Summary: Jazz hands and airplanes! It's a winning combination.

Chapter 16

It had been a few weeks since Michael's heist—he refused to call it a coup because if he did, he wasn't sure he could stop himself from murdering Michael—and the Crew was gathered in the heist room once again. Things had been a little tense since Michael's job, but they had to pretend all was normal for the Achievement Hunter side of their outfit. Videos had to run smoothly and Matt and Burnie could never suspect what had happened. They had been pleased with the success of Michael's heist, although they were disappointed in the small take. The Crew had a small reprieve from Matt and Burnie breathing down their necks, but it wouldn't last. They needed to follow up with a success somehow.

Jack could make that happen. As soon as the idiots sat down and stopped doing those damn hand signals. Ray had started it when everyone had been completely silent in the heist room, eyeing Michael warily as well as each other. Ray finally said fuck it and jumped up to do jazz hands. Geoff followed suit with finger fucking and Ryan threw in a thumbs up. Gavin and Michael watched warily from the couch, but it did the trick. Everyone laughed when it started and it broke up some of the uncertainty.

But then it just kept going…

"Ok," Jack said. "Heist. Welcome back lads and gents."

"Welcome back from what?" Gavin asked.

"The last heist!" said Jack and everyone else." Good ole Gavin, so dumb, so...dumb.

"I missed the last one," Jack said, even though they knew that already. "Michael had a…successful one," Jack said, pausing awkwardly.

Ryan switched to the "no brakes" gesture and Jack's mouth twitched as he fought a grin. You couldn't say they weren't all good at handling tension.

"Anyway I have to follow up," Jack said, "so I am thinking we go big!" Ray started singing something about thinking big, which Jack vaguely recognized from some 90's cartoon, and Gavin, tired of just watching, jumped up and started saluting. Michael, nervous but wanting to try, got up and started fake jerking off.

And just like that, they were the loveable losers known as the Fake AH Crew.

"We haven't gone big yet," Jack continued. "I want to hit five targets simultaneously." The gang made a lot of questioning noises and Ray asked if Jack meant people or places. Jack decided not to dignify that question with an answer.

"So five targets," Jack said. "We're gonna go over code names first and get that out of the way and I'll explain. I'm gonna be Overlord, I'll be overseeing and watching everything."

"Are you hitting a target?" Geoff asked.

"We'll get to that in a minute," Jack said. "Code names, we've got Eagle one," he pointed at Geoff, "Eagle two," he pointed at Ryan. "Eagle Three." Ray. "Eagle Four." Michael.

He pointed at Gavin and paused for effect. "And Gavin!"

"Yay!" Gavin yelled as everyone laughed. Gavin knew he would never remember his code name anyway and Jack said as much.

"Starting off, we need everyone in black outfits," Jack said. "Solid black outfits, black clothes, and black motorcycle helmets with masks coming down covering your face."

"Sweet, masks!" Ray said excitedly as Ryan cried "Yay, shopping, I'm on it!" and Gavin shouted "Ninjas!"

"We have five targets," Jack went on, indicating the map. "We have five stores. Eagle One, sir, you will be robbing this store on Prosperity and Del Perro, right here," he tapped a red circle on the map. "Eagle Two," he said to Ryan. "San Andreas Avenue right here. Eagle Three, you're going to Lindsay's Circus right here. Eagle Four you're going to Innocence Boulevard and Gavin you're going to Davis Avenue, right here."

Everyone studied the map for a moment before nodded. Not one of them knew where they were going and Jack knew he'd have to remind them later. That was just how they worked.

"After we get our outfits, everyone needs to get a big vehicle." Cue Ray singing Big again. "I'm talking hummer, I'm talking big ass truck, I'm talking something that can push stuff out of the way."

"Like a dump truck?" Ryan asked.

"Not a dump," Jack said, thinking it over. "You need something you can still drive around in and they are hard to maneuver."

