intention light doesn’t glow red or blue or green; it is dark. The mailbot’s sticky tires are clinging to the carpet as the device shoves me forward, toward the open mouth of the elevator.
I climb to my knees and pull on the front of the mailbot in a failed attempt to stand. The single black camera eye on the front face of the mailbot watches me struggle.
My knees slide across the carpet as I push against the machine, leaving twin ruffled streaks on the thin nap. My sandals have fallen off. The mailbot has too much mass and there is nothing to grab hold of on its smooth plastic face. I whimper for help, but the hallway is dead quiet. The lamps only watch me. The doors. The walls. They have nothing to say. Complicit.
My foot crosses the threshold of the elevator. In a panic, I reach on top of the mailbot and knock off the flimsy plastic boxes that hold letters and small packages. Papers flutter onto the carpet and into the drying pools of blood in the elevator. Now I am able to flip open the service panel on the front frame of the machine. Blindly, I stab at a button. The rolling box keeps ramming me into the elevator. With my arm bent at a cockeyed angle, I hold down the button with all my failing strength.
I beg the mailbot to stop this. It has always been a good worker. What madness has infected it?
Finally, the machine stops pushing. It is rebooting. This activity will last perhaps ten seconds. The mailbot is blocking the elevator door. I climb awkwardly on top of it. Embedded in its broad, flat back is a cheap blue LCD screen. Hex code flickers by as the delivery machine steps through its loading instructions.
Something is wrong with my friend. The mind of this robot is clouded. I know that the mailbot does not wish to harm me, just as Mikiko did not wish to harm me. It is simply under a bad spell, an outside influence. I will see what I can do about that.
Holding down a certain button during the reboot initiates a diagnostic mode. Scanning the hex code with one finger, I read what is happening in the mind of my gentle friend. Then, with a couple of button presses, I send the boxy machine into an alternate boot mode.
A safe mode.
Lying on my belly on top of the machine, I cautiously peek over the front edge. The intention light blossoms into a soft green glow. That is very good, but there isn’t much time. I slide off the back of the mailbot, slip my sandals back on, and gesture at the bot.
“Follow me, Yubin-kun,” I whisper.
After an unnerving second, the machine complies. It whirs along as I scamper back down the hallway to my room. I must return to where Mikiko waits, slumbering. Behind me, the elevator doors slam shut. Do I sense anger in them?
Speakers chime at us as we creep down the hall.
“Attention,” says a pleasant female voice. “There is an emergency. All occupants are pleased to evacuate the building immediately.”
I pat my new friend on its back and hold the door as we continue into my room. This announcement certainly cannot be trusted. Now I understand. The minds of the machines have chosen evil. They have set their wills against me. Against all of us.
Mikiko lies on her back, heavy and unresponsive. In the hallway, sirens chirp and lights flash. Everything here is ready. My tool belt is snapped on. A small jug of water hangs from my side. I even remember to put on my warm hat, the flaps pulled snugly over my ears.
But I cannot bring myself to wake my darling—to bring her online.
Now the main building lights are on at top illumination and that pleasant voice is repeating again and again: “All occupants are pleased to evacuate the building immediately.”
But, my soul help me, I am stuck. I can’t leave Kiko behind, but she is too heavy to carry. She will have to walk on her own. But I am terrified of what will happen if she comes online. The evil that has corrupted the mind of my building could spread. I could not bear to see it cloud her dark eyes again. I will not leave her, yet I cannot stay. I need help.
Decision made, I close her eyes with my palm.
“Please come here, Yubin-kun,” I whisper to the mail-delivering robot. “We cannot allow the bad ones to speak with you, as they did Mikiko.” The intention light flickers on the blocky beige machine. “Hold very still now.”
And with a swift swing of my hammer, I smash the infrared port that is used to update the diagnostics of the machine. Now, there is no way to alter the instructions of the mailbot from afar.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I ask the machine. Then I glance over to where Mikiko lies, eyes closed. “Yubin-kun, my new friend, I hope you are feeling strong today.”
With a grunt, I lift Mikiko off the workbench and set her on top of the mailbot. Built to carry heavy packages, the solid machine is completely unaffected by the added weight. It simply trains its single camera eye on me, following as I open the door to the hallway.
Outside, I see a shaky line of elderly residents. One by one, the door at the end of the hallway opens and another resident steps into the stairwell. My neighbors are very patient people. Very polite.
But the soul of this building has gone mad.
“Stop, stop,” I mumble to them. They ignore me, as usual. Politely avoiding eye contact, they keep stepping through the door, one after another.
With my loyal Yubin-kun following close, I reach the stairwell door just before the last woman can step through. An intention light over the doorway flashes yellow at me crossly.
“Mr. Nomura,” says the building in a gentle female voice, “please wait your turn, sir. Mrs. Kami is presently pleased to go through the door.”
“Don’t go,” I mutter to the elderly woman in her bathrobe. I cannot make eye contact. Instead, I lightly grasp her elbow.
With a glare, the shriveled old woman tears her elbow from my hand and shoves past me, stepping through the doorway. Just before the door snaps shut behind her, I wedge my foot into the opening and get a glimpse of what is inside.
It is a bad dream.
In a confusion of inky blackness and flashing strobes, dozens of my elderly neighbors crush each other in falling heaps down the concrete stairs. Showers of emergency water rain down from the sprinkler heads, turning the stairs into slick, cascading waterfalls. The fire exhaust vent is on full strength, sucking frigid air up from the bottom of the shaft to the top. Moans and cries are drowned by the shrieking turbines. The mass of writhing arms and legs seems to combine in my vision until it is a single, massively suffering creature.
I pull my foot back and the door slams shut.
We are all trapped. It is only a matter of time before the domestic humanoid robots ascend to this level. When they arrive, I will be unable to defend myself or Mikiko.
“This is a very bad, bad, bad thing, Mr. Nomura,” I whisper to myself.
Yubin-kun blinks a yellow intention light at me. My friend is wary, as he should be. He senses that things are wrong.
“Mr. Nomura,” says the voice overhead, “if you are not pleased to utilize the stairwell, we will send a helper to assist. Stay where you are. Help is on the way.”
As the elevator rises, the red dot begins its slow crawl up from the ground floor.
Twenty-two seconds.
I turn to Yubin-kun. Mikiko lies sprawled on top of the beige box, her black hair splayed out. I look down into her gently smiling face. She is so beautiful and pure. In her slumber, she dreams of me. She waits for me to break this evil spell and wake her. Someday, she will arise and become my queen.
If only I had more time.
The dry, menacing click of the elevator gauge breaks my reverie. I am a helpless old man and I am out of ideas. I take Mikiko’s limp hand in mine and turn to face the elevator doors.
“I am so sorry, Mikiko,” I whisper. “I tried, my darling. But now there is nowhere else—
