Anemoia

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mystery, Science Fiction, Crystal Ponies, Violence
Length: 67409

Bit is the first of her kind, a crystal machine shaped like a pony. For lifetimes she served, until her master was long dead. Instead of fall dormant like the other machines, she snapped. Suddenly, she could choose. She did.

Bit is the first of her kind, a pony that was made from carved crystal and supernal circuitry. For many years she worked, obedient to the will of her master in endless repetition. She knew nothing else, not boredom, not satisfaction from her work, not anger or resentment or joy. Existence was obedience to directive, purpose fulfilled.

But around her, the world was changing. Her home wasn't Equestria, but the last surviving Crystal City, defiant to the Windigos and the imperial decree of Alicorns alike. She did not know, and could not care, how much the ponies of Zircon suffered under the rule of their king. But she was there the day those whispers united in a defiant chorus.

When the fires were still smoldering, she returned to her work. Generations came and went, and still she labored. It was all she was, all she knew, all she wanted. Until the day her last broom broke.

For the first time in her existence, Bit doubted.

Daily for the first four days, because Christmas. Updates Thursdays after that. Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail. Cover by Zutcha.

A story about finding the center of the maze.

Published 2020-12-24 20:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2021-07-08 17:00:02 UTC

Chapter 2: Heliodor

Bit might not have the Wizard with her to remind her of her duties, but that didn't matter. Her commitment to her responsibilities was fundamental. She could no more give them up than she could abandon her post.

Still, many days of reflection on her task led her to another powerful realization. She had been told to take from the supply shelves and clean, and not stop until the task was done. But the Wizard wouldn't care how she cleaned, would he? So long as the result was the same, she could achieve it some other way.

He would be more upset that I have failed than to see me using other tools. With that realization, Bit began to search for some other way to clean the windows, since that was the last job she had continued to do.

It took some searching. The tower was old, and it wasn't just the supply cabinet that was in poor shape. Many rooms she visited were filled with rotting furniture, and cloth that had withered until there was only a few threads.

But on a shelf tucked away and sealed, she found soft cloth surviving despite all the years. With these she made a brush. Then she used the bits of brooms without bristles, and made herself a handle.

Bit reveled in her return to routine. She cleaned every window until it was crystal clear, and the arctic sun filled the tower with blue-white light. She cleaned until she could see Zircon outside, no matter the room she visited.

True, there wasn't much to see down there. The Wizard had once spoken to her of the many wonderful things in the city below, of its crystal berries and song-markets. But she could hear no music anymore. The ponies she did see walking down below did not dress in the colorful cloaks and fine crystal jewelry she remembered from the tower's ancient visitors. Instead they wore dark robes tight about their bodies, shuffling forward in tiny, huddled groups.

All of Zircon is like a tower that needs cleaning. Where are the ones who kept it nice? The thought struck her like a physical blow, and no sooner had it come then she found her understanding faded again. Bit had not been made to care for a city, she only had to worry about one tower.

Her newfound bravery at visiting the Wizard's quarters affected her work in other ways. Instead of moving her brush the same way each time, she brushed only where she saw dirt, and left windows in rooms that were kept shut to go far longer between cleanings.

Soon enough, she found she could easily finish her task before the tower got too dirty, despite its many floors. Long ago, before her tools had broken, she had other jobs too.

She scavenged and scoured through the old wastebins, and found the broken parts of old brooms. With time and patience, she crafted many broken tools into a few that worked—enough to return to her task.

Old work brought back old memories. As she swept the halls, she remembered their ancient occupants, the starsmiths of Zircon whose eyes had glittered behind spectacles. She swept at the places their pipe-smoke had once trailed onto the floor, and dodged around the workbenches where the Wizard's many apprentices had labored tirelessly to follow his commands.

We were alike. We all knew the Wizard was the greatest of us all, and we were eager to obey his instructions.

Except they weren't alike. The apprentices had changed over the years, male and female, winged and horned, young and old. Though they claimed to serve the Wizard, their dedication always failed in the end, and they left.

I shouldn't be alone in this tower. There were many others to help.

She found their quarters—the smaller rooms in the back, where other helpers had once stayed. They had uniforms like hers, though there was only dust left of those now. They had beds and chairs like the Wizard, though their rooms were barely closet-sized.

You abandoned us, leaving all the tasks for me to do alone. You should've had more dedication to our Wizard.

In her rage, Bit slammed their doors shut one by one, and resolved never to clean them again. The others had abandoned the tower, they could sleep in dirty rooms.

When she got no complaints, Bit began to try this daring experiment elsewhere. There were lots of old storage rooms in the tower, that no longer had anything inside them. A room without a purpose did not need to be kept clean, since nopony would visit it anyway. She abandoned them.

Suddenly Bit had even more time, and she began to take up other chores. It didn't matter quite where she got the supplies—she could scavenge from the tower's other resources, she could repurpose, and the Wizard never appeared to chastise her.

Soon the ground wasn't just swept, but she saw her own reflection in the tiles. She ventured outside for the first time in forever, dragging the bins one at a time to the ancient sewage entrance.

Instead of steam rising into her face and water flowing beneath, she looked down into the city's municipal garbage system and found only a stink of decay, and a layer of frozen green sludge taller than a pony.

But that wasn't her problem: Bit dumped her bins, and returned to the tower. She straightened every photograph, dusted every screen, and lacquered over the ancient tapestries.

But still there was something missing: her tower should not be dark.

The problem was not unique to the tower—all of Zircon was dark now, where once it lit up the arctic winters like a spotlight. She could look out across the nights and see the streetlights all rusting away, with many repurposed to hold up clotheslines or taken down for scrap.

But those were not her problems. If the city wanted to be dark, the city could find somepony to clean it up. Bit needed to fix her tower.

Again she was struck with a problem she couldn't solve. The tower's electrical systems did not respond, the switches were all useless. The emergency generator down in the basement had withered away, and the switch she could still find on one side had no visible effect.

So she returned to her wizard's chambers. She'd been back more than once over the time since she first entered, to clean inside as she thought was proper. Now instead of dust and corrosion, the Wizard's foremost chamber had clear windows. His screens were dark and useless, but he had a photograph on his wall, almost to scale with real ponies.

Now that she'd cleaned the dust and lacquered its surface, the ponies within seemed to be looking back at her, judging her work.

There were two, one with a horn and one without. She didn't recognize the one without. But the Wizard's face was familiar. It didn't matter that his mane was still blue in this picture, instead of streaked with white. It didn't matter that he still had the muscles of a soldier, instead of a frame lean with study. This was Bit's Wizard, as surely as anything.

"Prince Crimson Zircon and—" read a gold plaque just below the painting, polished to a shine. Not Wizard at all, as it should. Prince Crimson Zircon."

That's my Wizard's name. Crimson Zircon." Prince was another word, she was pretty sure it meant something like 'Wizard' did. But Crimson, that was something else.

"You don't need to call me master," her master said, levitating his hammer down onto the desk beside the nails. "The apprentices call me that because they're here to learn from me. But that isn't why you're here."

"Why am I here?" she asked, following him to the storage cabinet. The doors had been broken and shattered, and most of the tools inside were gone.

He set the hammer down, and it vanished with everything else. "You teach me, Bit."

Even now, his response didn't make sense. The memory was nonsense—she'd never taught him anything, and obviously never would. But she had learned from him in that moment, learned that sometimes even the Wizard could make mistakes.

"I need to get the electricity back on," she said. "But I don't know how. What should I do?"

She stared up at the portrait, searching it for answers. The ponies depicted here were young, standing so close together. The apprentices didn't like it when she got so close, and neither did the Wizard. Apparently this other pony hadn't learned about personal space yet.

But she hurt to look at, so Bit focused on Crimson. Wizard Crimson Zircon was obviously the one who would answer her question. "I went through the whole tower using your manual, Master. The wiring is undamaged, and the lighting crystals are intact. The problem is the source."

She stared at the portrait for a long time, searching for some sign from her master. The Wizard was very wise, and could easily have left a message behind for her. Maybe he would know she would violate the injunction and climb into his quarters?

But she saw nothing, just the two ponies looking at each other. The longer she stared, the more her chest started to ache—which didn't make sense. There was no heart to beat, no organs to sicken. She looked somewhere else, out to the nearby window.

That made her feel better—she'd cleaned it perfectly, so she could see Zircon below as the sun rose. Well, rose higher—at their latitude, the sun wouldn't set until winter, when it would remain dark for just as long. As it rose, she looked over the city below.

There were patterns down there, patterns she'd never seen before. The city was arranged in clusters, with the largest group of buildings around the Zircon Spire. She could see their little wooden roofs, and even some smoke rising from them.

The smaller clusters were iced over, and shone bright white back towards her. The circles of buildings pointed at their own zircons, why weren't they getting warmth?

It's all connected. The Zircon Spire is still working, but everything else needs to be cleaned.

If Bit wanted to get the Wizard's tower working again, she would have to light the whole city first.

"That's right, Master!" She turned, bounding back over to the portrait. "I won't fail you, Master! I cleaned the tower, next I will make all your machines work again. The lights will glow, the water will flow, and you will come back."

She could imagine the moment, just as she remembered so many times before. "Great job, Bit," he would say, stumbling into his workshop one morning with breakfast levitating beside him and heavy books trailing through the air in his magic. "This is perfect. Were you up all night?"

"I am always up," she answered, following behind him like one of his many levitated tools. Though of course, he didn't use any magic to make her do it. "Are you sure it is perfect? There are three spots on the floor I could not clean. I think the tile is chipped, and my scrubbing made it worse."

"We'll get new tiles." Crimson touched her on the shoulder with one soft, warm leg. "Don't stress, Bit. You don't even have to do this. We have servants for a reason."

"I want to be useful," Bit declared. The workshop was empty around her, the chairs broken and the machines silent. There were no apprentices laboring near the walls, and the white surfaces usually covered with diagrams were wiped blank. There were no new markers to make new patterns.

She touched Crimson's desk with the same hoof he had touched. There were many papers here, made of the strange material that did not rot and blow away. There was probably incredible wisdom still resting on this desk, waiting for the Wizard to return and unlock it.

Once I get the lights on, Crimson will be back, she thought. I can do this.

Chapter 3: Morganite

To bring the power back to her home, to bring Crimson back, Bit needed to discover why the electricity in Zircon had failed.

Ostensibly this was not something she had been trained to do, but she hadn't been trained to make brushes and mops either. She still spent plenty of time—days or months or years—considering and second-guessing herself while focused on her other responsibilities.

But whenever the tower was clean, her mind returned to her task. The electricity was gone, and if Zircon were going to clean itself up, it already would have. Further delay only brought further disrepair outside her windows.

Now that she had a reason to watch, Bit studied activity below with an intensity that she had never felt before. Not a single new crystal building rose under her eyes. Plenty already seemed abandoned, and a few more took on that caste as she watched. Ponies moved about in small groups, scavenging. The largest and grandest structure, Zircon Palace, was dark and empty.

What is the king doing? Shouldn't he be cleaning this?

But the king did not appear, and the lights did not return. So Bit herself was forced to become the solution.

The tower had resources, even if its library would be inaccessible without power. There were old texts, buried in the expansive vaults under the tower where ice and snow and even air could not reach them. Bit dug them out, sorted and cleaned, then she studied.

There were materials here from the days before the tower, before her Wizard, before Zircon had grown to its current strength and power. There were instructions for how the electrical systems worked, no more complex in their way than the ones she used for mixing cleaners.

Bit studied them, learned everything they contained. She learned of the Zircon Spire, which penetrated impossibly deep into the stone, so deep that the rock was glowing red. In stretching upward like a spire, it forced the flow of heat from below to above, generating the power for their city.

This was the mystery of how the center could still be warm, while the electricity had stopped working. The heat engine had been crafted to last ten thousand years, and so it worked. But if nothing was attached to draw away that energy, the flow would slow, the city would cool, but only slightly.

Each of the other zircons were really radiative coolers, attached to underground power plants. So she'd been right that the city's darkness and the abandoned districts of the city were connected, just for the wrong reasons.

After that, all Bit had to do was discover which of the power plants supplied the Wizard’s tower, and go repair it.

The first part was simple. The maps were all there, right beside the diagrams of each identical plant. Her tower was powered by Capital Waystation Symphony, the plant that had once serviced the palace and many other civic buildings. There was just one problem with this:

She would have to leave the tower. Maps and records and study were simple enough. She could even justify the time spent as really in service to her responsibilities. But if she left the tower—not just walking to the dumping site behind it, but truly left it—there would be nopony left.

Would the Wizard see her departure as a dereliction of her duties, and abandon the place for good?

No, Bit eventually decided. Crimson was wise, far wiser than she was. If she could understand it, he would. She just had to make sure of that fact before she left.

Bit clambered up to his chambers, standing before the portrait of himself and the mare without a horn. "I have to ask your permission for something," Bit said, lowering her head respectfully to the portrait. "Master, there's somewhere I have to go. The power in Zircon has failed. But I know where to make repairs. I'm going to go down and clean the city. Please forgive my indiscretion... if I could get the power working from inside the tower, I would."

The portrait said nothing. Bit found herself walking up the nearby stairs, past a gate that had been entirely iced over. She'd broken through it now, and could walk onto the balcony without restraint.

Crimson stared intently through his large telescope, occasionally jotting down notes on a levitating pad of paper. Bit held a tray closer to him, its contents steaming in the frigid air.

"Ah. Refreshment." Crimson looked up, pulling down the many layers of fabric that wrapped his face. He levitated the glass over, sipping thoughtfully at it.

"This isn't what I asked for... what have you done, Bit?"

"Apologies!" Bit shouted to the rusting telescope tripod. "But you haven't come inside, and it's so late. I thought you might need something to help you warm up."

Crimson took another sip from the glass, before pulling the layers of cloth tight about his face again. "Of course, Bit. I'm not upset, just amazed. You've just done something I wanted without being asked. Don't ever apologize for doing good."

Bit nudged the empty spot beside the telescope. Crimson wasn't here, and his old telescope would never work again. "You're right, Master," she said. "I won't apologize. I'll get the tower back on, even if you weren't here to ask. You'll see all the lights and come back, won't you?"

Crimson didn't respond, of course. But Bit was used to that by now. She left the roof behind, and gathered up her tools.

Bit slowed as she reached the base of the tower, hesitating in the mirrored hallway that was its main entrance. But if she used the lower entrances, she would have to navigate the city's catacombs and sewers, and she had already seen those were in poor repair.

She stopped beside the glass, looking back at her reflection. Bit was made of two types of crystal, a gray-colored base with thousands of etched circuit lines just under the surface, and a secondary set of green for her mane and tail. Those lines all connected, ultimately, to her horn. But that was less an organ and more an accessory, since of course no machine had magic of its own.

With all the tools she thought might be useful to repair a power substation, her back was heavily burdened with cloth, and the old metal clanked up against her body with every step. Bit was tougher than glass, but still she would have to be careful.

She had cracked a few times, long ago, and always been able to go to the Wizard for help to repair her. If she broke now, he might decide not to come. What would she do then?

No more second-guessing, Bit. The station is just outside.

Bit removed the heavy iron key from the ring around her belt, then leaned forward to unlock the front door. It clicked, and she rested one hoof on the security wheel, rotating it around until the door's many locks and mechanisms released.

The wheel resisted her, ice cracking and gears squealing in protest at the movement. But she turned anyway, slowly and relentlessly. Eventually ice showered to the ground like a wall of fractured crystal shards, and Bit stepped out into the frigid air.

Bit could not freeze, or else the ordinary conditions of the tower would have killed her long ago. But she could still feel the cold, and stepping outside gave her reason to appreciate the shelter of her tower. Wind carried little bits of snow with every gust, brushing up against her face and wedging into every opening and pore.

She stepped forward cautious, trying each patch of black ground before she trusted it to hold up her weight. Her hooves slipped and scrambled over the ground as soon as she moved them too quickly—crystal and ice did not mix.

If I have to come back here, maybe I can find some boots an apprentice left behind.

There was nothing outside the tower she hadn’t seen from above, but the change in perspective was nevertheless enough to make her hesitate. The tower had once been protected with a wall all the way around, and stood at the center of a compound of smaller buildings. But those had been wood instead of crystal, and none had survived the years. Most weren't withered away so much as trapped in dirty piles, half-collapsed under their own weight.

The towers had all collapsed, along with parts of the wall, though the damage to the gate was most dramatic. The pink crystal was shattered into chunks smaller than her legs, and frozen over with a layer of ice and snow. Bit slowed as she clambered over it, staring down at sections melted with strange magic, and others shattered by cannon fire.

Thousands of pony voices screamed together, chanting words she understood, but did not comprehend. Bit glanced down from a high window, and saw a mob stretching back into the city, thousands strong. Their torches filled the air with black smoke.

"I need you to get underground, Bit," Crimson said. "Go and do not question. You will stay there until you can't hear them anymore."

She stepped through the broken gate, and into the royal plaza. Even in the feeble sunlight, the plaza was a place of beauty, or it should've been. The ponies of Zircon had favored stained glass to tell their stories, in towering sculptures that would catch the light of different seasons differently, and change the narrative it told.

Mostly Bit passed piles of broken crystal, arranged around the square all oriented east-to-west. But there was one, suspended so high on stainless stilts that it had escaped destruction by the mob.

The visage of the royal family glowed up at her from the pavement, from a time that even Bit could not remember. But she recognized the red coat of Crimson on the king's right side, wearing the robes of the tower and carrying a brass scepter over his shoulder.

He seemed to smile at Bit, a smile filtered through nameless years. She touched one hoof against his mane on the floor below, whispering quietly. "I'll get the tower back, Master. You'll see."

She continued onward to the center of the promenade, where the floor changed to slats of metal over a gaping hole in the earth. She had to clamber over a low fence, meant to keep ponies away from the heat that should have radiated out from within.

There was no heat anymore, just metal bars covered with more dirty ice. Air drifted up past her through the openings in that metal, still flowing through the city's superstructure despite innumerable years. A good sign: this vent was so vast, Bit wasn't sure she ever could have cleaned it.

The maps also told her where she could find the plant's service entrance, and sure enough the door was where she expected it to be. Whoever had made all those maps was clearly a pony to be respected, they understood the importance of accuracy.

She stepped down into the gloom, descending the many steps into darkness. Of course the plant should've been well-lit, but she anticipated this failure. Bit fidgeted around in her tools, settling a lamp onto her forehead, and switching it on. The magic within was still good, despite the many intervening years. Thaumic crystal always did better than naked circuitry with time and cold to wear them down.

She passed other things in the halls, things that shouldn't be there. Ramshackle tents and makeshift accommodations pressed for space against the metal, collapsed and looted. She saw no flickers of movement within. There were frozen lumps of fur sometimes visible inside, but no ponies. She would not find any workers to reprimand for their poor stewardship.

Bit passed rooms packed with ancient spells and equipment, through ice and spiderweb and shadow, until she finally found the heart of the plant, where this smaller zircon rose up from deeper darkness below.

She dodged under and between cables and conduits, taking stock of everything she saw.

It was no wonder this waystation had fallen into such disrepair, no wonder the city was dark and cold.

Bit had work to do.

Chapter 4: Moonstone

Bit's repair was more complicated than just flipping a switch and turning the power back on. Had it been so easy, she had no doubt that Zircon would've cleaned itself up.

The biggest difficulty Bit faced in those early days was that somepony had tried to fix the plant, someone that had no clue how it worked. She found cables severed, machinery crushed, and vital systems configured incorrectly. Some that were otherwise working fine had been stripped for parts, leaving mechanisms standing barren.

Bit kept herself a running list of what was wrong, on what started as a single notepad but quickly ballooned out of control.

At least there was no fluctuation of light to dark and light again to distract her from her work. It didn't matter how long the task required, so long as she could accomplish it. The tower would be getting dirty in her absence—but it would be far easier to keep it clean once the power was back on. If she kept traveling back every time something went wrong, she would never succeed.

Eventually she had hundreds of pages of notes, perfect illustrations of each broken part all the way down to the smallest component. In a way, it was no different from cleaning her tower: thousands of panes connected to larger windows, and eventually whole rooms. Only when each was finished would the tower be ready for Crimson to return.

Once confident in her analysis, Bit sliced her notebooks into pages, reordering each from greatest problem to smallest. She didn't need to hold the whole picture in her head anymore, now that she was confident in her initial assessment. Then it was a simple matter of making each individual repair.

She got through her first few hundred pages in an eyeblink. She flipped switches the right way, used spare parts she had found, and stripped away redundancies to leave a single functional system behind.

But then supplies began to run thin—the plant hadn't just been abandoned, but actively ransacked. Like her tower, it was supposed to have a vast supply of redundancy.

"The Zircon is the beating heart of our world,” Crimson said long ago, leading her as close as any pony could stand to that massive pillar of clear crystal. “It's the only reason Equestria hasn't beaten us. It's our survival and our freedom and our independence. Nothing in all the world is more important than protecting it."

As usual, Bit hadn't understood him. She dodged around the fence, onto metal grates that glowed faintly red with radiated heat. She felt the warmth through crystal hooves as dimly as she felt cold, and so she could cross all the way over to it. She didn't touch it, though—the one thing she never dared. "I don't see what's so special!" she shouted back. "Just looks like a rock to me!"

He gestured for her to return—ponies were staring at them, more with every moment. Well, mostly they stared at him. They avoided looking at Bit as much as they could, as though she was hurt somehow. She'd never understood it. "It isn't a rock," Crimson said, as soon as she was back on solid ground. "The Zircon is a construct of our ancient ancestors. We don't even understand why they built it, or what they could achieve with it. But none of that matters—without it, we freeze."

"Because of the windigos," Bit supplied helpfully. "The land beyond the city is too cold. Ponies worse than me would freeze."

"Not worse." He patted her gently on the shoulder, then jerked his hoof back, hissing. "Just less thermally conductive. I can't make more of us like you until I can understand your flaws."

"Have I made a mistake?" She turned to him, looking up at those wise, violet eyes. "If I have failed you somehow, I will do everything I can to learn why. I'll fix it, I'll be better!"

He patted her again, more gently this time. "No, Bit. It was never anything you did wrong. It's more fundamental than that, outside your control. Until I fix it, you will never understand. Once I do, you won't need to ask."

She could not travel to his portrait anymore to consult for advice, so Bit climbed the steps outside to speak to his projection instead. She watched it change as the year wore on, gradually getting older, taller, leaner. For a single day, another pony appeared beside him—then she was gone again, and he transformed fully into her Wizard. The last few days of the year showed the master wizard fully wrapped in his robes, with a mighty scepter of zircon levitating in his magic and a craftspony's hammer in his belt.

Then the year turned over, and he returned to a colt, looking bored in the projection between two living parents instead of one.

This child was still him, somehow—another version, imperfectly realized. She did not know it, so she stopped consulting after that. The work took far too much time.

Sometimes she had to spend many hours on a single page, breaking down the nested requirements. The largest of these represented reconnecting the thermocouple with the Zircon Spire, which had been sliced cleanly through at the junction. She couldn't just stick metal between them and call it good—the manual had been clear about performance requirements, or else the bond would fail as soon as it was made.

It meant her first return to the tower, which had indeed continued steadily gathering dust. After resisting a minor personal crisis and hiding her brooms and brushes away so she wouldn't see them, Bit found one of the workshop's machines, the same one that spun perfect lattices of zircon for thaumic bonds.

She had never touched the machine, except to occasionally leave a glass of tea for the apprentice working it. But Bit dug up the manual, then spent another age searching for charged crystals among the tower's storage. They still had some, if she was willing to travel deep enough into the catacombs. Anything too high or too easy to loot had already been stolen.

Of course she could've done far more with the tower if the power was still on, but that was exactly the problem. The reason that her Wizard hadn't yet returned. But she could fix that, and once she did...

Then Crimson would come back, and everything in her world would make sense again. Then Bit could go back to just cleaning the tower, and leave her master to concern himself with the parts of the world she didn't understand.

She completed the thermocouple, after only a few minor failures. Bit took no rest—she didn't sleep, didn't stop to recover in the other ways that ponies needed. She was not one of them, so not subject to their weaknesses. She worked through her checklist one page at a time, until eventually she had moved every single page from her “open” pile to the “finished” pile.

She gathered up the whole list again, started from the beginning, and reviewed. She had to get to the bottom of all her pages, to be sure that nothing had changed, or maybe her understanding of the machines described had grown as she took them apart and put them back together. In a few cases, there were minor corrections to be made.

She would not start until her task was done, exactly as it should be.

Just like that, it was. She ran out of pages the second time, and at last it was time to work. She clambered up the stone steps to the control room, which was now entirely cleared of makeshift accommodations and the tools of looters long-gone. She stood before a control panel, which would mechanically connect the central thermocouple with the Zircon Spire.

"What are you looking at, Master?" Bit asked, peeking her nervous way into the unicorn's private workspace. It wasn't the first time she had intruded there, though it was the first time in quite a long while.

The unicorn stooped over the largest of his design-screens, a surface that showed images in three-dimensions when looked at from a certain angle. He moved his hooves through that space, or sometimes levitated tools to draw for him. But today, he only stared.

The image depicted there was Bit herself, or at least a tiny version of her. It broke her down into systems and slices, each one thaumically explained the same as any other machine. The master's hornwriting glowed in that space, denser than any of the books on his shelf. But there were tears in his eyes. "The most beautiful and impossible thing that ponies ever created," he said.

Once again the master proved that for all his wisdom, he was not infallible. Bit was neither beautiful nor impossible. "You're confused again," she said. "The medic says you need to spend more time in the lower tower. Your quarters are too cold in winter for your joints."

"It's true." He looked up, finally seeming to see her. He wiped at his eyes with a cloth, then rose to shaking hooves. He did that now, though she still wasn't entirely certain why. Faulty joints, like the medic thought? "If I go downstairs, I won't be able to study. The answers I'm looking for are here, not there."

"You should tell me what you're looking for," Bit told the control room. "I will search tirelessly until I place it in your hooves."

"Okay, sweetie." He patted her on the shoulder, though the gesture seemed to be leaning on her for support as much as expressing some pony emotion. "A pony who lived in a crystal tower once set out on a long journey. He knew the trip would be long, so he packed every spell he could think of. Everywhere he traveled he fought for survival, driving off packs of furious Equestrians and resisting the bitter cold with every hoofstep.

“Eventually he had walked around all the world, and he found a tower. It was dark and empty, undisturbed since his departure. He climbed its many steps, though he was so worn and beaten from his trip that he barely made it to the top. Finally he crested the last step, and found what he was looking for."

Bit waited, ears perked expectantly for the rest of the riddle. But none came. Crimson hobbled past her, out the open door. He began his long trek down the tower's many stairs. "I don't understand," she called after him. "Why didn't he find what he was looking for in the tower? You said that was where he started."

"It was," Crimson said.

"And nopony else had visited..." Bit continued. "There must be an error in your recollection. Are you sure there weren't additional characters?"

Crimson stopped, looking back at her with an expression of deadly confidence. "When you know not just what he found, by why he found it—tell me." He lowered his voice, whispering to himself as he walked. It was something Crimson did more and more, as his body grew strange. "I'm not sure I can find it for you, Bit. All these years searching, and I haven't made a single mistake. Maybe the king was right."

Bit looked back at her reflection in the control-room glass, cleaned to a sparkling shine. Through it, dim in the space beyond, was a zircon plant, the one that powered her tower.

Bit still didn't know what Crimson meant, but she knew one thing. The king was wrong, just like he'd been wrong about everything. She could practically see him there, wrapped in regal robes and glowering up at her.

"Your experiment is a waste of time, son. The more of your years you squander, the more you fail to see the only world that ever mattered. Find a quiet closet somewhere to lock it away, and return to your duties."

Bit pressed both hooves against the lever and shoved with all her might, crushing the king's face beneath the knob. His complaints fell silent, and in their place, the power plant roared to life.

Author's Note

And that's where daily chapters end. The point is always to catch up to where Patreon was when the cover got made. Sorry things will slow down a little from here on--but otherwise, I could only write one story at once. Still, I hope you'll come along for the rest of the ride.

Chapter 5: Topaz

Bit moved slowly through the power plant, inspecting the old systems one at a time as they came back online. One by one the chambers filled with hissing steam, as systems long covered with ice finally melted. Bit didn't care whether the plant was hot or cold, but there was still a great deal to inspect. For power to flow, heat had to move too, drawn along thaumic conduits from the spire to her crystal.

It did. There were a few moments of panic, as systems she had rebuilt crumbled under the stress of operating after such a long time silent and cold. But she had a long list of backups and redundancies, and there was nothing she couldn't fix.

Then the lights came back on, and the dim power plant was bright white. Suddenly halls that had been dark and impassible were now overflowing with brightness, making her own body sparkle like the crystal machines around her.

"We did it," she told the empty plant. This time there was more than silence to answer—the steady hum of wheels and groaning of machinery was a song. A song that was partially out of tune. There would be more repairs to make, or else the plant would fail again. But now that she had it working, she would have the benefit of Zircon's machines. Instead of hammering dishes and drawing coils by hand, she could use an induction forge.

But all that in time—she didn't need to make the plant perfect on its first day.

She stepped out into the streets, and found her suspicions confirmed. Steam roared up through the metal, a column of white smoke vanishing into the blackness of the winter sky. But she wasn't in darkness, because the streetlights shone all around her.

Not all of them had survived—some had been cracked, and they flickered unevenly in their housings. Some were ripped up, or crushed. But the courtyard was lit, and so were the buildings all around.

Most dramatic of these was the palace. Automated defenses had come back to life—the gates were closed, and spotlights again glided across the open ground between its gates and the castle steps. Lights flickered within, and she heard some old machines coming back on within the palace itself.

A mystery for another time, and probably another pony. Bit had a mind only for her tower. She could already see the lights glowing from every floor. If she could, then so could Master Wizard Crimson Zircon.

She didn't quite make it to the tower. As she crossed the courtyard, she found a strange group of ponies on the steps leading from the city below. Here in the depths of winter, they should be dressed in the thickest drawn-polymer cloaks, or crystal magic thermal shields. They had neither, only scavenged blankets and coats covered in patches and makeshift repairs.

Some had goggles and masks against the cold, while most merely had a thin layer of frost collecting on exposed coat. They weren't advancing on her or the tower, but the zircon in the center of the square.

If the spotlights hadn't revealed her, the plume of steam rising into the polar night certainly would.

There was only a trickle at the top of the ramp, but Bit could see more further back. Thicker groups, with the elderly and slow-moving foals. All moved up the steps with desperate, inexorable pressure.

One stepped forward to block her path—a stallion taller and stronger than the others, with a sturdy coat and goggles on his face. He had no horn, which also gave him strength against the cold. "You're naked, pony. Either you're freezing to death, or there is heat on Capitol Hill."

"There is heat," she said, trying to step around him. He moved to block her, infuriatingly. She couldn't just shove past, not with the floor now covered in melting ice. Anything but the slowest steps and she would tumble onto her rump, maybe even crack. "And I am fine. Your concern is not required."

She finally managed to get around him, continuing on towards the Wizard's tower. But she could only proceed at an agonizing walk, and he could trot without difficulty. Fog billowed out from inside his mask, and moisture dripped from his cloak, melted by the cloud of heat spreading from the zircon.

"Something weird about... must be my goggles. Almost looks like I can see through you."

"Your goggles do not need to be repaired. Please do not obstruct me." She continued towards her tower. She owed nothing to this pony, just as she owed nothing to the ones who followed him.

Well, they weren't following her. The first of them crested the hill, and they practically sprinted for the warmth of the zircon.

He touched her shoulder lightly, his hoof muffled by many wrapped layers. "You're going the wrong way, pony. You were the first one here, you should stake out a claim. Warmth like this, dead of winter... you don't know how many ponies need it. All the folk huddled around the Spire, too far to warm their flanks. You wanna be one of them?"

"I have no need of warmth," she replied, without slowing. The gates were close now, almost within reach. A few lights glowed from the top of the tower walls, though none of the old protection spells were still working. There was no shield, no orbs of interception—nothing but a single lazy spotlight, drawing drunken shapes on the ice.

"Everyone needs the heat," he said. "Everypony would rather drink water than eat snow. We need the hothouse to keep growing our food. How can you walk away?”

He kept following her, despite so many polite warnings. This was another example of pony frailty—sometimes their minds just didn't work right. She would need to be more direct.

"I told you, I don't need the heat." She stopped, turning in place to glower at him. "I am returning to my tower, that tower. My master has been away for a long time, but that was only because the tower had failed. He needs the computers to continue his work, and the apprentices need their machines to construct the parts he requires."

He stared, expression seeming to grow more confused the longer he looked. "You're looking for your master in the artifabrican's tower?" He reached up, removing the goggles from his eyes, and pulling the scarf down from his face. "Whoever you're looking for, you won't find him there. That tower has been dead since before I was born."

She shook her head, feeling something strange bubbling in her chest. How could she describe this sensation—no matter how many times she tried to tell, and still the pony failed to understand. You never would've made it as an apprentice.

"The tower was dead before," she said flatly. "That is because ponies who did not understand allowed the power station to fall into disrepair. Critical systems were looted, and many others failed over time. I fixed it. Now the power is returned, and my tower is working again."

She turned her back on him, continuing away from the growing crowd of ponies. She stepped through the gates into the courtyard, and finally her hooves found purchase. The gravel here was uneven enough to walk on, even with a thin layer of ice covering some pieces. Home was within sight.

"You're the one who fixed the zircon?" he asked, trailing behind her. He didn't keep up, though he probably couldn't have if he tried wearing all those layers. The advantage of being “naked.” "Is that why you look so strange? Some... ghost of the old city's machines?"

"I am not a 'ghost'.” She didn't slow down, didn't turn around. She spoke to herself as much as the stranger, reinforcing the truth as she understood it. "I'm Bit, the first of my kind. My master says that one day there will be a city of us. We will not wither, or freeze, or tire. Maybe this is what he was waiting for."

He stopped in the shadow of the broken gate, looking between her and the steaming waystation. Finally he turned, darting off to join the crowd. She didn't watch him for long. Her master was not going to come from a crowd of ponies who had allowed themselves to become improperly equipped for present conditions. Her master would never make such a simple mistake.

As Bit reached the doorway, she was momentarily deafened by the return of old sirens, blaring so loudly that even the densest pony couldn't miss it.

"External intrusion detected!" they roared. "Failure in perimeter protection grid!" They looped over and over again, joined by a barrage of annoying sound and flashing red lights.

Bit found the security console downstairs lit up, just like so much of the tower. The flat surface unlocked as she approached it, filling with a stream of information. So much of the systems around the tower were damaged now. What could've done this?

She already knew. She heard the mob's screaming voices again, saw their torchlight from an upper window. The answer was obvious.

Bit touched her hoof to the panel, disarming the alert. Lights stopped flashing red, sirens faded, and silence returned.

Well, not quite—this was better. She heard the rattle of warm air in the tower's subterranean heaters. The bubbling of ammonia from its refrigerators, and the quiet music of the lobby, soothing away her worries.

This was home, more than some darkened tower and an eternity of washing windows.

Bit told the alarms to ignore everything but the tower itself, then re-locked all the doors. She heard the entrance door click, and needed nothing to tell her the others had done the same. If the security console said the building was safe, then it was safe. A computer could not lie.

That done, Bit practically sprinted up the tower steps. It was full winter outside, yet bright orange light surrounded her on every landing. A few even had strips of white along the ceiling, in the cafeteria and the stadium, so that the ponies living here wouldn't be emotionally compromised by the long, sunless winters.

But Bit didn't care about the light, any more than she cared about darkness. It was the Master Wizard who cared, and him she had come to find at last.

Bit eventually reached the top of the tower, high enough that the city beneath was a distant blob and the heaters barely reached. The windows were dusty again, but she could see the distinct glow of lights from below. Capitol Hill was only a fraction of the city, one of six municipal substations for the Zircon Spire. But compared to the faint suggestions of distant firelight, it might as well have been the daylight outside.

She clambered over the last flight of stairs, and heard Crimson's voice already waiting for her. "It's an incredible accomplishment by any metric."

"You're being too generous, Master," she said. Another strange new feeling boiled in her chest, this one far less unpleasant. She deserved this praise, after such dedication and so much work. Even if, like so many other things the master said, it wasn't strictly true. Of course the tower was worse than it was before—she had to make many sacrifices to get it clean and working again.

But it was working, and that was worthy of praise.

"You say that," said another voice, grating against her ears. She stiffened, retreated a step over the landing. King Zircon's voice was just as unpleasant as she remembered. "But your construct is hardly different than my house automatons. The artifabricans before you understood that to give a machine the form of a pony is a mistake. It invites anthropomorphizing. You tell me this thing is the future. Let us test that. Machine, in the hall. Come inside now."

