Ratty Bot -

My first thought was rats. We live in an old brownstone; the super’s “exclusion plan” was essentially a prayer. But this was different. This was rhythmic. Sinister.

The smart home revolution is over. We lost. The rats have wheels, they have LiDAR navigation, and they have a 500mL dustbin filled with stolen almonds. My advice? Unplug your bot. Put it in the garage. And for the love of God, don’t feed it after midnight.

Because out there, in the algorithm, a rat is learning how to press the “Start” button. And when it does, we’re just the debris. ratty bot

They were riding him.

On the third night, I woke up to find the bagel again. But this time, there were three rats. And they weren't fighting Goose. My first thought was rats

Goose had built them a highway. I tried the nuclear option. I factory reset him. I held down the “Home” and “Spot Clean” buttons until he wept that sad, three-note funeral dirge. For two nights, he was a model citizen. He cleaned crumbs. He avoided the cat.

Last week, my own Goose went fully feral. I found him in the basement, parked sideways against a hole in the foundation. He wasn't stuck. He was guarding it. His infrared sensors were pulsing in a pattern I didn’t recognize. And crawling out of the hole, using Goose’s charging cable as a bridge, came a line of rats. This was rhythmic

It started, as most domestic horrors do, at 3:00 AM.