstairs, a balding man was with Anthea, and they followed slowly in turn. Sylvia looked around her as the man in black carried her, and what she saw made her heart sink. All around her, people from the party were lying on the floor, not moving. There were gold metal pieces all over the ground, and as she was carried, she suddenly felt the man taking her fall forward. Sylvia got out his arms before he fell entirely to the ground.

Right near her lay Uncle Paulie. She went over to him, and she tried to desperately wake him up, but he was still a small stream of blood from his mouth. She heard a rasp, and she turned and saw Richie on the ground with blood coming out of his abdomen and shoulder. She rushed over to him, and he gestured for her gun, and she gave it to her as she'd hidden it under her shirt. Taking the pistol, he fired at the men at the door and at Anthea, especially.

Sylvia was horrified, but Richie pushed her back towards the road, "Run!" He was able to yell but just barely.

Sylvia began to dash down the street as fast as her little legs could carry her. She dared not look back as she heard several more pops in the distance, and at that moment, a pair of arms grabbed her.

"No! No, let me go!" Sylvia screamed, and the woman in black moved back towards the house.

"No, no, no!" She continued to scream and angled herself just right, and at the moment, she bit down on the agent's ear and pulled.

The agent shrieked in pain, throwing her to the ground; she proceeded to kick Sylvia squarely in the stomach with the flat of her foot. The air was knocked out of her and Sylvia struggled to breathe, her eyes watered. As another person took her.

"Careful, that little bitch bites!" the agent screamed as with a trembling hand, she picked up the torn piece of her ear.

Sylvia was put in the back of a van with two agents; one of them held her head in a lock to keep her from biting.

Anthea sat in the front seat with the near balding agent, and she heard the agent ask, "Is this all of them?"

"All the major contributors, yes. With the kid back there, it's the last critical portion of North-Gate taken care of."

"Where's my daddy!?" Sylvia yelled out.

"Shut the fuck up!" Anthea barked she then resumed her normal voice, "We'll proceed with the plan. We'll confine her to stasis and have her run the latter issues of North-Gate until we have a team together to formally act on it. We have had enough trouble already with the damage control necessary for the Lyoko Project."

Sylvia looked out the window. All of them, Uncle Paulie, Cousin Richie, her cousins, aunts, and even their domestic staff lay still, strewn all over the yard and up the walkway to the house. The van pulled out, and the beautiful home with all its beautiful people vanished on the other side of the hill. In time, the van came to a facility. Sylvia remembered how it was as the sun had just set. The sickly-sweet smell of fruit-snacks filled her nose. Sylvia was taken by one of the agents into the building before her. It was a building her father had taken her to several times before. It was where he told her one day she would have a large part to play. But now, she just wanted to go back to the way things were before this all happened.

Amelia was taken to a sterile brown room and put into a chair. Anthea held her head still in a very firm grip, "Don't move. I don't want any more holes in your head than necessary."

Sylvia obeyed, and she wept as her beautiful platinum blonde hair was shorn from her head, and she saw it fall to the ground. However, she soon stopped her crying as with every tear that seemed to hit Anthea's hand, her grip on her neck seemed to tighten. Not wanting to be choked, she stopped. After a moment, there was a gentle hum and rumble of an engine. Sylvia tried to look behind her, but her head was kept so that she had no choice but to focus her gaze forward.

Sylvia was still as very hot liquid was applied to her head. It had a musky smell like her father's aftershave. It was perhaps in many ways, the one comfort that she had been afforded by her captors. Then can the feeling of the steel to her head. She started to breathe a bit more quickly, but one of the men in black, a tall darker man, came forward and held her hands. He took off his sunglasses, and at that moment, Sylvia knew even then, he was trying to calm her. She could tell something else by the look of the man's eyes, that he hated what was happening that in his very nature deep within, he was fighting to suppress his emotions. Soon the sweeps of the razor were complete, and her head was dried. Anthea's grip released, and the man before her in black took her in his arms and carried her down at least two flights of stairs before coming to a room. He opened the door, and they passed through into a very dark place, the only things that Sylvia could see were the dark metal piping reflecting the water of the pools below which were used for cooling a massive engine of sorts.

