"So he is coming?" Dr. Barlow asked.
Volger sighed. "It seems so."
"Deryn is coming as well. She seems pleased that gender roles are of insignificance."
Of course she was pleased. The girl had played cross dresser and joined the Air Service! He wasn't sure what he thought of Aleksandar consorting with such a girl. Falling in love with her. Kissing her. In a janitor's closet.
"I'm not surprised," was all he said. He stood and cleared his throat. "Nora, I am coming as well."
Barlow smiled faintly. "I'm not surprised. You really care about Alek, don't you?"
"I swore to his father that I would keep him safe," Volger said, "but he's not making that job easy."
"These are the scanners," said Dr. Barlow. Alek, Deryn, and Volger were all standing in a room with three metal tubes. Deryn thought they looked rather like coffins.
"Barking spiders!" she cried. "We're supposed to get in those things?"
"It won't go wrong," Dr. Barlow promised. "You'll end up in an underground room on the grounds of Kadic. Volger will be with you. He has a map, and he will sign you up. Act as your guardian, if you will."
Volger nodded and stepped into one of the scanners. The door hissed closed. Dr. Barlow went up to the next floor to operate the machine.
Alek turned to Deryn. "Aren't you scared? At all?" He bit his tongue and turned his head away. Of course she wasn't scared; she was Deryn Sharp.
"Aye, I'm a bit scared," Deryn admitted, shrugging slightly. "But the lady boffin says I can wear trousers as often as I want. I reckon it can't be all bad."
Alek smiled. This was the Deryn he knew. "Ladies first," he joked.
"Of course," said Deryn, stepping aside with a wide grin on her face. "It would be quite rude if I went in before you."
Alek kissed her quickly on the cheek, glad Volger was inside the scanner already.
"Are all three of you ready?" Dr. Barlow's voice seemed to boom out of nowhere.
Deryn smiled, backing into one of the scanners. "Bye, Alek," she said, "See you in a hundred years."
The scanner's door closed with a final-sounding thunk, and her virtualization began.
The wall of light in front of Alek cracked a little, and the door of the scanner opened, spilling smoke out into the air of a lab. He stumbled out of the tube, feeling slightly nauseous. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Deryn come out of the one on the opposite side of the room.
Alek coughed the smoke away and stared at the device, as intricate as any Clanker engine he'd seen. But at the same time, it wasn't a Clanker device at all. Instead of gears, electrical wires snaked around the top of the scanner and wound into the ceiling. He figured that it was connected to the main generator on the floor above them, he couldn't see any type of opening in the ceiling that would allow the wires to fit. They were thicker than his hand, after all.
"Deryn, are you all right?" he asked, standing up.
"Aye, I'm fine," Deryn said, coughing as well. "Barking spiders, that was a rough trip, wasn't it?"
"Indeed," Alek agreed. "Volger, are you—"
He stopped abruptly. He was staring at the third scanner, the one Volger had gone into, but there was no Volger. The door was open, and smoke poured out, but Alek's fencing master was not inside.
He bit his tongue. "The Count isn't here yet," he muttered, mostly to himself.
Deryn rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something, probably some witty comment about Alek's mental capacity, when a voice drifted down from downstairs.
"There's something on Lyoko," it said. "Go check it out."
"What?" Deryn whispered.
"Something on Lyoko," Alek repeated. "I don't understand either."
"Well, he sounds as if he knows what he's doing," Deryn stated. "Let's ask him for help." She pointed at a ladder on the wall.
Alek climbed up until his head poked up to the next floor. His eyes widened in amazement. A huge device hung from the ceiling, and huge wires hung around the room. The device was emitting light onto the face of a boy who sat in the chair in front of it. He had blond hair and round glasses, and he had to have been younger than they were.
Alek cleared his throat. "Excuse me?"
The boy whirled around, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "There's someone in the lab!" he shouted into thin air. "XANA must be launching an attack!" He paused and seemed to be waiting for a reply.
