View source for Logs:These Avocados Are Made Of Guns

{{Log 
| content-warning= firearms, breaking and entering, character gets shot
| cast= *ST: [[User:AdHocAvenger|Dadhoc]]
*[[Calamity]]
| setting= West Philadelphia, JBM Warehouse
| log=The whole block is taken up by the lot, fenced on all sides ten feet high with razor wire unspooled at the top, bent out towards the sidewalk.  A singe gate allows entrance in and out off the street, protected by a key pad.  At one corner is the telco and transformer for the building.   This is sadly at a corner of the lot that's wide open.  Just bare asphalt and the lot lights, really.

Most of the lot is fairly well lit, in fact, rather like a grocery store lot in an affluent suburb.  It allows for loading and unloading at all hours and, of course, helps keep prowlers out.  Cameras can be seen on some of those towers, focused at various points of the lot with quite decent coverage.  Four security guards, if that's indeed what they are, mill about the lot at fairly regular intervals.

The north side of the lot has parked trailers lined up.  Perhaps for loading and future use, perhaps for storage.  They don't look to have moved in quite some time, though.  Weeds grow up around their wheels, and ivy is even winding its way up the back of one trailer.


Calamity had spent some of last night, and today, doing recon on this place. A quick trip out to get some food and a few supplies and they're back after the sun goes down.

In dark clothes and with a bandanna up over their nose and mouth - not dark green tonight. This isn't a B and F job, no point in drawing attention to their entire gang if something goes sideways. Their hood is up, too, despite the warmth of the evening.

If anyone's watching, which they hopefully aren't, given that Calamity is going out of their way to avoid being noticed, as they pad toward the north side of the lot they flinch - and their eyes suddenly reflect the lights inside the perimeter.

Once on the north side, they take a moment to take stock of their surroundings before pulling out their phone and a pair of heavy duty wire cutters.


The lot seems to pay Calamity no mind whether or not they're seen prowling the fence line or not.  Pedestrians are a thing, and they don't seem to be drawing attention to themself so.  Why bother?  In either case, Calamity appears to have the run of the fence line.


Time to look for an out-of-the-way place to work. In between two of the trailers? underneath a trailer? Wherever they're least likely to be seen cutting into the fence to get into the lot.
Least likely to be seen by humans and cameras.


The trailers are inside the fence, so using the line of them to screen the cameras and guards from view is a pretty simple affair.  There's only a foot or two of space between the trailers, anyway.  So that's easily done.


They've made sure that the audio they've found of a dog barking doesn't loop for a good ten minutes, just in case, and snip at the metal with each bark. And it's like they do this for a living, or something - their cuts are quick and clean, and match up perfectly to the audio. They cut three sides of a rectangle just big enough to wiggle through, at the bottom of the fence, and push it open, careful not to bend the metal so far that it won't go back into place. Once inside, they make mental note of exactly where they are. Who knows how fast they're gonna have to get out of here, they don't wanna be fumbling to find the opening in the fence on the way out.

After that, they creep toward the end of one of the trailers, sticking to the shadows as they get a general overview of what the lot looks like from the inside. Looking for something that looks like an office, as well as the most hidden way to get to the southwest corner where the power transformer and telco are. If there is one.


The warehouse on the lot likely contains an office, but that office would be inside the building.  Calamity recalls there being a fire exit door on the back of the building, back with the recycling and trash dumpsters.  Both of which provide a place to hide, briefly.  They could time a sprint to behind the warehouse, get their bearings behind a dumpster, and then time another sprint around to the transformer and telco cabinet.  Two opportunities to be seen, but that would get them there.


Calamity sucks in a quiet, pained breath as their skin ripples and darkens, blending in with the shadows and the metal trailer they've flattened themself against. One more breath, and they take off running, sprinting along the fenceline to the dumpster, their exposed skin shifting and changing to match the concrete, the metal fence, the dumpster.

They take a few seconds to regain their composure, letting their breathing slowly return to normal as they narrow their eyes at the telco and transformer cabinet. As soon as they're not out of breath, they sprint toward it, skidding to a stop in front of it.


Calamity seems to have been spotted.  One of the walking guards stops and looks back in the direction of the utility boxes and starts moving in that direction slowly, trying to find an oblique angle from which he can see what might be back there.  He doesn't draw a pistol yet, but his hand is resting on it in a manner that makes it clear he genuinely thinks something may be up.  And he's keeping his distance enough to make it clear he's not stupid enough to walk into a potential ambush.  But he's yet to raise the alarm, at least?


