"There is no doubting what you've achieved on a technical level. These are currently state-of-the-art. There are just certain.. 'design choices' that were made for these robots that we don't fully understand. We were hoping you could shed some light for those."
"She can dance.. she can sing. She's equipped with a built-in helium tank, inflating balloons right at her fingertips. She can take song requests.. she can even dispense ice cream."
"With all due respect, those were the design choices we were curious about, Mr. Afton."
- - -
11:55 pm. Derry, Maine. 1983.
"Go on, shoo," Eddie waved Richie away. "For as long as I know, I'm not going into one of those places again. I could have a serious heart attack if I do, and my mom won't be happy." Eddie's mother had always been overprotective about Eddie, and wanted to keep her son out of harms way, and to keep him from getting sick.
"Have fun in there, and be careful!" Beverly had told Richie as he began to walk into the building. The boy was rather hesitant due to what had happened before - with his experiences with the pizzeria that had weird animatronics like this. Something always goes wrong. Unlike the other problems Richie had in Derry, this was actually quite on the low side that could badly happen. Pennywise was feeding from everywhere in Derry, and no child would be able to hide from it.
The animatronics that were in the pizzerias were only constructed to stay in the building, so they only murdered people who went into the place. Richie had previously worked at a pizzeria; which had similar tech and hosting abilities. Sadly, he and his friends were the ones who were the fault of it closing.
Taking his mind off of the dark side of things, Richie headed into the building. Surprisingly, what Richie saw, it was much different than the other time he worked at something like this. Everything was new, and the posters had animatronics that looked so much different than what he had seen before.
They were shiny, with faces that looked like they were split up. They all had colors that were either pink, blue, red, purple, or white. Like the colors used to bring children in to entertain. Their faces had round, circular cheeks that were visible at the corners of their mouths.
All of the animatronics had dark lines that cut through their faces. Something told Richie that there must have been some way for the animatronics to be able to open up their faces, which is why there was indented lines across their plating which covered the exoskeleton.
Richie approached the elevator, knowing that there was only a hall when a person went into the pizzeria, and they had to go down the elevator to reach where they wanted to go. Stepping into the elevator, the elevator almost immediately shifted and started going down, closing the elevator doors.
The boy was taken by surprise. "Okay...no buttons. Great job, Richie," he muttered to himself. "Your job includes riding down an elevator with no buttons." Usually an elevator would have buttons - even if it was one floor down - to channel which floor you wanted to go to.
It was mostly quiet in the elevator, except for the small humming of the fan. However, Richie thought he was going crazy, due to him suddenly hearing a little girls voice.
It seemed to whisper in his ear, "Daddy, why won't you let me play with her?" The girl seemed to have a little bit of an accent. To Richie's friends, they would have noted that the girls' accent was much better than Richie's fake British Accent.
Richie looked around, and that only made him confirm he was really going mad. There was no little girl in the elevator. There was no little girl in the building. The building was empty, besides for him, and the animatronics down below. He fixed his glasses and shivered. The animatronics down below that will come to life and kill me, he thought darkly.
There was a loud sound, like a speaker that was turning on. Soon enough, someone was speaking through the speaker to welcome Richie to his new job he was hired to do.
"Welcome to the first day of your exciting new career!" The speaker began, sounding pretty enthusiastic. Richie, however, was not at all enthusiastic. He'd been forced to enroll himself in this job since nobody else wanted to do it.
The speaker continued, "whether you were approached at a job fair, read our ad in 'Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins', or if this is a result of a dare, we welcome you-"
"Suck. My. Ass," was all Richie said, when he figured out that this was a recorded speaker and there was no one else in the building. He started turning around, his middle fingers of both hands outstretched, as he started to wave his hands around. "fuck this shitty job!"
"-I will be your personal guide to help you get started. I'm a model five of the Handyman's Robotics and Unit Repair System. But, you can call me 'HandUnit-"
"Fuck you, HandUnit. Nice to meet you." Richie muttered.
"-Your new career promises challenge, intrigue, and endless janitorial opportunities. Please enter your name as seen above the keypad. This cannot be changed later, so, please be careful." HandUnit finally stopped talking. Suddenly, a keypad popped up in front of Richie. The screen seemed to have a little glitch to it, but it must have been fine, and Richie typed his name into the keypad.
