CHAPTER 3

Alex clomped down the stairs leading down below. Once he was out of the playcare, the sights became more industrial and familiar to him. Making his way down the hallway before arriving at a small room of sorts that divided two different rooms, Alex took note of the poster of Mommy Long Legs. The terrifying pink spider wore a bright red gas mask in a poster reminding all workers to wear one.

"Why would we need that?" he wondered, this was a detail he certainly had no recollection of before.

Moving into the small room, which he wondered if it had been meant to be a kind of airlock, the door leading into the other room beyond had been bent off its hinges. And most concerning of all, deep claw marks had been gouged into the concrete and steel. He ran his fingers along one of the scratches, feeling how smooth the cut was. The thought of whatever did this slicing through flesh made him retract his hand in fear and grip the arms of his GrabPack harder.

He stared up in surprise at the space of the room he was walking into. Four stories tall with a big blue computer with three glass tubes atop of it. One was filled with a vibrant and swirling red liquid. Alex could almost swear it was a vat full of blood with how red it was. The text on the screen was in red as well with a flashing red lightning bolt in a box and text reading "Low Power- Restore Primary Power."

Briiiiiiiiiiiiing

Immediately he answered the call.

"There it is," Bubba said, "The heart of the whole evil Playcare system. See that stuff? It's called "The Red Smoke". Right now, all that stuff is leaking into the access shaft beyond the only other exit out of this place. Without a mask, it's toxic to everyone."

"Wait, this stuff was made in house? Why?" Alex asked.

"We Smiling Critters were meant to disperse sprays of scented mist to help children fall asleep. The toy versions, that is. But apparently it wasn't as effective so the scientists made the Red Smoke. It was effective. So much so, they gave Catnap the ability to breathe it out when it was time for bed. I heard there were some kind of complications though and so they stopped having Catnap do that."

This brought the ghost of a memory to the front of Alex's mind. It was a TV news report talking about another toy recall from Playtime Co. This one focused on the toy variations of Catnap. If they had given this to the living toy, had they given this gas to his toy versions as well?

"So he can breathe this toxic stuff out too? How come he's not affected?"

"I don't know. Maybe when they made him they gave him a filter in his throat so he'd not dose himself?" Bubba suggested. "Anyways, we need to move the gas from that tank to the one on the left, where it'll be piped elsewhere. There might be some security locks but that's only half the problem. I'm reading an electrical fault in the computer system. If you can fix that, I can bypass the security locks so we can move that gas over."

"Does nothing work in this place?"

"It has been years," Bubba said flatly. "Anyways, see if you can fix the power fault. You do that, then leave the rest to me."

Click

Alex stuffed the phone into his pocket and started looking around. Somewhere there had to be a power box or something. Looking at the cables strung out on the floor, he followed them to an adjoining room. Looking through the broken glass windows of this other room, he spied power sockets as well as power poles he'd never seen before.

"Hmmm, interesting design, but I'm sure they work the same," he said to himself.

Except, there was the familiar problem of the large roller door leading into this room being in the closed position. Looking to his left he saw another battery port. It was next to another closed door.

"Seems I'm going the long way around… again," Alex thought.

With the only way forward closed, but fixable, Alex turned to look around the room for a battery. There were empty boxes that had once contained computer parts and cables and connectors, a collapsed stairway that led to a door a floor up, and a broken elevator that went somewhere. Maybe up there was where the chemicals were stored, mixed and then put into the system. Alex was just a basic engineer, but not a chemical engineer. He did take note of other boxes with red labels that were from chemical manufacturing plants though.

"Jeez, I'd hate to imagine what would happen if that stuff leaked out."

Having found no battery, he went to the next room to the left of the large machine. Here he was greeted with another large room. It was mostly empty save for a rig of some kind in the back. Curious, Alex walked over to see it. There was a short catwalk that led to the entrance of this rig, which was suspended over a round pit area five feet below. Looking at it, and reading a few of the posted signs, Alex came to understand this was probably the exit Bubba mentioned. It was an elevator but as he looked at it, it was more like a bucket on a rope as above the elevator car was a large, rusted spool of cable that would lower it down below. Except its descent was barred by the large blast door that closed the shaft completely. Beyond that door was probably the red smoke.

"Well looks like that's my exit. An elevator going down… oh boy," he huffed as it clicked that he'd still be going down deeper into this facility.

Pulling his mind away from this disheartening revelation, Alex began to explore the room more to find a battery. Looking around one bank of machinery which looked more like unpowered winch controls for the elevator, he came across another cut out. This one had a cutesy looking purple cat.

