Code Matriks

Episode 4: Unlocked Tower

By B1ockh3d

Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry it's so late! Between finals and a couple of other things, it's been a crazy past couple of weeks. I made this chapter a bit shorter than I wanted to, but I mostly did it so I have enough time to write and post the next chapter before San Diego Comic Con, which I will be attending! Read on!

Cooke's phone alarm went off. He reached from under his blanket and shut it off, then brought it to his face.

Saturday, 9:00 AM

"Mmm... On the dot." He grunted.

Cooke threw off his blankets and crawled out of bed. He walked over to the small coffee machine in his shared room, that he relabeled "Mr. Hot Chocolate" because that's all it was used for. He popped in a small hot chocolate container into the machine and rested a disposable coffee cup under the spout. He turned on the machine, and turned around, where he found Markus keeled over in front of his laptop, sleeping on his fist that was propping him up.

"Third day in a row." Cooke nodded. "Nnnnaturally."

He walked over to Markus, and shook him a little. It didn't do anything.

"Hey!" Cooke snapped his finger next to Markus' ear, "Markus!"

Still nothing.

Cooke crossed his arms in thought, "Hmm..."

Cooke grinned, opened the blinds looked out, "OH MY GOD! MARKUS! GET UP! THE FEDS ARE HERE!"

Markus jolted awake, and tore out the flash drive in his computer, "QUICK! THE VENT!"

Cooke laughed, "Chill! No Feds. I'm kidding."

Markus grabbed a pillow from his bed, which was above Cooke's, and threw it at him, "Jerk! Don't prey on my paranoia!"

Cooke caught the pillow, "Sorry! But man, how long have you been asleep?"

Markus put on his glasses and looked at the clock on his desk, "Uhh... Two hours."

"You're kidding me!" Cooke lectured, "You've been at that stupid data tunnel for four days now!"

"And it'll be done..." Markus opened a mini fridge under their desk, and pulled out an energy drink, "...In about three cans."

"I don't understand how you can operate." Cooke shook his head.

"With caffeine and sugar." Markus popped open the can.

"That's not healthy for you. A person needs their sleep!" Cooke pounded Markus' bed, "Your bed misses you! It says it's cold and lonely without you!"

"When a man can safely transfer files between two super computers with two super viruses floating about, then I will sleep!" Markus plugged the flash drive back in his computer, and continued his work.

"Unbelievable. It's like you never stopped." The coffee machine finished, and Cooke sprinkled in some cinnamon sugar and mixed it together.

"I'll sleep a full night tonight, okay?!" Markus promised.

"You better, we got a test coming up on Tuesday and it's been proven zombie Markus sucks at tests." Cooke reminded.

Right then, Markus' laptop started ringing. It was Jeremie on Skype.

Cooke checked his phone, 9:03 AM. "They must've just gotten out."

"…On Saturday?"

"Oh, right."

Markus answered the call, "Hey Jeremie. I'll be done in about three hours."

"Excellent. I just finished our end. We just need to combine the codes when you're done." Jeremie informed.

"Quick question," Cooke posed, "How exactly are we going to exchange this data for exchanging data if we have no current base to exchange data?"

"Oh, you didn't tell him yet?" Jeremie directed at Markus.

"He's always been asleep when I get back to the dorm." Markus shrugged.

"Dude, you texted me to bring you dinner to the lab last night, at a time Jeremie was probably sleeping. You couldn't tell me then?!" Cooke complained.

"Oh, yeah, huh…"

Cooke waved his hands, "Whatever, whatever. What is this news that Markus failed to bestow upon me?"

"You're coming to Lyoko to activate the tower in Sector Five, and open a direct access port between computers, but only for about thirty seconds." Jeremie explained, "That's a safe amount of time to have an unsecure tunnel open."

"And in this time we can transfer the data." Cooke nodded, "I see."

