A/N: Hey guys, since I'm currently working in the ICU as a second-year resident, I can't guarantee the usual schedule of uploads that you're normally used to for this month. Best case scenario, I upload every 2 weeks like usual. Worst case scenario, there might only be a single chapter uploaded this entire month. I'm hoping that's not the case, but I can't make any promises this time around.
Chapter 162 – Plans and Contingencies
At an Unknown Location…
As an unspoken rule in Fazbear Entertainment, calling meetings of the leading Fazbear Entertainment executives was heavily frowned up and to be avoided if at all possible. The management of Fazbear Entertainment hated to be torn away from their schedules, and would not hesitate to show their animosity to anyone who didn't have a very good reason for doing so.
The fact that Mr. Averus was fully aware all this, and had elected to call an emergency meeting anyway over a recent report of bad news, was already an ominous sign of just how disastrous this report would actually be.
"All right, Averus," an executive with a scowling face demanded, "what the hell's going on? Why'd you call this emergency meeting?"
"I'll get to the point," Averus replied, equally as curtly. "A few days ago we had sent an animatronic over to the home of Mike Schmidt as a gift."
"He's the man who helped to secure our VR game and prevent it from collapsing through his friend, correct?" a seedy, wiry-looking executive asked.
"Yeah, that's the guy," Averus confirmed. "Unfortunately, I received an email from him earlier today. The Toy Bonnie animatronic that we had sent to his house came to life on its own and attacked him in his bedroom. The animatronic broke his limbs, and nearly killed him before he was able to blast it with a shock weapon more powerful than the one we had supplied him with in case of emergencies."
Another executive scoffed. "And why should we believe him? Where is the proof?"
In response, Averus wordlessly opened the video that had been attached to the email. The video of the camera feed opened up and played. As they watched Toy Bonnie smash the walls of Mike's house, climb up the stairs, and attack Mike in his bedroom, the smirks and apathetic expressions on the faces of the executives morphed into shock and disbelief. They had, all of them, received emails from their subordinates about irregularities and hindrances in the development of their latest secret project, but they had chosen to ignore them as minor and irrelevant.
The video in front of them was neither. The evidence this time was incontrovertible…and as Averus had warned them, it was worse than even their most pessimistic predictions.
"God dammit!" one executive snarled furiously. "How the hell did this even happen?"
"None of the reports we received from our supervisors on the project reported an irregularity this severe," another pointed out. "It's utterly mindboggling."
A third executive cursed under his breath. "That won't matter to Schmidt, and it won't matter to the public," he muttered. "Schmidt is no doubt furious about what has happened, and all he'll need to do is post those videos online to anywhere he pleases. Our secret project will be doomed before it even begins, and what's left of our reputation dies with it."
"What does Schmidt want in return for him not releasing that camera footage to the public?" someone asked Averus.
"I'm not sure what kind of game he's playing in the long run," Mr. Averus replied with a sigh of relief, "but for now, he has demanded that we suspend the release of the animatronic delivery project until he recovers long enough for to continue negotiations with me directly."
"Who does this piece of shit think he is?" a particularly angry-faced executive demanded.
"Someone with the power to shut us down completely if he wanted to do so," a calmer and more reasonable executive cut off his peer's rant. "Mike Schmidt has made it clear that he could release his video footage to the public at any time, and I don't doubt that he is willing to carry out his threat. We are honestly fortunate that the man hasn't done so already, and that he's only demanding a delay of our project instead of something much more aggressive."
"It's a good thing that we never released knowledge of the Special Delivery project to the public as a whole," Mr. Averus muttered. "If we had, even the announcement of a delay would have dealt yet another blow to our reputation.
"As of now, we lose little from setting back the timetable for the project and investigating the irregularities that were reported," the calm executive from before placated his peers. "Given what we have just seen, I am more inclined to look into them now than I was previously."
"Not like we have a fucking choice," the angry-faced executive from earlier growled. "If those animatronics start attacking people like they did Schmidt, then we can kiss our existence good-bye and say hello to a mountain of angry lawsuits."
