Recovering Corporate Secrets

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 17, Post Number 403

-The Cursed Lands, outside the town of Fulci-

Wearing a navy blue long-sleeved shirt with navy blue cargo pants and black boots, Diana also wore a hydration pack on her back because she was far away from civilization and would not have access to clean water where she was going. She stood just outside the abandoned town of Fulci, a town which had fallen to a zombie attack that originated from Fulci Cemetery. The incident had occurred months ago, but the town was still a danger zone because of both its dilapidated state and the possibility of more undead lurking within the ruins. Those factors did not deter Diana. The huntress was in the Cursed Lands on a special assignment from Mister Burke, one that would pay a lot of Jewels upon completion.

Diana had been hired by her old client to retrieve some corporate secrets from a four-story office building in Fulci and bring it back to him. It was a collection of paper files placed inside a manila folder that was then placed inside a locked silver briefcase that was located somewhere on the top floor. She was authorized to eliminate any undead she came across, but she was warned not to attempt to open the briefcase to learn about the company secrets. Failure to comply with that directive would result in forfeiture of pay and legal action against her. Mister Burke need not have worried about her snooping through the briefcase... Diana followed contracts to the letter because building a reputation for reliability was good for business.

Diana could hear moaning and could see a few shadowy figures shambling down the main street in the distance. It seemed that Fulci was still home to zombies that had not yet been cleaned up. Diana was not concerned about them. She was more concerned about the state of the office building that she would be going into. She did not know if the building was full of zombies, if it was so structurally degraded that it was on the brink of collapse, or if both possibilities were true.

It did not matter what difficulties stood in her way.

Diana was paid handsomely to go into dangerous situations like this and complete the job she had been hired to do. She had done it before and she would do it again. She would fight her way through Fulci, enter the office building, and retrieve the briefcase of secrets to return to Mister Burke. At the end of it all she would be walking away with a considerable Jewel reward and another successful high-risk mission to her name. With that in mind, Diana entered Fulci through the ruined gate and brought out her Suppressed Assault Rifle to deal with any threats that might come up.

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[Total Word Count: 464/11,000]

-Inside Fulci, on Argento Street-

With her Suppressed Assault Rifle ready to be used at a moment's notice, Diana walked down what used to be Fulci's main street, the sides of which were littered with abandoned vehicles, some of which had the glass broken out and almost all of which had bloodstained cabins. Diana looked closer and noticed that some of the driver and passenger door windows had elongated bloodstains where the windows used to be, suggesting that either the driver and passengers were pulled out of the vehicles by zombies or the zombies pulled themselves into the vehicles after breaking out the glass. Either way the occupants did not stand a chance once their only protection was gone. Diana walked on and looked around the ruined town for the four-story office building that was where the information she had been hired to retrieve was. Since all of the other buildings she had seen so far were only one or two-story structures, the office would stick out like a sore thumb.

Diana approached a four-way intersection on Argento Street and spotted a ruined sporting goods store named Sportsman's Arsenal to the left. Above the broken sliding glass doors were a pair of crossed rifles on a wooden sign with the store's name embossed in red wooden letters above them. From the name of the place she gathered that it sold hunting weapons and ammunition for them. A weapons shop had to have been a popular place during the attack because she saw plenty of empty shell casings mingled with the broken glass of the store windows and a few zombies clutching empty weapons swaying aimlessly inside the store. Diana decided to take a few moments to eliminate these zombies so that they would not be a threat later.

The blonde aimed her rifle at the head of a mustached man missing a chunk out of the left side of his neck carrying a scoped bolt-action rifle and steadied her aim before firing a Three-Round Burst at his head. The zombie was hit and crumpled to the floor, dropping the weapon onto the grimy tile floor with a loud clatter. Diana heard soft moaning from inside and saw at least five more zombies shuffling towards the source of the noise. Diana stood in place and began wiping them out with single shots to the head before they could even reach the body of their fallen colleague.

A few seconds and a few shots to the head later and all of them were dead. Diana resisted the temptation to go inside and loot the store for weapons because it would be a waste of time. She was here for corporate secrets and this detour had already cost her time that would have been better used exploring the office instead of plinking at zombies inside a hunting goods store. Diana moved on from Sportman's Arsenal and moved straight through the intersection past a cherry red convertible that had plowed into a telephone pole. The occupant was nowhere to be seen, but a bloodstain about twenty meters away suggested that the driver had been thrown from the vehicle, where they either died of their wounds or had been eaten by carnivorous corpses prowling the streets.

Diana walked past the the convertible and just to its left came across a coffee shop named West's Coffee Creations. To the left of the shattered glass double doors was a white sandwich board sign with blood red letters that proclaimed the coffee "Strong enough to reanimate the dead!" Inside were numerous overturned wooden tables, broken wooden chairs, and an open cash register with a rotting body slumped over the counter. Diana looked away from the coffee shop and proceeded down Argento Street without further delay because she could hear moaning from nearby buildings and side streets. She needed to keep going and find that office building.

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[Total Word Count: 1,112/11,000]

-Argento Street, ten minutes later-

After walking briskly down the main street and clearing an escape route by killing every zombie she could see, Diana found herself standing outside the four-story office building that was where she needed to be. She took a glance at the building and saw a lot of broken windows and dried bloodstains on the ground below. They told a grim tale of people trying to escape being eaten alive only to die on impact with the ground or, if the worst happened, survive the fall only to be eaten by zombies roaming the streets. It must have been a hellish time for the people of Fulci, who had no idea what was happening until it was too late to run. Diana looked at the wooden double doors that led into the building and noticed that both of them had bloody handprints near the doorknob and on the door itself.

Raising her Suppressed Assault Rifle to a ready position, Diana slowly walked towards the door until she reached it. She carefully twisted the knob with her left hand and pulled open the door that sounded with a prolonged CREEEEEEAAAAAK that was so loud that anyone in the immediate area could hear the noise. She listened out for any zombies in the building or nearby, waiting three full minutes before entering a lobby that had seen better days.

