Fresh Hell

A long time ago, all the kids had left, along with their parents. Well, technically, it had only been several hours, but it sure felt like a long time ago. Mike was busy playing his 3DS and chewing on gum he'd grabbed from a vending machine while Jeremy diligently worked through the cameras one at a time.

"Holdin' up, Mike?"

He sighed and allowed the bubble he was blowing to pop. "I guess."

Jeremy muttered an affirmate "Hmm," before going back to looking through the cameras. The system was actually quite impressive, for a business that didn't have that much money to spare, or so he'd been told. He figured it wasn't his place to ask anyway. The silence remained for awhile until, sensing something was wrong, Jeremy turned his head around. "Mike?"

"What?" he replied.

Jeremy paused, considering his words, and the silence made Mike cast a look his way. It was that kind of look, too. "Y'all really don't wanna be here, do ya?"

Mike scoffed and went back to playing his game. "Hell-fucking-no."

"Y'all don't wanna be here, but don't wanna go t'see yer mother...Why's that?" Jeremy pried.

Mike stopped his game abruptly and looked up. He honestly hadn't thought about that question deep before...or more accurately, how to answer it. "Mom's at the age where she'll talk my damn ears off. And this place…" he trailed off, "...always left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather be bored here than bored to death listening to my mother ramble on."

"What kinda bad taste?" Jeremy continued.

Mike paused...then slowly looked up with a face contorted in confusion. "The hell you wanna know?" he asked, swiveling his chair around to face Jeremy, who put his arms up and turned back to face the monitors.

"Just askin', Mike, Jesus," he conceded.

"Yeah, 'Jesus' is right." Mike went back to playing games for all of three minutes before abruptly and loudly asking to no one in particular, "How goddamn long do we have'ta stay here!?"

Jeremy, after he took his hands off his ears, looked down at his watch. "It's...eight-thirty right now, Mike," he said. "We got about...nine an' a half hours t'go."

"Fuck my ass!" Mike cried as he stomped the floor.

Jeremy couldn't help but chuckle, mostly out of pity, as he continued his job. Mike could act like a real petulant child sometimes. He mostly elected to leave him to his games as he switched through the cameras. He thought it funny: when he showed up for his interview, he was almost immediately hired aboard. Shannon said their last guard had stayed for one night and immediately quit the following morning. He initially thought it odd, but he got a look at the kid's picture and immediately placed his type: high-strung, anxious, probably didn't work well under pressure. What kind of pressure could be applied here, he had no idea.

He was brought out of his musing and flow by a sudden, and very loud, banging from somewhere in the kitchen. It made him jump, and it nearly made Mike fall out of his chair and onto his ass. "...Fuck was that?" he hissed as his nails dug into the armrests.

Jeremy glanced out the right door, in the general direction of the kitchen. "Prob'ly nothin'," he said, grabbing a torch and standing up. "Want me t'check it out, ya big baby?"

Mike glared up at Jeremy, but wiped the angry expression off his face. "While you're there, get me a cold Pepsi, huh?" he asked.

Jeremy scoffed as he left the office. "Why do y'all think ya need one?"

Mike glanced up from behind his 3DS with a wry smile and said, "It's your apology for calling me a baby. Besides, we know that out of the both of us, I'm the one who has to talk to people who are bigger and scarier for you, which automatically gives me the bigger pair of balls." Jeremy scoffed and left the office without another word.

It was funny, though, just what a few hours of daylight could make here. With only half the lights on, every corner and wall was coated in shadow, giving off the illusion that, perhaps, the walls weren't real. It was like walking through The Twilight Zone. Jeremy got to the kitchen quickly and easily enough, and he threw the door open and shined his flashlight in. The room itself was laid out as one would expect: there was a freezer in the back, along with two stainless steel tables laid out horizontally from the door Jeremy entered from.

Against the walls hung pots and pans, spoons and other utensils, and in the cabinets, Jeremy found all the silverware arranged neatly. "Huh," he huffed to himself. "Ain't that the damndest thing." He closed the cupboard he'd been inspecting and walked back out into the hallway.

And by the time he noticed the tall, broad figure hiding behind the corner to his far left, it was gone.

