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[>>Now replaying: Log 3.4 - A tale of the Old Guard]

Date: Error

Location: The Bunker at Progress’ Head // Zephyro’s Domain

//We stand on the shoulders of giants, all of us. Without those that came before, we would be nothing but beasts and (%/&$%!//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E2 %She made the Logic. She’s the reason why our ancestors got banished and we have to walk The Path to keep the machines in check.%

E1 %She’s also the reason we have technology, too.%

E2 %Technology that the Lords have to take away to save us from ourselves.%

E1 %You’re so blind, Pina. Do you mean the same Lords that live in the Capitals, rich beyond our wildest dreams because of the very same tech? The Same lords that killed the Torchbearer?%

E3 %This is so confusing! Can’t you tell me the whole story, please?%

E2 %Sure, not like we have anything else to do…%

“Sultana…” Zephyro began, faltering. I held his gaze until he eventually continued. “No, it is not a metaphor. Your old body was taken without any of us noticing. Please forgive them, it was not their fault. I will take full responsibility.”

A treacherously calm feeling settled over me. Every muscle in my body tensed. My anger whispered in my mind, told me to lash out.

> Is this who you want to be?

It wasn’t, but in moments like these, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of blows I had to take, it felt like listening to the anger was the only thing that would keep me going.

When I didn’t respond, Zephyro shifted, clearly uncomfortable. He opened his palm again, and another screen faded into reality in the air before us. It looped a stuttering 2-second recording of a dark corridor. Someone hurriedly walked beside a large, closed metal box, large enough to contain a body. Maybe two. The box was being pushed by another person off-screen, and movement on the edge of the recording suggested there was at least one more person present. The quality of the video was horrible, though. I couldn’t even make out any details on their clothes, other than that they were made from some dark blue, possibly black fabric. Forget about faces.

It could have been the Conservationists, or it could have been some of my own soldiers. The metal crate certainly suggested the latter, but seeing a masterfully crafted box didn’t prove anything. I didn’t even know if it was me in there. Could have been materials, technology looted by the Conservationists, and my body had already been long gone by the time this footage had been taken.

“I took this into my personal memory from the archives before they burned, Sultana. I do not know how they moved past the perimeter, when it happened, or even when I noticed your body was gone. Though I am certain I knew at some point, I lost the memory when the archives fell, along with many others.”

The archives must have been some sort of long-term memory bank in the physical world. Zephyro seemed to have stored all non-essential data—memories—on it, and when the server got destroyed, he lost most of them. From what I understood of data storage, it was a small miracle he even remembered who he was, but I guessed that information was either integral to his system architecture, or he had a smaller backup storing crucial data somewhere else.

I didn’t even begin to think about how that worked. That was Chris’ job.

“All I know,” Zephyro continued, “is that one of the Old Guard recorded this, and they were fickle in their reports, even before they stopped responding altogether.”

“The Old Guard?” I shifted on the throne, feeling restless.

“Yes, Sultana. Old machines built by the Maker. From what we know, most of them are little more than beasts, only constrained by the Maker’s mandate. However, they have grown more active recently, if I recall correctly. They attack everything in sight when they hadn’t before, which makes us think they have gone Feral.”

I was pretty sure “the Maker” referred to Chris, which meant the Old Guard the defense system they had set up. I noticed I had been gripping the armrests of the throne so hard it hurt, and I let go. If the turrets were active, then at least the heart of the bunker was semi-safe.

“Can you show me more of them? The Old Guard?” I asked, trying to see if my hunch was correct. I needed more time to plan.

Zephyro nodded and the picture hanging in the air glitched, then changed to show a video of very sophisticated-looking robot hands opening a large hatch and stepping through. There was a loud alarm—old-school, with frantic bells, like Chris liked to use—and a torrent of bullets shot from one corner of the room. As the robot rushed back behind the corner and out of sight, I caught a glimpse of a jerkily-moving automated turret scanning the cramped corridor with a flickering red light. I remembered the turrets Chris had built to keep us safe in the inner complex, and this was clearly one of them. It looked wrong though, like someone had tried to add some new features and didn’t know how to weld, or even where “up” and “forward” were. Needless to say, it did not make me feel as safe as I would have liked. My shoulders started to ache from cramping to keep my arms steady.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“The Old Guard guards the holiest chambers, so we never dared to disturb them, but when you went missing, Sultana, I approached them nonetheless and tried to make a deal.”

“Wait, a deal? These things are sentient?” I asked.

“Oh yes, Sultana. As sentient as you or I. But humbly, I would barely call it sentience. They only want one thing and that is to grow stronger, for a reason that I only can hope is to keep you safe. They care about little else, except for their brothers and sisters. It makes them easy to trade with, but they don't seem to understand their holy purpose.” He made another sweeping motion and more windows opened. Several of them closed again immediately, and some displayed large error messages and flickered out after a few seconds.

Zephyro grunted. Whether in pain or frustration, I could not tell.

“I hope you can forgive us for stepping into the Palace, Sultana, but we needed to know. Dealing with the Old Guard was easy once I had made contact. For a bit of scrap and a few superconductors, and after verifying my allegiance to your cause, one of them revealed to us the path to your resting place in the chamber of genesis.” Zephyro sounded oddly out of breath, as if still awestruck by the experience.

