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.
Jeremie sat on the bench at his and Aelita's 'spot,' the place they always came to be together for a while. Since the fight over Zoe, he had come here alone, because it was just as good a spot to sit and think as it was to sit and snuggle.
Maybe I went too far, helping Zoe like that, the genius thought to himself, maybe I should have deleted it after Franz got his body. It made no bones about the fact that it took her memories, and didn't apologize for it. As far as Zoe knew, what it did wasn't wrong. You would still destroy an animal that was threatening people, even though it didn't think anything about it; why should this be any different?
Jeremie was snapped out of his reverie by her scent. Jeremie closed his eyes and drew it in, the scent of Life Itself.
I think she's trying to sneak up on me, he thought, maybe she has an ax; she's certainly been mad enough the last few days.
He didn't move however, didn't open his eyes. He let her come, let her think she had the element of surprise.
She was now close enough that he could sense her body. She is trying to sneak up on me. In his mind's eye, he could see her semi-crouched, stealthily moving forward. Her arms were cocked in preparation to grab him, for what purpose he could only guess. He could almost sense a smile or smirk on her lips as she crept up directly behind him. He opened his eyes and spoke just as her arms started to descend.
"I thought you were fine with the silence," he told her.
"How did you know it was me," Aelita said, surprised. She walked around the bench and joined him.
"I always know when it's you," he replied, "you are as much a part of me as my arms, and I always know where they are."
"Jeremie, I'm sorry about the last few days. I just have had trouble dealing with Zoe and what it is."
"I know love, and you don't have to apologize. I understand your feelings. If it helps any, don't think of Zoe as it is now, but what it will soon be."
"I went to the factory last night and spoke with Zoe," Aelita said, "and I gave it some of my genetic material. I can't say that I'll ever be totally comfortable around it, but I will try."
Jeremie drew the girl into his arms.
"I know you will," he said as he kissed her.
A week later, Zoe contacted Jeremie.
"I have completed the initial configuration of my new container," it said, "I would like to conduct a trial interaction to make sure it is functioning as I require. Could you or some of the others come to Lyoko and assist me?"
"Sure," Jeremie said, "we can also let Franz meet with Aelita. We've been putting that off for a while now, and I'm surprised he hasn't said or done anything."
"Yes, about Franz Hopper," Zoe said, then began telling Jeremie things it had observed. Jeremie listened intently.
When the Scyphozoa finished, Jeremie asked, "is there anything you can do about it?"
"No," was the reply, "even if I had the appropriate access rights, there is nothing I can do now. I was hoping you could do something, or could provide me with something I can use just in case."
"I don't want to jump to conclusions just yet," the boy replied, "but let me think about it a little. We will definitely do something before Aelita sets foot in Lyoko again."
That Sunday, the gang met at the factory. Ulrich, Yumi, Odd and Sissi were going to escort Aelita into Lyoko so she could visit with her father. Jeremie was working the console for this mission, with Desmond Hopper observing.
Jeremie transferred Ulrich and Odd to the Mountain Region first. For this trip, they would not be in their Lyoko fighting personas, but were materialized as themselves. Jeremie next transferred Yumi and Sissi, again as themselves. Finally, Jeremie transferred Aelita.
Aelita materialized in Lyoko in her Lyokoan form, When she landed, she looked at her friends, shook her head and smiled.
"It's so strange to see you like that here," she said.
"Yeah, it feels strange too," Odd commented, "hey Einstein, are you sure everything's okay?"
"Everything's okay, Odd," Jeremie reassured his friend, "I don't want Franz frightened by people with weapons. He's supposed to be safe here, right?"
"Okay," Odd said.
"Good. Franz is waiting bearing North Northeast. You should see him as soon as you top that ridge ahead."
They began walking and quickly came to the ridge top. They looked into the distance and saw three figures. One was unmistakable, a Scyphozoa. The other looked to be a man, but the third looked to be a woman!
"Jeremie, I thought you said that Franz Hopper and Zoe were the only ones here," Ulrich said.
"That's right, they are," Jeremie replied, "the woman is Zoe."
The gang, including Aelita looked at each other in wonder.
"The way Zoe explained it," Jeremie continued, "a female might be able to exert more influence over a male than another male could. And Franz might not so quickly reject a female than he might a male."
"I wonder where it got that idea," Ulrich said, mostly to himself.
"My mother, more than likely," Yumi told him, "and she's right."
She batted her eyes at him and gave him an evil smile. His face turned red.
"Well, let's go reunite the family," Sissi piped in, "and I think I'll take the opportunity to remind him of proper manners."
The group approached the three figures. As they did, the Scyphozoa drew away from the rest, until it was about 100 meters away from them.
