1:1:9 Beginnings (Part 1)

Thud. Char had not long finished her sentence as Lore fell. It was as if they had waited so as not to be rude. Char looked down at the pile of fabric and person in her bath and sighed. Rolling up her sleeves she removed the shower curtain and began draining and rinsing the bath. Lore’s presence made this a slightly harder task but she managed. The whole time there was only one thing on her mind: what to do with Lore. She hesitated,  questioning whether or not she should, but inevitably she stripped Lore, throwing their clothes straight into the washing machine. Now stripped to their skivvies, Char positioned Lore’s unconscious body at the edge of the tub. She filled a jug with warm, soapy water and began washing their face and hair, cleaning as much of the sick out as she could without disturbing them. She knew the side effects of the InfoStamps and the toll they took on the user so tried not to wake them. She ran her hand along their face, nearly recoiling as the sandpaper like stubble that guarded their chin. With their face still damp, she thought it an opportune time to finish cleaning them up. From behind her mirror, she grabbed Lore’s sonic shaver and began clearing away the mess. Hair dried and face smoothed, she carefully and slowly hoisted them out of the shower and into her bed. Although the actual age gap between them was rather slim now, they looked so much younger than her; she was supposed to be twenty seven to their twenty but they were both in actuality less than a year old but, nevertheless, she couldn’t quite shake how young they looked. She was used to them being heavier too. Compared to her memories of Lore, the one before her was a shadow, a pale and sickly shadow. There was a beeping sound coming from the other room. Wanting to ensure Lore got the recovery time they needed, Char sped to the kitchen and threw the washing machine’s door open. She inspected the clothing as it came out; after passing the uniform, she bagged it and ran it to her dryer. Although these methods were long obsolete in an age where clothes could be fabricated on an as needed basis, she knew Lore and she knew that they would know if their clothes had been replaced. She respected that. It certainly helped fill space in the otherwise empty wardrobes in the bedroom. On her way back from the dryer, something distracted her and then, as it often does, one thing led to another. By the time she was finished, so was the dryer. Char returned to the machine, gathered Lore’s clothes in the bag and brought them to the table. Time passed. She wasn’t sure how much but it wasn’t insignificant. She had been hoping to check on Lore every half hour but that fell away rather quickly. She bagged their clothes for the second to last time before making her way to her room. On her bed, half under the blanket and half exposed to the elements, Lore slumbered. Char couldn’t remember the last memory she had seen of them sleeping so peacefully. She quietly knelt beside them and began folding their clothes into their bag. She checked the time and thought about waking them but upon a second consideration, thought against it.  She was about to tuck them in before heading back to her search when she noticed a lump on Lore’s left breast. She lifted her blanket and pushed aside the top of Lore’s bra; before she could feel the protrusion, Lore was awake.
They yanked the blanket from Char and compressed it into themselves before realising who was touching them. Even though they usually hated it, being touched by Char was, for some reason, different “What are you doing?” They said in a breathy whisper.
“I… I have no good excuse.” She mumbled. “I was checking you out.”
Lore hesitantly lowered the blanket revealing their pale torso. Their body had some muscle tone but you’d be forgiven for not seeing it. Just to the right of Lore’s left breast, a scar sat balanced roughly above their heart. Both Lore and Char stared as if the scar was the most interesting thing in their current existence.
“That’s healed up well.” Lore stared at the scar. Considering it had been an open wound a few hours ago, the fleshy protrusion looked as though it had been a scar for a while.
“That shouldn’t be there.” Char responded. “You’re a clone. Scars aren’t genetic.”
“Look who’s talking.” Lore pointed to Char’s wrist. “If we’re both clones then why do we both have the same scars as our originals?”
Lore had risen from the bed to better talk to Char and in doing so, had revealed something interesting. “That’s new.” Char stared at their shoulder
“What?” Lore looked confused at Char who wrapped her hand around their shoulder and turned them to face away. She poked a small ‘V’ shaped scar on their left shoulder. It was made up of three cuts; two downwards diagonal marks and a central notch half way between them floating above the centre. “That’s just my ID brand.”
