Past and Present
By thesuperdot
Chapter 7: Reunion
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In a neighborhood just outside of the city, and not too far from the school, a small house stood, the occupant a well known individual.
In fact, the house itself belonged to one of his friend's parents; they no longer needed it and offered it to him at a very decent price. They, however, were paid the full amount.
Since that time, the overall structure stayed the same, except that one of the bedrooms is now his server/office area.
The server he used was actually the very same computer he used since his time in school, albeit heavily modified since then. He even has his same laptop, again, heavily modified.
In this very room, is a vault, this vault contains no money or deeds to a house, those are kept in a safety deposited box elsewhere, but top secret documents on the governments of almost every superpower. They are mostly technical specs for proposed ideas and things that need to be fixed up or improved, but it still remains, they can wreak havoc in the wrong hands.
Another feature of this very house is a wall in the living room. It contains many pictures and awards on it. Mostly achievements and degrees from many foreign countries, a number of magazine covers, he being the topic of interest, and even 2 Time magazine Person of the Year covers. Plastered around these items are a number of pictures with him and a few very important people, mostly important in the computer industry. But the most powerful picture is near the bottom, right above a glass case on a table. In this case are three cell phones, and a small book, above it, a simple small picture showing him and his friends.
Now it is time to turn his attention to the front door, as the owner has just returned from work.
It is none other Jeremy, and he is being accompanied by a man in a suit and dark glasses.
"Oh, no, it's no problem. In fact, I'd just got done with it."
"Really? What was the problem?"
"Some one in your department put in a piece of code that was messing up the zoom feature, as soon as I removed it, everything began to work great. Just install that program and it should be fixed."
The man in black nodded. "Understood. We thank you for your time and 50,000 dollars shall be sent to your account."
"Hey, just take your time with it; I've got enough to get through the year! Or next life, actually…"
The man said nothing and left. Jeremy sighed. He despised them, too strict to realize that formality wasn't needed with him. True, he was the most important person in the IT field, but still…
Jeremy walked to his kitchen and grabbed a soda and some chips, then went to his office and grabbed a few items from his safe and wondered to his favorite reclining chair, he never used the couch, which was for guests.
Taking a seat, he popped on some music, and began to flip through the papers.
CIA wanted help with the new sever system; KGB needs a patch for a security flaw; Microsoft still has a few bugs with the Xbox 360; Some Japanese Company needs help with a fix for their new GPS system, it keeps saying your 35 miles from where you actually are; the list went on.
Jeremy sighed and started on the Xbox problem. He began to read the summary, chances are it's nothing.
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Outside of the house, 7 people, all kids, marched up the road and onto Jeremy's property.
6 of them looked a great deal alike, well, perhaps not, but you could tell they were alike in some ways, the 7th showing the way.
"Wait, this is MY house!" Said one of the females.
The one showing the way shook his head. "Really? Well, not anymore, it's Jeremys!"
The one showing the way paused at the door. His hand reached up and began to knock at it. A voice soon answered.
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"Yes? Hello?"
"Ah, sir, it's me, Grant. I, I need to talk to you, it's very important."
Jeremy chuckled. He knew that Grant adored him; it was most likely a question about computers or the homework. Jeremy was surprised, however, to find him and 6 others at his door.
Odd, three of them looked VERY familiar.
"Yes? What?"
"Well, remember when we said we were going to explore a place?"
"Yes, yes I do." He fixated on the three who looked familiar. Then it finally hit him. "Wait, wait a second…"
He leaned closer. "It, it can't be…"
He began to shake and experienced a very odd sensation. He felt himself beginning to move his head to see something that would help him out. He felt his eyes move ever so slowly, felt every grind of the muscles there, finally to the point where his head was forced to move. He felt it there too, where every muscle ground against on another, feeling the shaking like an earthquake. His head stopped at a certain point on a certain wall.
It was his wall of awards and such, but more specifically, he was fixated on a certain picture.
He could feel his eyes zoom in on it and block out everything else. It was a picture of him and his missing friends; the very ones who were standing at his front door. He once again felt his muscles turn back to the front door and lock onto Grant. His heart was beating a 2x what it normally did.
"Grant."
"Y, yes?"
"Did you happen to find a water tunnel near the school?"
"Yes." His heart went 3x faster.
"Did you follow it to the very end?"
"Yes." 4x.
"Did you find an old abandoned factory?"
"Yes." 5x.
"Did you go into that factory and turn on an elevator?"
"Yes." 6x.
"Did you go down that elevator?"
"Yes." 7x.
"Did you…"
He paused and closed his eyes. It was a pathetic question that he damn well knew the answer to, but still, he had to know.
"Did you find and turn on a very futuristic computer?"
"Yes." 8x. Had there been a doctor of cardiologist there, he would have immediately called an ambulance for Jeremy.
"Oh. Okay." Jeremy said in a whisper and closed the door. His hand hovered over the deadlock for a minute. Finally, he locked it and stood there.
Turning, he ran up the stairs to his office and brought his computer out of its sleep. With a few deft keystrokes and mouse click, he brought up the network connections folder. He had never really gotten rid of the Lyoko Network Connection for the fact that not only would he need it once he figure out how to kill Xana and save his friends but also because it was too hard to get it on there.
But there it was. The little icon was there and a small message bubble near the bottom stated:
Lyoko connection established
Jeremy gritted his teeth together and clicked it open. Sure enough, the program sprang to life and the familiar layout appeared.
Jeremy was very shaken at this and carefully picked up his headset, almost as if it were a dead fish.
Then, in barely a whisper, he spoke.
"Aelita…?"
A second passed, then…
"Jeremy? Is that you?"
The pink haired girl appeared in her all-too-familiar box. Jeremy immediately dropped his set and ran out of his room and back to the front door.
Trembling, he undid the lock and opened the door.
With a face as white as a sheet, he managed a slight smile. "Hi… Guys…. Long time no see…"
Then, with that, his eyes went to the top of his head and he passed out, falling with a thud on the carpet of his floor.
Odd saw this and saw his chance to crack a joke. He got ready, opened his mouth and was beaten to it by Ax.
"Egad! We've killed him!"
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Next Chapter Soon! Jeremy copes with the return of his friends!