And so continue the adventures of Alex Redding, folks. This case should be a bit interesting, so he'll need some help on it...
In spite of my misgivings, it was nice sleeping next to Foxy that night. She was surprisingly warm and plush, and I slept better than I had in quite a while in spite of my worries and confusion surrounding Golden Mile. Sadly it didn't last, and next morning I awoke with my bed empty and Foxy back in her charger. I smiled and shrugged, giving her a quick kiss before heading out to the kitchen.
It seemed like just another day; Chica was hard at work in the kitchen, cooking once again while Freddy and Bonnie were snuggled up on the couch. With a smirk I waved to them, causing the bear to smile shyly and the rabbit to giggle. I then turned my attention to the phone; I had a lot of work to do today, and if anything was going to get done I'd need to get some calls in now. Checking to make sure I still had Faz and Mike's numbers, I dialed the former first. It rang for a moment, then I heard his voice as he picked up.
"Hello?" Sounded like he'd been awake for a while. I really did regret getting him involved, but...
"Mr. Faz? It's Alex. You busy?"
His voice seemed to light up. "Ah, Alex my boy! Not one bit, just ignoring the latest blast of hate-mail from my 'adoring public'. What can I do for you? The others aren't giving you any trouble, are they?" That was just like him; after I'd taken the band in, he treated all of us like his grandkids...
"No, actually. Remember I mentioned I got accepted at Open Eyes? Well, I've got a case and I could use some advice from you."
"Certainly, my dear boy. What can I do for you?" I sighed; I really wished I didn't have to get him involved in this.
"Well, it's regarding Golden Mile..." The silence on his end of the line caught me by surprise.
"...Go on."
"They got in touch with me yesterday, and wanted to hire me on. Apparently, they found the serial numbers that the police-held bots had and didn't manage to match them up with my current roommates." I dropped my voice a bit at this, trying to prevent the others from hearing... The only sign I saw was Bonnie's ear twitching slightly, but she didn't seem to respond any further.
Faz sighed. "...How did they get the numbers? And furthermore, why are you calling me about them?"
"Because the guy that hired me mentioned that the originals have GPS trackers installed. Know anything about that?"
Silence on the line again. "...Ergh... Alex, this is hard to explain over the phone. Could you please come over? Not today, of course; I need to... Find a few things. There's a few details about your friends that I haven't fully divulged yet, and they may be relevant to why Golden Mile is hunting for them."
"Sure thing, Mr. Faz. Tomorrow around noon? I'll bring some lunch." He chuckled.
"That would be fine, Alex. I'll see you then." Click.
I flipped the phone over and dialed up Mike. At this point, Chica stuck her head out of the kitchen door. "Alex? You busy?" I waved to her, the phone still ringing.
"On the phone right now, Chicadee. I'll come give ya a hand when I'm done. It's work stuff." She nodded and smiled, ducking back in. A moment later, I heard Mike answer his phone.
"Mike, it's Alex." I heard him chuckle a bit.
"Hey, Alex. How ya doing? We still need to meet up for that drink." I laughed; after the fallout from the Drone Incident had died down, Mike had promised to buy both Adams and I a drink to reward us for stopping them.
"I know, Mike. Just another thing on the list. Hey, you busy? On a case, and I could use a hand."
"Well, I guess I could help... Unless you need bait to catch a psychopath. I've done enough of that for one life. What's up?"
I explained the situation with Golden Mile, the 'missing' animatronics, and the serial numbers. Mike listened, and finally spoke once more. "Alex, you always manage to get yourself in the nastiest of situations, don't you? Alright, whatcha need?"
"You're closer to the court case than I am, so I need you to look into it. See if you can find any connection between the lawsuit against Fazbear Entertainment and Golden Mile; figure out if they're gonna try and push blame over to the 'bot manufacturer."
"Right, got it. While I'm at it I'll try and figure out how the heck they got the serials. I'll let you know if I find anything, okay?"
"Sounds good to me, Mike. You're a lifesaver." I smiled.
"You're one to talk, Alex. Take care, okay? See ya." Click. I hung the phone up and turned to the kitchen, seeing a bit of smoke coming from within for the first time.
