Hello again, sorry it took me so long. I kept thinking that I had to do more and putting it off, if only I had checked... This is the latest chapter, and of course won't be the last. I hope you all enjoy, and, keep reading.
Jeremie and I were running to the infirmary. We had just gotten the news that Ulrich had been hit by a car. It was amazing how slow news traveled through the school; we should have known long before now. It wasn't even only that it took so long for anyone to tell us; we didn't even get all of the information. We didn't know if he was still alive or not, or how it had happened.
As we ran through the hall we passed by Jim, he yelled at us, "No running in the halls!"
"Ulrich was hit by a car!" Jeremie yelled back.
For a moment a look crossed Jim's face that that reminded me of the Jim who had helped us those two days with Lyoko. But the look passed as quickly as it came, and Jim came running up behind us.
"What happened?"
"We don't know." I said. "All we heard was that he was hit by a car, and that was from two people who happened to be passing us."
"They were also talking about it like it was something normal. Like people got hit every day..." Jeremie added.
"What?" Jim stopped running. "How is that possible? I mean, I heard the crash, yet... I didn't think anything of it. It was like it happened often."
"Something is going on here." Jeremie whispered to me. "The only way it could seem normal, and even this isn't really true, is if suddenly everyone remembered all of the X.A.N.A. attacks that had ever happened."
"Oh, great... so where is the mass panic?"
"No, seriously O-" but he was cut off when he suddenly bounced back off of nothing but air.
"Jeremie?"
"What's the matter, did you slip?" Jim asked looking at Jeremie.
"No, I ran into something."
"Sorry about that." A woman's voice said.
I looked up from Jeremie and say a tall, beautiful woman standing in a blue dress directly where Jeremie had ran into something. She was bending over offering her hand to Jeremie, her long hazel brown hair dripping over her shoulder. Her face was a kind, earnest one, but I could see wisdom beyond understanding in her eyes. Her eyes were haunting, so deep and full of understanding, kindness, and love... I felt as though I couldn't look away.
"Ma'am, are you lost?" Jim asked.
"No," she responded. "I don't believe so."
She looked up at Jim and smiled. "I should thank you for taking care of these kids." she said. "Oh, but..." she waved her hand slightly and I swear I saw a flash of light for a second.
Jeremie took her hand and she began helping him up, but when he was part way up and their faces neared, she looked deep in his eyes and slowly a smile crept across her face. She leaned in closer and whispered, "Normally it would take three years, but for you we are trying to make an exception." The woman finished helping Jeremie up and she released his hand. Once they were apart Jeremie gaped at her his mouth wide.
"Who are you?"
"A friend." She said.
"So when we find Jeremie and Odd... What is that?" I heard Yumi's voice from down the hall and turned to look at them.
"Do you sense something, Yumi?" I heard Ulrich's voice.
"Yes, and it feels very familiar." She replied. "And the last time wasn't the best time either. Come on!"
Now I heard running footsteps coming closer and suddenly the others burst from around a corner. They stopped, panting slightly; Yumi looking at the woman who had suddenly appeared. I turned to see what the woman was doing but she wasn't there any more. Confused I looked around the hall but she was nowhere to be seen.
"I know she was here. I could feel her..." Yumi said.
"Who?" Jeremie asked.
"Someone that I felt earlier," Yumi told him. "Oh, it doesn't matter, but I really wanted to know..."
"I'm sure we will meet her again." I said lazily. "Sooner rather than later."
"Yeah, I bet you are right..." Ulrich said, almost as though he were falling asleep.
"What's the matter with you two?" Jeremie asked.
Yumi looked at Ulrich and Jeremie looked at me. Their expressions were worried and baffled. I didn't really know what I looked like but Ulrich had a sleepy look on his face and his eyes were glazing over. Perhaps his wound was getting to him...
"Yumi?" Jeremie asked a worried note in his voice.
"I know." She said and began moving her hand towards Ulrich's head.
As her hand neared Ulrich he suddenly collapsed and Yumi fumbled to catch him. She grabbed him by the arm, the one that wasn't hurt, and gently lowered Ulrich to the ground. Then, once he was lying comfortably, so comfortable, on the ground she placed her fingers against his forehead. I felt a wave of nausea flood through my head and began falling over, but Jeremie caught me and placed me on the floor. As my eyes closed I noticed that Jim was no longer in the hallway, but Sissi was walking towards us, her expression as worried as Yumi's or Jeremie's.
