Colt's stomach dropped.

  His hand flew to his wrist. The plug was still in there. He grabbed it and yanked.

  Pain snapped up his arm and he bit down hard so he didn't make a sound. The plug came free with a wet little pop, and Colt stumbled back a step. He held it in his fist like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

  The metal man kept rising until its feet cleared the floor. It stepped off the lift.

  Colt ducked behind the table and crouched low, pressing his back to the cold side of it. He kept the plug hidden in his hand and watched over the edge, not blinking, not breathing loud, just watching that thing and waiting for it to move.

  The light on its face shifted, narrowing into a tighter line and sweeping across the room. It passed over the shelves, the doors, the black screen. Then it slid to Colt's side of the table and stopped.

  Colt's lungs were working hard now. He could hear himself breathing. He tried to make the next breath smaller, tried to hold still.

  "What are you doing back there?" a mechanical voice said.

  Colt didn’t answer. He crouched lower, like that would make him vanish.

  Metal feet tapped the floor as the thing walked around the table.

  Colt shifted back, but there was nowhere to go. The table ended, and there he was, crouched in the open with the plug clenched in his fist.

  The light on its face held on him.

  "P.L.S. 265?" it said.

  Colt screamed and swung, his fist cracking across the thing's face.

  His knuckles thudded against hard metal and pain jumped up his fingers, but the thing's head snapped to the side.

  Colt bolted for the other end of the room, boots scraping on the slick floor. He stopped by the bed and climbed up like the floor was lava, like the thing might grab his ankles.

  "Get away from me!" he yelled.

  The robot's voice cut in and out for a second, like the hit knocked something loose.

  "P.L.S. 265... what are you... doing."

  It turned its head back toward him. The light steadied.

  "Project Last Stand 265 malfunctioning," it said.

  Colt blinked. "Malfunc—" He shook his head hard. "Malfunc—who?"

  The thing kept staring.

  Colt's chest heaved. He swallowed and forced himself to slow down. It hadn’t rushed him, It was just standing there, head tilted, it seemed just as confused as Colt.

  "Who the hell are you?" Colt said.

  The robot turned its head a little, like it was lining up on him.

  "I am F.A.U.” it said.

  Colt frowned. "Yeah, and what is a F.A.U.?"

  "I am your Field Assistant Unit.” It said.

  "Field Assistant Unit?" Colt said again.

  He swallowed. Maybe this ain't as strange as it looks, he told himself. He'd worked fields before. Everybody had. You plant, you cut, you haul. You sweat till your shirt turns dark.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He stared at the metal man. "What do you do, then? You harvest crops or somethin'? What fields you assistin', exactly?"

  The thing pulled its head back a little, like it didn’t understand the question.

  It lifted one metal hand with one finger pointed out.

  The finger split open.

  A small plug slid out of it, the same shape as the one Colt plugged into his wrist.

  Colt jumped back so hard he slid the bed a few inches on the floor. "Get away."

  It stopped in place.

  Colt stared at his wrist. The flap of skin was still lifted a little, showing that clean metal hole. His mouth went dry.

  He looked from his wrist to the metal man, then held his arm out slow, like he was offering an apple to a half-broke horse.

  The metal man stepped in close. Its hand moved careful, and that plug-finger lined up with Colt's wrist.

  Colt tensed. Every part of him wanted to pull back, but he held still.

  The plug slid in.

  Colt's vision went black.

  He should have panicked. He should have fought. But instead a calm rolled through him, cool like dunking your head in cold water on a hot day.

  Numbers started flashing across the dark in front of his eyes. Long strings of them, too fast to follow.

  1010100011100011110111100111100

  A voice cut through it, flat and steady.

  "System check..."

  "Memory corrupted..."

  "Initializing reboot..."

  Colt felt a cool sensation spread through his chest and down his arms, then into his legs. It didn't hurt. It felt like something smoothing out inside him, like wrinkles being pressed flat.

  Then the black peeled away.

  He opened his eyes.

  The room was the same, but his head felt different. Lighter, like a knot had come loose.

  In the very top corner of his vision, words appeared one letter at a time.

  PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.0

  Colt blinked hard. The words stayed.

  He blinked again. Still there.

  His stomach tightened. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, but when he opened them the words hadn't moved. They sat in the corner of his sight like they'd been burned there.

  "That ain't—" He turned his head left. The words stayed. He turned right. They followed. "What the hell?"

  He didn’t know what else to ask. Not really.

  "Where am I?" he said.

  The metal man answered right away.

  "You are four thousand seven hundred thirty-six feet below the surface on Earth one-four-five."

  Colt stared at it.

  "That don't even make no sense," he said.

  He swung his legs off the bed and stood up. He grabbed his face with both hands and rubbed hard, like he could rub the words out of his eyes and the answer out of his ears.

  "Earth one-four-five," Colt said again, slower. "How did I get here."

  The metal man's head tilted a little.

  "Emergency transfer completed," it said. "Asset was disassembled and reconstructed at secured depth."

  Colt lowered his hands.

  "Disassembled," he said. The word sat in his mouth like something rotten.

  The metal man didn't flinch.

  "Your body was broken down into individual molecules." It said. "Transfer occurred through sub-space to the HUB."

  Colt stared at it.

  "Mole... cules," he said slow, tasting the word like it might be poison. "Sub... space."

  Those words didn’t land. Not in his head, not in his gut.

  This was different. This was somebody telling him he'd been turned into dust and put back together like nothing happened.

  Colt looked down at his hands. He turned them over. They looked the same. They felt the same. But if this thing was telling the truth, every part of him had been pulled apart and rebuilt somewhere else.

  He touched his chest, pressing his palm flat against his shirt. His heart was beating. He could feel it. But was it the same heart? Was any of this still him?

  His hands clenched. "So you tore me into pieces."

  "Confirmed."

  "And this..." Colt waved at the room. "This is the HUB?” Whatever the hell that meant.

  "Confirmed," F.A.U. said. "HUB is secured. HUB is below surface. HUB is primary return point."

  Colt looked down at his wrist. The flap of skin. The metal hole. He flexed his fingers like he was checking they still belonged to him.

  "You need to turn me into those damn mole-cules and put me back," Colt said. His voice shook with anger now. "My brother—Clay. He's bleedin' out right now. I need to go back."

  F.A.U.’s head tilted.

  "No need to worry," it said. "Time here does not exist the same as outside."

  Colt blinked. "What."

  "There is a one-thousand to one ratio."

  Colt's jaw tightened. "I don't care about no rations right now. I ain’t hungry.”

  F.A.U. didn’t react.

  Colt sat down on the bed hard enough to feel it in his back. He stared at the floor a second, breathing through his nose like his pa had taught him when he was about to do something stupid.

  Then he looked up again.

  "You send me back," Colt said, "or I'm gonna start disassemblin' your mole-cules. Okay?”

  He stood and started walking toward F.A.U.

  F.A.U. moved back slow.

  "P.L.S. 265. You can not—"

  Colt shoved it.

  The metal man wobbled, arms lifting a little to catch itself.

  Colt stepped in close. "Send me back."

  "Negative." F.A.U. said.

  Colt shoved it again.

  "Send me back now."

  F.A.U.’s feet slid a little, but it stayed upright.

  "Negative."

  Colt's hands curled into fists. He took another step, ready to hit it for real this time.

  And then his eyes flicked to that line in the corner of his vision.

  PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.0

  He hadn’t stopped seeing it since it came on.

  What is that there for, he thought.

  It flashed.

  A square dropped into his vision like a card slapped down in front of his face. It covered the room for half a second.

  Colt froze mid-step.