"It's all economics, Johnson," said Ramos, his large, portly body wedged behind his mammoth desk.

"Please, try to understand. This is progress! It's nothing personal,"

"Mr. Ramos," said Johnson. "I've been working for this company for damn close to ten years and now, just like that, you're sweeping me under the rug? Whatever happened to employer devotion? Whatever happened to job security?"

Ramos's eyes lingered in their corners, seeming to purposely avoid Johnson's intense, steamy glare. "It's like I said, we just have to keep up with the times. I mean we have to be cost effective! Look at it from our standpoint. To keep you on full time as our night watchman would cost us roughly three hundred dollars a week...when compared to the perks of the EXRSS-5 surely you can see that the monetary savings are quite sufficient!"

"But it's a damn machine for Christ's sake!" groused Johnson, hotly, a steady pulsing rhythm throbbing in his throat.

Ramos ran a flustered hand through his gray, receding hair.

"Yes, true-it is a machine," said Ramos, clenching his composure behind tightly gated teeth, "But it is a very efficient and high tech machine. The money we plunk down now will be doubled, maybe even tripled in our overall savings in the long run."

"Bull!" scoffed Johnson.

Ramos ran a thick finger through his collar, feeling the damp hot flesh underneath and said, "Please, Mr. Johnson, don't make this any more difficult for me," he gasped a large swallow of air and his chest expanded like a balloon. "I don't like doing this!"

Johnson shot out of his chair abruptly. His thick eyebrows hooded low over his stark black eyes of stone. His bony hands dangling at the ends of his spindly arms like grappling hooks. He was an unusually tall, though lanky man with sharp features chiseled harshly into a gaunt face.

"Why don't you show me this modern marvel of yours! I'd like to see exactly what you're replacing me with!"

"Very well then, Mr. Johnson," said Ramos. He rose with all the vigor of oozing lava from behind his desk and gestured an open hand toward the door. Johnson stalked over to it, wrenching it open and striding out, his thin arm cutting swiftly back and forth like fierce pendulums. Ramos shuffled behind, grasped the knob of the door and drew it gingerly shut behind him. Then he turned and slumbered down to the security room.

There was a man in the room with a blue, full length uniform that had the words "Techno Robotics Inc." emblazoned on his back in large, limned yellow lettering. He was balancing on his haunches, his hands draping over the sides of his upper legs, looking at a myriad of strewn parts and circuit boards spread out across the floor.

Ramos and Johnson walked in, carefully sidestepping the assortment of parts. Ramos looked down at the man with a slight disconcertion, his eyes shifting back and forth like a wind up toy. Johnson looked at him, his expression gloating as if to say aha! the damn thing's broken down already!

"Excuse me," said Ramos, a nervous flutter evident in his voice. "But does there seem to be a problem here?"

The Techno man looked up and smiled. He sprung up quickly on his hinged legs like a giant frog and thrust out his hand to shake Ramos's

"I'm Bill Parker," he said firmly pumping Ramos's hand. "I'm just here to do a little PM, preventive maintenance, that is. Nothing to fret about. She'll be back up and running like a clock in a minute."

Ramos seemed relieved by this news, his nervous, burnt orange complexion seeping back to his normal coppertone. He nodded and said, "What else do you have to do?" his bewildered eyes flashing back to the scattered parts and components on the floor.

"Just have to replace a circuit board, then you're all set."

Parker bent down and shuffled through a box of boards, until he found the one that matched this particular model. The EXRSS-5 stood to one side of him, inert in an awkward, metallic slouch. It was a homely looking thing. It looked like a giant soup can mounted on jointed, wiry legs that looked like a metallic tarantula. It had an oscillating light on top that served as its eyes and extendible, rod-like metal arms that were forked at the end with three jointed tines that were capable of grasping, holding or pushing most things required of it. It had a speaker mounted on its belly that it could talk through. It didn't have a very extended vocabulary, but it could say certain key phrases like: "Intruder, Halt, Unauthorized Personnel in the area" and etcetera.

