Chapter 1
A Plastic-Silicon Love Affair

It was a beautiful day at Kadic Academy.

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Jim was playing the bugle on the roof. Okay, not really, but it’s funny to think about. The grounds were quiet, not yet full of small children trampling them and sharing the day’s useless gossip. One of these small children was a blond little boy named Jeremie Belpois.

Unlike many small Kadic children, Jeremie rarely used his bed nowadays. As it stands, he hasn’t used it in a week. But it wasn’t because he didn’t like to sleep- he was sleeping right now, just two feet from it, in his computer chair. Snoring, his glasses still on his face, and drooling, his face pressed against his keyboard, typing a steady string of Ps. Capital Ps. His head had hit Caps Lock around one A.M.

He probably would have slept till noon if not for his clock radio. Almost automatically, as the radio began playing the lastest pop hit (some Subdigitals number), Jeremie’s eyes opened sleepily. Not fully awake, he wiped the drool from his face. Wincing a bit, he touched his face. It had a perfect imprint of his keyboard on it. He looked at his screen.

“P.” He grumbled a bit, and hit his backspace key. The Ps began disappearing from his screen. With a grunt, he felt over by his bed for his clock radio. Holding it up, he took a quick look at it.

He woke up.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!” Quickly, he abandoned erasing the Ps, saved his progress, and then panicked. He ran out of his chair...and tripped on a leg, falling over. Panting, he got back up, and had run about two feet before tripping on a stack of books and fell over. He got back up, and was just out the door and in the hall before he tripped over his own feet and fell over. He let himself lie there.

He was vaguely aware of footsteps. Soft footsteps. Laughter. Familliar laughter. A hand touching his.

“Rough night, Jeremie?” Opening his eyes, he saw...a pair of fluffy pink boots. How strange. He then woke up enough to think to look up. He saw a pink-haired girl with a kind smile- Aelita Hopper, a very good friend of his. More than you know, really. He blushed furiously. “Uh... um... well... yeah... kinda...”

“Fell asleep on the keyboard again, huh?” She laughed. The imprint on his face was clearly visible. “Don’t worry, Jeremie, it’ll fade. Need a hand up?”

“Uh...um...sure,” he mumbled. Some stumbling and giggling later, he was up. Though he was now on two feet, Aelita was still laughing at him.

“You look like a mess, Jeremie.” It was true- he looked down, and saw that he was still wearing yesterday’s clothing- his sweater was stained by drool, and his pants had plenty of dust on them from tripping. “Go on and take a shower, it’ll wake you up. Then go to breakfast, we still have twenty minutes before class.”

“Uhm...yeah, yeah! Thanks, Aelita!” He faked a large smile. She seemed to buy it. Even before she turned to walk away, he was off- running back to his room, getting more clothes, running to the (empty) showers, hardly even getting wet before dashing out again. He got dressed, putting his sweater on backwards, leaving a comb in his hair, and dropping his shoes somewhere in the hall. He ran as he had never run in his life, though he wasn’t really sure why. He’d skipped meals before, why...?

Then he remembered. Flat surface. Sleeping area. He sped up a bit.

Finally, the cafeteria came into sight. He ran as fast as his skinny little legs could carry him, going straight in, letting instinct direct him to his usual table, flopping down, and immediately falling asleep.

Alexandre Pepin and Thomas Jolivet glared at him uncertainly.

Jeremie sat up, blinked, and mumbled a “sorry” before they could ask any questions. He stood up, wobbled over to the next table- where he was mostly sure the three people glaring at him were Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi- and collapsed in a chair. He fell asleep again.

All of the others’ meals looked half-eaten, except Odd’s, which was mostly eaten. As Jeremie began to snore, he smiled. “Hey, Einstein! Not awake yet, huh? Huh? Huh?” With each ‘huh’, he poked Jeremie hard in the back.

Yumi sighed. “Let him off, Odd, he comes in like this all the time.”

