“So,” I said, speaking quietly with my phone pressed up to my face. Yes, the phone was dead, but the average onlooker couldn’t tell, and until I had my airpods, I needed some cover-up. “The main point is to keep this a little lowkey and have the focus be on someone else. Like, I’m gonna snag myself some earbuds, but ultimately someone else has to be the one who’s actually scheming. I just get to be the voice in their ear.”

We cruised into the TechShack, grabbed a cart, and started up the first aisle. Once I made there wasn’t anyone in earshot, I turned back to the ghosts. “Can you guys do some scouting? I don’t just want to completely fry a random person. Look for someone who’s got thief-y vibes. Someone who looks like they’re already trying to pull some sneaky shit. Shoplifter or klepto employee or even like, a little kid sneaking shit into her dad’s cart. It’s gotta be a scheme, not just random chaos.”

“Oh, Sammi, you’re already sounding like a real God!” Blair ruffled my hair. “All growing up and everything.”

My chest swelled at her praise, even as Joni rolled her eyes. A compliment from Blair wasn’t exactly rare, but these last twelve hours had wounded my pride and ego a bit, so I took it. She was kinda right, anyway. I’d been doing some thinking on what could most likely make my scheme ‘count’ in the eyes of the Source that managed my powers. A scheme wasn’t just causing mayhem. We needed to take someone already brewing a plan and make their plan come to fruition.

But the ghosts were better at eavesdropping than I was, so as Christopher, Joni, and Blair both saluted and whistled away, I started browsing the store for some fun things, things I’d always wanted. It was reasonable to assume going home wasn’t really an option here, since I was probably missing or presumed dead or spotted on camera fleeing a hospital. I’d need to stop by my old digs to get some of my things together, but the little rented bedroom in the concrete-lined apartment complex, which could only be accessed via an alleyway elevator, would never be home again.

I was gonna need a new pad, and I was gonna make it fucking pop. And since I was already raiding a TechShack, I figured I’d get myself a few new things. The kinda stuff I could never have afforded as a mere mortal. Glorious tech that only a modern and savvy God like myself would ever be able to get her clutches on.

“So, there’s a dude–wait, Sammi, those aren’t earbuds!” Christopher interrupted himself as he saw my growing pile of treasure. “Why do you have a PlayStation with Xbox controllers? Like, as in, why both of those things specifically and why either of those things in general? Do you even, like, play video games?”

My cheeks reddened just a shade. I’d heard stories about PlayStations apparently being some super rare commodity, hence me grabbing one. But maybe I’d misunderstood.

“So that… Just cause. Well, you know.” I waved a hand as I finally got my wording under me. “I wanted to get some cool gear. Stuff I couldn’t get as a mortal. Plus, when I level up enough to get you all somewhat tangible, I want you to be able to have fun at New Olympia.”

He had started nodding again but then stopped at the end. “New Olympia?”

“Yeah. Like where the Greek Gods lived, except it’s my new pad.”

“Ohhhhh. Like New Olympus but named after the capital of Washington instead of the Greek mountain where all the old Gods lived.” He nodded and tapped his head. “Clever Sammi.”

I didn’t correct him, because I didn’t want to correct myself, so instead, I switched the topic. “You said you had a lead on our newest scheme?”

“Uh. Oh, right, said I heard a guy talking about how bummed he is that all the PS 5s were sold out.” He scratched his head. “Can’t actually remember if there was a lead there. Just, you know, scouting for discontent.”

“Right right.” I hesitated, looking back at my cart. This was where I should do the responsible thing and tell Christopher to return to his task of convincing someone to rob the store. But instead, I was leaning towards the selfish thing of asking him to help me shop for tech, so that Joni wouldn’t make fun of me when she saw a potentially disastrous mix mash of incompatible tech.

Plus, she’d get to enjoy it, hopefully eventually assuming I could actually make them able to touch things that weren’t me.

“Okay,” I said, lowering my voice. “How about we go on a side quest of picking out stuff for New Olympia while Blair and Joni do the scheming?”

“Oh man, is this, like, a double scheme?” Christopher rubbed his hands together. “Get the girls to do the legwork while we slack off and do some retail therapy? You’re really getting into it.”

I decided I liked having Christopher around. Almost enough to make me glad I’d killed him, but not quite because holy fuck that would be a terrible thing to think. But a little bit. We’d never been super close back at high school. He was a stoner who tunelessly strummed a guitar with his other, more talented stoner musician friends. I was a stoner who aimlessly doodled sketches with my other, more talented stoner artist friends. Completely socially incompatible.

