1:4:7 Solutions (Part 2)

They found the kitchenette’s fabricator and ordered two cups of tea with a small pitcher of milk and a saucer of sugar. They grabbed one of the two tea spoons from the drawer and placed it in the sugar. They found a tray, loaded it with the tea set then carefully walked it over to the table. They placed the tray down carefully and arranged the contents around the fruit bowl. They pulled out a chair, sat down and waited for Char to join them; they made their tea to their liking and prepared Char’s to hers in an attempt to somehow coax her down. They thought they heard her moving around upstairs but, after the knocking grew louder, they realised it was coming from the door. Lore slowly opened the door, peering through the slight opening they had created. While they were yet to meet all of the other Lores, they recognised the Lore behind the door.
“Emm?” Lore pulled the door completely open.
“We alright to come in or is this a bad time?” They waited just outside of the threshold.
Lore nodded. “Come on in. Char’s just upstairs.” They led Emm and Clayton into the living room before going over to the fabricator and fabricating two more cups of tea. They added the milk and sugar to the specifications given to them by Tay in Cambridge before delivering them. “There you go.” Lore set the mugs down.
“Thanks…” Emm accepted the beverage.
“Sorry. Force of habit.” Lore took a sip of their own tea. Despite leaving it out for a moment and fabricating it at a temperature that should have been safe, it still managed to burn their tongue.
“Thank you.” Clayton smiled.
Lore Breached upstairs to get Char. “Guests… Woah.” She was enjoying the bed.
“What?” Char had changed into a set of fluffy pyjamas and was curled up reading a book. “Can’t a girl get comfy?” She closed the book around her thumb.
“Emm and Clayton are downstairs.” Lore was secretly jealous. “What are you reading?”
“Apparently it’s the highest rated book according to The Council. It’s about this Time Travelling psychic or something.” Char shrugged. “I’ll be down in a minute.” She waved her teleporter, the bold, crimson, polished leather looked extremely out of place with the pastel fleece of the pyjamas.
Lore returned back to Emm and Clayton. They took a seat opposite them. “Sorry about that. She’ll be joining us presently.” They felt their face light up red.
“No rush.” Emm took a sip of their drink. “We can begin without her.” They set their mug down. “Who are you really because you aren’t Fifteen?”
“I’m sorry?” Lore’s hand slowly moved towards their Breacher.
Emm reached into their jacket and removed a tablet from their inside pocket. “You’ve got something none of us have; want to guess what it is?”
Lore just shrugged.
“You’ve got a unique gene degradation. Nothing too extreme, not even noticeable unless you’ve spent years looking at your own DNA sequence. Nothing to worry about either, it’s the closest thing to a super power you’re likely to get. Your kidneys are just a little less susceptible to disease.” Lore looked at them confused. “Told you it was nothing too noticeable. You’re a clone.” Lore’s eyes widened. “Question is, who made you?”
Lore tried to think of a way to deflect the question. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“So we did.” Emm and Clayton nodded together.
Lore sighed. “You did…” They didn’t sound too impressed with themselves. Just then, Char appeared.
Still wearing her pyjamas, she sat beside Lore and took a sip of her tea. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess they know…”
“They do.” Lore grimaced.
“Well then, I suppose then we hope we don’t blink out of existence.” She shrugged as if it was nothing.
Emm looked at her, confused. “If you’re clones that means this could be the last cycle.”
“It is, at least that’s what Crait’s told us. We either win or die this time.” Lore picked up their mug. “Well, since you know already, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt too much to make sure you do it right.”
“Go on.” Clayton started recording on her teleporter.
“Okay. To start, when you pitch it to The Council, tell them you’re going to select and carefully curate the memories you choose for us. It’s the only way they’ll go ahead with it… Unless we tell them we’re clones now? Anyway, don’t do that. Give Char the memories you want to give her and then fake an escape. Dump me at these co-ordinates with nothing but the clothes on my back and a few reminders of your life.” Lore tried to remember what was in their pockets when they woke up. “For example, one of Char’s pistol conduits, a handful of Rel, some hair pins and some of those bread cracker things, whatever they are, I love them.”
“I think we can do that.” Emm reached for an apple. “Did you fabricate these or were they here when you got here?”
“No, they were here when we got here.” Lore was confused by the question but more confused by the response as Emm tapped the apple then dropped it onto the table. “Right…”
“Sorry, Tree took it upon themselves to fill every room with wonky apples for the pun.” Emm returned the apple to the bowl.
“The pun?” Lore took the apple and bit into it. At first it was like biting into wood but then its core exploded, sending juice dribbling down their chin. It was perhaps one of the most unpleasant things they had ever put in their mouth. “Oh my gods!” They politely swallowed it down. “That’s awful. What is that?”
“That, is a pear.” Clayton shook her head.
“Tree thought it would be funny to engineer the worst pear and then they disguised it as an apple to get back at everyone for calling them Tree.” Emm shook their head in solidarity. “Because the apple doesn’t fall…”
Lore didn’t want to laugh but it was a funny joke. “Right then, no apples, great.”
