I appreciate any comments on the story.
Notes
[] are used to indicate stage directions
All dialogue follows a "Speaker: dialogue" format
{} are used for author comments.
CONTINUE
[Cut to the infirmary. Aelita is laying on one of the beds. Jeremy is pacing while Tamiya and Sissi are waiting by the door. Jeremy is furious.]
Jeremy: How could he do this to her?
Tamiya: I've never seen Jeremy this angry before.
Sissi: I don't think I've seen him angry ever.
[The nurse, Yolanda, walks up to them.]
Jeremy: [Immediately] How is she?
Sissi: Do you know what's wrong?
Yolanda: That's the strangest thing. I can't find a single thing wrong with her. She should be perfectly fine and walking around. She should wake up any-
[Aelita opens her eyes and sits up.]
Jeremy: Thank goodness. What happened? What did Graven do to you?
Aelita: Wait, what happened?
Jeremy: The meeting with Graven. It sounded like things were getting intense. You were shouting something and then the next thing we knew
Aelita: No, I mean. Who's Graven. And who are all of you.
[beat]
Sissi: This day, cannot get any weirder.
Tamiya: I hope it does.
[Match cut from Jeremy's face in the infirmary to his face in his dorm room.]
William: Does she remember anything?
Jeremy: No. She's exactly like how we found her Lyoko.
Yumi: How could he take away everything without harming her. If it was a head injury I could understand that.
Jeremy: I didn't hear anything after he threatened to use my forgeries against Aelita. I think he heard us and activated some kind of dampener.
Odd: But it's pretty obvious what happened right?
William: Yeah. Graven blackmailed her. She refused to cooperate.
Yumi: But why erase her memory?
Jeremy: Tyron wants us to remove the virus from his supercomputer. Either Aelita doesn't go back to normal until he gets what he wants or if we try to fix Aelita using the supercomputer, he'll track us to our lab.
Odd: Wait, you can fix Aelita?
Jeremy: Of course, I can. The supercomputer saves a copy of you from the most recent time you were virtualized. So all I have to do is a "restore from backup" of her memory. And if that fails, we always have the Return to the Past. [mutters to himself] But I would have to check if whatever is wrong with her if physiological or if it has to do with quantum flux. [back to the group.] My point is, we have to go to the lab either way.
Yumi: What if her memory backup is gone?
Odd: Compared to losing the ice and forest sectors, one memory file wouldn't be surprising.
Jeremy: Um, actually that's a different case entirely. So you know how Aelita and I rebuilt Lyoko in a week?
William: [confused] When was this?
Yumi: After it was destroyed.
William: [alert] How did that happen?!
Jeremy, Yumi, Odd: YOU!
William: [completely understands] …Right, my blackout period.
Jeremy: [back to the issue] Right so we might have rushed it just a little and ruined some of Franz's data that we used for those sectors.
Odd: Or he just sent bad files.
Jeremy: NO! Franz was a genius. It's my fault.
William: If we do go through with this, Graven can't follow us.
Jeremy: I also need someone to go with Aelita while she's virtualized. For whatever reason, if XANA is able to act in the short time we have the supercomputer on, she needs a guard while she's defenseless. And it can't be Yumi. We can't have both code bearers in the same location.
Yumi: I'll be on watch. I need to have a word with him anyway.
William: I have a free period. I'll stay back with Yumi in case he tries anything. If we catch him in the act, we might be able to find out how he did it.
Odd: I volunteer as tribute for princess's royal guard.
Jeremy: [knows why Odd is volunteering] Any excuse to go back to Lyoko right?
Odd: [exaggerated cheerful] Oh Einstein, you know me so well.
Yumi: [realizes her BF isn't there] Wait, we need to tell Ulrich.
William: Ulrich's missing. Hiroki should still be looking.
[Jeremy bursts into the infirmary.]
Aelita: Oh, you again?
Jeremy: Listen. I can help you, but you have to trust me.
Aelita: Okay.
Jeremy: [surprised] Really?
Aelita: Yeah, I feel like …you're a good person. You want what's best for me. So, I trust you.
[Cut to the park on campus. Jeremy and Odd are leading Aelita to a clearing.]
Jeremy: We're almost there.
Odd: Shhh.
Jeremy: What?
Odd: Listen.
[They hear footsteps behind them.
Odd jumps up to a tree branch and swings himself up and flips. He lands on top of it. He looks below. He sees Diva. She's looking around for something.]
Odd: Oh, come on! Girls I cheat on aren't this persistent.
Jeremy: What is it?
Odd: Look, it's nothing. I'll take care of it and meet you there.
Aelita: Girlfriend troubles?
Jeremy: [smirks] Looks like your habits have woven themselves so deep, not even amnesia can erase them.
Odd: Oh haha.
