Code 5: ANGEL
Aelita had only died in a technical sense; in that her heart had stopped and her body had ceased to function. She was fully alive now, but she had gained a pair of beautiful white wings on her back. She had fainted in surprise from seeing them. Everyone was too shocked to begin a conversation. They carried Aelita into the elevator and they went up to the computer room. Zaber stared intently at her and her wings for several minutes, and then broke the long silence.
"So, Jeremy... what exactly did you do?" He said suspiciously.
"Yeah... you're freaking us out Einstein." Odd joined him. Ulrich and Yumi nodded the same question. Jeremy sighed.
"Zaber... remember those nightmares?" Jeremy said. Zaber nodded in response. "This is what had happened in my nightmare. Aelita died on Lyoko. I typed in Code Angel and that's when I kept waking up.
"Wait a second... are you saying you saw the future in your dream?" Yumi questioned shocked.
"That's what it looks like. I can't explain any of this. I've been through every program on the supercomputer a dozen times before and I never found this Code Angel program... it wasn't mentioned in the diary."
"Diary?" Zaber questioned.
"It was written by the guy who created the supercomputer. Xana possessed Einstein and destroyed it about a year ago." Odd explained. Aelita still lay on her back unconscious, but her pulse, heart rate, and breathing were steady. Her wings vibrated gently with each passing breath.
"Can you reverse it Jeremy? Get her back to normal?" Ulrich asked.
"I don't know yet. When she wakes up we'll have to scan her so I can run an analysis." Jeremy said as he brushed Aelita's hair out of her eyes.
"So... if you're seeing the future in your dreams... have you had any other dreams?" Odd asked him. Jeremy jumped at this question and glanced at Zaber, whose eyes were closed in deep thought.
"No..." He responded.
"Well what could be causing these visions?" Ulrich asked him.
"I don't know... maybe something in my mind tore during a return to the past that's letting me have these visions... maybe it's something else entirely... maybe I'm just losing my sanity." He said.
"You're still on the opposite end of the spectrum from insane Jeremy." Zaber said, tapping him on the shoulder. "Keep thinking that you're going insane and you really will lose it." Jeremy jumped slightly when Zaber touched him. If this dream came true, what about his first one? He quickly shook off the feeling, so as not to arouse suspicion. It was then that his fatigue set in again. He had been running on sheer adrenaline since he had burst from the nurse's office. After making his way to the factory, crashing, and all the chaos Code Angel had triggered, his fatigue worsened even more. It was then he began to doze off, his eyes fluttering open and closed. He faded into a light slumber while sitting upright, and then gently falling backwards into a troubled rest.
"They've both been through a lot." Zaber said, as he sat down at the supercomputer. "Right now we need a plan. If Jeremy can't help Aelita, we need to figure out how to hide it." He said as he held his chin in his hand.
"Let's hope Jeremy can remove them." Ulrich said.
"Always plan for the worst case scenario. I learned that the hard way along time ago. And after that, make sure it really is the "worst case". Plan for the worst, and something worse than the worst comes up and bites you in the..."
"Alright... no lecture. Jeez." Odd stopped him. "So what would you do?"
"Well... if we can rig a hologram generator..."
"Let's shoot for a something a little more feasible." Yumi stopped him before he could continue. "Think as low-tech as possible." They all thought for a moment.
"Well... we could make a harness of some sort to hold the wings compressed, and then they couldn't be seen under her clothes. But that won't help in a lot of situations. But it's a start." Zaber muttered his idea. The other's nodded, but it still seemed like keeping the wings secret would probably be impossible. They jumped as Aelita stirred.
Aelita groaned as she returned to consciousness. She reached up and rubbed her head, and saw the familiar ceiling of the computer room. She tried to put her hand down to help her self sit up, but rather than touch the floor she felt if land on something soft. As she sat up, she felt a sharp pain from her shoulder, almost like there was limb there that someone was pulling on.
