AN: This chapter came after a week of hard work. After a prayer, I'm so glad to have been able to bring this chapter to you despite my studies. I hope you all enjoy it.

Pagliacci-11.

Chapter 85

Jeremy headed out of his room, and seeing the more unknown guards on sentry duty as many of the students termed it to keep the students from illicit activity, he made a note of those on duty. As he approached Aelita and Amelia's dorm, Jeremy recognized the pattern. There were nine additional staff on floor rotation with each other. The alternation happened every other week, and even then, they changed by gender as to who was at which side of the hallways. But this pattern, after enough time, Jeremy was able to nail down, which was perfect for his plan down the line.

He stood at the door, and he knocked three times. Aelita opened the door, and he nodded to her. She closed the door behind her, and both left the dorms to the park. Once outside, they went to the bench, and Jeremy kissed her on the right cheek. She, knowing what this meant, embraced him tightly.

"Really?" She asked.

He clenched his fist and, with a smile, lowered in a downward pump.

"Oh, Jeremy, I'm so happy!" She said after she'd kissed him thoroughly.

He smiled, and they sat down, "It took an immense sacrifice, but it was ultimately necessary. I need you to get some cherry sodas tonight, for sure."

"That's great. When should I send out the invitations?"

"By and by. Maybe about six or so. Trust me; we spared no expense. That said, I think we'll only be able to get ahold of Patrick for our announcement."

Aelita nodded, and she said, "I'll let him know around six, and we'll see if he can make it."

Jeremy looked around, none were watching them, and he reached into his pocket and handed Aelita a new mobile, "Never lose sight of this even for a moment. We can never be too careful."

She took it, "Absolutely. So, what's the movie tonight?"

"It's something I'm not interested in, to be honest. It's fine for a lot of the school, but I'll pass."

"Oh, come on, Jeremy. Classic cinema's not all bad, you know?" Aelita said with a bit of a laugh.

"I know, but—I've been spoiled on a lot of practical and special effects lately. To see the true ramshackle aspects of cinemascope, I'll pass. It's just painful to watch. I know what Chardin is doing, but still, why the shift from his love of short films to this?"

"I think it's to do with Leroux, the Mercier Drama teacher. He believes more in the narrative spectacle, and he and Chardin have come to blows a couple of times now. I think they're doing this to settle a squabble, anyway, turning the curriculum over to popular reception. Which, I have to think Kadic isn't exactly pleased with such a radical idea. You know how hesitant Delmas was for change. I can't think it's improved too much."

Jeremy shrugged, "I prefer not to be in the quagmire of the mess this little experiment will bring."

"Fair enough. But, Jeremy, if you don't voice your opinion in a vote, you can't complain."

"Of course, I can. Just when to do it to get my way is what needs to be figured out. If I've learned anything from your sister, it's to wait until the right moment to voice a loud enough objection to revert things to 'common sense and traditional sensibility.'"

"Oh, I know! Queen Smarmy, if there ever was one. Isn't it annoying how she reshuffles her words to get her way?"

"She's a politician to be; what do you expect?" Jeremy asked with a chuckle.

"Anyway, for our party, do you have any food in mind?"

"I honestly prefer the dinner tonight from Rosa. It'll be sufficient, and then we can go to the rendezvous point to truly relax."

"Sounds great. Well, I have to get back to the dorm. I have to study for the quiz for Mrs. Hertz."

"Oh, speaking of. Do you mind if I borrow your computer? Goebbels fucked me up."

"Sure. By the way, why are we going pure world war two references anyway?"

"Hey, it's not my fault Mengele is the name of one of the specialists. So, keeping with the theme, well, why not?"

Aelita chuckled, "Alright, sure."

Later that afternoon, at five o'clock, Aelita called Ulrich and asked, "Hey, how's it going?"

"Uh, it's going alright. New number?"

"Yeah, got a new phone. Sorry, I should have opened with that.

