Chapter Text
AFTON (Worm/Five Nights at Freddy´s)
Brockton Bay, Massachusetts. December 25th, 2010. 2:07 AM.
"All I want for Christmas is you!"
"Jesus Christ, Dave, you're killing the fucking song."
"Shut up, Mikey. Mariah's a national treasure."
"Mariah's a national treasure, and you sound like a dying moose," Mikey replied as the armored truck rattled over a pothole, drowning out the resulting chorus of middle fingers. Outside, Brockton Bay's industrial district rolled past in a blur of snow, rusted warehouses, and streetlights that had long since given up the fight against the darkness. The snow was coming down harder now, thick flakes catching in the headlights of the three-vehicle convoy.
Inside the lead transport, six armed guards were doing their best to pretend they weren't driving through one of the shittiest cities in America on Christmas morning. They'd been friends for years. Most of them had served together before Fazbear Entertainment hired them, and the rest had been absorbed into the group through the natural process of shared misery, bad coffee, and an unhealthy number of workplace injuries and near-death experiences. They celebrated birthdays together, drank together, and attended each other's weddings and babyshowers of their kids.
They'd also seen things that would have gotten them laughed out of any halfway respectable psychiatric institution. Specifically, things that Fazbear Entertainment insisted weren't happening that happened every single fucking time they were on the clock.
"Remind me again why we're here?" asked Thompson from the passenger seat.
"Because the interstate's closed," Dave replied, keeping one hand on the wheel while drumming his fingers against it. "Chemical spill. Some truck jackknifed outside Boston."
"And the route planner sent us through the Bay?" Mikey asked.
"Apparently, it's the fastest alternative," Dave replied.
"Right. And I'm the fucking Easter Bunny." Scott joked.
"Could be worse." Phil pointed out.
Thompson turned to stare at him. "How?"
"We could be spending Christmas at the facility."
That shut everyone up, and for a few seconds, the only sound was Mariah Carey belting her heart out through the truck's battered speakers, then Thompson sighed. "Yeah. Fair enough."
Behind them, the other two vehicles followed in tight formation. Each was armored, each carried enough firepower to equip a small police department, and each had been reinforced to withstand impacts that would turn an ordinary truck into a very expensive accordion.
The convoy's cargo was worth considerably more than the vehicles themselves not that anyone not involved would have called it cargo if they knew what was inside.
Officially, the transport consisted of several decommissioned entertainment robots being moved to a private facility for inspection and maintenance. The paperwork was immaculate. The security protocols were extensive. The armed escort was expensive enough to make a military contractor blush.
And Fazbear Entertainment had hired a Tinker to oversee the entire operation.
A real, honest-to-God Tinker.
Someone with a specialty in robotics and mechanical systems, contracted to determine why the company's original line of animatronics kept malfunctioning in ways that defied every conventional explanation.
The guards had been informed that this time would be different.
The guards had also been informed of that last time.
And the time before that.
And the time before that.
They'd been doing this for decades. Different trucks, different facilities, different management, different paperwork. Every few years, Fazbear Entertainment would announce some exciting new development, hire a specialist, and swear that the problem had finally been solved.
Then something would go wrong and maybe someone would disappear or something would get out and the guards would be forced to clean up the mess. The company had apparently decided that if they kept throwing enough money and sufficiently qualified engineers at the problem, eventually reality would get tired and give up.
The guards still had their doubts. "Hey, Dave?" Scott spoke up.
"Yeah?"
"If one of those things gets out again, I'm putting in my resignation."
"Sure you are."
"I mean it."
"You said that last time."
"Last time, the fucking rabbit ripped through a reinforced steel door like nothing and punched me so hard my jaw got broken."
"Technically, it was a fire door."
"Dave."
"I'm just saying, the distinction matters."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Get in line."
Laughter crackled through the cab. It was the easy, comfortable laughter of people who had long ago accepted that their jobs were absurd and that complaining about them was more productive than confronting the implications.
They were good at their jobs. They followed procedure. They checked their weapons, inspected their equipment, and never opened a transport compartment without authorization.
They were professionals.
And they were all very, very tired.
Dave glanced at the dashboard clock.
2:09 AM.
"Come on, come on," he muttered. "Get through the city, hit the highway, and we're home free."
The radio crackled.
Mariah hit the chorus again.
Thompson groaned. "If I hear this song one more time-"
"Then you'll know it's Christmas." Mikey joked.
"It's fucking two in the morning." He growled in annoyance.
