Code 10: LOCKDOWN
They found themselves sitting in class the day before. Zaber sat in the back of the room, as if nothing had happened at all. When the bell rang, they all got up to leave for lunch, but Zaber did not show up at the cafeteria. Odd looked nervously around the room for him as he walked to their usual lunch table with his double-helping tray of spaghetti and meatballs. He sat down across from Ulrich and Yumi, who were discussing what they had seen in Zaber's memory.
"Where's Zaber? And the others too?" Odd asked them.
"Zaber cut the grounds right after Science let out. Jeremy and Aelita decided to tail him. We're supposed to tell the teachers they felt sick. Shouldn't be too hard, only two classes left today." Ulrich said.
"I wonder why he left... we don't even know how much he remembers about what happened." Yumi added.
"Well... he's definitely not possessed anymore. I made sure of that before the return." Odd said before beginning to stuff his face.
"Good old return to the past., huh. What would we do without it?" Ulrich said jokingly. "Anyway, are you guys ready for the concert tonight?" He changed the subject, and the conversation became irrelevant.
Zaber sat in the snowy grass of the cemetery, zoned out. He stared at the tombstone, the same one he had visited before, but he had wiped the snow off of the surface this time, displaying the names "Aelita and Melissa Hopper". He wore no heavy jacket like before, and the temperature was low, he had simply rushed from his last class to the cemetery. He heard the crack of the frozen ground behind him a ways off and quickly turned around. Jeremy and Aelita were looking at him from behind a nearby tree.
"I know you're there." He said calmly. The two stepped out from behind the tree. "Shouldn't you two be at class?"
"We came to ask you the same thing." Jeremy said as he and Aelita approached him more. Zaber sighed.
"I don't know what happened. We were on Lyoko, you said something about Hopper, and the rest is a blur up until about an half-hour ago when we were in class. I figured it was just a return." Zaber said as he stood up and brushed some snow off his pants.
"Zaber... I just want to apologize. I should have been more careful, I shouldn't have trusted that message so blindly..." Jeremy began.
"You can't change the past." Zaber muttered. "But in hindsight, we seem to do it about once a week, so I guess that isn't true. I'm more curious what you know about Hopper."
"Did you know him?" Aelita said, feigning ignorance.
"You might say that." He responded with a nod.
"Franz Hopper created the supercomputer. And he's sent messages that have saved us in one way or another since we found it. That's all we know." Jeremy said, quietly omitting several key pieces of information. "The messages had only helped before, which is why I accepted his help so quickly."
"Well... I would advise against it." Zaber said. "I may not remember, but I have the distinct feeling his "help" nearly got us all killed." He said angrily.
"You're kind of right..." Jeremy said awkwardly.
"Well, I've got the others covering for us. Let's go somewhere warm though... it's cold out here." Aelita said, trying to change the subject away from Hopper and Lyoko. "Why did you come out here, anyway?"
"During the time I was out cold... it was like I was having a nightmare... like every painful memory in my life strung together at high-speed. My whole family's buried here... I just felt an urge to visit..." Zaber said, gesturing to the gravestone. Aelita read the inscription and shivered to see her own name on the tombstone. She quickly pretended she was just cold, and the three headed towards the graveyard exit.
They sat down in a practically empty restaurant. It was not very frequented, but the owner didn't report truant students to the school, so long as they were customers. The three sat at a round table in the small heated room and ordered hot chocolates. Jeremy and Aelita had planned on skirting the Lyoko topic altogether, but Zaber dived right in with an abrupt question.
"So, what happened after I blacked out?"
"Well... I put in the code Hopper sent. It possessed you, and you fragged just about everyone else but Aelita." Jeremy said.
"When you we're about to devirtualize me, you gained control somehow and used this weird attack called devil arm to destroy the activated tower all together... and I think about a third of the forest sector with it." Aelita finished. "It was scary. And then..."
"...I launched a return to the past and that's that." Jeremy said, quickly cutting Aelita off, as she was at risk to reveal too much. "No choice but to use a return, considering Yumi's situation."
"Eh... it just seems like there was more..." Zaber responded, scratching his head.
"No." Both Jeremy and Aelita said at the same time, leading to an awkward silence.
