Chapter 369: The Customer Waiting Area Had Meat Hooks

Being listed as live cargo improved my mood in the same way a stranger measuring my head for a jar would have improved breakfast.

The keeper copied the notice onto Lukas’s phone and sent both it and her courtyard recording to the town watch. Their dispatcher promised to look into it, which was useful without being the same thing as arriving before our appointment.

We could have waited in the brothel. Our crawler remained locked in the repair bay, the release token had been taken, and someone at the loading yard apparently believed we would walk into a collection slot while worrying about a damaged billboard.

I wanted that person to experience disappointment in front of witnesses.

Lukas studied the notice, then looked at me.

"If you start humming before we reach the gate, I’m charging you for whatever follows."

"That seemed unfair when the evening’s first cannon had been your contribution."

[System: Healthy friendship, mate. Shared interests, honest boundaries and a running argument over which bloke introduced artillery to a night out.]

The loading yard sat behind the freight sheds, where Rattlewash’s public roofs gave way to fenced lanes and parked transport frames. Workers pushed drinking-water barrels beneath awnings while a delivery driver argued that nobody had paid him to unload animal cages without being told what occupied them.

Ordinary work continued around the dishonest part, which made the dishonest part harder to recognize until we knew where to look.

A sign sent customers toward a waiting area beside the main shed. Inside waited three bolted benches, a chain-link divider and hooks hanging above a floor drain.

"I hope the refreshments are excellent, because the furniture has made a strong first impression."

The attendant checked our appointment number and told us to remain seated. His company badge matched the supervisor’s, but his eyes kept moving toward the rear loading door instead of the damage forms on his desk.

"Your repair release will be processed once the transport manager finishes the assessment."

The sentence was careful enough to avoid promising anything useful. I asked whether he could explain why our appointment had been entered as live cargo.

He reached beneath the desk.

Lukas caught the desk edge and shoved it sideways before the attendant could touch the alarm button. I slid into the clear space beside the exposed wiring, keeping my head away from his boots and my body outside the divider’s swinging gate.

The man abandoned the button and ran through the rear door, choosing a sensible career adjustment over becoming my morning hobby.

Beyond the divider, someone shouted for us to open the worker enclosure.

Four stagehands stood behind another locked gate, with their personal bags stacked outside it. One had a bandaged hand, another still wore a tool belt, and none looked like dangerous animals requiring a drain beneath their seating.

They had refused to work a shoot where the cage release had been moved ahead of the evacuation check. The manager called it a contract dispute and locked them inside until the next truck arrived.

[System: Eight thousand EXP and thirty IP for getting those workers out and recovering your vehicle token, mate. Try not to spend the reward before you stop being somebody’s scheduled delivery.]

The emergency release cabinet stood beyond the waiting area’s outer rail. Lukas went around toward it while I checked the worker gate’s removable lock.

Its center was visible through the mesh, within three meters. I gave it a fitting space against my tail and used Mine Now. It arrived with its full weight, small enough this time to hurt my pride less than my body.

The gate opened, and the workers collected their bags. I told them to use the public freight lane rather than follow us farther into a yard that considered disagreement a shipping category.

The man with the tool belt pointed toward an office above the loading floor.

"Your token will be on the dispatch board. They take repair releases when they want a vehicle kept somewhere quiet."

I thanked him, then asked him to give the town watch exactly that explanation when he reached the street. He showed the others a pedestrian route between the freight sheds that avoided the company gate. They had worked here long enough to know the difference between an exit marked for visitors and one that actually stayed open.

Lukas opened the outer rail from the emergency cabinet. The workers left in a tight group, watching the nearest shed door rather than stopping to congratulate us.

The office stairs brought us above a narrow loading platform mounted on service wheels. A weight plate marked the empty steel frame at half a ton, with floor brakes holding it beside the shed.

Inside the office, our crawler token hung from a dispatch clip beside the copy of our notice. I lifted it normally with a tendril, because Mine Now was still cooling and I wasn’t too proud to perform theft without special effects.

Lukas photographed the route sheet underneath it. The same company number connected the diner, this yard and a larger filming operation beyond Jawbone Cut.

The objective completed once the last worker cleared the public gate. My EXP reached eighteen thousand, and five hundred ten IP waited in the balance.

We headed back toward the office stairs, only to find the attendant returning with two guards behind him.

Lukas took the service platform instead, stepping down onto its deck while I followed along the rail. Its far end reached an open lane leading toward the public road, a perfectly ordinary route that looked better than arguing with armed men in a stairwell.

Then a man in a spotless white suit emerged from the opposite shed and placed his hand against the platform’s exposed metal frame.

A bright mark appeared beneath his palm.

He released the floor brake with his foot, smiled at the two of us and stepped back.

The whole platform scraped away from the exit and rolled toward him, carrying us with it.