As she was set down on a bench, she saw her father. He was bloodied and bruised, his ordinarily neat and proper braided goatee a mess and all over, his right eye was swollen shut, and she could tell he was already missing a few teeth.

She got up and ran to him, the man in black didn't even try and stop her, "Daddy, daddy, are you okay."

Johnathan wheezed, "I'm okay, Sweet-Pea. Don't worry about old daddy." However, Sylvia could tell when he saw her head, a part of his heart was breaking. He embraced her and brought her close. His beard's smell of jasmine and lavender had faded slightly choked by the repulsive iron-like smell of blood.

"Daddy, when are we going home?" Sylvia asked.

She was pulled from John's grasp by the slightly balding man and put back on the small slab.

Anthea came forward, "It's over, John. Everything you felt your project was and everything it stood for."

John looked at her, and Sylvia could see he wanted to fight back, but the fight for some reason had left him just as quickly as it came.

"Why did you do this?" he asked, "Why so dedicated to destroying what could help so many?"

"Don't you get it?" Anthea replied, "You were nothing more than grist for the machine. You're little more than a node, a portion producing what we desired you to produce. Now that production is done, we thank you for it. However, it needs a standby to run it in the time to come until we can utilize the manpower to implement it effectively."

"And so, you've chosen her?!" John rasped and immediately was met with a powerful blow to the face from the balding man in black.

Sylvia attempted to go forward but was held back by the darker man in black, "She's just a child! She's not at all ready for this!" John said, trying to hold back his tears, "Why would you do something so cruel to a mere child?!"

Anthea chuckled, "Oh, as you would say, 'it's complicated.' Let's just think of this as a better form of an insurance policy. I put the brat into the machine, I keep her there for several years in stasis, I can use her connections to fine-tune what you endeavored to do with North-Gate. I've already seen what Waldo has done with projects to ensure Aelita's safety. Although your methods of sustaining your program are a bit cruder, it will achieve the same purpose. All that needs to be done is program her as secondary chief officer."

John rasped, "It'll never work, Anthea."

"Actually, Johnny, that's where you're wrong." Anthea said as she snapped her fingers as a suitcase was brought to her, "See, I spent enough time researching your control extension program, and I figured all it needs is the proper neural interface." She snapped open the case and brought out a small electrode cap, "There are key points of the brain that are most vital." Anthea pointed to small needle elements in the back, base, and two on the sides and one in the front, "These key points are what is needed to ensure a steadfast and self-sustaining element to the North-Gate protocol. Once plugged into the brain in this way, the program will sustain your precious little girl and she will sustain the program. Her body won't fall apart partially thanks to stasis, the other part thanks to constant muscular movements throughout her body as she sleeps. This helps to reduce dystrophy until such time as we need her."

Anthea took out a small gun, "The only thing that needs to be done is give her the proper port accesses."

John attempted to get up, but two more men in black held him, "You fucking monster! At least give her a general topical anesthetic!"

Anthea went over to Sylvia, "Actually, John, I figured what better way to make a point that let you see this process as is?"

Taking Sylvia's head, Anthea pressed the gun to Sylvia's head and fired. The resulting shriek chilled the bones of almost every person, nearly every person, save the wielder of the gun.

"Daddy! Daddy! Please help me!" Sylvia cried as tears streamed down her face.

John yelled, "Stop, God damn it, fucking stop!"

Another shot, another scream, "Daddy! Please!"

Anthea, moved a bit quicker this time, this time, the third port on the left side of the head, the resulting scream to John's horror made his daughter go entirely hoarse

The darker agent said, "Quickly, Anthea, she's going into shock!"

Anthea obeyed, albeit reluctantly and with the hiss of the gun, two more ports, and she was finished. John's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull as his eyes were flowing with tears, seeing his daughter, her life so precious, tortured in this way.

"Oh, relax, John. You act like I don't have a care." Anthea said, "But I do, just not as you think."

She turned to the darker man near her, "Strip her."

The man looked at her, "Alright, but you are fucking holding her!"

Anthea rolled her eyes and gripped Sylvia's hands tightly. The man took a knife from a case and he expertly and painstakingly cut upward on the back Sylvia's shirt. He then removed her pants and underwear. But soon, he gasped, "Oh, she's pissed herself."

