Author's Note: This and future chapters deal with a character who has suffered a traumatic brain injury, and while every attempt was made to write his condition with sensitivity, one of the ways he deals with his trauma is through humor. His jokes about his injury should not be misinterpreted as disrespectful to anyone with a similar condition.
Also, this was mentioned in a note on my other FNaF fanfiction, but Mike Schmidt's feelings of failure, career-wise, were not in any way influenced by Scott Cawthon's recent "Make a Difference" message on his Steam forum, in which he mentioned working various entry-level jobs and not feeling successful prior to creating FNaF. The early chapters of this fanfiction that established Mike's history long predate Scott's message.
1982
"Well, I've got to say, he seems to be taking this remarkably well," Hermie whispered to Clyde, casting a wary eye on their coworker as he surveyed the damage to his car with a shocking level of indifference instead of the pure rage they'd expected. The training coordinator didn't reply, instead walking up to Derrick and placing a hand on his shoulder in concern.
"Uh, hey, man? You've been sorta quiet since we had to break the bad news to you, are you sure you're okay?" When the officer turned toward him, the distracted smile on his flushed face made the younger man shudder. Derrick had trudged through his shifts lately with such a lack of enthusiasm that his sudden bliss was downright unnerving.
"I'll live. This day has gone so well that some pointless vandalism isn't about to ruin it." The guard's chest rose and fell unevenly with his erratic breathing, but his mysterious grin never faded.
"But...your car. Man, if I drove something half that nice, I'd be a lot more steamed about it than you seem to be." Clyde frowned at his coworker's visage, which was mottled with discoloration, giving him the same purple-flecked appearance he'd witnessed only once before, on the fateful day of his spring-lock injury. "Maybe we'd better get you inside and sit you down. I-I think you might be going into shock." Derrick cuffed him lightly across the back in reprimand.
"Try not to be a worry-wart for once! I told you, I'm fine. Just dandy. I was just scrambling to make my final rounds for the night and make sure everything was in its place," he insisted, aware his labored breathing had not gone unnoticed. "At any rate, I'm nearly done, so just head home and let me take care of closing up the building. Now scram!"
With the stub of a cigarette clenched between his teeth and splinters of particleboard caught in his wayward hair, Randy let his sledgehammer drop to the floor of the derelict pizzeria, having just gained entrance to the extra room whose existence he had only recently learned about.
The building's architect, who had long since retired but had gamely agreed to escort the young entrepreneur to the pizzeria, coughed behind his dust mask, scowling at the sorry condition of the structure that, in the prime of his career, he had meticulously planned down to every floorboard. The former manager of the pizzeria must have been delusional about the future of his business if he'd refused to sell the vacant building off for another purpose back when it had still been serviceable, but rumor had it he had steadfastly refused what few offers he'd received on the dilapidated property, preferring instead to let it backslide into a wasteland. His reasons for finally permitting its few remaining fixtures, salvageable or otherwise, to be sold were unknown; perhaps he had finally grown to need the money badly enough.
"Now son, I know you're burning to get in there, but I'm going to say this one more time," Mel cautioned. "That young fellow from the restaurant who used to talk like he was a manager - well, I reckon he's not so young anymore - he just called me up out of the blue one day, asking for advice on the best way to seal up these extra rooms. I told him his bosses should be sensible and find another use for them, especially after they paid a mint to have them included in the blueprints in the first place, but he insisted that's what they wanted, and then he refused to say anything else, like he was afraid he'd get in trouble." Mel frowned at the cigarette stub Randy ground into the floor with his heel. "Just between you and me, usually when a company goes to such lengths to hide something like that, it's bad news. Chemical waste or something else they'd love to keep hidden forever, though I can't imagine a pizzeria generating such stuff. Still, maybe that's why the owner refused to sell this place. It was cheaper to write it off as a loss than to pay the fees to remediate whatever he stowed in there. I'm grasping at straws trying to think of another reason."