There were bundles of color coated wires running up and down the things arms, like exposed veins. This was probably done purposely to make it easier for the machine to move, unencumbered by excess metal. It was also outfitted with a formidable looking firearm mounted on its left shoulder and a tranquilizer dart gun fitted onto the right shoulder. The metallic marvel seemed prepared for just about any eventuality.

Finally Parker found the board. He crouched down again, swinging the belly of the machine open. He slid the board into its circuited spinal column and suddenly there was a loud SNAP. Streamers of orange sparks spit into the air, followed by a low, crackling hiss. A small, gray plume of smoke funneled out of the machine and shrunk into a tendril that smelled of singed plastic.

"Shit!" groused Parker, groused Parker, under his breath.

"What's wrong!" yelped Ramos.

"Nothing! just a bad board. But don't worry, I've got another."

Parker went back to the box, and with a mental bookmark of where he'd found the first board he quickly produced another. He went back to the machine, withdrew the bad board-still slightly charred and hot, jiggling it loose with his deft fingers, and replaced it with the new board. It seated well with the connectors, but he was still wary as to whether the machine would operate properly after the short out.

"Is it going to be okay?" asked Ramos, worriedly.

"One way to find out," said Parker and picked up the remote command control. He thumbed a button and the sleeping contraption yawned up on its thin, stilted feet with a high pitched whir.

The remote commander that Parker held was switched from AUTO to MANUAL. He ran a diagnostic test and the machine seemed to be checking out just fine. Then he proceeded to a few manipulative tests. The remote commander had a directional pad on it. When he depressed the pad on the downward arrow the machine ground forward, jointing its awkward, mechanical limbs through the agonizing whir of the motor that drove them. It crept slowly forward, like a giant metal spider approaching its prey.

Parker studied the harsh, difficult movements, then depressed the up arrow and the machine retreated backward. A push on the left and right arrows and it hobbled a grotesque side-stepping gait. Then he set the pad back to center, and the machine stood idle, awaiting further instructions after the finale of its clumsy square dance.

"Movements seem okay."

Ramos nodded appeased, fingering the stubble on his double chin.

"Let's test the visuals," said Parker, punching more buttons. Then he went to a monitor situated next the the machine and snapped it on.

Johnson stood in the corner, watching with disgust at the show that was being built around this graceless heap. It looked like a fucking walking lunar lander to him. This was what was taking over his job?

"Here, gentlemen," said Parker, motioning for them to come over to the monitor. "For test purposes the EXRSS-5 is directly linked to this monitor. From this we can see everything the robot sees. It is directly integrated into the camera surveillance system. All three floors are remotely accessible by the unit."

Parker thumbed more buttons and a montage of images flipped through the monitor in a slide show. All rooms were accessible through the EXRSS-5.

"You mean it can monitor all the rooms itself?" asked Ramos.

"That's right, and it has its own independent visuals as well. So that it can see where it is at the moment in addition to continuous surveillance of the whole building, something a night watchman could never do."

Johnson grunted in offense, but neither Ramos nor Parker took notice.

"In addition to that," said Parker with an enthusiasm that was making Johnson sick to his stomach. "The EXRSS-5 can control many of the other electronic nightly functions such as phones, lights, and automatic locking of all the automated doors."

"Amazing! awed Ramos.

"Big fuckin' deal," muttered Johnson under savage breath.

"Tell me," said Ramos. "Suppose it were to come into contact with an intruder?"

Parker smiled, relishing the opportunity to answer. "Well, it would first have to identify the person or persons as intruders. It does this by way of a small commander that sends a beam pulse signal to its infrared sensor. I believe you have a commander unit, don't you, Mr. Ramos?"

Ramos thought for a moment, then remembered the little doohickey that he had been given.

"Oh, yes," he said, recalling. "That little black gizmo they gave me. I was wondering what that does."

"That little gizmo is very important. Each commander is unique. Each one has its own unique signal pulse "signature" that tells the EXRSS-5 exactly who they are. The unit has a built in database consisting of all employed personnel of the office. It has a visual record that it cross checks with your signal pulse. In other words you can't get by on just looks alone. Your signal pulse "signature" must match that of the pulse recorded in the unit's database."

