– and suddenly, appearing outside the cafeteria, is a boy who looks remarkably confused.

Also remarkably similar to the boy who was tapped.

Stunned, he stands there for a few moments, before deciding that he really needs to get out of here. He makes to go through the school, out 'round the side, and then walks out the gates at the front. Fortunately, the sixth formers often leave through this route, so it hopefully won't be too obvious that really he shouldn't be leaving this way.

And the two little people dressed like harlequins run past him, giggling, going through doors like they weren't there.

Of course they do.

… He probably should have checked that he actually is a duplicate, and hasn't just been teleported, but it's too late now, and it would be weird to have two Theos in the cafeteria at once.

He decides to continue walking.

And a few minutes later he receives a text.

Well then. Very confused, he shall get out his phone.

Which, he supposes, is probably a pretty good duplicate of– well, of Theo's, since he doesn't really consider himself to be Theo.

He should probably… think of what he considers himself to be at some point.

It's a text from Sadde!

And a copy of you didn't suddenly appear beside you?

… And presumably that is in response to a text that he didn't send, and was not meant to be delivered to him, because he is missing half the conversation.

But really, it makes sense that he would tell Sadde about it nearly right away.

You know, the streets and roads around hi– Theo's school, since he is not Theo, are really kinda boring. There aren't many people around, especially at this time of day, and there's a little shop on the corner of the street right next to it, and there's a Tesco's nearby, but really, not much of interest.

Maybe he'll be walking for a bit to find something to do.

Okay, that's weird... but it was probably the Twin, right?

No shit, yeah, probably. Oh, except they don't know about him.

At least this confirms that he's not some weirdly modified teleportation of Theo.

Weird.

Indeed.

Well, I guess if you find them again message me?

… That's probably the end of the conversation, then.

He continues walking.

That does indeed appear to be the end of the conversation!

He gets a few looks from people around him on the street, but none of them are particularly prying or anything – he looks kinda old for his age, and actually, he's only about half a year off being a sixth former, and they get more freedom to wander.

Plus, not many random people on the street actually care too much if a teenager is walking around. They probably have some good reason.

He indeed does have a good reason!

Such a good reason.

He was cloned from a stupid idiot, named Theo, and that boy is some mysterious cardcaptor thing.

For that matter, he still has his bag on him, or a copy of Theo's bag, whatever. Does he still have the key in his jacket pocket? Does his bag contain a Kero? He's pretty sure it doesn't, or he would have probably heard some complaints or something, and to be honest, one Kero is probably way more than enough.

He will be so pissed at the Twins if Kero's been duplicated, wow, but he does actually whisper, "Kero" to see if he gets a response.

Nope. No response whatsoever.

He decides to stop at a bench, put his bag down, and open it to check for presence of a Kero. Also his jacket pocket for the magical key thing.

Or is he completely bereft of magical objects? He wouldn't really expect the Twin to be able to duplicate other cards – as convenient and inconvenient as that would be, since it'd be a major power boost – so he doubts he has the cards on him, but still.

He's completely bereft of magical objects and people, yes.

Well, that's fortunate. It means he doesn't have to deal with the dilemma of anybody else having a duplicate.

… Except for all those people the Twins touched in the bloody canteen, oh my god, of course they did. He puts his head in his hands for a moment and allows himself a second to just vent, because oh my god this stupid fucking magic system, who does he need to punch to get it fixed, and then he decides that he's had enough of that, because a moment of venting is enough, and now he needs to go get things done.

So what does he do first?

He can get up, walk around, look for a card. Unlikely to help him.

He could try meditating, see if he can locate a card.

He could… talk to Theo and try to see if he can convince him that no, he's not some weirdly malicious hallucination – well, okay, Theo probably wouldn't think 'hallucination' anymore, but still: he's not some malicious magical construct, or whatever.

He really doesn't know how he would show that, on account of having a totally different personality. He thinks he could still guess how Theo will react rather well – simulating Theo really isn't that hard; it's so boring in that head, and it all follows such predictable patterns, not that that's necessarily a bad thing, since he could totally be put to work in a system and get good results, but still, it's so boring.

And to think he came from that. Does everybody who was cloned by the Twin – presumably the other people were cloned, though he should check that before doing things that require that as an assumption – have an IQ boost? Or a huge personality shift? Or whatever the hell he got?

