Another two weeks later, Grouch called the zoans to a meeting in another room off the dining hall, which Geir had never seen. It was a war room, with touchscreen table in the center, like the one in the armory but much larger, round, and flat. Chairs scattered around the walls, unused.
“That means it’s a big job,” Left explained when they were on their way.
The human guards were on alert, and more of his staff was there already. Some unfamiliar, too. The guards confiscated everyone’s wristbands when they entered.
Grouch was there, but he wasn’t the one who spoke. While he stood to the side, with a somehow deeper scowl on his face than usual, a tall human in shirtsleeves and a tie came forward.
“That’s Palmer’s man,” Left said softly. “We’ve worked for him before.”
Palmer’s man glanced around at the faces present before he spoke. He lingered on Geir—the newest one, probably.
“You’ve all been chosen for a team,” he said. His accent was Mid-Atlantic, and he probably smoked. “The job is in one week.”
The job he described was nothing like the quick day-to-day work Grouch had been putting Geir on. It was, in fact, a heist.  The team, which was made up mostly of Grouch's men, was to infiltrate a home in a high-rise in Uptown and locate a stash of paper money.
Palmer's man gave only a broad overview of the operation: a team would occupy a power station to weaken security; a team would hack a communications node to hide their presence; a team would enter the suite and retrieve the money; and so on.  It seemed to be understood that all would be in contact with the tall stranger, and not with each other.
That was why they had given up their wristbands.  They weren't to know whose home they were invading or how much money it was (though the fact that it was physical cash indicated that it must be a great deal), or even all the details of the job.  The humans probably received some cut of the take; maybe Palmer would allot some to the zoans, but Grouch would absorb it.  Though from the things he had heard Hank blab, it sounded as though Grouch was as small a component in Palmer’s plans as the rest of them.
In the ensuing days, the group was divided into teams, and those sequestered from one another within and around Grouch’s compound. The three zoans were, predictably, the security detail for the infiltrating team. Palmer’s man gave them printouts of the building and their route to and through it, to study and memorize, and brought them briefly each day to the war room to go over their roles with the table screen.
The idea was a precision strike. The infiltrating team would be familiar with the penthouse, and would get in and out in however long it took to locate the money, likely only a few minutes. All security would be neutralized along the way, and there would be no trace that anything had happened except for a few unexplained hiccups in the computers. The muscle was there in case the other residents of the tower were unpredictable. They were to deflect any passersby, and were expected to cause so much trouble that police went after them, if necessary. The tall human made no apologies for the risk.
They had a three-dimensional model of the building and the penthouse, built from hidden camera and microphone data. High confidence that there would be no one there, and no extra security within. Moderately high confidence that there would be no extra security on the money itself. Even so, the security team would be going inside with the infiltrators.
“Do you do these often?” Geir asked Left when they were left alone in their bunks.
“Sort of. Mostly for this guy.”
“He’s got Grouch under his thumb. He can get free work out of him.”
“What does that matter?”
“Just an observation. But working in Uptown seems risky. Police would come down hard on everyone.”
“We do it all the time. We just don’t hit real Uptown targets.”
“Who do you think this is?”
“Doesn’t matter. Probably some Terrace factory manager who got uppity and moved out.”
“With enough cash that someone would want to steal it?”
Right gave a long and loud sigh from his end of the room, where he was trimming his plants.
“Don’t ask questions,” Left translated shortly. “Especially not with Palmer. You haven’t made Grouch mad yet.”
“Sure. I’m just used to knowing.”
"You'll get the picture someday."
The alligator laughed, a single harumph.  And he was right; there wasn't much Geir was less interested in than getting the picture.