Code 2: DEADZONE
After the return to the past was carried out, Zaber arrived at Jeremy’s room with Jim as if nothing had happened. Jeremy was not there when they arrived at the room however. Zaber assured Jim he would be fine, and when Jim left, Zaber casually booted up Jeremy's computer. Hacking his way into the desktop was easy.
"Aelita..." Zaber muttered as he typed the word into the password screen to log onto Jeremy's desktop. The password registered, and the desktop loaded. Zaber smirked. Jeremy was just too easy to figure out. The logbook file he had read revealed his practical obsession with the girl, so Zaber had guessed it would probably be the password. When the desktop loaded, he quickly noticed a folder titled "Locked" had appeared on the desktop. All the files that had been scattered about the computer that Zaber could have drawn information from were now quarantined off in that folder. Zaber smiled. He had told Jeremy that he could get around as high as Class-three encoding. He expected Jeremy to then encode the files in class-four right after the return to prevent Zaber from looking further. But Zaber had lied... he could get around class-four encoding as well. That way, once Jeremy fought he was safe with class-four, Zaber could spy on the files without Jeremy ever knowing. He clicked on the folder, and a window appeared on the screen.
"Please Input Class-Five coding key." Rang an electronic voice from the computer. Zaber blinked with a surprise. "Well well... looks you anticipated my moves." He muttered with both dismay and surprise. Class-five encoding was practically unbreakable by anyone but the original coder. To get into it, Zaber would need to guess a 100-digit security code. He could hack it with a program, but it would take almost a week and he surely would be caught before then.
"Jeremy?" Aelita's voice rang through the door as she knocked on it. Zaber quickly pressed a button and shut the monitor off, standing up soundlessly as he walked to the door, making sure there was no sign of his spying activities before he opened the door. Aelita glanced at him nervously when he opened the door.
"Oh... it's you." She said with slight spite.
"Come in. What do you want?" Zaber said as turned his back to her and walked back into the room.
"I was just looking for Jeremy." Aelita asked him.
"I haven't seen him since "yesterday"." Zaber said as he made quote-fingers. "I only got here about twenty minutes ago anyways."
"Oh..." Aelita responded as she turned around and made a move to leave for the factory.
"Hold on a second..." Zaber said. "I've got a couple questions." Aelita froze, unsure whether to cooperate or just keep walking.
"Like what?" She asked.
"That supercomputer... the virtual world... where did it all come from? Did Jeremy make it?"
"I thought you read the logbook?"
"A lot of it was hastily done and unclear... it was more or less notes to jog his memory. And I didn't get to read ALL of it like I said. Three or four pages total... just enough to get the gist of it." It was true... Zaber had lied, he had in fact only read about ten percent of the log, albeit jumping around to get an overview.
"I'm not at liberty to tell you anything until I talk to the others." Aelita said as she turned away from him. "I will say one thing. You are smart. You proved that by running circles around Jeremy before, but don't get used to it. Now that he's on guard, it won't be happening again. It's really too bad... you could have fit in here easily if you hadn't acted so dishonest." She walked out the door and down the hallway.
"But I am the one who saved you." Zaber called out to her calmly as he stood halfway in the doorway, waiting for her to get out of sight before returning and making a futile run against Jeremy's encryption.
Jeremy sat in front of the supercomputer, staring at a display. A video played on one screen, footage from when Zaber had appeared on Lyoko the day before. A second screen displayed a rotating model of Zaber's form on Lyoko. A third side-screen displayed an array of statistics next to Zaber's weapons. Jeremy had continued to dig deeper since that morning. There was no question that Zaber was the one who had killed Aelita in his dream. But his appearance had been that of his Lyoko form, but the dream had been in the real world, and Aelita was not in Lyoko form. Jeremy observed Zaber's attack once last time before closing the windows, then closing his eyes and trying to concentrate. He stepped to his first line of defense... shear logic. Dreams were simply images made up on the spot by the brain and played while he slept. The match could have been an absolute coincidence. But it was too much of a coincidence. He clutched the pen drive that hung around his neck on a lanyard. He had placed the class-five code key on it. The pass code was 100 random characters, Jeremy didn't even know them. But so long as he kept the drive on him, he could use the code on it to open his files, like a key opening a safe, making it impossible for Zaber to get near the Lyoko sensitive information again.
Jeremy's thoughts were interrupted as the phone rang on the computer. Aelita's icon appeared on screen. Jeremy pressed a key and picked up.
"Aelita?"
"Hello Jeremy. Listen, we need to talk... about yesterday." Jeremy groaned.
"What about yesterday?"
"You know what. What are we going to do about him?"
"I just don't know Aelita. I don't know if we can trust him after the way he hacked me."