His positive spins on things kept my mood up as we started shopping. I put my phone back up to my ear, pretending to talk in it as Christopher walked me through the right tech. He even talked me into lying about having purchased some dope ass TV. The sales associate just nodded along with my stressed ramblings about how the manager had sworn I could just walk back in here and tell them I needed it delivered to my house.

Then the associate asked where my house was, which was the logical next question that I hadn’t considered. So I told him to hold that thought, and that I’d be back in a little bit, when I’d figured it out.

But TV aside, I was making good progress when Joni zipped up to me.

“Okay,” she said, thankfully not noticing my overfilled shopping cart yet. “So here’s what I’ve sniffed out. There’s a sales associate in the back, Cara, who’s short on money and stressed about it. She was on the phone during her break, crying to a friend about how this gig doesn’t pay enough, even with OT, and how she’s worried about getting her dealer back for the weed he floated her last week.” Joni rolled her eyes. “Fricken potheads.”

Joni wasn’t straight edge, but she’d hadn’t been as into weed like Christopher and I were, and she’d never dipped her toe in the chaotic brew that made up Blair’s various vices of choice.

“All right.” I cracked my knuckles, and Joni winced. “So we just gotta convince her to snatch some cash from the register. Set off some alarms and slip out while the police are chasing her.”

Joni gave me her famous stink eye. “Which would lead to her getting caught, which doesn’t give you enough… experience points or whatever. Cara needs to succeed.”

Fair. “Okay. So money might be a little tricky to pull off, but what if–” my eyes landed on my shopping cart. “She tries to fence some stuff? Remember Henry Miller? That sorta fratty guy who sold shit to the students at Bridgeport?” It was all coming together. “We convince Cara that she ‘knows a guy who can fence her things.’ We convince Henry that he told this girl Cara he’d give her a solid cut if she brought him some specialized things from TechShack.” The final piece clicked into place. “We provide the diversion for her to smuggle her stuff out instead of the other way around.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

My chest was heaving with excitement as I got to the end, and for once, Joni didn’t look like I’d just advocated for blowing up the sun.

“Not… terrible,” she said.

It was a win.

“Still a bunch of things that need to come into place, though.” She sighed. “You know. Like fixing security cameras so they don’t spot Cara leaving, finding those little removers so the tags don’t go off when she leaves the store, and we’ll need to come up with an excuse as to why so much stuff went missing.”

“Naw.” Christopher waved a hand. “They’ll blame that on Sammi. As long as she gets away, no one will really know how much she stole, and our girl Cara is in the clear. And honestly, Cara probably knows where the tag releases are, since she works here.”

“Okay, that’s two of three things,” Joni said. “What about finding the cameras?”

“I know where the cameras are!” Blair zoomed down from inside the ceiling. “There’s a security officer upstairs watching them all. Why? Do we wanna watch with him? Maybe put on a show?”

A grin spread across my face. “Oh, don’t worry, Blair. We’re gonna put on a real ass show.”

–

The ghosts neither had my Verity Tongue nor could they really speak, so I was gonna have to plant the seeds of destruction on my own, while they floated around as my eyes and ears and also a few more brain cells to provide me support.

Step 1: Eliminate security camera feeds.

“Hey! Hey, open up! Hey, I need you to open this door!” The plan wasn’t going exactly smoothly, because I couldn’t convince a keycard lock that I was the key it needed to see, so instead I’d have to convince the guard to let me in. I raised my voice even louder. “Hey, this is your boss speaking, and you’re in big trouble!”

The guard must have heard me, because a second later the door snapped open, revealing a grizzled old dude with a name tag reading “Hello, my name is Craig! How can I help you today?” Craig’s enormous bushy eyebrows were pinned about as high up his wrinkly forehead as possible, and his beady eyes peered out nervously from sunken sockets.

“I apologize,” he started, voice creaking. “I didn’t hear you. You said I’ve done something wrong?”

Despite his rough appearance, I could hear a shaking in his voice, and I felt a little bad. Didn’t want to rattle him too much.

“No I didn’t say that.” I could undo my own lies, right? “I was actually saying you’re supposed to be on break. You’re approaching overtime, and we’re not paying anyone time and a half right now.” I’d heard this one a lot at my old job. “So long as you take an extra long break, an hour should be good, at a place that’s reasonably far from here, no one will be in trouble. Oh,” I added, remembering the main reason I’d come here, “and you also need to turn off the cameras while you’re out, so I can reboot them in maintenance mode. It’s for the important tests I told you about last week.”

Craig nodded throughout my whole spiel. Once I finally finished, he let out a rush of breath. “Right. Right of course, I’d lost track of time entirely. I’ll just go boot down the cameras so you can handle that. My gratitude at your understanding.”

