Schaeffer Lodge
Swiss Alps near Zermatt, Switzerland
July 11th 1981
Waldo Schaeffer had sent a message to his younger brother Anthony to help him with Scipio. He did not give the full details of the project, but he did say that it was a matter of dire importance. Within a few days, a young man with a heavy coat came inside the lodge where his brother was working.
"Hello?" He said taking off his coat. "I'm Anthony Schaeffer. Is Waldo Franz Schaeffer here?"
"Coming." Said a voice coming from downstairs. A door from down the hall opened and Waldo came up to him. "Anthony, you made it."
"As always." Anthony said. "Now, what is it that you called me for?"
"I need your help on a secret project of mine." Waldo said leading him to the basement door. "Come. We'll talk some more downstairs."
As he led him downstairs, Anthony looked at all the computers and machinery that surrounded him and was immediately surprised.
"Mein Gott." Anthony said. "What is all of this."
"This is the staging ground for Project Scipio." Waldo said. "We're going to use it as a counter strike against the Soviet Union's Project Carthage."
"You're waging war with the Soviet Union?" Anthony asked. "And you want me to help with something that could endanger all our lives if this gets out?"
"Yes." Waldo said.
"Count me in." Anthony said. "I want to see those Reds pay for what they tried to do to us."
"Very well." Waldo said. "Come, I'll show you around."
Waldo then took him to meet the other Scipio scientists.
"Everyone, this is Anthony Schaeffer, my younger brother. He'll be helping us." Waldo said. "Anthony, this is Benjamin Noel, Thomas Ackley, and Patrick Ackley. They'll be your co-workers."
"And who's that?" Anthony said motioning towards the pink haired woman standing across from them.
"Oh, that's my wife and Grace Hopper's daughter, Antea."
"Ahh. Who's Grace Hopper?" Anthony asked.
"Hey Antea, come here." Waldo said. Antea then came towards them. "I'd like you to meet my little brother, Anthony."
"Oh, pleasure to meet you." Antea said.
"You too." Anthony said. "So how long have you've been married?"
"Oh, about a year now." Antea said.
"I see. Oh, and who's this little one?" Anthony said looking at the blanket-wrapped infant in her arms.
"That's your niece." Waldo said. "Her name is Aelita."
"Oh wow." Anthony said. "You mean like the book?"
"Exactly like the book." Antea said.
"Come with me." Waldo said as Anthony came with him. "We'll go down some more. I want to talk to you about the most important aspect of our project."
They then headed to a small lift and went down. After going down a few stories, the two exited and entered a brightly lit room with an enormous, monolicic structure in the center.
"This is Zama." Waldo said. "The heart and nerve center of Scipio. Everything that everyone above us is doing is being added to this right here. However, one component is missing."
"So, what does this have to do with me?" Anthony asked.
"Wait here." Waldo said as he opened a compartment on the supercomputer and pulled out a small black box. The box had nothing on it except a gilded eye-like symbol with a prong on top and three on the bottom.
"This is the Scipio Creator Program." Waldo said. "I designed the insignia myself. What do you think?"
"Well, what does it mean?"
"It's a monogram." Waldo said. "I used the Cyrillic letters O and Psi overlapping one another, then inverted them, then made to look like an eye of sorts. (A/N: Look up the letters and you'll know what I'm talking about).
"Makes sense." Anthony said. "But why those two?"
"They make the word 'Ops', short for 'operations'." Waldo said. "Anyways, the reason I need you is that the Scipio Creator Program cannot be done without a stable human conscience to keep it alive."
"Alive?" Anthony said. "Waldo, you're not making any sense. You're speaking like a god-damned sci-fi movie."
"Then I'll prove this is real." Waldo said. "You'll be the conscience that the SCP, as I call it, needs to gain sentience. You're the smartest of us all, you're the perfect match."
"Okay." Anthony said. "But do we really have to call something that going to revolutionize the computer industry 'SCP'?"
"Well, what name did you have in mind?"
Anthony then took out a piece of paper and scribbled down something. He then showed Waldo the results.
Noel
Ackley
Schaeffer
Ackley
"I'm sorry, that name's taken." Waldo said. "Surely you heard of the Moon Landing."
"You and I both know that I pay no attention to space travel. How about this?" Anthony scribbling down something else.
