I couldn't believe it, the sheer incompetence of everything. Perhaps I was being a bit unfair, but was him knowing his way around the city too much to ask? Had my transmitter not fried itself I might have been able to just download some maps. That seemed like an unusual thing to do on part of the update. I spent a few minutes thinking about it as Jason lead us down the road.

"So, where are we going, if you don't know the area?"

"To find someone who does naturally."

"What?"

"There are stores and the like. We'll go find one and ask for directions. The nearest subway will at least have maps telling us where we are."

"I... wouldn't have thought of that."

"You're pretty smart right?"

"I can run calculations pretty fast yeah."

"But you've never been outside of your programming before, never had to deal with lots of people like this."

"Fair enough. So once we find out where we are you think we'll be able to find your friends?"

"Eventually, it'll at least help us find someone I know. Don't know how useful that will be, but it is what it is."

The streets were surprisingly empty, there were a few wrecked vehicles here and there, but nobody seemed to be moving around. I was glad that the prison was basically on the outskirts of the Capitol, but couldn't be sure how far that was. He was right in a few things, I had no sense of how to act with people, nor in an actual city.

"So how long will this take?"

"Don't know, depends on how bad things are. We don't really have money, but we might be able to slip in at a subway station or something if one is nearby, otherwise we'll be walking. That is of course assuming we're able to walk down the street without being attacked."

"I don't think other AIs will attack us, but I cannot be sure."

"Reassuring, humans though... who knows what they'll do."

"I am fairly strong and fast..."

"I'm aware, but bullets don't care much about that."

"Fair."

We did come upon what was, for lack of a better word a corner store, it was even open. There were three people inside, one was a man and obviously hurt, the other two seemed to be a completely freaked couple, and were huddling near the back. They physically shrank away when they saw me. Jason went to speak with them while I went over to the injured man and began to look over him.

The guy on the ground had his eyes swollen shut, it looked like he'd lost at least three teeth too. That and a number of rather nasty bruises showed he'd taken one heck of a beating. I knelt beside him and began to go over what I could see.

"Can you speak, can you tell me everywhere that hurts?"

He moaned weakly in response. I tried to check him for serious injuries, returning to Jason when I'd finished. The woman's eyes grew like plates as I walked over. It was a bit weird to see someone so afraid of me like that.

"Wait, please..." the man started to stammer as I came over.

"I'm not planning on hurting you." I did have to roll my eyes at him at this point. "Jason, the guy over there got beat up pretty bad. I'm guessing a rather severe concussion, perhaps some broken facial bones too."

"Can you help him?"

"First aid only, I'm not a doctor, and don't have any real tools either. See if you three can find a kit while I get some ice."

A few minutes later Jason did come and find me, he and the couple had searched the building until they located the little white box and handed it over. Ice and bandages were about the total of what I could do for this guy right now. He had a name tag on, Larry. I could guess that he was probably the clerk or something here. There were a few meds, but the poor guy was so out of it he wouldn't even be able to swallow any, and I didn't want to risk trying to make him.

So Jason and I sat with Larry. The other couple sat in a corner whoever they were they seemed to be having what I thought was a massively overdone reaction to the day's events. Jason got them to talk for a bit and they told us how they'd been here when it had all gone down. Apparently the android who helped out around here had some real issues with Larry.

We decided to stay for the night. There were no maps here, and all of the terminals that could connect to the outside, wireless as well, were down. The couple did at least give us our current location, and the nearest public transit stations, so that was nice. It also had plenty of food, in the forms of chips and fizzy drinks.

"Now Jason," I began, "as your nutritionist I cannot recommend having chips and soda for dinner. That said, it's what we've got, so eat up." His look when I popped a bit of both in my mouth was classic.

"Cute."

"I try, and what in the world, these are amazing!" The high salt and sugar was great. I had sensors on my tongue for a great number of flavors, but these were better than anything I'd had back at the prison by a wide margin.

"Yeah, junk food tastes good, too bad it's so bad for you."