Realizing he was talking to Randy's back as the younger man pressed ahead inattentively, he raised his voice in warning. "You may legally own the contents of this building, but so help it, if there's anything toxic back there, you and I are just going to replace the panel and pretend we never found it, and leave the demolition crew to deal with it, if that day ever comes. The last thing you want is to become the not-so-proud owner of a chemical waste depository or something."
"Whoa, look at this grody rabbit!" Randy exclaimed in oblivious glee, proving Mel's words had gone unheeded. "Check it out, it's positively nasty. I can't believe we actually found one. How long did you say this room was walled off, thirty years? Who would have guessed this guy was back there all that time?" He was crouching next to the sprawled form of what appeared to be a long-forgotten animatronic, its fur grotesquely discolored from years of dampness and neglect. Elongated, hare-like ears were the only clue to its identity as any particular animal species, and its facemask had receded around the inner workings of the suit, giving its visage the appearance of a withered skull.
Mel grit his teeth and forced a laugh, relieved to find the rest of the room empty of anything formidable. "I'd consider that a health hazard right there, but since you said you wanted robots for your ride's theme, I guess this makes your day, hmm?" Performing a precursory search of the room, he was stunned to find absolutely nothing that would have warranted sealing it off into oblivion.
"It more than makes my day, this is going to make my whole horror attraction!" Randy cried, prodding the character with the toe of his sneaker. He beamed at the older man. "Hey, thanks! You've helped out a ton today, so if you ever want to tour the attraction and see this guy in his new home, just give them my name at the entrance, because you just earned yourself free admission for life!" Exhilarated, he bent down and clutched the limp animatronic under its arms, trying to heft it onto the dolly he'd brought just in case the room yielded the exact find he'd been hoping for. Abruptly dropping the rabbit character back to the floor, he rubbed his arms briskly, trying to ward off the sharp chill that had washed over him.
Kid, no! You don't want him to come back!
"Hey, did you say something?" Randy asked Mel, who shook his head. The entrepreneur shrugged, inwardly scolding himself for overindulging in his vices. Maybe I should cut back just a little bit, he mused, certain he had just heard a voice raised in stern warning.
1982
"Hello. Hello?" Clyde began in his best authoritative tone, depressing a button on the eight-track recorder. "Uh, this company-wide memo pertains to a product recall, and employees across all locations are required to sign off verifying that they are aware of the new policy." He winced at the strange array of items in front of him before beginning his message in earnest.
"It has come to the attention of Fazbear Entertainment that "Bonnie's Rockout Guitar," which was a premium available for 5,000 tickets at our prize counters from opening day in 1979 until earlier this month, presents a formidable danger to children. Specifically, the metal wire strings can easily separate from the toy instrument if it is damaged, and sixteen incidents of laceration to children's fingers have resulted." Shaking his head at the remains of a shattered red plastic guitar on his desk with its strings bent crazily in all directions, he rested a hand on the stack of injury reports that had been filed over the years at the restaurants, but had only been recently brought to his attention.
"The majority of these injuries can be attributed to children intentionally smashing the toy, a practice Fazbear Entertainment does not condone and denies any responsibility for." He smirked at the particular guitar before him, which he had confiscated the day before from an overly rambunctious child who had raised his newly-acquired prize over his head, Pete Townsend-style, and dashed it to pieces on the floor. The training manager's voice lowered as he continued. "However, some of the injuries have been deemed accidents, and for this reason, the company is voluntarily recalling this item. Should any child be seen with a Rockout Guitar on the premises, he or she should be escorted to the prize counter and offered any suitable replacement toy within the 5,000-ticket value limit. All recalled items should be returned to the flagship location immediately. Thank you, and as always, remember to smile. A child's happiness today may depend on you."
"There," Clyde said, reaching out to end the recording and inadvertently scratching his arm across one of the bent guitar strings, drawing back from the sudden jolt of pain. Fixing his manager, who was seated across from his desk, with a weak grin, he silently mouthed I told you so.
