His mind was in a haze as his hands flew across the keyboard.

No time for idle thoughts… no room for mistakes.

He had to get this all right.

"Daddy?"

Franz looked down, his fourteen year old daughter looking up at him, her green eyes trembling in fear. She held onto part of his lab coat, leaning against the chair he was in.

"Are… Are we going to be okay?"

"We will be, Aelita." Franz took one of his hands away from the keyboard, stroking her hair. "I just need to input a few more codes then we will be safe."

"Those men are really scary…" Aelita sniffled a little. "They reminded me of the ones that…"

Franz frowned, shushing his daughter.

"I know, Angel, I know… but they won't get us. We're going to a place where they will never find us. We'll be free."

"And… Mommy will be there?"

"In time, she will."

Franz finished inputting his last command, a timer appearing on the screen. He got out of his chair and took Aelita's hand.

"Let's go, my dear."

"To where, Daddy?"

Franz gave a small smile, leading his daughter to the room below.

"To a world without danger."

oooooo

"Ah, I knew we still had this in our collection."

Jeremy Belpois bounced a bit on his heels in anticipation as he watched Suzanne Hertz take out a book from the shelf in front of her. The two were currently in a private section of the Kadic Academy library, mainly where personal records of the school were kept.

She blew some dust off the book, looking at it with nostalgia.

"What a good man Mr. Hopper was. A brilliant scientist and a wonderful teacher. I wish you could've met him, Jeremy. You would've liked him."

"Well, I guess I'll get an idea once I have a read." Jeremy had to restrain himself from holding out his hands. "You sure it's no issue lending me his journal?"

"None at all. The man himself once told me that if I ever have an exceptional student, I should allow them to read it. I could never bring myself to read it so… I wish you luck with whatever you find."

Suzanne smiled, offering the book to Jeremy.

"And I certainly can't think of anyone better than you, Jeremy."

Jeremy took the book into his hands, a huge smile coming to his face.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hertz. I've just been so curious about his work since I started looking into his research papers. The guy was really onto a lot of things."

"He was… and maybe you can finish it for him."

"We'll see." Jeremy held the book close, giving a bow. "Thank you again, Mrs. Hertz."

"You're welcome, Jeremy. Now, off you go."

Jeremy didn't waste a moment to bolt out of the private section and into the main public area of the library.

He scanned the area before seeing a boy about his age sitting at a table, playing away on a portable gaming system. He hurried over to him, tapping his shoulder.

"Patrick, I hit the jackpot!" He said, holding up the journal. "Mrs. Hertz gave me the journal of Franz Hopper!"

Patrick looked up from his game, grinning at this.

"That is a jackpot. I was thinking you'd just get a school record but they had something like that?"

"Apparently, and Mrs. Hertz said that Franz Hopper said to only let a certain student read it that she thought would be exceptional and I happened to be just that."

Patrick chuckled.

"Not even surprised… I'm guessing you left out the part that the reason you were curious about anything regarding Franz is because you and I have been listening to that one podcast?"

"I don't think she would've been as willing if I mentioned I had been listening to The Odd Files. You know how she feels about the hosts."

"She really shouldn't judge people by grades." Patrick rolled his eyes. "Besides, unlike other theorists, Odd and Sam actually put effort into their research and aren't spouting nonsense conspiracies."

"Seems it's the one area of studies he excels in. Gotta give it to him, never would've known about Franz Hopper without him, so he gets an A+ from me on research."

"What an honor." Patrick chuckled. "Now, reading time?"

"Reading time." Jeremy took a seat beside Patrick, carefully cracking the book open. The yellowed pages fell open, settling on a series of research notes. "Whoa… look at that."

"And that oddly satisfying old book smell you nerds like." Patrick chuckled, nudging Jeremy playfully. "Right?"

"Heh." Jeremy smiled, before starting to flip through the notes. "Let's see… Look at all these equations!"

"Any idea what they all mean? Cause I certainly don't. Not my field of expertise, Jeremy."

"I don't yet, but I will. Though at a glance they look like… equations for quantum physics… Amazing."

"Quantum physics? Isn't that like… way in the future kind of stuff? Like teleportation?"

"Yep. Franz Hopper specialized in all kinds of science but his main focus research wise was advanced quantum physics." Jeremy's eyes were wide with wonder. "And I get to see how the man thinks, this is so cool!"

"If you say so, Cuz."

Clink!

Both jumped as a USB flash drive stick fell out of the book and onto the table. It was a light blue color with an odd looking symbol on the back that seemed to resemble an eye.

"... That's not yours, right?" Patrick asked.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow, picking it up, holding the symbol up to the light.

"No. I don't put stickers on mine."

"... You gonna look at it?"

Jeremy nodded as he moved to take out his laptop but paused.

"... Not here."

"Don't want any listening ears?"

"None. Shall we go to our favorite spot?"

"I think we had some part scavenging to do anyway."

Both the boys nodded, packing up their things before heading out.

The Belpois cousins were considered a very odd pair to many of the students at Kadic. Jeremy was one of the brightest students Kadic had had in years and was the top of all of his academic classes while Patrick was one of the top athletes, particularly in track and field. Yet the two got along just fine. Thick as thieves and were rarely seen without the other. Honestly, some days they seemed more like brothers than cousins.

One thing that nobody knew was their favorite secret spot they liked to go to together where no one could bother them.

It was a long walk but just a few miles out from the school was an abandoned factory that sat on a small island in the middle of a man made lake. The place once manufactured computer parts for years on end till the business eventually shut down. When and how that happened, no one knows. Only thing that was known was that no one wanted the building due to it not being the most structurally sound place… and other rumors of it possibly being haunted. Bottom line, no one wanted to touch it.

