Crocodile Rock
A Security Breach Extended Story
"Does the name 'Princess Quest' mean anything to you?"
Vanessa regarded him most intently. He returned the favor. Much as she tried, she couldn't decipher his pretension, and she couldn't recognize his expression, but she could register that it looked out of place within his youthful countenance.
There was an unnerving spirit of duality to Gregory, she understood then. He was a gremlin of a child with an impressive array of skills in the minor art of survival and flight. He was sort of directionally challenged, all things considered, but then, the Mega Pizzaplex was a maze of spontaneous intrigue.
Most of all, he was odd. He could've asked her why she wasn't after his skin anymore. He could've asked her why she had been after him in the first place. But here he was, asking about some stupid arcade game that couldn't even be played.
"It's, uh – yeah. I know of it, but I've…" she wrestled with her words, failed spectacularly. "I know it's a game. I've never played it before, though. I never could bring myself to. But I knew it was… important."
He continued to stare, a moment of silence passing between them.
Then, "Why didn't you play them?"
"Them?" she asked, stalling.
"There's three; the third was in the room above Fazerblast, you know, the one that has 'Vanny' painted on one of the walls?"
She knew very well.
"I didn't know about the other two; I lost track of them after a time."
"They're all throughout the Pizzaplex. But why didn't you play the third?"
"I tried - I wanted to… I just never could. I was afraid of what would be unleashed," she said, hoping she gave him the right answer, or at least whatever answer he was picky for.
He was silent a moment still. "I don't really understand what you mean, but whatever."
Vanessa had more questions, of course, but reconsidered asking them when she acknowledged that she didn't have any answers herself.
The silence lived on in the moment, completely lacking the grace to pay rent.
Vanessa knew what was happening; they were delaying the resolution. There were messes to be cleaned, many of these being evidence of extensive property damage. Coincidentally, it was the beginning of a weekday; the Mega Pizzaplex was closed and would stay that way until the middle of the week. She had a lot of work ahead of her; the ramshackled Glamrocks remained forefront in her mind, but not nearly to the extent as the bunny in the basement…
Loose threads dangled themselves before her, but she didn't have the energy yet to grab at them and begin tying. It was tomorrow's baggage, then.
So, the moment remained as it was until her curiosity got the better of her. Really, out of all the questions he should be asking her…?!
"Why do you need to know so bad?"
His eyes remained on the horizon, and she could see the landscape's double in his large warm eyes.
"I played them all. I defeated the first and the second, and after I finished the third, Vanny left." Her own reflection replaced the landscape's. There was a fleeting instant of trepidation in its depths. "Right? She's gone now?"
"Yes," she lied.
"She won't come back?"
"No. She will not," she promised.
He looked unconvinced for a terse moment, but she could see when he decided to let it go bygone. The trepidation was there until it wasn't. Something new took its place as Gregory looked down at Freddy.
"What's it like to be a head?" he asked, radically changing the subject.
Freddy only looked up at him, paused, then laughed. "I tried to shrug just then," he replied, got rewarded with a smile in return. "I feel much lighter; almost like I could get blown over by a gust of wind. It is a very disquieting feeling. Also, I find the grass quite pleasant, but the soil is getting into the crevices of what is left of my neck."
"Oh! Sorry," Gregory apologized. "Would it be better if I put you in my lap?"
"I would appreciate that, but make sure to clean me off first to keep your pants from getting dirt on them."
Gregory did just that, asked if it was better, then rested his chin on Freddy's hat. Both of them seemed to be enjoying themselves; Freddy's eyes were taking in the phasing sunbeams, and Gregory was enjoying the morning's approaching heat.
"I wonder if the daycare attendants have ever seen the sun and moon?" Freddy wondered aloud. "I am not sure if this is the first time I have seen the sun, but it is spectacular. I should have remembered it if I did."
"Huh. Really? Are you guys allowed to leave the Megaplex?"
"No, we are not. The elements present a danger to our facilities."
"Sun's pretty mad at me I think, but maybe we could ask him? But not Moon Man; he's better off staying locked up for all I care," Gregory grumbled. "Not that Sun Man wasn't super annoying."
