Sarah looked at the screen, then at Elias. "That looked intense."
Elias reached into his technician's bag—a battered messenger bag covered in cable ties and stickers—and pulled out a matte black USB drive. On it, written in silver Sharpie, were two words that usually made junior sysadmins nervous: . cleanwipe removal tool to uninstall endpoint protection
"No," Elias said calmly. "It’s just restarting the shell. The old guard is dead. The system is confused because it lost a limb." Sarah looked at the screen, then at Elias
"It's deleting the drivers," Elias narrated, mostly to himself. "It’s hunting down the remnants in the Program Data folder... It's cleaning the WFP filters." "No," Elias said calmly
Elias didn't turn around. He stared at the screen, which was currently displaying a cheerful, yet menacing, green shield icon in the system tray. "Not yet, Sarah. The old antivirus is fighting back. It’s… stubborn."