Requiem

by EldritchSandwich

Change of Heart Series 11. As a new group of kids struggles with the world left in Xana's wake, a blast from the past seeks to set everything right and undo his mistake...

The sound of his own feet on the splintered pavement rang in Matthew's ears. Above it, he could hear the clicking of metal insectoid legs. He couldn't risk looking back, but from the sound, the crab was no more than ten meters behind him. He stretched his legs to their limit—if the robot got any closer, it could start firing.

Kaleah leaned over the threadbare computer chair as Miles shifted the satellite view on the screen of the dented laptop. "He's still almost half a kilometer away. He's going to tire before it does."

Kaleah shook her head. "Don't worry. Nate and Carrie know what they're doing. How far is he from their position?"

Miles pointed a thin finger at the two dots on the map.

"I can see him. He's almost here. And...there's a crab following him."

Nate grunted. "Just tell me when to drop it."

Carrie raised her hand as Matthew passed beneath them. The crab was gaining. "...Now!"

Nate exhaled, launching the huge chunk of asphalt off the edge of the balcony. He smiled as it connected with the target eye on the monster's head.

Matthew heard the impact, and finally risked turning. Two of the robot's legs had snapped off, and its main eye had been banged in. It skittered around for a moment before coming to rest on the haphazard road between the warehouses and the river. Matthew grinned, and waved his free hand up to the apartment building skeleton where Carrie and Nate were perched. Nate jerked his head toward the drainpipe—Carrie nodded and wrapped her legs around the iron tube. She kicked off from the balcony and began the rapid descent to the ground. By the time Nate was down, Matthew had already run over. Nate grinned. "You gave us quite a scare there, man."

Matthew smiled, and shrugged. "Hey, there's a reason I go out on these high risk jobs."

Carrie snorted wryly. "Yeah, 'cause you have us to back you up."

Matthew rolled his eyes. "That..." He presented the box from under his right arm, "And I get results."

Nate moved closer. "What'd you get?"

Matthew's eyes darted across his peripheral vision. In the Old Days, it might have seemed a paranoid gesture, but since the Revolution you couldn't be too careful—Xana had eyes everywhere. Slowly, he opened the cardboard container. Nate's eyes lit up. "Whoa..."

Carrie picked up one of the metal cylinders. "Are they real?"

Matthew nodded. "Real, fully charged. There's enough just in this box to power the whole hideout for two months. I'd say that's worth a little risk."

Carrie pulled out the makeshift communicator and pressed the signal button. "Miles? Kaleah?"

Kaleah picked up the walkie-talkie from its place on the desk. "Go ahead."

"Mission successful."

Kaleah nodded. Miles breathed a sigh of relief. "What did we get?"

Carrie glanced down at the box. "Double-A's. Enough for two months, and Matthew said there's more where these came from."

"Oh, thank the Old...we're almost out of power here. Are you sure no other monsters followed you?"

Carrie turned her head up the road. It was quiet—the kind of eerie quiet that had seemed to permeate everything since the Revolution. "Positive."

Kaleah nodded. "all right. Come on home."

"Roger. Carrie out."

As the group of teens walked leisurely back toward the warehouse, Matthew accepting the hearty accolades of his friends, a dark figure watched from the rooftop of the waterfront. He had been there from the beginning—had seen the whole thing. He smiled—it was rather like something he and his friends would have planned in the Old Days. Silently, the scraggly man in shabby clothes pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. Delicately, he unfolded the picture. The face of a young girl stared up at him. "Don't worry...I think they're the ones." He stared into the eyes in the picture. At times, he could almost see forgiveness in them. But he had never forgiven himself. "I know I keep telling you this, but I really am sorry. You know that, right? I should have been there, I...

"...it doesn't matter. They're the ones, I know it.

"They're the ones who can bring you back."

Nate dragged the giant corrugated metal door of the warehouse out toward the waterfront. As soon as he slid through the opening, Kaleah had jumped into his arms. As they pushed through the cracked door, Matthew cast a wry glance at Carrie. She grinned, and shook her head.

Miles lifted himself out of the office chair. "Get a room, why don't you." Kaleah's lips pulled back from Nate's, shaping into a grin. Miles turned to Matthew and the box under his arm. "Batteries."

"Right." Matthew nodded and handed the cardboard box over. Miles cracked the lid and smiled.

