Ch. 6
Déjà vu?
William was walking in the hallway when he suddenly had an odd feeling. This had all happened before. He remembered the feeling from back in his lyokoian days. It felt weird to go back in time, especially when you said or did something to change it. He glanced at the clock, he felt like there should have been a scream right about now.
-.-
Akineko waited for the two boys to leave before attempting to address what had happened at the factory and why they were suddenly back in their room the night before. "So what happened at the factory? And why are we back here?"
"What are you talking about?" Champagne responded looking at her like she was crazy.
"You know the factory with the super computer and how you used me like a guinea-"
"How do you know about the factory?!"
"You took me there, when we were getting chased by the electric dog don't you remember?" Akineko told her.
"When was this?"
"It was just a few hours," Akineko noticed her calendar was reset to the day before, "well technically it was tomorrow."
"You're not making any sense," Champagne told her with a glare.
"You sent us back in time! You said there was a return to the past program," Akineko said with exasperation.
Champagne paused before pulling out her laptop and pulling up the copy of the coding of the return to the past program. It wasn't compiled but it was more for her to see what kind of coding the computer used. While she didn't entirely understand the exact coding language there were several times that the program seemed to refer to the same program that the scanners used.
"Tell me everything that happened," Champagne told her roommate.
Akineko started to explain everything from the computer shocking Champagne later that night to the dog that attacked them the next day. She left out the part about her vertigo making it hard for her to enter the factory but explained about XANA and the weird explanation that was given to them from the super computer, as well as the AI.
Champagne's eyebrows furrowed. "When does your practice end tomorrow?"
"16:00 why?"
-.-
Akineko ran once again toward the uneven bars. Everything followed the same rhythm as before, except for one thing. Akineko was determined to not fail. If what had happened last time was not a dream then she'd need to get over her fear quickly if she was going to help Champagne with her crazy scheme of freeing the AI program named Odysseus.
She pushed off from the ground and grabbed the bar and swung herself over once twice, worked through one giant then half giant before pushing off to the next bar. She shut her eyes as she moved when she knew she'd see the ground, reaching around out of instinct. She moved smoothly through the transitions before pushing off and turning in the air before she stuck the landing.
"Nicely done Miss Stern, now if you could just keep your eyes on the bar," Jim said writing down a note before calling up the next person. Akineko grabbed her water bottle and took a swig. Oh yes, she wasn't going to let it get the best of her.
She glanced at the clock, Jim had better let her out soon, Champagne and her were going to the factory to test Champagne's theory as to why she had remembered and Champagne hadn't, as it wouldn't be good if she had to keep reminding Champagne that she knew.
"Alright you guys hit the showers, and tomorrow don't forget your chalk! I don't want to see you slipping and sliding off the bars again." Jim stated in a loud voice.
Akineko smiled and ducked into the locker room, determined to get changed as fast as she could.
-.-
William was sure now that he'd been sent back into the past; all these papers that he was grading were the same as he remembered them, with people getting the same grades. It was bad enough to have to grade papers but to have to grade them a second time was a nightmare. He also remembered a giant electric dog running around after this point.
William stopped in the middle of grading a worksheet. A giant electric dog. XANA. But, Jeremy said he'd been destroyed, so he couldn't be back could he? William pulled up google and franticly typed into the search bar before getting the page he was looking for.
-.-
"Bonjour, this is Bel Pois industries Penelope speaking," a woman with her blond hair in a tight bun said.
"I'm calling to get in touch with Jeremy Bel Pois," a male voice said at the other end of the line.
"Do you have a phone meeting appointment?" Penelope asked pulling up an electron calendar.
"No, but I'm his friend really can I just be put through to him?" the voice pleaded.
"Your name sir?" Penelope asked.
"William Dunbar."
"I will tell him you called, but he is too busy to take your call now," Penelope told him, "May I have a phone number?"
-.-
Champagne was typing away at the computer when Akineko arrived. "You ready to go through to lyoko?"
"I'm not going through to Lyoko, I'm going to just have it scan me then run a five minute return to the past, which should lead to when you just walk in," Champagne told her, "You ready to have another déjà vu moment?"
-.-
William reached down to grab the stack of papers only to find the worksheet that he'd graded five minutes ago on top of the stack. It was not graded.