Over there turns out to be a door beside the base of the stairs leading up and out of the room...and a door through which clomps the giant robot from earlier. It waves its head around, as if surveying the scene, then starts slowly marching down on of the two main aisles. It doesn't seem like it noticed Margaret. Unlike before, when it seemed like it could move pretty fast if it wished, it's in no hurry now.

At least something around here is doing alright. Time to get out of this aisle and ideally into a corridor too narrow for Big & Stompy to wander down. Once the path is clear and she definitely isn't going to get run over she can head for the stairs.

It takes a long few minutes waiting, but she can move to keep the large equipment between her and the robot. Finally, it's moved clear enough she has a clear shot to the stairs.

Upward!

. . . and back downward to shut off the leaky steampipe threatening to scald anyone using the stairs.

Upward again!

The valve handle for the steam pipe breaks off in her hands as she carefully turns the valve closed the last bit, and the flashlight head of the robot sweeps over her direction at the noise.

Argh why is everything here falling-apart garbage and what does that imply about her body don't think about that.

Once she's confident she's somewhere she can't get run over she tries calling out "Can you hear me?" just in case Big Stompy has been able to talk this whole time. (It doesn't seem very likely. But. She's been wrong before.)

The monster doesn't seem to make anything that sounds like words, it just starts clanking in her direction, as if moving to cut her off from the stairs.

She chucks the broken-off valve handle the other way as a distraction and makes a mad dash for the stairs; by the time she realizes that was a stupid thing to do without knowing her body's top speed she's already committed.

The door in the ceiling slides open as she pulls the control handle for it, the monster clocking around someplace behind her--she's not sure if it's following her, or her attempt at a distraction, or its own agenda. She scrambles up the stairs, nearly ladder-steep, and pulls a matching handle at the top that sends the door sliding shut at her feet. She finds herself in some kind of landing--the stairs go up another level above her, but both doors on this level seem to have been locked out. Coming up stairs, lights flicker on and she finds herself in some kind of control station. On the wall, there's a map of the facility, above an area where it looks like at least one person has made a nest of pillows, a blanket, and a sketchbook:

http://tirsden.com/soma/upsilon-a_map_big.jpg

The access up to the communications tower is via another ladder, but this one's handle is resolutely unwilling to move, apparently locked out somehow. Through the open window frames in (apparently) Robot Assembly B, there's light and motion as a set of robotic arms come to life spasmodically. 

Margaret goes into Robot Assembly B and looks over the robot arms. Are these ones displaying any agency?

(She's not going to kill anyone else. She is not going to kill anyone else.)

The arms don't seem to be displaying any agency. On the other hand..."Amy, is that you?" a computerized voice calls from someplace down on the assembly line. "What happened to the pilot seat?" Some kind of robot is caught under material collapsed from the wall onto the assembly line.

Oh wow coherent language please don't die.

"I'm not Amy--can you understand me?"

The robot looks up at her, "What the hell happened to you? What's wrong with your...everything. You go diving in sewers or something?"

"I . . . actually I kind of don't know? I was like this when I got here--I mean, I got downloaded into this body and I don't know why. Listen, what's happened to this place? Where is everyone, why are there creepy cables everywhere, what's going on?" This all comes out in an increasingly hysterical rush.

"You're at Pathos-II, Upsilon. Don't you know who I am? I don't quite know what happened, I just woke up here after using the pilot seat over in the Tech Depot. The stuff almost looks like structure gel but...listen, can you give a guy a hand? It's not like I'm stuck down on the floor here or nothing." 

The robot is half-covered by a bundle of tentacables leading into a burst-open access panel in the wall, and it's held down by an "auxiliary power" cable as big around as Margaret's leg. Well, her old leg. She checks. About as big as this body's leg, too.

"So, you want me to pick up that cable on top of you and move it off of you, is that what you're asking?" This is probably a stupid question and she probably sounds like an absolute moron, but the LAST time she separated someone from the cable they were touching they DIED INSTANTLY so she wants to make absolutely 100% sure she is doing something correct and non-injurious and consensual.

"If you can't figure out how to help me out, I'm not sure I want you to move anything," the robot gestures with a claw-arm. "I'm obviously hurt, I'm not sure what's wrong with me, really. Look, if you see one of the other Wranglers around, tell them where I am, and get them to help. There's a lot of equipment and robots around here, and I think I'm stable for the moment. Don't need you getting hurt, too. Looks bad in the reports. Who are you, anyway?"

"Yeah, you look stable and I don't know anything about robot repair." She knew stuff in 2015, but you wouldn't ask the engineer of a nineteenth century steam train to help set up a new Linux install so you shouldn't ask her to do this. Even without the cable on top of him he looks awfully smashed up. "I'll try to get you help, but it might be a while--I'm not sure there's anyone left in Upsilon but the two of us." Because she murdered everyone else.

"We're alone here? What the hell happened? Who are you?...Look, I do know robot repair, but I'm no doctor. Can you get in touch with Lambda or Theta, see if they can send us one?"

"My name's Margaret Peregrine and I don't know how I got here, I woke up alone less than a day ago. There's someone in Theta but I need to get up the communications tower to talk to her. . . .  When you say you're not a doctor do you mean you know how to repair robots but not the kind you are?" Oh no, maybe "robot" is offensive and she ought to be calling him an upload or a droid or something.

"...What robot? I'm a human, like you. Look at my arms...," the robot waves its one claw again, then shakes its camera platform back and forth. "Look, you're new, you said? You got lucky on that, I didn't realize we got anyone new before...well. Just...call your orientation coordinator at Theta. Tell them Carl Semken's injured at Upsilon, and he needs them to send a doctor by the shuttle tubes, okay? They'll know better what to do."

Yes okay he's definitely human but he has . . . a robot . . . body? Whatever. She's not going to catch up on eighty years of good manners by interrogating a guy with a smashed chassis and his hydraulics sticking out all over the place, even if he can't feel pain that's got to be an absolute nightmare.

"Okay Carl. I'll get to Theta and I'll get you help as soon as I can." Margaret strides off in search of a way up the tower. She needs to override that locked stairway door, or find another way up that isn't locked.

Looking around, the first thing that strikes Margaret is the control console spread across the control station. A sticky note stuck to the terminal says, "Lockdown Procedure initiated, check terminal for details." Unfortunately, unlike the one in the thermal plant, this one wants a user access ID before letting her in--it displays a login screen that says, "Swipe card." The back wall behind the terminal is the locked door to the workshop and a giant mass of the black structure gel components bursting from the corner where the wall meets the ceiling. One of the bulb-shaped features sits among the other material, but for the moment Margaret doesn't feel drawn to it.

Carl might know where to get a card, but she doesn't even know if having one would help her get to the tower. Is there anything potentially useful in the workshop on the right?

There's one of the gel-encrusted robots slouched on the floor of the workshop as she walks in, wired into a wall hookup that says WAU. The assembly vibrates slowly, but with no sign of intelligence behind it.