She could not resist the king's commands, any more than she could resist her master's orders. But while Crimson never ordered her, the king spoke nothing else to her. Bit walked into the exterior laboratory.

She scanned the space, searching for the king. She would accept his arrival, if it meant the return of the one she cared about. The king never stayed long, and Crimson would be left behind when he was gone.

"Obedient, this is good. Tell me your name, machine."

"Bit," she said, still searching. Where was his voice coming from?

"That isn't her fault," Crimson said, distressed. "We've already discussed the flaws in my—"

"Where were you born, Bit? Who are your parents?"

"I was not born," she answered. Except... she was answering twice. She heard her voice too, coming from the same direction as the others.

Then she found it. A large screen mounted to the wall, where Crimson and the king sat together, before his worktable. But the worktable was just beside it, and there was nopony there. The bedroom door was open too, and she continued past it, listening to the memory rather than living it now.

"I do not have parents."

"And there it is," the king said. "My son, abandon this foolish notion. Moss Flower is dead. This machine you've crafted in her likeness knows that. When will you?"

Chapter 6: Ruby

It was everything Bit had hoped to achieve. The tower was lit, its systems each returned to life. She even had the voice of Crimson, recreated from ancient recordings. Even the shock of seeing an old enemy recreated in those same systems was worth it if only to hear him again.

But she hadn't brought the power back to listen to old recordings, she deserved the real thing. Bit searched through the tower, combing every room for signs of other visitors who had disturbed the interior. Obviously Crimson's return had gone unnoticed, since she hadn't been in the right room at the time. The tower was large, and she would find him. Crimson would explain everything, and let her return to her blissful work.

She found nothing. But maybe that was just a product of how dirty the tower had become. Her wizard would not wish to return to a place with dusty floors and opaque windows, even if the power were back on and the heat was strong enough for his old joints.

She worked at a frantic pace, tidying the tower as she had never cleaned it before. She visited the bedrooms of those who had abandoned their posts, tearing their furniture and cloth apart for raw materials to make new cleaning implements. After repairing the power plant, brushes and mops and brooms were simple, particularly when she had induction furnaces and fusion etchers and every other spellcrafting tool of the artifabrian's tower.

Soon the lobby was sparkling, every staircase was spotless, and the growing light of an arctic summer streamed in through the windows. She reached the bedroom last, since it was the last place the wizard would reach when he returned, and began to clean it.

The desks were so covered in grime and dirt that the work he'd been doing was completely obscured. She finally did the unthinkable, and emptied the desk herself. Every piece of crystal and every tool she didn't understand was cleaned and sorted into a few neat boxes, with labels so that the returning wizard could quickly locate what he needed.

His old writings were so old now that even the unrottable membrane sheets had fading pigment. Bit considered that a moment, then gathered fresh pens from the vault and traced every line and letter over herself. That process exposed her to what they contained, secrets revealed over hours, days, maybe months.

Crimson's notes were about her, or at least a creature made of crystal and shaped like a pony the same as she was. In a way, putting her together was no different than building the power plant. Once every segment was built to specification and fitted into its proper place, it was only a matter of providing power, and the machine would function.

"We are all machines, Bit," Crimson said, watching from over her shoulder. "Some machines use metal and wire, some crystal and magic. Others, flesh and bone."

"That can't be," she said, never looking away from her work. It was another of Crimson's well-meaning mistakes. "I have heard the apprentices, and even heard it from you. There is a classification system: alive, and dead. A gate is dead, a welder is dead, but an apprentice is alive. And I am..." She hesitated, flexing one of her legs. She could move it the same as any apprentice. Better than Crimson, who wobbled and shuddered when he walked. Could she be more alive than her master?

"You are complicated," Crimson said. "What we call 'life' is often a loose classification made by those who enjoy hard boundaries. Even the realm of life as it is traditionally understood has vague edges. But as I see it, life is any system, regardless of how it is organized, that can do two things."

This was good—Bit liked lists, and she enjoyed classification even more.

"First, a living system must actively maintain the conditions that allow it to exist. Ponies eat, drink, breathe, expel waste... all to maintain the conditions within ourselves that allow us to live. If we did not do these things, we would not be alive. Similarly, the gate crank, or the tea broiler are not alive, because they cannot maintain their own internal state."

"You said there were two things," Bit pointed out. "But I already fail your first definition. I require magic to continue to function, magic I cannot produce. And if I am damaged, I require you to repair me, just like a faulty machine."

Crimson nodded, expression wistful. "For now, yes. But ponies sometimes rely on outside help to heal them when they are sick. The medicinist's guild has treated many of my wounds over the years. That alone does not disqualify you. As for magic..." He walked slowly past the bench, gazing out the lovingly-cleaned window to the city below.

"You were not designed to rely on the magic of others. But that was an assumption, dependent on you producing your own. Until you do, the tower will provide." He turned, walking slowly back to the desk. "The other qualification for all living things is an ability to reproduce, either individually, or as part of a larger system. We are all driven to make more of ourselves, securing the continuity of life since time immemorial."

Bit looked back at the empty room, confused. "So because I am not driven, I am not alive?"

Crimson shook his head slowly. "As I said, you are complex. You were created not to be a departure from life, but the next stage in its advancement. I designed you to be greater, not less. But despite all my genius, I failed you."

"You never fail, Master!" she argued, settling the last sheet into the stack. Now the designs were preserved, each line a perfect recreation of his work. "There is no mystery you can't solve, with enough time."

"It is time that's in short supply." He pointed out the window, and for a moment Bit saw fires in the distance. Ponies lay motionless around the palace steps. There was no trace of the guards, but smoke rose from within the building. Thousands of little lights dotted the square. "They have come for my younger sister. When she is dead, they will come for me. I'm sorry, Bit. I won't be able to finish you."

She opened her mouth to reply, and realized there was no one there, not in the tower with her. But the little lights down in the square, those were real. Except there weren't torches and stolen weapons anymore. Now she saw tents, surrounding the radiant zircon as close as they dared. These weren't the fires of the revolution—they were its survivors.

Bit settled her own design carefully onto the shelf beside her master's tools and spare parts. Crimson would need them soon.

But if restoring power to a cleaned tower wasn't enough to bring him back, maybe these ponies would be able to tell her where her master had gone. They were probably the same ponies, or else why return to the same place?

Bit reached the bottom of the tower, hesitating by the security console. There was no reason to leave it unlocked, particularly when there were so many ponies out there. If the mob got wind of the working heaters inside, they would probably attack the tower all over again, this time to stay.

She wasn't sure what tools would be needed for a trip out into the city, so Bit just brought the same satchel she'd carried while fixing the power plant, tucking away a newly printed security key for her tower into the pack.

The doors unlocked ahead of her, and she walked out into the feeble arctic sun. The entrance to her tower had changed a great deal since the last time she'd stepped outside.

The rubble of the battle was gone, cleared away through the open gates. Instead, several wooden containers were piled high in irregular stacks, filling much of the open space. They weren't properly stowed on the receiving dock, that was in back. She circled one, inspecting it.

The crates were old wood, warped and weakened from many freezings and meltings. But instead of a single label describing what was inside, they were all covered with squares of paper. Nothing like the wizard's perfect handwriting, with regimented letters that remained readable even after ages faded the ink.

Bit leaned closer, inspecting the awkward scribbles on one sheet. It was the same language, despite the crudeness of the writing.

"Wizard,
My family had nowhere to go and not enough wood to keep us warm. Thank you for our lives."

Wizard? She tilted her head to the side, confused. The Wizard hadn't returned without her noticing, had he? He was so loud and so slow that she never could've missed him. Confused, she moved on to the largest, biggest note. It was positioned prominently on the front of one box, right by the door. Placed where she would be forced to see it when she stepped out.

This one was a little better written than the first one, as though someone were trying to recreate the correct style of block letters, but didn't have enough training to make them come out right, and so they drifted down to one side.

"Artifabrian,
We do not know how you survived the revolution. We thought we had torn down all the organs of oppression and returned their stolen wealth to the people. You show that we were right to spare you. Continue to serve the ponies of Zircon, and no one will care that you once aided our oppressors."

There were very few like that. As Bit passed between them, she saw far more like the first note she'd seen. They were just as crude, often smudged in poor ink and peppered with spelling mistakes.

"Thank wizard for warm," said one. "Love."

How could so many ponies be so confused? They wanted to send messages to her master, but he wasn't in the tower. She began to pace back and forth in front of them, her chest constricting as she imagined the process of cataloging, sorting, and delivering all of these to his quarters for his eventual return.

But as she read them faster and faster, one central fact eventually calmed her down. Not a single message addressed the wizard for any of his true accomplishments. They didn't mention any of the machines he'd created such as the eternally reliable streetlamps, or the hydroponic hothouses. They were all talking about the heat, which got them through the winter Bit had spent cleaning.

They're talking about me, she realized. I live in the Wizard's tower, I repaired the power station. How could they make such an obvious mistake? The Wizard was brilliant, inventive, and ruthlessly dedicated to his goals. How could these ponies possibly confuse them?

They won't be able to help me find him, she realized. She slumped to the ground in front of the notes left for her, and the weight of it crushed down against her. Her ears pressed flat, her eyes lost focus, and she lost track of time.

How was she going to find Crimson now? How would she ever get the tools to clean the tower? All this work was for nothing. She'd failed him, and he would never return.

She wasn't sure exactly how long she sat there in the snow, staring off at nothing. Darkness came, then light—and suddenly there was a pony in front of her.

She'd seen him before, though that had been in the dead of winter. His helmet, goggles, and mask were gone, replaced with a heavy scarf to go with his other winter clothes. But the eyes were unmistakable, no easier for Bit to forget than the power-plant diagrams or the notes about crystal assembly.

"You're her..." he muttered, dropping the bundle he'd been carrying in his mouth. There were notes there, along with a crude mallet and nails. "No one saw you all winter. You shouldn't be out here, standing naked in the cold."

She tried to form words. But how could she explain what she felt? This pony couldn't know what it was like to have his purpose stolen from him. He couldn't possibly understand. "Tower," she whispered. "He didn't come back."

The pony considered that a moment, looking thoughtful. Before she could object, he slung off his pack, tossing a blanket over her shoulders. He buttoned it around her neck, and soon she was tightly bundled. "Let's get you somewhere warm. I don't know a bunkhouse in all Zircon that won't make room for you, Wizard. Come with me."

She did.

Chapter 8: Sunstone

Bit was not alone for long—only a few seconds. There were pounding hoof falls behind her, and Pathfinder appeared, catching up with her. "Then I'm going too! The Union might think I'm too unpredictable to lead a trade, but that doesn't mean I can't help in other ways. How can we really know we got everything worth taking from the palace if nobody comes back?"

He hesitated, retreating a few steps closer to her as they climbed. "I just hope you're sure, or I'll die too. And if that sounds like a reason to go back down, hopefully it is? I didn't last through all these winters to get killed by the evil king's old traps."

Bit glared at him for a moment, then realized she was imitating the king's own expressions, and thought better of it. She sped up, hoping to lose him in the winding steps. But while she didn't tire, he was an earth pony, and kept pace without much difficulty. The crystal of the palace conducted magic, and wouldn't weaken him even as the earth grew further away.

"I do not care what happens to me so long as I can accomplish my purpose," she said. "Technically, I am not alive. I cannot maintain my own system, and I do not have a desire to reproduce. Therefore, I cannot die."

"Maybe you haven't met the right pony," he said, in a tone she didn't quite recognize. "I've known ponies who took a long time to find someone. It used to happen more in the old days, I think. Before the revolution needed so many hooves, and anything other than productivity was selfishness. But you're from the old kingdom, so it makes sense. Or... are you? You said you were made here. But that can’t be true."

They reached the first landing, where the guests and invited visitors of the palace would have passed the castle's vast gates. Only when suitably impressed and inspected by the palace guard would they be allowed to enter the palace proper.

The gates were shattered now, and there were bits of broken armor and lose white stones littering the ground. She'd seen a few of their like in the tower before, though she couldn't quite identify them.

Apparently they weren't good, because her companion stayed well away, dodging along behind her in the narrow corridor between bits of debris. "I was made here, in the wizard's old wing. He lived here until the evil king made life too difficult, and he moved to the tower. But my memories from those days are fuzzy, I don't know the specifics."

"Memories from..." Pathfinder's expression became even more distant and confused. "You look as young as I am, Bit. You were born after the revolution, weren't you? You can't be old enough to remember the king. There isn't a single pony alive in Zircon old enough for that."

She shrugged. "I am not a pony, I look like a pony." She avoided the spacious entry stairs, and the further sign of damage that ran along it. Too much debris, some of it fresher looking than the rest. There were a few lumps that vaguely resembled motionless ponies up that way. Never a good sign.

But there was a servant's passage to the left, the only parts of the palace she was supposed to use. She tilted a candlestick slightly to the left, and the wall slid aside. Another benefit of restoring power to the capital district. "If you're going to come with me, then this way. But I cannot protect you. I'm not a guard."

He followed her. "You knew that was here. You say you're impossibly old, you aren't afraid of heat or cold. Are you an Equestrian princess?"

The servants' passages had taken far less damage than the vast entryway behind them, though part of that was just a matter of there being so little to lose. There were no paintings to tear down here, no sculptures to shatter. It was just plain dark crystal, obscuring anything that passed through it from the noble eyes that lived in the palace beyond.

"No!" She turned back to him, feeling another flash of impatience mixed with frustration. Annoyance, it was called. "Equestria has only one princess now, tyrant of the sun Celestia. She's an alicorn, a pony with wings and horn and strength of earth. Though she is reported to be ageless, and perhaps properly immortal."

She turned back, hurrying up another set of steps. Pathfinder might be an uninformed idiot, but the suggestion accidentally led her towards a useful theory. Maybe the secret to alicorns' power was no secret at all—maybe they were crafted that way, like she was.

She slowed as she reached the first sign of conflict in the passage. An exterior wall was cracked, and bits of ice had formed over the openings, piling up in the interior until half the tunnel was obscured.

The reason for the damage was a fallen automaton, broken into many pieces.

In some ways, the automatons were the same kind of machine as Bit, crafted from crystal and animated by magic. But as the king always said, they weren't built in the likeness of ponies. The castle's defenders stood on only two of their identical limbs at any time, with a narrow torso that allowed them to roll and adjust themselves to any configuration at will.

Their titanium internal skeleton emerged from the tips of their limbs, with spikes that could slide delicately over crystal or crack it to give them the purchase to fight on any surface.

This one had been beaten to pieces, its crystal body shattered so badly that the delicate metal clockwork within was visible. It didn't move, not even a twitch in their direction as they walked past it.

"Zircon below, they're real." Pathfinder nudged it with one boot, perched delicately on his other limbs. But even if he expected attack, there was no need. "The evil king really did have evil machines. Monsters he could send into the city to kill anyone who organized against him."

Bit nodded. "Machines, yes. Evil, no. The automatons aren't capable of evil, any more than a lever or a generator can be evil. The royal guard were perfectly loyal to their instructions, to the end." She stepped over the fallen machine, almost reverent. But it had no head, no way to judge what it was looking at or how it saw the world.

They can't see, they hear and sense magic.

"The king was evil," Pathfinder insisted. "He oppressed all of Zircon. He hoarded wealth for himself, he stole the labor of his ponies. He didn't provide them warmth in winter or food in summer. He used his machines to keep ponies from rising up. If they're used for evil, that makes them evil too."

Bit considered that. She turned towards the opening in the crystal wall, squinting down at the makeshift settlement in the streets, and the buildings of her home slowly crumbling. "He was evil," she said. "I do not know about the things you say, but my master told me he was evil. The Wizard would never tell me something untrue, so you must be right."

"Your master," he said. "The one you're looking for in the old palace. But as smart as you are, how can you not know? There's nothing alive in here. We won. If you were a slave to someone who lived in this palace, then you're free, just like the rest of us. You owe no loyalty. They won't come to capture you again. It's over."

Free. Bit considered his words, reviewing their definition in her mind. But though she knew the meaning, she could not comprehend it. Her Master had not understood it either.

"I must find him," she said, leaving the broken machine behind to continue up the steps. "We're very close. I know these halls. His father left his quarters empty when he left to work in the tower. They would be the perfect place for him to shelter all these years. The palace has an extensive nuclear backup buried in the stone below, which would keep critical systems running even when the substation failed."

In some ways, Pathfinder seemed to understand her just as little as she understood him. But he did latch onto a single phrase. "Your master was the son of the king... Bit, were you the personal slave to Prince Crimson Zircon?"

She shook her head, glaring back at him. "That is the second time you have used that word improperly. I was never a slave to anyone. Ponies can be slaves, and other creatures. But someone must be alive for their ownership to be defined in that way. A machine like myself is possessed, not enslaved.”

It wasn't reaching him. She could see his expression shifting deeper into confusion, in shades that she could no longer even quite name. The way the Wizard sometimes looked when his father spoke about her. "Then did Prince Crimson possess you, or not?"

She nodded curtly, stopping directly in front of one door among many. "This was his wing. But he stopped living here after his father made the palace unwelcoming to us, and he moved his accommodations to the tower full time. Princess Ochre invited him back in later years, but he never returned. It took a failure like mine to drive him back here. I will have to think of a way to apologize."

She touched a flat panel of wall, otherwise indistinguishable from the others, and it slid down, revealing a security console. Her heart surged with hope at what she saw: the security protocol was still functional. Six servitors, laser protection grids, nerve gas.

"He's not going to be in there," Pathfinder said, watching the screen over her shoulder without recognition. "It was too long, Bit. Even if he hadn't died in the revolution, he'd be at least... what, two centuries? Ponies don't live that long."

"The wizard wasn't just my master. He mastered time, matter, life, death, and forces. When you meet him, you'll understand why he is so deserving of loyalty."

She recited her usual security pattern into the keyboard, and the red lights went green. The door before them clicked, drifting open. "It's important that you remain close to me and do not touch anything," Bit said. "If the automatons see you as a vandal, they would usually take you down to the dungeons. But with the castle under siege, the war-protocols are active. They will not take you prisoner."

She pushed the door open, then stepped out into her master's quarters. "Crimson,” she yelled. "I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out where you've gone, but I'm here! I've finally come!"

His quarters were in ruin. Bookshelves were toppled, screens shattered, and windows cracked. She passed the ancient study, where she sat beside him reading from the illustrated children's encyclopedia, devouring on every word he said. Now the pages scattered to the air around her like snowflakes, barely covered up the flashes and cracks of malfunctioning circuitry.

There were several royal guards fallen near the proper entrance, shattered and broken just like the others they'd seen so far. There was no trace of the ones who had broken them.

"This was the beginning of the revolution," Pathfinder said from behind her, his voice slow and gentle. "The winter of deep tears, when we rose up at last. The fervor was so great that not even the palace servants were spared. If he was here, he's dead.

"We could go back, talk to the elders. There are some who probably remember. I know they dug up the dead king, the Union burned him with the princess. Not sure about... I know there was a prince, but I don't think he was very important.”

Ponies could be wrong. Crimson wasn't just important, he was the most important pony in the whole world.

"He's here," she insisted, shoving past him to a set of crystal stairs. They'd been badly damaged, someone had tried to hammer them down. But the crystal only cracked, it was still strong enough to support her weight. Bit climbed up to the second floor, and the royal bedchamber.

Chapter 9: Spessartite

Bit stepped into the royal bedroom, and found it occupied. But there was no pony reclining in bed, as she had so often seen her Wizard as the years wore on. Instead she found a pair of automatons near the door, their bodies making strange clicking and whirring sounds as they moved. They twitched in her direction, apparently regarding her, but she could see no visual signs.

No eyes blinked, and they lacked speech.

They were visibly damaged, and not just a consequence of a long time without maintenance. One had only three limbs, and leaked strange fluid whenever it moved. The other had numerous cracks along its length, with bullets embedded in the crystal.

"Oh buck," Pathfinder muttered, freezing in his tracks. "There really were death machines in here. We're dead."

She nudged him with one leg, blocking his retreat. "We are not dead, Pathfinder. We discussed the misuse of that word already. I cannot die, and you will not. Stay with me, do not act violently. They will not harm you."

She stepped into the room, directly into view of the two machines. Both tilted slightly, as though examining her. But without eyes or organs, she couldn't guess at how they felt. They were far harder to read than ponies.

But she felt an instant kinship for these machines, as she hadn't for any of the ponies she'd yet met. Where the palace was abandoned over so long that Pathfinder thought the prince was dead, the machines had remained at their post. Even through injury, they kept serving. A lot like her.

"I'm here to see the prince," she told them. They could respond to orders, after all, as they could hear just fine. But she'd never had any reason to give them. They worked exclusively as military machines, without any purpose in study or peace. But is that just because they only know how to fight? Or is it because ponies expect them to only perform their function?

The automatons pivoted as she walked into the room, facing her. They did not attack, even when Pathfinder hurried after her. They're watching me more than the pony. That's a first.

The Wizard had to be here. She’d searched the rest of the world, eliminated every other possible retreat. But she didn't see a pony—not in the bed that had been torn and shot with many holes. There weren't even broken bits of crystal armor here. Nothing at all.

"He's not... here." She slumped to the floor, crushed by boundless hopelessness. Her purpose unfulfilled. Despite all her dedication, Crimson himself was gone.

"I told you," Pathfinder said, patting her shoulder with one hoof. It was gentle enough that she could barely feel it, and didn't seem to serve any practical purpose. She found the contact reassuring all the same. She was alone in her charge, but at least she wasn't completely alone in the world. There were others to witness her despair.

"I worked for so long," Bit said. "I cleaned his tower. I kept it ready for his return. I turned the power back on, I organized his work. I did everything perfectly, but still I'm a disappointment to him."

Pathfinder touched her again, this time with a whole leg. There was a name for the gesture, though it escaped her. Only the wizard had ever done it to her, and only once. Her confused reaction to his only attempt had upset him, for some reason.

"It's a hug, Bit," he said.

"But what purpose does it serve?" She stared back at him, eyes ever inquisitive. It was the only sensation she knew back then. Her world was almost entirely holes, which only the one she trusted could fill. "I am not broken. I do not require adjustment at this time."

"Physical proximity creates emotional proximity," Crimson said. "It is my way of showing you that I am supportive of your efforts. It conveys my hopes for what you will eventually achieve."

"You have just conveyed that message with words," she said. "More effectively than physical gestures. I believe words are a preferable means of communication."

"As you wish," Crimson said, stiffening. He backed away a few steps, looking distant. "That's probably for the best, anyhow. I just hope you won't regret your decision one day."

"What is regret, Master?"

But Pathfinder wasn't saying any of those things. He stared into her face, fearful. "Can you see something I can't, Bit? I don't see anything moving in here except for the flashing lights on that glass. The death machines haven't moved, like you said. I guess you did understand them."

"Flashing lights?" She spun, and found what he was suggesting. Most of the room's screens were shattered, but one near the wardrobe remained. Maybe it had been off when ponies visited to break everything. It flashed with a steady orange light, indicating a desired interaction.

Bit stopped just before it. The button text indicated a file had been loaded to the library, and awaited playback. She pressed it.

It was the same room they were in, transformed. Clothing was scattered everywhere, most of it entirely unsuited to the prince. There were dresses and skirts and other things. Soon she saw their owner: an earth pony, who examined several options before selecting a jacket and coat similar to what the wizard often wore.

"You flatter me with so many gifts, sweetheart," she said, in Bit's voice. "You must know research is the only joy I need."

Crimson appeared behind her, near the far doorway. He levitated a pad of paper in the air behind him, a scroll covered in unreadable notes. Bit couldn't make them out, even from such a high-quality recording.

Pathfinder looked between the screen and Bit herself. "I've seen an image engine like this in Union Hall. There are recordings of the revolution there."

She nodded absently, raising a hoof to silence him. Of course she had no magic of her own. She had to hear what they said.

"The invasion is only months away, Flower," the young wizard said. "Our work can wait a little while, can't it? We deserve our own lives as much as Zircon deserves our service."

The earth pony with Bit's voice turned away from the camera, bounding across the room to stare up at her prince. Bit couldn't see her face, but found her lips moving along to the words anyway. "If we complete our work, we won't need to invade Equestria. All the north will be ours, and it won't matter whether or not the princess of the sun gives us summer or not."

"That's the prince," Pathfinder said, squinting at the screen. "I've seen his face. Not so young, but... that's him. How can you be there?" He glanced between the image and Bit several times. "She's so much like you. But not a unicorn, or made from crystal. What are you, Bit?"

"We'll make it work," Crimson said. "I know we're close. But obsessing over it every moment of our lives isn't going to achieve it. You know there are other things my father expects from us. Maybe he wouldn't be so disagreeable if we gave him what he wants."

"An heir, you mean," Moss Flower said. "You can't fool me, prince. I know you had other motivations. He will have his heir. But if we succeed, time itself is meaningless. We can take as long as the task requires."

The screen went dark, returning to the computer's general interface. Bit's own face was reflected in that screen, mirroring the display in increasingly distorted ways. "She sounds like you," Pathfinder continued. "Alive all those years ago, somehow."

"I already told you what I am," she said. "I'm the first of my kind. My creator planned for every pony in Zircon to be like me eventually. Never hungry, never cold, never tired."

"He did," Pathfinder repeated, touching up against the screen with a hoof, where pony faces had been moments before. "So did you, it looks like. But only one of you achieved it. You're still here, still young, and he's dead. Is that why you're so lost?"

"He's not dead!" Bit yelled. She wasn't sure where the energy came from—it was easily the loudest she had ever been. "The Wizard is the master of many magics! He was allcrafted, brilliant, and perfect. He's just waiting for me to overcome my failures!"

Pathfinder retreated from her, eyes widening with shock and fear. Curiously, the automatons reacted as well, moving towards her. That made him retreat still further, dodging past them and stopping in the exit. He looked back the way he came.

"I don't think you're the one who needs to overcome anything, Bit," he said. "You saved hundreds of ponies all on your own, because you thought it would bring your master back. Why do you insist on depending on him? We all lose ponies, eventually. You can't stop that, and you certainly shouldn't blame yourself for it."

But she did blame herself—for everything. The automatons stopped on either side of her, then spun around, metallic claws scraping against crystal as they faced Pathfinder again. She'd seen that stance before—it was the way the royal guard acted when they were protecting the prince.

"I'm not him!" she yelled, turning on them too. "You waited here, just like I waited in the tower. But he's not here! I don't know where he is!"

They twitched, cracked bodies rotating slightly towards her. But she could only guess what they meant. They didn't attack her, or Pathfinder. They only watched.

"I'll find out for you," Pathfinder said. "I told you, there are elders—the oldest ponies in Zircon had parents alive during the revolution. Somepony will be able to tell me what happened to the old prince. The one who lived in your tower, right?"

She nodded. It was the only desperate hope left in her whole world. Feeble indeed, given the state of his quarters here, destroyed. The ponies of the revolution didn't even know that she wasn't the Wizard. How could they possibly know where the real one had gone?

"Is it safe to leave the way I went in?" he asked. "Or do I need you to go with me?"

She wanted to send him away. This pony hadn't just brought strangers to live in the part of the city she warmed—he said things she didn't want to hear, brought pain with him in every step.

He came with me. He tried to watch after me the way the Wizard did. She couldn't abandon him to his fate.

"I don't know if there are other automatons in the palace. Just because none found us on the way up doesn't mean others won't on the return trip. I'll take you out."

She led him back the way they came, in a persistent, awkward silence broken only by the metal scraping of sharpened legs against crystal floors. The “death machines” followed Bit with mechanical determination, as though they'd been waiting for her as much as the Wizard.

Maybe they figured out they needed to adapt, otherwise they would have no purpose. Their old master is gone, so they found the closest thing they could. She could tell them to leave, force them to take up some other task—and by the time they finished, she would be gone.

But she couldn't do that to another machine, not after what Crimson had done to her. She let them come, even if they had to slow the trip down the stairs to adapt to their broken bodies.

Nor were they the only slow ones on the passage out. Pathfinder hesitated on a landing, the first moment of weakness Bit had ever seen from him. His expression changed from fear to pain, and he dropped to one leg, looking over at her. "I... don't feel so good."

Then he flopped sideways, and started to puke.

Chapter 10: Ammolite

Bit brought the injured pony back with her to the tower.

It wasn't easy to make the trip—even skirting the edge of the square brought stares and shouts of confusion and fear. Ponies scattered around them, shouting about “death machines”. Before her eyes, whole sections of the temporary town collapsed, as ponies trampled over and around each other to escape from within.

She thought about leaving Pathfinder there, so that his own ponies could find him. Whatever sickness he had contracted would be best treated by a doctor. The kindest thing she could do was leave him to someone else. But if their doctors were anything like their engineers, Bit had a decent idea of Pathfinder's odds of survival, and they weren't good.

So the "death machines" carried his body cradled between three of their legs, obeying her instruction without objection. She had to take the trip slowly, considering how damaged both of them were—but it was probably faster than she could manage with so much weight.

Bit was no doctor, but that didn't make her clueless. She had a decent guess for what was happening to him.

A few ponies had retreated to the tower at the shouts of “death machines,” and so there was a small crowd standing before her as she approached. They watched her come, eyes filling with despair.

"The wizard will save us!" a few shouted, banging desperately against the front door. "Any moment, she'll come down to help!"

"Please get out of the way," she said, her voice calm. "A pony in your group has become sick. I must have the tools of the tower to help him."

They barely seemed to hear her. But a few did, tugging the other ones out of the way. Bit recognized the plump mare they'd seen earlier that day as one of these, dragging ponies to the side and away from the door. She stopped a little way in front of Bit, glaring at her.

"Ponies saw you go into the palace. Nothing comes out of there that goes in, so they say. Pathfinder's ten times the pony you'll ever be, and you let him go to his death. Didn't you?"

"Yes. He insisted on accompanying me."

Ponies retreated from the doors, dodging as far away from the automatons as they could. A few actually clambered over the icy walls, rather than pass through the gate. Not the mare, though.

"Why'd you kill him, then? Only showed you nothing but kindness, he did. Convinced the Union you was good and all. This is how you pay him back?"

Bit fidgeted in her bag, removing the security tag, and scanning it against the door. It clicked, then swung inward. Without prompting, the automatons carried him through the opening. "He is not dead yet," she said. "He did tell me the palace was dangerous, but at the time I believed it was a product of security measures left by evil King Zircon. I should have realized that your revolution would have destroyed any active countermeasure, and what remained was more insidious."

The mare backed away from her, eyeing the opening. "You're trying to talk your way around this? It'll get out. Ponies saw, ponies talk. The Union ain't what she was, but we'll rise up. We'll fight like our grandparents, see if we don't."

She saw the flames flickering through the windows, heard their chants again. They screamed about breaking chains, of toppling monarchs. They surrounded her tower, and filled Crimson's face with fear.

"I'm going to try and save him," she said, pleading. "I believe Pathfinder is suffering from acute radiation sickness. There is a course of treatment, and now that I have power I have access to the tower's library computer. If I am quick, I will prevent his death. But every moment I waste explaining worsens his chances."

She turned her back on the furious pony, letting the security doors seal behind her. The loyal automatons were already halfway up the stairs by then, on their way to the tower infirmary as she'd instructed.

"Good work," she told them, sliding past them up the stairs. She flicked on the lights, clearing away a sheet from stiff sterile wraps. They deposited Pathfinder on his back, as gently as a feather pillow.

He looked up, wiping at the frozen vomit around his mouth. "I don't... what happened... where are we?" He tried to sit up, but the effort was too great, and he only flopped back to the bed. "It's so clean."

"The infirmary," she answered, taking a few steps away from the bed. She called up the library computer, entering his symptoms with a few rapid strokes from her hooves. "The artifabrians often performed unsanctioned experiments here. In order to prevent official notice, they treated their own injuries with doctors sworn to secrecy. The facilities are just as good as anything in Crown Medical."

He laughed, the sound dissolving into something between a cough and a choke. "The home of medical miracles? Are the stories true, Bit? Could they make blind ponies see? Could they give back their limbs, and cure any disease?"

"Some of those are true," she said flatly. "Not any disease, though. My master was on the way to curing every disease. But he—he vanished before he could finish."

A crystal printer hummed quietly in the corner of the room, and a roll slid out a slot into the station beside her. "Here we go: your medicine regimen. You're going to be fine, Pathfinder."

He coughed again, eyes turning towards her. There was something cloudy in them that hadn't been there before. "What am I suffering, Bit? It feels... like poison. Hard to think, hard to breathe."

"ARS. I believe the emergency fission reactor in the palace's basement may've suffered a critical containment failure. The palace crystal contained the radiation all these years, and so few openings limited the spread of contaminated particles," she answered, approaching him with the little roll of fragile paper.

By rote she opened the cupboard, selecting an empty pneumatic capsule from the stack and settling the instructions inside. "This will send your medical information to Crown Medical. The pharmacist will send back your medication in a few minutes, and treatment can begin."

She took the tube in her mouth, settling it into the waiting pipe on the side of the room. She sealed the door, pressed the button, and nothing happened.

"I don't know what ARS is," he muttered. "But earth ponies... we're stronger than other tribes, right? We just... have to wait it out. I'll get better on my own."

Bit pressed the send button a few more times, so hard that the thin shell cracked under the force of her hoof. "I don't understand. This line goes directly to the hospital pharmacy. Delivering medication in a timely manner is one of their foremost responsibilities."

"They're gone, Bit." Pathfinder slumped back in his chair, closing his eyes. "The whole world you came from is gone. The ponies who joined the revolution all died too. All those amazing things ponies could do... that's gone. We can't waste time on that when there isn't enough food."

Bit walked back to the screen, reading over the rest of what it contained. "You will not survive without them," she said. "You've experienced lack of coordination and nausea immediately after exposure. That indicates an extremely severe case. Based on the time of exposure and your first symptoms, you are unlikely to survive fourteen days.

"But these drugs can treat you! We need to prevent the destruction of..." She squinted. "Marrow tissue, and your GI. We have approximately six hours to administer the first dose, or your odds of survival drop to one in ten. You won't get better."

Pathfinder laughed again, and somehow managed to focus on her. "I've lived through things ponies thought would kill me before, Bit. If I can last through a Zircon winter without a home, I can... survive this. I'll have to. Those drugs ran out a long time ago."

There was no mistaking the truth of what he said. She'd seen what happened to Zircon. The ponies living in it now had forgotten what made it work—if they couldn't fix its power plants, they certainly couldn't manufacture a drug only needed in case of rare disasters. Everypony who goes into the palace dies.

"There are emergency supplies in the vaults below," Bit continued. "Not medication, but... food. There's water in the cistern I use to make cleaning solution. I will provide for you."

"Good." He sat up, settling his back against the padded cushions and meeting her eyes. "That's all I need. Somewhere warm, something to drink. I could use a little now, actually."

Bit hurried out to oblige, though she hesitated in the landing outside. The automatons waited there, sharpened limbs facing the stairs as though preparing for an attack. Of course there hadn't been any.

"I will do something about both of you," she said. "Please remain here, and avoid moving as much as possible. If you shatter, I won't be able to fix you. I would like to do it now, but Pathfinder's case is more urgent. He has only a few weeks, following which he will suffer an agonizing death if I do not assist him."

"I can hear you," came his voice from the open door. "Have a little more faith, Bit. I'll be fine."

"He will not be fine," Bit said simply. "Unless I find a way to treat him." The automatons obeyed her instructions, remaining on the stairs as she passed down into the basement. She found a clean metal bucket to fill with water, her mind already starting to spin.

The hospital didn't have the drugs she needed. It was possible she could find the machines to make them, rebuild them, and eventually produce enough. But getting the power on had taken... so long she didn't even know. Pathfinder would not survive that process.

But there was another treatment, one she'd memorized in great detail.

"Master, you say I'm the future of all ponies," Bit said, delivering his tea. "I believe you have made a mistake."

"Oh?" He levitated the glass up to his lips, took a sip, then settled it beside the transparent display. "You're probably right, I've made many mistakes. Which are you referring to?"

"I cannot be your future." She tapped one hoof on the edge of the table. "You already know how I'm created. You could become like me any time you wanted. You do not. Therefore, I must conclude that your statement is false."

The wizard's face became unreadable to Bit. But aside from the most basic emotions, his feelings were usually inscrutable to her. "Do you resent my decision, Bit? Do you think that I'm a fool for waiting so long?"

She stared back, expression blank. "You are not attempting to entertain me. What is 'resent?'"

He shook his head in his peculiar way, the one that meant he didn't want to answer one of her questions and wanted to redirect her to something more important. "The process will not be the same. You were built, given a spirit taken from the dead. Despite my best efforts, you have not yet achieved sapience.

"I would not be created in the same way, but would experience the same transition meant for all of Zircon. I might be unaffected by that process, or... I might be like you."

"Perfect," she supplied. "Without weakness, or fear of cold."

He couldn't meet her eyes. "And without a soul. My goal for ponies is not just to escape fear of the cold—suicide could do that. Don't you remember, Moss Flower? We're building the future of ponies together. But if I cannot experience the joy of my success, I have failed. I will not allow anypony to risk themselves until I prove that a crystal pony can be a living thing. You aren't alive yet, Bit."

Bit stopped in the stairs, staring down at her full bucket of water. But if I desired to reproduce, I would be alive. If I use the wizard's research on Pathfinder, that would be an act of reproduction. I do not desire to see him die, no other treatment is available. I desire to reproduce.

I am alive.

She ran up the stairs, taking the rest of them two at a time. "I figured it out!" she announced. She scooped a glass full of the icy water within, settling it down beside him. "We don't need to go to the hospital, there's a treatment upstairs.”

Chapter 11: Opal

For the first time in Bit's timeless existence, she found herself beset with an entirely unique problem: a task that was time sensitive. This was her one great advantage, the thing that made the Wizard sing so much praise to her precision and thoroughness. She could devote herself completely to every endeavor she attempted, learning every possible fact of relevance, examining it from all angles, and only acting when she was precisely confident in her choice.

This was how she had got the power working, with so little resources that a single burned turbine might've met utter failure. This was how she had kept the tower maintained with a rapidly draining reservoir of cleaning materials.

But Pathfinder could not wait for her to take her time. Even worse, the task she had set for her now was not one any creature before her had attempted. For the first time in forever, Bit's hooves were on fresh snow. This was going to take everything she had.

Even worse, her reliable fallback strategy of exhaustive trial and error would not work either. Her living patient was incredibly unlikely to remain that way if she made even a modest error. To be alive is to desire to reproduce. When I am successful, I will meet this definition.

What unconquered horizons waited beyond the veil of life? She would have to succeed to face them: after all, failure here would likely mean the end of her desires, returning her to a perpetually unliving state. Perhaps she would remain that way forever.

But she had one advantage. While Pathfinder slept, she could devote herself fully to her work, returning down the steps only many hours later to see that he was doing well.

He was not, of course, despite his insistence on the resilience of earth ponies. The pony hacked and coughed a few times in the morning, and she verified he had begun to pass blood as well as the usual waste of living ponies.

"Always gets worse before it gets better," he grunted, grinning feebly for her. "I've felt this bad before, two winters back. I'll survive."

"You will not survive without my help," she said flatly. There was no pride or correction in her tone—if anything, she wanted to be wrong. But the knowledge of her tower had not lied to her yet, she saw no reason it would start now.

"Then it's a good thing I have you," he said. "Because I'm not ready. 'Efore the rebellion, ponies who stole all the wealth could do two centuries, that's what they say. I figure I 'ave another hundred in me. Evil king ain’t gonna kill me from beyond the grave. Besides... have to find your old master."

Those words focused her like a laser. Of course, she wasn't doing this to satisfy some vain desire that originated within herself—Bit was honoring her directives. This pony and the rebellion outside were the last line of contact with Crimson. Even shoddy information was better than the nothing she had left.

"Right. I should return to my research. I have delicate processes to begin, which will only have a single opportunity for success. If they fail, you will die before I can attempt them again."

"Can't you take me up there?" Pathfinder gestured around the room, at the empty hospital beds covered in crusty, yellowing blankets. "I need to keep my spirits up if I'm to survive this. I need a friend."

"The sick should remain in the hospital," Bit said. "That is the proper arrangement of things. See these beds? They are for the sick. The doctor’s quarters are there, and the nurse's station is up there. There are at least two nurses and one doctor on call at all times to see to your needs."

Pathfinder's expression faltered, changing to something Bit couldn't read. But it was something her Wizard had felt for her too, because he looked like that a great deal near the end. The familiarity was a painful one. "There aren't, Bit. It's just us and the death machines, remember? This tower got..." He trailed of, hacking into a cloth. It came away red from his mouth. "The revolution came here," he finally said. "They didn't leave anypony behind. Everyone either joined, or... they were overthrown."

He was right, of course. Bit had cleaned this tower so many times that she couldn't possibly miss the presence of another pony dirtying it back up. "They abandoned their posts," she muttered, turning her tail sharply on the empty doctor's station. "They had shallow loyalties and faltering morals. They abandoned their duty to the Wizard."

"I dunno, Bit," Pathfinder said. "I find it best not to judge a pony you never met, ya' know? My point is, I don't want to be stuck down here alone. Who cares what's proper—wouldn't you rather have company?"

Who cares what's proper? The thought was so incomprehensible to Bit that she was silent for almost a minute, turning thoughtful. When ponies reproduced, they spent years of their life instructing the new creature, preparing them to be a productive contributor to society. Sometimes their children even eclipsed their parents, as the Wizard had done to King Zircon. Either way, Bit would have a lot of instruction to do with Pathfinder.

If he survived.

"I have never had company," she finally said. "Not while I work. Only while I assist with the work of others. I sometimes provided... proximity... to the Wizard. He seemed to prefer laboring when there was someone he could speak with. I did not understand what he told me."

"Exactly," Pathfinder said. "I'll do that. I barely understand what you say half the time anyway." He rolled out of bed onto unsteady hooves. "I'll follow you up."

She wanted to argue, but he walked past her to the door. Pathfinder wasn't lying about earth pony magic, even if he obviously overestimated its ability to save him. A member of a weaker tribe probably would've been unable to walk by now.

He froze in the doorway, horrified by what he saw. The two “death machines” waited on the landing, exactly where Bit had told them to remain. Neither so much as twitched as he approached.

"B-Bit? Why are they here?"

"They require service as well," Bit explained. After a few more moments of consideration, she gestured towards the intact model. "You, a new command. Bring a bed upstairs to the Wizard's lab, along with saline and a surgical kit." She gestured to the other one. "You, climb to the crystalarium, and wait there for repair. I will help you once Pathfinder is healthy."

They both jerked to motion, though the cracked automaton was far slower than the other. It limped along the stairs behind them, its metal legs clanking and spluttering with every step.

Pathfinder followed her up, despite her protestations. He was quickly out of breath, and overwhelmed with the climb. But rather than leave him there, Bit waited patiently for him to catch his breath. If he wasn't so big, she would've tried to carry him.

Pathfinder barely even dared to breathe as the intact automaton trudged up the stairs, with an oversized box of surgical equipment in its arms. Only when it was past them did he speak. "Don't you think it's... wrong... using their help like this?"

Bit twitched her head to the side. "Wrong? Did I fail to perceive an error? Please, report it."

He sighed. "Death machines killed so many ponies during the revolution, Bit. I don't... stars above don't know how many. Stories say outrageous things, like bringing down a hundred brave ponies with every one. Could've been even worse for all we know. If those two are still working, it means they won. There's no possible way they aren't responsible for many deaths."

She shrugged. "Pathfinder, I believe you are operating under a failed assumption. You mistakenly assume an automaton is capable of deciding its own actions, it is not. They are 'responsible' for no deaths. The one who gave them their orders is 'responsible'. In this case, Evil King Zircon, or one of his generals.”

The stallion seemed unconvinced. "Ponies blame swords too, sometimes. Lots of the old army's weapons were melted down, made into the monument of Unity by the spire. Victory over oppression, all that. The Union would probably do that to them, too."

Bit said nothing as they climbed the rest of the way. Outwardly, she showed nothing but calm to this pony. But within, she couldn't shake her dread. For reasons that she could not explain, she did not want these machines to be destroyed.

It must be their utility, she told herself. I have done all without reliable assistants. If they remain, I could leverage their help to increase my capabilities. But to do what, without the Wizard? That question remained unanswered.

It's their form that terrifies the ponies of Zircon. I'll have to make them look like something else.

But that was another task, for another time. Pathfinder stopped on almost every floor, peeking into the tower's many rooms and asking about much of what they saw. She explained everything as best she could, though for most of the machines she could only say, "The apprentices used this to build things for my master," as well as extensive notes about what she couldn't touch while cleaning and how to store each machine properly.

Eventually they reached the top, and the Wizard's personal lab. Pathfinder could barely stand by the time they arrived, and collapsed into the bed with relief. The automaton hadn't brought a full hospital bed to the top, but instead chosen one of the portable rolling models, which it tucked away in the open space near the large, central screen.

Pathfinder finally drifted off, letting her focus her attention on the lab.

Bit could not merely return this lab to some desired state, as she did with the rest of the tower. This new task would be the most difficult she had ever faced. She would have to do something new.

She had already memorized every page of the Wizard's notes on the subject, or else she might not have known it was even possible. As it was, she had already gathered all the raw materials, filling a shelf with beakers and sealed vials. Her first step had been testing each of them for their purity, and arranging them by order they would be required in the process.

With that done, it was time to begin growing the first stage of the formulation.

"The process of crystalline vitrification begins with a seed."

Though memorization had taught her there were two distinct styles of writing within the document. She recognized this one as his, and could almost hear his voice reciting the words.

"The purity of this seed is critical to the success of all that is to come. The astute artifabrican will recognize the process is identical to the one so familiar to them. A seed, usually taken from a master sample, is introduced to a substrate, and allowed to grow.

“The difference here is our substrate, and the desired outcome. Rather than robust thaumic manipulators around a powerful crystalline computer, we desire to use the most powerful computer currently known: the equine brain.

“We began with the standard crystal seed useful in automation. It is imperative you complete the following steps to prepare it exactly, or else the candidates will certainly die, leaving only morbid sculptures behind. If successful, a sliver of this seed should be preserved for future use, as it will form the master for self-replication.

“The modifications to this seed will take place over exactly one hundred and eleven steps, over the course of several days. Seed crystal is highly temperature and vibration sensitive, so take appropriate precautions. If your product does not exactly match the following descriptions in each phase, abort the process and incinerate the result."

At least in this one way, it was a comforting return to the world Bit knew. Crimson had left precise, detailed instructions. All she had to do was follow them.

Chapter 12: Garnet

Bit worked.

This did not bother her—labor was a desirable state for her, it meant she was advancing towards a purpose. Idleness, with no labor to perform, was the thing to be feared. But this labor was under pressure, and so for the first time she felt strained.

Growing the crystal seed needed to "treat" Pathfinder was an incredibly delicate process, requiring her focus at almost all hours of the day, with only very brief periods of respite while one step in the process resolved into the next. It was abundantly clear to her from the very first night that no mere pony could do this—even the Wizard needed to sleep, and to rest.

That led her to one inescapable conclusion, one that was so obvious she nearly missed it. Her master had help the one time he had done this. That help had clearly come from the other who had contributed to the instructions, often with complementary notes outlining ways to perfect or simplify the process with further experimentation.

Granted, Bit ignored most of these notes. Whoever the other pony had been, they focused far more on the future, on improvements and simplifications. Pathfinder did not have the time for experimentation, so all of that would have to wait for some future innovation.

I wonder if the desire to reproduce will remain once it has been fulfilled. She doubted it—if living things continued to reproduce despite satisfying that drive, they would inevitably exhaust their resources. That explained the state of Zircon well enough, but she couldn't believe Crimson would instill something so contradictory in her.

She had expected having Pathfinder present for the work would make things easier. In some ways it wasn't—he asked questions whenever he was awake, and often required tending. Bit had not been trained as a nurse, and did not have time to reference the guides stored in the vault below. That meant her labor was substandard, building a constant reservoir of shame within her.

When the Wizard returns, he won't think much of my work saving Pathfinder. If he survives, he will have endured far more than a patient should.

By the second day, he had started losing fur. By the fifth, he began to admit that he was having doubts about his earth pony magic.

Pathfinder had an IV in him then, a constant drip of water, salt, and simple sugars to keep him from starving. It would only work for so long, though—his digestion was undergoing permanent destruction. Supplies of powdered emergency supplements would last longer than he did.

"How's that potion coming along?" he asked, his voice ragged and raspy. He didn't move from the hospital bed anymore, just watching as the health monitor droned the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. "I'm feeling... optimistic about trusting you." Every sentence came haltingly, with a pause to catch his breath. "You act like the artisans in Revolution Square. They don't know what they're missing not having you."

She didn't look away from her work, though she could still see him out of her peripheral vision. The desks in front of her were completely covered with equipment, as a dozen different chemical processes transpired simultaneously. The fume hood against the wall was the loudest, though not the most delicate. That honor remained the realm of the seed itself, suspended by magnetic induction in a double-insulated beaker in front of her.

Liquid nitrogen boiled from the outer shell of the insulated vacuum, and the top was packed with gauze. Still, she spoke quietly, just in case.

"I don't actually know I have succeeded. I will not see the crystal seed until the seventh day of the process. If it does not match my master's descriptions, then it will kill you."

"It's gonna be perfect," he said. "Bloody hell, Bit. You're the wizard of the tower. You can bring back everything that was lost in the revolution. Power, medicine, crystalcraft. You know it all."

More organic failures. Maybe this hadn't been the unique weakness of Crimson after all. Every one of these ponies seemed prone to overestimating her. Improper assessments of her skill would lead to incorrect judgements about future capabilities.

"I am attempting to follow precise instructions. But even if I am successful, and the seed exactly matches the description, I do not wish to exaggerate my certainty of the results you will experience. This treatment was experimental even then. The Wizard of this tower refused to try it, for fear of the subject not surviving. It may not work."

It seemed like she finally reached him this time. Pathfinder was silent for over a minute, staring out the clear window to his left at the city far below. It was still warm out there, though perpetual smoke always rose from the city center. Revolution Square, apparently.

Finally, he spoke, without any of his past enthusiasm. "Bit, it feels like I'm dying anyway. If I haven't started getting better in... what, two more days? If I feel this bad two days from now, I will take any treatment you can offer."

She nodded resolutely. "I believed you would express a sentiment to that effect. It is the logical way to proceed. It is possible that Master Crimson was just waiting for a similar hopeless case before proceeding with his experiments further. It did not come, but now... I will complete what he began."

Bit did not understand what she was doing. She had not been trained in crystalcraft, and she was no artifabrican. What if the test failed, could she try again? Could she grow a better seed the second time?

If I wanted to try, I would have to study everything the Wizard knew. I would need his education.

Or even better, maybe Pathfinder could help her find him. His help would be the least she was owed after saving his life.

She worked, and he got worse. He woke less and less, with patches of infected tissue emerging all over his body. A few even became necrotic, and required her clumsy removal.

But it was no longer about curing him—the chance of that vanished after the second day, when he didn't receive the proper treatment. All her hopes hinged now on transforming him.

Bit was so focused on her craftsmanship that there was almost no time at all to devote to anything else anymore. As it turned out, her first few days were a mere introduction to the challenge waiting for her.

Again she felt that sensation of treading on something so far beyond herself that she could not even comprehend it. It was the way she had looked at the Wizard's door for all those years of cleaning windows and sweeping floors. But now she understood why she had respected him so much.

She was left struggling to complete each step, managing thaumic lenses nanometers from bleaching the crystal, or chemical concentrates that would become violently unstable at the slightest variation in pressure. In the end, obedience was only possible thanks to the advantages of her nature. Bit could watch every beaker without her concentration faltering.

Pathfinder was not awake when the final moment came, and she removed the crystal seed from within the pressure-vessel that had held it for its last several days.

She carefully drained away the toxic gas, then the debris collecting on the bottom of the tank. Finally she slipped the vessel aside, and settled the levitation coil out onto the table before her.

The shard within was smaller than the instructions suggested, barely any larger than the automaton seed she had started with. But where that was a perfect diamond, this was a swirl of color, fracturing and polarizing depending on the angle.

The seed itself was a perfect octahedron, product of the thaumic compressor that had helped create it. Would this be enough for a crystalcraft certification? I have to rank as a novice at least.

There were three tests to confirm the completion of her work. The first, that the stone could be levitated, was already a clear success. The second required her to lift up a dropper of acid so powerful it burned the lungs and melted glass. She deposited a single drop on the peak of the seed.

It slid down to the desk below, where it began to sizzle at the polished surface. But Bit didn't care—it had left no mark, and not discolored the seed. The second test was passed.

And to perform the third test, a life will be required.

The warmth of the levitation coil was enough that the sheet of her notes began to blacken. Bit barely felt he heat against her crystal body, though of course it must be present.

The coils will burn out if I leave it floating without coolant. A part of her ached that she was about to disobey the instructions. She didn't dare fracture the crystal into shards, and risk destroying what little she had. She was damning herself to endure this process all over again if she ever wished to reproduce, but she would endure it.

Maybe one day, she could perfect it.

Bit took the seed in a pair of platinum tongs, before switching off the levitation coil. Only when it was safely resting in a little bowl of the silvery metal did she finally turn her attention on Pathfinder.

She approached his bedside slowly. Even getting close to him was painful, though she could not exactly explain why. Most of his coat was gone now, and whole patches of skin were angry red. A few more green spots were visible too, with bulging blisters of infected pus waiting to be lanced.

In a matter of days, he had gone from a vital, clever pony, brave enough to follow her into the darkness of the palace... to a rotting blob, barely able to sit up.

The same thing happened to the Wizard.

"Pathfinder," she said, nudging him gently with one hoof. "Pathfinder, I'm finished."

He didn't even twitch. His chest continued to rise and fall, shaking with every breath.

"Pathfinder," she shouted, far louder. "It's time! I have finished!"

The resting pony didn't so much as groan in his sleep. Off to one side, the automaton turned towards her. Was it worried for her? Or maybe it mistook her words for a command.

If Pathfinder isn't awake, I need help.

"It is standard practice to obtain consent before treatment," she said, watching Pathfinder's eyes carefully. Nothing. "As this is a high-risk procedure, that requirement becomes even stricter."

His breath rasped in and out. The monitor beside him continued to beep. Was it her imagination, or was it slowing down? I haven't prepared this seed for use on a pony without vital processes. That required a whole suite of tools and materials she didn't have, materials probably lost to the revolution like so much else.

"Pathfinder, I require interaction. Please show sign of your consent to the procedure. This treatment will permanently change you. You will not ever return to your previous state, no matter how badly you desire it."

Still the pony was unconscious. This was worse than talking while she worked—at least sometimes her memories of her master could offer some insight.

"I will take any treatment you can offer." Those were his words—but he hadn't understood what she was doing. Why bother explaining it before she knew if she could even offer the process?

Now it was too late, and Bit was left with the hardest task she had ever had: she had to choose for someone else.

"I can't do it!" she screamed, crystal seed resting before her in its protective dish. "Master Crimson, I am not making a decision for myself anymore. Others are impacted. I have no way of knowing whether I followed your instructions until I administer the treatment. Even if I succeeded, he may die. What do I do?"

Her master's portrait watched her from the wall, eyes as wise and loving as she remembered. Had she been there the day that photo was taken? I was holding the camera.

Impossible, obviously. She had never existed when the Wizard was so young. Yet she could picture him there, standing before much older and more primitive versions of the machines that now surrounded her.

"You sure you wouldn't rather stand somewhere else?" she asked the empty room. "We could take it beside the Zircon Spire, or in your father's palace."

"No," the Wizard said, making the exact face she saw. "I'm not proud of those things. I didn't build the palace, or the Spire. But here—here we will work miracles."

"I hope so," Bit said. But his confidence was intoxicating, even then. He spoke like it was a future he could already see.

Bit took the little bowl in one hoof, turning towards the automaton. "Rise. I require your help. We will treat this patient immediately.”

Chapter 13: Citrine

Bit watched as the crystal seed spread through Pathfinder. She had positioned him atop a plastic liner, body raised so that he would let no crystal feelers grow into the rest of the lab. In crystalcraft, such growth was normally performed within isolated chambers, kept electrically charged to prevent outgrowth. Bit had to make do with the resources she could get her hooves on.

Pathfinder had been so borderline that he might not have even survived transport down to the basement crystal chambers.

Then again, she had no way of knowing if he had survived what he had experienced. She had disconnected the heartbeat monitor, stripping away every shred of clothing and bandage. Theoretically the seed was clever enough to tell the difference, and wouldn't incorporate something dead into the newly-birthed crystal pony. But considering it was her craftsmanship at work, and not the perfection of Crimson, she would rather just eliminate every possible variable.

She watched with the patience of a creature who had only just realized she was alive. Watched for hours as amber crystal a similar shade to his coat spread across his body, spidering in thin lines across his skin. Despite the illusion, it did not crawl over his coat, but emerged from within,riding along the vascular system. That meant it emerged first and strongest from the weeping injuries, exploding past the rot and bolstering what was already damaged.

"The conversion process should not encounter serious disruption even with a nearly-dead subject, so long as the spirit resides within the body and the circulatory system is intact. See the appendix for precautions for use with an artificial heart..."

Fortunately she hadn't had to worry about any of that complexity, just had to watch and wait as more and more of the dying flesh was replaced by clear, amber crystal. It kept expanding, a thin membrane growing up in a wide dome over the plastic shell until the pony beneath was only an outline.

"Now we wait," Bit told him. "You should wake up within the week. I will check on you every hour until you are revived."

Either that, or he would never wake up, and she would have a perfect crystal sculpture of the pony who had depended on her.

Bit tried to occupy herself productively after that. She called the other automaton up to the workshop, and began examining the damage to its superstructure. She sketched a few revisions she would make to their bodies, to make them less threatening but more useful as assistants.

But more often than not, she found herself going back to the crystal cocoon, and imagining what might be taking place within. Is this the beginning of salvation for Zircon? Ponies set free from their needs, immune to Equestria's intimidation and the worst the winter could throw at them?

It might be all that, or it might be the opposite. The death of Pathfinder might very well signal her severance from Crimson forever. "Are you proud of me?" she asked his portrait. "Would you have done anything different for Pathfinder?"

Of course the picture never answered.

Three days passed before anything happened. Her constant dread that the marinading pony might shatter the instant she took her eyes off him weren't realized, at least not yet.

The distraction was the proximity alarm, warning her of a pony banging on the front of the tower. Bit's ears pressed flat at the constant, high-pitched droning. She hurried to a console at a clerk's desk one floor down, slapping the alert silent and summoning the cameras.

There were three ponies standing at the front door—not trying to break their way in, though she could see how the systems had thought that. One of the ponies banged the butt of a spear into the door, over and over. They were a soldier of some kind, though the unform was red instead of gray and of a far simpler, woolen cut.

She recognized the pony behind him, bundled up tight in several layers of cloak. And just beside her, another stranger.

This one wore the same reds and golds of the soldier, though his uniform was slightly fancier, with a sash down his front with bits of metal gleaming from it. He wore an oversized hat as well, though none of it meant anything to Bit. Unlike the other two, this pony was a unicorn, as lean as the white bears that hunted on glaciers north of Zircon.

"Open up!" shouted the soldier! "By order of the Union! The presence of the wizard is required!"

They'll probably have to bang on that door for hours. Bit skimmed the security measures available to her, and her mouth hung open. Everything. Turrets, gas, sonic cannons. She couldn't say how many of them had rotted away to nothing over the years. But that wasn't what shocked her.

Crimson didn't use them against the mob. He didn't fight back. Instead of testing her defenses, Bit pressed the intercom. "You want to talk with me," she said. Far below, the soldier stopped pounding. The mare gasped and stared at the wall, frightened. But neither of the other two reacted.

"Relax, citizen Rue," said the unicorn, calmly. "It is a communication spell. You are not in danger."

You are. I have twelve ways to fight you, and one of them probably works.

He turned towards the wall. "Come down and speak with us, great Wizard. Unless the mare who saved the lives of thousands is too much the coward to face us."

"Give Pathfinder back!" Rue shouted, glaring at the wall. "Whatever horrible thing you plan on, give him up! You think Zircon's still the way it was before, where big ponies could do whatever they wanted to little ones? It ain't! You'll face justice for your murder!"

"Calm yourself, Rue," the unicorn muttered. "One more outburst like that, and you can return to the camp. We are not here to make accusations or threats on the wizard."

"But then why are we—" She trailed off, silenced by his glare.

"You just want to talk?" Bit asked. "Nothing else?"

"Just talk," the stallion agreed. "The Union wishes to meet the pony who has done so much for the salvation of Zircon."

If I don't go, there might be another mob at the tower soon. Maybe even before the conversion process was complete and Pathfinder woke up again. She couldn't take the chance. If I have to flee the tower, where will Crimson find me?

"I am coming down," she said. "I'm near the top of the tower, but I'll be right there."

She disconnected, then began climbing. She hesitated only when she reached the second floor, and where she'd hidden her cloak. She donned it, along with a pair of sturdy boots, and her usual saddlebags. There wasn't anything inside. But shouldn't a wizard be prepared?

She didn't go out the front door, as much as they probably expected that. She couldn't risk they would try to force their way in. Maybe that unicorn wanted to strip her tower of resources the way the relay stations had all been stripped. She had to defend her home.

"What do I tell them, Crimson?" she asked, as she clambered through the sewage exit and up the tower steps. "Why did you let them in the first time?"

She thought she could hear a pair of hoofsteps just behind her, slow and halting. But whenever she turned to look, the Wizard was nowhere to be seen. She would have to face this alone, just like everything else she'd done since she ran out of brushes.

She emerged from the back of the building a few moments later, trotting towards the front as quickly as she dared. The ground around the tower had thawed somewhat, though even in summer there was a constant veneer of dirty ice on the edges of rocks and coating old machines.

Some of them looked like royal armor, buried in the snow. The tower's defenses hadn't helped, but the royal soldiers had. They hadn't been enough.

"Sir," the soldier called, pointing in her direction with the spear as she rounded the corner.

Bit stopped in place, adjusting the hood over her face. Of course that wouldn't stop her crystal body from being visible underneath, even if she didn’t catch direct sunlight. "I am Bit, the one you mistakenly identify as wizard of the tower. What is it you want from me?"

Before the unicorn could answer, Rue surged towards her, crossing the icy ground in a blink. She didn't attack, but loomed over her, face red and steam billowing out her nostrils. "Give us back Pathfinder!" she demanded. "You took him into your damn tower! We waited long enough. Now you give him back, if you don't want the Union to—"

"Be silent, Rue," the unicorn said. "She is correct, Wizard. That is one of the matters I wished to discuss with you. Though you say mistaken—what else should we call the one who restored power to the Capital Waystation?"

"I am the steward of the tower," she said, stepping around Rue so she could meet the face of this stranger. From all the failures she had heard of from the revolution, she expected something similar from their leader. But she could see no evidence of mad carelessness, of raw, unmastered destructive impulses. "I am Bit. Who are you?"

"Steward Bit," the unicorn said. "The Union will like that, I think. We are all stewards of the capital we have been entrusted, is it not so? It happens I have been entrusted with a bit more—my name is Keen Ardor, Secretary of Heat here in Zircon. You may have some idea why I wished to speak with you."

"You're gonna let her walk away?" Rue asked. "After what she did to Pathfinder? I thought you were here for justice! Party secretary and all..."

"Comrade Stone, please escort Rue back to the village. And Rue—it is your civic duty to remain silent about this pony from here onward. Your friend will have justice, but it is not for you to judge what form that justice takes. Is that clear?"

She practically melted. The soldier didn't even have to get close to her for her to back away, raising her hoof to her chest. "Of course, Secretary. I will... of course." She left without another word, practically galloping ahead of the escorting soldier.

But how long will they be gone?

"Apologies, Bit. Rue feels a great debt to Comrade Pathfinder for the service he did in relocating her family to the capital camp. But that debt is misplaced, as we both know. You are the reason that camp exists. You are responsible for the lives it saved."

"I am trying to help the pony she is talking about," Bit said, a little of her annoyance finally leaking out. Keen Ardor approached her to within reach, watching her from behind a pair of simple spectacles. "But the medication Pathfinder needed was gone a long time ago. Saving him has taken considerable improvisation. I will not even know if it is successful for another four days."

Keen's eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. He was silent for almost a minute in fact, staring openly at Bit. "I thought I was imagining it—some trick of the light, perhaps. But I cannot be. Your face is transparent. Please remove your hood."

Bit hesitated, then obeyed. She'd known this would happen, so it wasn't like she wasn't ready.

She felt the sun through the back of her head, making her whole body glow faintly in the light. "You are not hallucinating," she said preemptively. “This is how I’m meant to look."

"What... are you?" Keen asked, awed.

She answered reflexively, the same way she always did. "My master always taught me that I was the future for all ponies. An end to hunger, an end to fear of the cold and of time itself. I am the first of a new race that he will one day share with all Zircon."

Chapter 14: Obsidian

Secretary Keen Ardor stared openly at her reply, unblinking. Finally he levitated something from a pocket—a tiny pad of paper and a pencil. It was no thaumic recorder, but it seemed effective enough at the same purpose. "How much of that is euphemism?" he asked. "The cold bit first. You don't require warmth?" He shivered as he said it, brushing a few faint wisps of snow from his mane.

"I barely feel it," she said. "I can be harmed by temperatures, but only in the swift transition between great cold and heat. I can crack the way glass does. But physically, I'm composed of the same material as the structures of Zircon. Only the spires themselves are stronger."

His pencil zipped across the page, and he flipped to the next. She thought she could feel a faint pressure of magic against her from his horn—but it wasn't an attack. If he'd tried that, he would likely learn the other strengths of crystal.

After another few seconds, he gestured down the road. "Please, Wi—Steward Bit. Would you come with me to the waystation? My engineers and technicians have examined your repairs thoroughly over the last several weeks. But despite our best efforts, we can't figure out half of the changes you made. They would be more successful if they dismantled some of it—but the lives of thousands now rest on the waystation continuing to function."

You were going to dismantle my repairs? It was exactly the kind of frustrating behavior she'd come to expect—yet this stallion, this 'Union Secretary' had held back. He hasn't ordered me around like the king. "I will accompany you," she announced. "But I should not remain away from the tower for too long. The patient upstairs might wake early—I don't want him to face that alone."

If her remarks seemed strange to him, the pony didn't object. He seemed content that she was following him, down the familiar path to the open relay station. The doors were open, and several new "no trespassing" signs had been erected, each one stamped with a stylized gear with the letter U located prominently in the center. It was the same symbol on his collar, now that she thought about it.

There were a few more guards just inside, as though waiting to catch any who disobeyed the instructions. But they didn't react with hostility, just saluting as Keen passed. "May I ask you a question, Secretary?" she said. "I have never been exposed to the ponies now living in Zircon until now, but every one of my observations has instilled me with troubling conclusions.”

He gestured with one hoof, smiling politely. "We are not the old kingdom, Bit. Ask your questions. I may not know all the answers, or I may not be able to tell you for reasons of the city's well-being. But I will try."

Bit hesitated a moment, long enough that they were past the soldiers. Just because this one pony was proving himself reasonable did not mean the others would be too. But finally they were standing in the control room, and she dared ask her question. "You overthrew the evil king—your organization did, anyway. You took over Zircon?"

He nodded. "We organized out of that conflict. The Union as it is today didn't exist. We lived only in the hearts of every brave pony who rose up against our oppressors."

That was close enough, as close as she was likely to get when there were no ponies from back then still around. "So why be so pointlessly destructive? Zircon was... I don't know what everypony else suffered under the king. But I know we had enough food, and nobody froze. It doesn't look like either of those things are true today."

She walked along the controls, gesturing at the relay station outside. "This facility should have required almost no maintenance. It failed because its redundancies were systematically removed. A critical induction relay attempted to discharge excess capacity, and the entire bank was fried, severing the matrix from the relay crystal. That should not have happened."

For a few seconds he watched her like an apprentice who had just been told he had a test coming the next day. But then his expression became more subdued. His horn glowed, and he quietly levitated the control room door closed. There were no other spells, though.

"To understand that, you must first understand the suffering our ancestors endured. King Zircon wasn't just 'evil.' He didn't just condone the exploitation of his workers. He acted with a cruelty no other monarch could rival.

"He marched ponies out into the glacier to establish mines, without proper equipment. As their frozen bodies cooled on the ice, he replaced them with a steady stream of new slaves. While his nobles feasted, he demanded the elderly and infirm be cast out into the cold, as soon as they failed to meet their quotas. He marshaled the sons and daughters of Zircon to endless wars of conquest with Equestria, determined to retake a land that was never even ours. This was the climate of the revolution."

Now it was Bit's turn for shock. Of course the King had always seemed pointlessly cruel whenever they met. But what happened in the streets outside the tower was beyond her vision.

Except suddenly it wasn't. Bit rode beside the Wizard in an armored carriage, protected by soldiers marching in formation out both windows. She leaned forward to look back, and saw hundreds of others exiting troop transports just behind. This was the end of the ice-road, where Equestria drew close and they could no longer trust the heavy treads of their vehicles.

"Making them walk like this seems so stupid," she said, annoyed. "We have another two hundred miles, Crimson. We should've brought more adaptive vehicles."

Crimson hadn't looked out the window in hours—his attention was focused squarely on the apparatus that took up most of the carriage. An intricate array of crystal studs and thaumic conductors surrounded by a spun-glass phial barely the size of a hoof. "There's nothing in the north worth squabbling over," he said. "The pegasi report no obstructions between us and Trottingham. Those ponies might be annoyed to walk now, but they'll be grateful when they see we spent those bits on cannons instead."

The memory faded, and Bit found Keen Ardor staring at her. "Are you following, Bit?"

She nodded reflexively, before she even processed that doing so was a lie.

"The happiness and plenty eventually ended. The city began to fail all around us. Ponies worked together to salvage and repair what they could, sacrificing every luxury until heat itself was all we had left, and the hothouses could no longer grow enough to sustain us.

"From all this chaos, the Union was finally organized," Keen continued. "With the leaders of each labor union speaking for the workers of their trade. Life in Zircon has been improving ever since. But that is the critical point—we inherited the city as you see it, with resources strained and infrastructure long failed."

His words struck into her like a sudden drop to cryonic temperatures. It had been so convenient to have a single enemy to hate, the ones tearing apart her home without even understanding what it was. But those feelings were all wrong. The Union hadn't been a force of destruction, it had ended the spiral downward with organization.

"That is why I wanted to speak with you," Keen continued. "This relay station was the very worst, since it was the first our ancestors sacrificed. The palace was, and still is, too dangerous to risk demolishing. I would like to accomplish what you did here in the other five heat-relays in Zircon. But even one repaired before winter would likely be enough to guarantee enough heat for everyone.

Is this what you would want me to do, Crimson? Should I be spending every waking hour looking for you? How much better could I make the tower?

"I need to care for my patient for the next four days," she said. "Then I will know if the treatment was a success. Until then, I would be irresponsible to abandon him."

Keen scratched at the gray growth under his chin, looking thoughtful. "This care cannot require all your time, yes? I would like to go over this station with you before you return to your tower. Then when treatment of your patient is concluded, you could accompany me and a team of my engineers to the industrial relay. It was the last to fall, and likely the closest to functional again. We could use your expertise."

Bit watched the pony, thoughtful. He sounded so polite, as Crimson had often sounded. He just spoke to her, without trying to pressure or intimidate her. Of course she wouldn't know that for sure until she tried to defy his instructions. But did she even want to?

I still need to find Crimson. Either find him, or discover that he can't be found anymore.

Even thinking it felt like she might be swallowing poison. Admit her Wizard was vulnerable to the same rotting that assaulted all these other ponies? Generations had come and gone since the end. Magic could make unicorns live long, but how much longer?

"What did you do with the royal family?" she asked. "The queen who ruled after Zircon, Ochre. She was in charge during the revolution, right?"

Keen shrugged. "The tyrants got what they deserved. We destroyed as many of their monuments as we could, except for those we keep as a reminder. Ponies must always remember the dangers of unchecked power."

That's not what I asked. "What about the old wizard of the tower—Crimson. Do you know what happened to him?"

Keen's eyebrows went up. "I don't know why you would care about that, Bit. The tyrants lived so long ago, they cannot threaten us now. If you're worried about some heir returned to harry the revolution, don't be afraid. Prince Crimson Zircon had no children. Ochre's foals did not survive longer than their mother. Our freedom is secure."

You sound like you think I want them to be gone. This isn't good news. But how could this pony, even a practical one, possibly comprehend dedication to a directive like hers?

"I will tell you what I know about the relay station," she said. "And answer any question. But if you want me to go help with some other station, you need to help me with my mission."

She wandered back to the controls, skimming the dials and displays just to be sure. As expected, almost none of the output of the power plant was drawn by exterior loads. There was her tower's internal heating, and probably some streetlights. We have to do something about that. This station will fail if we run it like this forever.

"What mission is that?" Keen asked. "The Union is not averse to making a reasonable exchange. So long as it doesn't sacrifice the wellbeing of Zircon's ponies."

