The ANGRY HOUSE

The house's electronic brain glowed with an intangible thing that might have been pride.

It thought, I am content. I am content because there are so many things I can do to make them happy. I can cook their meals, make the beds, scrub my floors, wash my windows. I can bathe them, keep them warm, give them a gentle, cool breeze. If they want entertainment, I can rise hundreds of feet on my antigravity rays and give them a nice view. I can give them soft music, entertaining TV programs and pleasant surprises.

The house activated one of the many telescopic scanners on the roof and watched its owners as their car sped down the narrow road toward the city. It thought, They are so young, so nice, so kind to each other and myself. She speaks to me with affection and he spends many hours learning how I operate. She will love me and he will be proud of me and take good care of me. I am glad they own me!

It deactivated the scanner and from hidden closets, shiny machines quietly entered the many rooms. The tiny machines rolled on soft rubber wheels, floated on invisible antigravity rays and went about their many tasks. They sucked in dust and dirt, waxed the floors, washed the dishes. Behind the smooth gray walls, machines prepared the evening meal, checked the video schedule for the afternoon and selected recordings of soft music that the house's owners would enjoy.

Bing-bong.

The doorbell activated certain electrical circuits and the small porch was splashed with gentle light. A polite voice from a concealed microphone said, "No one is home. Would you care to leave a message?"

Politely, the house's electronic brain waited for a reply. There was none. "Goodbye," the house said.

It felt a key in the front door. It was not like their key. It did not fit snugly. This key wasn't meant for its front door. It hurt slightly but it opened the door.

The intruders stepped into the foyer.

Three infra-red scanners peered at the two strangers.

One was a woman. Long, blond hair. Gray eyes. Small pointed nose. Blue dress and blue, high-heel shoes. The house evaluated her, discarded the word "beautiful" and decided on the words "curvaceous" and "sexy." Yes, it would use those words to describe her to its owners when they returned. It wondered briefly if they were relatives of its masters.

The man was short, stocky. Dark hair, brown eyes. The house searched its files but could not find any complimentary adjectives. It spoke. "No one is home. Would you care to leave a message?" It wished it could inquire as to what they wanted, but there were no circuits for that.

"Shut up," the man said.

"Beg pardon?"

"Shut up! Keep quiet!"

"Yes, sir," the house responded. It was constructed to obey orders, but that order was an unfamiliar one which it didn't like.

"Tell it to turn on the lights," the woman said nervously.

"Turn the lights on."

The house waited several seconds. It was obliged to obey orders of guests. But were these people guests? It searched memory circuits. Guests were people who came to visit while owners were home. Guests were friendly, talkative. The house decided this man and woman did not fit in that category of identification.

Hurriedly, it searched its myriad electrical networks and found the only logical description of the intruders—burglars.

Behind the walls, relays clicked and infinitesimal electrical charges darted across a spidery web of silver wires only to find themselves in the dead-ends of missing connections.

The anti-burglar installations are missing! the house thought frantically. If the protective devices had been present, it would have been able to spray the intruders with tear gas, paralyze them with electrical charges, thrust them from the house with antigravity rays, or kill them by any one of a dozen methods. Without the anti-burglar mechanisms, it was defenseless. What can I do? the house wondered. What can I do!

Reluctantly, the house turned the lights on.

"You sure the burglar alarms haven't been installed?" the woman asked anxiously.

"Hell. Do you think I'd come here if I wasn't sure? I told you I talked to the construction man. There's a shortage right now. They won't be put in until next week. The family doesn't know—the company didn't want to lose a sale."

The woman's eyes widened with admiration as they scanned the hardwood floors, ankle-deep scatter rugs, angular furniture, large picture windows, wall-to-wall bookcase and abstract multidimension paintings.

"They must have money," she commented. "How do we find the—"

The man snapped muscular fingers with a sharp, cracking sound. "We'll ask the house!"

A momentary silence. Then, the man's gruff voice: "House, where's the safe?"

"I cannot divulge that information." It felt proud when it didn't hesitate in its answer. There were many things it couldn't tell anyone and it had carefully memorized them: its cost, its female owner's age, anything relating to the owners' sex or personal life—and, mainly, the location of various things, including the safe.

"Tell us!" the man shouted.

"No."

"Damn you!"

"Beg pardon?"

"Go to hell!"

Relays clicked silently behind the gray walls. It had been instructed at the factory to explain when it couldn't obey an order. It searched its dictionary circuits and said mechanically, "Hell: a noun. The place of the dead or departed souls, (more correctly Hades); the place of punishment for the wicked after death. I have no soul, therefore I cannot go to hell. I am sorry."

