Quiet Apprehension

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Night 5, 12:01 am

Thomas watched the new manager stroll outside. He leaned in, observing pixels showing the devil locking entrance doors and disappearing out of the camera's view. The night guard watched clock numbers on his computer dwindle up. Patience. Until the coast was absolutely clear, he needed to be patient.

12:10 am

     Yep. Good enough.

     He charged to the main stages, flicking on dinning lights beforehand. One animatronic turned to face him, the other zoned out: staring into nothing.

"Guys—holy shmokes—why didn't you tell me what William's last name was?! He talked to me!"

     Roman leapt off his platform and placed two anxious hands on the guard's shoulders. His light flickered in a panic. "Never mind that! Did he say anything about us?!"

"Uh—"

"Because Talyn's gone, Logan's still deactivated, Patton's acting weird—" He nodded his head to the unmoving robot, who kept smiling and staring at nothing. "—and...Virgil!"

The fanciful persona bolted away, shouting the other's name. Within moments, a crash sounded off in the near distance.

     A greater state of bewilderment embraced Thomas. He stood still, processing what the flashes of panicked words meant. Surely, nothing out of control happened during his absence. Right?

     He turned to the silent child, waving a hand.

"Hey, you okay?"

     Patton's head slowly creaked around, never blinking. "Hi! I'm Morality, welcome to Fun Family's Pizzeria!"

     The robot extended an open palm, speaking in a different voice, sounding lower in pitch and throwing in cartoonish laughs.

"High-five, kid! You sure know how to smile, haha!"

Thomas remained stiff. He glanced at the mascot up and down, noting the absence of physical damage.

"Are you...is this—?" He could not put his confusion into words. "Hello?"

"Hahaha! Hi! The pizzeria is brighter with you around!"

     It was like watching someone else posses the face and body. The human thought back to Logan's muffled words about triggering memory cues to 'bring back the sense of one's self'. Worth a shot. He extended a hand to the smiling machine, re-enacting one of their past exchanges to the best of his remembrance.

"You don't like lying. But...they told you it was for everyone's own good. Maybe, this time, truth is better. So, no lies between us?"

Patton's hand gently patted the top of Thomas' head, giving his sangria-dyed hair more of a messier appearance than it already was. The metal man then gave a thumbs up.

"You've been such a great customer! Care for a song?"

     His heart sank.

The animatronic positioned his arms and wrist to play an invisible instrument. He prepared to air-strum, but dropped the act instead.

"Uh-oh. My rock guitar is missing. Sorry pal!"

     He used to have that? It seemed odd to imagine him with a guitar, must've been a long time ago since the mascot played it.

Back to the situation—

     His brain spewed out ideas for another way to retrieve Patton. Should he tamper with the mechanics? Re-wire the programming on his own? Flick a cup-full of water and hope the electricity resets everything? No, too harsh. Maybe if he—

"Thomas!" Two pairs of running footsteps clanked into the room. "Virgil can't talk and William has something to do with it!"

He wheeled, seeing Roman tug along his friend by the arm. They screeched to a halt.

"Do you know charades?" The prince mascot shouted at all three. "Sign language?!"

In the lovely form of facial expression, the tattered animatronic conveyed his thoughts. 'Heck yeah.' Or was it 'Do I look like—?' ...the permanent smile kinda...throws everything off.

"Do you wanna listen to a song about friendship and caring?"

"No—"

"Yay! You're such a good sport!"

     Roman sighed, and led the group away from the freak show.

     They stopped at a large table on the other side of the dinning area. At a plentiful distance away from the infected child, man and robot began to discuss on how to communicate with Virgil. After a few rounds of unsuccessful ideas, the duo stood in silence.

Clink. Clink. Roman tapped his forehead, deep in thought. He absentmindedly hummed along to a lazy tune. Clink. Clinkclinkclinkclink.

"Wouldn't it be easier to writ—"

"Aha!" Roman lifted a finger in the air. "We can write! Stay here, I'll be back!"

Stole the words right out of his mouth. Thomas crossed his arms, watching him zip into a hallway.

     Their companion returned not longer after, with one of the pizzeria's advertising posters and a marker. The energetic child slammed down the items on their table.

"Ok—basic words, go!"

     They stood aside as Virgil wrote down giant, crooked letters. His grip on the marker reminded Thomas of a toddler. It was probably years since any of them held writing utensils with...normal, human hands.

     The paper slid in their direction, where scribbled words took up all the space on the backside. Thomas held it up to read aloud.

" 'W used remote. P in new prograhm. Knows T healed you.' Wait, that's not how you spell program."

"Are you seriously focusing on that?!"

Sheepish, the guard corrected himself, "Gah, right—right. Sorry."

Virgil rolled his eyes.

"Ok, I know that William knows Talyn saved me. The thing is, I think that he thinks I'm not meddling in this immortal business. At least, I hope so."

     The two mascots glanced at each other. Roman voiced their thoughts.

