I sit here at my desk chair contemplating everything presented to me so far. Had I really gotten this far? Endless streams of blue-green code engulfed my being.

/-ROUTE to SERVER var. A verifying CONTENTS of TRANSFER
(-var. A CONTENTS of undetermined extension. Run unknown extension BRIDGE.lyo?
YES_NO_
(-Running BRIDGE.lyo
/-ASSIGN BRIDGE.lyo to var. B
/-RETURN var. B to SERVER
(-ERROR. var. B in use.

"Argh," I grumbled. Carelessness, and maybe one too many caffeinated drinks.

/-STOP var. B
/-DELETE var. B
(-ERROR. var. B critical to registry. DELETE overridden.

"Screw this..." I sighed. This was more complicated that I thought. I am well-versed in code such as Python and C, but never before was there something like this for me to decode. I was seeking a challenge in my otherwise dull free time, so I decided to hack into some data and see if I could successfully modify data that I had never seen before. The challenge remains one step ahead of me, I'm afraid...

/-TERMINATE INTERFACE

"Get to the scanners, ASAP!" yelled young Jeremie Belpois into his mobile phone. It was another typical day at Kadic Academy for him, as the evil supercomputer XANA had activated another tower, which enabled an attack on Earth. Only Jeremie and his friends knew how to effectively halt these attacks on humanity, and so they did.

"I'll be there in a flash, Einstein," Odd Della Robbia, a fellow fighter against XANA, replied. "I'll get in contact with Yumi and Ulrich."

"You'd better," replied Jeremie. "This one looks like it'll cause trouble..."

A few minutes later, Odd burst through the elevator door into Jeremie's control room to catch up on the problem.

"Yumi and Ulrich didn't answer their phones," Odd declared. "What's the situation?"

"Well," Jeremie started, "XANA's activated a tower, as usual. Get down to the scanners; I called for Aelita to come, so she should be here any moment. She'll meet you at the scanners."

Odd hurried back to the elevator and descended into the scanner room while Jeremie stared concerned at the screen. A red exclamation mark enclosed in a circle was present, representing an error. Jeremie called up the error message, which stated in the interface's natural code:

(-ERROR. Invalid entry at REGBASE. Corrupt file BRIDGE.lyo. Failed TRANSFER.

"Wha...?" Jeremie muttered. he had nothing to do with this BRIDGE.lyo file; all he knew was that it was taking the place of a very important registry entry.

/-DELETE BRIDGE.lyo
(-ERROR. BRIDGE.lyo critical to registry. DELETE overridden.
/-RUN BRIDGE.lyo

At that point, a window popped up onto Jeremie's monitor. It was a crude DOS-based interface window that stated in the middle:

Jeremie reluctantly pressed the "R" key on his keyboard to activate the program. At that moment, Aelita called up Jeremie to tell him that she and Odd were ready for virtualization into the digital world, Lyoko, where they could disarm XANA's tower. Out of curiosity, he ignored Aelita and continued with the Bridge program.

A great list of values were represented on the window. At the left side there was a button that said BRIDGE on it. Jeremie instinctively selected two values and clicked BRIDGE. Suddenly, the error icon disappeared and everything was running smoothly, until Jeremie realized that his other registry file was still missing. He couldn't virtualize Odd and Aelita without it. Jeremie sighed and started to toy with the operating system.

I have no way of knowing if my Bridge program works. If it does, then I will have succeeded. So far all that I know is that it attaches itself to the registry database once activated. This could be a good or bad thing. I just hope that I'm not meddling with some government security supercomputer or some wacky scenario like that. Only time will tell...

Enough was enough at the factory. Jeremie demanded to know what was going on. He ran a search on the origins of the Bridge program, and found that it had been installed by an unfamiliar IP address three hours earlier. Seeing this, Jeremie decided that someone was indeed connected to the system. He would try to make contact.

