Run: 2026-02-16-01KHK35WGB89TA94Z03K6SCK8W

The rain slicked the neon sign of "Bouncy Castle Bonanza" into a blurry mess of pink and green, reflecting in the puddles where Molly crouched behind a stack of deflated clown balloons. She adjusted her thermal goggles, which were currently fogged up from her own nervous breath, and signaled to Bill. Bill was currently trying to untangle himself from a string of party streamers he had accidentally walked into while approaching the side door. He looked less like a master criminal and more like a gift that had been poorly wrapped by a drunken elf. "We need a plan that doesn't involve you getting stuck in decor," Molly whispered, her voice tight with the specific anxiety of stealing from toddlers. Bill finally freed his arm, sending a cascade of crepe paper to the wet pavement. "I was testing their perimeter security. Those streamers are high-tensile fiber. Very advanced." "They are paper, Bill. Actual paper." "Semantics. The point is, we go in, we grab the hoard, we leave before the cake cutting. Simple." Molly peered around the corner. Through the window, she could see the interior. It was a nightmare of primary colors. A magician was currently pulling a rubber chicken out of a hat to the delight of twelve screaming four-year-olds. The present table sat in the center of the room, a towering monument of wrapping paper and bows. It was the holy grail. It was also surrounded by a phalanx of exhausted parents holding lukewarm coffee and eyes that had seen too much sugar. "There are thirty kids in there, Bill. Thirty. And at least sixty parents. If we trip an alarm, we aren't running from the police. We are running from a mob of moms with strollers." "Strollers are heavy. They have poor turning radiuses. We can outmaneuver them." "You are insane. You want to outrun a minivan convoy?" "We don't outrun them. We blend in. I brought costumes." Bill reached into his black tactical vest and pulled out two oversized, fuzzy animal onesies. One was a giraffe; the other was a dinosaur. "We go in as entertainment. The extra clowns nobody ordered." Molly stared at the giraffe suit. It had a hood with ossicones that looked incredibly itchy. "You think we can walk in there, dressed as a giraffe and a T-Rex, and just start loading gifts into a sack while a magician is working?" "It's misdirection. Everyone watches the magician. Nobody watches the dinosaur." "A T-Rex has tiny arms, Bill. How exactly do you plan to carry a box of LEGOs?" "I'll use my mouth. Like a real dinosaur." "That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, and I once watched you try to pick a lock with a gummy bear." "It almost worked! The sugar gummed up the pins, it was a valid strategy until the humidity hit." Molly sighed, the sound lost in the distant thrum of a children's song about wheels on a bus. She looked at the mountain of gifts, then back at Bill, who was already trying to squeeze one leg into the dinosaur tail. The sheer absurdity of the situation pressed against her temples. They were professional thieves, or at least they claimed to be on their business cards, yet here they were, contemplating felony larceny at a birthday party for a child named Timmy. "If we do this," Molly said, grabbing the giraffe suit with a sense of looming regret, "and I get caught, I am telling the police you forced me. I will say you hypnotized me with the gummy bear." "Less talking, more zipping. The cake is coming out in ten minutes. That's when the guards get distracted by frosting." Bill hopped on one foot, wrestling the dinosaur head over his own. He looked ridiculous. He looked dangerous only in the way a falling bookshelf is dangerous. Molly pulled the giraffe hood up, feeling the world shrink to a mesh screen. "Alright," she muttered, her voice muffled by polyester fur. "Let's go steal some plushies." "Remember," Bill roared, his voice deep and distorted by the mask. "No biting the witnesses." "No promises," Molly replied, and they waddled toward the door, two prehistoric monsters ready to raid the nursery.