It was a chilly early morning. I knocked on the sliding glass door a few times. There was no response. I leaned forwards and pressed my hands against the glass and peered in. There were people moving around inside, it looked like it must be noisy. I guessed they didn't hear me the first time; So I knocked again. Eventually I got someone's attention. She quickly dashed over and pressed a button on the wall; The door slid open in an instant. I stepped inside and the automatic door silently closed behind me. "Hi, I'm here about the nightguard position. I'm supposed to be shown around the place." I quickly explained. "Oh yeah of course, the boss said you'd be here. Uhm.. yeah he's in the back. Down through the main hall and uh.. on your left." I nodded, "Thanks."
I didn't get much of a chance to look around. Mostly I was just focused on finding my way to my new boss's office. After only a few minutes I found a door labelled 'MANAGER'. I knocked a few times. "Come in." I opened the door and stepped inside. "You must be Jeremy, right? I'm Todd" A mid-40s looking man sat at his desk, he was scribbling something down in a notepad before he looked up at me. "Yeah, after I was hired yesterday they told me to come down here today." He was nodding as I spoke. "I would've done the interview myself here, but uh, well. As you can tell the place is a mess. We've been using outside agencies to get everything together in time" He chuckled and gestured for me to pull up a seat. I sat. "Your first day will be tonight, actually. I know it's not much of a heads up, but we're rushing here. Corporate cut our opening date back by a month and we're scrambling to get everything together now." I nodded. "That's uh, understandable. I guess I'll have to go back to sleep after this tour then" I said with a short laugh.
"We had a guy working night-shifts before you. But we agreed that he'd be moved to day-shift and managing security rather than guarding once the place was open to the public. Since you're taking up his post he's recorded some guidelines and tips for your first night. Nothing too complicated. He might call you if there's anything important but that's the extent of it." Again, I nodded "Yeah uh, that sounds good to me. But, well I still need to know what I'm guarding" I replied. He laughed and stood up. I followed suit.
"Of course, yeah, ahh.." He wrapped his knuckles on his desk and nodded before holding up his hand. "I'll tour you in a minute, I just have to make a phone call. You don't mind, right?" I nodded understandingly and stepped back "Yeah no problem." I closed the door to his office behind me and looked out at the restaurant. It was opening day. That was evidenced by the big, colorful, confetti-covered sign reading "GRAND REOPENING!" The place was crowded, but not with patrons, it wasn't going to be open to the public for a few more hours, giving the staff the morning to get everything set up before the end of school-hours. That's when the restaurant would be open.
On the ground floor it was mostly Fazbear Employees, checking every inch of the place to the standards being demanded by corporate. But there was also a moving crew, bringing in tables, chairs and helping to set up certain heavier pieces of equipment. It was sort of exciting to watch, actually. Seeing the place being put together like this.
Of course, the stars of the show were already in place; The new animatronics.
Stood on stage with their shiny plastic appearance and brightly colored paint-jobs. Kids already loved the designs and they hadn't even seen them in person yet. I suppose that's the power of a well-fed marketing team. These things had been on the news for the past 2 months, practically nonstop. First it was just a huge surprise that a franchise with such a tragic legacy was making a comeback. Then it was all the new advancements in robotic tech, and to be honest, it was pretty amazing to see the things walking around and picking things up. And when people thought the new Fazbear animatronics couldn't get any cooler, they had local law enforcement explain the new criminal database system. The public was frenzied.
The robots were going through basic test animations, a technician was stood at the front of the stage, back facing the room. I watched as he pressed a button on his remote, then scribbled down the result, then another button, then another result. Occasionally a loud system-beep was emitted. I zoned out a bit while watching, actually. Then I heard the door behind me click open.
"So! Jeremy! Ready for the tour?" Todd asked with a grin. "uh, Oh yeah, yeah! Sure let's go." I turned to face him.
