The scream that tore the crisp October air was unmistakably Michael's. For a moment, Ivy forgot that Michael was gone, and she raced through the park toward its source. Thankfully, she recalled the circumstances before she reached the clone, but this did not make the sight of the clone doubled over and clutching at its head any less bizarre and alarming.
Ivy tensed as she processed the scene in front of her. 'XANA,' she thought, and a thrill of fear went through her. She assumed a defensive position, ready for the clone to strike.
But the clone made no move to attack her. It opened its eyes as she approached and caught sight of her. She had anticipated seeing XANA's mark it its eyes, but instead, the pupils were so dilated that they appeared almost black. Even as she watched, they shrunk to the size of a pin, then dilated again rapidly. "Ivy," it breathed, and stumbled toward her, tripping over itself and falling to its knees. Ivy automatically backed away when it reached for her, but it made no move to hurt her, instead clutching at her desperately. "Oh, Ivy, please help me…"
"What happened to you?" Ivy asked, fighting the urge to push its hands away. Alarm and pity fought inside of her, for she had never seen the clone looking like this before, so desperate and afraid. "Are you glitching?"
"Am I glitching?" Michael's clone echoed faintly. "I… do not know. I have no data on… Oh, it's all so…" Its eyes left her face, roving all around, and its grip on her tightened as though it was afraid she would disappear.
"I can't help you if I don't know what's happening," Ivy said, fighting to keep a note of panic out of her voice. While it did not seem to be particularly dangerous, she could not rule out the possibility that the clone might suddenly turn on her.
"It is… everything," the clone supplied unhelpfully. "The sky and the grass and you and it is all very… complicated and large and I do not know what to do…"
"Shhh…" Pity was winning out. Ivy took a deep breath to steady her nerves, then moved to sit on her knees in front of the clone, prying the clone's hands off of her clothes and holding them between hers. "It's going to be okay," she assured him, though honestly she knew nothing of the sort. "Can you… I don't know, focus on one thing?"
"There are far too many for just one…" Michael's clone gave a helpless little moan, closing its eyes.
"Just this." Ivy tried to keep her voice low and soothing as squeezed the clone's hands gently. "Just focus on this for now, and then you can decide what you want to pay attention to after that. You choose what to pay attention to. Like a filter, you know?"
"I… can try…" the clone said uncertainly. It fell silent, its expression utterly blank. A few long moments passed, and Ivy struggled not to start shivering. After what seemed like a long time, the clone opened its eyes again, and they had stopped doing the strange expanding and contracting thing. "I believe that I have it under control," it stated, though perhaps it was Ivy's imagination but she thought it sounded doubtful.
"Good." Ivy let go of the clone's hands, but did not move away from it, nor did she stop speaking in her low, soothing voice. "I'm going to call Mr. Belpois now, okay? We can take you to the factory and find out what that was all about."
"No," the clone said quickly. "If we leave now, then both Michael and Ivy will miss class. I exist to ensure that Michael is not missed."
Ivy hesitated. This had bad idea written all over it.
"We can go the moment that class lets out, or even at lunch if that will make you more comfortable," continued the clone.
"What if you freak out again?" Ivy pointed out.
It was the clone's turn to hesitate. "I do not believe that I will," it replied slowly. "If I do, then I shall leave, and we can go to the factory straight away."
Ivy bit her lip. She knew that she should follow what Jeremie had told her to do if anything strange were to happen with the clone, but she couldn't bring him into the factory every single time there was a hiccup. And besides, she rationalized, perhaps this was simply a side effect of him learning so much in such a short amount of time. The girl sighed heavily. "Alright… I suppose we could just wait and see if this problem persists," she conceded. She took out her phone to check what time it was and gave a small groan. "Dang it! I forgot to charge my phone again…" She pocketed the phone and looked at her wrist and swore. "We're late for class!" she yelped, jumping to her feet and grabbing the clone's hand to pull it to a standing position. "Come on!"
Earlier at the factory, Jeremie had just got off the phone with Principal Delmas to cash in his last sick day. He sighed heavily, leaning back in the computer chair. He and Aelita have been taking turns trying to locate Michael for the past week and so far the results have not been as promising as they had initially hoped. The added code was supposed to cause a more noticeable disruption as they searched the network to make Michael easier to spot. In actuality it meant that they were investigating every single anomaly that they came were currently investigating some stray data that were slightly more promising than the last stray data. Jeremie had long since stopped being hopeful every time they found something strange. Now he was just tired.
