Meanwhile, at the Team Plushy clubhouse, there were no hero shows, despite the third word in their game's name. Worse, the denizens had something on their mind besides starting one up. “Security! We forgot all about it. We're all fox-bent for chickens out there in Patrol, and that leaves us open for anyone to do anything. Look at this! A recorder!” Crown After Crown held up the offending item.

“Aye, I've seen more than a few of those. Let me see.” Crusher Domingo snatched the instrument away from the centaur and played a jaunty tune that soon had everyone dancing.

“What's wrong with a little gift?” Nautical Wedding Manyana smacked her fist in her open hand. “Ah! You don't know which of our neighbors to thank for it. I get it, but if they want to stay anonymous, it's their lookout.”

Crown shook his head, which wore fewer crowns than his name implied. “Nobody gives recorders as presents. The way I see it, hostiles assigned one of their dumber members to plant a recording device. Like North Pole Azinsia, eh? Cloton Zvolo? Xentas?”

“Hey.”

“Good point. I forgot Xentas was one of us. If I'm dumb enough to make that blunder, we have another suspect right there.”

Spenito Niu rolled his eyes but stopped them mid-arc when they saw something through a window. “Perhaps there are schemers about. Isn't that Formal Figro over there? Just try to say that man isn't up to something with a straight face.”

For a quick fact check, Formal Figro was indeed passing by, he was indeed up to something, and the recorder was a heartfelt gift from North Pole Azinsia, who had dropped it down the chimney to keep in practice during the off-season. Lacking an omniscient narrator to consult, everyone involved would spend the rest of his days confident in the truth of his analysis. Truly a fool's paradise.

Outside, non-paradisaical skullduggery was in the offing as Formal Figro let himself into Team Generic's bungalow and emerged looking indistinguishable from Cadmos. “This model retrieval device is my best purchase made today.” He patted his belt. “Let's hope the others see me through just as well.”

An explosion! Who could have caused it? You know who, but the characters in the plaza and clubhouses all ran out into the barren, recently exploded fields to investigate and discovered gold-wrapped chocolate coins spread over more than a square mile. To unravel the mysteries of who could collect the most and how delicious they tasted, not to mention whether dipping them in milk, tea, or something else offered the greatest flavor returns, looked to require a great deal of time. Time during the period Figro had calculated Cadmos's next data renewal session would occur.

The display over the entrance called for Cadmos just when his calculations predicted. He smiled, reached into his inventory, and produced an identical display; identical, that is, save for reading “Currently capturing: NONE.” That ought to ensure him a window to poke around inside without being caught.

“Nice try, Figro!” Ropes fell around him as a legion of lads with a lack of distinguishing features rappelled down from the facility's roof. Their leader, the charismatic action star Cadmos, hopped off right beside the culprit. “Really nice try. Do you think you can actually get in there that way?”

The urbane spy bore his undoing with good humor, unless he was stalling while he came up with a plot to reverse his fortunes, which he doubtless wanted Team Generic to think he was, but actually it was the first thing. “I considered it worth the attempt, in any case. However did you come to suspect my intention?”

“Oh, we were just scouting good filming locations up there when we saw you.” Burmin Trivvis dropped his halberd, hopped off his rope, and reclaimed the weapon in a sequence he had practiced countless times by then. “Then Cadmos said he wanted to say hi, so we came back down.”

“Naturally. I was a fool to be impressed. I shall be sure not to blame you too bitterly for my failure, then. But no. How did you know who I was? Obviously I couldn't be Cadmos, but anyone else, even non-officers, could have donned this disguise.”

Cadmos laughed. “Come on, Figro. Don't try to act like we're strangers. Of course we all knew it was you.”

Saptres Muria whispered to Ulrik. “Did we?”

“No. He hadn't ordered us to do something boring yet. That's the only way I can tell Ultra Rares apart.”

“Yes. Usually the level of exasperation in their voices gives it away.”

Hemt joined in. “Here's a tip I have for you then, if you're at all interested in this kind of thing. You can tell if it's Figro because he pauses a bit when he does something impressive as if his theme music is about to start up. Confidentially, between you and me, he doesn't have any theme music. That's common knowledge, but the confidential part is that I'm not sure he isn't convinced he does and it's playing somewhere out there.”

The two Rares nodded, wiser in the ways of the upper rarities. Meanwhile, Cadmos judged Formal Figro and determined his punishment, as is the right of anyone who catches a superspy in the act. “I know doing everything secretively is your style. I wouldn't want that to change. I'm glad we got here in time to watch your experiment, though. Good luck!”

Figro adjusted his hat, realized he had none in his Cadmos disguise, and coughed. “Yes, well, certainly. Here goes nothing but my confidence.” He walked to the door as many had before, but unlike most of them, continued straight through. After sending back the sort of smile that said, “We all know something good just happened, and it's a flaw in the world itself that no music played,” he entered the data center's interior.

“Wow! Where can I get a Cadmos disguise?”

“We'll ask him when he comes back out, Burmin. That said, I'm not sure this plan would work for most officers. You might need certain qualifications.”

While the others began measuring heights, widths, and genericness, Saptres Muria ignored guesswork to ask Cadmos a clarifying question. “What qualifications exactly?”

Cadmos scratched his head. “I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you. Sorry about that. It's not really a big deal, but hearing me say so probably isn't satisfying.”

“It isn't, no.”

“Yeah.” Cadmos shrugged. “Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but if this works, let's think about how we can use the movesets of those three to improve mine.”

“They will ruin your frame data unless we train them. Ulrik, I want you to hit this target as quickly as you can as an example.” Solemn Declaration planted the training dummy in the ground and backed away.

“Did we run out of dummies? Oh, I get it. It's a joke based on my medal.” Burmin Trivvis breathed on his “#1 Dumbest Reaper” award and wiped it off, since Solemn Declaration had left his arms free. He preferred to keep busy instead of thinking about how Ulrik was about to give him the business. “Oof! That didn't hurt too much.”

“I used the flat of my blade. Did it look cool?”

“No. Burmin Trivvis, I advise you to say yes.”

“I don't want to lie, Saptres. Aaaaagh! It didn't look completely uncool.”

Speaking of being as cool as a malfunctioning heater, Cadmos Version Second sauntered out of the facility with a level of nonchalance the real thing could never achieve. “An intriguing place. I wish I had more time to investigate. I did discover that I appear to be a shoto myself, which explains my snubbing to my satisfaction. I wonder where Waltzing Rudolph has gotten off to.”

Figro paused, not for his theme but in case the climbing crew had seen her either on the roof or from it. In view of their silence on that topic, he began to take his leave.

“Wait! Figro, I forgot to ask. How did you disguise yourself as me? We want to try this again with Ulrik.” And that was how they learned Rares could be shotos too.