Ridley was sitting next to Stan during lunch. As she picked at her food, he told her that she reminded him of his granddaughter for the third time that day. He often dominated the conversation—telling Ridley he didn’t really need this job and that he was retired with a pension from his days delivering mail. He just got so bored at home he wanted to be productive somehow. This he told her for the second time today.

  Ridley actually liked old people. They had a different set of life experiences, so their outlook was unique. Some in good ways, like the fact that they grew up without air conditioning, phones, and computers. They saw these things as the marvel that they were and were grateful, while her generation took them for granted. Ridley didn’t however, as she was one of the exceptions of her generation. Being poor, she didn’t have a cell phone or her own computer. She would, of course, be the first to complain if her A/C went out. Some amenities deserve to be the standard.

  Stanley was still yammering on when Ridley looked up to see that the break was over.

  She nodded to him and said, "Well Stanley, I’ve got to jet. I’ll talk to you next time about the good ole hippy days." He tilted his head, confused. Just the way Ridley liked it.

  Ridley clocked back in and headed to her station. Ridley was careful not to get too comfortable at Congo. The taste of making easy money by destroying stuff was still on her lips. The quest had disappeared, however. She needed to look at her menu's again, surely there was a cheat in there somewhere to make more money.

  Ridley made it to her station, which was near a scanning machine. She would load boxes when they needed them sorted, or pull boxes off with a long hook rod if they were too big for the scanner. It was hella boring but actually paid pretty decently for an entry-level position. She zoned out as she tossed the boxes on, pulled the oversized box off, tossed the boxes on, took off a damaged box, tossed the boxes on, pulled off the box shredded to pieces… this was new. She looked at the torn-up pieces of the box and noticed the contents were missing. It was as if a dog had gotten ahold of it and had ripped it apart.

  ^

  New Quest!

  The Unboxing:

  Boxes are being destroyed and their contents disappearing. Find and neutralize the perpetrator!

  Objective: Find the one who is vandalizing boxes

  Quest rewards:

  -750 xp

  -4 silver

  Ridley jumped and pumped her fist in the air. That was $100 just to find some ungrateful employee stealing random crap. They must have a surprise box fetish. As she was putting it in the damaged cart, she heard someone scream a few dozen yards down from her.

  She turned and jogged over as she saw Michel holding up his arm. It didn’t look serious, but these conveyors could take arms off. Fresh out of training, she had to take a test on all the rules for working near a conveyor. Fortunately, any dummy could pass if they paid attention to the last five minutes of the course.

  "What happened Michel?" she asked.

  "That's what I’d like to know." His arm had 3 parallel cuts across it. Bleeding but not too bad. "I was just pushing a large box back so it didn’t jam up and it cut me!"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “This doesn’t look like a cardboard cut. You didn’t use your hook rod?" she studiously asked.

  "You fresh trainees always got your noses up in the air. How can I prevent a jam if I have to run and grab a hook rod first? The boxes would be a dozen yards past me flying out of reach."

  A male voice came from over her shoulder, "Perhaps it is not the easiest thing to do Mr. Madson, but it is the safest."

  Ridley looked back to see Alexander strolling rigidly over at a quick pace.

  She greeted him. "Alexander, I didn’t know you were allowed to leave the office! I half suspected they chained you to the rolling chair between breaks."

  "One second Ms. Ridley. Mr. Madson do you feel well enough to go to the nurse's office to be examined then begin filling out this incident report?" He pulled a piece of paper out of his folder. "Just start by checking this box and signing here where it says improper procedure used on the job."

  "Yeah, I suppose." He said as he looked at Ridley and rolled his eyes.

  "Thank you." Alexander handed the paperwork to Michel and watched him start toward the nurse's office. It was almost a half-mile walk. This place was huge.

  Ridley looked up at Alexander. "He said a box cut him like that."

  "Well cardboard cuts can be worse than you think." He said without conviction.

  "Yeah, but 3 parallel cuts? That doesn’t sound possible."

  "Perhaps they were booby-trapped with razor blades. That has happened before… supposedly, in the 80’s.” Alexander frowned.

  "Really? People are messed up." she said as she stifled a laugh. "Booby-traps."

  "I will go look into it." He looked down at her. "Quiz time crew member Ridley. Where does this conveyor lead?"

  Alexander had taken to doing this with her when he saw her. He would test her knowledge and make sure she was familiar with all the procedures. It was hard when she first started training, but it did get a bit easier when she put those points into her intelligence.

  "To the misfiled ramp to be reloaded on to the main driver conveyor." she said answering his question.

  "Correct." Alexander gave an approving nod. This little gesture made her happy for some reason. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, maybe it was his psychic aura! It would make sense with her theory of his telekinetic powers.

  He turned to leave and she, of course, started following him without his noticing. He could be pretty oblivious when he was on task, but she gave him a good lead to be sure he wouldn’t see her. That way she could play dumb if there were any issues since they were 'still having a conversation.'

  They took some stairs down to a sub level. The lighting here was a bit darker with the lighting being more spread out. The large ramp made noises as boxes slid down from the air field side of the building. They were incoming packages likely from DFW or LAX, that would be airport codes for Dallas and Los Angeles. As they moved down, she saw that there were no sorting crews in rotation. Crews moved around to different stations throughout the day depending on how many planes were loading or offloading. They took turns as the packages came and went in waves and different sections needed more attention.

  Ridley watched Alexander lower into a crouch. Getting behind him, she crouched as well and asked, "What do you see?"

  He jumped and had to grab his glasses before they fell off his face before he turned towards her. With a calm and collected voice that didn’t match his face at all he asked, "Could you refrain from startling me so often? I believe you are doing it on purpose."

  She smiled guiltily and shrugged. He turned back around and pointed, "The boxes stacked on the opposite side of the primary offload ramp are shaking. Nobody is supposed to be working this section currently, as we are in heavy loading phase."

  "Well let's go check it out. I just got a quest to find a box thief.”

  Alexander nodded with a look of understanding.

  "Did you get one too?" She asked.

  He froze and shook his head, "Quest? What on earth are you talking about. There is no holy grail to be found here young lady. This individual simply needs to be caught red handed in the act of breaking company policy."

  "Yeah, yeah. Well as I have the super strength I’ll go first."

  "There shouldn’t be a need for…" Alexander started, but she took off down the stairs before he could say more.

  Ever since the dumpster incident she felt more alive. She was acting more spontaneous, independent, carefree. Something in the back of her head echoed reckless.

  To be completely honest she thought she wanted a fight.

  Ridley ran directly towards the shaking boxes. She wasn’t expecting anything really except a young person with a boot knife, stealing cell phone accessories or whatever people ordered from Congo's website. As she moved around the boxes she took a ready stance, but she didn’t see anyone. She moved toward the boxes that were shaking and found a large shipment of cleaning supplies spilled out on the floor. Soap is the worst to clean up off the floors. It just never stops making bubbles when you try to mop it up.

  Alexander moved in behind her, but then he took a step back. He was looking around cautiously. His eyes suddenly went wide as he pointed at her and muttered something. Before she knew what was happening she was thrown in the air like a doll as a roar flooded the room.