Chapter 19: Confessions
After Detective Larson woke up in his hospital bed feeling more rested than he had been in a long time, he was frightened by the sight of a strange man sitting in a corner of the room. The man looked to be in his thirties wearing a brown trench-coat.
"Who are you?" Larson asked. "Are you the Phone Guy?"
"No," the man said, taking out a notebook. "But he sent me to talk to you."
Larson didn't believe this man. "How do I know you're really sent by him?"
The man pulled back his coat, where an odd gun was tucked into his belt. "Recognize this gun?"
"Yeah," Larson realized. "It looks exactly like the gun that shot me."
"And who shot you?"
"Vanessa Whit."
After writing in his notebook, the man asked, "Did she claim to be a police detective?"
"She did," Larson answered. "But what made you think that?"
"Everyone who works for Phone Guy uses fake IDs to make themselves look like policemen. That way, we can dispose of the animatronics we dismantle without drawing too much attention to ourselves."
"Ourselves? Is this some kind of secret organization?"
"Pretty much. We're known as the Night Watch Repairmen, and it's our mission to go after renegade animatronics that have escaped from the Freddy's Cafe restaurants and destroy them."
"Does this include animatronics that have hurt or killed people?"
Silently, the man nodded.
"But why all the secrecy? Doesn't the public have the right to know that Fazbear is creating dangerous animatronics who are posing as regular humans?"
"Fazbear's CEO Fred Bernstein the Third is the one bankrolling our services, and he prefers us to deal with his broken machines discreetly so as to not create a PR nightmare for a company that already has a long history of bad things happening at their locations."
Reflecting on this new knowledge, Larson chuckled. "I used to do extensive research on Fazbear when I was younger, thinking I would be the one to crack their closet full of skeletons wide open. But now that I know the truth, it's not as exciting as I thought it would be."
The man closed his notebook. "So Phone Guy asked me to make you promise two things: one, never say anything I've told you to anyone else, and two, don't get involved."
Larson was shocked. "Are you serious? What about Vanessa?"
"She's my problem, not yours."
As the man got up from the chair and walked to the door, Larson said, "Wait! Can you at least tell me your name before you go?"
"It's Max Schmidt," the man replied. "You won't find my name anywhere."
Once Max left, Larson took out his phone. Indeed, no one named Max Schmidt existed. Sometime later, a female police officer with short blonde hair entered Larson's room.
"Detective Everette Larson?" the female officer addressed.
"Yes," Larson confirmed.
"Officer Clara Resly," the female officer said, showing her badge. "Are you well enough to leave the hospital?"
"The doctor wants to run a few more tests before considering me for release," Larson explained. "Why do you ask?"
Clara paused and said, "Earlier this morning, we got a call from a resident in the posh Mazer neighborhood on the hill saying there was a disturbance at the house of a woman named Chicana Gladstone. So we sent a couple officers to investigate, and what they found were a bunch of Security Bots covered in blood, a pizza cutter, and several articles of clothing scattered around including Jacaré's gloves and shades."
Larson's eyes widened. "Does that mean Jacaré is — "
"We don't know if Jacaré is alive or dead, sir," replied Clara. "The officers on the scene couldn't find any human bodies on the premises."
When Fredi came to, he found himself strapped to the same chair he was in when the Melody animatronics replaced his eyes. This time, though, his hands were tan and had black fingernails on them instead of blue ones. G was sitting on the nearby stairs, nodding off.
"Gregory," Fredi said, but quickly realized his voice sounded more smooth and less rugged.
Hearing his name, G woke up. But when he saw Fredi, he didn't look happy.
"You could've told me you were malfunctioning," G said.
"Malfunctioning?" Fredi looked around for Glenn, but he was nowhere to be seen. "What gave you that idea?"
"Don't play dumb with me!" G snapped. "You went berserk on Chicana and ripped out her voice box. Then you fought Chief Jacaré and took his claws after I ordered his Security Bots to disassemble him."
"I don't remember any of that," Fredi admitted. "But how did we get here?"
"You just walked here, and I followed. But after you noticed me, you ordered me to upgrade your voice box and hands saying you would kill me if I didn't do what you asked."
Fredi thought long and hard, but none of the things G told him came to mind. "Why can't I remember these things?"
"Because you're malfunctioning," G said, and pointed his repairmen gun directly between Fredi's eyes. "Now either you didn't know you were malfunctioning, or you lied to me to gain my trust. So which is it?"
Looking around, Fredi sighed and said, "I wasn't aware I was malfunctioning, but I was keeping something from you."
"What was it?"
"Since I woke up in the alleyway near the apartment where I lived with Bonn and Redd, I've been seeing this strange human figure that only I can see and no one else."
"Can you describe this figure?"
"He's a little shorter than me, with golden hair, purple eyes, wears a gold shirt and pants with a purple vest. But lately, his appearance has changed to where he now has rabbit ears and feet."
G looked fearful. "That sounds similar to Vanny."
"Vanny?" Fredi blinked. "Who's Vanny?"
To be continued…
Author's Note: Clara's last name Resly is a reference to The Immortal and The Restless, the fictional soap opera that was shown in FNaF: Sister Location.
