These shops were all connected, so Joe quickly slipped through another door and into the bookstore. Was there a lot of room in his bag? Nope. Did that matter once he got inside the bookstore? Not a single little bitty bit. Joe figured out that if you tuck in your t-shirt, you can easily slide a dozen books right down the back of it. He wouldn’t want the kids at home to try this, but then again Joe didn’t think many kiddies were watching his horror/shit show. He shrugged the collar of his jean jacket up. He was hoping it would help to give his kitten a place to nestle. The way the kitten snuggled in, it looked more like a fur collar or that he had some kind of mullet of a different color. In any case, the kitten was hidden more by the fact that people didn’t want to figure shit like that out than that it was invisible or even faded away.
Viewers – 73
“What’s going on?” Joe asked the clerk who stood gawking out the window. He shrugged his shoulders to settle his books lower on his back, using one hand to tuck his little kitten further back into his collar, where it was happy to hide, and his other hand to more firmly tuck his shirt into his jeans in back.
The clerk, a short mousy guy whose nametag proclaimed him to be John B., nearly jumped out of his skin. Joe guessed he’d surprised him. “Where did you come from?”
“I was browsing in the fantasy section when I heard the noise,” Joe told him, adjusting his backpack to hide the fact that it was moving on its own thanks to his little friends. “Is that a store alarm?”
“No,” John whispered sideways to Joe like he was a librarian instead of a bookstore clerk, though as Joe looked around at the front of the store, he wondered if it wasn’t more toy store than bookstore. “It’s the pet store girl. She’s lost her mind.”
“Really?” Joe asked, tucking into his 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 Joe’s arm and pulled them both back away from the front display window. “That’s the manager! She’s going to be pissed.” And just like that they were buddies in the foxhole together.
Viewers – 84
“Does she have a temper or something?” Joe asked, perfectly happy to be shoved closer to the rack of yuppie goodies that he 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 him in a conspiratorial hiss, and he nearly caught Joe tucking a blow-pop into a pocket. Joe figured these were probably the best things he’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?” Joe 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,” Joe nodded to him, and he scuttled behind the counter to ring Joe up.
“Can you break a hundred?” Joe slid the single bill across the counter and John 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 Joe slid a bookmark with Garfield on it into the track of the cash drawer. Where the thought had come from, Joe didn’t know. He watched a lot of Leverage, including the four remakes they’d done, two of which had been horrible, but still worth it.
“Thanks,” Joe smiled at him as he handed Joe his $95 and change and slammed the cash drawer shut, or at least mostly shut. Joe couldn’t believe that worked, but his eagle eyes noted a slight gap that was going to work in his favor as soon as he 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?
Joe accepted the quest as John, who was no longer worried about Joe being a thief since he’d had a hundred dollar bill to throw around for a few lollipops, turned his back on Joe to run back to the front door. His hands were full, so he noticed that he didn’t have to do anything but think the command to accept the quest.
“What’s going on?” Joe asked him even though he didn’t really care. Still, as long as John’s attention was out there on the escalating voices of what was probably the pet store staff going at it, he wasn’t watching Joe in here. Joe recognized the high shrill of Stacey, now joined by a booming lower voice that was slowly gaining volume. He leaned his elbows on the wooden cashier counter, his back to the cash register and his fingers slipping toward his jammed bookmark.
“Joan is losing her mind,” John insisted, eyes glued to the outside as Joe pulled on the handy tassel that matched Garfield’s orange figure. “Her face is turning so red!”
“No kidding,” and Joe waited for Joan to give a holler that made John flinch to give one hard tug. Joe needn’t have bothered. John was entranced by the scene outside. He wasn’t the only one. Joe could see a crowd starting to stream toward the pet store entrance next door. That might be understandable since he heard a really nasty crash.
“She threw a bird cage at her!” John was saying as Joe was slipping all the bills from the cash drawer into a side pocket on his backpack. Joe even managed to snag most of the change, and it made a comfortable weight in one of his front jeans pockets. If he’d had a spare sock that change would make another weapon.
Viewers – 89
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“The manager does have a temper,” Joe said, knocking a book off the counter even as he snicked the empty cash register closed. Joe had 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 Joe knelt carefully to pick up the book he’d dropped. Luckily, John still wasn’t looking at him as Joe had to quickly tuck the back of his shirt back in. “It’s Stacey! She’s thrown a birdcage at Joan!”
