He Who Calls
Chapter 13
"I know exactly what he wants," said Aelita. They were back in the Factory, without Milo and Yumi. It was a Saturday. They were plotting Milo's birthday and Yumi couldn't show up until tomorrow.
"Me too," said Odd.
"What?" asked Jeremy.
"Nothing," they said in unison. "You see," Aelita went on, "Milo is entirely generous and selfless. Not that he'd ever admit it. As long as he has friends, a school, and enough to eat, he doesn't want anything else. He put fifty thousand dollars into giving his friends gifts! Because he didn't want it! Or at least, not as much as he wanted his friends to be happy."
"We have to give him something," said Ulrich.
"Of course we do," said Odd. "We just have to let him know he's appreciated. He wants that more then anything."
"Can we give him anything at all? He loves music."
"Yeah, he does," said Aelita. "He plays turntables, guitar, piano, and recorder. Although he's said himself anyone can play recorder."
"What if we all burned our three favorite songs on to a CD?" asked Odd. "He might like that."
"Good plan," said Aelita. "All in favor?"
"I," said everyone, as a black smoke oozed out. Aelita saw it and yelled, "Run!" but she was the only one who made it out. The rest fainted, their airways cut off. They breathed in all the black smoke, decontaminating the room but over-contaminating them. Aelita walked back in. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and pressed speed dial one. "Milo! Xana's launched an attack!"
"On my way," said Milo. He had been testing Aelita's present. It worked well. "Is anyone else there?" he asked as he ran toward the entrance in the woods.
"No, they all passed out!"
"Go without me. I'll catch up in a minute." He was running in the sewers now.
"All right." She set the timer and scanned herself as he hung up. She dropped onto the Ice Barrier Sector. Milo entered the computer room. He set up the timer again and started the virtualization process. William jumped out of the Digital Sea, just as Milo did arrive on Lyoko.
"Get to the tower!" Milo yelled to Aelita. "Fly!" Her wings expanded and she flew off in the direction of the tower. Then Milo turned to William. "Hi, William."
"Hi, Milo. I see you found yourself a new girl since you stole Bella."
"Bella was never my girl. I just rescued her from you. Just like I did with Aelita. She is my girlfriend, though. I notice you don't have one. How does it feel to never win?"
"I always win, Milo."
"How does this feel: Yumi hates you. I told them the truth. She knows you're a murderer."
"How dare you? Eric stole Bella from right under me, just to spite me! I may have killed him but it wasn't murder!"
"You haven't changed a bit, have you, William?"
"You couldn't keep your promise to Bella, Milo. The girl at my old school I liked, I got expelled for posting love notes to her all over the walls. But I couldn't do that until her boyfriend was dead. And I still haven't been found out! I don't even care if you arrest that polymorphic clone Jeremy made of me."
"You pretended to be their friend. You've killed again and again."
"I intended to kill Ulrich when I was flesh and blood. My clone still might do it. But now I'm virtual, I intend to kill you!"