A Redhead's Lunch

Author's note: When I made that last chapter, it was after 9 in the evening where I live. Maybe that has something to do with why my faithful reviewer Mat hasn't submitted a review for it yet. He lives three time zones ahead of me. Or three time zones behind me. I don't know which. I'm a little rusty on time zones.

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Chapter 3: Gulp
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01:14 AM - EMMA'S MILK AND COFFEE
We were all inside the factory now. Many gears churned around us. Something white - milk, probably - was dripping from pipes on the ceiling.
"Looks like nothing unusual," Sam said as she looked around.

I spotted a machine dumping some kind of powder into a vat. "Hey, girls, something looks strange over at that vat. Let's look."

We climbed up to the catwalk that circled the edge of the vat. As the powder fell into the vat, which was full of milk, it dissolved. A pipe then carried the milk out of the vat.

Milk dripped from the pipe. On a hunch, Alex climbed down and caught one of the drips in her mouth. "Doesn't seem like that powder has any … any …" She collapsed.
We rushed over to Alex. There was no questioning it: she was asleep. "Looks like Emma's Farm-Fresh Morning Milk has taken its effect," I commented. "Now, what do we do with her?"

Clover had an idea for waking Alex up. She removed the lid from a nearby garbage pail, snatched the pencil out of my ear, and used the two to make the loudest banging we had ever heard.
I snatched my pencil back. Alex was so fast asleep that she had not even noticed the banging. Someone else, however, had.
Two guards rushed into the room. "Hey, what's going on in here?"

Sam gasped. "Way to go, Clover. Let's get out of here!"

Clover had to carry Alex as we ran from the guards. We ran all over the place, around holding tanks and pipes, and over a few more catwalks.
Finally, they had us cornered. We were at a dead end. Nowhere to run. The two guards approached us slowly.
Fate smiled on us, however, as another drip of milk landed right in the mouth of one of the guards, and he fell asleep in an instant. The other guard tripped over him and dropped to the ground as well.

"I'm glad that worked out so well," I commented. "I mean, that was almost too easy."
A trap door opened up at that point, dropping us down a long slide. We landed on a mattress that someone had placed there. That someone now approached us.

Clover asked the inevitable question: "Who are you?"
"My name," she said, "is Emma. I'm the owner, CEO, and president of Emma's Milk and Coffee. And you are going to come with me." Several guards approached us.

"Ack!" "Yikes!" "Whoa!" "Zzzz …"
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That's all for now. Shorter chapter than most, but a little chapter goes a long way!