"Because...?"

"Because he apologized for last night. He said you guys 'suffered a glitch' and tried to trick me into confessing about knowing your names, but I played dumb. Besides, if he really thought I was trying to interfere with his work, he would've...killed me...on the spot."

Oh god, why'd his train of thought lead there?

"You're not wrong, but you can't take chances, either."

     Virgil nodded.

"I'll be very, very careful around him." The man reassured. "I promise."

The royally dressed boy pointed at the one who stood so still, he could be mistaken for room decor. "What about our dear Patton?"

"William never said anything about him."

     Virgil clapped his hands. At the sudden attention, he held up two fingers with one hand and one finger with the other. The animatronic put them together to make the outline of a three-sided shape.

"Triangle?"

     He nodded vigorously.

"Oh!" Roman's eyebrows flew up, eager from his lucky guess. "I'm onto something! The Bermuda Triangle!"

     Virgil facepalmed. He made the triangle symbol, then pressed a finger on the table repeatedly.

"I feel like we need more paper."

The guard shook his head, "No, no. I think I'm getting it. The dinning tables have a secret mechanism."

A metal finger pointed at Patton, then re-did the unusual cycle of action. The mute robot mimed holding an electronic device, pressing imaginary buttons.

"Video game console? Tv remote? Your guy's remotes?" At Virgil's thumbs up, Thomas continued. "Triangle.... Oh—the-the triangle buttons on remotes!"

The purple animatronic snapped his fingers. 'Bingo'.

"Awesome!" His achieved grin quickly faltered away. "What about them?"

The mascot grasped his violet hair, seemingly frustrated at hearing more questions than whatever answers lay his mind. Was it supposed to be obvious?

Thomas scavenged around his most recent memory lane, digging aside meaningless details and pulled out a snippet of a conversation.

"...don't press random buttons. Such as these yellow ones, different patterns activate and deactivate functions."


Alright. Did 'functions' include trapping a little kid's mind inside programmed intelligence? Or....hold on.

"William used those to make Patton the way he is now, didn't he?"

Two animatronics looked at him in surprise. Virgil's smile instantly seemed to be his true expression. 'Yes! You got it!'

"Grand thinking, but I was gonna say that first." The crowned robot said.

"....Sure. Anyways, we'll need Patton's remote to fix this. It's in my office—"

Virgil clapped his hands in a sarcastic rhythm, the way he shook his head suggested no harm to the guard's innocent statement. He was trying to convey another thought. Like before, he mimed handling a remote, but added a new cycle of motion: invisible brick-snapping.

"We're cutting our costs in half? No—you want Thomas to work half-time. Wait....we should break stuff!"

     Virgil glared, ready to throw hands. He clenched his fists, shook his head, then motioned for the two to follow him.

     A scrap paper with Do Not Enter written with sharpie and taped to Nightmare Cove's door prompted the guard to fetch a small ring of keys from his belt. He took out the correct key, only to find...there was no lock.

Instead, one giant hole existed where the it should've been. A chunk of wood attached to a doorknob lay on the floor, utterly useless. He didn't even notice the door was already open until he sidestepped to look at it from a different angle. Thomas spun to the assumed culprit.

"Roman, did you break this?"

"It was an emergency! I was panicking, okay?" The animatronic waved his hands spastically. "The thing was locked! C'mon, what else was I supposed to do?"

"You could've told me, I have the keys for every room!"

     Roman made a sound halfway between a sputter and a laugh. "Huftt. As if we had time for that."

"We literally—"

"Hush now, remember about our knights in need of saving?"

     Thomas frowned. "Those cost money, y'know."

     It wasn't the animatronic's problem to deal with, but it would require a convincing lie and probably a begging session to not get fired.

     Once the trio passed through the doorway, Virgil placed himself in front of them, then pointed to the floor. After a pause of uncertainty, Thomas and Roman scanned the ground. What exactly were they looking for?

    Then he saw it.

     Bits and pieces of scattered metal parts, disembodied buttons, and metallic fragments that dotted the floor like confetti: a shattered remote.

"Woah," The fanciful kid awed at the destruction before them. "I did not see this before."

A cracked off print lured the guard. Thomas bent down and scooped up the piece: thin letters reading '-ality' remained on the hunk of plastic, and the rest of Patton's fake name leaned on the stage's base. He quickly gathered all of its shards into his palms.

"Logan is usually good at fixing things." Roman piped up. "He's the oldest, and you should know more than us, so you guys can...team up?"

The human distributed metal pieces to small pockets on his uniform shirt, concealing his discomfort with a blank expression.

"We'll check on Patton first. Follow me."

"Ok, make it quick!" The extravagant robot began to hustle them out the room. "We've got 'till sunrise, no time to waste!"

—————-

     He made sure to be extra, extra careful with moving the night guard. What he thought was a little push might translate to a harsh shove for the grown adult. Roman learned the hard way from play fighting kids.

     Virgil was almost indestructible, but even then, he treated his friend with as much care.