"Mr. Hopper, we are the ones who helped you out," Yumi began, "I'm Yumi, this is Ulrich, Sissi, Odd and ..."
"Aelita!" cried Franz Hopper at seeing his daughter. He ran over to her, scooped her up in his arms and hugged her. She had a shocked look on her face for a moment, then embraced him back.
"It's been so long," he told her, still crying, "I thought I lost you those years ago! We'll never be parted again, now."
He had set her down now, but was still hugging her to himself. She returned his hug, rubbing and patting his back.
"It is good to see father and daughter reunited," said the woman. She had a sultry voice, one that got and held your attention. The gang looked at her, and Yumi gasped.
The woman looked almost exactly like her mother. She was wearing a light brown tunic that went to her knees, with grey trousers underneath. Her boots were soft leather looking things of an almost buckskin brown color. Her face had an oriental cast to it, and her hair was long and black. She wore it in a braid that draped down over her right shoulder. When she looked closer, Yumi saw it wasn't an exact copy of her mother, there were little features that must have come from some of the others. The last thing she noticed was the woman's skin was a light green, and she had pointed ears.
"You're a Vulcan!" she said to the woman.
The woman, Zoe, smiled. "Yes, I thought if would be a good idea to sufficiently differentiate myself from humans and my children. And your reaction was priceless."
While the others were concentrating on Zoe, Franz started leading Aelita towards one of the mountains.
"Now that you're here, princess, we can begin the life I meant for us to have those many years ago. Nothing can touch us here, and nobody can separate us," he told his daughter.
"But, Papa, I have a life in the real world now," Aelita replied, "and I want to experience it, all of it."
"But there is nothing but madness there," Franz said, "it's even worse now than before we came here. It's no place for someone as special as you."
"Even so, I still want to experience it, in all of its mad glory."
"You'll feel differently after a while, my dear," Franz said.
"What do you mean?" Aelita asked.
Franz didn't reply, he just looked at the others and said, "devirtualize males, now."
Odd and Ulrich disappeared.
"Papa, what did you do!"
"I'm making it safe for us, Aelita. Devirtualize females, now."
Sissi and Yumi disappeared.
"Shut down scanners. Delete dev, drivers, scanner. Delete materialization pattern Aelita. Delete materialization program Aelita."
The pink haired girl stood in shocked silence as her father continued.
"Delete Scyphozoa, delete Zoe."
Nothing happened.
"I'm afraid you haven't the access rights to delete me," Zoe told the man, "you also do not have the access rights to delete the drivers for the scanners, Aelita's materialization pattern or her materialization program."
"What did you do! Those files are owned by the administrator!" he bellowed.
"I did nothing, Jeremie did," Zoe replied.
"Mr. Hopper, I'm sorry," came Jeremie's voice out of thin air, "Zoe told me about some of the things you were doing, and trying to do in one of the towers. I couldn't stop you from devirtualizing the others, but I did stop the rest of it. Devirtualize Aelita."
Aelita vanished. Franz Hopper howled in frustration and rage.
"You will not keep me from my daughter, XANA! I will get her back!"
"Zoe," Jeremie said, "is everything else okay there?"
"Other than Franz raving, yes," was her reply.
"Can you take care of him now?"
"I am better equipped. Whether or not I will succeed is impossible to determine at this point."
"Do your best, and keep me informed," Jeremie said at last.
"That could have gone better," Jeremie said after they all had safely returned.
"That was the understatement of the year," Odd replied, "did I hear you right? You knew Franz was up to something and you let us go in anyway?"
"I knew the worst he could do to you was devirtualize you," Jeremie said, defending himself, "the device driver files for the scanners are always locked by the computer's operating system when they're activated, so all I had to do was prevent him from deactivating the scanners. And Aelita's files are in a protected section of the memory, and no one but me can access it."
"But you still sent us in there," Yumi said flatly, "you sent us in there ignorant and defenseless. I love you like a brother, Jeremie, but if you ever do that again, I am going to beat the crap out of you." The others, including Aelita, murmured in agreement.
"I'm sorry for not telling you, but I had to give Franz the benefit of the doubt," Jeremie said, "I was hoping he could be trusted, that he wouldn't run the risk of hurting Aelita. I was wrong."
"We may have another problem now. If Franz Hopper is an enemy, we're going to have to be very careful when we go back into Lyoko. He may well be able to hack another access to the scanners or anything controlling Lyoko, like the towers. And I don't know if Aelita would be able to deactivate a tower he activates."
"And maybe he'll activate one just to draw her in," Yumi said, "like XANA did when it wanted to steal her memories."
"So, we're not fighting this XANA anymore," Sissi said, "we're now fighting an old man, Aelita's father?"
"Who just so happens to have designed and built the supercomputer," Jeremie added.