"Sound! You know if the mail's been delivered yet?" Pepperoni yelled upstairs to his daughter.
"I've been working up here all day! If you don't know then neither do I!" she yelled back from her room.
"Alright. Just hope I don't end up missing my delivery." Pepperoni then took out some of the pizzas he'd been baking and called two for delivery. The third he delivered to a booth where they'd been eagerly waiting to eat. "Enjoy!" he said with a smile.
"Oh, thank goodness," the mother said as she kept her children separated. "I don't think they would have lasted any longer."
"Don't worry, mam. I've got something coming this way that will help keep the kids busy while waiting for pizza," Pepperoni told her. He went back to the kitchen, wondering if he'd finally be getting his delivery today. He thought that it should be here soon. After all, he'd ordered it just over a week ago now. When he lived in Cloudsdale the deliveries were always prompt, most likely since everyone there could fly. At least he knew that next time he shouldn't go immediately for free shipping.
"Sound? Would you mind coming down here and watch out for any deliveries? I don't want to miss it," he asked.
Sound came downstairs, asking, "What's so important that you need somepony to watch out for it? I'm busy with work right now."
"It's gonna be a big surprise!" Pepperoni said, giggling at the prospect of his new purchase. "After the incident with the guards and my subsequent jail-time, they gave us a cash settlement seeing as they kept me from doing my job and leading to this place being nearly blown up."
"Also the thing from the oven makers," Sound reminded him. "Something popping in an oven usually shouldn't break the gas lines like that."
"Well at least we got a whole new oven from them. But anyway, the thing I purchased will hopefully help out business even more. I've seen it happen to other places like this in the past, so here's hoping luck strikes here."
"Guess you're not gonna tell me then," she said, carrying her art supplies near a window looking outside. She made certain to clean it up before putting anything down, worried that sound blot of marinara or cheese grease would ruin hours of work. Feel like I should put some barriers around my table in case some kid comes running with soda or something," she said as she saw the family of goats at another table.
The lunch shift went by without any problems, at least for Pepperoni. Sound had to worry about kids checking out all of her drawings though. She felt self conscious as children kept on goggling her images while she worked on them.
"That looks weird," one colt said as she worked on a basic sketch.
"Well it's just a rough outline. Not finished with it yet." Sound's brow furrowed as she tried to concentrate more. The kids wouldn't leave her alone though.
"Why didn't you color it?" a filly asked.
"That's not my job. I just draw the characters."
"Why?"
"Because I'm a penciler."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to draw characters."
"Why?"
"Because I enjoy drawing the characters for comics."
"Why?" Sound was never going to satisfy this filly's curiosity.
Pepperoni was in the kitchen, taking a break in his few moments of freedom. There weren't any new customers right then, so he was able to start cleaning up in the back. It was a fairly busy day, but he was hoping that it could soon get easier for him with his new purchase.
"I wonder where I could put it," he wondered aloud. It would need to be visible, but not ruin the view of the place. He thought maybe in a corner on the left that no one sits near for some unknown reason. "I should check that area out for any outlets."
The rest of the day consisted of Pepperoni doing his usual job while Sound kept trying to keep her drawings from getting ruined. She was particularly angry since at no point did any kind of package was delivered. Her entire day felt spent and she was going to let her dad know.
"Dad! Why am I here?" she asked.
"Why are any of us here?" The two were quiet, Sound giving him a glare. "Oh, you meant why you had to be down here today. Thought we were gonna get philosophical for a moment. Anyway, I was told that my package would be arriving so I had you down here."
"I know that! What I want to know is what's so important that you ordered?"
"You'll know when you see," he teased. "So what has you working constantly?"
"I'm supposed to be drawing a poster for the Hoof of the South Star movie that's being developed. Interestingly enough is the fact that the studios didn't want me to work on it."
"Why wouldn't they want the original penciller to work on it?" Pepperoni asked.
Sound explained, "Because then they'd need to pay me more than the other people drawing it. They just want me to do the poster and that's it."
"Sorry to hear that. Hopefully the movie stays close to the source material."
