The Taelia Arc continues, in Taelia's pov, enjoy!
"This girl cannot be allowed to continue to live!" I stared at the headline on the newpapers being passed around the cafeteria.
Hundreds Mysteriously Fall Dead
This was Morgan's fault. This was what happened when someone died and you tried to return to the past. People didn't come back. People just...died. More specifically, the Supercomputer checked if it had a person's neural map on record, that is to say, a data version of their minds so that people can actually think for themselves on Lyoko. If the Supercomputer has the data, it keeps the mind as is. If it doesn't have that data, it rewinds the neurons firing so that they play out the exact same way. It also reverses all the surrounding area. I honestly have no idea how that part worked. Xana created the Return to the Past, not me, and not Franz. We studied the program but neither of us could ever really figure out how it worked, it was so complicated. Xana sure as hell wouldn't tell us how it worked.
Anyways, if there were no neurons firing at the time of the return to the past, then the program didn't have anything to reverse. To an autopsy it would look like all brain activity had simply stopped, suddenly and for no apparent reason.
The families would get no closure about this. The article said some people thought it was some sort of terrorist attack, some new disease humanity didn't yet understand, or a conspiracy. The most interesting thing about this case, said the article, was that nearly all the victims worked in a particular office building.
And she was right there, sitting at a table in a corner with a few people around her. She was making polite conversation. Morgan Xanthos was a monster and she was making polite conversation. She was reading one of the papers and smiling nearly imperceptibly. She wasn't ashamed, she was admiring her handiwork! I reached for my gun...
It wasn't there. Right. Aelita had made me agree not to carry my weapons with me. She touched my shoulder.
"We'll get her, just not here." she smiled gently at me, but I could see this bothered her immensely. There was fire behind her eyes. Everyone else was solemn. The rest of the gang, they seemed to accept me more now that Aelita had sort of warmed up to me, and now that Ulrich was no longer injured. They were still really cautious around me, but they saw that I could help. They saw that I was a force to be reckoned with, just as Morgan was.
It was Monday afternoon, lunchtime. I was now attending classes at Kadic with everyone else. Honestly I'd have been more suited to teach the classes than to attend them, but whatever. I played along, I kept my head down, I blended in. Everyone kept telling me how much I looked like Aelita. I told them I didn't see it. I didn't really bother to learn who was who. Honestly, I didn't plan to stay here long enough to make any friends. I was here on business.
"Where's Jeremie?" Yumi asked, walking up to us. Her classes got out slightly later than ours.
"Still in his room." Aelita sighed.
"And you're not with him, Taelia?" Yumi asked.
"Even geniuses need to eat." I shrugged.
"Not if your name is Jeremie Belpois." Ulrich added.
"I'm bringing him something back." I said. "Don't you worry."
For the past couple of days Jeremie and I had worked together to find Morgan's base and try to recreate the multi agent. She was right in front of us. What I meant was where she was working from on the network. Where her base of operations was. That's what we needed to find and destroy. That would cripple her severely. I mean, the best thing would be to just kill her directly, but she wasn't leaving the public, and there was no way to kill her in public without causing all sorts of trouble.
In the process of searching for that we also found a whole mess of Replikas. Jeremie explained those to me. Honestly, it was genius. With the Replikas, Xana was able to use resources from all over the world, and Morgan would be able to do the same. And since she killed hundreds like it was nothing...We couldn't afford to let her have those kind of resources.
We all fell into an awkward silence, or at least, it was awkward for me. We were all really tired. These guys were kids. They didn't deserve the burden they had placed on them. All they did was turn on an old computer. All I did was accidentally hack a server. None of us deserved this, but we were stuck with it. If we didn't take the burden handed to us, the world would collapse around us. Literally. Probably.
"Well, I just came here to get some food and give my eyes a quick rest from the screens." I gave a little friendly wave and walked off. Nobody really responded.
