The boys knew their origin, it was hard to miss. Particularly for the one, Marcus, because he had that pesky photographic memory. Several others in their project also displayed such a feature. So the scientists at Black Mesa's biological research department decided to place one of those types in each grouping sent to different schools.

So many of them, spread out like that? At first when the project had been proposed, there was a little bit of push-back on it - people would notice, wouldn't they? But in small doses, someone else claimed, a little here, a little there, integrating these kids into society was going to work just fine. And they do: sure it's pretty rare to have triplets but there was that one time four sets of twins had come to Carramba and they were all basically from the same dad (they were not, in fact, the ‘same' dad - they were from other dimensions versions of that guy! no really!). Plus at least in places like Carramba, there were whole ‘spawn groups' of lizard kin, the typical duality of a few aliens that bred only in pairs, and - these MAR kids were far from the only clones that were attending just this year!

They did have both yearly and monthly get-togethers; once a month the MAR group had to sit down and face-time with their keepers and creators, and then again at least once a year they all gathered physically for their ‘birth'day celebrations. Markie and Martin would show off their new baseball caps, Marlowe and Marvin and Maruf tended to gloat about their romantic ventures once they'd realized they could have them, Marquis or Marston could claim that their new pet dog was better than Marat and Marceau's admittedly-pretty cats. When Marcela declared herself a she/her, Margarite followed suit. Marley and Mario kept beating each other's high-scores on video games (knowing full well how hilarious that was for one of them). Maram and Mardun worked on a big writing project with Marduk and Marzell doing illustrations for them. It was all very confusing for anyone else watching all of this - even their keepers often mixed them up. There were, after all, only so many names you could make... And they all still looked like the same single handsome dark-skinned man they used for their sample.

Yes, yes he knew he had clones, and wished people would stop asking...

So the trio at Carramba absolutely knew that their next meetings - with either their keepers or the group as a whole - would be... fascinating to say the least.

Marlon had been the first to be approached, of course, because of his class with Davis-Dawg. But it quickly escalated, thanks to him attempting to get that important field trip waiver signed. The local scientist assigned to Carramba to monitor things had a bit of a breakdown - they wanted to what? Where? With whom? But the moment that Lane got involved, everything went so much more smoothly. He was in good with that professor, he'd had tutoring and encouragement from Keenan and now it looked like he absolutely had their backs.

Marshal's clone teacher, that Fettel guy, seemed so like Lane? Carver teaching that camo class? And even their one fur-side instructor Kale-Baah? They were all so much like Lane. Marlon brought that up once.

Only Marcus remembered what he'd said, yes he had been spying, no he wasn't going to apologize. Lane told him the truth and all of it. He just... proceeded to wipe Marlon's memories. Marcus did get the strange side-eye from the man, but then was told, “you're just like Melissa, that's fine,” and left it at that. Marcus could keep his secrets, that was fine with him.

They shared classes here and there, including their Nexus Geohistory class with ms Kshau. And in fact that was the only time aside from going back to their shared dorm that they were often seen together at all. Marlon and Marcus had their Theoretical Physics course together, and Marcus and Marshal had Linguistics with that Fur-sider version of Lane, Marlon and Marshal had a Topography math class with the dark and pretty human Varnhagen. (... They also knew that she too had a fur-sider type teaching on the Magic campus, but they were pretty far from magic students and had never been through that part of the school campus at all!)

The trio met up with their other companions for this weird journey during their formal ‘search' process. Alicia Davis-Dawg, Marlon's instructor and sponsor for this trip, seemed a little weepy to Marcus, but their bro Marshal assured them that she was happy-weeping, not sadly so.

There would be time for any kind of emotional outbursts later - maybe if they came home with dragons, everyone at their next birthday bash would want their own!