/-OPEN NOTECLIENT.lyo
(-Welcome to NoteClient. Post your note here.
Jeremie knew what to do from here.

~~~

At this point, the NoteClient showed up on my monitor. A simple box in the middle of the screen, it interfered with my editing. The words were simple: "Qui est ceci?"

Of course, as an American, I didn't speak French. I feared that I was interfering with a foreign supremacy. At this point, I quickly open up a translator, not the best in the world, but would suffice. This strange person was asking me who I was. I turned to the translator and typed up a phrase to send back: "Je pourrais vous demander la même chose. I could ask you the same question."

"Que faites-vous à mon système? What are you doing with my system?"

"J'ai fait un programme spécial pour vous aider. I made a program to help you."

"Il n'aide pas! Je ne peux pas commander mes opérations! It doesn't help! I can't control my operations!"

"J'avais peur de celui...Je le fixerai aussitôt que possible. I was afraid of that...I'll fix it ASAP."

"Séjour ici! Wait!"

And then I logged off. I now knew that it was an individual system and not a government setup. I was, to say the least, relieved. However, I needed to fix the Bridge, fast. I had bargained for too much.

~~~

"He's gone..." said Jeremie. He needed to know more, but this mysterious hacker had logged off. "He said that he would fix the problem ASAP...but I don't think we have the time..."

The four of them watched helplessly as XANA's attack force multiplied. Virtual enemies were scattered all over the map. Nothing could be done, and because of it, the storm had gotten that much worse.

"...And as you can see, the storm is absolutely furious! Contrary to today's news report, which in fact called for another scorching day in our current heatwave, there IS a very real storm in this region."

Milly Solovieff had a solemn look on her face as she delivered the report. Obviously, this was a force to be reckoned with. Fear pierced her mind like an iron stake.

Tamiya Diop cut the recording and lowered the camera.

"Awesome, Milly," she said, "but I think we need to get a closer look at this storm rather than look at it from a window."

Milly's fears took over as she froze up inside.

"...Are you suggesting that we...go out there?"

"Yes, I am," replied Tamiya, flatly.

 ~~~

 Fix. Fix. I need to fix it. Now.

/-CHECK VALUES EQUAL to SCANNER.lyo
(-VALUES not found
/-CHECK  PREVIOUS LOCATION of SCANNER.lyo
(-LOCATION at REGISTRY ENTRY NUMBER 8628
/-CALL DELETED FILES BACKUP
(-Displaying...

I'd really screwed up this time. I vow that after this ordeal I will never hack anthing not in my posession. I can't believe my thirst for a quick fix turned into this...my insides feel like they're being wrenched from my body, and I'm in a panic. I don't have much of a life anymore...

Help me... 

~~~

"Help me!" Tamiya screamed, a muffled scream denied by the cacophony of wind and rain. She was laying face down in the soaking wet mud, using her video camera to shield herself from the stinging force. It wasn't working. Milly was lying motionless by a tree, a trickle of blood streaming down her cheek was smeared by the rain.

I should have never suggested this, Tamiya thought. Suddenly, she recalled an event from the day before.

~"Sure I'd like to get involved in the new soccer program, Tamiya," said Ulrich. "Here, let me give you my nunber so we can stay in contact about it."~

Tamiya reached for her cell phone and struggled to keep from being blown away. She got it out and blindly dialed. After all, she couldn't even see the numbers. She held it up to her ear and hoped for everything to go smoothly. Of course, it wouldn't.

"Are you kidding me? I couldn't get there if I tried!"

Jeremie bowed his head in frustration.

"I know that, Yumi," he replied. "But you have to try. We need you here."

"Jeremie," said Yumi, becoming aggrivated, "when you have a storm that cancels out wireless receptions for miles, that is not the time to waltz off to your favorite factory. You're lucky you caught me on my instant messenger. Besides, I'm babysitting Hiroki tonight."

"Just find a way, Yumi," replied Jeremie. He then pulled down the audio conversation and went back to searching the database for clues to the scanner access file's disappearance.

"Hey Einstein," said Odd, walking up to Jeremie's seat. "how did you talk to Yumi when all these wireless deals are jammed?"

