A/N: I was originally going to write a filler chapter here, but I came across the truly bizarre situation where I ran into Writer's Block for trying to write a filler chapter…but I had plenty of ideas and gas left in the tank for plot advancement.

So hilariously enough, I think the best course of action for me here is to write another chapter of plot, and then put in a filler chapter after this one instead. And the more I think about it, the more I think that the filler chapter would probably be better suited for the next chapter anyway.

Before we begin, I received a review from one of my most loyal readers of this fic that he stopped receiving notifications for it for some bizarre reason. Likely due to the site messing up again, but I can't prove anything for sure. If you haven't been getting notifications for whatever reason, I'd recommend making sure your email notifications are on, and then unfollowing and refollowing this fic. Unfortunately those are the only two solutions I can think of for the moment.

Anyways, since plot advancement is the order of the day, let's get some plot advancement done!

ThePencilDude: Don't you worry, FNIA will most certainly NOT be a part of the MNGF universe.

Chapter 173 – Policy Overhaul

It took three days before the factory could finally be opened to the workers of the Special Delivery project once again. The factory had remained firmly under police lockdown during those three days to prevent Glitchtrap's possession victim from sneaking in and wreaking havoc once again, and in those three days Mike and his family had been busier than ever.

With the police still keeping the building under lockdown and preventing anyone from entering, Mike had allowed Hector and Colm to spend the next few days off, so it was just him and the ghost kids in the family for now. He had also taught the police officers the techniques that he had used to beat the animatronics just as he had taught the volunteers; the police officers had no intention of activating any of the animatronics in case they had been hacked, but Mike knew better than to leave things to chance.

After Mike had invited the workers who had volunteered to help him fight the animatronics to give them their checks (a drive that the workers were more than happy to make considering that they were going to get $2500 each for their troubles), he had gotten to work on approaching the problem of how to prevent another incident like this one from happening again.

"I still can't believe these guys don't have a fucking security system in their factory," Fritz grumbled. "I mean seriously, their restaurants had security cameras, and that was over 30 years ago!"

"A factory is a lot bigger than a restaurant, but yeah, it's still really stupid," Liz agreed. "If they had any kind of camera system, they might've been able to catch whoever's behind all this before they could ever get their hands on a single animatronic."

"Oh, I'm very aware of that," Mike retorted with a humorless chuckle. "That's why I made sure to politely suggest installing a new security system in my report to my Fazbear Entertainment, and that there would be some unfortunate consequences if they didn't approve one as soon as possible." The way Mike phrased the words made it abundantly clear to everyone that he wasn't giving the corrupt business a choice.

There were some amused snickers from the ghost kids, although Charlie did look slightly worried about the provocative nature of Mike's report. "How did Fazbear Entertainment react to your report?"

"Surprisingly, they took my request a lot better than I expected," Mike acknowledged, earning some surprised and confused looks from the ghost kids. "They pretty much gave me the green light to set up a security system within the Special Delivery factory as long as it fell within a reasonable budget. They even congratulated me for resolving the crisis of the rampaging animatronics without a single casualty."

"Wait, seriously?" Jeremy asked incredulously. "They actually bothered to thank you for that?"

"I'm shocked that they actually cared," Susie agreed.

"I turned what could've been a catastrophe that destroyed their entire project, either as a PR disaster or an actual disaster, and turned it into one of their biggest success stories since they released their VR game," Mike pointed. "And they didn't have to pay a cent to compensate the volunteers who risked their lives since I paid out of my own pocket for that myself. I think even assholes like them have to give me some level of respect for the feat that I pulled off."

"That and the fact that Nightmare will probably torture the hell out of them if they tried to fight back," Gabe added wryly, "pun not intended."

"What kind of security system are you gonna buy?" Cassidy wondered, before a mischievous smirk appeared on her face. "Is it gonna be a high-tech super expensive one that's going to make Fazbear Entertainment shit themselves when they see how much it costs?"