Ramos had a little trouble clearing the technical hurdles, but got the relative gist of what Parker was saying.

Johnson regretted ever coming down to see this ridiculous bucket of bolts, but he wanted to wait until they were done babbling to give them his real opinion of what their EXRSS-5 was good for. But for now he resigned himself to just sit acquiescently in the corner and absorb, like a sponge.

"But what if someone stole my commander? Could they, not being me, get by the machine?"

"No," said Parker with certainty in his voice. "As I said, the unit would do a visual cross check. If the visuals didn't match it would not let you through. So it's very important that you always carry the commander. We are going to furnish the entire office with a duplicate set of commanders, just in case something happens to your original."

"But what if your original breaks while you're here?" said Johnson, piping up behind them. "Then what?"

Parker turned slowly toward the crass and intrusive voice that bloomed unexpectantly to life from the corner of the room, a slightly indignant flare crossing over Parker's face.

"In that case the unit would simply keep you in custody until the police arrived. Then you would be able to validate your claim with them."

"Sounds like a hell of a lot of hassle to go through just because that little clicker didn't work," said Johnson.

"Maybe," said Parker, almost pontificating. "But that's the price you pay for complete protection." He paused, swiveled his head toward Ramos who was smiling his permapressed PR smile. "And you do want complete protection, don't you, Mr. Ramos?"

"Oh yes yes yes," said Ramos, flailing his beefy hands about emphatically.

Thoughtful silence for a moment , then: "But suppose it was a real intruder. No visual match of any kind. The machine doesn't know the person from man of war, so to speak. How would it react then?"

"In that case the unit has three defense levels that it employs consecutively. If the unit suspects an intruder it automatically defaults to defense level one which is the basic restrain and hold in custody mode; a relatively harmless mode where the unit simply contains the threat and phones the police. The rest is dumped into the lap of the law."

Ramos nodded with interest and said, "What about level two?"

"In level two the intruder must have demonstrated resistance, or a refusal to cooperate with the restraining procedure. In this case the unit assumes that the intruder is of a threatening nature and jumps to level two which attempts to restrain the intruder by subduing him...or her with a tranquilizer shot from the apparatus mounted on the shoulder...here," and he indicated the position with a pointing of his finger. "Once the person has been incapacitated the unit then defaults back to level one and goes through the standard level 2one procedure that I have dictated."2

"And level three?" asked Ramos, morbid curiosity surging through him.

"Level three is, of course, the highest state of alert for the unit. This is used whenever mortal danger comes into play, such as a hostage situation. If any other life form is in jeopardy, the unit has been programmed to seek out and eradicate the cause of the threat. That means killing if necessary. The unit will give the threatening person or persons a grace period of ten seconds to surrender itself before it opens fire. If the individual chooses to surrender the unit will then drop back to its level one state of readiness and proceed accordingly."

"How can you be so sure!" squawked Johnson detestingly. "I mean what's to prevent the confounded thing from getting a wire or two crossed and doing as it damn well pleases. It doesn't have a conscience! It can't discriminate between right and wrong. For God's sake it only knows what it's told-what it's programmed to do!"

Parker exchanged him a leer.

"It's been tested countless times and has always performed correctly to the prescribed conditions. I assure you there is no danger. It has a remote diagnostic system that is beamed to our master computer at the Techno Robotics Institute. It is constantly being monitored for any malfunctions, no matter how slight. So I assure you that your fears are ill founded!"

Condescending little asshole, thought Johnson bitterly. You just don't get it, do you?

"Well, I for one wouldn't trust it!" said Johnson, fervently.

Ramos looked at him scathingly, his bronze complexion rusting to a heated red blush.

"You don't have to," said Ramos, mordantly.

Ramos turned back to Parker, reflecting apologetic eyes for what Johnson had said. He shook the man's hand and told him it was pleasant doing business with him. Then they all gathered themselves together and left the security room, flicking off the lights as they departed.

And the EXRSS-5 stood ominously in the thick, black silence.

The three of them walked down the dim, narrow hallway together, rounding the corner to the front door. At the turn there was a large, full length mirror that sometimes took Ramos by surprise. Looking up quickly he could almost be fooled into thinking the figure that stood before you was another person, then suddenly the thought would gain on him and he'd realize it was his own familiar reflection.

