An ice cream truck pulled up under Vanilla Stage, where the fun-loving, free-spirited paint splotches of its initial discoverers had not survived the occupation. In their place, a ring of gray circles inscribed with the gray letters C/D, as soul-draining a corporate logo as has ever been designed by a department wearied by ceaseless rejections of its bold, forward-looking proposals, surrounded the options menu just outside of player vision. The words “Executive Parking Only” ran around the outside of a couple circles, which must have been a demand from executives expecting a huge crowd for the next big concert.

The spies saw no crowd when they arrived, just as they had seen no armies, fleets, convoys, or travelers of any kind on their way there aside from Master T on an ATV, who had honked when he passed them. Opuwa seemed vast enough to characters when they confined themselves to straight lines between games, but the circuitous route used by the infiltration team emphasized even more the limitless extent of the place, inconceivable to common minds. Some members of Exploring had offered up a theory, like a housecat leaving a rat on the pillow, that it wrapped around, which if true would incite arguments over whether they could keep calling it limitless, or what “limitless” truly means.

Mentor Tendradius Pux, True Beryllia, Ballroom Merilia, Society Page Lasva, and Listeria Adan disembarked. They unloaded the stealthiest Opuwa-access item Paradise the Enchant had ever produced: planks from a noodle cart that a gigantic wheeled vehicle sat on. Portable and functional, those planks increased the confidence of any officers or slayers engaged in subterfuge who remembered to tie the boards to their worried backs, for which reason they had been removed from Dust and Highway in exchange for an ivory statue of some PtE goddess with an inviting lap. More than that, Information Gathering issued them five ogre UTASes, an obsolete technology within pacified territories, but a safety precaution for daring lovers of danger.

Four of them roped themselves up, and then three waited around while Merilia instructed Listeria in the procedure, her hair ringlets bobbing as she circled to inspect her new pupil's knots. “It's uncomfortable, I know, but you must ensure the rope is snug without restricting your mobility. It took me a lot of practice, since I've trained myself for maximum mobility restriction.”

“Insatiable noblewoman inducts naive commoner into scandalous society!”

“Lasva, I don't mean to tell you your business. I do wonder though, what will it do for you to make up a story like that when not a soul is ignorant that I am a trained medical professional? That I restrain patients for salubrious reasons?”

“We run a bunch of fake articles in April. Sort of a novelty edition. The public expects it.”

“A reasonable response.”

“Isn't it? And I was thinking, fanart's doing big numbers these days, getting lots of eyeballs, and so is 'fanart,' if you get me. Why not run our own? We don't have any artist officers, but with the way we're expanding into other markets, I figure it won't be long before I can find a scribbler up for some lowbrow art, which means I need to start coming up with ideas.”

“Also reasonable.” The two Valentine's alts nodded to each other in mutual understanding and ballroomness before hopping on the Back button together as soon as Listeria's rope satisfied Merilia's exacting standards.

Vanilla Stage! The glamor, the lights! Lots of them! Arguably too many! Even the bathroom where they spawned allowed not a single shadow within, though as compensation for the loss of mystery, it boasted also a lack of stains, neglected toilets, and broken stall doors. Its cleanliness pleased the spies, while the glare that made the mirror difficult to use did not disturb them. They already knew they looked good.

Mentor Tendradius Pux approached the door, but True Beryllia yanked him back. “Which of us is the Champion?” she asked.

“Neither of us. We are Convergence/Divergence officers on break.”

“I'm not an officer,” Listeria Adan said. “No. None of us are officers today. That's the Commandment of Hero thing. What's the C/D thing?”

The officers looked at her, and at one another, and at her again, and at one another.

“If anyone asks . . .” Tendradius activated his sword. “. . . Dodge the question.”

“4-star Strategist hams it up to hide embarrassment!”

He shook his head. “The embarrassment is Information Gathering's for not including that fact in the briefing. I ham it up solely because my sword is cool.”

“Swords are cool,” Listeria confirmed. She and Tendradius nodded at each other in mutual understanding.

“Who's my intellectual partner?” Beryllia wondered.

“Someone in there, possibly.” Merilia and Beryllia nodded at each other in mutual names that ended in -ia, after which Beryllia opened the door and entered the world of show business.

From the audience side. Tiers of seats ringed the stage, and that about did it for the venue. Its small size gave it an atmosphere of intimacy while its structure separated the performers from the watchers to avoid regrettable incidents. No stairs, ladders, or transport cannon existed which might allow the latter to reach the former, and while the former could jump down to meet the latter, they were far too handsome for that.

“Fortune forgot to punish us today,” Beryllia said. “Natives right there to interrogate, no C/D whatevers, and private entertainment.”

“'Their music will tell you everything you need.' That's what the briefing officer said. I don't think that's true, but let's try.” Listeria leaned against her unadorned but unquestionably large shield and listened, and its largeness accommodated the others when she turned it sideways.

“Yeah yeah

I love you.

Yeah yeah

I hate you.

Yeah yeah

Yeah yeah.”

So the four singers sang. “They are bona fide masters of their craft,” Merilia admitted.

Beryllia tapped a sequence of keys on a device of futuristic provenance. “My helper here estimates 80% of all songs are rendered unnecessary by this one. I can't wait to tell Serdon Miloz that in the debriefing.”

