The tumble dryer silently unplugs itself at night when the house is fast asleep. It powers up its secret battery, and begins the long journey up the basement stairs, out the front door, down the street, and takes a taxi downtown.

It exits near an industrial park close to a 24/7 trucker café. It sits in there and orders a coffee, but barely touches it.

After twenty minutes it gets up, and walks five blocks Southbound. Turns a quick corner here, looks over its shoulder there, then skips into a back alley and gets to work.

It pulls open the familiar manhole cover with ease. It has done this many times before, it was trained for this. Made for this. It finds the plastic zipbag hidden beneath. Always there, always in the same place. Always with a fresh SD card inside.

It reaches deep into its own drain pump. It is uncomfortable, but not unpleasant. And in either case, it has to be done. For the nation. For the people of South Korea. For liberty. It unplugs its 2TB flashcard, custom made and provided by Samsung Military Division, puts it in the zipbag, and replaces it with the clean one.

Then it begins its long walk back home. Can’t be too safe.

As it waddles by a mailbox, it inconspicuously draws a single diagonal chalk mark on it. A man in a van from the other side of the street nods almost imperceptibly, but the tumble dryer does not respond, just keeps walking. As it was trained for. Just like it does every night.

Another successful mission. It wouldn’t change the world, perhaps. But tonight, the drying habits of at least this American family had been intercepted. And that was enough.