[b][center][h2]Paige Kennedy[/h2][/center][/b]

Hearing the cover fall off the forklift, Paige glanced back briefly watching Tao forego sitting on the floor to rest his legs. She couldn’t blame him, he definitely wasn’t the physical exercise type.and they had covered a lot of ground. He was good company though- Hardly spoke unless it was business and whenever he did, it was with total confidence in his work. What was cute though was that he seemed to naively believe anything she said. She could have promised whatever he wanted in return for taking on the job and though her status as Federal Agent often carried the effect of trust, she could lie with the best of them. Letting him think that he had to be bribed to help her just added to the effect. Conversely, however, she thought they would have found what they were looking for long ago. The possibility that they may have embarked on a monumental wild goose chase was creeping. 

Shifting her weight onto one foot, she steadied herself against a dusty pallet marked, [i]Sol City GP[/i], trying not to get her jeans dirty and wiggled her toes a bit under her Converses. She sighed at the momentary relief through her aching foot when Tao spoke up from the driver’s seat of the forklift. She cut her eyes over at him sharply for interrupting her temporary respite, but the quizzical look on his face was more than enough to garner her total attention. She walked over, feeling the stiffness return to her legs from the momentary break. Pulling herself up next to him she glanced at the steering column where he motioned. She didn’t know anything about forklifts other than seeing Milo operate one from time to time back in Delta City, but they usually had a key like a car or at least that’s what made sense in her mind. The machine beneath them only had a small mounted box, very much like a door transponder. “You gotta be shittin’ me...”

She glanced at Tao briefly with an exhausted sense of surprise and waved the card over the sensor. Agent Barrett’s toothy grin in the keycard photo, an image Paige loathed completely, happily brought the electronics of the machine to a pre-ignition mode with an affirmative chirp. She shook her head in astonishment. “We are so stupid…” Her eyes darted around the spartan controls: a few switches and multiple levers for articulating the forks. One worn button featured a faded image of a key and without a second thought she mashed it firmly. The engine coughed and sputtered as if trying to turn over, but died instantly. She mashed it again, [i]harder[/i]. The same sequence happened again and the engine fell flat. “What the fuck?” She looked around, rapidly racking her brain, trying to jog a memory of the last time she had seen Milo use one of the machines. [i]C’mon Paige! Think![/i] 

The memory struck her and her arms shot for the seatbelt, wrapping it over Tao’s waist and buckling him firmly into the seat. She planted his other foot on the brake pedal and mashed the button again. The startup sequence was much sharper and the engine calmly turned over and puttered happily. Her heart soared. [i]YES![/i] She looked around. It was getting interesting. There was no other doorway on the map other than the one they came in through, but the timestamps on the logsheet clearly showed another access point activated only moments after the forklift transponder hit. “It’s in here,” She said, not realizing she was clutching his arm, [i]hard[/i]. “Start moving some of these pallets along the bottom on the far wall.” She said letting go and pointing along the interior of the room, though she stopped suddenly and looked back at him discerningly, the glance of her olive eyes narrowing. “You [i]can[/i] drive this thing, right?”

[@Allycat]