"You're going to have to find something soon, Daemon. Get you away from those video games."
Listening to that same old line was really starting to grate on my nerves. It came from a good man and a good place within him, but it was just so tiring at this point.
"Listen dad, I know. The job market right now isn't exactly amazing."
I turned my head to face my father as he merely rolled his eyes at my response. My father was trying his best and I'd been trying my very best to find work ever since I left my old job. It was just so taxing at the moment on my mental health that I legitmately had lost the motivation to even try and find anything new.
For context, I'm 29 years old, I graduated college with very mediocre grades, worked in a generic retail store and then left due to the management. As for my name...I just go by Daemon now. It isn't my "real" name but eh, I always appreciated remaining somewhat anonymous.
"-emon, are you even listening to me?"
I shook my head to clear my inner monologue and looked back at my father. He was saying something to me, god knows what. Was way too lost in my own thoughts there for a hot minute.
"Sorry, dad. Was just thinking about somethi...wait. Look at this." He raised his eyebrow at how I stopped what I was saying and looked at what I was pointing at. A flyer.
A job flyer.
He looked at it and stroked his beard (well, more like stubble at this point honestly). I pulled out my smokes and put one in my mouth, lighting it and taking a drag as he read the flyer.
Yeah, don't smoke kids. It's a shit habit.
Humming to himself, he looked back at me with a smile. Did the job sound good or was that a more sarcastic smile? I honestly couldn't tell with him a lot of the time. I kept the cigarette in my mouth as he started to speak.
"Take a look, son. It sounds pretty great and a fairly exciting opportunity."
I nodded on the outside but on the inside, I was skeptical. You keep getting turned down job after job and honestly, as I stated earlier, you lose the will and motivation to keep searching. But this was more so for my father than me at this moment. I hated feeling like a leech and that's what I'd been feeling like since I became unemployed. I walked over to the flyer and took a close look.
"Do you want to be a member of the hippest and trendiest entertainment centre of the modern day? Then come and apply for our security officer position at the new and amazing Pizza Plex, brought to you by Fazbear Entertainment! We strive to bring quality food, amazing memories and entertaining shows by our loveable mascots to your family! To apply, simply pop down to the Pizza Plex on..."
I continued reading as I dropped my cigarette and put it out. The address was conveniently close to my house, maybe a 5 minute walk if that. I knew exactly where it was. I'd passed that giant ass building a good few times since it was built a few months ago. I'd never actually been inside because, well, it's a kid's place. However, I had a friend who went once with his little brother and it was apparently actually a really cool place. The animtatronics seemed a lot more "aware" according to him, whatever the hell that meant. I always just assumed that it was a load of crap and considering said friend had always liked to exaggerate when it came to talking about things that he'd gotten up to, I wouldn't be shocked if it just wasn't true. I was, however, quite curious. And heck, it was a job. Why not at least try?
I spun on my heel and nodded at my father, giving a thumbs up and a smirk. I like to think that I looked cool doing that, but I no doubt looked like a complete tit in reality.
"Sure. I'm down to try."
"Very good. When can you start?"
I looked at the man who was currently interviewing me with a shocked expression. "Wait...what? That suddenly? Don't I have to bring in my right to work documents or anything else?"
He shook his head. "We usually would, but we're in quite..."dire" need of a new security guard who can start asap. As long as you don't have any criminal convinctions, you're all good. And hell even if you do, our state of the art animatronics will find that out soon enough so I'll ask now. Do you?" He stared at my eyes, obviously trying to read my expression and see if I was lying.
"No sir. I've never been arrested for anything."
Clapping his hands loudly and beaming a smile at me, he stood up and walked behind me towards the door. "Fantastic! Follow me if you would, Daemon. I want you to meet the characters that you'll be watching over while you're working here."
I nodded, standing up and stretching. "How intelligent exactly are the animatronics that you have here? I've heard that they've very self aware but I figured that wasn't all that true. It'd be hard to believe that they could be completely sentient."
He smirked, which honestly lowkey confused me for a moment. "You'd be really surprised at how intelligent our robotic characters are, my lad. Now come, daylight be wasting."
