Warning: Rated for language, violence and references to adult behavior.

The main characters of this story are based on characters from the cartoon 'Code Lyoko.' I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.

In Jeremie's dreams, The Demon came for him again.

He was in a room somewhere, hiding behind a desk, Aelita beside him. Jeanie Wilkerson and Herve were with them too. Jeanie and Herve were pressing their hands into Cpl. Coffy's side and chest, trying to stop the rivers of blood pouring from the wounds he had there. In front of Jeremie, protecting all of them, was GySgt. Ann Grace.

Then The Demon came.

It burst into the room and spouted fire all around. Ann responded with fire of her own. She stood before it, firing her pistol directly into The Demon's body. Over and over she fired, until the slide locked back.

It waited until she had emptied her gun, then flung the desk off to one side. With another sweep of its hand, it knocked the gun out of her hands, then grabbed Ann Grace by the hair, lifting her off the ground.

Ann shouted as she struggled in the Demon's grip, "Fire, Jeremie! Protect Them! You Can Do It!"

Jeremie looked down and saw something in his hands, a gun like hers.

"But I don't know how to use it!" he cried in anguish.

The Demon turned to Jeremie, Ann dangling from its grip, and said, this is the price you pay for your deeds!

It then took its claws and tore Ann's heart from her chest, killing her. It then turned towards the others.

"NO!"

Jeremie awoke and sat bolt upright in bed.

It took him a moment, but he realized that he was in his own bed at school. The room was dark. He sat up, put his glasses back on and looked at the clock. It read 3:30 am.

Great, that's the fourth straight night! the boy thought to himself. It was the Wednesday after the weekend at the air base. That Sunday night was the first time he had this nightmare.

At first, Jeremie put it off to nerves, maybe an echo of the attack on Aelita and him months ago. He remembered having a similar dream in the hospital, one that actually started him down the path to Taylor Thompson and friends.

He also thought that it might be a reaction to the news that MGySgt. Thompson wouldn't be coming by to coach them any more. He explained that Jeremie reached the point to where he could train on his own a long time ago, and maybe it would be better if he did. Jeremie said okay, but was disappointed they wouldn't be spending any more time together.

Yesterday, Jeremie talked to the school psychologist about the dream, but didn't really get any answers or help from that quarter. All he got were platitudes.

God, what are You trying to tell me? Jeremie thought to himself as he removed his glasses and settled back to sleep.

The next afternoon, Jeremie was moping, a highly unusual event. The dream still bothered him, and there was no where he could go for help. Sissi and Odd were off in the woods together, Ulrich and Yumi had gone into town, and Aelita was working at her uncle's office this afternoon. He had plopped himself down on a bench on the campus, and stared out at the world.

"Care to show a girl a good time?"

Jeremie looked around and saw Ann Grace standing beside him. She was dressed in civilian clothes and smiling down at him.

"How ya doin' kid?" she said, "you're so distracted, if I was a snake, I could have crept up and bit you."

"Hi, Gunny Grace," Jeremie replied, "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Well, just because Taylor can't see you any more doesn't mean I can't," she said, "I'm heading Jeanie's Protective Detail now, and she still comes by to see Herve."

She pointed across the campus to Jeanie Wilkerson and Herve sitting under a tree talking. At a discreet distance, two men were watching both Jeanie and everybody else.

"So, what's up? Why are you so glum?"

"Nothing, really," he replied.

"Bull. You are probably one of the most upbeat people I've ever met, other than that Della Robbia character. 'Fess up."

"You'll think it's stupid."

"Try me."

"I've been dreaming about you."

She snorted. "You and every other red-blooded straight man in the world. Sorry to break the news to you, but I'm officially Off The Market."

Jeremie blushed. "I didn't mean it that way. Ever since the weekend, I've been having the same nightmare over and over. A monster is coming to get us and you're standing there, shooting at it until you empty your gun. Then it picks you up and kills you, before killing everyone else."

"Ick. I think I would have preferred strawberries and chocolate syrup myself."

Jeremie got a confused look on his face for a second, then blushed again. "The worst part of it was, I was holding a gun in my hands, but I couldn't use it. You were yelling at me to shoot it and protect them, but I couldn't."

"Jeremie, are you trying to ask me something?" the woman said.

"I don't know. What do you think I'm asking you?"

"How to use a gun," she replied.

Jeremie was silent. When she said those words, something clicked in his mind. The nightmare was a message, a warning. Prepare.

"Maybe I am," he replied after a moment.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you are too young," she said, "because you're a French citizen. Because you're not my child, and I don't know what your parents would say when they found out. And they will find out, Jeremie. Doing that would definitely get me court marshaled, and could land you in trouble, too. I'm not familiar with French gun control laws, so just possessing a weapon could get you in more trouble than you're ready to handle. No, full stop, period."

"Ann, Jeanie and Herve were there, too. Sanka was there, and he was dying."

"Jeremie, it was just a dream."

"Dreams can be more than dreams to my friends and me," he replied.

The dream returned again that night. This time, as he was sitting up recovering from it, his cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Noon, tomorrow, at the school gates," said a feminine voice. The call ended.

Then next day, Jeremie had to forego a little 'quality' time with Aelita to make his rendezvous.

He got to the school gates and waited. Soon, a car pulled up and the passenger door opened.

"Get in," said the driver.

Jeremie got in the car, and it left.

Jeremie looked at the driver. It was a man he had never seen before. "Who are you?" he asked. The man didn't reply.

The drove out of the city and into the country. After a while, the car turned off on a lonely country road. The man drove a little ways to another road. There, he stopped.

"This is your stop," he said. He handed Jeremie something and said, "these are your instructions." He then sat and waited for Jeremie to leave.

Jeremie, bewildered by the sequence of events, got out of the car. As soon as he closed the door, the man drove off.

