Turn it on here

After a short round of deliberation, you all take positions. You, crouched in front of the machine. Emalie and Mute on both sides of you. Jorrel at the back, watching for anything sneaky. This is sometimes as straightforward as a robot interacting with its environment – activating the salad bar – or releasing all sorts of nasty vapours hard to spot up close.

“Ready,” Jorrel gives you all a curt nod.

Exhaling deeply, steadying yourself for what’s to come, you lean in and state the pass phrase.

“Unit, wake.” There’s a whirring noise intermittently increasing in intensity, from somewhere inside the machine. Its LED lights start to glow red. Unlike most light sources, this one seems to creep, not blink, into existence. Like the thing residing under your bed reaching out from underneath, the light pulls itself by its claws, scratching and dragging, itself across the room, patiently stalking up the walls till the entire room is nothing but this dark, eerily red light.

“Unit, listen.” Emalie twitches next to you, her stare fixated on the remaining receptacle for something stirring within. Whatever this machine would do to acknowledge the second part might be an internal thing. You glance back to Jorrel. Nothing, seemingly, so you speak the last phrase.

“Unit, you got this.” The anticipation chokes the room, dampening your senses and leaving only dread.

You wait. Mute sways uneasily. Emalie fiddles with something, but your eyes remain on the machine, so whatever it is, you don’t see. Jorrel clears his throat, trying to unwind the lump of uneasy, somewhere behind you.

All of you, standing in silence, you can almost feel the weight of that dreadful red light bearing down on you, dulling your being.

Then Mute starts to shake violently.