"There was something else that Mike Schmidt brought up as part of his stipulations," Mr. Averus brought everyone's attention back to himself. "He made it very clear that he would be having a conversation with me once he recovers enough from his accident," he declared. "He clearly intends to continue the negotiations he started with his email…and it's very likely that he will have further conditions that we'll have to agree to if we don't want that Toy Bonnie attack all over the Internet."
"That's fine," the wiry executive brushed the words off with a wave of his hand. "You can meet with him whenever it's convenient. It would be ideal if you could dictate the terms of the meeting and make it as early as possible, but do not press the issue. Angering Schmidt needlessly is the last thing we want at the moment."
"Fine by me," Averus snorted. "I was going to reply to him after we finished this meeting anyway."
"Indeed," the calm executive nodded in agreement, before continuing. "I should also make you all aware that I've taken a few moments to look into Mike Schmidt's background. From what I have gathered, it appears that the man has quite the accomplished history when it comes to robotics and engineering, even ascending to the Chief Engineer of Eisensteel and serving with distinction for several years."
"Are you saying that he deliberately hacked the Toy Bonnie animatronic to attack him?" the angry-faced executive spluttered.
His partner shook his head. "No, no. There is no evidence to suggest that based on the video footage, and there's no motive that would make sense for him to deliberately engineer an attack on himself. Even if he did somehow fake this, this video footage would be damning enough to us that we should treat it as the real thing regardless. No, I had a different idea in mind. I know you find the man insufferable, Averus, but your personal thoughts aside, Schmidt has already proven a great help to us before. It was thanks to his intervention that the VR game turned out to be a success instead of a failure, even if the scandals afterwards negated much of the positive reception we received from that success."
The man smiled deviously. "If you play your cards right, perhaps we can…utilize…his usefulness to our advantage once again."
The Schmidt Family Home
If the ghost kids had their way, they would already be flying over to whatever robotics corporation Fazbear Entertainment had hired for its Special Delivery project, trying to find out the identity of Glitchtrap's possession victim or at the very least gathering intelligence that their father could use once he recovered.
Unfortunately, there were very few times in which reality actually conformed to the ideal situation of any given person, and the limited capabilities of the ghost kids wasn't an exception to the rule.
Finding the supposed address of Fazbear Entertainment's headquarters had been easy enough with a simple Google search, but that didn't mean they were any closer to actually getting there. They couldn't simply just fly over to a place in Utah they had never been to before while holding their cell phones in the air to follow a GPS without the significant risk of somebody seeing a floating cell phone in the air or getting lost along the way, assuming that the address was even the correct one to begin with.
And there was nobody in the living world that they could travel with via anchoring. Mike was at the hospital, recovering from his injuries. The Marshalls had their own lives to live, and while Melody did drop by to check on the kids and the house every so often, she still spent most of the day at work and could only drop by in the late afternoon and evening when she was done with her tasks.
Still, that didn't mean they could just sit idly by while they waited for Mike to recover.
It was Jeremy who first came up with the idea. "We should get Melody to look at the programming for the Toy Bonnie that attacked Dad!" the former Bonnie inhabitant suggested. "We might be able to see if that Toy Bonnie really did get hacked by the lady Glitchtrap possessed or if Fazbear Entertainment just fucked up with the programming."
"Oooh, that's a great idea!" Susie replied eagerly. "Then we can let Dad know what we find, and he'll have a better idea on what needs to be fixed in Fazbear Entertainment's animatronics!"
"Hang on, guys," Gabe reined in the enthusiasm a bit. "I'm not saying this is a bad idea, or that we shouldn't do it, but does Melody have the same kind of expertise that Dad does?"
"Isn't she the Chief Engineer who took over at Eisensteel when Dad retired?" Cassidy countered. "She should be smart enough and have plenty of training to get the job done since Dad isn't here."
"Let's just call her over and see what she says already!" Fritz impatient suggested.
"Don't be rude, Fritz," Liz scolded. "Melody has her own busy life to deal with. We should be grateful that she's bothering to take the time to check up on us at all while Dad's in the hospital."
"You're not wrong, but we need to talk to her sooner rather than later," Jeremy replied as he opened up his phone and dialed in Melody's number. When Charlie didn't make any move or say anything to stop him, he interpreted it as tacit approval of his plan and completed the call.