I nodded, a little too worried to say anything more. The ghosts hadn’t said anything during my pitch, even Joni. She didn’t look exactly pumped by my rambling, but at least I hadn’t told this dude his grandmother was dying in the hospital or something. I kept it just to the facts.

A few minutes later, Craig stepped out of the room. “Cameras are all down. Thanks again.”

Again, I gave him a serious nod, and he disappeared down the aisle.

“Woo hoo!” Blair looped in the air before giving Christopher a high five.

“So slick, Sammi.” Christopher flashed me a peace sign. “This is gonna be like taking candy from a baby.”

“All right, all right,” came Joni’s voice, darkening the mood like a storm cloud over the sun. “Let’s not get too excited. We still need to get Cara to steal some shit and sneak out.”

I tossed her a salute. “I’m on it, chief.” We could do this. I could do this. Just plant a few ideas in her head and then blow this popsicle stand. “You guys wanna get me eyes in the sky? Track down our new friend a little quicker?”

Joni was, of course, the one to locate Cara, and soon I was cruising down the aisle next to where she was restocking keyboards.

Step 2: Get Cara on board

“Hey Cara,” I said, casual as could be, eyes browsing blankly whatever was on the shelf in front of me.

“Uh. Hey?” Cara sounded confused, but I didn’t even glance back at her. Kept my gaze unfocused and ahead.

“Henry Miller is looking for some iPhones for the Bridgeport kids.” Keep it smooth and simple. “You’d mentioned you were in a financial crunch and might be able to snag some things from the store?”

She let out a long breath, and I could hear her put the keyboards down. “Oh thank God you heard back. I’m totally beat and about to be in mad trouble with my weed guy. You said Miller wants iPhones?”

It was actually kinda cool how well these lies rooted themselves in people’s heads. They didn’t just repeat back what I’d said like hypnotized zombies. The way they talked, it actually felt like conversation. The tones were just all natural.

And right now Cara’s natural tone was a little worried.

“Uh, if iPhones are a bit hard to find, what’s the easiest thing you can steal here? Assuming everyone had already left the store and the cameras were off.” I stopped, inwardly wincing. Assumptions aren’t lies. I was gonna have to rephrase that. “As in, uh, in a few minutes, everyone will leave the store and all the cameras will be off. You need to lift the most easily concealable, valuable things that won’t be tracked back to you. Don’t worry about inventory, I gotchu on that. Just… get a bunch of the smallest, most expensive things you can find.”

I could hear Cara pick back up the keyboards. “Sounds good to me. The iPhones are just tricky cause you need a key to get into the glass where they’re all stored. Unless you have the key–”

“--no dice there–”

“I’ll have to be more creative. Is there anything Henry won’t buy?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Bridgeport is having a severe, uh… lack of appliances right now. All of them. Big scandal. And you know how much college kids like their… appliances.” I was starting to go off-script, and it was getting sloppy.

She snorted. “Yeah, no shit. Buncha preppy snobs. Their folks will buy them anything for free, and they still need to mooch fenced goods.”

Cara’s dismissal made me a bit nervous, because if the Bridgeport kids’ parents would buy them anything, then why would they want any of this?

But that was a Henry Miller problem. And speaking of Henry Miller problems, Cara had another one for me.

“Where do I find Miller?”

I was starting to get impatient with this leg of the run, so I just made something up.

“Meet at the bridge over Meadow Lane at 9 PM tonight,” I said. “That’s where you need to be.”

“This is starting to get complicated,” Joni hissed. “Like, you’re not actually going to go all the way out there, are you?”

I wanted to hiss back at her that, no, I wasn’t, but I was still in full view of Cara so instead I just stuck my tongue out. No way was I getting any more involved in this than I had to. So what if Cara ended up stuck with some stolen merch? No one would know she’d taken it, she could do whatever she wanted with it. Pay her weed dealer with headphones or whatever.

“Wait for the signal to get your stuff together,” I told Cara. “You have five minutes.”

Then I lifted my chin and hurried away to put some distance between us. Didn’t want things to look suspicious.

“You do know how short five minutes are, right?” Joni asked. “How is Cara supposed to find and load up on a ton of valuable stolen goods in five minutes?”

“She’ll figure it out,” I said back, feeling a little heated.

“Hey, let’s give Sammi a break here,” Blair said. “Even if she’s fucking up, it’s not like we can undo it now. Just goooo with the floooow.”

“Yeah,” said Christopher. “Positive vibes. We can debrief later.”

“Yeah,” I whispered, “what they said. I gotta focus now.”

The setup was done. It was time for Step 3.