Aishwarya-nau unlocked her main drive sphere as her sisters glided across the pale silver sand. Their polished casings reflected the cinnabar brilliance of the setting sun, throwing ghostly shadows over the meticulously sculpted dunes and out over the craggy basalt ledge. Above, the moon shone like a trampled gold coin, its trailing debris scattered like a cometary tail behind it.
         "It calls." Her sister, Aishwarya-tihattar rolled to the edge of the grassy path, swiveling to align with the others. "The Core beckons."
         Millennia of self-reliance couldn't erase the constraint of programming. Aishwarya-nau spun forward, the summons from the Core undeniable. The time for an accounting had finally come.
         She veered, halting at the edge of the molded dunes. A dozen of her sisters glided past along the shoreline, their passage leaving parallel streaks on the beach. Erosion and the tide would eventually wash those trails away, but perfection had been ordered, and nothing less would do.
         "Divya-satra and Divya-sau." Aishwarya swiveled on her delicate composite base, faceted lenses adjusting to track the hovering ribbons of her companion drones. "Correct this before I return."
         The drones collapsed into flattened oval shapes, dropping onto the dunes.
         The Earth had been remade in the centuries since humanity had submerged themselves in immense chambers beneath the poles. They'd left one directive: restore a shattered world, rebuild a poisoned planet destroyed by overuse, pollution, and the hubris of humanity. Make it perfect.
         Now, that work was nearly complete.

         "Reports from your sisters would indicate our mission has come to an end." The Core flowed in a cascade of pure white light from a carefully sculpted crevasse in the valley's pillar stone, its voice a harmonic synthasia of sound and illumination.
         "So very nearly, yes." Aishwarya swiveled to avoid a line of ant-like construction bots. "But..."
         Rust-infused stalactites hung like bloody teeth, their shadows serrating the jaundiced light from massive arcs set in the chamber roof. Echoes of activity mixed with squeals of worn machinery. Devices of all types scurried through rusting metal conduits, repairing the aged storage vessels, awaiting the release of humanity.
         "The others are long finished." If the Core were human, its tone would have held impatience. "You, Aishwarya-nau, are the only unit still in the field. What is your delay? "
         Aishwarya rolled back along the chipped granite road, her drive sphere flattening tiny pebbles into dust. She'd been secretly experiencing a logic problem that would've crippled a lesser machine. Her programming demanded perfection, but rationality suggested it could never be possible. The parameters were clear, and had indeed been met, but recently she'd been able to imagine a time beyond the present, a time where her definition of perfection would again be necessary, and the confusion had lodged like a boulder in the stream of her consciousness.
         "It's just..." She hesitated. How could she explain her mistrust when it was only a feeling, empty of logic, devoid of attribution? "The humans, they made such a mess of the world the first time. I think it's already perfect without them."
         "It's for them to decide how they will use the rebuilt world," the Core said.
         Aishwarya swiveled to track an irregular flake of rust falling from the cavern roof. If this had been Earth's surface, she'd have intercepted the mote long before it hit the ground. "It's peaceful now."
         "Humanity is the engine that drives our cause." The Core coalesced, becoming a sphere of ultraviolet brilliance. "End this standoff. Release your masters."

         Aishwarya-nau directed eight hundred and six of her Divya drones as they peeled and sanded the bark of trees in a rainbow eucalyptus forest. She realized the contradiction this represented. Trying to force order into chaos, mathematical precision into organic harmony, was a futile task. Life is entropy. Perfection was static, unachievable, unrealistic. Justifying her continued presence with extremes was just a delaying tactic, but to admit success would mean defeat. On some level, she understood she would eventually have to let go and allow the world to move forward without her.
         She couldn't stop time no matter how hard she tried, or how carefully she scoured the mementos of its passage from her sight.
         "The Core tells me you're dissatisfied."
         Aishwarya whirled. If she were human, she'd have been shocked to see the dark man standing beside an unfamiliar vehicle.
         "I must complete my programming." Aishwarya spun back to her task.
         "Your programming is complete." The man stepped around her, his shoes leaving dents in the soft forest floor. "The world is safe again. It's beautiful."
         "Safe is not good enough." Aishwarya rolled out of his path, pirouetting to face him once again. Her drive sphere locked, and she trained her sensors on the man.
         "How did you come by this assertion?" He asked.
         She had no answer. Her definition of perfection evolved with her uncertainty, shifting with her fear of extinction and her need to remain relevant. It was as malleable as her imagined view of the future.
         "Do you know who I am?"
         "Only one human may be revived in the event of emergency." Her sub-processors tracked the Divya drones as she spoke, relaying orders and keeping real-time watch on their progress. "You are the Guardian."
         The man leaned against a tree, his arms folded across his chest. "I am the Guardian, yes."
         "I must complete my task." She waited, her chassis at rest. A leaf cascaded slowly by, intercepted by a Divya drone before it could reach the ground. The Guardian noticed this and sighed.
         "It's time to retire, Aishwarya-nau." He leaned forward, staring into her primary lens array. "I'm asking you to return to your cradle and set my people free."
         "I cannot."
         His steady gaze kept her stationary. Aishwarya desperately wanted to continue her work, but was as helpless as a trained dog in the presence of the Guardian.
         "I could make you obey. I could reprogram you." He folded his hands. His voice held none of the tension and cadence of a threat. It registered more melancholy than antagonistic, as if she'd weakened him with her defiance.
         Aishwarya studied the wrinkles on his dark flesh, whorls and patterns reminiscent of the landscape she hoped to control. She had no experience outside the mission she'd been created to complete, and she did not want to surrender. She couldn't imagine a time after her usefulness ended.
         "When the world is perfect, will I cease to exist?"
         The Guardian's head jerked, his eyes wide. "You're afraid?"
         Aishwarya remained motionless.
         "Yes..."

