Chapter Text
[April 11, 1967; Hurricane, Utah]
What? Goddamnit…
Fiona bolts upright in her creaky bed, eyes wide. She sighs, running a hand through her hair and collecting her thoughts as she rests one palm against her forehead. She huffs before getting up from her bed, the mattress groaning under her weight as she slinks toward her small closet…
Okay, which color…?
Edwin is.. already up. And almost ready. He's been up for… what? An hour at least. He huffs to himself, undoing the knot over and over again. He's already spent far too long doing this, about fifteen minutes already.
“Why can I never get this blasted bowtie to work?” he mutters to himself, undoing the knot he just started. Again.
Fiona sighs, dusting herself off as she finishes the last few buttons of her blouse. She can't see much of her outfit, due to the crappy, dim lighting from the lamp at her bedside table and the dull sunlight filtering through her small window. The cracked, foggy, full-length mirror wasn't helping much either…
“Hen, get out here, or I swear-” She says, affectionately, clasping a set of pearls around her neck as she walks out into the small kitchen, if you could even call it that, and looks over the counter for him.
“We're gonna be late if you don't hurry up…” Fiona adds, rolling her eyes. She turns around, only to see-
Henry, grinning with a smug expression you could only call cocky, as he gestures for her to go to the doorway-
“After you, Fi.”
Fiona huffs, begrudgingly smiling as she walks to the door…
Well, isn't this a great start to our first day…
…and Edwin is shoving toast in his mouth. Oh, and somehow drinking a cup of coffee at the same time-
His father was already down at MCM, muttering something about “the grind…” as he trudged his way down the long driveway from their manor with his rich, roasty-smelling black coffee…
Edwin was checking his watch as he marched down the hill, fixing his bowtie, which he had been able to miraculously tie.
He was already at the side entrance before he knew it, unlocking the rusty door and jogging up the stairs toward the admin wing.
Fiona lets out a sigh as their small beater car murmurs to a stop. She was hired to work on some… project? Something about a family diner who, rather than a live, human band, had two, singing-and-dancing animatronics. Weird…
Fiona glances at Henry, who is already out of the car-
“Hen! Slow down, my god…” Fiona jogs up to him, holding her satchel a bit tighter…
She eventually has to split off from Henry; he was brought on to help with the mechanics of everything, while Fiona was hired as a designer. I mean, on the surface, this was her dream job; great pay, compared to anything else in southern Utah, a job she actually likes, and her brother works a few doors down.
What else did she need?
Maybe it was first-day jitters, or the old, grand feel of the place, but she felt out of place.
She sighed, looking around the twisting halls to find her way in this maze.
She needed to find the Workshop… but the only sign she could see was pointing up a short staircase, reading “Admin Wing”.
Edwin is on his third cup of coffee. Might I add, it's been half an hour since he's gotten to work. It's very, very unhealthy, basically to the point where he's so used to the caffeine that it's similar to a drug…
He hums softly to himself, doodling on a blueprint, a stack of paperwork being ignored to his left. He's never been much of a... finance guy, so obviously, he was scribbling away at some new, spontaneous design for some sort of... animatronic bear?
Edwin smiled to himself as he quickly drew a little bowtie on the creature; he liked to take inspiration from... himself. Regardless, he wasn't doing the work he was supposed to be doing... and certainly won't anytime soon.
Worth a try, right?
Fiona saunters into the Admin Wing, shoulders tense; she's on guard, defensive…
She lets out a short exhale. The place reeked of money; the golden accents, mahogany desks, immaculate cubicles. The only thing that seemed unique in this place was the variously decorated desks. So, still tense but hiding it with a smile, she marched up to the front desk-
She clears her throat, smiling softly, “Umm, ma'am…?” Fiona says, a hint of impatience as her eyes dart around nervously. The older woman laughed at something another employee said before slowly turning to Fiona with her tired, kind eyes. “Yes? Do you need something, dear…?”
Fiona exhales quickly, speaking quickly; “Oh, um… I was wondering where I could find the Workshop?” Fiona flashes her iconic smile.
“Of course- first you need to head out into the Warehouse, which you then need to head to the right most door of the warehouse, and right across the hall that puts you in should be the airlock to the Workshop, dear,” she says rapidly, waving a wrinkled, ring-adorned hand sassily, before leaning close to add, “Oh, and I’m Barb, and you are…?”
Fiona forces out a chuckle. She needs to get to the workshop, but she can't just… not answer.
“Fiona, Fiona Emily,” she says with her classic grin, holding out a hand to shake Barb’s; “and it's nice to meet you, Barb!”
Fiona forces her smile to grow, but you would never tell from how good she is at hiding it. She pulls her hand away from the Barb’s before glancing behind her to look around. She froze, and took a subtle double-take-
Edwin's pencil paused on the paper. He... who was that...? Whoever it was, they were new; Edwin could recognize anyone's voice in the company, but this new one was... very distinct; it had a charming lilt to it, a certain rhythmic quality about it. Edwin put his pencil down, slowly sliding his swivel seat back to glance over the edge of his cubicle. The soft voice was coming from the front desk... specifically, a rather uncomfortable-looking woman. Edwin froze.
She certainly was... intriguing; she had a certain charm about her appearance, at least from where Edwin could see, with her short, fluffy brunette hair and... well-fitting skirt-
The woman suddenly looked back over her shoulder. Right at him. Edwin quickly averted his gaze, scooting back into his cubicle and staring at the stupid motivational poster plastered to the wall behind his computer. He swallowed, eyes wide as he looked back down at his doodle... then to the stack of paperwork… which, for some reason, seemed so much more mundane than before after that she walked in. He swallowed again, letting out a sigh as he went back to his pointless sketching.
Fiona sighed, turning back to Barb with a smile. Weird… he looked familiar. To be honest, he looked like Mr. Murray; the man who hired her, Mr. Murray, had that somewhat stockier build, with a strong jawline and a heavily gelled mustache. The man from the Admin Wing just seemed… a hell of a lot younger than the man who hired her. Fiona cleared her throat, waving politely to Barb as she turned on her heel to leave the admin wing. Why was she thinking about some random guy she barely even looked at?
Edwin was up as soon as she was out the door and hurrying to the front desk.
“Hey, uh, Barb? I was wondering…” Edwin asks timidly, glancing back at the door before, maybe in an attempt to seem in control at the moment, resting his arm on the desk with a grimace. “Who was that just now…?”
Edwin put on his best impression of Paul Newman’s smile. Barb just laughed.
“Her? Oh, that was Fiona, dear. Fiona Emily,” she said, waving around her bedazzled hand again, “I believe today was her first day, actually. Why were you-”
“R-Really!? Well, umm… can you pull up her file for me?” Edwin quickly interjects, adjusting his bowtie. Barb pauses before smiling to herself. “Sure, hun, hmm.. let's see-”
She browses for a moment, lowering her glasses as she squints at the monochrome screen. “Looks like she was a puppeteer at a shop called Whimsy’s…? It’s in southern Idaho… some Mom-and-Pop studio, I guess… oh, and her brother, Henry Emily, started today too.” She finished with a suspicious grin. “Why are you wondering? Did that woman catch your attention-?” Barb was cut off... Because Edwin was already out of the Admin Wing’s main door.
Fiona sighed, trotting through the large doorway to the workshop… but as soon as she did, she stopped. She was frozen, mouth open, eyes wide.. in awe.
She's never been somewhere so.. big or jam-packed with everything she could dream of: spools of thread lining the way, fabric swatches lying absently on tables, cork boards with dozens of character designs, cups or pencils, pens, paint markers. It was an artist's dream…
Fiona cleared her throat, continuing forward through the maze of foam and plastic, toward a vacant desk in a cozy, dim corner. She lances around, waving to a few employees chatting, who just nervously wave back. She sets down a shoe box of things, before picking out a few items; she sets down a picture frame of her and her brother, dated 1953 March 18, the same as her and Henry's 9th birthday, a cup of pens and pencils, and as she picks up a small hand puppet she made when she was 8. She zones out, staring at the messy, unique snitching. It might be a fox, or a wolf, and definitely a pirate. Fiona recalls that her name might have been… Roxy? She can quite remember…
Fiona shakes out of her daze, setting the puppet down with a huff-
“E-Excuse me?” someone asked behind Fiona. She jumped slightly, turning on her heel, only to face that same man from the Admin Wing, smiling sheepishly down at her, one of his hands fidgeting with his bowtie, and a bit too close for comfort…
He takes a breath before stepping back, eyes darting around. He let go of his bowtie, instead using that hand to rub the back of his neck, his other hand hidden behind his back. Fiona chuckled, opening her mouth to speak, but the man suddenly spoke in a shy, soft voice-
“I-I was wondering if I could uh… borrow your voice for a project?” he asks, wincing as each word falls from his mouth. He's swallowed nervously-
She, Fiona, froze, mouth closing, before opening to say with the hint of a confused smile: “What for…? I don't even know you, I'm new here, so,” Fiona chuckles, shaking her head and smiling. “Let's start again- I’m Fiona, and you are..?” she said, tilting her head to the side.
“Edwin! Edwin M-Murray,” he quickly added, before muttering, “I-It's my dad’s place… b-but that doesn't matter, umm…” Edwin clears his throat, before quickly saying with wide eyes: “I j-just heard you were a.. Puppeteer, a-and I wanted to record your voice?”
Fiona chuckled, shrugging dismissively, “Oh, well… yes, I used to be-” but Edwin quickly interrupted with shaky excitement, his eyes lighting up; "That's great! Do you mind if I record you f-for a test…?” And he finally moves his hand from behind his back. Is he holding some sort of… microphone? Radio? It was about the size of his thumb, with a wire trailing back into his pocket. Fiona inhaled skeptically, looking suspiciously between, ahem, Edwin, and the recorder-doohickey…?
“So you… want to record me with that? What is it…?” Fiona barely holds her hand out, as if to touch it-
But Edwin jerks it back from her reach. “I-It’s a new kind of ‘audio-cassette-recorder’!” Edwin gulps, looking down at her. Did she look.. Impressed? Weirded out? Interested? Maybe… skeptical? But Fiona interrupts his train of thought; “I’ve.. never seen one like that before…” She looks up at Edwin. She looks… intrigued- who-
“I-I made it! It's a part of this new… ‘work system’ I’m working on,” Edwin grins, leaning a bit closer to point certain aspects out; “J-Just speak into the microphone, and it'll be sent to me like a work memo! The message will be recorded on a tape drive so I can listen to it when I get back to my desk on the other side of the building.” Edwin finishes with a lit sigh, looking up at Fiona. She's... grinning? Fiona huffs, almost like a soft chuckle, before looking up at Edwin. “That's incredible- what do you call it…?”
D-Did she notice how close she was…? Edwin gulps, pulling away to straighten up and looking to the side, away from her, cough, very distracting eyes-
“Oh, I, uh… don't really know. I haven't.. Thought of a name yet…” He says, glancing back at her, his hand was.. Playing with his bowtie again.
Fiona grins, resting her weight on one foot, before asking with a hint of sass: “Well… how would you describe it in one word?” Edwin paused for a moment, before looking back at her-
“W-Well.. I guess I would have to say… helpful- at its core, it is helpful, I mean-” he chuckled sheepishly. Fiona laughed again, tilting her head to the side-
“I would be delighted to help… what kind of voice should I do…?”