I stepped outside. The sun was shining, critters were chittering, squirrels probably. This school had changed a lot since I was first here...the trees were taller, there were more dorm buildings...it seemed more faded, a little. It seemed smaller, but in reality I was just bigger and older. It really would be nice to just sit here and relax. You know what would be really nice? A small house someplace green and beautiful in a friendly place where I wouldn't get hurt, and wouldn't have to be afraid. Yeah, that would be very nice...
"Hey, Taelia. Can I have a word with you?" I glanced over. It was William Dunbar. I hadn't gotten the chance to talk to him by himself yet. What a good opportunity.
"Yes, of course. What's on your mind?" I asked. I didn't really put any facial expression on my face, I was really tired. I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep. William looked tired, too. He had this sort of determined, optimistic aura about him. It was nice...it was, refreshing. He gestured for me to follow him, and so I did, Jeremie could wait a moment. I mean yeah there was a ruthless murderer loose in the school, but yeah I was sure whatever William had to say was super important. No, but really, Jeremie was skilled. He lacked the same experience Franz or I had, but he was incredibly resourceful and good at improvising and working under pressure. I trusted him,,,to an extent, at least.
William lead me to the vending machines, I had tried some of the soup from it yesterday. It was pretty crappy, but I'd had worse. He looked a little hesitant to ask whatever it was he wanted to ask.
"Ok, we're alone. What did you want to say? Did you want to make out?" I asked, completely deadpan.
"Huh, what?!" That caught William off guard. Did he think I was being serious? Pfffft.
"That was a joke. Sorry, I'm no good at jokes." I chuckled awkwardly. "Anyways, what did you want?"
"What are your intentions. What I mean is, what are you doing here? What do you intend to do by being here, and why did you only come out of the woodwork now?"
I thought about his questions for a second. How could I word this that wouldn't make things any worse for me?
"I'm here to help with Morgan because she won't let me leave. I intend to eliminate her and then go back into hiding. She said she was going to turn on the Supercomputer. That was enough of a threat to get me to take action. Turned out that was a trap, of course. And, well...you know the rest." There, that oughta do it.
"So...you let them handle Xana without you before because...you're a coward?" William asked. Wow, how perceptive.
"Yep. You got it." I smiled blankly. I refused to feel bad about it. "I was afraid, and so I ran. I'm only here because I'm not allowed to run anymore."
"Oh."
"No response? Well, if you excuse me, I was on my way to Jeremie's room." I walked away without giving him the chance to respond.
I made my way to Jeremie's room and knocked. After the night Morgan busted in I didn't want to open the door without permission. I knew how it was.
"It's open." Jeremie called from inside. I opened the door and walked in, carrying half my lunch.
"I got you mashed potatoes and some jello." I slid the tray onto his desk. "What's the haps?" I asked. Jeremie gave me a weird look. Did I say something weird?
"While you were out, I found Morgan's base." Jeremie grinned.
"Really?! That's awesome! How'd you do it?" I asked.
"Last time Morgan was on Lyoko, I set up the tracking program on Lyoko to track just her." He pointed to the screen. It looked like the map on Lyoko, what with the black and green grid. There was a large blue dot on the screen and not much else. "It's a little in the middle of nowhere, far away. She must be incredibly fast in the digital sea."
"Digital sea?" I asked.
"A medium between Lyoko and the rest of the network. The avatars become unstable in it and break down, so I made a submarine to traverse it called the Skidbladnir."
"The legendary ship, nice." Perhaps Aelita had suggested the name. Franz read her those kind of stories a lot. I would read them too. She loved to hear stories.
"Yeah, the only problem is...Xana destroyed it completely right after we rescued William." Jeremie frowned.
"Do you still have the groundwork?" I asked.
"Yes, but it would take me weeks to get it up and running again."
"Show it to me." I said. He brought up some files. I took a look at them. My eyes darted around, picking up on bits and pieces of code. I began to get the picture. This really was quite ingenious. Yeah, I could work with this.