When he clicked enter, nothing happened. So he tried to spam click it a couple times. HandUnit started to speak again, "It seems that you had some trouble with the keypad. I see what you were trying to type, and I will autocorrect it for you. One moment-"
Richie guessed that HandUnit would pronounce what he typed in for his name oddly, due to it being a robot.
"-Welcome: Eggs Benedict-"
Richie almost choked on his spit. "How- what? How did you get Eggs Benedict as an autocorrect for Richard- that's not even logical!" he shouted to the speaker. However, he started to chuckle to himself. "I guess Eddie now has a legal nickname for me in payback for what I have been calling him...oh well. At least something is normal around here."
Suddenly, the elevator stopped quickly, making the entire thing shake. The doors somehow didn't open automatically, like what a person would experience in a hotel or mall.
Glancing around for some sort of button to get the doors open, Richie spotted a glowing bright green button next one of the posters, which looked like some sort of animatronic ballerina. Without hesitating, the boy took a step forward and pressed it; the elevator doors now slid open, revealing a vent. There was yellow warning tape which was blocking the vent in an X format, but the gap was big enough for a person to climb through.
So Richie got out of the elevator and squeezed himself through the gap, getting into the vent that was surprisingly able to be crawled through by a grown adult. In a crouching position now, Richie put one hand in front of the other, his legs doing the same, as he made his way forwards into the depths of the dark vent.
"Allow me to fill this somewhat frightening silence with some lighthearted banter-" HandUnit's voice suddenly said out of nowhere. Richie was expecting it to be quiet, but wasn't expecting HandUnit to start talking. He jumped in shock, hitting his back up against the roof of the vent and it made a loud sound from the hit. He fell back onto the bottom of the vent, and grunted in pain, reaching up to fix his glasses back onto his nose.
"What the fuck, dude." Richie whispered sharply. His heart was pounding, now. The boy knew something bad was bound to happen in this place.
It seems just too...perfect. Richie thought.
"-due to the massive success, and even more so, the unfortunate closing of, it was clear that the stage was set -no pun intended- for another contender in children's entertainment," HandUnit explained. "Unlike most entertainment venues, our robotic entertainers are rented out for private parties during the day, and it's your job to get the robots back in proper working order before the following morning."
"What happens if I don't? Will I die? Hmm? Did you ever think about that?" Richie muttered under this breath. He noticed that he was now at the end of the vent, now, and climbed out of the small space into a small room. Glancing around, he noted to himself that he was in a room in between two glass walls.
"You are now in the Primary Control Module; it's actually a crawl space between the two front showrooms," HandUnit informed Richie. "Now, let's get started with your daily tasks."
Richie was instructed to look over at the window at his left side of him, and was told this was the Ballora Gallery, which was meant for kids to get fit and enjoy pizza. "Wow.. I didn't know the place where you are meant to be working out is also a place to be eating unhealthy food.. what a coincidence," he commented.
He was then instructed to press the blue button on the elevated keypad to his left to turn on the light to see if the animatronic was there. Richie reached forward and pressed the button, and there was an immediate response as the light turned on in the showroom, lighting up the stage. However, there was no animatronic there. No pink animatronic ballerinas that would eventually bite your little toes off and kill you.
"Uh oh. It looks like Ballora doesn't feel like dancing. Let's give her some motivation. Press the red button now to administer a controlled shock. Maybe that will put the spring back in her step." HandUnit said.
Richie rolled his eyes. "Yeah, no wonder," he scoffed. "She's getting tired of shoving pizza up kids asses to dance- wait. You say a controlled shock?" Richie's eyes suddenly lit up with interest. If his friends were there, they would have assumed he was going to go on a killing spree that would confirm he was truly going mad. "That sounds fun." he pressed the red button almost immediately, and a flash of light and a buzzing sound came after it.
What the fuck was that? Richie thought. That was the opposite of a shock; it was like a car that flickered it's broken lights or failed to start..
