Everett pushed himself up into a sitting position. He looked down. He was sitting on old, yellow linoleum flooring. The floor was sticky and covered in dirt and old shoe prints. He looked around the room. It was a very small room. The walls were made of cheap, fake wood paneling. There were tall metal shelves pushed against the walls. The shelves were packed with cardboard boxes. The boxes had faded labels on them. Canned Beans. Toilet Paper. Soap. In the corner of the room, an old, dirty coffee maker sat on a plastic folding table. The coffee pot was empty, stained with dark brown rings. Everett stared at the room. His heart began to beat very fast. Thump. Thump. Thump. He knew this place. He knew the smell of the old coffee. He knew the buzzing sound of the broken light on the ceiling. He knew the sticky yellow floor. It was the back office of the grocery store. It was the exact same grocery store where he used to wo

Everett lifted his pale right hand one more time. It felt like lifting a mountain. He needed to write the restore command. He needed to put the people back into the real world. [Type 'R'. Wait.]One, Mississippi. [Type 'E'. Wait.] One, Mississippi. Everett’s fingers trembled. His pale, artificial hand was glitching. Sparks of blue electricity popped from the synthetic joints. [Type 'S'. Wait.] One, Mississippi. [Type 'T'. Wait.] One, Mississippi. [Type 'O'. Wait.] One, Mississippi. [Type 'R'. Wait.] One, Mississippi.[Type 'E'. Wait.] One, Mississippi. He spelled the word: RESTORE FOLDER [GLIMMER]Everett hovered his trembling pale finger over the ENTER key. He knew what this would do. This was a massive command. Moving two million souls required a terrifying amount of system energy. The computer would take everything he had left. It would shatter his body completely. Everett did not hesitate. He did not feel fear. He only felt love for a world that was broken, messy,

Everett’s stamina was absolutely zero. He was locked at 1 HP. He was made of cracked glass. The Wraith did not swing the scythe to cut him. Instead, the monster reached down with its empty left hand. The hand was made of swirling gray static. The Wraith grabbed Everett by the throat. The touch was unbelievably cold. It was colder than the deepest winter ice. It felt like the heat of Everett's soul was being sucked out of his body. The Wraith lifted Everett easily off the floor with one hand. Everett choked. White light poured out of the cracks in his neck. He stared into the smooth, black, faceless glass of the monster. The Wraith turned around. It pointed its scythe at the wall of the grocery store office. The wall ripped open. It did not break; it simply unzipped like a tent, revealing a swirling tunnel of blinding blue and gray light. It was a shortcut through the data stream. The three Chrono Wraiths stepped into the tunnel, dragging Everett with them by the throat. Mean

A deep, quiet peace filled his heart. He had done his job. He had finished the fight. It was okay to die now. It was okay to let the anti-virus delete him. He was tired. So incredibly tired. Everett lowered his head. He waited for the scythes to fall. But then, he looked at his own right hand. The pale, gray, artificial hand. It was resting on the ground. And laying on the ground, right next to his fingers, was his heavy black greatsword. The Null-Edge. The sword he had forged with Ignis. The sword made of his own blood and his own Experience Points. The System had dropped the sword next to him when it pulled him out of the Zero-Point. Everett stared at the black iron blade. He remembered the words he had spoken to the whole world on the broadcast. “I do not want you to kneel! I ask you to stand!”If he died on his knees, surrendering quietly to the machine, what kind of example was that? He had told the people to fight. He had told them to never give up. If Lyra unfroze and saw h

The blade of frozen time was buried deep inside Everett’s chest. It went straight through his heart. Normally, when a heart stops beating, a man dies. The blood stops moving. The brain goes dark. The soul leaves the body. But Everett was no longer just a man. The System had tried to delete him. It had failed. The System had renamed him. [NEW CLASSIFICATION: THE VIRUS.]Everett’s eyes were completely pitch black. Swirling, angry red computer code spun inside his eyes like a violent storm. His pale, artificial right hand was wrapped tightly around the throat of the ten-foot-tall Chrono Wraith. The monster screeched. It tried to pull the scythe out of Everett’s chest. "You cannot have it," Everett growled. His voice sounded like two heavy stones grinding together. It was deep, dark, and demonic. Everett looked down at the blade sticking out of his chest. The scythe was made of pure, frozen time. It was designed to freeze a target forever. It had frozen his heart at the exact micros