Victor Strate, having just re-organized his desktop for the third time that day, stumbled across something odd. In the Items subfolder of his Documents folder was a ten gigabyte file called "Porn.exe."
After multiple antivirus scans that did their best to tell Strate that this program was not in any way suspicious, Strate stood up. "Caduceus!"
Caduceus poked his head into Strate's office. "Eh?"
"I have a sneaking suspicion that this is your handiwork." Strate highlighted Porn.exe with the mouse and turned the monitor toward Caduceus, who looked it over and said "Nope, I've put a lot of shit on your computer but this is not from me." "Then who is it from?" "Maybe Doctor Lander did it?"
"Fuck off!" Doctor Lander yelled from his office. "Okay, I guess not," Caduceus said. "Try scanning it with your antivirus." "Already did that, it's clean." "Huh. Maybe try running it?"
Strate gave one of his signature "are you fucking mad" stares to Caduceus. "Hey, it was just a suggestion. Try emailing it to me, I'll see what it does." "Alright, but if you value your computer, don't run it." "Got it." Strate emailed the file through Insurgency servers to Caduceus, who dashed off to his office to run it.
Doctor Edward Grimshire Deny sat in his office, one hand on his computer mouse, the other nervously stroking the blade of his scythe. Somebody had sent a "Porn.exe" across insurgency servers, and the fact that "Porn.exe" was ten gigabytes confirmed his suspicion: This was something that had happened before. Numerous pieces of IP tracking software were at work, putting a heavy load on Deny's PC. He had to find who sent it and who had it now so he could stop them from running it before it plunged the facility into chaos. One out of his four IP trackers crashed, popping up an error report in front of his remote search of numerous personnel's computers. He clicked away from it and began stroking the blade of his scythe faster. Two more of the IP trackers ended their search and showed their results.
Inconclusive. Either he needed to get better IP tracking software or whoever sent it had Alpha clearance. There was still one more tracker running. Maybe this one could-
His computer blue screened. The lights flickered, then went out. The doors to his office swung open. Whoever had received that file had run it.
Deny picked up his scythe and sprinted out of his office to warn Strate. Caduceus might be able to handle himself, but someone like Strate wouldn't survive without Deny's help. Alarms blared one after another behind Deny as containment cell door after containment cell door failed.
The lights went out in Strate's office right as he tried to search the Insurgency database for information regarding Porn.exe. His computer started making a buzzing sound and the monitor went out. The buzzing sound slowly escalated into a heavy whirring, getting stronger and stronger every second. Strate backed toward his door. The screeching of containment cell door alarms rang throughout the facility. Strate ran towards Caduceus's door. "Caduceus, what the ever-loving fuck did you do?!"
Caduceus's door seemed to be having a seizure, one of its hinges having been torn from the wall, flailing around wildly from another one of its hinges. Screaming caught Strate's attention for just a moment as a containment cell door seemed to fling itself at a staff member, crushing them almost instantly. The heavy metal door dissolved from a liquid covering its back shortly after, leaving nothing but an indentation on the wall and a small smear of blood. "Oh, hey Victor. I was just…"
Strate's expression told Caduceus that he wasn't in the mood for his excuses. "Okay, so I ran Porn.exe, but now there's nothing we can do about it, so I think we should just calm down and…"
Strate's face grew more grim. Caduceus politely shut himself up and stopped his door with his chair, both of which were destroyed in the process. Then Dr. Deny walked by.
"Ah, there you are, Ed! Do you have any idea what the hell is happe-" Caduceus was cut off by his arm, which was being cut off by Deny's scythe. "ED! NO!" Strate reached for Deny's arm, and the butt of Deny's scythe hit Strate's face. Strate and Caduceus were both on the ground, Deny standing over them and shouting at them, but very little of it got through because Caduceus was futily attempting to reattach his arm to his shoulder and Strate was holding his nose and struggling to stand back up after having taken a hit from somebody who has had lots and lots of practice hitting people in the face with the butt of things.
After a quick speech from Deny on how much of an idiot Caduceus was and that they were all doomed, Strate successfully kicked the scythe out of Deny's hands, and Deny instantly dropped to his knees to help Strate up, as Caduceus had already passed out from the blood loss by then. The next half hour of theirs was spent dragging Caduceus to the infirmary after having to walk around the Candle Wax Child, having claimed the life of a sizable pile of test subjects, two of which had already become full reproductions. Strate beat these to death and the group continued on.
After approximately three hours of sewing, stapling, taping and applying ointment to, Cad's arm was back on. Of course, it was at a bit of an odd angle, was bending the wrong way, and Caduceus still couldn't control it aside from the occasional twitch or rapid flailing that seemed to happen at complete random, but at least it was on, and given some amount of years and lots of bed rest it could end up healing correctly. Not likely, though.
Once that delightful little experience for Strate and Deny was over, Deny and the mostly conscious Caduceus began working on a plan.
Strate, on the other hand, began having a panic attack in the corner, gently, then violently, then gently again, sobbing to himself while two friends promptly ignored him and continued discussing their route.
