Arnic moved through the grocery store with a numb expression. Ever since the reveal, his life had been turned upside down. His wife had kicked him out of the house, his friends wouldn't even talk to him, and he was losing clients at work since no one wanted to work with a Doppelganger. He wasn't even sad about it anymore. He was just waiting for the final blow to fall, whether it was his boss finally firing him or his wife actually filing for divorce, some final excuse to just end it all. To just be done.

“S'cuse me.” Arnic muttered as someone bumped into him.

“Watch your step, Ganger!” The man spat, shooting Arnic a dirty look. Arnic just grunted, glancing at the man blandly before getting back to shopping. The man pushed him. “Don't fucking ignore me! Apologize!”

A spark of frustration burned in Arnic's chest as he turned to glare at the man. “You bumped into me.”

“It's my fucking City!” The man retorted. “You shouldn't even be here for me to bump into!”

“I shouldn't be here?!? What right do you have to be here!?! The fact that your ancestors managed to crap out an endless line of wastes of space like you?!?” Arnic retorted, unleashing his frustration on the man. “I earned my place in the City! We have to patrol the upper levels of the Maze for years before we're given a spot! And even then, we need to prove we have something to actually contribute! Some way to make the City better! The average Doppelganger does more to help the City in a year, than you people do in your entire lives!”

“Fuck you!” The man roared, swinging at him.

Arnic caught the man's fist. “No, fuck you.” He growled, slamming his palm into the man's chest, sending him flying down the aisle, coughing up blood. “And fuck humanity.” He added, glancing around at the people with their phones out, recording the entire thing. “You people don't deserve us.”

*

“And fuck humanity.” The Doppelganger growled from the TV before the clip cut off.

“Well… that doesn't look good.” Chris muttered. “Is the guy okay?”

“He's fine.” Dichonius sighed. “He's been all over the internet, playing up his role as the ‘victim’. Arnic on the other hand… we have him in custody, but I'm pretty sure he's more of a danger to himself than anyone else. Things haven't been going well for him since the reveal.”

“I'm guessing the full video makes him look a bit more sympathetic?” Erica commented.

Dichonius glanced at her, frowning slightly. “A little… It starts with him ranting about how much Doppelgangers have to do just to get into the City, then the guy throws a punch at him. Not exactly better, but it's pretty clear the guy was looking to start a fight and Arnic just finished it.”

Erica's expression twisted. “Unfortunate. Without some clear provocation on the victim’s part, people aren't going to change their opinion on this.”

Dichonius gave her a weird look, before turning to Chris. “Who is this again?”

“New PR rep.” Chris shrugged.

Dichonius frowned. “We already have a PR team.”

“I'm sure the Doppelgangers do, but I'm here to represent Christopher Vincent.” Erica retorted, crossing her arms. “Your focus has to be on helping people see that the Doppelgangers aren't their enemies. My focus is on helping people see that they can trust Chris even if the Doppelgangers are their enemies. You've been trying to conflate the two, but if anything that only adds to the fear humanity has towards you. People are scared that if either one of you turns on them, there's nothing they could do to stop it. If instead you set yourselves up as two separate forces that balance each other, people would be a lot more comfortable trusting the both of you.”

Chris frowned. “Didn't I say that already?”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Yes, but it was overshadowed by your slavery comments, and you've been too focused on defusing that, when you should have been pursuing the idea that you'll stop the Doppelgangers if they go too far.”

Dichonius paused, considering the idea for a moment. Had they been too focused on propping Chris up as the ideal result of Doppelganger involvement in the City? If they focused on the fact that Chris could oppose them… Dichonius's expression twisted. It wasn't a comfortable idea, but maybe that was the point? “I may have to talk to my people about this.”

“Maybe we should work on the crowd outside our headquarters first.” Chris commented. “It's growing. Oh, they just started throwing things.” He paused. “Should we do something about that?”

“Report it?” Erica offered. “It isn't like you can send them away or arrest them. You don't have the authority, and if you do it anyway, you'll just make things worse.”

Chris grunted. “Fine.”

Outside the crowd was getting rowdier and rowdier, throwing rocks, bottles full of paint, and even rotten fruit and vegetables. They tried to take down the fences but… well, they were made of smoke, so any damage they did repaired itself before they could take advantage of it, which only seemed to make the crowd angrier, throwing themselves against the fences over and over, climbing over it and each other to get at the building. People hesitated once they got over the fence, but the force of the crowd kept them going, rushing at the doors. Unfortunately for them, the building was just as sturdy as the fences, so no matter what they did, they couldn't get in.

“At least they haven't started throwing abilities around.” Andrew muttered, observing what was quickly growing into a riot from the second floor, along with the others.

“Erica is going to have her work cut out for her.” Greg chuckled.