"You said they're all fully charged?"

Carrie peeled off her denim jacket and tossed it on the edge of the raggedy couch. "They better be. That crab was a lot closer than you thought, Matt. You could have been shot."

He flopped back onto the couch, rusty springs squeaking under his weight. "Oh, you know me. Always ready to take one for the team."

Carrie rolled her eyes. He was always like this. So...nonchalante. It got on her nerves. She tapped Miles on the arm. "Help me get these in the generator, all right?" He nodded.

Matthew looked up as she walked away, then turned to the couple sitting beside him. "What'd I say?" Nate and Kaleah looked at each other, almost as if trying to hold in laughter. "What? Care to share?"

Kaleah glanced over at the jumble of wires and metal plating that provided electricity for the hideout—one of Carrie's better innovations. As she and Miles slid the batteries into cycling tubes, Carrie occasionally glanced back toward the couch, snapping her head back when Matthew followed Kaleah's gaze. "No...she'll tell you when she's ready."

"What? Tell me what?"

Kaleah smiled. "Whatever she wants to tell you."

Matthew sighed and pushed himself up from the couch. "I'm gonna go do a rooftop patrol."

"Be careful," Nate called after him.

"I will."

"You want some backup?"

"I want to be alone."

Carrie wiped the oil from the delicate machine off her hands. "What's with him?"

Nate glanced down at Kaleah, then sighed. "He'll tell you when he's ready."

On the roof of the warehouse, the man lifted his face to the moonlight. She would have been with him, once, on a night like this. Enjoying the stars. Trying to name all the constellations, or just making up their own. Laughing...he couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed. No, that wasn't true...it was before the Siege, when Jim had tried his hand at archery and nearly put out two of the school's windows. Unbidden, a thought struck him. The school. He wondered if it was still standing. Maybe. After they'd disbanded, Xana probably would have stopped attacking it. He folded the picture neatly into quarters and slid it back into his coat pocket. "Almost time."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blur. He didn't know what it was until it had hit him. Then there was darkness.

"You didn't have to hit him in the head."

"Hey, I wanted to bring him down here. He better have a damn good reason for just happening to be on our roof right after we make such a big score."

"Yeah, I'm just saying...you didn't have to hit him in the head."

The shaggy man let out a long groan. Carrie abandoned her position by the door to check on the stranger. Kaleah turned away from the laptop. "He's up."

"Good." Matthew leaned over the stranger's face, squinting. "Now maybe you can tell us what exactly you were doing on our property."

Nate's nose wrinkled. "Hey, come on, man, ease up. He's been out for twenty minutes."

Matthew shook him off. "You a spy or something? A Betrayer?"

The man squinted. "A what?" His voice was harsh and raspy. Tired.

Miles pulled Matthew gently back from the couch. "He means a simulacrum. You know, one of those Xana clones."

The man made a sound that, had his situation been different, probably would have constituted laughter. "You think I'm...jeez, my day just keeps getting better. First I get knocked out," Matthew's eyes flitted up defiantly, as if daring the scraggly face to blame him, "now I'm working for Xana."

Carrie shrugged. "You know, if he was a Betrayer, the Eye would probably be visible on his forehead by now."

Nate folded his arms. "Betrayer or not, there is still the question of what he was doing up there."

The man sat up. "I've been watching you. For a while now."

"I knew it."

He cast a sullen glance in Matthew's direction. "I had to make sure I could trust you." His hand went to the tender spot on the back of his head. "Now, I guess I have to." Intrigue flashed across every face. Except one—Matthew's was still frozen in defiance. "Before the Revolution, I was part of a small group that opposed Xana's actions, trying to keep his program contained."

"You obviously didn't do a very good job."

Kaleah sighed. "Shut up, all right, Matthew?"

"No, he's right." The man dragged his body into a sitting position. "After we shut down an assembly line that helped Xana construct his robots, we started...losing people. Grief tore us apart. When Xana infected the world's business networks, we weren't even speaking anymore. Anything we tried to prevent the chaos was too little too late."

Matthew stalked back toward the couch. "Wait a minute...you're responsible?" He took the frail figure by his collar. "You did this?"

Nate and Kaleah had to pull the boy off the stranger. "Matt, calm down, man."

