| Also Known As | Peggy K. |
|---|---|
| Status | Deceased |
| First Appearance | Severance: The Lexington Letter |
Margaret “Peg” Kincaid was a Severed Macrodata Refiner at Lumon Industries in Topeka, KS. She managed to create a dialogue between her Innie (Peggy K.) and Outie selves via a childhood pictogram code that Lumon's Code Detectors were unable to identify.
Peg began to worry that her employer was engaging in nefarious activities and attempted to make contact with Daria Thorne, a reporter at The Topeka Star, to share her suspicions. However, before she could get her story told, Peg died in an alleged car accident. Her testimonial was subsequently covered up by editor Jim Milchick.
Peg Kincaid was a 54-year old divorced woman who lived in Topeka, KS. She had one older sister, Meryl Rasmussen, of Tacoma, WA. Peg and Meryl were very close as children, being only 11 months apart in age, and even invented a secret language called “Puglish” to communicate with each other. Puglish was a simple substitution alphabet that used symbols such as seahorses and lightning bolts instead of letters. The sisters used Puglish to write secret messages to each other that no one else could read.
Before joining Lumon, Peg worked for 12 years as a bus driver for Clover Elementary School off Route 2 in Topeka. She enjoyed the job and the children (despite not having any of her own), but reached a breaking point one February after accidentally hitting black ice and crashing her bus into a ditch. It took hours for the children to be picked up and the bus to be towed, during which Peg and the kids had to wait in freezing temperatures with no heat.
After this harrowing misadventure, Peg decided she needed a new job. She went to the Lumon Industries branch in Topeka after hearing a well-placed recruitment ad on the radio. She was offered a position on the condition that she agree to the Severance Procedure. In exchange for an office job with reasonable hours, great benefits, and four times the pay, Peg happily accepted. She considered not having to remember her work day an extra bonus.
Peg worked at Lumon for two years without incident. One day in October she discovered a piece of paper in her pocket after exiting the Severed elevator. It was a note written in Puglish. Shocked, Peg took the note home and translated it. It was a letter from her Innie, Peggy K.
Despite it being against Lumon's policies, and knowing it was endangering her job, Peg decided to write back. She composed a note in Puglish and smuggled it onto the Severed floor in her pocket. Peg and her Innie spent the next three to four weeks using this method to successfully communicate in secret. Puglish was different enough from normal language to not set off the code detectors. Peggy tried to explain her job in Macrodata Refinement, and what it was like working on the Severed floor. In return, Peg answered questions about her personal life and experiences. The two got to know each other, and Peg began to think of Peggy as a friend.
On November 3rd, Peg received another Puglish letter from Peggy. In it, Peggy described being very excited after earning a Melon Bar party as a reward for finishing her latest macrodata file. She completed the file, called Lexington, at 2:30pm that day. That evening, Peg saw Daria Thorne from The Topeka Star on television reporting on a truck bombing in New York. The truck belonged to Dorner Therapeutics, a competitor of Lumon's, and was carrying their latest prototype when it exploded. Peg was horrified to hear that six people died. She was even more horrified to learn the time of the explosion: 2:32pm, two minutes after Peggy reported finishing the Lexington file.
Peg became convinced that Peggy completing the Lexington file was somehow connected to the truck bombing. She asked Peggy for more details about the file, and told her not to refine any more numbers until they could confirm Lumon wasn't using them to unwittingly commit terrible deeds. But then Peggy stopped responding. Peg became concerned and thought about quitting, but knew that leaving Lumon would mean essentially killing Peggy. So she waited, growing more and more distraught as her Innie's silence dragged on.
Several days later, Peg emerged from the Severed elevator with something tucked down the back of her pants. It was a bound document called The Macrodata Refiner’s Orientation Booklet. A letter from Peggy written in plain English was taped to the front, explaining that Peggy had been in the Break Room after being caught with Peg's last note. It also explained that Lumon was updating the code detectors (presumably to pick up Puglish and other symbols) but that they were down on that particular day, which allowed Peggy to smuggle out the booklet without anyone knowing.
The orientation booklet gave an in-depth explanation on how to refine a macrodata file, but not any more information on what the numbers meant. It also contained Lumon's general policies for Severed workers, including hygiene practices, dress code, cross-departmental fraternization, and communication between Innies and Outies.
Even knowing the code detectors had been updated, Peg couldn't resist writing a note a week later on November 9th to ask if Peggy was okay. She emerged from the Severed floor ten minutes later with something wadded up in her mouth. It was the final note from Peggy:
Peg, leave now. Get somewhere safe. They will try to follow. Nothing they say is real. Distribute the training booklet. Answers are there if you look. Thank you for my life. You were the best part of it. I'll be with you always.— Peggy K.
Peg quit on the spot, and left Topeka without returning home. She spent November 10th hiding out in a motel room and avoiding black cars she was convinced were following her. Wanting to tell her story, but worried that no one would believe her, or worse, that Lumon would find out and stop her, Peg mailed a letter to Daria Thorne at The Topeka Star, along with the Macrodata Refiner's Orientation Booklet. Since Thorne had reported on the Dorner Therapeutics truck bombing, Peg hoped she would be willing use the information to expose Lumon.
Thorne received Peg's letter, and forwarded it to her editor, Jim Milchick. But Milchick killed the story after confirming with a “trusted source” at Lumon that Peg was nothing more than a disgruntled employee who was fired for too many absences. Because of this, the story was never followed up on or investigated further.
Peg's letter has since become known as The Lexington Letter.
Peg Kincaid died on November 11th after being involved in an alleged car accident. Her obituary printed in The Topeka Star mentioned that Peg enjoyed bridge, spy novels, gardening, cats, and David Niven films. Her memorial service was held on November 20th at 10am. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Topeka Humane Society was encouraged.