I think it would be pretty clear it was fiction, based on the outro talking about the author's fictional works or the lack of introduction of the perspective character and their name, history, location; those are the sorts of things you include in human interest pieces that are written similarly.

I agree it was a good story, but I became skeptical when I could not find the music (or any reference to it, or the composers) on-line.

It should have somehow been tagged as fiction.

> We commissioned this new short story from Robin as a little love-letter and thank-you to the city and people...

Sure, it's right at the bottom, and "short story" is not entirely unambiguous, but I think most people would commonly use that phrase to refer to a work of fiction. I think I would have enjoyed it just as much if I'd known it was fiction from the start, but making that too obvious at the beginning may have removed a little of the charm.

The synth itself is real, however. Here's a video of someone much younger than Maisie making noises with it... https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2016/05/21/modular-synth-...