-Inside the office building-

Diana's night vision took effect as she shut the door behind her, closing it as quietly as she could. Once it was shut she turned around and looked over the lobby. To her left was an overturned water cooler that had long since been emptied of its contents and to her right was an overturned coffee table with its magazines scattered haphazardly on the beige carpet floor. A little further ahead to the left was a semicircular receptionist's desk with scattered papers on the desktop, a shattered computer monitor on the floor, and an old telephone that had been knocked off its base and onto the floor. She could hear the steady sound of a tone ringing in the phone, but she could also hear something else from further down the hallway.

It sounded like the shuffling of shoes on carpet or the rustling of clothing.

Diana was not alone in here. However, that did not stop her because she had a job to do. She slowly advanced past the receptionist's desk with weapon at the ready and slowly moved down the hallway while listening for trouble that could burst from any of the numerous open doorways. She could hear the noises but could not pinpoint their exact source, which was troublesome. Diana would have to press onto the fourth floor to get what she had come for.

After reaching the end of the hallway and reaching the silver double doors of a closed elevator, Diana looked right and saw the open door to a staircase that led to the second floor. Sensing that perhaps avoiding the elevator was a good idea, Diana opted to take the longer, noisier route of using the stairs. Despite the slower and noisier nature of the stairs, they offered one big advantage over an elevator. Unlike in the tight confines of an elevator, if the mage ran into trouble on the stairwell she had enough room to fight or run away. With that in mind the mage dispelled the assault rifle and switched to her Suppressed Submachine Gun, which would be easier to wield in close quarters without sacrificing much power or range and keeping a good rate of fire.

Diana then began her ascent to the second floor, moving as quietly as she could to reduce the odds of the noise galvanizing a welcoming committee to wait for her on the second floor.

-Inside the stairwell-

Despite her best efforts at keeping noise to a minimum the blonde's boots were making more noise than she was comfortable with on the metal stairs. Anything with working ears could hear her approaching the second floor. She made her way up the first flight of stairs and made a right turn, then began to ascend the second set in the dimly lit stairwell. She clambered up them and reached the metal door that opened onto the second floor. Looking around before she proceeded any further, she noticed that the stairs leading to the third floor had been blocked off by a hastily formed barricade made out of desks and filing cabinets.

It would have been easier to just use this stairwell to go to the fourth floor and avoid all the dangers of the second and third floors, but tearing down the barricade would be more trouble than it was worth. Taking it down would take too much time and energy and make way too much noise. Turning around and facing the door, Diana opened it with her left hand and slipped through to enter the second floor offices.

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-Second floor-

Diana cautiously entered the room and found herself staring at a typical cubicle farm with waist-high cubicles that stretched the span of the floor... if normal cubicle farms featured overturned computer monitors, bloodstained carpet, and other features that were more appropriate for a disaster area. She listened out for the sounds of the undead like moaning but heard nothing, nothing except the soft sound of shuffling feet on carpet. Diana would have to be careful when making her way through this area because any of the cubicles could be hiding something that wanted to take a bite out of her.

Diana began slowly walking forward, moving past the desiccated corpse of an officer worker wearing a white shirt with the left side stained blood red with black dress pants and brown shoes. Next to him was a crumpled red tie with bloodstains on it and beneath it. It had been pressed against the left side of his neck in a vain effort to stem the bleeding from a bite wound made by human teeth. A bullet hole in his forehead indicated that he had been shot before or after he turned, but whether the shot came from office security, Fulci police, or a panicking co-worker was unknown. Diana walked by the corpse and did her best to ignore the stench of death that permeated the air.

The mage walked quietly and kept looking around for any signs of trouble or the briefcase that she had been sent to retrieve. According to the briefing the silver briefcase was kept on the fourth floor, but that information was likely outdated by now. It could have been moved by an employee during the chaos of the zombie attack or it could have been found by a scavenger who had braved the city after the outbreak looking for anything of value. She had no idea of the information's accuracy until she reached the fourth floor.

Diana paused in place when she saw a humanoid form standing in a cubicle facing in her direction just twenty meters away. She slowly raised her weapon and waited to see if she was dealing with a scavenger, a Shadow Collective assassin, or anyone human before opening fire. The mage used her infrared vision to see if the person had a heat signature to indicate that they were even alive and found that they did not emit any kind of body heat. The target was a shambling corpse of a female office worker with a bloodstained blue blouse, torn black skirt, and a huge chunk of flesh torn out of her throat. Diana aimed for the head and fired a Three-Round Burst that hit the zombie in the head and downed it for good.

The body hit the floor with a soft THUMP and Diana remained in place to listen for zombies who may have heard the noise and were making their way to its source. So far the cubicle farm was as silent as the grave. Diana proceeded forward and reached the halfway point of the floor without any more combat. Once she reached the halfway point she looked to her left and saw an enclosed meeting room with overturned chairs, bloody windows, a partially eaten body lying on the rectangular table, and five office worker corpses lying in various states of dismemberment. The door had been left open by someone who had fled the carnage... she briefly wondered if she was looking at Ground Zero for Fulci's zombie outbreak.

She thought back to the broken windows she had seen from street level and wondered if the undead had either been pushed out of windows in self-defense or had followed desperate humans who had jumped out of windows in a bid to escape the slaughter and fell with them to the streets below.

Diana had no idea whether that was true or not and she was not getting paid to speculate on past events. She was getting paid to search the building, find and secure the briefcase of corporate secrets, and return it to Mr. Burke. After winding her way through more office space and passing by more dead office workers lying on the floor Diana reached the double doors to the elevator, which gleamed in the low light as if imploring Diana to open them and take a ride. Diana ignored the temptation and opted for the stairwell instead.

-The stairwell to the third floor-

Diana again made her way up the stairs with weapon at the ready and listened out for any undead who had reanimated in the stairwell. So far she had not seen or heard any... not that she could hear anything over her own loud footsteps. The metal steps and the acoustics of the stairwell combined to make any effort at stealth an exercise in futility. She clenched her teeth with each loud step and worked her way to the door that led to the third floor offices. Again the stairs to the fourth floor were blocked by a makeshift barricade of desks and metal filing cabinets that was thrown up in a hurry, so there was no choice but to brave the third floor offices to get to the next stairwell.

