Chapter 4 – Safe and Secure

It was evening after school and Jeremy had called the Lyoko Warriors to the factory for a special announcement. When they arrived, he was in his chair still working on the Supercomputer. "Everyone, I have some amazing news to share with you all today." Jeremy turned around in the chair holding a small black box. "Check these babies out!" He opened the box and revealed the contents to the others.

"A bunch of… Necklaces…?" Ulrich asked.

Jeremy just smiled and held his index finger up. "Alert Charms. They were Aelita's idea…"

The pink haired girl reached over and pulled one out to show to the others. It had a black threaded band that connected to a dark grey pendant in the shape of the Lyoko eye. The eye also had a small red lightbulb in the center of it. "The band contains a wire that is loosely connected to the pendant and completes an electrical circuit. If the circuit fails for any reason, it will send out a distress signal."

"Oh, I get it!" Yumi spoke up, grabbing one for herself. "So, if any of us get attacked by Xana, we can just rip these off our necks and you will know."

"More than that." Jeremy answered. "If the circuit breaks, it sends a message to every one of our phones displaying who's charm broke, where it broke and when it broke."

Ulrich reached over and grabbed one. "While these are pretty nifty Jeremy, how is this different from just calling?"

Jeremy just smiled again. "I thought you might say that…" He spun back around and brought up the blueprints on the Supercomputer. "The reason these took so long to make is because I needed them to be as failproof as possible. These charms are our last line of defense and so I designed them to be durable enough to stand up to anything Xana throws at us. Whether you're underwater or stuck behind a meter of concrete, absolutely nothing will stop these. You could run one of these babies over with a steamroller and they won't fail."

Aelita continued. "And by making them necklaces you can rip off; they are much easier to use in an emergency and not get them taken away like our cell phones. Just hide them under your clothes and when you're in trouble, break the wire. This way you can alert us all immediately even if you can't use your phone."

"Of course, there are a few downsides… The pendants are not the easiest thing to make so try not to lose them unless you plan to launch a Return to the Past. Also, if someone were to take it without breaking the wire or if you get captured and can't use it yourself, they won't be any help to you."

"So, rip these off before the cops cuff us, got it!" Odd exclaimed, grabbing one for himself.

"Now remember guys, these are not 'get out of jail' cards. Use these ONLY if you're captured by Xana or absolutely need a Return to the Past. I don't want you using these just because you got two hours of detention."

"Speaking of which…" Ulrich asked. "We have been using the Return to the Past a lot lately, there is no telling how strong Xana has become in the past couple weeks."

"I did a bit of digging and I can say with 100% certainty that Xana does not get any stronger from the Return to the Past. Since the return trip only powers up the Supercomputer and he is no longer tied to it, he doesn't benefit from it. However, I still feel like we should only use it when necessary. If he was able to bug the Supercomputer like I predicted, he might have rigged it so something else could leech off the power increase from the time reversion. Something like his laptop or whatever this new project is that he is working on."

"He isn't exactly giving us much breathing room to not launch a return trip." Ulrich spoke. "He has been going out of his way to do as much damage as possible and force us to Return to the Past." Ulrich then put his hands in his pockets. "Whatever he is doing, he is not worried about the return trips getting in the way."

"All we know at the moment is that Xana has been having packages shipped to him from various parts manufacturers." Aelita added. "At the very least, we can take solace in that every return trip sets his shipments back another day."

"From what Ulrich overheard, it seems we have a few months to work with." Jeremy added. "Whether that few months is just for this current project or his end game, we don't know. We should assume the worst and be prepared for his final attack by that time. We'll need the Skid rebuilt in order to intercept whatever invasion he has planned and we need Teleportation back online in case his plan goes offline."

"He did try and build a robot army last time…" Yumi commented. "If we can't stop it like we did before, he will force the fight into the public and put countless lives at risk."

"Exactly! Being so close to us and having so much freedom from the net means there is no telling what he can do. We need to be fully prepared for the possibility of an offline war."

"When you say it like that, you make it sound like we are soldiers…" Ulrich spoke up.

