When they finally arrived at the old factory, memories began flooding back to the group. How many times did they sneak off campus to bring the fight to XANA? How long had the factory been Aelita's home? How many nights did Jeremy and Aelita spend here working alone? One particular night came to Aelita's mind, and a smile began to form.
The Lyoko Warriors made their way across the bridge and into the factory proper. Aelita punched in the elevator code. The elevator lurched as it lowered down to the lab. After the door opened, they poured out in the room each seemingly lost in thought except for Aelita who made her way to Jeremy's old chair and tried to turn on the monitor. No response.
"Oh, of course." Aelita slapped her forehead. "One of you go down and flip the switch and turn it on."
"I'll do it." William volunteered.
"Great." Aelita tossed him the fob.
William crawled down the maintenance ladder to the room that housed the supercomputer. He stuck the fob in the slot and flipped the switch, restarting the supercomputer. William made his way back up the ladder. The monitor in front of Aelita sprung to life. A password prompt appeared. Aelita entered her name and she was in. A video file of Jeremy began to play.
"Aelita, as much I wish it hadn't come to this, it was all but a certainty. Project Carthage is up and running again, and we've been on their radar for a long time. The combination of being Franz Hopper's successors, along with some carelessness on my part… it doesn't matter. Here's what you need to know: There's a facility you need to break into outside of the city limits. For all intents and purposes, it's an old server farm but stored there should be a list of the Project Carthage facilities. There will be some resistance there, but I've come up with some new inventions for this scenario."
On cue, a false wall opposite the elevator rose up to reveal a display of several suits and gadgets, and some bags to carry them in, along with some additional equipment such as earpieces for communication. Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William approached the display. They saw that there were stealth suits that resembled their old Lyoko costumes.
"I replicated your Lyoko outfits, and, to a lesser extent, your weapons. Odd has a rechargeable thermal dart generator. William and Ulrich have electrical swords with a sort of "taser effect." Yumi has a pair of sort of "smart" discs with a boomerang function. You have no idea how hard it was to put those in simple enough terms; not for you, Aelita, I knew you would understand, but I didn't want Odd to be confused." The recording continued.
"Hey, there's nothing confusing about rechargeable thermal underwear!" Odd quipped.
"As for you, Aelita, with me gone, you'll have to run the show. There's a sort of a portable hacking rig, a "cyberdeck" if you will, for you to use. With it, you can deactivate security on the fly and hack into their systems for the needed information. I didn't make anything for you to go toe-to-toe with the enemy, but It's for the best, I don't want you anywhere near harm's way."
"Oh gee, thanks for caring about the rest of us. Geez, some things never change." Odd scoffed.
"Your suits have other functions. One is that it generates a scrambler that electronically masks your identity. Cameras will be unable to get a clear picture of you, and you won't leave a trace. Additionally, all of the suits come with a pair of goggles. In tandem with the suit, they will allow you to combat any electronic counter measures that may be in the security system. Think of it as an extremely advanced AR with just a little bit of VR. It's not virtualization, but it's the next best thing. Oh, and be sure to put away your weapons before going in, the last thing you want to do is blindly swing a sword around. The suits have built in sensors for digital weapons; don't worry, you won't be unarmed.
I'm afraid the rest is up to you. There's no way to know where they might take me, but I'm certain there should be some indication where to look at that old server farm. And…Aelita, I love you. I always have, and always will. Know that everything that I did, I did for you, for you to be able to live in a world without danger. We'll be together momentarily, my dear."
"See you in a minute, my dear" Franz Hopper's last words before virtualization echoed in Aelita's mind.
With that, the recording turned off. Aelita began tearing up. Angrily she began shouting. "It's exactly the same as before. He's just like my father. I never wanted this. I wanted a father who would love me and be there, but he was a crazy, obsessed, Doctor Frankenstein-wannabe, and then I married his protégé thinking things would turn out different, God knows why. So, I don't know who's actually crazier, them or me. Always acting out of what they think I want, but they never asked me. I was never given a choice."
Yumi walked over and put her hand on Aelita's shoulder. "He cares about you, more than anything or anyone else, more than himself. If I were to guess, Jeremy would sacrifice the whole world for your happiness. You always said that his devotion to you was what made him special."
William chimed in. "What you have, is something I'd kill for. You know you've got true love when it makes you crazy. When it comes to love, the only sane thing is to be insane."
Aelita laughed, wiping tears from her eyes. "You know, Jeremy also really liked that song. I just… miss him, I want to hold him and never let go…"
"Don't worry, when we find him, we'll break his legs. He won't get away from you again, Princess." Odd chuckled. All the Lyoko Warriors laughed.
"Right." Aelita sighed. "Let's get going."
"Wait a minute. Shouldn't you run a scan to check for XANA?" Yumi asked.
Aelita shook her head. "Right. Right. I forgot." She initiated a scan and in a few moments looked at the results. "There was a ping of activity when we restarted to the supercomputer, but that's in all likelihood just…restarting the supercomputer… Nope. I don't see any trace of XANA anywhere."
"So XANA is really gone?" Yumi sighed, a little relieved.
"Looks like it, but we should still shut down the supercomputer when we leave." Aelita remarked.
The Lyoko Warriors grabbed their gear and stuffed them in the bags and prepared to leave. William returned to the supercomputer chamber to shut it down, then rejoined the group. They left from the old Hermitage exit. As they walked away from Aelita's old home, they saw black helicopters flying by and heard an explosion in the direction of the old factory.
"Did they just…?" Ulrich was stunned.
"Yes." Aelita answered.
"Did someone know we were there, were they trying to…?" Yumi shook her head in disbelief.
"I don't know, but I do know that the faster we can find Jeremy, the better." Aelita continued walking away, resolved in her mission.
EXCERPT FROM THE DIARY OF YUMI ISHIYAMA
DATED SIX YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF FRANZ HOPPER
Today was an eventful day. Ulrich and I finally decided to take things to the next level and I moved in with him. Aelita and Jeremy helped me move my stuff, mostly Aelita. It's funny to consider she's stronger than her husband, but I guess that wouldn't take much to accomplish. To his credit, she seems really happy when she's with him. She even told me that she's finally gotten over her nightmares. I'm glad she's finally ok, she's always been like my little sister. Speaking of siblings, I should really call Hiroki, see how he's doing. I haven't really talked to him in months.
William also lent me a hand, moving the really heavy stuff. He and Ulrich have started getting along a lot better nowadays. I can still remember a day when simply being in the same room with William would put Ulrich on edge; even worse if William was anywhere near me. Ulrich really grown up a lot since we were kids, flirting in between classes and driving each other crazy.
Of course, my happy new home has one blemish on it. Odd Della Robbia. I can just see him living with us being a problem. It was a lot easier to get along with Odd when the buffer zone was measured in kilometers; now we have a buffer of mere meters. Ulrich assured me that Odd was looking for a place and wouldn't be living at our place much longer. I'll believe that when it happens, Odd has a way of getting Ulrich to agree to just about anything.