Five days passed since Mike ditched the college. So far, showing up to Freddy's for lunch instead of Harvard was a lot more interesting; for one, it was pizza, then the robots were pretty friendly to him, then he got to watch all these cute and sometimes annoying little kids sprint around and cause havoc to the dead and lonely place he visited during the night. To be honest, it was quite entertaining.
While he watched Bonnie picking on his red guitar, humming along to the nursery rhyme in spite of himself, someone caught his shoulder. He looked up to see his boss's smiling face looking down at him.
"Hey, Miles!"
"It's Mike."
"Just thought I'd come and talk to you concerning the animatronics."
Mike felt a wave of confusion. Why would the boss want to talk to him about the robots? What did the boss know? "Huh?"
The boss pulled up a chair and flopped next to him, despite his old age, and grinned at Mike. "Yeah! They're so much more human, you know? I don't know what you've been doing to them, but since we hired you our robots are much more appealing!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you see, something happened in '87. You know about it; the 'Bite of '87'. Ever since '87, the robots have gotten kinda... weird. They never sang in as happy a tone, there were song repeats; Foxy would glitch up more than usual. Almost as if they could sense the tension. Then you get the job and..." He made a popping sound with his mouth. "Just like that. Chipper as ever! It's amazing. You know, you're never here to hear it, but the other employees started calling you the robot whisperer. Funny, huh?"
Mike didn't know what to say. The robots were happy now... because of him? He would've gotten all choked up if he wasn't trying to be tough.
The boss continued, this time in a more interesting tone of voice. "Might be wondering why I'm telling you this. Well, truth is, my cousin's been having some troubles over at the sister location; troubles concerning their own animatronics. Been giving their own night watchman a boatload of stress. I came to ask you today if you'd be interested in jumping to the town over and givin' 'em a hand?"
"Ah, I'm not sure that's a good-"
"Splendid! You'll only need to stay one night up there; the night you'll be helping their guard. Won't be too much trouble. Should warn you, though; they're a bit feisty, the robots, and instead of four, there happens to be twelve of them. Don't worry, though, you'll be absolutely fine. Just do what you did to our robots and we'll have cleared their mess right up!"
"But sir, I don't-"
"Gah! Is it really one already?" The boss cried, gawking at his silver digital watch. "We've got a birthday party to prepare! Thank you so much for your help, Miles. I promise you'll get a ten percent increase on your pay."
Mike was about to complain about several other things, but he quickly shut his mouth when he heard he'd get a raise. The boss scurried away.
Mike turned to look out the window, resting his chin on his folded arms. How did he get caught up into that? He didn't do anything to the robots; they changed on their own accord. He'd most certainly be killed in a pizzeria hosting twelve crazy robots; especially if they were as crazy as Freddy and Bonnie and Chica and Foxy used to be. Then again, their night guard managed to survive for a while, and if he could do it, then Mike could.
Speaking of the sister location's night guard, what on earth would he be like? Twelve robots; he had to be this big tough guy. Probably he'd have a lot of strength and wit. Probably he'd be super fast and really awesome. Probably he was Mike's better in every way.
Just thinking about it, Mike became curious and nervous about meeting that guy. He probably wouldn't even have to help the guy at all. He'd probably make fun of Mike and give him all the pathetic jobs.
"Nah," Mike tried to assure himself. "He'll be cool. Don't worry about it."
He had less to worry about than he thought.