"Huh. You must be Catnap," Alex said to the cutout. "Gotta say you almost look cute."

The cutout feline said nothing. Alex gave the button a push and heard… nothing. Or rather he heard something, but it wasn't a voice. It sounded like breathing, sometimes it sounded like a sleepy moan. Each push of the button yielded the same results.

"Great, instead of distorted garbage, I hear someone sleeping."

Leaving the cutout behind, Alex soon saw the telltale green glow of the battery. With a squeeze of his GrabPack, the hand shot out and snagged it. Quickly leaving the elevator room, Alex brought the battery over and plugged it into the wall. As expected, the roller door to the power room didn't open, but the other one did. But what confused him greatly was the purple hand pad that turned on at his feet.

"Now what kind of hand is this? I don't have a purple hand," Alex said, staring at the pad, wondering what it would do.

A quick test with the green power hand proved nothing. It might be powered, but the charge wasn't enough to be transmitted up the cable. After thinking about it a moment, Alex shrugged it off and decided to see if the door he'd opened went anywhere. It just led into a dead-end room filled with what looked like lockers. Some were opened, some closed, a lot of them dented and blood splattered.

"Crap… not even here was safe," Alex said.

His eyes were soon attracted to something in one of the lockers. Pulling it out, it was another GrabPack hand! Only it was purple and had a couple strange wires on the fingers. It had the same rounded end for a cable to attach. Looking inside the cannon of his right hand, Alex saw an extra cable end. The VHS tape came back to his mind and he gave one of the buttons at the back of the grip a push. The green hand suddenly retracted inside the hand cannon and the other cable with the spring snapped into position.

"So that's how the swap feature works."

He gave the other button a push and the handless cable retracted back in, and a different fixture snapped into place. This one had no cable attachment though so Alex was unsure what kind of attachment this would be.

"Maybe I'll find the hand that works with this one later or something," he thought.

Squeezing the middle button, he brought back the cable end and snapped the new purple hand in place. Impressed, Alex grabbed the note the hand had been resting on. It was an engineering schematic of the hand he'd gotten. It had to have been ripped out of a user manual that was being written up for the new tool. Flipping to the otherside he saw a helpful user guide.

"For use with the GrabPack 2.0 only.

In normal operation, the Pogo Hand is like any other GrabPack hand. It's only when used in conjunction with Purple Pads does the true function get unleashed. Purple Pads emits a current that the Pogo Hand uses to provide extra power to the air jets that provide a powerful lifting force. This upwards motion is temporary once upwards travel is achieved, which is where the GrabPack 2.0's Pogo Power Spring launches the user 15 feet in the air.

Applications for this hand are being explored."

"Pogo Hand? What a dumb name. It's a purple hand, and that's it's name," Alex scoffed.

Name choice aside, Alex felt pleased. Now he had a path forward and a tool to help him access it with. Leaving the locker room and back into the open space, he aimed the hand at the pad, and squeezed the trigger. With a SPROING and a WHOOSH Alex was launched upwards! He went straight upwards and then came back down. For a brief moment he worried about the rough landing but another WHOOSH from the air jets slowed his fall to a more gentle landing. Though he still nearly tumbled onto his rear as his legs felt like jelly.

"Whoa! That was wild," he said, shakily. "Okay… so that's how it works. Now to move forward."

Seeing it was based on momentum, Alex took a couple steps back before briskly walking back to the pad. When he was in reach he shot the purple hand, it connected, sproing whoosh, and he gently landed on the remains of the second floor landing. Looking back, Alex couldn't help but chuckle.

"If only I had this in high school when they made us play basketball for gym class. This would have made the game so much easier," he said.

A crash in the distance made him pause. Looking at the back of the large room, a shadow seemed to dart around before disappearing from sight. Remembering the towering purple thing that had leaped onto the cable car, he knew instantly what that was.

"Okay, maybe being quiet would be better," he thought. "This isn't like the last two monsters, this one is actively hunting me."

Moving again with more trepidation, Alex continued onwards.

.

.

With a loud electrical ZAP, the power box emitted a shower of sparks as the charge began to circulate. This was followed by the roller door rolling itself open as computer and TV screens flickered to life.

"Finally!" Alex huffed exasperatedly. "I wonder who was in charge of this place? I mean, my job here never required puzzle solving for half the crazy crap here! Was the damn Riddler the electrical engineer?"

