Chapter 7- Discovery (8.22.07)
A bright orange sphere loomed up ahead. Aelita’s palms started to sweat. In her mind, only a few thoughts registered: That’s it. There he is. There’s my father.
“There it is,” said Jeremie’s voice. “The virtual signature says that it's…Franz Hopper.”
“And he’s in…a Guardian?” asked Yumi, remembering the time she had been trapped in a Guardian. A XANA clone had taken her place on Earth. And strangely, if this was a Guardian, the same thing had happened to Franz: a clone had taken his place on Earth as a deception by XANA to trap Ulrich, Odd, and her on Lyoko, and he had virtualized Aelita to the Desert sector where the Scyphozoa had stood waiting.
“It sure looks like it,” was Jeremie’s reply. “But the bio-signature of the Guardian is identical of the DNA sequence code part Aelita found once in the Sector 5 database. He must be in a Guardian so that he’s protected from XANA, and so XANA can’t track him.” Jeremie was referring to the loose white sphere that was Franz’s form that had appeared in the Ice Sector a while back. It wasn’t a form like a person, but it was something that had been recognized by the supercomputer.
“But if he’s in a Guardian,” Odd pondered, “then how could we track him? And…how do we free him?”
“The first question’s an easy one,” Aelita replied. “The Guardian most likely wasn’t programmed by XANA. My father himself must have programmed it when he left Lyoko. He must have copied the design of the Guardian, but altered the algorithm with some sort of code. The code must have made him traceable to us, but not by XANA. It might also have helped that he appeared on Lyoko, so that the supercomputer recognized his form, then and now. And Guardians are generally invincible, so he must have also created the Guardian to protect himself from XANA.”
“And…the second question?” Odd asked.
“Well…” Aelita had to restrain herself, because she knew the answer to that from Ulrich, but she didn’t want everyone to know about Ulrich’s dream. Yet.
Back in the factory, Jeremie was thinking too. “It’s a fairly basic algorithm, but if I terminate the Guardian, we might not being able to retrieve Franz inside. We have to materialize him directly from the Guardian into the scanners.”
There was a pause. “Well?” asked Ulrich. “Can you do it?” Like Aelita, he knew exactly what they had to do, but it was risky telling everyone about his dream when XANA could be lurking nearby.
Jeremie pondered. “It’s going to be hard, because I’ve never materialized anyone directly from the Network, much less from a Guardian. Although the Guardian gives the same readings a person gives, there are still some codes I need, like his complete DNA sequence code. I need direct access from my end, which is pretty much impossible.”
Aelita rolled her eyes. “I can give you direct access, Jeremie.”
“What do you mean? I can’t get direct access from my end without-”
In response, Aelita activated the digital key. A white beam shot from the Skid to the Guardian. Jeremie felt stupid. “Oh.” He quickly started gathering the data he needed.
---
“I’m finished,” Jeremie finally said. “But because the record of Franz’s profile disappeared from the supercomputer when he returned to the Network, I still can’t read his virtual form. I can’t materialize Franz without his original profile. It’s strange that Franz’s profile wasn’t stored in the Guardian.”
Ulrich couldn’t hold back any longer. “Jeremie, I know what to do.”
“What?” Odd exclaimed. “You barely know how to virtualize yourself!”
“You have to trust me, Jeremie,” Ulrich said impatiently. “No, I’m not possessed by XANA, but I know how to do it. Franz told me directly. And Odd, you barely know how to virtualize yourself.”
“What do you mean, ‘Franz told you directly’?” Yumi asked. “There hasn’t been anytime in the past few weeks that Franz could have-” Yumi broke off, realizing the answer to her question. “Oh.”
“Franz Hopper has been the cause of your nightmares?” Jeremie asked, astonished. “But why?”
“I can’t tell you now, with XANA watching our every move,” Ulrich said impatiently. “Just trust me, okay?”
Jeremie leaned back against the back of his chair, still in awe. “Okay. I have a feeling this is gong to take a while.”
“One more thing before I continue: Odd, Yumi, please don’t distract me. My memory of the dream is kind of vague.”
“Fine,” Odd and Yumi said at the same time.
Ulrich closed his eyes and thought hard, remembering Franz’s instructions from his dream. “Okay. Jeremie, the first thing you have to do is unpack the data from Franz’s Replika.”
Jeremie began typing. “Okay. Then what?”
“Next, broadcast the data to the Code: Earth program you made to materialize Aelita.”
Jeremie stopped typing. “What?”
Ulrich sighed. “Jeremie, just trust me, okay? If you must know, the data was organized and encoded so Aelita’s materialization program will recognize Franz’s digital form and load it as a profile on the supercomputer.”
Jeremie started typing again, still not seeing how that was possible, but trusting Ulrich. “Okay. First let me find Code: Earth. I stored it in the restricted part of the supercomputer. It could take a few minutes.”
Five minutes later, Jeremie’s voice rang out. “Okay! I’ve loaded Franz’s profile back onto the supercomputer. It was so simple: since Code: Earth had to recognize the profile, the quantum flux allowed the data to be written as a profile, when no other program could do it. But what I don’t get is why it wasn’t accessible from the Guardian. Or why Franz couldn’t have made it easier.”
“It’s simple,” Ulrich answered easily. “Franz picked a random way to encode it so that XANA wouldn’t know how to do it. And Franz didn’t make the data accessible through the Guardian because XANA could have transported Franz somewhere else with that data, somewhere we may not have known.”
Jeremie smacked his head. “I should have known. That XANA is such a big pain in the rear.”