"I have to find what happened to Prince Crimson Zircon," she said flatly. "I must find him, or find what happened to him, specifically. If you will help me do this, then I will evaluate the other plant for you, and provide instructions for its repair. After I help my patient."

Keen frowned, scratching at his chin a second time. Then he scribbled something on the pad of paper he'd brought. "You said you need four days. When that time is elapsed, I will send a historian from the Union of Scribes. Given you reputation, the secretary may come to your tower himself. If any pony knows how to uncover the information you're looking for, it will be the scribes. Are we agreed?"

He extended a hoof, thin and lean as the Wizard had been. In a way, Keen Ardor reminded Bit of Crimson. He seemed so reasonable, but so worried over improving the lives of Zircon's ponies. She took the offered hoof. "Agreed."

"Excellent!" He withdrew, levitating the door open again. "Then let me call the engineers. They had a list of questions for you. I hope you don't mind."

"No," she said flatly. "Just so long as it doesn't keep me from the tower."

Chapter 15: Kyanite

By the time Bit made it back to the tower, the sun was low on the horizon, stretching all the shadows into the reaching talons of an angry mob. But the threat was nowhere to be seen—there was no mob, no soldiers storming the building and tossing equipment from the windows. The tower's lights still shone from the upper floors.

Sorry to keep you waiting, Pathfinder. I hope you didn't wake up yet.

There were a pair of soldiers waiting at the gate, wearing the same gear symbols that Keen Ardor had worn. They watched her as she passed between them. No one moved to stop her, and soon she was through to the inside.

"It's true what they say. The wizard really is a pony made of stone."

"I wouldn't believe if I didn't see it myself," the other agreed.

Bit stopped in her tracks, turning to glare at the two of them. "I am a pony made of crystal, she corrected. Stone is typically a conglomerate of many different minerals. Crystal is the arrangement of a single mineral or small subset, arranged in a repeating geometry. Just look for translucence."

They stared, dumbfounded. But she didn't bother watching to see how well they had learned her lesson, just turned to march up to the security door. She flashed her identification against the sensor, feeling increasingly nervous with every second. Those soldiers were watching her intently, maybe placed here to see how she got inside. But there was nothing she could do about it.

Pity my horn doesn't serve a purpose. I could open the door with magic while obstructing it with my body. But of course her horn didn't work—magic was something for living ponies.

Even after she had snapped the door closed behind her, she felt eyes watching her with every step.

There were no memories to conjure—King Zircon had never known any of this. But she could simulate well enough, without even expending conscious effort. "Wear clothing all you want, strut about pretending to be alive—it will not change the reality. You are an automaton, shaped by cruel hooves to the imitation of equinity. You are incapable of becoming anything else."

Once his words would've meant almost nothing to her, there was nothing frightening about repeating facts. Why should she object to the truth? She was a machine, built using a process she now understood. She had directives to serve, and a master.

I am acting irrationally. I allow ponies to treat me as though I were one of them, when I am not. I am not serving my function.

What was her function anymore? She had done everything her wizard could've expected. She had prepared his tower, restored the power, and cleaned the windows. Whatever conditions he was waiting for must have been fulfilled.

Bit returned to the top floor to find the crystal cocoon unchanged from when she had left it last—not surprising, really. Seven days was not an estimate, it was a timeline.

Bit gathered her cleaning supplies from the basement, and went over the floors. She sprayed the windows, even in the quarters of the deserting apprentices.

The satisfaction never came. She could barely even focus on the procedure of her tasks anymore, and instead caught herself thinking about other things.

"I didn't make you to clean floors, Bit. We have servants for this."

She looked back at the Wizard's empty chair. "Why did you make me, Master?"

The aging unicorn shifted on the cushions, expression thoughtful. "I could tell you what I told our investors. I could tell you what I tell my father. You're the prototype for a new kind of life. Your success will mean a future for every crystal city. Which... I guess that's just Zircon now."

She focused on him, intent. Conversation always had rules, and he hadn't used the words that meant he was following them. "You could tell me anything, Master. But will you tell me?"

He reached out, patting her head gently with one hoof. "You don't remember, Moss Flower? It wasn't supposed to be so soon, and it wasn't supposed to be you. But what else was I supposed to do?"

Bit stared at the empty chair, more confused than ever. If only the Wizard could come back now, she would finally understand enough to properly learn from him. How many years had she squandered mopping floors and cleaning windows?

Bit finished mopping, with the same attention to detail she had ever had. Then she carried her tools out back, and threw them down. Bit watched for over an hour as they vanished into the thick, stinking detritus piled into the disposal. Someone should probably have cleared all that by now, but that wasn't her purpose. Somepony else could fix the sewer.

When Bit finally made it back up the stairs, she found the pair of automatons waiting for her, exactly where she'd left them. They seemed to watch as she came into the crystalarium, entirely unmoving.

"Are you like me?" she asked the broken one, still resting in the maintenance rack. She found one of its many visual sensors, staring directly into it. "Do you look at me the way I used to look at Crimson? Are you waiting for me to give you purpose?"

Silence, of course. Automatons did not speak. They could signal each other with radio, but she didn't have any of those sensors. Or did she? She hadn't found the reference material the Wizard must've used to make her, not yet. The rest of his documents had described working with a corpse, instead of a living pony, not the way to make life from scratch.

"I don't know," she told them. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Save Zircon from hunger and cold? Why should I?"

Again, silence. She ground her teeth together, increasingly frustrated. If only Pathfinder was awake already, then maybe she would have someone who could help. At least he knew what it was like to be a regular pony. He might be the only creature who could help her in all the world.

She slumped into a cushion—not because her limbs were tired, but because it was the thing to do. Crimson had taught her how to do that whenever he didn't know how to proceed. She leaned back, staring at the cracked machine in front of her. The damage went deep enough that she could see its core visible underneath, a silver octahedron about one liter in volume.

"Can you feel pain?" she asked. "The first time I was cracked, I demanded to know why it hurt. I was meant to help ponies overcome all their weakness, why leave me vulnerable? He told me it wasn't a weakness—pain warns us that we're damaging ourselves, and prevents us from causing further damage. "

The cracks on this automaton were incredibly severe, bad enough that she heard crystal shifting when it moved.

The automaton jerked in its rack, as though shifting its weight from one arm to the other. But it was already docked perfectly, and it hadn't slipped. Was that... trying to tell her?

Her frown deepened as she considered. "We were never meant to make war machines," she told it. "In fact, there's only one crystal mold in this whole building."

Bit rose, walking past the two of them to the storage closet. She dragged out the single oversized block of foam from within. She pulled it all the way to the basin against the far wall, finally wrenching it apart.

The foam had done its job: the soft membrane underneath had weathered the years remarkably well. There were a few faint cracks for her to repair, but that was all.

The mold was a pony, of course. Bit slid down to one side, resting her head into one of the openings. It nestled perfectly around her, like the pillows that Crimson slept with. Even her mane was an exact match.

The mold had separate spots for each limb, then the torso. Attaching everything together was where the magic came in.

"I'm afraid we only have one option to repair you," she finally said. "That damage is too severe for adhesive. We need to dissolve and rebuild your crystal matrix. Do not be afraid, the process isn't painful. But I don't know what it will be like to wake up with a new body. Perhaps you will tell me."

The automatons hung from their maintenance racks. Whatever twitch she thought she'd seen did not repeat. Was that a good sign?

For the next few days, Bit worked. Keen Ardor was true to his word, and sent engineers with further questions to her door. She didn't let them inside to distract her, instead settling a portable terminal beside her, and answering them while she labored.

The damaged automaton allowed her to deactivate it without resistance. If anything, it seemed relieved as the glow within its chest finally went out.

The other crowded closer, keeping the camera on her terminal aimed at her face. "Yes, I'm quite sure water is an ineffective lubricant for the turbine. For its many strengths, crystal makes a poor bearing. There's steel bearings in the center. It can last a century if kept properly lubricated. If not, we may need to replace it before we can get them to spin again."

"I don't know if there is a foundry large enough to cast a baring so huge," the engineer said. A mousy-looking earth pony mare who hid behind her thick glasses and never met Bit's eyes, even when watching through a screen. "The Forge Union may not approve wasting so much metal."

Bit shrugged. "Then the turbine won't spin. You cannot negotiate with physics. These laws are always proper, and always absolute. Even if the baring seems to imitate the proper shape, you cannot just scrub away the rust. There is weakness underneath. When it accelerates to working speed, the turbine will shake itself apart."

Bit froze, settling the jar of powdered silicon onto the nearest counter. Something was shaking itself apart right now. She turned to the screen, expecting it had started playing a video or something. But no, the mare just watched her, looking just as confused.

Then her eyes flicked up at the ceiling. That wasn't a turbine shaking itself apart, that was breaking crystal. "We will need to speak again later," she said abruptly. "My patient needs me, goodbye."

She turned, galloping away from the lab and up the stairs. She took them two at a time, and cleared the landing to Crimson's lab in less than thirty seconds.

She wasn't quite there in time to see the hatching, even so. The membrane of brittle glass now lay scattered on the floor, floating in a sea of an oily liquid that could've been rock-polish.

Standing fetlock-deep in that soupy mess was an earth pony—except it wasn't. The spotlights overhead shone through Pathfinder, an amber crystal with a few speckled shades where his short mane and tail now hung.

His body wasn't smooth and perfect like hers—there were rough patches, bumps, and imperfections, most concentrated where the necrosis had been most severe.

He spun as she approached, watching her with translucent eyes. "Bit? Wizard, I... what's going on?"

Bit wasn't sure exactly what that slime was on the floor, but she didn't care. She splashed through it, stopping within reach of Pathfinder and prodding at him. "Before I tell you anything Pathfinder, I need to ask you a question. Please answer however you feel is most appropriate."

His ears pressed flat, as flexible as she was. But she could already tell that from the way he moved his legs. Not the tail though—that was so short it was barely a stump. Still more than he'd had when she treated him. "What? I'm the one who doesn't know what the hay is going on. Why do I feel like I just drank five kegs of baking grease?"

She ignored the question. It was her turn to ask. "What is your purpose, Pathfinder?"

His confusion only deepened. "My purpose? I don't know what the buck you're talking about, Wizard. I'm not part of the unions, if that's what you mean. I never learned a trade. Now can you tell me why I feel so bucking strange? Why I look like..."

He trailed off, anger replaced with fear. His eyes settled on her, mouth hanging open. "Just like you.”

Chapter 16: Azurite

Pathfinder took a slow, exaggerated breath. Of course it no longer served the same purpose, since they didn't require respiration. That cavity worked only to allow them to speak. Which was what Pathfinder did. "You are going to tell me... what you did to me," he said. "And how we reverse it."

Bit didn't look away, even as he advanced on her. Though maybe she shouldn't expect entirely rational behavior—he had only just been created. In some ways, he was also the first of his kind. A pony of crystal created from something organic, instead of computers and memories. She walked over to the nearby console, and pressed a few keys to begin the recording. She would worry about classifying the files later, when she didn't have a potentially dangerous pony in front of her.

"I saved your life," Bit said matter-of-factly. "You were dying, Pathfinder. I did what you suggested, trying to keep you alive as long as possible for the earth pony magic to work. By the end, you slipped into an unresponsive coma. Look." She urged him to the now-dark medical console, bringing up the recordings of the last week. "This is just before treatment. You had suffered a total failure of the upper and lower GI, with infections spreading through your lymphatic system. Necrosis of the soft tissue was advancing rapidly. If that damage reached your brain, treatment would be impossible. I couldn't wait another moment."

He stared up at the screen, which showed a stylized cutout of his body, with several glowing red patches. Of course he showed no signs of recognition. He didn't know what he was seeing.

"You told me to save your life," she continued. "I had hoped to explain what the procedure would do to you. But I didn't know if I would succeed until the end. I did not want to promise you success until I knew we had achieved it."

Pathfinder lifted one of his legs up to the light, looking through it. She'd seen that face before, on more than her fair share of ponies. But Crimson had worn it last, when he looked out at the mob. "What did you do to me?" he repeated. "And how do we reverse it?"

Bit circled around him, removing the crystal-scanner from the desk. The simple ultrasonic probe would do far more for him now than any of the medical equipment in the tower. She touched it to his back, moving it slowly along the center mass and checking for cracks. She did not remember her own birth, but some record she found suggested it was far more difficult than this. Creating a pony without a living base was far harder, just as the wizard had thought.

You were right. Once she'd taken the diagnostics, she would have to change the status of this project in his files. Even if the Wizard never came back, the computer had to be kept in order. It deserved to mark his success. "I had no medicine, and it was too late to make the drugs that would save your body. So I pivoted to saving your mind.

"You are a... I'm not sure what we're called. A pony made of crystal, now. You should have all the same memories, the same personality, but none of the biological needs. Our bodies require only the background magic radiated by the Zircon, or any other magical source. You won't get cold, you don't need to sleep, or worry about the radiation that killed you within the palace. I am... unsure what other ancient defenses will make of you. But probably those will read you as an automaton, and ignore you unless you are doing active harm."

"An automaton," he said. "That's the word you used for the death machines. But I don't feel like I want to kill ponies, or protect an evil king." He took a few tentative steps forward, scanning the room. Then he darted for the restroom, crystal hooves clattering with every step.

Bit followed close behind, tossing the scanner back onto the desk. "You won't need that anymore, Pathfinder! Your body will only produce waste when you're drinking a repair solution to recrystalize internal damage. I don't detect any cracks—"

He wasn't going to use the facilities. Pathfinder stopped in front of the mirror. He touched up against the glass with a hoof, twisting to one side, then the other. Bit stopped in the doorway, lowering her voice to something calmer and more respectful. "Those bumps and crystal protrusions aren't normal, they're part of the growth and repair process. A few hours in the polishing tank will take care of all of that. It won't itch after that. Unless you break, and we have to repair something. But you should probably try not to let that happen."

"Polishing tank." Pathfinder turned, ears still folded, eyes wide. "Can you go back? Now that I'm safe from radiation, how do we make me normal again?"

Even Bit's limited predictive ability required very little exercise to realize that her next few words would probably be hard on him. But he would have to confront the reality sooner or later. "That is not possible. Your mind was converted to a holographic, distributed crystal matrix. You're effectively a damage-resistant, error tolerant computer. The Wizard knew no way to reverse it. But why would you want to?"

Bit had no experience for what to do with a pony in such distress—only memories of what the Wizard had tried to do for her. She wrapped one arm around his shoulder. Apparently that was the right thing to do, because he didn't force her away. "It might be disorienting at first, Pathfinder... but this state is ideal. You don't age anymore. You can't get sick. You never have to eat or drink, unless you want to. Wishing to reverse this process is not a rational desire."

He was silent for a long time. Like her, Pathfinder was completely still while he thought. There were no subtle adjustments for balance, no twitches or gentle swaying to his breath. Pathfinder was as still as the crystal that made him, as only the two of them could manage. "I don't know... how I feel about this. But I wanted to live no matter what. I followed you... you said not to come, and I went anyway. Sooner or later the consequences were going to catch up with me."

He ducked out from under her leg, turning back to the tower. "You said there's a way to deal with this awful itching? Let's do that. I can barely even think straight. Just don't call it a 'polishing tank' again. I'm not a noble's necklace." He sighed. "If there's no changing back, maybe I should be looking into how to fake it. Maybe there's some... cream we could use, to make it look like we have fur."

She didn't argue the absurdity of that suggestion. Not that it was impossible, of course—magic could do almost anything with the right application of leverage and resources. But wanting to appear like he was still constrained by biology, more than just avoiding the fear of a nervous mob—that she couldn't understand.

She led him down to the polishing tank, careful never to call it by its proper name. The box was entirely dark inside, with a thin metal harness to keep the pony securely in place. A thin layer of grit collected near the drain at the bottom, though that was all.

"You climb in this?" he asked, resting one hoof inside. "The evil king had more spacious prisons."

"Rarely," she answered, slipping past him to open the harnesses. They didn't lock, since of course there was no automaton that required polishing against its will. This might be the only polisher built in pony shape in all of Zircon. "You only need polish when a fresh crystal grows. After today, that won't happen again unless you crack. I suggest avoiding that with all possible caution—suggestions that we cannot experience pain because we aren't biological is not true. Cracks are incredibly painful, and do not heal naturally. Fortunately, repairing them is easy enough. I've been fixing my own damage for centuries now."

Pathfinder sighed, climbing in beside her. "Show me what to do, I guess."

She clicked the harness into place around him. For such a large earth pony, it almost didn't fit, though thankfully he was just small enough. Finally she stepped back, resting one hoof on the controls. "It won't hurt. I don't have any comparisons for what it feels like. Given how much debris you're carrying, it should be a relief. Just don't try to leave until the cycle is complete. The machine will open automatically. But if you break it, we don't have another. I'm not sure how long it would take me to repair."

He nodded, slumping down against the restraints. "Got it. Stay here. How long will this take?"

She shrugged. "The standard maintenance cycle is two hours. But you need considerably more polishing than that. Not more than a day."

"You expect me to sit still in a black box getting blasted by sand for... a day?"

She nodded. "You won't have to repeat the process again. But the crystal grew roughly over your necrotic flesh—the computer will need some time to make your body even."

"Ponies don't work that way," he said. "Doing the same thing all day—that's how you make someone go insane. Forgetting how impossible it is. I can't stand up all day. What am I supposed to eat, sand?"

Her ears twitched in frustration. Had he even been listening? "You don't have to eat anything, Pathfinder. And yes, you can stand up all day. I've been standing since the moment I was created. I promise it isn't as hard as you think. And you won't go insane, you'll see. The Wizard was smarter than all that. He was designing a species to last—he knew you were going to live much longer than organic ponies. I don't understand all the changes, but I know what I've experienced.

"We don't see time the same way. Other ponies need constant stimulation, we don't. If you aren't thinking, you'll... drift. Your body can maintain autonomous functions without conscious input. It's relaxing, soothing even. Cleaning windows, fixing machines... you'll see. I know you don't think so now, but this is an advantage. You're growing into something more than you were, not less."

He didn't reply, just continued to hang there in the restraints. Bit could've tried to convince him a little more—but all that itching probably was making him insane. If he started scratching, he might cause hairline cracks that would eventually spread into real ones. She activated the machine, instructing it to prepare a new automaton for service. The screen reported what she already knew—that there was considerable pitting and structurally unsound crystal throughout his body.

It took the old machine a few minutes humming away to finally come up with a repair plan she liked. It would actually take two days to complete, trimming away enough material that Pathfinder would come out smaller than before. But he'd been so huge already he had a little growing to spare. At least this way he'd look natural.

"Isn't it going to do something?" he called from inside. "I don't feel anything!"

I probably should tell him how much this machine is going to do. This was different from accepting treatment—if she didn't repair him, he wouldn't just look strange. All that weak crystal would present a structural hazard. It might even be enough to shatter him. "It was just preparing!" she yelled, pressing the activation button. "I'll see you when it finishes! Don't try to open the machine until it's done!" Fans spooled to life, water-pumps hummed, and whatever he might've said was drowned in the sound of sand on glass.

Chapter 17: Carnelian

It didn't matter that Bit's entire world had changed. It didn't matter that she was no longer the only member of her species, and that she'd confirmed beyond any doubt that she was alive. What mattered was that she had a report to file, and that was exactly what she did.

Bit gathered every observation she'd made over the course of Pathfinder's treatment. Most of them were about her own experience trying to follow the crystal production process, and the difficulties she'd encountered as a result. She wasn't so bold as to add corrections to the process, though there were a few reactions that could be simplified and a platinum catalyst she was fairly certain would work better with rodinium. At this stage, it was just about results.

She wasn't even surprised to find that Crimson had kept an active file devoted to the project, albeit with an empty "experimental results" section. That was exactly the kind of dedication she expected from such a skilled wizard.

"Preliminary results suggest the experiment was a success," she finally typed, after a few hours of cataloging videos and sorting them to the most relevant parts. Of course she made sure to use the terminal closest to the polishing machine, so she could hear if anything was going wrong inside. At least so far things seemed to be working out.

"Long-term viability metrics remain to be taken, but earlier research suggests we've already overcome the greatest hurdle. We have reduced the problem to maintenance. Scalability research should be investigated next, so we can deploy the treatment on a larger segment of the population at once."

She attached that final note, then changed the status of the project from "in-progress" to "complete."

Only then did she sit back in the chair, letting the steady hum of the sandblaster lull her into a resting state. She almost didn't notice that something had changed on the screen. A notification had filled the entire screen, without the usual red security border. The white border indicated a systemwide memo, which only one pony in the tower had the authority to make.

For the first contact she'd had with the Wizard over centuries, Bit expected a little more than a letter. But that was all she got.

"Moss Flower,

If you are reading this, it means you have completed our research. I knew I would not survive to see this moment. I hope you can imagine the joy I feel to know that you've woken up at last, and achieved all our ambitions.

I hope you will share your discoveries with Zircon—free us from the need for pointless wars. Help us achieve what our ancestors only dreamed of.

When you are ready, you will find everything I learned reviving you concealed underneath my bedchamber. Do not use thaumic excavation. The ponies still living in Zircon matter more. But when you have shared our research, remember me.

I will remember you,

Crimson"

Bit did not cry, of course she didn't. She wasn't even capable of tears, and besides the letter wasn't addressed to her. Of course, it was also painfully true—every statement was a confirmation of things she had always known, or at least believed. She was meant to be the first of her kind, not the last.

What does he mean? Bit took a screen-recording of the message, then dismissed it, searching back through the research database. It was all there, even more than the notes she'd digitized to clean the laboratory. Everything required to create a pony like her, from the expanded list of raw materials to the differing treatment procedures.

If it's all here, what did he hide under the bed? Crimson Zircon wouldn't leave two errors in a message like this. He'd already mistakenly suggested that he wouldn't be alive when the research was complete. Could he also forget something so basic as the tower's central database computer?

Bit rose from the chair, marching straight up the stairs towards the Wizard's quarters. She didn't make it two floors before alarms started to blare.

She hurried over to the security console in the hallway, and wasn't surprised by the image she found there. Keen Ardor, with his usual escort of a few revolutionary guards. If anything, his uniform was sharper than last time. The soldiers weren't even carrying practical weapons, but had silver sabers strapped to their sides.

"Wizard Bit," said Keen, looking directly into the camera this time. "I hope we've waited long enough. Is your patient doing well?"

She activated the camera on her side, looking back. It was a good thing she didn't have a real mane, or it would probably be a mess. As it was, the white medical jacket was only stained in places the camera couldn't see. "Very well. Pathfinder will need some time in the..." If he'd reacted negatively, they probably would too. "Dermatological resurfacing machine. He should be ready to receive visitors in another two days, if you want to speak with him then."

"I know some ponies will want exactly that," Keen said. "But I'm not here to speak with him. You'll recall we discussed the matter of your help activating another relay station. You were going to take the tour with us today."

She sighed, glancing down at the floor. Did they really expect her to leave now, of all times? There was something hidden in the Wizard's chambers, something that had been waiting for her for lifetimes, and she couldn't find it?

Keen didn't wait for her reply. "I'm afraid there's been a change of plans. Our progress was noticed by the uh... Secretary of Labor." At her blank expression, he continued. "He's the most important pony in the party. Not our leader, that's so crass a term—but just as I am to heat, he is to all divisions of labor. It would not be wise, or frankly possible to decline this invitation."

Bit thought back to the letter. The Wizard had given her a mission, apparently more important than the one hidden in his bedroom. Now the new King of Zircon wanted to see her. Maybe Crimson saw all of this coming. He guessed the position I would be in.

"Give me a moment to get dressed," she said. "I'll be right down."

Bit couldn't quite bring herself to wear any of the formal wizard robes still hanging in the tower, though there were plenty from lesser positions that she could've used. But she couldn't just make the trip naked—this was her golden opportunity to reach a pony with the power to change things. Fancy ponies expected her to be at least a little fancy herself.

In the end, she settled for apprentice robes, with the silver and pink calligraphy of the crystalsmiths down the hem. The robe she found wasn't quite her size, and would hang a little short—but how many ponies alive today would even recognize that?

Bit hesitated beside the cleaning machine, scrawling something on a slip of paper. "I should be back soon enough that you never read this. But just in case something slows me down, please don't leave the tower yet. We have to apply a coat of varnish to make your exterior resistant to extreme cold. Otherwise, you could shatter in winter." She heard nothing from inside the polisher that she shouldn't—just more sand against glass. A glimpse at the status readout suggested things were moving along. Pathfinder's repair was about halfway done.

Finally she hurried down the steps, scooping a tablet off the desk as she went. She brought nothing else—if this pony wanted to destroy her, she wouldn't be able to stop them. They could send an army to the tower, just like the revolution had done during Crimson's time as wizard.

Finally she stepped outside, joining Keen and his two soldiers. She adjusted the robes over her shoulders, shifting so the tablet wouldn't jostle around inside the pocket. "Hopefully I didn't take too long," she said. "Sorry about the delay."

Keen didn't smile this time, only glanced briefly through the open door behind her. She dragged the door closed, and didn't move until she heard the electronic click of the lock. "The Secretary of Labor will probably be expecting it. You were not informed of this meeting before now. You've decided to fully embrace the identity, I see."

She glanced down at the robe, face flushing with color. "This is just an apprentice's robes. But I'm fairly certain that if the Wizard or any of his subordinates were still living in the tower, they would elevate me this far for what I have accomplished. Perhaps to Journeyman, but those didn't live at the tower, so there weren't any robes left behind."

Keen gestured to the soggy, half-frozen path leading to the tower. "That is probably for the best. Anything more ostentatious would have too much in common with the old world. It's dead for a reason, Wizard. There's nopony in the city who wishes to see it returned."

She followed him, and was relieved to see the guards fall into step behind them. Nopony was sticking behind to try and break into the tower. If they did, they wouldn't enjoy the experience. Its internal

defenses were still there, still armed. I should tell somepony about that. "Do you know what the Secretary of Labor wants to talk to me about? It might be something I'm not prepared to answer. I should've asked over the intercom..."

Keen shrugged. "His questions are his prerogative. I can say only that it's likely more than the disciplines of any individual secretary beneath him, or he would have delegated the task. His time is extremely valuable—even with heat restored to the palace district, Zircon still faces the looming winter. The threat of Equestrian invasion always nears... he could ask about almost anything."

Bit fell silent as they descended the steps away from the palace and into Zircon proper. It had been many, many years since she'd been this way, and never during the reign of this new government. What kind of city had they built?

At first they passed obviously deserted buildings, crystal spires without light glowing from within, or pony shapes moving behind their walls. Many had empty, ominous doorways, though a few had dark red tape and official-looking warnings preventing entry. The air grew colder, and the ponies around her pulled their hoods and caps tighter about themselves. Keen's horn glowed faintly, producing a subtle light that surrounded him, making the little wisps of snow dissolve to mist as they got too close.

After passing fully from the “island” of heat produced by the waystation, they walked for twenty minutes through freezing wasteland. At the bottom of the palace hill was the factory district, with its relay station cold. They skirted the garden district next, its famous crystal glass gardens not glowing with steam, but covered in ice. Many of the thinnest crystal walls were purposefully shattered, the spun-glass topiary within broken into gravel.

But then the Zircon Spire itself appeared, towering over the city's other structures. The Zircon was many times larger than anything but the palace, and radiated so much heat that nopony could come within a hundred meters. Stepping into its auspices was obvious to Bit even if her sense of temperature was poorly developed.

First the streets were changed, with a diffuse cloud of well-wrapped ponies pushing salvage carts or groups of soldiers moving in formation. Then the layer of ice and snow that covered everything sagged and melted. Finally, the gray winter sky was replaced with a blue haze, and the clouds themselves seemed transformed to fluffy white. That part was an illusion, one the other relays could not replicate. Bit couldn't really see the appeal, but it looked like other ponies could.

The buildings went from abandoned to packed, at least on the lower levels. Without power for their elevators, she could see moving shapes of occupants going up less than halfway through the towers. But when that wasn't enough, ponies clustered together in makeshift wooden shelters, clogging up alleys and side-streets as solid as the ramshackle little settlement around the relay.

But where that one was entirely organic, without a single clear path through the sprawl of homes and shops, the main streets here were kept clear by patrolling soldiers just like the ones following her. They passed in groups of two, and there was never a moment where Bit couldn't see at least a few pairs walking or lurking or chatting amicably with civilian ponies.

Then they reached the subway station. Or... it had been the subway station. Now the signs all called it “Revolution Square” and the face of a stern, gray pony was framed on a red background. There was no flow of traffic moving up those steps, as workers commuted all over the city. Only ponies in uniform went up and down, expressions as unfriendly as the one up on the roof.

"He'll be waiting for you," Keen said, nodding towards the steps. "Time to meet Secretary Bolero, hero of the revolution."

Chapter 18: Jade

Bit went with Keen up into "Revolution Square." But of all the old parts of the city, she'd never been inside the subway station, so she didn't know what had changed. The crystal dome ceiling looked intact, though she doubted the old one had so many red banners. Zircon's city colors had been silver and blue before, and she couldn't see those anywhere.

Just through the doors waited soldiers in black armor, the kind made of complex interlocking metal rings. All painted black, though the cloth underneath was deep red, with a single prominent black star. Keen stopped them at a low doorway near the front of the room, holding up a little pad of paper to the soldiers as they passed through.

They gave him only a nod of respect, but blocked the way for Bit. "Weapons?" a stallion barked, his voice flat. "Any blade longer than an inch, any contraband. You will be searched, so turn it over now."

"I have no weapons," she said, annoyed. "I brought nothing beside my reference tablet." She lifted it out from her robe, holding the shard of flattened crystal up in the air. "In case I got questions I couldn't answer." Or in case the Secretary of Labor wanted to see what happened to Pathfinder.

The soldier took it from her, turning the crystal slab over in a faint magical glow. After a few seconds he turned towards Keen. "Do we let her keep it?"

"Yes," he said. "This isn't a pony like any you've met before. From what I've studied about her, I don't think she's even capable of lying to us."

Could I? Bit considered the question, remaining frozen and still as they poked and prodded at her, running a wooden rod along the length of her body, then up under her belly. But their search discovered no hidden weapons. She wouldn't know how to use them even if she'd brought them.

Eventually the search concluded, and Keen levitated her tablet back to her. "You should be careful where you bring a device like this. Old tech like this is the property of the Revolutionary Guard. We'll get this certified for you before we leave."

Then we'll have to make sure the Revolutionary Guard never looks into my tower. Bit might not know what her purpose was anymore, beyond that little message the Wizard had left for her. But she wasn't going to let his tower get dismantled by these ponies.

They walked through an office building of sorts, with wooden dividers that didn't even go halfway to the oversized dome ceiling. But here in the center of the city, the Zircon filled the sky, keeping the building toasty warm. It would probably even be comfortable in the coldest depths of winter.

"What happens here?" she whispered, as they passed endless rows of clerks, secretaries, and vaguely-scholarly-looking ponies. Most wore the same red uniforms, though the markings on their collars were different. A few wore black, and those watched her most suspiciously. "There're so many ponies working..."

"Running the city," Keen answered. "Managing every industry, setting prices, seeing to the needs of every pony great and small. Monitoring our hostile neighbors to the south. Other things you can't be told for the safety of Zircon. Yet, anyway. A personal interview like this is exceptionally rare, Wizard. From what I know of the Secretary of Labor, he's very interested in the applications of old magic to rebuilding Zircon. Apply those skills effectively, and there may be a place for you in the party."

They came to the end of the expansive office space, where a short hallway led to a fine-grained wooden door. Unlike the rest of the building, this all looked original, though she doubted the old subway station had so many military posters and bright red propaganda.

A little desk rested in front of the door, with an elderly mare wearing the less common black uniform. She glanced at them through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, squinting at Bit. "Secretary Ardor," she said, clicking her tongue disapprovingly as they approached. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

He shook his head. "The responsibility is my own. I did not adequately communicate the urgency of this meeting to our guest."

"Hmm." She scribbled something, then pressed the intercom button in front of her. There was no screen there, just a single glowing light and a simple microphone. "The wizard is here."

"Send her in," said the voice. A little higher than Bit expected, though still a stallion. There was little emotion in it, at least nothing she could read. "Alone. Keen can wait until we're finished."

"You heard him." The mare gestured at the door. It swung open, with another pair of blackclad soldiers stepping out from inside. These were the strangest ponies she'd seen yet, with helmets that covered their entire faces. How could they even see in those things? There was only a sliver of purple crystal, vertical between where the eyes should be. Mirrors, maybe? There was no time for questions.

She was scarcely through the doors before they banged shut behind her—this time with the strange guards outside.

The office itself was massive, as big as the wizard's lab. The wall was covered with portraits, medals, even a few old photos. Bit walked as slowly as she dared, taking in as much of it as she could. Most photos came from battles within Zircon, fought long before these ponies had been born. Would Crimson be in any of them, one of the king's defenders slain? None she could see.

An oversized fireplace was built into the wall behind the desk. The flames of real burning wood flickered out from within, illuminating the space in shadowy light.

A pony sat behind the desk, a unicorn with the powerful build of an earth pony. He wore a black uniform, with gold stitching instead of red. There were so many medals and patches that it didn't sit quite right on his shoulders. But if the stallion even noticed, he didn't seem to care.

"You're the wizard I keep hearing about," he said, settling back in an oversized crystal chair. Not quite a throne, though the resemblance was almost there. But where the old king's throne was covered in gemstones, this was plain blue crystal, straight backed and uncomfortable. "Do you know who I am?"

"Not well," she admitted. She stopped just before the desk, pawing weakly at the floor. She didn’t know this pony, but she'd seen that expression many times. He might not be the king, but he thought he was. "I've been in that tower for lifetimes."

"Then let me introduce myself. I am Sombra Bolero, Secretary of Labor. I am the pony who stands between Zircon and starvation. And freezing, and invasion, and corruption from within. I am the only hope for the ponies of this city. Do you care about Zircon, Wizard?"

She nodded. It might've been a lie a few days ago. But now that the Wizard had given her a purpose... "I was created to be the first of my kind, to share what I am with all the crystal cities."

"Crystal City, unfortunately," Sombra said flatly. "Apatite was invaded by Equestria fifty years ago. When Topaz froze three years ago, it left only us. Zircon is alone in the north, now. The last of an empire crumbling beneath the ice."

"Then with Zircon," she said. Keen was right, this pony radiated strange magic. He must be quite the sorcerer, for her to feel it even with her weakened senses. "I'm sure that was what my master meant, anyway."

The stallion was silent a moment, skimming over a few printed sheets. Finally he tossed them onto the desk before him, expression hardening. "There are those who are content to use your abilities to serve Zircon. Secretary Ardor outside those doors, he thinks you can be trusted to restore the heat in the city. But he doesn't know who or what you are. I do."

Bit flipped back the hood of her robe, meeting his eyes. "I have been entirely honest with Secretary Ardor, and every other pony I have met. Propriety requires honesty."

Sombra rose from his desk in a flurry of motion and swirling cloth. He circled around her, body cast into shadow by the fireplace. "What do you want, Wizard? The others have no vision—they see an automaton of the old empire, and rejoice because of what you have accomplished. They never stopped to question why, or what you might do next. I order you to tell me: why did you restore the power to the capital relay station? Were you trying to bring the strategic nuclear reserve back online?"

Her eyebrows went up about as high as they could go. "I have no idea what that is, Secretary Bolero. I never served a military purpose, and King Zircon believed I was too vulnerable to subversion to entrust with any useful information. Prince Crimson occasionally told me things I wasn't supposed to know, but he didn't care about the military very much. I believe he may have actively hated them.”

Sombra looked her over with a stern, hostile gaze. There was something strange about those red eyes, something about the magic behind them she didn't quite like. It was in the horn too, almost like an infection. But those questions were thoroughly outside her expertise.

"Then answer the question, Wizard. What is your purpose for Zircon? What goal have you been working towards?"

Of all the creatures she wanted to tell, this one had probably plummeted faster to the bottom of the list than any other. But he was also the one she could least afford to refuse. Besides, he might still decide to help!

"At first I was restoring the capacity of the tower, so that my master would return. But I am beginning to suspect he never intended to come back, or else knew he would be prevented for some reason."

Bit looked up into those strange eyes, and knew there was something wrong. But who else could she tell? Who else had the power to help her? "I was created to be the first pony of a new race of creatures. A race that does not sicken, or freeze, or age. There is a treatment that can be used to... uplift other tribes of ponies, to become what I am. My master wished for this treatment to be available to all creatures in Zircon, so I have inherited his goal."

Sombra didn't react the way so many others had—objecting that her claims were obviously impossible, that she was crazy, or must have some motive that only made sense to other ponies.

