JLN-5 - Chapter 3 - Fight or flight

The initial explosion was followed by a dozen more. JLN-5 had no idea where to seek shelter, this community he had inhabited hadn’t ever any evacuation zones or anything, at least as far as a gentle bot knew.
“Follow.” the cleaning bot desperately tried to convince JLN-5 to follow it. Yet the gentle bot was too human in his reactions. Fear. Fear is what JLN-5 felt, beyond all logic, a desperation to preserve one’s existence and profound inability to react in an adequate manner. The explosions were getting quieter away, either the gentle bot was running in the right directions or the bombardment was coming to an end.
“Damn it,” JLN-5 thought, “I am not created for this.”
The next thought in the gentle bot’s mind was to simply stop running, to let go, a shameful thought. Shame. Shame was another unfamiliar emotion. JLN-5 started to get... tired. The bouquet of new experiences was overwhelming, he stopped for a moment. There weren’t any explosions, the alarm had settled down. The two bots were standing in a field. The grass was green and neatly mowed, a small current was lazily making its way through the terrain. A couple of trees were scattered around, birds were chirping and flying. JLN-5 relaxed. The whole ambience was blissful, almost artificially. JLN-5 picked a strand of grass, it felt light and ephemeral - no doubt that was Re-Grass 7000, the grass that’s better than any grass.
“What is this place...” JLN-5 mumbled. One of the smaller birds seemingly heard him and flew straight at the two bots.
“Welcome to Botheaven!” the little bird exclaimed with a deep voice, “Enjoy in the bliss of being eternal.”
Not a couple of seconds passed and the same alarm blared. In an instant the whole meadow disappeared, every strand of grass, every tree, bird, bee, bug, leaving gray barren land. This time JLN-5 saw them, tiny dots flying at tremendous speed far above him and cleanbot. The explosions followed soon after, each coming closer and closer. Without much thinking JLN-5 grabbed his companion and rushed across the barren land. That time he could run faster, ignoring any internal warnings for hardware tear, overheating, or anything of that sort. The explosions didn’t follow.
Some running afterwards the two bots found themselves in a different environment. That one was all concrete and metal, and teeming with life, artificial life. Tiny bots of all shapes were crawling everywhere like bugs, blinking in vibrant neon lights. None of those paid any attention to the either newcomers, even as JLN-5 was making his way through the ground, littered with hundreds of them. The gentle bot stopped and observed. There was a clear pattern in the bugbots movement, generally they were traversing in two directions, bots emanating cooler colors were going in one direction, the ones radiating warmer - the other.
JLN-5 gently picked up one blinking in blue. The bot reacted violently, as much as it could, changing its light to fast blinking red and started whistling in a manner most uncomfortable for JLN-5’s auditory receptors. All the tiny bots around the gentle bot followed suite, turning red, leading a cascade which swept through all the bots. They started to crawl on JLN-5, covering him, drowning him. The alarm sounded again and the bots scattered. bombings soon followed. JLN-5 ran once again. The next environment was empty, bone dry empty, a desert that displayed no signs of life. The temperature was the crispy 51 degrees centigrade. That immense heat was tolerable to the two bots, but not very comfortable, the high levels of ionizing radiation definitely were not. JLN-5’s consciousness was filled with a plethora of alarms about the high levels of radiation
The two bots never stopped, they continued their journey, only glancing at the barren landscape, covered by glass like formations. The scenery slowly melted into a classic sand desert, radiation levels declined but remained higher than they should be. Slowly, vegetation started appearing in the form of patches of low grass, sparse and harsh. The air got heavier, a distinct smell sneaked into JLN-5’s olfactory sensors - the smell of a sea. The sea was more than a 100km away from the home they fled, yet here they were - two bots facing the endless horizon of a vast sea, well, ocean, more like it. The sun was setting right behind them, there was nowhere to run. If the bombers decided to pay a visit to that place, JLN-5 and Cleanbot would be toast. The two bots just stood and experienced the sunset, the smell of the water, the sound of the waves, the gentle touch of water splashing on their bodies.
An hour passed, everything got darker until blackness overtook. Even the other senses dulled. JLN-5 thought it was a fitting end to his story, to linger at the edge of the land he used to call home. Cleanbot had powered down, JLN-5 remembered he ran on solar power and without light he had just a couple of minutes reserves.
Alone.
JLN-5 was alone. He contemplated and all that had occurred, his awakening, the glimpses of this new world and that mysterious force that was hellbent on wiping out his kind. Could there be human survivors? Or a competing AI nation that opposed him? He could not remember, he could not comprehend. That was the price of being truly alive, to give up all the knowledge and experience existence. It seemed so logical back when he decided to do it. Now, now JLN-5 was alone. He hated that generic name, hated when his former owner called him by it. He hated when his mind was part of the singularity and he was filed under that name. Hatred was a powerful emotion. The bot almost liked it, how it gave him focus.
“I am Jason!” the bot shouted at the sea. He got no response, yet he felt even more alive. Jason was satisfied. He sat at the shore, the waves splashing him gently, he set an internal alarm to be reactivated at sunrise and he powered down.