As any great art thief would tell you, it's important to have all your shopping done beforehand.

  Jonathan was chauffeured to quite a few different stores to pick up some "earth delicacies", "important cultural literature", and "any significant technologies that might be considered useful or entertaining on long voyages."

  Jonathan got the distinct impression that these requests weren't in their original mission parameters, but maybe he could challenge the purchases with the credit card companies as done under duress.

  Jonathan ended up maxing out a couple of cards, and got some very strange looks while doing so. The big guy seemed extremely impressed — not with Jonathan's ability to perform small-scale economic transactions, but instead with the supreme decadence that was Earth junk food.

  They ended up buying as many "delicacies" as they could from a few local grocery stores, prioritizing shelf life over nutritional quality, and a bunch of literature from a bookstore. The van was starting to get quite full.

  Jonathan was still worried this was somehow some sort of advanced scam, but given how much education and experience he had toward detecting that type of thing, the fact that even he saw no signs made him stop thinking about it. Even if so, it's not like he was out much more than a few thousand dollars so far anyway.

  The big guy was tearing through whole boxes of snack cakes as if eating was a rare privilege, which made Jonathan feel like he was performing a charitable act.

  "Are you still sure you can't buy us any guns? As you can probably guess our job is pretty hazardous and we could use all the help we can get. We were under the impression that everybody had at least a few lying about."

  Jonathan was still flabbergasted that a space-faring race would even be interested in something so mundane as firearms.

  "The only way to get them legally is by going through a background check and a waiting period, and even then I'm pretty sure it'd be tough to buy more than one at a time."

  "What about getting them ILL-legally?"

  He chose to tell the truth, assuming they had a way to know if he was lying.

  "Sorry, I've never done that before."

  It's important to note that Jonathan didn't say he didn't know how. Jonathan was aware of how it was theoretically possible via the dark web — the gentleman just seemed a little too interested, and Jonathan didn't want them to stick around for however long shipping takes from wherever dark web guns come from.

  Jonathan thought this was a clever response, but the gentleman seemed adept at spotting avoidance tactics and fired back almost immediately.

  "Oh, you mean like how you've never robbed a museum?"

  Jonathan could do nothing but nervously stammer as he workshopped a response that wouldn't put him on the hook for gun running on top of grand theft: bulbous paperweight.

  "Kidding, I'm kidding, I understand. You've been more than helpful already."

  "I do have one last request before we conclude our business. How about technology? The laptops and phones are very interesting — anything else you could think of that the universe at large might be interested to see? One item that I'm personally very interested in getting to know more about are your flying drones. I know you probably can't get the ones with the missiles, but I understand there are some consumer grade ones available for purchase at the local technology superstore."

  Jonathan took a big sigh. "What's another maxed out credit card?"

  They ended up making a few more stops, seemingly anywhere that could have something remotely useful. Jonathan was wondering if these aliens had a boss who'd be interested in knowing that their employees were taking liberties.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  It took some time, but they were finally there.

  The museum.

  Two major challenges lie ahead. First, and perhaps the most difficult, Jonathan had to open the side door of the van without perishing under a comically large avalanche of purchased goods. It took some doing, but he managed.

  He found himself in the familiar parking lot — just seconds from the entrance, minutes from the objective, hours from potentially being formally arraigned, and theoretical years from getting out on good behavior.

  It took a minute or so, but he finally went in through the main entrance, the same as last time.

  He did his best to remind himself: this was NOT a Mission Impossible-style plan. He was effectively grabbing the voluptuous brick from a pedestal and walking away. There were no laser traps, no pressure switches, and even if they did have a giant boulder trap, he knew that they lacked the staff to perform proper boulder trap maintenance.

  The idols themselves were barely even in view of the security cameras. Barely, but still at least a little.

  Nerves were even higher this time around. Not because he was expecting to be caught, but because the stakes were far more severe. That, and the fact he had also met actual aliens, which isn't something one does without at least some residual shock.

  Then he thought to himself — that part made it easier. How crazy can robbing a museum be if aliens told you to do it?

  Oh. Wait, no, that sounds really bad when you think about it. Oh no.

  Now Jonathan was thinking about the fact that such a statement is truly insane and would likely get him a trip to the cuckoo's nest. Great, now he's thinking about being trapped in an asylum forever, unable to spend his ill-gotten gains under the "tender" care of Nurse Wretched. Rachet. Ratched?

  Ever since he saw that movie as a kid, the only thing that stuck with him more than the conceptual horror of being sane in an insane asylum was the incorrect last name of the antagonist.

  Anyway, the point is that if he got caught, he was likely best off going with blaming a momentary mental break, or doing it to make a point. His career would be ruined, but as long as he got the idol to the big guy, he could still retire.

  He did some quick calculations. The idol couldn't possibly be worth more than one hundred thousand in this museum, so it'd be a state crime — probably only 1-10 years max. He still would've retired decades sooner than anticipated, so overall a risk worth taking.

  Jonathan eventually distracted himself by reaching into his bag to find the sign that simply read "Temporarily Unavailable."

  He felt the quality of the card stock that he bought on accident thinking he was just getting standard printer paper. This caused him to spiral a bit, thinking about all the other times he didn't spend enough time looking at a package and bought the wrong thing.

  He was distracted from this distraction by thinking about how lucky he was that the big guy let him use the printer instead of using his own handwriting, which was abysmal and would've easily gotten him caught by handwriting analysis.

  And so, the spiral continues.

  Wait, can't they track what printer was used to print paper?

  Jonathan realized he was suffering from distract-ception. The spiral went on one final loop downward as he pondered how dated that reference was.

  "FOCUS," he whispered to himself under his breath, just as any perfectly normal museumgoer would do.

  He quickly considered going to the bathroom to have room for a proper breakdown, but decided against it and forced himself forward.

  One of the dozen or so "critical" findings that Jonathan was going to present to his client in a couple of weeks was the fact that the surveillance system they were using had run out of recording space several months back, and for some reason wasn't set to perform automatic cleanup. This meant that only if somebody was watching directly would he be discovered.

  This was a different time of day, however, so he couldn't just rely on all of the employees being out to lunch. If any one of them happened to be watching the camera…

  Deciding he was too dizzy from the last spiral to go on another, Jonathan stowed that thought as he walked into the "Art of Life: Fertility and Creation Across Cultures" exhibit.

  There it was. One of a dozen different but similar idols.

  Jonathan studied a few plaques as he moseyed down to the target with as little "chalant" as possible. Every step closer caused his heart rate to elevate even higher until he was right between it and the camera.

  He slowly lifted the plexiglass enclosure and popped the target into his laptop bag. He placed the sign down and walked away, only slightly frantically.

  He held his breath, rounded one corner, went down the hall, and was pushing the door to the parking lot when all of a sudden…

  The door swung wide open.

  On the other side of the door was a distinct lack of armed officers.

  He walked back to the van, through the parking spots where a SWAT truck should've been, and got into the side of the van after spending a few seconds making sure nothing of any real value fell out.

  Nobody noticed. Not the staff, museum visitors, nor the lone security guard.

  In fact, the theft likely would've remained undetected for some time had it not been for a tangentially related epidemic of thefts in the coming days, which would result in the museum performing a full inventory.