Because really, he is not Theo.

He's kinda stuck on things to do right now.

Well, unfortunately for the currently-unnamed-boy who decided he didn't want to be 'Theo', there don't seem to be many sources of inspiration around right now.

There are a few pedestrians, if he wants to test that he's real or something, but that's probably not necessary, on account of people having reacted to him existing so far. Unless he's perhaps mute because he's a weirdly altered Twin? But the chances of that are so ridiculously low, of course, because why would magic be both consistently and inconsistently annoying?

There are other things it could have done, too. Perhaps he's on a time limit before he disappears. It's not like he's heard anything about the fountain disappearing, but it's only been about a day since it appeared – it could have disappeared just a couple of hours ago, and he wouldn't know, but it would give him a time limit of 'approximately a day'.

Perhaps he should just get to doing things already.

… Perhaps he should.

He breathes out on his phone to check he can mist up the screen as expected, then mutters to himself a bit, and successfully convinces himself that he at least seems real to himself. Pedestrians moved out of his way when he walked along the pavement, and it definitely seemed like he was real, he's pretty sure.

Okay, so he could go to Theo, and he could probably guess how Theo will react, but he's not sure, because he can definitely simulate something rather well, and that something definitely seems to have actions that fit in line with how Theo has acted in the past, but he's not sure his model of Theo is good enough to predict that properly anymore, not now that he's had such a huge personality shift.

Theo's actions all seem to fit within certain bounds, and they mostly seem to fit a pattern, and he can simulate a model that really seems to do this properly as well, but he can think of plenty of times when Theo really should have done one thing, and when it would have made a lot of sense to do one thing, but he decided to do another thing instead, which still fit within the bounds, and he thinks he would have predicted such an action if he were to simulate Theo like that himself, but he doesn't know, he isn't sure, and he's not sure enough to stake his life on it.

Okay, so that's rather melodramatic. It's not like Theo is gonna kill him as soon as he finds him, because he's some weird clone, but Theo doesn't know that he's some nice person with nice goals that are in line with Theo's but are a little more extreme, a little more proactive, and a little more efficient. Theo would probably be suspicious of someone behaving like this, because it's someone with his face, who is like him in every other way, except in some rather major respects in terms of personality.

And he feels like his head is wrong, because he keeps thinking things, and assuming they're right, because he's thought them before, and they made sense at the time, but now he analyses them and thinks about them and realises that they're not his thoughts, they're Theo's thoughts, they're what Theo would do in that particular circumstance or in response to that particular thing, and so he has to worry about everything that his brain has… saved, for lack of a better word, as an 'acceptable thought' and 'acceptable thought process' and a 'logical step'. He doesn't disagree on everything, but so much of this needs to be double and triple checked to ensure he actually believes it and he's not just spouting off something that he has memorized.

Sadde.

Sadde would get what he's going through. He should find Sadde, and explain what happened, and explain his goals and motivations, and Sadde would help him and protect him, right?

… Well, that assumes Sadde believes him.

It indeed does! And it also requires that he find Sadde, possibly without tipping Theo off if he decides he wants to be that paranoid about things, which shouldn't be too difficult, on account of it being school hours, but it does also mean that Sadde is currently unavailable, busy with school things.

… He could text them? But then Theo would get any responses, and would be missing half the conversation, and also Sadde might suspect a prank.

This is all so difficult. He's sure that if he had just existed for longer by this point, he would have thought through some of the basic assumptions and requirements for this thing, methods to get from point A to point B and so on, and he'd have a much better time trying to think of a way to tell Sadde, convince Sadde, and utilise Sadde.

But does he even want to? Does he trust them, really? He's a copy, created by a magical card, likely to disappear as soon as the card is sealed and returned to card form, and then he's probably lost forever, so perhaps he should be aiming to keep the Twin out and alive and safe from them, so that he can go and input his opinions on things, and study things, and fix things where possible – as bloody idealistic and unlikely as that sounds, but someone has to try.

Of course, that does come with the downside of having to try to stop them from capturing the Twin, allowing it to continue and cause more havoc, and since these cards will supposedly cause a catastrophe… it would be super selfish of him to do this, sort of, even though he'd be doing it so he can live longer to fix other things.

He doesn't think he can guarantee he'll be more help by existing with the card around than by not with it not.