Diana placed her left hand on the doorknob, twisted it to the right, and opened the door. She quickly and quietly entered the office and quietly shut the door behind her.

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-The third floor, offices-

Diana turned away from the door to look at her surroundings and saw that she was not alone in the cavernous cubicle farm that boasted the same layout as the one on the second floor. This floor had a higher concentration of the undead in the cubicles; while she had encountered only one on the second floor, the third floor had over three dozen reanimated office workers either swaying in place or aimlessly shambling around the area like they were in search of something. It had been a long time since any of them had seen prey, so the huntress had to be careful as she sneaked through the area. Since the greater population density made it more likely that one of them would hear the noise of a fellow zombie hitting the ground after being shot, Diana would have to be selective about which zombies she killed.

Diana began creeping forward through the office maze, taking care not to trip over any number of fallen objects or corpses lying on the floor. The area had been the site of a slaughter; severed limbs lay scattered randomly over the office space and blood coated the walls of some cubicles. In a few cubicles the bloodstains even ran over the top and into the neighboring cubicle, leading Diana to wonder how that was possible outside of over-the-top action movies where blood gushed from wounds with the pressure of a fire hose. She did not have time to ponder that because a female zombie in a black jacket and skirt combo with the right half of her face gnawed off staggered out of its place and directly into Diana's path.

The huntress stopped where she was and carefully aimed at its head. Without even stopping it staggered by while completely oblivious to the human in front of it, its milky white eyes staring straight ahead the whole time. Diana did not know why it failed to detect her since it was less than ten meters away from her, but she would not question it. The huntress quietly continued on her way and reached a cubicle that had a human corpse lying on its back... and missing its head. Judging from the numerous bite marks on the neck, the head had been gnawed off at some point in the past.

That was as far as Diana wanted to go with that line of thought. She turned away and slipped by another male zombie in a torn three-piece suit staring at the opposite wall before reaching the halfway point of the cubicle farm. Diana paused to take a quick break and instantly regretted it because a male zombie in a torn white shirt and brown pants missing his right ear shambled out of a cubicle she had just passed by and gazed at her.

Diana quietly turned around and aimed at its head. Unlike the female zombie from earlier this one maintained eye contact and did not move at all. Diana wanted to shoot it in the head and permanently remove it from her path, but then a female zombie in a green jacket and skirt shambled up and actually bumped into its fellow. Diana could not kill one without alerting the other, so she continued to hold her fire and waited to see what happened. After several tense seconds the pair went down the path Diana had just left behind, leaving her free to continue without anyone being the wiser.

The huntress continued to creep forward past the meeting room to her left that was in the same place as the one on the second floor and evaded detection by the reanimated office workers within without any trouble. Everything was going well so far. Diana had dodged the various pieces of detritus littering the floor and had not stepped on any of it. She was nearly at the stairwell and just needed to pass by a zombie in a blue shirt and black pants "guarding" the elevator... it must have been office security in its former life because she saw the glint of a laminated ID badge clipped on the left side of its shirt. She found it grimly amusing that the security officer was still doing his job even after death.

Diana carefully aimed at its head and squeezed the trigger, firing a single suppressed shot that dropped it before it could turn to face her. It fell to the ground and Diana quietly passed by it before its fellows further back in the office could react. Diana quickly opened the door to the stairwell and moved through, shutting it back quietly to avoid having a small army of reanimated office workers waiting for her when she passed back through.

-Inside the stairwell to the fourth floor-

Diana shut the door behind her and looked up to see a lone zombie wearing a business suit standing near the top of the first flight of stairs. It had not noticed her, so Diana took careful aim and squeezed off a single shot to the head that dropped it to the floor. She then ascended the staircase and passed by the dead zombie, which wore a black business suit and matching shoes. It might have been a manager or perhaps even a high-ranking company official, but that did not matter now. She took a glance at the stairs above her and saw a pair of blue-shirted security zombies shuffling near the door, but she was not in a position to shoot them.

With no other choice but to go up and possibly reveal herself to the zombies, Diana carefully went up the stairs and paused when she had a good shot on the zombies. They had spotted her and shambled towards her with arms raised, but she quickly lined up headshots and downed both of them with one shot to the head apiece. They fell to the ground and bled from their fatal wounds while Diana passed by them and carefully opened the door to the fourth and final floor of the office building.  

When her hand touched the doorknob she thought that she had heard gunshots coming from below. Was she just hearing things or was someone else in the building? Was the source of the gunshots a survivor who had been living in the office the whole time... or did they come from a scavenger looking to loot a long-abandoned office building? She pushed those questions aside and entered the fourth floor.

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-Fourth Floor Offices-

Diana quietly shut the door behind her and turned around to find herself looking down the wide-open space of the fourth floor. Unlike the second and third stories which were cubicle farms with a meeting room on the left side, the fourth floor had a central corridor with medium-sized enclosed offices on each side. All of the offices had a wooden door with a frosted glass window that had letters detailing the occupant's name and title... presumably this was a floor where the corporate higher-ups worked because the furnishings were of higher quality and the security presence was much greater here than on the preceding floors. Ahead of her was a large set of double doors that looked important. In front of her was evidence that the fourth floor was not spared from the carnage visited on the lower three floors.

The walls around her had bloody handprints and bloodstains that reached from the midpoint of the wall to the floor. Some bloodstains were at diagonal angles and suggested that they came from wounds like bites to the neck; these stains were thin and stretched out in comparison to the thick stains where the victims slumped against the wall and slid down it. There were also real potted plants lying on their sides with broken pottery and overturned dirt. To her left was the familiar double doors of the elevator and bloody handprints on them that suggested frightened workers trying in vain to pry the elevator doors open and beating at the doors as they were eaten alive.

As she walked further Diana saw several closed office doors, some of which had wooden desks pushed against the door to bar forced entry. The windows on the doors had been broken out and blood trails left on the windows suggested that the zombies had either pulled themselves into the office or had pulled the occupants out. In other offices the doors were open and bodies littered the ground outside of them. She took that as a sign that security officers had holed up in the offices and killed some of the zombies before either being overrun or turning their weapons on themselves to avoid being infected. There was also the possibility that security had thrown the occupants out of the offices and had left them to fend for themselves against the zombies swarming the fourth floor.