"Not of their own accord," Vanessa admitted after Freddy corrected Gregory on the daycare attendants' proper names. The time for explanations was now, which she found regretful. The moment was blemishless, the air had the smell of the many growing things about them, and there was the feeling of seasonal drift as fall winked at them from over the horizon. It was a lovely tranquilizer that brought her closer to a sort of peace of mind than she would ever be again.
She continued anyway. "The behaviors they exhibited weren't their own. It was the result of a virus, kind of similar to the one that corrupted me."
"What do the Princess Quest games have to do with the virus that corrupted you?" Gregory asked. "And how did defeating them free you? Did that free the Glamrocks as well?"
She shrugged, wanting to know the answer to that too. But as he said that, she had a feeling there was more to these games than he was willing to let on at the moment.
"There is a source... or, no, a plague, it's a plague. And it infects because it likes to fatten itself, glutton itself until everything around it is in oblivion. He is a virus of human origin, and he is a tumor on anything tied to the Fazbear name. I don't know how the game freed me; all I can remember is a bunch of pixelated images."
As Vanessa floundered her theoretical expositions, Gregory picked up the notion that she wasn't talking about just Princess Quest anymore.
"As for the Glamrocks, they should've been freed from the corruption once I broke through the Vanny compulsions... they're probably shut down at the moment, though. Their base programming initiatives were prioritized to carry their functions out, leaving everything that makes them... uh, child-friendly, behind. With their higher cognitive forms displaced by the virus, they were nothing but reactive agents carrying out intents that weren't their own. None of it was their fault."
She wished she could say the same for herself, but that might've been another lie.
"Lobotomy for animatronics," Gregory added, making Vanessa wonder how he knew what 'lobotomy' even meant. "I kinda figured that, but I don't know them as anything else. I can't imagine them as anything other than a bunch of killers."
"About that-" Freddy began, "Will my friends be okay after we fix them?"
Gregory made a nasty face behind Freddy's head.
"Friends? You shouldn't trust them either!"
Was there a dollop of jealousy there?
"Why would you say that, Gregory?" Freddy asked, stricken by Gregory's outburst.
"Freddy, Monty wants to replace you in the band! I saw for myself! One of the holes in Monty's Gator Golf shows him on stage and you off to the side in the trash. Who knows what he's willing to do to see it through!"
Freddy didn't respond for a moment. Then, with a very soothing voice, he replied, "I always knew that Monty loved the spotlight, and I have had my suspicions about his aspirations for many years. Though it… it hurts to hear that he wants to see me trashed, I do not think I would mind if he were to take my place – after he gets the proper voice box, that is. Roxanne, Chica, and Montgomery are all very talented in their own ways, and I can only imagine that their singing would be stellar! In saying that, I most certainly do not want to be trashed."
"You really wouldn't mind if Monty took over?"
"Not especially. In fact, did you know that the percussions used in our songs are all pre-recorded by me?"
"Percussions? You mean like the beat? You play the drums?"
"Yes, and I enjoy them very much. It would be my pleasure to play live on stage. It sure would beat having to dance my way through the entire show. Do not get me wrong, there is very little I enjoy more than dancing, but being forced to do it is not the same."
"I didn't know you did the drum work," Vanessa said.
"Only when a new song comes out. They needed one of us to do it to cut down on costs, and since the others have their own instruments, I figured it should be me. Now I am always itching to play them, but they stay locked up in the recording studio; I really should take it up with management to play them on stage."
Gregory became increasingly disturbed as Freddy tried to console him. "Wait, do you want to go back?" he asked, his voice catching twice.
"Gregory, I would understand if you never wanted to step foot in the Pizzaplex ever again, but I feel I owe it to my friends to return. There is more to it, of course, with the danger the Megaplex poses to our guests. I cannot allow more children to go missing."
Vanessa couldn't help but stiffen at that. "Aye," she croaked.
Freddy hummed in acknowledgment. "Officer Vanessa will need my help, and I intend to do just that."