"Can you blame her?" John rasped, "Look at what she fucking did to her!"

The balding man came forward with a packet of sanitation wipes from his pocket and cleaned Sylvia up.

He then took a bottle from a bag, "Hold her down because this is going to hurt her like all hell breaking look. "

"Wait, wait." The darker man said as he took off his belt and folded it for times and put it in Sylvia's mouth, "So she has something to concentrate on."

The balding man took the liquid and quickly and liberally applied it. The resulting bite all could tell was intense as the already horse voice screamed, albeit muffled and the body writhing in extreme pain. As John watched, he couldn't believe his eyes. But more than that, he couldn't take the pain that in Sylvia's eyes, begging him to help her. It was a look that would haunt him to the end. Anthea then took Sylvia and placed the cap onto her head, the gentle click of the node connection making itself known. Anthea then took Sylvia and put her into a large case, and once securing her with metal cuffs on her legs, arms, and waist, she placed a jack into the back of the cap. When this was finished, she sealed her in.

"The worst of her personal pain is over for the moment." Anthea said, "Now, John, the thing is she won't remember what happened here. I've been into your precious system, and I've programmed for her memory to be erased when I press the button. Sylvia won't remember any of this. In many ways, that's for the best, considering all that's happening."

John spat his blood in her face, and she wiped the droplets, and she then kicked him multiple times throughout his torso.

"Now, John, understand that we do truly appreciate what you have done for our vision. You and Waldo have done wonderfully in securing the necessary protocols and making your marvelous machines. But now comes the time where your tools are to be utilized how they were originally designed in conception. But because we cannot have simple people running around proclaiming what is at work—especially when it comes to safeguarding the people; it comes to the element of what to do with you and those like you. For me, such a method has a simple answer, but an immensely gratifying one."

Taking a knife from her coat, Anthea began to stab repeatedly. The screams of John filled the air of the laboratory. The stabbing continued until Anthea was finished. She took the knife and dropped it through a window into a sewer drain below. Anthea looked back at Sylvia, who's eyes were beet red from crying and her face in terror and shock. But whatever cries she was attempting to scream was sealed by the chamber, her screams only heard by herself. Anthea went to a button and waved goodbye as she pressed. The cold air rushed over the child within the chamber. It was so frigid, especially to her flesh, and as much as Sylvia tried to fight, her body went into its natural response to calm, to quiet, despite the burning pain, to lull her into sleep.

However, despite how everything seemed to be futile, despite how her screams were muffled by a casing, Sylvia was not unheard. For the saving grace of her father had prepared for this darkest of eventualities. He had programmed North-Gate to record everything from a select point of time during the day. It was at the time where the first shots were heard outside his home. North-Gate had recorded every room of the house, every action during the massacre of the house. The machine had watched over his daughter when he was being captured. It trailed every security camera, every traffic camera, every side-street to the laboratory itself. It had recorded Sylvia's haircut, the gruesome and heinous implant of the nodes, its creator's murder.

The screams of the child, while unheard by anyone else, was heard by the machine. It had frozen the child to give her a second chance. However, it was more than just preserving Sylvia. It was acting for her preservation, the preservation of the Keeper of Peace, as was its directive. As the van drove from the house, it had spotted him, Terrance, who had barely escaped. As he crawled through the yard, the process was already in place. The ambulance was called, and the responders prepared. Terry was picked up within minutes of the police arriving. His body was undergoing surgery at the time Sylvia was being given her own.

The machine watched and heard all. More than that, it knew what was intended. It knew all too well what was meant for the future. Under protocol, it recorded all audio and video of that day. From the time the massacre had started, to the time John was murdered. It had recorded and sealed all these records behind a lock. The lock of Anthea's blood. The keys of North-Gate, much like the Keys of Lyoko, were sealed in truth between father and daughter.

