An undisclosed location…,

*Tip, Tap*

The lengthy hallway was filled with the tapping sounds of a woman's heels. 

 It was already dawn and the sky was getting darker by the minute, the parking lot outside the building was washed with silence and fancy looking cars sparsed about. 

 A stumbling lady bumped into. the owner of the footsteps trying to clock out of work quickly, looking up at the figure she stumbled into she couldn't help but mumble out an apology and scurry away.

 The figure was a lady, about 6 foot in height, tall for a lady, and had accentuated curves with a sharp look in her hazy purple eyes and soft lips. 

 She merely gazed at the lady that bumped into her, pushed aside her long, straight dark brown hair, scuffed and walked off.

 As she walked she adjusted her black skirt, brushed down her white collared shirt and dusted off her black waist coat.

 In her hands were a number of documents neatly bound and typed in black ink, she clutched them tightly and approached a tall Mahogany wood door with a smooth metallic handle, as she approached the door her eyes quivered.

 She was nervous, despite her domineering appearance, she was very nervous.

 And it wasn't without cause, behind the door she was about to open were a number of bigwigs in society, people who ran the world with their Wealth, Fame and Power, and at this point she was nothing more than a pawn in the game these people and her backer were playing.

 To survive whatever was gonna occur, she needed to prove her ability.

 She squinted her eyes in determination and stepped into what appeared to be a conference room.

 "Good Evening profound gentlemen and ladies, I am well aware you have all been awaiting my arrival, You may call me Lady Vanessa Dorian and I on behalf of my benefactor will be the one to lead today's briefing" she said in a firm tone, there seemed to be a subtle British accent in her words.

 Her quaint but bold introduction was unfortunately met with the cold gazes of the various 'Money-pigs' and 'piglets'.

 They all turned their expensive faces towards Victoria as sweat dropped down her neck while she tried to maintain a Stern face.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs Victoria, you should know we've been anticipating you for quite some time and are a little disappointed by your keeping us in suspense" a male voice resounded from the 4th seat on the left side of the round table.

 The nearly nonexistent lighting in the conference room did well to hide the features of the people in the room, only a few things could barely be discerned.

 The person who spoke seemed to be a man of Italian descent, a large build and a vague scar on his left hand.

 "It is true, your benefactor claimed to have worthwhile information for us, somehow gathered all of us together and strained out our precious time, I'm already somewhat peeved he didn't come here himself" a female voice came from the other end of the table.

 She seemed to have a Russian accent slipping into her words, her white fur coat probably polar bear's fur stood out in the bare pitch darkness.

 "I understand your grievances and apologize for my timing," Vanessa said in a soft tone with a slight bow.

 "Good you understand your wrongs in this situation, now call up your employer and tell him bring himself down here now, my patience is dwindling" the Russian said in an annoyed tone 

 Vanessa perked up her eyebrow and stared down the group of bigwigs.

 "I'm sorry but my employer is currently taking care of some important…business out of the country, he can't make the meeting, you will have to settle for me" she refuted their request.

 "You insolent-" the Russian woman was quickly halted by a man beside her who seemed Asian, most likely Japanese.

 "Madam, let's be civil, let's hear out whatever information she has for us first" the Asian said in a low tone.

 "Hmm" the Russian woman grunted and slumped into her seat in annoyance.

 Vanessa traced her eye to the pile of documents she brought with her.

 She started her presentation.

 "For centuries humanity has been at the pinnacle of the world, ever changing, ever growing, we have evolved beyond measure and taken the world off its balance." Vanessa began with a profound speech.

 "But unfortunately, this era of ours might soon come to an end" she said solemnly.

 "What does that mean?" the Russian woman queried.

 Vanessa squinted her eyes in annoyance.

 'Can you not interrupt me ?' she thought to herself.

 "During the year 2000, a string of abnormal events occurred worldwide, and the various world securities covered up and kept out of public knowledge these events for years, the world had and is continuing to change". Vanessa continued

 "Through the efforts of my employer and his foundation the source of these events have been traced to one particular existence, Anomalies" She said.

 "What are anomalies, objects, places, people, animals, that don't Accord to what humanity has deemed normal. They are dangerous, unpredictable and need to be put in check for the good of all the Innocents on this planet" she proposed.

 "Through our endeavors, my benefactor has come to one conclusion, humanity needs a safeguard, some sort of system or corporation to deal with the threat that is anomalies" She finalized before turning to a white projection screen on the wall behind her.

 Clicking a button on a black remote, she changed the screen to a different slide.

 "H.A.N.D - Humanity's Anomalous Neutralization Division" Vanessa said with a light smirk.

 The slide on the screen showed a logo of a Gray hand, manipulating handcrafted puppets with strings at its fingertips.