"Cable modem," said Jeremie, not bothering to look away from his work.

~~~

Agony is the keyword here. Am I losing it? I hope not. I really don't. I don't want to become insane, but am I making too much of a big deal of this? I don't know. And I don't want to.

/-CHECK all FILES for text SCANNER
(-None found.
/-REBOOT REGISTRY
(REBOOTing... 

I can't work like this. I could give up and let this entity slip by...or I can stay and worry my mind into submission. I don't want this...

~~~

A sharp electronic ring was emitted from Ulrich's pocket. It was his cell phone going off on him, now of all times.

"Huh? How can someone call me? The wireless is dead, right?"

Nobody listened to Ulrich; everyone was focused in on Jeremie's work. Ulrich reluctantly pressed the small green button on the phone to pick up. A faint and unpleasant noise could be heard, much like a snake's hiss echoing through a narrow hall. Among this cacophony was another sound, this one like a mouse's squeak. However, this sound was buried among the hiss and Ulrich could only recognize parts of it, but these parts were rather unnerving.

"Ulrich---sto--rain is--camera-us---tree--blood and---field--help!"

The signal was cut off from there. Apparently, the transmission was close enough to Ulrich to not be cut off by the storm for a decent amount of time. Ulrich sprinted to the elevator without a word and pressed the red button that he was too familiar with. It seemed as if nobody had noticed at all.

~~~

"Yumi, why isn't my Mario Kart working? I wanna play wireless online!" shouted the young boy.

"Ugh, Hiroki," she replied, annoyed. "just play against the computer or something. You can't do online in this storm."

"I hate this storm!" bellowed Hiroki, who was by now tinkering with Yumi's last nerve. Beyond the nuisance of her brother, Yumi desperately wanted to be able to help Jeremie and the team with their dilemma. Obviously, the storm made it next to impossible.

There's gotta be a way, she thought, staring out the drenched window into the abyss of chaos outside. Just like Jeremie said.

Ulrich had his doubts as he stood patiently in the elevator, waiting to rise up the shaft and into the storm to find out the source of the blurred call he had gotten. The ride seemed to take forever. It seemed to him that the elevator wasn't even going anywhere, but that couldn't be, unless...

~~~

It's all beyond my power now. Now I have to sit back and see the end result. My turn is over. It's in their hands now.

~~~

The elevator suddenly collapsed from the ceiling onto Ulrich. For a few seconds, Ulrich saw a strange and outlandish color as pain rushed in and out of him like a mall entrance. Then there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

A loud shatter was heard, then stinging gusts of wind and water annexed the room. "Unh!" Yumi was knocked back from the window as brroken glass covered her like a mosaic. Hiroki screamed for help, but his calls were muffled by the deafening chaos. Even Yumi, a few feet away, could not hear him. She rolled over to the nearest wall and brushed all the glass off of herself and glanced up to see everything in the house falling, breaking, and crashing in a cacophony unparalelled by anything Yumi had ever had the displeasure of hearing. Worst of all, she set sights on Hiroki, curled up in mortal terror, clinging to the floor and bellowing. His Mario Kart game constituted a mashed pile of plastic and wires in a nearby corner.

It seemed like Yumi's world was crushing her. And in a way, it was. The roof was starting to tear.

~~~

Ulrich woke up and instantly took in water. The elevator had been crushed and fell down the shaft. Ulrich, in a mindless panic, floated up to the top of the supercomputer room, where there was a small clearance of air above the surface. He gasped in all the air his body allowed, and looked down to see the supercomputer completely submerged in rainwater. He hoped that the base was waterproof, but his fears rose as the water continued to rise. Ulrich knew what to do. he swam to the opening between the crushed elevator and the shaft. He fit himself through, and swam up as fast as he could. Even he knew getting to the surface was a long shot, he continued to swim. He noticed that the control room door, where Jeremie and the others were, had not given in to the water and eventually got to the top of the shaft and swam out the imploded door to finally float weakly up to the bridge where the flood ended. Ulrich gasped for air again, lightheaded and confused. His wet clothes gave him some reasonable wind resistance. he lay, the rain stinging his face like a thousand wasps, regaining his awareness. Suddenly, like a flash, it occured to him.

