ACT III: The Return of the Phoenix

In Kadic's park, Aelita, Belpois, and XANA as Eva were walking through the trees and slushy snow. The first two were deep in argument; the last was watching through lidded eyes. Aelita had been attempting to convince Belpois that they should return to the Hermitage to finish her exploration of the second secret room. It had already been a day, and she was growing impatient.

"Aelita, I promise we'll go back soon. But first we need to be sure-"

"This is about my parents, Jeremie! My father is dead! I don't have any idea where my mother is! That place gave me more information about her than I ever knew, and the rest of it could tell me even more! Why won't you understand?!"

"I understand perfectly, Aelita. But I need to finish the final verifications. Tonight, we'll meet in my room with everyone to discuss things, and then we'll enter the final level of the Replika. It's not as simple as you'd like to believe. You need to be more patient…"

Before Aelita could throw back a rebuttal, Belpois walked away, hands in pockets and shoulders hunched up against the cold. Robbed of her opponent, the pink-haired girl angrily kicked at a lump of snow. "Why is he so stubborn?!"

There were many reasons XANA could have offered, all likely to earn suspicion. Jeremie Belpois is a two-bit programmer trying to play sorcerer's apprentice, Jeremie Belpois thinks he's better than he is, Jeremie Belpois is overconfident in his self-righteousness.

He stayed silent. Apparently Aelita didn't really want an answer, for after a moment she sighed and turned to Eva. She forced a smile. "Do you want to continue walking together?"

Some sort of glitch happened then. His vessel's heart started malfunctioning. And before he could even run calculations as to the benefits of accepting her offer, he found himself replying "Sure."

As they resumed walking, XANA fumed. Why had he accepted the walk before knowing he could get something out of it? No, a better question was, why hadn't he attacked Aelita the moment Belpois was out of sight? Why hadn't he given her the dark kiss that would allow him to take over her body? They were alone. It was the perfect opportunity. So why this…

Reluctance?

Incredulous, he analyzed that feeling again. Yes, that was it. Reluctance. He didn't want to do that. Not to Aelita. Moreso, when she'd asked Eva, and by extension him, to continue the walk...he'd felt some kind of strange warmth. That must have been the source of the bug.

This was beyond infuriating. Respect? Fine. He could accept that. She was a dangerous opponent. But first the strange sympathy, then reluctance, and now this? No. Even if she was his favorite, this was blatantly unacceptable. How was he supposed to-

Stop, he told himself. 56,780 x 75,678 = 4,296,996,840.

Good. At least his ability to calculate was functioning correctly.

Now, to identify and correct the source of the error.

After a quick self-diagnostic, Eva's eye twitched. The problem was, the error originated from within that mental safe. A safe that was proving itself faulty. No matter how much he reinforced the barriers, they still rattled. What he'd imprisoned inside did not want to stay there.

And even worse, a small part of him wanted to let it out.

Destroying something would be very cathartic right now.

"Is everything alright?"

He started and looked at Aelita. He'd been too distracted and too distant, and she'd noticed. He scrambled to answer. "Yes, yes...I was just thinking about what Jeremie said. It's really not fair of him to be so inconsiderate of you."

"I know," Aelita sighed, and took Eva's hand. "Thanks for understanding."

He suddenly realized his vessel's fingers were covered in sweat and jumped. Disgusting human emotions! Why was he having such trouble controlling them?! Was it because this method of possession was different? Combined with that infernal safe, the effect on him was-

STOP. Stay focused. Inside his vessel, he forced himself to take a deep breath and close his eyes. Then he realized that was a human way of calming, inwardly cursed, and began reciting complicated math problems again.

Yes. There was the calm he sought. The clarity, the purpose. He would wait and find a way to enter the Replika in the Hermitage with these stupid kids. He would find Hopper's secrets and finally return to Lyoko. And then this farce would end. He would no longer be a ridiculous cross between a human and a computer. He would be rid of this faulty vessel and this infuriating girl who kept prompting such unwelcome emotions. He would find a way to purge the contents of that safe once and for all. And he would once again be the indisputable lord of the virtual world and future master of the real world.

"Don't you think it's weird?"

William glanced up from his history textbook. "What's weird?"

Yumi, Ulrich, and William were studying in the library. Or, well, she and Ulrich were studying, and they'd allowed him to study at their table. She was still wary about William, but he had impressed her in Brussels by drawing the men in black away. So she felt he deserved a little slack.

"Odd and Eva." Yumi pressed. "They've started acting like they share some secret. One will begin a sentence and the other will finish it, like they knew what they were thinking."