Jeremy sighed. "In a manner of speaking, that is exactly what we are. Not all wars are public and not all wars are fought with adults in uniform. We aren't dealing with just an A.I. anymore, we are dealing with a madman in the real world who is willing to murder anyone in his way to world domination. We are in uncharted territory at this point which is why I have been preparing for defense rather than offense."

"Even if he is planning for the long game, he has to come after us sooner or later!" Odd continued. "There is no way he is just going to leave us until his big plan is done."

"Which is why Aelita and I prioritized the charms above all else. Since Xana doesn't need a tower to kill us like he did before, he could easily attack one of us and nobody would know. The charms are the best chance we have at survival." Jeremy then leaned in close from his chair and gave them a dead serious look. "Watch your backs… Make absolutely sure he is not following you and most of all… NEVER, let yourself end up alone with him…"

The next day, the entire student body was sitting in the gymnasium as Principle Delmas had called a schoolwide assembly. The man walked up on stage to make his announcement. "I am glad to see you're all here today because today we have a special announcement." He motioned his hand to the side to reveal men in uniforms such as Police Officers and Firefighters. "Recently, the local government has decided to start a new campaign promoting public safety to various schools and ours will be taking part this week."

The various students talked amongst themselves, unsure what exactly this means for classes. Odd just seemed to lean back without a care. "So, what, does that mean no classes for a week?"

"Maybe it will help teach the other students to better fight off Xana?" Yumi questioned.

Delmas continued. "As part of this new safety campaign, we have been given a generous government donation to retrofit the school with new renovations to make it as safe as it can be."

"I don't like the sound of that…" Jeremy commented.

"As of now, our wonderful school will be entering into the modern age and safety is our number one priority!"

A short distance away from the group was Sissi and her lackies sitting by Xana. "Isn't this great, Xana!?" She asked the boy. "With all these new changes, you don't have to worry about Ulrich and his gang bothering you anymore." Although she believed he would be happy about this, she never would have expected the real reason he was. For the first time since becoming a human, Xana smiled.

Later that day, the lower year class the Lyoko Warriors were in were all gathered outside which Jim giving a speech on fire evacuation, though none of the group was paying attention. "So, can someone tell whose bright idea this was?" Odd asked.

"Apparently the government…" Ulrich replied.

Odd groaned. "I'm so bored! I thought we would be doing something cool, not listen to Jim blabber on!""

"Della Robbia!" Jim called out, before approaching the boy. "I'm sorry, is my speech about how to save your life boring you!?" As the students laughed, Odd slinked back, not wanting to get into an argument about this. At that moment, Xana raised his hand.

"Yes, Schaeffer?" Jim called out.

"As a victim of bullying myself, I was curious as to these new safety measures were and how they could help me? Are we talking metal detectors, security cameras, what?"

"Ah, excellent question Schaeffer! At the moment, I cannot give many details as we are still in talks with city officials. However, what I can tell you is that we have already added a new system to prevent students from going into places they aren't supposed to. We shouldn't have to worry about students doing anything suspicious…" He gave a glare to Odd and the rest of the group.

As Jim continued his speech, Jeremy slid up closer to the others. "It's exactly as I feared, Delmas plans to modernize the school with new technology."

"And what is so bad about that?" Odd asked.

"Think about it, Xana has the power to take control of various machinery. If Delmas modernizes with school with automatic security features such as lockdown doors and security cameras…"

"Xana can potentially turn this school into a prison." Aelita finished.

"There is no way we can stop it either…" Ulrich sighed. "I mean what are we going to tell them? Don't put these safety features because someone is going to hack them? They aren't just going to drop everything and go back because of something like that…"

Once Jim's speech was done, the students split apart to go their own ways. Before the warriors could disperse, they saw Sissi along with Xana and her two cronies approach them. "So, what do you think of this new system my dad is putting up?"

"Shut up, Sissi…" Ulrich replied. "We don't want to hear it."

"Oh, shut up yourselves. Me personally, I'm glad Daddy is making all these changes because now you won't be able to bully Xana anymore."

