“J.E.D.D. Mason’s still a minor, protected by the Celebrity Youth Act. Poor Masami, Ran, and Toshi didn’t think it through when they took the Adulthood Competency Exam so early.”

“You know J.E.D.D. Mason personally, though, don’t you?” Sniper pressed.

“Yes, I do.”

“They’re a Fellow at your Institute, aren’t they?”

“Of course.”

“To study or be studied?”

Faust smiled at a flower seller who glowed at the sight of Sniper, as at a passing angel. “You ask as if the two were separate.”

“I’ve heard a rumor—”

“You’re ripe with rumors today.”

“—that you have a whole room in your offices just for files on J.E.D.D. Mason: old toys and drawings, recordings, tests, that they’re your favorite specimen.”

The Headmaster smiled. “And I hear Ganymede offered to prostitute you to Andō in return for rent concessions. What imaginative things rumors are.”

Even Sniper’s cheeks sometimes grow grave. “Have you picked the next Gordian leadership yet?”

Faust snorted. “I can’t make crowds swoon like you and Ganymede, child, but it’s a little early to put me in my grave now, don’t you think?”

“I don’t mean the next Headmaster, I mean the Brain-bash’. You’re supposed to pick the most innovative and original bash’ you can find, with the rarest number combinations, and put them in charge of picking new political and intellectual directions for Gordian. ‘The guiding light must be one that has never burned before, the spirit of the age personified in its rarest newborn,’ isn’t that what Chairman Carlyle wrote in their memoirs?”

Faust laughed. “Have you added constitutional scholarship to your list of hobby strats?”

“The last Brain-bash’ was assigned almost seventy years ago, and the position’s not hereditary. You must have your eyes on a replacement. Is it J.E.D.D. Mason’s bash’?”

The German murmur of the watching fellows peaked.

Faust took his time enjoying Sniper’s face. “It is fascinating to see you of all people trying to drag a minor into the spotlight, flouting the Celebrity Youth Act which you yourself have benefitted from more than anybody I can name. You must tell me what’s set you so abruptly on this scent.” Faust frowned as the street forked, both options lined with identical antique shops. “This corner isn’t on my directions. Left or right, do you think?”

“Directions? We’re not just meandering?”

Faust winked.

Sniper shrugged. “Left, then. What are J.E.D.D. Mason’s numbers? Rare, I expect? Unique? Their bash’mates’, too?”

“You know I don’t release numbers without permission.”

“Do you know what ‘J.E.D.D.’ stands for? I can’t find it anywhere.”

“I know your first name too, Sniper, but I don’t use it in public, since you don’t like it.”

Sniper had to laugh. “Touché.”

Take a moment, reader, to reflect that one of the most critical decisions of this century has just been made by Sniper without thinking. Left or right? In one direction lies the course history chose, and in the other, what? A longer conversation with the Headmaster? Different questions? Different world. Is this an act of Providence or of Freewill? Or both? Did God craft His creation Sniper so it would choose left? Or did our Maker know from time immemorial that Sniper would choose left, and so sculpted the slopes of Ingolstadt so the square best suited to the Enemy would be built in Sniper’s inevitable path?