I squeeze through a maze of steel pipes and juice tanks that are too hot to touch. It's a thousand degrees and the air is painfully humid. Machinery running above and below me vibrates the floor and shakes dust from the rafters. Steam rushing through metal pipes whistles in my ear.
It's nearing two o'clock in the morning, lunchtime for the overnight zombies. I climb a set of grated stairs and slip between a pair of massive water tanks. The darkness protects me from unwanted eyes as I grab a metal pipe from my pocket and pack it with crumbs of Blue Dream. A flash of red and orange light eviscerates the darkness. The weed inside of the pipe glows red. Smoke fills my lungs. I exhale, slide my pipe into my pocket, and rub hand sanitizer on my hands and neck to cover up the smell of pot.
A euphoric symphony tours through my tired mind and brings the neurons back to life. As the THC trickles into my bloodstream, the tension in my sore muscles disappears.
The one perk of working the graveyard shift at the factory, I can smoke as much as I want, and there's less risk of getting caught.
After I'm thoroughly stoned, I head downstairs toward the factory's outdated laboratory. There's an older woman and an ancient man testing samples and inputting numbers.
I saunter toward Audrey, a five-foot-eight, two hundred and ten pounds, thirty-something-year-old with big tits and an even bigger ass.
"Good morning, Honey," Audrey greets me with a warm smile. I relax on a padded stool next to a silver workbench that's covered in test tubes and antique equipment. Audrey leans over the workbench and grabs a plastic bucket filled with sugar crystals.
Her shirt sticks to her back and reveals half of her ass crack and a glimpse of her milky white cheeks. She stands straight up, draws her belly button to her spine, and pulls her pants up above her hips. I pretend to read a list of data about juice colors.
"I hate working graveyards," I fumble through a stack of meaningless papers, "I'm about to fall asleep."
"Well, there's plenty to do here if you want to help," Audrey's snarky attitude blends with her playful side. She grabs my hand and squeezes.
"There has to be a better way to spend our time," I adopt a half-smile.
Audrey dumps a few grams of sugar into a small machine and pushes a couple of buttons. She asks. "What did you have in mind?"
"Have you ever been to the top of the silos?"
Audrey shakes her head.
I lead her down a set of concrete steps to the first floor, and we transition from the hot, humid air inside of the factory into the cold, crisp air of winter.
Five concrete silos tower over us, each a hundred feet in diameter and five hundred feet tall. We run through the loading dock that's filled with boxes of sugar and stop when we're blocked by a locked door and a keypad. I type in the last four digits of the factory's phone number and we continue on our journey.