I work nights at a storage facility on the edge of town.

The kind of place nobody really notices until they need it.

It's a squat little compound tugged between the back end of a shuttered strip mall and a drainage canal that smells worse in the summer.

Most of the fluorescent lights hum or flicker. A few don't bother turning on at all.

The vending machine in the office takes your money, but won't give you a soda unless you hit

the right spot on the side with a heel of your hand. The job isn't complicated.

Lock the gate at 11, unlock it at 6, walk the rows once or twice during the night,

make sure no tweakers are nesting inside an unlocked unit. The cameras are mostly active,

the alarms work when they want to. If anyone asks, the answer's always the same.

Nobody's supposed to be here after dark.

I've had co-workers on and off.

They don't stick around.

Teenagers, burnouts, parolees, working off-court-ordered employment.

They come and go fast enough that I don't remember their names.

Management doesn't seem to care who's on shift so long as someone fills out the logbooks

and nobody burns the place down.

There's only one real rule here and it's not in the handbook.

Don't mess with Unit 103.

Old padlock on the door, heavy enough to stop a crowbar.

The records flagged us do not access.

No one opens it, no one rents it.

Not officially.

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