I gripped the blue chassis with both hands, thumb pressed flat against the plastic release clip on the data lead. The clip yielded with a dry plastic snap. I pulled the cable clear, the green LED instantly cutting to black as the drive disconnected from the terminal loop. The metal chassis slid smoothly out of its vibration rails, surprisingly heavy for its size, cold and sharp against my knuckles.
A second hammer-blow from the crowbar splintered the pine casing around the door latch. The compressor room door gave way with a screech of tearing fasteners, slamming back against the interior wall.
I pulled the drive against my chest, backed out through the lower louvre opening, and slid into the mud of the drainage trench just as Vance’s boots crossed the threshold inside.
"Where is it?" Vance’s voice was an enraged rasp, vibrating through the sheet metal directly above my ears.
The sound of metal tearing followed immediately. Inside the shed, Vance was using the crowbar on the front doors of the cabinet, the heavy steel tumblers snapping off under the leverage of forged iron. The cabinet doors crashed open against the compressor frame. A split second of total stillness hung in the air, broken only by the hum of the cooling coils.
Vance had seen the empty rails.
He had seen the dangling data lead, its bare copper pins exposed to the air.
"Mercer!" he bellowed.
The roar didn't carry the calculated authority of a patrol deputy issuing an order; it was the raw, panicked shout of a man who realized the ground had opened beneath his feet. Footsteps pounded across the concrete slab toward the rear of the shed. Through the louver slats, I saw the dark outline of his duty jacket as he kicked the fallen interior inspection plate aside.
I didn't stay in the trench. I scrambled up the mud embankment, boots digging into the loose crushed rock, and hauled myself onto the asphalt apron of the truck staging lane.
To run toward the woods was suicide; an armed deputy chasing an unbadged civilian through private brush could manufacture whatever lethal narrative he needed. My only survival lay in the light, where the drivers stood.
Eight loaded tri-axle dump trucks sat parked in two parallel lanes, their air brakes hissing periodically as their drivers leaned against the warm fenders, thermoses in hand, waiting for the scale house to reopen. Near the center lane stood the yard foreman, a broad-shouldered man in a high-visibility orange vest and a grease-stained ballcap, a clipboard tucked beneath his arm.
"Hold up there!" the foreman shouted, spotting me as I stumbled past the rear tires of the lead hauler, both arms wrapped around the blue metal drive. "That's an active transit lane! You can't be on the slab without steel toes and a vest!"
Behind me, the exterior shed door crashed back against the corrugated siding.
Vance burst onto the catwalk. His uniform cap was gone, his gray hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his face dark with exertion. In his right hand, the crowbar hung low, but his left hand rested flat against the unsnapped grip of his service weapon.
"Step away from him, Frank!" Vance shouted to the foreman, his boots clattering down the steel stairs four at a time. "Stay back! That man broke into the utility shed and stole proprietary equipment from the carrier switch! Keep your drivers clear!"
The yard foreman, Frank, took two steps back, his eyes darting from Vance’s drawn posture to the heavy aluminum unit clutched against my wool coat. The truck drivers along the line went completely motionless, their casual conversations dying instantly. Two of them set their coffee cups on their bumper grilles, their expressions shifting into the tight, watchful wariness of working men who knew the county patrol never came to the scale yard unless someone was getting cited.