Hey, reader and welcome to what is the full release of Fleeing the Company, a Dayshift at Freddy's (DSaF) fanfic that parodies Henry Stickmin's Fleeing the Complex. Released a short version of this a month ago and here's what is the bigger full story.
Just gonna presume that if you're reading this, you know about the DSaF lore and such 'cause, you're gonna mostly need it to understand what's going on here. No need for the Henry knowledge.
So yeah, with that note out of the way, here's the story.
Note: See link after picture for audio suggestion. This will be the case for most chapters. May not work for mobile app readers.
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"Another day, another dollar..." muttered Ethan half-enthusiastically as he drove his car through where he was.
And where he was was in a desertous, sandy road in the state of Utah, away from the usual civilized parts. He felt like he had been driving for an hour or more when it had actually been less. He really wasn't keeping track of the time either since it would use too much energy to do, maybe even more than the amount of gas he uses after driving from Nevada to here.
He checked his rear view mirror, seeing his own orange phone-head in the reflection as he looked behind him (yes, that is supposed to be taken literally, his phone-head). And as it always had been, there was no one there, or anywhere in the desert area he was in. Unless you were someone that was asking die by dehydration or have a heat stroke, you'd have no reason to be out here, really.
So why was this literal phone-headed man that was named Ethan out here...?
Well, he was heading over to Afton Robotics, the HQ of the well-known Fazbender Entertainment, a company that he was an employee of and had been since 1973, the year it was founded, but he wasn't an employee when it was founded.
Oh, and yes it was the same Fazbender Entertainment that owned and created Freddy Fazbender's Pizza, a chain of pizzeria-themed restaurants that features animatronic characters that peform on stage in the locations themselves.
The most notable ones were the titular Freddy Fazbender, their mascot, a brown bear animatronic whom wears a black bowtie and top hat, Bonnie the Rabbit, a lavender-colored rabbit who played the guitar, Chica the Chicken, a yellow chicken who sang and held a cupcake and then last but not least; Foxy the Pirate, a reddish fox character that was, well, a character that talks and acts like a pirate. The characters are named similar to what their names are. Easy for kids to remember who is who, you know!
Has anyone ever NOT heard of Freddy's? For anyone that hasn't then they must be living under a rock because those that had been around since 1973 heard or had seen it even if they wanted to or not.
That, in part, was not only due to constant advertsing on TV, but because Fazbender Entertainment had became popular enough in the 70's to warrant multiple creations of Freddy Fazbender's pizzerias all across the states. And its first location started here in the state of Utah in the town of Hurricane.
That very well could be why Fazbender HQ was out here in Utah. Though why was it out in some desert away from civilization like some secret base?
...Ethan didn't really know. But in a way it kind of makes sense since the HQ doubled as a base of operations and an industrial site as well.
Of course what what was made in HQ were the animatronic characters or any characters at all, and also... Phone Guys...literally, by the way.
Phone Guys like Ethan himself...
No, no, let's not think about it negatively, don't let yourself go back there, thought Ethan, shaking his own phone-head. He looked over at the watch on his left wrist
"11:30..." he glanced at it and then put his eyes (or lack thereof) back on the road.
Soon enough, the phone-headed guy made it to his destination...
...Afton Robotics.
It was made up of three buildings mostly close together, located within a huge area enclosed with tall fences. The rest was just wilderness, sand.
Now, the main building out of the three was, basically enough, the Main Building which served as the office. Nine storeys tall, it was in the middle of the other two.
The next one was what the company calls the 'Old Building', also known as the 'Holding Building as wall, was a few storeys taller than office building, being to on the left of it, Ethan's right.
Despite it being old, it was still in use. That use being a place where old animatronics were kept, later destroyed if they were obsolete... Or even Phone Guys themselves.
With that, it had look more of a sturdy industrial building, especially thanks to it having renovated inside and out to be secure. What were the reasons? Well, no one knows other than the boss of Fazbender Entertainment.
The last one was the company's factory, being on the way left of the complex, Ethan's left. It was only about three stories tall, and as its name suggests, it had an industrial appearance, sturdy, large, wide and even a exhaust pole just like the Old Building. It also doubled as a warehouse too, for the company.
And of course, in front of the complex there was a parking lot for the employees who work there, the company-owned vehicles, and also for some others, like visitors, which had to be authorized vistors. Ethan slowed his car down as he approached the boom barrier. A security guard in the booth connected to the barrier notices him.
"Hello, sir, welcome. How goes it?" asked the guard.
"What else can it be like? Another day, another dollar..." Ethan replied, shrugging, "And the drive was long like always."
