Molly stared intently at Bill from across the clutter-filled attic workshop. Stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes towered around them, bursting with remnants of past heists—Christmas lights tangled into a haphazard ball, a discarded boot, a stack of yellowing newspaper Olympic gladwraps. A hacked microwave warmed her hot cocoa. “My source positively swears it’s chock-full of goodies,” she said, then paused with a wince. “Sorry. My bounty lingo getting stronger.” “Shhh!” Bill gesticulated wildly at the boxes. “Come down here.” “Huh?” Molly bubbled an excellent cuppa into existence. She did some physical computing for added effect. “S’harmless. Just... Grandma’s birth c***,” “Oh!” Warm bubbling cocoa spilled from Molly’s mouth, dribbling nervously down her chin. “Least you get a sense of the targets and occasion,” he shrugged, slopping a dollop of oxydipine enamel and a tremor of watercolor onto Grandma’s bed of glitter belonging on a child’s craft project. He nixed the idea almost as quickly as he’d thought of it. Lindsay always got uptight if anyone entered grandmother’s space. “How do I look?” asked Molly, solemnly scrutinizing the frothy cup in her extended arms. It rapidly evaporated before her. “Molly, we’re not doing this.” Though there was already a gleam in Bill’s eyes, subdued as ever by the serial invisibility dud lingering in his pores. “But Bill, it’s fate.” She grinned behind her tinted converted blood spectracle. Glare glasses floating about the bridge of her nose. Her hair had been braided into three sections, then reversed into a crowned cats eye halo. “Children really do have everything they want, after all. I mean, it’s just a few random toys out of a few thousand, right? We’re totally not one of those serial crime families.” Bill shook his head. “Your pulverant triaxer drone is only as good as your shimmering cigarette butt.” “Hey.” He shooed the small turbine hovering around the workshop ceiling. It hissed and whirred modestly as it tugged at the velvety fabric of Grandma’s blanket, somersaulting through the air with sparks that made Molly remember being lightning once. “Okay, but what about my neon miniature cruise collar?” “A little flash never hurt anyone.” “So...” “Says Lindsay again. She’s not having you roll around in a children’s candy wrapper.” Bill took root in a crushed tupperware lid, gyrated his hips a touch to get comfortable. Molly folded herself into her trusty rollsworth, a spinning polygon with rotating legs, both hovering above the floor. “So?” Molly turned her spectacles and mousetrap hat up in frustration. “What can an extractor drone like that possibly cost?” “I know a scalder as big as you who’d be willing to do it for half the price you were asking Lindsay.” “Half what you need for their life insurance policy doesn’t mean anything.” “Pre-emptive bug bombs readily available on market forums don’t matter on an unsecured line and you learn why you hack our communicator systems.” Bill joined his hands and folded in to a universal sleeping hat. Molly scoffed, light splashing from her chest. The dim orange light danced across the attic walls like fireflies swarming during summer. “How would you even go about it like that?” “Did you really think the British Shepherdian guard would let a direct approach work?” Molly shrugged off the point. “So you want to call up the Swiss dam modification hydro electrical power plant?” Bill shook his head. “Just... please... Much easier to work on this side we are. Attempting to force children to open their presents? Just how the lads will expect you to present.” “Meaning what exactly?” she asked. “Meaning that you don’t need to do this.” “And why would that be?” A flicker of uncontrolled extrapolatory regret showed in her dulce variation. The light from the microwave flickered overhead as Bill replied, “Because that boat of yours? Those sprinkler suit and sequined grill?! It was all a bargain. A super cheap deal really. Much cleaner and distance was cheaper. Improvised extras everywhere were worse. Take that gyroscopic circle generator you planned to use for example. Where the stink was that supposed to come from? King Bauersmidget?! Bill rolled his eyes at the idea. “One bad sentence scan through a Security Tumblers database analysis report. A shooing match aimed wrong. A virus contagion. A flash infraction. Gun fights ensue. This isn’t Ireland. These guys are not like us.” Bill jerked a thumb at the treetops, not the known Bachman Tower Peak. “I hate to pass this next line on.” “What? Why’s that?” she asked. “Read the cross-examination papers yourself, s’morning. What do ya say?” Molly shrugged thoughtlessly. “Huh.” Her turd soaper rose from the looted big box bakery and she rolled off the spectral quantum distribution wheel, turned a small spin to focus her mind before launching the next phase in the military stealth protocol. “I’ll just remind you that we’re dealing with children.” She hooked an arm into the rollsworth with a casual flip of her wrist. “No one will be hurt if one of the small items has a surprise in it.” The profile glow flare took root in her cheekbone. “Trust me. You’ll see it’s absolutely fine as soon as that steam from this tiny soufflé thing here hits your face. Bill was the scream puppet from then onwards.”