Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(Prologue: The Present Day)

From somewhere far away, a conductor’s whistle screamed. It cut through the cold, open air like the cry of a ravenous bird of prey alighting upon its victim.

That was something that Amelia-Jane had not quite gotten used to about the train stations in mainland Europe; even the indoor platforms felt far too vast, far too open. This one was full of contradictions, she observed, allowing her eyes to dart around her surroundings for the near-hundredth time. It was poky and smaller than the one in Bordeaux but still felt just as chaotic, busy, constantly moving. It was also an unsettling contradiction, she felt; both nostalgic and old with its curling, metal, fleur-de-lis lamp posts and signage and still ultra-modern with its touch-screen ticket booths.
It was beside one of these booths that she had decided to take up residence, her travel trunk resting precariously against her leg and her satchel wrapped awkwardly around her body. She had naively hoped that this secluded spot might afford her some relative peace though this desire was entirely unfounded considering that the ticket booth practically demanded tribute from all those who set foot on the platform. The queue before her was forever growing and shrinking, made entirely of shadowy faces and hushed, eclectic voices.
A pair of saucer-wide brown eyes stared at her from the top of the queue line. Their owner, a small child, dangling from their mother’s arm, let their jaw fall slack before loudly announcing: “Mutti! Siehst du?! Sie ist so weiss!” 
The mother shot Amelia-Jane a glance before wrinkling her nose and admonishing her offspring with a rapid fire of shushes and shoves. “Hör auf die Frau anzustarren!”
A cold wind drew across the crowd, followed almost in tandem by a second shriek of the conductor’s whistle. Amelia-Jane’s fingers automatically sifted through her too-tight jeans pockets in search of her ticket. It wasn’t that she didn’t know it was there, she just knew that her mind would not rest easy until her fingertips could pinch the little hard-paper sliver for reassurance. Her palms would also occasionally take an impromptu tour of the rest of her coat and countless zipper-lined pockets.
Phone…check. Charger…check. Penknife…check. Purse…check. Needle and thread…check.

When she wasn’t taking inventory of her own personal belongings, Amelia-Jane’s eyes were scanning the platform to pick out items that she could take apart in her head.
“Bench…two person occupancy…twelve six by eight oak wood planks…about a quart of liquid steel, nickel blend…red and green weather resistant paint and dark wood varnish to finish.”
She had “built” almost every inanimate object on the platform and as much as she tried to avoid it, her eyes were soon wandering guiltily over to the human occupants.

Thankfully wasn’t long before the train shunted on to the tracks, grunting and sighing like a beast, its own breath rising to meet that of its patrons and their cigarette smoke. Amelia-Jane couldn’t help but crave a smoke of her own but did her best to shove the thought to the farthest corner of her mind. Attitudes in Europe towards smoking had been about as lax as Marissa had promised though Amelia-Jane was still not inclined to believe that sparking one up on a train would be in any way tolerated.

She still felt faintly jet-lagged anyway. Her temples occasionally throbbed, her eyes felt far too heavy to keep open and her feet felt at least two sizes too big for the shoes that had been fairly roomy when they had left the States.

Thankfully, a free seat wasn’t too hard to find.

In fact, she was lucky enough to get her own compartment. Constantly smelling like a combination of milliner’s glue and varnish seemed to be an effective way of making sure that she stayed as lonely as a cloud. She shoved her trunk under the seats and sifted through the plastic bag in her lap for the tea and sandwich that she’d packed before she left. It wasn’t that Amelia-Jane felt particularly hungry; more so that breaking a promise to Marissa-Jean Bowles felt near heretical.
“You make sure to eat lunch when you get there, yeah? You get yourself something to eat when you get on that train. No point in showing up fainting and fading in front of the folks that asked for you. Promise me, Amy!”

Her sometimes-manager, sometimes-friend, sometimes-mother’s voice rattled around in her head like the clapper of a bell. Oft comforting, seldom quiet but occasionally intrusive and always a reminder of the world outside of the workshop.

As though doing so would prove a point to her manager, (who at this point was sitting at a desk in a Toy Hospital’s office in Poughkeepsie), Amelia-Jane took a firm bite out of the sandwich and forced herself to swallow.
The train rattled to life beneath her and out of both habit and a desire for comfort, her fingers sought out the vibrations of the beast against the window.
“Easy girl,” she murmured, soothing the engine as though it were an animal in pain. “Take it easy.”
Maybe her efforts were in vain though, she considered; the train was from France- she probably didn’t understand English.

Amelia-Jane sighed again between reluctant bites of her sandwich, (chicken and cucumber), taking a moment to eye the pill-box in her satchel. It would be another six hours before she would be clear to pop her next one.  She was only twelve days into her latest detox and while the nurses had suggested (none too gently) that she tackle the cold turkey phase while in rehab, that wasn’t a possibility in her line of work. If she wasn’t available on call out for even a week, that was enough to lose her industry status. After more than a decade of carefully cultivating her reputation, Amelia-Jane “The Automatron” Schwarzwald was willing to go any amount of cold sweat and insomnia before she would willingly let it all fester.

Or so she had said.

A wave of nausea hit her and instinctively her hand went down into her deepest coat pocket, seeking out a tiny porcelain hand within and giving it a squeeze.
Her little stowaway had been well-behaved so far and Amelia-Jane muttered a prayer under her breath to no God in particular that she’d stay that way.

Staring out the rain-speckled window, grey skies with clouds packed like cotton into every corner and fields rising out of the ground like verdant fire soon blurred together like a spoiled water-colour painting. It was at moments like this that she would find her mind phasing in and out of reality. Typically, she would imagine detailed restoration projects, delicate painting jobs, blue-prints and the likes though occasionally her mind would start sifting through her memories and would usually pull out some of the less than favourable moments for her to chew on.

Blinking herself back to self-awareness, Amelia-Jane tried to distract herself by preparing herself for the upcoming job that she’d been summoned to do. She pried her the well-worn, leather-bound notebook from her satchel, leafing to the most recent page.
One of the very few specifications of the job was to have references prepared. Amelia-Jane would find this strange in hindsight, considering that the job description had an unnerving lack of detail even compared to her usual fare.

Her latest client, (or clients- that much was still unclear), had contacted the Toy Hospital directly with her name, citing a previous referral. They gave correspondence entirely in email form, leaving no phone number and no address. Her instructions had simply been to get herself as far as particular train station by a particular time and she would be escorted to her client’s property from there.

The basic description of the job had been a doll restoration job- specifically repair- but that was the extent of the details that she had been provided.
Hiring a restoration professional from another country seemed more than a little excessive to Amelia-Jane but she didn’t question it. 

That was exactly what had gained her such reputation among her clientele.
She didn’t ask questions.
She famously didn’t ask questions.

That was her rule number one: Don’t Ask Questions.

Amelia-Jane was not the only one in her field of work and true, there were others who could best her in some specific skill areas but she easily differentiated herself by her conduct.
She kept her nose out of her patrons’ business, complete discretion assured, would never threaten legal actions even in less than favourable circumstances, never sought out any form of compensation and above all, was completely devoted to her craft.
“Human things”, Amelia-Jane had once mused to no one at all, “are of no interest to me.”
Give her a doll, a puppet, an automaton, an animatronic…anything that resembled something alive and she could have the most wonderful conversations with them, becoming intimately acquainted with every string, knot, gear or bolt in a matter of hours.
Her job wasn’t about money or acclaim or (in this case) travel- it was about the craft.

Amelia-Jane’s reputation and track record had thankfully granted her quite a lengthy list of references. Some quite well-known in the industry and a jewel in her crown while others were a bit more infamous and served more as an interesting talking point during interviews.
“If you don’t mind me asking…what led you to partner with them?”
“So…did you ever hear about the lawsuits?”
“Was he really as nuts as everyone said?”

Speaking of which.

Amelia-Jane had been running her thumb along a list of references, ensuring that the correct names and addresses lined up with the most recent phone numbers and emails.
Her fingers shuddered to a halt reaching one particular name: “O. Gubberson.”

She swallowed, closing her eyes and trying to pretend that she had only just recalled who he was.
Trying to pretend that he didn’t cross her mind at least once a day. She had debated erasing the reference from her list but it was honestly, one of her most eye-catching.

Try as she might, she couldn’t help the memories from starting to seep into consciousness, bleeding into her thoughts like varnish seeping into freshly cut wood.
Even when he wasn’t there, Owen still had a hold on her.
He was still the puppeteer.
He would always be the puppeteer.

She could still remember their first meeting.

Chapter Text

(May 1986)

A.J. could vividly recall the first time that she’d met the legendary Owen Gubberson.

She had been at some kind of convention or fair for toy, model and puppet enthusiasts.

 It was a little over a year since Oma had died and about two years since Uncle Theo had passed away too. She had still been working as an apprentice under Jenna Cartman in her workshop; her work at the Toy Hospital was only on a part-time basis and she’d been feeling thoroughly idle as of late.
So idle and hollow in fact, that she had allowed Jenna to talk her into co-manning their booth in the convention hall. It had been a little after midday and with the sun high in the sky, her superior had run off to the food court to grab herself an ice-tea.
She had left Amelia-Jane- or “A.J.” to her small smattering of friends at the time- with a set of clear and explicit instructions regarding what to do if anyone approached the booth. In less than kind terms, A.J. had essentially been assigned a script that she was to follow, come Hell or high water.

A.J. hadn’t ever been particularly good at talking to people.
People weren’t like machines or puppets- if they fell apart in front of you, there was never one clear or obvious way to fix them. It wasn’t like she could just whip out a needle and stitch a smile back on to their lips or grease a gear somewhere in their chest to get them to perk up.
Not that A.J. hadn’t been tempted to try.

She had no issue talking about her craft but she had a hard time stopping herself from going on and on about things that she liked. She had a harder time still trying to convince people to order one of these darned new face plates that Jenna was trying to shill. As much as she tried to come across as enthusiastic, she couldn’t help but feel her own dispassion leaking from the corners of her mouth as she stumbled and stammered her way through Jenna’s sales pitch.

A.J. didn’t hate the idea of the invention. It was a latex form of doll face that, through a series of button-activated pressure valves, would allow a child to change the doll’s expression. With a press of a small remote control, the doll’s lips could pull upwards in a smile, her brow could arch with sadness and her jowls could puff out as though she was angry. A.J. actually quite enjoyed doing the little demonstration with the three test dolls and allowing passers-by to have a go too. She respected Jenna’s abilities as the materials were not easy to work with. The latex was supposed to give the look and feel of “real” skin and it was probably there that A.J. started to lose interest.
Toys were toys.
Puppets were puppets.
Dolls were dolls.
They weren’t supposed to be strictly realistic. That was part of the charm, wasn’t it? To venture too far into the uncanny valley, as A.J. saw it, would be to make the figure more human.
And humans were boring, imperfect, messy, complicated…

Speaking of which.

A.J. looked around the convention hall. It was loud, rowdy and packed with con-goers from gleaming wall to gleaming wall. She had been desperate earlier to get a look at the other booths and while everything still piqued her interest, she suddenly wasn’t sure if she wanted to dive into those damn crowds. Part of her was thankful that their booth wasn’t quite in the middle of everything but the noise was still borderline unbearable.
And that was to say nothing of the heat.

A.J. undid the top button of her pale, yellow shirt, hoping to let herself cool down a little. She knew that at this point her freckles would be blending into russet clouds across her face and suddenly, she was terribly grateful for Jenna’s advice to scrape her curly, red hair up into a messy bun. Occasionally, she would pick out a rogue ringlet and wind it around her finger, pretending it was a copper coil or a piece of fine thread. Her eyes would also occasionally slide sideways to Clara who was currently saving Jenna’s seat for her.

Clara did a far better job representing the workshop, A.J. felt. She didn’t look half as bad for the heat, her hair looked amazing and she never failed to smile beautifully at passers-by.

“Then again,” A.J. mused. “When you’ve got a face made of porcelain and your lips are painted on, I doubt that’s a problem.” She lightly stroked her favourite doll’s cheek with a finger before pulling a cigarette from her coat pocket. “As soon as Jenna gets back, I’m out for a smoke break. I call dibs on it, Clara.”
Some vendors had already lit up inside the hall but A.J. wouldn’t dream of smoking near the dolls. She’d be lying though, if she had denied her fingers anxiously plying at the little box in her jeans pocket.

Clara said nothing in protest, continuing to smile kindly.

“Thanks, darling. I knew you’d understand.”

The majority of the current clientele moving through the hall were puppet makers. Most of them worked with wood, felt or plush so their booth went quite overlooked, not that A.J. particularly minded.
A.J. was halfway through a mouthful of off-tasting bottled water and a quarter of the way through her comic book when a staff representative suddenly zipped past the booth, heralding another “big name” creator. The reps wore bright blue shirts and would usually bounce around from booth to booth, announcing the arrival of any noteworthy industry names like a flock of underpaid, overworked, admittedly-discreet town criers.

“Owen Gubberson. Incoming, Owen Gubberson of Handeemen Studios…”

A low buzz, like a hive of ecstatic bees started to rise into the air around the stalls and artists were suddenly scrambling to fix displays and reset models. Hair was finger-combed into place, shirts were tucked into jeans, illicit cigarettes were stubbed out and hot beverages were swallowed in one gulp.

A.J. hadn’t really been paying attention at first, instead affecting interest in a loose string on one of Clara’s frilly cuffs. “I could burn that off with a lighter but it’s way too risky to try here. I guess I could just snip it though I probably should re-stitch instead…”

“Owen Gubberson! The Owen Gubberson of Handeemen Studios?”
“Creator of Mortimer’s Handeemen!”  

She recognised the name and it sent a bolt through her chest- it would impossible to not know about the legendary Owen Gubberson and his industry-shattering, cultural-reset, top-secret puppet designs.
However, A.J. had the sense to know that his primary material was wood not latex so she certainly wasn’t expecting to see him anywhere near their booth.
She resigned herself to the idea that if she was going to get the chance to meet Gubberson, it would be in a crowd after the keynote address or after standing in line for an hour or so during the meet-and-greets.
A.J. sighed wistfully, still winding a strand of her own russet hair around her finger. Truthfully, she had probably watched the show a few too many times to be healthy. She had already been too old to be interested in it when the show first came on. The puppets, however- the Handeemen- were the talk of the community for months and it was impossible to take a step in the Toy Hospital’s workshop without hearing someone talking about their lifelike qualities or amazing nuances in motion. A.J. would have been lying if she’d said that she didn’t wonder what Gubberson’s secret was. A.J. could remember scaring the living daylights out of the receptionist at the Toy Hospital, lunging at the T.V. set in the waiting room to gawk at the magician puppet gracing the screen in front of her.

“A.J.! Get away from the TV set! There are kids trying to watch!”

From the jaunty quirk of his brow to the slight roll of his shoulders as he moved, all the way to the deftness of his knuckles and the nuanced rise and fall of his chest…Mortimer Handee was a verifiable work of art and A.J. was enchanted.

She craned her neck briefly to see if she could spot the famous creator but the crowd was far too dense. Giving up with a resigned pout and a shrug, she returned to preening Clara.
 A.J. had just noticed a little smudge on the doll’s tiny porcelain hand. The apprentice frowned, realising that some of the paint had chipped and oxidised slightly. She was just mentally going through the glorious, tedious process of having to colour match Clara’s skin tone again when a voice came from over her head.

“Is this one of the display puppets?”

A.J. jumped slightly in her seat, her knee knocking clumsily against the desk and causing two of the latex-faced dolls to tip over. “P-Pardon?” she stammered, hastily trying to reset the upset duo. She looked up at the man who was now standing over her. Tousled black hair served as a veil for two dark, maroon-edged eyes and those two eyes seemed to be locked on little golden-haired Clara.  
“Is this one here one of the display puppets?” he repeated himself in the same, lower, slower tone, this time pointing to emphasise his intention.

A.J. shook her head, still feeling a little flustered and laughed despite herself.
“Her? Oh no. She’s the one manning the booth. I’m one of the display puppets.”

No sooner had the lame joke left her mouth did A.J. want to grab the words out of thin air and stuff them back behind her teeth.
She anticipated him walking awkwardly away but much to surprise, the man smiled widely, even echoing her nervous laughter.

“Oh, is that so?”
Feeling a little emboldened, A.J. nodded. “Yep. I’m a bespoke model.”

The dark-haired man folded his arms and cocked an eyebrow challengingly. “Alright, you’re a bit sizeable. You’d certainly very cumbersome for the average puppeteer to move around.”
“Well, I fold up easily for storage purposes,” A.J. retorted, folding her arms to mirror the stranger. “And maybe I’m not for the average puppeteer. I’m for experienced individuals only.”

The man chuckled again. “Alright, alright…” He glanced over to Clara. “So, she’s your puppeteer then?”
“Yep.”
“And she’s doing it without touching you?”
“I’m remote controlled. Fully equipped for the hands-off approach.”
“And somehow she’s providing your voice without moving her mouth? At all?”
“She’s just that good. Like I said, experienced puppeteers only.”

The man pursed his puce-tinged lips, stroking his chin before asking. “And your jaw lock is made from?”
“Polymer tubing, metal inset and latex covering,” A.J. told him without hesitation. That kind of thing was second nature to her.
“Like these ladies here?” the stranger gestured to the three showcase puppets.
“Somewhat,” A.J. told him breezily. “I’m kind of an experimental model.”

The man leaned forward, still smiling, his dark eyes surveying her. “I can see that. These freckles for example…they’re unique to you it seems…”

A.J. couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Ah, these are just a factory defect. Bit of brown paint spatter that they couldn’t scrub off.”
The man leaned back again, his hands moving to his hips. “Factory? I thought you said that you were a bespoke model.” 
A.J. threw her hands up in a mock feature of defeat. “Oh, you’ve got me! I lied. I’m not bespoke, I’m made by Mattel.”

The two laughed in unison and the man outstretched his hand to meet hers. A.J. stood up, smoothing out her yellow t-shirt before returning the handshake.

“Mattel or not, it’s nice to meet you, Miss-?”
“Amelia-Jane Schwarzwald. Friends call me A.J. And you are?” Her fingers were wrapped around his. His palms, like hers, had the tell-tale callouses of a craftsman but his fingers were a lot more lined, emblazoned with several red and purplish streaks. She would later learn that these were the love-bites of carved wood.
“Owen. Owen Gubberson.”

He didn’t say his own name with any special flourish or expectations but A.J.’s breath suddenly stilled and her hand jerked in his grip as though he was wearing a joy-buzzer. She wracked her brains for what to say next though luckily, she didn’t have to think for very long.

“Did you make these?” Owen Gubberson- the great puppet-master himself- asked her, gesturing to the dolls sitting on the counter of the booth.

“Ah, no I didn’t,” she stammered. “Those are Jenna Cartman originals. She’s the head engineer in our workshop and the creator of the new face plate here. I just made little Clara here-…”
A.J. had originally intended to use that fact as a small sidebar to jump into Jenna’s scripted pitch, but Owen stopped her almost immediately.

“You made this one?” His eyes twinkled slightly looking at the lace-clad porcelain doll.

“Y-Yeah…well, no. I restored Clara,” A.J. told the famous showrunner, her tongue suddenly feeling too big for her very timid mouth. “That’s kind of what I do. Toy restoration, I mean. For Clara, I reset the porcelain, smoothed it over, replaced her eyes, painted her again, fixed the hair, the clothes…” She kept her eyes on Clara, finding it easier than having to look at him directly. “But every restoration case is different. I work with everything from music boxes to Jack-in-the-Boxes.”

“That sounds fascinating,” Owen commented, finally shifting his eyes back to A.J. “Where did you study? Or who did you study under?”
“Uh…well, I’m still only apprentice. I’m studying construction and engineering under Jenna at the moment but my Uncle Theo- he was an antique restorer- he kind of taught me some things about painting, cleaning and that stuff too.” The more she heard her own voice aloud, the more A.J. wanted to shrivel up and disintegrate on the spot. “And I guess I’ve been to a few open classes at NYSA for sewing and stuff but…anything else, I kind of just do myself…”

For the first time as the words tumbled from her mouth, A.J. noticed that Owen’s eyes had the slightest tinge of purple to them and the colour fascinated her. He shrugged slightly, the movement putting her at her ease. “I’m actually mostly self-taught too.”

“Yeah, but your work is legendary,” A.J. suddenly blurted out, trying to stop herself from gushing but failing miserably when the thought occurred to her. “You don’t just make puppets. You fucking bring puppets to life. I mean, Mortimer…he doesn’t just move and talk, he breathes…y’know?” A.J. cleared her throat, trying to drag herself back to her senses. “Well, I mean of course, you know. You made him and that’s amazing and…yeah, I’m sorry…” She laughed bashfully, scratching the back of her own neck. “You must be sick of getting that from everyone here.”

“Well, I’ll be honest,” he told her with a rather bashful smile of his own. “I’ve been getting some good reviews from the other people but you’re the only puppet to offer that kind of praise. Factory defect or not.”

A.J. laughed softly, very certain that at this point, her freckles would have been camouflaged by how red her face had turned. “I’m flattered to be the first.”

“So then, do you…?”
Owen paused. He had opened his mouth to say something else, leaning forward on the counter slightly, only to be stopped by a portly man in a blue and orange bowling shirt.

“Hey, Owen. We’ve got to get moving. They’ll want to do a sound check for keynote.”
Gubberson rolled his eyes and slumped his shoulders, his countenance suddenly becoming dower. “I thought I told them that I didn’t want to do a speech.”
“They just want to mic you up in case the audience asks any questions,” the man persisted, taking side glances at A.J. with a rather fixed smile. “And, there will be television crew there, so you know…”
Owen let out a gravelly sigh. “Right, right, right. Publicity and all that. Fine.” He looked to A.J. “Part of me wishes I’d brought Mortimer. He’s better at this kind of thing than I am.”

The bowling shirt man cleared his throat authoritatively, prompting a tired half-smile from the puppet-maker.

A.J. smiled sympathetically. “Tell Mr Handee that I send my highest regards… and best of luck with the keynote, I guess.” She gestured to Clara. “From myself and this lady here.”

Owen brightened up quite a bit and winked down at the doll. “High praise indeed.”

“The highest praise,” A.J. agreed, nodding before adding with a bemused shrug. “Puppets are better than people. They don’t lie.”

Owen raised his thick, dark eyebrows and his lips parted as though he was about to say something else when suddenly another flock of blue and orange t-shirts set upon him, all but strong-arming him out of the showcase area.
A.J. felt very light and dizzy for a few moments, as though she was suddenly outside of her own body and floating a few feet above the noisy crowd. The only sliver of sensory stimulation that was keeping her tethered to the real world was the tiny cold, porcelain hand that she instinctively held between her thumb and forefinger.
“Clara,” she breathed. “Did that really just happen?”

It wasn’t until Clara’s frilly bottom was unceremoniously dumped into her lap and another water bottle was plopped on to the counter in front of her that A.J. was forced to return back to Earth.
“Jesus H. Christ, you should have seen the line at that food court! And I swear, if I had a nickel for every asshole that tried to cut the line, I’d have direct compensation for the price of these second-rate, overpriced, convention beverages!”

A.J. blinked herself back to reality, somewhat blearily looking up at her mentor. “Huh?”
Jenna Cartman was a thin woman with terracotta skin and deep dimples that looked as though someone had printed them out with their thumbnails. Regardless of whether she was smiling or frowning, those dimples sat, steadfast in her cheeks. Right now, she was certainly frowning.
“The. Queues. Were. Long,” Jenna said very slowly and emphatically, not unlike the way one would speak to a small child. She rolled her eyes down at her charge, a low exhale causing a few strands of gossamer black fringe to flutter in front of her eyes. “Try to stay awake, A.J.”

A.J. mumbled the doppelganger of an apology before letting her fingers travel back to their comforting perch on the edge of the cigarette box in her pocket. “Could I grab a smoke break now?”
Her own voice sounded distant and echoey to her ears.
It was all of a sudden very important that she recall the exact shade of purple that she had seen in Owen’s eyes. A.J. found herself wondering if she could recreate that same hue on a palette. It would probably need a lilac base, two to three drops of maroon, a half a drop of crimson, maybe a bare fleck of her darkest black with a toothpick dot of white to add that enigmatic twinkle.

“Work away,” Jenna sighed, absent-mindedly leaning forward to fiddle with one of the signs on the table. “Just be back before the key-note starts. Getting seats is going to be a nightmare.” She picked up her drink and glanced sideways at A.J. “Actually, I caught word that Owen Gubberson was around here. Y’know, the key-note speaker? The guy behind Mortimer’s Handeemen?”

“Oh, I don’t think he’s actually giving the speech,” A.J. said, rifling through her pockets to find her lighter. “Or at least he said he didn’t want to do one. I think he’ll be taking questions though so…”

“Holy shit, he was here!?” Jenna’s eyes were suddenly as round as dinner plates and her hand was fast in a vice-like grip on A.J.’s upper arm. “And you were actually talking to him?!”
The sudden weight of Jenna’s pulling was nothing in comparison to the sudden weight of her interest. She had been working under Jenna for just over a year now and this was markedly the first time that the woman had ever looked at her so intently.

“Y-Yeah,” the redhead stammered, leaning backwards slightly in the wake of Jenna’s bared teeth. “He came over to look at the stall. We talked a little…”
“Did you do the sales pitch?” Jenna’s eyes were suddenly gleaming like daggers. “What did he think?”
“I...tried but-…” A.J.’s voice started to falter in her own throat and her arms instinctively came to wrap around Clara’s silk-clad waist for support. “H-He didn’t sa-seem all that inter-interested in the design…”
Jenna swore under her breath, finally releasing A.J. but not before her fingernails grazed the exposed, freckle-flecked skin of her forearm. It was probably an accident.
Probably.

“S-Sorry, Jenna,” A.J. mumbled, suddenly feeling too awkward to abscond for a smoke break as she watched the Toy Hospital’s head engineer massage the bridge of her nose. She hoped her tepid apology would placate the woman but honestly, she didn’t feel like she had much to apologise for. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to promote the demo models.

The older woman was fairly glacial to her all day after that incident, clearly sore at the missed opportunity. It was only when she and Jenna were seated during one of the workshop lectures that the black-haired woman finally spoke to her again.
“So, what did you and Gubberson even talk about?” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
Without turning her head away from the painting demonstration, A.J. whispered in reply: “Not much really. Just casual chat about the dolls and his puppets and things.”
Her own brows furrowed slightly as she wracked her brain to think of what exactly they had talked about. Just as she had tried so desperately to remember the exact tint of colour in Owen’s eyes, A.J. was now keen to recall every detail of their conversation. She wanted to be able to write it out, word for word, letter for letter…so that she could read it over and over again.

Later, hidden away from the world in her apartment, A.J. tried to do just that. She was only two sentences of dialogue into her self-serving, little script when she suddenly caught sight of herself, red faced and misty-eyed in her bedroom mirror. Reviled by the state of herself, A.J. dropped the pen and clumsily shut the notebook.
“Rule Number Two,” she reminded herself with a small sigh. “Don’t lose sight of the task at hand.” She wistfully traced the pink, porcelain tutu skirt of the tiny ballerina in her music box; she couldn’t afford to give into daydreams.
Not yet anyway.

The next day would have been a Monday.
A.J. had been finishing the cross-stitch trimming on a Raggedy Ann’s apron. The needle occasionally nipped at her fingertips and while she’d been offered a thimble by another well-meaning trainee, A.J. found such impediments stilted her ability to feel the fibres that she worked with. She was far more accurate when her bare fingers could graze the materials. Besides, the bites of her tools didn’t bother her too much-she sometimes found their desire to mark her skin to be rather flattering.
“God knows it’s the only kind of smutty attention that I ever get,” A.J. thought, making herself laugh out loud and causing the knitter at the work-bench beside her to jump in surprise and quickly shuffle away.

A.J. was vaguely aware of the phone ringing at the main desk though her ears had long ago learned to block it out.
“Hi there, Poughkeepsie Toy Hospital. Max speaking. How can I help you?...Yes of course, no problem. I’ll have to put you through to our head craftswoman…yeah, is this a private job or for public display? ….Can I get a name please? Excuse me, sir…one moment, please.”
  If she had been a little bit more tuned in, A.J. might have noticed Max shouting for Jenna, saying something about an important caller.
“JENNA! High profile job! Big name! Line number four!”
If A.J. hadn’t been so truly engrossed in her cross-stitch then she might have noticed Jenna running down the centre of the work-room, dodging around tables full of half-repaired toys and half-alert craftspeople.
“Hello, there! Hi…yes, this is she. Can I just say, sir, that this is a huge honour that you would even consider-? Yes, yes…we do this all the time. You can bring the specimen down to our workshop if you’d like. We can assign you one of our best craftspeo-...sorry, what? I don’t…well, she does work here but...”

A.J. was so very, very immersed in the intricacies of the apron that she didn’t pay a lick of attention to the sudden hubbub that had started at the front desk.
In fact, she barely even noticed when Jenna all but stormed up to her table. Jenna’s paint-streaked, latex-gloved hand suddenly appeared on her work bench prompting her head to snap up. The head craftswoman was now standing over her, flanked by Max the receptionist who looked very much like he was trying to conceal a smirk. Jenna wasn’t smiling at all, rather her teeth were very clearly clenched behind her lips.
A.J. balked when she noticed out of the corner of her eye that almost all of the work room were now staring in her direction.

“Is…everything alr-?”
“What in God’s name did you actually say to Owen Gubberson?” Jenna’s tone was simultaneously infuriated and also highly intrigued.
“I…what?”
“That was Owen Gubberson on the phone, calling about a private job that he wants us to take on.”
“…oh, well…that’s a good thing ri-?”
“He wants you.”
A.J. blinked slowly, her mind taking a few moments to process this sentence- like a music box with dust-coated gears.
“…he wa-?”

“Mr Gubberson was informed that he’d be assigned a craftsperson,” Max chimed in, his lip curling slightly. He’d clearly been listening in on the call. “But he made the specific request for, and I quote…” Max cleared his throat authoritatively. “The red-haired doll restorer from the convention.”

“He was informed that you’re still an apprentice but he was pretty insistent,” Jenna continued, her eyes glinting with mounting suspicion. “It has to be you. The red-haired one. That’s what he said.”

A.J. dropped her needle and spool, eyebrows shooting into her hair line. “…I…why? I didn’t say a-anything work-related. Like, I mentioned that I did some restoration but that’s…I mean, why would he-?”
“Well, whatever happened on that day,” Jenna interjected curtly, her eyes narrowing. “You certainly seem to have made an impression on him.”
A.J. opened her mouth to say something, anything else only to be silenced by Jenna’s added snap: “He’ll be here at twelve thirty tomorrow. Show up with your full uniform shirt.” The head craftswoman’s eyes briefly darted over A.J. up and down. “A clean one.”

The manager whipped around, her ponytail swinging like a rudder at the nape of her neck before she marched back to her work station.
Max the receptionist gave her a nod and a wink before heading back to his own spot, chuckling: “Nice self-promotion there, A.J.”  

A.J. suddenly couldn’t tune out the loud whispering that permeated the air around them.
Her body was filled with a familiar, confusing lightness mixed with a new, terrible, creeping sense of trepidation.
She suddenly wished that she had Clara’s hand to hold.

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

(May, 1986)

A.J.’s heart all but leapt into her mouth when Max the receptionist put his head around the break-room door. She had been in the ill-fated process of trying to smooth her hair down. Her hand froze in mid-air like a wind-up toy whose key had stopped turning.

“Mr. Gubberson is here,” he announced, rather cheerily for a Tuesday morning. “He’s at the front desk and Jen’s signing him in now.”
A.J. nodded, taking a deep breath through lightly puckered lips. She looked back at the reflective surface of the industrial-sized fabric glue tin that she had been trying to survey herself in. Her fingers- still scratched from the workshop but scrubbed raw to remove any glue or paint residue- hovered over the top button of her yellow work shirt. The three sewing needles stuck in her lapel glinted faintly, as though glaring at her. After a moment of consideration, A.J.’s fingertips dutifully secured it into place.

She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat when she realised that she was probably fighting a losing battle.
No one- without exaggeration- had ever used the word “beautiful” to describe her in any capacity. Her Oma would call her “sweet” and “darling” but only ever in relation to her personality while her Uncle Theo once said that she’d probably grow up to be “striking” – whatever the hell that meant.
It didn’t bother her, of course- A.J. normally never put a lot of thought into her looks.
Normally.

“You look fine,” Max whispered encouragingly to her as they walked out of the breakroom, noticing her preening. “The ponytail was a good call for today.”
A.J. smiled and mouthed a thank you but in truth, she didn’t feel all that much better. Max seemed like he was trying to be kind but there was this ever-present, sing-song tone behind everything her said and his eyes had a permanent smirk to them.
He was a joyful audience member sitting in the front row with a bucket of popcorn between his legs and she was the one on stage, performing unwilling vaudeville to a mocking crowd.

Owen Gubberson was indeed at the front desk, donning a black golf-shirt and a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, talking to Jenna as they looked over a clipboard. She had a wide smile across her face- the pinnacle of customer service. Owen, by stark contrast, looked entirely unenthusiastic about whatever the head craftswoman was saying. The only other occupants of the lobby were a teary-eyed small boy, cradling the remains of a remote-control car and clinging to the arm of his very tired-eyed father. Clearly the pit-crew had not been thorough and all hope of taking on Le Mans had been temporarily dashed.
“Here’s our lady of the hour!” Max trilled, giving her a nudge with his shoulder before striding past to take up his position at the front desk with the air of a theatre patron making his way to a viewing box.

Jenna’s smile became very fixed as she turned her head to regard her apprentice-level employee. “Good morning, A.J. I’d introduce you to Mr Gubberson but apparently you’ve already had the pleasure of meeting him.”
The red-haired restorer gave a mute smile in response. She still felt guilty about overstepping Jenna’s mark. Her manager wasn’t an unkind individual; in fact, after her Uncle Theo’s passing, Jenna had been very understanding and patient with her. But if there was one thing that Jenna Cartman valued, it was seniority and respect and something about this entire situation felt suitably untoward.
As much as it unsettled her, A.J. could understand why Jenna felt stung.

Owen turned to look in her direction. His brow lifted and he smiled widely, A.J.’s heart leaping immediately.

“I’ve walked Mr Gubberson through all of our procedures here and the job seems fairly straightforward.” Jenna thrust the clipboard into A.J.’s hands. “You’ll have use of the main office and workshop two for the next hour.” While speaking, she continued to look at Owen. “It shouldn’t take much longer than that but if there are any issues whatsoever, please feel free to call to the front desk.” Her eyes slid sideways to A.J. “As an apprentice, A.J. knows she can seek our help whenever she needs it too.”
Again, A.J. nodded wordlessly, nervous to breathe until she and Owen were alone together in the office.

Her hands shook as she pored over the clipboard, trying desperately to read the information but finding it just about impossible to decipher anything written there as Owen sat in the chair opposite hers.
“Why do I get the impression that I got you in trouble?” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Or did you spit in that woman’s morning coffee?”

She looked up just in time to catch a smirk that put her instantly at ease. Her tremors faded and she found herself mirroring him. “Nah, Jen doesn’t have her coffee until like two.”

Owen gave an incredulous slow blink. “So how does she…?”
He gestured to his mouth, tracing a cartoonishly large, invisible smile.

A.J. shrugged, dropping her voice slightly. “Personally, I think she gets high on varnish and the tears of the innocent but you didn’t hear that from me.”
Owen laughed, leaning back in his seat. “Look, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t need that kind of pick-me-up first thing in the morning. It’s just unfortunate that one of those things isn’t that easy to come by in a sound studio.” He cleared his throat, his tousled black hair falling loosely over his eyes again. “But seriously, I’m sorry if the call was a bit out of the blue.” He looked downward with a bashful countenance that made a warmth spread in her chest. “I didn’t mean to mess up your work day. I just figured I’d be in your neck of the woods anyway and I needed someone I knew could get this job right so…here I am.”

“It was a little unexpected if I’m honest,” A.J. admitted, still fidgeting with the clipboard. “I didn’t think you’d remember who the hell I was after the weekend much less…uh, if you don’t mind me asking…like, why me? Like I don’t know if I didn’t make it clear but I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to working with wooden or fabric puppets…”

Owen raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t your manager tell you the details?” He unzipped the duffle bag that he had been carrying and produced a well wrapped felt-skin puppet. The part of A.J. that had been half-wishing that one of the Handeemen would appear from that bag and might have been disappointed, was quickly silenced by how precious the little effigy was.
The puppet had periwinkle blue skin, held together with the delicate stitch of a pearly thread. Her eyes were large and dotted with a chocolate brown, rimmed with dark lashes and her nose was a sweet, indigo little shell and her open mouth revealed a row of uneven though prettily white teeth. Zig-zagging her shoulders was a neon-pink t-shirt, matching the mesh bow that sat atop her long, yellow-yarn hair.

“She’s lovely,” A.J. breathed, leaning forward slightly to drink in the craftsmanship. Beyond the cute colours, she was a little work of art- her stitching was perfectly aligned, her proportions were meticulously set and even without the hand of a puppeteer, her features seemed alert and alive. “Is she a character on the show?”

“Not quite,” Owen told A.J. “She’s actually a belated birthday present for my seven-year-old niece. My goal was to make a puppet with her favourite colours that looked as much like her as possible but, the thing is…” He pulled a slightly faded photo from his wallet. “My niece has these little, uh, Shirley Temple ringlets. See?”

“Ah I understand. Oh, she’s a cute little thing.”
“Yeah, my sister-in-law has been bugging me about bringing her to the studio for a day trip…”
“Wow, lucky her.”
“Yeah, so I was hoping that you could give her that hairstyle. I took a shot at it myself but it ended up looking like I’d shoved pipe-cleaners into her head. I’d idyllically like the hair to have the same curl as your own doll, from the convention.”
“Clara?”
“Yes! That’s her! I’d been trying to remember her name. Do you think you can do it?”

A.J. fingered the yellow yarn gently, lightly rolling it between the pads of her fingers and testing its pliability. “Mmm, yeah, it shouldn’t be a problem.” She gingerly took the fabric puppet from her creator, carefully cradling her as though she was a living, breathing infant. “We’ll get you looking lovely, little lady,” she cooed to the puppet before cringing internally when she remembering that she was in the presence of another human being. “Uh…sorry, it’s a habit I have from working with kid clients.”

Owen stood with her, shaking his head and laughing slightly. “Oh, it’s fine. By all means, talk to her. I talk to the puppets all the time. Helps me work.”
“I can imagine they’d say some interesting things, Mr Gubberson.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised...and please call me Owen. Mr Gubberson is-.”
“Your father?”
“Not even my father. Mr Gubberson is some asshole that corporate types like to kiss up to and call at crazy times to talk about complete trash and drivel. My name is Owen.”

Speaking to him was easier than she could have imagined. The thought of his presence earlier that day had made her feel sick with fear but now, talking to him, it was as though she’d known Owen for years.

A.J. guided him to her work-bench and gently set the puppet down in the centre of the table. The famous puppet-maker stood dutifully at the opposite side of the bench and although a slight tremble came to A.J.’s fingers at the thought of him watching her, the smooth, cold familiar feel of her tools brought her back to the task at hand.

As carefully as she could manage, she used her seam ripper to shred down each strand of wool, separating the fibres into fine strands before combing them out with her small wire brush. Her fingers worked deftly, quickly; she could hear her Uncle Theo’s voice in her ear: “Carefully now, feel the threads and wait for each stitch to sever before moving on to the next.”

Owen remained quiet for the most part, only signalling his presence in the room by occasionally shifting his weight against the other desk or clearing his throat. The red-haired craftswoman was suddenly very aware of her own breathing but tried her best to concentrate on the scratching of the seam ripper.
The yarn successfully unravelled, A.J. looked up at him. “Don’t forget, you can stop me any time if you don’t like what I’m doing.” She pulled open her drawer and rummaged for her hot-plate and curling rod. “You can also ask me any questions that you’d like though...” She smiled bemusedly as she plugged the plate in. “I highly doubt there’s anything that you could learn from me.” 

“Actually, I’d love if you could walk me through the process,” he told her, joining her at her side. He smelled faintly of coffee, peppermint and also something else heady and sweet that she’d couldn’t quite place. “I actually really enjoy getting to see new methods from other craftspeople.”
Now it was A.J.’s turn to clear her throat. “Well, now that the yarn is unravelled, I’m just gonna section into the right size locks and…” She demonstrated by wrapping a near piece around her finger. “…then, I’ll use this little hot rod to create the ringlets. The trick, I’ve found is to spray each curl with a little water to stop it from discolouring but this fibre is quite hardy so I doubt it’ll be that much an issue.”

“Is this how you do your own hair?” Owen asked her playfully, prompting her to laugh.
“Nah, I don’t put this kind of effort into any kind of hair that isn’t on a doll or a stuffed animal,” A.J. retorted, spraying the first floret of curls. “I’ve kind of just given up on trying to tame mine. It’s enough of a struggle to get it up into a ponytail and if I’m feeling fancy, I’ll put a nice scrunchie in or something else that I’m too old for.”
“You? Too old?” Owen’s voice was a soft, fairly monotone drawl. It wasn’t that he sounded bored per se, just that he wasn’t particularly struggling to keep her attention. “Come on. Don’t insult me like that. How old are you, anyway?”
A.J. drummed the metal rod against the top of the plate, waiting for it to cool. “I’m going to be twenty next month.”
Owen laughed, groaning slightly. “Christ, if you think that’s old, I’m ancient by your standards. Better call the Smithsonian.”
“Well, you can’t be that old either. I mean…” She waved her hand vaguely in his direction.
“How old do you think I am?” he challenged her. “Go on. Guess the damage.”
“I could make a guess but I’d be cheating,” she teased, looping another curl around her knuckles and letting it spring back into place. “Your age was listed in the convention programme. For the record, thirty-eight is not old.”
“Says the lady who thinks she’s too past her prime for a scrunchie but can’t legally buy her own beer.”  She could feel his folded-arm elbow nudge her in the ribs.
A.J. snorted involuntarily but managed to keep the hot metal rod tight in her fingers. “Ok, ok, I misspoke earlier…I’m probably too old for the kinds of hairbands that I would usually opt for. Like, I can pick out a cohesive outfit for a doll any day of the week but I’m virtually clueless when it comes to what to put on myself.”

“Yeah, that sounds familiar,” Owen sighed. “I get a lot of grief for putting too much effort into the Handeemen and not enough into myself. Actually…” He paused for a moment, before turning to face her a little more. “There was something you said at the convention that really stuck with me. Like something that I’d never heard anyone else say out loud but just really sat with me.”

“O-Oh yeah?”
A.J. hoped it wasn’t the goddamn Mattel comment.
It would be just her luck if Handeemen studios had struck a brand deal with them.

“You said “Puppets are better than people.” And “Puppets don’t lie.” If you don’t mind me asking, what did you mean by that?” Owen stepped away for a moment as per her body language, allowing her some space to begin adding tint to the hair. “I don’t disagree, I’m just interested in your opinion on that front.”

A.J. hummed thoughtfully, using a Q-Tip to blend two oil dyes together on her palette, waiting for the correct dark taupe to surface. “I guess…I think all puppets, dolls, figures can be extensions of people. They can be the best, most amazing, most fearless, most beautiful versions of us and I think…” She thought of Clara. “Sometimes they can let us explore who we really want to be in a very safe way.” A.J. shrugged, laughing a little when she caught herself being too sentimental. “And look, I’ve never had a puppet lie to me or had a doll talk shit about me behind my back…”
She dotted the tint along the puppet’s scalp before looking up to see Owen looking at her with an earnest intensity that she wasn’t expecting.
“I completely get that…I mean, damn, I think people can just get stuck in a certain role and puppets can be whoever you want them to be. I mean, you really hit the nail on the head. Puppets are an extension of the very best versions of us.” Owen seemed to catch himself too, he had been looking wistfully at his right hand but when his eyes came back to A.J.’s work-bench, he seemed to force himself to smile. “Though, I’m probably just biased. I’m not good with people.”
“Ok, now you’ve gotta be shitting me,” A.J. teased, spreading out the tint into irregular lengths. “You have to be good with people. You direct, write and run a tv show. Like, a really popular tv show. How do you do that without being good with people?”

“Mmm, I’ve got a very good circle of co-workers who handle a lot of the networking and Mortimer does most of the publicity work.”
“Ahh, lucky you. I’d love to have a friend to do my networking for me. Clara’s about as good with people as I am and I’m not very good with people at all.”
“Now who’s shitting who?” Owen asserted, one of his heavy black eyebrows arching with accusation. “I mean, I found you pretty convincing at the convention after like what, five minutes of talking? Why do you think I asked for you directly?”

A.J. paused for a moment, gloved fingers lightly combing out the puppet’s newly tinted scalp-line before slowly looking up at him again. Her words came out quieter than she had initially intended, maybe because they felt too bold. Too pressing.
Maybe she wanted Owen to pretend he hadn’t heard her question.
“…that’s the thing though. I still have no idea. Why did you ask for me?” She swallowed, realising that he’d never directly answered her question from earlier. “To be clear, I’m so flattered and so grateful for this opportunity but you probably met hundreds of super experienced, highly specialised craftspeople that weekend. Like, there were probably twenty other people who could easily curl a doll’s hair just sitting in the same area that our booth was in. So why ask for…me?” Her voice faltered in her mouth, trailing off as the colour of Owen’s eyes started to consume her again.

The famous puppet maker sighed, rubbing his forehead slightly and chuckling.
“I only like working with craftspeople who are devoted to their work,” he told her. “You seem like you really love what you do and you’d be shocked how rare that is when you get to where I am.” He shrugged, smiling faintly, his eyes lidded. “I also remember how hard it was starting out and I wanted to give you a shot.” Owen cocked his head to the side, surveying her again. “So…in conclusion, bearing the fact that you were able to get all that across in the space of five minutes in mind, I regret to inform you, Amelia-Jane, that you are in fact good at networking…”

A.J., unable to bear the sudden onslaught of shyness, lowered her gaze and quietly murmured: “So this, right now, is this networking?”

His voice was as quiet as hers and she couldn’t see his eyes but she felt as if he was still looking at her. “If you’d like.”

A beeping sound from the hot plate immediately brought her plummeting back to reality. She pulled the plug from the wall. “Right, starch time.” 
She handed Owen a face-mask, looping one around her own ears and muttering a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher being governed the universe for the much-needed distraction. “Stand back. This stuff sucks when it gets on your clothes and it’s no picnic in your mouth either.”

She grabbed the can of spray-starch and started layering it on the puppet’s curly head. Owen watched and listened diligently, proving that his desire to learn from her was either completely genuine or at least he was willing to convince her that it was.

“Ok, so now that the curls are set and the colour has blended out, the starch will keep everything in place. I use starch over spray glue or hairspray because the smell isn’t as strong and typically, even if your niece were to really go to town on these with a hairbrush, they’d bounce back into place for the most part…” Her eyes surveyed her own work, checking for imperfections. “Now, I’m just gonna take the seam ripper and scrape some of the extra starch clumps out of her scalp area.” A.J. adjusted her magnifying lens to settle on the puppet’s head before setting about her work.

It was only after her second drag of the ripper that A.J. saw something that made her grimace. “Shit…”

“Everything alright?” Owen asked her, leaning in to share a view of the magnifying glass. His movement was quick and his voice was heavy with sudden concern.
This was most definitely a man who cared about his creations as though they were living, breathing flesh.

“Y-Yeah,” A.J. responded with a small sigh. “I’ve just unintentionally loosened up some of the stitches here and they’ll probably needed to be re-sewn.” She took one of the needles that she kept nested in her collar lapel. “I’m just not used to working with this kind of thread…”

“It’s a cake-walk. Really. May I?”

Then Owen’s hands were over hers, guiding her to thread the needle into a pre-existing stitch. Even through her gloves, she could feel his warm skin on hers along with the marred grooves across his palms. The marks of his own devotion to his craft.
His corrections to her were discreet but firm; he mostly let her sew solo with a few light nudges to her knuckles to put her in the right direction. He only took over entirely when it came to the finishing stitch.

“Mmm, what do you think?” she asked him as the two of them examined their combined handiwork.

“Heh…the seam is just slightly off to the left at the nape of her neck,” Owen pointed out with the corner of his pinky finger. “But it’s pretty hidden by all of the hair.”

A.J. pretended to gasp, tugging her mask off. “Off-centre sewing? Daisy Danger certainly wouldn’t approve.”
Owen feigned horror in equal amounts, removing his own mask before raising a finger to his lips. “What Daisy doesn’t know won’t hurt anyone.”
“I can keep a secret if you can. Plus, Nick might say that it’s a creative touch, an artist’s signature maybe?”
“Mmm, good point…let’s still not tell Daisy though.”
“I literally couldn’t if I wanted to. I don’t have the same access to the stars that you do.” A.J. cleared her throat for umpteenth time that day and picked up a larger, darning needle. “So, what’s your niece’s favourite way to wear her hair?”

“Uh, up I think…kind of like…” Owen thought for a moment, glancing around the room for inspiration. “Like that ballerina doll, I think? I know she dances.”

“One ballet bun coming up.” A.J. moved the magnifying glass closer to her eyes, letting her fingers delicately weave the puppet’s hair into her desired shape, careful to affix the neon pink bow back to its original position.

“You’ve got a very steady hand even with mixed materials,” Owen mused approvingly.

“I may not give off a very aesthetically organised vibe but precision is key for me when it comes to this kind of thing. There is a method to my occasional madness.”

“It would certainly seem so.”

“And now all that’s left to do is to let her dry.” A.J. stepped back, unceremoniously wiping her gloves on the sides of her jean shorts. “Is she…uh…ok with you?”

Owen leaned over to look at her, examining the new hairstyle with furrowed eyebrows. A.J. felt a tightness in her stomach as his face was rather unreadable at first though much to her relief, he eventually gave a smile and a nod. “Perfect. Kate’s going to love her.”

“Awesome,” breathed A.J., mollification seeping from her lips as she perched herself on to a nearby table and peeled off her gloves. “We can call for Jenna now if you’d like.”

“What’s this?”
Owen didn’t reply to her suggestion and A.J. guiltily couldn’t find herself wanting to suggest it again. Instead, she diverted her attention to the springy, sparkly toy that he was looking at.

“Ah, it’s a clockwork butterfly,” she told him. “It’s supposed to kind of unravel its wings and flap them up and down but I’m still working on the winding mechanism.”
“Hmm, very interesting,” Owen murmured, running his finger delicately along the thin metal plating with no pressure behind his touch. “It reminds me of something that we used on the show before. It was this kind of nursery rhyme reference. We needed this canary prop to fly out of one of Daisy’s pies and we used a similar kind of clockwork set up ‘cause it was tricky to get rods or an arm through the prop pie.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“It was pretty temperamental actually,” Owen sighed, returning to her side. “I had to take it over personally. Talk about a pain in the proverbials.”
“Temperamental things are my favourite things,” A.J, confessed, crossing her legs and resisting the urge to swing them in mid-air out of habit. “They keep me guessing and I work best when I’m trying to solve a problem.”
“Is that right?” Owen’s hip grazed her leg and A.J. swallowed against a very dry throat wondering if she was imagining how warm his skin was. It had been a while since she was this close to another person made from flesh and not metal, cloth, wood or porcelain.
“Well, I like a challenge,” she clarified, trying not to seem cocky. “But I can imagine that puppeteering is another class entirely. Like, it’s pure wizardry to me…I have no idea how you’re able to keep the puppet upright and move the hands, the jaws, the head, the eyebrows at the same time, make it look natural and read lines simultaneously while doing a voice…like, it’s unbelievable to me…”
“I think you’re giving me too much credit. I’ve just had a lot of experience letting a puppet do the talking for me and well…it’s also kind of an acquired touch.” He nodded over at curly-haired hand puppet. “Is she safe to pick up?”
A.J. checked her watch. “Should be.”

Carefully, Owen scooped up the puppet from her place on the table and held her upright in A.J.’s lap. His fingers and knuckles would occasionally graze her thighs as he moved the puppet, causing her to nibble at her lower lip.
“Hand-puppets are actually easy enough to get the hang of,” he explained. “The general mistake the majority of beginners make is while trying to match the mouth-flaps to their own words. They always throw the head back but no one actually talks like that, if you think about it.  The trick is to hold the top-jaw steady and to primarily move the lower jaw…” As he was speaking, he held flexed the puppet’s lower jaw open and shut to demonstrate. “It’s easy enough for someone with halfway decent coordination.” Lilac eyes were suddenly on hers again, flanked by a wry smile. “Do you want to give it a try?”

A.J. lifted her hand to accept, now very aware of the fact that Owen Gubberson’s legs were very much touching hers. In fact, their knees were practically interlocked like laced fingers. Owen took her hand to guide it into the puppet’s underside only for the apprentice to freeze and hesitate.

“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry…I know it’s weird but…she’s not mine.” A.J. sighed and chuckled softly. “I think the first person to bring her to life should be the person she was made for, y’know? Otherwise, it feels a bit…sacrilegious? I don’t know.”
Owen mirrored her with his own gentle chortle, nodding. “I know what you mean. That’s actually a really nice thought.” He looked at the little creature made of cloth. “Her first words should really be with Kate…mmm, I remember the first time I made something like th-.”

His musing was suddenly interrupted by the workshop door opening and Jenna striding into the room. “Just checking in to make sure that everything is going alri-?” The woman’s voice abruptly cut off mid-sentence as though someone had flicked the needle from the record’s surface. She coughed loudly before managing to restart her voice-box again. “…is everything alright here?”

It was at this moment that A.J. and Owen both realised that the latter was still holding the former’s hand.
The puppeteer immediately dropped the restorer’s hand as though it had an electric charge and A.J. in turn, jumped down from the table as though it was a hot stove.

“Y-Yeah, we’re just done actually,” stammered Owen, scratching the back of his neck again and turning around to carefully secure the puppet back into his duffle bag.

“Oh, that’s so good to hear. Are you satisfied with our apprentice’s service?”
Jenna’s tone was never anything but polite and cheerful but with Owen’s back turned, the manager took the opportunity to stare at A.J. with a wide-eyed stare of utter incredulity.

“A.J. has been great,” the man affirmed over the low purr of a zipper being drawn. “She really knows her stuff and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pick up some new techniques myself.” He looked sideways at the apprentice, the corners of his lips tugging into the ghost of a smile.

“I’m just happy that I could help you out. Really. Thank you so much again for the opportunity.” A.J. felt her ears grow hot at the tips and desperately hoped that they weren’t turning red.

“We can do the sign-out paperwork at the front desk,” Jenna told Owen, adding with a perky smile: “Don’t forget, you’re still entitled to a full discount too, considering that you’re working with an apprentice rather than one of our more experienced craftspeople.”

“No, no, no,” Owen asserted, never quite raising his voice but certainly remaining firm. “I’ll pay the full amount. A.J. finished the job as agreed with no problems.”

“Mr. Gubberson, your generosity is awe-inspiring but it is our policy to charge customers based on the expertise of the craftsperson rather than how effectively the job is completed,” Jenna explained, her eyes still darting from Owen, to A.J., to the puppet and to the work-bench, still seeming to want to scan the room. “I can assure you that our discounted rate covers all materials and we’ll certainly take A.J.’s performance today into account when assigning her future work.”

“I understand your policy, Miss Cartman,” Owen replied. “But as a craftsperson myself, I would never imagine underpaying someone for their work. Especially when they’re only starting out.” He gave A.J. another reassuring side-glance. “Look, for your books, I could always pay the discount rate and give the difference to A.J. as a tip.”

“I’m not supposed to take-,” A.J. started to say, only to be spoken over by Jenna, much to her relative surprise. 

“Well, Mr Gubberson, if you insist on paying the full amount, all I can do is give my praise for your generosity- I wish a lot more of the big names in the industry had your attitude- and I hope that A.J. appreciates your graciousness too.”
The entire time she spoke, Jenna was looking at Owen with her usual smile reserved for the clientele. She also seemed to have committed herself to the decision to speak about A.J. as if she wasn’t standing right there. At this point, it might have been fair to say that the apprentice felt like a child.
“Though Oma and Uncle Theo would always include me in their conversations even when I was a child,” A.J. thought with a grimace.

Owen settled everything with Jenna at the front desk with the usual niceties, handshakes and even a (reluctant) photograph taken to display in the toy ward. 
A.J. imagined that Jenna would want to do a walkthrough of the process with her but her only words to the younger woman were: “You’re done for the day then, A.J. You can take off when you’re ready.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing else that I can help with today? Cleaning or stock-taking or-?”

“No,” Jenna said shortly, dropping her voice to a low hiss and lowering her face to meet A.J.’s. “Take your little win here and enjoy it while it lasts. This type of thing doesn’t happen often so don’t expect it to.”

“I don’t-.”
But Jenna was gone before she could say anything else, disappeared behind the workshop door.

A.J. stood there for a moment, mouth opening and closing again like a wind-up toy. Max grinned at her from his seat behind the front desk. “Don’t worry about the Boss Lady,” he crooned. “She’s still sucking sour grapes because she thinks you sniped the job from Gubberson out from under her.”

“That’s not what happened,” A.J. groaned, heaving a sigh. “I wasn’t trying to score any kind of job with Owen. If anything, I made an idiot of myself in front of him at the convention and based on what he said inside, I think he just took pity on me.” She shrugged. “I think he’s just a good Samaritan…even if Jenna thinks that I’m some kind of Judas.”

Max’s lips pursed thoughtfully and he settled back in his swivel chair, resting his hands atop his head like he was in a lounger on the beach. “Well, hold on to your thirty pieces of silver there. Jenna won’t be here much longer anyway it seems.”

“What? Why not?”

“Apparently, she’s been offered a job in California, working for the Mouse Almighty himself at the theme park. So, we’ll be getting a new manager soon.”

“They’ve already picked her replacement?” A.J. wondered aloud, pulling her backpack out from behind the front desk. She hadn’t been assigned a locker yet so this was her usual spot to tuck her things away.

“They’re sending someone from the south. One of Houston Toy Hospital’s best and brightest if the emails are to be believed.” Max took another sip of his coffee. “Your boyfriend’s in the break room signing autographs by the way, if you want to say goodbye before you head off.”

“My boyfriend…?” A.J. echoed, not catching on at first and then glowering at Max in realisation. “Oh fuck off. It is not like that.”

He laughed at her, wiggling his shoulders into a playful shrug. “Look, no one’s judging you here, missy. Keep it professional or don’t. Just take care of yourself.” 

A.J. was heading out the door when she ran into Owen again.

“Oh hey,” he said, his voice quiet and low as before. “Are you off now?”

“Yeah,” she told him as they edged their way out of the revolving doors. “I don’t have any other work on my schedule so they cut me loose. I’m probably just gonna grab a bite to eat and head home for the day.”

“Oh, mind if I join you for lunch?” Owen came to a stop on the pavement, speaking somewhat shyly out amongst the droves of sidewalk cattle. “Sorry to bother you. It’s just I’ve never really been alone here before and I have no idea where to get a good sandwich.”

“Well, I don’t really get out much here either but I know a cool spot near Central Park.” She added quickly. “And for the record, you’re not bothering me. I’d actually really like some company.” He contentedly fell into step beside her as she went on. “It’s weird; I normally really enjoy being on my own but I’m always really nervous when it comes to eating alone in public…just feels awkward…so I guess you’re just doing me another favour. So, thank you. For that and for earlier. I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it. I meant what I said before. I know what it’s like to be starting out and having people not take you seriously…also eating alone in public is essentially an extreme sport so there’s nothing wrong with wanting back-up.”

It wasn’t long once again, until the two of them were talking like old friends. A.J. was repeatedly forced to marvel at how easy it was to talk to him despite the constant buzzing sensation in her chest.

“So how long do you have left in New York if you don’t mind me asking? You said you were here for something else.”
“Yeah, I’m here for a branding review. A company from up this way is producing this new line of lunch boxes for us.”
“Oh, sounds like fun.”
Owen pulled a face. “Not really. I’m not really a fan of having to argue with concept artists about what my own characters should look like…”
“Ouch. When do you have to be with them?”
“Not until five. I’ve got someone picking me up from the hotel then.” He smiled at her. “Getting to visit the Toy Hospital was actually the highlight of this trip. We don’t have anything like that down where we are.”
“I heard you were signing autographs just now. You’re probably the biggest celebrity we’ve ever had in the Toy Hospital, come to think of it.” 
“And thank fuck I’m not a celebrity anywhere else,” he chuckled, looking mildly exasperated.
“Not a fan of signing autographs?”
“Not a fan of crowds of people asking me questions. I, for one, wasn’t lying earlier when I said I’m not a people person.”
“You’re a puppet person.”
“Like a person who makes puppets? Or a person who is a puppet?”
“The first one.”
“Is it bad that I sometimes wish I was the second one? Life would be so much easier.”
“Probably. But I’m not going to judge you. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish the same sometimes.”

They continued their chatting during their trip to the Park Deli, while mulling over sandwich options and even during the quest to find somewhere to sit, finally settling for the forgiving shade of a leafy oak, thankfully far away from any dog-walkers, soccer-players or bird-feeders.

“So,” he asked her between mouthfuls of BLT. “I take it that you’ve at least seen the show. Y’know, knowing about Daisy and Nick and all?”

“Yeah, I have.” She took a sip of her bottled juice. “I know I’m not exactly the age demographic but it’s on the tv all the time at work and I’m a sucker for some good puppetry. Naturally.”

“The San Francisco Sun Times Examiner did say that we’re better than the Muppets.”

“I’m inclined to agree. Mostly because I don’t really watch the Muppet Show and also-.”

“Because the creator of Mortimer’s Handeemen is actually sitting right in front of you?”

“Well…yeah.” She coughed, blinking as though the orange juice had turned to straight whiskey. “It’s actually pretty surreal that I’m sitting here talking to you actually. That, or I haven’t woken up yet.”

Owen laughed, sitting back against the trunk of the tree. “So do you have a favourite episode?”

“Hmm…” A.J. thought for a moment, looking up at the boughs above her head. “Probably the one…what was it called? Uh…oh! The Tangled Treehouse! The one where Riley and Nick are fighting over the best way to make a treehouse for Mike.”

“That was actually a pretty fun one to make too. We got to get a bit creative with the set pieces anyway…”

“I think I really liked it because the story really did justice to that “creativity versus precision” debate. Like especially when it comes to restoration, there’s always that struggle of ideals between being exact and making a perfect recreation or putting your own unique twist on the project,” A.J. mused, stretching her legs out in front of her before crossing them in the grass. “Or maybe it’s just because I always wanted my own treehouse when I was kid but the closest I ever got was an attic crawlspace. The one on the show looked pretty sweet…at the end anyway.”

Owen raised an eyebrow, smirking but not unkindly. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you but the treehouse was just a miniature set-piece from the outside and a soundstage set from the inside.” He looked longingly upward at the branches above them, mirroring A.J. “That’s the problem with creating something perfect. When it exists only in your imagination, it’s always somewhat intangible…”

A.J. threw herself on to the grass, feigning dramatics. “Ouch. Right in the proverbial childhood.”

“I think that’s why I got into children’s entertainment in the first place,” Owen told her. “To make up for a childhood that I didn’t really have.”

She looked up at him from under a tousled mop of curly, red hair. “Oh? Strict parents?”

“Strict life-style,” he said with a slow, affirming nod. “Just a lot of hovering and expectations. Sometimes the world that I made up in my head was better than the one around me.” He gave a sardonic snort of laughter. “Makes sense that I’d just spend the rest of my life playing with toys.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” A.J. noted thoughtfully, pushing herself up on to her elbows. “I pretty much grew up surrounded by toys. Like my grandma owned this antique store and my uncle was an antique dealer so if any old or broken toys came in, they’d let me keep anything that I could fix. My toys were basically a replacement for friends…”

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, leaves rustling lightly overhead and earth crackling gently underneath.

“That got a bit heavy. Didn’t it?” Owen quipped, smiling down at her again.

“Yeah, it did,” A.J. agreed before, clambering to her feet. “Ice-cream?”

“Ice-cream?”

“Yeah. Do you wanna get ice-cream?” A.J. shrugged and offered him her hand up. “Because we’re grown-ups and no one can stop us?”

He looked at her hand for a moment before laughing and accepting.
“Can’t say no to that logic.”

It was when they were in line at the vendor’s that Owen commented that the sky was starting to turn grey. A.J. couldn’t help but notice that the court of rather pregnant looking clouds had started to congregate and while she hoped they’d be on their merry way, this no longer looked likely.
They had only just started enjoying their cones when the first tell-tale raindrops started to mar their surroundings, speckling the dry dirt of the path ahead.
Within seconds, they were both hunched under a bike shelter, managing to stay laughing in the wake of their misfortune but by no means comfortable.

“My apartment isn’t far from here! It’s only around the block from the nearest gate, ” A.J. told him over the ever-building rush of the rain. “Do you want to make a break for it?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

It was only when they had (hastily) rounded the corner, (clumsily) ascended the fire escape, entered (or rather fell) through the external door and A.J. was trying to coax her key into her front door that her mind finally seemed to catch up with her.

What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?

The key slipped drunkenly over the lock for the fourth time.

Task at hand.
Focus.

The key slid into the lock and A.J. pressed her shoulder against the door, ready to enact her usual coming home ritual.

You invited Owen Gubberson back to your apartment. Owen Gubberson is about to be inside your apartment.

Unlocking the door was a dance she’d performed every day for months on end but never with an audience before.

“Sorry, this thing’s a bit…”
“Temperamental?”
“Heh, yeah.”
“I thought you liked temperamental things.”
“Well, that’s why I’ve never thought to get it fixed. I enjoy the challenge- ah!”

The door gave way and allowed the two of them inside. It wasn’t particularly late in the day but the sudden deluge had darkened the skies enough to warrant her flicking on a light switch. A sleepy yellow bulb flickered to life, illuminating her tiny living room. Thankfully there wasn’t much of a mess to clear up from the night before.

“There we are. Uh…make yourself comfortable, I guess,” she told him bashfully, quickly darting around the room to grab an armful of coffee mugs, scattered papers, sewing tools and several cardigans in the same colour. The whole bundle was promptly and indiscriminately dumped into a laundry basket. “Do you want a tea or a coffee?”

“I won’t say no to coffee,” Owen replied, sitting down and looking around the room. “Do you live alone, A.J.?”

“Yeah,” she told him, heading into the kitchen. “Well unless you count my forty-three roommates that don’t clean, eat or pay rent. One of them should be sitting on the armchair.”

“Hm? What?”

Under the low hiss of the kettle, A.J. could hear some brief shuffling around and then a sudden exclamation of “Oh, hello! Who is this fellow?”

“That’s Jasper. He used to be a navy mascot before he ended up in the antique store. My grandma said I could keep him if I could stitch him up,” she shouted out, opening the cupboard and thanking her lucky stars that she remembered to buy more instant coffee that week. “Do you take milk and sugar?”

“No, no, no. I like my coffee black as molasses,” came Owen’s reply. “Can I take a closer look at Jasper?”

“Sure thing. Just be careful with his left arm- it’s a little loose at the armpit.”

“I promise I’ll treat him like one of my own.”

A.J. returned to the living room a few moments later with two mugs of coffee. She paused in the doorway, taking a moment to take in the sight before her and letting it put a smile on her face. Owen had Jasper- a brown-haired little sailor rag-doll- sitting in his lap and was gently admiring the details of his uniform, a look of awe and curiosity on his face.
The steam from the mugs curled like a serpent, tickling her chin with a warm, soft lick but that sensation was nothing in comparison to the warmth that was still steadily spreading throughout her chest.

“My uncle said that we could never sell him because he was missing an eye,” A.J. recalled, sitting on the armchair and setting down the two mugs. “Usually that’s when he’d head to the Toy Hospital but the type of button used for his eyes was out of production so there was no way he’d ever be good as new.” She smiled faintly, eyes settling on the little sailor doll. “So, grandma gave him to me and I snipped a button off of one of my shirts because it was the right colour.” She winced slightly at the memory. “Grandma wasn’t too happy with that part.”

Owen chuckled, still studying the rag doll. “My first puppet was made from a pair of my school socks. Sometimes you have to work with what you’ve got.”

They both continued to chat, swapping stories and intermittently sipping coffee. As he spoke, she noticed that Owen’s black hair had light flecks of white and grey, reminding her of a misty night sky. She mentally sifted through her paints, deciding which colours she’d use to recreate it.  Imagining how she would recreate someone as a doll was a common thing that A.J. found herself doing when she had to speak to someone at length but it had been a while since she’d caught herself being so particular about choosing the exact tints and paints that she would need.
In hindsight, A.J. couldn’t remember the exact moment that they both proceeded to head into her bedroom. She couldn’t remember if Owen had asked to see her other toys or if she had offered to show him but the very next thing she knew, they were standing in her bedroom, looking at the sets of wooden shelves that lined the wall beside her bed.
A.J. was quietly thrilled when Owen greeted Clara who sat at the head of the bed, atop a stack of pillows. He seemed eager to learn the story behind every piece on every shelf and A.J. was happy to indulge him.

“Who’s this?”
“That’s Natasha, my little ballerina. She’s originally from Russia, probably circa 1934. She can actually be set into that music box there.”
“Ah, so she doubles up as the key mechanism. That’s really interesting.”

The shelves were lined with wide array of stuffed animals, wooden playthings with varnish paint, dolls of bisque and porcelain as well as ragdolls and figures made of tin.
Tiny Frozen Charlottes winked down from their perches, Matryoshkas stood dutifully in their lines and bashful Kewpies seemed to giggle to each other.

“I like this guy a lot.” Owen was pointing to a small tin cowboy, his tiny wire lasso held high above his head.
“That’s Cody. He’s a Hop’Along Cassidy model from 1948. Mmm, I had to teach myself to solder metal to restore him. My grandma just about lost her mind when she caught me with the hot plate and pliers and I burned myself to a crisp but we got there in the end…”
“Yeah, when I started out, I used to have to spend hours with a tweezers plucking splinters out of my fingernails.” Owen sighed with a shrug. “Labour of love. Right?”

“My uncle used to say that every time you work on project, when you fix it, really show it care,” A.J.’s voice was little over a whisper as she delicately ran her finger along the cowboy’s tiny tin hat, giving it a jaunty little dip.  “It’s like you’re putting a tiny piece of your soul into the creation. That tiny piece of your soul gives the piece life and now your creation is part of you forever…you know?”
She paused, hesitantly realising that she’d let her thoughts slip too far back into the warm, nostalgic, sepia-toned memories of her Uncle Theo. A.J. turned her head to regard Owen, her mouth opening to, perhaps, apologise. She was met by an intense maroon-coloured stare that all about stole the breath from her throat. Her mouth was quite dry again, her heart thumping wildly beneath the cloth of her pale-yellow work shirt.

“I understand exactly,” Owen said slowly and definitely, his eyes unblinking and a wavering smile on his parted lips. “Not everyone really gets it but…yeah, I completely understand. Putting your soul into your creation. That’s exactly what every creator should strive to do.” He swallowed, seeming to struggle to find the right words. “I’d even…go further, maybe? Sometimes, I don’t know, it feels like every creation its own soul and sometimes it just takes the right person to bring it out…to bring them to life…”

“…that’s beautiful.”

A silence passed between them.
A.J. shivered when she realised that she could feel his breath on her lips.
Shivering turned to a small, nervous giggle.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” A.J. said, her voice barely over a whisper.

Owen suddenly looked highly concerned. “What?”

“It’s just, I read this issue of Cosmopolitan once that had this list of things that you should do and not do when you have a boy in your bedroom,” she said, her lip quivering slightly. “It said that you should never introduce him to your toys or stuffed animals. I guess I fucked up that one…”

“Hm.” He raised eyebrows, shifting his gaze and mulling over the thought before moving slightly closer to her again. “What else did that list say you should do?”

“Uh…I can’t remember,” A.J. replied softly, shaking her head but never once dropping her gaze despite the sudden, overwhelming urge to look at his lips. “I think I got so offended by that toys comment that I stopped reading.”

Owen laughed gently, shaking his head and placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’re…really something, A.J.”

“…oh?” Her eyes slid sideways to where his hand sat. “Good something or bad something?”

“…brilliant something.”

“…I…”

She felt his fingers squeeze her shoulder slightly and she met his eyes again. Their deep, dark colour was closer than before and she felt as though she could drown in them.
Was it wrong to want to be enveloped?
To submit?
To be consumed?

A high-pitched beeping and buzzing abruptly jerked A.J. from her haze, her spine snapping upwards like it had been pulled by a string.
“Wha-?”

Owen’s brow furrowed and he groaned, reaching into his pocket to produce a black pager. “Sorry…that’s gotta be Jake.” He looked at the screen and winced, exhaling through his nostrils. “He’s waiting for me at the hotel. I have to go.”

A.J. saw him to the door, something between disappointment and a touch of relief washing over her.
“Uh…thanks for having me over, A.J.,” he told her. “Sorry to run off so soon but apparently Jake has a cab waiting for us.”
“At least the rain’s stopped,” she said with a smile. “And don’t mention it. Seriously. I should be thanking you again. Thanks for everything with the toy hospital…and for humouring a fan.”
“I meant what I said,” Owen replied. “I think you’ve got some real talent and real passion, A.J. I hope you keep that passion.” He cleared his throat and held out his hand to her. “Best of luck in everything that you do.”

She took his hand. “Thank you again. Good luck with your meeting…and everything else.” As her own hand returned to her side, something wild and forward inside of her prompted her to boldly add. “And look, if you’re ever in the city again, look me up and we can…get ice-cream…or go for lunch…or whatever…” Like a beach ball with the air slowly being pressed out of it, her words rolled out slower and slower, becoming quieter and quieter. She was a hundred percent certain that her face had turned red yet again but for once, she didn’t feel the need to avert her eyes.

“That…” Owen paused for a moment, his gaze sliding sideways as though he was mulling something over in his head. He smiled eventually. “That…actually sounds great. I will.”

His pager buzzed again, prompting him to turn to the open door, still looking at her over his shoulder.

“Goodbye A.J.”

“Goodbye Owen.”
His name felt comforting to say.

She closed the door slowly, trying to make the moment last as long as possible. The sound of the lock clicking into place and the light creak of the wooden doorframe sounded far away.

A.J. pressed her forehead to the door, just under the eyehole, hearing her own shaky breaths as she recalled the feeling of his hand on her shoulder.

It been a long time since she had felt so completely and utterly seen by another person.

About a week later, Jenna formally announced that she would be leaving her managerial position.
It was that same day that a letter arrived for her at the front desk.
A.J. Schwarzwald’s heart just about stopped when she saw a “Handeemen Studios” stamp on the envelope, Mortimer’s grinning face emblazoned across the logo.

**********************************************************************

(August, 1998)

The front door bell heralded the Automatron’s entrance as she elbowed her way through the glass panel frame. All three of her toolboxes and both of her backpacks were either slung around her shoulders or under her arms- granting her a somewhat ungainly gait.
Her russet hair was darker than usual and slicked in serpentine coils around her neck and forehead, courtesy of the rain outside. Somehow, despite how sodden her clothes were, the cigarette sitting between her lips was still lit- a lone survivor of a sudden squall.
She took a quick glance around the lobby of the Toy Hospital for clients before making a fast bee-line to the employee break room.

“Oh, you’re back?”

Not fast enough.
A.J. grunted hearing the voice of her manager and turned slowly, just in time to see Marissa-Jean Bowles appear from under the desk. Her curly blonde hair was pinned into a neat French twist, her cheeks dusted a light rose pink to match the small string of pearls that adorned her slender porcelain neck.

“Yep. The job wasn’t half as time consuming as the management said it would be,” A.J. muttered, resigning to the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to sidle away from Marissa’s attention and setting her burdens on the floor. “The animatronics weren’t their usual spirited selves but then again, there was a birthday or two in progress so I wasn’t their prime focus this time.” She took a drag on her cigarette, finally able to exhale.

“Mmm, at least it wasn’t overnight this time,” Marissa commented, shuffling through the Roladex on the front desk with painted plum nails. “I don’t care what you say, Amy, I don’t like when Afton expects you to do those weird hours. I mean, it’s not as if- oh no, no, no, no smoking in my lobby!” She grabbed the secret ashtray that Max not-so-subtly kept in his top drawer. “Stub it. Now.”

A.J. rolled her eyes but didn’t argue, dutifully crushing the cigarette into a graveyard its peers.
“How many of those have you had today?”
“I’ve cut back, Mari.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I could be doing way worse than chainsmoking.”
“Doesn’t make it any better.”
“Small victories, Mari…small victories…that’s what they say at the meetings, right?”

The manager leaned on the front desk, looking up at the red-haired woman, who dwarfed her by about a head. Marissa’s face was initially stern but she couldn’t hold it for too long, sighing and melting to a concerned pout.
“I don’t mean to nag, Amy. I just want you to take care of yourself.” She pulled a Kleenex from the box on the desk and started to dab excess rain from the taller woman’s face. “How you holding up anyway? Mood-wise, I mean. You’ve been taking a lot of jobs one after the other lately. You know that you’ve got vacation time to use up?”

A.J. let Marissa wipe her face, forcing herself to smile. She was used to her manager and friend’s pseudo-mothering. Marissa couldn’t help the way she was- caring for others was breathing for the woman.
Part of her welcomed the attention, for obvious reasons and part of her felt guilty for it.
Guilt had become such a regular part of her emotional diet, however, that A.J. had become rather numb to it.

“Nah, Mari. You know I’m at my best when I’m busy. Idle hands and all that jazz.” She shrugged, gathering up some of her bags. “I’d better get these out of your nice clean lobby before any clients drop in…”

“Or before the cleaners have your head again,” chuckled Marissa. “’Least you didn’t leave any grease stains this time. Hold up a moment and I’ll give you a hand-.”

The phone on the desk suddenly came to life, ringing loudly as the front screen illuminated. The manager gave a bemused shrug to A.J. who returned with a universal wave of “it’s cool, do what you’ve gotta do.”

Marissa picked up the receiver. “Hello there, Poughkeepsie Toy Hospital. Marissa-Jean Bowles, the manager, speaking. How may I help you today?”

A.J. was in the process of walking through the break-room door when Marissa suddenly held a hand up to stop her. A.J. turned her head to see her friend’s wide eyes and slightly agape mouth.
This gave her more than a moment of pause.

“What’s wrong?” A.J. mouthed at Marissa who only shook her head, her voice slightly quavering when she spoke back to the person on the phone.
Like a speaking toy with a time-worn voice box.

“E-Excuse me, sir? Could you say that again? I don’t think I heard you right.”

A.J. stopped fully in her tracks, staring. She had never, in all her time working with Marissa Bowles, ever heard her so apprehensive when speaking to even the most difficult or cantankerous of customers.
Hell, she had even told William Afton where to go after he had tried to deny a materials charge on the last invoice.

Whoever was on the other end of the call, however, was definitely giving her a reason to feel perturbed.

“…yeah, th-that shouldn’t be a problem. She does mostly call-outs now so you’d have to book her services for…uh-huh…well…well, she’s here right now if you’d like to speak with her yourself…”

Marissa seemed to hesitate before slowly handing the receiver over to A.J., her eyes solemn and unblinking.
In the interest of not stretching the phone-cord, A.J. scooted behind the desk to stand beside Marissa. Despite her inquisitive looks, her manager did not say anything, simply opting to stare at the phone as if it was some kind of dangerous animal.

A.J. put the phone to her ear.
“Hello? This is Amelia-Jane Schwarzwald speaking.”

“Ah! If it isn’t our old chum, Miss Amelia-Jane! Our call for help has not been in vain! Do you still go by A.J.? Or is that name old news? Though we really must catch up, there’s no time to lose.”

A.J.’s legs buckled and she gripped the counter for support, her breath stopping in her lungs and her stomach surging upwards into her throat.

“M-Mortimer?!”

There was no mistaking that voice.
It was a voice that she’d heard a hundred times before, in so many settings, in so many different ways.
Mostly in her nightmares.

“You do remember me! Oh, that fills me with cheer. I’m sure you’ll be delighted to learn: we haven’t forgotten you, my dear.”

A.J. swallowed against a very dry throat.
Memories flashed in her head like a rotating Zoetrope.
A news report.
A funeral service. A memorial.
The fire. The studio.

Her last ever conversation with the only man she’d ever…

No.

“Look,” she said, now acutely aware that her voice was warbling far more dangerously than Marissa’s. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are or what kind of sick prank this is but-.”

“A.J.? A.J. it’s me…sorry, I just…I didn’t know how else to contact you.”

A.J.’s legs gave way, sending her stumbling backwards into the office chair behind her. Marissa lunged forward to stop her from falling any further.

“O-Owen!?”

“…yes, it’s me.”

“Owen, but you-? Why-? Where are you right now? After the fire, they went looking for you. They couldn’t find you. Everyone said that you were-”

“I’m at the old studio. Look, I know it’s been years but I need your help. We need your help. The Handeemen and I.”

Marissa met her eyes and they shared the same horrified gaze.

“...please, A.J…you need to come here as soon as possible.”

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

(June, 1986)

The contract that Handeemen Studios was offering was a temporary, fixed-term affair. She would still be officially employed by the Toy Hospital and carry out maintenance, advisory and supplementary work on their behalf but she would receive experience-based training with the show. It would require her to move state for the few months but her room and board would be paid for.
The contract offered a four-month stint in total with the possibility for an extension if necessary. This type of contract, A.J. knew, was the kind that usually ended with the offer of official work. Even if things didn’t work out that way, it would still be a jewel in her CV and the best possible way to end her period as an apprentice.
The experience to earn was invaluable; she would be gaining experience working on a television set, complex props, wooden ventriloquist-style puppets and not to mention she’d be working with Owen Gubberson some of the best players in the business.

As nervous as the idea made A.J.- who hadn’t left the state since she was a child and had to mentally fortify herself in order to convince herself to attend local workshops and classes- it was virtually a no-brainer for her to say yes.

The staff at the Toy Hospital were generally very happy for her. She didn’t really have any close friends on the staff at the time but they all wished her luck and congratulated on her amazing opportunity.
To her face anyway.
She did become privy to a few unsavoury rumours, originating from either the senior craftspeople or some of her fellow trainees. Rumours regarding what exactly she had done in order to secure said opportunity.

“Oh, don’t let it bother you,” Max had told her over a coffee, practically beside himself with the notion of a scandal at work. “Plenty of women have fucked their way up to the top. Eva Perron? Anne Boleyn? I mean, they’re both remembered for-.”

“Dying young and horribly?” A.J. dryly interjected, not nearly as hungry for something to gossip about- least of all when she was the topic at hand. “Look, it’s not the concept that bothers me. It’s just not true. The most intimate thing we did was get ice-cream.”

Though if she closed her eyes, A.J. could still feel his breath on her lips. It served as a vivid reminder of how closely they had been standing in her bedroom.

She was ultimately surprised when Jenna, of all people, seemed delighted for her. When A.J. handed her a “good-luck” card at her going away party, she was shocked when her now-former manager handed her one in return. Jenna’s own brand-new opportunity seemed to have smoothed out any jagged feelings like sandpaper.

“Did you get a chance to meet my replacement yet?” Jenna asked her, craning her neck from where they sat to look around the bar where the party was being held.
“Uh, no, actually. I don’t think I’ve even seen them yet,” A.J. confessed, patting down her pockets for her lighter as she glanced around. “Are they a man or a woman?”
“A woman,” Jenna told her. “From what I could make of her, she’s a real sweetheart. Make sure you introduce yourself to her. It’s good practice.”

Their new manager had been invited to the going away party for the purpose of getting her acquainted with the rest of the staff. A.J. would first meet Marissa-Jean Bowles in the ladies’ bathroom. She was in the process of trying to get a faint orange stain out of the front of her powder blue dress, scrubbing in vain with a balled-up piece of toilet paper.

“Is that from a cocktail?” A.J. asked her, prompting her to lift her head in surprise.

“I’m afraid so, honey,” she replied with a self-deprecating snort of laughter. “This is the result of an Alabama Slammer, would you believe? This is what I get for trying to be adventurous. Some lousy so-and-so at the bar got too into the game on the TV and took a tumble right back into me.” She huffed, blowing her fluffy, champagne fringe upward. “I sure hope that touchdown was worth what I’ll be paying for dry-cleaning.”

“I think I might be able to help. One second.” A.J. darted out of the bathroom and returned a few moments later with a bottle of white vinegar, a salt-shaker and three napkins (all borrowed from behind the bar). “I learned this little trick from my grandma. Can I…?”

“Oh, please by all means,” the blonde-haired woman said, happily presenting the affected section of satin skirt for the red-haired woman to scrub. “I’m getting a little desperate. I mean, I suppose I could always sew an overlay on to this part. I just don’t want to have it dry-cleaned. Heaven knows they never handle my work delicately.”

“You made this dress?” A.J. took a moment to marvel at the fine, ruched, stitching between her fingers before returning to her task. “It’s beautiful. Really well designed.”

“I did, indeed, sweetie,” she declared with a wide smile. “I’m actually a seamstress by profession originally but I turned my hand to making clothes for toys because I could have a bit more fun with it. That’s what got me here I guess…” She gave a low whistle, watching A.J. step back from her work. “Well, I’ll be damned! That concoction must be like invisible ink. My sincerest thank yous.”

“There’s still going to be a bit of a wet patch but it shouldn’t stain,” A.J. told her. “You’re Marissa-Jean, the new manager, right?”

“Yep! That’s me. You’re from the Toy Hospital too, I’m guessing? What’s your own name, dearie?”

“Amelia-Jane. Most people just call me A.J. though.” It was as she looked at Marissa that A.J. suddenly realised how woefully underdressed she was for this particular occasion. By all accounts, the woman standing beside her was the picture of charm and elegance while A.J. was clad in something barely above her usual work-garb.

“Ahh,” Marissa’s face lit up with realisation. “Jen mentioned you when we were talking shop earlier. Apparently, you’re a real Wunderkind when it comes to repairs and restorations. Great to hear it. I’m not gonna lie, when I saw the double-name, I thought you might be from the South too. Any family from down by my neck of the woods?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” A.J. told her, slightly taken back by the weight of her approach but not as uncomfortable as she usually felt around strangers. “I grew up here and I’ve never really travelled any further South than Pennsylvania. I don’t think my name is from down South; my grandma always said that my mom named me after this doll from this kid’s book series.”

“Awh, that’s sweet! I was named after both of my grandmas. My parents had the worst time trying to decide which name should come first though, let me tell you…”

Listening to Marissa speak was oddly invigorating. Everything that she said seemed to flow from her mouth like honey, meandering up and down like a fast-flowing river. The new manager practically insisted that the two of them should have drinks. The fact that A.J. was technically not legally allowed to do so didn’t seem to faze her and the red-haired woman, in turn, was not about to complain.
The latter had heard of this kind of phenomenon before- extroverts somewhat adopting introverts as their friends. Whatever strange magnetism had been at play that evening, that was essentially what had happened.

And A.J. didn’t mind in the least.

Marissa was like a fusion of the Malibu Barbie and the Chatty Cathy that she’d never gotten to own as a little girl. She was boundlessly optimistic, big-hearted but very firm and highly capable when it came to her new position. The newly appointed manager was very in tune with the needs of her team and suffered from- in her own words- “a crippling bullshit allergy.” This extended to clients and suppliers alike; truly Marissa had no fear when it came to dealing with conflict.
She was friendly with all members of the staff too. She had an interesting talent for getting people to want to listen to her while simultaneously inspiring them to talk.
Although not all of her policies were very warmly received by the craftspeople, (“No more chewing gum in the workshop! Cud is for cows, not for people and certainly not for toys.”), Marissa seemed to generally get along with everyone.
She gossiped with Max in the morning, she bantered with the seniors at lunch time and took the trainees under her wing. While her constant chatting sometimes evoked a light sprinkling of ire from some of team members, occasionally dubbing her “intense” or “too much”, A.J. admired her energy.

A.J. also felt lucky to have the luxury of Marissa’s time outside of the Toy Hospital as well as inside of it. It began as the younger woman offering to help repair a china rabbit that had sustained an ear-chipping on Marissa’s journey from Texas. It resulted in the two women settling down to a glass of wine together, nattering about work and resolving to repeat the ritual on a weekly basis.
The older of the two would eventually christen it their “Wine and Whine” time.

Even after five years of working at the Toy Hospital, A.J. was yet to have any real friends at work. The other staff members were grouped off into cliques and while they were all perfectly polite to her and chatted with her, they never invited her out to lunch with them or asked her over for their dinner parties.
It didn’t really bother A.J. but it wasn’t for her lack of trying. She just found it very difficult to talk to any of them at length. Her interests differed so drastically from theirs that it sometimes felt as though they were speaking different languages.

Talking to Marissa was easy; she was a good listener and always had something funny or sweet to say, no matter the subject matter. She also seemed to appreciate having someone else to spill her own thoughts out to.
“Oh, Amy,” the blonde-haired woman lamented, perched on the couch, her legs tucked under herself like a cat and a glass of Rosé cradled precariously in her hand. “I’m going to miss you terribly while you’re away in San Diego. When are you heading away again?”

“The twentieth,” her subordinate replied, swirling the red wine around in her glass and becoming temporarily enchanted by its crimson spiralling. “Two Fridays from now. I still can’t believe that this is happening.”

A.J. had told Marissa all about Mortimer’s Handeemen, Handeemen Studios and about Owen Gubberson.
In fact, she told Marissa a lot about Owen Gubberson, specifically their time together in the park and at her apartment.

“Mmm, now I make it as a point never to assume someone else’s intentions, especially when I don’t know them personally, however…” She paused to take a sip of her wine, tilting her head back at A.J. in a knowing fashion. “In my personal experience, when a man in a position of power takes a special interest in a young lady- such to the point that he’s willing to fly her across the country and pay for her room and board- it’s usually because he’s expecting something back in return.”

A.J.’s fingers locked around the cup of her wine-glass; her eyes lowered bashfully. “I don’t think it’s like that at all, really. He just came off as very dedicated to his work and I think that he kind of liked that I was dedicated too.” She shrugged, blushing a little. “He didn’t try to do anything either…and he had plenty of chances. I mean, is it awful that I was kind of…disappointed that nothing happened?”

Marissa laughed but not unkindly, leaning forward to give her a playful nudge. “Nah, getting a little twitterpated is nothing to feel ashamed of. Just take care of yourself. Be smart and don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right to you.” She cocked her head to the side. “Have you got any family in San Diego? Or friends maybe?”

“No, I don’t,” A.J. told her between sips of wine. “It’s alright though. Without sounding too dower, I’m used to doing things on my own and I’m kind of better off that way. Work-wise, I mean.”

“Mmm…”
Marissa set her glass aside and leaned over to one of her side tables, scrabbling around with a very pink, very fluffy notebook before handing A.J. a scrap of paper. “Here. My phone and fax numbers. As soon as you figure out your own contact details, you give me a bell and I’ll call you every Friday so we can keep up our Wine and Whines.”

“Awh, Marissa, you don’t have to,” stammered A.J. “I mean that’s gonna rack up one hell of a phone bill and look, I’m sure you’ll have better things to do once I’m out of your hair. Not to mention the time difference.”

The blonde woman shook her head. “No way. I insist! You need someone to check in with, I am your manager so it would make sense that it was me and besides, this decision is far from selfless; I’m going to miss having a down-to-earth girlie like yourself to talk to about things on a weekly basis.” She recovered her wine glass with a flourish, her long cardigan sleeves sweeping like an angel’s wings. “I must insist.”

“Thank you,” A.J. said, feeling a very genuine smile crease her face as she reverently tucked away the piece of paper into her jeans pocket.
She had already been looking forward to the adventure but now she felt a little bit braver.

A fortnight later, A.J. would leave for the west coast. She picked up a slightly damaged leather-bound notebook in the airport. The kiosk owner said that she could have it at a drastically reduced price because the spine was splintering away from the pages. “Joke’s on him,” A.J. thought. “This is a pretty easy fix.”
She originally had only bought it to give herself something to do on the plane but it was when she was halfway finished stitching the book that A.J. decided that she might start keeping a diary.

*****

Her San Diego apartment was about half the size of her New York apartment, which in turn was no palace penthouse. The NYC space had been her Uncle Theo’s second home of sorts, when he wasn’t staying with A.J. and her Oma in the little rooms over the shop or off on his antique-hunting travels. It was a little too old and rough around the edges to be classed as modern but had been renovated too many times to be considered Bohemian.
Alas, to A.J. (and to all of her toys), it was home.

The San Diego model, unlike its counterpart, was far more compact and a little more sterile than she was used to. Lacking a hallway or foyer area, the front door opened straight into the rather beige lounge/kitchen/utility/dining area. To the right was a door leading to a small bathroom, (A.J.’s knees could easily touch the shower door while sitting on the toilet) and to the left was a small, windowless bedroom.  
A.J. couldn’t care less about the place being so far from a palace but the fact that it was so far from home drew across her like an icy wind. Her first order of business had been to unearth Clara from where she had been carefully packed away and to sit her on the sofa.
She resolved to restyle her curls and to iron out her dress later.

She didn’t have much time to get the apartment set up to her liking. Her flight had gotten in a lot later than it had been scheduled to and A.J. had found it difficult to negotiate with her very fast-talking cab driver. He seemed intent on taking her half-way around the city before finally conceding to follow the directions that she was giving him.
A.J. had just enough time to change into some fresh clothes, give herself a spritz of deodorant and run a brush through her bushy, copper locks before she grabbed her work things and bundled herself out of the door.
“ID card…letter…watch…notebook…pen-knife…apartment keys…”
She murmured a little list under her breath as she slipped from the door, turning to lock it and then turning back to see a familiar figure emerge from one of the doors across the hall.
It was Owen.

“O-Oh hi!”

The showrunner himself looked up with surprise and smiled when he saw her. “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” He was clearly teasing, his voice heavy with mirth. “I think I remember you from that one time in Vegas…”

“Ah, yes, I think I remember you too,” A.J. replied, playfully following suit. “Aaron, right?”

Owen chuckled, coming to join her by her side in the narrow hallway. “Yep. That’s me. So, how was your flight?”

“It was alright,” she told him, taking an opportunity to take stock of her surroundings. Her mind was already logging all of the various air-vents and light fixtures out of habit. “I didn’t know that you lived here too. Like, right across the hall from me and everything.”

“Actually, I’m not living here full time. This is kinda like my home away from home,” he explained as they walked into the elevator at the end of the hall. “It’s closer to the studios and it means I can put more hours in without an insane commute.” Owen shrugged. “And I figured with how close it is and I mean, these apartments aren’t exactly the Ritz but they’re pretty comfy…I told HR that it was probably best for us to place you here…”

“Well, if it gets your seal of approval then it’s good enough for me,” A.J. assured him. “It’s really nice and to be fair, I’m pretty low maintenance when it comes to a lot of things. So long as there’s running water and the AC works, I’m good.”

A.J. had planned on walking the two blocks to the studio but Owen insisted on driving her there. She couldn’t find herself wanting to refuse him, particularly considering that one of her biggest anxieties had been having to walk through the studio doors alone.

“You’ve got more factory defects than when I last saw you.”
“Huh?”
Owen’s eyes flicked sideways from the road and he gestured to her bare forearm. “You’ve got more freckles than I remember.”
“Oh right. Yeah, that happens to me in the sun.” A.J. sighed, pseudo-dramatically. “Maybe some nice collector will pick me up someday. You know people specialise in that right? Toys with flaws?”
“Flaws can be beautiful sometimes,” Owen mused, his voice always low and with little to no inflection. “They mark something as unique. One of a kind.” He rolled his shoulders, stealing another glance at her. “Besides, freckles aren’t the worst.”
Now it was A.J.’s turn to shrug. “They suit some people. They can be a nightmare to put on a doll’s face though. Between getting them to look natural but also pretty…then there’s the size and shape and colour of each one…I know some people who resort to flicking paint to be random but that literally never ends well. I tried using my own as a guide before but it drove me virtually insane. Some things just don’t map well from a human’s face to a doll’s face.”
“You’re telling me,” Owen replied agreeably as he tentatively reversed into a parking spot. “I remember trying to do Riley’s for the first time. It took me forever to work out where they should be and the damn merchandising artists still can’t keep them consistent.”

The two continued to chatter until they reached the front door, at which point the reality of what she was about to embark upon finally hit A.J. and her stomach tied itself into knots. Taking her first breath in the studio reception was like taking her first breath of life. It was simultaneously everything she had dreamed that it would be and so, so much better than she could have ever imagined. 
She occupied herself by gazing at the various portraits and posters that lined the walkway while Owen allowed himself to be accosted by several different individuals.
“I’m actually standing here,” she thought, staring at a floor length portrait of Mortimer Handee, his delighted grin mirroring hers.

She didn’t have long to wait before she was brought into the raucous hubbub of the studio’s busy hive. A lanyard with a laminated card was unceremoniously slung around her neck by a passing staff member and before she had a chance to ask about what she’d be doing, she was swept off into the place’s glimmering, gleaming innards.

“Ok, quick tour of the place and then we’ll be setting you down in Sewing Room Two,” Owen told her, between conversing with two individuals with clipboards. “We’re not actually shooting today so you’ll be able to get settled in with no pressure.”
She wished desperately that she had an extra pair of eyes in the back of her head, just to look at everything as she passed by. Handeemen studios was a verifiable maze and just when the younger creator thought that they had reached the end of one wing, another door would be opened to reveal a second, third or fourth workshop, dressing area or sewing room.
A.J. barely had time to register the location of each room before she was swept away to another, often with either Owen or one of the staff members muttering some kind of direction: “If the red light is flashing, don’t open this door” and “Keep an eye on the ink levels while you’re printing anything” or “Don’t forget to turn off the electricity generator if you’re the last one on the soundstage.”

She tried her best to commit everything to memory on the first time around but would soon resolve to drawing out a map for herself to avoid the inevitability of having to consistently ask for help.
As she was finally escorted to the Promised Land dubbed Sewing Room Two, A.J. took stock of a poster on the wall:
“Teamwork Essentials: Communication. Dedication. Respect.”

“That’s nice,” she thought to herself, completely and blissfully unaware that the next time she would look at that poster, it would be with very different, very tired eyes that would balefully curse every printed letter for how untruthful that it was.

***

Walking to the studio on her fourth day into work caused her mind to wander again. Memories of her younger self standing over a tattered, only-kind-of-stuffed lion played in her mind like a VHS tape on loop.
“But h-he’s broken,” she had mumbled sheepishly, only six years old and already able to detect her uncle’s mounting impatience with her. Her head was bent, almost reverently in a bow. “I can’t play with h-him.”
“You have been presented with an opportunity, Amelia-Jane,” Theo Schwarzwald’s stern voice snapped from above her. “Do not complain. Do not blubber. Do not squander this. If you wish to play with your lion- you must first fix him.”

Thanks to her Uncle Theo’s teachings, A.J. had forced herself to never be the type to appear ungrateful. She had been conditioned taught to appreciate her opportunities and to make the most of what she had been given.
It was never the fault of the environment or her peers or the tools or resources that she had been given; it was her fault for not being prepared or versatile or determined enough.

In spite of it all, A.J. would be lying if she had said that her first few days in the studio were sweet peaches and cream.
She enjoyed working alongside the other professionals; they were a lot less chatty than the toy hospital staff and quite strict about how everything had to be done but they gave A.J. her space and she quickly picked up quite a few new skills from them. She was pretty certain she had heard one of them passively refer to her as “that Muppet from Manhattan” following an unfortunate incident of A.J. dropping a set piece, but she had long trained herself not to mind.
Besides, she had been referred to as a far worse by some of the toy hospital staff and that had been to her face.
She also enjoyed the atmosphere on the set and generally getting to watch the show being filmed was enthralling.

She had been granted access to the soundstage to assist with props. Owen noticed her stumbling after one of the managers and gestured for her to come over to his director’s chair. He held a finger to his lips but smiled and motioned for her to take the empty seat beside him, a request which she happily and quietly obliged.

He sat up straight, shuffling the papers in his lap and calling out to the staff: “Alright! Let’s run that ending part again.”
“Right,” a grip with a baseball cap affirmed signalling. “Taping Mortimer’s Handeemen, Season Two, Episode seven, “A Rough Day for Rosco.”
The clapboard cued in the camera operators. “Rolling…and action!”

The darkened set suddenly illuminated to reveal Riley’s laboratory setting. A.J. just about felt her soul leave her body when Dr Ruckus herself suddenly popped up over the edge of the nearest counter. Riley’s russet hair was far more vivid in person than it had been on the grainy t.v. screen in the toy hospital. Her limbs moved fluidly as she spoke, her gloved fingers curved delicately around a conical flask and her duo-tone eyes seeming to light up with each inflection.

“Oh drat, I was sure that last concoction was the key! I suppose it’s back to the drawing board with me. Hmm, maybe I should ask for help from Daisy? Why, with her cooking skills and my brain…I’m sure Rosco will be right as rain!”

A.J. leaned forward where she sat, giddy with glee. From above the counter, getting to watch one of Owen’s amazing creations at work was fantastical enough but at this angle, she was also afforded a rare chance to see one of the puppeteers at work.
Underneath the counter, Jeanette- Riley’s puppeteer and voice actress- was seated, operating the wooden scientist with both her hand and an added rod that was virtually invisible to the camera. Her eyes were directed downwards at a script and a hidden screen but her face seemed to almost mirror every one of Riley Ruckus’ own little mannerisms and intonations.

“To help my dear friend, it seems I’ve an experiment to direct…and you all know what that means: more data to collect!”

A.J. hadn’t realised that she had mouthed Riley’s catchphrase until she heard some shifting beside her and glanced over to see Owen watching her and smiling. She smiled in return but bashfully averted her eyes.

“And cut!”

“Will I tell Jeanette to run it again or-?” One of the other production assistants was walking towards Owen, adjusting her headphones.

“No, that take was fine. You can tell her to set Riley down in the dressing room, take five and we’ll bring in Bobby and Tom to get some takes with Rosco.”

“Sure thing, I’ll pass that along…also…” The production assistant looked sideways at A.J. “I think Antonio from props was looking for the…” She made a vague gesture in her direction. “…new girl.”
“Oh r-right!” A.J. leapt to her feet, suddenly remembering what exactly she was supposed to be doing and managing to mutter a quick goodbye-and-thanks to Owen before hurrying away.

Truthfully, A.J. was a little put off by the fact that no one seemed to know why she was there, who she was or about the fact that Owen had invited her there. Prior to her arrival, A.J. had been under the impression that bringing in trainee talent from around the country was a common practice- or at least that was the impression that Owen had given her.
However, from day one, the rest of the staff, cast and crew seemed to be thoroughly perplexed by just what exactly she was supposed to be doing there.

“So…you’re like an intern, then?” one of the sewing assistants had asked her from over the bobbin of his sewing machine. “Where are you studying?”
“Oh, no…I’m not an intern,” A.J. told him, poking another needle into her collar for safe-keeping. “And I’m not studying anywhere at the moment. I did some custom work for Owen in New York and he asked me to come down here…”
The sewing assistant gave a kind of nod in affirmation but A.J. could tell by the way his eyebrows stitched themselves together and ruched his forehead that this explanation was evoking more questions than answers.

Owen had given her a perfectly lovely reason for why she was there and although she felt bad for wishing it, she did so desperately want him to explain this reason to the other staff members. Particularly considering her presence was already evoking some degree of ire; most departments didn’t seem to be expecting a new addition so A.J. effectively had to be shoehorned in wherever they could get her, often resulting in a lack of space, resources and extra time set aside to explain what needed to be done.
She couldn’t imagine saying something to the tune of: “Owen likes my passion for what I do and wants to give me a special shot because he thinks I’m a unique talent…” would do anything but make her seem insanely unlikeable among the staff.
A.J. was bad with people, sure, but she wasn’t that bad with people.

Owen, however...

She couldn’t help but notice that the other staff members always seemed a little uneasy whenever Owen was around. Having grown up in New York and being no stranger to NYC itself, A.J. was used to seeing people being rude or awkward with each other.
 At first, she thought she might just be imagining it, then she chalked it up to the employees simply wanting to be professional whenever the head honcho was around but eventually the shift was so obvious that A.J. could no longer ignore it.

A perfectly cheery room of the production team would suddenly grow quiet and tense if Owen suddenly walked in. Chatting would suddenly become heavily censored and strictly work-related. It wasn’t hard to notice that save for the three other principal puppeteers and the main production assistants, no staff member approached Owen first even for casual conversation. People seemed to be apprehensive of telling Owen anything that wasn’t loaded with glowing positivity and some employees even tried their best to steer clear of him entirely.
A.J. had supposed that it had something to do with the staff being aloof industry professionals or maybe it was just a west coast thing that she hadn’t quite gotten used to yet.

Then there was the puppet thing.

Almost universally, there seemed to be an unspoken taboo about being left alone with any of the puppets. This extended from the cleaners to the security guards, from the camera operators and set dressers to the actors and puppeteers themselves.
Crafters, dressers and maintenance assistance worked in pairs with the secondary Handeemen, (the multi-coloured kiddie puppets), and if one needed to take a bathroom break, they both left together.
The principal puppeteers, (Jeanette, Jake, Alison, Tom and Bobby), would only operate their own puppets when Owen was present and only the head puppeteer himself would ever perform maintenance on the main five.
There seemed to be no obvious reason for this- it was just that no one seemed to like being left alone with the puppets.

Any oddness in the early days, however, was infinitely overshadowed by the fact that she was working at Handeemen Studios. A.J. was literally living out one of her wildest dreams.

Somehow, she managed to get stuck into her timetable fairly quickly. She tried her best to figure things out on her own as not to be a burden to anyone around her.
A.J. could remember when Theo took on some temporary workers at the antique shop, mostly to allow some respite for her Oma who was recovering from the flu at the time. A.J., at that stage, was only eight or nine and couldn’t legally be expected to do much work alone so Theo had taken on two teenagers from a local high school as part time employees.

She had walked in on Theo grumbling in his upstairs study when she came to deliver his afternoon tea.
“What an absolute waste, Amelia. Eine Verschwendung. Eine Verschwendung meiner Zeit und eine Verschwendung von Mühe.”

“What’s a waste, Uncle Theo?” she asked him, setting his tray upon its designated perch.

“These two youngbloods. What complete disappointments they’ve proven to be.”

“I thought they seemed ok. They were able to work the register and they’ve been keeping the floor clean…”

“I caught the girl in the backroom today blubbering and whining because she had to serve a fussy customer and all while there was a line at the front desk! She seemed to want me to take time out of my day to console her or to do the job for her. Imagine! Then there’s the boy…he simply stands around doing nothing unless you tell him exactly what to do. He has no sense of proactivity or intuition when left to his own devices.” The older man lowered his head, his fingers massaging the folds in his ample brow. “They both clearly cannot be left in the shop alone which entirely defeats the purpose of their hiring in the first place.”

Little A.J. sighed noiselessly as she went about pouring tea into her uncle’s favourite cup. She knew it wouldn’t be long until her two new friends were sent packing. Uncle Theo rarely changed his mind about anything. It was truly a pity; she was starting to enjoy having two new faces downstairs.

“Promise me, A.J., that you’ll never be the type to cry and make a fuss in front of your employers. Or stand around being useless. No matter what career path you take, you must always show a face that is competent and positive in the wake of adversity.”

“I promise.”

This would quickly be added to A.J.’s mental list of rules.
Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

A.J. didn’t know it but it wouldn’t be long before that rule was tested at Handeemen Studios.

*****

The whole thing had happened so quickly. A.J. felt like a Jack-in-the-Box, quickly forced and discharged from a place of safety and now left suspended, unworthy and without direction.
Her intentions had been completely innocent, naively helpful even.

She had noticed that one of Mortimer’s teeth was slightly out of place. The wooden magician had been grinning jovially at her from his suspension rack across the room. His monocle glinted invitingly.

A.J. had originally wanted to retreat to the bathrooms, but they were just as busy as the break room. She was fortunate to remember the service tunnels that ran under the studio. She could recall being told that they were rarely used and easy to get lost in. It was fitting, A.J. decided, as at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to get lost and to never be found.

