Code Lyoko: Reincarnated, twenty years later

Chapter 12- Men in Black

I'm writing in Miss Renaud's stead. In case you don't know, it's Mia. Mia Belpois. Judging by what she has written up until now, the men in black seem like bad people.  After the last entry, the group were met by some men dressed in black suit and ties. They had broken down the door. Aunt Yumi and Miss Renaud staying back to stall for the others and we haven't heard from them since.

The biggest question is: what happened to Ruby Renaud? Why isn't she writing in this diary?

Uncle Odd was the only one who knew his way through the intricate paths of the coiled sewers. They reached the factory, and had told my dad about the whole incident.
We almost had it. We almost had Tyron.

My mum and I went through teleportation to Switzerland, and my virtual avatar (a knight) felt as light as a feather. We found our way through the lab and we were a corridor away from Tyron when dad teleported us back to the skid. We unconscious for a while but we made it back to Lyoko and back to the real world.

Uncle Odd, Daze, Rick and Alex were panting, talking over each other about how Miss Renaud and Aunt Yumi had sacrificed themselves. Uncle Ulrich seemed enraged and wanted to go save them, but my parents talked him out of it.

"We need to go find them!" Uncle Ulrich said. Uh... saying Uncle and Aunt before everyone's names is tiring. I'm just going to refer to them by their first names, like Miss Renaud did.

"But where?" Odd asked. "For all we know, they could already be halfway across the country!"

"How was your lead?" Alex asked Daze.

"Dead end," he shrugged. "Major Steinbeck had moved. We were so close. She used to teach at Kadic."

"She did?" Dad asked sitting up. "Who is she?"

"A science teacher. Mrs... Mrs..."

"Mrs Hertz?!" he questioned. "She's Major Steinback?"

"Considering her age, it's possible," Mum added.

"Who?" I asked.

"She was our science teacher back when we went to the academy," Ulrich explained. "You think she's involved with the men in black?"

The adults began talking and we huddled around in our own group. Alex handed me Miss Renaud's journal. "She gave it to me, as a precaution. I'm glad she did. We can read this and find out everything.

"Oh my god," I gasped after a quick read. "Major Steinback is one of the men in black!" I cried.

The adults turned to us. "What?" Dad said. "She's what?"

"That can't be. She knew that I was his daughter. And they were hunting us down. She could have killed us when we first met."

"According to this, Major Steinback, or rather Mrs Hertz, helped Franz Hopper escape in 1985. Together with her help, they created Lyoko and... woah this is crazy..." I read on, the others peering over my shoulder to see what I had read.

"Why'd you stop?" Ulrich asked.

"They got help from mum's parents and dad's dad. Also Uncle Odd and Uncle J's dads," Kyoko explained. "The coincidence is crazy."

"Not a coincidence. Fate," Rick corrected. "They helped build things like the interface and the scanners."

"Is it possible that they still remember?" Daze asked. The only one in the group who wasn't blood related to the... the... Senior Warriors! If we're the Juniour warriors, and Dad is part of the Lyoko Warriors, then grandpa was a Senior Warrior.

"What are we waiting for?" Kyoko asked. "Let's go!"

We all exited the factory, all except Dad, Uncle Ulrich, Rick and Daze; they decided to track Mrs Hertz's phone. 

*********

Kyoko opened her door with her key. "Grandma? Are you there?" I had been to her house a few times already. It was beautiful, it had a cherry blossom tree out front, and the house was set up like a traditional Japanese home.

Lyoko's grandparents sat in the living room. They were around seventy years old, the same age my own grandmother would be. Unless she was stuck in some virtual world like mum, making her ten years younger. "This is quite the party," she smiled.

Kyoko pulled out a few cushions for us to sit on. "Grandma. We need to know. Did you or did you not help build Lyoko?"

Her grandparents exchanged a glance and frowned. "We did," Kyoko's grandfather responded.

"And do you have any idea who the men in black in are?" she continued.

"A special service force that's trying to use Lyoko as a weapon," her grandmother explained. "Lyoko's purpose is to destroy Project Carthage, but if it is manipulated in a certain way, we are sure that it could be used to to harm."

"What is Project Carthage anyway?" Alex asked.

"A military weapon used to cause appliances to haywire and cause explosions."

"Like the towers on Lyoko!" I concluded. "How could it destroy project Carthage?"

"Possibly through... teleportation? Like we did thirty years ago? We teleported to the real world locations of XANA's replikas and destroyed them," Mum said.

"Teleportation?" Yumi's mother said.

"It's a long story," Odd replied with a shrug. "Any idea where Mrs Hertz would be?"

They both thought hard. "Suzanne said that she was going under witness protection."

"Protection?" I questioned. "But why?"

"Someone sent her a message. Something like: protect. Or I'll come after you."

"Aelita," Odd muttered. "It must have been her mother."

Something felt off. Why did grandma just say to protect? Why not protect Aelita or protect her. It's almost as if she's saying that we have to protect something else, but what? We thanked her and left, the question still bothered me. Why just protect?

We headed back to the factory where we explained to the rest about the true purpose of Lyoko and the message of Mrs Hertz.

"We don't have anything either. No trail of her phone," Daze sighed. "But aren't we forgetting something?"

Alex gasped quietly. "The secret room!"