None of this stopped Jeremy and Patrick from entering it.

Here, they were free to do as they pleased. Explore, scavenge and for a time, forget all the stresses of being at school.

They had made a small base for themselves in one of the old break rooms. Wasn't anything fancy but they had the place decorated with posters, had blankets and pillows set up on a couch and even got the TV in there to work again with Jeremy's handy work. It couldn't get stations, but it worked perfectly for games and watching movies.

Jeremy quickly got his computer set up on the table in front of the couch, plugging the USB in. Patrick sat beside him, leaning forward, his arms resting on his knees.

"You think we'll be able to tell anyone about this? I mean, what if we find something that solves the disappearance of this guy?"

"It'll all just depend on what we find." Jeremy answered, clicking into the USB on his computer. "If it's something sensitive we might not want to share. Like huge science project stuff or research papers."

"And if it's an answer for what happened to him?"

"Then we might have something for Odd and Sam for one of their episodes. Heck I'll go on the air for it."

Inside the USB, Jeremy found three data folders and one video file. One was labeled "Journal," another was labeled "Project: Lyoko" and the last one was labeled "Supercomputer Codes and Instructions." The video file had no proper name and instead had what appeared to be a date as the label.

"09-03-05"

"September 3rd, 2005?" Patrick blinked, tilting his head. "Did anything happen on that day?"

"Not that I can recall but something might have happened for Franz." Jeremy clicked on the video file, queuing it up in the video player. "Let's see…"

It was static at first till the image cleared, a man appearing on screen. He had dark black hair and a thick beard that was starting to grey. There was tiredness present in his piercing green eyes that sat behind rectangular glasses. Tiredness… and a touch of fear.

"That's…" Patrick whispered.

"Franz Hopper." Jeremy finished.

"To whoever finds this, I congratulate you for being the one Suzanne decided to trust with my journal… or if you happened to come upon this book before Suzanne could decide, I still congratulate you for finding this and taking the time to look into the USB. This… is most likely going to be my last recording. My past… has caught up to me."

Franz sighed, adjusting his glasses.

"I always questioned why I decided to be part of Project Carthage all those years ago. It was a project doomed to lead to trouble no matter how it turned out. Too much power… I at least was able to stop it… but at such a great cost…" Franz shook his head. "But… that is the past. The present is what matters now. I know my old associates will be coming for me soon. Reason I'm making this now. By the time you see this, I will no longer be on Earth. I will instead be elsewhere. A virtual world of my own creation. A safe haven where my family and I can finally live quietly and I can carry on with my work. A world… truly without danger. Lyoko."

Franz leaned in closer to the camera.

"My message to you is that if anything has happened to compromise the supercomputer that is located in the abandoned factory not far from the school campus, I want you to be the one to help fix it if you can. I have left detailed instructions on how it all works. Codes, equations, schematics, everything you will need. If you did indeed come upon all this and were viewed as a bright student by Suzanne, then I have no doubt you will be able to understand it all. If not… then… well… I guess we'll see how this all plays out. Either way… if something has happened, I hope I can rely on you to help."

Franz gave a smile, closing his eyes.

"I put my life's work in your hands. Good luck."

Franz reached a hand forward, static coming to the screen once more.

Jeremy and Patrick sat in silence, staring at the screen.

"... What… did we just watch?" Patrick asked, bringing a hand to his head. "I mean, I know we just watched footage of Franz Hopper but… what was that all about?"

"I… I'm not sure if I understand it all myself. All I really could gather was that he was on the run from someone and that he escaped to a virtual world of his own creation with his family." Jeremy took off his glasses, scratching at his head. "Which… I… don't know what to make of it to be honest. I know the guy was a specialist in quantum physics but this… this stuff that shouldn't exist… and yet…" Jeremy put his glasses back on, his eyes looking at the files in the USB. "I won't rule it out entirely."

Patrick crossed his arms, looking over Jeremy's shoulder.

"And what if it's real?"

"Then… Patrick, we could be solving an entire missing person's case. Cause if we could bring them back-"

"Hello scientific journal?"

Jeremy shrugged.

"Mostly just seeing if he's even alive in there, if it exists and this wasn't well… y'know."

"Him losing it?"

Jeremy grimaced, nodding as he clicked on the "Journal" folder, looking through the files.

"Right-Hm?"

He stopped as he noticed amongst the document files, there was a single image file. It was labeled 07-14-05. He clicked on it, an image of Franz Hopper appearing on screen. He was in front of a set of schematics written on a chalkboard, however, what caught Jeremy's attention was who was beside him.

She was a girl, about his age, with bright pink hair and green eyes. She had a jacket and T-shirt on, a bright smile on her face. She was hugging the scientist's arm, giving a wave with her free hand to the camera.

"Whoa…"

Patrick leaned over, whistling.

"Well, isn't she cute?"

"Very…" Jeremy blushed as he saw the smirk on Patrick's face. "H-Hey what's with that look!?"

"Oh, nothing." Patrick chuckled. "Think the girl is related?"

"Most likely. She's got the same eye color as him and Franz did mention having a family. That's probably his daughter."

"Something. Though judging by the date label on the photo, she's way out of our league by 11 years."

"Patrick, that's not really something to be concerned about."

"Tell that to the blush on your face."

Jeremy rolled up one of the magazines on the floor before bopping Patrick over the head.

THWAP!

"Bad. Very bad. BAD!"

"HEY!"

"BAD!"

"Hmph!" Patrick crossed his arms… though couldn't help but smile. "So, cute girls aside, what do you wanna do, Cuz?"

"I think…"

Jeremy clicked into one of the other folders, soon pulling up a map of the factory, giving directions to where the computer was located.

"I want to go find a supercomputer."