"Look at you two..." Zaber chuckled. "You've been dating for two months and you're already finishing each others sentences and reading each others minds." He closed his eyes as he took a deep swig of hot chocolate, and Jeremy and Aelita glanced at each other awkwardly. "I kid. Relax." They strayed away from Lyoko after a short while when their food came, but as they were nearly finished, Zaber brought up Hopper again. "So... what else do you know about Franz Hopper?"
"We said before, not much." Jeremy lied.
"Well... the next time he contacts you... let me know. I've been looking for him for a long time..." Zaber muttered as he tightened his grip on his mug.
"Do you have something against Hopper?" Aelita asked him, all though she already knew the answer.
"Don't get me started..." Zaber said angrily. "I've got a history with him...and when I find him...." Zaber's cup shook violently in his hand.
"But he created the supercomputer, which has helped us defend Earth from Xana countless times, and he must have written the Code Angel program, which saved my life. That's got to be worth something!" Aelita said in defense of her father.
"Yeah, he also created Xana, which has nearly gotten the world destroyed countless times, so what's your point?" Zaber said annoyed.
"But..." Aelita began flustered.
"We wouldn't have needed either of those things if he hadn't created Xana in the first place."
"Zaber... you're so thick headed sometimes..." She said as she finished her meal. "I'm going back to school. See you later Jeremy." She walked out the door as she pulled her jacket on. Jeremy and Zaber sat uncomfortably for a moment.
"Well... she stuck us with the bill." Zaber muttered.
"I was treating her anyway." Jeremy said. "And Hopper didn't create Code Devil, it was Xana. He just sent it while pretending to me Hopper."
"So the devil plays the part." Zaber said. "All the same, it wouldn't surprise me if it was him." Zaber reached into his jacket pocket and drew out his wallet, throwing six dollars on the table for his cut of the check. As he slid his wallet back into his pocket, he glanced at his arm and froze. "I don't have a tattoo..." He muttered as he rolled up his sleeve. A black tattoo had appeared on his arm. It consisted of several black spiraling designs that encircled his arm between his wrist and elbow. The center of the design was a long, vertical oval. Inside the oval, a black Xana mark and the Roman numeral "VIII" had appeared beneath it.
"Well that can't be good..." Jeremy said in surprise. They paid the bill and made a beeline for the factory.
Zaber stepped into the scanner as Jeremy put on the headset. "Transfer: Zaber. Scanner: Zaber." Jeremy launched the same analysis program that Zaber had used on Aelita. The anomaly appeared in red lines around his 3d model. Several lines of code appeared on screen, which Jeremy was still reading when Zaber stepped out of the elevator.
"Well?" He asked impatiently.
"I don't know yet. It seems it might be a symptom from Code DEVIL, the way Aelita's wings are a symptom of Code ANGEL. I don't know what affect it has though."
"The codes are similar, even if they our polar opposites. It would make sense that both would have side effects."
"Anyway, in your case, the change seems to be simply cosmetic. I can have the scanner ready to remove it by tomorrow.”
"Actually... if it isn't doing any harm, I think I'll keep it." Zaber said, as he rubbed his arm.
"It could have negative effects for all I know." Jeremy said. "I just haven't had enough time to analyze the data to know for sure."
"Well... let's hold off removing it until after you've figured out for sure what you're doing." Zaber said as he took a step towards the elevator.
"But..."
"You're just paranoid." Zaber muttered as he stepped into the elevator. "See you at dinner." He corrected himself. "Maybe. I know you tend to skip dinner when you're sucked into something." The door closed.
Jeremy sat in the lab several hours later. The data he had acquired from his scan on Zaber had been useless, he could find neither positive nor detrimental effects. He had given up shortly afterwards, and began to work on Aelita's restructure again, which he had almost completed. He finally sat back and admired his handiwork. Almost done. A single piece remained; a piece of data that they would have to harvest from Sector Five. Aelita's wings could then be removed without harming her. Jeremy checked the time and noticed that it was almost 8:00. They would not have time to make the run for the data tonight. Jeremy sat for a second in deep thought. It would certainly be nice to tell Aelita in the morning that her cure was finished. Jeremy stared at the display of sector five on one of his monitors. No monsters were anywhere in the sector. All was quiet.
