The previous night had been an interesting one. Passing from Fazbear’s to Fazbear’s to see all the girls (and to ask them about Henry Emily) had taken it out of you, and after your visit to Funtime and Lolbit you had returned to your bed and sank into an exhausted, but haunted sleep. Your semiconscious mind drifted from possibility to possibility with regards to the call and who Henry could be, how this all fit together and who, or what, could be pulling the strings and to what end.
You weren’t even sure of the motive behind it all, and the small but distinct possibility remained that this was all the workings of your imagination. Your cock sliding inside the girls sure as hell felt real enough though, as did your relationships with each of them. So many questions remained unanswered, but you now knew precisely where you had to go and who you should be asking for.
Your curiosity wouldn’t allow you to waste any more time. You didn’t have a van to cart the girls around, but you’d taken the initiative and decided to rent one overnight. Your own insurance didn’t cover other vehicles and after the previous incident you realised it might be a decent idea to buy it. You’d spent time hammering long nails into a wooden baseball bat in preparation for this so they protruded out the other side before realising it was a weapon better suited to ruining flesh rather than metal. It would have to suffice; you didn’t have the time to spend amassing a stockpile of weapons for every situation.
The vehicle you chose was a vague white van, as plain as you could possibly get. It had few notable markings and no windows, but plenty of space in the back for animatronics. They’d each proven themselves useful to you in their own special ways, but bringing too many of you would negate the aspect of stealth that might prove useful. On the flipside, if a fight wound up breaking out greater numbers would be an advantage you’d want on your side. You didn’t want to simply walk into another Nightmare situation entirely unprepared.
One by one you picked the girls up. There was plenty of space in the back of the van for them all but it did pull down the suspension on the back wheels. As you drove your way to Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental they fiddled with the equipment you’d prepared – rope with an improvised hook on the end, walkie talkies, your baseball bat, and wire cutters among other things. You’d seen enough movies to know the general equipment you’d need for a break-in, not that you’d ever actually executed one. You were the one supposed to be preventing such a thing, after all.
Once again you found yourself driving around through the dead of night. Cautiously you glid through the town, right into its centre. Sleeping, shuttered businesses breathed a soft glow from their signs and displays left on inside. The light gently covered the few individuals still up and walking around at this time, mostly vagrants drifting from street to empty street. All was quiet, still.
“Is that the place?” Roxanne questioned, peering out of her window from the passenger seat, eyes locked onto an unassuming metal door next to a window boarded up with plywood. There was no sign hanging above it, just a dim rusted metal light illuminating it from the handle down. The buildings wrapped around the corner either way but they were all separate businesses, none of them signed to display circus baby’s.
“Eh…” You muttered, stretching your neck to look around and see what she was staring at. It was far too vague to be sure, but the GPS said this was the place. You’d been past it hundreds of times, but figured it was a back entrance to somewhere. It’d never been an open, active business for as long as you remembered but its ambiguous nature dispirited any curiosity you might’ve had at the time. Now you knew enough about it that you needed to know more, you knew that innocuous door belied the secrets it held within. “It could be. Let’s find a place to park up and check it out.”
A little further along the street the building ended and between it and the next one a small car park had been built. There was a disproportionate amount of disabled spots for how many there were total, but nobody would mind at this hour even if you parked up in one. The engine of the van died with a rumble that softened into the engine crackling peacefully as it cooled.
“Alright. Stay put while I check if this is the right place. There are still people walking around; let’s not get into any trouble.” You said to the group, meeting the eyes of each one.
“Aye aye, captain.” Foxy replied with that gruff voice of hers. You opened the door and swung to move out but felt a hand clasp your wrist.
“Be careful, ok? And don’t forget these.” Roxanne handed over a walkie talkie and a flashlight, another one lay in her lap with the channel set and open. Her expression seemed worried that you were going on your own.
“I’ll be alright.”