"Calm down? If what he's saying is true, he's worse than a Betrayer. He killed all of them!"

"That's why I'm here."

"Why? So you can finish the job?"

The man winced, as if the words dealt him a physical blow. "No. So I can undo it."

"So, that factory on the river...is some sort of supercomputer?"

The man shrugged, setting down the cup of broth on the table. "Sort of. The computer's in a lab underneath the factory proper."

Nate finished spooning the thin soup into everyone's cups and sat on the folding chair next to Kaleah's. "And that's where Xana is?"

"Not anymore. The Supercalculator contains a virtual world called Lyoko, and that world used to contain Xana's program. Now, he's in every computer in the world, and probably hasn't given Lyoko a second thought for ages."

Miles lifted off his bent eyeglasses, rubbing them pensively on his sweater. "Well, if Xana's not there anymore, what good is it going to do to go there?"

"Part of the Supercalculator's program is a...well...this is where it gets really crazy."

Matthew snorted. "Yeah, no kidding."

Carrie shot her eyes into him. He glanced down at the floor. Carrie nodded to the stranger. He sighed. "Besides housing Lyoko, the Supercalculator serves as a time machine. It allows short jumps back in time, sort of like a 'reboot' for when Xana tries to get out."

Miles returned his glasses to his nose. "How short?"

The man shrugged. "Days, maybe weeks. Even beyond that, the jump's limited. For instance, you can't bring people back from the dead. Like...data that get corrupted before you reboot a computer. They just get wiped."

Kaleah's eyes flitted between Miles and Carrie. Were they understanding any of this? "Pardon me for asking, but...if you can't bring people back and you can't go back more than a week, what exactly are we supposed to accomplish by going there?"

"Just trust me, all right? I've had twenty years to work on this."

"Trust you?" Matthew shook his head in disgust. "I can't believe we're even listening to this freak."

"Yeah, well no one asked you," Nate snapped.

"That's my point."

The blond stranger lifted himself off the couch. "I'm not saying this is going to be easy, but the way I see it, this is pretty much humanity's last shot."

Matthew vaulted out of his corner. "And the way I see it, you're sacrificing me and everyone I care about on some wild goose chase."

"How many people do you think there are left? Huh? Thirty million? Twenty? Out of what, six billion? Tell me you wouldn't give anything to get them all back."

"Why are you really here, huh? What's your angle? Just here to fleece us out of our supplies? Or do you need accomplices to fuel your delusions?"

"all right, everyone shut up." Miles strode between the two. "Nate, Kaleah, see if you can get Matt here to calm down a little. Carrie, why don't you talk to our guest?"

Nate and Kaleah led Matthew over to the generator. Carrie gestured toward the closed door. When she and the stranger stopped at the far wall, she glanced back at Matt and the others. She couldn't make out his words, but Nate and Kaleah seemed ready tor restrain him at any moment. "Look, its not that we don't believe you. Matt's just...protective. He cares about us."

The stranger nodded. "I know the feeling. He reminds me a little of someone I used to know. Someone who fought Xana alongside me."

Carrie nodded, not quite comprehending, but happy to be making some headway. "We're good people, if that means anything anymore, and if this really will help, then we'll do it. But you have to understand, all we have is your word."

"Look, just come to the factory with me. There are five of you and one of me, what harm could it do?"

Carrie sighed. "I'll see what I can do." Halfway through her second step, the red-head turned on her heel, as if struck by some epiphany. "What exactly are we supposed to call you, anyway?"

The blond's eyes had a far-away look for a moment, memories welling up behind his eyes. "Odd," he finally managed to say. "I'm Odd."

Carrie's eyes glided over the crumbling structure that sat like driftwood in the middle of the river. "Not exactly as you remember it, huh?"

Odd shrugged. "No, it's just as dank as depressing as always. It just looks a little less stable now."

Nate nodded. "Speaking of which, what kind of chance do we have that this lab of yours is still intact?"

"The lab's protected. You can't get in through the lift without a special code. It should still be in good shape. I mean, relatively speaking, at least."

Matt and Kaleah slid down the ropes onto the debris-strewn floor first, followed by Nate and Carrie. As Odd grabbed the rope opposite Miles, he paused. The teenager turned to him. "What is it?"

"This just...brings back some memories."

"You said you used to go to this Lyoko? Fight Xana?"