While that is a horribly saddening thought, because he would really like to be assured of his own utility, he doesn't think he can guarantee that the world would be better off with him, and he'd really rather not lie to himself about his own value.

And he's pretty sure he has been sitting at this bench for far too long. He should be doing something, but he doesn't know what, or how, because he can currently think of nothing he can feasibly do without putting other things in danger, at least not right now.

Stupid magic system.

The magic system does not seem to want to comment on his opinion of it.

Nor does the world at large.

He feels like that is unacceptable, because he has good opinions, and where he doesn't have good opinions, it's probably because he's uneducated in that area, and so he should look to other people who he believes to have good opinions to come to a consensus and implement their good opinion, hopefully explaining it and the alternatives to him at some point such that he can check their reasoning.

And that sounds really egotistical, he knows, but he's pretty sure that lots of other people are more egotistical than he is, and with much less reason.

He doesn't think he should write Theo off completely. Admittedly, he would be good if given a goal, shown a good hierarchical system, and then allowed to have fun or feel efficient while solving this goal. Menial tasks that he feels are doing lots, like if he happened to have superpowers and could be directed where to use them, that would be perfect for him. Infeasible, most of the time, but still.

He gets up from the bench and starts walking around. He doesn't expect that he'll find much of use, and it's only a few hours until the end of the school day anyway, and he probably wouldn't be able to do much in these few hours anyway, so he'll just walk around, getting gradually more angry at the world, the state of the world, the people who impede progress, and the stupid magic system that isn't as easily scalable and abusable as it should be.

Or maybe it is and he just hasn't thought it through yet.

He should probably pick a name for himself at some point. Maybe he'll ask Sadde, when he presumably goes and explains himself to Sadde, because while he doesn't want to die, and he expects that to be the result of that interaction, it's probably going to be the result of him continuing to exist anyway – and it's right, he doesn't know whether there's a time limit on clones.

Plus, maybe by offering his help to Sadde he'll manage to make an impact on the world before he disappears.

Dying in just a day.

He always hated the idea of mayflies.

And the afternoon continues to go on without further ado.

He's hungry after about an hour, so he goes into a supermarket to get a sandwich and an apple, then sits on another bench to eat them, and then he decides he's gonna go check out the fountain again.

It's probably not changed, but he feels he might as well check it out anyway. Maybe he'll find something important that he can relay to the others, save them some time.

It's not changed. Still there, being fountain-y, with some people peering at it curiously, taking pictures, or ignoring it.

Oh, okay.

Well. He'll just… sit on a bench. Near it. For a while.

He'll eventually leave, making sure he can get to Sadde's school before the bell goes for the end of the day, but for now… sitting on the bench. Contemplating things.

He can get to Sadde's school before the bell goes for the end of the day, certainly, if he takes the tube; Sadde doesn't live very close by.

But surely it doesn't take two hours to get there?

… Or maybe it does, or maybe he's lost track of time, oh well. He does in fact take the tube.

And he arrives at Sadde's school, who's leaving it with his phone in hand. He raises his head to look around at the same time as not-Theo receives a text message, and spots him. "Oh, hey! What are you doing here? ...why aren't you leaving school?"

Well, this is awkward. Especially since Theo might respond to that text at any moment.

"Uh," he starts, hesitating a bit. "It's... kinda a long story? Listen, I really need to tell you something, but. Uh." He pauses to look pointedly at the people around them.

And then Sadde's phone buzzes with a response from Theo.

Sadde looks at his phone. And furrows his brows. And looks at not-Theo's lack of a phone in his hands. "I'm not going to hypothesise," he declares, and follows not-Theo somewhere more secluded, looking somewhat worried.

Well then. They'll get somewhere more secluded, not-Theo will stop looking quite so much like Theo, and then he'll say, "Basically… I'm not Theo."

"Hi, not-Theo, I'm Sadde."

"Yeah. And I haven't yet got a name," he says, smiling a bit wryly and then flattening his expression. "Uh, basically. Um. The Twin?"

He looks a little bit worried. It's not really obvious on his face, nor particularly much in his posture, but Sadde can probably tell that he's scared by looking at his eyes.

"...oh fuck."

He smiles, again really seeming more like he just has to try instead of actually feeling happy about anything.

If it wasn't already clear, he really doesn't want to die.

