"Nice extract, Eli," she whispered. "Score: 0. Reflexes: Pending."

The video showed a man sitting at a desk, backlit by three monitors, staring intensely at a file named StaffBesting.rar . Eli froze. The man in the video was wearing the same grey hoodie he was wearing right now. In the video, a shadow moved behind the man.

In the graininess of a security camera feed, he saw Jenkins, the mild-mannered accountant, walking toward the breakroom. Suddenly, a figure—Miller from Marketing—sprang from behind a potted plant, performed a flawless backflip over a rolling chair, and snatched Jenkins’ coffee mid-air without spilling a drop. Miller landed in a pose, and a digital scoreboard overlay appeared on the screen:

The folder didn't contain spreadsheets or payroll data. Instead, it was filled with hundreds of video clips, each titled with a name and a date. He clicked the first one: “Jenkins_Coffee_0412.mp4.”

Eli found the file on a decommissioned HR server while migrating data for a mid-sized logistics firm. Amidst thousands of "Performance_Review_2022.pdf" and "Onboarding_v3.docx" files, it sat in a hidden directory: StaffBesting.rar .

He reached the final file: “New_Recruit_Observation.mp4.”

Curiosity, the career-killer of many an IT professional, won out. He dragged it to his desktop and hit "Extract."