Jeremie's pov

I burst into the clearing, Odd close behind. There she was...sprawled on the ground in a lake of her own blood, sticking to her hair, to her clothing, skin and muscle torn from the bone.

My knees bucked, I fell to the ground and tried my hardest not to vomit. This couldn't be real, this couldn't be what was happening. Aelita...no, this couldn't be her fate. She...how could I do this without her? Why was I allowed to live if she...If she was dead? I heard the dull thud of a gunshot pound against my head, but it seemed very far away. My head was heavy. Odd didn't do anything to disturb me, and something came out of my mouth from the core of my being. Something like a long...mournful wail. I almost didn't believe the noise was coming from me. It didn't sound human..

Look at me...Even with Aelita's body before me, I had to be all analytical and logical. What in the world was wrong with me?

After a long while, I lifted my head. The wolves both lay there, a nail one of their brains, and the other with its throat slit. They couldn't desecrate Aelita anymore. I couldn't get myself to look at her. I caught a glance when I got here, but to really look and register...I couldn't do that to myself.

Stacey had told us Franz killed her. We had to go back and find her and...maybe we could save her with a first aid kit...maybe we could find a doctor. There was no curing this. Oh god...Aelita...why her. She didn't do anything wrong! She was good and kind to everyone! Why her...why not me instead?!

...Franz wasn't there. I couldn't see him anywhere...perhaps he had escaped...or maybe he had never been there in the first place.

So, now what?

"I know it's hard to go on after this, Jeremie. But we need to go after Stacey. I can't afford to lose two friends today." I heard Odd's voice. It sounded somewhat deeper than normal. I looked over at Odd, shiny streaks going down his face, his face serious. No trace of humor...what was there to laugh about? Our princess...

"Yeah...yeah you're right." I croaked. Slowly, shakily, I got up. I looked at the opening back to the rest of the maze. There were still monsters out and about. They weren't actively trying to attack us, but I was sure if we went over there, they would attack. Or maybe they wouldn't. It was a trap, Morgan...accomplished what she wanted to do, maybe the monsters wouldn't attack us at all. Maybe there were other plans for us.

Still, it would be a stupid mistake to just walk into a monster swarm. I remembered...Aelita had something in her pocket. It didn't matter if we were caught now. Aelita was dead and Stacey was kidnapped. We were fooling ourselves from the start, she already knew we were here. I didn't want to reach into her pocket...it didn't seem right, but, uh...We needed to get out of here.

So, I reached into Aelita's pocket, and took out a small device with a button on the side. I pressed the button and a loud ringing filled the air. I yelped and covered my ears, and I think Odd did something similar. Everything hurt.

"Ah! Einstein, what is that?!" Odd screamed. I barely heard him over the ringing. Imagine the worst fire alarm you've ever heard, it sounded like that. Instead of trying to yell over the noise, I glanced over at the monsters. Just as I thought, they were all frozen in place, and twitching slightly. I gestured for Odd to follow me, then made my way out of the maze. As we got further away from Aelita, the sound faded.

I...I wanted to...we would go back and bury her after we rescued Stacey.

We got out of the maze again. I had the coordinates Emily gave me memorized. The problem was I didn't have a computer or anything that could tell me where some exact coordinates were. If Morgan wanted us to go a particular place, that was a pretty major oversight. But if she didn't want us to go rescue Stacey, why give coordinates in the first place? Maybe...um...Trying to figure out the logic behind it was useless right now. What mattered was finding her.

Wait. Wait wait wait wait! Those coordinates...sounded familiar. There were a few locations I had seen multiple times on the Supercomputer, and this was one of them. It was the Hermitage. Back when we were researching Franz Hopper and the Hermitage there were several times that I looked it up. Those were definitely the coordinates.

"Jeremie?" Odd asked. I guess I stopped walking while I was thinking.

"Sorry. It's the Hermitage."

"What? You mean the place we're supposed to go?" Odd asked. I nodded. He pulled his nail gun in close to him. "Let's go."

It wasn't much of a problem getting from where we were to the Hermitage. We knew how to get around them. Plus, by now, Paris was mostly cleared of monsters. There was no point in having them. This place was uninhabitable, there was nothing left. Nothing left to protect, nothing left to save. Why...why were we still doing this? What was the point of continuing? She already won, the world just had to catch up. The remnants of humanity would die out. This was a dead planet. There was nothing left.

