#i will write for you

Lincoln has a lot to say about Metallica. Which he fucking better well because he’s got Dell in the automotive equivalent of a full nelson - on a high July heatstroke of a Monday, in sphincter-tight traffic, air conditioning wussing out the vents. Dell wouldn’t get six feet if he bailed - he’d de-shape like a butter pat and end up a blot of bubbly flesh on the asphalt. But there will be much to discuss about Metallica, much indeed - and Lincoln produces thoughts with such agility and flavor that Dell’s resentment settles at the sump.

The story of the Metal Up Your Ass pressings is nearing the denouement; Dell unslumps, avoiding the gasrange window. The plug ahead is an empty construction patch, an entire unsullied lane roped off with carrot-colored plastic stumps. “Do you know anyone who works construction?” asks Dell. Lincoln finishes his sentence and clearly plans to begin another - Dell scoops the moment. “Do you know anyone who works construction?”

Lincoln allows a “nahdude” and continues. Dell, unfazed, reclaims the air and continues. “Because we should know someone who works construction. It is so hugely a moneymaker in this county. I was a kid who thought that when I grew up they’d be finished with the construction. Which is dumbshit thinking but it’s not just because stuff breaks but because it’s a moneymaker.”

“I know,” says Lincoln. “City contracts are gluetraps for lawyers and mob dudes. Everyone knows that.”

“Con law people know that,” says Dell.

Lincoln snorks, a zing of mucus in his skull. “You should go to law school. You’ll see how stuff works. So says my uncle.”

A burning oil derrick in Dell’s guts - buffalo chicken tenders and burnt coffee. Dell can feel his body softening. No ready and cheap access to a gym, and the roads of his hometown taunt his gasping ass when he jogs them, gravelly noodles that drain him brutally. Running the grid of the city was checklisted deadline. Suburbs are melting him from inside and out.  

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Forms of ingress into a location with unknown hostiles and/or civilians are divided into two types: warm and cold.

Cold ingress points rely on externalized sourcing; blueprints, visual surveillance, and any intel we can gather from locals if it’s a residence. We work up a complete outside profile - there’s not a single hole or seam visible that we don’t work into our planning. You’ll know the obvious - doors, windows, skylights, chimneys, vents, and the odd ventilation shaft - but the subtle cold ingress points are the trickiest, and the most rewarding if you like tricky, which I very much do.

Consider,par example, a scrounged blueprint that indicates an addition was build on within the last few years. Say we do our research and discover that there’s no insulation in the addition - maybe they couldn’t decide between fiberglass or blown cellulose or maybe they’re just short on liquidity or motivation - and what this tells us is that there’s a cold ingress point in the space behind the drywall. Not large enough for a human (or at least not one that’s legal to employ for the hours we’d need her) but large enough for a directional mic with a thermal sensing feed and who knows, maybe a directional charge. That’s how you make a door in less than three seconds. Try to hit a cold ingress point with a battering ram and it’ll take three seconds, assuming there’s nobody on the other side. Impossible to detect the heat signature unless you’ve got the sensor on the door, and any location that we put this much calories into crafting the perfect breach will have at least one shitty camera trained smack on that door. Know when to make a door. Measure twice, cut once.

Warm ingress points are cold ingress points that for become viable for their minimal obstacles and time sensitivity. Say the loading dock is unmanned during shift change, only two minutes a week but that’s the chance. Maybe the side office is closed while the manager takes a vacation - once every three years. Maybe the sunlight hits the north face of the bank building on November 18th at 2:13 PM and dazzles the entire block like disco. Warm ingress points are like the boy in high school you never considered viable until a few years later, when you’re riding that hometown bar into the witching hour, and he shows up all cute and airy and well-dressed as if all the work you passed on putting into him got picked up by some other nobler girl. The warm ingress point and you may not work out, but the golden window is there. You will laugh about the three things you both held onto from school - the molest-y teacher, the stolen trophies, the mold. will You drink in a livid sort of joy. You will toss off his mention of a girlfriend. You will breach him.

If you want a short short story writen just for you, donate to Tim’s page and email your receipt at [email protected].