Chapter Three – Security: Breached

"Do we have a plan for this or am I just going to be asked to lock this one in a closet too?"

Chica had been closest to the break room when Mangle had abruptly announced the presence of an unidentified animatronic in the utilidors and disappeared into the vents, and thus she was trailing behind Clara as the two of them hurried toward the breaker room. She was hiding her trepidation quite well, all things considered.

"No plan yet, but I don't think we're desperate enough to try the closet trick again. That's a disaster waiting to happen." Clara paused to check the corridor she was passing, playing the beam of her flashlight over the walls. "Let's go with 'get 'em into one of the P&S cages' for now, and figure out the how when I can get a good look, eh?"

Flicking the high beams from her eyes across the corridor in turn, Chica made a non-committal noise "Will it matter that much? If it's not supposed to be here and it's dangerous, just sic Monty on it and pick up the pieces when the dust settles."

"Someone in management seems to have an interest in collecting old-school animatronics, so best not to. They'll probably want it disassembled for parts to repair the ones we've already got. Wouldn't be the first time, probably wouldn't be the last either." The janitor turned to flash a half-grin at the animatronic following her in bone-dry humour. "If nothing else there's enough salvage value in it to pay the rent for another week or two."

They continued in silence for a little way, checking every corridor and opening they passed for any sign of the mechanical intruder or any destroyed Staff bots it might have left in its wake. It was disconcertingly quiet with the power down, the only sounds coming from the footsteps of the pair, the muffled whirring of Staff bot wheels as they tirelessly patrolled their assigned sections of corridor, and a distant rumbling from the ventilation that spoke of something overly large moving hurriedly through.

There was no sign that the intruder had decided to tangle with any of the security bots. No damaged parts lying on the floor, none of their piercing alarms – nothing. And that suggested that either the intruder was in a different section of the building or smart enough to try and remain undetected.

It was only as they approached the breaker room that they found a single damaged bot; one of the map bots, which had most likely ambushed the intruder wielding a map and swiftly been put out of commission. Chica crouched down by it and took stock of the damage while Clara disappeared into the breaker room itself to try and restore the building's power. Whatever had done it, it hadn't been nearly as thorough as Monty could be, simply opting to pull the Staff bot's head off far enough that it was held on by a pair of wires alone, and little more. This made the bot's lack of a right arm below the elbow more noticeable, though a quick look around revealed it lying on the floor further along the corridor. Maybe the intruder had decided to take the proffered map after silencing the map bot and had difficulty prying it loose from the arm's death grip.

She waited until the lights flickered back on before trying to ask Clara about it.

"Hey, were any of the classic bots smart? Like, able to read a facility map smart?"

The janitor hurried over and took stock of the situation, clearly following the same line of reasoning as Chica.

"No. Even haunted, they could be fooled into thinking they were outside by putting up cloud decorations on the walls." She narrowed her eyes. "With the exception of Mangle, it would seem, and I don't know why. Could be a similar situation."

The animatronic looked back at the inert body of the map bot, then leaned forward to pick one of the maps from the pack at its side. She unfolded it, looked over it briefly, then shut it again.

"So... If I was an old and probably battered animatronic that broke in off the street, and I got a map that showed me most of the utility areas in this place, where would I go?"

"Assuming it wasn't being stored in a back room somewhere and switched on by itself. That's happened before. Depressingly often."

Chica ignored the interruption. "Parts and Service, or the warehouse next to it I think. But if they're really smart they might realise they don't know how to self-repair. None of us do."

Wherever she was going with the thought, it was swiftly interrupted as the building's network came back online. Visibly jolting, Chica stood back up and turned to look deeper into the utilidor network, eyes twitching back and forth as her pathfinding calculated a route.

"Oh wow. Moon just pinged everyone."

This gave Clara pause. "When you say everyone, you mean...?"

"Everyone. Staff bots included. He must be really worried..." Without waiting for a response, the animatronic accelerated into a near run, prompting Clara to follow in turn. "I think I was right, it's near P&S."

"Right. We'll plan on the go then. Still got that experimental voice box?"

"No, they took that out after..." Chica's stride faltered, just for a moment. "Hold on, how'd you know about that?"

Clara shrugged as best she could while struggling to keep up. While Chica wasn't moving as fast as she could, her legs were longer than the janitor's, and she wasn't subject to little things like running out of breath or muscle fatigue. Or simple old age, for that matter. She considered making a smart remark about taking her chances with the good old flashlight trick, but opted to save her breath for running instead.

