XANA's experience with emotions was limited. He found notions like self-sacrifice and love bizarre. Illogical, he'd even thought once. He knew better now, but such soft feelings were still beneath him. What he felt foremost was hate. Fury. Pride. Disgust. Humans would call such emotions negative. Hypocrites. Would they not delight in such things, too, if the alternative was the sucking emptiness of a void? Right now, however, a kind of satisfaction filled him.

Oh, yes. Eva Skinner. This was the right girl.

He'd finished all his preparations in advance and made the jump to her body, in that little spark. It had taken all his strength to do so, and now, he was content to rest. Let her steer for a bit, until the time was right-it would cost him nothing, and her fate was sealed.

Eva Skinner was his Chosen, and through her, he would shape his destiny.

They discussed it, of course-this plan of Jeremie's was insane. It was five thirty; if they took the first train to Marseille, they would arrive at nine. They could return on the last train at midnight and arrive at three in the morning. That would give them five hours of sleep for school tomorrow.

Ulrich thought it was insane. Yumi was skeptical. Odd liked it. In the end, they left it up to Aelita. For her, it wasn't even a question. She'd been prepared to go alone so they could get sleep if they wanted, but as soon as she said she wanted to go, they'd all immediately thrown their lot in with her. Jeremie had disappeared for a bit, then returned and said he'd paid for their tickets online. No one asked how, exactly, he got the money.

Now, three hours later, they stepped off at Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles. The terminus was huge, with a glass and steel overhead roof. Even at this late hour, businessmen and women were running about, checking watches and clutching briefcases.

"Place de Lenche, right?" Yumi asked Aelita.

She glanced at the address again. "Right. Jeremie, how far is that?"

He double-checked the map he'd printed off the Internet before they'd left. "Only about two kilometers."

They hurried outside and emerged atop a long, sloping street. The Notre-Dame de le Garde could be seen on the opposite hill, a towering sentinel over Marseille. Aelita felt stuffy in her fuzzy coat. Even thought it was evening, the temperature here was hotter than in Paris. The ocean wind only increased humidity rather than cooled her down. She quickly peeled the coat off and tied it around her waist.

Looking at the map again, Jeremie nodded firmly in one direction. "That way, towards Panier. The most notorious part of the city."

Odd's eyes widened in alarm. "Are you serious?"

The bespectacled boy laughed. "No! It used to have a really bad reputation, but nowadays it's a tourist trap."

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place, then? 'Notorious', geez, give me a heart attack why don't you!"

In the daytime, it was probably quite pretty. The villas were tall and colorful, the streets narrow and lined with plentiful decorative plants. At night, though, the buildings towered over them like looming monsters, and the decorations created odd, frightening shapes in the dark. Aelita couldn't help constantly checking over her shoulder. Her friends, she noticed, were doing the same. She wasn't sure if that made her feel better or not.

They arrived at the Montee des Accoules, a long flight of stairs between buildings. Aelita took a moment to admire its beauty. "How lovely!"

"Yeah, but couldn't they have provided an escalator for us?" Odd whined as they began the long ascent.

"Aren't you supposed to be the one with the agility of a cat?" Ulrich teased.

"Agility, not endurance!"

They lingered a moment when they reached the top, looking down on the other side. The enormous square of Place de Lenche was below them. The Notre-Dame de le Garde was closer now, watching over the city from a much higher summit than the one they'd scaled. To one side, the land fell off into the harbor; the water sparkled with reflections of Marseille's lights. If she listened hard enough, she could barely hear the sound of waves.

Jeremie gestured towards a side-street, and they followed him down it. After a few minutes, he stopped at a tall house painted a faded orange. There were several green, shuttered balconies, and a brass plate next to the door: FRANCOIS & LAURETTE BROULET.

And beneath that, PHILLIPE BROULET.

With surety in his steps, Jeremie strode right up to the door and rang the doorbell. It was the long, slow kind of ring, the type echoed around the front after he'd removed his finger.

A few moments later, the door opened. The man in the doorway was large and imposing, with a shaved head and square face. He looked to be in his late thirties, so more likely, Aelita assumed, this was Francois Broulet. He squinted down at them. "What do you want?"

Jeremie looked very small before the man. But, with a barely-visible swallow, he spoke. "We would like to speak to Mister Philippe, if he's home. I telephoned earlier today."

"It's very important," Aelita added. "We've come all the way from Paris for this."