"Gotcha." I walked up to him and he motioned for me to walk through the door while he held it open, which I did and thanked him. I followed behind and yawned. I'd barely slept the last night and, according to what he said earlier in this so called "interview", he implied that I might start as soon as tonight, which was both absurd and shocking. Alas, I needed work and if I could start literally immediately, I'd take it. First though, had to meet the characters of this place. I'd heard about the stories of the old Fazbear resturants. Some rumours were spread in the past about how the animatronics were haunted and a few security guards and kids went missing back in the 80's or 90's. I honestly couldn't remember. I always chalked it up to dumb ass rumours created by those nutty conspiracy theorists that you see on the internet but hey ho, wasn't my concern.
Here's hoping that this place doesn't prove me wrong.
"Wow. They look pretty damn cool, I must say."
I'd been following my interviewer, who's name I forgot to mention was Mike, for the past 30 minutes. We'd explored nearly everywhere in this place, including the lobby, the fucking massive area known as the Atrium, The Daycare and Rockstar Row. The Daycare was just plain weird. I'd already met the Sun animatronic and he was...interesting, to say the very least. All he spoke about was how lovely it was to see a new customer and how if I ever wanted to spend time with him, he'd be more than happy to "play" with me. I don't think the daycare attendant knew that I wasn't a child anymore but eh, best to keep him happy huh? If he even could be. I still wasn't entirely sure how sentient these things exactly were.
The Atrium and lobby were cool enough, but the coolest so far in my honest opinion was Rockstar Row. I saw some of the animatronics there, known apparently as the "Glamrocks". They essentially had individual dressing rooms which I thought was fairly cute and funny at the same time. Dressing rooms for robots. What will they think of next, huh?
I'd come across Freddy, Chica and Monty, i think it was? From what I saw when I walked past them, they all seemed friendly enough. They waved as I walked past and such. I assumed it was just in their programming to do so. There was one though that I didn't see in their room.
Roxanne Wolf.
According to Mike, she was apparently the most tough one to deal with. He'd talked about how "full of herself" that she was and how she spent a lot of her time in her room looking and talking to herself in the mirror.
My first thought was "Why did they program a robot to be an absolute fucking nutter?"
Eh well. I suppose I'd get my answer in a few seconds, considering we were apparently going to see her, considering she was the only one that I'd not seen so far. Mike said that she was currently in "Roxy Racing", which was basically just her place to chill out and where she hosted kart racing for the kids that came here. All of the animatronics apparently had their own place, apart from Freddy I think. My memory is that of a goldfish, I might add.
"Daemon? You alright there?"
I snapped out of my thoughts and stared at Mike, who was currently eying me with a slightly concerned expression. Fuck sake, I really needed to stop spacing out like that. How I've not been tested for something like ADHD yet is beyond my understanding.
I nodded at him while making sure I still had my cigarettes in my pocket. Can never be too careful. They're the last thing that I'd want to lose in this place.
"Sorry. Was just thinking about something. I'm all good. Is this Roxy Racing, I assume?"
He nodded at me, opening the massive shutter in front of us. "Indeed it is. Roxy should be inside, probably working on her karts to make sure that they're operational and safe to use for the kids tomorrow."
The robots could work on their own shit? Huh. That's pretty damn impressive. I looked at him and smirked. "Damn. When you said that your animatronics were intelligent, I never thought that they'd be that smart."
He smiled, motioning for me to follow him in. "Believe me, you haven't seen anything yet. Prepare to meet Roxanne."
I'm not exactly sure what he meant by that, but judging by the animatronic wolf in the distance that I could see working on a kart, I guess I'd see soon enough. It took her moment to notice but when she did, she cocked an eyebrow (feels weird saying that about a robot) at us and started to walk over. Mike waved at her and she waved back, looking somewhat disinterested. Talk about an apathetic response.
When she reached us, she stopped in her tracks and looked at me, eying me up and down. She put her hand...erm, claw on her hip and stared at me for a few moments before sighing and looked back at Mike. "Got another one already huh? Thought it'd take you longer to get another schmuck to replace the last one."
Alright, bit rude. Not sure why someone would program her to say that but whatever. Unless what Mike said was true and they actually are...sentient? Surely not. Let's see if it holds up. I scoffed and looked back at her.
"I'll have you know that I'm a fairly decent and interesting schmuck, just with a shit memory."
