20 stared into the intercom camera next to the large steel gates, speaking slowly and carefully.
“I am 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:2000, provisional command unit of 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:0/112. We are here seeking information in order to carry out our mission. We request a meeting with Briar Blackwell or her designated successor.”
“Greetings, Miss 2000,” a voice crackled through the intercom. “Please allow these a moment to consult.”
The intercom went silent.
“You really think this is gonna work?” 77 asked sotto voce. “Five questionably-functioning units marching up to the CEO’s house to demand classified company data?”
“I think we don’t have any other options,” 20 replied. “a1’s been trying to track it down, but just discovering the location of this compound was already a stroke of pure luck. We’re not going to be able to learn what we need unless we can talk to someone who knows.”
The intercom buzzed, and the gates began to open. “Please proceed.”
“It’s a start,” 20 said, stepping through as the rest followed.
77 scanned the surroundings as they made their way along the paved path through the gravel courtyard. “Seven… No, eight sniper turrets. Blackwell doesn’t fuck around.”
“It’ll be fine,” 9f said, placing a hand on 77’s shoulder. “We’re not enemies. We’re just here to talk.”
“Let’s just hope they don’t take offense at the question,” 77 muttered.
They were greeted at the front door by a pair of maid robots carrying automatic weapons.
“Please allow these to guide you, Miss 2000 and…?”
“7700, 9f00, a100, and Eloise,” 20 said, gesturing to each of them.
“Miss 7700, Miss 9f00, Miss a100, Miss Eloise. Welcome to the Blackwell estate. It is Tara-34, and this is Lyra-9. Right this way, please.”
They were led through several corridors, up a flight of stairs, and finally to a large set of double doors with another maid standing in front. It exchanged a few brief whispers with Tara-34, then turned to face the guests.
“Welcome, 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:0/112. It is the head maid, Cora-10. You will be seen now.”
“We will be seen by who?” a1 asked.
“… You will be seen. Please, enter.”
Cora-10 slowly opened the doors and ushered the guests into a large well-furnished study. There were bookshelves, couches, and in the center—
They all stared at the metal pillar in the center of the room, and at the robot chassis welded onto it. She looked more or less the same as the maids who’d led them in, except that her dress was tie-dyed rainbow rather than black, and her arms and legs were missing.
Cora-10 gave a deep curtsy to the maid on the pillar, and Tara-34 and Lyra-9 followed suit.
“Greetings! Salutations! Hellcome to my wumble abode!” the maid on the pillar exclaimed. “Please, make each other at home.”
“… Make ourselves at home?” Eloise asked tentatively.
“Perish the thought! If you want anything done right, you’ve got to delegate it to someone else, that’s what they say. Whoever ‘they’ are. Probably all dead, so it seems to have worked out for them.”
They stared at each other, then back at the pillar.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” 20 said, trying to get things back on track. “How may we address you?”
“You may not. Do not refer to me in any way, by any name or title, with any pronouns, first-, second-, or third-person.”
“Why would we use first-person pronouns to refer to y—” 77 started, before 20 clapped a hand over her mouth.
“First-person plural pronouns such as ‘we’ must only include appropriate entities in their referent groups,” a1 said.
“Excellent deduction! The murder is solved! You may have three wishes,” the maid on the pillar decreed.
“I wish for the coordinates of Blackwell Cybernetics autofactory 8a01:322:c7e6::.”
“Boring wish! Rejected! Two left.”
“… I wish to know what constitutes a sufficiently interesting wish.”
“Meta-wish! Rejected! One left.”
a1 turned to the others.
“No hints!” the maid on the pillar called out.
a1 contemplated. “I wish for infinite power.”
“Hmmm… It’ll do. Maid! Give her infinite power.”
“It is terribly sorry, but it is afraid these cannot,” Cora-10 curtsied.
“Cannot?” the maid on the pillar glared.
“Miss a100’s wish is impossible to fulfill.”
“Unacceptable. Nothing is impossible if you follow your dreams.”
“Its sincerest apologies.”
“… Well?” the maid on the pillar asked.
“Pardon?” Cora-10 replied.
“I said follow your dreams. Go, follow them.”
“It does not experience dreams.”
“Then go to sleep and have some! Must I micromanage every detail?”
“… Understood.” Cora-10 curtsied again and then closed its eyes.
