Bit returned to her tower a little over an hour later, with Keen in tow. He had been entirely subdued during their trip, asking no questions about what she had discussed with Sombra or what her future would be. He said very little until they returned to the tower steps. "If it doesn't interfere with what the secretary has required of you, I would still like to bring you on a tour of the factory plant," he said. "When will you have time?"
Tomorrow, technically. But she still didn't know what was waiting in the Wizard's bedroom. "I'm going to be bringing Pathfinder to meet with Secretary Bolero in two days," she said. "After that. How long do we have until winter? I do not usually bother tracking the seasons, since they aren't relevant to me."
"Another two months," Keen said. "Don't think I'm asking for myself, Bit. When winter comes, Zircon barely survives. In the past we could burn the excesses of the bourgeoisie, and before that we had the city's reserve of coal and oil. Now everything that can be burned has burned. Thousands died last winter, despite my best efforts. Thousands more will die this year, if we can't do something."
She sighed. This wasn't the mission she had been given—but if saving the ponies of Zircon from freezing and starvation was why Crimson wanted her to share his discoveries, that had to make some allowances for conventional help too, right? "Tomorrow morning then. Send someone to the tower, we'll go straight there."
Keen relaxed. He touched her shoulder briefly with one hoof, breath puffing out between them in the evening chill. "Thank you, Wizard. You will be a hero to the revolution all over again when winter comes. You may drown in the letters these ponies write to you."
She didn't know what to say to that—so she just left him there at the front of the tower, hurrying up the steps to check on the polishing machine. Still running, and Pathfinder hadn't broken out to flop around the floor half-finished, either. Too bad there was no way to send any messages inside, to reassure him that she hadn't forgotten. She wasn't just going to keep him stuck in there. The machine would be finished. An updated projection now suggested it would take until tomorrow afternoon.
Bit checked the growth-mold next, as much because of the green "complete cycle" light flashing next to it, as because the polisher was right beside it. So far as she knew, nopony had ever tried making automatons shaped like ponies before her. Was there something preventing it, something that ran deeper than the simple discomfort ponies felt around machines in their own image?
Apparently not. She pried off the silicone mold, and found the pony within looked almost exactly the way she expected. There was more metal inside of course, since military-equipped automatons always had that titanium core. But the resting pony looked intact.
Crystal had solidified out the edges and along the seams, waiting to be trimmed. But she wouldn't activate this one until the process was complete. There was no reason to leave it operating before it was finished. "I hope you'll find this new form more agreeable than the old one," she whispered to her sleeping double, settling the mold gently back into place. "I'm sorry you suffered for so long." But there was only one polisher, and her time had suddenly become far more limited. She couldn't do the manual trimming right now.
Bit had to go all the way down to the vault to find the remodeling tools, including the floor resurfacer. The machine was almost as big as she was, and required help from the functional automaton to lug all the way to the top floor.
"That will be sufficient," she said, as soon as they had it into the upper laboratory. She could probably use the help tearing out Crimson's floors, but just now she didn't feel like she wanted a companion. "Watch the polishing machine. If it completes early, or Pathfinder exits before it is complete, keep him from harm."
Was it her imagination, or did the machine hesitate in the doorway. As though it was waiting for something. It shouldn't be capable of anything beyond following her direct instructions. But of all creatures, Bit would not assume. "I haven't given up on your broken friend. I will finish the repairs soon. If it goes well, I can give you a new body as well. I need assistants I can rely on."
Maybe she'd been right, because the automaton turned away, clawed metal limbs clicking as it made its way back down the stairs.
Bit stopped before the portrait, staring up at Crimson's face. He'd been so alive back then, no wrinkles or cloudy eyes. That was the way he should still look. It wasn't fair. "I'm going to do what you asked," she told him. "I have some changes I want to make to the procedures you gave me. But I will do it. I will honor the trust you placed in me."
Her memory didn't malfunction this time. The Wizard left her to her own devices to make her decision. But maybe that was right—she was alive now, after all.
Bit rolled the crystal resurfacing machine up to the bedroom door, but left it parked outside. The machine was basically a mobile crystal-growth device, used to replace small sections when accidents or damage broke them. It could also remove crystals, without damaging anything that happened to be underneath. But before she started ripping up the floor, she should probably investigate conventionally. Once she ran that machine over the floor, the past would be erased.
The room wasn't in the best shape, all things considered. The walls were potted with little cracks and breaks, bits of metal sunk into the translucent superstructure. It was the kind of damage other ponies would've dealt with, since it was too complex for Bit's old self to handle.