Schaeffer
Ackley
Noel
Ackley
"It's good." Waldo said. "But I kind of like this better." He then took the paper and wrote down something.
"Ah, Waldo." Anthony said. "We're grown up now and we still have sibling rivalries." Waldo then handed him the paper.
Xavier
Ackley
Noel
Ackley
"Xavier?" Anthony asked. "Like our house The Julien Xavier?"
"The same one." Waldo said.
"Alright. XANA it is." Anthony said.
The two then took the lift back up to the first floor and Waldo told Anthony to step into one of the scanners across from him.
"So, what is this going to do?" Anthony said as he stepped into the scanner.
"We're going to send you into Zama and then imbue your mind with XANA." Waldo said.
"Wait, what do you mean 'send'?" Anthony said.
"You'll see soon enough." Waldo said as he typed in the procedure and began the virtualization process. Anthony then found himself standing in an empty, blue area. He then looked at himself and found him in a black and white tunic and he had a sword in a sheath around his waist.
"Okay, Waldo. Where am I?" He said. "And why am I dressed like a Roman?"
"Oh that? It's part of our untested Avatar Simulation Program." Waldo said. "It gives you a new form based on subconscious desires. Anyways, you're inside Zama. The virtual world that is being held in the supercomputer. Based off Fedorov's studies which were used for the Carthage Project."
"So what do I do now?"
"Just stay where you are while I activate The XANA Program." Waldo then began typing away at his computer as he set up the process. Back on Zama, Anthony began floating and had a reddish aura around him.
"Okay, now what's happening?" He said.
"You're are being infused with program." Waldo said as the computer showed that the infusion process had been successful. Anthony looked at himself and found himself glowing red.
"What's happening now?"
"The program is doing a brain scan of yourself so it can adapt sentience and a personality." Then the red aura turned into a reddish-black smoke as it left his body. The smoke then took a humanoid shape as it glowed a bright white. THen the light faded to find an exact copy of Anthony Schaeffer in 'Zama form' standing right in front of him.
"You made another one of me?" Anthony asked.
"Well sort of. You see..." Waldo began but stopped when he noticed an error flashing on the screen. "Hmm, that's weird. Anthony, you might want to come back now."
"Okay." Anthony said as he disappeared and found himself back in the scanner
"What happened?" Anthony asked as he stepped out.
"I don't know. Maybe it found something it didn't like." Waldo said. "I'll look over it tomorrow. Right now, it's late and I'm heading to bed. You're welcome to spend the night."
"Well, I don't want to impose." Anthony said.
"Oh, it's no trouble really." Antea said. "There's plenty of room."
With that, Anthony headed upstairs and fell asleep on the living room floor. Being that all the couches and spare bedrooms were taken.
In the middle of the night, Anthony woke up and headed down to the lab; he wanted to find out more about the project. Careful not to wake up the rest, he quietly snuck down and reactivated the supercomputer. He then went to Waldo's computer and looked at what info that was stored. He noticed a file that said 'Scipio's Progress'. He clicked on the file and found a map of Western Europe with green blinking dots in each country except France. He read the file some more and found that the dots were used to represent supercomputers like Zama. He also saw a map of Eastern Europe with red dots in all the Warsaw Pact countries, except a few. Anthony red that those without red dots meant that they were disabled by Scipio's computers and that Zama was directed towards the supercomputer in the Soviet Union, codenamed Carthage 00.
Anthony then clicked on another file that read 'Our Future Intention'. Anthony read the file and it mentioned how the Scipio supercomputers would eventually be used as virtual habitats for humans. When the threat of nuclear war became too much to bear, the citizens would be placed in the virtual worlds and there they would inhabit them and start a new life. Anthony was shocked. He knew this type of solution would be flawed in many aspects. He tried to head back upstairs when...
"Alright, who's down there?" He heard someone say as he came down the stairs. Anthony turned around to find Waldo carrying a flashlight. "Oh hey, Anthony. Why are you up?"
"I was just trying to see what was wrong with XANA." Anthony lied.
"I told you, I'll fix it in the morning." Waldo said. "Right now, just try and get some sleep." Anthony then headed back upstairs and tried to sleep. But was unable to forget the shocking info he had discovered. He knew that tomorrow he had to do something about it.
The next morning, the rest woke up to begin another day at work Anthony was standing behind Waldo, looking incredibly nervous.
