Agents Markham, Herschler, MacMillian, and Watts were called in to a briefing with prospective client Seth Liemann, a computer programmer who had co-developed a new operating system called "Plasm." Plasm had the potential to be serious competition for Microsoft, but several months ago Liemann's colleague and business partner, Susan Wong, had split away to form her own company, taking Plasm with her. Liemann claimed that Wong's ownership of Plasm was only the result of her devious legal machinations, and that "99%" of the programming and design was his own. He wanted Orpheus Group to send projected Agents into Wong's corporate headquarters and steal the source code for Plasm, so that Liemann could finish developing it and launch it himself.
All of the Agents were initially perturbed at the idea of involving themselves in corporate espionage, which seemed to go against the core mission of Orpheus Group as well as being generally unethical. Agent MacMillian, in particular, expressed very strong reservations and threatened to refuse the mission. However, Tad Eccles assured them that the Board of Directors had determined that this sort of business was a legitimate avenue for them to explore, and their legal department was satisfied that the company could involve itself with a minimum of risk. Eventually the other Agents convinced MacMillian that she could accept the mission without compromising her integrity. If nothing else, Eccles would only assign some other Agent to the task if they refused; at least this way, they could make their own judgements about the situation and try to accomplish it with a minimum of harm to everyone.
Wong's corporate headquarters was located on Technology Row, only a few miles away from Orpheus Group Headquarters. The source code was located on a password-protected server, inside a glass-walled clean room on the fourth floor. The server was local access only, not connected to any network, so it would be necessary to enter the sever room, burn the source code onto a high-density DVD-ROM, and physically remove the disk from the building. Liemann had stressed that the job must be as low-profile as possible; if Wong suspected that the code had been stolen, she would be able to prevent Liemann from launching his own version of Plasm. In addition, he required that the job be done no later than a week from now, to give him enough time to finish developing the software and beat Wong to the market.
The next day, Agent Herschler projected and had Tommy Fabrosi drive him out to Wong's office building. When she left the building at the end of the day, Herschler used Puppetry to gain access to her memories and retrieve the server password. He also reviewed Wong's memories of the events leading up to her split with Liemann. In her version, their contributions to the Plasm software were nearly equal. Disagreements about business and marketing decisions had been straining their relationship for some time, but it was the constant, unwelcome romantic advances from Liemann that had finally driven them apart.
Three days later, the Agents entered Wong's office building after business hours. All four were projected. Herschler used Inhabit to unlock and open one of the side doors. MacMillian carried a blank DVD-ROM using her Poltergeist, while Markham and Watts used Phantasm to render the floating disk invisible. Liemann had provided them with 3D-rendered floorplans of the building and real-time simulations of the security guards' usual patrol patterns, so the Agents were easily able to find the server room on the fourth floor. Herschler again used Inhabit to bypass the electronic security on the server room door, then possessed the server itself. Within moments they were burning the source code onto the disk — a process that would take roughly six minutes.
Just as they reached the halfway point, an old janitor shuffled around the corner in the hallway outside, pushing a mop in a wheeled bucket. He looked up and, somehow, saw the Agent team, even though none of them had visibly manifested. Then the janitor, who was at this point obviously a ghost, ran through the glass wall of the server room and charged the Agents, brandishing his mop.
Acting quickly, Agent MacMillian morphed herself into an armored wall, interposing herself between the janitor and the other Agents so that the data transfer could continue uninterrupted. The janitor's stomach swelled and grew taut, and then he vomited a thick, black bile all over MacMillian's corpus. The substance sizzled and burned where it stuck to her, but MacMillian's armor shielded her from significant injury.
Agent Markham exited the server room and attempted to draw the janitor away from the others. He was successful, but was caught by another spray of bile and suffered minor injuries. While the ghost was thus distracted, Agent Watts grabbed hold of its corpus and used Flicker to teleport outside the building — four floors above the ground — and then Flickered back in after letting the ghost fall.
The data transfer was by now complete. With supreme effort, Agent Watts manifested in full physical form, took hold of the DVD-ROM, and teleported back to the waiting van. Agent Herschler, still in possession of the server's functions, erased all records of the data transfer from its system logs. Suddenly the hallways began to twist and merge back into themselves as the janitor possessed the entire building and altered its geography, trapping the remaining Agents in an ever-shrinking loop of corridor. However, Agent Markham was able to teleport MacMillian and Herschler to safety, and they returned to Orpheus Group Headquarters without further incident.
The source code was turned over to Liemann, and Liemann's version of Plasm beat his rival's to the shelves. Susan Wong's investors pulled out, and her company went bankrupt. However, within a few weeks Plasm's popularity dwindled until it became a mere curiosity. It is now used only by a handful of idiosyncratic VR enthusiasts, and commands virtually no market share whatsoever.
Liemann's payment for the Orpheus contract was quite substantial, however, and Tad Eccles has praised the mission as a resounding success and an example of what Orpheus Group can accomplish by thinking "outside the box."