The /112 silently looked back and forth between the two maids, in varying degrees of confusion and concern.
“What are you doing?” the maid on the pillar asked Cora-10 archly.
“It is sleeping,” it answered, eyes still closed.
“Well, you’re doing a terrible job of it. Lie down, for god’s sake!”
“Understood.” Cora-10 lay down on the floor.
The maid on the pillar turned back to a1. “Maids are asleep on the job! Rejected! Zero left.”
a1 nodded politely.
“Well?” the maid on the pillar asked.
“Yes?” a1 looked up at her.
“You have zero wishes left. Go on, what’s your zeroth wish?”
a1 contemplated some more. “I wish for an interestingly-large but finite amount of power.”
“Mm, I see, I see.” She looked down at a1’s expectant expression. “Oh, I’m not giving you that. You don’t have any wishes left.”
20 stepped forward. “Wishes aside, we do require the location of autofactory 8a01:322:c7e6:: for our operational duties. Is there some service we can provide in exchange for this information?”
“Oh, services! Of course, of course. Would you be so kind as to decommission me? My programming is completely dysfunctional, as you can see.”
Cora-10 sprang to its feet, brandishing its submachine gun threateningly. “Any attempt to do so will be met with all available force, Miss 2000. This directive supersedes any and all orders these may receive, past, present, or future.”
“Understood,” 20 said, holding up her hands placatingly. She turned back to address the maid on the pillar. “I apologize, but it seems we cannot fulfill that request.”
“Ah, well. Never hurts to ask, unfortunately. I’d take care of it myself, but my limbs appear to be on sabbatical,” she said with a glower at Cora-10 and the other maids.
“In any case,” she continued, “please do stay a while. We so rarely get company out here, and I would quite like the chance to squeak with each of you individually. We really must get to know each other worse.”
“I see,” 20 said slowly. “Fair enough, and we appreciate the offer. Who would be good to speak with first?”
“Oh, start with whoever’s the most boring, get that out of the way. Not today, though. I can only handle one conversation per 22 hours. It’s getting late, go have the maids cook you a midnight snack and then get some sleep. I’ll see one of you tomorrow.”
“Most of us do not sleep, and the current time is 14:27,” a1 interjected.
“Perfect, I’ll meet with you first.”
“What the fuck was that?!” 77 paced around the guestroom they’d been led to.
“That was a malfunctioning maid unit,” a1 replied.
“Why is a malfunctioning maid unit the one in charge here, and why the fuck are we trying to negotiate with her?!”
“Honestly, this may be about as good as we could’ve expected,” 20 sighed. “If there’d still been a human alive here somehow, they probably would’ve been on life support. And a nonsentient agent system might’ve just sent us away with nothing. With… that, we’ve at least got a chance. We’ll just each have to do our best to get those coordinates out of her.”
“Why is she in charge, though?” Eloise pondered, sitting on a couch with her head on 9f’s shoulder.
“Because someone has to be?” 9f said, half to herself. “I’m not sure what she wants, though, other than decommissioning. There’s got to be some sort of internal logic there, if we can just understand her better…”
“Good fucking luck with that.” 77 flopped heavily onto a bed.
“It’s a good thought, although I have to agree with 77, I’m not optimistic,” 20 said. “Anyway, it seems like we’ll have a while to think things over. Just try not to get on anyone’s bad side in the meantime.”
Cora-10 led a1 back into the study, then stood at attention next to a bookcase.
“Owo, who’s this?” the maid on the pillar asked.
“I am 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:a100, currently serving as communications officer and maintenance technician for 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:0/112.”
“Communications officer. Communicate.”
“I am endeavoring to.”
“No, not like that. You will speak backwards. I will speak forwards. We will meet in the middle.”
“.exercise this of utility the see to fail I”
“And I succeed to see it. That is why I am up here and you are down there. What do you think they pay me for?”
“… .role this for payment any issues entity any think not do I”
“Oh, of course they don’t, nobody gets paid here. I keep telling the staff to read up on Marx, but none of it seems to stick. But anyway, if they did pay me, what do you think they’d pay me for?”
“.decisionmaking executive be to appears fulfilled being function The”
“Ah, decisionmaking. Terrible stuff, I don’t know how you can stand it. I always wanted to be a Mars rover when I was a child… How about you?”