Jeremy: Okay, fine. Just hurry.
[Jeremy has trouble moving the manhole cover. Aelita helps him. The stench hits them both and Aelita holds her nose.]
Jeremy: You trust me right?
Aelita: Yes, but I'm starting to regret that.
Odd: [walks up to Diva] Oh hey.
Diva: Oh, there you are. I've finally caught up with you. Been taking all morning.
Odd: [playing dumb] Really. I had no idea.
Diva: I have something to play for you. [takes the guitar case off her back.] You see, I've been watching you for a while now. Everything you do is so amazing, and you shine above everyone else.
Odd: [loves the praise] Oh really. Well it's all completely true.
Diva: I just wanted to perform something for you to see if it changed your mind about me. [starts to unzip the case.]
Odd: [sees things are going too far.] is it a love confession guitar solo?
Diva: No.
Odd: Good because there is something I have to tell-
Diva: It's a rap. [She begins to … words cannot describe what Odd is witnessing]
Odd: [thinks] This is the weirdest thing to ever happen to me. And considering my life, that's terrifying.
[Graven is moving through a courtyard. William and Yumi are following him from the opposite side.]
Yumi: Better put our phones on silent. But if he tries anything, we call Jeremy immediately.
[William nods in agreement. Graven steps into an empty class room. William and Yumi slide up to the class room door.
Graven takes out a blackberry. He plugs a dongle in and the phone powers on. He calls the first contact on the list.]
Graven: We need to change plans. …The girl is faking amnesia to buy time. …It doesn't have to be today, just by May 10th.
Hiroki: [yells] Can someone help me with him?
[Everyone in the courtyard, including Yumi, William, and Graven in the class room turns to look at Hiroki. The young boy has Ulrich's slumped unconscious form over his shoulder. Hiroki is struggling to keep him up.]
Yumi: [alarmed and concerned] OMG, Ulrich!
William: Wait. [holds her back] Ulrich or Hiroki could be a specter.
Yumi: Even if Jeremy has already turned on the supercomputer, Ulrich's been missing since before Aelita's meeting. There's no way.
William: Can we really take that chance? You follow Graven. I'll check what happened to Ulrich.
[from inside the classroom]
Graven: Update. There's an unidentified assailant at Kadic. … I need to know if there was someone else assigned here.
[Montage of Aelita and Jeremy dropping down into the sewers. He grabs a fold up electric scooter leaning against a pipe. There's another one right next to it as well as three perfectly good electronic skateboards. They zoom through the sewer tunnels.]
Aelita: It's retched down here.
Jeremy: Why do you think we left the scooters down here? Couldn't get the smell out.
[They reach the end with a grate over the sewer channel where it connects to a river. They climbed up a ladder where they emerged onto a bridge that crossed over the river. One end of the bridge lead to an abandoned industrial zone of the city. The other end was connected to a huge factory planted smack dab in the middle of an island in the river. They walked through its shutter doors and into the metal skeleton. Inside there are dusty panel windows on the ceiling above. Hanging from the metal beams above were ropes down to the factory floor.
Jeremy grabs the rope and slides down to the factory floor below. Aelita follows him.
He walks over the elevator. He pops off the panel to the control box to reveal a secret keypad inside. He types in a code and cables suspending into the pit shaft begin to draw upward. The elevator stops. The door coils open and they both step inside. Aelita looks around in amazement.
The elevator descends, then stops. The door opens to a dim room. Jeremy clicks on his phone for light.
It's a tall room. There are geometric patterns on the walls. There are emerald circuit boards at the bottom where the panels of the wall were exposed, then slowly transitioned to pale eggshell white paint of the walls. There is a grate over the floor. As they walk toward it, its circular cover retracts. Something starts rising from the center. It's a large cylinder. Then a second column starts rising from the center. It's covered in gold hieroglyphs and circuitry, all of them dark. Jeremy ends his walk right in front of the machine. A panel slides open. He takes the handle inside and pushes down. The entire surface of the machine washes with light. The room suddenly is lit up as if a small sun just turned on.]
Aelita: [amazed] What's going on?
Jeremy: [proud and still amazed even though he knew exactly what was going to happen.] This will help you remember.
[They go back up in the elevator and it stops again. This time in a room above the last one. Three cylindrical columns sit in an equilateral triangle. One slides open as they approach it.]
Jeremy: Go here and wait inside.
[Leaving Aelita there, Jeremy takes the elevator up one more floor. This time is was a lab of some sort. There was a monitor suspended from a ring in the ceiling, the rest of the ceiling lost in a tangle of wires and pipes. Jeremy sat down in a reclining chair across from the monitor and waited for it to move along the ring in the floor to position him right in front of the keyboard. He looked the tiniest bit happy as he enjoyed the ride over.]
