System Reboot (Sequel to System Failure)

Chapter 8

No doubt people were confused to see a group of Glitches running through the city with grins on their faces, but we didn't spare them the time of day as we crowded into the elevator and rode it up to the base.

"We got him!" Ian half-yelled, holding the USB high as we ran into the main room.

"Perfect!" Jason said, spinning around as he flicked off his headphones and held out a hand for the highly important stick. "Hop in, Jin will get the Ext-"

I missed the rest of his sentence as I had already pressed down on my amulet and dissolving into the mainframe, reappearing in the same place where I was standing, but with the familiar surroundings of green code and black space. The other Glitches joined me a few seconds later, Mitch and Ian staying in the real world.

"You guys are late," I said with a laugh.

"A wizard is never late," Quentin instantly replied.

Jerome scoffed. "So you're the wizard now? I thought Jason was."

"Aw, thanks Jerome," Jason's voice said over the earpiece. "But my wizard skills aside, you guys ready for this?"

I unhooked both of my chains, making sure they didn't have any kinks that would cause them to go off-course. The others readied their weapons again, gathering in a crescent moon shape around where the USB port would appear. At our signal, Jason put in the USB and a bright green doorway appeared but before we could approach it, a bright red orb spat out of it, whizzing into the air above us and out of reach.

Luckily, I was ready for it and I threw my chain up, managing to snag the orb but Adam's speed meant that he kept moving and I was yanked off of my feet, flying a good distance before his momentum failed and we crashed back to the ground. He reformed into human shape as he fell, landing next to me with his sword already drawn and raised, coming down to strike.

But he flinched as he looked at me, hesitating yet again and his attack stopped. I didn't allow myself the same feeling and I spun my feet around, knocking his out from underneath him and he fell, the breath knocked out of him. The others had reached me by then and they surrounded him, ripping his sword away and holding his arms behind his back as he kicked and struggled, yelling at them.

"Jason, if you're going to use the Extractor, now's the time," I said through my earpiece, ready to throw one of my chains if Adam got free.

"I know, we're on it," Jason said shortly.

A few seconds later, Adam froze a little in his struggling and his body dissolved into red coding, being forcibly sucked into the real world by the Extractor. Instantly, Ty pressed down on his headphones and also disappeared. The others and I followed and found Mitch, Jerome and Ty fighting Adam, back in the real world, no longer with a sword but still refusing to go down without a fight. His face was set in a snarl and one of his eyes was a deep green with code racing in the iris, but the other was his usual deep, warm brown. Human.

"Get him to the room, don't let him get to the computers," Jason yelled.

Ian and Quentin stepped up to block the way between Adam and the computers while I ran out of the room, taking the corridors to get me around to the other side of the main room, ending up behind Adam. I crouched a little in the doorway, ready.

I don't know if Adam had any hand-to-hand combat training while he was a Glitch, but he was like a demon now, keeping off all three of the men. To be fair, none of them were using their weapons for fear of hurting him, but I had no such misgivings. As soon as I saw a chance, I flicked one of my chains forward and it wrapped around Adam's torso, pinning one of his arms to his chest. He snarled and turned to see where it had come from but my other was already flying forward and wrapped around him a second time, pinning his other arm to his chest as well.

Jerome took the chance and nearly tackled Adam to the ground in a sort of bear hug, pushing him towards the empty room we had set up while I pulled on my chains. We had only just managed to get him in when Adam snapped and slipped his body free from Jerome's grasp, causing the Glitch to nearly crash into me, which made me loosen my grasp on the chains.

Adam ripped one arm free, then the other, throwing one of my chains at Mitch while whipping the other around to hit Ty across the face and he kept the chain travelling to hit me, but he pulled it out of range just before it hit me. A look crossed his face - Maybe I was just imagining it, but I thought I saw the face of horror.

Then Mitch came out of nowhere, smashing one fist across Adam's head, which made him give a furious shout of pain and fall to his knees, disorientated. I quickly scooped up my chain from his loose grasp.

"I'm sorry Adam," I said quickly and quietly before sprinting with the others out of the small room.

Jerome and Mitch swung the door shut and spun the heavy spoke wheel on the front to seal it as Adam crashed against it, kicking and shoving it but the door held strong. We backed up a few steps, breathing heavily. Through the small reinforced window on the door, we could see Adam's furious glare staring at us as he paced around the room, snarling, but he wasn't going anywhere.

"Well that worked," Mitch puffed as we rejoined the others in the main room. "What the heck was in that room Jason?"

"Our old physical back-ups," was the reply. "The information is pretty outdated but it's still got the original copies of the codes for our firewalls and files and things, hence the heavy security. I've just put them in a lockbox in the break room for now."

"So now that we've got him," Ian said, "what do we do with him? He doesn't exactly seem all that eager to talk about whatever plan the viruses have. How are we going to change him back?"

"I think I might have a way to solve that problem," Jin said.