Code Matriks

Episode 6: And Breathe Out (Part 2)

By B1ockh3d

Author's note: I have a few readers asking me to add more Matriks warriors, and all I have to say, is I do have a plan for more! I'm not revealing when, but there will be more! Because there's only so much I can do with two characters before I get bored of writing my own story.

Also, I made a few edits in some of the previous chapters. Namey re-writing the scene where they meet Agent Juliet in chapter 1.

Markus quickly scanned the area Cooke was in, and got an idea, "Cooke! Jump down between the paths!"

"Say what?!"

"Don't argue!"

"The Scyphozoa's in my way!"

"Push past it AND JUMP!" Markus screamed.

The Scyphozoa began to wrap its tentacles around Cooke. Cooke quickly grabbed one of the tentacles, and swung down in-between the two paths. He fell for a short period, then the wall curved down into a tunnel, hitting a few rocks on the way.

"Oh my- OW!"

The tunnel ended abruptly, dropping Cooke down towards the digital sea.

"Oh PLEASE work!" Markus frantically slammed the enter key.

Cooke fell face first onto a flat object, "Owwwowow..."

"Are you alive?"

"I'm not in the sea... What did you..." Cooke propped himself up, and saw the Overboard underneath him.

"A little gift from Jeremie. I'm glad it worked." Markus stretched, leaned back, and exhaled, "Alright, we have probably twenty seconds before XANA figures out you didn't fall into the digital sea. You gotta get out of there."

Cooke stood up, and flew back above the plateaus of ice, "I'll head for the other end of the sector. The farther I get away from that thing the better."

"I'll try my best to reconnect with Jeremie-"

The comm audio spiked and distorted, then cleared up, "He... Hello? Cooke? Markus?"

"Aelita?!" Cooke relaxed, "Oh, I am so glad to hear you right now!"

"Cooke are you still there?!" Jeremie rushed, "Markus?!"

"I'm fine, Markus is fine, we're all good." Cooke eased.

"You just escaped the Scyphozoa!" Jeremie aided, "How did you manage that?!"

"I have a great operator behind the computer." Cooke complimented, "Look, we need to find where this tower actually is and deactivate it. In the meantime, Markus can't bring me in."

"Oh, it gets worst." Markus informed, "I'm looking through this mess that used to be the devirtualization code. Turns out, the last attack wasn't to establish a Replika on our school servers, it was to get access to our super computer. And the only way XANA could've done that is if he had a direct line to it."

"Oh no... When I plugged your laptop into the servers!" Cooke facepalmed.

"And this is where it gets worse. If you lose your last fifty life points, you won't be stepping out of the scanner." Markus sorrowed.

Cooke gulped, "W-well, I guess I better not screw up."

"Hey... Jeremie," Markus asked, "How were you able to see the monsters and I wasn't?"

"I don't know, but that's not what's important. We gotta get Cooke out of there!" Jeremie began madly typing at his keyboard, "And luckily for you guys, this isn't the first time we've dealt with this."

"Great!" Cooke looked around, "Do you guys know a tower I can hide in that isn't the Way tower?"

"No, you can only enter active towers except for the Way tower." Jeremie reaffirmed.

"Jeremie, the passage tower?" Aelita reminded

"Oh my god," Jeremie stopped, "It's been so long since we've needed to use a passage tower I completely forgot about it!"

"Great, great, where is it?" Cooke rushed.

"It should be close to the center of the Sector." Aelita advised.

"Excellent... I'm almost halfway there."

"I'll get the coordinates." Markus promised.

Cooke surfed along the surface on the Overboard, and black smoke shot out from under him and formed into evil William up ahead.

"Ah!" Cooke jumped off and let the Overboard go after William, who sliced it in half.

"What's going on?!" Markus freaked.

"Our old pal- oof," Cooke stood up, "William's here. And I'm still without my short sword."

"Hold on-"

"Stop saying "hold on" when dangerous things are coming after me!"

"-Hold out your hand. One sword, coming up!"

One of Yumi's fans materialized in Cooke's hand, "...Uhm... No."

Markus pushed up his glasses and looked at the screen, "Oh... Sorry man."

Cooke opened up the fan, "I'll make do. Just pray David beats Goliath."

"I'll get you another weapon, just stall him for a minute." Markus promised.

"Sixty seconds starting now." Cooke readied, as William sped towards him. Cooke just turned around and began running the other way.

This didn't help much, because William was faster than him.

"I thought that sword weighed him down!" Cooke complained.

Cooke twisted around and threw the fan, that William easily ducked.

"There's a nearby cave you can hide in!" Jeremie suggested.

Cooke caught the fan, "I see it, but I don't think it'll do me much good!"

William turned into smoke, and sped past Cooke to block the tunnel entrance, "Bow before me!"

"I'm good-" Cooke jumped onto a slope next to him and slid down to a lower platform.

"Cooke! You have twenty life points left!"

"Yeah, yeah." Cooke ran, noticing a waterfall with an ominous purple glow behind it, "...Huh."

"William's coming!" Jeremie warned.

Cooke sprinted to the waterfall, and went through it, revealing a passageway.

