These shops were all connected, so I quickly slipped through another door and into the bookstore. Was there a lot of room in my bag? Nope. Did that matter once I got inside the bookstore. Not a single little bitty bit. Did you know that if you tuck in your t-shirt, you can easily slide a dozen books right down the back of your shirt? Don’t try this at home, kiddies (not that I think many kiddies are watching my horror/shit show right now). I undid the braid of my hair so that it flowed in long waves over my back. I was hoping it would help to give my kitten a place to nestle, fluffing it up in that way all us girls know how to do almost naturally.
Viewers – 73
“What’s going on?” I asked the clerk who stood gawking out the window. I shrugged my shoulders to settle my books lower on my back, using one hand to tuck my little kitten further back into my hair where it was happy to hide and my other hand to more firmly tuck my shirt into my jeans in back. Another move all us girls know, am I right?
The clerk, a short mousy guy whose nametag proclaimed him to be John B., nearly jumped out of his skin. I guess I’d surprised him. “Where did you come from?”
“I was browsing in the fantasy section when I heard the noise,” I told him, adjusting my backpack to hide the fact that it was moving on its own thanks to my little friends. “Is that a store alarm?”
“No,” John whispered sideways to me like he was a librarian instead of a bookstore clerk, though as I looked around at the front of the store, I wondered if it wasn’t more toy store than bookstore. “It’s the pet store girl. She’s lost her mind.”
“Really?” I asked, tucking into my pocket a few power bars from the front display. They were those perfect heavy protein bars that yuppies were always pulling out of their little hip-bags on a hiking trip for ads.
“Oh, my, Gawds!” John grabbed my arm and pulled the both of us back away from the front display window. “That’s the manager! She’s going to be pissed.” And just like that we were buddies in the foxhole together.
Viewers – 84
“Does she have a temper or something?” I asked, perfectly happy to be shoved closer to the rack of yuppie goodies that I could slip into the jeans jacket pockets. The jean jacket had all these lovely little nook-like pockets. How handy.
“Does she ever,” John told me in a conspiratorial hiss, and he nearly caught me tucking a blow-pop into a pocket. I figured these were probably the best thing I’d picked up so far as they had both something to suck on for a while and then chew on after that.
“How much is this?” I distracted him from his suspicious glance by waving the sucker in his face.
“A buck fifty,” he said with a pointed look.
“I’ll take two,” I nodded to him, and he scuttled behind the counter to ring me up.
“Can you break a hundred?” I slid the single bill across the counter and he scowled, leafing through the bills in the cash drawer.
“I guess,” he took the hundred and slid it beneath the tray that held the ready cash even as I slid a bookmark with Garfield on it into the track of the cash drawer. Where the thought had come from, I didn’t know. I watched a lot of Leverage, including the four remakes they’d done, two of which had been horrible, but still worth it.
“Thanks,” I smiled at him as he handed me my $95 and change and slammed the cash drawer shut, or at least mostly shut. I couldn’t believe that worked, but my eagle eyes noted a slight gap that was going to work in my favor as soon as I could get John focused on the commotion outside again.
Quest: Rob the Bookstore Register?
I can’t argue with the viewer count. We’d better milk it for all its worth until the network censors shut this plotline down.
Rewards: 200 xp and $423.
Accept Y/N?
I accepted the quest as John, no longer worried about me being a thief since I had a hundred dollar bill to throw around for a few lollipops, turned his back on me to run back to the front door. My hands were full, so I noticed that I didn’t have to do anything but think the command to accept the quest.
“What’s going on?” I asked him even though I didn’t really care. Still, as long as his attention was out there on the escalating voices of what was probably the pet store staff going at it, he wasn’t watching me in here. I recognized the high shrill of Stacey, now joined by a booming lower voice that was slowly gaining volume. I leaned my elbows on the wooden cashier counter, my back to the cash register and my fingers slipping toward my jammed bookmark.
“Joan is losing her mind,” John insisted, eyes glued to the outside as I pulled on the handy tassel that matched Garfield’s orange figure. “Her face is turning so red!”
“No kidding,” and I waited for Joan to give a holler that made John flinch to give one hard tug. I needn’t have bothered. John was entranced by the scene outside. He wasn’t the only one. I could see a crowd starting to stream toward the pet store entrance next door. That might be understandable since I heard a really nasty crash.
“She threw a bird cage at her!” John was saying as I was slipping all the bills from the cash drawer into a side pocket on my backpack. I even managed to snag most of the change and it made a comfortable weight in one of my front jeans pockets. Give me a spare sock and I had another weapon.
Viewers – 89
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“The manager does have a temper,” I said, knocking a book off the counter even as I snicked the empty cash register closed. I’d even stolen the peppermint candy that had nestled behind the hundred dollar bill John had so recently tucked into the drawer.
“Not the manager!” John exclaimed as I knelt carefully to pick up the book I’d dropped. Luckily, John still wasn’t looking at me as I had to quickly tuck the back of my shirt back in. “It’s Stacey! She’s thrown a birdcage at Joan!”
“Did it have a bird in it?” I found myself compelled to ask, finally curious.
“No,” John turned to give me a look. Once again, luck served me despite any stats I did or didn’t have because I wasn’t pilfering anything in that moment.
“Well, that’s good,” I gave John an exaggerated look of relief or at least what I hoped came off as such.
“Yeah, right?” John nodded, reassured enough to turn back to the scene outside as I busied both my hands with unwrapping the sucker and popping it in my mouth.
Exp +200 (Quest: Rob the Bookstore Register? Quest Complete!)
