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.