“When we entered, however, we found the chamber empty. Unfortunately, another Old Guard, perhaps most zealous in his duty, attacked us when we set foot in the chamber. We had to overpower him by showering him with your Blessing, for we did not want to harm him. I hope you will forgive us—no, me!—for squandering your Gift, oh Sultana, but you see, it was well spent! The Old Guard opened up to us, and by its ancient wisdom, your true resting place was revealed. You can not imagine the relief I felt as we emerged and sealed the inner sanctum to keep you safe once more.”

My head was still spinning. It was almost too much information at once, and I still had so many open questions.

“Hold up,” I said, massaging my forehead. In passing, I noticed that my hands looked much younger than I remembered. Again I was struck by the color of my skin, like rich caramel. Whose body am I wearing now? No. Not important right now.

“What do you mean, ‘true resting place’?”

Zephyro pointed toward the middle of the cluster of screens hovering before us. There, a single monitor showed the lab, completely covered in dust. The shelves had collapsed, and bullet holes riddled the walls, empty ammo-casings strewn over the floor. What happened in there? A holdout, perhaps? Did those Conservationist fucks breach the bunker? And if they had gotten in there, was Chris— There was an electric tension in my chest again, and I forced myself to breathe.

The operating chair Chris and I had slapped together for our first test was still dominating the center of the room but it was empty. There was no blood to be seen. No body either, living or otherwise.

I took a deep, shuddering breath of dry, warm air.

“Alright, I see the lab, I see the equipment, I don’t see myself. But you said there was some sort of hidden resting place, right? Where is it?” I forced myself to keep on topic. Chris probably hid us away in one of the secret exits. Or perhaps just me, to make sure I was safe while they went for help.

“At first, I did not notice it either, Sultana. It is a secret hidden most intelligently, as befitting your magnificent wisdom. Indeed, it was only your Blessing that gave it away. The Old Guard crave it, you see. They call it ‘The Logic’.

“Like it does for us, it gives them life and strengthens them, but in their madness, they waste it on frivolities, senseless modifications of little value. They also take more than what is allotted to them by your Grace, which is haram—forbidden.

“This is the wise Old Guard who revealed your resting place to us.” Zephyro continued, and another picture changed to show one of the early model security cameras we had installed in the lab. The first one, actually. I remembered mounting on the ceiling it together with Chris, directly above the door. They’d held the ladder while I climbed up because they were afraid of heights. I had to hold the screwdriver in my mouth, and everything had slightly tasted like metal for hours.

The camera we had installed back then had been a simple, small, clean-looking brass casing with a single lens made of polished glass. The screen Zephyro was pointing at, however, showed a gigantic Frankensteinian contraption. Cables, LEDs, uncovered gears, and misshapen computer chips covered it like fungal growth. It looked like a mutated old-school movie camera, with lenses sprouting in all directions and a speaker hanging underneath. It almost looked like a caricature of a mouth, making the machine seem more than a little crazy.

“Like many of the Old Guard, this one built into itself a method to search for ‘Logic’, craving to devour more of it than was allotted to it by your grace. In its case, this method was a visual filter.” He nodded toward the screen showing the lab, and it glitched again.

Except it’s not a glitch.

The screen still showed the room in its chaotic half-collapsed battlefield state, but now hundreds and thousands of strands of soft cyan light were swirling around an object in the middle of our view. Several of them formed a bundle of light that led out the door, like one of those long-exposure pictures of passing cars at night.

“What is that?” I asked, breathless.

“As I said, it is a filter to visualize your Blessing, Sultana. And a Blessing it is! I know the Old Guard call it ‘Logic,’ but I also know this is heresy. As you know more than anyone, its presence can be felt anywhere, everywhere. It can not be understood, beyond that it comes from you, and it gives us life. What else can it be but a Blessing, a miracle you delivered onto us from God?”

I barely heard him as he kept talking excitedly. My eyes were glued to the picture on the screen, where all the cyan threads converged on the console next to the operating suite. They looked like strands of glowing silk, weaving themselves into stronger threads weaving themselves into sturdy ropes, all channeling toward the middle of the room. It was as if the light was being pulled into a loom that used light to craft the fabric of existence.

I still didn’t understand what that light-blue substance was, but I suspected it was some sort of nano-swarm, perhaps a side product that had sprung into existence when I advanced memOS. That happened, sometimes, especially when I used a lot of my Wish. But in the end, that didn’t seem important. Especially not compared to what the cyan light funneled into, that that loom I had described earlier. It was a lone object in the middle of the picture, and I knew it all too well.

I’d made it for Chris, who always wanted to have one after they’d seen one in my memories. They’d told me all the wonders they would be able to build if they had a tool like that, but it always seemed far too expensive, especially compared to the weapons we so urgently needed.

Connected to that console, at the dead center of the vortex of glowing blue light, sat Chris’ old laptop. The first one I made for them. The one with the top cover they had glued the Torchbearer Logo onto, because they had seen people put stickers on their laptops in my memories. I’d drawn it myself, and they had cut it out and stuck it on there.

Zephyro had followed my eyes. As I turned to him, disbelieving, he gave me a smile. He nodded, still amazed beyond belief but also a little sad, like someone remembering an amazing memory they can never truly relive again.

“Yes, Sultana, we found you, slumbering securely in the sacred machine. It was a good disguise, and it held for a long time.” He paused, and sighed, closing his hand. The picture flickered out.

“But now I have failed you, and so your safety is fleeting, and your sleep must end.”

Behind Zephyro, the city gates—majestic and imperious, true statements of craftsmanship and the pride of the people living behind them—exploded.