With that you swung the heavy door shut behind you and tightened your coat around your body. The brisk winter wind cut deep through your flesh and into your bones, gnawed at your fingers and stung your eyes. The tall buildings channelled it right through the streets, concentrating and intensifying it. You gave your surroundings a scan. The portion of the building that contained what should have been the rental shop was a two story building that had been built onto the side of a taller one that spanned the other street on the intersection at a later date. The pavement of the carpark was old and cracked, raised up in places by roots from nearby trees. Graffiti covered the walls surrounding the carpark; local gang tags and the handles of miscreants. Nothing you would consider art.
You couldn’t see a back exit to the building, nor any windows through which you could peer. Making your way back to the main street you glanced left and right to see if anybody was coming. In the distance the silhouette of a man in a heavy coat was walking away from you, fading into and out of darkness as he passed the lights. You listened for the sound of distant cars approaching to find only silence. Lastly, you took a look up higher to see if you were being caught on surveillance. Thankfully, you were not. There wasn’t a single on in sight anywhere overlooking the streets, or the entrance to the equipment rental.
To the right of the door was a number pad. There was no immediately obvious set of numbers rubbed out from years of use, but judging from its appearance it had been there for some time nonetheless. You glanced up at the rows of windows upstairs, scanning each one for signs of life but coming up empty. Satisfied you weren’t being watched, you tried opening the door. You expected it to be locked, and the thunking metal told you that you were correct. With a sigh you stared at the numberpad. It was at least worth a try. With a frozen finger you started punching in digits, 1-9-8-7, 1-9-8-3 … 0-0-0-0, 1-2-3-4… you started getting desperate. You were about to go back to the van when you remembered the number from the call. You remembered it as the outer corner numbers of a number pad, starting with a three and moving around anticlockwise, ending at its centre. 3-9-7-1-5. With a click the door unlocked and a buzzer sounded. Your heart jumped – you were in.
The floor inside reminded you of the black and white tiles of your first Fazbear experience and the paint on the walls had begun to bubble and flake away. It’d been quite some time since this was in use, you reasoned. Yet still it was rented out month to month so it still had to be occupied by something. Swinging the light around to get a better look in the darkness you could see where you were. The door from outside led into a simple hallway that made a turn to the left further along, and an immediate turn to the right. Walking past the right hallway you made out the doors to an elevator, above which a fan spun steadily. Not yet ready to explore, not on your own, you made your way further down the hall. Another elevator awaited you on the left hallway. The rest of the space was occupied with completely empty, cold rooms that previously housed a dining area and kitchen. Something felt off.
“Girls, I got in.” You called over the walkie talkie.
A static noise preceded their response. “What did you find? What’s in there?” sounded Roxanne.
“A whole bunch of nothing. Two elevators. It looks like they never changed it after it was a pizza joint. Doesn’t look like it’s been used in quite some time.”
“You want us to come join you?” Funtime now asked through the device.
“Let me take a look outside, make sure it’s safe. Bring the bat, and the wire cutters just in case.”
You pushed a button next to the door to release the lock and pulled the door back open to peer outside. Thankfully, the streets were empty still.
“Come on out. Make it fast, though.” You ordered, still holding the door open. One by one they all came through, huddling in the entrance.
“So I was thinking we break into two groups, one for each elevator. Funtime, Lolbit, you both know this place better than any of the rest of us. Funtime, you’re coming with me into the right elevator. Everyone else, take the left.” You held your hand out to take the bat from Roxanne. You took charge since they expected you to, knowing they admired your world experience outside of the pizzerias.
“Arr, we’ll signal for help with the walkie talkie if anything happens, captain.” Foxy grumbled, twiddling with the wire cutters in her hand.
“Keep in touch too, let me know if you find anything interesting.” With that you split into your groups. Funtime and Lolbit seemed particularly on edge. You pushed the elevator button and the doors slid open to reveal the circular elevator within. Round lights circled the roof of the cylindrical metal room while pipes ran along its inside. The spinning fan lazily blew a few posters around that had fallen to the floor, but where they had been hung a few shreds of paper still stuck, the colour bleaching out over the years.
