He Who Calls

Chapter 9

"All right," said Ulrich. "You're mad at Milo. Are you going to try to beat him up? If you are, you're insane."

"No," said Odd. "I'm not going to raise a hand against him. It's not his fault Aelita likes him."

"Wow, Odd," said Ulrich, impressed. "That's really mature. Wait a minute, are you going to do everything in your power to wreck their relationship?"

"No, but I'll be silently rooting for them to break up."

"Not as mature."

"I'm kidding," said Odd. "If Aelita's happy, so am I. Well, not really, but I hope she's happy."

"She is. They've been working on a new program to find Franz Hopper, in coalition with Jeremy, of course. They're closer then ever thanks to Milo's innovations, apparently. Xana has embedded himself in tons of places on the internet. They're also working on this thing that lets us virtualize into the internet and destroy Xana's hiding spots. He has Franz Hopper hidden in one of them."

"You sound happy," Odd said, his voice completely emotionless.

"I'm going to ask Yumi out tonight," said Ulrich. "And I think she'll say yes."

"Why?"

"Because Aelita, Milo, and Jeremy have been screaming at us to get together ever since we heard of the dance."

"Jeremy's okay about Milo and Aelita?"

"If you hadn't locked yourself in this room since last night, you would have heard. Jeremy got together with Emily Leduc."

"You mean that girl you hung out with for a while?"

"Yes. She's good with computers but she's not in on Lyoko."

"Great," groaned Odd. "Einstein is dating and I'm not!"

"And I will be soon," said Ulrich. "Free period's over and we haven't studied. Luckily, no test today." They walked to class.

Milo was sitting in math with Aelita. He was very bored. He still hadn't answered any questions wrong on any tests. So he had time to ponder things. Aelita had told him Odd asked her out and she turned him down. He had said he was lucky that he was dating someone so loyal. That seemed to satisfy her, although Milo had only half worked out the whole relationship thing. The bell rang. Odd and Ulrich's free period was over, Jeremy's, Aelita's and Milo's had just started.

"All right," said Milo. "Come to the library and I'll tell you how I know William Dunbar." They nearly ran to the library, where they met Jeremy and Yumi.

"Where's Emily?" asked Aelita.

"Her free period just ended," said Jeremy. "But we did hang out at lunch."

"I'm going to tell how I know William," Milo said. "I'll tell Ulrich and Odd later."

"Spit it out!" said Yumi.

"All right," said Milo. "First thing you have to know is, William and I were adopted."