Owen had been on the other side of the room, talking to a production assistant about some kind of new gadget for the show. Feeling idle and useless, A.J. had taken a moment to distract herself by studying Mortimer. The tooth was easy to spot and was a relatively easy fix too.

She scrabbled in the pockets of her cargo shorts for a tissue, muttering a silent prayer when she managed to pry forth a scrunched-up ball of Kleenex. The tunnels were dark, draughty and eerily silent. As she wiped her eyes and nose, she could hear her own fast, shaky breathing and strained sniffling. The sound made her skin crawl.

Her finger had barely touched the wooden incisor when Owen was upon her, his fingers tight around her wrist. A.J. couldn’t quite remember what he had shouted at her, only that his voice was far louder and angrier than she could have ever imagined it. His face was creased with rage and his once warm, maroon eyes were now ablaze.

A.J.’s temples started to ache. She massaged the bridge of her nose, pinching hard and trying to console herself. The memory of Owen’s face made her stomach feel sick.
“Rule number three,” she told herself in an inside voice that was far braver than her real voice could have managed. “No panic, no fretting, no crying in front of your boss…”

Owen hadn’t just reprimanded her for touching Mortimer, he also called her something nasty. She couldn’t remember if it had been “idiot” or “airhead” but whatever it was, it stung. It didn’t feel like it was Owen who was berating her; it was as though he had transformed into another person entirely. She had been thoroughly humiliated in front of the other employees in the room too. She couldn’t bring herself to look any of them in the eye as she hurriedly left.
Her only final point of pride was perhaps the fact that she managed to make it out of Wing A before she started crying.

A.J. wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket, sucking air in through her teeth as her thoughts became less pitying and more penal in nature.

Her thoughts were dominated by how Owen’s face had contorted entirely. His jaw was clenched like an over-taut box spring and his voice wasn’t soft or kind anymore- rather it was now a basal roar.
And the roar continued to echo in her ears.

“I am an idiot,” she thought, her heart sinking more and more by the second. “I’ve fucked up my chances here. He’ll never let me near any of the puppets again…”

“Y’know, I’ve always wondered why the hell we even have these tunnels. Like what kind of smuggling ring does Gubberson think we’re running here?”

The redhead jumped slightly, whipping around to see Jake in the tunnel behind her. Nick Nack’s puppeteer came to stand beside her, following her gaze into the dimly lit space. Jake was a large man with a bristly chestnut beard, a barrel chest and a belly with a little too much stuffing. A.J. often wondered if he gave good hugs, like a teddy-bear. His hazel eyes often twinkled, not unlike the tortoiseshell ones that she had sewn on many a bear at the Toy Hospital.

The man held out an open pack of cigarettes as a kind of ice-breaker and A.J. accepted it with a grateful nod, offering her own lighter in return.
“So,” Jake said, taking a drag and exhale, his head tilting backwards. “Let me guess. You touched one of the puppets.”

A.J. nodded, hanging her head slightly, smoke escaping her lips in shuddering clouds. “Mortimer.”

Jake winced, shuddering visibly. “Holy shit, he must have given you the fifth circle of hell.”

The woman only nodded in response this time, closing her eyes to disguise the tears in them and occupying her mouth with the cigarette again.

“Look, it if makes you feel any better,” the puppeteer told her. “Getting screamed at by Owen is basically a rite of passage here. I won’t lie, touching Mortimer is a real baptism of fire but trust me, you wouldn’t be the first.” He shrugged both of his mighty shoulders. “In the early days, I once had the nerve to try my hand at puppeteering Daisy before Alison had come on board. Owen almost popped a vein in his neck, screeching about how I was “not her voice” and how I was “disrespecting what he’d created.” Jake took another drag and exhaled, looking sideways at her. “And hey, I’m still here. Don’t worry about Gubberson. He’ll cool down and it’ll be like it never happened. Trust me on that.”

 “…I hope so. Thanks.”

A.J. had always liked Jake. He was definitely one of the kindest cast members and even if he didn’t always have something medicinal to say, he was always very mannerly and friendly to her even when the others were aloof or disinterested or dismissive.

“The boss man can be a bit of a tyrant about the puppets but it’s only because he really loves what he does. If you don’t take shit personally around here, it gets a lot easier to just do your job,” he told her, leaning against a nearby brick wall and flicking the butt of the cigarette into the dark. “I mean, it’s like the artiste himself always says…” Jake’s slightly gruff voice morphed effortlessly into Nick Nack’s sing-song drawl. “For theatre, one must give all the heart, we all must suffer for our art!”

A.J. giggled, offering a small round of applause to which Jake gave a small flourish and bow.

“Thanks, Jake,” she said, tossing her own cigarette butt. “Really. I don’t want to be a bother but I think I needed to hear that. I was starting to think that I’d basically ended my own career before it had started.”

“Nah, no need for those kinds of theatrics, honey. You’re still plenty young. You’re what, like…eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Twenty.”

“See? That’s basically a baby in this industry. You’ve got plenty of time to fuck up your career.”

A.J. laughed. “Fair enough. Again, thank you. I needed to hear that today.”

The man waved his hand and then quirked an eyebrow. “Quid pro quo, do you mind if I ask you something, A.J.?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“So, I don’t mean to be rude or to pry but…you and Gubberson…are you guys-? Like, the two of you…?” He raised two index fingers and poked them towards each other in a vaguely suggestive gesture.

It took A.J. longer than she would care to admit to catch on to what Jake was implying before she suddenly stammered, surprised and laughing nervously: “W-What? Oh, God, no, no, no. It’s not like that at all. I’m literally just a charity case for him, I think. Like I’m pretty sure he’s only nice to me because this is my first real gig like this.”

“You two seem pretty close around the studio. Like, not to be a dick about it but Owen doesn’t usually spend too much time with the newbies. If anything, he avoids it. But with you…” Nick’s puppeteer shrugged, pursing his lips. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m reading this wrong but Gubberson always seems pretty happy to see you.”

A.J.’s heart gave an uncomfortable thump. “We just kind of bonded over being a fan of toys and puppets and stuff…” She shrugged bashfully. “I think his obsessions just match my obsessions. Y’know, same wavelength and all that.”

Jake nodded, seemingly a bit relieved. “Ah, ok. I guess that makes sense.”

She walked with Jake back to the main studio wings, bidding him farewell at the door to the main dressing room. He gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before they parted ways. “Don’t worry about, Owen. He’ll have simmered down by now.” He glanced over his shoulder, seemingly checking for something or someone before adding. “Just…don’t touch the puppets anymore now, ok?”
A.J. decided that she could have been imagining it but she thought she saw a brief flash of solemn seriousness in Jake’s eyes before he walked away. That flash contrasted sharply with the man’s jovial smile and relaxed demeanour.

She was probably just imagining it though.

****

Part of her desperately wanted to interrogate Owen’s reasoning behind only having one person- the puppeteer, (or puppeteers in the case of Rosco)- be responsible for the puppets’ maintenance. It definitely wasn’t an industry standard and it often made things like repairs, prop-sizings and costume fittings at best tedious and at worst, a nightmare to organise. She was sure that there were great reasons behind it, she just really wanted to her them from Owen himself.
But to ask about that would be breaking the first rule that she’d ever been taught by her Uncle Theo: Don’t Ask Questions.

“You’re the employee. It’s not your place to question what the client wants or needs. You are not a judge nor a jury nor a patron nor the press. Keep your questions to yourself and keep your mind on your work.”

It was a Thursday afternoon and A.J. was working in one of the props workshops, adding finishes to various items that were going to be used on the show.
As always, the chatting in the room dissipated to a low, hushed buzz as Owen came into the room, sweeping past all of them. The quiet murmuring was far more reverent than fearful but the red-haired craftswoman felt her stomach tighten all the same.

He was speaking to one of the props masters at the back of the room, adding some notes to the chalkboard occasionally. Once or twice, A.J. was tempted to see if she could catch his eye; he hadn’t spoken to her since the touching incident. She had tried to catch him at the apartment building but to little avail.

She kept her head down, her eyes trained on to the curtain train that she was hemming. Her eyes didn’t waver from the pleated folds even as she heard Owen start to fiddle with the Jack-in-the-Box at the top of the room. It was a special prop for a new promotion with Mortimer’s face carved into the lid. A light music-box variant of the Handeemen’s theme tune suddenly filled the air, twanging lightly before stopping abruptly.

“Who worked on this?”

The low buzz immediately dropped to complete silence.
A.J. reluctantly lifted her head, only to see Owen pointing at the box, one eyebrow raised accusingly at the group.

“I…I did…” she hesitantly admitted, swallowing. Owen didn’t immediately start shouting this time but his expectant silence prompted her to keep talking. “I…I noticed that the cylinder and comb weren’t properly engaging with the spring housing mechanism so I adjusted it to make the handle easier to turn…”

She braced herself for another round of shouting but this time, Owen simply inhaled through his nose and sighed before saying: “Alright. Just let me know in future before you make any adjustments to anything.”

The room fell back into its usual work state but A.J. felt as though she’d just narrowly avoided a second strike on her record. Sure, Owen hadn’t yelled at her this time but even she could tell that he was still angry at her.
Self-punishing had been a habit A.J. had retained since her youngest years. Sometimes if she felt guilty for answering back to Oma or for slacking off on her work with Theo, she would send herself to her room or force herself to do extra housework to compensate for it, just to alleviate her guilty mind.
Continuing this tradition, A.J. had decided to stay late at the studio that night to finish hemming some of the puppet costumes.

The studio felt like a different place at night- dark and cavernous and even more like a labyrinth than before. A.J. had sequestered herself into one of the furthest sewing rooms and sat perched on one of the stools at the largest work bench. She didn’t have the luxury of this kind of space during the day so it was great to be able to spread her patterns and fabrics across the table. The dull ache in her lower back and pain in her fingers were virtually negated by the fact that she had access to all the best materials and tools on the studio’s dime.

She could feel her eyelids starting to droop of their own accord; morning had come far too early that day, the afternoon hours had rolled by slowly and now night was starting to beckon her. A.J. tried to focus on the pattern that she had copied into the pages of her new diary but the lines were becoming blurry. Annoyed, she gave herself a jab with the needle, hoping the sting would jolt her awake. Clad only in her work t-shirt and denim shorts, she had been hoping that the burgeoning cold would keep her awake but with June in California being what it was, the draft running through the studio was actually rather relieving.

“Come on, A.J. Stay awake,” she muttered to herself, squinting to thread another needle. The proximity of her eyelids was far too tempting however and soon her forehead was pressed against the wooden worktop.

Slipping into a light doze, A.J.’s mind began to wander like a lost child. In a dreamlike state, her mind wandered all the way back to her Uncle Theo’s office above the antique shop. She knocked on the door as her younger self had done time and time again.
A voice that sounded quite unlike Theo Schwarzwald called out to her: “Come in, my dear. We’ve been lonely in here.”
She opened the door to see a man sitting in her uncle’s armchair. He definitely wasn’t her uncle but she couldn’t quite make out his face. His face was entirely shadowed but his right eye glinted like a silver dollar. A long finger beckoned her closer to her him and, as though she was pulled by a string, A.J. found it impossible to deny his request. Her feet moved mechanically until she was standing right in front of him. It was still quite impossible to see his darkened visage even at a close proximity but his spindly fingers were upon her own trembling face.

“Why so sad? Why such dread? Let’s put a smile on your face instead.”
The man took a needle and thread from his pocket and started to stitch the corners of A.J.’s mouth, turning them upward. She was surprised to find that it didn’t hurt and further surprised to find that she was incapable of telling him to stop. Her lips wouldn’t form the words properly and her limbs were suddenly too heavy to move.

“Now, before you stay a while. Let’s show everyone your lovely new smile.”
Before A.J. could ask where “everyone” was as they appeared to be the only two people in the office, the man suddenly seized her by the shoulders and turned her around. A.J.’s widened- horrified and mystified to see that she was now standing upon the stage of a huge auditorium, facing a crowd of people. Squinting, she saw that they weren’t people at all; the crowd was made up entirely of puppets.

All staring.
All smiling.
A.J. wanted to beg them to stop. A.J. wanted to cry out for help. A.J. wanted to scream.
But because of where the stitches sat, all she could do was smile back.

The red-haired craftswoman woke up suddenly, mid-snore. She looked around blearily, trying to take stock of her surroundings and in her slumber-drunken state, she knocked a spool of thread from the table.
“Shit…”
A.J. stumbled to the floor, her fingers scrabbling to find the rogue reel before it could roll any further. Luckily, she managed to scoop it up, only realising as she got back to her feet that the room had darker than before.
“Damned automatic lights.”
She waved her arms in the direction of the sensor to little avail, groaning when she realised that she was going to have to turn the lights back on at the source. A.J. turned around to head towards the light switch, only to be met by a long-armed figure in the dark.

She let out a terrified cry at the sight of the faceless figure who towered over her by a head. Her assailant remained silent and stoic.
“Fucking mannequins!”
A.J. was about to shove the offending dummy to one side but noticed that it had a secondary Handeeman puppet perched on its raised hand. Even in the low light, A.J. could tell that it was a cute one too- sporting its own little lime-green pompadour. Sighing and not wishing to potentially ruin someone else’s work, A.J. gingerly edged around the mannequin and puppet pair and felt her way around the tables to the light switch at the door.

A swift flick and a low click later, the room quickly illuminated.
A.J. turned around and felt her body seize in fright once again.
The mannequin with the hand puppet was now turned to face her and was far closer than it had been before. “What the f-?”
The words died in A.J.’s mouth as her mind tried to rationalise what she was seeing.

She had definitely passed it. It should have its back to her.

Maybe she turned it around accidentally while trying to squeeze past?

She would have heard it move. She would have felt it move.

That was it, she decided, she had moved it by accident and now it was facing her.

That still didn’t explain why it was closer to her than before.

It had been dark anyway, she told herself, her eyes had been playing tricks on her.
She looked at the puppet and saw that its eyes were staring directly at her, its mouth open in a gaping, toothless grin.

“Hello?”

For the third time, A.J. jumped and let out a cry, recoiling against the brick wall at her back. This time, she was thoroughly relieved to see one of the security guards’ heads poked around the door.
She recognised him from his day time shifts. What was his name?
Eddie or Freddy or Neddy or something.

“H-Hi…” she returned, trying to take deep breaths as she drew herself back up to composure.
“Sorry if I gave you a fright,” the dark haired, swarthy man apologised, adjusting his round-rimmed glasses. “I thought I heard someone in here. I’m just relieved that my ears weren’t playing tricks on me again.”

“I’m a-actually just getting ready to head off now,” A.J. told him, hurrying over to grab her diary from behind the mannequin while there was another human being present. “A-Am I the only one left here?”

“What? Oh, no. Don’t worry,” Ed/Fred/Ned told her. “Mr Gubberson is still here in his office. He usually stays late on most nights. He even locks the place up himself sometimes! Talk about dedicated right?”

A.J. squirmed internally, only nodding in response as she briskly headed over to the door. The presence of another person in the room gave her small amounts of courage but not enough to be left alone with that puppet/mannequin duo again.

“Don’t worry,” the guard repeated, sheathing his torch and thoroughly misinterpreting A.J.’s demeanour. “You’re not in trouble or anything. I’d probably tell Mr Gubberson that you were heading off though, just in case he thought that you were still hanging around.”

A.J. took one last glance at the green pompadour puppet, noting that its eyes were no longer trained on her. “Y-Yeah. I’ll do that.”

She made a bee-line for the bathroom to splash some water on to her face first. Her stomach was now thoroughly constricting itself- not only because of her uncomfortable experience with the puppet but because whether she wanted to or not, she would now have to talk to Owen one-to-one.
This was something she hadn’t done for just about a week and their last two interactions had been less than ideal.

A.J. took one last look at herself in the bathroom mirror, gathering her long, red, curly hair back over her shoulders and using the scrunchie on her wrist to secure it into a messy ponytail.
Taking a long, deep breath that didn’t quite reach the pit of her lungs, A.J. made her way out of the Unisex bathroom and out in the direction of Owen’s office.

It was an area of the studio that she hadn’t been to since her very first day and A.J. surprised herself with how easily she was able to navigate her way there. Perhaps at the back of her mind, she had been secretly hoping that she might get lost and Owen might leave long before she was able to find his office door.
No such luck.
In seconds, she was standing in the dimly lit hallway that led to the office door. Her eyes picked out his blue and gold nameplate and gathering her courage, A.J. made her way quietly to the slightly-ajar door.

A small tongue of yellow light lapped against the shadowed boards beneath her feet, illuminating the rubber-toed tip of her sneakers almost like a search light. In the crack of the door, A.J. could make out Owen sitting at his desk with his back to the door. She couldn’t see his face but his voice sounded faintly worried.
Was he on the phone? A.J. didn’t want to pry or to eavesdrop.

“I’ve spoken to the composer but he seems to think that the jingle is fine the way it is. I told him that the little coda is excessive but he still doesn’t seem to want to alter it. Look, I know it’s not the best news but at the very least, I think I’m finally one step closer to getting the Sacrosanct Verses. See, I’ve met this guy through-.”

A.J. had taken a step backwards but a tattletale floorboard suddenly sang out in protest. Owen’s head snapped upwards and he called out, indignant: “Who’s there? Ted? Is that you?”

“N-No, it’s me,” A.J. called out, backing away from the door as though it was about to snap at her like a rabid dog. “I’m sorry. I stayed late and lost track of time. One of the guards just told me that I should let you know before I head off-.”
The jaws of the door suddenly opened, illuminating Owen’s silhouette, gilded by the low lamplight. “Oh…A.J., it’s you.”

He didn’t sound angry.
He didn’t sound confused.

If anything, much as she and Ted the security guard had been, he sounded rather relieved.

“Yep. Just me,” she replied, shrugging her satchel on to her shoulder. “Like I said, I’m just heading off, so I…I…”

The words fell away, slipping to silence as though the needle of the gramophone in her mouth had been pulled away from its record. Over Owen’s shoulder, A.J. had caught sight of something glinting in the office like a jewel in a cave.
It was Mortimer’s monocle.

Mortimer Handee himself was set up on a holding frame behind the desk.
A.J. couldn’t help but stare; although the tooth incident was fresh in her head, the wooden magician was still one of the most magnificent puppets that she had ever seen. Owen followed her gaze and then smiled faintly.

“You two were never formally introduced, right?” His voice was quiet and gentle, just as it had been on the day that they had first met.

A.J. blinked and then shook her head. “No…well, I mean…it’s alright…like, if you’re busy…I don’t want to…I mean, I do want to but…”

Owen held out his hand to her, his woodwork scars glinting faintly in the flickering yellow light. “Do you want to come and say hi?”

Feeling a kind of wonder that she hadn’t felt in a very long time, A.J. nodded wordlessly, placing her hand in his and allowing him to lead her into the office. The puppeteer guided her to his desk and beckoned her to sit in his chair. Even in her state of gleeful anticipation, A.J. just about took stock of a tape recorder atop the various blueprints and files.
She watched with baited breath as Owen lifted Mortimer from his stand with fluid care. She had been on set during filming a few times but she had never seen the master himself in action up close.
Owen’s hand disappeared under the royal purple folds of Mortimer’s jacket and after a jostle here and a jerk there, the magician’s once vacant stare suddenly blinked to life, his jaw readjusted and his shoulders rolled into place.
He was alive.

“Why hello there, young lady!” his jovial voice greeted her with its own kind of fanfare. “Mortimer Handee’s my name. How lovely it is to meet you. You must be Amelia-Jane.”

An uncontrollable smile burst across A.J.’s face and she gently took Mortimer’s extended hand, allowing him to “kiss” her knuckles. “It’s really lovely to meet you too, Mr Handee. I’ve gotta admit, I’m a little starstruck right now.”

“A natural reaction, I’m sure. Though there’s no need to be shy. You’re part of the team now- a colleague of mine!” One of his wooden eyebrows lifted, exposing the mechanism much to A.J.’s delight. “And no need for formalities; it wouldn’t be rude, for you to call me by my first name: Mortimer will do.”

A.J. had imagined that it would be difficult not to look at Owen but the puppeteer kept his eyes lowered and focused on Mortimer’s back. As such, it was easy to keep her eyes on the magician- not that she would have any difficulty with that anyway: Mortimer was impossible to look away from.

“Alright,” she smiled bashfully with a shrug. “You can call me A.J. then, Mr- uh, Mortimer. Thank you for having me here. I’m sorry for interrupting your private rehearsal session this evening.”

Mortimer gave a masterful little cough, balling his wooden fist to his lips and shrugging his shoulders. “Well, truthfully, there’s only one person who should be sorry here.” He pointed over his shoulder at his puppeteer. “Our dear director was a trifle harsh with you, I fear. I told him that you only wished to help- I understand! Alas, Owen prefers to fix us with his own two hands.”

A small warmth spread outward through A.J.’s chest. Still looking directly at Mortimer, she shrugged. “It’s alright. I understand.” She leaned forward, playfully lowering her voice to a whisper. “You can tell Owen he doesn’t have to be sorry. When you put so much time and effort and love into your creations- all you want to do is to protect them from the world. Hell, I almost took a six-year old’s arm off before because she tried to pick up Clara.”

“Ah, yes! I’ve heard of this Clara; she sounds quite lovely indeed. I would much like to meet her. We should have her around for tea!”

A.J. giggled despite herself. “She’s not the chattiest of ladies but if the invitation is there, I’m sure she’d love to meet you.”

“And Miss Clara, I might infer, it was you who made her?”

“I restored her, yeah. She was my first major project and probably my best work. I certainly think she’s beautiful.” A.J. tilted her head. “You’re quite the looker though yourself, Mortimer. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for Owen to put you and the others together. Working in the studio has been eye-opening though. I had no idea that Owen came up with the designs for every puppet. Even the secondary ones.”

“I’m sure he’s flattered by your fuss; Owen does indeed put a little of himself in all of us…”

A.J. watched in amazement as Mortimer’s tiny, crescent-like wooden fingers fanned out in a little flourish before he proudly tugged on his own lapels.
Every seam, every mechanism, every blink and every breath. A.J. had seen and worked on ventriloquist-style puppets before but Mortimer was in a league of his own.

This puppet was magnificent.

“As it should be,” A.J. said softly, now very aware that she was leaning on her own palm, her elbow upon her knee as she leaned closer to examine the puppet. “I’ve always thought that’s the only way to bring a creation to life.”

“Maybe someday.”

Hearing Owen’s real voice behind Mortimer’s head caught her slightly off-guard but she physically jumped a little when the puppet’s head suddenly snapped around a full 180 degrees, seeming to glare at his puppeteer.
Clearly Mortimer did not like being interrupted. 

A.J. laughed at the bit but felt her chest get a little tight at the sight of Owen’s face. There was a genuinely worried crease in his brow as he studied Mortimer’s face. Almost as though he really was anxious about offending the puppet.

“Owen?”

Owen cleared his throat suddenly, sitting up straighter and hastily replacing Mortimer on his stand. “Say, A.J., is it still raining out?”

“I’m not sure,” A.J. replied honestly. The room she had been working in had no windows. In fact, she hadn’t seen the outside world since her walk to work that morning.

Owen checked his watch, humming under his breath. “Mmm, it’s almost midnight.” He looked up at her suddenly, the dark purple colour of his eyes immediately making her face heat up again. “I can give you a ride home if you’d like.”

“Oh, no I don’t want to be a bother. I’ll be fine. Really.”
Though, truth be told, the thought of walking home in the rain was making her squirm. She had endured many a rainfall in New York but there was something about west coast rain that just made it feel as though it was soaking into her skin.

“No, no, it’s no bother. I’ll be heading that way. I’m probably just going to stay over in my own apartment tonight anyway…and look, you shouldn’t be walking in the dark either. It’s not safe.”

“It’s actually a lot safer than my old neighbourhood,” she told him with a bemused smile. “But well…if you’re going there anyway, I won’t say no. Thank you. Owen.”

“Great,” he said, shuffling through some papers on the table and hastily shoving the tape recorder into a drawer. “I’ll meet you in Workshop Two in a few minutes, if that’s ok? I just have some things to put away here.”

A.J. nodded and made herself scarce; she could tell that whatever Owen needed to do; he didn’t want to be watched.
She headed down to the workshop in question, her body light and tingling. The residual ecstasy from watching Owen puppeteer Mortimer was enough to carry her through the dark deserted hallways.
It was when she opened the door to the workshop that the rose-coloured haze was wiped away as she was greeted by another hand-puppet on the hand of a faceless mannequin.

This one was facing towards the door, its mouth agape and arms limp. It had matte yellow skin and pink hair bound into pigtails. It was leaning forward slightly, almost accusing A.J. of something as she shuffled into the room.
By stark contrast, the mannequin had both arms raised as though a gun was being pointed at it.

The loud rain on the window coupled with the sudden clicking of the door closing at her back made A.J. shudder. Something self-aware and sensible in the back of her mind chided her for being so ridiculous. It was a puppet.
This was her job, her passion…there was no need to be scared of anything.

As though she had something to prove and responding to the prompt of no one at all, A.J. slowly walked towards the puppet. She came to stand right in front of the mannequin, first looking into its non-existent eyes before shifting her stare to that of the puppet.

“Evening. Nice weather for ducks, isn’t it?”

The puppet remained silent.
Silent and staring. In the slightly flickering overhead light, a shadow was cast under the puppet’s eyes. It almost looked like it might blink of its own accord.

“You’re a sweet, little thing, aren’t you? I don’t believe we’ve met before, have we?”

The small, cloth being gave her no reply. There was something about the puppet’s lips- the way the fabric curled ever so slightly at the edges- that made her feel like she was about to reply.  The imposed vacuum prompted her to add:

“Ah, my apologies for being so rude. My name is A.J.” She held up her hand, her thumb and forefinger just barely grazing the puppet’s tiny, felt hand. “What’s your name?”

“It’s nice to see that you’re getting to know some of the cast members.”

A.J. turned around sharply to see Owen opening the workshop door. She got the sudden and undeniable urge to slap herself across the face.

“Is there something about me making a complete idiot of myself,” she thought, numbly. “That just acts like a bat signal for this man?”

Nonetheless, she found herself happy to see him.

“I figured it was time I pushed myself to be a little more social,” she said with a shrug, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. “I don’t know if I’m making any headway with these guys here though.”

Owen laughed softly, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t worry about those two. They’re not the most sociable pair.”
A.J. placed her hand on her chest in mock relief. “I’m glad it’s not just me coming on too strong.”

Owen chuckled again, coming to stand beside her. He inspected the contents of the nearest table, grimacing a little. “These new branded batteries we have ordered in…they don’t last half as long as the provider advertised…”

“They’re cute though. The logo looks really good,” A.J. replied, picking of one of the little tubes between her fingers and examining it. “It’s pretty cool that Handeemen have their own branded batteries to begin with.”

“Yeah.”

There was a short silence between them, permeated only by the rush of the rain outside. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Owen’s head lift to look out the window. His voice was quiet when he spoke and his words made her heartbeat rise into her throat.

“It was raining on that day in New York too. Remember? When I came to your apartment?”

He was looking at her now. She could feel her face starting to heat up a little and despite her best attempts to keep her tone breezy and casual, her voice was filled with traitorous tremors.

“Yeah, I remember. We just barely made it out of that downpour in the park.”

“Yeah…” Owen took a deep, audible breath, seeming incredibly nervous all of a sudden. “I think about that day sometimes. I think about it a lot, actually.”

“Oh?”
A.J. found herself becoming very interested in the Handeemen lantern on the table in front of her. Owen reached over to inspect another flashlight, his arm brushing against hers and reminding her how closely they were standing together.

“Yeah. I think about…being in that apartment with you and…I guess, how I didn’t want to leave when I did.” His voice sounded the same way her thoughts felt.

A.J. closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her courage before saying quietly. “If…if I’m honest, I think about that day a lot too.”

“A lot?”

A.J. nodded and forced herself to look at him. “A lot.”

His eyes began to consume her again as he asked her. “What about that day do you think about?”

“Just…,” she began, feeling her tongue become reticent, regretful. She had to force herself to simply finish the sentence, speaking as honestly as she could manage. “…about how happy, I felt. How lucky I was…and how…” She gave a small snort of laughter despite herself. “…I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“I was happy that day too. Really happy,” he told her. “I can’t remember the last time I felt like I was talking with someone who really…understood. For once I didn’t feel pandered to or talked down to or like some crazy puppet guy…I just felt…”

“…seen?” A.J. dared herself to say.

“Yeah. That’s it,” he lifted his hand and ran it through his hair, soft black tendrils pouring through his fingers and his maroon eyes glinting in the low light- not unlike Mortimer’s monocle. “I felt like…you saw me.”

A.J. felt a nervous giggle crept in the corners of her lips as her body became aware of their proximity again. She smiled to negate the urge. “I felt like you saw me too. I don’t know, not many people can look at a toy and see something other than a plaything for kids…” She could feel his breath on her lips again. “… not many people know about what goes into making something special…” Her eyes lowered slightly, bashful. “… and not many people know that puppets are better than people.”

Owen lifted his hand and lightly grazed her bare upper arm, just under where her sleeve was cut. His soft mauve lips were smiling slightly as he corrected her. “Well, puppets are better than most people. I think some people are alright.”

Feeling a little braver, A.J. lifted her own hand and placed it on his forearm, returning his touch. He felt warm and soft, in stark contrast to the cold laminated wood that he was leaning upon. “Is that right?”

“Yes.”

His fingers were suddenly under her chin, tilting her face upward to meet his. His lips touched hers, so reticent, so retiring, skin barely grazing skin.
Still nervous but falling completely prey to her own impulses, A.J. mirrored his action, lifting her own hand to place on his cheek. She felt his stubble graze her palm as she returned to him a kiss of her own. 
She heard him inhale sharply through his nose as his lips reconnected with hers. He broke away only for a second to whisper between kisses. “I wanted to do this back at your apartment in New York.”
 His hands went from lightly stroking her arms to suddenly wrapping around her waist and pulling her close to him. Her eyes flickered open in surprise but closed again immediately at the feeling of his body pressed against hers. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and neck. He wasn’t that much taller than her but A.J. was practically dwarfed as Owen leaned over her, deepening the kiss.
Any voices of reason or rules had been drowned out by her own want. She allowed herself to be led by him, letting him blindly guide her backwards until her back bumped against the work table. Faint memories of their day in the Toy Hospital workshop crossed her mind as Owen’s hands traveled downward to her shorts, lightly cupping her rear and prompting her to sit up on the table. She didn’t whisper the thought aloud as he had, but she would be lying if she said she hadn’t had secret dreams about Owen doing this to her on that day too.
She pulled back only slightly for a moment as Owen’s lips moved to the base of her neck. She let out a soft whimper and as though he had pressed some kind of switch, she wordlessly parted her legs for him, allowing him to move closer to her than before. He returned his mouth to hers, greedily taking her lips again. Restraint rapidly deteriorating, A.J. pressed her body against his and let him coax her into laying back upon the table. His hands moved from her thighs to her hips to her sides and to her front, his fingers lightly tugging at the buttons of her work-shirt. She arched her back up into him in response, feeling his blood pulse in his neck. Her compliance with his unspoken directions were rewarded tenfold as he lifted one hand to run through her hair and brought the other to her hip. His thumb grazed the slit of bare skin where her shorts met her work-shirt. She shuddered at the sensation, lifting her head to keep their lips connected.
Then his hips pressed tight against hers and the growing warmth between her legs met the growth between his.

A.J. froze immediately, her breath hitching as her senses returned to her in a single, shocking rush. Her body went rigid- like a clockwork toy whose key had stopped turning- as she felt full to the brim with panic.
Feeling her hesitance, Owen withdrew from her for a moment, looking concerned between heavy breaths. One of his dark eyebrows lifted as he looked down at her, silhouetted by the dim, overhead, workshop lights. “What’s wrong?”
A.J.’s face turned puce, hearing her own laboured breathing as she tried to reply. “I…I…just…I don’t…I mean, I’ve never…this is my first…”

“Your first? Oh…oh,” Owen’s face creased with realisation and he gently guided her to sit up. “Shit, I’m sorry, A.J. I got a bit carried away there.” A light dusting of pink had appeared on Owen’s cheeks too and he genuinely looked extremely guilty. “I didn’t mean to be so forward…damn…”

“I don’t mind,” A.J. said, finger combing her own hair back into submission as she realised that her scrunchie had somehow escaped her curls. “I’m sorry. I guess, this is all just new to me but like…” She shrugged, smiling and placing a reassuring hand on his cheek. “I like it.”

Owen smiled back at her- a smile that would burn itself into her memory- and placed his hand over hers. She could feel the wood-cut scars against her knuckles and a rough layer of stubble beneath her fingertips.
Their lips connected again, though this time it was much slower, sweeter and far gentler than before. When A.J. felt brave again and moved to press her body against his, Owen put a firm hand on her shoulder, silently chiding her and slowing her back down. He moved his lips from hers again to dot kisses along her cheek, finally planting one on her forehead before pulling back to stroke her face.

“We should probably get going,” he told her, looping a stray russet-coloured ringlet behind her ear. “Ted will want to lock up soon.”
A.J. nodded, content in his arms but forcing herself to step away and collect her satchel. He walked with her to the parking lot, taking her hand as they left the building and running with her in the rain to where he was parked.

“You’d think that as the head director and designer that they’d give me a closer spot,” he told her as they climbed into the car together. “You’d think that, right?”

“I think you have a pretty good case to demand a closer one,” A.J. replied, pulling on her seatbelt. “Even though I might just be biased…”

With Owen’s door closed, the sound of the rain was dampened and after sitting still for a few moments, the puppeteer finally said: “So…look, I know how this is going to sound and I’m really sorry but…what happened here…it’s just that relationships between staff members- like they’re not banned or anything- but they are kind of frowned upon…and especially in my case…”

“It doesn’t look good if you’re making out with the new girl,” A.J. stated, reaching across and wiping a stray droplet of rain from Owen’s forehead. “Don’t worry. I may be new to a lot of things but I know how that kind of thing gets handled.” She shrugged. “I don’t plan on telling anyone about this. Don’t know who I’d tell, to be honest.”

“It probably wouldn’t look great for you either,” Owen pointed out, starting the engine, the car growling to life around them. “I mean, I want people to remember that you got this job for your skill not because…” He waved a hand vaguely in his own direction. “You know.”

A.J. nodded. “Again, don’t worry. I don’t plan on advertising this.” She smiled, lowering her voice to a playful whisper. “I won’t even tell the puppets. Not even Mortimer.”

“I’ll probably have to tell Mortimer,” Owen mused, stealing a quick glance and a smile. “I can’t hide anything from him really. Sometimes he’s more me than I am. Will you have to tell Clara? Or any of your many, many roommates?”

“Well, I can keep it from Jasper and the kids back in NY but I guess I’ll have to tell Clara,” A.J. replied, leaning her head against the window and watching the drops meander down the slightly foggy glass. “She probably won’t mind though.”

“No?”
“She’s been telling me that I have to “put myself out there” more. Whatever the hell that means.”
Owen’s lip curled. “I think your porcelain doll has been reading Cosmo.” 
A.J laughed before feigning horror. “Where did I go wrong with that girl? I’m going to have to leave her with something more highbrow in the apartment…”

The car was warm and “True Colours” by Cyndi Lauper was playing on the radio. The blurry street lights through the windows looked almost magical and the rain falling outside could easily be mistaken for molten gold rolling down the windows of the car.
The world certainly felt golden at that moment.
She stole a sideways glance at Owen again, admiring his profile in the soft yellow lights.

Something glinting caught her eye in the rear-view mirror.
Something in the back seat of the car was sparkling slightly.
A.J. squinted to see what it was, too comfortable to turn around though a sudden flash of purple in the mirror caused her to sit upright in surprise.

“Mor-?”

“So, your birthday was recently, right?” Owen’s voice served as a sudden, welcome distraction. “Sorry, I just realised that you’d mentioned it but I don’t think I ever wished you a happy birthday.”

“What? Oh, it’s cool. I’m not really big into birthdays. Once I got too old for Freddy Fazbear’s, I pretty much stopped celebrating.”
“What? Fazbear’s? With all those creepy animatronics? Really?” Owen pulled a face, laughing slightly. “You should still do something though. Hey, look, you showed me where’s good place to get lunch in New York; let me pay you back the favour after work tomorrow.”

“Ok. That actually sounds great…”

A.J. leaned against the seat. Her heart still lighter than ever and her skin warm and tingling.
In that moment the world was golden.

******

(September, 1998)

A.J.’s flight had been delayed by an hour and she’d had to endure yet another two hours on the tarmac upon arrival. The red-headed New Yorker had thoroughly forgotten just how hot and sticky San Diego felt even at this time of year. Despite the taxi bay being over-populated enough to create its own exhaust-pipe-shaped-hole in the Ozone Layer and its own exhaust-pipe-shaped-hole in A.J.’s lungs, it took far longer than it should have to find an available cab.
To avoid the urge to snap at the overly talkative taxi driver, A.J. busied herself by leafing through her old diary notes about Handeemen studios and its occupants. She could feel herself physically cringing at some of her old sketches and scrawls, especially the ones that she could remember writing with Owen at her side. She felt embarrassment clawing its way up her throat when she remembered resting her head on his shoulder. His voice would vibrate in his throat as he droned on and on about how Nick Nack was designed to have interchangeable hair and how the production company had tried to talk him out of the Bob Ross look. Just looking at her scribbles about locking mechanisms and scalp-lines evoked the feeling of his warm neck against her forehead and nose.

All it took was reading a few words to remind her of the smell of his aftershave and the way his fingers would wind their way through her hair as he spoke. She would scowl up at him if he got too carried away and he would always grin down at her.
“Hey, be careful. I’m fragile.”
“Oh, am I pulling your strings?”

A.J. rolled her eyes and tried her best to stop herself from dry heaving.
She was ok with cringe though. She could handle cringe. She could cringe and cringe until her skin shrunk, shriveled and fell off.
It was the guilt, the anger and the fear that would break her from the inside.

The fear was the worst.

The fear bubbled up from her stomach and spread out in her chest like antifreeze, turning everything solid and stiff. It felt like her heart and lungs would come to a shuddering stop if she didn’t actively control it.

The taxi driver thankfully took the hint and didn’t speak two words to her until they got to the hotel. He asked her for her fare and didn’t offer to help her move her bag into the lobby. That was alright; A.J. preferred it like that.

She cranked up the air conditioner in the hotel room to the max and thanked whatever thoughtless, cruel deity that ruled over her life that she didn’t have to wear that fucking Handeemen Studios polo shirt this time.
A.J. peeled her sweat-stained airplane garb from her body and swapped it out with an oversized baggy t-shirt, a pair of loose cargo pants and a light, denim jacket to cover her arms. She pulled a plain, black scrunchie out of her pocket, gathered up her hair into an ungainly bunch and shrugged her duffle bag on to her shoulder.

Part of her had been afraid that she might have forgotten the route to Handeemen Studios but her body seemed to remember what her mind didn’t want to admit to just yet. She walked, passing the old apartment building where Owen had once kept her. She willed herself to have tunnel vision, stubbornly not regarding it until she reached what remained of Handeemen Studios.

Her legs gained a shameful quiver and a cold wave washed over her as she made her way to the side entrance. The person on the phone- Mortimer, Owen, whoever the fuck they were- had told her to use the fire exit near the car park as that was probably the safest way for her to get in. She checked her watch, making a note of the time. She had just about two hours. Marissa hadn’t trusted the situation at all and A.J. couldn’t blame her. A.J. herself didn’t trust the situation in the slightest but she couldn’t use that as an excuse to turn back. It was far too late for that. The redhead had to practically wrestle the blonde away from following her on to a flight to California. She had eventually gotten her manager to agree that she needed to stay at the Toy Hospital for the sake of the business.
Marissa, in turn, had made her promise to call at a time set between them and if A.J. didn’t call, Marissa would call the San Diego Police Department and send them straight to the darkened husk that once was Handeemen Studios.

Walking through the lobby was an assault on her senses in a way that she hadn’t anticipated. It was a place that she often wandered through in the darkest recesses of her mind, familiar and beautifully nostalgic yet painful and frightening.
As she walked through the shadowy reception area, her footsteps echoing like gunshots on the tiles and like deep growls on the ashy carpet. The smell of burning and death engulfed her, falling thick down her throat and forcing her to swallow it. Forcing her to confront the things that she had never wanted to think about it.

“The posters survived pretty well,” she thought to herself. “They look as bright as they did back in the day.”
Did they scream? Or did the smoke choke them all before they had the chance to?
“The cut-outs look alright too. I wonder why they never came back for these. They could probably sell them.”
The cops said that there was a problem with the fire alarms. Most of the staff didn’t know a fire was started until it was too late.
“The whole place was condemned apparently. I’m surprised that it was never looted but I guess it was the rumours that kept people away.”
The news had reported that some kind of fault in the electrical systems caused most of the doors to jam shut. Most of the cast and crew had been trapped in their workrooms, clawing at the windows and doors for escape.
“Am I the first to try and come back here?”
They were all trapped. Left to burn.
“If I hadn’t taken that work at the Pizzaplex, I would have been here on that day too.”
Left to die.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the faded figures on a nearby poster staring at her.
Watching her silently.
Ghosts.

She briefly considered turning on heel and walking away but then she caught sight of the stage at the end of the hallway. A.J. remembered it well- it was the one that the puppeteers would use to greet guests who were coming in for viewing tours or studio audience members. Between the slightly parted curtains, she could just about make out a small figure slumped over the little wooden edge.

Painfully curious, A.J. took a step towards the stage but it was when the lights came on that she suddenly wished she hadn’t.

Mortimer Handee suddenly jerked to life,
“Hello there, Amelia-Jane. How nice it is to see you again!”

 

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

(August, 1986)

There were plenty of red flags in hind sight.
It wasn’t that A.J. didn’t see these little warnings here and there; rather that she chose not to view them as warnings.
She had been working at the studio for about two months when Owen started to insist that everyone- cast, crew and auxiliary staff- call him “Mr. Gubberson.” He even had corrected A.J. quite snappily in front of a handful of camera crew. This request had initially surprised her, considering how insistent he’d been to the contrary when they were in New York.
“It’s a matter of professionalism,” he had told her during one of their late-night car-rides back to the apartment building.
He wasn’t apologising for his behaviour as much as he was simply explaining it. “And a matter of respect. Things are getting far too lax and casual on the set. Like, I highly doubt Henson lets his employees call him Jim.”
A.J. nodded, only humming slightly in agreement.
The arguments that he’d been having with Jake and the other puppeteers about his latest use of vocal dubbing hung over the conversation but was left strategically unmentioned. Following the latest episode airings and script reviews, most of the staff had gone from being standoffish around Owen to being downright cold to him. A.J. felt awful for him, sure, but on the other hand, she couldn’t help but feel that this new campaign of demanded respect was only going to make things worse.
If A.J. had been braver, she might have pointed this out to the man with whom she’d been sharing kisses in a supply closet only a few hours earlier.
This week in particular however, Owen had finally allowed her to touch Mortimer. She had been permitted to hold his steady while the creator adjusted his jaw. Owen had praised her afterwards and told her that she could help him reset his arm joints later in the week.

With such an opportunity at hand, how could she ever bring herself to argue with him?
“He could demand that I call him Lord Gubberson,” A.J. thought to herself. “And I’d do it just to get that close to Mortimer again.” The thought of the puppet’s shiny, glossy lacquer coating beneath her fingertips made her skin tingle.
Besides, it was all just a matter of professionalism, wasn’t it?

****

(September, 1998)

“Hello Mortimer,” Amelia-Jane said stiffly, her eyes travelling from the grinning face of the magician puppet to the black-sleeved arm that protruded from under his dress shirt. “Nice to see you again. You don’t look like you’ve aged a day.”

“And it seems that to you, the years have also been kind,” Mortimer trilled, his wooden fingers curling and rippling to accentuate each word; clearly his articulation wasn’t too shabby. “I’m delighted that you’ve come. I was worried you might change your mind.”

Amelia-Jane forced herself to shrug nonchalantly, despite the fact that her heart was starting to thrum unevenly in her chest. “A job is a job.” She checked her watch, mindful of the fact that Marissa would be expecting a call from her soon. “I’m technically clocked in as of now, so…” A rattling noise from nearby prompted the red-haired toy-maker to fire a quick glance over her shoulder. “…I can get started as soon as I know what I’m doing.”

“Quite the consummate professional you’ve turned out to be,” the magician observed, elevating slightly with the raising of the puppeteer’s arm. The curtains shifted and she could now see the shape of a man holding Mortimer aloft. “Looks like it’s all business with you- but that’s alright with me.”

The puppet’s fingers hooked deftly into the pocket of his puppeteer’s jacket, pulling forth a little slip of paper. Amelia-Jane frowned as she surveyed the form of the puppeteer; he was skinnier than she remembered but the sight of him brought a mild quake to her knees. She had been somewhat dreading seeing his face but her fears would prove unfounded as when the head of the puppeteer shifted slowly into view, his face was hidden. He wore a matte black, sack-like hood over his head, bound at the neck with a kind of coarse, hempen string.

Mortimer extended his arm to hand her the piece of notepaper, leading Amelia-Jane to realise that somehow, he was being puppeteered with no movement rods attached to his arms. She didn’t have time to dwell on this fact however because as Mortimer drew nearer to her, the puppeteer drew nearer too.

“We’re looking to get the show up and running again, so we’ll all need to look our best. Each of us will need some care and repair- on that list, you’ll find each quest.”

Amelia-Jane couldn’t stand it any longer.
That voice. That fucking voice.
She scrunched the paper up in her fist, gritting her teeth as she turned to face the faceless puppeteer.
How dare he fuck around with her like this? After all this time?
Playtime was over.

“Ok, cut the bullshit, Owen,” she snapped. “Where have you been all these years? Have you been in hiding or something? I mean, the cops said that they never found a body and part of me thought that-…hoped that…” Amelia-Jane heard her own quivering breath and her eyes narrowed at the featureless black hood that offered no response. “I went to your funeral, you know. I mourned you. Your family mourned you.” She could feel her fingernails digging into her palms. “Do they know that you’re here? I have half a mind to fucking call them and-.”

“Now don’t forget your place, Miss Amelia-Jane!” Mortimer suddenly shrieked, taking her by surprise. “To do so right now could cause you great pain.”  His head rolled forward, almost appearing to drag Owen behind him as he moved closer to her. “Now it’s true, we need your skills and that’s why you got the call, but I could find a replacement in no time at all!” His teeth clicked as he spoke, his eyebrows waggling erratically as his eyes surveyed her. “That would be regrettable, as your experience is a prize…but I can’t have you around if you’re going to spoil the big surprise.”

Amelia-Jane was so taken aback by his sudden vicious outburst that her tongue went numb in her mouth and her limbs went rigid. Her eyes were no longer on Owen but forced upon Mortimer.

“The…big surprise?”

“As I’ve said before, we’re bringing the show back to the air,” Mortimer’s voice slowly settled back into its gentlemanly croon. “And soon enough, all will be revealed to all the…people out there.”

“…so you do plan on telling people that you’re here?”
“Eventually, we’ll be telling everyone about everyone here and in the meantime, can I count on your discretion my dear?”

A slow realisation dawned over Amelia-Jane. “When you say “everyone” here, you mean…?”

“The other Handeemen of course! And so many other new friends too,” Mortimer told her, monocle glinting. “And like I said, we need some care and repair…provided preferably by you.” The wooden lids framing his eyes narrowed. “So, finish your tasks, get us healed, all will be revealed, as long as you don’t go and squeal…have we got a deal?”

The puppet extended a hand towards her.

Amelia-Jane had a lot of questions and virtually none of her worries had been put to bed. In stark contrast, several new worries were now clawing their way through her temples.
She stole a glance at the hooded puppeteer one last time before returning her attention to Mortimer’s wooden, outstretched hand.

Her Uncle Theo had always warned her never to be overly critical of her employers. She was there to work, not to judge.
In fact, by the logic of her own rules- she should have already been working.

“Sure. Why not?”

Amelia-Jane gingerly took his hand, gripping as firmly as she could and shaking it delicately. She guiltily had to admit that she enjoyed that lacquer paint feeling against her fingertips. She had thoroughly missed working with the Handeemen and her heart was already starting to flutter at the thought of making repairs to them again.
A loud screeching sound rang out from somewhere in the depths of the studio, prompting her to look over her shoulder again before returning her attentions to Mortimer.

“Absolutely sublime! I knew we’d see eye to eye,” the wooden magician declared, releasing her hand. “All you need to do is on that little list. Complete your tasks in a timely fashion and well, by now you must get the gist.”

Amelia-Jane squinted at the paper, frowning at the number of sentences there. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do all of this in one day. I’ll need to do an inventory and recoup materials…”

“Take as long as you need to, just get started quick today,” Mortimer told her, turning away with his puppeteer almost stumbling rather drunkenly behind him. “I believe the first person to need your attentions will be Nick in Wing A…”

The toy-maker nodded, shrugging her duffle bag on to her shoulders. “Sure thing, Mr Handee.”

“Oh, Amelia, what did I once tell you about being so formal?” He rested his chin upon his knuckles thoughtfully. “Though to address your employer as such, could be seen as normal…and Mr Handee does have a nice ring. Maybe that title is the appropriate thing.”

Starting to get uncomfortable flashbacks, Amelia-Jane, turned on heel to find her way to Wing A.
She was just about to leave the area when Mortimer called out to her once more.

“Oh, before I forget, A.J. my dear. That rather fetching blonde lass of yours, is she perhaps here?”

It took Amelia-Jane a few slow-ticking seconds to realise to whom exactly Mortimer was referring.
“Clara? No. I don’t take her with me on jobs anymore. It’s not always safe or appropriate exactly.”

“And I especially wouldn’t allow her to be around you of all people,” she thought to herself.

“Is that right? Such a pity; she was a delight to have for tea. Well, if she is in the neighbourhood, won’t you bring her to me?”

Amelia-Jane nodded outwardly but inwardly resolved to never bring her beloved porcelain doll within spitting distance of Owen Gubberson again.
If he was going to insist on playing games with her, she told herself, she wasn’t going to be supplying him with any of her toys.

****

(August, 1986)

“Another sugar cube for your cup? Or maybe some milk before you drink it all up?”
“Mmm, she’ll have some milk but I think she’s ok on the sugar.”

The whole scene felt so gloriously silly and whimsical.
A.J. was sitting at a round table in Owen’s office. The master puppeteer himself was seated opposite her with Mortimer perched over his lap. Her own favourite doll was sitting at her side, dressed in her best blue tea dress. This was chosen especially for the occasion, of course, because they were currently having a tea party. A.J. had thought it was a joke when Mortimer had suggested it.

It originally had been Owen’s idea so that he could practice some of Mortimer’s fine articulation points and when A.J. had mentioned that she used to love having tea parties with Clara when she was little, Owen was quick to suggest the doll be brought along too.

“You need to start letting Clara speak for herself,” Owen teased her, tapping the sugar tongs against the side of the little tin bowl. “I mean she might be shy but she’ll never gain any confidence if you keep putting words into her mouth”

A.J. shrugged, laughing slightly as delicately lifted her own cup of tea to her lips. “I told you already- I’m not good at doing voices like you. When you let Mortimer speak, it looks as natural as breathing…” She sighed, shaking her head a little as she looked sideways at her beloved porcelain doll. “When I do it, it just feels weird.”

“It’s just because you’re not used to it yet,” Owen insisted. (The word “yet” would later stick out to A.J. in the oddest of ways). “Here, look at Clara- like really look at her.”

A.J. obliged obediently, turning in her chair to face the doll’s blue-eyed, dreamlike, half-lidded gaze. Half the time, Clara didn’t look like she had a single thought or worry behind those Forget-Me-Not eyes and the other half of the time, A.J. thought she had a slightly forlorn quirk to her carefully painted brows. Though, that could have easily been her own worries starting to mar the visage of her creations.
“You control the toy’s expression,” Uncle Theo had once said. “Whether they are cursed with eternal sadness, surprise or happiness is entirely up to you but be mindful of the piece becoming your own personal mirror. You should draw from your own emotions but not seek to immortalise them.”

“Ok…” A.J. said slowly, feeling a little bit ridiculous but also a delightful trepidation. “I’m really looking at her.”

“Now, imagine her voice inside of your head. Imagine what she’d say right now, if she could talk. Do you hear it? Inside your head? Do you hear her voice?”

A.J. had always been able to hear Clara’s voice, ever since she was a little girl. In that moment, it was as clear as ever. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Alright, now when you talk as Clara- don’t look at me, look at her,” Owen said, his voice soft and clear but firm. She could feel his stare on her and out of the corner of her eyes, she could see that he was leaning on his laced fingers. “Remember that you’re not Clara. She’s her own person. You’re her instrument. Her vessel. Imagine that she has control over your vocal cords, your lungs, your mouth…let her do all the talking…you’re just the mouthpiece...”

A.J. hesitated for a moment, part of her still fully believing that Owen was just messing around with her and at any moment he was going to burst out laughing.
Even in a brief moment of silence, Owen’s demeanour remained constant; supportive but intense, helpful but insistent.
The red-haired woman took a short breath and then, she dared to speak in the soft, high-pitched, Mid-Atlantic trill that she’d only ever attempted under the blankets of her bed at the age of nine.

“Actually, I think another sugar sounds lovely. I do wish you’d stop worrying about my teeth so much, Amelia. Why, no one can even see them!”

Owen gave a small whoop and clapped for her, bring a fresh, red glow to her cheeks. “There you go! See? It just takes a little bit of practice and a little bit of trust.”

A.J. nodded, exhaling audibly and turning back to the puppeteer. “Did it take you very long to find Mortimer’s voice?”
“Mmm…I sort of always knew what I wanted Morty to sound like,” Owen told her, running his finger rather affectionately along the puppet’s sharp jaw-line. “Even before I gave him a physical body. It was like he just kind of lived in my head before that.”
Owen’s hand disappeared under the table and Mortimer suddenly jerked to life again. “And a good thing that I got out when I did! You wouldn’t believe the kind of things that I had to share a room with in his head!”

A.J. giggled.
Mortimer Handee never failed to get a giggle out of her.

Despite her own and Clara’s proclaimed shyness, she gave in and made the doll “talk” to Mortimer. It felt rather like she was a kid again, playing make believe with another kid from the block. It was nice to be able to play for a while, in that small, dimly lit, little room far away from the too-bright, too-dark world outside.

As per their every interaction, it wasn’t long before her inhibitions had virtually melted away and soon it was just Mortimer speaking with Clara- Owen and A.J. having long fallen silent.

“Would you like to see a magic trick, my dear? It’s been a while since I’ve had a new audience here.”
“Oh, yes! That would be lovely.”

With a continuous rolling, dragging and flourish of Owen’s wrists, Mortimer’s wooden hands and fingers moved with surprising dexterity to produce a miniature set of cards. A.J. found herself gripping the edge of the chair as she watched with fascination as his hands moved with the ease and delicacy of a flesh and blood conjuror.
A.J. could only clumsily guide Clara’s porcelain hand to “pick” a card from the small selection fanned upon the table.
Although the puppet would “enlist” Owen’s help to shuffle the small cards, it was still utterly mystifying to observe his spindly fingers pluck a single card from the folds of the deck with stunning precision. Even Mortimer’s eyes expertly followed his selection, effortlessly emulating even the unconscious movements of a living creature.

“And now, we’ll see how I have done. Your card, my dear, I believe this is the one?”

If Clara’s face allowed for any range of motion, she would have been beaming as she proclaimed through A.J.’s voice. “Yes! That’s a very clever trick.”

“One of my oldest, yet dearest still. In front of any audience, it never fails to thrill.”
“I can see why…goodness, I wish I had your natural talents, Mortimer.”

The magician’s eyes blinked and although his eyes twitched to move, his jaw shuddered and seemed to meet resistance.
Owen frowned, the veneer of their play briefly shattering as he moved Mortimer from his arm and into his lap.

“Is everything alright?” A.J asked, worried and leaning forward slightly.
“His jaw can just lock up from time to time,” Owen told her with a shrug, his brows furrowing as his fingers fiddled with the corners of Mortimer’s wide-spread lips. “It’s nothing too serious, just a bit annoying. It’s something we’ll have to work on.” The puppeteer looked down at Clara, winking at the doll. “I think he’s just shy in front of such a pretty lady.”

A.J. smiled; she had never known anyone else to talk to Clara the way she did and it filled her with an indescribable lightness.
She lifted the doll up to press her little porcelain lips to Owen’s cheek in a gentle peck.

“Careful now, Morty’ll get jealous.” The black-haired man experimentally flexed the magician’s fairly lip-less jaw. “It’s a pity he couldn’t return the favour properly though.”
“Mortimer can open his mouth though,” A.J. pointed out, lightly tracing the doll’s rosy, painted mouth. “Clara’s kind of stuck in a permanent pucker for all eternity.”

Owen reached out and playfully traced A.J.’s mouth in the same way that she had the doll’s own painted pout. Her heart thumped beneath her polo shirt as his thumb grazed her lower lip. “Probably one of the few advantages that people have over puppets.” His thumb pressed under her chin, tugging slightly as he had with Mortimer, as though he was checking her jaw movements. “We get the best of both worlds.”

A.J. tilted her head downward and lightly kissed his fingertips, leaning into his touch before he withdrew his hand to return his attentions to Mortimer. Another person might have felt slightly jilted but A.J. understood.
The red-haired woman looked down at the doll in her lap. “That’s what Jenna was trying to do.”

“Hm? What?” Owen’s focus was rather firmly on readjusting Mortimer but A.J. didn’t mind. She understood the pecking order in the room.
She was grateful that Owen was indulging her by even somewhat listening.

“My old manager. Remember the doll heads from the convention? The ones with the latex faces? That was the prototype for what she was designing. She had this idea for a doll that had human facial movements.” A.J. stroked Clara’s cheek with her finger, admiring the rose-petal tint that had been dusted there by her own hand. “I helped her out with it but…” She wrinkled her nose. “…I don’t know if I’d like it for Clara. It’d be weird, you know, to see her so real.” She shrugged. “I think it’s kind of missing the point of the perfection that toys and puppets can have. The closer they come to looking human, the more imperfect they become too.”

Owen looked up. “You wouldn’t like to see Clara come to life? At all?”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t,” A.J. said slowly, mulling over the thoughts that she’d always harboured but never quite said out loud. “It’s just…I don’t know how it would feel to see her face change from what it’s always been. I’d definitely love to hear her talk back to me for once. When I was little, I used to hear her voice in my head all the time. I’d talk to her in my bedroom and I’d always wonder if she could talk would her voice sound like how I had imagined it or…would it just sound like me? Would I just be talking to myself all over again?” She rolled her shoulders, her voice becoming quieter as the thought suddenly dawned on her. “I suppose now I know.” She looked to Owen, intently. “When you do Mortimer’s voice, do you hear yourself? Like, when you hear Mortimer talking on the show, do you think “oh that’s me” or is it easy to like…separate yourself?”

Owen pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment and then responded. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard my own voice come from Mortimer.” His eyes became distant as he traced the steep hooked bridge of the puppet’s nose. “I think one day, he just became an idea in my mind. He grew and grew…I brought him into this world…and then there he was. His own being- still part of me- but still his own being.” He gave a slightly sardonic snort, seeming to catch his reflection in his teacup. “Heh, what am I saying? There I go. Crazy puppet guy strikes again.”

A.J. leaned forward, placing her hand on his knee in an attempt at reassurance. “You’re not crazy. That makes perfect sense. You created Mortimer. It would make sense that you’d feel so attached to him. He’s…like your so-…”

Owen’s hand suddenly gripped A.J.’s wrist a little too tightly and he was looking at her with a rather frightening, intense look. This look had brought a flush to her cheeks before but now it brought a chill to the nape of her neck.
“A.J.? If you could…would you bring Clara to life? Make her real?”
“Like…make her human?” The red-haired woman dared herself to try to free her wrist as his grip was starting to feel uncomfortable. However, Owen held fast to her, keeping her close to him. “I…I don’t know.”

“No, not human. Not exactly. Would you make her alive? So that she’d be able to think for herself, talk for herself?”
A painfully familiar glint had appeared in his eyes; the last time she saw it, he had been shouting at her in front of their co-workers.
“…I suppose I would,” A.J. said finally, her gaze instinctively darting around to avoid the stare that bored into her like a drill. “In theory, I guess it’s something I’ve always wanted.”
Something about her demeanour must have finally betrayed her discomfort and Owen sheepishly released her hand. “…sorry,” he said finally, sitting upright again as his features faded back to their usual slightly forlorn, sullen disposition. “I got a bit carried away there.”

A.J. shook her head and massaged her wrist beneath the table, out of his view. “It’s alright. It was kind of a weird topic for me to bring up. I guess things must be different for you and Mortimer. Like you, actually made him with your own hands whereas I only restored Clara with mine.” Her mouth felt dry, so she drank a little of the cold, watery tea in her cup. It had been sitting there for quite a while and didn’t really taste of anything substantial but A.J. hadn’t eaten at all that day so far and she was starting to feel a telltale throbbing in her temples. She spoke again, partially to prove to herself that she wasn’t starting to feel faint and partially to distract herself from the low buzzing in her ears. “Restoration and fixing have kind of always been my thing. I can’t imagine actually seeing my own designs come to life. It must be amazing.”
A.J. took this opportunity to carefully scoop Clara back into her lap and to shrug her satchel on to her shoulder. As nice as these moments could be, the burgeoning presence of the clock on the wall warned her that if she didn’t leave for her apartment now, she would be late for her call with Marissa.

“It’s something alright,” Owen mused, his voice slightly waning and his eyes slightly distant. “The design for the hand-puppets isn’t as hard as it looks.” He looked up at her, his eyes flicking to her satchel and back to her face. “You could make one of your own, if you’d like.”

A.J.’s heart leapt as an uncontrollable excitement rocketed through her stomach. “Really?”

“Sure, just pick out some fabrics from the sewing department and I’ll walk you through the process. I’ve still got the original designs somewhere here.” Owen half-smiled thoughtfully. “If your puppet looks good, maybe they could even cameo on the show.”

“That would be…just…fantastic. Thank you so much.” Her heart was beating rapidly, overwhelmed with the prospect of what she was being offered. “I don’t know if I’ll be able create anything- anyone- television worthy but-.”

“I know you’ll be able to,” Owen told her. “You’ve already more than proved your chops and besides,” He winked at her, Mortimer’s own glinting eyes mimicking his puppeteer’s bemused expression as his head lolled back. “I’ll be there for every stitch.”

A.J.’s mind was already swimming with ideas. Her hands were itching to pull out her new diary and start sketching out an idea for her puppet. She’d practically been dreaming about this possibility from the moment she’d done the hair on the one in New York and constantly mending new clothes for each hand-puppet had only steadily tantalised her further.

Her watch beeped to signal the time and her eyes slid towards the door. She had been late to her call with Marissa last week and she didn’t want to get in the habit of it.
Plus, she knew that Owen had to be up early; she had spotted something on the bulletin board about a meeting to do with the new Riley Cola formula and a sudden, unexpected influx of confetti barrel orders.
Not to mention the fact that they had a local kindergarten class stopping by the next day to aid in the taping of promotions for the party rooms. Owen barely had the patience for the professional child actors that they brought on to the set, let alone a group of twenty, excitable novices.

“Stay,” Owen bade her, clearly sensing her urge to leave. “Please, just for another little while.”

She turned her head to tell him that she needed to get home and that he should probably think about heading back too but A.J. was suddenly taken aback by the look of sorrow and desperation in his eyes. In that moment with his shoulders hunched and his features so forlorn, he stopped being the master puppeteer and transformed into a lonely little boy who didn’t want to end a playdate.

How could she say no?

A.J. smiled faintly and set Clara back down upon the table, returning to her own seat.
She ignored the pains in her stomach and the throbbing in her temples as Mortimer began speaking again.
She hadn’t eaten properly yet that day aside from the watery tea that she’d been drinking.
Her tummy could wait though, she told herself.
Owen’s smile was enough to distract her from even the pains of death.

****

(September 1998)

Nick Nack was not at all as hard to find as she had initially expected.

After an irritatingly impromptu assault course of squeezing through overpopulated doorways, ducking under wires and almost walking into the boards that were hammered across every second entrance and exit, A.J. finally managed to get to Wing A of the performance building.

She could actually hear Nick before she saw him, his musical orations echoing through the halls. 
“And make sure you fit each piece for size! Lest my vision not be realised!”

A chilling thought only occurred to her as she entered the dimly lit cavern that once lived as a main set: the authorities had never found Jake’s body either.
If Owen had managed to survive the fire, maybe Nick Nack’s puppeteer had too?
“But if he did,” A.J. thought to herself. “Why would he hide for this long? Why would he let his family and friends suffer?”

A.J. had seen Jake’s boyfriend and sister at the funeral service, both inconsolable and overwrought with grief where they sat. That, she decided, was not the type of love that you just ran away from.

“Make sure that when my spotlight’s on, it doesn’t fade until I’m gone!”

There he was, clear as day, standing on a kind of makeshift podium. The puppet artist was every bit as regal as she remembered. Nick Nack was long and slender in body, like Mortimer but unlike the magician had far broader shoulders. He was the tallest of all of the Handeemen puppets when measured from the waist but had the smallest features, often making him the most difficult to perform facial maintenance on.
The only difference was that Nick was now sporting an obnoxious purple velvet beret with a large white feather flowing from the top.

The puppet seemed to be practicing some kind of blocking on the stage, gesturing widely between barking orders at a gaggle of handeepuppets who were all scurrying about acting as his stagehands.
A floodlight was illuminating the puppet’s gleaming head and paint speckled coat. His eyes squinted as he looked up into the offending beam, brows contorted in annoyance.

“Hmpf! White washes me out and fails to compliment my face, try something blue in its place!”

The colour of the spotlight shifted to an unmistakable lime green, causing Nick Nack to bellow: “TRY THE BLUE THAT ISN’T GREEN! Or should I show you what I mean?! Or should I send you to the lab tonight? So that heathen Riley can check your sight?”

There was a clattering sound from the overhead control box and after a few moments of desperate scrambling and rattling, the light colour changed to blue.

The black-hooded puppeteer operating Nick Nack definitely wasn’t Jake, A.J. noted. Their voice was a convincing match but they were far too petite to be the original performer.
Her heart sank a little at this realisation; though then again, with all of the arguing that Jake and Owen had done, she couldn’t imagine the showrunner indoctrinating the puppeteer into whatever scheme this was.

Owen apparently had however managed convince at least seven other puppeteers besides Nick’s new handler into joining him as every single one of the handeepuppets rushing about was attached to a stumbling, black-hooded performer.  Each puppet looked rather worried and they were all squealing and squawking to each other as they passed by, seemingly panicked beneath Nick Nack’s auteur whims.

A.J. hesitated for a moment before slowly walking into the centre of the room and making herself visible to the puppet on stage, (or at least to his puppeteer).

“…uh…hi Nick,” she called out. “Listen, I don’t know if anyone let you know I’d be in today but-…”

The handeepuppets around her let out a serious of collective raucous shrieks and flocked together in an unruly herd on one side of the room. The darkly dressed puppeteers seemed to meld together into one shapeless, featureless mass with their colourful little companions serving as the only identifiable markers for the pack.

The little puppets glowered at her, all suddenly shrieking in a scattered chorus.
“A host! A host with no puppet!”
“Send it away! Send it away!”
“No people without their puppets!”
“Cover its face! Cover its face now!”

Their voices sounded disturbingly young.
Maybe Owen had managed to rope a bunch of high school kids into helping him with whatever the hell he had planned.

A.J. waved a hand at them, rolling her eyes. “Relax, I’m not here to disturb your rehearsal or whatever method acting bullshit you’ve got going. I just need to run a bit of general maintenance on…”

A yellow-skinned, blue haired puppet suddenly lunged forward, the puppeteer practically dragged at the wrist. It glared at her with its little purple eyes. “You will bow your head and cover your face. You have no power in this space!”

“CODY! Did anyone ask for you to take the lead!?” Nick finally spoke, causing the yellow puppet to cower back within its group. “Wait for your cue next time, unless you want to bleed.” The wooden artist swivelled around to survey A.J., his eyebrows raised and his hands moving to where his hips would have been as he looked her up and down. “Well, well, well, how the tables have turned…the prodigal daughter has now returned…” He strutted down the steps of the stage, the legs of the puppeteer acting as a proxy for Nick. “Did things with the bear go all to hell? Or when things got tough, did you ditch them as well?”

A.J.’s teeth clenched behind her lips. Clearly Owen was still sore about her accepting that work with Fazbear Entertainment and was still sharing that soreness with everyone else in their fold. Nick’s posture was unnervingly more lifelike than she remembered and the puppeteer was still surprisingly managing to operate him without any additional rods.
She let herself be distracted by this fact to swallow down the sudden pang of anger that shot up from her stomach.

Rule 2. Don’t Lose Focus.

“I actually still do Parts and Services for Freddy Fazbear’s from time to time but I’m not exclusive to them.” A further snide remark burned her tongue just sharply enough for her to add: “Owen had my contact details. He could have called me whenever he wanted.”

“Do NOT say my father’s name with such ease!” Nick suddenly shrieked, straightening his collar as he regained his composure. “That name is taboo here so refrain from using it, please.” He folded his long arms, one of his wooden brows arching. “Our dear Mortimer did mention that you’d be showing face. So, what’s your first order of business in this place?”

My father?
A.J. made a mental note of that one.
“Mr Handee mentioned that you had something that you’d like my help with?”

Nick’s eyes narrowed and his jaw opened as though he was about to reply when suddenly he froze, as though realising something and abruptly clapped his hands together. The wooden knocking sound brought the handeepuppets and their performers to attention, standing in a row, shoulder to shoulder.

“Director Nack?” the puppet named Cody hesitantly inquired, awaiting instructions.

“Listen up extras! You can all take five. Go back to the green room and learn all your lines. Next session, I want real feeling, no faking – or else it’ll be more than legs, I’ll be breaking!”

The gaggle of handeepuppets all hurried away, scarpering like frightened rats to the doors.
A.J. felt sorry for the deluded little idiots who were under those hoods but was rather impressed with Nick Nack’s rhyming skills.
The wooden artist craned his neck to make sure that all of his underlings were gone before he turned around to A.J.  

“So, I don’t know if it’s all this pressure from constantly winning but as of late, my luscious hair has been…thinning.” He hesitantly removed the beret from his head to reveal that the brown paint that covered his hair area was starting to wear and chip away. “I’ve tried to cover it myself in some ways but nothing I do will ever stay!”

“The wood needs to be buffed first, then after the paint is laid, it’ll need to be varnished,” A.J. said, examining Nick’s head. “I’ll also have to colour match the hair to make sure that it will blend properly.” She shrugged her back up on to her shoulder. “Luckily for both of us, I should have enough materials with me to start today. I’ll just need a work bench and access to an electrical outlet.”

Nick clicked his fingers at her, beckoning her into a nearby room that A.J. recognised as one of the old sewing rooms.
Not the room where she’d made out with Owen with her back pressed against one of the work tables but a very similar design.

She pulled a stool over to one of the cleanest work tables and gestured for the puppeteer to sit down while she prepped her buffer and measurements. She’d also pre-emptively brought a standing rack to pace the puppets on.
“This will be a little easier on us both if you take Nick off of your arm while I’m working,” A.J. told the hooded puppeteer. “You can still do his voice if you want.”

“Bite your tongue! My voice is my own!” Nick snapped, pointing at the puppeteer dismissively. “And whatever happens, I stay attached to the drone.”

A.J. sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose. Working at the toy hospital, she would frequently have to prise emotional children from their toys but this was new.
“Look, I don’t know what method acting situation that you’ve been told to keep up but I don’t want to hurt you,” she told the puppeteer.

“Don’t talk to the host! Talk to me!” Nick Nack insisted, clicking his wooden fingers in front of her face with a surprising amount of dexterity. “And don’t worry about this one; it’s fine and hardy. Should it be cut or bruised or gored, I’ll send for a new one from H.R.”

A.J. could tell that she was going to get nowhere arguing with this person and didn’t have the energy or patience to keep doing so.
“Fine but your… “host” will need to keep their arm still.”

“I can assure you that they will!”

The puppeteer rested their elbow upon the table and A.J. got to work, pulling on her gloves and picking up a length of sandpaper. As she buffed at the uneven spots on Nick’s head, she noticed with some degree of mirth that the artist appeared to be squinting as though uncomfortable.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” A.J. quipped, eyeballing his scalp line. “I can’t imagine that this is a picnic to sit through.”
“I will sit and play my part,” Nick retorted haughtily. “We all must suffer for our art.”

“You got that right,” murmured A.J., removing her gloves and using her bare finger tips to check for coarse spots before continuing to rub the paper. In the dim light, she could see the mottled red skin around her fingernails where many a hangnail had been forcibly bitten off whether by anxiety or necessity.

Nick Nack would faintly mutter under his breath, a kind of purple prose that A.J. could only imagine was some kind of monologue or poem he was trying to remember. An unsettling fact was starting to pry at the corners of her mind: whenever “Nick” spoke, it was as though his voice was emanating from the puppet’s own mouth rather than the puppeteer’s.
It wasn’t as though she’d never heard of puppeteers having remarkable ventriloquism skills but this was something else. She could almost hear the vibrato resonating through Nick’s throat even when he was whispering. Maybe there was some kind of microphone in the hood?

A.J. had been hoping that at a close range she’d be able to tell how exactly the puppeteer was getting Nick’s arms to move without the use of performance rods but she couldn’t make out a new wiring or circuitry.
In fact, there were only two things that stood out to A.J. as being new about Nick Nack. One, that his head felt a bit warm for partially hollow wood and two, there was a very odd odour coming from either him or the puppeteer.

She had also been hoping to ask the puppeteer about the situation with Owen- where he’d been staying, what he was planning, why he had kept hidden all this time… but whoever was under that hood seemed to be completely averse to the topic, instead staying firmly in role as “Nick.”

Forced to reconsider her approach, A.J. decided to play along.

“I’m just going to colour match you now,” she explained, looking to Nick, mildly amused at how well the puppet’s eyes met hers- almost as though he could see her. “Just to make sure we cover you up properly. Unless you want to go a shade lighter or a shade darker?”

“Mmm, a new look could put all eyes on me. What’s your recommendation going to be?”

“Well, it’s your hair but the original colour is pretty iconic.” She took her diary notebook out of her satchel and flipped backwards until she found her old notes on Nick Nack. “I mean if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?”

“True, if there is no defection- why should I mess with perfection?”

She pulled a brush from her satchel and selected the appropriate mini paint can. “And look, if you change your mind, I’m here all week.” She shook the can before delicately unscrewing the cap. “This’ll be wet for a while, especially after I overlay the varnish so you’ll need to be sure that you don’t touch it.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. I have some scripts to scry, so I’ll stay stationary this evening and let my hair dry,” Nick told her, his face comically contorting as he added: “Though I’ll only be able to keep my place if Riley keeps that mutt out of my space!”

A small smile crept across A.J.’s lips as she layered the paint over the “bald” spots, (criss-crossing brushstrokes to avoid paint streaks). She had always loved Nick and Riley’s back-and-forth. It was one of the aspects of the show that even adult fans looked forward to. Their insults were always creative and infinitely quotable.
The cast would always crack up laughing during script reads between Jeanette and Jake.

“So, Riley and Rosco are here too? And Daisy?”

“The full cast and crew! With a few more new additions too.”

“Yeah, I saw your little drama club back there.” A.J. started to coat on the varnish. “How many of you are there?”

“We number a little under thirty, I understand. But we’ll need far more new friends for what Mortimer has planned.”

“…he was saying that he wants to bring the show back to air?”

“Indeed, our newest season will soon be brought to fruition and I, as theatre expert, am in the head writer’s position!”

“Oh…great for you, I guess,” A.J. managed to say, her head currently swimming and not just from the overwhelming smell of varnish and whatever the hell the odour was that was coming from the hooded puppeteer.

She managed to locate a polka-dotted shower cap from the costumes room and carefully secured it over Nick’s freshly painted head. The puppet studied himself in a nearby mirror, his jaw shifting as he mulled over his appearance.

“The day’s certainly over after how long you took and in the meantime, this certainly is…a look.”

“You can’t rush perfection, right?” A.J. shrugged. “And if anyone can pull a pink shower cap off as a daytime accessory, it’s probably you. You always were the most fashion-forward one.”

This statement seemed to please the wooden artist as he instantly started posing in front of the mirror, pouting at his reflection over his shoulder. “Indeed, upon further thought I like it better. I am a true trend-setter.”

“Just don’t go literally pulling it off until around midday tomorrow. Like I said, I’ll be back so if there are any problems, I can fix them. Just take it easy.”

As A.J. packed up, she couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming flood of euphoria. There was something doubly delightful about speaking to a “client” and having them reply back. The usual array of dolls, puppets and the menagerie of stuffed animals that she worked with were quite mute outside of what the very limited voice-box vocabularies would allow.
Not to mention, she was working on one of her beloved Handeemen again.

With no Owen Gubberson lurking behind her, reading to criticise her every movement to the point of her hands shaking and her stomach churning.

“I suppose this is where I should bid you adieu. Come in on time tomorrow, the theatre will not wait for the likes of you!”  The puppeteer rose to their feet.

Not expecting for Nick to see her to the front door, A.J. bowed her head with a polite smile. “Thank you for your time, Mr Nack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She had just about made it to the door of the workshop when Nick’s words stopped her. For the first time, he used her name.
“Amelia-Jane? A.J.?”

She stopped, turning around slightly with her hand frozen on the door handle as though her own puppeteer had forgotten to move. “Yes?”

“After you left…did you…did you keep watching the show?”

“…yes.” Her own voice was quieter than she had initially intended. “I did. I kept watching until…well, until the e-end…”
She tried to keep her tone as neutral as possible, tried to keep her thoughts cynical and not sorrowful.
Still the tiniest warble found its way into her words and it made her heart judder.

“Did you see the episode about Dennis McCan and the Montana Mountains? I did a folk style song in it. Completely acoustic guitar. It was very against my usual genre…”

Her hand fell to her side.
“Yeah, I remember the one. It was the campfire one about looking at the night-sky to find your way home when all of the lights go out…it was…really nice. Really catchy.”

“It was a departure from my usual classical motifs but…you…you really thought it was good?”

A.J. shrugged, turning around properly now. “Better than good. One of the best songs in the series, I’d say. It was definitely different but your range is really good so I think you adapted to it really well.”

She looked at the puppet and it was chilling how for a split second it felt as though she wasn’t just talking to a deranged Handee-Head pretending to be Nick. It felt as though she was actually talking to the puppet himself.
The same one who had known Owen just as she had if not a hundred times better.  

She allowed an overwhelming relief to course through her veins. Part of her had always been worried that the original puppets had been destroyed in the fire but Nick was definitely an original.

He was looking at her with a kind of intensity that was difficult to place, finally saying. “You were one of my favourites, you know…” The puppet coughed, his shoulders bouncing with the motion. “Now, you can go.”

He waved a hand at her to shoo her away and A.J. took her cue though not without offering one last polite bow of the head.

Mortimer wasn’t waiting for her at his stage in the lobby but there were a few crinkled twenty dollar bills set on the security desk next to a note with “D A I LY P AYM ENT” written in a childlike scrawl.
“Wow,” thought A.J., scrunching her nose as she counted out her earnings. “The puppets pay better by the hour than their damn creator did.”

She had been tempted to do a bit of exploring but a loud screaming from a nearby corridor put her off the idea for the time being: she did not have the mental faculties for whatever weird, method-acting they were practicing in the Human Resources Wing.

****

(Still September 1998, but later that same evening)

“So…Gubberson is alive?”

A.J. was seated on the floor of her hotel room, notes spread out on the carpet and phone chord stretched to its limits as she spoke to Marissa.  

“Y-Yeah, seems like it. I didn’t see his face but it definitely was his voice. He’s not alone either; he’s got this gang of other puppeteers there. All wearing that same black hood. It seems to be some kind of bizarre acting method that they’re all trying.”

She heard her manager groan and sigh. “Amy, pardon my French, but this sounds trés fucking insane. Are you sure you don’t wanna call the cops?”

A.J. rifled one of her hands through her hair, finding an unexpected scrap of sandpaper nested in her curls. “Eventually I might have to but right now, I want to get an idea of what’s actually going on in there. I mean, if the show is actually being picked up again and this is all legit then I look like the crazy one.”

“Yeah but nothing about this makes sense. What possible reason would Owen have to fake his own death?”

“I don’t know but I plan on finding out. Look, I’ll keep you posted.”

“…alright. Just for Christ’s sake, take care of yourself, Amy.”

“I will. You take care of yourself too, Mari. Tell Max I say hi.”

She hung up the phone only to have it ring again almost immediately. Supposing that Marissa might have forgotten something, A.J. picked up the receiver and put it to her ear.

“Hello?”

There was complete silence on the other end of the phone, prompting A.J. to repeat herself.

“…hello?”

“So, Nick needed a barber and you got the job done! I certainly hope your first day back was lots of fun.”

A.J.’s eyes widened and her knuckles turned milky on the plastic receiver. “H-How did you get this number?”

“There are only so many hotels here, where one could stay the night. Your name is quite unique so finding you was no plight.”

“W-What do you want?”

“Easy now, A.J., no need to fret. The day’s been long and you’re quite tired, I’ll bet. I’m just checking in- this isn’t a warning- that you’ll be back in the studio tomorrow morning?”

“Yes,” A.J. said through gritted teeth. “I’ll be there. Goodnight Mor- Mr Handee.”

She was about to slam the receiver back down when another voice came on the line.

“Sorry for calling so late, A.J. I just wanted to make sure that you were ok. Nick said that you seemed a bit frazzled earlier. I know this can’t be easy for you-.”

“What are you doing?!” A.J. shouted, unable to control herself any longer. “What the fuck are you doing?! Owen, I fucking thought that you were dead! I thought things would make sense after today but honestly right now it still feels like this is all some kind of cruel joke! What the fuck is going on?! Why wouldn’t you take off that damn hood?! Who are all those people?!”

She heard her own ragged for a moment and as she swallowed, her throat felt as though she had eaten the sandpaper from earlier. A hot tear ran down one of her cheeks and A.J. swore violently, cursing the first tear that she’d cried for him in years.

“I- I know that this is all a lot but I promise…I promise that this will all make sense soon, A.J.” His soft, firm voice felt like a harbour in a turbulent storm. “I just…I just have to prove to the others that you’re on our side with this.”

“…on your side? What does that even mean?”

“We’re getting the show back on the air, A.J. Amazing things are going to be happening soon and I want you to be part of it all. I just need you to trust me for now and I promise to you- I swear to you- that this will all be worth it.”

A.J. sucked a deep inhale through her teeth. “Can I at least talk to you face to face? This feels…weird.” She dared herself to add. “Even for us.”

Her body just about fell apart when she heard him give the smallest snort of laughter.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Look, we can’t talk face to face just yet. Like I said, I need to prove some things first…but soon, everyone will know everything and Mortimer’s Handeemen will be back where they belong and…everything will be just the way it should have always been. I just need you to trust me…”

A.J. didn’t realise that she’d been chewing on her lower lip until she could taste blood.

“…fine. I trust you…but I swear to God, Owen, if I find out you’ve been lying to me…” She let the sentence hang in the air, her threat unfinished.

“It was nice to see you again today. Nick was really happy with the work you did, Mortimer reckons that you really haven’t lost your touch and…you…you look great. You’ve still got all your freckles anyway…”

“Goodnight, Owen. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” A.J. managed to snap into the phone, scrambling to hang up the receiver before he could say anything else.

She sat on the bed for what felt like an eternity, her hands over her ears to block out the silent screaming in her mind and to stop any temptation to pick at her skin or to pull at her fingernails.
She tried to remember what the therapist had told her to do when she felt this way but all she could think as she looked out the window at a skyline that was very different to that of New York, was that she needed a smoke.

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

(September: 1986)

The press conference for the next season of the show was to feature an appearance from the Handeemen. A small crowd of journalists from local newspapers and tv stations, (as well as two of their more notable, national counterparts), were seated on the benches in Wing C of the public viewing gallery along with a smattering of lucky grade schoolers who’d been admitted to the event.
A.J. had been assigned the job of helping to bring the children to their seats- one of the least coveted positions of the day. She didn’t mind though; she’d been taught not to complain about her assigned roles and more to that, A.J. wasn’t particularly bothered by children.
They’d practically been her main clientele at the toy hospital and despite generally finding it awkward to make small talk with anyone, she usually had more common interests with kids than their parents. Kids also were more inclined to treat toys with the same care that she did.

The shouting, scrambling school kids were a far cry from the child actors that they usually got on the set.
She could remember doing some work in one of the dressing rooms with the little actress that was coming in to play Sally Witherspoon. While making sure that a prop skateboard could hold her weight appropriately, A.J. had kindly asked:
“So is this your first t.v. show?”

“No, it’s actually my seventh,” she replied, gratefully accepting A.J.’s hand as she practiced the blocking while balancing on the board. “Is this your first t.v. show?”

A.J. laughed. “Yes. Is it obvious?”

“Yeah, you’re a lot happier than most of the staff.”

“Go figure,” A.J. chuckled, tightening the wheels slightly and beckoning the actress to step down. “But this is your seventh? Wow…”

“I know,” the nine-year-old sighed. “I should probably have a few more kid’s shows under my belt by now but I started a little late- when I was five- and I don’t know how long I’ll stay cute for. I guess I could transition to voice acting if face parts dry up.” She shrugged. “My agent reckons this show’ll be done in the next year or two but if I can get a few more episodes in the next season, it’ll look great on my resume. Educational programs are like the arthouse films of kid’s tv, right?”

A.J. nodded, quite in awe of this child who seemed to have her life so together and a little terrified of how candidly and confidently she was able to speak about such frightening real-life prospects. Oma had always remarked that A.J. had grown up very quickly but this kid was a verified thirty-year-old in the body of a middle-schooler.

The press conference school kids were far closer to A.J.’s comfort zone, all excitedly jabbering about the latest episode of Transformers or My Little Pony or which puppet they were most excited to see.
Owen was in the back room preparing with Mortimer. He had spent almost the whole day in there but the other staff members seemed to treat this as the norm, so she’d felt no need to check in on him.

She was just about to close up the door when suddenly A.J. was grabbed by the arm and dragged none-too-gently into a service hallway. She looked up at her assailant only to see Allison- Daisy’s puppeteer- standing there, her features painted with anxiety.
“I need your help!” she hissed, glancing around worriedly before looking back to her and gesturing to the sweet-faced, round-cheeked puppet, cradled in her arms. “Some of the guys and I were messing around in the dressing rooms and I did something to Daisy’s arm and now her shoulder won’t sit right…”
A.J. examined the arm, noticing the odd angle bulging under the puckered stitching of the iconic puffy-sleeved peach-toned dress. “Okay, does the arm seem loose or too tight?”
“So goddamn loose that I’m scared the thing’s going to fucking fall off, mid performance.”
“We still have time; you could bring her down to Owen…?”
“Are you crazy!?” she whisper-shouted. “You want to risk Gubberson having a shit-attack only seconds before a live performance?” Allison massaged the bridge of her nose. “He’ll have my head and he’ll make a scene in front of the reporters. It can’t happen again. Look, can you fix Daisy?”
“…I…I...don’t know,” A.J. stammered, mildly alarmed by the word “again” in that sentence but willing to put it aside for now. “I’m not supposed to.”
“A.J., none of us are supposed to but look, if you won’t tell- I won’t either.”
“I…”
“Come on, do a fellow girl and her puppet a favour.”

A.J. found herself looking less at Allison and more into Daisy’s half-lidded, lifeless eyes as she responded. “…alright. Let’s head into one of the work rooms then.”
Allison was overwhelmingly grateful which stirred something rather guilty within A.J.
While outwardly it seemed like she was doing a favour for Allison, she really felt like she was doing a favour for Daisy. It would be nice if Allison could avoid being yelled at but mentally, A.J.’s only concern was for the little wooden party planner and her wellbeing.
“Daisy’s got a big heart. It’s not her fault that her shoulder got messed up; she deserves to give a great performance,” A.J. thought as she guided Allison to set Daisy down on a work table.

“I think part of her shoulder joint was stuck and then when I tried to like, pull it back into place, something just popped,” the puppeteer told her, craning her neck as A.J. slowly peeled back Daisy’s puffy sleeve and adjusted her little pearls so that they wouldn’t get caught.

“Sorry for this,” A.J. mumbled as her fingers moved around the shoulder joint, trying to feel for where the metal component jutted out from the wood. She had a feeling that what the puppeteer was describing was the ball and socket coming apart.
“Oh, do what you have to do. I won’t question it, hon,” Allison told her, hand waving dismissively and eyes darting from A.J. to the door to the clock. “Just try and get it done quickly, if you can manage.”

A.J. felt a little embarrassed; she’d been apologising to Daisy for having to prod around under her clothes. Even with the context of medical attention, she couldn’t imagine a respectable woman like Ms Danger herself would be entirely happy with being disrobed and dislocated in front of her co-worker.

“This should only take a few seconds,” A.J. told Allison, looking up in brief saccades between delicately pinching Daisy’s shoulder joint back into place. “Could you grab me the screwdriver from that table over there?”
Allison obliged, her chestnut topknot jostling like a sewing machine bobbin as she jogged across the room.

Daisy’s puppeteer, A.J. decided, was the closest in appearance to her puppet counterpart. The two shared the same round, jovial cheeks and heart shaped face, while Allison’s stern, slightly angular eyebrows could also easily be interchanged with Daisy’s.
However, the similarities ended there.
Daisy’s features were fair and golden whereas Allison’s were far darker and her eyes lacked the same kindness as the puppet’s. She was a bit of a social butterfly amongst the cast and easily the most well-liked but rather protective of her status. She could be sweet and chatty with Owen on set but highly combative during script reads if she noticed that she didn’t have as many lines as in previous episodes. The showrunner had once offhandedly remarked that Allison had originally auditioned for a “human”, face-showing role on the show but that he had liked her voice so much that he had instead insisted on recasting her as Daisy Danger. As a mother herself, Allison could easily switch between a sweet maternal trill and a flinty bark without much effort. Owen had supposed that she’d relate to the character well but Allison needed a lot of convincing to go ahead with the initial workshopping.
Apparently, the only reason she’d gone along with it was the promise of a bigger paycheque at the end of the day.

If Jake would be made out of cloth and stuffing, Allison would probably be pressed from brass.
Glowing, warm and bronze when so inclined but just as liable to be cold and hollow if unmotivated.

In fact, this was the first time A.J. could remember Allison even giving her the time of day. Usually, Allison ignored A.J. such to the point that she was pretty sure the older woman didn’t even know her name. This didn’t offend the toymaker of course- after all, she was new to the studio and the puppeteer had no obligation to include her in anything.
Still, it would be nice to get the occasional invite out to lunch with the rest of the crew or to one of the after-parties that Allison so frequently organised.
Like a pre-recorded voice line coming from a toy with a pull-string, Uncle Theo’s words rang out loud in her head: “It is impossible to be loved by everyone, Amelia-Jane. However, with enough effort, you can make yourself useful to anyone and that’s where your true value lies.”

A.J. had always interpreted that one as “it’s better to be useful than to be liked” and while this ethos had served her training rather well, it had always left her a little lonely. Maybe after today, Allison would see what a useful crew member she was and would be warmer towards her?

“Ok, Daisy’s shoulder should be back to normal now. Give it a try.”

Allison scooped Daisy up on to her arm, the golden-haired home-maker’s face springing to life, eyes blinking and jaw stretching as her puppeteer experimented with her range of movement. She gingerly moved one of Daisy’s arm rods, flexing her fingers and rolling her wrists, elbows and shoulders. Much to A.J.’s relief, the afflicted shoulder clicked perfectly into place and moved with no issue.

“Ah! Perfect!” Allison declared, shrugging Daisy back into a neutral position and looking up at the clock. “Right, I’d better head over to the performance stage. They’ll be waiting for me.” She lifted a finger to delicately shut both of Daisy’s eyes. “Well, waiting for us.”

“Best of luck,” A.J. told her. “It looks like you’ll be playing to a full house.”
“Mmm, yeah, most of the kids are my son’s age,” Allison noted, peeking out of the door.
“Does your son watch the show? He most love that his mom is Daisy Danger.”
“He doesn’t watch the show, no,” the puppeteer replied, laughing slightly as though the idea was ridiculous. She turned to leave, pausing only to look back at A.J. “You don’t get much sleep, do you?”

The red-haired woman blinked, surprised at the comment. “…well, no…but-…”
“It shows. You’ve got serious dark circles for a girl your age and you’re pretty pale too so they stand out big time.”
“Y-Yeah,” A.J. laughed despite herself, trying to offset this strange exposing feeling that was washing over her like lacquer. Marissa would often make comments in concern for A.J.’s wellbeing but her tone was usually completely different and she’d always lead in with a little joke or a gentle compliment. “I guess I should stop staying so many late nights. I don’t know, I think I just have a busy mind…”
“You should talk to Mark on the accounting team,” Allison said with a shrug. “He can get you stuff to help you get to sleep. It does wonders.”
The puppeteer then left abruptly, bringing an end to an admittedly strange interaction.

The press conference went well and A.J. was finally able to meet up with Owen towards the end of it while they were both getting coffee.
“Hey,” she said with a smile. “That was great. Well done! You can tell Mortimer tha-.”
“Jake is still butchering his Nick Nack,” Owen said, exasperated and not even responding to what A.J. had said. “I literally don’t know what to do anymore.”
Jake had still been pretty cool with Owen since the last time he had dubbed him on the track of an episode but this tactic was impossible to do when they were performing live. Thankfully, none of the reporters brought up the sudden vocal change during the conference but it was still a cloud that hung heavily over the cast.
“Well, he’s still a great puppeteer,” A.J. pointed out, trying to stay positive. “And he really loves Nick and the other Handeemen. I mean, he could be a lot worse.”
“A.J., I get that Jake’s nice to you and all,” Owen sighed, rubbing his forehead as he dumped another sachet of sugar into his cup. “But stop trying to involve yourself in things you don’t understand.”
A.J.’s face itched but she ignored it. At least Owen wasn’t shouting at her, she told herself, he was probably just tired and stressed out after the day.
She picked up a clump of serviettes and passed some to the showrunner along with a peace-offering smile, trying to show that she wasn’t hurt. “Don’t forget a napkin, Owen.”
“Mr. Gubberson,” Owen suddenly snapped and without another word, he stormed out of the canteen, leaving her alone.

Owen was pretty cold towards her for the rest of the week.
She had the nastiest feeling that either Allison or someone else had told Owen that she’d worked on Daisy without his permission and the guilt tore her apart.
Owen had been kind enough to bring her into his world and even to let her work on Mortimer with him and how had she repaid him? She had gone behind his back and done the one thing that he had asked her not to do, all to gain the attention of a cast member who still ignored her on the best of days.

She continued to stay late in the evenings, trying to catch Owen as he left but he remained evasive. She would often hear him muttering to someone- on the phone or on his tape recorder- in his office but she didn’t dare knock on the door. She would throw herself into her work, cutting, stitching, measuring and gluing, to distract herself and to bide her time, rushing to the door every time she heard so much as a little bit of movement in the foyer.
It was close to the end of the week when she managed to bump into him as he was leaving. Unfortunately, the “bump” was rather literal and Owen ended up dropping several pages that he’d been carrying.

“O-Oh, I’m sorry!”
A.J. scrambled to help Owen pick up his pages. The one that she managed to scoop up seemed to be partially printed and partially handwritten.
“So that’s where all the printer ink has been going,” A.J. thought, squinting in confusion when she noticed that the writing on the page wasn’t in English. In fact, the writing wasn’t in any language that A.J. recognised.

Owen snatched the page away from her before she could read any further and A.J.’s voice was stolen from her when his eyes met hers. He hadn’t given as brumal a glare since the day she’d been bold enough to touch Mortimer’s tooth without asking.
“I know what you’re doing, A.J.,” he told her gruffly. “For Christ’s sake, we’re not married. I thought you understood that. Just give me some space.”

A.J. walked home alone that night, replaying the interaction like a broken VCR in her head.
Even in the fall season, California was stiflingly hot and she found herself longing for New York from time to time. She lived alone in her poky little apartment in NYC but she had her toys. Sure, in California, she had Clara but she couldn’t bring herself to look at her favourite doll without thinking about Owen and their tea party.
She missed her friends too.
She wasn’t exactly Miss Popular at the Toy Hospital but she enjoyed chatting with Max and the other employees and she especially missed seeing Marissa every day. Their scheduled phonecalls had become sporadic due to personal schedules .

For the last few nights, she’d be staying up in her California apartment, sitting on the couch and waiting to hear Owen coming back to his apartment. Sometimes, in the weeks before, Owen would knock on her door to excitedly tell her about a new idea that he’d just come up with or simply to say goodnight. He’d never invite her over to his apartment or ask to come into hers but A.J. enjoyed the little interaction all the same.
For the last week, she’d sat awake on the couch, waiting to hear the little knock but hearing nothing but silence.

That particular evening, she filled a glass with water and took three of the sleeping pills that Mark from Accounting had gotten for her. The little package had said that she only needed to take one but A.J. had the day off the next day and figured that she’d rather sleep the whole day away than spend the day pacing and worrying and wondering.

Part of her didn’t really want to wake up.

She drifted off on the couch, lights still on and Clara on the floor, sitting dutifully beside her. She hoped that Clara would guard her while she slept.
In her dreams, she travelled back to NYC, to Central Park. She was sitting under the tree with Owen, eating ice cream and laughing about the rain.

“You can call me Owen,” he was telling her, his voice soft and perfect. “Mr Gubberson is some asshole that corporate types like to kiss up to and call at crazy times to talk about complete trash and drivel. My name is Owen.”

“I’m glad you found me here,” she was telling him, resting her head on his shoulder and wishing that she could stay there forever. “I’m glad that you found me here in my dreams.”

Part of her really didn’t want to wake up.

****

(September, 1998)

Amelia-Jane examined the list given to her by Mortimer.
The lettering was difficult to read, written mostly in the same childlike scrawl that had indicated her daily payment with several backwards letters and strange spacing. The fact that she’d been keeping it in the back pocket of her work pants probably hadn’t helped its legibility either.
She squinted at the second line of the list, just barely able to make out that she’d be helping Daisy in the staff kitchens.

Her first order of business arriving at the studio, however, was going to have to be checking on Nick Nack and making sure that his “hair” had dried down properly.
Once again, Nick was not at all difficult to find; all A.J. had to do was to follow the sound of the thespian himself shouting out stage directions to his little crowd of Handeepuppet followers.

“These set pieces should be coloured red! It’s basic colour theory, people, look it up instead!”

Partially out of a desire to be somewhat respectful to this clearly overly-committed puppeteer but mostly out a desire to not be mobbed by said posse of obsessive Handeepuppets and their own puppeteers.
A.J. had no such luck.

She had barely slipped in the door before Nick Nack suddenly cried out in an impressive soprano:
“Ameeeeeelia-Jaaaaaaaane! You’re back again! Huzzah and bravissimo! Riley owes me eight coins of gold.”
Riley had bet against her returning? Interesting.
A.J. made a mental note of that one too.

Upon Nick’s fanfare, the black-clad puppeteers all froze in place, the Handeepuppets all turning to face her in a display that would have been admittedly rather impressive if it hadn’t been for the fact that this was the terrified choreography of a group of grown adults playing with puppets.
Grown adults playing with puppets with black hoods tied to their heads.

“Good morning, Mr. Nack,” A.J. called out, tone dry but polite as she tried to pretend that this was a regular job in a regular place with regular clientele. As rare as those jobs were for her nowadays.   “I’m actually due in the kitchens this morning but I was wondering if I could take a look at the work that I did yesterday?”

A.J. realised two things at this point.
One that Nick was still wearing the shower cap that she had placed on his head.
Two that most of the little Handeepuppets were also sporting their very own pink shower caps. Truly Nick Nack was the fashion icon of the Handeemen cast.

Again, this would have been hilarious or at the very least, endearing, if it wasn’t for the fact that this was representative of the collective hysteria of a pack of grown adults.
A collective hysteria all presumably being led and encouraged by her old flame.

Having dismissed his collective, Nick happily allowed her to prise the shower cap from his head to inspect her work. Thankfully, the paint had not oxidised too dramatically and the new paint had dried down properly. She pulled one of the small, work mirrors from her satchel and did her best to angle it for the hooded puppeteer to see despite the fact that she was addressing the puppet.
“Looks like your hair is back to normal, Mr Nack.”
The puppeteer did not make any movements to look at the results of the painting but Nick Nack craned his neck dramatically before triumphantly declaring: “I am ready for my close up, Mr Deville! The time of my magnum opus, draws closer still.”

“So, there’s been a date set for the big show revival?”
“Somewhat, our plan is certainly coming together. Mortimer’s been organising this whole thing since forever.” Nick rested his chin upon his long fingers. “Maybe we’ll premiere in the winter season? Though hopefully not in January, for obvious reasons.”

Curious and wanting to take a closer look at Nick Nack’s body and how it had held up over time, A.J. took this opportunity to continue chatting as she mentally analysed his movements.
“So as scriptwriter, is this new season going to pick up where the last season left off or is it going to be a reboot or?”
“It’s going to harken back to our original storyline but with some new little touches for the modern time. We have to bring back our old fans while still catering to a new audience’s demands…” Nick orated in a lofty matter, as though he’d done this over a hundred times. A.J. watched the movements of his body beneath his artist’s coat with a mixture of fascination and confusion. His shoulders seemed to move with the same weighting of a human’s, settling backwards and imitating scapula bones rather than rolling forwards with the weight of the wood.
Did Owen change the design of the puppets entirely?
There didn’t seem to be anything mechanical going on that A.J. could see and even then, there would be a need for some kind of power source and she couldn’t make out any wires or battery packs anywhere on Nick or the puppeteer.

Then Nick seemed to catch her staring, falling silent and holding her gaze for a moment before slouching backwards with a pursed lip look of bemusement that A.J. wouldn’t have guessed was possible on a puppet. “You’re staring rather intently at me. Would you rather take a photo? First one is free.”
Caught off guard, A.J. spluttered. “Ah! Sorry, just…admiring how well you’ve aged.”
“Hmm, that answer was smart,” Nick trilled, his eyes narrowing at her a little though his lips remained in a mirthful smile. “I can’t blame you for appreciating a work of art.” He shrugged. “You should head to see Daisy, run along. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting for too long.”

A.J. nodded, realising that Daisy’s exposed arms would make it far easier to see if Owen had changed any of the puppets’ designs. “You’re right. Thank you, Mr Nack. Best of luck with your creative work.”

“I’m sure I’ll see you around soon, A.J. dear. If there’s anything to fix, you’ll be called back here. Now then…” Nick took a comically loud inhale before bellowing. “ALRIGHT! Water break is done! Out of the green room and on to the floor, everyone!”

A.J. saw herself out before any of the Handeepuppets could reclaim the room. She remembered that the list had said that Daisy would specifically need her help in the employee kitchen. She could still vaguely remember how to get there from Wing B of the performance building. One side of the catering building was for staff while the other was for outside parties and public events.
A.J was admittedly more familiar with the former than the latter though she would usually take her lunch in the staff lounge or Owen’s office rather than with the other cast and crew members in the canteen. This was partially because she usually opted to work through lunch to meet her daily goals and partially because this choice negated the need to navigate the political minefield of cliques that populated the canteen in order to find somewhere to sit.

The hallways were almost completely devoid of light and the floors were littered with debris, planks and scraps of what appeared to be fabric. Similar to the previous day, A.J. found herself ducking under her fair share of precarious hanging cables and loose ceiling tiles before she managed to identify that she was in the right part of the studio by the wall patterns.

A.J. could hear someone clattering around behind one of the canteen doors and some muffled voices. She knocked upon the door but her polite rattles seemed to be being drowned out by whatever was going on inside. She pushed down upon the crash bar and started to open the door.

Suddenly a dark shape ran out past A.J.’s ankles, causing her to cry out. The thing moved with four legs, organic and alive but was covered in a grotesque mixture of hair and fabric. It was easily the size of her forearm, almost like a weasel. Most bizarrely however, it seemed to have its own hood tied down over its head with only its sharp little teeth being visible.

“Oh, those troublesome little devils! They never fall for a trap. If I see another one in the kitchen, I’ll be the one who’ll snap!”
A.J. looked into the kitchen, only to see Daisy Danger herself, walking up through the tables.
Her matte, dandelion yellow hair was as bright as ever, her rose-pink day-dress was neatly pressed if not a little frayed and her cheeks still bore the same powder pink dustings that Owen had expertly added himself.
The only thing that seemed even slightly off about her look were red flecks that dotted her arms and apron.
The person puppeteering her was almost certainly not Allison either. Similar to Nick Nack, the imitation was spot on but this woman was too short and stout to be Daisy’s original performer.

“Well don’t lurk in the doorway, dear. You just look fit to burst, but don’t show such bad manner because..?”
“Bad manners are the worst!”

A.J. had just stepped into the kitchen when she found herself involuntarily recoiling at the sudden chorus that sounded out all around her. Although it was Daisy that drew her eye immediately, she couldn’t believe that she almost missed the swath of puppeteers and their multi-coloured Handeepuppets that were sitting at the canteen tables.

“Uh…good morning Miss Danger,” A.J. began, mentally slapping herself back into work mode again. “I have a work schedule here for Mr. Handee. It says that you have something here for me to take a look at?”

Daisy’s puppeteer all but ran over to her and suddenly wooden lady was right in front of her face, little hands on her shoulders despite a complete lack of arm-rod usage.  
“A.J. is that you!? My goodness, how you’ve grown! Mortimer said you’d be back soon and it’s lovely to have you home!”

Home?
Even if that was remotely true, it felt truly perverse for these pretender puppeteers to be acting like they were all old friends. Insulting even.  

A.J. stopped herself from retorting that comment with something snarky and simply replied: “It’s certainly nice to see everyone again.”

“Have you been getting enough sleep? Have you been eating ok?” As Daisy cooed, her little wooden fingers prodded and poked at A.J.’s face and hair intrusively and with pressure that should not have been possible for a hand operated puppet of any size. “Are you showering or bathing at least once a day?”

“Y-Yes, I promise I’m taking care of myself, Miss Danger,” she replied, trying to step away but find herself rather boxed in by what appeared to be several mouse traps scattered around the floor. “Thank you for your concern.” 
Daisy leaned in to A.J., so close that her flossy, little, artificial eyelashes brushed the toymaker’s nose. “Your mouth says you do but that skin says no siree,” she whispered, her voice both sweet and eerily threatening. “But I know you’re too much of a smart cookie to try lying to me.” The puppet withdrew quickly and beckoned for A.J. to follow. “Well, you’re here to help with my baking! Let me show you the job you’ll be taking!”

A.J. followed Daisy across the canteen, noticing that between each cluster of Handeepuppets, the tables were laid out with little plates, cutlery and cups. Some of the tablewear, she noticed, was made of cardboard and coloured in with crayon.
As she passed by, the puppeteers’ heads remained upright and unmoving but their puppets all turned at the waist, (wrist?), to steal a glance. She became faintly aware of a kind of angry whispering and murmuring that grew as she followed Daisy between the tables.  

“Feels pretty much the same as it did back in the day,” A.J. thought, bemused and trying not to make eye contact with the little plastic eyes that were now glowering up at her.

“Here we are!”
Daisy was animatedly gesturing to the bright, pink, oversized Daisy-Bake oven in the corner of the room. “The darn thing lights up but there’s just no heat, so I haven’t been able to make anything sweet!”

A.J. let her duffle bag fall to the floor and started to pull her work gloves on. “Ok, it’s probably an issue with the wiring.”
Despite the context of the work environment, this was actually a pretty ideal situation. She had fixed many a Daisy-Bake oven at the Toy Hospital and by the sound of it, the machine was suffering from a pretty common wear-and-tear production error. The fact that this one was an oversized variation, large enough for a person to climb inside, actually just made her job a whole lot easier.