Jeremy considered himself a rational man, but he was pretty damn sure he saw something, and that what he saw was in no way natural, so he booked it back to the security office as fast as he could. Mike saw him duck into the room and immediately set about checking the cameras, which elected a confused stare at first, and then a piercing cackle. "What's got ya runnin' scared, ya big baby?"

"Mike, this ain't to time t'joke!" Jeremy stammered as he checked and rechecked each monitor. "I swear I saw somethin' hiding out 'round a corner and I think someone just broke in!"

"Please," Mike chuckled as he got up off his chair, "who in their right goddamn mind would rob this place? There's nothing to steal except greasy leftovers and dime-a-dozen prizes."

"Look man, all I know is that I saw somethin' and I'm gonna get t'the bottom of it in a damn hurry before-" Jeremy froze mid-sentence as he looked over the cameras. Mike stared at him, waiting for Jeremy to finish his thought before he decided to check on what had actually garnered his attention. It only took him a minute of studying the monitors before he noticed, in the middle-right of the multitude of screens, something was moving. When he focused on it, he felt his heart stop for a solid second: Bonnie and Chica were hopping off the stage, completely of their own accord, the curtains already wide open.

And Freddy himself was nowhere to be found.

"Oh, my God," Mike whispered.

It was then Mike noticed something else, and it only took a couple seconds for Jeremy to catch on as well: on the monitor immediately to the left, on the opposite show stage where the Toy animatronics were. They were all filing off the stage, too. It took them a couple minutes to take it all in before Jeremy breathed out and sat back into his chair, though he was massaging his forehead to try and keep the stress down. "Jell-o, the hell're you doin'? The animatronics're-"

"Roaming around in night mode, I bet," Jeremy commented. Mike's jaw hung open for a minute and then shut and he grinded his teeth. "Or did y'all forget that already, since ya were bein' so scared?"

There was a pause as Mike sat back down in his chair and sighed. Jeremy chuckled and went back to watching the monitors. Mike watched them too, if not for the fact he didn't want to die of fright when one of them wandered by the office and he didn't know about it. He looked to his left. His eyes went as wide as plates.

Jeremy was about to switch the video feed to night vision mode before Mike tapped him on the shoulder and gestured behind him. "Alright, Mike now what's-"

He stopped short to see two figures leaning around the walls and staring directly into the security office. The shadows concealed most detail, but the ears and pink eyes on one and the peppy hairstyle on the other indicated it was Bonnie and Toy Chica. Jeremy spluttered and slammed the "Close Door" button on the keyboard.

Both steel doors slammed into the ground and Jeremy moaned and sunk his head into his hands.

"Did'ja remember we ain't supposed to let those walkin' scrap heaps into this room?"

"Shut the hell up, Mike."

With nothing else to do, they remained sitting in front of the monitors, scanning each and every one carefully. And they bore witness to why Jeremy had been hired so fast and why Mike hated the place with every fiber of his being, lacking another reason. One one screen, Pirate's Cove suddenly came to life; the entire attraction lifted the curtains off of the props and flung them away from the archways between sets. There was no one visible...for a moment. Out of the shadows of one of the massive shipwreck props slunk Foxy himself, followed closely by his Toy counterpart. They could hear the music filtering in from behind the steel doors.

On another screen, they saw the humanoid animatronic, Balloon Boy, slowly look up and into the camera and laugh. In no time, the monitors were filled with activity, but whatever happened there paled in comparison to what came knocking on the steel doors.

"Ahoy, mateys! Anyone in there…?"

Jeremy and Mike shared pleading glances, to which Mike only shook his head solemnly, never blinking or taking his eyes off Jeremy. They waited a minute and heard footsteps on the left leave, muttering something in a presumably disappointed manner. "Now, don't you be scared none," came a deeper voice on the right. It could only be from Freddy. "We wanna talk with you fellas."

"Yeah, come on out! It's time to play!" called Toy Chica.

Mike leaned in and whispered, "Ignore'em, dude."

"Mike, God save my soul, I'm tryin'," Jeremy whispered back.

"Hey! Hey! Hey, open up!" said a more high-pitched voice on the left again. "Hey, d'you like balloons? I've got some! Actually, I got plenty! You mind if-"

"I think we're gonna die."

"Christ, I hope so," Mike deadpanned, hiding as much of his fear as he could.


