The Nameless City

The Nameless City is the second book of Code Lyoko released by Atlantyca in 2009.

It is set directly after the events of The Underground Castle, and is followed by a third book The Return of the Phoenix.

Synopsis[]

When Jeremy, Ulrich, Odd and Yumi discover the video of Aelita's father, they're devastated. Anthea, Aelita's mother, was kidnapped and nobody knows if she's still alive. The countdown has begun! They set off on a search for her convinced that they'll be able to find a trace. Because they're the only ones who hold the keys to the secret history of Lyoko…almost. X.A.N.A., who they thought was destroyed, will knock when nobody expects it. With deadly force, cruelty, and without mercy…

Chapters[]

Prologue
Chapter 1: The Mysterious City
Chapter 2: The Man with Two Dogs
Chapter 3: Waldo Schaeffer's Dossier
Chapter 4: Kiwi Injured
Chapter 5: A Spy in the Shadows
Chapter 6: Screwdrivers, Cameras and a New Secret
Chapter 7: A Trap or Two
Chapter 8: The Interrogation
Chapter 9: The Man at the Door
Chapter 10: A Coded Message
Chapter 11: An Address and a Nightmare
Chapter 12: A Monster at Yumi's House
Chapter 13: Nothing But Mysteries
Chapter 14: The Replica
Chapter 15: The Men in Black
Chapter 16: Eva Skinner's Kiss
Chapter 17: The Hermitage's Last Secret
Epilogue

Story[]

It's night time at Kadic. Grigory Nictapolus arrives in the city. He's a worrying man. He drives a modified car that pulverises all speed limits, and has no fixed place to live, going wherever his missions take him. He's armed and accompanied by two ferocious Rottweilers, Hannibal and Scipio. Visibly only recently given the mission by his commander Hannibal Mago, alias "The Magician", he drives around the city. He checks out the Hermitage, the factory and Kadic Academy before setting up in an abandoned building.

At Kadic Academy, Aelita wakes up from one of her new nightmares. Still similar, she dreamed of the day when her mother Anthea Hopper disappeared from her life. The scene remains unclear. She only remembers a ravaged room, belongings strewn about everywhere and broken window panes… A presence observing and approaching her. While Jeremie and the other members of the group comfort her, the principal enters the classroom to present a new student: Eva Skinner, newly arrived from the USA, not a boarder and visibly having difficulty with her French. For Odd, it's love at first sight.

During this time, Grigory equips his new apartment. Dishes and antennas allow him to directly pick up the transmission from microphones which are placed in the rooms of the boarding Lyoko Warriors, at Kadic. Hannibal Mago, his boss, visibly a member of the Green Phoenix organisation, calls him and they discuss the mission objective: keep an eye on the group and confirm the existence of Franz Hopper's Supercomputer, probably the same Hopper that Mago says to be their "most trusted agent" who betrayed them ten years earlier (chapter 1).

Eva Skinner, still under X.A.N.A.'s control, is victim of Sissi, Herb and Nicholas' attacks in the cafeteria. She has no trouble retorting to Sissi's jabs, as Odd watches on stunned. Later in the afternoon, Eva approaches Aelita and they befriends each other.

Meanwhile, Jeremie and the rest of the group reflect on the nightmares gripping Aelita. Deciding to look into her mysterious past, they go on an investigation. They don't have much information but they do know two things. Firstly, Franz Hopper, real name Waldo Schaeffer, was a teacher at Kadic Academy. Secondly, he suddenly disappeared on the day of June 6, 1994. Jeremie then realises that, in the past, someone must have rubbed shoulders with Waldo often: Suzanne Hertz, current science teacher at Kadic and ex-lab assistant of Franz Hopper.

Jeremie, using his status as brilliant and appreciated student, goes to question Mrs. Hertz about this subject. Suzanne Hertz is visibly attentive about Jeremie's questions, but unable to listen to them. Though she knew professor Hopper for a brief time, she denies any links between them and sends Jeremie out of her office. Jeremie doesn't let it go: Mrs. Hertz is hiding things from him, and the telephone call she makes to the principal to warn him about Jeremie's visit and the sensitive questions he asked her confirms this. Jeremie flees.