"Dang it, Chica..." I rushed in, ready to get to work on putting out her latest culinary catastrophe.
Roughly two hours, a lot of scrubbing, and a shower later, the kitchen was set right and I was heading out. First stop was the library; I wanted to see what Golden Mile's records were all about. Pulling up a chair and firing up the library's terminal, I started hunting through news clippings regarding them. Most of the stuff seemed fairly straightforward; op-eds about AI and their work with animatronics and trying to tie them to the Drone Incident, news headlines of the week just after mentioning them in passing, and the occasional bit of slander from tabloids trying to paint them as the ones behind the whole mess. Rolling my eyes, I glanced a bit further back.
Articles from when Freddy's first opened scrolled across a bit later, and I looked closer; Golden Mile Entertainment had been chosen for their skill in robotics, as well as their creative methods... Seemed like a puff piece, but I looked a bit closer to the end of the article.
Given the recent increase in sales of Golden Mile's re-purposed mechanicals, it has called into question whether or not a company that was once widely known for bleeding edge combat robotics was entirely comfortable taking these same techniques and using them to craft machines to entertain children. There are a number of skeptics saying that the Golden Mile machines are dangerous, however these claims have largely been unfounded.
Golden Mile's stock increased heavily in the week surrounding their announced formation of an Entertainment division, begun by the purchase from new restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria of four new animatronics to entertain children.
I sat back and thought about that for a moment. So Golden Mile used to be into combat machines? That... Certainly made things interesting. Maybe the reason they wanted the originals found was for the lawsuit after all; if they opened up the four animatronics and proved they hadn't used any of their military tech in them, it'd certainly clear them from any responsibility as far as direct action was concerned... But I did question the AI. After all, Golden Freddy had broken and turned into the maniac that I knew all too well... I'll have to look into this a bit closer.
My phone pinged; looking down, I realized that it was a message from Matthews. Judging by the attachments, I figured it was the paperwork I'd asked for. The e-mail was fairly straightforward, once I cut out all of his ten-dollar vocabulary; just another reminder that he wanted me to find the missing bots within a month... Or, in his case, before the lawsuit. With a shrug, I opened up the first file.
Inside was a basic schematic for the endoskeletons of Freddy, Foxy, Chica, and Bonnie. I looked them over carefully; there were some small notes referring to other files, discussing taking parts from their old defense contracts to make the endoskeletons work properly. Nothing too important thus far... Looking over the 'head' schematic, I paused; there was the AI processor... Seemed all good. There was a handwritten note reminding them to rewrite the AI for every character...
Wait. That note had a date on it... And on a second look, that date was a fair bit later than the schematics were; a good year, maybe two... I mulled this over for a moment. Maybe the note came out because Golden Mile only expected to sell one animatronic to Fazbear's? I shrugged, looking over the next file. Nothing too fancy; just a single page from their serial number list, with four circled; I was guessing they were for the bots. They ended with FF, FP, CC, and BB; seemed simple enough to figure out who was who, then... And then there was a fifth one, just above them. GFF.
That... Was interesting. I'd have to look into this, maybe give Matthews a call and see if it was related. Knowing my luck he'd tell me to bugger off, but it was worth a shot. The last file was even less interesting; it showed the locations of the animatronics just before their GPS devices were shut down, and they were all at Fazbear's. It did show the unique signals they each used, so that was at least something; maybe I could find a way of jamming them, just in case Golden Mile managed to activate them remotely.
I powered off the library terminal and headed out, thinking over what I'd just read. Seemed like Golden Mile had a reason to be nervous after all; if it came out that they used to do defense contracting, then the media would have a field day with it and blame them for the Drone Incident just the same. One last thing to do, just ot sate my own curiosity.
I started heading towards the police station. Time to ask my old friend Adams if he knew how they'd gotten their hands on the serial codes.
And now we get into the thick of the investigation. Just so you all know, this story will be shorter than Battle for the Pizzeria, but I'm hoping it'll give the world of Alex Redding and the others that much more color and style.
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