"Same here." Sound, seeing that she didn't need to be around anymore, got up from her seat and grabbed her supplies. Just as she was going upstairs, she saw something out the window. "Say, did you know that our neighbors ordered something huge?"
"What?" Pepperoni looked out the window and saw a tall box sitting right outside their competitor's place. "Wait a second." He went across the street, encountering Bob as he left his own shop. "Bob, did you order something?"
"No. Don't know why I got this." The two analyzed the box before finding the order form on it. "Apparently this is yours. Don't know why they-" Before Bob could finish, Pepperoni was already carrying the large box back to his place, struggling while attempting it.
"I thought this would be easier that it looked," he said, crumpling down on the ground. "Bob, you mind helping me? I think I may be literally dying here." Bob then grabbed a side and the two worked together to get it into the restaurant, having to tilt it to fit. The decided to set it down near the counter, gasping for air when they finally got it down.
"So I'm guessing it was heavier than it looked," Sound commented on seeing the two.
"Yeah.....you mind....opening it?" Peppeoni asked between his breaths. Seeing as those two weren't in any condition, she grabbed the store's easily accessible crowbar and started peeling at the crate. It was pretty tightly sealed, but she managed to pry it open with a loud thud as the side collapsed. Sound looked inside the crate to find a tall pile of hay standing upright. Out of the pile was a single furry leg.
"Dad, did you finally end up buying that leg lamp mom told you never to buy?"
"Of course not! You know we don't have anyplace for a lamp. What I bought us is a robot!" Sound thought her father was joking for a second. Suddenly he pulled away the rest of the straw to reveal a large robotic wolf standing on two legs with a ripped ear. It had brown fur and an odd yellow color for eyes. Sound couldn't tell whether that was accurate for wolves or just how robots looked.
"Why'd you buy...that?" Bob had no other way he felt like asking.
"You know how those kids that came to this place always rambunctious?" Sound nodded in agreement. Bob just stood there while grunting. "Well, thanks to this 'animatronic' as they are called, those kids will be busy having while playing with the wolf. She'll do things like sing or play music or whatever else animatronics do."
Bob perked up at that. "Wait, so do you actually know what this thing does?"
"Well, not exactly. What I saw was that this thing used to be at another pizza parlor and only cost me a hundred bits!"
"A hundred bits for a robot? Why so cheap?" Pepperoni thought over Bob's question but couldn't come up with an answer.
"Not really certain. Now, let's look for any instructions." He looked through the crate, rummaging through the hay to find a pamphlet with basic info on it. "Got it. Now I'll- huh?" A messaging machine was in the hay. Looking at it he saw that there weren't any tapes in it right then. He reasoned that he would search to find tapes only if he didn't find what he needed in the pamphlet.
"So we plug this thing in somewhere?" Sound asked, finding an extension cord on the wolf.
"I guess. Let me check." Pepperoni skimmed through the pamphlet to find what he needed to start with. "Okay. First we plug it into an outlet. Then we can change the times it can operate through some kind of panel on it." The two decided to start feeling over the animatronic to find the panel and found that there didn't seem to be anything like that.
"What's going on? Thought this wouldn't be that hard."
"Sound, just calm down and let me check out-oh great." Pepperoni did not look happy.
"What is it?"
"This manual's for a different model. It looks like it's for a skeleton model of animatronic. See, this one is actually built specifically for this fur. It's not a skeleton animatronic."
"Well maybe that's why the messaging machine was left in there. Instructions for us since they didn't have a manual." Sound began searching through the hay, managing to find one of the tapes. "Here's one labeled '5'. Let's see what on it." Sound put the tape into the machine after making sure it was rewound and hit 'play'. What happened next she could not properly describe.
A horrible growling noise was heard with some weird vibrating bass noise. There sounded like words being said, but the voice was to indistinguishable to be understood. Suddenly, and without any prior indication, the tape ended.
"Huh." Pepperoni said as he looked at the message machine. "That was freaking scary."
"I think the tape must be worn out or something," Sound reasoned. Her mane was still sticking up however, frozen in place from the terror.
"Yeah. I think we'll continue working on this tomorrow." Pepperoni and Sound went upstairs to get ready for bed.
None of them remembered to unplug the wolf.