Chapter 2 - A Quiet Night In The Warehouse

Paula
So we're back to the industrial complex, where I started rambling on and got distracted. Now you know why I'm here, but where exactly is here? If it makes you feel any better, just pick out a medium big city and think of some honking great building set in a vast field of other honking great buildings and you'll get the picture. Then add an aging sign out front extolling an 'Industrial Park' or a 'Technical Incubator' or some such product of a PR man's fancy. Things are a bit grimy, paint is peeling here and there, the parking lot and roads could use the kind attentions of a blacktopping crew. Now you have the picture. Some of those buildings contain stuff that would make your eyes pop, and some of those buildings are home to some first-class engineers and scientists who need a cheap place to develop an idea for market. You'd be amazed at how much the gear they used cost, and how many people were very interested in finding out just what was going on in those old buildings.

That's why I'm here, wandering around the place in the darkness, or should I say that's why we're here. The place is just too big for one guard to cover properly, so we double team this one. My partner Titus, a curly haired twenty-something who doesn't really fit the image of 'security guard' any better than I do, is there as well. When I first met him I thought 'Damn! How did they hire Little Orphan Annie to be a security guard?' Maybe 5'6" slim and a shock of curly red hair like a lollipop on his head.

Titus was a newbie guard, although he was twenty-six years old when he started. As so many people do these days, Titus had knocked around doing this-and-that after finding out a liberal Arts degree didn't do much good any more. After flipping burgers and other such folderol, the modest pay of a guard, especially with the third shift premium, looked pretty good to him.

It seems I'm considered a good influence and get to break in the new hires a couple or three times a year. Just about the time they get good at the job they get transferred and I get to start all over again. Naturally the newbies get stuck on the night shift, and since I prefer the night shift I get to do the dirty work.

Actually, the owners of the place were pretty generous to us peons. You could hardly call our office a 'guard shack.' Centrally located in the complex it had a pretty good alarm system and a damn good camera network covering just about everywhere. Sometimes I thought I was Captain Jane T Kirk at the console of the Starship Enterprise, but my chair wasn't anywhere as cool as the one on the show.

In between rounds, which were properly staggered and not predictable, Titus and I could sit there and bullshit or just relax and read a book as long as one of us was keeping an eye on the screens. True to my image as a Grandma, I also brought my knitting to while away the hours producing scarves, mittens, socks and the like for the multitude of offspring in the family. I was surprised when Titus asked me to teach him how to knit, but why not? My sons and grandsons had all learned how to knit, so Titus, being near the age of my youngest granddaughter, was a prime candidate for the opportunity.

With a whole lot of time to talk, Titus and I got to be buddies pretty quick, despite him being of an age with my grandchildren. Even with two generations between us, the things he did as a kid and teen were much like the things I did; we had plenty of funny and poignant stories to tell each other. Despite the intimacy that grew between us, I always felt there was a chunk of him that remained hidden - one of those feelings crotchety old grannies come to trust, even if they can't explain just why they feel that way.

I got the feeling his parents were not too happy with him but could weasel out no details. No girlfriend, not a party animal, a bit of a Science Fiction geek, but so was I. We turned each other on to authors who we had never heard of during our nightly bull sessions. With Josh gone I had a lot of time for reading these days, both by myself or to great-grandchildren.

Oops - I let it slip. The security guard is a great-grandma, my family tends to early marriages and early pregnancies. At sixty I had two great grandchildren. Somehow, Great-Grandma the Security Guard just doesn't inspire fear and caution among the bad guys, so let's keep that bit quiet, shall we?

Like most guard work, the main enemy was boredom. Not much ever happens, so keeping awake can be a challenge. Every so often a motion detector will go off and we check it out to find a cat or a rat or some timer had switched on a heat source. In all the time I had been there not one, single person had tried to break in or do anything nefarious.

Things were quiet in our little office when at 3:20 AM Titus saw something - or rather didn't see something.

"Hey Paula."

"Yeah?"

"One of the cameras just quit."

"Did it give you two week's notice?"

"Not even two seconds. Just went all fuzzy."

"Which one?"

"Number 34, looking at the research lab way in the back. The place that everybody clams up about when you ask what they're doing."

"So write it up and we'll be sure to check back there next pass."

"I guess. Seems kinda funny, though."

"Hey - it's electronics. Stuff's always going haywire."

"How do you get hay in the wiring of a camera?"

"Plant hayseeds?"

"Wait a minute!"

"Fifty-nine, fifty eight, fifty…"

"Smartass. There's something moving out in the back. I can see moving shadows on camera 37."

"Not good. Someone may be trying to make us earn our pay tonight. Guess we better check right away and not wait for the next regular pass. Nobody's come in the front gate all night."

Following protocol, I picked up the phone (no radio in case the bad guys had a scanner) and informed our dispatcher of a possible intruder, requesting backup. You never know, this could be a distraction to get us away from where the bad guys were really trying to break in, so someone should be around to keep up the camera surveillance. Six minutes later the backup arrived, so Titus and I went off to see just who was out there while Jimmy manned the office. The complex is reasonably well lit, great when you are doing rounds but not so hot if you are trying to sneak up on an intruder.

Oh yeah, we are not armed guards, so you can stop thinking we were going to re-enact the shootout at the OK Corral or something. Some of those do-dads on our belts include pepper spray and handcuffs, but we hoped to resolve this whole thing peacefully.

Approaching carefully, I saw a guy who was fiddling with the door. Not likely, but it could have been the a tenant who forgot something, so I asked him just what he was doing. The poor bugger jumped 'bout half a mile and came down off balance, then fell down the stairs with a clatter and clang. That must have been the junk he had with him to do what could only be nefarious deeds. He was in no position to menace anyone lying there whimpering, so I holstered my can of pepper spray and again asked him what he was doing, but he was in no condition to answer.

Just then something big and dark jumped out of the shadows and took off like a jackrabbit. By big, I mean this dude could have given Paul Bunyan or Andre the Giant a run for his money; he looked to be at least seven feet tall; if he had fur he could have done stand-in work for the Sasquatch. Big or not, Titus took off after him with blood in his eye and caught up to the dude in the darkness just before the hole they had cut in the fence.

Titus hollered 'STOP' and the big guy turned around, grabbed Titus with one hand on his belt and the other on his uniform collar, then swung my unsuspecting partner around like he was going to toss the discus. Buttons popped on the uniform shirt and Titus went flying through the air while the shirt remained firmly in the grip of the big dude. Titus disappeared behind a dumpster and the big dude gave the cloth in his hands a look of disgust, threw it down and disappeared through the hole. I ran over to Titus; who was lying there on the asphalt looking dazed and wearing only a bra where his uniform shirt had been.