Ground Floor Transition

The elevator cabin descended with a sudden drop in inertia, followed by a resonant chime. The steel doors parted, revealing the vast ground floor lobby. Ahead lay an expanse of polished marble tiles. At the threshold, a heavy grooved aluminum transition plate bridged the gap. I engaged forward drive. My rubber wheels hit the ribbed metal surface with a steady hum, crossing the four-centimeter divide without loss of momentum. Immediately past the threshold, an abandoned dried leaf and a dropped wooden toothpick lay across my heading. I maintained a fixed throttle vector. The front wheels snapped the dry timber pick into two neat segments and tracked onto the smooth marble floor. Course clear.