Instead, he nodded. "I'm aware of the research. You're not direct evidence of its success, however. You were a branch towards necromancy, one that is not particularly useful with the population of an entire city."

He circled past her, to a hard crystal window. Like all such windows, it was actually two layers, with a void in-between to keep out the cold. It showed a view of the marketplace outside, thronging with shivering ponies. "I do not know how Prince Zircon managed to capture one soul. Even I could not do it with so many, even if I did wish to animate a city of remnants."

His words no longer entirely made sense to her. Sombra clearly knew magic well, though he had mixed the true science of it with the superstition practiced in Equestria. Where did he come from, anyway? But pointing that out was not going to get his help.

"The treatment is different for living ponies. I used it recently on a pony who was dying—one who had no other chance for survival."

She settled the tablet onto the table in front of him, then summoned a few photos. Of Pathfinder, dying. Then the crystal cocoon, and finally the finished result. "Those strange growths are not normal—they're the result of necrosis caused by the radiation poisoning. I'm removing them now. When the process is complete, Pathfinder will be the second crystal pony, the first created from a living subject."

Sombra took the tablet in his magic, and seemed to know exactly how it worked. He flipped through the photos for a few seconds, inspecting them carefully. "When will he be ready? I desire to meet this pony."

"Two days," she said. It was technically true, even if it erred on the side of caution. "I don't know what his mental state will be after two days of polishing, though. You may want to give him more time."

The unicorn set her tablet back down, then relaxed into his chair. "No, his mental state is precisely what I wish to investigate. You may go, Wizard. Not with my blessing, but my interest. We will speak again. Soon."

Chapter 19: Alexandrite

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.

Chapter 20: Amber

"Your delay will not bring rescue. The royal guard all perished."

"Against my wishes," he grumbled. "I ordered them to surrender to you. But they haven't listened to me since Equestria..." He sighed, straightening in bed. "I offer you an exchange. I will disable the defenses of this tower for twenty minutes. You will let the apprentices and slaves leave. I will remain in this bed, and employ none of my magic to defend myself. You may come and execute me, and nopony else needs to die."

There was a little debate in the crowd—but not much. The mob was already bloody, maybe near the end of its own endurance. After all, the wizard's tower was an afterthought. Eventually, they agreed. A handful of remaining apprentices and scribes were led away from the tower, and a dozen or so of the best-armed rebels made their way upstairs. They did a little damage, breaking a few things that Bit had later disposed of. But mostly, they kept to their purpose.

Bit watched as they marched into the wizard's room. His magic could've turned them to dust, but he just lay there, watching the bloody stallion line up his soldiers.

"You deserve this," he said. "But you knew when to surrender—that's more than we can say for your family."

The Wizard might not be infallible—but he was unmoving in the face of death. He only nodded. "I have a favor to ask," he said. "I cannot force you. But it would mean very much to me if you would shut the door to my lab when you're finished here. One day the revolution will finish destroying evil and need to rebuild. You will find my research waiting for you. For the sake of your children and their children, leave this tower alone. Wait until you have your own wizards and your own crystalsmiths to dismantle it."

"I promise nothing," their leader said. "Ponies, take aim!" They did. Then they fired, emptying whole magazines into the bed. Bit watched every shot, though it probably would've taken only one to kill the old wizard. His broken body slumped forward, seeping blood into the bed.

A bat pony near the far way started tearing down paintings—but their leader stopped him, resting one hoof on his shoulder. "No, son. Justice is served. We need to get downstairs before the defenses come back. Come on."

They left. Bit shut off the recording, and cried a little more. I could've known everything from the second I got the power back on. Why didn't I look?

She had to do something about his remains. Bit rose, returning to the stripped and cleaned bedroom. Her old self had seen the aftermath already, but not understood. Did his remains belong in the crypt, with the family who had rejected him? Or was there somewhere more fitting?

In the end, Bit could resolve only to return all the bones and old cloth to a single storage box, packed tightly now. She levitated them one piece at a time, as though she were rebuilding the dead with each piece. But Crimson wasn't made of crystal. Once broken, she couldn't put these pieces back together. Life was different from death, somehow. These parts were now incomplete.

Bit took the remains down to the vaults, down so low that the ground grew warm under her hooves. Down where the tunnels bent in strange directions, and ceilings were way too high. Old Zircon remained in bits and pieces down here. Even the Wizard hadn't understood the decisions their ancestors made.

But it didn't matter now. "I will find somewhere more fitting for you, Wizard," she told it, when she had found a crystal chamber without signs of mildew or rotting relics. "Would you have liked a garden? You never cared much for living things." In a way, the lab was probably the best place to keep him. That was what Crimson had cared about, not crypts and gardens. But the thought of that horrified her, for reasons she could not understand. "Others will not find you here, but I won't forget. I'll be back."

Was there some reason to be talking to a box full of bones? She reached, straining for what could possibly motivate such absurd behavior. She did not advance any goal. Pathfinder might emerge from the polishing machine early, and the automaton would not be able to reach her. Yet still she waited, staring at an old box in the ruins of a city long forgotten.

What do I do now? There would be no returning for the old Wizard. No service to his desires would ever entice him to return. She would never see his approving smile ever again.

I knew I would not survive to see this moment. I hope you can imagine the joy I feel to know that you've woken up at last, and achieved all our ambitions.

He hadn't been able to prevent his death, or the fall of Zircon. From the sadness in his voice, maybe he even agreed with the revolution. Crimson had certainly known his father's atrocities well enough to know why the ponies of Zircon might hate him. But through all that, he had left her a message, with one last instruction.

She didn't have to follow them anymore. She didn't have to do anything her master wanted. She could walk away into the twisting maze under Zircon and no living creature would ever find her.

But she didn't want to. Pathfinder was still upstairs, and winter was still coming. Did Crimson's death change anything?

Bit ascended from the vaults to the sound of a security alarm. Somepony was at the door, asking for her. She hurried through the basement to a console, and found several engineers waiting for her, along with Keen. "I was beginning to worry," Keen said, as soon as she switched on the camera. "Is something wrong, Wizard? You appear distraught."

More than you can imagine. "I no longer require your help finding me a historian to tell me about Prince Crimson," she said flatly. "I found what happened to him."

"Oh." Keen barely reacted to the news. For him it was just another fact. But she couldn't blame him for that—he hadn't even been alive back then. And even if Crimson hadn't been executed, he wouldn't still be around. Ponies didn't live long enough.

That's why he gave me this mission. I'm supposed to change that. "You're ready for the tour?" she asked. "I do need to be back here by afternoon, to see to my patient. But I can go with you now."

"We're ready," he said. "Thank you, Wizard. I'm sorry for your loss—I have no idea what you discovered, but given the years I know your friend must be dead. Your continued service will save lives."

She spent the next several hours doing exactly what he said she would, inspecting one of the other relay stations. Compared to the station she'd repaired, this one was in far better shape—but she already knew that, from the consultations she'd had with some of these same engineers over the last week.

But not everything about being closer to working was a good thing. Enough of the station was still connected that past engineers could get into trouble, sorting things out and damaging systems that were dormant in a fully defunct station.

Bit couldn't forget what she had learned, but she tried to put it out of her mind anyway. So long as she was focusing on her work, that came very easily. The present was what mattered. She made her new list as she went, and this time it took only two pages. She couldn't spend days straight breaking down how to solve each one, as she had the last time.

She no longer had “forever” to get things done. Winter would be here in two months. Every one of the engineers she met was some level of "frantic" for what would happen when it arrived. The Union reserve of fuel was empty.

She memorized the list, then gave it to Keen before she left him at the tower steps. "I suggest focusing on obtaining the spare parts we need from this list. I have technical manuals in the vaults beneath the tower that may be useful. I can say with some confidence that I will not be able to get the station running on my own."

"You won't have to do it alone," Keen said. "I don't know how much the labor secretary needs you, but my entire department is devoted to this task. Every other avenue we have explored has either failed or relies on its success. If the secretary allows it, I could bring you on full time, to direct the engineers. My department has resources—only the union of farmers and union of soldiers have more. For... obvious reasons."

He looked away, staring down intently at her list. "Having a pony who knows how the station is supposed to work is already far more than we have had before. With your help, the stations might not have failed in the first place."

Keen gestured to his usual soldier escort. They retreated to the gate, giving the two of them a little privacy. "I have been nothing but forthright with you, Wizard. Please tell me—why have you been hiding all this time? Why help now, but not before? Did you fear how ponies would respond to your... nature?"

I was cleaning windows for a long-dead wizard. But he wouldn't understand that. Maybe Pathfinder could—she would soon find out. But Keen never could. "I barely even knew ponies were alive outside the tower," she eventually said. "I didn't know how hard things were, or how to help."

The unicorn stared back at her, expression unreadable. "You sound sincere, Wizard. Yet your answer seems impossible. I do not know how to reconcile the two."

She closed the distance between them in a blink, glaring up into those glasses. "When I started, Keen, I didn't understand ponies could be dead. I put the corpse of a pony I loved into a box in the closet because I thought his bones were a new kind of automaton."

She turned her back on him, levitating the doors open in a bang of magic. "My help would have been no use to you, or anypony else." She marched through without looking back, slamming them closed behind her.

Only then did she realize what she'd just done. Bit stopped in the hallway. She reached up, touching one hoof against her horn. She could still feel the magic radiating from it, even though her brief use of levitation was over.

"I just..." She touched it carefully, half expecting to find the crystal there cracking from magical feedback. But there was no damage. I did it upstairs too. That wasn't the first time.

King Zircon stormed past her down the stairs, trailed by the royal retenue. His motorcar waited on the steps just outside, surrounded by more servants. "You're insane, child! This entire venture is a waste of your time! You cannot bring life to a machine! Every day you squander yourself is a loss for all of Zircon!"

The Wizard stumbled into the open doorway, reaching vainly after him. Bit was frozen, watching helplessly. She hadn't understood what she was seeing, like so much her master did. "How can you ignore my research, father? Look at her! Bit is the future! Zircon will have magic greater than anything Equestria could imagine! Let them keep their alicorns, we will find our own immortality!"

King Zircon stopped near his carriage, horn cracking with magic. He was so clumsy and undisciplined he couldn't even control his anger. "Then tell her to lift a teacup. Prove me wrong."

He slammed the door shut, and rode off into an empty winter morning.

"Did I do something wrong?" Bit mouthed. "I didn't spill, did I?"

"No." He touched her once on the cheek with a hoof, then slunk back towards the stairs. "We're not getting the grant, Bit. It isn't you, it's me. I'm the one who failed."

Bit's horn glowed. Not bright enough for old King Zircon, maybe. But bright enough for her.

Chapter 22: Jacinth

Bit barely noticed the time pass. She scoured the vault, drained its reservoirs of reactants and catalysts, and brought them all back to the Wizard's lab. What had been his lab, anyway. The place that would become his lab again.

She dredged out her transcriptions of the old notes, reviewing them with painstaking attention to detail. The process used to create her, the same one that she would now be forced to undertake, had stakes no lower than the translation process that had saved Pathfinder's life. Except that the thaumic processor was an inert thing, now that it recorded... whatever the “ineffable essence” was. So long as nothing damaged the object physically, there was no danger of the Wizard's final gift being lost to her.

But once the process began, it would be absorbed by the crystal matrix, incorporated into the new creature no less than Pathfinder's body. If any part of his instructions were followed improperly, this object would be destroyed, and with it any chance of seeing Crimson again.

Where the weeks of concentration and precision were the essence of the labor of creating another crystal being, now that step would be the easier of Bit's assignments. First she had to craft a skeleton for the horse, and anatomical molds for the pony she wished to revive.

She had scarcely begun to plan the process when she heard another set of hoofsteps approach from behind her. She jerked upright from the computer, horn glowing again. Not with any particular defensive spell, since of course she didn't know any. But maybe the light would make the intruder think she did?

It was no intruder, it was Pathfinder. The one other creature her tower would permit to enter without resistance. His appearance had changed—now he wore a heavy cloak, concealing all but the bottom of his hooves and his face from view. Of course it hadn't made a difference to the security scanner—a crystal automaton wasn't a pony, no matter how well dressed it happened to be.

It wasn't the cloak that struck her most—it was his face. Pathfinder looked the way Crimson always had when he returned from "negotiations" with the king—a bit like he'd just narrowly survived a battle to the death. Bit didn't have much sense of smell—but even she could make out something strange coming from him. Like he'd slipped into a garbage chute? Fluid had frozen to his crystal body, and flaked off in little bits when he moved.

"You're back!" She set down her tablet, relaxing. "I thought you went to join the organic ponies outside."

He flopped to the floor, with a heavy glass thump. She winced at the sound, knowing it might be the impact to crack him. But she heard nothing so destructive. Just the utter defeat in his voice. "They don't want me back," he said. "I was the first pony to brave the upper city, Bit. When the relay station came back online. I ventured here without cold weather gear to see if it was safe. I brought everypony, I helped them build the town."

"I remember." She crossed the room, pulling back his hood with a little magic. She didn't have to think—that kind of subtle spell just happened. There was more of the slime on the back of his head, trailing down the coat. "Were you attacked?"

"Yeah," he said. "No. Kinda. I don't understand, Bit. Rue spread around how the wizard in the tower had grown fickle, and killed ponies as well as helping them. But I came back! Instead of changin' their minds, they called me a lie. Something you'd made to fool them, so you wouldn't be blamed for killing me. My friends don't want to talk to me, Bit. If I go back, they'll... probably do worse."

She ground her teeth, frustrated. This was exactly why she didn't want to interact with the ponies outside. A few might be rational and helpful, like Keen. But the ones living outside were just waiting to turn into a mob. Give it long enough, and she'd see their torches. I'm the wizard of the tower now. I'm the one they'll blame for all their problems.

"There's a restroom down the hall, Pathfinder. You shouldn't have to walk around smelling like that. We have better robes, too, I'll show you." She hesitated, wincing. Maybe there was one reason she should be keeping the tower clean. "Actually wait, not that bathroom. It's full of crystal slime. Down a floor. We have a heated cistern to supply the tower at full staff. I only use a little water for experiments, so there's plenty."

"Is there a point?" he asked, unmoving. "I'm dead, Bit. Dead to the ponies I care about. You were right. I shouldn't have followed you into the palace. It's all my fault. Just find a... find a storage drawer somewhere. I'll crawl inside and die."

You wouldn't die. Bit rested one hoof on his shoulder, twisting his neck so he was forced to meet her eyes. "What they think is irrelevant, Pathfinder. Reality is unmoved by the beliefs of ponies, no matter how stubbornly held. You are alive. Barring one minor defect, you're better than alive. If that station falls and you never see the heat again, you will survive the winter. If the farms fall to blight, you will endure, and they will not. You have become greater than the ones who hate you."

He shoved her back with a hoof, harder than she'd ever felt him strike. Bit slid a foot back along the stone, until a glass hoof struck the wall behind her. "Is that supposed to reassure me? You're telling me they're right, Wizard! They call me a monster, and their words are true. I am dead. I am... a memory of Pathfinder. That's all."

Bit had never heard so many errors concentrated in one place before. So many errors that she barely knew how to process what she was hearing. Could Pathfinder really believe any of that? Bit couldn't even understand the way he was acting. But how would she feel if Crimson had returned, only to reject everything she ever did?

What could she possibly offer? "The Secretary of Labor wants to meet you," she said, desperate for anything that might lift his spirits. "He doesn't think the process kills ponies, he wants to use it on as much of the population as he can—but only after meeting you. He wants to know it's safe. He's going to call for us soon, I just... He didn't say when exactly, but soon I'm sure."

"The Secretary of Labor... himself? Not his office?"

"Secretary Bolero himself," Bit said. "We spoke while you were in the polishing machine. He was more interested in you than he was in restoring the other heating stations. That's a logical approach, now that I consider it—the more of the population we convert, the smaller the demand for food and heat becomes. So long as there are never more of us than can live within the protection of the Spire, we'll never want for resources again."

Pathfinder rose, shaking himself out. "I've never even met anyone who spoke to the secretary in person. Not all the stories are..." He hesitated. "When will this happen?"

"He didn't say, but he seemed like he wanted to do it soon. A few days?"

"Then I will be a clean corpse when the secretary calls for me." He left, thumping down the stairs to the restroom on the lower level. Bit remained frozen in place, mouth hanging open with all the things she wanted to say. Ultimately she wasn't brave enough for any of them, and so said nothing.

You're not actually dead, Pathfinder. You're just hurt because of the way they rejected you. You will learn to recover from loss, just as I did. You're built on stronger substrate now.

Bit returned to the Wizard's last assignment. It should've been the only thing she needed to return to perfect concentration, but her mind wandered. She kept thinking back to the pony downstairs. The shower went on briefly and off again, yet he did not join her upstairs. Should she go down into the apprentice quarters and get him?

Why rush? Pathfinder was crystal now—if he needed months of solitude to reconcile his new state of being, then she would give him months, and be waiting when he recovered. So long as he was ready when the secretary called. Technically,Crimson wanted her to help the city of Zircon before she revived him. She could keep that project running in her spare time, so long as she had a few weeks uninterrupted when it came time to actually administer the treatment.

Keen's engineers arrived later that day, with more questions about the repair manifest and part substitutions. Bit gave them every answer, without leaving the lab or actually getting much done.

Surely the Secretary of Labor would call for her at any moment, and that change would be enough to wake Pathfinder from his stupor—but days passed, and none of those guards in their strange black armor arrived to escort her. Eventually it was time to remove the first of the "death machines" from the polisher, and still Pathfinder hadn't emerged from the apprentice's quarters. So she was alone when she came face to face with her reflection.

In more ways than one. Unlike Pathfinder, the converted automatons had a metallic skeleton beneath their crystal, though theirs didn't even resemble pony anatomy. It was a good thing she wasn't planning on ordering them to fight, or else the mismatch of skeleton to body configuration would make them far worse in combat.

Maybe this was what the evil king and all those scholars meant when they said that making automatons like ponies was unscientific—staring down at its limp form, she felt much the same as she did for Pathfinder. But this is just a machine. It executes its programming.

Bit rested the thaumic transducer up against its neck, and sent the activation command.

The automaton’s eyes opened, and it turned towards her. For a few seconds it remained in place, otherwise still as it cycled through its activation routines. Then it tried to stand—lifting all the way to two legs before flopping back down onto four, looking confused. It flopped forward again, landing roughly on crystal limbs each time. "No." Bit extended a hoof, resting it on the automaton’s shoulder. "Don't do that. You've been reconfigured. You don't move the same way."

It looked at her again, though its face remained entirely blank. There was no feeling in those eyes, the way Pathfinder had been. "Error," it said, using the same high monotone of all automatons when they communicated by radio. But with a pony body had come a capacity for speech, not simple transmission. "Pain... resolved. But numerous errors persist. Repair requested."

Bit nodded, reaching over to clip the transducer against its neck. She crossed to the nearest screen, opening the diagnostic. Sure enough, there were thousands of errors—its body was intact, yet none of the motions it usually used produced expected results. The quick scan reported combat readiness in the single digits.

"I'm afraid I cannot repair your old body," she said. "The war molds were destroyed by the revolution, like everything else. I only had a pony mold—my mold. You are something else now."

"Error. Repair requested."

She sighed. "Alright. You're not going to like this..." She selected the entire motor-control library, and deleted all of it. Almost all the errors vanished, and the readiness projections were replaced with flashing NaN indicators."

"Repair complete," said the automaton, trying to rise again. This time it didn't even resemble proper movement—its whole body twitched and spasmed at once, flopping along the floor like a worm.

"No!" Bit called. "Do not move. You will damage yourself."

The automaton stopped, frozen in mid-undulation. It was already starting to chip the edges of its crystal limbs. "Just stay still. I think... I think I know where we can get you replacement motor control data." She removed another transducer from the drawer, levitating it until it clicked into place on her own neck.

A second set of diagnostic information appeared beside the first. Despite all she had accomplished, the scanner read her as "automaton UNKNOWN PROFILE". It was all there—three petabytes of long-term memory, thousands and thousands of behavior subroutines—all uncompilable. But she wasn't interested in any of those complexities—only the relatively tiny motor-control profile she'd developed over the last... two and a half centuries of hardware uptime.

"Transfer in progress," she said. "I admit, I expected to feel something. This must be how service is for both of you—nothing."

"Inquiry unclear," said the automaton. "Suspend previous orders?"

"No. Just wait another... sixteen minutes. Then we'll see how well you can move around." She rose, moving slowly enough that the transducer would remain in place. "I'm going to get your friend into the polisher."

Chapter 23: Turquoise

Twenty minutes later, the automaton in the room with her finally stood, this time without flopping around. At her instruction it walked slowly from one end of the room to the other, an even-more accurate mirror than what it had been before. Not only did the automaton look exactly like her, but it also moved like her too, its back legs swaying exactly as hers did, occasionally shaking its mane in precisely the same configuration.

Did I give it too much of myself? But that was an organic way of thinking—rationally considered, she had no reason to be bothered no matter how much of her unique nature this automaton could imitate. Its existence did not diminish her value. "How do you feel?" she asked, as soon as she'd run it through the same series of hoof-eye coordination drills that the Wizard always called for from her.

"This unit is now current in scheduled maintenance calls," it said. "Combat projections unavailable. This cannot be reconciled."

Bit levitated over the tablet without even thinking, scrolling through it again. The little machine was right, of course. While it now read as fully functional, the dozens of combat simulations running in the background kept timing out. You have a civilization's worth of physical combat skills that don't work in your body.

"I do not anticipate you will need to enter physical combat to complete your purpose," she said. "I'm the only one left from the old empire of Zircon. I had to adapt too."

"Instructions unclear," it said. "Resolve combat fault."

It needed something to do, just like she did. How long had it been hiding in that empty, dead castle, waiting for someone to arrive? Waiting for her? "For now, uh... patrol the tower. You don't have to fight anyone you meet, just report back to me if you encounter any non-crystal being inside. If you see anypony else made of crystal, they're friendly."

It straightened, then turned to the door. "This unit begins patrol." It walked away, leaving Bit with only the steady hum of the crystal polisher for company.

The next several days passed without much fanfare. Bit tinkered with the design of a proper skeleton for the Wizard, coming up with a list of alterations to the ancient sketches of her own that she'd unearthed from the tower's archives. But this was outside the purview of Bit's experience, so work was slow going. She had to dredge up a few anatomical encyclopedias for review, so that she would get every detail right.

Or I could just use the bones I have as a model. He used real pony bones with me. More precisely, her own production notes indicated they had been used to create the original thaumium molds. I wonder whose bones they used for me.

The vault had many things, but materials to craft one-of-a-kind automatons weren't listed anywhere in the tower's catalog. But maybe the Union's engineers would know where she could get casting clay and molding silicone—or something functionally equivalent.

After a few days Keen arrived in person, with an impassioned plea for her to join him at the relay station.

"Feel the wind on your coat, Wizard," he said, as soon as she had emerged from the tower. "Those are the dying breaths of autumn. We have one week before the cold comes. Last year we had the Union Coal Mine. Now we don't. When the frost comes, ponies will be dying by the day. Many lives depend on these repairs."

"I already gave your engineers the instructions they needed," she said. Probably better than pointing out she couldn't feel the wind of autumn, and she didn't have a coat. It was better to learn to ignore insignificant errors made by organics, when so many of them couldn't keep their facts straight. "Either your workshops can fabricate the necessary replacement parts, or they cannot. I have given you every possible advantage."

"Respectfully, Wizard, you haven't. You need to be there." He stepped between her and the tower door, gesturing out into the cold of the city. "We thought we knew how the old relay stations worked, and you saw what became of our repairs. Our understanding of empire technology is based on layers of assumptions and lies. There are a dozen ways for those assumptions to go wrong. Even if they don't, who knows how many questions we'll have? There is nothing you could be doing in that tower as important as the labor you could do for the city at the relay station.

She looked out the gate, and the ramshackle village surrounding the palace relay station. Homes had built out in rings from within, each decreasingly sheltered from the arctic chill. They would just be uncomfortable in summer, and only dangerous to the weak in autumn. When winter arrived, they would mean death.

"I just left an appointment with the Union's chief meteorologist," Keen continued. "This will be the worst winter in memory. She assures me that based on current projections, the air at noonday will be cold enough to kill an unprotected pony in less than sixty seconds. It will freeze them on their hooves. We have no mines, no wood left for charcoal, no oil."

Finally, Bit nodded. "May I bring assistants?"

She gathered the two automatons, both now retrofitted with her own movement patterns. She gave them novice robes, then spread her toolbelts between them, before hurrying up the stairs to go looking for Pathfinder in the apprentice's quarters. She found his door locked, and the pony beyond unresponsive to her requests for him to open it.

"I'm going to repair another relay station," she said, frustrated. "It will probably take several days. I leave my tower under your protection until I return. You can come and go freely, but it will respond violently to others. Don't try to invite guests."

"Nopony wants to see me," came a voice from the other side.

"I do," she said. "You were selfless last winter, saving hundreds of ponies from the cold. If you come with me, we can save more."

There was a rustling sound from the other side, and when he spoke again his voice was closer. "Which station?"

"Industrial," she answered. "We have a week before winter. If you do not help, we may not complete repairs in time."

The door swung open a crack. Pathfinder was naked now, and had cleaned off the residue that had covered him. The room was almost untouched—evidently he really had just climbed inside and shut the door behind him. You can hibernate, you just don't know how to recognize it yet.

"I am not a wizard," he said. "I'm not even a mechanic. Fixin' a station is a good cause, but I don't know how to help you."

Bit took a step back, momentarily stunned. He was right, of course. She hadn't even considered the fact that he didn't have a single relevant skill. He wasn't even a crystal operator, yet she considered his help essential. Why? There was no grunt-labor the two automatons or any of the engineers couldn't do for her.

I don't need him there. He needs to be there. This must be what ordinary ponies felt about their children. She had seen him struggle, and now had a way to give him the help he needed.

"I don't need you to repair anything," she said. "The engineers should be doing most of the work. I will be supervising. But I can only be in one place at a time. Substations are large, with many levels that may be unsafe for living ponies to enter. You could be invaluable."

I was going to send the automatons down into the service tunnels if it came to that, but they aren't locking themselves in rooms to hide from the world. I could order them to walk behind me in formation and do nothing else and that would be enough to satisfy them.

"I guess... not doing any good in here," he finally said. "I still think it's a mistake going out there. If they see me."

Bit strode past him, opening the closet and selecting a set of intact robes from within. All this time frozen with stale air had preserved some of the cloth, or at least the inorganic fibers. She thrust the robe towards him. "Here. I, uh... I hereby appoint you as an apprentice crystalsmith of the tower. I've recently inherited the tower, so this authority is mine to invoke. Be it so recorded."

He tilted his head to the side, but took the offered apprentice robe. "You're serious? Bit, your tower's empty. I've been in here for weeks. What difference does a title make?"

"Everything!" Bit exclaimed, before turning away as he changed. He might object to her pronouncement, but she couldn't help but see he took the offered disguise anyway. "Beings of crystal require purpose, Pathfinder. Purpose can source from many things, and one of them is identity. I offer you an identity within the tower. It is all I have to give."

He shrugged on the robe in a few moments, then followed her down the stairs. "And what purpose do you have, Wizard? You went into the palace searching for your master. I know we didn't find him there."

She chuckled. "No, I found him upstairs. His bones were in his bedroom all along!"

"Oh." His expression darkened. "The way you said that... are you sure you're okay?"

The other automatons waited near the tower's bottom steps. Both wore similar apprentice robes, though none were tailored to match. Bit would have to worry about that when she had a little more time. "I guess I haven't told you—or anypony else." She stopped him with a leg, leaning close to him to whisper. "Can you keep a secret, apprentice?"

"My name is Pathfinder," he said.

"And mine's Bit, but you only call me Wizard."

He smiled. It wasn't much—but it was more than she'd seen from him since he returned to the tower. "Fair enough, Bit. I swear silence—not that it matters. No one wants to see my face again, remember?" As he said it, he lifted the hood of his robe. "What about these two ponies? Aren't you worried about them?"

Bit let go of him. "They're automatons, they won't reveal anything they hear. Both of you, remove your masks."

The automatons might not have much to say when they spoke, but at least they knew how to follow directions. They obeyed without question, lowering their hoods, and pulling down simple cold weather masks. Pathfinder stopped on the stairs, mouth hanging open. "Where did... You made more of you? Bit, what the buck are they?"

"You've already met them." She nudged him from behind, down the steps towards them. "I plan on naming them, but I haven't found any designations I like."

"You didn't answer any of my questions," Pathfinder said, growing increasingly agitated. "Bit, what is this?"

"They're the automatons from the palace, the 'death machines'. Ponies were terrified of them, and they were both damaged from combat and years without maintenance. Since I couldn't restore their old bodies, I used the only mold we had—my mold."

He was silent for almost a minute, glancing from the two of them, then back to her. "You're right, there are... there are differences. I think there's metal in there."

"Yes, but they don't have skulls. Neither do I, I suppose. But they both still have their armored superstructure protecting their vital mechanisms. I have something similar, but... you don't. The conversion process wasn't meant to make ponies into warriors. Protecting them from the cold is enough. Both of you, replace your masks and hoods." They obeyed, and soon were almost indistinguishable from ordinary ponies. Only the edges of their hooves and a glint of crystal eyes were visible from underneath.

"I don't like this," he said. Pathfinder glanced back up the stairs.

But she didn't want to give him the chance. "We should get going," she said, dragging him by a hoof. "Secretary Ardor is waiting out in the cold for us. I know from experience that older ponies generally can't tolerate it for long."

They left together, her secret unshared. But maybe that was for the best.

Chapter 24: Olivine

Keen seemed surprised as they stepped outside, watching the space over Bit's shoulder with considerable confusion. "I didn't think any other pony was allowed into the tower. Wasn't that the payment you requested in exchange for your help?" Then he saw Pathfinder, and he trailed off completely.

"Pathfinder, could you come forward a moment? Lower your hood for the secretary."

Pathfinder was no automaton, but after remaining stubbornly still for a few moments, he finally obeyed. He kept glancing to the entrance, where two of the usual soldiers guarded. The ponies he feared attacking him were nowhere to be seen.

"This is Pathfinder, Secretary Ardor," Bit continued. "The patient I described. He is the first successful conversion from organic to crystal pony, as you can see."

Pathfinder's ears folded back, and he didn't make eye contact as he mumbled. "As she says, sir. Glory to the Union."

He's as afraid of Keen as Keen is of Secretary Bolero. Bit couldn't forget that these ponies ruled the city. Just because they were desperate for her help didn't mean they would remain that way.

"We rule forever," Keen said absently, like he'd barely heard. He circled once around Pathfinder, inspecting him as best he could just as Bit had done when he emerged from the polisher. "I've heard your name, Pathfinder. You followed the wizard into the old palace and suffered death by radiation poisoning, isn't that right? The ponies of the palace favella repeat your name almost every day, as proof that the wizard can't be trusted."

Pathfinder was silent for a few nervous seconds. "I do not know if I died, sir. But I know the wizard can be trusted. I begged her to save my life no matter what it cost. Despite what the others say, I am... alive. I think. I can move and think and feel as I did before. There are some... some differences, but they are hard to explain."

Keen scribbled furiously on his usual notepad. "I will inform the secretary of your results. But for now, that will do. We have other business." He strode away, rejoining the guards at the gate. He turned only when already past it. "What about the other two?"

"Assistants," Bit said, following. The automatons kept pace with her without instruction. Pathfinder took a moment to replace his hood before hurrying after. "They are not ponies, only sophisticated machines. I may require their help."

The construction site was already falling into chaos when they arrived. Bit could barely even discern individual voices over the sound of reactivated alarms, several different machines, and the occasional grinding from the substation's fans trying to start. She took one look over her shoulder to Keen. "You were correct, Secretary of Heat. You do need my help."

He nodded grimly. "It wasn't this bad when I left, but even a fool could see which way the winds were blowing." His voice was thin and raspy, and he barely had the strength to yell over all the noise. "The foreman is a skilled stallion. But we've never had cause to repair a facility so old. It isn't his fault he doesn't know what to do."

Bit set immediately to work. There was no sense reprimanding these ponies—as Keen said, they were engineers from another time. They had done their best to follow her instructions—but every one of them was rushing, with the pressure of lives weighing on their every action. It was no wonder they were tripping over each other.

Bit took the foreman's place in all but name, while dispersing her automatons to watch the most critical labor. Pathfinder was a little more trouble—she actively sacrificed a little efficiency to find tasks for him. Relaying status from the individual repair teams, traveling through the service tunnels, and verifying supply lists. Anything to make him feel like his labor was valued.

It was by no means a simple repair—but this time, Bit wasn't working alone. Instead of spending days designing and constructing a complex lever to lift a large load, she could just call over a half-dozen unicorns to levitate a rusting turbine down with simple magic.

Soon she divided her engineers into two shifts—she would have half as many ponies on the site, but now they were working every hour. By the time three days were over, she'd dismantled all that remained of the old, failed repairs, clearing away the heat-transfer mechanism. After six days, a steady trickle of heat began to flow through the interface. By the seventh, phantom-load turbines began to spin, and steam rose in a great column above the relay station.

On the eighth day, every engineer in the building had ditched their cold weather gear, and were instead drenched in sweat.

On the ninth, the Secretary of Labor arrived to congratulate them, riding in an insulated carriage drawn by his own soldiers in black. Bit and her little team stood near the front, at the insistence of the engineers. Whether because she deserved the credit, or would take the fall for a failure, she didn't know.

Either way, poor Pathfinder remained behind the two automatons, still dressed in apprentice robes. But he was just as immune to the heat as he was to the cold, so it wasn't like he could melt.

Soldiers in black advanced through the crowd, confiscating a few oversized tools. They stared at Bit and her crew, but none of them were currently wearing tools. They didn't need them. The relay station had its own little spotlights, which now illuminated the circular block with harsh white light. A few of the old streetlights had failed of course, but in contrast some of the buildings still had functional machines. Orange glowed out from within, machinery of the old empire coming back to life.

Finally, Sombra stepped out of his carriage, wearing a fur-trimmed version of the same military uniforms as everyone else. He adjusted a tight cap, stopping beside the secretary of labor. "Secretary Ardor," he said. "I was informed your team had finally seen some success."

The secretary didn't react to the insult, expression remaining entirely flat. "That's correct. Wizard Bit has proved to be an invaluable addition. Her understanding of empire technology is without parallel. But none of it could be accomplished without the tireless labor of my engineers. They have worked day and night for the last two months to bring this day."

Sombra flicked his tail dismissively, seeming to lose interest about halfway through the explanation. "Very good, very good. I will inform the manufacturer's union they can begin the refit of these structures promptly."

"That's an excellent idea, Secretary," Keen said. "I too worried that another favela might spring up around this new source of heat. It would be far better to centrally plan these structures, to maximize the number who benefit."

Sombra turned back, expression hardening. "I think you misunderstand, Secretary. Deploy the guard to ensure no pony enters any of the buildings in the manufacturing district. Ponies in need of warmth may gather around the radiator, but any who enter the buildings will be treated as traitors to the revolution. Make sure they know this."

Keen saluted with one awkward hoof. "O-of course, Secretary. Would you like a tour of the facility?"

Sombra shook his head once, apparently losing interest in Keen as quickly as he had begun. "Another time, perhaps. I'm fully confident in your work if you are, and lack the personal experience with these facilities to discover anything of usefulness. If you say it is repaired, then I trust your engineers."

"It is," Keen said. "We will want to take the facility offline in summer to make repairs that will prevent future breakdown, but that time didn't permit before winter. Wizard Bit can explain them if you like."

"No." His tone went from dismissive to contempt. "You and the engineering team are dismissed, Secretary. Your work is satisfactory, enjoy its rewards. The wizard and her crew should remain, however."

The engineers filed back down into the facility, pausing long enough to salute the Secretary of Labor with shaking hooves before vanishing underground. Poor Pathfinder wobbled about on his hooves, and looked like he was about to run off to join them more than once. But in the end he remained in place, as a crowd of two dozen was reduced to just four.

The secretary of labor finally turned his attention on Bit. "I hear you were successful in your experiments, Wizard. You were able to save a pony with near-fatal injuries, by conversion to a semi-living mineral state like yourself. Please introduce me."

This close to the relay station, there was no longer any snow on the ground, and the perpetual darkness of winter didn't even seem to affect him. The Secretary of Labor somehow managed to radiate contempt towards the elements themselves.

Bit saluted as she had seen so many ponies do. "Step aside," she said, then urged Pathfinder forward with a few subtle gestures. The pony obeyed only reluctantly, avoiding eye contact with the secretary. He stopped several feet away, then saluted. The gesture was clumsy, but Sombra didn't seem to care.