As this is happening, Odd dreams of Eva. Inadvertently, he then lets his dog Kiwi escape. He chases him, but not quickly enough. Jim, the supervisor and sports teacher, has already caught the animal Odd surreptitiously hides in his room. Making the connection between master and dog, he takes Odd to the principal's office. Making too quick an entry for Delmas' liking, Odd overhears a conversation between the man and Mrs. Hertz. And that's when this incident shows its good side: Odd notices the principal quickly put away an old yellow dossier labelled "Waldo Schaeffer.'

After receiving a lecture, Odd hurries to meet his friends to tell them the news and Aelita is brought up-to-date with Jeremie's plan. Jeremie then delves into the secretary's dossiers to steal information on Hopper. He finds nothing, not even a copy of the resignation letter the teacher supposedly wrote on June 6, 1994…Jeremie highly doubts that this letter ever even existed. So that means that someone helped Franz Hopper to disappear from administration, but who? These questions are interrupted by a lamp exploding and Jeremie's computers crackling. These supernatural phenomenon immediately remind him of the evil multi-agent system he inadvertently awakened- X.A.N.A.

Ulrich, despite his better judgement, has stolen Kiwi from under Jim's nose to minimize Odd's punishment. He drops the dog off at Yumi's house, and though the girl doesn't give Kiwi a warm welcome, her brother Hiroki Ishiyama does. Night falls and Yumi's MP3 player explodes in the same manner as Jeremie's lamp. But Yumi doesn't have time to dwell on it: after a small mistake, Kiwi escapes the Ishiyama house. Hiroki chases him to the Hermitage where he discovers him injured, while Grigory Nictapolus discreetly flees the scene with his two hounds, avoiding have his face seen by Hiroki (chapter 3).

Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich, warned over the phone, escape into the night to reach Kiwi. While Hiroki nurses the dog, they go to the Hermitage to investigate the place where Kiwi was downed, shown by paw prints in the snow, of two hounds. Worse still, the prints, hastily masked, reveal the presence of a man with the two dogs. The conclusion: someone had been lurking about the Hermitage, with two big dogs. Jeremie then makes the decision to take out his computing gear and prepare to place the Hermitage under video surveillance. Unfortunately, Odd, back at Kadic, told on by Sissi, is caught by Jim and his punishment is worsened.

Far away, in Washington, a woman very high up the corporate ladder is warned by her agent "Lone Wolf" that an Internet search was done on Franz Hopper, in the very dormitory of Kadic Academy.

The woman, Dido, is very interested by this. She remembers the Hopper dossier, 10 years old and the only failure in what she would consider her brilliant career. Dido gives the order to investigate this thorny element, secretly hoping that she can maybe reopen the Hopper dossier, and put it away for good this time.

The next day, suspicious occurrences continue. For one, Mrs. Hertz acts in an absolutely strange manner contrary to all her regular habits and knocks Jeremie off his high horse. Also, at the Della Robbia house, as she comes home Marguerite, Odd's mother, discovers that someone is in the house… Terrified, she finds this person escaping through the window, without seeing anything distinctive (chapter 4).

On their end, the group equip the Hermitage with surveillance cameras. Back in Aelita's room the girl is stupefied and worried as she witnesses her television explode after a fleeting appearance of the eye of X.A.N.A.. At that same moment, Jeremie and Ulrich are in a big discussion about the ambiguous and chilled relationship between Yumi and the latter when they are interrupted: the cameras detect a weak-looking boy with red hair and freckles. Not seeming very dangerous, nor familiar, Jeremie reassures himself. Nonetheless he sends the image over to Aelita. She is convinced she knows him but doesn't manage to remember where from.