Odd didn’t seem to hear her. He was still poking him when Aelita skipped in, looking much more chipper than Jeremie was at the moment. She took one look at him, burst out laughing, picked the comb out of his hair, and put his shoes- which she seemed to have picked up in the hall- on his head. He woke up for a second, looked at her, gave a quick “ ‘lo” and fell back to sleep. He didn’t notice Odd was poking him. (“Huh? Huh? Huh?”)

Ulrich gave her a bit more of an awake welcome. “Hey, Aelita. Why are you so late?”

The pink-haired girl sat down, still trying hard not to laugh at the situation one seat over. “Heh...guilty of oversleeping as well. I was having such a nice dream...”

“Hm. What did you dream about?” Yumi looked genuinely interested.

“It was kinda weird, to tell the truth. I was fishing in the Digital Sea, in a boat and everything...”

“How’d you get a boat in?”

“I don’t know, Ulrich. Anyway, I kept pulling up all these people from school, even some of you guys...but I kept saying you were wrong, and throwing you back. But I liked it for some reason.” Her smile never faded.

“Did you ever catch any good ones?” Yumi laughed a little.

“Well, I caught someone that looked like Jeremie, and he told me to wake up. So I did.” She laughed. Jeremie stirred, looked up at Aelita as if to say something, and then snapped his attention to Odd.

“Odd? Go poke Ulrich for a while, ‘kay?”

“Sure thing, Half- Awake Einstein!” He began poking Ulrich. (“Huh? Huh? Huh?”) He didn’t seem to enjoy it, but still tried to comment on the dream.

“Well, Aelita- ow!- all I have to say about that is- hey!- you sure have a better excuse for sleeping in than he did. ODD!” That, and a pair of evil eyes, was enough to get him to stop. He backed off, hands in the air defensively.

“Yeah, what’d he do, huh? Stay up too late looking at internet memes?” He laughed hysterically at his own joke, which, surprisingly enough, got a few laughs out of Ulrich, a chuckle out of Yumi, and an odd look from Aelita, who didn’t know what a meme was. Jeremie grunted, threw a lackluster punch at Odd, and fell back to sleep.


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Ring.

First bell.

The dining hall didn’t empty as fast as it might have if it were a classroom, and thank heavens it wasn’t. Last out were Jeremie and Aelita, preceded by Yumi, who took off in another direction, and Ulrich and Odd, who were several steps ahead and expanding on Odd’s mention of internet memes.

The reason they were last was because Jeremie refused to wake up until everyone was gone. He was coherent now, if a bit shuffly on his feet. Aelita was by him, ready to set him back up if he fell over. She still looked like she would crack up any second. “You awake yet?”

“No.” But it was good nautred, he laughed a bit before sighing and shuffling on.

“You put a lot of stress on yourself, Jeremie.” Aelita tried to keep her smile, but her tone was growing serious.

“No I don’t,” Jeremie replied. “I’m just doing my part to help with the fight against XANA. I mean...you’ve never seen me on Lyoko, have you?”

“No.”

“I’m awful there!” He didn’t realize how loud he was shouting. Aelita was surprised nobody had overheard. “I get scared out of my wits by a couple of monsters! Odd and Ulrich- they were laughing at me! How do you handle it there?”

“We just-”

“Nah...that’s beside the point. Anyway, writing all these programs, it’s my way of logging those hours you guys do on Lyoko. Is that so wrong?” His voice seemed to be torn between sadness and anger.

“No it isn’t, and we all appreciate everything you do, Jeremie. Don’t think that we don’t.” She rested her arm on his shoulder. “But lately...it looks like you’re going to...oh, how do you say it... keel over any second. You’ve been coming to breakfast asleep way too many times lately, and you always seem out of it all day. A good night’s sleep would be good for you.” Her smile was gone.