“No it isn’t. Your ID brand was an omega symbol, this is different.” Char checked herself for anything she could use to draw the symbol, eventually finding a pen and paper. She copied it and handed it to Lore.
They looked at it in deep contemplation, tracing their finger over the three lines. Flashes of The Omega Outcome gleamed before them as they touched the second and third mark; Death and Famine haunted the middle and the purple tendrils from the unknown lingered long after their hand had left the page. The first mark was however the most interesting; they saw themselves back in the vision where they had first met Char but where she had stood, Crait took her place. Breaking contact with the sigil, they turned to Char, ready with their answer. “It’s a reminder… I think…” They looked at it again, turning it upside down on the page. It took on an entirely different meaning this time. “It’s time…” They shook their head. “I haven’t the foggiest what I’m saying.”
“Nothing new then.” Char scoffed.
Lore moved the paper aside and scanned themselves. She was right, scars aren’t genetic, yet they were as covered in them as they had been inside of the cube. Battles they would never fight, trophies of mental triumphs they could never claim as their own but the scars presence calmed them; a reminder of their past, like a safety net. “What now then?”
“I’ve got a hit on Silus and my instructions… Our instructions say we are to find him and make our way to him as soon as possible.”
“Any reason why?” Lore made themselves slightly more comfortable.
Char shook her head. “There never is.” She took their bag from beside her bunk and removed the book from within. Unfolding the note, she scanned through and then it hit her. “How many of those cubes did you make it through?”
Lore sighed and collapsed dramatically, like a child who had been told to wash something or clean a room. “Two. I’m not doing another. I’m not.”
“Context and Identity?”
“Yeah, why?”
“One more?” She waggled her eyebrows. “It’ll be quick. According to my scans, it’s just a language pack and some key facts. Shouldn’t even put you under. Ten seconds max? Go on…” She batted her eyelashes. She herself couldn’t access the cube and Lore could tell she was desperate to find out what it actually contained.
“Fine. One more.” Char pulled the final cube from nowhere and slapped it against their temple. Ten seconds flew by and the knowledge the cube contained was quickly transferred into Lore. They blinked twice as the process came to a close. “That was rough.” Lore nursed their head.
“Quick but can be draining.” She could see that Lore was a little dizzy. “I’ll get you some water.” She sped off leaving Lore drifting on the edge of the bed. Their head hit the floor and suddenly, everything was alright.
“Wow.” They whispered to themselves. “That’s… Better I think?” They stood for the first time on their own for a while. There was a slight wobble to their legs but altogether, it was around what they had expected. They began their awkward march towards Char when they realised they were still only in their bra and boxers. They span on the spot and returned to their bag. Char had neatly returned their recently laundered clothes to them. The trousers seemed slightly more snug as they struggled to pull them over their feet but they soon loosened out; they realised this may have been because they weren’t at all the same trousers they had been wearing in the bath. Somewhere between drying and returning them to their bag, in the brief window where Lore had been unconscious, Char had changed her mind and taken the liberty of altering Lore’s trousers to fit more comfortably only to remember that she had already prepared a pattern for a new, similarly styled pair of armoured trousers, made from the most available energy resistant and stab proof materials to hand. She fabricated those along side a new undershirt, which she thanked the gods she hadn’t begun tailoring, and put them in the bag before waking them. Now wearing their new, old clothes, they felt better about leaving the room. They hadn’t liked the new shirt at first but like the trousers, it adjusted itself to them. They slid their arms into their jacket before looking in the mirror. Yet another change. Their lower face was now completely devoid of hair and it made a world of difference. As if waking from yet another haze, looking at themselves in the mirror, they finally saw a face they were happy to call their own. Happy may have been too strong of a word but they were indeed satisfied that the face staring back at their mouth was indeed their own.