"It's alright. I'm doing okay, I guess. I had a terrible flu-bug. I was out for most of yesterday afternoon and night. We had the meeting with Sylvia, and it went well, so Odd says. I honestly can't remember too much of it. That said, I think the meeting opened him up and got him back on our side.

He's sent me a few messages, and after chewing over a lot of the meeting, he told me he just couldn't follow Sylvia. Her views are just, but her means to her end are too much for him. So, whatever he can do to help, he said he would."

Aelita thought on this and said, "This is all well and good, but until we can be sure after a little while, we can't have him as an active warrior. It's for our safety as much as for the good of what we're doing. Given how he fluctuates so drastically, we just can't take the risk right now.

Also, we have a giant leap to let you know about. Can you meet us at the Hermitage tonight?"

"I'm feeling better, so yeah. But I think it best to let Odd know what we're up to just so—"

"Ulrich, no." she was heard to sigh, "Look, even Sylvia has elements that only know select things, and they are separate from each other. Jeremy and I will entrust you all with different elements of what we're doing so—"

"Say no more, I gotcha'. It's not rocket science what you two are doing, and so I'll come along. What time?"

"After dinner in the cafeteria, so if you can, be there at eight in the evening. Jeremy and I have memorized the patrols of this place. It's much easier to get out and about."

"Just took time, huh?"

"All good things do, you know that."

"Of course. Alright. I'll be there at eight."

That evening, Ulrich arrived at the Hermitage, and five minutes past eight, Aelita and Jeremy arrived. Ulrich was about to greet them, but both motioned for him to be quiet. Jeremy motioned to go inside, and he nodded. The two led him to the Hermitage's upper room, what used to be Aelita's room, and once inside, Aelita took out a cooler filled with ice and handed Ulrich a cherry soda.

Jeremy said in a low voice, "I have good news. We're inside North-Gate. We can see portions of its inner workings, and we're duplicating its internal command codes."

Ulrich was surprised, "How did you accomplish all that?"

"It happened when Aelita got her field kit from Sylvia. See, Sylvia was trusting enough to give her a field kit. But we all know with her, there's no such thing as a free ride. Equally, the fact she'd bugged Aelita's phone proved Sylvia's overtures of friendship couldn't be trusted. During the breaks we've had, I took the time, compiled all our data of all we've done since we came to know of both Anthea, Aelita's mother, and North-Gate, respectively."

"Because she was a primary maker of North-Gate, right?" Ulrich asked.

"Yes and no. But the thing was, we realized we couldn't communicate as we'd done before because, through Sylvia's tap, we realized that as soon as Aelita got more into contact with her mother, that Sylvia would launch coordinated strikes. First was Anthea's attack, which landed her in the intensive care ward, then an orbital attack on another supercomputer that was being designed to fight North-Gate.

Equally, we must account for the fact that a whole bunch of events happened so briefly in order with each other, that no way in the world that it could be written off as coincidence."

Aelita then spoke, "One such event was the aspect that my mother had arranged for me to journey with her throughout Europe, several passports along with a change of clothes. Well, she's gone. Not hide nor hair or sight our sound can I find on her. Equally, the second supercomputer we tried to have built was destroyed in Germany. We asked my mother to see if she could put it into effect. But there was a massive discharge of energy that a scan picked up as possible North-Gate activity. Still, where the place was, shockingly, we can't get satellite feed or any information about it, period.

So, once we realized that Sylvia had tapped us and was using our conversations to set off countermoves, we figured something truly unique. Play her game and let her hit us."

Jeremy nodded, "We had to sacrifice the primary computer that I've used, but in deliberately flagging ourselves and giving a convincing performance for the bug that was in Aelita's phone, we were able to plant an adaptive base-line subroutine into North-Gate's servers. As it stands, right now, we're copying and duplicating its internal hard drives, and from that, we can see what we're dealing with."

"So," Ulrich said after processing this information, "you two tore open North-Gate by feigning weakness, and from that, you're now inside their network."

