The humans were doing something. Troby had surmised that they had some means of detecting him, as they had suddenly scrambled about even more fervently than before. Perhaps... if they had some type of computerized equipment, he might be able to interface with it using his scanning pack. Quickly he detached it from his back and the accessory port that Snakebite had built for him.

The triangular object, freed from his body, tumbled to the ground. His graspers quickly pried it open, using the gaps from the port slots to gain access. Delicately he rerouted several wires, and then exposed an infrared panel. His diode flashed a dim red, winking in and out as he worked the irritating machine. After about 30 seconds, Troby had finally made headway. The pings that the pack used to measure distance was now reworked to transmit basic alphabetical codes to most known computers back on PazD. He only hoped that it would be translated by whatever computer the two were using.

If Troby were human, he'd have taken a deep breath. Instead, he hesitated only slightly before transmitting the command to begin transmitting. For a few moments, nothing happened. But then -

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN - kzchkt. The scanning pack screeched, popped, and fizzled. Troby stared at his malfunctioning equipment, dumbfounded. He had to think quickly, now.

As the circuits melted and fused, Troby lamented with nary a movement. Finding other living creatures would only be more difficult now. Giving what might be interpreted as a robotic snort of disgust, he beeped in anger at the defunct equipment, wondering if the planet's derelict networking systems or atmosphere had something to with the malfunction or if the scanning pack itself had been glitchy to begin with.

He turned his attention back to the situation at hand. Two delicate humans, unwittingly hostile. A ruined shack of a building surrounded in dangerous, flammable chemicals. Unknown quantities of even more chemicals within. Perhaps it would be best to rush in, take them with swiftness before they could injure themselves. Or his casing.

Or maybe not, Troby reasoned. After all, they would doubtless be frightened, perhaps into shock, if he barreled headlong towards them. Then again, these defenses were proving a difficult problem.

As he mused he sidled backwards. Then - inspiration struck him. Ideas were an odd thing for Automated Sentience to handle. Most of the time robots operated on patterns of deductive reasoning - narrowing down options. Yet after some time of evolution, some developed leaps of intelligence that defied logic. These sets of stats and facts lurked in the back of Troby's "mind" as he further contemplated his idea. The fact that data unrelated to his current process was further testament to how far his sentience had progressed came to his attention and was similarly filed to the back of his consciousness.

All this happened in seconds. Spurred to action, he picked up the scanning pack. Raising it above his head with both graspers, he executed a quasi-roll and dove to the dirt, somersaulting. The newfound projectile hurtled from its makeshift catapult into the shop, not five feet from the younger being's head.

And then - his action completed - Troby allowed himself a moment to recollect the wondrous concept of his own inner workings, safely hidden behind the fortress of the burnt-out Jeep.

Alex inched towards the device, flinching every time it sparked or crackled. It looked harmless enough, at least to him. Quickly, he nudged at it with his foot, pulling back immediately to check its reaction to the sudden movement.

"I... don't think this is a weapon!" Alex called back, scooting in closer and kneeling to observe the device up close. It looked broken, and continued to fizz helplessly on the floor. He rolled up his sleeve and prodded it with a finger, rolling it onto its side to inspect it further, noticing the snapped wires and melted casing. "It looks like it threw a bot part at us..."

'Note to self; never trust Alex with machinery ever again.'

Clouds of gas were blown throughout everything, the air was getting even harder to breathe and her vision blurred. If that gas was flammable... Using Molotov's or detonating her firewall would kill both her and Alex. She pointed her gun at where the robot had been, but saw nothing but a blurred shadow in the makeshift mist; a shade that approached quickly. She shot at whatever it was, but a gun's bullets could not force something as heavy as the robot back so easily. It landed on her like a predator, trying to pin her down. Why hadn't it just shot at her? Not that it mattered, the robot had crashed into her right shoulder, but Even managed to hollow her back and shove her firearm to her left arm. She picked it up and held it against the robot's armour, to where she expected its core to be; the head. If it could make smokescreens it could most definitely use projectile weapons; why hadn't it?

(( WOW it has been a while Let's see if I can still do this. ))

Oh shit. That wasn't good.

Alex dropped the piece of discarded metal to the ground, scanning the store frantically for some form of weapon. Anything, anything!

The bot was already changing strategies, it looked like - it was moving again, but to do what, he wasn't sure. He'd never actually had to go up against one. It was always just fleeing or hiding. This one wasn't even that big and it was close to kicking their asses!
 
One of those stands; the kind they hung crappy license plates with the bad sexual jokes. He scrambled to pull them off to turn the stand into a makeshift weapon, praying to whatever entity was watching that he could somehow be quick enough. He botched this up so far, there was no way he'd let himself do it again.

It was a miracle. His little strategy had taken the older human off-guard. Now was his chance to prevent her from hurting herself or the other human. Burying his lower graspers in the ground near her abdomen, he clamped his upper graspers over her arms, his body anchored firmly above her, pinning her to the ground. Troby, for once, found himself thanking his diminutive size, as if he were any bigger, the human would have been able to wriggle free of his upper graspers. Now, with this human contained, his attention targeted the other.

Where was the other one?

Worse, how was he going to stop it from destroying him?