The basement of Freddy's was in a constant state of entropy that never seemed to complete itself. It was dark, moldy, and for some reason, there was almost a constant kind of mist concealing everything. It could have been from the uneven mix of cold-to-hot air filtering in from above and below ground, but considering the pizzeria's history, it was more than likely borne of something more...supernatural.

The area itself was almost as big as the ground floor, though a lot less spacious; instead, it was almost entirely comprised of narrow corridors. In one of the few rooms larger than a low-end apartment bedroom, however, were several dozen circuit breakers, hooked up to almost every part of the pizzeria's electrical system. It was a place that, after two hours of unsuccessfully trying to lure the two new security guards out (which, in all honesty, wasn't surprising), the Puppet who lived in the present box had taken a very adamant interest in.

It didn't need to worry much about physical constraints; his link to the other side ensured he could do things the others couldn't. Namely go through walls, create illusions of itself to talk on its behalf, and listen to everything that happened in the restaurant. Of course, that was only the tip of the iceberg. The only true limit was its partner's imagination. As its form coalesced once more in that basement forgotten by time, it floated toward the circuit breakers...and found something waiting.

Looking over each and every one of the electrical boxes was a wispy black figure, in the shape of a giant animatronic bear wearing a yellow hat and bowtie. It bore a striking resemblance to the long forgotten mascot of the predecessor business, Fredbear's Family Diner.

"Ah...Malcolm…" The living shadow abruptly turned around to look at the Puppet. "You are...keeping yourself busy, I see…?"

"You know I try," Malcolm drawled in a light Dixie accent. He quickly looked away, simply content to study the boxes.

"You felt them, too...I take it…?" it asked, floating closer.

"In a way," Malcolm replied. "The kid woke me up. Said he felt somethin' familiar upstairs. Couldn't leave'im guessin'."

The Puppet nodded thoughtfully. "Truly...not a more noble creature...to be found," it mused. "My own scion...felt something as well...A burning fire...of willpower...in the chest. They...may yet...prove useful." Malcolm nodded respectfully and searched through the circuit boxes until he stopped and point at the one on the far left. The Puppet raised its hand, shooting a string of white ectoplasm out of its palm and grabbing the lid before yanking it off, all while remaining eerily stiff, as if its movements were being guided. "Might I ask...which one...intrigued the youngling?"

"The tall one. Figger I oughta call'im 'hippie' 'til the kid gives me a name," Malcolm said. "Kinda weird, though. If I didn' know no better, I'd say the kid knew'im from before…"

The Puppet seemed to hum in agreement. "That is...Michael, I believe. You present...an interesting...angle...on such a development. As such...I shall see if I may...yet convert...Mister Jeremy."

It launched another string of white in the box, catching every last wire, and remained electrocuted due to simple circumstance of being half-incorporeal. And with but a thought, it brought about the next step.


Mike and Jeremy had been watching the monitors for what felt like years, and had been listening to things knocking on their doors for what felt like far longer. They had almost grown used to it.

The electricity suddenly shutting off building-wide certainly helped keep them alert.

The both of them immediately shot up out of their chairs and stood frozen in place. There were no windows this far back into the restaurant.

It was pitch-black.

"...Jeremy…?"

"...Mike…?"

"Where are you…?"

"Right here."

Mike started to inch over to his left, grasping desperately through at the darkness. "Stay still...please."

"I get'chu, I get'chu," Jeremy replied. "Just follow the soothing sound of my voice."

Mike stifled a chuckle; at this point, he was laughing on reflex to not make himself panic, but he managed to grab Jeremy's shoulder in no time. "There you are. I think. Izzat really you?"

"Think that's yer hand on my shoulder," he consoled.

"Cool," Mike said. "...Now what?"

Jeremy sighed. "Now? Now we gotta get outta here an' turn the power back on."

Mike paused and was thankful Jeremy couldn't see him as he quickly wiped his forehead, neck, and his armpits. "...Where the power at, tho?"

"Sheit, if I had t'guess," Jeremy muttered, "It'd either be upstairs or in the basement."

"...Can we check upstairs first…?" Mike whined.

"My thoughts exactly." He would've called Mike a big baby again, but at this point, he wasn't sure if he could go on for much longer without shitting himself, either. And so, inch by laborious inch, they crept their way out of the security office and around the back of the restaurant. It must have taken them several hours...or ten minutes. The power was off and there were no windows in the back, so they couldn't tell. As they snuck around, Mike picked up on something, and whispered, "'S quiet," to Jeremy.

