Run: 2026-05-31-01KSYXKC3YFK6Z5K4TMHVABTJ0

Molly spread the crayon-drawn map across the table, smoothing out a wrinkle that had been folded directly through the bouncy castle. "Right," she said, tapping the paper. "The objective is the present table. Northeast corner of the backyard. We're talking premium loot, Bill. Unwrapped potential." Bill squinted at the map, which had been intercepted from a recycling bin outside the birthday boy's house. A child's hand had labeled everything in glitter glue, including a smiling sun in the corner that contributed nothing to their reconnaissance. "And the security?" he asked. "Parents. Roughly fifteen of them. Plus one clown." He stiffened. "You didn't mention a clown." Molly waved this off and pulled a packet of party hats from her bag. She'd purchased them at a discount store, along with two whistles and a deeply suspicious quantity of streamers. Disguises, she explained, were everything. Nobody questioned an adult at a children's party as long as that adult looked appropriately exhausted and emotionally defeated. "We blend in," she said. "We mingle. We compliment someone's potato salad. Then, during the piñata—" "That's our window," Bill finished, nodding slowly. "That's our window. Every adult in that yard will be watching a blindfolded six-year-old swing a stick. Nobody watches the presents. Nobody ever watches the presents." Bill considered this. He had been in the business twelve years, had cracked safes that hummed and bypassed alarm systems that whispered his name in their dreams. And now here he was, planning a tactical extraction around a cardboard donkey full of candy. "What about the loot itself," he said. "We can't exactly walk out with twenty wrapped boxes." "Garbage bags. Large, contractor-grade. We tell anyone who asks that we're collecting trash for the host. People love a volunteer. People trust a man with a garbage bag and good posture." He had to admit it was elegant. "And extraction?" "Minivan," Molly said, with the reverence of a woman naming a beloved pet. "Sliding doors. Optimal cargo space. We pull up to the curb, load the bags, and we're gone before anyone's finished singing the birthday song." Bill rubbed his chin. There was, he felt, one outstanding issue. "The presents," he said carefully, "are for children." Molly stared at him. "Bill." "I'm just saying. Morally. As a concept." "Bill, they're seven. They don't even understand object permanence." "I'm fairly certain they do by seven." She rolled up the map and pointed it at him like a baton. "These children will receive love, cake, and the lifelong memory of a magical day. We will receive forty unopened toys with excellent resale value. Everyone wins. It's redistribution." Bill was quiet for a moment, weighing his entire ethical framework against a tube of construction paper. "Fine," he said. "But if that clown so much as looks at me, I'm leaving you behind." Molly grinned and tossed him a party hat. He caught it, examined the cheerful elastic strap, and sighed the long sigh of a man who had peaked, professionally, somewhere around last Tuesday. "To the minivan," she said.