Inside some of the offices was the twinkle of shell casings on the ground. The sheer number of them and the presence of bloodstains on the wall next to the door suggested that there had been fighting within the offices. Whether the bodies in front of the offices were reanimated corpses trying to get in or frightened, desperate office workers seeking safety was unknown. She did not have time to solve that mystery because in front of her loomed over four dozen zombies standing between her and the double doors.

The zombies were a mix of blue-shirted security personnel and well-dressed office staff with the occasional corporate bigwig in a three-piece suit wearing a fancy wristwatch. Diana saw that they had not yet noticed her, so that gave her some time to think of how to effectively combat them. Her current weapon would do nicely for picking some of them off before they got within striking distance, but the sheer number of zombies meant that she would not be able to get them all. What she could do was use Spirit Dome to hit multiple enemies at once, but the problem with that was she had to let them get close to effectively use the spell. The huntress stood there and considered her options... until a reanimated security officer clutching an empty semi-automatic pistol with the slide locked back emerged from the office to her immediate left and sounded the alarm!

"GRAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" It moaned at her. The zombies in front of her raised their arms and began slowly shuffling towards her. Diana turned and silenced the "scout" with a shot to the head before turning back to face the main body of zombies. They moved at the typical zombie speed of a slow walk, but there were so many of them and she had only one crowd control spell available. Diana would just have to thin out their numbers before they got close enough to use Spirit Dome. That was the plan before more zombies emerged from the side offices to take a bite out of her. Diana had little choice but to retreat to the stairwell door and fight with her back to the wall.

Diana's first priority was killing the zombies closest to her, a task which she set about doing. She calmly and carefully targeted the closest ones and dispatched them with shots to the head, focusing on one office's worth at a time before turning to dispatch the next group. Diana had finished off two offices of zombies before turning to face the third and fourth, which had emerged just ahead of the main force and was homing in on her. More zombies were flowing out of offices the main body had already passed, swelling their numbers to over six dozen and counting. Even with her marksman skills the huntress could not hold out against that many zombies, so she was faced with some hard questions.

Did she stand her ground or did she flee back to the stairwell and try to sneak onto the fourth floor another way?

Assuming she used the stairwell to escape and regroup, was there even another way onto the fourth floor other than using the elevator and arriving to find an entire floor full of zombies waiting on her?

Did she try to make contact with the source of the gunshots and enlist their help in fighting the undead menace?

Diana did not know what to do, but she needed to think fast. The zombies were getting closer and they were hungry. If she did not act fast she would become just another walking corpse shuffling around the office... if there was even enough left of her body to re-animate when they were finished with her.

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Diana stared down the approaching threat and concluded that the best course of action would not be to run from it, but instead to fight it. She had Spirit Dome, a spell which was capable of hitting multiple opponents and harming them. She had used that same spell to save her and Stan from a horde of forty-plus zombies in the basement of Sombras Manor while retrieving a book on behalf of the manor's librarian.

Retreating down the stairs and trying to loop back around would take too much valuable time and waste too much energy. Besides, the problem would still be waiting for her once she got back. Diana mentally crossed that option off the list and thought about her next possible course of action.

Relying on the source of the gunshots for help was not the best idea because she did not know what the person's intent was. The gunman could be a Shadow Collective agent who had somehow found her and was fighting the undead to reach her and complete their contract. They could also be an independent scavenger who would see the huntress as competition and want to eliminate her so that they had the loot in the building all to themselves.

Diana dismissed that second option as being not worth the risk. She turned her attention back to the zombie horde approaching her and decided to stand her ground. It would be prudent to use a straightforward solution to deal with the zombie problem instead of wasting time trying to get clever with opponents who literally could not think.

Diana set her weapon on the ground and instead channeled pale blue magic into both her hands, waiting until the zombies were within the best range to hit as many of them as possible with the spell she was about to use. Once enough of them were within range to be affected Diana dropped to her knees and slammed both palms onto the ground, creating a Spirit Dome that emanated from her position and caught almost all of the zombies in the dome of death energy. All but eight of them had fallen to the ground and either writhed as they burned or lay motionless; that opened a gaping hole in their formation that allowed Diana to use a Reaper's Sprint to dash past them and escape the trap.

Once past the zombies Diana brought out her Suppressed Assault Rifle to mop up the remnants of the once-formidable undead horde. They were so fixated on shuffling forward that they did not even realize that their prey was standing right behind them. Diana took advantage of their inability to think to quickly and quietly deal with them with a series of suppressed headshots. Eight single shots later and the zombies were dispatched without any further difficulty.

Diana strode past and stepped over the bodies of the zombies to retrieve her Submachine Gun, dispelling her assault rifle once she had reclaimed her first weapon. The fourth floor office was now as quiet as the grave and safe for the huntress to explore. She slowly made her way through the office while listening out for any more reanimated office workers looking for a meal; her objective was the set of double doors at the end of the long hallway. As she continued down the path she saw more grim evidence of what had transpired inside the walls of the office.

Diana found office doors that had been smashed open and bloodstains that coated the floor and walls of the offices, which had the unmistakable odor of death and decay. Lying on the floors were half-eaten corpses that were too badly eaten to reanimate... their milky white eyes were silent witnesses to the horror that had occurred many months ago and their open mouths screamed at the ceiling. Diana passed by the offices and heard muffled gunshots from the stairwell she had left behind. She needed to hurry if she wanted to find the briefcase and retrieve it before the unknown party got to it first... or tried to kill her to get to it.

The mage kept moving until she reached the double doors, where she stopped and listened carefully. There was no telling if she would be facing still more reanimated office workers and executives, but it stood to reason that she would. She had to assume that every office had at least one zombie lurking within, if not more. Diana carefully positioned herself in between the doors and edged closer until she could push them both open at once. She took a deep breath and reached out with her left hand, pushing them open gently to get a peek of what waited within.

From the brief few seconds the door was open Diana got a glimpse of at least one zombified executive swaying in place behind a waist-high long table. Seeing that zombie meant that she would need to clean the room out before she could search the room for any clues concerning what she was sent to retrieve. With any luck the briefcase had been shoved under a table during the panic and was waiting for her to pick it up. However, Diana doubted that company secrets would have been left out in the open waiting to be scooped up by anyone who walked by.