“Did it have a bird in it?” Joe found himself compelled to ask, finally curious.
“No,” John turned to give Joe a look. Once again, luck served Joe despite any stats he did or didn’t have because he wasn’t pilfering anything in that moment.
“Well, that’s good,” Joe gave John an exaggerated look of relief or at least what he hoped came off as such.
“Yeah, right?” John nodded, reassured enough to turn back to the scene outside as Joe busied both his hands with unwrapping the sucker and popping it in his mouth.
Exp +200 (Quest: Rob the Bookstore Register? Quest Complete!)
Joe moved up behind John and took a look for himself over John’s 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. To be more precise, 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 Joe just fine as he 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 Joe’s jean jacket before remembering his manners and just glaring at him instead.
“The pet store staff seem to be having a fight right in the middle of the mall,” Joe told him, noting his name was Benny.
“No kidding,” Benny’s wide eyes were all on Joe since he really couldn’t see the scene itself as it was several stores down the mall.
“Oh yeah!” Joe 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 Joe like he was the only thing on TV.
Viewers – 96
“I swear,” Joe held up one hand and put the other over his 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.
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,” Joe pointed toward the front doors and Benny’s eyes obediently followed Joe’s point as he tucked two burner phones into the front pocket of his backpack with the wad of cash. Joe took a second to pet the ferrets and snag a treat for the kitten still clinging to his collar. “Where are your adapter cords?” Joe asked, thinking Y at the quest as it nudged him to get out while the getting was good. That distraction wouldn’t last forever.
“Along the back wall,” Benny waved Joe 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, Joe knew that the cords were along the back wall already. Joe just needed Benny to direct him to them.
Joe snagged some charging cords, and helped himself to a dozen gift cards off a central display. He was careful to only take the ones that were facing toward the back in case Benny turned to check on him. Joe rotated the display so he got the best ones, though, smiling to himself.
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 Joe knew that he could never do this sort of thing in the real world, but here, was it so bad? Still, he 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 he was going to copy anything, he wanted to be more Robin Hood and less the desperate street waif trying to just steal enough to survive. If he wanted to keep stealing and progress on his thievery path, he was going to have to find a way to give back and soon. He’d studied all these tropes, but he’d never dreamed he’d be living them.
Quest: More Viewers!!
I can’t believe this is working. Keep it up!
Rewards: 100 xp/100 viewers.
Automatically Accepted.
Joe ducked out the employee door, found a stockroom that made him whimper at the idea that he only had a tiny bit of room around a couple of wiggly ferrets in his backpack for anything else. He settled for minute cards for the phones, sim cards, and a laptop that he took too much time to unpack from its box. He shoved the empty box in the corner with its ripped-out side against the wall and shooed the ferrets to one side so he could shove the thin laptop in beside them. He 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, Joe thought as he shuffled by the back door of it on his way to the food court. Even if he could pilfer a handheld gaming system, when was the World AI going to let him play? He had too much to do already. At least that was what one part of his mind said, as his heart and body were skidding to a stop.
Joe told himself that he’d just stop in the storeroom. He’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 him. How did no one notice the kitten’s little claw slip out of his hair and bat at that silly bookmark tassel? It was the same reason that no one caught him in this ridiculously improbable escapade. None of this was real, no matter how real it felt whether he was petting a kitten or having his foot crunched by a tarantula.
Joe gave himself a moment to think on it. It wasn’t a long moment as urgency was still driving the timing of his grand larceny. He still didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded better than thievery. He petted his perfectly improbable collar-kitten and, that was when he noticed Garfield, looking up at him while he was grabbing this big tray of lasagna.
“Cats don’t ask. Cats take,” Joe said the bookmark’s silly saying out loud, and then he added his 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?
Joe hit Y and slipped into the storeroom/break room of Game Stop. Sure enough, there was another solution just sitting there for him. Joe 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, Joe resisted, but he did empty the bulky gym bag onto the miniscule breakroom table. It wasn’t like he wanted the guy’s sweaty gym socks anyway.
It took ten minutes to unwrap two old-fashioned Nintendo Switches and a dozen video game cartridges before Joe 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 Joe swore he must have drooled. He stuffed cords into that gym bag around two naked Switches all nested in a fortune of video games.