The convoy turned onto a narrower street, following the route their dispatcher had sent them. On either side, old brick buildings rose out of the snow. Some were boarded up. Others had windows glowing with the dim orange light of cheap heaters. Graffiti covered the walls, layer upon layer of gang symbols and territorial markings.
Brockton Bay had a reputation. The guards had heard all about it. The Empire Eighty-Eight. The ABB. The Merchants. The gangs, the capes, the endless territorial disputes that made the city's police force and PRT look like it had been assembled by throwing darts at a recruitment poster.
They'd also been explicitly instructed not to stop for anything short of a direct threat to the convoy not that anyone intended to stop.
They wanted to be out of Brockton Bay before 4 AM and preferably before the local criminal population noticed that three armored vehicles were hauling what they would assume would be several million dollars' worth of stuff through their territory.
Unfortunately, the universe had a truly vicious sense of humor as the first warning came from the second vehicle. "Lead, this is Two. We've got movement up ahead. Multiple people, armed. Looks like a gang altercation."
Dave's smile vanished. "Copy, Two. Can we bypass?"
"Negative. They're blocking the intersection."
"Of course they are." He eased off the accelerator.
Ahead, the street opened onto an intersection where several cars had been abandoned at odd angles. Figures in white clothing and others wearing heavy jackets emblazoned with black insignia were shouting at one another across the road.
Empire and Merchants, based on the nazi tatoos and the fact that the other side had those cars from the Tinker working from them, from what Dave saw in the news, because naturally, the two groups had decided that Christmas was an excellent time to have a fucking war.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
"Shit," Thompson whispered.
Dave reached for the radio. "Dispatch, this is Lead. We have a developing gang firefight blocking our planned route. Requesting alternate navigation."
Static.
Then the dispatcher's voice, tight and clipped. "Lead, take the next right. Proceed east for three blocks, then turn south. That should reconnect you with the main road."
Dave looked at the map.
The alternate route was narrower. More turns. Worse road conditions.
Still, it was better than driving through a gunfight. "Copy. Convoy, we're diverting. Maintain spacing. Nobody gets out of their vehicle unless I say so."
Three acknowledgments came back.
He turned the wheel.
The lead truck swung into the side street, tires crunching over packed snow. The second vehicle followed, then the third.
For perhaps thirty seconds, everything went smoothly, then a black sedan came screaming out of an alley, and Dave barely had time to shout before the sedan slammed into the lead truck's front quarter panel.
Metal shrieked as the truck lurched sideways, smashed through a wooden fence, and plowed into a parked delivery van. The airbag detonated in Dave's face. Somewhere behind him, the convoy jackknifed as the second vehicle swerved to avoid the wreck, striking the third hard enough to send it skidding into a streetlight.
Glass shattered.
Gunfire erupted.
The radio flew off its mount.
For several seconds, there was nothing but noise.
Then Dave realized he was still alive.
"Everybody sound off!" he shouted.
"Two's up!"
"Three's up! Driver's bleeding, but he's conscious!"
"Thompson?"
"Fuck you," Thompson wheezed from the passenger seat. "I'm alive."
"Good. Keep being alive." Dave said as he fumbled with his seat belt and kicked at the buckled door.
The gang fight had followed them, or perhaps they'd crashed directly into the middle of it.
Honestly, Dave couldn't tell anymore.
"Get the perimeter secured!" he barked into the radio. "Nobody approaches the transport vehicles! Repeat, nobody approaches the-"
A deep metallic bang came from the rear of the truck.
Dave froze as another bang followed.
Then a long, slow scrape.
He turned his head toward the cargo compartment. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me."
The transport's rear doors had buckled in the collision. One of the reinforced latches had torn loose, leaving a narrow gap between the doors.
Something shifted in the darkness behind them.
Thompson saw it, too. "Dave."
"I see it."
"Dave, those doors—"
"I SEE IT!"
He grabbed his rifle and shoved his way out through the driver's door.
Snow crunched beneath his boots. His ears rang from the impact, and blood trickled down his forehead into one eye. The street was chaos: the Empire and the Merchants were still shooting at one another, two of their vehicles were wrecked, and at least one of the convoy's guards was lying motionless beside the rear truck.
The transport compartment shuddered. "Everyone back!" Dave shouted. "Get away from the cargo! That's an order!"
A man in a filthy green jacket stumbled out from behind the wreckage. He had a pistol in one hand and a wild, exhilarated grin on his face.
He looked at the armored transport, then at the damaged doors. "Holy shit," he breathed. "What the fuck is this?"
"Get away from the truck!" Dave yelled.
The man ignored him because, of course, he did.