"I'll get it done in three days, tops." I said, confidently.
"Three days?!"
"When you work with Franz Hopper, you learn to work efficiently. It'll be an interesting challenge. Can I take over? You can go spend time with your girlfriend."
"Uh...sure." Jeremie blushed.
And thus began 72 hours of hell. I holed up in the Supercomputer room and programmed while a clone of me took my classes.. It was so automatic, so reminiscent of the past, that I could let my thoughts wander.
So Franz was dead...somehow I'd known that. It seemed this whole mess had shifted entirely to the next generation. Franz and Xana were gone with Morgan and Aelita in their place. I didn't really have a place in either generation. Aelita was alive though...she was alive, which means all the modifications we'd made to protect her had been worth it.
I thought back to the time the Warriors mistook me for Aelita. That should have been a pretty big indicator that she was alive...Oh well, I hadn't been paying attention to them at the time. I was more interested in how the Supercomputer had turned back on and why Xana was attacking random school kids who hadn't done anything. I'd tried to get them to turn it off...I'm glad they didn't though, because then I never would have seen Aelita again.
The hours went on like that, the endless hours. I would type and think and test and fail and try to find my errors and test again. I did not sleep or eat or do anything other than program. This needed to get done as quickly as possible, every moment we couldn't get to Morgan's base of operations was a moment she could attack while we were defenseless. It probably wasn't the best idea to work with no break though. 24 hours in I began to hear noises, and when I turned around to see what had made the noise, my eyes played tricks on me, the shadows seemed to move. By the time I was almost done I was almost as paranoid as I'd been the first few weeks after I ran away. If she was going to attack me, she should do it already...not leave me waiting for it...It was going to happen...but when?
I was done though, almost, almost. I just needed this one last thing, one last thing that was on a CD in my room. I needed to get to it, but if I were to leave the computer Morgan would come and attack, ruin everything I'd worked for. It was a miracle she hadn't attacked the virtual submarine on Lyoko. I looked around the room. The shadows in the corner, they formed into a girl...
"GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND STAY THERE!" I yelled as I got up and sprinted forward...straight into the wall, and I fell. I blinked. Nobody in the shadows, right...I locked up the screen and put up a powerful firewall. I'd go as fast as I could...hopefully she couldn't get through the wall in the amount of time it would take.
I went into the elevator, cursing it for being so slow, climbed up the rope, ran through the sewers and onto campus. I stuck to the shadows and stayed away from as many people as possible, though a few did see me...I think. I got the CD from my room, then ran out, then came back. She was going to attack I knew it, so I took my EMP gun from the hidden compartment in my room. I ran back as fast as I could go. I felt like someone was following me, though every time I looked back I didn't see a thing. I got to the factory and sat down. Everything seemed to be the same. I put in the CD and began to work again.
I heard footsteps...footsteps on metal, coming closer to me, climbing a ladder. It was just noises in my head, it had to be, I was so close. There was no time to look, no time for anything, to breathe. I just needed this to be finished...just...needed...
A hand on my shoulder! I whirled around and screamed, the figure laughed, automatically I whipped out my gun and shot. The laughing stopped. The figure fell. I breathed heavily and looked at the figure, a girl with raven black hair with a pink shirt and jeans. Her face still echoed with the laughter that was at my expense. I looked at her eyes...normal pupils...she hadn't even been possessed, I'd killed an innocent girl. Another thing to add to the list of reasons I couldn't stand myself.
"...I'm sorry..." I whispered to her unhearing ears. Then I went over to the computer and pressed enter.
"There...done..."
Time elapsed since the end of the last chapter: 6 days
Time elapsed since chapter 1: 2 weeks
Annnndddd Sissi's dead. Gonna be honest that last part was straight up pulled from the time I wrote code revenge years ago. Remember, I take commissions! And as always guys, have an awesome day!