As a librarian, this chapter is kind of painful. I was that robot to a degree after COVID blew up and shut everything down. The library was closed but I still showed up to empty the return bins and disinfect the books every other day or so. I'd just be sitting alone in this giant empty building that was quiet even before the pandemic but now the quiet was just worse somehow.
Best way I can describe it is like being in the same room as someone else who is asleep. You know they are there even if all they are doing is breathing.
Being in the library during the pandemic was like sitting in that same room and not hearing any breathing. You wonder if they are even still alive.