Universe Testament! As desolate as ever, except less so owing to the intervention of industrious interlopers who ferried in glowsticks and other lights by means of great supply chains stretching from that game to the Styleful Happy!! twins, Vanilla Stage, Endless Disco, and any other supplier. Experienced importers wrangled more from unreachable games as well, though how the pigeons reached them, none knew.

“Now then, pigeons, shall we have a chat?” asked Professor Winters of Dust and Highway during a delivery, but the birds rebuffed even a Legendary mayor.

Landships motored to and fro, both Vinnette Melban's real one and Universal Temporary Asset Substitute versions, though those tended to break down and require a reboot every couple trips. Trucks, vans, and tireless heroes bearing baskets close to overflowing weaved around the fallen behemoths under a cover of artificial clouds consisting of air-capable transports including the plane kind, the helicopter sort, and the spaceship variety.

The design took shape on the floor of Universe Testament, not that anyone on the ground could tell. Supervisors riding dirigibles could, who puttered through the sky yelling down orders to regional managers in hot air balloons, who in turn shouted downward when somebody placed a blue light where a purple was wanted. Where was that? On that shaded part of the coat, there. See it? Probably not, but it would be visible from space, they hoped.

They also hoped the characters running around to place lights did not resemble ants. The supervisors, full of sorrow, informed those below that they did, at least from that height. “It's like she tripped at a picnic and wants to negotiate with the enemy before they get in all her sandwiches,” New Caern Empire Captain Rachel Donovan said by way of description, and her colleagues could add nothing.

The busy little ants placed millions of lights right where Surt's plan indicated and withdrew to wait for two responses, the first from the supervisors and the second, they hoped, from Universe Testament's natives. When the airships reported completion in the areas they had been assigned to observe, they landed to give the stars a clear view of a bridge bunny waving a white flag. Not actually waving it, which had been rejected as an overly complex undertaking requiring hundreds of thousands of lights to blink on and off in sync, but holding it in a position suggestive of waving.

Mr. Linnell looked at his watch. “Two minutes, then we scoot?” Looking at the expressions of Model Zero and Quircy Rau, he added, “What? One minute seems short to me, but if that's how you want to play it.”

“I have decided to ignore you and speak to Quircy Rau alone. Quircy. I propose we establish an embassy here. The duty of the staff will be to await a response. The staff will rotate regularly.”

“That's a great idea! I fell in love with it the moment our spies reported on the meeting with your people where it was devised. By the way. C/D had spies around too, which is probably the reason that guy you're ignoring came up with his ploy to get out of embassy duty by faking like he has no patience. I would have done the same thing, but I knew he'd do it, and we couldn't both do it, so now neither of us can do it, and that's what Quircy Rau calls fair.”

“Linnell calls it spite! What's the procedure for requesting that Commandment of Hero send a different representative? Something fantasy-y? Trial by combat?” Mr. Linnell did a few quick lunges to warm up.

“It's very convoluted. Endless bribes. You know how it is. But! As a token of cooperation with our temporary allies, you can petition our leader directly.”

“I appreciate that. Where do I go?”

“Right here. It's me. Rejected. Did it suddenly get darker?”

“That's just our prospects of future cooperation.” Linnell looked up. “Oh, no, it's darker, my bad, forget it.”

“Shut up,” Model Zero demanded before fake-clearing his perfect artificial throat. He raised his right arm covered by the Stellar Continuum's blue uniform and extended one silver finger of his inorganic body. “Universe Testament . . . descends. I prepared that line beforehand.”

“I know. That's why we didn't bother coming up with any,” Linnell said while Quircy moved beside him and nodded repeatedly. “The simplicity makes it work. Boy that thing's big.”

The infinite stars became distressingly finite as the Universe Testament warship conquered ever more of the night sky, a bringer of darkness, a mobile eclipse. The ground lights highlighted its threatening weapon emplacements and severe contours for admiration by the audience below.

“Haul me in front of a judge if that isn't the big brother of those Gram-class destroyers,” the audience said, or at least some of it.

“It's a case of common inspiration,” particular parts of the audience insisted.

Furious Galaxy's spaceships, large as they loomed next to human-sized models, suffered in size for the very reason that they were required to participate in battle alongside their crews. Relieved of that necessity by the lack of non-fleet combat, the Universe Testament ship's bulk covered a larger span than the mosaic of millions of lights the interlopers had made, plus the interlopers themselves and any friends they wanted to bring. If they built a stadium to hold a first contact concert with heaps of merchandise, that would fit under the titanic vessel as well.

“Eten! Start building a stadium so we can put on a first contact concert!”

“Sure thing, Quircy!”

“We advise against it.” A voice came from the ship along with a railgun-launched projectile, which pierced the earth six inches to the left of Quircy Rau's feet.

“Hey, Eten? Could you hold off on that stadium for a minute?”

“I guess so.” Eten handed the jackhammer back to Skaya and took off his hard hat.

“Talk fast,” the ship's speakers said. “We see you playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who talks. You could have done that at any time. Do you want to trick us into believing you are stupid and give you ill-considered concessions because we underestimate you?”

Model Zero threw rock and began to speak. “No. We wanted to decide whether to call the marines that boarded your ship just now 'marines,' 'assets,' or 'ninjas.' Our preference would be that you overestimate us, leading you to rent us a ship on favorable terms to avoid trouble.”

“We love trouble. We provide all our dreadnaughts with extensive anti-personnel security measures. Boarders love the trouble they give them. They consider it a rite of passage.”

“Superb. We also love trouble. We want to break through a barrier in the sky of the options menu that we believe hides other games from us, allowing us to invade them. Our hope is that your vessels are capable of that, since ours are evidently, and unfortunately, not. That is what we came here to negotiate.”

The ship hovered, silent and ominous. Michael poked his head over the side, saw Quircy raise both hands, and went back to waiting for the violence signal. At last, the ship's speakers crackled and transmitted another message. “Huh?”

News of the age of chaos, the age of strife, and the age of musical chairs had not reached the UTers, and certainly no word about the age of international expos. The outsiders explained the situation, much as when your grandpa heard something about cryptocurrency and had questions for you, with eloquence gained from hours of practice in describing Opuwa to the residents of various games. Model Zero refused to employ the term “Opuwa,” but even so, the locals soon comprehended the situation.

“We detach a few ships. Fail to break through the sky obstruction. Come home. An hour or two at most. You never bother us again and clean up after yourselves. Is that your proposal?”

“We propose to succeed. The other particulars are correct.”

“Wait a moment.” The speakers played some heavy PC-88 synth for the enjoyment of the ambassadors while the captain conferred with his peers. Bwaa bwaa bwaa, doodoo doodoodoo, bwaaaaaaa, was about how it went. “Fine.” And thus was forged the pact that bound every game except those sad sacks in Lament Epoch.