Quinton staggered backward, nearly losing his balance, and ran. The robot’s feet adjusted to the rough terrain, giving him better traction, and his enhanced hearing noted the quick, powerful cadence of the hunter mechs hastening to catch up with him.

There were dozens of abandoned greenhouses nearby, covered in a thick, crusty layer of dirt, and ash coated their windows in a grimy grayish brown. Quinton bolted toward a narrow path between them and pivoted, hoping to throw the mechs off his tail.

He raced away from them as he heard at least one of the mechs crash into the building. Quinton emerged from between the greenhouses and turned right, rushing toward an impressive main building that, despite the current climate, had retained hints of its former glory. Atop a broad staircase were mounds that must have been statues, which Quinton recognized by the elevated pedestals. An enormous dome sat on top of the main building, flanked by two long side wings. Large sections of the roof had been peeled off the upper levels, but the main entrance above the grand marble staircase looked intact. He’d try to lose the mechs inside while he searched for a vehicle.

Quinton heard the stomping of heavy metallic footfalls coming from the rooftop of the building beside him. A hunter mech kept pace with him, gingerly running along the rooftops. Amber-colored eyes locked onto him, piercing the gloom from within narrow sockets in its dark helmet.

The sky brightened as pale moonlight shone through a break in the billowing storm clouds. The mech must’ve veered away from the others, circling around to cut him off. Quinton swerved away from the greenhouses and darted toward the main building. The mech leaped off the roof and chased him, rapidly closing the distance.

He ran up the grand staircase past thick stone columns to the shadowy interior. His vision cleared as his night vision engaged. Just beyond the doors was a wide reception desk with kiosks. Quinton ran past the reception area, the hunter mech right on his heels. A loud blast of sound came from behind him, and his foot was bumped to the side, shoving him off balance. He stumbled, and the mech knocked him off his feet. Quinton went down and skidded to a stop on the smooth floor as dust billowed into the air.

He scrambled to regain his feet, searching for anything he could use for a weapon. The agricultural unit was equipped with a focused sonic blaster, but it wouldn’t respond. It was dead, just like he’d be in a few seconds if he couldn’t stop the mech. He hastened back as the mech stalked forward, but it leaped toward him, grabbing hold of Quinton’s outstretched hands. He struggled to push the powerful mech off of him, but he couldn’t.

Dammit, Radek, why did you have to put me into such a pathetic machine?

Quinton pushed with his feet, and they slid farther into the building. The mech atop of him tried to block Quinton’s feet with its own. He knew that if he could just keep moving, there was at least a chance he could break free.

The mech began angling them toward a nearby wall.

No, this is not good.

The mech was going to use the wall as leverage to overpower him. Quinton tried to change direction, but the mech had momentum on its side. As they drew near the wall, the mech pivoted on its lower body, anchoring itself to the wall, which jolted them both to a stop. The mech leaned toward Quinton’s chest, where the ESS was housed. Two smaller arms sprang from a hidden compartment in its chest and pulled hard on Quinton’s chest plate. He twisted away, trying to prevent those damn small arms from getting his ESS. The mech climbed higher on the wall, lifting Quinton off the ground.

Oh, crap.

He was completely at the mech’s mercy. He had to do something, or else his brief existence as a PMC was going to end. What separated humans from machines was an unwavering drive to preserve life. When push came to shove, both humans and animals alike would fight for their lives until their very last breath. A PMC wasn’t required to breathe, but the indomitable will to live was just as strong.

Quinton wouldn’t give up without a fight. He accessed the agricultural unit’s systems menu and felt a rush of hope surge through him as he finally found something he could use.

Weapons!

Hidden within the forearms were hardened alloyed blades meant for chopping and cutting thick branches.

The mech grabbed his chest plate and pulled hard. Quinton brought his feet up to its body and angled his palms upward as the blades sprang from his wrists, punching through the mech’s hands. Quinton pressed his feet into the mech and pushed away from its grasp. He landed on his feet, and the mech’s head turned toward him in surprise. Quinton sprang up, stabbing the blade through its narrow eye socket. He hung there for a moment, using his whole weight to sever the mechanical innards of the hunter mech. Sparks burst from the wound, and Quinton dropped back down to the ground.

The mech flailed its arms and struck Quinton’s shoulder, almost knocking him down. Damage alerts flooded his internal heads-up display as a klaxon alarm blared from the mech. He glanced back toward the entrance of the building and heard the other two mechs running up the stairs. He’d gotten lucky, but he didn’t want to take on two hunter mechs at the same time. They’d probably already called for reinforcements, so more were on the way. Quinton turned and ran, eager to put as much distance between him and the hunter mechs as possible.

“There is a power source in this building. There might be a working terminal available for use,” Radek said.

“Where?”

“Sub-basement level five.”

