Code 9: MEMORY
Zaber had not yet seemed to awaken when Jeremy was preparing to go to sleep. He had tried repeatedly to stir him, but he seemed to be in a deep, trance like state. Jeremy felt incredibly nervous. Was he ever going to wake up? How badly had code devil affected him? He took a few "precautions" before laying down to a restless sleep.
It roughly 3 AM, Zaber stirred. His eyes burst open with no warning, distorted Xana marks pulsating in his eyes. He rose soundlessly and walked through the door like a specter. He walked down the hall, towards the stairwell, making an unusual amount of noise. Ulrich sat in his room, taking advanced of the return to study for a test that he had bombed during the first run through. He slammed his head on his desk to keep himself awake as he groaned. Odd snored in the background. But, Ulrich heard footsteps in the hallway, as he quickly opened his door. No one was there. Ulrich shrugged, and closed the door, returning to his textbook. Zaber dropped out of the ceiling on the floor below, having passed through the floor to avoid detection. He had unfortunately landed right behind Jim, performing his nightly patrols, who turned around when he heard Zaber land.
"Ocrist! What are you doing out of bed after curfew? And why are you on the girl's floor?" Jim shouted at him. Zaber blinked and performed yet another Xanafied feat, teleporting behind Jim, and then grabbing him by the neck, and stimulating pressure points, causing Jim to collapse, unconscious. Zaber passed into a door, off the hallway. It was Aelita's room. She slept peacefully, as Zaber reached into his jacket for his gun. It was missing. Zaber let out a light, Xanafied groan, loud enough to be audible, but not loud enough to wake her. Zaber hesitated for an instant, and then grabbed Aelita, awakening her.
"Zaber?!?!" Aelita said, surprised as she was awakened. "What are you... AHHH!!!!" Aelita screamed as she saw the malicious Xana marks in his eyes. Ulrich heard the scream below and heard shattering glass. He looked out his window and saw Zaber dashing across the grounds, an unconscious Aelita slung over his shoulder.
"Odd! Wake up! Xana's possessed Zaber!" Ulrich shouted, dropping his textbook on Odd's snoring face to wake him, as he reached for his cell with his other hand, contacting Jeremy. "Jeremy! Zaber has..."
"I know Ulrich. I connected the dots when I heard the scream and Zaber was missing." Jeremy said urgently as he dashed from his room out into the hallway.
"He's kidnapped Aelita, they're headed to the factory!"
"Xana must be trying to get Aelita to Lyoko for some reason!"
"Why? Xana is usually more intent on killing her now than getting her online.” Why wouldn’t he just have Zaber shoot her?”
"Well... Zaber can‘t.." Jeremy said, as he opened his nightstand drawer, pulling out the gun he had taken away from Zaber as he had slept. "We have to catch up to them at the factory! I'll meet you there!" Jeremy said, as he slid the gun into his pocket and burst out of his door. Ulrich and Odd burst from their room as well, as Ulrich dialed Yumi.
Zaber had ignored the tunnels, dashing at top speed through the city, but the streets were all but abandoned at that time of night except the shadiest to types, who practically ignored him. He arrived at the factory, and descended in the elevator, slumping the unconscious Aelita into a scanner, then riding back up to the computer room, where he programmed a virtualization for both himself and Aelita. He climbed down the ladder back to the scanner, but found himself staring down the business end of his own gun, in Jeremy's hand. Odd and Ulrich stood behind him, pulling the unconscious Aelita out of the scanner before two of the scanners closed and proceeded to virtualize thin air.
"Don't move, Xana!" Jeremy shouted, his hand shaking as he held the gun in Zaber's face. The Xana marks in Zaber's eyes pulsated.
"Go ahead... kill the meatbag..." Xana's voice rang from Zaber's body. His body phased, and before Jeremy could fire, the gun was knocked from his hand, a stray bullet blasted a small hole in the wall of the scanner room. Zaber lunged for the gun, but Ulrich intercepted him with a swift punch to the chest. The two were quickly locked in hand to hand combat. Odd pulled Aelita into the elevator and closed the door, rising back to the computer room.
"Ulrich! Keep him busy! I've got an idea!" Jeremy shouted as he scurried up the ladder. He caught up to Odd at the computer level, as Jeremy quickly dived into the computer, keying faster than ever before. Ulrich and Zaber's brawl continued, neither of them being able to gain control of the gun without leaving themselves open to an knock out blow. Jeremy shouted through the intercom.