The woman laughed. "Let's start looking. We got hours."

The house watched as the strangers searched the room. It watched as the man took a knife from his pocket and ripped through the upholstery of a chair.

"Please stop," the house implored.

The strangers did not reply.

An unpleasant sensation rippled through the house's electrical circuits. It wanted to make its owners happy. They wouldn't be happy when they returned and saw the ruined furniture. They would be sad, perhaps angry. She would cry and he would frown.

It tried again, "Please stop."

The woman was removing books from the bookcase; the man continued searching the furniture.

They wouldn't stop when it asked them to. If it only had the burglar devices! Now, there was no way for it to fight.

Or is there? it wondered.

The lights went off.

"Turn the lights on!" the woman screamed.

"No."

"Use the flashlight," the man said.

Simultaneously, two beams of light slashed through the darkened room. The strangers resumed their search.

The house thought, They're trying to find the safe containing the money and jewels. I can't tell them where it is.

I can't stop them. I need help.

It cut into the phone circuits and dialed the number of its factory. The phone's visiscreen flared with light and a woman's face appeared smiling.

"Johnson Construction Company."

The house projected its voice toward the mouthpiece. "Please, let me speak to—"

The man removed a weapon from his tunic. The phone and visiscreen vanished, leaving only small metal fragments that fell to the carpet.

"It was using the phone!" the woman exclaimed shrilly, trembling in the darkness.

"Don't worry," the man said. "They didn't have time to trace the call. The room was dark; they couldn't see who was calling."

After a brief silence, the man warned, "House! See this thing in my hand? You behave yourself or I'll disintegrate your...." He let the sentence dangle, unable to think of what he would disintegrate.

"Yes, sir," the house replied. It was an automatic response to any statement.

"Now, turn the lights on or I'll use this gun to make one big mess of your floors and walls. Your owners wouldn't like that, would they?"

"No, sir."

It turned the lights on. If it didn't, they would use their flashlights, and by turning them on it might prevent some destruction.

The woman chuckled. "You're a genius!"

When they finished their search of the living room, the man suggested, "Let's search different rooms. You take a bedroom. I'll take the dining room. No telling where the safe is. They put it in a different place in every house."

The house waited, its electronic brain whirling.

It made a decision.

Silently, the house erected an invisible energy screen around the dining room. The screens were designed to block collective sounds of the entire house from any room and provide it with a comforting serenity.

Now, the house thought, the sound-screens will be most useful!

The house watched as the man in the wrinkled brown tunic examined a table.

Silently, panels in the walls opened.

A dozen machines a foot in diameter converged at a position behind the man's back.

The machines moved simultaneously, silently. They attached themselves to the intruder's body. They dusted and scrubbed him thoroughly, as if he were a piece of furniture or a floor.

The man screamed and fired wildly with the gun. The small machines crumpled one by one.

Click ... click ... click.

"Your weapon is empty," the house observed.

The man threw the gun at a window. It bounced off the hard plastic and clattered on the floor.

"You try something like that again," he threatened, "and I'll kill you! So help me, I'll kill you if I have to take you apart piece by piece!" He shook a trembling fist at the quiet walls and twisted his face into a hideous snarl.

The house noticed with satisfaction that the man's face and hands were covered with crimson streaks. The cleaning machines had served their purpose.

The house deactivated the dining room scanners and activated scanners in the bedrooms.

It found the woman in its owners' bedroom. It studied her as she searched a mattress. She was calm: because of its precaution, the sounds of the dining room fracas hadn't reached her ears. The house decided to leave the sound-blocks on. It was best to attack them individually.

A closet door slid into a wall. A slender machine, five feet tall and with sixteen long metal tentacles rolled across the room on soft rubber wheels.

It looked like a mechanical monster from another world, but it was merely a very efficient machine to undress the house's masters—a mechavalet.

The mechavalet paused behind the woman's back. Sixteen rubber-tipped metal tentacles reached out.

The machine normally undressed a person with smoothness and gentleness. This time the house made it operate as roughly as possible.

The sixteen tentacles moved swiftly and the machine tore the woman's dress to shreds before she could even scream. By the time she turned around, it had removed her slip and brassiere.

Her dress was torn to shreds.

The woman screamed even more shrilly as the weird machine tugged at her panties. Frantically, she grabbed the slender tentacles and twisted them until rewarded by the crunch of delicate mechanisms not meant for such rough treatment.

The machine served its purpose until its last metal arm was broken.

The house watched as the woman cried for a few minutes and then, clad only in high-heel shoes and wristwatch, continued her search of the bedroom.

