Chica watches workers transport crate after crate into Parts and Services, a total of three back-breaking objects against several struggling muscular men. She watches them assemble and disassemble, turning the area into a modern century emporium, depicting society 100 years from now. Two hours later, a modernized sliver and white cylinder, accompanied by an enlarged control panel and the dream monitor of every pro gamer (according to Gregory, that is).
"Alright, that's about it." The worker hands Vanessa a printed packing list and a gigantic tech manual.
"Jeez, what are you trying to accomplish with this manual? A Ph.D. in Robotics?" she grunts, eying the thousands of pages tucked inside one binder. Gregory takes the book with immense interest, already positioning himself to skim through the guide. In which the worker eyes the child with confusion.
"Aren't you a little young to know how to handle animatronics?"
"Uh-huh." More pages flipped. The worker glances at Vanessa.
"He's not a normal child." She nonchalantly answers and signs off on the final details before the workers leave. "Come on out, Chica, they're gone."
"Finally! Another minute and my joint bolts were going to rust." The animatronic takes a few moments for herself to align her limbs. She didn't need to add another burden to the list of fix-its.
"Oh wow! This program has everything!" Gregory exclaims, having already read ¼ of the manual. "It even tells you the remaining lifespan of an animatronics' components before replacement."
"Maybe you can see how long before I need new arms and legs. So, now what?"
"Now, you get settled on that chair so we can have this scan you from top to bottom," Vanessa instructs, opening the hatch for the machine. Chica approached the machine; she would eye it with uncertainty. The appearance of the device itself ensured that this was a costly price. For that hefty price, she'd hoped that Vanessa and Gregory would be able to find out what was running inside her and shut it down permanently.
An elevator ding could be heard from the service elevators on the other side, welcoming Freddy and Sun into the area. Chica immediately brightens. "You're here!"
"Of course I am. Every step of the way." Freddy reminds her with a playful nudge. Sun grins at the interaction, or maybe it's his face in general. Either way, to have them here, along with her two human companions, puts her at ease.
"Wait, don't start!" Tessa bursts through the door.
"Tessa, what are you doing here?"
"Gabe told us of a new systemic update. Had to take a look for ourselves..." The tiger frowns when she turns around. "Dang it! I thought Monty and Roxy were behind me."
"We here, we here, hold yer horses." Monty is heard grumbling in the distance before the wolf and gator appear.
"My, this is a beauty." Roxy compliments, looking at herself in the reflection. "Of course, it pales in comparison since I've arrived."
"Get over yourself."
"Make me –"
"Do NOT start squabbling," Vanessa glares at the two animatronics looking at Chica and motions towards the machine. She lays on the chair, staring at the bright lights above. A long cord connecting from the mainframe is positioned under the headrest. Vanessa takes the cord and gently opens Chica's head port, sticking the cord in its rightful place. "You okay?"
Chica gives her a thumbs up. As soon as Vanessa stepped outside the dome, the lights dimmed and the entrance closed.
Vanessa approaches Gregory. "Okay, what's the first... You finished the book already?" She motions the closed manual settled behind him.
"It wasn't much – it's only 200 pages with pictures. The remaining pages were nothing but disclaimers and legalism terms – more concrete than what this place makes guests sign."
"Something is bound is screw up then, if they got all of them words."
"Monty, don't you have anything positive to say?"
"I'm positive that ye looking like a bang-up furball!"
"That makes no sense!"
"Ease up, you two." Tessa places a hand on each of their shoulders to tame them. "We can arrange a wrestling match later, but now it's about Chica." Her words surprised Chica. She's more surprised to see the tiger giving her a supportive thumbs-up gesture. Now she's feeling bad about how rude she has been to Tessa.
Vanessa keys in a few words before hitting the start button. Then a voice announcement. "Welcome to Key-X 4000..." After walking through a brief introduction, the voice prompts its user to begin analysis. "Initiation safety protocol deactivation."
Chica feels herself tingling, knowing the machine's at work to do whatever it needs to do. Here goes nothing. She thought before her vision darkened, and she slumped forward on the gurney.
While the technology is updated, the amount of data it had to download took forever. According to what Vanessa had read, the analysis went back through every memory and updates Chica has had since she came to be. It hits a couple of errors along the way and would have to reset itself to bypass the error.
Hour two, Vanessa sends the animatronics to turn in for the night. The last thing Vanessa wanted was to lose in a fight against five animatronics God-forbid, their safety mode turned off due to loss of power. Gregory fell asleep with his head on her lap while she struggled to remain awake. Another hour in, and she closes her eyes, succumbing to the restlessness and desire for sleep.
The constant beeping rang hours later, alerting them out of their slumber. "Analyzation complete. Subject – Chica Chicken. Press continue to review results." The A.I. instructs. The first one fully awake, Gregory presses a button, and the monitor displays a rather long list with error codes and other pressing information. His eyes widen. "Whoa."
"Hmm..." Vanessa yawns. "What did you find?"
"A virus." He points, allowing for the two to stare at the results. "There's an infection mainframe within her mainframe sprouting these triggers."
"That wasn't there when I did a checkup," Vanessa notes. "I don't understand. How could she get a virus?"
"Did something happen while you were maintaining their systems?"
"No, and even if that was the case, the mainframe would have blocked it out. Can this program run analysis on environmental factors? I like to think pizza had something to contribute to this."
"I think that should be the least of our problems." A look of despair displays on Gregory's face, "Regardless of how it got in her, the virus is spreading. Really fast." She glances at the monitor and attempts to ignite the anti-viral software. It would seem that the more she tried, the more the virus overtook another part.
"Oh God, this isn't good."
"You're telling me. Whatever version of Chica we saw before, it's overtaking her program. It's breaking her components. We have to fix this fast." Gregory stresses. "We don't fix this; Chica will become too dangerous to stop her."