"If the whole elevator shaft is flooded, then..."

Ulrich saw in his mind an elaborate picture of what would happen if anyone opened the control room door to go to the scanners. He shook the though out of his mind and stood, promptly falling over. This would be more difficult that he had thought.

~~~

A few minutes earlier...

~~~

"That's it!!" exclaimed a joyous Jeremie. He had just opened up the files that he had "bridged" with the mysterious Bridge program. One of them had the entire Scanner.lyo code embedded in it.

"How did I not think of this?!" he said to himself. Odd and Aelita went up to the control panel to inquire.

"Did you get it, Einstein?" asked Odd.

Suddenly, the crash of Ulrich's elevator accident was heard, to the dismay of everyone in the room.

"What was that?!?" screamed Aelita.

Jeremie was startled and concerned, but continued to work. He seperated the Scanner.lyo code from the other file and created a new Scanner.lyo file. he then copied the code and put it into the new file. Patched and fixed. Ready to go.

"You guys go ahead and get in the scanners," said the overjoyed Jeremie.

Odd and Aelita walked to the undamaged elevator door.

Aelita reached for the open button...

There was nothing. Tamiya could not tell if her tears were the rain or the rain were ther tears. Either way would have been possible. She lay pressed against the bleeding and unconscious Milly by the wind, water coming down on the two so much that Tamiya couldn't breathe without coughing up water.

Where is Ulrich?!? Tamiya screamed in her mind. This was worse than danger. This was mortal peril.

A large "CRACK!" was heard; it filled Tamiya's ears with more fear than ever before. And before she new it, she was blown away. Tumbling in the cold, she heard a thud that shut out the sound of the storm, and she opened her evers for a second, of course closing them after rain stung them like needles. The tree that she and Milly were up against had fallen. But, wait, why weren't they by the tree where they were? tamiya was dazed and confused and for what seemed to be forever thought of impending death. But suddenly, she was reassured by a friendly voice.

"You two are gonna get out of this mess just fine."

~~~

"Wait," said Jeremie. "Don't take the elevator, especially after what happened when Ulrich went in." Jeremie didn't even know where Ulrich was, other than from the crash that he heard, that great, scraping crash that had concerned them all.

"Take the ladder instead," Jeremie insisted. The ladder was in the side of the room and led down to the scanners. The gang used this ladder passage whenever the elevator was out of order, and obviously, it was.

A few seconds later, Jeremie had fixed the Scanner.lyo file and had virtualized both Odd and Aelita on Lyoko.

However, XANA had taken the extra time to create a welcoming commitee of monsters. Odd hadn't felt this suspense in a while. He hopped onto his Overboard, gesturing to Aelita to join him.

"Let's go!"

Lucky.

Just as Odd uttered his enthusiastic words, the scanner room's shaft door burst in a crash and clang of shredded steel, water flowing in and slowly but surely rising up to the point where it would flood Jeremie's control room through the ladder passage. Jeremie, startled by the noise, looked back at his own shapt door. It seemed to look right back at him, innocent, without a visible trace of damage. The frightened boy looked back at the monitor and adjusted his headset.

"Okay, you guys. The tower's halo should be visible from here. Move fast, but watch out for a great swarm of Hornets coming your way. Ignore them and get to the tower ASAP. Avoid getting hit at all costs."

Jeremie felt a cold sweat. This really was serious. He had no idea where Ulrich was, had no perception of the damage outside, no way of telling how many homes and buildings and trees and structures were gone...

He shook it off just to regain it again. the swarm of Hornets he saw as a bunch of red blips on his monitor had evolved into a solid coat of red. Danger red. Death red.

There had to be hundreds -- no, thousands of Hornets in the Mountain sector at that time. There was no way that Odd and Aelita could avoid being hit.