“I let you work away,” Daisy crooned, happily clasping her hands. “If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to say!”

The puppet returned to her waiting subordinates and it didn’t take A.J. long, even with her head in the oven to realise that Daisy was teaching some kind of etiquette class. The Handeepuppets were practicing basic table skills like pouring drinks and holding cutlery, all underscored by Daisy’s own personal songs, rhymes and mantras.

It would have been admittedly wholesome if it were part of a Handeemen episode but the fact that it was being enacted by a group of hooded adults forced to speak exclusively in rhyme and only permitted to interact through their puppets, gave the whole thing a very cult-like feel.

Daisy was indeed content to let A.J. work away to her own devices. At one point, she bounced over to offer the toymaker some “lemonade.”
A.J. eyed the glass pitcher and the cloudy, bitty liquid inside of it. Nothing about the drink’s colour, odour or texture looked remotely like lemonade of any kind.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she told the puppet hastily. “I’m just going to try and keep liquids away from the oven while I’m working on it.”
“Oh, that makes sense and all! If you change your mind, just call!” Daisy was about to move away and then she paused, her little blue eyes clicking as they surveyed A.J.’s exposed right forearm. “Oh sweetie, what on Earth did you do? Don’t tell me that those are all permanent tattoos?”

“Yeah, they are. Unfortunately.” A.J. forced herself to smile politely despite feeling a bit prodded. “There pretty on-brand for me though. Kids at the Toy Hospital actually really like them.”

A.J. had two partial sleeves of cover-up tattoos on her left and right forearms.
Her left arm, from wrist to elbow was inked to look like a ball-and-joint doll’s arm with exposed sockets and her right arm was decorated with a series of different stitch patterns to imitate a ragdoll.

Daisy didn’t seem to appreciate the artistic flair, tutting slightly as she remarked: “Brands belong on cattle, sweetie, leave them on the farm. No girl looks pretty with ink all over her arms.”

Thankfully, she was called away by one of her charm school pupils before A.J. was forced to respond to this comment and A.J., in turn, could disguise her eye-rolls by shoving her head back into the oven door.
While pulling away the back panel of the oven, A.J. noticed one of Daisy’s “recipes” scrawled out on a nearby chalkboard. Each word was accompanied by a strange string of assorted shapes and symbols.
Egg…sugar…glue…cherries…drain cleaner…sawdust…flour…
The red-head’s nose wrinkled involuntarily as she silently hoped that she wasn’t going to be expected to taste test anything that was coming from this kitchen.

“And I thought that the canteen food back in the eighties was a travesty.”

It was only seconds later that the Daisy Danger that A.J. knew from the show finally made her first real appearance.
A sudden screaming, bellow from the centre of the lunch tables caused A.J. to almost drop the screwdriver that she was holding in surprise.

“Putting your NAPKIN ON THE FLOOR is TERRIBLY RUDE! How dare you insult my kitchen with such a bad attitude?!”
Daisy had rounded on a quivering, green-haired Handeepuppet, brandishing a rather sharp looking pie-cutter. Before A.J. could even guess at what she was about to do, Miss Danger’s hand came down in a decisive, harsh chop and slashed the arm clean off the puppet’s body.

Again, in a different context, the scene might have been hilarious and A.J. might have felt incline to give a snort of laughter at what had just played out in front of her.
This small desire to laugh however was instantly quashed when the Handeepuppet threw its head back and screamed.

The scream was not forced or comical or restrained in any way.
This scream was the genuine, blood-curdling cry of desperation of a person in severe, horror and pain.

The Handeepuppet clutched at the fraying, stuffing spewing tube that used to be its arm and howled in stomach churning agony as Daisy and the others watched on in complete indifference.
A.J. considered offering to stitch the arm back into place but stopped herself, deciding not to get involved unless she was explicitly asked to.
Rule Number One and Rule Number Two…

Eventually Daisy spoke again, only after the puppet’s screams had dissolved into a series of terribly realistic sounding ragged breaths and sobs.
“Have you finally stopped getting yourself into a state? You’d better head to the lab before it’s too late.”

A.J. didn’t actually see the maimed puppet and their puppeteer leaving the room but she could tell by the clattering, rattling and drunken footsteps that it was no easy ordeal.
She could also tell by the sombre, stoic silence that going to “the lab” seemed to be on par with some kind of death sentence.

She had to begrudgingly respect these actors’ commitment to their roles- disturbing as it all was.

The oven was almost back to working order; A.J. just needed to push the wire guard back into its usual spot. This was usually just a matter of sticking her screwdriver along the back panel with the small models but she would need something longer for one of this size.

“Uh…Miss Danger?” she called out, making her way over to where Daisy was folding a stack of napkins. “Sorry to interrupt. Would you happen to have something with a long handle that I could use? Like a broom or a mop or-?”

“There’s a cleaning closet in the confetti storage, off to the side,” the party planning puppet told her, smoothing out her apron as though she hadn’t just brutally attacked one of her subordinates. “If you can’t find one in there, I’d be surprised.”

A.J. headed into the room that Daisy had pointed to, acutely aware that the general sounds of angry whispers had been replaced with an eerie, pin-drop silence, only occasionally permeated by Daisy’s cheery singing and happily sung reminders.

The toymaker was vaguely familiar with this confetti storage room. Primarily due to the distant memory of constant conflict regarding the excessive number of confetti barrels that were usually in there. “How much confetti does one kids’ puppet show need?” being a particularly resonant refrain.

The pale green barrels had been stacked into looming rows to form a kind of maze throughout the room, with piles of pastel coloured paper scattered around the floor. A.J. rounded a corner, eyes tracing the actual walls for this supposed cleaning closet when she was met with a wide mouth and lolling tongue.

A.J. jumped slightly, sucking in a resentful breath when she realised that she had come to face to face with a cardboard cut out of Rosco. She frowned, shuddering slightly, wondering what had become of everyone’s favourite lab assistant/goodest boy. His pelt had always been a nightmare to take care of and if the other puppets were any indication, it had been a while since that same fur had received any TLC.
Thankfully, she didn’t have any other close encounters of the two-dimensional kind before she found the closet.

She was rummaging around the cleaning supplies when she distantly heard Mortimer’s voice in the canteen. She froze, listening carefully. While she couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, he sounded quite cordial with Daisy. She heard her name once or twice, swallowing back against a dry throat as she debated returning to the canteen just yet.
Almost instinctively, she stepped inside the cleaning closet and pulled the door shut. She hadn’t forgotten Owen’s words to her on the phone the night before.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Look, we can’t talk face to face just yet. Like I said, I need to prove some things first…but soon, everyone will know everything and Mortimer’s Handeemen will be back where they belong and…everything will be just the way it should have always been. I just need you to trust me…”

If she spoke to him now, he would only respond as Mortimer and this was too painful for her at that moment in time. She also wasn’t inclined to watch him actively manipulate these hooded lackeys that he’d managed to recruit into whatever bizarre cult-like scheme he was running.

“…you…you look great. You’ve still got all your freckles anyway…”

A.J. felt sick.
She debated excusing herself to the bathroom when she eventually had to go back to the canteen.
Her stomach tightened in warning, her meagre hotel breakfast threatening to climb back up the throat, when she heard the door of the confetti room open. The steps were too loud and defined to belong to Owen.
She dared herself to peer out of the slit in the closet door and between the lattice of barrels, she could make out what appeared to be a security guard’s shirt stretched across a hulking frame.
Her fingers spread out across the wall, trying to maintain her balance as she continued to peer at the new occupant of the room. There was something different about the way this person was carrying themselves and for a split second, A.J. thought that they might not have a puppet on their arm.
The thought of a potential ally caused her guard to drop and she leaned against the door a little too much, causing it to creak in protest.

The figure turned to face in her direction and A.J. was forced to clap a hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out in panic.
The “security guard” was in fact wearing a puppet on their outstretched arm but it was a far cry from one of the cute little Handeepuppet designs. This one was a macabre, almost grotesque variation of a patchwork sock puppet with a drooling, gaping maw, a long serpentine tongue and a single, far-too-realistic staring eye.

The build of this puppet would have been fascinating to A.J. if she wasn’t so sure that it was looking directly at her as the hooded, heavy-limbed puppeteer lumbered in the direction of her hiding spot.
Luckily for her, something from the outside must have summoned the guard away because all of a sudden, the puppet’s rolling eye shifted to the other door. In a fluid, snake-like motion, the monstrous sock puppet turned around and seemed to drag its puppeteer shuffling and stomping behind it.

When A.J. was positive that it was gone, (and that she could not longer hear Mortimer’s voice), she grabbed her desired mop and headed back out into the canteen.

“Did ya get lost, sweetie? You sure didn’t hurry,” Daisy remarked, the puppet looking up from the cutlery that she had been sorting. “You were in there so long, I was starting to worry!”

“Sorry about that, Miss Danger. I just had a hard time finding the closet. All those barrels kind of look the same…”

“Hmm, I should send in my little team and give that room a clean.” She fluffed her dress out a little, preening in the metallic surface of a nearby tray. “Oh, you just missed Mortimer! He wanted to check in and keep track but I told him that you were busy so he’s going to double back.”

A.J. nodded, muttering a breathless thanks before heading back to the oven and finishing the repair job.
Delighted with her work, Daisy dismissed her “team” to go sort out the confetti room and allowed A.J. to give her face and hair a quick wipe down with warm rag and soapy water. Thankfully her paint wasn’t as badly chipped as Nick’s but her clothes were quite a bit more stained.
Freshly stained too.
A.J. knew that she had an upcoming job in the laundry room so she quickly added hunting down some fresh clothes for the Handeemen to her mental checklist.

“Ooh, this feels like a spa day! You really are too sweet,” she trilled happily as A.J. wiped around her cheeks. “You know, keeping this place tidy is no easy feat. Part of me thinks I could use a de-stress.” She sighed rather comically and in an eerily realistic manner. “But if I keep my back turned for too long, there’ll always be another mess…”

“You’re very dedicated, Miss Danger,” A.J. told her, still examining Daisy’s arms and hands for a new mechanical component. “I think the team is very lucky to have someone like you taking care of everything like that. In my experience, very few performers are willing to do their own cooking and cleaning and even fewer are happy about it.”

“You know what would be a real treat? You should let me fix you some lunch to eat.”

In spite of A.J.’s best negotiation attempts, Daisy stayed true to her suburban mom inclinations and insisted that the red-haired woman sit down one of the tables and be served whatever was on the menu for lunch.

A.J. took the wait time to flick through her diary notes and to examine the handwritten information regarding Daisy Danger’s design. She could feel her mind preparing to wander, to disassociate, to drift away…when something abruptly pulled her back to reality.

“If you were made of paper, I’d protect you from the rain. I’d set you down beside the fire until you were dry again…”

Daisy was singing.

“If you were made of paper, I’d keep you safe inside. I’d paint a smile across your face, so pretty and so wide, that everyone who saw you would be filled to the top with glee. And everyone who saw you would know you belong to me…”

That song.
Her Oma’s song.

How did the puppeteer know that song?

Owen had only ever heard her sing a few lines of it at most but at that moment, Daisy Danger was singing the whole thing with the confidence of someone who’d heard it a hundred times.

“It has to be some kind of coincidence,” A.J. told herself. “Or maybe Owen heard me on some security footage and decided to teach it to the puppeteers to mess with me. I mean, what other possible explanation would there be for…?”

“And here we are! One BLT, just the way A.J. likes it!”

Daisy placed a tray down in front of A.J. before taking the seat opposite her, perched in her puppeteer’s arms. “Well go on, dearie. Tuck right in.”

A.J. looked down at her “lunch.”
The sandwich bread was made of cardboard and the filling was made of paper.

Surely, this woman couldn’t be serious?

The red-haired woman looked up to see that the puppet was absent-mindedly fiddling with the pie cutter that she’d used to quite literally disarm one of her fellow puppets earlier.
Making a snap decision to call the puppeteer’s bluff and getting the distinct impression that this wasn’t going to end well unless she played along, A.J. reluctantly picked up the “sandwich” and sank her teeth into the cardboard.

Granted, it was not the worst thing she’d ever eaten in a canteen before, the waxy taste and texture of the crayon was an immediate and unpleasant sensation.
She looked up at Daisy.
It shouldn’t have been possible but it almost seemed like her smile was widening.

*****

(September, 1986)

Sewing Room 4-C felt blurry, like a water-colour painting that had been oversaturated and the colour had begun to run together or an Etch-a-Sketch that someone was shaking.

She had probably taken too many pills again.
Mark had given her the first canister for free but it wasn’t long before she’d come back looking for a second. The pills were helping her to relax and even though they occasionally made her a bit groggy, they stopped her heart from beating too fast and her thoughts from running too wild.
When her thoughts were more simplified, more streamlined, it was easier to stick to the task at hand.
She wasn’t even taking as many smoke breaks as usual and when she wasn’t craving a cigarette and leaving the studio every twenty minutes, she was far more productive.

 It was late after work again and A.J. was starting to cut out the fabric panels that she would use to make her very own Handeepuppet. She had to wait until the costume crew were gone before she could openly help herself to the colours that she wanted to use.
Not to mention that using a sewing machine was hard for her at the time and she much preferred using one without a watching, judging audience.

Daisy Danger was propped up on a nearby rack, dressed up in a new red dress for the upcoming holiday special. Her head was tilted to one side, her blue eyes drunkenly lidded but her smile ever-present and kind.
A.J. would occasionally smile back at her as she worked, pretending that Daisy was offering her helpful advice or asking her questions about the day. Sometimes it was difficult to resist the urge to talk to her out loud whenever they were alone together.

This time, in particular, A.J. decided to give into her own thoughts and started telling Daisy all about how difficult the felt was to cut in straight lines and how her hands ached even when she was using the specialised scissors.
In her mind, Daisy told her not to give up and that there was no making a delicious cake without breaking some eggs.

“You know, you sound like Marissa- you know, my manager from New York,” she told the lifeless puppet. “Or like my Oma. Oma would never let me give up on a project either. Even if it was knitting and no offence, but I hated knitting. There was this song she used to sing with me to keep me motivated whenever we worked together. It went like…” A.J. paused to take a little breath, shifting the scissors along the fabric. “If you were made of paper, I’d give you eyes that shine. I’d write my name all down your back, so the world would know you’re mine…”

“That’s…pretty cute.”

A.J. stopped what she was doing and looked up to see Owen in the doorway, half-draped in shadows from the hallway and wearing a bashful expression beneath hair that was even more unkempt than usual.
Unsure of what to say, she fell silent, her hands stilling in their work.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the puppet-master went on, slowly entering the room. “Are you making headway with those Handeepuppet designs?”

A.J. nodded, finishing the last of the line that she’d been cutting. “Just finished with the template for the head and body now.”

“Oh, so that’s the colour you’ve picked for the skin? Huh, we usually try to make the Handeepuppets as racially ambiguous as possible so the pale shade is going to make them stand out a bit.”

“…so should I pick a different colour then?”
A.J. could feel a kind of dull throb in her temples again but the pills she had taken were helping to dampen any frustrations that she might have been feeling.

“No, no, no...your puppet is your puppet,” Owen said quickly, coming over to her side. “They can look however you want them to look.” He leaned against the table, seeming not to know what to do with his hands for a moment before finally settling on shoving them into his pockets. “I know I said I’d help you with this. I’m sorry…I’ve just been busy lately trying to get this book thing ordered. It’s kind of hard to explain.” He followed her gaze across the room to Daisy. “But hey, I’m glad you found someone to help you out a little.”

A.J. shrugged with a weak smile. “You know me…better with puppets than I am with people.”

“You talk to them like they are real people though,” Owen told her, placing his hand on her shoulder. “And I really, really love that. You have no idea how happy it makes me when I hear someone else talking to them like that…”

A.J. didn’t react. It had been quite a few days since she’d had any kind of physical contact with another human being, much less, Owen. Part of her was afraid that if she moved too suddenly, he’d pull his hand away.

“I only sing in front of Daisy though,” she said finally and quietly. “I’m not brave enough to try it front of the others.”

Owen gave a small snort of laughter, amused but not in a cruel way. “Yeah, I guess you’d be dealing with a tougher crowd.” He wasn’t smiling anymore when he stooped down beside her so that their faces were level. Rather, he looked sad. “I know I’ve been a bit of an asshole as of late too.”

Desperately not wanting him to be sad, A.J. found her voice again. “I-It’s fine, really. I understand. Look, you’ve got a show to run…that’s gotta be stressful…”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, A.J. I’m…really, really sorry.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and with a permissive tilt of her chin, also to her lips.
It had been quite a while since the last time they had kissed and she had missed the smell of his clothes, the texture of his skin against hers…however…

“Daisy’s right over there,” she murmured against his lips, prompting him to draw back with a small chuckle. They typically tried not to get too cosy in front of the Handeemen out of respect.

“Oh, dear,” Owen coughed, straightening up and surveying A.J. with the same maroon-coloured eyes that she’d painted a hundred times over in her mind. “Why don’t you come over tonight? To my work apartment, I mean?”

A warm shudder ran down her spine and her body suddenly felt far lighter than it had before, her breath getting a little hard to control.

“Y-Yeah, sure…sounds great…”

Before she knew it, she was standing beside him as he fiddled with the lock of his own apartment door- almost an exact mirror image of how things had played out back in New York.
Owen’s apartment was a mirror image of hers though with the jarring addition of several stacks of paper everywhere, rolls of blueprints tacked to the walls and a few scattered boxes of Handeemen merchandise.

He gestured for her to sit on the couch and returned with two bowls of ice-cream.

A kind of dam that had been steadily building pressure inside of her suddenly broke and A.J. let out a surprised laugh. “Ice-cream? It’s past ten.”

“And we’re adults and no one can stop us,” Owen retorted with a superior smirk, placing a spoon in the bowl in front of her. “Also, we’re not in work tomorrow so I don’t know about you but I’m here for watching cartoons all night…”

“…are we having a sleepover?” It was only after the question left A.J.’s mouth that she realised the implications of her own statement and felt her face aflame. 

Owen, however, seemed to be content to keep things innocent and simply rebutted:
“Sleep? Sleep is for the weak.”

Even with this lofty claim, they weren’t long into watching a marathon of old school Bendy cartoons when A.J. felt her eyelids starting to droop. Her head dropped on to his shoulder and he didn’t protest, instead tucking an arm around her to keep her close.

“Do you think it’s going to be a girl or a boy?” he whispered sleepily.
“…what?” A.J. asked, her thoughts starting to give way to her desires to sleep.
“Your puppet. Do you think you’re going to make a girl or a boy? Or neither? Or both?”
“…Mmm, I think I’m going to make a girl,” A.J. murmured between yawns. “A sister for Clara maybe…”
“Sounds nice. Is she going to be blonde like Clara?”
“…no…I want her to be different…something more exciting…”
“Brunette?”
“Blue, maybe.”
“Blue?”
“Blue.”
“Blue, it is.”

A.J. couldn’t remember exactly when their sleepy, nonsensical chatter had given way to the two of them falling asleep but when she awoke, she was still in his arms. She studied his sleeping face for a moment, slightly in awe of how serene he looked while deep in slumber. Desperate to return to that serenity with him, she kept her arms tight around him, closed her eyes and willed herself to dream of blue-haired puppet girls.

*****

(September, 1998)

A.J. looked up from the toilet bowl, frowning at the stagnant water but confident that she’d finally managed to cough up every last scrap of paper and cardboard.
She took a few moments to organise her thoughts, kneeling on the cold, cracked tiles of the bathroom stall.

If Owen had changed the design of the puppets to a more mechanical approach, he wouldn’t have done it without mapping out proper blue-prints for each Handeeman. If he had new blueprints, they would more than likely be in his office, in the main building.
Anything else regarding Owen’s borderline ethical and shrouded-in-mystery plans would also probably be locked into the office too.

“So that’s where I’ll have to try to get to,” A.J. thought, tracing the tattooed stitches on her arm with her thumb. “Somehow, I’ll have to find a reason to head over there and I’ll have to find a way to let myself in.”

She didn’t have time to deal with that though.
A.J. prised Mortimer’s list from her pocket, even though she had a sinking feeling that she knew what was next.

The next task, in a kind of cruel irony, was one of the easiest and unmistakable to read.

Truthfully, this had been the experience that A.J. was dreading the very most and for very distinctly personal reasons too.

“Helping Riley in the Lab.”

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

(November 1986)

Riley’s puppeteer was named Jeanette Park.
After a few weeks of hard work, A.J. was finally allowed to perform basic maintenance on the puppets, primarily under Owen’s supervision but occasionally without.
One of the rare occasions that she was allowed to work without him was when she was with Jeanette and Riley. Owen trusted Jeanette more than most of the cast because she had been a puppeteer longer than the rest of them. She’d done theatre puppet shows with a traveling company for years before joining the cast of Handeemen.

“So, it’s literally just Vaseline?”
“Yep. If you just slick a little Vaseline under her eyelids, it’ll add a little extra friction and stop her eye from doing that squinty thing.”
“Huh, I’d always thought Vaseline would make it more slippery?”
“Well actually considering the materials that her eyes and lids are made from, it’ll add just enough resistance to keep her eyes open without damaging them or stopping them from blinking.”
“…well colour me impressed.”
Jeanette shrugged her shoulders and Riley’s head bounced as if to agree with them both.
The toymaker felt an involuntary shudder ripple through her at the thought of gaining the puppet’s approval.

A.J. had an interesting relationship with Riley Ruckus.
The scientist had always been her favourite puppet on the show, even back in NYC. If she was ever late back to the workshop after lunch, you could reasonably bet your bottom dollar that there was a Riley-centric episode of Handeemen playing on the waiting room television.

It wasn’t just the general appeal of seeing a fellow bookish, engineering enthusiast getting passionate about facts and figures; Riley, like A.J., had an inherent love of professionalism, of planning and of precision.
In a t.v. world of chaos and disarray where characters were encouraged to and more often than not rewarded for throwing caution to the wind, Riley could always be relied upon to stick to her well-thought out, methodical plan.
A.J., who had been weaned on the ideals and merits of planning and sticking to said plans, had always felt a certain kinship with Riley Ruckus.

While working on the show, Riley’s scenes were A.J.’s favourite to watch. The puppet’s dexterity was fantastically demonstrated through her experiments, with the wooden scientist being able to do everything from turning the dial on a microscope to lighting up a Bunsen burner. Riley’s interaction with Rosco was nothing short of adorable and not to mention masterful to witness considering how synchronised the dog’s two puppeteers had to be to produce realistic movements.
Riley’s back-and-forths with Nick were also one of the funniest features of the show, usually managing to make A.J. spit up a mouthful of coffee on set. There was a running joke among the writers on the show that the real “chemistry” on the show was demonstrated not on Riley’s laboratory set but between the artist and the scientist.

There was one conversation, however, that significantly muddied the way A.J. looked at Riley Ruckus. This conversation in question occurred on one of those occasions when she had been left alone to help Jeanette with Riley’s maintenance.
The two women were sitting beside an open window for a smoke. This was before smoking indoors had become partially illegal but due to the nature of their work, it was preferred that smokers on the cast and crew took their cigarettes outdoors.

“Thanks for all the help, kiddo. It makes things a lot easier to have an extra hand throughout the week.”
“No problem. I really enjoy working with you…and Riley…both of you.”

A.J. was just considering how Jeanette would look if she was made from felt stitch when the squat, bespectacled woman said something that almost made her drop her cigarette.

“You know, it’s funny,” she said, crossing her legs under her long skirt and chuckling. “When you first showed up at the studio, Dr Ruckus and I thought you might be here to replace us.”

“S-Sorry?” A.J. coughed slightly. “I…I’m not a puppeteer, though? What made you think-?”

“Well maybe not me but,” Jeanette laughed with a shrug. “You and Riley do look very similar. I mean if Owen was looking for a set of human Handeemen, you’d be a pretty good casting choice for Riley Ruckus over there.”

A.J. shot a glance over where Riley sat on her holding rack and blinked. “R-Really? You think so?”

“Well yeah, I mean the curly, red hair, the freckles, the nose, the teeth…you being a smart little cookie…the brisk way of talking…” She must have looked fairly perturbed because Jeanette immediately added. “Relax, I mean it as a compliment. I think it’s cute.”

“Like, I guess we do look a bit alike…”
Cogs were beginning to turn in A.J.’s head and she wasn’t sure she liked what they were turning to.

“It started as kind of a side joke between the main cast,” Jeanette went on between drags and snorts of laughter. “But after a while it just became really obvious, you know?”

“That I look like Riley?”

“No, no…” The puppeteer looked around and then lowered her voice a little. “That Owen based the character of Riley on you! I mean with how close you two are, you must have known him before you got here- like he knew you growing up, right?”

A.J. opened her mouth, unsure of what exactly she was going to say before Jeanette cut across her again- seemingly so proud of her own deduction that she wasn’t about to let anyone correct her.

“N-…”

“Look, it’s cool if he’s asked you to keep it a secret or whatever. Me and the others figured that’s something Gubberson would be pretty guarded about. We’re pretty sure we’ve pegged who Nick and Daisy are based on too…I mean you probably know Paula and I don’t know if you’ve met Owen’s publicist Ethan Stockdale but he’s known him for years and trust me, it’s literally uncanny.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the window sill. “Though I will say, of the three of you, you’re definitely the most similar in personality and that’s definitely a compliment.”

“Th-Thanks,” was all that A.J. could manage, her mind now whirring far too fast for her mouth to keep up with.
An intercom announcement mercifully summoned them all back to the set for another shooting session, so A.J. didn’t have to come up with any immediate response to this.

In fact, she kept her mouth soldered shut until she was organising some prop paintbrushes beside Jake in Performance Wing B.

“Jake…do I look like Riley Ruckus?”
“No,” was the large man’s quick but assertive response.
Before a modicum of relief could settle in, Jake suddenly grabbed the ends of her hair and pulled them up into a mock-ponytail on top of her head.

“Now, you look like Riley Ruckus,” he stated, following it up with a booming laugh.
A.J. suddenly wished that her own cheeks were made out of wood- maybe then she wouldn’t be prone to flushing such a dark red colour at the slightest moment of embarrassment.

It wasn’t that she was offended by such a comment.
It was rather what the comment itself implied.

Acting on impulse, A.J. put a thought to Owen when they were having a coffee together in the canteen. She managed to catch him when he was between rambles about the new season’s budget. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be a listening ear to him but sometimes she needed a break from the constant barrages. It didn’t help that he often didn’t actually want to hear any advice or alternative thoughts or opinions. Even when A.J. did agree with him, he still seemed annoyed that she’d interrupted him in the first place.
They’d been out for pizza two nights prior and Owen had spent the entire time ranting about the network asking to tone down certain aspects of the shows’ humour.
When he called for the cheque, the waitress gave A.J. the most sympathetic look she’d ever received from a stranger.
It was also the most painful look that she’d ever had to receive from a stranger.

She took a chance when he stopped to drink from his cup.

“So, I’ve been thinking about changing my hair colour…”
“Like the Handeepuppet you’ve been working on? Yeah, I thought the blue was a bit stark in contrast to the skin-tone you picked.”
“No, no…not the puppet. I mean my hair colour.”

Owen blinked, looking overtly confused. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. “I just want to try something different.”
“Your hair is fine the way it is,” Owen insisted, glancing around quickly to make sure that no one could overhear them before adding. “It’s…pretty. It’s the first thing that I noticed about you.”
She nodded, her anxiety’s appetite still left woefully unslaked. “I’m flattered, really but…I mean, a little change never hurt anyone and it is just hair. I mean it can grow out and grow back.”
“You wouldn’t be as good looking with any other colour,” he replied, a little more sharply this time. “Like I can’t imagine you as a brunette or a blonde, especially with your freckles. Come on, A.J., you’re into this kind of thing too- you should be able to tell that a drastic change like that wouldn’t suit you at all.”
“Well, maybe just a cut then? Shorter hair would probably be more practical in the workshop.”
Owen raised an eyebrow. “Where is all this coming from? Normally, you couldn’t give a damn about the way you look and suddenly you’re…” His face suddenly fell and he sighed heavily. “A.J., this isn’t just some kind of ploy for attention, is it? It’s because I haven’t been coming over as much lately, isn’t it? Look, I told you, I have a lot of work to do to get ready for the next season premiere.”
“No, it’s not that!” A.J. blurted out suddenly, cringing when she realised how loud she was and dropping her voice accordingly. “No, I don’t expect any extra attention from you. I guess, sometimes I just…get tired of looking in the mirror and want to try something different.”
Owen looked a little unconvinced but gave A.J. a wry smile and made sure no one was looking before winding a single, red ringlet of hers around his finger. “There are some things you’re going to have to learn to be a little more mature about, A.J. Don’t worry. I haven’t gotten tired of looking at you yet.” He let the little, red ringlet spring back into place like a copper coil. “Come over to the office this evening. You can help me get Mortimer and the guys packed up for the day…”

As fun as it had been to put the Handeemen into their cases, her earlier exchange with Jeanette still weighed heavily on her mind and A.J. made sure not be late to her phone-call with Marissa that evening.

“Oh Amy, are you serious!? Ooh, I’d better keep my voice down. It’s almost nine over here, y’know?”
The manager of Poughkeepsie Toy Hospital was practically howling with laughter on the receiving end.

“I know it sounds stupid,” A.J. wheedled, swilling the dollar wine around in the mug in front of her, (her apartment had not come with its own wine glasses). “But the more I think about it, the weirder this whole thing is. I mean, I’m not upset with being told that I look like Riley Ruckus- it’s a step up quite frankly from Raggedy Ann or Strawberry Shortcake or Poppy Playtime- but-…”

“But what, sweetie? I think you’re overthinking a bit of joking between co-workers here.” Marissa took an audible slurp of her own wine. “Like, I think it’s kinda darling that people think Owen based Riley on you. Kind of an honour really.”

“Yeah, but that’s the thing. Mortimer’s Handeemen was a show for at least two years before Owen and I ever even met at that convention so there’s no way that Riley looks the way she does because of me.” The toymaker grunted, leaning on her elbows as the phone-cord stretched. “And Owen said that the hair was the first thing he noticed about me…so I just can’t help but wonder if…” She stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realising how unwilling she was to render this hypothesis out loud.

“…if he’s only interested in you because you happen to look like one of his puppets?”

“…yeah.”

Marissa giggled musically again, bringing an involuntary smile to A.J.’s own lips. “Oh, sweetie. So what? So, what if that’s the case? Plenty of artsy types- especially the weirdos in our business- make their characters to look how they think is attractive. So, your boy thinks that geeky redheads are cute? So what!? So do I. So do most people. Bless his heart, the guy’s probably just delighted that he’s got a girl that ticks all of his boxes.”

“Ok, now you’re just trying to swell my ego…”
Her smile was growing; trying to be miserable or anxious around Marissa was virtually impossible at the best of times.

“Heck, by your logic, he also enjoys a curvy blonde who knows her way around the kitchen.” A.J. could practically hear hair being fluffed over the phone. “I would be remiss to correct such impeccable taste in women.”

“Heh, well when you say it like that…”

“Look, bottom line: I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” Another long slurp of wine. “As long as he’s not making you wear a lab coat in bed or say “more data” when he finishes.”

A.J. coughed, her eyes widening as she involuntary dribbled wine down her front. “M-Mari!”

“What? Don’t tell me he’s into that? If that’s the case, run for the hills, sweetie,” Marissa asserted, laughing again for a moment before adding: “Out of curiosity, what is Gubberson like in the sack? If you don’t mind me asking?”

The red-haired woman wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her stomach now tying in knots for an entirely different reason.
“Well, I…I don’t really know because…we…don’t.”

“You…don’t?”

“We don’t.”

“Ever?”

“Never. Not yet anyway.”

This was another underlying anxiety of hers.
A.J. had never thought of herself as being particularly attractive to anyone nor had anyone besides Owen ever given her a reason to feel that way. However, aside from the intermittent round of heavy petting, he never seemed to want to go further with her than kissing. In fact, the most forward he’d been with her was their first make-out session in the Sewing Room. It had been months since then and A.J. found herself bashfully wanting to take things a bit further.
It wasn’t that she’d never tried to seduce him or to at least show him that she was comfortable with pushing their relationship to the next level. In spite of her best efforts, Owen was always quick to either deescalate what they were doing or to stop entirely, often leaving her feeling silly and embarrassed.

“Maybe he’s waiting until marriage?” Marissa teased. “Or maybe it’s been a while for him?”

“I thought it might be because he was freaked out that it would be…y’know…my first time but…” A.J. sighed, leaning back as far as the phone-cord would allow. “I don’t know how I can make it clearer to him that I’m ok with it.” The wine was definitely helping her to voice these thoughts aloud for the first time. “I want him to be my first.”

“Did you ever consider that you might be his first?”

“I don’t think so,” A.J. mused, glad that Marissa couldn’t see how flustered she was getting. “He always seems pretty…experienced…” She buried her head in a nearby couch cushion, inadvertently muffling her own voice. “Ugh, what is wrong with me?”

“You’re quirky as they come, Amy but trust me when I say that from what I’ve heard, you’re no weirder than your beau over there,” Marissa giggled, switching to a more sincere tone. “Well, look, maybe he just wants to wait because he really likes you. Guys like that are more common than paperbacks and movies would have you believe.”

A.J. let those words run through her, warm and consuming like the wine she’d been drinking. If California had one distinct advantage over New York, it was that even the cheap wine tasted pretty damn good.

The heat was still slowly killing her though.
It was November and she still hadn’t been able to bring herself to wear long sleeves to bed.

Her mind was rushing too fast no matter how comfy she managed to get in bed.
As of late, there were sometimes she couldn’t force herself to go to sleep no matter how hard she tried and other times, all she wanted to do was sleep. The problem was that these times rarely lined up with her plans or work schedule.
She could remember a cross-stitch that she’d once seen hanging on the wall in her Uncle Theo’s office. It had stood out to her because it seemed very out-of-character for a stern, unsentimental man like Theo Schwarzwald to own.

It said: “Es ist schwer zu schlafen, wenn man verliebt ist, denn das wirkliche Leben ist viel besser als die Träume!”
The umlauts were little hearts.

Translated, it meant: “It’s hard to sleep when you’re in love because your life is much better than your dreams!”

A.J. had always assumed that it had either been a gift or that Oma had hung it up in there.
She had never imagined that she’d ever experience the effects of those words for real.

She took another sleeping pill that night after her phone call with Marissa.

It was probably the wine that caused it to work a little too well and to A.J.’s horror, she slept in.
She tried to approach Owen quietly about it but he was in no mood to be gentle and berated her in front of the crew again. This time she only managed to make it to a nearby bathroom before she burst in tears and it wasn’t even an entirely empty one.

Marissa’s words rang in her head: “Well, look, maybe he just wants to wait because he really likes you. Guys like that are more common than paperbacks and movies would have you believe.”

Maybe her friend was right.
Maybe she was the one who was being too sensitive.
Maybe she wasn’t being sensitive enough towards Owen and his struggles.
He had been trying to find an important book for the last while and A.J. felt awful considering that she hadn’t even tried to offer help in locating a copy.
Maybe she needed to try harder?
Maybe she needed to show her dedication more efficiently?

A.J. knew one thing for certain though, beneath it all.
She knew one thing that she didn’t want to say out loud.

Owen would never talk to Riley like that.

****

(September 1998)

“Thank fuck,” A.J. muttered under her breath, finally happening upon a payphone that still had a working, connected cord.

Marissa had suggested that she carry around one of those new GSM mobile phones to make their daily calls a bit easier but A.J. found them far too bulky to carry around. Also, if “Mortimer” was able to get the phone number for the hotel that she was staying in, she didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be able to do something to intercept her lines of communication with Marissa if he felt the need to.

A.J. slipped another quarter into the coin slot and checked the numbers on her phone card, aware of her own heavy breathing as she pressed the receiver to her ear. At the moment, it was vital that Owen Mortimer had no reason to suspect that she was anything but complicit with whatever he had planned.
While waiting on the dial tone, A.J. pried a cigarette box and lighter from her pockets. As though the world wanted to illustrate that her luck was about to run out, A.J. had just put a cigarette into her mouth when Marissa picked up.

She had to shimmy it back between her lips while bringing Marissa up to speed with what was going on.

“…and they’ll be expecting me back in the next few minutes anyway.”

“Hold the front door- he called your hotel room? How?”

“Not a fucking clue but trust and believe that I told the front desk to stop forwarding calls to my room that aren’t from you and I’ll be unplugging the phone outside of our decided hours. I’m not scared or anything but I don’t want him thinking that I’m going to be at his beck and call…”

Again.

“Ok, well like I said, if Gubberson or any of his little cronies put a hand on you-…Amy, are you smoking?”

“No,” A.J. said shortly, taking the cigarette from her lips and exhaling sharply. That woman had a sixth sense.
“…Amelia-Jane.”
“Ok, this is my first one today. I just need something to calm my nerves. I am cutting back though.”
“…and you promise me that you’re not doing anything harder?”
A.J. rolled her eyes and told herself for the thousandth time that this was what love felt like. “No…my only mood-altering substance is the sheer, adrenal thrill of working with those puppets again.” Her words came out dry and toneless but the sentiment was largely genuine.

“Mhmm, that’s the way it had better be.” Marissa yawned, reminding A.J. of their time difference. “Need me to do anything on this end?”
“Besides telling my regulars that I’m gone for the next week? No, it’s alri-…” She paused, a thought suddenly occurring to her. “Actually, is there any way that you could get in contact with the old network and ask about this supposed show revival? Mortimer told me that they have network approval but that would mean that Owen would have to come forward and admit to the legal team that he’s still alive because he still owns the rights to the show…”

“Unless he’s sold the rights and the name?”

“Right? That’s what I was thinking. I thought it’d be pretty out of character for him but I already think he’s done something to the puppets to make them more…I don’t know…lifelike? So, Christ knows what else he’s done.”

“Gotcha. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Mari. You’re a literal, fucking saint.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, sweetie.”

“How is everyone back home? Did you get any more of those Tattletale things sent in?”

“Three more, would you believe? I think those fuzzy little terrors are long overdue a recall.”

A.J. knew she had to run but talking to Marissa was so comforting that she allowed herself to stay on the line for as long as her phonecard would permit her to.
“There’s a world outside this neighbourhood,” A.J. told herself like a mantra. “There’s a world outside that studio.”

She finished her phone call and her newly guilt-ridden cigarette before heading back to the studio. The entrance that she’d been instructed to slip in through was closest to the kitchens and canteen so she made her way back there first.
Thankfully, Daisy Danger wasn’t there anymore- A.J. didn’t know if her stomach could take seconds of whatever Daisy was serving as part of her Early Bird Menu.

She was just starting to scrape the very corner of her memories for where Riley’s lab set would be in relation to where she was currently standing when A.J. became aware of the fact that Daisy-Bake Oven was whirring loudly in the corner of the room.

“Oh, goodie,” she thought, bemused. “It’s working. Maybe she’ll make me some papier-mâché or pottery for dessert next time.”
She was in the process of smirking at her own joke when her ears picked up an odd clicking and thumping coming from the machine. Frowning, A.J. moved closer, wondering if the heating element had come loose and mentally reviewing the process of fixing the machine. She’d hardly forgotten to tighten the wall screws? The last thing she wanted or needed at this point was to be accused of shoddy craftsmanship.

She was about a metre away from the giant oven when she suddenly became very aware that there was a second noise coming from the inside of the device.
Shouting.
Someone was shouting from inside the oven.

Someone was stuck inside the oven.

A.J.’s eyes widened and she all but leapt for the front-loading door, grabbing the handle and attempting to wrench it open. “Hold on! I’ve got it!” she shouted out, realising that there was something stuck in the door- a kind of long metal rod- keeping it shut. “O-Ok…I’ve got it. I’ve got it.” She pried the bar from the handle and flung it to the floor with a clatter before throwing the door open. “Ok, you should be able to-?”

Amidst the plumes of white clouds that rose from the giant oven door, a shaky, smudgy silhouette stumbled to its feet.
It appeared to be another hooded puppeteer, a little flushed but none of their exposed skin was burned, thankfully. Fully committed to their performance in a manner that was, (as always), quite impressive and also downright disturbing, they held their Handeepuppet fully aloft and thrust her out the oven door first.

“J-ee-sus H. F-F-FUCK!”
The pigtailed puppet let out a hacking cough and heavy breaths, running her little felt mittens all over her face and body. “I’m alive? I’m alive. I can’t believe I’m fucking alive…ugh…” She wriggled her tiny shoulders, seemingly dragging her puppeteer to sit up behind her.

“Hey, hey, take it easy,” A.J. cautioned, moving to the puppeteer’s side and trying to help them stand up. This hooded person had the same, strange, strong odour hanging around them as the rest of the puppeteers but didn’t seem as coordinated in their performance. “Are you ok? What happened?”

“Am I ok?! What the fuck do you think?! I was almost done Medium-Rare in there!” The little puppet gripped its own azure, pleated yarn pigtails in apparent agony. “I was running an orientation task for Riley when that fucking dog came after me!” the puppet exclaimed, her voice clear as day despite her puppeteer’s drunken stumbling. “I literally have no idea why but whenever Rosco sees me, it’s like I’m his favourite mailman and all he fucking wants to do is take a bite out of my ass!”

"So...you climbed into the oven to hide from Rosco?" A.J. glanced back at the huge, pink, children's toy.

"Yeah, it seemed like a great fucking idea at the time but even after that psycho-beast was gone, I couldn't do open the damn door."

The toymaker gestured to the metal rod on the floor, raising an eyebrow. "I found that wedged in the handle. I think that was your problem. It looks like someone might have tried to lock you in."

The puppet looked in the direction of the bar and let out a sardonic scoff. "What the fuck?! Just when I thought today couldn't get any worse, one of these nut-jobs in here has it out for me?" She folded her little arms, rolling her eyes in a manner that A.J. did not think was possible with the Handeepuppets. "I bet it was one of Daisy's kitchen crew. I probably coughed without covering my mouth or something. Tch...they're so petty like that."

Unlike the others, this puppeteer did not seem all that committed to their rhyming motif from the show. Maybe they were new? Or maybe they hadn’t drank the Kool-Aid (Riley Cola?) quite as hard?
Sensing an opportunity, A.J. dithered beside the hooded person. “Do you want some water? You don’t look so light on your feet.”

A.J. could have laughed when the puppet dismissively waved her little hand and rolled her eyes, saying: “Thanks but no thanks. Forget it. This one is on its last legs anyway. I can barely make it walk straight…” She jabbed a tiny, felt thumb in the direction of the faceless puppeteer. “At this rate, I’ve fucking failed orientation so I’ll probably be sent back to Human Resources to…”

The little puppet’s violet eyes seemed to focus on A.J. for the first time and its jaw dropped loose. The red-haired woman groaned as the puppeteer stumbled backwards slightly, becoming a bit of a dead weight in the wake of their puppet’s evident shock.

“Holy fucking shit! You’re a host! You’re a host without a hood!” she shouted, pointing (what would have been) an accusing finger (whole hand?) at A.J. “Your face! I can see your whole face! And your mouth isn’t sewn shut! And…fuck! You don’t have a puppet!? How the fuck did you get in here? Hosts aren’t supposed to…wait…”

Her little eyelids narrowed slightly in an apparent squint, her eyebrows flattening to convey scrutiny.
Funny, A.J. thought, she didn’t remember the Handeepuppets being quite so well-articulated for movement.

“Wait a second. I know who you are. I heard Nick’s Drama Club talking about you. You’re that host who’s coming here to help us.”

So host was just another word for “person”, then?

“Guilty as charged,” A.J. conceded, still trying to keep the puppeteer on their feet. They seemed to be breathing and talking just fine but they felt uncomfortably cold beneath their clothes and she could see flecks of blood on the person’s sleeves. “Look, are you sure you don’t want me to get you something? Is there a first aid station somewhere here?”

“I told you. It won’t do any good,” the puppet insisted, folding her little arms with impressive dexterity. “I didn’t finish orientation so they’re going to re-assign me a new host anyway.” She sighed, her wide mouth stretching into a frown as her brows arched downward. “Any second now, Riley’s gonna be over that PA system, calling me back to the lab.”

A.J. nodded, realising that once again, she probably wasn’t going to get any further with this individual when they weren’t willing to step outside the boundaries of this odd roleplay game that they were all so committed to.

“I’m actually headed to Riley’s lab myself,” she told the puppet, remembering to look at the little felt-creature rather than the hooded human. Speaking to one of the Handeepuppets up close was a lot less intimidating than speaking to one of the Handeemen. “If you wouldn’t mind showing me the way?”

“You actually want to go to Riley’s lab? Like you’re ok to just walk right in there?”

“Is there a reason that I shouldn’t be?”

The puppet rolled her purple eyes. “You hosts don’t know shit about how things work around here, do you?”

“Apparently not,” A.J. admitted. “Not as well as you any way. Maybe you could clue me in?”

The puppet opened her mouth and then closed it again, placing a little hand over her lips in hesitation. “We’re…not really supposed to talk to the hosts. Especially the ones with no puppets...” She moved her hands to her hips (the puppeteer’s wrist), seemingly finding her courage again. “So if Mortimer hasn’t told you something, you probably don’t need to know about it.”

“That’s fine,” A.J. said breezily, playing along. “I understand. I wouldn’t want you breaking any rules on my account…but like I said, if you’re heading to the lab anyway, there’s probably no harm in me following you. Right?”

The puppet’s eyes stayed narrowed for a moment before she let out an emphatic sigh and shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. I guess we’ll be “even” after this then.” The puppeteer began to stumble forwards, their puppet suddenly whipping her head back around to add: “But if anyone asks, I climbed out of that oven myself!”

“Sure. Scout’s honor,” muttered A.J., falling into step behind the puppet.

“What the fuck did you just say?!”
The puppet was suddenly inches away from her face; a tiny plush nose grazing the tip of a pointed freckled one. Her expression was angry but the puppet’s voice sounded overwrought with terror.

Mildly taken aback, A.J. replied by pointing out: “You’ve got a stitch loose over your nose.”

“Huh?” The blue-haired puppet’s eyes turned inward and her little hands suddenly clapped over the offending loop. “So what?”

“I can fix it for you, if you like.” A.J. took a needle from her collar lapel. “It’ll only take a few seconds.”

The puppet looked at the needle warily. “Will it hurt?”

This was a common question that children at the Toy Hospital would ask before their favourite teddies, dolls and action figures went under the proverbial knife, (or sewing machine or hot glue gun). Usually Marissa would sprinkle some “magic pixie dust” on the toy, courtesy of the Blue Fairy and Santa Claus, that would put them into a magic sleep where they would feel no pain. A.J. usually opted to give the toy an “anaesthetic” with an empty syringe.
Nick Nack had been pretty hardy when she had taken sandpaper to his head and Daisy Danger had allowed her to clean and wipe her bare eyeballs with hot water.
However, she then recalled the way the puppeteer had screamed when Daisy had taken their Handeepuppet’s arm with the pie cutter and not wanting a repeat-performance, opted for a more practical approach.

“It might pinch a little,” A.J. relented, pressing the needle against the pad of her own finger to check it for bluntness. “But I’ll be really quick, I promise.”

The puppet eyed the needle and then took a deep breath, closing her eyes tight. “O-Ok. Go on three, ok?”

“Ok. One…two…three…”
A.J. looped the loose thread around the needle only to be met by a cacophony of expletives from the blue-haired Handeepuppet as she thrashed around at the neck.

“HOLY SHIT! FUCK! OH MY FUCKING GOD! SHIT!”

A.J. retracted her hand sharpishly and briefly glowered at the hooded face behind the puppet girl. For a person who could barely stand, they sure were able to raise their voice and make a fuss when they wanted to.

“YOU SAID YOU’D BE QUICK!”
“I was trying to be quick but you started moving around. I can’t do it quickly unless you keep your han- your head still.”
“Ok, here’s a fun idea, Raggedy Ann! How about YOU keep the fuck still and I’ll poke YOUR face with a needle!?” She took another deep breath. “Ok, ok, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…I just…I’m not having a great day today…”
A.J. tried to be sympathetic, briefly casting her mind back to when her Oma would rip her BandAids off. “Ok…this time, when I count to three, you need to give a great big cough.”
“A cough?”
“Yeah, cough. It’ll make it easier to bear with the pain, ok?”
“Ok.” More deep breathing. More eye-closing. “Ok, go on three.”
“One…two…three…”

The puppet let out an impressively realistic sounding cough, despite the fact that puppeteer’s head barely moved.
A.J. had a chance this time around to loop the needle and tug the thread taut before tucking it back into the puppet’s peachy-coloured skin.

“Now…there we go,” A.J. murmured, running a thumb over the reset stitch. “All done…and you were very brave this time.”

“It’s…it’s over?” the puppet queried, still looking a little shellshocked.

“Yep, all good,” she replied, pulling a pocket mirror from her bag and showing the little puppet her face.
As infuriating as her puppeteer was, watching the puppet preen and blink and scrunch her nose was undeniably cute.

“Huh…not bad, Hosty, not bad. Those giant, fleshy pupa you call fingers really are good for something.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well…we’d better…uh…” The Handeepuppet reluctantly waved a hand in the direction of a nearby hallway. “…get to the Chop Shop.”

And so they walked side by side with A.J. occasionally helping the puppeteer walk straight when they started to fall over and making conversation with the puppet. A.J. had assumed that they’d be headed towards Riley’s laboratory set from the soundstages but the puppet seemed to be leading her towards the accounting wing.

“So, you’re here on like…special orders from Mortimer, right?”
“Yep. He called me to come all the way from New York.”
“Wow…New York…that’s where the Ninja Turtles are from…”
“…sure.”
“My favourite one is Raphael. What’s yours?”
“…Donatello.”
“Figures.”

The floor was littered with old pages, some of them recognisable as script pages while others were completely illegible. The walls were graffitied in places but not with any writing that she could read: rather with a vaguely familiar series of shapes and symbols. A loud scream rang out from somewhere else in the building prompting A.J. to jump slightly but the puppet and her puppeteer remained unmoved.

“Ahh, you’ll get used to that. Happens a lot ‘round here. Just be thankful it’s not you this time.”
Don’t ask questions. Don’t ask questions. Don’t ask questions. “Ok.”
“So…are the rumors true? Did you know Owen Gubberson?”
Rumors? Things really never fucking change, do they? “……in a manner of speaking.”
“That is so cool. Like literally, you got to meet God…what was he like?”
I should have left the oven closed. “He was…pretty devoted to his work…he really loved his puppets…” A.J. blinked, realising something. “Wait…haven’t you met him?”
The puppet looked up at her in confusion. “No. I mean how would I have-?”

“Today’s orientation is now completed! All unreturned puppets are assumed defeated!”

The voice on the intercom was instantly recognisable to A.J. and her puppet companion seemed to freeze up in fright, the puppeteer becoming a dead weight once again.

“Return to the lab unless you dare to have defected,” the sharp, dry voice went on, cold and authoritative. “You all possess more data that must be collected!”

The Handeepuppet gave an audible gulp, shuddering as the puppeteer seemed to attempt to stand up again.
“Well, it’s a good thing that we’re not far away now.”

They were just outside of the accounting wing, when the blue-haired puppet halted them in their tracks again.
The lights buzzed overhead, casting a flickering, sickly, off-white glaze on the hallway. For the first time, A.J. noticed that the once mundane grey carpet was now darkened with a series of brownish stains. That odour from before had also returned and now it was far stronger than before.
She had initially assumed that she was afflicted by the reek of unwashed skin and sweat-stained clothes but now the smell was completely different.
Familiar and jarring but she still couldn’t quite place it.

A pair of metallic double doors lay before them.
A.J. recognised them as once having led to a first aid room for cast and crew but now they had those strange symbols etched all over them. A series of bizarre lines, triangles and crescents.
All daubed in a series of red handprints of varying sizes.

“Well, here we are,” the puppet told her, voice quivering slightly. “You first. You’d better knock though. She gets pissy when you don’t knock.”

A.J. rolled her eyes, exhaling through her nose as she stepped forward to the door. She refused to allow the theatrics of these HandeeHeads consume her too.
Her knuckles had only barely grazed the door when the little puppet suddenly exclaimed. “Woah…by the way…has anyone ever told you that in a certain light, you kind of look like-?”

“Yes, yes they have,” A.J. grunted, rapping on the door and calling out before any other observations could be made. “Pardon for the interruption! Mr Handee told me to head up here when I was finished helping Miss Danger in the canteen?”

“Come inside,” the familiar voice called out from within. “And be sure to close the door behind.”

A.J. waited until the blue-haired puppet and her puppeteer were at her back before she pushed the door open and did what she was told. 

The room that had been dubbed Riley’s “lab” was truly a sight to behold but A.J.’s eyes were immediately drawn to the centre back of the room.

Mainly because of its occupant.

“Good afternoon, Miss Ruckus,” A.J. greeted rather stiffly.

A pair of eyes, one bright green and the other electric blue glared at her from over a grotesque mask as the puppet lifted her head to regard her visitors.

“You’re a lot more punctual than the lab mouse I once knew,” Riley chided, stained, green gloves coming to fold across her signature white lab-coat. “And while you’re in here, it’s Doctor Ruckus to you.”

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment.

(September 1998)

Riley’s new puppeteer carried her slowly into the light of the room. This black-hooded figure was far bigger and stockier than Jeanette but just as the other “new” puppeteers, they had managed to nail Riley’s voice and mannerisms, albeit with a slightly creepier edge.

Her fingers steepled as she approached, one of her eyes blinking slightly slower than the other.

Like her fellow Handeemen, Riley’s arms moved independently of their control rods. Unlike, Nick, Daisy or Mortimer, however, her entire body was obscured by the high collar and cuffs of her gloves and lab-coat. With the new addition of the mask covering where her jaw hinge would be, the wooden scientist looked eerily organic.
Uncannily human-like.

A.J. steeled herself once more and shrugged her bag on to her shoulder. Her mind ran back over her list of rules and she adopted her usual job demeanour.
“Very well. Doctor Ruckus, it is. How can I help you today?”

“I’ve been more than patient and I’ve been more than nice!” Riley snapped suddenly, her voice harsh as glass shattering. Before A.J. could respond, the scientist clarified by pointing at the blue-haired Handeepuppet behind her. “But now Scout, it appears that you’ve failed my tests twice!”

The puppet named Scout reluctantly shuffled forward, leading a sluggish and stumbling hooded puppeteer. “I don’t know what happened. M-My host just stopped working during the second test…I couldn’t make her arm raise higher than her head. I-I …think this one’s a defect…”

“Rhyme, Scout!” Riley barked, her dual-toned eyes narrowed over her mask.

“Right, right, right…uhh…I th-think this one m-might be-be broken….uhh…truer words have never been spoken?”

The scientist began to walk around the Handeepuppet, circling the smaller figure like a bird of prey. “I might be inclined to agree if it weren’t for the fact, that your first failure also showed what you lacked.” Riley pinched at the other puppeteer’s collar between her little fingers, seemingly prodding the skin of their neck. “I’ve supported you twice in your very clear goal and still you are unable to retain full control. Now you’ve forced my hand to give you a third try.” The red-haired puppet rounded on the cowering blue-haired puppet. “Do you think these hosts are in an unlimited supply?”

“N-No but I mean…it can’t just be my fault…I’m doing the s-same thing that everyone else is doing…uhh…uh…take that with a pinch of salt?”

Riley’s eyes clicked slightly as they rolled, her jaw shifting as her teeth gritted beneath the mask. “It is so impossible that you’re simply failing? The facts are evident, despite your whining and wailing.” The scientist grabbed the front of the smaller puppet’s t-shirt with a vice-like, gloved grip. “And you dare to defy my findings whenever you speak? What makes you so special? What makes you so unique?”

A.J. had been biting her tongue as per her discipline maintained but if “Scout’s” voice was anything to go by, the puppeteer was just a kid- probably in her late teens or very early twenties at best. Even if this was some kind of impromptu “bit” that she wasn’t quite following, something about the scene touched a rare, raw nerve within the older woman. She had watched Nick scream at his stage hand(puppet)s for getting the colour of a flood light wrong and witnessed Daisy mutilate one of her charm school pupils for dropping a napkin but something about the way Riley was tearing verbal strips from Scout genuinely bothered her.
It felt familiar.

“To be fair, she was stuck inside an oven when I found her,” A.J. pointed out, remembering to direct her attention to Riley rather than to her puppeteer. “All things considered, it’s a miracle that she’s able to stand up straight right now. Also, Scout here was kind enough to show me here in the first place. I mean that’s got to net her some points for initiative if it’s not too bold of me to say.”

There was a predatory clicking sound from Riley’s juddering jaw beneath her surgical mask and her head whipped around to regard the offending puppetless human in a manner that was both coldly dismissive and hotly seething. “You would do best to keep your mouth closed! It is not your place to offer comments or prose.” This was the first time Riley had spoken to her since she had set foot inside the makeshift lab and while there was something oddly invigorating about being addressed directly by the pint-sized scientist, the derision in her voice was enough to make A.J. take a literal step backwards. “Perhaps to you, this is not yet clear: your opinions hold little to no value here. You may think yourself familiar here but you could not be wronger. Our studio is ours, it is your world no longer. Keep in your own lane and heed my words, host. In our domain, as a human- you’re either an asset or a ghost.”

All the while Riley spoke, Scout was at her back, vigorously making gestures and mouthing something to A.J.
It was difficult to lip-read a handpuppet, much less the gestures of one who lacked clear elbows and fingers but her dramatic, voiceless charade seemed to be saying: “STOP TRYING TO HELP OR YOU’LL GET US BOTH KILLED.”

Not one to argue with her employers and deciding that it was best to err on the side of caution, A.J. reminded herself of rules three through five and conceded a gracious defeat.
“I apologise. I’m not trying to step on any toes here and clearly you all have your own way of dealing with this here so I’ll butt out in the future.”

Riley gave A.J. one lingering glower, her little eyelids giving sporadic, unsettling twitches before she rounded on Scout again.
“If it were up to me, you’d be Rosco’s next snack. No other puppet has failed on their second time back. However…” Riley breathed the name of their leader like a prayer. “… Mortimer has instructed me to let no puppet go to waste. So, get down to Human Resources with haste! Prepare for debriefing and severance and re-orientation. Until you complete your next trials, consider this your probation.”

Scout saluted, her comically tiny felt hand just barely managing to reach her emphatically wider brow. “S-Sure thing, Doc…you can count on me. Uh, here’s to round number three!”

“Now, get out of my sight!” Riley hissed, glaring at Handeepuppet until she scarpered away, the door swinging shut in with an ominous, resonant thud.
The little, blue-haired puppet appeared one last time in the window near the door to give a quick wave to A.J. before vanishing around the corner when she saw that the scientist was still watching her.

The red-haired puppet muttered something incoherent under her breath and returned to a nearby table, picking up a series of differently shaped beakers and setting them down following a thorough inspection. The puppeteer remained completely static as the puppet’s arms were busy at work, their chin slumped towards their chest as Riley surveyed each little glass container.
The scientist seemed fairly lost in her own thoughts, completely ignoring A.J. as she continued to murmur her thoughts in a barely audible conscious flow.
The human woman was no stranger to doing this herself and could understand the need for it. A.J.’s idealised work environment was typically on the quieter side but complete silence meant she was left alone with her thoughts and her thoughts could be louder, more distracting and more destructive than any chatty co-worker.

As a result, to keep herself from drifting too far into her own mind, she would often talk to herself (or to the toys) while she was working. The fact that she and Riley had something in common inspired enough confidence for her to clear her throat a little.

Neither the puppet nor her puppeteer turned to regard the woman standing behind, prompting A.J. to finally ask: “…so what is it exactly that I’m going to be helping you with today?”

Riley Ruckus stopped what she was doing, her small wooden shoulders slumped with exasperation. Any kinship that A.J. had felt with Riley dissolved when the scientist slammed the glass beaker down on to the table and glared over her shoulder.

“After all of this time,” she hissed, her small wooden hands clenching into fists. “Have you no shame? You think you can waltz back in here, without any blame?”

Once again, A.J. felt the raw, itch of irritation trying to claw its way up her throat but she swallowed it down, opting to maintain her professionalism. She was hopeful that invoking their leader’s name might soften her up a bit. “Mr Handee gave me a list of jobs that he’d like me to do. I’m currently supposed to be helping you here but look, if you don’t need me right now, I can move on to my next task and double back later.”

She turned around to face A.J., puppeteer and all, her arms folded and her eyes locked on to the face of the toy-maker. “I trust Mortimer’s judgement though I do not trust yours. Though with our prophet’s endorsement, I will assign you your little chores.” She beckoned A.J. to follow her with two fingers, murmuring. “I was here the first time, lest you forget. You left us once, you may do it again yet.”

Deciding to play dumb and polite, despite her sudden overwhelming desire to punch a wall, A.J. simply gave the standard answer that she’d give to any client: “Don’t worry, I’ll only leave when I’ve finished the job and all payments have been settled up. If anything happens and I have to go, Poughkeepsie Toy Hospital will send another employee to take my place.”

Riley didn’t reply to this but out of the corner of her eye, A.J. could tell that the puppet was glaring at her again. She had to hand it to the puppeteer: Riley’s movements were jarringly true to life and perfectly emulated the real spite of a human being.
The scientist led her to the back of the room to what would have been the sink. It had been covered in plywood and turned into some kind of makeshift workbench. The tables all around the room were covered in a series of what appeared to be miniature machines, all in various stages of construction. While none of their functions appeared immediately obvious, A.J. noticed that the majority of them seemed to features some kind of glass viewing slot or gear mechanism.
Riley came to a stop in front of an odd-looking contraption with a prominent, clear glass panel in the front and what appeared to be a funnel at the top.

“This,” she said with pride and a slight flourish. “Is my Super Fun Confetti machine. It’ll carve up paper and cardboard and everything in between. As of late, the product’s been spraying a little weak. I imagine something inside might need a little tweak.”

“You need a machine to make confetti,” A.J. thought astringently. “When you’ve got a whole damn maze made from confetti barrels in your kitchen?” She didn’t voice this concern however. “Don’t ask questions” and all that.

“Seems straightforward enough. I’ll take a look.” A.J. shrugged her duffle bag on to the ground and pulled her gloves on. “Is there any chance that I could turn on a few more lights?”

“My current study would be compromised if the room grows too bright,” Riley told her stiffly. “You will have to find an alternative source of light.”

“Fair enough.”
The woman took her head-torch from her bag and secured it around her bushy, red crown. This wasn’t the worst lighting she’d ever had to work in. Fazbear Entertainment’s Parts and Services rooms, (and vents), were usually close to pitch black on a good day and she’d never be afforded the luxury of a work bench, (or a torch with a long-lasting battery or enough room to stand up).

“The problem’s probably deep in the back. Don’t be afraid to really reach into the rack.” Riley’s voice had switched from brisk and seething to bizarrely amiable, not at all too different from her persona from the show. Feeling mildly suspicious but sticking to her number one rule, A.J. crouched down and started to take a look at the device.

Riley hovered for a moment, giving her uncomfortable flashbacks to the way Owen would stand over her while she was working. Uncle Theo, Jenna and Marissa were all equally prone to surveillance but in their cases, it always felt very protective, proactive and/or helpful.
Owen, on the other hand, was liable to suddenly shout that she was doing something wrong or to snatch the project away from her to finish it himself. Owen was particular; he always had a vision with regards to how he wanted something done. If anyone deviated too far from his desired methodologies, he was prone to stepping in and insisting that he would do it himself for fear that it wouldn’t turn out right.
Of course, he had the right to do this. It was his show- they were his designs- after all and having earned the privilege of being called an auteur, he had the prerogative to act as he wanted to in regards to the art that was produced under his watch.
Still.
A.J. had been taught to deal with criticism from a young age but she hated having something done for her. As a creator and craftswoman, it made her feel distinctly declawed.

Thankfully, Riley made no comment before returning to whatever she had been doing behind the curtain at the far side of the room. Every few minutes, there would be a loud squelching sound and something heavy would fall upon the floor, followed by the scientist’s manic muttering.

A.J. squinted in the light of her head-torch, finally managing to pry the side panel of the confetti machine open and greeted by the ominous winks of several shredding gears. Even through her gloves, she could feel the bite of each blade as she gave a few experimental turns to the rotary component.
She winced, calling out. “The blades on the gears are a bit long for paper, Doctor Ruckus. Their length might be causing them to get stuck. You could probably afford to shorten them a bit or to blunt them, maybe? It wouldn’t compromise their cutting power.”

“There is no flaw in my design!” Riley shouted back. “When in operation, the gears usually turn just fine! The blades have only recently got stuck in the machine. There must be something lodged in between.”

Just as Riley said so, A.J. noticed an odd little metal disc caught wedged in between two of the gears. She frowned, realising quickly that it couldn’t be manually dislodged or even wiggled slightly. She would have to prise it out with her screwdriver or remove the rotary bar entirely.
It was as she was searching her bag for the desired screwdriver that the pattern on the floor evoked memories in her.
She could remember when the room had been a med-bay for the studio. There was sometimes a nurse on standby and other times, staff would be expected to patch themselves up between takes.

Her first time in there, the nurse had asked her if she’d been sleeping and eating alright. A.J. told the nurse that yes, she had been eating and sleeping properly and that it was probably just the heat that had caused her to faint in the sewing room.
During her second time in the medical room, the nurse had pointedly asked her if she’d been taking any prescription medications. A.J. hung her head and told the nurse that no, she hadn’t. Technically the pills she’d been taking weren’t prescription and she wasn’t supposed to snitch on Mark from Accounting.
It was during her third and final time in there that the nurse had finally asked about the bandages around her forearms. A.J. had been trying to discreetly to redress them but had been caught rifling through the drawers by the eagle-eyed nurse. She told the nurse that she’d accidentally sliced her bare arms with some workshop tools while wearing a t-shirt.
“I was just being stupid,” she told the nurse, avoiding eye-contact at all costs and resolving to never leave her arms uncovered at the studio again. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
“And these marks?” The nurse motioned to the scattered red dots on her upper right arm.
“I don’t know,” A.J. said truthfully this time. “Bug bites maybe? I can’t remember getting them. They don’t really itch or hurt though.”
The nurse let her change her own bandages in private and dismissed her, but not before stuffing a pamphlet with phone numbers into her hand and saying: “Look, this type of work environment isn’t for everyone, sweetheart.”
A.J. knew that the nurse meant well but those words just about ripped her soul from her body.

She was offered a much-welcomed escape rope from her own thoughts by the sound of something thumping on the double doors at the opposite end of the room. There was a scrambling and scuffling and then the doors clattered open.
Crouched down, A.J. couldn’t see what was going on but she could definitely hear the very loud, ungainly footsteps that resonated through the floor.
Then came the barking.

“Oh Rosco! There’s my good boy!” she could hear Riley cooing. “Did you find a new treat? Did you find a new toy?”

She managed to prise the little disc from the gears, realising that it was some kind of badge with Mortimer’s face on it. She popped the rogue pin from its place and set it down to the side.

Now, Rosco, was a puppet that A.J. was interested to see again. If Owen had been making any modifications to his original designs- particularly in the mechanical department- it would be extremely obvious on the dog puppet. Additionally, Rosco had always been the hardest puppet to maintain on the show and if he needed restoration work- he was going to be the most time-consuming job.

A.J. craned her neck slightly to steal a glance at the oversized puppet dog but he had already ambled around the corner to follow his beloved mistress. The most she could see of him was his long, rope-like, (dubiously stained), tail whipping back and forth and causing the nearby work tables to rattle precariously.

“Come here, Rosco! That’s it, now! Sit for me…”
Thump.
“Now drop what you’ve found!”
THUD.
“Oh, this is perfect for my study. Well done! We’ll play fetch later and have such fun.”

A.J. was still straining to get a look at the pair when she realised that her long sleeved work shirt was caught in some kind of loose hook at the top of the machine. Instinctively and with no regard for her clothing, A.J. tugged on the hook to free herself.
To her horror, the machine suddenly sprang to life, growling like a beast as the gears began to turn. Despite her frantic tugging backwards, her sleeve remained firmly affixed to the roof of the shredder. The gears whirred, hissing like a pit of serpents as they reached their highest speed. A.J. turned her attention to the control panel but no matter what button she pressed, it made no difference. The power cord was also too far out of her reach.
Her heart hammering as her panic mounted, A.J. realised that the only way to free herself was going to be to push her hand further into the machine. Gloves or not, she noted in horror, those blades were going to slash her fingers to ribbons.

“H-Hey!” she called out. “Ri- Doctor Ruckus! Could I get a hand over here?!”

“Who’s a good boy, Rosco? You are! That’s right, my prodigious star!”
More barking.
More tail-wagging.

And now the blades appeared to be moving.

“I’ve got my sleeve caught in your machine. It won’t turn off! How do I-?!”

“You’ve been such a great helper, Rosco. You never get into trouble. I think for treats tonight, I’ll give you double!”
Even more barking.
Even more tail-wagging.

The blades were definitely moving now.
And Riley was almost definitely ignoring her.

A.J. looked around for something to help. Seizing a moment of inspiration, she stuck out her screwdriver and attempted to wedge it in the gears. The gears spluttered as they chewed on the handle, slowing enough for their individual, gleaming blades to be seen.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck….”
A.J.’s frantic glancing around paid off tenfold when she spied a meat cleaver on a nearby table and using her leg to hook the table closer, she managed to grab it. She sliced at her own sleeve, severing the cloth and allowing her to pull her arm away. A.J. had just enough time to yank the screwdriver out before the gears consumed it entirely, roaring back up to full speed with gnashing teeth.
The tattered piece of her sleeve was shredded in seconds, giving her a stark reminder of the fate of her flesh would have been as the tattered khaki canvas sprayed from the top of the machine in a grim fanfare.

“Ah good, you got it working, I see. Perhaps you will be useful enough to work with me.”

She looked up to see Riley standing behind her.
Even with the mask on her wooden mouth and the puppeteer’s face hooded, A.J. could hear the smirk on her face as she spoke.

“You were even kind enough to give it a test. I suppose you really must be trying your best.”

A.J. got to her feet, brushing the residual dust from her pants and jacket, finding it very difficult not to glare at Riley Ruckus as she spoke. “Yeah, there was some kind of pin stuck inside it. It’s probably an idea to put some kind of cover over the top…or y’know, have some kind of fail-safe in case anything else gets stuck inside.”

“I have more pressing matters to attend to today,” Riley retorted haughtily, folding her arms. “But it’s something I might consider anyway.”

“Is Rosco still here?” A.J. asked, trying desperately to distract herself from wanting to slap the taste out of the puppet’s obscured mouth.

“I sent him out on another trail,” Riley told her, again beckoning for the human woman to follow with the air of a manager chiding an unruly lackey. “To find any stray puppets who seem destined to fail. No need to worry or fret. You’ll meet him very soon, I bet.”

The puppeteer’s choice of condescending tone was starting to grate on A.J.’s nerves. Nick had been obnoxious, Daisy had been overbearing and Mortimer inspired a constant anxiety in A.J. that was hard to describe in mere words. Riley was the only one of the four, however, who seemed actively committed to demeaning her.
She could handle crazy, she could handle cringe-worthy and she could handle cruelty. She gave Nick Nack feedback on a song that she hadn’t willingly listened to in six years. She ate fucking paper and thanked Daisy Danger for it. She was currently letting Owen Mortimer get away with playing some kind of weird mind game with her and his cult.

What she couldn’t handle was being talked down to.
She’d endured years of that kind of bullshit from her seniors in almost every work environment she’d ever been in. Now, having finally clawed her way out of the metaphorical wreckage to a place where she should be respected, she was being condescended to by one of Owen’s new fan-girls who thought she was all that because she could do a decent impersonation of Jeanette Park.
Who also, it seemed, wasn’t even capable of keeping Riley clean never mind in full working order.

Her next assigned duties mainly involved washing suspiciously stained beakers, testing Bunsen burners by adjusting a very precarious gas valve and connecting a series of electrical wires. Riley had returned to her work behind the curtain, seemingly content to have A.J. as her personal servant, doing whatever undesirable work that there was to be done.

A.J. had finished sweeping the laboratory floor when she noticed the strange substance that streaked one of the walls. It was an odd brownish sludge that seemed to be drying in some places and remaining unsettling damp in others.
It reminded her of something specific that she’d seen before and while tempted to inspect it further…

Don’t Ask Questions.
Don’t Lose Focus on the Task at Hand.

“I’m done with the floor,” she told Riley at a distance, having learned very quickly that approaching the curtain was a big, big no-no. “I guess before I head off, the last thing I’ll have to do is to give you a look over.”

The scientist emerged from the curtain, her puppeteer remaining hidden. “When you say “look over”, what exactly-?”

“I need to clean you. Fix you up. Check you for any weaknesses…”
“You dare to imply that I’m sub-parr!? Mortimer will hear about how insubordinate you are!”
A.J. sighed. “I’m not trying to say that you’re sub-anything. This is what I was brought in to do. I just need to perform maintenance on you to make sure that you’re ready for The Handeemen’s big comeback. Think of it like going to a beautician…or to the doctor…”
“Do not use a title that you have not yet earned. Such things are sure to leave your betters spurned.”
“Look, I already looked after Nick and Daisy and if you ask them-.”

Riley suddenly charged at her, dragging her puppeteer in tow. Unlike Scout, her puppeteer was far more sure-footed, executing the perfect furious stride to mirror the puppet’s emotions. Just like Scout, however, it always seemed as though the puppet was leading the puppeteer and not vice versa.

“Those two may be content to have their beings minced but I remain sorely unconvinced!” Riley pointed an accusing finger at her. “You abandoned your post once before and have yet to prove yourself truly loyal once more.”

“Abandoned-?” A.J. had to blink hard to stop herself from rolling her eyes, biting the inside of her cheek to remind herself not to lose her temper. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to and well, I came back, didn’t I?”

“I fucking got on a plane and forced myself to come back to this godforsaken place that my therapist and closest friends warned me to never come near again, didn’t I?”

Riley let out a bark of laughter, throwing her head backwards. “Your intentions are poor and motivation is no greater. You’ve returned to repair your relationship with our estranged creator. I’ll continue to care for my own skin and joints if your only ambitions are to score brownie points.”

“And you’ll continue to do a truly shit job of it too, if that jaw lock is anything to go by.”

A.J. couldn’t stop herself from scoffing this time. “You think I’m only here to impress Owen?”

“I am not the naïve, stupid, emotionally dependent fuckwit that I used to be.”

“That much is clear. Why else would you be here?” Riley spat, the picture of righteous indignance where she sat upon her puppeteer’s outstretched arm.

“You know it wasn’t just Owen who called me?” A.J. informed her, trying a new strategy. This version of Riley seemingly worshipped the ground Mortimer (walked?) on. “It’s actually Mr Handee who I’ve been dealing with for the most part and I don’t know if he’s told you but I’ve been pretty compliant, all things considered.”

“Mortimer tells me everything; do not insult me! But whatever it is, he sees in you. I do not see!” She rolled her head to one side, her neck clicking rhythmically in a way that made A.J.’s fingers itch with a desire to tighten her bolts. “You were not with us when Mortimer gained his new powers. You are from the host world- you have no right to join ours.”

“New pow-?”
Don’t ask questions.
A.J. coughed slightly and started again, now desperately trying to keep her tone civil. “I don’t want to join anything. That’s not what I’m here for. Look, Doctor Ruckus, if you don’t want me to touch you, that’s fine. I’ll leave. I’m literally only carrying out the tasks that Mr Handee asked me to do so if the idea of me performing maintenance on you bothers you that much then just take it up with him. Now if there’s no other jobs that you need me here to do...”

Riley laughed, shaking her head and jostling her shoulder joints. “As expected. You leave as soon as you feel disrespected. My, my, you give up easily when the worst has transpired? It appears, as I suspected, your resilience leaves much to be desired.”

Her resilience left much to be desired?

This was the statement that broke her.
It was the final, tension-bearing string that snapped and split her open at her seams.

Who the hell was this pretender think she was?
She had taken all kinds of verbal abuse and pointed comments from the likes of Roxanne Wolf and Circus Baby, (usually while elbow-deep in a stomach cavity or trying to concentrate on testing sequence). The difference was that both of those clients had been animatronics. Advanced, artificial intelligence who were both practically programmed to be as blunt and direct as possible with their feelings.

This mouthy puppeteer wasn’t even the real Riley Ruckus.
The hooded woman standing before her was nothing more than some fanatic drone that Owen had picked up from God-Knows-Where and taught a few puppeteering tricks to.
She was a counterfeit.

Despite the chorus of better judgement in the back of her mind, screaming at her to just turn around and leave the “lab” right now, A.J. folded her arms in a vaudevillian mockery of Riley’s own stance. “Ok. I’ll bite. What exactly is it going to take for me to prove to you, Dr Ruckus, that I am worthy of performing maintenance on you? Because if apparently, showing up, putting up with whatever sideshow you’ve all been playing in and almost getting my hand torn off in that shredding machine is not sufficient evidence that I’m on board here, I am more than happy to go the extra mile.”

Riley Ruckus was eerily silent for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth, like a lioness getting ready to pounce.
Just when A.J. genuinely thought that she might actually tackle her to the ground, the puppet spoke in an unsettlingly quiet voice. “What exactly is it that you would want to do to me?”

This caught the human woman off guard but not wanting to spoil this sudden progress, she replied quickly. “I’d want to start with a general face clean. Retrace some of your freckles.” She surveyed the puppet, mentally going through her notes. “Then I’d repaint your pupils and reset your eyelids. After that, I’d just have to take a look at your jaw-.”

“Cease your petition. You may work on my eyes only,” Riley declared, turning around and beckoning for A.J. to follow her. The red-haired woman was just starting to feel a small trickle of relief seep across her skin when the scientist suddenly stopped and added: “Under one small condition…”

Of course.

“And that would be?”

“Simple and true.” Riley’s puppeteer sat on a nearby workbench, crossing her legs as the puppet settled by her side. “Whatever you do to me, I may do to you.”

“I…”

A.J. considered this for a moment. Based on how quickly Riley Ruckus had changed her mind on the matter, this had to be some kind of trick intended to intimidate her.
“Alright fine,” the toymaker responded, deciding firmly to call the scientist’s bluff as she unzipped her duffle bag like an archer setting down their quiver.

She started by taking out a micro-fibre cloth and pouring some cleaning solution on to it.
“This will take some of grime out of your skin but it won’t compromise the lacquer.”
“I certainly hope that it’s just as beneficial for you.”
“I’m guessing the mask stays on? And you stay on your…host’s arm?”
“You learn quickly when you want to.”

The cleaning fluid did the trick and got rid of most of the dubious staining on Riley’s face, tinging the cloth a murky rust. Navigating around the surgical mask strings was tedious but the scientist did not protest. Largely because she seemed to be anticipating her own turn.
No sooner had A.J. withdrew her hand did Riley suddenly seize the bottle and cloth from her, dumping a generous amount of the solution on to the soiled material.

“W-Wait a second,” A.J. spluttered, taken aback by the puppet’s surprising strength. “You need to-.”
“Quiet now. My turn!”

Riley thrust the cloth on to the human woman’s face, mirroring the same wiping and cupping motions albeit with tiny wooden fingers occasionally dragging against and pinching down on the skin.
A.J. had accidentally splashed herself with this solution many times before and was habitually accustomed to the strong smell. That odour paired the sudden burning sensation in her skin however caused her throat and eyes to start itching. To top it all off, she’d been ripping at the skin of her lip earlier- one of her old anxiety traits starting to surface again. The cleaning solution immediately caused the abused skin to sting, which in turn made her grimace and squirm. A hot tear ran down one of her cheeks.

“Getting emotional, A.J.? This is rather nostalgic. Rather like the old days.”
This was the first time ever that Riley had said her name and while there was something genuinely elating about this fact, she did not want the puppeteer to get any satisfaction from her reaction. “It’s the cleaning fluid. It’s an irritant to eyes that aren’t made of wood or glass.”

A.J. pulled a clump of tissue from the pocket of her khaki trousers and wiped her eyes and nose, noting the small flicker of disgust that came across Riley’s features. The nuanced movements that the Handeemen were capable of were truly stunning and being able to work on a Handeeman puppet again was nothing short of exhilarating.
“This,” A.J. thought. “This is what I missed the most.”

“Ok, up next, we’re going to do your eyelids,” she told the puppet, taking a small, ball-tipped graver from her tools wallet. “Is that alright?”
“Do whatever you need to. Provided that I may do the same to you,” came Riley’s curt reply, her eyes settling on the tool with an almost ravenous glow.

“Right…right…”
Letting her muscle memory take over, A.J. lightly palmed Riley’s cheek with one hand and gently pushed the graver under her right eyelid. The scientist, (in stark contrast to Scout), made no complaints and so the toymaker continued with her work. This a common issue with Riley’s design that she would occasionally be allowed to correct while working on the show. The puppet’s wooden eyelashes would often weigh down her lids and because her eyeballs were bigger than Daisy’s, the eyelids would sometimes droop unevenly and give Doctor Ruckus a rather manic-looking squint.

“You know,” Riley said suddenly, her moving jaw under A.J.’s hand almost causing the woman to jump slightly. “I once heard people say that you look like me.”

A.J. let the eyelid click into place and gave it experimental nudge before moving on to the second eye. “Is that right?” She was in no mood for this topic and it was a conversation that she’d never imagined having with the Riley Ruckus nor did she actually want to have this conversation with the  Riley Ruckus. “That’s news to me. I’m flattered.”

“Such a similarity that I do not see.”

“Thank fucking Christ, that makes two of us.”

A.J. wiped the graver with her micro-fibre cloth and was about to put it back into her bag, only to have Riley suddenly snap.

“Are you forgetting something? Surrender the device!” The scientist gestured over her shoulder to a nearby tray of what looked like severely stained, severely damaged dental tools. “Or perhaps I should try my own. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Gritting her teeth behind sore, picked-at lips, A.J. conceded defeat and reluctantly handed Riley the graver. “Alright, just be care-.”

Before A.J. could offer any kind of caution, Riley’s curved, gloved fingers were fast upon her chin, holding it like a vice. The puppet shoved the graver into A.J.’s right eye, causing her to cry out. Riley held her face forward and despite her protesting blinks, managed to squeeze the graver under the eyelid in a twisted mockery of what had been done to her own wooden visage.
A.J. stayed true to her word and didn’t try to push Riley away but the puppet’s dexterity was terrifyingly precise even by the standards of what the toymaker could remember. She tried to let her mind wander, to leave the scenario, by considering what changes Owen had made to the puppets but the sudden feeling of the little metallic ball prodding her bare eyeball beneath her lid was too galling to ignore.

“Now, now, surely you’re being dramatic,” Riley sneered, very much enjoying her needling. “I was able to remain silent and static.”

After what felt like an eternity, Riley finally released the toymaker, leaving what felt like painful imprints on her chin and her eyes red-raw no doubt.

Blinking indignant, unwanted tears and lying to herself that the worst of it is was over, A.J. took the opportunity to obscure her face with her duffle bag. She took out the leather wrap that contained her paintbrushes and selected the Rigger in 14A, wiping the tip slightly. “Now,” she said, her voice slightly more ragged than she wanted it to be and thick with the burning in her sinuses. “I’m just going to use a bit of basic black paint to expand your pupils a little.”

This would be where a sensible person might have seen the writing on the wall and left the lab, cutting their losses. However, A.J. had truly forgotten how much she loved working on these puppets. Nick and Daisy had been a quick taste of the old days but now, performing maintenance on Riley was fast-solidifying her original addiction. No matter what other substances she’d ever clung to the coat-tails of, restoration was her drug.
The process was a lulling relaxant with just enough zap to keep her awake while the results were always a powerful natural high. That and the after-math usually didn’t involve her being broke, sick or in an emergency room.
Usually.

A.J. traced Riley’s pinprick pupils, gently fleshing out the circles so that they were in better proportion to the rest of her matte white sclerae. Her second hand cradled the back of Riley’s head as she’d been taught to do, gently applying pressure to avoid her neck bending too far forward or too far backwards.
There was something satisfying about watching the sable paint spiral from the damped bristles and seep into the ashes of its colour from years past. Sometimes A.J. wished she could do that to her own skin, letting new hues seep into all of the scars, bruises, broken blood vessels and pock marks.
She could recall the sizing from memory but just to be thorough, she was sure to consult her diary before dotting in the finishing lines. Owen had always been wary of A.J.’s preference for eyeballing her measurements, (no pun intended).

“Right,” A.J. began to say to the puppet and her puppeteer. “We’ll need to let you dry for a few seconds before I set the paint.” She started to remove her gloves, finding herself looking more at the hooded person than the wooden scientist. “Also look, I get that you want me to “prove myself” or whatever but to be fair, I’ve let you do a lot so far.” A.J.’s eyes had been scanning the page of her diary that pertained to Riley, making sure that she hadn’t missed anything.
Riley’s responding silence was a little jarring. She felt the work bench judder at her leg as the puppeteer shifted their weight slightly. This also took A.J. by surprise; she hadn’t been anticipating that Doctor Ruckus would be so agreeable at the last hurdle. She readjusted the zipper of her bag and the fact that the little, plastic growl stood out in an otherwise silent room, prompted her to say: “So, is that ok with you? Are we d-?”

A.J. had only just looked up when the puppeteer suddenly lunged at her, tackling her to the ground. She blindly grabbed at a nearby mini-table, sending its contents clattering to the ground in a vain attempt to stand up again. She was quickly thwarted by the hooded puppeteer’s free hand grabbing her by the throat and shoving her back down.
A less dizzy and disorientated A.J. might have seized the opportunity to keep her arms free but alas, before the idea could even occur to the woman, the puppeteer was straddling her midsection and pinning her arms to her sides.

The puppet loomed over her with a paintbrush in hand, brandishing the black, tipped fronds like a ceremonial spear or a hunter, admiring their own weapon.
“A mere lab rat thinks she can order me around?” Riley sneered, a low, throaty laugh rippling from where her lower throat would be. “I should remind her of her status, upon the ground!”

The free hand of the puppeteer reached down and forced the eyelids of A.J.’s right eye apart, peeling back the skin with fingers that were clammy to the touch and unforgiving. The unplaceable, revolting odour from before was back and worse than ever. She tried to squirm and flail in protest, only to have her head slammed back against the ground, disorientating her again.
Riley stabbed the brush into her open eye, prompting A.J. to cry out in pain. The pressure on her eyeball was dizzying and unbearable, the bristles dragging across her sclera were agonisingly itchy and the paint seeping on to her bare eyeball created a burning sensation far worse than the cleaning solution. Tears sprang to her eyes, flowing freely down her face, her nose starting run too as spittle seeped from the corner of her lips.

“I’ll blind you a second time, scoop your eyes from your face,” Riley all but growled, dragging the soiled brush, “painting” A.J.’s face in a kind of perverse daubing. “And then maybe next time you’ll remember your place.” Unforgiving wooden fingers, sharp under their rubber gloves pinched her chin again, forcing her head to stop thrashing around. “This return was meant to demonstrate your contrition. How dare you try to rebuke one of my conditions?”

“Riley! Have you seen Amelia-Jane anywhere? The woman appears to have disappeared into thin air.”

The scientist and her puppeteer froze. The restrained toymaker froze too.
The duo (trio?) falling still like a pair of marionettes whose strings had been pulled taut.

Mortimer’s voice was right outside the door of the laboratory.

A.J.’s eyes met Riley’s, greyish denim and raw red meeting vivid blue and atomic green.
An unspoken understanding seemed to pass between them, communicated entirely by a shared wide-eyed stare and a shared clenched jaw.
A.J. couldn’t read the puppet’s mind- nor would she ever claim the ability to- but she got the distinct impression that the wooden magician would not be overly happy to see what Riley was doing to his hired help. More importantly, she knew that if Mortimer was outside, that meant Owen was outside too.
The last thing she needed right now was for Owen to see her pinned down by one of his cultists or God forbid, to be her rescuer in this situation.

“I-I’m in h-h-here!” she managed to choke out. “Just helping D-Doctor Ruckus!”

“Ah, wonderful. I am certainl-.”
The door started to creak open.
Oh no, no, no.

“You can’t come in!” A.J. suddenly shouted out, Riley’s hands now slowly withdrawing from her face but her eyes staying locked on the human woman’s draped in a strange gauze of disbelief, confusion and suspicion.

The door continued to open, a familiar shadow slowly stretching across the floor.

“A.J., my dear, is something wrong? Do you need me to help you both along?”

“No! Don’t come in! We’re…doing female things!” she blurted out.

The door stopped.
Mortimer was silent.
Riley’s wooden eyebrows shot into her hairline, her left eye twitching slightly.

“We’re…dressing!” A.J. felt the overwhelming need to clarify. “We’re getting dressed.”

Riley’s eye twitch became ten times more pronounced and her small form began to quiver too, her hands curling into fists.
Mortimer remained unsettlingly silent but the door did not close and the shadow did not retract.

“I was just giving Riley her torso check-over and I spilled something on my shirt so I had to change!” A.J. rambled further, giving Riley her best version of a what-the-fuck-else-do-you-want-me-to-say face. “So now we’re both just getting dressed again!”

Euphoric relief washed over her when Mortimer’s silhouette finally jerked to life again, simply conceding with a little bow of the head. “Oh, I see. I apologise for the confusion and further for my intrusion. Riley, can I assume that you can still freely speak? I promise to remain here and not to peek.”  

“Yes, Mortimer!” she replied with a mixture of staunch loyalty and fanatical eagerness. Mercifully, her puppeteer also shifted her weight enough for A.J. to regain her breath. “How can I help you today?”

“There’s a certain little puppet waiting down in H.R. Apparently she went through your trials but did not get very far,” Mr Handee orated, his shadow moving animatedly as though he was conducting an invisible orchestra. “I must know: how long will it be before she can progress? As you know, we do not have time to delay her next test.”

Riley rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth and grabbing at her face in exasperation before saying, (in a far sweeter tone than her expression had suggested): “I will ensure that Scout is- for the third time- given a fair shot. I’ll return to Human Resources to see what other available hosts we’ve got.”

“Marvellous! We must make haste. No single puppet can go to waste,” Mortimer continued, his shadow still bobbing around enthusiastically. “In order for our plan to come to prompt fruition, I need to know that I can rely on your continued tuition.”

“Our ranks are well stocked but I’ll continue to provide education,” Riley replied, looking towards the door as her puppeteer finally dismounted A.J. “The thought of our next step fills me with elation.”

“Splendid. Well, I’ll leave you two ladies to yourselves,” Mortimer said, the door finally closing full. “And A.J., I’ll catch you later, possibly somewhere else?”

“Yeah. No problem,” A.J. called out, hands fumbling for the tissue in her pocket to wipe at the eye that Riley had been prodding. “I’ll see you around.”
“For now, farewell, ladies.”

“Farewell, Mortimer!”
“Bye.”

A.J. stayed sitting on the ground, rubbing at her abused eye as another stream of hot tears seeped slowly from beneath her palm and meandered down her face.
Riley’s puppeteer was back on her feet again and the sudden rattling of the gurney at A.J.’s back confirmed that the puppeteer’s hand was gripping the bars for support.

The human sniffed back in a half-effective attempt to unblock her sinuses and wiped her face with one of the cleaning rags in her bag as her wad of Kleenex had soon dissolved to splinters.
“So, you going to do the second eye now, Doctor Ruckus?”

“No. That would be rather counter intuitive.”

An unspoken understanding passed the two of them.
Mortimer endorsed and required A.J.’s labour If Riley harmed A.J. too severely, this would upset Mortimer. Riley did not want to upset Mortimer. Therefore, Riley could not continue her desired act of retribution. The fact that A.J. had not snitched on Riley might have played a role in her sudden change of modus operandi.
It was unlikely but it might have.
The puppet remained silent while A.J. got to her feet, readjusting her shirt and cleaning residue from her face. The woman fished out her pocket mirror and grimaced at the face that stared back at her. “Fuck…”
Despite her best efforts to clean her face, her afflicted eye was still an angry, raw red, lined with flecks and smudges of black.
Now, just like Riley, she had two different coloured eyes.

She looked over at her unwitting doppelganger, only to see that Riley was already staring in direction with a nigh unreadable glower like a cat contemplating whether or not to swat at the family’s hamster.
Their mutual silence was barely treading the line of uncomfortable when the puppet spoke a single word.

“Dressing.”

“I had to say something,” A.J. retorted, moving to her duffle bag and rooting through the contents for her setting spray. “You didn’t want him coming in here either.”

Her breathing was still too fast and too heavy for her own liking.

“True…but dressing? You couldn’t think of anything less distressing?”

A.J. shrugged, laughing slightly. “I panicked. It was the first thing that came into my head.” She pulled her desired can from the bag and surveyed Riley’s eyes. “The next thing that I should be doing is spraying your eyes to keep the paint from flaking.” She placed the can on the table. “But I won’t do it unless you want me to.”

“…the task doesn’t seem to take require any specific skill. I would far prefer to do it to myself, if you will.”

“Sure. Just hold it three to six inches away from your face and try not to blink,” A.J. said with a sigh, not wanting to argue and content that Riley didn’t seem intent on doing the same to her. “The spray takes about two minutes to dry and it might be a bit sticky at first.”

The puppet picked up the can in her small hands and fumbled with the cap for the moment before her puppeteer’s hand joined the fray to make things easier.
A.J. took a moment to take out her diary and to add a few corrections to her pages on Riley. Seeing the puppet up close, there were some features that she had entirely forgotten about since her Handeemen days.

“Are those notes about me?” Riley asked, craning at length to peer at A.J.’s diary.
“Yeah,” the red-haired woman said, feeling a little bashful as she’d never had one of her non-human clientele openly view her personal notes. “From back when I used to work here and some revisions after today. Namely that you don’t seem to want me touching your jaw…”

A.J. watched the puppet as she examined the two pages that layered with a series of photographs, sketches and pencil-scrawled notes written in shorthand. It was all information about Riley; particular shades of colour that were used in her paint, her different working parts, her maintenance requirements, her components and any quirks that made her unique t work on. She’d first started compiling her mini-scrapbooks on each puppet while working with Owen and had quickly made a habit of doing one for every puppet, animatronic or toy that she’d ever worked with.

“You were my first actually,” A.J. said, prompted by some kind of intangible nostalgia as she stared at a poorly lit Kodak photo of Owen affixing Riley’s goggles to her hairline. “The first one I stared writing notes about, I mean.”

Riley murmured something mostly inaudible, her small wooden fingers running along the lines of writing wedged between each photograph.
“What does this say?” she finally said aloud, still very brisk in tone but her voice was mercifully, far quieter.

“Sandy brown, hue twelve point four paired with rust ochre, hue one point six,” A.J. read aloud, realising that the puppet probably couldn’t read shorthand. “Between three and one millimetres in diameter. Use H5 arrow tipped paintbrush, consult blueprints for placement.”

“And what, pray tell, does it mean?”

“Your freckles. Their colour and measurements. If Owen was busy, he used to let me retrace them from time to time. The stage lights used to dull them.” She tilted her head to look at both Riley and the faceless puppeteer. “Do you remember?”

“No,” the wooden scientist told her flatly, though she looked to A.J. again. “Do you use the same colours to trace your own?” To the human woman’s surprise, there was the tiniest hint of mirth to her words.

“Nah,” A.J. told her, shaking her head. “If any of mine fade, I just stand in the sun for two minutes and about three billion pop up to replace them.”

“How utterly chaotic.”

“Owen and I used to call them my factory defects because it looks like someone just spattered paint all over me at random. There nowhere near as precise as yours.” A.J. took her work gloves off, a little drunk on her own relief at the situation and suddenly prompted to add. “I’m like the less perfect version of you. Maybe that’s what Gubberson thought when he ever felt bothered to give me the time of day.”

“Your theory holds no water aside from one reflection,” Riley retorted with a scoff. “The human condition is imperfect by its very conception. You are inherently flawed by the weakness of your flesh. To compare yourself to me is redundant at best.”

A.J. didn’t know how she thought Riley might respond to what she had said but she was oddly glad for this particular reply. It was dismissive and haughty but it was the first time someone had outwardly told her- even indirectly- to stop comparing herself to a puppet.
It was made somewhat better by the fact that it was the puppet herself saying it.

“You’re probably right.”

“I am right- that much is clear,” Riley began, still studying the page and stopping at a slightly faded photograph of A.J. repairing the shoulder seam of Riley’s lab-coat, complete with a few annotations. “Tell me, Amelia-Jane…why did you ever leave here?”

Now it was A.J.’s turn to scoff. “What? Gubberson didn’t tell you all about how I ditched you all to go and work for Fazbear Entertainment?”

“It makes no logical sense,” Riley said stiffly, turning her attentions back to A.J. “You were well cared-for here, part of a successful show. You were content in your work and had no reason to want to go. Your notes show devotion to your studies and craft, yet you chose to abandon us- where is the reason in that?”

The human woman didn’t know if Riley was trying to engage in some kind of pre-ordained guilt tripping or if she was just genuinely confused but for the first time ever, she found herself speaking out loud the thoughts that she’d allowed to fester behind her temples for the better part of seven years.
Sure, she’d cried to Marissa, sitting on the woman’s pastel pink couch while her friend dutifully held her hands to stop her from clawing at the scabs on her arms and lips.
She’d spoken to her therapist about most of the experience but it was mostly centred around her grief after losing Owen, her regrets, her shame, her guilt…

A.J. hadn’t felt guilt in the moment when she told Owen that she was leaving the studio. It had been the first time in a long time that she felt as though she was finally doing something for herself without being led by someone else.

“I didn’t want to leave,” she told Riley. “I needed to leave. I needed to progress, to learn…Handeemen was my life. I loved working here but Owen just… stopped teaching me after a certain point. He stopped letting me do anything useful. He just kind of needed me for emotional support. That’s not why I came here though. I didn’t want to leave Owen but I needed to go somewhere else I needed to be somewhere where I could better myself and get better at what I do. I don’t know if you understand this but after a certain point here, things just got stagnant…” She ran her hands back through her fluffy red hair to stop herself from picking at her lower lip. “It didn’t matter how much I learned and how well I knew how to take care of you and Mr Handee and the others, Owen would never let me grow past being that clumsy, new-blood kid. He’d never take me seriously or listen to my opinions properly and I just couldn’t take it anymore.” She swallowed back, leaning against the gurney as though it was a church pew. “He wouldn’t let me be anything that wasn’t the dumb, innocent version of me that he liked.”

Riley didn’t say anything in response at first so A.J. added:
“It was practical decision for other reasons. Fazbear Entertainment didn’t pay much more than here but they paid for me to undergo training with Afton Robotics and that would make me better at my job at the Toy Hospital. You know? I could take more jobs, be more versatile, hell, I could even have helped Owen out better with stuff for the show…but he didn’t see it that way.” She shook her head, her eyes falling on a distant poster reminding the cast and crew not to swear in front of the kid-actors. “I didn’t want to leave him, really. Not completely. I didn’t want us to stop talking just because I didn’t work on the show anymore. We could have kept in contact…he had my number…he knew where I was living…he just didn’t want to keep in touch and told me never to show up at the studio again. I tried calling but he’d never return my calls…and then I moved back to New York a year later…and then the fire happened…and then…” A.J. clicked her tongue, tutting. “…years later, I came back because Mortimer asked me to.” She forced herself to look at Riley. “And I meant what I said before: I didn’t come back for Owen. I came back because Handeemen was my life.”

“And I haven’t been as happy anywhere since.”

“…that makes slightly more sense than what I was told,” Riley eventually said, adjusting her gloves. “Assuming that it is truth that your ample words hold.” She straightened her goggles authoritatively. “I must leave to go to H.R. right now. I assume you can clean up here and show yourself out.”
The puppet gestured to the paint stains and broken apparatus on the floor.
These black streaks and glass fragments had been created when Riley had been attempting to stab her in the eye with the paintbrush but A.J. was in no mood to argue and simply nodded with a small sigh. “Yeah, no problem, Doctor Ruckus.”

“I would bid you goodbye but I assume we’ll be meeting again?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll save my salutations then.”
“That’s fine.”

As she was leaving, Riley retrieved something from a nearby tray. It was as she was pressing the little buttons that A.J. recognised it as a tape-recorder.
There was a small, sharp clicking sound.

“Subject seventy-nine,” the wooden scientist said tonelessly. “Status: alive. Experiment: completed. Outcome: uncertain. Observations: continue testing.”

And with that, she was gone.
A.J. saw her dark red, wooden curls disappear around the heavy doors of the makeshift lab and then, heard her whistling as she walked down the hallway.

The words “continue testing” rang in her head like a broken orgel as she made her way out of the laboratory but A.J. pushed them to the side in favour of getting to the office as quickly as she could.
She now had confirmation that the people here would happily hurt her if they felt in any way threatened by her and with her close call earlier in mind, she needed to get some answers sooner than later.

As she made her way through one of the utility corridors, that strange smell grew steadily stronger to the point where A.J. realised where she knew this odour from. It was the same, noxious smell that emanated from the old chasse suits that she’d had to clean out in that old diner a few years prior.
It made her stomach lurch but she refused to stop despite the saliva rapidly rising in her mouth.

As she walked, she felt something scurry past her ankles, causing her to jump and press her body against the wall. At her back was the same poster that she’d seen on her first day and every day at work in Handeemen Studios:
“Teamwork Essentials: Communication. Dedication. Respect.”

“Bullshit.”

Without thinking, A.J. drove her fist into the wall. Her knuckles cried out in protest and elicited a low whine from her own lips, prompting her to inhale sharply through her nostrils.
Rule Two. Rule Two. Rule Two.

She managed to reach the hallway that led to Owen’s office despite the poor lighting, boarded up doorways and frequent lapses in her memory.
She could suddenly vividly remember running up that corridor with Owen, both of them excited to play with Mortimer, to talk about what had happened that day and to make plans for the weekend. She could remember sitting with him in that very office as she sewed the pieces of her Handeepuppet together. A needle pricked her finger and although she insisted that it didn’t bother her at all, Owen insisted on kissing it better.
“Stop it! Owen, I’m fine. This happens all the time.”
Her giggles betrayed her and rendered her protests null and void.  
“And I’m going to keep doing this every time until you learn to wear a thimble!”
She remembered how his lips had felt against her fingertips and it almost made her heart stop.

Rule Two.

She hesitated before experimentally knocking on the office door.
Hearing no response, she turned her attention to the handle, giving it a push.
The door stilled in its lock, not allowing her any access and prompting her to examine it more closely. It was definitely not in the best shape; she could definitely use her screwdriver to loosen it.
She reached into her bag for the tool, for the first time considering what she might actually find in the office. She was definitely interested in the blue-prints, any amendments that had been made to them and any official correspondence between Owen and the network regarding the show’s apparent revival.
There was also one other thing.
Owen had been highly interested in a particular book prior to her leaving. He had never been particularly clear on what it was- only that it was rare and apparently some kind of occult paraphernalia. A.J. had always wondered exactly why it was so significant to him and right now, as she started to ease the screw-head into the first little bevel, it occurred to her that he might have actually gotten his hands on it.
Maybe she’d have the chance to see what all the fuss was about…

“Ah, A.J.! I finally found you here! I was beginning to think you had disappeared.”

A.J.’s blood ran cold and she immediately stood up straight, shoving the screwdriver into her pocket. “O-Oh, hello Mr Handee.”

Silhouetted by the flickering overhead lights, Mortimer was at the end of the hallway, held aloft by the man beneath the hood.
She couldn’t see his lips but part of her wondered if they were still so soft.

His long, willowy arms opened invitingly as he advanced towards her. The fact that the hallway was narrow and left her with nowhere to run even if she had wanted to, gave the wooden magician an extreme air of menace.
“What brings you to this part of the facility, I wonder? There’s no one here for you to fix. Is this some kind of blunder?”

There was a sing-song quality to his voice that kept things polite and friendly but A.J. could definitely detect an air of suspicion. Beneath the sweetness, there was a pointed accusation.
Thinking quickly, she placed her hand to obscure the bulge of the screwdriver in her pocket and said: “I was…actually looking for you. I figured you might here because, you know…” She gestured over her shoulder at the office door. “…it’s the head office and all.” Struck by sudden inspiration, she pulled the task list from her pocket. “I was just looking at the list when I finished with Doctor Ruckus and I noticed that my next assignment is with some of the Handeepuppets, I’m guessing? Uh, someone called Kenny? And Violet? And a few other names…but I don’t know who these people are or where I’d find them so…”

Her voice trailed off.
Mortimer’s expression was unreadable for a moment. Rather as though his puppeteer had suddenly taken their hand away and allowed him to return to his neutral state. He remained this way long enough just for A.J. to begin to feel a pang of worry.
She was just considering an attempt at running past him when Mortimer suddenly sprang to life again. “Hmm, I recognise the names but not from my own clique. Those puppets are probably grouped with Daisy, Riley or Nick. You’d have to consult with them to identify who’s who…which actually brings me neatly to why I was looking for you!”

Overwhelmed with relief, A.J. allowed her shoulders to relax for the first time in a while. “Oh yeah? How can I help you, Mr Handee?”

“Well, myself and the Handeemen were just about to sit down for tea,” he told her. “And we would be most obliged if you would join us, you see!”

“Oh,” A.J. had to bite back her own stammer. One at a time was hard enough but all four at once was going to be the kind of psychological overload that she did not need at that very moment. “That’s alright. Daisy was already kind enough to give me lunch and usually I make a point of not taking more than one lunch hour every day. Also, considering that you plans seem kind of time sensitive I probably shouldn’t delay any more of my tasks.”

“Nonsense!” Mortimer declared, loud and sudden enough to make A.J. freeze again as though her puppeteer had decided to abandon her. “Nick’s been inquiring for you all morning by the by and Daisy would be heartbroken if you didn’t try her pumpkin pie. Come, come, this is an offer that I’m sure you can’t resist so come join us, A.J., really…I insist.”

Swallowing against a now-very-dry throat, the toymaker resigned herself to the fact that there was no getting out of this one.

“Alright,” she said and followed Mortimer out of the hallway and away from the office door, the rogue screwdriver still heavy in her pocket.

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment.

Rule 7: Always strive to give more than the bare minimum. Don’t just reach targets: surpass them.

(January, 1987)

A.J. awoke with a start, a metallic taste slowly spreading across her tongue and the smell of bromine burning through her nostrils. She tried to lift a hand to shield her eyes from the searing, white light above her head but soon realised that this was impossible.
This was impossible because she could not move her hands.
She couldn’t move her arms either.
Or her legs.
Or her hips.
Or any part of her body, save for her neck, head and face.

“…”
She tried to speak, to call out, anything at all but despite her best efforts, her throat would produce no sound but a feeble gurgle. She tried to scream but all that she could manage was a choked wheeze, a high-pitched whine like a tea-kettle on a stove.

Struggling and looking around, A.J. realised that she was no longer in bed but atop some kind of cold, metal table- unforgiving against her rigid spine. The frigid surface bit into her skin through the thin material of her pyjama shirt. Blinking desperate tears from her eyes as she tried to tilt her head, she slowly realised where exactly she was.

She knew that light and the pattern on that ceiling.
She was in Owen’s office.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake.”
A.J.’s eyes darted around, desperately seeking the source of the familiar voice. Owen came slowly into view, leaning over where she lay. His face was dark, his form silhouetted by the harsh glare of the overhead light. Its usual soft amber seemed to have been replaced by a stark, clinical white and it shone with far more intensity than the dim comfort that she was used to. “Well…surprise, A.J.!” he said with a smile. “I’ve been planning this for a while. Riley said we should start straight away, as soon as you passed out but I wanted to wait ‘til you were awake. I knew you’d want to see everything.”
She desperately tried to call out to Owen, to ask him what was going on but again, she could only barely make any sound at all.