"…Hello?" Melody's voice came through the phone after a few seconds. "Is that you, Jeremy?"
"Hey, Melody," the former Bonnie inhabitant greeted her back, before continuing. "Me and my brothers and sisters wanted to ask you to do a huge favor."
"Okay…and what exactly do you want me to do?" Melody asked carefully. She wasn't averse to the idea of helping out Mike's kids, but there was only so much time she could give them.
"We still have the wreck of that Toy Bonnie in the house," Jeremy explained. "We'd like for you to come and take a look at the code in the Toy Bonnie to see if something messed with the programming."
"Isn't that the Toy Bonnie that Mike fried to a crisp with his supercharged electric rod?" Melody raised an eyebrow. "From what I remember seeing, that shock really did a number on that rabbit robot. I don't know if there'll even be any intact parts left to analyze."
"We'd still really appreciate it if you could take a look," Jeremy pleaded. "None of us know the first thing about programming and robots."
"…I'll come by later today," Melody decided. "You guys got really lucky that tomorrow was my day off anyway, so I won't have a packed schedule."
"Thank you so much, Mel!" Jeremy answered gratefully. Once he hung up the phone, he turned to face his siblings. "Melody's gonna come by later tonight to take a look at that Toy Bonnie's programming."
"That's great!" Cassidy grinned. "I can't wait to see what she finds!"
"I don't know what'd be worse," Susie grumbled. "To find out that the stupid bunny robot and possibly every single animatronic created by Fazbear Entertainment for their project was hacked into killing Dad by Discount William Afton…or that Dad almost died by complete accident because Fazbear Entertainment was too stupid to program its own bots properly!"
"There's only one way for us to find out," Jeremy muttered.
The ghost kids were forced to wait until night had already fallen, but true to her word Melody arrived at the house at around 8 PM, carrying a laptop and pieces of equipment that were utterly beyond the understanding of the ghost kids. "Have you guys moved the broken Toy Bonnie body at all?" was the first thing that Melody asked after the usual greetings were exchanged.
"No, we didn't," Gabe replied. "We've kept it exactly as it is. If Dad has any plans for that Toy Bonnie body, we didn't want to accidentally screw them up."
Melody frowned. "I think Mike's too busy dealing with his injuries in the hospital to come up with any plans on his own right now," she commented dryly.
"Yeah," Jeremy agreed, "which is why we need to get things going for him. That's why I asked you to come and take a look at Toy Bonnie's programming."
"We're gonna need a little luck for that," Melody sighed as she climbed up the stairs towards Mike's room, the ghosts following right behind her. When she pushed the door open to Mike's room, the broken and fried corpse of Toy Bonnie was still lying on the ground next to the bed, not having moved an inch since the fateful attack.
"Want us to move him anywhere?" Susie offered. "I know he's heavy, but we can move him over to somewhere like Dad's workshop garage with our ghostly powers and stuff."
Melody shook her head. "I thought about it at first," she admitted, "But depending on how the animatronic was made, there might just be a chip or some small piece of the animatronic that contains most of the programming. Something that we don't need a full workshop for me to get to work on."
She bent down to get a closer look at the broken Toy Bonnie. The ghosts tensed and took up positions around the two, carefully watching the electrified corpse for any sign that it might come back to life and try to attack Melody like it had attacked their father.
But no such attack happened. Instead, Melody put some work gloves on her hands and carefully picked up the Toy Bonnie head. The animatronic head stared blankly back at her, all life gone from its once vibrant and malevolent green eyes. The ghosts watched in fascination as Melody took some tools and began working on the back of the head, her efforts culminating in the blue metal shell falling apart and revealing the inner mechanisms of the head itself.
"…what am I even looking at right now?" Fritz muttered as he looked at the endoskeleton head with blank confusion in his eyes.
"From what I can see, it seems like there's a lot of chips that hold the animatronic's programming," Melody spoke her analysis aloud as she squinted at the back of the endo head. "This looks like a good place to start."
She reached out and took out one of the chips and inserted it into her laptop. She opened up a program on her computer to read the programming on the chip…and scowled. "Shit!" she hissed.
"What's wrong?" Susie immediately asked, the worry clear in her tone.
