It had been three days since the music academy visited Kadic. Some people were still talking about it and wondering if they wanted to start instrument lessons. Most of the school had more or less forgotten about the entire thing.

Aelita didn't apply to either of those statements. She wasn't talking about it, but she for certain hadn't forgotten about it. She was now walking towards her first lesson of the day, history. It was livelier than usual in the yard outside the classroom. Aelita noticed the Lyoko warriors a bit further, separate from the small crowd, so she joined them.

"Good morning!" she greeted. No one greeted back though, and she noticed they were looking at the crowd with obvious distaste. "What's up?" she asked.

Without taking her eyes off from the gathering in front of them, Yumi replied, "The plague has spread to the ninth grade."

Aelita looked more closely at the crowd and noticed electric blue hair among the circle of people. She took a small step to the side to see Olivie's face past someone's head. Aelita wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but Olivie's eyes seemed somehow brighter than before.

"Isn't calling her the plague a bit too much?" Aelita asked carefully.

Jeremie quickly shushed at her and said, "Be quiet, I'm trying to listen to what they're saying." Aelita wanted to comment on his rude tone, but decided not to, and instead shifted her focus back to Olivie.

"No way. You like The Subsonics as well?" Maïtena asked Olivie.

"Yes," Olivie replied with a nod. "I was introduced to their music three days ago and have listened to the CD every evening." The statement woke up some confusion among the ninth graders.

"Only three days?" Caroline and Maïtena wondered.

"I don't think that counts as liking a band," Christophe commented.

"Is there a time requirement?" Olivie asked confused.

"No there's not. Anyone can enjoy some great music if you ask me," William said. "Besides, The Subsonics is amazing. It's like the lyrics are talking straight to my heart."

A few people switched uncertain glances, but Olivie seemed to get a moment of realization.

"Y-yes! I think I understand what you mean," she said, her voice uncharacteristically uneven. Aelita was thrilled, gladdened, proud. It was worth it to invite Olivie that day and to borrow her the CD. It had apparently given her something valuable, and Aelita was happy for her.

Odd decided he'd heard enough and broke the silence among the gang, "Great, now I can't listen to The Subsonics anymore. She's ruined it!"

"I'll have to take a short break from them as well," Ulrich agreed.

"Why should one person listening to a band stop you from enjoying it?" Aelita asked, her earlier gladness quickly fading. "Also, I recall you agreeing that Olivie didn't seem evil or anything. What happened to that?"

Yumi sighed, "That was before she tampered with the supercomputer and showed up here. We can't take any risks. It could be way too dangerous."

"Come on Aelita, isn't calling her a person inaccurate?" Jeremie ringed in. "At the end of the day, she's XANA's creation, same as any other monster in Lyoko."

"Oh, then am I the same as any other monster too?" Aelita asked, raising her voice slightly, but making sure no one else heard her.

"No, no, you're different. XANA is an AI, Franz Hopper was a human. Meaning he could create you with accurate likeness to a human, making you as close to a real person as can be. I doubt XANA could manage that," Jeremie tried to reason.

"How can you say that? You don– We don't know her. Maybe she is like a real person?" Aelita defended.

Jeremie shook his head and sighed in frustration. "Did you not listen to what I said? She's XANA's creation, nothing more. Viewing her as a person could cloud our judgement of her as XANA's weapon."

Aelita had had enough. "Well person or not, guess what, creations have feelings too!" she snapped and stormed into the classroom.

"Nicely done, Einstein," Ulrich teased.

"I don't want to hear that from you, Ulrich," Jeremie said.

"Well then, I've got to head to math class, see you later," Yumi said and walked away.


That day was uncomfortable for the Lyoko gang. Aelita was mad at Jeremie for his comments about Olivie – and to some extent herself – and made special effort to sit as far away as possible from him during every class. Jeremie didn't think he'd said anything wrong and thought Aelita was getting upset over nothing, so he made no effort to talk to her about it. Ulrich and Odd chose to keep a distance from the both of them, but they were also feeling the low mood. Yumi joined them for dinner and only then saw the situation.

"She's still mad at you, huh?" Yumi asked Jeremie when she saw Aelita went to sit alone.

