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Heather raised her face from the ground and stared at her wrists. In front of her, two bots had hold of her wrists, their metal limbs wrapped around her. Two more were clamped to her ankles. “What are you doing? Get off me.”

The bots’ sensors glowed an angry red as they dragged her across the floor. For such small guys, they sure were powerful.

With a yelp of alarm, Heather kicked at the bots wrapped around her ankles as they assisted in pushing her along the corridor.

The bots did not budge. If anything, their grip tightened.

Panic raced through Heather. Bots never behaved like this. They were there to help, serve and occasionally annoy, not drag innocent people along the corridor. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

The bots didn’t respond and continued to drag her.

“Help! I’m being... taken by bots.” Heather looked around. No one came to her rescue, which was odd. Where was everybody?

Again, Heather tried to shake the bots off her legs. They simply tightened their grip until she felt the metal break through her skin and draw blood.

“Bots, stop. Your programming is malfunctioning. You’re not supposed to harm any lifeform on the station.” And they were harming her. She could feel blood making her skin slick beneath her jumpsuit.

They didn’t pause in their determined efforts to drag her wherever they’d planned to take her.

“You’re breaking protocol. You’ll be decommissioned for this. I’ll do it myself.” Heather would say anything to get them to stop. But they didn’t care. These bots were on a mission. Nothing would stop them.

Heather’s breath caught in her throat as she saw where they were taking her. “No! No way are you going to push me through there.”

The bots continued toward the emergency airlock.

She dug her toes into the floor. The metal surface simply aided in her forward slide. “I am not going into space. You’ve made a mistake. Whatever it is you think you’re doing, you have to stop.”

One of the bot’s sensors glowed brighter. “Threat of death.”

“Yes! My death. I’m the one at risk here.”

“Laser threat. Must remove.”

Heather gritted her teeth. They were going to kill her because of her bluff with the laser. Was that what all this was about?

She bucked and kicked, trying to break free from the bots’ strong grasp. If they got that airlock open and pushed her through, she’d be dead in seconds. She didn’t want to die alone. She didn’t want to die at all. She had so many plans. On none of her bucket lists was the thrill of being slung out of an airlock by four deranged bots and stuck in space until she exploded.

“Mission abort.” Heather thrashed her arms around, trying to get the bots off her. “Stop it. I was only joking when I said I had a laser.”

They slowed as they came to the airlock. If they opened it, they’d go out too. They must really hate her to sacrifice themselves that way. But bots didn’t hate. They couldn’t. It wasn’t in their programing.

Heather sometimes had nightmares about dying in space. There were so many ways to die on a space station. In all her imaginings, she’d never dreamt it would be at the hands of four angry bots who’d made a mistake.

One bot let go of her right ankle and scuttled to the control panel of the emergency airlock.

“Don’t you dare,” Heather hissed. “Keep your metal limbs away from that code.”

All the airlocks could only be unlocked with an eight-digit code. There was no way this bot would know that code. If anyone decided to play with an airlock code, the second they hit a wrong number, it flashed red, security was alerted, and the code was immediately changed.

Her bottom lip trembled as she saw the bot key in three numbers. There was no flashing red light. “How do you know those numbers?”

The fourth number went in. Then the fifth.

Heather kicked at the bot wrapped around her other ankle, trying to dislodge it. She stamped on its limbs, refusing to feel bad. It might be small, but it wanted her dead.

Nothing worked. The bot held on tightly. She tried to drag herself upright, but it was as if the bots had welded themselves to the ground. They weren’t going to let her go.

The sixth number went into the panel. No alarm sounded, and no security came.