Despite setting his phone alarm for an early morning, it was the loud clanging of metal that jolted Victor awake. It sounded like a garbage truck had picked up a dumpster and had decided to drag it around, knocking it into another dumpster. The noise made Victor roll off his bed and hit the floor, which made him thankful that he slept on the bottom bunk. He groaned and picked himself up just as Piper jumped down from her bunk and went to the front of the truck, spouting some colorful language along the way.
They both looked out of the windshield to see a tractor trailer parked in front of theirs lowering a large metal cube with a mechanical ramp. Gene was standing off to the side yelling instructions at the driver of the other truck.
Victor climbed out of the truck and joined Gene. “Hell of a wakeup call,” he said, yawning.
“I tried knocking on your door.” Gene kept looking at the box as he spoke. “I did say first thing in the morning.”
Victor looked off over the horizon. The sun was barely beginning to peek out. Everything was starting to light up, but there wasn’t enough sun to turn anything orange yet. He waited until the ramp was finished lowering and the cacophony had receded before he spoke again.
“I thought you wanted secrecy? That’s an awful lot of noise this early.”
Gene faced Victor. “Nothing odd about two trucks swapping cargo.” He gestured towards the parking lot. “Plus there’s barely anyone here. By the way, does your truck have a ramp?”
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“No.”
Gene sighed and then yelled towards the driver of the other truck. “Jimmy, we’ll need the forklift.” The man stuck a thumbs up out of the window.
“So, I take it this box has the person stashed inside?” Victor said. “Probably got them hooked up to an oxygen tank?”
“Sort of.” Gene said. “They’re in a medically induced coma. By the time they wake up, they’ll be out of the public for good.”
Piper, who was still irritated from the wake-up call, had to pull her truck out and back it close to where the metal box was. Jimmy, who was once a mechanic working for Marty, brought out an industrial sized forklift. It picked up the block with little effort and was loaded into the trailer. The trailer dipped as the box settled, which was normal for heavy loads, but since the box was near the back, there was a noticeable incline.
“Alright,” Victor said. “Where exactly are we delivering this…thing?”
Gene pulled a road map out of his pocket and opened it. It was a highway map of the United States with a solid black line that started from Marty’s, which was an hour outside of Richmond, Virginia, and ended at a seemingly random spot in California.
“It’s pretty straight forward.” Gene said. “Follow the trail down the freeway. The large dots I’ve drawn are the checkpoints where I want you to call me from when you get there. This whole thing should take a few days at most. Once that’s done, you’ll be back on the road and the world will have one less criminal wandering around.”
“Seems a little too easy.” Victor said.
Gene pulled out an envelope. “Here. Upfront payment. For gas and the like.”
Before Victor could say anything else, there was a booming honk from Piper’s truck and she leaned out the window. “Are we ready to go yet? I want to hit the road before rush hour starts.”