“Unless you fabricate it yourself.” Emm took a drink.
“But be careful because one in a hundred apples are disguised pears.” Clayton picked up the fruit bowl and took it to the fabricator. “We can’t seem to get rid of the virus.” The ‘apples’ flew into the fabricator system followed by the bowl.
“So, if not to join us, why are you here?” Emm asked.
“We saw a photo you’ll take tomorrow. We were in it.” Lore looked to Char. She gave them a gesture as if to add the other part of their reason. “And there was another Lore and Char in the background…”
“More clones?” Clayton looked excited.
Lore tried to find the picture on their Breacher. “We don’t know. As far as we know, there are only twenty-six of the both of us.” They showed it to Emm and Clayton. “That’s us but we don’t know who they are unless it’s us again.”
“Why are you here?” Char gave a cheeky glance as she sipped her tea.
Clayton and Emm’s eyes widened. “Oh.” Emm looked at their Breacher. “Time’s gotten away from us… Sorry, we were sent down to invite you to a meeting with the other Council members.”
Lore drained their cup, filled their cheeks with tea and then swallowed hard. “We best get a move on then.”

The War room looked exactly as it did on The Occam’s Razor. Almost. They were two chairs short. Lore and Char stood awkwardly at the head of the table.
“Thank you for joining us.” The First gestured to the end of the table. “Take a seat… Oh.” They paused.
“This should be brief so you’ll hopefully be alright standing.” Charrlene smiled.
“Okay then. We’ve nearly finished work on The Slingshot so we’ve officially reached the bridge. Has anyone got any ideas?” The First looked around the table. A few of the Council members shook their heads as their eyes met. “Seriously? We’ve had three years to do this…” They looked disappointed but more at themselves than their fellows.
The room fell silent. Lore looked to Char. She nodded. “What’s the problem?” Lore’s voice was soft and careful.
“The Slingshot, as you know, is designed to propel ships at ludicrous speeds to bypass the Temporal Guild’s blockade around Quatarr. It’s also got a secondary function: To fire a ship back in time.” The First began. “We’ve run every simulation we can but there is no way we can get all of our ships to Quatarr with the power we’ve got here.”
“Screw the power we’ve got here, there’s not enough space on the planet for the batteries we’d need to store enough power to get our whole fleet into position.” Potts chuckled.
Lore took a moment to think about what they were about to suggest. “Does the size of the ship matter?” Char grabbed their wrist and time slowly started reversing. It stopped after a moment.
“What are you doing?” Char looked at them as though they were about to share an unknowable secret.
“What if we were the push they needed to develop The Razor? I wasn’t going to tell them directly. Maybe hint at it and let them solve their own problem.” Lore gave a half shrug.
Char pondered their response. “Fine.” She eventually agreed. “But if things go tits up, you’re using your Breacher alone to sort it.”
“Alright.” Lore took her hand off of their wrist and held it as time around them returned to the present.
“Ship size shouldn’t impact power use. Theoretically we should be able to launch any ship of any size quite easily.” The cogs in Pott’s mind were beginning to turn.
“How big of a room can your dimensional projectors create?” Lore prompted again.
The Council thought for a moment. Most however reacted to the question with extreme confusion. “Maybe a few square kilometres. Why?” Ant’s answer got a lot more cogs spinning until the Rube Goldberg machine in their minds finally reached its climax and sprung.
“It seems so simple now!” The First shouted.
“Oh… That is brilliant!” Potts agreed.
Not all of the Lores were fully caught up. Lore walked over to the room’s fabricator and fabricated a fruit basket filled with apples. “Think of it like this. The apples are your ships and I’m The Slingshot.” They carried the basket to the table. “I could throw them one at a time and tire my arms out or… I could create a basket to put them in and throw them all together in that!” There was a harmony of surprised gasps from around the table as they realised what they meant.
“But how would we get the ships we need to the past?” Han asked.
Lore took out one of the apples and tossed it to The First while looking at Han. “Like that.” They then took another apple and bit into it. The tension in the room rose exponentially and remained high as they tried to gauge Lore’s reaction. A dribble of juice ran down their chin; they slowly lowered the ‘apple’ and placed it on the table before reluctantly swallowing the pear flavoured abomination.
“Who the hel disguises pears as apples?” Lore looked ready to toss the ‘apple’ at the next person to raise their hand. No-one did.
“How soon do you think we could have a blue print ready?” The First looked to Potts.
Potts turned to Truly. “I think we could adapt something we’ve been working on. Give us an hour.” Truly nodded.
“Alright then, we’ll reconvene at Pott’s lab when they’re ready. Dismissed.” The First waved and the Lores and Chars started to filter out. “You two, walk with me.” The First rose from their chair and met Lore and Char at the end of the table. They gestured for them to lead on out and into the corridor. The First moved past them to take the lead while Charrlene brought up the rear as the four of them started walking. Three of them had no idea where they were going but The First made sure they remained on course. Door after door, corridor after corridor, Lore was convinced they were walking in circles until their environs changed. A left turn through an inconspicuous door led them to the central courtyard.