Sean barreled through the nearest door - the one leading into the Design section - hardly noticing the pain as his shoulder impacted the glass. He shot through the corridor between work desks not daring to look back. A tremendous noise of glass shattering behind him accompanied by startled shouts told him all he needed to know. A petite redhead in business casual sweater and skirt stood in his way, her eyes looking past him and widening in shock, her mouth opening in a wordless scream. Sean's impact sent her flying back into the workspace from where she had stepped out, and he ran on unable to care if she was OK. The ominous whine of bandsaw teeth sounded behind him. A sharp left turn and he careened into a side corridor, banking on the greater inertia of the pursuing drone to buy him a few seconds. Metal claws screeched on tile as the rogue Cereborg skidded into the turn followed by periodic splintering as it crashed through rows of desks in the too narrow corridor which hopefully slowed it down by a few more seconds. Faces frozen in surprise or shock greeted Sean beside each workstation. Sean had never run so fast in his life. Another second and he was slamming through the emergency door at the end of the corridor.

It was almost dusk outside among the manicured lawns and shrubbery. He made it ten feet from the door... fifteen feet... nothing pursued him yet. His breath came in wheezing gasps. Sean might be fairly fit but trained in sprinting he was not. Cars stood parked some distance away, some of them backing out of the lot preparing to leave for the day, a bit too far away for Sean to reach in time. He sobbed in relief as he spotted what he was looking for. A rectangular metal grille on the tarmac at the edge of the lawn, a storm water drain a bit larger than the ones near his home. The door through which he had emerged exploded outward as the entire section of that wall disintegrated into bits of dry wall, tearing sheet metal and flying glass. The Cereborg shot toward him like a beast out of Hades, its upper jaw a whirring blur of sawteeth, all four feet splayed oddly sideways. Sean grabbed flinging aside the storm drain grille and desperately hurled himself through the gaping dark void. He fell eight or nine feet splashing into an inch of standing water and landed on his back as he lost his footing. The snarl of bandsaw grew to a roar in the confined space as the elongated metallic snout jammed through the drain hole that Sean had fallen through. Vast red eyes glared at him as the monstrous head tried to work it's way within snapping distance. Sean yelled and scrabbled backwards on all fours. Suddenly he was no longer homo sapiens on top of the foodchain but cowering prey, like a praire dog fleeing a ferret, his heart wanting to jump out of his ribcage. 

 Sean slowly got to his feet. He was in a concrete tube maybe nine feet across. The Cereborg had given up its futile attempt to squeeze through the drain hole, instead opting to stare at Sean with its elongated skull protruding at an angle from the ceiling with a stillness that was more unnerving than its earlier frenzy. With an effort Sean turned his back to the drone to look in the other direction where a small bright circle illuminated one end of the tube. Light at the end of the tunnel. He started to walk rapidly towards it, looking over his shoulder every few feet at the grinning drone. Rage rose up within him like flotsam, now that he wasn't in immediate danger. Sean cursed Fuller Dynamics and everyone in it starting from Richard Fuller. They had been so confident that their precious drones couldn't be hacked. But most of all he cursed his own colossal stupidity and greed which had led him here. Did he imagine he could simply walk into the chairman's suite and swipe confidential business forecasts? A lower chance of success than even sneaking into Susan Fuller's office. Stupid. Next time he'd hatch a better plan.

He paused looking over his shoulder. The drone's head had disappeared. Hmm. The circle of light ahead had resolved into a large vertical grille which the setting sun shone through. Sean quickened his pace until he reached the rusted iron bars and looked out. He was standing under a concrete culvert, probably a major storm water collector inside the premises, and a red/blue light could be seen flashing on the side of a factory. There was no one around. He became aware of the sound of a siren whooping above the hammering of his heart. Having a killer drone running loose probably qualified as an emergency. Something about the rogue bothered him, quadruped legs splayed out like an alligator as it had pursued him quite unlike the drones in the proving ground. Battle damage? But all four legs had been splayed symmeyrically, which made damage an unlikely cause. As if the drone had forgotten how it had been designed to run, reducing the efficiency of its locomotion which might have bought Sean a few more critical seconds. An anomaly for later investigation. First he had to get out of here. He gave the bars an experiemental shake. No good. The circular rim was bolted to the concrete tube. What about the other end of the tube... Sean screamed as a gunmetal shadow hurled itself on the grille from the other side. The grille rang like a gong as it bent bulging inwards. A few of the rusted bolts snapped. The sawteeth jaws grinned at him as the drone backed up a few meters preparing to ram again. Sean turned and ran.