"What did Liz have to say?" Aelita asked from the desk beside the supercomputer the group had set up so that whoever was working on the laptop wouldn't have to sit on the ground like they did when they were young.
"She said that I need to get over this cold fast or else we're going to have to have a chat when I get back. So it's just like old times.," he explained with a sigh, rubbing his temples. "Meanwhile we get to watch this program scan the next useless mess of code in the virtual sea."
"We'll find him Jeremie...We just have to keep looking," Aelita assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder while she watched the screen go through the anomaly for relevant data.
Time passed slowly and with every passing moment, it looked like it would be another failed scan. Jeremie had just leaned forward to type the command to cease the scan when an alert that they had not heard before popped up, startling both Jeremie and Aelita. "Wait...does that mean...what I think it means?" Aelita said slowly. Jeremie made no answer. His heart was suddenly hammering in his chest as he typed furiously. Could it be…?
After a few very tense moments, the notice that the virtualization program was successful and both of the two adults gave a huge sigh of relief. But their relief was tinged with anxiety. Unbidden, their discussion of Michael's potential possession floated to the front of Jeremie's mind. Much as he wanted to believe that everything was fine, he could not dismiss this possibility. "We should… check on him," Aelita suggested. Judging by her hesitation, the same thought was on her mind.
When they arrived in the scanner room, they saw that one of the scanner doors were open and a figure was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. "Michael, are you okay?" Aelita asked tentatively.
Michael slowly looked up and turned to Aelita. He blinked, either trying to remember where he was or simply trying to focus. "Yeah… Just a very bad headache… What's going on?" he asked, looking around "Where is everyone?"
"At school or at their jobs. You've been gone for a while so we couldn't keep Ivy around here without causing suspicion." Jeremie started to explain. Michael cut him off.
"What do you mean I've been gone?" Michael asked."I didn't go anywhere."
Jeremie and Aelita exchanged a look. "You fell into the virtual sea, remember?" Aelita
"No," Michael said, then frowned. "Wait… No. That was… real? I thought it was… I don't know what I thought it was. A bad dream or something. That's what it felt like.."
"That was real," Aelita confirmed. "I'm sorry. Unfortunately that can take a while to recover. Thankfully we were able to locate you as quickly as we did."
"And how long was that?" the boy asked, a note of panic creeping into his voice.
Another exchanged glance. Again, Aelita answered him in a quiet voice. "It's been about a week."
"A week?!" Michael exclaimed, his eyes widening. "Oh my god. I need to get back to Kadic!" He made a move toward the elevator. Jeremie stepped into his path.
"Hold on, Michael, we can't let you leave just yet. We need to run a few tests on you just to make sure you are okay and nothing happened to you. Then we can get you back to Kadic," Jeremie promised.
Michael stopped in his tracks and stared Jeremie down. "I have a life to get back to," he protested. "My dad, Lucas, Ivy…"
"They've all been taken care of," Jeremie assured his student. "We need be sure that XANA didn't do anything to you.
Michael was quiet, considering his options. After a few moments, Michael nodded. "Alright, fine. I'll run your tests. But can we get something to eat first? I haven't exactly eaten in a whole week," he requested earnestly.
Aelita shook her head "It would be best if you stayed here at the factory, but I do have some snacks up in the lab you can have." She offered to him heading into the elevator.
"Sure that'll work for now," Michael agreed following her into the elevator with Jeremie behind him.
Jeremie was quite relieved that Michael had decided to be so reasonable.
In retrospect, they probably should have known better.
Back at Kadic, Ivy and the clone were running through the halls, weaving their way through staff members and a few other straggling students. Ivy also thought she heard Jim yell something about detention, which she knew she would hear about later. But that was the least of her concerns. Right now, she just was trying to get the two of them to chemistry class. The girl half-dragged the clone behind her, which stumbled after her. As they rounded the corner of the hallway that lead to Ms. Hertz's classroom, Ivy slowed down to catch her breath for a moment so she didn't look completely frazzled entering the room five minutes late for class. She turned and looked at the clone. "Sorry about the rush. You okay?" she panted.