I was watching Odd as he lay on the floor. He had suddenly begun to fall over and I had had to jump to catch him from hitting hard on the ground. He was now lying unconscious on the floor, breathing deeply. Yumi was trying to find out what was wrong with Ulrich by entering his mind and seeing what she could find. It was a trick that she had learned a while ago, but she didn't use it very much. The need just didn't come up.
"I simply don't understand." Yumi said.
"What?" I asked checking Odd's heart beat.
"Well, nothing seems to be wrong, except that he has somehow been put into a state of unconsciousness. That, and there seems to be one phrase being repeated in his mind."
"What? A phrase? What do you mean?"
"'Live a normal life. Live happily, with your friends. Leave behind what you were fighting for.' And it just keeps repeating itself. I have tried to find where it is coming from but I can't."
"Maybe..." I started, thinking of the things that had been happening in the past week or so. "Maybe we are meant to live like normal teenagers..."
"It would seem so." Yumi agreed. "At least as normal as we can, since we all have some kind of 'power' or 'ability'."
It made sense, I guess. Since X.A.N.A. was now off and he couldn't bother us any more. It would make sense to try and live life like everyone else in Kadic. Yet, there was still something missing... Aelita. I had failed to save her... she had vanished into nothing before my eyes. I would never be able to live life happily without her.
My body shuddered as a sob came through me. I couldn't live without Aelita. I had to see if there was a way to save her somehow. I may have seen her disappear but that didn't mean that she couldn't be brought back... somehow. And, then the words of that woman came back to me, 'Normally it would take three years, but for you we are trying to make an exception.' What did that mean, what normally took three years? And how were they making an exception for me?
These were things I would have to find the answer to, but for now I would have to bring myself back to reality. There were people who needed me and they were lying on the floor on the way to the infirmary.
"Now all we need to do is wake them up." I said.
"I can help with that." Sissi said, and I noticed her for the first time.
Startled I jumped back. I hadn't heard her walking in and up until she had spoken I was making sure that Odd and Ulrich were still alive. Now I saw her and saw the worried expression on her face. Before, when she had spoken to us during lunch I had been enraged, but then I was still getting over what had happened. Not only that but she had also been a different person to me then. I couldn't quite place it but something about her had completely changed, and she was no longer the annoying, obnoxious, spoiled brat that I had always thought of her.
"How can you help?" I asked.
"Well, as the four of you know, every student in this school has some kind of, um, ability." She said. "I have a healing effect, but it only works at certain times."
"When is that?" I wondered.
"Times like this, when I am who I am now." she replied. "Who you knew was supposed to simply be an act, but it went a little too far and I couldn't control it..."
"Now, we decided that I should help her with that little problem." Yumi said still focusing on Ulrich. "I have already been helping her, and, well, you can see the difference."
"When did this happen?" I asked startled.
"Unofficially, after the first part of the last X.A.N.A. attack. That second 'day' before she talked with Ulrich I went to see what she had wanted to talk about. That was when I had discovered what was going on."
"But then Ulrich went to find me after class and the car accident happened. We talked after Ulrich was safely in the infirmary."
Sissi walked over and knelt next to me. She placed her hand, palm down, over Odd's forehead and began to focus. Slowly a light blue glow appeared beneath her hand and she slowly moved her hand around Odd's head. As her hand moved the color of Odd's skin darkened slightly as, as far as I could tell, the blood began rushing towards the skin. Sissi brought her hand down and placed it directly above his heart and snapped. Suddenly Odd jumped into alertness.
"What happened?" was the first thing that Odd asked. "Where am I?"
"You are on the way to the infirmary, to see what happened to Ulrich." Sissi told him. "Don't worry he is fine, the accident wasn't that bad, he simply broke his arm."
"Speaking of which," I said. "Can't you do something about that?"
"Maybe, but I think that it would be better to allow it to heal on its own." Sissi said. "I work better with things that were caused, rather than natural things."
"Oh."
Sissi walked over to Ulrich and did the same thing that she had done to Odd. Ulrich woke up just as quickly and asked the same question. This time Yumi answered and she told him something similar. They didn't mention the strange woman that we had seen in the hall, or anything like that. I was a little surprised at first but then I realized that their might be reason to what they were doing. Perhaps if the traveler and who ever this woman was didn't want the others to know about them then maybe Yumi and Sissi were purposely not mentioning them. But if that were true then that would mean that they knew of the two mysterious people. I would have to be sure to ask as soon as I could; maybe that would help me understand what was going on.
It had been a few hours since Ulrich and Odd had been affected and put to sleep. After Sissi had woken them up Jeremie had gotten very quiet and thoughtful. I knew that he wanted to ask something and kept expecting him to, but he just kept waiting for something. I wasn't entirely sure what it was but I was sure that it had to do with the entity that I had sensed while walking with Ulrich and Sissi.
I was sure that I had sensed her presence again. I recognized it almost instantly and it was just as powerful, if not more. Of course I had wanted to see her, she had been there when Aelita died, and I had felt strong remorse from her and the other. I also wanted to know who she was, being a powerful person as she was she must have known much more than I did about various abilities...
Anyway, I was at home after having taken a shower, and I was getting ready to do some homework. My cell phone was with my school things near my bed when it rang. I moved over and picked it up to see who it was, and of course the phone said that Jeremie was calling me. This was what I had been expecting, and he had finally called.
"Yumi, something has been bugging me since school." Jeremie started out. "You seemed to know that there was a person in the hall with us. I know about your powers, we all do, but still, something seems, different... off, somehow."
"Yes, I did sense her presence in the hall. As you know I have both telepathic and telekinetic abilities. I sensed her presence in the hall and recognized it; that was why I came running around the corner."
"Wait, you said that you recognized her." Jeremie asked confused and a little startled.
"Yes, I have felt her presence before." I replied.
"When?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
There was a long pause, and when he finally spoke I could not only hear the quiver but feel it as well. "She was there when Aelita..."
"Almost, she appeared after. Somehow I feel as though things would have been different if she had been there before."
There was another pause, shorter this time. "Yumi, she told me something. She said that something normally takes three years, but that 'they' were making an exception for me."
This was startling. I had noticed something about the woman's presence but I hadn't quite known what it was, and though I still wasn't sure this could explain what I felt. Beyond the remorse there had been a sensation of searching, self assurance, and a bit of desperation. Perhaps it was possible for someone to be brought back from the dead after all. If so than maybe that was what this woman had come here for.
"Jeremie, I am sure that everything will be alright. For now I believe that we should try to live our lives as well and happily as we can." I told him. "I sense something big coming in the future, something that will affect all of us, something that will change the entire world." I paused for a few seconds. "And I am sure that we will see Aelita again. Now, you should go to sleep."
We hung up and I looked at the clock. It was getting very late, I was in the habit of doing my work late due to X.A.N.A. but now that he was no longer a threat I didn't have to worry about it. I decided to go to bed as well.
---
The school days passed by and the weekend came. I headed off to school's dormitory to meet with the others. We were going to head to the factory today and make sure that we didn't leave anything there. I wasn't sure how Jeremie would take this, since it would probably remind him about Aelita. We would all be a little affected, after all Lyoko had been the center of our lives for the past year. Yet even though we had been through so much we had all agreed to live a somewhat normal life now that Lyoko was shut down. There was little possibility that we would be able to go back after what happened, and it wasn't like there was any reason that we would want to... Now all we had left to do was find anything that we might have left in the factory and remove it. There was no chance that we wanted anyone finding out that we had been there and looking for us. That would create too many uncomfortable questions, and none of us wanted to answer them.
I found the others waiting for me in the courtyard; they were, of course, sitting on our favorite bench. I waved and ran to them, throwing my breath, and catching it as I got there. They greeted me and we set off for the factory. This time we had decided to take the main road; we had already taken our skateboards from beneath the school grounds. Besides, it was a weekend and if we were questioned we could simply say that we were taking a walk...
"So, Odd, did you ever get your skateboard new wheels?" I asked bringing up conversation and breaking the silence.
"What?" he wondered for a moment, then remembered what an event back on the ghost channel. "Oh, yeah, no, he never returned my call, can't imagine why..."
We all laughed. Good. This was something that we all needed, to laugh and be happy again. It had been a tough week for all of us. I had been half expecting some demolition equipment to suddenly drive themselves to my house one night and tear the place down. I know that Ulrich had been worried about any special liquids that were lying around... and Odd had been looking suspiciously at all of his CD players. Needless to say we weren't yet ready to accept that it was finally over, but the worst of us all was Jeremie. I could tell that he was in denial, and it didn't take a telepath to see it either. He didn't mention Aelita or Lyoko at all when around us, and yet he didn't seem nearly as hurt as he had the first few days...
We rounded a corner and saw a construction sign, and walked past it barely giving it a second thought. Construction was common in this part of town; it was the industrial part of Paris after all. Though, I never did understand why they had a school so close to the factories...
"Oh, god." Ulrich moaned.
I looked around to see what he was talking about and nearly swore myself. We had been walking not a block from the factory when we had passed the construction sign, and yet we had given it no thought. Now we realized what it meant... the factory had been bought, and was being rebuilt. The entire top part of the factory was gone and I couldn't see anything of the bottom to tell if they had somehow missed the three other rooms.
"G's Artificial Systems and Nanotech." Jeremie read. "Well, it would appear that the factory has been bought."
"I guess Lyoko was shut down just in time then, huh?" Odd asked.
This time no one laughed.
I simply couldn't believe that the factory had been bought, and that it had been destroyed. The factory was gone and now all Yumi, Odd, Jeremie and I could do was gawk in bitter astonishment and fear. What had they seen, had they found X.A.N.A. and Lyoko, had they turned the supercomputer back on, had they destroyed the entire place without even looking in it, or worse, had they found some hint that we had been there... We were in a dangerous position now, almost more so than we had ever been with X.A.N.A. If the construction team had found some hint of what had been going on there, or even that children had once been in it on a regular basis, then no matter what they thought they might come looking for us.
I wasn't exactly sure what they would do when they found us, but I guessed that would all depend on what exactly they found. If they had found Xanadu, the supercomputer, and not turned it on, and had found hints that we were there, then they might come and ask us about it. On the other hand they could have found Jeremie's notes and figured out what they had found... that could be worse than any other possibility. The name sounded English, and the sign had a sense of America about it, without stating it right off... but no matter who it was if they decided that Xanadu could be used as a weapon, well the world would be in some serious trouble.
"I want to see my father." I heard a boy's voice say from somewhere near by.
I shook myself out of my daze and looked around. There was a boy, about Yumi's height, and probably Odd's age, standing at the gate of the construction sight. He had short raven black hair and he was wearing a green sweatshirt and red sweat pants, which meant that he was probably color blind or he had no fashion sense... He had spoken in English, and it had been American English so I assumed that he must be American. I wasn't very good at telling a person's character by their posture but at this moment the person that he reminded me the most of was Sissi, on a bad day.
"Ok, Tobias." The guard said and opened the gate.
Before walking into the construction sight Tobias turned around and looked at us. It felt as though he were looking at each of us directly, but he did it so quickly that she had disappeared into the construction sight as quickly as I blinked. As he disappeared out of sight I suddenly felt a deep rage. He had an air of arrogance that I had never seen before; it was as if he literally owned all of France... But like I said before, I am not a very good judge of character.
We headed back to the school; there was nothing left for us here. Who ever it was who had destroyed the factory wouldn't allow a group of children into it, or at least not ones that weren't related to who ever it was. If they had found anything about us they would come looking for us, and if it was necessary for us to do anything about it we could deal with it then. But until then we could rest and live life as we... well, as we had been told to, normally. And I guess that this was the end of our heroics, for now anyway.
---
When we arrived at the school we found most of the other students outside. It wasn't a surprise really, it was getting onto summer and it was nice outside. I suspected that some of them were still inside; unfortunately even at our school there were some kids who were really considered outcasts. It wasn't fair to them, but we had tried to do something about it. Anyway, without the constant threat of a X.A.N.A. attack we had to find something to do.
"Well?" Odd asked.
"Well what?" Yumi answered.
"What now?" I asked.
Yumi looked at Odd and then at me confused, then bewildered, and then finally her expression turned to sadness. "I don't know..."
"We could study..." Jeremie suggested.
We all looked at him and surprised and Odd snickered.
"What?" Jeremie asked.
"When have you ever needed to study?" Odd asked. "Don't you mean that we could study and you could watch us?"
"Uh... well, I could help." He suggested.
"That might be nice." Yumi said. "I needed to bring my grades up."
Suddenly I heard my name being spoken somewhere near by. I listened in and heard the person say, "Yeah, he is over there."
I turned around and looked where I had heard the voice. One of the other students was pointing at me and a Woman of about thirty was walking towards us. She had long hair that was a mix of brown, blond and red, and she was wearing dark green, blue and light blue. She was wearing a business suit, and on it was a logo that I had seen on the sign on the outside of the factory. Something like an eye...
"What's the matter Ulrich?" Yumi said behind me.
"Hello," the woman said. "You four seem to be very popular among the other students."
Her voice had an accent to it. I wasn't quite able to tell what it was, but I knew that it was there and I felt as though I had heard it just a half hour ago. I thought about it for a second and then realized that she sounded as though English were her native language, yet she spoke French as well as any of us did.
"Who are you?" Yumi asked a hint of dislike in her voice.
"My name is Alyssa." She replied. "I am here on behalf of a company that will be opening up in this city fairly shortly. You see we found some things that I believe are yours."
The woman held up a photo and I felt a sudden wave of shock. It was a photo of the four of us, but Aelita was in it as well. I felt a sudden rush of dread run through me, where had she found that, who was she, and what did she know? It was possible that she had simply found the photo lying around, but that wasn't likely. It was also possible that she had found it at the factory, and that was more likely, but then the question was how? Did a relative work at the new construction sight?
"Um," Alyssa said addressing us. "My associate bought the factory that is on the little island in the river, you four know the one, I assume... It took him a long time, did you know that the factory was a landmark. Thought to be a national treasure by some people. Well, when he finally convinced the government that it wasn't, and that the papers stating that it was were fake, he bought the land and they started taking down the deserted factory. But before he did so he wanted to make sure that nothing of value was left inside and had the place thoroughly searched. When doing so the people doing the searching found a few things that were very strange. First they found evidence that the factory had been recently used, not for work but by people having been there. The second thing was that there was an elevator that was locked..." she paused looking at how this news affected us, but none of us said anything. "Well, when we finally removed the elevator and got a team down the empty shaft we found three rooms, after breaking through three blast doors. The top room seemed to contain a large computer terminal with a holographic sphere. The second room seemed to contain three tubes that we couldn't identify but that seemed to be large enough for a person to enter from a door on one side. The final room seemed to contain a supercomputer which had been turned off recently."
She paused again and took off the bag that she had been wearing around her shoulder. She then opened it and took out a number of things, one of which I recognized as the notes that Jeremie had taken on how Lyoko worked. Placing these things on the ground between us she showed us, I assumed, all that had been found in the factory.
"After reading that book they discovered what most of the things were for. Lyoko, X.A.N.A., all of it, yet when they reactivated the supercomputer nothing worked. They tried everything that they could think of to restart the computer and the electronics but it seemed that everything had been destroyed by some powerful virus. After that they declared the 'Lyoko' to be a lost cause and decided to destroy the entire thing. I was asked to give you these." She pointed to the objects on the ground. "And to thank you for what you did for your country and our world. We know what you lost and we are sorry, but there is... nothing... that can be done now." She put her backpack on. "I hope you can move on and live a happy life... even though you have lost so much." I suddenly realized that she was talking to Jeremie now. "But since nothing can be done for Lyoko, or any of it, well, you should all try and live... simply have a 'normal' life."
The woman began walking away, but suddenly turned around and said, "Oh, and my associates children will be joining this school soon. I hope you will welcome them." Then she left.
"Well, what do we do now?" I wondered.
"Be grateful that they didn't demand to know more, didn't take us away, didn't force us to show them how to use Lyoko, or anything else that they could have done..." Jeremie said. "Simply be grateful and live a 'normal' life..."
I turned around and saw him quivering. Jeremie was quivering; tears running down his face. I could see and feel his pain, and I knew that he had been holding it all in ever since that day... I wanted to do something for him but there was nothing that I could do. If only there were a way to bring Aelita back.