Funtime’s eyes were wide, her mouth agape slightly. “I remember this. I was here before.”
“What do you remember?” You asked quietly. You didn’t want to press her too hard.
“I remember leaving through the other elevator. There are two galleries downstairs, one was… mine. The other was Ballora.” The pause she made as she recalled her gallery sounded pained as though it was something she didn’t want to remember.
“Another animatronic?” You asked.
“Yes, she was made to look like a ballerina. We didn’t really get to know each other, but I wonder what happened to her.” Funtime told you. “They didn’t spend long coming up with the name.” She japed nervously. A ballerina didn’t particularly fit with the Fazbear aesthetic which would explain why you hadn’t run into her yet. Suddenly a noise erupted from a console in the elevator and with tensions already high you practically jumped out of your skin.
‘DESIGNATION: BRAVO. LEMUR. ALPHA. KILO. ECHO: ACCPETED.’
Your head spun to where the muffled sound was coming from. A yellow handheld electronic device with googly eyes and a screen for a mouth sat in a holster, and the noise spat out from a speaker next to it. Somebody had labelled it ‘Mike’. Letters ran across the glitched screen, flickering and flashing. Again, the scrambled voice sounded.
‘DESIGNATION: FOXTROT. OSCAR. XYLOPHONE. YANKEE. SUBGROUP: FUNTIME. ACCEPTED.’
With a shudder the elevator reached its terminus. A red button lit up next to the doors, inviting you to push it.
“It seems we’re expected.” You muttered. “After you.”
Funtime pushed the button and you gripped the wooden handle of the bat harder in your hand. Wish a woosh, the doors revealed a bunch yellow of tape that said ‘danger’ all over it. It’d been ripped open and tossed aside by somebody previously. All that awaited you was a solid wall and darkness. Right in the middle of the wall at the bottom was a vent, wide open and inviting.
“I’m guessing we have to go through that?” You asked, shining the light inside yet unable to what awaited you at its exit.
“There’s nowhere else to go.” Funtime responded dejectedly, shrugging lightly.
Your walkie talkie hissed into life, and Roxanne’s voice emerged from it. “Where are you guys? We found a room with a bunch of wires, and there’s a poster with Funtime on it.”
“Ah, we’ve got an elevator that goes right into a vent shaft. It doesn’t really seem to go anywhere else. Seems kinda odd to me.” You answered.
“Funtime, you’re famous!” Lolbit cackled through the mic. “Just be careful, Blake.” Roxanne finished.
You crawled on your hands and knees through the gritty vent. It had a heavy lingering smell to it, sweet but sickly at the same time - faint enough that you weren’t too bothered by it. As you reached the other side you found a tiny, stuffy room with another large fan pumping air inside. Six screens were positioned overhead with two dim green-yellow emergency lights, and three creepy animatronic heads twitched to life as you entered the room. They were more human than the animatronics you were used to but not human enough to pass as real, residing in the discomforting uncanny valley. A security camera watched from the ceiling to the right, fixed right on your position. Funtime crawled out of the vent and stood next to you, but there was barely room to move around.
Through the one way mirror installed in the glass you could see two adjacent rooms on either side of you; the galleries Funtime was telling you about. As she saw it, she stared silently. She recognised it immediately, the stage and ring of little twinkling lights framing a mirror bringing back her memories of this place.
“I danced on that stage. They would zap me to make me go back there if I left.” Her hand rose to her neck. “I never thought I’d see it again. I never wanted to.” It was likely different back then; water dripped and leaked from the ceiling above and the lights had fallen dark over the years. The mirror, once shiny and new had been covered with a layer of stark grime.
“Do you know where we should go from here?” You asked but she ignored your question, focused hard on the room. Two plinths held up simple buttons, one with a light and one with a bolt of lightning on either side of the tiny space. Her fingers traced over the buttons that had shocked her before as if she was going to press one, but she let her hand drop back down to her side.