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The grille rang a few more times behind him as Sean ran. He cried in frustration as he passed under drain grilles in the ceiling, they were just out of reach and even if he managed to catch the lip by jumping it would take fatally long to haul himself out. The drone was about to break through any second. Dim light of an opening ahead... the other end. Sean ran even faster, slipping and falling on the wet slimy concrete, leaping to his feet to run again. The grille at the other end made a tearing sound and then the ominous sound of bandsaw. Sean screamed looking over his shoulder as the dark shape loomed rapidly, like looking down a gun barrel as it fired a bullet. Suddenly Sean was outside in the twilight at the edge of an earthen embankment that slopped down to a stream. He flailed, lost his footing and rolled down.

Sean lay on his back in the stream blinking as the rogue drone screeched to a halt at the lip of the tube. Avoidance algorithm to prevent it from running off mountain cliffs? But why wasn't it chasing him down the stream bank and finishing him off? Then he noticed the helicopter - a Bell UH-1 Huey - hovering low overhead. Military chopper. The Army! They must have one stationed at the plant for rapid response. One of the soldiers was burst firing an hand held automatic weapon at the drone, illuminating it with a powerful searchlight. Sean moaned in despair. They weren't even outfitted with a Minigun. They had probably geared up for SWAT response not an assault mission. The drone was frozen still staring at the helicopter. That didn't make sense... it should never be distracted from its primary target, but Sean wasn't about to complain. A rope ladder was lowered from the copter.

"Grab on to the rope," a loudspeaker bellowed, as Sean scrambled to his feet grabbing the lifeline. The Huey began to rise lifting Sean who glanced furtively up at the motionless rogue drone... five feet... eight feet... couldn't the damn chopper go up any faster? The drone's stance shifted and Sean tried to cry out a warning. The Cereborg leapt covering the distance to the Huey, metal claws gouging aluminum fuselage, a forelimb intercepting the rotors which splintered with a sickening snap. The turboshaft shrieked in a crescendo as the Huey fell tumbling from the air. Sean screamed and hit the ground rolling as the ruined helicopter smashed into the ground near him. He caught sight of the Cereborg lying on its back, legs wiggling in the air in a disturbingly familiar manner as if it couldn't figure out how to get back on its feet. And then it clicked what the drone's behavior reminded him of... an insect. He'd seen enough bugs trying to right themselves after being overturned, that the parallel couldn't be missed. He'd assumed that GORGON had hacked the drone by subverting all three brains simultaneously. But there was a simpler explanation... if he accepted Masha's assertion that the drone had erased its triplicate minds as intended when compromised. There was an unspoken assumption that a mind-wiped drone was no use to GORGON who presumably lacked the edge in AI research. But what if GORGON had simply managed to upload an existing neural net, not an artificial one but a natural one... there was something creepy about being hunted by a predatory insect possessing a drone's body. Sean scrambled to his feet frozen in indecision. He wanted to run, but he couldn't simply abandon soldiers trapped in the wreckage who had come to his aid...

The Cereborg stumbled to its feet and turned its attention to him. It no longer seemed as distracted by the helicopter... Sean ran through the stream making for the treeline on the other bank. His feet tripped on a rock as he looked over his shoulder to see gunmetal death race toward him, its jaws agape. Sean closed his eyes as he fell on his back, hoping it would be quick.

Another gong sounded and Sean screamed as his left arm splintered in more than one place. Why wasn't he dead... why did it have to hurt so much... a screech of metal on metal rising in volume. He opened his eyes through the haze of agony to see two Cereborgs locked in a death struggle, and the second one had no holes marring its surface. One of the new ones from the Proving Ground... someone must have set it on the rogue. The rescue drone must have accidentally stepped on his arm breaking it - since his arm was still in one piece - as it hurled itself on the rogue. Another drone crested the embankment... and another. The cavalry had come over the hill. Sean rolled and rolled over his broken arm, screaming as he did so, and narrowly missed his spine from being broken by one of the 'rescue' drones as it raced past. It would be ironic if he escaped the rogue only to be crushed under the weight of his rescuers.

The shiny new drones had started dismembering the old rogue, sparks flying from multiple bandsaw teeth. And above the din Sean heard it faintly but clearly... an automated voice from the body of the rogue Cereborg, "Hail GORGON..."