"Ulrich! Knock him into one of the scanners!" Jeremy shouted, as all the scanner doors opened. Ulrich sized up the situation, and then tried to launch a powerful kick at Zaber, but Zaber sidestepped and dived for the gun. He got hold of it and aimed it at Ulrich. He clicked the trigger, but no shots fired. The gun had no ammo besides the one bullet Jeremy had fired earlier. Zaber let out a stifled cry of rage, and was then promptly kicked in the side of the head by a flying Yumi, who had just arrived with Odd through the elevator. Zaber was knocked into the scanner.
"Now Jeremy!" Odd shouted up to the computer room. Jeremy pressed a key and Zaber's scanner slammed shut. Zaber pounded on the door.
"Transfer: Zaber. Scanner: Zaber. Virtualization!" The scanner activated, and Zaber was sucked onto Lyoko. Or rather, into a program Jeremy had constructed on the supercomputer. The virtualized Zaber was still under Xana's possession, but was bound by numerous chains, suspended in a dark area, with no floor, ceiling, or walls. The Xana eyes pulsated as he struggled with the chains. The others, as well as Aelita, who had regained consciousness, watched from Jeremy's screen.
"So... he's permanently possessed like William then?" Yumi said, her arms crossed. “And what’s that thing you’ve caught him in?”
“It’s called the quarantine program. I constructed it back after William was first possessed… I hoped that we might someday use it to capture and cure him, but I couldn’t capture him unless he came to the real world. Unlike Lyoko, where Xana has power, I’m the only one who controls the quarantine program. No matter how much influence Xana exerts on him, there's no way to get out." Jeremy said, as he analyzed lines and lines of data on another screen.
"For the record: I blame you." Ulrich said, pointing to Jeremy.
"Enough already Ulrich! It's not his fault!" Aelita yelled in his face.
"So, Einstein, do you have ANY ideas?" Odd asked, trying to stay out of the blame game.
"There is one way..." Jeremy said. "But it's really risky. You see, you can think of a person's mind like a building. It’s full of rooms and doors… all of them with locks. When you control your body, you have the keys. When Xana possesses you, he steals the keys and locks you up in one of the rooms. But I can get the keys back from Xana while he’s in the quarantine program. I can virtualize you into Zaber’s mind so you can find and free him, and kill the specter that’s possessing him.” Jeremy sighed. "Zaber is a captive in his own mind. The reason it's dangerous is that... I have know idea what could go on inside Zaber's mind while you're there."
"What's the worst that could happen?" Odd said casually.
"A lot of things." Jeremy responded. "Or at least, that's what Zaber would say. It's too risky."
"It was you taking risks that got us into this mess..." Ulrich began.
"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP AND..." Aelita screamed in his face, trying to defend Jeremy, as her wings puffed up threateningly behind her back.
"ENOUGH!" Odd screamed in their faces. "Let's just get Zaber, launch a return, and argue about it later!" Odd walked into the elevator, mumbling incomprehensibly, although several swear words we're audible. They all reluctantly stepped into the elevator.
All but Aelita stepped into the scanners down below. The doors closed, and the virtualization was taking longer due to the complexity of their destination.
"Hey Jeremy..." Odd began. "Anything in particular we should be watching out for?"
"I‘ve got nothing. Assume nothing. Question everything.." Jeremy responded.
"You've been hitting the fortune cookies hard again, haven't you?" Odd responded. Jeremy pressed a key and the three of them warped out of the scanners. Aelita stepped in, and Jeremy repeated the process.
The four of them found themselves in a strange apartment. The world was in 2D even though they were virtualized. They were also all in their human forms, and they were nearly transparent, like ghosts.
"Jeremy? What's going on?" Ulrich said, but he got no answer. Jeremy found himself with no way to communicate with them, but he was able to watch everything on screen.
"Be careful..." He said, even though they could not hear him.
"He must not be able to talk to us." Yumi said. "But where are we?" There was a knock at the door of the apartment. Before anyone could move, a five year old boy with short brown hair came rocketing around the corner, his face was familiar, but his expression was not. It was Zaber at five years old, but unlike the grim, sad, and serious Zaber they knew, the little boy looked perfectly normal. He was constantly smiling, as if he had no sadness in his life. The boy walked right through Odd to the door.