Ulrich shrugged. "They like each other, and Odd seems serious for once. It's kinda romantic, being able to read your SO that well."

He gave her a meaningful glance. And okay, that made Yumi's heart stutter a bit. A dumb little smile spread without her consent. Ulrich was her constant in this, quiet, solid, loving. He was able to tell whenever she was brooding or needed support. He'd gone with her to check on her parents and helped her bring them back from the hospital.

He's grown up so much from that jealous boy. I'm lucky to have him.

"Besides," William added. "It's kinda obvious you don't like Eva. Couldn't you just be reading too much into nothing?"

The warmth faded, and she scowled. Yumi wasn't blind to her flaws. She knew she could be judgmental. But it wasn't just that Eva gave her a bad feeling, it was that her behavior was off. When they'd walked back together that one night, the girl had kept up a steady stream of chatter, plowing over any questions Yumi asked. She spoke in perfect French, like it was her native language-and yet she came from California, which as far as Yumi knew, didn't have a large French community. There were times she would take a second longer to laugh, like she was pretending to feel instead of really feeling. And no person smiled all the damn time.

All of it was stuff her friends would dismiss, and even Yumi had to admit it wasn't concrete evidence. For all she knew it Eva really was just that strange.

But still.

"Hey, guys!"

"Speak of the devil," Ulrich remarked as Odd dropped into a chair, straddling the back. "Odd, what's up?"

"What's up? Haven't you heard? Jeremie wants all of us to meet up together in his room tonight!"

She frowned and checked her phone; no new messages. No, wait-one just popped up. Jeremie texted like he was actually talking, all proper punctuation and capitalization: We're having a meeting in my room tonight at 7 pm. Be discreet.

Her mouth puckered. But how did Odd know before Jeremie sent this?

When she asked that, Odd waved it off. "Oh, he told Eva and Aelita, and Eva told me."

Yumi gave the other two boys a look that said see?

With a raised eyebrow, Ulrich sent her a silent what's so strange them talking?

Her eyes narrowed. Doesn't he seem to know too quickly?

"Cut it out," William interrupted. Yumi tensed, listening for strands of jealousy, but all she heard was exasperation. "I have no idea what you two are saying."

"Nothing important," she muttered, a bit stung that Ulrich didn't seem to believe her.

"Does Richard know?" her boyfriend asked.

"I'm sure Einstein's found a way to tell him. The real question is-"

Suddenly, Odd stopped. His head turned. He stared very intently at a row of bookshelves for a few seconds. "Sissi, come out and quit recording."

Chairs scraped as all the teens leapt to their feet. Seconds passed. Then finally, a familiar face poked out from behind the shelf Odd had been looking at. Sissi emerged, staring at their group with an unreadable expression. A tape recorder was in one hand.

Later, Yumi would be ashamed about her behavior. But her first thought was great, she's stirring up trouble again. Her first words were an angry, "Why are you spying on us? Are you planning to blackmail us again?"

Sissi recoiled. "No," she said after a moment, and even Yumi could hear the hurt in her voice. "But you are hiding something, and I want to help, and I don't know why you won't tell me. I thought...I don't know."

Guilt strangled her as Ulrich attempted, "Sissi, there's nothing going on, really-"

Her eyes flashed. "Oh, just quit it! You think I haven't noticed? Skulking, whispering, asking me for strange favors? Something is going on. You've told Eva-the new girl-but not me? And you!"

She turned on William suddenly, spitting the words. "I can't believe you! I thought we were a team! But no, you've ditched me like the rest of them!"

William looked as if she'd struck him. In the stunned silence that followed, Sissi started to stomp off. Odd stepped in front of her. "The recorder?" he asked coldly.

Yumi gaped at his insensitivity. Sissi practically threw it at Odd, then shoved past him.

As she sprinted away, William threw on his jacket and ran after her.

"Sissi, wait!" he yelled as he caught up to her outside the library.

"Go away, Dunbar!"

The sound of his surname made him flinch. It wasn't said in a teasing tone. It was spat out like it was poison.

She picked up stride, and so did he. With his longer legs, he chased her down easily. He grabbed her arm and wheeled her around. To his horror, William saw there were tears in her eyes. "Sissi...I didn't mean-"

She swiped a hand across her face, furious. "No! Don't you dare pretend to care or apologize. Not after this! Not after days of-of avoiding me!"

