1:4:3 Republic (Part 5)

The First parted the doors, their arms flung wide and their face somewhere in an awkward rift between anger and neutrality. They marched at Lore, their Char behind them. “What in the hel was that?” The First asked calmly.
It threw Lore off their base. Given their entrance to the room, Lore was expecting a much more explosive reaction. “Sorry… What?” Lore’s confusion seemed to feed The First’s reaction, making their face seem more appropriate.
“I’m going to need you to come with us.” The First’s Char beckoned them to the door; The First following behind them. She led them back down the corridor, past the Multi-Faith room and into the War room. She pulled out a chair and sat Lore and Char down before taking her place opposite them.
The First turned to their Char. “Have we got time for the questions or are we using the thing?”
“Way ahead of you.” The First’s Char smiled as two wireframe crowns lowered from the ceiling and settled themselves on Lore and Char’s heads.
Their vision blurred then darkened to the point of blindness. A needle pierced through the back of their skulls, starting the process and sending them to sleep.
“Interesting… They genuinely have no clue.” The First and their Char were watching their most recent memories. “But how did they know?” They pressed deeper.
Images flashed across the screen faster than most eyes could comprehend, slowing as needed so that they could get a more detailed look at some of the memories. “They shouldn’t know that though.” The First mumbled.
“We didn’t leave that, did we?” Their Char muttered.
“Interesting.” They spoke in unison as they watched Lore reject the ‘true’ meaning of the Three Year Month.
“They’re certainly different, aren’t they.” Their Char shifted their focus from the screen to Lore and Char themselves.
“That they are Charrlene, that they are.” The playback was closed and The First raised the crowns.
“All sorted?” Char smiled, she put her hands on the table ready to help herself up.
“I wouldn’t if I were you. The Neural Crowns can be a little disorienting if you’ve not used one before.” Charrlene smiled back. Char fell back into her chair.
“Find what you needed?” Lore tried to blink the haze away.
“Yes and no. You two have had an interesting go of it haven’t you? Perhaps we should have listened to your creator a little closer.” The First nodded. “You two are exactly what we needed.”
“Sorry, what?” Char tried to focus on them.
“We protested against your creation. We all did.” The First started. “But you’re something new. Something different. I… I…”
“I think what they’re trying to say is that they’re ashamed and annoyed that they didn’t create you earlier.” Charrlene chuckled. “We Chars for one were mostly for Pott’s plan but twenty seven is a majority. Couldn’t believe Truly would vote against Potts but… C’est La vie. At least Emm revived the idea or else we’d be up a creek.” She shrugged.
“Thank you Charr. Now, the energy you two just shot across our ship was exactly the energy we need to maintain our tether. We need more… Do you think you could do that?”
“I think we should.” Char looked to Lore. They nodded apprehensively.
“The full resources of our ship are at your disposal and the designs for the Tether Project. Just tell us what you need and we’ll get it for you.” The First was about to leave before thinking again. “Any questions?”
“How long have you got?” Char meant for her comment to sound a little more light hearted than it did.
Charrlene gave an awkward half smile to her then shot the same look at The First. “I suppose we could stay for a few moments.”
“Go ahead.” The First nodded.
Lore and Char stared at each other for a moment. Neither one knew which one of them was going to speak first but they both had the same list of questions running through their head. “Why did you do this?” Lore started.
“Why create a cycle, what’s the point? How does it even work?” Char continued.
They thought hard before beginning their response. They started to speak but stopped themselves. “I… It was the first idea that came to mind. In hindsight it’s not the best approach but it has worked.”
“I like that. ‘It has worked.’” Charr scoffed. “I suppose it has but even you have to admit, the arguments alone from having twenty five versions of you on the same ship is enough to want the universe to fall apart. At least versions twenty six are ambitious.”
“Ambitious, you barely know us.” Char retorted.
“You’ve both got this air about you. Something fresh.” Charrlene smiled. “The loops were their idea but they were a last resort. We went into the endgame entirely unprepared and botched it. The only option was to go back to the beginning. Then we just stayed out of our own way until the end came round again.”
“Second time round we learnt that only just appearing at the end was really jarring and despite the extra work, it still wasn’t enough.” The First added. “So we kept in contact with ourselves and then met with Tree a little earlier. We planned things out a little better so it wasn’t a surprise when we got to the end.”
“Tree?” Lore was mostly sure they were referring to another Lore but still wanted clarification.
“Tree. The First and Charrlene, Ant and Pepp then Tree and Six. Tree was the third Lore.” Charrlene smiled. “They do the best Irish accent.”
“Anyway, we just kept going but each time, Crait seemed to get more knowledgable. Emm and Clayton proposed making you after reading Potts’ research. They made some modifications, put it to a vote and it passed. They believed that a clone was exactly what we needed. We’d travel back without creating a duplicate, which was no easy feat mind you, insert the clones into the new cycle and feed them the memories we wanted them to have.” The First seemed to only just be realising what their initial plan was. “That sounded much worse than it would have been.”
“No it doesn’t… It’s still pretty bad.” Char’s look of discomfort was something everyone in the room shared.
The First shuffled in their seat. “It all worked out in the end?” They shrugged. Again, everyone stared at them.
“Could we have a list with the proper order of the Lores please?” Brian broke the tense silence. “I’ve got a theory.”
The First cleared their throat. “We… We’ll get you that.”
“I like your thinking.” Lore turned back to The First. “If that was your plan though, why don’t we have the memories you wanted? Where did those extra cubes come from?”
“We’re not sure. We’re not even sure where you got some of your orders from. That necklace for example, we didn’t know about it and we had no idea it opened the box on Rexel. And then there’s the ring. We didn’t even know about it but your tablet wanted you to grab it for some reason.” The First shrugged.
“None of the others will own up to it but the thing that makes it more interesting is that there should only be five Lores that have access to the mainframe to even issue commands so…” Charrlene pulled out a tablet from under the table. “These are the commands we originally sent to your tablet.” She held it up.
Lore and Char leant across the table, squinting at the tiny font, trying to make out what it said. Charr zoomed in for them. “We’ve not seen half of these.” Lore closed their blind eye to see if it would allow them to focus easier.
“And our list had more sub-objectives too. There’s a load of stuff missing.” Char pulled out her tablet. With it came The Band of Three. It chimed as it bounced across the glass surface.
“May I?” Charrlene held out her hand for the ring. Lore nodded, handing it to her. “Interesting. It looks like gold but it’s an alloy of some kind. These markings make me think it’s from Earth but the metal is close to something we used on Quatarr.” She held the ring out to The First. “What do you think?”
“I agree with the Earth inspiration. These symbols look almost Viking but there’s something else mixed in there… It’s too wide for a finger but weirdly, the diameter seems familiar.” The First lowered the ring below the table.
“No! No! It’s not for that.” Charrlene’s hand sped below the table and retrieved their hand and the ring.
“I was reaching for this…” They placed their staff on the table. After extending it, they slid it on the top. “Perfect fit but how and why?” They removed it and returned it to Lore.
“One of the others might know.” Charrlene looked over Char’s tablet. “Interesting that it predicted your arrival here. We didn’t even know about that.”
“Where are the others?” Lore turned the ring in their fingers.
The First stood and walked to the door. “They’re in the other half of the ship. You’ll like this Char.”
Charrlene opened the door and gestured for them to follow. “Come on then you two.”

