System Failure (An Adesa Fanfic) [Originally by Littlewolf65]

Chapter 12

Adam's POV
"She's a what?" I asked, Jason's words not registering with me.

"A glitch," Jason repeated. "But somehow she became a virus."

"Is that even possible?" Ty asked.

"Well, obviously it is. Alesa is proof."

"But how did she become a virus?" Jerome asked.

Jason gestured towards the computer. "Seto and Brice are doing some research now, mainly in the database of the city that she was posted in."

"Can you do that?" I asked doubtedly.

"I have connections," came Seto's voice from the computer. "All us AI's know each other somehow."

"Every city keeps a database of their glitches," Jin explained. "Sometimes glitches need to be transferred if a city is having trouble with their virus population. If we can access the database of the city that Alesa worked in, we can figure out how she became a virus."

"If you figure out how I became a virus, can you change me back?" Alesa asked, her hands slowly twisting together.

Jason shook his head a little. "Probably not. It's only been in the past few years that we've been able to change humans into part code, we can't figure out how to change them fully into code yet, so we can't reverse the process either."

"And I got it!" Brice said triumphantly. Jason and Jin's computer screens filled with new code that quickly changed into letters and the two quickly read it, the rest of us waiting in nervous tension.

"Jason, Jin, you're killing us with this suspense, just spill it already," Ty finally blurted.

"I remember hearing about this just over a year ago," Jason said, turning around slightly. "So Alesa was a glitch in a city near the coast, right? She was a pretty good one too apparently, had worked for a few years as a glitch."

"If by pretty good, you mean freaking awesome and highly skilled," Jin muttered.

"Well yeah. Anyway, their virus population was starting to get out of control and one day there was an attack on the city's mainframe. It was only one virus at first but it was extremely powerful and it was starting to infect the entire system. All the files were being corrupted beyond redemption. According to this, Alesa and her partner D-"

"Dawn," Alesa interrupted, her eyes fixed on the ground. "Her name was Dawn. We had been friends since primary school and had become glitches together."

Jason blinked. "Yeah, Dawn. Anyway, Alesa and Dawn were the first glitches called to the system to attack the virus. But by the time they got there, the entire system was almost overrun with viruses."

"There's not a heap of information on what happened during that," Jin said, scrolling through the words on his screen. "Apparently the two started taking on the viruses but they were quickly being overwhelmed. There were firewalls that separated the central mainframe from the private computers but-"

"But the firewalls were being torn down by the first virus," Alesa said. "The only reason that Dawn and I weren't killed in the first few minutes was because the viruses were too busy ripping down what was left of them. They were ready to spread out and attack the entire city. Dawn was hurt pretty badly but she was still fighting. I was trying to cover her back as best as I could."

"So what happened?" I asked, my eyes flicking between Alesa and Jason, not really wanting to know the answer but needing to at the same time.

"Alesa came up with an idea to stop the viruses," Jason continued. "She told the people at the glitch base to shut down the mainframe. All of it. It would put the city in chaos for a few hours because all communication, wifi, data, everything would be inaccessible. But it would also dump everything into cyberspace, meaning that all the viruses would be destroyed and the mainframe would be safe."

Mitch crossed his arms. "I'm sensing that there's a 'but' about to come."

"Yeah. You see, what happened-"

"The mainframe started collapsing while Dawn and I were still fighting," Alesa said in a quiet voice. "The ground was becoming unstable and viruses were falling into cyberspace. We couldn't get out because the viruses were still trying to get through the firewalls and destroy files. But Dawn didn't notice that the ground was falling apart underneath her, and..."

"The city mainframe was saved and 98% of the files were undamaged," Jason said, watching Alesa. "Dawn was pulled from the mainframe just before it shut down completely, but... by pushing Dawn to safety, Alesa fell into cyberspace. She died within the mainframe."

My hand wrapped around Alesa's and I squeezed it slightly. Her eyes were still fixed on the ground but her hand tightened the tiniest bit around mine. "Okay," Ty said slowly, "so how is she here and very much alive?"

Jason shrugged. "No one has ever come back from cyberspace as far as I am aware," he said. "Seto, Brice, have you ever heard of it?"

"The only reason I can think of as to why she's alive is if she never died," Brice said. "I mean... cyberspace is a weird place, it probably wouldn't be too impossible for her to have survived somehow and then... I don't know, reboot or something."

"Being rebooted into a virus?" Jerome asked, frowning slightly. "Is that even possible?"

Jin and Jason both shrugged. "No other glitch that has died inside a mainframe has come back," Jin said. "But Alesa did fall into cyberspace, which is different to being killed by a virus's sword."

"Alesa? Are you okay?" I whispered. She had started to shake and I gently brushed her hair that had fallen over her face away.

"I became a virus," she breathed, her voice ragged. "I became the ones that I had sworn to destroy."

"That's not your fault," I told her quietly.

She shook her head. "I think it is. If I had been faster to react, the mainframe would have been shut down sooner and Dawn and I could have both gotten free. And... And if I hadn't let my guard down then Dawn wouldn't have been hurt and if I had gone for the first virus instead of trying to take down the smaller ones then it wouldn't have been able to keep corrupting files which meant that the mainframe would never had to be shut down and-"

"Hey," I said, gently squeezing her hand again. "If any of that had happened, then I would never have met you. And... I wouldn't want..."

I didn't finish what I wanted to say but Alesa seemed to understand anyway and she gave me a grateful smile. The other glitches had been talking during out quiet conversation and I started to listen again when the building gave a low rumble and the floor shook a little, throwing Jason's headset to the ground. A few hard drives on the other side of the room started smoking and cracking and Jason's computer screen flicked to black, the space where Seto and Brice's voices had been becoming static as the building shook again.

Thanks to Bladewing683 for giving me the glitch database idea.

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Bai!