Author's Note:
I said this before, but it bears repeating now:
I came up with the concept and started writing this after Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was released, but before Five Nights at Freddy's 4 was released, and I have no intention of changing the story mid-stream, as it were. Whatever revelations there are in Five Nights at Freddy's 4 have nothing to do with this story.
I have resumed beta-reading for one of my favorite authors on FFN, since they finally got a slew of new chapters finished. This may affect the speed at which I can finish these chapters, but if you leave reviews reminding me that you are reading and want to see more, that will help remind me to get to this whenever I find the free time! I especially like reading about the specifics that stood out to you, what your thoughts are on different parts.
Enjoy!
Sleight of Hand
"I took that opportunity, and I tore out of there as fast as I could."
Karl was absorbed in this story. Knowing what he did about Springtrap, Karl realized that it had likely only been by a slim margin that Salina had gotten through that second night with her life.
"My god, Salina... that sounds like it was a really scary-" *beep* *beep* *beep*
Karl was interrupted by his phone's alarm.
"Um... I'm... sorry, I have to- uh, I really want to hear the rest, but-"
"No, I understand, I don't want you to be late for work. I'll see you here tomorrow?"
"Yeah! Thanks, Salina!"
"Take care, Karl!"
Karl drove out to the bunker, thinking about Salina's experience and pondering what was going on in Springtrap's mind when that happened. Should Karl ask Springtrap about that incident?
No, Karl decided. Not yet, anyway. It might be best not to reveal that he knows something about Springtrap's activities at Fazbear's Fright until later.
Karl got down into the control room on time this time, and took a careful look into the observation chamber. Springtrap was still asleep, of course; that was good. Karl looked at the tray holding the hand-crank and was pleased to see that he had not left anything else there. He looked around at the other surfaces. Okay, this all looked good. Time for another night of listening to this psychopath. Well, at least it was filling in the gaps in Karl's understanding of the events.
12:00 AM
"Good morning." Karl spoke into the microphone.
"Likewise," Springtrap replied with an oddly cheerful tone. "did you have a nice night?"
Karl wondered if Springtrap was being sarcastic again. Probably so, Karl concluded, but best to just move on and stop bothering with trying to establish dominance or to agitate the killer.
"Sure. So, let's get back to what you were doing at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
"Right. Well, as I was saying, I had just met Leonard Hawkins, the worm Fazbear Entertainment had duped into accepting the role of 'head of security'. He was telling us all to keep our mouths shut after the horrible murder that had occurred just outside the restaurant..."
"Oh, one other thing before I go, uh..." Leonard paused pointing his finger at me.
"Vincent Blakeslee", I replied.
"Vincent! Right, so, you're the tech guy around here, right?"
"I am."
"Great! Could you take a look at pulling the security camera footage? I'm not really sure how it's all stored back there. Our regular security guard for this location just quit, and we're getting a temp agency to fill the role for now, but... the stuff back there is pretty complicated, so..."
"It will not be a problem." I told him. "I will take a look at what we have, to see if we can find the killer on there. I can turn it over to the police-"
"Oh, no! Um, n- uh, we-we have a policy at Fazbear Entertainment, um... we need to have the legal department look over any materials before distributing outside of the organization, you know, so it's properly labeled and recorded with backup copies and whatnot, so just... yeah, get that to me first, if you can?"
"Right. I will take care of it." I told him.
"Great! Lemme show you to the security office." Leonard led me to the south side of the building and into a small office with many security monitors and two doors, one to the east, and the other to the west.
"Are there any cameras that look outside?" I felt myself warm up with stress as I asked this question. I had not thought to consider this possibility when I was killing the boy.
"Uh, no... unfortunately, which means we won't see the actual killing... but maybe there are some clues, you know? Like, if Mark was inside and then left with a strange man or something."
"Sure. I will take a look."
Knowing I would not find anything, I started working on the console. The controls were fairly straight-forward. There were knobs that tuned a couple of different monitors to different cameras for a live feed, and I was able to locate reels of magnetic tape that were automatically being recorded and archived, a separate reel for each camera. I started with the main dining area, searching for the time shortly before I arrived at work.
Leonard was still watching me.
"So... this could take a long time, Leonard."
"Oh! Right, well, uh, I'll leave you to it, then! If you find anything, remember to call me or the legal department first, okay?"
"Right."
As soon as Leonard left, I sighed with frustration. How long was I going to have to waste my time in this security office looking for nothing before I could convincingly go back and say I found nothing?