"Ow!" She cried as she looked down at her hand to see it pressed down on white feathers. "What the?" She looked behind her and saw the white wings sprouting from her back. She sprung up quickly, speechless in shock. Her full consciousness returned, and she noticed Jeremy, flat out asleep next to her.
"Aelita!" Everyone exclaimed at once as they rushed over to her.
"What happened?" She said, her heart racing.
"OK, we had just won on Lyoko and then Xana possessed you and you beat Ulrich and Xana used you to destroy the core but you disappeared the way William did and Jeremy showed up and he put some weird code into the computer and..." Odd said in a single run on sentence, but stopped and took an exaggeratedly deep breath. "... Then you came out of the scanner and you had wings on your back and then you passed out and we brought you up stairs and Jeremy said that he had seen all of it in a dream and he passed out and... that's all." Odd threw his head back and took another deep breath. "Damn it I'm still confused!" He finished.
"Disregarding how fast he said it, Odd's got the idea." Zaber said. "He saved you again... although the circumstances were quite different from before. He wasn't able to explain all the details before he collapsed. We we're just brainstorming what we could do if we can't get rid of those wings."
"Well... let's see if we can get rid of the wings first." Ulrich said, trying to prevent Aelita from panicking. "Head down to the scanner... I'll wake Jeremy up and we can try and figure this out." He said as he reached down to try and wake Jeremy.
"I can handle this Ulrich. Just let him sleep." Zaber said, as he began to type.
"You can?" Yumi said skeptically.
"I've seen Jeremy use this thing enough times." He said. "Just go into one of the scanners." He said. Yumi and Aelita went down to the scanner room, and Aelita stepped into the scanner. "Scanner: Aelita. Analysis: Aelita." The usual yellow lights in the scanner we're replaced with a green glow. The scanner door opened up and Aelita stepped out. A model of Aelita from Lyoko with wings appeared on the supercomputer screen. "Alright... let's see what we have here..." He clicked an icon, and image reloaded as a transparent frame with a skeleton inside. The skeleton had, as expected, mutated. It showed Aelita's wings contained several connected bones in the spine, but no bones ran through the feathered fluff. Another filter was applied. The wings contained muscle tissue. He applied another filter, this time showing the blood system. This is where the most dramatic change was visible. Most of her blood vessels now passed through her wings at some point of another. If the wing's we're removed, she would die in seconds, her organs cut off from her heart. Zaber groaned. This would not be easy to fix by any means. He tried to explain what he had found out to the others, but there was nothing he could actually do. They would consult Jeremy when he woke up again. They all talked irrelevantly for almost an hour before Jeremy stirred.
Jeremy's code angel nightmare was gone. His Zaber nightmare was back. But it had changed in two ways. Firstly, Aelita now had her white wings, which even further obscured the figure she was protecting. The second change was more disturbing. There was now dialogue.
"Aelita! Get out the way!" Zaber shouted across the room.
"No! You've got it all wrong! He didn't do it!" Aelita pleaded with him.
"He deserves to die for what he's done! Stop protecting him!" Zaber scowled, pure hatred was drawn on his face like paint on a canvas.
"No! I won't let you kill him!" Aeltia screamed at him. She turned and looked directly at Jeremy. "Jeremy..." A gunshot was fired, and Aelita's eyes glazed over.
He heard "Jeremy..." again, but this time his eyes snapped open to see Aeltia bending over him trying to wake him.
"Ah! Aelita! Are you okay?" He said, stumbling over his words as he gathered his composure.
"Yes. I'm fine... thanks to you." She said. "But I'm still not sure how you saved me..." She said, gesturing to her wings.
"I'm not sure how it worked either Aelita." Jeremy stood up and stumbled over to the computer. Zaber gave up the seat readily, but Jeremy shuddered yet again when he saw him.
"I already ran a scan. Her skeletal, nervous, and cardiovascular systems have been completely reconstructed, incorporating the wings at critical junctions." Zaber told him, pointing out several aspects at each level of filtration. "If we just use the computer to remove the wings, she'll die. We have rebuild her entire structure from the ground up before they can be removed."
