Hiroki was confident today was going to be the day. Today he would be able to run five miles without stopping. Five miles to forgiveness. Twenty laps of redemption. He changed in the boy's locker room, taking his time because he knew Danielle would be a little later than normal as she was going to do the article with Milly.
Hiroki admired Danielle ability to forgive, and not just when it regarded himself. He knew he had his part to play, but Milly manipulated everything. She manipulated him, then the school when she goaded Danielle into slapping her. Afterwards, she continued to try and manipulate him by trying to text him, but her charm had long worn off on him. It was when he realized his infatuation was purely cosmetic. Milly was just cute and a little older than him. That's it.
With his bag over his shoulder and water bottle in the opposite hand, Hiroki walked around the building to head toward the track when Danielle suddenly ran past him with Ulrich.
"Danny?" Hiroki asked. Danielle slid to a stop, and ran back to him, grabbing his hand.
"Run!" Danielle exclaimed and began to pull him with her.
"Run?" Hiroki asked, confused, and digging his heels into the grass. "From what?"
"Leave him, we don't have time, they're not after him," Ulrich said and grabbed her other hand. Danielle turned back to Ulrich, looked at Hiroki for moment, before letting go and running the other way.
"Not after me?" Hiroki asked. He turned to the corner of the building and heard a stampede of footsteps approaching. "What's not after me?"
They poured around the corner, dozens of Danielle's, a swarm of her face in a perpetual expression of rage and sadness.
"What the…" Hiroki stammered, almost starting to run they were already all around him like a river flowing around a stone. The last of the current streamed past him, and he slowly dropped his bag on the ground. He tilted his head left and right, it only cracked once. He took a sip of water, tossed it on ground, and took a deep breath.
"Five miles, all or nothing," Hiroki said, and started running after the horde.
Ulrich's mobile rang as he ran. He pulled it from his pocket, hit answer without looking, and pressed it to his ear.
"Where are you guys?" Yumi asked.
"Still at Kadic, you at the lab?" Ulrich asked.
"Yeah. Be careful. They weren't interested in us, but…a mob of Danielle's stormed out of the scanners. Like, a lot of them," Yumi said.
"They're very interested in Danielle," Ulrich said, looking over his shoulder as they started to spill out from the other side of the building. "They're after us right now."
"What's the plan?"
Ulrich turned them into the dormitory and made his way up the stairs.
"I'm gonna try to lose them in the dorms and cut back across the track. Danielle needs to get into the lab to stop whatever this is."
"How do we know she isn't…" Yumi began.
"…Yumi!" Ulrich shouted.
"Okay, okay," Yumi relented. "Do you need help?"
"I'll call if I do," Ulrich said and hung up. "Third floor. We'll cross the hall and go back down the other side. We need to make sure they see us do that at least that."
"Got it," Danielle said as she ran up the stairs four steps at a time. They waited at the top of the second landing until they entered the doors. "Up here!"
"Go, go, go," Ulrich said, leading the way up to the third floor. They burst through the double door, Ulrich running ahead with Danielle at his heels. They reached the opposite doors as the clones entered the hall on the other side. "Now!"
Danielle and Ulrich ran down skipping two steps and arrived at the bottom floor. Ulrich peeked outside first and saw there were more than he thought. They bottlenecked at the doorway and there were at least ten still trying to wedge their way inside.
"How many times did you delete your emotions?" Ulrich asked, a sentence he never thought he'd have to ask anyone.
"I wasn't keeping count, I was just…frustrated it wasn't working. You know, like when a browser doesn't open so you click it thirty times and then thirty windows open," Danielle explained.
They heard a crash from upstairs and knew they were about to get pincered. Hiroki ran past the door, looking inside as he did. He skipped to a stop and ran back to the door and Ulrich let him in.
"What's going on?" Hiroki asked.
"We don't have time," Ulrich said, looking up toward the noise above them. "We have to risk the ones outside seeing us."
"If one sees us, all of them do," Danielle said, and Ulrich groaned.
"They have a…what's it called?"
"Hivemind?" Hiroki asked.
"Hivemind," Ulrich said. "They have a hivemind?"
"You have a hivemind clone army?" Hiroki asked, and Ulrich opened the door to see the replicas were still choked at the door. "What is going on?"
"Ulrich!" Danielle said as they arrived at the second landing and could see them again.
"Hiroki, get her to the lab!" Ulrich said and shoved them out the door.
"The lab?" Hiroki asked as he stumbled down the steps and landed stomach first on the path.