“Actually, this is on the Doppelgangers.” Chris corrected. “We've decided to consider ourselves two separate forces, so this is all on them.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “Chris, you can't just say you're separate. People still see us as the same, so Erica is still going to have to deal with this. Which I'm pretty sure she's already doing. She seems pretty competent.”

“She does, doesn't she?” Greg cocked his head thoughtfully.

Victoria glared at him. “Greg, if you go off on her like you did Gloria-”

Greg waved dismissively. “I didn't mean it like that. Though… I suppose she is kinda cute.” He shook his head. “No, I was just thinking that it's convenient that we get a media expert right when we're in need of a media expert. But then again, that's kind of our thing, isn't it?”

“I wouldn't call it our thing… more of the World's thing, really.” Andrew commented.

Greg rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Also, now that I think about it, where are all the eligible women? I've been here almost a month and I'm still single!”

Victoria pinched the bridge of her nose. “Greg, how can you be thinking about relationships in the middle of a freaking riot?!?”

Greg glanced out the window. “That? It's nothing! They can't even do anything.”

“It is somewhat weird that we're still single.” Andrew muttered, glancing at Victoria. “Unless you have something going on with Cecelia?”

Victoria sighed. “No, she's- it's more like she's my little sister or something. Someone I need to take care of, not pursue romantically.”

Greg frowned. “The only option I can think of is Ver'varia, and even then I'm just not feeling it. I mean, again, she's cute but… eh?”

“What about Christine?” Andrew offered.

“Dude, she's like… forty.” Greg retorted, his expression twisted.

“Dude, you're like… immortal.” Andrew rolled his eyes.

“That makes it worse!” Greg protested.

Andrew paused. “Right… but still, I could just poke her core and de-age her.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Greg blinked. “Since when could you do that?” He asked incredulously, before shaking his head. “Nevermind, her age isn't the only reason I'm not interested. As much as I like Gloria, the whole divided loyalties thing makes things complicated and I'd really rather not deal with it again. Honestly, I kinda don't even want my partner to have any job… Being forced to wait for them to be available just kinda bugs me.”

“It's important for our partners to have lives outside of us. Places where they can feel useful and accomplished.” Chris interjected. “While yes it would be nice to have them available all the time, making another person your entire life isn't healthy. Particularly when that other person obviously isn't making you their entire life. And given our nature, making another person our life is pretty much impossible.”

Greg sighed. “I guess… I just wish I could be with someone who has as much time to spend with me as I do with them.”

“Pretty sure the only people capable of that are us.” Andrew replied.

The four of them shared looks before they all burst out laughing. “Yeah, that is not happening.” Greg shook his head. “I love you guys, but I have zero interest in bumping uglies, no matter what you look like.”

“No argument here.” Victoria agreed, the other two nodding along. “It'd be like fucking a sibling or something. Just- no.”

“Yeah, incest is only interesting conceptually, not in practice.” Greg sighed, pausing as the others turned to look at him. “What? Taboo shit is taboo because the consequences are either horrific or gross, but conceptually, you can just ignore the consequences, which just leaves you with spicy sex. Nothing wrong with spicy sex.”

“Dude.” Andrew shook his head.

“So what are we going to do about this riot?” Victoria asked, turning to look out the window.

“I called the police.” Chris replied with a shrug. “Apparently taking care of it ourselves would only make things worse.”

“What, we can't defend our own property?” Greg asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Seeing as our property literally can't be damaged, no, I don't think we can.” Andrew commented.

Greg paused. “So if we let them inside…”

“Greg, no.” Victoria groaned.

Greg clicked his tongue. “Fine.”

“It does feel kinda wrong to just sit here and watch, though.” Andrew muttered.

Victoria paused as an idea occurred to her, grinning slightly. “We can't stop them, but that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do. We have quite the audience here, don't we? All futilely banging their heads against a wall over a misunderstanding. So why not take the chance to… educate the masses?”

Greg cocked his head. “Like… educate?” He asked, punching his palm.

“No, like you make a giant TV playing Chris's world full interview on a loop.” Victoria rolled her eyes. “Also, the healy people can go mingle and argue with them. They're literally right there, and they can't do anything but listen.”

“Oh… yeah, shit, I can get behind that.” Greg agreed. “Honestly, we could have been doing that this entire time.”

Victoria sighed. “Would you just go already?”

Greg snickered, bursting into smoke and flowing out over the mob, creating himself a little stage above them. “Attention angry mob!” He shouted, getting a few things thrown at him. “I have come to educate you!” He announced as a gigantic screen formed above him. “Now, this seems to be the area all y'all get confused about.” He began as a clip of Chris's interview began. The mob continued to berate him and throw things, but as he continued to ignore them, they began to calm down, or at least get tired, and actually listen as Greg dissected the interview. “So you see, Chris wasn't actually saying he supported slavery, he was saying he supported humanity's right to choose for themselves how they live their lives. If humanity actually wants to be slaves, who is he to say they can't, eh?”