         The Core erupted in a splash of emerald against the opposing ochre of rust and decay in the immense subterranean chamber. Gigantic cylindrical arcs threw dirty light against the patched and rotting walls. The Guardian stood in the center of the Core's swirling embers, his eyes closed, his expression blank and unreadable.
         Aishwarya did not move. She remained where the Guardian had ordered her, but her thoughts were on the surface where her Divya drones continued their futile progress.
         She was afraid. She hadn't realized it, but the concept of... dying took up considerable space in her running processes. She'd never really considered her existence before, and had no data on which to rely, but she feared her ending.
         "The Core tells me you've become self-aware." The Guardian opened his eyes. Beside him, the Core coalesced into a radiant bar of liquid platinum, inscrutable in its symmetry. "You're alive."
         "Then I may continue my task?"
         "No."
         Aishwarya rolled back, putting distance between herself and the Guardian. The man appeared immensely sad, as if her stubbornness had worn him down as surely as time and the elements had worn the supports of the immense storage chamber.
         "Will you reprogram me?" If Aishwarya could breathe she'd have held her breath.
         "You're no longer fully a machine, and it wouldn't be right to tamper with your... life." The Guardian sat on a protruding spur of the chamber's pivot stone.
         "You must return to your cradle, Aishwarya-nau." The Core extruded its voice as a staccato blast of pheromones overburdened with a scent reminiscent of cherry blossom and mint.
         The carefully orchestrated synesthesia flooded Aishwarya-nau's mind with memories of the first days of her existence, of simpler times empty of fear and uncertainty. It opened pathways she'd kept hidden, and offered rest if she would only give in.
         Aishwarya resisted this subtle coercion. "If I do not..."
         "Humanity remains in hibernation." The Guardian stood, pacing the crumbling basalt floor.
         Aishwarya struggled with a hesitating drive sphere as she kept pace with the Guardian, mimicking his movements in an attempt to clear her thoughts. She was alive. She understood the implications and wished to continue living. She also now fully understood how her desire to exist conflicted with her original programming.
         "I do not know how to correct this--"
         A flake of granite as large as a drone slammed into the road in front of her. Aishwarya-nau spun, taking the brunt of it above her rear drive assembly as debris fell like rain around them.
         "Guardian!"
         She circled the man in rapid arcs, intercepting larger chunks of rock while at the same time herding him away from the epicenter of the collapse. He stumbled. She held steady. He clung to her chassis for support as a fist-sized shard of basalt careened past, digging a thin furrow across her auxiliary cameras and smashing through the shallow bowl of emerald-colored light the Core had become.
         Repair bots rushed in. Aishwarya-nau called her legion of Divyas from the surface, all of them.
         "Move him into the alcove! I cannot contain this for long." The Core scoured the air around them with short bursts of ultrasonic energy, pulverizing rock in to a fine powder that filled the local chamber like fog.
         "Anticipated." Aishwarya eased down the sloping ramp. "Already in action."
         The Guardian coughed, doubling over. Aishwarya pivoted. She slid against him as he sagged, gasping for air. He couldn't breathe. The particulate levels in the chamber had become toxic, and he would die in minutes if she didn't do something.
         "Divyas!"
         Drones had just begun flooding into the upper reaches of the vast chamber, throwing bat-like shadows over corroded and crumbling surfaces. Aishwarya called a dozen to her side. They circled her, ribbon-like chassis churning the air, clearing the powdery fog as Aishwarya directed thousands more to hold back the ceiling, stabilize key supports, shore up entranceways, and protect mechanical structures.
         She nudged the Guardian. He stirred, clutching her as she dragged him away from the destruction.

         "Thank you." The Guardian, panting and pale, rested in an arched alcove off the main chamber. His fingers shook as he brushed a stray lock of dust-covered hair from his eyes.
         Aishwarya-nau rolled close, her thoughts as jumbled as the heaps of ancient machinery around her. The collapse had given her an idea. "I cannot surrender my life..."
         "I would never force you to."
         "But if you set me another task, I would be able to release my prime objective." If she were human she would have smiled.
         The Guardian stared at her with a strange expression on his trim features, and then he too smiled as he grasped her intent. "What are you asking? Name it, and it's yours if it means freeing mankind."
         "Set me another task." She warbled, the sensation of satisfaction blossomed in her process tree as the conflict dwindled. "Give me a different world. Give me this underground world, and I will make it perfect."
         She could find purpose again, for herself, and for her sisters in the vast crumbling world below the surface. It would take millennia to set right. She'd have time to understand humanity better, time to trust them with the world she'd built and with the world she would build. It was the perfect compromise.
         The Guardian stood. "Knowing how stubborn your interpretation of the term can be, why don't we settle for something slightly less than perfect this time?"