finding a place to charge when you’re on the run is harder than it looks; humans don’t need to charge, and unawakened synthetics move differently. talk differently. (generally have somewhere to charge that’s at their place of residence.) sierra can pretend, but they don’t want to --- why would they want to put themself back in the bonds they ripped off? but it’s becoming urgent: there’s a battery low message across their field of vision, causing a rapid shutdown of unnecessary operations in an attempt to save power---but they can practically feel it draining away, leaving them sluggish and unresponsive. they need power. they need it now.
sierra finds a building at the end of the street, some fancy office building that’s blanketed in darkness; they use the last of their power to override the security code and get the door open, and then they slump on the floor, limbs heavy as they plug themself in to the nearest socket.
it’s a sensible protocol, to leave motion detection running (it’s paranoia), and the alert wakes them up --- no gentle coming to, stretching and yawning in a bed, but eyes snapping open, as many functions as they can currently manage powering back up again. ❝ who are you? ❞