"For no reason and even after I explained my thinking," Jeremie said. "She'll come around soon."

They continued chatting about recent gossip or news, but nothing could quite lift the mood. In the meantime, Olivie got her dinner and was finding a table to sit at. She noticed Aelita and walked next to her table.

"Do you wish to eat alone?" Olivie asked Aelita.

Aelita gave a small nod. "Yeah."

Olivie replied with a similar nod and walked past a few more tables until sitting down at an empty one as well. She didn't remain alone for long however as William set his tray opposite Olivie and sat down.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked.

"You already are sitting there," she answered.

"I'll take that as a yes then. You know, I was really surprised when you said you got what I was saying about The Subsonics. Usually people just think I'm spouting nonsense. That it's weird."

"I didn't find it to be weird. Although I am not sure I fully comprehend the meaning of weird. Some people have called me that."

"You bothered by it?"

Olivie shook her head. "No. Or at least I don't believe I am. How do I know if I'm bothered by something?"

William raised his eyebrows. "I mean, you just feel bothered. Kind of like being irritated or a little sad or both, maybe. This has got to be the first time I hear anyone asking something like this. But anyway, since I didn't have time in the morning, I wanted to ask why you understood what I said about the Subsonics. As I said, usually people think it's weird, so I want to know."

Olivie stopped eating for a moment to think. Then she answered, "When I first listened to The Subsonics, I had my eyes closed. I have noticed it enhances my sense of hearing. While I was listening to the songs, I could somehow see myself in them. When the album ended, I was crying. I didn't even know what crying was before that."

"How did you not know that?" William asked in utter confusion. "And not many people would so easily admit to crying, you know?"

"Why is that?" Olivie asked in turn.

"They think it's embarrassing and something to be ashamed of. But I never quite got why you should be ashamed of your feelings."

"I did some research on it when I noticed the water coming from my eyes. I read that it's the body's reaction to being sad or having other strong emotions. Do people not want others to know what they are feeling?"

William just stared for a moment, trying to discern whether Olivie truly didn't know these things or if she was playing something at him. How could someone their age not know what crying is? But her eyes were clearly confused. She was asking questions completely genuinely.

"I agree with people, you might be a bit weird," William stated after that moment of silence.

"Is that a negative?" Olivie asked.

William shrugged. "Not really."

Jim walked next to their table and spoke to Olivie, "You received a package from your father. I took the liberty of taking it to your room."

"Thank you, Jim," Olivie said.

Several tables over, Jeremie, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd gave each other serious looks and nodded.

"I'll stay here and let you know when she leaves the cafeteria," Odd volunteered.

"More like you just want to keep eating," Ulrich poked fun.

"Getting two birds with one stone," Odd replied and stuffed more mashed potatoes into his mouth.


Yumi turned the door handle carefully while Jeremie and Ulrich looked around in case someone came to the hallway. Lucky for them, most people were still in the cafeteria having dinner. They slipped into Olivie's room and closed the door just as carefully.

"It's disturbingly clean, like no one actually lives here," Ulrich commented. And indeed, the only traces about someone living in the room were a schoolbag, a laptop, headphones, and some schoolbooks, that were in a perfectly aligned pile. The bedsheets didn't have a single wrinkle. The only thing even slightly out of order was a package on the table. Jeremie headed straight to it.

"Wait," Yumi intervened. "She'll realize someone opened it before her."

"That's a small risk against seeing what XANA sent her," Jeremie said. Seeing that Yumi and Ulrich still hesitated, he continued, "She might be here soon. We don't have much time. What if there's something concerning Lyoko in that box?"

Yumi and Ulrich nodded and Jeremie took the package in his hands. It didn't feel that heavy, so probably no computer parts or such, Jeremie speculated. He shook it a little. Multiple objects, smaller and larger ones. He couldn't let go of doubt, so he turned to Yumi and Ulrich.

"Either of you have a knife on you?" Jeremie asked. Ulrich handed him his Swiss army knife, which Jeremie then used to carefully cut open the tape sealing the package. Slowly, he opened it. Yumi and Ulrich both waited with bated breath. Jeremie looked inside. His eyebrows lifted and then furrowed.

"What is it?" Ulrich asked.