There were moments when he was alone in the building, his mind knotted with tight little pulsing thoughts and his eyes would snag on the bright flash of mirror and his heart would stutter a beat, thinking that it was someone else, only to realize the truth with an almost comic revelation.

Ramos brought up the end of the line and paused in the mirror for a moment, lingering over his own image. He looked slightly heavier than he had always thought he was. Mirrors and pictures were never kind to him, the sharp, stabbing shadows and iridescent light had a way of falling over his hard granet face with an unforgiving harshness. He took both hands and smoothed down the slick filmy gel he kept in his graying layer of receding hair. Johnson and Parker were up by the automated front doors now and he felt a creeping desire not to be left alone here in the naked halls of the big building. Solitude always bothered him, especially in large, dark places. He hastened toward the door to join the others, his thick legs chaffing together with the quick rubbing whisper of his pant legs.

"Hold up!" he called, a trifle paranoia in his husky voice.

Parker and Johnson turned toward him, unlikely partners in themselves. A thick wall of silence had been drawn between them by their starkly different opinions of the subject concerned.

Ramos jogged up to them, heaving and panting like a steam engine, his thick rolls of fat jouncing under his suit and drooping pendulously over the rim of his waist as he came to a stop.

"I'm not as young as you fellows," said Ramos, tucking in his shirt that had come loose and was wagging outside his pants like a bib. "The old locomotive's caboose is a little bigger than it used to be." He chuckled and they exchanged token laughs that died quickly into a burdensome silence.

Parker darted a thin eyebrow up and said, "Oh, by the way. There is one little modification we should attend to in the unit's visual sensory input. Nothing big, just a minor adjustment to its optics. For some reason it will sometimes have difficulty judging between two and three dimensional imagery. It's nothing serious and I'd say the odds of it affecting the unit's performance are next to nil. But we want everything to be one hundred percent, don't we?"

"Yes, of course. One hundred percent! As long as you're sure it won't affect performance."

"Positive," said Parker, the pearly whites popping out again; big as piano keys.

"Fine," said Ramos, as he plunged his fists into his deep pockets and clicked his heels. "Well, until we meet again." He thrust out his beefy hand to be shaken.

Parker reached out and shook it, feeling the damp dew of sweat slicking over his palm. He cringed a little with slight repulsion, then molded his face back into a brimming smile and said, "Yes, well goodnight."

Ramos's eyes lingered after him, watching him board the white van and pull away. Then his gaze dropped back to Johnson who's face was still a toasted wry around the edges.

"Well," said Ramos, ill at ease. "I guess this is it. I hope you understand what I was trying to say before, that its nothing personal, just p..."

"...Progress," said Johnson, jumping into his sentence. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever." He pushed the front door open and began down the steps when suddenly he felt Ramos's engaging voice tugging him back.

"Johnson," he said suspiciously, the stuttered wrinkles ironed out of his tone. "It's something more than just losing your job, isn't it?"

Johnson pondered a moment, pruning his thoughts and trying to dig up the right words to say it. Then he said: "I guess you can say that I think humans are more reliable workers than machines. Look, you can take your fancy EXRSS-5 and have a ball, I don't really care. But when it comes down to loyalty and devotion and the kind of consideration that goes with good judgment, you can bet that doesn't come in a machine, Mr. Ramos. I'm not saying that I'm perfect or infallible or even right more than half the time, but I just want you to know what you'll be missing from now on. Something that will never come from the guts of cold and mechanized servant."

"I suppose one day we shall see which one of us is the right one, shant we, Mr. Johnson?"

Johnson smiled sickly. "I suppose one day we will, Mr. Ramos. One day we will."

He shuffled himself down the few concrete steps, the cuffs of his pants dragging forlornly over the ground. Ramos watched as he walked to his car and got in. He started the engine and backed up, tail lights gleaming like distance jewels until they finally twinkled out of sight.

Ramos stood staring, his mind lost in a blur of watercolor thought. Then he locked the door and went to his car to go home.

