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Instinctively Ava cut out at Floor 2 and quickly made her way down the service steps that led to the shipping warehouse. The automated systems she had seen during her tour were in full swing, but the room was empty aside from hundreds of Very Nice Boxes.
Industrial fans spun above the iron rafters. It smelled like sawdust. A labyrinth of conveyor belts connected different stations. On the east side Ava spotted a stack of precut panels in a repeating order: the Very Nice Box’s sides and lids. Every few seconds a new piece dropped onto the belt and glided along. At the next station a machine attached hardware to each box at a fast, rhythmic speed. The boxes were fitted and pulled along a belt, out of the warehouse through a wall of thick rubber flaps.
A door opened. She slipped behind
