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

Chapter 13

Adam's POV
Jason swore as his computer's hard drive made popping sounds and started to smoke, sparks flying from the USB port. We all stared at it for a moment then the realisation dawned and everyone instantly split up, Jin and Jason's team rushing to their computers, putting on headsets and starting to type furiously.

Quentin and Ian ran out of the main room, calling the other glitches to the main room while Mitch and Jerome stood near the computers, Mitch holding his dog tags while Jerome fiddled with the bracelet on his wrist.

"What's happening?" Alesa asked nervously.

"Viruses," Jason said darkly, looking up from where he had been leaning over Jin's shoulder to watch his screen. "They're attacking our mainframe."

"That's supposed to be impossible," Ty said.

"Yeah, well, they've already taken down several of our firewalls," Jin said, his fingers moving like lightning over the keyboard. "They've killed both Seto and Brice but I think Seto managed to load some of his data into the final firewall from the fact that it's a lot stronger now."

"But the firewalls are impenetrable from the outside," Jason said angrily, his fingers tapping on the desk. "That's how I designed them, they can only be taken down from the inside, how are they doing this?"

Something clicked in my head and I looked at Alesa's amulet. She had been inside the mainframe, and her amulet would have been connected to the system, allowing her access. If a bug had happened to be in it...

"Adam, something tells me you've had a lightbulb moment," Ty said.

"We couldn't find Alesa's amulet this morning," I said, my words getting steadily faster. "We found it lying in a different part of my apartment but it had no reason to be there. If someone had loaded a bug onto it, then when we put her in the mainframe to scan her, the bug would have gotten out and started to destroy the firewalls from the inside, letting in the viruses. We wouldn't have noticed and neither would have Seto and Brice, we were too busy asking about Alesa's backstory."

"I hate viruses," Jin said furiously. "Present company excepted."

"And when the bug took down the firewalls, it also took out Seto and Brice," Ty added.

"If we're going to do something, can we do it now?!" someone yelled from a desk. "The viruses are destroying our files and stealing others, we don't want that stuff to get out."

"We'll send everyone in as a group," Jason said, looking over his shoulder at the other glitches who were running into the room, hands on weapons.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Ian and Quentin holding swords. "Here," Ian said, handing our spare ones to Ty and I while Quentin offered a third to Alesa. She took it with the barest amount of hesitation.

"Coms on!" Jason yelled.

I tapped my mic a few times and heard the sound play in my ear. I glanced at Alesa standing beside me, her face full of nervous tension but she still gave me a small smile. "Stay close to me," I told her and she nodded.

"Go!" Jin said. I pressed down on my amulet, the glitches around me dissolving into green particles and zooming into the USB ports of the various computers. The mainframe formed around me and I instantly heard Jin screaming to duck in my ear and I obeyed without thinking, something slicing the air above my head.

I quickly glanced around; Ty was just forming on my left and Alesa was taking on a Trojan just to my right. I lunged towards her, my sword going under the virus's guard and into its chest. It made a small gasping sound before toppling over and dissolving into red codes.

"This is a lot of viruses," Ty muttered to me, his head flicking in every direction. Viruses were sprinting everywhere, ripping apart files, slashing at glitches, breaking down the firewalls. I had never seen so many viruses in one place.

"Let's get to work," I said, splitting my sword into two. "Stick together, don't get separated. We'll cover each other's backs."

Ty, Alesa and I ran through the mainframe, attacking every virus we could see but it seemed that for every one we attacked, another three entered the system. I heard a constant chatter through my earpiece as Jin and Jason tried to repair the firewalls as they were being destroyed and the spontaineous shout of warning to a glitch.

"Little help here!" I heard Mitch shout, both in my ear and in the mainframe. He and Jerome were fighting three worms at once over to my left. I glanced to Ty.

"You help," I said quickly before a spyware jumped out of nowhere and lashed out at Alesa. She barely managed to dodge the dagger in time and it left a deep cut on her upper arm, red codings spilling out. I thrust my sword at the worm's chest but it parried and leapt forward, aiming for my throat. The dagger slipped out of its hand as a blade sprouted from the front of its chest and it disintergrated into red particles.

"Thanks," I said, grinning at Alesa. Behind her, I saw a polymorphic virus dissolve into the files and I gave a sigh. "These viruses are gonna be a pain to get out of the files."

"Yea- Watch out!" She pushed me out of the way just as the red outline of a worm wizzed past us, a red blade flashing out where my head had been half a second before. Alesa leaned to the side and the blade barely missed her neck, instead catching on the cord of her amulet and cutting it free from her neck.

It clattered to the ground and the worm stepped on it, the gem and the chip inside crushed to pieces. The worm had only a second to gloat before I separated its head from its body. Alesa felt around her neck, not realising that the amulet was gone until she saw the shattered pieces on the ground.

"There's too many viruses!" I heard Ian say through my earpiece. "We can't take them all down!"

"He's right, they're overrunning the mainframe," Jason said. "The firewalls are getting torn down faster than we can rebuild them and the final firewall is going to be destroyed soon."

"I thought Seto downloaded himself into it," Ty said.

"That's why it's lasted until now."

"If we're going to do something about these viruses," Mitch yelled, "we'd better do it soon cause we can't hold them off for much longer."

I met Alesa's eyes. She met my gaze seriously, knowing as much I did that the mainframe was lost. A lightbulb went off in my head and I gasped, my eyes widening.

"We need to shut it down."