CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Ana's leaving brought the curtain down on the workday, at least on the shop-side. Yoshi tucked his adorably inadequate little Spider back into the rafters, swept up the metal shavings and wire snippets so they couldn't get stuck in flimsy human skin, and puttered around awhile in the molding room, but then he went to bed, leaving a bloke unfinished on the tabletop like it didn't even matter. And why should it matter? He'd already gone two full days stripped to the bones, what was one more? There was little enough left to do, just his face and one arm, albeit the one with the hand and all the tricky work that came with three fingers and a thumb. If the phone call had come an hour later, maybe…but it hadn't, so instead Foxy had to lie here another night with his battery and his bludgeon both on full display and act like he didn't mind it.

He didn't know why he bothered pretending all was well. No one else was.

Even before Yoshi's footsteps were out of hearing, Freddy had stepped out of his corner and over to watch him go. When he was satisfied the man wasn't just going for fresh soda and a snack, Freddy moved on through the office to the molding room to give Bonnie the all-clear and swiftly return, taking up an attentive post at the window where he could see the road.

Bonnie appeared soon after and if there was anything left to do to him before he was pronounced 'done,' Foxy couldn't see it. His new skin was complete and fit him…well, like a second skin. The subtle ridges of the sculpted forms looked like real muscle moving beneath the thick fur as he walked. His footsteps were soft, no louder than those of a big man in boots. The sound of servos could be heard if you listened for it, but if you weren't listening, it'd be easy to miss. His new face was…different, but it was an odd sort of difference, as if his old face had been a mask he'd always worn over these, his true features. He looked more like a rabbit and, bizarrely, more like a man now than he ever had before, just as Freddy looked more like a bear and just a little like their father, especially around the eyes.

'It'll be me next,' thought Foxy, stoking his envy like live coals and warming himself by their dark glow. His body, lean and fit and whole. No scars (not for a while, anyway). No metal bones glinting through the gaps. Handsome. Dashing, even. He could almost see that new body, see it like a spotlight were shining full on him on a dark stage, and the best part was the bits below the surface—all his sensors in place and working. The next time he put his arms around Ana, he'd feel her.

Like he'd heard the thought, Bonnie stopped his restless pacing and looked at him. Even as expressive as his new face was, there was nothing the least bit suspicious in that look, and yet Foxy's ear-pins pricked all the same. He knew. He knew and what's more, he knew Foxy knew he knew and he still said nothing. Just looked at him while the space between them stretched out tighter and tighter and tighter…

…and then went over to share the window with Fred.

"Ye got nothing to say to me?" Foxy asked, not as carelessly as he'd thought, to judge by the startled glances he collected from Freddy and Chica.

But not Bon. Bonnie didn't even look at him, just said, "Nope," like he really thought it was going to end there.

And he could let it end there. He didn't have to say anything. He could wait and he should wait. This was not the place or time, so just leave it be. Sit with it, aye. Sit with it a few more days. Sit with it like it wasn't bleeding out of him all the time, like he couldn't taste it in his mouth like Foxanne in one of her fits. And that taste…that taste that was so sweet when Ana was with him in the dark, was sour now, sour as old blood, and he couldn't swallow it, not one more second.

"Ye sure?" Foxy pressed, sitting up, but not quite daring to drop onto these feelingless feet and confront him. "Ye telling me ye hasn't a single question I can answer for ye? Not one why nor wherefore rattling around in that big hollow head o' yers?"

"Not one," said Bonnie, still without turning around.

"Liar."

Freddy vented a sigh and rubbed at his brows. "What is going on with you two now?"

"And this is how it happened, in case ye were wondering," Foxy scorned. "Because ye never say it nor do it, ye just snivel off to one side and then wonder why it never works out for ye!"

"Fuck you," Bonnie replied with that special kind of anger that comes out almost as good cheer. "It can wait. We'll fight it out when we get home, isn't that what you said? Until then, just shut up."

"What did I miss?" Freddy demanded. "Chica, what is this about?"

"I…don't know," Chica said slowly. "This…This is new."

Bonnie huffed out a laugh. "No, it's not. It's the same old shit it's always been and I'm a lot of things, but I'm not surprised. It's just Foxy doing what Foxy does."

"Oh aye? Doing what I do, eh? Well, all right and so I did, and ye did what ye always do and did nothing!" Foxy sprang down from the table and would have spun Bon around and stepped right up in his new face, but instead collapsed in a heap on the floor, jamming his legs together in such a way that he couldn't get up again. "Ye don't get to be angry," he spat, nudging at the mess of himself ineffectively without a hand or even a hook to get himself in order. "Ye had yer shot and ye sat it out like the beslubbering little puttock that ye are!"

"Okay, first? You don't get to tell me how to feel," Bonnie replied lightly, still looking out the window. "And second, if you're going to call me names, use real words. Third, you probably shouldn't be calling me any kind of names when all it would take from me is one good kick to shut you up forever, you backstabbing man-whore motherfucker."

"That's enough," Freddy sighed and picked Foxy up by the neckbones, sitting him back on the table so he could sort out the tangle of his lower half. "Calm down, both of you."

"I'm calm," said Bonnie.

"Ye ain't calm, yer a coward!" Foxy sneered over the top of Freddy's bent back. "Say it! Just say it, but tell the whole truth at least!" And before he could stop himself (he did not try to stop himself), out came: "Ye ain't pissed because I'm fucking her, yer pissed because ye ain't!"

"What?" Freddy straightened up to stare at him, still holding him by one unframed ankle. "You're what?"

"And for that, ye got no one to blame but yerself," Foxy insisted. "I gave ye every chance in the world."

"You gave me?" Now Bonnie turned around, ears slapping flat (one of them clipped the window and blew out half the glass) and hands drawn into fists. "You gave me. Yeah, there it is. There's everything that's wrong with you. Listen up, dick. She isn't yours to give!"

Freddy dropped Foxy's foot and grabbed Bonnie by the shoulder, putting himself between Foxy and those fists without hesitation. "Show me your eyes," he ordered. "Look at me, not him."

"Oh," Chica said softly, soft as a whisper, broken as a human heart. "Oh Foxy…what did you do?"

"What did I do? I didn't do aught, luv, she did. She came to me," Foxy snarled, glaring at Bonnie. "She cuddled up in me arms and she kissed me and coo, let me tell ye how sweet them kisses were. I swear I could taste them. I could have kissed her all night, just drinking her in like rum, but she had other ideas. 'Been a long time since I been swived, Captain,' she told me, and she pulled me atop her—"

"Foxy, shut up!" Freddy thundered, turning his head slightly but not quite daring to take his eyes off Bonnie. "If this is some kind of sick joke, it's cruel, it's unutterably cruel, and you need to shut up right now, that's an order!"

Foxy flinched back, shivering in the grip of that command, but when it cleared, he opened his eyes again and growled, "She pulled me atop her and gave me all she had."

Freddy did not release Bonnie, but he did look all the way around, mouth agape and ears at their highest quiver. "I said, that's an order!"

"But it's not a joke," said Bonnie, eyes locked with Foxy's. "You said if it's a joke…and it's not." He vented his cooling system a few times with increasing force, motionless, then very quietly said, "Let go of me."

"That's right, turn him loose!" Foxy challenged. "Don't let him hide behind ye, I want to say this right to his face! I'm sick o' hiding it! And we did hide it," he added, looking over at Freddy. "Unlike some folk I could mention, I wasn't about to give him a show."

Freddy's ears were not as emotive as Bonnie's or even Foxy's, and even when they did reflect his feelings, they could do it in odd ways. So they did not flatten now, even though a few notes of the Toreador March spilled out, proof of Freddy's rising temper. Instead, they tipped forward like the horns of a bull. "Do you expect me to approve?"

"No, I expect ye to think the worst o' me and ye are, so I'm telling ye now, I never laid a hand on her nor said one word where he could see."

"Then you told her—"

"Course not! As far as she knows, he's dead and I'm happy to let her think so. I'm careful, that's all. And she's quiet."

Bonnie's gaze sharpened, his lenses opening halfway and slow to contract. "How quiet? Quiet like she gets when she's sad or quiet like she gets when she's hurt?"