"You won't be able to bully anyone either." Jeremy added.

Sissi just scoffed. "I don't bully, I just remind people their position." The warriors rolled their eyes, not wanting to deal with her crap anymore. "Maybe I should convince Daddy to add some cameras so we can see where you are going all the time." She then wrapped her arm around Xana. "As for us, we have nothing to hide. We are going to be helping Xana build his new computer! Isn't that wonderful!"

Everyone's eyes instantly narrowed in on her. Before anything would be said, Xana grabbed Sissi's arm and spun her around so he was looking into her eyes. "What we do is none of their business!" That was probably the first time they heard actual emotion from his voice.

"Hey sorry, I didn't mean it like that!" She removed her arm from his grip. "If you have something worth bragging about then do it." She walked up closer to the Lyoko Warriors and leaned in. "At least WE are willing to talk about what we are doing all the time." With that, she turned away and left with the three boys.

"Well, that settles it…" Jeremy spoke. "Xana is building his own Supercomputer…"

"And once again, Sissi's ego is her own greatest enemy." Odd joked.

"Once classes are done for the day, Aelita and I will head to the factory so we can began rebuilding the Skid. If Xana manages to get his Supercomputer online, we might be able to reach it through the Digital Sea and figure out what his plan is."

"Just keep in contact, we don't want you getting even more stressed out by staying up all night." Ulrich commented. Jeremy just nodded and walked off.

Sissi, Herb and Nicholas were all crowded into Xana's dorm room looking at the large number of boxes stored there. "Holy smokes!" Sissi yelled.

"This dorm is more storage than bedroom." Herb commented.

"Where does he get all this stuff?" Nicholas then asked.

"I come from a wealthy family. I'd prefer not to go into detail." Pulling out a box cutter, Xana began opening the packages. "And Sissi… Don't EVER talk about what we do here!"

Sissi just put her hands up in defense. "Jeez, I get it. You like your privacy."

Opening up the box, Xana pulled out a small circuit board and flipped it a few times. "I'd much rather NOT let Belpois get his grubby little hands on my work before it's finished."

"Speaking of which…" Herb spoke. "What do you plan on doing with this computer of yours? This is some heavy-duty stuff, like industrial grade parts."

"I'm still waiting on a key piece of software and it will be a while before it's complete. For now, I have a quick project I'd like finished by the end of the day. Herb, did you get that thing I asked for?"

"Uh, yeah!" He rummaged through his bag and pulled out an old busted television remote. "Here. Not sure what you plan on doing with it though, it doesn't exactly work."

Taking the remote in his hand, Xana placed it on his desk. Xana then proceeded to kneel down below his desk and pull out heavy black case. Inside the case was a soldering iron and other hardware equipment. "As for you three, I want you open up the rest of these boxes and archive them for easy organization."

"Uh, what?" Nicholas asked.

Xana just groaned. "Forget it, I'll do it later. For now, I have a project to work on…" With that, he sat down at his desk, pulled open his laptop and began work.

Several hours later, Jeremy and Aelita were both hard at work on the Skidbladnir. Jeremy was on the main computer while Aelita was down on Jeremy's laptop. After a while, Aelita stretched her arms and yawned. "It's getting late Jeremy; we should probably head back now."

Jeremy just continued typing. "Not yet, I still have a few things left I like to get done before going to bed."

Aelita frowned and folded her arms in front of her. "Jeremy, we talked about this…"

"I know, I know… I promise it will be no more than an hour, tops."

She just approached him. "Are you sure?"

"Positive… I just want to finish this piece before I go."

Aelita calmed down. "Alright, but if I find out you lied to me, I'm going to make you wish Xana got you expelled…" Putting the laptop away in Jeremy's bag, she opened the elevator door and left. Several minutes later, Aelita was back at Kadic having just stepped out of the manhole they were so used to using. Suddenly, a rag wrapped over her mouth while another hand had grabbed one of her arms and forced it behind her. She tried to scream but nothing came and she quickly found herself losing consciousness. As she fell to the ground and blacked out, she finally saw his face. "Xa… Na…" Then her body went completely limp.