Not far away, Grigory Nictapolus is also following the scene. His micro-cameras installed at the Hermitage unbeknownst to the group and far superior to Jeremie's don't miss a second of the scene. Using his overly-powerful programs worthy of belonging to the secret service, he manages to identify the stranger: Richard Dupuis. An old student at Kadic, and Aelita's classmate for two years. (chapter 5)

The next day, the evening goes on as normal. While Odd is punished by Jim and confined to his room, he decide to watch the video records of the Hermitage, just in case he find something that missed by Jeremie and Ulrich. But he fall asleep instead. He receives a surprise night visit from Eva Skinner, who charms him and steals a kiss before leaving, giving him her address and phone number. Propelled onto cloud nine, Odd is nevertheless brought crashing back down to Earth by a detail on the surveillance recordings of the Hermitage, a detail that his friends hadn't noticed.

A part of the recording had been modified. Editing it with a program, Odd discovers the presence of Grigory and his hounds on the recording.

His friends had gotten material from their old factory during the afternoon, then laid a trap at the Hermitage before hunkering down for some nocturnal surveillance, lying in wait for another visit from the mysterious individual. When Richard Dupuis does arrive at the Hermitage, he is captured by the group and interrogated. He declares he wants to see professor Hopper because he received an encrypted message on his palm-computer, a message that exudes the letters "AELITA".

At Kadic, Odd realises that his friends are preparing to trap the man who isn't responsible for Kiwi's injuries. Not being able to contact them and being held at Kadic by Jim, he calls Eva Skinner and sends her to give the message at the Hermitage.

She does so and bursts into the Hermitage during the interrogation. Richard is at first astounded to see Aelita almost exactly as he'd known her when he was 12, while she should now be in her twenties. The group invent a story about her having an illness that prevented Aelita from growing, then let Richard go after being assured of his silence and learning of his whereabouts. Everyone leaves for their homes, including Eva Skinner.

Deeper in the city, Grigory turns up at the Della Robbias' door, lures Robert, Odd's father, outside, knocks him out and uses ultra-sophisticated gloves to copy his memories onto a disk (chapters 6/7/8).

The next day, Odd leaves Kadic to pay a visit to his father in the hospital. He is amnesic, his memory is a disaster zone with no logic. He learns from his mother that his father was attacked by a man in a pick-up truck with two dogs and makes the connection with the video recording. He is also given a memory card that was found near his father and goes back to Kadic.

At the school, Ulrich manipulates Sissi with his charms and false interests so that she'll help him with his perilous plan: get into the principal's office to take the Waldo Schaeffer dossier.

The papers contained in the dossier are filled with code. The same as the one that Hopper used on Lyoko in the Supercomputer. The same as the one in the coded message received by Richard Dupuis. Jeremie is incapable of translating it and controversy arises between them as to whether or not turning on the Supercomputer to translate the code quickly was a viable option.

The conversation is interrupted by Eva Skinner and Odd convinces his friends to tell her about the secret of the Supercomputer. Listening in with his microphones, Grigory rejoices and listens with his ears wide open (chapter 9). The heroes bring Eva to the factory and explain everything while she feigns surprise. Back at Kadic, they discover in the Schaeffer dossier an address in Brussels on a small scrap of paper. After consultation, Ulrich and Yumi decide to go there the next day; Friday, and the beginning of the weekend.

Aelita's nightmares are multiplied by a sleepwalking crisis. In the middle of the night, she wakes up in the sewer, then in front of the Hermitage (chapter 10). Troubled, she decides to contact Richard and ask him to talk to her about their past in order to shake off some of her persistent amnesia. After Richard explains how good friends they were; how she left him for a while to visit "Mister X", her secret friend that she had to help "discover his purpose in the world"…up until the day of her sudden disappearance, Aelita decides to talk to him about Lyoko.

In Brussels, Ulrich and Yumi find the address they're looking for; an abandoned apartment building. According to an old man from the area, it belongs to the secret service. They take photos of the lock and send it to Jeremie, then go to seek hospitality from a friend of the Ishiyamas who lives in Brussels.

At the same moment, Grigory infiltrates Yumi's parents' house. He enters their room, knocks them out and subjects them to the same device as he did to Odd's father. Hiroki, witnessing the scene, escapes to find Odd at Kadic. But when they arrive back at the scene, the deed has already been done. The Ishiyama parents are groggy and Grigory has fled the house (chapter 11).