"Yes...I am fine… Although I think I suspect that we shall both pay dearly later, based on what Jim said." In comparison, the clone barely sounded winded at all.
Ivy waved a dismissive hand. "We'll worry about that later. Let's just get class over with." She took a deep, steadying breath before pushing the door to the classroom open.. "Sorry I'm late Ms. Hertz, I had overslept from studying and-" she started to explain, then stopped short. The clone stopped too, staring at the spot it had meant to take. Only someone was already sitting in the chair. Michael had been toying idly with a pencil, staring at the board with disinterest. He looked over at them as he heard Ivy's voice. His eyes locked on the clone. And then several things happened at once.
Michael leaped up, knocking his chair backwards to the floor. Ivy gave a cry of surprise and confusion, dropping to a defensive position in case this obvious XANA trick attacked. The clone turned and fled, turning the corner and vanishing from sight. And the whole classroom burst into a deafening roar of everyone trying to speak at once.
After a few moments of chaos, Ms. Hertz managed to silence her students."Ivy, can you please explain to me what is going on?" she asked, turning to look at Ivy, who was still watching the other Michael. He did not make a move to attack, and seemed just as confused as everyone else. Even as she watched, he flushed scarlet and picked his chair up off the ground. Ivy's heart skipped a beat. What if…?
"Ms. Smith," Mrs. Hertz repeated impatiently.
Ivy was completely at a loss. She opened her mouth, hoping something brilliant would come out but only managed to say "Ah…"
"I suppose the cat is out of the bag." There was the sound of a chair sliding away from a desk. To Ivy's utter astonishment, Lucas stood to address Mrs. Hertz and the classroom at large. "Michael and I met a guy at the movies last week that looked a ton like him, so we thought it would be funny to mess with people and make them think that there were two of him. I'm guessing that Ivy just assumed Michael was skipping class and brought him here, which is why she was late."
Mrs. Hertz, while aging, was sharp as ever. She narrowed her eyes at her young pupil. "I fail to see the joke, Mr. Gosse."
Lucas gave a guilty little smile. "If you have to explain the joke, I guess it's not that funny."
"Is this true?" Mrs. Hertz looked between Michael and Ivy. Together, they nodded. "I am surprised at you two," the teacher scolded Michael and Lucas now. "You know better than this. Non-students are only allowed on Kadic grounds if they're received prior permission from Eliz- Principal Delmas." The woman shook her head, frowning. "All three of you, to the principal's office, now."
Michael and Lucas did not need telling twice. Without a word, the two of them filed out of the room, passing Ivy who still stood in the doorway. The girl shut the door behind them.
Alone in the hall with the two boys, Ivy thought quickly about her next move. Much as she wanted to believe that this was the real Michael, her cautious nature demanded that she check. Instead she looked to Lucas, holding out her hand. "I need your phone. Mine is dead."
"'Thank you, Lucas, for saving my butt back there,'" Lucas remarked, but still pulled out his cell. "'No problem, Ivy, I'm glad to help you out even if you're being really shady and weird. Oh, and here's my phone, too.'" He rolled his eyes as he passed the phone over to her.
Ivy sighed as she took the phone from Lucas "Thank you Lucas, I couldn't get out of there without you," she conceded, ignoring his second comment while she tried to remember Jeremie's number off the top of her head. When she was confident that she had it right, she pressed call and waited.
After the second ring, Jeremie picked up. "Hello? Who is this?" he asked cautiously.
"Ah, good, I got it right," Ivy began with a sigh of relief. After a wary glance over her shoulder, she wandered down the hallway to get out of earshot of Lucas. "Jeremie, it's me, Ivy. Please tell me that you have found Michael…" she murmured, a mixture of worry and hopefulness in her voice. She glanced over at Michael, who was watching her with a frown and was being uncharacteristically quiet.
"Ivy! Oh thank god, we've been so worried!" Jeremie gushed. "We couldn't get ahold of you and when Michael got away, we thought the worst… Aelita was searching the campus. Is he with you, then?"