"I don't care for yer insinuation, mate. Stop acting like I stole her sleeping out'n her bed and marched her up me gangplank at the point o' me sword. Stop acting…like I stole her from ye." With effort, Foxy lowered his voice and strove for a reasoned pitch. "Ye've met her, for Christ's sake. Would she ever let herself be stolen?"

Bonnie shook his head slowly, but not in answer. In a low, almost wondering tone, he said, "You keep saying that like you think it's the important part."

"I don't care what ye think is the important part," Foxy insisted (but wasn't it? And if not…what was?). "She's mine now and that's the only bit worth the mention. Yer not owed an explanation and ye don't get an appeal. All ye get to do is deal with it. And if ye can't, if yer even close to going black just because I got the girl ye wouldn't even try for, then ye has to admit all yer fine romantical talk was shite all along. She ain't yers! She never was! She's a woman-grown and she had a choice and she. Chose. Me! And that's what's really eating ye, ain't it? Not that she picked someone else, that the someone else she picked was me!"

"You're goddamn right it is," said Bonnie, still in that same soft voice and with that same shadowed stare.

"Because of Mulholland?" Foxy demanded, heating up in spite of every instinct that told him not to throw more fuel on Bonnie's strange quiet fire. "Because I were made for fucking? Don't ye shake yer head at me, ye know I'm right! What did ye just call me, eh? I'm the man-whore that stole her away from ye! Aye, sure I am! I'll own it! Whilst ye were laying up in the parts room with yer bits off, I were whoring it up at Mulholland and ye know what? I'm glad! He made me so's I can fuck and I did and after all these years and all them what paid for me services, I'm finally glad, because fucking her is the best I ever had!"

Freddy shoved Bonnie back against the wall (blowing out the rest of the window and denting the frame so no other window would ever hang there again without repair), pinning him there like he'd gone black, but he hadn't.

"Let me go, Freddy," Bonnie said softly, not struggling.

"Aye, let him go!"

"Stop goading him, damn you!" Freddy growled, risking a swift glare over one shoulder. His eyes were blacker than Bonnie's. "Just stop!"

"Oh we ain't even started. Admit it! Ye ain't mad so much as yer jealous!" Foxy declared. "After all this time, ye ain't never had more than yer arms around her, have ye? Well, have ye? She ever undressed for ye? Not in front of ye, lord knows she did plenty of that before she knew we were watching, but for ye? Just for ye…it's different," he mused, watching Bonnie's eyes flux and his hands draw into fists and out of them again. "Just knowing she knows yer watching makes it so different. Ye ever peeled her out of 'em yerself? Her colors come right up, oh aye, and she gets that little…catch—"

Bonnie's ears twitched.

"…in her breath," Foxy growled. "Love that sound. Not quite a groan, not quite a gasp. She tries so hard not to make it, but she does. Every. Time."

"Stop it!" Chica staggered dangerously across the room on her sensorless legs to grab at him, her voice rising even as it broke. "Please, stop!"

Foxy shook her off and dropped down off the table again, this time holding onto it until he knew for sure his numb legs were under him. He advanced, step by step as Freddy yanked Bonnie around and shoved him toward the door, doing his best to keep his body like a barrier between them. "Ye ever even kissed her first? Or has she done it all for ye? Eh? No. Oh, but I stole her away from ye. I stole her. Aye. Sure." Foxy shook his head, disgusted. "I can't steal what ye never had and ye never had her. Ye never truly had her and why is that, eh? If ye want her so bloody much and she's yer baby girl and no one else can possibly understand yer soul-deep connection or what the bloody fuck ever, why weren't ye there before me, ye damned coward?" Foxy dropped a pointed glance down at Bonnie's groin and snorted. "As if I didn't know. Well, if only, eh? If only ye had that one simple thing, ye could have had her. Ye could have known what it's like to look down and see her thigh like a ribbon o' cream around your hip and heard her wee claws scratching up yer back—"

"That's enough!" Freddy thundered, but before he could hammer it into law with an order, Bonnie pushed away his restraining arm.

Not violently. Not fighting it off. Not fighting at all. His eyes weren't blinking and the lenses at their center were well too big, but there was green in them yet. He stood clear of the protecting wall of Fred's body and if he wasn't completely calm when he spoke, he still wasn't shouting. "Is that what you think? You think the only reason I left her alone was because of some fucked-up fixation with sex? Believe me, we could have figured that shit out. That was not the problem."

"Ye were the problem!" Foxy shot back, fighting to hold his ground as Bonnie came another step nearer. "Ye had a thousand chances and ye did nothing. Never once!"

"No, I never did and do you know why? Because before all this came out," he said, sweeping a hand across his chest, and both the mechanics and the soul housed inside it, "she thought she was messing around with a machine, not a person. If I took advantage of that just to get laid—you might want to write this down, because you seem to forget it a lot—it's wrong!" he shouted, suddenly enough that Freddy lunged and caught him by the shoulders. Bonnie looked back, showing him his eyes, and when Freddy reluctantly released him, served Foxy another contemptuous stare and said, "It is not okay to have sex with someone when they don't have all the information about who and what you are. How the hell is that even a thing I have to tell you?"

Foxy backed up, caught himself doing it, and took half a step back, hooking his arm around a shelving unit there to help anchor him. "And what's yer excuse after that, eh? When she knew everything and ye still did nothing!"

"What's my excuse?" Bonnie echoed, his ears snapping up while still turned backwards, broadcasting his furious disbelief. "She said no, you asshole! And at that point, it doesn't matter what I feel or what I want or where I think the relationship should be, when the other person says no, you stop! And again, again, I am fucking stunned that you apparently don't know this very basic fact! You know what, since you ask, I do have a question. I have two questions, actually, and I already know you're going to say yes to one and no to the other, and the only thing I don't know is in what order you'll say them. I mean, I say I don't know," he interrupted himself with a savage sneer, "but I know. You know. We all fucking know, but I want to hear you say it anyway. I want to hear you tell the truth just once in your fucking life. In fact…" Bonnie looked back at Freddy again. "Do you mind?"

"Leave him out of this," Foxy snapped, but Freddy said it anyway: "You'll answer honestly. That's an order."

"Awesome. So here we go, two questions. One yes, one no. Surprise me, I fucking dare you. First." Bonnie came one more deliberate step closer and raised one finger, carving his next words apart from all the others and aiming them directly at Foxy. "Did she say no?"

Foxy could have answered. Ana did a lot of running when she really wanted to be caught and a lot of no-ing when she really meant yes. He didn't force her to do anything that night. He only chased her because she ran away, only kicked her door in because it was shut, only pinned her down because she wouldn't hold still, but everything after that was her as much as him. He could have said that and it was all true, but he couldn't think of the right words to use so it didn't sound…purple.

Bon's eyes opened up a little blacker in the silence. "Question Two," he said, and instead of raising another finger, he folded the first one down again, making a fist and now so close that if Foxy dared to look down, he'd probably see it clearly reflected in his battery case. Bonnie said, softly, "When she said no…did you stop?"

"Quit saying it like that!" he snapped.

"Like what?"

"Like I hurt her! I didn't hurt her!"

"Did you stop?" Bon demanded.

Foxy stumbled back, tripping over his own unfeeling feet.

Bonnie stepped forward, reclaiming every inch Foxy tried to put between them and a few more besides. "No?"

"She didn't—"

"Then you hurt her!" Bonnie roared, loud enough to make his new speaker hum. "Get this through your thick fucking head, Foxy! If she drew a line and you stepped over it, you hurt her. Just because she didn't fight you off afterward doesn't mean she didn't mean it. It means she gave up! It's not winning her over if you don't let her say no!"

"It wasn't like that!" Foxy shouted.

"It better not have been," Freddy said, a growl and a hint of static running under every word. "Foxy, so help me God, if you gave that child so much as a handshake against her will—"

"She ain't a child!"

The Toreador March began to play, not just a note here and there, but the whole thing spinning wild through the heavy air; he wasn't fighting it. "That's not what I asked," Freddy said. "Did you ever hurt her, Foxy? Tell me the truth and that's an order."

Foxy shuddered back and heard himself say, "Aye." Through the storm of sound that followed—Chica's gasping denial, Freddy's killing song and, loudest of all, Bonnie's silence—Foxy lashed out with his useless arm and blindly swept all the junk piled up on the shelf beside him to the floor. "Not that way, damn it! Me fucking hook catches her sometimes, that's all!"

"That's all?" Bonnie echoed and spat out a staticky laugh. "That's all. Sure. Okay."

"You're cutting her," said Freddy, still calm, but with his eyes full black now.

"What do ye expect me to do?" Foxy demanded. "Tie me arm behind me back before we heave to? A minute ago, ye didn't want me to be fucking her and now ye wants us to get kinky?"

The March briefly dialed up to a speaker-humming volume before Freddy damped it down again.
"This is not a good time for jokes."

"If I didn't have a sense of humor about this, I'd be deep-black and at ye both right now," Foxy warned. "No, I ain't cutting her, she gets cut. There's a difference! I never even know until I sees the blood. She never flinches, never makes a sound, and anytime I try to say something, she just waves it off. Ye know how she does!"

"No, I can honestly say I don't," said Bonnie, but Freddy only frowned, clearly conflicted.

"Ye want me to say it bothers me? Of course it bothers me! I don't want to see her scratched up, but she knows I don't mean to hurt her and she's the only one who gets a say on the matter! Where the hell do ye get off telling me what to do with me woman? Just because she likes it rough now and again don't make me some kind o' rapist! I done a lot o' bad things, but I never done that and I never would!"

Bonnie uttered a harsh, humorless laugh. "Well, yeah, it's easy to say that when you don't think consent is a thing. After all, you can't break rules if you don't admit there are any."

"She made the first move," Foxy told him. "Aye, she did. She came to me, she kissed me, she—"

"Changed her mind," Bonnie interrupted flatly.

"She changed her bloody mind, all right! She figured out what she really wanted from a man and she came and got it from me! It weren't a mistake, or if it were, it's one we been making damn near every night for months now!"

Bonnie drew back, ears lifting with dark surprise.

"Aye, months! Don't believe me, get Fred to order me to tell ye how often we done it then. I ain't been counting, but I could manage some kind o' tally for ye. How do ye want we do the figuring? By the night? It were more'n once a night, most times. So by how many times I rolled out the guns or how many times I fired 'em for her? Or maybe, if ye think it'll help, I'll only count the times she came to me!" he finished at a shout, advancing on Bonnie who didn't back up until the two of them were nose to bones. "Swallow it, mate! I don't care how it tastes, you swallow it! We're fucking! We are fucking! I ain't fucking her while she lies there crying! We does it together and she likes how I do it and if it ain't your rosy bloody picture of true love, so fucking what!? It be good enough for us!"

"Good enough," Bonnie repeated. "That's all you're after, huh? 'Good enough.' You don't love her, she's just there and she didn't say no. Or at least, she didn't mean it if she did say it. You changed her mind for her, and that's good enough."

"What's the happily ever after ye expect me to wait for? Roses and wedding bells and all that rot…" He tried to laugh and couldn't, quite. He backed up, as much to get away from those words as Bonnie. "That ain't for us, either of us. We takes what there is and aye, that's good enough. I knew ye still wanted her," Foxy said and this was the only part that was hard to say. "And maybe I should be sorrier about that than I am, but I ain't. She came to me and no, I didn't fight her off. She needed me to make her happy and I could, so I did and I ain't sorry! I ain't a shred o' sorry! She's with me because she wants to be."

Bonnie lunged, grabbing Foxy by his ribs where they curved around his battery case and yanking him clear off the ground, eye to eye to snarl, "She's with you because it hurts!"

Freddy put his hand on Bonnie's shoulder. Bonnie shrugged it off without looking.

"She's nothing to you but another goddamned notch on the wall and she fucking loves that, because if the sex doesn't mean anything, she doesn't mean anything! She thinks she doesn't deserve to be happy and no one should ever love her. She thinks getting fucked is good enough for the likes of her. And if you're fine with that, if you honestly don't care whether or not she gets cut just because she doesn't mind bleeding, you're the fucking reason that's what she thinks!"

Bonnie's eyes were full-black by the end and his final words came with a metallic screech of killing noise, but he was still himself enough to put Foxy down and back away at Freddy's insistence.

"I love her," Foxy insisted. "I didn't do it to hurt ye. I love her."

"Fuck me and my feelings. This is not about me and I don't care why you're doing it," Bonnie snarled. "You're fucking! Isn't that what you just said? All the ways you could have said it, that's how it came out every goddamn time. You're fucking and it's fun. Now you want to tell me you love her? You talk to me about…about her thigh and her fingernails and the…the sounds she makes when you…" Bonnie's fists shook. "What else do you know about her, huh? Can you even tell me one thing about her that isn't about sex? I'm sure you've seen all her tattoos, but why'd she get them? Every one of them's got a story. She ever tell you? You ever ask? Well, maybe that's too hard for you. Here's an easy one: What's her favorite kind of movie? No? What's her favorite book? Who's her favorite singer? Name me just one of her songs! You can't, can you? Still too hard? How does she take her coffee? That should be an easy one. Or name me three places she's worked before, just three. Come on, you can even count the place she's at now as one of them. Can you name any of the people she works with? At least tell me the name of her boss."

Foxy said nothing.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Bonnie said scornfully. "Love her. You love her. Fuck you and your 'good enough' love, you don't even know her! And the reason you don't know her is because she doesn't want you to know her! She just wants you to give her what she thinks she deserves and then go away and leave her bleeding."

"Bonnie, that's enough," Freddy said quietly. "No more. Go back to the molding room and calm down. Now."

"She's just using you to hurt herself," Bonnie said, stalking away. "And you're letting her, you son of a bitch. You're letting her and you're calling it love. Now who does that remind us all of, huh?"

The door slammed and he was gone.

For a few seconds, there was silence, then Freddy went over and opened the door up again. "I'm going for a walk," he said without looking back at Foxy. "I advise you in the strongest possible terms not to attract my attention when I return."

Then he too was gone, although he was careful not to slam the door that time.

Foxy made his way safely back to the work table and lay down. After a while, he looked over at Chica, who was just standing there in her bones, staring at the floor. "Well?" he said sourly. "Let me have it, lass."

"Please don't talk to me," she said in an odd shaky sort of voice he'd never heard from her before. He'd be tempted to call it tearful, if only they could still do that. "I'm so upset."

"Can't say as I'm surprised at ye," he remarked, watching the wheels of his battery spin behind the glass. "But I confess I'm disappointed. I thought…sure and I knew it were going to be a sore point for a while, but I thought once it were finally out in the open and the stink of it had blown off some…I thought just one o' ye might actually be happy for me."

"Bonnie's heartbroken, Ana's miserable and you're angry." Chica shut her pink eyes off and left him in the dark. "What is there to be happy about?"


This was not the worst night of his life.

Bonnie had to keep telling himself that as the night wore on, because reminding himself of all the worse times kept him distracted from sinking too deeply into this one. Tonight was, relatively speaking, nothing to complain about. He'd lived through plenty of worse nights.

The night David died, for example. Although David hadn't technically died until sometime the next day, he wasn't sure exactly when. Maybe while Bonnie had been telling jokes onstage or maybe during the party where Bonnie had to sing the Birthday Bunny song or maybe even later, while Bonnie was frozen onstage and the crew was cleaning up, laughing and talking and doing normal human things, completely unaware that there was a child down deep under their feet, dying. He didn't know. He'd never know. But sometime that day, unmarked by anyone who truly loved him, David died, and the only one who was with him at the end was the monster who had killed him.

That was bad.

Or the night the new pizzeria closed, during what all the rest of the town thought was the Grand Opening, unaware that those seven days of fun and prizes had only ever been the lure to attract a most particular prey, to bring him in and lock him up, and once that was done, Bonnie had felt such relief and joy that the nightmare was finally over that he hadn't even realized what it meant when their father just walked out. He didn't beckon them down from the stage, but they followed him anyway, because that was how all fairy tales end. The monster is killed and the family is reunited and they all go home together. Only he turned around as soon as he was through the lobby doors and shut them before they could join him out there in the free world. He shut them and he locked them and then he looked at Freddy through the glass—just Freddy—and then he turned away and left them there and never looked back. A few people came back over the next few days to take the money and the ATMs and eventually to nail boards up over the windows, but it was some other guy who let them in. Their father had never been back, never in twelve long years.

That was bad, too.

