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.