"My phone died. Yeah, he's with me." She let out a breath she did not know that she had been holding and turned to cast Michael a little smile. He did not return it. "So you found him, then? It's really him?"
Jeremie paused on the phone. "We… believe so," he answered at last. "Honestly, we cannot be certain. The fact that he ran away from the factory certainly does not bode well, but if he is with you and doesn't seem to be acting strangely… We still need him to come back to the factory to run some tests. Bring him back in as soon as you can. Oh, and as for the clone, make sure it stays hidden. If all goes well, we should be able to erase it before the day is over."
"Oh." Ivy chewed her lip. While the clone had been a pain to teach, truth be told she had gotten used to having it around. She thought she might even miss it a bit. "Alright, I'll let them know." 'Though first I'll have to find it,' she added silently to herself. "Anything else?"
"No, that should be it. See you when you get to the factory. Please hurry - and be careful."
"I will," Ivy promised, and hung up.
Ivy walked back to the two boys and handed Lucas his phone back "Thank you for letting me borrow your phone, Lucas," she said, handing it back to him and turning to face Michael completely for the first time. She was not sure what she was expecting for their first meeting. Him staring at her with such a stony expression was not the top of her list.
"Can I talk to you? Alone?" Michael demanded, casting Lucas a glance.
Lucas held up his hands in surrender. "Fine. Keep me in the dark. See if I care." He rolled his eyes again, shaking his head as he walked theatrically to the other end of the hallway.
"Ivy, what's going on?" Michael asked her in a low, urgent voice. "Is this an attack?"
"What? No, of course not!" Ivy replied.
"But the impostor!" Michael gestured in the direction the clone had run off in. "Look, all I know is that I get back from the digital void and Jeremie and Aelita tell me I've been gone a whole week and I'm not allowed to go back until they run their stupid tests, and then -"
"Yeah, about that." Ordinarily, Ivy would not have cut across him, but she wanted to sort this out before she could relax around Michael. "How did you run off from Jeremie and Aelita, and why would you do that?"
"Oh, them? I just waited until they got out of the elevator and closed the door behind them. I figured that by the time that old thing got back down to ground level and back again, I'd have a head start. As for why I ran off… I mean, I was gone a week, Ivy. I wanted to get back to things, to make sure that everything was okay… I figured the tests could wait a couple of hours."
Ivy looked up into those pale blue eyes, and allowed herself to hope that this was the truth. "Well, you have to take the tests now, Michael," she told him, but gently. "And you didn't need to worry, we had it taken care of. Though I suppose now we have to find the clone."
Michael had been about to say something. Now he froze and stared at her. "Clone?" he repeated blankly.
"Yeah. They made it to stand in for you until the adults could track you down," Ivy explained, already looking around to see if the clone might be hiding nearby.
"Wait, wait. Let me get this straight." Michael held up a hand, his expression rapidly darkening. "You guys made some… some thing to replace me?"
"Well no, not replace you," Ivy explained, a little bit impatient. "Just to make sure no one knew you were gone."
"I… see," Michael said slowly, processing this information. "And you just thought it was okay to do that?"
Ivy frowned. "Well, we didn't really have a whole lot of other options."
"Except finding me," Michael pointed out, and his voice came out a growl now. Ivy's heart sank.
"Well, I wasn't… I mean, Jeremie and Aelita were in charge of looking for you, I had to stay with the clone," she began.
If she had hoped that this would help, it did not. Certainly, Michael did not start yelling, but he always turned away from her quite abruptly. "Let's just split up and find this stupid thing, okay? You have to get rid of Lucas, though."
Ivy quickly walked around the ground trying to locate the clone, all the while muttering frustrations about Michael under her breath. Convincing Lucas to go away had taken more time than she had anticipated, and after a quick check of the dorms had proved unsuccessful, she was at a loss. And since Michael had completely failed to coordinate with her, she had no idea where Michael would be searching. Reluctantly, Ivy had decided to check the spot that they had met up in the park, well-aware of the fact that Michael might well be combing that area as well and they were just wasting time.
As she trudged through the grass, it occurred to her for the first time that she had no idea what to call the clone. She knew it would answer to Michael, but thus far she had avoided calling it by this name. Besides it somehow felt… wrong, especially with the real Michael back. "Hello?" she called instead as she approached their spot, not expecting an answer.