"I...I know I messed up. I'm sorry. I just…didn't know what to do." He'd been told he couldn't tell her anything about what the Lyoko Warriors were really up to. But he also knew she would want to ask questions about what he'd learned. What was he supposed to do? Lie? Feign ignorance? What about when she wanted to keep investigating, and he had to choose between helping her or keeping her away?

So he took the coward's way out. He ran, hoping the Lyoko Warriors would agree to let her in before he was forced to a confrontation.

"I think it's easy, don't you? Just answer your phone when I call, or say 'hi, Sissi' in the halls, or hang out with me! Don't just pretend I don't exist! Don't keep me out of the loop!"

"I know," he said. "You're right, and I'm sorry. I want to fix this."

Her voice became pleading. "Then tell me. Tell me what's going on, please. I want to help. I don't want to be left behind anymore."

Out of all the things she could have asked for… "Sissi, I…" He ran a hand through his hair. His heart felt like it was in a vice grip. "I can't betray them again."

The anger drained from her face. William immediately wanted it back. This new expression-Sissi looked cold-eyed, dead. It wasn't right. "So that's it, huh," she said in a soft, numb voice.

"Sissi-"

"You got what you wanted. You're 'in' again, and I'm still 'out'. Here I thought you understood me." She laughed hollowly.

"Sissi, that's not-"

The slap left him stunned. He raised a hand to his stinging cheek. It was warm, starkly so against the outdoor chill. William stared at her, baffled.

"Just leave me alone! You have plenty of practice already!"

Daggers flew into his chest. She ripped her arm out of his grasp and tore across the school. There were definite tears streaking down her face now. He took a few steps after her, then stopped, his hand falling. There was no point. He didn't know how to make it better.

He looked around. Some bypassers were staring, and William knew there would be new rumors before the hour was over. He glared at them. "What? What are you all looking at?"

They scattered, but it brought him no warmth.

It was a struggle to fit seven teenagers and an adult man in Jeremie's room, especially since they had to smuggle Richard in. He looked awkwardly out of place among the group, too tall and lanky. They were brushing shoulders and filling every bit of available space.

Navigating through the sea of legs and vulnerable fingers, Jeremie managed to get to his closet and extract a poster he'd made earlier. With Aelita's help, he stuck it to the wall with scotch tape.

"That seems complex," Richard commented.

Jeremie snorted. Complex? Hardly. He'd written down four key points and connected them with a sequential algorithm. The real struggle had been making everything to clear for everyone else! But it seemed his efforts has gone unnoticed, because most of them were looking perplexed too-or, in William's case, staring at the ground with an empty expression.

Jeremie sighed. "Alright, I'll explain it."

"Excellent idea," Yumi teased.

Ignoring her, he pointed out each of the words on the poster:

Dossier

First City

Mirror

Richard Dupuis

Then, grabbing a marker, he highlighted the first number. "I've tried to organize everything we've found by now. I'm convinced we're following a series of tracks left by Franz Hopper, and we should assemble them like the pieces of a puzzle. In first place, his dossier with a series of Hoppix codes. I still haven't understood what they're for, but the other thing we found was…"

He stopped and highlighted the second number. "Number two: a replica that contained a rough copy of a virtual world I've called the First City."

"What a great use of imagination," Ulrich snickered.

Jeremie was unimpressed. "Laugh if you want, but if my hypothesis is correct, that's the name Hopper used for it too. He certainly mentioned something called by that name in his journal, so for the time being that's what we'll go with."

He continued, "Ulrich and William entered the First City using the scanner they found in Brussels, but didn't get much chance to explore because the men in black appeared and chased them. Next comes number three, the Replika Aelita found in the Hermitage. Since it's a journal that reflected upon several moments in Hopper's life, I've called it the Mirror. Everyone agreed?"

General nods bobbed around the room, including William. At the sound of his name, he had finally tuned in. Jeremie approved. He wasn't sure what was eating the dark-haired boy, but they needed to focus on the mission.

"Okay, and that leads us to number four: the codes on Richard's palm-computer. Every line starts with the word AELITA, but the rest of the code is written in Hoppix. We don't know what they do...I don't even know if they're a complete program or only a fragment of some more complex piece of software. But I'd bet either way, the code has something to do with Lyoko."

He stopped to catch his breath and evaluate the room. People still seemed with him. Good. He traced the marker over a line going from points two to three, the First City to the Mirror. "When Aelita showed me the second secret room of the Hermitage, I suspected something right away. And this is the reason I prevented her from entering the second level of the journal yesterday: I wanted to confirm my idea. To explain it briefly, there's a scanner providing access to the Mirror below the Hermitage, but no supercomputer."

