System Reboot (Sequel to System Failure)

Chapter 1

Alesa's POV
I couldn't help but be amazed at the height of the Sparkles Tech building as we approached the large slowly rotating doors. It was about 30 stories tall which, compared to some other buildings in the city, wasn't that tall at all, and it wasn't very or intricate or terribly unique, but the contract of black glass with silver metal made it impressive regardless. Above the front door was a large plaque with the logo of the popular games company and dozens of employees and such moving in and out of the large rotating doors.

The quick footsteps of my partner and I rang on the marble floors as we entered the building, our trench coats flapping about our legs and our weapons firmly secured at our sides, identifying us as Glitches. The receptionist barely had time to gives us a nod before we entered the elevator, riding it up to the fifth floor and watching as the foyer dropped out of sight below.

"What job number is this?" I asked my partner, rolling my shoulders a bit. My legs were starting to ache from all the walking we were doing but I ignored it.

My partner, Ty, gave a heavy sigh, his eyes watching the LED panel as it counted the floors we passed. "Ten? Twelve? I can't remember, they've all started to blur together."

He was wearing his usual gear: a white tee and grey pants under a bright green trench coat that had a small band of purple going through the middle and bottom of the coat and the ends of the sleeves. At his side was his large, double-edged diamond sword and he drummed his fingers on the hilt impatiently as the elevator slowly rose. His dark brown hair was styled to hang over one of his eyes, with his black and green headphones doing nothing to keep it back.

I was dressed in a nearly identical fashion, but my coat was mostly black with a strip of purple, and underneath I wore grey shorts, t-shirt and sneakers. Instead of a sword, I had two lengths of chain hung in rings on either side of my waist and a purple and gold amulet hung around my neck. My bright red hair came down to my shoulders.

"At least we're not on the night shift again," I reminded him.

The ghost of a smirk appeared on Ty's face. "I'll forever be in debt to that hotdog place down 7th street, that was the best meal I've ever had."

I chuckled as I recalled the memory. The night shift was never fun, but with the increase in virus attacks, it had only become worse, save for the 24-hour hotdog place. Why it was open 24 hours, I didn't know but I wasn't going to complain.

The elevator dinged open as we reached the fifth floor and we both put our game faces on as we swiftly walked out of the elevator to be met by a man with messy black hair, red sunglasses and a black suit, standing with his arms crossed and his foot tapping nervously on the carpeted floors.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," he said as soon as he saw us, already starting to lead us further into the building.

"It's our job Mr Sparkles," Ty said. There was no need for introductions; we had visited Sparkles Tech at least five times in the past few weeks. It had become one of the hot spots for virus attacks. "Where's the virus this time?"

"This room here," Mr Sparkles said, opening a door to reveal a room full of rows of computers and a handful of employees who were snatching the last few files off of the computers, yanking out USBs just before the harddrives sparked and smoked and red lines of code dashed across the computer screens. "It just seemed to happen out of nowhere, our programs started closing down unexpectedly and files started to go missing for no reason."

"You've shut down the system? Wifi, emails, all that?" Ty asked.

Mr Sparkles gave a nod. "Naturally, it's standard procedure. We've scanned all of our other servers as well, and they seem to be mostly intact for the moment."

I walked along the aisles, watching the computer screens and jumping back a little as one particular computer gave a large bang and smoked and the one beside it gave a faint buzz before likewise smoking. "We've probably two viruses running around here Ty, but if the firewall has been damaged then more will be joining the party."

"Nice." Ty stretched and cracked his knuckles before giving a nod to Mr Sparkles. "We'll take care of the ones in here as quickly as we can so that you can get back to work."

"I'd appreciate that a lot," Mr Sparkles said. "We've just started beta testing. Be careful." He gave both of us a nod as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Ty tapped the microphone connected to his headset and I heard his voice crackle to life in my earpiece as well as hearing it from where he stood, which was annoying as the earpieces were half a second delayed. "Are you ready Jason?"

There was some static for a few moments before Jason's voice came through. "Yup, let's get this show on the road, are you at Sparkles Tech?"

"Yeah it was on the way to our one in George Street," I said, tapping the back of one of the computers. "The server number is 501A Jason, work your magic."

I heard the faint tapping of a keyboard then Jason's whistle. "Some serious damage has been done to this server guys, there's a lot of corrupted files. Only two viruses though, a worm and a trojan."

"Good thing we've got our own worm," Ty said, glancing up at me with a grin.

I grinned back, shifting my hair slightly so that it covered my right eye. My left was it's normal brown colour but the right was dark green and full of code. A few years ago I was a Glitch working in a different city but I had fallen into cyberspace to save my old partner, Dawn. Only six months ago, I had become a virus and although I was once again working for the Glitches, I had kept some of my virus-like qualities which came in very handy at times.

"Have fun guys, and be careful, it's going to take me a while to repair this firewall," Jason said through the earpieces.

"No promises," Ty said, still grinning. He pressed down on the green gem on the side of his headphones and they gave a small click. He froze, his body fading into bright green codes that were sucked into the USB port of a computer, and he was gone.

I held up a hand to the amulet I wore. It had originally belonged to a different Glitch, Adam, who technically had never been my boyfriend but we had both known that that's what we were. It had been a few months since his death now, but I carried his amulet as a reminder of my promise to continue what he was loyal to, and take down any virus who threatened our world.

Speaking of which, there were two right now who were asking to be killed.

With a grin, I pressed down on the purple gem and the world dissolved into bright green codes as I entered the mainframe.