"Yeah, I noticed." Jeremy groped around in front of him and led Mike around a wall blocking them. "...Think that means they're...gone…?"

"Nah, man, we're gonna die."

"C'mon, Mike, think positive for once!" Jeremy whispered back.

"...Maybe we'll die quickly."

"God-dammit, Mike."

Eventually, Jeremy and Mike worked themselves around to the back of the pizzeria, and the closest set of stairs to the upper floor. Jeremy managed to find it back kicking it with his foot, but only after he didn't feel any solid wall up ahead. A test, if you will. "Here she is," he muttered. "Follow me, Mike."

"You got it, Mr. J."

Jeremy felt around on his shoulder and grabbed Mike's resting hand. It made him pause. Something felt wrong. "Hey, Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"What kinda lotion y'all use on ya skin?"

Mike scrunched his face up. "...I don't use lotion, Jeremy."

"Well, your hand feels real smooth. Like, too smooth," Jeremy ruminated. "...Feels like smooth-ass metal."

Once those words left his mouth, Jeremy's stomach sunk, and and turned around to look into the darkness behind him.

And a second later, two baby-blue eyes lit up a solid foot over his head.

Mike saw it too, and instinctively screamed "Holy shit...!" a split second before who they both assumed as Freddy pivoted and grabbed them both by their collars, one in each hand, and threw them backwards into the darkness, screaming the whole way. Mike landed with a dull thud on the floor, but heard a lot of crashing and yelling from Jeremy; he must have landed on a table.

"Jeremy…!"

Through pained cries, he heard him yell, "Mike…!"

"Hang on, motherfucker, I'm comin' for ya-uurk!" Mike's declaration was stopped as something hooked its arms around his stomach and pulled, forcing the wind out of him, and before he could turn his upper body and punch what had him, his legs were pinned together and he saw, for a split second, the same pair of blue eyes glowing in the darkness in front of him before he felt something punch him right in the jaw.

His head spun for a few seconds, and when he could see straight again, he noticed he was being carried around by not one, not two, but three animatronics. He could tell because their eyes were all glowing in the dark. Pink, blue, and lavender; Bonnie, Freddy, and Chica. Where Foxy was was beyond him.

And worse yet, Jeremy's yelling had faded, after hearing more sounds of a scuffle and some nasty left hooks.

It didn't take him long to start calling down the verbal airstrike. "Fuck you…!" He continued to struggle, but something had his legs bound. "I...I know what you're doing!" Nothing in their eyes indicated they cared. "I kn-know it all! The-the rumors, the dis-disappearances…" He started cackling as he continued, "It's all because of you, ain't it!? Y-you...you take'em to the back and throw-'em into the costumes, right? Right…!? Bah-ha-ha! Of course I'm right! I know everything about this place, and by God, I can die, oooh, but I ain't gonna die without a fight!"

He tried kicking his legs out to the side, which definitely caught one of them. He felt something block his way, heard the stumble...as well as the "Ow, shit! Stop makin' dis so friggin' difficult...cunt!"

Mike froze. He had never, once in his life, heard any of the animatronics react naturally. That meant that, just maybe, what they were saying...wasn't pre recorded.

He didn't get to take much of it in, though, as before he knew what was happening, he heard a door open and was tossed through it as unceremoniously as someone throwing out the garbage. He yelled a couple more curses and propped himself up on his arm. The last thing he saw of the outside were the three pairs of eyes before he heard the door slam, and they disappeared.

Meanwhile, Jeremy had suffered a similar fate. Except, while he was certainly subdued and his legs tied up, he was carted off in a totally different direction. He was also a lot less vocal about his fate. He figured talking wouldn't do much anyway. And he was also scared stiff. After a couple minutes of walking, he felt himself tossed out and he landed on the floor with a loud thud.

He grunted and looked back at where he thought his captors stood. He saw their piercing eyes, blue, blue, and green. Toy Freddy, Balloon Boy, and Toy Bonnie. Oddly enough, they only seemed to be standing there, completely still in an archway. He guessed they were trying to block him, and so he checked his legs and was surprised to see that there was some sort of cord keeping them bound. The knot they'd made wasn't even that hard to undo. Jeremy reached for it and looked back up at the animatronics, tensing up with each minute movement he made, as if they'd suddenly go off on him for trying to escape. Oddly enough, they never did, and he got the cord off and slowly, painfully slowly, stood back up.