"I think Mike's attack fried this chip too badly," Melody explained grimly. "The computer can't read it properly, and I can barely read anything on this screen at all."
"…I was afraid of that," Gabe sighed.
"Maybe that's the only chip that's that badly damaged?" Cassidy asked hopefully. "Maybe some of the other ones are okay?"
Melody frowned. "I'll try…but I'm not optimistic about the chances," she admitted. She proceeded to take out the chips from the Toy Bonnie head one at a time, loading them into a computer and analyzing them. As she had suspected, the majority of the chips were completely useless to her. Some of them had been just as permanently and irrevocably damaged as the first one she had tried, while the few that had remained intact didn't seem to have anything out of the ordinary from what she could tell.
Both Melody's and the ghost kids' frustration and disappointment continued to mount...up until the second to last chip. When Melody scanned in this particular chip, it proved to be one of the few that had remained unscathed from the electric shock. And only a few seconds after she started analyzing the programming that was buried within the chip, her eyes widened in shock. "What the fuck…" she mumbled.
The ghosts immediately perked up at her words. "Did you find something?" Liz immediately asked.
"I think so," Melody answered slowly, "even if it's a little hard to tell since I'm only working with a small part of the programming."
"Anything's better than nothing," Gabe pressed. "What's going on?"
"There's some kind of foreign code here," Melody explained. "The code from the other intact chips that I saw had the same kind of signature. But there's a chunk of the code in this chip that seems…different. Disjointed from the rest. As though it were made by someone else, and just thrown in to the rest of the animatronic's original programming." She looked up at the ghost kids, whose eyes widened in horror as the implications of Melody's discovery sunk into their minds. It was one thing to suspect a terrible theory, but quite another to have the evidence prove it right in front of them.
With a trembling voice, Jeremy verbalized the conclusion that all of them were now sharing. "I don't think this was just a glitch or an accident…"
Hurricane Hospital
The first thing that struck Mike once he finally had time to collect his thoughts after his surgery was how just how ironic the whole situation was.
Mike wasn't thinking about Toy Bonnie's attack, though there was certainly plenty of irony to be found there. Only just a few days prior, he and Charlie had shared a heart-to-heart discussion about the consequences of him letting his rage get the better than him, and here he was now. He had reacted instinctively when he had sabotaged the potential partnership between Fazbear Entertainment and Eisensteel, and that had cascaded into the chain of events that had ended with him stuck in the hospital with a broken arm and leg. Granted, there was a more than decent chance that he would have made that decision anyway even if he had controlled his emotions more effectively, but at least that self-control would have opened up the possibility of being able to manipulate a partnership between his old company and Fazbear Entertainment in Eisensteel's and his favor. An opportunity that was now forever lost, with a steep price to pay for losing it.
But the real irony that Mike couldn't help but appreciate was how he was reacting to the disaster that had just happened. Without the heart-to-heart that he had shared with Charlie, Mike imagined that his reaction to Toy Bonnie's attack would have been pure rage. He would have redirected all of his hatred and all of his energy towards Fazbear Entertainment, focusing on every possible strategy and attack he could do to make them bleed and make them pay, just as he had so ruthlessly broken William Afton and Glitchtrap under his feet. In the most extreme situation, he might have even forgotten about the goal of wounding and weakening but not breaking Fazbear Entertainment…or possibly have stopped caring about that goal entirely, Glitchtrap's possession victim be damned.
Charlie's talk with him had completely transformed his perspective, however, and had instilled within him self-awareness of his own flaws in a way that nothing else had. And it had dramatically influenced the way Mike viewed Toy Bonnie's attack. Now, instead of uncontrollable rage, the father of the ghostly children could only feel bitter amusement at the events that had unfolded. After all, Charlie had warned him that there could be consequences for letting his rage get the better than him.
"I just hadn't expected those consequences to bite me in the ass so soon," he thought wryly, ignoring the flash of pain that coursed through his leg.
Mike had been in too much pain in the first few days at the hospital to really think of anything beyond the surgery needed to repair his arm and his leg. He had told the doctors that he had been involved in an accident involving a machine at his house, but had refused to reveal any more details.