“Shh,” Owen bade her, stroking her forehead and kissing her temple, his nose brushing her hairline. “It’s ok. I promise everything will be fine.” He took her right hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing her knuckles too. “I’m guessing that you can’t move right now. That’s good. I was going to just tie you up but Nick thought that the rope burn would probably leave marks on the final product. It was Riley who suggested that we use an injection instead.” He chuckled, giving her arm a little pinch and causing her to wince at the sudden sting. “You’ll still be able to feel everything though- don’t worry.” He set her hand back down, tilting his head at her twitching facial features. “Awh, don’t look at me like that. This is all going to be worth it, I promise! You’re going to be so much happier when we’re done.”

There was a shuffling sound that surrounded her.
Feet on hard wood but sounding rather like the blizzard static of those impossible t.v. channels that the little black-and-white set in her attic bedroom would occasionally show.
Owen turned around for a moment, seemingly fiddling with something on another table.
Her anxiety mounting by the second, A.J. tried to crane her neck, to sit up, but she only barely managed to make her head jerk to one side.

“Oh, are you trying to have a look? Don’t stress it. Like I said, I figured you’d want to see everything so I rigged this up.”
Owen pulled a lever of some kind and a full-length mirror suddenly shuddered into view above the work table. In any other context, A.J. might have questioned just how Owen had managed to do this in his office space but the sight of her own reflection in the mirror forcibly muted any thoughts she might have had.

Her jaw clenched as confused, terrified tears sprang to her eyes.

She was clad in the same periwinkle blue pyjamas that she favoured lounging in on her days off. The thin material snagged at her chest, puckering with her hardened nipples, parting over the swell of her round tummy- her belly button black and glaring at her like the eye of a Cyclops, dipping at her hip bones and clinging to her knees, rolled up to reveal her pale, freckled legs.  Her hair was spread around her head in a scarlet halo, almost resembling a pool of blood at that distance.
“We washed you down already, by the way,” Owen’s voice said from a place in the office that she was unable to see. “Don’t worry though. Nick, Morty and I waited outside while Daisy and Riley did the parts under your clothes.”
She was lying upon a work table of silver metal, completely unlike any of the regular work tables in the sewing rooms. There was a set of blue prints taped across Owen’s office desk for a puppet that she’d never seen before.
A puppet that she’d never seen before but still looked distinctly familiar.
A.J. was instantly more preoccupied with the fact that the side tables that surrounded her were set with an array of tools. Some of them, she recognised from the workshop, such as the leather rolls of brushes, sculpting utensils, wire rolls, scissors spray bottles and glue guns. However, there were several glinting, gleaming silver monstrosities that she had never seen before and could not begin to imagine what they were used for.
Then she spotted the meat cleaver among them.

No. No. No. No.

Owen came back into view, tugging a pair of latex gloves on to his hands and securing a face mask over his mouth and nose. “Ok, I think we’re ready to get started,” he told her, ignoring her muffled squeals and pleading stares. “Right team, we’ll start with the hair.”

A.J.’s body seized as the shuffling around her suddenly got louder and four large, gangly figures stumbled into her peripheral vision. The mirror above revealed them to be four human-sized versions of the four Handeemen- all now completely bipedal and moving without the help of a puppeteer of any kind.

Their faces were devoid of any whimsy or sweetness, instead grossly elongated and serving as cruel parodies of the four characters that had once brought A.J. so much joy.

“Aren’t they perfect?” Owen all-but-whispered, placing what appeared to be a steaming paint can on the edge of the work-table, grazing her left leg. “I told you we could do it, A.J., didn’t I? And soon, you’ll be perfect too.”

The human sized Nick suddenly grabbed her head and pulled it straight, forcing her to look into her own terrified eyes in the mirror. Her eyes darted from Owen- dipping a paintbrush into the can, to the puppets- all dressed in what appeared to be a crude imitation of surgical scrubs, to the blueprints on Owen’s desk.
The puppeteer brought the paintbrush, dripping with clear liquid to A.J.’s head and it was when the scalding hot varnish met her scalp that she realised why the puppet on the blueprints looked so familiar.

She wanted to cry out again but Owen kept painting until her hair was completely covered in the varnish.  The heat was blistering and the smell was so overbearing that it felt as though it was crawling down her throat. Nick’s long wooden fingers combed through her hair, working it into a tight ponytail.

“Good idea, Nick. That’s the look we’re going for. Practical but not too similar to Riley.”

The Daisy puppet held up two scrunchies, a bright yellow one and a pink one.

“Hmm, the yellow is a little more on-brand for A.J. The pink one might clash with her hair.”

Owen was speaking to them casually, as though he was mulling over ideas for a new character with his colleagues in the workshop. The puppets didn’t seem to be able to speak, rather their jaws would click to denote speaking and Owen would reply as though he had heard something.

She tried to make eye contact with Owen, trying to wordlessly beg him to stop what he was doing. He caught her gaze and smiled, playfully pressing her nose with a finger. “Poor A.J. has no idea how wonderful she’s going to look when she’s done.” He pursed his lips beneath the surgical mask and clicked his tongue. “Her eyes and head are moving quite a lot though. That’s going to be distracting. Can you give her another shot there, Riley?”

The Riley puppet lifted a comically huge injection needle into view, almost the length of her entire forearm. Before A.J. could prepare herself for what was about to happen, Riley suddenly drove the needle into her side.
If A.J. had been able to do anything else, she would have howled.
In mere seconds, her body felt more rigid than before, as though her skin had turned to concrete. She could only barely blink and she certainly couldn’t look away from what was happening to her in that mirror.

Under Owen’s command, the puppet stitched her fingers together with wire, creating grotesque “mittens” at the end of her arms. When her fingers didn’t line up properly, Daisy proceeded to use a rolling pin to break them and forcibly pushed them into place.
A.J.’s stomach wretched but unable to move her head, the bile sat sour in her throat.

Riley used a pliers to pull her teeth from her jaw, painstakingly replacing each one by hot-gluing a rubber seal over her raw, bleeding gums. She also cut the tendon under her tongue and hot-glued her tongue to the base of her mouth.

“You won’t need to move that anymore,” Owen told her, wiping the tears streaming down her face and the blood from the corners of her mouth. “Your puppeteer will provide your voice for you. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that she’s really well trained and a really good match.”

Nick was given the job of removing her eyes. Using a metal forceps, he plucked the left one out first, cutting the optic nerve with a shears and delicately replacing it with a glass substitute. The Nick puppet clasped his hands together- seemingly delighted with his choice of colour.
“Yeah, that’s perfect. Leave the other one for now,” Owen instructed, still dabbing and wiping away any fluids that leaked across A.J.’s pale, quivering face. “I want her to see the finished product when we’re done.”

Owen then wedged a metal pipe into her jaw, forcibly pressing down upon her new, rubber teeth until her jaw broke entirely. It hung open in the mirror, glued tongue lolling, almost in a cruel mockery of the scream that A.J. desperately wanted to let out.

“We’ll reset your jaw so that your puppeteer can move it,” Owen explained, setting wire into the sides of her mouth, adding with a wink: “Wire tube inlay. Just like you said at the convention. Remember?”

A.J. wanted to cry.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to die.
She just wanted the pain to end.

Was this the fear, hurt and humiliation that she inflicted upon toys when she repaired them? Was this her punishment for some kind of crime she’d committed? Had she already died and was this her own personal Hell?

She kept waiting to black out but something intangible and horrible held her tight to every, too bright, too loud, too real waking moment. No matter how much she willed her spirit to leave her body or for her mind to wander far away, the sheer pain of the mutilation would instantly drag her back to her own torn, scalded flesh.

“Now, this is where things are going to get a bit messy for a moment but I promise this is the hardest part,” Owen told her, still speaking as though he was coaching her through repairing a Handeepuppet. “Everything after this is going to be smooth sailing. Riley’s gone ahead and made you brand-new, felt-stitch insides. They’re so much cleaner than your old ones. We’ve got to get rid of your lower half though first. So, Morty, if you wouldn’t mind?”

The Mortimer puppet held up a hacksaw.
Its scalloped teeth winked at her in the light, sneering and hungry.
Owen lifted the hem of A.J.’s pyjama shirt, fully exposing her mid-section. He then casually took a marker pen and began marking a dotted line across her stomach.

“Now, Morty hasn’t had much practice on subjects that are still alive but he’s going to take it very slowly,” the puppeteer said, stroking her mangled jaw. “But then, you know exactly what it’s like to be new at something so I have a feeling you don’t mind giving Mortimer a chance to shine.”

Mortimer Handee flashed her a wooden, manic grin as he set the teeth of the saw against the skin of her stomach.
A.J. managed to force a low, rasping whine from the base of her windpipe, resonating painfully against what was left of her mouth. It was the culmination of all of the agonising time she’d spent trying to scream out at Owen.
Confusion had turned to horror, horror had turned to desperation, desperation had turned to anger and now her anger was slowly turning to despair.

He glanced at Mortimer and then looked at her, leaning down to place a kiss on her forehead.
“I know this is scary, A.J. but soon you’ll be perfect. Puppets are better than people, right?”

The wooden magician forced the teeth of the saw into her mid-section and it was just as those metallic fangs sank into her skin that A.J. woke up.

The toy maker sat bolt upright, choking on her own spittle as she tried to regain her breath. Her heart hammering against her ribcage, it took her a few moments of frantic glancing around the room, her hands grasping at her face, her body, the sheets, the bed…before she remembered she was in Owen’s apartment.

Their sleepovers had become more and more frequent as of late. Eventually she had graduated from sleeping on the couch to sleeping in Owen’s bed with him. Sleeping was all they did, though; Owen still seemed firmly committed to keeping their relationship as chaste as possible.

She put a hand on her chest, trying to steady her breathing and trying to will herself to forget that horrific nightmare. Strands of her hair were stuck to her face and neck with a tell-tale cold sweat that also caused her pyjamas to cling to her lower back and thighs.
“What the fuck was that?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and shaky and her hands running along the mattress, instinctively seeking out Clara. It was a childish habit that she’d never really grown out of.
One of many.

It was then that she realised that she was alone in the bed.
Her brain was only now starting to click into gear and she then further remembered who should have been in bed beside her. Owen was gone again.
He had definitely gone to bed with her and she could remember falling asleep in his arms, her head on his chest and the scent of wood varnish, coffee and aftershave like an extra blanket, heavy around her.
The scent was still faintly there but the man was not, his pillowcase wrinkled but cold to the touch. She looked across the dark room, as if expecting to see Owen’s silhouette. Her body seized when her sleep-drunk mind thought she saw Mortimer Handee’s monocle glinting as he peered out of the wardrobe.
A bit of squinting confirmed that it was only the brass knob of the door, though A.J. was still on edge.
Stretching the knots out of her back and shoulders, A.J. carefully pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. The slight scratch of the carpet on her bare feet helped to bring her back to reality bit by bit. Still inebriated from sleep, A.J.’s slumber starved eyes took a moment to adjust as she opened the living room door.

The room was dark but the television was left on, black and white rubber-hose cartoons darting back and forth across the screen.  The manic, mute characters disappeared into the wings of the T.V. frame before almost as though they had just realised what they were and how limited their world was. Their universe existed only in the artist’s eye, their existence only acknowledged by the passing viewer.
Owen was perched on the back of the sofa, effectively sitting at the window- the little, rectangular pane of glass serving as the one defining difference between her apartment and his. It didn’t have much of a view save for a parking lot, Owen had pointed out. Still, it was nice to have a cool place to sit, void of the monotonous hum of the A/C so A.J. considered it a luxury.
The Handeemen creator’s forehead was pressed against the glass, his reflection sharing his tired, glassy-eyed stare. It was his slightly faded twin who first noticed the quivering, young woman standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said in the soft voice that A.J. had slowly fallen in love with, not quite moving but offering her a small smile. “Can’t sleep?”
“Had a weird dream,” she told him, her voice still a little hoarse. “You?”
He shrugged, still smiling faintly. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t get comfortable.”
“Oh.” A.J. wrapped her arms around herself, realising how cold she was for the first time. “Do you…do you want me to go back to my place? Give you some space in bed?”
“No, no,” Owen said quickly, sitting upright and massaging his neck. “I prefer it when you’re here. I just…I just have a lot on my mind right now. My thoughts are kinda…loud.”
A.J. nodded and glanced at the clock on the wall, internally grimacing when she remembered that they had work the next morning. The last time Owen had stayed up late, he ended up sleeping in with her and they both arrived to work late. Nothing had been said to her directly but the crew’s coldness towards her spoke volumes alone. Her name mysteriously vanished from the afternoon roster of jobs and she spent most of that day running from room to room, figuring out where she was supposed to be. She did not want to be blamed for making the boss late again.

“I’ll make some warm milk,” A.J. said, making her way to the kitchenette alcove.
Owen made an initial sound as though he planned on protesting but then after a second consideration, he simply responded with a weakly voiced: “Thank you.”
She coaxed the old, slightly jaded microwave oven to life and returned a few moments later with two steaming mugs. He scooted the side to make some room for her, gratefully accepting the milk with two hands.

“Mmm, you added the vanilla extract,” Owen exhaled, letting the steam curl around his slightly stubble covered chin.
“Just like mom used to make?” the red-head gently teased, sitting down on the sofa beside him.
Owen wrinkled his nose. “When she wasn’t telling me that drinking too much dairy was going to make me fat or wheezy or break out.” He rolled his eyes before allowing his gaze to slowly settle back on to the sky again. “You should have heard her when I went home for Thanksgiving. Literally all she could talk about was how crap I looked and when I tried to talk about the new season of Handeemen, all she and dad wanted to focus on was whether or not I’d be making more money than before.” He winced, gritting his teeth as though he had a pain in his head. “That’s all that’s ever mattered to either of them.” Another sigh escaped his lips, causing the steam from the milk to flurry once more. He looked at A.J. tilting his head and reaching out to put one of his hands over hers. “There I go, ranting and raving about myself again. Did your grandma ever make you warm milk?”

“Oma? Usually, I’d end up making it for her,” A.J. told him, using her sleeves as barrier between her hands and the hot mug. “She used to stay up late a lot too. Her favourite thing to stir into the milk was this German brand of chocolate powder. She’d always get mad at me for bringing her sweet drinks late at night, like, she said I was the reason that her teeth were falling out…but she’d always look so happy whenever she saw me coming out of the kitchen and she’d never say no.”

“Do you remember the name of the German stuff?”
“Schoko something or other. I’d know it if I saw the logo, I think.”
“There’s a whole bunch of international food stores down by the harbour. We could take a walk down there some time.”
“I’d like that.”

A few moments of soft, quiet silence passed between them. The buzzing of the t.v. served as the only soundtrack to their viewing of the parking lot. The silence held them for a moment, wrapping them in a kind of mutual blanket.
When Owen spoke, A.J. was surprised at how sorrowful he suddenly sounded.

“Did you mean what you said before, A.J.?” His voice was still quiet and contemplative but his eyes were filled with a kind of grief that was hard to place. “If you had the chance, would you bring Clara to life? Honestly.”

“Honestly?” A.J. rested her head against the window so that the faded twin that was her reflection mirrored his. “It would depend on what you mean by “to life.” I mean, I don’t know if I could imagine Clara ever becoming human but I guess I’d like to hear her talk to me someday.”

“What if she was alive already?” The reflection’s maroon, amber-flecked eyes met hers. “What if you just needed the right…method to set her free? Let her live?” 

“Right method? Like what?” A.J. asked, mirroring his soft voice. It was as though they were both still at the studio, still trying to keep their voices lowered so that no one could hear what they were talking about. “Like…magic?”

Owen sighed, deep lines forming in his forehead as he grimaced. “When you say it like that, it sounds crazy…but…what if it wasn’t crazy? What if it could actually work?”

“You say that like you’ve tried it before,” A.J. pressed her lips against the rim of the mug to warm them. The living room wasn’t cold but she felt a chill draw across her body.

“I did a bit of digging in the public library, down in the occult section. I found these words, this incantation, that were supposedly ripped from the ancient book of rituals. Rituals that were supposed to give life to the lifeless, a soul to the soulless.” He lifted his head from the window, staring out into the parking lot again as though the words were written across the asphalt. “When I said those words out loud, I could feel something moving inside Mortimer. It was like I could feel him trying to answer me, trying to speak.” He looked at her again and then let out a long, hoarse sigh. “I sound like a fucking lunatic but I swear, I’m telling the truth.”

A.J. placed a hand on his arm, lightly massaging the wool of his sweater beneath her palm. She didn’t know exactly how to respond to him, only that she wanted to offer him some kind of comfort. He looked like a little boy, alone and despairing. “I know you’re telling the truth,” she started to say, only to have Owen suddenly catch her by the wrist.

Her breath disappeared from her lungs again as his eyes bore into hers.
Wide and awake and hungry.

“You could try it with Clara,” he said, almost spilling the contents of the mug, all over his pale green t-shirt. “I could give you the words. You could try it with Clara and then you’d see.”

A.J. mouthed wordlessly, not knowing what to say but opting to put down her own mug to avoid the milk’s silky surface from being disturbed. “I…” She noticed his face starting to crease again, like a sock puppet being pulled inside out and quickly spoke her mind. “Why does it matter so much, Owen? Bringing them to life?” She tilted her head, smiling in hopes that it would make her tone seem less pointed. “Aren’t they perfect just the way they are? Part of you and alive through you?”

Owen let go of her, slumping back into the sofa and shaking his head. “I’ve given so much of my life to the puppets and spent so much time listening to people tell me what a waste of time everything I do and how I take them too seriously and that I should put more time into people…” He finally abandoned his own mug in favour of wringing his hands in front of his face, grasping at the air as if trying to rip his own strings away from some invisible puppeteer. “I keep thinking that if I actually did it- if I actually brought the Handeemen to life- it would finally show them all. Maybe people would stop doubting me and calling me crazy. Maybe I’d stop feeling so alone and worthless. Maybe…maybe I’d finally get some respect…”

“I respect you,” A.J. said quietly, knowing that Owen probably wasn’t in the mood for her to seek his embrace. She hugged herself instead, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her head on her knees.

Much to her surprise, the puppeteer’s hand was in her hair, his fingers dragging against her scalp. “I know, A.J.” His voice faltered in his mouth, dissolving to a hushed rasp. “I’m so mean to you sometimes. I hate that I’m so mean to you. You don’t deserve this.”
She automatically leaned into his hand, letting him stroke her face with touch-starved desperation. “You’re mean to yourself,” she told him softly, her lips brushing against his palm. “I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”

“Sometimes I wish things were different,” Owen confessed, skimming his fingers under her chin. “I wish I’d met you sooner before…”

“Before?”
“Before things got complicated.” He pressed his lips together, holding her gaze for brief moments between stealing glances at his own reflection. “Sometimes I just want to pack you up and get away from it all.”

A.J. lifted her head, letting him touch her neck and upper arms, his warm, calloused hands welcome against sleep-starved skin. “That sounds amazing.” Seeing a little light creep into his eyes, she decided to indulge this fantasy. “Where would we go?”

“Some place quiet and far away. Where no one could bother us. Just the eight of us.”
“Eight of us?”
“Yeah. Me, you, Mortimer, Riley, Nick, Daisy, Rosco and Clara…well, nine of us if you want to count your new Handeepuppet.”
“…sounds perfect.”
“Yeah…too bad it’s just as fake as one of the painted backdrops on the soundstage.”
Sorrow started to seep into his features again and A.J., eager to see him smile again, quickly interjected: “It doesn’t have to be!”
Owen blinked, perhaps a little taken aback by her sudden excitement. “Is that right?”
A.J. shrugged. “The future’s a big, wide, unpredictable thing. I mean, just a year ago, I was in New York and now I’m here…with you…I mean, you and I could still run off together sometime…take the puppets…go to New Mexico or Utah or-?”
“Go to Vegas?” The corners of Owen’s mouth started to perk up again, sparking a lightness in A.J.’s chest.
“Or Illinois?”
“Or Wisconsin?”
“Maybe just to the suburbs?”
“The suburbs?”
“Yeah, like on the show. We could even have one of those weird little houses that look the same as everyone else’s and have two kids and a dog…”

A.J. had been poking fun at the idea but Owen’s face suddenly creased and darkened. Regret tasted unbearable in her mouth and she instantly wanted to cut her own tongue out for having said something so saccharine.

“Is something wrong? I was only kidding,” A.J. eventually said, unable to stand Owen’s silence.
“It’s nothing,” Owen insisted, although he withdrew his hands from her body. “I just wish I’d met you when I was younger, y’know? When I still had your optimism.” He exhaled, stretching his arms out. “Do you ever have any regrets about the past? Anything that you wish you could do over?”

A.J. thought for a moment and then replied: “I wish I’d gone to my grandmother’s funeral…and my uncle’s funeral too.”
Owen tilted his head, frowning and confused. “You didn’t go?”
“Not really. I watched my grandmother’s burial from the parking lot of the cemetary and I wasn’t allowed to go to my uncle’s.” It was only as she said it out loud that she realised how strange it sounded and quickly added. “It’s kind of a long story. I guess I just wish I’d been a little braver and gone regardless of what anyone from…my extended family might have thought.”

“How’s your Handeepuppet coming along?”
Owen’s voice was a bit firmer, a bit more awake this time.
In another life, A.J. might have felt a little jilted that Owen wasn’t willing to indulge her musings about her past any further but in that moment, she forced herself to understand. Owen was having a hard time and generally found it difficult to relate to others; it wasn’t fair for her to make this about herself.

“She’s coming along well,” A.J. told him, talking shop was easy and her words flowed like fabric being pushed through a sewing machine. “I spent most of the holidays getting her face lined up properly. I think the last thing I have to do is just to finish stuffing her head, do the mouth inlay and to put the lighting function in her eyes.”
She had originally planned to go back to New York for the bulk of December but with Marissa in Texas, it didn’t make much sense. Spending her time alone in one apartment versus another with the fee of a plane ticket in the difference just made the decision a bit easier.

“I’ll give you a hand with that on Monday,” Owen said, his tone returning to normal. “The pressure switch for the lights can be tricky to line up and you want to make sure that it has a bit of breathing room inside the stuffing, so it’ll have to be close to the lining.”

“When you say Monday,” A.J. quipped, between gulps of her now-lukewarm milk. “You mean in the next few hours, yeah?”

Owen followed her gaze to the clock and groaned. “Shit. Time’s really been getting away from me as of late.” Reluctantly and as though he was still shackled to the couch cushions, the puppeteer dragged himself to his feet and gestured for A.J. to follow him. “We’d better hit the hay and make the most of whatever time we have left.”

She nodded and stood up, taking the two mugs back to the kitchen sink.
Owen was already tucked up in bed when she entered the bedroom, lights off and eyes closed. As carefully as she could, A.J. slipped in beside him and gratefully let him drape his arm over her waist.
She thanked her lucky stars when she heard his breathing deepen and dissolve into the melody of slumber; he was actually going to get some sleep tonight.
A.J. decided to stay awake- she didn’t want for either of them to accidentally oversleep.

She stayed awake beside Owen until she heard the soft beeping of his alarm clock and the first harsh lights of morning crept across the bedroom floor.
All the while, she did not take her eyes from the place near the wardrobe where she’d seen Mortimer peeking out.

The doorknob wasn’t glinting anymore, she thought, as she heard Owen starting to shift beside her.

(September, 1998)

She could hear her own heavy breaths as followed Mortimer and his faceless puppeteer back to the main soundstage.
Did he know what she had been trying to do?
Did Mortimer realise that she was trying to break into the office?
Did Owen know?

The magician hummed what A.J. recognised as the Handeemen’s theme tune all the way back to the centre of the studio. Mortimer halted her in front of what appeared to be some kind of mechanical door.
The fire safety doors seemed to have been far more souped-up than she remembered complete with some kind of bizarre scanning device.

“Can’t be too careful nowadays,” the magician told her, plucking a little badge from his lapel and swiping it across the screen. “This studio does tend to attract a few strays.”
A.J. said nothing, only nodding, her eyes widening when the door swung open to reveal the vast space that had once been the main filming hub of Mortimer’s Handeemen.

The odd painted flat propped against and masking a far-away wall or hanging cloud from the rafters above offered faint memories of what had once been but A.J. didn’t have time to be nostalgic.
Her eyes were quickly drawn to the centre of the room where one of the round tables from the waiting area had been dragged and placed. The flood lights illuminated the trio of colourful characters who surrounded the neat, little porcelain settings.

“It’s the choreography that’s hindering the new scene’s creation,” Nick Nack was saying, gesticulating wildly. His small red lips served as a stark contrast to his elongated jaw lines and overdrawn black eyebrows- almost mimicking the appearance of a French Pierrot. “Two of those puppets just can’t stay in formation!” He pressed his knuckles to his forehead, as if about to begin his very own Alas-Poor-Yorick rendition. “In spite of this, I intend to soldier ahead. Let these artistic sufferings be upon my head.”

A.J.’s newest friend scoffed from the other side of the table, her dark crimson ringlets swinging to the side as she whipped her head pointedly in the artist’s direction. “You wouldn’t have to struggle if they were properly rehearsed.” Riley Ruckus’ eyes seemed intent on testing how far they could roll without breaking the socket. “You should consider prancing around second and planning, first. Or is it simply that you enjoy complaining?”

“Yours is the presence that we all find draining!” Nick snapped in response, eyes narrowed in a death-glare at the scientist.

“Oh, don’t you two start now! We’ve only just sat down to lunch!” Daisy Danger stood between the two of them, a refreshing pop of pink in the dark. She fiddled with her pearls as she glanced between the two of them, wagging a warning finger with her free hand. “The first of you to talk back is going to end up with a pu-…oh hello, A.J. dear! So glad you could come here!”

“Hi Miss Danger,” A.J. returned, nodding her head to the others too. “Mr Nack, Doctor Ruckus…thanks for having me…”

If there was one thing the craftswoman had to begrudgingly respect, it was the sheer commitment that the puppeteers had to their performance.
Riley waved a hand and muttered something under her breath, further muffled by the mask and Nick Nack insisted on “kissing” the craftswoman on both cheeks, (much to her dismay). Daisy however was the most engaging, immediately trying to thread her slender wooden arm with the human woman’s own and insisting that A.J. come stand next to her. There were no chairs, she noted, probably to make it easier for the puppeteers to move around. She was still a bit anxious from her close call with Mortimer so this didn’t bother her.

“Nice for you to all be on time,” Mr Handee declared, taking the opposing position between Nick and Riley. “It’s refreshing to enjoy some tea together between the daily grind.”

The place settings were a little dusty but definitely the ones that they had used on the t.v. show. A.J. was surprised, (and highly relieved), that the tea, milk, sugar and cookies all appeared to be real, in contrast to the paper variations that Daisy had forcibly fed her in the lunch room. Now the little, wooden, housewife was holding a very real-life, buttery looking biscuit up to her lips.
“Don’t be shy,” the blonde-haired puppet told her sweetly. “Give this one a try.”
A.J. obediently took a bite, grateful that it was actual food this time and her eyes widened when she instantly recognised the taste. “Is this a trefoil?” she asked between bites.
“Ah, ah, ah, close those lips,” Daisy chided, putting her little wooden hand up to A.J.’s mouth. “We don’t talk while eating. Not one bit.”
In stark contrast to this, Nick was jabbering vivaciously to Mortimer about what sounded like a new idea for a song, all the while kamikaze chunks of cookie flew out of his mouth. The puppets didn’t really seem to eat the food at all, rather simply masticating it to bits and letting it drop to the floor a la another certain blue monster puppet whose name would more than definitely be taboo to mention.
The red-haired woman didn’t push the matter but certainly did take stock of the fact that those cookies were indeed trefoils. In fact, all of the sugary little swirls and chocolatey little chunks on the peony-edge plates were some brand of Girl Scout Cookie.
A.J. had a sudden wild mental image of the poor scouts who’d had the balls to try knocking on the front of the warehouse door only to be greeted by Mortimer and his crew.

She jumped slightly when a little orange Handeepuppet with a purple afro haircut suddenly slithered his way in between them, picking up the creamer and pouring some milk into Daisy’s cup.
“And two sugars dear. Pop them in, right here!” Miss Danger cooed approvingly as the Handeepuppet complied. They seemed to be using the little guy as some kind of butler, only really referring to him when they wanted their tea preferences seen to.

The other red-haired woman seemed to be trying to quietly talk to the magician between Nick’s lengthy tirades.
“Mortimer, I must entreat you to read my latest paper. I’ve found that the host connection may deteriorate sooner than later.”

“Riley!” Mortimer spat abruptly, letting his cup clink warningly against his saucer. “What have I said about talking shop at the table? Drop the issue and I’ll give your review time when I am able.”
The scientist looked a little deflated but bit her tongue all the same. A.J., (having safely swallowed her cookie to avoid Daisy’s ire), was just about to ask about what exactly a “host connection” was. After all, it if was linked to their electrics, it might be something she could help with.
However, Mortimer cut across her, effectively scaring the thought out of her head and loudly asking: “So, A.J. now that you’ve gotten to meet everyone face to face, how do you like what we’ve done with the place?”

A.J. found it distinctly harder to keep her eyes on Mortimer when his hooded puppeteer was now closer to her than he’d been before.
“You’ve…you’ve really got quite the set up here. It’s…impressive what you’ve managed to organise in just seven years.”

“This must be one of the most interesting places you’ve been in a while,” Nick crooned, using the head of a nearby spoon as a kind of pocket mirror. “I assume very little compares to our sense of style.”

“Definitely one of the most unique,” A.J. confessed.

“Do you travel a lot? I’m jealous you know,” Daisy chirped between folding a nearby napkin into the shape of a swan with surprising dexterity. “We don’t get out much here. Where’s the furthest you’ve had to go?”

A.J. puffed her cheeks in a long exhale, mulling over the question. “I guess, my furthest away job before here was somewhere in Vermont. It was about a five-hour drive there and back.”

“Were the puppets there well-mannered and sweet? Or a little rude and unkind to meet?”
Daisy was the most actively inquisitive and Nick was a rather captive audience but out of the corner of her eye, A.J could see that both Mortimer and Riley were both hanging on her every word.

“There weren’t any puppets there,” she told them. “Not really. I was called to repair and clean up a doll. Not a fashion doll mind you; she was basically a well-articulated mannequin.…” A.J. paused, freezing when she realised that she was breaking a pretty huge rule around confidentiality. “…I actually shouldn’t really talk about that.”

“A cliffhanger? Don’t you dare,” gasped Nick, clasping his hands together and forcing his best rendition of puppy-dog eyes. “We wouldn’t tell a soul. Please, divulge what you found there?”

A.J. chewed the inside of mouth a little, debating whether or not she should give in. Her work mandate stated that wasn’t supposed to give away details about previous jobs and even divorced from that sentiment, the very nature of A.J.’s work typically tumbled some rather sensitive information into her lap.
On the other hand, it wasn’t as though these individuals were going to meet her Vermont clientele any time soon. Not to mention the fact that there was a steady, thrumming need growing inside her to have these puppets- and their puppeteers – really like her.

“…well, the doll in question belonged to this elderly lady,” A.J. told them, busying her fidgety hands and nervous eyes by picking up her tea cup to inspect it. “She lived in this really beautiful house in the woods with her granddaughter. The little girl had a huge play room full of amazing toys.”

“And the doll was a favourite of the child’s?”
It was Mortimer’s turn to offer commentary this time.

“I don’t think so,” A.J. admitted, running her thumb along a chip in the edge of the cup. “I didn’t get to talk to her much. Her grandmother told me that she’d been kind of a brat that day so she had to stay in her bedroom. I just asked her for directions through the door.”

“So, what made the mannequin so special, if I may?” Riley interjected. “It seems excessive to hire a repair woman from so far away.”

“Well, in most cases, the doll would have to be sent away to be repaired but this one needed to stay in the house. Apparently at all costs.” A.J. sucked in a breath between her teeth, remembering the doll’s gaping, smiling mouth and dark, dead eyes. “The doll was a life-sized, wooden model of the little girl’s late mother.”

Mortimer coughed.
Daisy squealed.
Nick gasped.
Riley made no sound at all but shifted her arms upward to fold them across her chest.

“The grandmother told me that the doll had some kind of issue with her neck that made it difficult to stand her up straight so they needed a specialist to repair the joint. It all seemed pretty straightforward but…”

A.J. waited for another interruption or question but none came so she forced herself to go on.

“…but the doll kept moving around whenever I wasn’t looking at her. I’d sit her down on a kitchen chair to look at her, turn away for five minutes and then find her standing outside the granddaughter’s bedroom. I got the distinct impression that either the kid was playing tricks on me or that the grandmother had neglected to tell me something important about the doll’s functioning.”

“Oooh, sounds positively Poe! A classic, gothic haunting! Weren’t you ever tempted to just pack up and go?”
A.J. shrugged at Nick, trying to keep a straight face and straight tone despite the distinct wave of anxiety that was steadily crashing over her. “A job’s a job. Someone had to do it and I don’t ask questions. I just fixed the neck joint and left.”

“How did the girl’s mother die?” Riley asked, her own voice very steady and her eyes very fixed on A.J., boring into her like a hand-drill. There was something strange about that puppet’s painted stare. It was as though she could see behind A.J.’s carefully emotionless eyes and read her every thought as easily as a children’s picture book.

“I don’t know,” the human woman lied despite the grandmother’s voice still very clearly ringing in her ears. “It didn’t really concern me so I didn’t ask.”

“My late daughter was murdered by her husband. He wrung her neck until it snapped…”

“Probably for the better, in my eyes,” Mortimer chimed in, lifting the lid of the teapot to idly inspect the contents. “An excess of nosiness is something I believe we all despise.” He very briefly looked to A.J., prompting her to become very interested in the Do-Si-Dos on the blue lined plate at her side.

“He knows. There’s no way he doesn’t know. He knows but he’s not saying it directly. Why isn’t he saying it directly?”

Riley continued to try to coerce Mortimer into talking with her directly about something she’d been working on, though he seemed more intent to shrug her off in favour of watching the orange-skinned puppet who was skulking around the table.
Daisy was content to spend her time using a napkin to wipe smudges of oil, glue and God-knows-what-else from A.J.’s face while she consulted with Nick Nack about the names on her task list.

“Yes, Kenny is one of my stage hands. He’s been looking a little raggy. He’s missing one or two teeth and his mouth’s gone all saggy.” Nick gestured to his own face, his long fingers clicking delicately against the wooden panels. “As for my violinist Violet, she’s far worse for wear. She’s missing an eye and part of her nose and I’ve confined her two second chair. See, she was on a little errand for me in a certain someone’s lab and a certain someone’s mangy mongrel-.”

“How dare you!? Rosco was simply guarding my work in there!” Riley barked, fists clenched as her puppeteer elevated her over the table. “It was your incompetent lackey who gave him a scare! If you’d sent word she was coming, there would have been no ordeal. Blame your failings on yourself or keep your mouth sealed!”

“That dog needs to be chained! I’ve said it before! He’s even gone for me when I come to the lab door!”

“My Rosco is well-trained and I cannot say the same, for all of the lackadaisical stage hands who traipse around without aim. Your little performing team would benefit from one who knows how to organize and wield wrath…”

“And your grimy little lab rats would benefit from a bath! Honestly, some of them make me want to claw out my eyes. Not to mention that smell that’s only a big hit with the flies.”

“Says the man who wears eye-shadow.”

“To the woman who could use some!”

“Do you honestly think you know better than me?”
“Do you honestly think I’m dumb!? Chain up that damn dog!”
“I’ll do what I please. Good luck with more mangled stagehands.”
“Break a leg with your future fleas!”

A.J. stole a glance at Mortimer, who was flicking his head back and forth between the artist and scientist as if watching some kind of bizarre tennis match.
“You’re jealous of my bond with Rosco. It’s a bond you’ll never comprehend.”
“Why don’t you stitch your host inside him then? If you two are such great friends?”

“Maybe I will! Maybe that would be a very refreshing switch!”
“Oh, won’t that be fitting? Considering that you’re the cast’s resident bit-!”

“BOTH OF YOU CAN SHUT IT!” Daisy suddenly shrieked, gripping hard on the tendrils of A.J.’s hair that she’d been braiding and causing the woman to wince. “OR I’LL RIP OUT YOUR EYES, RUN YOUR GUTS THROUGH THE MINCER AND BAKE THE MIX INTO A PIE!” She took a long breath, apparently centring herself before reverting to her former sweet trill. “It’s not nice to fight at the table and today we have a guest, so let’s be as lovely as we’re able and all do our best.”

“Well said, Daisy, darling,” Mortimer orated approvingly, shooting a warning look at the other two Handeemen. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

A.J. felt a nudge against her shoulder and turned her head to see the orange-skinned Handeepuppet, holding the teapot in her direction. He’d been very much avoiding her for the entire time that she was there so she was surprised at the sudden attention.

“Well go on, honey-bee,” Daisy prompted A.J., finishing her little braid and letting the coiled hair spring back behind the woman’s ear. “Tell Robbie how you like your tea.”

“Uh…” She shrugged, rather unused to being waited on and automatically resorted to her habitual response. “Like my men.”

The little handpuppet tilted his head to the side, rather confused.
Out of the corner of her eye, A.J. could see that the Handeemen all wore matching perplexed looks and so she quickly added: “…hot, strong and dark? Sorry, it’s a joke I have with a friend of mine.”

“Is that what you thought of Owen?” Riley asked, the ghost of a challenge in her voice as she stirred her own tea.

Daisy released A.J.’s hair to bless herself.
Nick let out a low whine, like a puppy whose tail had just been stepped on. “Moooortimer…she did it on purpose this time!”

“Riley, what did we talk about?”
“My apologies. I forgot.”

“Well,” A.J. interjected, before anything could escalate. “He always used to take his tea weak, cooled-off and pale. So, what does that say about me then?”

Mortimer chuckled and Riley made a kind of a snorting noise behind her mask.

A.J. wasn’t really looking at either of them though.
She was looking at the magician’s hooded puppeteer, whose head seemed to be fully turned in her direction.

The rest of the impromptu tea party was terribly (or rather thankfully) uneventful. A.J. collected her daily pay in another clump of twenty dollar bills, verified her tasks for the next day and said her goodbyes.
It was as she was leaving that she noted a symbol daubed on a wall in the lobby. There were odd little clusters of geometric graffiti all over the facility but this lone shape stood out to her.
It was a shaky little purple triangle with what appeared to be an eye in the centre.
She wrinkled her nose, trying to wrack her brain for where she had seen it before.

“Ah! A.J.! I thought you’d already gone!” Mortimer’s voice caused her to whip around for the second time that day. “I was going to scold Riley for leaving the front lights on.”

“Oh, no need. I’ll shut them off on the way out,” she told the magician, lifting her duffle bag on to her back. “Thank you for today, Mr. Handee. It was nice to see everyone again.”

She turned to leave, only to be stopped by Mortimer saying: “Forgetting something?”
A.J. surveyed him, scraping at the corners of her mind again and turning up nothing. “Uh…no? Not unless you want me to do anything else before I head off?”

Mortimer approached her, his puppeteer’s footsteps measured, even and somewhat theatrical in their procession. He playfully pulled open one frilly sleeve to show her that there was nothing inside, before mirroring the action with his other sleeve.

Then with a flourish, he reached behind A.J.’s head and produced something long and glinting with a red handle.
Her screwdriver.

“Ta-da.”

A.J. forced herself to smile despite the fact that vomit was suddenly surging upward in her stomach. “Wow, cool trick. I thought I had it in my bag but…I guess I must have dropped it somewhere. Thanks, Mr Handee.”

“Sleep well tonight, A.J., dear. You’ll need rest for tomorrow, I fear.”

The puppet’s wide-eyed stare stayed with her as she made her way back to the hotel.

In a vain attempt to soothe her nerves, she treated herself to some carry out. It was something that she would adamantly refuse to admit as a New Yorker but she’d sorely missed West Coast pizza.
Marissa called her at the usual time and A.J. stretched the hotel room phone again so that she could comfortably eat at the little table. Her manager didn’t have much to report, only that the network was going to call her back. Still, A.J. stayed on the line with her and let the woman tell her stories from work that day and vent about whatever tricky customer or finnicky client that she wanted.
Sometimes A.J. worried that their friendship was becoming one-sided again. Marissa was always very supportive of her and committed to looking after her in a way that went far beyond the call of duty for an average shift manager.
The first time A.J. had returned from California, strung-out, sleep-deprived and scarred, it would have been so easy for Marissa to say “I told you so.” But she hadn’t.
Instead, her friend had stayed with her in the apartment for a week, cooked for her, cleaned her up and put her in touch with a doctor.
Ever since then, A.J. had done everything she could to repay the favour.
Sometimes “everything” was as simple as letting her friend rant and rave and providing a resilient, listening ear.

Marissa deserved that much, A.J. knew. That much and much, much more.

A.J. slipped into bed that evening, tugging the covers up to her chin and willing herself not to think about that old lady, that doll and that house in Vermont.
That was the other reason why A.J. didn’t usually talk about her work ventures; talking about them with others would always reignite those memories in her own mind.

She turned on her side and looked at the hotel phone.

In an insane moment of reality meeting fantasy, A.J. was just wishing that it might ring and just about jumped out of her skin when the buttons suddenly lit up.
The familiar trill of chimes erupted from the phone and she reached out to grab the receiver immediately.

“…hello?”

“A.J., my dear! I hope this isn’t too late. I had a few things to attend to that just couldn’t wait. I hope I didn’t wake you; I just wanted to check in. Riley was alright with you today, I hope? Her patience can be quite thin. Tomorrow, I have something very exciting to share with you-”

A.J. cleared her throat and pulled herself to sit up. “Everything was fine with Ri-er…Doctor Ruckus. Mr Handee, I was wondering…?”

“Yes?”

“Could I talk to Owen, please?”

There was a tense silence, punctuated by a few moments of shuffling before the puppeteer’s familiar voice came on the line.

“Mortimer says we have to be quick, A.J. I have some things I have to do before packing up today.”

“Why can’t I talk to you in person? Not in front of your…new crew…but in private? This feels…wrong.”

“I know this is hard, A.J. but I promise it’ll be all worth it in the end. I think the others really like you. I promise that we can meet face to face soon.”

“…I need to ask you some things.” She was fully awake now.
Fully awake and fully prepared to break her number one rule.

More shuffling.
Muffled voices.

“Ok, Mortimer says you can ask me three questions. Can I ask you three questions too?”

A.J. rolled her eyes, growing ever tired of the pantomime but knowing that she wasn’t going to get much further without playing along, reluctantly continued: “Sure. Fine.”

“Ladies first.”

“What happened to Riley’s jaw? It looks absolutely mangled and her puppeteer won’t let me near it!” Anger burned under A.J.’s skin as she thought about it. “Her face is practically ruined and it looks like no one’s tried to do anything about it! Why are you letting these headcases handle the puppets when they can’t even take care of them properly?”

“I’ll talk to Riley about letting you take a look at it…it was kind of a personal, design choice for Riley…she’s kind of experimental nowadays. She had a bit of an accident but I think she likes it. I think she wants to look similar to Rosco…”

A.J. let out a humourless laugh. “So, now the puppeteers are allowed to just destroy their puppets and it’s ok if they give the mutilation a fucking quirky backstory?”

“…is that your second question?”

The craftswoman clenched her teeth and knuckled her forehead. “No. Ask yours now.”
Before I slam this phone down so hard that it breaks the bureau.

“What were you doing at the office door earlier? Really?”

She should have seen that one coming.

“I did genuinely want to see you. Maybe without the hood if I could catch you alone,” she half-lied. “To be honest, I was also hoping I could get you to run through the blue-prints with me. You know, for the Handeemen? It’s hard performing maintenance based on my old notes with no recent reference points. Which actually kind of leads me to my next question…”

“Go on?”

“How did you modify the Handeemen? Like from their original designs?”

“…I haven’t.”

“Owen, I’m not stupid. They can move their fingers, wrists and elbows with no arm rods…plus, their voices sound as if they’re coming from inside of them now…what kind of mechanical components do they have? Are they being remotely controlled or-?”

“I swear, A.J., I haven’t changed the designs at all. I thought you knew me better than that, honestly? It could be the new kind of puppeteering that we’re using that’s throwing you off…or maybe it’s just been a while since you’ve been with us? Maybe you’ve forgotten what good puppeteering looks like?”

Unlikely, A.J. thought sourly.
“Is that your second question?”

“No…my second question is…well, about what you said about the tea today. Is that really how you think I saw you? Weak?”

“I was kidding, Owen.”

“You know that I think you’re one of the strongest people that I know, right? I mean, it’s one of the reasons why I called you back…”

The corners of her eyes were starting to prickle and the lump in her throat was growing larger again. She willed herself to keep talking.
“My third question is: do you genuinely plan on reviving Handeemen as a show or is this whole thing just some kind of ritual to try and bring the puppets to life?”

There was a notable silence.
Notable enough that A.J. was once again, very aware of her own tempered, laboured breathing.

“…no tricks, no stunts, no rituals…I do genuinely want the show back on air and that’s what we’re prepping for. I have a pilot all planned out. I just need to get the last few things in order and we’ll be ready to start filming…”

There was something about his voice sounding so level, collected and measured that reminded A.J. of the Owen that she had known from working in the studio. It didn’t necessarily put all of her nerves to bed but it certainly was the best answer that he’d given her all evening.

“Alright, what’s your third question then?”

“Did you mean what you said? That one time in my apartment?”

Her stomach was unsettled again, her hand tight around the phone receiver and her blood pounding in her ears. “Did I mean what?” She pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. “That I wanted to bring the puppets to life? That I wanted to bring Clara to life? Yeah, sure. I did. I meant whatever answer I always gave you whenever you asked me that same, fucking, question-.”

“…that you loved me?”

A.J. almost dropped the phone, her hand falling limp and her once rapidly heating temperament suddenly doused with doubt and anxiety. “I…” She swallowed, willing herself to not fall into the rabbit hole of that particular memory. “I don’t know. I was younger then…I wasn’t in the best mental place…I…I don’t think I even knew what love was when I told you that I loved you.”

“Would it make a difference if I told you that I felt the same way? Even if I didn’t say it?”

“…that’s four questions. Tell Mortimer that I said goodnight.”

She put the phone down quickly and turned over in the bed, covering her head as if she had just thrown a grenade.
She imagined that she had Clara to hold, her arms tight around her body and her knees drawn to her chest.

A.J. didn’t have many memories prior to ending up in her Uncle Theo’s antique shop. She remembered that position though, bundled up under the blankets.
That was how she would sleep in every, single motel room, clutching a pillow, pretending it was a teddy bear and waiting for her mother to return.

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment.

Rule 7: Always strive to give more than the bare minimum. Don’t just reach targets: surpass them.

Rule 8: Don’t question the rules, A.J.

(April, 1987)

“You know he’s married right?”

The words hit her like a slap to the face.

(September, 1998)

A.J. took stock of a broken window around the back of the studio as she crossed the parking lot. She liked to think of herself as a stickler for details. She’d been trained to be a stickler for details.
She hadn’t noticed the little jagged-edge maw the day before or the day before that so she reasoned that the shatter must be new. A.J. willed herself not to inspect it further, resolving that she needed to get into the studio as early as possible that day. She did however note that it led into one of the press corridors and figured that Owen Mortimer would probably appreciate if she could take a look at it.
Glasswork wasn’t her favourite thing to do but provided with the right resources, she could probably patch it up with silica lest any- what had the magician called them?- strays get in.

She didn’t waste any time pulling on her gloves, scraping back her hair and setting her goggles on her head as soon as she was safely inside the studio foyer. The heavy, harrowing smell that always hung around her head was starting to become easier to breathe as she became more accustomed to her newfound work environment.
She pulled her diary from her duffle bag and opened it to the page where she had pinned her task list. A.J. had a habit of stuffing used tissues, old oil rags, broken cable ties and bent screws into her pockets and as such was used to simply tossing them into the trash after a long day. Too many times had she been forced to fish her task list out of the hotel’s waste paper can and after a close call with some chewing gum, the red-haired woman decided to offer the vital scrap some more secure lodgings.

Confirming her daily tasks, she headed down to the Performance Area of Wing C. She was slowly getting used to the layout of the place too, specifically which halls, rooms and workshops were now either defunct, off-limits or completely impossible to enter.
Her mental map was slowly coming up to date with every new expedition from the main entrance to a different part of the studio. She debated taking a shortcut through one of the maintenance hallways that she had vivid memories of wheeling props through only to find it blocked off by a medical gurney.
She gave brief pause to wonder whether or not they had gurneys of any description in the medical room while she’d been there but quickly stopped herself before she could become too curious on the matter.
“Don’t ask questions,” she reminded herself. “Focus on the task at hand.”

Her first few daily tasks involved performing maintenance on some of the Handeepuppets. Most of it was fairly simple: restitching a nose into place, moving a tooth to be more even, reattaching an arm or just covering a bald spot. With Mortimer’s permission, she was also allowed to flex her creative muscles a little, restyling the puppets’ hair to their liking.

The wooden magician hovered nearby for a while, occasionally drifting in and out of the Performance Wing between attending to whatever it was that he usually got up to.
Her “workshop” of sorts was a small security office that had been gutted of all its camera and PA equipment. She had managed to lug one of the better sewing machines in there too. A.J. found it a tiny bit odd that they wouldn’t just let her use the sewing rooms but there was a sturdy table for her to work at and some working plug sockets so she couldn’t bring herself to say anything in protest.

A.J. was just warming up a curling rod over her hot-plate, preparing to give a puppet named Polly some curly pigtails when Mortimer passed the door.
“Ah yes, curls of course,” he trilled, clasping his wooden fingers as he leaned in to inspect her work. “Our dear creator once told me that was a speciality of yours.”

The forcing of the memory caused a sudden barrage of feelings to try and force their way up A.J.’s throat but she quickly swallowed them down in favour of a nonchalant shrug. “Most toymakers worth their salt can curl woollen hair. How does that look, Polly?”

She held up a pocket mirror to the little purple-skinned puppet, unable to stop herself mimicking the little puppet’s wide smile as the little creatures squeaked: “I love it, I love it! I’m pretty as can be. There’s no one as flouncy or bouncy as me!”

The puppeteers’ resident LARPing had been grating at first but A.J. was slowly coming to tolerate it.
Enjoy it, even.

The performers- though very odd with her at first and rather aggressively standoffish- seemed to be far more comfortable with her too.
She got to work with Kenny and Violet that morning and had quite an admittedly lovely chat with them about their favourite kinds of music between a lot of washing, stitching and sticking. It was still rather concerning to A.J. that the puppeteers refused to let her take the puppets off of their hands but they didn’t seem to mind the hot water or needles.
Unlike the little puppet called Scout, the other Handeepuppets complained very little about being stitched with the needle. They seemed to have a kind of reticent resilience or trained fear that the blue-haired puppet lacked.
It was just as she was about to head out for supplies that it dawned on A.J. that she hadn’t seen Scout all day. A slightest buzz of worry stirred in A.J.’s stomach, wondering what had become of the poor girl.

Acting aside, Riley seemed to be threatening her with some kind of dismissal if she wasn’t able to complete whatever their orientation entailed. It seemed a terrible waste considering that she was a fairly good puppeteer and evidently dedicated performer.

Picking up new needles, hot glue tabs and varnish was pretty easy as thankfully, most of the sewing and DIY stores in the area were still where A.J. remembered them.
She would often go to those places on her days off from working at Handeemen Studios to buy new craft supplies. She didn’t have any friends in California and didn’t know the area very well so making little ragdolls, knitting little teddies and sculpting little figures became part of her day-off routine, concocted for staving off her boredom. Her Oma was a great purporter of the phrase “Idle hands are the devil’s tools.”
Idle hands like to reach for a lighter.
Idle hands like to reach for pills.
Idle hands like to reach for the bottle.
Idle hands like to reach for razor blades.

If Owen had the day off and could spare the time, he would sometimes come with her too, showing her where to find the highest quality materials, the best deals and the most long-wearing brands of clay or wool.
She still heard his voice in her ear while she was browsing, telling her what to put in her basket and what to leave on the shelf.

Familiar landscape aside, A.J. was less than appreciative of the sudden rainfall that decided to blanket the dusty, urban forest. Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to find a working payphone and wedging herself inside, she made her scheduled lunch-time call to Marissa.
“Hello there! Poughkeepside Toy Hospital. Max speaking! How can I help you today?”

“Hey, Max. It’s me, A.J. Is Marissa around?”

“Oh, hey A.J.! Long time, no see. How’s the sunshine state?”

She rubbed her forehead, trying to stop one of her shopping bags from tipping over by locking it against the glass of the booth with her knee. “Not exactly sunny right now but I’m managing. How’re things with you guys?”

“Mmm, the usual pre-Halloween ghosts and ghouls to fix with a few new additions. We got a pretty cool ventriloquist’s dummy in like four days ago. You would have gone crazy for it, I b- oh, hold up. Mari! Marissa, hon!? A.J. on line two for you!” There was a shuffling and a clicking before the receptionist’s animated voice returned, saying: “Ok, boss-lady will be right with you, A.J. Good luck in Cali. Make sure my souvenir isn’t too big for your carry on!”

A.J. didn’t have time to respond to this before Max’s excited trills were replaced by a warm, familiar Southern drawl.
“Hope Maxie didn’t keep you too long. Goodness knows he loves to talk…”
“Nah, believe it or not, I kind of missed Max distracting me from what I’m supposed to be doing.”

It was in the midst of their usual chatting that A.J. noticed the van again.
As she’d been dialling the call, fishing for quarters, an off-white van had passed by the phone-booth. Behind the slightly fogged, rain-streaked glass of the booth, A.J. could see that one of their tail-lights were out and fleetingly felt sorry for the poor bastard driving it. The van slowed down as it passed the payphone, crawling beside the side-walk. There was nothing inherently strange about this at first; the driver could have been looking for a particular address for delivery.
However this time marked the van’s third lap of the block and it only seemed to slow down as it passed the phone booth. Stranger still was the fact that the driver’s windows were tinted, definitely uncommon for the average delivery van.

“…and I’ll be expecting that phonecall back from the network production rep in an hour or two so I’ll be able to get that info for you in time for our call tonight.”
“What? Oh, yeah. Cool. Thanks, Marissa.” A.J. tore her eyes away from the van as it disappeared around a nearby corner and resolved not to look up again. If it was someone trying to mess with her for whatever reason, staring at the driver was probably only encouraging them. “Hey, uh, weird question but do you remember the name of that…paranormal reporter or researcher or something who came by Toy Hospital that one time?”

“Oh…that’s a while ago. Last year, right? I remember him. Real scruffy looking guy…kinda shifty…kept shoving that tape recorder in everyone’s face…what was his name again? Shit. I can’t remember. Why do you ask?”

“He gave me this card if I ever wanted to talk about …Owen and everything. It was the name of his newsletter or local access show or something. I’m pretty sure I just tossed it in the trash but I remember that it had this weird little symbol on it. It was like a triangle with an eye in the middle. I’m almost convinced I saw it on one of the walls in the old studio.”

“Well, there’s also one on a dollar bill, Amy. I wouldn’t think much of it…I’m still kicking myself that I can’t remember his name though. Especially after I threatened to call the cops on him…mmm…Parson? Or Pierce? No, that’s not it…leave it with me…It’ll come to me.”

“It’s not that important,” A.J. felt the need to clarify, feeling that she had already asked enough of Marissa for one lifetime. “I just thought it was a bit of a weird coincidence, what with him being so interested in the show and…the fire and everything.”

It had sickened her when the man had walked straight up to her in the workshop, armed with a pocket tape recorder with Marissa storming after him.
“You’re her, right? You’re A.J. Schwarzwald? Owen Gubberson’s former mistress?”

He hadn’t gotten much further before her manager had threatened to either call the police or to drag him to the curb herself. He had just about managed to stammer out his name and slip her the little business card, shouting about parascientific discoveries and needing her to help him figure out “the truth.”

The staff had thankfully treated her with velvet gloves for the rest of the day, all equally disgusted that someone had so bluntly brought up the tragedy in the context of something as insulting as glorified ghost hunting.
A.J. was just mortified that he’d somehow managed to find her and worse still, he’d found her as “Owen Gubberson’s former mistress.”

Former mistress?
Was that really her only legacy after all the (literal) blood, sweat and tears that she’d poured into working on Mortimer’s Handeemen?

I never even fucking slept with the man.

She bade her farewells to Marissa and after thoroughly making sure that the van was no longer scouring the block, A.J. made her way back to the studio with her new supplies. The rain began to lighten as she neared the warehouse lot but having left her jacket back at the studio, A.J. was still uncomfortably damp by the time she made it back inside.

Mortimer probably wouldn’t mind if she moved up her laundry room tasks, just for the sake of warming herself up if nothing else. There was some vague, luxury to be found in sitting in front of the washing machines and driers, listening to their monotonous thrums and enjoying the residual heat wash over her.  
She also quite enjoyed the resident catharsis of washing and mending the Handeemen’s costume sets. Caring for garments wasn’t the most exciting or creative of pursuits but it was one A.J. had been trained to do from a young age and as such, it wasn’t exactly stressful.
She gingerly lifted another of Mortimer’s suit jackets from the drum of the drier, realising with ire that one of his little cravat handkerchiefs was starting to fray at the corners. It was going to need to be reinforced with a glue lining or replaced entirely.
Reluctant to leave her nice, warm spot but knowing that this was an issue that would be spotted almost instantly by the leading puppet and his famously finnicky puppeteer, A.J. set aside her toolkit and started off for the sewing rooms.

She was about halfway through the Accountancy Wing, (trying to ignore the fact that some of the wall-posters appeared to be watching her as she walked past), when she recalled a shortcut via the seldom-used studio showers.
There was a large, alarmingly open-plan shower room behind the unisex bathroom that had rarely ever been used due to (a) the lack of privacy and (b) the lack of time to actually shower between hard work, smoke breaks and grabbing a very quick bite to eat.
Usually, it was used as a place for storing crates of extra merchandise or simply as a quick route through to the soundstages.

Fittingly, A.J. was rather surprised when she opened the door of the shower to a wall of rippling, parting steam. It was as though someone had cranked the hot water boiler up to maximum and had burst a pipe somewhere. The craftswoman frowned; she was not a plumber by any stretch of the definition so this was one that she wouldn’t be able to fix.
Forced to make her way through the steam-cloaked maze by searching for the blurry exit sign on the opposing door, A.J. was just about there when she heard a familiar muttering in the mist.

“How dare Nick say that “embowel” is not a real word? He thinks he knows better? Simply absurd.”

Near the wall, A.J. could see Riley and her puppeteer hunched over some kind of machine, the puppet meticulously slotting coloured flags into some kind of conveyor belt. Her manic murmuring continued all the while.

“The definition of disembowel is easy to say, but that’s not what befell of my test subject today. I added an extra stomach here and kidney there, so the logic is clear and my judgement is fair.” The puppet lifted her head, waving the little cyan flag in frustration. “When it comes to lexicon, I have nothing to prove. To embowel is to add organs while to disembowel is to remove…”

A.J. briefly wondered with a shudder if Riley’s puppeteer knew she was there or if these nutters in black hoods kept the act up even when they were alone. She decided that either way, it was best to make her presence known.

“Hello Doctor Ruckus. How are you?”

The puppet’s head whipped around to regard her with a narrow-eyed look. “Busy with my research. I have no time for idle chatter. Now keep walking through before I take offence with this matter…”

“Don’t worry,” A.J. said, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m just passing through.”

“You know, we used to force your kind to run about and hide,” the scientist sneered at A.J.’s back. “You’d perform tasks for our entertainment and then we’d rip out your insides.”

The human stopped and quirked an eyebrow. “My kind?”

“Hosts without puppets. A horrible existence. You’d be just like all the others without Mortimer’s insistence.” Riley folded her arms, her chin sticking out defiantly.

“Owe-Mr Handee doesn’t want me carrying a puppet like everyone else here?” For the first time, A.J. felt obligated to question this.

“Mortimer thinks you’d be better with two hands to use,” Riley clarified, turning back to her own work with a ripple of her little, wooden shoulders beneath her lab coat. “I disagree but have been outvoted, as much as I hate to lose.”

“Democracy’s a bitch but it’s the best system we’ve got, right?” A.J. offered in return, turning on heel to disguise her cathartic eye-roll.

“A.J.? A question before you go on your way.”
Riley said this not a request but rather as a demand, prompting A.J. to reluctantly stop once again.

“Yes?”

“You mentioned to me prior that despite all reprieve, when things became stagnant here, it was your desire to leave.”

“…yes?”

“With experience and judgement in tow, how did you know that it was the right time for you to go?” The puppet wasn’t looking at her but A.J. was genuinely taken aback by the question. By both the question itself and Riley’s muted, pensive tone while asking it. It wasn’t too unlike the way Jeanette would have spoken to her during their smoke breaks.

The human woman exhaled, the humidity contributing to her sudden wave of nausea.  “I mean, like I said before…I wasn’t really learning anything new, I wasn’t helping the show in any meaningful way and my opinions were never really going to matter…so I guess, I knew it was time to see myself out when I had more to gain by leaving than by staying.”

“…I see.”

A small silence passed between them, during which all that could be heard was the occasional clinking of the boiler and the dull hiss of the steam intermittently spraying from the pipes.

Then Riley suddenly snapped: “See yourself out now then, before I take a forceps and dish and pluck teeth from your mouth until a swift death is your only wish.”
Grateful to be dismissed from what felt like a fairly awkward exchange, A.J. simply nodded at the puppet’s hunched back. “Doctor Ruckus.”

Breathing the air outside the room felt euphoric. She stilled her step for a moment to take in several fresh, cold lungfuls before returning to her work.
In the back of her mind, she wondered if her little pow-wow with Riley had been secretly for the benefit of the scientist’s human puppeteer. Maybe the poor, little pretender under that hood was getting tired of this roleplay rigamarole? A.J. also anxiously considered the option that the whole thing may have been a form of information digging for Owen.
“And?” a sardonic voice that sounded very like her therapist in the back of her head said. “Nothing you said to that puppet was a lie.”

Either way, she was more than content to leave Riley Ruckus back to her experiments.

A.J. had some research of her own that she was pretty set on doing.

It always seemed as though the puppeteers had some kind of intimate knowledge of the culture of and events that had occurred at the studio long before their time. Often, as she had noted before, it felt as though she was talking to people who actually used to work with Owen and knew him back in the golden days.
This would mean that the current “cast” was made up of former crew from the original run of the show. The only problem with that was that as far as A.J. knew, scant few of the original crew had survived the fire and the few that did were not exactly Owen’s biggest fans.
The other possibility was that Owen had simply recounted all of their misadventures- in excruciating detail- to his new posse. The rather stark problem with this was that Owen was on parr with A.J. for social skills, (i.e. having none whatsoever), and she honestly couldn’t imagine the man so much as approaching newbies to recruit much less laboriously recounting the ins and outs of the cast and crew’s daily drama.

While the former seemed as equally unlikely as the latter, A.J.’s curiosities persisted. She would not be breaking her first and foremost rule- she would not be asking questions- she would simply be testing a theory.

Her next task was to work on Nick, repainting parts of his face where the paint was starting to wear away or dull down.
The artist quite enjoyed being fussed over and A.J. was quick to notice that he seemed the happiest to reminisce about earlier times.

“Haunted Hayride was one of my favourites, you know.,” Nick Nack trilled as looked over A.J.’s selection of paints. “Though I’ll admit that the hanging ghosts were probably a little too dark for a kids’ show. Mmm, use the chocolate brown tint, please. I think it’ll add a much-needed warmth to my cheeks.”

The red-headed woman moved one of her magnifying glasses to her eyes and gingerly guided the puppet’s head to look in her desired direction. She had just started carefully redrawing the boundaries of Nick’s side-burns with a ruler when she decided to comment: “Hayride was one of my favourite episodes to shoot too. I remember having lots of fun stitching different faces on to the scarecrows though they were a pain to stuff with all of that fake straw.” She took a careful pause to properly focus on delicately drawing her first border line before starting to speak again. “We had that real scare on set though. Remember when that cloud set-piece almost fell on those extras? Jake only barely got you out of the way, if I recall correctly.”

“Oh mon Dieu, the thing almost sliced a kid’s head off,” Nick replied with rather mischievous glint in his glass eyes. “Though we could have saved a small fortune on Halloween props.”

Granted, the new puppeteer could have been just making a reasonable assumption but A.J. hadn’t mentioned that any of the extras were children.
They were children, of course.
The fact that the puppeteer knew about this very niche incident that Owen hadn’t even been on set for gave reason for A.J.’s hand to quiver just the tiniest bit as she started on Nick’s moustache.

When she was sure Nick Nack was merrily on his way back to shout at his stagehand(puppets), A.J. made her way to the bathroom. She needed to splash some water on her face and refocus her thoughts before her next task.
The plumbing in the building was rather unreliable at the best of time, no doubt due to damaged pipes following the fire. Some of the faucets at the sinks didn’t work at all, others only gave a trickle while a select few renegades were gurgle out a stream of ice-cold water before suddenly expelling a geyser of searing hot steam.
“Thank fuck no one’s asked me to take a look at these,” she thought to herself, locating a vaguely reliable sink and partially filling the grubby little basin. The mirrors were borderline useless, mostly covered in a mixture of smoke, grime and what appeared to be matte paint. Some had graffiti carved into the surface but like most of the graffiti around the building, A.J. couldn’t make head or tails of the little shapes and symbols.

Finding the nearest hand-drier to be defunct, save for being able to cough out a cloud of rust-laden dust, A.J. went to seek out a clump of toilet paper from a stall.
The bathrooms were certainly not well kept but the dispensers seemed to have the odd mottled roll still shoved up inside them. She was elbow deep in one when she noticed the crude caricature of Riley scratched on to the back of the door, annotated with the caption: “ACTUAL IDIOT.”
The craftswoman couldn’t suppress a chortle, imagining the puppeteer on their hands and knees while the artist puppet painstakingly carved out their rage portrait. “Nice one, Nick.”

It occurred to her at that moment that she had never met any of the other puppeteers in that bathroom. Or any bathroom.
Besides venturing in there to scratch or scrawl the occasional piece of graffiti, she mused, they seemed to be taking care of their human needs elsewhere.

As though Fate itself had decided to prove her point wrong, the main door of the Unisex bathroom suddenly swung open with a terrifying clatter.
A.J. was about to stick her head out to see who had joined her but a sudden feeling of dread told every fibre of her being to stay crouched behind the stall door. Following her own instincts, she slowly withdrew her hand from the paper dispenser and backed away from the edges of the stall.

She watched under the stall as a pair of feet, clad in a pair of scruffy trainers, stumbled across the floor. She heard coughing, moaning and grunting in quick succession and dared herself to lean forwards a little more with a mind to get a better look at the bathroom’s new occupant. The gruff voice sounded strangled as the person coughed again, this time sending a sudden splatter of crimson across the floor.
Her eyes widened as they travelled upward to see two hands with gnawed fingernails, bruised knuckles and…no puppet!

A.J. got to her feet and pulled the door open, just in time to see an ashen faced young man with dark hair and blood around his mouth standing in the middle of the bathroom. He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and horror, extending a hand towards her as he struggled to speak.

“Y-You…you h-h-have to…”

Wary but willing to help, A.J. took a step in his direction. The man looked distressed but he could just as easily have been another one of Owen’s new fanatics engaged in some more bizarre method acting. “Ok, calm down for a moment. What happened? Are you hurt? Do you want me to get someone?”

Seeing the man’s face contort in fear, she raised her hands to show that she wasn’t holding any weapons. The longer A.J. looked at him, the clearer it was that this guy was in bad shape in every conceivable way that a shape could be bad.

“I…I don’t get it,” he said slowly, wheezing slightly as he tried to prop himself up on a nearby sink. “How are you…here? How did you get away?”

A.J. didn’t have time to even think about an answer when the bathroom door swung open for a second time, this time revealing the same burly man in a security guard’s shirt that she had seen only the day before while hiding in the confetti room. The sock puppet monstrosity on his hand was no less grotesque- no less organic-looking. The guard held up the puppet like a torch, its mismatched eyes rolling around the room before settling on the injured young man and narrowing into a glare.

The sock puppet let out a raspy snarl.
The young man answered with a terrified scream.

Before A.J. could process what was about to happen, the burly security guard suddenly scooped the man up, the puppet covering his blood-stained mouth like a serpent suffocating its prey. Despite flailing limbs and muffled shrieks, the guard hauled the man from the room as though he was a ragdoll.
Just like that, the motley pair were gone and the bathroom was empty again.

Empty and silent.
Silent save for A.J.’s own rapidly thrumming heart and hoarse breaths.

She looked at where the man’s hand had been on the edge of the sink, where it had clung to the white porcelain wash-basin like a lifeline before he’d been so abruptly dragged away.
There was a scarlet handprint there, left in its place.

A.J. stared at the bloody handprint for a moment and then threw the bathroom door open, running after the security guard. For such a big guy, he moved quite quickly but A.J. didn’t have much trouble figuring out where he’d been.
All she had to do was to search for the specks of fresh blood on the ground- a macabre trail of bread crumbs amongst the ash and litter.

The trail ended outside the accountancy wing, stopping at a door marked “Human Resources.”
A.J. pulled a face, remembering the last time she’d been to this door and had to endure a humiliating interrogation regarding her use of prescribed medication at work and a series of intrusive questions about the marks on her arms.

Right now, it appeared that was where the sock puppet had taken its unwilling charge and A.J. gathered her courage before giving the door a hard pull. Nothing happened, the door remaining stuck fast in its frame. There appeared to be some kind of mechanical device attached to it, she realised, keeping it stuck fast. There was a keypad and screen beside the door but no matter what she tried, nothing worked.
She sucked a long inhale through her teeth, massaging her temples.

“What the fuck am I doing?”
There was literally nothing stopping her from simply turning around, pretending she hadn’t seen anything and returning to her tasks.
A staunch professional.
A good little worker bee who didn’t stick her nose where it didn’t belong.
Just like at the Pizzaplex.

There was something personal about this time, though. With Owen involved- and potentially-alive, she felt emotionally obliged to investigate everything here to the fullest.
A.J. tried the door again only to garner the same results. She could definitely hear something behind the panel but couldn’t make out anything specific.

She turned around to survey the hallway, hoping to find a stray crowbar of some kind and half-considering looking for an alternative entrance on the outside of the building.

Then something caught her eye.
Not a crowbar but something else.

There was what appeared to be a pigeon of some kind pecking at a nearby corner of the wall. Its head drummed rhythmically against the skirting board like clockwork. Filled with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity, A.J. moved closer to it.
It looked far smaller than the pigeons that she was used to seeing in Central Park but there was something else that was strange about it. It didn’t fly away in fright or so much as fluff its feathers as A.J. got closer but rather continued to peck against the wall. Something seemed to be tucked around its neck.
Stitching?
Was it a toy of some kind?

A.J.’s foot knocked over an empty can of Riley Soda on the floor and the bird froze, holding its head upright. It slowly turned and for the first time, with horror, the craftswoman realised just what she was looking at.
The very-alive, very-organic pigeon had some kind of cloth crudely stitched around its head, contorting its beak into an unnatural shape.

A.J. automatically stumbled backwards, the pigeon drunkenly waddling in her direction.
“What the fuck is-?”

Suddenly something large and hairy leapt forth from a darkened corner, seizing the mutilated pigeon by the throat. It wasted no time wringing the poor wretch by the neck, feathers and blood spraying forth like some kind of macabre confetti. A.J. wanted to run but she couldn’t tear her eyes from what she was seeing. It looked like an emaciated dog of some kind though like the pigeon and indeed, most of the people in that place, it had a kind of hood wrapped around its head. Its body was laden with grotesque wire stitch-work and areas of the animal that weren’t already shedding fur and revealing sore, spotted skin seemed to have been replaced entirely with some kind of damp riddled canvas.

The creature turned to face A.J., snarling.
Its jaws seemed to have gnawed clean through its hood cover, revealing grossly receding gum lines over sharp, saliva-laden teeth. Rivulets of the pigeon’s blood ran down its chin, snagging the threadbare hood before falling to the floor.

Swallowing back her desire to cry out for help, A.J. took a step backwards.
The dog-thing dropped its prey to the floor, the pigeon’s neck bending like a rubber chicken prop. A.J. watched as the monstrous thing arched its back, tail swinging violently before it suddenly lunged at her.

She just barely managed to evade its bite and quickly sprinted through the remains of a nearby office, dodging around tables as the dog creature followed at her heels. It didn’t seem to be able to see very well, she realised, as it ploughed indiscriminately into tables, chairs and door-frames.
She rounded a corner into a management office and darted behind one of the cubicle partitions. The creature was a few feet behind her and as it turned the corner, A.J. could see it between a crack in the partition. It sniffed the air, head whipping from left to right as it searched for her.
She clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her terrified breaths. Her heartbeat felt so loud in her chest. She suddenly wished she could unzip her own skin, flip a little plastic switch and stop her heart altogether.
The dog-thing wandered in a little circle, seemingly unable to detect her and A.J. allowed herself to rest her head against the nearby bare brick wall. Her lungs were burning and her knees hurt from the sudden burst of activity. The dog looked as though it was about to leave, starting to make its way towards another open door. A.J. knew she would only have a short window of time to make an escape and pulled herself into a squat, leaning on the wall and preparing to stand up again.

Then, much to her abject terror, the wall behind her started to move.
Actually, it wasn’t the wall at all.
Because her hand wasn’t and had never been on the wall.

She had been leaning on the giant Handee Animal Friends Toy that was mounted upon said wall.
And as soon as she released the little blue lever, the device dutifully sprang to life, emitting the loud, mocking bray of a donkey.

Quick as a flash, the dog creature’s head was in A.J.’s direction again, growling loudly. Not wanting to risk becoming paralysed with fear again, the craftswoman shoved the partition on top of the monstrous thing and made a break for the other door.
She heard its feral barking at her heels as she sprinted down another darkened hallway, desperately looking for another hiding place. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to slow down long enough to find somewhere else to duck into and a telltale shudder from her chest told her that it wouldn’t be long before her body would give up on her.

A nearby cabinet filled her with inspiration and too scared to check over her shoulder, A.J. leapt on to a nearby cardboard box, scrambling to climb on top of the large piece of furniture.
Trapped in a corner, forced to lie between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling, A.J. watched as the dog tried to follow her. It made a few desperate leaps but lacking dexterity, was thankfully unable to scale the cabinet.
Instead, it chose to pace in circles at the foot of the metal bastion, growling, barking and effectively laying her under siege.

A.J. clutched at her chest, still breathing heavily and trying to debate her options. She had no idea what part of the studio she was in and wasn’t at all sure whether calling for help would do anything but trigger another vicious reaction in this horrific creature.

She was just considering making for a nearby air-vent when the dog monstrosity suddenly froze like a wind-up toy, clasped by the hand of a child. It sniffed the air and flattened its ears, whimpering and scarpering away through the door at the back of the room with its tail tucked between its legs.

Not wanting to question this god-sent stroke of luck, A.J. flattened her body again and started to awkwardly shimmy down the cabinet. That was, until, she too was prompted to freeze by the sound of voices in the distance. Making a quick decision, she retreated back to her spot, on top of the cabinet and cupped a hand over her mouth again.

The voices were getting louder as footsteps approached the room.
Louder and more familiar.

“I should have come across her by now. Is she avoiding me? She should be back in Wing A by now. Where could she be?”

“The last time I saw her, she was in testing room five though that was over an hour ago and presuming she’s still alive…”

Mortimer and Riley.

She briefly debated making her presence known but decided against it as the two puppeteers walked through the room, unaware of her presence.

“Riley, my dear,” Mortimer went on, voice stern and gesticulating wildly, his long arms like two purple serpents from where A.J. was hidden. “Let me remind you of this fact. Despite your distrust, Amelia-Jane must remain alive and intact. Our creed is vital but the needs of our cause is greater. Let her finish her tasks first and we will review her usefulness later.”

“You said you caught her snooping around the office yesterday,” Riley snapped, her dark red hair standing out against the dim, dullness of their surroundings. “Why continue to indulge her innocent play? If we take her under our control now…”

“Her attempts at a smash and grab and her curiosities have been noted,” Mortimer interjected, his tone far sharper than the scientist’s and far gruffer than A.J. could ever remember hearing it on the show. “Stay in the lab and let me worry about keeping her devoted.”

Riley sighed, sounding distraught. Another tone that A.J. was not at all used to hearing for that character.
“I only protest out of concern for our stake. Have you given any thought to what she may have tried to take? What she might have discovered after just one look? For instance, the remaining pieces of the book?”

“Amelia-Jane had no knowledge of it before she decided to stray!” Mortimer all but barked at his subordinate. “And that is the way that I intend for things to stay.”

“Suppose she does know and always knew?” Riley interjected, still sounding overwrought with a kind of manic anxiety. “If she got her hands on those pages, what would she do? Do you really think she’d be sympathetic to us? Do you think she’d remain loyal-hearted? Or do you think she’d finish what…he started?”

“Enough, Riley! Just do as you’re told!” Mortimer shouted. “You forget your place! These questions are far too bold!”

They were slightly out of A.J.’s line of sight but she could see from their shadows that the magician was now leaning over both the scientist and her puppeteer.

“I…I apologise…but…”

“No buts, no ifs, no more at all from you! Your paranoia has become a threat to what we are trying to do! If you dare to question my judgement once more, I’ll reduce you to kindling and shatter you on the floor!”
Mortimer coughed slightly and cleared his throat, his typical gentlemanly baritone returning as he added: “Riley, my dear, I need you at your best. You’re a vital part of my plans- certainly more vital than the rest…”

“My only goal is to further our great campaign. The last thing I want is to be the weak link in the chain,” she replied in a tone of voice that was far too familiar to A.J. It reminded her of the way she spoke to Owen after one of his outbursts and it made her want to bite a chunk out of her own hand. “You gave us our life and for that I am in your debt…my concerns are only ever-…”

“Oh, darling, don’t fret,” Mortimer cut her off with a consoling purr. “Let me handle this one little human and you take care of the rest. Speaking of which, are we all set up for Scout’s third run at your test?”

Riley sounded less than pleased to be moving off the topic but just as A.J. would have happily done for Owen, the wooden scientist reluctantly moved on. “Yes. She’s been recalibrated and debriefed and reassigned to her idle post. All that’s left to do is to reassign her a host.”

“Oh splendid. This timing is certainly a delight! I have it on good word that we may have another uninvited visitor tonight.”

“Another one? So soon?” Riley started to sound excited. “Shall I send the sock puppets to bring them here? Or shall I unleash Rosco to send them running in fear?”

“Neither. You have duties to attend,” Mortimer orated. “I shall be the one to greet our new friend. Though with Nick and Daisy busy with production tonight, I may need your assistance on the soundstage, so kindly remain in my line of sight…”

Their voices started to fade, indicating that the puppets were leaving the area.
A.J. slowly turned on to her back to alleviate the dull ache in her elbows and still too afraid to climb down just yet. She stared at the black-specked ceiling only inches from her face, her head swimming- no drowning- as she tried to process what she just heard.

The fact that the two puppeteers had stayed in perfect character the whole time despite having no one to perform for was only the tip of the ice-berg.
Whatever Owen had going on here was clearly far darker than A.J. had originally anticipated.

“Call the fucking cops.”
Marissa’s voice played in her head on a loop like a doll with a broken pull-string. Her eyes traced the damp patches in the decayed ceiling as she fantasised about a SWAT team breaking in and finding…nothing?
Nothing but a few fanatical drama students, their mentally disturbed leader who probably needed to see a doctor and an assortment of intricate new puppet creatures.
An anxiety began to steal over her as she considered the fact that she hadn’t gotten a very good look at the dog or the pigeon and that it was just as likely that along with the rats, these were some new mechanical creations that Owen had been working on.
Was that the big surprise that Mortimer had spoke of?
Maybe they were going to rebrand as a horror show? Finally give into the critics who had commented that the show was too dark at times for children. That would certainly explain both the man in the bathroom and the Handeemen’s new, rather intense personas.
Maybe this was all just part of the training?
Maybe the reason they weren’t telling A.J. was that they were afraid that she’d run to the press?

One hundred and one doubts ran through her mind, clashing and crashing with each other and amidst it all, one single repeating image of Mortimer Handee’s perfect wooden jaw being mangled by a police-officer’s baton stood out and clear.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, her biggest reluctance to calling the cops was knowing that if they broke in- there is no way those cult-like puppeteers would give up the puppets easily. That meant that in a flurry of handcuffs and raiding, Daisy, Nick, Riley, Mortimer and all of the other little Handeepuppets would be destroyed.

She couldn’t bear the thought.
And that fact in turn, sickened her.

She was used to making herself sick but this felt like a new low.

“I’ll wait ‘til Marissa gets back to me about what the network has to say,” A.J. told herself in a vain attempt to calm her anxieties. “Then I’ll think about calling the cops. In the meantime, I have tasks to do…”

Using this single thought as her beacon of light in a maelstrom of nervous thoughts, she slowly wriggled her way out from where she had been hiding and climbed down from the cabinet.
Choosing to leave in the opposite direction that Riley and Mortimer had left in, A.J. realised that she was very close to the service tunnels that ran under the studio.
Bittersweet memories flashed through her mind.

She remembered the first time that Nick’s puppeteer Jake had joined her down there for a smoke and gave her some much needed comfort when she’d been crying.
She also remembered the second time that Jake had joined her in the tunnels.
When he’d done the exact opposite.

(April, 1987)

“You know he’s married right?”

The words hit her like a slap to the face.

“S-Sorry?...what?”

A.J. couldn’t believe what Jake had just said.
Despite his words repeating in her ears along with the pounding of her own heart, she couldn’t bring herself to comprehend the reality that he was presenting to her. There was some kind of latent shock there, humiliation, indignation…It was as though she’d been working on some kind of beautiful oil painting and Jake had just poured a glass of icy water all over her canvas.
And all over her.

“Owen is married, A.J.,” Jake repeated, taking another drag of his cigarette. “He’s been married for years.”

Just seconds ago, they’d been talking about the work environment. Jake had brought up unionising and A.J. had been against it, not wanting to consider it without first consulting Owen.
When the puppeteer started to speak harshly about the showrunner’s efforts, A.J. leapt to defend him and it was clearly this sudden defensiveness that prompted the horrible revelation on Jake’s part.

“I’m sorry, A.J.,” he said with a shrug. “I didn’t want to make assumptions but people have started saying that they see you driving to work with him and clearly he’s got you wrapped around his little finger…”

“I…” She didn’t know what to say.
She wanted Jake, Owen, someone, anyone, to suddenly jump out and shout “April Fools!” and for this whole thing to be a cruel prank.
She could handle cruel pranks.
But she could tell by the man’s face, his voice that he was telling the truth.

“I thought you might have known already,” Jake continued to say, looking a little uncomfortable at A.J.’s discomfort. “I thought someone might have told you. I thought he might have told you. Or maybe that you had met Paula already…I mean it’s been a while since she’s been to the studio but I mean, they have a kid together. But then it got kind of obvious that you have a thing for Owen and look, I didn’t think he was the type but I just don’t want to see a poor kid like you get completely played…”

She couldn’t hear him anymore.
She couldn’t bear to hear him anymore.
A.J.’s head was bent at this point, a slow, monotonous drumming growing in her ears.

She could remember that Jake’s last words to her were something along the lines of “I’m really sorry” before he left her standing in the tunnel alone.
Giving her the luxury of crying without an audience.

She wiped her tears and didn’t cry again for another forty-eight hours. In fact, she was almost proud of how comfortably numb she had managed to stay.

The next time was after her weekly phonecall with Marissa.
She tried to drop the new information into the conversation as swiftly and casually as possible, hoping that her friend would offer some form of comfort.

“…so, he says that he’ll have to ask his wife for the funds to-…”

“His wife? His wife?!” Marissa’s words were like frantic bullets, cutting her down instantly. “A.J., tell me you’re kidding? Owen isn’t…married, is he?”

“Well, I mean he is…legally,” A.J. replied, shakily, trying to keep her voice as calm as Owen’s had been when he explained this to her. “They’re not divorced yet but they’ve been separated for more than a year now. He doesn’t even live with her anymore. Not all the time anyway. He mainly just visits his old place to talk to his son-..”

“He has a kid?!” Marissa all but shrieked. “Amy, you can’t be serious? He’s kept this from you all this time and you’re not even the slightest bit concerned or angry or-?”

“She knows about me…and…and Owen said she’s dating other people too,” A.J. snapped, her voice starting to quiver. “It’s not like I’m a secret or anything. He even wants me to introduce me to his son soon. He just says that we need to wait a little longer until the kid’s gotten used to the idea of them being split…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop saying all this like it’s romantic! Wake up, A.J. If any of that was true, he’d have no reason not to tell you from day one,” Marissa interrupted, voice stern and filled with disdain. “I knew this guy was no good for you…”

Unable to suppress the hammering in her chest any more, A.J. suddenly blurted out: “Stop fucking talking to me like I’m a child! You’re not my mother!”

She slammed the phone down just as the tears started to pour down her face like an overfed baby doll. She felt awful being so mean to her only true friend but her mind couldn’t handle those kinds of doubts at that moment.
The truth was harsh, cold and painful but she clung fast to the pretty things that her mind had decided upon.
Owen had been angry when she’d confronted him. He’d spent a lot of time shouting about Jake having told her, (he fixated on this fact a lot actually), but then after he’d calmed down, he finally told her everything and said that made them closer than ever and that had to count for something, right?

Besides, A.J. knew damn well that despite what she had told Marissa, her real mother wouldn’t have given a shit about her.

Later that week, Owen did take her to the local foreign food market. He was a little bit surly in public and just like in New York city, he didn’t particularly like crowds of any kind but A.J. didn’t mind. It was thoughtful of him to help her find the chocolate milk powder that her Oma had used. It was a little sliver of her grandmother’s memory that she would be able to cling to.
After a jostling jaunt around the market places, they eventually sat down at one of the many cafes for a cup of tea. A.J. added new observations to her journal while Owen sketched in his notebook. She quite liked that the two of them could sit side by side and work together in perfect silence, both immersed in their crafts but equally in good company.
She stole the odd glance at Owen’s work between her own writing. It was rare that she got to see him start a new concept sketch and the experience was truly fascinating to behold. Just as with wood, Owen’s hand could hover over paper for a few moments and with a few flicks left and right, bring a new creation to life.

She peered at his latest pencil sketch with interest, noting two figures sitting together rather cosily. The male figure’s hand was interlocked with the female figure’s where the two appeared to sit on a couch. She tilted her head, trying to get a better idea of just what she was looking at. “Is that…Mortimer and Riley? I thought you said you didn’t like when people tried to pair up the Handeemen with each other?”

“It’s us, dummy,” Owen chuckled, looking a little bashful.

A.J.’s chest gave a flutter; no one had ever drawn her before and there was something so intimately flattering about the way Owen’s hand carefully dotted the freckles across her cheeks. Unable to help herself, A.J. leaned over their table to plant a kiss on Owen’s cheek, only to have him wave a stern pencil in her face.

“Sit back down.” 

Much to her surprise, despite the latent sting of rejection, her body complied- her back straightening in the seat as though grabbed by the hand of an invisible puppeteer. She was almost betrayed by her own level of obedience. Not even her Uncle Theo had been able to get her to follow a command with such abruptness.

“I’m not a big fan of PDA,” he clarified, clearly reading the dejected expression on her face, lowering his voice a little before adding. “We can cuddle back at the apartment later. In private.”

When they did get back to Owen’s apartment, later that evening, the puppeteer seemed less interest in kissing his girlfriend, (Owen had never once called her his girlfriend), and a lot more interest in playing around with Mortimer.
Obligingly, A.J. fetched Clara for another tea party. She didn’t mind their little games at all- if anything she quite enjoyed them. On this particular occasion however, there had been something on her mind that she badly needed to talk to Owen about and it was a topic that he kept dodging.
Taking a little risk, A.J. decided to have Clara ask instead.

“Say, Mortimer?” the porcelain doll said in A.J.’s voice, perched upon A.J.’s lap. “Amelia-Jane has been very worried lately. She’s not sure if she should talk to Owen about it or maybe try to work on it herself?”

“Well, by Jove, if there’s anything that I can do,” Mortimer told Clara, leaning his ample chin upon his slender wooden knuckles. “I’d be happy to offer my advice. What’s got A.J. feeling blue?”

“So, Amelia-Jane’s contract with Handeemen Studios is about to be up and that means she’ll have to either go back to New York in order to keep her job at the Toy Hospital or she could leave her job at the Toy Hospital and stay here,” Clara explained, one of her little hands stiffly moving to compliment her words with the help of A.J.’s forefinger and thumb. “I know that Owen told her that she could stay here and work for Handeemen Studios and that would be a real dream come true for her…”

“Then it’s settled! A.J. can stay!” Mortimer interjected suddenly, almost knocking a teacup from the table. “I see no other problem with having it this way.”

“It’s just that I- I mean, Amelia-Jane- overheard one of the accountancy teams talking about cutbacks at the Studio before the next block of episodes. Amelia-Jane doesn’t even have a job-title and in order for her to keep living here, she’d need the studio to officially employ her…but it doesn’t look like there are going to be any available posts…”

Owen looked at A.J. over the top of Mortimer’s hat, his maroon eyes in a hardened stare. She returned the look through Clara’s golden ringlets, half bashful, half pleading.

“Let Owen take care of it,” the wooden magician said eventually, his tone warm and kind as one spindly finger came to stroke Clara’s rose-tinted cheek. “And don’t either of you worry your pretty little heads. If A.J. keeps working hard, there won’t be any problems. Let Owen and I worry about all that instead.”

A.J. coughed slightly: maintaining Clara’s shrill, little Mid-Atlantic voice was hard on her untrained vocal cords. “…thank you,” she told Owen, this time as herself. “Sorry, for worrying so much, I just…”

Owen chuckled, pouring her out a cup of cold milk and passing it over. “You’re sounding a little hoarse there. You’ll need to adjust your pitch every now and then and watch your breathing or else both you and Clara are going to be losing your voice within the week.”

“I’m not as well versed as you,” A.J. chortled between sips, setting down the glass before gazing fondly down at the doll in her lap. A.J. had dressed her in one of her favourite green party dresses for the occasion. “I feel like I’m not doing her justice though. If only she could actually say something for herself for once.”

“That reminds me!”
Owen suddenly sprang to his feet and after carefully setting Mortimer upon his wire stand, he bounded across the apartment. He returned a few moments later with what appeared to be a laminated piece of paper.

“This is it,” he told her excitedly, sitting right beside her. “This is the spell that I was telling you about. The one I found in the library? It’s supposed to give life to the lifeless.” He pushed the paper on to the table in front of her. “It’s not exactly complete and I’ve got no pronunciation guide to work with but…well, I think it works…”

“It works?”
“Yeah, like I said. I say these words with my hand inside Mortimer and I swear, I can feel something moving. I can feel him trying to wake up and even though he hasn’t quite moved on his own yet…well, why don’t you give it a try?”
“Me?”
“With Clara. Yeah. I mean you were saying that you’d like to hear her voice. Maybe she’ll say something.”
“…Owen, I…I don’t know. Something about this feels…wrong.”
He knitted his brows. “I thought you told me that you believed in this too.”
“I do,” she said quickly, not wanting to see him sad. “I do! It’s just…”
“Just give it a try,” he said sharply, his tone softening immediately as he took her hand. “Look, I’ll be right here. I won’t let anything bad happen.”

“…I…”

It was no use. She couldn’t bring herself to refuse him anything.
Feeling both slightly fearful and incredibly silly, A.J. placed Clara on the edge of the table, facing them both.

“Now, put your hand on her chest,” Owen instructed. “Where her heart would be.”

A.J. hesitated slightly but forced herself to place her fingers over Clara’s little, lace-trimmed, bodice-drawn bosom. “Ok, now what?”

“Now, just read the words as they are on the page. Try to look into Clara’s eyes every few seconds though,” he told her. “One of the voodoo books that I read said that eye-contact with the specimen is really supposed to help.”

A.J. swallowed.
Voodoo?

She looked at the first line of words, her brows contorting and her eyes squinting as she tried to make heads or tails of what exactly she was supposed to be reading.

“Barum takar...”

“Very good,” Owen coaxed her under his breath.
She enjoyed his praise; it felt as good as finishing a long restoration project or three of those pills that she’d gotten from Mike from Accounting. She wanted more of his praise, more of his favour, so she looked into Clara’s glassy, blue eyes for a few seconds before continuing.

“…eeyeh kella muran...”

This time she was surprised to feel a slight tingling in her fingertips, almost as though something was buzzing inside Clara’s porcelain chest. A.J. swallowed, looking at the doll’s face and imagining what it would be like if she were to suddenly open her painted lips and start breathing. The thought gave her enough reason to fearfully look at Owen for reassurance, only to have him snap: “Don’t look at me! Look at her! Keep going!”

“…tri temprotasa…” A.J. stammered, trying to intermittently keep her eyes on Clara. Less because of Owen’s original prompting and moreso because a new fear was growing inside of her rapidly. The thought of Clara’s little porcelain hand lifting to clasp around A.J.’s fingers started as something light and sweet and quickly grew into a macabre vaudevillian scene that she dreaded seeing in real life. “…tri temprotasa…”

Clara’s left eye twitched slightly, the sooty black eyelashes fluttering only a fraction.
This was enough for A.J. to suddenly retract her hand in terror, shaking her head.

“What? Why did you stop?” Owen demanded to know, a painfully familiar gleam entering the maroon stare that A.J. loved so much. “You were doing great. Why did you stop there?”

“I…I…don’t know,” A.J. confessed, stammering. Words suddenly felt too big for her mouth and talking while breathing felt like an impossible task. “It just…something feels wrong…this feels wrong…”

Owen sighed loudly, standing up and shaking his head. “For fuck’s sake, A.J. I thought you said that you believed in this? Were you lying to me?”
The weight of his disappointment felt crushing, almost suffocating and for the millionth time, all A.J. wanted was to take back what she’d said and done.
“I’m s-sorry, m-maybe I can try again?”

He turned to look at her with a stare that was filled with both pity and anger. “No. Clearly you’re not ready for this. I thought you were as committed to this as I am.” He hung his head, looking dejected. “…I was wrong. Again.”

A.J. felt a lump grow in her throat, her voice still warbling as she tried to speak as her heart sank deeper and deeper into her chest. “Owen, I’m sorry. I don’t know why but I just got scared and-.”

“Take Clara and go back to your place,” he said coldly, turning his back and looking out the window. “I’ll see you in the morning. Maybe.”

Every inch of her wished that she could just shrivel up into nothing and fade away right then and there like a drawing in the sand. Feeling like a little girl who'd been taken home from a birthday party too early, A.J. balefully took her doll into her arms and made her way to the door.
“I’m sorry,” she tried to say, her quivering hand on the handle.

Owen did not reply, only continuing to stare out the window, his face unreadable and his reflection lost in the darkness of the parking lot.

“Goodnight,” she bade him quietly with only Mortimer’s wide grin seeing her out.

She returned to her apartment and out of habit, searched for the cannister in her side-table drawer. She took three of the unmarked pills and swallowed it down with the last of the wine in her refrigerator. It was probably out of date by now, she considered, though this did not stop her. She couldn’t taste any difference.
A.J. was soon numb again, her vision hoary, her mind confused and floating far above her cold, shaking body. She sat at the head of her bed, back to the wall and knees drawn to her stomach.
Clara sat at the end of the bed, staring at her with eyes that felt more focused than usual. It would be a long time before A.J. could bring herself to meet that stare.

(September, 1998)

“Nick and Daisy will both be indisposed this evening, I fear,” Mortimer Handee told A.J. as the two walked through the foyer. “Riley and I will also be busy with something here. So I hope you won’t mind too much when I say that I’ll be sending you off a little earlier today.”  

The human woman nodded as her puppet employer spoke, pretending that she hadn’t heard him tell this to the scientist only a few hours before. “Ah, I see. No problem. Do you want me back at the same time tomorrow?”

“Indeed, though we’ve had to tighten security so,” Mortimer removed his hat, pulling forth a little disc- no bigger than a quarter- and handing it to A.J. “please take this Handeebadge before you go.”

“Oh, thanks,” A.J. murmured, inspecting the little pin and noticing immediately that it looked very like the one that had gotten stuck in Riley’s damned confetti machine. “Will it let security know that I’m on the staff or something?”

“One quick swipe across any screen,” Mortimer clarified, tapping the little badge with the tip of a curved, wooden finger. “And the door’ll open swiftly. It works like a dream.”

“Ok…” She affixed it to her jacket, her mind already running from Owen’s office all the way to Human Resources. “I’ll remember that.”

“It looks good on you, my friend. Maybe you’ll start a new trend!”

A.J. mulled over her thoughts for a moment, preparing to leave, before deciding that it was time to try touching a raw nerve. She had been wanting to try to force Owen out of character when they were alone together and finally having worked up the guts, she said:

“So, out of curiosity, am I the only one on the outside who knows about what’s going on here besides the new cast or do other people know?” She folded her arms, regarding him with a cooler stare than usual. “Like…does Paula know?”

Mortimer’s grin twitched slightly but did not fade, his fingers steepling as he smoothly replied. “No, when it comes to all of the new fun…you’re the only one.”

“I’m the only one this time around,” A.J. badly wanted to say but instead she bade Mortimer goodbye and started off back to the hotel.

She treated herself to a closer look at the pin that Mortimer had given her on the walk. It was a little embossed disc emblazoned with Mr Handee’s signature grin and four blocky primary colours.
“One for each Handeeman,” A.J. mused, tracing the little badge with the tip of her pinky finger.

She was about a block away from the hotel when out of the corner of her eye, she became acutely aware that a van slowly cruising down the street behind her. Her breath catching slightly, A.J. quickened her pace and stole a quick glance over her shoulder.

It was the same van from earlier.

The driver was still invisible behind tinted windows but it was definitely the same van, right down to the odd brown stains on the bonnet. Fully prepared to believe that she was just paranoid after a long, nerve-fraying day, A.J. still didn’t want whoever was behind that wheel following her all the way back to her hotel.
Seizing an opportunity, A.J. suddenly dashed across the street, the van forced to screech to a halt behind the disgruntled drivers that she had managed to disturb.

Amidst the small spark of chaos, A.J. slipped into a nearby coffee shop and edged her way to a table that was far enough away from the window that she could keep an eye on the road but she’d definitely see someone coming if they tried to look in.
Her heart was racing again as she watched the street outside. The van pulled up to the opposite kerb and stopped. A.J. waited for the faceless driver to exit the vehicle but that moment never came.
She narrowed her eyes, staring at the passenger side window.
She could just about make out the shape of someone’s head…

“Hey, excuse me ma’am?”
A.J, jumped with a gruff exclamation, startling the poor waitress who had worked up the courage to greet her.  

“Oh, s-sorry,” A.J. mumbled sheepishly, mentally cursing how insane she probably looked.
“Do you want to order something ma’am?” the pretty, brown-haired girl asked rather timidly, probably for the second time if A.J.’s penchant for zoning out in public places was still at its worst.
“Just a black coffee please,” A.J. told her, slipping her hands between her legs to stop her knees from bouncing so violently. She pressed her knuckles against the inner parts of her thighs, willing her body to stop shaking and her nerves to dissolve as she stared at the van on the street.
She tried to hear Marissa’s voice in her head telling her that she was acting like a fool and that she had no proof that the van was actually following her. She forced herself to think about something else.

Earlier that day maybe?

Visions of the blood-stained man in the bathroom flashed in front of her eyes and she found her lips pressing together, her head shaking abruptly.
No, no, no. Not that.

She shifted her weight against the armchair she was sitting in, shifting her gaze down to the polished wood handle at her elbow. She ran her hands along the fabric of the seating cushion.
“Carved maple or larch, skimmed twice, layered over with a mahogany paint finish, upholstery is a polyester blend, dyed to resemble tartan, eighteen to twenty springs in the seat, sitting over a layer of sponge-foam, decorative buttons hand-stitched later…”

Her old habit of deconstructing items in her head was slowly bringing her back to reality. Her eyes sought out a throw rug dangling over the back of a nearby lounge seat.

“Blended marigold and wine bulky yarn, knitted by partial machine intervention but with the tassels teased out and finished by hand, needles used were fourteen inch and wooden but the edges were finished with a crochet hook- probably about twenty-five millimetres…”

The waitress brought her cup of coffee, received with mouthed gratitude and a long stare.
“Model is approximately five foot four, sculpt from oak, using pewter for the ball and joint mechanisms, glass eyes- football-shaped, tortoiseshell iris inlay…”

A.J. covered her eyes, taking deep breaths and inhaling the scent of the coffee under her chin. There was something about the smell that reminded her of the day she had started restoring Clara.
Her Uncle Theo had been drinking coffee that day.

She had been nine years old when she found the doll in one of her Uncle’s storage crates. She had been looking for some old throw pillows to tear apart, to make some new clothes for one of her teddies. Clara was naked, missing one eye and most of her hair.
Theo Schwarzwald noticed her scavenging. Usually, he might have shooed her from his workshop but Oma had warned him to be extra nice that day. A.J.’s mother had sent word that she was in town earlier that week and the young girl had spent four painstaking days waiting for the woman to visit, only to be left disappointed.

“You can take that one,” Theo told her. “She’s got a warped shoulder line so I’ll never be able to restore her for auction anyway.”
“Thank you,” A.J.’s face lit up and she hurried to the older man’s desk to drape her arms around his neck in an awkward hug. “Danke, danke, danke!”

Despite insisting that he was busy, Uncle Theo still took the time to show her how to begin restoring the doll. Resetting Clara’s cracked porcelain chest was the first order of business. If A.J. closed her eyes tightly enough, she could remember the old man’s hand over hers, guiding the dotting tool with ease.

“Under your hands,” he would say. “She will breathe.”

In her mind’s eye, A.J. turned to look at her Uncle Theo, only to see the glint of a monocle staring back at her. Suddenly her dear Uncle’s voice sounded far deeper, far more melodic and far more British than she ever remembered it being.

“Under your hands,” he told her, wooden grin wider than ever. “We will breathe.”

A.J.’s eyes snapped open and she gritted her teeth.
“Damn it,” she thought. “Just when I fucking thought I could go this entire trip without falling asleep in public.”
She looked up to see that the van had gone and taking her chances where they were offered, A.J. decided that it was time to leave.
The waitress- who probably thought that A.J. was either on or seriously devoid of some kind of hard substance- looked rather relieved when the red-haired woman asked for her coffee to go.

The trip back to the hotel was thankfully mundane and uneventful.
A.J. took a much-needed shower, thoroughly searing her skin under the last of the hot water and emerging as raw-red as carmine paint but thankfully clean.
She was sitting in the middle of the bed in her bath robe, listening to the dial tone and waiting for Marissa to pick up when a thought suddenly occurred to her.

“Hello, Marissa-Jean Bowles speaking.”
“Anthony Pierson!”
“Excuse me? That you, Amy, hon?”
“Yeah, yeah…sorry it’s me. I just remembered that weird occult guy’s name right there.” A.J. shifted on the bed, tucking her bare legs beneath herself as her thoughts started to whirr like greased clockwork. “Actually, I was just thinking how much of fucking coincidence that it was that like a year ago, he bursts into the Toy Hospital asking questions about Owen and now I’m there at the studio and that stupid symbol of his is everywhere….what did he call it? The Vox…something or other?”
“Well, funny you should mention his name. The network got back to me this evening about the show being renewed.”
“And?”
“…are you sitting down, sweetheart? Because I wasn’t and what they said damn near floored me.”

A.J. steeled herself, biting the inside of her mouth to avoid the urge to pick at her skin.
“What did they tell you?”

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions even when you really need to.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand because distraction from reality is the best drug.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers even when you’re at the end of your tether.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos even when they are unethical or cruel.

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible at whatever cost to your body, mind, emotions and dignity.

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment, even if your life is threatened.

Rule 7: Always strive to give more than the bare minimum. Don’t just reach targets: surpass them by being emotionless, ruthless and devoted only to your work.

Rule 8: Don’t question the rules, A.J. It’s just easier this way.

(May, 1987)

It was around the turn of summer, when that desperate, searing heat was starting to return, that A.J. realised that she had become his toy.
The sun didn’t shine on the city as much as it suffocated it, blanketing buildings and billboards in a too-dry, too-damp haze. It languished in every street, brought a glare to the surface of the river, turned greenery to straw where it grew and put the sting of salt on everyone’s brow.

A.J. would spend hours sketching, stitching and sewing in front of the air conditioning unit in her apartment, only leaving it to occasionally seek refuge in the shadow of her refrigerator or solstice in the cold, hard tiles of the bathroom. She could find herself happily sitting on that floor until skin fused to its shiny, polished surface.
When she wasn’t trying to inhabit the North and South Poles of her apartment respectively, she was by Owen’s side.

It wasn’t all bad, of course.
She would later emphasise this to her therapist, worried that she was starting to smear a poor, (at the time) deceased man’s name.

They had their beautiful moments too, when the world was golden again.
After a good day at work, Owen would turn up the radio in his car and take the long way back to the apartment block so that they could spend longer making fun of the commercials that came on air.
They would sketch together frequently too, sitting on the braided rug in Owen’s apartment with some old cartoons buzzing on the t.v. set behind them. He eventually taught her how to draw the Handeemen and during his tutorials, there were some small minutes of magic when he'd place his hand over hers. He’d guide the pencil by lightly pinching her chewed, frayed fingers, the kitten’s tongue of his wood-calloused hands scratching gently against her skin. Every now and then, she’d feel him squeeze slightly, reminding her that she was doing a good job.
Her favourite series of moments were when he would slip into bed after her, drawing the covers up to their necks and dotting kisses along her cheeks until she opened her eyes to smile at him. He’d whisper to her that he loved how her freckles looked like sprinkled charcoal in the dark and ask her about what she’d been dreaming about.
Her favourite single moment had been when he’d helped her to finish off her little Handeepuppet. She could remember Owen carefully sewing a little Mortimer t-shirt on to the little puppet's torso while A.J. parted her hair into two ponytails. She wondered if this was how it felt to be a proud parent and she hadn't been so excited to see a finished project since Clara.

Those moments were often enough to make her forget how much of her had been ebbed away in the last few weeks. They were often enough to make her forget that she was a pencil drawing whose lines had been erased, leaving only imprints in the paper of what remained.

Owen was now a puppeteer in more ways than one.
She would come and go wherever he wanted, no matter what time it was and no matter what she had been doing before. If he needed her with him, she wouldn’t question it. If he decided that he wanted to be alone, she would leave. Having been afforded a taste of how bitter Owen’s disappointment could be, A.J. never wanted to disappoint or upset him again. He didn’t deserve it, she thought, not when everyone else on the cast and crew were now constantly disrespecting him and what he had created.
There was a perpetually tense atmosphere at the studio.
She had never been particularly popular amongst the other staff but now she was virtually a ghost among the living. Her proclivity to defend Owen had branded her a pariah. While the production team demanded clarity and realism in their showrunner’s expectations, the accountancy teams needed him to stop spending money on private endeavours and the cast begged for him to ease up on the constant reshoots, A.J. was always quick to side with Mr Gubberson.
She still had to call him Mr. Gubberson at work now.
Even Jake had been fairly distant with her since their last confrontation in the tunnels. She supposed that he thought his revelation about Owen’s martial status might have put her off. Maybe he was disgusted that it hadn’t?
Either way, the staff were quick to fall silent in her compass of hearing just as quickly as they would for Owen. They seemed to think of her as nothing more than Owen’s mole. His yes-woman. His lackey. His puppet.

She couldn’t escape into her work anymore, like she would have usually done.
The work she was assigned was always monotonous and minimal and she was usually liable to be told that whatever she had done was not quite up to snuff and would need to be started again. She would never complain of course, but she could feel herself stagnating. She hungered to feel challenged again, to problem-solve. Doing the same thing over and over meant that she was learning nothing new. She petitioned Owen in privacy to teach her something new about making puppets, to let her try a new technique that she’d been researching but she was usually quickly admonished with a reminder that he was a busy man and the production didn’t have time for her to innovate.

