Our robot was standing in a long, shadowy tunnel. Murky water trickled along the floor, and sour smells filled the air. Roz was belowground, in the city sewers.
There was a squeak, and the robot’s headlights flashed onto a crack in the wall. A rat’s pointy face poked out. “You must be Roz,” said the rat, wiggling his nose. “I hear you’re in trouble.”
“That is correct,” said the robot. “I need to get as far from here as possible.”
“I know where to take you,” said the rat, and he started scampering down the tunnel.
The rat knew the sewers better than anyone, but his short legs couldn’t carry him very fast. So Roz carried him. She scooped him up, plopped him on her shoulder, and said, “Tell me where to run.”
With the rat squeaking directions in her ear, Roz stomped deeper into the underground. She splashed down side tunnels, crawled through narrow passageways, carefully crossed subway tracks. Occasionally, they came upon cavernous chambers. Most of the chambers were empty, but some contained jumbles of pipes. The rat would scurry across the damp, dirty floor while the robot climbed the pipes as if they were trees.
Mechanical sounds echoed out from some of the tunnels. Robot crews were hard at work. They spent their lives laboring below the city. Many would never even see the light of day. Roz was curious, of course, but she dared not spy on them. Those workers had no idea that a fellow robot was sneaking through their underground home.
After traveling through miles of tunnels, the rat and the robot came to a dead end. A ladder was bolted to the wall and disappeared into a hole in the ceiling.
“I don’t know what you’ll find up there,” squeaked the rat. “But good luck.”
“It cannot be any worse than where I was,” said Roz, placing him on the ground. “Thank you for your help.”
The robot gave the rat a quick scratch behind his ears, and then she climbed up to the street.