"You have a point... but that still doesn't change several facts. First of all... he's a threat if we get on his bad side. I don't quite understand why he has a gun, but he doesn't seem shy of using it."
"That worries me." Jeremy muttered, but did not explain exactly why.
"Also, now that he's been scanned, there's no getting him off our backs. We definitely should keep our eyes on him, but we ought to give him a second chance."
"Second chance? Aelita, are you crazy? He was spying on us!"
"Well, think about it Jeremy. Both you and Zaber are on about the same level of intellect. What would you have done in his situation? You're not the kind to leave things buried either. And he saved us three times yesterday..."
"Aelita, there is no way I am giving that guy a second chance. That's all there is to it."
"Now Jeremy, just listen to reason!"
"Goodbye Aelita." Jeremy said as he hung up.
"Jeremy! Jeremy!" Aelita shouted into her phone as the disconnect tone played. She stared at the phone with slight disbelief. "He hung up on me... he actually hung up on me..." She muttered as she put the phone away and walked down the hall angrily, her arms crossed.
Ulrich and Odd were both settling back into their dorm room, as Kiwi tugged on Odd's pant leg.
"I think that Zaber guy was a bit of a jerk, but he could definitely be useful." Odd said. "I know Einstein doesn't take kindly to being outfoxed, but that just proves how smart that Zaber guy is. We could use more help."
"I see where you're going with this Odd, but I don't know if the pros balance the cons." Ulrich muttered as he shoved a stack of pants onto a shelf in the closet. "But I do think there was a little more to Jeremy reaction than just being spied on. Something else is up. The way he acted, you'd think Zaber was trying to romance Aelita or something."
"That's a laugh. We all know Aelita's crazy for Jeremy and vice versa." Odd replied. Aelita walked in the room through the open door an instant later, still fuming.
"Jeremy's getting a swift kick next time I see him." Aelita muttered, her arms still crossed. "I was trying to talk to him about yesterday, and he hung up on me!" Ulrich glanced causally at Odd.
"You were saying?" He said with a chuckle.
Jeremy walked on the streets back to the academy. He had run every possible check, trying to find a way to make Zaber vulnerable to the return to the pasts again, but he had come up empty handed. He was now stuck with a roommate who hated him. Even his genius intellect had hit a brick wall when it came to dealing with the situation. He stayed out as late as possible, even skipping dinner, as he returned to the school right before curfew. As he rounded the corner of the hallway, he felt a sharp pain in his shins. Aelita stood in front of him, and quickly retracted her leg.
"That's for hanging up on me earlier." She said, and simply walked away.
"Aelita, wait..." Jeremy called out to her while clutching his shins, but she ignored him.
Jeremy walked into his room limping and saw Zaber sitting on the bed opposite his.
"Listen... about yesterday..."
"Look, your secret is safe so long as you stay on my good side. If you don't want my help, then fine."
"Alright." The two of them hardly spoke for the rest of the day.
The next day began much like it had before the return to the past. At Science class, Zaber walked to and sat in the back of the room instead of next to Jeremy and Aelita like the day before. When Aelita came, into the room, and Jeremy gestured the seat he had saved for her, she hesitated for a moment before sitting down.
"Anything new on Zaber?" She asked him.
"Not really, but it seems like he's going to leave us be for now. It still makes me nervous that he has leverage on us." Jeremy responded.
"I know. He's such a loose cannon... he could go to the authorities any time. If we were to let him on the team..."
"No." Jeremy answered bluntly.
"Look, I understand your misgivings about Zaber, I have them too..."
"You have no idea how bad my misgivings are."
"Look... I've talked to the others... we're all under agreement that we need to put Zaber on the team. None of us like him by any means at the moment, but he could be invaluable. Imagine how much easier everything will be once there are two brains like your's running things."
"You say that like it's going to happen."
"Even though you're our psuedo-leader, the rest of us are all in agreement. Zaber is in." Aelita said as she crossed her arms. Jeremy stared at her, surpised at her defiant actions, which were the polar opposite or her usual personality. He groaned in deep thought, and then finally replied.
"Fine. But I am not happy about this, and I still don't trust him."
Later that day at lunch, everyone was sitting together, although there was still an uncomfortable silence between Jeremy and Zaber. The silence was broken when an alarm went off on Jeremy's computer. Xana had activated the Carthage Tower.
"Tower alert. We need to head to the factory." Jeremy stood up, spilling the half-carton of chocolate milk he was drinking. As the group stood up, Zaber remained seated.
"Aren't you coming?" Yumi asked him.
"I'm don't think so. Think of me as a reserve member for now. Call me if things get out of hand, but otherwise, handle it yourselves." He replied, taking a swig from his Coke. He was still rather miffed from his treatment the previous day, and he intended to make it known. As they left the lunchroom, Jim stopped them.
