1:4:8 Doubles (Part 4)

Same place, a different time. Char exhaled the weight of a potential future and some of the dusts that came with her from it. “Bloody hel. How did they pull that off?” She looked at her wrist, immediately running a scan of the campus. “Fifty-three… Bio-damper!” She rattled through her device’s features before reaching the one she was looking for. Upon activation, fibres stretched from her wrist and snaked and constricted first around her arms before continuing to travel across her body. She stifled her discomfort as the ribbons tightened; before they could start to cut into her skin, they liquefied and sank in, forming a web of black tattoos across her body. The number of Lore and Char life signs decreased back to fifty-two. She rubbed her new ink before getting up from her crouched position. She moved towards The Slingshot’s entrance. She scanned her surroundings before pressing her wrist to the lock to deactivate it. Still cautious, she pulled the door ajar and slipped in backwards.
“I’m so sorry!” She felt her rear press against someone.
Char turned slowly to find an unexpectedly tall figure. “Apologies are not necessary. This unit is undamaged.”
“Still, it was a bit rude of me to come in without checking.” Char chuckled awkwardly. “While I’m interrupting you, how did you come to work with us anyway?”
“The operators of this facility ensured our division from the Prime Amalgam. In return for our assistance in the construction and maintenance of this facility, they offered our division the necessary technologies to assimilate properly into biological society. Scans indicate you are in use of such technologies; what is your designation?”
Char was caught off guard until she caught her newly inked shoulder out of the corner of her eye. “I am lambda three.” She tried to hide her emotions but couldn’t help but wince as the Amalgam stared at her.
“Lambda units are required on floors three, eight and thirteen. Return to your place of work immediately.” The Amalgam didn’t manage to pick up on it.
Char just nodded before bolting for the nearest staircase. She had wondered why the Lores had designed such a tall structure without lifts but it soon became apparent that the stairs weren’t for her or them. White flashes leapt between the floors as the various Lores who were working on the central conduits Breached between floors; taking a leaf out of their book, Char attempted the same. She managed to skip a few floors but her proximity to the core gave her cause for concern. She had initially planned to teleport to the exact same point on a floor three higher than the one she started on. While she got to her destination, she had been displaced half way across the room. After a second attempt yielded similar results, she opted to take the stairs the rest of the way. Reaching floor thirteen, the strange design of the building only became stranger.
“It’s scaffolding? Why wouldn’t they just build the normal stuff?” Char slowly shook her head. “The suns… Two whole tower buildings just to protect them from the suns.”
The true tip of The Slingshot barely grazed the ceiling. She scanned it but found no anomalies. She scrunched up her face in confusion as she debated checking the other side before she remembered a vital piece of information. “Fifty-three!” She shook her head. “They’re not here yet.” Char checked the time. “We first noticed them in about ten minutes time, so they must have come through here before then.” She programmed her teleporter to take her to the same spot but at the end of Pott’s speech. “That should do it.”

Char’s ten minute hop had yielded fruit. She didn’t even need to scan The Slingshot to spot the differences. Now affixed to the top of the spire, a rather large, blinking box. She looked it up and down before checking to see how it was connected; seeing that it was merely taped onto The Slingshot with no other connections, Char removed it then held it sheepishly, unsure of what to do next. Char set it down by her feet to think. “I really hope this isn’t a bomb.” She crouched down to look at it better. She gently poked the antennae. Nothing. Slowly, she hovered her wrist over it. “It’s a beacon.” Her eyes widened. “It wasn’t a bomb, it was an orbital strike!” Char teleported to her feet and span around, expecting Lore to be behind her but found herself still alone. “What now though?” She grabbed the beacon and started down the stairs; every time she passed an Amalgam, she attempted to hide the device, with each attempt getting slightly more outlandish, much to her amusement. The closer she came to the bottom of the tower, the closer the Amalgam came to investigating her until she reached the door on the ground floor.
“Unit Lambda-Three, you have left your designated work zone. Explain.” The Amalgam unit moved between her and the door.
Char slowly removed the beacon from behind her back. “I found this device attached to the top of The Slingshot. I was bringing it to Potts for analysis.”
The Amalgam’s eyes glowed red as a scanning beam crossed over the beacon. “That is not necessary. Analysis confirms that the device is not a standard part. Construction indicates part is a targetting beacon of Earth origin.”
“What should I do with it?” Char clutched it a little tighter in case the Amalgam tried to take it.
“It is a security matter. Please direct the beacon to Sam. They can be found in the security office.” The Amalgam stepped aside.

