Alesa's POV
My phone buzzed against my bedside table, only just loud enough to stir me from my sleep. I ignored it and settled back down into the warm sheets, starting to drift off until my phone buzzed a second time and I groaned, rolling over to reach out my hand and grab it, opening a bleary eye to reach the text that apparently came from Jason.

'Code Red: Major attack on city mainframe. Need you all there ASAP'

I huffed and flopped back in bed for a moment, shutting my eyes. "Alright, get up, time to go to work," I told myself and I heaved my body up and out of my lovely warm bed. A glance at the clock told me that I only had ten minutes before my alarm would have gone off anyway, but I detested losing the extra ten minutes regardless.

I got dressed, remembering to drop my phone into my pocket, and grabbed an apple from the kitchen before throwing on my trench coat and double checking that my amulet was around my neck (I always wore it) before hooking my chains onto my belt and dashing out of my apartment, taking the stairs two at a time down to the bottom floor. I ate my apple as I jogged to the city hall, flicking through my phone with my other hand to call Ty.

"I'm up, I'm up!" Ty's voice said the instant he picked up the phone.

"You sure? You sound half asleep," I said back, taking another bite.

"Oh hey Alesa, I thought you were Jason. Did he send you three text messages about the attack?"

"Nope, only one," I said with a laugh. "Meet you at city hall."

"Okay, I'll be there in five. Or ten."

I laughed and hung up. I finished off my apple (core and all; everyone thought it was weird) and slowed to a walk as I entered the city hall. It was a two story building with a glass dome that took up most of the roof, allowing sunlight into the main room below. The receptionist desk sat against the back wall, full of neatly organised paper and computer screens, the receptionists huddled in a corner near it, chatting nervously as the screens flickered and the computers hissed and sparked.

The rest of the room was full of people in suits and dresses moving around, making way for the Glitches who were running into the room and dissolving into code. Most of the civilians paid them little heed, busily focused on their phones or laptops or deep in the middle of a conversation.

To my right however, near one of the corners of the room, stood a suited man with his arms crossed over his chest, a stony expression. He didn't have a briefcase or a laptop or even a phone like most people here, and he wore sunglasses even though we were indoors and the light from the dome wasn't enough to merit eye protection. I couldn't quite tell, but he seemed to be watching the glitches as they ran into the mainframe. There was something about him that was familiar, but I couldn't quite pick where-

"Hey, you coming?" someone yelled from my left, breaking my attention on the suited man. I glanced over and saw Ross and Barney running into the action.

"I'm waiting for Ty!" I called over to them.

"Okays!" Barney yelled, waving. "Sees you there!" He pressed down on a badge pinned to his shirt and he dissolved into code and disappeared, Ross following a split second after.

I tapped my foot a little impatiently as I waited. I heard Jason's voice crackle to life over my earpiece and say that Ty was on his way, and a few minutes later, he finally showed up, puffing. He leaned over his knees, holding up a hand for me to wait, and after a few seconds he stood back up, taking a deep breath. "Okay, let's go."

I pressed down on my amulet as I ran towards the computers and the world dissolved around me and reformed into the black and green and chaotic world of the mainframe. Almost instantly, something crashed into me and I fell heavily onto my back, the air escaping from my lungs in a woof. I blinked the stars out of my eyes, barely seeing the virus that had tackled me and only just recognising the dagger they lifted up when a sword flashed out and stabbed into their chest and they dissolved into coding.

"Thanks," I wheezed to Ty as he held out a hand to lift me up.

"No problem."

Now back on my feet, I stood back to back with Ty, chains in hand. The mainframe was in chaos around us as viruses lept from code to code, darting around and occasionally coming the wrong way of a Glitch's weapon. There were holes in the walls of the room, green code slowly spreading out of the edges but unable to stop the viruses that came leaping through on occasion. A dozen Glitches were already here, fighting off the viruses but we weren't doing much against the sheer numbers. Then again, we didn't need to hold them off indefinitely, just long enough until the firewall was fixed.

Ty and I leapt into the action without a word, Ty slashing his sword at any virus in range as I flicked my chains for the sprinting worms, entangling them and flinging them across the mainframe. The two of us worked like a well-oiled machine as we slowly moved our way through the server, sometimes fighting alongside the other Glitch pairs and other times relying only on the other.

