Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE9RJF8B3JPTD4EQ16WVM8Z

The warehouse smelled like stale pizza and desperation, which suited Molly and Bill just fine, since that was also how their last three heists had gone. Bill had a corkboard set up with photographs pinned to it, string connecting them in a way that made no logical sense but looked very professional. "Okay," Bill said, tapping a photo of a house with a bounce castle in the yard. "Timmy Fitzgerald's seventh birthday party. Saturday, two PM. Recon says there's gonna be at least thirty presents on that table." Molly squinted at the board. "Bill, why is there a picture of a clown in the middle of this?" "That's the mark." "The mark is a clown?" "The clown," Bill said, "is the key to everything. You get past the clown, you get to the presents." Molly rubbed her temples. "It's a six-year-old's birthday party. There's no security. The 'mark' is a guy named Gary who does balloon animals for forty bucks an hour." "That's exactly what they want us to think." "Who's 'they'?" "The system, Molly!" She stared at him for a long moment, then pulled the clown photo off the board and looked at it more closely. "Wait. Is this Gary? I dated Gary." "You dated the clown?" "He wasn't always a clown, Bill. He had dreams once." Bill snatched the photo back and pinned it up again, more forcefully than necessary. "Focus. The plan is simple. I go in dressed as Timmy's Uncle Rich from Seattle—nobody actually knows Uncle Rich, so nobody will question it. You create a diversion." "What kind of diversion?" "I don't know, Molly, that's your department. You're the diversion person." "I'm not a 'diversion person,' I'm a thief. There's a difference." Bill crossed his arms. "Fine. What's your big master plan, then?" "We knock on the door, we say we're from the rental company here to pick up extra chairs, we load the presents into the chair boxes, we leave." There was a silence. Bill's mouth opened slightly. "That's..." he said, "annoyingly simple." "Thank you." "I don't like it." "Why not?" "Because I already bought the Uncle Rich costume." He gestured to a hideous Hawaiian shirt draped over a chair, tags still on it. Molly picked it up between two fingers like it was contaminated. "Bill, you can still wear this. You can be Uncle Rich AND the chair guy. Uncle Rich who's had some financial troubles and picked up part-time work with a party rental company. It's a beautiful, tragic backstory." Bill considered this, stroking his chin like he had a beard, which he did not. "I like it. It has heart." "It has nothing. It has zero heart. We're stealing presents from six-year-olds." "Every hero's got a soft side, Molly." "We're not heroes, Bill, we're—" She stopped, sighing. "You know what, fine. Put the shirt on. Let's go steal some Legos." Bill grinned, already reaching for the tag. "Now you're talking my language."