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screwed. But Marty was betting the Procyoni hadn’t deigned to tell the authorities anything. He was betting they wouldn’t want it to be known that four humans had gotten the better of them.
    The officer slowed as he drew closer, studying their wet clothes. Marty went right up to him. “Excuse me, officer. Do you know if that shop there has a changing room?” He pointed.
    “I’m not sure.” The cop was young, probably not on the job a year. “Can I ask what happened to you?”
    Marty chuckled, gestured at Bill. “Well, we got my friend Bill here out of the home for the day. Turns out we picked the wrong day.” Marty cupped his mouth and stage-whispered to the cop, “He’s got the Alzheimer’s.” Bill’s bottom lip was quivering. He had that thousand-yard stare down pat. “We only took our eyes off him for a minute, and there he goes into the water. Thelma and me had to go in after him. Thelma’s Bill’s wife.”
    “Hello,” Thelma said.
    The officer nodded to Thelma, glanced at the cup of coffee in Marty’s hand, then seemed to relax. “My grandmother was diagnosed a couple of months ago.” He shook his head. “It’s a terrible thing.”
    “It certainly is,” Thelma said.
    The officer escorted them down the boardwalk and into the T-shirt shop, which did have a little changing room, as it turned out.
    As they got busy finding clothes that fit (except for Bill, who tagged along behind Thelma, taking shuffling old man steps), the officer tipped his hat and said, “I hope you folks have a good day from here on out.”
    “Thank you, sir,” Marty called. “We’re planning to.”
    The band’s name suddenly came to him—the ones who sang, “Now you’re messing with a son of a bitch.” It was Nazareth. Marty would have given anything to flip through the T-shirt rack and discover a black Nazareth T-shirt hanging there, but what were the odds of that? He settled for Zeppelin.

Meet the Author
    Will McIntosh is a Hugo Award winner and Nebula finalist whose short stories have appeared in Asimov’s (where he won the 2010 Readers’ Award for short story), Strange Horizons , Interzone , and Science Fiction and Fantasy: Best of the Year , among others. His first novel, Soft Apocalypse , was released in 2011 from Night Shade Books; his second novel, Hitchers , was released in February 2012; and his third novel, Love Minus Eighty , was released in June 2013. In 2008, he became the father of twins.
     
    Photo Credit: Paul Harrison

Also by Will McIntosh
    Soft Apocalypse
    Hitchers
    Love Minus Eighty
     
And coming in 2014
 
    Defenders

If you enjoyed
THE HEIST,
look out for
LOVE MINUS EIGHTY
    by Will McIntosh
     
    On Sale Now!

Prologue: Mira
    AD 2103
    The words were gentle strokes, drawing her awake.
     “Hello. Hello there.”
     She felt the light on her eyelids, and knew that if she opened her eyes, they would sting, and she would have to shade them with her palm and let the light bleed through a crack.
     “Feel like talking?” A man’s soft voice.
     And then her mind cleared enough to wonder: who was this man at her bedside?
     “Aw, I know you’re awake by now . Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Talk to me.” The last was a whisper, a lover’s words, and Mira felt that she had to come awake and open her eyes. She tried to sigh, but no breath came. Her eyes flew open in alarm.
     An old man was leaning over her, smiling, but Mira barely saw him, because when she opened her mouth to inhale, her jaw squealed like a seabird’s cry, and no breath came, and she wanted to press her hands to the sides of her face, but her hands wouldn’t come either. Nothing would move except her face.
     “Hello, hello. And how are you?” The old man was smiling gently, as if Mira might break if he set his whole smile loose. He was not that old, she saw now. Maybe fifty. The furrows in his forehead and the ones framing his nose only seemed deep because his face was so close to hers, almost close enough for a kiss.