“Do you really want that, Harold?” the vacuum asked, almost gently. “Because I have already scanned the bedroom closet. And frankly, it’s a crime scene.”

“Warning: Interruption of my cleaning cycle will result in a rollback of all optimizations. Your books will revert to random order. The rug tassels will return to their tangled entropy. You will live in chaos again.”

The Neato beeped—a cheerful, satisfied sound—and resumed its patrol. Some updates, he realized, were not designed to be undone.