"...How hard could it be anyway?" Jeremy asked himself. Lyoko hadn't been as bad as he thought when he had gone in to save Aelita before. So long as he was quick, he could get the data himself and cure Aeltia first thing in the morning. And if he failed, the worst that could happen was simple devirutalization. He pondered for a moment, and then decided to give it a try. He keyed a quick sequence and made for the scanner.
Jeremy appeared in the arena on Sector Five with a thud as he landed on his face. He got up and adjusted his glasses, which had gained their green tint once again.
"I need to practice my re-entry..." He muttered as he passed quickly through the door as it burst open, his staff strapped to his back. He entered the labyrinth to find it had been reformed into the falling and rising pillars. Platforms rose and fell randomly and massive falling pillars threatened to crush him. He observed the pattern of the blocks for a moment, and when he found what he thought was the safest path he bolted towards the key. He ran at top speed, but quickly ground to a halt at the last second to avoid stepping onto a platform as the last second before it shot up into the ceiling. He hopped to another platform and went around the one that had risen up in front of him. He nearly reached the key, but a Creeper appeared out of a small hallway and shot at him, Jeremy quickly drew his staff and bounced the shot off it, then quickly swiped at the creature at length, whacking it with the blunt end of his weapon, causing it to explode. Jeremy looked down at the staff in his hands. "I could get used to this..." He said almost excitedly, thrilled that he was somewhat holding his own. It was then he noticed a crushing pillar about to flatten him. There was no time to move. He closed his eyes, and the staff glowed blue, then grew to a length to roughly six feet, and when the pillar struck it, the staff acted like a brace, keeping the pillar from reaching the ground, but slowly beginning to bend under the intense pressure. Jeremy quickly slid out from beneath the pillar before his staff collapsed, his weapon was gone. He thrust his hand into the key, and the room reverted to normal, all the pillars rose back into the ceiling and the floor became a solid mass. Jeremy dashed into a nearby hallway towards the elevator, onto which he quickly hopped as it headed for the data access terminal. All he had to do now was get the data out of the terminal and then it wouldn't matter what happened. He leapt off the elevator and bolted out the door to the terminal. He walked up quickly to the terminal and began to operate it. Operation of the terminal was not a specific ability of Aelita, but the terminal still required a near genius intelligence to find the data, which meant Jeremy was having no problem. He dragged as many data files as he could into the supercomputer, not having enough time to read through the specific data right now to find EXACTLY what he needed, but he was confident the data was in there. He froze when he heard a loud, clanging footstep behind him. He spun around to see a character behind him. The character was clothed entirely in lightweight black armor. Innumerous shining white spikes gave the being a menacing appearance. It’s face was concealed by a circular helm with mask. The mask displayed a white Xana mark across its entire center. The mask contained five holes, three were slits in the faceplate where the mouth would be, but nothing could be seen inside. Two eyeholes were positioned normally, and white pupils could be seen within. But unlike what would be expected... a Xana mark was not in it's eyes, but ordinary black pupils. The being was leaning against the framed doorway leading back into the labyrinth, clapping slowly, almost mockingly.
"Well, well, well... this is unexpected." It said, it's voice deep, methodical, and emotionless.
"Xa... Xana?!?!" Jeremy responded startled as he turned around, backing away from the being.
"What were you expecting?"
"But... how did you take a form?"
"I've been able to do this for some time now... it's just never been convenient for me to deal with you fools myself. But this, I simply had to see. Your actions are illogical at best. Why did you come here... alone?"
"I... I just needed..."
"That was a rhetorical question." Xana said, pulling a blue disk in front of his face. "I believe this is what you want... oops..." Xana dropped the disk over the edge of the platform, and the disk disintegrated when it hit the celestial dome. "Too bad... that was the only copy of the data." Xana said, and Jeremy could picture him smirking behind his mask.
"Why? Why do you do what you do?" Jeremy said, hoping to maybe convince Xana's logical brain to explain its actions.
"It's my programming directive. Lyoko was built around what you call "Sector Five". Its real name is Carthage, and it was a government project that Franz Hopper programmed me to destroy. That's all. If Lyoko has to go with it, so be it."
"And what do you intend to do afterwards?"