Then I thought about it for a moment. I felt a bit of stress hit me again, causing my pulse to quicken as I realized that there was a camera in the kitchen. I had come in through the kitchen. No one had seen me before I doused myself with pizza sauce, but... the camera might show how I looked in those first few seconds... covered in blood.
I quickly switched reels and checked the kitchen camera feed. Sure enough, it showed a clear image of the back entrance. I gulped. I glanced around to make sure no one else was around to see the screen. I wound the tape back to when I came in. I watched myself come in, my shirt already stained before I grabbed the pasta sauce. I switched off the display immediately.
I took a deep breath.
That damned kitchen camera. Well, it was a good thing that they had put me in charge of checking out the footage. Now I just needed a plan.
First, I removed the kitchen video reel and put one from the main stage in its place. I then moved the knobs and switches enough away from their active positions that, if the other employees were as inept at using audio-video technology as I had inferred from what Leonard had said, they would not be able to easily start viewing anything remotely relevant. While doing this, I made sure to stop the recording from the kitchen feed. Whatever was coming in from the camera at that moment would not be recorded. I thought about taking the tape from yesterday with me, but I realized that such a move would look very suspicious. Instead, I headed back to my workshop empty-handed.
I slipped in and grabbed an electromagnet, a power cable, and a heavy, iron handle. The electromagnet was made for use in electric motors, but, just like I had with the steam cleaner before it, I found a new use for it. I fixed the electromagnet to the thick handle so that I could aim it like a wand, and I plugged the cable into it so that I could give it power. I started walking back to the office.
"Hey! What'cha got there?" Leonard spotted me.
"Oh, this?" I said gesturing to the magnetic wand I had put together. "It is just a tool to help me fix something with the camera system... It is rather technical. I would not wish to bore you."
"Oh, don't worry about it! I wanna see what's going on!" Leonard seemed excited and eager to help, but thankfully, not at all suspicious. I decided I might still be able to succeed here, if I were careful.
We got to the security office, and I plugged in the electromagnet. "So," I said, beginning to play the footage from the main stage.
"As you can see here," I said, pointing with my left hand at the screen on the left side of the console, away from the tape reels.
"The boy is not in the main stage, well, at least not at this part..." I had to stall and keep Leonard facing away a little longer. While my left hand and eyes aimed at the screen on the left side of the console, my right hand moved the magnet over the tape with the recordings from the kitchen. I just kept it moving across the most recent tape. I realized then that I would need to reach a bit further back to hit even older tapes. It might look too suspicious if only the day of the murder were erased.
"Yeah? So... does he show up later?" Leonard asked me. He turned to me, and I dropped the magnetic wand to my side just as he faced me.
"Well, let us see." I continued. "I looked through the party just before his death, and he does not show up inside the main stage, and if we look near the bathrooms, as you can see over... here..."
I pocketed the magnet and walked right up against the stack of archived kitchen tapes, making sure to press the side of my pants holding the magnet against them while grabbing a reel of tape for the bathroom camera from another shelf. I loaded it, and then switched the feed to the bathroom camera.
"Huh... okay, so... not there, either. Um... did you find anything?" Leonard seemed a little impatient and confused.
I realized that I was running out of time. I had to take the chance at this point. I had to have erased everything important by now, and I had to avoid the appearance of hiding anything at this point.
"Well, I did not find anything relating to Mark or the killer, but I did find something out of the ordinary." I had to be the one to bring this up. If someone else found it later, it would make me a suspect.
"What?"
"The kitchen camera." I loaded up the reel from yesterday evening from the kitchen, I started it playing at about half an hour before I came in, and I stood behind Leonard taking a firm grasp of my magnetic wand. The heavy, iron handle might prove useful all by itself. If I had not erased my entry, I might have to do something desperate.
There was static. We could hear the sounds of people working, pots and pans clattering, pizzas being slid into and out of the oven, but no video. Nothing to see at all. The audio track must have been at a frequency just different enough that my magnet did not interfere with it much. I breathed a sigh of relief as silently as I could, loosening my grip on the wand.
"Huh? The... video's out on that camera." Leonard said.
"Yes... Yes, it is. I can take a look at it, but I do not suspect anyone tampered with it, since it does not pertain to this case, at any rate. There is no reason to suspect that Mark ever went back to the kitchen; it is off-limits to customers."