"Exactly. We anticipated that North-Gate does regular sweeps, but even if we wanted to use the training room, we needed more hard data." Jeremy replied, "That said, what I was able to see if just for a moment was North-Gate's cyber defenses. Excellent stuff, radically advanced, but it's manually operated, not automated. It was a gamble doing this, but the result is, even though I'll never be able to rebuild my computer as it was without setting off an alarm, we have a genuine duplicated extension of a digital network into North-Gate. We're operating under a fully legitimated cleaning subroutine."

Ulrich chuckled, "Smart, Einstein, going through Sylvia's trash to see what she's up to, very good. You do have an uncommonly level head on your shoulders."

"Through all the maintenance, we'll get a whole blueprint of her infrastructure. From finance to military, to technologies." Aelita replied, "We can turn her resources on her, the same way she turned our phones on us. But we simply need to time our testing methods with her beasts more effectively. That's all."

"So, wait, if we're going to use all this," Ulrich asked, "where are we storing the data?"

Jeremy replied, "Are you familiar with external hard-drives?"

"Vaguely, but tech's not really my jam."

"Well, that's what we have working for us. Three external hard-drives that Aelita and I programmed to focus purely on monsters for the first two and the second to focus on North-Gate technology. They are already termed 'Initiatives' or 'Doctrines' in the North-Gate vocabulary from what we can decrypt. So if Sylvia makes a change, we'll know, but we'd have to dump more stuff as changes came about."

"So, for the first time, we actually have a plan to fight her, and we can fight her with her stuff? I call that worthy of a cherry soda, for sure." Ulrich said, and he popped the tab, "To the eggheads, victory is within sight."

Jeremy and Aelita toasted, "To the eggheads!"

Ulrich had a drink, and after he'd drunk, he asked, "So, you lose your computer, but why did you let them destroy it exactly? In my excitement, I'm still trying to comprehend it."

"It's a lot like a dye-pack with money at the bank. Something that worked well, but we were found out after enough time." Aelita replied, "However, we made this dye overly troublesome to deal with. See, we open ourselves up to attack, but Jeremy and I figured we couldn't use Marabunta as much he wanted to in the context he wanted to. After breaking it down privately, we came up with a solution to amplify a computer code so that it will spread like Marabunta but will equally duplicate select units as they are updated. Then the real kicker comes in; the dummy A.I. will take over in the place of already existing A.I."

Ulrich smiled, "So, you're corrupting her soldiers, and you're replacing them in the field? How will her maintainer not know?"

Jeremy replied, "We thought about that and using the last little A.I. bot before my computer went down, who we affectionately call 'Jerry,' we can make these switches during system maintenance. Eventually, units in Lyoko under North-Gate go into standby for every maintenance routine. When that happens, the 'little Jerry' units will fire off a code to which the original A.I. under North-Gate is overwritten with our code but still looks official.

It's no different than Phishing on the everyday internet. However, our hook for Phishing is almost indestructible, using all data to form a counteraction to it. Even Frankenclank can be cracked open in theory. We pose as her guards, and as her updates are given, not only do our dummy A.I. get the upgrades, but that's transferred to a training station so we can train accurately with all means at our disposal."

Ulrich sat down in a nearby chair and said, "Wow, you guys are amazing. Why did it take so long for you to come up with this?"

"It wasn't easy," Jeremy replied.

"I'll second that," Aelita said as she sat down next to Ulrich using her old bed, "We didn't know she was tapping our communications for a long time. However, we should have concluded that our phone data was in the supercomputer itself when Jeremy needed to call us. That was our mistake.

Also, we didn't know quite how she functioned or how North-Gate functioned. But we eventually figured it out. See, Sylvia never talks to more than one person at a time. We figured that this was because she didn't have the energy to do it. And so, once Jeremy and I figured that out after more than enough nightmare-fueled dream scenarios, we figured she could only focus on one of us at a time.

So, a lot of my anger and frustration with Sylvia, while legitimate, was a show to distract. I could voice my anger with her, but while I began to engage her in an argument over time, Jeremy was sending in little Jerry to sniff out key elements of security weakness within North-Gate. It was also how we all could get into Lyoko under her control without her knowing."