"Yeah."

"Think you can still do it?"

Odd shook his head. "I don't know."

The others were already in the lift when Odd and Miles landed. Odd slipped in as Matthew closed the door, taking his place by the control panel. He counted the seconds to himself, punching in the numbers on the keypad as the neared the door to the control room. The elevator slid to a stop, the sealed door, unmoved for almost twenty years, cracking open less than half way.

Light flooded their eyes. Odd squinted as he emerged into the sterile, circular room. "Well, at least the power's still on."

Miles pressed throught the opening, eyes wide. "Is that the terminal?"

Odd grinned. "No, that's the holomap. It shows Lyoko's current status and the position of everyone inside. I can't believe it still works after all this time." He shook his head, clearing out the memories that fogged it. "The terminal's over there. The chair controls rotate it around the map."

Miles was already checking the connections on the backs of the monitors. "I really don't know what I'm doing, but this doesn't look damaged. It should work."

Odd stepped up the screen and, just like Jeremie had shown them all, entered the code to boot up the system. The blue hum brought everyone around the control chair. Slowly, the familiar data windows flooded the screen, maps and code Odd had only ever learned a smattering of. Then, the familiar voice. Odd looked up to the communications window and smiled. She hadn't changed a bit.

Aelita squinted. Odd swore, if it was possible (and for all he knew, it was) she had a tear in her eye. "Jeremie? Is...is that you?"

Odd looked down. Of course she didn't know. How could she? She probably thought he, of all people, would have survived the Revolution. "No, Aelita. It's Odd."

The skin around Aelita's eyes crumpled painfully. "He...he's not...coming back, is he?"

"No, Aelita, he's not. I'm sorry, I should have tried this sooner, but I...I just couldn't face you."

Aelita's eyes narrowed. "Are you really there? I thought I heard his voice sometimes, for a while."

Odd sighed. She was farther gone than he'd thought. "Yeah, Aelita, I'm really here. I...I know it seems hard, but I think I've got a way to fix things. Well, more like Jeremie had a way to fix things."

Aelita craned her neck against the edge of the window. "Who are they?"

Odd pulled back from the screen, letting all the strangers get a good look at each other. "Everyone, this is Aelita. She...used to help us out on Lyoko. Aelita, these are Miles, Carrie, Kaleah, Matt and Nate. They're going to help." He turned to the assembled group. "Aren't you?"

All eyes were on Matthew. His were on Aelita. He blinked once. What good was it to protect them in a world that was falling down around their feet? He sighed. "Just tell us what we have to do."

"Do you know what happened?"

Aelita nodded. "Xana never bothered shutting down my connection to the internet. I suppose he wanted to taunt me. I saw everything. I even saw the news boradcast where Yumi and Ulrich...I'm so sorry."

Odd shook the image out of his head, of the two clinging to each other as the Megatank's laser brought the apartment building down on them..."No, it's fine, I'm...I've had a long time to think about it. Besides, I'm the one who should be sorry. We tried to get to you, but the first thing Xana did was to shut off our access to the factory. By the time he'd transferred out of Lyoko and let down his guard we had...other priorities."

"No, I understand. So much has changed, Odd."

Odd motioned for Miles. The boy walked over, edging his way toward the glowing screen. "Yeah?"

"Tell the others it's time. Have them go down one level and enter the door code just like I showed you."

Miles nodded and walked over to the group clinging to the opposite wall. Odd could understand their apprehension—this was a lot to take in, even after all they had seen. Aelita squinted. "You know, Odd, you still haven't told me exactly what's going on."

He sighed. "Jeremie had this...theory. I read about it in his notes when Yumi's father gave them to me. He thought the length of time you could cover in one jump to the past was directly proportional to the amount of energy Lyoko's matrix let 'bleed' out into the real world."

"So...if he was right, traveling back to before the Revolution is just a matter of sending enough energy from Lyoko to the real world?"

Odd nodded. "With enough energy, it might even be possible to bring people back to life. I think...I think we can save them all."

Aelita shook her head. "Wait, if he thought this might work, why didn't Jeremie try it earlier?"

Odd licked his lips, pausing for a moment. "The way I understand it...the Towers weren't meant to handle that much energy at once. Going back farther than about a week, there's a very good chance that...Lyoko would essentially self-destruct. The entire mainframe would be fried and...the resulting power surge would vaporize everything in a four-kilometer radius."