“Yeah, maybe...” He forced himself to laugh. He’d try to take her advice...though he knew that he’d invariably be drooling on his keys that night. He didn’t want to worry her...but he did have to get those programs done. Supported by Aelita, they walked into their first class.


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The good thing about Mrs. Hertz’s lectures was that she got very, very into them. She concentrated more on the lecture than whether or not her students were listening. So as she was explaining...ah, who cares what, she didn’t notice half her students were off in other worlds.

Two of them were Jeremie and Ulrich. That is, Ulrich was trying to be off in his own world, while Jeremie was just running his mouth off.

“Hey, Ulrich, Aelita talked to me today after breakfast...do you think she’s worried about me? She said she didn’t like that I come to breakfast asleep.”

“Nobody likes it. Except Odd. He can steal your food.” He tried to pay extra attention to the doodle on his notebook paper.

“Yeah, but I think I’m starting to worry her. I don’t want her to be worried. I’m just fine, see?” His glasses were dangling from one ear. “She should be proud, dangit, I’m doing it for her!” He pounded the table with his fist. Ulrich rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, hm. Whatever. Hey- you do know you’ve been writing out your code stuff instead of taking notes, right?” Ulrich looked sideway’s at the paper. It was indeed covered in PHP code. Jeremie blushed.

“Uh...no, but you’re not one to talk.” He looked over at Ulrich’s notebook. “It could use a bit more blood.”

“Hey, you’re right, thanks!” He excitedly added more red splotches around his drawing of William impaled on a stick. (This drawing was surrounded by more of William meeting grisly fates, sometimes in a XANA outfit, sometimes not, and a few of Yumi laughing at him.)

Jeremie suddenly got a shocked look in his eyes. “Wait...what if she’s not worried, but annoyed? I’ve been almost ignoring her the past two weeks...what if she hates me for that? I mean...I’ve been so busy writing the program...I haven’t been spending too much time on it, have I?”

“Jer, everyone in the school knows you spend too much time on the computer. It’s like you have... a plastic-silicon love affair.” He laughed at his own joke.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about it.” He sighed, staring at the table. “I don’t know how I can face her. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if she hated me.”

“Shut up, Jeremie.” Ulrich flat-out refused to listen to any more. His attention was now married to a new drawing- one of XANA-William with his head on fire.

Two tables behind them, a similarly different conversation was happening. This time, Aelita was the lamenter, and Odd was the victim.

“Look, I know Jeremie wants to do his part to help and everything, but he spends ALL his time on the stupid thing! It’s showing on his health. He puts too much stress on himself. Why can’t he just realize-”

“‘Cause that’s the way Jer is. He’s not good with people. He’s more comfortable with something that won’t judge him.” Odd seemed a bit more interested than Ulrich was- though still doodling. (If you must know, he was drawing Kiwi on Sissi’s head. He had strange ideas.)

“So what does he see me as, huh?” She slumped her head on the table. “I mean, Jeremie must have good intentions, but sometimes I get so frustrated with him...”

“You’re right about the first part, Aelita. Jeremie probably has the purest intentions in the entire school. But he does have his setbacks.” Odd nodded without really looking at her.

“Yeah... I shouldn’t be selfish like this, but he almost never spends time with me. He said he would.” She looked over at him. “He said...”

“Well, remind him. Kinda hint about it. Y’know the way he is, he’ll probably take it up.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Aelita sighed. “He’s such a ridiculous child...”

“Too right.” The bell rang...


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To most of the school, the end of classes for the day was a near celebration. For day students, it was a chance to either go home or stay on campus for a while. For boarders, it was a chance to drop books in the dorm and spend the day running around the campus destroying things. For the five in the Lyoko Gang, it was a chance to sit on the bench. The bench of evil. Nobody else went anywhere near it.

Aelita and Odd sat on the bench. Jeremie sat on the ground in front of them, tapping away on his laptop, working on who-knows-what. Yumi and Ulrich were leaning over the back, looking down on all of them. They were silent for a little while.