"And that will take forever..." Jeremy muttered. The skeleton wouldn't require as much change, but the nervous and cardiovascular systems were based on thousands of details, all of which would have to be done by hand, one by one. "I can do it... it'll just take several months... maybe a year depending on how much Xana interferes. I'm so sorry Aelita..." He said, burying his face in his hands, verging on tears again.
"Why? You saved me..." Aelita embraced him. Jeremy stopped his tears, his timidity prevented him from doing much else. She let go and Jeremy slumped back into the chair.
"Don't worry Jeremy. We'll take this a day at a time." Zaber said, putting his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "I'll help you however I can." Jeremy looked up at him. How could this Zaber and the Zaber from his dream be the same person? They may have butted heads once in a while, but Jeremy could draw little connection to the nightmare Zaber besides his face. But that connection still rocked him to his core.
"Alright. I'm going to launch a return to the past now..."
"Why? It's not like there's anyone's memory we need to erase." Aeltia said.
"Actually... to get to the factory... I kinda had to kick Jim in the..."
"You what?" Yumi said in shock.
"You mean I missed it?!?! That's too rich!" Odd laughed.
"Oh, look out! Jeremy's turning "edgy" on us!" Ulrich joked.
"Impressive. You've got more guts than I thought." Zaber said as he patted Jeremy on the back. Aelita glanced at Zaber disapprovingly. Jeremy ignored the mixed reactions and launched the return.
They returned to the afternoon before. Aelita found herself in her room alone, but her wings were still there. There was knock on her door.
"Who is it?"
"It's Yumi." Aelita unlocked the door and Yumi walked in, shutting the door right behind her. "Until Jeremy can figure out how to take care of those things, you have to keep them hidden."
"Well that seems fairly obvious, thanks." Aelita said sarcastically. "But how do you propose we do that?" Yumi pulled several belts out of her bookbag. Using them, they created a makeshift harness that held her wings close to her back. Aelita put a new hoody on over it and looked in the mirror. It was hardly noticeable.
"Perfect." Yumi said.
"For now I suppose..." Aelita said in a slightly strained voice. "It feels weird having them restrained like this..."
"Well... you're going to have to deal with it. I've got to go. Let's just hope Jeremy can take care of this as fast as possible. See you tomorrow." Yumi said as she left. Aelita closed the door and sighed. Five minutes passed and her wings were already sore.
Jeremy sat at his computer feverently typing lines of code and adjusting lines in a three dimensional model to rewrite the model's cardiovascular system. Sweat ran down his forehead. He had been plowing away for three hours and there was almost no progress. He smacked his forehead on the keyboard and groaned. Zaber sat behind him on the bed, working on something on his laptop.
"Jeremy... you're gonna lose it if you don't take a break!" Zaber urged him.
"Shut up... I've gotta fix this before I do anything else." Jeremy muttered, his face still planted on the keyboard. Zaber sighed.
"Say, did you ever finish that other program you were working on? The one to fully materialize our powers?"
"No."
"Can I have what you have done so I can try and finish it?"
"Whatever." Jeremy pressed a button and wireless signal jetted from his computer to Zaber's laptop. Zaber loaded the program, saved it to his hard drive, and severed the link. Jeremy had made a lot of progress on it. All the material was there, another hour of programming would finish it. But the program was only designed to access the powers when the user stepped into a scanner, which ultimately defeated the purpose except for a few exceptions. Zaber made a copy of the program, and began to work on a few modifications to the copy.
The entire next day passed without incident. The harness even managed to conceal the wings during Gym class. Odd snickered at Jim when he saw him, trying to visualize Jeremy kicking him. That evening, the same situation repeated itself, with Jeremy pecking away at Aelita's structure as Zaber worked on the power materialization program. After another hour, Zaber sighed and closed his computer.