Everyone laughed at the mental image for a few seconds, but Mike shook his head. "I'm not gonna lie, it was tempting to buy a ridiculously expensive state-of-the-art security system out of spite, but that's not such a good idea in the long run," he explained. "From a purely pragmatic perspective, this factory's only going to be using the security system until the Special Delivery project is over and done with, afterwards it's not really going to be all that useful for our purposes. And keep in mind, only some of the Fazbear Entertainment executives are being blackmailed by Nightmare into doing what we want. As William Afton learned the hard way, it's not a good idea to make enemies unnecessarily, and spending Fazbear Entertainment's resources frivolously on an unreasonably expensive security system would only piss them off for no good reason, more than I already have. If I push them hard enough, the Fazbear Entertainment executives not being tortured by Nightmare might either panic or rage hard enough to reach their boiling point, and they'll very likely do something…regrettable things…that might fuck with our mission."

"Damn. It would've been funny as hell, but yeah, it's probably not worth it," Fritz reluctantly admitted.

"The security and camera systems only need to be functional and of good but not insane quality," Mike continued. "Fortunately, I've already found a system that'll suit our needs just fine. I already bought it, and the people in charge of setting up the cameras and computer screens and everything will be coming by later in the afternoon to get that started. I'm going to be using one of the rooms on the second floor as the security room where a surveillance team can watch what's going on in the factory. Plus, the cameras will be able to record what's going on in the rooms in case we need to look back at any suspicious things that happen."

The ghosts grinned. "I like the sound of that!" Liz exclaimed.

"It's a hell of a lot more sophisticated than anything in the old pizza places, that's for sure!" Gabe agreed.

Charlie wasn't quite as convinced. "Is that going to be enough, though?" the former Marionette questioned. "A camera system is great and all, but it's not perfect. You can't put a camera in literally every room and hallway in this factory, it's just too big! And even if you could, there's always the possibility that the camera might not pick something up, or the people watching the cameras might miss something wrong for one reason or another."

Mike nodded. "I completely agree with you. Technology is only as good as the people who're using it, and given how this factory didn't even have a goddamn security system to begin with, I'm willing to bet that most people here aren't going to be very good at using one." He smirked. "Which is why I have another plan to make sure that Glitchtrap's possession victim can't cause another crisis like this."

"Really?" the kids asked eagerly. "What is it?"

"I'm gonna leave it a surprise," the man replied with a wink, "but I'll just say that Gabe was the one who came up with the basic foundations of my idea when he mentioned how putting the workers in groups worked really for us."

The former Freddy inhabitant had a notably proud look on his face, clearly satisfied with how he had helped his dad come up with their plan.

"Can you tell us, pleeaaase?" Cassidy begged.

Still smirking, Gabe shook his head. "Sorry, Cass, Dad made me promise to keep it a secret until he actually made the announcement when the workers came back."

"Aww…" his siblings sighed in disappointment.

"Don't worry, guys, you'll find out soon enough," Mike promised. "In the meantime, though, I've got another issue to worry about."

"What's that?" Jeremy asked.

"Getting enough anti-animatronic weapons for enough people in the factory to use," Mike explained. "I'm not saying that every single worker needs to have a copy of each and every weapon, but there needs to be enough of each type of weapon so that a team can use them to fight animatronics that go crazy. We're going to have to check each and every animatronic in this factory to make sure that they aren't corrupted by Glitchtrap's possession victim before we can think about making new ones."

Susie sighed. "There's got to be more than the ones we destroyed," the former Chica inhabitant commented grimly. "There's no way that Glitchtrap's possession victim only got her hands on the twenty-ish that we destroyed."

"I'm well aware of that," Mike agreed. "Which is why for the next few days, I'm going to be looking around this factory to see just how many of those electric weapons and masks that we have available. And if there aren't enough, I'm going to have this factory make more first."

"I agree with that for sure," Liz nodded. "We need to make sure the workers here can defend themselves before we start tearing apart old animatronics and making new ones."

As it turned out, God or their luck had decided to bail them out a bit, because it turned out that there was a storage room full of shocker devices and Freddy masks. This meant that all Mike needed to do was order several more of the electric rods needed to deal the killing blows on the animatronics with instant shipping, instead of potentially wasting days if not weeks on creating more weapons that his workers would need to counteract the threats posed by the animatronics.

There were also no further animatronic attacks or other "unpleasant surprises" for the rest of the weekend, as thankfully the police officers that were guarding the facility weren't stupid enough to mess around with the animatronics and risk them going berserk just as Toy Bonnie and the others had done. Without any intrusive or potentially dangerous interruptions, Mike was able to secure enough anti-animatronic equipment and get the new security system set up by the time he was ready to open the factory back up to the workers again.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Mike announced, standing on the balcony with Colm and Hector faithfully standing on either side as the workers finished piling in to the main manufacturing area. "I have some very important announcements to make regarding policies and major changes. As I'm sure you're all aware, a saboteur has infiltrated our ranks and maliciously hacked several animatronics to go on a rampage throughout this factory. Fortunately, there were no casualties during this crisis, and as the leader of this project, it's my responsibility to minimize the possibility of another incident similar to this one."

