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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old Drew Id" data-source="post: 1078643" data-attributes="member: 12175">Session 3 (5/21/2003) Getting CloserSession 3 (5/21/2003) Getting Closer“That’s not skin…that’s clay,” Crystal announced, with her light (and gun sight) trained closely on the zombie’s face. Willie grunted with the pain in his leg and leaned over to take a closer look. “I don’t care if it’s a mud mask, let’s get out of here!” Taylor urged, but no one moved.Crystal picked up one of the thug’s knives and poked at the body with it. She heard her own voice sounding eerily detached from the disgusting display in front of her, as though the entire situation was an academic problem. She was rather pleased with herself at her ability to handle what she was seeing. “Look, there is real bone and muscle underneath, but the skin…has been replaced with clay… And this neck muscle looks like….evidence of larvae…” The forensic evidence didn’t lie. She looked up at Willie and Taylor, “This guy has been dead for days.”“Good, so definite zombie material…now can we get out of here?” Taylor was hopping back and forth from one foot to the other.Willie reached into one of his jacket pockets and produced a small plastic bag, “You wanna get a sample, Crystal?” Crystal nodded and took the plastic bag. She began to cut a sample from the body. Taylor grimaced in the dark, “You two need a life! Taking pieces of dead guy home to…shut up! Listen!” She cocked an ear upwards as the other two froze in place.In the distance, a police siren was wailing. Crystal’s radio crackled to life, “Hello folks, this is…um…this is your Brother…we’re on the freeway heading back to where you’re at, and we’re currently following several gentlemen in uniform who seem to be heading in your direction as well. Just in case you weren’t expecting any guests…Over.”Taylor was already halfway down the stairs. Crystal vaulted up over the body and stuffed the bagged sample into her pocket as Willie limped towards the exit. She surveyed the damage to the room as Willie moved slowly down the stairs. The sound of sirens was getting louder. Crystal yelled down the stairs, “Get the car pulled around! I’ll help Willie to the door!”. . .“Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. This is Lucille. How may I direct your call?”“Lucille? Hey baby, this is Willie.”Lucille smiled and blushed. She carefully put the top back onto her bottle of fingernail polish. “Willie? Boy, look at you calling me bright and early on a Monday morning! Now I know I ain’t all that! You callin’ to take me out again?”“Um…yeah, baby, sure! I was calling to ask you out again! You know, I had the best time with ya on Friday and I just can’t wait to see you again. You know, you have an effect on me, baby!”“Well, Willie, ain’t you just the sweetest thing? You know, I might be free later this week!”“Great baby! Say, baby, as long as I got you on the phone, I was gonna look up some information on this van…”. . .“This here’s your supply cart, with your mop and bucket there, and …these gloves aren’t any good. We’ll get you a fresh pair…and here are your toilet paper rolls and your paper towels and glass cleaner here…”Joe sighed and nodded along. He was wearing blue coveralls over his brand new “Danger Girl” T-shirt, and he was hot, tired, and bored. This old guy actually spent half and hour going over all of the different duties that Joe was supposed to do and all of the things that he was supposed to clean, and he seemed to expect Joe to actually care about everything he was saying. This wasn’t at all like it was supposed to be. In the movies, when you needed to sneak into some office building, you just decided to do it, and then two seconds later you saw the hero wandering down a hallway with a mop and an ID card. But Joe had spent an hour filling out tax paperwork, (and having to make sure all of the fake information he put on that paperwork matched up correctly) then had to sit through some stupid half-hour safety procedure film they showed to new employees (probably a brain-washing technique, which is why Joe was careful to avert his eyes the entire time), and now he had been listening to this guy drone on for forever about his cleaning supplies. Now the old guy was looking at him expectantly. Crap, Joe recognized this look. This was the “I just asked you a question and if you had been listening you would know that” look. Joe mumbled, “yeah, um, I just want to clean stuff.”The old guy chewed his lip for a second and then nodded, apparently satisfied, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “Swing by the supply room to get your rubber gloves, then start on the third floor in