“There were rooms connected to mine. We could check those.” She mumbled, glancing around for a way to get there. As she peered into her old gallery, you checked Ballora’s to see Foxy, Lolbit and Roxanne emerging from a room in the back. You called out and waved, but they couldn’t see or hear you from your claustrophobic bunker.
“Girls, we can see you!” you called over the radio. They were inspecting the empty gallery that was a mirror image of Funtime’s.
“Where are you?” Roxanne answered, scanning her surroundings. You had the bright idea to shine the light through the one way mirror, flicking it back and forth.
“You see the light through the mirror?” You asked her, still waving your arm about.
“I see it!” She put the walkie talkie down and the group approached the window. A small crawl space sat beneath it. You opened it up to let them in but there was no room to have everybody in at the same time. Two ears and a muzzle poked out through the hole – Roxanne’s smiling face greeted you.
“There you are.” She said with a grin. This wasn’t exactly a fortunate situation, but she was still happy to see you.
“Let us get out of here first. We’ll check out Funtime’s room, there’s one more vent for you to check out.” You ordered, already clambering into the vent opposite of the one she was poking out of.
The room you now found yourself in was rather ambiguous. There was no clear exit for the children form the pizzeria, although by the looks of things a staircase had been bricked up and sealed shut. Three more rooms ran off of the Funtime gallery, all of which very clearly stated ‘staff only’.
“So where do we start?” You asked Funtime. She moved up onto the stage, step by step, slowly, and turned around to face the rest of the room. She began to perform her routine, re-enacting her show from her rather short time here. Not in its entirety, but just a short segment. Perhaps, you thought, her favourite bit.
“Funtime? You ok?” You were starting to regret bringing her back here. As her arms slumped back to her sides her head moved slowly over to the door opposite and to the left as if recollecting something to do with it.
“There. That one.” She whispered. You marched towards the door, shining the light before your feet as not to trip yourself up. Sure enough it was unlocked. Checking over your shoulder, you could see that Funtime had squatted down, her head in her knees. This wasn’t the time to be having a breakdown, it was time to be having a breakthrough. You wanted to go and console her, but at the same time you wanted to be done with this place. You pulled out the walkie talkie to get in touch with the other group.
“Foxy, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, captain!” the fox responded.
“Funtime isn’t doing so hot. Can you take her back up and make sure she’s ok?”
“Aye aye.”
Perhaps unwisely, you pushed on alone. This room was at least larger than the others, though not quite as spacious as the gallery itself. Another camera viewed your entrance and for a moment you stared at it, wondering if anyone was watching from the other side. A pair of mirrors sat either side of a retracted mechanical arm with a scoop attached to the end that had grown rusted through its years of negligence and neglect. Shining your light around the room you noticed beneath it a pile of disused animatronic parts. It seemed as though it was the outer shells of animatronics, bereft of their innards. A wheeled cart filled with yet more parts sat to the right of the door, perhaps ready for moving to another station. This was a strange room, but you decided to inspect the parts on the floor a little closer. To your abject horror you could make out the outsides of what appeared to be a ballerina, the empty head of a Funtime version of Freddy himself and some arm and leg parts to animatronics that you didn’t recognise.
You couldn’t take your eyes off them, glistening in the dark. It reminded you of the discarded husks of insects as they moulted, and you sincerely hoped they’d simply outgrown them in favour of newer parts. The mechanical arm mounted to the wall, however, made you fear otherwise. The smell of iron lingered in the air, entering deep into your nose and staining the air around you. You’d seen enough. Once again, you called over the walkie talkie to check in with the girls.
“I’ve got a room here with… a scoop? Some mechanical scoop on the wall, and parts of animatronics.” You told them. “Anything on your end?”