He approached the rear doors, peering through the gap as something inside moved closer.
The Merchant laughed nervously and raised his pistol. "Hey! Anyone in there?"
"BACK THE FUCK UP!" Thompson yelled as Dave started running.
The Merchant turned, startled by the shouting. "What, you gonna shoot me, asshole?"
"Get away from the-"
The pistol flashed, and the shot grazed Scott in the chest.
For one terrible moment, the entire world seemed to stop.
The Merchant stared at the fallen man.
Then he looked back at the truck as something long, red, and metal shot through the gap in the doors. There was a flash of rusted hooks and jagged teetha nd the Merchant barely had time to scream before Foxy's jaws closed around his head.
The sound was wet and horrible. His pistol hit the pavement as his body convulsed once before the animatronic flung him aside like a broken toy.
Silence fell over the immediate stretch of street.
Even the gunfire seemed to pause as Foxy emerged from the transport, crouched low on his mechanical legs, one hook scraping against the asphalt. His pirate's eyepatch had been torn away. His exposed endoskeleton gleamed beneath shredded red fur.
His jaw opened.
A grinding mechanical whine rose from somewhere deep in his chest.
Then he sprinted.
"CONTACT!" Dave screamed. "CONTACT, CONTACT, CONTACT!"
The street exploded into motion.
Another Merchant raised his rifle, but Foxy jumped at him, screeching before he could fire, sending both of them crashing through the windshield of a parked car. Someone opened fire. Bullets sparked against metal. One struck Foxy's shoulder, tearing away a strip of synthetic fur.
The animatronic didn't slow down.
It didn't even seem to notice.
Behind him, the transport doors finally gave way, and Freddy Fazbear stepped into the snow.
Not compared to a human being, necessarily. He was a little taller than an adult man, with a round brown body, a black top hat, and a red bow tie. His face was permanently molded into a friendly smile, his blue eyes bright and glassy beneath the streetlights.
For a moment, he simply stood there, surveying the wreckage, then his head turned toward the nearest screaming man.
Bonnie followed, purple fur matted with dust and grime, a guitar dangling from one hand. Chica came next, her yellow casing scuffed and stained, her bib still proclaiming LET'S EAT!!! in cheerful, multicolored letters.
Behind them, something smaller moved in the darkness.
A music box chimed.
Once.
Twice.
The sound was delicate, almost sweet, a little melody drifting through the cold air.
Dave's stomach dropped.
"No." He knew that sound. Every guard who'd survived more than two years with Fazbear Entertainment knew that sound. "NO, NO, NO!"
He spun toward the third truck. "JAMES!"
A figure stumbled out of the wreckage, clutching a battered metal case to his chest. James. Youngest man on the team, barely twenty-four, with a wife in Worcester and a newborn daughter he'd shown everyone approximately four hundred pictures of.
He was bleeding from his forehead. His left arm hung at an odd angle.
But he was alive.
And he had the music box.
"James!" Dave screamed. "KEEP THE FUCKING MUSIC BOX WOUND!"
James stared at him, dazed. "What?"
"THE MUSIC BOX! KEEP IT WOUND!"
Understanding dawned on James's face as he looked at the animatronics. "Oh, fuck me."
He dropped to his knees beside the case and began winding the mechanism with shaking hands.
The music grew louder.
The delicate melody threaded through the chaos, absurdly cheerful against the screams and gunfire.
Freddy's head twitched.
Bonnie stopped walking.
Chica's jaw clicked open and shut.
For one precious second, the three animatronics seemed to hesitate.
Dave raised his rifle. "Everyone, fall back! Keep the music going! Do NOT let that thing stop!"
A gunshot rang out from the intersection.
Someone screamed.
The melody faltered as James's injured hand slipped.
Freddy turned his head.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
His blue eyes fixed on the young guard.
James went white. "Dave?"
"KEEP WINDING!"
"I'M TRYING!"
Foxy came sprinting around the wrecked car, dragging a screaming Merchant by the leg. He flung the man aside and turned toward the sound of the music.
His mechanical ears twitched, and his jaw opened.
And somewhere beneath the cheerful melody, another sound began to rise.
A low, grinding laugh.
Dave had heard it before.
He'd heard it in darkened maintenance corridors. In the moments before the emergency lights went out and someone started screaming.
He'd heard it every time Fazbear Entertainment promised that the problem had been fixed.
The music box's spring clicked.
James fumbled with the winding key.
The melody stopped.
For half a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then Freddy Fazbear took a step forward. "Let's have some fun, kids!"
A few blocks away....
