My day begins with a small ding sound within my head. Mother-Desmond calls it my 'internal clock'. With a yawn and a long stretch, bone-and-metal joints creak and click, and my fingers and toes wiggle and curl. Narrow spears of grey daylight penetrate the cracks in the boards across my window, illuminating the ghostly dust particles in their path. I rise from my bed, in the room above the laboratory, and dress in my maid's livery. Mother-Desmond says that, since I am the most perfect of maids, my dress is made of the finest cloth. Oh, there are a few smudges of something or other on my skirts and apron, and a rusty sort of stain along one sleeve, but its threads hold together very well, and its maker assembled it with much love. Am I any different? I was formed with great care, I am told, and my strong seams were made to hold!

With one hand, I pull my bed away from the door and return it to its proper place, by the boarded window. Pushing down the latch, I pull open the heavy, wooden door and descend the steps into the main room of the laboratory. There isn't a soul in the large, poorly lit room. But the giant machines are so lifelike. They hum, whir, spin, and transmit brilliant, blue beams of electricity. Even the little machines - Desmond's diminutive gadgets and widgets - are like living things with their own personalities.

Lying atop a large metal table lies the lifeless form of a young woman. She wears the same livery I do, so this must be Mary. She's dead, just as Mother-Desmond said she would be. He has not explained to me just what dead is yet, but as best as I can understand it, it means broken, no longer functional. And there is very little value in something in that state. I am very glad to succeed where Mary has failed!

I merrily exit the laboratory and get the tea things prepared in the scullery, as instructed. I have been through the drill for the last couple days, so I am more than prepared. I am told that Edmund takes his eleven o'clock tea with cake in the atrium, and I deliver the trolley precisely on time.

Two gentlemen are there, conversing rather soberly, one of whom I expect to be Edmund. "Your tea, Sir," I say with a smile, hoping Edmund will reveal himself.