Jeremy was woken by the sound of urgent beeping coming from his computer. He got up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, & put on his glasses. He blinked a few times as he stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what he was seeing even though he was still half asleep. Why was a test of the materialization program running at this hour?
A shot of adrenaline ran through him, waking him fully. The materialization was in its final preparatory stage. This was where he was stuck, the data was lost rapidly at this point…but this time, it wasn't. The results came back positive!
As he reached for the mouse to close the test, he was tempted to call Alita & tell her the good news. But as he tried to close the program, he was met with an error message. The program could not be shut down at this time. He & Alita has designed this condition, even adding layers of protection so that XANA couldn't hack into it & stop Alita from making the big jump. The program could not be stopped.
This wasn't a test. This was real.
He grabbed his cell phone & called Od, who had obviously been fast asleep.
"It's me." Jeremy said. "Wake Ulrick. Call Yumi. The matrelztn program…I'm not sure how, but it works. Alita's coming…right now. Meet me at the factory."
Alita's POV:
I felt…strange…
I could hear somebody approaching. "…She's here at last." a voice said. I knew that voice. It was Jeremy.
I opened my eyes, slowly. There he was, right in front of me. Yumi, Ulrick, & Od were clustered around the scanner as well.
"Welcome to Earth." Jeremy said. They cheered as I opened my eyes. It was so good to see them!
"Alita!" Jeremy reached down, & held out his hand. I accepted it & he helped me to my feet. Once I was standing, I threw my arms around him in a big hug, to help me find my balance…but also because I was so happy to see him.
"I'm so happy to see you! I've been waiting for this day for so long! I can't believe I'm finally…" I said…or I tried to, at least. No sound came out. I placed my hand on my throat, as I remembered my deal with XANA.
"Alita?" Jeremy asked, gently. "Are you ok?"
I nodded. Despite my voice being gone, everything else seemed to be ok.
"Can you speak?"
Slowly, I shook my head no.
We rode up in the elevator one level. So this is what the super computer looked like from the outside…
"I'm just not sure how this happened." Jeremy said, taking his seat at the computer. "I mean, I'm really glad it did, but the program wasn't working when I went to bed tonight. We still had a long way to go." Jeremy kept talking, mostly describing the overall theory of materialization, but I tuned him out. Something else had caught my eye.
The holographic map of Lyoko. It had been my whole world, until recently, & standing here made it seem so small…I felt an unexpected pang of homesickness. I tried to reach out & touch it, but my hand passed right through the hologram.
If I was successful, once we defeated XANA, we have to shut it down. I would never see Lyoko again.
"…Alita? Are you still with us?" Ulrick asked.
"EARTH TO ALITA!" Od yelled. I jumped as I turned back to my friends. I pointed a finger at myself, & then tapped my ear a few times before pointing at Od. I can still hear you.
"Od, she's lost her voice, not her hearing." Jeremy said.
"Lack of voice aside, we still have some big problems." Ulrick said. "She needs a place to stay, especially since enrolling her in Kadic might take months."
"I can talk to my parents. They might let her stay for a few days." Yumi said.
"I might be able to modify the enrollment data, & make it look like she applied months ago, but we'd need to convince the principal that her paperwork got lost in the shuffle, or something."
"Leave it to me, Einstein." Od said. "We can say she's my cousin. I can convince Mr. Delmas to look the other way."
"Speaking of school, I need to sneak back home to finish getting ready." Yumi said.
"Right. Don't want to miss breakfast!" Od said as he headed for the elevator.
"Can you guys make excuses for me? Alita & I have a lot of work to do, if you don't mind staying here a while?" Jeremy said, directing the question to me. I shook my head. I didn't mind at all.
Maybe Jeremy just wanted to wait until we were alone to kiss me!
He was not waiting until we were alone to kiss me.
I still enjoyed spending time alone with him, but Jeremy was very focused on his work. He ran a few diagnostic scans of me, of the scanners, of every part of the super computer that was connected to bringing me here, but they all came back as normal.
However XANA had taken my voice, he had covered his tracks completely…
Jeremy had even asked me if I knew how I had gotten here, & since I wasn't sure how to offer an explanation in mime, I just shrugged my shoulders. He seemed to accept that for an answer, but I felt guilty for lying to him.
The others came back with food around lunch time, but otherwise I wasn't really aware of how much time had passed until Yumi came to get me. She had called her parents, & told them I was her pen pal who had surprised her with a visit. They were ok with me staying with them, & I was about to meet them at dinner. Jeremy opted to stay at the Factory a little while longer, so Yumi & I headed out on our own, & I got my first look at the world outside of the Factory.
"Have you guys been working all day?" Yumi asked. I nodded. Earth was beautiful. It was almost exactly the way I pictured it, but even better, because it was real.
Yumi smiled. "I'm glad that this is your first view of our world. Everything's so much prettier at sunset."
It was very pretty...but I couldn't help but remember that I only had two more sunsets to prove that I belonged here.
One day down, two more to go! Next time, Alita steps up her efforts to get her kiss…but what will her friends think when they find out the truth?
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