Taking off her helmet, Adagio Dazzle set it down on her motorcycle. The bike was new, as were her clothes, and truth be told, she still hadn’t quite adjusted to wearing civvies yet, as well as letting her hair grow out. It felt weird enough not having a sidearm or anything to protect her with as she left them in the lockbox on the side of her bike, but she quickly reminded herself, she was a SIREN and being a SIREN meant that she didn’t need a weapon; she was a weapon.
Even so, this current assignment required that she pretend to be a normal sixteen-year-old girl, and one of those things, according to her research, was a summer job. At least that was the norm for girls around here in Canterlot; maybe it was that way back in Canada, too. At least Madrigal Storm, her technically-legal guardian (for this current assignment, anyway) and Sonata’s grande sœur, thought so:
“You sure you want to get a job, Dagi? We have more than enough money for this assignment,” the older woman said over breakfast.
“I’m being trained to lead, right? As the oldest sister and the fireteam leader it’s my duty to take the initiative. Since our research showed that lots of girls our age hold down jobs, it’d be a great way for us to get into the community, right?”
Madrigal nodded. “Yeah, and since I have a job interview myself – trying to get into the City Hall records department – that makes sense. What about Ari and Soni?”
Adagio turned her head to look upstairs at the bedroom she shared with her fellow triplets. The two were still asleep in their beds, getting used to “civilian life”. Adagio, on the other hand, got up at reveille – that is, dawn to just about everyone who wasn’t used to a military life – and did her six-mile run for the morning. Now, with plenty of time on her hands, there was nothing else to do except read the Equestria Daily, the local newspaper…and she was never really one for reading the news.
Picking up the classifieds – she saw once in a movie that jobs were advertised in that part of the paper – she searched around the Employment section until she found something of note:
HELP WANTED
Night-time Security needed to watch over
historic restaurant in downtown Sunnytown
No experience necessary, $25/hr with benefits
Contact jobs@freddyspizza.us or
Shim at (232) 555-PIZZA
Hey, I like pizza, Adagio thought to herself, and how hard could a security guard’s job be? With that, she made her pitch to Madrigal, who agreed, and because it was in Sunnytown – a supposedly run-down suburb, though they’d been through worse – and a security guard job, she even allowed Adagio to carry a small sidearm. Going through her collection, Adagio selected her Mateba Unica 6 revolver as well as a backup .38 Special, just in case. With that, she looked up the directions on her phone and drove off towards what she was sure was her new job.
She looked up at the sign on the roof: FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA. “Freddy Fazbear”? Think I’ve heard of this place, she thought, before heading over to the door and knocking. Two young women with long red-and-white tresses poked their heads out, affixing their apple-green eyes on her; they were identical twins and had it not been for the fact that one wore eyeglasses – apparently blanks; they seemed to be just for looks – she wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. Not at first guess, anyway. As they stepped out of the restaurant, Adagio noticed they both wore white-and-blue striped polos and tan slacks.
“Hi!” the glassless one said, a smile on her face. “Are you here for the job?”
“Uh, yeah,” Adagio said, trying to relax as she saw the creepily wide grins on the two women’s faces.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” the one with the glasses said, “C’mon in and welcome to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza!”
“I’m Shim,” the first one said.
“I’m Sham,” the second one called out, just before both sisters said in a near-singing tone, “We’re the up-and-comin’ Shim-Sham Sisters, Excellent Businesswomen, Nonpareil!”
Adagio blinked and looked at them both. “Uh….”
Shim blushed, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. “Sorry, ingrained family habit.”
Sham adjusted her glasses. “Yeah…our grandfather was Flim. Y’know, of Flim-Flam Manufacturing Co. fame? Anyway, when Grandpa passed away last year, he left us an inheritance, as well as a drive to go into business, just like he and his brother did.”
“Yeah, and since I can cook, and Sham can design,” Shim explained, “We bought this old pizza place and the IP from the company that owned it. Figured if we made enough money off it, we could restart the chain—”
“That’s where I’ve heard of the place before!” Adagio said with a snap of her fingers. “There used to be one in the strip mall just down the road from the base…that…my…uh…Dad was assigned to, yeah,” she said with an uncomfortable laugh.
“Oh, so you have heard of it,” Sham commented, nodding with a smile. “Most people your age really haven’t, since the company had a problem in one of their franchises in Colorado back in the 80s that caused the company’s fortunes to decline.”
“According to our business class,” Shim piped in, “by the time corporate got wind of that issue, Chuck E. Cheese’s had bought Showtime Pizza and had way too much of a lead, and around 1992, Fazbear Entertainment was bought by some Malaysian investor who merged most of them with Pepperoni Pizzaz’s Pizza Palace. By the time we were teenagers, the chain was completely gone.”
