Disclaimer: Code Lyoko belongs to all those nice people in France. I just write it :P
Un Monde Sans Danger
Chapter 2 - Beyond Human
Mists shifted across a breezeless scape, moving only because they had been told to. The area was quiet and calm, not a single sound bouncing around the mountainous peaks. Nothing, until a small rock rolled loose from a larger boulder, skipping down its surface until it hit the ground and bounded into the silvery fog. Aelita watched it vanish, before turning and climbing higher.
When she reached the top and stood in the center of the curved summit, what she saw took her breath away. Stretching out before her on all sides were mountains, some floating in the middle of nothing, others connected by winding paths. Trees, different than the other area, peeked up through the mist here and there. When a sudden idea struck her, she smiled to herself and accessed the mainframe.
Input command:
-Analyze-
She knelt, peering down with a hint of a smile as she waited for the report. When it came, her smile grew to a grin and she stood. Taking a step back beforehand, she charged forward and leapt from the peak, promptly doing a swan dive into the fog.
-
November 14th
I am still having difficulties in altering Aelita's Synthesize program. I think the problems stem from the fact that the new code isn't molding to the old code properly. I have an idea of how to get around the program, however.
Meanwhile, the fourth area is nearing completion, and more towers are rising everywhere. XANA has taken much of the chief load from programming off of me; I downloaded instructions to the CPU on how to do many of the base operations for Lyoko. XANA has taken control now, though of course I left in a manual override feature in case something goes wrong.
Tomorrow I should have audio in place. Then I will be able to finally hear the voice I gave Aelita. I hope it is what I have imagined.
-
Twin eyes scanned up, tracing the height of the tower. The tower rose between trees half as wide as its own body, its brass walls that glowed with a faint light. Stepping forward, Aelita passed through the gnarled brown-black bottom, the wash of color over her changing to blue as she walked inside. She walked forward, well-used by now to the echoing beeps that announced the platform recognized her presence. When she arrived at the center, she brought up her hand; the command screen appeared automatically under it. Several smaller windows opened, and with sweeping hands she scrolled through them all, until she got to the one she needed. A touch to the corner, and it expanded to fill the whole screen. The top of the file had a bolded heading.
Project: LyokoFolding her legs under her, Aelita sat on the center of the platform; adjusting to the change in height, the screen reappeared in front of her. Leaning forward and bracing one elbow on her knee, she placed her chin in her hand and started to read.
-
From somewhere deep, somewhere not quite Lyoko but not quite Earth either, something stirred. If it had eyes it would've blinked, and if it had lips it would have smiled. In any case, the access codes it dredged up seemed to work. Leaving the tower it was connected to, it returned to its programming.
If it had a voice, it would have laughed.
-
November 16th
Aelita's voice is better than I could've imagined. We spoke long into the night last night, although I had to use my keyboard rather than actually speak. The channel for sounds seems to have a bug, and while I can hear her, she can't hear me. I'll have to see if I can fix that, later.
She asked many questions, which she hasn't asked before. This shows she is learning, which I am also pleased about. I learned as well, of Lyoko from the inside. This is going better than I ever could have dreamed. Some might say that it's going too well, but there are plenty of hiccups in the system - especially at this early point, some of which I have detailed already. I'll let a scan run later tonight, and see what it turns up.
The Desert region is open. When Aelita and I parted early this morning, she was off to explore it. I'll ask her for her reaction when next we speak.
-
Dilemma now had a definition.
Aelita stood on the moving chunk of land, watching her little piece float steadily farther away from the larger plateau it'd come from. She needed to get back to the tower, but it was too far to jump, even with the acrobatics she discovered she could do. Searching her commands, she looked around quickly as she sought an answer.
Then one came.
Sing.