Kssh “Not much here, another control room like the one you were just in. I think it was for controlling the show? If we’re looking for answers, it’s not going to be here.” Roxanne answered. You could hear somebody tinkering with things in the background. “Animatronic parts though?” She continued, her morbid curiosity showing.
“Like… the outside parts of animatronics. Shells, like Funtime and Lolbit have. Lolbit, did they ever change your parts while you were here?”
“Ahahaha no, my parts are perfect thank you very much!” Lolbit called through Roxanne’s radio.
“Foxy, how’s Funtime holding up?”
“She’s a little seasick, this landlubber needs to find her legs!” Foxy called.
“Alright. Funtime, you’ll be ok. We just have to get you out of here. This is where they repaired you, right?” There was a slight pause from the other side.
“She’s noddin’ captain.”
“Alright. Girls, make your way through to Funtime’s gallery and meet up with me.”
With that you put the walkie talkie back away and backed out of the scooping room. Roxanne and Lolbit squeezed their way through the vent from the control room into Funtime’s damp gallery. Lolbit was still clutching the wire cutters, but at this point you didn’t particularly think you’d be needing them.
“I don’t think you really want to go in there.” You told them, pointing a thumb to the door over your shoulder.
“I don’t think you know me well enough!” Lolbit cackled, pushing you aside and poking her nose through the door. As she returned, her eyes were wide.
“Maybe you were right. I don’t think I needed to see that.” You rolled your eyes and pressed on to the next door. ‘Parts & Service – Staff Only.’
You placed your hand on the cold metal handle and gently pushed it open. There was a gritty, rusted feel to it and a slight residue which you wiped off onto your jeans. Inside there were rows of fans on the roof like the one in the elevator, spinning light into and out of the room with a hypnotic rhythm. An assortment of wires, thick and thin coated the walls like roots growing through soil. Their arrangement seemed almost organic. Before you was a work bench upon which sat various electronic components, some of which you recognised. A pump, just the same as you’d found inside Roxanne sat atop the table with two tubes connected to it while their loose ends flopped off the edge of the table – this was the right place.
“What is this place?” Roxanne asked, peering around herself.
“I think this is where they made you…” You shone the light around to reveal a conveyer belt loaded up with the internal parts of an animatronic. Two lidless eyes stared up vacantly towards the ceiling with a dead gloss about them, the metal skull part entirely missing. Getting a closer look there was no pump inside like with the other models, not yet at least, but otherwise it appeared like it should be in working order. It wasn’t rusted or neglected like the rest of this place – someone had been working on this model recently.
“Here’s another one currently being made.” You pointed it out to Lolbit and Roxanne, who leaned over to examine the animatronic foetus.
“It looks so creepy.” Roxanne didn’t seem too pleased and cowered slightly behind you as she stared down at it.
“You’re telling me that’s what I look like on the inside? Crazy.” Lolbit added, crackling through her speaker. With another spin of the torch around the room you noticed out of the corner of your eye a loose panel hidden away behind a carapace and head unit belonging to a Funtime version of Chika. It seemed like they’d seen better days. It came away from the wall and upon closer inspection appeared to lead to another room entirely.
“This way.” You instructed, shifting the Chika parts out the way. Given your relationships to the girls you felt a twinge of disgust as you touched what amounted in your mind now to a dismembered body. You gripped the corner of the panel and pulled sharply once, twice, and it finally came loose. You had to kneel down to get through but at least it wasn’t another vent to crawl into. This place was like a maze, if it got any worse you’d have to formulate a plan to make sure you knew how to get back out. In your youth you hadn’t imagined how you would die, but you definitely didn’t want this to be it.
Beyond the parts and service room lay darkness. Ambiguous shapes of reflective surfaces glistened and scintillated in the gloomy space before you. You moved your light up to get a better view, Roxanne and Lolbit coming in behind you.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” you shuddered as you examined what lay before you. It was a tight hallway stocked on both sides. To your right, row after row of semi-completed animatronic innards hung from hooks; their unblinking, dead eyes staring forward. Wires and cables piped into them, though it wasn’t obvious what for. Those with the skull casing already installed had hissing pumps and pipes attached too, twitching and jerking away with life as they moved with the pressure of the liquid inside.