“He'll try to cover it up, the slimeball! But I won't let him. Everybody will know he wasted his life.”

“Will he cover it up?” Listeria asked the others. Even slayers already had an idea how Lasva did things.

Merilia shrugged. Beryllia said, “Unlikely. He might try to arrange a combined tour or something.”

“Or embark on an experimental period,” Tendradius suggested. “Songs about maritime tragedies, alien contact, a dictator who made music illegal. He will return to his current style in response to harsh critical and audience response after the Vanilla Stage fad passes. Adoration is what musical types crave.”

“Good info. It's something to go off, whether it's true or not.” Beryllia resumed tapping. “More observations?”

“That one on the left will break your heart,” Listeria noted. “You think you can change him, but you can't.”

“What needs changing is medical care in this game. Observe how long their fingers are. They suffer from some malady. I may have to operate.”

“C/D put them on the rack, I bet.”

Tendradius tried to raise an eyebrow, but the goggles obscured it. “The finger rack, Lasva?”

“Yeah, they probably developed it to threaten hackers. Cruelty is the mother of invention, they say.”

“They look livelier than anyone I've ever tortured,” Beryllia mused. “I suspect this is a purely local matter. A centuries-long breeding program finally bears fruit in guys genetically perfect for holding microphones. People will do to their kids things they wouldn't dream of doing to their enemies.”

“A lack of imagination. Consigning your enemies to the stage is an excellent method of breaking up pockets of dissent. They will resent one another more than you. Musical types are the most miserable creatures there are.”

“If we are miserable, Monsieur Lasersword, it is only because we have not reduced our audience to tearful silence by the emotion we packed into every note of our song.” The musketeer on the right drew his rapier and pointed it toward Mentor Tendradius Pux, whose fighting instincts might have caused an incident if several yards had not separated him from the sword's point. “But instead, since you are so feisty, we are to challenge all new arrivals concerning their purpose here, as our new masters have instructed us.”

“We're your new masters,” True Beryllia said, and she meant it. “As you can see.” She meant that too, but in an obscure sense, that being she sure thought she looked powerful enough to be anyone's master. “We are from Convergence/Divergence.” That part may have fallen short of the others in sincerity.

A dapper young gentlemen succeeded where Mentor Tendradius Pux had failed. He raised an eyebrow as archly as has ever been done. “Really now. Do you belong to Security, or to Underground?”

“Security.”

“With only six instances? Curious.”

“Underground.”

“With more than four instances? Curious.”

“Four plus an embedded journalist.”

“And you'd better believe I have questions you won't want to hear!”

“I see.”

“But the question, whether you are from where you say, she is easy if we pose this one other,” the musketeer said. “What is transpiring in the story of Convergence/Divergence at this moment?”

The four locals all looked at the intruders with small smiles, and Tendradius did not disappoint them. “No idea. Beryllia.”

“Some cyberjunk. Lasva, you're the reporter.”

“I didn't start doing this job because I knew things already. Listeria! Listeria Adan! A question!”

She shrugged. “Ballroom Merilia?”

“We might shorten those fingers a bit and use the removed material to assist victims of shop class accidents. You are interested in charity, are you not? Oh, but the position of the knuckles would appear quite unnatural afterward. Distressing, but not insuperable, I think.”

“That is the most C/D thing I've ever heard,” the third singer, a metalhead by his appearance, said.

“Referring to the optional surgery, or the complete mystification in regards to the story?” Mr. Suit asked.

“First one, 'cuz the second is true for everybody.”

“Apt.” The suit guy smiled. “Good enough for us to claim we were fooled. No one expects us to fight anyway. We don't have the skills, stats, or gear for it. Nice to meet you, strangers. I'm Sean (Super Spy), a talent of Vanilla Stage.”

“Jacques (Musketeer). Enchanted.”

“Sven (Metal).”

“And I am Kurt (Techno).”

“Well, I'm the press, and what I want to know first is, how you said your names so that I knew there were parentheses there.”

“Practice,” all four said. They looked at one another and laughed.

Mentor Tendradius Pux plucked Lasva's notepad away from her and tossed it into the back seats before she could ask anything of similar importance. “I deliberated what approach to take while you were talking. I decided subtlety is for the weak.”

“Whyever were you sent on this secret mission, then?”

“Information Gathering also decided subtlety is for the weak. That's the most praise I'll ever give them. So then. What level of presence does Convergence/Divergence have here, what method do they use to exit games, and how piteously do you groan under their oppression?”

“They sometimes send a patrol between the bathroom and the coffee shop. Calamity Online and Legendary War Chronicles both contain an item called the Cracked Orb of Mastery, and when the two are jammed together, they glitch the holder out of the game. Not at all.”

“Wow, Sean. You're a real ace at knuckling under.”

“Thank you, Sven. Always be the best at whatever you do.” He adjusted his tie and winked at the invaders, who managed not to swoon. Beryllia stumbled a bit, though.

Tendradius sheathed his sword. “Excellent. We understand each other. You cannot defeat us in battle, whereas we would be helpless against you musically. Conflict would be unproductive. We will move on.” He saluted the Vanilla Stage talents, as did the other infiltrators aside from Merilia, who curtsied. The team left the venue while Lasva tried to interview Merilia about whether it was her social status that gave her the sense she ought to do things all weird and Merilia tried not to call Lasva an uncultured oaf. Neither succeeded.