After about a week of planning with Pili, this is going to be all over, and it’s gonna be delicious.

I see the brave girl waving at me. I wave at her back, indicating this has gone according to plan so far. So she goes to Step 2, as soon as I get within the circle she set up. She can’t help but giggle a little. As do I. Pili gets out her flint and steel, which she’s been keeping warm and dry by squishing them between her paws, and lights the wick. She has a candle in her hand she’s now lit, and then she puts the flame to a different string connected to some explosives she cooked up for this little fiasco, and it’s no time at all until there’s a spark. 

We see and hear the explosion of Catra’s dam of wood she built to stop the flow and dry out the rivers, just as she has finished running over to the other side of this sewer tunnel and blown the other side’s right underneath us. A destructive and fast raccoon with me? Couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime. 

This tunnel is really just a giant grate, and right underneath us is a handmade cistern Catra secretly built a few months ago. Since then her riches have quadrupled selling water she says she got from a quest long ago in heaven, and froze to keep nice and fresh. What she really did was steal the resource of water for those who can’t afford her high prices, and we’re about to give it all back. It’s not long at all before her cistern is almost completely drained, and her guards sound like they’re really advancing.

“Okay, now!” I say to Pili.

Pili winks, and uses the candle to light another fuse, this one an explosive between two others, each one with another one to its left and right, and so forth to make a circle. All around us are explosions that do give me blasts of hot smoke, and it gets the job done. The two of us fall through the exploded grate, as well as the tank full of fish. 

The water’s still deep enough to cover our feet, and it’s flowing out of here both ways. We slide like sand skiers, the tank right behind us, and we maneuver to the sides to let it get ahead of us. Soon we’re out of the sewer/cistern of Catra’s palace, sliding down water that the residents of our neighborhood are going to wake up to, creating a dream come true.

“Khamen!!!” someone yells from afar. I think it’s the one and only. One way or another, they’re coming to get me. I glimpse over and see some torches leaving the main entrance. I see we’re heading to a pass where you could go left or right.

“Meet me at the rendezvous,” I say to Pili.

“Yeah.”

We slide opposite ways.

As I’m running, I hear some sprinting. I can almost smell their desperation, most likely a mixture from fear of getting her wrath, embarrassment at being outsmarted, and knowledge I can really easily slip by them. I jump down a small staircase and stop against a wall at the bottom. I catch my breath a little, and then I clench. Slowly glancing above, I see a few of Catra’s guards shine their torches, their light right on me. They don’t run down to come get me.

I think I notice the silhouette of a large bird too with a strange color, but maybe that’s just my eyes playing tricks on me in the moonlight, and either way, it’s rewardingly evident no one can see me.

“You did...what?” Asenath is speechless. I was worried her reaction would be less than perfect when I got her up the next morning, but looking at the flowing water everywhere, she’s conflicted, not furious. I knew it would be smart to surprise her first. 

“I did what I did,” I say smugly. “Pili and I already met up with everyone else earlier before the sun rose. They’ve got food, money and different ways to store it.”

Asenath slightly grins as she takes a bite of the delicious bread I was able to swipe from Catra’s kitchen and somehow keep dry. She has to eat slowly and she has to be careful about what she digests these days, and I really don’t mind her light pace. “Are you…” She sighs, and I sigh too. In secret. “Couldn’t you have just stolen a little bit of food on the down low? At least until we have him?” She clutches her belly.

My shoulders droop a little. Asenath does have a point. I have had to plan my heists a lot more carefully since she got pregnant. If anything happened to her and him, I would never forgive myself. No one would. That’s what being a father is. Still, I’ve been a father to the underdogs of this city since I learned my technique, and Catra really screwed up thinking she could take away our water source. 

“Slytunkhamen.” I hear a familiar voice behind me. Stomping. Oh brother. I look around without moving my face. Enough people are stopping what they’re doing to see what’s happening, and enough are celebrating the little stunt they know I pulled. I should be safe without going invisible in front of everyone.

“Bomani. Quite an honor,” I say with more than a hint of sarcasm as I turn and see the buff fat honey badger. He’s the snooty neighbor who does favors for the pharaohs. Assistant. Without them, he has no friends. “You seem a little grouchy. Why not go for a swim? It’s a huge miracle!” I say, feigning joy and not needing to really feign it at the same time.

“It’s not a miracle, it’s you!” he points accusingly at me.

“Even if it could ever have been me, what could possibly make you think this is not a miracle?” I play dumb. “After months of horrible drought, the river’s back. Maybe Catra’s praying to bring the water back and stop having to distribute it and sadly make profits to keep it going finally worked.” I know that’s not the best way to put it, especially not in front of him. I can feel Asenath’s disapproval behind me. 

“Yeah,” says a neighbor. More than a few people have stopped filling up their jars to agree with me. I can see they’re now surrounding Bomani a little bit. I can see his anger is starting to turn into fear. We’re on the same page. His reputation in this neighborhood is rough enough, but saying it was better when we gave our goods to Catra to help her keep us alive would really not sit well here. 

Deciding just to end this with a threatening grunt that comes across more as ineffective rebuke, he marches off. 

Before he’s out of sight, I see a palace guard whisper something to the guy, and Bomani looks a little taken aback by whatever info he’s given. Then he runs off.

By the time he’s gone, everyone who’s outside right now turns to me and gives a bow. I grin and bow back. It really never gets old. I put my bag of Catra’s gold away in our house, extra well hidden. It was the first thing I did getting home, even before waking Asenath up. And even if Bomani saw it and found proof it was me, no one around here would think to turn me in, even for a huge reward. We’re a community here. A slow rebellion in a way. One day, someday, this town will stop being ruled over by those oppressing us.

I go back inside our little house, and I get out some ingredients to make a breakfast, but Asenath doesn’t really seem to be in the mood to talk to me. Maybe I just need to get something she’ll like from the market today.