Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE8VYVN0GGNBGCJBETGEQXC

The back room of Bill's apartment smelled like microwave burritos and desperation, which Molly figured was appropriate given what they were about to discuss. "A children's birthday party," she said, not quite a question. "A children's birthday party," Bill confirmed, spreading a hand-drawn map across the table like he was planning D-Day. "We're stealing presents from children." "We're liberating presents from children who have too many presents already. Look at this house, Molly. Look at it." He jabbed a finger at a photo of a McMansion with a bounce castle in the yard. "That's a bounce castle. For one child. One." "So we're Robin Hood now." "We're Robin Hood if Robin Hood needed rent money by Friday." Molly picked up the map, squinting at Bill's terrible handwriting. "What's this say? 'Clown entry, 3pm'?" "That's our way in." "You want to dress as clowns." "I want *you* to dress as a clown. I'm going to be the guy who delivers the bounce castle's replacement generator, because apparently rich people's bounce castles need generators, and generators need delivery guys, and delivery guys get to walk right past security like they own the place." "There's security?" "One guy. Retired cop. Currently very interested in the taco truck parked out front, which I may have hired to park out front." Molly set the map down. "So the plan is: I distract twenty sugar-crazed six-year-olds while dressed as a clown, and you steal a generator that doesn't need replacing, and somewhere in there we grab every present at a birthday party and just... leave." "Correct." "That's not a plan, Bill, that's a fever dream." "It's a fever dream with a getaway van." "Does the van have a name yet?" "Bertha." "Of course it's named Bertha." "She's earned it." Molly rubbed her temples. "What happens when the birthday kid notices all his presents are gone? He's going to cry. Loudly. In front of forty parents holding phones." "By then we'll be three streets over, changing plates." "You've thought about the plates but not about the part where we're stealing a child's birthday presents." "I've thought about that part plenty. That part is the *point*, Molly. Presents. Plural. Wrapped. Portable. Nobody counts them at a party, they just pile them on a table like an altar to capitalism, and we walk up and take the whole altar." "You make it sound noble." "I make it sound *efficient*." She looked at the clown costume draped over the chair — red nose already attached, big shoes waiting like a threat. "If I do this, and one single kid cries because of me specifically, I'm blaming you in the getaway van." "Bertha doesn't hold grudges." "Bertha's a van, Bill." "Bertha's family." Molly picked up the nose, turned it over in her hand, sighed the sigh of someone who'd made worse decisions for worse reasons. "Fine. Clown recon at three. But if there's a piñata, I'm taking a swing at your head first, just to get in the spirit." "Deal."