Diana theorized that they may have been secured in a hidden safe somewhere on the fourth floor. The onus would be on her to find it, unlock it, and secure its contents before the person firing the gunshots got here. First she would have to clean out the boardroom in front of her. Diana took a deep breath and prepared to go in and wipe out the zombies before they could react to her presence. She was about to push open the door when the doors swung open of their own accord, admitting a dozen zombies into the area.

Diana quickly backpedaled at least 50 meters away and aimed carefully at the first zombie to shamble towards her, an older woman dressed in a black jacket and skirt with her left arm missing below the elbow and numerous bite marks on her neck and right arm. Diana aimed at its head and fired a single shot, dropping it to the floor. Behind it were at least eleven more fanning out into the large hallway and behind them were another twenty. Just how many zombies were in that office?

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It did not matter how many zombies there were. It only mattered that they were in her way. Diana stood her ground and began to pick them off with carefully aimed headshots. She focused on the first group to burst through the boardroom doors and began firing, bringing down five of them in as many seconds. Six more were left and they were soon joined by their fellows in the second group of twenty that shambled out just behind them. Diana was sure that there were stragglers still inside the boardroom, but her first concern was eliminating the enemies that were already in front of her.

They were too far apart for a Spirit Dome to get them all, so she stuck with her initial plan to kill them all with carefully aimed headshots. She tagged three more in the first group before the oncoming zombies got too close for comfort, so Diana quickly backpedaled another 50 meters and resumed picking off the last three zombies left from the first group. Three shots later and they lay twitching on the ground, but their fellows in the second group continued to shamble towards the blonde who was picking them off without heed to losses. Diana killed another four before she was forced to back away a third time; she backpedaled again and came to a stop, then resumed firing on the undead.

Two minutes later and all the zombies that had shambled out of the boardroom were dead on the floor. Diana carefully made her way past them and stood in front of the double doors again. She took a deep breath and pushed the doors open, then moved carefully inside to dispose of any stragglers before searching for either the briefcase or clues as to where it could be.

-Inside the boardroom-

Diana quickly swept the room for zombies and picked off one that was staring absentmindedly at the far left corner. With the one zombie that was out in the open dead, she then swept under the table for any zombies who may have lost their legs before reanimating and were crawling towards her. Thankfully there were none of those lurking under the table, so Diana began to examine the room she was standing in.

The boardroom was one with dark wood paneling for the walls and gray carpet. There was a large white markerboard on the far right wall and two smaller corkboards on each side of it with sheets of statistics and graphs pinned to them with numerous colors of pin. The table that dominated the room was a long, rectangular table made of mahogany or some other dark wood that had been polished to a shine. Over three dozen chairs sat empty or lay on the floor when their occupants jumped up and ran for their lives when they heard of what was happening on the lower floors... or were attacked in the middle of a meeting by a reanimated office worker.

Diana looked under the table again with a special emphasis on looking near the thick legs for a briefcase that had been shoved under it before the meeting. She looked around carefully and spotted a black object sitting near the bottom left that had caught her attention, so the huntress walked around the table until she found the object. She knelt and grabbed it with her left hand, then pulled it from its hiding place and set it on the table.

It was a black briefcase with two silver clasps keeping it closed. Overcome with curiosity, Diana set her submachine gun off to the right and opened the case. Inside was a stack of business papers full of technical jargon related to the financial sector that Diana could not even comprehend. She set them aside and dug deeper, finding a yellow sheet of ruled paper with an exclamation jotted in red ink.

"THAT GORMAN BASTARD'S TRYING TO STEAL OUR NEW PRODUCT!"

Diana found that headline interesting, but it was not what she was sent here to retrieve. She was about to set the paper aside when she looked lower and found a note written in black ink.

"I have a feeling that Gorman bastard's slipped in some spies to try and steal our secrets, so I've hidden the specifications for our latest product in my office safe. If they think they can just slap a stethoscope on it and twist the knob until it clicks, they've got another thing coming! They'd be lucky to even find my safe 'cause I paid good money to have it concealed! The note bragged.

Diana's curiosity was piqued. Who had written this note? Diana set it aside momentarily and began to search the briefcase for anything that could tell her who the author was. She began sifting through the numerous papers and manila folders crammed with papers until she came across a single white business card with the ring of a coffee stain from a mug on the left half and a name printed in black ink.

R. SPENSER
VICE-PRESIDENT, SPENSER ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

Diana was puzzled. What kind of product could an electronics corporation develop that would be worth stealing? Did the company develop a newer, faster computer processor that could take computers to the next level of performance? Did it develop a new memory chip with such capacity that external hard drives were a thing of the past? Or did it develop something much more dangerous, something like a program that could break through any firewall?

The building looked like a normal office complex and did not appear like a high-tech computer research facility, but that was likely a facade to hide its true purpose. Maybe the real research took place in a hidden laboratory that was accessible only by elevator. She did not know and her questions and theories were things that she would keep to herself to avoid getting buried under lawsuits from now to eternity by Mister Burke's company.

Diana left the briefcase where it was and picked up her weapon again, carrying the business card in her left hand. It was her first and only clue as to where the briefcase was, but now the challenge came in finding R. Spenser's office. There were plenty of offices to check, so finding the right one could take awhile. Once she found the right one she would then have to locate the hidden safe, then find a means of opening the safe. She had better get to it.

-Back on the fourth floor-

Diana shut the boardroom doors behind her and retraced her steps down the hallway, looking for R. Spenser's office and watching out for any zombies that she may have missed during the first two big battles with the reanimated staff. There had to be some out there and she was sure that she would encounter them in due time, but that thought was put on hold when she heard the muffled gunshots again. They sounded somewhat closer than they were last time, which meant that time was running out.

Diana needed to get a move on and find R. Spenser's office before company got here.