Char slowly exited The Slingshot. Beacon in hand, she gingerly started to navigate the campus, trying desperately to remember where her past self was so she could avoid her. One thing she hadn’t noticed during her last visit was that on the carpets there were multiple, coloured lines; each line had a corresponding destination but, unfortunately, Char had no idea which lines led where. She set her scanner to only register herself and made sure to stay well away as she bumbled through the remainder of the facility. After more than a few wrong turns, she somehow made her way to her destination. She didn’t realise until she had shut the door and saw that instead of sticking the sign on the outside of the door, the inside prominently displayed a sign indicating that it was indeed the security office. She closed the door behind her. As she turned back into the room, she was nearly blinded as Sam Breached in on top of her toes.
“Hello… What have we got here?” Sam Breached all around her before swiping the beacon. “Now that doesn’t look standard and neither do those…” They ran their finger along one of Char’s new tattoos. “Pretty.”
Char sighed and shook her head slowly. “I need you to listen to me and trust me with what I’m about to tell you. I’m from the future.”
“I know… We met earlier…” Sam started examining the beacon. “Doesn’t explain this though.”
“I know we met earlier… I’m from that me’s future. I came back to find that device. I thought it was a bomb but it turns out…” They cut her off.
“It’s a homing beacon. Protectorate made too.” Char was still coming to terms with their welsh accent. “And if you’re admitting to potentially causing a paradox by being in the same time zone as yourself then it must be bloody bad.”
“It destroyed The Slingshot and somehow turned the Amalgam against us… Or more rather, you.” Char tried to look as worried as possible to sell the point.
“I suppose I could neutralise this but it doesn’t really stop whatever was using it as a target.” Sam dropped the beacon. It shattered almost the instant it touched the floor, spreading silicon fragments across their office. “That worked so much better than I thought it would.”
Char was taken aback. “Why would anyone need a beacon anyway. Surely The Slingshot is visible from orbit?”
“It is but if you don’t know which planet it’s on, you can’t see it from orbit can you. Can’t orbit a planet if you don’t know which planet you need to orbit. Plus the conduits play havoc on targetting scanners. We tried firing on it and our own missiles came down somewhere in the desert about a kilometre away.” Sam Breached behind their desk. “You said the Amalgam turned too?”
Char nodded.
“I better look into that.” Sam typed furiously on their keyboard before exclaiming. “Hah! Found it. Whoever’s done that’s bloody good.” Char opened her mouth to talk but Sam started talking again. “They’ve hidden a virus in the Amalgam’s combat routines. Bear with me.” Sam lifted a communicator, styled to look like a nineteen eighties, Earth, landline phone to their ear. Char could see their lips moving but couldn’t hear them talking. Sam nodded a fair few times before smiling and putting the communicator down. “Right. The Amalgam are getting ready to do a full anti-virus sweep. Good thing it happened now because we’re basically finished. I’m going to recommend we reinforce the scaffolding then turn on the defences.”
“You mean the nebula?” Char wanted to be sure.
Sam nodded. “Hopefully, whatever ship’s hiding out there will be caught like a fly on one of those sticky things…” They mimed gluing their fingers together and trying to pull them apart. “Fly trap! Anyway… Once I get the all clear, we’ll have to evacuate. Probably be some time tomorrow.”
Char nodded but then her eyes widened as they filled with a green glow. “But we need them to think they succeeded!” Char teleported away.

She perched atop the left tower, wondering how she was going to pull it off. Using her original co-ordinates as a reference, she eyeballed the approximate time for when the beacon would have activated and started thinking. Whatever she did, it couldn’t damage the structure; it had to be flashy and realistic without actually doing anything. She thought back to what she had seen before, when the tower was first hit. The more she tried to focus on the smaller details, the more they appeared to her, her memories, like The Slingshot, slowly engulfed by an aura of golden light. Her eyes began to glow and with them, the floor beneath her feet. It was subtle, barely noticeable but she felt a connection. The seconds trickled away as sand in a timer and so did the light; what had started merely at the top of The Slingshot now nearly encompassed the entire campus. Char no longer looked at her wrist for the time but instead felt as though the time was nearly upon her. Three. She inhaled. Two. She turned to face her audience. One. A smile crept across her face. Showtime. A blast from nowhere struck the top of the tower. Something seemingly rather big. After the initial impact, there was no sound. Light poured from the structure as it expanded out. It was all happening so quickly then it wasn’t. Char sat as the centre of the ‘explosion’ completely unharmed, her memories of what happened next firmly in her mind’s eye. The fireball expanded out and with it, tendrils of energy under Char’s control. Snaking around the campus, she knew exactly what she had to do with them; as long as The Slingshot wasn’t compromised, she was fine to do whatever she wanted so, she did. The tendrils started their massacre as they forced themselves through every window on the campus, shattering through the reinforced panes and enjoying the mess they made. The explosion had been enough to set the Lores and Chars on edge but the aftershock was more than effective at speeding up their departure plans. Char could sense her past self nearing the campus. All but one of the council members had Breached away leaving only Char, her past self and Sam on Johned. Sam’s finger hovered over the nebular projector, one eye on the life signs monitor, the other on a feed tracking past Char through the facility. The past Char entered the courtyard and looked up at the ‘devastation’. She hid herself as three lores appeared and attempted to enter The Slingshot. The Lores attempt was short lived as they found themselves repelled by a swarm of Amalgam; their once humanoid figures now almost indistinguishable from the gas that poured from the facility’s tip. The Lores retreated. Sam watched on in confusion and intrigue as the number on their monitor remained unchanged. Potts stepped forward and demanded the Amalgam answer to them. For their trouble, they became one with it. Past Char watched as the three Lores were slaughtered, their Breacher’s cores paradoxically sparking between the Amalgam before she herself teleported away. Char maintained the Charade for a moment after; the Amalgam coalesced and in doing so, destroyed themselves. The storm of Fflatz Paradocxer became too much. With them gone, the destruction and most of the damage it had appeared to cause melted away into golden light. Char took a mighty inhale and with it, drew in all of the energy she had released. A spotless Slingshot remained below her. Light headed, she teleported herself to the ground below before she fell there. Sam met her. They looked at The Slingshot astonished that the camera hadn’t been lying to them.
“What are you? Some kind of bloody wizard? That was incredible!” Sam sat her up. “We’ve got a minute or so before the nebula activates. You alright to get yourself out of here?”
Char nodded weakly as she programmed her wrist to return her to The Destiny before she remembered where The Destiny was destined for. She quickly rethought her destination and set it to lock onto The Occam’s Razor. “See you later then.” She smiled before vanishing out of their arms.

The floor was cold and the gravity heavier; it was nostalgic, like getting into her childhood bed. She took a moment to relax. Sirens wailed but did little to phase her. She was too tired to be worried about the clones sprinting towards her. Too tired to even think about moving or hiding herself. On the verge of passing out, her only thought was that of hope for the success of The Destiny’s mission. Reclamation.