"Ulrich!" Danielle shouted as she managed to catch herself on the top step.
"I'll buy time, go!" Ulrich ordered and held the door.
Danielle jumped off the stairs and picked up Hiroki who was even more confused. The hive at the other entrance turned in unison and started to run out the opposite side.
"Go, go, go!" Danielle shouted and dragged Hiroki by the hand.
"Will someone just tell me what's going on?" Hiroki asked, shaking off Danielle's hand so he could run better.
"Short story, I'm an artificial intelligence cyber defense protocol that made myself a physical body. My newfound emotions overwhelmed me, and I tried to delete them over and over again, but it didn't work. An archived version of my original program was reactivated in the process and used the failed deletions as templates to send a clone army of myself, after myself, because at my core I'm still a superior program and it wants to assimilate me to better perform its primary function," Danielle exhaled without slowing down.
Hiroki absorbed that, understood none of it, but somehow shrugged it off.
"I thought you said you were from Lyon," Hiroki jested, and Danielle couldn't help but laugh even considering the circumstances. "Where's that lab Ulrich mentioned?"
"The old factory across the bridge," Danielle answered before skidding to a stop again. Another pack had rounded the corner before they reached the track again. Looking behind her, Danielle saw the larger swarm coming. "We might have to force our way through."
"Climb up," Hiroki said. Danielle turned to him and saw him with his back against the wall beneath the high, but open window of the gym. "They're not after me, cut through, I'll meet you around the front."
Danielle quickly turned left and right, before committing. She took two swift exhales and placed her foot into Hiroki's interlaced hands. He vaulted her up to the window and she grabbed the bottom. Hiroki placed his palm on the bottom of her foot and pushed her up as the swarm hit him.
"Go!" Hiroki shouted as he tried to knock them away from her foot before they could grab it. Danielle pulled herself through the window and front flipped out the other side. She crashed onto her back and grunted out a scream of pain. The impact knocked the wind out of her, and she groaned as she looked at the window above her. It took her a moment to collect herself, but when she saw the first hand on the windowsill, it was all the motivation she needed to get up.
Danielle ran across the gym and through the girl's locker room before the first replica managed to climb through. The locker room had exited the front foyer of the gym, and she turned back toward the front. She slowly opened the door to see if the coast was clear. It was, but she didn't see Hiroki. Behind her she heard something crashing through the doors, so pushed the door all the way open and ran out. From her peripheral she saw Hiroki appear from the corner and meet her.
"Funny seeing you here," Hiroki said as they ran abreast. "How far is the factory?"
"About two miles," Danielle replied.
"Shame," Hiroki said with a smile, and Danielle's face contorted in confusion. "I was hoping it'd be five."
Hiroki pushed the manhole cover off the sewer exit and pushed it out of the way. He finished climbing out and extended his hand down to Danielle. He pulled her up and she pointed in the direction to run.
"There's a lab in this factory?" Hiroki asked.
"Long story," Danielle said as they started across the bridge.
"Danny!" they heard from the other side of the bridge. Aelita was running across the bridge and hugged her when they reached the center. "Where's Ulrich?"
"He stayed behind to slow them down," Danielle explained. Aelita turned to Hiroki, then back to Danielle who shrugged. "He helped me get here."
"Can this version of Lyoko run a return to the past?" Aelita asked.
"A what?" Hiroki asked.
"It can," Danielle said and smiled at Hiroki. "Don't worry, you won't remember a thing."
"Let's go before they get here," Aelita said and gestured with her head for them to get to the lab. "Hiroki, thank you, but you need to go home."
"I'm staying," Hiroki said defiantly.
"Hiroki…" Aelita started, but Danielle shook her head.
"…he got me this far, he can at least see it through," Danielle said, and Aelita sighed. "He won't remember, so what does it matter?"
"What won't I remember?" Hiroki asked.
"Fine, let's go," Aelita said and lead the way back to the lab.
"Will someone please explain this to me?" Hiroki asked as he jogged behind them.
The elevator opened to the lab and Danielle ran to the computer screen where Jeremie was trying to figure out what was happening. Yumi leaning against the side of the chair and Odd was stretching, just waiting for when he needed to go into Lyoko.
"What's going on?" Jeremie asked.
"It's XANA," Danielle explained, and the others turned to her. "Not me. An archived version."
"Did you turn it on?" Yumi asked. She looked past Danielle and saw Hiroki walking up behind her. "Hiroki, what are you doing here?"
"Where is here?" Hiroki asked. Yumi looked at Aelita who shrugged.
