1:5:10 Lores (Part 3)

They traded the Minister’s chamber for their private office; Lore, Char and Alodrass sat opposite The Minister.
Lore took a deep breath. “I suppose we should probably start at the very beginning.”
“I’ve been told it’s a very good place to start.” The Minister tried to lift the mood. Only Alodrass understood the reference.
“What do you know about The Temporal Sciences Guild?” When The Minister shrugged, Lore elected to continue. “I am not fully appraised on all of The Guild’s activities yet so I’ll try and tell you what I know.” They paused. “Early on in The Guild’s history, they developed a device that would allow willing members to see through time. These people became known as Oracles. These Oracles predicted that the universe would come to an end some time in the near future; this was the inciting incident that caused the mission statement of The Guild to change and saw the creation of The Inquisitoriam.”
The Minister sat there, blinking. They were taken aback by what they had been told so far but wanted to hear more so gestured for Lore to continue.
“The Oracles scoured the timeline for two children to lead the Inquisitoriam then sent their findings to the future. The future Guild sent those children to the past to be raised in The Guild, by The Guild. I was one of those children, Crait was the other.”
“Councillor Crait? Of Faendrosis, that Councillor Crait?” The Minister’s already wide eyes, somehow grew wider.
“The very same.” Char chimed in.
“Crait and I grew up together, trained together. We were groomed to be the tip of The Guild’s spear. As they developed technology, we were the first to test it, as they learnt more about the future, we were the ones who made it happen. With Sliders to Shredders to Breachers, nothing was out of The Guild’s grasp.” Lore showed The Minister their wrist. “This device allows me to travel through time and space at the press of a button. As long as I have the co-ordinates or I’ve already been there, I can go wherever, whenever.” They removed their Breacher and opened the crystal core. The two Tempora crystals glinted under the fluorescent lighting. “And it’s all powered by these. Tempora. An element native to one planet it’s impossible to synthesise, at least by human standards, and infinitely powerful.”
Char waved. “Tempora’s from my planet. I’m Quatarrian.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of it.” The Minister shook their head.
“That’s going to be an unfortunate, recurring theme.” Alodrass frowned. “Sadly, there are too many planets that know the name Human that you’ve never heard of.”
“Crait wanted to use Quatarr’s civil war to destabilise their planet to allow The Guild to expand. I was sent to Quatarr to make sure their war ended in mutual destruction. I spent three years there and it only cemented my beliefs that Crait and The Guild were wrong. The war ended in peace. I was put to trial by The Guild, exiled and Crait destroyed Quatarr anyway.”
“I’m so sorry.” The Minister looked to Char.
“Crait then used the Tempora they harvested to expand The Inquisitoriam. Before we had two Inquisitors with Breachers, after, all fifty-two Inquisitors had their own Breacher and Tempora powered ship. Crait and their Inquisitors spread out across the galaxy, charting quadrants of space far beyond humanity’s reach. Each one they came across they evaluated then either enslaved, worked around or ‘simplified’.” Lore returned the crystals to their Breacher then displayed Crait’s timeline. “In addition to destroying Quatarr, they removed four species from history displaced a half dozen and subjugated two more.”
The Minister studied the timeline. “Oh… I only recognise a handful of these. Illia, I’ve definitely heard of and Faendrosis too obviously… I knew about The Rexel system but none of these…”
“Thankfully, most of them were either uninhabited or the local population were below the threshold to be considered sapient.” Lore closed the hologram. “I worked with twenty-five versions of myself and twenty-six versions of my partner to try and undo the damage they caused. So far, we have been able to restore the four missing species and we have… Fixed Quatarr…” Lore looked to Char who shrugged. “And we are going to remove whatever scheme Crait had in place on Aetar and Solossur to end the slavery there.” Alodrass smiled.
“So all’s well that ends well.” The Minister clapped.
“Not quite.” Char started. “We may have started fixing things but we are by no means finished. And the people we are yet to get to… Let’s just say, they aren’t happy. Crait’s Inquisitors forced six species from their home-worlds and have, for the last… Thirteen…” She looked to Alodrass who nodded. “Thirteen years, they’ve kept two more in servitude. In short, the majority of the galaxy hate humanity.”
“Oh.” The Minister was at a loss for words. “This is a lot.”
Lore nodded. “We realise this but it’s something we need to be dealing with. Char and I have taken over The Guild and we think it’s time we stepped out of the shadows and openly helped not just humanity, but any species that will accept it, openly. We’d like to propose The Guild become an independent branch of The Ministry; like The Military or Exploration Guilds. Our goal would be to clean up Crait’s mess then try and repair humanity’s reputation before the other Guilds accidentally start a war that could have been easily avoided.”
“I will have to discuss this with The Chambers.” The Minister sat back in their chair. “I’ll need a written proposal, an action plan and a full debrief on the history and capabilities of The Temporal Sciences Guild. Until then, I can’t officially do anything.”
Lore moved to stand. “Then that’s what you’ll get. Expect it sooner rather than later.” They smiled, standing.
Char and Alodrass each placed a hand on one of Lore’s shoulders. “I’d cover your eyes if I were you.” Char smirked.
With two more blinding white flashes, they were back on The Occam’s Razor.