It was only after he slammed the car door and his hands clocked at ten and two on the steering wheel that he realized what he'd forgotten. He'd left his briefcase inside. A lot of important papers in there he needed to go over tonight. He couldn't leave it there, not tonight. He'd have to go back in and get it.

"Shit," he cursed, slugging his palm against the grooved edge of the steering wheel. "Can't believe that!"

He got out and walked up to the door. He put his key in, turned it and went inside without quite realizing what else he had forgotten.

On the seat in his car was the small black remote commander that disabled the EXRSS-5.

He walked in and slid his hand abruptly under the light switch. The lights didn't go on. Pondering thickly he wondered what was going on, then he remembered the EXRSS-5 and what it could do. The lights. It had control of the lights after a certain time didn't it? Control of everything! And the damn thing was lurking around here somewhere. It went into automatic start-up as soon as all personnel left the building. Sensors on each floor indicated when the building was vacant.

Suddenly, as if to verify his belief, he heard the sound of a high pitched dissonant creeping down the hall. It was faint, but coming closer, closing in like the a thick and choking fog. He could hear its uneven clomping, motorized feet dragging themselves along.

Nothing to worry about, he thought to himself confidently. You just need to push a button to freeze it in its tracks.

He smiled and dumped heavy hands into his pockets, thick, eager fingers pinching at the bottoms of them, groping desperately but only snatching up errant threads and lint balls. It wasn't there! The command controller wasn't in his pockets! He stumbled over to the window and suctioned his hands to the glass. His face pressed to the window, he gawked out at his car in the lot. He must have left it on the seat! His hand fisted and he thumped on the window in anger. Panting rapidly, his breath made little circles on the glass.

He tried the door, but it would not budge. Autolocked by the EXRSS-5!

Now the sound was getting nearer. It was rounding the corner just ahead of him, encroaching with a frantic urgency that shot his panic into a red fever pitch. He walked to the edge of the corridor and peaked around. Just then he saw the beacon light of its optical shed a fan of severe red light across the wall. And then he heard it speak.

"INTRUDER!" it brayed in a harshly defined, digitized voice. "INTRUDER....UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL IN THE AREA!"

It was clawing its way down the hall, trudging with odd shifting movements. It had seen him all right, now it was just a matter of what it would do. The dim night lighting cast the machine in obscure dark, shadows. Its red optical light blaring through the darkness like a plow. It wasn't until it got fairly close that he could see it clearly. And a thought flickered in his head of how creepy it looked when it was walking.

He decided to try and talk to it, for all the good it would probably do. But what the hell, it was worth an attempt. Maybe it would understand.

"Ah, hello there," he called, voice nervous and squeaky. "Now see here, I seem to have forgotten my commander, but I do work here..."

"INTRUDER..."

"...you remember me? I saw you just a few short moments ago with the other two lads. Surely you must recall!"

"VERIFY OFFICE PERSONNEL!"

"Well, just take a look at me for verification!"

you can't get by on looks alone.

The thought intruded into his head with a hot, branding urgency.

"REQUIRE ASSIGNED SIGNATURE PULSE. PLEASE COMPLY!"

Damn it, he though, his tongue hissing like an angry snake. Without that little box I'm getting nowhere. And I can't even get out because the confounded thing has locked the doors.

Whirring violent motor groans it drew closer, little chinks of glitter splashing sparkles off its polished steel legs. Legs that were thin and probing and crutching ever closer to him. It picked up speed, hunkering forward with flexing, outstretched claws. He retreated, fumbling backwards down the hall as it persued with amazing agility. Cords of tension fluted his neck as his mind crunched large and manic bites of terror.

"Damn it I WORK HERE!" he screeched, his voice rough and scraping with sharp echoes that rebounded down the hall and faded out into the distance.

He turned and bolted, legs pumping furiously with long, sloping strides. The clatter of the machine in back of him, struggling to keep up. Its tortured hobble made its motor whine with an ear piercing shrill as its legs grated against one another with sharp and abrasive movements.