Night time is an opportunity to ask questions. Jeremie ponders. Her attitude, the Schaeffer dossier, the address...what does Mrs. Hertz really know…? The attacks, the visits, the victims...who is the man with two dogs? The codes on the palm-computer...who is Richard? Did the message come from Hopper? Hopper… His hidden video, his insisting Aelita finds Anthea…X.A.N.A….?

Odd rethinks the memory card found with his father. After some reflection, he sees it as a reason to go see Eva Skinner and ask her for help, as she is good with computers. Purposefully leaving Jeremie out of the loop, he leaves Kadic the next day, Sunday, early and hurries to the address Eva left him.

Arriving at her house, he undresses to dry himself off and gives her the card. Eva plays the contents: a video. Odd then discovers, paralyzed, Aelita's mother, captive on film, forced to deliver an audio message obviously destined for Franz. Anthea explains to him that "these men" want Waldo to continue work on Project Carthage in exchange for Anthea's freedom and for "them" to allow the family to live in peace, she, Franz and Aelita.

Odd then wants to contact Jeremie, but it's at that moment X.A.N.A. reveals itself in Eva's body and imprisons Odd (chapter 12).

The next day at Kadic, Jeremie remarks Odd's absence but doesn't immediately worry about it.

Aelita tells him that she has another meeting with Richard to talk about her past. Jeremie is grumpy but can't stop her from leaving. Back in his room, he realises that someone has stolen the Schaeffer dossier. At that same moment, Mrs. Hertz, obsessed by recent events and the idea of Jeremie discovering the secret apartment in Belgium, decides to go and look in the principal's office to see if the dossier is still hidden there. She crosses Eva Skinner on the way, and finds out that the dossier is still in the office.

In Brussels, Ulrich and Yumi, growing closer and closer to the happiness of the former, force the lock thanks to the documentation Jeremie gave to them. They explore the floors and force another door that brings them into a secret room.

There, they discover a supercomputer prototype. Flabbergasted, they also notice helmets and futuristic gloves: prototypes of the scanners that allow them to virtualise their bodies directly into Lyoko. Feeling adventurous, they try the devices. They then realise that their minds are projected into a virtual world that is different from Lyoko. A replika, a nameless city, with many Oriental-styled building there.

They are there in their virtual clothing, but without weapons. Mantas are there, but lacking the Eye of X.A.N.A. on their bodies. They are in their virtual enveloped, but feel that only their minds are connected and their bodies are still on Earth wearing the neuronal headsets. Finally, and most importantly, while fleeing from the aggressive Mantas, they discover a ghost of professor Hopper inviting them to follow him. But the Mantas bombard them and their minds are disconnected from the replika. Their consciences are returned to Earth.

Ulrich and Yumi then receive a massive surprise to hear footsteps coming up the stairs. They find themselves confronted by agent Lone Wolf and his two acolytes, as well as a helicopter. Escaping via the staircase, windows and gutters, stealing a pizza scooter and mangling the road rules before hurling themselves into a metro station, they escape without injury.

Lone Wolf then calls Dido to tell her about this failure. Exasperated, she orders for the replica to be put under permanent surveillance. She then decides to contact their secret agent at Kadic to bring him out of retirement (chapters 13/14).

Richard, Ulrich, Jeremie, Aelita and Yumi meet up to recap everything. Their inventory has increased. They are going up against two sides: on one side the man with two dogs, above the law and violent in his actions. On the other, a more governmental organisation that is powerful enough to deploy a helicopter above a city in just a few minutes with the proper authorisations.

Jeremie sends his friends to look for Odd. Telling them he'll be working alone on Richard's computer's codes in his room, he actually goes to the factory, ready to turn the Supercomputer on. But at the fateful moment, he notices a presence in the room not far from him, like a rattling.

At Eva Skinner's house, Odd is tied up. X.A.N.A. reveals to him its plan to destroy humanity by using Eva, Odd himself and a third man with golden teeth. Odd doesn't know him but he's The Magician, Grigory's boss. Eva kisses Odd, putting him under X.A.N.A's control as well. The two leave, an evil plan already in mind.