"That'll work," Nathan Faz said casually, leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands over his vest. "Duplicate that tape for all the locations and we'll play it before the start of business tomorrow." He noticed his training coordinator seemed unusually agitated.
"It's too little, too late," Clyde suddenly cut in, his voice firm and defiant. Faz blinked, unused to hearing anything but complete agreement from the worker he had come to think of as his right-hand man at the flagship restaurant. "You heard me," he continued, fanning out the accident reports across his desk, shoving aside the shards of jagged plastic that had once been a toy. "Sixteen reports in three years, and those are only the ones that made an official complaint. Who knows how many kids got sliced up at home, but their folks never called here to complain?"
He leaned his head on his hands. "Why did it take three years and that many injuries to yank this hazardous thing off the shelves? If all these reports hadn't been deep-sixed and it was up to me, I'd have done the recall right at the start of all this." He scowled at the broken guitar. "Seventy-five lousy cents. That's exactly what each one of those cost us to buy at wholesale. It wouldn't have bankrupted us to pull them off the market earlier."
"Clyde..." Faz began, sensing the young worker's agitation. "I don't think this is just about a toy guitar. You've been under a lot of stress lately, with all that's been going on around here-" The training coordinator fixed him with a stare.
"I-I want to work security," he blurted out. "All these rumors in the last two weeks about those five missing kids, that they were last seen hanging out here...and that night with the vandalism to our vehicles and then Derrick's car getting stolen the same night?" Sweat was forming on his brow as he enumerated the allegations and crimes that had plagued his workplace over a fortnight. "This should be the safest place in the world for kids and families, and I want to make it that way again. You've got to trust me, I think I could do a lot more as an officer than I can here behind this desk. Anyone can make training tapes." Clyde avoided mentioning his inner disappointment over being overlooked for any type of promotion over the last three years.
"Sorry, no can do," Faz said flippantly. "Your services are needed here, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure you're cut out to be a security officer the way someone like Hermie or Derrick is. Guards have to be assertive, maybe even just shy of aggressive, and I've seldom heard you so much as raise your voice. Leave the job to those who are naturals at it." He snorted. "Since you mentioned it, though, I wasn't shocked to hear about the unfortunate loss of Derrick's car. It's hardly uncommon knowledge that he left the keys in it more often than not and the windows rolled down, even if I warned him against that practice. He might as well have posted a big "STEAL ME" sign on the windshield; it was a theft waiting to happen."
"Hasn't anyone else connected the dots yet?" Derrick cut in, leaning insolently against the door frame and leaving the two men to wonder how much of the conversation he'd overheard. "Five kids - teens, really - last seen at our place, and my car just happened to go missing just before I could lock up for the night. Isn't it obvious that we really have some juvenile car thieves on our hands?" He narrowed his eyes accusingly at Clyde. "And what's this? Now you're trying to steal my job out from under me?"
"N-no, I'd never try to do that!" the training coordinator exclaimed, backpedaling rapidly and tugging anxiously at his shirt collar, which suddenly felt too tight. "I'd only take the security gig if a position opened up."
"Don't count on it, chum. The restoration's nearly done over at my restaurant and Hermie hasn't exactly been subtle with the hints that he's more than eager to have his old security job back once I've vacated it." Derrick's face twisted into its characteristic, cruel sneer. "In the meantime, I just saw a kid running past holding one of those dinky little guitar prizes, and I think his shoes were untied as well. This is your chance to be a real hero, sport!"
Clyde rose stiffly to his feet, clutching his trademark clipboard to his chest and leaving without a word, but the silent hurt in his eyes, caused by someone he had considered a close friend, said it all. Once his young assistant had left, Faz glowered at Derrick in disapproval.
"Now I don't pretend to have any idea what that was about, exactly, but why did you have to go and insult him like that? You should ask yourself why you need to be so sadistic." He chose his words cautiously, aware he was dealing with an employee the corporation treated with the utmost care, considering he could have rightfully sued for extensive damages years before but had opted not to. "I'm just saying, Clyde's a good kid."
