“You sure he is one of us?” A childlike voice echoed in his empty mind, followed by something landing on his forehead just soon after he regained his consciousness and senses

What now? First being impaled, now this?

“I mean the stone ain't glowing.” another replied

“What if he’s just dry? We did touch him”

“I mean look at this!” A cold hand firmly grasped onto his forearm and raised it up. “There is no way anything on this planet can make these types of things right? You sure you didn’t mess up the settings? Shouldn’t it be just the two of us?”

Grand, some randome child that just grabbs your hand and wiggles it around, fucking hell get me out of this mess.

“Fuck off.” C let off a raspy voice

“See? It even speaks the same language. What more proof do you want?” the voice continued.

Aaaaand there goes my atvantage, fuck.

He opened his eyelid and peeked out, two children, by the looks of it not older than 7, the male swinging his hand around like it’s a flag, dark, short hair, tanned skin, eyes glowing like the heart of the sun.... nevermind, that's just the reflection of the fire in the room

The other standing a little further back, loaded crossbow in hand aimed directly at his head.

Welp, death is one way out. He closed his eyes and staied as still as he could, atempting to calm his body as more adrenalin flowins into his bloodstream.

“A few questions.” The one in the back spoke with a girl’s voice“Who are you, what gave you the thing on your hand, and how did you find us?”

C remained silent, shutting his eyes and pretended he was still somehow asleep.

“We saw your eyelid open, I’m going to ask again, who are you, what gave you the wristband, and how did you find us?”

“Fine…” She brought the bow up to her cheek, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. All C heard was a woosh from the right, followed by a thud on the left, when he opened his eyes an arrow was only a few centimeters above his eyes

“Well look who suddenly decided to wake up. The answers.”

"Ah, you are finally awake."

“I have my doubts that you would be able to reload that.” He smugged

“Which is why…” She tossed away the one on her hands, pulling out another loaded crossbow from her back, and laying another arrow on it “I bought a spare.”

“I bet 10 that he is one of us.” The closer child said, picking up the crossbow, attempting to pull the string back.

“Not now C” the girl sighted, still aiming down sight with the finger already on the trigger

“I assume you are CE100B?” He chuckled “Should have checked on that signal when I asked.” He sat up from the hay bed he was in, plucking the arrow from the wall next to him. “Lower that thing will you?”

“Ayy, 10 bucks!” 100C giggled

“Now” He tossed the arrow towards 100B “Care to explain what happened here?”

“CE100C?” B frowned

“Yes, the man the myth the legend himself.”C said proudly

Hearing his answer she took her finger off the trigger, but still aimed down sight.

“Ok, that didn’t work well did it?” C mumbled, in his mind looking for some definitive proof of his identity.

Dump all of the information from my life…. No, she would just assume that someone somehow copied it.

Dump any information…. Still no, same issue

I don’t know, maybe I was already repurposed for something else by the purple ball and I just don’t know? Welp, if that was the case, this was a good ride

“Yeah, you know what?”He chuckled as he plucked the arrow from the wall and tossed it back to B “Just send a bolt through my head to be sure.”

Her eyes squinted, eyebrows squinted, finger moving back onto the trigger, yet held the position and not firing.

“So, um, we doing this or nah? I know I do have a few things now I know there is an extra copy of me running around you know?” He kept joking around, spitting out random words to mask the uneasiness coming from looking into a loaded crossbow.

He crossed his fingers, fidgeting with his own thumbs as he waited for the verdict of 100B, at least who he assumed to be one.

Maybe she is the corrupted one, and the purple ball was just there for, I don’t know, fun?

“What happened last Thursday?” She asked

“Last Thursday? I don’t know, the creation of the world maybe? Who knows.” He replied, turning his attention to the dried hay that made up his bed

“You think he’s lying about being 100C?” The other children asked, taking a break from trying to load the crossbow

“Come on now mate, don’t insult your own intellect, take a look around. Some dude holding a crossbow against another dude she just met, what do you think this is?” He laughed

“Maybe you are into it, I don’t kink shame.” The other C replied with a smile on his face, he replied with an “Ayy” and two finger guns.

Seeing their interaction, B lowered the crossbow slightly, removing her finger from the trigger

“Oh that’s what you are going to base this on? Really? Come on, bring that thing up, I’m not going to let the whole fate of the fucking universe be determinted just because I said.” He paused for a short while. “Well, he said that he doesn't kink shame. Or was it the fingergun?” He looked up with doubt, pointing his index finger straight towards the sky “I swear if it’s the fingergun and somehow later on I stab you in the back you definitely deserve that.”

Seeing her completely lowered the bow, he let out a long sigh “I swear at least one of us is going to regret this decision.” He chuckled as his body deflates, lying back down onto the bed “So, I assume some dude picked me up from the battlefield? What is this place? Scavenger’s camp or a military camp?”

B sat on the ground, pointed the loaded crossbow elsewhere."You came in a few hours ago in a cart, they don’t know you are awake. That is all we have right now.”

“And we are where?”C looked around, a dimly lit room with wooden boxes stacked around him.

“Probably in some small village in the woods or something by the looks of it.” B replied

“You tried asking anyone around here?”

“Right, that.” B sighted,“You know about the naked person that visited you?”

“The what now?”

“Naked person, about normal adult height, doesn't talk, has a weird glow, gave you the wrist thing?”B described the ‘creature’ she saw in detail, even drawing a rough sketch of it on the ground with the arrow C tossed at her

“A spawn camping purple ball that has eyes grown all over it.”100C interrupted

“That’s not....”