"Yeah, I see." Leonard sounded disappointed. "Go ahead and take a look at the camera, will you?"
"Certainly." I replied.
Thankfully, Leonard finally left me alone for a few minutes at this point to go talk to someone else I had not seen before. This other man was wearing a charcoal-gray business suit, a white dress shirt, and a maroon tie, so I inferred that he was an executive from the corporate office. He pulled Leonard aside and spoke to him in a voice too low and soft for me to hear. The man in the suit was wearing a stern look on his face and was pointing at Leonard. Leonard was either being scolded or getting some important instructions. He was nodding.
The executive was probably giving Leonard advice on keeping things under wraps, or perhaps he was getting an earful about the financial cost of bad publicity, the cost of running ad campaigns to offset the bad PR, the need to maintain revenues, et cetera.
While this was happening, I made my way back to the kitchen on the east side of the building. I found the surveillance camera and a step-ladder, and started to take it down.
I was in a room filled with no one but people who would not understand what I was doing, so the only trick was to remain nonchalant, which is not a challenge for me. I simply took down the camera, opened up the side, and gently tore the video cable inside the camera. I left it barely attached, not enough to transmit anything but chaotic static, but enough that it did not look like someone had carefully sabotaged it.
"Leonard!" I called out. He came to me. The executive followed him, standing behind him looking impatient. "Here is the issue." I told Leonard. "This camera needs to be replaced. From the looks of it, it has been damaged for some time, probably from all of the heat and moisture in this room. You probably need a higher quality camera if it is going to last here in the kitchen. It might cost around... four hundred dollars or so... give or take, but I can set it up, if you need."
I could see Leonard cringe and the executive frown when I mentioned the price. I had picked a good one. This camera was not going to get fixed.
"Uh, well," Leonard started to reply. He turned back to look at the executive, who simply glared at him. "It would be nice," Leonard continued, "but uh... the uh... budget for equipment is a bit, uh... I mean, with your new animatronics and their development and all, I mean, and, uh... since the audio at least seems to work..."
"And since this is not even an area open to customers anyway," I helped him out.
"Yeah! I... I think we'll just... y'know... leave this one audio-only. I mean, if something bad happens in the kitchen, the security guard can at least hear it, you know?"
"Sure, that seems quite fair. I think that is a wise use of resources." People will do just about anything for you if you compliment them on something on which they pride themselves and if you are trying to convince them of something they already want to believe.
"Great! I'm so glad you understand. So, yeah, I'll go ahead and let corporate know we didn't find anything here. Okay! So, I'll be heading back now. Uh, so, keep an eye on things, and... finish up those animatronic suits as soon as possible. Someone from corporate will be in touch with you about that, okay?"
"Sure. Thank you for your help, Leonard."
"Oh! You're welcome! Uh, have a good night!"
"Good night, Leonard."
I returned to my workshop at that point. I was nearly finished with my prototypes. I had adapted the two yellow costumes so that they could transform between costume and robot. The bear and the bunny.
They were quite bulky, since they now had to contain both the robotic parts and the room for the wearer. Enough of my time had been wasted by this homicide investigation that I had to cut some more corners, but at least I was still free to continue.
"Wow, Spr-, uh, Vincent. It looks like that was a close call, huh?"
"Oh, yes, it was, but luckily for both you and me, I was not caught."
"What do you mean, lucky for me?"
"Well, if I had been caught then, you would not have this wonderful research material to study. You might have to find... something else to do."
It sounded like Springtrap had been tempted to insult my career again but decided against it. I guess he's trying to be respectful since I stopped calling him "Springtrap" and started calling him "Vincent". Perhaps I might be able to get more out of him this way, by acting nice to him. It was easier, at least.
"Well, thank you for being so co-operative, Vincent."
"You are welcome, Karl. I suspect that my time for this morning is almost over."
I checked my phone. Sure enough, it was 5:59 AM.
"Oh, yeah, it is. Well, before you... uh, shut down, I was curious about something... Do you... dream?"
Springtrap just stared back at me unsettlingly for several seconds. Finally he replied:
"Good night, Karl. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow."
"Hey, you didn't answer-" I started to object, but it had already turned 6:00. Springtrap's eyes closed, and it was like he was dead again.
Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading! I hope to get some more reviews. I love seeing how people receive specific parts of the story, where they think the story is going from here, and so on!
What were your favorite parts?
What do you think is going to happen?
The more reviews I get, the more I want to write!
See you on the flipside! ;)