“But I remember going to the one in San Palomino fondly as a kid,” Sham sighed. “There was this Ms. Pac-Man machine in the game room that I used to play for hours on. Those were the times.”
“Yeah,” Shim agreed with a smile. “Oh, so anyway, you’re here for the job, right? The biggest question is, can you protect yourself? Sunnytown’s a little weird place to start, I admit, but it was the last of the restaurants that was still standing and in good condition. Plus, they moved some of the animatronics here, and we’re going to get some techs to come out and work on them tomorrow morning.”
“The job’s really not too hard,” Sham explained. “Just sit in the restaurant during the off-hours and make sure that nobody tries to break in. We’ve heard reports of people getting hurt in the area – Sunnytown doesn’t have the best of reputations, unfortunately – and we think it’s a gang. We’ve sunk a lot of money into this venture, so we have to make sure that we protect our investment.”
“No problem,” Adagio replied. “I’m armed, and nobody’s going to break in, I assure you.”
“You’re armed?” Shim gasped.
“Oh wow,” Sham said with some surprise. “I don’t think I could ever be brave enough to carry a gun.”
“Yeah…uh…Dad taught me when I was little. You know, parents, right?” When the twins nodded. The golden-haired girl added, “I’m Adagio Dazzle, by the way, and if you’re hiring, I’ll take the job.”
Shim nodded. “Well, that works for me. Sis?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sham agreed. “Well, Ms. Dazzle, c’mon in and fill out the paperwork, and we’ll get you started. There’s something that your parents’ll have to sign, but since the job starts tonight, if you can get it to us in the next few days, that should be fine.”
As Adagio went in, she wasn’t sure, but something set her off. Maybe it was the rundown look of the dining room, or maybe it was the arcade with the dusty machines that looked like they hadn’t been turned on in ages, or maybe it was the hulking, damaged animatronic machines on stage that set her on edge.
“Oh, those things?” Shim said, pointing out the figures on stage. “Oh, those are the Mark I animatronic models; when we bought the company, the previous owner sent us the last existing copies they had; apparently they were kept in storage somewhere in Utah.”
“They look pretty beat,” the teen admitted.
“They’re just there temporarily,” Sham told her. “Apparently the problem was originally with the Mark I models, but that the Mark II ones, which were supposed to be an upgrade, didn’t work as planned, so the Mark Is got kept around far longer than they should’ve been. Only reason we kept them is because we needed the software suites inside to have them compared with new ones we’re ordering.”
Shim nodded excitedly. “Yeah. We had a designer from Korea come in three weeks ago to look at the old ones, so that we could have upgraded Mark III models made. You know, voice print analysis, biometric detection in case of sexual predators, all that stuff that was in the Mark IIs, but with the latest and greatest tech!”
“Plus, they’ll be kawaii! All the kids love kawaii!” Sham swooned.
“You’ll have to excuse my sister; she’s an otaku,” Shim explained. Sham mock-pouted and as Adagio watched the twins, she felt as though she were being watched. She turned around to see Pirate Cove’s curtains rustle. “What was that?” she asked.
“Oh, the animatronic for Foxy malfunctions a lot,” Sham told the teen, “and for some reason it almost always refuses to come out of the ‘Pirate Cove.’ Just another reason why we want to get the Mark IIIs as soon as possible, I guess.”
“They walk around?” Adagio asked.
“Yeah, that’s what made the place so cool,” Shim replied.
“Much better than Chuck E. Cheese’s; robots walking around and not just some guy in a costume,” Sham piped in.
“I agree, sis,” Shim told her. “Well, here we are: the office.” As Adagio looked around, she noted that the office looked like the admin office of the underground base she once worked at, filled with furniture that had seen better days, an aging metal desk, rusty fan that was already on and running, and various other things; about the newest thing to the whole collection was a brand new laptop that the sisters explained controlled the security camera and the power settings, since the climate control systems were so old they hadn’t been completely computerized yet. If anything, to her this was probably the most comfortable and homey place in the building.
The trio filled out various paperwork, and when Adagio noted that “Fazbear Entertainment, Inc. was not responsible for accidental death, dismemberment, etc.” Sham looked at it, tore up the paper and said, “That’s a little…too specific. Tell you what: these probably aren’t up to current code anyway, so let me order up new contracts – ones that aren’t as weird sounding and bizarre. You can start tonight and tomorrow before you leave I’ll come early and you can fill out the revised paperwork. And just to sweeten the pot, we’ll pay you time-and-a-half for tonight, okay?”
“Really?” Adagio said with a smile. She didn’t know how much that stacked up against normal pay for people her age, but that couldn’t be all bad, right?