Author's Note: Hello, my lovely readers! It's been a while because finals have been, well, lets say it as an understatement: challenging. But I passed them all, so I'm not banned from for eternity. I think I couldn't survive without this site. Anyway, thank you all my reviewers! You guys rock house, as always. This chapter is, I think, the best one so far in terms of content. It really steps up the story. And the cliffhanger is so huge at the end, I almost feel sorry for you guys, but you'll live, like you've lived from my other cliffhangers. T3h OnE aNd OnLy, thanks for the compliment! I feel so loved! Of course I'm a hardcore UxY fan. It can go no other way. As for everyone else? Just read and review! You are never forgotten! At this very moment, I'm talking to my friend online and telling him how great you guys are. You make my day and hopefully I'll make yours with this new chapter! ENJOY!

"And so they answered our emails. Now what?"

The five of them were sitting around in Cynthia's room after school the same day. Ian was playing with a slinky he had acquired somewhere. Lori was watching the slinky intently, her eyes darting around. Charlie had posed the question. Angela stared at the floor, bored beyond imagining. She just wanted to go back to that lab room. She was itching to see what it really was.

Cynthia, however, seemed very pleased with the prospect of the emails being answered. She leaned forward, as if she was about to divulge to them a secret. She looked at the moment as if she knew everything. "We wait for them in the lab room."

"But they don't have the code," Lori interjected.

Cynthia leaned back into her chair and swiveled around to grab a pen and a piece of paper. Then she stood up and started for the door. She twisted her head to look back at the rest of them, a signal for them to get up and follow her. "No problem," she said with a grin and opened the door.

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Jeremie, Aelita, Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd walked quietly and orderly through the park, each thinking their own thoughts, not caring to share. They reached the manhole and filed down into the tunnel smoothly, their actions so familiar that it didn't even cause them to think.

Yumi's impatience grew as they trudged through the smelly sewer. What were they doing? Were they playing some stupid kids game? A prank? She tried to dismiss that immediately, but it still lingered in her mind. They know too much. It can't be. But then she thought back to the times when Jim was the victim of their many jokes. She thought it best to keep every possibility in mind.

Her heart palpitated as they all squeezed into the elevator. It started going down, its gears making an awful lot of noise, more noise than Yumi would have liked to emit. For some reason, she felt like she was going into a war, where every one of her advantages had best be kept in use. Giving their motives away was too big of a risk. She realized, however, that there was nothing she could do about keeping their motives a mystery. The kids had already anticipated them. She watched as Jeremie plucked the note that was wedged into the keypad for the code. They all crowded around him as he read it out loud.

"'You are familiar with the Fibonacci numbers, I assume.'"

Yumi was stumped. What are these kids playing at? Are they trying to recreate The Da Vinci Code, cause they are doing a pretty bad job if they are. She looked up at Jeremie, and was surprised to find a puzzled expression on his face.

Apparently, even Odd got the gist of the note. "What are you waiting for, Einstein?" he asked, resorting to his old nickname for Jeremie. "The meaning of life to appear before you?"

Jeremie glared at Odd. Yumi almost laughed to see that Jeremie's glares weren't out of practice yet. However, Jeremie's voice was grave, except for the slight annoyance in the first sentence. "No, Odd. I'm thinking."

"But you know what the Fibonacci numbers are," Aelita coaxed gently, placing a hand softly on Jeremie's arm.

"Yes, I know I know the Fibonacci numbers, Aelita. It's just…its too easy."

There's a reason why Jeremie's called Einstein, that's for sure. Yumi looked around and found that everyone had made the same mistake as her. They had taken what they had been given and not bothered looking outside the box. Now that she thought about it, it was too easy.

"Well, still it doesn't hurt to try," Ulrich pointed out, glancing at the keypad apprehensively, as if it could turn into one of Xana's monster's any minute.

"True, and that's exactly what I'm planning on doing." Jeremie strode over to the keypad. Then he took a deep breath and typed in the Fibonacci sequence all the way up to 13, to the point where the code's amount of figures had reached it's maximum. Jeremie then stepped back and everyone waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

"Damn it!" Odd cursed, looking as if he needed those Xana monsters to take his anger upon. "Can you believe this? We are being outsmarted by a bunch of lousy kids!"

A muffled voice suddenly spoke from the other side of the door. "We heard that." Then there was silence.

The group still stuck in the elevator froze. Then Odd reacted again. "Okay, so now they are listening to us? That's not cool!"

"Shut up, Odd!" Jeremie said firmly, more firmly than the group had ever heard him speak before. "We're not going to figure anything out with you yammering around with the people on the other side of this door. Now, let's see."

Jeremie then promptly sat down on the elevator floor, cross-legged and looking like a kindergartener waiting for story time. Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd shrugged at each other and then decided to follow suit.

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Except for Cynthia, everyone had a smile on their face in the computer room. The other four were busy congratulating themselves for their brilliant smart aleck remark to the people on the other side of the door. Cynthia was getting a bit fed up with the smug, knowing smiles getting passed around the room. When someone tried to pass her one, it died before it got within ten feet of her radius. She was frustrated and the little flitting smiles were not helping.

She turned her attention back to the computer. What was on the screen wasn't confusing; in fact she seemed to be getting all of it, a fact that surprised her greatly. What she wanted to know was what the program was supposed to do, and that wasn't revealing itself without a fight.

She poked around absently at a few things with her mouse and then jabbed at a few keys on the keyboard. The computer screen rearranged a few windows for her. Fabulous.

She heard clicking going on back on the other side of the closed door. When the door sighed but did not open, she turned back to the computer screen, hoping that the second when she had turned away had changed something. Every pixel blinked back at her, still the same as before. She huffed out a small puff of air and placed her chin in her cupped hand. Then the elbow went to find something to rest on. She accidentally settled on some random keys on the keyboard.

The screen immediately went berserk and a harsh crackling sound could be heard through a communicator that was hung onto the side of the screen at the top. Cynthia looked up, puzzled. She hadn't noticed it before but now that she had she wasted no time in getting it in her possession. The crackling sound was still going, though, so she frantically clicked on a few things on the screen, hoping that it would reduce the volume to where she could put the communicator on without blowing out her eardrums.

Then she clicked on something and a new window popped up. The area inside the window was blurry and out of focus, but full of color. This is good, she thought, not the usual black and green.

The crackling had attracted the other four as well. They all came and crowded around the chair Cynthia was sitting in, gazing at the same window she was looking at. The colors shifted positions constantly, as if they were changing directions. Then a vague figure's silhouette came into view, a blob of darker shades. Then the crackling dimmed as a choppy voice could be heard.

"Hello…is anyone…hello…anyone there…?"

Cynthia immediately snapped on the communicator, adjusting the microphone. "Yes? Hello? We can hear you! I think we can see you too. Speak again!"

The other four's looks were now mixes of fear and wonder. Lori hoped beyond hope that they weren't talking to some psychotic freak that was trying to mess with their brains.

The figure came more into focus. The five that were staring intently could make out the difference between the figure and the surroundings, which were flashing past in a whir of color. The figure's details could still not be seen, but the voice came again.

"Hello…you…help me…please…AH!"

Cynthia jumped as the exclamation rang loud in her ear. The other four winced also, as if the sound waves had pierced their eardrums sharply as well.

Then the doors to the room slid open and five very grumpy looking grown ups stared directly into the faces of the five new youngsters.