CHAPTER 6: THE FIRST ATTACK

Aelita was at her class, finishing her computer on her master's thesis. The subject: quantum supercomputers. There was just a person who knew more than her in that field and he was trapped by an evil organization, so she knew that making her thesis about the supercomputer would have a lot of impact in the scientific community. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door:

- May I come in? – it was her uncle. He entered the class with a piece of cake and a plastic fork on his hands.

- Oh, cake! What's the occasion?

- It's just Gilles' birthday and Jim made a cake. I thought of bringing you a piece of cake.

- Oh, I didn't know it was his birthday, I'll talk to him later -said Aelita while eating a piece of the cake-. Mmm, this is delicious! Where did Jim learn to cook like this?

- He'd rather not talk about it. Anyways, how's that thesis of yours going?

- I'm just finishing it, I'll send it tomorrow probably.

- But… don't people send it like in April or so? It's just October.

- Yeah, but I've been working on it since before I even started the masters. It's something I'm really passionate about.

- Well, I'm happy for you then. And I'm very happy with your work here too. You've been here just for two weeks but everybody is talking great things about you.

- Thank you, uncle. I had some experience from teaching an obstinate old friend of mine. He would always interrupt the studying for video games.

- I hope he's got better now.

"I'm afraid he's not" thought Aelita to herself.

After talking for a little bit, Jean-Pièrre left Aelita alone in the class, leaving her to her thoughts and a piece of cake. Now that she mentioned her old friends, she thought about Jeremy and the factory.

She had been sleeping there every night since they spoke that day. Checking every now and then, but there was no indication that Einstein had been there. Still, she had to keep going, waiting for Jeremy to appear and then in some way, try to keep him away from the computer. She just hoped she wouldn't have to go in there every night for the rest of her life.

After working a little bit more on her thesis she was in need of a coffee, so she went down to the cafeteria to get one. She didn't really like the machine one's. At the door, she found Yumi getting out of the place:

- Oh, hey Yumi. Where are you going?

- I'm just going to the gym. Jim is going to be our Pencak Silat trainer.

- Well, good luck then.

Yumi started to run to the gym. She was a little bit late. When she arrived, she found Jim and another boy stretching.

- Greetings, Ishiyama. You're just in time for my magistral class of the great Indonesian art of Penlat Sicak.

- Isn't it Pencak Silat? -said the boy

- That's what I said. Anyways, get in this circle and stand in front of each other.

Yumi did what she was told and stood in front of the boy. She looked at him and she felt something she had never felt before. The boy felt the same when he saw her.

- I'm.. I'm Ulrich Stern. Troisième.

- Yumi. So you're Sissi's boyfriend then, ha?

- Sort of -said a blushing Ulrich.

He was indeed Sissi's boyfriend, they had been going out for a little bit less than half a year. But after seeing Yumi, he wasn't so sure about that anymore. "What's gotten into me?" he thought.

- Being the presentations made, you may commence -shouted Jim.

At the cafeteria, Aelita was proceeding to pay for her coffee, when she realized she had dropped her purse along the way. She got out of the cafeteria and found it close to the entrance. "It must have fallen when I was talking to Yumi".

Aelita then grabbed the doorknob to enter again, but she was electrocuted and flew away a couple of meters because of the shock. Grabbing her head and feeling dizzy, she got up, not knowing what just had happened.

- Aelita! What happened? -said Mrs Hertz from the inside. She tried to get out, but got the same result as Aelita, but with the luck of being caught by some students, who fell with her.

- What is happen- oh, no. -realized Aelita. This was not a normal short circuit; this was something else. She then ran as fast as she could, headed to the sewers.

In the cafeteria, the students were screaming and in panic. Some had tried to escape through the other doors and tried to break the windows but got no results. Some students and teachers were hurt. It was chaos at its maximum.

- Please, calm down -cried Rosa-, it's just a short circuit. The firefighters will be here at any moment.

Running through the sewers, Aelita was panicking. This couldn't be happening; everything was going great in this new life. Was this Jeremy's fault? Was this her fault on the first place? What if this wasn't XANA? What if it was just a real short-circuit? She needed to find out.

But it wasn't going to be that easy. A squeaky noise echoed through the sewers. A sound that multiplied every second and that was closer every minute. Aelita didn't like what she was hearing but she liked it less when she saw it: a wave of rats on the ground and a cloud of hornets on the air in front of her.

She tried to go back, but they were there too. She looked to her left side and saw a way, so she ran as fast as she could. Aelita thanked in that moment that she joined the athletics club at college.

Finally, she got to the stairs, but unfortunately some rats got a hold of her leg, but Aelita kept climbing the ladder. Even some of the hornets attacked her, but she kept strong, pushing off the pain. She exited the sewers, kicked off the rats and was able to escape from the hornets, closing the manhole cover behind her.

An injured Aelita finally arrived at the factory and, when she got to the elevator, she didn't like what she saw: the button had been dismantled and the cables had been reconfigured, destroying the password blockage that Aelita had installed a few days prior.

- Sometimes I admire you and your intellect Jeremy, but now I hate every neuron of your brain.

She put the cables together again and the lift started to move up. When she got inside, she was expecting the same picture as before, but it wasn't. The keyword panel was untouched.

With no time to considerate, she introduced the password: 59656 (LYOKO in old mobile keyboards).

The doors closed and the elevator went down. When it opened again, Aelita saw Jeremy, who looked absorbed by the computer. He was typing faster than his fingers could, there was something in that screen that didn't let him stop. Was he possessed by XANA?

- Jeremy, are you okay?

- I am fascinated. This world… is like magic. I can't believe it's real. My fingers keep typing, like they already knew what to do. I've almost seen all of this virtual world. How was it called? It was somewhere around here-

- Lyoko

Jeremy stopped typing instantly. He froze, almost as he was dead. Something about that word got inside his mind and didn't let him think. From Aelita's eyes, it was like he short-circuited.

- Lyoko – repeated Jeremy in a whisper