A route for him to take was highlighted in front of him. Quinton followed the path to a wide, long staircase amid an open atrium with exhibits and walkways on both sides. Thunder roared outside, and rain began to fall through a massive hole in the roof overhead.

“What’s down there?” he asked.

“My guess is some kind of control room.”

“You guess!” Quinton said, reaching the bottom of the stairs.

He’d tried to keep his voice down, but the mechs must’ve heard him. He noted the echoes of the security mechs from the top floor, but they hadn’t followed him yet. What were they waiting for?

“I have access to the same information as you. This unit has a sensor range for detecting power lines, which is understandable given the occupation for which the unit was designed.”

Radek was correct. This unit was once a highly sophisticated garden robot whose lifespan would have been severely limited if it hadn’t been able to detect hidden power cables and conduits. Quinton had never thought about it before, and even if he’d been an expert in these kinds of machines, he wouldn’t have remembered because of his limited access to the ESS.

Gah! He really wanted to grit his teeth, but he couldn’t. The robot didn’t have a mouth, but its head had somewhat anthropomorphic features.

He dashed toward a hallway that led to elevator doors, going to the one farthest away and prying open the door. There was no power to the elevators, so he’d have to climb down the shaft. He spotted a metallic ladder to his left and began his descent. The elevator doors squeezed shut, and he was in near darkness. The only light came from the slight glow of his ESS that has been partially exposed when the mech tried to rip it out of his chest. The mech had been trying to tear his heart out, but the ESS was more than just his heart. It contained everything that made Quinton who he was. PMCs were sophisticated uploads of the human consciousness, wrapped in a framework of assistant virtual intelligences.

Quinton didn’t know the circumstances that surrounded his apparent reactivation. He didn’t even know what planet he was on, and because of the limited capacity of the machine he was housed in, he couldn’t access any of his memories.

Every time he climbed down a rung on the ladder, there was an audible click, like several gears grinding into place. When the mech had struck his shoulder, it must’ve damaged the socket. The sound would surely be detected by the hunter mechs when they came for him.

Instead of climbing down one rung at a time, Quinton decided to let himself drop. Before he could gain too much velocity, he grabbed hold of a rung to slow his descent, and his body jerked to a halt. The agricultural unit was designed for climbing. Trimming tall trees was probably one of its duties. He didn’t know what he would do if his arms were torn out of their sockets, but he needed to reach the lower level—fast.

He soon came to the fifth level and made his way over to the door, forcing it open and climbing through. As he walked down the dark, quiet maintenance corridor, he noticed that the outside elements hadn’t penetrated there, and the corridor was untouched. The sensor data on his HUD showed that the power source was just up ahead in one of the side rooms.

Quinton hastened toward it and opened the door. A phalanx of workstations illuminated the area in an azure glow, and he walked to the nearest one. A holoscreen flickered on. The data displayed was slightly blurry from the aged projector hidden inside the workstation, but the status window showed the batch of commands that had been submitted by the last person who’d used the station. They’d initiated a shutdown protocol because of some kind of emergency. Given how things looked aboveground, Quinton was certain it was something catastrophic. As the system refreshed, a barrage of offline messages began spewing on the holoscreen. There was no info-net for him to connect to. He could only find the coordinates to an evacuation center. It must’ve been a broadcast emergency message that instructed the workers to go to a specific evacuation place. He brought up a map, and it highlighted a path for him to follow. There was a lot of open ground to cover, and with the hunter mechs coming for him, he wasn’t sure if he’d make it.

He still had access to local systems, and he tried to find a maintenance work area. He was hoping to find some kind of vehicle he could use. An alert appeared on his HUD. The power core in the agricultural unit was depleting, showing that he had less than 25 percent power remaining. Quinton had no idea what the longevity of the power core inside him was, but the unit must’ve been stored for quite some time, and it was probably well beyond its expected lifespan. He was running out of time.

“You should go to the evacuation center,” Radek said.

Quinton stepped away from the workstation. “Thanks for the tip,” he said bitterly.

He left the control center and shook his head. Radek was just trying to help keep him on task, and he had to focus. He had to do one thing at a time in order to escape. He couldn’t afford to dwell on what he didn’t know, but he couldn’t help but blame Radek for his current predicament. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t the VI’s fault. It, too, had been activated after the upload to the ESS, but given what was happening, he felt he was entitled to a bit of irrationality. It wasn’t as if Radek had feelings anyway.

There was no way for Quinton to call for help, and now he was thinking that there would be nobody to answer his call even if he was able to make one. He began making his way to the maintenance work area. Hopefully, there would be some kind of vehicle the groundskeepers used. Otherwise, he’d have to continue running from the hunter mechs. If there was a vehicle, and it was still connected to a charging station, perhaps it would be enough to get him to the evacuation center.