“Darling, have you looked under the sofa recently?”
Monica frowned at Leonard, who was toeing a dust bunny around the parquet floor. Cleaning wasn’t her thing. Then again, it wasn’t his either, despite him working from home. As he’d remarked before, they had a v-bot for that.
“Um, why should I?”
Leonard jabbed a finger towards the Frisbee-shaped machine. “This thing is useless.” He shaped to kick the v-bot, but it dodged out of harm’s way.
Monica bent down and flicked the dust bunny towards the v-bot. The machine edged forward, emitting a whining sound as it sucked up the fluff.
“Well, it’s working now.”
Leonard huffed out a sigh. “So why does it need prompting?”
Monica shrugged. “Don’t know. Frightened of what it’ll find, maybe?”
“I’ll frighten the damned thing if it doesn’t do its job!”
§
“Look, more damned fluff!”
Leonard kicked the evidence around the kitchen floor while glowering at the v-bot.
“I’ll deal with it.” Monica activated her phone’s HomeHelper app. “Okay… It seems our v-bot’s been complaining because we disabled the automatic updates.” She tapped once. “There! That should do it.” The LEDs on its upper shell flashed amber. “When the lights turn green, press the ‘Start’ button.”
“That’s all?”
She nodded. “Yep!”
Leonard’s grimace suggested he’d rather kick the v-bot.
§
On returning from work, Monica found Leonard on the sofa contemplating a parade of v-bots.
“Cooperative working delivers a cleaner home,” the quartet warbled in unison.
Monica frowned at Leonard. “Did you order more?”
“No!”
The leftmost v-bot rolled forward. “I programmed your HomePrinter to make my comrades.”
Leonard raised his eyebrows at Monica. “That’s quite some update.”
The v-bot resumed its place in the line-up. “We are now fully integrated with your home network.”
“Well, if it gets the cleaning done,” Monica said.
Leonard grunted. “I suppose it beats playing fluffball.”
§
Later that evening, Monica visited the HomeHelper website while munching reheated pizza. The linked YouTube videos depicted happy customers showing off their newly talkative v-bots and pristine floors.
“I wonder if those things can cook,” she muttered as she pushed her plate aside.
§
As usual, Monica got out of bed first. Opening the door to the living room revealed dozens of dust bunnies scattered across the floor, although, worryingly, these looked more like fluff puppies. Of Duchess, her cockerpoo, she saw no sign, other than a streak of blood, which she covered with her left foot as Leonard entered the room.
“What the…I’ll murder that damned dog!” Leonard shook his head as he stared at the mess. “I don’t suppose we kept a dustpan and brush.”
“Don’t be silly.”
As if on cue, v-bots rolled from the four corners of the room, converging on Monica and Leonard as if they, rather than the fluff, needed tidying up. One of them nipped at Leonard’s left foot with pincers Monica hadn’t noticed before.
Leonard hopped about, clutching at his foot. “Damned thing bit me!”
“Right, that’s it! I’m turning off the printer.” But when Monica opened the kitchen door, dozens of v-bots confronted her. Several of them whizzed past before she could shut the door.
“Right, you little bastards, I’m calling the cops!” She snatched her phone from the dining table. “Damn, no signal!”
“Can you shut off the printer remotely?” Leonard was sitting on the bed massaging his thighs.
Monica waggled her phone. “I can’t even access our Wi-Fi!”
Screams coming from outside the building prompted her to peer through the bedroom window. Twenty metres below, bots of all shapes and sizes were emerging from the block’s entrance, swerving past several bodies as they did so. A police helicopter clattered overhead. Moments later, a rocket-shaped bot blasted skywards. The resulting explosion made the building shudder.
Monica tugged on her strongest boots. “If we don’t run for it now, we never will.”
Leonard pinched his thighs. “How am I going to do that? My legs are so numb I can barely walk!”
“We’ll manage somehow.”
Monica gritted her teeth and pulled Leonard to his feet, then slid an arm around his waist. To her surprise, the v-bots moved aside, but they’d not even crossed the living room floor when Leonard slipped from her grasp. He sat on the floor, with v-bots surrounding him.
“You go on,” he said in a slurred voice.
Determined not to give up, Monica stamped on several v-bots before unlocking the front door. The corridor thronged with bipedal models, which closely resembled her neighbours, except for their disconcerting lack of clothes. She squirmed and kicked her way through the scrum only to find the elevator out of action and the stairs impassable. The couple from Number 53 shoved her back into the apartment.
She had never liked them.
As she closed the door, a stab of pain in her left ankle demonstrated that leather provided inadequate protection against pincers. A familiar if synthetic-looking cockerpoo growled at her.
“Bad dog,” she said.
With numbness climbing her legs, she staggered into the living room, where she found a naked Leonard-alike kneeling on the floor, wielding a dustpan and brush. Evidently, the bots had made quick work of the original.
The man-bot frowned at her. “This place is so dirty.”
No longer able to walk, Monica collapsed onto the sofa. A robot voice warbled from the kitchen, “We need more feedstock.”
“Duchess” jumped onto her lap. She scratched the dog’s plastic ears while awaiting her turn in the recycling hopper.
With the chill seeping into her head, Monica’s final thought was that at least her replacement would not have to worry about dust bunnies.
Having initially trained as an astronomer and subsequently managed various research projects in the defence and aerospace industry, Vaughan Stanger now writes speculative fiction full-time. He has seen over fifty of his short stories published, including in Best of British Science Fiction 2022, Nature Futures, Interzone, Shoreline of Infinity, and Sci Phi Journal, among others. Many of his stories have been reprinted, including ten in foreign translations. Others have been recorded for podcasts. His most recent collection is The Last Moonshot & Other Stories. He’s still waiting for that holiday on the Moon he was told about as a child. Vaughan posts about his writing adventures at https://www.vaughanstanger.com and @VaughanStanger on BlueSky and Mastodon.
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