The workers were muttering to each other, and Mike was pleased to see that the general mood was one of approval. Whatever the workers had thought of Mike before the animatronic crisis, Mike had undeniably earned the employees' respect with his leadership and his major victory. "I've installed a new camera security system within this factory," Mike began. "While they might not cover every single room in this factory, the vast majority of the most important rooms and hallways in this factory will now have one or more cameras monitoring and recording at all times. A few of you will be taken away from your current duties and spend a few days monitoring the cameras for any suspicious or irregular activity. We will be rotating who is in the camera room every few days to be as fair as possible."

"Those cameras work really well," Jeremy commented, he and the rest of his siblings floating unseen and unheard by all who were unaware of their existence. "We can see so many rooms in the factory now, it's amazing!"

"As for the second order of business for today," Mike continued once the whispers in the crowd had died down, "I'll be putting the actual creation of any more animatronics on hold for the time being. For the next few days at least, our priorities will be training all of you on how to successfully neutralize and destroy maliciously hacked animatronics, and then carefully examining each and every animatronic that's already been created to make sure that they haven't been hacked by the infiltrator in our factory. As some brave volunteers and my two bodyguards can attest, we have developed a consistent and reliable methodology and plan of attack to fight back against an animatronic, and I'll be teaching and instructing you on it until I am convinced that the vast majority of you can reliably fight back against any animatronic that goes crazy."

"Dad got a bunch of random people with no experience to beat the everloving shit out of over 20 animatronics," Fritz boasted proudly as the other workers looked at each other and murmured amongst themselves, once again the general mood being cautious approval and respect. "If he can do that for those guys, he can do that for anyone else."

"And lastly, I have one final announcement that is also going to be the most important out of everything I have said so far," Mike continued once the murmurs had once again died down. "Starting today, each and every person here will be arranged into a "buddy system". This buddy system is the most important lynchpin in the strategy I have come up with to make sure that another catastrophe like this never happens again."

This time, even the ghosts perked up, giving their father their full attention. The previous two announcements had been on topics that the ghosts had already been familiar with, but what Mike was announcing now was something completely new. Even Gabe, who had provided the foundations of Mike's most important plan to begin with, hadn't yet been made aware of the full details.

"Starting today, all of you have been grouped together in groups of 4," Mike declared. "The individuals in these groups will be ones who you will be working very closely with until the Special Delivery project is finished. In order to minimize inconvenience, I have tried to group you all so that you're working on the same role and with the same gender."

"What is Dad talking about?" Cassidy asked, clearly confused.

"It's a buddy system," Liz explained, being one of the first to get Mike's plan. "It's to make sure that whoever Glitchtrap's possession victim is, they can't sneak off and start messing around with stuff unseen."

"When I say that you will be working very closely within these groups, I am not exaggerating," Mike explained. "You will work in the same place and the same room together. You will eat lunch together. You will take any break beyond a basic bathroom break together. And most importantly, you will be keeping eyes on each other at all times. And anybody who tries to separate from their group for reasons beyond a simple bathroom break, especially if they don't tell their group why they are leaving and what they are planning to do, will be immediately placed under suspicion for the infiltrator who caused the disaster with the animatronics a few days ago."

The crowd erupted into murmurs again, and this time the reception was a lot less positive. It was too difficult to make out the details, but the ghost kids could definitely hear some dissatisfied and even outraged grumbling within the crowd.

Mike raised his hands to calm down the crowd of workers. "I know, I know," he placated them sympathetically, "it seems like an extra burden on you guys. So please allow me to explain my rationale for this plan. Let's take our mystery saboteur. With no groups in place, the saboteur effectively has free rein to do whatever the hell they want. We've seen this already, as they were able to maliciously program at least 25 animatronics without anybody noticing, and the real number is likely even higher than we realize. The new security system I've implemented may help with this somewhat, but relying on only one method of surveillance isn't a good enough safeguard against another incident like this in the future."

