1:1:5 Disarray (Part 1)

Sound. The plaster was starting to come away from the walls and the creaking of the wooden beams was devolving to a dying shriek. They had moments to react. With a flourish of their staff, they whipped Brian away from the door and towards them, backs to the only section of the wall without a door. Lore suddenly learnt they were claustrophobic; each entryway had been widened enough to allow fully armoured troops to enter but, even with the extra room, they eclipsed the doorways. Wave after wave poured into the already cramped space filling it like water in a barrel. They quickly got a sense of who the fish were. The initial breach had set their ears ringing but with the heat of so many personnel in one space coupled with the overwhelming odour of their standard issue deodorant as well, they found themselves so overwhelmed that they hadn’t noticed the variety of weapons on show and trained on them. They could feel their neck trying to pull their head to the right. Lore restrained themselves, daggers down their spine but they couldn’t give in. Even now, at their weakest, they couldn’t show it. The shock and adrenaline of the whole situation had dialled their senses from the usual eleven to an unhealthy fifteen and, to start, it had been too much. Then everything went quiet. The soldiers stood ready, their weapons trained not on Lore but on Brian. The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps on the laminate outside. They got louder and louder but never changed tempo. Parting the crowd, Crait entered the room. They looked different. Their skin was paler and they appeared to be nearly three centimetres taller; they had changed their clothes too. Their rough and tumble adventurer look had been replaced with slick, navy and grey polymer armour. Their equipment, like the soldiers who preceded them, appeared factory fresh or had at least been maintained to such standards. Wordlessly, the soldiers knew what to do. With a simple nod from Crait, they advanced on Brian and pinned his hands behind his back; a second nod saw them all leave. Crait and Lore were alone.

“I can’t be seen to be showing favourites but being dragged away by a non-commissioned grunt is no way to treat even an ex-Inquisitor.” They tapped at their Breacher and with a flash of white, both Crait and Lore were transported to a similarly shaped room. The walls were bare and painted in the same uniform grey Lore had come to expect of this building. Crait pulled out a chair from the table at its centre then gestured for Lore to sit. The two steps from their starting position to the chair were two of the most tense they had experienced so far. Crait pulled out their own chair and sat opposite.
“Suits you.” They smiled. “First time you’ve put it on and it fits like a glove.”
Lore looked over the jacket. They had nearly forgotten they were wearing it still. They were about to take it off when the temperature of the interrogation room hit them causing them to recoil into its leatherette hide.
Crait chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. I never could.” Crait pointed to the jug of water at the end of the table. Lore shook their head as Crait poured themselves a glass. They poured Lore one anyway and set it down in front of them. Crait took a sip before beginning. “I was going to give you that jacket after Quatarr. But then there was the trial, the Inquisition and then you left. Then you began ‘fighting for freedom’ and then you started the loop.” They took another drink. “I admit, they went pretty hard on you during the trial but you lost the plot. Started seeing conspiracies where they didn’t exist and started tampering with the fabric of time.”
Lore narrowed their eyes. “I must have had good reason?”
“The road to hel is paved with good intentions. You was given the sight; a unique privilege reserved only for high ranking Inquisitors and members of the Oracle. You saw the future. The same future I saw. But after the trial, your interpretation changed. You became hel-bent on destabilising humanities colonies, destroying our economy. All to make a stand on a dead planet. We caught you on the husk of Quatarr and before we could arrest you, you sent yourself back in time. I followed you, in a less messy way and then it started again.”
“Less messy?” Lore interjected.
“You sent your whole body back in time allowing for numerous potential paradoxes and who knows what else while I only sent my mind. Same body, updated internals.” Crait smiled. “You co-ordinated with your past self and together, you did even more damage. Then we cornered you, then you both went back in time and the cycle began anew. At least you were smart enough not to keep sending all of your bodies back each time but still, after every cycle, a new Lore would be added. Twenty five cycles. Twenty five times you broke into this building and implicated Brian in your plan. Twenty five times I had to listen to you ask if he had a son.” Crait stopped themselves before they got too aggressive. The cycles had provided them with an itch they could never scratch. “Twenty five cycles and he’s never had a son.” Crait shook their head. They removed their Breacher from their wrist and placed it on the table. They tapped it twice and a hologram appeared. An etheric, blue mobius strip hovered above the band. The edges of the strip were frayed, in some areas slightly, in others, barely a strand kept the strip together. “This is a model of the time line.” They swiped the strip and it became complete. “This is what it should look like.” They returned to the damaged model. “Your past selves are causing near irreparable damage to time and if they continue, gods only know what will happen.” Crait deactivated the hologram and returned the Breacher to their wrist. “But the universe has given you a second chance.”
“A second chance. According to you, I’ve done this twenty five times. Seems I’m far past a second chance.”
“No. You’re not like the others. Each time they came back they remembered, they could learn, for what good it did them. But you, you don’t have those memories, you’re a blank slate.” Crait removed two items from near their hip. “I’m going to fill you in a little more then I’m going to give you a choice.” They placed the items on the table. One was a slim but bulky leatherette wallet, the other, a pistol.