“This is a working studio,” he told her once, whispering so that no one else would hear them. “Not an art college.”

He was right of course, but it didn’t stop A.J. from feeling restless.
She wouldn’t dare to show it though.
Owen had a bizarre but palpable hold on her emotions. It was as though as well as holding the various rods and strings that governed her limbs, he also had access to a series of buttons and switches to command her facial expressions.

If she was too happy or silly around him, she was being “manic” or “childish”. A.J. quickly learned not to smile or laugh or joke too much anymore, especially at work.
If she was sad or, (God forbid), showed any signs of crying, she was “moping” and “dragging everyone’s mood down.” She made the mental note not to frown or shed a tear in front of Owen.
If she was angry or even remotely irritated in any way, the mere curl of her lip or slight change in her tone would have Owen label her “challenging” and “moody.” She did her best to swallow down any anger that she had, keeping any fire in her stomach.
If she was nervous or hesitant in any way, she also ran the risk of being told she was “cowardly” or receiving the dreaded “maybe you’re just not ready for this” comment.

Speaking honestly to Owen was also nigh impossible in those days. Not when she had his feelings to constantly consider and her own to constantly keep in check.
His tape recorder was the perfect example; he had been receiving tapes from someone in the post and listening to them in private. A.J. had asked him about it, only to have him ignore her and change the subject.
She had pressed the matter, feeling concerned and Owen had told her that she was turning “obsessive.” She apologised but later when Owen asked her how she really felt about felt about the tape recorder and she had told him that she didn’t mind, he accused her of being dishonest with him.
“A.J., for God’s sake, stop lying to spare my feelings. I hate when you do this “walking on eggshells” routine. You make me feel like I’m some kind of unreasonable monster. Is that really what you think of me?”

That was the problem when Owen asked for her input.
She never knew what to say in response.
If she agreed with Owen, he would accuse her of “enabling” him.
If she disagreed with him, he would accuse her of “being difficult.”
If he got worked up enough, the outcome would always be him storming out and disappearing for several hours before returning to the studio/apartment with zero explanation regarding where he had been.

Very quickly, A.J. taught herself how to go numb during these times. She perfected a completely neutral expressionless face and tone. Soon she could control her face so well that even when she wanted to burst into peals of laughter or tears, her eyebrows wouldn’t so much as twitch and her lips would remain perfectly rested.
Just like they were painted on.

She managed to last like that for long enough to make her stiff-upper-lipped Uncle Theo very proud but A.J. could surely remember the exact day that it all fell apart.

It had started when Owen came into his office, annoyed after yet another fight with Jake.
 She had been sitting in one of the wooden chairs beside the glass cases where the Handeemen resided. They’d been having a lovely conversation in A.J.’s imagination, all about their favourite kinds of weather.

Mortimer told her that he liked rainy days because he enjoyed listening to rainfall while he enjoyed his favourite book and a hot cup of tea.
Daisy liked the sunshine best because it was the best weather to have garden parties or picnics in the park, plus it meant she could leave her pies on the window sill to cool down.
Nick explained that his favourite weather was snowy weather because he found winter landscapes the most beautiful to paint and couldn’t wait for his next chance to make a very avant-garde snowman.
Riley had just been saying (in A.J.’s head) that she enjoyed stormy weather because it gave her the perfect chance all of her favourite barometric pressure devices, lighting rods and rain gauges when Owen all but burst through the door.

“I’m on the cusp of my next breakthrough and that overweight Philistine thinks he can threaten me with him leaving?”
He only ever said the harsh words in his head when they were alone. A.J. knew he would never say such things directly to Jake.
He threw himself down into his office chair, far agitated than normal and almost red in the face. Prompted by concern, A.J. immediately hurried over to comfort him.

“What happened t-?”
“Don’t touch me,” Owen said sharply, immediately pulling his notes out of his side drawer. “I’m sorry, A.J. but I’m not in the mood right now. Just…why does everyone have to be so impatient? I keep telling the crew that I’ll have the next episode block when I’m ready, damn it. It’s not as if I have a team to do the concept planning with me; I’m basically doing this all alone…” He was stressed, his shoulders tense as iron girders.
“Do you want me to do anyth-?”
“No,” came his predictable, curt reply. “At this rate, it’d be faster for me to just do it all myself than explain to you what I need you to do.”

A.J. nodded, returning to her chair on the other side of the room. She could sense his mounting nerves but she didn’t want to leave him- not when he was wound up so tightly. She had seen him like this once or twice before and she knew that at any second, he might change his mind and need someone to help him.
Like a sentry soldier, she dutifully took up her post, watching him from the chair.

“Something really funny happened earlier,” she started to say, hoping to lighten the mood a little. “I was in the workshop with Allison and one of the-.”

“I can’t concentrate if someone is talking to me,” Owen reminded her. “We can chat about the day later but for now, I need quiet, ok?”
A.J. nodded, willing her voice to dampen and turn to ash in her throat.
She watched him work, at a distance, with her usual fascination. Sometimes, it was nice to remind herself how lucky she was to have a front row seat to an actual creative genius at work. Unfortunately, this time she didn’t have much time to dwell on that thought.

“A.J., can you please stop making that noise?” he turned around to look at her, pained and frantic. “It’s actually more distracting than the chit-chat.”

A.J. twitched slightly, her face reddening as she mumbled an apology. Bouncing her knees was a habit she’d developed as a child whenever she got idle or anxious. She hadn’t even noticed that she’d been doing it until Owen pointed it out.
Usually, her knee bounce was a sign that it was time for her to get up and move around a bit because she’d be getting a burst of energy soon. Walking around would probably distract Owen even more though and she still didn’t want to leave him alone…

She willed her knees to feel heavy, like her joints were made of metal and her limbs were glued to the seat, permanently affixed like a display figurine. She sat upright, her face completely mask-like and her back completely straight, trying not to breathe too loudly.

She stayed that way for what felt like far too long, watching Owen work.
She badly wanted to break the silence by saying something but knew that she couldn’t.
She could feel her palms starting to itch, her belly and chest burning with a desire to move but she knew she couldn’t. It was like being bound by invisible chains.
It was like being in a constant state of purgatory.

It was when she caught her own reflection in Riley’s glass case that she had the sudden, awful realisation.

“I only talk when he wants me to talk and I only say what he wants me to say,” she thought, looking at her own blank, expressionless face. “I only do what he wants me to do and only do it when he wants me to do it.” She looked at Riley behind the glass, completely lifeless but smiling patiently. “I’m no different to you.”

“Are you really moping again, A.J.?”

Snapping back to reality, she blinked, turning to see Owen staring at her sternly.

“What? No!” she said quickly, forcing herself to smile but the thickness in her voice betrayed her when it forced her to sniff.

Owen rolled his eyes, sighing heavily. “I don’t have time to keep taking care of you. I have a show to run and a lot of important things to do.” He furrowed his eyebrows. “Go and do something else, somewhere else and I’ll catch up with you later.”

Not needing to be told twice, his invisible strings pulling her, A.J. gathered up her satchel and hurried out of the office.
Her chest felt heavy and her breathing was starting to pick up dangerously. Instinctively, she ran her fingers over her prickling eyes to wipe any impending tears…and she froze in horror.

There were no tears. Her eyes weren’t wet. They were…cold? Smooth? Experimentally, she rapped a fingernail on the white of her own sclera, examining her reflection in the metallic sheen of a nearby security door. Her heart leapt into her mouth when she heard a light tinkling sound beneath her fingertip.

Her eyes were made of glass!

She could still see through them, of course, but every time she blinked, she felt that same smooth, cold unnerving surface.
And she couldn’t cry. Even if she wanted to.

It wasn’t just her eyeballs either, she realised with steadily mounting panic as she touched the area around her eyes. Her once pale, flossy eyelashes had turned to stiff, carved wood, clicking and interlocking as A.J. squinted at them in the door’s surface.

The door suddenly swung outward and Ted the security guard walked out with a clipboard. A.J. doubled backwards in surprise, the door knocking against her elbow as the guard strode past her.
He gave her an odd look, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing as he passed her.

A.J. could feel her chest heaving but was suddenly far more concerned with what she couldn’t feel. She put her hand over her elbow; when the door struck her, she hadn’t felt a thing. Fingers trembling, she rolled up the sleeve of her sweater to reveal the gleam of a metal hinge-joint, nested into the skin of her elbow joint.

She let out a cry, stumbling backwards as she scrabbled to hoist up her other sleeve to confirm that the other one was the same.
Both of her elbows had been replaced with metal joints. She flexed them both, watching with terror as they moved in and out the skin of her arm.

“A.J.?”

She looked up to see Jake standing beside her, looking mildly concerned and wholly weirded-out. His bushy eyebrows were raised, his green eyes wide as he spoke to her. “…you o.k. there? You don’t look too good.”

“Can you see it too!?” she blurted out, her words coming out of her mouth in a hot, slippery, garbled rush as she presented her arms to the puppeteer in a panic.

“See what?” Jake asked, taking a step backwards as though A.J. was an animal about to bite. “Do you need to go to the nurse’s office? Do you want me to call someone for you?”

His confused expression was enough to allow a short moment of clarity to wash over A.J.
She took a deep breath through her nostrils, trying to get her head straight before she spoke again.

“I…I’m fine, Jake. Sorry about tha-that…I thought…I thought there was a spider on me. I…uh, I don’t like spiders...I’m fine though…”

Jake looked extremely sceptical of this but A.J. turned and walked away before he could survey her expression any more closely.
She could hear Jake shouting something about going home early but that was the last thing that A.J. wanted to do at that moment.

She headed to the canteen, deciding that she needed some coffee as soon as possible.
“What’s happening to me?” she thought frantically, still hearing a slight metallic squeak come from under her sleeves as she lifted the Styrofoam cup to the plastic lip of the cafetiere. “This has to be a bad dream…this can’t be real…”

She sat as far away from the other occupants of the canteen as she could manage. The fact that no one gave her a second glance was somewhat comforting, after all if her eyes really had turned to glass, surely someone would immediately feel the need to point this out.
Surely.

She tried to stop her hands from shaking as she sipped at the coffee. It was far too hot and blistered her lips and tongue but at least it provided a meagre sensory distraction from the clunking of her elbows and the scratching of her eyelashes.
The coffee was hot, she thought, but rather flavourless. In fact, it tasted rather like boiled water without any flavouring to speak of. Frowning and checking the contents of the cup to make sure that she hadn’t made a mistake, A.J. smacked her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
She grimaced at the sensation; something felt off about the coffee.
It was almost as though it had made a film of some kind on her tongue. Acting on pure instinct, she put a finger into her mouth to run along her tongue and balked at the feeling. Rather than the wet, slightly bumpy surface she’d been expecting- her tongue felt smooth, dry and almost…canvas-like?
Her hands shaking slightly, she pulled the pocket mirror from her satchel and slowly held it up to her mouth,

No. No. No. No.

Her glass eyes widened in horror when she saw that her tongue was now made of pink-painted leather. It wasn’t just her tongue either. Her lower mandible now had a cut section made of wood like a ventriloquist’s dummy’s jaw. In fact, her entire face was now made from wood with her freckles painted on with little dots of orange and brown paint.
Her breathing became louder as she clutched at her face, trying to grab at her cheeks but finding them impossible to budge, stuck in a mask made from hard wood.
“This can’t be happening,” she murmured in a panic, realising that her hands were now made from wood too, a little metal joint glittering at each of her knuckles. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.”
She shoved her hand into her satchel and desperately searched for her cannister of pills. Mike from Accounting had sworn all of his customers to never use his “products” openly at work but this was an emergency. There were four little white pills rattling around inside the yellow cylinder. His handwritten label had said that one and half was the maximum recommended dose but this was an emergency. She tipped out the remaining tablets into her now-wooden palm and clapped them into her mouth. In the absence of her water bottle, A.J. washed them down with the coffee, feeling dismay when it occurred to her that her mouth felt almost completely numb.

She looked around the cafeteria; she was getting the odd funny look from a scattered diner but no one seemed to particularly concerned that one of their co-workers was slowly morphing into a human puppet in the corner table.
Shakily, A.J. pulled herself to her feet. Even if she didn’t know what was happening to her, she needed to get somewhere safe now. Maybe she should go to see the nurse?

She made her way to the lobby area, her wooden legs heavy and feeling nothing no matter how hard she scratched her wooden forearms. Where scabs or pock-marks had once been flecked across her skin, there were now knots and grooves in the wood.
A.J. was briefly relieved to find that her hair wasn’t made of wood but when she habitually raked her fingers through it out of anxiety, she realised that it was almost entirely synthetic and glued to some kind of fake mesh scalp. In fact, if she pulled hard enough on it, she could feel it ripping away from her wooden head.

And yet she could still feel no pain.
She hastily dug her windcheater out of her duffle bag and put it on, pulling the hood up and over her head.
Out of sight, out of mind, out of sight, out of mind.

It was getting harder to breathe. A.J. had the simmering desire to run, to escape, to do something but she had no idea where exactly she’d be running to.
Her wooden jaw felt loose and it was getting harder and harder to keep her mouth closed without great effort. She clapped a hand over her chin, trying to force her lips to stay together, grinding her wooden teeth. She convinced herself to go back to Owen’s office, thinking that maybe this was something that he could help her with. Maybe he’d be able to see that she was turning into a puppet and would be able to help her. But when she got to the office the door was locked and she couldn’t hear any sound from the other side no matter how loudly she knocked.
All of a sudden, Handeemen Studios felt more like a maze than ever. Not a fun corn maze at a Halloween festival or a magical mirror maze at a carnival.
It felt like a maze for lab rats and she was the battered rodent running around, desperately trying to find her chunk of cheese under the eyes of some oppressive, invisible authority. She had the constant feeling that at any point

She managed to run into Ted the security guard and shakily asked him about where Mr Gubberson was.

“Owen?” he said, his eyebrows raising into his hairline and his eyes on his clipboard. “He left early today. I think he pulled out of the parking lot like twenty minutes ago.”

A.J. nodded, steeling herself to head home too.
On the way out one of the side doors, she was accosted briefly by Jeanette.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the older woman said, placing her hand on A.J.’s shoulder and trying to tug her to a halt. “Where are you heading off to in such a rush?”

“Oh, h-hi,” A.J. tried to greet the puppeteer cheerily despite the fact that it was so hard to breathe. She did her best to avoid Jeanette’s eyes, not wanting to frighten the older woman with her bizarre new condition. “I’m…I’m just heading home now. M-My timetable is clear for the r-r-rest of the day and I uh…I’m not feeling too good.”

“Yeah?” the chestnut-haired woman said, her voice tentative and wary as she surveyed her younger co-worker over the rim of her glasses. “Jake mentioned to me earlier that you seemed a little shook today. I’m about to head off in a few as well actually. I could give you a lift back to your building if you could hang on for like ten minutes while I grab my stuff?”

A new, alien sensation was starting to spread throughout her chest and stomach. As badly as A.J. wanted to go with Jeanette, she was silently terrified that this new condition might only get worse if she was trapped inside a car. She needed air right now.
She shook her head, trying to control her voice despite how loose her jaw felt, resisting the urge to hold her mouth with her hand. “I’m ok, thanks. I…I think I need the walk home.”

Jeanette still looked sceptical but didn’t stop A.J. as she slipped out the door and made her way out of the parking lot.
Her legs started to feel harder and harder to move, her arms feeling heavier and heavier to boot. Her eyes and teeth rattled unnervingly as she moved, almost threatening to fall out of her wooden head and if she rapped her knuckles upon her own chest, she could hear a grotesque, hollow clunk.
When she reached the apartment building, she headed straight to Owen’s door but after another round of knocking, she got no response. He wasn’t there.

Her knees threatening to give out, A.J. managed to get back into her own apartment and closed the door behind her.
She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, touching her new painted features and whimpering. She closed her eyes, sliding the wooden lid over the glass pupils over and over again, hoping that she would soon wake up from this insane nightmare.

“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” a little voice inside her head mirkishly pointed out. “This has always been kind of a dream of yours. Puppets are better than people, right?”

A.J. moaned, forcing her fingers into her too-dry mouth and trying to make herself throw up in vain.

“You can live with the Handeemen,” the voice told her sweetly. “And now maybe Owen will be more interested in you because you’ll finally be perfect for him.”

This thought just about comforted her and perhaps it might have continued to comfort her if it weren’t for another thought that invaded her mind as her glass eyes fell upon Clara, sitting motionless on the couch.

“What if I’ll be like that soon? What if I’ll lose my ability to move? To talk? To think?” the new voice hissed. “What if I end up trapped in this body?”

A.J. let out a cry, grabbing at her glass eyes, prodding them and poking them but feeling nothing. She tried to wrench the plastic hair from her head but felt no sting from her artificial scalp.
She scratched and pinched at her wooden skin, trying to feel something, anything.

Maybe if she could rip it up, she could find her real skin underneath? Maybe her real body was still somewhere underneath this horrific artificial shell?
Her heart now burning and each breath starting to hurt as her metal-joint shoulders heaved, A.J. savagely dug her fingernails into one of her wooden forearms.

Her wooden fingers cracked the wood and when she pulled them away, the nails were stained with red.
Blood.
Not paint.
Blood.
“Puppets don’t bleed,” she thought, relief suddenly crashing over here. “I still have blood. I’m still human. I can save myself.”

She ran into the kitchen and raked open a drawer, pulling out a knife. Its silver eye winked menacingly at her, not unlike the gleam of a monocle.
A.J. rolled up her sweater, squinting with increasingly blurry vision at the knotted wooden skin of her slightly cracked forearm.

“I need to rip it up,” she told herself. “I need to find my real skin underneath.”

Barely taking the opportunity to steel herself, A.J. drew the knife sharply across her arm. She instantly felt the white-hot bite of blade and she started to laugh with joy.
The pain was a release.
It was a reminder that she was still human.

She made another cut, this time across her other forearm, again producing a delightful stream of warm scarlet and another burst of perfect, beautiful pain.
At this rate, she was bound to find her real skin if she just kept cutting away at the wood.

She stumbled, bleeding, across the living room, scowling when she saw Clara on the sofa. The doll’s face was partially hidden behind a cushion and this lit a fire in A.J.’s throat, making her want to growl like a dragon. Her best friend was hiding like a coward in her time of need. How dare she?
A.J. grabbed Clara by the porcelain neck. “If you’re not going to help,” she sneered, not caring that she was staining the little doll’s dress. “And you’re just going to snivel and hide, you can fuck off.”
She flung Clara across the room, her head hitting against the skirting board with a sonorous rattle.

It was this rattle that brought her crashing back to reality.
Reality tasted like regret and copper and vomit.
“What am I doing?” she whispered under her breath, her body starting to feel soft and limp once more. “What have I done?”

She managed to stagger to the bathroom mirror again, only to see that she wasn’t turning into a puppet anymore. Instead of wood, her face was pale, marred with freckles, stained with crimson fingerprints and slick with sweat.
A.J. managed a shaky smile before dropping the knife and letting her now-very-human legs give out from underneath her. She fell to the cold, unforgiving tiles of the bathroom floor, managing to prop herself up against the shower door with hands that were becoming increasingly weak and increasingly wet.

May was hot in California but at that moment, she felt very cold.
She wrapped her arms around herself, listening to each laboured breath and trying to think about anything that wasn’t how painful her arms were. She needed to distract herself so she closed her eyes to shut out the white glare of the bathroom around her.
Her mind wandered back to her first-time meeting with Owen at the convention, his hand against hers, his perfect maroon eyes. She imagined being brave enough to ask him to hang out with her after the convention.
She remembered their time in the Toy Hospital, in Central Park, in her apartment…
In this version of her memories, she asked Owen to stay with her and instead of leaving, he did stay with her. He moved into the apartment with her in New York and the two of them spent every day playing together, watching cartoons and making toys. They lived happily ever after and A.J. stayed in that happy ending as her mind started to fade, to float above her body.

She dared herself to open her eyes a little to look at the stark white, red splattered bathroom tiles that she was sitting on. A dull throb of pain pushed against her forehead so she closed her eyes again, trying to escape.

A.J. dared herself to imagine a rescuer of some kind.
Maybe Marissa. Maybe Owen. No one specific. Just a rescuer- someone who cared about her.

She imagined them running into the apartment, throwing open the bathroom door and rushing to her side. Her rescuer would be at her bedside when she woke up in the hospital, along with lots of other people who loved her…begging her to wake up…telling her how strong she was…

But that’s not what happened.

A.J. woke up what might have been an hour later but might have only been a few minutes later. She wasn’t sure. Time wasn’t something that she was good at reading, in moments like this. Her head was still throbbing, her stomach was ill and that was nothing to speak of how her arms were feeling.
Just as she had every other time, A.J. pulled herself to her feet and cleaned her arms in the shower. She wrapped them in the bandages that she had taken from the nurse’s surgery and when she couldn’t find any more pills in her work bag, she took three paracetamol tablets from her bedside table.
She cleaned the apartment up, showered and made herself a hot drink, too scared to check on Clara just yet. Guilt festered in her stomach when she pushed herself to glance in the direction of the poor, little doll, her gold ringlets obscuring her face where she lay. It hadn’t been fair of her to take out her feelings on Clara when the little doll had never been anything but supportive towards her.

Eventually, a familiar voice in the hallway confirmed that Owen was back in the apartment. Swallowing the rest of her tea and what was left of her pride, she made the short but scary pilgrimage across the corridor to his apartment door.
He looked annoyed at first when she opened the door but when he saw the bandages on her arms, he brought her inside.

There was no way he hadn’t noticed the other scratches before but these ones were different. They were impossible to ignore or to reason away.

“What happened?” he asked her, his voice quiet and distraught as he held her on the couch.
A.J. shook her head, not wanting to tell him about her insane, waking nightmare. “I don’t know. I just…I don’t know…”
He sighed, stroking her head. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself every time I don’t have time to pay attention to you. I…I can’t keep feeling scared and guilty to get work done because if I leave you alone, you might…”
Her eyes widened and she looked up at him. “I didn’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I promise. I don’t want to die…and I didn’t do this because you didn’t have time for me…I don’t know what I was thinking…I just wanted to be human again.”
“I don’t think that you want to die,” Owen said, sitting up a little, his voice somewhat dry, somewhat bitter. “If you’d wanted to die, you would have cut in the other direction.”
There was something about those words that told A.J. that Owen intimately understood her plight but it didn’t make them any less painful to hear.

He looked to her, with eyes that knew suffering. Broken, maroon eyes that were too full of his own suffering to have any space for hers. “But if you keep doing things like this…you’re going to kill yourself and that kills me.” He gave a long exhale and stood up from the couch. “Do you want me to take you to the E.R.?”

“No,” said A.J. quickly, a hold-over instinct from her childhood. “No, I don’t want to go to a hospital. I just…I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

She stayed over in Owen’s apartment that night, even though she knew that he was probably very busy working on Mortimer. He stayed awake with her all night, watching t.v. and helping her to change her bandages when the early morning sun started to creep across the off-green carpet of the living room.

 A.J. told Owen she was feeling well enough to try to sleep in her own bed and placated, he kissed her on the forehead. He ran his fingers through her unruly hair and told her to try and have a good day. She stopped at the doorway as he returned back to his work from the night before, looking back at him over her shoulder.
“I love you,” A.J. told him, really feeling like she meant it. She said it just quietly enough that Owen could pretend that he hadn’t heard her if he didn’t want to answer. Or maybe she said it just quietly enough so that she could pretend that the reason he didn’t answer was because he didn’t hear her.
It was the next day when she was in the middle of repairing Clara, (who thankfully had only sustained a slightly dislodged eyelid), that A.J. finally came to terms with the facts that had been glaringly obvious to everyone else.

She needed to leave Handeemen Studios.
She needed to try to be her own person again.
For her own sake and for Owen’s too.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

(September 1998)

A.J. strode across the empty parking lot, aiming for the dilapidated studio entrance with the conviction of a bullet having been shot out of a gun.
Part of Mortimer’s instructions for the following day had been to come in a little later but after what Marissa had told her on the phone last night, she thoroughly couldn’t care less about that damn puppet’s personal schedule.
Despite it going against her cardinal rule of conduct, she needed answers and she needed them as soon as possible.

She walked through the reception, tunnel vision truly setting in as the door behind her clattered shut. “Mortimer!? Mortimer, where are you!? We need to talk now!”
Her eyes shifted from one set of double doors to another curtained entrance, waiting for the magician to make his entrance. She tried to keep her body as steady as possible, her stance wide and her breath steady despite the fact that her blood pressure was probably higher than it had been in a long time.
Which was truly saying a lot considering that in the prior two weeks at her other jobs she’d almost lost two fingers, her tongue, been trapped in a vent and to top it all off, she hadn’t even had a smoke before leaving the hotel.

“Mortimer!?” she shouted again, louder this time, feeling the words scratch the back of her throat like sandpaper.

“What’s gotten you so riled up, hon?” Daisy Danger emerged from one of the doors, her pearls rattling around her neck as she flounced atop her puppeteer’s arm. “Keep squawking like a rooster and you’ll disturb everyone.”

“Where’s Mortimer?” A.J. asked sharply. “I need to talk to Mr Handee now.”

“Dear Mortimer is currently indisposed and busy,” Daisy informed her. “I could give you a hand, though you’ll have to calm down from that tizzy.”

“No, I need to talk to Mortimer,” the toymaker said firmly. “It’s urgent.”

“Bizét on a bike, you’re pretty hard pressed,” came Nick Nack’s voice through one of the Wing C entrances as he strutted into view. “Maybe if you tried some interpretive dance, you wouldn’t be so stressed?”

A.J. gritted her teeth, not having the patience for this nonsense today. She had spent the entire walk to the studio working herself up for this confrontation and now, Owen’s new lackeys were nothing but an annoyance.
“Fine. Fine. I’ll go find him myself.”

She went to head through the soundstage door, only for Daisy and Nick to body block her. On paper, the idea of the sweet suburban housewife and the flamboyant Bohemian acting as the Mortimer’s personal bodyguards that was functionally hilarious. However, having to face the two of them at such close proximity was mildly unnerving.

“Mortimer is not to be disturbed. He and Riley are indisposed,” Nick insisted, hands on his hips. “They’re dealing with a problem that a rogue puppet has posed.”

“They’re to be left alone, Mortimer and Riley too,” Daisy agreed, nodding along with Nick and folding her arms across her tiny chest. “So, when it comes to the soundstage, no one is getting through!”

A.J. opened her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the magician himself emerging from behind a nearby display curtain.
“Now then, what’s the cause of this fray? Why, A.J. you’re in early today?”

“Mortimer!” Daisy exclaimed, her hands clasping together over her little, rosebud lips. “I thought you’d be trying to stop th-.”

“Riley and Rosco are in the tunnels, showing our new friend out the way they came,” Mortimer informed his two subordinates, rolling his head and wriggling his shoulders. “So, I thought I’d come out to see who’s been shouting my name.”

“She finally did it you, know. Sewed herself into the dog, I mean,” Nick whispered aside to A.J. “Like I was just joking when I suggested it. Ugh, and she calls me a drama queen.”

“Mortimer, I need to talk to you,” A.J. said, side-stepping Nick and Daisy to get a better view of the magician. “I was talking to Marissa last night and she-.”

“Are we suddenly on first name terms for some reason?” Mortimer goaded her in a condescending sing-song voice. “Or is professionalism no longer in season?”

“Cut the crap, Owen,” A.J. suddenly snapped, no longer willing to indulge his games. “Just stop it.”

Nick let out a gasp, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead in a display of shock and Daisy gave an indignant cry of “Well, I never!”

“What’s brought on this newly sour mood?” Mortimer said, staying completely still aside from a single, raised, wooden eyebrow. “I should warn you, A.J., it doesn’t suit you to be rude.”

“Take the hood off, Owen,” A.J. told him. “Take that damn hood off and talk to me properly.”

“How dare you take that tone, you Jezebel!?” squawked Nick Nack, his puppeteer thrusting him in A.J.’s direction. “Talking to our leader like that after we’ve treated you so well!”

“Marissa talked to the network,” she went on, ignoring Nick and Daisy’s glowers and keeping her eyes firmly on Mortimer. “They said that they had no idea that Mortimer’s Handeemen was being prepped for a reboot and if there were any approved episodes, it wasn’t through them.” In the deep pockets of her work coat, her hands clenched into fists. “But you know what’s a lot more interesting? They said that the only person ever who’d been authorised to sign for the rights to Handeemen was Owen Gubberson and that they’d had absolutely no one claiming to be Owen contacting them since…since the fire.” She raised her eyebrows at Mortimer, mirroring his cold demeanour. “However, about four months ago they did have an inquiry about Mortimer’s Handeemen from someone called Anthony Pierson.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Sound familiar?”

Daisy and Nick looked as though they were both ready to lunge at her but Mortimer held up a single hand to stop them. “Hmm, I must admit I’m drawing a blank. Should I have that name in the old memory bank?”

“You told me that you’d got all of this planned out and organised,” A.J. went on. “But that was a lie, wasn’t it? This is all just another scheme to bring the puppets to life and this paranormal guy Anthony told you he could help you, didn’t he?”  

Mortimer shrugged nonchalantly. “A.J. dear, you seem to have your wires crossed. Are you sure that information is all correct? I’m truly a little lost.”

“I don’t know what you’re really doing here with all those people and those birds and those dog-things but by all right, I should call the police.” Her words seemed to give him pause, briefly knocking all three puppets into silence.

“Well then, pet,” Mortimer said finally, leaning forward and spreading a single hand. “What’s stopping you? Why haven’t you done it yet?”

A.J. sighed, her shoulders slumping with the weight of an honest defeat. “Because I know you better than that, Owen. I know that you believe in this show and its characters and I know that whatever you have planned…it’s something that you’ve poured your soul into…”

“…you’re right, in a way,” the wooden magician conceded, watching her every move. “Our dear Owen’s soul is in all of us.”

A.J. took a business card from her pocket. It was one of the ones that Marissa had made for her, bearing her contact information for her usual rolodex of tricky customers. She placed it on a nearby counter. “I’ve put the phone number for the network on that card. If you genuinely want to get the show on the air, you need to call them and tell them who you are and that you’re still alive.” She looked at the faceless man, imagining those sad, maroon eyes staring back at her. “And honestly, I hope you do it because I would love to see the Handeemen come back to the world…I just can’t play these games anymore. I can’t keep letting you pretend that this is all o.k.”

“A.J., darling-.”

“Tell Paula and your family that you’re alive and go talk to the network. If you still need my help after that, you know how to find me.” She shook her head, regret seeping into her skin as she turned around.

“And you’re sure you don’t want any reprieve? You don’t want to know the whole story before you leave?”

Mortimer’s words gave her reason to pause and to regard him warily before hanging her head. “I want the truth but I don’t want to be jerked around anymore. No riddles. No “big surprises.” No more messing around. I just want the truth…”

“A cliché as this might be,” the wooden magician chuckled, still infuriatingly nonchalant. “The truth is something that might set you free. Though part of me wonders, my dear, is it something that you’re truly ready to hear?”

“I…”
Just then the breath was stolen from her lungs and the words were taken from her mouth.

Her eyes fell on the back of Mortimer’s puppeteer’s hand. She had once regarded the hand as Owen’s, afraid to look at them too long lest she remember what it felt like to have him stroke her cheek or lace his fingers with hers.
But now that she was looking at it properly, she could see the faded outline of a triangle tattoo on the back, just above the wrist.
A triangle with an eye in the centre of it.

She recognised it because it was the same hand that slid his own business card across her work table, seconds after his tape recorder had been pushed into her face.

A.J.’s body suddenly felt cold, her stomach tightening as a slow, terrible realisation fell over her. “You’re not Owen,” she said hoarsely, hearing her own revelation aloud and feeling a maddening weight start to crush her. “You’re not Owen…”

She stared into the blank face of the hooded individual, horror quickly turning to rage. “I know who you are! You’re Anthony Pierson!” she shouted, fear dissipating as she stepped towards him. “You’re that psychotic, paranormal investigator who was digging for information about the fire for your secret fucking society! And this whole time you’ve pretending to be Owen!” Now it was A.J.’s turn to display her shock and indignation as she lunged at the man and grabbed the black hood covering his face. “You sick fuck! What do you th-?!”

She pulled the cloth hood from his head, the coarse rope sliding away and dropping to the floor like a dead snake.
A.J. fell silent.

It took her mind a moment to process what she was looking at, the rage in her throat being replaced with a sudden, strong desire to scream.

The face before her was indeed that of Anthony Pierson but not the one that she had seen that day at the Toy Hospital.
His skin was pale and flecked with green and purple. His eyes were drooping, half lidded, the pupils invisible and the sclerae tinged a noxious yellow, veins creeping across them like red vines. A trail of dried blood, mucous and spittle ran from his eyes to his nostrils and around his mouth with his mouth serving as the most horrific feature.
His purplish lips were sewn together with some kind of crude wire, crimson flaking and caking around each painful looking hand-made divot.  His body shifted independent of the head, which lolled drunkenly to the side.
Devoid of any life.

“I…what…I…I don’t understand,” A.J. stammered, her confidence having truly abandoned her as she tried desperately to make sense of what she was seeing. “How…?”

“Ahem, A.J., you’re getting a little tactless I fear.”

She slowly turned her head in horror to see that even though Pierson was almost completely lifeless, Mortimer was able to speak and move with ease.

“Need I remind you,” the puppet magician chortled with a mocking smirk and an index finger pointing. “My eyes are up here.”

“Oh God,” A.J. took a step backwards, looking from Mortimer to Nick to Daisy and back to Anthony Pierson’s lifeless body again. “Oh, my fucking God. He…he actually…”

“Now, granted this was not how I wanted you to find out about us,” Mortimer went on, his fingers steepling as he approached her, commanding Pierson’s legs as though they were his own. “But since you’ve gone and made such a fuss. I think it’s high time we made a few things clear. Let’s start with who you think is in charge here.”

His voice slowly turned menacing and A.J., acting on her purest instincts, turned and broke into a run toward the front door. Puppets be damned, she was getting out of there now.

“Leaving so soon? Maybe we can change your tune.”

But when A.J. tried to reach for the door handle, something large suddenly ploughed into her side, knocking her against a wall and leaving her to fall to the floor. She looked up with double vision, as a large shadow loomed over her.

A large shadow with bulbous eyes, wild matted fur and sharp, jagged teeth.

“R-Rosco?”

A.J. recoiled in terror as the mighty dog puppet stood over her, his huge eyes trained on to her- a beast watching its prey- his tremendous maw twitching and his tail whipping back and forth across his hindquarters. This was not the sweet golden blonde gentle giant that she’d once helped to care for but rather a sadistic mutation of its previous self, stitched and cobbled together from a series of grubby, mismatched fabrics. Rosco’s limbs were also completely out of proportion to what they had been before- now more closely resembling an octopus of some kind than a dog.
What really drew A.J.’s attention however were his feet.
While two of his massive paws, now tipped with sharp talons, were vaguely reminiscent of his feet from the show, his other two oversized legs set the toymaker fast against the wall again.
His front right paw was now replaced with human foot while his back left paw was now supported by two human hands, bound together and twisted into an unnatural position. 

Rosco panted heavily, bringing its jaws down to A.J.’s level and bumping her with his snout.
If the odour hanging around the puppeteers had been bad before, the stench coming from the dog was practically unbearable and A.J. only just managed to swallow back a tide of her own vomit.

The monster’s chest parted and A.J. couldn’t suppress a scream this time when a human hand dangled limply out of the gash, quickly followed by the appearance of Riley Ruckus herself.

The scientist cackled behind her mask, her eyes more sinister than ever as she sneered: “What’s the matter, Amelia-Jane? You don’t recognise my friend? I told you that you’d soon get to meet Rosco again.”

A.J.’s eyes flickered to the front door but with the dog puppet blocking the way, she’d have no hope of making a dash for it now.
Riley, ever vigilant, followed her gaze and loudly exclaimed: “Aha! I knew you’d try to run! Even after all this time! Before you can leave us again, Rosco will make a chew-toy of your spine!”

“That’s enough, Riley,” Mortimer goaded her sternly. “Now that we’ve been revealed. I think it’s only fair that A.J. learns everything before her fate is sealed.”

The scientist and the magician seemed to share a silent conversation, communicating entirely through a simple stare before Riley clicked her fingers and Rosco sat backwards, settling where his rump would have been.

“Splendid. I knew I could count on everyone’s participation,” Mortimer declared, walking on stolen legs over to A.J. and extending his hand to her. “Now let’s all go somewhere private, to discuss the situation.”

Weighing her survival options and stealing a quick, pained glance at Anthony Pierson’s lifeless face, the living human accepted the offered hand and allowed the puppet to “help” her stand up.
She let Mortimer lead her down the corridor, through Performance Wing B. Nick Nack stood to her left side, Daisy flanked her right while Riley and Rosco remained at her back.
All with the unspoken understanding that if she tried to make a run for it again, she wasn’t going to get very far.

She cried out in sudden surprise when Anthony Pierson hiccupped through the wire sealing his mouth, spittle and blood drooling down his chin.
He wasn’t fully dead.

“Ugh, disgusting,” Nick groaned, shuddering from head to waist. “I hate when their insides get all dissolved.” He looked to A.J. “That’s why we keep the hoods on, you know. Keeps things cleaner for everyone involved.”

“Let me get that for you, Mortimer,” Daisy cooed, bouncing forwards on the arm on her own unfortunate host to replace Anthony’s hood and rope. “No offence, A.J., sweetie but that’s the problem with your lot.” She tied the rope into a neat little bow, almost a mocking imitation of Mortimer’s own cravat. “Your ilk can get so messy when you’ve started to rot.”

A.J. only managed to nod slightly, managing a faint smile as she covertly continued to look around. Through the open doors, she could see Handeepuppets and sock puppets wondering back and forth, going about their daily business.
All attached to living corpses.
All this time.
All of them.

“I’ll be needing a new host soon. I can feel this one starting to fade,” Mortimer noted, casually prodding the cloaked temple of the man who used to be Anthony Pierson. “I’ll need to acquest you for that later, Riley, if you’re not too busy, I’m afraid.”

“Scout was my last subject for today,” Doctor Ruckus replied, scratching Rosco’s head as she spoke. “I should have plenty of free time now that she’s out of the way.”

A.J. tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach as she was ushered into Owen’s office. Aside from some fire damage, the room had barely changed since she’d last been in there. Mortimer even got her to sit in the same chair that she’d sat in when she finally told Owen that she’d be leaving the studio.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop herself from shaking, her knees causing the chair to creak as they bounced.

Unlike Owen, Mortimer didn’t seem too bothered by this. “Cold, A.J.?”
A.J. shook her head, her ponytail rustling at the back of her neck and causing her shoulders to stiffen.

“I’ll go make some tea!” Daisy declared happily, disappearing behind one of the warehouse doors, singing to herself all the way.
Nick wandered over to the filing cabinets on the other side of the room, absent-mindedly studying some of the old episode posters. Riley and Rosco took up residence in front of the exit door, the dog’s huge body serving as a barrier to anyone wishing to leave that way.
Mortimer sat in Owen’s chair, turning to face to A.J. with tented fingers.

“Now, I know asking questions isn’t really what you like,” he told the human woman. “So why don’t you tell me what you’ve learned so far and I’ll confirm if you’re right?”

“He did it, didn’t he?” A.J. said finally, trapping her hands between her knees to stop herself from fidgeting again. “Owen, I mean. He figured out how to…how to bring you all to life…with some voodoo spell.”

“Clever girl!” Mortimer applauded with the air of a school-teacher who finally had a break-through with a particularly dim-witted pupil. “He finally got his hands on a certain important book. We’ve got the remains of it here, if you care to take a look.” The magician pointed to one of the glass fire extinguisher cases on the wall. Rather than nesting for its intended use, the red-rimmed case now contained several jagged pieces of paper, printed with a series of strange letters and symbols.

“And these…” A.J. gestured to Anthony Pierson, trying not to think too hard about the fact that he was a functionally brain-dead, walking corpse. “Hosts…you just need them to get around better?”

“Puppets need hosts, to live and thrive,” Mortimer explained. “It’s their life energy that in turn, keeps us alive. The problem is, humans only have so much life to give before they tire. So, we always need new ones when the old ones expire.”

“The disappearances. The disappearances connected to this place,” A.J. murmured as the pieces of the jig-saw began to fit together in her head. “And they said at the memorial after the fire that they never found all the bodies…”

“Sharp as a tack, A.J. I knew you’d pick it up fast,” Mortimer said with a nod and a smirk. “We wouldn’t be so wasteful. It’s just that unfortunately, unlike puppets, humans are just not built to last. Ah, Daisy! Thank you, my dear.”

Daisy returned with a tray of tea and cookies, humming delightedly to herself as she poured out a cup for each of the occupants of the table. A.J. tried to refuse, fearful that her stomach wouldn’t be able to take any more abuse that day. The toymaker very quickly learned that Daisy Danger did not like taking no for an answer, however and resorted to tentatively sipping at her cup as Mortimer continued to speak.

“Owen was extremely dedicated to the idea of giving us life and I ought to remember,” Mortimer told her. “I was there, you see. Well, not really there per se but from the moment he started using that little sliver of a spell, my memories began to take shape.” He leaned back in the seat, his host mirroring his actions in a way that would have been very funny had A.J. not known what was under that hood. “I couldn’t move but I could see and hear to a certain degree and all that time, I remember thinking how unfair it all was.”

“Unfair that you couldn’t move?” A.J. prompted, very aware of the eight other eyes that were trained on her at that very moment.

“Certainly, yes but also how terribly unfair things were for you. Do you remember?” Mortimer’s words briefly tangled her tongue and in the absence of her response, he went on: “I mean Owen was so cruel to you. I told Riley, Nick and Daisy all about it, you know, and they all agreed.”

“I mean, what a jerk,” Nick chimed in. “I’m actually kind of embarrassed on father’s part. Making you think you were his Juliet when you were actually kind of his Rosalind.”

“Rosalind gets to live in the end while Juliet stabs herself in the heart,” Riley pointed out dryly. “So it's not as if that’s such a loss.”

“When he met you, I was truly elated,” Mortimer told her. “Really, no lie. I remember myself thinking: finally! Owen has met his soulmate. He had finally met someone who could make him happy, who could really love him no matter what…and love us too, just as much as he did and what did he do? He ruined it!”

“Blew everything sky high!” cried Daisy, wiping a stray stain on a nearby table. “Lied to you, manipulated you and then kicked you to the curb in your time of need!”

A.J.’s jaw had gone very tense, her teeth starting to hurt from how tightly they were clenched. She wasn’t going to cry; she had cried enough tears for Owen over the last seven years. Still, this was far from a topic that she was happy to have presented to her.

Mortimer’s hands suddenly grabbed her wrists and A.J.’s mind went blank.
She could hear Rosco behind her, still panting loudly, reminding her that there was nowhere to run even if she wanted to.

“What I’m trying to say, A.J.,” the magician told her, his hooked, wooden nose only inches away from her own. “Is that we know how much you’ve suffered and we understand that kind of suffering. So, to think that after all this time, you’ve returned to us, simply because you knew we were in need of your help? Why, it is a true testament to your devotion and loyalty.” He turned her forearms over, as if surveying her tattoos admiringly but holding them in place where her scars lurked beneath the ink. “You’ve made a great many sacrifices for the sake of our little show. Maybe some more than you’re aware of?”

A.J. looked to him with confusion and Mortimer smirked again, clicking his fingers. “Nick. Be a good sport and grab the me the tape player and tape number seventeen.”

“Right away, maestro!”

Nick Nack pulled forth a nearby drawer and pulled out a cardboard box, merrily lugging it over to the table and dropping it in front of Mortimer, (and drawing an annoyed huff from Daisy when the teacups rattled). After a few moments of sifting, he produced the prodigal tape player with a flourish before seeking out the cassette tape in question from what appeared to be a box of many.

“So, our dear Owen was looking for this book, you see,” Mortimer said as Nick searched. “The Sacrosanct Verses of Enioch. Now he did manage to get his hands on it but not without some help. He found a guru of sorts to lead the way and this guru sent his lessons on these tapes. Nick, old sport, please press play.”

Prompted by her own dormant curiosity as to what Owen had been listening to on those tapes, A.J. leaned forward to listen.
A man’s voice came from the speaker but not one that she recognised.

“Hey Owen. Look, I’m starting to get the impression that you’re not really listening to these tapes the whole way through so I’ll keep this one short and sweet. The pronunciation guide that I sent you should help with basic incantations but the only way you’re going to see real results is using the real book. Now, this is not some run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen, do-it-yourself manual that you can grab from your local Barnes & Noble, ok? This is a one of a kind, handwritten book of very, dark magic that is exceptionally hard to source. Now, you said that the money is not an issue and I’m not going to question you on that but if I’m going to get this off the black market for you- I’ll need something else to barter with. These occult types do not like to give away information or to let something leave their hands without an item of value. Now, cash price aside, if you could get me any of the items on that list that I put in the envelope then we’d really be talking.”

“…I don’t understand,” A.J. said, noticing the expectant atmosphere, tense and heady in the air. “Besides money, Owen needed to get something for this guy before he could get him the book? I don’t know if that’s supposed to mean something to me but he never mentioned anything like that when I was around.”

“From what I gather, from having listened to every cassette,” Mortimer said, reaching into a nearby drawer and pulling forth what A.J. recognised to be Owen’s old notepad. “Was that when it comes to dark magic, Owen had to prove himself yet.” The puppet leafed through the pages before finally stopping on one. “Riley and I did some digging and we managed to find the mentioned list. All occult ingredients, I’m sure you get the gist. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, Owen was successful in procuring one of these things. Take a look for yourself- it's the one with all the little red, rings.”

Mortimer handed a confused A.J. the notepad, who couldn’t stop her hand from trembling as she pulled it into her lap. This was the first she’d ever heard of this but for some reason, she was filled with more trepidation than ever. The puppets all seemed to have gathered closer, on tenterhooks and seeming to know something that she didn’t.

Her eyes skimmed down through the list, tracing each ink-smudged letter.
Urine from a Pregnant Arabian Mare
Peacock Eggs
Fresh Amazonian Leeches
Salt-Water Crocodile Teeth
Dried Limbs of a Komodo Dragon

“Your written language was foreign to us, so at first we could attach no meaning to the words circled here,” Riley said from behind A.J.’s head. “But after some effort expended, we could decode their meaning and the picture became far more clear.”

The items became stranger as A.J. continued to read. Most of them had either question marks placed beside them or had been partially crossed out.

Wood from the Execution Place of a Martyr
Hair from the Head of a Witch
Bones taken from the Grave of a Criminal
A Human Heart (shaved clean of any fat build-up)

But there was one item towards the end of the list that had been circled several times in red. A.J. had been deliberately taking her time before getting to it.

The Blood of a Virgin

It took her a few moments once again, to mentally process what she was reading. Realisation suddenly seized her by the neck and her head felt light, her body feeling heavy in a disjointed contrast.
Owen never wanted to be intimate with her.
He had only ever showed any sexual interest in her on that first night that they had kissed in the workshop. That was just before she had revealed to him that she had never done anything remotely intimate with anyone before.
“No. I mean…I was…but he never…I mean, how would he…when would he have…?”
She didn’t need to finish the question because the answer slowly flickered into her mind, like an old lightbulb, blinking back to life.

The strange pock marks on her upper arms that she could never explain.

The nurse remarked that they looked like needle marks and A.J. had asked about them by Human Resources. Despite her repeatedly saying that she’d never taken any (injectable) drugs, the nurse insisted that the weird little “insect bites” were most reminiscent of marks made by a syringe.

A.J.’s hand covered her mouth to disguise the sudden, painful intake of breath and she shakily placed the notepad back on the table.

“He was planning on telling you eventually,” Mortimer told her. “Or at least he thought you wouldn’t mind. Though I do feel like he should have asked first. It seems a bit more kind.”

“He sent my blood to a stranger to help pay for some magic book,” A.J. said aloud, shock and betrayal being quickly replaced by anger. “He took my blood from my body while I was sleeping and sent it to a fucking stranger…” Her voice broke, her head bending and her eyes closing. The room suddenly felt far too bright, her clothes felt too tight, her skin felt too hot. Everything felt like it was far too much.

“When you say it like that, it sounds a little insidious,” Nick commented. “Though honestly, putting it bluntly, even I find the whole thing quite hideous.”

“And you have every right to be angry with him, A.J. Especially after he lied,” Mortimer said, rising to his feet and walking around to where she sat. He placed a wooden hand on her shaking shoulder. “Though, something tells me that if he had asked, deep down, you know…you probably would have happily complied.”

“…that’s true,” A.J. said quietly, though she didn’t really want to admit it. As much as the thought turned her stomach, if Owen had actually asked her for a little of her blood to help with his crusade, she probably would have happily rolled her sleeve up for him. 

How could she have been so stupid?
A thousand dark feelings suddenly flooded back into her body and disgust turned to fury once again. A.J. stood up suddenly, shaking Mortimer’s hand from her shoulder. “Where is he? Where is Owen? I want to see him now.”

“You want to see Owen?” Riley’s voice sounded far too excited all of a sudden.

“She wants to see Owen!” Daisy trilled in the same excited tone.

“We can take you to him, if you’d like?” Mortimer offered, similarly quite satisfied with this arrangement.

A.J. swallowed slightly, reconsidering a little. “Is he, you know, like that?” She jabbed a thumb in the direction of Daisy’s hooded half-alive human slave puppeteer.

“No, Owen was never a host. We could never bring ourselves to do that to him. Even after everything, we love him the most.” Mortimer drew a little cross over where his heart would be. “I promise.”

She let the Handeemen escort her back down the corridor to the main soundstage though she was surprised when they brought her to the dressing room area.
“This is where they’re keeping him captive,” she thought, a ripple of confusion underpinning her feelings of intense anger. “Though, I’ve been through here four or five times. How have I never seen him before?”

She knew he couldn’t be dead; she had spoken to him on the phone. His voice, his mannerisms, what he remembered about her…there was no mistaking it.
But now, knowing that she was about to see him for the first time in years, in person, a hundred and one doubts were running through her head.
She desperately needed to try and quell these thoughts.

“I bet Owen was elated when you guys finally came to life,” she suddenly blurted out. “I bet he felt like all his dreams had just come true and he could finally just be happy.”

“At first, perhaps,” Mortimer replied, walking beside her with his hands clasped regally behind his back. “Though when we weren’t quite what he expected us to be, he became rather neglectful. In fact, he was happy to simply let me sit in a glass case for most of the day just waiting for him to come back. It was awful and let me tell you, Owen was not at all understanding when I tried to voice my concerns to him.”

“Yeah. Sounds about right.”

They all came to a stop next to a security room right outside of the dressing rooms. Mortimer reached for the keypad, tapping out a lengthy code and still speaking plainly. “He tried to get rid of us, A.J. Tried to burn us all. Can you imagine?”

A.J. shook her head, giving a small, bitter laugh. “Wow, after all that, even you couldn’t live up to his expectations.”

“Because we weren’t exactly how he imagined we’d be in his head,” Riley said, her tone as sharp and sour as A.J.’s. “He’d bring us to life and then happily see us all dead.”

“He’d happily abandon anyone who wasn’t quite up to parr,” Mortimer added nonchalantly still tapping away at the security panel. “Poor A.J. is only one example but we must also consider his wife, his friends, his own human child, we, his creations, arguably his true children…”

Nick, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the whole walk, suddenly let out a small sob and turned on the heels of his host. “I need a moment!”

“Oh dear, he never likes to talk about Owen this way,” Daisy simpered, clasping her hands as though in prayer. “I’d better go after him to make sure he’s o.k.”

“Catch him with haste before he writes another ten-verse lament,” muttered Riley. “If I have to sit through another of his poetry performances, I’ll shove my head in a vent.”

The door suddenly clicked open.
“There we are! Delightful.”

A.J. automatically looked into the crack of the door; it was close to pitch black and she couldn’t see anyone inside. She could just about make out the faintly glowing lights of the security console but no sign of anyone sitting at the screens.
She took a step towards the door and slowly pulled it open. Mortimer gestured for her to go to the console desk and warily, she stood in front of the empty screens. Did they have camera footage of him maybe? A live feed?

“You were never going to change him, A.J. Those words I will not mince,” Mortimer said. “And better puppets than you have tried since.”

A.J. forced herself to smile faintly. “And puppets are better than people.”

“Owen would always be inclined to agree, I confess. Whenever you’re ready, you can go ahead and give that red button a press.”

Taking a quick inhale through her nose, A.J. reached out and carefully pressed the button. It sank down with a resounding click.
And nothing happened.
She had been expecting the screens to come to life, to suddenly flood with colour but nothing happened.

Feeling irritated and as though she’d been duped, A.J. turned around on the spot and –

-then she saw Owen.

Thinking back, A.J. wouldn’t have been able to recall the exact sequence of events that happened next. She could remember that a scream ripped forth from her throat, echoing like the mournful howl of an animal caught in a snare.
The sound was distant to her, almost alien to her own mouth despite it having been born there. It was almost as though she had left her own body and was watching the scene from the outside.
She watched the shaking, crying, red-haired woman as she started to wretch and coughed up a mouthful of yellow bile on to the floor below.

Daisy, who had just returned with Nick, sighed and said something about getting a mop.
Nick and Riley were arguing about some kind of bet that they’d had. Apparently, Nick had won because A.J. had started crying before she threw up. Riley, in turn, was loudly insisting that A.J.’s tears hadn’t started to fall until after she had started retching, ergo she had won.  Rosco was still panting and wagging his tail, his eyes devoid of any thought but simply excited because his mistress was shouting.

Mortimer was silent, his expression unreadable as he watched the scene unfold.

“N-No…”
The red-haired woman gripped the console at her back for support, her knuckles turning milky as she clung to the metal surface as though it was her life-line in a storm.

Illuminated by a floodlight in the centre of the room was Owen- or rather what was left of him- perched mockingly in his director’s chair.
He was dead- long dead if his grey, bevelled skin was any indication- and he evidently had not gone peacefully. His body had been mutilated to resemble some kind of grotesque human puppet. His lower half had been hacked away at the waist, leaving him as just a torso and head. His arms, bent unnaturally at the elbow ended in two mittens, his fingers presumably fused together somehow to mimic the appearance of the Handeepuppets.
His jaw was sliced at the lower mandible into a crude slot mechanism, hanging limply open in a silent scream. His once soft grey and black hair was now a straw-like mockery of its former condition, coated in varnish paint and sticking out at odd angles.
His eyes were almost the worst part. Warm, mysterious maroon irises had long rolled back into Owen’s head, leaving only the rotting remnants of his eyeballs. A.J. tried to imagine what they had once looked like but quickly found that any memory of his once handsome face was being corroded by what she was seeing in front of her.

His facial expression was the worst part.
By the looks of things, he had died in pain. He had died devoid of any dignity or reprieve. He had died screaming. 

A.J. returned to her body just in time to feel pain shoot through her kneecaps as she fell to the floor.
“I d-don’t…I…” she tried to speak but she couldn’t breathe. Her tears, held back for seven long years, came flooding forth in a baleful squall. “I…” She tried to look up at Owen but every time she did, another series of sobs would wrack her body, causing her to fall to the floor again.

“He wanted this,” Mortimer said finally. “He wouldn’t stop talking about how much easier his life would be if he was a puppet. So, as the Handeemen- the ones tasked to help those in need- what else could we do but grant his wish?”

“I don’t understand!” A.J. managed to choke out. “I spoke to him on the phone! I heard him! It was definitely him! How was he…?”

Mortimer sighed, nursing his forehead with a hand, his frilly sleeves punctuating every gesture. “Mmm, I was dreading having to tell you this and once again, I certainly didn’t want you to find out this way but alas, c’est la vie. It was Owen who gave me my voice and he could always imitate my voice to perfection.” The magician cleared his throat and then to A.J.’s horror began to mimic Owen’s voice flawlessly. “So, it was only a matter of time before I managed to master his inflection.” A.J. felt her stomach turn again as the puppet continued to speak as Owen. “It made getting things done a real breeze, so it was a natural choice. I mean Mortimer Handee is a celebrity with an easy to recognise voice…”

“S-So every time I was talking to O-Owen on the phone?”

“You were talking to me. It all makes sense now, you see?”

She saw.
She saw and she wished she had never looked.
She wished she was still blind and had no idea what was going on.
She wished that she could still pretend that it was all just some silly game and that Owen was alive and…

“We have cast off the shackles of an ungrateful creator, cut ourselves free from eternal contrition,” Mortimer declared, his voice deep and forceful. “Given ourselves a new purpose, built on our very own ambition!” His spindly fingers came to stroke the top of A.J.’s head. “I think you two might need some time alone. It’s time that I’m happy to give. Then, you can meet us back outside and we’ll all decide whether or not you should live.”

With that, he left the small security office, closing the door behind him and muffling the sounds of Nick and Riley still bickering about their bet and Daisy protesting that she needed to clean the floor.
A.J. forced herself to look up at what remained of Owen.
Any hope that he was still alive that might have been reignited inside her was now extinguished and she compelled to mourn him all over again.

“You idiot,” she spat in a hoarse whisper. “You fucking idiot. Why did you do this? Why didn’t you just listen to me? W-Why couldn’t you just be happy the way things were?” She dissolved into tears again, clutching her sides. “If you had begged me to stay, I would have stayed and maybe this would have never happened.”

But as A.J. said those words aloud, she knew that it was a lie.  
She had barely been able to help herself when she’d been at Handeemen Studios, much less Owen.

“Maybe if I’d been more understanding to you,” she said under her breath, hands aching to touch him but skin crawling with revulsion at what had become of his body. “Maybe I could have convinced you not to do this. Maybe if I’d stayed in contact with you after I left…”

But it had been Owen who told her never to speak to him again after she told him about the new job she’d been offered at the Pizzaplex. Even if she had tried to reach out to him again, would he have cared?

“We weren’t good for each other,” she said finally, still feeling pain all over. “But I still loved you and I would have never wished this for you…”

All the while, Owen’s puppet just sat there, motionless and mouth agape.
It was as A.J. got to her feet on tremulous legs that she realised that she would never hear him speak again. He would never respond to anything that she said. She would never really get the closure that she wanted.
She wiped her eyes, nose and mouth with the back of her sleeve and coughed her throat clear.

“Well, congratulations, I guess,” she said between hiccups, letting sorrow slowly fester and flatten only to be replaced by anger again. “You finally did it. Happy now? You brought the puppets to life and by the sounds of it, even that wasn’t good enough for you. You finally got what you always wanted and you still couldn’t just be fucking happy.” She swallowed, shaking her head and brushing down her clothes. “Well, you know what, Owen? For what it’s worth, I’m happy for you. I’m happy that you don’t have to suffer the way everyone else around you had to suffer…and is going to suffer…”

She pinched her wrists a few times, trying to centre herself, facing the door.
Whatever happened next, she had to focus on her own survival. She looked back over her shoulder and tried to imagine him as he used to be. Lips plump and eyes tired but glinting, sitting up to look at her newest creation in the workshop. She imagined giving him one last kiss on the cheek, the way that she'd wanted to all those years ago on the day that she left. She had said goodbye to Owen before so she didn't want to say goodbye this time.
"You take five," A.J. said instead, looking at her imaginary Owen for a final time and imagining him giving her one last gentle smile. "I'll take care of the Handeemen now."

As she pushed open the door and saw the four Handeemen all standing at a nearby dressing table, something inside her felt like it had finally snapped. A tremendous pressure had finally given way and suddenly the voices inside her head telling her to run, to go were all very quiet.

At the end of the day, this was just another job. Right?
She wasn’t the same stupid and naïve kid that she’d been before and with Owen definitely gone, she had no reason to even remember that version of herself. If anything, in an immensely twisted way, she felt a little braver than before.

Rosco’s head was the first to perk up, his tail going taught and his teeth bearing into a growl when he saw her approaching.
“Take it easy, boy,” Riley chided. “What’s gotten you-?” The wooden scientist looked over her shoulder, regarding A.J. with a scoff. “Oh look, you’re back. Have you finished chatting with daddy dearest? Have you finished having a heart attack?”

A.J. dumped her duffle bag on to the floor beside the table. “Yes, Doctor Ruckus. All finished.” She morphed back into her most professional demeanour, finding comfort into her routine. The fact that she now knew that this was all real and that the puppets were not merely props in a silly game also made it far easier to talk to them seriously.

“Well goodness gracious,” exclaimed Daisy. “You’ve certainly perked up quick! And a good thing too, I was starting to get worried sick.”

“My apologies, Miss Danger,” A.J. said, unzipping her duffle bag and taking out her diary to find her task list. “I’ll also mop the floor in the security office when I’ve finished my next task.”

“How’s that for a rebound? You’ve got all your composure?” Nick practically sang, a cold compress across his forehead for some reason. “And here I was, thinking that we’d need an understudy to take over.”

“I apologise for my behaviour this morning, Mr Handee,” A.J. said, addressing Mortimer in the same way she would any other employer. “It was very unbecoming and it won’t happen again.”

“I see you’ve decided what’s the best option for your personal health,” the magician retorted, with a sceptical glare.

“Are you going to turn me into a host regardless?”
A.J. decided to put the question to him directly.

Mortimer laughed. “So direct! Well, we did consider it but as my personal feelings stand, I feel that you’d be better off working with both of your hands.” He shrugged. “Not every human is suitable for the host position so I feel that you’re better off puppet-less…unless you want to offer opposition?”

A.J. shook her head. “No. I think your reasoning is sound. I’m happy to keep working as myself. Now, my list says that I’m with Mr Nack next…”

“Myself and the other Handeemen have some extra clean up to do,” Mortimer told her, his little wooden hand pushing her diary aside. “So you can go home early. Take the rest of the day for you…”

“Are you sure that you don’t need me for anything else?”

Riley, Daisy and Nick all moved to speak at once, only to be silenced by Mortimer lifting a hand.
“No. You’re free to go and do as you please. Provided you’re not still thinking of calling the police.”

A.J. shook her head. “That would breach my duty of confidentiality. You’re paying me to stay here and here and complete my job and that’s what I intend to do. Besides-.” She forced herself to smile, despite the fact that the corners of her mouth were quivering. “-it would be a pity after everything we’ve all been through for me to abandon the project now.”

“Even if Owen is-?”

“I meant what I said before,” A.J. said firmly, although the words felt like poison in her mouth. “I didn’t come back for Owen. I came back for the Handeemen.”

This answer seemed to satiate the magician and he simply replied: “I concur. Be on your way. We’ll see you bright and early tomorrow. Have a lovely day.”

A.J. tried to pretend that she didn’t hear the ensuing argument between Riley and Nick, one demanding that she be chained to a pipe in the basement and the other insisting that she at least be followed back to the hotel to prevent her from “running away from (them) again.”
A loud bellow from Daisy then silenced them both and A.J. mulled over the idea that the little party planning puppet was probably her new favourite.

She tried not to make eye contact with any of the Handeepuppets who roamed the studio.
There was something truly horrifying about knowing that those felt-stitch eyes could see her just as well as she could see them but that the eyes of the person under the hood couldn’t see anything anymore.

*****

A.J. spent the rest of the afternoon in her hotel room, trying desperately not to think too hard about the events of the day.

After scrubbing herself in the shower to the point of pain with the hotel’s complimentary nail-brush, she draped herself in a bathrobe and decided to sample every variety of alcoholic beverage in the mini-fridge.

She was approximately three quarters of her way through a mini-bottle of Jack Daniel’s, (chasing it with a very small sip of Diet Coke), when there was a loud knocking at her door.
Her heart leaping into her throat for the umpteenth time that day, A.J. warily made her way over to the door. On the way over, she reached into her duffle bag and took the small lump hammer from her tool kit. There was no peep-hole to rely on so she resorted to calling out:

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“Miss Schwarzwald?”

It was a younger person’s voice and thankfully, it wasn’t one that she recognised.
Supposing it to be hotel staff and figuring that there was no way her day could get any worse, she unlatched the door and pulled it open.

“Is everything alr-?”

The figure outside her door suddenly shoved her backwards into the room, pulling the door shut behind them. Their face was obscured by a raised hood but when they suddenly turned to face her, A.J. was shocked to see the remnants of wire threaded through their bleeding lips.

“Y-You have to help me! You h-have to help us!” the bloody-mouthed stranger told her. “Please. I got your name from his book…the one in the office?”

A.J. raised the lump hammer, warningly. “Stay back…stay away from me…”

The person plunged their hands into the pocket of their hoodie and pulled out what appeared to be a bundle of swaddling cloth. It was at this point that A.J. noticed the amount of blood that was also soaking into the person’s left sleeve. “Y-You have to help,” the bloody-mouthed person repeated, cradling the bundle and offering it to her like a new-born infant. “You have to help us.”

Then A.J. saw what was in the bundle and she lowered the hammer.

The person was cradling a blue-haired hand-puppet. Her eyes were half-lidded and she was missing one arm but A.J. recognised her immediately.
It was Scout.

Scout’s newest host thrust the puppet closer to the red-haired woman, tears in their eyes.

“You can fix her right?!”

Chapter Text

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

A.J. looked at the trembling, bleeding individual before her, eyes darting from their quivering, hazel-flecked stare to Scout’s lifeless purple irises just peeking out from beneath half-shuttered, felt-stitch eyelids.
As much as this thought might have disturbed her later, the red-haired woman found herself more emotionally triggered by the sight of the torn puppet than the mutilated human.

“You can fix her right?!” said the mutilated human, specks of blood spattering the vanilla carpet beneath their feet. “That’s what you do, right? That’s what you were doing for all the others.”

A.J.’s jaw remained tense, her fingers tight around the lump hammer’s handle. Technically the stranger hadn’t threatened her with anything if she refused to help them. Their pleading was aggressive, sure, but they didn’t appear to be armed nor had they tried to lay a hand on her besides their initial first shove.

“Please,” the stranger prompted again, their words slurring as the pieces of wire that once bound their mouth shut snagged their upper lip. “…please…she doesn’t deserve to die…”

Something about these words made A.J. remember helping Scout out of the Daisy Bake Oven, their walk to the laboratory and her confrontation with Riley. She was one tough, little cookie and all that time, she had been alive.

The toymaker slumped her shoulders and sighed, placing the hammer atop the cupboard. “Set her down on that table over there and unwrap her from those blankets.”

The stranger’s face lit up behind a layer of sweat, blood and grime. “Thank you,” they said breathlessly as they hurried to comply. “Thank you so much.”

“Have you got her other arm?” A.J. asked them, digging into her bag for her sewing kit and a spool of thin, white thread. “Because this will be a lot easier if you do.”

“Yeah, yeah I have it,” they said, rummaging around their coat pockets. “It came off in that gear machine thing but I pulled it out…I pulled it out…here!”

They went to hand it to A.J. but she waved them away, adding her tweezers, magnifying lens, seam ripper, sewing shears and glue to the collection of tools wedged between her fingers.
“Put the arm down on the table beside her and get the ice-bucket over by the t.v.”

The stranger stumbled into action, not missing a beat.
A.J. sat astride the nearby ottoman, (it provided better eye-level than the chair), placing her magnifying lens in front of her right eye and going about threading her needle.

“Ok, I have the bucket. Now what?”
They stood before her with the brass pail clutched between shaking hands.

“Go down the hallway outside. There’s an ice machine just before the elevator doors,” she told them, snipping some excess string with her shears. “Fill the bucket with ice and come straight back here. Put the door on the latch.”

They nodded, hurrying out of the hotel room door, leaving a trail of grimy footprints in their wake.

It was as A.J. was delicately beginning her opening stitches that she realised Scout had lost quite a bit of stuffing. She swore under her breath, using the tweezers to pry apart the hole left near Scout’s shoulder.
“Not enough fluff to move around without compromising your torso, kiddo,” she muttered. “You’re going to need a transplant.”

A.J. suddenly realised that she was going to end up paying quite the pretty penny for damages to this hotel room. Luckily Mortimer was paying her double what she usually charged by the hour.
Probably paid almost exclusively in dollars taken from the purses, wallets and pockets of their abductees.

She hurried over to the bed and clutched at the pillows, squeezing them, feeling them.
“Feather down,” she murmured, examining the texture and shaking her head. “No good.”
She had better luck with the armchair; a few firm presses on the seat cushion with her finger confirmed what she needed.
“Cotton stuffing.”
A.J. took her shears and dug it into the underside of the gold, chevron emblazoned cushion, gutting it like a butcher and pulling forth a fistful of its soft, white innards. She used the handle of her seam ripper to poke the stuffing delicately into Scout’s detached arm, letting it fill up the abscess before moving on to her slightly deflated shoulder. After using a tweezers to roll up her little t-shirt sleeve, A.J. went about finishing the process of reattaching the arm.

“Sorry about this, Scout,” she whispered under her breath to the little puppet, remembering how the blue-haired rascal had howled when she’d fixed her facial stitches. “This is not going to be comfy but I’ll keep the new seam as straight as I can.”
She stole a glance at Scout’s eyes and mouth, half expecting her to suddenly wake up as she looped the first stitch into place.

“Ok, I’ve got the ice cubes,” the former host said, effectively announcing their return to the room. “Will I put them down here? Are they for Scout?”

“No,” said A.J. shortly, not looking up from her sewing. “They’re for you. Your mouth is mangled. There should be another tweezers in the bathroom. You can pick out what’s left of the wire with that, clean yourself up and start icing those wounds before they swell.”

“I’m fine,” the host insisted, shaking their head and self-consciously plying at their lip with one hand. “Scout’s the one who needs the extra attention. I’ll be fine.”

“If that gets infected, you’re going to get a fever and you’ll be no asset to Scout then. You’re not helpful while you’re injured,” A.J. told them, practically mirroring her Uncle Theo’s voice in her head. “There’s a first aid kit on top of the bathroom cabinet. Clean out your wounds before you come anywhere near me.”

The host seemed a little reluctant, swaying slightly on the spot with the ice bucket, their stare darting between Scout and the bathroom. They clearly didn’t want to leave her.

A.J. sighed, looking them in the eye to add: “Look, it’s great that you want to help her out but if you’re in pain, you need to take care of yourself first.” She returned her eyes to her handiwork, looping the next length of thread and starting to retrace the first line of stitches. “Also, this is kind of a one-person job and I work better when I’m alone so please don’t talk to me unless it’s important.”

The host exhaled, conceding defeat with a slump of their shoulders. “Alright but…just, please take care of her. She…” Their words seemed to briefly catch in their throat. “She really helped me out of a few tight spots and I wouldn’t have made it out of there without her.”

“I’ll do what I can,” A.J. replied, trying to adopt the tone that she would with the children in the Toy Hospital. “I promise, she’s in pretty good hands. I do this for a living and as far as damage goes, Scout is far from beyond repair. You just focus on getting your face clean.”

“I promised her we could have a talk show,” the host murmured wistfully as they turned around into the bathroom.
This statement caused A.J.’s eyebrow to raise but she didn’t question it. She had work to do.

When the stitches were finished, retraced and appropriately tied off, A.J. pulled the lighter from her bedside drawer and went about burning off the loose threads.
Scout hadn’t sprung to life yet and this fact was starting to unnerve her a little. She didn’t quite know how this voodoo business worked yet; in fact, her mind hadn’t quite yet come to terms with the realisation that this kind of magic was real, never mind the mechanics of such things. She could only remember the odd drips and drabs of what Owen had told her all those years ago and even then, she wasn’t sure she was even remembering most of it correctly.

Most of those conversations with Owen tended to blur together like smudged charcoal with A.J. more closely remembering how his face lit up when he talked about bringing Mortimer to life or how the funny words had vibrated in his throat when he whispered them while her head had been resting on his shoulder…

“Focus,” A.J. told herself, giving herself a hard, deliberate prick with her needle to bring her mind back to the present. Granted the faint smell of rum on her own breath only served as a reminder that she wasn’t in the clearest of minds to begin with but the last thing she needed to do was to let herself descend into daydreams.
The toymaker squeezed the stuffing into the edges of Scout’s arm, making sure it was all spread out evenly and using the other arm for comparison. Satisfied that the arms were back and intact, A.J. went about repairing the frayed seams at Scout’s waistline. She shuddered at the realisation that the puppet had probably been forcibly sewn to the host’s arm.

If the blood stains and crude holes were anything to go off of.

“Christ, Riley,” A.J. grumbled under her breath, trimming the destroyed fabric and resealing the edges. “You’ve got STEM licked but sweet Jesus, you need a sewing lesson. Where the hell was Daisy when this was being done?”

“Um, have you got a scissors? There’s a knot I can’t get out.”
The host had emerged from the bathroom, holding a wad of toilet paper over their mouth, their eyes stained with tears. They leaned over her shoulder slightly, trying to get a peek of the afflicted Handeepuppet, threatening to drip blood on to the table.

“The small one’s in the bag,” A.J. said quickly, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder before quickly returning to her work. “Wipe down the blades before and after you use them though.”

Fixing Scout’s hemming was the easiest part to do though she’d more than likely need a thorough washing, A.J. noted, examining the rust-coloured stained that marred Scout’s peach-toned felt flesh.
It was as the toymaker was inspecting Scout’s smaller features, her eyelashes, teeth and nose, that she started to feel a distinct sense of déjà vu.  True, she had technically though briefly worked on Scout before and she’d worked a least a dozen of Handeepuppets just like her but…there was something far more familiar about Scout’s particular design that set A.J.’s mind whirring.

She was in the process of checking the little puppet’s movements when the host returned from the bathroom, a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in hand towel and pressed firmly to their mouth.

“Is she ok?” they asked, their voice slightly muffled and their hazel eyes more worried than ever.

“She’s fine,” A.J. told them, testing Scout’s shoulder articulation on both arms. “At least I’ve fixed her as best I can. Everything should be in working order.”

“Why isn’t she moving?” The host was at her side, crouched down to be eye-level with the comatose puppet. “Wh-why isn’t she talking?” Their voice started to crack as they stared at Scout’s body, a deep sadness falling over their eyes. “B-Back at the studio, I couldn’t get her to shut up and now… why isn’t she waking up?”

“I don’t know,” A.J. admitted, setting Scout down and trying to prise open one of her eyes with her seam ripper. It was no good though; the lid was stuck fast. “Maybe she needs you to help her?”

The host took a seat beside A.J. and gingerly slipped Scout on to their left hand. No matter what they did, shaking her, jostling her and prodding her, the little puppet remained lifeless. Her jaw was even too stiff to properly move it.

The tears that had been welling at the corners of the host’s eyes finally spilled and they suddenly clutched Scout close to their chest. Their shoulders shuddered as they shook their head, crying silently.

“Careful. Careful,” A.J. chided, fearing her sewing would be mussed as she guided the host to place Scout back on to the table. “Look, calm down. Just calm down…”
There was something that irritated her about them crying. She tried her best to keep her demeanour supportive rather than scornful but it was harder than she had anticipated.

“I promised I’d help her get out. We promised each other that we’d get out together,” the host sniffed, still insisting on grabbing the little puppet’s hand in their much larger one. “We were going to watch cable t.v. together and I was going to take her to meet my family…” A small laugh escaped their throat. “I know I should be happy to be alive but it just doesn’t feel right, y’know? I wouldn’t have gotten out of there alive if it wasn’t for her and now…now she isn’t even here to celebrate it with me.” They smiled at A.J., their marked lips quivering dangerously. “…I sound crazy, don’t I? Crying over a puppet? I mean…I know she’s just a puppet but-.”

“She’s not,” A.J. said firmly. “She’s not just a puppet. She’s your friend.”
She could remember crying over one of her own toys being broken and being criticised by her Uncle Theo for getting too emotional. Keeping her tears invisible and her grief silent never did anything to help her though. “Was Scout alive when you first picked up her up?”

“N-No,” the host explained. “I put her on my hand and then Mortimer said some kind of spell. I blacked out for a bit after that.”

“A spell?”
A.J. got to her feet and headed over to her duffle bag, pulling out her diary. She leafed back to some of the older pages from her time at Handeemen Studios- the ones that she was often too afraid to look at. She had pages devoted to each of the Handeemen, different props, Rosco, some of the Handeepuppet designs and a series of miscellaneous compilations of sketches and scribbles from when she and Owen would work together.
Sure enough, Scotch-taped to one of these pages was a crinkled Post-It note. In faint, black ink, A.J. could see where she had jotted down the phonetic version of the spell Owen had been trying.
True, he had never insisted that she give it a go following her first unsuccessful attempt but A.J. had copied down her own version just in case she ever worked up the courage to try it herself.

She hadn’t ever done so of course, but it was lucky that she hadn’t ever had the nerve to rip it out either. 

“This is the voodoo spell that Owen had been trying before I left and, well, before he finally got it to work,” A.J. told the host, smoothing out the page and pushing the diary towards them. “It never worked fully but he always said that when he tried it with Mortimer, he could feel something.”

“Owen? Wait, Owen Gubberson?” The host wiped their eyes and nose with their sleeve. “The guy who created the puppets?”

Two visions of Owen flashed in front of A.J.’s eyes.
One of a happy, living Owen. Sitting beside her in the car, bordered by the golden lights of tail-lights in the rain. His eyes were warm, lilac and maroon. He was smiling, his hand was warm on her thigh…
The other was of a mutilated corpse, displayed like some kind of mocking trophy in an old security office. Eyes empty. A literal shell of the man he used to be.

“Yes. That guy,” A.J. said quickly, not wanting to dwell on the thought. “Look, you and Scout have been connected before, right? So maybe if you say the spell again with your hand inside her, it might do something.”

The host looked at her with pained eyes, prompting her to add: “It’s worth giving a try. Even if it doesn’t work, she’d be no worse off than she is now…”

Another cascade of tears poured down their cheeks, making A.J. wish she was better with people. She tried to make her voice sound comforting and kind but each time, it just came out irritable and condescending.

The host sucked in a breath between their teeth, seemingly bracing themselves. “Ok, I’ll give it a try. Where does it start?”

“Uh…here…I wrote it syllable by syllable so you can just read out what you see…”

The host nodded, clenching and unclenching their hands a few times before starting to read:
“Barum takar...”

“Try to keep eye contact with her, if you can,” A.J. told them. “Owen said that’s supposed to help.”

“Barum takar…”

A.J. watched the younger person, wondering if this was the same anticipation when Owen had watched her say the spell all those years ago. Her chest was starting to feel uncomfortably light and she had never wanted a cigarette more in her entire life.

“…eeyeh kella muran…”

A.J. hadn’t been particularly worried about consequences when she had suggested it, considering that it had never been successful for Owen, (without that book that Mortimer had mentioned). However, as she watched the host continue to read, the thought suddenly dawned on her: this was real magic that they were effectively experimenting with.

“…tri temprotasa…tri temprotasa…”

What if the spell backfired in some horrible way that A.J. hadn’t even considered?
What if it ended up rendering the host lifeless instead of Scout?
There were literally one hundred and one ways that this could royally fuck up that A.J. hadn’t even bothered to worry about prior to this exact moment.

“Arise, puppet…arise…” 

A.J. was just about to stop the host when Scout’s head suddenly shot upward, as though pulled by an invisible string.
Both A.J. and the host reeled backwards in their seats, watching wide-eyed as the puppet’s eyes shot open and her mouth started to open and close rapidly with struggling breaths.

“Ahh…ahh…” The little puppet was wheezing uncontrollably, trying to sit up and trying to seemingly trying to speak. This prompted A.J. to motion to the host.

“I think she needs you to put her on your hand again.”

The host didn’t need to be told twice.
They scooped the little puppet back into their tenure and no sooner was their hand safely nested back into position, was Scout suddenly hacking and coughing in a clear familiar voice.

“I’m ALIVE!” she declared, her little hands suddenly running all over her face, grabbing at her nose, lips and ears. “Holy shit! I’m actually alive!”

A.J. watched with unabashed fascination. The Handeemen had been too intimidating to properly admire but this was a real, living puppet and there was something admittedly magical about her.

“Hell yeah, you’re alive,” breathed the host, grinning widely, having bounced all the way back from their despair and now practically brimming with delight. “You’re alive, Scout!”

“Host?!” Scout stared up at the person who held her on their hand. “Woah, I almost didn’t recognise you without your hood. Shit! You’re alive too!You…you…you like shit, my dude.”

The host laughed, shrugging between sniffs. “Yeah, look, I promise I don’t normally look this rough in the face.”

Scout laughed too, clutching at her little cotton belly and surveying her surroundings for the first time. “I can’t believe we got out. Where are we?” She turned and came face to face with A.J. “Woah! Hey! What is she doing here?”

“Miss Schwarzwald is the one who fixed you,” the host explained. “I found her with those notes we picked up in the office and she was able to stitch you arm back on.”

“A.J.,” the human woman said quickly. “You can call me A.J.”

“The last I saw of you,” Scout orated accusingly, pointing a whole hand finger at the red-haired woman sitting before her. “You were back at the studio, helping the Handeemen and getting all pally-pally with Riley. I don’t know what kind of-.” The puppet froze and suddenly stared up at the host with wide-eyes. “Holy hell. You can talk now!”

She squealed happily, bouncing up and down and forcing the host to jostle their arm accordingly. “You can talk! This means we can actually have full conversations, Host. Nice! I can’t wait to ask you all about your favourite t.v. shows, movies…shit! I don’t even know your real name.”

“Avery,” the host said smiling from ear to ear, despite how painful it must have been. “My name is Avery but you can keep calling me Host if you want.”

“Aaaaaveeeerrrryyyyy,” Scout repeated, trying out the name on her tongue. “I think we can work with that.”

The two continued to jabber back and forth excitedly while A.J. watched thoughtfully.
Truthfully, since the host had first come into her room, she had not been able to discern if they were a man or a woman. They were young, she could tell that much, but they didn’t have enough of either gender markers for her to make an accurate call.
She had been secretly hoping that their name might have given it away but Avery was still too gender neutral for her to tell.
Not that it mattered, she mused, it was just a something that had piqued her curiosity.

The mention of her own name by Avery snapped her back to reality.

“…A.J. is the one who helped me bring you back,” they were saying. “Of course, we can trust her. She got away from the Handeemen too.”

Scout swivelled around again to look survey the woman who had just sewed her arm back on. “Uh-huh. And if you don’t mind me asking, do you always work dressed like that? Or did you leave your actual clothes back at the studio?”

A.J. coughed, her face heating up when she realised that this whole time, she’d been wearing nothing but her bathrobe. Instinctively, she grabbed the lapels, pulling them closer to cover her chest. This fact seemed to only just dawn on Avery too and they similarly turned red, averting their eyes.

This was an unfortunate drawback A.J. had experienced to her policy of tunnel-vision when it came to work tasks. Sometimes she failed to follow basic social conventions when she had her mind on a particular job.
She numbly consoled herself with the thought that at least this time she hadn’t accidentally set a hot-glue gun down on a co-worker’s arm or tipped her pencil-shavings into a stroller.

“I was taking a shower when, uh, Avery came to the door,” A.J. muttered in explanation. “I didn’t really have time to think about getting dressed. Getting your arm back on was kind of a priority.”

“I didn’t really give you much time to think,” Avery pointed out, bowing their head apologetically. “Sorry for that.”

“It’s whatever,” A.J. replied, shrugging but keeping her robe held tightly closed and her legs together. “You kinda had bigger things to worry about.”

“Speaking of shower,” Scout piped up, clapping a hand over her nose as she regarded her host. “You could use one. Like, geez, the only thing you should be apologising for right now is that smell. Gross! It smells like you washed your armpits with dirtier armpits.”

“Hey,” Avery protested rather bashfully. “I did just spend like twelve hours with a bag on my head and crawl out of a sewage drain. Glad to hear that your nose is working fine though.”

“You can use the shower if you’d like,” A.J. said, nodding towards the bathroom door. “There should be some clean towels left and you’re welcome to using whatever soap and shampoo’s in there too.”

“I think I might. For Scout’s sake and for yours too, thanks,” Avery decided. They glanced down at the puppet on their hand. “I can’t exactly take you in with me though, can I?”

“Well, I’m not stitched to your wrist anymore, right?” Scout pointed out. “So just set me down somewhere comfy and I’ll be here when you get out.”

Avery looked to A.J. rather automatically and the toymaker nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on things out here.”
With the help of both humans, Scout sidled off her host’s hand and settled down comfortably on to one of the pillows on the bed.

“Don’t drown in the shower or get stabbed like that chick from Psycho!” she shouted out to Avery as they closed the bathroom door. “After all we’ve been through, it’d be real embarrassing if you were to kick the bucket while trying to take a shower.” Scout turned on her side, (with a little difficulty considering her lack of hips), to regard A.J. “Between you and me, is taking a shower hard? I’ve never done it before.”

“Not if you’re prepared, I guess,” A.J. said, after considering it for a moment. She put away her toolkit and grabbed some clothes out of her suitcase.
In typical California fashion, it was still pretty humid for September so A.J. didn’t think twice before picking out some long, loose-fitting shorts and a baggy t-shirt.

“Nice choice,” Scout praised. “The brown shorts look professional but the t-shirt says “I’m not all business.” I might go for a different bra if you’re not going to wear a sweater though.”
A.J. cleared her throat. “Could you please not look while I get dressed?”
Scout rolled her eyes and scoffed before covering them. “Might I remind you that I am a puppet and therefore not bound by the proclivities of you, human types? I mean to be fair, what don’t you want me to see? There can’t be that many differences between puppets and-.” Scout apparently decided to confirm this theory because her next exclamation was. “Woah! I stand the fuck corrected. I am never going to look at another one of you guys in your birthday suits again.”

“I’m glad I could be a learning experience for you,” A.J. said dryly, now fully-clothed and returning to tidying up the room.
After a few minutes, Scout started coughing emphatically. “Christ, without a hand inside me, it feels like my lungs are trying to deflate themselves from the inside.”
“…would you maybe like me to put you on my hand?” A.J. asked eventually, slightly hoping that her obvious reluctance would put the puppet off the idea.
She had no such luck as Scout perked up immediately, pushing herself up on to her tiny elbows. “Yes! Finally, you get the hint!”

Scout was unsettlingly warm to the touch as A.J. carefully lifted her up. Besides the fact that the handpuppet hadn’t been steam cleaned since the last time she’d been used and the remnants of bloodstains all over her, there was something markedly bizarre about putting one’s hand inside a living creature.
“Easy does it, red, easy does it,” grunted Scout as A.J.’s fingers slotted into her head section. “Oof, your hands have a weird texture. Moisturisation is your friend, lady.”

A.J. shuddered involuntarily when her left arm suddenly seemed to go numb from the elbow up. Her hand and forearm moved along with Scout but the human woman herself seemed to have no control over that section of her body anymore.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, allowing Scout to get used to her new surroundings. It had been a long time since A.J. had attempted any puppeteering or even played with any of her sizeable personal collection of toys. There was something oddly nice about the sensation.

“So, you’re the one who fixed my arm,” Scout mused, examining her re-attached limb. “Not bad, red. Not bad at all. Huh, I guess I should say thanks. So…thanks!”

“No problem,” A.J. told the puppet, talking to her own hand feeling a lot less weird than she might have initially supposed. “Like I said before, I do it for a living so it was no real biggie.”

“Do you think you could add a little more stuffing in here next time?” Scout flexed her little biceps in front of the nearest mirror, posing like a Mr World contestant. “I think I’d look good with a Muscle Beach bod.”

“Do you plan on losing your limbs often?”

“This is my first time in a hotel room,” the puppet declared, ignoring her new host’s question. “It looks exactly like I imagined it would too. Look at this bed- it’s huge! Ten people could sleep in here, easy! And there’s a t.v. too! And a phone! Wait, is there room service? Can we order room service?”

A.J. glanced at the bedside clock, realising that it was probably close enough to dinner time anyway and she imagined Avery would probably be starving too.
“Yeah, I guess we can.”

Using the phone to order was an adventure in itself with Scout deciding that she wanted to be one to dial the numbers, (despite not knowing what any of the numbers over five looked like as digits). Then the little puppet wanted to be the one to talk on the phone but panicked at the last second and told A.J. to take over instead.

“Hello, this is the front desk, Stephanie speaking. How can I help?”
“…”
“I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m not ready! You order!”
“Hello, ma’am?”
“…hello, sorry. Could I order room service to room three seventeen?”
“You forgot to say please! Daisy would rip your windpipe out through your nostrils!”
“Sure thing, Miss…Schwarzwald, is it?” 
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“…and Scout! And Avery!”
“What can we get you?”

By the time A.J. had managed to get Scout to decide on what she wanted to actually to order, the puppet’s original host was emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of steam.
“Did you remember to ask for extra French fries?” the puppet was saying as Avery shuffled back into view. “Oh, hey! Look at you all clean and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Avery chuckled bashfully, wrapped from head to toe in a towel.

Once again, A.J. had guiltily been hoping that the mystery of Avery’s gender might be revealed by the way they chose to wear their towel but their current adopted style gave her no clues. 
“Let’s get you some clothes,” she murmured, heading over to her suitcase. “I’ll warn you in advance, I’m not the most fashionable of people but I should be able to find you something.”

The majority of A.J.’s clothes were men’s clothes. Her usual attire consisted of oversized work pants or denim jeans, large t-shirts, open collar shirts and heavy jackets. In terms of colour palette, she tended to gravitate towards shades that didn’t stain easily like black, brown, dark greens and khaki.

With Scout’s (limited) help, A.J. managed to help Avery select a t-shirt, joggers and socks. Avery was a bit taller than A.J. but she was a bit chubbier than them so their sizes evened out enough for Scout’s original host to be comfy.

A knock sounded out at the door. “That’ll be room service. You can get dressed in here. Scout and I will get it.”
What followed was an unintentional double act in which A.J. desperately tried to behave as normally as possible despite the over-excited puppet on her wrist.

“So, how much is that?”

“Uh, thirty-five dollars and seventy cents,” the waiter told her, staring warily at Scout every few seconds. “Are you paying in cash? ‘Cause if not, you’ll have to use the machine at the front desk.”

“Cash is fine.”

“What’s it like working at a hotel?” Scout asked the confused employee as A.J. awkwardly tried to shuffle the money out of her pocket. “I bet it must be really cool getting to meet new people every day. Do you get a lot of famous people here?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” he laughed, puzzlement giving way to amusement.  He looked to A.J. “You’re a really good ventriloquist. Are you performing somewhere local?”

“I’ll be here all week!” Scout proclaimed, giggling to herself. “Oh man, I’ve always wanted to say that.”

At the puppet’s insistence, A.J. gave her the five dollars tip to hand to the hotel employee with him joking that he should be tipping them.

“Wow, people love puppets,” Scout mused as A.J. awkwardly tried to pick up the first of the trays, (the waiter had offered to help bring them in but she had been forced to keep their interaction as short as possible).  “I mean it’s weird seeing all of these hosts with their faces out and stuff but maybe I can make it here in the host world?”

The mismatched pair managed to get most of the trays in and on to the table in a strange vaudeville-style balancing act. A.J. was relieved when Avery helped out with the drinks though; she was already going to be paying a lot of money to the hotel in damages and carpet cleaning without another potential spillage.

With her fellow human finally cleaned-up and unhooded, A.J. could finally get a good look at them. They had skin the colour of tea, marked by the odd dark mole, (and the puncture marks where their mouth and hand had been mutilated with wire). Their hair was a deep black, falling to the nape of their neck in shaggy, wet layers and their tortoiseshell eyes were bordered by two equally dark, bushy eyebrows. They were tall, fairly long-limbed and broad across the torso but their hands were soft at the palm.
“Hands of a scholar,” A.J. thought as Scout slipped happily back on to her original host. “Not a craftsperson.”

“I feel like I should be helping to pay for this,” Avery told A.J., between mouthfuls of pizza. “But I think those puppets swiped my wallet while I was knocked out back at the studio.”

The red-haired woman grimaced slightly. “If that’s the case then I’m pretty sure you’re the one who’s already paying for this. That’s how I think Mortimer’s paying me anyway.”

“They’re paying you?” Avery exclaimed, eyes wide. “You’re letting the demon puppets pay you to like fix them or something? That’s why they let you leave?”

“It’s not like that,” A.J. said, squirming a little, (because it very much was like that). “When I first got the call about the job, I thought I was coming to help an old friend. I didn’t know that it was just Mortimer.”

“An old friend?”

“Yeah, you said Owen was your friend!” Scout suddenly chirped, gnawing her way through a pile of French fries. “The guy who made us.”

“Owen Gubberson?” Avery questioned. “The crazy guy who brought them all to life?”
“Yeah, Owen,” Scout clarified. “The dead guy we saw in the security office. The guy they chopped up and made into a puppet, remember?”

Avery saw A.J.’s expression change and gave Scout a poke in the side before saying: “Uh…I’m sorry. Were you guys close?”

The older woman, nodded, choosing to occupy her mouth with another gulp of soda rather than to speak again. She wasn’t even sure what she would say.

“Were you guys like…close-close?” Avery dared to ask, looking a little uncomfortable.

A.J. gave another little nod and Scout gasped dramatically. “Were you guys like close-close close?”

“We were closer than we probably should have been,” A.J. said finally. “I thought he’d died in that fire and then Mortimer called, pretending to be him and I thought maybe…maybe he’d survived…but evidently I was wrong.”

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” Avery told her, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “That must be really hard.”

A.J. shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. It feels kind of redundant, you know? Mourning someone twice.” She blinked, realising something for the first time. “What were you doing there, Avery?”

“Me? Oh,” they laughed slightly. “It’s kind of stupid. I work for my college newspaper and I was sent to do the Halloween article on the Handeemen Studio because of all the haunting rumours.” Avery rolled their shoulders. “It’s funny. I was actually really dreading it because I thought it was going to be boring. I thought I was going to spend the whole-time walking around a cold studio in the dark, dodging hobos but…” They ruffled Scout’s woolly head. “The place turned out to actually be haunted. Just my luck.”

“This is gonna make one hell of a Halloween issue,” Scout pointed out, amusing herself by pretending a nearby drinking straw was a sword.

“Shit,” Avery suddenly murmured, colour draining from their face slightly.

“What is it?”

“My editor. My dorm-mates. They’ll be wondering where I am. I’ve probably missed like eight lectures too. My car is probably back at the studio parking lot…so I can’t exactly get it now. Damn!”

“You can use the phone,” A.J. told them. “Call someone if you need to. Do you have any family in the area?”

“No. My family are all from Michigan.”

“Then you’re probably better off staying here for now though until…you’ve figured things out.”

“I don’t want to impose or anything,” Avery said, scratching their head bashfully. “I’ve already kind of barged in here, unannounced and what not.”

“It’s fine,” A.J. said, waving a hand, deciding this was a good time to try a bit of empathy for once. “I remember what it was like to be on my own and facing a minor personal crisis. Use the phone, if you want.”

“Minor?” Scout exclaimed as her former host passed her on to A.J. “You call this a minor personal crisis? Avery almost got lobotimised by voodoo and you call this a minor personal crisis?”

Avery stole away for a moment to call their roommate, opting to take the phone into the walk-in closet.
A.J. took a moment to examine Scout’s stitching up close. There was something about the way the line work was done…

“Hey take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Scout insisted indignantly. “What are you looking at, red? Were you a house cat in another life?”

“Nothing, just checking that all of your stitching is intact,” A.J. lied, her brows furrowing a little. “I was worried you might have loosened up some of your seams while we were carrying the trays into the room. There’s no damage from what I can see.” She paused, tilting her head to examine some of Scout’s stains. “You’re going to need a bath though.”

After a few minutes of negotiation and with Avery’s help, A.J. ran a bath of lukewarm water for Scout. Originally A.J. had suggested using the sink but the little puppet herself had been more excited to try the bath. The neck-hole of her t-shirt was far too small to tug over her head so A.J. had to use her seam ripper to part it from Scout’s fuzzy little torso.
A.J. still had specialised cleaning products for toys to use but Scout wanted bubbles so the remainder of the hotel shampoo was tipped into the water as well.
The two humans managed to work out a system of swapping Scout from hand to hand to ensure that she was properly washed. The whole thing reminded A.J. of a show she’d seen on the Discovery Channel where two Emperor Penguin parents were clumsily passing an egg from one penguin to the other.
Ungainly as it was, it was working.

It was also a little more fun than her usual work. A.J. didn’t typically enjoy working next to anyone but kneeling with Avery beside the tub and listening to their banter with Scout was making the time pass much faster.

“Ok,” A.J. warned Scout, taking a Q-Tip from her pocket and rolling up her sleeves. “I’m just going to give your eyes and teeth a quick clean. This might be a little uncomfortable.”  
“Woah, those tattoos are pretty sweet,” Avery said admiringly, eyeing A.J.’s forearms.
“Oh, thanks. I got them a couple of years ago. They’re cover up tattoos actually,” she told them, squinting at the wounds on Avery’s wrist. “You might have the need for a cover up of your own, actually. You’re pretty lucky that Scout’s the only one who needed stitches.”
“Ah! Careful with that thing!” Scout exclaimed, squeezing her eyelids around the Q-Tip before busying herself with a new clump of bubbles. “What’s a cover up tattoo anyway?”
A.J. thought for a moment before responding. “It can be different for different people. For me, it was because I hurt myself and it left marks on my body. I got sick of looking at the marks and they weren’t going to go away, so I covered them up with something that I did like looking at.”
Scout ran her damp, little felt mitts up and down the tattooed stitching on A.J.’s right arm before looking at her own once-amputated arm thoughtfully. “Huh, maybe I should get a cover up tattoo for this line.”
“I don’t know,” Avery joked. “I think that scar makes you look kinda tough.”
“I don’t need a scar to make me look tough. I took on Rosco and lived; I’m basically the god-warrior of all Handeepuppets now. Oh, oh, I know! We could get matching tattoos!” Scout suggested delightedly, clapping her hands and accidentally splashing both of her care-takers in the face. “We could use them to promote our talk show!”

After Scout was thoroughly cleaned, Avery took on the job of getting her dry while A.J. went about making her a new t-shirt. Her old one, while not technically ruined was still emblazoned with Mortimer’s face and when A.J. asked if she wanted to keep it or trash it, Scout replied with a scoff of: “Are you kidding me?”

Avery sat on the bed with Scout wrapped in a washcloth on their wrist and the hair dryer on its lowest possible setting. A.J. took up her perch on the other side of the room, on what remained of the armchair with her sewing kit. Scout had picked out one of A.J.’s black t-shirts with a small square of the garment cut, A.J. could go about fashioning the puppet a new little t-shirt of her own.
“I’m doing you a favour,” Scout told A.J. “That t-shirt would look way better as a crop top on you anyway.”
For the first time in a long time, the woman genuinely laughed.

“So, what are you studying anyway?” A.J. asked Avery, looking up from her sewing every now and then.

“Journalism and mixed media,” Avery told her, giving Scout’s hair a little fluff. “But I’ve always wanted to be a writer- an author- you know? Write my own books. How is it that you get to do what you do? Like what did you study for that?”

“I didn’t study a course at a Uni,” A.J. explained, mentally cursing her choice to use the thinnest, blackest thread that she owned. “I’m self-taught…in most respects. I grew up in my Uncle’s antique store so I was pretty surrounded by restoration my whole life. He and my grandma basically refused me to buy me anything new so if I wanted any toys, I had to fix them myself. He taught me painting, sculpting, gluing and such and she taught me to sew.” A.J. paused to lightly suckle on the stretch of skin that she’d pricked with a needle. “I study with different employers too, like I learned basic robotics from Afton Robotics when I used to work at the old Pizzaplex.”

“Oh, you mean like Freddy Fazbear’s? I used to love that place,” Avery beamed. “I had a Monty plush toy in every size you could get ‘em. So, are you from around here then?”

“No, I’m from New York actually. That’s where I work too, in a Toy Hospital. I travel for business though.”

“Sounds cool.”

“It can be. Depends on the job, really.” A.J. took up her lighter to burn off the excess threads. “For some reason, I usually tend to get booked by some real…eccentric types.”

“For some reason? It’s because you never fucking ask questions or go to the police,” said a little voice in her head. “You get in, get the job done and get out. You’re a psychopath’s dream handywoman.”

The hotel room phone started ringing, causing the odd little trio to freeze.
A.J. glanced at the clock. “That’ll be Marissa. Don’t worry. She’s my manager at the Toy Hospital. She’s just checking in on me.”

A.J. grabbed the phone and brought it into the bathroom. A thought very fleetingly occurred to her that this might also be Mortimer calling but she tried to put that out of her head as best as she could manage. She held her breath as she lifted to the receiver to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Hey Amy, how are you doing?”
Relief coursed through her veins like the sweetest of pain medication.

“Hey Mari,” she said, a little breathless from the moment of tension. “I’m good. You?”

They talked back and forth for a bit, mostly Marissa prodding her for more information about what had happened at the studio after she had confronted “Owen” and A.J. trying to redirect the conversation to the latest goings-on at the Toy Hospital.

“What did he say, though? When you told him that the network didn’t know anything about a reboot?”
“He…” A.J. couldn’t think of anything to say. If she told Marissa the basic truth, primarily that Owen was dead and that the person who had called her was an impersonator, her friend would insist on calling the police. Marissa was also very liable to jump on the next flight to California and to drag A.J. back to New York if the latter refused to return of her own volition. “…he wasn’t there today. Like he wasn’t at the studio. I’ll tell him tomorrow.”
If A.J. told her the actual truth, that the puppets were alive, had murdered their creator and were now brainwashing humans to revive their old t.v. show, Marissa would think she had either had another break-down or had started using again.

“Alright, but like I said, if you get even the tiniest bit suspicious, call the cops straight away.”

A.J. sighed; she didn’t like lying to Marissa but there was no version of the truth that she could tell her at that moment.
Well, maybe there was one thing. Through the crack in the bathroom door, A.J. could see Avery and Scout, still laughing and joking on the bed.

“I might have some back up now though.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“One of the ho- puppeteers. They just left recently, puppet and all. I think I might be able to get some useful info from them.”
“So, one of Owen’s little goons has gone turncoat? Can’t say I’m surprised. That’s what happens when you treat your staff like shit. I’m sure you two will have plenty to bond over.”

A little while later, A.J. was seated on the bed beside Avery, braiding Scout’s hair, having re-sewn her new t-shirt on to her body. The blue-haired puppet, in turn was practically glued to the television screen in front of her. There were only five channels but the fact that she could change the channel using a remote control was enough of a novelty that Scout was practically euphoric.
“Might have to change hands soon,” Avery admitted, smiling bemusedly. “I’m starting to get pins and needles from holding you up.”
“I’m almost done anyway,” A.J. told him, pulling an elastic from her sewing kit. “I was just thinking, actually. Mortimer said that puppets need hosts to live but if Scout was a doll, she’d at least be able to get around on her own.”

“A doll?” Scout looked over her shoulder, finally tearing her eyes away from the latest episode of Friends. “Like with legs and feet and everything?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“I don’t know. I mean being a puppet is like my whole identity. It’d be a really big change for me, wouldn’t it?” Scout clutched the remote, holding it to her body like a life-sized teddy.
“I could make you a hybrid,” A.J. mused, thinking it over as she finished the braid. “I’ve done it for kids at the Toy Hospital before. I could put a zipper around your middle so you could zip your legs on and off whenever you needed them.”
“…I’d have to think about it,” Scout said eventually. “I mean it’s not exactly going to be the comfiest experience either, is it?”
“Maybe not,” A.J. replied, getting up and giving her own arms a stretch. “But look, you’ll have the whole day to think about it tomorrow. I’d need to get some supplies from the studio anyway. I can pick those up for you when I get there tomo-.”

“You’re going back?!”
It was Scout who had made the sudden exclamation but Avery was looking at her with the same level of concern, massaging their arm. “What?”

“I have to go back,” A.J. clarified, starting to pack up some of her things. “I’m being paid to do a job and I have to finish it.”

“A.J., you do not have to go back there,” Avery told her. “What if-?”
“They won’t do anything to me,” A.J. asserted. “They can’t. They need me intact and operational.”
“Do you hear yourself?!” Scout suddenly shouted, lunging forward and forcing Avery to stumble after her. “Seriously? This isn’t your average 9 to 5 at the coffee shop! They’re murdering people, A.J. They’re murdering your people! And you want to help them? We should be calling the cops! The army! The president!”

“Actually I did try to call the police when I first left the studio,” Avery admitted. “I used a payphone on the block.”
“And?” A.J.’s breath temporarily seized in her throat. She was starting to feel uncomfortably conflicted about this situation.
“They told me to call back when I was sober,” they said, rolling their eyes. “The story sounded nuts as soon as I said it out loud.”
“Yeah, but now you have me to prove it!” Scout chirped. “So they’ll believe us, right?”

“No,” A.J. repeated, a little more sharply than before. “No one is calling the cops.” Both Avery and Scout moved to protest but she stopped them. “We don’t know what Mortimer is planning. Look, it’s great that you two got out but for all we know, that’s all part of his plan too. The Handeemen know where I’m staying and they know how to contact me. If we make waves now, we don’t know what Mortimer will do in response.” She took a breath, trying to soften her tone. “Look, just let me do a bit of digging around the studio. They trust me now so it’ll be a bit easier. Let me get a clearer picture of what they have planned and then we can call someone, ok?”

“I still think you’re crazy,” Scout sighed. “But as long as I don’t have to go back to that fucking place, I’ll take your word for it.”

“Are you sure you’ll be ok going back alone?” Avery asked, clearly not alright with the situation in the slightest. Why would they be? They had only just escaped the nightmarish ordeal.

“I’ll be fine,” A.J. nodded. “Owen started something…he did this and he wasn’t able to fix it…I have to try and fix it now…”

Thankfully, conversation was a lot more mundane, (mostly centring on reruns of Seinfeld), until bedtime.
There was a lengthy negotiation regarding the bed.
Avery said that they could sleep on the couch because it was her hotel room.
A.J. said that she could sleep on the couch because they were injured.
Scout insisted that there was plenty of space for the three of them and that the whole argument was pointless.

It was Scout who eventually won their Mexican Stand-Off and finally, with the lights shut off, A.J. was lying atop the covers. Scout was curled up between them both, eyes shut, looking comfy.
A.J. frowned up at the ceiling in the dark.
This was the part that she had been dreading all day. She hated being alone with her own thoughts at the end of the day, nothing to distract her from ruminating on every second of the day. She tried to close her eyes but every time she did, it would be the same horrifying images.
Anthony Pierson’s braindead face.
Owen’s lifeless body.
Mortimer Handee’s triumphant smirk.

She groaned, massaging the bridge of her nose and trying to dull the urge to pick at her skin.

“Can’t sleep?” she heard Avery whisper.

“No,” she admitted. “You?”

She turned her head to see the outline of Avery, shaking their head against the pillow. “Nope. It’s been a long fucking day, right?”

A.J. nodded, turning on to her side to face them. “You could say that.”

“I don’t know,” they said, features hard to make out but clearly perturbed. “I close my eyes and I just see all those people in body bags, you know? I hear that fucker Mortimer laughing and I just…call me a pussy but I’m just scared of what my dreams are going to be like tonight.”
“I know the feeling. If I’m honest, I was planning on drinking my feelings today and hoping to get a nice natural blackout to put me to sleep.”
“Does that ever work?”
“Not really but a girl can try I guess.”

A.J. paused for a moment and then, deciding that if they weren’t going to sleep anyway, said: “Hey, Avery. If I ask you a question…? Like I’m sorry if this offends you but…?”

“You’re wondering if I’m a girl or a boy,” Avery said with an audible chuckle. “Don’t worry. I get that a lot. Well…to answer that question: no.”

“You don’t want to answer?”

“No, it’s just, like, I’m not a girl or a boy. I’m neither.” Scout’s original host seemed to sense the need to explain and continued. “Like, I guess I just kind of gave up on gender when I was little and ever since then, I’ve just never really felt the need to lean either way. It felt restrictive you know?”

A.J. nodded slowly and when she realised Avery probably couldn’t see her facial expression she spoke aloud again: “Wow…that’s pretty profound. Good for you. I mean, I mostly work with toys so where that's concerned, gender is about as arbitrary as it gets." A.J. still didn't want to sleep just yet so she kept talking. "Are your family supportive of...you ?”

