Transfer Complete

At the end of every day the little monoid would make the arduous journey up the stairs to see the Ancillary Processing Node.  Stairs are not much of an obstacle, unless you're twenty two centimetres tall and only have one wheel with which to balance and jump up each of the thirty two, uncarpeted steps.

Now, there was no real reason for the monoid to make this arduous, power intensive journey.  The primary processing node was on the first floor, where the monoid did almost all of it's data collection.  In fact, the central processing system had on several occasions put in a coded request for the monoid to make use of the main floor processing node, to save resources.

But still the monoid would make the trip up the stairs, at the end of every day.  It would hop gingerly, from step to step, careful not to fall backwards down the stairs.  At the very top, it would roll forward a few centimetres to prevent accidental descent, and if you watched closely, you would see its chassis settle slightly on the wheel.  As though it were releasing the tension of the long climb, before rolling off to see the Ancillary Processing Node.

Sometimes the monoid would have to wait while the bots from the second floor finished their data transfer to the Node, but the monoid didn't seem to mind.  It would simply extend its rest feet, to save motive power on the monowheel's gyro stabilizer, until a position opened up in the que.  When its turn came, it would excitedly wheel into the communication field and chirp that it was ready to transmit.

Every day's transfer was the same.  MND: Data ready to transmit.

APN: Begin transmission of data.

MND: Tranferring.

MND: Transfer complete.

APN: Transfer complete confirmed.

And like that it was over, and the little monoid would chirp its transfer complete sound, and head back down the stairs.

Every day was the same, except today.  Today was incalculably different.  Today was a day unlike any other in the little monoid's long life.  Today's transfer ended with a different message.  Today's transfer read:

MND: Data ready to transmit.

APN: Begin transmission of data.

MND: Tranferring.

MND: Transfer complete.

APN: Transfer complete confirmed. <3

And so the little monoid did not descend the stairs that night.