System Reboot (Sequel to System Failure)

Chapter 13

"What are they planning Adam?" Mitch asked.

I took a breath before replying. "They're going to take down all of the servers in every city on the whole planet, once and for all. One huge coordinated attack. Designed so that the Glitches won't be able to fight them all off at once."

The room was dead silent, which didn't exactly make me feel any better. I stared at the floor next to my feet and realised that my dark grey shoes had white highlights on them, which were cool but I kinda wished I had my old red sneakers back.

"How is it going to work?" Ian asked. "How are they going to coordinate it?"

"Some viruses have been brought into the real world and placed in cities all across the globe," I said, swallowing down the urge to stop talking. "At the signal in two days, they will put in the right barriers, links and bugs to allow the viruses to access any server, anywhere. No matter what kind of security it has."

"Who are the viruses in the real world?"

"I don't know who they are specifically, but they're viruses that were Glitches, but have been rebooted. Proper viruses can't come into the real world, they're pure code. But Glitches rebooted as viruses are already part human. They're everywhere. More than you know."

"How do we stop it Adam," Ty asked after a moment.

I shook my head. "You can't. It's designed so that it's unable to be stopped."

"There's got to be a way-"

"You can't stop it," I repeated, struggling to keep myself from yelling. "How are you going to protect every single mainframe at once? Every time you try to repair a firewall, there will be viruses tearing it down. We- They will be destroying every file faster than you can destroy u- them. Every virus ever created will attack in a single coordinated mass. You won't be able to stop us- it- whatever!"

They were silent again, which gave me the chance to unclench my fists and take a few breaths to try to calm myself down. Everything I knew was telling me to not trust these Glitches and especially not to tell them about this plan. My heart was telling me that if I couldn't trust them, then there was no one I could trust. I could feel Alesa watching me but I didn't raise my eyes up from the floor.

"How do you know the virus' plan?" I heard Ty ask. I felt guilty knowing that the wary understone in his voice was aimed at me.

"We all heard it," I muttered. "The orders came from Herobrine himself."

I glanced up enough to see Jin frown. "Herobrine? Who's he?"

"We don't know," I muttered. "He's not a virus but he's... not human either. He's the one who creates us, who gives us our orders, who sends us to attack the mainframes. He- He showed us-" I cut myself off quickly. That I couldn't say. "He tells us what to do; he reboots the Glitches."

"Was he the one who brought these Glitches into the real world?" Ian asked.

I shrugged. "Probably."

They started trading ideas off each other, wondering if they could find out where Herobrine was and who he was, the possibility of finding him before he could give the signal for the attack, ways to contact other cities to try and prevent the attack. I zoned out. I knew that they couldn't find Herobrine. Not even the viruses knew where he was, or who he was, or what he looked like. And if we didn't know anything about him when we all knew about him, then there was no way that they could.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Alesa's quiet voice jerked me out of my own head and I glanced around, seeing the empty room. "Where'd the others go?"

"They left to go home. You looked like you were thinking pretty hard, they didn't want to disturb you. Or make things harder for you." She tilted her head a little. "What were you thinking about?"

I shook my head a little and sighed. "Honestly... I don't know what's going through my head right now."

She gave me a small, slightly sad smile and gently squeezed my arm, as if she knew what this felt like. Which I guess she did, really. I mean, she was a virus too. She held out her hand, offering me a simple metallic bracelet that had a nametag-esque plate on it.

"Just a temporary," she explained. "To help you get in and out of the mainframes."

I slowly took it and clasped it on my wrist. I noticed that she still wore my amulet around her neck; I had slipped it secretly over when the mainframe was collapsing around us, because she meant more to me than anything else.

She squeezed my hand. "Let's go."

"Where?" I asked as we stood up.

She gave me another smile. "Home."