[Post Word Count: 1,193]
[Total Word Count: 7,220/11,000]

-Fourth floor hallway-

Carefully stepping over the dead bodies that dotted the hall, Diana walked down the hallway in search of R. Spenser's office so that she could find the hidden safe, figure out a way to open it, and claim the briefcase of secrets before company got here and made her job and her life more difficult than it had to be. She looked inside each office and the tale was the same. Each office was a scene of death and had at least one decomposing body lying on the floor. The glass on the doors that would have had the occupant's name and title was also broken and lying on the floor, meaning that Diana would have to enter each room and search for a nameplate on a desk or a framed degree on the wall to ascertain which office belonged to who. It would be tedious and time-consuming, but it had to be done if she wanted to complete the job before next year.

Diana did not have any special clues that would help her pick out Spenser's office from the others, so she picked an office at random and went inside with weapon ready.

-Inside the sixth office to the left-

Diana carefully stepped through broken glass littering the carpet flooring and searched the office for any means of identification that she could use to determine if she was in the right office or not. Unfortunately the area was an utter mess with dried blood coating the carpet behind the desk and the wall had a long stain where someone had slumped against it and slid down while bleeding out. All of the framed degrees and certifications were lying on the floor with broken glass frames, but they were still able to provide identification. Diana used the toe of her right boot to nudge a golden frame over and it flipped face-up to show a name.

Daniel Curry

Diana frowned. She was in the wrong office and would have to find the right one. Diana quickly left the office and re-entered the hallway.

-Back in the hallway-

Diana resumed her search for R. Spenser's office... if "search" was the right word. It was more like stumbling around and hoping she got lucky enough to find the right office before she either encountered more zombies or the mysterious gunman reached the fourth floor and found her. All she had to go on was a name and a title. Lacking any other direction to go in, Diana opted to go towards an office that had four corpses lying face-down in front of it. There had to be something important in there.

-Inside the office-

Stepping over the corpses to get inside, Diana found yet another scene of death. Inside the office was the corpse of a man slumped in a corner and clutching an empty semi-automatic pistol in his right hand with eighteen shell casings littering. The blood spatter along a section of wall to the left implied that the person saved their last bullet for themselves and used it when they stood no chance of survival and had no hope for rescue. Diana turned away from the body and looked on the desk for a nameplate, a piece of paper with their name on it, anything to let her know in whose office she was standing. The papers on top of the desk were splattered with blood and thus illegible.

As luck would have it, on the wall behind the desk was a framed certificate that read R. Spenser in bold black letters. The huntress had gotten lucky when she needed it the most. She had found the right office, but now she needed to find the hidden safe mentioned in the paper found in Spenser's briefcase in the boardroom. Recalling Spenser's confidence that the safe was well-hidden, Diana immediately began to think about where the safe could be.

The wall was out of the question since that would be the most obvious place for it. Diana's thoughts turned to the floor and began to use the heel of her right boot to tap on the floor in case it was hidden beneath a panel. The huntress did this all around the office but got nothing for her trouble but wasted time. Thinking a bit harder and trying to think like a paranoid corporate executive, the blonde's eyes wandered back to the desk.

What if the desk had a secret switch or button that could open where the safe was hidden?

Deciding to go with that theory since she had nothing else to go on, Diana began to open drawers and examine them to find the hidden switch or button. She opened the left drawer and found nothing but three bottles of Albino Gander vodka sitting inside of it. Diana opened the right drawer and found a stack of trade magazines and old financial sections of a newspaper called The Fulci Journal. She opened the smaller middle drawer and found a Motor City Muscle Cars magazine with a red bookmark stuffed in between its pages.

Diana opened the magazine and immediately flipped to where the bookmark was, finding a picture of a scantily clad model in a white bikini posing on the hood of a black muscle car with a white stripe running down the center of the hood... and a golden keycard!

Diana took the keycard from the magazine, then started to push the drawer in when she thought to examine it. Diana ran her fingers along the underside of the desk surface until she felt something give way to her finger about halfway to the end. She pressed it and heard a CLICK, then heard a panel on the floor slide open. She looked for the newly opened area and found it to be right beneath the desk where one's feet would go. Diana got on her knees and crawled under the desk to access the safe and its keycard reader.

Diana located the keycard reader on the front right side and aligned the magnetic strip of the card with the reader, then swiped it down. The light flashed green and the safe door automatically opened to reveal a gleaming silver briefcase with a lock. Recalling her instructions, Diana did not even try to open it but instead picked it up by the handle and closed up the safe, then closed the floor panel and placed the card back in the magazine before closing it and the desk drawer.

That should buy her a little time to take the secrets and run if she could make a getaway before company got here. Without any fingerprints or footprints to trace her, the gunman would have nothing to go on, nothing with which to track her down. That would make Diana's life a lot easier.

[Post Word Count: 1,138]
[Total Word Count: 8,358/11,000]

-Back in the hallway, Fourth Floor-

With her submachine gun in one hand and the silver briefcase in the other, Diana slowly made her way to the stairwell door while watching for any undead stragglers who were roving the halls of the fourth floor. The job was halfway finished, but now she had to make her way out of the office and deal with both any undead she had avoided on the first three floors and the mysterious person who had been firing gunshots while Diana was exploring the office complex. Diana was halfway to the door when more gunshots rang out. She paused in place and sought shelter in the office to her right because she did not want to be in the line of fire when the person arrived on the fourth floor. She had what she came for and now she just wanted to make a clean getaway without engaging in any unnecessary fights.

-Inside the office-

Diana hurriedly walked past the corpse of a female office worker in a blue skirt and jacket combo whose face had been chewed beyond recognition and crouched behind the wooden desk. She ignored the stench of death that permeated the air and listened out for anyone entering the fourth floor. Soon enough she heard three rapid gunshots and a metal door being kicked open. Diana remained where she was and listened carefully to determine whether the mystery person was near her or not.

"I hate zombies. They smell awful and invade your personal space. They're worse than the drunks at Boomslang." A female voice groused about the reanimated office workers a short distance away. Diana now knew that the mystery person was a female, but she had not yet made visual contact with them. That was fine by the huntress. Diana waited and listened as the woman walked noisily down the hallway and gagged at the smell of death that lingered throughout the floor. That lack of noise control gave Diana a very good idea of the approximate location of the woman; at the moment the woman was just outside the office Diana was hiding in.