"I am here," came a quiet answer. Ivy nearly jumped out of her skin. It seemed like the clone had just materialized out of thin air. She smiled at it, and it smiled back, though there was something a little off about its facial expression.
"Glad I found you," she said, moving toward it. "You need to hide."
It blinked at her, its eyebrows raising just a fraction. "Why?" it asked her.
Ivy blinked back, surprised that the clone had asked for an explanation rather than just obeying her. "Well, we need to be sure that you won't disappear in front of anyone. It might make them panic," she explained gently.
"Oh." The clone looked away from her, staring around at the trees and the grass instead. He had done the same thing just half an hour earlier, but now everything was different. It did not make a move to hide, and Ivy made no move toward it. "I like it here," the clone remarked in a soft voice after about a minute. "May I stay here?"
Ivy shook her head. "No. A student could find you."
"I see." It nodded slowly. "Where shall I go, then?"
The girl thought for a moment. "The garden shed isn't far," she decided. "As long as you stay quiet, I don't think you'll be caught. Follow me." She turned and started down the correct path.
As expected, the clone followed her. Not at all expected was when it reached out and touched her hand in a similar manner that it had this morning. Ivy gave a noise of surprise and jerked away.
"I am sorry," the clone murmured. "I believe I… I am afraid."
Ivy stopped short and stared at it, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What? I mean, but you… you can't be."
"I concur," the clone agreed. "Yet I feel… different. As you described when I asked a few days ago. I cannot put it into words, but I want… I want… I cannot want, I do not wish, I am only what you told me to be, but I…" It's tongue flicked over its lips as it thought. 'I do that,' Ivy thought, a strange chill going down her spine. 'Michael doesn't do that, but sometimes I do that.'
The clone continued in a voice barely above a whisper, looking up at the trees and the sky again. "The world is beautiful," it breathed. "It is beautiful and it is big and it shall be gone and I shall be nothing and if I feel this than what will I feel like when I am nothing? Code is never erased, not until it's written over… Will I remember that? Will I remember that I was here, that I saw everything here, that I…" His eyes moved back to fix on her face with disconcerting intensity, as though trying to remember every inch. "Will I remember that I met you? I am afraid of what I become once I am done being this."
Ivy swallowed and grimaced, trying her best to set aside what sounded eerily like the human fear of mortality. "I'm sorry," she said, and it was true. "But we can't have two Michaels running around."
"I know…" The clone nodded. "I just… I want to stay. Why can't I stay?"
"Because there's no place for you here," Ivy replied a little sadly. "Michael and I have lives, we're… we're real. You've just been borrowing Michael's for a little while."
"I… I see…" The clone averted its eyes, nodding again.
"It's out of my hands. I'm sorry," Ivy repeated.
"What if I asked the others? Jeremie and Aelita, the humans that created me. Perhaps if they said yes…" There was something in his voice that sounded terribly like hope, and as much as Ivy rationalized that he was a program and could not feel anything, she couldn't bring herself to crush it.
"Well, I suppose you could… try…" she said hesitantly. "We could go to the factory together and you could talk to Jeremie and Aelita. I don't know if it would work, but it couldn't hurt to ask."
"Will you help me?" it asked her.
Again, Ivy hesitated. "I…" she began.
"So, this is it, huh?" a familiar voice came. Michael had tracked them down, and stood with his arms folded, watching the two of them.
Ivy gave a small sigh, both of relief and annoyance. "Michael, I don't know why you're making such a big deal over this. But we're all together now, so let's just go to the factory, okay?"
Michael ignored her and strode over to size up the clone. His doppelganger cast Ivy a nervous look. Michael laughed. "Doesn't seem to be a very good imitation, does it? Does it even talk?"
"I do indeed," the clone answered, returning Michael's gaze now.
Something was wrong here. Ivy had seen Michael angry before, burning with rage. She'd been on the receiving end of it several times. This was something different. Michael had not lost control, but Ivy could almost feel the fury coming off of him.
Michael laughed again, coldly. "It doesn't sound much like me either. Did this really fool anyone?"