Behind you, on the left of the room were rows of cheap industrial refrigerators. You wondered if they had been used for the pizzeria while that was still a thing. A few of them had blank labels, but others had names written on them. The sticky residue from previous labels clung to the fridges – they’d been reused a few times. Slowly you raised your free hand to one of the handles, fearing what you might find inside. Roxanne leaned over your shoulder to peek inside with you while Lolbit checked out the animatronics to the right. She seemed rather interested in how this all worked, too.
As the door cracked open and the seal broke with a hushed puff, it was warm air that greeted you. The fridge had been modified to pump warm air through it and was no longer a fridge at all. Held inside of it was a brain in a jar, suspended in a viscous liquid. The stem of nerves at its base had been attached to pins and wires that ran out of the back of the fridge through a rubber stopper. Even though it was sealed and sanitised, the fridge still had a thick musty stench in its air.
“What the fuck?!” You whispered without even realising you were saying anything. The door still open, you stepped back in horror. The size of it – this was a child’s brain.
“Blake, what’s wrong?” Roxanne asked. “What is that?”
“That’s… ugh… that’s somebody’s brain, they … they must have taken it out of somebody. Killed somebody and-” you couldn’t finish the sentence. A disturbed look washed over her face. Lolbit came over immediately and gawked at it, she seemed more intrigued than disturbed.
Wait.
A freezing shiver consumed you, your stomach churned and you turned slowly back to the animatronics hung on the wall behind you.
No.
The small, ancient part of your own brain told you to run. Run as far away from this place as you could, as fast as you could. This was wrong on every level. Your heart beat so hard, so fast that you felt like it might run away without you.
“Blake?” Roxanne tugged your sleeve, not realising herself what was wrong. You couldn’t find the words at first and simply stared at her with a worried look about you. There was nothing else you could muster. The pumps - it wasn’t oil or coolant. It was blood, feeding the brain inside the case and keeping it alive. You came to the abrupt realisation that there was the brain of a murdered child inside each of the girls too, and presumably Freddy and Montgomery back at the pizzaplex. Nightmare Foxy, too, presumably held a biological brain within her.
“This is fucked up on so many levels.” You said, not sure if you wanted to be close to her at that moment realising what she was.
“Talk to me, what’s going on?” She begged.
“They’re taking … the brains out of children and putting them into animatronics.” You explained, a regretful look in your eyes. Her hands raised to her mouth in shock. Neither of you could say anything. Even Lolbit appeared shocked at that and kept her mouth shut. You all just stood there for a moment taking it all in. Once you collected yourself you decided to have a peer in the rest of the fridges. More brains, dark bags of blood, and another fridge labelled ‘remnant’. You had no idea what that could have been, but there appeared to be a few bags with blood and remnant mixed in a separate fridge. It explained a lot about how the girls were so lifelike, so smart for being an artificial intelligence – their intelligence wasn’t artificial at all.
You’d seen enough. There was one more room left here, and while you feared what you might find inside you’d come too far now to just give up.
“Let’s get out of here. There’s one room left.” You told them, already making your way past the girls and back into the parts and service room. “Put the panel back when you come out.”
You felt like throwing your guts up. You hadn’t known what to expect when you came down here, but it sure as hell wasn’t that. You leaned your body against the workbench and caught your breath, taking the time to collect your thoughts.
“Girls… go back to the van. Make sure nobody sees you. Take care of Funtime.”
“But Blake-” Lolbit protested.
“Just go. I won’t be long.” Your voice was quiet and hoarse. There wasn’t anybody here besides you after all - there were still answers waiting for you though.