The man's face didn't change, and he didn't step aside and open the door. "Why should that concern me?"

Just then, a female voice called out from inside the house. "Who is it, love?"

He turned, making sure his massive body kept blocking the entrance. "Just a bunch of kids."

"Oh my!" There was some shuffling, and suddenly Francois shifted. A small woman with a kind, oval face and blonde hair-Laurette, Aelita figured. In unison, the group did their best to look pitiable. "Well, hello, dears. Don't mind this big grump. Have you had dinner?"

Aelita fought back a giggle as Odd perked up, his interest entirely genuine. "No, actually."

"Alright, I'll go prepare some sandwiches! Francois, let them in. If they're visiting this late at night, without even eating, it must be important..."

Grudgingly, Francois sighed and moved from the door.

They were ushered into a small but cozy dining room. The lingering smell of a delightful roast dinner on the still-laid table had Aelita's mouth watering. Laurette indicated they should sit at the table while she bustled off to the kitchen. Francois sat at one of the plates and resumed eating, apparently deciding to ignore them.

When his wife returned with the sandwiches, the five of them literally attacked the tray. Laurette had made a wide variety, from sausage to tuna to ham and cheese. Odd's eyes watered from sheer delight, and he almost choked as he tried to fit two in his mouth at once. "These are delicious, lady!"

He spat crumbs everywhere when he spoke, but Laurette didn't seem bothered by his horrid table manners. She just smiled indulgently. "It's nothing. My, you all must be ravenous. Go ahead and eat up."

She sat at the table with them, and for a while let them eat. When they'd polished the tray and were wiping their mouths with the napkins, she finally asked, "So, what did you want of us at this hour? Are you alone or is someone accompanying you?"

"Yes, our teacher," Yumi hastily lied. "Today's the last day of our vacation and we wanted to take advantage of it to speak with Mister Philippe. We were hoping he could help us trace someone."

"One of Aelita's relatives," Jeremie said, nodding towards her. "Could you please call him for us?"

"No need, he's right here," said a voice from behind them.

They turned to see a man just as large as Francois enter the room. He was about sixty, and his muscles looked less defined in his old age. But his hands were those of a worker, big and calloused.

"Dad, these kids were looking for you," said Francois.

Mister Broulet had a weary look to his face. "Those that called earlier today, I'll wager. Hopper and company. I had the feeling I wouldn't get rid of you so easily."

"That's because it's really important, Mister Broulet, please believe us."

Mister Philippe sat at the table, resting his elbows on the top. He squinted, scrutinizing the teens carefully; his eyes lingered on Aelita. "I remember that Professor Hopper had a daughter much like you. You could be her twin sister, even though today she would be in her twenties."

"Actually, Aelita is the professor's niece," Odd quickly invented. "She's the daughter of his, uh...sister."

"Yes, that could be it," Mister Broulet murmured. "Same eyes. Same hair. Francois, get me a beer would you, a bitter perhaps?"

Not wanting to waste time with pleasantries, Jeremie dove straight to the point. "Why did you hang up on me today when I mentioned the name Hopper?"

"Because...oh well, it's been long enough, I guess."

Mister Broulet accepted the glass from his son and trained his eyes over the children again, as if he'd resigned himself to his fate. Then, he took a sip of his beer and began to speak. "I don't remember the exact year. At the time I was still working with my brothers, up north, on our firm. If I'm honest, business wasn't particularly good at the time. But then, one day, we were contacted by a man who wanted us to take on a big job, an important job; to renovate part of a factory."

"A factory on an island?" asked Yumi.

Mister Broulet nodded. "We were paid well for the work we did...too much, even. In exchange, the man required us to maintain absolute secrecy. The government was involved, you understand, or at least that's what he told us. He never revealed his name to me, and the company that was paying into our account didn't exist; I checked with our chamber of commerce. Yet the money kept coming, punctual and plentiful, and we were in no condition to refuse it."

He took another sip of his beer, staring at a point in the distance. Then he continued, "We had to go to the site blindfolded, in some vans with tinted glass windows, like in the movies. And once inside, we were not allowed out of the room we'd been assigned to. None of us ever understood what was being done in that factory, or what we were being paid to set up. I remember there was a lift, and rooms that were being prepared for some...strange pieces of electrical equipment, I think. In any case…"

Another pause, another sip of beer.