Aelita frowned. "What are you saying? The journal's a virtual reality generated by a computer, so there must be a supercomputer!"

"Yes, but it's not at the Hermitage; there's just a simple terminal there. And from what Ulrich, Yumi, and William described, I don't think there was a supercomputer at Brussels either. And may I remind you, we're speaking of a machine so complex and large it occupied an entire floor of the factory. It's impossible to just hide."

William leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. His eyes sparked with a bit more alertness and interest. "So what are you saying?"

Jeremie raised a pointer finger. "The First City and the Mirror are only sandboxes. Sometimes, programmers introduce a sort of operational core to computers completely separate from the rest. It's a protected space where any such experiments cannot damage the rest of the system-precisely like the sandboxes children play in at parks! So-"

He stopped. Other than Aelita, Eva and-surprisingly-Odd, everyone's eyes had glazed over. Jeremie sighed. "In French, it's like constructing a computer first and adding a smaller one."

"Ah"s and "oh, ok"s floated around. He resisted the urge to shake his head. Really, it wasn't so hard to understand.

"So," Jeremie continued, "That's basically what Hopper did. Inside the factory's supercomputer, he created two sandboxes: the First City and the Mirror. The scanners at the Hermitage and the primitive materials at Brussels do nothing more than connect to the supercomputer at the factory thanks to a high-security wireless network, which then accesses these two cores-"

"Stop," Ulrich moaned. "You're giving me a headache."

"I get it," Odd said.

Jeremie stared at him. Ulrich stared at him. Everyone barring Eva and Richard stared at him.

That...was not what I was expecting. Odd was, to put it gently, a total idiot with technology. For him to follow Jeremie's terminology was...had he fallen into a parallel universe or something?

Eva cleared her throat. "You were saying, Jeremie?"

"Right," he mumbled, pushing Odd's...oddness out of his mind. "We would have shut down the supercomputer convinced we deactivated it forever. But in reality, we didn't realize there was a hidden protection system that continued to supply energy to two sectors of the computer. Those being, of course, the cores of the First City and the Mirror. And if you ask me, Hopper wanted us to find them."

"To tell us...what?" Yumi asked.

"I haven't the slightest clue. But tomorrow afternoon, after class, we can discover what's on the second level of the Mirror. What do you say?"

They all smiled, and Jeremie relaxed.

At 10 PM, Dido was stepping out of another debriefing session. And that wasn't even the last of them; there was another meeting in just two hours. As soon as she got Agent W's number, work had exploded in her face, and she hadn't had a chance to contact him or even breathe until now. It was four in the morning in France, but that was fine. She didn't believe in waiting for a 'better time', and neither should her agents. Especially not now that she had new information about the situation in Paris.

With swift, sure strides, she returned to her office, giving curt nods to her superiors and ignoring everyone else. She entered, closed the door, and made a beeline to her desk. Scooping up her phone, she pressed the button to active the anti-listening device, then entered Agent W's number.

The phone rang for quite some time. But finally, a groggy, grumpy voice answered. "Hello…?"

"Hello, Agent W."

The man was silent, but she knew he had snapped to attention. "Agent Dido…?" he said hesitantly after several seconds.

"Yes, that's right. I have instructions for you. A car is coming to collect you shortly. Be ready."

"Wait a moment!" She heard the rustling of bedsheets, bare feet on the floor-he was walking away from his bed, and his hopefully still-sleeping wife. "I can't-"

"A trusted source," she continued over his protests, "revealed to us that Hannibal Mago is headed that way. It surely has something to do with Hopper. I want you at the airport when Mago arrives so you can track him."

"Ma'am, you can't expect me to do that!" A door opened, closed. "I'm not qualified. I don't remember anything."

"You know what's important. You know you've done very bad things, and you don't want your wife or son to know. And that's why you're going to do as I say. Unless you would prefer to go to jail?"

His voice was tight with anger. "No, ma'am. But I thought our arrangement was just a one-time thing. I wasn't aware you would hold my past over me forever."

She decided to take a little pity on the man. A little. "I didn't plan to. But that story, unfinished for so long, has been reopened. You were a key player than, and you will be again. The men who will get you are agents of mine, and will tell you how to get in contact with me. Do a good job, and this will be the last time we ever speak to each other."

She hung up, waited a moment, and dialed a new number.

"Agent Lone Wolf at your orders."

"Go collect Agent W. I have a mission for you."

A/N: Tacenda in Latin roughly translates to "something secret", "forbidden", or "taboo".