"You three. Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, the principal wants a word with you. It should only take a minute."
"If it'll only be a minute, don't cause any trouble. You can catch up to us." Aelita whispered to Odd.
"Alright Jim, we're coming." Odd said, as the three walked off with him. Aelita ducked back into the cafeteria and returned dragging Zaber behind her. The three of them headed for the factory passage.
Jim shepherded the three of them into the principal's office, and then locked the door behind him.
"Hey Jim, why'd you lock the door?" Ulrich questioned. In response, Jim's eyes blurred and his pupils we're replaced with the Eye of Xana. The principal stood up behind his desk, his eyes also Xanafied.
"Oh snap!" Odd shouted as the three of them we're slammed up against the wall by blasts of lightning from the hands of the two educators.
Jeremy sat down at the supercomputer terminal as Zaber and Aelita descended further to the scanner room. As he prepared the virtualization, he dialed Ulrich.
"Jeremy?"
"Ulrich, what's wrong?"
"Xana's possessed Jim and the Principal... gah... we can't get away!"
"Hang in there you guys, we're going to handle the tower now."
"AGH!" Ulrich's phone exploded as it overloaded from a power surge from the lightning.
"The others are under attack... take care of that tower as fast as you can. Transfer: Zaber. Transfer: Aelita. Scanner: Zaber. Scanner: Aelita. Virtualization." Jeremy tapped the enter key and the two appeared in the arena.
Zaber drew his handgun Styx from his jacket.
"Let's cause some havoc..." Zaber grinned as he dashed out into the labyrinth, with Aelita a short distance behind him. When they entered the labyrinth they found none of the usual obstacles guarding the key, but rather a small army of Creepers, which they both began to snipe using their ranged attacking abilities.
"We have to hit the key." Aelita said.
"Key?" Zaber hadn't been present on Lyoko when they had his the key before.
"Over there." Aelita pointed to the key, which was roughly 8 ft in the air on the wall opposite them.
"No problem." Zaber switched Styx for Phlegython and ran straight for the key, practically ignoring the Creepers. The Creepers took this opportunity to shoot him a few times, but he survived the hits easily. When he got close to the wall he shot the ground with Phlegython, which shot a stream of flames that propelled him up to the key, which he kicked in using the heel of his foot. In the same fluid motion, he crunched up against the wall like a spring and drew Cocystus in his other hand. He launched like a spinning rocket off the wall, firing the dual fire and ice guns. The attack wiped out all but one remaining Creeper, which Aelita wiped out an instant later. But using the guns had expended a large amount of his HP, and Zaber was devirtualized when he hit the ground face-first.
Zaber walked into the computer room out of the elevator about a minute later.
"What's our status?"
"Thanks to your hot-dogging, Aelita is alone on Lyoko. Way to go." Jeremy said.
"Oh, not this again."
"Relax Jeremy. I can handle myself. I'm at the tower." Aelita relayed to them as she entered the tower. She entered Code Lyoko. Back at the school, Jim and the Principal dropped unconscious. But the others had already been knocked out, and their pulses were fading fast. Jeremy tried to dial one of them, but of course got no answer.
"Aelita, I'm going to launch a return..." Jeremy was interrupted as he heard Aelita scream. His screen showed that a Schipizoa had snuck up on her.
"DAMN IT! WE LOST!" Jeremy pounded the console repeatedly. There was no one left. Zaber couldn't return to Lyoko for almost an hour after being devirtualized. Everyone else was M.I.A. Soon, Aelita would be possessed, and Xana would use her to destroy the core unopposed. Jeremy ran over and grabbed Zaber by his jacket angrily. "If you hadn't wasted your LP like that you'd still be there to help her right now!" Zaber shoved back.
"How was I suppose to know this would happen?" He yelled back at Jeremy. Jeremy slumped miserably into his seat.
"It's over... Aelita... I'm so sorry..." Tears began to form in Jeremy's eyes.
"What are you talking about? This isn't over! You're still here!" Zaber said as he lifted Jeremy up by the shirt collar. It took Jeremy a moment to process what he was implying.
"But...I... I'm useless on Lyoko! I've been there one time before and I couldn't even beat a crab!"
"So you're not even going to try?"
"If I go to Lyoko and I can't stop Aelita I'll die too!"
"Now listen here Jeremy, you have two options. You can either sit here, cry like a baby, and let them all die; or you can suck it up and be a man... risking your life to save their's. So what's it gonna be? Just remember that if you take the first option, you'll spend the rest of your life... living every day knowing... that you could have saved them, but they died because you were a coward!" This caused Jeremy to snap. He broke Zaber's grasp. Tears streaming from his eyes, he dashed to the computer and programmed a time-delayed virtualization. He slid down the ladder and ducked into the scanner just as it closed. As the scanner began to rev-up, Zaber's eyes started to water. "Good Luck... you'll need it."