He reached a corner and vaulted himself around it, brushing his considerable weight against the side of the walls he felt along the sides for the doorways. He grasped and twisted the doorknobs like an overenthusiastic politician shaking hands at an election rally. All of them replied with the small, unmoveable arcs of locked doors. He fell into a souped up wave of panic. His heart was like a hot, tautly drawn knot in his chest.

The gargled clamor of the machine was coming closer again, throwing its menacing shape back over the wall. Suddenly he found a room that was open, a doorknob spinning compliantly in his sweat-greased palm. He rushed in and slammed the door behind him, just before the machine could round the bend. He pressed his obese body to the door, collapsing in a lump of exhaustion, his eyes ticking frantically from left to right, listening as the horrible buzz loomed into earshot. He heard its limbs growling, raking across the floor with their familiar scuffling sound as it came down the hall now, just right outside the door. It seemed to be passing, its motors piercing to an audible peak and then seeming to fade slightly down the hall. Then it suddenly stopped. His heart hitched a notch. He wondered what it was doing and why it had suddenly ceased its movements.

He felt the odd sense of something looking at him and his eyes skipped to the corners of the room. There was a surveillance camera in the room, propped objectively in the upper corner, its electric eye swiveling on its mounting and was just now slowing to gaze on him.

It sees me! came the urgent thought like a cracking mallet. Parker had said it had control of all the cameras. And as if to confirm his suspicions he heard the dreadful sound of the thing outside as it backed up to his door. The power-drill shriek of something else emanated from just outside the door. He backed away. Suddenly he heard metal clamp on metal, the pronged fingers of the machine grasping clumsily at the doorknob trying to move and open it. But he had locked it and it twisted with frustration. Slowly he backed away, knowing he was cornered if it happened to get through.

Silence followed by a violent explosion as the thing crashed its metal claws through the flimsy plywood, its little steel fingers twisting though the punctured wood in odd little rotating fits as it ripped the door from its hinges and threw it to one side. Splinters of wood laced the air along with the raining flecks of sawdust pixelizing the atmosphere.

It scrambled quickly for him, with the quirky speed of a silent movie it moved almost comic in its fumbling way.

He looked to his side at a metal garbage pail. He seized it as a weapon and brandished it over the machine. The thing still kept coming. Heaving the pail up over his head he suddenly flung it forward to clatter against the metal body of the machine. It halted, and for a moment he thought he had succeeded in putting it out of commission. But of course nothing was ever that easy. A dashboard of lights sprinkled to life on its chest and blinked in quick, scattering patterns, as if it were thinking. Then suddenly it spoke.

"INITIATE DEFENSE LEVEL THREE!" it croaked in its fuzzy electric voice.

Defense level three! thought Ramos imperatively. That's the kill mode!

The machine was stagnant for a moment after its announcement, and Ramos took full advantage to look for a way out. His head swiveled about madly, searching for some sort of escape route. His eye snagged the window behind him and saw the fire escape. He made for it just as the machine woke from its catatonia. It sprung to life, dancing in a herky-jerky scamper, its legs outspread and its claws extended, rushing in toward him again.

He went to the window and tugged at it. It creaked up, thankfully one of the few things not networked into the power of the insane unit. Hurriedly he pushed it up with both palms, it resisting and chafing against the jamb with some reluctance. Finally he got it up far enough to the point where his big body could squirm through. He put one leg in and then bent under, the machine swiping at him madly, with a sharp, whispering sound. He got stuck for a second, but then managed to wedge the other leg through, just as the pincer claw of the thing reached up and snatched a flap of his shirt. It yanked at him, trying to pull him back, its claws snapping frantically like a giant berserk lobster.

Ramos wrenched away from it and a ribbon of his shirt tore off, hanging loosely in the clutch of the machine. He slammed the window, attempting to bring it down on the machine's claw, but it pulled away at the last moment.

He watched it from the fire escape, its arms and talons crazed and flailing wildly in the air like a temper tantrum. The fire escape went only up, the flight below him being damaged and pulled away from the building. He didn't dare test it, especially with his considerable weight.

He slogged up the steps, bounding over them in leaps of two and even three until he got to an office window that was open. Thankfully he found one not far off. He propped his fingers under the small wooden ledge, thrusting it up with a burst of energy.