"So, wait a minute, you're telling me that when Jeremy said he couldn't see what was going on with you guys when you went to Lyoko the first time, he was lying?"

"Not exactly," Jeremy replied. "I could see what the layout of Lyoko was, and despite how Sylvia tried to dummy it up with an old-world motif, she didn't account for select codes that only come from 'Modernized Industrial Layout.' It's a code that tells me what's on the map, and equally, it tells me just where it is. While Sylvia could lie to my first glance, when I dissected stored footage of the encounter later in the review, I found no, she has entire city quadrants laid out in the old sectors, and they are integrated into it. But as you guys moved through Lyoko last time, Aelita and I were able to scan portions to store into my computer to help flag us."

"You see, we knew Sylvia would pull something if she felt something was up." Aelita said after a drink, "She's paranoid; but that's kept her alive and ahead of us till' now. We flag the computer and the dye element we have, yes we surrender to her all the stuff we gathered, but—"

"You reinforce it through actual data as they purge it as you guys scan what's there?" Ulrich finished her sentence, "That right?"

"Exactly, good job, Ulrich." Aelita said with a smile, "See; she takes it in; it spreads unknown to her. Her strike against us is chalked up as a victory, and whatever Sylvia salvages from the files, she salvages— big whoop. Because when the files are thrown into the trash, they'll seem to be deleted forever. Except the guts of our program continue to live and grow from the trash, kinda' like maggots from flies. The bots are looking for patterns, and when it comes time to be implemented, they cloak into the recycling bin, replacing a recycling file.

Once in the queue to be recycled for active duty, our bots have gathered what we call 'constant intelligence' to serve as North-Gate's bot reserve in case of attack. But, they're slowly moving towards the frontlines with every maintenance, so when we do move in, we won't have any resistance, period. Rather, we'll have an entire sector of strong reinforcements."

Ulrich smiled as he shook his head, "You two, you beautiful crazy people. You fell on your swords just to get close enough to stab her in the heart. It's a pyrrhic victory, sure, but nearly as much as it sounds. But what about your computer? I mean, your laptop isn't quite the same as Datazilla as Odd calls it."

"It wasn't a free victory. My Aunt Penelope is helping me with that; I'd rather deal with her than my mom; I'll just be honest about that. It wasn't without cost, but I had to look at this as a long-term investment in business. What Aelita and I cooked up will take us a lot farther than just chipping away at North-Gate. We'll be turning the system in on itself. Unfortunately, the masterstroke of its genuine death will take time to accumulate as we clone the entire system for our own use. But that's where we'll truly turn the tables, and once done, we'll shut down our North-Gate forever."

"Making a North-Gate to counter North-Gate. What about the A.I component?" Ulrich asked.

Aelita and Jeremy looked at each other and then at Ulrich, and Aelita replied, "There is none. Unlike XANA, there is no automation with North-Gate unless it's genuinely programmed into it by engineers and programmers. Every one of its decisions is decided by a central focus. There is no A.I. apart from what's given to it in a mission setting."

"So—Sylvia," Ulrich began

"Is acting entirely on her own." Aelita replied, finishing his statement, "All her work is her call, all the casualties her responsibility. There no automation except for data crunching; apart from that, it's all her."

"So, what about the Cassius Dio, then?" Jeremy asked

"A glorified guidance menu and historical record, no more and no less. He was the historian menu much as Cassius Dio was in real life. So, all this time, we've been dealing with entirely human operators."

Ulrich was quiet for a moment or two, and he asked, "Then why don't we neutralize her staff?"

"We will, once we figure out who they are." Jeremy replied, "We need to focus on for right now on navigating Lyoko first and foremost. Once we get that down as solidly as we can, we can focus more on North-Gate's staff. Unfortunately, Aelita, what you need to remember, A.I. for North-Gate is a viable thing. However, the danger is just what Ulrich proposes, taking out her staff as the more staff you take out, the more automated it becomes."

Aelita nodded, "Yeah, I almost forgot about that."

Ulrich seeing this asked, "So, what will we do?"

