"Right, are these the samples?"
"Yeah. Just indigenous to the network, but you work with what you have. The hardier samples are just too expensive... Until our grant comes through at the end of the month, at least."
She neglected to add that this was a personal project, unrelated to anything the rest of the faculty was focused on, and so she couldn't very well dip into the lab's slush fund.
"'Kay. I'll load them onto a virtual HD."
"You do that. I'll get the patch ready."
The intern slotted a small USB device into one of the standing computers while Camille Gala strode over to the opposite desk and woke the computer there from its sleep. Her PET sat there, slotted into the back of the monitor. The backlit trim cycled through red, green, and yellow as it woke up as well, finally settling on a pale blue.
"Yo. We ready?" A calm voice asked from the PET's speakers. A long-haired man wearing white-rimmed shades faded into view. He looked amused, but from his body language he was obviously feeling impatient.
"Almost." Camille sighed. "You're gonna have to do it fast, though. We don't have a lot of time."
The man folded his arms and tilted his head back, grinning heartily. "Hijacking the equipment, right under the Doc's nose? Well, well, Em. I didn't know you had it in you."
"Shut up." breathed Camille, unhooking the PET from the desktop computer and walking back towards the intern and the USB port. "Samo, is everything ready?"
"Well, uh..." Samo was cluthing the top of his head with one hand, tapping away madly at the keyboard in front of his with another. "It looks like the samples have sort of escaped, ma'am..."
(music!)
"What!?" Camille shouldered the intern out of the way to look at the display on the screen. Sure enough, the virtual HD was empty.
And currently connected to the Net.
"Samo, do you have a navi?" She pulled the prone intern up by the collar of his labcoat. Those viruses had been primed for the experiment -- if they were discovered, Dr. Nobuo would recognize the code as hers immediately. Even if they evaded his notice, they had come onto the Net from this computer. They could be traced back to it by any Lab staff worth their salt, and that would be sure to raise questions.
"N-no... Foon's getting his Navicust fixed. You can use my chips, though!" He hastily pushed three small plastic chips into her hand and backed away to the far wall. Camille rolled her eyes.
"Rydell, you know we have to get them, right?" The Navi on her PET screen laughed.
"Lemme at 'em, babe! I thought today was gonna be boring!"
"Right." She slotted the PET's plug in just under the USB flashcard that had caused all the trouble and began the transfer.
"Jack-in, Rydell.EXE! Transmit! Ha ha ha!" Rydell's laughter pulsed from the PET's speakers as he went through into Scilab's computer network.
"...Right. What you said." Camille fell back onto one of the padded lab chairs.