Some time passed before either party spoke again. Lore didn’t dare look at their Breacher with the pistol within Crait’s immediate grasp.
“When I met you in that tavern, I was expecting someone else. I was expecting you but one of the duplicate Lores. We’d met there a few times. It’s neutral ground on account of how the locals view humans. That’s never stopped you though. According to our trackers, you spend a fair bit of time in the Valhelderen Expanse.” Crait shrugged. “To each their own.” They took another drink. “This would be cycle twenty six. I… We’ve gotten pretty good at determining how each cycle is going to pan out at this point. It’s usually split into three key sections: Blind panic as you try and run from us (we’ve never run after you), plotting and destruction then finally, the confrontation. So far, the Guild and I have found that if we just focus on the final confrontation, we can undo all of the damage and still reach a tie in the final confrontation.” They removed one last item. “This MemDex will help.” Crait walked over to the monitor behind them and inserted it injector first. They pushed the button and an image appeared.

Crait was sat in a war room, analysing an update on the Lores’ latest wave of destruction. According to the monitors, they had completely severed communication between Earth and three of their outer rim colonies. These weren’t an isolated incident; monitors around the room displayed data from nearly seventy five attacks perpetrated by Lore or by sympathetic individuals. Crait pulled up the last relayed images of each colony to discover two of the three had been under massive attack and preparing a distress beacon at the time but never managed to let out their final scream. The camera shook emulating Crait’s movements. There was a cut and suddenly, they were on a ship. The stars were flying past at impossible speeds as they ventured towards their final confrontation. Crait slowed the ship to a halt over an asteroid field. At its core, there was a large, orange mass. Below them, a shattered planet loosely held together by its own gravity, its glistening blue core exposed. Something hit Crait’s ship and a fire fight began. Shots were exchanged but one lucky hit to the opponent’s ship’s top fin caused it to begin its unplanned descent to the planet below. Gold and black became red and green as the ship burnt in the atmosphere and the plasma leaking from its wound ignited. In efficient defeat, the deceased buried itself in the red sands. Crait didn’t even bother following it, they simply stood and tapped at their wrist. Instantly, they were on the planet. They lifted a respirator to their face and advanced on the hulking ships carcass. The whole planet shook as a white beam of light shot up into space. A gateway was opened and the planet pulled through. Blue streaks replaced the stars above. Lore’s heart began to beat twice as fast. They had suspected as much but this confirmed their dream wasn’t such. It had been a vision of their past. They knew how this ended.
“So where do I come in?” Lore was beginning to remember one of the reasons why their relationship failed.
Crait paused the playback. “You see all of this blue. That is temporal shearing. If the other Lores got their way, the timeline’s final thread gets cut and everyone dies. They need you to do it. So, that’s the choice.” Crait pushed both the wallet and gun towards them. “Join us and end the cycle of destruction and save the timeline or take the pistol and join them. I know it’s not your style and I’d never kill you but the others may not feel the same.”
Lore had no words. They were sat, nearly naked, in a cold, grey room being offered a choice between being the saviour of time and being a terrorist. What really confused them was that it was a hard decision.
“The universe has given you a second chance. I won’t. After today, whatever you choose, I will respect. If that means you join me then we will go out together and stop any of this and most definitely that,” They pointed to the monitor, “from happening. You take the gun, I’ll open the door and give you a ten second head start before alerting the rest of the Guild to an escapee. What happens from there is up to you but know this, at the end, and you will end up there, lines will have to be crossed.” Crait’s face darkened. “Take your time.”