The boy was instructed to check the lights again, and he did. Suddenly a big shape was in there, all positioned and ready for the children to come the next day. Richie had assumed this animatronic was Ballora, who was also the animatronic being presented on the poster in the elevator. He shivered. Knowing that the creepy animatronic was in there, and could break out in any second made him worry.
"I mean," Richie whispered, still staring at the animatronic. "No one wants to die from a creepy ballerina, right? It looks like a fucking ballerina clown.."
Next, Richie was told to view the window to his right, and was informed that this was the Funtime auditorium where 'Funtime Foxy' encourages kids to play and share. After being instructed to, Richie was told to check the light and if the animatronic wasn't there, to try a few controlled shocks until it is ready for the next day.
After checking the light, Richie had saw that nothing was there at all. Where would the animatronics be if they weren't on their stage? Behind him? Richie took a cautious glance behind him just to make sure. He reached for the shock button, and after it seemed to be a shock, Richie checked the light again. Nothing. Richie pressed the controlled shock button once more, and checked the light. Finally, he could see the shape of the animatronic in the stage.
"In front of you is another vent shaft. Crawl through it to reach the Circus Gallery Control Module," HandUnit continued. Richie noticed that there was another vent in front of him, but this time it wasn't crossed off with tape. He carefully crawled into the vent, and scooted himself forward, trying not to hit his head. This time it wasn't so long of a crawl, and he got to the Circus Gallery in around two minutes. Getting out, he was in some sort of room that seemed like an aquarium. Three glass plates were built into the walls, along with a room on the other side of them. Richie guessed this was where the animatronic was supposed to be.
Richie was told to check the light to see if 'Baby' was there. When he did press the button, there was nothing there. It was no surprise to Richie by now. The lights, however, only a few of them managed to turn on. Richie had assumed that he had to fix them, since he was the technician, but HandUnit didn't seem to tell him that he had to do it. Instead, HandUnit told Richie to give the animatronic a controlled shock to "cheer Baby up". Wow. A shock meant to cheer up someone? Nice. If you wanted to anger them, anyway.
Anyway, Richie turned on the lights but Baby was not there. He was told to do this sequence once more, but Baby still was nowhere to be seen. "Wow. Baby must be dead or something..." he commented, baldly joking.
"Great job, Circus Baby, we knew we could count on you!" HandUnit cheered, as if Baby was on its stage ready for the next morning; but it wasn't. That was rather strange. Where could the animatronic be? It wasn't exactly the night Richie had imagined.
HandUnit continued: "That concludes your duties for your first night on the job. We don't want you to leave overwhelmed; otherwise, you might not come back." Why would want to even come back? He was already sure that this place was creepy, if not terrifying and life-threatening. "Please leave using the vent behind you, and we'll see you again tomorrow."
Richie immediately got into the vent behind him, and started to crawl through it. Suddenly there was a loud sound, somewhat like chains dropping on metal, behind him. This had startled Richie, and made him screech with panic. He started to crawl faster, and felt like he was galloping through the vent on his hands and knees like a horse until he had reached the end of the vent. Soon enough, around five minutes later, he was already through the next vent and up the elevator.
Richie exited the building, checking the time and appreciating that it was just after dawn, so around 5:30 in the morning. Grabbing his bike from the bike stand in the parking lot, he slowly made his way home.
Walking through the doorway, the phone immediately rang. He knew who it was, and picked it up, holding it close to his ear. "Eds? What is it?" he was glad to talk to his friend again, even though he might have liked Eddie a little more than a friend, but tried to hide it by making jokes about dating the small boys' mother, Sonia Kaspbrak.
"Thank goodness you're alive, Rich. And how many fucking times do I have to ask you to stop calling me 'Ed's'?" Eddie grumbled over the phone.
Richie grinned, "You now have a name to call me in turn of me calling you Eds. You can call me Eggs Benedict for now on." Eddie snorted with laughter, but had to quiet down to keep his mother from hearing him. "Well, I have to go, Eds. I hope your mom is ready for our date next Tuesday! Bye, Eds, I'll talk to you later, man."
Richie could hear Eddies long, drawn out sigh. "Bye, Eggs Benedict."
- -
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