     No one else needed to get hurt.

     They slowed down, staring at the frozen mascot. Patton had a hand at his hip, the other in a thumbs-up, his torso bent slightly forward, as if giving approval to an invisible kid.

"You can make him go back to normal, right?"

"I've done robotic projects back home, this shouldn't be a big deal."

Out of the corner of his peripheral vision, the tattered robot dropped his gaze to the floor. Virgil's skittish light moved side to side, like a spotlight beaming on two different thoughts. But if anything lingered on his mind, he didn't speak up.

Their companion grew closer to the third animatronic, positioning step after step in a careful fashion. He held up a grey sticky note, and cleared his throat.

"One-seven-five-eight. Register voice."

Patton jerked upright, straight as a soldier. His eyes darkened in hue.

"Verbal communication mode on. Say your name and repeat this phrase: 'No such thing as good and evil exist, only moral grayness'."

The trio staggered back. Roman placed himself in front the group, arms positioned to launch punches.

"Woah—hey, hey, it's alright. His voice lines are pre-recorded, especially these."

The crowned animatronic looked at Virgil for a second input. All he got was a terrified head shake. Roman glowered at the insentience belonging to his other friend. He didn't like hearing the voice of William coming from the cheerful clown face. Didn't like it. At. All.

"What if—"

"If something bad happens, at least we'll have someone to protect us, right?" Thomas smiled at him, completely calm by the remark he believed in.

The prince robot considered it: imagining defending the rest, but never hurting Patton. His little buddy was in there somewhere, waiting to be freed. Roman tilted his head up, dropped his stance, and moved out of the way. "If that possessed fella makes one wrong move, I've got your backs."

     Virgil's shoulders relaxed, as if he had been holding in a breath and finally released it.

"Thomas. No such thing as good and  evil exist, only moral grayness."

"Loading....process complete. Voice now registered in file."

"Um, set version 2.3 dance for 9:30 pm today. You must be on your stage and cycle through the dance moves until 10:00 pm today." Thomas recited. "Then proceed to..."

He faltered, scanning the rest of tiny paper. The man shook his head, and pocketed the instructions.

"To deactivate when I say so. In the meanwhile, stay here. One-seven-five-eight, voice command off."

     Patton's eyes lightened back to their original hue.

     The night guard retreated from him, perhaps afraid of an unexpected lurch from the A.I. Fortunately, only its glowing stare followed the man's movements.

Roman drew back from him, too. He glanced between his companions.

"To Logan, then?"

Thomas turned away, mumbling. "To Logan."

————

     The mute animatronic trudged behind the others, trying to be more silent than he already was by softening his footsteps down the stairs. Not that it mattered, he just liked being as quiet as possible. It served great practice for sneaking up on people.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do that or any other fun stuff today. No kids to jump-scare. No stories to tell and listen to quickening, fearful heartbeats. No one to casually chat with. He usually liked his alone-time, but this was nearly unbearable.

That silence brought him an unexpected thing.

     Throughout the day, he caught muffled phrases: all in the topic of Logan. It looked like everyone else was still talking about the nerd going psycho. The day of the bite incident, all animatronics were taken to the basement for 'inspection'. There wasn't much time for explanation, as one employee got sent down to deactivate them.

He got the feeling it was gonna be fully addressed.

     He could practically sense the unease Thomas carried whenever Logan's name was mentioned. It gave him concern as well, knowing a jab of mistrust or possibly fear had begun to separate the guard from all of them. Or maybe not: maybe Thomas already hated them and no longer wanted to help. Actually, why not through in the possibility of him plain out ditching the place whenever the chance arrived?

     If he was still a normal person, now would be about time the nausea-related anxiety kicked in.

    At the lowest floor level of the restaurant, all three paused at the base of concrete stairs. Logan's dormant body slumped upright against a the wall, sitting like a limp doll. A familiar box lay beside him.

Both mascots simultaneously ran to the box, already knowing Logan was okay for the moment.

Roman teared off the lid, and his friend lifted the puppet out of it. Internally, the boys sighed in relief. Deactivated, is all their friend was.

"Oh thank goodness." Thomas' voice echoed, "And—I only brought Logan's remote...I'll get the other."

     The guard handed the rectangular device to Virgil, added a quick reminder on what button to push, and headed out the basement.

As soon as the door closed, Virgil pointed the remote to his friend.

————-

Beep!

     Electricity brightened Logan's eyes. Life seeped back into the intellectual animatronic: minuscule twinges of joints and the drumming of fingers buzzed in a low volume. Via a mechanical creak, he stared up at the being casting a shadow over him.

Roman tilted his head to the side, unable to pick an emotion to deliver his words with: so it came with the whole packet. Stupid fear, heartache, and irritation galore.

"I hope you're good at explaining yourself. We need Thomas on our side."

12:46 am


















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Next chapter, coming July 29th! Hope y'all are ready for what's about to unfold :))

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net