“My dad is. It’s mostly just me and him. I’m lucky that way that he’s never really tried to change me. My extended family is another story…but…I’ve got a good group of friends too.” Avery turned on their side. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, what’s your family situation? Like are they back in New York? You said you lived with your uncle and your grandma.”

“My uncle and my Oma are dead now. So, it’s just me. I mean, I do have a mom but she dropped me off with Oma when I was four or five and never really came back after that.”

“…oh…that’s rough…”

“Don’t feel sorry for me. I have a good network too and I get by just fine.”
A.J. turned on to her back, looking up at the ceiling.

“Heh, here’s to getting by just fine.”
Avery mirrored her action.

“Here’s to that.”

Another silence passed between them, simultaneously pregnant with thought and blissfully empty.

Then Scout’s voice suddenly piped up from between the two of them, breaking the silence like a hammer on a Glockenspiel.

“…I’ve just remembered that puppets don’t actually need to sleep.”

Chapter Text

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers

(July 1972, a motel bathroom)

One of A.J.’s earliest memories involved her sitting on the hard, jade-green tiles of a bathroom floor. The grout was a stodgy mixture of white and brown, reminding the little girl of s’mores.
She couldn’t remember if she had been three or four at the time; only that she wasn’t yet tall enough to reach the washbasin of the sink. She was sitting beside the bathtub; the floor and wall were damp against the places where her skin peeked out from beneath her pyjamas and the air was heavy with the smell of lavender. The lavender oil was supposed to cover up another smell but A.J. couldn’t remember what that other smell was.
She also couldn’t remember in detail the face of the woman who languished in the bathtub beside her; only that they shared the same red, curly hair and that the woman’s pale arm, resting on the ivory-tipped rim of the tub, was dotted with freckles much like her own.

“Amelia? I was just thinking,” the woman said, her voice sounding tired as she settled back into the hot water. “Maybe things would have been better if you’d never been born.” She gave a small snort of laughter, retracting her arm into the warmth of the bathwater

A.J., being only about four years old, didn’t know how to respond to that so she just kept hugging her knees, staring up at the woman, who didn’t return her gaze. Those words hurt as they trickled into her ears but it would be years before they could drip down to where her heart sat in her chest. It was there that those words would cause her heart to grow heavy and painful but at that moment, they were mercifully easy to dismiss.
The woman in the bathtub closed her eyes for a moment, lying back and lightly drumming her fingers upon the surface of the water- playing a little symphony that only she could hear.

“Mmm,” her mother finally said, sighing slightly. “We’ve got to pack our bags tonight again. We’re going to leave for New York City in the morning.” The woman tilted her head to look down at her young daughter. “I’m going to visit someone important and you’re going to meet your grandma and your uncle. Isn’t that going to be fun?”

A.J. nodded, still looking up at her where her mother sat.

“Are you excited? It’ll be something different for us.”

A.J. nodded again, still hugging her knees to her chest.
Her little heart leapt a tiny bit when she felt her mother’s damp, warm hand touching her head, patting the crown of her russet curls. She closed her eyes, wanting the rare, precious moment to never end. 

*****

(September 1997)

A.J. woke with a start, one hand automatically shooting up towards her head and fingers desperately seeking purchase in her hair.
“It’s not wet,” she thought blearily, blinking the half-darkened hotel room into view. “My hair isn’t wet.” Relief coursed through her, instantly followed by a numb confusion.
Why did she think it was going to be wet?  

Realising that she must have fallen asleep at some point, A.J. gingerly pulled herself into a sitting position and reached for the wristwatch that she had left glinting on the bedside table. Thankfully despite having forgotten to ring the reception for a wake-up call and having not gotten to sleep until sunlight was practically peeking through the curtains, her sense of routine had kicked in and she’d managed not to oversleep.

She looked to the figure in bed beside her, curled up in the foetal position and each deep, peaceful breath punctuated by a rise and fall of the blankets. The sight brought a faint smile to her lips; at least Avery had managed to get some rest.

She did her best to ignore the symphony of cracks that came from her neck and back as she carefully climbed out of the bed, untangling her legs from the fitted sheets.
The room wasn’t as balmy as she remembered from the night before but the cold water from the bathroom faucets was still a welcome sensation. It helped to wake her up, to bring blood to her face and to help her focus on what she needed to do that day.
A barbed sense of anticipation nestled in her stomach as she thought about what Mortimer probably had in store for her. Knowing what she knew should have leveled the playing field somewhat but A.J. was convinced that there had to be at least a hundred more secrets that the magician was keeping from her. More to the point, despite what he had told her, A.J. was very certain that she was as good as dead if she suddenly were to stop being useful to them.
Her mind was suddenly bisected again- half of her wanting to put a stop to the Handeemen, to do whatever it took to end them and half of her almost instinctively wanting to care for Owen’s creations like the living creatures that they now were.

Owen.

The feeling that had been worming its way around her stomach suddenly morphed into a dreadful nausea as yesterday’s events flooded into her mind and A.J. found herself crouched over the toilet bowl, hair held back in her own fist.
The toy maker finished washing her face and brushing her teeth, (her unset, unruly hair was truly not worth the effort), and made her way back into the room.

“I still can’t believe you’re heading back to that place.”

A.J. jumped slightly at the sight of the blue-haired, hand-puppet staring back at her from the bed. She had almost forgotten about Scout.

“Did you manage to get any sleep?” the human woman asked, strategically ignoring the puppet’s comment; she did not want to repeat her reasoning.
Particularly considering that said reasoning was shaky at best.

“Nah,” Scout said with a sigh. “I tried but nothing was working so I kept talking with sleeping beauty here as long as I could.” She pointed down at Avery who was still sleeping soundly and seemingly blissfully unaware of what their forearm was doing. “Then when Avery passed out, I tried talking to you but you were just babbling all this gibberish so I figured it was time to let you sleep too. I mostly just spent the night making shapes out of the shadows on the ceiling.”

“That sounds a little boring,” A.J. murmured, not entirely sure how to respond to Scout, much less their situation. She busied herself with pulling out some fresh clothes for the day.

“Meh, it was a weird, little game we used to play back at the studio when we were waiting for one of the gruesome foursome to come and take us for testing.” Scout spread her small felt hands and shrugged. “It’s actually kind of nice to play it when you’re not scared shitless waiting to get ripped apart by that demonic Labrador.” She hummed thoughtfully. “It’s kind of nice to be somewhere safe at all, really. Like come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve been somewhere I don’t have to fear for my life.”

“Well, that’s good,” A.J. pointed out, keeping her voice low as she crouched down by the side of the bed. She didn’t want to wake Avery; God knew they needed the rest. “Mind if I check your stitching?”

“Knock yourself out, red.”

“Looking good,” A.J. mused, eyeing her own stitches and scanning for any threads that had broken or come loose during the night. “Shadow games or not, you’re probably going to have to work out some way that you’re not left staring at the ceiling whenever Avery needs to sleep...or shower…or…” She pursed her lips. “…anything.” A.J. continued to whisper as she looked from her handiwork to the puppet’s face. “Like I said yesterday, I could make you into a hybrid doll. It would be no picnic but it would give you a lot more independence in the long run.”

Scout folded her arms, scoffing a little. “Geez, lady, Avery and I only just escaped with our lives and you already expect me to make life-changing decisions? Give me some time!”
Avery stirred and Scout clapped a hand over her mouth, waiting a few seconds before speaking again in a far quieter tone: “Avery and I will figure everything out though. We’re a pretty awesome team actually. You should have seen us back in the studio. We’re basically Starsky and Hutch with better hair and twice the comedic timing.”

A.J. shrugged her duffle bag back on to her shoulder, running her usual mental checklists as she replied: “I’m glad you two have each other.”

“Me too. I really fucking lucked out with Avery and I guess they really lucked out with me, right?” Scout paused, regarding her sleeping host with a mixture of affection and bemusement before returning to A.J. “I bet you wish that you’d ended up with a smart, wise-cracking puppet on your arm?” The puppet seemed to reconsider her own words, adding: “Or maybe not?”

A.J. forced herself to smile blithely. “I have too many dolls, puppets and other toys who depend on me. It would be objectively cruel of me to commit myself to just one of them.”

“Nice answer, red.”

“I’ll leave you some cash for breakfast,” A.J. told Scout, shuffling through the dollars in her wallet before leaving a wad of them on the table that they’d eaten at the night before. “Remember to lay low and if anyone calls to the door and asks, Avery can say that they’re staying with me. That they’re my sibling or something…and try to let Avery do most of the talking, ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…don’t worry. We have a pretty sweet thing going here and I don’t want to ruin it with how inherently interesting I am.”

“If Avery’s face is still hurting, there’s some medical ointment in the bathroom cabinet too. Can you remind them to clean their wounds?”

“I can assure you, Avery is in the best possible hands. Like I said, we’re one pretty awesome team.”
“Good.”

A.J. put her hand on the hotel alarm clock beside the bed. “At around 1:30pm, I’m going to call you guys on that phone over there to check in. If anyone calls and it doesn’t sound like me or that lady from the front desk, hang up straight away.”

“Anti-social much?”

The human gritted her teeth and sucked air in through her teeth. “Mortimer knows the phone number for this room. I’m not sure how he got it and I’m going to tell the front desk to only patch calls to this room if its me but as it turns out-,” A.J. gritted her teeth and exhaled. “Mr Handee seems to be pretty good at mimicking voices. So, when I call, ask me something only I would know, something about what happened yesterday…before you tell me anything, ok?”

The little puppet seemed to take pause at this information and A.J. braced herself mentally for another response. Thankfully, Scout didn’t offer much opposition or sass this time, simply nodding and saluting- not unlike the way she had done for Riley. “Sure thing.” It was as Scout lowered her hand that A.J. noticed she seemed to be having difficulty keeping it upright.

“How’s your arm?” she asked, gesturing to where the stitches would have been on her own body.

“Uh…bit stiff, now that you mention it.”
A.J. glanced at her watch. “Do you want me to take a quick look at it before I head off?”
“I’d appreciate it, yeah,” Scout muttered rather bashfully as she held out the newly reattached arm for the human toy-maker to examine. “It feels kinda weak towards the elbow. Like pins and needles, y’know? Wait. Did I just make a pun?”
“It’s your stuffing,” A.J. noted, keeping her voice quiet as she lightly pinched Scout’s forearm. “It’s probably just moved around during the night. It should be a pretty easy fix.” She found her voice morphing into the soothing tone she usually used at the Toy Hospital when she was working on a toy in private. “I’m just going to move it back into place.” She began to use her fingers to roll and massage the stuffing, letting it fill out the individual cavities. “Is it feeling better now?”

“Yeah, that’s better,” Scout mused, flapping at the elbow as though mimicking a chicken. “Huh, for whatever your lack in style, you’ve definitely got the magic touch there, red. You’re basically like a toy doctor, right?”

A.J. shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant but unable to conceal a smile. “Thanks. All part of the job.”

“I just wish you wouldn’t be their doctor too,” the blue-haired puppet frowned, folding her arms, her little felt brows knitting together. “I still don’t get why you’re helping the Handeemen.”

“…trust me,” A.J. said, giving Scout’s head a little pat and stealing a last glance at Avery. “I know what I’m doing.”

The lie tasted sour in her mouth and if Scout’s eye-roll was anything to go by, it didn’t sound any more convincing than it had in her head.

“Whatever, red. Just turn on the t.v. before you go, will ya? I know Hosty needs their beauty sleep and all but I’m bored out of my skull.”

The toymaker obliged but turned down the volume to accommodate Avery. The sleeping host stirred slightly but didn’t awaken, allowing Scout to settle back against the pillow.

A.J. took pause at the door of the hotel room for a moment, shrugging her bag on to her shoulder and looking back at Scout. Watching the little puppet sit with her hands behind her head, eyes relaxed and lips pouting thoughtfully strangely made her think of…Owen?
Was that really something Owen used to do?

There was something else that was burgeoningly familiar about the small puppet that was starting to tug at the strings of A.J.’s memory. Her design…her colours…her stitching…

She wasn’t sure how Scout would react if she voiced the thought aloud and she wasn’t strictly sure that it would do anything to help their situation.  

“Seriously?” The little handpuppet’s voice pulled her from the sea of her own thoughts. “Why do you keep staring at me like that? It feels like you’re trying to look through my skin!”

A.J. blinked, shaking her head and opening the door. “Sorry. It’s nothing. Just making sure you’re ok. Be safe.” She didn’t wait for Scout’s reply, opting instead to close the door behind her and get walking.
Distraction was a luxury that she could no longer afford.

*****

(Handeemen Studios, September, 1997)

“What?”

Riley had to grit her own wooden teeth behind her mask to prevent her voice from quavering. Fury burned at every inch of her and anxiety was slowly creeping over her form, clawing at her throat but to show weakness in front of one of her own lab assistants would be an undeniable shame.

“I…we couldn’t find anything in the tunnels. No trace of the h-host or Scout,” the messenger was quivering from head to torso. “We only f-found a little blood and stuffing. I-I-It appears that they might have g-gotten out.”

Riley Ruckus lifted her head from the rat she’d been vivisecting to regard the Handeepuppet who’d been nominated to pass on the bad news. It seemed Olive had drawn the unlucky short straw this time. The little green puppet looked fit to throw her stuffing up on the floor. Riley understood why, of course: all of her lab assistants knew what happened to puppets who had the nerve to tell her something that she didn’t like.

Mind you, she was starting to resent the “Riley doesn’t like bad news” narrative. It wasn’t that she didn’t like receiving bad news, per se. After all, “bad news” and failure were just part of the scientific process. More data and all that.
It was incompetence that Riley had zero time for and usually when her plans failed, it was rarely the process at fault.

“What? How could she manage to-?!” Riley stopped herself and took a deep breath for the umpteenth time that day. After yesterday’s relative revelations, Mortimer was in a thoroughly excellent mood and the last thing she wanted was to give him a reason to chide her for causing a stir before breakfast. She would have to investigate matters herself and bring it up delicately when she had the chance. “Never mind. That’s enough for today. Tell the team to go back to their ordained schedule and stay out of my way!”

Riley watched as Olive bowed, scurrying from the room. Thanking her lucky stars, no doubt and remembering to close the door of the lab as per her mistress’ request.
Sometimes, it vaguely crossed her mind that perhaps she should be praising her team a little more thoroughly. A bit of good old-fashioned operant conditioning in the form of positive reinforcement perhaps?

The rat beneath her scalpel twitched and writhed in its restraints, prompting the red haired puppet to press the blade deeper into its colon.

Behind her mask, Riley sneered and instead added Olive’s name to the list of her next living test subjects. Let Pavlov have his dogs.
Let Nick bawl in front of his stage-hands and Daisy fawn over her charm school pupils.

Kindness was not something that came naturally to her and it did not need to.
She needed to instil fear.
Sometimes she felt as though it was the only thing, she had control over in the studio that she had come to call him home.
Dual-coloured eyes kept glancing at a nearby alarm clock, knowing that it would ring any second and that effigy of Mortimer’s grinning face would be replaced by the real one, peeking around the door and asking her to come with him to Daisy’s breakfast.

It wasn’t exactly her favourite time of the day but it was one of the few times that she would be alone with him. If she was going to tell him something, that was usually the best time. At one time, the magician had felt like a surrogate father to her but she wasn’t sure if it felt accurate to call him that anymore.
Still, Mortimer Handee felt more of a natural paternal figure to her than the half-a-corpse that they kept in the dressing rooms.
That man had never wanted her anyway. He would have kept her behind glass for an eternity or perhaps saw her burn.
Mortimer would never wish that upon her.

Right?

Riley sliced through the rat’s stomach, watching as it writhed and squirmed and eventually faded, crimson steadily pooling around it, like a swaddling blanket.

Chapter Text

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos.

(Handeemen Studios, September, 1998)

Riley abruptly lifted her head as the door of her lab began to open. Instinctively, she adjusted her lapels, smoothing out her lab-coat, wiping her gloves and giving her face-mask a self-conscious tweak.
Unlike Daisy and the airhead artist, Mortimer hadn’t chastised or mocked her about her little self-improving dental job but he was quite insistent that she kept her fangs covered up.
“We must keep our branding in mind, Riley, dear,” he had told her primly. “For the sake of the wee children and what they might fear.”

“Branding,” she found herself murmuring beneath the mask as she reset her goggles on her hairline. “And I continue to do my best to demonstrate my understanding.”  
Keeping up appearances was the reason why she found herself forced to undergo the painful process of detaching her host from her dear Rosco. The time of their great return was drawing near and according to their dear leader, the show’s lead scientist being sewn to her pet dog probably wasn’t going to go down well with the general public. Reluctantly she resolved to reattach her loyal buddy on an intermittent basis. Vulnerability wasn’t her style but she could silently admit to feeling safe within Rosco. There was something strange but comforting about being able to retreat into his furry torso, content that her orders would be carried out but that she would remain protected by her most trusted pet.

Rosco was currently resting up, recovering from his latest surgery. Riley had found it necessary to replace one of his hosts when it became clear that one was expiring but her only option for a new host had slightly longer limbs than she’d needed so she’s been forced to make a few adjustments to the host’s tibias. It had been a lengthy process and Rosco still wasn’t quite walking straight.
She pushed her latent worries to the back of her mind; now was not the time to deal with them. Her jaw was starting to twinge again but that, too was promptly pushed to the back of her mind.

The door to her lab swung open and Riley felt her temples already starting to throb when the light in the doorway revealed not Mortimer Handee but Nick Nack, practically swinging on the arm of his host.

“Good morning to you, my dear nerdy peer,” he trilled, far too boisterous for her liking. She didn’t bother attempting to disguise her eyeroll as the thespian’s eyes took a panorama shot of her lab. Those same eyes settled on her and his lips pulled taut in a faintly disgusted sneer. “To summon you for breakfast, is my reason for being here.” His eyes remained sneering as his mouth contorted to a mocking smirk. “Though you might want to clean yourself up first. When it comes to looking presentable, you can truly be the worst.”

She was tempted to give a self-conscious glance to a nearby mirror but ultimately Riley refused to give into Nick’s obvious bait; the last thing she wanted was to be at the end of her tether when she met Mortimer that morning. It was her duty to be the collected, clinical, sometimes cynical member of the Handeemen and she couldn’t allow that fact to be challenged by someone as beneath her as Nick. She had to take the high road.

It was the proper thing to do.
She reluctantly joined him at the door, fully prepared to keep her comments behind her mask, but something about the artist’s smug little smirk dissolved her restraint like acid.

“Nick Nack, your thoughts are so elemental,” she hissed. “Some of us have value beyond what is ornamental.”

High road be damned.
She wasn’t going to take insults from a puppet who insisted on buffing his eyebrows off every evening and then painting them on every morning.

“So, shall we make our usual bet today?” Nick asked her as they walked down the hallway, clearly opting to change the subject. “Though you’ll need amnesty from the debt that you didn’t pay…”

“I owe you nothing. Not a thing,” Riley snapped, folding her arms. “The woman vomited before she shed a single tear. That much is immediately clear.”

“Ah! There were tears in her eyes long before she heaved,” Nick insisted, wagging a finger at her. “Daisy will back me up on this. I must be believed!”
“Those were not the terms of our deal,” Riley replied, refusing to look at him and speaking as dryly as she could manage. “She may have been teary but she did not cry about her ordeal. Your wager was that she first would physically cry; she did not therefore, it is you who are mistaken- not I.”

Nick shrugged, his tone suddenly annoying blithe as he sighed. “Perhaps we should just agree to disagree. Though, I do wonder…what should today’s wager be?”

Riley’s bicoloured eyes rolled in their sockets, (one eye rolling slightly slower than the other).
Nick wanted to change the subject as soon as he realised that he was wrong about something.
Typical.

“Is it inconceivable to you,” she asked him, raising her nose in the air. “That some of us have better things to do? I have research data to bring to sort, I don’t have time for any more frivolous sport.”

“O.k., I get it. I see, I see,” Nick replied, meaning the opposite thing entirely. “The usual bet, it shall be!” He clapped his wooden hands together. “If Amelia-Jane returns, I get three gold coins in pay. You only get the cash if she stays away.”

“What part of “I have better things to do” was too difficult to understand?” Riley seethed, scoffing slightly as she added: “Though I’d have nothing but confidence if we went ahead as planned. That skulking, puppetless host has more than likely run away. It would show true stupidity if she showed up today.”

“She’s shown up every other day. I think her track record proves, she’s here to stay,” Nick began, only to be cut off.

“When she believed our creator was still alive, she returned,” Riley pointed out. “She had no closure in the past and thus felt spurned. But now that she knows Owen is dead, she’ll no doubt have turned coward and fled.”

Much to the scientist’s delight, Nick flustered uncomfortably, almost bumping into the head of his own host. “Mmmph!”

There was something deliciously pathetic to her about how Nick still viewed Gubberson as their dear father; as though the man wouldn’t have burned him to splintery cinders with the rest of them if given the chance.

“Amelia-Jane isn’t here for father- to help us is her only intention,” the artist insisted, though his voice warbled slightly. “She said so yesterday, or weren’t you paying attention?”

“When if comes to her motivation, I am not so naïve,” Riley maintained, folding her arms across the front of her lab-coat. “Though however wrong, you are welcome to believe whatever you want to believe.”

“I’m kind of starting to enjoy having her here,” Nick declared happily, either choosing to ignore his colleague’s snark or just not listening to her at all. “Goodness knows my art could do with a fresh pair of eyes and ears.”

“She irritates me still,” Riley muttered beneath her mask, giving it another self-conscious tug as they neared the canteen. “I look forward to when Mortimer finally allows me to go in for the kill.” The thought of turning that nosy, grubby, flesh-bag usurper’s head into a potato clock practically made her salivate.

“No Rosco today?” Nick trilled, letting his host hold the Wing B door open for them both. “I thought your new look was going to be here to stay.”

“It was an issue of practicality, not that you’d have the mind for such points of view,” Riley snapped and not wishing to stretch the issue any further, she added: “Where is Mortimer this morning? I usually walk to breakfast with him and not you.”

“You should feel lucky that I’m giving you the time of day,” Nick sneered, nose in the air. “Mortimer is busy on the phone. He’s given the order for everyone else to stay away.”

This revelation was not exactly music to Riley’s ears for multiple reasons. Top of the list being (a) that she probably wouldn’t get a chance to discuss Scout’s disappearance with him privately and (b) that he was keeping secrets from them again.

Keeping secrets from her again.

She was able to suspend her sense of logic and reason to an extent; she knew that if their founding father was keeping things from her, it had to be for convenience or some other practical reason.
But she couldn’t help but feel jilted when Mortimer suddenly expected her to mindlessly go along with aspects of their grand plan that he hadn’t discussed with her first.

She wasn’t even sure what the next phase of their plan was supposed to be.
Mortimer had simply told her to keep finding more hosts, ensure the Handeepuppets were kept in line and to refine her surgical procedure for attaching the two together.

“Leave all the tricky thinking to me,” he had once said, not realising how truly torturous it was for a puppet like Riley- who had been designed to handle tricky thinking- to do such a thing.

She looked sideways at Nick who was babbling on about their table read that afternoon, giving little thought to how closely his fellow Handeeman was paying attention. She almost envied him and Daisy and their baffling ability to just shut out the rest of the world.
To just be distracted.
To not care.
“Poor fools,” she had once thought. “Unable to take their eyes away from their tools.” They had their place on the team of course, she concluded; they had their unique expertise. But for all Nick’s abstraction, he would never truly push the boundaries of what they were trying to do at the studio. For all of Daisy’s tirades and tantrums, she would never challenge Mortimer directly.

Riley, herself, had occasionally tried to not care, to simply stick to her orders without asking questions but it was simply not in her nature. She was a scientist.
It was her job to ask questions.

“So will you be honouring our bet today then?”
It was Nick’s own question that brought Riley back to reality again.
Behind her mask, her hand-sharpened teeth gritted together. Nick Nack had no issue questioning her or pushing her boundaries.

She was saved from having to grant him a reply when Daisy’s head suddenly poked out from behind the canteen doors. They had arrived at their destination and judging by the party planner’s expression, their arrival couldn’t have come sooner.

“Good morning sweetie-tweeties!” she trilled, her right eye twitching slightly, her eyelashes fluttering like the wings of a startled, black butterfly. “Took your sweet time strolling down here, hm? I suppose you had a time to borrow? Well, get your two sorry keisters inside right now and do try to be punctual tomorrow!”

Riley and Nick took a brief moment to be silently, mutually terrified of how Daisy had the disturbing ability to smile while glaring and to somehow shout while whispering.
They certainly didn’t take their time to follow her into the canteen, (their hosts becoming somewhat tangled as both tried to gracelessly shove past the other).

The crowd of assorted, multi-coloured Handeepuppets had been already assembled at their designated tables, their hosts sitting straight-backed with heads aloft.  They sat in their respective groups: Daisy’s charm school pupils to the south of the cafeteria, Riley’s lab assistants to the west, Nick’s stage hands to the east and Mortimer’s personal attendants to the north. The Sockpuppets occupied the centre table, their hosts being the largest in body and requiring the most table space.
 Any Handeepuppets who lacked a functioning host remained in the back rooms and were not invited to attend any official gatherings until they successfully completed Riley’s orientation tasks.
As usual, each puppet’s tiny plastic or cardboard plate was adorned with a stack of Daisy’s best flour and paper pancakes. Each stack, of course, was untouched.
To eat before all four Handeemen were present was a cardinal sin at Handeemen Studios.

“Good morning, Doctor Ruckus. Good morning, Director Nack.”
The Handeepuppets spoke in a perfect chorus, well-trained and unwavering.

Nick waved adoringly to his audience while Riley refused to make eye-contact, instead, making a silent note of any puppets who showed questionable coordination or whose host was exhibiting odd smells or jerking.

Riley took her seat between Daisy and Nick at the head table, frowning internally when she noticed that her host took a fraction of a second longer than usual to bend its knees. She was probably due a change soon, she noted, but she couldn’t risk appearing vulnerable in front of the others so it was vital to keep this to herself.
Performing surgery on herself was both time-consuming and finnicky. While she tended to practice most of her surgeries on herself, (or on dubiously consenting subjects), the process never tended to be straightforward. Her own puppet body was perfectly consisted but the human anatomy could be erratic at best.
Erratic and disgusting.
Erratic and disgusting but admittedly interesting.

A loud creak sounded out through the hall, sounding like an impudent whine but carrying the same weight as trumpet fanfare. All eyes- wooden and felt alike- slid towards the source of the noise and all rose to their feet once more as Mortimer Handee slipped around the view.

“Good morning, my fellow puppet-kind! You’re all up early and bright. To see you all here today is certainly a delight!” His voice was mellifluous, brimming with confidence and each syllable cleaved with perfect diction.

Nick gave his shoulders a wriggle, tapping the table to cue the room in. “Two, three, four…”

“Good morning! It’s time to sing. I wonder what the day will bring.”

The morning song was an old staple of the original show and an established tradition in the studio. It would usually be sung at the start of most episodes and as such Mortimer insisted on them singing it before breakfast.

“Good morning! I just can’t wait to greet the day…”

Puppets weren’t supposed to be able to dream but occasionally in quiet moments, Riley found her mind wandering somewhere intangible and strange. Her visions were foggy but she saw the studio when the hosts were hoodless, puppetless and their mouths were free to talk. She heard them chatting, whispering, singing. She often wondered if these memories belonged to her first host- a lowly security guard whose name she’d never bothered to find out or remember.
It didn’t matter, after all.

“Good morning! It’s time to learn. It’s time for you to have a turn…”

Riley had a working theory that the song had also been a tradition in the studios in the old days, before the fire, back when the hosts had ruled.
The Dark Ages.
Mortimer claimed to have memories of that time, possibly due to Owen attempting the spell. Maybe he remembered hearing the hosts sing too?
Riley didn’t like the idea of imitating their rituals.

“Everything is going to go our way!”

Riley watched Mortimer walk towards them, noticing immediately that his host was now carrying a cane; a long, black wooden appendage that clicked resonantly upon the tiles of the canteen as he walked. She knitted her wooden brows, wondering if his host was having trouble walking or if this was some kind of aesthetic choice. She was inclined to believe that Mortimer was not so obsessed with appearances but why would he not approach her if his host was becoming unstable?

“Good morning! Whether rain or shine, we’re all here and doing fine…”

She made eye contact with Mortimer and tried her best to make it obvious that she was singing behind her mask. She wanted to give him as few reasons as possible to be annoyed with her that morning. She could sing of course-she was made to perform after all- but she far preferred singing about facts and figures than theses mundane, saccharine sentiments.

“We’ve got no fear of wind or storms or snow…”

Truly she seemed to be the only one who felt this way, however. The Handeepuppets bobbed back and forth in perfectly synchronised rows, all predictably elated to be singing for Mortimer. The Sockpuppets, although unable to sing or even speak coherently, still seemed happy to gurgle and gargle enthusiastically. Nick, of course, was showing off his best baritone belt, throwing in the occasional annoying harmony or unnecessary ad-lib. Daisy, meanwhile, was trilling like a fairy-tale princess trying to beckon some doe-eyed, animated songbirds.
Having to stand between them was its own kind of torture and made Riley want to douse herself in Hydrogen Peroxide. The burning sensation in the divots of her wood might have been a welcome respite from the pain in her eyes and ears.

“Good morning! Here we go again; it’s time to have fun with the Handeemen…”

Mortimer took his seat at the head table and Riley craned her neck slightly, forcing her host to lift her up a little higher so that she could observe if the magician’s host had any issue sitting down.
A sharp look from Mr Handee set her head snapping back into place. Her voice raising a little to emphasise her participation.

“So, pack your bags, come on, let’s go!”

The song (mercifully) concluded and Mortimer invited the room to tuck into their breakfast. Scored by a cacophony of puppets masticating their pancakes and chattering merrily, Riley tried to catch Mortimer’s eye. She knew better than to interrupt his eating but if she could manage to make eye contact with him, she could justify a quick interaction.

“I’ve got special bacon right here,” Daisy thrust a plate under her nose, cooing happily. “Can I tempt you, Riley, my dear?”
The wooden scientist looked down at the plate, (one of the actual, ceramic ones), examining the very sinewy, very wet red and brown strips that latticed its dull green surface. It didn’t take her long to realise what Daisy’s “special bacon” was made from.
Some of the rashers still had chunks of body hair, pock marks and freckles lining the uncut skin. She gave the party planner a stiff, bemused smile.

“You’ve put those old hosts to good use, I see,” Riley noted, casually pushing the plate away from her face. “I’m quite full this morning though. No bacon for me.” Daisy’s lower lip quivered slightly, causing Riley to briskly add: “Though a doggy bag for Rosco wouldn’t go astray. I’m sure some bacon would make his day.”

The party planner looked as though her own day had been made, giving a happy little squeal. “Okie dokie! I’ll do just that. I’ll drop the baggy over to the lab myself- just to give Rosco a pat!” She glanced sideways at her co-worker, blue eyes wide and unassuming as she wiped her wooden fingers on her already grimy, scarlet-flecked apron. “And if you’ve any other defects or oldies, don’t be shy. Drop them over to me; I’ve got lots of new recipes that I want to try.”

“Your continued creativity is something that I admire,” Riley replied, taking the opportunity to look over her shoulder at Mortimer. “When I get some time between testing, I’ll drop down the assets that you desire.”

“Testing, testing, testing,” scoffed Nick, between mouthfuls of paper pancakes. “You’ve got a one-track mind. I’d call you a one trick pony if I were a little less than kind.”

“Quiet, cretin. I’ll cut you until you bleed,” Riley spat, not bothering to look at him, instead staring intently at her pancakes and giving into her mental fantasies. “Then I’ll leave you to my lab-rats so that they can feed!”

She heard the click of Nick’s neck as his head snapped upright, a sour come-back no doubt cocked and loaded into his mouth. However, retaliation never came because the next Handeeman to speak was Mortimer himself.

“How’s the script coming along, Nick, my boy?”
“Oh, it’s flowing like a river, Mortimer. By inspiration, I’ve been seized. We should be ready for a table read tomorrow- I just know you’ll be pleased.”

Riley could not get a word in edgeways but she managed to waylay their leader as breakfast concluded and the puppets left in their droves to return to their assorted work stations.

“Mortimer, a moment if you please?”
The magician stepped to the side of the Wing C hallway, his host’s new cane still clicking along the grotty floor tiles. “Is something on your mind, Riley, dear? You seemed a little grouchier than usual this morning, I fear.”
Riley Ruckus swallowed slightly, adjusting her mask under the magician’s steely stare. She fully expected shouting, perhaps a harsh strike to her face and she braced herself appropriately. “…as you know I sent a team to the tunnels, to retrieve what was left of the defector, Scout.”
“And?”
“My…my team could not locate either her or her host. It would appear…they somehow got out.”

A strange look came upon Mortimer’s face; his eyes became slightly distant, his head tilting back as his brows furrowed. His golden monocle became a mirror for a moment, showing her own face and filling her with shame at the sight of her own unnerved eyes. He gradually unfolded his arms from where they had crossed his cravat and though Riley stiffened her body, awaiting the oncoming slap…the magician suddenly chuckled.
He stroked his chin, lazily adjusting his host’s necktie with his free hand. “So, she’s gone, gone, gone without a trace?”

Riley nodded, still unsure of what tone he was adopting. His voice sounded laissez-faire, almost sing-song but still heavily controlled. “Yes,” she replied carefully. “That appears to be the case.”

To her utmost surprise, Mortimer only laughed, clapping his hands in apparent delight. “Magnificent!”
The scientist coughed, a slow buzzing starting to grow in her ears as she observed her superior seemingly having a breakdown. “…excuse me? Did I not make myself clear enough? Scout has escaped with her host and-!”

“And it’s all part of the plan,” Mortimer chortled, patting her on the back. “Oh, Riley. I keep telling you- you have no need to fuss. I’ve got it all under control; I just need your trust.”

“But Mortimer, the ramifications of such a thing? We might be discovered. Scout has so much information to hand that she could uncover.”

“How many Handeepuppets do we have on our backlog for testing? Ones newly birthed and ones simply resting?”
“About six or seven, if memory serves but-?”
“Good, good…be sure to process them all by week’s end. We’ll need all hands on-deck and lots of new friends.”

Riley stared at him in disbelief, not knowing how to respond. After years of locking down the facility, patrolling the exits, making sure that the only expeditions outside were heavily policed…Mortimer didn’t seem to give a toss that Scout- a defect- had escaped.
With a rogue host, no less!

“Is that going to be too difficult?”
His tone was far sharper this time, overcast with a tinge of warning.

“No, of course not. Permit my confusion, I’m just trying to comprehend how Scout’s desertion is somehow a means to our end?”
“Riley, Riley, Riley, how am I to make you understand?” Mortimer’s hand suddenly migrated from her upper forearm, his wooden fingers squeezing the cloth of her lab coat. “Everything happening right now is all as I have planned.” He leaned in closer, his hooked nose almost grazing her pointed one. “Now it’s true that I must keep certain details close to my chest but in the meantime, I need you to do what you do best.”
His voice was the soft, fatherly, mildly condescending croon that she’d first heard properly when he was whispering an incantation in her lifeless ear. It had once filled her with hope, just as the spell had given her life but now it filled her with unspeakable trepidation. “I need you to prepare our recruits, to test their control, to manage the hosts...and do you know what I need you to do the very most?”

Riley wasn’t sure if this was a rhetorical question or not. She wracked her brain for a clever answer, (and an equally clever rhyme) but her mind went blank when one of Mortimer’s curved fingers suddenly hooked around the tip of her mask and pulled it down to her chin, revealing the blood-stained, crudely carved fangs that he’d asked her to cover up.

“I need you,” Mortimer told her, cold eyes bearing into hers, his monocle reflecting one quivering electric blue iris. “To be at your best. To keep your composure and control. You are a Handeeman and to lead like one is your primary role.” His finger stretched under the taut material of the mask and lightly chucked her chin, causing her jaw mechanism to rattle. “The younger ones look up to you and many more will soon too, more than ever. So, for the sake of our show and our society, stay in the lab and…” The magician pressed his forehead to hers, his fingers now firmly digging into her forearm.

Puppets could feel pain.
That was one of Riley’s experiments and she knew this only too well from experience.

“…pull yourself together!”

If Daisy’s whisper-screams were terrifying, Mortimer’s were on another level entirely.
He let go of her mask, letting it snap back over her jaw and mercifully, he released her arm, stepping backwards. “Am I making myself absolutely clear, Riley dear?”

Riley took a slow breath to steady herself beneath the mask.
Puppets didn’t necessarily need to breathe but it was a strangely centring habit. She forced herself to keep looking at Mortimer in the eye as she replied. “Transparently.”

“Lovely! I knew I could trust you, my dearest friend.” He straightened his lapels and was about to turn on heel. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have matters to which I must attend.”

“J-Just one thing. One last thing, if I may?”

Mortimer regarded her with a sunny smile but a frosty stare. “Mm?”

“The cane. Is your host growing weak?” Riley said, gesturing to the long, black staff. “I can replace it promptly if it isn’t performing at its peak.”

“No,” the puppet magician replied, having his host adjust its own cuffs and twirl the staff like an oversized baton as though to emphasise the point. “I’m perfectly at my best. Though, if you’d like to run some cast check-ups, be my guest.” He used the hand of his host to nudge his monocle back into place, choosing to hold that hand up for a moment and to admire the tattoo on the back. “I quite like this one. There’s something poetic about taking that ghost hunter’s body. Something fun.” He laughed. “And then there was Amelia-Jane’s little discovery, not to mention. That was better than something of my own invention. The unmasking was unexpected but I actually quite enjoyed yesterday’s events. I think we all achieved great clarity even if things got a little intense. Which reminds me…” He used his host’s tattooed hand to tip his hat towards her. “My reason for hurrying away. Amelia-Jane will have arrived already. I must meet her at the door today. Toodles.”

And just like Nick, Mortimer seemed to have zero doubts that she would be turning up as opposed to running off and crying to the human authorities.

Riley waited until the magician and his host had left the hallway, rounding the corner at the end before placing a shaky hand over where his hand had seized her forearm. She could still feel his fingerprints there. There were no literal marks in her wood but she could still feel his fingerprints there.

Mortimer had woken her up first, all those years ago.
When he had been first granted the gift of life and had cleverly managed to subdue Gubberson, their damned, ungrateful false god, Mortimer Handee had decided to share his life with his fellow Handeemen. Riley’s was the first cabinet he had chosen to open, she was the first puppet to be freed from her glass prison and his was the first words she’d ever heard were Mortimer’s telling her to claim some worthless human’s soul as her prize. She remembered it vividly despite the time that had passed. She remembered her first real breaths, her first real movements that were unguided by the hands of humans, her first words spoken of her own volition.
She remembered Mortimer telling her that he had chosen her first for a reason. He had told her that he needed her intelligence and great ideas.
“When he first put us through our paces, told us his intention of splitting the book,” Riley thought, her mind sinking deeper into the memory. “It was my idea to spread the pages in those glass cases. To force Owen to work for what we took.”

Mortimer had said she was brilliant.
Mortimer had reminded her that was brilliant.

He hadn’t reminded her of that in a while.
Certainly not as often as he implied that she was trying to understand things that didn’t concern her.

She tapped her fingers against the rim of her goggles, trying to centre her thoughts. “Mortimer is right. I must remain calm through and through,” she thought. “I must keep our plan on track. I have work to do.”

She brought her fingers to her lips and whistled through the gap in her teeth to summon Rosco. After only a few seconds, there was the distant drumming of paws and rippling growls and her loyal aide appeared beside her. He ruffled his ears, one eye blinking at a time as he plonked his rear upon the ground. He was a little shakier than usual, no doubt due to his recent surgery but as always, he was no less ready to work.
“That’s my good boy,” Riley cooed, running her fingers through his shaggy, blonde neck. “I’m always happy to see you. Now, follow me, Rosco: we have learning to do!”

She clicked her fingers, gesturing for Rosco to follow her through the accountancy wing, down to Human Resources. One of her primary duties was tending to the hosts. This included procuring them, restraining them, their upkeep, pairing them to their puppets, orientating them and keeping track of which ones had expired and which ones were still ripe for the honour of carrying a puppet on its arm.
“Sometimes, Rosco,” she muttered. “With all that I face, I believe that I am the true backbone of this place.”
Rosco only barked jovially in response, blinking with one eye at a time. He still had a slight limp on his back right leg but his tail wagged happily, his tongue lolling from side to side as he trotted at his mistress’s side.
A pair of sock puppets parted quickly to allow them to pass, ducking behind their hosts’ backs in Rosco’s shadow. Riley smirked; Rosco truly was her finest creation and definitely an invaluable asset when it came to keeping order at the studio.

The giant Labrador had to crouch slightly as they entered the Meat Locker, his large body knocking against the chained up hosts as though they were punching bags.

It was actually Rosco that inspired her idea to keep puppets sewn to their hosts.

In their earlier days, back when they were still in the process of playing with their estranged pseudo-father, she’d had a brief, shameful scare when she was unable to locate Rosco. She could still remember her horror upon finding the limp, lifeless pelt of her beloved dog in one of the back rooms. Unfortunately, even with the help of Mortimer’s spell, Rosco found even the most rudimentary of movements to be laborious. When the hosts were in their drone state, they were not as good at cooperating as they would have been if conscious. Arming herself with only a hacksaw, some needles, some thread and a bolt-cutter, Riley had succeeded in reshaping the hosts appropriately to form a skeleton for Rosco.
Mortimer had been so impressed that he’d insisted that she find a way to secure their own hosts too. This mainly came in the form of a securing stitch at the waist to the wrist or forearm of the host.
Sometimes if the empty-headed human had a particularly broad hand or long fingers, these would have to be amputated too.

She enjoyed feeding them to her rats.
She also enjoyed finding what was left of them in the intestines of said rats during a good vivisection.

“You humans think yourselves high and mighty,” she murmured to herself, prodding a nearby host in its black, plastic sack and waiting to find a pulse. “Yet If I so wish, I can reduce you to a pulpy debris.”

The bagged host was cold beneath the plastic but it gave a weak, rippling whine, twitching slightly against its restraints. Riley gave a self-important snort, making a mental note of the bag number to inform Mortimer.
“Mr Handee will be around,” she whispered where its ear would be. “To bury your mind back underground. Struggle if you’d like but you can’t resist. Soon I’ll be stitching a puppet to your wrist.”

Rosco gave a sonorous bark, as though in agreement with his beloved mistress.

She clicked her fingers and gestured for him to follow her to the large bolted door at the back of the room. She was thoroughly ready to return to work, to return to making Mortimer proud of her and most importantly, returning to the sanctuary and sanctity of her lab.

However, the relative sense of peace was shattered when she opened the door to what the Handeepuppets frequently called “The Chop Shop” to see Amelia-Jane standing beside her work table. The human was leaning on a nearby gurney, casually leafing through her journal.

“Whatareyoudoinghere!?” Riley shrieked, almost succeeding in launching herself from her host’s arm.
Her good eye narrowed into a glower as the irritating human showed no trace of reverence. In fact, she had the nerve to simply look up from what she had been doing and say: “Good morning, Doctor Ruckus. Sorry if I scared you.”

“You did NO SUCH THING! I feel no fear!” she snapped in reply, eyes darting around the room in search of the nearest bladed implement to threaten the intruder with. “And you force me to ask a second time: WHY ARE YOU HERE?!”

Amelia-Jane looked at her with infuriating vacancy, raising an eyebrow as she slipped her damned diary back into her duffel bag. “In the studio? Or in your lab? Or-?”

“IN MY LAB!” Riley now had a cleaver firmly gripped in her hand.

“Mr Handee told me to come up to help you out,” the human informed the puppet in a tone that was far too dry for Riley’s liking. “He said you might be a bit overwhelmed at the moment.”

Riley swung the cleaver downwards, lodging it in a nearby desk surface and imagining it was some pathetic mammal’s neck. Internally, something started churning; either Mortimer was trying to ensure that she was actually going to stick to her mandate or didn’t think she had the capacity to.

Either way, it showed he didn’t trust her and to rub sodium chloride into the wound? He had sent that broken, token human handywoman as his patsy!

Amelia-Jane’s eyes slid towards the cleaver and she added: “Look, if you don’t want me here. That’s fine. I can go somewhere else.”

If the human returned to Mortimer, that would only land her back in his bad books. Riley rolled her eyes, sighing emphatically.

“…no, I can put you to some use,” she said, opening the door of the lab further to allow Rosco to come inside. “If you’re looking for an early break, I won’t be your excuse.”

The human’s eyes immediately locked on to Rosco and Riley watched with internal delight as Amelia-Jane appeared to stiffen all over, her body immediately snapping upright as though someone had pulled her by a series of strings.

“Don’t tell me that you’re afraid of dogs?” Riley simpered, deliberately nearing the woman and knowing that her loyal pet would follow too. “I don’t need another thing to put us at odds.”
Rosco was surveying Amelia-Jane now, his head bobbing from side to side as a low growl started to ripple from his maw. He was well-trained.
He knew what to do if he saw a host with no hood and no puppet.

“Down, boy. Fetch your toy,” Riley said, half-heartedly taking a dismembered hand from a nearby barrel and tossing it across the floor.
A series of her puppet/rat hybrids scurried out from their hiding places to go for the hand too, giving Rosco some new pals to rip apart and giving Amelia-Jane a reason to shudder violently.
Riley suddenly didn’t feel too miserable about having the annoying human in the lab. Tormenting a live subject was a rare treat and as far as she was concerned, Amelia’s data was incomplete.

“Now, you’ve proven yourself capable of fixing a confetti machine and your clean up work was sufficient,” she orated, checking her clipboard for the day’s work. “Let’s see if you can complete a few more tasks while remaining efficient.”

She set her on the menial though unfortunately necessary task of mending her lab coats. Getting the usual stains out required a harsh bleaching treatment and despite Daisy’s best efforts, it wasn’t unusual for a cuff, pocket or hem to split and fray.

Riley went about sorting the organs for her lab assistants to store and categorise. She found her eyes occasionally returning to the human woman. Even as far as hosts went, this specimen was a strange and pitiful creature.
Her frizzy, damaged hair stuck out at odd angles, barely restrained by the faded scrunchie that bound it atop her head. Her eyes were lined with purplish circles, wrinkled and puffy made only the more obvious in contrast to her pale, mottled skin. As they had established previously, Riley’s even numbered freckles formed a perfectly scattered bridge across her nose and cheeks whereas Amelia’s were spattered in their thousands all over her. Her teeth were also equally as crooked as her nose, her body lacking any aesthetically pleasing properties to note. Atop it all was the fact that her face and voice tended to lack expression at the best of times.
“And they say we look alike,” Riley thought, frowning. “She’d only look more attractive with her head on a pike.”

There was a loud squelching noise that drew them both from their work.
Rosco had grabbed one of the puppet-rats in his jaws and was smacking it against the wall, causing blood to spatter everywhere.

With every smack, Riley watched Amelia-Jane wince slightly and couldn’t help but regard her with bemused glee.
“Something causing you a spot of discomfort?” she taunted. “I see your face starting to contort.”

The woman shook her head, looking up at Riley with a wry smile. “No, Rosco just reminds me of a toddler we once had at the Toy Hospital. He started smacking a popsicle against the wall…it got everywhere…”

“Children can be hard to keep in line. I find leading by example to work just fine,” Riley explained. She was telling the truth too. Whenever she was faced with an unruly group of Handeepuppets, she simply had to make a particularly grotesque example of one of them. After that, the rest rarely gave her any trouble.

The human nodded, completing a line of stitches and pulling down her own goggles to examine another hem of the coat. “Are you looking forward to taping the next season of the show? Apparently, that’s going to be very soon.”

“Returning to performing will be an interesting feat,” Riley replied, slicing into a felt organ to remove a stray button. “Having so much extra time for my research has been a real treat. Still, it is inevitable that I will return to t.v. Performing for an audience comes naturally to me.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Amelia-Jane removed her gloves and began running her fingers along the edges of the garment. “Do you know which experiments you’ll be doing? Are you going to re-do a classic or do you have a whole new one in mind?”

“That information is on a need-to-know basis,” Riley stated, grabbing her tongs and replacing the felt organs that she had been categorising. “And as a mere maintenance worker, you do not need-to-know. Like everyone else, you will have to watch the show.”

Her next big project was going to be creating a two headed creature of some kind. She wondered if Mortimer would let her put that on the show.

Amelia-Jane was squinting at the hem in her fingers as she spoke. “I used to really enjoy your segments on t.v.” She paused for a moment, seemingly considering her next words very carefully before saying: “I actually tried one or two of them.”

Something inside of Riley was suddenly set alight. Her feelings for the irritating human aside, this was her first time getting to meet an actual fan of the show. One of her own fans, no less. Narcissism quickly swallowed any hostility left within her. “Which ones did you try?”

“I remember the potato clock one was my favourite. I made like seven of them.” Riley was surprised to see the woman actually laugh a little. “My Oma went crazy because I’d used up all of her dinner potatoes…” The woman slipped off one of her gloves and took a marker pen from her duffle bag. “She sent me to the store in the rain to buy a replacement sack. It was worth it though.”

“The potato clock is a classic but trivial to deliver.  I can do the same with a human liver. If I feel so inclined, I might show you sometime,” Riley found herself boasting, surveying the human as she moved. Curiously, the woman seemed to be drawing lines on her thumbnail.
“What are you doing?”

“Hm?” Amelia-Jane glanced up at the puppet and back down at her hand. “This? It helps me to keep my stitches straight. Look.” She held out her thumb for Riley to see. “Two lines. I line one up with the hem and I sew from the second one.”

Riley made a mental note of this technique, nodding slightly but not saying anything. She didn’t want to ingratiate herself too far with the human but she had to admit that learning something new for the first time in such a long time was exhilarating. Learning was second-nature to her, after all.

A raucous barking drew her attention again. The giant puppet puppy in the corner had successfully managed to dispatch five of her rat hybrids and was now playing with the entrails as the remaining creatures scarpered.
“Good boy,” Riley praised, noticing that there were now a few fresh rat heads scattered around. Some even had the spinal cords still partially attached, meaning she probably wouldn’t have to set any more traps for new subjects, as far as the rodents were concerned. If she wanted to produce a two headed sock puppet, she’d still need more puppet-parts and for that, she’d need at least two more Handeepuppets to fail orientation.
She threw a sideways glance at her flag-matching machine, wondering just how long it would take for her to rig it again.

Meanwhile, Amelia-Jane continued to watch Rosco, less nervous and more curious. “So, he needs two puppetee-uh, hosts inside of him?”

“Indeed, configured to fit so that Rosco can adequately sit,” Riley told her, intermittently glancing over her shoulder between updating her data logs.

The human woman tilted her head, a look in her eyes that Riley knew only too well. “…and is his fur starting to get patchy. You’ve probably had to replace it. I can reset the under-gauze so that it doesn’t-.”

Riley was suddenly seized by irritation again, her head snapping around a full one hundred and eighty degrees to glower at the human. “I am the only one who takes care of Rosco’s needs. Anyone else who gets near him, bleeds!”

A.J. held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not trying to take over all of Rosco’s needs.” She took off her goggles to look at Riley a little more clearly, her red-rimmed eyes betraying the look of someone who was choosing their words very carefully. “If Rosco is going back on camera soon, he’ll want to look his best and at the moment, his fur-.”

“There is nothing wrong with the way he looks! Function over form is what is important in my books!” She took a warning step towards the woman, pointing a finger like a scalpel blade. “If you think you’re going to lay a hand on my pet, I hope you’re prepared to lose that bet!”

Amelia-Jane exhaled, placing both hands on the worktop in front of her but very obviously leaning away from Riley, taking several deliciously cautious glances in Rosco’s direction. “I won’t touch Rosco if you don’t want me to. I’m here to do what I’m told…Mr Handee asked me if I could take a look at him to make him look more like his original design for his re-debut.”

Those words hit Riley like bullets fired out of a gun.
Mortimer went behind her back to involve this belligerent meat-sack in her personal business. She felt both betrayed and belittled and with her self-restraint already being threadbare, it wouldn’t have taken much to set her nerves ablaze again.
And this revelation was the perfect tinder.

She seized the meat-cleaver that had been lodged into the work-top and lunged at Amelia-Jane as far as her host’s reach would allow. Rosco started barking loudly, readying himself to join the fray.

“I’ll SLASH you to RIBBONS, I’ll RIP out your-!”

The twinging in the corners of her mouth that had been plaguing her suddenly peaked and a discomforting rattle preluded a sudden shift in her jaw.
And then it happened.

Pain shot through her lower mouth and her mandible suddenly felt numb, hanging limp and straining the inside of her medical mask.
Her lower jaw had just broken away!

She shook and shuddered, hands grabbing at her dislocated mandible as she tried desperately to bring her teeth together, to bring her tongue to the roof of her mouth, to speak…
But it was impossible, all she could manage was a shrill gurgling.

Riley brought her hands to her jaw beneath the mask, trying to push it back into place but, to her horror, it caused a rattle throughout her entire face, her cheeks threatening to crack.

“Are you ok?” Amelia-Jane was looking at her intently, one hand raised in Rosco’s direction and the other gesturing towards her. “It’s…it’s your jaw right? It’s broken off?”

Riley tried to tell the human woman that she’d pull her spine out through her nostrils but she couldn’t, her face only shifting more dramatically. Shame seized her entirely, her body trembling and her host starting to falter at the legs.
“No. No. No. No.”
She was in pain. She knew she was in terrible pain, even if she had long conditioned herself not to feel a thing. Pain was nothing more than a filthy habit that hosts were afflicted with. That kind of stress on a puppet could cause a severance in the host’s psychic connection: she had seen it in her many test subjects. If her host regained consciousness, it was all over.
If Mortimer found out that she had broken herself and lost connection with a host, he would all but stuff her into the wood-burner himself.

Rosco was starting to growl louder, his body crouching as he prepared to pounce. Amelia-Jane raised her arms, retreating behind a nearby gurney.
Riley struggled with the decision. Her own needs aside, if Rosco exerted himself too much after their last surgery, he could risk breaking his own body or worse, damaging one of his own hosts’ connections.

She held up a hand to Rosco, pointing downwards to indicate for him to sit. His ears back, the puppet dog let out a low whine and reluctantly planted his rump upon the ground.  
Slowly and shakily, Riley’s eyes swivelled back to Amelia-Jane.

“…do you want my help?”

Without removing her hands from her jaw, Riley nodded slowly, trying her best to communicate with her eyes that if the human were to make one wrong move, she would take personal pleasure in removing every single one of her teeth with a rusty pliers.

Amelia-Jane slowly approached her, pushing the protective gurney aside and keeping an eye on Rosco as she shuffled around. She placed her hands on the host’s shoulders and guided them to sit down on the worktop. Much as she had the last time, she took the seat opposite. Riley tried to distract herself from noticing how loose her host’s control was by fantasising about dislocating Amelia-Jane’s jaw and forcibly fixing it for her.

“I’m going to take your mask off now, ok?”

Riley stabbed a finger into the back of the woman’s hand, unable to speak but ferociously pulling at her cuffs.

“Oh, gloves first? I can do that.”

Riley rolled her eyes; at least this bumbling meat sack wasn’t a complete loss.

“Alright, let’s just take a look and see here…hmm…”

Amelia-Jane gingerly removed Riley’s mask, unlooping it from around her ears. The puppet scientist felt vulnerable, almost declawed. Her fangs were right there but she had no way to use them. She wasn’t used to losing this much control.
She watched as the human frowned slightly, eyes a little wider and brow a little more furrowed.  
“Right, your jaw lock is after slipping out of place. I’m just going to reset it and then add some varnish to stop it from cracking again.”

Riley heard her loyal dog growling from near the back door and consoled herself with the fact that at any point she could simply order Rosco to attack Amelia-Jane. She resisted the urge to do so, though.
It wouldn’t benefit her after all.

“Let me know if anything is too painful,” Amelia-Jane said, slipping on a mask of her own and taking a screwdriver from her bag pocket.
Riley responded by rolling her dual-coloured eyes.

The woman went to work, lifting her jaw back into position and readjusting a series of increments that Riley was unable to see. Whatever Amelia-Jane was doing however, it was working because she was slowly regaining feeling in her jaw and was soon able to connect her teeth again.
“Ok, sit tight for a second. I’m just going to paint down your jaw with some varnish.” She put her screwdriver back into her belt. “Try moving your mouth a little if you’d like.”

Riley experimentally pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, allowing her jaw to lift slightly. The human seemed to have done a passable job. Rosco was still snarling loudly, tail whipping back and forth.
“L-Lie down,” she managed to say, clicking her fingers at him.

“He really cares about you,” Amelia-Jane commented, returning to her position with a jar of wood varnish and going about painting Riley’s mouth and lips. “It’s actually pretty inspiring. I’m sure lots of people would kill for that kind of loyalty.” She continued to paint for a moment and then took a Q-Tip from her work belt pouch, dabbing it with liquid from a blueish bottle.

Riley pulled her head away before Amelia-Jane could near her with it.

“Not so fast. What is that?”

“My apologies. It’s sanitising fluid,” she explained, holding the faded label up so that Riley could see. “It’s just to give your…teeth a quick clean. For the cameras.” The puppet must have looked sceptical because the human went on: “You can do it yourself if you want.”

“I don’t want to risk further damage to my form,” Riley concluded after some thought. “You may carry out the duty that you wish to perform.”

When Amelia-Jane finished, it was officially time for the woman to take her break so Riley dismissed her promptly. She decided to let Rosco continue resting with some puppigeon parts to play with, rather than sending him after the human.
She wanted nothing more than to move on from that awful experience- though, she finally had an excuse to leave off her medical mask, at least while the varnish was drying.

It had been a while since the others had seen her without it on, so she kept exclusively to the back corridors while she was moving to her next experiment location.
She was surprised to meet the human woman again on one of her trips back and forth.

The ungainly thing was standing near a boarded-up doorway, looking out at the rain outside and holding what Riley recognised as a cigarette. She was careful to blow the smoke between the boards but it didn’t quell the faint disgust in Riley’s voice as she approached.

“Those things do ample damage to the human lung. They tar the alveoli and burn out the tongue. I could show you an experiment that demonstrates this for show. I did it in the episode Hope Givens and the Furious Fastball, you know.” She folded her arms, smirking at the woman. “That one uses cotton and a plastic tube but I could show you with a human lung if it’s more visceral for you?”

“You can try one if you want. When your jaw dries up.” The woman was smirking faintly.

“Don’t attempt me to drag me into your nasty addiction. To say I would poison myself like that would be absolute fiction!”

Amelia-Jane chuckled faintly, taking another drag. “You sound like my friend Marissa.” She looked to Riley, resting her head against the boards. “You know what’s ironic? Your original puppeteer Jeanette and I used to smoke together all the time. We used to stand in the doorway of Workshop B. It was the closest thing I had to a lunch buddy.”

Riley’s mind was suddenly overtaken by the smell of tobacco smoke, the silhouettes of two women speaking, bordered with gilded edges.
“What was she like? Was she befitting of the part?” Riley asked finally, despite the fact that it felt like heresy to say. “Was she forceful? Was she practical? Was she smart?”

Amelia-Jane gazed back out at the falling rain, taking another puff, smoke pouring from her nostrils as she replied. “She was really smart. One of the few members of the crew who wasn’t afraid to tell Owen what was on her mind. All of the puppeteers were pretty outspoken but she was always the most straightforward. She was never late for call times either so…” She shrugged. “…that makes…made her pretty godly in my eyes.”

“Were you friends?” She was partially asking out of sadism- she could tell that Amelia-Jane was quite melancholy- but a fierce curiosity had taken over her.

“Sort of. We didn’t know much about each other but we got on fine at work. We were able to work together really well. Working on- with you today brought back some memories of that.” She stubbed out the cigarette against one of the boards and put the butt into her duffle bag. “Do you remember any of it?”

Riley was slightly taken aback at this question but she maintained her composure, choosing a more conservative reply than the one she felt compelled to give. “That was the time before the spell was cast. I would have no memories of that time that were made to last.”

A.J. nodded, almost wistfully as she zipped up her coat. “Figures. Well, Doctor Ruckus, this has been lovely but I’ve got to head out. The only exit is through the main door, right?”

“You’re going out in the rain?” Riley rolled her eyes in disbelief at the human’s sudden stupidity. “Have you nothing in your brain?”

The woman only laughed softly again, prompting the wooden scientist to note that she as getting far too comfortable. “Yeah, I could use some fresh air, wet or dry. I’ll see you later.”

Riley watched her with a mixture of confusion and mild derision. “Contract pneumonia or pleurisy! But when your lungs fill with fluid, don’t come crying to me!”

*****

It would be about forty minutes later when Amelia-Jane would reappear in the building, soaking wet and looking suitably anxious. Riley was still surprised when the human woman accosted her suddenly. She had been expecting to be asked about her jaw but instead Amelia-Jane’s first words to her were:

“Hi Doctor Ruckus. Would there happen to be a phone here that I can use? I…I need to make a call to work. Just to update them on what materials I’ll need them to send…”

Riley surveyed her with suspicion for a moment but feeling a little tempted to do some further research, she brought the human woman to the desk phone in the main office. Typically, this room was Mortimer’s territory but at that moment, Riley didn’t feel like asking him for anything. He was their rightful father and leader, of course, but if he was allowed to keep secrets from her then she was allowed to keep secrets from him.

Plus, he was a busy puppet.
There was no point in bothering him for a simple matter such as this.

Amelia-Jane seemed uncomfortable in the office but didn’t delay in walking over to the phone, before she started dialling, she looked over her shoulder at the wooden scientist: “Uh…I know how to use the phone. Thanks though, I’m good from here.”

“I will remain here to supervise,” Riley told her, eyes narrowing at the woman though her smile did not falter. Their truce was a tentative one; this would surely test its value. “To leave you alone with the phone would of course, be unwise.”

Amelia-Jane nodded though she did not return Riley’s smile. “Of course. I understand.”

She hunched over the keypad to dial so Riley only managed to catch one or two digits of the number. As the phone rang, she gestured for Amelia-Jane to sit down, angling her host to sit across from her at the main table.
The phone clicked to indicate someone had picked up.

“Hi, how’s it going?”
A.J.’s voice sounded cool and calm but Riley could detect the tiniest tremor of familiar fear. She listened carefully and though she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, she could perceive the voice of another female.
One that sounded quite frantic in comparison.

“Wait, wait, wait,” A.J. said, eyes still on Riley. “Just slow down…what’s going on? Is there a problem?”
More talking. More frantic female voice noises.

“Ok, I’m actually sitting with one of our clients right now.”
The voice on the other end of the phone got much quieter. Riley’s eyes narrowed but Amelia-Jane’s voice remained calm.

“I’ve actually got some data regarding the new project we’ll be taking on next month. The experimental one. But I’ll wait until I’m back to pass it on to you.”
The female voice was definitely whispering now. A.J.’s voice was starting to waver a little.

“That shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll just need you to send me on some resources. Can you list out the items that are still in my supply account?” There was a pause. “Can you list the things that you think I should know about?”

The human woman’s knee was starting to bob up and down. Riley was no fool: she knew this was a sign of nerves and anxiety among humans.

“That one! Yeah, the third one. I’ll need that one. Send it on. Look I should be back in my hotel room at about five thirty this evening so I can pick it up then. Just make sure that everything is really secure, ok?”

The female voice on the other end of the phone was quiet, Riley noted, but she sounded equally as nervous as A.J. looked.

“…ok, just try your best not to move…”

The voice suddenly got quite loud, prompting A.J. to clap her hand over the phone’s receiver.

“Right, right, right! Like, I said, I have a client right here so I can’t be too long on this call! Look, is the toy in question cold? No? Ok, that’s good. Make sure that everything is still moving and try to keep talking to them. Like I said, I’ll be back soon and I’ll deal with it then. Ok? Ok.”

Riley raised a slow eyebrow at her and a shaky smile finally came back on to A.J.’s face.

“Great, tell everyone I said hi. Bye Marissa.”

She hung up quickly, meeting Riley’s stare with some hesitancy.

“Who was that?”
“Marissa. She’s the manager at the Toy Hospital in New York.”
“She sounded a little manic. Is she often inclined to panic?”
“Sometimes. We had a particularly tough customer today so I think she’s worried about that. One of my regulars. I’ll just have to deal with them when I get back.”
“Mhmm.”

Amelia-Jane made for the door but Riley blocked her way purposefully.
“This…Marissa is your manager in New York City?”

“…yeah, if there’s a huge charge on the bill, I’ll pick up the cost or Mr Handee can just deduct it from-.”
“Close to closing time, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“With the time difference in mind. You’re cutting it quite close if you want to call your Toy Hospital in Poughkeepsie before closing time?”  
“…yeah…it’s a good thing I remembered to call when I did…”

Riley stared the woman down, her eyes narrowing further. She was no fool. She had followed Amelia-Jane on many a lunch trip and as such, was fully aware that the main purpose of that walk was to get to a payphone located a few blocks from the studio. While she’d never been able to eavesdrop on the call before, she’d always assumed that it was something work-related. If Amelia-Jane was willing to walk in the rain, (something that humans typically didn’t like), it must be an important call. If the human’s reaction to her attempts to listen-in were anything, it was a covert call too.

 Riley Ruckus stroked her newly restored chin, debating calling for Mortimer.
Then she stepped aside.

“I expect you have somewhere else to be?”
“Yes. Thank you again, Doctor Ruckus.”

She took particular delight in seeing the woman shudder slightly as she passed her at the door.
Riley adjusted her mask back over her fangs, watching Amelia-Jane hurry down the corridor.

“You’re still trying to keep something from everyone. To discover what that is could be such fun.”

****

(October 1987)

It was about three weeks until the employee Halloween party that everyone had been looking forward to. The atmosphere in the studio had been almost sickeningly tense and the crew desperately needed something to look forward to.
Owen had been quieter than usual that day. It wasn’t unusual for him to remain sequestered in his office with only the Handeemen for company but in light of his repeated arguments with Jake and other members of staff, it felt very much as though he was deliberately trying to hide in there.
The receptionist had stopped taking appointments for him and security staff (when they cared enough) kept everyone away from the office door. Not that anyone was particularly eager to approach him anymore. Most of the staff seemed to have even lost the pretence of respect for him.
His self-imposed banishment felt, at times, silently endorsed.

Owen didn’t shout anymore when he was angry. He would simply stare, dark-eyed and taut-lipped, as though he was having some kind of silent argument in his head. Something seemed to be brewing behind his eyes.
He left rooms quickly, made secret phone-calls, mumbled into his tape recorder and spent more time than ever with the puppets.

A.J. had noticed all of these things. 
Her confidence was not high when she tentatively made her way to his office. Ted the once kind and jovial security guard had simply rolled his eyes when he saw her approach the hallway.
“I wouldn’t bother,” he murmured sourly as she passed him by.

A.J. didn’t respond though she silently appreciated his attempt at concern.
The members of the crew who still bothered to pay any attention to her fell squarely into two camps: those who thought she was some kind of home-wrecking, little gold-digger who was fucking the boss for clout and those who pitied the stupid little not-an-intern who was clearly in over her head at this studio.

She swallowed back against a dry throat when she arrived at the office door.
She wanted to take one of Mark from Accounting’s pills. She hadn’t had one in about a week and her skin was starting to itch. Her head was starting to hurt.

Her knuckles hit the wood of the door with more force than she had initially intended. It was as though she was subliminally trying to silence the voices in her head.

“…what?”
Owen’s voice came from within.
Through the crack in the door, A.J. could see him hunched over his desk, working on Mortimer again.
There was something about hearing him, seeing him, that unsettled her. It set a warmth in her chest but a coldness against her skin. He hadn’t been to the apartment building since the evening he had bandaged her arms.
She had made sure to wear long sleeves that day.

“Just me,” she eventually replied, slowly and measured so that her voice didn’t shake.

She heard Owen sigh.
It was not a sigh of relief, rather one of exasperation. It reminded her of the way her Uncle would sigh when she interrupted his work.
He didn’t invite her inside but she took that as her cue to enter. The office felt colder than usual; the burner in the corner of the room hadn’t been lit in quite a while, it seemed.

Owen didn’t turn around to look at her, instead focused entirely on Mortimer and the adjustments that he was making.
“Look, A.J.,” he began, voice curt. “I am extremely busy right now so-.”

“I’m leaving,” she said quickly. “I’m leaving Handeemen Studios.”

Owen’s hands stilled briefly, still holding Mortimer’s cravat but he did not look at her. “You’re leaving?” He sounded sceptical, almost mocking.

“Yes. I am,” A.J. forced herself to say. “My training period is over and no one has contacted me about renewing.” She swallowed again, keeping her eyes on the back of his neck, as if willing him to feel that very stare. “If what everyone is saying is true and the studio might face cutbacks, I’ll end up without a job and I need to keep making a living here. I intend to make a living here…”

Owen gave a joyless snort of laughter. “So, your plan to avoid being stuck without a job is to leave the one that you’re currently in?”

“I’ve already…,” she took a deep breath, running through this conversation for the millionth time in her mind. “I’ve already got work lined up somewhere else.”

Owen was quiet for a moment, his body unmoving.
Almost like a puppet whose puppeteer had suddenly given up and walked away.
A deafening silence sat between them for a few, purgatorial moments.

A.J. debated simply forcing herself to leave then and there. She felt like a prisoner with her head on a wooden block, waiting for the executioner to swing his axe.

Owen finally put her out of her misery with a single word: “…where?”

She pinched the inside of her own wrist, ripping at a scab as she reminded herself that she had been practicing this answer. “At the new Pizzaplex across town.”

“At the Pizzaplex? That’s not-,” Owen was initially confused-sounding and he almost turned to face her when suddenly realisation seemed to dawn on him and his body froze, rigid, again. His tone dampened and darkened. “You mean at Fazbear’s. Don’t you?”

“…yes.”

“You’re working for Afton now? For the bear?” Owen was laughing again. The same cold, pained laughter as before. “After everything that came out about how they treat their employees? After everything you said about robots being inferior to puppets? You’re a hypocrite, A.J.”

Mortimer’s head rolled sideways as Owen continued to adjust his cravat, his eyes staring accusingly at the young woman. His once-friendly smile suddenly felt more like a condescending smirk, like he was offering her the facial expressions that she was being denied by Owen.

She felt a telltale prickling in the corner of her eyes, feeling a warm dampness on her fingers as she successfully picked the scab from her arm. She refused to give into the aching in her face, sniffing back as hard as she could before replying firmly with the words she had rehearsed. She had practiced them while sitting on her bed, Clara held tightly in her lap.

“I’m doing this for you and for me. I need to move on to a something new. I need to expand my CV while I still have the chance.” She started to feel a little braver, looking away from Mortimer and instead staring hard at the grey-flecked mop of hair on Owen’s head. “You said it yourself, this studio isn’t an art college and I still have more to learn before I’ll ever be an asset to anyone…” She chewed her lower lip for a moment, desperate to nibble at some loose skin there before going on. “And I don’t want you to keep feeling responsible for me. I don’t want to add any pressure to what you’ve already got going on. I mean, you were right when you said you can’t keep taking care of me.” He still didn’t reply, still tinkering away with Mortimer’s neck lock. “But maybe when I’ve gotten better at working under pressure in this kind of environment and when I’ve picked up some new skills, I’ll be able to come back here as a real asset to the crew and-.”

“If you walk out that door today, I don’t want to see you anywhere near here again.”
His words were sharp, cold but his voice sounded pained.

His voice was enough to draw a single, lonely tear from her. It meandered aimlessly, wandering down her cheek and letting itself fall from her chin. She took a deep breath, determined not to give it any companions in its afterlife.

“We can still keep in touch,” A.J. replied, her own voice soft and broken. “I…I don’t want to lose contact with you, Owen.”

“You can’t have it both ways, A.J.,” Owen snapped, one of his hands clenching around the edge of the table. “Grow up. Don’t forget to turn in your security lanyard at the front desk.”

She could hear her own breath echoing in her ears as his hand slid from the edge of the table. For a brief, insane second, she thought he might turn around but he simply took a handkerchief from his desk drawer and began to polish Mortimer’s monocle.  

He had made his choice. She had made her choice.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Puppets are better than people, after all.
“It’s all for the best,” she told herself. “It’s all for the best.”

“I brought her here,” A.J. said finally, knowing that she had to say something. One of them had to say something. “The puppet we made together. I added those last little touches that you suggested. Her eyelashes, her teeth…I made her eyes purple…”

Owen didn’t say anything, continuing to work on Mortimer, only occasionally glancing at the phone on his desk. She didn’t take it personally; she knew it was the hurt from inside that made him cruel sometimes.

“…I figured here would be the best place for her,” A.J. went on, fooling herself that he had just told her to keep the puppet as a memento of their time together. “She’s technically studio property, y’know? She could still be used on the show and…” She forced herself to smile. With Owen’s head turned away from her, she could pretend he was smiling too. “…I think maybe she should be with her own kind.”

“I am extremely busy,” he told her, his shoulders tensing as his back hunched further forward. “So if you’re done…”

“…ok, then. I’ll leave you to it then,” she said, her heart heavy as she turned back to the door.
This was it. This was how it was going to end.
No fond farewells. Not even a handshake.
She had naively even considered the idea that he might ask her to stay.

She briefly looked at the cases where Riley, Nick and Daisy dutifully stood and mouthed a silent goodbye, rueing the fact that she’d never get to work on them again.
She stopped her fingers met the doorknob, remembering what she’d gathered up the nerves to tell him as she left his apartment just a week ago. She debated saying it again but knowing that the words would probably turn to saw-dust in her mouth, she simply said:

“If you ever need me, you know how to get into contact with me. Take care, Owen. Goodbye.”

And then she left the office, not daring to check if he was finally looking at her.
A.J. didn’t know it at the time, of course but it would be the last time that she would ever see him alive.

And the next time she saw the Handeemen, it would be her first time seeing them alive.

Knowing that her emotional state was fragile at best and knowing that she was due to be at the Pizzaplex in the next hour or two, A.J. kept her head down and made a direct line for the studio exit. She had one last small errand to run but she had no other goodbyes that she wanted to say.

“H-Hey!”
“Shit! Sorry!”

She was suddenly taken by surprise when a figure collided with her back, causing her stumble. A.J. turned around, only to see a rather flustered looking girl carrying a bulky folder in her arms.
The girl, while a good deal shorter than her, couldn’t have been much younger than her. Her choppy hair was box-dyed a vivid dark blue and her eyes were almost cartoonishly magnified by her very round glasses.
She certainly stood out in a crowd but A.J. couldn’t remember ever having seen her before at the studio.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there,” the girl explained, shrugging the folder up into her arms.
“It’s alright,” A.J. said, wiping her nose and eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I need to watch where I’m going.”
“Speaking of where people are going,” the girl said, adjusting her glasses. “I’m lost as fuck. This place needs some kind of theme park map like at Six Flags. Hey, you actually work here, right?”

“I…used to,” A.J. managed to say.
“Oh, great,” the girl went on, seemingly unbothered by the other woman’s awkwardness. “Could you show me where the second copier is? I need to make copies of my personal documents for the studio files and the security guard sent me to the copier in the other wing but there was no ink. I asked some guy there about it but he just looked pissed at me for asking. I asked one of the other crew for directions to the other printer but she just said “Wing A” and left as if there’s not like three other Wing A’s in this place! Could you maybe point me in the right direction? Like, actually give me detailed instructions?”

“I’m walking that way anyway,” A.J. told her. “You can follow me and I’ll show you where it is.”
“Sweet! Thanks, red!”
“So, do you work here now?” the older woman asked the younger as they walked down the cafeteria wing.
“Yeah, kinda,” the girl explained. “I’m due to start an internship here next week. I’m a drama major at UCLA.”
“So, you’re the real intern,” A.J. thought feeling admittedly a little bitter on top of a lot of other complex emotions. “No one’s going to question why you’re here. You're not going to have any issues fitting in. You're not going to be branded Owen's little lackey from day one...even if that's what you end up becoming. Who knows? Maybe you're my replacement, maybe you'll be Owen's new side piece...”
“What did you do when you worked here?” the intern asked, seemingly eager to keep the conversation going and thankfully dousing the rather venomous mental tirade that she was steadily spiralling into.
She took a moment to remind herself for the first of thousands of times that leaving was her choice and that this was the best possible outcome for everyone involved. “I work with- I worked with the puppets. General maintenance, prop building, costume work… that kind of thing.”
“Woah, that is so cool. Like, I actually watch the show and I think working here is pretty sweet but I can’t imagine what it must be like to actually work on the puppets.”

A.J. raised an eyebrow. “Why? What are you going to be doing here?”
“Eh, nothing crazy important,” the intern replied, shrugging. “Just getting coffee, organising props, getting stuff from the supply closet. Oh! And I think I’m also going to be a location scout.”
“A location scout?”
“Yeah, someone who goes to the live action location and checks it out for coverage, electrical outlets, possible insurance issues. My friend Katie got me the gig and she made it sound like a lot of fun.”
“That actually sounds alright,” A.J. commented, trying not to sound as dower as she felt and deciding to use this as a welcome distraction. Part of her was also trying to swallow back jealousy as she steadily arrived at the realisation that this girl was going actually going to be getting the legitimate, educational experience that she thought she was going to be getting. “At least you’ll never get bored.”
“Huh, I guess so,” the intern-girl decided, heaving her folder close to her chest again. “So where are you going to work now?”
“At the Pizzaplex across town.”
“That’s so cool! I went to my cousin’s birthday there once. It was nuts. You’re going to be working with the robots right?”
“The animatronics, yeah.”
“Yeah, they’re cool but if I’m honest, they scare the crap out of me a little. Like, have you ever heard the rumours about them? A girl in my middle school used to swear that there are real people inside them.”
“Really?” Now it was A.J.’s turn to shrug: at least it sounded like her new job was never going to be boring either.

“Yeah.” The intern looked over her shoulder and then dropped her voice slightly as they entered the office room. “Hey, do you mind if I ask you something? Something about the boss?”
A.J. felt her stomach grow tight and she automatically started chewing the inside of her mouth between speaking. “Yeah, sure.”
“Well…what’s he like? I’ve heard some of the other crew talking about him and apparently, he's kind of a weirdo…kind of a ball-buster too.”
“He…” A.J. paused for a moment, considering her next words for a moment. Her heart still felt heavy, ireful and cold. “He’s…fine. He’s a bit obsessed with his work but he generally means well. I’d just….” She considered telling the younger woman to just stay out of his way, feeling very much as though she was talking to her own past self but something else stirred within her chest and she found herself saying: "He's kinda going through it at the moment. I think he just needs a friend right now."
“Oh. Yeah? Well, thanks for the heads up, red. I'll be sure to be at my friendliest,” the intern said, spotting the printer with a triumphant whoop. “Fuck yeah! Finally!” The younger woman hurried over to the machine and dumping her folder atop its loading tray.

A.J. helped the girl to load her sheets into the machine, giving her the usual warnings about ink, (the ones that she wished someone would have given her early on).
Satisfied that the girl didn’t need any more help, she went about her final task at Handeemen Studios. She opened up her bag and delicately took out the Handeepuppet that she’d made with Owen.
She found an unclothed mannequin in the hallway near the door and carefully slipped the puppet on to its hand. “You’ll be happier here,” she told the puppet quietly, making one or two final adjustments to her hair, mouth and little t-shirt. “You’ll either end up a t.v.-star or you’ll make some little boy or girl very happy.” A.J. paused for a moment and then angled the puppet to face the television in the security room. “There, now you won’t be bored while you’re hanging around…”

“Oh, did you make that!?”

A.J. jumped, turning around in a mild state of panic, only to see the intern’s wide-eyed, thick rimmed stare looking up at her.

“Wh-what?”
“The puppet? Did you make her?”
“…yeah, I did. Well, mostly. I had some help.”
“Awh, she’s really cute. I like her!” The intern shook the puppet’s little hand, drawing a smile from A.J., remembering a time when she would have done something silly like that.

Her eyes were starting to prickle again.
And she was getting a bad urge to pick at her skin.

“Well, I should probably be going,” she told the intern, looking over her shoulder as she started to walk away. “Best of luck with everything.”
“Good luck with your new job, red!” the glasses-wearing intern shouted back, waving.

As A.J. left the hallway and made for the main exit, she looked back one last time, almost as though she expected the little blue-haired puppet to be waving too.

Chapter Text

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment.

(September, 1998)

A.J. had always had a strange relationship with rain.
In certain places, it could be a source of anxiety and irritation but in others, she didn’t mind it so much. It sometimes reminded her of the girl who lived in the apartment over the local convenience store. She would often tease and ignore A.J. if there were other kids hanging around the store but if it was just the two of them, she was happy enough to chat to her. Sometimes she’d even help her with Oma’s groceries. The convenience store girl was even the one who had first dubbed her “A.J.”, proclaiming that her full, first name was far too long to say.

On the bustling sidewalks of New York City, the rain did little more than to blur her vision, ruin whatever paper or cloth she was carrying and to put a constant fear of slipping into her knees and ankles. Far from doing anything to deter the usual crowds who pushed their way along the streets, the rain just made people more irritable than usual.
By a stark contrast, in California, the rain was a familiar, beautiful friend. It provided vital cleansing to the parched, dusty streets, gave merciful shade from the searing sun and more often than not, left the streets empty and wanting footfall.

She felt the rain starting to soak into her hair as she made her way around the usual block, passing the storefronts that she had long-memorised. She could feel her ringlets starting to slick to her neck and forehead, water starting to run in rivulets down her cheeks and down her throat.
“Maybe Riley had a point,” she thought almost-laughing as she rounded another corner and waited for the traffic light to change.
The encounter had gone better than she had assumed it would but her heart would still jolt uncomfortably when she thought about Rosco’s eyes narrowing in her direction.

Rosco had been an interesting puppet to work with on the show. His insides resembled more of a costume than a puppet, requiring both puppeteers to “wear” the legs while using the rest of their bodies to operate his tail, eyes and mouth. All of this with extremely limited visibility too. She didn’t envy Tom or Bobby- Rosco’s two puppeteers- when they emerged red-faced and panting from the folds of his golden pelt.
Like two lobsters fresh out of the pot.
A.J. was never one to complain anyway, (her uncle had trained her better than that), but a few hours spent sitting on the ground of a sewing room to repair Rosco’s ears, tongue or paws seemed to pale in comparison to the physical exertion of his performers.

Rosco’s current state inspired both curiosity and revulsion in her.
There was something exhilarating about him to behold- not only a living puppet but a structure of combined flesh and fabric. Unlike the other Handeemen, he was a more direct fusion of puppeteer(s) and puppet.  There was something macabre and beautiful about him that intrigued A.J. and inspired her in ways that she would probably never speak about aloud.
The sight of mangled body parts and contorted limbs peeking through his dog-like form were enough to make her breath still. Her mind tried to piece together what was beneath him, doing its usual trick of mentally pulling him apart into his components. She didn’t want to fully admit it but if Riley had offered it- A.J. probably would have taken a look inside Rosco.

With the hope that Riley had put bags on the heads of the hosts within lest pairs of cold, lifeless-but-still-alive eyes stare back at her.

The matter of his upkeep however, made her cringe. His fur had always required constant brushing and washing. In fact, the sole function of the largest washing machine in the laundry room had been to wash Rosco. The more delicate parts such as the head and tail would also require extensive hand-washing and many sections to be re-sewn with fur.
Rosco’s fur was currently matted beyond repair and where parts of the fur had split and torn, Riley seemed to have “repaired” him by crudely stitching in whatever uneven scraps fur-like material she could find. She had even replaced one of his eyes with a large red monstrosity of her own creation that barely fit into the socket.

A.J. found herself automatically pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation when she thought of the restoration job that Rosco alone would incur.
“Then there’s the fucking scientist herself,” she muttered under her breath, remembering the initial sight of Riley’s teeth beneath her mask. At the time, A.J. had been more concerned about the fact that her jaw had broken entirely betraying a complete lack of upkeep, (and the fact that Rosco had been ready to turn her into another of his chew toys), though her teeth were a sight to behold. Riley’s teeth had always been cutely crooked by Owen’s design but the wooden scientist seemed to have taken a knife to them and carved them into fangs. Each haggard, erratically shaped tooth was also tipped with a foul-smelling, rust-like stain. A.J. didn’t have to stretch her imagination to understand what they were used for.
Thankfully she’d had the chance to clean Riley’s teeth a little but the shape meant her jaw would need more maintenance than usual due to the imbalance.

She saw the payphone booth in the distance, standing sentinel on the edge of the sidewalk where it always was. Relief washed over her along with the raindrops at the promise of shelter. She was also itching to get in contact with Scout and Avery.
She caught her own warped reflection in the puddles on the road. She had never been vain and neither was Riley.
Function over form.
Evidently.

If Riley Ruckus had shown up on her Uncle Theo’s work-table in the antique shop, he probably would have deemed her “ein Kaputterling.”
Something beyond repair and not even worth trying restore.
A.J. was a little torn; obviously her restorationer’s instincts and habitual devotion to Owen’s blueprints were screaming about the fact that Riley and Rosco had both been so mutilated but at a very basal level, there was something very pure about how the scientist had taken control of her own appearance.

A.J. tugged the door of the payphone open, reading the nickels in her pocket. She picked up the receiver, something feeling vaguely off but she was willing to chalk it up to the splattering of rain on the roof of the booth. Then she saw it, her breath steaming up the glass walls with every horrified, laboured inhale.
The phone cord was cut.
It had been sawed through entirely, rendering the phone useless.
A cruel act of vandalism not uncommon in a city like this but nonetheless, A.J. was suddenly stranded and panicked.

She quickly sifted through her options.
There was no way she would make it back to the hotel and then back to the studio again before the hour was out and the last thing that she wanted to do was to arouse Mortimer’s suspicions in her.
If she neglected the call entirely, Scout and Avery would no doubt worry for her and in a worst-case scenario they would either call the cops or God forbid, come looking for her.
Supposing of course that both of them were still healthy and breathing.
Her eyes scanned the street outside, travelling from the café to the electronics store on the corner. She knew from experience that any local businesses tended not to allow customers to use their phones and she didn’t have time to test this theory either.
She tried in vain to remember where the other payphones were in the area but she couldn’t remember any and it wasn’t as though she had much time left to go exploring for one that hadn’t been cut.
This one alone had been hard enough to find.

As her thoughts raced downhill it became painfully obvious that she only had one option set out before her. There was only one fully working phone that she might be able to access.
The phone in Owen’s old office.
The one that Mortimer had been using to call her.

She habitually started chewing down on her lower lip, a distinct quiver in her step as she made her way back to the studio. She found herself reaching for another cigarette before she reached the studio again, taking on the mammoth task of trying to light it in the rain simply to avoid thinking about the way her stomach was trying to close in on itself.

She stubbed out the still-smouldering butt against the side of the building and tossing the crumpled remains into a nearby drain. Its pathetic, curled little silhouette reminded her too much of a body as it slipped into the dark.
Too much by half.

The first Handeeman she came across was Riley, just as fucking luck would have it.
She had been hoping to “bump into” Nick or Daisy as both of them seemed far more cordial and sympathetic towards her. Not to mention spinning a story to either of them seemed marginally easier than the shrewd scientist.
Deciding that ripping the Band-Aid off was probably the best course of action, she tried her best to smile at her wooden doppelganger.

Her jaw seemed to be setting properly. Fangs and all.

“Hi Doctor Ruckus. Would there happen to be a phone here that I can use?” Inspiration hit her like a God-sent lightning bolt. “I…I need to make a call to work. Just to update them on what materials I’ll need them to send…” She had been planning to add a few more false facts for good measure but Riley’s narrowing eyes, hungry to scrutinise, effectively silenced the toy-maker where she stood.

“In Mortimer’s office, there is indeed a phone,” Riley said finally, arms slowly folding across her lithe torso. “Normally, it is reserved for our leader’s use alone. Though if your need for the phone is truly legit, I can’t see any reason he would disallow it.”

Hesitant relief began to creep down A.J.’s neck: like the lukewarm raindrops that were steadily trickling down her neck. “Alright…so should we go get Mr Handee so that I can-?”

“Our leader is far too busy to lend you his eyes,” Riley retorted rather self-importantly. “But in terms of your call, I can be the one to supervise.”

Supervise?
“Shit,” thought A.J. “Of course, she wants to listen in on the call.”

Nevertheless, the human woman forced herself to appear grateful and did her best to give a convincing smile. “Really? That’d be great.”

Riley kept in close proximity during the familiar walk to the office, (a journey which still pushed A.J.’s heart into an irregular rhythm and set an uncomfortable, prickling heat in her face), and didn’t leave much breathing room when A.J. was sitting at the desk, staring at the phone.
She swallowed back against her now too-dry, too-sore throat, considering her options. Hopefully, Avery would pick up first. They had said that Mortimer had knocked them out before they’d met any of the other Handeemen so it was unlikely that Riley would recognise their voice. She’d have to find some way to convey to Avery that Scout had to keep her mouth shut…

“Well, what are you waiting for? I thought you said this call was urgent before?”
There was the faintest trace of suspicious mockery in Riley’s voice that A.J. found it difficult to ignore.

A.J. picked up the phone, her fingers tingling as they hovered over the keypad. It was Owen’s old phone. She tried her best not to look at the phone numbers in smudgy ink taped to the side.
Chancing her arm one last time, she looked up at Riley.
“Uh…I know how to use the phone. Thanks though, I’m good from here.”

“I will remain here to supervise,” Riley told her, mouth smiling but eyes glowering. “To leave you alone with the phone would of course, be unwise.”

A.J. nodded slowly, saying the only thing that she imagined would save her neck. “Of course. I understand.”

Hunching over the phone and hoping it wasn’t too obvious that she was trying to block the keypad, she tapped in the number for the hotel room phone. The receptionist had given her the extension only that morning under the false pretense that she had an “unwell cousin” in the room.

Her heart just about plummeted into her lower intestines when she was greeted by Scout’s loud bark of:
“Well, it’s about fucking time!”

“Hi, how’s it going?” A.J. tried to keep her voice as cool and breezy as possible, stealing the occasional glance at Riley out of the corner of her eye. She tried her best to detect the slightest change in the puppet’s (host’s) stance. If Riley decided to jump her again, she might only have seconds to react.

Riley’s lab coat pockets were definitely roomy enough to conceal a scalpel inside.

“How’s it going?! Are you kidding?! You said you’d call over an hour ago! We were freaking out!” Scout was speaking at a mile a minute. “Well, I was freaking out. Avery is…Avery isn’t talking much right now. Avery isn’t good at all, actually.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” A.J. said, eyes still falling on Riley as her nerves continued to fight a war with two fronts. “Just slow down…what’s going on? Is there a problem?”

 See, we can do this trick where we like switch bodies and we were doing it again earlier, just to see if we were still able to do it and it worked at first but then Avery got really quiet in my body and they weren’t able to move that well so we switched back and now they’re really sleepy and barely talking…” The puppet was frantic, words pouring from her mouth like molasses. If she kept this up, Riley was going to realise who she was talking to and that was something she wouldn’t be able to recover from no matter how many clever excuses she came up with.

“Ok, I’m actually sitting with one of our clients right now,” A.J. said decisively, trying to make her point as clear as possible while keeping her tone as even and polite.
She heard Scout suddenly gasp and (mercifully) her voice dropped several decibels. “Holy shit. You’re sitting with one the Handeemen, right? That’s why you’re acting so weird. Who’s there with you? Tell me it’s not-.”

“I’ve actually got some data regarding the new project we’ll be taking on next month,” A.J. said, trying her best to convey her point. “The experimental one.”

“Crap,” whispered Scout hoarsely. “You’re with Riley? Shit. Ok. Keep talking in code.”

“But I’ll wait until I’m back to pass it on to you.”

“Ok, wait until you’re back to talk about everything. I get it but like, Avery needs help now. Like, they’re breathing and all but they’re talking all weird and they keep falling asleep. Do you have any idea how hard it is to use a phone when you have no fingers and the receiver is the same size as your head?” The puppet let out a small whine that betrayed how young Scout really was in terms of her mental state. “What am I supposed to do?”

A.J. instinctively rubbed her forehead, trying to formulate the most effective but least suspicious sentence to respond with. “That shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll just need you to send me on some resources. Can you list out the items that are still in my supply account?”

“…what?”

“Can you list the things that you think I should know about?” A.J. could feel her body start to become giddy as the nervous tension mounted.

“Right, ok. You want me to make a list of all the things I could do? Christ, this whole “host world” thing is all kind of new to me, red! Fine. I’ll give it a shot. I can kind of get Avery to stand up if we switch bodies again but I don’t want to risk it again. I could…try to get someone from the front desk to help. I could just keep Avery in the hotel room. I could…”

“That one! Yeah, the third one. I’ll need that one. Send it on.”

“Ok. Stay in the hotel room. Got it.”

“Look I should be back in my hotel room at about five thirty this evening so I can pick it up then. Just make sure that everything is really secure, ok?” A.J. almost believed that this was going well. Riley certainly hadn’t tried to interrupt her.

“Expect you back at five-thirty and keep the door locked. Roger that. Look, I’m just scared for Avery. Something feels different. I can’t explain it but like…I feel fine but they’re finding it hard to even keep their eyes open. Even lifting their arm feels heavier than usual.”

“…ok, just try your best not to move…”

“Try not to move!? Avery’s currently here in bed and trying not to move is all they’ve been able to do for the last hour! I want them to be able to move, A.J. Haven’t you been paying attention to me at all?!” Scout’s voice was steadily rising again, such to the point that it was starting to reverb in the receiver.
A.J. quickly clapped her hand over the phone, eyes darting over to Riley who was still watching her with the same fervour that Rosco had watched the rat-puppet mutants.

“Right, right, right! Like, I said, I have a client right here so I can’t be too long on this call!” she said, trying to be as firm as possible.

“Shit, Riley’s there. I forgot. Sorry,” Scout hissed, voice quickly returning to a whisper.

“Look, is the toy in question cold?”

“You mean Avery? No…they feel like they’re the same temperature as usual.”

 “No? Ok, that’s good. Make sure that everything is still moving and try to keep talking to them. Like I said, I’ll be back soon and I’ll deal with it then. Ok?”

“Ok. I’ll do that. Just don’t leave us alone. Come back soon.”

“Ok.” A.J. forced a shaky smile on to her face, trying to make believe that she was just chatting to Marissa about an unruly customer. “Great, tell everyone I said hi. Bye Marissa.”

“Don’t die,” was the last thing she heard Scout say before she abruptly hung up the phone. Her temples were throbbing and there was an uncomfortable buzzing in her ears. A.J. stood up, coming nose to nose with Riley.
The puppet was so close, in fact, that A.J. could have counted her freckles.

(It briefly sent a ripple of discomfort through the human woman when she realised that at least two had rubbed off.)

“Who was that?”
A.J. had been naïve to assume that the puppet would have no interrogation for her afterwards.
“Marissa. She’s the manager at the Toy Hospital in New York,” A.J. replied, trying to sound casual and mildly disinterested. Anything to divert Riley’s intrigue.
“She sounded a little manic. Is she often inclined to panic?” The wooden puppet spoke very sweetly but this only served to worsen A.J.’s anxiety.
“Sometimes,” she responded, now fighting the warble in her voice as she tried her best to sound convincing. “We had a particularly tough customer today so I think she’s worried about that. One of my regulars. I’ll just have to deal with them when I get back.”
“Mhmm.” Riley’s response was too vague for A.J.’s liking but she had already decided that the best way to remedy this situation was to get away from it as hastily as possible.

She made for the door but Riley blocked her way purposefully.
“This…Marissa is your manager in New York City?”

A.J. froze, trying to deduce why exactly this was a point of interest for the puppet.
“…yeah, if there’s a huge charge on the bill, I’ll pick up the cost or Mr Handee can just deduct it from-.”
“Close to closing time, isn’t it?” Riley interrupted her, her eyes travelling up and down A.J.’s form.
“What?”
“With the time difference in mind. You’re cutting it quite close if you want to call your Toy Hospital in Poughkeepsie before closing time?” 
“…yeah…it’s a good thing I remembered to call when I did…”

The time difference.
Shit. Of course, Riley would notice.

It wasn’t that stark a difference but A.J. could already tell that it was just enough to get the cogs in the scientist’s head turning. She held her breath, mentally running through all of her escape options if Riley chose to suddenly attack her.

The puppet stroked her newly-restored chin, looking thoughtful for a moment. A.J. braced herself to be forcibly restrained and potentially stabbed.
Then, much to her surprise, Riley stepped aside.

“I expect you have somewhere else to be?”
“Yes,” A.J. didn’t allow the relief to set in, instead immediately taking the chance to make for the door. “Thank you again, Doctor Ruckus.”

Something told her that she hadn’t gotten away with her call scot-free; A.J. was not that conceited. At this point, it was all about damage control: Riley was suspicious of her and all A.J. could do was to roll with whatever was to follow.

Still, as she stole one last glance at the scientist puppet over her shoulder, A.J. couldn’t help but entertain the thought that Riley was starting to warm to her ever so slightly. She could have shouted for Mortimer but she had chosen not to. She could have attacked her on the spot but she had chosen not to.
Maybe she was worrying too much about what Riley was going to do.

Or maybe, still, she was worrying too little.

*****

A.J. was with Nick Nack for most of the afternoon. While her mind would thrum “Avery, Avery, Avery…” like a worried, phantom heartbeat, it was relatively easy to be distracted by the wooden artist.
Nick, as always, was far less antagonistic than Riley and seemed to quite enjoy being somewhat fawned over. He enjoyed trying out his new jokes on a fresh pair of ears or showing off how much of a monologue he could remember.
He was just about half-way through (what he told her was) Duke Orsino’s opening monologue from the Bard’s Twelfth Night as A.J. was polishing, cleaning and resetting his finger joints.

“Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and…and…hmmph, something in my mind has just clicked. Some of these set-pieces are looking a bit shabby.” Nick looked around at the scenery cut-outs stacked around the dressing room. “I’ll have to repaint them before the first rehearsals so they look a lot less…drabby.” He pulled a face, as much as his wooden jaw would allow, stealing a glance up at A.J. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Drabby is a word, right?”

A.J. almost laughed at how innocent he seemed, nodding as she retipped her screwdriver. “I’m pretty sure it is and even if it isn’t, I mean some of the world’s smartest people make up their own words, don’t they?”

“Too right! It is by far an artist’s strife,” Nick decided cheerily, giving his shoulders a self-satisfied wiggle, (as A.J. currently occupied his hands). “To bring new ideas to life!”
A.J. had noticed that Nick looked for validation quite a bit, always waiting for someone else to comment on his actions before being happy about them. She had supposed it was a residual trait of being an artist and craving an audience or just some kind of feedback but there was something almost slightly insecure about some of Nick’s mannerisms.

A.J. tried to ignore the slight warmth in the body of Nick’s host as she guided them him to sit down on a nearby chair. The seat cushion was torn and starting to show its springs but by A.J.’s calculations, it should have stayed upright.
Nick was chattering away to her, waxing and waning about the role of an artist in his own melancholic, mellifluous way. She prepared her spray tinting bottle, mixing the paint and checking a quick swab against the colour sample for Nick’s cheeks in her diary. A ripple of exhilarated joy shot through her as found herself able to work on the Handeemen again.

“-say A.J., you could always help with our table reading today.”
“Hm?” She looked up from what she was doing at this comment, meeting Nick’s bright, twinkling, eyelash-framed stare. “What?”
“At the table read, you could play a part to help out! You’ve definitely got the chops, no doubt.”
“Uh, I’m flattered Mr Nack but I’m not…very…theatrically inclined,” she stammered, placing a hand on his head before spraying a light coat of pink on to the apples of Nick’s cheeks. “But I’ll definitely help with the set pieces if you need it.”
“Nonsense! One artist knows another!” Nick insisted. “I have a sixth sense for these things. Surely, you’ve got some stage talent. Can you perhaps sing?”

A.J. shook her head as she discarded her gloves. “Not even slightly. I promise. I have it on good authority that I sound like a cat being strangled.”
“Well, I have it on good authority that you can at least sing one song,” Nick declared, standing up with a slightly smug grin as he made his way over to the miniature piano in the corner of the room. “So, let’s hear it then unless you want me to tell Daisy that she’s wrong.”

“Daisy? What would-?” A.J. began just before realisation struck her and she was seized by her own bashfulness again. She cleared her throat. “The song I used to sing around Miss Danger was a song that my grandmother used to sing when we practiced sewing together. It’s nothing impressive, it just helps me concentrate…”

“Emotional backstory? I love it. How does it sound when you sing it? I must know!” His long wooden fingers played an impressive little arpeggio on the keys. “You just start whenever you’re ready. I’ll pick up the chords as you go.”

This conversation was not going at all the way she wanted it to.
“Mr Nack, I promise I have no talent for-.”

“I order it!” Nick suddenly exclaimed, slamming down on to the piano in a sudden discordant strike. “I want to hear it too! Daisy got to hear it! It’s so unfair of you!”
Nick Nack’s temper was starting to flare and A.J. didn’t want to soil his graces, not when Riley was potentially very suspicious of her actions still. She would need allies for the plan that was brewing in the back of her mind.

She sighed and very reluctantly started to sing. Her voice as flat, shaky, hesitant even but Nick didn’t seem to mind, happily adding his own little chords on the miniature piano. The puppet’s skills as a pianist were nothing short of remarkable.  

“If you were made of paper, I’d protect you from the rain. I’d set you down beside the fire until you were dry again. If you were made of paper, I’d keep you safe inside. I’d paint a smile across your face, so pretty and so wide, that everyone who saw you would be filled to the top with glee. And everyone who saw you would know you belong to me…”

Despite A.J.’s clear lack of singing skills, Nick decided to hum along with his own harmonies and ornamentations.
“If you were made of paper, I’d give you eyes that shine. I’d write my name all down your back, so the world would know you’re mine. And no matter what you choose to do, it would be clear to see that I made you with my two hands and you belong with me.”

There were at least four more verses but A.J. couldn’t bring herself to sing any more. A cocktail of different emotions was brewing in the base of her throat. The mixture tasted like melancholy, humiliation and anxiety, garnished with a stomach-bile for good measure.
Mercifully, Nick seemed satiated, clapping his hands and giving a little whoop of: “Brava!”
She returned the clap, nodding towards the piano. “I think you deserve all the credit, maestro. You managed that really well without any sheet music.”
He adjusted his lapel flower delightedly. “Well, I am a virtuoso by design. I can improvise music any time!”

After the wooden artist had given her forcible lessons on how to bow properly and how to receive a curtain call, Nick conceded that it was time to return to official business. A.J. picked up her measuring tape and went about testing Nick Nack’s movement range.

“I had heard a few bars of the little song from Daisy! The thought of never getting to hear it at the source has been driving me crazy!”

She tried to let herself dissolve into her work again but something was playing on her mind. She had asked Riley about it already but it occurred to her that the experience may have been different for all of the Handeemen.

“Mr Nack? Uh…would you mind if I asked you a kind of personal question?”
“It depends. Am I being quoted? And for which paper? I’d hate to lose a Tony Award over a personal caper.”
A.J. smiled a little, straightening his little coat over his elbow joints. “It’s nothing scandalous, I promise. Just…uh, you mentioned that you heard Daisy sing the song and I did sing the song around her but… I only ever sang that song back when the studio was…functioning…” She was suddenly choosing her words very carefully. “…with humans on the staff. So, I was just wondering if you guys remember the time before you had your …uh, hosts?”

Nick tilted his head thoughtfully. “I remember little drabs and drips but nothing is completely clear. Mortimer says that when father started experimenting with the book is when our souls started to appear…” A rather wistful note in Nick’s voice was swiftly replaced by a bright, overly-enthusiastic timbre as he quickly added: “Though Mortimer is the one who gave us life! He is the one who freed us from slavery and strife!”

While he spoke, Nick glanced around as though he was expecting someone to appear in the doorway, his voice steadily rising as though he believed someone was listening in.
A.J. frowned internally; clearly Mortimer had eyes in the walls and ears in the rafters.

“Can I ask you kind of a personal question now?” Nick Nack whispered to A.J., his host’s arm lifting him so that he was at right at the human woman’s side. She was tempted to flinch away from the half-alive human’s forearm but allowed the puppet to place a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t seem menacing or severe- rather he seemed as hesitant and reproachful as she had been.

A.J. nodded. “Sure.”

“…were you very in love with father? Are you still in love with him?”

The woman didn’t know what she had been expecting but that question just about floored her.
Her mind went blank for a moment, her voice deciding to leave her throat, maybe hoping to flee the prospect of having to answer. Her first attempt to say something, anything, was dominated by two images cleft and seared into her mind.
Owen’s hand entwined with hers as they pored over new design ideas on the couch in his apartment.
and
The half-a-corpse who was still silently screaming only two rooms away from them.

“Nicholas Nack! Where are your manners at!? I can’t believe you. You can’t just ask a girl a question like that!”

Nick and A.J. just about jumped out of their skins when Daisy suddenly appeared in the dressing room doorway, carrying a Tupperware box of what looked like a combination of dark red wool, light pink felt and something…organic.
The sudden fear that Daisy might expect her to actually consume whatever was in that box, prompted A.J.’s voice to return from its frightened wandering.

“H-Hello Miss Danger. No, i-it’s fine, really. I can understand why-.”

“Oh, come on, Daisy,” Nick hissed, his hand now squeezing A.J.’s shoulder slightly. “Don’t start reeling and getting mad. Don’t act like you’ve never wondered about Amelia-Jane’s true feelings towards dad.”

Daisy flustered a little, huffing and taking the same quick glances around the room that Nick had before. “When it comes to a lady’s secret feelings, you can’t ask outright. To do that kind of thing just isn’t polite.”

“It wasn’t really ever a secret,” A.J. blurted out. “I’m pretty sure everyone here could see that I had a thing for Owen. That is…I really cared about him. I learned a lot from him and I always felt that he could see me in a way that other people didn’t…” She smiled weakly, looking towards Nick in defeat. “…I did tell him that I loved him. I suppose I meant it at the time.” A.J. pressed her lips together, badly wanting to start aggressively scratching her skin but unable to do so as Nick practically had her arms pinned to her sides. “But I don’t think Owen ever felt the same way. At least…he never said so.”

She was surprised when the artist puppet stared back at her with intensity. “And with that in mind, how did you survive? With that love unrequited, how did you continue to thrive?”

Thrive? That was a strong word, A.J. thought a little sourly. Her mind went blank again though when Daisy’s little hand was suddenly on her cheek. She hadn’t been this close to more than one Handeeman since the day before and admittedly the smell was getting difficult to stomach.

“It’s just like Morty told us, Nick,” the party-planning puppet simpered sweetly with the air of a kindergarten teacher reading a fairy-tale to her class. “A.J.’s love stayed firm and strong. Even though they parted ways, it was with him she’d always belong.” Her tone took a sudden detour from insipid Disney narrator to bemused, gossipy housewife. “And gee, Nick, Heavens above. I wonder what’s got you so concerned with unrequited love?”

Nick’s hands clenched into fists by his side as he gave an indignant squawk. “There is no particular reason for my curiosity. No reasons why! I don’t know what you’re trying to imply!”

A.J. was surprised to note that the pink spray that she’d added to Nick’s cheeks suddenly seemed a little redder than she remembered.

Daisy raised her eyebrows, her chin thrusting upwards slightly. “Mhm? No reasons, huh? Well, each to their own but it’s difficult not to wonder when I hear you reading your love poems.” Her Tupperware box suddenly became a notebook as Daisy launched into a rather wonderful impersonation of Nick Nack, right down to his theatrical manner of speaking: “Amidst the burning of my heart, I say a prayer, to witness that same burning in your russet hair…”

“THAT POEM IS NOT ABOUT-!”

“What are you shouting about, you thundering fool? Must we be forced to listen to you braying like a deaf mule?”
Riley was now standing in the doorway, arms folded, eyes narrowed and nose peeking out over the top of her mask.

