Free Set Me Alight by Bill Leviathan

have someone man that gate. Of course, such a menial task is far too lowly for any occupant of Vanderbilt Park, so they hire out to us common folk. My old high school friend Brian is at the gate tonight. He'll let us slide right on in.”
    “He'll just let us walk in through the gate? What about security cameras?”
    “Yeah, we’re just going to walk in through the front gate. No one is going to sit down and review the hours of CCTV footage every night to make sure he's doing his job. No one has time for that. As long as we don't cause a disturbance, no one will be asking Brian questions.”
    Pim was right, we were able to just waltz right in through the gate. The place was a bit bewildering from the inside. The streets were all uniformly paved. No potholes or cracks to be seen anywhere. None of the homes appeared to be missing patches of shingles on their roofs. Their lawns were all a pristine, deep green, and evenly trimmed. There weren't any breakin bars on the doors or windows, and all the doors and windows appeared to be unbroken and intact. The street was well lit, yet it didn't appear like anyone in this group was the least bit afraid of someone spotting us. There were no drunks shambling through the streets at the end of their nightly bender. No cops were cruising around to pick up the shambling drunks and other riff-raff. Everyone was asleep in their perfect little homes, assured that everything outside their walls was safe and quiet.
    “Hey, Pim, is there a specific house we're going to or are you just aimlessly wondering around right now?”
    “Toward the northwest corner there is one house that's secluded from the rest of the neighborhood. It’s at the end of a cul-de-sac with no immediate neighbors. I figured that house would be our best bet. It’s only about a mile from here.”
    Getting to the house was completely uneventful. The home was surrounded by tall pine trees, and there was what seemed like a half mile radius around the house where there were no other homes. I'm not sure if those bozos were so stinking rich they could buy up so much more land than everyone else in the neighborhood, or if the area simply wasn't developed yet. Whatever the case, it made no difference to me why they were all the way out there. All I cared about was that it made sneaking up to the home that much easier. I had no idea what those kids planned on doing to get inside the house, though. I imagined breaking a window or kicking down a door was going to set off alarms. Then, more than likely, attack helicopters and drones would come swooping in and we'd be nothing but a pile of ash on this nice rich family's driveway. What a terrible dilemma they'd have to deal with come morning.
    When we got to the house, Pim just walked up to the door and tried the handle.
    “It's unlocked.”
    “You've got to be shitting me. Well, I guess when you live behind walls that look like they belong in Helm's Deep you don't need to worry about your doors too much.”
    We began creeping through the house, none of us sure as to where we should be going. Everything in the place looked immaculate and gaudy as all hell. I couldn't even imagine how people were able to acquire so much stuff. There were tables that served no purpose other than to hold a single picture frame or a decorative lamp. There was enough seating for a family of twenty. I think I stumbled past four bathrooms, and I had only been on the first floor. There were more pots and pans in their kitchen than I'd seen in most city soup kitchens.
    It was just a matter of time before one of those dumb-as-nails kids did something stupid. One of the nimrods, I didn’t know him yet, but regrettably I would soon, must have taken quite a fancy to some picture he saw on the wall. In his attempt to take it down, he dropped it, knocking over a lamp, which shattered on the ground in a loud crash. It wasn't long before we heard people upstairs scrambling around muttering to each other.
    Pim turned