Grain Pickup

The black of night. Nestled between a hopping bar scene and a busy restaurant parking lot is a dark shopping plaza with a handful of silent storefronts. Dimmed headlights slowly circle the pavement outside, the driver making sure the coast is clear. Two halves of an oak barrel lie on either side of the entrance to the Maltose Express. The driver exits the vehicle and makes a final scan of the area before lifting the right-most barrel from its home in the dift. He grabs the expected paper bag with a smirk and saunters back to the trunk of the vehicle. "Wait!" cries a voice from inside the car. "Make sure the kit's all there." The figure is backlit by the car's inner lighting, obscuring her features but making the glint of her knitting needles all the more menacing in the semi-darkness. After a moment's rustling the man replies in a gravelly baritone, "cara-munich, brewer's gold, Wyeast 1762 strain, irish moss...it's all here." With a chuckle and a grunt he drops the package in the trunk and slams the door shut. "Evan will be pleased," says the voice from inside, echoing the driver's thoughts. "We did it." And with a chirp of spinning tires on wet pavement the sport wagon takes off into the night, just another pair of headlights on a twisty country road in rural America.