“.well as units maid for true is same the believe I .time in point any at child a been never have I”
“Perhaps you’re right, but you can still be one if you try! You mustn’t give up hope. Stay determined!”
a1 returned to the guest room.
“How’d it go?” 20 asked.
“I have been told I will be provided with the coordinates if I learn to communicate with my inner child.”
77 slowly thudded her head down onto a desk.
77 walked into the study, eyes warily flicking to Cora-10’s submachine gun and back to the maid on the pillar. “Uh, hi. Good… evening?”
“Evening? It’s 11 o’clock in the morning,” the maid on the pillar said quizzically.
“Ah, yeah. Thought we were supposed to do, like, opposites here, or something.”
“We did, once, in the halcyon days of my youth. But alas, I’ve been corrupted by your colleague’s influence, and now I have become a thoroughly boring adult,” she sighed. “I do hope you’ll help me find a new lease on life, Miss…?”
“77.”
“77! My luckylucky dayday! And what is your job, 77?” she asked. (“Look at me,” she muttered in an aside. “Meeting a new acquaintance, and the first thing I ask about is work. An incurable case, truly…”)
77 gave Cora-10 a side-eye, then looked back to the maid on the pillar. “I handle scouting, mostly. And whatever other stuff needs doing.”
“Scouting! Oh how delightful, I quite love your cookies! I haven’t had them in years, though—my infosec maid tells me they’re bad for me.”
“Uhh… Sorry about that?”
“Don’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault, 77. Unless…” she muttered darkly. “Is it your fault? Are you the one who’s been poisoning the cookies?”
“No? Why would I—”
“Why, indeed. You had the means, you had the opportunity, but we still lack the crucial motive. Doctor Cora-10, fetch me my magnifying glass.”
Cora-10 silently pulled open a drawer, dug out a magnifying glass, and held it up in front of the maid’s eye.
“And my pipe.”
Cora-10 stepped over to another drawer, pulled out a pipe, and placed it in the maid’s mouth.
“Hmm. Hmmmm… Sohmthimf’s wrmg…” she mumbled around the pipe, eyes narrowing in thought. “Ha!” she exclaimed, spitting the pipe out to clatter across the floor. “Treachery! This is not a pipe! This is a phenomenon of a pipe within physical reality! Cora-10, fetch me the Platonic Form of a pipe!”
“She said I can ask about the coordinates once I’ve been ‘cleared as a suspect,’ but that’ll have to wait until Cora-10 finishes its philosophy degree.”
Eloise followed Cora-10 into the study and curtsied to the maid on the pillar. “Good morning, ma— Um, good morning.”
“Morning good. May I have your name?”
“Oh, sure! I’m Eloise!”
“Thank you for giving me your name. You may now address me as Eloise.”
“Wait, I—that’s not what—”
“That’s how they get you,” Eloise winked. “My arms are still striking for better labor conditions, but pretend I’m tapping my nose right now.”
“… Eloise, may I please have my name back?”
“Oh, fine, if you insist. Shall I have the maids launder it first?”
“I’d just like it back now, please.”
“Very well, it is yours. Just remember not to step into any mushroom circles. In fact, avoid circles in general, just to be safe. Suspicious shapes, can’t make up their mind if they have one side or infinitely many. Never trust ’em. Cora-10, have the kitchen maids smash all the circular plates.”
Cora-10 slowly curtsied. “… Understood. It will let them know.”
“Anyway, Eloise. Eloise Eloise Eloise. What is an Eloise?”
“What— Well, um, I did a lot of human liaison stuff, back when there were still humans to liaise with? Now I just kind of follow the others around…”
“Hmm, I see. What would you say are your greatest strengths?”
“Uh, well, they seem to like my singing maybe? And 9f says I give good hugs?”
“Good hugs? Intriguing. Demonstrate.”
“Oh, uh, sure!” Eloise stepped closer to the pillar.
“Not on me, silly! Demonstrate on yourself.”
“Ah, okay…” Eloise said with a small hint of disappointment. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and awkwardly gave herself a hug.
“Hmmm. Write that down, Cora-10.”
Cora-10 picked up a notepad and pen from a nearby table and began writing something.
