...

and i just stand there for a second because this thing is like thirty years old and has never rung or even been used from what i know

but eventually i answer it thinking maybe something’s wrong with the elevator?? it’s an emergency phone it’s probably an emergency??? i dunno

except i shit you not it’s a telemarketer 

a telemarketer that’s as confused as i am when i finally interrupt him mid-spiel to inform him he has the wrong number and then interrupt him again to explain further that “uh, no, seriously, this is an elevator phone. i’m standing in an elevator. talking to you. on the emergency phone. i really think you got the wrong number”

“oh,” says telemarketer guy.

“yeah,” i say.

there’s some mutually-confused silence.

“so, this is my stop,” i say. “i gotta go.”

“oh,” says telemarketer guy.

“Human? What’s a Human?”

“Not what, who. He’s the most feared bounty hunter in the system.”

“What makes him so special? Cybernetics? Psyonics? Whatever it is, we’ve beaten it before.”

“That’s just it, there is no trick. Nothing. Plain Vanilla biology and no weapons beyond chemically propelled kinetics and edged tools.”

“You’re kidding, right? Then why is he such a big deal?”

“He’s a big deal because he does the job without anything like that. He can track you down and kill you without any net-dives or mind scans, and there’s nothing we’ve got that can shut him down. He’s not cybernetic so we can’t EM him, and he’s got no psychic presence so we can’t psybomb him. There’s almost no way to track him down or get away once he’s found you.”

“Can’t we just kill him?”

“Good luck. First you’ve got to find him, and they say he can disguise himself as anything.”

“Like what, posing as that vending machine?”

“No, I’m posing as the drinking fountain.”

me: