Day 7, March 12

So, here's the biggest news of the day: H-B actually talked to a close friend of mine without me insisting him to.

Okay, I'll get straight to explaining how that happened. One of my best friends (her name's Augusta, if you're wondering) came by to see how I was doing. We talked about my progress over some herbal tea and had a good time. It was a nice break and I was grateful for it.

Then, I had to go take a call and leave Augusta alone for a sec. From what background noises I could catch, someone was walking around before stopping. Next came a muffled conversation where I could only hear Augusta's side. I just chalked it up to her talking to someone on her own phone. Then, music started up and everything was chill. I wasn't concerned until I heard two familiar noises: growled singing and thumping, but padded footsteps. "Oh, no," I thought, as I placed my phone on the desk. "I think I forgot to tell H-B that she was coming over."

To be fair, it was a last minute thing and Augusta was already "warned" by now. But, there's always those donuts, you know? That subconscious whisper that taunts you with ideas of glitching out or reversing into old program habits. I cautiously walked back to the living room while the music played on. The more I heard, though, the more relief I felt. By the time I reached them, I stumbled into Augusta doing some impromptu song-and-dance karaoke with a robot almost two-and-a-half taller than her.

Of course, I was as confused as you are now. I stopped the music emitting from her phone and asked the obvious. They timidly looked at each other, then Augusta explained herself. According to her, the stuff I'm about to recite here is what happened in the span of five to seven minutes.

Augusta was relaxing and sipping her tea. Then, H-B "tip-toed" up the basement stairs and took advantage of me accidentally leaving the door open. He cautiously approached, which explains the footsteps. Something to keep in mind for this next part: she's usually a little shy around strangers. So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that she casually struck up a conversation with H-B. "So, are you the new Spring-Trap?" she asked him.

He didn't say anything. Probably trying to fight the cooling fan spinning max-speed while unscrambling his speech processor. At least he didn't remember to activate the invisible cloak.

"I like your design."

"...Thank you?"

Augusta, now knowing what it's like to be in an extrovert's shoes, thought about her next sentence. "Octavia tells me you can dance and sing," she said, I suspect in her typical polite manner. "Is that true?"

"I can, but my singing isn't that smooth. Or pleasant, for that matter."

Augusta, being a singer herself, probably leaned back in her chair and gave a low hum of thought. "I honestly doubt that," she admitted to him after a pause. "Show me what you've got and then maybe I'll agree."

So, he told her the only song he knew and she looked up the karaoke track. That was when the music started and everything went crazy. Just a full minute and-a-half into the song, and they were both duetting. Thanks to her dance lessons and his programming, both of them managed to make a good dance routine out it. Now I kinda regret not joining in. H-B and I would've had a great growl-off if it kept going.

But, because of all this explaining, all three of us decided to do something else instead. Don't worry, we did a few things together. You know, like get some more name ideas (which I'm still stuck on) or watch a weird vampire-themed soap opera just because it was on. The Immortal and the Restless, I think it was called? Anyway, H-B and Augusta got more into it than I did. It was interesting, but not my kind of thing.

So, after a couple more hours of hanging out, it was time for Augusta to go. We said goodbye to each other, then I led H-B back down to recharge. All in all, it was a great day. Not how I thought it was going to turn out, but my expectations were boring anyway. Not that Augusta is, of course, but I'm sure we both would have been bored much, much quicker.

I guess you could say this is my last hurrah before I go "off-the-grid" tomorrow. Kind of a good note to en on, really. H-B just made a new friend, Augusta and I caught up on things, and I just had a nice day hanging out. Although, there is one thing I need to bring up.

It's about the original String-Trap. Remember how I said I couldn't find any information apart from the local horror show that got wrecked before it could open? Yeah, turns out Spring survived that and "haunted" another pizzeria trying to revive the old franchise. Even worse and/or weird? One of William's kids, Michael, ran that establishment and might have guarded the horror attraction before causing the "incident". And the cherry on top? Circus Baby also lingered in the new pizzeria thanks to some salvaging process. In the end, that place suffered the same fate as the others and shut down a week into business.

And do you know how I learned all this? Augusta told me herself. She got curious about H-B's predecessor and looked up the games that were inspired by all of it. Of course, this could all be fake but... The fact that there's old newspapers confirming this combined with what Shadow Punk said is making me doubt that.

In case you're wondering how H-B reacted, he just stood behind the couch with his arms on the back and his mouth dropped open and revealed the endoskeleton inside. Yup, he was just as shocked if not more so. I'm surprised that, despite the reaction, he took it so well. I thought his system wouldn't handle it and cause him to faint, but no. All he said was, "At least that explains a few things."

Well, aside from that part of the evening, I'm sure I'll be sleeping peacefully tonight. All that Will and Mike stuff was years ago and in some other state, so I'm sure that nothing crazy will be happening here. Okay, apart from the stuff some local robot-delivery customers and I are doing. If any of them start to go haywire, then maybe I'll panic and safeguard H-B for a bit.

But I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. Octavia out.

Late Night Update: I just figured it out thanks to digging up more info on Circus Baby. According to the games, something happened that caused Elizabeth (another one of William's kids) to go missing. Circus Baby was blamed for whatever reason, some gas leak ruined any chances of the first location opening, yada yada. So, for those keeping track, that's one kid missing and one kid who grew up to carry the legacy and open his own restaurant.

Got that? Good. Now, for those uninterested about the kids and just want to learn what made me quit being an uneducated fool about William's fate, here you go. It took some more digging through the games, but I pieced the scene together. Out of respect for the kids, I'll just say this: William is the original Spring-Trap. That explains the Shadow Bunny's mistaken taunts, the weird reddish puppet added to the endoskeleton I discovered while switching the suit (and, don't worry, it is a puppet. I checked), and why H-B and him sound so similar at certain times. It could also be the key to the remnant giving him that access to those weird dreams he's been having.

The only thing about that last part is that Will didn't survive that second encounter with Mike. No records have been found of him escaping in some hunk-of-junk metal in the early hours of the morning. So, unless remnant can trigger memories of the person a bot can be based after because of some old software loophole, I don't see how that could work. There were some old emails from the company that I apparently wasn't supposed to open. Maybe that, combined with that VR game that got pulled from the shelves, might give some further hints.

If they do, then I might be a little more attentive about that impersonator lingering near the mall story. If I'm interested in this whole story, chances are others might be too. And not just those trying to get a bearing on what came before this whole delivery service...

You know, I'm glad I'm going "off-thegrid" tomorrow. It'll give you some time to process all this exposition while I get H-B all prepped up. I should be back on to give one final update at the end of the month, if not sooner. Sorry for the big bombshell, but I had to get this off my chest as soon as I saw it. I would recommend looking it up for yourself, but I dunno if I would. Not only because it might get more insane than from what I'm gleaming from news articles and game synopses, but also because you might stay up too late trying to wade past speculation forums and other stuff. If you have any questions, I'll let my employer do all the answering for you. We just spent a lot of time researching this together, and I think she's posting all my results on here so that my research doesn't go to waste. Dunno why she would upload all my research on a fanfic website, but I'm not questioning it further.

Anyway, Octavia out. I'll see you next post!