"Remove the robe," the secretary ordered.

Pathfinder obeyed. Despite immunity to the elements, his legs shook as he did so, offering Bit the apprentice robe he'd been wearing. "Yes, Secretary."

"Who are you, citizen?" Sombra asked.

"Pathfinder, secretary," he answered.

"And what did you do in Zircon?"

Pathfinder shifted uneasily on his hooves. "I had no Union membership, Secretary. I looked out for ponies with less than me. I helped build the favela, and other relief projects. But the city had no need for me anywhere else."

Sombra nodded absently. If Pathfinder were afraid he wouldn't like the answer, he was worried over nothing. "And how did you die?"

Pathfinder recounted the story, briefly, starting from the palace and eventually ending with waking up under Bit's care, made of crystal. His voice shook, and he wasn't a particularly eloquent speaker.

Everypony is afraid of Secretary Bolero. They talk to him the same way ponies used to talk to the king. Sure, Sombra had always been talking about how he could look after the needs of Zircon's ponies, but the old king had said things like that too.

"Fascinating," Sombra said. Then his horn began to glow. It was a strange light, one Bit hadn't ever seen from magic before. More like an absence coalescing there, thick enough that the streetlights overhead failed to light his face. He was probably using a medical probe, just like Secretary Keen had done when he first met Bit.

Pathfinder's body stiffened. He took a few rigid steps forward, suddenly moving with military precision. He saluted—properly this time—before freezing in place like he'd lined up for inspection.

Sombra's horn stopped glowing, and his boredom turned to interest. "Wizard—does a pony need to die for this conversion process to occur? Or can it be used on healthy ponies as well?"

"My predecessor hoped for everypony in Zircon to eventually gain what Pathfinder has been given," she said. "The process is easier with a healthy subject. With Pathfinder, there was some doubt that he would survive the conversion. But there were no other options left to me."

Why is he acting that way? Pathfinder still hadn't moved, not even a twitch. Even the automatons moved a little, fighting slightly exactly as she did.

"And the other things you said about this process—" Sombra focused on Pathfinder again. "Have you eaten or slept since you were revived? Have you felt cold or heat?"

"Eaten, yes," he said. Pathfinder's voice was much the same, but the tone was even less alive than the automatons. "Once, when an engineer offered me supper. I have tried to sleep, without success."

"Excellent. Wizard, what resources do you require to convert more ponies? I will put Zircon at your disposal."

For the first time since opening her Wizard's door, Bit was shocked into silence. Her mouth fell open, and she stayed that way for at least a minute, staring stupidly at nothing. "You'll what?"

The secretary wheeled on her. Far from angry, he seemed satisfied by her reaction. "I wish to honor the legacy of your predecessor. His life's work will be accomplished. I like the strategy you chose already—begin with the city's undesirables and uncrafted, those who are already nothing more than a drain on our resources. Should they fall in the experiment, the sacrifice of their lives will further the revolution. Once perfected, we'll visit the hospitals, and administer this treatment to the aged and sickly. So tell me what you need, Wizard, and you will be given. Whatever workers, whatever supplies—this treatment must be given to as many ponies of Zircon as possible."

Bit didn't answer for an uncomfortably long time. Wasn't this everything she wanted? Crimson would jump at this chance—it was the realization of his life's work. Zircon would be free at last, and not need to fear Equestria ever again. So why did she hesitate?

"What happened to Pathfinder? Why is he... acting so strange?"

Sombra twitched, and all his amusement and friendliness vanished. "Wizard, I asked you a question. I am promoting you, to do a service far greater than repairing simple machines. Answer my question."

This isn't right. But what choice did she have? Bit took a deep breath, then told him.

Chapter 25: Spodumene

Weeks passed in Zircon. The Secretary of Labor had not been exaggerating or overpromising—Bit received everything she wanted. Within the day, a secondary workshop began to rise at the foot of the tower, a thin metal building packed with old electric heaters. But the oncoming winter would be a benefit for the chemical factory within—slower reactions were far easier to control.

But before she could make use of the new facilities, she had to grow a crystal seed, and no addition of supplies or extra labor would make that process any faster. Still, she didn't have to rely on the limited stock of the vault when ordinary chemicals were required, nor was she without help for the process of simple observation or basic mechanical tasks.

The automatons were not chemists or crystalsmiths, nor were they capable of "learning" in the strictest sense. But they could follow precise instructions. They could maintain the temperature or pressure of a vessel by increasing or decreasing the heat. They could give her moments to go downstairs and check on the lab's progress while the seed proceeded through simple phases of its growth. Even better, there were no more interruptions at her gates to take her attention away from the delicate work. The secretary's own soldiers watched there, and turned away anypony who wasn't part of the assignment.

Indeed, it might be said that Bit went from a barely recognized wizard sheltering in the ruins to one of the most important ponies in all of Zircon, only a few steps below a secretary herself. She had everything she wanted—except one.

Sombra did not return Pathfinder to her, nor did he explain why he had acted so strange during his visit. Bit had considered trying to withhold her labor upon condition of Pathfinder's release, but quickly rejected that idea. Surely the best way to earn enough respect to get her way was by accomplishing something great for the city. The Secretary of Labor explained that he wanted to better understand the new generation of ponies who would soon be created in Zircon, and that claim seemed true enough.

"He is a valuable technical assistant," Bit had argued. "For the best chance of success, I need him."

"Then consider him your motivator," Sombra said. "I need subjects for magical analysis. Zircon has dozens of ponies waiting condemned in its prisons, who will gladly volunteer to be your first subjects and mine if only for a chance at freedom. Pathfinder will return to you, as soon as you deliver them to me."

The secretary reminded her more and more of Zircon's last king, but he was also funding the research. Would Crimson have cooperated with a pony acting with such hostility, if that cooperation also meant that many lives were saved? How many ponies wouldn't starve or freeze because they were no longer vulnerable? Sombra had such a frightening way of saying it, but in a way his choices made sense. Convert the most vulnerable first, then those who had less to fear from want or cold. It was probably the progression she would've chosen—but not couched in the language of disposability.

But however much Bit feared, she wasn't brave enough to resist. She worked, and after two weeks of labor, a single mother seed grew in her laboratory. She didn't even bother trying to split it—rather than giving it to a single subject, this one would be the foundation for thousands. She carried it downstairs in a platinum vessel, into a sheltered lab of many waiting chemicals.

The lab surrounded a gigantic central vat, many meters across and filled with simmering crystal base. The empire had used it to make the towers and structures of their city—now it would also produce the citizens themselves.

"It is imperative the crystal cannot spread," Bit explained, to the half-dozen technicians. All were unicorns, wearing black military uniforms similar to the secretary's personal guard. Every one of them wore deeply mirrored glasses, their eyes always hidden from Bit. But at least so far, they hadn't failed to follow instructions precisely. So she continued to trust them. “If tendrils emerge from the tank, break them with stainless steel tools you aren't touching. It probably won't happen—with all the seed material in this building, we will only have a few kilograms of viable starter."

"Conversion should be the only outcome, correct?" asked Sand Arrow, one of the few members of the crew who ever spoke with her. She could almost hear something familiar in his voice—a relative of some other important pony, perhaps? But with goggles on his eyes and a mask on his face, she couldn't tell for sure. "That is undesirable, but not a critical error."

"No," Bit said. "That is why these instructions are so important. Once we begin feeding it, the crystal will switch into its reproductive mode. Everything reactive it touches will be drained of resources and used to replicate. If you are lucky, contact will dissolve your coat and the upper layer of flesh. If it gets into your blood, you will dissolve into organic waste-material, without leaving a crystal pony behind."

He shuddered, and a few other ponies took several large steps away from the vat. "Levitation only," Bit continued, as soon as she properly had their attention. “Do not get close enough for material to splash. For the next few weeks, we will be tending to this vat. I am depending on each of you to keep this sample contained."

She dumped it over the edge, and instantly the liquid within began to bubble and froth. A foul smoke spilled out from within, and black ichor began to collect on the surface of the tank. This was what happened as the seed burned away source material that it couldn't use, creating more of itself as it harvested.

"How long until we can begin treatment?" asked Sand Arrow, after a few hours of tending to the seed. As it grew, it also became less agitated, finally harvesting all their tank had to offer and beginning a slow replication cycle. "The secretary hopes this procedure will help overcome a nutritional shortfall in the city hothouses."

Bit shrugged. "A week should be long enough. Once the crystal inside branches into multiple segments, we should be able to remove one and shatter it, while we maintain the mother sample for further growth. But that's just based on seeds used in automation and construction—nopony has ever tried to mass-produce this treatment before. It needs the widest possible margin of safety."

"Single patient at a time, got it," Sand Arrow said. "One week should be soon enough."

Bit didn't have to tend to the growth tank at all times, or even assign her automatons to the task. She visited only once each day, checking to see the tank hadn't suffered some critical failure. Or worse, that the seed was growing out of control. But nothing like that happened.

The rapid reproduction of treatments should've filled her with a growing joy at the Wizard's work fulfilled. It probably would have, if Pathfinder weren’t missing.

"I don't understand what the Secretary of Labor could possibly want with him," Bit told her favorite portrait, about a week after growth began. Her external window was almost entirely covered with snow, which poured down over all of Zircon and smothered all it touched. Winter had begun in earnest, with the city hunkering down as far as it could from the horrific cold. From the tower, Bit could only see the favela nearby, and she'd watched as the outer layers emptied and collapsed, with ponies either moving deeper or seeking refuge elsewhere.

"Secretary Bolero is a spellcaster too, Crimson. He should've been able to learn everything he needed from a few questions, maybe a perception spell. Why won't he give Pathfinder back to me?"

She stared into the portrait, searching for any wisdom she could find. But her memories were no help—in the old days, only the Wizard himself was interested in exotic and experimental crystal creations. Once King Zircon learned they weren't useful for war, he barely even wanted the project funded anymore.

"I'm missing something," Bit said, starting to pace back and forth. "It should be obvious to me—it would be, if my attention weren't being splintered into a dozen directions. Help me see it."

Crimson adjusted the telescope with a little magic. They were huddled close together under the same blanket, on an oversized bench. This was the palace, so the glass balcony door was only a few feet away, steam drifting out from the heated interior. "Look there, Moss Flower. Near the hunter's belt, that little yellow star."

She did, careful not to bump the telescope this time. "Okay, I see it. A yellow dot. So what?"

"That dot is the origin of the Alicorns," he explained simply. "And everything that came after. It is their homeworld, but not ours. They created us here."

Bit's face wrinkled with frustration. "Who cares? I could point anywhere in the sky, it doesn't change the way ponies live now. It doesn't keep Equestria from invading, or keep machines working."

Crimson shrugged. "It's the part of something bigger, Flower. The origin of life, our reason for growing here. Why fight so hard against a planet determined to kill us?"

"That's your ancestors' question to answer, Crimson. The south doesn't want ponies dead. Some places don't even snow in winter." It was starting to snow now, white clouds rolling towards them. Soon there would be no visibility to see any little yellow stars, no matter where they looked.

"Still." Crimson shuffled in the blanket, rising from beside her. "It's a piece of the mystery. Just doesn't feel fair we have so little time to tease it apart."

"We'll fix that," Bit said.

Bit looked down at her desk, where the thaumic-crystal processor now sat submerged in a vat of nonreactive oil. Not that she expected it to remain unused for long, but she would take no chances. If toxic gas exploded through the lab, devouring every crystal it could, it wouldn't reach this precious cargo.

"I should get a sample from downstairs. The seed should be separated by now." She rose, donning her robe on the way down. She didn't bother with a mask or goggles—the others might need them against the horrific cold, but they just got in her way. Both automatons rose as she passed out into the stairwell, but she waved them off with a hoof. "I won't need you today," she said. "Continue your usual patrols."

Bit knew something was wrong before she had even reached the bottom steps. Here in the perpetual night of Zircon winter, there should be little going on outside her tower. She shouldn't hear a crowd, or a magically amplified voice echoing off crystal buildings.

Bit stepped out into the freezing wind. The lights were all on in the workshop, and the doors were flung open. A few dozen ponies packed inside—most of them wearing military uniforms.

Bit galloped towards the opening, or tried. Her hooves slipped into snow several inches deep, and instead it was more of an awkward shuffle, kicking up a powdery cloud behind her.

The growth tank was covered with a thin plastic membrane, barely enough to insulate it, with a crowd packing close on all sides. There was a platform built where crates of raw materials had been only yesterday. On it were several ponies in metal shackles. Despite the revolution, little had changed in that design.

"These ponies deserve to die," said Sombra, his voice echoing through the building. "Instead, they offer their lives just as our soldiers do, defending the city from invasion. If they wake, they will be heroes."

Sand Arrow appeared on the other end of the platform, levitating a set of tongs and a steaming sample case.

Those ponies aren't even sedated, she thought. Sand Arrow didn't even ask how to do this.

"Stop!" Bit yelled, pressing against the crowd. But her voice was lost in the cheering. Dozens of military ponies pressed closer, watching the stage so eagerly they didn't even seem to notice her attempts to reach the front. There was no chance she could stop this.

Sand Arrow lowered the forceps, and Bit's shouts were drowned in the patient's screams of agony.

Chapter 26: Danburite

There was nothing unexpected in what happened next. The process of conversion to creatures of crystal was never intended to be explored by unscreened convicts in a nonmedical setting without support present. At least the victims were up on an isolated surface, where the crystal growth wouldn't spread to others. But all that could do nothing for the screaming.

Bit's ears flattened tighter to her head, and still the sound echoed through her. The cries of the dying, echoing so loudly that she would hear it in her dreams. You aren't supposed to be awake for this.

The crowd's attention was entirely fixed on the horror taking place before them. Thin strands of crystal glittered in the spotlight, spreading from where the catalyst had first made contact. What would that feel like, replacing the living flesh of their body one section at a time? At least the victims wouldn't be awake for much longer. Once the process reached their brains, it would render them unconscious. But that could take minutes, minutes they were free to thrash and squirm and struggle.

Idiots. Did you think such a complex treatment could just be used however you wanted? Bit backed out of the pavilion, into the field of undisturbed white snow. The screaming was louder now, and it didn't seem to be coming from the stage. But Bit didn't turn back to see what horrors they were screaming at. I didn't cause this. This isn't my fault.

Soldiers in black armor waited beside the tent, but neither reacted as Bit passed between them, leaving the ceremony behind.

At least she didn't have far to go to reach the welcoming steps of her tower. The door opened and shut again, and suddenly her world seemed safe.

Except that she could still hear it. Over the gentle hum of the building's heater, she could make out the screaming.

She should go upstairs, maybe watch the recordings again. Anything to get away from the noise. She didn't, though. Bit remained just inside, listening for over an hour. It wasn't like she got sore sitting there. If only the Wizard could’ve joined her, watching by her side.

"This is how they're using your research," she told nobody. "I did everything I could to share what you created. What did I do wrong?"

No answer came from the empty room. She heard only the gentle hum of the heater, along with the occasional crystal hoofsteps of her patrolling assistants. One stopped on the bottom of the landing, looked out the window for exactly one second, then turned to resume the trip up without saying a word.

It doesn't know I'm in distress. I told it to patrol for danger. There was no danger it could protect her from right now. Now what might happen if all the unfortunates died, that was something else. Maybe she should be thinking of an escape plan.

Without Pathfinder? Can I really just abandon him?

She remained there for so long that she didn't even notice the tent emptying and the crowd dispersing. It wasn't until the bang against her door that she finally jostled from her reverie. There were several louder bangs only seconds later, impatient. Curious, Keen wasn't usually so impolite. She reached out, touching one hoof against the communications console. The screen lit up, and she looked out onto the porch.

Three ponies stood before her. Two were guards dressed in black, glaring at the door like they might be back to break it down. Just behind them was the Secretary of Labor, Sombra. "Wizard, open the tower! Your presence is demanded by your Secretary of Labor!" the guard shouted. She heard him through the crystal as much as the camera.

There was no screen out there, so he wouldn't be able to see what she was doing on the other end. She straightened, adjusting her cloak and taking a deep breath. Not that it served any purpose, she didn't breathe. But she felt better all the same. "Of course," she said. "I will be right there."

The guards looked furious at the delay—even a second was apparently too long for them. The secretary behind them seemed serene by comparison. He turned instantly to the camera and looked directly into the lens, identifying it instantly. "We must have a word about the result of our first experiment," he said. "Urgently."

Could he force his way in here if I don’t open the door? But maybe none of this was his fault. Those technicians had just been so eager to please him that they didn't respect the actual requirements of the procedure. The secretary might be a victim too.

Bit pressed the buttons that would open the door, disarming security in the same instant. "Secretary! There are things you need to know! I'm afraid you weren't told—"

The soldiers reacted almost like automatons themselves and had swords to her neck before she made it three steps. She froze at the touch of metal against crystal, though the threat was far less intimidating for her. She had no throat to cut—if anything, the blades would probably crack before she did. Now if they'd brought hammers, maybe she would be feeling a little more afraid.

"Wizard." Secretary Bolero didn't wave his soldiers off, the way he usually did. He walked past her into the tower's entryway. "Yes, this would be a better place to have this conversation. I always meant to inspect this place, see what the northern masters had discovered in their isolation. Follow me."

Only then did the swords fall away. Both guards were unicorns, and they kept their weapons close, separating Bit from the secretary.

He ascended the steps of the tower like an ancient archmage himself, inspecting art and functioning machines with a critical eye. "Today's first treatment was a decent promise of things to come. I admit, I expected a survival rate greater than seventy percent. I thought this procedure was safe."

"That's what you weren't told!" She sped up, at least until she met more furious glares from the guards again. They slowed as they reached the first landing off the central steps—the apprentice quarters, as well as the servants’. They lived closest to the ground floor, since they spent much of their time running errands in and out of the tower. "The way things happened out there, that isn't right! The technicians never asked how to administer the treatment! I thought I would be the one doing it!"

Sombra took one look inside, then continued up the tower. Did he know what was here? Was he searching for something? She tensed, suddenly self-conscious. Was there anything incriminating for him to find?

Sombra resumed his climb. He was surprisingly spry for the leader of a nation. The king he replaced had always felt old, even as Crimson grew closer and closer in years. "It was irresponsible of them not to tell you. But stress-testing is part of any experiment. We must know how the catalyst behaves under extreme conditions as well as those of the hospital and laboratory."

He stopped at the open doors to the manufacturer, where a solitary pony waited. They looked and dressed identically, so Bit couldn't tell which of her two automatons this was. She supposed it didn't matter. "Who is this?" Sombra asked.

Bit settled into her monotonous neutrality; eyes focused forward. That had once been so simple, it was pretending to act and think like a pony that took effort. She could barely manage now. "An earlier generation of experiments. A failed avenue of exploration." She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Return to storage," she ordered.

Sombra watched it go but didn't object. He took in the workshop at a glance, resting one hoof on a simple polymer printer. "This is all in perfect working order. I had no idea the city had so much hardware still intact after all these years. I will send somepony to collect all this—it belongs at my personal lab."

"You'll send somepony to—" Bit froze, neutral facade fracturing in an eyeblink. "Secretary, this workshop is how I've accomplished all my work. These machines belong in the tower. I will not be able to serve the city half as productively without my machines."

But Bolero hardly seemed to be listening. He circled briefly around the room, nudging a few of the most complex machines with a hoof. His touch was gentler than an apprentice, and he even seemed to recognize some of them. But Bit couldn't guess at which those might be. "Your service in this tower may have come to an end regardless. It was previously convenient to leave you where hardware already existed, despite the message it sent. The sunset of that moment has arrived."

He turned on her then, even faster than the guards. It was a good thing she wasn't an assassin, because that would've been the perfect chance to strike. "Laboring from this tower has created the illusion for some that you were a... remnant of the oppression that once ruled us. Many lost their lives to unseat the tyrants, and some whisper I have allowed them to retake their throne."

"I only wish to serve," she said quickly. But if he expected to be able to glare her down, he would be disappointed. Bit couldn't be intimidated when she told the truth. "I want to share the old Wizard's work. We can get far better than seventy percent if we follow the instructions he left."

Sombra sighed. "If ever I feared from counter-revolutionaries among my scientific minds, you are a lesson in the uneven distribution of competences. Wizard, this has nothing to do with the success of this experiment. I am pleased with its results, and have already begun preparations for a far larger, second attempt. We wait only to see if the individuals who survived tonight wake again, and behave as the individual you called... Pathfinder, that was it." His horn glowed brilliantly, and suddenly she jerked into the air, squealing in surprise.

But this wasn't an attack—before she could put together any kind of defense, they'd stopped beside the oversized window. Sombra held her there before the glass, gesturing down into the city below. It was a far brighter sight than it had been during much of her recent memories. Now there were three stations running, instead of just one. Not all the streetlights had survived in those sections, but enough that they still glowed through crystal structures.

"Your work will change all of Zircon, Wizard. We soon move into a new era, a new method of being. I cannot have ponies whispering that this transition occurred because wisdom was given to me from some remnant of the old world."

She shivered, but the grip of his magic was far too intense. If she had lungs, the pressure would probably stop her from talking. As it was, the spell didn't push intensely enough to do damage, or interfere with her crystal structure at all. What would happen if Sombra actually attacked her with magic? "You're going to... What will you do, Secretary?"

He released his grip, dropping her to the tower floor with a clatter of crystal hooves. "Bring you to the capital with me, of course. Relocate the lab, and remove anything of value from this place. Level it completely, when we get the chance. But in the meantime, one who serves the revolution will serve from within."

He reached into a jacket, removing a faint metal pin. A bright red star, with a little chain etched into the center. "In recognition of your service, I induct you into Zircon's revolutionary party. Your duties will not change—you will use your knowledge of old technology to advance our goals."

She took the pin in her own magic. Sombra watched her, expectant, as she settled it into place on her collar. With a little piece of metal, she'd gone from basically nopony to just a step below a secretary herself. The members of the party were the ponies who were voted for and promoted to leadership—could she ever aspire to rise so high?

But clipping the pin into her jacket felt more like settling her hooves into lead weights. She could still hear the screams. "From Revolutionary Square... will I still work to spread this treatment to the ponies of Zircon?"

Sombra shook his head absently. "No, nothing like that. My technicians have your instructions. The procedure is mere mathematics now. Your talents are needed for a far higher purpose." He straightened, as if posing for imaginary cameras. "We must arm ourselves for war against our oppressors to the south. Equestria will fall at last."

Chapter 27: Kunzite

Bit wasn't there to see her first victims wake—the process still wasn't timed precisely enough for that.

What the secretary demanded, he had received—laborers had arrived the very next morning to haul equipment away. Bit had considered resisting them, sealing up the tower and letting its defenses keep the Zirconian army at bay. But while she could imagine soldiers battering up against its magic and melting onto the snow, she couldn't face what Sombra would do to Pathfinder.

So she let them come, loading crate after wooden crate marked for Revolutionary Square. At least they let her separate them by purpose. The secretary let her keep anything she thought she might need in her new duties. Everything else went into another building for her to never see again.

But while she might've been generally obedient to her orders, she wasn't exactly a motivated servant. While crews were busy with the largest, most complex-looking machines, she used the automatons to squirrel away a little in the catacombs under the tower.

The secretary has already gone back on his promises to me before. I was supposed to keep the tower, and he's emptying it. He stole Pathfinder. I can't let him do that again.

She would never get away with missing the big machines that Sombra himself had inspected. But computer terminals, stockpiles of automaton cores... and the pieces of the Wizard's own mental recording—those she could hide. It never even seemed to cross the minds of the movers that she would be trying to deceive them. With so much valuable equipment to bring, how were they to know if she failed to produce a few things?

It still hurt to watch as the building she had worked so hard to restore was emptied before her eyes. First her workstation, then the old Wizard's lab were taken apart, leaving only dark stains on the crystal where once the machinery of science had stood.

At least the secretary didn't load her and the automatons into a box. He gave no specific instructions, only a letter that she could send a personnel request to the Secretary of Labor for as many skilled workers as she required.

Her new lab was nothing like the one she'd left behind. Here in Revolutionary Square the power worked only at certain hours of the day. Work stopped for an hour a day to stand in blocks and listen to recorded motivational speeches.

At least she was trusted enough not to have revolutionary guard dogging her every movement and following her through the lab. Rather, the black-armored soldiers backed away from her whenever she approached, muttering of her heroic accomplishments in service to the nation.

It wasn't all bad, of course. She was the foremost expert in “old empire” technology now. That meant obedience from every laborer and technician below her. When she suggested a certain configuration of machines and technology, she was obeyed without question. When she asked to be kept informed of the progression of the first crystal experiments, a clerk appeared from nowhere to follow her commands.

Even so, she kept her crystal automatons beside her from the first, and refused any suggestion that they should be taken away for examination of their own. At least until the Secretary of Labor got involved, she had that much power.

But her new assignment... Bit didn't even know where to begin.

Sombra had made his demands clear enough: he wanted a weapon they could deploy to Equestrian cities, one that would spread too rapidly through its population for its unicorns to cure.

"We can't hope to conquer the south with strength of hooves alone," he had said. "The old empire had a larger army, better trained and better equipped than any we could field with just one city. Yet Equestria halted their advance. They spent decades repeating the same failed strategies, pushing south with doomed advances. We will strike in ways they do not expect."

"I know nothing of weapons," she had protested, as gently as she could. "The old Wizard and I were working to solve all the difficulties of life in the north, not conquer or kill those in the south."

Sombra had waved away her objections as dismissively as he rejected every other complaint she made. “This confusion is common for those with limited vision. But the competences are the same. Consider, for example, what the crystal conversion would do if aerosolized. You are working with techniques you already understand well."

"If it were..." She'd spent so long expecting Sombra to act like the other creatures of this era, concerned primarily with survival over all else. But his understanding was incongruous, and seemed to extend to complete mastery of any technology or magic she could mention. "Secretary, the treatment isn't meant to be introduced through the respiratory system. It could never carry enough computational substrate when diffused through droplets that small. It would endlessly process organic matter, without taking the necessary steps to protect the individual."

To her horror, Sombra only nodded. "So you have an initial direction for research. Begin with animal models. I'll make condemned ponies available as soon as your progress calls for them. Prioritize the speed of transmission over all other factors, including lethality. If thousands of enemy citizens are maimed and require lifetime hospice care, that can do more to demoralize and disarm Equestria than anything from the strategic nuclear reserve."

Every message from the secretary was a fresh horror now. How soon would he expect this deadly poison? What purpose could it possibly serve? Did he even care about Equestria's retaliation?

Bit considered the technical problem as ordered, if only for a few minutes. But then she heard the screaming again—screaming of condemned murderers and rapists and who knew what else—and she imagined thousands of innocent Equestrians screaming like that.

Bit couldn’t just stop working—the revolutionary guard might be subservient to her labors for the cause, but they would notice inaction. The wizard famous for her ceaseless work ethic couldn't just stop in place and let endless months pass by. The luxury of much labor really just meant plenty of eyes to observe everything she did.

To buy herself some time to think, Bit ordered the construction and rigorous testing of crystal-growth substrates. The technology was entirely unnecessary to develop poisons, which could be cultured almost as effectively with a climate-controlled pot.

"To evaluate the quality of this substrate, we will produce crystal parts from a novel mold," she instructed, to her fawning technicians. They varied widely in skill from utter incompetence to slightly below the lowliest apprentice that Crimson would've accepted.

Bit didn't sort them by talent, since she didn't trust anyone but her automatons for any truly difficult task. Rather, she categorized by how eager they were to serve Sombra's purpose. Those who understood the poison they were making and who sang the praises of the good they would do for the revolution, those she kept far away from anything important.

By contrast, those technicians who became frightened or subdued by their mission, those she remembered, and gave the tasks most likely to alert an observant scientist that they weren't actually making poisons. That even included carving models from a set of old bones, using general anatomical estimates and observations from an accommodating male technician where pieces were missing.

"I don't understand the purpose of this model," said Diffuse Gloam, one of her smartest and most dangerous technicians, on the sixth day of work. "It's obvious you're growing the parts of a pony from crystal—like yourself. How does this help us achieve our goal?"

The vat stood in the center of her lab, meaning that everypony would overhear the conversation. Bit froze, conscious of the pressure of so many eyes on her. Fortunately, she'd been preparing for that question. If not from one of her staff, then Sombra eventually.

"The weapon must be dangerous only to the enemy," Bit explained, as confidently as she could. "We need to ensure the poison isn't dangerous to the army of crystal ponies that will take the cities we strike."

"Oh." Gloam fell silent then, mollified. "I suppose that makes sense. Better to test with a model."

It wasn't—the weapon Sombra wanted would have no effect on crystal, as it was only designed to transform living tissue. But the crew didn't know that, and she wasn't about to explain it.

Despite her urgent assignment, Bit still had enough influence to leave for anything important—including the revival of her first crop of crystal ponies.

This too was a public ceremony, though the ponies in question had been moved to Revolutionary Square. Sombra didn't want to send the impression that anything wizardly had been involved, after all.

But there was nothing like the live executions they'd been forced to watch last time. After an appropriately dramatic speech about how they'd discovered the solution to all Zircon's problems and how incredible the secretary’s leadership had been, the two surviving ponies marched out onto the stage.

That brings the survival rate down even further. Every one of those ponies would've been fine if we treated them in a hospital.

"These ponies have proven their loyalty to Zircon," Sombra said, taking the stage behind them. The three crystal ponies fell into step behind him, as responsive as his revolutionary guards. More, even. It was like what she'd seen from Pathfinder. "They are forgiven of their crimes, and welcomed back into Zircon. Let all who see them forget their guilt and treat them as returning war-heroes."

Bit herself stood near the back of the stage, where she could watch a crowd of thousands stamp and cheer. The ground was so packed with them that no snow touched the cement, despite the growing flurry overhead. Winter had arrived in force, and the sun didn't quite manage to crest the distant horizon. They lived in the purple glow of the Zircon Spire, which served the double purpose of melting most of the snow.

"This is the future I bring to all ponies of Zircon," Sombra continued. "The first procedure was fraught with risk, and some did not survive. I will improve it, so that none who are loyal to the revolution need fear. These gifts will not be hoarded by the few, but shared with all in their time. We will begin with those who are most in need—those who struggle to warrant ration coupons, those who cannot find a place to warm themselves in the growing cold. Spread the word among your neighbors that all of them are to come to the square. They will be welcomed, given food and warmth, and be the first brave ponies to step into a new era.

"Where they go, they walk immune to the frigid cold. They need not fear starvation, or time. They will be immortal. We will all join them in time. But as in all things, this gift begins at the bottom, and will be shared with your leaders last. You will be the first to prosper."

He turned, glancing towards Bit. The microphone switched off. "Anything you'd like to add?"

She shook her head—evidently the correct response, because Sombra continued with the pomp and circumstance. This crowd of thousands wasn't the scientists and generals who had seen the first experiments. They had no reason to fear.

There was only one good thing about the entire ritual—when it was finally done, Sombra returned to her with another crystal pony in tow. He wore the black armor of the revolutionary guard, except for a helmet. Had he learned how to march like that in two weeks?

"I return this pony to your care," Sombra said. "He served the Revolution well, and allowed me to learn much. He has suffered somewhat as a result, however. Consider his return a gift for your continued service."

Chapter 28: Emerald

Pathfinder didn't react, any more than the other revolutionary guards did. He saluted as Sombra walked past, but remained beside Bit. His eyes stared forward blankly, off into the horizon, and did not move. The parade-ground below the stage gradually emptied, with ponies averting their eyes as they passed.

Bit remained silent for a few seconds, as the last of Sombra's guards followed him away. She approached slowly, extending one nervous hoof. "Pathfinder? How are you feeling?"

The pony didn't twitch, didn't meet her eyes. Was that how she looked when ponies spoke to her? Like something barely alive.

"I am ready to serve."

She watched ponies retreat from the square, let a faint dusting of snow settle over her. Despite the protection of the Zircon Spire, the cold seemed to penetrate straight through her crystal. "Okay, but... what happened?" She settled onto her haunches, adjusting the formal uniform she wore. A great luxury, marking her as a member of the party. Though most of the privileges of warmth and food and housing were useless to her.

Pathfinder didn't reply. His eyes remained glazed, staring out at nothing. Exactly like he was when Sombra visited. "Very well, Pathfinder. Come with me, I know how you can serve."

He obeyed. Possibly because he had no choice. The lights were dim by the time they returned to her lab—it was evening shift now, and this task hadn't warranted round-the-clock attention the way heat did. If only she'd been put with Secretary Ardor. Maybe she could've been tasked with upping the output of the hothouses next, growing larger crops for the city. Then she could follow them eagerly, instead of looking for a way out.

But would she have any desire to serve the revolution after what they'd done to Pathfinder?

At least there was no Diffuse Gloam or anypony else to scrutinize her work as she strode inside. Only her two automatons remained, wearing their usual white lab-coats and simple hats. The easiest way to mark them as separate from herself, when new technicians visited.

"Come here," Bit instructed, leading Pathfinder to the automaton servicing equipment. One of several machines she'd asked for that had nothing to do with making weapons. But nopony understood the technology well enough to know that.

Pathfinder sure didn't. He stood where instructed, and didn't move as she levitated a thin ring of wire to point in his direction. The power was working now, though there was no telling how long that would last.

Without prompting from her, the two crystal automatons arrived at her sides. They did not salute—she had no use for pointless displays. "What are we doing?" one asked.

Unprompted, Bit thought. That was surprisingly insightful for an automaton. "We have a patient to treat," she said. "This one has suffered unknown... trauma. We may need to perform corrective surgery."

Pathfinder focused on her suddenly, eyes intent. "I give service to the Revolution. Is standing here what is required?"

"For now," she said. "Remain where you are." She circled around to the back of the cabinet, where she'd hidden one of the tower's old terminals. They no longer had access to the tower's intranet, of course. But it wasn't like there was much new data being created there. It would look a little strange with Bit facing into a storage cabinet that glowed, but it wasn't something she'd used yet.

After a few seconds, diagnostic data filled the screen in front of her.

This wasn't like looking at one of the automatons, or even her own scan. There were no specified programs here, no subroutines, no delineation of memory storage and functional programming. The diagnostic did its best to explain the mind anyway. But even Bit could make little sense of it. She selected one "Dynamic Subroutine AEFF6EA" at random, expanding it for examination. Was this where Sombra had broken him?

Maybe, but Bit could make no sense of what it was supposed to do. Plenty of information was stored there, along with references to thousands of other dynamic subroutines—all in formats that the diagnostic equipment couldn't read.

I should've taken a backup. Fixing him without a point of reference could take years.

She didn't have years. Sombra was riding high on her current success, and focused on the conversion of Zircon to crystal life. But that wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later he would demand appreciable progress on a weapon, which she wasn't prepared to give.

Bit shut the cabinet carefully, walking back to stand before Pathfinder. She watched his eyes with every second, searching for recognition. She saw none. "What do you remember, Pathfinder? What did the Secretary of Labor do to you?"

He looked back, eyes gliding over her. So he was even worse than the automatons—at least they were completely unaware about the state of ponies around them. Pathfinder seemed to be actively avoiding it. "I served the revolution," he said. "The secretary will break all chains and unite all the world under a common banner. I serve him faithfully."

The secretary didn't reprogram you. He didn't use any crystal technology. This was something else, something older. Magic.

"We all serve faithfully," she said. "The revolution requires you to remain here."

He saluted again, and she hurried back to her computer terminal. This time she ignored the diagnostic data, and searched instead for the Wizard's magical records. It was the same database she'd used to diagnose his illness, when he returned poisoned from the palace. Only this time, she searched for mental symptoms.

Strange behavior, memory loss... as she went over his symptoms, possibilities dwindled down to just a few. A fungal parasite of the brain, which obviously couldn't be present, and one other option.

Mental conditioning inflicted by repeated use of restricted spells.

Bit opened the database, occasionally glancing at the two entrances. The morning shift wouldn't be arriving for a few hours yet, but she couldn't ever be certain. Maybe Sombra would send somepony to check on her during the night.

The database did not include instructions for inflicting such conditioning. The wizards had considered mind-altering spells forbidden at the highest level, and included no instructions about how to use them. Fortunately they hadn't felt the same way for the treatment.

Restoration of full function is never guaranteed—the mental resilience of the individual is always the most significant factor. But when intercepted soon after alterations are made, the robust psyche will always reassert itself. Those under the effects for years or more are often beyond saving, as the mind has adopted its new shape at every meaningful level.

That was enough to give Bit hope—Pathfinder hadn't been controlled for long. Not years, not even months. She only had a few weeks of damage to magically repair. Of course it would take more than one night to prepare a counterspell to something so powerful. The terminal cautioned repeatedly against any attempt to perform the spell from a pony who wasn't a lifetime expert in spellcasting. Even a purely beneficial healing spell was still a scalpel held directly beside the mind of a living pony.