As William caught up, the waterfall froze in place.

"Uh- What?!" Cooke freaked.

"What's going on now?!" Markus joined.

"The waterfall just froze and locked William out!" Cooke relaxed, "It's like... Something just helped me?"

William started slashing at the ice wall, slowly cracking it.

"That wall isn't going to hold, keep going!" Jeremie commanded.

Cooke hesitated, spotting the same purple glow down the corridor he had to follow, "...Are there any enemies down there?"

"There's one right next to you if you don't HURRY UP!" Markus yelled.

Cooke shrugged, and pressed on.

Cooke came to the end of the icy corridor, and came to a massive room, with an interesting sight.

An activated tower, glowing purple.

"Hey guys... Why is this tower glowing purple?"

Jeremie pushed up his glasses, "Uhh... What tower?"

"There's a tower in front of me, glowing purple."

"I don't see any towers on screen." Markus affirmed.

"I'm definitely standing in front of a tower."

Jeremie checked his super scanner, "I'm not seeing any activated towers, aside from the baited Way tower."

"Should I enter it?"

Cooke heard a shattering, it was William breaking through the ice.

"I don't kn-"

"Too late!" Cooke dashed into the purple tower.

William arrived just in time to see the tower deactivate, and disappear.

"Cooke?" Markus called out, "Hello?"

Nothing.

Cooke stood up, and dusted himself off, "Phew... I made it guys!"

The tower was silent.

"G... Guys? Hello?" He shouted, with no response.

He looked around, and saw the floor he was standing on that was usually a XANA symbol was a solid disk glowing purple. This wasn't a normal tower.

He approached the wall again, and tried to exit. He couldn't get out.

"I... Just fell into a trap." he crossed his arms, "Like an idiot."

He opened his borrowed fan, expecting either William or the Scyphozoa to come out and get him.

Strangely, a holographic panel popped up on the opposite side of the room.

He began walking over to it, carefully looking around himself the entire way there. He looked down at the panel, "...Welcome to Matriks?"

The panel flashed "BEGIN!" And displayed a question.

What is your name?

He typed in: Cooke.

What is your quest?

"No..." he laughed, "This isn't- nooo... If this answer is what I think it is... This must be a practical joke."

He typed in: I seek the Holy Grail.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

"Okay." he shook his head, "This is screwing with me. There's no way this thing is asking me thi- MARKUS! VERY FUNNY!"

Still no response.

"You seriously better start talking, because this isn't funny. We're in a serious situation right now! You've wasted all this time to make a program to screw with me?" he laughed, "Hahah! Very funny! You better be working on debugging that script so I can come back and give you a big ol' pat on the back!"

Complete silence. He rolled his eyes.

"Alright, I guess I'll play along!"

He typed in: That depends. African or European?

The computer processed the answer.

What is that scene?

"What is this... A high-tech game of Scene It?"

He typed in: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

...INCORRECT!

"What- That's what it's from!" He screamed at the panel.

The panel closed, and the tower disappeared from around Cooke, who was now somewhere random in the ice sector.

Markus and Jeremie saw Cooke pop back up on their screen, near the outer edge of the sector.

"Cooke!" They both exclaimed.

"Markus? Jeremie?" Cooke eased, "Where am I?"

"South end of the sector, more importantly, where were you?" Markus puzzled.

"I'm... That wasn't your doing?" Cooke queried.

"No! Neither of us did it!"

"It was like you fell off the map!"

Cooke looked around, "...Huh..."

"What happened, man? You were gone for TWO HOURS!" Markus worried.

"TWO HOURS?! It was only a few minutes!" Cooke shook his head, "Okay look, I'll explain, but, get me a vehicle and weapon first so I can find the passage tower!"

Markus spawned in the Overbike and one of Ulrich's sabers, "Not exactly your little nubbin of a sword, but it's all I got."

Cooke grabbed the sword and hopped on the Overbike, "It'll do!"

Cooke comfortably dismounted the Overbike inside the tower, "Okay... So... Some weird stuff happened."

"Like...?"

"I entered this purple tower you guys couldn't see for some reason, and I guess I was teleported somewhere, but there was this control panel that said "Welcome to Matriks" and then, you won't believe this, it asked me my name, quest, and airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow."

"That depends, African or European?" Markus filled in, "But, it asked you those questions from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

"Yeah!" Cooke leaned up against the Overbike, "And that wasn't the weirdest part!"

"Oh?"

"It asked me what that scene was from, I answered correctly, and it said I was incorrect!" Cooke exhausted, "What's the status on debugging our code?"

"We just finished, actually." Markus relived, "We can bring you in whenever."

"...Then why did you guys give me a sword and- Nevermind. What about the tower?"

"Long since done." Jeremie smiled, "We modified the super scan and found the tower on Lyoko, and I figured out a way to shorten Aelita's time by ninety minutes. Everyone's in bed. Except for me, I'm in my room in my pajamas keeping quiet."

"You guys did a solo mission?!"

