Beam me up, Scotty!

[tunafish.livejournal.com]

The warehouse reeked of gunpowder and rusted metal. The air was coarse with smoke, difficult to breathe in, and the floor was littered with freshly dead bodies. Even the old man, a veteran when it came dealing in this kind of business, the scene was a gloomy sight to behold. He bats an eye, a quick glance over the place was enough to tell him the place had been deserted – that is, abandoned by the ones that weren’t so unfortunate. Well, for the most part, it doesn't seem like anyone's lurking around in the shadows trying to get a last strike. His shoulders fall into a relaxed position and he stows his gun in its holder.

Garamond wasn’t typically one to initiate turf wars, but he didn’t refuse a fight when his establishment was threatened. After a short inspection of the area, he was quickly coming to realize their rival gang had been sitting on a little gold mine. The warehouse was filled with all sorts of investments. Raw materials, drugs, weapons, typical stuff for small organized crime groups– but what mattered is that they had a lot of it. ‘Finder’s keepers,’ he supposed. He scoops up a crowbar from the ground beneath him, glancing out towards the row of crates to his front. He lodges the bar's teeth into the upper-latch of the nearest crate and he gives a shove--

The top of the crate goes flying, hitting the horizontal wall with a clatter. Turns out the thing wasn't even bolted down.

"Huh."

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[fightfair.livejournal.com]

The crate he opens is full of bullets, a sleek silver and copper in the light, just rows and rows of cartridges. The corresponding guns are lying around somewhere in these innocuous crates as well, packaged as stationery supplies - actually, there probably are those in the vicinity, too, lying around, just to throw off potential inspectors, just so that they could pry the lid off one of them and convince inquiring parties that it was harmless after all, that they were really just shipping ballpoint pens and artificial notebook paper. As the lid goes flying, though, and the fragile wood splinters upon impact, it becomes apparent that supplies aren't the only things the warehouse is sheltering.

The beginning of a small muffled cry makes its way from one of the boxes. It's hardly audible, like whoever made it also made the conscious effort to silence it, but in the absolute silence of the abandoned area, it's still obvious to a trained ear.