"Exactly," said Derrick, sinking into the training manager's vacated desk chair and boldly resting his feet on the abandoned paperwork. "He's a kid. Not exactly security material when he's still fawning over the stage shows right next to the half-pints, right?" Awaiting a response that never came, he changed the subject. "But anyway, I paid you a visit because, lately, the animatronics have been growing restless, if that's even possible. Aren't they supposed to go into sleep mode once the brats have left for the night? Instead, they follow me while I'm helping the closing crew, getting in the way and generally making nuisances of themselves."
Faz's chair groaned in protest as he leaned forward, peering curiously at his security guard. "That's strange; they are supposed to return to the stage and enter inactive mode if there are no kids around. They can't be completely shut down or the servomechanisms in their limbs would lock up; we discovered that early on while our new characters were still in the testing phase." Leaning in close as if sharing a great secret, he added, "that Spring Bonnie character that mauled you? If it makes you feel any better, his servos are almost certainly done for and he'll never move again after two years and counting in that safe room.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to collect the security tapes from around the time those kids were last seen. Law enforcement requested a look at 'em and I agreed, if only it will get them off our backs and make it clear once and for all that our establishment had nothing to do with this weirdness."
"Hey, Germ!" Mike almost shouted his long-time friend's detested nickname into the phone, knowing he was as much of a night-owl as himself and would hardly be bothered by the odd hour of his call. When the party on the other end picked up, the customary rush of heavy metal assaulted Mike's ears.
"Schmidt! What's up? Still looking for a respectable job?" Jeremy Fitzgerald's happiness upon hearing from his friend was all too obvious.
"No, I finally found one, and you'll have to see this for yourself. Believe it or not, right now I'm behind the controls of a brand-new horror house at Krayzee Action Park. It's based on all the legends behind the Freddy Fazbear's restaurants, but if you're ready for this, it's actually respectful and doesn't exploit your injury or the memory of those poor kids who bought it there before you and I were suckered into working for the chain." Mike bit his lip while Jeremy processed the news. "It's nothing but a bunch of scary animatronic stuff, minus the actual robots." He sneered at the large cardboard box overflowing with the dismembered pieces of the toy animatronics that had plagued Jeremy's nights at the short-lived incarnation of the pizzeria.
"For real? I do wanna see that," Jeremy insisted in his usual metalhead drawl. He placed one hand subconsciously over the tattered bandanna that he wore bound over his head, his fingers tracing the scarring pattern embedded in his skin, and beneath that, the steel plate that had been used to restore his skull after he had nearly lost his life to an errant animatronic's crushing jaws.
"Not tonight, I'm still learning the ropes myself," Mike advised, ever cautious of his friend's safety. Though Jeremy had made an incredible recovery, driven by his unstoppable determination, Mike still felt overly protective of him, aware that he sometimes acted impulsively and would probably think nothing of cruising late at night along the unfamiliar and twisting backroads that led to the amusement park. Coughing harshly, Mike fumbled for the carafe of coffee he'd made, his head suddenly and inexplicably swimming.
"How about I pick you up tomorrow?" he suggested groggily, scrambling to find an excuse to take care of the driving. "It's just that my boss might not be thrilled about a second party joining me, so we'll arrive in my car, and once he splits for the night I'll sneak you in. Deal?"
"Count me in, but are you sure you're all right? Even over the line, your voice sounds sorta wonky," the former guard replied, shouting over the bass from his stereo that left his windows rattling in their frames. Mike assured him all was well and abruptly hung up the phone, but not before muttering something about a ventilation error, his voice less than confident.
"Huh, wonder what that was all about," Jeremy said to the empty room as he replaced the handset on the receiver. He was used to Mike being watchful over him, yet if he hadn't been concerned about getting his closest friend in trouble with his new boss, he would have driven straight to the amusement park himself just to make sure Mike was okay.