Even worse, how about the first night the Game was ever played? That first restaurant on High Street had only been open maybe a year, just long enough for Bonnie to…well, not get bored, but definitely restless, especially at night when all the kids were gone and there was nothing to do except practice his guitar and wait for morning. He had no idea the Game was even there, buried deep in their code, just waiting for a victim, but he'd always remember how it felt that first night when he saw the guy who broke in and his visual scanners identified him as a target. He'd never heard the word before, didn't even know what it meant, but his programming did and his body obeyed. He didn't want to do it, but he couldn't stop. He had to see the laughing unease in the guy's eyes turn to terror when Bonnie caught him…crushed him…and then the Game was over and it was just Bonnie again, staring down through his stained hands at the mess on the floor, knowing he'd done it but not knowing why.

And that was just the first trespasser, who it could be argued had no reason to be there and who maybe deserved…well, not to die, but something. Play shady games, win shady prizes, right? But what about the first security guard? That poor son of a bitch who was just going to work and trying to get some homework done? What about the first time Babycakes caught a little kid alone in one of the party rooms? Bonnie didn't have to see that happen, he only saw Chica suddenly stop mingling with the crowd and walk off, and a short time later, see the mom gradually realize her daughter was missing. He saw the panic and the police and the Purple Man's father offering professional concern, but Bonnie still didn't understand, not until later, after the restaurant was closed and the last search was over and the cops were gone. Not until the Purple Man's father opened Chica up and took the little girl out, still sleeping, her face wet with drool and flushed from the heat of Chica's battery, and carried her back to his office. Bonnie never saw her again, only the plastic-wrapped bundle that was left of her when he was done, and still that wasn't the worst. There were the times the Purple Man's father couldn't wait until closing to play…all the little kids he lured away, little toys he trapped and broke and then stuffed back into Chica or Freddy or Foxy or Bonnie himself to hold, sometimes for hours, until the cops and the customers were gone, and the remains could be bagged up and thrown out with the rest of the trash. And the worst part of the worst times wasn't even carrying the small body, it was having to stand there, watching the blood pour out through his joints as he was hosed off and knowing it would happen again.

Yeah. That was so much worse, and he knew that, but on the other hand, all those memories were old. Old memories have a way of being awful without feeling awful, or at least not with the same intensity. Bonnie could remember the grief and horror without reliving it. This angsty heartache eating up his guts might be trivial by comparison, but it was fresh and raw, and there was nowhere he could go to get away from it except into the black. This place had never been designed to restrain a rampaging animatronic. He'd destroy the shop and everything in it, which was a hell of a thing to do to the guy who'd just given him a great new body.

Besides…Foxy was right about one thing: He didn't get to be angry. He and Ana had been broken up for a hundred and thirteen days (but who's counting?), and depending on her mood, she might not ever admit they'd really been together in the first place, so it wasn't like she'd ever cheated on him. Would he even be this mad if she was sleeping with a human? He honestly didn't think so. It was Foxy. It was just because it was Foxy, and yeah, okay, that said way more about Bonnie than it did about Ana. He should do the adult thing right now and go apologize to Foxy for blowing up at him, maybe even do the super-adult thing and wish them well.

Like that was ever going to happen.

The funny thing was, he did think he could be happy for Ana. Although it would still hurt that she didn't want to be with him, he could understand if the problem was—as she'd claimed it was—that she was human and he was a machine and that was just never going to work. He disagreed, but he could understand it.

But.

But she'd dumped him and then got with Foxy and goddammit, that just wasn't fair. All the reasons she had for rejecting Bonnie were just as much a thing with Foxy, so they clearly had never been good reasons to break up.

So…was it his fault after all? Because she said no and he said okay instead of…of stalking her like Foxy suggested? Because he wouldn't try to change her mind or fight for her to win her back? And he wouldn't. Even now, mad as he was, he knew he wasn't going to punch it out. For one thing, talk about an unfair fight. Foxy had no skin and no sensor pads; Bonnie could kill him with both hands and one ear tied behind his back. For another thing, although violence was a great way to solve most problems, Bonnie couldn't see how it would help anyone in this situation. Ana had a choice. Getting mean about it wouldn't prove anything except that she'd made the right one. And if this was a test or something stupid like that, frankly, Bonnie was better off without someone who thought setting tests in a relationship was okay.

All of which was fun to think about as he stood here in the molding room, running the scene with Foxy through his head until he was almost looking forward to the next fight when he would absolutely destroy the son of a bitch with this great speech he was rehearsing, but even if he did, so what? It didn't change anything. Bonnie could win a thousand stupid arguments, but Foxy won Ana, so there.

The door to the outside opened and then the door to the office. Freddy grunted as he came in and began to pace around the molding room.

"I don't want to talk about it," Bonnie said.

"Neither do I. I just can't risk being outside this long and I'm not ready to be in same room with Foxy yet. Are you all right?"

"This is talking about it," Bonnie warned.

"It's a legitimate question. Are you going to go black? I need to know."

"Why?" Bonnie asked sourly. "What are you going to do if I am?"

"I don't know. Put you in the truck, I suppose. It's no more sturdy than this ridiculous tin can." Freddy reached out derisively and flicked at the nearest wall, denting it. "But there's nothing in it you can break."

"Except the truck itself."

"Yes, except that."

"Stranding us wherever this place is."

"Only until Ana gets another one."

"You say that like it's easy."

"It can't be that difficult. She found this one in just a few hours, didn't she?"

"Pretty sure they're expensive, though."

"She has money," Freddy said with a dismissive wave. "That doesn't matter. Answer the question. Are you going black?"

"No. And it's weird because there's a part of me that actually kind of wants to, but as much as I'm avoiding it, I don't think I could, even if I tried. I'm upset, but it's not the right kind of upset, I guess. Or maybe being upset isn't enough anymore, now that everything else is working." Scowling, Bonnie ran a hand over his chest, but there were no cracks to tear open, no vulnerabilities to expose. "Like feelings only ever counted for…I don't know…one percent of what it takes to go black. It's just that I've been sitting at ninety-nine percent in needed repairs for years. Does that make sense?"

Freddy grunted, still pacing.

"Like the stuff I had to struggle with every single day to keep myself in my own head—every day!" Bonnie repeated, just like Freddy was giving him the skeptical side-eye instead of walking up and down the fabrication aisles. "Like any little thing would set me off, so I had to constantly fight to keep from feeling things, and the whole time, it was really nothing, just…just the straw that broke the camel's back, you know? Now that everything else is fixed, all this crap I'm feeling right now…it still feels huge to me, but it's nothing. I could stop fighting, let all my feelings out, get mad, and so what? It'd be about as useless as throwing a straw at a camel. Even if I throw it as hard as I can, the camel will be fine. Hell, it won't even notice. I'm never going to break its back with one stupid straw unless it's the last one."

Bonnie pondered that glumly while Freddy walked circles into the floor, and suddenly said, "You know, I never thought about it before, but that's a really random phrase. Why a camel? Why not a horse? Everybody knows what a horse is, why bring camels into it and confuse everyone? And who the hell just carries straw around anyway? Who invented this stupid saying, one of the three little pigs?"

Freddy stopped his restless circuit of the room and came closer, switching on his eyelights to search his face. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, sure." Bonnie shrugged and found a place on the wall to lean so he could sulk with his arms folded, since he didn't have pockets to shove his hands into and didn't know what else to do with them. He missed his guitar. "Probably not tonight, but yeah, I will. I just hope she's happy now."

"Bonnie—"

"No, sorry, I know that came out like, 'I hope she's happy now!' but I mean…you know…I really hope that now she can finally be happy. It doesn't have to be with me. I am going to hate him for a while," he added with acid good cheer that quickly faded into the same dull ache that had been keeping him company for the past hour. "But I hope I can get over that soon. You know I'm the reason they had to hide what they were doing, right? And that…that sucks. I don't ever want to be the reason she feels like she can't be happy."

Freddy's hand flexed a few times before he offered a consoling pat on the shoulder.

"I need to talk to Chica," Bonnie muttered, scuffing his foot across a blob of dried latex on the floor. "Find out how the hell to be friends with the guy who replaced me, because, wow, I want to punch him so bad. You want to hear something funny? I don't even feel replaced."