Calamity dreams about picking locks, with the amount of time they spend on them while awake. The lock on the telco cabinet pops open almost immediately, but they don't give themself any time for celebration before they duck behind the cabinet again, using the angles to keep the guard from seeing them. When they can, they look over the guts of the cabinet, but the majority of their energy is focused on making sure the guard goes the fuck back to his regular patrol.


The telco cabinet is a seat of wires, all spreading out in a semi-orderly fan to different ports and locations.  Everything comes through here, from the cable, to the phone, to the internet.  And while Calamity may not be a technological genius, they do know that the three big cables from which everything else splits off can be cut with remarkably little fuss.


No cutting wires without cutting power first - even someone who isn't a technological genius. The lock on the power cabinet doesn't open in Calamity's hands quite as easily, but they still make quick work of it. They duck behind the cabinet as soon as it's done, watching the guard as well as they can from their hiding spot.


There's a conversation that happens, which Calamity can make out one side of quite easily, the other is a bit more muffled.  Someone further off asks what's up, or something similar.  The closer guard explains he thought he saw something.  This is followed by a question akin to 'well did you check it out?' which is followed by an annoyed, "What does it look like I'm fucking doing, genius?"  So the good news is, the guy's pretty distracted yelling at his buddy at the moment.


With the guard distracted, Calamity darts out to slam the power switch down and close the door a little more delicately than that. Just a little. They cut the telco lines while they're at it, shutting that cabinet too, before slinking away into the shadows they've just created as the complex plunges into darkness.

Now, to get into the warehouse...


The good news is that this means nobody can really see much of anything all of a sudden.  But the bad news is it also means the guy who was suspicious something was going on is now certain that something is going on.  But he's not precisely a hardened veteran or trained security guard.  He's a guy that knows standing in the middle of an open parking lot is not a great way to enter into a fight.  So he falls back towards the central warehouse and shouts an alarm back to his buddy, and by extension everyone else, "Yo! There's someone in the yard!  Get the fuck out here!"


Calamity slips away from the cabinets, a shadow among shadows, making their silent way to the back door of the warehouse. They ease behind a dumpster, waiting and watching the door, listening to see if all the guards seem to be exiting from the front.


The two other guards patrolling the yard come to join the first two rather rapidly, and others begin to mill out of the front of the warehouse, too.  A flashlight or two go on, one or two others are using their cell phones for similar purposes.  They're heading to the power box, however.  Which means nobody sees Calamity skedaddle for the back of the warehouse building again.  It also means they have no real idea how many people come out to join the call for assistance.  No one comes out of the back, however.


Fire doors weren't really meant to be opened from the outside, they're really just to give the people inside another exit in case of. You know. A fire.

But Calamity doesn't give a fuck about what doors are meant to do - they pull out their little altoids tin of lockpicking tools, and after a few seconds of considering their plan of attack, manages to get the door open enough to slide inside. If it doesn't automatically lock once they're inside, they lock it again, before they look around, pressed against the wall, to get their bearings.


Fortunately, it has a push bar to make exiting a little easier.  So the deadbolt re-engages automatically, if rather audibly as a consequence.  It is, of course, pitch black inside.  More or less.  The door opens onto a stairwell vestibule type area.  Concrete floor, concrete double-back stairs leading up, double doors leading onto the warehouse floor, and another door leading to what qualifies as the office building attached to the warehouse itself.  Nothing is labeled, though. No real indication of what's where.   There's noise coming from above towards the office side of the building.


Calamity creeps toward the double doors, their eyes wide and dark as they take in what details they can in the low light. Dealing with people will happen later, if they can't find out what they need in the warehouse. They test one of the double doors, easing it open if it's not locked, listening intently as they do.


Getting inside is simple.  The doors are designed to be used freely and easily.  For passing between the warehouse and the office building and vice versa.  The warehouse is less dark than the vestibule was.  Some of the lights in here appear to have battery backup.  Which makes sense, from a safety standpoint.  The place is empty, though that's not likely to remain the case for very long.  Crates are piled up in rather orderly piles at various points along the walls.  Perhaps they're individual orders, or perhaps the inventory of particular items.  There's not much to identify the crates one from another, and the labels are in a variety of languages.  Spanish, Russian, German, French, just to name a few.


Calamity lets out a quiet breath when they lift the top off one of the 'avocado' crates. These avocados are made of guns...

