It nodded at the crowd of Institute Fellows watching from behind a bread cart, like naturalists stalking a pair of wild tigers. The observers tried to hide at once, and old Faust snickered at their failure as they ducked behind a bread sign which concealed them from their chins up, but left bare their Brillist sweaters, spelling out their numbers like biographies. The Clothing as Communication Movement began in the 2170s, that same stretch of postwar regeneration when Chairman Carlyle proclaimed the Death of Majority, when Utopia launched the first terraforming ships to Mars, and yes, when Cartesian set-sets took Earth’s bloody helm. As we left the Exponential Age behind us, the Clothes-as-Com leaders called for our new modern age to be an ‘honest’ one, where our clothing would proclaim Hive, work, hobbies, allegiance, a glance proclaiming what makes each stranger special. We tend to assume the Brillist sweaters sprang up in that same decade, along with Mason suits and season-changing Mitsubishi cloth, but it was actually earlier, 2162, when a freshly converted Thomas Carlyle was channeling half of Gordian’s budget to the Institute, that Fellows began to home-knit sweaters which spelled out their numbers, the first digit coded by the texture of the knit, the second by the waistline, the third by cuffs, etc. I myself have found the code impossible to master, too unintuitive, like Brillism itself, but I have picked up four things: shorter sleeves go with better skills at math, the patterns on the fabrics get less complicated as a kid grows up, quiet types wear turtlenecks, and a hood on any Brillist makes me feel fear. Whatever Faust could see in his hiding students’ sweaters, it won a belly laugh.

“My students aren’t robots, Sniper,” he answered, “I can’t switch my audience on and off at will like you can. Isn’t that a little unfair?”

“True enough,” Sniper conceded. “If you won’t be baited, answer me this: usually executive Mitsubishi pass their shares and influence down in the family, or at least within the bash’, but Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi doesn’t have any children, apart from possibly J.E.D.D. Mason.”

“Andō has lots of children.”

“Lots of adopted ba’kids,” Sniper clarified. “Lots of half-trained set-set adopted ba’kids. Do you think Andō could really make one of them their political heir, the next Japanese strat-leader, with how much Cousins and Brillists hate set-sets?”

No man enjoys surprise so much as Felix Faust. “How did you know they’re set-sets?”

“And here you accused me of being behind in the news.” Sniper smirked. “There’s a bio of Masami Mitsubishi, released by the Rosetta Forum this morning. Black Sakura’s not the only paper with top-notch snoops. There were details on Toshi and Ran Mitsubishi as well, and it’s not hard to guess that, if these three are from one batch, the other seven adopted Mitsubishi ba’kids are the other seven children that Minister Cook’s Nurturist saboteurs carried out of the ruins of the training lab. You know who I couldn’t find a good bio on, though? J.E.D.D. Mason.”