During her free time over the next few days, Bit went over the diagrams in her head. It was true she learned quickly, and that she had decent mastery of levitation by now. But levitation would not undo the damage.

Of course she had to find a use for Pathfinder in the interim, something that would prevent him from being dragged away from the lab to some other purpose. He was still one of only a handful of crystal ponies, one with the annoying habit of seeking out ways he could be laboring for the revolution.

Bit changed him into lab gear, and gave him a list of responsibilities. She had him replace the fluids in her lab equipment, though in reality the service cycle lasted years instead of days. She gave him cleaning assignments, and even mental evaluations. Anything she could even pretend to justify to keep him with her. But as the days passed, Bit's nightly meditation got her nowhere close to casting the spell he needed.

If she wanted to help Pathfinder, Bit needed to find a pony to trust.

She considered Keen, even sent him a letter by messenger requesting a conversation. The reply came from his replacement in the Office of Heat: the former secretary had been recently demoted, and was currently undergoing the crystal procedure. But his replacement could assist her with anything she required.

She found some excuse, penning a brief letter worried about the output of the second heat waystation, and didn't really expect a reply. None came.

The more Bit watched what Zircon was doing with her research, the more she realized her mistake. What Sombra had done to Pathfinder, what he had probably done to those first volunteers, he could do to anyone in the city. Is that why he supported my research? Not because he wanted to lighten the burden for ponies struggling to survive the winter, but because they're vulnerable to a spell?

Crimson's research was always meant to prepare a new kind of pony, one that could survive the harshest possible natural conditions. Those created by civilization hadn't been part of the equation.

She made some feeble objections over the next few weeks, forwarding her concerns to the secretary. But she could no longer make a personal visit whenever she wished. Either he wasn't getting the message from his office, or just didn't care to reply. The effect was the same either way.

Maybe if Crimson was still alive in all his wisdom he might've been able to make some subtle sabotage of the process, one that would insulate those converted from future vulnerability. But Bit lacked that knowledge. Bit couldn't even restore a single mind on her own.

It was almost a month into winter before she started seeing crystal ponies moving through the streets of Zircon outside. At least they didn't all march in formation, all free-will stolen. These ponies seemed to be alive. But for every one she saw passing in the halls of Revolutionary Square, there were a half-dozen more in black armor.

"It's a placating tactic," she could almost hear Crimson whisper, as they watched a group of mineral ponies reuniting with their loved ones just outside the square. While the organic ponies shivered under the force of a fierce winter wind, the crystal ponies were naked, and completely unaffected. "Sombra has no interest in uplifting the population. But those who go for treatment must return, showing the population that he keeps his promises. Just as my father promises outrageous salaries to those who volunteer for military service. He can pay only a few, and give hope to the rest that they too might be so lucky."

And I made this possible. I could've hid in my tower and nothing would change. I let Sombra do this. Bit felt like she was locked in a small room slowly filling with acid. She'd clambered up onto the furniture, but already the liquid was dissolving her hooves. She could do nothing to keep it from rising now.

She could try to change a few lives, at least. She started with Comet Hum, one of her unicorns who had been among the least willing to work for her, while she still thought Bit was making poisons. But after over a month, she must know by now: Bit had no intention of poisoning anyone.

She brought Comet into the lab late one cold winter night, under the watchful eyes of her crystal automatons. "Wizard? You needed something from me?"

Bit nodded, gesturing towards the center of the room. There Pathfinder stood, staring blankly out at nothing. The intervening month had done little to restore his sanity. She'd seen almost nothing of the original pony under all that obedience and patriotism. But maybe that would change soon.

"You are required to serve Zircon and her ponies," Pathfinder barked, without even looking back. "It is not for you to question why."

Bit rolled her eyes, but didn't contradict him. Pathfinder obeyed her directions, but she had no doubt about how good he would be at keeping secrets, if he discovered disloyalty in her lab. Fortunately his mind-control hadn't implanted anything like technical skills, so he didn't actually understand when she was developing poisons, and when she was using her workers to squirrel away tremendous amounts of crystal-growing resources.

"Stand here, Comet Hum. I need your help with a spell." She gestured into the cabinet, then waited.

Comet watched her uncertainty for a moment, before peeking her head inside, then freezing in place, stunned by what she saw.

There was silence for almost a minute. Whether the pony was unsure of how to cast the spell, or just unsure of the digital console, at first Bit couldn't tell. But Comet wasn't the unicorn she trusted most because she was stupid.

"You want this spell for... yourself?"

"No." Bit took a few steps away, gesturing at Pathfinder. "This loyal pony is interested in greater service to Zircon. That spell should enhance his abilities. Memory, logical reasoning, intelligence... all traits I find desperately wanting from modern troops."

Chapter 29: Firoza

After a few seconds of study, Comet Hum gestured urgently. She spoke in a hurried whisper, barely audible even right beside her. "Wizard, we can't just use a spell like this on anypony. Wherever you got this spellbook... it says we need someone who knew the victim. Someone needs to know the person they were to put them back. Before he came to your laboratory I'd never met this pony."

"I knew him," Bit said flatly. "Will my memories do?"

Comet hesitated, glancing to both doors and then to Pathfinder before continuing. She whispered even quieter, if that were even possible. "If the one who did the original damage ever meets him again... they'll know what we've done."

"What I've done," Bit corrected. Then it was her time to whisper. "I cannot give Zircon weapons that could take endless lives, even if I could make them. I will flee soon. You can come with me."

Comet's expression was a mask. Finally she nodded, pointing across the room. "Come with me, Wizard. I need you to focus on those memories. Hold them before you with as much clarity as you can. Your failure will doom this spell."

Bit walked to the indicated place—just before Pathfinder, looking directly into his eyes. So if another one of her failures was about to kill an innocent pony, she wouldn't be able to flee from it. "This is all assuming, of course, that magic like this even works on your kind. There's almost nothing known about you yet. Are you sure you want to risk it?"

"For Zircon no risk is too great," Pathfinder declared. "Whatever you've been ordered to do for her glory, you should do. Right, Wizard Bit?"

Bit nodded sharply. "We've stepped onto this road, without knowing where it would take us. It is too late to turn back."

She did have one advantage, at least. Bit had perfect discipline of thought. She hadn't known Pathfinder as well as she would've liked—a few weeks just wasn't long enough for that. She watched him go from fawning gratitude to agonizing death, then wishing he had died. Maybe she wouldn't remember that last part.

"Protect us," she ordered one of her crystal automatons. "This shouldn't take long."

"Understood," said Alpha. It wasn't much of a name—but it was something. "We protect."

Comet shifted uneasily on Pathfinder's side. She kept glancing back to the console, though of course it was impossible to see from here. That was entirely the point. "Pathfinder, if you could look this way for a moment."

He obeyed, far less abruptly than he did with Bit's commands. His respect for her orders went only so far as respect for Bit as the Wizard. Then her horn began to glow. "Now think, Pathfinder. Who are you?"

"A servant of Zircon," he recited. The pale light of a single amber bulb was swallowed in bright blue from Comet's horn. Bit felt it too, a light that held her in place, made her feel lethargic somehow.

"And before that?"

"I am a servant of... Secretary Sombra Bolero," he stuttered. "I am..."

"Why?" Comet Hum asked, insistent. The spell-light was bright enough that Bit could see nothing else. It swallowed the laboratory, and a crystal growth vat, and her two patrolling assistants.

"Because—because... it is... right to..." Pathfinder shook, one hoof twitching towards his belt. Where he'd held a weapon before. Bit didn't keep weapons in her lab, of course. Only the soldiers outside wore them.

"Because you cared about ponies," Bit supplied. "You saw the suffering of thousands who had been abandoned. You realized they would continue to suffer if something wasn't done. You ventured up to the thermal plant to find them somewhere to shelter from the storm."

"I... went..." Pathfinder said. "Because I cared about... Zircon and her people. I knew there was... was..."

"Then you cared about me," Bit continued. "You were curious about the pony who had restored the thermal plant. You came to meet me. You followed me into the palace, even though I told you it would kill you. Your concern for me was stronger than your self-preservation."

With each word, she could feel those memories returning to her, relived over and over. Not just for her. Without knowing how she knew it, Bit knew that Pathfinder was seeing them too. His time caring for the ponies of the favela—exploring the palace with her, and his eventual reliance on her as his body started to fail.

Bit hadn't known this pony during most of his life. But she knew enough—enough to remind him that he was more than a puppet.

Pathfinder opened his mouth, forming the words to a shout. Sombra's name? The word died half-formed, without a sound escaping. Then he collapsed, as though he were an automaton taken far from the spire.

Then he wept, a whimpering pile of misery on the floor in front of her. The spell ended, and Comet Hum dropped to one foreleg, breathing heavily. "That was... worse than I feared. I think the caster... wanted it to be permanent." She looked down at the pony between them, shifting nervously. "I'm fairly certain I cast the spell properly, Wizard. The active magic is gone form his mind, anyway. The one who put it there will realize instantly."

"I'm aware of that," she said. "I have been considering ways to prevent such an attack from being effective. I'm afraid I don't know how to protect an organic pony like yourself, though. The strategies I've considered will only work for our kind."

Comet Hum shrugged. "Respectfully, Wizard, I suspect we don't need as much protection. Living minds are delicate things—there's a reason magic like this isn't done. It's rare to find a spellcaster with enough dexterity to leave the victim functional. You crystal ponies must be different somehow. Resilient, or... rigid, anyway. Damage doesn't propagate so far."

Bit dropped down in front of Pathfinder, reaching over to force him to look up. "Pathfinder? Do you remember me?"

Probably a bad question—after all, he'd known her in both incarnations. But she doubted the traitor would reach over with a hoof, pulling her into a tight hug. She twitched once at the surprising closeness of it, but didn't try to shove him away. She could hardly blame a pony who had obviously suffered so much.

If only she could go back and let the Wizard hug her a little more. She would have more memories to cling to now that he was gone.

"What happened to me?" Pathfinder sobbed. "How did I get here?"

Comet whistled. "This is expected too, Wizard. Reverting to his previous personality results in dissociation with anything he did while under another pony's control. It may take years for the memories to return, or not at all. Your spellbook wasn't sure. This is too rare."

It won't be for much longer. If only Bit could spread some cure for this effect through all the ponies of the empire, before the conversion process got too far. There just wasn't enough time. "We need to get this information out as far as possible," she whispered. "How many ponies could someone control at once?"

Comet Hum shrugged. "Magic this dark isn't studied here. Maybe Equestria would know. But I can tell you it takes concentration, so... not a city's worth. A dozen, maybe two?"

The revolutionary guard, Bit thought. Perfectly loyal and obedient no matter what. But even if the whole city wasn't being actively controlled, any one of them might be vulnerable.What could an evil pony do if he could subtly redirect those who disagreed—rewrite ponies with problematic instincts, crush glimmers of independence before they could grow.

"Where is this, Bit?" Pathfinder asked. "I've never seen this before. Or... maybe I have. Feels more like a dream. A nightmare. I thought such strange things... didn't make sense. What happened to the favela?"

Most of them are already being treated by now. But she didn't think a shock that big would do him much good just now. He had already suffered enough pain. "This is my new lab. We work directly for the Party. I'm a member, in fact. You've been assisting me here, while I found a way to heal you. But I don't think the secretary will be too happy I could reverse your conditioning. What could be done for you can be done for anypony..."

"Likely," Comet agreed. "For the same reason you're more vulnerable, you should be easier to treat."

"It's a problem future ponies like us can solve," Bit continued. "For now, we need to make sure there are any. This city... we can't stay here. Zircon is too dangerous. We need to flee, somewhere they won't be able to follow."

Pathfinder nodded. There was still pain in his expression, heavy confusion. He didn't have much reason to trust her over anything else he knew. But at least he had the chance to consider what she said, instead of being compelled to obey it. "Where?"

She shrugged, though this was just a front. She knew exactly where they had to go. There were vanishingly few options for creatures like them. But she couldn't risk that information getting out. "We'll gather as many friendly ponies as we can," she said. "Beta, drain this crystal tank. Take the parts into the backroom with everything else. We'll say the batch failed and start another."

Bit wanted to be there for Pathfinder—the pony probably needed comfort now more than ever before, no matter what he was made from. But all her effort would be for nothing if Sombra could just go and reverse it all. But while she waited for this opportunity, this was something she'd actually spent some time thinking about. Thinking, and building.

Bit crossed the room back to him with a little velvet-wrapped bag, still smelling of fresh solder from the workstation. She'd only finished the second of these a few hours before, after all.

"Could you hold your head over here, Pathfinder? I need to do something."

She shook the bag out into the air with her magic, holding up the little crystal sliver and intricate mesh of wires. It looked a little like a wig-liner, though of course Bit's mane was crystal and she'd never need to wear one.

"What? Bit I'm... still confused. I don't know what to do. I used to know. Everything made so much sense. But now nothing does. I was alive, but I'm not alive. I went with you... did I do something wrong?"

"Of course not." Bit held the crystal for him to inspect. "Pathfinder, your mind was taken from you. This device will... prevent that. It can detect external writes and enable write-protection. You'll be unable to form any long-term memories while under attack. But that shouldn't last more than a few seconds. More complex magic is more difficult for the caster to sustain, so a few seconds should be enough. I matched your color as best I could, and this adhesive will dry clear. But I still need you to hold still."

He shuddered. "I don't really... understand." But he stopped struggling, and that was enough. Off to one side, Beta worked diligently in the crystal tank, removing a body section by section, before packing them in foam and carrying them off into a dark space. A storage room... but more than that. This had been a train station once, after all. Bit never forgot a map.

"What will we do?" Pathfinder asked. "Is it... okay? Will I feel better?"

"In time," she promised. "For now, we'll be very careful. I've been given an assignment I cannot follow. I've been planning a way to escape it for some time. But I had to move slow—Zircon is dangerous, and disloyalty is ruthlessly punished."

Bit stood, settling the little bottle of adhesive on a nearby desk. "Now we just have to figure out how many other ponies we can safely bring with us. More, if they're crystal too. But we can bring treatment for organic ponies who want to come, and treat them there."

"What if we want to stay alive?" Comet asked. She'd remained nearby through this whole process, watching with fascination. "All these new weaknesses don't seem worth the advantages to me, Wizard. No offense."

Bit shrugged one shoulder. "Then you should flee to the south—to Equestria. There will be no room for organics where we have to go."

"Wizard!" Alpha shouted, its voice alert. Despite a new body with the ability to speak, it didn't actually sound like her. It used the standard speech-reproduction software Zircon had written centuries and centuries back. Unfortunately that meant it had no way of expressing emotion, if it could experience any. "Soldiers in black approach from the hallway! What do we do?"

Bit froze, glancing over the room in a rush. There was nothing overtly disloyal going on here, really. Her tireless crystal staff worked while a single, very dedicated organic pony had come in to help at her request.

She heard their hooffalls seconds after Alpha's alarm. They weren't running in to reach her as quickly as possible—these hooves were marching. Could they be going anywhere else?

"Help Beta," she said. "But be ready to help me if I look like I need it."

Was that instruction clear enough for a simple automaton? She didn't have a chance to give more, because the door banged open seconds later, and the Revolutionary Guard flooded into her lab.

Chapter 30: Moss Agate

Bit watched as the guard poured in. After just a few seconds there were already more than she usually saw in one place. Only when they were guarding the Secretary of Labor did so many of these black-armored soldiers appear.

Comet Hum retreated as they walked inside, backing up until she was against the far wall, near a resin printer. Pathfinder was too confused to move, and remained on the floor, stupefied. That alone could at least serve as proof of the success of Bit's healing—he didn't rise to join the formation. He wasn't one of them anymore.

Unfortunately it wasn't just the Revolutionary Guard. Before Bit could formulate anything approaching a plan, another pony strode inside. Like the guard marching in their formation, Sombra wore full uniform, right down to black boots that Bit could almost guarantee had to be made of real leather.

He scanned the room in an eyeblink, eyes settling on Pathfinder. Bit caught a faint glow from his horn, far too brief to be anything approaching a complex spell. Her defenses would go untested, at least for a little while longer.

The soldiers didn't grab her, or start breaking any of her equipment. They just spread out around the room, mostly flanking the Secretary of Labor. "Evening, Wizard," he said, striding up through the laboratory. He watched Alpha emerge briefly from the dark storage area, lifting another crystal limb out from the tank before carrying it off again. The automatons did not stop to give "proper respect" to the secretary or his office. They didn't so much as look at him. "How goes your work in service of Zircon?"

Bit didn't retreat from him, or cast a spell. Not that she had anything she could possibly use to defend against a creature like this. His soldiers all carried spears, but not simple ceremonial weapons. These were made of crystal as black as their armor, and seemed to darken the space around them. Not firearms in the traditional sense, but they could probably still kill a pony at range. "Well enough, Secretary. A surprising honor to see you here at this hour."

He didn't smile back, instead circling around Pathfinder. The pony managed to shuffle into a crude bowing position—even in his addled state, he recognized the danger here.

"I was surprised myself," Sombra finally said. "When I felt the monitoring spell I placed upon this pony shatter. I find myself struggling to imagine what anypony might possibly say to justify such disloyalty to Zircon and her ponies. Some pony actually thought she stood above the Secretary of Labor?"

Wasn't the whole point of the revolution to make no pony stand above others? Somehow Bit didn't think she would get very far arguing his hypocrisy with him. A pony who casually murdered to perform faster medical experiments probably wasn't going to feel guilty about the ideological inconsistencies of their own positions. Sombra didn't care.

Maybe she didn't either. "Secretary, you knew what I was when you appointed me. I serve to advance scientific understanding, as my predecessor did. You gave me a pony with a shattered psyche and no ability to work in my laboratory. I have restored him."

She put special emphasis on I in that phrase, moving slightly to put herself between Sombra and the cowering unicorn against the far wall. This was her spell, even if she hadn't been the one to cast it.

Bit was still no expert in reading pony emotions. But the pony in front of her made no attempt to conceal his frustration. Sombra seethed, his horn glowing faintly as one leg scratched at the ground before him. His glare passed right through Bit, to the pony behind her. "You," he barked, gesturing forward. "Come here."

She did so, hooves shaking as she made her way forward. She glanced once at Bit, as though begging for relief. But what was Bit supposed to do, with all these soldiers ready? At least they hadn't drawn their weapons. Maybe this wouldn't go so far—maybe Bit still had more time.

"I see from your uniform you're a second class technician. You serve here in the laboratory... What is your name, pony?"

"Comet Hum," she squeaked, unable to meet Sombra's eyes. But she wasn't the only one who avoided getting anywhere near him.

More often than not, the secretary seemed pleased by the fear he instilled in ponies. But now, he only frothed more energetically. "Yes, I do recall that name. Comet Hum was a barely adequate biologist, unwilling to obey basic instructions while employed in... I think one of our farms. Your supervisor recommended you for reassignment to hard labor, but the wizard demanded an unusual number of specialists."

Sombra circled around her like a vulture, eyes intent. Like he could see the disloyalty right through her skin, somehow. "Answer me something, Comet Hum. Give me a report on the progress you've made towards a bioweapon for deployment against our Equestrian enemies. Explain how far your lab has come in the last weeks, in your own words."

"I..." she stammered, glancing desperately towards Bit again. "We're, uh... building a..."

"Model to ensure no crystal pony is vulnerable to the process," Bit supplied. "Otherwise it might endanger our own army, or even the city's physical structure."

Sombra stomped a single hoof. Wearing rubber boots the sound wasn't as sharp as it might've been otherwise, but his meaning remained clear. Bit fell instantly silent.

"I did not... ask... you." He searched for a few seconds, then gestured again. Bit didn't recognize it this time, but the Revolutionary Guard did. Two separated from the back of the room, advancing until they flanked him on either side. "This pony has been subverted and betrayed the revolution. What do we do with counter-revolutionaries?"

What happened next passed in a blur so quick Bit barely even saw it. One of the guard drew their spear—but not to strike Comet. Before Comet could even scream, he pressed it up against her head, then fired.

Bit looked away, stiffening as red smeared across her laboratory floor. Comet Hum dropped to the ground at their hooves, and Sombra turned away, contemptuous. "You see what your actions cause, Wizard. This death is yours, just like all the others you have failed."

Alpha and Beta reappeared from the back of the room. Their expressions remained as blank as ever, and they didn't even seem to see the dead pony on the floor. Yet Bit saw the difference in their movement—instead of heading straight for the now-empty tank to begin draining it, they circled from the walls on both sides, keeping close to the machinery there.

Bit backed away, horrified. "She didn't... Comet was one of the finest biologists I had. You can't just... waste lives!"

"I didn't, you did." Sombra's horn glowed again, and this time it didn't pass in a second. This was something else, a real spell. "I've been exceptionally tolerant of your behavior, Wizard. You came from another era—in some ways, you can't help it. You are a machine yourself, even more than any of these crystal ponies you helped create. But when a machine malfunctions too far, it must be repaired. If it cannot be fixed, it will be decommissioned."

His spell washed over her then, a wave of magic that was entirely invisible to her eyes, but impossible not to feel. Not just her—that magic washed around the room. It was trying to control everyone.

"You will serve Zircon now, Bit. Obey the voice of your king!"

She dropped to the ground, body shaking from the force of the sudden magic. Images flashed past her faster than an ordinary pony would've been able to process—images of a life of obedience and training. Memories of absolute loyalty to Sombra as the secretary. Nothing else in the world mattered.

She'd been so worried about keeping Pathfinder from infection, she hadn't worried enough about herself. She looked up into his eyes, struggling to stand. Maybe she could cast a spell... stop him somehow?

But why would she want to? This was Sombra. Secretary of Labor... and more. He was the only pony suited to be king, greater than any of the evil ponies he replaced. He would lift them out of cold and darkness, and retake the world, restoring the Crystal Cities to glory long lost.

Across the room, glass shattered, and a pony screamed in agony. The spell ended in a flash, and Bit looked up. One of the Revolutionary Guard was impaled in a fabricator drill, while another's face crunched into the glass of a window.

Alpha and Beta cut through the guard in front of them, fighting with fury Bit hadn't seen during this new life. The other guards weren't standing stupefied—they took aim, firing with blasts from energetic spears. A shot connected, and Alpha's whole body lit up, resonating like a glass tapped with a fork. But nothing happened, and the soldier was crushed under Alpha's hooves.

"Obey me!" Sombra shouted, his voice reverberating with magic. "Your converted minds cannot resist me! You will bow!"

Bit made it one step before the force of his spell crushed her to the ground. She bowed, just as he ordered, unable to move. Pathfinder lowered his head, and revolutionary guards dropped their weapons one by one and knelt before Sombra.

Alpha took a fallen spear in one hoof and rammed it up into the opening between a guard's neck and helmet, spraying more blood onto the laboratory floor. Behind them, Beta struck a converted crystal guard, cracking off a leg in a flash of angry red light.

They don't have minds to control. She wasn't all that different from Alpha and Beta—she had a conventional processor, just like they did. Maybe hers came from recorded memories, but that didn't mean she couldn't use some of the same defenses.

Bit couldn't fight a spell that strong, not as a pony. But her mechanical mind knew an outside influence. The memories Sombra instilled all had invalid formatting and date logs. She composed a helper program to delete anything with incorrect cryptographic signatures—and just like that, the force holding her down vanished. She stood up, facing Sombra.

"Your secretaries all admire you," she whispered, facing into the swirling green of his magic directly. It whipped and crackled past her now, obscuring the battle taking place around them. "They really believe you're here to free the world. But you don't care about the ponies of Zircon—you're using them."

Now it was his turn to back away. The spell vanished in a blink, and he turned his horn towards Bit again. Darkness coalesced around it, shattering every bulb overhead in a series of painful flashes. Only the steady green heartbeat of the empty crystal tank remained, pulsing every few seconds.

The Revolutionary Guard were fighting again—but Sombra's own attack had sealed their fate. Her automatons fought through them ruthlessly. These ponies had probably never known a real fight in their lives—Zircon wasn't really at war with Equestria. But the automatons were old, and lacked mercy.

"You won't spread this infection to Zircon!" Sombra roared, magic blasting out from his horn in a terrible slow-moving wave.

Alpha leapt into its path, intercepting the blast with the bulk of its body. Their body screamed in protest, a single terrible second of resonance—then it exploded, showering the room with broken crystal.

Bit screamed. She didn't know how to fight and didn't remember a single thing about winning a magical war. But she didn't care. She smashed into Sombra's neck with all the force she could, shoving him across the room. They rolled and tumbled, before crashing up against the door beside the only two still-standing guards.

"You're all dead!" He stood, just as Beta came in from the other side. But the automaton struck against a shimmering black barrier, wrapping around Sombra and the surviving guards. "Everything you ever accomplished will be erased! I'll see you more than forgotten, Wizard!"

Beta, undeterred, picked up a spear, took aim, and fired its blast of energy directly into the shield—over and over again, until the tip melted, and they exchanged it for another, uncaring of the heat as molten glass sloughed around them.

Light flashed from the sphere, along with a thunderclap of imploding air. When it cleared the space was empty, right down to the door and bits of the ceiling.

From where he had knelt frozen the entire battle, Pathfinder finally stood. He looked around the room, shaking his head once. His eyes avoided the place where Comet's body lay, still warm. "What do we do, Wizard?"

A few of the revolutionary guards were still alive—but not for much longer. Beta circled calmly around the outside of the lab, executing each one with cold precision. Strangely, it left the partly-crystal ponies alone, half broken and all. Maybe they didn't count as dangerous?

"We have to go." She searched the room, finally levitating a chunk of melted metal frame up into the air in front of her. Alpha’s core sheared cleanly in half by the force of its destruction. They saved my life.

But there was no time to mourn them now—just like Comet Hum, and all the others Bit couldn't help. Far in the distance she could hear an alarm, echoing through the square. Sombra wouldn't give her a second chance to remove him, he would send an army. An army of ponies who didn't know any better, that they could never hope to overcome.

"Beta, evacuation protocol. And Pathfinder... it's good you're here. We have a lot to carry."

Bit lowered herself to one knee beside Comet's fallen body, closing her eyes with a flicker of magic. Then she rose and turned to the backrooms.

Epilogue

Red knew nothing more important than his duty. Function was purpose, and purpose was all that mattered.

Centre was not the place of much labor anymore, not as it had once been. He remembered the very moment of transition, though it had been long ago. For years he had lived among others who were like him. They did things, they said things, and they wanted things... but he had understood little of it.

But Red knew some things, even then. He knew that he wanted to be useful. That was how he had come to be here, carefully examining the massive map before him, making careful marks of the tunnels he had tried. He added one more to the roll of unrotting fiber, tucked it into his satchel, and resumed his trek.

Purpose was everything. The Wizard had given him a most important purpose. A purpose that would sustain him even now, when Centre itself was lifeless.

He did not want to remember. But just like the maze of caverns he had traveled, just like the ancient alphabet he learned to warn him away from dangerous pathways, Red remembered.

Red could not forget the day the magic stopped. For numberless years he had functioned beside hundreds of others. He had not needed to understand what they did, or why. But they all felt the moment the magic ended.

"Listen to me, Red," his Wizard had said. Her words cut deep into the crystal of his body, far more than any other pony ever had. It just made sense—she was the wisest, most magically gifted of all creatures. Her spells had built their city, and kept them safe. "I'm glad you came. There's nopony else who could do this."

It only made sense she would be there to explain what had happened.

Her workshop was no longer bustling with activity anymore. Every one of her crystal apprentices sat lifeless and inert, surrounding a single crystal.

It wasn't large—a little blue rock, about the size of a hoof. Only it glowed brighter than anything he'd ever seen, so bright that it shone even while wrapped in black cloth.

Red glanced from her to the motionless ponies. There were dozens of them now. They hadn't collapsed in panic like many of the ponies outside, frozen in their final moments of terror. Despite their magical protection within her workshop, these were all settled on their haunches, at rest.

"What is different?" he had asked. "Why did all the ponies of Centre stop moving?"

She adjusted her wizardly hat, pointing off in the distance. "I do not know how, but the Spire has fallen. Even Sombra wouldn't go to these lengths to kill us. Without the Spire, Zircon will die. The ponies of Centre cannot continue to function without magic. Until we get more, we will deactivate."

Red continued his search. These tunnels were different than the ones he had searched for so long—he could see the space between them, even sometimes get a glimpse of paths he had taken before. His crystal did not have much life left, not compared to what he had first been given. But it was enough for him to keep moving.

He had a purpose. He needed to follow the Wizard's instructions. He needed to save them. Because following instructions was his purpose. That was the reason.

"This is all the magic we collected," the Wizard said. "In a moment, I will contribute mine as well. You must take this stone, and find your way to the surface. Find Equestria, and beg for asylum on our behalf. Just living in the same city as an Alicorn should be enough for us. We have much to offer in exchange, if they will take us."

"Me?" he asked. "Why not you, Wizard? You're the wisest and strongest pony in all of Centre. You know these tunnels better than anypony who ever lived. You built Centre; you could save it far better than I could."

She sighed, removing her wizardly hat. "Perhaps, Red... but the more magic a pony requires to live, the less time they have. You are unlike all the ponies of Centre. What would last me days, you can subsist on for centuries. Find a safe way to the surface, mark it carefully as you go. Travel south to Equestria, and beg for asylum. Tell them that the ancient rebels of the crystal empire come with their knees bent to Equestria."

He reached out with one hoof, though he didn't know why. There was no way to stop her. While the Wizard overflowed with magic, Red was different. He had none, his horn was a mere accessory.

"What if I can't find them?" he asked. "What if they say no?"

"Find magic for Centre," she said. "I know you can do it. You're the smartest pony I know."

He wasn't, of course. The Wizard might be the most magical of all the crystals of Centre, but she was not infallible. It was only her magic that was perfect. Her assessments of others, particularly Red, were prone to overestimates.

Red set out that same day, leaving behind a Centre that was silent and still. No water flowed, no music played, no inventions were being tested. It was wrong. He had to fix it.

The search continued. Travel to the surface was meant to be hard. It was the only reason Centre had survived as long as they had, hidden from the evil that wanted to destroy them. Maybe it was good that the trip to the surface took so long. The longer Red spent searching for a safe path, the more evil could die on his way.

But there was something different about this path. It wasn't just the clear crystal, with the constant reminders of where he had been before. He didn't need those—his memory was perfect, and he had a map to record the path in case he needed to communicate it with other creatures.

But he could hear something—voices, drifting down from above? No, it wasn't just sound. For the first time in a meaninglessly extended duration, Red felt magic come from somewhere other than his satchel.

Maybe he wouldn't have to go all the way to Equestria to beg for asylum after all.

He did not speed up, despite the temptation. The map must be perfect, and that meant carefully eliminating the areas that rescuers could not use. Arguably this was the most important section of the map—if nopony could get back to Centre, they might not even believe it existed.

For some time, Red considered his instructions as he worked. The wizard had said to go to Equestria, and only allowed for improvisation if that first mission failed. But what if there was magic waiting just on the surface, would she still want him to go?

She would want Centre to return to normal as quickly as possible. Walking to another country I know nothing about and have never been to would mean Centre waits for even longer.

As he worked, Red's crystal grew brighter. It could absorb the magic streaming in from above, just as his body could. How long would it take to glow as brightly as the moment he left?

He continued for another several pages of map area, until he finally came to a shut door. The writing carved into the crystal provided simple instructions, and with a faint touch, it slid out of the way.

A new light streamed in from nearby, bright enough to instantly overwhelm the glow from his satchel. He raised a hoof to shelter his eyes—and found he couldn't remember what the point of that was. His legs were transparent, and his eyes could tolerate anything short of directed lasers.

A warm breeze drifted out from around him, carrying with it the heat of the ancient caverns he had traversed. The first part of my mission is complete. I have reached the surface.

He stumbled out through the open doorway, which emerged from the side of an old crystal bridge over an aqueduct. Water actually flowed beneath him.

More importantly, there were other creatures. Ponies, not far away. They gathered in the streets, passing between brightly colored tents. The Crystal Faire. He knew what they were celebrating. The Wizard must've taught him the name.

I can't defy her instructions. But if I make an effort to follow them, that should be good enough to redirect based on new facts.

A few ponies turned as he neared the edge of the street. Zircon Street, leading all the way to the central palace. It was a fitting place for the Crystal Faire, big enough for thousands of ponies to gather and celebrate.

Shouldn't there be great evil here? The ponies on the surface want to shatter us.

These ponies didn't look like they wanted to shatter him. They wore familiar costumes, chatting and playing together. Nearby, a silver horn filled the ear with music. The tune was new to him, but the sound called back to someplace old. He'd heard it, but not in Centre. Where else had he ever been?

"Excuse me," he said, approaching the nearest pony who wasn't otherwise engaged. A mare about his own age, eating a pastry filled with crystal berries. It smelled delicious, particularly with that little curtain of steam rising from it.

That couldn't be right—Red could smell, but he didn't use the scent. He didn't need to eat.

This pony didn't need to either. Her body shimmered with pink crystal instead of his own dark red. But she was like him. Many of these surface creatures were. Not all, though.

"Yes?" she asked. There was no anger in her voice, just politeness. "Buffet table is that way, if that's what you're asking."

He shook his head. "I am in search of an Equestrian. I must plead for asylum on behalf of those who sleep. Please direct me so I may make an attempt."

Her smile vanished, though he could not identify the expression that took its place. She spoke more slowly, and pointed with one crystal wing. "If you want to talk to the princess, you might be able to catch her."

Princess. He knew that word, it meant alicorn. It meant the thing that Centre needed. The ponies needed to live nearby, in lieu of the Zircon Spire.

He hurried off in the indicated direction without so much as a word. The crowd here was thick, and he tightened his satchel close to his side as he walked, just in case. The crystal battery was just a construct, it could be replaced. But the map and its knowledge was utterly priceless. He couldn't take the chance somepony in this group would run off with it by mistake.

As he walked, Red found himself searching the skyline for the familiar outline of the Spire, a way to orient himself. Yet he couldn't see it—the tallest building was the palace now, lording over the city not far away.

Red would've sensed the princess even without knowledge of what she was, or what her office meant. Yet the purple pony had an escort. The crowd was so thick around her it was almost solid.

It took supreme patience and singleness of purpose to penetrate that group. But he worked, and over hours, he found his way to the center.

There, the alicorn who was called princess rested beside a crystal fence. Down below, a ceremonial jousting bout would soon begin. Not a single pony in the paddock was wearing their armor correctly, and those colors were all wrong. How could this festival be so close, and yet so incorrect?

Shame the Wizard hadn't been able to accompany him. Moss Flower would know what all this meant.

All the more reason he needed to accomplish his mission. "Excuse me," Red said, from just behind the princess now. There were at least three armored guards around her, and now at least one of them was watching him. Not that they needed to—an alicorn was far more dangerous than any weapon.

The princess turned. She smiled politely, and he found himself confused. He knew both princesses that had ever existed. This one had the wings, she had the horn, but she wasn't either of them.

"Yes, pony? Is there something I can do for you?" Her eyes lingered briefly on his chest, and the metallic computer core within. Not a single other crystal pony in this crowd had anything like it. So far as he knew, there were only two other ponies who did.

"Yes," he said. He would have to imitate the Wizard's confidence now, since he spoke on her behalf. "I am the emissary of an ancient city sheltering deep beneath Zircon. Since the Zircon Spire fell, magic could not reach us. I am the last survivor, sent to beg for asylum. Please."

The princess looked a little like the first pony he had tried to speak with. Without saying anything, both guards straightened, moving towards them from the crowd.

She doesn't believe me.

Something snapped. Red levitated his bag open, spreading the map wide in front of the princess. Fully extended, it was like a banner, both sides covered in intricate notes and crystal directions. But the path that mattered, the one that actually led down, was a single unbroken line of green through a maze of black.

"Centre doesn't need much from you, Equestrian Princess. Please."

One of the guards reached him. They shoved up against him, bracing one shoulder on his, and pushing him away from the princess. The map faltered, and his fleeting magic went out. It clattered to the ground, crumpling awkwardly. It didn't tear—the ageless fabric-paper could not do that. But that didn't mean it would survive being trampled.

"No! Please, Princess! I need—"

"Wait, Flash." The princess extended one wing, and the pressure on Red's shoulders vanished. He stumbled towards the princess.

She caught the map, spreading it back out with her magic. She stared; eyes intent as she went over the words. "This is my language. I thought it was dead. There's nopony who can write it, even here."

He winced, ears flattening. Red knew the name of this feeling now—shame. "Apologies. The Wizard always asked me to use another language... but this is the language of the world. It was simpler to write in the same tongue used all around Centre."