He eased himself through the window opening, his foot testing for the floor. It found it and he bent back his other leg which got wedged for a moment and while trying to pull it free he miscalculated his strength and tumbled inside like a beach ball, rolling over on his side. His face was blushed with fatigue. His mouth felt dry and cottony.

Just let me out of this nightmare!

He got to his feet and grappled for the phone. He picked it up and went to dial, but when he did he got a verbal warning that advised him to: enter his five digit nightly access override code.

"Christ!" he scathed, his teeth ripping the word in a violent contortion. It really did have control of everything. The question now was: how the hell to get out of here?

Feeling his way through the darkness he eased open the door and scanned up and down the hall in anxious sweeping motions. It was nowhere in sight. Maybe it was lost somewhere on the first floor. But he wasn't breathing easy yet, for one thing he was still trapped. He had escaped the wrath of the EXRSS-5, but puttering around on the third floor wasn't going to get him out of here. And that THING was on a rampage. It had jumped all the way up to defense level three, totally skipping level two. But why?

He pondered the question with sharp concern, tossing the notion over in his head like a coin. It had flipped its lid right after he threw the trash can at it. Maybe it had loosened a few screws and that was what made it go bonkers? Its brains a little scrambled? Plus that incident with the circuit board going a fizzle before. It was quite evident that the EXRSS-5 was not all that Parker and his cronies had always cracked it up to be, if it were he wouldn't be playing terror tag with it tonight.

But defense level three? It was only supposed to go to three if a life was in danger, but there was no life in danger...except his and that was put in jeopardy by the machine itself. No there was no rhyme or reason to go to three...unless. And he gasped at the creeping notion of this thought. Unless the EXRSS-5 was regarding itself as a life form! After all, he had attacked it. And it may have detected that attack as a threat to its own life? Was it possible? Was this...this machine actually practicing self preservation?

Not possible!

But indeed that was what it seemed to be doing. He palmed through the hallway, tricky shadows lingering in the crosshatching lights. He couldn't hear it. He was positive that it was still roaming aimlessly two floors below him, sniffing him out like a bloodhound, but unable to find him.

He measured his steps down the long, dark corridor and steered himself toward the glowing "elevator" sign that branded the darkness with a phosphor neon. Eagerly his hand slid over the wall, feeling for the buttons. His fingers slid upon the down arrow and he could hear the cranking growl of the motor labor the weight of the massive cart up the shaft.

His eyes played over the numerals, watching them ascend from one to three. His body clinging to the wall like clay he felt his breath finally begin to run easy in his lungs, the abrasive sandpapery burn gone, replaced by a feeling of coolness.

He peeled himself from the wall when he heard the ding and the rolling of the doors as they spread compliantly open. His eyes still layered shut with little drools of sweat in the corner. He turned about to enter the compartment and suddenly a steel claw jutted violently out and cut the air with a soft, ripping sound. It twitched and convulsed right in front of his face and he let out a mangled scream.

He whirled around and hobbled down the hall, the hinges of his knees near collapsing from pure exhaustion. Why hadn't he ever listened to all the people who had told him that he needed to go on a diet? It was the extra sixty pounds he'd layered on himself that was causing him this ungodly exhaustion, not to mention the strain on his poor heart.

He staggered and ran, staggered and ran-desperately trying to gain enough speed to get away. He hurried for the stairwell and scurried down, lashing his hands onto the pole banisters and tottering back and forth, his weight slugging into the wall as his hurried feet stumbled over each step.

Wheezing and gasping he grappled for a way out. He looked down the hall at the big mirror and saw his disheveled self-hair mopped and frayed, eyes dug deeply into their sockets and baggy wrinkles pulled underneath them with fatigue. He doddered closer to his reflection, looking at the ribbon of shirt that was torn free by the deranged machine. I thin trickle of blood was oozing from a long sliver scratch slashed just across his belly. He hadn't noticed it before. As was always the case he had jerked with a slight tremor upon seeing his own reflection, but that little jerk had jarred a sparkling idea in his head. Maybe he could fool it!

