"The top, is really the right answer. You'll want to throw down the dust and dirt from shelves and tables and everything else, and then the vacuum picks them all up." Henry begins by grabbing something that looks like a mop, but has a bluish paper towel on the end of it. He gently pushes it along the tops of cabinets and other high off places, cleaning them off, before going downwards. He kicks up a bit of dust into the air as he does so. After cleaning off one area, he continues to another. "Once you can't clean anything else but the floor anymore, then you vacuum everything, and finally mop the floor once all the dust that the vacuum would pick up properly was gone. I recommend using earplugs when you turn it on; you won't use it for long, but the vacuum still gets quite loud."

She gets to dusting, and they make quick work of the room. After that she'll watch carefully to learn how to operate the vacuum.

Henry plugs the vacuum into the wall, before pushing a button on it with his foot to turn it on. It generates a loud whooshing noise as it powers on, easily absorbing all the accumulated dust as he moves through the room at a steady rhythm. It doesn't take long before the floor is utterly dust-free, and he moves on to mopping it by using thick, orange mops at the end of the mop's handle.

That's loud!

When they're finished, they move on to the next apartment.

This time, there's someone waiting inside! It's a pregnant woman, and her main room has been converted into a maternity ward for her. The polarization filter is always turned on; all the windows that the main room looks into, are black. "This is Anne; she wants to keep her home extra-clean and bacteria-free, for herself and for her baby. Use these:" Henry points to a stack of green cloths, placed above the other cleaning supplies in the cart he's rolling around. "They'll make this room clean enough that she can go through a caesarean, if that proves necessary." He shows Sofia how to carefully rub the green cloths against any every surface, going over to a new cloth rapidly to keep everything properly sterile.

"Good morning Anne, nice to meet you."

"Have you already picked the names for your baby?"

"Good morning, miss. I'll name a boy Martin, and a girl Mary. I'm so glad that people like you can help me out so much, here. What's your name? I'll want to know you going forward."

"Those are beautiful names." She smiles, warmly, "I'm Sofia, glad to be of service."

"Nice to meet you, Sofia! You know, I'm not sure how much longer I'll live here. I've always loved this city, but it's not really built for mothers like me. Maybe once my son becomes 2 or 3, I'll move somewhere better for him?"

"What's not good about this city? It seems lovely to me."

"Well, we'd want more playgrounds, and more space for kids to play. Right now, I'll be hiring a nanny, but it'd be easier to have a group so my baby would always have somewhere there for him. We don't have proper schools for those under 15. Oh, and he won't have many children his age around him to play with."

"I see. It's nice to see someone look out for their child so much."

"Yup, and if I lived in one of the parent cities, it would be more than just someone else looking out for my child; it would be a whole society."

"It sure is nice to live in such a Good place."

She waits for a beat, and then - if Anne doesn't say anything more - she'll get to cleaning.

Anne doesn't say anymore; after finishing the cleaning together with Sofia, Henry rubs a cotton swab along the floor and puts it in a vial, before taking the elevator to their next client. Henry takes out a small pen-shaped device, revealing a hidden text on one of the doors of the elevator. "Someone wants their clean clothes placed in their closets, as well their home cleaned. We'll need to head off to the laundry room to grab their clothes first." Henry pushes a button that says zero, taking the two of them to the basement. The door leads into a corridor, with a parking lot for cars, and a room with a picture of a washing board. Entering it reveals a row of large washing machines.

"How do these machines work?"

"Well, they fill with water, and they spin around, moving them through the water. Imagine putting a washboard on a sling; you can put the clothes you want to wash in the sling, and when you spin it, the clothes are pulled along the washboard."

"They wash clothes automatically? That's amazing!"

"That's right. Spectacularly convenient, if I say so myself. And the machine also works to dry them out as well. Makes them real crisp and warm." He walks up to the machine, revealing that it's filled with mesh bags. The bags nest into each other; there's one bag for all the clothes to be cleaned on a given setting, one bag for all the clothes from each apartment, and one bag specifying how the clothes inside are to be stored: in a particular drawer, on a coat hanger, or even on a mannequin (on a few of the costlier dresses and sheerer pieces of lingerie).

Sofia observes all the bags intently, and then helps him pick up the clothes they need to bring to the apartment.

Carrying all the clothes from the machine into the elevator proves fairly difficult; a lot of people live here, so there are a lot of clothes to bring up. Henry quickly sorts the various units' laundry bags onto the machine, as he starts putting back everyone's clothes in their designated locations.

That sure is some see through underwear! But you would wear it underneath other clothes, so why-

A picture of her mistress wearing it passes through her mind.

The room suddenly feels very warm.

Then she and Henry took everyone's dirty laundry (and bedsheets) back down again, stuffed into the nested layers of laundry bags before being placed back down into the huge washing machine. "Phew, bringing all that down there was fairly tough. Amazingly glad to have your help in taking it down."

"I'm glad to have such a good and patient teacher!"