Even without Moon's directions, it was very obvious which direction to take to get to the intruding animatronic. Flashlight-wielding Staff bots were rushing in great numbers toward the source of the disturbance, swerving to the sides of the passage to let Chica and Clara through, forming a solid wall of cheap plastic and blazing flashlights behind them that gradually got left behind. Evidently the plan was to hem the intruder in with the Staff bots, though past that the intention was unclear.

Shortly afterward, it became clear that when everyone had been pinged that had included the human staff, since Richard almost ran straight into them at an intersection. No doubt there was a notification sitting ignored on Clara's staff-issue Fazwatch wherever she'd left it, and to her knowledge the two janitors were the only employees in the building overnight. For now, anyway.

Having nearly overbalanced avoiding a collision, he quickly fell in alongside Clara as she hurried along behind Chica, who had barely even slowed.

"Freddy's a little behind me," he said breathlessly. "Had to convince Gregory to stay put."

"Hope he does." The older janitor muttered. "Sometimes I can't tell whether that kid has any survival instinct or not."

They ran on in relative silence for a few moments, Clara audibly getting more and more out of breath, before Chica came to an abrupt halt. The following janitors slowed to a stop and peered around the animatronic's frame at the figure just ahead of them that had clearly just skidded to a halt itself.

"Well," Clara said once she had regained her breath, "that's certainly not one I recognise."

The animatronic ahead of them shared a common design with the classic Freddy's models Clara remembered, and at a guess a similar endoskeleton, but was clearly different. For one thing, rather than the upright posture of most it had been modified to move around more comfortably on all fours. For another, despite significant wear and tear, the outward appearance of its fabric costume was that of a domestic dog, floppy-eared and round-snouted, a far cry from the Foxy models of old. In places the fabric held some of its original brown colour, in others there were irregular stains that Clara immediately recognised as old bloodstains. Its jaws held an array of sharp-looking teeth, and its wide eyes darted back and forth with an alertness she'd rarely seen in any machine that old.

A heavy thumping from further along the corridor prompted it to turn and look back with an air of nervousness, revealing that one of its back legs had rusted almost solid, before Monty came crashing to a halt a little way away, arms outstretched to cover the width of the utilidor and sunglasses askew. As always, Bonnie was close behind, eyeing the canine intruder over Monty's hunched posture.

The animatronic turned back to look toward the humans, sizing each up, before turning its gaze to Chica, then the wall of security Staff starting to fill the space behind them. It was well and truly boxed in, and clearly knew it.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Richard turned to Clara and whispered, "You don't, uh, get signal on your phone in here do you?"

Clara blinked at him, confusion writ large on her face.

"What? No."

"Yeah, that's what I thought..." he replied, before reaching into his pocket. "...so it's weird that I just, y'know, got a text."

Quickly working the touchscreen, he unlocked the phone and looked to see what was going on. His brow furrowed, and he turned it to show Clara. There, sent from a withheld number, was a simple message.

wyw?

Seeing the older janitor's blank look, he elaborated. "I'm pretty sure that's, uh, 'what do you want' abbreviated. Didn't think anyone used textspeak like that any more, but... there we are, I guess."

"Uh-huh. You think it came from the animatronic, then."

"Where else could it have come from?" Richard replied, gesturing vaguely around. "Can't be from any of the band, they use the fazwatch network, and, well... it's kinda relevant to the situation, came right after it looked us both over."

The phone pinged again.

yes

fetch btw

"...I guess I don't have to ask if they have a name then," he conceded lamely. "Okay, uh, how about we just head to Parts and Service nice and calm and figure out what's going on from there? Chica, can you let the others know?"

Chica gave him a thumbs-up. "Yup! Done and done! I'm gonna keep between you and Fetch just in case though."

They set off again as the Staff bots dispersed at a far more leisurely pace, the strange dog-robot padding along as if he belonged there with surprisingly little noise. It was in stark contrast to Monty ahead, who seemed to be making as much noise as was physically possible, almost drowning out the squeaking protests of Fetch's rusted leg.

Halfway there, Freddy caught up with them, going from a full sprint to near-stop without missing a beat.

"Apologies, I was waylaid a little," he said, a little sheepishly. "I did not wish to leave the task at hand unfinished. Has the situation been resolved?"