"Especially if the animatronics or Glitchtrap's victim mess with the camera system," Susie commented. "We were able to do that back when we were still in the animatronics, at least for a little bit."

"Now, I did consider the possibility of just grouping you guys into pairs instead of groups of four," Mike acknowledged, "but even that might not be enough. If there's only one other person keeping oversight on the saboteur, it's entirely possible that the saboteur might compromise their partner to get what they want anyway. Bribery, persuasion, emotional manipulation, threats, any of these could be used to convince or intimidate the hypothetical partner into letting the saboteur do what they want without reporting them. Not to mention the very real chance of the partner being in serious physical danger. Let's say that the two of them are alone, in a room with an animatronic and without camera surveillance. The saboteur could get one of their maliciously programmed animatronics to seriously injure or even kill their partner, and then pass it off as an accident and that they tried to flee while they get help. And nobody would suspect the truth, since there would be no hard evidence to show us what really happened unless we're lucky enough to catch it on camera."

"Holy shit…" Fritz mumbled as the crowd started muttering again, although this time their words were thoughtful rather than irritated. "Dad really did think of everything, didn't he? I wouldn't have been able to come up with something like this."

"Yeah," Gabe agreed, equally impressed. "And I can't disagree with a single word that he's just said right now."

"Both of these are problems that are almost completely solved if we have groups of four instead of just pairs," Mike continued with a smile. "Now, in a group of 4, the infiltrator will not only have to successfully use those same tactics on 3 different people instead of 1, if they fail to compromise even 1 person, they've pretty much given themselves away right on the spot. And while it might be fairly easy to arrange and unfortunate accident for one person, with a group of 4, the saboteur would have to successfully kill all three of their fellow group members AND avoid acting suspicious not just in front of their own groups, but also in front of the cameras and anybody else who might be nearby." The smile turned into a cold smirk. "If they want to push their luck against those kinds of odds, I invite them to try."

Snickers broke out amongst the crowd of workers at the challenge, as well as a new sense of appreciation and approval. With Mike explaining the rationale for why he was implementing a new and potentially burdensome policy, accepting it was a lot easier to stomach when the man had presented several compelling and, more importantly, valid arguments.

"I understand that this is going to be a pain in the ass for some of you," Mike acknowledged, "and as long as there aren't any more incidents, I will not implement this strict 4-man buddy system policy for short breaks like bathroom and water breaks. But I must warn you all," the man's smile suddenly vanished, and a pure business-like expression appeared on his face, "I am taking adherence to this new buddy system very seriously. Anybody who commits even a single violation of the buddy system will be put under immediate suspicion and placed under much more intense surveillance. And depending on how many infractions you commit, or how serious they are, the consequences may range from being immediately terminated to being arrested by the police on the spot. It is my responsibility as the leader of the Special Delivery project to make sure that both you and the customers who buy these animatronics remain safe, and I am going to do everything in my power to fulfill that goal to the end. And I need your cooperation to make this possible. Are you with me?"

"YES!" the workers cheered, either clapping or raising their hands and fists up in support of their new leader. A leader who had, in his very first crisis, had proved to be both capable and worthy of respect. It wasn't the same level of admiration and love that the ghost kids held towards their father, but it was still a massive gesture of support all the same, and one that gave the ghost kids confident that their father's new plan would succeed.

Especially when they would be acting as additional eyes and ears to make sure that whoever Glitchtrap's possession victim was, they wouldn't get a second chance.

"Now then," Mike smiled once the applause had died down, "I said before that I came up with a consistent and reliable plan of attack for dealing with animatronics that go crazy. My bodyguards and I will now demonstrate how to counterattack and destroy them with an inactive, nonfunctioning animatronic as an example…

/

Glitchtrap couldn't help but feel a sense of grudging respect for Mike Schmidt. He had gotten the impression that, despite Schmidt not knowing about his own existence and his hijacking of Vanny, the man was a competent and dangerous threat to his plans.

If he had possessed any lingering doubts about this assessment before, Schmidt's latest speech had destroyed them completely.

"I was contemplating those very strategies," Glitchtrap admitted, allowing Vanny to hear his thoughts. "But as Schmidt so astutely demonstrated, with his four-person buddy system now in effect, it is very likely that we will have to abandon those strategies entirely."