"Jeremie?" Odd asked. I hadn't realized I was on my knees in the middle of the road, tears streaming down my face. I wiped at one side of my face with my hand and looked at it. It seemed foreign to me, like these weren't my tears, but the tears of the world. Heh...what a time to be a waxing poetic.

"Odd...I...I can't do it. It's over."

"What are you talking about?"

"What's the point of trying to save anything anymore. She won. There isn't going to be anything left." I trailed off. Odd slapped me hard on the cheek. "Odd, what the-"

"What's the point?! Jeremie! The point is to save everyone we can and take her out! I know it's hard. I feel it too, but humanity isn't dead yet. As long as there's people, there's hope. We have a responsibility to preserve what can be preserved. If anyone can take Morgan down, it's you, Jeremie. We have to outsmart her, and I sure as hell couldn't do that. The world needs you, Jeremie, and so do I. So, get up, ok?" He held his hand out to me. That was right...it was my responsibility. October 9th, 2003...I turned on the Supercomputer. I found Aelita and kept it on, even though I found Xana. I knew the risk, but I kept the computer on. Now Xana's child had brought about the apocalypse and the girl I took the risk to save was dead.

If I just kept the computer off and minded my own business...none of this would have happened. I couldn't have the blood of humanity on my hands anymore. I couldn't have the destruction of my species on my hands. Odd was right, we had to go. I took Odd's hand and got up. As long as some of us were here...there was a spark of hope.

We made it to the Hermitage. We looked through the house...Aelita's old house. We looked everywhere, but nobody was there.

"Well, great...now what? We went to the exact coordinates-"

"Is it possible you remembered wrong?" Odd interrupted.

"No, this is the place. I saw it on the Supercomputer. Besides, this is as good a landmark as any." I said. We stood there for a few moments, on edge. Was this a trap too? But nothing was happening.

"What about...we look up, or down?" Odd asked.

"True, Emily said nothing about elevation." I said. We went outside to look up. There wasn't any sort of fortress in the sky. I would expect something like that from her...but no, no airship. So...we could try underground? There was the sewer entrance near the Hermitage. Were we meant to go there?

It was so...quiet...outside.

We opened the door and walked into the sewers, our steps echoing off the walls. It seemed to go on forever. To the left, towards the factory, there was nothing. All was dark...but...to the right, just a little ways down...there was a faint glowing. What was that? I signaled to Odd to be quiet and follow me. There was an opening in the wall of the sewer a little ways down, where the light was coming from. From the look of it...the opening was made with a blow torch. The ground was dirt, and so were the walls. Was this room...dug out of the side of the sewers? The glow was from a Supercomputer.

"So this is where she's been hiding..." Odd whispered.

I took a seat at the computer and pressed the enter key. A list of files came to life on the screen. I had to blink a few times, it was so dark in the room and the computer screen was...rather bright. Most of the files were strings of numbers and letters and symbols...in seemingly random order. There must have been some order to it that Morgan understood.

"We have to find Stacey, come on." Odd said.

"This is Morgan's personal computer. We aren't going to get another chance like this. Everything...everything has to be controlled from here. We can end this now. I could write a program...like before..." I looked at Odd, my eyes pleading. He looked upset for a second, but then sighed, conceding defeat.

"Fine, Einstein. I'm trusting you. I'll keep you covered." He said, raising his nail gun. He trusted me...

One file caught my eye, mostly because I could actually read the title. It was labeled "Code: Revenge." I opened it...and my jaw dropped.

This file contained...written out in great detail...everything that happened. The night of the party, Taelia, her rise to power, and our deaths. Everything...everything that had happened was written. Even Stacey finding Franz Hopper...I was a fool. She planned everything...Even when I thought we were ahead of her...she planned even that. Everything that happened...had been according to her plan...This was her sandbox, and we were only allowed in it until she decided we were done...Oh god...she had us from the start...

There was more...there was Emily kidnapping Stacey...us finding this facility...me getting on this computer and finding this file...and then.

My vision flipped as my head hit the ground. I heard my body slump in the chair, and in the second before I lost consciousness, I realized the two were not connected.

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