"I think... we're in Zaber's memories..." Aelita said in awe. "Zaber, what's going on?" She asked the boy, but was ignored.
"Memories are more like recordings. I guess we can't interact with them, only watch." Odd said. The little boy opened the door.
"Mommy, you're home!" He said, but it was just the postman at the door. "Oh, sorry sir."
"It's alright, Zaber." The postman said, clearly knowing the boy. "Here's your mail. Give that to you mom when she gets home, OK?" The postman smiled. Zaber put the mail under his left arm, and childishly saluted with the right. The postman closed the door and went along. Zaber walked back into the center of the apartment, looking at the mail. A single letter clearly caught his eye, as he dropped the rest of the mail and ripped it open. He looked the letter over slowly, struggling to make out the more complicated words due to his age. But he clearly understood the message after a while, as his eyes began to water as he threw the letter down on the table and buried his face in his hands. Aelita walked over and tried to pick the letter up off the table, but her hand passed right through it, she was unable to see its contents. The four stood helpless as they watched Zaber cry for a few minutes, but then the lock on the door clicked, and a forty year old woman with long pink hair walked in through the door with several brown paper bags of groceries, which she promptly dropped when she saw Zaber crying. She ran to his side and embraced him.
"Honey... what's wrong?"
"Momma... what does that mean?" Zaber said tearfully, pointing to the letter. The woman looked at the address on the torn envelope, and then gave a cursory glance at the contents of the letter. Then dropped both to the ground. The return address on the envelope was clearly visible.
Franz Hopper
The Hermitage
Catic City, 93044
"Oh... Zaber, I'm so sorry! I should have told you!" Zaber's mother said, embracing him, and his tears temporarily stopped streaming.
"Can I meet her? My sister?" He said.
"... I'll make sure you get to meet her if it's the last thing I do, OK?" She said. The two continued to sob for a short time.
"Whoa... I always figured Zaber had some kind of trauma in his life to make him act like he does... but..." Ulrich said.
"We still don't know what's actually in that letter." Yumi said, trying futilely to pick the letter up off the floor. "But what kind of connection does Zaber have to Hopper? Do you know anything Aelita?" Yumi asked her, but as she turned around she saw Aelita standing there, in a state of shock. "Aelita? What's wrong?" Aelita's whole body was shaking, her eyes zoned out.
"It... it can't be... that's my mother!" Aelita said.
"What?!?!" Everyone exclaimed, including Jeremy. But Aelita could answer, the room blacked out around them. Everything was black, and a page-a-day calendar floated in front of them, pages tearing off one by one as the ripped pages vanished as they hit the ground.
"That... that was my mother! I'm sure of it! She died when I was five, so it's a little fuzzy... but that was MY mother!" Aelita said.
"Then Zaber's... but she was... but how did... STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF!" Odd said, beating himself on the forehead in confusion. The pages suddenly stopped ripping. The calendar stopped on the date AUGUST 7, 1995, roughly four months of pages ripped away. Things began to fade back in around them. They found themselves in an actually somewhat familiar setting. They were in Catic City, at a four-way intersection near the park. They knew the area well, and it was bustling with both motor and foot traffic.
"Why'd we get brought here?" Ulrich said. "Where's Zaber?"
"There!" Yumi pointed down one of the intersections. Zaber, still a normal, brown haired child; and the woman with the pink hair were walking down one of the roads to the intersection. Zaber looked incredibly excited and happy, and the woman wore a guarded smile.
"We're meeting them in the park just over there." The woman said to him, pointing to the park on the opposite side of the street.
"Yay! I get to meet papa and sister!" Zaber shouted, throwing his arms up with glee, and then running off towards the park, but the woman caught up with him and grabbed him by the shoulder before he ran into traffic.
"You have to wait for the light, Zaber!" She scolded him. She looked across the street and suddenly froze. The lights were green, high-speed traffic flowed across the road that separated Zaber and the woman from the park, and her eyes had stopped at two people on the opposite side. "Franz..." The woman spoke. The warriors looked across the roadway and gasped. Franz Hopper, as they had seen him when Xana had taken his form and in all the photographs stood on the opposite side, a grim frown on his face. Standing in front of him, was a ten-year old version of Aelita.
"Wait...what are you doing here, Aelita?" Yumi asked her.