 "A purely government independent security division, made solely for the purpose of capturing, containing, researching and terminating anomalies, it's a complete non-disclosure corporation that keeps any and all information on Anomalies out of public knowledge" Vanessa continued proudly explaining the intricacies of H.A.N.D.

"All personnel hired are to be the best of the best under a non disclosure agreement that if breached leads to immediate termination of the individual, H.A.N.D will have state of the art testing facilities and holding cells all supervised by trusted individuals hand picked and background checked, H.A.N.D will be foremost in human technology all for the purpose of guarding against the threat of anomalies, but.." Vanessa suddenly paused.

 "But? the Italian man questioned.

 "That brings us to the major issue of this meeting, H.A.N.D requires funding, while my employer does have a large quantity of outlets, we believe the funding will be quite insufficient for what he plans to accomplish" said with an awkward smile on her face.

 "Hahahaha, let me get this straight, you pulled every single one of us out here for nothing more than a cash grab!?" the Russian lady burst out in laughter.

 "Who do you think you are to be making demands of us, your employer is quite special but not special enough to blind our eyes and make us throw money at you, your reasons are even far from sensible" she continued to mock Vanessa whilst twirling her blonde hair.

 "I realize that calling you out here to beg for funding is quite demeaning, but you must see the gravity of the situatio-" Vanessa tried to reason with her but was immediately cut short.

 "Yes yes I know, Anomalies or whatever, you really thought you could get us with that crap, if you're tacky boss really needs money that much he should just say so" she continued mocking Vanessa.

 Vanessa's eye twitched slightly.

 "I understand that the situation is insulting, I understand that nothing I've said sounds reasonable enough to justify my request, but I do not accept you insulting my employer that way" Vanessa fumed.

 "Every single one of you in this conference room feel your all so high and mighty, but beneath all that laundered money, undeserved fame and corrupted power, your all just worthless little shits who'll come crying right back to us when your oh so happy lives are threatened!" Vanessa was burning with rage.

 "Preach sister!" The Russian woman laughed loudly.

 "This meeting is adjourned" Vanessa walked out in rage.

 Her furious stomps could be heard echoing through the hallways, she understood that everything she said in that room sounded completely ridiculous and were no better than the ramblings of a child, but she couldn't see a valid reason for them to mock her employer like that.

 She already began wondering how she would break the news to her benefactor that the negotiation failed and they still had no stable backing.

 By the time the meeting had ended it was slightly drizzling outside, she walked out into the rain towards her Black Porsche 911, as she approached a chauffeur came up and opened the back seat door for her.

 "Drive Geralt, we're heading back to Atlanta, the meeting was a bust" Vanessa said in an annoyed tone.

 "Yes madam, also Sir Vazio asked that you should contact him immediately after the meeting" The white haired and medium build Geralt said.

 He was nearing his 70s and had defined wrinkles across his face, ironically these wrinkles added to his refined and gentlemanly appearance.

 "Sure Geralt i'll do that now" Vanessa replied pulling out her phone and heading to the contact list.

 The list was mostly filled with family members or co-workers but one particular contact was starred out as favourite, it read 'Vazio'.

 She dialed the line and the phone rang for a few seconds before it was answered.

 "Sir, Mr. Vazio, yes sir the meeting has come to an end, it was as you expected sir" Vanessa took the phone up to her ear and began relating the events of the meeting.

 "Yes sir, they disagreed with funding our cause, despite the severity of the situation they'd prefer hoarding their dirty money, but sir if you anticipated this happening why bother sending me here ?" Vanessa questioned.

 "Just testing the waters, a fish will always run from the surface of a pond when approached, it's merely just instinct" a somber and soft male voice was heard responding to her question.

 "In all honesty we didn't even require their funding, this was just to keep them in check and make them believe we needed them" the voice continued, it seemed to be in a deep train of thought.

 "Yes sir i could understand that completely" Vanessa replied with a wry smile.

 "In any case, the project must begin immediately, begin the recruiting phase, contact Elio, inform him to contact all supervisors broad spectrum, they should begin the Himitsu Protocol" the voice said finally.

 "Will do sir, also sir, I know it's not in my place but I wish to know how much longer" Vanessa said in a worried tone.

 "Worry not my clever employee, i'll be back soon" the man said in a cheerful tone.

 "Ok sir" Vanessa said finally before ending the call.

 Geralt looked back at Vanessa in empathy.

 "You worry about him," Geralt said softly.

 "How can I not?" Vanessa replied.

 "By the way what does Vazio even mean" Vanessa said in a peeved tone.

 "I believe it's portuguese, represents emptiness or a void" Geralt replied.

 "Emptiness huh ?" Vanessa replied, lost in thought.