To say the puzzles had frustrated him, would be selling it lightly. This had to be the first time he'd had to double charge a power node. And the power poles, that was the most confusing thing he'd ever seen, and he began to wonder why he was just seeing them now? Heck they might have been incredibly useful for previous rewiring puzzles. But why the puzzles in the first place? This factory had required the best of the best, and yet the electrical puzzles were both the simplest thing and also the most confusing. Was it really so difficult to have a circuit breaker or something normal?

Briiiiiiiiiing! Briiiiiiiing!

Leaving the power room, Alex answered the call.

"That's perfect! The computer has power. I'll have the security locks removed in a second. It might need to reboot so you'll need to press the button to do that," Bubba explained. "Stay on your guard though. You're not alone down there."

Click

Alex really wished he'd been able to ask the blue elephant what he meant cause that warning did little to comfort him.

"Jeez, Bubba, you couldn't have told me that before, could you?" he mumbled.

His eyes darted around the room for a while, struggling to see everything to make sure nothing moved. The room might have been lit but shadows clung to every corner making sight all but impossible. The memory of the hundreds of white eyes peering out of the darkness in that closet area replayed in his mind. As he looked at one dark corner, he thought he saw a pair of those beady white eyes staring at him from a corner. But they vanished when he blinked. The computer hummed quietly before the screen flicked on, red text appeared reading:

"Reboot: Y/N"

Stepping to the keypad, Alex pressed "Y" and the screen shut off. The computer bank hummed loudly before the screen flickered back on. Instead of red, the text was in green. The Playtime Co. "P" bounced up and down in place before it vanished. The screen then began to show parameters concerning the status of the red smoke with tank capacity appearing in the middle by way of three boxes, with the one on the right being completely filled. Figuring the next step, Alex pushed some buttons labeled "Transfer Contents." The computer gave an ancient buzz and the tank on the right began to drain as the tank in the middle began to fill. An alert on the screen read "Transfer In Progress" followed by a small loading screen.

"Hmm looks like I'll need to do this one more time after it's done," Alex said to himself.

Briiiiiing Briiiiiiiiiiing.

Suddenly, as the loading bar hit 100% and before Alex could grab the phone, most of the lights in the room cut off and an almighty CRASH was heard from the power room! Turning, Alex saw to his horror the full scale of Catnap. Far from being the cutesy purple feline from the cutout, the feline towered over him! Bad memories of the first encounter with Huggy Wuggy walking out of the dark hallway flashed in his mind. But the similarities ended there. In the dim lighting, Alex could see the feline's body was emaciated to the point the bumps of his backbone and rib cage stuck out. His middle was shrunk inwards that was broken up by his hip bones. And in its eyes, Alex could see the white irises glowing in the dark.

"THAT'S ENOUGH OF THAT, RAT!" he said, speaking in a voice that was truly demonic.

The massive feline crouched down low. Alex knew what he was going to do, but he waited. The moment the cat began to launch itself in the air, he ducked downwards under his swiping paw with razor sharp claws! Catnap sailed over him and thudded to the ground, but Alex didn't wait to see what happened as he ran towards the doorway leading out of this place. He all but dove through the door before he heard Catnap give a furious yowl and start to thud his way after him!

"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!"

He heard a thud that shuddered through the concrete walls behind him, followed by the stone crunching scraping of claws digging through concrete. Clearly the room was slowing the massive cat down, but it was only temporary. Alex knew then how the door to that room had been scratched and bent off its hinges.

Down the hallway and up the stairs he ran before he heard the demonic bellow of Catnap clawing his way down the hall. He didn't have long, he had to do something! Thinking quickly, the moment he reached the doorway at the top of the stairs, he turned and slammed it closed. Digging into his pockets for the key, he fished it out and drove it home, locking the door.

"Not going to hold. Good enough," he thought, his own mind making shortcuts.

Running down the path, and nearly throwing himself at the base of the statue, he hammered on the doorbell. There was a loud thud from behind him. Then another, and another, and another. He didn't look back, but he could see what was going on in his mind. The blue door bulging outwards and denting with each thud, the shriek of metal tearing under the claws, the mad feline yowls that bordered between a cat and a demon….

Hissssssss

The door opened and Alex entered. Just as he heard one last THUD and accompanying sounds of metal shrapnel tumbling to the ground.

Hisssssss

The door closed. And all sound ceased to be heard. For a moment he thought he heard the heavy thumping of the massive toy's feet on the ground. But soon he realized it was only his heart beat pounding in his ears like gunshots. It took a moment before he was able to shuffle his way down the stairs into the main bunker area.

Bubba was looking up expectantly as soon as Alex shuffled into view.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry I'm so sorry!" he apologized, "He was hiding somewhere off camera and I only saw him leap into the room at the last moment! I tried to call you but then the power for that whole room got cut and most of the camera feeds went with it!"

