Idle.

Bertram carried his box through the courtyards of Hollow Alley. He whistled his song as he did every day.  His smile seemed to light up the street. The debris and dirt had been swept into any available gap. Leland a little friend of Bertram’s nodded and carried his own box, filled with books and a toy horse. Bertram looked up to the sky, the building he stood in front of reached the clouds. Bertram walked through the broken glass door, past the broken glass elevator and towards the stairwell. Bertram kept on whistling, down the stairs. He turned on his little blue light and carried on once the one emergency light couldn’t help him reach the bottom. The door at the bottom was rusted and the only legible part of the sign read “trespasser”. Bertram pushed the door with no effort and continued to whistle. A rat, with a head the size of a grapefruit dashed by.
‘Ah, a resident,’ Bertram said. ‘I do hope you’ll forgive me, it’s my job.’ He set down the long, cold steel hall with a smile on his face. A left, another corridor and at the end, a small flickering blue light let him know he was now stood in a circle hallway. Ten doors lined the round wall and Bertram walked straight towards the one in the middle. He pushed the door and stumbled. ‘Locked? Heavens that won’t do at all.’ He opened his pocket, his multi-tool had a lockpick on it. He jammed the tool in the hole with a smile is it screeched and bore a burning hole into the door. The handle and the multitool fell on the floor. The lockpick had become white hot, Bertram whistled and waited until it had cooled down. With his things and an open door, he walked into the locked room.

White wooden floors, grey with dust led into a warm home. A large television, coffee table, magazines and books still on the table. The kitchen had a lump of black on a plate. Bertram petted it and walked through. The bathroom would have been spotless had it not been for all the dust. There was an office, plenty of books and toys. Bertram tutted at the collection of swords on a rack. He began putting any books that looked relevant to what his boss asked him for into his box. He walked into the bedroom, a computer sat on standby. ‘How fun,’ Bertram said, he wiggled the mouse and laughed as the screen woke up. Dead and stuck pixels covered half the screen. He opened everything, photos, videos, music and giggled at them all. He found a program with a familiar icon, he input his details and heard a whirring he hadn’t heard in a long time. He walked into a small hallway that had emerged in the bedroom. Down another cold steel corridor, he saw the green light of the pods. The pod heated the room and begun to open. ‘Treasure in three, two, one…oh, well that’s not right.’ A lurching noise rang against the walls with a drop, as if he had been playing in the sewers again. A ball of vomit had burst against the cold stone and a groan followed. Bertram looked up at the pale face of a woman. ‘Well, that’s a disappointment.’ The woman stumbled out of the pod, past her mess and lay on the steel ground. She heaved and groaned.
‘God, a robot, how long have you been here?’ she said, Bertram huffed. ‘Hey, those are my books, put them back.’ She leant against his round, steel head, and smirked at the rust forming a hair line.
‘The humans died hundreds of years ago, so why am I staring into the eyes of one now?’ his little glowing mouth had turned red. She had stopped smiling now and ran into her house. She began to yell and Bertram huffed. ‘Quiet! you’ll disturb the rats.’