I moved up behind John and took a look for myself over his shoulder. Not only was a crowd blocking foot traffic in that direction of the mall, but security was doing a fast-walk to the area. Well, the insulting stereotype of a security guy was waddling that direction from where he’d been at the door of the food court. That suited me just fine as I slipped past John and headed toward the electronics store, hugging the display windows to keep from being noticed as the only person going the wrong direction.
“What’s going on?!” the electronics store clerk nearly grabbed the lapels of my jean jacket before remembering his manners and just glaring at me instead.
“The pet store staff seem to be having a fight right in the middle of the mall,” I told him, noting his name was Benny.
“No kidding,” Benny’s wide eyes were all on me since he really couldn’t see the scene itself as it was several stores down the mall.
“Oh yeah!” I nodded eagerly, one eye on the burner phones and another on the security scanner at the store’s front entrance. “Cages are flying, and a few birds escaped!”
“No way!” Benny goggled at me like I was the only thing on TV.
Viewers – 96
“I swear,” I held up one hand and put the other over my heart. “The manager was screaming at the cashier girl, but the girl was the one to throw the cage!”
“Did it have a bird in it?” Benny asked, his eyes bugged out. See? It wasn’t such a ridiculous question.
Exp +1000 (Quest: Get 100 Viewers! Quest Complete!)
Quest: Loot the electronics store.
How Are you going to get those alarm-studded phones out of this store?
Rewards: 300 xp and stuff.
Accept Y/N?
“Nah, the birds that escaped are fluttering over the food court,” I pointed toward the front doors and his eyes obediently followed my point as I tucked two burner phones into the front pocket of my backpack with the wad of cash. I took a second to pet the ferrets and snag a treat for the kitten still clinging to my hair. “Where are your adapter cords?” I asked, thinking Y at the quest as it nudged me to get out while the getting was good. That distraction wouldn’t last forever.
“Along the back wall,” Benny waved me away as he lunged halfway out the front door on tiptoe trying to get a looksee at either the birds or the fight. Of course, I knew that the cords were along the back wall already. I just needed John to direct me to them.
I snagged some charging cords, and helped myself to a dozen gift cards off a central display. I was careful to only take the ones that were facing toward the back in case Benny turned to check on me. I rotated the display so I got the best ones, though, smiling to myself.
Viewers – 120
Quest: Escape the Mall.
Eventually, you’re going to need to get out of this place without getting arrested.
Rewards: 500 xp and your loot.
Automatically Accepted.
Now some part of me knows that I could never do this sort of thing in the real world, but here, was it so bad? Still, I was fast turning into a bad guy and that wasn’t the point, at least it hadn’t been the point of Leverage and if I was going to copy anything, I wanted to be more Robin Hood and less the desperate street waif trying to just steal enough to survive. If I wanted to keep stealing and progress on my thievery path, I was going to have to find a way to give back and soon. I’d studied all these tropes, but I’d never dreamed I’d be living them.
Quest: More Viewers!!
I can’t believe this is working. Keep it up!
Rewards: 100 xp/100 viewers.
Automatically Accepted.
I ducked out the employee door, found a stockroom that made me whimper at the idea that I only had a tiny bit of room around a couple of wiggly ferrets in my backpack for anything else. I settled for minute cards for the phones, sim cards, and a laptop that I took too much time to unpack from its box. I shoved the empty box in the corner with its ripped-out side against the wall and fluffed my hair out over the top of the laptop that stuck out of the top of my backpack. I was really hoping the ferrets didn’t chew on the laptop too much.
Exp +300 (Quest: Loot the electronics store. Quest Complete!)
Viewers – 172
Game Stop would have to wait for another day, I thought as I shuffled by the back door of it on my way to the food court. Even if I could pilfer a handheld gaming system, when was the World AI going to let me play? I had too much to do already. At least that was what one part of my mind said, as my heart and body were skidding to a stop.
I told myself that I’d just stop in the storeroom. I’d pocketed that Garfield bookmark as sort of a good luck charm. Besides, the kitten liked the tassel. It was that bookmark, sticking up out of a breast-pocket of the jeans jacket that did it for me. How did no one notice the kitten’s little claw slip out of my hair and bat at that silly bookmark tassel? It was the same reason that no one caught me in this ridiculously improbably escapade. None of this was real, no matter how real it felt whether I was petting a kitten or having my foot crunched by a tarantula.
I gave myself a moment to think on it. It wasn’t a long moment as urgency was still driving the timing of my grand larceny. I still didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded better than thievery. I pet my perfectly improbably hair-kitten and, that was when I noticed Garfield, looking up at me while he was grabbing this big tray of lasagna.
“Cats don’t ask. Cat’s take,” I said the bookmark’s silly saying out loud, and then I added my own little addendum. “I’d rather be a cat than a dog.”
Viewers – 230
Exp +100 (Quest: More Viewers!! Quest Complete!)
Quest: You Deserve a Little Down Time
Due to your viewer rating’s steady incline, I am moved to reward you.
Rewards: 100 xp and entertainment.
Accept Y/N?
I hit Y and slipped into the storeroom/break room of Game Stop. Sure enough, there was another solution just sitting there for me. I did a double-take when it was surrounded by sparkles like some Seek and Find scene in Clockmaker. Some games like that and Candy Crush were made, remade, and sequelled forever. Rather than steal from the poor mall employee like a common bad guy, I resisted, but I did empty the bulky purse onto the miniscule breakroom table.
It took ten minutes to unwrap two old-fashioned Nintendo Switches and a dozen video game cartridges, before I found the bin of joy and rapture. There was a shoebox-sized box of returned and used cartridges that were obviously waiting to be put in their cases and stocked on the shelves out there. There had to be at least a hundred tiny game cartridges in there and I swear I must have drooled. I stuffed cords into that purse around two naked Switches all nested in a fortune of video games.