"Aelita and Odd will come to Matriks to pick you up in the Skid, bring you to Lyoko, do your thing, and then you go home." Jeremie smiled, "Les doigts dans le nez!"

"I don't know what you said, but I do know it's not gonna go that smoothly, I guarantee you." Cooke laughed.

Cooke fell on to the icy world, nailing the landing.

"Hey Markus, how are you feeling?" Cooke grinned.

"Ughhh... Just finish the mission before I throw up all over this nice mainframe." Markus groaned.

"No sleep, endless energy drinks, what did you expect to happen?" Cooke lectured, "You're a mess."

"We're here by a tower, if you're done lecturing Markus, Cooke." Aelita alerted.

"Right, right. Where is it?"

"North by northeast." Markus answered.

"Soooo..."

"The path to your right."

"Thank you. I'll be there in a minute, Aelita."

Cooke ran to the Skid, a little excited to get in one of their spore-looking pods.

"Uhh, Jeremie?" Aelita posed, "How do we get him into the Skid?"

"Oh, uh," Jeremie paused, "We can transfer him manually."

"Will that screw things up on our end?" Markus asked.

"It shouldn't."

"Alright, transfer me in then!"

Nobody did anything.

"Uhh... Jeremie, anytime now?" Cooke shook his hands.

"Ohhh sorry, Aelita has to do it." Jeremie bumbled.

"Eh? Que?" Aelita peered down at Cooke.

"Hold down the transfer buttons, and select him on screen." Jeremie explained.

She held down a combination of buttons, and highlighted Cooke's figure.

"Transfer." Aelita transferred Cooke. He spawned inside the wild looking pod.

"Wow... This is a work of art." Cooke admired.

"Wait till you see the sea!" Odd laughed, "Hopefully we'll see some fishies!"

"For our sake, let's hope not." Aelita shook her head.

She dove into the digital sea

"Y'know, it's really weird to be sideways, but my back is still sticking to the seat of the pod." Cooke noted.

"No kidding." Odd commented, while being in the pod that was attached to the underside.

"How am I going to get around to the Cortex without the Skid?" Cooke queried.

"We've actually been working on that." Jeremie smirked, "We can't send you in with a copy of the Skid, it'd give us away. We're making an all new one, a one seater, just for you to get to the Cortext."

"That's... Very proactive!" Cooke understood.

The sea shifted from blue to red, alerting Aelita, "...We have two Kongre eels inbound!"

"Ooo! Lemme at em!" Odd begged.

Aelita targeted them, and fired, successfully hitting both.

"Aww..." Odd groaned.

"Well... That was easy." Cooke looked around, "Why is the sea still red?"

Odd and Aelita looked around, seeing nothing.

"Don't Kongres come in groups of three?" Odd queried.

"There's nothing on radar..."

Cooke looked up and saw a giant toothy fish with bulging eyes, "JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS THAT?!"

"Trouvé!" Odd quipped.

"Odd, can you go help-"

"Oui!"

Aelita detached Odd's pod, who circled around to Cooke to shoot the terrifying thing off of him, only for it to swim away.

"Aww... Don't be like that!" Odd chased after it, firing bolts across its gills.

This went on for about a minute, before he nailed the fish, and the sea turned back to blue. He docked back onto the Skid.

"You good, man?" Markus concerned.

"I'm fine." Cooke exhaled, "It scared the bejesus out of me though."

"We're coming up on Lyoko." Aelita informed.

Cooke looked out and saw the monolithic world, "...Nice."

"Nice? That's all you can say about it?" Markus laughed.

"Well yeah, ours is bigger on the outside." Cooke smirked.

"I don't think you're in the position to be comparing sizes, just saying."

"Hey now-"

The door to Lyoko opened up, and Aelita transformed the Skid into the upright position and steered inside.

Cooke looked upwards at a giant gray sphere with data tunnels spewing out of it, "Lemme guess, this is Sector Five?"

"Yep!" Odd gazed.

"Impressive." Cooke nodded.