Clara shrugged. "Bit early to tell. But Fetch here seems cooperative and hasn't acted dangerous yet. Richard asked him to head to P&S, and that's what he's doing right now."

"You do not trust it, I take it."

"Nope. In my experience anything that seems harmless isn't." She relented a little, adding, "Could just be paranoia, mind. I thought the same of you and the others at first, and... well, that speaks for itself, doesn't it."

Fetch continued to be docile throughout the barrage of checks he underwent in Parts and Service, more than half of which seemed to serve little discernable purpose. It was slightly reassuring to see that the 'is it haunted' test had seen an update, in that the audio involved was now played from a speaker taped to a dummy, and more so that the canine animatronic barely reacted to it at all, registering the presence of a voice and little else. He was obviously uncomfortable about having sections of his fabric suit removed so they could check over the endoskeleton beneath, however.

"If we keep you around we're gonna have to replace it anyway," was Clara's opinion on the matter. "It'll disintegrate the moment I try and remove the stains, I guarantee it."

Most of the Pizzaplex's own animatronics had wandered off by this point, either through losing interest or through prior engagement, but Roxy and Chica had stuck around to keep an eye on things. Roxy in particular seemed to be scrutinising Fetch closely.

"Y'know, you could just have asked me whether there was anything weird about the stuff underneath rather than taking the outside off," she said pointedly as she watched Richard fumbling with a leg piece, the fabric decayed and tattered to the point it was little more than a metal framework with scraps clinging to it. "Which, by the way, the only thing I can see about him that's weird is the battery. Looks like it came out of a car, by the shape of it, and with the state the rest of him's in I wouldn't recommend touching it."

Richard quickly looked back over to where Clara was lifting off the back piece of Fetch's suit and did a double-take, his eyes widening.

"Oh, wow, jeez. Yeah, I... Nope. No way I'm touching that. It looks all kinds of bad."

The battery in question was attached crudely but securely, through the simple expedient of welding it in place, with some decidedly unsafe-looking wires connecting it to the rest of the endoskeleton's systems. Time and exposure to the elements had not been kind to it, and the plastic parts of it looked more than a little mushy. It was a miracle it wasn't leaking, but there was plenty of crusty oxide build-up around the contact points that said everything.

"Not an official modification, that's for sure." Clara remarked with a raised eyebrow.

There was a bark of laughter from Roxy. "What, you're saying old-school Freddy's had some standards for repairs? After hearing your stories I doubt that!"

"Nah, they just fired people on the spot if they got caught messing with the bots. Not sure I could blame 'em, but... eh, this is probably better work than the technicians back then did anyway."

Richard sidled cautiously around the increasingly-resigned animatronic to get a better look at the battery setup, his eyes widening further as just how botched it was sunk in. It only seemed to get worse the longer he looked at it. Even if he asked the technicians to take a look at it, they'd probably find a hundred reasons not to touch it with a barge pole, and he really couldn't blame them. Just looking at it felt unsafe, touching it could well be a quick way to test just how good Fazbear Entertainment's health insurance scheme was.

"So... I don't want to rush you or anything, but what's the verdict on Fetch?" Chica piped up, diverting attention away back to the initial problem.

Clara narrowed her eyes and hummed contemplatively. "I don't trust it. Paranoia, maybe, but for good reason."

"He's not behaved dangerous so far," Richard replied. "Only mauled the map bot and... uh, well, yeah, I think we've all wanted to do that at one point or another."

Roxy gave him an arch look. "That's another point against him then. I was planning to drop the map bot off the top floor; now I'll have to wait another few months before I can try it." There was a brief silence before she added, "That's a joke by the way."

"Yeah, I, uh, guessed."

"I was actually gonna run it over with one of the karts."

The younger janitor rubbed his eyes. "But yeah, my point is he's... really not acted as aggressive as the withered ones stuck in the, uh, containment alcoves? Is that the official name? Over there, and they've been kept around."

"True, but they've stayed in there since the Incident," Chica replied, eyeing the corner he'd mentioned. The battered old animatronics contained there were slumped against the wall, safely behind reinforced bars. "I don't think we had protocols for that kind of thing before."

"Maybe the van if I could get the keys."

"Quite." Clara said, arms still tightly folded. "I don't know what management will want done, but I'll be damned if I let you get burned playing with fire. Fetch is going to have to stay in Parts and Service until we're more certain he's not going to rip you limb from limb."