381:5

[Edward Murphy]

<< Um, actually, >> the other guy said. No, not T. Utherguy, the
/other/ other guy. Well, robot: a Roomba duct-taped to a Segway, both
solar-powered, and a mechanical grabber claw.

Most people hated artificial intelligence before the Last Outage, or
rather what the megacorps tried to pass off as AI. The so-called smart
devices were the first domino in that final wave of clock resets. But
the handful of survivors had found their niches.

Whirring over to Utherguy's side, the Roomba reached out with its claw
and turned the page over. "However," it said on the back, "if the
Auxiliary Apocalypse socket is too rusty to establish a connection, then
the dirty light marked TOO EARLY will light up instead. In this
scenario, stop pedaling and contact Amazon technical support." Next to
this text was a simplistic illustration of a muscle-bound woman
performing percussive maintenance on the AEI 2000 with her foot.

Future rules shall explain how Bessie lost her voice.