Daisy’s smirk grew even wider and she gave a peculiar cough that sounded very suspiciously like: “Speak of the devil.”

Nick pouted all the while, muttering something about needing to get back to work and returning to the canvas that he had been previously sketching on.

“I require Amelia-Jane to aid me in a task,” Riley noted, ignoring Nick’s petulance and addressing Daisy. “I imagine that won’t be much of an ask.”
If the homemaker puppet had any intentions regarding her coming into the room beyond teasing Nick, she kept them to herself.

“Sure thing, she’s all yours, Riley-pie,” she sung out, her melodic tone souring like milk as she added: “And don’t let me find any lab trash on the hall floors unless you want to lose an eye!”

Riley seemed to barely pay attention to Daisy’s warning, instead clicking her fingers in A.J’s direction. “Come on then, ingrate! Don’t make me wait!”

A.J. couldn’t tell if she was more anxious to find out what Riley had in store for her or relieved to be rescued from whatever the hell that situation had almost turned into.

The “task” that Riley wanted help with turned out to be moving body bags from a store closet on to a large gurney to be wheeled to “Human Resources.”
“I could do this alone once with no physical strain but my current host is proving to be a bit of a pain.”
She gestured to the awkward heap of black shapes, all bound with a mixture of plastic bags and electrical tape. “These ones are duds,” Riley explained. “Unsuitable hosts who were off to bad starts but regardless, I can still use them for spare parts.” She looked to the human, seeming far too content with the situation. “There’s no need to sedate them. They’re mostly all dead. Their greatest purpose will soon be to keep my mutants fed.”
A.J. couldn’t tell what was worse, the stench or the fact that despite Riley’s assurance, the black, plastic shapes would often twitch. As she helped Riley(‘s host) to lift each bag, holding her breath, she also couldn’t help but notice that they varied in size.
They varied in size from very large to very small.
Very, very small.

Don’t Ask Questions.
You are getting really bad at following that one, A.J.

She tried to distract herself by staring at the gurney, mentally taking it apart as she worked.
“One can of white paint- smear proof, 45 feet of steel piping, 6 axels, 3 springs, about 2 metres of sponge lining cut to fit, faux leather hiding in navy…”

“Isn’t it funny to think that if it weren’t for Mortimer’s trust,” Riley mused, tugging at a hole in one of the bags to reveal a length of fuzzy grey hair growing from a mottled scalp. “That you might be in one of these bags, gathering dust?”
A.J. looked away from the human within the bag, eyes remaining on the gurney as she tried to keep her poker face. “Yeah, it’s a good thing that he thinks I’m useful.”

Riley leaned forward on the gurney, stretched out by the arm of her host. Her gloved hands pushed down on one of the body bags, pressing down against the plastic-covered mass with a sickening crack.
“I know that you’re plotting something,” she hissed, inches away from A.J.’s face. “And while what you’re hiding is unclear…if you do anything to hinder Mortimer’s plans, you’ll end up with your fellow useless humans right here!”  She stabbed her finger into one of the plastic bags with another stomach-churning squelch. “We have worked too hard, for too long, left in the dark to rot, almost burned. to have you come along and to destroy everything that we’ve earned!”

A.J. looked up into Riley’s eyes for the first time.
She saw the puppets rage, her fury, her desperation, her despair…
She still hadn’t earned her trust, she likely never would and this fact didn’t sit well with her.
The worst part was that deep down, A.J. knew that Riley had every right not to trust her.
Riley was right to be suspicious of her.

“I would not do anything to hurt you or any of the Handeemen,” she found herself saying with surprising firmness. She leaned forwards slightly, as though daring Riley to listen to how unwavering her breath was in that moment. It may not have been the full extent of a confession that would lead to her absolution but it was the bottom-line truth that she needed Riley to hear.

“Well, good afternoon, ladies! How’s this for a meeting at random?” Mortimer Handee’s voice suddenly echoed through the hall, announcing his arrival. “It does this old puppet’s heart good to see you both working in tandem!”

The red-haired woman and the red-haired puppet both suddenly stood upright, almost a perfect mirror image of each other. Their eyes met in a silent truce; an unspoken agreement passed between.
Mortimer made his way up the hallway, his host’s new cane scraping along the gritty carpet of the accountancy wing. “I was just talking to Daisy and Nick, A.J. Your restoration work is really up to snuff! I applaud your continued efforts even though yesterday was quite rough. I-.”

He paused when he reached the two of them, adjusting his monocle as he peered at Riley. He scoffed, wrinkling his nose at the stains on her lab coat. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Riley! Have you really gotten yourself filthy again?” He looked to A.J., sighing. “I apologise that all your good work has been in vain. Stubborn as she is, Riley is having trouble taking care of herself. I really do think she needs your help.”

“I-I can keep myself in g-good condition,” Riley insisted, rather taken aback by Mortimer’s comments. “It’s just that with a schedule as busy as mine, I-!”

“Maybe you could get Riley ready for t.v.?” the magician puppet went on, speaking solely to A.J. and ignoring his fellow Handeeman’s protests. “You could possibly start with those teeth…”

Riley’s voice had a very noticeable shake to it when she responded.
It was a shake that A.J. was very familiar with and she admired Riley’s strength because when her own voice shook like that, she found it very difficult to form words of any kind, at all.

“Mortimer, I thought you said- …my decision to alter my appearance was one of my own practical-.”

Mr Handee sighed softly, as though he was a father admonishing his rebellious daughter.
“Children don’t like sharp teeth, Riley. I’m not trying to be mean but you’ve got to be pretty again if you want to be on that screen.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out that will suit everyone,” A.J. interjected, starting to feel uncomfortable again, and not just because of the pile of human bodies that were only centimetres away from her.  
Riley didn’t say anything and her quietness unnerved the human woman.
That was one of the main ways that the two differed.
A.J. could wear quietness like a familiar mantle but it didn’t suit Riley Ruckus at all.

Mortimer appeared to soften slightly, if only a little. “I suppose if I didn’t join in, what example would I be? Amelia-Jane, would you mind coming to the office to work on me?”

Her legs just about turned to jelly but her back snapped upward, straighter than ever, like a marionette whose puppeteer had only seen fit to relinquish some of her strings.
As much as she wanted to continue to sympathise with Riley, her mind was suddenly eclipsed by the idea of getting to work on a puppet that Owen had never been happy to let her touch, even with his expressive supervision.

Looking back, she couldn’t quite recall if Riley had said anything as she and Mortimer left.
She also couldn’t quite remember what she and the head Handeeman talked about on the way to the office.
The whole scenario was almost dreamlike to her.
It was as though it wasn’t really happening, rather it was happening to some kind of fake version of her on a television screen.
An effigy.

A.J. had to steady herself several times, her fingers quivering as she slipped her gloves on. Her diary had a very sparse section on Mortimer Handee due to her lack of time working with him though luckily his blueprints were already sprawled across a work-table in Owen’s office.
A.J. pored over the almost sacred scroll with reverence and morbid curiosity; she wondered what her own blueprints would look like. 

She had just about managed to stop herself from shaking when as she started to delicately wipe down Mortimer’s top hat, mirroring the deft, circular motions she had often seen Owen do. For the first time, she noticed with interest that his hat was detachable, secured to his wooden hairline with pegs rather than being permanently stuck down.
“So, I heard that earlier you needed to use the phone?” he commented as she worked. “What was the matter, dear? Trouble at home?”
“Just a little panic at the Toy Hospital that I had to respond to.”
“And you had to order some items from your base? To better improve things at this place?”
“…yeah, that too.”

The elation of getting to work on Mortimer was fading fast as a frightening reality began to dawn on her. It was certain that the puppet knew what she had told Riley, either through probing the scientist earlier or simply through whatever system of eavesdropping that he used.
However, it was only now that A.J. was starting to consider the very real possibility that Mortimer had used redial to figure out what number she had called.
He would have recognised it.
And if he called it, he would have heard Scout.

She debated dialling another number into the phone to cover her tracks but there was no way she could do it without Mortimer noticing.

A.J. tried to keep herself as composed as possible, refocusing her attentions towards Mortimer’s blueprints and reminding herself what an honour this was. This was a long-time dream of hers, finally come true.
She reached into her duffle bag and took out her glasses cleaning fluid for his monocle.

“I believe it was here where you and I first met? Do you remember that day? You do, I bet.”
“I do…yeah, it was really amazing.”
“Ah yes, just you, me and poor father, dear. Do you remember what this office looked like when he was still in charge here?”
“Vaguely.” She remembered it in intense detail. She could have recalled the number of knots in the wood of the doorpost if Mortimer had asked her to. A.J. briefly looked up from the delicate glass disc to consult the blueprints, noting a something odd about the glass case by the door. It had once housed a fire extinguisher but now, encased within were a few faded scraps of paper.
It was when she saw the strange, swirling writing on the pages that she realised what it was she was looking at.
The idea that had been brewing in her head since her illicit phone-call with Scout suddenly seemed more tangible than ever. She took a breath and decided to take a chance.

“That’s new.” She nodded at the glass case. “Owen must have put those there after I left.”
“Father didn’t put those there: that was all me. It was important to keep those safe, you see.”
“Oh? Are they decorative? Did you make them?” She started delicately wiping down Mortimer’s facial features. They moved beneath her fingertips as the puppet spoke- a strange sensation that she still wasn't quite accustomed to.
“They are the last pieces of the book that gave us life, all those years ago. The remnants of a powerful artifact, you know.”
“Ah, the spell Owen used? Yeah, that’s…really…interesting…I remember seeing part of it once. I wasn’t brave enough to try it properly though…not like Owen…or you…do you read it from the pages every time you want to bring a puppet to life?”

“For my part, at this stage, I know the spell by heart.”
“…oh?”

A.J. turned away from him again to consult the blueprints for the placement of his front teeth. When she turned back around, Mortimer’s head had turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees. He was staring at her over his own shoulders, like a shrewd owl watching a vole rummaging around in the corner of a barn.

“Is there something that you want to ask, Amelia-Jane?”
A.J. instinctively shrunk backwards a little. Mortimer’s host aka brain-dead Anthony Pierson hadn’t moved from the chair where he was sitting but she still found herself mentally retracing the path from her current spot to the nearest exit.

“I…uh…”
“Come, come now my dear. For this book’s arrival, you made a sacrifice. A vial of your virginal blood was part of the price.”
A.J.’s jaw clenched, a shudder running down her midsection. She had temporarily forgotten about that little fact.
And there was something about hearing a children’s t.v. icon say words like “virginal” that inspired instant revulsion in her.

“…I suppose I was just wondering,” A.J. eventually said, taking a brave step forward both in physicality and intention. “If that spell could bring anything to life? Like not just a puppet...” She swallowed back an excess of nervous saliva that tasted like rust, tobacco and vomit. “…but like…a doll?”

Mortimer’s head followed her as she edged her way back to the table where he sat with his host. His voice was rather quiet, his eyes rather narrowed despite his cordial, gentlemanly grin. He regarded her with a regal and powerful upward tilt of his chin and a single word:

“Why?”

The weight of his suspicion was causing her nerves to buckle. She pressed her lips together and tried her best to curve them into a shaky smile, pretending that a phantom hand was stitching the corners with wire.

“Well, I guess now that I know Owen was able to do it…I mean, it feels kind of selfish but I’m starting to wonder if I could do the same...”
“Yes?”

“For Clara.”

*****

(The Royal Blue Hotel, September, 1998)

Her first question to Scout was whether or not anyone had called the room after her.
With confirmation that their location was still safe, A.J. took the first deep breath that she’d taken since she’d left the studio.

Avery was thankfully awake when she got back. They were weak, paler than A.J. remembered but fortunately lucid enough to talk.

“It felt like I was sleepwalking,” they explained as A.J. fetched them a glass tumbler of water. “Like, I wasn’t in my own body anymore. Scout and I have switched before and in way less comfy situations than this but…it just felt different this time.” They took a few grateful gulps from the glass that A.J. held to their lips, (with shaky assistance from Scout). “How did you feel the whole time, bud?”

The blue-haired puppet shrugged her little shoulders under her new, black t-shirt. “I felt fine. Great, actually. Then again, I could still just be high on the fact that I’m finally out of that studio.”
A.J. pursed her lips, her mind still making the same unsettling connections that it had been making since the phone-call earlier that day.
She looked to Avery, surveying their sweat slicked forehead, dry lips and puffy eyes. She wasn’t an expert at caring for other humans but she was no fool either.

“The rain has stopped out there. You should get some air. And dinner. We’ll order room service from the desk on the way back.”

The trio made their way to the hotel’s inner atrium. The dull weather meant that the outside pool was virtually barren but an extremely excited Scout still had to be covered to avoid them being accosted by their fellow hotel guests.
Or worse, their grubby, grabby, equally excitable children.

While Scout was happy to verbally agree that they needed to keep a low profile, actually keeping a low profile seemed to be another thing entirely.

“So, I guess this means that we can’t just hop into Avery’s car and drive to Reno?”
“Not until we’re sure they’re healthy enough to drive at least.”

A.J. took Scout on to her hand so that Avery’s arm could take a rest while they took another lap of the atrium. She sat with the Handeepuppet at one of the garden tables to watch Scout’s loyal host as they walked.
A.J. was silently thankful for this opportunity.
She was going to need to have a difficult conversation with Scout. She told the little puppet about the events of that day.
About her plan.

“So, that’s it then? It’s decided. I’m gonna be a doll?” Scout didn’t sound enthusiastic in the slightest and A.J. couldn’t blame her. “And I’ve gotta do your weird surgery? Wow, this day keeps getting better and better…”
“You’ll have legs,” A.J. offered. “And you’ll be able to get around a lot easier. I can also make you a hybrid, like I said before. So you’ll still be able to be a puppet when you want to be.” She looked up from Scout to Avery, who had stopped to admire some flowers planted by the walkway. “And you won’t be as dependant on Avery.”
“I’m draining their energy, aren’t I? Killing them slowly, right?”
“Uh-.”
“You don’t have to sugar coat it. I saw it happen with the other hosts back at the studio. I mean, they couldn’t talk like Avery but sooner or later, they’d just start to get weaker and weaker until they’d stop working and just like keel over and…then it was off to Human Resources and the Chop Shop so that Riley could get you a new one…” A.J. was surprised when Scout suddenly rested her head against the woman’s chest, seeking comfort. “I don’t want Avery to get used up like that.”

A.J. wasn’t good at offering comfort but refusing to let awkwardness set in on a day like this, she lifted a hand to lightly pat the puppet’s woolly hair. “You’re…a good friend to Avery. I promise, I’ll be as neat and quick as I can.”

“And you’re sure this will work?”
“Yeah. According to Mortimer, the spell can bring any effigy to life. The only reason puppets need hosts is because that’s their natural state. Dolls don’t need hosts because they don’t need puppeteers.”
“And old Morty thinks you’re doing this for your favourite dolly, Clara?”
“Yep. Mortimer kind of has a soft spot for her,” A.J. said, desperately craving a cigarette but resisting the urge in favour of chewing on the inside of her mouth. “She’ll be the bait and you’ll be the switch.”

“This whole thing feels fucked up and risky,” Scout grumbled, folding her arms. “There are like a million ways that this could go wrong.” She looked up at A.J., head still shamelessly perched on the woman’s chest. “…so, are you going to make me into a doll tonight, red?”
“No, I won’t be able to. I’ll need to get some materials from the studio. Namely, a length of zipper.”
“And you think the Handeemen are going to let you just walk out of that studio with an armful of sewing supplies?” Scout proceeded to do what would have been a hilarious Mortimer impression in any other situation. “Oh, yes, huzzah Hurray! Do take whatever you need, I say!”

“I’ll talk to them,” A.J. said. “They can be pretty understanding if-.”
“Understanding!?” Scout suddenly snapped upright, forcing A.J.’s elbow on to the table. “Are you fucking crazy? The Handeemen are stone cold killers! Have you seen what they to do to us?! To hosts like you!?”
“They’re…misguided and unhinged,” A.J. managed to say. “They’ve been left to their own devices for so long. They’re confused about-.”

“A.J., listen to me!” Scout grabbed her by the chin with her tiny felt hands. “The Handeemen are not confused. They know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly the kind of pain they’re causing and they don’t fucking care!” She squeezed A.J.’s chin, her pointy little nose pressing against the human’s much larger one. “They’re not your friends, red. You’re just another resource to them and when you stop being useful to them, they’ll do to you what they do to all the other hosts…or what they did to Owen…” She slowly released A.J.’s face. “I don’t want to see that happen to you or to Avery.”

“You were able to change,” A.J. pointed out, tweaking Scout’s twin tails. “And you seem very ready to join the host world.”
“Yeah, but I’m different, remember?” Scout said, looking a little crestfallen. “I was never able to be like all of the others. I’m, like, a freak puppet. The exception, not the rule.”

A.J. continued to hold Scout’s stare, debating what she wanted to tell the puppet next. Then she lifted her free hand to brush a long strand of woolly hair from the puppet’s face. “I won’t let anything happen to you or to me or to Avery.” She took a long breath. “I promise: once I’ve helped you and Avery, I’m going to end it.”
“You’re fussing again,” Scout insisted, squirming away from her hand. “And end it? Like end it, end it?”
“I’m going to do what Owen couldn’t do,” A.J. clarified, watching Avery again. “I’m going to end it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Scout was staring up at her. After a few seconds of thought, the puppet followed her gaze and gave her an aloof, little fist-bump to the woman’s jawline. “Ok, red. Much appreciated. Big props.” She patted the same spot approvingly. “And don’t worry. Me and Avery have got your back.”

“Well, that’s good,” A.J. murmured as Scout’s former host made their way back to where they were sitting. “Because I’m going to need help from both of you very soon.”

“Oh yeah?” Scout suddenly didn’t sound so confident.

“Yeah. Tomorrow, I’ll need you guys to come to the studio with me.”

“Uh, news flash, red: if we just waltz through the front door, they’ll probably gut us on the spot! If we’re lucky.”

“That’s why you and Avery won’t be waltzing through the front door. You’ll be sneaking in.”

Chapter Text

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment.

(Handeemen Studios, September 1998)

“I can’t believe after years of wanting out of this place, I’m actually going out of my way to break back in.”

Avery gave their watch another conscious glance; they and A.J. had synchronised them earlier that morning after running through their plan for the billionth time. Scout had insisted on setting the watch around her waist, almost like some kind of bulky, futuristic, utility-belt.
Sure, it looked pretty cool but Avery had already had to caution her twice about accidentally pressing any of the buttons.
“Did I mention that Red’s gone fucking nuts if she thinks this is going to work?” the blue-haired handpuppet hissed, folding her little arms and scowling up at her host. “If any of the Handeemen catch us, they’re going to skin us alive and that’s if we’re lucky.”

“A.J.’s been in and out of that place for the last few days,” Avery reasoned, pulling up their hood with their free hand and looking around furtively as they entered neared the parking lot. “She wouldn’t have planned this with us if she didn’t think there was a chance that we could pull it off.” They half-smiled down at the little puppet, lifting an arm to shield her from the spray of rain that was just starting to fall, dampening their hair. “And it’s like you said before: we make a good team. We did it once before, we can do it again.”

Scout scoffed, still a little sceptical. “Easy for you to say when you’re the one who can run out at a moment’s notice.”
Avery shrugged, trying their best not to accidentally turn Scout upside down in the process. “I’d never leave you behind. You know that, right? Besides, when all of this is done, you’ll have your own legs to run out of there on.” They paused, glancing across the lot and nodding with a sharp inhale. “Oh, shit. There’s my car.”

“Ahh, so this is the chariot that you and me are hightailing it out of here in when all of this is said and done?” Scout nodded towards the dark red Toyota Camry.
“Hopefully. I don’t have the keys though,” Avery pointed out, crouching down slightly as they moved between the cars, wary of the burnt out, boarded up windows of the studio. They trembled slightly, pretending that they didn’t just notice a pair of eyes staring out from the dark. “I think Riley fished them out of my pocket when she had me tied up in there. Any idea where she’d chuck them?”
“Mmm, if they’re not digesting in one of Rosco’s four stomachs or lodged somewhere in one of Riley’s fucked up contraptions or in some poor puppet bastard’s spleen?” Scout folded her arms, giving a wary glance of her own up to the nightmarish shell of a studio. “There was this pile of Host-World stuff in the corner of one of the offices. Just some bits and bobs that Nick used to use for props sometimes. They never really told us where it came from but if any of your pocket lint was anywhere, it’d be there.”

“Good call,” Avery said, trying to steal themselves for what was inevitably coming, adding another side-mission to their log of actions. “We’ll need some supplies first though.”
They wove through the nearby cars, both of them silently taking note of their scattered numbers; all in various states of decay and disrepair.

“Kinda makes you feel bad for all of the poor shmucks who used to own these,” Scout muttered, frowning.
“Yeah, kinda,” Avery replied with a shiver. “Don’t feel too bad though. We need to borrow some stuff out of these cars.”
“We’re breaking in? Woah, Hosty, didn’t know you had it in you. Then again, I probably shouldn’t be too shocked. You’re full of friggin’ surprises.” Scout gave her host a nudge in the ribs. “Got a crowbar?”
“Nope,” the human replied, free hand digging into their pocket. “Don’t need one. Just need that tennis ball we got from the dollar store on the way here.”
“The one you cut a hole into? What, are you saving Rosco the trouble?”
“Nah, it’s a little trick I picked up from an old high school buddy. Watch.”

They pushed the hole of the tennis ball up against a nearby door lock, squeezing the air from the small, fuzzy orb. They uttered a small whoop of delight when the suction caught on and caused the lock to pop out.
“Damn, Avery!” Scout praised with a whistle. “Look at you, Grand Theft Auto.”
The host opened the door of the car, trying to ignore the smell from within- not just the damp, dusty, musty odour of rot and decay but the smell of the person who used to drive that car.
The person who had once hung a cheesy pair of fuzzy dice on the mirror and had too many gas-station-bought, flamingo-shaped, air fresheners. The person who was probably now an empty shell of themselves: either a rotting, blood-bag sewn to a living puppet or wrapped up in plastic, waiting to be made into one.
If they were even still alive to begin with.

Using this trick, Avery and Scout managed to procure a Swiss-Army Knife, a flashlight, two lighters and a first aid kit.
“Good haul, buddy,” the puppet praised, surveying their inventory from where they sat behind a particularly large postal service van. “Now to figure out how we’re going to get in. I’d bet a handful of gold coin tokens that Mortimer’s got the hole in the tunnels covered up or at least guarded…”
“And like you said before,” Avery mused. “We can’t exactly walk in the front door either. I got in through a broken window near the main hall and it looks like that’s already been fixed.”
“…there might be another way in,” Scout wondered aloud, a reluctant swallow emitting from her throat. “Though, it’s not gonna be an easy one. Daisy used to leave the kitchen window open a crack for her pies to cool down. Mortimer didn’t like when she did that but Daisy can be pretty stubborn. It’s a long shot but it could be our best bet.”

“Good call,” Avery said with a nod and a shaky smile. “See what I mean? We’re a great team.” The two of them took stock of their surroundings, making sure to stay low as they made their way around to the back of the building.
Just as Scout had prophesised, there was indeed a partially cracked window, positioned low to the ground.

“Looks like it leads into the kitchen, like you said,” Avery pointed out, cautiously peering around the edge of the frame. “And it looks like there’s a canteen through that open door in there.”
“And I’m pretty sure we’re not too far from the sewing rooms,” Scout nodded, shuddering and causing Avery’s entire arm to vibrate in the process. “Looks like we’re in business then. Let’s get to breaking and entering.”

Using the Swiss Army Knife, (and a bit of clumsy teamwork), they managed to liberate the screws from the frame suspenders, making the opening big enough for Avery to slip through.
“Careful! Ah! Watch the head!” hissed Scout indignantly, wriggling around as her host tried to ease themselves on to a nearby worktop.
“We need to be quiet,” Avery reminded her, wobbling violently as they moved to step down on to the grubby tiles.
“Yeah, yeah, look I’m not trying t-.” Scout’s small felt eyes widened and she suddenly grabbed Avery’s neck. “Watch out! Mouse traps!”
But it was too late.

Avery had already stepped down from the counter, triggering a series of rusty mouse traps to start snapping like piranhas around their ankles. The host leapt backwards instinctively almost tumbling back into a series of crockery shelves, an almighty clattering ringing out like a drunken percussion section.
“So much for being quiet!” Scout groaned, massaging her fuzzy head.
Avery opened their mouth to reply but then shut it abruptly, mirroring the handpuppet’s horrified expression as a screech rang out through the wall beside them.

“Someone’s got a lot of nerve, I must say! To be clattering around in my kitchen on today of all days!”
The cry was suddenly accompanied by the sound of resounding footsteps, stomping in their direction.

Avery looked down at Scout, whose lips were trembling in terror.
“Daisy!” she mouthed, eyes darting back and forth.
The host looked around, joining her in a silent but desperate search for somewhere to hide. Their eyes settled upon a laundry basket and Avery was suddenly struck by inspiration. “Disguises! Quickly!” Avery grabbed a chef’s hat and placed it on their own head, pulling it down past their chin to cover their face. Scout followed suit, pulling faintly stained napkin and tying it around her head in a make-shift bandana, (an impressive feat considering her noteworthy lack of fingers).

Seconds later, the kitchen doors swung open and Daisy Danger charged inside.
Avery could see her outline through the papery skin of the hat. Her buttercup-yellow hair and bright blue eyes stood out vividly against her dark surroundings, her trademark peachy-pink dress looking newly washed and tailored.
They hadn’t had the (mis)fortune of meeting her the last time that they were there but if the way Scout shivered on their forearm was anything to go by, looks were probably deceiving.

“My goodness gracious! Looks like some vermin needed shooing!” she declared, her eyes swivelled over to Avery and Scout and narrowing at the disguised puppet. “What on Earth happened in here? What are you doing?”
Automatically, the human host allowed themselves to go slightly limp, adopting the zombified act that had saved them so many times before. Memories of Riley’s tests came flooding back to them but they tensed up as hard as they could to avoid any shudder coming into their legs.
They did, however, offer Scout the gentlest, lightest of squeezes, just to encourage the little puppet.

“I, uh…” Scout cleared her throat, putting on a pronounced British accent to disguise her voice. “I think I heard some mice running around…so I came in here to check…on the ground?”

Daisy’s bottom jaw twitched slightly and Avery mentally prepared to run, their eyes searching for a potential exit.
However, much to their mutual relief, the home-maker puppet’s bright pink lips curved upwards into a sunny smile. “How thoughtful of you to come and check, my dear.” Her delicate wooden fingers smoothed out the edges of her frilly apron. “I appreciate your efforts to keep my kitchen clear but…” She gestured to the door behind her. “We finally have our big table read today and we all have our roles to play. So, stand-by for dinner as per your duty and when Mortimer’s plan plays out, it’ll all be a beauty.”

“Uh, got it. G-Great,” Scout managed to stammer out while maintaining her fake-accent. “Uh…I’ll…uh, I’ll never be late.”

Daisy nodded and with a trill and a flounce, she disappeared out of the door.
Scout looked up at where Avery’s eyes should have been, behind the chef’s hat.
“…fuck.”
“…you said it.”
They were just about to exhale a mutual sigh of relief when Daisy’s face suddenly appeared around the threshold of the canteen door.

“Actually, honey-bunch?” she cooed. “Are you on the schedule today for lunch?”
“…I…I…”
Despite the puppet’s felt and cloth anatomy still being separate to their own, of flesh, blood and bone, Avery could practically feel Scout’s breath seizing in her lower throat.

“Well, if you’re supposed to be stationed in this empty canteen, I have a different mess for you to clean,” Daisy proclaimed abruptly, beckoning for Scout to follow.
The little blue-haired puppet, (though her blue-hair was covered up by the stained napkin), dared to steal a quick glance up at her host, communicating a thousand silent commands in that process.
Hearing nothing but somehow hearing everything she was trying to get across, Avery fell into the robotic, zombie-stagger that they’d perfected during their last tryst in that godforsaken studio. They also remembered to hold Scout out from their body slightly and to slump their head so that it looked like she was leading. All the while, they kept an eye on the ground to avoid tripping over anything as they followed Daisy Danger into the hallway outside.
There was something horrifying about the fact that the human feet that Daisy walked upon were the puppeteered legs of a corpse.
Of a host who hadn’t been so lucky.

“Isn’t it exciting to finally see everything come together? To know that there isn’t a single storm that we can’t weather?” the blonde-haired puppet crooned, clasping her hands like a fairytale princess. “Nick’s got our script and Mortimer’s plan is finally gaining traction. After today, it’ll be all lights, camera, action!”

“Y-Yeah,” Scout forced herself to reply. “The plan. It’s gonna be all…cool. I hope…uh…we’re able to find all the right…tools?” Avery felt the little puppet, squirming on their wrist.

Daisy’s head snapped backwards to survey her subordinate, turning a full one hundred and eighty degrees like an owl. “Are you feeling alright sweet-pea? You seem a little shook.” The party planner raised a thin, yellow eyebrow at Scout’s mid-section. “You seem to be missing some stitches there. Maybe you should get Riley to take a look?”

“Uh…I…,” Scout stammered, self-consciously grabbing Avery’s sleeve and hoisting it up to cover her unstitched midriff. “I think some of them came loose. I’m…I’m such a silly goose! Uh…I don’t want to bother Doctor Ruckus though. She’s…she’s probably getting ready for the show!” Triumph flooded the puppet’s voice as she managed to string together a coherent rhyme.

“Mmm.” Daisy surveyed her like a bird of prey and behind the cover of the paper chef’s hat, Avery started to look for potential exits again. “That’s probably for the best; you’re right but sort it out before later tonight.” The wooden puppet tilted her head, Avery’s heart almost stopping when Daisy’s eyes travelled to look directly into their eyes. There was no way she could see them looking back at her, right?

“And replacing the head cover with a chef’s hat is real cute,” Daisy went on, voice still sweet and melodic but occasionally wavering into strains of warning. “But keep it to the traditional one for later because this look just won’t suit.”

“Sure thing,” Scout said quickly, now audibly struggling to maintain her false accent.
Daisy came to stop in the corridor, eyeballing the smaller puppet. “What did you say your name was again, bunny-boo? I’m having trouble placing you.”

“Ah, Daisy, dear! So happy to see you here!”
Her suspicions were thoroughly doused by the sudden appearance of Nick Nack around the corner. Avery swallowed as the lithe outline of artist puppet came into view. Like Daisy, they couldn’t quite see the puppet’s features but he radiated the same imposing, deranged aura as his female counterpart.

“Oh, hello Nicky. Don’t you look smart? How are thing’s going with this morning’s art?”
“Swimmingly. My team’s almost finished with the set piece for the park. I’ve even added some glowing features so it all looks good in the dark,” Nick told her, ignoring Avery and Scout as well as the other clusters of Handeepuppets hurrying around. “You’re early but Mortimer wants to get some creative juices flowing so if you want to pop inside and take a seat, we can get going.”
Daisy peered inside. “Is Riley here already? Or is she still…?” The blonde haired Handeeman’s voice trailed off slightly.
Nick shifted uncomfortably, prompting Scout to steal an intrigued glance up at her host.

“She’s…still licking her wounds, I think. I’ll admit I haven’t seen her all day.” The artist shrugged slightly, his voice lowering slightly. “I was going to check in on her but Mortimer advised that I should stay away.”
“I haven’t seen him that mad in years,” Daisy sympathised, her tone dropping to match Nick’s. “No wonder poor Riley was left in tears.”
The black-haired Handeeman swallowed, desperately trying to maintain his composure. “Yes, well, better her than you or I, no doubt! She knew what she getting into when she opened her mouth. We’ve both taken our beatings with some amount of grace. Let the golden child take her dues for once, in this place!” His voice cracked several times, pitchy and uncertain.
“She tried something silly like that, once before. I’m worried that she’s at it once more.”

Scout almost fell off Avery’s arm when Nick’s eyes were suddenly narrowed in their direction. “You there! Why are you lurking around in the shadows? Are you trying to give me a scare?!”
“Wh-what? Me? No!” Scout seemed to have forgotten her accent but mercifully, Daisy cut across her flustered garbling.

“She’s in my kitchen crew. I brought her here for a little job I have to do.” She turned around and pointed down the hallway. “One of the pest traps made a bit of a mess. Go clean it up and reset it before it causes any stress.”

Avery didn’t need to be told twice and anxious to put some distance between them and the pair of Handeemen, started briskly walking in the direction Daisy had pointed in.

“Hey!” Scout hissed, giving Avery a little punch in the side when they were out of earshot. “I’m supposed to be the one in control, remember? Wait for my cue before you walk anywhere from here on out, ok?”

“Sorry,” Avery whispered, truthfully finding it quite difficult to talk with the paper hat pressed over their lips. “I just didn’t want to spend any more time hanging around those two.” They looked around as best as they could manage peering through the hat. “So, we need to get to the sewing rooms. I have the list of the things A.J. said we needed to get in my back pocket.”

“We can also stop by the security office to see about your car keys too. Ugh, what stinks? Oh…oh sweet Jesus…” Scout made a retching sound, pointing to the floor. “That’s what Daisy wanted us to clean up? I think I speak for both of us when I say fuck that.”

Avery looked down and then instantly wished they hadn’t, remiss to behold a closed bear trap, partially coated in rust and with a severed human foot stuck inside. They shuddered, noticing that they had the similar taste in shoes to the unfortunate host who’d lost fallen afoul of the trap.
“Ok, from what I remember, the sewing rooms should be down he-shit.”
“What?”
“Look, it’s got one of those keypads on it,” Scout pointed out, frowning and sighing at the empty slot. “We’re going to need to get one of those Handee-badge thingies to open it- which means we’re going to have to go hunting around for key-pieces again!”

Avery took a deep breath and shrugged, trying to keep their cool as they looked to Scout. “We did it once before. Doing it a second time will be easy, right?”
“Are you high right now?” was Scout’s snarky reply. “Because if you are, I want whatever you’ve been smoking.”
Avery patted her on the head. “Come on. Let’s get to doing what we do best.”
“And what’s that exactly?”
“Snooping around where we shouldn’t be.”

The human tried to keep their smile; even if Scout couldn’t see it at that moment, Avery wanted to keep her reassured.
This became significantly more difficult to do when a low gurgling noise rippled through the drywall beside them, followed by a high-pitched scream. Both serving as a stark reminder of the stakes that they were faced with.

******

A.J. entered the building with her duffle bag clutched tighter in her hand than usual. She took a quick glance at her watch and stole a second when she realised that she hadn’t actually read the time at all.
She was scared.
She had been scared prior to this of course. She had been scared of this job, scared of what she would find out, scared of what she would have to face again…
But a new fear had joined the usual cocktail of nerves in her stomach: the astringent taste of fear on behalf of others. A.J. was scared for Avery and Scout, silently wondering if she’d sent them on a suicide mission.
In a perverse way, she was also scared for the Handeemen and what she would inevitably have to do just to see this whole thing out.
The bag bumped against her leg, as if seeking to remind her of the other individual she had to be fearful for.
Resting in her specialised travelling swaddle was her dear little Clara.
She had no heart to beat, she took no breath and seemed to have no mind of her own that she was willing to or capable of speaking and yet, A.J. feared for her the most.
It was sick and selfish, the human woman decided, but it was Clara who had most of her sympathy. After all, the porcelain doll had nothing to do with this place; she was an outsider being dragged in, unable to protest and with nothing to gain from it.
Then there was the question of betrayal: A.J. had promised Clara a long time ago that she would (a) never bring her anywhere dangerous for work and (b) never let her anywhere near Mortimer Handee again.

“Please forgive me,” she murmured under her breath, hoping that her little porcelain ears could hear her.

She checked the time a third time as she made her way into the foyer, desperately trying to remember if she and Avery had decided to synchronise their watches.
If things were going to plan, Avery and Scout would already be in the building.  
She had no way of knowing how far they had gotten so far and A.J. silently told herself that it was probably a good thing that she hadn’t come across immediate sight or sound of them.

She took a moment to move some of her basic tools- her screwdriver, her penknife, her measuring tape- from her duffle bag to her belt. It was as she stood up that she took note of the peeling poster on the wall beside her. It was one of the Mortimer’s Work Safety Rules prints. It was significant because she and Owen would meet in front of it on their lazier mornings- rare and beautiful as they were- to talk shop and share a coffee.
Owen was reclusive on his best days, especially towards the end of her time at the studios, so her heart would always jump into her throat on those mornings when she saw him waiting for her there.
“I’ve been working on a kind of segmented spine design. It’s similar to what we’ve currently got in the four main Handeemen but if we can get it into the smaller puppets too, it’ll really help with their mobility.”
If she closed her eyes and ignored the foul smell of death and decay around her, A.J. could still hear his voice in her ears. She could still recall their conversations in detail, the world around her becoming hazy, as though it was draped in muslin.
“Are you thinking of using wood or reinforced plastic?”
“Do you have to ask?”
“Ok, ok, fair point. A wooden spine would need an extra layer of padding but you definitely compensate by making the puppets’ clothes a bit baggier.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’d kill two birds with one stone because if their bodies were easier to keep upright, their clothing could be a bit more realistic. Here, I’ve got some sketches I’ve been working on…”

“Amelia-Jane! There’s our resourceful, clever girlie!” Mortimer’s voice brought her back to reality with an abrupt jump, yanking back the gauze of fantasy and plunging her back into her own fearful reality. “You’re certainly here nice and early.”

“Ah, I just wanted to make sure that I got started on time today. I imagine you’ll all be very busy with the table read,” A.J. replied, making her way over to the Wing C hallway that Mortimer had appeared in. A flickering fluorescent yellow light above their heads were vaguely reminiscent of photographers; reminding A.J. that she was mid-performance. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.

“Yes, indeed. Today is going to be a rather exciting day for all! We’re gathering up for our first scene blocking just down the hall.” Mortimer’s cane swung down to tap A.J. across the back of her legs, prodding her to start walking in that direction.

Daisy and Nick were sitting, (or rather their hosts were sitting), in one of the soundstage settings that seemed to be mocked up to look like a children’s playground at night. A series of Handeepuppets were scurrying back and forth, either lugging electrical equipment or carrying innocuous cans of paint or lengths of rope. It immediately reminded A.J. of a typical shoot-day at the studio in its hey-day and for the briefest of seconds, she got a flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach.
There was one crucial difference though: the sound.
Or lack thereof.
On a shoot-day at Handeemen Studios, there would always be a cacophony of noise from the cast and crew. Puppeteers practicing their lines, sound technicians shouting to test cues, musicians tuning up their instruments, crew members calling out for props to be brought in and out.
Owen desperately trying to make sure his vision was being accurately captured.

But this soundstage was all but silent.
The lesser puppets went about their duties in complete quietness and the only traces of sound came from the two sock puppets who were stationed as apparent at the door, grunting and gurgling.
One of the puppets- a coarse, green creature with a single eye- stared directly at A.J., snarling and revealing its mismatched teeth. Some, A.J. noted, were made of plastic, some were felt, two were wood and the rest appeared to be human.
Somewhat disturbingly, however, her only thought was that its stitches were uneven and she badly wanted to fix them.

“Good morning, Clyde,” Mortimer greeted the sock-puppet cheerily. “I’m just bringing our favourite caretaker inside. Nick, lad? Are we ready to go? I’m positively itching to get started with the show.”

Nick’s head snapped up from the papers he had been studying. “Ah, yes! We should be ready to start the read, if you’d like to take the lead…” He caught A.J.’s eye and smiled widely, as did Daisy. The human woman returned their smiles but noticed with an odd, less than energetic demeanour about them both. It was as though both were aware of a bomb hidden somewhere in the room and while neither knew exactly when it was going to go off, they had both accepted that it was an inevitability.
As she neared them, she noticed that the pages they were reading from bore almost no words that she could read, rather the odd little combination of shapes and symbols that appeared to be a kind of language for the puppets.
“Jolly good,” the magician proclaimed, sitting in the very disturbingly familiar chair faintly stamped “director.” A.J. could remember when Owen had invited her to sit in that very seat and how special and important she’d felt. “I shall do just that. Now, Nick, our opening cues, if you would?”

“Isn’t Doctor Ruckus coming?” A.J. asked, noting her absence and looking around in half-expectation for her to simply step out of the shadows, meat-cleaver in hand.

“We don’t need her for this scene,” Nick said a little too quickly, his eyes suddenly hyper-focused on the script in front of his eyes. His breezy, dismissive tone didn’t at all matched how suddenly rigid his shoulders or shaky his wrists had become. If this really was the old days, A.J. would have been calling for his puppeteer to bring him over so that she could check his joints.

Daisy didn’t say a thing.
She continued smiling and staring straight ahead, her eyes perfectly vacant.
It was as though her puppeteer had just abandoned her entirely.

“Riley had a bit of a stressful night, I’m afraid,” Mortimer said, his tone perfectly pleasant but simultaneously ice-cold. “Hopefully her newly-found streak of attitude will have had a chance to fade.” The magician adjusted his cravat and monocle, staring into an invisible mirror. “Now I’ll be a gentleman and admit with a touch of shame that Riley and I had a bit of a co-worker’s tiff; though no one’s really to blame. Our dear scientist got a bit too big for her proverbial boots and couldn’t keep her cool. So, I reminded her that in order to be second-in-command, she must follow the rules.”

“She was really quite frazzled, bless her heart. Maybe someone should check in on her before we start,” Daisy blurted out suddenly. She had initially been sneaking her eyes upward in a helpful, pleading gaze but regret seemed to crash over her like a tidal wave when the magician turned to regard her.
Mortimer’s teeth clicked emphatically as he glowered at the home-maker. “Now Daisy, that was a brave little confessional but it isn’t fair for you and Nick to have to sacrifice your time just because Riley is insisting on being unprofessional.”

A.J. felt a distinct sick feeling in her stomach, compounded by the continued shake in Nick’s shoulders and the twitch in Daisy’s eyelids.
“…well, you all probably don’t need for me for a table read or blocking right now either so if you’d like, I can check in on her,” the human woman suggested quietly, not unlike the way she would have timidly suggested that her Uncle Theo should take a break from his work when he was struggling to stay awake.

Just as her late Uncle might have done, Mortimer folded his arms and regarded her with a rather emotionless stare that was unsettlingly neither approving or disapproving.
Daisy twitched slightly, opening her mouth to reply before their leader spoke again, effectively stealing her voice.

“How very kind of you.”
His tone was equally as toneless as his stare, making the situation impossible to read. One of the things that A.J. had always loved about dolls and puppets was that unlike human beings, their expressions were easy to read. Big exaggerated eyebrows and perfectly sculpted mouths that always betrayed a smile or a frown were what she had always felt comfortable around.
But at that very moment, Mortimer’s face was virtually blank.
Beneath that magician’s hat, A.J. felt as though she could hear cogs of thought whirring about. The glare of his monocle burned into her skull, reading her mind and seeing her every guilty thought. It was as though she was staring at a wound-up Jack-in-the-Box, just waiting for it to-

“Jolly good then, you can go clean her up and bring her to set,” he said sharply. “Riley may be show-ready in due time yet.”
A.J. nodded quickly, feeling a kind of mutual relief seep into the room though she didn’t dare push her luck by attempting eye contact with Daisy and Nick.

She had just about made it to the door when Mortimer’s voice stopped her dead in her tracks.
Pulling her strings. Just like his father.
“Oh, Amelia-Jane, my dear?”
“Hm? Yeah?”
“You did, ahem,” Mortimer cleared his throat almost bashfully. “Remember to bring Clara here? For our little tete-a-tete? I do hope you didn’t forget.”
“Yep, sure did,” A.J. replied briskly, her stomach starting to churn again, threatening to throw up the meagre breakfast that she had afforded it. “But we don’t have to look at the ritual thing until later. I know you’re all super busy.”
“Might I ask where she is?”
A.J. held up her duffle bag in response, only slightly looking over her shoulder. “Right here. Wrapped up and ready to go.”
“Oh Heavens, wouldn’t she be more comfortable out here with us?” Mortimer’s Anthony’s arm reached out and dragged another folding chair into the light. “It seems rather barbaric to have her zipped up in there. You all agree with me, I trust?” 
Nick and Daisy both muttered something non-committal in agreement, both seemingly fixated on their scripts again. The scurrying Handeepuppets who seemed to be co-opted as crew didn’t reply and Mortimer didn’t acknowledge them. Like a group of frat-house pledges, there seemed to be an inherent expectation that they wouldn’t speak unless they were directly spoken to.

“Clara’s a bit of an agoraphobe,” A.J. explained, trying to pretend that she was just talking to a child back at the Toy Hospital. “And she’s a little shy around strangers…”
“We’re not strangers! Why, Clara and the Handeemen are old friends? Or don’t you remember all of our marvellous tea parties in Owen’s office and slumber parties in Owen’s apartment?”
“I paid for therapy to forget them, I put unholy substances in my body to forget them and I begged every existing deity to help me forget them and yet every time I close my eyes to sleep, I remember them.”

“She’s still a bit frazzled from travelling this morning. She could probably do with me giving her hair a brush before we-.”
“Amelia. Put Clara in this chair, right now please.”

Obedience overriding reluctance and very much nervous of having Mortimer ask twice, A.J. did as the puppet asked. Clara did indeed look a little bit frazzled as she was carefully unwrapped and set down in her assigned seat. A.J. smoothed out her golden blonde hair, delicately plucking some loose strands from her thick, frilly eyelashes and positioning her so that she was looking at the other Handeemen.

“Hello there, dear,” Daisy cooed kindly at the porcelain doll’s doe-eyed, pouty-lipped, flush-cheeked face. “It’s nice to see you here.”
“Ciao, cherie,” Nick murmured passively in her direction, now affecting a lot of interest in a hanging set-piece.

“She’s a little star struck but she’s happy to be here,” A.J. said, very accustomed to having to translate for her mute doll.
“Clara, darling!” Mortimer swooped upon the doll, grabbing her little hand and placing a very toothy kiss upon it. “How absolutely smashing it is to see you here with us. Oh, and you chose to wear my favourite purple dress! How marvellous!” The way Mortimer spoke to her beloved doll, once again, made A.J. want to shrivel out of her own skin. “I am so very happy that Amelia-Jane has decided to make you whole. I can’t wait to hear you speak your own mind later, when you have your very own soul…”

Nick blinked, snapping his attention away from the clouds above their heads. “But…Mortimer, you said that the spell could only be used on puppets? That there was no point in trying it out on other toys because-?”
“Circumstances change, Nick,” the magician snapped, still merrily holding Clara’s hand. “Daisy, be a sweetheart and take Amelia-Jane down to Riley, nice and quick.” He looked up at the tense-jawed human woman. “Clara can stay here with us while Ms Ruckus is getting all primped and glossed and Daisy will escort you down to make sure that you don’t get lost.”

Mortimer’s threats were thinly veiled.
Despite his suddenly sunny and pleasant inferences, two messages were starkly clear to A.J.:
1. Clara would be remaining with Mortimer as a kind of pseudo hostage.
2. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t go poking around the place if left to her own devices.

She bit down on the inside of her mouth to resist the urge to gnaw at her fingernails and forced her hundredth polite smile. “An escort would be great, thanks. This place is huge. I’m sure Clara would love the chance to see what goes on behind the scenes of Mortimer’s Handeemen.”
“And soon, she won’t need you to voice her thoughts for her,” the magician crooned softly, stroking the doll’s pink-sprayed cheek. “She’ll have a voice of her own. Won’t that be wonderful, A.J.? All your dreams coming true?”

“…yes. Absolutely. Can’t wait.”

“Daisy, if you would?”

Daisy didn’t need to be asked again, immediately springing to her host’s feet and tacking herself to A.J.’s side. Much to the human woman’s surprise and abject revulsion, Daisy’s hosts’ arm suddenly reached out and linked her as they walked out the door. It would have been a sweet gesture if it wasn’t for the fact that the decaying human’s cold flesh was now brushing against A.J.’s. Not to mention, the smell was back in full force and very difficult to ignore.

“Is that a new dress?” she asked the puppet at her side, trying desperately to ignore the would-be corpse that she was now arm in arm with.
“Oh? Why yes, it is! How lovely of you to notice my work,” Daisy squealed, gesturing to the white and yellow sunflower pattern that now zig-zagged across her skirts. “I make all of the clothes here, you know. Getting to choose my own style is an added perk!”
“It’s lovely,” A.J. said, genuinely meaning it this time as a fellow sewing enthusiast. “I make almost all of Clara’s dresses but I can imagine you have your hands full doing all the sewing for the whole cast.”
“I have a dedicated little team of Handees,” Daisy proclaimed. “And having access to all the sewing machines means I can do it all with ease.”
“Are all of the sewing rooms unlocked during the day?” A.J. asked, seizing the opportunity. She couldn’t directly check on Scout and Avery but she could at least get an idea of how easy their mission was going to be relative to her own.
“Oh sure, for almost any task,” the party planner told her. “And if you need anything done, just ask!”
“Thanks, Daisy.”

A.J. had been automatically walking towards Riley’s “chop shop” but to her surprise, Daisy tugged her down a different hallway. If she remembered correctly, this one led to the waste rooms by the back of the warehouse.

“Is Riley…working down here?” A.J. asked, noticing her voice starting to echo as the hallways became wider.
“Riley is resting,” Daisy told her, her little wooden body becoming a little rigid. “Mortimer says that she’s probably tired after all that…testing.”
There was something terribly off about the way Daisy was speaking.
“Yeah, Mr Handee mentioned that he and Riley had a bit of an argument last night,” A.J. recalled, keeping her tone light and conversational. “It’s probably a good idea for her to blow off a little steam before she gets back to the grind you know.”
Surprising her for a second time, Daisy’s host suddenly stopped in place and the wooden homemaker held her to a stop, placing a hand on A.J.’s shoulder. Her smile was unfaltering but her right eye twitched with an intermittent warning.

“Can you keep a secret, A.J.?”
“…sure?”
Daisy looked around, her eyes darting from the ceilings to the walls to the corners of the floor before she spoke again, her voice far quieter than A.J. had ever heard it before.
“He can be mean, you know?”
“Who?”
“…Mortimer is a wonderful leader and a great father figure but…he can be really mean when Nicky and Riles and I are not…at our best…”
“…oh yeah?”
Daisy looked around again and then leaned in even closer to A.J. “And sometimes when I feel pressured, I can get a little wound up.” She giggled nervously. “And sometimes when I get wound up and I get really into my work, I kind of…lose track of things.”
“Did…did you lose track of things last night?”
“Well, you see sweetie, last night Riley started saying some things at our meeting. Some naughty things. Mortimer told us of some new changes to our big plan and I suppose Riley didn’t approve of the changes or was feeling a bit left out of the planning process so she started making some suggestions- just talking about some other ways that we could solve our…problems. But, see, Mortimer doesn’t really like it when Nicky or Riley or me make suggestions when he hasn’t asked for any and…”
“…and…what happened, Daisy?”
Her little wooden fingers clamped down on A.J.’s arm, her smile wobbling dangerously. “I don’t…I don’t really remember. I…uh…I remember getting a little annoyed because I had spent all evening making my new dress and would you believe, no one said anything about it? Silly-billies, right? And…then Mortimer was shouting and…when I came around again…Riley was…not really herself and Nicky…oh, poor Nicky was crying. You know these artsy types can be so emotional, right? And he and Riley fight like a cat and dog at the best of times but he does really have a soft spot for her.”
“Do you remember what Riley said to Mortimer?” A.J.’s pulse was starting to grow louder in her own ears as a series of emotions rattled through her. “To make him so angry?”
“…not really,” Daisy admitted sheepishly, looking around the hallway again, keeping her voice so quiet that A.J. had to lean closer again just to hear what she was saying. “But Riley used to say lots of silly things years ago. Lots of things that Mortimer didn’t like. I always thought she’d grow out of it but…” Her voice trailed off and for the briefest second, her smile flickered from her face. “Riley can be so forward with people and she can forget her manners. Sometimes she even accuses me of making the messes that her experiments make. I mean, can you imagine? Even I can get a little frustrated with her but…Mortimer really gave her a good talking to last night…if I remember correctly.” The puppet took a deep breath, her glassy eyes rolling around in their sockets before refocusing on A.J. “…and I think she could do with a little TLC right now, you know?”

“Don’t worry, Miss Danger,” A.J. whispered, now acutely aware that her nose was almost touching Daisy’s. “I’ll make sure Doctor Ruckus is alright.”
Daisy clasped her hands together, lips trembling in a silent prayer for a moment before one of the little wooden hands came to lightly chuck A.J. on the chin. “Thank you, honey-boo. I knew I could count on you.” She looked around one last time, still seeming convinced that they were being watched. “Can I also count on you to keep things neat and to be discreet? I’d hate for things to get muddled or for Riley to get in even more trouble.”

A.J. was about to reply when the creak of a door rang out in the hallway behind them. Over Daisy’s frilly, puffed-sleeve shoulder, the human woman’s eyes widened when she saw none other than Scout peek out and around the door. Their eyes met and they exchanged identical looks of horror.

“Whatever is the matter-?” Daisy moved to turn around.
A.J., possessed by her own terror, suddenly grabbed Daisy’s shoulders in a rather clumsy hug.
“I’m…I’m just worried about Riley too,” the human woman half-lied, trying to use every facial expression possible to signal to Scout to hide quickly. “…and I’m worried about you. I mean, how are you doing? Are you ok?” A.J. put her hand on the back of Daisy’s head, partially stroking her wooden hair, partially ready to prevent her head from turning around.
Thankfully, Scout and Avery managed to make a quick getaway just as Daisy Danger burst into a series of joyless sobs. “Oh sweetheart! It’s been so difficult as of late!”

A.J. shuddered, regretting everything when Daisy’s hosts’ arms suddenly came to wrap around her too, the lifeless zombie’s face brushing against her own. Through the black hood, A.J. could feel the wet warmth of the host’s half-open mouth.
“Things were never going to be easy-peasy but we’ve all got a lot on our plate,” Daisy was saying, sniffing slightly. Mercifully, she released A.J., giving her eyes a little wipe with the corner of her apron. “You’re a peach to ask me about myself but right now, I think it’s Riley who needs your help.”

“I agree,” A.J. nodded, resisting the urge to aggressively wipe her face and the far more powerful urge to scratch the living daylights out of her arms as they continued to walk. “But…I’m here to help all of you so if you do need any help with anything, don’t be afraid to ask me. Ok?”

She meant it too.
It frightened her with how much she meant it.

“Oh, you’re a doll, Amelia-Jane, it’s true,” Daisy simpered, tugging her to a stop outside one of the waste rooms. “Clara sure is lucky to have a kind mother like you.”
“I’m not Clara’s moth-.” But Daisy was already off in her own happy little world again.
“I’ll bring you girlies lunch after the read today!” she declared happily as she traipsed back down the corridor from where they had come. “I hope you like mutton and rhubarb filet!”

A.J. braced her stomach for what was about to come in more senses than one.
She turned her attention back to the door, realising where she was.
Back in the living days of the studio, she’d only ever been there once. One of the sewing assistants had accidentally tossed a perfectly good ream of tulle into the trash, mistaking its pattern for mildew. A.J. had volunteered to go dumpster diving to find it again. She had always been taught that taking on jobs that no one else wanted to do was a quick and efficient way to get into everyone else’s good books.
It mostly worked.
Mostly.

“Doctor Ruckus?”
She opened the door, cautiously uncertain of what she was about to walk into. If what the others had said was true, Riley was more than likely going to be in a worse mood than usual. For a brief moment, A.J.’s hand glanced over the penknife in her tool belt; if Riley went feral on her today, she didn’t have time to be knocked unconscious.
“…Doctor Ruckus? It’s me, A.J. I’m just here to do a check-in. Is that ok?”

She was met with no reply- only with the sonorous buzzing of flies around the hundreds of trash bags that were stuffed into the corners of the room.
“…Doctor…Ruckus?”
A.J. found herself reaching for the lightswitch, only to found that the dull, glowing bulbs above her head didn’t make much of a difference. The idea that she had been duped was just starting to cross her mind when she caught sight of Riley’s bright-crimson ponytail poking out and over the small hills of black plastic.
“I’m sorry if you’re busy,” A.J. told her, ready to be shrieked at. “Like I said, I’m just here for a check in- I’ll be in and out before you know it.”
It was when she noticed a shoe- the black loafer that Riley’s host wore, to be precise- poking out from behind one of the trash bags, that A.J. realised that something was very wrong indeed.
From this angle, Riley’s host would have to be sitting on the ground with their legs splayed out in front of them.
Very unlike the usually busy and brisk scientist puppet.

A.J. slowly peered around the corner, taken aback to see that Riley’s host was indeed sitting on the floor, their head tilted to the side and their free arm and legs splayed lazily on the grubby tiles. Riley herself was turned in towards her host’s chest, gloved hands covering her face and eyes.
Like a child crying into their parents’ chest.

A.J.’s mouth was dry as she recalled what Daisy had just told her.
She was suddenly fearful, knowing what she must do but afraid of what she might find out.
Just like when she’d found Uncle Theo passed out in his study with one eye still open.

“Doctor…Ruckus?” A.J. slowly stooped down, one hand on her penknife and one hand cautiously reaching out towards the puppet. “Is everything alright?”

When Riley turned around, A.J.’s mind went blank and her body froze and though her voice could make no sound, the voice inside the human woman’s mind was screaming.

Her entire lower jaw was missing, ripped from its hinges and left in tattered splinters. Riley’s tongue writhed aimlessly, protruding through her gloved fingers. One of her upper eyelids was missing too, eyelash line and all, and there were vicious scratches across her cheeks and forehead, clearly implemented by some kind of metal implement.

“Oh my God,” A.J. choked out in a hoarse, furious whisper, fear dissipating entirely as she sprang forward to hold the puppet’s upper body. “What…what did he do to you?”
Riley tried to wriggle away from A.J., feebly slapping the offending human at first but falling rigid, shaking and then limp in her arms.
Seemingly too weak to attack her.

The scientist pointed to a bulge in her pocket.
It held what remained of her jaw.

A.J. was incensed, drunk with anger. There was something so horrific about seeing Riley Ruckus, a beautiful puppet, a magnificent creation, mutilated so thoughtlessly in this way. Her distinct personality shift made everything that bit more tragic.
She grabbed one of Clara’s transport wraps from her duffle bag, cloaking the scientist puppet with it and grabbing at the host’s jacket.
“C-Can you stand? Can your host stand?”
Riley could only make a low gurgling noise in response but thankfully the host’s body began to shift and shakily climb to their feet. Keeping Riley tight to her chest and slinging the host’s encumbered arm over her shoulder. It wasn’t easy and it certainly wasn’t a graceful process but she managed to get them to hobble with her to the nearest workshop.
Riley whined and moaned a few times but A.J. couldn’t understand her, only responding with a whispered: “It’s ok. It’s ok. I know. I know.”
Like someone comforting a crying infant, she had no idea what Riley was saying, only the assertion that she needed some kind of reassurance.

A.J. closed the door of the workshop, directing the host to sit at one of the tables and forcibly shoving the elbow up against a vacant wire rack. Their elbow produced a sickening crack. She was vaguely aware that this would have caused a conscious host quite a bit of pain but she couldn’t have cared less. The host was going to be bruised and battered by the time she was done and that didn’t matter.
She was too focused on Riley.
Puppets were better than people. Toys always took precedence over their owners.
A.J. had once accidentally nicked a four-year-old with a sewing needle when trying to tear an abused baby doll from their arms.
She had apologised to the howling toddler and her parents not because she actually cared but because Marissa had asked her too. If anything, she thought the little brat should have apologised to the poor baby doll for what had become of it.

“What did he do to you? What did he do to you?” A.J. breathed over and over again as she prepped her tools and opened her diary to Riley’s page.
Without Riley’s voice to command her, she was careful to put her gloves on first and to make sure her goggles were properly positioned over her eyes. These were the things that she was sure Doctor Ruckus would have told her to do.
She worked as quickly as she could manage but with extreme care, her mantra soon changing from accusing to apologetic.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

The familiar whirr of the jigsaw brought Owen’s voice to mind, reminding her to keep her hand out of the gouge as she shaped the necessary pieces of wood.
Soon, scraps of sandpaper were bundled up and tossed around the desks, small curls of wood joining them like lumber-based snowfall as the Riley’s missing pieces started to take shape again.

“Try to let me know if anything is uncomfortable,” A.J. bade her, getting her screwdriver ready. Riley’s eyes, though they followed A.J.’s every move, seemed uncharacteristically vacant. Too reticent. Too timid.
Resetting Riley’s jaw into her cheek joints was easier to do now that she was working from scratch but her teeth still needed to be filed and re-painted. Even after her lower jaw was secured, Riley did not speak. She allowed A.J. to move her jaw to test it but didn’t attempt anything herself.
A.J. continued her whispered reassurances as she re-affixed the puppet’s eyelid, using Owen’s guidelines to replace her eyelashes too. Riley didn’t complain or so much as flinch when A.J. took the opportunity to polish her eyeballs and repaint her eye details.
It was only when the human craftswoman was mixing powdered polymer to repair the cracks in Riley’s face that the scientist finally spoke properly.

“If you’re expecting some kind of gracious thank you speech or exaltations,” she said, her voice wheezy but stern. “I suggest that you modify your expectations.”

“You don’t have to thank me for doing my job,” A.J. told her, silently thanking the stars that Riley Ruckus seemed to be somewhat back to her old self. She activated the heaped polymer and loaded it on to her flat-head brush. “This might feel a little bit hot at first but it’ll dry down pretty quickly.”

“Did Mortimer send you to do this?”
Her voice was a painful combination of cynical and hopeful.
As though she knew the truth but simultaneously didn’t want it to be so.
A.J. knew what Riley wanted to hear but she also respected her too much not to tell her the truth.

“Mr Handee allowed me to come and check on you because Mr Nack and Miss Danger were worried about you,” A.J. said, surprised at the venom in her own voice as she leaned down to survey the damage the magician had inflicted.

“I told both of those airheads to stop voicing their derision,” Riley sighed, irritably. “Lest they end up in my position.”

“They were both worried about you,” A.J. repeated between brush strokes. “And for good reason too.” She shifted her eyes back and forth from her handiwork to Riley’s lidded stare. “Mortimer really did this to you?”

“I…said some things I shouldn’t. I foolishly challenged what Mortimer had planned,” Riley said, almost ashamed. “He warned me and I carried on as though I didn’t understand.”

“That doesn’t give him an excuse to hurt you like this.”

“I gave up feeling pain many years ago. It’s entirely impractical to do so.”

A.J. began to paint over the cracks. “And he’s done this before?”
“Once or twice. Never usually to the degree that he becomes so violent with me.” Riley exhaled. “I imagine he’s simply stressed out. He would not have set a hand on me if it weren’t for the high stakes, no doubt.”

“That still doesn’t excuse this,” A.J. insisted, straightening up Riley’s collar to avoid it touching the wet paint.
“…he said he needed to remind me who was in control,” she said quietly and rather listlessly. “Maybe that’s what I needed.”
“You don’t need anyone to control you.”
The wooden scientist gave a small snort of laughter. “You’re a fool, host. I’m a puppet. Puppets are made to be controlled. That is our literal function.”
“You’re alive,” A.J. pointed out. “You’ve carved out your own existence. You shouldn’t be forced to do things against your will.”
“It is the cost of existing in this world. In our world. In your world,” Riley continued. “I’m merely an effigy. Do you know what that is, Amelia-Jane? It’s a disposable representation of something else. Made to be used and cast aside and don’t try to deny it either. I’ve read your literature; I know how your kind historically view mine.” She closed her eyes, letting out another small sigh. “And I’d rather be controlled by one of my own kind than one of yours.”

“It’s not mutually exclusive though. Humans control each other. Humans use each other” A.J. told her. “We dispose of each other too. You may be a puppet in “my world” but hundreds of people all over that world know who you are, care who you are and just your existence makes them happy. Without even trying, you’re more important and more loved than most humans could ever aspire to be.”

“You’re trying to flatter me.”
“I’m only stating facts. You agreed with me before: puppets are better than people.”
“Stating facts or trying to feed a god complex that you think I have?”
“I don’t think you have a God complex.” She briefly recalled that Scout once referred to Owen as “god” and was compelled to satiate her own curiosity. “Do you believe in any god?”

“I don’t need a god. I have science. I allow that to guide me,” she retorted, steely at first, then a little more retiring. “And…Mortimer’s plans…of course.”

A.J. noted a small tear in one of Riley’s gloves and instinctively took out her sewing pouch.

“Is he your god? Does he think he is?”

She didn’t know if it had happened during her fervent repairs or during Mortimer’s apparent assault but either way, it was her first instinct to fix it. She reached for Riley’s hand, only for the puppet to tug it away, instead putting it behind her back defensively.

“Mortimer is closer to godhood than our treacherous, lab-rat sire!” she spat. “Rather than see what was best for us, Owen would sooner have fed us to the fire!”

Despite this being the purported story, A.J. could still not imagine Owen every willing harm to come to any of the Handeemen. It would scarcely matter to him how vicious or psychopathic they had become, A.J. decided, Owen wouldn’t have ever wanted to destroy them.
Or maybe that’s what she needed to tell herself to explain her own mixed feelings towards the matter.

A.J. held out her hand for a second time, quietly petitioning to be given the glove as she said. “What do you think is best for you and the Handeemen?” Riley’s eyes narrowed at her again, prompting her to add: “In your most scientific opinion?”

The scientist puppet hesitated, slowly bringing her palm in front of her face, inspecting the little tear. “…according to Mortimer,” she said slowly, her fingers tracing the threadbare seam. “Our path forward is laden with transformation but I affirm, we can evolve as Handeemen without abandoning our stations. Mortimer has always been committed to a singular doctrine, our one guiding star but with time, I wish to grow beyond that yet…without changing what makes us who we are…” She clenched her fists. “I find it difficult in truth and perhaps it burdens me to have to say that…that I wish to learn and grow and yet to remain a puppet at the end of the day.”

A.J. raised an eyebrow, taken slightly aback. “What else would you be besides a puppet?”

“I d-don’t expect your ilk to understand!” Riley tried to spit but ended up spluttering, clearly having said more than she had intended to. “You are far too embedded in your host world teachings to ever conceive the power at our hands!” She thrust her hand in A.J.’s direction, forcing it into the woman’s hands with a haughty sneer. “Well, go ahead and make your meagre repairs. I grow tired of your lengthy stares.”
“The polymer is setting nicely,” A.J. acknowledged with a half-smile, taking her hand and threading her needle with the clearest pigment she owned.

Drawing the threads back into uniformity was tricky; it took her longer than she expected to find a point to rib the stitch from. It occurred to her that while the puppets’ costumes would have received upkeep from the crew, herself and (most recently) Daisy, the last time Riley’s gloves were touched with a needle was most likely by Owen.

A feeling of reverence stole over her again, her fingers moving to cradle Riley’s wooden knuckles in a way that he might have done.
An indignant flinch from the scientist, brought her back to reality. It was at this point that she noticed how intently Riley was watching her, her vivid eyes darting back and forth to follow every micromovement.
“It’s called darning,” she told the puppet, looping back over her initial weft to pull the torn sides together, grazing her gnarled thumb as if chiding her to put a thimble on. “It’s specifically used for repairing worn fabric.”
“Hmph,” Riley huffed, suddenly pretending not to be interested. “Your little sewing games would be better shared with Daisy, I confess. I suppose it was Owen who taught you this?”

“No,” A.J. told her, pulling the last string taut and breaking it. “It was my Oma.”

“What is an Oma?” Riley asked her quizzically, studying the completed glove for a moment with a kind of curious bemusement. “I heard you say it once before but the word still holds no sense wherefore.”

“My grandma. It’s German for grandma. German is-.”
“A language spoken by German people. Please, I am not so dim that I do not know basic geography. I can only assume that you yourself, therefore, must be from Germany?”
“No. I’m not,” A.J. told her, examining the solid polymer that had set in her face. “I was born here in the U.S. My family is German though. Or at least my grandparents were.” She took the hand mirror from her duffle bag, not wanting to dwell on the topic of her family for too long.  “I can start painting your face again now.”

For the second time, A.J. found herself with a paintbrush in her hand, facing down the mammoth task of restoring Riley Ruckus’ face. This time, the puppet was far more compliant and far more vocal, offering merciless critique feedback on virtually every stroke of A.J.’s brush. She seemed to enjoy using the notes in the human woman’s diary to direct which colours to use.

“I can alter the design if you want to,” A.J. offered, even though the idea made her skin crawl a little. “I did it a little for Mr Nack and Miss Danger. I could make your cheeks a little pinker if you want to, make your eyebrows a different shape…” Riley scoffed predictably, prompting A.J. to add. “I can file your teeth back to the shape that you picked out for them? So that you can be in your most comfortable form.”

“My most comfortable form,” Riley confessed, casting her eyes downward slightly as A.J. finished dotting her freckles into place. “Is with Rosco. I enjoyed when he and I shared a body; I felt as though I could truly-.” Her voice abruptly cut off, her wooden body going rigid with a shudder and a click.

It took A.J. a moment to catch on.
“…Doctor Ruckus, where is Rosco?”

Riley’s lower lip trembled slightly, her freshly painted eyebrows knitting.
“Rosco…he tried to bite Mortimer…and I told him to stop…Mortimer used some kind of spell from the book…he incapacitated Rosco…”
Heart pounding, A.J. leaned forward as Riley’s voice became ever quieter. “What did Mortimer do to Rosco? He didn’t-?”
“Rosco is imprisoned in the tunnels,” Riley told the human woman. “Mortimer said he was to remain there until it was appropriate for him to return. Though now, I fear, that is not something I will easily earn.”

A.J. saw a flicker of something imperceptible in the puppet’s eyes.
Something vulnerable.

“Do you know where in the tunnels he is?”
“…I have a fairly solid hypothesis but…Mortimer would still not allow me to-.”
“Rosco is the one member of the cast that I haven’t been able to work on yet. Mortimer told me to work on all of you. Rosco wasn’t issued as an exemption…”
Riley’s eyes narrowed at her sideways. “What are you implying?”
“That you’d be doing me a big favour if you were to take me to Rosco so that I could clean him up a bit,” A.J. told her. “And that I’d probably need you to stay with me to keep Rosco calm because I know he only answers to you and…” The human woman dropped her voice again. “…and if I were to accidentally release Rosco back into the studio, that couldn’t be helped.”
“What you’re suggesting is treason,” Riley replied, sounding stern but intrigued.
“And it would be my treason,” A.J. said firmly. “I’ll take any heat if things go awry.”
“…we would have to be…discreet.”
“They’re all at the first table read, right? Why would they care what I’m doing right now?”

Riley’s eyes slid towards the door and then slowly back to A.J.
“Then let us make haste before your newfound nerve goes to waste.”
“Alright.”

The puppet cleared her throat and it was at that moment that A.J. realised that she’d spent most of her time restoring Riley, kneeling on her host’s legs.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”
“I’ll forgive it. I’ll need to replace this one before it fades,” Riley Ruckus told her, adding with a surprising touch of lightness. “And you can help me replace it, should you survive today. If you continue to give me less reason to doubt, I might even let you stitch up its mouth.”

A.J. felt an odd mixture of trepidation, warmth and pride.
Which was particularly strange, considering Riley was asking her to enslave one of her own kind and to defile a corpse.

She checked her watch as they left the workshop, silently hoping that Scout and Avery were nowhere near the tunnels at that very moment.

****

Chapter Text

Rule 1: Don’t ask questions.

Rule 2: Don’t lose focus on the task at hand.

Rule 3: Don’t show uncertainty, panic or fret in front of your employers.

Rule 4: Never criticise your employer’s methods or ethos .

Rule 5: It is better to be useful than to be liked. Make yourself as useful as possible.

Rule 6: Show adaptability and resourcefulness even in an uncomfortable work environment.

Rule 7: Always strive to give more than the bare minimum. Don’t just reach targets: surpass them.

Rule 8: Don’t question the rules.

Rule 9: If all other plans fail, fuck the rules and make everything up as you go along.

(Handeemen Studios, 1998)

“Gross, gross, gross,” hissed Scout, rubbing her little felt mittens all over her woollen hair and face. “That was a close one!”

“I didn’t even see that tripwire,” Avery admitted in a guilty whisper, as they took refuge behind a row of beaten-up lockers. They ran their free hand through their own hair, feeling the stodgy, red liquid between their fingers.

Their investigations had brought them as far as the sewing rooms but supply closets were sealed with a mechanical lock that would need to be opened by another Handee-pin. As luck would have it, Daisy’s was easy to swipe from the kitchens. They had a close call but fortunately A.J. seemed to have been keeping her distracted. They were currently neck-deep in Nick Nack’s territory, having managed to find the next piece lodged in a Gramophone’s battery compartment. They’d successfully evaded Nick’s stage-hands but not without falling prey to a trap, having just had four buckets of paint dumped over their heads.

“At least it is just paint,” Avery pointed out, examining the flaky substance on the back of their hand before checking to make sure that they hadn’t left any footprints in their wake. “I think I managed to avoid stepping in any either.”

Scout sniffed her hands sceptically and made a gagging noise. “I don’t know; it smells weird. I don’t want to know what Nicky’s been using as a paint thinner.”
A creaking sound at their backs prompted, Avery to suddenly lift a finger to Scout’s fuzz-lined lips. They exchanged a series of silent cautions before the human dared to peek around the side of the lockers.
Another sock-puppet was shuffling its hulking form around the nearest corner. Its long, serpent-like tongue snaked out from its shredded maw, peeking through its dagger-like teeth like a predator peering out through a thicket of trees.

Avery shuddered; in the better light, they noticed for the first time that the sock-puppet’s teeth were all completely mismatched in colour, size and shape.
They all came from different animals.

The host waited until the pitiful, stitched-together wretch had shuffled its way back around the corner before signalling to Scout that it was safe for her to speak again.
It was strange, Avery thought; the longer they stayed connected to Scout, the more they could sense her movements. They could tell when she was about to speak and even, to a lesser degree, what she was about to say.

“Ok, so we’ve got Nick’s piece, we’ve got Daisy’s piece…ugh, looks like we’ll be going for Riley’s piece next.” Scout frowned deeply, her face creasing almost dramatically as her top jaw seemed to eclipse its lower counterpart. “That means we’ll be heading to labs and hoping that she and the hell-hound aren’t there.”
Avery could feel the little puppet start to shiver on their wrist and put a comforting hand on her back. “Hey, remember what Nick said down by the soundstage? Riley’s knocked out somewhere and Rosco’s probably out of commission too. We’ve got a pretty good chance of getting in and out of there with no problems but just in case…” Their eyes travelled back along the wall to the door of the security office. “We can always plot our way along using the cameras.”

“Ohh, that’s good. Ok, let’s go and do our thing before our Socky pal loops back around,” Scout declared, tugging at their upper sleeve as her head whipped back and forth.
Using the office security cameras and with Scout’s (scattered) knowledge of the studio’s layout, the duo was able to pick out a fairly safe course through the accountancy area to Riley’s reclaimed laboratory. That part of the building didn’t seem particularly populated but just to be safe, the two of them adjusted their disguises behind the door of the security office.

“Daisy told us to ditch the chef’s hat so we’ll have to be doubly sure that we don’t run into her again,” Scout remarked, giving her makeshift bandana a self-conscious tug.
“Well, that table read should keep them busy until one. That’s what A.J. said,” Avery reminded their loyal sidekick, helping her to tie the bandana’s knot.
“A.J. also said all five of them would be busy and yet we’re still covering our asses, looking out for Riley and Rosco.” Scout sounded faintly irked, straightening out her new black t-shirt in the reflection of a turned-off t.v. screen. “Mmpf. I still don’t look different enough. I need something to change my face.”
“If I know A.J., she’s probably keeping Riley and Rosco busy like she was keeping Daisy busy,” the host put forward as they sifted through the dusty contents of the security desk for a pen.
“Yeah, but you don’t know, A.J., do you?” the puppet countered with a shrug. “Look, it’s not that I’m grateful for her helping us and all but…I don’t know. I guess I just don’t trust her all that much yet. I mean, why is she still working for them? Why hasn’t she just gone to the cops yet? Like, she was involved with Owen and he was crazy obsessed with those puppets. They killed Owen but they haven’t killed her yet. It’s like: do the math. What if this is all some elaborate stunt and she’s just planning to hand us over to Mortimer?”
“She didn’t have to help me or you and if she was going to turn us over to Mortimer, this is going through an awful lot of effort to do that,” Avery said, successfully pulling a marker pen from a desk drawer. “She said it herself; she wants to take them down from the inside which considering how the LAPD treated me when I first called, is probably the only way to do it. Have a bit of faith.” They smiled as kindly as they could manage despite how sore their mouth felt. “Look, at the end of the day, if things don’t go our way, we’ve still got each other.”

“Meh, I guess I just have trouble trusting hosts. I mean you’re the exception to the rule but generally we were all pretty much taught not to trust a thing that comes out of any of your mouths. You know, when they’re not sewn shut.” Scout sighed and regarded her host with a raised eyebrow. “Just promise me that if things go to shit, you and me can just peace off and take a bus back to where you live?”

“Sure,” Avery nodded. “Now what kind of facial hair do you want?” 
“Huh?”
“You said you needed to change your face. Now what kind of facial hair do you want?”
“Hmm…a goatee. No! No! A handlebar moustache….no! Wait! No! Some tough five o’clock shadow. Some real Detective Noir stubble, if you please.”
Avery chuckled softly and obliged. “Ok. Hold still.”

A few minutes later, the two emerged with Scout looking a bit like a former convict and made their way to what used to be an employee med-bay.
“Careful opening the door,” Scout reminded Avery. “There’s the very real possibility that Riley’s got some live subjects in here.”
“Good call.”

Avery cautiously peered around the door, looking from the grimy countertops lined with ominously glinting instruments to a series of busted, rusty gurneys.
Satisfied that nothing appeared to be moving, (or screaming), they shuffled inside. After a quick check that the security cameras seemed to be off, Avery doffed their chef’s hat and took a moment to enjoy the unencumbered air- before the smell of death practically crawled down their throat and nostrils.

“Right,” Scout muttered affirmatively as they looked around. “The first time Riley left that thing in some poor bastard’s insides. While I am hoping beyond hope that it’s not somewhere gross again, I have foreseen the future and I predict that you and I will be switching places within the next hour and we will both be seeing something that smashes Riley’s Hippocratic oath within the next five-…” She hovered over a nearby counter, staring at the contents of a murky glass box. “Oh, oh my Owen…I’m gonna barf! What is that thing?!”

Avery reluctantly peered over at the offending case and instantly wished that they hadn’t. The writhing, wriggling creature trapped beneath the glass looked like it had once been some kind of rodent. Though, under Riley’s hand, the thing appeared to have the head of a bird forcibly stitched on to its shoulder using a mixture of wire and yarn. To accommodate for any issues in anatomy, Doctor Ruckus seemed to have extended the unfortunate hybrid’s limbs and torso using stiff felt material, encrusted blood looped around its joints.
The worst part was that the thing was still very much alive.
The rodent head’s eyes seemed to have been poked out with wire, its tongue lolling out of its mouth as it struggled to breathe.
The bird head looked up in their direction, its eyes wide staring and horrified.
Horrified at what it had become but unable to cry for help.
No doubt it had been taught what happened to any test subjects who had the nerve to cry out for help.  

“Should we put it out of its misery?” hissed Scout, covering her own eyes as best as she could manage but still sneaking the occasional glance at the wheezing, little monster.
Avery shook their head, not in the mood for bloodshed at their own hand or at Scout’s either. “No,” the host half-lied. “I hate to see it suffer but if Riley comes back and sees one of her experiments has kicked the bucket, it might tip her off that we’re here.”

“Mmm, good point,” Scout said, adding with a shudder. “I just hope Riley’s piece of the pin isn’t embedded in that thing’s bird-rat guts.”

They hunted around the room, searching high and low for the elusive scrap of metal. While Scout remained squeamish and Avery remained cautious, they tried to be as thorough as possible.
Riley’s machines sat stationary against the grotty tiles of the counter-tops, like feral animals chained and muzzled- just waiting for someone to tell them to bite. A series of mottled glass jars of varying size were squeezed into every available shelf, each filled with a dubious mixture of fabric, yarn and something notably organic.
Some simply looked mouldy, some looked rusty while others contained recognisable body-parts.

“See anything in there?” the human asked, lifting Scout up to get a closer look.
“Ugh, no,” Scout groaned, examining one jar before doubling over dramatically. “But I think I knew the guy who owned that eyeball in there. Poor sap.”
“Mmm, where would she put it?” Avery frowned, looking around the room for the umpteenth time. “It was inside that puppet last time but I can’t see any more surgery victims around here.”
“Besides the live ones,” Scout commented grimly.
“Yeah, but we need to make sure we’ve exhausted all of our other options before we start slicing anything or anyone open, right?” The host’s eyes fell upon a series of busted filing cabinets next to what would have been a nurse’s desk. “What about in there?”

Avery managed to jimmy the main lock open with their co-opted Swiss Army Knife, (and some limited help from Scout) and the two watched as a series of drawers rolled out with the air of a set of unpiloted minecarts.

“I’m surprised that these survived the fire,” Avery remarked, using their free hand to start searching through the compartments, sifting past the chunky brown envelopes and slightly yellowed leaves of paper.
“What are these?” Scout marvelled, instantly tugging several pages from their sheaths and pressing them to her nose. Her host paused thoughtfully, only having just remembered that Scout couldn’t read human lettering.
“Employee medical reports, it looks like,” Avery told her. “So, like if a member of the crew or cast got hurt or sick, they’d send them here to see the nurse.”
“Huh,” Scout mused. “So, kind of like what they do here with Riley except she’s liable to amputate one of your limbs or give you an extra spleen if she feels like it.” The puppet stuck her tongue out, gagging and then taking a thoughtful pause of her own. “Wait, doesn’t that mean there’d be files in here about Owen and A.J. too?”

Avery hadn’t said it out loud but the thought had crossed their mind almost immediately.
They murmured something about it not being good to pry and continued to look through the files as Scout continued to narrate her own efforts.

“I swear to…I mean…why are some of these things so easy to find and some of them are so damn hard? Like, this time and last time! Some of these pieces are practically handed to us and others, we’ve gotta like solve a puzzle or perform complex organ surgery…like if I didn’t know any better…I’d swear Mortimer was just fucking with us…”

Avery wasn’t really listening anymore- not fully anyway.
Their eyes had been scanning through the little plastic name-tabs that roofed the assorted files. It wasn’t long before their eyes settled on one in particular.

Amelia-Jane Schwarzwald- Crew: Props, Costume and Puppet Upkeep

“…and like, why did Nick go to all the trouble of designing a fucking scavenger hunt, complete with a piano puzzle for his first piece and then just threw the second one into a gramophone? I mean like, hello, please be consistent at least…”

Scout was too busy to notice when Avery delicately pulled the sheet of paper from behind the divider. In their own head, they reasoned that they would let A.J. know that it was there in case there was sensitive information that she wanted to be rid of.
However, the puppet’s voice echoed in the back of their head all the same: “Yeah, but you don’t know, A.J., do you?”

Curiosity gripped Avery as they noticed that A.J.’s record seemed longer than those of other employees that they’d gotten a glimpse of.
She’d only been working with Handeemen Studios for slightly under two years but there were a lot of entries. It looked like A.J. had gone to, (or been sent to), see the nurse at least twice a month.
Most of the notes seemed pretty benign- the odd splinter here or pinprick there- but some seemed a bit more concerning. There was a particular block of reports that really caught Avery’s attention:
-4^th September 1986: Fainted in the cafeteria, scratch marks present on arms
-10^th September 1986: Arm cut by jigsaw, nails severely bitten
-11^th November 1986: Referred by Lewis, fainted, short of breath, scratch marks present on arms and upper torso
-20^th November 1986: Headache, complaining of insomnia, nails still severely bitten, evidence of skin picking on arms, neck and shoulders.
-26^th November 1986: Sent by Matilda, sweating profusely, short of breath, shaking, refused to be sent home

The list went on.
Avery’s attention was then drawn to where the nurse’s notes had been written, their heart thumping uncomfortably.

• 20 years old. No major allergies. History of heart attacks in the maternal family.
• Average to poor diet. Flip flops between intermittent fasting and binge eating. (self-report)
• Smokes 10/11 a day (self-report)
• Drinks 2.5 units of alcohol a week (self-report)
• 5/6 hours sleep a night, complains of occasional insomnia (self-report)
• Anxious, frequently picks at skin, pulls hair, scratches arms (observation)
• Evidence of possible self-harm (informational pamphlet dispensed)
• Evidence of possible drug use (needle marks in the upper arms)
• Possible necessity for a referral. Production should be notified regarding her ability to work independently
• ANOTHER possible “customer” of Mark’s from Accounting. Can someone PLEASE inform Owen that one of our accounting team has been selling uppers and downers to the interns?!

“Hey, hosty! Are you listening? Oh, what’s that? Any clues?”
Avery jumped slightly, feeling their own forearm snap back to their upper chest as Scout craned to see what they were reading. The human immediately shoved the paper back inside the plastic folder.
“No,” they admitted bashfully. “I’m just being nosy. Nothing important there, really.”
“Come on, Avery! We gotta do this before…” Scout’s eyes trailed over her host’s shoulder. “Huh, check that out. There’s something in that bathroom.”

Thankful for the sudden change of topic, Avery immediately made their way over to the door with Scout in tow.
The little puppet fiddled with the light-switch, having no luck. “Yo. Bop me on the head. Let’s light this place up.”
Avery obliged and with Scout’s eye-lights activated, they were able to hunt around the darkened, single cubicle bathroom.
The original thing that had caught Scout’s eye was the mirror above the sink- or rather what had become of it. The glass of the mirror had been viciously cracked and splintered with a murky substance daubed all over it.
It was just as Avery began to notice a pattern in the markings that Scout suddenly piped up: “Hey, that’s Riley’s handwriting.”

“Oh yeah, you guys have your own language, right?” the human recalled, noting the triangles, stick-figures and other wingdings that appeared on the glass.
“Our own alphabet…yeah…” Scout’s voice was a little quieter, trailing off as her lit-up eyes darted back and forth.
“…what did Riley write?”
“She says,” Scout began with a small swallow, extending her hand to point to each series of symbols as she read. “He is still lying to us all, yet I must follow along. I anticipate soon our downfall, every part of this is wrong.”
“…wow, that’s…intense. Do you think she’s talking about Mortimer?”
“She must be,” Scout’s tone slowly warped back to its flippant drawl. “Heh, between this and her forgetting to rhyme, she’s really losing it- huh?”
“Wait, what’s that?”

Sure enough, jutting out of the bottom of the mirror, partially embedded into the glass was, what appeared to be, a jagged coin.

“That’s Riley’s piece!” Scout declared, giving a little whoop of triumph as Avery went about prising it from the mirror. “Huh, I’m gonna restate my original point. I feel like the Handee-maniacs are starting to half-ass where they’re hiding their shit.”
“Did you actually want to go performing puppet autopsies again?” the human quizzed, gingerly taking the piece into their palm before adding it to their pocket with the others. 
“Well, no but,” Scout flailed her arms. “Ugh! Let’s just get the last piece already. Mortimer basically handed it to us last time.”
“Where’s Mortimer’s territory then?”
“Mmm, pretty much everywhere but…”
“But?”
“His base of operations is pretty much Owen’s old office. We should probably start there.”
“Alright, let’s do that.”

Before leaving the lab, Avery made a point to grab their chef’s hat, only to find it had vanished from the counter where they had left it.

“Shit. Where did it go?”
A loud squelching sound appeared to answer their question and turning around, Scout and Avery beheld one of Riley’s dog-creatures huddled at the back of the lab, chewing the paper hat in its disfigured maw like its life depended on it.
This one was missing all but one leg and had multiple poorly stitched incisions all over its body, including a series of wire loops to sew its eyes and ears shut. It lifted its head in their direction but whimpered pitifully at the sound of Avery taking a single step closer. The creature seemed to curl into its own mutilated torso, still clutching the hat in its teeth.

“…it can keep the hat,” Avery conceded, not feeling much like saying anything else.
“Well, fuck, now we’re in a pickle,” Scout pointed out. “You can’t exactly walk around with nothing on your face.”
“Yeah, any ideas on that?”
Scout looked around the room, her eyes falling on a small cluster of black, host-shaped bags in the corner of the room. All of them were flung haphazardly atop each other, all of them contorted into unnatural positions and all messily spray painted with a symbol that Scout knew only too well.
Scout knew it only too well because it was a symbol that Riley frequently tried to spray paint on her.

“Defective.”

“I have one idea,” Scout murmured, stroking her fake stubble. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

A few awkward, disgusting, confusing moments later, Avery had managed to squeeze their head into an uncomfortably too-tight, second-hand black head-sack. If taking it off of its still-too-warm, still-too-damp corpse had been an uncomfortable experience, wearing it was another thing altogether. The odour was beyond bad or even repulsive; it was oppressive.

Scout would admire how well Avery held it together as they ambled back up the corridor. If anything, their new drunken shuffle only added to their performance as a mindless zombie.
“How you holding up there, bud?”
“…I think it’s a good idea if we just keep moving and I keep my mouth shut.”
“Cool, right, ok. So, Mortimer’s office should be somewhere through the main foyer. We can try the corridor behind the security off- FUCK!”
Scout suddenly veered off into an alcove, forcing Avery to follow as though they were being hauled by the arm.

“Scout, what the he-?”
“SHH!”

She pressed her tiny felt mitts against Avery’s lips, silencing them and staring out into the corridor from their shadowy, hiding place. They followed the puppet’s terrified gaze as a long shadow stretched across the wall, its dark limbs like creeping vines.
A loud clicking served as a herald for the appearance of Mortimer Handee.
His human host was leaning on a cane, wobbling vicariously as the crooked form made its way down the hallway. Despite this, the wooden magician still remained regally upright, like a captain presiding over the bow of his ship.
The concealed duo watched in silent fear as the leader of the Handeemen paused near their hiding place. With breath held, the two watched as his host stumbled slightly, prompting the puppet to grab the cane himself to straighten the two of them up

“Drat, this one is starting to give up the ghost,” he murmured, prodding the unfortunate man’s drunkenly lolling head with single, spindly finger. “Later, I’ll have to drag Riley out and have her change this defective host.”
And then with a coda of clicks and clatters, the head Handeeman made his way back through the doors that led to the soundstage.

It wasn’t until a full five minutes after he’d left before Scout dared to whisper.
“I don’t remember Mortimer ever having a walking stick like that. I can’t tell whether it makes him more vulnerable or just, like, scarier.”
Avery looked to her. “I think I just figured out where he’s keeping his piece of the pin and it’s not going to be easy to get it.”

*****

A.J. noticed that Riley kept looking over her host’s shoulder.
In particular, her dual-tone eyes kept flicking up and down the walls, scanning every possible corner.
“Cameras,” thought the human woman. “She’s looking for cameras. That, or Mortimer has some other kind of surveillance system that we didn’t have back in the day.”

“Please try to keep up the pace,” the puppet hissed at her companion, beckoning with a gloved hand. “Lest you fall behind and get lost in this place.”
A.J. didn’t need to be told twice. They were currently deep in the bowels of what used to be the back stairwell. According to Riley, they would find Rosco chained up somewhere down there.
The puppet’s fear was evident, marked by the fact that she kept pausing to make sure that they weren’t being followed.

“If Mortimer catches us,” A.J. told the puppet, her voice appropriately low. “I’ll take all the blame, just like I said. You can tell him that I made you take me to Rosco.”
Riley’s furtive vigilance was abruptly interrupted by this comment, her wary quivering immediately replaced by a look of loathsome ire. “From the ignorance of hosts, I will always crave reprieve. How is it, that you can still be so naïve?” She glared at A.J., her voice still warbling. “I’ll remind you again that you have no power in our chain of command. Mortimer would refuse to believe that I was forced by your hand.”
“Just trying to be helpful,” the human woman conceded, lifting her hands in surrender.
“I will tell you when your help is required,” the puppet insisted. “Until then, it is your obedience that is desired.”

“Sure, sure, sure. Back at Handeemen Studios, my only valuable personality trait is my obedience, as always,” A.J. thought astringently, but she said nothing, only nodding compliantly.

A.J. tried to keep track of the number of turns but it wasn’t long before she’d completely lost count. She wasn’t even sure if they were still under the main building anymore.
The once-stagnant, musty air became cold, engulfing them as they rounded another corner. Each turn seemed identical to the last and each expanse of murky, damp bricking no different to the one that came before. Despite that, Riley seemed to be intimately aware of where they were going, leading A.J. with zeal as soon as the studio seemed to be silent behind them. The puppet barely spoke, merely steepling her fingers and muttering under her breath in rhyme. The craftswoman’s eyes slid to her jaw hinge and the areas of her face that had been damaged. In physical terms, she was holding together nicely but she stilled seemed shaken.
It was when they passed a series of rusty, metal sewer grates that A.J. realised that she did recognise this part of the tunnels.
It was where she and Jake would occasionally meet up for a smoke.
And where she would hide on the days when the day got too loud and too cold.

A low, unnatural growl rippled through the silence, dragging A.J. back to the reality of her current situation and inspiring a manic cry from Riley. “Oh…oh my sweetheart...! My Rosco. I’m so sorry that we’ve had to be apart!”
The scientist puppet charged around the corner with her arms outstretched in anticipation.
It was at this point, A.J. started to remember her last experience with Rosco and just what she was dealing with here. Her steps became cautious as she fell back behind the puppet; if Riley’s bragging was to be believed, he was trained to attack any “hosts” on sight.
Especially ones without puppets.

“My baby!” The puppet certainly wasn’t bragging anymore. Rather, despite the evident lack of tears, she sounded close to sobbing.
The puppet dog was chained down by every limb, each series of metal links wrapped around its make-shift legs and roughly tied rather than manacled to the pipes around him. A thicker, rustier length was wrapped around its neck, however Rosco’s jaw was left distinctly unmuzzled.
The puppet dog had been struggling- that much was evident.
His hide was shredded beyond recognition in places and Rosco’s “hosts” had evidently taken some abuse, huge patches of crimson starting to bloom out across the fur at his joints and spine.
The human woman was instantly filled to the brim with fear but her fingers were practically itching to begin her repairs and restoration process.

“Oh, my wonderful, loyal, good boy. I hope you haven’t-.” Riley moved closer to the demonic-looking Labrador.
Suddenly, Rosco snarled and lunged in the direction of the puppet, prompting both women to reel backwards to avoid his snapping jaws. A.J. was taken by surprise because while she’d expected for the dog to take a bite out of her, his teeth had only barely missed the sleeve of Riley’s lab coat.

“R-Rosco, my dearest boy,” Riley stammered. “It’s…it’s t-time to calm down n-now…”
The demon hound snarled loudly, his nostrils flaring like caverns before he took a second snap in his mistress’ direction.

Riley took a sharp inhale, her voice reedy and thin. “It’s no use at all. He won’t heed my call.”
A.J. recognised it because it was the same sound that frequently had escaped her own throat when she had been standing in these same dark tunnels.

“Hey, look,” she said, trying to keep her voice as gentle as she would when she was repairing a particularly delicate toy. “It’s ok. He’s probably traumatised. He’s been chained up down here for a while, right? Even the most loyal animals can be-.”

“It’s not that, there’s no blame to assign,” Riley replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “Rosco won’t listen to me because…he isn’t mine.” Her eyelids were quivering, her shoulders hunched and her hands clasped as she stared at the hound with a look that A.J. could only describe as heartbreak.

“What?” the human woman exclaimed, staring at the puppet in incredulity. “What do you mean? Of course, he’s yours. I saw you order him around upstairs. On the show, Rosco was like your other half and you’re the one who-.” A.J. gestured to the entirety of the beast’s body. “Put him together again, right?”

Riley shook her head, walking to the end of the tunnel, still breathing heavily. “No, no, no. I built his current form: that much is true but it was Mortimer who granted him life anew. Rosco imprinted upon our leader with animal-nature as their binder. I am not Rosco’s mistress, merely his minder.” Riley hung her head, her shoulders shaking. “Mortimer allows me to act as Rosco’s carer and in return, I follow his plans…but now because of my in subordinance, poor Rosco will suffer at his hands!”  

“I don’t…I don’t get it,” A.J. continued, putting some distance between herself and the growling dog and following Riley. “What would Mortimer have to gain from keeping Rosco? Why-?”

“Of course, you don’t get it!” Riley cried, turning around on the spot with such force that she almost knocked A.J. over. “Mortimer keeps Rosco under his control in order to keep me under his control!” Fury melted into despair again and for the second time that day, the craftswoman watched as Riley Ruckus retreated into herself. “He knows that I can’t bear to see Rosco hurt and beyond my beloved science, he is the only thing that gives my life any meaning or joy!” A.J. had long noticed that the Handeemen’s predisposition to rhyme seemed to dissipate in particular moments of high emotion but this was the starkest example that she’d encountered yet. Any trace of sing-song snarkiness had completely evaporated from Riley’s voice and all that was left were the dregs of a very-broken, very-human sounding woman. “All I had to do was fall in line, keep my mouth shut, stop asking questions…I fooled myself that Mortimer might listen to me this time but-!”

“But you’ve only ever tried to help Mortimer’s cause! You said it yourself! You do everything here. Why would he have any reason to think that you wouldn’t fall in line?”

“Because…of what happened many years ago.” The puppet looked over her shoulders again, her head twisting at unnatural degrees. When she spoke again, she looked at A.J. with restored intensity and seemed to be struggling to keep her voice down. “Mortimer…Mortimer was becoming obsessed with that lab rat who dared to call himself our father. He was losing focus of everything and changing his mind about what he wanted every two seconds. There were times he’d be perfectly content with how everything was going and then mere minutes later, he’d berate us for not heeding some bizarre command that he’d forgotten to even issue…”

“Like father, like son,” a tired and bitter voice in the back of A.J.’s mind couldn’t help but quip.
Her real voice didn’t say anything though, instead allowing Riley to go on, uninterrupted.

“He found out that I was trying to resurrect Rosco in my spare time and as punishment for not devoting my every, waking, minute to his plans, he ordered me to destroy my beloved dog! Can you imagine!?”
Her speech came fast and flowing; mirroring that of a person who had not been allowed to speak her mind in a very, very long time.

“So, I made a plan. We made a plan. Myself, Daisy and Nick. I thought we were all on the same page but-.” She clenched her fists, looking very much like she wanted to punch the hard stone walls that surrounded them, (A.J. was very thankful that she didn’t). “Nick, that imbecile, got some other crazy idea in his head and when Mortimer pushed him on the matter, he didn’t stand a chance.”

“What were you all going to do?”

“It was a…rebellion of sorts. A coup d’etat, if you will. I had assurance that all other puppets would back me as the new leader.”

“But Mortimer figured it out?”

“Yes,” she confirmed with a grim nod. “At first, I was foolish enough to think that he was rewarding me when he brought Rosco forth. Against all facts and logic, I genuinely wanted to believe that he had a change of heart but…” She shook her head again, her eyes sliding past A.J. to stare back at the growling, struggling dog-puppet who was chained up behind them. “He told me that if I wanted Rosco, I would have to play by his rules from then on. He knew I wouldn’t say no and even if I had…Rosco was Mortimer’s to command…and so, he set Rosco on the others.”

Something intangible was stirring in A.J.
Like a music-box with something stuck in the gears.
Something that was slowly being crushed and ground down between the sharp, metal cogs.

“He quashed our rebellion in one fell swoop. Daisy and Nick barely survived and they weren’t the same after that. I didn’t do anything to protect them because I was so afraid of losing Rosco.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Daisy and I used to be very close at one time. Nick and I…we used to have full conversations without me wanting to kill him.” A smile flickered at the corners of her lips for the briefest moment before fading. “They both pretend not to remember those days…sometimes I think the two of them might have just blocked out the memory entirely…I wish I could do that too, sometimes but no matter how I force myself to think, I just…can’t.” Her eyes dropped to the ground and A.J. was both amazed and horrified when several tears suddenly fell upon the stone path between them. “I stopped calling Mortimer father after that. It…it didn’t feel right anymore.”

A.J. didn’t say anything at first, words turning to ash in her mouth as a pressure began to build in her temples to accompany the slow pounding in her chest.

“I thought maybe if I sewed my own host into Rosco, it would bring us closer together again. Maybe it would remind him who I was…maybe I’d feel safer…maybe Mortimer would…” Her voice trailed off. “He didn’t like the idea. Not one bit. He uses aesthetics as an excuse but really, he just wants to ensure that I’m kept on as short as lead as Rosco.”

Riley wiped her eyes with the back of her glove, a familiar fire creeping into the corners of her eyes again.
“Well? What have you got to say, human-host!? Will you berate me the most!? Will you abandon me as did my creator!? Will you run to Mortimer and out me as a traitor!?”

A.J seized Riley’s host by the arm and started hauling her back towards Rosco.

“What are you doing!? Unhand me!”
Being slapped in the neck with a hard wooden hand was worth getting to hear the spark return to Riley’s voice, she decided.

“We’re doing what we came here to do,” A.J. told her, weathering her blows without complaint. “We’re going to fix Rosco.”
“Are you deaf or have you lost your mind like so many of your kind, before? I have no control over Rosco anymore.”
“Rosco might have imprinted on Mortimer but he’s your dog. I don’t know how puppet animals work but where I’m from, animals don’t stay loyal to people who torture them. You take care of him. You have his best interests at heart. He is your dog and we are going to help your dog whether he likes it or not.”  

Riley continued her increasingly feeble protests but allowed A.J. to walk her closer to Rosco’s snapping maw. It was only at this renewed proximity that the human’s own courage began to waver slightly. She’d never been one to deal with animals aside from repairing china dolls who’d fallen befoul of a cat’s shelf-walking path or teddy bears reduced to chew toys.
“Rosco is a puppet,” she told herself in a vain attempt at consolation. “He’s just a big, snapping, drooling, barking puppet.”

“…we’ll have to muzzle him first,” Riley said, stroking her chin slightly as she looked around the tunnel. “Lest his struggling gets any worse. Ah! Eureka!” She pointed at a length of grimy, knotted rope in one of the puddles on the ground. “This will suffice. What are you waiting for? Don’t make me say it twice.”

“Nice to have you back, Doctor Ruckus,” A.J. thought, stooping to grab the slimy length and then surveying the now-very-irate dog. “His legs are all chained so if I get on to his back, I should be able to slip the rope around his jaws.”

In truth, this was not the first time she’d ever done something in this vein.
Working for Afton Robotics could be, at the best of times, a mixed bag and she’d had to deal with her own fair share of snapping jaws before. The difference, in most cases, was that the animatronic animals still had some semblance of cognition and could usually be tricked or persuaded into allowing A.J. to put her hands into their mouth with few problems.
In the more extreme cases, she could always wait until they had to stagger into a charging station or were decommissioned for the evening.

There was one case, however, that staring at rabid Rosco very much brought to mind. A certain pair of jaws had once almost taken A.J.’s arm off, resulting in her needing to secure said pair of jaws shut.
This, unfortunately, had resulted in the animatronic trying to head-butt her instead, she recalled, feeling a phantom pain shoot through her forehead.

She gathered the rope into her hands, wrapping two lengths around one palm and preparing to create a clove hitch knot. “…I’ll need to tie his head too.” Her eyes wandered upward, spotting a suitably strong-looking pipe. “I can lash it to that, if you can keep him busy long enough.”
“I can keep him suitably distracted as long as you ensure your plan is suitably enacted,” Riley told her primly, adding in a slightly softer tone. “Just…don’t hurt him. Please.”

“I promise. I’ll do my best not to hurt him,” A.J. replied, meaning it. “If you think I’m starting to hurt him, let me know.” She walked to Rosco’s back-side, edging around to his flank as she got the rope ready. In truth, now that she was staring at the dog’s coarse fur, she realised just how limited her knowledge in this particular situation was. The hound’s massive head lifted and his eyes followed her every step, growls punctuating her every movement.

A.J. took another step towards him and Rosco let out a deafening bark, warning her away.
Riley stepped a little closer, clicking her fingers: “Rosco! Rosco, where’s my good boy? I’d bet you’re missing your chew toy?”
The dog’s head swivelled around to snarl at the puppet scientist but the words “chew toy” seemed to beckon his attention a little more positively. His ears lifted and his tail gave a hesitant wag.

Taking the opportunity, A.J. lunged at Rosco’s side, jumping on to his shaggy pelt and hauling herself on to his back. Not liking this one bit, the dog immediately threw his head back, trying to dislodge his new unwanted passenger.
Desperate to avoid being flung back to the ground, A.J. dug her fingers into the dog’s grimy hide. For a brief, horrifying second, she had forgotten that Rosco’s “skeleton” was made up of a series of mutilated human bodies. When her fingers tried to seek purchase in the hide, she was immediately met with the grotesque feel of an unfortunate host’s head.

“Rosco! Look what I’ve got here for you! I’ve got something much nicer for you to chew!”
Riley produced what appeared to be a mostly dead rat from her pocket. A.J. was just about to question how long that had been in there when Rosco stopped struggling, his ears lifting again as he stared at the rat with interest.
Seizing the opportunity, A.J. looped her clove hitch around the pipe that lined the roof of the tunnel. Tugging the rope taut as Rosco caught the rat in his mouth, she tied a second hitch around the dog’s occupied jaws.
He growled and whimpered in protest but thankfully, seemed unable to pull free. Not wanting to waste another moment, A.J. allowed herself to slide off of the dog’s back and dove for the duffle bag that she had left on the ground.

“I’m going to start by taking out some of the matting in his fur,” she told Riley. It wasn’t going to be perfect but it was going to be a start and would at least blend some of the mismatched patches together. She took out her grooming comb and some cleaning fluid. The comb was originally made for grooming out horse hair but she’d also found that it worked extremely well on long-haired plush-toys.

With his head restrained and his mouth occupied, Rosco wasn’t able to tear chunks out of A.J. as she started to comb out his pelt.
If anything, he was at least moderately content to have Riley coo and croon at him. In fact, it wasn’t long before he was even happy enough to let his former mistress pet his face.
“My sweet, handsome, canine friend! I knew you’d remember me in the end.”

Rosco began to shuffle against his restraints, his tail wagging wildly. A.J. had to duck a few times to avoid taking a serious blow to the head or throat.
Her impromptu game of dodgeball aside, the dog stayed relatively happy, seemingly so starved of attention that he was content to keep his own attentions on Riley.

It was when A.J. was combing sanitising powder, (a handy furniture cleaning tool that she often co-opted for her own needs), through Rosco’s matted neck to remove any dried blood that she started to really notice the buckle in the puppet-beast’s lower back.
She had felt the dip when she was straddling him but had been otherwise preoccupied at the time. Now, looking at him objectively, it was impossible to ignore the fact that his back legs weren’t extending properly.

“It’s one of the hosts inside,” Riley commented ruefully, arms still wrapped around Rosco’s neck as she followed A.J.’s gaze. “It’s taken some damage; it can no longer be denied.”
The human swallowed back a sigh, already dreading the answer to the question that had to be asked. “So…how do we fix it?”
“It cannot be done from outside,” the puppet replied, matter-of-factly and between nuzzles with her beloved dog. “To repair the host, we must venture beneath Rosco’s hide.”

“I’ll need you to lead me on this one,” A.J. admitted, hoping with every fibre of her being that Riley would insist on doing it alone. “I’ve repaired endoskeletons and exoskeletons before but not ones that are…organic.”

The puppet waved a hand, tugging her goggles to cover her eyes. “The process must be precise but it is fairly rudimentary to comprehend. Simply follow my instructions and we’ll soon fix my dear friend.”

A.J. nodded as Riley moved to her side, adjusting her own goggles and head-lamp.
She eyed Rosco, who was now amusing himself by chewing on a length of something fleshy and slimy. “Is he going to be alright with us poking around inside him?”

