A week had passed since Dr. Wagner revealed himself and unleashed a platoon of monsters on the Factory. Since then, Lyoko activity had dropped off and that, for most of the group, felt somehow worse than the first week. Looking to take the edge off for the weekend, they all decided to spend their Friday afternoon hanging out at the recreational room in their own corner.
"So, Einstein, what's the update on the Skid?" asked Odd as he played a game of ping pong with Ulrich.
"Aelita and I have managed to reprogram the main body of the Skid," said Jeremy as he moved a knight in his chess match with Aelita, "It will take about another week to redesign and virtualize the new NavSkids."
"Then we'll be able to pull the plug on James' operation?" asked William.
"It won't be that easy, William. We know that he has a ton of Replikas all across the Digital Sea," said Ulrich, "What we need to do is find out where he's hiding, and only then can this be all over."
"Ifwe find him," said Yumi, "And I'm not sure that'll happen before we all graduate."
"I don't think he'll give us that much time to find him," Aelita argued before checking Jeremy's king, "We will have destroyed plenty of his Replikas by that time. Depending on how he's going about his plans, he probably won't take such losses."
"So, you're saying that we only have a limited amount of time before he starts his world conquest," asked Odd.
"Yep."
"There's no use talking about any Replikas until the Skid Mk. 2 is ready," said Jeremy, "Aelita and I have decided to spend some more time at the Factory tonight. I don't like how quiet it's been."
Over on the girl's floor of dorms, Urma sat in her room, going over the notes she had built up over the past two weeks. From sketched-up floor plans of the Factory to amateur psychological profiles of the Lyoko Warriors, she had been gathering her thoughts and whatever amount of intel on hand ever since Dr. Wagner's introduction. Urma took a deep breath and prepared for the long night ahead.
Red flashes of error reflected off of Jeremy's lens as their bleeping echoed throughout the Supercomputer's lab. Slouching over the armrest, Aelita let out a tired sigh.
"We've been at this for hours," said Aelita staring at the failed test results for the new NavSkids.
"Don't worry. It's only a matter of finding the proper calibrations for the power system."
"Well, it's getting late," said Aelita as she stretched her arm, "We should head back."
"You go ahead. I'll stay here for a little while."
Aelita could only stare into Jeremy's sagging eyes in silence. It brought her back to the days when she lived on Lyoko, when she thought she was an AI and spent endless hours in the towers. His posture reminded her of the night she watched him work away the night on the materialization program until he fell asleep at the keyboard.
"Jeremy, we made an agreement. You're just going to get tired and won't make any progress. We'll figure it out in the morning."
"I know. But the sooner we get it done, the better."
"Don't be like this again. I can't stand to see you burning away your health just to gain an inch. You still have a life outside Lyoko to maintain."
"None of that means anything unless we beat James. Unless we beat him, we can't stop." Even through her watering eyes, Aelita could see the fear in Jeremy's face. She leaned over to give him a comforting hug. "I'm just afraid."
"It's okay to be afraid," reassured Aelita, "We all are."
Up at the factory bridge, Urma crawled out of the manhole cover. She was wearing darker clothing and had her face covered in more cloth. She jumped down to the lower deck of the building and heads toward the elevator lift.
As she approaches the shaft, she notices the elevator cables had begun to rise, indicating that someone was coming up. Urma quickly moved to the side, out of the visual field of anyone coming in or out of the building. She waited for the elevator door to open and out came the voices of two lovebirds, chatting up a flirt.
"Yeah right," chuckled Aelita, "As if you could take on a spectre with your physique."
"It's not a matter of brawn," countered Jeremy, "It has more to do with some theoretical physics."
When the two voices faded away, Urma felt safe to move again and quickly called the elevator. Guilt began to set in at the moment she pressed the button. What would Odd think of her peering into his secrets without him knowing? Urma began talking to herself to drown out the noise in her head, "Let's see. What's the password? …5-3-4-9."
The elevator panel accepted the passcode and descended below. When the door opened, she saw the computer room she was familiar with. Urma approached the monitor to see the development window for the NavSkids.
"Let's not mess with this stuff," she minimized the pages to the desktop and glanced around a bit until she noticed a file marked 'Diary of Belpios', "Interesting."
Meanwhile in the sewers, Jeremy and Aelita's talk of spectres continued.
"Look I can prove it's possible," claimed Jeremy as he reached for his laptop bag, only to find it's not on him, "And I left my laptop at the Factory."
The elevator doors opened up to reveal a tampered computer lab, with the audio of Jeremy's diary entries filling the room and a countdown on the screen. Jeremy and Aelita only saw a glimpse of the intruder going down the ladder to the scanner room.
"The one time I clock out early and we get a break-in," said Jeremy as he took a look at the monitor while Aelita called the others, "They activated a timed virtualization. It has to be Wagner's doing."
One floor below, Urma quickly looked around at the scanner room and hid in the open scanner next to the ladder. She took a moment to breathe while she waits, the doors closed on her. If anyone were in the room at that moment, they would have heard the sound of pounding metal several times. The next thing Urma saw was the vast orange plains of the Desert Sector.
As Aelita looked at the security footage and Jeremy inspected the now empty scanner room, the other Lyoko Warriors gradually arrived.
"Any news?" asked Yumi.
"Looking at the security footage, it isn't James or Kat; their bodies don't match," briefed Aelita "The intruder also covered their face and is virtualized on Lyoko. It could either be Urma or someone entirely new."
"Hold on," interjected Ulrich, "They're on Lyoko. How do you not know who it is?"
"Simple, by disconnected the wrong cable," said Jeremy as he climbed out of the top of the ladder, "Upon inspecting the scanners, I found a dented panel inside one of the scanners with partly disconnected cables. It seems those components disabled the scanner's ability to properly place an identifier on our infiltrator. Without that value defined, I can't target a remote de-virtualization command onto them."
"Looks like if we what to find answers," proposed William, "we get on Lyoko and de-virtualize this guy so we can hold an interrogation."
"Why don't we just talk to her?" suggested Odd, "What if it is Urma and she just- discovered the Supercomputer and accidentally got herself in Lyoko?"
"Odd, how would Urma, someone who hypothetically moments ago, discovered Lyoko just accidentally launch a timed virtualization?" asked Jeremy.
"Remember that one time Kiwi reloaded my Laser Arrows?" countered Odd.
Jeremy had to give a good, long stare at Odd before trying his suggestion, "Hello? Urma, is that you? Whoever you are, can you please respond? … No answer. We'll just have to meet this person face to face."
Urma held her black-gloved hand over her eyes as she scanned out her immediate surroundings. Walking around in her raven-colored boots, her yellow garb almost blended with the environment. Never in her life had Urma had seen such an open and endless horizon. Her exploratory moment was cut short by the buzzing sound of static in her ear. The voice of Jeremy spoke through the noise, "Hello? Urma, is that you? Whoever you are, please respond?"
"Hello," Urma instinctively responded, "Hello?"
But as much as Urma spoke, no one heard her words. With nothing else around calling for attention, she tightly wrapped her red scarf around her head and began to sprint across the tang plains.
"Hope there aren't any sandstorms here."