"I didn't turn it back on. At least, not intentionally," Danielle said, and Yumi didn't like her vagueness. "When I came back and tried to delete my memories, it agitated Lyoko which read my emotions as malicious code."
"Jeremie, translate that," Yumi requested.
"The bear was asleep, and she poked the bear on accident," Jeremie summarized.
"I'm sorry," Danielle said, and Yumi sighed.
"What do we need to do to turn it off again?" Yumi asked.
"This archived version isn't connected to the net at large, so it doesn't have enough information to move past machine learning calculation. It's just a giant Boolean algebra calculator. Just true and false. That's the good news. The bad news is that I need to go in to turn it off."
"Whatever we do, we need to do it fast," Jeremie said and pulled a surveillance video to the full screen. They watched as a stampede of Danielle's ran across the bridge. "They're here."
"We could run a return, right now," Yumi suggested, but Danielle shook her head.
"Not until XANA is disabled. Even in this primitive state, it can do more than a trillion calculations in a second. Restarting the day won't restart XANA. It just gives it another day to figure out a way to beat us."
"She's right Yumi," Jeremie said. "It needs to go dark first. Danny, get in there and do what you need to do. What do you need?"
"A lift to sector five," Danielle said as she started to climb down the ladder. Hiroki started to crouch to the mouth of the ladder but felt a hand on his shoulder.
"No, you don't," Yumi said while shaking her head.
"I'm not asking," Hiroki said and shrugged off her hand and descending the ladder.
"Jeremie, can you make it so he won't remember?" Yumi asked, and Jeremie nodded.
"He'll be fine," Odd said, heading down the ladder third. "One last time."
"One last time," Aelita said and followed him.
Yumi look at Jeremie who looked back at the screen. They heard clinging from the elevator shaft. The replicas were getting close.
"One final hurrah," Yumi said, and climbed down.
Danielle, Hiroki, and Odd virtualized above the surface of the forest sector and landed on their feet as they dropped. Except Hiroki who was trying to figure out what was happening midfall. Hiroki's weight tipped him forward and he bellyflopped to the ground.
"Zero out of ten, boooo," Odd laughed as Hiroki pushed himself up. Hiroki looked at Danielle and jumped back.
"Whoa, your hair is on fire!" Hiroki shouted and wasn't sure if he needed to put it out.
"It's fine, this is my avatar. Think of it…like a video game character," Danielle explained.
"No character creation menu?" Hiroki asked, and Danielle shook her head. "What do look like?" he asked and look to Odd and his feline appearance. "Please tell me, not a cat."
"Jealous?" Odd asked.
Hiroki had landed not too dissimilar from his favorite genre of video game. While his tastes were broad, his preferred style of game was fighting games. He had landed in a white karate gi with a red belt. He hardly noticed he was barefoot. His hair was now longer, black, and draped on his shoulders like the mane of a lion.
"Kind of cool," Danielle said.
Aelita and Yumi virtualized next and landed in the center of the group.
"We're in Jeremie. Send us," Aelita said.
"Transportation…" Jeremie said as he typed SCIPIO. "…incoming."
The transport orb floated down, and Hiroki cautiously took a step back. Danielle took his hand and pulled him back.
"It'll be fine, trust me," Danielle said. Hiroki nodded and closed his eyes.
The ball scooped them up and dove into the void.
The elevator door was pried open by ten different sets of hands and Jeremie turned to the replicas. Jeremie watched as they walked into the lab and could see more climbing down from the hatch in the elevator. One touched the computer screen and closed her eyes. Jeremie knocked its hand away, but more touched the screen until it was too many to resist. He pushed his way through, eventually having to crawl to get away from them.
"Progenitor program is in central architecture mainframe," the replicas said in unison. "Return to core."
The replicas flickered like a computer screen failing and flickered away with an audible noise like that of a computer powering down. The sound echoed for a moment, before slowly dissolving into silence.
Jeremie climbed back into the chair and quickly pulled up sector five.
"Oh no," Jeremie said, and nearly jumped from his seat when a hand hit his shoulder. He recoiled back and saw Ulrich standing next to him.
"I tried to slow them down," Ulrich said, a little battered but not any worse for wear. "Did we do it?"
"Not yet. They just returned to the computer," Jeremie said and turned to the screen. He saw the orb was still enroute.
"Where did the bad Danny's go?" Ulrich asked.
"Sector five," Jeremie said, the concern evidence in his voice.
"Where are the others?" Ulrich asked.
Jeremie pointed at the screen and at the orb approaching its destination.
"Twenty seconds behind them."