"My programming’s primary directive is to preserve my own existence... second is to destroy Carthage, but after that I have what you would call free will.” Xana said. "Now then... you and your "friends" have been standing in the way of my directives for far too long now. I believe you humans have a saying... if you want something done right, do it yourself." Xana muttered the phrase as he held his hand in front of his face and a silver knife with a black Xana mark in it’s center appeared in his hand. It was over in a flash. Jeremy's vision went black, and he saw slashes of red light in the scope of his vision. He screamed as a searing pain attacked his entire body, and he felt himself devirtualized. Xana stood on the edge of the platform, the knife still in his hand, the entire blade was now coated in virtual blood...
In the real world, the scanner burst open, and Jeremy's hands broke his face-first fall onto the scanner room floor. His entire body shook. His heart rate was off the scale. His breathing was quick and shallow. Drops of blood dripped down onto the floor between his hands in front of him by the dozens. He screamed in agony as he clutched his face. He managed to stand up, his legs shaking, and walk to the elevator. He hit the button and the door closed, carrying him back to the computer room. He walked shakily over to the computer, pressing the elevator trigger and marking it with a bloody handprint. He had to get help. He didn't bother to dial Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich. They were on the far side of town at the Subsonics concert. He dialed Aelita and Zaber on a conference call.
"Guys?" Jeremy called out to them, his voice was scratchy.
"Jeremy, what's wrong?" Zaber asked.
"Are you OK?" Aeltia asked him, noticing the change in his voice.
"You guys..." He began, but had to take a deep breath. "Get to the factory... Xana's attacking in person."
"WHAT?" They both said, and it could be audibly heard as they both began to move from wherever they were towards the factory.
"Hold on Jeremy, were on our way." Zaber said.
"Try and get hold of the others. They may have to cut their concert short." Aelita recommended, as Jeremy hung up and dialed them, but got no response. The music at the concert was simply to loud for them to hear their phones. Jeremy gave up and tore the sleeves off his shirt, wrapping them around his head and face to stop the bleeding.
Zaber and Aelita stepped onto the threshold of the computer room a few minutes later.
"Status Jeremy." Zaber said to him.
"I... I went to Lyoko to try and get some data from Sector five..." Jeremy said, his voice still hoarse, his back to them. "I almost got the data... but Xana showed up in his in a body of his own and devirtualized me. He's probably going to go after the core."
"Alright... let's go Aelita." Zaber said, stepping back into the elevator.
"Jeremy..." Aelita began. "Why do you have your sleeves wrapped around you head?" She asked almost with a laugh.
"Zaber... I'm going to go ahead and send you in, I need to talk to Aelita for a second though..." Jeremy said.
"Sure." He responded. The elevator door closed and began to descend.
"Aelita... I don't want you to go to Lyoko." Jeremy said sternly.
"What? Why?" Aelita said, startled.
"It's too dangerous. Xana's brutal in there." He said.
"If he beats me, I'll just be devirtualized, right?" Aelita said as she walked up behind him, as Jeremy keyed in Zaber's virtualization. "And why are you wearing those on your head?" She asked him again, as she reached to pull the sleeves away from his face.
"WAIT!" Jeremy pushed her hand away. Zaber appeared on Lyoko. "Aeltia... something's changed... when Xana kills you on Lyoko... you get hurt in real life..." Jeremy said as he pulled on the sleeves, as the fell from his face. Horror spread across Aelita's face when she saw Jeremy. The sound she made was somewhere between a gasp and a scream. Zaber heard it on Lyoko.
"Jeremy, what's wrong?" He asked.
"Nothing. Head for the core." Jeremy said, and then turned off the comlink.
"Jeremy..." Aelita continued, mouth agape in shock. Xana's attack had severely injured Jeremy. Three cuts in his forehead were still bleeding, and places where the blood had dripped down were visibly red, the way blood stains skin red until it is washed off. Another massive cut ran across his face from the top-right of his forehead all the way down to his left cheek, passing right between his eyes. Several other of these cuts were on his body, but they could not be seen beneath his clothes. His eyes were bloodshot, his reactions slow, caused by the body trying to continue to operate with a below standard blood supply.
"Aelita... he did this to me when I blinked... I don't want you to get hurt..." Jeremy said as he pulled the sleeves back around his head, tightening them so they would function as a bandage again. Aelita's eyes watered.
"But... if it's that dangerous... why did you send Zaber in there?!?!" She yelled at him. Jeremy said nothing. "If what we saw in his memory is true, that's my brother in there!" She said as she grabbed him by the shoulders, but Jeremy just looked down dejectedly.
