Chapter 3: Strange Company

Glenn paused before answering Fredi's question. "An animatronic is a type of robot that is programmed to play pre-recorded sounds like music and voice lines. But I think those guys were referring to a different kind of animatronic that's more sophisticated, if we're to believe they are examples of such a model."

"Then you believe I'm like them?" Fredi asked.

"It's hard to say," Glenn shrugged. "You look human, and bleed like one. Yet you don't have any form of identification and seem to instinctively fear rain, which could short out an animatronic's electrical circuits."

"None of those prove anything," Fredi argued. "For all you know, I could just be a homeless guy that doesn't like rain."

"Yes, that is possible. It would explain my presence, since homeless people tend to be more mentally unstable."

Fredi was insulted by that assumption, but had no way to disprove Glenn's speculation. Then red letters suddenly appeared on the edges of his vision, forming the words 'Low Battery' and 'Power-Saving Mode Engaged'. And before Fredi could move, his joints froze and his vision turned black as he collapsed.


When Fredi came to, he found himself inside a brightly lit tube with a round glass window. On the other side, he could see a messy living room full of various junk and equipment. There was a fat man with close-cut hair wearing a gray hoodie and striped shirt typing away on a computer at a table while next to him was a wavy-haired teenage boy who was resting his head on the table. Unlike the fat man, the teenage boy wore a blue hoodie with a white stripe across the front.

As Fredi stared at the teenage boy, he had this strong feeling that he knew who the boy was but couldn't place where he had seen him or his name. Suddenly, the fat man glanced at Fredi through the window and his eyes widened with excitement. He then shook the teenage boy, who woke with an irritated groan.

"Look, G!" the fat man said, pointing at Fredi. "Our fellow animatronic has awakened. That means he's fully recharged."

"Finally," the teenage boy said, rubbing his eyes. "Now we can get some answers out of this tin can."

While the fat man got up, G went to a fridge in the kitchen area. From it, he took out a beer can with a bear-eared youth on the front that said, 'Faz Beer: Honey Hops'. As G took a large gulp from the beer can, the fat man opened the door to the tube allowing Fredi to walk out.

"Good thing I found a pizzaplex charging station in the junkyard two years ago and repaired it," the fat man remarked. "Because G has been telling me non-stop how worthless it was having one in my apartment, and yet it saved your life. So it wasn't so worthless to have after all! Oh, sorry, I don't mean to be rude. My name is Ozzie. What's yours?"

"Fredi," Fredi answered.

G heard that and he seemed briefly interested. But then he shook his head and took another gulp of beer.

"That kid is G," Ozzie said, glancing back at the teenage boy. "He likes to keep to himself, so I wouldn't bother him too much."

"How old is he?" Fredi asked, eying G suspiciously.

"Twenty-one," G claimed, and downed the rest of the beer can before crushing it in his hand.

"Actually, he's sixteen," Ozzie whispered to Fredi. "But he likes to think he's a grownup."

"But he's still too young to drink beer," Fredi insisted.

"I know, and I've tried to get him to quit…but he doesn't listen to me. One time, I even tried to hide the beer. But he found it pretty easily, so now I don't know what to do."

"Do his parents know he's doing this?"

G frowned and threw the beer can into a nearby trashcan with a lot of force. "I don't have any parents. Not that I needed them anyway."

While G stormed off into a nearby room and slammed the door, Ozzie said, "He was adopted a few years ago, but he had a falling-out with his foster mom earlier this year and decided to live with me. His foster mom and I are close friends, you see, because we used to work for the same company — though in different departments."

Fredi walked over to the trash can and looked at the crushed beer can carefully to see if there was a company logo on it. "What company was that?"

"Fazbear Entertainment," Ozzie replied in a bitter tone. "I used to design video games for them, but they threw me out after this huge debacle with a VR game that was meant to pay tribute to all the other games I created. Then G's foster mom Ness wound up in a coma during a fight with an animatronic at Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex, which was a very expensive loss for Fazbear Entertainment. Yet here they are, making chains of family restaurants with waitstaff made up of humanoid animatronics like yourself."

"How can you be sure I'm an animatronic? I fought some earlier, and they had odd features."

"Like animal ears?" Ozzie guessed. When Fredi nodded, he responded, "Yeah, that's the puzzling thing about you. All the Fazbear animatronics made nowadays have animal ears and tails in order to made it more difficult for them to blend in with people if they tried to escape, though that doesn't stop them from doing it anyway. But you have no such features, yet the charging station brought you back from the comatose state I found you in and there were no personal items on your person except for this camera."

Ozzie walked back over to the table and held up the camera Fredi was carrying, which was now plugged into the computer.

"I've been trying to hack into the camera to see what's on it, but the encryption codes are pretty tight," Ozzie said.

Fredi looked concerned. "So you won't be able to access the camera's contents?"

"Oh, no, I will. It just might take a few days for me to crack the code before I can gain access to the camera itself. So why did you have such a camera?"

"To be honest, I don't know."

"All right, then tell me what you do know and maybe we can get closer to the bottom of this mystery. But first, let's have you take the Fazbear Policy Test."

To be continued…