“Seventeen . . .”

“Eighteen . . .”

“Nineteen . . .”

“Twenty. Done.”

The New Bloods finished laying magnets to make a track the approximate length of an Ersatz Struggle stage so far as they could tell from the available footage. After she strapped sheets of pyrolytic carbon to the bottom of her shoes, Marileanna took up a position just before the magnetic row while Fusberta flew overhead and dangled a tape measure to help the team to get an idea of the change in leaping ability, if any.

“C'mon, Mary! Let's get some some big jumps! Some aerial mobility like in G***** W***: E****** D***! We'll work on the infinites later.” With Uryeong's exhortations pushing her forward, how could Marileanna hesitate? She rocked forward and back a bit to loosen up, tensed, and jumped over the first few magnets and up past Fusberta, up and up past stringy strands of cloud till her upward progress was arrested by the hull of a Convention-class transport en route to the spaceport.

The ship, unaware of the service it had provided for Marileanna who may have otherwise become Commandment of Hero's first playable astronaut aside from Figro, Tendradius Pux, and Beryllia Ven, lost altitude and augered in miles away. Sirens wailed and nosy reporters showed up, but to their disappointment, the only casualty was the fifteenth Cadmos Dome, still in progress.

Hemt crawled out of the rubble, showing none of the dismay he had felt after the first, second, and ninth such incidents. More than that, he looked excited. “Legally speaking, I'm convinced this means everything inside that transport belongs to us now.”

“I'm not sure about that, Hemt.”

“We can work the niceties out later, but what suits the occasion right now is for you to stall anyone who comes by.”

“I'll go ahead with that as a form of practice, but make sure not to do anything irreversible with the cargo before a judge rules on it.” Cadmos left off from helping passengers get on their feet and moved to intercept Lasva, most of Team New Blood, and assorted gawkers. “Hello! You must be worried, so let me say upfront that everyone's all right. Marileanna is being extracted as we speak. If you want to help, no, sorry. I don't mean to imply you wouldn't. Since you want to help, the best thing to do right now at this moment is to go back to the plaza and look for a crew member from Furious Galaxy who's an expert on their transports. I'm not sure which class this one is. If you can't find one there, go on to the spaceport, where . . .”

His droning speech would have failed to delay them by itself, but he combined it with physical activity wherein he slid from side to side while waving his left arm around while his sword dug up earth and patted it into ramparts. Behind him, the generic gang caber-tossed Marileanna as far away as their Attack scores allowed them as a distraction before they got to the ransacking. Then the greedy hands of Hemt, Ulrik, Solemn, Saptres, Ben, and the rest snatched up crates and bags faster than their eyes could read the shipping labels with the result that the ship was stripped to its very hull by the time Gary Whitecrest and Diora managed to coordinate a two-pronged breakthrough past Cadmos.

The latecomers rushed in, too late to loot anything but just in time to find out they were too late to loot anything. At least they had the consolation of knowledge. The main prize of course went to Team Generic, the members of which kept running all the way to the old genius village before they got out their crowbars and oversized comedy hammers to open up the crates they swiped.

A haul undreamt! They ran their hands through the contents and let the goods flow like golden rivers from their fingers, and not even that kind of golden river. “Keychains, mouse pads, pins, buttons, wind chimes, phone cases, computer cases. That's not exhaustive. Each of them has two styles as well: Lynissia and Night Shift Lynissia. This much merchandise could satisfy the demand of as many as five games. Six! No, four.” What Ben I. Sloup had failed to learn about math was probably worth knowing, so stay in school, but he had a decent enough sense of approximation not to require correction in that instance.

“That's a relief, since we have a good idea who the owners are.” Cadmos picked up a crate, but then hesitated based on his experience of his ideas not being universally accepted. “And we want to return this merchandise. Right?”

Solemn Declaration nodded his noble if plain head. “Yes. We would never steal. From Lynissia.”

Burmin Trivvis hoisted a crate on his honest shoulder. Saptres Muria followed suit and said, “There's no more trustworthy rarity than Rares, if you're Lynissia.”

“I'm still not convinced the laws of salvage don't assign all this property to us, but I for one am not the slightest bit interested in running up big legal fees after what all these Cadmos Domes have done to my savings.” Hemt T. Elf grabbed a crate himself and began to carry it off, regardless of the hostile stares of his teammates. “Something about Lynissia. Is that what you want? I think it's better to be open about our honest intentions within the team, though.”

“I agree. We're all close enough in understanding for me to unveil my greatest plan. We lock Wruden Calx in an electrified cage. That's part one. We don't let him out. That's part two. The writers thought a part three was important, but I disagree.” Ulrik held up two fingers and subsequently pretended to split his thumb in half as dramatic flair.

“It might come to that, Ulrik.”

“Are you stalling me, Cadmos?”

“Yes. Did it work?”

Ulrik looked around to check if Wruden Calx had been encaged yet. “I admit that it did.”

“Yeah, good job,” Burmin Trivvis told Cadmos, and the rest encouraged him as well to keep being the most annoying character that ever took a round.

“'Keep being?'”

“Become is what I said.” Ben I. Sloup, the only one among them who could say that honestly, said that honestly.

