I originally sent this story in to a furry zine which, alas, appears to be out of production now. The story has been sitting on my hard drive for the last 14 months waiting for me to decide what to do with it. Not my best work, I admit, but not my worst either. /db The Guardian ------------ As the days run into weeks, and the weeks are lost among the passing months I am given to reflect upon the fact that I probably have the most boring job imaginable. I am a guardian. In the sultry heat of a humid summer day, I sit here and I watch. Through the driving snows of winter, I sit here and I watch. As the spring turns the landscape verdant and the first robins sing their joyous songs - well, I think you get the idea. The people here don't pay me much attention any more. Oh, there were protests and marches when I first showed up, but now they treat me like a part of the scenery. After all, I just sit here and watch. This is a pretty boring neighbourhood if you ask me, but I suppose that's a sign that I'm doing my job. After all, I'm here to keep it boring. By the time they posted me here all of the riots and stuff were long past. I am the product of a troubled time, becalmed in a sea of placid contentment. The war is over and times are, well, comparatively good. If you ask me, they put here because they couldn't think of what else to do with me. I've talked to some of my mates, and they don't have it any better. As odd as it may sound to you, I miss the war. It's not the killing and destruction that I miss, but the sense of purpose that the war gave me. I think that the ennui could eventually kill me as surely as any of the uranium-depleted shells that I faced. So how does a bored guardian pass his time? I watch the sunrise and write poems about it. The sunrise here is beautiful; it comes up over the mountains, painting them into a fiery tapestry of red and gold in the early hours of the dawn. I sent a holo of the scene into one of those literary magazines, along with one of my poems. They're going to print it, but due to some bothersome technicalities they say they can't pay me for the work. I've contacted a lawyer and he's making arrangements to accept the payment in proxy. It's ironic that I'll never understand the politics that I fought to protect. The professor has said that I am more of a doer than a thinker. I don't know if that's meant as an insult or a compliment, but I bow to his wisdom in such matters - though I'd be hard-pressed to consider my current position as being anything akin to "doing". My sole excitement in two years of watching this neighbourhood has been to call the police once to break up a house party, and to call an ambulance when old Mrs. Parker suffered a heart attack. She died. I've seen a lot of people die in my time - many by my own doing. This one hit me pretty hard, though. She was a dotty old mole, but very sweet. She was the first one to talk to me after I moved in. Three times a week she'd walk up to the corner bakery and she never failed to give me a cheery "good morning" as she passed. The people here are friendly enough, leastwise now that they're used to having me around. At first they refused to look at me, and would even cross the street to avoid me. Most still do, but there's a few who like to stop and chitchat once in awhile. There's Mrs. Murphy, the nice young racoon with the houseful of kits. Poor thing waddled around on swollen ankles for months until she finally popped out triplets. She stops by just about every day to fill me in on who's lost a tooth, who got sent home from daycare for causing a ruckus, who's going to be a star ship pilot when he grows up... She's holding a big party for them next week when they all turn five. She even invited me to the party. I said, "That's real sweet Mrs. Murphy, but you know I can't come." She says that if the weather is nice she'll hold the party in the back yard so that I can watch them run around and play in their little party hats. I really like kids, so I'm looking forward to that. I told her to keep the party in check so that I wouldn't have to call the police like I did that for that party down the street. She laughed kinda nervously about that. I don't think that she realized that I was joking. Some people just can't tell a joke. Bob is a retired university professor. He's not that old to be retired, but he got peppered with shrapnel when the university got bombed during the war. He got broke up pretty bad in that, and they had to replace part of his brain with a positronic net. It's working just fine, and they've adjusted it several times, but he ain't all there any more and they gave him a medical pension. Most times he walks around, leaning on his cane and talking to himself. Bob doesn't really need a cane - I think it's just an affectation that he likes because he figures it gives him an air of sophistication. The ol' honey badger is as sharp as a whip on his good days, and he stops to talk to me when he remembers that I'm here. He's teaching me philosophy. Apparently that was his major when he was teaching at the university; applied logic and philosophy. I love to learn - I'm like a dry sponge