Jeremy replied, "Right now, we just hold off. You can bet that Sylvia's tricks aren't done yet. So, we have a plan just in case that happens but not just yet. If our suspicions are correct, there's one bullet still in the chamber, and it's yet to be fired. So, if it comes through, we'll definitely let you know."

Ulrich finished his soda and asked, "Alright. Well, I gotta' get going. I have a big day to prep for Kensington's warpath tomorrow."

Jeremy groaned, "And that's where I'm gonna' bite the dust a bit. I mean, it's not exactly my thing, you know?"

Ulrich nodded, "I know. It's the one thing that none of us except Odd can figure out. But then again, he always had a gift for creative literature and language, now that I think about it. I mean, the way he picked up Italian so naturally, it was quite surprising."

"Funny about that, isn't it?" Aelita replied, "You're Aunt Penelope is big in Italy. Why didn't you pick up the lingo, Jeremy?"

Jeremy shrugged, "My aunt grew up loving Italian culture. So much so that Nana called her the secret Italiano. Simultaneously, she went to Italy for two years in secondary school as a boarder and university for a long time. She spent far more time there than at home. Kinda' why papa liked her more. 'More cultured than the rest of you.' She's a frickin' lesbian with good fashion sense! What just because you dress the part, you turn heads?"

Ulrich nodded, "Kinda' yeah. Your aunt figured that out early. Which is why you and I cannot converse in Italian today."

Aelita laughed, "You can't converse in it, period."

The three continued their conversation, laughing and talking so wonderful had their plan worked. But Ulrich then asked, "How did you figure out Sylvia's communication weakness?"

Aelita looked at him; a tear began to run down her face, "Because I bunked with her for a week, Ulrich." She looked at him, her voice beginning to break, "Jacqueline was Sylvia."

Ulrich was surprised, and he asked, "Are you—" He stopped; he thought on it long and hard. Jacqueline herself was immensely bold, violent, cocky. How could a girl so fresh to Kadic be so sure of herself?

He looked at Aelita, "What was your first clue?"

She sighed, "She couldn't tell a joke. That was the first one. Followed immediately by her bold as brass move on Akiko. And then—it was just how she talked, her nature, her mindset. It was—it wasn't human, Ulrich, it just wasn't human. Normally, you get energy in terms of tone and feeling from people; it's something hardwired into us, I don't' know. But with Jacqui, I never said it to her face, but Ulrich, from her, I felt nothing. It was the most frightening and bizarre feeling. I never felt before that I talked to a marionette, but somehow that's what it felt like.

The sad truth was," Aelita continued as she felt more and more intense the sadness but also anger, "she walked among us, talked with us—trying to be what she thought she could be and—she stood out like a sore thumb because she can't be us. Even Jeremy felt Jacqui was off, and then when she provoked Yumi to physical anger with her mother, her reaction in that room, it was exactly like the girl Jeremy and I knew.

When she was reported dead, the dark reality was that I felt so much peace for the first time. I felt so much peace; it was almost glorious. All the playacting that I had to do to keep her off our scent was hell, Ulrich. She was so vicious and sure of herself, but she couldn't fool us after a while. We couldn't portray annoyance, however, because who knows what that would have caused."

"When she mentioned the factory, that was way too close a call as well." Jeremy replied as he sat beside Aelita, "We knew she was way too close to home. For all her intelligence, and she is that, Ulrich. She couldn't help but overplay her hand."

Aelita nodded as she'd stopped crying, "That and something else struck me now of all times that I think about it. The simple fact Jacqueline came in so quickly on the heels of Amelia and I having our fight that it was far too convenient. I was amazed at the raw speed of it even then."

Jeremy nodded, "Yes, why didn't I think of that as well?"

Ulrich knew, and he said what was on his mind, "Much as I thought she would, she used the influx of students coming into Kadic to hide. She probably knew your time with Amelia would be rough and tumble from the start. So for her, It's easy to hide among the new people and just wait."

"Rats!" Jeremy said after a moment.