"I... I don't have this memory..." Aelita responded. The Aelita across the street looked very different from the Aelita of the present. She looked very glum and melancholy, her face was showing minimal emotion. The woman smiled and began to cry.
"Aelita!" She shouted across the roadway as she waved.
"Is that them Mommy?" Zaber said, tugging at the bottom of her shirt.
"Yes..." She said as she smiled.
An instant later, something happened that shocked everyone, both members of the memory and the observers. Hopper had been standing behind the young Aelita, his hands on her shoulders. A speeding red car ran through the intersection. Hopper quickly shoved Aelita forward. She was struck by the car, which, in spite of trying to screech to a halt, could not stop. Both Zaber and the woman screamed. All the traffic halted. People began to crowd around the car that had struck Aelita, sounds and images began to blur as Zaber and the woman ran to Aelita, shoving people out of the way. The woman, screaming and crying, shoved away all the bystanders, cradling Aelita's body in her arms, sobbing. She looked up in rage at where Hopper had been standing, but he was gone, he had slipped away in the confusion. The woman and Zaber sobbed for several minutes, muttering incomprehensible things. Sirens were heard. Zaber finally looked the woman in the eye.
"Moma... why did daddy do this?"
"He's not your father any more... he's a monster!" The woman cried out in rage while still sobbing. "DAMN YOU FRANZ HOPPER!" Things blacked out again for the warriors.
As the calendar reappeared before them, everyone's eyes quickly turned to the real Aelita, who was even more traumatize then the rest, having just witnessed her apparent death at the hands of her own father. She collapsed to her knees in tears.
"Why? It doesn't make sense! Mother alive... me dying... but then why am I alive? And why would father kill me?" She began to list her thoughts out loud. Jeremy outside of Lyoko was having a similar spaz attack, trying to attach logic to any of this, but failing miserably. The calendar stopped again, this time on August 14, 1995. A week later. They found themselves in what appeared to be a church. The young Zaber sat in the front row, dressed in very formal clothes, his eyes teary, as several church members he didn't know sat around him, trying to comfort him. Two caskets stood at the front of the room, adorned with innumerous flowers. It was a funeral. The warriors walked over and saw both Aelita and her mother in the two caskets; Aelita gasping at each, her heart racing. Very few others were in the church besides Zaber and the clergymen, most of them bystanders who had witnessed the "accident". But it proceeded like any other funeral. The preacher stood at the front of the room.
"We gather here to mourn the death and celebrate the lives of Aelita and Melissa Hopper. Aelita, who was tragically, killed in a car accident a week ago today, and her mother Melissa, who tragically took her own life later that same day. Melissa leaves behind her son, Zaber Hopper, and her estranged husband, Franz Hopper..." The preacher continued, but as he heard mention of Franz, Zaber burst into tears, causing the preacher to actually stop the procession and rushed to his side. The room began to blur again, and they found themselves once more in the blacked out room. Aelita began to sob.
Three years passed on the calendar this time. They found themselves in a completely unfamiliar place, the drawing room of a large house; nearly a mansion. Zaber lay on a couch on one end of the room. A man in a brown suit wearing glasses and holding a clipboard sat in a chair next to the couch. Zaber looked different now. His hair was now dyed red, and the happiness that had been in his eyes was long gone. The anger and hatred for most of the world that he had in his eyes when they first met him was once again dominant. He had grown considerably mentally and physically during the past years.
"Well Zaber, let's get this over with..." The man began.
"Tell them I don't need to see a psychiatrist." Zaber said coldly without even looking at the man.
"Well, they think you do. You're still clearly emotionally unstable."
"Is that a problem?"
"Yes, it is, but your attitude is a bigger problem." The man snapped. The man sighed, and then tried to change the subject. "So, how have you been since our last meeting?"
"What do you think?" Zaber said, rolling over so his back was turned to the man.
"OK, let's try a new question. Why'd you dye your hair?"
"That was my father's hair color. I'm nothing like him." Zaber said with a scowl. "And as soon as they let me I'm changing my last name back to Ocrist, my mother's maiden name." Zaber said, referring to the rich foster parents in whose house they were conversing.
"I still can't understand why you hate your father so much when you never knew him..."
"I TOLD YOU BEFORE! HE KILLED THEM! IT'S HIS FAULT THEY’RE DEAD!" Zaber screamed in his face, lunging at the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist quickly knocked him back into his seat with his superior, adult strength.