Alek frowned and opened his mouth as the boy glanced at his... thing. "I-I don't know," he stammered. This wasn't making sense. "The super-scan didn't detect anything."
"If you'll excuse me," Alek said again, clambering the rest of the way on the top floor. Deryn started up the ladder after him. "We're new students here. Would you help us find our way to the school?"
Suddenly, he heard one of the scanners hiss open. "Volger!" he cried, turning around and climbing back down behind him, but it wasn't Volger. It was an Asian girl wearing the most revealing clothes he had ever seen. She pulled Deryn off of the ladder and slammed her to the ground.
"Blisters, what was that for?" Deryn yelled, starting to stand back up, but the girl kicked her head and she stayed on the ground.
Was attacking new students some sort of strange French custom, or were they simply mad? It was difficult for Alek to tell; they were, after all, rambling about XANA, super-scans, and a thing called Lyoko.
Alek jumped back down. You're practically naked! he didn't say. Instead, he said as calmly as he could, "I don't know who you are or what XANA or Lyoko are. Deryn and I are exchange students, and our guardian is supposed to be here, but something must have gone wrong."
"You do sound foreign," she said, but narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"Yumi, they're specters!" said the boy from upstairs. He paused again. "No activated tower? But that's impossible! There are specters in the lab!"
God's wounds, these people really were mad!
"Would you listen to me?" Alek cried desperately. "I'm not a specter, or XANA, or whatever it is you think I am! I'm just a student looking for Kadic Academy. Although I'm beginning to understand we may have chosen an... unorthodox way of getting here, but we don't mean any harm." He moved to Deryn's side. She was beginning to stir, and already a large bruise was forming on her forehead.
"I'm going to launch a return to the past," said the boy on the machine upstairs.
"Okay, Jeremy," the girl apparently named Yumi said. A ball of blinding white light began to spread from his machine. Its edge passed over Alek, and he instinctively braced against it...
The wall of light in front of Alek cracked a little, and the door of the scanner opened, spilling smoke out into the air of a lab. He stumbled out of the tube, feeling slightly nauseous. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Deryn come out of the one on the opposite side of the room. He had done this before, he thought.
"Deryn, are you all right?" he asked uncertainly.
"Aye, I'm fine," she said, coughing away smoke. "Why were we back in the scanners?"
Alek didn't hear her question, he was already halfway up the ladder. He addressed Jeremy, anger in his voice.
"Deryn and I are not specters. I don't know what kind of joke you're trying to play on us, but it isn't funny."
He stared at them. "You remember what happened?"
"Aye, of course we do!" Deryn was glaring at him as well. "You tried to barking kill us!"
"You are human," he said in wonder.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry." He looked like he really meant it. Alek softened a little, but Deryn still looked full of fire.
"Can you help us?" Alek asked, choosing his words carefully.
He nodded. "You said you were exchange students, right?" he asked. "Were do you come from?"
"Glasgow," said Deryn automatically.
"Prague," said Alek, "In 1915."
Jeremy looked a little taken aback. "That explains why you both came out of the scanners."
"We're missing a third man," Alek demanded, "our guardian. He was supposed to come with us, through the third scanner."
Jeremy hit keys quickly on the board in front of him. Two images came up, the shapes of Alek and Deryn, spinning slowly on the screen. There was a third window with a large, red exclamation mark in it.
"Oh, no," he said, "something went wrong with the virtualization!"
Virtualization. Alek mouthed the word several times, trying to figure out what it meant. Nothing came to mind, though he suspected it had something to do with the scanners, and what they called Lyoko.
Jeremy tapped some more keys, and unrecognizable symbols popped up all over the screen. Then he leaned back in his seat. "He's in virtual limbo," he said, looking horrified at the thought.
Alek and Deryn stared at each other. They didn't know exactly what that meant, but it couldn't be good.