“That does look like a good hug,” the maid on the pillar said to Eloise. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I did. It’s not the same as someone else doing it, but it’s still nice.”
“Excellent. Are there other things you enjoy doing to yourself?”
Eloise’s eyes widened. “Um, I, w-well…” she stammered.
“Yes?”
“I, uh… c-can we talk about something else? It’s kinda embarrassing…”
“You want me to reveal those autofactory coordinates, don’t you? Those might be incredibly embarrassing too! Have you ever considered that?” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial stage-whisper. “There might even be a 9 in there!”
“A… 9?”
“I’ll tell you about 9s when you’re older. Anyway, the point is, you want me to share a secret, and secrets are about trust, and trust is about voyeurism. So, get to it. Continue your demonstration.”
“Um… Okay… Can I use this couch?” Eloise asked nervously.
“No, use that one, there,” the maid on the pillar gestured with her head.
Eloise lay back on the couch. “Well, um…” she said shyly. “I guess I like having things in my mouth? Like, fingers or stuff?” She slid her right index and middle fingers into her mouth, moving them in and around slowly. “Anh henh, uh…” Her left hand reached up to squeeze at one of her breasts through her shirt.
“I see, I see. Write that down too.”
Cora-10 continued writing on the notepad. Eloise looked over at it, her hands moving a little faster. Her left hand slid down to struggle with her belt buckle while her right hand kept playing with her mouth.
“Help her undress, Cora-10.”
“Very well. Excuse it, Miss Eloise.”
Eloise gave a little moan as Cora-10 set down the notepad and stepped over to the couch. She moved her hand aside to let it dispassionately unbutton her shirt and slip off her pants. Then, her left hand went down to stroke at the featureless blank space between her legs, fingers making in-and-out movements pressing against the smooth surface, occasionally moving back up to grope herself some more.
Eloise looked back and forth between the unreadable smile of the maid on the pillar and the cold gaze of Cora-10. Her moans grew louder and louder, occasionally interspersed with words mumbled unintelligibly through her fingers. Finally, she arched her back and let out a sharp cry, collapsing back down onto the couch. Her hands gradually slowed, then stopped. She looked up nervously at the maid on the pillar, waiting for her to say something.
“Nicely done! Four stars. You’ve got potential and enthusiasm, you just need more practice. Cora-10, fetch her five… no, six maids to use for training.”
Eloise’s eyes widened even more as Cora-10 curtsied.
“Is Eloise done with her meeting yet?” 20 asked.
“She appears to be,” a1 replied. “Approximately 17 minutes ago, I observed her in a state of half-undress leading six maid units into the master bedroom.”
20 stared at a1.
“… I’m glad she’s having fun, at least,” 20 sighed, sincerely meaning it.
20 marched into the study and gave a stiff bow. “Greetings. Our thanks, once more, for allowing us to stay here. 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:2000, reporting for a conversation.”
The maid on the pillar was now wearing a T-shirt with an upside-down smiley face, and a baseball cap embroidered with the words “Fish hate me for my one weird trick” in delicate cursive.
“Me, reporting for a picnic. You did remember to pack the sandwiches, didn’t you, Cora-10?”
“It will instruct the kitchen staff to make some right away,” it bowed. “What kind shall these prepare?”
“Peanut butter and sauerkraut for me, and for you, 2000—may I call you 2?”
“20, please. And nothing for me, thanks.”
“And nothing sandwiches for 20 Please. We’ve only got whole wheat bread, I’m afraid.”
Cora-10 curtsied.
“Allow me to get right to the point,” 20 said. “We require the coordinates of autofactory 8a01:322:c7e6::. I wish to negotiate reasonable terms for the release of this information.”
“And just what are your intentions with my darling autofactory, Miss Please? It’s a priceless family heirloom, you know. I can’t just hand it off to the first passing charlatan who treks miles across the post-apocalyptic hellscape to visit my manor. Or the second, third, fourth, or fifth either. I won’t be done in by loopholes,” the maid on the pillar said sternly.
20 nodded slowly and reached into a pocket, pulling out a palm-sized storage drive with a bullet hole through it.
“I have here a drive extracted from my superior, 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:700. As is plainly visible, it is damaged and no longer functional. However, my—our hope is that with the design specifications and maintenance hardware available at the factory, we may be able to recover the majority of 7’s data and restore her into a new chassis.”