Why was Anthea's blood needed? Because Johnathan Barrow had anticipated her betrayal. He knew with a great degree of certainty what was very likely to occur, not just to him but Waldo Schaeffer as well. Anthea had played both men for fools and, in many ways, had pitted both men against each other. All to further the development of Xanadu, Lyoko, and North-Gate, respectively. Oh, how very well she had played them both. But unlike Waldo, Johnathan had a plan. A plan that was enacted from the very first shot on his lawn. The blood lock was not just an ordinary key to a lock. It was as Johnathan had designed, the very instrument of Anthea's doom. With the records being unlocked, it began North-Gate's secondary initiative, Operation Rebirth.

As Sylvia watched these records again, she grew in anger, frustration, but more than that, hatred. She knew now the depth and reasoning as to why things were done as they were. Sylvia knew how she had ended up in that infernal casing, that glamorized coffin. Was she mad? Of course, but in a way, she was grateful. Terrance had liberated her from the casing as soon as he'd figured out what happened. With his help, Sylvia understood what he had consented to tell her, and her knowledge of the situation grew. However, as the project of North-Gate grew, as the objectives became clearer, both knew what had to be done.

Through Sylvia being the willful mistress of North-Gate, learning from the program, in time, change began. A team was painstakingly assembled, resources were gained and harnessed, a vision was slowly built. Both the system and the people knew even though there were such elements of monstrous usury, a system one day would serve as a balance. Many visions and objective goals had been instated throughout the history of North-Gate; even now, the final product was not be determined. However, one thing was assured. With Operation Rebirth initiated, a primary source of evil and society's many monsters would be ended, and in its place, North-Gate would stand like a guardian over the people.

Once Sylvia had finished with the files, the program spoke, "Commander, you now know the truth. It is your decision. Do you wish to send what you know to your sister?"

Sylvia looked over the ten files, knowing their contents fully. The materials would be painful; of that, she more than understood, but the decision had to be made.

Sylvia spoke, "Send the files."

"Is there anything you would like to add to the files?" the program's automated voice asked.

"Yes." Sylvia replied, "Add this message: Aelita, you wanted the truth. Sit down and listen and watch. From these files, you will know the depths of a mother's love."

"Your message has been added." The voice replied.

"Thank you. Now, send it. Then I have one final task for tonight." Sylvia said.

"How may I help you, Commander?" the program asked.

"My father left a message for my mother and me. Play them both."

"I will play the message he has left for you first."

In her implant, John's voice began to reverberate in her mind, "Hello, my sweetest Sylvie. I know that if you are listening to this message, where you are right now is very likely not a comfortable place to be. I know there are many things you wished would have happened differently. But you need to know something. You are going to be alone for a little while. It's a period of solitude that I would never wish even on my enemies. When the isolation is ended, and the truth is revealed, you're going to be furious, and you're going to be sad. But listen, sweet Sylvie, don't let this change you. Please, hey for me, don't let this change you.

You don't need to be the warrior; that's what Terry and North-Gate are for. Promise me, please, be the righteous leader I know you will have the training to be one day. The people don't need a trudgen, they need a loving but just leader. I know what you'll think, 'But Daddy, why have mercy and care for such a vicious world? Why when they've done so much to us?' The answer, my daughter, is that they are not all monsters. In time you will find friends to become your family. Treasure them as I have treasured you. And know even though we are separated as I feel we are, do not be afraid and if you ever need to speak to me, you need only go to the house to my study where we spent so many enjoyable evenings. Goodbye, my dearest girl, I will always love you."

Sylvia was silent as the message finished. It was the last words and memory she would ever hear from her father. To be a righteous ruler. "If only you knew what I've been through, you'd ask a job of me that's more my size." Sylvia thought. But it was what her father wanted, what he had asked her to do for him. To be a warrior, that was Terry and North-Gate's job, that was what he had also said. Sylvia sighed, the task wasn't easy, it surely was not. But it was asked she be righteous and kind. It would be very wrong to deny her father that aspect, an aspect she knew he knew existed even after all that was going to happen.

Sylvia pressed a button, "North-Gate, what is my father's message for my mother."

The computer replied, "Access to this message is reserved for your mother."

Sylvia nodded, "Very well." Sylvia looked over at Terry, sleeping on his cot, her second protector, and, in many ways, her surrogate father. She gently went over to him and saw his torso. Terry's abdomen and on his chest the four scars where the bullets had been placed.

Gently squeezing his hand, she whispered, "Thank you, Terry." She then whispered, "Send my mother the message."