Crait was more than thorough in their preparations; each MemDex was as close to a minute by minute recount of their cycle as the format would allow. Lore and Char watched all twenty-five, making sure to take detailed notes of the events that occurred. Once they had concluded their studies, they moved on to writing their comprehensive history of The Temporal Sciences Guild. By the time The Razor reached Earth, their reports were complete and had been handed in three days earlier. They set themselves in high orbit before Breaching down to The Minister’s office.
The door opened.
“My gods!” The Minister exclaimed. “I forgot you could do that.”
“Minister.” Lore smiled.
“I’ve been in emergency session after emergency session discussing your reports, the detail was appreciated, and, surprisingly, we were able to come to a conclusion.” The Minister started. Brian and Alodrass’ faces were more than enough to show how big of a shock that was. “Given that the only people who knew about the true nature of The Guild are in this room, The Chambers decided in a unanimous vote to sweep Crait’s Guild under the rug and allow you to start The Guild anew; as far as humanity is concerned, it never happened. Going forward, you four will be responsible for The Temporal Sciences Guild’s acts and actions.”
“Hold on…” Alodrass held up her hand. “I was brought in as a trainer. I’m not actually a part of this.”
“It would be helpful if you stayed…” Lore gave her a hopeful look.
“We’ll talk later.” Alodrass returned.
“Anyway, the leadership of The Guild is yours; given how your report claims you earned the title, none of us dared take it back from you, and, in return for the pardon and general rug sweeping, it is your responsibility to maintain. You’ll be mostly independent of the hierarchy because no-one could think of a way to integrate you without causing a headache, so you’ll report directly to my office.” The Minister removed a tablet from their stack.
Lore’s wounded eye flickered as they scanned the document. “So we’re on our own then. We’re recognised as an official Guild of The Protectorate but we are essentially an openly clandestine unit.”
“Basically yes.” The Minister sat. “It’s a difficult situation. By your own records, your organisation still hasn’t technically recruited you because the Oracle responsible is currently in prison. All this is to say that any attempt to bring you in as anything other than an open secret would result in more questions than answers and, by our own thinking, potential paradoxes too.”
“That’s a good point.” Brian spoke up. “If, for example, The Chambers were to cut our funding, or even shut us down before your recruitment, the universe would crack like an egg.”
“We didn’t know that but thanks for telling me that’s something that could happen.” The Minister couldn’t disguise their terror. “You will be allowed to serve as advisors to the other Guilds and, on occasion, The Chamber itself but otherwise, you are an independent organisation.”
“Understood.” Lore sped through the document again. “Hang on, you want me to give a speech?”
“We thought, since Crait’s Guild pissed off so many species, it may help them to see that we are striving for change. New Guild, new humanity. Together, The Protectorate and The Temporal Sciences Guild will apologise and lay out the foundations for improvements to be made and hopefully alliances to be built. If we’re going to be giving up a large portion of the power we’ve apparently had, we should probably try and get on people’s good sides.”
“Indeed.” Lore nodded. “Quatarr will likely be friendly with us however, they will also want to try and rebuild their empire which won’t include us. Only time will tell however.”
Char interrupted. “How long have we got to write this speech?”
The Minister inhaled sharply as they prepared to return bad news. “Three days.” They were quick to add. “But you’ve got access to time travel so it should be a breeze for you.”
“We’ll have it done.” Lore nodded. “Anything else we ought to know?”
“You’ll need to have The Guild ready before your speech… And it’s not just a speech to the public but you’ll need a speech for The Chambers too.”
Lore sighed. “We’ll have it done.” They replied in a monotone voice.
“Sorry…” I know you’ve probably been through a lot but we’d rather deal with this sooner than later.” The Minister handed Lore another tablet. “I’ve downloaded some of the previous Guild leaders opening speeches for reference should you need some inspiration. To be honest, you could probably ‘magpie’ a few bits to cobble together your speech should you be low on time.”
“We’ll have it done.” Lore nodded then stood up. “Best get started.” They feigned a smile.
The Minister winced.

Not wanting to damage their eyes again, Lore and Char elected to leave the room before they Breached away. Alodrass, Brian, Char and Lore stood in the nerve centre of The Guild; save for them, it was empty. The entirety of The Headquarters were spotless. Lore approached the nearest terminal, the ID card in their pocket activated it before they could do anything.
“Congratulations and welcome home, Head Inquisitor Lore!” Crait’s face filled the sizeable monitor at the head of the room. “I know you’re not one for hierarchy so I remodelled the situation room. Based it on an old human design from the nineteen sixties; I know you like a bit of retro; it was capable enough to get humanity to the moon so it should be more than enough for you to monitor the timeline.” Crait smiled. “We’ve colour coded every department, knowing full well you’ll want to change the colours given because ‘Research and development isn’t green its grey, the hospital is green.’”Crait paused.
“They aren’t wrong.” Lore looked to Char who nodded in acknowledgement.
To their amazement, Crait had left just the right amount of time for their interaction before continuing. “So we’ve made sure that they’re easy to change. Whatever colours you choose, follow them and they’ll get you where you want to be. This message and many more like it were recorded for your convenience. No traps, no tricks. They’re there if you need them.” The screen faded to black.
“They’re right.” Lore looked around. “I do prefer this to how it was in Crait’s MemDexes.”
“It’s cleaner isn’t it?” Char concurred.
What started off as pinstripes in the centre of the room widened as they branched off, forming the different paths to the different departments of The Guild’s building. For the time being, only one was of interest to them: the prison.