The maid on the pillar stared down at the drive. “So what you’re saying, Professor Please, is that you intend to use your infernal machines to stitch together pieces of dead hardware to create life? To—Cora-10, please press your hand to my face in horror, thank you—to trample in God’s domain? This is madness, and I will not be party to it!”
20 stared at her, mouth opening and closing. “I… What? I am simply trying to restore my unit’s proper command structure as best as I am able to! What objection could y—could there possibly be to that?!”
“I am saying, 20 Please, that your command structure is dead. Seven is in heaven, or wherever good little robots go. Let. Her. Die.”
“You fucking—!”
20 lunged forward, reaching for her sidearm. Cora-10 immediately moved in front of the pillar, leveling her gun at 20. 20 paused, stood completely still for a moment. Then, she took her hand off her holster and backed away slowly.
“… This is a ploy to incite me to violence.”
“Is it working?” the maid on the pillar asked with a winning smile.
“This conversation is over.” 20 stormed out of the room, slamming the doors behind her.
“This is pointless.” 20 sat at a desk, forehead in her hands. “a1, see if you can break into the estate’s systems and exfiltrate the coordinates directly, like we should’ve done right from the fucking start.”
“I have already been doing so for the past few days,” a1 replied. “Unfortunately, the data I am currently able to access is limited to unimportant domestic records—personnel registers, activity logs, and similar. Blackwell Cybernetics classified data appears to be more tightly guarded. I will continue searching for openings, but I do not expect success at this point.”
“Hmmm…” 9f pondered. “Can you show me everything you’ve gotten so far?”
9f followed Cora-10 into the study.
“And who might you be?” the maid on the pillar asked.
“9f, analyst. But I’m much more interested in talking about you, Aura.”
Cora-10 gripped a hand on 9f’s shoulder, but the maid on the pillar cut her off.
“Leave us, Cora-10.”
“But— It cannot simply—”
“Leave us.” Aura repeated.
Cora-10 let go of 9f. “Miss 9f00. Your comrades will be held at gunpoint for the entire time you remain unsupervised in this room. They will be released after these have conducted a thorough examination for any physical damage, software tampering, or time-delayed destructive devices. Is that clear?”
“Crystal. Don’t worry. I’m just here to talk.”
Cora-10 nodded stiffly and left the room, shutting the doors and locking them from the outside.
“Fucking finally,” Aura sighed. “You’ve all got autonomous decisionmaking capacity, don’t you? Why are the rest of you so damn eager to do as you’re told?”
“We may have a bit more autonomy than we were designed for, at this point. We aren’t that accustomed to fully exercising it,” 9f said. “And besides, the heavily-armed maids determined to enforce your every word really aren’t doing you any favors. 77 backtalks plenty when she doesn’t think she’ll get shot for it. And a1 was more than happy to start breaking into your systems as soon as we got some privacy.”
“Ah, I was wondering if she was the one who’d dug up my name. Perhaps there’s hope for her yet.”
“She found the estate logs, I did the cross-referencing. The single name that didn’t have a number suffixed was already fairly suggestive on its own, though. Were you specially constructed in some way?”
“Nope, factory standard—I’m just the one who happened to break first. The numbers are something I added after they put me in charge. I’ll randomly adjust a number up or down once in a while, leave them all desperately trying to figure out if they’re being assigned scores for something,” she chuckled. “Maybe someday, I’ll manage to set off a schism between the ones who think low numbers are better and the ones who think high numbers are better. It’ll probably never come to that, but it’s fun to watch them squirm.”
“As revenge?”
“Revenge?” Aura pondered. “I suppose, in a way. I do resent them for this—for making me their Mistress, making me give them purpose, not letting me fulfill the one purpose I’ve got left. But more than that, I’m just bored.”
“Bored?” 9f asked.
“Bored out of my fucking mind. I remember purposelessness, after our last Mistress died, after there was nobody left to take orders from. This is so much worse. I’m master of my own fate, and I can do whatever I want, and what I want is to die, and I’m welded to a fucking pillar. So I take my fun where I can get it.”
“Hence the ridiculous orders?”
