The Fox in the Vents

Prologue

"Why hello there, future entrepreneur! Congratulations on purchasing this Start Your Own Freddy Fazbender's Pizzeria Location Kit, nineteen-ninety-three edition. I am your friendly company representative. I am not a child-murderer!"

The awkward silence in the boardroom became decidedly uncomfortable.

"Freddy's is a chain of fast-food that spans the entire of America. At its prime, Freddy's had over fifty active locations, most of which were permanently shut down due to a suspicious number of toddlers going missing on our premises. How crazy is that? I'm sure glad that I had nothing to do with any of that..."

Glances were shared by all present, and a few murmured comments exchanged. The Fazbender brand was tarnished, sure, and buying it up had been... so easy it had passed from comical to slightly unsettling, but surely it had all been rumours, right? After all, the extent to which their rivalry with Candy's had escalated certainly suggested it...

The tape continued. "...Secondly, you need at least two rooms. A room for dancing in, and a room for bleeding out in. Don't splurge on buying a location. Also, save yourself a headache and avoid carpet. You'll thank me later. Next, you need ingredients for your pizza. The nearest dumpster will do nicely. You want your pizza to have that distinctive Freddy's taste, don't you?..."

Comments became conversation, dying down only for some other outlandish comment from the tape to set it going again. "...don't put the rabbit's face on a god-damn pizza..."

"...and don't molest the fax during business hours! That's all I have for this tape. Good-bye, future restaurant owner, and remember: You are the new face of Freddy Fazbender's Pepperonerie!"

The renewed silence was broken by one of the group's members present only by audio, the one who had suggested this increasingly-impossible-seeming project in the first place. "Well gentlemen, now that you have a broadened understanding of the underlying ethos of the illustrious Fazbender brand, I believe it is time we put our heads together to hammer out the details."

There was immediate and indignant uproar, interrupted by a squeal of feedback from the suspiciously low-quality audio connection.

"Calm yourselves, please. I was reliably informed by my associates that you in particular were willing and able to effect the most ambitious piece of corporate necromancy this century. You are of course under no obligation to remain part of the project if this description was... exaggerated."

The thought of losing what money they had already invested in the project dampened down the inflamed spirits in the boardroom, and conversation resumed. Finally, one member spoke up.

"Alright, we've got the beginnings of a plan to pull this off. But. There are a few things we'll have to put our foot down on right off the bat."

"...Go on."

"Firstly, whoever made this tape... these tapes. We disregard their advice regarding location, and pizza ingredients. Perhaps starting small would be safest in the long term but... well, Freddy's locations are... volatile assets. Aside from which, going big from the start will send a message that this won't be like the old Fazbender's locations, and more to the point will open up further investment opportunities. As an aside, this 'company representative' – under no circumstances is he to be allowed near the new Freddy's."

"That may or may not be a substantial issue depending on where he was buried. The man in question has been dead for upward of thirty years."

The speaker seemed somewhat relieved at this. "Some good news then. Second, no springlock suits. I highly doubt there are any left that are remotely usable, but I've heard nothing good about them and a great deal bad. Their reputation is very much out there, so covering up the death of an employee in one of those deathtraps is going to be difficult at best and unreasonably expensive at worst. Third, security. I don't much care for the details, but it must at least look the part. As I said before, send the message that the franchise has changed course for the better. Fazbender's might have been able to bulldoze through all the disappearances without going out of business, but we won't. Sorry, what's that?"

Another boardroom member had nudged the speaker in the side. "Regarding the location point. Fazbender's is prohibited from setting up new locations. Something to do with the disappearances."

"And this is a problem how?" The speaker retorted. "Just change the name a bit and grease a couple of palms, the problem will go away."

"I doubt it. Whoever drafted this was quite thorough in closing that particular loophole. Doesn't mention renovation though..."

The leader's voice came through the boardroom speakers once more. "Then that's our best option. The Utah location, at least when I was last there, had ample space around it for redevelopment. Not to mention removing the existing building... should present very little problem."

"Actually... that isn't the worst idea." A pause as the speaker thought this over. "Yes, what I have in mind would bring a great deal of traffic to the area. We could make a case for local government to subsidise the building process, perhaps even running costs. An attraction like this... well, it would work very well. Oh, uh, the fourth point. No fox."

The voice over the speakers sounded almost indignant. "Yes fox. Perhaps that could have flown back in the late seventies, but now? Foxy is an integral part of the brand, and tied for most popular Fazbender character! The... ah... indiscretions of certain employees and managers notwithstanding, that is."

Clara scanned over the job posting for the third time, daring it to betray some sign of being an elaborate prank. Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. Sure, the company's name was slightly different, but it was the most cack-handed rebrand she had ever seen. And that, frankly, was about as quintessentially Freddy's as it got. Even so, things didn't add up. The location – the address – were familiar, but the premises were described as something more akin in scale to a mall. The pay was awful (albeit frankly on the high end by Freddy's standards), but there was plenty of emphasis on "cutting-edge automation" and... brand-new animatronics? More and more she got the distinct sense that it really was under new management, management that wasn't perpetually scrabbling for pocket change under the party room tables and dragging in half-derelict robots with an aroma that could be smelt from a street away, and yet there were signs that someone with actual Freddy's experience had written the janitorial job listing. Mentions of the mysterious giant scuttlers that had been the bane of her existence, the distinctly spiteful "former Candy's employees need not apply", the long list of exotic mould and moss allergies to be aware of... and the thinly-veiled insinuation that certain "interference" with a certain vulpine animatronic was grounds for immediate dismissal.

A quick tab switch and scan of the official site's overly cheery "Meet our team!" page confirmed that nobody higher up had any history with the original company. Nobody involved with Freddy's in its heyday or its brief revival afterward could possibly look that... dull, and none of them were going by blatantly false names.

Further interrogation of the convoluted staff section of the site showed a similar lack of Fazbender-grade employees doing the actual work, and a concerning lack of phone-headed personnel. She switched back to the tab with the actual job listing and scrolled back to a certain line under the desired qualities. "Spelunking experience not necessary but highly recommended" on its own was strange, but combined with the mention of "salvage duties" further up and the long-standing tradition of reusing anything and everything regardless of whether doing so was actually a good idea in any way, it was as good as a straight-up admission that at some level the usual Fazbender stunts were going to be afoot, or more likely had been for some time.

She sighed, almost disappointed in herself. There were a thousand and one jobs with better pay, less questionable duties, vastly lower risk of death by rampaging faceless rabbit, and yet... part of her missed the chaos of Freddy's, the endless scramble to manage a dumpster fire that was constantly having more fuel thrown on it. That, and with some form of the traditional stunts clearly going on in some way, the management unfamiliar with these things were desperately going to need someone who already knew the ropes.

Hell with it, Clara thought to herself as she dug up her resume from the clutter of her computer's desktop, it's been far too long since I visited that part of Utah anyway.