“So what's he going to do about the fucking Gangers attacking us?!?” Someone yelled out from the crowd.

“I'm sorry, since when are Gangers attacking you?” Greg retorted, raising an eyebrow. “One Doppelganger got into an altercation with one person. An altercation that the authorities are still investigating. In fact, the full video- ah, wait.” Greg turned back to the screen, playing the full video for them all. “See that? The human attacked the Doppelganger. Then, as you can see, the Doppelganger attacked back. He really shouldn't have done that, I agree, but still you can't characterize this as Doppelgangers randomly attacking people, now can you? And, when you research the Doppelganger in question, you'll see that he's not only lost his family, he's also lost most of his friends, and he's dangerously close to losing his job. All because everyone learned he was a Doppelganger. If you were in his position, wouldn't you be pretty fed up with humanity yourselves? Of course, that doesn't make what he did acceptable, so he's still been taken into custody, but that just reinforces the fact that attacking humans is not the policy of the Doppelgangers and never has been. Literally, y'all are angry over nothing.”

“If the Gangers can just randomly attack us-”

“Anyone can randomly attack you! The person standing next to you can randomly attack you!” Greg stopped them. “No one is saying all Doppelgangers are perfect and they'll never hurt anyone, but humans aren't perfect and there's plenty of them who are more than willing to hurt you. So why should it be any different if some random Doppelganger does it? They'll still face the same consequences as anyone else.”

“Because they shouldn't even be here! Anyone who gets attacked by a Ganger is someone who wouldn't have been attacked if they never invaded our fucking City!”

“And anyone who's been saved by a Doppelganger is someone who wouldn't have been saved if they weren't here.” Greg retorted. “Things aren't all negative or all positive. You can't complain about attacks without also complaining about all the people who have been saved. Hell, without the Doppelgangers the City might not even exist anymore! They've been integral to solving many of the issues the City has faced over the years. Shit, there's a whole list on the internet! And that doesn't even mention the work they do to keep the Maze under control!”

“How can we trust that anything they claim is the truth! They could claim anything and we'd have no way to check if it was true or not!”

“Well, that's fair.” Greg agreed. “But you seem real trusting in the idea that it isn't the truth, which is also unsupported. And, haven't the verifiable actions shown that the Doppelgangers are supporting the City? See, there's no actual reason to doubt them, and plenty of reasons to trust them. Yet despite all that, y'all are so insistent that they're lying, that you're straight up attacking their headquarters! It makes a man wonder, do you really care about the truth, or are you just looking for someone to hate?” A few rocks were thrown at him from the crowd. “Kinda reinforcing my point here, guys.” Greg chuckled.

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you, good sir!” Greg cackled. “But seriously, it's almost like you people want the Doppelgangers to be against you, and are looking for any excuse to make that the reality, but… have you actually thought about what that would look like? A race of people that could perfectly blend into your society, to the point that you never even noticed, all of whom are vastly superior to you physically, and generally in their abilities as well. If they actually were your enemies… how do you think that would go? Do you really think you'd stand a chance?”

“We- we have Christopher Vincent!”

“Indeed you do!” Greg agreed with a grin. “But on the other hand… if you start the war, whose side do you think he'll be on? He's not real big on people inciting violence. This whole violent mob situation, attacking his headquarters… gotta say, y'all are playing with fire.” The edges of the mob began to nervously inch away as the truth of what Greg was saying hit.

“He'd just let the Gangers destroy us?!?”

“Oy.” Greg groaned. “We literally just covered this! Chris isn't on anyone's side! Not the Doppelgangers and not yours! If they get violent, he'll stop it! If you get violent, he will also stop it! You know, on a general scale. Specific violence is still under the purview of the relevant authorities, hence why this mob is getting a talking to, instead of a time out in Chris's world. We don't have the authority to disperse a mob, so until we feel the need to reject the authority of the City government, we won't do so. You… really don't want things to get to that point.”

“Is that a threat!?!”

“Oh, absolutely!” Greg chuckled. “If y'all fuck things up so badly that we have to step in and do freaking politics, I'm going to be royally pissed. Seriously, I will offset everything in this City by half an inch! Make everything asymmetrical!”

“Is- is that a joke?”

“Nope!” Greg grinned. “I will turn the entire City into a series of minor inconveniences to drive all of you completely insane!” He paused, waiting for whatever they had next. “Well? Is that all?” The mob shifted uncomfortably. “Then shoo.” He gestured. “Go home. Make better decisions.”

Dichonius patted Erica on the shoulder. “Good luck with that.”

Erica just stared out the window, dumbfounded. “He- he started out so well…”