Picking her body up, Xana carefully carried her in to the science building and approached the door leading down the basement. There on the door, was a new device that hadn't been there before day. Rather than a traditional key lock, the door had what appeared to be a key card lock now. Placing Aelita down, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his modified television remote. He typed in a few buttons and suddenly he heard a click from the door and the light on the card scanner lit up. Putting his hand on the handle, he pulled it open. "Manual Overwrite Device is a success." Picking Aelita back up again, he took her down into the basement and set her down. Before leaving, he reached into her pocket and took her cellphone. "Now… Let's see the teacher's reaction when they find a student in a key card restricted area. The data might prove useful." As he left the basement and closed the door, he simply tossed Aelita's phone in the trash bin and left for his dorm.

Less than an hour later, Jeremy was stepping into his dorm room. While he wanted to stay later, he knew Aelita trusted him to keep his word and he didn't want to break it. He quietly went to bed completely unaware that Aelita never made it back to her dorm.

Aelita's eyes slowly fluttered open. She couldn't see a thing as the room she was in was pitch black and she had no idea how long she had been out cold. She rubbed her forehead and tried to figure out what exactly had just happened. "I was coming back from the factory… I got out of the manhole… Then…" She remembered, Xana had grabbed her from behind and chloroformed her. She had no idea where she was or why he didn't just kill her, but it was obvious she was imprisoned somewhere. Standing up, she held her arms out and tried to get a feel for the room. She could feel hard concrete walls and metal racks all over which means she was probably in a storage room. Finally, she found a light switch. Once the lights were on, she saw the room was full of metal barrels and there was a generator in the corner of the room. "I must be in the basement of the science building…" At the far end of the room, she saw the staircase leading up and out. Once at the top, she placed her hands on the handle and pushed with all her might but it wouldn't budge. "I'm locked in!" She began to rummage through her pockets when a feeling of horror came to her. "My… My phone is gone!" So that was Xana's plan, kidnap her and leave her locked there in a restricted area until a teacher found her. She knew Xana would jump at the opportunity to abuse the new renovations and she was right. She continued to bang on the door and call for help. "HELLO! ANYONE OUT THERE! HELP!" But nobody answered. She turned around and slid down the door until she was sitting on the hard concrete floor. She hadn't felt this helpless since she was trapped in Lyoko and had to wait for her friends to save her. Friends to save her… "Wait, that's it!" Reaching into the neck of her dress, she pulled out the necklace and ripped the charm off the cord. One the cord had snapped, the little red light in the center started quietly blinking. She could only hope Jeremy's hard work paid off.

Jeremy was sleeping soundly in his bed, when suddenly his cellphone started going off. At first, he didn't hear it because he was still asleep but after a few seconds he started to stir. "What?" He groaned and pulled himself up to try and locate the disturbance. He saw it was his phone. "Who the heck is calling at this hour?" It was currently after 3AM and everyone should be asleep at this point. Still groggy, he put on his glasses and looked down at his phone. "Hmm…?" He opened the message and instantly woke up. "Wait, Aelita's necklace has been activated!?" He quickly ran over to his computer and typed in the coordinates being transmitted to his phone. It pointed directly at Kadic and after zooming in, he saw exactly where it pointed. "The science building…? What is she doing over there at 3 in the morning?" He quickly dialed her number to no avail; she wasn't picking up. So, he grabbed his bag with his laptop and ran out the room.

Meanwhile in Ulrich and Odd's room, both of them were starting to stir from the noise. "Odd… Pick up your phone…"

"My phone, that's your phone going off…"

Leaning over his bed, Ulrich grabbed his phone off the floor and looked at it. "That's weird…"

"What…?"

"It shows a letter and a bunch of numbers…" Then he noticed something. "Odd, your phone is going off too…"

"Hmm…" He reached over for his phone and saw Ulrich was right. He opened the message and saw the same thing Ulrich described. "Huh, looks like I got the same text message…"

"What do you think it means…?" Then three numbers caught his eye. "3… 1… 4…" He looked over at the clock and saw it was currently 3:15 AM. He suddenly jolted up. "Oh crap, Odd! I think it's one of Aelita's charm-things!"