"Bonnie—"

"I keep looking back, trying to see the signs in hindsight and I…I just don't see them. Am I blind? We were watching movies together almost every night that she stayed over. She sits in my lap when we play video games. She says the cords are too short to spread out, and yeah, they are short, but come on. We were dancing in the dining room the day you fell. We weren't exactly slow-dancing, it was—"

"Everybunny Needs Somebunny," Freddy finished for him and grunted, avoiding his startled gaze. "Yes, I know. I watched for a while."

"So am I crazy? I mean, what the hell do I know about how you're supposed to act when you're seeing someone else, but for real, does she act like she's with him? Or with anyone? And I realize how fucking pathetic I'm about to sound, but if she doesn't care about me, why didn't she just tell me she's seeing someone else? She didn't have to tell me it was Foxy. All she had to say was 'someone,' but she never did and I sure never guessed. I knew something was wrong, but I never guessed it was that." He thought for a moment, then looked up, darkly curious. "Did you?"

"I don't involve myself in that sort of thing. You know that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, but did you?"

After a moment, Freddy shook his head. "I hesitate to say so, because I know it isn't helpful, but if I thought anything at all…"

"You thought we were getting back together."

Freddy's brow furrowed, throwing brooding shadows over his strange new face. "You never seemed to have entirely broken up."

"Right? And I hate thinking that, I hate it, because it makes me feel like I'm the asshole, like I never really wanted her to have a choice if she wasn't going to choose me, like…like all my romantical talk was shite all along," he finished disgustedly. "I want to be happy for them. For her, anyway. I do. I want to be that guy…not this one. What?" he finished, noting Freddy's attention had shifted to the wall.

Freddy didn't answer, but by then, the sound of an approaching vehicle was loud enough that Bonnie could hear it even with his ears low to the top of his mic-muffling furry head. That didn't mean anything, but Bonnie couldn't blame Freddy for reacting to it. Back home on Old Quarry Road, almost every car that came by after dark meant trouble, and even though they were literally so far away from home that it didn't even exist anymore as far as their navigations system was concerned, the habits of vigilance were hard to break.

But this car didn't just drive by. It turned in. And stopped.

Ana was back.

"Shit, here we go," Bonnie sighed, pushing himself off the wall.

Freddy touched his shoulder again, offering a sympathetic squeeze. "Maybe you should stay in here tonight."

"Maybe I should," Bonnie agreed, "but we've done the thing where nobody talks to each other long enough."

"It's not a good idea tonight."

"I'm not going to pick a fight or anything. I just need to tell her…no, okay," he said, pushing a hand over the top of his head (and feeling it, for the first time in years). "I need her to tell me. I'm not going to argue with her. I'm not asking for reasons. I just need her to tell me to my face that she's with him. Maybe then it'll feel real."

"It can wait, Bonnie. In just a few more days, we'll be home."

Freddy broke off there as the outer door opened in the office and then closed again. The sound of boots on concrete could be heard through the thin wall. Bonnie looked that way and lowered his voice. "Put yourself in my place. Could you wait? Could you wait even one more day?"

"If you go black—"

"I won't. I swear I won't."

"You can't know that. And I can't allow it," he decided. "You need to keep your distance tonight and calm down. If I have to make it an order—"

"Don't make me say this, man."

Freddy set his ears forward, lifting his chin. "Say what?"

Softly, feeling a little sick, Bonnie said, "If you had the chance to talk to Dad again, ask him why and get an answer…Is there anything he could say to you, anything at all, that would be worse than having to wait just a couple more days to talk to him?"

Freddy showed no emotion, not even in his ears, but the hand that still gripped Bonnie's shoulder tremored slightly and Bonnie's brand-new sensors detected it. After a few moments, Freddy released him with a gesture that was half be-my-guest and half I-was-my-hands-of-this-disaster, then stepped aside, watching with a brooding eye but without interfering as Bonnie went past him and opened the office door.

Ana was inside, sitting on the worn-out couch with her day-pack open, digging through one of the inner pockets. She stopped when she saw him, pulled her hand out empty and pushed her pack off her lap and a little behind her. He guessed he wasn't supposed to ask what that was about and he guessed he already know anyway, and that was definitely not a fight he wanted to have, tonight of all nights, when he was going to have to work pretty damn hard not to have a fight at all.

But now that she was here, he wasn't sure what to do. Despite everything he'd just said to Freddy about straws and camels, he'd been afraid that once he saw her, actually saw her, some inner switch would flip and all this awful hurt inside him would turn instantly to rage. That didn't happen, but it wasn't a relief. He didn't get angry. He didn't get all dramatic and moody either. It didn't hurt any less or more. Nothing became any clearer. The only thing he knew for sure was that, damn him, he still loved her. He thought that at least would change, if nothing else did, but no. He walked in and she looked up, and nothing else mattered but the unhappy ache in her eyes. Everything he wanted to say faded away and out came, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, not even trying to hide the lie from him. Her eyes moved over his face, up to his ears and down again. He thought she might say something about how he looked. The last time she'd seen him—it felt like a thousand years ago—he hadn't been finished yet. Instead, she said, "Are you?"

Of course he wasn't. Of course she could see it, even though he was careful to keep his ears up and hopefully keep as much of his heart hidden as possible. There was no good way to have the conversation that was coming, but there were plenty of bad ways. He just wasn't sure how to start.

While he hesitated, she shifted her gaze behind him, to Freddy just coming through the door. Her brows pinched, mirroring in a small human way Freddy's own troubled frown, and something changed. He couldn't say what, only that it felt…maybe not bigger than this whole mess with him and her and Foxy, but heavier somehow. Something was wrong.

"What's happened?" Freddy asked, so it must have felt obvious to him, too.

Ana started to speak only to hesitate and ultimately shake her head. "Nothing," she said and got up with an air of decisiveness to go into the shop-end of the building, switching on the lights as she went. "Hey, Chica. Hey, Foxy. Ready to finish what we started?"

Foxy and Bonnie locked eyes, and for the first time ever in their entire shared life, going back almost fifty damn years to the basement of their father's house when Bonnie had sized up this new and completely unnecessary fourth member of a family that had been designed a trio, Foxy looked away first.

"It's late," Foxy mumbled. "Ye look tired. It can wait."

"Yeah, well…I know I'm not sleeping tonight. I might as well get some caffeine in me and get some work done instead of lying there all night looking at the ceiling and being useless."

"Is everything all right with your friend?" Freddy asked.

Ana shook her head, then huffed and said, "Yeah, sure. It's all so long ago, what the hell does any of it matter now? And he's not my friend," she added, moving some boxes of parts to get at her big toolchest. "He's just some guy I met today at work. I don't know him. I'm never going to see the guy again."

"What did he want?"

"Just to talk." She buckled on her toolbelt, keeping her back to them.

"About what?" Freddy pressed.

She ignored that for a while, opening and closing drawers, rattling tools and parts around, and generally making a lot of noise to constantly underline her silence.

"Ana," Freddy began and stopped, frowning, when Bonnie shook his head at him. She'd say it. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it, but he knew she'd say it if they just backed off and let her get there on her on. Try and get it out of her before she was ready and she'd shut down and maybe never mention it again.

Sure enough, when she ran out of room in her belt, Ana suddenly said, "He wanted to tell me about the night he had to watch his girlfriend die."

"Oh gosh," said Chica, raising her skeletal hands towards the framed-in suggestion of her face. "That sounds awful."

"It was not a fun night out, no."

Bonnie's ears went crooked. "Some guy you just met today called you out in the middle of the night to tell you about his dead girlfriend? The hell?"

"I know, right?" Ana shook her head, picking through framing rods and wire. "Something stupid I said at work accidentally brought it all back in his head and he had to get it out."

"But why you?" Bonnie asked.

Ana shrugged, now fussing with laying things out on the work table. "Because he'll never see me again. Sometimes, it's easier to talk about the bad stuff when the person you're telling doesn't matter. Someone in Mammon told me that," she remarked. "Right before she told me… something else. Something awful."

Chica nodded behind her hands like that made sense, so maybe it did. "How did she die?"

"Let's just say it was preventable and very messy." Ana glanced at Freddy, her eyes shadowed, then put her safety glasses on and pushed them up to the top of her head. She pulled Yoshi's tall stool around for her to use, picked up the first of the framing rods and then just sat there.

"It was really bad," Chica said softly, "wasn't it?"

