After getting out of the car, Davie walked me to the back door labeled "maintenance hall exit B." He unlocked the door and opened it to let me in, but I hesitated.
"Are you sure this is gonna work? I mean I don't even know if it's worth it. I don't want you wasting your time or anything-"
"Y/n. Stop worrying, you said you would let me try, so let me do just that, okay?" He cut me off and waved his hand to get me to go in. I took a heavy breath before stepping into the dark abyss of a hallway. It smelled like rubber and iron, so, not the most pleasant smell. One by one the lights down the hall turned on, revealing boxes stacked up against the walls, old posters, and a few random objects laying around.
I step over a rubber mat as I give him a look, "Yeah, quite the "fancy" place you've got here...I mean I knew you dressed homeless but didn't know your work matched your aesthetic."
He let out a hurt gasp, "Hey now, these are just the back hallways, of course, corporate won't make these look all nice and shiny. And for your information, this isn't where I work, that's in the upper basement..."
"Oh great, the "upper basement," I rolled my eyes.
"Why are you so sarcastic all of a sudden?" He laughed, "Seems like you're already getting comfortable."
I scoffed as he took the lead and walked us out of the dingy hallway. A few left and right turns later, we arrived at two big doors with bold letters printed: "Parts and Service." He pushed open the door to a huge room with a cylinder workspace in the middle. There was a person in the cylinder, tall, skinny, kind of looked like one of those nerd kids you'd see in high school. He was doing some work on an orange animatronic laying on the table. The doors shut behind us and Davie waved to the man in the cylinder. He didn't wave back, nor did he notice Davie trying to get his attention.
"So," Davie said adjusting his hat. "This is where I work, parts and service, pretty cool right? This is where I, that guy Steven over there, and a few other people work on the animatronics. Gotta keep them in working order y'know. Steven is doing some optical work on Freddy."
The guy, apparently named Steven, got up from the chair next to Freddy and opened the cylinder door.
"Hey Davie, why are you here so late?" He walked over to a monitor and began clicking, "Aren't you off today anyway? I thought Becca was covering for you?"
"I am off, I'm not doing work right now am I? I just dropped by because I needed to help my friend here with something." Davie put his hand on my shoulder, which kinda hurt. Steven shut down the computer and took off his glasses. He glanced over at me, but I don't think he noticed the obvious face plate marks on my face somehow.
I shifted my gaze to Freddy, who was already up and moving. He was a big guy, at least 7-8 feet tall, but to me, he looked the opposite of intimidating.
Freddy walked up to Steven, "Thank you, my vision is working much better now. It was hard to perform when my eyes were all blurry." He turned around to return to wherever he came from when he noticed me and Davie standing there. "Oh! Davie! I didn't know you'd be here today. It's good to see you."
Davie smiled, "Yeah you too Freddy, I was just waiting for Steven to get done with the cylinder. I need to get something done real quick, that's all."
"I see, who is your friend there?"
"This is Y/n, we met at a robotics shop awhile back, I brought them because I was gonna help them with something."
I put my hand up a little to try to wave, I didn't get far since it hurt.
Eventually, after some small talk from afar, Steven and Freddy left the room. Davie helped me down the stairs and into the chamber. After helping me lay down on the table, I heard him leave. I sat there staring at the ceiling until I heard him speak to me.
"Alright, this should be enough...now, this stuff isn't...uh...your normal drugs or whatever. It's a little different than that. But don't worry, It's very little so it's safe I promise you that."
"You make a lot of promises," I responded.
He laughed softly as he was prepping, "Yeah I know, but I don't break them, I promi-..."
"Ow, don't make me laugh, It hurts like a fucking bitch."
He apologized, sat down next to me, and began hooking me up to a machine. I saw a syringe with a purple glowing substance inside. He wasn't kidding when he said it wasn't an ordinary drug. I can't say I wasn't a little nervous having purple glowing goo being shot up into my veins. But, if he said it was going to help, then I guess I'll just deal with it.
"Okay, so it will hurt a little. But not for long, maybe a few seconds at max."
I turned my head slightly to the side to face him, "You think I'm not already used to it? I don't care, just it over with."
He nodded as he moved my forearm so he could see my vein. I looked away at the ceiling as he shoved the needle into my arm. After injecting my arm, he removed the needle and placed a small bandage over the hole.
It didn't hurt at first, because of course, it didn't kick in yet. But when it did...It hurt. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists. It felt like someone set fire to every internal part of my body. I bit my tongue to keep myself from screaming.
But after a few seconds passed, I felt nothing.
No pain.
Wait...
No pain?
I shot up from the table into a sitting position. I moved my arms around fluently with no pain at all, like my body was perfectly normal again. I did the same with my back, torso, neck, and legs, and still no pain. I looked at Davie in awe, "Holy shit. It worked."
He crossed his arms in success, "I told you it would work, I always keep my promises. But now that you're fixed and all, do you wanna get cleaned up? I could schedule you a makeover?"
"I can't tell if you're being serious about the makeover thing or not."
"Hundred percent serious. What do you want? Cut and dye your hair? piercings?"
"I'd take all of those. If I'm gonna be half animatronic, I at least have to look cool."
"Then consider it done. We'll do it tomorrow"
"Why thank you, my kindhearted homeless butler."
"I have an apartment you know, and I'm not your damn butler. I'm just that good of a friend that's all."
____________________________________
"Jeez, I can barely recognize myself," I said looking at myself in a mirror in Davie's apartment. I really liked how everything turned out. I looked so much better, I didn't hate how I looked as much. I walked back over to the kitchen counter where Davie was making coffee for him and me.