Meanwhile, Xana had taken complete control of Aelita. She had made her way to the core of Lyoko, and had already broken the first shield with repeated hammering from her Energy Blasts. The second shield was near the breaking point. Aelita charged up final blast to destroy the second shield and fired it at the core. A blue metal rod knocked the orb back like a baseball, and the orb struck Aelita, causing her torso section to partially fade out for an instant. The rod was being yielded by Jeremy, who, as Odd had once said, looked truly ridiculous. He wore a pair of brown parachute pants, and a blue shirt with sleeves that we're a foot wide at their opening. The lenses of his glasses had acquired a green tint, and a black bandanna with red decorations topped off his ensemble.
"Aelita, you have to fight Xana!" Jeremy called to her. Two energy blasts were the response. Jeremy knocked one away, but was struck in the shoulder by the second.
"Jeremy, she can't hear you! Just beat her!" Zaber urged him through the uplink. Jeremy rushed forward with a powerful overhead swing, but Aelita blocked the attack with two energy orbs from her hands, and the two we're stuck in a saber lock of sorts. As Aelita pushed harder, Jeremy's grip on his weapon began to fail. Seeing an opening, he slid the rod downward, and the rod stuck Aelita in the foot. Her concentration broken, Jeremy released a roundhouse swing at elbow height that knocked her over and drained her LP severely.
"I'm sorry about this!" Jeremy shouted as he ran forward to try and devirtualize her, but he was blasted by an energy blast that knocked him off the edge of the platform. The staff emitted a white glow, and one end of it became a sharp spear. He thrust in into the wall, where it stuck and prevented a fall to his death. As he struggled to keep his hold and regain his balance, Aelita shot the core once more, the second shield broke, releasing a vast tremor across Lyoko.
Aelita charged up a final shot towards the core. Jeremy finally got his grip, and his legs pushed perpendicular to the platform, he pushed himself up and out, causing his weapon to dislodge and him to rise several feet. Aelita fired her energy blast, which was intercepted by Jeremy's torso, causing him to devirtualize. But with his last breath, he hurled the now sharpened spear at Aelita, and it passed right through her, resulting in a double knockout. The two scanners burst open downstairs and they both collapsed face-first out of them. Zaber threw up his arms and revel when he saw them both disappear from his screen. He quickly searched Jeremy's manual and launched a return to the past.
The return carried them back again, and Odd and Ulrich found themselves in their room, their hand's buried in their suitcases.
"Damn that Xana! Unpacking once is bad enough, but three times goes to far!" Odd exclaimed as he threw a stack of his pants over his head, scattering them about the room.
"Xana must not have put up much an effort if they won with just Zaber and Aelita." Ulrich said, as he brushed off the pants that had landed on his head. Unlike before though, Aelita didn't walk in at this point.
She was still in Jeremy's room, talking with Zaber.
"So... Jeremy actually went to Lyoko to save me?"
"Yeah. After I ran out of LP and the Schipizoa caught you, he virtualized himself and devirtualized you before Xana could use you to destroy the core."
"I... just can't believe Jeremy actually went to Lyoko... he could have died..."
"He wanted to save you. That's all there is to it." Zaber said as he laid back down on the bed, quietly omitting what he had said to Jeremy.
"I'd better go talk to him." Aelita said as she stood up and walked out of the room. She ran into Jeremy around the corner, the same place where she had kicked him the day before.
"Aelita!" Jeremy said surprised.
"Jeremy... Zaber told me what happened." She said, feeling a mixture of emotions. "Thank you." She pecked him on the cheek and Jeremy turned a bright shade of red, his jaw dropped speechless. Aelita saw his face, and said. "Sorry... I guess that was out of line." She walked down the hall. Jeremy's shock finally wore off as he turned around quickly.
"Aelita! Wait up!" The two of them went down the hall to meet the others and recount the events of the attack. Jeremy also omitted Zaber's monologue.
Zaber lay in his bed, fingering the silver chain around his neck. He undid the clasp and held the pentagram shaped pendant in the palm of his hand. He pressed three separate points that caused the locket to open. Inside was a photo of a woman in her early 40's, with long hair. Next to her sat a grinning, brown haired boy about five years old. Tears welled up behind his eyes. "Mother... I don't want any of them to have to go through what I have. Everyone always told me there was nothing I could do... I couldn't save you... I couldn't save my sister... but one way or another... I'm going to save them."
Code 2: DEADZONE... END
