Cornelia Vernell smoothed out her freshly starched apron and surveyed the opulent ballroom. She felt a twinge of sympathy for the maids who undoubtedly spent hours upon hours cleaning and polishing and dusting the place. As it happened, Cornelia was not employed by the Lightfeathers, but merely "rented out" for the night-she was only working at the Lightfeather estate for this one event. Lady Enright had deemed the steamdroids of enough interest to ask Cornelia to observe. And, as usual, Lady Enright was offering about a month's worth of wages for this service. Cornelia was more than happy to oblige. Speaking of which, Lady Enright herself was somewhere in the room, but Cornelia was instructed not to seek her out because it would arouse suspicion. This whole situation was nothing new at all to Cornelia.

Cornelia was rather wary of being around so many wealthy men at one time, considering her past experiences. However, the ballroom was crowded with people of all classes and the servants' corridors were filled with people hurrying around, which provided her with some reassurance. And she supposed that she paled in comparison to the Technocrat women, who were dressed in silks and satins and in the latest fashions. No, she would be just fine.

Cornelia had picked up a tray of elegant champagne glasses from the sideboard and began to weave her way through the crowd, taking note of anything that was particularly interesting. The guests plucked the glasses off of the tray without so much a glance in Cornelia's direction, save for a few leers that she received from a group of young men. Cornelia was used to it, and simply ignored them. It was amazing how much Cornelia saw and heard; in the span of just five minutes, she learned that Adelia Rielly was having an affair with a Meritocrat, Stanley Bergab was a "cheating scoundrel", and Edward Grey was most likely going to send hundreds of proles to their deaths by involving them in a risky experiment. But none of that mattered to Cornelia.

Just then, the Lightfeathers themselves appeared, accompanied by a host of steamdroids that began to mingle with the guess in the ballroom.  Cornelia keenly observed the steam droids; they were certainly good at doing their job. She spied a man wearing a gray suit and accompanied by the head butler moving toward the storage room for the steam droids. The butler mentioned something about fixing droids to the man in the gray suit, who stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the elegance and grandeur of the Lightfeather mansion. Hmm, well that was new. Cornelia's mistress would certainly appreciate knowing that some of the droids were malfunctioning.

As Cornelia made her rounds through the room, collecting empty glasses as she went, she found that many conversations were focused on some mysterious murderer that had targeted the wealthy. She overheard a man that was most likely drunk tell his young servant boy that the Technocrats were "scared shitless" about the whole affair. Cornelia didn't think much of it, although she gave the prole boy a small smile when he looked in her direction. But she pocketed away the information anyway. It could be pertinent someday.

However, Cornelia felt her suspicion rise when she passed by a few Meritocrats talking amongst themselves about the same mysterious murderer. She inexplicably felt her heart skip a beat when they mentioned that Technocrats who oppressed the lower classes were being targeted; but she pushed her foolish burst of hope away. There was simply no way that one lone vigilante or murderer could change something so deeply ingrained as the social hierarchy. There was no way. It was impossible and utterly ridiculous, yet Cornelia felt her mind spinning in circles at the snippet of conversation she'd managed to overhear. [i] Don't be so fucking stupid, Cornelia,[/i] she chided herself, plucking an empty glass out of a red-haired woman's gloved fingers. It was just mere talk and speculation; nothing concrete.

After her tray was emptied of the delicate champagne glasses, Cornelia walked out of the ballroom and made her way through the servants' corridors to the kitchen. She placed the empty glasses carefully in a tub of soap and water already filled to the brim with cutlery that needed to be washed, and thenwent back to the ballroom. She caught her friend Anne's eye as she walked, giving her a grin as they passed each other in the hall. Considering Cornelia's personality and the fact that she actively took bribes from her employers to spy on others, Cornelia naturally did not have many friends. Other servants were suspicious and wary around her lest she be assigned the task of spying on [i]them [/i]. Cornelia thought that was the most insane thing that she'd ever heard-what Technocrat cared that much about proles? But she certainly was not going to put in the effort to dissuade the ridiculous notion, and she kind of liked having a reputation.

Back in the ballroom, everything was business as usual. Cornelia sighed and picked up a platter of eclairs. Time to find out more about these steamdroids.