Code Lyoko: Souille
By. Tate Icasa
12:00am
Tanya sighed and rolled over sleepily, falling off the bed she had been half-sleeping on.
"Ow." She muttered, her eyes still closed. She forced them open and glanced around the room, taking just enough time to note that he had made it home before they slid closed again. "So, I did make it here."
"Just barely." A woman said from the adjoining room. "You can't push yourself like that Tanya."
Tanya half considered snapping back a witty (and probably quite perverted) reply about her not being the one pushing anything, but decided against it. "I don't think you can stop me." She said, repeating the same arguement again.
"You might drive yourself to death if you keep this up."
Tanya sighed, but made no other response.
"At least get back in the bed?" The woman said.
Tanya didn't respond.
6:30am
Aelita set a piece of paper down on Tanya's desk. She pointed at the red marking on top.
"I thought you knew the material?" She said, and if she hadn't been too old, Tanya might have called it a mocking tone.
"I do." Tanya said, blowing and popping a bubble.
"Then how do you explain this failing grade?" She said, tapping the number with her finger.
"I didn't get much sleep lat night."
Aelita sighed and pushed her glasses up.
"I want you to stay after with me today."
"Can't." She blew another bubble.
"Why not?" Aelita asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I have a job right after class. Over at the Belpois Computer Center."
"I. . .suppose I could have a word with your employer."
Tanya mentally suppressed a smirk, and nodded.
"You want me to stay today?"
"Tomorrow, Tanya." Aelita said.
9:30am
Tanya sat behind her desk, at the front counter of the bottom floor of the Belpois Computer Center, formerly an abandoned factory. Her bleached and blue-dyed hair was held firmly above her head in a tight pony-tail.
Aelita walked in and approached the counter.
"Hey, Miss Stones."
"Tanya." Aelita said curtly. "I'll speak to your boss now."
A brief smile flitted across Tanya's face, then disappeared. She pressed a button on the desk.
"Mr. Belpois, theres a woman here to see you."
"I'm buys, Ms. Souille. Send her away."
His voice sounded harder since Aelita had last spoken to him.
"She tells me its quite urgent." Tanya said, not bothering to even glance over at Aelita.
"I don't care. Send her to one of the boys you have working in Technologies."
"I can't, sir, she needs to talk to you."
"Have her send a letter if it's that urgent. I don't have time for-"
"Her name is Aelita Stones, sir."
Jeremie was silent for a while. "Send her to my office." He said stiffly.
"Yes, sir." She nodded toward a door as the intercomming system shut down. "There are the stairs. His office is the only room on the topmost floor."
Aelita nodded and followed the directions.
Aelita hesitated outside the door, then knocked.
"It's not locked." Came the absent reply. She blinked once and opened the door.
Jeremie glanced up from the screen.
"Why are you here?"
"I need to request that Tanya Souille be excused tomorrow afternoon." She said in a tight, clipped voice.
"She's behind on her studies?" Jeremie asked lightly.
"Yes." Aelita said.
"Then she's yours." He said instantly. "She has quite a head for math though. Was that all?"
"It was."
He nodded curtly and turned his attention back to the screen.
She watched him for a second, curiously. He still looked almost exactly as he had twenty years before. The only difference she actually saw besides his height was his eyes. Perhaps it was merely a side effect of the contact lenses he now wore, but there was a quality to them she didn't particularly like. Something that didn't seem like it could be trusted.
Aelita pursed her lips and silently left the room.
She might have been shocked to know that the untrustworthy eyes she had been pondering just seconds before were now outlined by the faintest line of tears.
3:30pm
Tanya wrote each word with perfection, each line perfectly in place. The date was stated clearly in the top right corner of the page. She wrote as Odd spoke, in perfect synchronization.
"I dug out a box of stuff last night, looking for one of my younger videos. I found the video, of course, but it wasn't in the box. I haven't seen this stuff for twenty years."
Tanya's attention caught on those last two words. It was the first time he'd mentioned those events in a long while. She supposed none of the others realized that Odd spoke to his 'scribe' about Lyoko as often as anything else, and it was probably a good thing they didn't.
"There was one CD, we got it confused with the materialization program once. It was a stupid dance video. It was so childish that I put it in the trash can out front. No, that's not entirely true. I didn't - I don't - want it around. I don't want those memories."
Tanya stopped listening at the begining of the familiar rant, writing without thinking about the words. They came out more scribbled that way, but it was nothing noticable to anyone but her. At least, she hoped not.
". . .and Sissi." He paused and she glanced up. "Elizabeth, I suppose I should say. You know thats what she calls herself now? I finally stop teasing her about her stupid nickname, so she stops using it. It figures, makes sense. I wanted her to join us, you see. She would have been a great asset, but I couldn't let her get hurt. Not like we were going to be. And I - God! I should have risked it! I should have. Maybe things would have gone differently. Better. Maybe."
He stopped and took out his wallet, while she folded the page in half. They switched without a word, and she left the house the same way.
4:30
Yumi Ishiyama was her teacher, yet it seeed that Tanya had surpassed her. For the fifth time that day she had pinned her teacher in a move that could quickly ecome fatal.
She moved away and helped her teacher to her feet.
"You hesitated." Yumi said needlessly.
"You're my teacher. I won't kill you." Tanya answered.
"And if I were your closest friend? Your boyfriend? If I attacked you then, would you kill me?" Could you kill me? Tanya knew the accusitory tone wasn't for her.
"I don't know." She admitted.
"You'd better decide then. It's a terrible wrld we live in, even for its children."
"Are we speaking of my childhood, sensei, or yours?" Tanya asked, lifting her eyebrow just slightly.
Yumi laughed, but there was no joy in it. "You do catch on quickly, a good apprentice." She paused. "Perhaps we will debate that philosophy another time."
Tanya nodded fractionally.
"How do you suppose I'll die, Tanya?" She asked, without a shred of emotion on her face or in her demanding voice. It was such a strange and out of place question it caught Tanya off guard. "Do you suppose it we be in a battle? Fighting? Or maybe in my sleep?"
"In battle." Tanya said.
"At who's hand?" Yumi's voice was urgent, demanding an answer. "My enemy's? My allies, perhaps? At my own hand?"
"At an enemies hand." Tanya said quickly. "Surrounded by friends."
Yumi snorted. "I have no friends."
"You have me." Tanya said softly.
Yumi looked at her for a second before nodding. "You can go now, Tanya." She said, suddenly sounding very tired.
9:00pm
Tanya knocked on the door and waited. Seconds later it opened a crack and a hazy-eyed Ulrich peered out at her, before opening the door all the way.
"You're drunk." She stated blandly.
"So?" He leered. "I know the perfect cure."
She eyed him. "Not until you're sober." Sge saud,
"Then what am I paying you for, bitch!" He snapped.
She sighed. "Later then, I promise." She said firmly.
He grunted, but didn't protest further.
Tanya began to pace the room, and had circled it once, with his eyes on her, before stopping in front of a desk. There was a picture frace laying face down on top of a pile of pictures.
"You tipped the picture over?" She asked, more a statement than a question, really.
"I did."
"Why?" She asked.
"I'm not too drunk, bitch. You think I don't know a trick when I hear one? I told you we aren't going to talk about that and I meant it!"
She raised a eyebrow. "Fine. Do you mind if I tip it up?"
He shrugged, and she tipped the picture up.
"Can we fuck yet?" He asked.
"Alright." She said hesitantly, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
