Chapter 22: Patch Up
After emerging from a manmade hole that led out of the underground chamber, Fredi and G left the junkyard and were running through the dark streets of the city.
"Where are we going?" G asked.
"To Sunny Dewdrop's place," Fredi answered. "He might be able to unlock my missing memories and get you patched up."
"He's a child psychiatrist, not a doctor!" G objected. "Besides, why would he help us?"
"Because you have the only thing that can truly kill him."
G looked at his repairmen gun and cursed. "It's out of juice! Vanny made me waste it all."
"Sunny doesn't know that," Fredi pointed out.
"I don't think he'll be fooled for long."
"Maybe, but it's the only chance we have to find out who was really pulling the strings on the experiment and why Vanny is still alive."
"But how can you find him?"
"Using the internal GPS Chips was talking about."
Once Fredi concentrated really hard, he was able to picture a map of Endopolis City. From this mental map, he was able to pinpoint the location of Sunny's residential home which was an apartment in the downtown area where the city's lights were at their brightest.
"From what I remember, the Daycare Attendant insisted on keeping the lights on," G said as he and Fredi approached the apartment building. "Then when I turned the lights off by accident, he became a more violent version of himself."
"That was Moon, and he was the one scaring the toddlers who went to the daycare center for slumber parties," Fredi recalled. "I just hope they fixed that problem with Sun's new casing."
At the entrance to the apartment building, Fredi rang the electronic doorbell. On the small video screen below the doorbell appeared the crooked-faced man he remembered from the attack on his, Bonn, and Redd's apartment. Upon seeing Fredi, the crooked-faced man looked worried.
"Fredi," said the crooked-faced man. "What an unexpected surprise!"
"You thought the others would get rid of me, didn't you?" Fredi guessed.
"Well, yes — I mean, no!"
"Don't lie to us, Sun," G said as he held up the repairmen gun. "Now will you let us in?"
"O-Of course," Sunny agreed and pressed a button.
There was a buzzing noise, and the door to the apartment opened on its own. Fredi and G cautiously walked up the stairs and entered a room that resembled a home office. All the lights were on, which made it easy to find Sunny in the kitchen. He was reaching for a heavy-looking flashlight when he noticed the young boy and the muscular man in his living room.
"My apologies for not being properly dressed," Sunny said as he put away the flashlight and straightened his red-and-yellow dressing gown. "I wasn't expecting company at this hour. What happened to your ear, young man?"
"I tried to pierce my ears by myself," G lied.
"Would you like me to patch that ear up? I have a medical kit."
"Only if you promise no tricks." G pointed his repairmen gun at Sunny.
"No tricks, no tricks!" Sunny immediately grabbed the medical kit from the well-lit bathroom.
G still kept his gun on Sunny as he used a bandaid to stop G's ear from bleeding.
"So now that my friend is patched up, tell us where you got the camera for the so-called 'experiment,'" Fredi said, showing the small black camera.
"Ah, yes, that thing," Sunny realized. "I, uh, received it in the mail."
"From who?"
Sunny hesitated to answer, until G held up the repairmen gun. "It was sent from Fred Bernstein the Third."
"Did you verify the address?" G asked.
"Of course I did! I double-checked my internal database and looked online."
Fredi didn't find Sunny's answer convincing. "Would it be possible for someone else to gain access to Fred Bernstein's mailing address and email?"
"I suppose. That information is public knowledge, and a good hacker might be able to use it to make someone think they're being contacted by Fred Bernstein himself."
"But that thought didn't cross your mind before you and the other Glamrock animatronics went to murder Fredi's friends," G concluded.
"We were scared for our lives, kiddo!" Sunny exclaimed. "Fred Bernstein, or whoever was pretending to be him, threatened to report us to the Night Watch Repairmen if we didn't do as they said. So we had no choice but to perform the experiment. And I didn't want to kill your friends, Fredi! That was all Jacaré and Roxana, who got carried away in their bloodlust."
"You didn't try to stop them, though," Fredi said, grabbing Sunny by the collar of his dressing gown. "So you're just as guilty as they are for killing Bonn and Redd!"
"Fine, I'm guilty! What do you want from me? An apology?"
"Do you have something that can restore memories?"
"Memories?"
"Jacaré's punch to my head caused me to have temporary amnesia, which I've been slowly recovering from. Is there a way to fully restore them?"
Sunny thought for a moment. Then he motioned Fredi and G to follow him into a guest room that had a charging station similar to the one at Ozzie's place.
"The only way to fully restore your memories would be to do a hard reboot of your systems," Sunny said to Fredi. "I'm not sure how long it will take, and there's a chance it might not work depending on how much cranial damage you took."
"I think it's still worth a shot," G said, and pointed his repairmen gun at Sunny's head. "So let's get this over with."
"Very well." Sunny reluctantly opened the charging station and pressed a few buttons. He briefly glanced back at G. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
"You might know me as the kid who entered the daycare center late one night with no friends."
"Ah, yes, I remember you!" Sunny's crooked smile then turned into a frown. "You made a mess of things and turned the lights off when I explicitly told you not to do it!"
"Well, you wouldn't leave me alone! I just wanted to get out of there."
"Guys, can we talk about this later?" Fredi insisted. "I need to get my memories back first."
"Step right in," Sunny said as he stood aside. "The charging machine has been programmed to give your system a hard reboot as soon as you enter."
"Don't worry about me, Fredi," G said. "I'll keep Sun occupied."
To be continued…