"Yes?" says, according to his nametag, Cloud.

"My aura is telling me really confusing things, I had it mixed up with the seeing-magic part but what I'm getting now is definitely not seeing magic," Glass says, scanning the group. "Wow, this is confusing. I think - that it's distinct because you're all from the same two templates, all standing together? I think I'm getting something about that."

"Do tell," says Plus.

"I - can you all stand with your worldmates instead of jumbled together? I think that might help." Pause. Stare, squint, headtilt.

Plus collects his Tony, whose nametag says Fusion.

Cloud locates Sapphire.

Minus stands next to Red.

Pearl obtains Screwdriver.

Steel is already standing with Iron.

Which leaves Strat at one end of what might loosely be called a lineup, and Iron Man at the other.

"Okay," says Glass, pointing one finger at each of the singlets, "on - at least one of several and extremely confusing layers of stuff going on, you're each templates for your - templates. I'm not sure that we couldn't eventually find somebody templatey-er, but you're the closest in this group respectively. And you -" She waves generally at the ones from the Sunshine worldfamily. "Are sort of clustered around a blank spot containing a set we haven't met who constitute the template for what happens when those templates appear together. Something is pulling hims and hims -" She waves at Strat and Iron Man again - "into a particular shape of stuck-together-ness and it's thereabouts. I'm not sure which of you is closest - this thing operates on more than three dimensions and you're all off-standard in different directions for which I have no words. And my set and the Atlantis set are farther away from that blank spot."

"Interesting," says Pearl.

"Yeah. The layers are particularly interesting - this is all going on on top of - under - behind? - not on the same order of existence as the stuff that actually causes things. Like, on one level, you all share names because your parents named you those names - on another it's because of a template attractor - and the differences that appear are showing little signals on all different layers, too -"

"Such as?"

"I'm - I'm not sure. This is all very new. I feel constantly on the verge of blurting things out, I probably would if anyone asked me a more specific question, but I don't understand how exactly the new sense is translating into any of the things I might say so I'm not sure I want to say it. I think until I know more about how this works my aura feature is a party trick and no one should rely on it for anything practical."

"Is there a reason why Sherry gets to be twice as many girls as I do?"

Glass squints at her, and at Pearl, and closes her eyes, and says, "I think that's a coincidence and if we find more pairs who include one or more girls it'll be roughly even in the long run average, but when they don't match, it'll be the Sherlocks who're switching away from their original sexes..."

"...Hmm," says Pearl.

Glass continues peering at Sherlocks-and-Tonies, trying to figure out why she said that.

"We should line up all the Bells in front of you and see if you produce any more knowledge," Lazarus suggests.

"Ye-e-es. And all the other template groups. And maybe I can figure out why so many of them routinely come attached - let me see if I can do that, first -" She calls over Juliet and Shell Bell and sends them to stand with their Sherlocks-and-Tonies and moves a little nearer to her own and carries on staring.

"What are we doing?" Shell Bell murmurs in Pearl's ear.

"Science," Pearl says dryly. "Of a sort. Glass has discovered the power to make pronouncements about templates."

"Ooh."

"Enwisdom us," says Juliet.