"Alright." Waldo said. "I'll just run the program again and see what I can..."
"No!" Anthony said as he pushed Waldo out of his chair. Thomas and Patrick Ackley then grabbed both of his arms.
"Anthony, what are you doing?" Waldo asked.
"I know what you're doing." Anthony said. "Creating a virtual environment for all to inhabit. You're going to doom us all if you do that!"
"What do you mean?" Benjamin said.
"You have failed to overlook many important details." Anthony said. "Like how the supercomputers will be maintained with everyone gone. Even the most powerful forms of technology break down over time."
"We will select people to that task when it goes into action."
"How will you know who to select?" Anthony said. "What if that person want to be saved. Why would anyone want to stay if they have the opportunity to be saved? Ever think of that?"
"Well, no. But..."
"I don't know what XANA's flaw is, but hopefully it will destroy what you're doing." Anthony said breaking free of the Ackley brothers' grip and running to Waldo's computer.
"Anthony, no!" Waldo said as Anthony activated the program and sent it to the supercomputer.
"Fool!" Benjamin said grabbing Anthony and pinning him down. "Don't you've realized what you've done? Your mistake may have single-handedly doomed this operation!"
"I hope so. And it was no mistake." Anthony said as he headed upstairs.
"Where are you going?" Waldo said.
"To tell everyone what you're doing!" Anthony said as he headed out the door.
"He won't do it." Benjamin said. "He doesn't have the nerve to destroy humanity's last hope."
"You have no idea." Waldo said.
After that, Waldo managed to locate XANA and place him back in the small box that originally contained him. He then shut off the supercomputer and told everyone but his wife to go back to East Germany until further notice. Over the years, Waldo and Antea raised their daughter, Aelita, by themselves. She grew into a beautiful young girl; she had her mother's looks and her father's smarts. They were indeed a happy family. However, one day would change that forever.
One Christmas Day, Aelita was playing out in the snow by the house. She had already opened her presents, her favorite being a stuffed elf doll named Mister Puck. Waldo and Antea were watching her as she continued playing. Just then, a large van pulled up by the house and two men in black suits climed out and grabbed Antea.
"Mommy!" Aelita shouted as she ran up to her captured mother.
"Aelita, get back!" Waldo shouted.
"What's going on?" Antea said.
"Antea Hopper Schaeffer, you're under arrest for suspicion of terrorist activity and are subject to potential execution." One of the men said.
"Terrorist activity? What do you...?" Antea said. "Wait, Project Scipio... Anthony Schaeffer! Do you know anyone named Anthony Schaeffer?"
"Seeing as you're never returning, Anthony Schaeffer is our leader." The other man said. "He told us about your terrorist plot and we intend to hunt down every last terrorist."
"You can't! Aelita! Waldo!" Antea said as she was thrown in the back of the van and the van took off.
"Mommy!" Aelita shouted running after the van but fell as it drove away in the distance. She then got up and ran back to the house.
"Aelita, wait!" Waldo shouted. Aelita then stopped and suddenly parts of the house blew up and the whole thing burst into flames.
"No!" Aelita shouted.
"Come on." Waldo shouted grabbing her hand and went into a part of the woods with a car hidden there. They both went into the car and took off.
"Daddy, where are we going?" Aelita asked.
"To France." Waldo said. "We have to begin a new life." Aelita then gasped and realized something.
"Daddy! Mister Puck was in there!" Waldo then gave her the elf doll that he had brought with him at the last second.
"You didn't really think I was going to forget him, didn't you?"
"Daddy." Aelita asked. "What will we do in France?"
"Nothing." Waldo said almost to himself as he glanced at a folder that he was carrying with him. The folder only had one word: Lyoko. "Nothing at all."
A short time later, they came to a small motel. Waldo then went up to the information desk.
"Excuse me, I'd like to rent a room for two." He said.
"Okay." The man at the desk said. "How long will you be staying?"
"Just for tonight."
"And what is your name?" Waldo thought for a moment before he answered. Then finally...
"My name is Franz Hopper."
Okay, maybe that was a little inaccurate. But we were given so little and don't remember too much about it. Besides, it's my fanfic, I'll write whatever the hell I want. Also I plan on making a separate chapter at the end that goes into more detail about Lyoko's creation; I was originally going to make it all one chapter, but then I figured that I wouldn't have time.
Please Review.