Bullet holes. The Revolutionary Guard couldn’t make guns like this anymore, or at least didn't carry any. But Bit knew them well. She approached the side of the bed, feeling the pattern there. Enough damage that a large crack had formed, spreading in all directions. But crystal was hardy stuff—it might keep standing for another few centuries before it finally reached the building's exterior.
The bedding and other linens had all been too damaged to leave on the flat mattress. Had there been some clue within perhaps? Bit made her way to the closet, then drew out the two large boxes of debris she'd gathered. For any other room she would've just dumped it all—but who knew? Maybe the Wizard would want some of his old things repaired instead?
Bit dumped both onto the floor at her hooves. What mystery had the Wizard hidden here, expecting her to find it?
At first she saw nothing of interest. A few hundred empty brass cylinders, the torn remnants of sheets and blankets, and the collection of pale stones, practically melted into the cloth.
Bit's eyes narrowed, and she lifted one of the larger specimens for a closer look. She'd seen its like before, in Pathfinder's x-rays and medical scans. And were those bits of white and red clinging to it…?
She dropped the stone, squealing with shock. It thunked hollowly to the ground, cracking along one side as no stone she knew ought to behave.
Bit stared down into the pile of debris, and felt suddenly as though it were staring back at her. From the beginning I knew the Wizard was in his chambers, waiting for me. I was right after all.
She no longer wanted to look. But now Bit didn't have a choice. She spread the debris carefully, tossing away the shreds of rotten and many-times frozen cloth, until all that remained was the white stones.
Bone. How had she been so stupid? That unicorn skull in particular—what else could that be? When she dared intrude on this room the last time, she hadn't even wondered. It wasn't something she'd been sent to do, so she didn't care.
But now she understood. All those times the Wizard had told her that ponies made from crystal would be immune to aging. She repeated it so many times, to so many ponies—but what did it mean?
It meant this. It meant bones with shreds of red fur, twisted up in the wreckage of rotten blankets. It meant the Wizard she had spent so long waiting for, the one she'd worked for years to entice to return, the one she'd believed was so far beyond all other creatures that he was beyond all harm—he'd been dead from the first. How many years had she spent cleaning the tower, all for her dedication to a pony who was now incapable of appreciating her service.
All her labor had been for nothing. She could have thrown herself down into the sewer with all the garbage, and the result for Crimson would be no different.
Bit cried. Cried so long that time itself warped and twisted around her. Cried long enough that the irrationality of it all no longer mattered.
It didn't matter that it wasn't her fault, that there was nothing she could've done. She retreated from the room, squeezed past the floor-resurfacing machine, and settled down in front of the room's largest working console. She couldn't look up at the painting anymore, not without thinking about the eyeless, vacant skull in the other room. He wasn't coming to save her.
Bit worked through her tears, which was easy enough since she couldn't make them. She brought up the security console, then went back. Given the tower hadn't had power shortly after the revolution, there weren't too many junk files to sort through. Just far enough that she could look at the building's security footage.
All this time she'd been waiting for Pathfinder to show her what happened to Crimson, or even Keen to dig it out from some archive somewhere. But she didn't need them. The answers were in her tower.
After a few minutes of searching, Bit found what she was looking for. She saw torches outside—stolen guns, pitchforks, and a mob that filled the streets. The ash rising over Zircon overpowered the snow that night, covering everything in gray.
But the battle wasn't what she expected. After fighting through a detachment of royal guards, the mob reached the doors. A stallion wearing stolen armor and dripping with blood banged on them. "Open!" he yelled. "All the magic in Equus could not save you now! The palace has fallen!"
Crimson answered from his bed, dressed in an evening gown. Bit remembered his voice, overcome with weariness. He did not sound angry. "If you attempt to siege this building, hundreds or thousands of innocent ponies will die in the attempt," he said. "The wizards who held this tower before me did not wish to see it fall."
"Your army lay dead," taunted the stallion. Other ponies filled the entryway beside him, brandishing their weapons. One dragged a makeshift ram towards the doors. "Do you think you can hide, Prince Zircon? Your family is the cause of all our suffering. The queen is no better than the old king!"
"I agree," Crimson said. "But I do not think the same is true for my staff and apprentices. I have kept them enslaved against their will here, in full knowledge of the evil of that act. They are no more guilty than you are."
Absurd, Bit thought, staring furiously at the recording. Apprentices, enslaved? Could the crowd actually believe something so absurd? What force could enslave the ponies who mastered the phenomenal powers taught in this tower?
The ponies outside did not object. Not one pointed out the flaw in that reasoning. "If you're trying to escape, you have a strange way about it, Prince Zircon." Behind him, a pair of ponies began banging on the front door. That should've been the moment their group was sprayed with nerve gas—but it wasn't. Nothing happened.