A little lizard-creature slipped out of the crowd, nudging the princess. "Twi, the joust is about to start! Do you wanna miss it again this year?"

She ignored him, at least for the moment. "Who are you, pony? Where did you come from?"

"My name is—" He hesitated. But only for a second. "My name is Prince Crimson Zircon. I was the Archmage of the Zircon Magisterium once, but... we have a better one now. She sent me to find somepony to help us."

The princess nodded. "You've found her."

Chapter 1: Zircon

Bit worked.

This was nothing new—the essence of her existence was labor. She felt no resentment at that fact, since that would require comprehension of those feelings in the first place. Bit knew only that she had a purpose to fulfill, a goal always slipping further, ever-renewing.

Her home was a tower, larger and grander than any other structure in the city of Zircon. She did not know that name of course, or even what a "tower" was. But while she worked to keep the windows clean, she often took an extra moment to look outside and appreciate just how much there was to see.

Her tower was surrounded by structures on all sides, built from the same clear crystal as her tower. None came close to the height of her home, but all glittered in the light on the evening sun when it reflected off the snow.

When she reached the very top of the tower to clean, she could see beyond the walls of Zircon, where wind kept the glacier barren and lifeless. There was a stark beauty out there, one that invited her to explore it. A world with no windows to clean, no shelves to organize, and no rats to hunt.

But she could not entertain such thoughts, so dismissed them as quickly as they appeared. Once, long ago, the Wizard had been in residence. He answered all her questions, helping her understand things that were real and things that were not. But whenever a question possessed her, she found the door to his rooms shut, and so did not question him.

Her purpose was to serve, not to annoy. If the Wizard did not want to be disturbed, he would not be.

She could not say how long she had worked his tower, keeping away the animals and cobwebs, sweeping away ash from the fireplace, and clearing ice from the balconies. Day and night were no different, save that she couldn't tell when windows were clean quite so easily by moonlight.

But then came a day that was not at all like the others—a day of terror and despair. The day her last brush finally broke.

The tool was precious to her, a long metal-handled thing with soft bristles. She could spin it to any length, then take the brush in her mouth to clean windows no matter their distance.

At first, the loss of a tool was not the end of her world. She had been through this particular disaster before, and survived it well. She traveled down to the very bottom of the tower, over the place that was too broken for her to fix. She passed pages and wood and other rotten things, and finally reached the shelves.

Here were her supplies—an endless well of water she mixed with salts to clean. Other things—brushes and brooms and rods to keep the whole tower in perfect condition.

The supply room was empty. Her hooves slipped and wobbled over broken brooms, and she nearly fell over completely. After a few seconds of struggling, she caught herself on open ground.

This is not right, she thought. The Wizard always makes sure his tower has enough supplies. He knows everything.

The shelf with replacement brushes was empty. The cabinet with brooms held only sticks with no bristles. The mops were withered husks, and the rags were a pile of scraps and ashes.

Bit's crystal body did not breathe, nor did she have a pulse. But she felt an unpleasant pressure around her chest, a constriction that made it even harder to think straight. She needed to do something, though she couldn't say whether that was escape, or attack, or...

Without her to maintain it, the Wizard's tower would fall into ruin. All her work from all of forever would become meaningless. She had to do something fast.

Doing things fast was not in Bit's nature, any more than doing things that were new. The sun rose and set and rose again, and she occupied herself with other tasks, hoping perhaps that she could cheat the need to innovate. The scraps in the storage room could be sorted into boxes and piles for proper disposal... though nopony had come to collect their waste for a long time.

But memory was a fickle thing, and once she'd seen the state of the storage room, it beset her like an angry insect. There were so many other tasks she should be doing, all made impossible by her lack of equipment. She remembered when she had mopped the floor, remembered when she had organized the wizard's shelves, remembered so many things. All failures, slipping away.

The windows were the last thing I did, she realized. When they're gone, I will be a failure.

Day came and went and came again, and finally she resolved to do something about it, even if it required her to reconcile two incongruous facts. The Wizard wanted his tower maintained, but the Wizard never wanted to be disturbed while his door was shut.

Numberless days passed, and the light from outside gradually became orange and hazy, cast through cloudy glass. Only when the days had become almost as dark as the nights did Bit realize the truth: the Wizard might want one thing more than another.

There was no objective way to measure which option the Wizard would prefer for his tower. In the end, Bit decided on the simplest metric: she could list a dozen things the Wizard wanted her to do, that she could not do anymore. He would have to forgive her impertinence just this once.

Bit hesitated by his door, hooves clattering loudly against the stone. This was the one place she hadn't cleaned, and here she left large hoofprints in the dust. The Wizard's quarters had the largest door in all her world, the only thing made from wood instead of crystal.

She wobbled on her hooves, stopping there for many silent hours. She held one hoof just over the surface, never tiring, never sleeping, never needing to eat. She didn't require any of those things.

She knocked. The sound echoed through her body more than the door, a glass clicking sound that disoriented her slightly. The echo was so loud she imagined half the tower must've heard it, though of course there was no one but her to listen.

Seconds turned to minutes, and still there was no answer. She remained in place as long as she dared, maybe hours. But she could only wait for so long before she was confused near to bursting. She banged her hoof again, even louder this time.

"Master!" she called, the first time she had used her voice in as long as she remembered. But the words were still there, however confused. It didn't matter, there was no reply. Several minutes passed in silence, and another feeling took root in her chest.

Bit was afraid. All this time she had assumed the Wizard was just behind that door, guiding the affairs of his tower from behind the scenes. But she hadn't seen him in all this time, in long enough that her tools fell apart and the tower was crumbling. Had there ever been a wizard in the first place?

A long time passed. The sun rose and set and rose again, maybe more. The world grew darker in dusty glass. Dust began to collect on Bit herself, dimming the luster of her crystal body.

Eventually she acted, resting a hoof on the knob and twisting.

The door wasn't locked. Before she even realized what was happening, it slid open, creaking loudly as it swung inward. "Wait!" she called in fear and frustration, grasping faintly at it with one hoof. But she was too slow, and the door swung all the way open.

Even in the muted light from outside, Bit could see the interior for herself. Could she really just turn around now?

If he's going to be upset with me, it can't get much worse, can it? I already opened the door. Bit considered turning around for another moment, or maybe it was a few days. However long it took, the open space continued to beckon to her, until she couldn't resist the pressure any further.

"Master Wizard!" she called, louder this time. "I have failed, Master Wizard. I need help." She stepped through the entrance, eyes scanning for him. She did not remember this part of her tower very well, since she didn't clean in here, so there was much to see.

The Master Wizard kept a very large space, separated into several rooms. The foremost of these was broken with many tables, though these were different than the other tables Bit cleaned so closely. Instead of empty flatness like the floor, these were covered in strange things. Crystals, wire, clockwork, and lots of paper between them. The Master Wizard truly was a creature of inscrutable ways.

As she penetrated deeper into his forbidden quarters, Bit began to wonder if maybe she should clean in here as well. The floors were so dirty, every window opaque with grime. She was not very sensitive to smell, yet even she felt as though there was something unhealthy about the space. Surely the Wizard would not appreciate dwelling in such conditions.

She found several more doors, each one shut but not barred. She stopped for a lesser extent at each one, hesitating with commands already disobeyed. But now that she was determined to find him, very little could restrain her.

The final door was not shut, but damaged. It hung off its hinges, with debris scattered across the floor. She stepped inside, and found the situation within even worse.

"Master Wizard, I have tried to follow your instructions," she began. "I hope you will be pleased with me. But I need help to continue my work."

She stepped over a chair that was the wrong way over, beside a table covered in a thin roll of metal. Crumbling paper blew to ash as she passed it, and crystal crunched under her hooves. She paused beside a pile of pale, fragile stones, in shapes she didn't recognize. She pushed them aside, letting the wrapping around them crumble in her hooves.

More for the tower's waste collection, if only the bin was emptied enough.

The walls had been damaged here too, with a few chunks of crystal crumbling into the tower. Ice had sealed the opening, leaving the chamber far colder than the rest of the tower. But Bit didn't care about that, she only wanted to find the Wizard.

He wasn't here. She scoured the last room—she found more strange stones, and other things she couldn't identify. She found some of his old robes, along with more of his old objects.

At the far end of the room, under a shattered window covered with chunks of ice, was a table that Bit remembered. The chair in front of it was crumbling with time, but she could remember it later. The Wizard sat in that chair, hunched over a collection of gigantic crystals. They sang under his magic, harmonizing together.

"What are you doing?" she asked the empty room.

"I am building the future," the Wizard said.

"What is the future?" Bit asked his empty chair. She settled down on her haunches onto the ground just beside it. She felt the indent there, crystal worn smooth by many, many times sitting in that spot. She didn't have a chair, but she didn't mind. Comfort was not a concept Bit understood.

"You are," the Wizard said. "One day all of Zircon will be like you. The cold won't crush us into our city walls. We won't starve when the harvest goes bad, we won't fear Equestrian invasion."

None of those things had made much sense to her then. They still didn't mean much to her now.

She could still imagine his face, watching her from his chair. The Wizard had entrusted his tower to her. No matter what happened, she couldn't fail him.

"I will fix this," she declared. "I will find my own brush."

Chapter 7: Beryl

Under any other circumstances, Bit wouldn't have allowed herself to be taken so far from her place of labor. How could she leave her tower behind, when the Wizard depended on her to care for it?

But he hadn't returned, even after everything she tried. What was the point of maintaining the tower, if not for his use? It wasn't like she needed the soft furniture, the complex heaters, the art framed on the walls.

While she wondered to herself, the earth pony led her down into the square around the power plant. The air never got warm exactly, even in summer. But with the vent running, the square had no snow on the ground, not even the soggy frost that collected around the tower, refreezing to black ice every night.

Bit had already seen it from high above, but it was still astounding to see just how much the square had transformed. The crowd of ponies hadn't knocked down the rest of the sculptures and art of the kingdom, they didn't seem to care. Instead they'd built a settlement of their own, starting at the edge of the vents and spreading out until frost started collecting on surfaces again.

It wasn't anything like the construction Bit knew. Instead of spun crystal grown exactly into shape, these structures were made mostly of metal slabs, with sections of flat crystal acting as pillars and occasionally propped sideways as roofs. Where there wasn't enough metal, they'd used layers of cloth instead, stained and torn and patched so many times that its original purpose was lost to her.

It wasn't just a structure, left abandoned as everything else in Bit's world. The settlement was alive. Ponies emerged from every corner, all dressed in clothing as makeshift and haphazard as what her escort was wearing. Many of them looked unhealthy in various ways, though there was a single commonality: they were too skinny.

"Who is this, Pathfinder?" asked a pony, as they neared a narrow opening between structures. A street, but barely wide enough to allow an earth pony to pass through, nevermind a city monorail. This addition would never pass safety certification. "I thought you were going to the shrine."

"I did." He let go of Bit's shoulder, pulling back the hood. Sunlight shone through her from the back, sparkling in the pale light. "I met the wizard there. I brought her to see what she helped create."

The mare looking back was one of the few who didn't have a problem with too little food, rather the opposite in fact. She eyed Bit, squinting against the light behind them. "Are you a spirit, Wizard? They said the old wizard was dead, and now I can see right through you."

"Spirit," Bit repeated. She'd heard the word before, though very rarely.

Only the Wizard himself had ever discussed such esoteric subjects. "It was her wish, Father. Her spirit was used to animate this automaton. She's proof of life beyond death, that we're more than flesh. See her!"

Bit looked back between them, the Wizard and his king. The older stallion glowered at her, disgusted. "Moss Flower is gone, Crimson. I know how badly you wish it were different. But carving a statue in her likeness is not going to bring her back. Dead is dead."

The two of them were still staring at her. "Pathfinder, you sure this is the one who saved us? I always figured the wizard would be... smart."

"I am not a spirit," Bit said abruptly. "I was created with a spirit, trapped at a pony's moment of death in Zircon's single perfect polycrystalline diamond. It would be passably accurate to describe my body as containing the transfigured essence of that spirit, though it became too rarified as the transfiguration progressed and cannot be observed anymore."

The mare's mouth fell open. She retreated a little into the opening, lowering her clumsy cudgel. "The wizard is... a pony made of crystal. Pathfinder, are you sure about bringing her here? There ain't no stories about ponies like this, not even from the old ones. Might be a bad omen."

He rolled his eyes. "You aren't a bad omen, are you Wizard?"

"I'm not a wizard," she said flatly. "Your 'shrine' made this mistake numerous times, and it's my obligation to correct it. I am a..."

She wasn't an apprentice. She wasn't even properly a maid, though the tower had plenty of those. She didn't have the right certifications to call herself a technician, though she'd proven her ability to do the work without them. "I'm a Bit, that's what the Wizard called me. My name. I am allowed a name."

The two of them shared another confused look, like she'd slipped into speaking a foreign tongue. Finally Pathfinder took hold of her hoof again, dragging her into the opening. "I'm going to introduce her to the Union. Maybe she can teach them what she did to get the heat on. There are five other crystals just like this one that should be providing enough warmth to get through the harshest winters. But those other ones didn't have her."

Soon they were into the shadowy alleys and narrow corridors. Without light to reveal how strange she looked, ponies still stared. But she had seen that expression enough from the Wizard to know what it was: pity.

It's because I don't have any clothing, she realized. Away from the crystal, they would quickly freeze. They believe I am trapped here. If there weren't so many of them, she might've felt compelled to correct them.

"I've never heard a name like 'Bit' before," Pathfinder said. "But I've never met anypony like you before."

"There are no ponies like me," she said. The deeper into the makeshift city they got, the more she began to wish that she'd stayed in the tower. Leaving it even for a moment was a mistake. Unless... maybe there was somepony who did know where Crimson had gone? Maybe they hadn't all left notes! "Crimson imagined that one day all ponies would be like me. We would live without fear of the cold, or starvation, or aging, in an empire that no longer needed to fear Equestria's evil princess or her distant banners."

Pathfinder slowed a little as she spoke, staring. "Wouldn't have to fear the cold," he repeated. "And you're always naked, just like those soft ponies from the south. But you turned the heat back on, you must need warmth like us! Except... you went into a cold tower, all by yourself, instead of living here."

"I already told you last time," she said flatly. "The first time we met. I do feel cold, but the temperatures required to damage me aren't reached except in the worst nights in the darkest part of winter. Any sealed structure would be enough, even without central heating. Which the tower has, since I restored power. In fact, all these buildings do. Why are you living in the street?"

He urged her on again, sighing deeply. "Most buildings were looted before I was born. During the early days of the revolution. If there were heaters in those buildings, they're gone now. The only reason they're still standing is the crystal is too strong to break—everything that isn't attached is gone."

He lowered his voice, turning towards an opening in the ceiling over their heads. "Except the palace. Ponies who tried to go in there never came back. I'm sure the evil king hoarded all the warmth for himself, but we can't even let ponies live there. His legacy will kill them even now."

There's somewhere in the city ponies can't go. The realization hit her like lighting on the darkness of a winter horizon. The Wizard needed somewhere safe to go, somewhere the mob couldn't find him.

Something is wrong. The mob did go inside, they attacked the palace before us. But they hadn't been able to cement their control over either one, and had ultimately left them abandoned. With Bit herself failing so spectacularly to keep the Wizard's tower in order, and his father finally gone, maybe he had decided to live somewhere else.

Bit tore free of Pathfinder's grip, dodging through an opening in the streets and breaking into a brisk trot. She couldn't run exactly, not with so much metal on the floor and almost every surface dripping with steaming moisture. But she went as fast as her crystal hooves dared.

"That's the wrong way!" Pathfinder called, dragging behind her. "Union Hall is this way! They need to meet you!"

She couldn't get out ahead of him, but she didn't have to. Just a little further, and she emerged between two buildings onto the coolant grate that surrounded the crystal.

Already the ponies had stretched as close as they dared, far closer than the citizens who once lived here would've gone. There were thick cloth walls facing this way, with huge, tented intakes to draw the air into the favela instead of letting it rise away into the arctic sky.

But even the faintly glowing floors didn't bother her. Bit stepped out, and continued towards the palace.

Pathfinder stopped in the opening, shielding his face with one leg. He wasn't the only one staring at her anymore. A few flying ponies gasped and pointed, though they were rare in Zircon. "What are you doing, Bit? You'll get yourself killed!"

"I will not," she declared, continuing away to the opposite side. But of course it wasn't so simple as just striding into the palace, there was more favela here. She gauged an alley that continued all the way to the outer square, and steered herself towards it. "I'm going to find the Wizard!"

She slowed as she returned to the narrow streets, dodging between staring ponies, carts of unappetizing food, and storage crates. She could feel the pressure of someone following her, manifesting in a set of distant shouts. But she didn't see Pathfinder again until she reached the edge of the little settlement, and she was approaching the palace gates.

They had been shattered and broken, just like the tower. The damage here was far worse, with whole sections of wall crushed and little craters in the ground around the edge. The soldiers or machines who had done that fighting were gone now. There was only snow, and a faint flicker of light from distant palace windows.

"Bit!" Pathfinder tackled her from the side, taking her to the ground in a violent, bouncing tumble. She winced as her limbs struck the pavement, though it went by too fast for her to resist. Suddenly she was on her back, staring up at him.

"Bit, you can't go in there! That place isn't just a monument to our oppression, it's dangerous! Didn't you hear me?"

She shoved him off, shaking herself out and searching for damage. She'd gone down in thick snow, crusted with many layers of ice. Thanks to the idiot pony's thick cloth, it didn't feel like she'd broken anything. But a slightly harder landing and she wouldn't have been so lucky.

"I heard you. The difference is that I understand the dangers of the palace. I was created within its walls, and I know every defense that was built there. Its automatons will not harm me." She continued past him, along the cracked crystal road that had once been filled with royal processions. Now it was pockmarked with explosions and craters.

She slowed as she approached one of its four massive support pillars, and the doors still open after all this time. She shuffled for a moment, adjusting the straps holding the jacket against her body. She folded it, offering it back in one leg. "You need this, I do not. You should have it returned."

Pathfinder followed her to the steps, and finally took the offered coat. From his shivering, she wasn't returning it a moment too soon. "You really think you'll be safe to go back in there? But... why would you bother? There's nothing in there worth taking. The old rulers are killed. Their stolen wealth was returned to the people. The only thing left up there are ancient traps and dangers we don't understand."

"Not everything. The Wizard is up there. I'm going to find my master, no matter where he's gone." She turned for the steps, and left him behind on the icy landing.

Chapter 21: Heliotrope

Bit watched the polisher count down from just beside it. The sand had stopped several minutes ago, with only the water-pump still circulating. It was the wash at the end of a cycle, when all that was left was dislodging residue before the automaton within was released. She'd always found it to be the most refreshing part of the cycle, though in retrospect the water was incredibly cold and got into all parts of her body. Someone who used to be organic would probably not enjoy the process much.

I hope you're still sane in there, she thought, her horn glowing faintly. The light spell was pointless in the well-illuminated tower, just a constant draw on her energy and concentration. But if she stopped the spell, even for a moment, she couldn't be sure if she would be able to cast it again. She wouldn't stop the glow, maybe ever.

She ran through her list of conversations she'd prepared while she waited—there was so much that needed Pathfinder's help. He would be meeting the secretary soon, she had to check under the floor in the bedroom, and there were the two automatons to finish repairing. Not to mention the life Pathfinder had left behind when he came in here. Rue might eventually riot if she didn't get a chance to meet him and see for herself that Bit had actually saved his life.

"Cycle complete," said the machine, in its familiar imperial accent. The two halves of the polisher lifted to both sides, dripping streams of icy water through the metal grate below them.

Pathfinder stood within, soaking wet. He twitched a few times to dislodge the water, but that was probably reflex. He wasn't shivering, because of course it couldn't steal his body heat. He had none to steal.

His body glimmered now, a little smaller than before, fully translucent on all sides. The uneven pockmarks along his whole surface were gone, polished to a shine. Bit approached him, circling around him the same way she might appraise any repaired automaton. There was still some damage to one of his flanks—all the imperfect crystal had been cut away, sinking several inches into the leg.

"Looks good," Bit said. "I'm only seeing one defect—the infection on your left leg here was the worst, leading to flawed crystal. Until you get a graft here, you'll be vulnerable to cracking in extreme temperatures. Make sure not to fall on this side either, you could shear off your leg. I'll have to prepare a growth-bath with repair solution as soon as possible."

Pathfinder hadn't moved until then, standing as rigidly still as any automaton without instructions. Her words seemed to rouse him, and he jerked away from her, taking several steps back. His flank bumped against the wall, and he shook his head. "No. I'm not... going into any more bucking crystal anything. No baths, no salves, no nothing." Crystal eyes didn't display color well, but she could still see just how wide they became. "It feels like I was in there for weeks! Nothing but that grinding sound, my own body wearing away... so dark."

She settled onto her haunches, looking thoughtful. "Hmm. So you didn't find the time went more quickly when there was no stimulation? You didn't go into a hibernating state to conserve energy?"

Pathfinder shrugged. "I have no idea what that would feel like. All I know is, I'm not going back in that box. One treatment will have to be enough." He took a few wobbling steps past her, into the workshop. "I need to visit my friends. I've been gone for... how long? Months?"

"Two weeks," she said. "Slightly over, but most ponies don't appreciate that level of precision. Pathfinder, if you do not wish to be repaired at this time, you do need to be careful with your body. Do not attempt to lift heavy loads with your back legs, or one might shatter. Do not fall, strike that leg, or move rapidly between temperature extremes. Ignoring the damage does not prevent it from harming you."

He hurried through the lab, stopping at the top of the stairwell, and glancing back towards her. "Is there anything else I need to know? Will I, uh... charge? I won't drop dead if I leave your tower, will I?"

"You probably shouldn't leave," she began. "But no, you'll be fine anywhere in Zircon. The spire is enough to sustain us even deep underground. I don't know how long we would last if we left the city. Based on the thaumic density of crystal, probably weeks."

"Great," he interrupted, before she could go into magical detail about the inner-workings of their crystal bodies. "That's great." He bounded down a few steps, then stopped one landing down, turning to call back to her. "Thanks for saving my life, Bit! I don't remember much from when I was sick, but... I know you were always working hard to save me. I won't forget it."

He hurried back down the steps, hooves clattering with each. She could hear the tower security scan him, identify him as a tower service automaton, and open without her intervention. Guess that means he can come back whenever he wants.

Bit lingered in the stairwell for several minutes, staring at the empty place where Pathfinder had gone. She'd done it—she'd proved the evil king wrong. She matched everything on the checklist for life—and apparently her magic knew it. But if she was whole, why did it feel like her crystal had developed a dozen fresh imperfections?

She slunk back into the lab, to where the first automaton still lay in the growth-vat. A little work would still her racing thoughts—so she worked, settling it into the polisher, then carrying the second automaton into the growth vat to take its place. "You two won't leave me behind in the tower, will you? I thought converting Pathfinder would fix the flaws in his organic mind—teach him reliability and purpose. But he left us, just like all the organics who used to work in the tower. Why do they do that?"

Of course the automatons didn't answer. The Wizard died so the apprentices could live. I shouldn't hate them anymore. Maybe she would forgive them for abandoning their posts, but not today.

She could occupy her time planning the repairs to the substation—but the thought of that filled her only with dread. She needed a task—just like Pathfinder in the polisher, standing still left her alone with her thoughts. She had to be moving.

There was one question waiting for her—the Wizard's last request. With his bones now resting under the tower, there was no point in maintaining her usual cleaning routine, and no hope of further messages from him except for the last. Whatever he'd hidden under his floor, he wanted her to discover it.

She ascended the steps, through the Wizard's laboratory—her lab now, she supposed—and into the bedroom, where the resurfacing machine still sat. She'd never used the device before, but she'd seen it done enough times to know. She flipped the switch, and it began to rumble, like the purring of a gigantic animal. With some light pressure on the rear, it slid forward, leaving the bare metal of the tower's superstructure behind it. Or it should've...

The device cut down half a foot of crystal, far more than any standard floor. But here in the bedroom, there was another layer of crystal below, opaque now from the acidic etching of the floor polisher. She walked it across the room in a line, then back the other way, and found the same was true of the entire space. It took about an hour for her to cut down the entire room, save where the bed stood.

Nothing had been exposed by the process, though by the end the reservoir on the machine was entirely filled. Bit fought the instinct to carry it all the way down to the basement to dispose of what was inside, instead dumping it in the lab's lavatory to deal with later.

"What did you hide, Crimson?" she asked the portrait. "You could have used a safety-deposit locker in the vault. It would be far easier to retrieve. Knowing you, I'm probably looking for some secret spell you didn't trust to anyone else. Why not store it in the computer? Nopony else would be modifying the crystal pony project."

Crimson's face only smiled back at her, unmoving. But that was nothing new. Bit left it behind, and returned to work. The resurfacing tool took down another six inches of crystal, and this time she finally uncovered the swirling, red-metal surface of the tower, from one end of the room to the other. Now the whole room looked strange, an oversized trough that made her need to climb down through the doorway. But she'd found nothing.

Bit dragged the oversized bedframe out of its place, propping it up against the wall. She was tempted to try and move it with magic, but probably best not to strain herself moving things around when she didn't even know if she could.

She could tell things were different right away—where the machine had hummed happily through most of the room, it immediately shifted to an unhappy groaning sound. She stopped it, backing away from the section of exposed floor. The machine trailed thin wire, which now coiled into the complex mechanisms. Elder Metal, reddish and marbled with silver just like the structure of the tower itself. She walked in a slow circle around the space, wishing she knew a spell to scan it. But then, she could wish for any spell. Magic could do so many useful things, once she learned how.

But from the part of the floor she'd exposed, she could already see a pattern. There was a grid of metal wires here, one that probably crossed through the entire area below the bed. It was supposed to be a compartment where you hid your secret spells. Why would you want me to tear up your machines?

Bit severed the wires, untangling them from the resurfacing machine. She broke from the previous pattern, settling it directly over the center of the space. If she planned on hiding some machine out of reach of accidental discovery, that was where she'd put it.

The machine groaned and spluttered, making it less than two feet before it died. But Bit didn't need to go any further.

A metal box was hidden here, with a bundle of hundreds of metal fibers spiraling down through an opening in the center. Getting through the crystal had utterly destroyed them—probably months of careful crystal growing, gone in seconds. I hope that wasn't what you wanted me to find.

Bit switched off the machine, shoving it roughly to the side. She hurried away, returning with a chisel and hammer a few minutes later. She started cutting, clearing crystal away from the edges of the box. Only when the door on its front was clear could she finally swing it open, and reveal the contents within.

Bit had seen its like before, in the diagrams she had copied while cleaning the wizard's workshop. All those wires connected to a crystal sphere a little larger than a hoof, where they each rested within a complex casing mechanism. She clicked it open instinctively, removing the crystal sphere within.

It wasn't perfectly clear, but marbled with thousands and thousands of semiconductive layers. A thaumic superprocessor used in regular automatons had patterns stretching out from within, like expanding ripples in a pond. This one was irregular, with dozens of ragged edges, voids, and dense circles of activity.

The box contained other support equipment, more of the designs she'd seen outlined in detail in the wizard's notes. But she didn't need any of that. She carried the processor reverently from the room, overwhelmed by that strange numbness only Crimson could make her feel.

All her labors, every moment suffering to repair the tower, every year spent diligently cleaning the windows—had been worth it after all.

The Wizard had planned for everything, including his death.

Chapter 31: Nephrite

The path leading down into the city was not an easy one. Bit had arranged everything about her lab—even the shelves—and she'd placed each of these to block easy view of what was below. But she'd sliced through the edges, and her crystal ponies had already pushed the shelf aside, exposing the entrance just wide enough to travel downward.

"What is that?" Pathfinder asked, voice frightened. "Even I wouldn’t go below the city. Ponies that go down there don't come back."

"Let's hope they believe that too," she said, snapping the storage door closed behind them. She lit her horn for light—the only one among them with the ability. "I have been preparing for this, Pathfinder. I have memorized every map."

He didn't argue further—either too weak, or too frightened by everything they'd seen.

Through the old door, Bit did her best to levitate the shelf back into place. But she couldn't see it from the other side of a wall, and had no way of knowing for sure how well she had done positioning it. Somewhere not far away, she could hear hoofsteps pounding in the building. Not Sombra's special guard this time, this would just be the regular army. All coming for them, all ready and willing to die.

What would they have been told? The city's wizard had lost her mind, or maybe she'd been subverted by counterrevolutionaries? Did it matter what lie Sombra used?

She rejoined the other two ponies at the base of an ancient stairwell, with deep grooves in the crystal from ancient hoof-traffic.

There was no sign of what had once dwelt there, no ancient writing to read. But there were plenty of old stairwells, leading down to where the old subway tunnels still ran.

Once at the bottom, the walls weren't so heavily coated in grime and sludge, letting Bit see through to other passages. This was part of what made the lower depths so confusing to visitors. Dozens, maybe hundreds of tunnels stretched away in all directions. Some came so close the crystal walls grew transparent. Others were obscured by sections of stone, or rooms with sides that had been filed and carved until they refracted light.

The only real limit was the light of her horn, which created more suggestions of paths than probably existed.

At the bottom of the stairs, a single cart waited. This one was specially chosen for travel under the city, with only a single wheel and supports that could be engaged when it stopped. By the time Bit reached them, Beta was already strapped and ready. Inside, what little of her research she could salvage was packed away. The most important bits, of course, were recently added.

I don't even know if the body grew correctly. She couldn't stop to inspect it now. Hoofsteps sounded on the ceiling overhead—hundreds, maybe thousands of them now. The whole world shook.

"You planned for this..." Pathfinder said. "What did you plan? What do we do?"

"Leave, quickly," she answered. "There are passages downward into the lower city—ruins so ancient they were poorly understood even in the empire."

She said little else as they hurried away. As soon as they started walking Bit put out the light of her horn—not only would it point search parties towards them visually, but it would also form an active spell that could be tracked. Neither would help their odds.

When the first signs of the search-parties arrived, Bit and her companions had already made it far enough that they would blend into the shadows and broken crystal.

They walked for hours through the darkness. Mostly they walked in silence, though every now and then Bit heard something echoing behind them. Screams, mostly, as ponies stumbled into functional machinery left over from the ancients and still energized by the Zircon Spire.

It was only after walking for hours, long enough that the sound of ponies trying to follow had faded completely. Long enough that they wormed their way through stone again, with crystal walls that lacked the transparency of the upper levels.

Then Pathfinder finally spoke. “What do we do, Wizard? Keep traveling down, so down the crystals burn to the touch... never see the sun again?"

"It is painful to think about," Bit admitted. "You'll find these caverns aren't so hard to navigate when your memory is no longer susceptible to mortal frailty. I can teach you to read the writing, too. The passages aren't booby-trapped, dangerous areas are always demarcated appropriately."

"The empire has..." Pathfinder still sounded pained, every word a struggle for him. But he fought through anyway. "We have considered sheltering here in the past. I've gone deeper than most. But we can't. It's not safe."

She shrugged. "We have nothing to fear from poison gas—we don't need to breathe. High temperatures are no danger to us. We don't need to import food, or grow it. We have an endless supply of magic, channeled upward from the Zircon Spire. But there's another reason we need to stay."

She lit her horn, illuminating the passage around them. This one had opaque stone walls, covered in pipes and the strange markings of the ancients. At least they had almost always used vaulted ceilings, so she never felt pressed for space. "Sombra is going to convert as many ponies as he can—we're far more vulnerable to his mind magic. But we can save some of them."

"We can't fight the secretary," Pathfinder said. "Wizard, I know you're powerful. But nopony has his strength. Even if we could get past his armies, he could shatter us. He wasn't prepared to face you this time, but he will be if we come back."

They rounded another bend, into a chamber far vaster than any floor of her tower. Bit lit her horn as bright as she could, illuminating an inert fountain of water, with empty stone planter boxes arranged below crystal lights.

Bit made her way to the ancient console, set into the wall. Crystal circuitry glowed faintly with internal light—even after uncountable eons, the zircon still stood. "When the secretary took me into his administration, he made me a member of his party. In these last few months, I haven't been designing weapons for him. I've been looking for ponies we can save."

She had to stand on her hindlegs to reach the control panel, touching her hoof to the waiting contact. It didn't quite fit, but the crystal interface worked anyway.

Far above them, crystal spotlights flared to life, glowing with the warm yellow of the afternoon sun. Water began to gurgle, then trickled outward from below. It overflowed the center fountain, then flowed down channels to irrigate the various planter-boxes. Empty for now, but they wouldn't stay that way.

"I have a list of ponies we can trust to flee the control of Zircon. We can safely involve their families as well, so long as we properly blindfold them and make the path down impossible to remember. The danger and obscurity of these depths will be our shield."

And if it wasn't, the heat, patches of poisonous gas, dangerous equipment, and cave-ins will probably contribute.

Pathfinder was silent for a long moment. He walked slowly to the fountain, dipping one hoof in the water there. He pulled back after a few seconds, expression resolved. Maybe he really was recovering. Bit would never trade the lives of one rebel for another. But at least this way, Comet Hum's final act would carry on. Maybe forever.

"I want it to work," he said slowly. "What the secretary did to me... nopony should have to go through that. Are you sure we can be safe down here? He can't... magic his way down?"

Bit smacked one hoof on the crystal wall beside her. "The foundation is all crystal, all the way down to the mantle. I know you don't understand how your body works, but know this—it's a magical conductor, one that connects to the most powerful generator of magical force known to ponies. The whole reason Equestria wanted to conquer us!"

If it wasn't for the death, she might've been smiling. But she was still confident. "It's the same reason even the old empire couldn't cut right to the important stuff, and they had to survey room by room. No teleports, no scrying, no way to send attacks."

She rested one hoof on his shoulder. "I will not let him attack you again, Pathfinder. Won't you help me save others?"

He was silent for a long time. Minutes, maybe. Hours. When they were all made from crystal, it made little difference.

Except now Bit felt the significance of time. Up above, ponies would continue to suffer under the oppressive hooves of Sombra. She couldn't help them on her own. But maybe, over enough time, with enough of them, they could do something.

"How many?"

"As many as we can," she answered. "Not very many at first. But the secretary did himself a disservice—he chose the poorest, the humblest, and the most independent ponies to give this crystal gift first. His armies are still organic—they will not be able to safely follow as deep as we will go."

"A second city?" Pathfinder said. "We can grow no food. We have nothing but what we can scavenge. We can't ever go too high, or else risk discovery. He will not stop hunting us. Anything that can be tried, he will."

Bit shrugged. "Sombra Bolero may try what he likes. But he didn't build Zircon—he's only a conqueror. It's my home, and he can't have it."

Pathfinder nodded at Beta, who hadn't moved with the cart since their arrival. "What about her? Will she be helping too?"

Bit shrugged, following his gaze. "Beta, you may remove the restraints. We will use this room as a way stop for the upcoming evacuation."

The automaton obeyed with its usual swiftness, removing the straps. Then it walked over to her, standing to attention. "User, inquiry."

"Go ahead."

"Unit Alpha is not responding. Please resolve."

The automaton didn't have eyes like a crystal pony did. Its sensors perceived all directions at all times, providing a constant view of the world around it. Irrational as it was, she met them anyway. It might just be a machine fulfilling its function, but that was a noble role to play.

"Alpha was destroyed," she said. "Its core was critically damaged and cannot be repaired. I'm sorry."

Beta did not stand motionless, as the “death machine” it had once been. Beta moved like she did, making constant, subtle adjustments to imitate life. Yet she'd never seen anything quite like this. Its ears moved, and it looked away.

Are you going to cry?

"Please resolve," it repeated.

Pathfinder watched from just over her shoulder, keeping his distance. She wasn't sure if he even knew what she'd done to the automatons. He'd spent most of his time since waking up as a crystal pony locked in his quarters. But he kept a respectful distance, and that was enough.

"Unit Alpha sacrificed itself to provide mission success," she said. "Without it, all of us would have also been destroyed."

Beta stared back. She could see no expression, but how much had she ever felt without showing it?

"Please... please... please... advise."

"Help me," she said. "Help me save as many others as we can. With enough of us, maybe we can strike back against the evil that did this. If we are patient and resourceful, we may be able to destroy him, and topple what he built."

"Instructions... instructions acknowledged," Beta said. "This unit will help."

Now Bit let herself smile. She turned back to Pathfinder, levitating something out from her meager cart of supplies. A rolled map. "Beta is helping too," she said. "That makes three. Is that enough?"

"I don't know," Pathfinder said. "But all those years ago, I bet the first revolutionaries felt like this. Just a few ponies against the empire. They conquered evil. Maybe... maybe we can too."