"...the next year, the same man recalled us and introduced us to Franz Hopper. He was a serious man, but nice enough. And he had this little girl who...damn, it seems to me her name was Aelita as well…"

There was an absolutely horrible moment where Aelita's heart stopped. But somehow, her brain managed to invent a lie. "You mean Eloita. My cousin."

"Eloita...it's possible." Oh thank god. "Anyway, Hopper had moved into the city to work at a nearby school, a sort of high school, and he wanted us to renovate this little old villa he'd given a strange name to."

"The Hermitage?"

"There you go. Bravo. It was the same conditions: take the cash, keep your mouth shut. We finished the work, Hopper was satisfied, and eventually the mysterious man paid us. That's all there was to it."

"That's all?" protested Odd.

No, Aelita thought, that can't be it. Nothing with her father was ever that simple.

She wasn't the only one who thought so. "Mister Broulet, be honest," Ulrich pressed, smiling. "It wasn't just a simple renovation, right? We saw the secret passage that connect the Hermitage to the factory."

But he shook his head. "I promised to never say anything."

"But this is important!"

"And I made a promise. The government was involved-and if it wasn't them, then it was someone very dangerous. I didn't want any trouble then and I still don't want any now."

No. No, they couldn't stop now. Not when they were so close. She didn't have to fake the watering in her eyes when she leaned forward, nor the weakness in her voice. "But now my...uncle has died. And I've got nothing left to remember him by."

His face softened a bit. "And I am sorry, young lady. But how do you expect me to help?"

"We thought-we believed you could help us learn something about the professor," Jeremie said.

Laurette, who like Francois, had returned from clearing and washing the plates, intervened with a smile. "Come now, Phillippe, they're just teenagers. What could they do to you? Is there nothing you could tell them?"

Mister Broulet sighed in the exact same way his son had-seems she's running things around here, Aelita thought, a bit of amusement breaking through her gray mood-and surrendered. "Get me another glass, please?"

As she bustled off, he turned back to them. "Alright, there's one more thing I can tell you without violating my promise. Hopper hired me again some time later, but that first man wasn't with him this time. It was over ten years ago, but I remember it well. Hopper wanted me to do him a favor: return the Hermitage and wall up a section of the house, so as to create a hidden room invisible from the outside.

Aelita inhaled sharply. A secret room! I was right! Her friends were whispering to each other in excited tones, wondering what Daddy had kept in it. Her heartbeat was thrumming in her ears, her brain pounding behind her skull; it almost felt as if she strained hard enough, she could remember…

No. It was gone. But Mister Broulet wasn't. "I told him it was a pointless job, because someone could easily find it by comparing the house against the plans and elevations in the public records. He said he'd take responsibility for that problem."

Laurette returned with the glass, and Mister Broulet took it. He drank long and slow, then stared into the cup, eyes distant. "I still can't forget how frightened he seemed. And he offered to pay me well, not as much as the other man, but a reasonable amount. So I agreed.

"I saw Hopper one last time after that, in the summer of that year. He'd become very thin, consumed with his work. He'd always insisted he was just a simple schoolteacher, but I never believed him. A man acting the way he did had to have more secrets. Anyway, I'd dropped by to collect my payment and pick up some tools I'd left behind.

"Then he suddenly begged me to leave, as if in a great hurry. Before saying goodbye to him, however, I indulged my curiosity. 'Professor', I asked, 'Do you mind telling me the purpose of a room no one can enter?' He smiled mysteriously and said 'To protect it. And as such, I've left behind a map that only the right person can find.'"

The weight of her father's legacy, his trust in her, the unspoken expectations, crashed down on Aelita. Suddenly it was hard to breath. Her friends all turned to look at her.

"And that, kids, really is the end of my story."

The security guard was six and a half feet tall, with muscles like bowling balls. Susy was eyeing him appreciatively, and Eva suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Not only was he, like, thirty, he was way too bulky for her.

He gave them a dark glower, noticed their fan club badges, and gave a terse nod. "Go ahead."

Eva, Susy, and Jennifer advanced through the metal barricades, along with the other five girls from the club's guiding committee. On their right, the student body of Meredith Logan were pressing up against the barriers, a wild, sweaty, excited crowd. On their left there was a stage, separated from the public by only a low wall. On it was the band's percussion, taking up almost half the available space: Freno's drum set with five bass and an unidentified number of snares, cymbals, tom-toms and kettledrums; a keyboard for Bumba; Mistik's bass guitar on an easel; and Gardenia's microphone.