The last door in the foyer stood before them, The First and Charrlene had a hand on each handle. They looked as though they were going to say something but instead, they just smiled. The doors opened slowly, little by little. With every centimetre they opened, a small amount of rusty orange sand came streaming through. There was somehow a sky with clouds and sunlight beyond the doors that lingered over an ocean of sand. It was infinitely more vast than either of them expected or even thought possible. Still, Charrlene and The First had said nothing. They took their first steps into the room and almost immediately, Lore’s shoes felt as though they were filled with sand.
“Welcome to New Quatarr.” Charrlene held her arms out wide.

Char had taken to dancing across the sand. Her smile hadn’t been wider since they met.
“It even smells right.” She jumped as high as she could, clearing about thirty vertical centimetres. “Gravity’s the same too.” She advanced towards Lore and intertwined their fingers.
Hand in hand, they moved towards the oasis ahead of them, leaving the others behind. Despite this environment’s position on the inside of a spaceship, you would be hard pressed to assume that. The landscape appeared to be endless, with the horizon being at least two kilometres away; the artificial sunlight was more than bright enough to illuminate the entire room but it was made even brighter when it reflected off of the sand. The oasis was only half a kilometre away from the room’s entrance but with the doors closed, the illusion was complete. The trees were unlike anything on Earth or Illia; towering about ten metres higher than Char, their leaves provided blessed shade from the intense light but did little to shelter them from the heat. Now able to see properly, Lore could see something in the distance, a village of some kind.
“I bloody hate sand.” Lore balanced on one foot emptying their shoe.
“We’ve still got a ways to go before we get there. I wouldn’t even bother if I were you.” Char chuckled.
“Best get going then.” Lore marched on ahead.
“This place is beautiful.” Char was beaming.
“If you like the sand I suppose.” Lore begrudgingly agreed. “I’ll admit it’s certainly impressive. All of this inside a spaceship.”
Char couldn’t contain herself as she started skipping over the dunes, smiling and giggling to herself. For some reason, despite their discomfort from the sand and heat, Lore couldn’t help but get infected by her joy. Just seeing her happy made them happy. The village wasn’t as far away as it first appeared. It also wasn’t as big as they thought it would be. The sand was slowly solidifying beneath their feet into something between concrete, sand and dirt or perhaps a combination of the three. There was a sign attached to a small fence that surrounded some of the village: Cyenziet.