"Ugh… it's okay, you at least did try to warn me," Alex said, walking up. "So what now? I think I got most of the red smoke chemicals into the center tank."

"Well, looking at the other cameras, it shows that doing that has not only not cleared the access shaft, but now it's flowing into parts of Playcare," the elephant explained, pointing to the cameras.

Looking at the cameras, Alex saw the hazy smoke billowing into rooms. All the camera rooms seemed to be different in design, which meant that multiple areas were now breached.

"Oh crap…" Alex moaned.

"This greatly complicates matters. There has to be a work around for this," Bubba said, brushing a hand under his chin. "Give me a moment to think."

Alex decided to have a seat on the steps to rest his legs while the elephant thought. As he did the tiredness started to settle in. He'd been active for what had felt like hours. Looking at his watch, the hour slowly crept around to 8. It had to be in the morning as he'd come here only the night before. And what a terrifying night that had been. Even with those memories replaying in his head, his eyelids started to droop and flutter, falling like Huggy Wuggy did down into the abyss.

"I got it!" Bubba proclaimed.

"Huh? What did you get?" Alex mumbled, pulling himself back to his feet.

"I think I know what to do," Bubba said. "Since Catnap severed the power connection, the computer won't be getting full power. But, this is the main hub for the power distribution to all of Playcare."

He turned to the monitors and pushed a few buttons. Five of the monitors clicked to show a new camera, except one that was just black with "No Signal" in the middle. The other frames showed what looked like a generator as Bubba continued.

"Each attraction has a backup generator in case of power failures. If you can get them turned on, and divert the power here, I could make a large battery that'll be powerful enough to power the computer so we can divert the red smoke into the storage tank."

"So you want me to go to all of these locations?" Alex said, looking at the amount of destinations between him and potential freedom.

"Well, not all of them. Maybe two of them if the power flow is enough," Bubba said.

Alex sighed. That was a mercy. But he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that even two locations might be too many. Besides Catnap, he had a feeling he'd need to contend with the state of this facility. The puzzles in the Game Station were proof enough that nothing was ever straightforward and anything that used to work, wouldn't. Or at least not for long.

"Well if I'm going to do this, where do you suggest I go first?" Alex asked.

Bubba didn't answer for a moment as he clicked through the available cameras, They never seemed to stay on one image for long. Certainly not long enough for Alex to notice any details.

"I… think… Home Sweet Home should be your best bet," he said at long last.

From behind him, Alex heard Bobby Bearhug give a loud whimper. Looking back he saw the red bear smothering her face into the pillow, shuddering with Craftycorn sitting next to her trying to calm her down. Turning back he saw that Bubba had already brought out another key.

"You'll need this to access it. It's usually always locked up tight."

"You seem to have a lot of keys," Alex said. "Why is that?"

Bubba looked down, then back up at Alex.

"Catnap wasn't like this before. We all used to be friends. Then… he changed, became unstable…hostile… mean. Do…" he then paused and flinched, and coughed as if trying to hide the fact a bad memory had flashed through his mind. Alex wanted to ask, but the elephant continued before he could.

"We had to hide. He took three of us away… and maybe a fourth too... All I know is we are all that's left. We hide while Catnap runs all of Playcare freely. It's his church, his hunting ground… whatever he wishes it to be. If he found us… he'll probably kill us all."

This struck Alex hard, with 8 critters atop the statue, if what Bubba was saying was true, then mean half of them were now dead. And at the hands of one of their own. Bubba turned back to the cameras and adjusted his headset.

"The key is on the desk. You should be off now. Catnap isn't on any of the monitors so you should be safe. The… the sooner we get that smoke stored away, the sooner we- uh.. you can leave this place."

The blue elephant said no more. Alex slowly grabbed the keys and took his own leave back up the stairs. As he walked to Home Sweet Home, the information weighed on his mind. All the toys here were insane… or that's what he'd thought at first. But these toys… Bubba, Craftycorn, Bobby…. they were still sane. But it was clear they were on the knife's edge of losing themselves to insanity. Heck, Bobby might be on her way there given how broken she was. Enough to figure herself a danger to him. With a couple exceptions, no other toy had seen him as anything but fresh meat. These toys had seen horrible things, been trapped to live in far from ideal conditions to survive, and retained their sanity still. What would happen if he left them behind? How much longer would they survive?

These thoughts came to an end as he reached the door of Home Sweet Home. He pushed the key in, twisted it until he heard the mechanical click of the lock opening. and then he pushed his way inside.