"Too big Ryan," Ray said. The speed of his jazz hands was quickly failing him.

"So what everyone is going to do is take their vehicle to their location," Jack explained. "When I call go, everyone is going to rob their store, jump in their vehicle and we're all gonna meet on Power Street." Jack indicated Power Street on the map, not that he needed to. It was a major road cutting through a large part of Los Santos. They knew it well. The area he was indicating, and had highlighted on the map, was a long stretch just east of their Michael and Gavin's apartments.

Jack turned back to the group, nervous about the next part. He wasn't sure how it would be received by the Crew but he had faith in them. Everyone was probably at the most cooperative and focused they would ever be thanks in part to Michael's stunt last week. Everyone would be on point this time and wary out of fear. He didn't like that, but Jack would take what he could get in way of cooperation and attention to detail.

Like for example, Michael, Geoff, and Ryan were all doing "no brakes" in perfect synchronization.

"You guys are going to clear out Power Street as much as possible," Jack said. "Because while you all are robbing the store, I'll be stealing a private jet."

"Nice!" Gavin said. He loved fancy aircrafts. And stealing.

"I'll be watching over," Jack said, "and when you guys all make it to Power Street…I'm landing the jet on Power Street and we're all jumping in."

Silence met this pronouncement and all stupid gestures ceased. Everyone stared at Jack like they were hoping he was joking. He was joking right?

Ray finally grinned and resumed his Jazz hands with a joyful shout of, "Oh sweet, it's like Con Air!"

Everyone laughed.

"You sure about this Jack?" Geoff asked carefully. He would trust Jack with a crazy plan more than the others but this did seem strange.

"Hey they built the highway straight for a reason," Gavin pointed out.

"Exactly!" Jack replied, trying to look encouraging. It must have worked because Michael and Ryan immediately came on board and Geoff just shrugged and resumed finger fucking.

"So I think we'll all be able to do that pretty well," Jack said, and he did mean it, "but you know…that's not big enough." He grinned at the group. He was by far more level headed than the others but he was Fake AH Crew just like they were. He wouldn't be there if he didn't share a love for the bold, the grandiose, and the slightly insane and ridiculous. He reached up and flipped the map.

"This is for the 'after we die part of the heist," Ryan joked.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine. Whoever's alive in the jet, we're going to Fort Zancudo." He faced the group. "I want jets. So we're all jumping out, we're all getting jets."

"So we're stealing a jet to go steal jets," Geoff said dryly. "Just so we're clear."

"We're going to steal bad ass jets," Jack clarified.

Geoff rolled his eyes. "Ok, because for a minute I thought stealing a plane to steal more planes was a very stupid idea. Thank you for clearing that up: we're stealing a plane to go steal badass planes. Now I get it."

"Good," Jack retorted, ignoring his tone. "We take as many as we can, land on the strip here," he pointed at the map again. "Then bevs on me!"

"Nice," Gavin said excitedly. He loved bevs too. He loved everything about this plan.

"You ready for this?" he asked the group. "Five hits, multiple jets, we should be fine."

Everyone exchanged looks for a minute before they all burst out laughing. They had to. After last time, it just felt like the next step to be heading into a crazy plan. Despite all the mistrust still lingering and the doubt still circling, they all felt that this was really their opportunity to make up for things. That's why Jack had tweaked his plan to show faith in his gang's abilities. It should work. But even if it failed, it might bring them back from the edge that Michael's heist, or really of their jobs up until now, had forced them onto.

"We're ready," Ryan said.

"Yeah, we can do it," Gavin agreed.

"If we don't blow up," Geoff tacked on, but he was grinning.

"I won't let you guys down!" Michael said firmly.

"Great," Ray said tiredly. "Are we done now? Can we stop?"

"Yeah we're ready," Jack said.

"OH THANK GOD!" Ray said, dropping his jazz hands and falling onto the floor in exhaustion.

"He'll be fine," Ryan said encouragingly to Jack. "Let's do it!"