At the end of the day, the problem was a very simple one. With the new changes and reforms that Mike had introduced to the factory, he had unintentionally changed the nature of their game. Now, as much as Glitchtrap loathed to admit it, his defeat conditions were not only disgustingly easy to meet, but they would also almost certainly result in Vanny's capture. An outcome that would lead to a catastrophic, and likely permanent defeat, as he would remain trapped in the mind of a useless pawn who would be unable to carry out his plans while locked away behind a jail cell or an insane asylum.

And all of this from a man who had no clue about his existence, was completely unaware of the true puppetmaster controlling the scenes from behind the rampaging animatronics.

In a way, he had to thank Mike Schmidt for the speech he had just made. Without highlighting the massive disadvantages to trying to continue his infiltration and corruption of the Special Delivery project, he might have considered pressing forward. Now, however? In the absence of a glaring weakness in Schmidt's policies, a weakness he couldn't find at the moment, he wasn't even going to think about it.

"I don't know what to do," Vanny confessed to him, interrupting his thoughts. "I can't think of any way we can keep hacking the animatronics to do what we want anymore without getting spotted and either kicked out or arrested."

"I had already told you before, my sweet, that we would have to consider changing our strategy now that Schmidt has taken over leadership of the Special Delivery project," Glitchtrap's voice echoed through her mind with a malevolent hiss. "His speech just now has only served to reinforce that decision. With how extreme the risk has become, at this point I am convinced that it is not worth the potential gains. You will need to be the model of compliance, dear Vanny. Follow Schmidt's rules, and do nothing that would risk exposing ourselves as the true threat behind the animatronics."

If they were lucky, some incompetent fool would incriminate themselves entirely by happy accident before the Special Delivery project reached its end. But even then, this was under the assumption that Schmidt would relax the security standards after the fool in question was removed.

Somehow, Glitchtrap doubted that Schmidt would be so stupid.

"Do not worry, dear Vanny," Glitchtrap reassured her with a tone that would have been best described as "slimy" if anyone besides his pawn had been there to hear it. "The Special Delivery project was never our primary goal. It was always an additional opportunity for us to take advantage of to begin with, an opportunity that at this point has closed itself to us. Let Fazbear Entertainment sell its animatronics to an unsuspecting public. In a way, even the unconditional success of the Special Delivery project would serve to indirectly benefit us."

"How?" Vanny asked curiously.

"Fazbear Entertainment is planning to open its largest and most innovative establishment, and they are planning on opening it soon, very soon indeed," Glitchtrap explained, and he would have grinned if he had a physical mouth to make the expression with. "My true plans always revolved around that new establishment. Let Schmidt and Fazbear Entertainment enjoy their little victory for now."

The digital abomination that was a soul fragment of William Afton laughed cruelly in Vanny's mind. "When the Pizza Plex finally opens…it will be a very different story."

/

A/N: And there we have it! Mike's plan to prevent Glitchtrap's possession victim from maliciously hacking more animatronics to attack either the factory workers or their future customers has finally been revealed! It's a very comprehensive and carefully thought-out plan indeed, with practically no major weaknesses.

Even Glitchtrap recognizes that, with the buddy system implemented and the new camera system in place, Vanny's chances of being able to hack future animatronics is practically nonexistent. He's fully committed to changing his strategy from "win" to "don't lose," which is the disciplined, intelligent and ultimately correct move to make here.

Funnily enough, both Mike and Glitchtrap made a mistake in their thought process. Glitchtrap's big mistake is obvious in that he's assuming Mike doesn't know about his existence, when the man most certainly does from the reader's perspective. However, Mike actually gave up an opportunity to potentially catch Glitchtrap and his possession victim early by providing detailed justifications and explanations for his new policy overhauls, as those explanations have fully dissuaded Glitchtrap from taking any future risks. Granted, losing that opportunity might have been a necessary sacrifice in order to win the hearts and minds of his workers, and even dissuading Glitchtrap from fucking around with the animatronics any further is a win by itself. But the best-case scenario is now pretty much closed to the Schmidt family, whether they realize it or not.

There actually probably won't be many chapters left covering Special Delivery in the future. Keep in mind, Special Delivery has a major plot deviation from the original canon in that Mike and the ghost kids are explicitly trying to prevent the events of canon from happening, and at this point they've pretty much succeeded. It should also be noted that, in-universe, Mike doesn't have any reason to know that those lore emails exist, let alone go after them.

That's all I have for now. Please let me know what you guys think, and I hope you all enjoyed!