Chapter 14: Engineer's Dilemas/Early Warning Signs

A rare early October rainstorm clashed against the windows of the house, the myriad raindrops pelting out an incessant white noise against the glass windows, the slate roof tiles, and the wood paneled walls of the home. Inside William and Henry tinkered with one of their current commissions: a Blue Scottish Terrier animatronic, which had been commissioned by a local dog breeder's collective. As Henry adjusted the tightness of the bolts holding the dog's battery pack in place, William stood in front of the makeshift computer desk, which was little more than a glorified filing cabinet at the moment, and wrote the animatronic's code, occasionally pausing to review the code and look for programming errors to fix. A bolt suddenly dropped out of the half screwed into place battery pack, prompting Henry to curse under his breath and start looking for the loose bolt. He grabbed a flashlight and turned it on, sweeping the inside of the animatronic for the missing bolt. Unable to find it inside the animatronic, Henry wondered if it had fallen outside of it- and started searching the floor around the feet of the Scottish Terrier. When he looked up, Henry noticed that William seemed unwell. He had stepped back from the computer, clutching his head in one hand, and his stomach with the other. Concerned, Henry queried, "Will? Are you alright? You look a bit nauseous..." William tried to brush it off, "It's just a stomach ache... nothing too bad, I think...", and tried to refocus on the animatronic, opening up the plating in the back of its head and hooking one end of the extension cord into the socket. Then, he bolted from the room, leaving a perplexed Henry wondering what was going on with his partner.

Puzzlement turned into concern when Henry heard a mixture of coughing and... vomiting? coming from the nearest bathroom. Shoving the wrench in his hand into his pocket, Henry left the lab and checked the bathroom down the hallway. He found William kneeling in front of the toilet, breathing heavily. Nervous, Henry leaned in and asked, "Will, do you want some Dramamine...?" William looked up from the toilet bowl, and nodded. Henry bolted for the downstairs hall closet, flinching as a fresh bout of coughing and possible vomiting began in the upstairs bathroom.

Henry yanked the door open, and immediately started rummaging through the medicines stocked inside. He yanked out one box- and found himself staring at painkillers of various types. The next box he tried was filled with bandages. After that, he opened up the emergency medical kit by accident, and then dropped it on the floor. Cursing, he frantically searched for the spilled contents and hurriedly shoved them back into the box. Shoving the box back in, he checked another. He turned up decongestants and allergy medicines. Henry pulled out yet another box, and peered inside, expecting to find something else. To his relief, he found anti-nausea and vomiting medication- including Dramamine. Grabbing the medication from the box, Henry ran to the kitchen, and filled a glass with water, then charged back upstairs, carrying the water in one hand and the medication in the other.

He found his partner still in the bathroom, still sitting on the floor, and breathing slowly. He was still clutching his stomach... Henry couldn't help but glance into the toilet bowl as he cautiously approached William. There was nothing in it aside from water. William complained, "Dry heaving- it had to be dry heaving... why does dry heaving have to feel so much like vomiting?" Henry shook his head and offered his partner the medicine and the glass. He backed away as soon as William took the Dramamine and the water from him. When he finished, William handed the glass and the medicine back to Henry and told him, "Give me a few minutes. Lingering Nausea..." Henry retreated from the bathroom, leaving the glass in the kitchen sink and putting the Dramamine away in the downstairs closet.

Henry returned to find William back in the lab, moving a chair in front of the makeshift computer desk, and retrieving the dropped end of the extension cord. He went right back to what he had been doing- writing code, pausing and staring at the text editor, and jotting things down in a notebook. Henry approached the animatronic standing behind William, and resumed working on it, grabbing a fresh bolt to replace the lost one. He had just finished physically attaching the battery pack to the inside of the animatronics suit, when he peeked around the Blue Scottish Terrier- and noticed William looking down at his own stomach. He looked puzzled- even more so when he gently touched his own abdomen- and flinched. Henry once again turned his attention back to the animatronic dog- and started rigging up the battery packs wiring. A particularly loud burst of rain slammed into the house, startling him into looking out the window. The storm outside got worse- gale force winds began to rip across the town, and a series of eerie rumbles and brief flashes- approaching thunder and lightning- and then the lights went out, leaving him and William in the dark.

William and Henry lay on the couch, cuddling each other. It had been hours since the power had cut out, leaving them unable to continue working on their commissions for now. A sketchbook lay open on the table, the first concepts of a new group act for the next year's fallfest sketched out on the page. As they cuddled, Henry picked the sketchbook up off the table, studying it in the lantern light. The ideas drawn out were diverse, save for one thing... they were all to some extent based on the general idea of a clown. Smiling, he remarked, "That clown costume really made an impression on you didn't it?" William nodded, and then confirmed, "It did... the idea of combining circus performers with animals was an interesting one- I'll give Edwin Murray that!" Henry thought back to the overcrowded MCM booth- more specifically the array of circus themed costumes that Edwin had been trying to sell. The mystic hippo was sitting in the lab upstairs, a tentative design for the fortune telling animatronic equivalent pinned up on a nearby corkboard with some other design ideas for pending builds. He clearly remembered the creepy clown costume- the red pigtailed woman- who's head he'd accidentally knocked off, and the performing elephant costume which looked vaguely like a birthday party clown. Continuing to think, Henry racked his brains for the other costumes with that theming... he remembered a ballerina mascot with dark purple- or was it dark blue? hair- and purple and blue accenting- and wondered who had thought it would be a good idea to give a ballerina mascot enormous boobs. He also recalled a white and purple performing bear costume- with similar accessories to the elephant, a lion costume that had either been dressed in the clothes of a lion tamer or the clothes of a ringmaster... which he wasn't sure- the costumes looked so similar to each other. Henry also recalled seeing an orange tiger costume with a strongman's attire on and a plastic dumbbell accessory. His train of thought was disrupted when William suddenly whimpered and flinched. Without thinking, Henry had wrapped his free arm around his boyfriend's waist. Henry recoiled, and apologized, "Sorry! I got lost in thought-" William curled around his stomach, admitting, "My stomach's become sensitive to touch- and I'm starting to feel oddly... defensive of it? I don't know why..." Henry remarked, "Nausea and touch sensitivity... that's an odd pair of symptoms... I think we should keep an eye on those..." William nodded in agreement and changed the subject back to animatronics, pointing at the sketchbook page in front of him and Henry. He explained, "So, I started with just the general idea of a clown, coming from the vague circus theming of Fallfest. And then, I started researching different kinds of clowns- and pulled some possible archetypes to design characters from... I particularly liked the Russian "Red Clown and White Clown"- which combine the general concept of a clown with the Straight Man and the Wise Guy, the Mime, and the Sad Clown archetypes." Henry squinted at the page, working out that the Bear and Rabbit characters were the duo, the chicken was the mime, and the fox was the sad clown. "So, where did the animal parts come in?" William shrugged and said, "I'm not entirely sure. I think the bear and the rabbit kind of spun themselves off of Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, the chicken is subverting expectations of... well, loud crowing by being a mime, and I have no idea how I paired the sad clown with a fox." Henry laughed and put the sketchbook down. Turning his attention to his partner, he stroked William's hair, and commented, "Well, we have a starting point to work from. Maybe it's a good thing that we wandered into Edwin's booth last month. If we can get our commissions off our hands soon, then maybe we'll be able to get the jump on next year's act!" William reminded Henry, "I don't think there's much we can do at the moment.", pointing to the darkened light fixtures. "Let's hope that the power comes back on tomorrow and try to resume working on our commissions then." Henry agreed, and then rolled over, and hugged his boyfriend, trying extra hard not to touch William's stomach.