Saturday afternoon, the reefer vans pulled up and were quickly loaded before they headed off to the rationing center. They were followed by three cargo vans, leaving just a couple of guards behind. Twenty minutes after they all left, Magenta strolled up to the loading dock and managed to climb up it holding Gosling all the while.
The guards stared at her and the infant.
“Please,” she pleaded to them. “We need food. I don’t want my child to starve.” She ran past the two guards and stood in front of the triple locked door. “Please let us in. I know there’s food in there.”
One of the guards, the taller of the two, managed to find his voice. “I’m sorry, miss. We couldn’t get you in there even if we wanted to. Now if you’ll just go to the rationing center I’m sure that they’ll…”
As if on cue, Gosling started to cry. “Now look at what you’ve done,” Magenta said. “My child’s hungry. Well, I guess I’m going to have to feed them the only way I can.” She started to unbutton her blouse.
The two guards looked terrified. They moved closer.
“You can’t do that here,” the tall one said. “I’m sure…”
Before he could complete his sentence the arms of both guards were grabbed from behind and lashed behind their backs by four strong folks. Another couple of people relieved them of their weapons.
Now the guards were perfectly panicked.
“What are you doing?” the shorter one screamed. “There’s no way you can get in there.”
“We’re not trying to get in there,” Gus said. “We’re waiting for someone to come out.”
“There isn’t anyone in there,” the tall guard said. “All the workers left with the trucks.”
“Maybe there isn’t someone in there now, but there will be,” Magenta said. Gosling had calmed down and there was actually a moment or two of quiet. It looked like one of the guards was going to say something else but he was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass.
Magenta grinned. “I think there may be someone going in there now,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “We’ll let you loose when we’re all done.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Probably.”
Magenta turned around and looked at the sea of people gathering in the lot behind her. It looked like most of the neighborhood was there, waiting.
Gorilla Joe was one of two members of the Denali Collective that didn’t climb. He lifted weights everyday. He was also a professional truck driver and was now driving Tom, Harry, Martha, and Jake to the warehouse in the Collective’s not so gently used pickup. Once they got to the warehouse, his job would be to keep the ladder steady.
This little group couldn’t decide whether to call themselves the Storehouse Scaling Squad or the Vegetable Liberation Squad. They were still arguing about it when they arrived at the lot that was behind the fence behind the warehouse.
It took them nineteen minutes to cut through the fence.
“I told you we could do it in less than twenty minutes,” Jake said.
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I’d say we were cutting it a bit close.”
They quietly took away the large segment of fence that they cut.
Once the fence was out of the way, Gorilla Joe backed the truck into place. Tom extended the ladder and with help from Harry and Jake positioned it against the wall of the warehouse. When the height of the bed of the pickup was added, it landed at a bit under thirty-three feet up the wall. That left another two and half feet that each of them would have to pull themselves up and over. Most people wouldn’t be able to do that, especially if they were balanced precariously on the top rung of a ladder, but most people weren’t trained climbers.
Martha scampered up the ladder, grabbed the top of the wall with both hands, and heaved herself up, onto the top of the wall, and then dived over.
“Impressive,” Jake said.
“We try to keep ourselves well trained,” Tom said. “My turn.”
Tom went up a little slower but was able to heave himself over with a quick jerk.
“You’re next.” Harry motioned toward the ladder. “I’ll come up last.”
Jake’s movements were slow and methodical and he almost lost it at the end, but Martha and Tom pulled him over.
“Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been practicing. I guess I’m a bit out of shape.”
He turned back in time to watch Harry climb over the top of the wall and swing down.
“Okay,” Tom said. “Let’s see if we can open one of these skylights.”
Examining a couple of them made it obvious they weren’t built to be opened.
“Okay,” Jake said. “I know how to deal with this.” He lifted his leg and put his boot right through the glass. With a loud crash, the entire skylight shattered and fell inward. Jake almost did as well, but Harry and Tom grabbed him and pulled him away from the gap that was left.
“I hope that the New New Harmony folks were able to distract the guards,” Martha said. “Otherwise I’m sure that that racket would let them know we’re up here.”
“I don’t hear an alarm,” Harry said.
Jake looked skeptical. “That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one that went off at the police headquarters.”
“Listen,” Martha said.
Everyone stopped and listened.
“I still don’t hear anything,” Harry said.
Martha smiled. “That’s a very good sign. Police headquarters are less than a mile away and the new police chief is an authoritarian madman. If an alarm went off at the station, we’d be hearing sirens by now.”