Odd suddenly shot up too. "What!?" He grabbed the necklace around his own neck that he wore to bed. "You mean this thing!?"

"We need to call Jeremy now." Ulrich quickly dialed Jeremy's number.

"Hello? Ulrich?" He heard Jeremy's voice. He definitely sounded wide awake.

"Did you just get a weird message on your phone?"

"I did, it was Aelita's charm. She isn't answering her phone so she must be in trouble somewhere. The coordinates in the message indicate her charm was set off somewhere in the science building at 3:14 AM."

"The science building, what the heck is she doing all the way over there at this hour?"

"No idea, she left the factory an hour before me so she must have been attacked before she got back to the academy."

"What do you want us to do?"

"Just stay where you are for now, I'm going to call Yumi and see if she can get me into the science building."

"Alright, we'll be on standby…" And then Ulrich hung up the phone.

Around the same time, Yumi was beginning to stir with her phone going off so much. "Are you kidding me Xana…? At 3AM…?" She picked up her phone and stared at it for a moment. "What do all these numbers mean…?" Just then, the phone started to ring again but from Jeremy. "Jeremy… Do you have any idea what time it is…?"

"Yumi, Aelita's charm has gone off and it seems she may be trapped somewhere in the science building."

"You mean those charms you gave us all yesterday…?"

"I know this is asking for a lot, but can you come to the academy and get me into the science building? Ulrich and Odd are already aware of the situation and I have them on standby."

"I'll be there as soon as I can." She quickly hung up and began putting her clothes on.

Jeremy was sitting outside the empty science building when he finally saw Yumi approaching. "Yumi, thank goodness you're finally here."

"Sorry, sneaking out here at 3 in the morning is not easy."

"Doesn't matter, you're here now and we can get in." Walking up the door, Yumi took out a bobby pin and worked her magic. Took a little bit but she managed to unlock the door and get them in. "Aelita! Are you are in here!"

From the other side of the door, Aelita shot up. "Jeremy!" She quickly turned around and started banging on the door. "Jeremy! I'm in the basement!"

Jeremy and Yumi quickly ran down the hall until they found the door. Yumi grabbed and pulled the handle but it wouldn't move. As she kneeled down to pick this one, she noticed the new lock on. "Uh, Jeremy? We have a problem."

Jeremy then kneeled down and looked at it. "Oh great, they've already started installing key card locks."

"What do we do?"

Jeremy bit his lip and tried to think of a plan. "Yumi, go to Ms. Hertz' office. There is a chance she has a key hidden there." Yumi nodded and ran. Jeremy put he ear to the knocked. "Aelita!? Can you hear me!"

"I can hear you, Jeremy!" She called from the other side.

"Are you alright!? You're not hurt are you!?"

"I'm fine, but I can't get out!"

"Don't worry, we are working on getting you out!"

A couple minutes later, Yumi had found Hertz' office. Luckily, it doesn't appear they had installed one of those new locks on her door yet so she was able to break in easy. She stepped in and turned on the light. "If I were a card… Where would I be…?" She walked over the rack holding several white jackets and found nothing on any of them. She then opened several drawers and found nothing. Finally, she glanced at the surface of the teacher's desk and noticed a cheap paper book with the image that looked similar to the door. She picked up the book and skimmed through it. It didn't seem to tell her much except that a key card might be any card and not distinct. Next, she saw what appeared to be a letter underneath where the book was. She opened it and read it. As she her eyes skimmed the page, she gasped and pulled out her phone. "Jeremy?"

"Yumi, did you find the card?"

"No dice, looks like they incorporated the key cards into their id badges."

"That means our only option is to sneak into Jim's room and steal his…"

Then Yumi thought for a moment. "Wait, how did Aelita even get in there in the first place?"

Jeremy hadn't really considered that so he decided to ask. "Aelita! How exactly did you end up in there!?"

"It was Xana! He snuck up behind me and knocked me out! Next thing I knew, I was in here and he was gone!"