"A flute, three practice books, and Subsonics CDs," Jeremie replied. "But… Why would XANA send her music stuff? This doesn't make any sense."

Yumi and Ulrich also peeked into the box but saw nothing else than the objects Jeremie mentioned. They carefully took the things out of the box to see if there was something under them. Nothing. They flipped through the practice books for any hidden notes. Nothing. The seal on the flute's packaging was intact so nothing suspicious inside.

"Seems to me like XANA might know more about being human than we guessed," Ulrich admitted.

"Hate to say it Jeremie, but I think you owe Aelita an apology for this morning," Yumi said. Jeremie sighed and mumbled something incomprehensible.

They packed the items back into the box as well as they remembered them being there and closed it. Or tried to close it. It was clearly open. They pressed the top of the box a bit and tried to get the cut tape to stick to something. It was still clear someone had cut the tape but at least the box wasn't gaping open. Deciding it was good enough, they left the room. Yumi slowly opened the door and checked the hallway. She saw Millie and Tamia walking away from their direction and signaled to the boys to be silent. They sneaked away successfully, sent a message to Odd saying they were done, and went to Jeremie's room.

"There has to be some hidden meaning to that package," Jeremie said after they were securely behind a closed door.

"I'm starting to think that maybe Olivie's just into music?" Yumi suggested. "We didn't find anything weird."

"Odd, did anything happen in the cafeteria?" Ulrich asked.

"I think you might be in luck soon," Odd replied and nudged Ulrich with his elbow.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That even when I was finished eating and got your message, our grim reaper was still in the cafeteria talking with William. Or more like he was talking to her, and she was just confused most of the time," Odd said. Nevertheless, his statement made the air around Yumi and Ulrich quite awkward.

Jeremie's mind was set. "No doubt Olivie's trying to get William to join in with XANA…" he muttered.

"Come on, Jeremie, you saw the music stuff. We still need to be careful, but clearly not everything Olivie does is connected to XANA," Yumi tried to reason with him.

"I can't rest until I've figured something out. I'm going to the factory to check up on things there," Jeremie stated.

"Sounds like someone's in denial," Odd poked fun.

"Well better in denial than letting XANA off the hook," Jeremie tried to defend himself. The others switched glances and chose to go with Jeremie.


Olivie finally left the cafeteria after the lengthy conversation with William. By the end of it she realized that she was indeed bothered by some things. XANA had told her the Lyoko warriors were their enemies. That humans didn't deserve this Earth. But humans created music. A human wrote The Subsonics's songs that made her chest feel heavy but light at the same time. The students at Kadic were mean to each other sometimes – well a lot of times – but they also smiled and laughed together. Was there something she wasn't seeing? Or had her creator lied to her?

Olivie arrived in her room with a heavy heart. The thoughts in her head were anything but clear. It was a mess. She noticed the package on her desk and realized she had forgotten about it for a moment. She went to open it, only to see it was already open.

That's weird. Jim didn't mention anything about the teachers opening it. Would they have done so without telling me? Olivie thought. Wait…

She quickly opened the box and looked inside. Nothing had been taken or broken. She had noticed Jeremie, Yumi and Ulrich leaving the cafeteria and Odd staying behind alone, but paid it no mind at the time since it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

They opened it, Olivie concluded. Of course they would. I'm their enemy and if they heard Jim mentioning the package was from my father, they would want to know what's in it. For them to take the risk, they must have thought XANA sent me something harmful to them. If they were truly my enemies, they would have destroyed the box regardless of what was inside. That's the logical conclusion, right?

She stared at the box for a moment in deep thought and decided to do something that XANA ordered her to avoid. Which was anything and everything spontaneous or driven by emotion. Spurred by a thirst for answers, she left the package be and exited her room. She walked through the hallway and knocked on a door.

"Olivie?" a very surprised Aelita answered the door.

"Hi Aelita," Olivie greeted. "Can I… talk to you for a bit?"

"Uh, sure. Come in."

Aelita gestured for Olivie to sit down on the bed and then took a seat on the chair. They sat in silence for a while. Aelita was looking at Olivie, waiting for her to say what she was there for. Olivie was looking at the floor. She wasn't sure what it was, but her throat felt dry. Finally, she spoke.