"Maybe we should get our own fill stations here within HQ," suggested the guard with a laugh. He was joking, obviously.
"You know that just be a good idea. Would talk about it to the boss, but chances are it won't happen..." Ethan did mean that, but he won't waste the energy to even ask his boss about it. Just a waste of time. Not Ethan's time but his Boss's time, "Hey, so can you?" he motioned to the barrier.
"Oh sure thing." He pressed a button on the panel inside the booth and the barrier rose up. "Have a good day, Mr. Roberts."
Ethan nodded to the guard and drove into the lot, parking at the spots located near the front of the main building. The space he parked in was a reserved one, one for the top five in management of Fazbender Entertainment; because he was one of them. Now only four out of the five parking spaces were taken...
So, everyone else other than their boss was around...
The front doors of HQ had two sets, an automatic door in the middle, while the other two sides on its left and right were manual.
He went in through the middle and he now entered the lobby. A wide corridor with several seats near the walls on both sides, the floor was all white lined tiles while the walls were also white but lighter. On the left side from were the entrance was were six profile protraits. And those six portaits featured Fazbender Entertainment's managers...
It wasn't just any six managers by the way, but the original six managers. One of which was the company's founder, Scott Cawthon. The pictures featured them as Phone Guys. So, they weren't also just the original six managers but also the first original six Phones employees. All dressed in suits, they all also had very old models, fitting of them being the founding employees.
What they all also shared was that they had gone through a springlock failure through the company's specially designed suits that shared the mechanism of the same name: the Springlock Suits. Going through a failure of these springlock suits was what led up to becoming a literal Phone Guy...
And these failures in short: they weren't pretty in the slightest. Perhaps, it being like an iron maiden was the closest way to describe it's experience... After all, it's similar. Parts after parts of the animatronic endoskeleton snapping back into place on the wearer after the springlock mechanism that holds them become loose...
...I still get shivers thinking back to the memory of getting it... Thought Ethan.
Anyone who experiences this was likely to just die, have their death a animatronic character suit....
Well...actually death itself could be avoided. But only if the victim were to become a Phone Guy, where they would be taken the factory located here and turned into one. They'd have their head shoved into a rotary phone of some kind, bodies stitched up from the failure, memories wiped and replaced with artificial ones from the company, that even includes their name, which was replaced with Scott Cawthon, the company founder. His name and the kind of person they believed he was.
Those days when Ethan was under that programming. It was something he could still recall and likely won't ever forget.
Currently, only two out of the six managers were alive. The other four, including the company founder, had passed away for reasons Ethan didn't know, apart from the original Scott.
So, up first was Scott. He was the closest one to the entrance, his phone-head being the oldest model; a rotary dial payphone. The next one was Abel, the second model of Phone Guy and it showed since he had the second oldest model, a candlestick rotary phone, the smallest and skinniest of all the models. He was the one that was still alive and was currently acting as the head-boss of Fazbender Entertainment, and had been since Scott tragically passed away in 1973.
Next up after Abel was Joe. He had a black rotary phone, although an old model and it had a vintage design. After Joe was Terrence, he had an old, white rotary round phone, it's model actually looking more antique than Joe's.
Right after Terrence was Everret, and his phone model was the tallest, being an Effiel Tower-like rotary phone. And compared to everyone else's suit, his own seemed the most fanciest. You could easily see it with how he had a bow tie compared to a regular tie.
The last one was Harry, his phone model was an old model, a black one like Joe's but was looked less like an antique phone, being more in the present day standards.
Ethan only had ever gotten to ever meet Abel and Harry and that was only recently due to him coming to work at Fazbender HQ. Scott had passed away before he had came to work at Freddy's while Joe, Terrence and Everett passed away years ago when he himself was still working as a manager at a pizzeria out in Wyoming.
"...This is our history." Ethan moved on from observing the portraits and began waking.
Up ahead and not so far was the reception desk with there being about two receptionists available. One was normal while the other one had a phone for a head, a pink rotary one that looks similar to the one Ethan himself had, except his own was orange.
"Heya, 'morning. How's it going?"
"The usual, Ethan. Another day, another dollar."
Much better than another tragedy... Ethan added unintentionally, in his head.
"Just what I was thinking earlier... Well, I'll get going."
"Oh wait. I forgot to call you earlier, but since you're already here, I'll just mention that Abel is calling a meeting for you, the others and me later this afternoon. After he gets back from... wherever he's at," called out the Phone Gal.
"What about?"
"Beats me, sug." She shrugged. "He said he'd tell all of us during the meeting. I'll get going to messaging the others."
"I see... Thanks for the message." Ethan waves to her and heads towards the elevator all while wondering what the meeting could be for.