Freddy was fast asleep on the security chair, his circuits softly humming in tune. Sitting right in front of him on the table was Mike's blue overnight bag.
Mike resisted facepalming himself. As if his life hadn't already been fucked up enough. Now how exactly was he supposed to get the bag without waking up the grizzly? He knew there would be hell to pay if Freddy was awakened.
Gently, Mike started tip-toeing into the room. He held his breath, not wanting to make a single sound. He didn't know how sensitive Freddy's hearing was; one wrong move and life would be over as he knew it. A rather shitty life, he would add, but still, he did have some good moments. Like, that seriously awesome party he had several hours ago with the other three bots. That was worth remembering.
In a few more seconds, he had reached the desk. Mike's heart started racing and sweat started dripping down his neck. Freddy's face was literally two feet away from him. He was so close, Mike could practically count the tufts of fur on his suit if he wanted to.
"Just grab the bag..." Mike thought to himself as he reached out ever-so-slowly and grasped the handles. He knew the bag would make a crinkling sound once he lifted it, so he made absolutely sure that he was super slow in lifting it.
He had almost lifted the bag completely when his cell phone suddenly started blaring out a techno ringtone, utterly destroying the silence.
Like clockwork, Freddy's eyes shot open, revealing two soulless pits with tiny pinprick pupils. Seeing something inches away from his face, Freddy let out a loud growl, grabbed the night guard by the back of his collar, and shoved him down onto the table, pinning him down. "Intruder!" he yelled.
Mike gasped. He thought he might even break a bone at this point. "I-It's Mike again!" he managed to squeak out.
Freddy quickly registered the voice and promptly let go of the night guard. Mike groaned and held his injured side. "You and I need to stop meeting like this...!" he said. "Like, can we make this a rule? No pinning down the night guard and possibly shattering his ribs? Let's just add that to the list, okay?"
Freddy merely narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "What are you doing?"
Mike quickly grabbed the bag off the table. "I was leaving, since it's past my shift. I was just getting my things. Calm down, will ya?"
Freddy huffed and sat back down in the chair. "How are the others?"
"They're all fixed now, and before you say anything else, I think they enjoyed it. I mean, it's been years since they've been repaired or even cleaned. You should have seen their faces, they were practically jumping for joy."
"Interesting," Freddy said, emotionless. Then he turned to the bag, which still had the buzzing cell phone. "Are you going to answer that anytime soon?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Mike muttered to himself as he unzipped his bag and grabbed the phone. Taking a look at the caller ID, his eyes widened. "Oh, boy."
"Listen, Mike, so sorry I couldn't answer you yesterday. I was away on business...you know how it goes," the manager's voice chimed through the phone. "Still trying to hire the demolition crew and whatnot. Wouldn't you believe how hard it is to get a simple contract without having the business fucked up?"
Mike had stepped outside of the pizzeria to take the call. Freddy clearly wasn't interested in hearing it, and Bonnie and Foxy were still (amazingly) conked out on the floor. They must have drank a lot more than he had.
"Anyway, you must have left probably a thousand messages on my machine," the manager chuckled. "Now, what was it you wanted so badly to talk about? You get engaged again?"
Mike rolled his eyes at this, then continued to speak. "The animatronics," he said. "They've moved."
The manager's laughing tone went down faster than a lead balloon. "You're shitting me."
"No, I swear, these guys moved again!" Mike exclaimed. "They started last night, so I tried to call you once I got out, which of course you didn't answer. But dude, I am so completely serious right now -"
"This can't be," the manager said breathlessly to himself.
"You bet your ass it is!" Mike exclaimed, feeling giddy again. "I mean, I didn't think they'd ever move again, but then I saw Bonnie moving. The guy picked up his guitar and started shredding the most kickass beat ever! It was incredible -"
"Mike, wait. You said the rabbit started playing the guitar?" the manager interjected.
"Yeah, man. Totally sick beat. You should have heard it!"
The manager exhaled loudly. "Alright, listen. I don't know what kind of drug you're smoking right now, but there's no way he could have played it. First of all, they're not programmed to play actual instruments, because their fingers don't separate like that. Secondly, that guitar is nothing more than a prop. It doesn't actually play by itself, you should know that by now."
"But I'm not kidding! Bonnie was playing the fucking guitar!" Mike insisted. "And Chica - she can seriously cook. Like, for real, she should go in the Home Cooking Network. And Foxy, he knows how to tell good pirate stories! You should have heard it, it was -"
"Mike! What the hell are you getting at!"
"THE ROBOTS ARE ALIVE!" Mike exclaimed.
There was silence on the other end for quite a while. Mike waited, wondering if the manager might have even hung up on him.
"Mike," the voice started again. "I think this job's really getting to you. The animatronics are not alive. They are ROBOTS. Okay? Say it with me: robots. They're machines built with computer software installed in chips. They are NOT sentient."
"Well, call me batshit crazy, but these fuckers are definitely alive!" Mike retorted. "You know what? Let me get one of them on the phone. I'll prove that I'm not lying. Which one you wanna talk to?"
Mike, I -" the manager started.
"You know what? Chica. I'll get her, since she's the only one awake right now who would talk. Let me get Chica on the phone." With that, Mike turned back around and went inside.
"Hey, Chica, can you come out a minute?" Mike called out.
Chica quickly came out of the kitchen, her apron sticky with cheese. "You called, Mike?" she asked, wiping her feathers down on her apron.
Mike put the phone on speaker and held it out to the yellow chicken. "Say hi to the manager, Chica."