Moving on the action without really thinking about it, Aelita lowered herself to her knees, as she folded her hands in front of her. Reaching together a power buried deep in her program, she gathered it and pushed it out into one long, flawless note. Instantly the flat rock on which she knelt came to a stop. A grid-like pattern formed, arcing through the dust-choked air. Desert rock formed over the wireframe, as a bridge built itself between the platform and the plateau. Letting the note fade, Aelita rose to her feet, smiling to herself. She started to walk, but a strange feeling brought her to a halt before she even began. She looked around in wide-eyed worry, before it occurred to her to call up her own profile. Mentally berating herself, she connected and sent the command.
Showing statistics for: AELITAHP: 50/100
MP: 80/100
Location: Desert; 79W by 30N
Nearest Towers: 17, 23, and 29
...Had her strength really just been halved? She blinked a few times, looking at empty space in worry. A search of her memory banks said there was no solution for restoring lifepoints. No solution?...
Insert command:
-Memorandum-
Input memo:
-Speak with Programmer on lifepoint problem-
There. Smiling to herself, Aelita let the worry free as she ran over her bridge, only partially paying attention to the fact that part of her brain was already ticking away on finding an answer.
-
November 20th
Seems Aelita is a little ahead of me. She has discovered the hiccup in her program, and has even supplied me with programming suggestions on how to fix it! This is incredible! This proves that she is not only learning, but APPLYING that knowledge! I'll look over her coding and see how accurate this is. If it is correct in the LEAST... That will make this entire project worth it!
Even if she hasn't grasped my name yet.
November 23rd
XANA is showing extra activity today. I'm not exactly sure what it's trying to do, but it involves the towers. I may have to do a manual hack later and see what the AI is up to. I may've put too much into its program...
Until I discover what is going on with XANA, I have to put the hold on Aelita's Synthesize. I'll get back to it as soon as I can.
-
She sat on a severed trunk, looking around the lush green of the digital forest. Fingers lightly tugged at the red cuff on the opposite arm, as she readjusted her position, crossing her ankles. Her chest rising and falling in a parody of breathing, she closed her eyes, and tilted her head forward.
Almost instantly, she felt herself connect with the Lyoko mainframe. Instead of calling up the command protocol, however, she dove deeper, passing into the more complicated inner workings of the world.
Admittedly, she was a little frightened. Though she had been told about this, told she could do this, it was still her first time. And she was approaching the heart of Lyoko, of the-...her world. She didn't know what she would find, but-
Her eyes snapped open at the same moment her head raised. So that... Standing up and hopping off of the rock, she started walking along the path, with no real purpose. She was too involved in thought.
The depths of Lyoko, among their working processes and forever churning data, could act as a library of sorts. Or so it seemed to her, though 'logfile' sprang to mind rather than 'library'. And, it also seemed, she had hit something. Something that further expanded what she'd read earlier. Stopping on the path, she made a minor connection to the system, and sent a request.
When the information returned, she found herself smiling. As it appeared, it was true, what she had found. Her arms swung at her sides, moving faster as she broke into a run.
With this at hand, Lyoko just got a lot more interesting.
-
December 3rd
It seems I was worked up over nothing. XANA was merely putting together a program to scan all the towers in the space of half an hour, rather than over a day or so. Even so, I'm keeping a closer eye on it.
I've been doing sketches of another region for Lyoko lately. I don't know what sort of land I'll base it on. Perhaps a purely oceanic landscape... Of course, first I'd have to design a way to create water and not have it turn up into buggy coding.
(Later addition)
On second thought, an ocean doesn't work. I'll continue thinking, though.
Preview of Chapter 3
Aelita took a step, walking for the ice-region tower in front of her. She was nearly there, when something unusual caused her to stop and turn around. Her eyes searched the skies, but saw nothing. Shrugging, she started walking again. A twitch of her ears and she halted once more, going on her guard.
Yep, she was hearing something. A distinct buzzing sound. And it was coming closer.
A/N: Sorry this one's so short, compared to the first! I'll make up for it though, I promise :P And... I apologize for any format issues. FF dot net is a pain sometimes.