And they remained in the same placed. Staring at him, rarely blinking. He found himself stuck between two glass display cases for prizes, and considering everything was still deathly dark, he didn't dare try and run. Or take his eyes off them.

"What…" He breathed heavily, trying to steady his voice and his thoughts. "What do y'all...what d'y'all want from me…?"

There was nothing but silence. It was so quiet, Jeremy feared even his own breathing was too loud. "We want...nothing..."

Jeremy whipped around and stared, horrified, to his left, into what he guessed was the back of Prize Corner. From the inky blackness, he saw two white dots slowly flicker to life...and float steadily towards him. At length, he saw it: a marionette, wearing a white porcelain mask, and shaped like a near-elicited human, and about as tall as one. "But I...want revenge…"

"R-re-revenge…?" Jeremy stammered. "Look, man, I n-never did nothin' to nobody in here, ya g-gotta believe me." By now, his dark skin had lost a lot of color.

"Not...on you…" it clarified. "I have...felt it...in the tides of...the veil. A great tragedy...is brewing...There is…" It seemed to lift its chest, as if inhaling steadily. "Only one way...to stop it…"

Jeremy was still too scared out of his mind to talk, but the Puppet didn't need to talk to him. In an instant, strands of ectoplasmic string shot out of its hands, flying and wrapping themselves around Jeremy's wrists before he could so much as blink. He looked left and right frantically; he would have tried to escape had he not been paralyzed. Jeremy looked up, his eyes twitching, his muscles frozen with fear, back into the unearthly eyes of the Puppet.

"Your soul must become like ours. Laid bare, and reborn."

All Jeremy felt was pain shooting through each and every one of his muscles, bones, and through every cell of his brain. This pain felt like swords piercing his chest. He felt something deep inside him burning. He screamed; no screams for release, or mercy. Just a terrified shriek that threatened to break his larynx. Jeremy didn't know how to equate it to anything he'd felt before; maybe that was why it hurt so much.

The only thing he saw before he finally passed out were those white, pinprick-sized eyes glaring down at him before they faded away into the blackness.


Mike shivered and rubbed his arms. He'd gotten out of his binds quickly enough; the cord was surprisingly flimsy after stretching it taut enough times. The basement was cold though, probably ten degrees colder than upstairs, and Mike only had a short-sleeve shirt on. He'd wandered through the mist covering the basement for what felt like hours, but must have been at least fifteen minutes, realistically speaking.

Peering around another corner, he saw nothing but dim blue light coming from the dying lights on the ceiling, more fog, and several crates stacked together, making walking through the hall more constricted. He sighed and nervously crept around the corner and onward. Each cautious, tentative step made the tile below him groan and creak, making it obvious the basement was the lowest priority on the company's list of upkeep.

There was a cough.

Mike spun around so fast, he almost slipped and fell, and boy, would that have been an embarrassing way to die, he thought as he steadied himself. As he stared behind, from the way he came, he saw nothing down the other end of the hall, save for more mist obscuring his vision. He slowly, ever so slowly, turned his head back around. There was nothing in front of him, either. Mike swallowed hard and continued on.

The longer he stayed down there, the more he noticed his breath coming out like steam in front of him. "God...dammit," he hissed. "Goddammit, it's cold."

He turned another corner, getting more and more lost the longer he roamed around. This hallway was cluttered, too. And for some reason, it looked darker near the end. Mike wasn't good at physics, but even he knew light didn't work like that. Mike didn't have anything on him he could use as a blunt weapon beside his fists, so he put them up like a boxer and stepped forward. The further he went, the faster he saw the light around him fading, as if there was some invisible filter stopping it from getting very far.

"He likes it dark."

Mike's breathing hitched and he snapped around, fists up and ready.

Nothing.

After sensing nothing else was going to happen, Mike made an about-face and kept sneaking forward, one foot in front of the other. After a few more steps, it had become exponentially harder to see, but it certainly wasn't as pitch-black as the restaurant had been. In fact, he could quite easily see his immediate surroundings: there were a couple crates, some very old posters from what Mike assumed was the predecessor location, child's drawings that even looked older than dirt, and, as he looked down immediately in front of him, he saw a robotic leg, sticking out across the floor. He froze, and traced it back to the animatronic body it owned.