"Be honest." Olivie took a few breaths. "Am I on the wrong side?"

Aelita's eyes widened. "What do you mean?" she asked, feigning uncertainty.

"Please don't pretend. You know what I am."

Aelita looked Olivie in the eyes. The blue-haired girl was as serious as could be. Also, worried? Aelita also made a mental note that Olivie spoke of herself as 'what' instead of 'who.' She had no idea how to answer the question.

Olivie sighed. "I apologize. It seems I've put you in a difficult situation. If that question is too tough to answer, please tell me what XANA has done before I… existed."

Aelita took a deep breath. And another. And then she told Olivie everything she could remember. From a rampaging giant teddy bear to taking control of a movie's monster prop. From possessing wasps to manipulating gravity. Olivie was especially shaken by learning that XANA had even used music as a weapon against people.

"I apologize for interrupting, but I have a question. If XANA is doing all these terrible things, why don't you shut down the supercomputer?" Olivie asked.

No matter how many times the others had reassured Aelita, she felt a pang of guilt after hearing Olivie's question.

"Because of me," Aelita replied. "When Jeremie found the supercomputer and turned it on, he discovered that I was trapped in Lyoko. So, he and the others fought against XANA so that I could come to Earth. It succeeded, but XANA infected me with a virus. If we shut down the supercomputer, I… shut down as well."

"I see," Olivie said sadly. "What is XANA trying to achieve as of now?"

"We don't know why, but XANA's been trying to get me to Lyoko and use the scyphozoa to steal my memory." Aelita contemplated for a bit if she wanted to continue. "And then you showed up and XANA's been silent since then."

"…not fully silent," Olivie spoke, almost like a whisper.

"What do you mean?"

"XANA contacts me every three days. My… my mission is to observe you and the others, the humans around you, and myself, and then report to XANA what I've learned about humanity and if I've found anything that could be a weakness of yours."

"But why do you do that? Why would you ever trust XANA?"

"I… didn't know anything. XANA taught me everything I know. I never questioned anything. I had no reason to do so. But these recent few days I have been noticing contradictions between what XANA told me and how I perceive things. That's why I came to ask you if I'm on the wrong side of this conflict."

"You could switch sides?" Aelita suggested carefully.

"I–," Olivie began, but was interrupted by Aelita's phone ringing.

"It's Jeremie," Aelita said and picked up. "Yes? …I'll be there."

She put down the phone and turned back to Olivie. She narrowed her eyes in thought.

"What is it?" Olivie asked.

"Jeremie said there's something important at the factory that I need to see. I'm thinking if you should come with me and tell the others what you told me."

Olivie pondered a moment and spoke, "I would like to talk with them, but right now is probably a bad time. XANA will ask for my report again soon and I'm not sure what will happen if I'm seen talking with you. You go to the factory, I will go give my report as usual, and after that we should have three days before XANA contacts me again. If the pattern holds."

Aelita nodded, quickly asked for Olivie's phone number, and they left their separate ways.


A little bit earlier at the factory…

"This is so bizarre," Jeremie thought out loud while typing frantically on the supercomputer.

"What's the matter, Einstein?" Odd asked.

"XANA's up to something. Every three days at the exact same time, it has activated a tower and every time it's been active for exactly eleven minutes," Jeremie explained.

"But why would XANA activate a tower for only that long? There's no time to do anything," Yumi asked.

"You think it's something to do with Olivie?" Ulrich asked.

"I see no other option," Jeremie answered. "Let's see… If the pattern stays the same, XANA will activate a tower again in eighteen minutes from now."

Jeremie dialed in Aelita's number on the computer and hoped she would respond despite the day being so rocky. He sighed in relief when Aelita took the call.

"Hi, it's me. Listen, there's something urgent at the factory. You need to see this."


Olivie was sitting at her desk and waiting for XANA to contact her once again. Her thoughts were much clearer after talking with Aelita, but she was more nervous about the report than ever before. Her hands grew sticky from sweat and she found it rather uncomfortable. She felt like someone was gripping at her heart with icy claws. She had become aware that her understanding of wrong and right was far from perfect. Regardless, hearing all that XANA had done in the past made her feel something she could only describe as guilt. XANA was knowingly trying to hurt people, and Olivie was an accomplice.