"So Xana has a way to get through the doors without a tower…" Then an idea came to him. He began to dig through his bag. "Where is it… Ah ha!" He pulled out a small usb antenna and plugged it into his laptop. "If Xana was able to break into the system with nothing more then a laptop, then this should be a piece of cake." After typing in a few codes, there was a click from the door and the light went green. "Heh, so much for high tech." He pulled the door open and Aelita fell out onto him.

"Jeremy!"

"It's ok Aelita, we got you." He turned back to Yumi on the phone. "You can come back, she's out."

"Thank goodness…" With that, she hung up. As the two exited the building, Yumi followed shortly behind them.

"I thought I was going to be trapped there until morning, then I remembered the charms we made." Aelita commented

"Good thing you did, it led us straight to you and let us know you were in trouble." Jeremy replied.

"So, what happened Aelita?" Yumi asked.

"As I was coming out of the manhole in the forest, I was suddenly attacked by Xana. He knocked me out and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a pitch-black room and my cellphone was gone."

"He could have easily killed you at any point you were knocked out!"

"But he didn't, that just means he is deliberately not killing us for some reason or another."

"Whatever the reason, we finally managed to get one over on Xana which means we don't need to launch a Return to the Past." Jeremy noted.

"Let's get back to bed then." Yumi added. "I'd rather not be dead tired when I wake up for class in the morning." The three shared a laugh.

The next morning, Xana Schaeffer was getting his breakfast in the lunchroom. As he turned around to sit at the table, he looked at the warrior's table and had a double take. There was that fool's daughter, sitting with the others and laughing at some stupid joke. What happened!? He knew there was no way they could have found her so easily and there was no way she got out without a teacher finding her. Yet there she was, completely unphased like nothing happened. At that moment, Aelita had noticed he was staring at her. She simply mouthed the words 'Nice try.' His experiment had failed and he had no idea why! He bugged the Supercomputer so he could hear their conversations in Lyoko but he couldn't hear what went on in the lab. Obviously, they had some backup plan he hadn't taken into account. This was something he would have to contemplate in the future…

The others turned back just to see Xana scowl and walk to his table with Sissi. Jeremy and Aelita hi-fived at the victory. "You know…" Odd spoke up. "If there is one bright side to having to live with Xana, it's that we finally get to see the look on his face when he loses."

"You can say that again." Ulrich added.

"Well, at least we now know that the charms work." Jeremy spoke with confidence.

"Yeah, but they aren't exactly the easiest thing to read. We didn't even realize what it was at first."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Jeremy noted. "I'll update the firmware to make it easier to read and add in some pre-recorded locations so we don't have to check the net every time to decipher the coordinates."

"It was a real learning experience for us all." Aelita added.

"We also learned some key things about Xana last night." Jeremy then held up a finger "For one, we learned that Xana is definitely just as capable of a hacker as I am, even in his human form. He was able to bypass the school's security and break into an area you normally need a key card for." He holds up a second finger. "Second, we learned that Xana has no desire to end Aelita's life."

"Yeah, what is the deal with that?" Ulrich asked. "You told us about how he would stab us in the back the first chance he got and yet, he didn't lay so much as a finger on Aelita."

"There is a lot we still don't know about Xana's plan but we are slowly piecing things together. The next question is, does he need all of us alive or just Aelita? Whatever his plan is, it's starting to appear he wants us alive and unharmed… At least physically…"

"His attacks on our lives imply he only needs our bodies to work, not our minds." Aelita added. "He wants us beaten down, weak and miserable but alive."

"It sounds to me like he just doing this to torment us…" Ulrich commented.

"But Xana is supposed to be some 'perfect' A.I." Odd asked. "He wouldn't be THAT petty, right?"

"Only time will tell, Odd…" Jeremy answered. "Only time will tell…"

This should not have taken this long to finish. This chapter was actually already written by the time Chapter 3 went up but the more and more I looked at it, the less satisfied I was with it. It took a lot of revisions and rewrites but I finally feel satisfied with this chapter. I've also been much more busy lately then usual and haven't had the ability to write as much.