"Shit. Fuck. Fuckin' dickens. Oh my Cthulhu, goddamnit." He leans against a conveniently placed wall and puts a hand on his face. "Bloody hell."

"Mmh."

… Then, in a small voice: "Uh. Just checking here, what are you freaking out over? Because I'm pretty sure… Theo's fine."

"I'm freaking out over you existing! What happens when we capture the Twin? Do you die? Kero said copies are different, so you're Theo, so you're someone else with Theo's face, and you exist and you—correct me if I'm wrong but I presume you don't want to die. Fuck."

"Yeah, no, that's… that's about what stage I'm at."

He tries to smile and says, "At least it didn't copy Kero too?"

"So it's not the literal worst-case scenario, what a delight. ...why did you come all the way here? Where did you even appear?"

"Outside the cafeteria at Theo's school. Then I sat around a bit, got lunch, and decided to stop moping and actually do something. Which meant going to the fountain, hopefully to get more info. And finding out there was no more info. And then deciding that talking to you probably wouldn't lower… any… benefits."

"Benefits? Why didn't you talk to Theo? I should text him and see if we can talk to Kero, he'll know more."

"Positives. To the situation. I decided that talking to you probably wouldn't remove them or add negatives. And uh, yeah, I guess you probably should text him."

He continues his slightly fearful look, but at least it no longer seems to be that he's scared of Sadde. At least not so much.

"Why the hell would you even think talking to me or Theo could make this any worse, if we didn't know about you we might have ended up capturing the Twin and then you'd be fucked!" Sadde's being quite liberal with the invectives, isn't he?

He texts Theo: Is Kero around? We have a situation.

"Yeah, but if you don't capture the Twin, you're going to end up with a catastrophe."

Sadde, shortly thereafter, gets a text asking, What kind of a situation?

"Yes, so of course the solution is letting you and whoever else die. It's for the greater good, y'see," he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

We need to meet. Ask Kero what happens to the things the Twin duplicated once it's captured.

"Well, um… it depends on the catastrophe?"

Uh, I think Kero's at home, but I'm on my way so I'll ask him when I get back?

"Sure but you don't just give up before even looking for alternative solutions. We should meet up with Theo at his place, I think," he says, and texts him that. "What should I call you, by the way?"

"I, uh… I'm not sure. You should probably just… not… so you don't get too attached."

"Oh my god you're worse than Theo. I'm not going to let you die. Let's go. And come up with a name."

"Yeah, okay," he says, starting to walk Theo's-house-wards.

"I'm not sure I actually am worse than Theo though. I mean, have you seen some of the things he's done?"

"Just—" He sighs. "I'm not going to let you die. Or the other copies, fuck, there must be other copies, mustn't there?" He texts Theo again: Do you remember who the Twin interacted with?

"Yeah. … There were a couple before I got copied."

Text response! … Uh, I think so? It tapped… three or possibly four people? I saw it tap me and three others, and it stood on someone else.

Do you remember whom?

Yeah, pretty sure. I got back and Kero just woke up.

"Kero's up," he informs not-Theo, "and I still don't have anything to call you."

Ask him what happens with the Twin's dupes once it's captured.

"I don't know? Teddy, Fred, Rob, Alex, Peter? Tyler, George, Matt? There are lots of names I could use. And I don't like half of those anyway."

"And the half you do like?

"Uh, Rob, Alex, Tyler and Matt? I'd probably pick Tyler out of them, though."

"Tyler, then. Nice to meet you, Tyler."

"Nice to meet you too, I guess," he says in response.

And then, a text! They disappear and he doesn't know if you can retrieve them. If it's been captured, then you can duplicate and keep things, but he doesn't know about before-after.

"...okay, this isn't that terrible," he says, showing Tyler the text. "There's a possibility you'll keep existing after we capture them. I wonder if we can ask them...?"

"Ask… what, the Twins?"

"Yeah."

Tyler has nothing to say to that. It would appear they will just continue to move in the direction of Theo's house.

We'll be there soon, he texts Theo.

… We? Okay, how the fuck I didn't realise this earlier I don't know but please tell me this has nothing to do with the situation at lunch?

It has something to do with the situation at lunch.

… How much to do with the situation at lunch?

It's probably better if you see it for yourself.

… Oh, is the response.

And so they continue to walk, and relatively shortly they should get to Theo's house.

And then they arrive.