I watched my surroundings with a careful eye as I made my way through the Pizzaplex. Everywhere I looked I tried to see the old building, the one from my childhood, the place I loved so much. I couldn't. There were parts of it that looked like the Pizzaplex I'd known, old posters, a grand stage with lights around the rim, but none of it was the Pizzaplex. I don't know why it felt so different, maybe it was because Dad wasn't there. He was what made the place something more than just a corporate cash grab with a big budget.
He was hired when I was seven, and he'd been in robotics works for a long time before that too. I remember when he came home one night, waving a letter from Fazbear Entertainment. He and my mom started talking about something called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, something I'd never heard of besides on old commercial or two that would play on late night TV. Whatever it was, I had never seen my dad so excited about a job before, and I was dying to know what it was. He told me it was an old kid's restaurant from his and Mom's childhood that used animatronics as entertainment, his inspiration for becoming a technician in the first place. Even from that short description I was entranced, and my love for robotics was locked into place when I started coming to work with Dad.
I kicked through some rubble to reach the ramp to the main stage. If I was going to find any of my friends, I would need the Parts and Service room to be operational first. Normally to get down there, you needed a CD that booted up the holograms and show music, as all the animatronics were brought down for a quick checkup after the night's show. I happened to know the code to get down there without the show. Now that I did have written on my arm because I had thumbed through Dad's old notebook before coming here. Why I didn't just bring the whole notebook was something I asked myself only after I'd gotten in. I am not a very smart man.
The Parts and Service room was where I spent most of my time with Dad in the Pizzaplex. It was basically his office, his coworkers had even gotten him a nameplate on the wall. When I started coming to work there with him, they got me one to, albeit smaller as I wasn't technically supposed to be down there. Coming back, I realized just how lucky I was to escape the detection of the management. That or they didn't care. Fazbear Entertainment was never the most famous for it's excellent management of employees. Once I asked Dad how he could keep his sanity in a place like that, and all he said was, "I liked the animatronics". Sometimes I swear he was the only honest man in that pit of vipers.
"Augh!" I coughed as the elevator settled into the floor with a clunk. The place was caked in dust, at least is was until the rush of air from the elevator sent the it everywhere. "You gotta be -cough- kidding me!"
I stepped carefully, looking for the light switch. The rest of the Pizzaplex's lights turned on automatically with the power, but anywhere that was employees only had a hidden lightswitch to hinder break-ins. The one in Parts and Service was hidden under an empty switchbox next to the filing room. But to get there, I would have to get past the spare endoskeleton. That was another of Fazbear's genius intruder prevention devices. A naked endoskeleton that would do it's best to knock you out if it didn't recognize you as an employee. It couldn't see in the dark, but it could still hear about ten feet away from it. The only good thing about it was that it deactivated when the lights were on. After a minute of the slowest, most boring walking of my life, I made it to the filing room and pulled down the lever switch. I breathed a sigh of relief as the lights came on, albeit dimly. The maintenance chamber lights stayed off, as those were only accessible with the monitor that ran the chamber.
The place certainly looked functional, it was still in one piece. I logged into the maintenance chamber monitor with Dad's login and checked the repair log. If anyone had been in here tampering with the animatronics before me, it might give me a clue to where they'd sent them off to afterwards. First I tried to open the audio logs, the screen was coated in a solid layer of dust, and that combined with my dust-covered glasses would make reading the text logs a nightmare. But nothing could ever be easy, could it? The logs were inaccessible, error message 43.
"Ohhh you snakes!" I grumbled. 43 meant that all of them had been purposely deleted. Before they'd shut down the building, Fazbear Entertainment had gotten rid of all the audio logs! But why? Was there classified information on there they didn't want anyone to find? Most of it was technicians cracking jokes during repairs. What could have been so important about that?
