Jeremie Belpois walked along the hallway of Kadic Jr. High. He passed the ten doors before he reached his own. He fumbled through his pocket, his blond hair getting in his eyes. The teenager stepped into his roo, thinking of the day's events.

Mr. Delmas had called them all to his office, and said hello.

"Hi, Mr.Delmas, how are you?" Odd had asked, in his usual sarcastic tone. Jeremie rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Fine, Odd," the man replied, but his voice was more serious than the teen's, "but we're here to talk about more, um, important situations. I hear that, no, I know that a boy whose name is William is friends with some of you."

"Uh, I know him," Yumi said. Ulrich snorted.

"Well," said the principal, "then you should know well that he's missing."

"We do, well," said Ulrich, but he quickly corrected himself, "word, uh... gets around fast here."

"Yes. But I also have to say that all of you were missing in class the exact time he ended up missing." The group was silent. Aelita and Jeremie exchanged worried glances.

"Surely you all know what I am going to say," Mr. Delmas told the worried teenagers, "you are going to court. In a weeks time. You will be expelled if you come up guilty and will be sent to jail. And you know for what reason?"

Aelita shook her head, and the rest were silent.

"You have been blamed for murdering william Dunbar. Any comments? No? please go back to class then."

Jeremie buried his face in his pillow, wanting to set off the return to the past mechanism, but there was no tower to use it with. He turned, remembering the argument that he and Aelita had had earlier that day. It was heartbreaking to know that the couple seemed to be drifting apart each moment of every second.

Aelita had walked into the lunchroom, a troubled look on her face not unlike the others'. Where would she go if she were to be expelled? She sat across from Jeremie, and bit of hope on her face.

"Jeremie?"

"Yes, Aelita?"

"Do you think that we could... um, well, see if there are any, uh, traces of my father on the internet?" She cringed, knowing that Jeremie would either burst out laughing or start screaming.

"Aelita, if there were any traces that we could materialize, it would be impossible!"

"Yes, but he sent you a message, didn't he?"

"I don't know if that can count as the complete Franz Hopper. It might have been some of his bytes that are still working."

"But Jeremie-"

"No." He stood up, gave his tray to Odd, and walked out of the cafeteria.

Jeremie giggled at the thought of materializing anything floating around the web. He imagined a fully real Franz Hopper stepping out of the scanners, but scolded himself for thinking such nonsense. The young genius sat up at the sound of footsteps coming towards his door. But they passed, and it was nothing. His computer's fan whirred, and he lay back down, putting his pillow over his face. I can't stay like this forever.

He was just thinking of who to turn to when Yumi came into his dorm. She blushed at seeing him in this state, but quikly regained her real face color before he sat up. She was silent for a moment, but talked in what she thought was her more realistic voice.

"Uhh, Jeremie, you know we're all really upset about what's going on, huh?" She sat next to him.

"Yeah," Jeremie said, he sounded dull, "but we all accepted William onto our team. It's only fair that we get punished for him not being here."

"But then where is he?"

"I'm not sure," the blond stood up and walked to what seemed to him his only friend besides Yumi at that point. His computer. She watched sadly, then walked away.

There was never any cure for what Jeremie was going through.