Sterling's Mansion I

	“Margaret, you can send the girls in now,” chimed a stern voice from behind the little reception desk. The little cluster of offices was just one of many such spaces in the Sterling Robotics’ headquarters, a space tailor made for all the administrative and bureaucratic needs of the ever-growing company, and it was here in the Nandroid Requisitions Office that the company did its hardest to scrub up its little robots for the world, and scrub out the handful that failed to make muster in class. It was such a handful the little receptionist, almost like a humanized version of the robots she saw come and go, now ferried in. The trio followed behind her into the back of the correctional wing of the office. Margaret knocked curtly on the door.
	“Ms. Bradbury? I have the robots to see you,” she said. The door swung open as the broad pant-suited woman welcomed the three little maids in and sat them down opposite her desk.
	“Good morning girls,” she began, twirling a pen in her hand. She spun her chair and gazed beyond the blinds to the grey skies and rainy streets beyond. “I hate to be the one to say I’m disappointed to see you here, as I am any nandroid. You are the shining example of Sterling’s finest in robo- Avery!”
	“What? I didn’t do anything!” The robot seated in the middle of the three was lounging backwards, her chair clacking forward as she yanked her legs off the edge of Bradbury’s desk.
	“Sit properly! And roll those sleeves down! Honestly, I wasn’t surprised when the teaching staff finally turned *you* over but I was,” she paused, a gentle thump and hum now filling the room. “Cassy, please be quiet for just a moment. Cassy? Cassy!” The robot at Avery’s left froze and glanced up, her head no longer bobbing and swinging in rhythm with the stomp of her feet.
	“Oh, yes Ms. Bradbury?”
	“I- Never mind. Avery, fix your hair, and Cassy wait to hum until *after*, okay?” The middle robot flipped her shock of messy red hair before taking the proffered brush and straightening her hair out, only to shake her head violently afterwards; Bradbury was too tired to scold her further.
	“Girls, you’re here for a number of reasons. Sterling’s policy is to take, well, robots ‘like you’ and put them into work more suitable to them. Some of the teaching staff, though concerned, fought tooth and nail to give you girls another chance. I’ve been looking at your files and they’re very concerning,” she said, looking over a trio of manila envelopes with the various minutia and data that were collected and compiled in this very office over the course of a nandroid’s production and maintenance.
	Two of the robots at least had a reason to be off the baseline - during the initial programming loop Avery had gotten stuck in a feedback about basic sports and outdoorsmanship which manifested as an overly rough attitude towards class situations and unfortunately in the injury of a handful of the male techs. Cassy was fed the incorrect tapes for a nandroid’s standard music appreciation class and, contrary to the gentle operas and European classics they were meant to embrace, found herself turning any errant object into a microphone and breaking out into soulful renditions of the latest hits. The third robot, however, was beyond anomalous. For all intents and purposes she was fine upon production: no such issues of over exposure, or human slip-ups in education, nothing. But when she came from the factory flow she was slow, almost absent the innate maternal instinct a maid needed at least a little to take care of children. She was laid in the scrap pile before she went missing and turned up two weeks later in class, wearing a handmade Sterling-blue uniform she’d fashioned from reams of cloth scattered across the warehouse floor.
	“What I’m saying, Amy,” she continued, making sure to include the third, “is that we here at Sterling are very open to the idea of second chances. I’m here to make sure you earn them.”
	“So what do you want us to do, teach,” Avery snorted. Amy fussed with Avery’s sleeves as she rolled them further up and neater.
	“Mr. Sterling is, as you know, a magnanimous and intelligent man,” Bradbury sighed. “He is the light and soul of this company. He is also old. Very old.”
	“You can’t say that Ms. Bradbury,” Amy piped up. “Mr. Sterling wouldn’t call you old!” Bradbury breathed deeply before continuing.
	“Yes, Amy, I apologize. Mr. Sterling is very *eccentric*, and has come into the possession of a new property. For some reason he believes the property to be,” she began, shuffling through papers until she happened upon his handwritten communique. “‘To be infested with skullduggerous spirits and phantasms unimaginable.’ Well, girls, I hope it’s plain and clear what your 'job' is. I have to get these ‘ghosts’ taken care of, and you get to go to a family. Understood?”
	“You can’t be serious, right? Ghosts,” Avery started.
	“Like Casper,” yelped Amy, now bouncing in her seat. “They’re friendly right?”
	“Right,” Cassy continued. “So you’re saying we go in, faff about, and we can stay?” Bradbury removed her glasses and, rubbing her eyes, simply nodded.
	“I don’t know how you’re going to prove that the ghosts are gone, but allegedly there are three, maybe four. If you can make up a story-”
	“Oh, I love ghost stories!”
	“Ye-Yes… thank you, Amy. I really can’t offer you much more than that. Just… do your best. Please.” A few more pleasantries and the girls were escorted quietly out of the office and away to their destination. Ferried out and guided to another wing of the sprawling office building they were introduced to the paranormal consultant who Sterling had brought on in light of his new, haunted mansion.