Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko and the television series Star Trek. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Jeremie and Aelita swam through data. The supercomputer was an ocean to them, and they glided in and around it. Jeremie would always peer as closely as he could at a particular part of the system, while Aelita just floated above it and took it all in.
"I'm never going to find a way in at this rate," the blond genius muttered in frustration. He had been searching for an hour now, and had barely begun to search the environment.
"Jeremie, join me up her a moment," Aelita called to him.
He turned and saw her, an angel floating in the heavens, beckoning to him. He allowed himself to rise to her level, finally meeting her eye to eye.
"Aelita, you're beautiful," he said, "you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
She smiled at his complement. "You're beautiful too, Jeremie."
She then reached out to him. He extended his arms to her, and they pulled close together.
"You know, with all of the crap we've been through, I'd almost forgotten how much I love you," he told her, "I'm sorry I get so hyper focused sometimes that I forget to tell you that."
"Forgiven," she simply replied as she pulled him into her embrace.
Neither knew how long they stayed like that, but ultimately they parted.
"Although I've wanted to do that for so long now," she said, "and I'm glad you did it, that's not why I called you up here. Look back."
Jeremie turned, still within Aelita's arms, and looked back at the supercomputer data. Everything was laid out before them, and they could see the Borg's tendrils everywhere, combined with XANA's.
"It looks even worse from up here," he told her.
"But we can see the whole thing," she replied, "if we see something from here that looks promising, we can go down and check it out. You didn't rewrite the operating system just to create the Overboard, did you?"
"No, but it was a close thing," he replied with a smile.
Together, they floated above it all and searched for their way in.
Juan Janeway supervised the clean up of the assembly area, as the police outside ran through their hostage negotiation playbook. One of the first things they did was cut power to the factory, which did exactly nothing. One of the first things the Borg did was reroute power distribution from the utility pole to their ship. Several HRT teams tried to gain entry through various places, but were repulsed by the energy barrier. After the last attempt, Janeway contacted the captain and had an EMT team sent down to recover the policemen, because they tried entering through the sewers and gotten badly electrocuted. After a gentle chiding by Janeway, the police stopped for a while.
He had the former drones start breaking down the equipment that had been set up in the assembly area, then created some robots to recycle the material. He had Jim and Suzanne move the container of discarded tissue out of the area, then had that recycled. Odd set about cleaning the bloodstains that were on the floor, using one of the functions of his replaced forearms. They had sonic projectors built into them that could lift the layers from the concrete, then disburse them in the air. Another recycling robot followed him around, sucking in the dust from his cleaning.
Janeway was wondering how Jeremie and Aelita were doing when he felt a presence in his mind awaken. It was Yumi.
Feeling better? he sent to the girl.
No, I want Ulrich back, she replied, but I know that's not going to happen. Otherwise, I'm fine. How's Ulrich doing?
Here's how you check, he replied, then mentally showed her how to query the gestation chamber's sensors. Look, if you're doing better, I want to pull you out of there so we can get on with it. As you can see, Ulrich's out for the duration, and with you not in there, the systems can concentrate on fixing him up.
Okay, what do I do, she said.
Nothing, I'll take care of it.
Janeway sent a command, and Yumi was transported from the gestation chamber in his ship to the top floor of the factory. When she materialized, she was as naked as she was when she was in the chamber.
Hey, lech, what's the meaning of this! she shouted down the link.
Don't worry, I've got you covered, at least in a second, he snickered in reply. The moment he said that, the nanoprobes inside of here swarmed out through her pores and began reconstructing the clothes she had worn today. When they finished, she was dressed just as she had been when she left home that morning, so long ago.
Home?
Dr. Janeway! she called as she ran down the stairs, I've got to call home! My parents are probably worried sick about me by now!
Okay, just think about dialing the number you want to call, he said. She did and all of a sudden she heard a dial tone in her head, then the a phone ring. Her mother picked it up on the third ring.
"Hello, Yumi?" her mother frantically answered.
"Yes mom, it's me; I'm alright," she replied, grateful to here that familiar voice again.
"Yumi, come home right this instant!" her mother then said, " there is some kind of trouble going on near the school, and I want you well away from it. The army has come by and said we have to evacuate immediately, and I don't want to get separated from you!"
"Mom, I can't," she replied, "I know what's going on, and I'm in the middle of it, unfortunately. I've been trying to avoid the terrorists that are causing this mess, but they're all over the place, and I can't get to the police. This is the first opportunity I've had to call you, and I don't know if I'll be able to again. You and the rest get out of here, and I will find you when it's over, I promise."
Yumi then hung up the phone before her mother could protest. She finally reached the assembly room where everyone else was.
"I'm going to be grounded for the rest of my life after this is over with," she said.
Jeremie and Aelita floated above the world that was the supercomputer and searched for a way in, any chink in the seemingly impenetrable wall. Jeremie was beginning to despair of gaining access when something caught his virtual eye.
"Aelita, do you see that?" he asked.
She looked where he directed, then replied, "I don't know, it's pretty small. Let's take a closer look."
Together, they dove down to the thing that caught Jeremie's attention. It was a small block of the messaging protocol that distributed different message packets around the computer system. Jeremie looked at it for a moment, then smiled. He did something, then showed it to Aelita, who smiled too.
"We've got it, my love. Between the two of us, we ought to be able to widen this big enough to virtualize Janeway's ship through!"
They had finally cleared all of the carnage from the assembly area. Janeway now turned to the humans who had been heavily modified by the Borg. There really wasn't much he could do at the moment; if he began removing some of the larger systems the Borg had installed, he would kill more than a few of them, because those systems had replaced vital organs. When he told them that, a lot of them got depressed. Janeway reassured them that he was working on a way to put them back the way they were before the invasion. He then did the only thing he could do for them, he sent out a mental command, and they all settled down and fell asleep.
Odd and Yumi sat over on the steps leading into the room. Odd sat with his head hanging down,made all the more awkward by the camera unit that had replaced his eye. Yumi had her arm around the boy's shoulder, and was trying to comfort him.
"Odd, it'll be okay!" she told him, "if Dr. Janeway can fix Ulrich up, he surely can fix you!"
"Yeah, I know," he replied, "I guess a part of me wonders if I deserve to be fixed."
Yumi suddenly grabbed the boy by his head and turned him towards her.
"Don't you dare think that you don't deserve to be healed, don't you dare! You couldn't help what happened anymore than you can help being a boy. They made you do that to Ulrich, and we're gonna make them pay for it! And when we're done, we're gonna Return To The Past and make sure none of this ever happens!"
Suddenly Dr. Janeway called out, "everybody, in here! Jeremie's found something!"
Jeremie and Aelita quickly exploited the hole they found, then left it in a state where they could interface it as needed with Janeway's equipment. They then contacted their comrade, and he disconnected them from his ship and transported them back to the factory.
"Alright, I've got a way into Lyoko without accessing any of the scanner subsystems," Jeremie said, "the problem is though, we're going to have to essentially rewrite all of the programs necessary to virtualize an object in. It wasn't easy, but I did manage to get the code out of the computer without anything noticing it."
"Do you know what modifications need to be made?" Janeway asked.
"Yeah, basically we have to encapsulate the virtualization protocol within the message protocol we've hijacked."
"Think about it for a second," Janeway then said. Jeremie did, then gasped in surprise.
"It's done!"
"That's the power of the Collective," the man said, "millions and millions of hackers, just waiting to do just what you need. If there's anything else you think we'll need before we go in, let them know."