“So, uh...” Yumi was tired of the silence. “What do you guys want to do?”

“I dunno.”

“Same here.”

“Well...”

“I’ve got my work for the day. Y’see, this little thing I’m working on here will-”

“Hold up.” Ulrich’s eyes narrowed. “I think we’d better choose fast, or this one’s going to want to book our afternoon solid.”

They all looked up to see the only Kadician who would dare penetrate the sacred bench- Sissi Delmas, the principal’s daughter, prettiest girl in the school. That might actually be true, if you took away the fact that she had proclaimed herself as such. She was walking towards them, trying to look as important as possible, which was hard when you were being tailed by two very ugly labradors- that is, Herb and Nicolas.

“HELL-O ULRICH!” She pushed herself in his face, using Odd’s head as a armrest. “I haven’t had any chance to talk to you lately! Did you miss me?”

“No, not really. In fact, I had time to enjoy what I like to do most.” Ulrich was looking smug- the other four sensed a joke coming on. Sissi didn’t.

“And that would be?”

“Enjoying you not talking to me!” They all laughed hysterically. Even Herb and Nicolas laughed a bit. Sissi was fuming.

“Well, well! Aren’t you a comedian!” Sissi had the amazing ability to go from seductive to angry in an instant. “You won’t be laughing for long when-”

“When what?” Yumi laughed a little. “When your daddy does something about it? We’ve heard that a million times, Sissi, give it a rest!” She snorted into the bench to keep from cracking up.

“Hey...thash kinda getssh me thinkingsh- get your handsh off me, Sisshi-” He pushed it off anyway, and after that could talk normally. “Ah, thanks. Anyway- you always talk about your dad, well, duh, he’s the freaking principal, but... we’ve never seen your mom. Does she work somewhere else or something?”

There was silence.

Sissi’s mouth hung open slightly- this was obviously not the response she was expecting. The five on the bench stared at her, waiting for an answer. Even Herb and Nicolas, who usually had started babbling by now, were dead silent. (One word from them, they knew, and Sissi would knock their brains in.)

Finally, her lip quivered, and she stuttered something.

“Uh, uh, well...I, uh, gotta be somewhere bye!” She scooted. Herb and Nicolas stood staring at the gang, grunted, and ran off after her.

The gang stared into space for a little bit.

“Uh...” Aelita made an attempt to make conversation. “Well...on the topic of what we were saying before... we could go into town for a little while. We haven’t been out there for a while, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right!” Yumi nodded at her. “We all need to go out and get some air.”

“Hm? Yeah, that’s a good idea!” Odd’s face brightened instantly. “We could go see a movie, or go get ice cream, or throw heavy stuff off buildings, or-”

“I’m all for it.” Ulrich straightened up and stretched. “Jeremie?”

“Uh, I don’t know...” He wasn’t even looking at them. His attention was focused on his laptop.

“C’mon, Jeremie, it’ll be fun!” Aelita leaned over, trying her best to put a smile on. “Besides, you really need a break.”

“I know, I know, you’ve been saying that all day, but really, I’m on a big lead right here, and if I stop now I might miss the chance to dig up something vital! You guys go and have fun, I can- OWWWW!”

Aelita had slammed the laptop shut- right on his hand. She was in front of him, looking straight into his eyes. She was seething mad. “So you think this lump of metal is better than us, huh?”

The others’ mouths fell open. Ulrich’s elbow slipped. Odd fell out of his seat. Jeremie looked like he’d just internally combusted.

“Wha...what?”

“I asked you a question, and you keep your trap shut unless you’re answering!” She pressed down on the laptop cover. The latch was cutting into his arm. “Well? Do you? Because it’s SO important, isn’t it? More important than any stupid human, isn’t it? HUH? ISN’T IT?”

