System Reboot (Sequel to System Failure)

Chapter 13

Adam's POV
The pounding in my head was bad, but it wasn't as bad as looking around and knowing that I should recognise where I was and who was around me but just... not. It was like a huge blackhole in the back of my head that was continuously sucking my information and memories away and occasionally, I'd get a fragment of memory, barely managing to hold onto it before it vanished again.

For the first few hours, there was just the low, constant terror of something being horribly, horribly wrong. The terror of being in a place that I knew but didn't remember, with people I recognised but didn't recall, with names that were so familiar yet completely alien. I felt like I was bordering on out-right panic, but I knew I was home at the same time. Alesa stayed beside me the whole time; her mere presence was enough to calm me down. I didn't remember everything or even a lot about her, or about... anything else really, but just seeing her made me feel better, and just holding her hand made me feel safer.

It took a while for me to calm down enough to be able to function properly, and by then I was starving. Ty had dropped in in the morning and although he had to go out for work, he came back for lunch and he and Alesa took me out to the hot dog place. It was the smell that reminded me of it because wow, that place smelled really good. And the food was even better.

"Slow down Adam, you're gonna choke at this rate," Ty chuckled after we had gotten our orders.

I swallowed the half of the hotdog I had taken a bite out of. "Sorry," I muttered, keeping my eyes down on my food. I felt like I hadn't eaten for months, which I guess was true. I hadn't needed to eat as a virus.

Ty and Alesa were quiet for a moment, then the former slid over his plate to me with his spare chips. I glanced up at him, a sideways smile on my face that he returned, and I knew that I had my best friend back.

But even that was blurry at the edges, like a smudged photograph. The one thing that was clear in my head - maybe the only thing - was that I was a virus. Sure, I knew somewhere that I had been a Glitch beforehand, but the fact that I was a virus somehow seemed more real. More important.

And that made my skin crawl as I sat in the break room with the rest of the Glitches, all seated in a rough semi-circle. Because although I had fleeting memories of sitting here as a Glitch and being one of them, I felt like I was in enemy territory, that the best thing to do was to get the hell out of here and get back into the mainframes, and maybe take out a few of them on the way. And it was worse when everyone's faces were vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put memories to the names.

Jason leaned forward a little. I looked down to avoid his eyes. "I know your memories probably aren't the greatest, but what do you remember?"

I frowned a little as I thought, but my mind just stayed blank and I huffed. "I don't know," I muttered, more annoyed with myself than anything. "When I try to think about my memories, I come up empty. There's just nothing there. But random things just keep popping up as I go along. Like... like that sandwich store on the corner of the block has half price sandwiches on the first Monday of every month."

"Actually it's Fridays now, they changed it," Jerome informed me.

I felt horribly offended by the news and I guess it showed on my face because a few of them chuckled. It made me relax a little. I glanced back at Jason. "If you ask me specific questions, that might help. With my memories."

Jason nodded a little, glancing around at the others as if sharing some sort of knowing look that didn't include me. "We know that the viruses are planning something, probably some sort of attack," he said. "Do you know anything about it?"

I did. As soon as he mentioned it, information leapt into my mind with much greater ease than my other memories. I instantly knew that I wasn't supposed to tell them... But they were my friends, and I had trusted them in the past, so I nodded.