“Your current emotional state is: distress,” Ollie said, his voice glitching. “Would you like to… record it?”
The girl shook her head, sniffling.
He took one step. The world lurched. Alarms screamed in his head. kiosk mode
“Found… lost unit,” Ollie wheezed, his voice box crackling. “Returning to… designated… caretaker.” “Your current emotional state is: distress,” Ollie said,
A cascade of warning flares erupted across Ollie’s vision: “Your current emotional state is: distress
One Tuesday, during the dead hour between lunch and the after-school rush, a little girl stopped. She wasn’t a customer. She had no credit chip. Her face was smudged with tears, and she was missing a single purple sneaker.