That had been the first few days. But now, he was doing little more than lying on a hospital bed, trying to move his arms and legs as much as he could with the help of the therapists. That gave him all the time in the world to prepare his next few plans against Fazbear Entertainment.
Plans that his ghost kids had beautifully laid out the groundwork for.
"Holy shit," Mike had mumbled when Gabe had showed him a copy of the e-mail that they had Fazbear Entertainment, a pre-emptive strike on his behalf to stop Fazbear Entertainment from releasing the Special Delivery project too early. "These guys fucking nailed it."
His children had nailed his mannerisms, speech, and tone with an unbelievable degree of accuracy. Perfectly imitating the cold politeness that only barely concealed the fury that he would have brought forth against Fazbear Entertainment. They had also been careful to be conservative in starting the negotiations, only demanding what would likely be a few months' delay in the Special Delivery project. Gabe had made it clear in his message that their email to Fazbear Entertainment had been meant as a stall tactic rather than a long-term solution, and Mike fully agreed with the course of action his kids had chosen.
If the kids had been too aggressive in their negotiations, then Fazbear Entertainment would be more likely to either panic, or straight-up refuse their demands despite the high stakes that would come with refusing. Either way, they would lose whatever leverage Mike currently had over the corrupt company, and either way it would make planning around Fazbear Entertainment's moves all but impossible. Something that Mike wasn't ready to give up on unless he was going to fully commit to the path of destroying Fazbear Entertainment once and for all.
"Much better that we do it this way," Mike thought approvingly. His kids had bought him some precious time, time that he would use wisely to ensure that Fazbear Entertainment wouldn't get away with from unleashing another walking metal disaster on someone else.
Partially to look for some inspiration, and partially because he was hoping his kids would give him another update soon, Mike began looking through his phone. To his surprise, when he opened up his e-mail, there was a message from Mr. Averus waiting for him.
"Oh, wow," he whistled. "Wasn't expecting him to get back to me that quickly. Moment of truth, I guess."
He opened up the email and began to read. As he did so, a smile slowly appeared on his lips, growing with every paragraph that his eyes scrolled through.
To Mr. Schmidt,
On behalf of my fellow executives and Fazbear Entertainment as a whole, I would like to offer you my sincerest apologies for the horrible accident that you had suffered at the hands of one of our animatronics a few days ago. I wish to assure you that we had not once considered such an outcome to be possible, and that the news of this attack was just as much of a surprise to us as I am sure that it was a surprise to you.
Mike snorted as he read the first sentence. He highly doubted that anybody at Fazbear Entertainment would actually give a shit if the animatronic had actually managed to kill him. At best, they would have probably forgotten about his existence in less than half a week, and at worst they probably would have thrown a private celebration in the same amount of time. Still, the fact that Fazbear Entertainment were bothering to be polite was a good sign. Mike had a feeling that they wouldn't have bothered adopted such a placating tone if they were planning to ignore his politely worded but unmistakable threat.
Funnily enough, Mike was most inclined to believe the last sentence, their claim that they had no idea that Toy Bonnie would straight-up attack him at night. If Glitchtrap's victim was the reason why the animatronic had gone batshit insane, it was feasible that Fazbear Entertainment wouldn't have found the malicious programming before sending the animatronic to him. William Afton was a monster, but he would freely admit that there had been a certain degree of malevolent genius to his madness…before it had all gone straight to Hell in every sense of the word.
We are thankful that you brought this incredibly problematic development to our attention, Mr. Schmidt. We understand your concerns, and we will most certainly agree to your request that we delay the timeline on our Special Delivery project for a few months. After all, it is our highest priority that the disaster that fell upon you not be repeated in the homes of countless other members that will make up our clientele.
Mike scoffed. More corporate grandstanding, no doubt. It didn't surprise Mike in the slightest that Fazbear Entertainment would dismiss a catastrophe that nearly killed him as a "problematic development," any more than the fact that they would be arrogant enough to assume that they would reach the success that the letter implied. That being said, Mike did believe Mr. Averus, albeit with the appropriate share of skepticism and caution, when he claimed that Fazbear Entertainment would delay their project as his kids had demanded. Those demands had been very reasonable, and the punishment would be very severe if Fazbear Entertainment refused to accept them. Not to mention the fact that, if Averus was to be believed, Fazbear Entertainment were deliberately withholding all knowledge of the Special Delivery for as long as realistically possible until they were ready to release it to the public. The company had been punished by both misfortune and his family's hand from the shadows enough time to finally learn the harsh lesson that if something could go wrong, more often than not it most likely would.
