Sunday July 3rd, 2016

The exercise:

Write about: the factory.

We drove up to Penticton with the boys this morning to do some grocery shopping that I never have time or energy to do after the farmers market. On the way back we stopped in to visit a friend of Kat's and her new (six weeks old) baby girl.

Speaking of number of weeks old, Miles will be turning 12 this Tuesday morning. One more week and he'll be 3 months old. Not quite sure how that's possible.

The weather has cooled off, as we're now seeing highs in the upper twenties instead of mid thirties. I am a big fan of this change.

Mine:

The noise of the machinery and clouds of pungent steam rising from the open vats made it very easy for me to move through the building without being spotted by security. A handful of workers noticed my presence but I wasn't worried about them. They either knew I was on their side or they had long stopped caring about sides.

I was headed for the manager's office, a wide room that could only be accessed by a long staircase at the south end of the factory. From there one had a perfect view over the workers - when they weren't obscured by the steam - and the only protection required was provided by a guard stationed at the top of the stairs.

I imagine they figured worst case scenario, should a revolt occur, he could empty his machine gun before retreating into the office and locking the door behind him. They probably had enough supplies in there to last weeks, if not months. The workers would simply die of starvation or dehydration and then they could emerge, have someone clean up the mess, and have them all replaced with fresh faces before the smell of their predecessors was completely gone.

Getting to the stairs was the easy part. The trouble would come in finding a way to get to the guard before he started shooting.

Nothing had come to me yet, but I still had a few minutes left before I'd have to cross that bridge. I was quite certain everything would work out fine in the end, once I figured something out.

Though, to be fair, that might have been the booze talking...