Dido locks herself in her office and contacts The Magician, her enemy, for the first time in years. What follows is heated exchange in which questions are raised about old scores to settle. Hannibal reminds her that the factory and Lyoko were constructed with the Phoenix's money, and that they therefore belong to him. He also reminds her that Dido's organisation convinced a certain Walter to pack everything in…

Hannibal then expresses the Green Phoenix's wish to make a profit from the operation taking place in France, as compensation. He asks for the plans of the Supercomputer in the old factory in exchange for closing the Hopper file. Dido doesn't have time to refuse before he hands up, having been evasive about Anthea and her possible custody (chapter 15).

Victim of yet another sleepwalking, Aelita wakes up in the middle of the night at the Hermitage, obviously where her dreams have been trying to lead her for some time. In her slumber, she was even given an answer: she finds herself inside the secret room in the Hermitage in which, while asleep, she had scratched at a wall. Aelita quickly realises that this wall sounds hollow when she knocks the scratched wall: the Hermitage hadn't yet revealed all its secrets. Calling Jeremie to join her, she breaks through the thin wall with a pickaxe and discovers a second part of the secret room. This room contains a replika, incredibly similar to the one Ulrich and Yumi discovered in Brussels.

Without hesitation, Jeremie positions himself at the controls while Aelita enters a scanner similar to the ones at the factory but much older and dives into the third virtual world. This world is nothing but an extensive piece of land with a vast sky, and flat, green ground on which stand three oak trees. These trees are actually a sort of memory container. Each time Aelita touches one, the trunk opens and Aelita enters to relive a scene from the past.

The first tree is labelled "1985 - End of Project Carthage". Inside, Aelita relives several scenes between her father and her mother: the first when they discovered that Carthage, initially planned to allow for electric communications control at low cost enabling the spread of electricity all over the world, even in poorer countries, had been turned into a weapon of mass destruction. The second, in their lounge room, the day when Franz and Anthea decided to desert the project, destroy Carthage and recreate it alone elsewhere.

The second tree reads: "1985-1988: A Life Incognito".

In the first scene, Aelita witnesses the escape of her father and herself, an infant, from a military base with the help of a woman: Major Steinback. During the exchange between them, Aelita learns that her mother had been kidnapped.

The second scene takes place in a house. The very same Major Steinback visits Franz Hopper, who is living under a false identity. She tells him two things: that he will be moving again immediately, and the identity of the man who kidnapped his wife: Mark Hollenback, a young soldier who was so crafty he was nicknamed "The Magician".

The final scene takes place as Franz is moving into the Hermitage. Major Steinback, dressed in civilian clothing this time, comes to tell him his new identity: Franz Hopper, science teacher at Kadic Academy. She herself will be his lab assistant. She tells him two other things: firstly, she has located an abandoned factory which she has the owner's permission to work in and create an underground laboratory.

Secondly, Anthea's kidnapper has muddied the waters by joining a criminal organisation.

The third tree says "Enter only when your heart is ready". It seems to lead to a new part of the replika. But Aelita and Jeremie decide to explore it with their friends, and after a good night's sleep. (Chapter 16)

The next day, they go to Mrs. Hertz's class in a happier mood. However, they haven't realised two important things. The first, that Odd, underneath his usual flirting with Eva, is still under X.A.N.A.'s control. The second, that Major Steinback, the one who helped Franz ten years ago, is none other than the teacher preparing to teach them the class, Suzanne Hertz. (epilogue).

Differences from the Show[]

Replikas appear, but their design, purpose, and the way they are introduced are all completely different from the show. Hiroki recognizing Kiwi and regarding him fondly implies that the side plot of "A Space Oddity" still occurred in some capacity, despite the main plot of the episode contributing to the Replika arc that is noncanon to the novels.
Aelita was a student at Kadic back in 1994, whereas in the show she was home-schooled.
Odd claims to rarely use technology of any kind, whereas in the show he is an avid filmmaker. Also, his parents seem to live much closer to Kadic, as Odd no longer needs to fly by plane in order to get there.
Yumi has an entire group of friends her own age, whereas in the show she has no friends except for the Lyoko Warriors.