I muttered a few non-fazeriffic words about how stupid Fazbear Entertainment was, and resignedly started for the text logs. Those I knew couldn't be deleted. Audio logs took up space, but you could run as many text logs as you want and never see a problem. Opening the list of logs was when the first alarm went off in my head. There were four repairs that had taken place, all on Freddy, between 1 AM and 6 AM on August 7th, 2024. The Pizzaplex closed August 8th after the animatronics were reported to be "messed up" by an early employee. Nobody had been allowed in after 7AM on the 7th, and the place officially closed on the 8th. Most suspicious, the repairs were registered under the name "Gregory". It may have been two years since I'd seen the Pizzaplex last, but I was absolutely certain there had never been anyone named Gregory working as any sort of technician here. I clicked on the first log from that night.
[BEGIN ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
[MODE SET: REPAIR_PART_REPLACEMENT]
[PART REMOVED: VOICE_BOX_FREDDY]
[PART INSTALLED: VOICE_BOX_CHICA]
[MODE SET: SAFE]
[END ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
He did what now. I cleaned my glassed and read the log. Chica's voice box? How did he get that? He couldn't get into the technician's closet, he wasn't a technician here! How did he get the spare part? I opened the second log.
[BEGIN ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
[MODE SET: REPAIR_PART_REPLACEMENT]
[PART(S) REMOVED X8: CLAW_FREDDY]
[PART(S) INSTALLED X8: BASS_CLAW_MONTY]
[MODE SET: SAFE]
[END ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
I was starting to get mad. This "Gregory" had come in and added parts to Freddy that were in no way meant to work with his framework! Freddy's fingers didn't even have threaded holes where Monty's claws could go. He had rubber clip-in claws like Roxy did, meant to be able to switch out for paintable ones when either went to the Glamrock Beauty Salon. Who was this guy?
[BEGIN ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
[MODE SET: REPAIR_PART_REPLACEMENT]
[PART REMOVED: EYES_FREDDY]
[PART INSTALLED: EYES_ROXY]
[MODE SET: SAFE]
[END ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
"What's going on here?!" I asked my own echo. Not even thinking about how "Gregory" had gotten into the technician's room, found the only other pair of Roxy's special eyes we had left after 2022's raceway incident, and installed them on an animatronic not built to function with them, my question was "Why?". For what possible reason could he have wanted to add all these parts to Freddy so much that he had to break into the building? And what did Fazbear Entertainment find so terrible about what he said that they had to delete the audio logs of every repair that had ever happened? I checked the final log.
[BEGIN ANIMATRONIC REPAIR :: FREDDY]
[MODE SET: FULL_DEACTIVATION]
[ANIMATRONIC RESET: YES]
[TECHNICIAN NOTE (USER: GREGORY): Sorry Freddy. I'll miss you. -Gregory]
[END REPAIR]
[SYSTEM REBOOT: NO USER DETECTED]
[...]
[ERROR! ANIMATRONIC RESET FAILED!]
[TRY AGAIN?]
"Deactivation?" I said aloud. I had to get all this information out of my head and in the open air to sort out what had happened here. I imagined each log in front of me as a hologram, a method Dad had suggested when I told him "all my ideas are squished in my brain!". Nine year old Elijah didn't understand at first, but now I don't know if I could solve a problem any other way!
I sorted the logs into two categories. The first three were part replacement repairs, the fourth was animatronic deactivation and a reset. A failed reset. The system had likely rebooted when the power had come back on, and only then had it displayed an error message. That meant that Gregory didn't know that the reset had failed. Then it finally dawned on me. He had left Freddy in the repair chamber and skipped town!
I booted up a new log, and with a deafening pop! and subsequent buzzing of catching up to speed, the lights turned on in the repair chamber. Freddy was in there alright, completely deactivated. The door opened automatically, and the interface sprung to life. An old yellow hand unit with googley eyes swung out from the wall asking for a user. I entered in my dad's name.
"W-w-w-welcome, Mickey Schmidt!" A robotic voice came from speakers in the ceiling. "Please select a Mode."
"Activation," I said, hoping the microphone system still worked.
"Mode selected: Activation." The hand unit announced. "Proceed with activation?"
"Yes." I watched the animatronic in front of me carefully.
"Activation Complete!" came another announcement. The clasps over Freddy's arms released and the repair chair moved upright. As Freddy landed, his eyes, no, Roxy's eyes, lit up and made an automatic direction cycle before coming to rest on me. I held my breath, Freddy was stronger than me, and Monty's claws could tear through steel.