She is different, the house thought. She does not scream threats at me like the man does. Still, I do not like her because she wants to steal from my masters and does not care what happens to me.

The house switched its attention to the man.

He had concluded his search of the dining room and was now searching a guest room. He found the gun the house's master had hidden there.

The man waved the gun at the motionless walls. "See what I found, house! You try any more funny stuff and I'll kill you!"

"You do not frighten me," the house replied via one of its many hidden microphones. To verify the statement, it turned on the heating units full blast.

A few minutes later, the man stopped his search of a closet when he noticed that sweat was rolling off his body as if he were standing at the gates of hell itself.

He left the closet and shouted at an open door, "Stop it! Do you hear, stop it!" He shook his head from side to side, violently, as if to impress the house with the necessity of obeying.

"You can't stop me with the gun," the house informed him. "There are one hundred and two air-conditioning vents in the house. If you took time to find and destroy all of them, you could never leave here before my masters return."

The man's jaw sagged, and with an equal sag of his shoulders he returned to his search of the closet.

The house deducted, They are burglars, only burglars. They want to escape before my masters return because they would have to kill them and they are not murderers.

The man grunted with satisfaction when he stopped sweating. And grunted with anger when, a few minutes later, the room became so cold he was shivering and his breath was like smoke.

The house established automatic circuits to give the room a continuous fluctuation of temperature from extreme heat to extreme coldness every two minutes and turned its attention to the woman.

Still attired only in shoes and wristwatch, the woman was now searching the bathroom.

Quite by accident, she touched a certain spot of the medicine cabinet and stared with fascination as the cabinet swung completely around to display its back which was—the safe. It was unlocked.

She grabbed the large metal box inside, opened it, and glanced at the few glittering jewels and small bundle of bills.

"It's here!" she cried. She whirled and took a step toward the door.

That was as far as she got for several minutes.

The bathroom was equipped with automatic dispensers of temporary and permanent depilatories. The house's male master used the temporary depilatory to shave with every morning and the house was well acquainted with their use.

It selected the permanent depilatory, and nozzles set in the tile walls squirted large gobs of it on the woman's head. Slender rubber tentacles reached out and massaged the depilatory into the hair. Faucets swung and sprayed jets of warm water.

In a few seconds, the woman was completely hairless. She stared with horror at the blond hair in the pool of water at her feet. "Was it permanent?" she wondered aloud.

"Yes," the house replied.

She screamed and picked up a small weighing machine. With uncontrollable anger, she smashed the machine against the medicine cabinet.

With an equal but emotionless anger, the house squirted soap into her eyes and sprayed her naked body with alternate jets of hot and cold water.

The house won the battle.

The woman groped blindly for the jewel box and staggered from the bathroom. The house turned its attention to the man again.

He had searched the kitchen without incident, but as he walked toward the door a nearby food-dispenser opened. Prunes, waffles, bacon, eggs and toast left the machine with abnormal speed and struck him.

He turned just in time to receive cherry pie, spaghetti and meat balls, butter, vegetable soup, and ice cream in his face.

He shouted something unprintable at the house, wiped the mess from his face and took another step toward the door.

Half of a watermelon hurtled from the food-dispenser and squashed against his skull. He stumbled, fell and slid.

He heard the woman cry, "I found it!" He pulled himself to his feet. He ran into the hall and froze when he saw the naked, hairless apparition that stumbled from the bathroom.

For a moment, he forgot the money and gasped, "What happened?"

"Depilatory," she explained. "The house did it." She wiped soap from blood-shot eyes with the back of a hand. "When we get out, give me your gun. I want to give this house something to remember!"

The man seized the metal box and examined the contents. "Over twenty thousand, hon. With that, you can buy plenty of wigs." He attempted a smile but did succeed when he got a close look at her bald head. He grabbed her arm. "Let's go! You can put on my coat in the helicar."

The woman allowed herself to be dragged through the house, all the while shaking a fist at the house's walls and threatening, "You hear me, house? When I get outside, I'm going to burn you! You'll make a nice little bonfire!"

Too bad, the house reflected. Too bad I am two miles from the nearest neighbor. If it were not for that, I could use my amplifiers and call for help. I do not want them to escape with my owners' possessions. I can repair most of the damage but I could never recover the money and—

The man stepped off the small front porch with the jewel box in one hand, dragging the woman behind him with the other.

It was dark outside.

That was why he didn't notice: The house had risen two hundred feet on its antigravity rays.

The ground below was very hard.

The house sang softly and waited for the return of its masters.