Upgrade (Jeresquip)

Virus

Jeremy pulled away as soon as I began glitching.

"Are you ok?" He looked worried, but I couldn't form words. I stiffly nodded, the glitching calming down a little bit. I hated how weak I had become. I was a failure and Jeremy could see what a failure I had become.

"Y-yeah I'm f-f-fi-ine..." I stopped glitching, but my voice was still a bit messed up. A loud, high-pitched noise rang out on my head, and my vision blurred severely. Why was this all happening at once? I prayed it was because my update had malfunctioned. Lately, the only things I've felt were fear and sadness. 

"You should sit down." Jeremy grabbed my hand and guided me to the couch. Why was he being so nice to me? As soon as the ringing was over, I stood up and went to the spare room. I turned on music softly and began dancing my pain and stress away. It was a habit, but it wasn't something I liked over people knowing about me.

After a while, I glitched out again, a staticky noise erupting from my body. My hands switched between binary code and my physical form. 1s and 0s filled my vision, along with static. Jeremy heard the noise and found me frozen there, glitching worse than I ever have before. I shut myself down, trying to find the problem. That's when I saw it. It was a virus. And it wasn't a virus you'd expect to be on Jeremy's laptop. It was downloaded malware. The only people able to download that kind of code into my program are my creators. They're trying to shut me down.

I turned back on and stumbled to Jeremy's laptop clumsily. My vision was full of static, but I could see a bit through the gaps. "D-do y-ou st-s-st-ill have m-my-" I was cut off by another outburst of static, but Jeremy understood me anyways.

"Yeah, haven't found out how to delete it yet." He said quickly, opening up the files for me. I looked up at him, totally helpless. I still needed my USB, and the only other one I had was with Elizabeth. Luckily, Jeremy pulled it out of the desk and plugged it into his laptop. My fingers flew over the keys. I tried desperately to delete the virus, but it didn't work. Jeremy took over so I could shut down and help from the inside. After about 45 minutes of failed attempts, I found what I needed. I turned myself back on and deleted the virus. Everything suddenly stopped. My vision cleared, my head stopped spinning, my body was still, and the ringing had stopped. We did it.

Panting heavily, I hugged Jeremy. My translator was slow, so I did the only other thing I knew. "Arigatō." I said quietly, knowing Jeremy understood.

"Anything for a friend." He smiled back, and my face flushed. He called me a friend?