"I've heard worse," she said with convincing detachment. "It made me think, though."

"About what?" Freddy asked.

"About you, of course. It always comes back to you." Ana glanced at him again, then turned all the way around on her stool to face him. "You know, ever since I put you on Auto…Probably ever since I met you, I think you've been waiting for me to ask you some questions. And I think you should know…that I won't. Because I already know the answer. I may not know the details, but the details don't matter. All I know, all that matters, is that when you had a choice, you made the best choice you could while protecting your home and your family."

She fell into another short silence, staring at Freddy and trying several times to speak before hoarsely saying, "I've been there, you know…when people died. And I did nothing to stop it. I've been there when people died and I've helped. I've been there and I…I made it happen. And that was always my choice. I'm in no position to judge you, any of you, and…I won't. I'll never ask you, Freddy. If there's ever something you want to tell me, you know you always can. I'm a good listener, apparently," she said in a slightly bitter aside. "People just love telling me shit I don't want to hear, but whatever. Point is, you can tell me if you want, but I'll never ask. Okay?"

Freddy looked at her for a long time and finally nodded once.

"Good. I'm glad you know that. And I need you to know that, what I'm about to say next? It's not because I want to know. It's because…I've been that person who didn't know. My aunt and my cousin…are gone. And I know it's not the same thing," she said, clapping a hand over her eyes. "I know what happened to them, even if I don't know exactly where they are or what they're doing. I can live with what I know and what I don't know, but…but that's my choice. No one else made it for me—"

Bonnie glanced warily at Freddy. Freddy remained impassive.

"—and I can't decide for you. And maybe that's exaggerating my importance, but that's how it feels, that if I ignore this, I'm choosing not to help when maybe I could. And maybe you don't even want me to do anything, which is also fine, but if that's how you go, it has to be because you had options and that's what you chose to do, not because we never talked about it. So we're going to talk about it," she decided, looking up again into Freddy's frowning face. "Tonight, one time, and never again. Okay?"

Another long searching silence ended in another single nod.

Ana gave herself a long minute to get her thoughts in order. Bonnie could almost see them moving behind her brilliant eyes, like clouds drifting across the moon. Several times, she seemed about to speak, only to check herself and withdraw a little longer in search of those mythical perfect words.

Bonnie thought he knew what this was about. The guy she'd met must have said something to stir up some long lost memory…and really, it wasn't a far stretch from a dead girlfriend to a dead cousin anyway. So now she was finally going to ask about David, tonight of all nights. Bonnie knew it and he could tell by Freddy's ears—which showed not just confusion or apprehension, but old pain and resignation—that he wasn't alone in his expectation.

So to say he was surprised when Ana finally said, "Who are you?" was an understatement.

"What do you mean?" Freddy asked.

"I mean…who are you? Not now, not 'Freddy.' Before that. Who were you before you were built?"

Freddy recoiled slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

"What does that even mean?" Bonnie blurted, baffled. "Who were you before you were born? What kind of question is that?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "I hope I'm not making any sense. I really hope I'm not. And I'm not asking if you're alive. This is not about sentience or self-awareness. I just need to know what…who you are. Not the machine, not the code. Who you really are." Ana looked over at Chica with troubled eyes, brilliant as only imminent tears could make them. "Do you…Do you know who you are?"

And Chica, who could launch an all-night seminar on the fundamental juxtaposition of potentiality and actuality at a moment's notice, and had proved it on several occasions, laced her unfinished fingers together and said nothing.

Ana nodded like that was an answer and looked at Freddy again.

"I don't know what you're asking," Freddy said slowly.

"Okay, well, I can find another way to put it, but if you're really saying you don't want to tell me, just say that," said Ana. "Don't jerk me around on this. Not on this. I love you, Freddy, but for the next five minutes, you need to tell me the truth or tell me we're not having this discussion. I'll take either one as an answer and never ask again, but do not lie to me. Are you really just an AI?"

Freddy took a curiously long time to answer a simple question, so Bonnie hopped on in there and countered, "Okay, sure, we're just an AI. And you're just some chemical and electrical responses in a brain. So what?"

"And that's it," Ana pressed, searching his face like she was looking for lies. "You're nothing else? You're just code."

"Existential self-examination is Chica's thing," Bonnie said, fighting against the impatience seeping out through the cracks in his tightly-constrained emotions. "I play guitar."

"What did that man say to you tonight?" Freddy asked.

"Nothing," Ana mumbled.

"Nothing?" Freddy cocked his head. "You've known what we are for months now, but you're doing this tonight? No, something happened. What did he tell you?"

"That part doesn't matter," she insisted. "He left home after she died, that's all. He never went back. He's missing. It's been, like, twenty years and he's still a missing person." She was quiet for a moment, then haltingly said, "It made me think…of all the missing people in Mammon."

"Wait a minute," said Bonnie, squinting at her. "Is this some dumb ghost thing? Are you seriously asking if I'm a robot…haunted by a ghost…wearing an animal suit?"

"No," she said, but she didn't sound too sure of herself.

Foxy said, "Ye sure ye ain't drunk?"

"Fuck you," she said and swiped a hand across her eyes.

"I ain't having a cut at ye. Do what ye please and drink all yer sorrows, so goes the song, but ye never used to believe in ghosts. Hard to believe yer of a sudden looking for spirits unless ye found 'em first in a bottle."

"I hate to disappoint you, but I haven't touched a drop all night," she said, then flushed and shot Bonnie a guilty sort of glance, reminding him that when he'd walked in on her in the office, he'd caught her with her hand in her day-pack. Looking for a bottle? Probably.

"And I hate to disappoint you," Bonnie told her, "but the only thing I was before this was a pile of raw materials and some schematics. You know all those stupid ghost stories are just that, stupid stories. I'm not some cannibal that crawled out of the mines or that blue bastard from Mulholland melted down and recycled into a new body. I'm just your normal, everyday talking robotic rabbit. Isn't that ridiculous enough without adding ghosts?"

"I'm not saying that!"

"Then what are you saying?"

"I don't know!" she said desperately. "All I know is…what an awful feeling that is, when someone you love is missing. And I want to know…I need to know…" She looked at Freddy, slowly, like it hurt, and her voice was hoarse again when she asked, "Is someone missing you?"

"Oh," Bonnie said numbly and flinched when Freddy glanced at him. "Sorry. I should have known you had a better reason than…but no. It's not like that." He looked down at himself and up at her again. "This is all we are, I swear."

"Not quite," said Freddy. "But it's not quite what you're thinking either. Whatever it is you were told, they were wrong."

"No one told me anything," Ana said. "And if I'm wrong, great. I don't want to be right about this! I don't believe in ghosts!"

"But?" Freddy prompted, eyes narrowed.

"But…a few days ago, when…" She glanced at Bonnie and blushed, quickly averting her gaze. "That whole thing about…gender and all that. Bonnie said he was a man."

"I was hoping she hadn't caught that," Chica murmured and Freddy growled back, "When have you ever known her not to catch things?"

"I didn't mean it like that," Bonnie told her uncomfortably. "Look, you know me. I'm not good with words. I use the wrong ones all the time. I only meant I'm a guy. I was never a man-man."

"But you weren't built with one originally?" Ana pressed.

"No. None of us were built with one, not even Foxy."

"Did you have to work in the party rooms at Mulholland?"

"Did I what?! Ana, what—"

"Just answer me!" she pleaded and heard her strained voice crack.

"No," he said after a moment. He took a step toward her, but only one. "They never even refurbished me. I was…spare parts for the other one. The blue one. Why would you even ask?"

"Because when you said you were a man, you said they took it off." She turned back to Freddy urgently. "He said there was all the stuff they put on him and he said they took that one thing off. He said," she emphasized, stressing each of her next words, "they took it off. Meaning something that was there before, something that had to be removed. And that's not the only thing, it's just the biggest."

"Shut up, Foxy," Bonnie said.

"Oi, I be laying here with no skin on for two days, bucko. I think we can all see whose be biggest."

"That's enough," said Freddy. "Ana?"

"It was a lot of things," she went on. "Little things. Nothing I could really call proof, but…you all have these weird little habits and it's just hard to imagine anyone could have programmed you to do them."

"Like what?" Bonnie asked, genuinely surprised.