Aelita paused. The silence seemed unbearable. Finally, she took what could only be described as a deep, virtual breath. "Give me the time coordinates."

Odd nodded, and began typing. "That won't be enough, though. You'll have to get to the Core and activate every Tower on it. Then, I should be able to use Jeremie's notes to set up a feedback loop that will overcharge all the Towers. If everything goes right, the last twenty years will disappear, and I'll remember just enough to keep her from dying." He lifted her picture from his pocket and began to unfold it.

Aelita smiled sadly, then glanced at the numbers running across her field of vision. Her smile disappeared. "Wait a minute, Odd. Are you sure you entered the right coordinates?"

"Positive."

"But, unless my memory's wrong—and it's not—this is two weeks after the siege at the military base. She'll already..." Aelita looked up into the suddenly adult eyes. "...you're not talking about Ana."

Odd glanced down at the girl in the photo. She smiled up at him, hands crossed across her pink shirt, her black hair falling around her shoulders. The Principal had given it to Odd when he got back and heard the news. "I've gone over the causality a thousand times in my head. No matter what I think of, trying to save Ana would always logically result in losing someone else." Odd stared back up at the inquisitive pink face. "It took me ten years to realize that there was nothing I could do to save Ana." Odd pressed Sissi's picture up against the screen. "I can save her. I have to."

Aelita averted her eyes. She remembered the way Odd had been after Sissi had died. Everyone had blamed him for leaving when she needed him—it was what finally tore the Gang apart. "It won't be easy to get to the Core. Xana's monsters are gone, but some of Lyoko's central algorithms are...corrupted. They won't necessarily like the idea of me invading their personal space."

Odd wiped the tear from his eye, clearing his throat. "That's why I'm sending in some backup. Miles, come here." The younger male walked over. "Is everyone ready?"

Miles nodded. "They're pretty freaked out, but they're ready for...whatever this is."

Odd smiled. "all right, I want you up here with me. You can keep an eye on the holomap."

Miles clicked his first two fingers against his temple. "Aye, aye, sir." Odd and Aelita watched the young boy walk over to the glowing spherical hologram. He looked so much like Jeremie.

Aelita broke the silence. "What about profiles? If they're going to fight, they need to have transfer protocols."

Odd nodded. "As I recall, he have four combat profiles all ready to go." Aelita smiled. "It seems only fitting."

"I'll make the necessary modifications."

Odd nodded and pressed the button for the intercom. "Is everyone ready down there?"

Matt's voice fizzled over the ancient system. "We're waiting. I don't think you could say we're ready."

Odd knew what that was like. "Matt, Nate, Kaleah, you go first. Carrie, I'll transfer you in as soon as they're gone."

"Odd? I finished modifying the transfer profiles."

"Thanks, Aelita."

"Odd...will I remember?"

Odd glanced down at the keyboard. "I sure hope not." She nodded. "Is everyone in place?"

Nate's voice drifted up through the wires. "Yeah, everyone's in their tube, just like some bad science fiction flick."

Odd began typing in the transfer codes. "Transfer—Nate. Transfer—Matthew. Transfer—Kaleah."

Kaleah leaned over to Nate. "Hey."

Nate stuck his head out of the scanner. "Yeah?"

"Good luck."

Nate smiled. "You too."

"Scanner—Nate. Scanner—Matthew. Scanner—Kaleah."

Carrie walked up to the third scanner. "Listen, Matt..." Matt shifted uncomfortably. "...be careful."

He bit his lip. "Yeah. You too."

"Virtualization."

Matt inspected his virtual appearance. He was a samurai, he thought. He slipped the katana out of its sheath—its blade pulsed with blue lines of computer code before solidifying. As Carrie landed, Matt took a chance to look around at the others. Kaleah was a ninja, obviously. Carrie looked like a China doll, maybe, and Nate—Matt had to stifle a laugh.

Nate frowned. "Odd? Can we talk?"

"Is everyone all right?"

"Yeah, everybody's here, but...I've got a tail."

Odd chuckled to himself. "You'll get used to it. Heads up. Aelita's en route now."