It was a yellow bear, slumped against the wall.

The air around him went even colder than before, and Mike felt all his hair standing on end. He wouldn't have been surprised if he looked like some sort of younger, more punk-rock Albert Einstein. The bulky body, the ridiculously big jaws...the tacky purple top hat and bow tie. Mike remembered good ol' Fredbear, all right. "...Not you again…" Mike muttered. He paused, letting the cold wash over him. "...Y'know what?" he said, "I'm glad you're down here. You can rot in a shallow grave, you piss-colored circus reject. I swear to God, once I get out, if I see your fat face again before I die, it'll be too fuckin' soon."

Two golden dots flared to life in the robot's skull.

And Mike screamed. He barely even moved anywhere as the flashbacks hit him, one after another, with faster rapid-fire than a tommy gun. It was more than enough time for the lumbering suit to push himself up off the ground. When Mike was able to refocus, he instinctively ducked down when he saw Fredbear's right hand coming up.

He had expected a punch with the force of a lead cannonball behind it; what he got caught him off-guard. Instead of getting a dozen new offerings for the tooth fairy, Fredbear lunged forward, bringing his hand forward and grabbing Mike by the neck, pinning him to the wall. He could feel several of his vertebrae snap back into their designated places, and if it weren't for the fact he felt some of the broken plaster poking him, he would've said "thank you."

Still, Mike was scared out of his mind. A giant death machine shaped like a kid-friendly bear was glaring down at him with black sclera and yellow pupils; he was partially thankful his body was numb with fear, if it only meant he couldn't feel if he'd shit himself. The worst part was that the robot had remained completely silent the whole time. No speech...not even the sound of whirring gyros and joints.

"F...fucker…" Mike choked. "Shoulda known...there was some shit...wrong with you…"

He didn't snap Mike's neck...at least not yet. Instead, Fredbear actually took a step closer while Holding Mike in place. He was close enough for Mike to feel his breath. Mike's face shifted to confusion for a brief moment. He was breathing. Somehow.

"What…"

Then he looked into his eyes once more. There was an ghostly shine to them...at this point, it wasn't surprising...but Mike could feel something in them. It was a gut feeling, but he felt pain, confusion, sadness…

And then everything clicked.

"Oh, my God...Oh, my God, there's no way," he spat. He paused for a moment, but then a bitter smile curled his lips. And he laughed. "Hah...ah-ha-hahaha…! I should've fucking known it!" he howled. "Do it, then...! Do it! Snap my fucking neck, tear my goddamn heart out! I bet it'll look funny. I bet you'll laugh. I bet you'll be happy I'll be dead!"

Mike clammed up after that, and resigned himself to looking death in the eyes as he went down. Fredbear didn't move, and made no indication to do it either, which made Mike relax, if only slightly, and unclench his teeth. Then, in a heartbeat, Fredbear reached up with his other hand and placed it over Mike's face. He was certain he'd get his face torn off slasher-film style until he felt something strange. It felt like it was coming from his gut, welling up into his throat. There was pressure, as if he'd been delivered numbing medication for getting a tooth pulled out.

And then it all came out, a golden light that shot from his eyes and mouth as he yelled. It remained muffled by Fredbear's hand, but in the end the sensory overload proved too much, and his arms and head went limp.

Fredbear stood back up, now holding Mike by the collar, staring down at his unconscious face. His face couldn't form expressions, but his eyes radiated concern. He remained like that, trying to read Mike's face, hoping beyond hope that maybe…

A black, wispy mist came rolling in from the side, and when Fredbear saw it, he immediately set Mike down gently on the floor and took a few steps back. After taking a moment to coagulate, the shadow transformed into the mysterious black bear, who stood over Mike. He bent down, holding his bulky hand a few inches over Mike's face and slowly moved it down, in an almost robotic fashion. After a second, he nodded and looked back up at Fredbear. "He's alive, son."

Fredbear seemed to lower his shoulders as if breathing a sigh of relief. "Go back ta sleep, if ya feel it. I'll take care'a yer friend."

In time, the lights miraculously worked again, but everything was still. The only signs of movement come from behind drawn curtains. They were busy working. Working as they had been instructed, because this…this was unfamiliar territory.

This was a first.