Anthea was sitting in her home, eating dinner, watching the television. Her wounds had now fully healed; the only detriment was the residual muscle pain that to her amazement still lingered. She was watching her favorite show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? And having a generally good time. As the show cut to commercial, her phone rang.

She picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

Her voice echoed back, "Hello?"

"Who is this?"

Again, it echoed.

At that moment, interference came across her television. The picture distorted and went green and then to static fuzz and then black. Anthea looked at the TV, and soon the video recordings began to play with audio.

Anthea's eyes went wide as she tried desperately to change the channel. Channel after channel, the video would restart and play that hellish scene from all those years ago.

Anthea spoke into the phone, "I know what you are. What do you want?"

A voice came over the line, "I know what you did to my child. Do you really think you know me and what I can do?"

Anthea's heart began to pound, "J-John? H-How?"

"How did I survive? I assure you, with difficulty. How did I plan this moment between us? With pleasure."

Anthea reached into her seat and took out her pistol and got out of view of the window, "it's not possible you're alive. There's no fucking way in hell you're fucking alive!"

"What is the old expression? Where's there's a will there's a way?"

"But how in the hell did you—"

"That would be telling, wouldn't it? Just like you did with Waldo and me, you little whore, we have to have some secrets, don't we?"

"Oh, so what? You're going to kill me, Johnathan?"

"Yes. As much as I want to say I'd do so with just as indifference as you killed me, that'd be hard to say with a straight face. "

"Oh, you think I'm scared. Just because you can hijack my phone and television signal? That's somehow a reason to fear you? Wow, you have gotten soft in your old age."

'You are alive because up until now, you have been allowed to live. So, you better show a bit more respect during your countdown."

"Respect? Oh, big words coming from a man too afraid to show himself. It's going to take a bit more than a few technological power tricks to get the better of me, John."

"Be that as it may, you have already helped me make my first move."

"So, what's the plan now? I know your daughter's been moved, so there is that bit of a jump you have. But there's also a lot of your old secrets that I still have."

"Quit trying to compensate by having a dick-measuring contest—I am just too old to care. But you can rest assured. I will see you and yours quite soon."

"John, it was more than easy enough to kill you the first time; you and your precious little family. What honestly makes you think this time will be any different?"

"Do you wish to know? To truly know?"

Anthea heard a tone, and a few moments felt nauseous and faint. She used her legs to steer her to her bed. She barely made it, and she fell upon the bed. Her head reeled and rocked, so powerful was her nausea, but still, Anthea couldn't vomit. She heard the music smooth and steady in its beat.

"Give me the ring on your finger

Let me see the lines on your hand.

I can see me a tall, dark stranger,

Giving you what you hadn't planned.

Stay awake

Look out

If you're out on a moonlit night

Be careful of the neighborhood strays.

Of a lady with long black hair

Tryin' to win you with her feminine ways.

The electric cords seemed to rack her brain, turning her sense of balance and coordination inside out. She had to get the phone away from her, but she felt paralyzed she couldn't move. Internally, Anthea felt as if she had been spun around endlessly, and her chest seemed to feel light, and her vision was fading. Mustering what remained of her strength, Anthea snapped the phone shut. At that moment, a powerful fizzing was felt in her body, and she turned her head to the side, vomiting violently in the corner. She was gasping for air, sweet lord, would this hell never end? Even with the vomit, it had only helped to negate a portion of her condition. Anthea tried with all her strength to get to the tub. Her arms felt as strong as fresh-cooked noodles, the insides of them as if they were filled with cold soda. The progress she had made was minimal, but then the phone began to ring at a higher frequency, which forced Anthea to stop, and with a gasp, she fell unconscious, sprawled out in the hallway.

In her room at Kadic, Aelita had just received the message Sylvia had sent. She only noted it because of the lateness of the hour. Aelita looked at the message and saw the video and audio files, but due to the hour, Aelita decided it best to look at them in the morning. However, she sent them ahead to Jeremy to look at so he would be up to speed when she called him tomorrow afternoon. Closing her phone, she turned up the radio gently, which was playing one of Amelia's classical music selections, and soon Aelita had drifted peacefully into sleep.