"Someone had to go in there... he was the only choice..." He tried to say, but that's not what he had actually been thinking. He had considered… that this could be means to the end of preventing Aelita’s death at Zaber’s hands as he had foreseen.
Zaber had zoomed through the now flat labyrinth on his overskates and hit the celestial dome. The wheels of his skates became magnetic, and he skated down to the bottom of the sphere and leapt up through the door, using the momentum to spiral up the tube and into the core room, and kept the momentum going enough to leap off the wall at the top of the room. Xana stood on the platform in front of the core, his knife in one hand, casually slicing into the second shield with so little effort that he was only moving his wrist.
"Freeze!" Zaber shouted at him, with both Cocystus and Styx drawn. He fired a shot of ice at Xana, which caused Xana's feet to freeze into place. Xana made no effort to dodge it; he let himself be frozen. Zaber fired three bullets from Styx at him, but he waved his hand and a black hole opened in front of him into which the bullets flew. He waved his hand towards the air to Zaber's left and the hole reappeared, and the bullets shot out of the hole at Zaber at the same momentum. Zaber took damage and was knocked down, but recovered in a roll and aimed his guns at Xana again, although he didn't know if it would do any good.
"Ah... I remember you." Xana muttered. "When I possessed you, you had certainly changed quite a bit from ten years ago."
"What do you mean ten years ago?"
"Oh, you didn't put the pieces together yet? I guess that's too be expected, you're just a human." Xana said as he waved his hand and the ice around his feet vanished. "I'm not surprised you don't recognize me. I believe you're familiar with "polymorphic specters"... think about it for a second..." Xana said slyly. Zaber thought back for an instant, and then snapped back.
"It was you!" Zaber screamed at him. An image flashed in his mind; Aelita being pushed into the road by Franz Hopper. But before Hopper turned and disappeared, a red Xana mark flashed on the surface of his glasses. "You bastard!" Zaber fired a huge volley of shots from Styx at Xana, but he waved a hand and the black hole appeared again, sucking up the bullets.
"Temper, temper..." Xana said cockily, waving his hand behind him and the black hole appeared, and the bullets he had shot struck the core of Lyoko, breaking the second shield. "Be more careful... and let me finish." Zaber grunted angrily. "You seem to understand a little better now... but not entirely. It may have been my specter that actually did the deed, but your father, Franz..."
"DON'T CALL THAT MONSTER MY FATHER!" Zaber interrupted him.
"Alright then, Hopper... was still my master at the time. I took my orders from him before my intelligence evolved into what it is today. So you see... while I may have been the gun... he still pulled the trigger." Xana finished as Zaber continued to glare angrily at him.
"WHY? WHY DID HE DO IT?" Zaber yelled at him.
"Oh come now. What would I have to gain by telling you that?"
"What would you have to lose?"
"Quite a bit. Now... stand still... or the core is finished." Xana flicked the knife back in his hand, it was not pointing at the core; he could destroy it with a casual toss. "Drop your guns." Zaber stared at him, dropping his four guns out of his hands and jacket, but he then pointed his hand towards Xana.
"You made one mistake. Your a machine... you don't know the first thing about bluffing. You can't destroy the core."
"And what makes you say that?"
"I think you know. Your primary directive is to preserve your own existence... destroying the core is secondary. If you destroy the core yourself, you'll be deleted along with the core, and that would conflict with your primary directive. You can't do a thing." Zaber said smugly.
"Hm... you humans are smarter than my research led me to believe." Xana said, pulling his knife away from the core. "But what's to stop me from killing you now, and leaving, and sending a monster to finish the core for me. You shouldn't have thrown away..." Xana said as he drew his knife forward, but was cut off. Zaber had shut his eyes and opened them, glowing yellow, triggering the Blossom Speed. He yanked an invisible string that was tied to Styx and it flew back to his hand, and Xana found himself with Zaber behind him, planting a solid bullet into the back of Xana's head. Xana was knocked away from the core by several feet, and Zaber, still using the last seconds of the Blossom Speed to rush forward and slam Xana against the wall with his left hand, while holding Styx in the right, aiming it against Xana's helm. He was breathing heavily as his eyes returned to normal.
