Riding the man lift down.

  Lucky stared at the wall of the metal tube creeping past, smoothed by the gaskets that fit the buckets tight, polished by the backs of people leaning on the moving wall, some kid had dragged a green crayon over the wall on the way down, making line that Lucky stared at.  It swayed back and forth then sprung quickly with a snap, then back and forth with an occasional loop,  suddenly squished up against the belt and a hand nearly knocking his off the belt handle, " Oops sorry I didn't see ya" and the invasion was over - the tenth floor was full of nitwits.  Man lifts were slow, a slight hazard, and only designed for one rider per bucket, and were modeled after the the man lift in a grain elevator; the lift had been the favorite part of his job at the CO - OP, he would go out of his way to take a ride, they were a just big enough, two feet on the platform attached to a belt with a handle, no walls.  The line of green crayon went right and and ended, and it was time jump off into the main floor lobby, packed full of school kids, back packs, lunch box's; people heading out or coming back from work, loiters, holiday makers, a sales man, and a tour group being shouted at by a lady in a funny hat.  Lucky fought his way through and was only stopped once, talked at by one of his mom friends - she had a problem with her implant and couldn't get on the net, and bla bla blu, bla ble bla - "Ya might as well stop the inoculation and just get infected, that's the only reliable link" shrugged his shoulders, and was out the door walking down the street.  

a regular festival of the hot happy stinks

  Two hundred yards down the main hall, lines had formed in front of a cluster of elevators.  A noisy talkative crowd going to work as slowly as they could, slurping morning drinks made at the Steam Engine, his floors cafe.  Lucky didn't usually make his presence known at that establishment,  he would always head up to the Kings Chair, the bistro at the top of the building.  The cool breeze is delightful, and views were the best, the staff made the most of it by screwing down each chair in position, giving every person an unimpaired view out over the grand prairie.  The Steam Engine was always a chaotic mess full of loud families, student study groups, and inebriated coffee drinkers - a regular festival of the hot happy stinks, playing the latest funked up rhythm of flu, for the enjoyment of the twenty eighth floor.  He could still hear a drunken party left over from the night before, it sounded like Wade, Jen, and L.J. slurring out a song and playing badly tuned instruments.  fairly certain they were using his small acoustic bass, and briefly considered walking down there and snatching it back, but that was to much, so he went over to the man lifts and caught a bucket going down.

The error of enlightenment.

Perched in the nanny tower,  lucky tranced out -  in the heavy haze of mental clarity - on the event horizon of enlightenment - the pineal gland softening.  A reverse bell, one of his numerous modified sounds he had made and put in the system, during the hours of boredom that necessarily is an integral part of being a robot nanny, went off.  It seemed to be coming just over the edge of that event horizon.  He had changed every sound in the system and wasn't sure what this one signified,  focused in on the instrumentation, and thought it was hog 48 with and err 06,  hyrostat failure - then he was jarred out of the trance.  A loud hyperventilating sound was blaring in the tower cab,  lucky hit the hardwired button just seconds after the err message had been sent to service department, looked at the panel and saw that he would have to go out after hog 48, the hyrostatic drive had failed.