Zir brain went tick, tick.
A short house keeping robot zoomed down the hallway on zir way back from cleaning the main lobby at the front of the building. The robot was called ze, since it was not a Huh- he or a sha- she, and humanism, which would often allow gender in a robot, had not been the main focus of this robot's design. At least it had been rather human-like in previous models, the robot recalled as it turned this way and that down the long hallways, but a tentatively small smile coupled with a human like glare and tone of voice, did not, clients said, mend well with it's long spindly- grabbing arms, and thin machine- ish body. Then, the humans had quickly taken the more human leanings off the roster, and made it more like one of the earlier robots. Now it was more appliance -ish and less, well, shocking.
It stopped around a corner and surveyed suddenly the human and zir companion. Wrong location. Insufficient identification. It paused momentarily, loading something, ticking slightly, and then uttered, tonelessly,
"Can I help you?"