"Now Zaber... we've talked about this before. You were distraught. I'm sure you were just hallucinating. You were five. Your mind was still in its infancy, and it invented what you saw as an outlet for your anger." He said sternly. "Now please stop blaming this on your father."
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Zaber yelled at him as he ran to the door of the room and kicked it open with his foot, running down the hall. The psychiatrist took a breath of relief that he was gone, and then began to scribble numerous notes on his clipboard. The room blacked out again, for the last time.
The warriors found themselves in the quarantine room. The world was in 3D again, and they had instantaneously been changed into their Lyoko forms. The possessed form of Zaber was still struggling with the chains that bound it. It screamed in agony, and a specter blasted out of him, landing in front of them, and then transforming into a variant of Zaber's Lyoko form. In addition to Zaber's usual wardrobe, the clone also bore a black headband, spiked wristbands, and a large red Xana mark had appeared on the back of his black jacket. The real Zaber remained bound, unconscious.
"Guys!" Jeremy shouted through the intercom, the connection had been restored.
"Jeremy! What the hell happened!?!?" Ulrich called out to him.
"Odd got it right, you were in his memories. But I don't know how any of it can be true! We'll figure things out later, but right now you have to defeat the specter!"
"Cake Einstein. A piece of...OW!" Odd found himself on the ground, his shoulder phasing after a shot from the clone's ornate, evil revolver. The others all drew their weapons and began to attack. Aelita ran forward, the energy fields encompassed her hands like gloves, as she swung wildly at him. The clone fired two bullets at her, but they dissolved when they struck her energy fields. Ulrich triangulate around him and tried to slash, but the clone leapt up and fired his revolver downward, neutralizing the clones of Ulrich. Yumi's fan flew up and struck him in the chest, but it was not enough damage to severely affect him. Several shots in the back by laser arrows quickly changed that, as the clone landed face first. It quickly stood up and surveyed them. It knew it could not win as outnumbered as it was. It leapt behind Odd and kicked him, effectively lining up all the warriors into a column. It held the gun in its hand and snapped it's fingers, and the mutation occurred once more. The black mass enveloped the clones arm and the massive cannon formed. The clones Xana eyes pulsated as it charged the invincible attack at them.
"Run! The quarantine program doesn't work like Lyoko! You'll die if that hits you!" Jeremy screamed to them. But they were effectively boxed in. The clone laughed maniacally.
"Freak!" Zaber's voice rang as the real Zaber appeared in the line of fire between the clone and the warriors. "You'll won‘t… hurt anyone!!!" He screamed at it, as he held out his arm and snapped his fingers, causing a second black mass to engulf his arm. The two Zaber's stood in a standoff, both charging immensely powerful attacks. The clone grunted as it fired the massive column of light from its arm. "DEVIL ARM!" Zaber shouted as he fired his blast as well. The two blasts struck each other and everyone's vision was whited out for a few seconds. When their vision returned, the clone had exploded. The black mass writhed back into Styx, and Zaber collapsed face first, devirtualized. Jeremy quickly brought them in.
Jeremy helped Aelita out of the scanner down below, as she embraced him with tears in her eyes. Neither of them understood precisely what they had seen or what it meant. Too many things were unknown. Zaber was safe on Earth, albeit unconscious. Odd peeled back his eyelids and checked his eyes, which had reverted to their ordinary green color.
"Well that's a relief." He muttered as he stood up, and joined walked over to the others.
"So Aelita... what do you think?" Yumi said, referring to everything they had seen in Zaber's memory.
"I just don't know." Aelita responded, holding her hand against her forehead. "There's just too much to take in. None of it can be true. I'm alive for one, and all my memories tell me that father would never do that. It just doesn't add up."
"I have a feeling..." Jeremy said, remembering his premonition, which now finally made sense, "until we can confirm everything we saw today. We shouldn't tell him any of it. He could go psycho on us."
"I agree with Jeremy." Ulrich said, their previous squabble completely forgotten.
"What do you think Aelita?" Jeremy asked her.
"I think... we shouldn't tell him. Not yet." She said.
"All in agreement?" Jeremy said, and they all raised their hands. "It's settled. We saw nothing tonight." Jeremy stepped into the escalator. "Hang tight. I've got to launch a return after all the ruckus Zaber caused while he was possessed. See you yesterday." He said as the door closed. A minute or so later, a white light filled the room.
Code 9: MEMORY... END.