"I am sorry, my guest image-to-profile registry is malfunctioning," he said. "Who are you?"
I relaxed, "oh thank goodness. Freddy, it's me, Elijah Schmidt."
"Elijah?" his expression brightened. "Is it really you? You look older!"
I chuckled, "not the first time I've heard that tonight." Since the Pizzaplex shut down, I'd grown out my hair a bit and tried out a beard. I thought it looked nice, Dad said it made me look like a man. Mom compared me to the estranged uncle from Encanto. She was right.
"Where's Gregory?" Freddy suddenly asked, his head swiveling in either direction. "The last thing I remember he put me in for a repair and-"
"Woah woah woah!" I waved my arms, getting his attention back to me. "You mean you know the "Gregory" guy?"
"Yes!" Freddy said. "He is a little boy who was left here overnight! I am going to help him get out once he upgrades me!"
"A little, a little boy?" I stammered. "You mean to tell me that a kid, a little kid, augmented you with Roxy's eyes, Monty's claws, and Chica's Voice Box? The same kid who broke in here two years ago and messed up everyone…" the realization hit me like a sack of bricks. They didn't let anyone back in the building after that kid broke in because the animatronics were messed up. That kid was Gregory, and he didn't get into the technician's room for the parts. He ripped them right out of the animatronics.
"Elijah?" Freddy's voice broke me from my trance. "You said Gregory broke in two years ago. That is untrue! He was here tonight! Where is he now?"
"Freddy." I was slowly coming back to reality, and I was mad. Real mad. "Freddy that kid, Gregory, he got out just fine two years ago. The place has been closed since then. He shut you down when he said he was going to do a repair and he left! He killed Roxy and Monty and Chica for their parts!" I looked up at Freddy, my face felt hot, I could feel hot tears pooling in my eyes. "Freddy, he killed them."
"He got out safe," Freddy said, completely clueless as to anything I had said after. "That is good."
"FREDDY HE KILLED MY FRIENDS!" I shouted. I had his attention now. He just stared at me. He didn't say a word. I tried to take a deep breath, but kept choking on an empty feeling in my stomach. He doesn't understand, Elijah. I thought. No adult has ever yelled at him before, you have to be gentle. The voice in my head was Dad's. Be calm, explain what you mean. You have to remember he's just a kid like you, the world is as new to him as it is to you.
I took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm sorry," I said quietly. Explain why you feel the way you feel, and why you reacted that way, Dad said. "I got mad, and I yelled at you because I was frustrated that you didn't understand why I was mad."
"Could you explain now?" Freddy asked.
I nodded, wiping tears from my face. "Gregory, the kid you wanted to help get out of the Pizzaplex. When he upgraded you with all those parts, he killed Monty and Chica and Roxy to get them. He killed my friends, and I was mad that he killed my friends," I started talking faster. "And then when I told you he did it you were just happy that he got out and-" Slow down, Elijah! Dad reminded me. You've got to let him process what you're saying. "A-and it made me feel like you didn't care, which was wrong because you just didn't understand. And I shouldn't be mad because he was just a kid, and kids don't always know that what they're doing is wrong and can hurt other people." I was breathing steady now.
"Elijah." Freddy put a hand on my shoulder. I winced, Monty's claws were poking my shoulder. He's just a kid, I told myself. "I am sorry I did not listen to you and understand. I understand why you are angry. Perhaps we could go and look for our friends? Together."
He still didn't quite understand. I took another breath and smiled. It felt like smiling anyway. "I would like that, Freddy." I hugged around his frame, he was still a fair bit taller than me, even if I was all grown up now. Well, I thought, maybe not all the way grown up. I'm still in a condemned pizzeria looking for rockstar-themed animal robots. The thought made me laugh.
"Let's go find our friends."
Author's Note: We've got a Freddo! If it wasn't obvious already, this is set in an AU, or I suppose a UA (universe alteration) would be a better term for it. Next up, we're off to find some more of our old friends, however "dead" they may be. Oh yeah, and I really appreciate all of you guys reading and enjoying this! It started out as a joke, but I'm actually really enjoying writing it, so if you'd like more, please tell me! I very much cherish all the reviews!