"Are you going to work on Mrs. Hertz report at all?"
"No."
"Man, you are devoted." Zaber packed his laptop into his bag. "You're no good to anyone if you're on academic probation and they take your computer out of your room."
"My average is high enough to cushion it." Jeremy said quietly without a thought.
"Well... I was going to offer to do it for you, but if you don't need it..." Zaber tempted him. Jeremy said nothing. Zaber frowned. "Oh well. I've got to go pick up some books from the library. See you in about an hour." Zaber grabbed his bag and walked out of the room, he passed Aelita in the hall, which was headed to Jeremy's room. "Watch out, he's a little grumpy today."
Aelita knocked on the door.
"Come in." Jeremy said, without asking who it was.
"Hello Jeremy." Aelita said as she walked in. Jeremy quickly minimized the window.
"Oh. Hi Aelita. Is something wrong?"
"No... it's just, you've hardly said a word edge-wise to any of us since the other day. Is something wrong?"
"I've just been really wrapped up in reprogramming your structure and everything... I haven't had time for much else."
"Look... I'm fine. Take your time, and don't let it destroy your whole life. We'd be lost without you."
"I guess... I just really want to get you back to normal."
"They don't seem to be hurting anything... if it wasn't for the fact that it would give away Lyoko I would actually want to keep them. Speaking of which, do you mind if I stretch them a bit? If feels like my arms tied behind my back."
"Go ahead. Just make sure you close the door." Aelita walked over and closed the door, and then pulled off her hoody. She had another pink shirt beneath it, but the back near the top was cut off where the wings opened. She undid the belt buckles that we're holding her wings locked in place and the belt snapped off like a spring, and her wing's extended to their full length, a few loose feathers fell gently to the floor.
"That's so much better." Aelita breathed deeply in relief. Jeremy reached to return to his program, but saw the logbook icon right next to it, which triggered him to think about what he had written in it after Zaber had fallen asleep the night before, regarding his second, newly evolved premonition. Things were too serious now that the angel dream had come true. He pondered the weight of each of his options. He reached an ultimate conclusion; if there was even the slightest chance that the Zaber dream was possible... Aelita had to be warned. He pressed the button, shutting off his screen.
"Aelita... there's something I have to tell you..."
"What?"
"Yesterday... Odd asked me if I had any more premonitions... I lied when I said no."
"Why?"
"Because, I thought you'd all think I was crazy. And I couldn't say anything while Zaber was around. In the dream... he killed you!"
"What?!?! That doesn't make any sense!"
"I know it doesn't. That's why I'm so worried!"
"Was he possessed by Xana?"
"No. That's why it's so frightening. In the dream, you were in a dark room. You were trying to protect someone... you called out to me to help you... and he shot you..." The details sent a chill further down Jeremy's spine.
"Jeremy... I think you might need a little more rest..."
"No, it's true! You've got to believe me!" Jeremy pleaded. Aeltia frowned.
"I don’t know Jeremy…” Aelita stood up, as if to leave. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I’ll keep what you said in mind, but I think you’re imagining things.” She said and walked out the door. Jeremy smacked his head on the wall.
"I shouldn't have told her... now she probably thinks I'm a..." He stopped mid-sentence. Aelita harness, hoody, and a pair of feathers were still sitting on his bed. She had completely forgotten about re-equipping her disguise before leaving. He grabbed the harness and hoody and ran out into the hall. "Aelita!" Jeremy called down the hall.
"Jeremy!" Aelita stood down the hall, her arm caught by Jim. He stared in awe at the wings. He was not possessed, but simply dumbstruck. He couldn't even think of what to say.
"Aelita? Where did these come from?" Jim questioned in an amazed tone.
"Let go of me Jim! I'm not telling you anything!" Aelita said, trying to break his grasp on her wrist.
"Let her go!" Jeremy shouted as he ran down the hall.
"Oh, well if you won't tell me anything, you're going to be talking to the principal!" Jim responded to Aelita's defiance.