"No, he's right, Jeremy." Aelita said, "She had us with our noses open due to the transfers, and she made the most of it."

Jeremy said with a hint of pathos in his voice, "I know."

Ulrich let the silence speak for all three of them. Sylvia and North-Gate were enemies that were similar and yet unlike any enemy that XANA had put before them. Sylvia was willing to do what she needed to do, and she was brilliant. Ulrich more than knew that those two things were all that it took. Equally, while like XANA, her tactics were designed for precision strikes on the team, and that was simply on a level he never knew existed. There was no telling what Sylvia was capable of or even had planned for the future.

Then there was another thing. The issue that Ulrich knew that Sylvia had a clone of Yumi going around. He figured that out, and the testimony about Jacqueline had confirmed his suspicions. That said, though, this clone was unlike anything he'd ever seen if it even was a clone. He'd sadly knew, despite his lack of admission, that he had more than made love to the clone. Whatever it was, it was truly human. It's a specter that could disappear. No, this clone had a pulse, had warm flesh, had blood, saliva, all of it. It was more a clone in the literal sense. Still, he remembered on his experience with the thing that shared his bed, that the passion, the raw sensual and sexual power, was unlike anything he'd experienced, and when he'd thought it was Yumi, it was something he more than welcomed.

But now? Now he wasn't sure at all. Rather than admit to what was sitting in his mind, he felt it was best to keep quiet. He'd have a defense if Yumi genuinely called him on it. But something told him, a sneaking suspicion that even if he had to defend himself, the ripcord on the bomb that was his and Sissi's relationship would be exposed. Ulrich knew that was something in Sylvia's arsenal, and it was something he wouldn't dare take a chance on being revealed just yet.

Their meeting now over; Aelita stood and said, "All we have talked about stays between us. We can't be sure of one of our oldest friends, and we can't be sure of Yumi either. Until we can be, until we know more of what we're dealing with, we're going to play a lot of this by ear."

Ulrich nodded and got up, "Alright, well, I'll be headed back then." He stretched and then said, "Guys, I'm glad we got this far. I have to admit; I really underestimated you guys."

Aelita nodded, "Admittedly, it had to happen. We had to keep you as much in the dark as we did, Sylvia. If she found out you knew, she'd put the screws to you, and our plan would have been for nothing."

"I understand. It's what we have to do in the face of a genuine war." Ulrich said, "Anyway, I'll be headed out. If you two ever need anything, please call me. Oh, Aelita, just to be safe, I'm going to get a new phone. If Sylvia tapped your phone, who knows what else she's done."

"No need. Jeremy augmented this phone so that not even Sylvia can track it. Every time I use it, I enter a virtual private network run from an extension server we have on campus. From that, we can communicate secretly and safely away from her prying eyes."

"You, crazy people and your computers. Never let them say you did too much wrong with it." Ulrich replied, "Well, goodnight."

Ulrich headed out, and as he walked on the main path home, he couldn't help that for the first time in a long time, they'd be giving a massive punch to North-Gate instead of being made to take them. As he walked, it was quiet in the wooded area just near Kadic, and Ulrich, for the first time, savored the chirp of the crickets.

Suddenly a twig snapped just behind him, and he whirled around, his hand prepared to strike when he stopped himself; Aelita stood before him, "Oh, Aelita." He exhaled in relief. "Don't do that. What's up? Did you forget something?"

"Jumpy much?" She said with a light smile, "No, I meant to tell you there's going to be a concert at Kadic in the next few weeks. It's part of Mercier being with us, at least for the time being. I'll be performing after the concert for the dance and Jeremy, and I'd love it if you attended."

"We'll have to see what my mom has planned, honestly. She's got a lot going on with her fashion deal. Some sick designs, honestly. Better than I thought. But if I can make it, I'll come."

"Great. Well, I'll let you get home. Be safe, alright?" She said with a smile.

Aelita headed back in the direction of the Hermitage, and Ulrich went on his way. As he headed along the main street back to his mother's house, he thought, "Man, she was quiet. I guess the training ole' Jimbo gave us is something she took to heart."