“That's almighty decent of you strapping gentlemen. I say that being somewhat of a strapper myself, you know.” Crown After Crown cantered about the recovered cargo Team Generic unloaded in the center of the plaza in front of a few dozen curious onlookers and counted it up. “This checklist is all checked, so it's time to initiate distribution. Here, have a free sample.”

Cadmos and his compeers gave a polite refusal. “We each stole two of each item already,” Ben I. Sloup assured him. “One for personal use and one for collection with a view toward speculation.”

“And he isn't talking about who's going to be the summer officers this year.” Burmin Trivvis winked. “So who do you think are going to be the summer officers this year?”

“Hm, well, since the developers obviously think Darlotte Glofal has unrealized potential . . . We'll save that for later. Ladies and gentlemen, check out this product line you never knew you needed!”

Crown After Crown got out of the way to let the crowd cheer for Team Plushy's top models, Nautical Wedding Manyana and Otsk V. Zops, as they displayed Lynissia watches and ponchos while the rest of the team finished converting the front room of their clubhouse into a gift shop complete with registers and bars over the windows. Conditions appeared perfect for plentiful commerce.

“Not so fast!” Who was that shifty stuman with the mustache, the slicked-back hair, and a threatening attitude? Gary Whitecrest, who else? “I have this one niggling concern I hope you can dispel for me. I checked with the spaceport authorities. That flight was unscheduled and unauthorized, and the cargo was unlisted as a cherry on top of the whole smelly sundae. Not to mention, when I tried to question the ship itself, it tried to whistle. Explain that!” The onlookers gasped.

“Surprise release,” Manyana said.

The onlookers breathed in to suck their gasps back up, but Gary Whitecrest knew too much about crime to accept the first plausible explanation when more entertaining ones would doubtless follow. He shook his head and tsked. “The next time you come up with a cover story, make sure it's something the listener would have to be stupid to believe, because that way there's no way you would have invented it as a cover story, they'll think. You want the people you're conning to think they're smarter than you so they feel pity. I've never felt pity myself, so I can't give further advice. I see my experts are here.”

Gary Whitecrest waved over a couple of new arrivals. Cantrell Uwendis and Dr. Golovkin, two men recognized for their technical prowess across all the games in the cluster aside from the far-future snobs of Universe Testament stepped forward to begin their analysis. The crowd crowded yet closer to watch them go through a selection of items. They shook the things, sniffed them, opened the packaging, took them apart, and examined the microchips embedded within. The crowd double-gasped, the first time to get rid of that gasp from earlier it had been holding and the second on account of the latest revelation.

Cantrell discussed the matter with his colleague before he released their joint conclusion. “These microchips are functionless props.”

Gary's hat popped right off his head, and only the canniest eyes caught that he pressed a button attached to some mechanism running up his sleeve to make it do that. He was in fact surprised, but he also thought that would be a fun time to deploy his little trick. Most of the onlookers reacted the way he hoped, but one serious instance pushed his way through the press.

“That's right. You know how it is. One department doesn't communicate with another, some pet project is pushed up the queue, and pretty soon the schedule's all agley. We weren't able to finish the mind-control chips by the time the koala and panda goods were shipping-ready and we didn't want to eat the storage costs. That's just how it is. Still, check out this feature.” Vice President Lane pointed to the housings for the useless microchips inside the watches, pedometers, and several other items opened up by the analysts. “It's the perfect size to hold your SD card or suicide tablet in case the enemy catches you. Just a little extra for the discerning customer.”

“Wow! Trust Convergence/Divergence to be one step smarter than the competition!”

“It's disappointing that I have to continue thinking for myself, but the only thing on my mind right now is disbelief at how low those prices are!”

Gary Whitecrest examined the C/D Security faction members responsible for those statements. “These shills seem honest enough. I only resent mind control because it makes it so that nobody falls for any scams. Money control is A-OK.”

“We prefer mind control for that exact reason, but there's plenty of room to disagree for now. I have to go to another meeting. Enjoy your solar-powered beckoning koalas, everyone.” Vice President Lane checked his watch, realized he needed to buy a watch to check, and left. The plaza returned to its normal operations plus the Team Plushy gift shop, and also plus Dr. Golovkin, who stayed to ask about where a certain Hot Air Hank might be.

Out behind the Team 720 clubhouse of course, fiddling about with diagrams and tools scattered around on tables and convenient rocks Heartful Azalea had transported there to make his outdoor workshop more homey.

“How can a body get to getting when there's nothing but flatness around, like it's some kinda prison dimension? Inside's no good neither. My goal's to work us something new that's never been seen, not shuffle papers and quadruple-check that I followed all the procedures laid out for getting not a thing done.” Hank muttered in that vein till Azalea fixed it all up for him. Afterward, he quieted down except for the occasional exclamation of “Time!”

“Time indeed is what is the next ingredient.” The visitor removed his hat. “Pardon me. I am Dr. Golovkin. A certain party who is interested requested that I assist with the, ah, what it is you are calling the device.”

“You mean the Frame Vacuum?” Azalea asked.

“Yes, but now I am of the thinking that first we must make the better name for it.”

Hot Air Hank tapped his most recent diagram and grabbed a wrench. “I'm partial to Working Frame Vacuum, tell you the truth.”

“Wonderful.” Dr. Golovkin rolled up his sleeves.