Run: 2026-02-16-01KHKAQF0N1V0CGVDSTX4H55FA

From behind a tower of wrapped juice boxes, Molly plotted the room with thief-cartographer precision. She noted streamers sagging like exhausted laurels, a bouncy castle wheezing at the edges, and a cake tiered with municipal ambition. A poster warned that face paint could be forever, which, to Molly, clarified the stakes. "Molly: Recon says the gift table sags like a hammock; toddlers guard it with frosting." "Bill: I’ve mapped routes between balloon clusters; we slip like ninjas dressed as caterers tonight." Molly adjusted her cap, the kind servers wear when they would rather be pirates, and sketched vectors through tables, chairs, and grazing parents. Her pencil, acquired from the sign-in sheet with stealth bordering on customer service, tapped each waypoint, then circled the gift table as if charming a wary animal. The gift mountain glittered with cartoon promises and rattled faintly when a child tested its flank. Near it, a grandmother sat in a folding chair like a lighthouse made of suspicion, pulsing awareness across the carpet sea. "Molly: Caterers carry trays, Bill, not dollhouses; we need plausible rectangles and decisive smiles always." "Bill: I brought aprons, name tags, and a decoy piñata stuffed with nothing but authority." "Molly: Authority won’t help when the grandmother locks on; her gaze can notarize guilt fast." Molly calculated angles of approach that kept them just outside her beam. The magician practiced damage control by flourishing empty sleeves as if the doves had left a note. Somewhere, a child attempted to eat a balloon animal, reconsidered, then wore the balloon like a contemplative crown. "Bill: Then we deploy cake physics; cut the supports, wobble the buttercream, harvest generosity gracefully." "Molly: Emphasis on gracefully; crumbs scream louder than sirens, and sprinkles track like footprints everywhere." "Bill: Fine, plan B: balloon stampede; I pop three, panic blooms, we drift trophies away." Bill flexed his elbows and rotated his neck with the theatrical calm of a surgeon about to operate on a Jenga tower. He slipped on an apron, pinned a name tag reading Definitely Catering, and distributed trays like shields before a sugary war. "Molly: After drifting, we pivot, load gifts on trays, and bow like overworked saints politely." "Bill: Excellent; if challenged, we’re conceptual caterers—serving presence, not presents; avant-garde hospitality for selective palates." Her smile arranged itself into the blankly helpful expression of staff who forgive everything and remember nothing. Molly resisted waving to the grandmother, whose stare had become a metronome for sin, and instead checked the nearest exit for vanishing violets and heroic uncles. Bill secured the suction hook to the underside of the cloth, gave the paracord a lover’s test tug, and nodded, sanctified by logistics. They blended into the flow, two benevolent plate carriers among cupcakes and chaos, waiting for the exact second when joy and entropy kissed.