"It's not that, it's just... what about..." Gregory tried to say before tucking his lips into his shoulder and turning his face away from Vanessa as his eyes misted over. He unconsciously clutched Freddy closer to him and remained quiet.
"Gregory?" the bear asked, unable to see the boy's face, oblivious to the distress he inadvertently caused.
Vanessa, however, had a pretty good inclination.
"He needs to go back where he belongs," she said, unwilling to console him if it meant he'd try another stupid stunt. "And so do you. It's high time you give us the info we need to contact your family, kid."
He shook his head. "I don't know."
She huffed. "You have a number written on your shoes or something? Anything like that? An address, even? Do you have other belongings with you like a backpack or a phone or…?"
He shook his head again.
"Can you at least tell me your last name? Your family's names? Maybe we can look them up."
He shook his head again.
"Fine, be that way," she growled.
Freddy looked concerned. "Gregory, are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Hm. You know, I have noticed that whenever you say that, you are either lying or smothering the truth. Are you truly fine, or are you… only trying to make me feel better?"
"I'm as fine as I'll ever be."
Freddy actually made a tsk sound. Or something like it. "That will just not do. You should not say you are fine if you are not."
"Just drop it, Freddy!"
Vanessa picked up the reins. "You need to go home, kid."
"So?"
"So, how do we make sure you get home? Help us help you. I know you probably want to help us in this, but it's too dangerous for you. You can always come back to see Freddy in the future, this isn't forever," she tried to reason, was given no response in return.
She gritted her teeth. "But go ahead and keep quiet if you want me to hand you over to the police so that they can ship you home by force."
"Then I'd have to tell them good luck," he bluffed. "I don't have a home to go back to."
Freddy became very obviously distraught to hear that. "Gregory, I had no idea."
Vanessa wasn't so easily fooled. "You're lying."
"Officer Vanessa! Why would he lie about such a thing?"
"Freddy, we cannot help him even if he is telling the truth! You need to be reassembled with the rest of the Glamrocks, and even with… Vanny gone, it will never be safe for him."
"What makes you think that?"
"I can look after myself!" Gregory protested.
"I just told you that the person who is behind all of this wasn't just me. There's another, and he's much, much worse than Vanny ever could have been. And he knows about him, Freddy. Look, I'm not saying that Gregory will never be safe there, but until we resolve the true danger, Gregory will be targeted relentlessly. Do you honestly think you can tail him every second of the day like some mother hen or something? Even if you could, that would be much worse; the glitch may have failed in taking you over last night, but if he really had a reason to, he'd double down and eventually succeed. If that happens, Gregory would be killed by your hands."
"Stop it!" Gregory cried.
If Freddy could have flinched at that moment, he would have done so and more. He looked utterly mortified at the very thought. Vanessa was awestruck to witness just how much hurt was apparent in his wholly animatronic face. It was weird. He was supposed to always be happy.
His response sounded mechanical, his voice box screwing up the pitch in several places as he said "No… I-I… I could never hurt Gregory-"
"You never would, but when he takes me over-" she began to say, stopped herself, revised the mistake. "When he takes you over, you are not you. And he can do it, Freddy. He can. And if Gregory doesn't go home, he will."
She could see that she was beginning to conquer the argument, so she dug her heels in. She would allow her remorse over tormenting them with the truth manifest later. Remorse was a luxury she should not allow Gregory to see lest he capitalize on it to gain an edge and turn the tides. She knew he was damn well smart enough to do so.
"It would be just like last night, only you won't be there to protect him. On the contrary," she said, drawing out her words to add to the suspense, "you'd be hunting for him like the rest of them would be, unless," she said, pausing again to make Freddy look at her before continuing: "Unless we handle the problem right now; right after we make sure that Gregory will be safe."
"Freddy could never hurt me – he proved that! Even when he could have, o-or might have, he didn't!"
She smirked. "Losing safe mode in the protective cylinder is one thing, but being charged to outright attack you is another. And 'could never have' hell! They're stronger than you by a multifold; missing parts or not. Even now, if he wanted to, he could-"
"Enough, please," Freddy said very quietly.