“Yeah, that.” C pointed at his doppelganger. “See? That dude gets it.”

“Fine, the purple orb thing, it removed a sizable amount of knowledge from us. As of right now, we know that a few crucial technologies, such as the brain machine interface, as well as huge chunks of language are wiped from our data set. The exact damage it had on our dataset is still not fully understood, you are probably a byproduct of it as well.”

“Who you calling byproduct, your mom’s a byproduct.” He fired back

“Can we restrain the mom jokes, we have better things to talk about right now.” B sighted “In short we don’t know how to communicate, we lack the technology to extend our lives, and we would probably have to deal with multiple copies of ourselves” she added

C shrugged, looked towards 100C still trying to load the crossbow “I’m cool with him”

“Same.” 100C grunted as his face turn red pulling on the thread

“No, more than likely, we are doomed.” B said quietly

“Why? Because I’m sick as fuck?”100C walked towards B and handed over the crossbow, raising his hand in front for C

“Ayy, nice one.” C laughed as he gave himself a high five.

B took in a deep breath, rubbed her temple, and asked with a disappointed tone “Do you know why they don’t just send a bunch of us down?” B said with a straight face. “We are not naturally born, you know that right?”

“I mean, we were transferred here from a spaceship, so I guess? What about it?”100C drew a tic-tac toe on the floor with his finger, placed a circle right at the middle, and nudged C.

“We, 100B and 100C are designed, my job is to defy the law that all intelligent civilization ultimately destroys themselves, yours to advance the civilization by all means”

“Well, they sure did a poor job when they designed me. "C laughed as he placed a X at the middle right block “But then we should have no problem working together right?” he followed up

“Oof, here, take an F.” 100C patted him on the back, placing an F on the top right

“The whole point was that they could just drop one of each and not worry about what comes next. Dropping multiple copies goes against our designed purpose, adding on our, well ‘goal, which to put it simply was our winning condition when we were trained, we would quite literally fight to the last person standing” B explained

“Isn’t that just strictly a you problem?” C gestured vaguely “You guys have a problem when it comes to something you can’t controle, and from what I see, I’m not a part of it.” C said as he dropped another X on the ground.

B scoffed. “You aren’t willing to sit on the side and watch this whole thing unfold. Join us, we get the life extension, then you are free to walk away anytime you want.”

“Last time I agreed to a life extension it turned me into a human shawarma. I’m going to need a lot more guarantee this time around” He said as he looked at his replica

“Well, I had…” B stumbled

“The plan was to start making all kinds of high tech stuff, become a monopoly on basically every industry. Then control the government with money and such.” 100C finished her sentence, then started a new game, seeing the previous one was another tie.

B confirmed what 100C just said and stated she needed more time to make a new one that takes in duplicate 100B and 100C.

“What if we just go around chopping heads off kings and you know, rule with power and whatever technology we have left.” He jokingly asked

“See? I said the same thing”100C pointed at him and nodded his head

“Fine.”B sighted “Say the king is dead, you killed the person that everyone thought was a god and looked up towards, what happens next? You would need support from a lot of people to guarantee you don’t get killed as soon as your butt touches the throne” B continued “You can’t just cut heads off and expect things to go well, there are consequences.”

“I mean look, we could accelerate this whole planet from iron age all the way to… Something like the 21st century human society within 300 years, all that’s standing in our way…” He defended his argument

“Is basically everything, politics, religion, social structures, nature itself, now we have additional 100B and C wandering around. "B sat down next to him, scribelling on the ground with the arrow. “We would be lucky if we don’t get burnt on a pole or our heads chopped off because we proposed something radical. And with multiple 100B running around, it would be a miracle we don’t get thrown off our throne within 10 years of ruling.”

“What about a cult?” 100C asked

“You mean making yourself a god and hope no one else notices and sends an army for you? You are aware that more than likely every single 100B would attempt to one, grab power, and two, remove every uncertainty in front of themselves.”

“Oh so that’s why you have the crossbow loaded”

“Bingo, congratulations on not being 100B by the way.”B replied, whipping what she wrote on the ground and starting over again.

The two 100C sat quietly, playing games and looking over as to what 100B was writing from time to time

“But what if…” He asked, putting his hands out as if he were to calm a crowd

“Oh shit this is going to be fun.” 100C crackeled up “Hits blunt, bruh, what if…”100C grinned as he turned his attention towards him

His eyebrows slightly locked, a smile on his face, eyeball looking to the top right corner as if he just saw something over there “What if we like, start a plague?”

100C bursts out laughing“Bruh what? A what?”

“No no no, think about it, just start dumping dead fish into the river. People get sick from cholera, we pop up with antibiotics and basic sense, claim it’s us that defeated the great plague, and boom, easy followers. They don’t know shit about germ theory, they just know whatever we are giving them is working,” He continued

“Mate, cholera has a 50% death rate, we can’t just thanos snap the whole fucking country and expect them to follow us.”100C cried

“He has a point.” 100B’s hand stopped mid air, then quickly erased the plan she had down

“Et tu, 100B?”

“Wait really?”His eyes wide as saucers, unsure whether or not his suggestion got into her ears

“See? Even he doesn't believe this” 100C leaned over, convulsing, tears in his eyes.

“Yea fine, shush, give me a few seconds.” B stopped them.