The next sentences caught his attention, however.
I must confess that I am very curious as to how the attack on Toy Bonnie happened to begin with. I am aware that you yourself were once the Chief Engineer to Eisensteel Inc., a reputable robotics company who sadly did not accept our proposal to work together on our Special Delivery project. I would very much like the opportunity to meet with you at some point in the near future. As someone well-versed in robotics yourself, I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the matter. It would also be the perfect opportunity for us to smooth the friction in our relationship. I understand your anger at us over the situation that has unfolded, and I believe that this meeting would grant us an opportunity to come to an understanding and iron out a compromise from which all can benefit.
Mike's eyes narrowed. Did Fazbear Entertainment suspect that he was the one who was ultimately the reason why Eisensteel refused to partner with them? Or had Averus or one of his fellow cronies simply done some basic research on him and found out about his past. That kind of knowledge wasn't exactly private, after all…and that was assuming that Mike hadn't already told Averus about his past as a chief engineer and simply forgotten about it. After all, it wouldn't be the first time Mike had made mistakes regarding Fazbear Entertainment…
Not to mention the meeting that Mr. Averus was trying arrange. Granted, this meeting was what Mike and his kids had both wanted, an opportunity to manipulate or coerce Fazbear Entertainment into doing the right thing for once. But the fact that Averus was so eager to arrange a meeting himself made Mike more than a bit suspicious. He had a feeling that Fazbear Entertainment would try to utilize this meeting in some way to try and gain some kind of advantage for themselves. And in that case, it was even more important to make sure that the meeting that was about to happen would proceed according to HIS terms, and not theirs.
I humbly await your response, and wish you a speedy recovery alongside our most humble apologies.
Mr. Averus
"Fascinating," Mike stroked his chin thoughtfully as he read the email twice, and a third time. It sounded like his kids had accomplished their primary objectives. It was now his turn to pick up the baton and complete his part of this little relay that he was running against Fazbear Entertainment and their corrupt management.
He couldn't help but smirk at the mental back-and-forth that he had now entered between himself and Fazbear Entertainment. "All right, then," he muttered. "Let's see what you have planned."
/
A/N: It's been a while since I've divided up a chapter into three different parts, haven't I?
This is the first time that I've really gone into Fazbear Entertainment's perspective to this level of detail. You might be surprised that they might have agreed so readily to "Mike's" initial demand, but there is a precedent to this, mainly regarding the springlock suits. Fazbear Entertainment might not give a single fuck about safety and employee well-being 99% of the time, but I will give them credit for one thing. When they learned that the springlock suits were incredibly dangerous and could kill whoever was wearing them, they immediately discontinued and hid away the suits where nobody could find them and accidentally injure or kill themselves. And this was without the threat of them being blackmailed into doing the right thing.
The attack by Toy Bonnie on Mike was a catastrophic incident that is arguably even worse than the initial springlock accident, on a much larger scale since potentially all of the Special Delivery animatronics could have been hacked or glitched in a similar manner. And this time, Mike is threatening them with blackmail that would kill the project before it could even get started, not to mention all of Fazbear Entertainment itself in the worst case scenario. Fazbear Entertainment really has no choice but to do the right thing (albeit for selfish reasons), if they want themselves and their project to continue existing.
And the ghost kids, together with Melody, seemed to have found out that it was likely outside malignant code that caused Toy Bonnie to go apeshit. This shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us, given what we know, but the ghost kids don't have the knowledge of the future. They have to find that kind of information themselves…
Finally, it seems as though Mike's kids have succeeded in their goals, based on the reply email that Fazbear Entertainment sent him. They might have accomplished their initial objective, but Mike still knows full well that he has to navigate cautiously not just around Fazbear Entertainment, but also his own flaws. And given that he's in the freaking hospital, Mike's paranoia around all things Fazbear Entertainment-related is more than justified…
That's all I have for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!
