Run: 2026-02-16-01KHM6291TBS7HV7DZ7VX7341Q

The warehouse smelled of dust, defeat, and the faint, greasy aroma of yesterday’s takeaway. Molly, a woman with the sharp eyes of a magpie and the frantic energy of a squirrel on espresso, jabbed a glitter-encrusted fingernail at a large sheet of paper pinned to a corkboard. It was a crude crayon drawing of a house with a wobbly roof. “This,” she declared, her voice a triumphant whisper, “is the motherlode.” Bill, a man built like a disappointed refrigerator, sighed. He’d seen Molly’s ‘motherlodes’ before. They usually involved poorly-defended garden gnome collections or all-you-can-eat shrimp buffets. “It’s a crayon drawing, Moll. Did a toddler give you this intel?” “It’s the schematic for the Anderson residence,” she said, tapping the house. “Little Oliver Anderson’s sixth birthday. Sunday. Noon. The entire street’s invited. It’s a gift-stravaganza.” Bill squinted at the drawing. A stick-figure dog was labelled ‘Buster (vicious)’. “Right. So our point of entry? The sunroof he’s drawn on the chimney?” “Don’t be thick. We go in disguised,” Molly said, her eyes gleaming. She produced two horrifyingly bright costumes from a duffel bag. One was a bulky, purple dinosaur suit with a lolling tongue. The other was a giant, fuzzy bumblebee with lopsided wings. Bill stared, his expression flat enough to land a helicopter on. “You want us to infiltrate a child’s party… dressed as a dyspeptic dinosaur and a concussed insect.” “It’s genius! We’ll be invisible! Who questions the entertainment?” She thrust the bee costume at him. Its antennae wobbled pathetically. “I’m not the bee,” Bill stated, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. “Last time I was a bee, that ‘unbeelievable’ pun you made caused a tactical incident with a real hive.” “Fine. You’re ‘T-bone the Tip-Top-Tyrannosaurus’,” she said, shoving the dinosaur suit into his arms. It smelled faintly of sweat and despair. “Your job is to cause a distraction. A big one. A roar-and-stomp situation. Draw all the tiny eyes.” “And you?” “I’ll be the bee!” she said, zipping up the yellow and black fuzzy torso. “While you’re unleashing your ‘rawr’, I’ll be buzzing straight to the loot pile. In and out. They’ll be so distracted by your terrible reptilian gyrations, they won’t even see me.” Bill held up the dinosaur tail, which was already coming unstitched. “What’s the plan for exfil? Do we just waddle away at speed? These things have a top speed of ‘stroll’.” Molly adjusted her antennae. “We meet at the ‘unmarked vehicle’.” She pointed a black fuzzy glove out the window at a battered ice cream van they’d ‘acquired’. It was currently painted a dubious shade of grey. The faint outline of a smiling clown was still visible underneath. “The plan has a thirty percent success rate, Moll. Tops.” “Thirty percent is a goldmine in this economy, Bill!” she chirped from inside the bee head. “Think of the haul! Action figures! Plastic jewellery! Those little kits where you grow disgusting magnetic aliens in water! It’s a high-risk, high-reward scenario!” Bill looked at the crayon map, then at his gigantic purple feet. He let out a sigh that seemed to deflate his entire body. “The things I do for plastic jewellery.” He began the laborious process of pulling the dinosaur suit over his shoulders, a great beast defeated not by a meteor, but by sheer absurdity.