"Hey! Vince!" I whispered to my friend who stood beside me.

 "What?"

"Who killed the old WGO President?" I had been making it a point to ask him this at least once every day, preferably when we were out of the other Codies' earshot. Until now, he'd answered correctly every time, which meant Amanda hadn't yet wiped his mind with whatever kind of mutated Glitch powers she had. 

"Oh, talking about old Stan?" He shook his head. "He, his girlfriend Ashley, and two of his buddies died in a car accident a few years ago. It's a pity, they were nice people. Who told you about them anyway?"

Oh no.

"Vince, is this a joke?" I asked.

"No, what are you talking about!? What kind of messed up person jokes about the death of four people?"  

"Okay, I need you to come with me behind the concession stand over there," I pointed to a little closed off pocket.

"No time, practice starts in five minutes!" He pointed to his green and gold Team Codie Glitchketball jersey. 

"I know," I said. "I'm on the team too, remember? But this is serious! You need to hear this immediately!" I half dragged Vince across the Glitchketball court and into the trees. 

"Justin, chill!" He yelled, flustered. "What's going on?"

"She made you forget." 

"What the..."

"She made you forget how she killed them." And then I explained everything, just the way he had told me to. I started with the fact that Amanda could manipulate Glitches just like Glitches could manipulate regs, and how she had erased the memories of the only people who remembered how she had murdered four at age thirteen. 

"Whoa...I'm not sure if I should believe you, but I do," Vince laughed dryly. "That is the strangest thing...And you said I told you my research was stored on a hidden file in the CCD? Wow, I thought Amanda had access to the entire CCD. I didn't even know I had the skills to conceal part of it from her. Here, let me check," Vince pulled out what looked like an ordinary iPad and began to type. 

However, the fact that it projected a 3-D hologram in front of us instead of the conventional screen made me certain it was Code-hacked. 

"Welcome to the Codie Code Database, or CCD," said an automated voice as Vince clicked on a glowing green app. "Please state your credentials."

"Vincent Cobbler, second-in-command of the Codie Division," he said slowly and deliberately. 

"Vincent Cobbler, you are authorized," It concluded, and a bright holographic representation of WGO's logo appeared in the air above the iPad, followed by the letters "CCD," in swirling green. 

When the letters were gone, they were immediately replaced by lines and lines of little green file names followed by strings of letters and numbers that looked like computer code. "Is that-"

"Yeah," Vince smiled. "That's Eva's little miniature version of the Code she uses to store stuff in the CCD. It looks almost exactly like the actual Code." 

"Wait...so whenever you Glitches look at something, you see it covered in that?" I looked away for a second, the imitation Code was making me very dizzy. 

"Yeah, pretty much. Except the real thing's bigger and more dynamic." 

"Whoa, how do you not go crazy? I can't even look at the stuff for a few seconds!" 

"You get used to it," Vince laughed. "Okay, here comes awesomeness," he clicked quickly and excitedly, toggling to his personal files, then to ones labeled "private." Sure enough, there was one labeled "Amanda's Manipulation," that wasn't connected to the rest of the CCD by lines of pseudo-Code. It was completely separate, hidden. 

Taking a deep breath in, he opened the file. Almost instantly, a pop-up window appeared. "This file has been deleted by the administrator." 

"What? This doesn't make sense! How is she supposed to delete it if she can't access it?" 

"Amanda found it?" I asked, my heart thumping hard in my chest. 

"No! The CCD administrator isn't Amanda, it's-"

"Eva," said a loud voice from the other side of the concession stand. A few seconds later, there were footsteps and the speaker came into view. 

"Busted." 

"Jade?" I asked, confused. She was honestly the last person I was expecting, but at least it wasn't Amanda. 

"Hey guys," she smirked. 

"How'd you-"

"Eva found out about your little file a couple of days ago while doing a routine check of the CCD, and realized it was going to get you in a lot of trouble if Amanda ever found it. So she decided to be a nice person and delete it, removing all evidence that it ever existed. This way, Amanda will never find out." 

"Wait...Eva hiding something from Amanda? I don't know about you, but that just doesn't seem right to me."

"You're right. I don't hide things from Amanda, and neither should you."

"Eva?" Vince's jaw dropped.  

"You really thought I would destroy all evidence of your file? I actually have it saved to my personal files, and I've just dropped it by Amanda through the Code. She's probably found and read it by now, along with a notice to be here behind the concession right about, let's see, now." She smiled at the pompous footsteps behind the bushes. 

"Oh, Amanda, so nice of you to join the party," Eva smiled. 

"My pleasure," the WGO President's voice echoed grandiosely even in the small, cramped space we were in. 

"So, would anyone care to explain to me what this is?" She hissed, pointing to a glowing green file of Code titled 'Amanda's Manipulation' on the screen of her own iPad." 

"Um..." Vince and I both said at the same time, our hearts stuck in our throats. 

I nearly fell over when I saw the long, gleaming pocketknife in Amanda's hand. 

I love you Mom, I love you Dad, I love you Claire. I'm gonna miss you guys. 

"You're very smart, Vince," she smiled, looking from knife to iPad to us. "Too smart for your own good. I'll have to say I'm impressed. You almost outsmarted me this time. Almost."

And then, so fast I couldn't even blink, Amanda's knife was in the air and there was blood. I looked up to see Vince crumpled on the ground, but before I could react, everything went black.