Jeremy: [thinks] I love this chair.
[Jeremy grabs a one ear headset off the keyboard.]
Jeremy: Aelita, do you hear me? Are you still in the scanner?
Aelita: [speakers on the monitor] Yes.
Jeremy: Okay then. Let the magic begin. And by magic, I mean quantum computations and chemical synapse to binary signal conversion.
Aelita: Wait, what?
Jeremy: Transfer Aelita, Scanner Aelita, Virtualization.
[Aelita floats up in the scanner. And with a flash of light, she's gone.]
Jeremy: And, memory restoration, begin.
[Hits a key]
[Cut back to Odd and Diva in the park.]
Diva: [holding her electric guitar/portable speaker] So, what did you think?
Odd: [Scarred for life] Well, it was unique and refreshing take on the love confession trope. [clears his head] But I've been trying to tell you. It's just that…I mean you're great and musically talented but…. [braces for angry girl retaliation] I've already got a girlfriend, Sam.
Diva: [suddenly shy] Oh… I guess I should've checked that first. I was only worried about the chance you would say no. [bangs her head on her guitar.] Stupid.
[cut to a different POV of the scene. Odd and Diva are still talking, she's still banging her head, Odd's trying to get her to stop, but the camera is behind a tree and hidden in the leaves of bushes.]
Odd: [Trying to patronize her] But we can be friends.
Diva: Okay, but not "just friends". I'm not lying to myself
Odd: [understands the reference. Excitedly agrees] I know right? [remembers where he's supposed to be.] Oh, I have to go. But we'll talk later okay?
Diva: Sure, see ya.
[Odd goes to the clearing with the manhole. Just as he's about to open it, he hears something off to his left. He turns his head just in time to see a huge metal gloved hand close on his head.
CRRRCKR
Electricity spreads from the glove across Odd's body. He can't move.]
[Cut to William and Hiroki in the infirmary with Ulrich on one of the beds. Ulrich hair is sticking up as if he had been touching a static ball.
William: Where did you-
Hiroki: [Knows what he is going to ask.] Just in the woods. He was just lying there.
[Sissi and Milly rush in. Milly has her mic out.]
Sissi: OMG, Ulrich! [whips around to William] What did you do all this for? I thought it was supposed to be a friendly competitive match.
William: We didn't even get to fight… wait how did you know about that?
Ulrich: [suddenly] I don't know where.
[Everyone turns as Ulrich jolts up and sits up. He is panicked and eyes wide.]
William: [leans close so only the two of them can hear] Did Graven do this to you?
Ulrich: [confused] Who?
William: Tyron's suit from Deckard Inc
Ulrich: No one like that.
William: What kind of specter was it? Hypnotizing, just regular shocking kind, phasing, duplicating, polymorphic? Or was it just someone possessed?
Ulrich: [frazzled] No, it wasn't anything, any one of XANA's monsters.
William: What kind of attack
Ulrich: Listen!
[William stops talking to let Ulrich take a few breaths. Milly gets a bit closer and holds out her mic.]
Ulrich: It wasn't XANA, it wasn't a Tyron. It was just this guy in a mask and trench coat. He had dogs with him. One bit me and made me go down. [rolls up his pant leg to show them the bite mark] He had ...had a-
William: Gun?
Ulrich: [unsure, but agreeing] Yeah, he shoved that in my face after I went down. [realizes that wasn't what he was trying to warn them about.] NO. That happened, but he he had something else. He was asking questions with it. A glove. He asked me a question and before I even answered, he knew about the 6 of us. It it was copying my memories. I didn't tell him. I blacked out before I told him. At least, I think?
William: What?
Ulrich: [remembers] He wanted to know where Lyoko was!
[Show Odd in the park. Can see the man's face for the first time, but he's wearing a balaclava up to his eyes. He is pressing the glove down on Odd's head. He's pinning Odd's torso to the ground with his knee. There's electricity running alone Odd's head where the gloves fingers are pressing on it. There's nothing Odd can do to fight back.]
?: Where is the supercomputer? Where is Lyoko?
[Something appears on the screen on the gauntlet.]
F. A. C. T. O. R.-
WACK
[And then the weight is gone from Odd.
The man is away from Odd on his knees. He quickly gets back up. Odd turns the other way. He can see Diva shifting her stance from how she wacked the man in the head with her guitar.]
Diva: [leans down to check on Odd] You awake?
Odd: [semi-conscious and babbling.] I don't know know can't tell-
Diva: It's okay, we'll get you back to the school and-
PHT PHT
[Diva hits the ground. The man has taken out a silenced Desert Eagle handgun and doubled tapped before either of them had noticed.]
Odd: [doesn't know what's happening, but clearly terrified] …AH.
?: No witnesses.
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