"He's a learning clone, Michael," Ivy said impatiently, gesturing for the clone to follow her. "I taught him how to act like you. He's just not doing it right now, which honestly I'm glad about if you're going to act like this. We have to go meet Mr. Belpois."
This was apparently the exact wrong thing to say. Michael's eyes flashed at her dangerously, and he stepped between Ivy and the clone, blocking his path. "Oh, is that right? Well, go on then." He jerked his head at the clone. "Do me."
"I… beg your pardon?" the clone said uncertainly.
"You heard me. Do me. Be me." When the clone did not respond, the boy quite suddenly gave it a shove, making it stumble back a few paces.
"Michael!" Ivy reproached, surprise and alarm coursing through her. Again, Michael ignored her.
"Come on," he growled, shoving his double's chest again. "I want to see what she taught you. Show me what you did, show me how you replaced me."
Michael's clone staggered backwards, but kept its feet. "No," he said, frowning now.
"Michael, stop it." Ivy grabbed his arm.
The boy suddenly rounded on her. "It'll do it if you tell it to, right? Make it be me. I want to see for myself." He took a step forward.
Ivy automatically took a step back. She had been hurt when he had yelled at her before, or angry, or sad. This was the first time that she felt a flutter of fear. "No," she breathed, shaking her head. "I don't know why you're so determined to see that, but no. It was just an act, it was just to make sure no one noticed you were gone."
"And what, did you just forget too?" Michael snarled. "Too busy building a new me to bother looking for the real one?"
"No, of course not," Ivy said, shaking her head.
"I would hope not, after what you did."
Ivy's breath caught in her throat. There it was. The thing that she had been fearing the most. Everyone had been wrong. Michael did blame her. "I-I…" she began weakly. Michael was still advancing on her, and Ivy thought faintly how similar it was to their last fight, only this time their roles were reversed. The difference was that this time, Ivy had someone intervene.
"Stop!" The sound of the clone's voice drew both of their attention. Its body language had transformed it. Ivy had seen the clone's Michael imitation many times. What it was doing now was close, but something was just a little bit different. She could not put her finger on it, but was not given much time to reflect on it. "Leave her alone!" the clone continued, glaring at Michael.
To be fair, Michael did do as the clone said, but only because his attention was now fully fixed on his double now. "So, that's it? That's me?" He shook his head, moving back toward the clone. "You're nothing like me."
"Why would I wanna be?" The clone was borrowing from Michael's speech patterns, standing its ground. "Seems to me it would have been better for you to stay gone, if you're just going to be a bullying jerk for no reason."
Michael gave the clone a huge shove, and it fell backwards, landing in the dirt. "You are just some thing," he hissed furiously. "Some program they made to replace me. You don't know me. You don't know what I feel."
"That's enough!" Ivy roared, placing herself between Michael and the clone. "Both of you, stop it now."
The rage that had been rolling off of Michael in tangible waves suddenly died. He was looking from Ivy to the clone and back again. The boy crossed his arms again. "So, that's it?" he asked again. "That's me? Angry kid who says terrible things?"
Ivy helped the clone to his feet, not looking at the boy she had thought was her friend. "Sometimes, Michael, yes," she agreed quietly.
"I see now." He stared them down as the clone clung to her arm, both frightened and protecting one another. "I see everything." The boy turned his back on them without another word and walked away.
Alright, ladies and gents, it's that time of year again. The holidays are coming up, so we have to talk about what this means for The Plutarch. Much as we love writing this for you all, the fact remains that Sky and I have families, and so the schedule will need to be adjusted as follows:
Next week, we shall post a chapter like normal. Then, Sky and I will be taking Thanksgiving week off. In December, we will post ONE chapter (and we will try to make this one a good one, don't worry) as well as a Satellite Story.
What is a Satellite Story, you may ask. Well, after some discussions, Sky and I have agreed that there are things about the Lyoko warriors that simply do not fit in the main story but are nevertheless important about who they have become. Ten years have passed, after all. A lot has happened. Reading these is not essential to understanding the narrative, but you might learn something interesting. Think of them as bonus features.
With the rest of the time, Sky and I will work on the upcoming chapters, and we will be ready to start promptly again in the new year. Don't worry, guys, we'll be back soon. We promise. Thank you all for your support, ever single favorite and review makes us smile.
-Rai and Sky