Once you had watched the girls leave back through the control room you walked your way up to Funtime’s stage and looked out, imagining her situation. You weren’t quite ready to enter the final room, to finish this, just yet. You imagined the collar around her neck as she was forced to dance and entertain the children, any of whom could very well have been turned into the very creature they were there to see. It was a mess on so many levels. You imagined yourself being captured, having your brain removed and body discarded, only to wind up on a stage or in a pizzeria entertaining more potential victims; perhaps even perpetuating the very madness that would have sent you there in the first place.
With a heavy sigh you stepped over to the only door you hadn’t yet entered and pushed it open. Your eyes could barely focus now, your mind was numb and it felt like you were no longer in control as if somebody else was moving you, looking around and controlling your body. You were merely a dissociated spectator of your own life. Blankly you stared at the scene before you to see a familiar sight.
It wasn’t exact, but this was… it was your office. You felt your mind coming back into focus if only out of interest as to why there would be a replica of your office at all, let alone here. You blinked automatically as if your eyes were playing tricks on you. It felt so familiar, almost comfortable. Sure enough there was a control panel just like the one at your first location. Slowly you tapped away at it, inputting your login details. It grunted for a second as the old hard drive whirred around and sure enough a control panel for the cameras came on the three screens before you. There was even an old, sticky paper drinks cup just like before. You had been so transfixed on the screens that you hadn’t realised there were two doors, one to the left and right just like in your real office.
Flicking through the cameras came naturally to you and there was a replica of the whole pizzeria right down here in the basement of the unit. The cameras were in the same positions, the hallways were decorated relatively the same – even Foxy’s cove was there with its curtain. This posed more questions than it answered. You put the control panel down on the desk. You weren’t here to guard a pretend pizzeria. As you put it down something else hit the floor. Peeping down you saw a tattered old notebook and leaned over to scoop it up. In child’s writing on the front cover were the words ‘Sammy Emily’ scrawled in crayon. Emily. Henry’s kid?
Eagerly flipping through the pages, it seemed to give a chronological sequence of Sammy’s life over the years. There were a few gaps here and there, but it seems Sammy lost his sister as a result of the animatronics many years ago. His father worked making them – Sammy seemed to have a lot of respect for him, at least at first. The teenage pages were a little more angsty, followed by a long hiatus and a return to the journal at adulthood. This… this was what you were here for.
Skimming the pages as fast as you could you saw first drafts of blueprints for machines and animatronics taped inside with his own notes about them. It was fascinating to get a look inside his mind and methodology; it seemed that he was reverse engineering his father’s work and attempting to improve upon it. There were electronic diagrams and tables with pneumatic pressures, and then something else entirely. It seemed there was a switch from mechanics and electronics to biology. Printed out diagrams of the brain and notes on temperatures and blood pressures, then notes about the remnant stuff you’d seen in the back room of parts and service. It didn’t tell you much, just enough information to glean that it involved trapping a soul inside.
‘Remnant is most active in the young, growing inert as the vessel reaches maturity. As biological maturity arrives, so does that of the soul and it becomes anchored and static.’ You flipped a few more pages. ‘After the failed initial tests, mixing remnant and blood at a low enough temperature appears to provide a satisfying result. More tests to follow.’
You continued, passing more and more pages of diagrams and increasingly illegible writing. It seems he was getting more and more hurried to reach his goal, more fervent and determined each time he failed and got a little closer.
‘The first animatronics have come back. It wasn’t pretty, but nothing can be achieved without sacrifice. They’re back, and they’re better than ever. Testing can commence on limiting and altering the aspects of their personalities.’ A few pages on another passage read: ‘One of them attacked me - went absolutely berserk. It seemed to remember. I tried to make it forget. I wish I could forget.’
It seemed that wasn’t enough. The process from here began to reverse – instead of biological minds inside a metal body, he started tinkering with a computer brain inside a body made of flesh.
‘I have acquired a suitable subject. Well within the acceptable limits for remnant capacity and with a fluid enough soul. I’m undecided as to keeping their brain or not; if all goes well they won’t be needing it.’