Her face was a mask of absolute hatred. Jeremie could hardly stand to look at her. Tears he couldn’t control, from the pain and shock, streamed from his eyes.

“Ae... Aelita... no, no, don’t think that, no... I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I shouldn’t have... it’s not... it’s not like that... no... I’m sorry... I can come, I really can...” He grabbed his face to try and hide his tears. It didn’t work.

Aelita stared at him for an eternal six seconds. Then, her face relaxed slightly. It looked like she was trying to be happy, but failing miserably- she looked very tired. She took a deep breath, took her hand off the laptop, and spoke, shuddering. “No... no. It’s okay. I know it’s important. I’m the one who should be apologizing, Jeremie. I shouldn’t have lost my cool like that.”

Jeremie couldn’t respond. He was gasping for air, tears wet on his face, clutching his hand tightly. Two deep compression marks were visible in his wrist.

Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi recovered a bit faster than he did. Odd stood up and slapped Jeremie hard on the back. “Oh come on, Einstein, suck it up. Like she said earlier, you deserve a break. We can go see a movie...one of those really bloody, scary ones, and-”

“Odd, shut up, he’s shaken enough!” Yumi knelt down, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Jeremie, if you really need to stay...”

Jeremie shuddered. “Yeah...I guess...I don’t feel so good anyway...”

“Well, then. Aelita?” Yumi turned to the pink-haired girl, who still knelt on the ground.

“Uh...” Aelita sighed. “Okay. I guess he is. I’ll...see you later, Jeremie.” She tried to smile, but only for a minute. It was completely fake. She stood, and walked off in the direction of the gate. Yumi followed her, throwing an uncertain glance at Jeremie as she went. Ulrich and Odd just stared at him for a second, and then got up. Following Odd’s lead, Ulrich slapped him on the back (“Call us if you need us, man”) as he walked by. Odd stood by him, just looking at him.

Jeremie stared after them, eyes wide open, looking ready to leak some more. He was stammering nonsense. “What could I have done... I shouldn’t have...”

Odd shook his head. “Y’know, she’s right, you DO put too much stress on yourself. Seeya.” He ran off after the rest of them.


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The halls were deserted, so Jeremie occupied them.

He sat in a corner, looking at the ceiling, trying to blind himself with the fluorescent lights. Without his glasses, so the light could go straight in his eyes. He was fuming. At himself.

She was right, he thought, determined not to make Aelita anything less than perfection in his mind. I am overworking myself. I am ignoring her in favor of the PC...and I am annoying her.

He curled himself in a ball, still staring at the light. A bug was dancing around it, repeatedly smashing its head into the bulb. I’m the most pathetic excuse for a human being that’s ever lived. Ah...no. He shook his head. Stop it, Jeremie, thinking like that gets you nowhere. I’m not the most pathetic. Not the most...

And so forth like that. He sat there for perhaps an hour, already awful vision swimming so badly that he didn’t see Jim approaching him.

Aforementioned Jim saw him, though. He stomped his foot to get his attention. “Belpois! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Wallowing in misery, sir.” He nodded his head a few times.

“Well, if you’re going to do that, do it somewhere else!” Jim began marching around, hand in the air, already ample chest thrust out, as though he were about to give a big speech. “You see, in case you don’t already know, these halls are made for walking through, not for sitting in! You walk through them so you can... get to the places where you can sit in! Do you get my point?”

“Get off my butt and go to my dorm?” Jeremie wasn’t in the mood for gentle hints.

“Absolutely! It’s a good thing you’re speaking my language now, unlike the people I worked with when I was an interpreter in the-” Jeremie didn’t exactly want to hear this story. He picked up his laptop bag, repositioned his glasses, and ran in the general direction of his room.

Once there, he slumped against the door for a few seconds. Well, he thought, as long as I’m here, I guess I could...work on some stuff. He sighed, and opened the door, somehow relieved, until, two steps into the room-

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep!

“Ah.”