Mike was not a technician. He could perform the usual checkup routines sure, and he could definitely name a few ways to put a bot out of commission for a hot minute or two. But when it came to the nitty gritty job of actually coding the damn things? Well, there was a reason he took up the night shift instead of maintenance crew.
With what little knowledge he did have, he could recognize that the programming was for some kind of AI, what he couldn't understand was literally anything else beyond that revelation. "Fucking hell..." He muttered as paragraph upon paragraph of commands flew across the screen, wincing slightly as Evan swiftly elbowed him in the side in response to the curse. "Soooo, can you make sense of any of this?" Ennard butted in, inching closer to the screen, "because I know Freddy's animatronics are pretty ahead of their time, but this?" He exasperatedly motioned his hands towards the laptop, nearly knocking the toolbox next to it off of the coffee table with his over-the-top gestures. "This stuff looks pretty complex, even for them!"
Mike swatted his hand away, looking over the code a bit more in hopes that something would begin to make sense before sighing in defeat. "I'll see if Henry and Charlie are up to taking a look at it. If not, then Fritz's interview isn't for a couple of hours; I might be able to catch him before he leaves." He gathered up his laptop, rechecking that his keys were still in his pocket as he stood. "You're leaving right now?" Evan interrupted, leaping off the end table he'd been perched on to chase after Mike. "But what if it wakes up?!" Mike waved off the concern, nabbing his phone from its charger, frowning as he noticed it was barely at thirty percent. "Without an AI it should be pretty much harmless, even if it does activate, worst-case scenario it'll either do some crappy performance and bribe you into buying cheap pizza, or it turns out to be possessed and we get another roommate."
He turned to the door, rechecking that he had everything he'd need as he relayed the rules on autopilot. "Remember, keep the windows closed, no going outside, absolutely no fires, and try not to wreck the place too badly while I'm gone." There was no answer aside from the usual squeaking and creaking of the two's movements but Mike could imagine Ennard turning back to Evan with a taunting look at the two additional rules he'd had to add on after what Mike now referred to as 'The Oven Mitt Incident'. "That goes for you too Ennard, stop putting butter on the stove." He called back and the squawk of protest he heard as he shut the door behind him made the corners of his mouth curl up in amusement.
Mike looked down at the computer one last time, tutting as the words seemed to move faster the longer he stared at it. Something told him this was going to be a long day.
o0o
Henry's house was a beacon of light in the otherwise dark sky, the homey glow emitting from the windows casting the driveway in a warm glow.
Before Mike could even unbuckle his seatbelt, the garage door lifted, revealing Henry in all of his bed-headed glory. Despite the early hour, the man was all smiles as Mike exited the car, patting him on the back fondly in greetings. "It's been quite a while since we last got to see you out here, Charlie was starting to get worried." He guided Mike into his make-shift workshop, gesturing for him to set the laptop down on a shoddy wooden workbench off to the side. "How are the others? Did you get back in contact with Jeremy yet?" Mike grimaced at the question, mulling over his answer as Henry cleared away some of the clutter littering the garage. "Fritz is doing pretty well. Still hunting for a better job, but it's only a matter of time before he gets a callback. Pretty sure his daughter's heading off to college soon too." Henry glanced back at him, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening as he smiled wider "Little Gracey? The last time I saw her she was painting on the walls with her little sister." Mike chuckled, "Well, time sure flies when it comes to these sorts of things."
"Speaking of time, how's the body been holding up?" Henry asked, "The joints still moving smoothly? Find any ridiculous restrictions? It should all be working fine but androids and animatronics have a few key differences so I wouldn't be that surprised if a few things were off." Mike shrugged indifferently, "Nothing to complain about just yet, it's nice to be able to eat again, I guess. Although, this little trip would've been a whole lot easier if I could've just connected with this thing myself instead of having to lug my entire computer halfway across town."
Henry side-eyed him with a grin, eyebrow raised as he put what looked like the beginnings of a new project in a box in the corner of the workshop where it would likely never be found again. "And let you corrupt everything with some kind of computer virus within the first week? I don't think so, kid."
He walked back to the bench and looked down at the computer, whistling in awe after a moment of watching commands flit across the screen. "Well, you certainly weren't kidding when you said this was different from Freddy's usual standards." He commented. He reached out to his right, mouth twitching slightly into a frown as his palm met open air before the mouse he'd been searching for was nudged into his hand. He glanced over and smiled in thanks. Mike looked up as well, faltering as familiar brown eyes looked back at him curiously.
They were leaning slightly above the counter, brown hair spilling down just below their shoulders as they watched him and Henry. when he met their eyes they smiled and something clicked in Mike's head. "Holy shit- Charlie is that you?!" Her smile grew and she quickly drew him into a hug.
"We switched her over a while ago, we thought about waiting for you, but the body was already finished and she wanted to surprise you." Charlie was bouncing on the balls of her feet, excitedly nodding along to her father's words. She was, like her father, still dressed in her night outfit, the plush rabbit animatronic Henry had made for her, Theodore if Mike remembered correctly, held tightly in her arms.
They'd been working on making each other more 'society-friendly' bodies ever since they'd set fire to Freddy's for what they'd thought would be the last time. The idea was from Fritz, who'd pointed out offhandedly that they were lucky enough that no one had noticed the eight-foot robot clown rooming with the resident purple zombie to be testing their luck by adding in a demon-eyed plastic bear and a levitating life-sized marionette to the mix.
The sound of static brought their conversation to an early end and they both turned back to the computer Henry was prodding. The screen was flickering, the camera forcing itself on as the sound raised and lowered itself uncontrollably. "What the hell is happening?!" Mike sputtered, gesturing confusedly with his arms as Henry rushed to fix whatever he'd done. "I'm not sure," he grunted, typing rapidly, "It seems like it's trying to run the program on its own but-" he was cut off as the volume spiked again, garbled static scraping at their ears like nails on a chalkboard before a single word pierced through it all.
"̭̃Ḩ̯̫̫̹̅̈̓̔͘e̖̮̫͕̥͐́́͋̿ll̚ͅǒ̢̟͙̓̅̽͟?͈̕!͜͝"̩͖̂̂
(The glitched text says "Hello?!" In case it was too hard to read.)
YOU ARE READING
Left Behind
FanfictionGregory and Freddy made it out of the fire after the ratty old suit that had been hunting them was taken by something far more threatening, but what about those who were left in the Pizzaplex? Wonder what they'll get up to when left in the aftermath...