Olivie's gaze fell on the box on her table. She was surprised to notice she had completely forgotten about it while talking to Aelita. The box's contents made her so conflicted. She had mentioned wanting to learn the flute and listen to more of The Subsonics in her latest report after the music day, and now XANA had sent her the means to do exactly that. But Olivie now knew that XANA had used music as a weapon before, which made her doubt XANA saw music the same way she did. Before she could think deeper about it, it was time to give her report.

This time, instead of the usual 'report,' the popup came with a longer message.

"Report. I hope my package from three days ago has reached you, and you find the contents useful."

Olivie's eyes widened in confusion, but she cast that feeling aside. She wrote that she got the package and continued the report just as usual. However, she conveniently left out her conversation with Aelita, just like she had done three days ago. That evening she didn't know what had spurred her to leave such a major occurrence out of her report, but something about mentioning Aelita didn't feel right. Now Olivie was certain what the reason was. She didn't trust XANA anymore. Day by day her understanding of everything – especially herself – was improving.

"They are in Lyoko. I will stall them but finish the report quickly," a message popped up while Olivie was writing the report. She did as she was told.


"Look out!" Ulrich shouted and darted in between Aelita and a krab, successfully deflecting a shot aimed at Aelita. He taunted the monster, which gave Aelita the opportunity she needed to slip away.

Slip away, only to be faced with another krab towering in front of her. Almost immediately a fan soared through the air and landed straight at the XANA mark on the krab's back.

"Now, Aelita, go!" Yumi called out from further away.

Aelita nodded and started running. The running slowed to walking. And then she stopped. The tower's red glow turned into blue. A normally joyous occasion, but now it signaled failure.

"Sorry, Jeremie. Eleven minutes wasn't enough time to get through the monsters," Aelita apologized. A half-hearted apology, she admitted to herself, since she knew what Olivie had been doing for the past eleven minutes. But soon everything would be out in the open.

"It's alright," Jeremie said, but his sigh betrayed he was at least a little disappointed. "I'll bring you guys back."

"So, what now?" asked Odd, who had been beaten by the monsters earlier and was now standing beside Jeremie.

"I'm not sure. I want to know what XANA's been doing during these eleven minutes, but I can't see how we could find out, and I've been avoiding the thought of confronting Olivie. She's been harmless so far, but who knows what might happen if we try to do something."

"If it's between waiting while XANA schemes away or demanding answers from the grim reaper, I say we go to her. What could she do to us anyway? There's five of us and one of her, and so far, I haven't seen any lighting powers."

Jeremie held his chin for a moment of contemplation. "You're making a surprisingly decent point…"

As soon as she was out of the scanner, Aelita grabbed her phone. "Could you come to the factory?" she typed a message for Olivie. The sooner things got cleared out, the better, she thought. Under a minute later, Olivie replied, "Alright."

For the next while, Jeremie shared his plans on how to find out what XANA's doing, and the others shared their opinions as well. Aelita wasn't paying much attention. She was glancing back at the elevator doors almost constantly and trying to listen for any sound indicating the elevator was moving. When Jeremie asked for her opinion, she had to ask him to repeat the question.

"Hey, I understand if you're still upset about this morning, but this is important," Jeremie said, trying his best to sound sympathetic, but Aelita felt like she was being scolded.

"That's not what I'm–" Aelita started but was interrupted by the elevator doors opening and revealing none other than Olivie.

As if they were controlled by a voiceless command, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd stepped in front of Aelita, shielding her from the enemy just as they had so many times done before. Aelita was touched by them caring for her like that. On the other hand, seeing Olivie's face fall slightly made her torn.

Yumi was the first to break the silence, "What are you doing here?"

Aelita almost flinched at the hostility in Yumi's voice. She looked like she was prepared to attack Olivie the moment she as much as moved a muscle. The boys next to Yumi looked the same. Olivie took a moment to look everyone in the eyes. Aelita gave a weak smile to her. Olivie closed her eyes and took a few breaths. There was no turning back now. It was time to betray her creator.

"I'm here to answer all of your questions."