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The manager leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms wide.
"So how exactly will these help us get Chica and Freddy back?" I asked him.
He sighed, agitated that I hadn't yet gotten a hold of the plan.
"I'll start from the beginning then," he replied.
He cleared his throat.
"Project Golden was our bid to create a fifth animatronic. We codenamed him Golden Freddy, mostly because we made a replica of Freddy's suit and made it golden. Golden Freddy was to be different, a much bigger step. He was infused like the others, capable of human thought and emotion. However, we took a different approach this time. The suit was hollowed out as much as possible, the power core and main systems were integrated into the suit itself. It literally became a suit, although not for an animatronic."
I raised an eyebrow at this.
"Don't you see? We wanted to combine animatronic with human, to place a human inside the suit to augment the animatronic. Of course the human wouldn't be permanently inside the suit. Admittedly, it was made to make sure that the animatronic could not operate properly without the human, a safeguard, so to speak."
"Sounds like it could be weaponised," I said.
"Taken from a certain perspective it would seem like that. But this was made entirely for the same reason the original animatronics were. Project Golden was the first phase of a larger endeavour. This is where the Upload Initiative, the second phase, comes in.
The Upload Initiative was a step further along the path paved by Project Golden. It was the actual linking of a human mind with an animatronic's mind. As you can imagine, the complications were astronomical. What would happen if the mind got stuck half way? The ethical boundaries were extreme as well.
After many years of research and speculation, we finally moved to tests. You can guess who our first human test subject was."
Bonnie and Foxy, who I had quite forgotten were in the room, growled at the mentioning of this subject. I looked around puzzlingly.
"You're slow today. It was the man who would later go on to create the imposter program."
"Him? Why him?"
The manager sighed.
"He was instrumental in the completion of Project Golden and he was a close friend of mine. His name was Robert. He wanted to be the first to be linked with an animatronic, no matter how dangerous it was. I couldn't persuade him to wait.
Anyway, the test was a success. We successfully linked his mind with Golden Freddy's."
The manager paused, what was coming was obviously a complication.
"But something went wrong during the link, something destabilised the connection. We tried to bail him out, but I think a literal part of his mind was left inside, connected to Golden Freddy. After that he became mad, obsessed with creating a program which would make the animatronics obey his every command. Your comment earlier about how it could be weaponised, he attempted to do that. A private army of his own, if you will. I saw his descent into madness and rejected his proposals, but he did it anyway. He created the program and he implanted it in my animatronics, my precious animatronics, making them kill, making them murder, turning them into abominations."
The manager stopped, his face shadowed with pain and sorrow.
"Then the Bite of '87 happened," I could see Foxy flinch at the mention of the event, "and I retreated, afraid of what had become of them. I should've faced him, maybe then I could've prevented the chain which followed. But I didn't, I was a coward. I hid behind false securities."
He paused once again.
I slammed a fist on the table, making him jump.
"Dammit. What's been done has been done, that's the past. I don't care that you didn't stand up to him then, but you can stand up to him now, that's what matters. We have a chance to bring back Chica and Freddy and you're moping on the past. Project Golden and the Upload Initiative are the key to saving them, I need to know how I can use them."
He was visibly shaken by my sudden outburst. He gulped and nodded, returning from his sorrow.
"Alright. Something happened during the test. I don't know what caused the destabilisation, but I did notice that it came from Golden Freddy himself. Whatever happened, Golden Freddy became an anomaly because of it. Somehow, he was permanently linked to the pizzeria itself. He IS Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. There's a reason the five murdered children were linked to the animatronics who killed them. The life force of all the living beings who have died in this pizzeria are contained in Golden Freddy, both human and animatronic. The four other animatronics are linked to him in some way, Bonnie and Foxy," he nodded to them, "and Chica and Freddy. Robert used the theories of the Upload Initiative to link the consciousnesses of the murdered children to the animatronics. Of course, it was much easier to link them because their life forces had already been claimed by Golden Freddy. Until Golden Freddy is appeased, they will continue to haunt this place. While you needed to set the animatronics free from them, doing so only freed their spirits into the pizzeria. They now feed on all negative emotion in the pizzeria."
The manager took a breath, nearing the end of his explanation.
"If you can free him and he joins you, he can help you bring back Chica and Freddy, appease the children's spirits and completely free the pizzeria."
I processed this all for a few minutes before asking, "So, how do we free him?"
"That's the hard part. Golden Freddy was created to house a human, which means there is room to fit an endoskeleton inside him. While you think it might not appease him, it would definitely appease the child linked to him. The child was a paraplegic and "giving" him a fully working endoskeleton should appease him. Now, getting the endoskeleton into him wouldn't be too bad, if not for the fact that an animatronic needs to be shut down to have its endoskeleton replaced. Restraining and shutting down Golden Freddy is going to be the hard part, do that and I can easily give him an endoskeleton. Thing is, if an animatronic is shut down for too long, it will die."
"So if he dies, any hope of bringing back Chica and Freddy dies with him?"
"Exactly. We do have a spare endoskeleton backstage, it's not in the best condition, but it'll have to do. I must want you, he is particularly dangerous when out of control. Like Freddy, he has tremendous speed. One second we could be looking at him, the next we'd all be dead. That reminds me, do not look directly into his eyes for an extended period of time, this will aggravate him."
"So, we're meant to pin him down without aggravating him and without looking at him?"
"I never said this was going to be easy."
/
You failed me. You let me die.
"Chica?"
You could've saved me.
Chica's face flashed in front of mine, a horrible distorted image of her wrecked face.
Blood and oil seeped out of her eyes and mouth.
Why didn't you save me?
"I tried Chica!"
Are we not friends?
"Chica!"
I woke with a start. Sweat was pouring down my face. My heart was beating rapidly.
I held my chest and waited for my heart to calm down.
I ran my hand over my face and looked at the clock.
11:24.
I'd been asleep for eight hours. I hadn't properly slept for well over 24 hours.
I looked around the Dining Hall, I'd fallen asleep over a few chairs lined up to imitate a bed.
Foxy had once more retreated to his Cove, but he was currently singing a quiet song to himself.
Bonnie had entertained himself by playing with his guitar, a slight spring had returned to his step.
I wonder if the knowledge that they could save their friends gave them hope?
The manager opened the door to his office and saw that I was awake.
He gestured for me to join him, alone.
I entered his office and he quietly closed the door.
"I have to thank you," he said.
"What for?"
"For sticking with it. Any normal person would've left after the first night."
"Well I'm not normal then am I?" I laughed.
He joined in, "Yeah you mustn't be."
He sighed and sat down at his desk, indicating for me to join him.
"So tonight will be the end, one way or the other."
"Yeah. Quite a first week on the job."
"Sorry about that, I never would've thought it."
He was about to say something, but he couldn't say it.
I gave him a push, "Something on your mind?"
He hesitated, then spoke, "Tonight is going to be the most dangerous. Anything could happen. It could end with all of us dying. I know how attached you are to the animatronics, even though you've only known them for a few days. I need to know that no matter what happens, even if they were to die, that you would still continue without hesitation. In what is to come, even a single hesitation could be the difference between us succeeding or failing, life or death."
It was my turn to stumble. I couldn't completely guarantee that I wouldn't hesitate, no matter how much I tried.
"I'll try my best."
"Good."
There was something he was not telling me.
I decided to let it be.