Standing alone at the side of the road, Jeremie looked at what the man gave him. It was a note. He opened it and read:

Go up the drive to the house. Tell the man there that you're with 'Blueboy.' He will bring you to me. Do not talk with anyone else there. If you are asked something, say 'I can't talk about that.' Don't look too closely at anyone else there. Don't look too interested in anything you see. If anybody asks who you are, say 'Napoleon.'

Right now, you are in more danger than you realize. NEVER tell anyone about today. If you do, you won't live to see the morning, I'm not kidding, Jeremie, you won't.

Remember, 'Blueboy.' You are 'Napoleon.'

Eat this note.

Seriously, Jeremie, eat this note, it's designed to be digested.

Ann

He stared a the note, for a moment, then ate it. It didn't taste all that bad. He turned and walked up the road.

At the other end was a house, he walked up, and was suddenly confronted by a man.

"Can I help you, son?"

"Ah, yes sir, I'm with Blueboy?"

The man looked at him for a moment, the shrugged. "This way," he said, motioning for Jeremie to follow him.

They walked through the house and out the back door. There, were about twelve men standing about. Jeremie remembered what the note said and tried not to stare too intently at his surroundings.

"What's your name, son?" said another man, suddenly.

"Napoleon."

"Oh, the last minute student. Okay, follow me."

Jeremie followed this man out into the field. They walked about a half kilometer until they came to a makeshift target range. There was one person already there, Ann Grace. The man pointed at her and he walked on by himself.

When he got to her, he said, "Ann, what's this..." She suddenly put her hand over his mouth.

"Shut up and listen," she whispered, "I am violating so many laws by having you here it's not funny! We are someplace that does not exist, doing something that the United States does not do. If anybody gets even a hint that you're not supposed to be here, they'll never find either of our bodies."

She removed her hand from his mouth then said in a normal voice, "you are here today to learn the rudiments of using a handgun. By the end of this session, you should be able to operate the weapon, fire it at your target with a reasonable expectation of hitting it, and know some of the common misfires that can occur. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then let's begin."

Ann spent the rest of the afternoon taking Jeremie through the Manual Of Arms for the Beretta 9mm semi-automatic handgun. He learned how to safe the weapon. He learned how to field-strip it, and how to reassemble it. He learned how to load it. And he learned how to fire it. Finally, they finished.

She whispered once again, "okay, we're done. I won't do this again, Jeremie. If you think you need to learn more, talk to your father. Now, what I want you to do is head down the field to the woods there," she pointed away from the house he came from, "and you'll come down to the road. Stay out of sight, and I'll pick you up in a little while."

Jeremie nodded and left. As he reached the woodline, he heard two shots from the makeshift target range behind him, then a third. I guess Ann is getting a little practice in for herself, Jeremie thought.

Just inside the woods, he saw a mound of freshly dug dirt. He wondered for a moment what that was, then put it out of his mind. He walked through the woods for about fifteen minutes before he came to the road. He found some bushes that could conceal him and sat down.

An hour later, a car, driven by Ann, pulled up and the passenger door opened. He jumped up and ran to get car and got in. They drove off.

"Jeremie, I meant what I said, no one must ever know this happened, not even your father," she told the boy, "if anybody ever asks you about us and today, lie your ass off. Saying we were off having a roll in the hay is a more acceptable answer."

Jeremie blushed at that.

"I'm not kidding. I would rather be booted out for sexual misconduct with a minor than treason. And what happened back there would be considered treason, if I even got to trial."

"Why," he asked, "what was going on there?"

"It's a safe house. One that covert personnel use. Right now, it's being used to train people to shoot for some kind of something."

"You don't know or you can't say?"

"Both. Look, I've been known to drop off the face of the earth every now and then, and people like that have gotten various forms of firearms training. Anyway, I knew this was coming up, so I included you in the class. I won't do it again."

Why? Couldn't I just show up there and say I'm Napoleon again?"

"NO! Don't every say that!" the woman exclaimed, stopping the car. She composed herself, pulled the car over to the side of the road, then continued, "Napoleon is a code word. It's given to a covert operative we know has been compromised. Napoleon never leaves that safe house once he gets there."

Suddenly, the mound in the woods and the gunshots made sense to Jeremie.

"You mean... you... killed someone?"

The woman was silent for a moment. "Look, Jeremie, that person was dead the moment he got the Napoleon codeword. I happen to know that he compromised a contact we had in Syria. The contact and his family were killed in a very gruesome manner. It was going to happen, no matter what. I just moved up the timetable so you could come out. You have to understand something; people like Taylor, Sanka, Gomer and me are very dangerous people. Yeah, we joke around and act like idiots sometimes, but we also do things like this, and we don't lose a wink of sleep at night over it. Every nation has people like us, people who will do whatever it takes to protect their country."

Jeremie was silent for a while. "I understand, a little. I'm sorry, Ann, for putting you through this. But if this was so dangerous, why did you do it?"

"Because, Jeremie, I have dreams too."

That night, Jeremie dreamed of being back at the target range, listening to Ann Grace's lecture on using a handgun. He remembered each word she said, etching it into his mind, almost his soul. He remembered the feel of his stance as he readied himself to fire at the target. He memorized how the target looked in the sights of the pistol. He remembered the kick of the weapon as it discharged, hitting the target where he aimed it, the center of the body.

He remembered everything about that afternoon. He replayed it over and over, all night in his dreams. There was an extra urgency to his thoughts now.

Every night, he would replay the training session in his dreams, trying to draw significance out of every moment he spent there. Beyond retaining the training he received there, there was another reason Jeremie revisited that afternoon.

He also remembered the faceless person standing at the woodline, watching him, the person buried in the mound he saw.

The person that paid the price of his admission.

To Be Continued...