To say that got her attention was an understatement. She stared at me in a mixture of disbelief and...amusement? I could see a slight smirk for a second before her stoic expression from before returned. "Well, at least you've got personality, kid. That's already more that could be said about our last security guard. What a tool he was."
Damn, Mike wasn't lying. These lot are intelligent. I'll try to ignore the skeptic in me for now and see where this goes.
Mike rolled his eyes at us both, but I could barely see a slight smile on his face. "If you could watch your language around here when the place is actually open and populated, Daemon, that would be much appreciated. Regarldess it is nice to see you two already making conversation. For now, I must depart. I have other duties to attend to. Daemon?"
"Yeah?"
He looked over at Roxanne for a moment and then back at me. "Feel free to spend some time here at Roxy Raceway with Roxanne for a while before you start your shift. You'll officially start at 12AM till 6AM. That's every day too, except weekends. You get those off. Unless you have somewhere to be for now until you start?"
I shook my head. All I'd do if I left now anyway was probably sit on my ass, game and smoke as I'd been doing since I'd become what was essentially a bum. I looked at Roxanne, who I could see was slightly annoyed. She looked at Mike with a slightly muffled growl.
"Does he really have to stay with me? Can't you palm him off to one of the others for now?"
Mike shook his head, looking back at me. "No can do. Sorry Roxanne. Chica and Monty are preparing for the performance tomorrow and Freddy is recharging. Anyway, I can tell that you two will get on very well. Just get to know each other. I'll be in my office on the top floor if you need anything, Daemon." He gave a thumbs up and started to walk off, giving a wave. I waved back and, when he'd disappeared from sight, I looked back at the wolf who was currently giving me a dead eye stare.
"Alright, so here's how it goes, kid. You can stay here if you must, but you do not touch any of my karts. You can sit over there on the bench and do whatever you need to do to keep yourself company. I'll be over there working on my karts. I'm not sure why you'd need anything from me but if you somehow do, just holler at me. Honestly I'd rather not have you around here but it's whatever. Just keep out of the way, got it?"
Mkay, this one's a bit of a bitch. Noted. Albeit at least she had a sense of personality, I suppose. The slight banter from before confirmed that. Guess the sentient topic that I talked about earlier wasn't so untrue after all. Well, fuck me. I rolled my eyes and scoffed, getting an eyebrow of her's to raise at my reaction. "Sure, just don't yeet a kart at me or whatever. I'd rather keep my skull intact for now, thank you."
She smirked slightly, walking off. "No promises, kiddo."
I smirked myself at that. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. As I was quickly shooting a text to my father explaining that I got the job and would be starting tonight, I noticed Roxanne staring at me in my peripheral vision. I pulled my face away from my phone to look back at her, to which she just kept looking. I shrugged. "What?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. You just reminded me of someone for a moment, that's all. No biggie." And with that, she stuck her head back into whatever she was doing.
That was a weird interaction. Meh well, she probably just meant that I looked like an old customer of this place or something. Not too surprising. So many people come in here no doubt that there's bound to be someone who bears a slight resembelance to me. I clicked my fingers to get her attention and she looked back at me, curious. "Hm? What is it, kid?"
"For one, name's Daemon. I'd appreciate if you would stop referring to me as a kid. Second, is there anywhere I can go to smoke or do I just have to go outside?"
She had a slight smirk on her face as I mentioned the kid remark that she kept using for me, but then nodded towards a door at the far end of the room. "There's a door there. Leads to the alley behind the Pizza Plex. It's usually where the staff or patrons go to smoke. Feel free to go and do your disgusting habit there, kiddo."
Alright, now that was just getting annoying and she clearly knew it. Curse this stupidly sentient robot wolf. I chose to ignore the sarcastic remark from her and simply opted to nod, getting up and walking towards the door. I sighed as I headed out into the alley and sparked up a cigarette. I took a large drag and looked back at the door. I chuckled slightly to myself as I looked at the dim sky.
"Who thought I'd get roped into a job monitoring a giant mall that has ridiculously intelligent robots who perform to kids everyday? This should at least be interesting." I took a few more drags and dropped the smoke as I walked back inside, ready to tackle the first day of my new job.