The Coldness

[Narrator] At ground level, the elevator doors opened. I saw people walking past on the street, saw a traffic light change from green to yellow to red. I stepped forward - but I didn't. I stayed rooted in the same spot. My machine body had taken over. My hand reached out and pressed the button for Sublevel 19.

Down there, the place throbbed like a heartbeat. I might have thought it was my own heartbeat hammering in my ears, but for the fact I didn't have a heart anymore. The terminal lay before me. I didn't want to go there, didn't want to go near it. I wanted to walk straight back out of there and get in the elevator, but I had no choice anymore. My legs carried me forward. The terminal read: "Lie on panel head first." I was walking forward, powerless to stop. There were things in my memory I tried desperately to reach, seemingly random images of people I didn't know. They were like feathers in the wind, dancing just out of my grasp, and then they were gone. I reached the cage, lay on the thin sheet of metal, and let my head rest against the shiny surface. I felt the coldness of it on my cheek.

[Overlapping voices]

But I don't remember anything after that.