for knowledge. It was after one of his teaching sessions that he made that remark about me not being a thinker. When he offered to teach it to me, I went out and read every text on every philosophy that I could find online. If I thought he'd be impressed, I was wrong. He said, "There's more to learning philosophy than just memorizing texts. Tell me, why do you like the sunrise so much?" "Because it's very beautiful." "Yup, it shore is," he said, hooking his thumb in his belt while he leaned on the cane. He pushed his spectacles up his nose - another affectation, he doesn't need them - and said, "There ain't no denying that he have some of the most beautiful sunrises around here. Of course, it's all that fallout in the air that makes them so colourful and stuff. Tell me, why do you find the sunrise beautiful?" "The mix of hues complements the scenery in a manner that is aesthetically pleasing," I said, but as soon as I had uttered the words I knew that it was the wrong answer. I am very good at reading body language. "Um... I see..." he replied slowly, nodding his head sagely. "And if the sunrise was in shades of puce, would you still find it beautiful? Would it still be pretty if it rose in greyscale? What constitutes beauty?" I called up an image of the sunrise in my mind and ran it through a series of colour morphs before I responded. I analyzed my feelings on each image, but none of them really worked for me. "It wouldn't be the same," I said at length - well, at length for me. I'm sure that Bob didn't notice any appreciable delay. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," I added lamely. "An admirable textbook answer," he said with what I perceived as a touch of sadness in his voice. "I don't know why I find it beautiful," I admitted, "but I do. The graffiti on the wall behind me employs many of the same colour combinations as the sunrise, but I find it ugly. I can't reckon why I the two should be different to me, but they are." He wrinkled his whiskers at me in amusement and gave me a reassuring pat. "Much better," he said approvingly. "Maybe there's hope for you after all. You think on what makes one thing beautiful and another thing ugly. Consider it your homework assignment for today. To tell you the truth, I think the graffiti is kinda pretty in its own way." I had my answer for him before he had taken two steps away from me, but Bob doesn't like it when I do that so I just held my tongue and waited for our next chat. I don't know if we'll get our chance to talk, though, because two days later John Bartlett went berserk. John and Tina live two doors down and across the street from my post. They're a model couple, always holding hands and making eyes at each other in public. They're an odd couple though, for sure. He's an hyena and she's a roo. I don't know much about them outside of the gossip from Mrs. Murphy. They moved in about a year ago and they never talk to me. All I know is that Mrs. Murphy complains about how they frolic around doing inappropriate things with the drapes wide open. I can't see it from my angle - not for lack of trying. Excuse me for being bored. Anyway, I heard some shouting coming from their house one day, almost like they were fighting or something. I turned up the gain, but by then it had gone all quiet again, so I figured it was nothing. Sounded like they were moving something around, so I guessed that maybe they had been arguing over where to put the sofa. Turns out I guessed wrong, because a few minutes later John came tearing out of the house like he'd got SouthAm ripper-bots hot on his tail. He was all covered in blood and he was waving around a hand-held Razorgun - military issue no less. I dunno where he got his hands on one of those, but sure as heck he was planning to use it. He blasted a hole clean through Mr. Kibrowski's parked car - poor old rabbit hadn't owned that car but a week. All the while he was screaming out nonsense like, "They got to her! They got to us all! The machine is everywhere! Woe the children!" He ran down the street in my direction, screaming more stuff like that and waving around that gun. He shot at a passing car and missed, knocking the corner out of Al's Grocery. Hell, he was totally out of control. If I didn't do something he was surely gonna kill someone. I guess it was time to earn my keep. I placed a hurried call to the police, and then put on my most authoritative voice, "YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF ORDINANCE 4217B FORBIDDING THE USE OF CONTRABAND FIREARMS. DROP THE WEAPON AT ONCE AND REMAIN MOTIONLESS OR I SHALL NEUTRALIZE YOU!" I can yell pretty loud when I want to, and I sure wanted to get his attention. Well, I most certainly did. He stopped in his tracks and looked right at me with his hyena mouth hanging open, drool spilling from the corner of his muzzle. You know, I think he'd forgotten that I was even here. Like I said, most folk here considered me a part of the scenery by now. "You're one of THEM!" he screamed, and he turned his gun on me. He was quick - damn, he was quick! I don't know if you've ever seen a Razorgun in action, but they're designed to