"Ty, behind you!" Jason's voice warned.

I felt Ty duck then I heard him gasp and felt him step back suddenly into me. I spun around, expecting to see him hurt and bleeding code but he wasn't. His eyes were wide and he was staring in shock at the virus who had just tried to decapitate him and when I saw the virus, the fighting in the rest of the mainframe seemed to disappear, like I got tunnel vision. It was familiar. No, it was him.

"Adam?"

The virus smirked, the same smirk that all viruses gave and it was wrong to see it on Adam's face but there was no mistaking him. He wasn't wearing the Glitch coat anymore, just a dark short sleeved shirt and long pants, but his sunglasses sat lower on his nose, meaning that we could see his dark red code-filled eyes. He took his sword in both hands and deep red coding fizzed off it as it fused apart into two swords. His preferred fighting method.

"What's wrong? Got cold feet?" he sneered.

"What happened to you?" I barely heard Ty breathe. "Don't you recognise us?"

"Can't say I've fought you before," Adam said with a shrug. "But hey, first time for everything, right?"

He lunged towards us and I couldn't move. My feet were stuck to the ground, my legs were frozen, my arms felt like lead, everything seemed to happen in slow motion as his sword came closer and closer but I felt something harshly grab my arm and yank me aside and Ty pulled me out of the way of the blade, using his own to parry aside Adam's sword and kick him away, giving us space.

"What are you doing, we can't fight him!" I said, finally broken from my daze, pulling back on Ty's arm.

"He's a virus, Alesa," Ty said. "I know who he is, but he'll kill us if we don't fight. We can't help him if we're dead."

I saw the distress in his eyes and I gave a small nod, knowing that he felt the same way about this as me. Adam ran towards us and Ty turned to lock blades with him, giving ground as they fought, struggling to defend against the two swords. I reeled in my chain and flicked it, hooking it around one of Adam's arms and yanking it back. He stumbled a step, growling and he slashed at Ty, forcing him backwards before hooking his hand around my chain and pulling me forwards. I tripped and fell to the ground and rolled onto my back, my arm coming up to stop the downward strike that I could see coming out of the corner of my eye-

Adam's blade froze for a split second in the air, some sort of code flickering in his eye as he hesitated, looking at me. I could have sworn that I saw some sort of emotion flicker across his face, but the moment was gone as he spun to intercept Ty's attack, his arm now free of my chain and I scrambled away and up, breathing rapidly.

With an expert flick that had taken me months to get right, both of my chains whipped around Adam's upper body, pinning his arms to his side and growing tighter the more he struggled. I wrapped the ends around my hands to keep him in place.

Jason's warning voice crackled through our earpieces. "There's too many viruses, we have to shut down the mainframe. Get out of there as soon as you can."

The mainframe started to shudder and flicker, and all of the viruses froze for a second before scrambling with new energy as Glitches started to dissolve and leave. Adam struggled in my chains and slipped free as I tried to yank them tighter. He backed off, giving us a final smirk.

"See you later Glitches," he grinned before sprinting off.

Without thinking, I took off after him, ignoring Ty's shout for me to stay put and get out of the mainframe. The floor was collapsing around me but I leapt over the holes, keeping Adam in my sight as he, with dozens of other viruses, jumped out of the gaps in the mainframe's firewall and into cyberspace, disappearing from view.

Before I could follow, I felt something cold wrap around me like a claw, grabbing me as the floor dropped out from underneath and forcibly shifting me to code as it pulled me out of the mainframe and spat me out back in the real world, sprawled on my back with Ty standing nearly, arms crossed.

"That's why you get out of the mainframe before Jin gets to use the Extractor," he said harshly.

I guessed that the anger stemmed from his shock of seeing Adam, which was the same reason why I very consciously kept my mouth shut as I stood up. It had become nearly standard procedure to shut down the mainframe when the viruses were too overwhelming, as much as we hated losing the files. The Extractor was something that Jin and Jason had come up with after Adam's death, to forcibly pull Glitches out of the mainframe before they could be killed.

"We need to get back to the Glitch base and tell the others about Adam," I said once I had control over my voice.

Ty sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, no kidding. A virus."

We jogged out of the rapidly emptying room. My mind was spinning with ideas and theories and worries but at the back of it, I noticed that the strange suited man from before was gone.