"Now that's what I wanna see," I said, flicking on the lights in the technician's room. Eclipse was on the table in a sort of half-maintenance mode, responsive, but still easily able to be serviced, usually used for testing before we let the animatronics back in the Pizzaplex. "Okay buddy," I said, "I'm gonna tell you what I'm doing as I'm doing it, so if something goes wrong, you gotta tell me, alright?"
"Will do!" Eclipse said cheerfully. You can take the animatronic out of a cheery place, but you sure can't take the cheer out of the animatronic.
Eclipse was missing a good chunk of his right leg, half of his face plates were shattered, and there was a rusted bolt where his bowtie should have been. Easy fixes. Beside the box of small parts were a few bins of large specific replacement parts for any animatronic that wasn't part of the core four. Staffbot heads and arms, cymbals for the mini-DJs, and replacement limbs for the daycare attendant (easily the most broken parts due to little kids swinging on anything they can find).
"Alright, I'm gonna undo a latch here, and that's gonna take off your leg. Readjust your balance accordingly." I chuckled. I sounded just like Dad. He was always conversational and kind with the animatronics, but he knew exactly what keywords would recalibrate their systems at a moments notice.
"Balance adjusted!" Eclipse announced as I removed his damaged leg. It was the half that belonged to Sun. I carefully fitted the replacement on, listing off the movement calibration keywords. I remember telling Dad that once I got a job here I'd get them tattooed on my arm, even though I'd had them memorized for years that that point.
"Okay, next is your face plates, sit nice and still, and tell me if anything starts acting up on your end." I pried the moon-shaped plate off of his face and set it on the table. Now the face of this particular animatronic was the thing newer technicians here struggled with the most. It changed and rotated every which way, making it difficult to tell what exactly was going on when something went haywire in there. Now, as an unofficial Fazbear technician (Dad always said I was their best hire), I had the face down to a science… when it came to Moon and Sun. Eclipse was the midpoint, never used for performance, and he had no set face, which means I didn't know how to fix it. On the bright side of things, that meant it was up to me to make a new face. I silently thanked my robotics professor who made me take a design class. He was right after all.
"Alright buddy," I said, setting some face parts on the table. "We're gonna try something new. A new face configuration, so open a new quickprogram and listen to me closely, alright?"
"Quickprogram opened!"
"Good man," I cleaned my glasses, the dust in here was awful. "Okay, Start Command line is as follows: if in Eclipse mode, the left eye and left side of the face is to be set to Moon. The right eye, sunrays, and right side of the face is to be set to Sun. End Command."
I locked the new moon-shaped plate in place, along with a new matte black plate used for the left side of Moon's face, as the old one was missing. The program adjusted to the new face command, and I was happy with it. "Close quickprogram."
The only thing left was the bowtie, which was quickly remedied by sewing together one half of Sun's bowtie, and another half of Moon's. One quick adjustment, and I took Eclipse out of maintenance mode.
"Alright buddy, what do you think? Feel a little better?" I asked as we made our way back towards the daycare.
"Absolutely!" Eclipse bounced about on his new leg. "But… what happens now?"
"Good question." I pushed a crate away from the Daycare entrance. "This place has been abandoned for two years, and they aren't going to reopen anytime soon. If they were they would have kept their employees. So really, this place is just going it sit empty."
"Empty? Forever?" Eclipse asked, the whimsy in his voice faltering. "You mean no one will come back? Never again?"
Oh boy. I thought. I should have known this would be a problem. It was my curse of enthusiam, too much focus on creating and not a single thought put into the aftermath. Of course Eclipse would be devastated that the Daycare wouldn't open again! It's his whole reason for existing! I had to think up something, and fast. "Hey now," I said, "nobody said anything about forever. But at least for the time being the place is closed down. I came here to see all my friends again, but looking at how Sun and Moon were malfunctioning, it makes me wonder what state they're in… and if we can fix them."
"Does that mean-?"
"Yep," I said. "It means we have some crafts to do."
. . .
The plan was crafted as soon as we reached Daycare. Eclipse would stay near Daycare and the breaker room, first because the power was unstable, and if a breaker tripped, it was simple enough that he could turn it back on. Second, due to a safety precaution (likely to keep the animatronic frem being stolen), whenever Eclipse left Superstar Daycare he went into low power mode, meaning he wouldn't last more than an hour outside of it. There was a way to override the protocol, but that would mean completely erasing the programming line that designated his area, and that would take a bit more than what I could do in the technician's room.
The actual goal of the plan was to locate the core four animatronics and make the needed repairs. That part was my job. The Pizzaplex was in rough shape, but due to spending far too much of my childhood in areas I was and wasn't supposed to be, I knew it like the back of my hand. As for the animatronics, that would be a bit more of a challenge, especially if they didn't recognize me. An animatronic like Eclipse was built to be around small children and could be easily taken down with a little bit of force. The core four on the other hand were a whole different ballgame. Freddy and Monty were built like tanks, Monty with the addition of special claws for playing the bass. Claws which I happened to know were strong enough to rip open security gates. Chica and Roxy were less of a physical threat, both being less tanky in their designs, but had their own dangers as well. Chica had an impressive voice box module that, if used right, could produce some awful, deafening noise. Not only that, but she was built with Mazercise in mind, which meant she had way more stamina than me. Roxy had specially made eyes that made it very possible for her to see me through walls, and she was fast. They gave her the Raceway for a reason.
Sliding what tools I needed into my belt, I gave a few quick instructions on how to reset the power in case of an emergency, and set out into the Pizzaplex. The lights were on, so I could see, but the place was still a million OSHA violations away from operational condition. Every ten seconds I nearly tripped on a broken floor tile or a tipped chair. I checked my watch, 6 PM. If any of this was going to work, we had to be out by 12 AM. I had six hours to find and fix four possibly deadly animatronics. It was going to be a long night.
Author's note: A shorter chapter, I know, but hopefully still enjoyable until we get into the swing of things! Elijah's got a long night ahead of him, but with one animatronic down, surely getting the other four won't be too much of a challenge, right? (I still can't believe my silly little joke fanfic is turing out as well as it is, and I'm glad you guys seem to enjoy it!)