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.