Accounting and work your way down.”A few minutes later, Joe was on the third floor. He breezed right past Accounting and headed for the restrooms, towing along his supply cart the whole way. Once inside the bathroom, he pulled a small package out from under his coveralls. He ripped open the package and pulled out a hat, shirt, and tie. First, the Bigfoot hat. That felt a lot better. There were way to many cameras in this building. Next, Joe lost the coveralls and put on the button-down shirt and the tie. He checked his watch and wondered how long he could be missing before raising suspicions. Next stop, back down the hall, into Human Resources. Using the new set of keys, Joe was inside in just under a minute, and sat down at a computer. Most of the workstations were left on all night, with there was no password on the screensaver of the first one that Joe touched. No surprise there, really. Joe poked around for a minute among the list of programs and eventually found what he was looking for. Before two minutes had passed, a nearby laser printer was spitting out a report of all of the recent layoffs. Again, disappointing. In a movie, Joe would have had to hack the password, with at least two attempts ending in a big flashing skull and crossbones and message that took up the whole screen in yellow text saying “Access Denied”. Instead, just two minutes and he had a printout.“Hello?”Joe’s heart lurched up into his throat. There was a security guard at the door to the department. Joe took in a slow deep breath. He just needed to remember what Willie and the preacher had told him. Short answers. People are more likely to believe you if you stick to short answers. “Hey, sir, do you work here?” the security guard was still standing at the doorway.Joe put on his best smile. So far, he didn’t even need to lie. He did work here. “Yep,” he answered, and lifted up his new employee badge.“You working late tonight?”Well, this was easy. “Yep,” and motioned at the computer. “You’re supposed to come downstairs and sign the sheet if you are working this late at night.”“Um…sorry”“It’s alright, sir. It’s just that we have an alarm that goes off downstairs…did you just get up and go to the bathroom or something?”“Yep” Jeez, Joe was about to bluff his way out of the situation without ever even having to lie to the guy. And here Willie was always acting like this charismatic stuff was hard. “That explains it then. Sorry, we’re having some trouble with the cameras in this section tonight. I just had to come up and take a look.”“Um…okay.”“Alright, I’ll let the other guards know you’re up here. Take it easy.”“Thanks,” Joe smiled and continued typing random things into the computer until the guard had gone down the hall. After that, he tucked the printouts into his pants and headed out the door and back to the bathroom. . . .One hour later, Joe was standing in a small lobby in a corner set off away from the main hallways, and connecting four small offices. He had just stumbled across this place while doing actual cleaning. Joe had almost vacuumed the floor of the entire lobby before he saw the names on the four doors.The four vice-presidents. The four old inactive members of the library. The four oldest members of the Ward Numismatic Society. The names matched up to the offices. These were their offices. Joe tugged his hat back out of his pocket and pulled in down low over his eyes. Next he pulled out his ring of keys and unlocked the first door. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door. The office inside was opulent, museum-like, and intimidating. Joe immediately felt a strong urge to leave, but he dismissed it and tip-toed into the room. The furnishings were expensive and tasteful. A heavy cherry wood desk, bookshelves full of what appeared to be law books and expensive degrees. A couple of old oil paintings. Persian rug.Better to be safe tonight, Joe decided. Get a couple of pictures, make a plan, and come back tomorrow night. He hurried back to his supply cart and fished out his backpack from underneath a bag of garbage. Rummaging around inside, Joe removed a disposable camera from the bag and hurried back into the office. Again, a strong feeling of paranoia. This place was definitely not meant for prying eyes. The guards would be here any minute. Joe rapidly worked the room over, snapping pictures of the bookshelves, desk, walls, and floor. Finally satisfied, he grabbed the waste basket from under the desk and brought it back out to his cart. He dumped the trash papers into his backpack and sealed the whole thing up as quickly as possible. A moment later, he was safely away, and more eager than ever to get back home.</blockquote>

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