"Like this," said Ana and raked a hand through her hair in imitation of Bonnie's own gesture of frustration or gloomy distraction. "Or Freddy rubbing his head when I'm getting on his last nerve or…or let's talk about Chica baking. It's one thing to follow the instructions on a box of Easy Bake mixes, but she got crazy creative with those things, and that means she has to have some understanding of what things taste like. You…all of you…you constantly demonstrate behaviors and use language that no computer could possibly have context for. Not even today's computers and for damn sure not ones from fifty years ago!"

She broke there, looking at each of them in turn as if daring someone to contradict her, and Bonnie would have, but he didn't know what to say. All he could do was look at Freddy and Chica, waiting while the silence stretched out.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Ana said in a shaky voice. "That's the secret of your advanced AI…your miraculous self-learning, self-maintaining program. You think like a human…because you are human. He made you out of people. You're the missing people from Mammon." She faltered, then looked at down Foxy, pale and glassy-eyed with horror. "Please tell me you're not a child?"

"Child?" He snorted through his speaker. "I come alive in '67, girl, I'm old enough to be yer father."

"That's not what I mean and you know it! It was almost all children who went missing before the first pizzeria opened. You had to be made from one of them."

"That's faulty logic," Chica murmured, almost apologetically. "Correlation does not equal causation. You might as easily argue that it rained a lot before we were created, so we had to be made from water."

Ana covered her face briefly, then turned back to Foxy. "Do you think you'd recognize yourself—"

"I am me only self," Foxy interrupted.

"Do you think you'd recognize…something, if I said the name? Or showed you a picture?"

"Ye mean would me ghost rise up out'n me and beg ye to bury its bones so's it can have its eternal rest? Do ye hear yerself, woman?"

"You have pictures?" Chica asked.

Bonnie glanced at Freddy, but he gave no sign of jumping into this anytime soon, so it was up to Bonnie to point out the obvious: "This is who we are. We're not someone else inside these bodies, we're just us."

"You have to remember something!" she insisted, still glaring at Foxy.

"Oh do I now! I seen ye eat a burger before. Do ye remember being a cow?"

"That," said Chica as Ana gaped, "was a terrible analogy. We didn't eat anyone. We were built. It's just that…some of the materials…" She winced, fingers tapping. "…came…used."

"Used?! That's how you refer to a pile of murdered people? Used materials?" Unexpectedly, Ana let out a laugh. "Vocabulary power! Holy shit."

"Wow, and you're the tactful one," remarked Bonnie, looking at Chica. "Okay, Ana, listen…You know there are things we can't talk about, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"And you know that I would never lie to you. Just because I can't tell the truth doesn't mean I'm always lying. You know that. Right?"

She hesitated, searching his face, then let out a shaky sigh and finally nodded.

"I don't know how my AI works. I can't see my code any more than you can see your neurons firing, but I swear code is all it is. I'm not human. I never was."

She looked at him with wet eyes, wanting to believe him, needing one last little nudge, or maybe just a night to sleep on it. Maybe all he had to do was nothing.

So naturally, Bonnie did the dumbest thing possible and said, "Go ahead, Freddy. Order me to tell the truth."

The silence that followed as Freddy stared at him was the loudest silence Bonnie had ever heard.

"Oh my God," said Ana, wide-eyed.

"I'm not human," Bonnie assured her and glared at Freddy. "That's all she was going to ask. I could have told her that and told the truth! Now she thinks I'm lying! I'm not lying," he told Ana. "I was never a human."

"But it is complicated," Freddy broke in with a sidelong scowl. "And depending on how you phrased the question, you could have inadvertently created a conflict between existing orders and fried his neural net."

"It's all true," Ana whispered, staring into a set of empty shelves.

"No," Freddy stated, "it isn't. I don't know to what specifically you're referring, but I think I can safely promise you it isn't all true. Some of it, maybe, but not all of it."

"Especially not if you're thinking of some silly voodoo movie type of soul transference," Chica added earnestly. "It's really more like mitosis, on a metaphysical level, of course."

Bonnie rounded on her in frustration. "Metaphysical mitosis, seriously?! Okay, look, Ana. You're thinking of it like orange juice, right? Like this—" He knocked on his chest. "—was just an empty glass until someone cut up an orange and squeezed all the juice out into it—"

Ana blanched and Chica folded over with her head in her skeletal hands.

"—but that's not what happened!" Bonnie said loudly. "Sorry, I didn't think about how that would sound, but my point is, that's not what it's like. It's not like four oranges, four empty glasses, and each one gets one, and it's the juice that…whatever, brought the glass to life. What we are is more like…like lemonade. Okay? Yeah, there were a bunch of lemons. And yeah, they got squeezed. But then you add sugar and water and mix it together and it becomes its own thing. Get it? And it's not a glass full of juice or juice in a glass, it's a glass of lemonade, all together."

"I always figured we were more like cider," Foxy said meditatively, lacing his hands together over his battery case. "Ye has yer apples, ye gets yer juice, but then ye processes it and ferments it into sommat entirely new. Ye doesn't just add to it, ye changes it."

"You're all wrong," Freddy declared. "It's like maple syrup."

"I'm having a hard enough time with this," Ana sighed. "Can you please try not to mix the metaphor? Stick with fruit."

"Well, it does come from a tree," Chica ventured.

"Correct. The tree is tapped. The sap is harvested and refined into syrup. And the tree is fine," Freddy concluded. "The tree lives on, and if you take nothing else away from this conversation, Ana, remember this: No part of the process that created us required a death."

Ana nodded, although her doubts showed clearly in her eyes. "Freddy, I believe that you believe that—"

"It is not a question of belief. It is the truth and I can prove it. I am our father," Freddy said, something Bonnie knew—surely, they all knew—but which Freddy had never admitted out loud. "My core personality code replicates almost exactly who he was at that time, with some minor alterations, most notably my lack of knowledge on the subject of mechanics, something…so much a part of him that I can only assume he deliberately erased it. Which I do understand," he added with a frown. "He was always very aware of the ramifications should an artificial intelligence become self-aware or especially self-replicating. In fact, those were the only rules that he himself ever put forward and insisted upon: Rule Number 21 and 22, no animatronic can access any animatronic's battery or CPU and no animatronic can fix another. More than that…I don't think his genius in that field ever brought him much joy, and even if he did not plan for us to feel, his sole intent was to bring joy to others. He never intended to create new life, Ana. He only wanted a pizza parlor where children could play."

"And you know that because…you have his memories?"

"No. I'm not his ghost, Ana. I am an AI created from his brainwaves, and inasmuch as anyone can say 'that's all' about something like that…that's all."

"Minor alterations," Ana repeated, studying him.

Freddy shrugged. "I imagine the hard part is turning a human mind into computer code. Once you've done that, you can edit it as easily as any other code."

"So he just…deleted all his engineering knowledge…and programmed you to be a magician instead?"

"Oh no, the sleight of hand came from him as well. I've embellished my act over the years well beyond the simple card tricks and illusions he taught me, but that was indeed one of his talents. A hidden talent, one that was considered by many to be childish, pointless, and one that he eventually ceased to demonstrate. Perhaps giving that talent to me was the only way he could indulge it himself. Or perhaps he merely lost interest over the years. We did grow apart, each of us into our own man." He glanced at himself. "Or bear, as the case may be. But I assure you, Ana, I am entirely his. His design, his construction, his brainscan, his voice…and his cerebral-spinal fluid."

Ana accepted that with surprisingly little surprise. "Is that what he used to fill your braincases?"

"Yes."

Ana glanced at Foxy, clinically assessing the size of his exposed skull. "That's a lot of juice."

"He told me it took him almost four years to accumulate enough for my creation."

"And how long did it take him to get enough for Chica?"

"He didn't," said Freddy. "He was told the fluid could be synthesized and he did not question that further. I know what you must think of him…of us…but that was his only fault. He trusted…" He passed a hand over his eyes, attracting Bonnie's attention to the alarming size of his lenses. He wasn't full-black yet, but he was close, and fluxing. "He trusted those he loved. They were the ones who…" Static rippled through his words. He stopped, vented his cooling system, and said, defeated, "I can't, Ana. There are rules. I can't tell you what you want to know."