"Oh, now it's impressive?" Markus chimed.

"Oh, shut it!" Cooke rolled his eyes.

The trio spawned on the pads of the docking bay.

Cooke awed at the place, "Man... And there's four more sectors?!"

"Well, normally." Jeremie glanced at the holomap, "We lost two of them. All we have are the mountain and desert sectors."

"Hm." Cooke grunted, "So, where is the tower?"

"Elevator, this way." Aelita led. Cooke and Odd followed in tow.

They stepped off the elevator, and walked down a short path to the non-active tower.

"Will I be able to get in while its deactivated?" Cooke posed.

"Yeah. It's the only tower in Sector Five, and also the Way tower." Jeremie elaborated, "You can enter the Way tower anytime. Only regular towers you can enter while they're activated."

"Okay, good to know." Cooke accepted.

Cooke walked up to the tower and entered. He ascended to the top, and a panel popped up in front of him.

"Okay... This isn't one of our towers." Cooke pointed out, "I can't access it."

"Hold on!" Jeremie gleefully smiled, "Sending you the security bypass!"

A blue keycard-looking thing appeared in front of Cooke. He grabbed it, and placed it on the panel. The panel flickered for a moment, then reset.

"Okay, now what Einstien?"

"Put your hand on the panel."

Cooke put his hand on the panel, and Aelita's name popped up, then the screen flickered some more.

"What... Did you do?" Cooke waited for the panel to stop shaking.

"I tricked the tower into thinking you were Aelita." Jeremie sat back.

"Then why didn't we just use Aelita?" Markus queried.

"Give it a moment."

Suddenly, Aelita's name switched to SYSADMIN, then to CODE.

Cooke punched in MATRIKS.

The tower activated, glowing a brilliant blue.

"It worked!" Aelita called out.

Jeremie looked over at the tower scanner, and saw there was an indication for an activated tower, as there should be.

"Alright, opening up a channel." Cooke announced.

Markus watched the screen, and saw a notice indicating a network opening. He established the connection, "Alright... Sending you the files."

Markus sent the files over to Jeremie without any issues, "Fantastique! Sever the connection!"

Cooke logged out and left the tower, which returned to its normal state, "Well... This was remarkably boring."

"We can go out and pick fights with random monsters if that cheers you up!" Odd suggested.

"Nah, just, Markus, bring me home." Cooke requested.

"Alrighty, gimme a second."

Cooke waved at Aelita and Odd as he slowly disintegrated, "Later!"

Aelita and Odd also devirtualized.

Aelita and Odd were joined by Ulrich in the computer room.

"Everything go well?" Ulrich peered.

Jeremie nodded, then looked back over at the tower scanner, which still showed an activated tower, "Uhh... Maybe not."

"What's wrong?" Aelita pulled herself behind Jeremie.

"The tower scanner still shows an activated tower!" Jeremie frantically localized it, "...It's in Sector Five!"

"You mean... The tower we just left?" Odd placed both of his hands over his face, "Unbelievable... Aelita and I can't go back for twelve hours!"

"Then we'll have to find Yumi and get her to deactivate the tower." Aelita pulled out her phone.

"Wait, what if its residual?" Jeremie pondered, "Maybe the tower scanner is still thinking the tower is still active from Cooke?"

"It's possible." Aelita held, "...But let's not risk it. I'll text Yumi."

Cooke closed the trapdoor to the super computer, and shut the closet.

"Hey, I have some new ideas for our robot." Cooke proposed.

"Oh? What were you thinking?" Markus raised.

"Instead of motion sensors, we should use laser sensors. Far more accurate."

"Yeah, but far more expensive-"

MMMMM MMMMM MMMMM!

Markus' phone buzzed. He picked it up, "Hey Remy, what's happening?"

"Hey, uhh, where do you keep the program backup drives?"

"Top cabinet, second to the right, lower shelf."

