I'd actually say there's more tension, and more believability if he knows that they're coming for him, and that they're close, but he can't see them, only hear them in the dark. It also gives you time to explore his reaction to being in the real world, and to find a defensible spot. He can use wiles to set off the fight/damage them, making his use of it more believable than knocking one of them into another, and showing the intelligent, cunning side of him, which I'd presume is why the AI chose to kick him.
Short Hair
Depending on your POV, you could explain that the maintenance bots aren't used to moving targets. As long as the protagonist keeps moving, they aren't much of a threat.
Another possibility is to throw handfuls of goop from the cocoon on them, shorting circuits and whatnot, interfering with traction, gumming up the joints.
Yet another: climb out of the cocoon, pull a live wire loose, and poke it at a bot until something important fries.
Sometimes simplest is best: push them over. They can't right themselves without help, or it takes a long time.
Under World. It rocks!
I do not know the context, but machines have a lot less mobility and precision than us. If he keeps moving he could avoid them.
But if you want to make it harder for him, make him actually getting out of the complex (I'm assuming he's in one) the harder part. He could have bots after him while he tries to open a door/smash out a weak part of a wall. Maybe even while he tries to get out of an opening/door.
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
1. Here are some ideas. He could wake up before the bots arrive and then hide from them. This would allow yo to show us his pov and fear ow what has happened.
2. Scrap the idea of using bots. It isn't logical for a super computer to use bots anyway when there are more convenient methods it could use.
3. Or have the bots almost kill him. Fatally injure him and put him put of commission for awhile. This allows a secondary character to get a shot at the limelight. Then the protagonist could return later, with only half-healed injuries... ready to go the final round against the big bad.
4. Kill of the main character.
4a. Either end it like this and have the super computer win.
4b. Or have somebody else take up the torch and continue the story where the old main character left off.
Last November, when I was writing my Na No Wri Mo novel, I came to a point where the computer that rules the virtual world decides that the protagonist is so much a threat that he has to be not only disconnected from the virtual world, but it attempts to kill him in the real world.*
So the character sits up in his interface pod and finds three or four maintenance bots parked right next to him, pointing drills and other murderous-looking tools at him. He's soaking wet, wearing basically swim trunks, cornered, and caught completely by surprise. He's spent hardly any time in the real world, and he's slightly weaker than a normal human because all his strength comes from grey goo nanites exercising him while he's plugged in, which he had to ask for.
As it stands right now, he grabs one bot's manipulator arm to push it aside, the arm swings and damages the bot next to it. The drones go wild and start destroying each other out of mechanical failure, allowing the hero to escape.
It was incredibly far fetched even before I wrote it, but I had no other ideas and still don't. I suppose it's not entirely necessary to have the worker drones on him as soon as he gets unplugged, but it makes for tension and demonstrates the threat immediately.
Alternatives?
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