Diana remained silent and let the person pass by, taking a quiet sip from her hydration pack while waiting. She waited five minutes to make sure the person had really passed by and was not trying to fake her out before slowly sneaking to the doorway and pausing again. Diana stood up and was going to make a break for the stairwell when she heard another thought voiced out loud.

"Damn, someone really cleaned this place out. There's not a single zombie left alive on this floor." The person commented while walking straight towards the boardroom. Diana remained in place for a minute longer, then quietly slipped out of the office and back into the hallway to sneak to the stairwell.

-In the hallway, fourth floor-

Diana carefully stepped over the dead bodies and quietly made her way towards the now-open stairwell door without stopping to look back at the woman whose commentary she had been eavesdropping on while hiding. She made it halfway to the door before using a Reaper's Sprint spell to cover the rest of the distance in a quick and silent dash that left the woman none the wiser concerning Diana's presence. Diana quietly slipped through the door and into the stairwell, where a familiar problem confronted her.

-Inside the stairwell-

Diana had made it past the mystery woman, but now she had to contend with the noise her boots made on the metal. If she tried to go down them with her boots on the noise made by them would negate any attempt at stealth. Then a sudden idea hit her.

Why not take off her boots and tie them together by a lace, then sling them around her neck and walk down the stairs in her socks?

With socks on her feet and nothing left to lose, Diana quietly set down the briefcase and her weapon, then hurriedly untied her boots and took them off. She quickly tied one of the laces to the other in a single knot and draped it around her long hair to cushion the boots now dangling from around her neck. She then picked up her weapon and the briefcase before slowly making her way down the stairs. Her feet were getting cold from walking down the cold metal stairs, but in return she was not making any noise when she took a step. That new degree of stealth was more than worth the trade of cold feet.

Diana quietly made it down the first flight of stairs and rested a few seconds before proceeding down the second flight without further delay. Time was of the essence if the huntress wanted to make a clean getaway with the briefcase of precious secrets. She reached the door to the third floor without issue and paused for a moment to see if the mystery woman had entered the stairwell, but once Diana had determined that she had not been pursued she entered the third floor offices and continued her objective of escaping the four-story building.

-Third Floor Offices-

Diana entered the offices and found that the undead that had populated the floor almost an hour ago were now lying dead on the carpet. The woman must have taken care of them for Diana, which was very kind of the former since it saved her the trouble of doing it herself. The way was now clear of walking corpses and all she had to do was take it. Free of any need for stealth Diana began to run across the messy floor in her socks while dodging corpses on the floor and any office detritus that was left on the floor from the panic all those months ago. Diana made good time and reached the halfway point of the office in almost half the time it took to sneak through it when the zombies were still a threat. Things were going well for the huntress, almost too well.

An escape this easy concerned Diana because in her line of work, when things were easy there was usually an unpleasant surprise waiting just around the corner. She doubted that the woman could have made it through the zombies in Fulci and fight through the lower floors of the office all by herself. The woman sounded and acted way too inexperienced to be a hardened contract killer like Diana was. She had to have had some help to get to this point.

What if the woman was not working alone but had a team with her?

Diana would have to slow down and watch out for other people as she made her escape.

[Post Word Count: 1,125]
[Total Word Count: 9,483/11,000]

-On the Third Floor-

Diana continued her sprint through the third floor office to stay ahead of the woman, who may or may not be coming down from the fourth floor as the blonde hurried to the stairwell door. She had to be careful in case there was more than one scavenger in the office complex. She highly doubted that the woman fought her way through Fulci and the office complex alone. She had to have had help, but from who and by how many people? Diana was not sure and slowed to a stop once she reached the door to the stairwell, which was being propped open by a ghastly doorstop.

A zombie body had been placed to hold the door open. Diana noticed the blue shirt and black pants and noticed that it was a security officer zombie that had been chosen to hold the door open. Diana was grimly amused enough to almost crack a smile as she passed by the deceased officer who was kind enough to hold the door open as she passed by.

-In the stairwell to the second floor-

Diana stepped past the dead security officer and into the stairwell, where she stopped and listened for any of the woman's accomplices voicing complaints about the place and its rotting tenants. She remained in place for two minutes to listen out for anyone else and when she did not hear anything, she ventured down the stairs at a slow and steady pace to avoid hurting her feet on the metal stairs. She still had two more floors to get down and could not do that with any alacrity if she hurt her feet early in the descent. Diana descended the first flight of stairs without difficulty and paused a few seconds before descending the second in only a few seconds' time.

Once Diana was standing in front of the door she stopped and took a breath before proceeding. Slow and steady would win this race. Once she got out of the office complex she still had an entire town to traverse before she could proceed to Shirotsume and hand the case to Mister Burke for completion of the mission. Once she had taken a few breaths Diana carefully opened the door and continued with her goal of leaving the office.

-The Second Floor Offices-

Diana quietly shut the door behind her and took a few moments to assess the area before proceeding any further. In front of her was an empty expanse of office just like it had been when she had passed through here the first time, but that could be what the woman's associates wanted her to think. Diana would not sprint through here like she had the third floor and would move a little slower. If her suspicion that there were other people nearby was proven right, she would avoid rushing headlong into an ambush. If she was wrong and there really was no one else with the woman, then all she would have lost from being cautious was time.

Diana began walking through the office, being careful to step over bodies and detritus because she was not wearing her boots. It was quiet and Diana could not detect any magic signatures in the office, but that was not a guarantee of anything. She had not detected a magic signature from the woman on the fourth floor, meaning that she was either able to hide her signature or that she was not a mage. Either way the huntress would have to be careful.

Diana continued moving quietly until she reached the halfway point, where she took a brief break to take the boots off of her neck before the laces sawed through both her hair and the back of her neck. She felt the pressure relieved quickly... and felt it pile back on when she heard a male voice call out from the front of the office.

"Emily, are you there?" A male voice called out. Diana ducked down and remained silent as the male figure stood in the doorway. She glanced at him and saw an older man in predominantly olive green clothing and black boots armed with an assault rifle began to walk into the cubicle farm. Diana hurriedly put the boots back on her neck and began to quietly walk forward while keeping an eye out for the man and her ears open for either him or "Emily".

