Night-Owl Trucking

Monday, 5:12pm

Luz watched the loading dock slide close in the mirrors as she eased the truck backward, feathering the brakes just before she punched the pedal down at the gentle bump of the spring-buffers mounted on the concrete bay. Her left foot popped the clutch as she worked the stick shift and slipped the gearbox into neutral, then she flipped a switch and killed the engine. She pulled her keys from the dash and slipped them into her jacket pocket as she checked the fish-eye mirror below her window. All clear, she grinned before she kicked the door open with her foot. She held the vertical bar beside her door and swung out of the cab, sliding down to the ground.

The docking bay was an empty, cavernous secret hidden behind the imposing steel-and-glass tower in the center of the Blight Industries campus. Luz had circled the central set of buildings twice before finding the quasi-hidden service road leading deep under the tower; the sharp-edged shadows from the late afternoon sun had helped disguise the entrance from unfamiliar eyes. Luz glanced around in confusion as she swiftly climbed the yellow ladder at the end of the dock. Where are all the...? At least a dozen truck bays sat empty, a handful of forklifts and paletted, plastic-wrapped boxes littered the other bays and peninsula, but she didn't see any workers. Her soft footfalls were the only sound echoing from the concrete. She knelt at the doors to the trailer and unlocked the padlock, working the latch & pins, and swinging the panels wide open.

Luz put one hand on her hip and ran the other through her brown curls, pushing her battered cowboy hat slightly to one side as she scratched at her scalp. She had been right; the loading dock was entirely empty—but she could see a group of men glaring at her through a window off to her left. She raised her hand in a hesitant wave and gave them a questioning smile. One man in a short-sleeved white button-down and a striped tie took a sip from his coffee mug, then pointed to a set of double doors at the back of the loading dock.

By the time she turned her head, the doors had already been pushed half-open by a green-haired man pulling a hand-dolly loaded with a stack of small crates, "—already here, Mittens, I saw her pull in on the security feed."

A musical voice answered back from the hallway beyond the dock, but Luz couldn't make out the words. The man laughed and glanced over his shoulder as he pulled the crates through the doorway and around, out of the way of a green-haired woman with a similar load of crates. She looked just like— Luz blinked, Twins?! caught completely by surprise as the two tall, good-looking people walked her way. Oh god, pretty twins. She gulped at the feral grin on the woman's face and the predatory gleam in the man's golden eyes. "And who do we have here?" they asked in unison with an identical smirk, and Luz felt an embarrassing heat rush to her cheeks.

"Uh, I'm— uh—" Luz stammered before a mint-green distraction appeared in the hallway.

"Luz!" Amity called as she power-walked into the loading dock, an excited flush darkening her golden eyes, "you're— you're here!"

"Miss Amity!" Luz waved and gave a nervous laugh, sweating under three pairs of piercing golden eyes. The two forest-green-headed twins shared a curious glance, the man mouthing Miss Amity? to his sister, who smiled at the breathless girl swiftly walking their way.

"Please, Luz," Amity said as she approached, her hands heavy with a large backpack and a well-worn laptop bag, "just Amity." She shrugged and chuckled as she rubbed her feet on the ground. Almost against her will, she found herself looking away from the brown-haired girl whenever their eyes met, her face coloring a shade darker each time it happened.

The green-haired Gemini shared another incredulous look, the sister tilting her head and copying Just Amity? to her brother, who rolled his eyes at the wide-eyed, grinning girls trying—and failing—to look at each other. The woman with the long green braid leaned down and gently cleared her throat, "uh, Mittens, would you introduce us?"