Vanessa felt her hackles raise a bit. She didn't know he was capable of sounding like that. There was a strain to his voice that was uncanny. Had she nicked a wire or something? Her instincts told her as much. Her instincts also told her to stop milking it while she was ahead; Freddy was now somewhat cheesed off, and staying in Freddy's good graces was the only way she could control the wild card that was Gregory.
"That's right," Gregory scoffed, cheered to see Freddy put her in her place. "You're just trying to manipulate us, but we won't fall for it! Right Freddy?" he asked, the last part added on as a plea for assurance.
Freddy didn't have any assurance to give.
Gregory nudged his head as if trying to wake him up, his hands grasping Freddy's ears to pull at them a bit.
Finally, Freddy said: "No, Gregory. She is right. We are going to return to the Pizzaplex, even if that means you cannot come with… us."
Gregory's face drained of all color. "You're going to leave me?" he whispered, his voice betraying his age now more than ever.
"I would never do that if I had another choice," was all Freddy could manage to say.
Vanessa watched the exchange closely, equal parts bewildered and dismayed to see the strange interaction between boy and animatronic.
"You said you would protect me," he said, his voice harsh with accusation.
"And I will. Gregory, you cannot come with us, and you cannot live on the streets. If you truly do not have a family as you said, then you need to be placed into one that will love and care for you as you deserve. I cannot stand the thought of putting you in harm's way once more."
"And Freddy cannot go with you; if he goes missing, the higher-ups will investigate, and if that happens, then there's no guarantee that I can cover up everything that happened last night."
"Why would that matter? Shouldn't it go public? How else will it get solved?!"
"No; the company can never know about this," Freddy said slowly. "Should any information on you or the missing children fall into their hands, it would immediately be covered up to save face. Any evidence would be extinguished and left to rot within the walls of the Pizzaplex. It has happened before. A third party is the only way to get justice, and we cannot allow Fazbear Entertainment to look too deeply into it. Should my absence be discovered, they will do exactly that."
Gregory's eyes began to tear up in disbelief.
"I am so, so sorry, Gregory."
"I'm sure you are," Gregory sniffed. "I can't go with you anyways. I don't want to. You're a liar."
"But Gregory, I never lied to you-" Freddy tried to say, but was cut off as Gregory hoisted the bear's head into the duffel bag before running to the safety of the ice cream truck, his face folded into the crook of his left arm. Vanessa felt more than saw his tears. He might not have shed any at all, but that didn't mean they didn't have presence in some form or another.
The passenger door slammed. Vanessa remained frozen to the spot, her anxieties causing her to fidget. She tightened her ponytail, fumbled with her sleeves, scratched at her eyebrow.
"Officer Vanessa," Freddy began at length with the quietest volume his voice box could manage, "could you please zip up the duffel bag?"
"Whatever you want big guy," she whispered un-ironically, trying to construct in her mind's eye the visuals of heartbreak within the parameters of a programming interface. Would there be more zeroes or ones? Was there even a type-able key for that? What kind of language would be used to code that? Was it more along the lines of malware, similar to Glitchtrap's virus?
Her experience in computer engineering did not give her any answers.
She zipped the duffel, slung it over her shoulder, and walked back towards the confectionary joy ride. Freddy was put in the back so that he wouldn't have to hear the hiccups.
The Present
"I know; that was not my hottest moment. I approached it all wrong and I was unnecessarily obstinate. From what I could tell, I was forcing them to take the only path I saw at the time. I knew that returning to the Pizzaplex was blowing out the candle of a death wish, and Freddy crumbled at the thought of more children dying to Fazbear's. But one child, in particular, had a special place for Freddy in his regards, and I didn't recognize that back then. I'm still surprised that Gregory didn't throw hands when I pulled up to the police station. He had good reason to. I just couldn't understand why the kid wasn't telling us anything, but I wish I had begged the point further. Maybe then the Christmas revelation would have come sooner.
"And man, were they pitiful about it too. Shucks.
"But I won't say it wasn't an unreasonable prediction. On the contrary, I was frighteningly on the nose. Even maniacs have their moments of foresight. Unfortunately."