Project Story Conclusion 3 - Lillian Boyce

I got another download from Marionettes.

Lillian Boyce was hired on November 8th, 2006 as a camera grip for Station 48. She was bouncing around jobs when she caught an ad on the news: Upstaged Communications was offering a training program for any who wished to join the station. She took the job, despite her lack of interest, because she needed the money. Her landlord was starting to pester her over a pattern of late payments.

The job was simple in concept, but difficult in execution. She was part of a team of three responsible for the camera—turning it on, positioning it, and maintaining all the equipment that kept it in place. Tripids, dollies, cranes... it was all handled by her team lead, her coworker, and herself. She was barely trained by the time her coworker left, leaving her as the only grip. It was a hard job, one that should've been shared with more than a distracted boss, but her station manager refused to hire more. Claimed it would be an inappropriate allocation of resources. So she worked.

Given how much was put on her, it was no surprise that she turned to outside sources to help keep herself functional. It was a poorly kept secret, which was why nobody believed her when she said she saw something on the camera. A signal intrusion, but one that wasn't recorded, despite being shown on the preview screen. It showed her a strange symbol of a dead tree that was lightly tearing. Nobody else saw it, so they brushed it aside. An intrusion of a self-contained camera was impossible. She got a message from the station manager warning her against talking about it again, as it was supposedly becoming a distraction for several employees. In order to buy her silence, she was given the day after off, with Riley Donnelly substituting from Station 85.

What she didn't tell anyone is that there was a message, too. The reaction all her coworkers and bosses had to the symbol proved they wouldn't believe her about the message that joined it: "SIGNAL FREQUENCY 22.22 RECEIVER POINT NULL PENDANT INACTIVE." What was it talking about? What pendant? Was someone planning to hijack the station?

Given her forced silence on the subject, she decided to search through the Marionettes video archives in an attempt to see if this had ever happened before. To her surprise, results turned up. She found a video in Marionettes, which showed a strange, distorting rainbow that had the same symbol burnt into it. The video name was an anagram of the word SIGNAL. She also saw an archived feed of a closed concrete room, in which she saw an otherwise isolated television sitting on the ground. On the screen of the television was a pendant, which had a symbol on it identical to the one she saw on her camera. It was at this point that Lillian knew something was wrong at Upstaged. They had records of whomever this hijacker was, knew they may return, and yet did nothing to stop it. Worse yet, they actively barred her from talking about it. Whatever was going to happen was intended by someone at the company. This much she knew.

That's why she was prepared when the world fell apart. She was getting ready to head home when the Signal began to bleed out. People fell to it one by one, the pendant transferred between people like a virus, turning their bodies into receivers of the Signal's desires. Lillian, however, was able to recognize it, and avoided all employees that approached her. She eventually fell into Station 85 through the structural instability of the company. That was where she met Edward, who told her of a plan to save them all from the horrible fate the company had wrought upon all its employees. She was one of the eight that survived the calamity that began October 17th, 2010.

Three days passed. Upstaged Communications was dead, the Signal was contained, and the survivors were freed on October 20th. Her memory had been damaged in the preparation of Penelope, leaving only fragments of history to draw from. The memories of what despicable steps she took to stop the Signal had grown hazy, but she remembered just how wrong the company was.

It awoke again in 2021. Two years later, she was called back. A package was sent on October 1st, 2023, and received on October 3rd. She received it the same day as Thomas, Joshua, Nashiko, and Wyatt.

She was the first receiver the Signal was able to capture in 2023. There is no longer a Lillian Boyce.

I'm not surprised to learn that the higher-ups of the company knew of the Signal. They had to fund the likely ridiculous cost of developing and maintaining Marionettes, after all. But I'm shocked to hear that at least one of them intended for what happened next.