~~~

"Augh!! We can't possibly avoid this!" screamed Odd, who, even semilally intrigued at the challenge, knew of the peril that would ensue. Gesturing to Aelita to hang on, Odd sped up the Overboard to its maximum velocity. The path to the tower lay straight ahead, although in a crescent path. If they were to go the short way, they would be flying over the digital void and would not ever leave Lyoko if they fell in, a fate that the Hornets would take every step to ensure. Flying into the swarm was the only option.

"Laser arrow!" shouted Odd as he shot blindly into the swarm. When a hit occured, the Hornet exploded, causing a chain reaction. As big as these reactions were, glorious red and orange blasts of victory, they were only a dent in the swarm's paint job.

Aelita realized that she and Odd were almost completely surrounded in the exponential amount of Hornets, pink lasers emitting shots, all trying to take the precious life of the two warriors.

And then it happened.

~~~

Yumi didn't exactly know what went on for sure after everything fell apart. She was under the water, the rain, struggling, not knowing which way was up and which was down, that horrible direction, down...

Suddenly, she found herself soaked and floating in the flooded street that she knew well, immediately realizing the tearing cold of the deadly combination of gusts of wind and sharp rain.

That wasn't the only thing that she realized.

"Hiroki?" she asked herself, then bellowed. No answer.

Where is Hiroki?! she thought, dreadful thoughts flooding her mind not unlike the rainwater around her.

It's not...he couldn't be...

~~~

Nobody could see. Debris pricked their eyes whenever they tried to see the result of this hurricane-like entity. Milly, now awake, yet unimaginably disoriented, tasted the rain-pattered blood dripping from her head. She heard a chaotic noise next to her -- Ulrich and Tamiya screaming at each other. This freezing time drove into the three of them like a hammer and nail. Hypothermia was catching up to them all. It was almost game over. Almost.

~~~

Odd whimpered and disappeared into a white wireframe, falling into the endless Hornets. It threw her balance off, and she also plummeted from the Overboard down.

"Odd?!" she heard Jeremie scream.

The hornets cleared a hole as she fell, nearly a dive into the dreaded void. Bad void, death void, bad... was all Aelita could think.

Suddenly, she was hit by a hornet shot, which threw her dramatically off axis, crashing her into the dirt a few yards from the tower.

It all made sense. XANA couldn't let Aelita die. Her memory was a necessity. With this, though, came the Scyphozoa, which followed her to the tower, tentacles outstretched. Aelita got up and bolted into the tower, an environment full of blue binary and windows. Floating up to the highest level, she let the screen read her hand for verification before printing in the sky blue text that was the lifeblood of the very Earth at times:

AELITA

CODE: LYOKO

~~~

The water stopped. Everywhere. Yumi went from floating to laying on a solid bed of water. Jeremie the water stopped flowing into the control room. Odd lay suspended in the open scanner, now filled with water. Ulrich, Milly, and Tamiya froze, crouched
in a bundle on the ground.

Jeremie knew what he had to do.

"Return to the past, now."

After the return trip, everything turned out smoothly. Hiroki was still at home, meaning he had survived the storm (and had been able to play his Mario Kart game). Yumi was understandably relieved.

Both Milly and Tamiya survived, remembering nothing of the event. Milly's injury was caused when Tamiya's camera was carried by the wind and smashed her on the forehead. Tamiya regained the camera to use it for cover.

The storm had reached out to seven nearby cities and destroyed nearly every structure in relative reach (Yumi's house included). All of the structures were restored with the return trip.

Jeremie managed to make contact with the programmer of the "Bridge" program (calling himself Jack Fawzi; if this was his true name was yet to be determined) once more, explaining to him what had happened and that he could find a variety of uses for the program. Jeremie asked Fawzi to consider programming more utilities like "Bridge," to which Fawzi replied "he would think about."

Overall, the Lyoko gang had overcome another potential disaster. This encounter was one that none of them -- or XANA, would forget.

/-TERMINATE INTERFACE