Free Buried Biker by KM Rockwood Page A

here while everyone gawked. It was a bit early, but I got up and headed back to the charging bay where the electric forklifts were plugged in. Snatching the clipboard from a hook next to my assigned lift, I started on the pre-shift checklist.
    Ramon trailed after me and took the clipboard for the larger lift next to mine, the one Kelly usually drove. “What do I do first?” he asked.
    “Whatever John tells you. Probably start picking stock and assembling shipments. You get the paperwork from the computer by the dispatcher’s office. You know how to read the packing lists?”
    “Yeah. But how about the packing line? Don’t I have to stay where I can service that?”
    “Not until the very end of the shift. It’s a little easier than most nights. The plating line’s been shut down for the weekend, and it takes almost four hours to get that up. The lacquer line can’t start until the platers are running. And the packing line can’t pack until there’s something on the line to pack.”
    “So I pick stock.” He nodded.
    “Except when you got a truck to load or unload. Jim’ll tell you what to expect.”
    “Thanks.” Ramon swung up onto his seat and backed out.
    The whistle blew to start the shift. Machinery rumbled to life. Sparks flew, presses set into their thunderous rhythm, and the air filled with the pungent odors of oil and hot steel.
    Back in the warehouse, I rearranged a few pallets of open steel rings that would be welded together to make baskets for tree roots at some point. The root baskets weren’t some of the most elegant products Quality Steel Fabrications made, but they were easy and profitable, and we made lots of them. Welding them was the first job I’d been put on when I’d started here.
    As I replaced the pallets, larger rings in the back to the smaller ones in the front, I noticed something light-colored on the floor behind another pallet. I got off the lift and picked it up.
    It was a woman’s purse. What the hell was that doing back here? I knew there were a number of women who worked in the plant who might have business back in the warehouse, but they were all production workers, like Kelly. I’d never seen one of them carry a purse to work. If they had stuff they didn’t want to carry in their pockets, like cell phones, it probably ended up in their lunchboxes, just like with the men.
    And I’d never noticed a production worker with makeup.
    The ladies in the office dressed in nice clothes and carried purses, but I doubted any of them would come back here. A hard hat would squash their hairdos, and I didn’t know whether anyone in dress shoes would be permitted back here. We all wore steel-toed boots.
    I debated looking inside it, but decided it wasn’t my place to do that. I tucked it behind the seat of the forklift, figuring I could give it to Jim, or if I didn’t see him, hand it in to the timekeeper when she arrived at seven o’clock to get paperwork ready for the day shift. She had a lost-and-found box in her office.
    I brought supplies for the machine operators from the warehouse and removed full pallets of completed parts. Most of the workers glanced curiously at me as I passed, but we were busy working and the noise level of the shop floor didn’t permit casual conversation. That suited me fine, under the circumstances.
    The plating room, though, where I’d worked before I was assigned to be a forklift driver, was relaxed as the operators brought the electroplaters, their rows of tanks stretching into the gloom, up to production speed. The overhead carriers, left empty over the weekend, hovered over the tanks, began their endless lurch and dip dance as they were set in motion. As each empty set of hooks paused in front of the operator, who attached a dull grey piece to them and waited for the next set of hooks. When they were operating at full capacity, keeping up with the loading and unloading the shelves and cabinets from the overhead carriers was a constant challenge