"Well, first up is.. all this" He gestured to the open floor. There were tables, and chairs, and of course the stage. "It's all starting to come together. I was only brought in 4 months ago, but construction work on the building started long before that." He walked me through to the main hall, "These branch off to the party rooms. Nothing particularly special about those, standard affair. But up here." He lead me through one doorway to another open area. On one end of the room there was a giant present box. On the other, a selection of pink and white accented plastic parts with a sign reading 'Build-a-bot' above it. "There's an animatronic in the box, gives our prizes for winning party games. I'd show you but it's unfortunately not fully up and running yet. Should be by tomorrow though." I pointed to the build-a-bot area "what about this?"
He walked over to the selection of parts and grinned. "This, I think the kids will really have fun with. Basically, the kids can build their own animatronic, like Legos, just snap the pieces together. We've made sure to keep the endoskeleton on this one smooth and safe." He demonstrated by picking up a leg piece and magnetically snapping it to the side of the torso. He then placed it down. The machine immediately balanced itself on the one leg and began hopping to follow him. "It even mimics your actions. This one's already fully functional." He disconnected the leg from the torso. Both components stopped moving. "A far cry from actually building a real animatronic, but hey, maybe we'll get some kids into robotics with it?"
The tour continued, he showed me around every room at the location, making sure to point out all the cameras and what they could or couldn't see.
"This is parts and services. You'll probably never have to step foot in here again, but you will be watching it." He lead me through the only dimly lit room in the whole building so far. "They've seen better days" I said gesturing to the torn up, broken robots propped up against the walls. "Those are the originals right?" Todd nodded and explained "Not quite original, but from the previous location yeah. We've been using them for spare parts mostly." He pushed open a door on the right labelled 'DIAGNOSTICS'. "This is where we keep all the most critical equipment. The door is locked unless the techs are using it." He lead me inside.
This room was much smaller, about enough room for 5 people to stand in. It was lit with harsh fluorescent tubes which flickered on as the door swung open. There was a long desk at the opposite end of the room. Piles of tools, books, service-manuals and scrapped electronics were up against the walls. There was a filing cabinet in the corner. Each drawer was labelled with the type of software being stored in there. "Kind of a mess" I said. Todd laughed. "Yeah well, work gets done either way. The techs take the animations back here when they need to be worked on. Shouldn't happen too often. Most repairs and updates can be done without all of this."
Atop the wire-and-component cluttered desk sat a beat-up Commodore Amiga 1000. There was a hole drilled into the side of it sprouting cables which jacked into custom boards. Obviously all of these electronics were used to interface with, and program the animatronics. A few of these devices were glued to the side of the computer itself while other custom 'Fazbear Entertainment'-branded equipment was packaged in black plastic boxes with numerical labels corresponding to specific functions. Needless to say, the restaurant's diagnostics department didn't have the most flattering appearance.
"And last but not least, I'll show you where you'll be working." We walked back out into the hallway and down all the way until the end. There was a small rounded room at the end. A steel frame doorway (no door) and a set of air ducts on either side. "Patrons aren't typically allowed back here except in the case of emergency." He explained to me. "But at night, this will be your home." He beckoned me over to the desk. "This is a state-of-the-art security monitor." He lifted up the tablet and handed it to me. It was heavy and tethered to the desk by a thick cable. "Watch this" He tapped on the icon of a camera and the screen switched to displaying that camera's view. "You can monitor the whole place from right here. And if you need to make a call" he wrapped his fingers against the phone on the other end of the desk. "Piece of cake" I replied. "Good. We don't have your uniform for you yet, that'll be tomorrow."
"Now, eh, I'll be getting back to work and you'll be getting back to sleep." he said with a chuckle, "Remember you'll need to be back here by 11:30, you'll be on watch duty from 12 'til 6" I nodded once more "yes sir" "Todd's fine" "uh, yeah alright then." We shook hands and he left me alone in my new office. Well, at night it would be my office. During the day it was the security manager's office. I looked around the place for a few minutes before heading back down the hall.
As I walked across the main floor I had the distinct impression that something was staring at me. I turned. And I was correct. My eyes locked with one of the robots on stage. Chica stared, her head turning smoothly to follow me as I walked. I blinked a few times. "That's a little unnerving" I muttered to myself. I turned to ask someone if they always stared like that, I didn't get anyone's attention. By the time I turned back the animatronic was once again staring forwards like the other two. "Must be a bug" I shrugged and left through the same way I entered.
It wouldn't me long until I'd return.