Diana quietly proceeded through the office and ducked down whenever she heard the sound of boots on carpet. The man made occasional muttered mentions of "Emily" and how scavenging here was a big mistake, but any corporate secrets they could find would bring in enough Jewels for them to live well for years. Diana had made it past the man and slipped through the doorway without him knowing she was even there... until the door handle inexplicably squeaked when she opened the door to the stairwell!

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The man called out. Diana did no such thing and hurried through the door without any concern for stealth. The jig was up and she needed to make a very fast exit.

-In the stairwell to the First Floor-

Diana got away from the door and hurried down the first flight of stairs while rifle bullets perforated the door she had just closed behind her. She rapidly descended the stairs and did not even pause when approaching the second flight that would lead to the first floor. She had just rushed down three steps when she heard the metal door burst open and the stranger call out to her.

"STOP, DAMMIT! STOP OR I'LL SHOOT YOU!" He ordered. Diana reached the end of the staircase and muscled open the door just as rifle bullets began to rain down on her position from above. That was too close for comfort.

-On the First Floor-

Diana did not have very much time to put her boots on, so she hurried to a side room with a broken window and hurriedly untied the single knot that held her laces together. She jammed them on her feet and hastily tied them, then picked up her weapon and the briefcase. She heard the sound of thundering footsteps in the stairwell, so she had to hurry. Diana sprinted from the side room and made a beeline for the same door she had used to enter the building.

When she reached it Diana twisted the doorknob open and shoved the thick wooden door aside, exiting just as the armed man shouted at her to stop for a third time. She was not stopping for him or for anyone else. She had left no evidence behind to trace her and long-haired blondes were dime-a-dozen in Earthland, so she had little fear of him or "Emily" tracing her later down the road.

[Post Word Count: 1,142]
[Total Word Count: 10,625/11,000]

-The streets of Fulci-

Diana had barely made it through the door and down the stairs when still another burst of rifle bullets punched through the wood like it was cardboard. Diana ignored it and hurried down the street as fast as her legs could take her. She dispelled her submachine gun since there were no zombies in the immediate area and she did not want to shoot herself in the head if she suffered the misfortune of tripping over something. Diana hurried and ran in a zigzag pattern to throw off the man's aim if he had already exited the office complex to begin pursuing her. The blonde's measure was a prudent one because a fair distance behind her she heard the sound of automatic gunfire and loud swearing... the man was missing her with each shot, but he was also attracting zombies towards him with the loud noise of his unsuppressed gunshots.

Diana did not look back and just kept running for the town gates. A few zombies that she had not shot before were alerted by the commotion and began to shamble towards her, but the huntress was just too fast for them to catch. She continued to run past dilapidated buildings and broken-down vehicles en route to the gates. She would let the man in green deal with them while she slipped away with the precious briefcase and returned to her client.

Diana passed by the coffee shop with the drinks "STRONG ENOUGH TO REANIMATE THE DEAD!" without slowing down and continued her sprint until she reached the sporting goods store she had killed the zombies in earlier. Once she had reached that place she was fairly certain that she had left the man in green and "Emily" behind, so she slowed down to a brisk walk and kept a look out for any more humans with guns who wanted to use her for target practice.

Diana had a brisk and uneventful stroll through the zombie-infested town until she reached the gates. Once she reached the gates she slowed down and took a few deep breaths, then walked through the gates and left Fulci behind for the safer ground of Shirotsume... and the waiting payday that was the reward for completing this high-risk mission. She could not wait to get away from this place. She had not been pursued by either of the people from inside the office complex and they had no evidence to trace back to her, so the trip to Shirotsume should be long but otherwise uneventful.

-Shirotsume, Mister Burke's Residence, ten hours later-

After a lengthy journey of ten hours Diana was finally standing inside the foyer of Mister Burke's home in lovely and peaceful Shirotsume. Dressed in an immaculate three-piece gray suit, Mister Burke had met her in the foyer after the huntress had removed her dirty boots.

"Welcome, Miss Winchester. I see that you have recovered the briefcase that I sent you for." The man greeted her warmly. Diana wordlessly handed it to him using both hands, making it a point to show him that the locks were intact. He nodded and spoke to her.

"Thank you, Miss Winchester. I cannot thank you enough for completing this task on behalf of my employer. Our secrets are now safe from those who would steal them for their own purposes." The man thanked her for her hard work. Diana took this opportunity to ask her client an important question.

"While in the building I encountered two people. One was a woman and the other was a man in olive green clothing armed with an assault rifle. Do you happen to know who they were?" Diana asked Mister Burke. He frowned and crossed his arms.

"No, not at all. They must have been scavengers looking for things to sell. Scavengers are common in Fulci... in addition to looking for abandoned valuables to take and sell, some of them are also thrill-seekers who enjoy the rush of scavenging in danger zones like Fulci." Mister Burke replied with certainty. Diana was not sure if he really did not know who they were or if he had hired them to retrieve the briefcase... and eliminate Diana while they were at it. However, she had no solid evidence of betrayal to go on, so she had no choice but to take the man at his word when he asserted that he had nothing to do with those people in the office complex. Diana set aside her suspicions and dealt with Mister Burke in good faith.

"Very well then. Is there anything else you need from me?" Diana asked the client. He shook his head and gave a small smile.

"Not at all, Miss Winchester. I am pleased with your performance and will now fulfill my end of the bargain." He informed her. Dressed in an elaborate pink kimono with a cherry blossom theme, Kumiko stepped forward with a large bag of Jewels that was Diana's payment for completing the job. Diana took it with both hands and thanked the client.

"You are welcome, Miss Winchester. Should you continue to perform as well as you did today, there will be more lucrative jobs waiting for you. I will have need for someone like you in the future, so I will be in touch. I bid you good day." Mister Burke said to Diana, who took the hint and left the building so that he might inform his employers that their secrets had been successfully recovered by the huntress. Once outside the building Diana put her boots back on and immediately began the lengthy trip back home. Diana had scored another success and after a brief break would soon be in search of her next big payday.

[Post Word Count: 958]
[Total Word Count: 11,583/11,000]