The testing here took a darker turn. He harvested the bodies of children, replaced their brain with circuitry and put their mind into animatronics. It didn’t seem that the testing went particularly well for the children with digital minds.
‘Dad would be so proud. I’m so close to achieving what people have said is impossible. If I can master this, if I can produce results with success and accuracy each time, the possibilities for this technology will be endless.’ You seriously doubted that. From what you knew about Henry, he wouldn’t have wanted this. What sane, humane person would?
‘I’ve done it. I have a survivor. It’s touch and go for now, but he seems stable. When the time is right I’ll send him out into the world but I’ll keep him close. I fitted a modem receiver so he can be updated over the years, albeit over the phone.’
Your breathing, your heart – time itself seemed to stop right there. Your fingers began to tremble as you feared the worst. Hurriedly you skipped through the pages faster now, reaching the very end of the book. There, on the last few pages were tables containing a list of all the animatronics he’d made and their status. Foxy was there, Chika, then the Funtime series, right the way up to Roxanne. There were notes on which he’d made himself from scratch and which ones he’d brought back to life after… something had happened to them. He’d never mentioned quite what in the pages you’d seen, but you were both happy to have them back with you and disgusted at what you’d now found out they were. Not that it was their fault, they never chose to become what they were. Nor did you, or anybody for that matter.
There was another table there, with a spare page separating it from the animatronics. This was the list of humans he’d taken the brains from to replace with a computer. You could barely focus as you tried to consume the entirety of the page at once but slowed yourself down to go through them one by one. There was a column for the child’s name, the first handful being filled out followed by sporadic gaps. After a while he didn’t bother to fill in their real name. The next column over was their designation, the one after that the results of the test and finally their status. The entire column seemed to be filled again and again with the word DECEASED. There must have been at least a dozen kids here.
You reached the bottom of the page and could’ve died right then and there as your whole world crashed down around you.
[ ] [B L A K E] [SUCCESS]
Your parents, your whole family. They weren’t yours. How old even were you? What even were you?
You dropped the book to the table. Perhaps he meant for you to find this. Perhaps he wanted you to know the truth for some twisted sense of gratification. He’d clearly been happy with the result as he’d underlined the word success heavily, almost scribbling the line beneath it as the pen went back and forth.
“Fuck… Fuck, fuck fuck fuck no no fuck no shit” you stammered, backing away instinctively. This room – you’d been here before. You’d used this console before. He’d trained you here. Hidden away, somewhere in your mind – your hard drive, you now assumed, was deleted information that still remained. The path to find it had been deleted, but the information was still there, burned into the magnetic tape that made up everything that you could call you. You didn’t know how to remember, how to find that missing fragment of information. He’d wiped the path to it. It felt like the truth to everything was within reach, within you, just on the other side of a wall that stretched on forever, too high to climb, but you knew it was there.
You snatched the book back into your hands and flicked through more of the later entries, and it wasn’t long before you found more of what you were looking for.
‘Blake and the animatronics are providing useful results. He’ll soon be old enough for field testing. Let’s see what they can learn together. If the restraints on their personalities hold I’ll count that as a success and move onto the next stage.’
‘Telephonic update protocols appear to be working. I will provide further instruction and updates over time, I have a spare copy here inside a non-braincase animatronic to test the updates before sending them live.’
A copy? There was another version of you, an emulation of your personality and memories, right here in this basement. You felt utterly violated – robbed of your humanity and copied as if you were a JPG file to be viewed on a webpage. Perhaps there wasn’t just one copy – perhaps you weren’t even the real you. That boy that had been stolen away all those years ago, who was he, then?
Your mind shuttered itself down and you collapsed to the ground, your back pressed up against the wall. Your face contorted and twitched out of control as you tried to make sense of it all, unravel all the feelings churning within you and figure out who ‘you’ were meant to be.
“Fuck.” You whispered to yourself.