"Yeah. It was strange, there weren't any monsters in sight. I figure XANA saved up the energy over the last three weeks to launch two large attacks. One to bring us all to Lyoko so we were all clocked out when he launched his second attack, which was getting you all alone so he could attempt to capture you." Jeremie explained, "And we didn't have monsters to deal with because he was exhausted of resources."

"Dang... Too bad he failed." Cooke laughed, "So, are you guys gonna bring me in or what?"

"I've already launched the program. Give it about thirty more seconds."

"Oh, thank goodness. I'm done with this place for today. I'm ready for dinner."

The scanner doors opened, and Cooke let out a deep breath, "Earrrrth... Home sweet hooooome..."

Markus ran over and helped him out, "Dude, you had us on edge the entire time. Aelita had to drag Jeremie away from his computer!"

"Like I said, it felt like minutes." Cooke shook his head, "I walked in, the panel appeared and asked those questions, and left just as fast."

Markus patted Cooke's back, "Alright, we have to figure what that tower was and why it was asking you to recite Monty Python."

"First," Cooke held up his index finger and grabbed his stomach, "...Hold on!"

Cooke ran over by the stairwell and threw up three times.

"Second..." He came back, still clutching his stomach, "...I'm hungry."

Markus opened the door to their dorm, "I don't think it was such a great idea to eat three burgers!"

"I'm fine, man." Cooke rolled his eyes, "Just be glad you're on the top bunk."

Markus went right to his laptop, and plugged in a flash drive. The screen flickered, and an operating system similar to the one on the super computer booted, dubbed LyokOS.

"We should really get some sleep, don't cha think?"

Markus checked the clock, "...Dude, it's only eight."

"Ah... Being gone for two hours skewed my sense of time." Cooke flopped down onto his bed, "I'll sleep then."

"If anything, you should think it's six." Markus noted.

"Well, screw you. I'm sleeping now."

"Well I'm gonna dig through all this code and find your purple tower."

Cooke rolled his eyes, "Good luck with that."

A giant folder was dropped next to Agent Juliet.

"What's this?"

"The background checks you asked for."

She opened it, and flipped through everything, "...There's nothing new here."

"There's nothing new about them." The male agent sat down across from her, "Cooke is a mechanical engineering major with good marks, Edwards is a software engineering major with excellent marks, even making the Dean's list of honorable students."

"Is there anything new in this file?" Juliet panned.

The agent picked out a small bundle of papers, "We have Cooke's last high school psychology report from two years ago."

"This is something new about them." Juliet grabbed the papers from the agent, "Let's see... Prone to suffering stress-related breakdowns... Easily frightened... Wait, hold on, little regard for his own welfare? How does "easily frightened" go hand in hand with "little regard for his own welfare?" What does that mean?"

The agent picked up the papers, "It means he's a stressed out kid who's a walking adrenaline bomb. More fighting instincts than flying. Basically, a regular college student."

Juliet put all the papers back in the folder, "My investigation isn't done."

"Juliet, you're wasting resources and your time by investigating two college kids who have no red flags, and the reason Cooke was cracking is because you were scaring him. This report is more than enough to convince your commanding officer." The agent lectured, "Save yourself time, energy, and taxpayer dollars and just drop this ridiculous "hunch" of yours."

Juliet gave the same murder stare she gave to Cooke to the agent, who was completely unfazed, "...Alright, fine."

"COOKE!" Markus shook him awake, "Wake up!"

Cooke groggily rolled over, "Whaaaat...?"

The clock read 1:47 A.M.

"It's almost twooooo..."

"But look!" Markus shoved his laptop screen into Cooke's face, "See this?!"

Cooke shut his eyes due to the bright screen, "Noooo... What is it?"

"A port!"

Cooke opened up one eye, "Aren't there like... Dozens of hundreds of ports though? Aren't those what the towers are- oooooh!"

"Yes, the towers ARE ports. So is your illusive purple tower!"

Cooke sat up and looked at the screen, "...What am I looking for?"

Markus pointed at a command line labeled 47395991, which was a blank line.

"Jesus... Forty seven million lines of code?!"

"This is only a fraction of the script responsible for the behavior of the passage tower." Markus sat down next to Cooke, "Thanks to some software Jeremie gave me, I could find it. But it wasn't easy..."

"Okay, but still... Why are you showing me a blank line of script?"

"I've noticed throughout the code, all the towers are intertwined in some way. Except for the chunk of code after this line."

Cooke shook his head, "It's two in the morning, my brain isn't working, just explain the long-winded tech babble to the audience so I can go back to sleep..."

"...Man, you must be tired!"

"Man, you must be detective of the year, Sherlock!" Cooke mimed a force choke, "Get on with it!"

"Right then," Markus pushed his glasses up, "This chunk of code is for linking up with other towers, as is identical to hundreds of other chunks, but this one has an extra command."

"And this one links to the purple tower?"

"It must, because the extra command is a redirect to a script that's encrypted in the same place the rest of Matriks is and we can't access." Markus shut his laptop, "Or it's nothing, and I've lost my marbles."

Cooke pushed Markus off his bed, "When you wake up, we'll take a second look and talk to Jeremie. But just go to bed for crissakes!"