"Let me go!" Aelita tried futilely once again to get free.
"I said let her go!" Jeremy aimed a kick once again at Jim, but this time, he caught his foot before it made contact.
"Oh, so you're in on it too are you! I've always known you were hiding something, and now I have proof!" He dragged them both flailing and straining by their wrists to the office. Zaber heard a commotion outside the library and quickly peered out the window to see Jeremy and Aelita, her wings clearly exposed, being dragged to the office, and the shocked looks on the faces of the students.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Zaber exclaimed, as he dashed back and gathered his things into his bag, then slipped out of the library in a rush. He turned the corner just to see the office door shut behind Jim. "Crap!" Zaber pressed himself up against the door, trying to hear inside, which turned out to be easy since it was all shouting.
"Jim, good god, what's going on here?" The principal said, shocked when he saw Aelita with wings.
"Sir! I was patrolling the halls when I found her! She refuses to tell me what's going on!" Jim said. Aelita and Jeremy both broke into completely different stories, trying to explain it in some way, but there was clearly no way he'd believe either of them. After a few seconds he screamed,
"STOP!" Aelita and Jeremy stopped. "Now... I want you to tell me what is going on... where did those... things... come from?" Aelita glanced at Jeremy, expecting him to explain. Jeremy looked the principal in the eye defiantly.
"We can't tell you that sir."
"Oh, you're going to tell me right now!" The principal slammed his desk.
"Sir... he doesn't know anything! Just let him go!" Aeltia interrupted.
"You really expect up to believe that? If you're not going to tell us, then be quiet!" Jim yelled. "Sir... I think we need to contact the authorities."
"Indeed. We're getting nowhere like this." Outside, Zaber ducked away from the door. If he could get to the factory, he could launch a return and prevent this from happening. Several students who had seen Aelita's wings had already called either news or police. Zaber cut around the corner towards the forest tunnel, but quickly dodged back and acted casual as a group of men in black suits marched out of a black van that had pulled onto school premises. He quickly slipped into the building tunnel and dialed the others on a conference call.
"Hello?" The other's picked up.
"It's Zaber. We've got a real nightmare on our hands!"
"Is Xana attacking?" Asked Yumi.
"Worse. Aelita's been found out."
"We can just launch a return to the past, right?" Odd said.
"I guess that would work... but... aw, snap! OK, we are officially doomed. I just got a tower alert!"
"Jeremy gave you the super-scan program?" Ulrich asked.
"A few days ago. Listen. We have to figure out a way to free Jeremy and Aelita and take out that tower before it's too late! Meet me at the factory, I've got an idea." Zaber hung up and continued to dash through the waterway.
The doors of the principal's office burst open; six men in black suits walked into the room, forming a barricade around the door. A seventh man walked between them to the front. The glanced at Aelita and Jeremy, who were both horrified, and then held up a black wallet with a golden badge and ID for Jim and the Principal. "Agent D.G. Sanderson, enforcers. We received a call from a student about this girl. We'll be taking her into custody."
"Now wait just a second. I never authorized..."
"You don't have a choice in the matter." The seven agents put on sunglasses. Sanderson held up a small silver tube, which opened at the top and blinded the room for a moment. When the light faded, the principal, Jim, Jeremy, and Aelita were all unconscious. Sanderson walked up and held a small silver panel from his pocket up to Aelita' hand. It glowed red for a second, and her handprint appeared on a digital projected read-out on his sunglasses. The words "Aelita Hopper" and "MATCH" appeared next to the handprint. "Wanted Due to Connection to Franz Hopper and Xana Project. Incarcerate Immediately." Scrolled along the bottom edge. Two of the agents picked up Jeremy and Aelita, and the six agents marched double file out of the building to the parked van. Sanderson walked behind them comparatively slow. A silver earpiece sat in his ear; he pressed it and opened a line of communication with someone.
"Sir. We have found Hopper's daughter."
Code 5: ANGEL ... END