"Oh, good. Good. How recently did you back up our work?"

"Yesterday when we cleaned up."

"Okay... That's not too bad. We didn't change a whole lot anyways."

"...What's going on, Remy?"

"I think... Uhh... Actually I don't know, but I think our system was hacked- er, it's being hacked, and we lost all of our work."

Markus stopped walking to the door, and stopped Cooke, "Wait, we're being hacked?"

Cooke looked at Markus in horror. Markus put it on speaker.

"Well, the whole school is being affected. All the school computers are flashing through all the student records I believe?"

"What else?!" Cooke frantically pulled out his phone and opened his Twitter.

"Uhm... There's this target-looking thing that's flashing on some of the screens."

"Can you describe it?" Markus coaxed, hoping not to hear what he thinks he's going to hear.

"It's like a target... Mixed with a peace sign? It's like a regular target, has a little line at the top and three little lines at the bottom."

Cooke nudged Markus, and showed him his phone. It was a picture of a WSU student's computer showing XANA's symbol. Exactly what Markus was hoping not to see.

"Uhh okay, I'm sure IT is on it, don't worry, we still have all of our backups. Listen, unplug and lock away any robots that might be out. And I mean lock them, not just tie a cabinet door closed with a wire hanger."

"Will do!" Remy hung up.

"Back to the computer?" Cooke pointed.

"Ohhh yeah." Markus furiously nodded.

They watched the activated tower warning, waiting for it to turn off. Or rather, praying it turns off.

"I haven't found any local attacks, not even a spectre." Jeremie observed, "Perhaps XANA isn't attacking."

"Yumi's on her way." Aelita put her phone away.

"Excellent. I... Should probably contact Cooke and Markus." Jeremie suggested.

Right then, a window popped up showing Markus and Cooke behind their super computer.

"Eh, parler du diables." Jeremie greeted.

"Lemme guess," Markus began, "Activated tower?"

"Nothing over here." Aelita filled in.

"Yeah, well-" Cooke shoved his phone up to the camera, showing the picture of the infected computer, "-there's something over here."

Jeremie pulled up all the social media activity in the WSU area, and found many pictures of XANA controlled computers. "Good god, what's going on over there?!"

Markus shrugged, "We were kind of hoping you'd help us figure that out."

"Our robotics teammate said all the student profiles were being flashed through." Cooke elaborated.

"He's looking for you guys!" Jeremie panicked.

Markus calmly nodded, "Look, Cooke is locked out for another twelve hours. Is there anything you guys can do?"

"We have Yumi coming, and she's the only other person that can deactivate towers." Aelita took over Jeremie's seat in front of the super computer.

"Alright, I'm gonna head to the school and figure out what XANA really wants." Cooke grabbed Markus' laptop and shoved it in his own bag, "This is an awful lot of effort just to find our student records."

"Hook me in when you get there." Markus waved. Cooke left.

Cooke busted through the entrance of the computer sciences building, and held his phone to his ear, "Alright, I'm in the building."

"You know where IT is?" Markus coordinated.

"Yeah, it's basement level." Cooke ran downstairs and around the corner, and found a few adults huddled around the door to the server room, "Hey! What's going on?"

"Don't touch the door!" One of the adults warned, "It's electrified!"

"There's someone inside!" Another panicked.

Cooke looked through the window, and saw a man squatting in the center of the room, surrounded by servers. The computer screens behind him also flashed XANA's symbol.

Cooke picked up his phone again, "So, bad news. You-know-who locked and booby trapped the door with the IT guy inside. Any ideas?"

Markus sat back, "Hmm... Does he have a smartphone?"

"Isn't it reasonable to assume the computers are electrified too?"

"Well, only if XANA wanted to fry his chances of doing whatever he's doing."

"Ah." Cooke went up to the window, "Hey! You got a smartphone?!"

The man nodded, and showed it to Cooke.

"Alright Markus, he has one."