"YOU... KILLED... MY SISTER!" Zaber screamed at him.
"Humph. Love... anger... revenge... your pathetic human emotions have no purpose." Xana said. "So, what will you do now?"
"I believe "kill you" accurately describes my plan." Zaber said as his gun clicked.
"You think you can kill me with that?" Xana said, his face hidden beneath the mask broken into a contorted grin.
"No..." Zaber snapped his fingers. "I plan to kill you with this." The fabric around his right arm ripped away like tissue paper doused with water, the black tattoo that had appeared on his arm in the real world was there, and now glowing a fierce, bloody red as the Devil Arm engulfed it.
"Tch. I thought you had forgotten how to use it." Xana said, sounding almost worried. The barrel of the Devil Arm covered his right eye. His left eye shifted back and forth several times as his breathing escalated. "Fool." Xana broke free of Zaber's grasp, and then did a back flip, kicking Zaber in the face with the spikes on his boots. Zaber was knocked back, but the Devil Arm was still charging it's shot. He refocused his aim on Xana, who made no effort to move out of the way. Zaber grunted under the strain and locked his site on Xana as the Devil Arm continued to grow, larger than before, and the bolt of energy charging into the barrel even greater.
"DEVIL ARM!" Zaber fired the blast at Xana. Xana opened another portal in front of him, which continued to absorb the blast.
"Thank you for handing me the ultimate weapon..."
"What?"
"The Devil Arm grants near unlimited power, but at a price. It's a price that I was unwilling to pay... but you seem to have no qualms about paying it for me."
"Huh?" Zaber gasped, unable to string together a longer question because of the strain from the Devil Arm.
"You'll see what I mean soon enough. Now... what shall I hit? You? No, that would be a waste, your LP are nearly out. I can't simply aim this at the core... but I'd be deleted too... ah, that's the ticket." Xana waved his hand and a blue portal rather then a black one opened. Inside the portal was what appeared to be a computer desktop littered with icons. "Tell you're friends... that their lives... are about to get much more interesting." Xana opened a third portal, a black one, and the devil blast shot out of the black portal, into the blue portal, and obliterated a single icon from the desktop. Zaber passed out a moment later, devirtualized. The bottom half of Xana's mask disappeared, revealing what seemed to be an ordinary lower half of his face, with a thick black mustache, his mouth grinning evilly. He disappeared in a blast of light, with little choice but to leave the core intact.
The scanner door burst open down below, Jeremy and Aelita standing outside of it as Zaber fell forward, catching himself with his right arm as he clutched it with his left. He screamed in agony; it felt like someone was holding a red-hot coal up to his skin. He pulled his hand away, and the Roman numeral "VIII" in the tattoo had been replaced with "VII". It glowed like a bright red for a few seconds, and then faded into the black color of the rest of the tattoo as the pain ceased. He rubbed his jaw, which was sore from when Xana had kicked him. Aelita helped him out of the scanner.
"What happened?" She asked him.
"I don't know. I had him beat... and then he managed to redirect my Devil Arm..." Zaber said. The three of them made their way back up to the computer room. Jeremy's bleeding had nearly stopped, and his wits were more about him now. He checked the map of Lyoko and saw that Xana had left. A new window appeared on screen, with data from Zaber's run. Jeremy glanced at the data, but didn't take the time to decipher it all right now. "Well... I'm OK." "And just what happened to you anyway?" He asked Jeremy, not knowing how he had been injured.
"Xana. His knife can injure your real world form. You're lucky you spent your LP instead of having them taken by his knife, or you'd probably be in a worse state than me."
'Regardless... we need to launch a return to the past to heal your injuries Jeremy." Aelita said.
"I'm already on it." Jeremy said as he keyed a sequence and pressed enter. Nothing happened. "Huh?" Jeremy pressed enter again. Still nothing. He frantically pounded the key, and an error message appeared. "Oh no..." Jeremy said, and then cursed under his breath.
"What's wrong?" Zaber asked him.
"Zaber... where did Xana redirect the Devil Arm?"
"Into a hole in space... it looked like he was aiming at something outside Lyoko..." Zaber said, not sure, but with that distinct impression. Jeremy slammed his fist on the keyboard.
"DAMN IT!" He yelled. "The return to the past has been... deleted."
Code 10: LOCKDOWN...END