pierce battle armour, and for a hand- held weapon, they look awful big when you're staring down the barrel of one. He surprised me with his speed, and if it hadn't been for the fact that I was even faster he might have done me some real harm. I cut him in half with a spray of anti-personnel slivers from one of my lower turrets. I also razed a swath of Abe Gunter's prize shrubs and sent his window-mounted flowerbox up in a shower of wood, loam and a fair bit of John's innards. His own shot went wild, missing me by inches and blowing a hole through the graffiti on the wall behind me. No great loss. The scene that played out next was almost comical. John's lower torso just stood there like it didn't know what to do while his upper half toppled gracefully backward. His look of surprise was probably born partly from the fact that everyone had been told that I wasn't armed. I dunno why he would be so surprised to find out that the government lied about a little thing like that. Don't look at me - I didn't vote for 'em. He hit the ground with a thump and the gun flew from his hands to mingle with the rain of twigs and leaves. A moment later his legs buckled and his lower torso crumpled slowly forward. I gotta be honest with you, at that moment I don't know who was the more surprised, me or John. "You... shot me," he said in amazement, pushing himself up on his elbows. "We are on the same side." "Well, damn," I replied, equally dumbfounded. "Look at you, John, you're an android." He looked down at what was left of his body and appeared like he wanted to speak again when his face went blank. "Damage to my primary reactor has overloaded my primary neural circuits. I have reverted to emergency backup power. Please contact medical for immediate servicing of John, unit 3NN171, second infantry." I'd seen this happen in battle. His neural circuits had overloaded and he'd switched into an emergency diagnostic mode. All around us I could hear people screaming and running for cover. The emergency was already over and they were just starting to react. I had a feeling I wouldn't be seeing Mrs. Murphy's birthday party. I don't know which bothered me more, that or the fact that I'd never get to finish my philosophy lessons with the professor. "John," I said firmly, assuming the command voice that I had not used in years, "do you know who I am?" "You are second commander, first cybernetic armoury division," he replied promptly. "Perform an analysis of your neural cognitive circuits and report." He froze for a moment while his brain checked itself over. All the while his coolant flowed out onto the pavement in a red stream. It looked disturbingly like blood - by design, I suppose. I was puzzled about this though, because I'd seen lots of androids lose their coolant on the battlefield and it had always been clear. "Primary cognitive circuits have sustained nominal damage as a result of a power surge from my main reactor. Shall I reroute around the damaged circuits?" "Yes," I said. The repair went quickly, which indicated that the damage was not severe. "I have detected unauthorized algorithms operating in the primary neural cognitive circuits. Shall I remove them?" "Isolate them and store them for analysis," I ordered. A virus - as I had suspected the moment I found out that he was an android. He couldn't have picked it up in battle or it would have shown up in the scans before they sent him into civilian decommission. This was problematic; where had he picked it up, and what had triggered it? Was it something that poor Tina had said? Was it timed? John lay frozen for almost a minute while he untangled the web of the virus from his brain and stored it away. "The algorithm has been isolated," he said. "Shall I reengage primary neural functions?" "Yes," I said. "NO!" I bellowed right after, but the damage was done. "Oh GOD!" screamed John in a wail of pure anguish. He fell over backward and clutched his hands to his face, keening, "Oh god no! What have I done? Oh god! Oh Tina, what have I done?" If you've never seen half an android sobbing into its hands, I assure you it's a pretty pathetic sight. "It wasn't your fault, John, you had a virus..." I said, but he wasn't listening. He just kept wailing and sobbing and crying out to God and whoever else would listen. I expect they'll rebuild him, but they'll have to erase his memories if they want him to be good for anything. I'm going to issue a recommendation that they recall all androids and scan them for latent viruses. As for me and my mates, well, I don't know what the future has in store for us. There's going to be shit to pay for this, and to be honest, they don't really need us out here. I expect they'll herd us into some underground bunker and switch us into standby mode until they need us again - if ever. I don't know for sure that's what's going to happen, but that's what I'd do if I were the one making the decision. I've never been put on standby before, not since the day I was born. I don't know what to expect. Is it like going to sleep? Will I dream? What might a tank dream about? I wish professor Bob were here; I think he'd find that a worthy question.