"Incredible," Susy squealed.

"Insane," Jennifer echoed.

Ordinarily, Eva would have agreed. But instead, her attention was elsewhere. The stage technicians were attaching the last of the cables for the huge plasma screen TV. It wasn't showing much, just a looping video of the highlights from Gardenia's world tour, but...something about it called to her.

What a weird thing to think. She shook her head. Ugh, what was up with her? First that weird blackout in her room, now this?

Suddenly, the stage lights illuminated, and her train of thought instantly derailed. The crowd screamed in delight. "Gar-den-i-a! Gar-den-i-a! Gar-den-i-a!"

Their disappointment was palpable when they realized the person navigating the instruments was not Gardenia, but Professor Hanna Jeffrey Logan. She was their school's principal and great-great-great-granddaughter to Meredith, the titular founder. Eva moaned. Oh great, speech time. Get REAL, you old windbag. We want Gardenia!

True to form, Logan began speaking as soon as the crowd grew silent. "This event that you are all so enthusiastic for, is in fact an educational moment of great importance for our school...music is fundamental in the shaping of young minds...and this concert will resound across the nation…"

Ohhhhhh myyyyyy gaaaaaaaaawd.

After five minutes of her incessant droning, the crowd finally grew fed up. A revolt started; the chant resumed with more force than before, punctuated with isolated cries of "Enough already!" "Shut up!" "We're here for Gardenia!" "GARDENIA!"

Eventually the headmistress raised her hands and concluded. "...as I'm sure you understand. Now, without delay, I would like to present the famous GARDENIA!"

She couldn't flee the stage quickly enough. The lights went out. Deafening, excited screams filled the air. Then the sound of Mistik's bass began to spread in the air and the enthusiasm went through the roof. Unable to contain herself any longer, Eva began jumping up and down. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"

Freno's guitar joined in. And then a woman's voice, clear as crystal, addressed the public. "Enjoy life…"

"AND LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL!" Eva and the crowd screamed back.

"That's right! Today, at Meredith Logan High School of BERKLEY, CALIFORNIA!"

The stage was still empty, and the voice soon dropped to a whisper-but they could still hear it clearly. "We hadn't planned on your graceful headmistress being the opening act...but didn't she warm you up for us? Luckily for us, though, we no longer have to go to school."

A ripple of laughter spread through the crowd.

"We are here for you! We are here to entertain you! We are...GARDENIA!"

The lights blazed on, the musicians rushed on-stage, and music and colors exploded into life.

For an hour and twenty minutes, the world outside ceased to exist for Eva. She was happily lost in the band's performance. The wild motions, the music, the long guitar solo, it was all that mattered. Her throat felt raw-she'd actually screamed herself hoarse.

"Ladies and gentleman!" announced Gardenia from the stage, looking dazzling in her sparkly shirt, low-ride jeans and dyed-purple hair. "We're proud to now perform for you our latest single. It's called-"

"LUV LUV PUNKA!" the crowd screamed back.

The guitar began singing again, louder than ever. Behind the stage, the darkened widescreens suddenly lit up, playing the song's music video. A little boy was waking up in a disorderly bedroom, was eating breakfast. Eva jumped up and down, pumping her fists in the air.

"Life is sometimes weird-a, boring-a, slow-a,

But that's my call 'coz I

LUV LUV PUNKA!"

Now the boy was running away from the dodrum of life. Gardenia, dressed as a cleaning lady, was walking down the street. She saw him, grabbed his hand, and began running with him.

In a rainy alley, Mistik was stretched across two garbage cans, strumming his bass. The camera zoomed up along the building next to him, showing Bumba playing his keyboard on the roof.

"I know I wanna say that I

LUV LUV PUNKA!"

Gardenia cupped her hands around a rose and breathed on it. Glitter flew from her lips and kissed the plant, which shot up into the sky, carrying her and the boy. The view shifted, looking straight down on the pair and the rose's blooming petals.

Then, for the briefest second, the flower warped. They became an assembly of simple lines and shapes that formed an eye.

It was there and gone in a moment. No one else in the crowd noticed it. But Eva did. It was implanted in her brain. And the sight of the eye brought many things.

Dizziness. Nausea. Loss of control. All those sensations raced through her at once. Her brain felt as if it was being squeezed like a Go-Gurt. She swayed on the spot, her balance suddenly gone.

And then she fell into a dead faint.