"Tell him to plug it into a server and open my laptop, I'll take it from there." Markus explained.

Cooke opened Markus' laptop and peered through the window again, "Plug your phone into a server!"

The man opened a cabinet and grabbed a cable, then plugged his phone into a server rack.

"...I got a connection!" Markus strided.

"Excellent! Think you can get him out of there?" Cooke queried.

"I think I can short out the electronic locks XANA's using, but only for a few seconds." Markus shrugged.

"Do it." Cooke backed everyone away from the door, and peered through the window again, "I'm gonna get you out! Get ready to dash out the door!"

"How are you going to do that?!" Another adult asked. Cooke just shook a finger towards Markus' laptop next to the door.

Cooke picked up his phone, "We're ready."

"Alright... Activating short circuit... Now!"

Cooke watched the RFID scanner's LED switch from red to off, quickly opened the door and got the man out, and the door instantly shut and locked.

"Cooke, I lost the connection!"

"What?!"

The man Cooke just rescued handed him a USB cable he slipped under the door, "I figure you need this?"

"It's all good Markus, gimme a sec." Cooke plugged the cable into the laptop and let it go.

"Excellent!" Markus cheered over the phone.

"Woo... I'll make my way back soon."

"Alright. Yumi just made it onto Lyoko, it should be resolved soon."

"Fantastic. We're gonna need to do one of those thingies that fixes all of this mess."

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay, later." Cooke hung up.

The IT guy looked in awe, "How did... What's going on?!"

"A very nasty virus broke into the school network. My buddy'll have it fixed." Cooke nonchalantly leaned against the wall, "This one in particular is especially nasty, but my friend specializes in it."

"What's it going after?"

Cooke shrugged, "Who knows."

Yumi's fan sliced through the last Creeper, clearing the pathway to the tower.

"After you!" Ulrich ushered.

"Don't mind if I do." Yumi chuckled, and entered the tower.

"Thanks for saving out skins, guys." Markus thanked over the comm.

"Saving you guys is saving us." Aelita reminded, "But we're more than happy to help!"

Jeremi came back to the seat behind the computer, "Hey, I think I figured out what XANA is doing!"

"Go on." Markus hurried.

"He's making a Replika with your school's servers!"

Markus let out a deep laugh, "There's no way! The servers aren't powerful enough to sustain a whole virtual sector!"

"No, but to make a small island with only a tower on it? It's more than possible." Jeremie elaborated, "If he can do that, he'll have access to you guys in the real world."

"Then- Yumi!"

"I'm putting in the code!" Yumi rolled her eyes, "...Alright, tower deactivated."

Markus and Jeremie both quickly checked social media sites to see if anyone was hurt.

"...I don't see anything major."

"I think you're clear." Jeremie tapped away at his keyboard, "Return to the past now!"

The hot chocolate machine sputtered, indicating it was done. Once again, it was 9:02 A.M., and Cooke was waking up as Markus was behind his computer.

"Man... I'm glad we don't have to do that crap again." Cooke sat down, sprinkling cinnamon into his hot chocolate, "That stuff was boring. Didn't see any action!"

"No, no, you saw a fish! Remember?" Markus laughed.

"That was terrifying! That big toothy... Thing!" Cooke exasperated.

Markus reached over to the mini-fridge for an energy drink, "...Hey! It's magically restocked itself!"

"Those things are not healthy for you, man." Cooke disapproved.

"Dude, fighting a super virus on a computer powered by a nuke isn't healthy." Markus laughed, "Speaking of which..."

Cooke peered over Markus' shoulder.

"...XANA wasn't successful!" Markus thrusted his fists up, "Our school servers were not turned into a Replika!"

"Phew!" Cooke relaxed, "So JAER is still our problem, and XANA is still their problem."

"And it's a lot easier to work together now!" Markus eased.

"Maybe now you can get off your caffeine high and get some sleep tonight." Cooke patted Markus' bed.

Markus rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah."