Chapter 13 Peril rears its ugly head

Hope left Dr. Gibson's office, silently furious and clenching her teeth. She held the transfer papers to her side, along with an extra set she had reluctantly taken. It wasn't easy getting transferred. Gibson was extremely against the idea, as well as surprised and suspicious.
Of course, there's still one more thing to do—get the hardware for Vince, she thought to herself. Hope walked through a procession of teenaged male guards, shoving them out of the way like trivial vermin. They merely glared at her maliciously; she smirked at them. Feeling defiant, Hope decided to add to the show. She spun on her heel, put her open hands up to the side of her face, and let out long, slobbery phbbbbt! Just then, she heard someone clear their throat.
"Ms. Jamison," came a familiar voice. Hope instantly faced him.
"Patterson."
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, like a chiding father. Hope almost burst out laughing. She placed her hands on her hips.
"Oh, nothing at all, Patterson, sir. I merely thought these nasty boys were being bad and needed to be put in their place." she spat out the last words through her teeth. Patterson's face turned red with anger. He pursed his lips, almost quaking with absolute fury.
"Now listen here, little girl."
"Don't you dare call me a little girl, you snake. Now, I suggest you leave and go back to your pathetic little 'executive office' and do whatever the hell it is you do. Doctor's orders."
Before Patterson blew his top off, he turned and marched angrily around a corner. The boys were at a standing still with wide eyes, shocked beyond belief.
Hope quickly left, looking for a certain someone. Before long, she ran into exactly who she was looking for.
"Hello, sister," said another girl about the same age as Hope, with the same curly dark brown hair as Hope, the same brown eyes as Hope, and she was also the same height as Hope. The only difference between the two was the colors of their uniforms. The girl put her hands on her hips. Apparently, she had the same attitude as Hope.
"Hi, Gina." Hope said with a wide grin on her face.
"What's that there?" she asked, indicating the papers that had fluttered all over the hallway.
"…Gina… Gigi. Sis." Hope started to say with a sweet voice and an innocent look on her face.
"Oh, God. What have you gotten yourself into now?" Gina asked. She knew that Hope NEVER called her Gigi unless she was in trouble.
"I need a favor."
"It wouldn't have anything to do with Project L, would it?"
"Sis…"
"Oh, GOD!"
"Gigi! I really need your help!"
"NO! No, no, no, no! Do you know what d—" Hope slapped a hand over her twin sister's mouth. She shushed her sternly.
"GET OFF!" Gina grabbed hold of her and twisted her arm. When she let go, her sister fell helplessly to the ground. Hope looked up at her, her face twisted into a frantic "PLEASE?".
"Oh… alright. What?"
"I need you to help me to get into Storage, and I need a couple files for Vince."
"You've got HIM in on this too?"
"It's really important." Gina stared into her sister's eyes. There was something she was hiding. Ah, of course.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"As if you haven't asked enough," Hope replied, looking around to see if a guard was eavesdropping.
"Is there something more that you haven't told me?"
"…"
"It's that Della Robbia kid isn't it?"
"Shut up."
"Wow. You really are in some deep doo-doo. Come on. I think I know a way we can get into Storage."

A boy sat leaning in a dark room, in front of a large computer, strumming his fingers on the desk. He had yellow tags of paper with all kinds of equations and quickly scribed notes all over his desk. He opened a voice recorder.
"Log. Right now, it's still all theory. No one knows how to transfer someone into a virtual world without being transferred through a scanner. In fact, until about a year and a half ago, only one man knew how to transfer anyone at all. I need to find out the secret to the "Materialization concept" back at EMPIRE, so I can try and reverse it. And wait for Hope to come with the tech for it," he spoke into a microphone. He stopped the recording. Who knew, maybe someday he'd be famous. There could be a book or something that had these logs in them. So he kept making them.
That kid, Ulrich Stern. He had called earlier. Vince chuckled; he remembered how the boy was trying to act like he was with EMPIRE. Vince had played along, to make him think that he was actually doing something, when in reality Vince knew who he was not long after they started talking. It was so easy—Vince hated it. He hated playing the smart versus the stupid. He just wished he didn't know everything to fast.
But, the question is… why did he call? Hope must've explained who I was, so he had no reason to use her cell phone to call me back… Vince scratched his chin, and took a sip of the bottle of water he had in front of him. Then he frowned contemplatively. Unless…
Vince shook his head, and went back to work.

Hope and Gina stood back to back, in defensive stances, as five guards lay unconscious around them. Gina shoved a box with a bunch of chips, wires, computer parts, and a disc with files from EMPIRE's special-access only database.
"Go! Run!" she shouted. Hope took off heading down the bridge, looking back behind her. "I hope I see you again!"
"Me too!"

"Ulrich, darling," Sissi asked, looking down at her nails as she was filing them, sitting in the back seat next to Ulrich; he was slumping in the seat with grim exasperation. He turned his neck, slowly and painfully, with gritted teeth and a look that suggested that he would much like to kill himself.
"What?"
"Why do you always hang out with Yumi and those losers?"
"Because," he said in a strained voice, "they're my friends. You've heard of that idea before, haven't you?"
Sissi giggled. "Don't be silly, Ulrich."
"So, you haven't?" She giggled again.
"You're funny," she said, as she looked at him fondly. Ulrich was beginning to feel even more uncomfortable. Sissi was starting to act really weird. She stopped filing her nails and focused all her attention on him. She turned so that she was directly facing him. She then leaned closer, staring into his eyes.
"S-Sissi…" Ulrich stammered, beginning to blush furiously. Just as it seemed Sissi was about to go in for the kill, the car door opened.
"Um… excuse me, am I interrupting something?" Hope asked, looking from Sissi to Ulrich. He scrambled away from a surprised Sissi, and sat on the seat with his knees up to his head and covering his extremely red face with his hands. Hope closed the door and then climbed into the driver's seat. "I think I'll do you two a favor and forget this ever happened."
Sissi looked worriedly at Ulrich, who was still burying his face like an ostrich. The car's engine started and Hope began to drive it out of the parking lot.
"We've got to get out of the country like, now, so I'm about to break a few traffic laws. Err, when you guys get your driver's license, DON'T do anything like I'm about to do right now," Hope called from up front. "Buckle up."
She then slammed on the gas and the car propelled forward. There was practically no traffic since it was rather late at night and people were scared out of their wits because of the monsters marching around. One might say that the ride was similar to a rocket-powered roller coaster on steroids; the car jerking around corners and dodging debris from the monsters' rampage. Hope finally swerved onto the Autoroute and gave the car all she had, heading on a direct course for the airport.

"You still can't reach him?" Aelita asked from a bench. Jeremie was standing up, pacing back and forth in front of her bench, trying to contact Ulrich from his cell phone. He sighed, hung up, and sank onto the bench next to Aelita, who blushed momentarily.
"No. I think he might've turned it off after Odd called the first time," Jeremie replied. He glanced over to the food court, where Odd had ordered French fries for him and Yumi, in an effort to console her. He was stuffing his face of course, but Yumi merely swirled the same French fry in ketchup for ten minutes. (Now, I'm not saying that French fries really are French—they're just convenient right now.)
"Odd…" Yumi said, looking up from her now soaking wet French fry.
"Mm?" was all Odd could muster.
"Odd!"
"Wha?"
"Stop eating like that! People are starting to stare!" Odd swallowed.
"Well then you're lucky Aelita wasn't hungry. She's worse than me!" he said as if that was a good enough reason. Yumi groaned and went back to her fry. Jeremie and Aelita had walked over to the table and now were trying to relax, but they were still too nervous. Jeremie looked at his ticket, and then at the clock.
"They'd better hurry up," he said. "Our flight leaves in only a few minutes. Let's go to the waiting area at the gate."
Jeremie stood up, and Aelita and Odd followed suit. Yumi hesitated.
"Wait. Maybe we should stay…"
"No, Ulrich has a ticket too. They'd be able to find us."
"Are you sure?"
"It's OK, really, Yumi. Come on, we've got to go or we'll never get out of here." Jeremie reassuringly patted her on the back and smiled. Yumi sighed and got up. Since they'd already gone through the security, it wasn't far to get to the waiting area for Gate 5 (A/N: Haven't been to an airport in YEARS… still don't know how it works….).
Things were going a little bit more smoothly. Everyone had their tickets and Odd was full—well, at least for the moment. Ulrich and Hope were sure to show up soon. Yumi was even feeling a bit more optimistic. They were walking fairly cheerfully; Jeremie was trying to teach Aelita to whistle, and they were nearing the gate area, when it happened. First, the group started hearing faint rumbling, and immediately froze as if they'd been hit with a block's Ice Shot in Lyoko. No one breathed. The PA system crackled to life.
"Everyone please evacuate the area immediately. The capital has just been under attack, and it has been advised that—hey!" A man's voice echoed through the now frightfully silent airport. Sounds of what seemed like a struggle followed, and then a chair scraping on the floor, indicating that someone had just sat down.
"I'm pleased to inform you that the country is no longer in control of the President," a sickeningly familiar, sinister voice poisoned the gang to the very core with utter horror. "The EMPIRE has just recently seized power over France and this airport. Let it be known that no flights are to leave until further notice."
Everyone in the airport stood still in shock. The kids were in worse condition. Aelita had sunken to her knees, Yumi was crying emphatically, and Jeremie stood rigid, unable to move.
"Please remain calm," Dr. Gibson said, and Odd could just see the evil man just smile in that little room. Of course, no one listened. It was like a sudden animal-like madness had fallen over the airport. People were screaming, running everywhere like frantic mice. Some people saw this as an opportunity to raid the cash registers at the food places, steal women's purses, break windows, and just generally cause trouble. And no one saw, in the midst of all the terrible commotion, four teenagers running past the unattended Gate 5.