Aelita.
That was the only thing on his mind anymore. Finding Aelita.
He didn't care how hard it would be or how long it would take. It had to be done. Something, although he didn't know what, was telling him that the police wouldn't be able to do this. That no forensics team or crime scene investigation group could accomplish this task. Something was telling him that this was his job. That finding Aelita was in his hands, now.
Part of him wished he didn't have to deal with this at the age of 13. But such selfish thoughts were immediately washed away, when he remembered that he still had to find a way to defeat a monstrous A.I. trying to take over the world. That scared him, too. At any moment in time now, XANA could attack. Not only would it halt his search for 'Lita, but also, Jeremie would have no idea how to combat it. After all, she was the only one who could de-activate the tower.
Anxiously, he decided to start up a superscan. He watched it browse through the towers of Lyoko, crossing his fingers in his lap and looking at the screen through half-shut eyes.
Nothing.
This didn't relieve him in the slightest.
For now, though, his work with XANA would have to be put on hold. He didn't even remember the last time he had sat in the factory to run a superscan other than just now. He hoped that the qualifications of the quantum computer would somehow lead him to Aelita—like right now, for example, as he sat in the laboratory running a universal translation to try and figure out what the hell had been scribbled on this paper.
Maybe he'd be able to tell if he hadn't been forced to write it in such a hurry, copying down what the man had said before it left his short term memory. It also didn't help that the only languages Jeremie spoke were French and English, so whatever he had scripted was solely pronunciation based—not the language's actual characters. That was probably making it more difficult for the translator to recognize.
He wasn't sure how long it had been running at this point, but his patience was wearing thing. He tapped his fingers against the arms of the chair, growing restless as the words spun around on the screen in front of him. Looking around and noting how empty the factory felt, his stomach churned and his heart sank the slightest bit.
Anytime he was working like this in the factory, Aelita was always by his side. Her not being here just…didn't feel right.
All the more reason to keep working.
He didn't have much time to dwell before his attention was caught by the familiar sound of the elevator door springing open behind him. He turned around to see his friends prancing inside, with seemingly glum looks on their faces.
"Bad news, Jeremie," Ulrich stepped forward with his hands in his pockets, the others hanging their heads low before glancing at each other.
"What?" The flaxen boy replied, removing his glasses from his sweating face and rubbing the lenses against his shirt.
"We just got back from Mr. Delmas' office. The police said that they couldn't find a DNA match for this guy, so… they've got no lead on whom it could be."
Jeremie sighed and sat in silence for a brief moment, placing his glasses back on his face. Part of him cursed the idea and the police for having failed so soon. The other part, though, wasn't surprised. Wasn't surprised at all.
"I was afraid of that," he responded softly, before clearing his throat.
"What do you mean?"
More silence. Jeremie clenched his fingers against the arms of the chair, trying to conjure up how he could put this. He feared it wouldn't make sense to the others, and that he'd have to go into much more detail than he wanted. Sometimes he wished he could block this out and pretend it wasn't happening. That wouldn't accomplish anything, though.
"Do you remember those men that Aelita always talked about in her dreams? The ones she always hallucinated?"
"The ones in black? Yeah, of course."
"I… it's the same guy that she described as attacking her. Sunglasses, black suit, tall and dark, that kind of thing."
"So you think whoever was after her and her father is the same guy we're dealing with now?"
"Well, yeah. I do."
Yumi stepped forward, shaking her head. "That's kind of a steep conclusion, don't you think?"
"Yes, it is. But think about it—he knows about Lyoko and the supercomputer. He knows all of our names, even though we don't know his, and he's demanding to know more about Franz Hopper."
Ulrich and Yumi glanced at each other with apprehension, letting out a heavy sigh. "I guess you're right," they agreed.
It was a steep conclusion. None of them even knew if the Men in Black were real or not, or if they were all just a figment of Aelita's imagination and the memories that she couldn't remember. What was real, though, was whoever it was that was coming after her. And he wasn't playing around. So the Lyoko warriors didn't have time to play around, either.
Jeremie continued. "I think he's coming back to finish what he started a long time ago."
Finish what he started.
It was a gruesome thought, but it was probably true. And they needed to hurry up and get to her, before he could get to them.
That was another thing that haunted Jeremie at this point. If he had already grabbed Aelita, what was stopping him from coming back for the rest of his friends, or even him? He could come for them next, and make sure they made no advancement in the quest to rescue her. The scariest thought of all was how much power this guy probably had. More power than they had yet to witness.
Someone could lose their life.
Someone could lose their life.
They all faced this thought every single day against XANA. XANA had a scary amount of power, too, right? So why was this guy so much more…menacing?
Jeremie's stomach roiled once more. Maybe it was because he wasn't facing the chance of danger…he was facing the reality of danger. Aelita was already gone. He had no idea where, no idea how to get to her…no idea if she was even still alive, at this point.
He shook his head. He wouldn't let himself think like that.
The silence had brewed in the room for too long, and it had to be broken before he went insane.
"So…how is the translating going?"
Jeremie nearly screamed with relief. For once, Odd has saved the day. "It's…going," he said dryly. "I don't quite know what language it is exactly, and so I haven't got much to go off of. The program is virtually on it's own, which is making it work harder and slower."
"Let me see it," Odd demanded as he took the paper from Jeremie's lap. For a moment his eyes scanned the sentence back and forth and he softly muttered the words to himself, but it didn't take him long at all to come to a conclusion. "It's Croatian."
"How can you be sure?"
"Italy borders Croatia. I hear and read it all the time. This definitely sounds Croatian."
"Ah…" Jeremie puckered his lips in slight confusion and shock. He was surprised that, for once, Odd had honestly provided valuable input. "In that case…" he brought his fingers to the keys in front of him, ordering for the translator to now scan only through the Croatian language, and not that of every language in existence. Surely enough, it worked.
Ulrich, Odd and Yumi took leaps forward to stand closer to the screen, balancing against the back of Jeremie's chair to lean in and read what was developing before them.
"I'm at the lowest point of the highest point," Jeremie read. "Your friend Della Robbia knows more than anyone that there's more than meets the eye."
Immediately, they all turned their heads toward the little blonde. "What?" he shrugged. "Why are you staring at me? I don't know what it means!"
"The lowest point of the highest point…" Jeremie repeated. He scratched his chin gently as he pondered the meaning of the mysterious sentence. It seemed that the man in black had decided to toy them further with a riddle. Although, it seemed easy enough.
"The Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in France, right?" Yumi added, glancing down at Jeremie nervously as she tried to put the pieces together. He nodded.
"Does that mean she's at, or in, the Eiffel Tower?" Ulrich asked.
"But why would he hide her in the most obvious spot in all of France?"
"That's exactly why," Jeremie realized as he slid out of his chair, his hands folded behind his back. "It's so obvious that no one would ever think to look there."
"Wow…" Odd gasped. "Looks like we shall be spending the day in Paris, then."
"But what about the other part of the riddle?"
"It's probably not important. He may just be trying to throw us off." Without hesitation, Jeremie threw his school bag over his shoulder. "Let's go."