They did. While their instincts were telling them not to trust Crait, it was hard to refute the images they had shown them. Their dream had been real and according to Crait ended with the near destruction of time itself. That’s where their doubt came from. There was something about that final confrontation that didn’t quite sit right with them. If Lore was as good as Crait had been telling them they were, why did it take twenty five of them to break time and who were the other people? In the memory, the computer had shown fifty life signs on the planet, not twenty five so who else was there and why hadn’t Crait mentioned them? There were too many questions and not enough information.
“What happens if I join you and help you stop Lore. Surely if I am a product of temporal manipulation, killing Lore or changing their timeline will lead to me never existing?”
Crait looked as though they wished Lore hadn’t asked that. “Well, normally, that would be a valid concern but in this case, you’re different. When a person goes back in time and interacts with their past self, they create a timeline remnant. This is a version of themselves that has been influenced by an event in their future before that event can occur.”
“So, I went back in time, stayed out of my own way then met up with myself at the end only to go back in time again?”
“Exactly. There’s no communication between the remnants until the end so they end up making the same mistakes over and over again.”
“But what about me? If I’m not a remnant then what am I?”
Another question Crait wished hadn’t been asked. “We don’t know. Remnants carry unique quantum signatures but you, your biometrics match our records. You’re just you. No manipulation, no changes.” They smiled. Lore nodded.
It was time to make a choice. Lore’s hand hovered over the wallet. It felt warm. They lowered their hand to take it but as they did, in addition to the burning feeling becoming unbearable, the feeling like they had been slapped crossed their face.
“Not even as a joke.” Someone whispered into their ear.
It wasn’t a joke to them though. It was a part of their carefully, if not hastily, thought out plan. Take the wallet, earn Crait’s trust, use their resources to learn about the other Lores, Crait takes them to the final planet, potentially double cross them and then see where the universe takes them. Apparently someone else had other ideas. Reluctantly, Lore rethought their future. They didn’t want to prove Crait right but they would be running around like a headless chicken because they didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to be doing. They didn’t even know where the planet they were supposed to end up on was. Hesitantly, they took hold of the pistol. They slowly wrapped their fingers around its grip. Lore hadn’t realised it until now but they, at some point, had put on the black and blue ring they found in the drawer. Crait’s smile flattened. They closed their eyes and nodded. The door behind them opened.
“Once you leave the next room, you’ll have ten seconds. You’ll know when your time starts. My people will hold their fire until then.” Crait put their hand on Lore’s. “You know, this time, I really thought it would be different.” Their voice faltered.

Lore sandwiched the pistol between themselves and their bag. Their timer hadn’t begun yet but they weren’t thinking straight so they just continued. Dressed in their medical gown and the Inquisitor’s jacket, they made their way into the next room. Brian sat alone in a similarly circular room. Lore stood in a corridor looking in through a one way window. Brian looked as though this was a daily occurrence and that didn’t change, even when three soldiers joined him, weapons drawn. All three had their weapons trained on his gut. Perfectly synchronised, they charged their guns, pulling back a handle on the side until the magazine had fully illuminated. For a while nothing happened until the leftmost soldier whipped their gun from its resting position to his head before pulling the trigger. A short, high frequency tone screeched through the room; a burst of purple light which soon found itself absorbed into the soft tissues of Brian’s face. Fissures of purple tore across his face and down towards his neck. Everything about light was quick. This wasn’t. They started as thin lines, like cracks in glass, but they only got wider till canyons formed in his rocky face. A second shot was fired into his gut. Lore had expected this to have had the same effect. It didn’t. The second purple flash was quickly followed one of blinding white. The smell of ozone and something toxic filtered out of the room and slowly began to fill the corridor. The chair he sat on remained, now coated in a thin layer of ash; the pile crackled with a purple electricity. Brian was gone.