The new warriors turned to watch the girl in pink approach. She slowed down as she saw them—they looked so much like the old Gang. For a moment, Aelita could almost pretend that they were—that it was twenty years earlier, and nothing had changed. Then reality sank back into her vision. "Let's go, everyone. The Core's this way."

Miles leaned against a support column. "So what was it like? The world, I mean? Before the Revolution?"

Odd sighed. He'd tried so hard to forget. "Brighter, I guess. More colorful. Louder."

Miles shook his head as he stared into the holomap. "I can't even imagine."

Odd nodded. "You know, sometimes I think you kids born after the Revolution have it better than everyone else. You don't realize how much worse things are now. You don't miss, say, for example, hot dogs."

Miles squinted. "I read about those in an old magazine once, I think. They sounded good."

Odd smiled. "They were. If this works, I'll have to leave myself with the urge to go have one." If, he thought. A red dot faded onto the edge of the screen. "Aelita, do you read? There's something coming toward you."

Aelita nodded as the others fanned out around her. "I didn't think we'd get this close to the Core without something getting in our way."

Matt drew his sword. "What is it? Is it one of those monsters you were talking about?"

Odd squinted. "No, Xana controls those, and he's not on Lyoko anymore. It's something else."

The first tentacle caught Nate by surprise, pulling him from his feet and dragging him toward the edge of the platform. "Nate!" Kaleah pulled out a throwing star and tossed to into the smoky tendril. It snapped back, a hole torn through its substance, and dropped Nate on the mountain ground.

Matt spun around to the second tentacle, severing it in the middle. It melted into smoke as Carrie threw her fan against the first. As the tentacles blew away into nothingness, Aelita started forward. "Come on. We have to get to the Core—fast!"

The black mass came into view, as if slowly climbing over the horizon. The conduits that made up the massive machine had shattered into many more of the inky tendrils. Nate groaned. "How many of these Towers are there?"

"Six on the Core. And you have to get to all of them."

Kaleah grimaced. It was going to be a long day.

Miles slid up to the computer. "So, what exactly is going to happen if his works?"

Odd shrugged. "Like I said, the last twenty years won't have happened."

"Yeah, but...won't this all just happen all over again?"

Odd shook his head. "I'm hoping that by the way I've arranged the energy transfer it'll send me back with just enough memory to know how to save her." He handed Miles the picture. "It was her death that started this whole thing. If I can save her, none of this should happen."

Miles' eyebrows arched. "What if you're wrong?"

Odd smirked. "Then when I get back here in twenty years, you can say 'I told you so.'"

Miles smiled wanly. He looked back down at Sissi's picture. Odd was right—everything seemed brighter. "Who is she?"

Odd sighed. "Everything."

Matt grabbed Aelita's waist as she slipped out of the horizontal Tower. He set her down gently, then turned to look at the wriggling Core. "all right, that's five."

Miles nodded to Odd. Odd smiled in approval. "Not bad. You guys are almost as good as we were."

Carrie grinned. "I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm going to take that as a compliment."

Matt stifled a laugh. "Where's the last Tower?"

Odd looked expectantly at Miles. The boy pointed at the top crest of the massive computer brain. Odd winced. "You're not going to like this."

Nate moved closer to the group. "What? What is it?"

"It's on top. Right in the middle."

Kaleah looked up at the wriggling mass of tentacles that swam across the black surface. "On top of the Core?"

"Right."

"The Core where all those corrupt programs are coming from?"

"Right."

"Great."

Nate shrugged. "Hey, it could be worse. At least it's not on the bottom."

Matt drew his sword. "Power of positive thinking, right?"

"Exactly."

Matt stepped forward, shaking his head. To think, hours ago he would have thrown Odd to the dogs. "all right, let's get going. Nate, Kaleah, you get up there first. Carrie and I will lead Aelita up. We have a long way to go, and those tentacles can form right under our feet, so..."

"Uh, excuse me." Aelita pushed her face into the huddle of warriors. "I think I know an easier way."

Odd smiled. "Go ahead, Aelita."

The pink-clad girl kneeled on the gray soil, eyes closed. Matthew shot Nate a curious glance—Nate shrugged. A somber moan escaped from Aelita's throat, and the fighters watched in amazement as blue threads of code spidered up over the curving mass toward the Tower. Slowly, the texture of the Core soil began to spill across the framework like water. The rest of the group was still staring in amazement when Aelita started down the newly-formed bridge. "Well, are you coming?"