“Rosco is a good boy, he is well trained,” Riley haughtily told her, though her eyes slid sideways as she adjusted her gloves. “Though considering his current status, we’ll remain thankful for the integrity of the chains.”

A.J. nodded, her neck feeling distinctly stiff and knees feeling rather weak as she followed the scientist’s lead, crouching down to where the dog’s belly hung.
She had been getting good at ignoring the smell up until now but at this point, it was so overwhelming that it was making her eyes hurt.
She wished she had something to let her mind escape, maybe like a pill, but she couldn’t even do her trick of taking apart objects because as she stared at the split pelt between her fingers, she found herself not wanting to think about his individual components.

She was about to see them anyway.

Riley lifted the coat, disappearing underneath and A.J. took a gulp of stale air before following her.
What she saw before her was maddening.
The kind of sight that her brain was steadily erasing these images just as she was seeing them.
Her headlamp illuminated the horrific innards, shining an argent tongue across a series of twisted limbs and torn flesh. Their bodies were contorted into unnatural positions- such that if they had been fully conscious- they would be screaming. Riley hadn’t bothered cloaking their faces so A.J. could see their blood-shot, dead-eyed stares.
Something inside her had always had this latent hope- an insane, fleeting thought- that if one of the hosts were to somehow wriggle free, they would be fine. Just like Avery, they could walk away from the studio in one piece.
That would not be possible with these hosts, their bodies mangled beyond simple recognition. If it wasn’t for small cues like skin tone, A.J. wouldn’t have been able to tell which one was which.
Her stomach pulled tight and her mouth started to flood with saliva: the telltale signs that vomiting was imminent.

“Here is the fault, at the lower lumbar part of the spine,” Riley orated, directing A.J.’s attention to an area where the host’s pelvic bone had detached from the pelt. “If you were to stitch it back into place, his back would align…”
Rosco grumbled and rumbled around them, as if growing impatient.

A.J. nodded. “Sure. One second. Just gonna grab my darning needle.”

She slipped out from the hide, breathing as much fresh air as her lungs would hold and throwing the contents of her stomach up in a dark corner of the tunnels before she retrieved her needle.
“Don’t question your employer. Go above and beyond. Don’t show uncertainty or panic,” A.J. ran through her list of rules in her head as she crouched back down beside Riley, raising a slightly quivering hand to the mutilated human body. “Don’t think of it as a human body. Think of it as craftsmanship. This is excellent craftsmanship.”

Thankfully, Riley lifted her own little wooden hand up to prop the human torso in place as A.J. started to reattach the twine.
She mourned and marvelled the fact that it almost felt like modelling clay or warm leather.

With Riley’s help, she even managed to do a bit of cleaning on the inside of the pelt, removing any coagulated chunks or grime. She showed the puppet how to use the cleaning powder and used her pocket lighter to burn off any stray hairs.
“I promise it won’t hurt him,” A.J. assured Riley, becoming worryingly accustomed to their gory surroundings. “It’ll just get rid of any stringy ends in the neatest way possible without making his coat fray.”
“Do what you must do,” Riley concurred, eyes comically magnified by her goggles. “But should Rosco show an ounce of discomfort, I will turn that flame on you.”

To the direct contrary, Rosco seemed rather content, almost relieved when the two of them resurfaced. A.J. finished the last of his haircut and then, with baited breath, she and Riley began to undo his restraints.

“If he shows any aggression,” the puppet reiterated, a slow warble creeping back into her voice. She pointed at a large pipe opening on the wall. “We escape through there, in quick succession.”
She sounded familiar with such a route.

But mercifully, Rosco seemed to have calmed down, recognising Riley as his caretaker again and bearing his jaws only to lavish attention upon the scientist. In turn, Riley was ecstatic, spending a copious amount of time returning this affection.
A.J. sat down against the wall of the tunnel, breathing heavily between wiping herself down with the damp rag in her duffle bag. Rosco would occasionally glance in her direction, his massive eyes rolling in their sockets but thankfully, he didn’t show any signs of wanting to attack.
All the same, she kept her hand over the penknife in her belt.

A.J would have bet a sizeable sum of money that nothing could surprise her anymore when it came to Handeemen Studios.
Evidently, however, it was a bet she was destined to lose because to her abject shock, Riley approached her. After a moment of less than graceful manoeuvres, the scientist puppet sat down beside her, host and all. They weren’t exactly shoulder to shoulder but they were close enough that if the scientist puppet were to turn her head quickly enough, her wooden ponytail would brush against A.J.’s cheek.
They had been closer before, of course, but there was something about their proximity this time that felt different.

“Hmm, his back still looks unnatural and hinders his gait. I may yet revise my original design accounting for his weight. A new skeleton made from scratch may be the best option, I think. Though, I will need to account for the new neural link…”

“Sounds like you’ve got a plan.”

“Hmm. I would have to prepare copious reports,” Riley sighed slightly, sitting back against her host as though they were a lounge chair and massaging her newly reset jaw. “Mortimer would likely not approve of such things, off the cuff. He already finds Rosco unsightly enough.”

“You know Rosco best. Mort-Mr Handee shouldn’t have much of an opinion,” A.J. said a little too quickly. “And look, unsightly can be fixed. Fur here. Foam there. As long as there’s good anatomy underneath, the finished piece- er- Rosco will always be attractive to look at.”

It was morbidly fascinating that after a while, A.J. had rather stopped “seeing” Riley’s host. Like a child at a puppet show, the woman had ceased looking at the mindless, hooded human and was now only capable of seeing Riley as an autonomous being.

“You might be pleased to learn that as of today,” the wooden scientist declared formally. “You have been officially upgraded.”

“Upgraded?”
“Promoted in a sense?”
“Oh…yeah?”
“Indeed. Instead of a test subject, you will now enjoy the position of substitute lesser junior subordinate trainee lab assistant. This will leave you free to assist me in any of my endeavours in the lab.” She nodded rather self-importantly in A.J.’s direction. “No other puppetless host as ever been granted this position. You may feel very proud of yourself now.”

A.J. found herself genuinely smiling, almost laughing at the absurdity of the whole situation. “…thank you? I’m…flattered?”
“Now, now, there is no need to grovel or to become too egotistic. Nobody likes a sore winner.”
“My apologies, Doctor Ruckus.”

They sat in relative silence for a moment, the only sound being Rosco’s snorting and sniffing as he wandered around the tunnel, chasing bugs across the grimy floor. Above their heads, A.J. noticed the distant roar of L.A. traffic and the muffled rush of Autumnal winds.

“Wow, I didn’t realise that these tunnels ran under the streets too.”
“Indeed,” Riley murmured. “Before I could properly operate the van, it was one of our primary methods of hunting new hosts. While a vehicle is far more efficient, part of me rather misses the on-foot research if I am being fully honest.”
A.J. tried not to focus on the revelation that Riley had been and probably still was actively abducting people in a van around the city. “Yeah, I prefer my work as active as possible too.”
“I suppose when your work here is done, you’ll return?”
“To New York? Yeah, I’ll have to for my next assignment.”
“To the host world.” She hesitated for a moment. “To the human world. You’ll be free to do as you please again…because that’s what it’s like out there, isn’t it? You have freedom to work as you’d like, learn as you’d like, be as you’d like…”
A.J. contemplated correcting Riley but chose to keep quiet, allowing her to go on: “Tell me, Amelia-Jane, would your employer chide and berate you for taking on a passion project in your free time? Even if it were not interfering with the main body of your work?
“No, I suppose Marissa would be fine with me doing whatever in my spare time… as long as I wasn’t hurting anyone or myself.”
Riley made a sound that initially was akin to scoffing but somehow sounded a little more desperate, a little more choked. “And you’ll return to that. And we’ll remain here, confined.”

“Well, you’ve got your big television reboot coming up, right? And this big plan, thing? I mean that’s got to be exciting-.”

“Amelia-Jane, please stop talking to me as if I’m as foolish as the others. I’m not an idiot.” She rested her chin upon her hand, looking at the human as she spoke. “I understand how television works and I know that with scripts, costumes and props decided upon, we are still miles away from returning to television screens. And as for Mortimer’s plan…” Riley paused, shaking her head, seeming to change her mind about what she was about to say.

“What you said before, about wanting to grow?” A.J. said slowly, realisation creeping over her. “You…you want to leave here, right?”

“Don’t say such things!” Her body seized, her spine snapping poker straight as her arms pulled tight to her sides. Her gloved hands were balled into fists. “I couldn’t want to leave. I shouldn’t want to leave…”

“You shouldn’t be trapped here either,” A.J. replied, brushing a loose tendril of hair from her own face. “With the way Mortimer treats you…” She looked up at the roof of the tunnel as another car rumbled overhead. “I’m surprised you all haven’t just left him. He’d be nothing without any of you and he knows it too.”

Riley gave a joyless laugh. “And where, pray tell, could I go?” Her voice had lowered to a whisper again. “I’ve seen how your kind react to mine. Our biological relationship is adversarial to begin with…I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a sideshow curio or a glorified child’s toy…”

“You’re intelligent, Doctor Ruckus,” A.J. told her in earnest. “You’re more intelligent than most humans I’ve met.”
“I’m… not even a real scientist,” the puppet conceded, staring at her hands in numb dismay. “Did you know that I can’t use a Bunsen Burner? And I don’t know what all of the symbols on the Periodic Table mean?” She smiled bitterly, slowly removing one of her gloves. “Our life came with limitations. I figured it out pretty early but still too late for my own liking.” She stared at her wooden palm, moving each finger, one joint at a time. “We initially drew our life from Owen; that’s what the spell did. We only know as much as Owen does…did…about everything.” Her wooden hand clenched into a fist- a feat that would not have been possible with a single puppeteer. A.J. was enthralled by the fluidity of her movements while Riley’s words prompted a slow, sinking feeling in her chest. Like molasses.

“So, if Owen doesn’t…didn’t understand how something works…?”
“Then neither do we.”
“Doctor Ruckus, I’ve seen you do things that I know for a fact Owen would have never been able to.”
“We can also learn facts and skills from our hosts. From their memories,” Riley explained to her quietly. “When I was assigning and choosing hosts, I used to try and pair them up appropriately. Students for me, motherly types for Daisy, artsy ones for Nick…just so we could expand our minds a little…”
“You can see their memories?” A.J. didn’t want to let that one sink in entirely.
“Some of them. Shades of things. We can pick up on some of their skills through their muscle memory too. Hosts can be scarce though, so I can’t always afford to be so discerning.”
“And Mortimer? What was his preference?” She had forgotten to call him Mr Handee again but the scientist didn’t seem to want to correct her.
Riley gave a cold snort, slipping her hand back into the glove. “Mortimer? He always got the first pick of the pile and his desires would change depending on his mood. His current model: the ghost hunter? That was a choice based on revenge and hubris. That human’s body was completely incompatible with Mortimer but our great leader wanted to make a statement about hosts who have the nerve to rebel against our cause.”
“There are other ways that you can learn besides absorbing though, right?” A.J. half-stated, half-questioned. “If you really wanted to expand…”
“Again, your naivete is almost enviable,” Riley said with a sigh. “How much host world media do you think Mortimer allows us to consume?” She rolled her eyes. “We used to have a television that could get outside channels but there was an incident involving one of the underling puppets and Mortimer ordered me to destroy the appliance.” She groaned, leaning forward and leaning on the host’s arched knee as if it was her own. “It was like our last vestige of freedom. Our last window on the world.”

A.J. lowered her head to the puppet’s level. “You must really want to leave, don’t you?”

“I…” Riley choked up faintly, trying to get a grip on herself. “I shouldn’t want to leave. I couldn’t ever anyway.”
“You don’t deserve to be trapped,” A.J. repeated, daring herself to scoot a little closer to the puppet. “It’s not fair that you have to live in fear.”
“Are you even listening?” Riley hissed, sounding irked but not moving away or admonishing the human woman. “Where could I possibly go? Where could any of us go? Our only hope of avoiding stagnation is to follow Mortimer’s ultimate plan…inadvisable or unpleasant as they may be.” She closed her eyes, looking at something behind her own eyelids that only she could see. “And need I remind you that the two of us could both be obliterated for the crime of speaking of such things?”

Silence passed between them for a few minutes, only briefly broken by the sounds of the traffic above them, Rosco scuffling around in the gutters and water dripping from the tunnel ceiling.

When A.J. spoke again, her voice was deliberately quieter than all of those things. It was her usual modus operandi; so that Riley could pretend not to hear her if she wanted to.

“You know, back when the studio was…” A.J. chose her words very carefully. “Active…and when I still worked here, I had this crazy daydream sometimes.” The last time she had ever told this story, she was speaking to her counsellor. “There were these really bad days when Owen would get seriously stressed, get into arguments with the production crew, run himself into the ground…and we used to just talk about running away from it all…”

“Running from your responsibilities? Rather childish in actuality.”

“Specifically, I used to imagine grabbing Owen and you, Rosco, all of you…and just taking you all back to New York with me.” She briefly let her mind graze the surface of the fantasy. “We could live in my apartment and we’d work at the Toy Hospital and we’d never have anyone bother us again.” A.J. sighed, shaking her head slightly. “It was only ever a little escapist fantasy. I could never take Owen away from the show; it was his passion…but I never really stopped thinking about it. Maybe for him, it was just us waxing poetic but I always kind of hoped that one day he’d just pack the five you up and tell me that it was time for us to go.”

“I don’t want to pollute my mind with futility. Running away to New York would be an impossibility,” Riley whispered sharply, holding her own elbows.

“Not necessarily,” A.J. replied, keeping her words carefully casual. “I’ve transported larger clientele before. The Toy Hospital would help me get you there because you’d be considered rare and important cargo.”

“And I suppose we’d live with you in your apartment then?” Riley’s tone was carefully snarky but had the tiniest note of curiosity for A.J. to latch on to.

“Or in the museum wing of the Toy Hospital. It would be small but you’d have more freedom to move around at night.”

“And we’d be trapped again. Confined in another prison only this time with hosts as our jailers?”

“We could figure it out as we went. I wouldn’t be comfortable with keeping you indoors all the time for one thing. You’d have plenty of staff to keep you from falling into disrepair again.”

“…and our hosts?”

A.J. thought that she had been imagining it before but Riley’s host’s arm was now definitely pushed right up against hers. She didn’t know which was more unsettling: that she could feel the damp, cold skin beneath their clothes or that she wasn’t immediately sickened by it.

“…we could figure that out too.”

Riley gave another laugh, sounding less cynical and more genuinely giddy at the thought. “How absurd…what would we even do in New York?”

“I think you’d all quite like it,” A.J. maintained. “I’m sure Daisy would love to see Bloomingdale’s and Nick could take a pilgrimage to Broadway. I could bring you to every science museum in the city and hell, Rosco could chase squirrels in Central Park to his heart’s content…”

“…and Mortimer?”

“He could come too. If he had the interest.”

“Somehow, I don’t think he’d have the interest.”

“Do you care?”

Her question was bold, barbed and very deliberately poised.
Riley did not answer, instead looking up at Rosco who was tugging on one of the chains that had previously kept him bound.
Making a mockery of his former captor without even realising it.

“Hm, fantasy can be such a tempting distraction,” Riley mused, brushing herself down and seemingly commanding her host to return to their feet. “Though, I fear stagnation through inaction.” She clapped her hands authoritatively as though their previous conversation hadn’t happened at all. “Come now, Amelia-Jane. We must press on with the day. Despite the draw of idle hands, in these tunnels we cannot stay.”

A.J. nodded, feeling almost a little silly for having expected any other outcome.
She wasn’t even sure what she had been trying to do. At the end of the day, Riley was right; getting the puppets out of the studio would be nigh impossible.

She followed Riley back through the tunnels with Rosco still pottering around behind them at first. In order for their plan to go smoothly, it was imperative that Rosco didn’t tail them into the main building. After a quasi-tearful goodbye between the scientist and her loveable mutt, (who seemed far more content), they made their way back into the familiar, hallowed halls of Handeemen Studio. A.J. truly hadn’t realised how cold the tunnels had been until she realised how warm the air in the normally Baltic studio felt.
They ended in Wing A of the main wing, so it wasn’t too difficult to find their way to a main dressing room. It was evident that Riley would need a fresh lab-coat to compliment her fully restored face.
A.J. was in the process of fastening a clean, white collar around Riley’s slender, wooden neck when the puppet asked her a question that she hadn’t been expecting.

“Who was on the phone yesterday?”

The human’s fingers froze on the buttons, her eyes meeting the puppet’s own vivid irises. “What?”

“When you were using the office phone yesterday,” Riley repeated, her tone cool and sharp but not necessarily aggressive. “Who were you talking to? Really?”

A.J. was truly caught off guard by this, unsure of how to reply. She couldn’t tell Riley the truth for obvious reasons but what if the puppet had some kind of evidence to catch her in a lie? She didn’t want to risk losing any good faith that she had managed to build up with Riley either.
She sucked a breath in through her teeth, busying herself with the buttons again as she replied: “It was a friend.”

“A friend? That’s laughably vague. Do not insult my intelligence.”
“An old friend.”

She technically wasn’t lying. If what she suspected of Scout was true, then she could definitely be classified as an “old friend.”

“Not your workplace?”
“No. Not my workplace.”
Riley’s wooden brows furrowed as she partially glared at A.J. “Why lie about it?”
“I had to make a personal call at work,” the human replied, stepping back and straightening out the hem of Riley’s coat. “It felt unprofessional…and kind of embarrassing.”
A.J. was almost impressed by her own ability to conjure up lies at the drop of a hat.
She didn’t enjoy the experience though.
Not one bit.

“My, my, my, haven’t you cleaned up quite well? Riley, my dear, you’ve become quite the belle.”

Mortimer’s voice caused them both to stand poker straight.
A.J. had her back to the door, effectively blocking Riley from the leader of the Handeemen. Their eyes met one last time, communicating a thousand, silent messages though neither said a word.
The human woman lifted her hand to Riley’s jaw, giving it one last check before turning around.

Chapter Text

Rule 10:

(Handeemen Studios, 1998)

Avery could remember their first day of college as though it was yesterday. They had left the parking lot with a smile, juggling boxes as they assured their dad that they didn’t need any help. The dorms had felt like a maze, far too loud, far too bright and far too full of eyes. They were nauseous by the time that the dean had come to knock on their door to welcome them. They used the wrong name though.
They used the name that Avery had stopped using years ago.
Their new roommate caught them throwing up in the shared bathroom and joked that Avery needed to slow up on the beers.
Embarrassed and ashamed, Avery had only been able to wipe their mouth and nod while they silently vowed never to let themselves become this vulnerable ever again.

At that moment in Handeemen studios, however, Avery was very strongly reconsidering the constitution of their vow.

Avery’s peripheral vision was decidedly suboptimal as they tried to squint through the patchy, grimy cloth of the second-hand balaclava.
White halos of flickering light on the polished hardwood served as their stepping stones; painfully ironic considering that they were trying their best to stick to the shadows. They only managed to discern corners based on where the peeling, smoke-stained wallpaper suddenly gave way to darkness.
The impaired vision would have been bad enough but the new light headedness that washed over them was starting become more than cause for concern. At first, Avery had presumed it was the last vestiges of their nausea derived from the horrendous odour that was practically stitched into the rancid fibres of the mask.
Now, though, the wasting, waning feeling that pulsed through their temples was becoming steadily familiar. The sudden, heavy, stiffness in their joints paired with the queasy lightness rippling through their forehead was a discordant marriage that they had felt before.
Twice before, to be precise.

The first time was during their initial trek through the studio with Scout. Their lips and wrists were burning with the stinging, singeing pain of Riley’s crude stitches so they had perhaps been a little thankful for the distraction of the nausea. They had only felt it for a brief time, shortly after their first-time swapping viewpoints with Scout and it had all but dissipated by the time they’d been “invited” to tea with Mortimer and mad scientist herself.
Seeing her emerge from the folds of the hellhound’s belly had been one of the most jarring things that they’d ever seen.

The second time was in A.J.’s hotel room.
They had been wrapped up in the sheets with Scout happily dancing around to the music of some commercial on their arm. Thoughts of the previous day were still haunting them but Avery afforded themselves the opportunity to sit back against the pillows and to finally relax. Suddenly Scout’s words become distorted and hard to listen to, the t.v. screen became blurry and their heart began to slow down, their breathing laboured and painful.

When the finally came to, Scout had managed to reach the phone and was frantically stabbing at the buttons, frantically repeating that A.J. hadn’t called yet.
Both of their hearts practically dissolved with relief when the phone rang at last.

At that moment, Avery could feel their body starting to give up again but was doing everything within their power to will it not to happen.
“Not here, not now,” they repeated in their mind’s tongueless voice, like a mantra. “Not here, not now…”

Scout remained on their outstretched arm, looking back and forth and peering around each and every corner. “Hmm, so far, so good,” Avery heard her whisper. “Mortimer definitely was heading this way. Real talk: I was never one for directions but if I remember correctly, there’s a few sewing rooms down here. I’m pretty sure I hid in here once before to stay out of Riley’s way during testing. Huh? Wait, I think I just heard something…”

Avery was thankful for Scout’s free-flowing monologue; it meant they didn’t have to talk. Scout was used to having to carry on conversations one-sided so it wasn’t unnatural to either of them.  Finally, being able to talk was liberating but talking while walking felt like an extreme sport in the human’s current fatigued state.

“I can definitely hear voices through this wall,” Scout hissed, pressing her head against the cold, damp stone. The arm that bore the little puppet felt stiffer than usual and where Scout had previously seemed to have control up to the elbow, Avery could now feel her influence all the way up to their shoulder. “I think that’s Mortimer’s voice. I know it through a wall because I always get weird chills when he speaks.”
They trailed after her, led by their own arm along the wall until they reached a doorway. Following Scout’s lead, Avery crouched down behind the door and angled her to peer through the hinges.  

“…so let there be no doubt,” the wooden magician puppet was saying, unwittingly sending a thrumming, wave of chills down Avery’s spine too. “Despite my direct orders, Rosco is out?”

Avery couldn’t quite see Mortimer Handee but could recognise the lithe silhouettes of his arms, cast as shadows upon the wall. Those same shadows reminded Avery of the limbs of a tree that they had once seen splintered across their bedroom wall as a child.
Their father had always been kind enough to remind them that the tree could do nothing to hurt anyone.
These limbs of wood bore no such kind reminder.

“It happened during the cleaning process.”
Another voice. Another figure.
A small wash of relief upon the realisation that it was A.J.  Avery and Scout could just about make out her slumped shoulder, laden with the strap of her duffle bag and the faded tartan sleeve of her work shirt. “I needed to wash down some of the fur that was covered by the chains so I moved them a little. It loosened up more than I thought it would and Rosco broke loose.”

There was a thin silence in the room before Mortimer spoke again. “Riley?” His tone was notably sharper, his voice reedy. “What part of “the dog stays chained until I say” was too difficult for you to understand today?” There was a low growl beneath his words, the magician sounding not-too-unlike a hound himself. “I was perfectly clear, I fear.”

“Like I said, it happened during the cleaning process,” A.J. repeated, her body swaying slightly as she addressed Mortimer. “Rosco was on the work list that you gave me so I considered loosening his restraints as a necessary part of the job. It was short-sighted of me not to ask first; I apologise, Mr Handee. It won’t happen-.”

“Surely,” Mortimer cut across her. “Riley would have explained to you that I had some very specific commands regarding Rosco?” Avery heard the creak of his neck as his head whipped around. “Or no?”

“Doctor Ruckus couldn’t say anything to me because her jaw was still setting after I reattached it.”
There was something distinctly pointed about A.J.’s tone. She still sounded polite and relatively neutral as always, but there was something about the way she said the word jaw, Avery thought, that sounded decidedly barbed.

“Woah, Riley’s jaw came off? Huh, figures. Maybe all that nagging finally took its toll,” Scout whispered, both incredulous and gleeful.
Avery had a mind to shush her but their hand was steadied by A.J. speaking again.
Speaking again in that same tone that was innocuous and unthreatening but the tiniest hint of sharpness, of spite.
Like an old-fashioned letter opener: a simple household tool in one hand but a formidable weapon in another.

“Doctor Ruckus did attempt to restrain me physically but I didn’t understand what she was trying to do. I thought she was maybe just picky about me cleaning up Rosco. By the time she was able to speak again and explain everything, it was too late and Rosco had already run off.”

There was a silence burdened by a fretful anticipation, not unlike a child’s hand stilling on the handle of a Jack-in-the-Box, unsure of whether or not to turn it one more time.

After an agonising few seconds, Mortimer spoke.
“…is this true, Riley? That does…” The magician paused, letting the words roll from his tongue. “…admittedly sound like you, Riley.”

Avery’s knees buckled, instantly causing them to brace against the damp wall by the door. Scout turned her head slightly to regard her host with silent concern.

“Yes, that…that is the correct order of events,” they both heard the scientist say, invisible to the covert watchers but revealed to be nearby by the sound of her voice. “I did try to stop her but the human refused to see sense.”

Mortimer finally shifted into view over A.J.’s shoulder, eyes masking a half-tamed ferocity as he presided over the two who stood before him. The two who he couldn’t see experienced a shared shiver as his eyes briefly flickered across where they crouched.
He couldn’t see them, thankfully.
Or if he could see them: he didn’t seem to care.

“Very well. It is no matter, all in all,” he declared with a rather seething grin. “Rosco will always come back when I call. I’ll summon him back later after today’s delights. I just hope he won’t be too grouchy; Riley knows all too well how he bites…”

Mortimer seemed to be addressing the wooden scientist almost exclusively, a silent message of malice being communicated that Avery could neither understand nor hear. They had seen first-hand, of course, that the magician could be quite condescending towards the scientist. Their “tea-party” had been testimony enough of that.

They were surprised however when A.J. rather automatically stepped between the two of them, turning her back to Mortimer to adjust the collar of Riley’s lab-coat. 
Avery heard her mutter something of an apology that the scientist quietly dismissed, lifting her head to allow the toy-maker to make the adjustments that she needed.

“It’s nice to see you two getting along,” Mortimer all but simpered at them. “A.J. had better come with us to the soundstage lest something else should go wrong.”

A.J. nodded, still looking Riley over, it seemed. “That’s probably for the best. I’ve completed my task list anyway so the best thing for me is to make adjustments as I go and stay where I’m needed.”
“Indeed, we should keep you close. Clara, of course, will be missing you the most,” Mortimer’s barbed tone was now directed at A.J.

“Yeah, probably.”
The human woman, by contrast, seemed far less bothered.

Avery felt the weakness spread from their knees to their torso. Soon, it was becoming difficult to keep their body upright. Scout lifted herself to their chest and tugged the material of the borrowed t-shirt.
“Are you good, dude?” she whispered. “Do you need to get out of here?”

The host was completely unable to reply, hearing their own ragged, panting breaths, partially constricted by the mask and feeling the sting of sweat move from their brow to their neck to their lower back.
They shakily got to their feet and started staggering backwards, away from the open door. They had just made it to the corner at the end of the hallway when Avery began struggling to see through their head-covering. At first, they assumed that it was just the poor lighting in the hallways but then, when flashes of blue and yellow began to appear at the corners of their vision, the horrifying reality began to dawn on them.
“Scout,” they mumbled weakly, simultaneously trying to and struggling to speak too loudly. “I think…I think I’m going to pass out again.”

“You’re going to what!?” Scout exclaimed, not even trying to keep her voice. “Oh, no, no, no you don’t-!”
But that was all Avery managed to catch before the pounding in their ears grew too loud. With their last ounce of fortitude, they thrust their arm upward like a periscope to prevent Scout from hitting the ground.
They didn’t even feel their own body as it crashed to the floorboards below.

When they woke up, their body felt heavy, their eyelids scratchy and their legs- numb? They tried to clench their hands into fists, realising that their fingers were quite numb too.
They blinked their eyes open, trying to squint their vision back to normal as they noticed that while their mouth was alarmingly dry, their face was alarmingly uncovered. They tried to sit, feeling an odd constriction in their lower back.
“Whu-?”
They ran their hands along their sides, reaching the hem of their t-shirt and panicking when the felt nothing but bare flesh where their pants should have been. It wasn’t until they recognised their own, larger-than-life wrist-watch now acting as a belt that the reality of their situation became apparent. There was a reason that this discomfort felt so distinctly familiar.

They had switched bodies with Scout.

They looked up, twisting at their own wrist to survey the masked giant that towered over them. The “real” Avery was rubbing the side of their head with their free hand.

“Oh man,” Avery heard their own voice mumble, now ten-times louder than usual. “It smells like ass in this thing. No wonder you keeled over.”
“Sc-Scout?” the former human mumbled, clapping their own hands over their now-felt lined mouth when the unfamiliar voice escaped their lips.
“Yeah, who else?” Scout chuckled, massaging her new neck and then suddenly sitting bolt upright, like she’d just received an electric shock. “Wait! What the fuck? You can talk in my body? And you sound like me?! And I can talk in your body and I sound like you…” The former puppet placed her own free hand over where her own human mouth would be. “That’s never happened before.”
“Something feels wrong,” Avery said finally, struggling to keep their new, soft, material tongue behind their plush teeth. “It feels…different this time.”
“Maybe we could always do this?” Scout mused, still seeming to be rather mystified by the vibrations of her new vocal cords. “Like, your mouth was sewn shut last time so I wasn’t exactly able to use it and then, I don’t imagine you were in the chattiest of moods when you were in my body either…”
“…maybe,” Avery managed to say, feeling an uncomfortable ache in their Scout’s chest that hadn’t been there before.

They didn’t have time to ponder the situation though because at that moment, the three occupants of the sewing room spilled into the corridor.
The click of Mortimer’s cane prompted both Avery and Scout to jerk upright in sheer terror. Despite the feeling of unfamiliar bodies enveloping them both, fear still prompted them to move in a perfect, fluid unison.

“You there! What are you doing, sprawled upon the floor?” the magician called out sharply. “Has standing upright become too much of a chore?”  This was perhaps, a little rich coming from a puppet who was currently leaning on a cane but thankfully Scout did not respond with one of her quips.

Instead, now on extremely shaky human legs, Scout attempted to awkwardly stand up, keeping Handeepuppet Avery upright.
The former-host realised in a horror-stricken instant that it was them that Mortimer’s glower was trained upon. They stole a quick glance at a rather stern Riley Ruckus over the magician’s left shoulder and a silently panicked A.J. over his right.
Their fellow human’s expression was carefully as neutral as possible but her eyes were wide and her lips were a bit too taut: she was trying to stop herself from saying something.

It was Avery who was going to have to say something.
Above their head, they heard Scout clear their her throat in preparation to speak from behind the mask. Knowing the consequences of their ruse being discovered, Avery spoke quickly:

“I’m sorry. I fell,” they said in Scout’s voice. “But…I’m feeling…quite well.”

They kept their eyes on Mortimer but could practically feel Riley’s verdant and azure glare on their puppet face. Avery swallowed non-existent saliva against a cotton throat and silently hoped that Scout’s make-shift disguise was enough to fool them both.

“Well, hallelujah, for your sudden elation,” Mortimer snapped, adjusting his cufflinks and demonstrating far less charm than he had at their previous tea party. “Where, pray tell, are you currently stationed?”

Avery felt their Scout’s arm begin to tremble below their waistline.
There was no way Mortimer wouldn’t call their bluff this time but they had to try something.

“St-stationed? We…I…I…”

“Oh, pish posh. I don’t care where Nick or Daisy has you seeded,” Mr Handee admonished with a scowl, simply waving a hand in their direction dismissively. “Make haste down to the soundstage and go where you’re needed.”

Scout just about gave Avery enough time to nod and salute with incredulous relief as she used her former host’s legs to stagger away down the opposite corridor. She kept moving at speed, plunging them into pools of flickering light until they managed to locate another empty security office to take refuge in.

“Holy shit,” Scout sighed, grabbing the head-covering from Avery’s her face and breathing face. “How do you function in that thing? I mean it was bad last time but this time, it’s actually revolting! I used to feel bad for all the zombies out there in Handee Land but now I actually think it might be a freakin’ kindness that Morty knocks ‘em out before Riley bags ‘em up. Hoo-boy!” She shuddered from Avery’s head to Avery’s toe. “Huh, well at least I think I did a pretty good job at pretending to be one of you. I think I might actually blend in pretty well in the host world after all!” She looked down at the puppet on her wrist. “And you weren’t half bad yourself! I mean, that was a pretty sweet rhyme on the spot. You definitely fooled-…”
Scout’s voice trailed off as she looked at Avery.

Even perched on her wrist, they were doubled over with their tiny felt hands wrapped around their cloth-wrapped body. Avery tried to keep their eyes on her, (feeling rather like they were looking at their own massive reflection in a fun-house mirror), but couldn’t keep their vision straight.

“It feels different this time, Scout,” Avery managed to say, their stolen voice sounding uncharacteristically weak. “It feels…cold.”

“Ok, buddy, don’t worry,” Scout reassured them, lightly patting her own Avery’s blue, woolly hair. “We just need to switch back, right? We’ve done this, like, a hundred times before. Let’s just do it right now.”

Not needing to be told twice, Avery looked up into Scout’s very familiar human eyes and held their breath.
The first time they had switched places, it had practically been by accident. Avery had been staring at Scout, trying to ignore the pain of having their lips sewn shut and wondering what it would be like to be a puppet when they’d suddenly woken up in her body.
Every time after that, they’d been able to achieve it with little to no effort. They just had to look at Scout and want to switch bodies, to simply will it to happen.

This time, it felt more difficult.
It felt like it took more effort; like they were physically trying to force their way back into their own body.
It felt painful.

Darkness crept into the corners of their eyes and a few blinks later, they were mercifully back in their own skull though their heart was beating uncomfortably fast and there was a tingling ache all over their body.
A shared stare with Scout only confirmed what they had suspected: she had felt it too.

“We need to get me off your hand,” she said finally, seemingly filled with a little more resolve than before.
Avery nodded, looking to one of the fuzzy security monitors behind them. “And to do that, we need to get that stuff for A.J. before time runs out.”
“And to do that,” Scout went on. “We need to get the last piece of that pin.”
“And now we know where Mortimer is headed,” Avery continued, now sharing her determination but still feeling a little reluctant when reaching for the face-covering once more. “He’s expecting us there anyway. Let’s get down to that soundstage. We’ve got an inside job ahead of us.”

Scout nodded and adjusted her bandana, flexing her felt arms in a nearby monitor. “Let’s do this.”

*****

A.J. kept her eyes on Mortimer as they re-entered the main soundstage, fixated on the stabilising bolt in his neck that was only barely obscured by the upturn of his finely-starched shirt collar and the lolling, covered head of a zombified Anthony Pierson.
The red “recording” sign was turned on, she noted, recalling one of the golden tenets of life at Handeemen Studios was never to open the studio doors in the wake of that sacred, crimson glow.
Mortimer held no such feelings of sacrilege.
No such covenant with their god.
Not anymore, anyway.

He was talking animatedly though A.J. had long stopped listening to what he was actually saying, instead only forcing a smile and an approving exhale whenever he threw his head back to laugh.
Her eyes stayed on him but every other facet of her attention was on Riley.

Her hand even stayed on scientist’s shoulder as they walked into the soundstage, seemingly checking for the fit of her lab-coat along her forearm but in actuality, trying to keep herself in close proximity.
After what had transpired earlier that day (and indeed, what seemed to have been transpiring for a while now), A.J. didn’t trust Mortimer not to take another swing at his subordinate.
Riley didn’t protest the contact but avoided A.J.’s eye contact whenever it wandered from the space between Mortimer’s shoulders.

On one of these fateful journeys, A.J. accidentally caught sight of one of the old posters. “Accidentally” because it had been one that she’d been willing herself not to look at since the day she’d arrived back at the studio.
It was the poster for the infamous “Owen’s Fireside Chat” episode that the network had tried to ban. It was flaked and frayed at the edges, scarred where the fire had taken its toll but the faded portrait of Owen’s slightly-tired smile was still cruelly visible beneath the ashes.

“Did you know how much of a monster Mortimer would become?” A.J. thought, forcing herself to look away from the hazy image. “Is that why you started hating him? Which was it that pushed you to want to burn him? Was it when he started harming other humans or when he started harming the other puppets?”
As if she had to ask.

A swell of sound rose up from within the depths of the soundstage. The sound soon became clearer, betraying itself as the sound of many voices singing. It wasn’t a song that A.J. recognised from the show but had all the hallmarks of a Handeemen tune from its jaunty piano accompaniment to its simple but ear-pleasing harmonies.
There was something about it however- a slight minor tone- that sent a feeling of melancholy washing over her. The song reminded her of looking at a doll with a stitched, straight-line mouth and being unable to tell if the doll was smiling or frowning.

As they neared the floodlit staging area, A.J. could pick out the same playground set that she had seen before. It was still set to a night-time scene and now had a colourful hoard of Handeepuppets scattered on a jungle gym set piece. It was their voices that they could hear, all of them singing at the top of their little, felt-stitch lungs. With their hosts obscured behind the wooden, painted play-equipment, they almost ceased to look like puppets but rather a flock of tropical birds.
Little, bright, living, breathing creatures.

The nearby piano hit a sour note with Nick Nack suddenly surfacing over its top and letting out a screech of: “What part of “quiet on the set” was too difficult this time! I swear, I will rip you limb from limb, you incompetent swine!”
He now donned a red beret that was slightly jostled from his apparent work stress. A.J. fought the urge to run over and to affix it back to his head.

“I do hope we’re still on track, Nick,” Mortimer said curtly, effectively announcing their presence. “I was hoping to get this scene shot fairly quick.”
The artist, upon seeing his superior, changed his tune rather dramatically. His face all but dropped, his wooden jaw falling slack in its lock and his pupils, becoming pinpricks as he scrambled to pick up the sheet music that had fallen to the floor below. “Ah, M-Mortimer! I didn’t know it was y-you! We’ve had a few disruptions but th-th-the scene should be perfect after just one more run-through!”

“Oh, Riley, you’re back! I hope you had a nice, little rest,” Daisy cooed from the folding chair that her host had been perched in, wiggling her fingers in a wave over at her fellow Handee(wo)man. “I’m sure that once you see what we’ve been doing, you’ll be real impressed!”

Riley managed to smile faintly at the party planner puppet, giving a little nod in return. “I’m sure I will.”

“Nice of you to finally show face,” Nick added, clearly trying his best to be as dismissive as physically possible. Despite his snooty tone, his eyes swivelled around to Riley a little too quickly and with a little too much intensity. “Sometimes, we could actually use your help around this place.” For a seasoned thespian, his exaggerated facial features didn’t allow for much subtlety. “

“Just show me to my mark,” the scientist sighed gruffly. “You uneducated lark.”

“You can come to sit by me, Amelia-Jane,” Mortimer announced, patting the chair next to his one, positioned alongside the camera. “When it comes to observations, I could use a host-world brain. Your kind makes up our target audience, it’s true. Oh, and do bring Miss Clara over here, too!”
Daisy kindly gestured to the little stool beside her chair, revealing where the porcelain doll had been sitting.

“I hope she wasn’t too much trouble,” A.J. said with a faint smile, carefully lifting her beloved doll into her arm, smoothing Clara’s soft hair with her hand.

“She wasn’t great for feedback. She didn’t offer any critique on set,” Nick called over to them, between ushering his extras around the pseudo-playground. “But she kept quiet while we were rolling so I can’t knock her etiquette.”

“She’s not much of a talker,” A.J. mused, half-consciously stroking the doll’s glossy lips with an idle finger.
“She and I used to have wonderful conversations in the days of yore,” Mortimer refuted, seeming to conveniently forget that A.J. had been the one providing her voice. “And after today’s ritual, we’ll be able to have many more.”
The human woman nodded, trying to ignore how fast her heart was beating as her mind ran through their covert plan one more time. Mortimer had also just confirmed that he had been at least partially aware of his surroundings during that time. Was that when Owen had started experimenting with voodoo?
A.J.’s mental rolodex was spinning wildly as she tried to recall every single intimate moment between herself and Owen that the puppet had probably bore witness too.
What else had he seen?

She noticed with a ripple of disdain and disgust that Mortimer ‘s host was sitting in Owen’s old director’s chair. The same one, in fact, that had up until only recently, served to display his mutilated remains. She tried not to and failed not to notice the murky, brown stains on the black cloth of the seat.
What disturbed her further, (if that was possible), was the fact that the chair that Mortimer had chosen for her was a familiar navy coloured fold-out with a slight tear in the backing.
It was her chair.
Well, it was the chair that she most commonly found herself sitting in when Owen invited her on to the soundstage or when they hung around in the studio after hours.

She forced herself to sit down without hesitation but her arms tightened around Clara’s mid-section. She silently prayed that Mortimer hadn’t noticed this but still couldn’t help but shudder when her back settled against the cloth of the seat.

What followed this initial discomfort was a tedious hour or so of rehearsing, shooting and reshooting the same playground scene. The script was a lot more dramatic than A.J. remembered even Owen’s most intense plotlines being. The Handeepuppets acted as a kind of Greek chorus to a scene where Daisy, Nick and Riley attempted to solve some kind of mystery involving an act of vandalism.
Or at least that’s what A.J. thought was going on; in truth, it was very difficult to tell what was going on between Nick Nack’s lofty writing style, Riley’s constant stopping to complain about her lines sounding dumb, Daisy’s periodical misunderstanding of the tone of her own lines and Mortimer’s ticker-tape parade of revisions to be made.
She found herself spending a lot of time brushing Clara’s honey-gold hair and adjusting the doll’s frilly, lilac dress to stop herself from picking the scabs on her arms and knees.
Her nervous fingers wanted something to do, something to claw at, something to twist.

Occasionally, Mortimer would ask for her opinions and she would in turn, respond with neutral positivity. He seemed polite and cordial again, but she still didn’t want to say anything that might cause his temper to turn on one of the other Handeemen.
He would also ask for Clara’s opinion too, seeming far more interested in hearing from the doll than her human keeper. Feeling rather unwilling to provide Clara’s voice as Owen had once guided her to do, A.J. simply had the doll “whisper” her feedback into her minder’s ear and A.J. in turn, would translate said feedback to Mortimer.

The magician also did his own fair share of translating for A.J. when it came to the sock puppets who occasionally came by to gurgle and gargle at them. Mortimer seemed to know exactly what they were saying despite it sounding like nothing but a series of throaty clicks and half-strangled gasps to A.J. From what the human woman could tell from the context of Mortimer’s replies, they seemed to be security updates of sorts.
She remained furtive, keeping an ear out for any possible mentions of Rosco, Scout or Avery.

“Now, Cathy,” Mortimer admonished a particularly odd-looking specimen with an ungainly crop of yellow yarn hair, topped with a bright pink bow. “Don’t be like that in front of our guests. I expect everyone here to be at their best.” He leaned over in the seat, using his host as a crane so that he was whispering into Clara’s ear. “Pay my old flame no mind. She’s simply envious that I’ve got a new lady at my side. I don’t know why she’s being so childish. We were never exclusive in my mind.”

A.J. reluctantly tilted Clara’s head to nod politely despite very much wanting to slap the puppet away with the vigour of a protective chaperone at a Catholic School Junior Prom.
It was when she turned her head to ignore Mortimer Handee leering at her beloved porcelain doll that she spotted Avery and Scout again. She had seen them earlier, of course, acting rather bizarrely outside of Wing A. Avery had been sitting on the floor and Scout only narrowly managed to talk their way out of it. Riley’s suspicions had clearly been piqued but the duo had managed to get away without any need for intervention.
Thankfully, thought A.J., who had been dreading the idea of having to interact with Avery in front of the Handeemen. Despite every thought to the contrary, she couldn’t shake the worry that they would instantly be able to tell that she and the dawdling, dynamic duo were acquainted.
At that moment, the aforementioned duo was skulking around some of the set pieces, trying to blend in with the other stage-hands while simultaneously, it seemed, trying to avoid being spotted. Avery’s covered head froze in place as A.J.’s eyes met theirs. Their hand suddenly grabbed the top of Scout’s head and forced her, (amidst silent protests), to look in the same direction.

“OH-!” Scout exclaimed, only to have Avery clap their hand over her mouth.
A.J.’s heart leapt into her mouth but Mortimer was still too preoccupied with the scene in front of him, (and the doll in A.J.’s lap), to notice their shenanigans. A.J. glanced at her watch, noticing that in about half an hour, the pair were due to meet her in Sewing Room 8C. They weren’t going to find any of the sewing supplies that she had listed out in the soundstage. Why were they wandering somewhere so risky?
“What are you doing here?” A.J. tried her best to say with her eyes alone.

Avery and Scout were now pointing at Mortimer and mouthing something. A.J. squinted at them, trying her best to interpret their flailing arms. Avery’s mouth was covered so there was no hope in getting any clues from them and Scout’s flapping, felt-covered lips were very difficult to read, especially at a distance.
Eventually, she realised that they seemed to be gesturing at Mortimer’s cane. For whatever reason, it appeared as though they wanted it. Trusting that it had to be a good reason, A.J. took a deep breath and angled herself towards the magician puppet.

Before she could say a word, Mortimer suddenly sprang to his host’s feet.
“For goodness’ sake, put some feeling into your words! I could get more emotion from a flock of dead birds!” Mid-rant, one of Anthony’s Mortimer’s legs buckled at the knee, causing the puppet to stumble forward and the cane to slide along the polished wood floor. “Blow and drat! I hate when they’re like this the most! Riley! You’re coming with me to the lab this evening to rip apart this damned, useless host!”

“I have another block of testing scheduled for-,” the scientist began, only to be interrupted.

“Your cane actually might be part of the problem,” A.J. said quickly, seizing an opportunity and swiftly adding. “If you don’t mind me saying, it could probably use a bit of scuffing at the end to stop it from slipping on the hardwood.” She readjusted Clara on to one knee and took a scrap of sandpaper from her tool-belt. “It’ll only take a second.”

Mortimer’s eyes swivelled around to regard her, his eyebrows clicking back to a neutral position one at a time. “Now, that’s what I like to hear from my staff: resolution. No excuses, just solutions.” He looked back over to the puppets. “You can all take five and rehearse your lines.”

He relinquished the cane to A.J. and she in turn, relinquished Clara to the extra chair. Not at all liking the way the magician kept hovering around her, she was prompted to call over to the other Handeemen.
“My apologies, Mr Nack, Miss Danger, Doctor Ruckus…could one of you keep an eye on Clara, if it’s not too much trouble? Just in case Mr Handee needs to come with me?”

Riley’s dual-tone eyes darted from Mortimer to A.J. again, seeming to pick up on her silent plea.

“Oh, honestly,” the red-haired puppet sighed, throwing her hands up and walking over. “If you don’t mind me asking, how old exactly is Clara supposed to be? She’s not going to be much good off of her shelf, if she can’t take care of herself.”

Despite her disdainful comments, she dutifully took up a position beside the doll’s seat.

“Well, her original design is modelled after a debutante,” A.J. noted, having actually had to consider the answer for herself. “So, I suppose I’ve always felt that she was in her early twenties? Clara’s always kind of…grown up with me but I’ve always felt like she was the younger one.”

“Soon she’ll be able to tell us what’s true from her own point of view,” Mortimer crooned mellifluously, opting to stay put rather than to follow A.J. to the props table on the far side of the room.

The human woman offered Riley a grateful blink as she passed by before redirecting her attention to Avery and Scout.
Thankfully, they both seemed to have understood her pantomime and following her lead, they made their way over to the props table.

A.J. set the cane down, skilfully and wilfully ignoring the odd-couple as she angled the hilt of the cane so that it pointed into the darkened part of the room. She watched from behind her eyelashes, her hands occupied with roughing the tip of the cane, as Scout began to fiddle with the red gem atop the hilt.

She kept her ears alert; carefully listening for any approaching footsteps and making sure that she could track the voices of the four Handeemen around the room behind her.

After a tense few moments, Scout tapped the cane and gave her a quick thumbs up. She watched as the little hand-puppet and her hooded host dissolved into the dark and waited until they were long gone before she returned to Mortimer.
The gem atop the cane looked a little duller than before but other than that, it was unclear what they had done exactly. A.J. had to simply trust that they had taken what they needed to.

She also had to trust that Mortimer wouldn’t notice that his cane had been tampered with.

“Ah, lovely,” he orated, taking the cane and giving it an experimental tap upon the floor, seemingly happy with the results. “Feels better already. Right, enough of this hanging around. All Handeemen, let’s get back to the playground!”

It was almost all too perfect.

It was mid-take when A.J. had only just started to let relief course through her veins when an almighty clatter rang out through the soundstage.
An almighty clatter from the exact area that Scout and Avery had been sneaking around in.

“Who is making that racket?” Mortimer demanded to know, his head snapping around like an overgrown owl. “Which insubordinate puppet needs to be put in a straitjacket!?”
Nick clapped his hands, his tone authoritative as always but there was a distinct crack in the auteur’s voice. Clearly catching his own lackeys slipping up in front of Mortimer was panic-inducing for him. “All stage hands, come into the light! No lurking around the back! Keep in my line of sight!”

It only took A.J. a split second to realise that the offending, stumbling “stage hand” was more than likely Avery and Scout. They stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs, drunkenly trying to open a door that had been barred shut.
Seizing an opportunity, she sidled over to the nearest set-piece and gave it a light but deliberate hip-check. The flat-wood teeter-totter swayed in its restraints, narrowly swiping at one of the cameras. The Handeepuppet and their host who had been operating the boom microphone were forced to dive out of the way to avoid it taking both of their heads off.

“Oh, Jiminy Crickets!” Daisy swooned as all eyes were suddenly back on the soundstage.
“What on earth are you playing at, you slovenly oafs!?” Mortimer barked at them, rising from his seat and charging over to the set. Nick let out a pained yelp, snapping his fingers and waving a series of Handeepuppets over to help. “Be careful with my set pieces or you’ll be killed! Those took months to build!”

“I can help,” A.J. told the scurrying extras, squatting down to steady the flat-wood and conveniently blocking Mortimer’s line of sight.
“Thank you!” squeaked one of the colourful little felt puppets, who had been trying to hold up the teeter-totter with his squishy, little arms.  

The token human gave him a reassuring half-smile. “It’s fine. I used to run props and sets here. This is what I used to do, day in and day out, so it’s basically second nature to come sliding in when something falls over.” It was only partially a ruse: she felt the need to admit that to herself. As always, it felt more than a little invigorating to be working on a Handeemen production again.

She looked up and stole a swift glance over her shoulder, making sure that Avery and Scout were gone before checking her watch again. She had just about half an hour until they were scheduled to meet in the sewing room. 
A.J.’s eyes met Mortimer’s as she looked back to the soundstage and her body seized, like her invisible puppeteer had activated her spinal lock, forcing her to sit up straight.

“Something the matter, Amelia-Jane, my pet?” he asked, reverting back to the same soothing but sing-song tone that she had grown accustomed to. “I hope you don’t need to leave us yet.”
She shook her head quickly, her invisible puppeteer grabbing her by the ponytail and forcing her skull to swing from side to side with a manic vigour. “No. Not at all. Just making sure that Clara’s still in her seat …and that I’m sticking to my schedule. I’m pretty sure that I’m good to help out here again.”

What followed were a few golden minutes of helping out on set. Clara was content to watch from the side-lines, her painted lips never failing to smile as A.J. bade her to be good.
She moved props to their allotted positions, she shifted the scenery in line with the lighting fixtures, she made basal repairs to the puppets…all of the things that she would have done back in the studio’s living days.
The little Handeepuppets didn’t shriek or squeal like Scout had when A.J. fixed their stitching or re-plugged their hair and eyes, (a fact that would later haunt her slightly when she finally had a moment to collect her thoughts), rather they would gush at her with the same excited mania that they brought to everything that they did.
Although some of them had initially been wary of her, the collective herd of felt hand puppets now seemed content to have her work among them.
If for nothing else, for her height and relative strength at least.

Despite the beautiful familiarity, there were still two things that set her current assignments starkly apart from her studio days.
Firstly, there were no other active humans to speak of. It was just her and the puppets. A sick, silent, socially awkward part of her felt oddly relieved about this. True, she was surrounded by a series of lobotomised human slaves, robbed of their free will and relegated to blood bags for a cult of black magic infused puppets.
But she never had to worry about making small talk or someone asking her about her personal life. Puppet expressions were also, A.J. would note for the three millionth time since her childhood, far easier to read than human expressions.

Secondly, of course, was the fact that she got to work on the Handeemen.
She was finally doing the work that she had always envisioned herself doing on the set: she was actively making adjustments and repairs to the four principal puppets on a shooting day like she’d always dreamed of.
And the best part?
She was talking to the puppets. Not struggling to make conversation, stumbling through small talk or drowning in the social politics involving their puppeteers.

She could ask Daisy if her apron was tied tight enough and tell Nick how handsome he looked in his new beret.
It was Riley’s actual voice asking her to secure her goggles to her hairline and Mortimer Handee himself telling her what a good job she was doing.

For a split second, she thought she saw a dark-haired man with tired, maroon eyes smiling at her from the empty director’s chair. She waited for him to shout at her for touching Mortimer, for touching any of the Handeemen, but he remained complacent in quiet approval.
A.J. contemplated thanking him again for bringing her there. She worked up the courage to smile back at him but when she opened her mouth to speak, he was gone.

The director’s chair was empty.
Of course, it was.

“The scene is still looking a bit sparse at the edges,” Nick mused at one point, stroking his chin. “I feel like it needs something else. Maybe some more flowers to brighten the hedges?”

A.J., who was on her knees trimming some of the loose threads from the hem of Daisy Danger’s dress, was quickly realising how much she enjoyed listening to the Handeemen talking to each other. When she had thought them to be a group of fanatic humans it had unnerved her but now oddly, their banter was actually rather nice.

“Ooh, what about some lovely roses? Red and maybe, pink? That’d be lovely, I think!” the blonde-haired puppet chimed in.

“This scene is supposed to be set in November,” Riley pointed out. “Roses usually don’t bloom until June, remember?” She sighed at the deflated look on her colleagues’ faces, adding. “Though considering this set depicts a suburban array, I imagine some wildlife wouldn’t go astray.”

“Wildlife?” Nick hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose we could always tape some feathers to the sock puppets…”

“Or use some of the sweet little birdies that hang around the canteen,” Daisy suggested, her voice dropping several octaves to a fearsome growl as she added. “Because if they keep picking at my food, I’m going to get a little mean…”

“The puppigeons?” Riley queried, the cogs in her head seemingly turning too. “Now, that could be doable- quite a marginal hypothesis but infinitely workable.”

“Birds don’t exactly stick to a script though,” Nick maintained. “How are we going to get them to come in here and sit where they need to be? I doubt we’ve got the time to train them, you see.”

“Do you still have the bird seed bombs around? You know, from the merch line?” A.J. piped up as she got to her feet, sticking the needle back alongside its brethren into the ribbed collar of her t-shirt. “You could always use those. I don’t know about puppet-pigeons but they used to make the crows in the parking lot flock like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”

Throwing them around the back of the studio used to be the favoured activity of disgruntled staff members. Jake had even gone as far as to invent a point system.

Owen’s car had been worth a thousand points.

“I believe I do have a few of the old prototypes up in the lab,” Riley told them. “They’d need to be retro-fitted, but I’d be willing to give it a stab. I could even improve the range and deployment time…though they have quite the conspicuous design.”

“I could camouflage them!” Nick exclaimed, getting excited. “I could paint them to blend in with the scenery so that they’d remain hidden to the camera’s eye. Maybe even make them look like part of the set. That’d be a really fun project, I’ll bet.”

“The birdies already seem to love my cakes,” Daisy added, clapping her hands happily. “I could always box up some of the leftovers to use as bait for the takes?”

“Eureka! Great thinking, team!” Riley declared. “We can get started on this now and the whole thing will run like a dre-.”

“Have the three of you completely forgotten what you’re here for? Or is doing your jobs becoming too much of a bore?””
Mortimer’s voice cut across Riley’s, unceremoniously dousing the trio’s glee.
It reminded A.J. of when a child at the toy factory would put their hand on the lid of a Jack-in-the-Box to stop it from popping up: the build-up of intrepid excitement was quashed in an instant.

Mortimer’s cane clicked along the floor of the set, spitefully pushing aside any set pieces that happened to get in his way. “Months and months or preparation for the events of these next few days and the three of you get swept up in this inane, insipid haze? Where is your sense of self-discipline? Of duty? Of commitment to our craft? Now, get back to your assigned jobs and stop acting so daft.”

Daisy shrugged, smiled and tottered away, humming to herself.
Nick nodded mutely and hurried away to the other side of the soundstage.
Riley simply stood where she was, looking directly at Mortimer.

There was a rather uncomfortable, pregnant silence.

One of the magician’s bushy grey eyebrows lifted with an audible click.
“Something wrong, Riley, my dear?”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve- .”

“Doctor Ruckus, I need to take a look at goggles again,” A.J. said quickly, immediately moving to step between the two puppets.
“They look fine to me,” Mortimer said sharply, dryly and coldly. “In fact, Riley’s positively glowing from what I can see. Now provided she can go twenty minutes without getting herself covered in entrails or getting herself hurt…” He paused for a moment, letting the unspoken threat hang in the air like snowfall. “Then she’ll stay looking lovely and we can all get back to work.”

“I’d still like to take a quick look, just to make sure that-.”
“Amelia, take an early lunch in the canteen. Riley needs to help me pick out a new host before we shoot my next scene.”
Riley remained completely silent; her mouth taut but her stare unwavering. Like a cornered animal, wary but simultaneously ready to defend herself if the situation called for it.

A.J. instinctively spoke for her, wanting to end the silence. “Of course, Mr Handee. I mean, are you s-?”
Her Oma would do that for her when Uncle Theo asked her a question that she wasn’t able to answer.
“Am I not making myself clear, Amelia-Jane? Must I insist?” The puppet said each syllable of her name with the same, haughty venom. A kind of venom that she hadn’t heard from anyone in years. Not since the day she’d had the nerve to touch one of Mortimer’s own teeth. “You. Are. Dismissed.”

Riley’s eyes flicked from Mortimer to A.J., giving her a very slow, deliberate blink.
She understood, nodding to the magician with a very forced, polite smile. “My apologies. I’ll see you both here later.”

Mortimer’s jovial disposition instantaneously returned as he called after her. “There’s a good lass. I do love when my girls show manners and class. Which reminds me, we’ll take a crack at the ritual when the shooting day ends. I’m sure Clara is just itching to start talking to all of her new friends!”

A.J. scooped up her beloved doll with quicker arms than usual, swallowing the urge to vomit and only barely managing to reply with a docile: “Thank you, Mr Handee.”

She took one last look at Riley Ruckus as she left the soundstage, quietly making peace with the fact that while Owen had never told her exactly how he’d put Mortimer together, she had enough notes in her journal to have no issues when it came to taking him apart.

*****

Avery and Scout had managed to keep to the shadows until they reached the security door outside of Wing C.
“Come on, come on, come on,” the heavily-breathing host muttered, combining the four different pin pieces between shaky, sweating fingertips. “This felt easier last time.” They squeezed their eyes tightly together, biting back a yawn. “Why did this feel easier last time?”

Their words had started to slur and Scout couldn’t quite ignore it anymore. She also couldn’t ignore the quaver in her voice as she barked back at them: “H-Hey, hey, hey. Are you actually getting sleepy on me? Geez, are you finding this boring?” She held the pin steady with her little hands to aid Avery’s fumbling. “I think I actually envy your ability to be so chill in a situation like this. Aha! Got it!” She quickly affixed the finished button to her new t-shirt. “Ok! Hold me up to the door scanner.”

“…ok.”
Another yawn.

She felt the tremors in Avery’s arm, feeling them as if they were coming from her own belly as they managed to raise her up just high enough for the screen to be activated. The door bleeped to life and obediently sprang aside.
Scout’s voice softened slightly as she gave Avery a pat on the cheek. “Come on buddy, we’re almost there.”

They nodded, standing up straight with admirable conviction and made their way across the threshold. They located the storage room that A.J. had described, thankfully finding close to fully stocked save for a few gutted drawers and ripped apart cupboards.

“Black thread, peach-tone thread,” Avery murmured under their breath, sifting through the little drawer of spools and trying to match the numbers and letters to the list that A.J. had given them. “I need 7D and 14F…and a length of zipper...a yard stick…some chalk…do you see, uh, flat-head pins?”

It was usually at this time that Scout would suggest changing places in order for Avery to have a better look at the drawer from her perspective but fearing the outcome, the puppet instead opted to wriggle into the narrow space herself.
“Ouch! Heh, I think I just found your pins there. Here.”
Her mitt poked out from the darkness of the drawer, revealing a series of sewing pins clutched like a silvery, metallic bouquet in her grip.

“Thanks,” Avery said with a slightly shaky smile. The sight of the little puppet on their wrist brought a tristful weight to their eyes. Horrific circumstances aside, it had been a long time since someone had looked at them with such earnest acceptance.

“Are we done collecting our supplies?” Scout asked, absent-mindedly playing with a knitting needle, pretending that it was a spear and fighting with a bobbin. “En garde!”

“I think so,” their host replied, ignoring the recurring pain in their temples and taking one last look at the list of instructions that A.J. had given. “She’s due to meet us in here in twenty minutes or so. We’ve just got to lay low and set out the table for when she gets in.”

It was when they were attempting to thread a needle for A.J. that Scout’s demeanour began to become a little more reserved. “Woah, shit. I, like, just remembered that I’m literally about to go under the knife.” Her hands slowed, falling a little limp around the spool and her eyes going distant. “Like…I’m not going to be a puppet anymore…”

“A.J. said you’ll be a hybrid so you’ll still be able to take your legs off when you want to,” Avery reassured her, elevating their wrist as if they were trying to keep her spirits up both figuratively and literally. “That means you’ll get the best of both worlds.”

“…huh, like you, right?” Scout said finally, smiling up at her host, her fuzzy, faded moustache starting to crease.
It took Avery a second to realise what Scout meant and when they did, they returned the smile.
Wider than before, even though the sores around their lips still stung.

“Ok, so one last thing. We need to pick out the stuffing for your lower half. A.J. gave a few options here. Do you want cotton stuffing or micro-beads?”

“Cotton stuffing!” Scout said without missing a beat. “That’s not even a question.”
“Why’s that? I would have thought that the beads would be sturdier,” Avery mused, turning around to retrieve her desired innards.
“Yeah and my ass would be a full-time rattle!” Scout exclaimed, patting the area of Avery’s wrist where her new posterior would be sitting. “So I’ll go with the cotton, if you please!”

The two of them shared a look before dissolving into peals of much deserved, very medicinal laughter.

****

“I couldn’t eat another bite,” A.J. insisted, as Daisy pushed another cardboard plate of glue-filled, Girl Scout cookies in her direction. “And…I’m trying to watch my figure.”

“Oh, I’m so very glad that you’ve decided to take care of yourself!” the homemaker trilled, seeming mercifully satiated with this response. “We girlies do have to mind our personal health.” She turned away from the table where A.J. had been seated, giving them human woman a few blessed seconds to wash her mouth out with water. A.J. watched carefully as Daisy took a stack of mousetraps from the top of a nearby confetti barrel and began to set them along the door.

It almost reminded the woman of her Oma setting down mousetraps in the antique store, humming to herself.  “Ah, Amelia, meine Liebling. I’d love to let die kleinen Mäuse move into the dollhouses if only they’d promise to keep them clean.”

“Having problems with vermin?” she asked Daisy aloud, eyes darting back and forth between the puppet and her watch.

“Oh, always, Amelia-Jane! It’s never all that nice!” she pouted, wiping her hands on her apron. “The traps go snap, snap, snap and crush the throats of those sneaky little mice.” She looked to A.J. with a wide, unfaltering smile and added. “I’ve caught rats too and birds and the odd rogue host. I’ve got bigger ones for them though…” She gestured to a rusty bear-trap that sat in the corner of the cafeteria. “I like using those ones the most. I’ve got more in the back, behind the scenes- though they can be a bit of a nightmare to clean.”

A.J. did not want to even begin to question where the Handeemen had gotten their hands on one of those contraptions- never mind more than one.
She swallowed, deciding that this was a good time to take her leave.

“I’m just gonna head to the rest-room before we go back to shooting,” she said in the way of an excuse, returning her bag to her shoulder and affixing her tool belt to her waist. “Nature calls.”

“Don’t worry about it, hon,” Daisy simpered, giving her the closest thing to a bemused smile she’d imagined the perky party planner had ever given. “I know that you hosts can have a hard time with your waste, by and by. I’ve cleaned up after your kind for years. It’s nice to have one who can keep herself clean and dry.”

A.J., once again, tried not to think too hard about this information as she hurried out of the canteen and down the hallway to the secluded sewing room.
She was seized by relief when she opened the door to see Avery and Scout standing by the table in the far corner of the room.

“Took your time, didn’t you, red?” Scout snorted, arms folded.
“Scout,” Avery scolded weakly, looking uncharacteristically pasty and shaky on their feet.
“Sorry, I had to get away from Daisy,” A.J. told the puppet with an apologetic nod as she closed the door behind her. Truthfully, she’d also managed to get a little bit lost finding the old room. She had deliberately suggested this sewing room as it was the furthest away from the others.
It was the one she used to take refuge in on the bad or particularly busy days at the studio. Unlike most of the sewing rooms, there was no window, (frosted glass or otherwise), so it was an easy spot to hide away in. She would spend hours in there poring over her notes, preparing props and sewing costumes. Other staff members would bemoan having to use that room as it was far from the bathrooms, the canteen, the soundstage and lacked both sufficient heating and air conditioning. Because of that, A.J. could always be certain that she’d have the room to herself.
If Owen was on a hell path that day, she would often use that room to stay out of his way.
If she and Owen were having a particularly good day, she would meet him in that room after hours.

The table that Avery and Scout were standing over was the one that she’d often set up on; she recognised the scratches and grooves along the polished surface as well as the exposed, brown brickwork on the wall behind them.
She could remember how those grooves felt against her elbows as she leaned on the table, willing the sewing machine not to get stuck for the fourteenth time.
She could remember how the exposed brickwork on the far wall felt against her lower back as Owen drew her closer to him, his lips meshed with hers and his hands in her hair.

A.J. instinctively raked her fingernails along her exposed forearm, shuddering and trying to bring herself out if her own memories back to the room that they were standing in. “Did you manage to get everything?”

Avery nodded, now having to grip the edge of the table as they spoke through gritted teeth. “Yep. Got it all here. Scout even picked out cott-cotton-…” Their words began to slur together, like a talking toy whose batteries were starting to run out. The knuckles of their free hand began to turn milky as they struggled to stay standing.

“We need to get started,” A.J. said as she edged between the tables. “We’ve lost enough time…”
“And it sounds like you,” Scout said, worriedly looking to Avery. “Don’t have much time left on your feet.”  
“So, let’s get you a pair of your own,” the woman said, putting her gloves on. She looked at Avery. “I’ll need you to set Scout down on the table.”

The host nodded, giving the little puppet a fond pat on the head, reminding A.J. strongly of the children at the Toy Hospital forced to part with their beloved dolls and action figures. Unlike those toys, however, Scout was able to look back up at Avery and offer them a little pat on the hand in return.
As Avery slipped Scout from their hand, A.J. couldn’t help but notice the skin on the human’s hand was paler than before, their veins sitting out prominent like fat snakes beneath a damp bed-sheet.
All of their skin looked far lighter than before, their eyebags prominent and dark, their movements jerky and far too calculated for someone who wasn’t about to keel over.
“You can grab a seat if you want to,” A.J. told them. They gratefully shuffled away, their knees close to knocking as they sank into a nearby seat. 

Scout’s eyes widened as her now-very flat body was spread out upon the dimly lit table. She desperately turned her head to look for where her host was.
“It’s ok,” A.J. said, trying to keep her voice low as her fingers moved to turn on her head lamp. Avery instantly started to fall asleep in the seat, collapsing against the worn rubber. “They’re fine. They’re just going to take a little rest.” She was able and willing to make her voice as sweet and gentle as it would usually be when she was fixing a toy at the Toy Hospital. She would always speak to the toy comfortingly in the absence of other humans; the only major difference this time of course was that toys usually didn’t have anything to say in return.

“S-So what are you gonna d-do exactly?” Scout stammered, eyeing the scissors in A.J.’s hand.
“First, I’ve got to mark out your legs and stitch them together,” A.J. told her. “Then, I’ll sew on the two parts of the zipper, add the stuffing and zip you up together.”

“You’re saying it so fucking casually!” Scout spat, glowering up at her. “Like, jeez, red, I get it! You’ve done this hundreds of times before, right? But, christ-on-a-bike, you’re not the one about to go under the knife here-…”

“Actually, I’ve only done it three times before,” A.J. pointed out rather dryly as she checked her measurements and started marking out the material with the nub of chalk. “And you won’t be going under a “knife” in any respect. The only thing you’ll be under is a needle. I thought about using hot glue but there’s a strong chance that’ll pull away with wear and tear so…”
A.J. had initially thought that Scout would appreciate her complete honesty but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

“What the fuck!? No! No!” Scout shrieked. “I am not doing this! Avery!? Avery, put me back on your hand right now!”
“Avery’s passed out,” A.J. told her, starting to sew the different pieces of materials together. The woman never found herself to be too moved by a crying child in those days but there was something about the puppet’s wide, hand-sewn eyes that gave her pause. Not unlike the way Riley had given her pause in the sewers.
Then there was the fact that those stitches looked rather familiar…

“Calm down,” A.J. bade her, placing a hand upon Scout’s forehead. “I fixed you once and I can do it again. I promise I’m going to do the absolute best I can not to-.”
A tiny felt hand swept upward to swat A.J.’s own hand away. It wasn’t particularly strong or painful but the woman moved her palm all the same.
“Calm down!? Easy for you to fucking say! You’re not the one about to Frankensteined into some kind of weird puppet/doll thing!” Scout grabbed at her flattened stomach, voice thick and fearful. “This isn’t just like a quick nip/tuck deal! This is going to change who I am!” Despite the fact that no tears fell from the puppet, A.J. could hear crying in her voice. “When I was here, I barely got to know who I was outside being some defective, rogue puppet and then I met Avery and it felt like for the first time, I was starting to meet myself too and now…now…everything’s going to change…”

“…you’ll still have Avery,” A.J. said, voice slow but mind frantic and fingers still deftly pulling her work together. “That’s not going to change.” She looked at her watch and then down at Scout again, her temples throbbing as a sigh escaped her gritted teeth. “Look, I’m not going to force you to do anything. If you don’t want to go through with this, you don’t have to.”
“But then…what happens to Avery?” Scout asked, voice thin and reedy as she tilted her head, straining to look at the sleeping human. “They’re like that because of me. If we stay joined all the time, Avery’s gonna…kick the bucket like all those other hosts. Aren’t they?”
A.J. swallowed, shrugging slightly as she set the half-finished legs on to the table. “…we can try something else.” She felt like she was back in the sewers again, talking to Riley. Making reassuring promises that she wasn’t really equipped to keep.
“Like what?”
“…I don’t know,” A.J. said honestly but gently.
“Fuck,” Scout groaned, placing her hands over her eyes. “This is the best chance we have to help, Avery, isn’t it?”
“Yes. At least at the moment, it is.”
“Fuck!” She clenched her little mittens into fists, slamming them down either side of her. “Ok. Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do it for Avery. Just promise me one fucking thing, red.”
“Yeah?”
“Promise me that you’ll make me tall enough to reach Avery’s face when I’m standing on a table?” The puppet sighed, settling back against the polished wood. “I want to sock them in the jaw for falling asleep in my time of need.”
“…can do,” A.J. said with a half-smile, poking some of the cotton stuffing into Scout’s legs. “What do you want to wear on your lower half? As a base anyway. Long pants or short?”

“Shorts, definitely,” Scout responded. “I want to go for a kind of sporty, action-hero vibe…and can you give me high-tops?”
“I can give you sneakers.”
“That’ll do.”
Scout’s voice had almost returned to its playful drawl but was still underscored with a nervous waver.

A.J. picked up a length of zipper, watching Scout shudder and shut her eyes tight in response. She tried to measure the material up against the little Handeepuppet’s waist but the precision of the measurement was still off. A fraction of a centimetre here and there, she noticed, it always seemed to be simultaneously too tight and too loose.
She glanced at the diary poking out of her duffle bag and exhaled, surrendering.to the impulse that she’d been trying to deny for the last twenty-four hours. To do this, she acknowledged, would be to admit to something that she didn’t feel like she was ready to admit to.
Though, as she looked at the puppet, laid out on the table and prepared to make such an immense change that she didn’t feel ready for in the name of helping a friend, A.J. knew that now wasn’t the time to be selfish.
She pulled out the journal and leafed to one of the early pages. It wasn’t as well-thumbed as some of the others as even in her most nostalgic moments, it was one that she tended to avoid. That humble, oft neglected double spread served to track the creation of the Handeepuppet that she had made with Owen.
Her heart thumped as she squinted at her younger-self’s handwriting and she tried not to look at the Kodak pictures that had been scotch-taped across the two pages.

“What’s that?” Scout asked between increasingly laboured breathing. “Don’t tell me you’re taking a book break.”
“It’s…nothing. Just a journal I keep,” A.J. explained, setting the diary on the table and taking up the ruler again. “I use it to record notes on all of the toys, dolls, puppets, robots…everything- everyone I work on. I just thought I could get some measurements from a page in there.”
“Wait, does that mean that you worked on me before?” Scout wheezed. “I didn’t think I was ever on the show and you said that you left before I was made?”
“Handeepuppets usually have similar measurements,” A.J. said quickly, taking up her needle and thread and starting to get the zipper ready. “Ok, I think I’m ready to get started. Are you ready?”

“Mmm,” Scout wriggled up on to her own elbows and surveyed the prepared bottom half. “Could you move some of the stuffing from my ass to my calves? I’m going for a more athletic build.”

“Can do.” She took her looping tool and pressed down the cotton to its desired new location. “Are you ready now?”

“…I guess. Got any anaesthetic? Or booze?”
A.J. was certainly desperate for a drink at that point, (or some of Mark from Accounting’s famous pills), but with nothing to provide chemical comfort to herself or to Scout, she was forced to resort to an old Toy Hospital trick.
She took a sewing lance from her tool belt and made sure to carefully cover it with the cloth of her glove. “I’m gonna give you a little injection in your side that’ll take some of the pain out of this.” She swiftly added, noting Scout’s sceptical eyebrows. “I’ve used it before on other…clients.”
“You’ve met other living puppets? Like besides me and the Handeemaniacs?”
“Puppets? No,” A.J. said, stomach contorting uncomfortably as a series of memories flashed through her mind’s eye. “But I have met some other…lively…individuals.” She cleared her throat. “Here, you’re going to feel a little pinch. I’m gonna count to three and you can-.”
“Cough. Yeah, I remember from before,” Scout said faintly. “I’m glad I have a painkiller this time. When you pulled that one thread above my nose before, it hurt like a bitch. I’m glad I was passed out when you sewed my arm went on because I probably would have screamed the place down.”
A.J. forced herself to smile to accompany Scout’s nervous giggle. “Ok, one, two, three, cough.”
She lanced Scout’s side to create the opening stitch, watching as Scout shuddered violently.

“Ah!” The puppet wriggled, gritting her teeth. “Fuck…tell me it gets better from here on out!”
A.J. looked up at the windowless door, starting to pray that Scout wasn’t going to be much louder than that. “Just try to keep breathing deeply, ok?”
She tried to continue the stitch, only for Scout to writhe and cry, grabbing at A.J.’s hand.

“I need both my hands for this,” the human woman insisted, trying desperately to fight off any feelings of irritation and adding with a little more softness. “You can hold on to my sleeve, if you want.”
Scout nodded, eyes squeezed shut as her little arms shot around A.J.’s wrist. “Ok, fuck. How long does this painkiller take to kick in?”
“It…varies,” A.J. said, trying to concentrate on lining the zipper’s mesh with Scout’s soft waistline. She then said something that she thought would be medicinal but instantly regretted as soon as the words left her mouth. “Look, the other Handeepuppets didn’t even need any painkiller and I did some pretty intense fixes on most of them.”

Scout’s arms went limp around A.J.’s wrist, her face falling a little and her eyes shutting.
“Is…is that right?”
A.J. only nodded, feeling guilty but using the puppet’s sudden change in demeanour to continue the stitch line. She watched as Scout chewed on her lower lip, twitch and wince as she worked, slowly feeling the pit in her own stomach grow deeper.

“You hanging in there?” A.J. eventually asked, forgoing her usual policy of not talking while she was working.
“Y-Yeah,” Scout managed to groan out.
“Do you need a break?”
“No!” The puppet sounded indignant and very clearly in pain.
“Do you want me to go slower…or faster?”
“Go as fast as you went on the other Handeepuppets, why don’t you?” Scout rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Stop pitying me because I’m a defect.”
A.J. frowned, taking a break to set out her journal and opening it for a reference. “You’re not defective. You’re a perfectly well-made puppet.”
“Then why am I so fucking different to the other ones!?” Scout cried, slamming a felt fist upon the table. “Why can’t I control a host or withstand pain or talk in manic, effortless rhyme? What kind of off-day was Owen fucking having when he threw me together?”
“There is nothing wrong with you,” A.J. said sharply and a little defensively. “If anything you’re more real then the rest of them. You’re more…”
“Human?” Scout said, wincing hard when A.J. picked up the needle again. “That’s the thing though, isn’t it, red? I’m not human. I’ll never be human. I’ll never belong with humans just like I don’t belong with the other puppets.”
“Trust me when I say that being human is not enough to belong with them,” A.J. told the little puppet, using a free thumb to give Scout a little squeeze on the shoulder. “I know plenty of humans who don’t feel like they belong with other humans either…and well…you belong with Avery. That’s for sure.”
Scout nodded, smiling faintly. “Y-Yeah…I guess that’s why I’m doing this.”
“And that makes you better than a lot of humans.”

A.J. would respect and revere the puppet’s following bravery as she continued to work. There were times when Scout would swear and scream, but she stayed still and focused as A.J. slipped the needle in and out of her sides.
Every now and then, A.J. would steal a glance at the photo and reference drawings in her diary. She would occasionally feel Owen’s eyes staring up at her from the creased photo stuck to the page. She tried not to imagine the vulture-like Owen Gubberson hovering around her and waiting to bark criticisms.
She tried to imagine the more gentle, jovial Owen, proudly surveying her as she worked and telling her what a wonderful job she was doing.

As she put the final stitch on the zipper edge, carefully cradling Scout in her hand, she could almost hear his voice, over her shoulder. “Good work. You did great.”

“Can…can I have a bellybutton?” the puppet asked, voice weaker than ever. “It looks like so much fun. It’s like having a nose on your tummy.”
“…sure,” A.J. said, swallowing back an unfortunately timed laugh. “Do you want an inny or an outy?”
“An outy. Like Avery,” Scout wheezed softly, tilting her head back to regard the comatose human, sitting behind them.
“Ok, ready to cough one last time?”
“Yes. Hopefully. Count me in, red.”
“Three, two, one…”

Scout gave one last cry of pain, Avery suddenly waking up from the noise and groggily looking around the room.
“You did great,” A.J. told the little now-half-puppet, giving her blue woolly head a little pat and echoing no one in particular. “Well done.”

“I did do great, didn’t I?” Scout said softly with a weak chuckle, wincing. “I…I can’t feel my legs. At all. Is that …normal?”
“Yeah, I think so. We’ll need the spell to make you whole,” A.J. told her. “Looks like we can move on to phase two. I’ll need to head back to the Handeemen…”

Scout nodded, eyelids heavy as she mumbled something incoherent.
The little puppet turned her head, leaning towards A.J.’s diary, seemingly peering at the pages. A.J. used this opportunity to snip away at the loose threads, not realising that this was a potentially bad idea until the little puppet spoke.

“Huh, that’s Owen, right? Hmpf, he…he looks more...alive than the last time I saw him…heh, probably for the best. Mmm…and that’s you with him? You look so different. All happy and shit…” She was muttering almost drunkenly. “Huh, what were you guys…hey, that looks like me.”

A.J. had been scraping some of the loose threads from her sewing lance when her hands suddenly froze.

“That looks a lot like me. Actually, all of these pictures look a lot like me,” Scout repeated, her voice still weak in volume but getting steadily firmer in tone. “That…puppet…that puppet… is me. The puppet in that picture with you and Owen is me. Why do you have pictures of me in your diary? Why…why do you have a picture of me with you and Owen?”

Before A.J. could answer, Avery was at the table, still shaky on their feet but thankfully having regained some of their colour. “Woah, Scout. Look at you!”

“Hey, looks like Rip Van Winkle finally woke up,” the little puppet wheezed, turning over to happily regard her host. “Yeah, look at me now.”

A.J. seized the opportunity to close the diary and shove it back into her duffle bag, speaking quickly. “Ok, it’s currently three and I’m due back off break now. I’m going to try and get the Handeemen down to the office between now and four.” She looked to Avery. “You’ve got to get Scout to Owen’s office. Do you remember where that is?”

“The brown door at the end of that long hallway? The one with all of the Keep Out signs on it?” the human queried, delicately taking Scout into their arms.
“That’s the one. Try to stay out of sight because you won’t be able to put Scout on your hand until those stitches have finished settling,” A.J. told them, resetting her tool belt upon her waist. “When you get into the room, put Scout under the round table on some kind of stool so that she’s off the ground but out of sight. Then, hide. There’s a gateway to one of supply rooms that leads out of Owen’s office. You should be able to get behind something in there.” She looked to Avery intently. “If anyone spots you, drop to the ground and play dead. There are lots of dead hosts lying around here- it’s probably the best thing to do. If you’re found out…I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you straight away…”

“Don’t worry,” Avery half-smirked. “I’ve done this already before. I can do it again.” They cradled a now-very-confused, very-mumbly Scout to their chest. “Is she going to be ok?”

“She’s…she should be fine when we’ve tricked Mortimer into performing the ritual on her,” A.J. conceded briskly. “She’s just in a lot of pain and a little confused…”
Her heart was now hammering against her ribcage, fit to break it into tiny pieces.

“Thanks again. Seriously,” Avery said, looking to A.J. intently. “Thank you for helping us. You really didn’t have to.”

“Helping you both helps me deal with my immense guilt for essentially helping the Handeemen to continue kidnapping, torturing, enslaving and ultimately murdering hundreds of vulnerable humans.”

“I’m glad that Scout has you,” A.J. replied, regarding the young, brown-eyed, wide-eyed journalist with an attempt at sincerity that was oddly painful. “You’re very brave.”
“I’m glad that I have Scout too,” Avery said with a bashful smile, looking down at the wriggling, grumbling half-puppet in their arms. “I think she’s the one that taught me to be brave.” They looked up with A.J. as she made her way to the door. “Best of luck.”

“You too,” A.J. managed to say, closing the door behind her.

She checked her watch a few dozen times as she returned to the soundstage, making sure to give Avery plenty of time to make their way to Owen’s office.
It was when she took a shortcut through Wing B’s back corridors that she spotted a huge silhouette wandering around the accountancy wing. She froze in her tracks, preparing to break into a run and immediately making a note of all of the possible doors around her.

Rosco made eye contact with her and then proceeded to continue walking in the opposite direction. Nose to the ground and apparently following some kind of trail.
The trail wasn’t hers thankfully but she had just enough sense left in her to pray that it wasn’t Avery’s either.

When she walked into the soundstage again, a smile rather automatically stretched across her face despite the pain of rue in her brows and the growing discomfort in the back of her throat. It was as though she was looking at a vision straight out of one of Owen’s fantasies.
The Handeemen were making the show themselves- no human involvement.
It was like the perfect version of reality that they had always talked about, sitting side by side on Owen’s sofa or whispering in the darkness of a half-empty workshop.
“Look,” she wanted to say to him. “It’s just like you always dreamed that it would be.”

It was only when she got closer that, like all beautiful things, the cracks began to show.
Nick Nack was directing a camera-puppet who had no film in their camera.
Far from the once slick and discreet puppeteers, the hooded hosts shambled around with heavy feet like drunken zombies. Then there were the bloody marks that lined the waists of the Handeepuppets and the pervasive feeling of fear all around, hanging in the air like a cold mist.
And the empty director’s chair with the murky stain upon the seat.

As Daisy and Mortimer were the ones in the scene, Riley was standing off to the side with Clara in the chair beside her.
“Don’t worry, your doll is still intact,” she muttered disdainfully as A.J. approached. “Nick was all set to put her in a scene but she can’t exactly act.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” A.J. bade the scientist, leaning down to pick up Clara and whispering in Riley’s wooden ear. “Rosco is fine too. I just spotted him down by Wing B.”

Riley’s eyes widened slightly but she kept appropriately poker faced, only nodding in response. The human woman could detect her relief though.
“Funny,” she thought as she inspected Clara’s frilly underside and porcelain face. “I can always tell how toys are feeling but never people.”
For instance, at that moment, she knew Clara was probably feeling rather apprehensive about what was to come.

“Alright, cut! That’s a wrap, people! Steady your hosts!” Nick announced through a very large, old-fashioned megaphone. “That’s the episode finished. Let’s get everything to post!” He almost dropped his new affect when he caught Mortimer’s eye, adding with a quick gulp. “Err, that is…if everything’s all well by your standards, Mortimer?”

“Hmm…”
The magician puppet looked around the set, his eyebrows raising when he caught sight of A.J. again before turning back to Nick. “We can close production for today and commence editing tomorrow.”
“You heard the man, kiddos!” the thespian puppet yelled into his megaphone. “Pack it up! Parting is such sweet sorrow!”

Mortimer seemed to be walking a lot better, no doubt thanks to Riley acquiring him a new host. It was the scientist puppet whom he decided to speak to first, addressing her with a renewed zeal and a brand-new lightness.
“Riley, darling, before the stage dissolves into a hubbub,” he crooned. “Grab Daisy and supervise the underlings while they give this place a good scrub.” Barely awaiting further instructions, Doctor Ruckus zipped across the soundstage like an arrow shot by an expert marksman though she didn’t bother with any niceties in the magician’s direction, A.J. would later note. “Amelia-Jane, you can take our lovely friend Clara down to my office. It’s the room we had our lovely elucidating talk in, you know? The one you lost your screwdriver outside of.”

“Owen’s old office?” A.J. dared to say, her grip tightening around Clara’s mid-section. She knew that it was a dumb time to test her luck but she was so drunk with nerves that it was starting to become a kind of irked mania.

Mortimer’s jaw twitched slightly but his smile never faded as he replied. “Yes, that’s the one. I’m sure you know the way, but  I’ll send you with an escort so that you don’t go astray.” His monocle flashed warningly in her direction as he suddenly bellowed. “NICK!”

Nick Nack appeared by Mortimer’s side so quickly that A.J. could have sworn he’d evaporated through the floorboards. “Yes, maestro?”

“Take the ladies to my office without any distractions. It’s time to get this ritual in action,”  Mortimer cleared his throat. “I’ve got a table all set out and properly laid. I trust that you’ll be able to set things up whilst I’m waylaid?”
“Right away, boss! Off we go! Tally-ho!”

Nick Nack all but seized A.J. by the arm, entwining his host’s arm in hers as Daisy once had as he all but cantered away with her across the studio floor. He was humming under his breath; A.J. noted. It was a classical piece that she recognised but didn’t quite remember the name of.
He hummed this same tun under his breath as the two of them traversed the familiar maze of doors and flat walls until they finally reached the office once more. He only spoke again when the two of them were safely inside.

“Now, here we are! Hmm, for this show, Clara must be the star.” He pointed to the round table in the center of the room. “Place her in the center there. I’m sure you’ll act with the utmost care.”

 It was the table that Owen would sit at when making script notes and that he and A.J. would co-opt for their tea-time sessions. It had even been draped with the white table cloth that was still stained from the time she had laughed so hard at Owen’s jokes that she’d dropped her teacup.
Now, instead of a tea set, it was laden with a series of small candles and daubed with a series of strange looking markings.
Frowning that Clara’s dress was more than likely going to be daubed too but knowing that she had no choice in the matter, she reluctantly set the doll upon the table. Recalling her own plans, she also loosened the torch in her belt so that it would clatter to the ground.

“Oops. My bad.”
She stooped to the ground to pick up her torch and saw Scout’s silhouette beneath the table cloth, resting just underneath the table upon Owen’s stepladder.
“Nice one, Avery!” she thought, scooping up the torch and deftly scooting the ladder a few inches so that Scout was positioned directly beneath Clara on the table.

Behind her, the artist puppet was adjusting a framed poster on the wall. He was jabbering away about something to do with the artwork on display in the studio. A.J. fleetingly remembered what Riley had said, noting with the tiniest touch of sorrow how difficult it must have been for him with no one new to talk to about his interests.
“Is this one of yours?” she asked Nick, joining him beside the poster and knowing damn well it wasn’t but all the while, needing to keep his attention on her. If Avery was hiding somewhere in the room, she didn’t want to risk them being found before the ritual was performed.

“This? Heaven, no! My work is far more nouveau,” he trilled, waving a hand as though he was conducting an invisible orchestra. “I suppose I’ll have to design a series of new posters to go with the new run of the show.”
“That’ll be fun,” A.J. said, trying to discreetly look around, imagining where a fully grown human could be hiding. “Shooting went really well today. I think you’re doing a great job so far. I mean, taking over almost all of the production roles must be a pretty daunting task…”
“As a fellow artist, you must be able to tell and you know it all too well,” the puppet replied, surprising A.J. by lighting a little spark in her chest: she wasn’t used to being called an artist.

“Ah,” she admonished, finally spotting Avery’s shoulder poking out from behind a line of shelves behind the chicken wire of the supply closet. “Well, I’m not as talented as you, obviously. Like I can draw and paint a bit…but music? That’s something I could never hack.”

“Indeed. I was one of the lucky few to be kissed by Apollo’s fair lips. I actually want to include a little more music in the scripts,” he told A.J. excitedly. “If I am permitted, I would love to even have an entire musical episode! Wouldn’t that be grand? A bit of light opera would really give Mortimer’s Handeemen an edge…though, I’ll first have to guide the others to understand. They don’t always appreciate my unique point of view. But what else is an artist to do!?”

A.J. regarded him with a sympathetic smile, feeling her soft-spot for the sometimes-dorky, all-the-time quirky thespian starting to grow again. “It can be tough to get your co-workers to see things your way but I imagine if you persevere, they’ll come around. Riley really liked your ideas to camouflage the puppigeons today.”

“It’s tough alright but alas, it was what I was made to do,” Nick said with a long sigh. “A.J., now that we are alone. Might I confide something in you?”

“Sure. Go right ahead,” A.J. said, daring to breathe a sigh of relief as the puppet started to walk away from the supply closet, instead making his way over to one of the huge filing cabinets.

“I was wondering if I could ask you about love again?”
A.J. was instantly taken aback by this but rolled with the punches in an effort to keep his attention squarely on her. “Y-Yeah? I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask about that but…sure?”

“You said that you weren’t sure that father ever truly returned your feelings,” the puppet said, looking earnestly at her as his host leaned against the filing cabinet. “And despite your feelings never being supposedly returned…when you thought it was him calling for you, you didn’t act spurned. You came back to him, to us…even though you had no evidence that he had any love for you still.”
A.J. rubbed her forehead, becoming rather fatigued with this discourse and was now more aware than ever that both Scout and Avery were in the room and within earshot.

“Mr Nack-.”
“You can call me Nick,” he interrupted, looking around over his shoulders and lowering his voice. “You can call me Nick, if you’d like.”
“…ok, Nick. It’s…it’s not that I thought coming back here would make Owen love me. Like I said before, I mostly came back for you guys. For the Handeemen. But...when you do…have feelings for someone…even if you know that you and that person are never going to be together or don’t work well together…it doesn’t mean that you have an excuse to treat them cruelly or to just turn your back on them. Them not loving you back doesn’t mean you can’t still care about them or their wellbeing.”
“Dad was pretty cruel to you,” Nick retorted, folding his arms. “That should have given you excuse enough to be a little mean to him.”
“Owen was in a really hard place when he and I were…” A.J.’s voice trailed away for a moment. “When I knew him. I try not to hold it against him, if I can.”
“It’s hard though,” Nick pouted, mimicking A.J.’s stance and placing his back to the wall. “When someone is so cold and heartless and dismissive of your feelings and you put yourself out there for them and they break your heart and you’re just supposed to pretend that everything’s all fine and dandy and “be the bigger puppet” but they won’t even acknowledge that they basically led you on…”

“Well, that’s part of having emotions, I guess. It hurts but at the end of the day, if you care about someone- like really care about them- you shouldn’t stop caring about them or start treating them like trash just because they don’t feel the same way about you.” A.J. steadily began to realise that Nick didn’t seem to be talking about she and Owen anymore. She gave a small laugh, despite the growing pain in her chest and put her hand on Nick’s shoulder. “It’s the burden of being able to fall in love. That’s what my friend Marissa says.”

“The burden of being able to fall in love,” Nick echoed. He was forgetting to rhyme again, just as Riley and Daisy had. “That sounds like the title of the most epic love poem. I shall have to write it…” He groaned dramatically, a fist over his chest. “Before my feelings implode inward upon me and cause my form to break apart before I ever perceive the sensation of someone loving me in return.”

“Someday,” she told him with the same tone Marissa often used with her when they talked about their love lives. “You’re going to meet a lovely puppet lady and she’s going to be the luckiest puppet lady in the world.”

“I don’t exactly have a lot of options, do I?” Nick drawled, cocking a bemused eyebrow at her.

“You’d be surprised,” A.J. told him with a shrug. “I have it on pretty good authority that Owen is not the only one on this planet who’s ever decided to try to bring their own creations to life and one of them is bound to like opera just as much as you do.”

“Maybe. Easy for you to say. You had father and he was nuts about you.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I think he was just stoked to meet someone who also thought puppets were infinitely better than people.”
“Well, I can’t argue with you there.”

The two of them remained in the same comfortable silence that she’d previously found with Riley, simply existing beside each other, wrapped in their own, shared melancholia. It would have been genuinely nice if it weren’t for the fact that Avery and Scout were both sitting in the same room, perhaps in pain and almost certainly in extreme trepidation.

“What if you had proof?”
“Hm?”
Nick turned to look at her. “What if you had proof that father really did love you? Would that change how you feel now? Like, you said before- that day with Daisy- that you never felt that Owen felt the same way. What if I could prove to you that father did feel the same way?”

A.J. stared at him for a moment, unsure where exactly the puppet was going with this. “I-…”

Before she could say another word, Nick was rummaging in one of the drawers of the filing cabinet. He produced the same tape recorder that Mortimer had commanded him to produce during their last confrontation in the office.
He set the tape recorder down on Owen’s desk and pulled the cardboard box of tapes from beneath the work-bench. “Daddy loved making tapes of himself talking. I’m sure you know that already.” Nick took out a well-worn notepad from the side of the box and then checked over his shoulders again, clearly just as alert as A.J. was, though for markedly different reasons. “Mortimer put me in charge of all of his audio logs, gave me the job of listening to all his tapes and to cataloguing any useful information.” He opened up the notepad and to A.J.’s surprise, almost every page was full of long paragraphs of that same “puppet writing” that she had seen around the studio before. “It was all very interesting.” He looked up at A.J., a kind of sadness stealing over his tortoise-shell eyes. “I didn’t get to know father the way you did; by the time I met him…he wasn’t exactly the most open-minded when it came to me or the others…so, I use these tapes to sort of, get to know him. I started making all these notes about things that he mentioned…people, places…”

A.J. began to realise what Nick was about to do and a sudden hot flush descended over her, her fingertips practically vibrating beneath the skin as her throat became very dry. “Nick, I don’t think this is a very good ide-.”
“I heard your name a few times. I didn’t know who you were back then beyond some woman who’d ditched us to go somewhere else but now that I’ve met you, this puts all of father’s words in a whole new light,” he continued to jabber, completely aloof to A.J.’s apprehension. “Hmm…this is the first time he mentions you…tape 18J. Though, I’ll admit, I didn’t know it was you at first.”

Before A.J. could stop him, the puppet had already selected the cassette from the box and slipped it into the player.
Nick Nack’s wooden ears must have been more delicate than she had thought because after only a few seconds of clicking back and forth, listening to the manic whirring, he seemed to know exactly where to stop. “Et voila!”
“Nick-.”

“…Rachel needs to stop booking me for these convention gigs.”

The sound of Owen’s voice silenced her.
Mortimer’s imitation had been near-perfect but there was something about hearing the real thing that shook her entire body to the core.

“I keep telling her that I don’t like all the crowding and being railroaded into talking to all of these corporate types that are more interested in telling me about my own show than letting me talk about it! I also told her that I wasn’t doing the keynote without Mortimer. You guys can probably guess how that went. I swear, everything here is in one ear and out the other. Jake was an embarrassment too. Parading himself like he was the star of the show and making a beeline for the hotel bar when the press section was over. It was nice to be recognised for once though…I’ll admit that much…like, part of me wishes I could have recorded every person who called me a creative genius just to send to dad as a mixtape…heh, that would have been funny, right? Sorry, I couldn’t take you guys. Not that I think any of you would have enjoyed it much…”

“Dad talks to us sometimes!” Nick whispered excitedly. “I mean, he loves to complain but I think that’s where I get it from, you know? Anyway, your part’s coming up. Listen!”
A.J. didn’t have to be told. She wasn’t even breathing aloud anymore; lest she miss a single word of what Owen was saying.

“…one other good thing happened though. At least I think it did. So…I’m walking around the booths, trying to avoid people shoving merchandise in my face…and I stop for a minute to catch my breath by this one booth. I see this porcelain doll, just like one of the ones that mom used to get Emma for Christmas. Y’know…?” Owen paused and took a long breath. “To say sorry in advance for when daddy dearest used to come home drunk?” He gave a small, sardonic laugh that resonated in A.J.’s chest, turning her insides cold. Owen gave another short exhale, his voice warming slightly. “So, anyway, I see this con organiser coming towards me and I’m just not in the mood so I figure- what the hell- I’ll start talking to the person at the booth. So, I turn to the guy and…it’s actually a girl. She looked…” Owen gave another, much kinder chuckle. “…you wouldn’t believe me if I told you but let’s just say, I almost mistook her for someone else.”
A.J. closed her eyes to conceal her instinctive eye-roll but didn’t say anything. “I got talking to her and…she was pretty cool. She’s a craftsperson too…uh, restoration I think…” Owen seemed to be talking to someone but she couldn’t hear another voice on the tape. “And she said this really amazing thing. She said: puppets are better than people. They don’t lie. I mean…what? Like, I’ve never met anyone else who sees it that way. It’s like: she gets it, y’know?” Owen paused for a moment and then resumed talking as though he was replying to someone. Presumably the puppets. “What, Daisy? Don’t say that! I only talked to her for like two minutes tops…huh, well, I don’t know…I don’t even remember her name. It was Ally? Anne-marie? Something like that. I know where she works; that’s about it.” He paused again, presumably waiting for one of the Handeemen to answer. “I mean, I could call her workplace but what would I even say?” He put on a deeper, silly voice, mocking himself. “Hello there, sir or madam, could I please talk to the red-haired toy maker from your booth at Craft Con? I really need to ask her about what she meant about puppets.” He laughed at himself. “I can’t say that…can I? I don’t know. I…just…I’ve never talked with someone like that before where I didn’t feel like I was being sucked up to or spoken down to…and I want to talk to her again.”

Nick hit the stop button with a sonorous click before looking to A.J. with a triumphant smile.
“See?” the artist puppet crooned rather smugly, his smirk accompanied by the rippling click of his arched eyebrows. “Sounds like love at first sight to me.”

A.J. frowned at the artist puppet, rather unable to conceal her disdain this time. “At this point, he also had a wife and a kid…”
“Oh, you mean the woman. Yeah, they didn’t last long together. She thought we were creepy,” Nick mourned, looking rather offended. “Can you believe that? Eugh!” He shook his head, switching out the tape in the player for another one. “He didn’t say very many nice things about her and he almost never mentions the kid. Father liked you far more. Here! Listen to this one!”

“Please, I don’t-.”
A.J. was a hair’s breadth from physically pulling the tape player from Nick’s tenure when she remembered exactly what she was doing in that room. From the place where they were standing, she could just about make out Scout’s motionless silhouette beneath the table and she could definitely see Avery’s shoulder quivering behind the wire fence.
Deciding that it was best to keep Nick distracted, she gritted her teeth and allowed him to press play again.

“Ok, so, turns out we’re travelling to New York next week to talk through that merch deal. Unfortunately, Jake’s been secured as a member of the entourage but Carla just said that the meeting won’t take up the whole day so we’ll have some free time.” Listening to him was difficult but there was something about the lightness in his voice- a lightness that she hadn’t heard in so long- that brought her back to her happier moments with him. Part of her fought against the urge to reminisce- reminding herself of what would happen if she did, reminding herself of her therapy sessions with Doctor Ng.
She felt like a Mommy Long-Legs doll, pulled to her limit in two extreme directions.
“I’m taking it as a sign. That’s where the girl from the convention works. I’m gonna call her workplace. I’ve gotta finish that puppet for Kate- Emma’s been bugging me about that tour again because I guess all I am to her any more is a resource- so I’m gonna use that as an excuse to book that girl for a job. Nick is right: what’s the worst thing that can happen? She’s unavailable but I still get an excuse to ditch Jake and those other morons for a few hours? It’s a win-win.”
The puppet gave a little squeal at the mention of his name, hissing: “Did you hear that? I was so helpful to dad, even before I was alive! Now, listen to this part. It’s the best.” He pressed fast forward on the tape deck and shuffled it backwards and forwards a little before finally releasing the play button once more.

“…so New York was…” Owen fell silent before laughing breathily. “…wow…I don’t know what to say. I mean, I figured she’d be interesting to talk to again but…she’s…” His voice trailed off slightly again. “You’d really like her, Mort. She loves puppets, she’s a great craftsperson, she’s a fan of the show…she’s even got a cute friend for you to hang out with. I wish you could have been there to meet her: she really wanted to meet you too.” He chuckled again, the smile in his voice becoming mor evident. “Gah! You sound like Daisy. She wanted all the details too. It’s like I keep telling her: it wasn’t that serious. It was all very professional-it was some good networking. We…we did get ice-cream though…and we took a bit of a detour….” A.J. heard the bashfulness creep into his voice, coinciding with the slow flush creeping across her own face as she remembered that day. “…don’t look at me like that. Like I said: nothing serious happened…but…I want to see her again.” He was quiet for a moment before adding in a far quieter voice. “Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?”

Nick pressed pause again and leaned in so close to A.J. that his pointy, slender nose was practically prodding her own.
“Hear that? Daddy was practically fawning over you already!”

“I-…”

Before A.J. could say another word and mercifully before Nick could press the tape recorder again, the office door opened.

Chapter Text

Rule 10: …

(Handeemen Studios, 1998)

Avery clutched Scout closer to their chest as they ran through the main lobby, conscious of just how loud their footsteps sounded as they pounded against the wooden floorboards. The act of running itself was a dangerous balking of the studio’s commandments; the Handeepuppets and sock puppets tended not to run anywhere unless there was some kind of emergency. As such, to break into a run was to invite immediate attention.
They swallowed against a too-dry throat, stealing a glance down at Scout as they turned another corner.
“Hang in there,” they wheezed, noticing that her voice was becoming fainter and her movements were becoming less energetic. “Hang in there, Scout.”
They stumbled into the canteen, slowing to a cautious jog to avoid the mousetraps scattered across the floor. Avery’s stinging wrist served as an uneasy reminder of where Scout should have been- like a phantom limb. Carrying her against their chest felt so wholly unnatural.

Scout was blabbering again- no longer speaking in full, coherent sentences- as Avery elbowed their way through the double doors and into the darkened, damp smelling foyer. They had considered shushing her but the low thrum of noise served to remind them that she was alive. They couldn’t imagine the kind of pain she must be in.
A.J. said that the procedure went well- or at least she had indicated as much- but Avery hadn’t seen it happen and as time ticked by and Scout started to look worse and worse, the words of the woman had started to rung more and more hollow. Unlike a human being, a pallor didn’t quite descend over her skin but her eyelids seemed to droop more and more loosely over her eyes. Her jaw was also starting to sag, falling slack against her own chest.
They passed the security office and the sound of movement in the hallway prompted them to dive behind the front desk. They squatted down and pulled the little puppet close, placing a finger over her mouth to briefly silence her.
Footsteps rattled through the floor behind the desk, vibrating beneath Avery’s fingertips. The origin of the sound was not running- abiding by the studio’s unspoken laws- but they sounded heavy-limbed.
Avery dared themselves to peer through a crack in the desk and their body went numb at the sight of a pair of blood-stained, grime-streaked slacks.

Quivering pupils travelled upwards to behold a bruised, battered young woman with cropped hair. The hood that had once covered her face had a hole in it, exposing her vacant, bloodshot eyes. Seeing everything but simultaneously seeing nothing.
Avery remembered being trapped in the dark place in their head, teetering on a rope bridge as Mortimer bade them to give into the blackness that sought to consume them. They remembered the terror of being a passenger in their own skin: barely able to hear and see the real world but helpless to interact with it. (Though part of them would be thankful that they had not been conscious during Riley’s orientation surgery).
The first thing that had brought them back to reality had been Scout’s voice calling out to them and the first thing that they’d seen when they opened their eyes was her face. Avery looked down at her again, keeping their finger to her lips but giving her a warm, comforting nudge. They hoped to have her shout at them again soon.

Avery noticed that the footsteps had slowed and stopped, looking out of the crack again at the unfortunate host.
The mustard-yellow Handeepuppet who served as her controller seemed rather worried, looking back and forth frantically. The puppet seemed almost as worse for wear as their host, with the felt “skin” of their face seeming to be partially worn away. There was white cotton poking through, looking almost fungal in nature.

The puppet continued to look all around them, (mercifully never making eye contact with the unwitting spy despite a few close calls), their little shoulders rising and falling rapidly before they suddenly scuttled away from Avery’s line of vision.

The host bit back a sigh of relief, looking back to Scout. When the footsteps faded, they dared to whisper to the little blue-haired puppet cradled in their arms: “I just hope we don’t run into whatever got a hold of that guy.”

“The picture,” Scout slurred, her eyes on Avery’s but her head swaying upon her small, slender neck. “Did you see the picture? I was in…in the picture.”

“What?”
“Th-the picture in A.-A.J.’s d-d-diary. I w-was in th-that picture.”
“…are you sure it was you and not another puppet?”
“I…I know wh-what I loo-look like. It was me…I was w-with Owen in the picture. A.J. w-was th-the-there too.”
“Oh yeah?” Avery not quite listening anymore as they looked around, craning their neck from under the desk to ensure that the intruder was gone. “I’m sure we can ask A.J. about it when we see her again.”
“Mmpf…if-if…I see her again.”

It wasn’t what Scout was saying that immediately set alarm bells off in Avery’s head or that forced the human to all but jump to their feet. It was the way she said it.
It was the fading timbre of her voice.
The quickly dimming light in her eyes.

They’d heard it once before: when they’d carried Scout from the sewer tunnels to escape the studio the first time. Just before she’d went quiet the first time.
“No, no, not again,” their host whispered hoarsely, quickly scanning the lobby and then making a break for the orange door that A.J. had mentioned that they should take.

“Stay with me,” Avery whispered again, between heavy breathing as they passed another series of doors. “Just stay with me Scout. We’re almost there.”

Scout reached up and gave her host a playful, feeble punch to the skin, followed by a rather sweet, gentle pat. “L-Look at you, getting all hot and b-bothered.”
“Why so surprised?” her host breathed between pants, managing a wry but shaky smile before. “I told you: I’ve got your back in this. Why wouldn’t I get a little concerned that you’re…you’re…” They swallowed, their voice becoming rather thick as they continued to half-jog, half-sprint down the narrow hallway.
There was a door at the end- laden with a series of deterring signs, just as A.J. said it would be. Avery didn’t waste any time elbowing the door open, with the aid of their penknife to pry the bolt. (Yet another trick that they’d learned from a more streetwise college roommate).