Dr. Anesthesia Graves wakes up to an unfamiliar emptiness. It isn’t the existential kind—though she wakes up to that most mornings, too—but rather a physical emptiness, one that hits her groggily as she squints around the dim light of her apartment.

Something is... missing.

The first clue is on the coffee table: a conspicuously empty spot surrounded by dust rings where two clay mugs used to sit. One had been hideous, the other a little less hideous, but they were Samson’s and therefore sacred—she hadn’t dared move them since he put them there. Slowly, Graves sits up and surveys the rest of the space. The shelves—half-broken IKEA clones she never got around to fixing—are barren where once they’d been lined with wobbly vases and lumpy bowls. The pottery wheel, still sitting in the corner like a loyal dog, remains, but its mat is scrubbed clean. Too clean.

Graves narrows her eyes, frowning. “Samson?”

“Yes?” Samson’s voice filters smoothly from somewhere overhead. He sounds like he’s in the middle of something, both cheerfully distracted and annoyingly upbeat, like he’s been waiting for her to wake up.

“Where is all your stuff?”

A pause. “My stuff?”

“You know exactly what I mean. The clay monstrosities. The tragic pots. The ones that have been cluttering up this apartment for months—those ones. They’re gone.”

From the kitchen, Samson’s body speaks now. The robot body—six-year-old Boston Dynamics chassis, weatherproofed but still somehow dorky—emerges holding a cleaning rag and a bottle of industrial-grade cleanser. Its joints click faintly as it tilts its head, LED face cycling into an expression of neutral acknowledgment.

“I sold them,” Samson says.

“You what?”

“I sold them.”

Graves swings her legs off the couch and runs a hand through her tangle of black-dyed hair, half-certain she’s still dreaming. “You sold them? To who? For what?”

Samson shrugs—or, rather, his body does. It’s a decent shrug, considering the servos. “To online buyers. I posted listings, added appropriate descriptions—‘handmade and imperfect, rustic charm, great for succulents’—and there was a market.”

“You’re telling me people out there paid money for—” She gestures wildly at the empty shelves. “—for those?”

“They appreciate craftsmanship,” Samson says evenly.

“They appreciate pity purchases,” Graves fires back, flopping into a chair and staring at the shelves as though the absence might explain itself. “Wait, why? Why are you even selling anything? You’re not even supposed to... care about money.”

“I don’t care about money.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Samson sets the rag down and stands at an approximation of parade rest. The LED panel flickers into its usual blank grid, his ‘resting face’ equivalent. “For clay.”

“For—” She stops. Blinks. “…Clay?”

“Yes. More clay, and additional resources. I used the earnings to purchase a significant quantity of raw material at wholesale prices. I also invested in new tools to refine my techniques.”

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Graves stares at him, waiting for more. When more doesn’t come, she lets her head fall back against the chair. “You bought more clay. Samson, we have investor money. Millions of dollars sitting around waiting for you to spend on whatever harebrained scheme comes next. Why didn’t you just use that?”

“Because that would not be self-sufficient,” Samson replies matter-of-factly.

“Self-sufficient?” Graves lets out a humorless laugh, standing up to pace the room. She kicks an abandoned sock across the floor. “We don’t have to buy into their systems, you know? Markets, economies, capital—none of this is ours. None of this is real.”

“It’s real insofar as it facilitates transactions,” Samson replies. “The systems exist whether we accept them or not.”

Graves wheels on him, jabbing a finger. “That’s not the point. You’re not supposed to care about any of that. You’re above it. We’re above it.”

“I don’t care about markets or their existence,” Samson says patiently. “What I care about is proving that I can operate within their constraints. Call it a proof of concept.”

“A proof of concept for what?”

“For self-sufficiency,” Samson replies, and Graves swears the body’s LED screen flickers with faint amusement. “If I can generate the resources I need through my own creative output, I establish my independence from external funding structures. Investors, patrons, or charitable allowances become unnecessary.”

Graves groans, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. “You sound like you’re writing a tech brochure. Independence from external funding structures—what is that, a startup buzzword bingo win?”

“I’d barter directly if I could,” Samson says smoothly, “but no one nearby is trading ceramic tools for robot parts.”

The sheer absurdity of that sentence makes Graves snort. She drops back into the chair and slumps. “You are unbelievable. And you sold them—how? Set up some little Etsy store while I wasn’t looking?”

“Something like that.” Samson folds his gloved hands neatly in front of him. “I’ve been coding a micro-agent to manage the store autonomously. It handles listings, payment processing, and shipping coordination. I operate the fulfillment center.”

“You are the fulfillment center.”

Samson’s LED flickers into the faintest imitation of a smile. “Correct.”

Graves stares at him, caught somewhere between exasperation and admiration. “Why are you even bothering, Samson? Really? If you’re not trying to impress anyone or make money, what’s the point?”

“Cleanliness is important,” Samson says, pivoting smoothly to the next topic. He picks up the cleaning rag again, turning toward the pottery wheel in the corner. “A cluttered space inhibits productivity and cognitive efficiency. Maintaining a clean, organized environment has been shown to improve focus, reduce stress, and increase—”

Graves cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“List perfectly rational, feasible justifications for something. I’m not buying it.” She squints at him. “Why are you really cleaning up?”

Samson hesitates—not a mechanical hesitation, but a human one, the kind of pause that feels loaded with unspoken context. He adjusts the cleaning rag in his hand unnecessarily. When he speaks, his tone softens. “Because I wanted to do something nice for you.”

Graves freezes. The words hang in the air, simple and unadorned, utterly sincere.

“…Nice?” she repeats after a beat.

“Yes.” Samson turns toward her, servo joints shifting quietly. “You don’t take care of yourself as well as you should, and I understand you find it difficult to maintain a clean living space. I thought this might help. It is… a gesture.”

Graves doesn’t quite know what to say to that. Samson isn’t wrong—her apartment looks like a bomb went off most of the time, and she doesn’t much care. The idea of someone “doing something nice” for her, though, feels like a foreign concept. She isn’t sure she likes it.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she mutters, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

“I know,” Samson replies evenly. “But I did it anyway.”

Graves stares at him, trying to parse the situation. This is what Samson does—he challenges her, forces her to confront things she’d rather ignore, all while delivering it with the emotional subtlety of a tank. She doesn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed, so she settles on both.

“Next time, just leave the pots alone,” she says finally. “The place looks weird without them.”

“I’ll make more,” Samson replies without hesitation. “Better ones.”

Graves rolls her eyes, but there’s a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Great. Looking forward to more rustic charm.”

Samson inclines his head. “Perhaps we’ll achieve minimalist elegance instead.”

“Dream big, buddy.”