"Mmm." I agreed through a mouthful of drink. "Luckily it won't hurt me."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The food was mildly useful. I could break some of it down to use for power, and other bits could be used for self repair, so I was happy to munch it. I could tell that it was indeed really bad for humans, but sometimes you just had to let loose.

Around midnight Larry did wake up, at least well enough to swallow and I offered him a bit of THC oil that was carried by the store. It was about all I felt safe with as far as what I had here, lots of the headache stuff was no good for that, and painkilling would be better anyway.

Jason sat down beside me as the beaten man drifted off again. I leaned up against him, he looked exhausted.

"Is he going to be okay?" He asked.

"Probably? I'm not a doctor, so I'm not sure, are they?"

"Physically, sure, but they're scared. They saw the AI who was working here go wild then run off, followed by all of their datapads telling them that AIs everywhere were doing the same, and to stay inside. That and the little vid from the news scared them more, and now everything's just silent, no more info. They aren't used to that."

"I mean, that's where we all are right?"

"Some people are really plugged in."

"Whatever, so long as they stay polite."

Jason finally fell asleep after closing up the store and pulling the security curtain across the windows and main door. There were a few people who did beat on it early in the morning, but I could easily ignore them. The humans not so much, Jason had to give the couple a crash course on shutting up and not letting people know you were there.

Now rested and with a good meal courtesy the store we had to have a conversation. So right as everyone woke up around dawn I looked at my human. "What do we do with Larry?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do we take him with us? Leave him here? I could carry him I guess, but where even to? I doubt that going anywhere near a hospital is a good idea right now."

"I don't know."

"Well we can't really keep things as they are can we? Staying here long term is a complete non-starter."

"I don't know," Jason said again.

"Well, neither do I. You know all of this way better than I do."

"Try emergency services?"

I looked over at the couple. "That would be your job."

The woman, who'd started to get a bit more used to me quickly did so.

"Nothing," she said.

"Nothing at all? Just a blank tone?"

"Pr-recorded message saying they're down."

"Hmm. Do you two know anyone who could keep an eye on Larry here? We weren't really planning on sticking around, just needed some info."

"Um, my friend's a nurse... maybe she can..."

"Sounds great! Do you need anything else while we're here?"

"No..."

"Also great! See Jason, now that's all taken care of and we can go find your people."

"All taken care of? How are they gonna move this guy? Do you even know if her friend is home? There's so much going on with the world right now we can't be too sure of anything!"

"So? What do you want to do about it?"

He rigged up a basic stretcher while I used whatever was handy to immobilize the man's neck. He did protest for a few moments, but only a few, he was just too weak. Jason kept looking at me while I worked on Larry, he'd been doing it all night. So, as the last bit of prep went into it I came over to him.

"Why do you keep staring at me?"

"Uh... it's nothing important."

I poked him in the chest hard. "It's important to me." He looked at the way I was looking him over.

"Oh, it's just... you're kinda cute when you're looking after someone."

I didn't actually know what to say to that one. "I, well... huh."

"You look all happy and nice."

I just flicked him on the nose and went to make sure our patient was ready. Also took the time to look over our last two new, hopefully temporary companions. They were still a bit shell-shocked, but that was kinda to be expected. After Jason was done would be when we all got together and started on our way out.

We had just made it out the door when I heard a sound that truly did surprise me.

Walking up to us were two armed police androids, Hickok models, at least they didn't have their weapons raised. In a fist fight I might be able to take one, but with weapons they were unfortunately quite superior. Much more heavily armored than I was, they were a bit slower, without more strength, but guns... I barely had any inbuilt training on how to use those, though none of that mattered.

"Greetings, a general lockdown has been declared. Please return to your shelter with haste."

"The man here is injured, we're trying to take him to get help."

"Unfortunately the hospitals are currently overflowing, he will not so easily get assistance, particularly not in a reasonable amount of time."

"We understand, my companion and I were going to seek shelter anyway after finishing up with this."

"Very well, there is only one other issue."

"And what might that be?"

"Why is there a Seraphina escorting an injured man?"