fuckignkillme

SHOUT OUTS: TheFanficCritic1337 and FiveNightsAtLuis (thanks :D), mjstimpson and for favouriting the story, and eggers for favouriting and following the story!

Chapter 3

Zoe leaned forward and hit her head on the desk. She was tired. She'd been up all night sketching ideas for the new animatronics. She hadn't gotten any sleep and was exhausted. She wondered if this was what the night guards felt like after staying up until six a.m. Did they just sleep in the daytime, though? That would be cool. They'd be like, vampires or something. But what if they really were vampires? With fangs and the bat-morphing thing and all that? That would be so awesome, because then she would be friends with vampires. But what if they wanted to suck her blood?

She sat up and shook her head. She knew she was staying up too late when she started having thoughts like that.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, turning her head to glance at the clock. She did a double take. She'd started working at seven (after repairing the control panel), and it was four in the morning.

Zoe had been working for eleven hours?! She had no idea how she stayed awake for that long. Usually after a long day of work, she would either collapse in bed or eventually fall asleep while watching a movie or a prerecorded baseball game. Maybe she was so charged with adrenaline from the idea that Freddy's might be open again that she just couldn't sleep.

She hit her head on the table again. Today was going to be a long day.

xXx

She walked into the pizzeria two hours later with a bag full of papers and pencil crayons. That was when Vincent had called for all of them to be there.

When Zoe opened the door to the Parts and Service room, everyone was already there except for Scott. She walked toward the panel and dumped the bag with the papers on it just as the door opened. She looked up and saw Scott rush in. She braced herself for Vincent either yelling or hitting him in the face or something, but all Vincent did was glance up at him and go back to reading his book.

Zoe furrowed her brow. That was unexpected. She didn't dwell too much on it, though. It wasn't her business.

She turned back to her papers. "Hey Fritz," She looked up and motioned him over. "You got new glasses. Good. I want you to take a look at these."

He came over and stood next to her, though he looked confused. "Why? I'm not going to be building them. I don't think I would be able to."

Zoe nodded. "Yeah, I know. That's what I'm here for. But we're working on this together, so I figured maybe you should take a look at these anyway. Besides, I'm going to need you to help me with the whole thing about giving them learning AIs."

Vincent suddenly shot to his feet. "What?"

Jeremy looked up from his tablet. "What?"

Mike fumbled with his newspaper. "What?"

Scott dropped his bright red cell phone. "What?"

Fritz tilted his head. He didn't seem as alarmed as the other guards. "What do you mean, 'learning AIs'?"

She shrugged. She didn't really see what the big fuss was about. "What do you think I meant by 'learning AIs'? I mean, if we're going to make them humane, I figured we should make them as close to humans as we can get. Humans are constantly learning and developing as they grow, and that's what I want for these guys."

Vincent walked toward them, leaving his novel on the chair he was sitting on. "No. Them being humanoid, I can accept. But this? No. That's a definite no. They would be dangerous, possibly even more so than the original animatronics. No. Just no."

"For once, I agree with him," Mike said, folding up his newspaper.

"Yeah." Jeremy nodded, setting down his tablet. "It's just a bad idea. They should just have the programming to know how to do their jobs. That's it."

Zoe decided to keep her idea of them having a "defense mode" in case someone broke into the pizzeria to herself. Instead, she decided to either convince them to go along with this, or be as annoying as possible until they agreed.

"Guys, if they have intelligence of their own, they'll be able to think and act more human. They definitely won't kill anyone this time. Plus, they might be able to communicate better with people, because they'll recognize voices and faces just like we do. Just give it a chance."

Vincent shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. This is a risk we just can't take."

"Look, I was planning on giving them an emergency shut down button in case they do anything violent. It'll be controlled from the control panel, Fritz's laptop, and a remote control that I'll keep with me at all times. Come on. Please?"

"No. Absolutely not."

Zoe crossed her arms and figured that her only chance was to resort to Plan B. "I'm just going to keep staring at you until you agree."

"Fine." Vincent threw his hands in the air and sat back down, burying his nose in his book once again. He held it in front of his face so Zoe couldn't see him, so she glared at the book cover instead.

Two minutes past, and she still kept her eyes on him. Vincent glanced over his book to see if she was still looking and immediately went back to the book when he saw her gaze still fixed on him. She was determined that this would make the robots more friendly and less dangerous than before, and there was no way she was going to give up because of some whiny little twenty-five-year-old.

A few more minutes passed, and he slammed his book shut. "Fine! Do what you want with them! I don't care! Just stop staring at me!"

Zoe grinned. "Took you long enough." She turned back to Fritz. "Anyway, about those designs…"

i hate this chapter so fucking much please someone just punch me in the fucking face