Katrina was still in her apartment while her brother and his friends were taking care of the activated tower. She sat on the couch watching television when she heard her doorbell ring. Her ears perked as she turned off the television getting off the couch walking over to the door looking through the peephole of her front door. Standing on the other side of the door were the two men in black suits. Katrina's eyes widened as she backed away from the door. How did they find out where she lived? They knocked on the door again. Katrina refused to answer the door not wanting to risk her safety. She picked up at her phone dialing Jeremie's number.
"What's wrong Katrina?" He answered the phone figuring something was wrong.
"Jeremie, we have a problem" She told him.
"What do you mean?"
"They're at my door"
"The specters?"
"No Jeremie, the pizza delivery guy. Of course the specters!"
"Alright, calm down. There's no need for sarcasm"
"Please tell me Aelita is close to the tower"
"Yeah about that…."
"Oh god don't tell me she got devirtualized" Katrina begged as she combed her fingers through her hair anxiously. They knocked on her door again which made Katrina feel more nervous. Maybe they weren't under Xana's control if they were knocking instead of breaking down her door like she would have expected them to do.
"No she's still on Lyoko. Although it seems like Xana was expecting us. He had monsters on standby" Jeremie informed her. "So far no one got devirtualized, but things are looking pretty grim"
"Not exactly the update I want to hear Jeremie"
"We're doing the best we can Trina. Xana just seems to always be one step ahead"
"of course he's one step ahead. He's an artificial intelligence!" Frustrated with how things were going, Katrina hung up on Jeremie. She heard another knock at the door. They must know she's home since they keep knocking. The men that stood at her door were different from the men that attacked her the last time. Although there was a chance that Xana could have easily possessed someone else. She decided to take the risk. If she was right and they were indeed specters; she knew enough pencak silat to defend herself. If she was wrong, then maybe it was her second hunch that the French government was after her for working with Hopper. Katrina took a deep breath before finally opening the door. There stood two men wearing black suits with sunglasses and communicators in their ears.
"Can I help you?" She asked them with a slightly confused look on her face.
"Are you Katrina Stern?" One of them asked.
"Yeah that's me. Why do you want to know?"
"We're with the government. We have a few questions to ask you" Katrina started to panic again. She wondered if Jeremie actually did hack into the supercomputer in Switzerland and the government somehow found out that she's involved? She let the two men into her apartment.
"What kind of questions? I don't know if I'll be of any use to you guys", she told them.
"We need you to tell us everything you know about Project Carthage"
"Project Carthage?" Katrina questioned in response. She had never heard of such thing before. "Sorry, I don't exactly know what you're talking about"
"Yes you do. You worked on the project along with Doctor Franz Hopper" They told her.
"Oh, I wasn't aware it was called 'Project Carthage' my apologies. However, that project was extremely classified and even I don't know much about it." She responded.
"Well tell us what you do know"
"All I remember was Hopper sitting in front of a computer most of the time. We weren't allowed to see what was on the screen so I can't exactly tell you what he was working on" She told them. It wasn't the truth, but she was trying her best to protect her brother and his friends.
"Are you sure?" They asked. They didn't exactly believe her despite how convincing she sounded. Katrina nodded her head.
"If I were to be honest. I don't really have any memories of Project Carthage. So whatever information you want from me, I won't be able to give you"
"We'll if you remember anything, please give us a call" One of them said as they handed her a business card with a name and phone number. After that, the two left Katrina's apartment. This had to be one of the strangest encounters she had. Part of her wanted to call Jeremie to tell him what happened. The other part of her wondered if she just imagined everything that just happened since it seemed so surreal. Then her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket looking at the screen to see Jeremie's number.
"What's up?" She said as she answered the phone.
"Tower has been successfully deactivated. Are the specters still around?" Jeremie asked.
"uhh" She debated on whether she should tell him that they weren't specters after all. "No they're gone" She ended up saying. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the full truth either.
'That's good. Let me know if anything else out of the ordinary happens. Xana might be up to something so I want to stay ahead of the game. The further ahead we are, the sooner we can defeat Xana and shut down the supercomputer"
"Right, don't worry. I'll keep my eyes peeled. Tell Ulrich that I'm okay please"
"I will, they're being devirtualized right now"
"Thanks, bye" She said hanging up the phone letting out a calming breath. She honestly hoped that this would be all over soon.
"This situation made me wish I took that pharmaceutical internship even more now" She mumbled.
Later on late at night, Katrina went to the factory knowing that no one was there. She brought one of her blank external hard drives with her. Just in case, she wanted to extract all the data off of the supercomputer onto the hard drive this way Ulrich and/or the others would end up part of the investigation. She didn't tell Jeremie she was doing this. It was a spur of the moment decision, so she'll have to tell him tomorrow morning figuring he was asleep now. When she was done, she disconnected the hard drive and cleaned off the computer incase the government decided they wanted to collect physical evidence. After that, she went back to her apartment. Hopefully there will be no more encounters with the government.