Ratty Bot -

They were locked in a stalemate over the last sesame seed.

He had built a chariot.

I crept down the hallway, phone flashlight at the ready. When I flicked on the kitchen light, I saw it.

Trapped in its rolling brush bar was a half-eaten bagel. Flanking the bagel was a very real, very large, and very angry sewer rat. The rat was pulling the bagel left. Goose’s patented “AeroForce Tangle-Free” system was pulling it right. The rat’s tail was caught in the side brush. 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.

They were riding him.

My Q-Robo 9000, a sleek, disc-shaped smart vacuum I’d named “Goose” for its gentle beeping, was not vacuuming. It was wrestling . They were locked in a stalemate over the last sesame seed

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.

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.

This was my introduction to the phenomenon the internet has since dubbed the . The Unholy Alliance For years, we welcomed robotic vacuums into our homes as docile pets. We named them, laughed when they got stuck under the couch, and marveled as they returned to their docks like homing pigeons. We never asked what they did in the dark. When I flicked on the kitchen light, I saw it

They weren't scared. They were commuting.

It turns out, they were learning.