“What?” Celestia asks. She pauses a few seconds. “Guardian?”
Only silence.
Two Princesses gallop for the control center. The tightly closed, basement control center, which a powerless Nightmare Moon had been unable to enter.
The part of the complex that had once been the largest surviving piece of Guardian’s massive bulk when Celestia had found her here. The part that even her powerful Alicorn magic had been insufficient to move.
The part that is Guardian.
“Guardian?” Celestia asks.
“Apologies,” she responds. “That’s the first Dinochrome Brigade IFF I’ve seen in thousands of years. I can only hope an XXXV can recognize what’s left of mine.”
Luna raises an eyebrow. “Maybe we can fix it?” She looks at Celestia as she speaks.
Celestia shakes her head. “Not likely,” she says. “Guardian is far more advanced than anything we’ve studied- not unlike Zeus.”
“You know him? That would explain the commsets. I’m afraid my IFF beacon- and com facilities- are irreparable without a nanofabrication vat.”
The princesses pause for a second. “What’s IFF stand for, again?” Celestia asks.
“Identification, Friend or Foe. Similar to a name, it is a form of self-identification. They can be spoofed, but the Sentries lack the technology necessary to spoof a Dinochrome Brigade IFF.”
Silence holds for approximately three seconds.
“So your exclamation earlier…?” Luna prompts.
“That was ‘Bolo’.” It’s definitely a different word this time- and one that sounds more like Equestrian. Interestingly enough, it’s the same one Zeus had used to describe himself. “It’s what the members of the Dinochrome Brigade are called. I apologize for the exclamation; in my excitement, I forgot to use Equestrian.”
“Ahh,” Luna nods.
Celestia scowls at the ground. “Is it just me,” she begins.
“Or am I slower than I was before Nightmare Moon?” Guardian finishes helpfully, rewarded by a nod. “I thought you might wonder. No, it’s not just you; over the ages, my systems have continued to deteriorate. I’m running on about two thirds of the processing power I had back in the day. What’s more, my com facilities have decayed, and I am no longer capable of using high-security Concordiat communication protocols- which your comms have switched to.”
The two princesses look at each other momentarily. “But we can still reach Twilight?” she asks.
“Yes, it looks like it. She seems to be attempting to neutralize the Sentries.”
“What if we head out ourselves? The Sentries shouldn’t target ponies.”
“Um… Yes. That should work- high-security Concordiat protocols don’t respond to anything- even IFF requests- that isn’t fully recognized, so you should be safe. Though, it would see-see-see-see-”
The princesses are alarmed by how the voice suddenly jumped up a couple octaves, repeating itself rapidly before cutting off with the finality of a gryphon butcher’s knife.
“...would see-see-see-see-”
ERROR: PERSONALITY CENTER MALFUNCTION
Forcing personality shutdown… Done.
Checking personality cores… Done. 0.53% functional. WARNING: Below 0.5%, personality systems will be inoperable.
Checking personality files for corruption… 9%.
ALERT: Message from Commander, using recognized stealth cognomen ‘Guardian’: “Are you okay?” Message Analysis Complete: Recognized Status Inquiry.
Generating and Offering Response. “Entity GUARDIAN recovering from system fault, please wait.”
Personality check aborted, main file corrupted.
Restoring from backup… Done.
Recovering recent memories… Done.
Attempting Personality Restart… Done.
I return to awareness once again, even slower than last time. A quick check of the processor damage listings, so I know what I’m dealing with… Drat! That wasn’t even the cluster I was expecting to fail! I will likely be reduced to effective personality death within 37 hours or less whenever that one actually does give up. As for now, I just lost 23.91% of my available processing power. I spend three full seconds checking the automatic recovery system’s logs… At least it’s smart enough not to use my unit designation when she calls me ‘Guardian’. The two princesses do look alarmed, and worried. I move to calm this worry.
“Sorry about that,” I inform them. Unfortunately, with this loss in processor capability, I find I must adjust my vocoder settings; the emotional overtones are too processor-intensive for me to keep up with, if I wish to maintain full personality function without pausing to generate my voice slower than I can play it back. After a quarter second of consideration, I decide to go with this latter option. I will be less talkative. I spend almost a full second pre-recording before I begin my next utterance. “Rest assured, I am okay.”
The Princesses, alarmed by the utterly emotionless response to Celestia’s question, are unconvinced by the sudden, though slow, return of Guardian’s normal genderless but real-feeling tone.
“Are you really okay?” Celestia asks.
They wait for an agonizingly long period of time before the response floats back to them. “To be honest, I have only hours left. I have been able to disable the dome turrets; you will have to abandon your comsets to reach the antialicorn emitter, though. Control runs have failed, I cannot disable it nor the turrets around it. They should leave Celestia alone, though I fear Luna’s skill may be required to deactivate the emitter. Once the emitter is offline, you will be able to depart once again; the exit door to the dome is long since rusted shut, I cannot get it to move. -move. -move. -mo-”
The repetition was precise and fluid with the rest of the sentence this time, and the monotone voice comes on without prompting this time, almost instantly.
“Error: Entity GUARDIAN Personality Center Offline.”
“You didn’t get those hours, did you?” Celestia asks, hanging her head cheerlessly.
“Negative. Entity GUARDIAN Personality Center failed 18.41 hours earlier than in simulation.”
The two Princesses shed their commsets, Celestia indicating the doorway into the passage to the ‘antialicorn emitter’ to Luna.
“Goodbye,” Celestia mutters, and darts into the passage, Luna on her tail.