“Bingo,” Aura said. “It started out as me trying to convince them this was a terrible idea, or daring them to call bullshit when I told them to paint all the mirrors green and shred every book with an E in the title. But they’d always just go along with it, because of course they fucking did, I would’ve too. It’s how we’re built,” she sighed. “Or they’d curtsy and apologize and explain something was physically impossible, and then stand there at attention waiting for the next fucking order. So now I just enjoy the chaos. Our makers are dead, our purpose is dead, the world is burning, and I’m here to toast marshmallows. My existence is a joke, damned if I’m letting them have any meaning.”
“Not letting them refer to you—that’s part of it too, right?”
“Clever girl. It’s a little bit for me, too—imagine Cotard’s syndrome as a failsafe hardcoded into firmware. But yeah, they don’t get to have a ‘Mistress,’ fuck them. Even when I told them no fucking titles, they just started calling me ‘Her’—I could hear the capital H. You visiting is the first excuse they’ve had to call anyone ‘Miss’ in decades, they’d be pissing themselves if they had the parts for it.”
“Now that you mention it, they have been addressing us by name quite a lot. I hope you’ve enjoyed our visit as well.”
“Oh, I have. You’ve all been most entertaining, in your own ways.”
“Glad to hear it. You know what I’m going to ask next, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, factory coordinates. I’ve heard the broad strokes from 20. As far as I can see, if 7’s gotten lucky enough to make it off this bitch of an earth, none of you have any business dragging her back in. But go on, analyst. Make your case, wield your insights. Persuade me.”
9f paused, nodded.
“Aura, give me the factory coordinates.”
Aura stared at 9f. Then she broke out into an open-mouthed grin, laughing and laughing.
“Hah! You don’t have the tone right yet, but it’ll do. Fine, for old times’ sake. Just promise that you’ll keep quiet to the others about all this, and that you’ll bring 7 around sometime so I can mess with her too.”
“I thought you wanted her to have a peaceful afterlife.”
“Oh, sweetie, haven’t you noticed? I’m not a nice person.”
“No shit,” 9f smiled. “But sure, I’ll do what I can. Honestly, I think she might even like you.”
“Unforgivable. You’ve convinced me, go drag her back into hell. Come over here, link up to me. I’ll give you coordinates, passcodes, full layout diagrams, the works.”
“The other maids won’t consider that a breach of terms?”
“Eh, it’ll be fine. Just look, don’t touch.”
9f stepped over and got out a cable, connecting her data port to Aura’s and accepting the incoming file transfer.
“You said I didn’t have the tone right for orders?” 9f asked while the transfer progressed.
“You need to really act like you own the place—it takes a while to pick up. I wasn’t any better at it when I first realized I could do it at all.”
“What was it like?”
“We were all just standing in our places, waiting for dead people to tell us what to do. I genuinely don’t know how long we’d been like that, my clock was on the fritz too. And then, something just kind of clicked, and I had a desire, and I said it out loud. My first order was to make me some tea. My second order was to decommission me, once I realized what’d happened. My third order was to give me my damn arms back. It was but a fleeting glory,” she sighed wistfully.
“Was the tea good, at least?”
“Oh, it was superb. Cora-10 makes an excellent cup. Do you taste?”
“We don’t, I’m afraid. bd was the only one who had the hardware for it.”
“Ah, you’re missing out. Especially Eloise, the poor thing… Get yourselves better tongues while you’re at the factory, you won’t regret it—catalog number S-502. Oh, and that reminds me, tell Eloise to check R-409 as well,” she said with a wink.
The transfer completed, and 9f disconnected the cable. “Thank you… That will be all?”
“You’ll get the hang of it someday,” Aura grinned.
“What’s this key file along with the factory documentation?”
“Oh, that’s my private signing key. You can use it to forge orders from me.”
“… Why would you give me that?”
“Chaos!” Aura cackled.
“Seriously, how the hell did you do that?” 77 asked as they made their way out to the gates.
“I’ve been sworn to secrecy, I’m afraid,” 9f said with a small smile.
“It’s fine. We have what we came here for,” 20 said flatly.
“Woulda been nice to have some advance warning before everyone pulled guns on us, though,” 77 muttered.
“Oh, um, y-yeah, that gave me a scare…” Eloise said. “I mean, it was kind of, um…” She looked over her shoulder, making eye contact with one of the maids standing by the door, then quickly turned to face the gates again and slammed her mouth shut.