They pull out their phone and snap a picture - with the flash off - of the crate and the guns. Then they look around the warehouse again. There anywhere that might have more information about any of these shipments here, or are they gonna have to brave the office, with the people?


There is a foreman-style 'office' in the warehouse.  But it requires ascending metal stairs along the back wall in full view of the entire floor to reach the office on the second story with its commanding view of the warehouse below.  Get caught up there and there's nowhere to hide and nowhere to run, really.


Well. They've just gotta make sure they don't get caught, then. They hug the wall as they make their way toward the stairs, keeping an eye on the placement of the cameras. And they test each stair before they put their full weight on it, not wanting any metal scraping on metal.


Once up the stairs, Calamity glances out across the warehouse floor before padding into the office.


No one's come back in.  Yet.  But that's likely to change sooner rather than later.

The office is an office.  There's a desk with a phone on it, along with a TV-Radio set up with a digital converter cobbled to it.  Probably gets Action News and that's about it.  There's not a lot of paperwork in here, unsurprisingly.  Crime that leaves a paper trail is generally pretty stupid.  Right now there's just a clipboard with a few bills of lading on them.  Inventories for orders, no doubt.  Five in all.


Calamity snaps pictures of all of the bills - oh the wonders of modern technology, no having to actually take these papers! Any locked drawers in the desk?


Drawers are unlocked, but they're also largely empty save for the sorts of things you find in a foreman's desk.  Office supplies, a bottle of bourbon, a porno mag.  That sort of stuff.  They're really not big on paper trails, clearly.


Not too surprising, overall, and so Calamity closes the drawers and replaces everything in exactly the place they'd found it. And looks out into the warehouse again - safe to go back downstairs again?


So far so good.  Though there's definitely a ticking clock, from the sounds coming from outside.  In that the sounds are getting closer, and the shouting no less urgent for that.  It seems they found something out there.  Either the cut in the fence or the cut in their power and telco.  Maybe both.


Their job's not over yet - they crack open one of the doors back into the vestibule, judging whether it's a) empty and b) whether the voices in the attached office building have changed at all.


It's becoming increasingly obvious that sticking around much longer is going to be a real bad idea.  The shouting they're hearing are orders.  Directions.  Men being told to go this way, some that way.  Someone is in charge out there, and things are likely going to get a whole lot more professional-like where security is concerned.  The sounds from the office have grown in volume, and there's the sound of someone entering the stairwell above, apparently in a hurry, flashlight bobbling as they jog along.


....Okay. Maybe their job is over, now. They hug the wall and slip toward the back door, attempting to make it quietly out the fire door before they're seen. But speed is more important than stealth, at this point.


Calamity is able to dive out the back door before the person rushing down from above has a chance to notice them.  But that haste has spit them out in the back of the lot again, and the lot is now bristling with guys with lights and guns and surly dispositions.  The shortest route back to the exit they cut in the fence is heading straight into patrolling guards.  Likewise, the other way out is heading straight into patrolling guards.  Over or through the fence right in front of them, on the other hand, leads to freedom.


Over the fence it is - quicker, and they can use the wire cutters to get rid of most of the barbed wire around the top. Hopefully. They sprint toward the chain link to try to climb it.


They make it onto the fence just fine, but hauling themself up is a slightly different story - it's not fast or elegant. But they managed to climb the chain link, and balance for just long enough to snip through the barbed wire. And then they drop on the other side. Freedom. They barely look at the direction they're going as they fucking take off running,


There's no hiding when you're climbing over a fence.  Especially not when you pause at the top to carefully snip a route through the razor wire.

"I see the motherfucker!  Over here!"  That's shouted from the north side of the lot from someone moving fast in their direction.  Calamity hits the ground and takes off running, while behind them the sounds of popping corn or maybe it's a slamming car door?  Then there's the sound of a hornet speeding past Calamity's ear, followed by the sensation of being punched as hard as humanly possible in the right shoulder from behind.  The popping continues several more times and other hornets go hissing past, but Calamity keeps on running.


Calamity grunts and hisses out a swear, stumbling as they're hit. But they don't stop - they can't stop, and with all that adrenaline it doesn't hurt all that much anyway.

For now.

They tug their bandanna down as they round the corner of a block, their steps starting to slow as their heart pounds in their chest. Not home free yet, and their shoulder throbs, the pain increasing now that they're coming down from the adrenaline high.

}}