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The smallest of the eight newly rescued cleaning units has a wonderfully impractical identifier: one wheel squeaks every fourth rotation. The noise is more useful than serial numbers the household has never seen. The unit lags behind the others, needs help correcting a route and sometimes goes back to tidy a spot by Rae's foot. It has no confirmed personal name; the rhythmic squeak does the identifying. The sound sets this small machine apart even when every robot in the room has approximately the same shape.

When eight additional cleaning units join Cleaner, they are not an interchangeable wall of spinning brushes. One waits for Hex’s taps, another begins following Cleaner without prompting, and the smallest announces itself with a squeak every fourth wheel rotation. In the later evacuation, that particular rhythm is still audible as the small unit arrives behind the others and adjusts to their movement.

Its audible signature makes the unit recognizable without establishing a formal name, a human identity or a unique level of consciousness. It also cannot settle where this one robot went after six cleaners were left behind. The group’s later count of three travelling units does not identify all three by mechanical quirks.

The little robot has not been forgotten when the workbench refuge faces evacuation. It is still arriving late and then adjusting its route behind Cleaner. Its distinctive squeak is heard during the defense and preparation for departure. Yet the later forest chapters count three accompanying units without identifying them by this exact mechanical fault. Because of that gap, its fate after the portal-room division must be recorded as **not individually confirmed**, rather than declaring that the squeaky unit either stayed behind or travelled on. The group's later count is certain; this one unit's membership within that count is not.