Kaleah shook off the sight and stepped forward. "Right. Let's go, everyone." Slowly, the group circled in around Aelita, easing their way up the bridge.

Nate waved his paw across the horizon, ready to fire. "Do you think those tentacles can reach up here?"

The black mass that spun into being beside Kaleah answered his question by flinging the young ninja down to the black surface of the Core. "Kaleah!" In one swift motion, Nate leaped over the edge, firing wildly at the shadowy shapes that closed in on her.

"Nate, wait!" Matthew withdrew his hand as the couple vanished under the wave of Core tendrils.

Odd grimaced as their cards faded from the screen. "Don't worry, they just rematerialized here. Stay focused."

Matt grunted in acknowledgement as his blade bit through an apporaching tentacle. "We have to move now."

Carrie flung herself on top of Aelita as a monstrous arm sliced through the air above her. The razor fan lashed out, cutting the tentacle in two. She lifted Aelita by the arm. "Come on, let's go."

Aelita ran ahead of the group, Carrie and Matt desperately parrying the onslaught. Aelita dived into the Tower as the first tentacles circled around to it. "Odd, I'm in!" Aelita floated up to the Tower's apex and entered her code. "And I'm ready! Enter the overcharge program!"

Odd's fingers flew across the keys almost without thinking—he had been planning this moment for twenty years.

Matt looked back in horror as the Tower started to glow—as if the energy inside was tearing it apart at the seams. The last of the tendrils faded back with a horrible shriek. He looked over at Carrie, bathed in the glow of the Tower. She had never looked more beautiful.

Odd grunted in pain as the first sparks from the overload shot into the lab. The holomap shorted, electricity spilling out, sending Miles catapulting across the room. Odd wanted to go check on him, but no...it didn't matter now.

Carrie glanced up at Matt—for the first time, he looked almost...she sighed. Why not? They weren't going to exist for much longer anyway. "Matt, I..."

He put his hands on her cheeks, drawing her closer to him, finally looking into her eyes. "I know. Me too."

The time coordinates flashed in front of Odd's face. He smiled bitterly. All the pain, all the death...it didn't matter anymore.

Carrie tried to pull back. "I just, I mean..."

Matt shook his head, pulling even closer to her. "Shh..." As their lips moved together, Odd took the last, longest breath of his life, then his hand came to rest on the enter key.

He smiled. He'd won. One way or the other. "Return to the past NOW!" As the curtain of energy tore through his body, Odd felt like laughing. In the exquisite pain, he saw her face. She was smiling. Then, as the Supercalculator finally gave way to the cascade rippling through it, he felt nothing.

Odd stared out the bus window, watching the highway wasteland go sliding by. For two weeks, he'd been headed as far from the city as possible, looking for something...anything. Now, over the last week, he was heading back. He didn't know why. Just a feeling. Like he was missing something.

Odd was the first one off the bus when it slid into the station. He knew where he was going. He didn't know how, but his feet seemed to tell him that he had to go a block down from the school. And that he had to run.

Sissi shrieked as another car flew in her direction. She'd tried to get to the factory, but Xana's control of the powerlines was too great—he was using them like an electromagnet, tossing anything metal in her path. He was toying with her...making her suffer before he killed her. Sissi rolled under an awning as the latest vehicle crashed into the side of the building. She barely saw the parking meter that wrenched itself out of the ground, the jagged edge of its broken leg speeding toward her head. All she felt was a dull pain as she hit the ground, and the weight of someone else on top of her. She looked up, and almost stopped breathing. She tried to speak. She couldn't. It had been almost a month, and she still didn't know what to say.

Odd smiled. "Hi, Sissi." He helped her to her feet, taking shelter in the covered doorway.

Sissi squinted. "Odd, I...where have you been?"

He glanced down, suddenly ashamed of the look in her eyes. "Like I said in the note I...I just needed some time to think."

Sissi straightened up. The storm of shrapnel seemed to be calming, but she didn't really notice. "And?"

Odd shrugged, pulling her closer. "And I thought." Before she could speak, he pulled her close, pressing his lips against hers. Odd smiled faintly as he pulled back to watch the curtain of white light slip over them. This time, if ever, it truly marked a new beginning.