Ana sagged like her strings had been cut, nodding. "Then don't try. I don't want to hurt you, and that's not the part I need to know anyway. I don't care about the crime. I know I should, but what's the point? Closure. Everybody talks about closure. Even a body is better than not knowing," she said sourly and shook her head hard. "That only works if you get to know everything, not just know that a body was found, but know what happened and who did it and especially know that someone paid for the horrible thing they did! It's not closure if it leaves you with more questions."

"Yer the only one asking, ye know that," Foxy interrupted. "Leave it, then. It's been fifty years, it don't matter anymore."

"It may not matter to you, but someone out there still cares about each and every one of those missing people. Hell, even Mason and Jack Kellar have a mother who loves them and they were the scum of the fucking Earth! Whoever went into making up your 'materials,' someone out there is still thinking about them!"

"I can tell ye expect me to feel sommat."

"And I can tell you don't!" she shot back. "What's wrong with you? This is your own fucking family we're talking about! Don't you care about them? Don't you care about anyone?"

Watching them, Bonnie lost track of the actual discussion to marvel at the fact that these two were lovers. And he guessed he didn't know much about it—even less than he thought he did this morning—but it sure didn't look like love from here.

"Me own fucking family is right here!" Foxy growled back at her. "Look, girl, what happened were bad, and it happened to someone, aye, but it didn't happen to me. It made me, but it didn't happen to me, and I ain't responsible for the circumstances of me birth. Quit asking me to get teary-eyed for someone else's sorry end. It ain't nothing to do with me, nor any of us! Them things ye call habits like they're left over from some other life, they don't prove nothing. Ye think Bon invented the hair-ruffle, for Christ's sake? He picked it up the same way everyone picks that rot up—he saw someone do it, he did it himself, and he kept doing it until it got to be a habit, his own bloody habit, no one else's!"

"You get carsick," she countered. "You want to explain that one to me, Captain?"

As Foxy struggled to think of an answer, Freddy said, "There may be something to that. I'm aware that I do share a number of Father's habits, although whether these behaviors were embedded in his brainscan or whether I adopted them, as any human child might do, through imitation, I honestly don't know. I can tell you, however, that hearing Father's name or seeing his photograph evokes no axiomatic response, so I am quite certain that showing us…whatever it is you've accumulated, will not serve to identify the materials that went into our making. My apologies," he said as Ana stifled a wince. "It's the only word I can easily use."

"I understand," she said and sighed. "Go on."

"Having said that, even I must admit the process of our creation was not…entirely scientific. Father laughed at what he called the superstitious act of consecration with which each new life commenced, but there could well be a…for lack of a better word, preternatural element. All of Father's other technological innovations have been achieved through conventional human advancement over the years, but not us. There's still nothing like us. I don't believe in ghosts either, but I won't discount the possibility that some…remnant of humanity lives on in our code. But you must understand, with the exception of myself, it was never as simple a ratio as one-to-one. There were many—" Static briefly choked him out. He closed his eyes, vented his cooling system several times, then said, with difficulty, "There were…many maple trees. And those who…harvested them…spilled much of the sap on the ground…for no reason…but to see it spilt. I can't…I can't…"

"Don't, Freddy," said Ana.

"It's important to you," he insisted. His ears shivered. "You want to find their families and I should help you. I want to help you, but I can't talk about it and…and it's so dangerous for us, Ana. How could you possibly tell anyone about-t-t—" The last word stuttered off into a blatt of electronic noise. Freddy shuddered, baring his new, factory-sharp teeth, and finished, "—about them…without bringing it back to us?"

"I wanted to find your families," she corrected and sighed, slumping forward onto her empty hands. "And I don't know why, really. I just keep thinking of…of that guy I met tonight. How they just left and never came back. He's moved on and there's nothing wrong with that, but nobody back home knows what happened. She's not dead to them, he's not alive, they're both just…missing. And I guess it hit me kind of hard because…because…" She trailed off, tried to laugh, and said, "Because I am, too."

"Oh, baby—" Bonnie caught himself with a pang and started over. "Ana."

"I know, I know," she groaned, rolling her eyes, "but it's true. Sort of. After my mother took me, we never really settled anywhere. We lived in motels for awhile, the kind where they don't care if you use your real name or not. She took the cord off the phone when she slept and tied me up if there wasn't a way to lock the closet. I couldn't call anyone to let them know where I was or what happened, and by the time I could finally get at a phone…I mean, I didn't understand about area codes or anything, all I knew was her number didn't work! I couldn't call her, I couldn't get back to her and eventually…I quit trying. I just disappeared. My aunt…and David…they never knew what happened to me. And maybe that was part of it. Maybe that's why she went so bad. Don't tell me how stupid that is," she added, twisting her face away. "I already know."

"It isn't stupid," Chica told her emphatically. "It isn't true, but it isn't stupid. Feelings don't have to be logical to be valid."

"Yeah, right." Ana sat, pushing her fingers listlessly through the loose framing materials, avoiding all their eyes. Suddenly, she said, "She loved me. I know she loved me."

"I'm sure she did," Chica began, but Ana wasn't about to listen to any comforting words anyone had to say yet.

"And then I vanished. I just vanished. We barely took anything. I'm not sure anyone else would have even known anything was gone at all. I left my homework on the table. I think we left the door open. She must have been terrified. She loved me and I know she was sick," Ana said, wiping at her eyes. "It made her do awful things and she probably would have done them to me eventually, but she loved me as best as she could. I was part of the life that she lost, I was one of the reasons she did what she did, and maybe if I'd just reached out to her one time, one lousy time, I could have been part of the reason she turned it around, but I'll never know! I was missing," she rasped and rubbed at her throat.

Foxy reached up for her. She leaned away without looking at him, leaving him with his unfinished arm awkwardly hovering until he took it back again.

"You were a child," Freddy said. "You weren't responsible for what happened to her."

"I didn't say I was responsible, I said I was a reason. She was already fucked up, but I made it worse because being missing makes it impossible to heal. It makes everything impossible to heal. And I know that because…I came back…and they were missing."

Bonnie looked sharply at Freddy.

"Ana," Freddy said.

"No, just let me…let me talk about it. One time, right? One time and never again. The thing is…when I didn't know, when they were just…gone…ironically, the hole they left was with me every single day. I was never not thinking about them, because I would have to consciously not think about them. That doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does," Freddy said quietly. "Ana, I'm sorry—"

"I'm never going to see them again," she said, all at once, and then let her breath out like she'd been holding it. Foxy reached for her again; again, she pulled back. "But at least I finally know what happened. They're not missing anymore, they're just…not in my life. I can live with that. I don't…I don't think I could live with knowing…if I had to know they were dead."

Freddy frowned.

"I know, it's weird," she muttered, wiping her eyes again. "For the longest time, all I wanted to do was find her body, because…at least she wouldn't be missing. And let's be honest, she probably is dead, if she didn't get clean, but she was alive when she left. And she left. She wasn't taken, she left. She's not missing. She left. It's just one word, but it makes so much difference. And I suppose you're wondering what this all has to do with you." She sat there for a few seconds, then raised her arms in a limp shrug and let her hands slap down on her thighs. "I don't fucking know. I thought…maybe if you could remember who you used to be…if you used to be someone…if there was someone you wanted me to find, something you've been waiting for fifty years to say…I could help. I don't know. It sounds stupid now."

"No, it doesn't," Chica said softly.

"It sucks to be missing, that's all."

Foxy reached up again and this time, Ana let him nudge at her with the blunt end of his hookless arm. She managed a wan smile, then shifted into working position on her stool and picked up her framing tools. "So that was my night," she said with artificial cheer. "Anything exciting happen here?"

Bonnie kept a straight face and upright ears as Chica, Freddy and Foxy all looked at him. He thought about it. He still wanted to talk, because he was a selfish son of a bunny and he wanted to get rid of this swelling, stabbing knot of hurt inside him before it split his heart wide open. But…

But he loved her. He still loved her. And, loving her, he just couldn't pile all this ugliness on top of the grief and pain and shame she was already feeling. She needed to catch her breath, so for her, he could wait.

"Nope," he said. "Quiet night."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Although I think I speak for all of us when I say…I just want to go home."

"Soon, my man," she promised, pulling her safety goggles down over her eyes so that she missed the pain that shuddered through his ears at her last two words. "It's almost over."

"Yeah," he said, watching her bend over Foxy. "Almost."