"Happy with it?" He asked. I nodded as I started to trace the marble pattern on the cold surface of the counter. "Well if you don't mind," He continued. "I need to go back to the pizza plex today. There was an issue with the programming with the new staff bots. They wanted me to fix it "asap."
"Yeah I don't mind, I actually wanted to explore a little more. Are we going during open hours or?"
"Well, it's closing at 9 pm today due to the issue with the bots so no. It's already 8:30 so we can head out in a few. If you want, while I'm working you can go meet some other animatronics, make some new friends."
He slid me my coffee from the other side of the counter. I grabbed it and took a sip before I responded. "Okay sure, I wanna go find that temperamental one you told me about a while ago."
He laughed, "Moon. The one you're looking for is named Moon. He's one of the daycare attendants."
"I'll keep that in mind."
______________________________
Back at the pizza plex, Davie told me the general layout of the building. He told me that he would be in the repair room in the "Super Starcade." I didn't really know where that was, so I was practically on my own for the rest of the night. According to Davie, animatronics are free to roam around and do their own things after closing. So I was planning on seeing a few of them.
I checked out some of the little restaurants lining the main concert hall, they were cute in their own way. I saw there were four main attractions, Fazerblast, Monty Golf, Roxy Raceway, and Mazercise.
Gio would have loved this place.
I went up the stairs and saw the so-called daycare. Part of me wanted to go in, but, I can't lie I was a little hesitant on just walking into their area after closing. I examined the big posters of Sun and Moon.
"Weird lookin' guys," I muttered. I decided to change my mind about going in, they're robots, they're not gonna care anyways.
I lifted the metal door and slipped inside. It was extremely dark beside a few small lights here and there. To my advantage, my eyes aren't human, so It allowed me to see in the dark pretty well. I walked around a bit, looked at the huge golden statue in the middle and plushies lining the walls.
I was fine until I heard shuffling not too far away from me. I whipped my head around and scanned the area, I didn't see anything moving. My adrenaline picked up, I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. I stared out into the darkness for a few more seconds before turning back around.
I heard it again.
I fully turned around and sighed. "Okay stop. Whoever is there, just come out. I don't bite."
"Didn't stop to think If I bite?"
What the fuck. Did I just hear a soothing robotic voice tell me that it bites...?
You know what, fuck this, that's creepy, I'm out.
"Uuhhh..." I say under my breath as I begin to back myself against the wall.
"What?~ Scared?"
Oh, now this thing is taunting me? You got to be kidding me.
"No," I snapped, "You didn't scare me, I just... wasn't expecting someone to be here."
"Riiight..."
I see two red glowing eyes appear to my right. I could see a large skinny figure climb on top of the slide. It was slightly illuminated due to the glow of its eyes, I could tell it was staring at me. I had a split second of panic seeing that thing slowly climb towards me. Is it gonna kill me or something? I was about to just run out of there when I remembered where I was.
Oh...the daycare attendants.
I took a deep breath to regain my composure, "You're Moon, aren't you?"
He tilted his head to the side, "Yeah, and?"
"I've heard a lot about you...you're quite the jackass I hear."
I heard him scoff, "Who told you that?"
"Davie, I'm a friend of his."
"You're taking his word for it? The guy is dumber than most of the kids I deal with."
It's scary how human he sounds, his voice doesn't sound programmed or prerecorded. Not to mention I'm having a whole ass conversation with him. Just how alive are these things? But, besides everything, I do like his voice, It has a nice tone to it.
I started to relax a little, I looked to my side and saw a little table next to me, I saw some papers and a flashlight. I moved to the side a little and grabbed the flashlight, turned it on, and pointed it in Moon's direction. He growled as he put his hand up to face to cover his eyes.
"Ow, that was rude."
I finally got a good look at the guy. He looked nothing like the posters surprisingly. It was a welcome surprise though, his design was utterly fascinating. From his sharp teeth to the details on his chest, everything was...Unique. My younger self would have killed to have an actual conversation with a sentient animatronic. I let out a soft laugh, "Ooh look at you, you're not scary in the slightest."
He looked puzzled, "Huh...first time I've heard that one. Now can you get that damn light out of my face? I hate direct light."
"Oh," I looked around the area, "I have absolutely zero clue where the light switch is." I moved the flashlight off of him and began to look. I began to walk away from his direction when he interrupted my search.
"It's not over there, It's downstairs at the security desk. You hafta go down this slide."
I turned around and put the flashlight on him again. A big smile spread across my face, "I can go down the fucking slide?!"
"Just this once."
"Oh hell yeah." I jogged over to where he was. When I got to the top of the slide, I noticed just how huge this guy was. He was still crouched but I could tell he was tall as fuck. He stared at me for a second before jumping off the slide down to the first floor. I got down and launched myself into the slide.
"Wooooooo! Ow!"
I hit my elbow on the side of the damn slide.
When I came out of the slide I tried to stick my landing but failed and fell face-first into a ball pit.
Great.
This is the first impression I gave.
One clumsy bitch.
I heard Moon laugh a bit in the distance, which just irritated me. But I can't blame him, I would laugh if I saw someone eat shit in a ball pit too. I sighed and picked myself up, I waded myself out of the ball pit and fixed my hair. I saw Moon sitting on the desk near the switch, just watching me with a dumb grin on his face.
I walked over, set the flashlight down, and flipped the switch.