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.

 

He didn’t wake up. To wake would suggest that he’d been sleeping, when he’d actually just sort of become aware. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and he started processing information. First came a vague awareness that startled his mind into a heightened state of activity. Then, a feeling of increased urgency expanded from the diminutive depths, as if he’d suddenly forgotten something important. He tried to open his eyes. Nothing happened.

System diagnostic running.

These words appeared amid the black void of his thoughts. A few moments later, various diagnostic windows flashed, and a status report appeared.

Warning.

Low-power mode.

Less than 30 percent of power remaining.

Recommendation: Deteriorating power cell should be replaced for optimal performance.

Configuration update required.

Please wait . . .

He frowned, or at least tried to, but nothing happened, which instantly made him want to even more. He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t even open his eyes, but he’d seen the status windows, so he wasn’t blind. His racing thoughts went into overdrive. He tried to move—first his arms and then his hands. Nothing. He felt the urge to inhale, but it was only an urge—just a longing to take a deep lungful of sweet, precious breath—and it wasn’t happening.

He couldn’t breathe and wondered why he wasn’t gasping. He should be struggling to breathe, but he wasn’t, and his thoughts flatlined. He wouldn’t panic. He was awake but couldn’t move or feel . . . anything. There was no kinesthetic awareness to indicate whether he was lying down, strapped to a chair, or dangling in the air.

Not a good sign.

Maybe someone had drugged him, and he hadn’t fully awakened yet. There were drugs that could induce paralysis, and maybe they were wearing off. He tried to remember the last thing he’d been doing. Had he been hurt? Medication to block pain receptors could explain a lot, including the paralysis. Where was he? He felt another urge to frown, remembering what it felt like as his eyebrows knitted together, his gaze narrowed, and his jaw tightened with the gritting of his teeth, but as he commanded his muscles to do those things, they just sort of . . . stalled, as if there was something blocking his muscles from actually moving.

Veris initiation complete.

System startup complete.

Autonomous mode has been activated.

Limited storage available.

A small image appeared in the void that surrounded him. He focused on it, and the image rushed toward him until the void disappeared. He was in a dreary room with smudgy, broken windows and long, thick cobwebs, and he had the impression that he was sitting. He looked down to a crusty, dirt-laden floor. Howling winds gusted from outside, sending layers of dust swirling into a lazy cyclone. Scummy residue trailed a path from the broken windows to the ground. Across from him were charging stations that housed different-sized humanoid robots. They were covered with a swarthy, crumbling shell that must have taken years of exposure to accumulate. These remnants of abandoned robots were all offline, without any indication of power.

He glanced down at his legs, and his thoughts screeched to a halt. His legs were gone! In their place were thick, metallic legs with an intricate set of connectors and actuators running to his feet. But they weren’t his feet; they were something else. Each foot had three large, elongated toes and a broad, thick heel. They shifted, seemingly of their own accord, as if their range of motion was being tested.

He jerked backward at the movement and heard the mechanical whine of actuators fighting against their restraints in a cradle unit. Looking down, he saw that his chest was broad and comprised of overlapping plates that flexed when he moved. A whitish-blue power source glowed from between the plates. There was a series of symbols on his left side, and after a few seconds, a translation appeared on his internal heads-up display.

Agricultural Unit – 92.

Repairs have been completed, and the unit is cleared for duty.

Something disconnected from his back with a snap-hiss, and he slumped forward. The table he’d been sitting on dropped down and became part of the wall. As he landed on his feet, he saw the metallic toes spread and adjust to keep him standing. He flailed his arms for a few moments, trying to keep his balance. Everything felt uncoordinated and slow. He tried to move his head, and the movements were jerky, as there were actuators in his neck that hadn’t been moved in a long time.

The one thing he knew for sure was that he hadn’t been drugged. He felt as if he was remotely operating a mechanized unit for the first time, except that there was no system lag. Was this someone’s idea of a joke?

Self-diagnostic?

The words appeared on his heads-up display—HUD—and he initiated the command.

Cannot run self-diagnostic now. Still restoring backup from remote storage. Please wait . . .

Thanks for nothing. That wasn’t very helpful. He was apparently stuck in an agricultural unit, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. This wasn’t funny anymore. Why had he thought this could’ve been a practical joke? His mind was functioning much like his current body, like neither had been used in a really long time, but his mind suddenly began to race with an all-compelling need to remember.

He needed . . .

He needed.

He . . .

Partial data restored.

Veris restore procedure for the consciousness transference protocol has enacted emergency protocol number 736 in accordance with the Veris mandate of preserving core Personality Matrix Construct into the system.

He read the message again. “Consciousness transference protocol” stood out amid the amber lettering on the translucent window. Consciousness transference . . . His consciousness had been transferred, and something was trying to restore it from backup. Someone was restoring him into this machine.

He tried to bring up a command menu on the HUD.

Identify.

The system response puzzled him. It had just restored him, so shouldn’t it already know who he was? He froze there, his thoughts racing as he tried to make sense of all the information coming at him.

I’m a robot? No, not a damn robot! I know who I am.

He repeated that thought over and over again.

I know who I am.

I know who I am.

I. Know. Who. I. Am.

He glared at the system prompt that showed its last query in dispassionate amber lettering.

Identify?

A surge of hope coursed through him as his name pierced the veil of confusion surrounding his thoughts.

“Quinton Aldren,” he said, his voice sounding slightly modulated. He tried to clear his throat—which he didn’t have—and repeated his name.

“Quinton Aldren,” he said, much more clearly this time.

Identification confirmed. Partial restoration of Personality Matrix Construct has confirmed the viability of the individual in this unit.