He canted his head to listen. Cranking guttural noises from down the hall, the hollow moaning hum of the elevator coming back down. He tore around the corner and pressed against the wall again, hearing the thudding footfalls of the machine as it slithered out of the elevator. He could almost picture it in his head, doing its horrible, crab-like side shuffle out of the elevator.

Please let this work, he kept thinking over and over. He was caddie corner from the mirror now, his image reflecting perfectly inside of it. All he needed to do was wait. But no, there was the humming rotation of the surveillance camera. He turned his head and it trained on him like an electronic Cyclops. He would have to get rid of it, otherwise the trick wouldn't work. Eagerly he lurched forward and jumped up onto a couch that sat positioned just below the camera. He forked his meathooks over the base of the camera and tugged at it with all his might. Then he felt it loosen from its anchoring moorings. He wrenched at it more violently and the entire thing tore from the ceiling, flecks of paint and wall spraying down haphazardly like snow. He took it and dashed it to pieces on the floor, pouncing down on it with his full weight. It made an ugly crunch under his heals and puked glittering shards of glass out of its lens.

He sighed triumphantly and went back to his position against the wall. It would be running blind in that area now except for its own optical. He waited, tension pressing inward to the point where he felt he may implode. And then the spurting chirping of the machine coming down the corridor with odd distorted wails of insanity in its movements. He heard something cock and the thing blurted: "DEFENSE LEVEL THREE COMMENSING. TERMINATE INTRUDER!"

Come on baby, just a little closer.

The thing puttered up to the corner, Ramos's heart lodged in his throat and rushing blood bumped in his ears. If this didn't work it was curtains. He could only hope that the thing would be fooled into thinking the reflection was him. The idea was spurred on by Parker's comment about the unit's poor opticals, its difficulty distinguishing between two and three dimensional objects. He was banking everything he had on this one roll. It was the biggest gamble of his life.

"TEN SECONDS TO SURRENDER," it chimed and started counting down, swaying on its pogoing tent-pole legs. It inched a little forward when it got to one, then faltered. Lights exploding on its chest again, it tried to access the remote surveillance camera, but it was inoperative. It looked at the figure dead ahead of it and computed some more. Another hitch forward and Ramos had to bite his tongue not to blubber out a whimper. He dared not make a peep. If it heard him it would alter its course and seek out the sound. But as it was it was just studying the haggard vision in front of it, trying to make up its mind.

Then it creaked backward, cocked its fire arm and pumped out five rounds into the glass. Sparkling crystals exploded and rained out everywhere in the thin and icy sound of the mirror's explosion. The machine only surveyed this with its cold, unfeeling logic. It did not know what death was or how it looked so it could safely assume that it had successfully eradicated the menace. With that it sunk back down on its iron haunches, the whirring and hissing and clamor of its life dissolving to silence. Then there was the sound of a dial tone and bleeping touch tones pulsing out in an erratic rhythm. A ringing and a voice picked up.

"Belleville Police Department," came a wry, indifferent voice.

The machine spoke. Its digital baritone informing with a stoic matter-of-factness: "THIS IS THE EXRSS-5 UNIT. 705 CUMBERLAND DRIVE. INTRUDER APPREHENDED AND NEUTRALIZED. PLEASE SEND PERSONNEL. REQUESTING SURVEY OF DAMAGE AS WELL AS INTRUDER IDENTIFICATION AND NOTIFICATION OF SENIOR PERSONNEL. END REPORT."

The sergeant on the other end knew precisely what was going on. All P.D.'s had been versed in the procedure of the new robotic surveillance systems. He replied he would send a car over to check things out. A brittle click broke the connection and the EXRSS-5 went into deactivation mode.

Ramos slid down the wall, sopping his face dry with a handkerchief. He slumped over, lolling in the stench of his swampy perspiration. Johnson's words tinkled in the recesses of his mind. He had said that one day he might learn that machines are consciousless servants of man. That they couldn't really distinguish right from wrong. And in his obstinance and naive exuberance he had refused to pay heed to the wisdom in those words, wisdom that was only now beginning to dawn on him. He never figured the day would come so soon.