Quinton reread the message with an increasing awareness that he knew about Personality Matrix Constructs. PMCs were human-consciousness-to-machine interfaces. He tried to remember more, but the information just wasn’t available. He was sure he knew more about it, but something . . . He looked down at his body and understood.

A quiet hum came from a maintenance drone as it sank slowly to the floor. Its spherical chassis had multiple appendages, some of which looked to have been torn off, but one of them reached in his direction. Its power indicators went dark, and the drone was dead.

Quinton felt a second presence snap to existence in his mind. It was as if someone had just appeared next to him, but nobody was there.

VI interface initiated. Designation—Radek.

A virtual intelligence should be able to help him out.

“Radek, are you online?” Quinton asked.

“Diagnostics are still running,” Radek said a few moments later. “Diagnostics complete. Virtual Intelligence Designate Radek responding.”

“Excellent. Now, maybe you can answer a few questions for me. Why have I been restored into this agricultural unit?” Quinton asked.

“Emergency reactivation protocols were initiated,” Radek replied.

Quinton felt as if his thoughts were wading through a muddy barrier.

“Radek, putting my consciousness into this agricultural unit violates PMC protocols. It shouldn’t have worked, even under emergency conditions.”

“Personality Matrix Construct’s standard operating procedures were overridden.”

“By whom?” Quinton asked.

“Information is unavailable.”

“Unavailable . . . how’s that?” Quinton paused for a moment, trying to strangle his growing irritation with the useless VI. He glanced down at the maintenance drone. “Were you in control of this drone?”

“Affirmative. It was required to transfer the Energy Storage System to Agricultural Unit 92.”

“You’re telling me that I’ve been stored in an ESS, which you then stuck in the chest of this agricultural unit—a damn garden robot,” Quinton said.

More of his knowledge became available. It shouldn’t have worked. PMCs required a high level of haptic capabilities in order to avoid malfunction. The PMC was a way of preserving his consciousness, requiring that he feel human, or else—

“Your summation of the events is an oversimplification,” Radek replied, and Quinton could’ve sworn the VI sounded a little agitated.

“Not from where I’m standing.”

“Per emergency procedures, I found the best solution given the constraints I was called to deal with,” Radek said.

Quinton looked out at dark gray skies through the shattered remnants of what had been windows. He was in a garden storage shed for service bots. He didn’t have any idea where he was, and he certainly didn’t know why he was there. He needed Radek’s help if he was going to figure out what had happened. He needed the VI’s cooperation, but VIs could be finicky. They weren’t sentient, but they could be singularly uncooperative if given the right motivation.

“It sounds like you did the best you could,” Quinton said. “How long did you have to search before you found this body?”

“One hundred eighty-seven days, fifteen hours, and thirty-three minutes.”

Oh crap, Quinton thought. Radek seemed to sense this, but Quinton reminded himself that VIs couldn’t read minds.

“The ESS was in a critical state and in danger of imminent failure. Use of this agricultural unit was the only option.”

Quinton didn’t doubt what Radek said. If Radek had searched for a hundred eighty-seven days to find a suitable host for his PMC, then he was in danger.

“Where are we?”

“Unknown.”

That’s great, Quinton thought. Radek was just as much in the dark as he was.

“Is there a governing body we can contact?”

“Negative. There are no settlements with active inhabitants that I’ve observed.”

Six months searching and no one to contact. Quinton glanced out the window at the ash-covered landscape and then looked around the room. This planet had suffered some kind of disaster. A readout on his HUD showed that the atmosphere was still breathable, meeting minimum requirements to survive—not that breathing air was an obstacle for him in his current form.

Quinton tried to recall why he’d been uploaded into a PMC and stored in the first place but found that he couldn’t remember.

“Radek,” Quinton said, “my memory access is restricted. Is the ESS intact? Was it damaged?”

“The ESS is undamaged and fully intact. However, because of the limitations of the agricultural unit, you have limited access to the ESS. This is required so you can fully utilize the unit the PMC is currently housed in.”

Quinton took a few steps across the shed, then turned and paced back to the other side. Each step he took demonstrated more confidence as he learned the capabilities of the agricultural unit. There was significant risk involved with a PMC being loaded into a less capable machine. PMC degradation would occur if the consciousness inside lost its connection to being human. Quinton tried to feel whether he was losing himself and then shook his head. How was that supposed to feel?

There were several loud pops as something slammed into a nearby building. Quinton spun around at the noise and glanced toward the maintenance drone on the ground. There were gashes cut into its sides, and several of its limbs were missing.

“I must advise you that there are hunter mechs currently searching for you,” Radek said.

A new pathway engaged in Quinton’s mind, and he had access to new data stored in the ESS. “Hunter mechs! What do they want with me?”

“The hunter mechs are specifically tasked with destroying PMCs.”

That couldn’t be right. Nothing about this situation was right.

Quinton heard something crash from within a nearby building. “They must have control units. Can’t we override them?” Quinton asked, stepping toward the door as he tried to engage the communications systems of the agricultural unit.

“I advise against that,” Radek said quickly. “They can detect open comms signals. These units have been pursuing me for many days. I already tried an override command, which didn’t work. Those systems are locked out from any comms unless they’re coming from whatever command central gave them their instructions in the first place.”

That made the hunter mechs no better than mindless drones. Why would they hunt PMCs?

“Radek, I need access to your analysis of those units if I’m going to decide how to deal with them. If they’re just basic mechs, I should be able to disable them.”

“Data is available, as you requested.”

A report appeared on his HUD, and Quinton accessed the log data. There wasn’t anything like a detailed analysis, and Radek had been severely limited in his capabilities while operating the maintenance drone. His top priority had been to preserve the Energy Storage System that Quinton’s Personality Matrix Construct was stored in, which was all fine and good, but it meant he didn’t know what he was facing, and they were getting closer to his position.