Madison Clements was having a perfectly normal Christmas or well, as normal as Christmas could get when you were sixteen, your family was doing its best to pretend the last few years hadn't happened, and you were currently elbow-deep in an attic full of Christmas decorations, looking for a star.
"All I want for Christmas is youuuuu..."
Madison hummed along with the song playing through her headphones, pushing aside a dusty cardboard box marked THANKSGIVING.
Who the hell stored Thanksgiving decorations in the same box as Christmas ornaments?
Actually, knowing her family, that was probably a rhetorical question.
She sneezed. "Goddammit."
Cardboard boxes were stacked along the sloping walls. An old rocking chair sat beneath a sheet. Somewhere behind a pile of winter coats, something made a noise that Madison decided she absolutely did not hear because if that fucking rat was back again jer dad would actually burn the house down!
She was here for one thing. The spate Christmas star.
Find the star, decorate the tree, go downstairs, eat something with approximately six thousand calories, and spend the rest of Christmas pretending she wasn't miserable.
Simple.
Easy.
Totally achievable.
She shoved another box aside and stopped. There was a smaller box tucked into the corner, half-hidden beneath a tangle of old blankets. Unlike the others, it wasn't made of cardboard. It was wooden, with dark varnish and little brass hinges, and it had two heavy padlocks securing the lid.
Someone had taken the time to lock it.
Someone had also taken the time to write three words across the top in thick black marker.
DO NOT OPEN.
Madison stared at it as something about the box tugged at the back of her mind. She'd seen it before.
Not recently. Not in any of the half-remembered Christmases from her childhood, when the world had still been a place where adults handled everything and children were allowed to believe in magic and Santa Claus.
No she specifically remembered it from when she was four and more specifickly she remembered her mother finding her with a hairpin in one hand and a padlock in the other and the ensuimg yelling from her mom and it was not the ordinary sort of yelling, either.
It was the other kind. The kind that made a little girl freeze where she stood. Plus it was the first time Madison could remember her mother ever raising her voice at her.
She'd cried. Her mother had cried afterward, too. And her dad had taken Madison downstairs, given her a stuffed animal, and told her that sometimes grown-ups got scared about things they couldn't explain yet.
Madison had never tried opening the box again and eventually forgot about it until today.
"Huh." She crouched in front of it. It still had the two padlocks. The warning written in permanent marker was new, though.
Naturally, Madison immediately wondered what was inside. She tested one of the padlocks.
Locked.
She tested the other.
Also locked.
She wasn't stupid enough to go looking for bolt cutters. It was Christmas, and she had a tree to decorate. Besides, if her mother had gone to the trouble of locking the box, there was probably a reason.
A reason that had nothing to do with Madison.
Hopefully.
She shifted the blankets covering the box, revealing a small, dusty object wedged between it and the wall.
A plushie of a yellow bear, about the size of a small teddy bear, with rounded ears, a little black nose, and a purple top hat perched on its head. Its bow tie was purple, too. It had weird black and white eyes.
It was, in a word, adorable even if in a slightly unsettling, probably-haunted way.
Madison picked it up.
"Where the hell did you come from?"
The plushie stared back at her.
Well, obviously. It was a stuffed animal. Staring was sort of its job description.
She brushed the dust off its nose with her thumb.
Squeak!
Madison blinked, then she pressed it again.
Squeak!
"Oh, neat." She turned the plushie over, searching for a label. There was a small fabric tag at the back, but it had faded to the point where the writing was unreadable.
"Must be an old toy of mine." She muttered, even if she couldn't remember owning it, but then again, she couldn't remember much of being four. There were entire stretches of her early childhood that existed only as photographs and stories other people told her.
She gave the bear's nose another squeeze.
Squeak.
Okay. That was actually very cute.
A thought occurred to her even if it was really stupid thought though potentially very, very funny stupid thought.
Madison glanced at the plushie, then at the staircase. She could practically picture it: walking into school in january with the bear tucked awat, looking all innocent and sweet then hide it in Taylor's bag, then spread rumors about it. Maybe she'd say how Taylor still needed to sleep with it.
Emma would probably find it hilarious or annoying...hopefully it would get her to reconsider the whole locking Taylor in the locker thing.
Either way, they could use it, and Sophia would find it fun.
Her mind immediately went to those abs and her pretty eyes~
Madison shook her head so hard that her headphones slipped sideways.
Nope. Absolutely not. She was not thinking about Sophia's abs while holding a teddy bear in an attic. There were limits to even her dignity, and she had already crossed several of them this morning.
She cleared her throat, as if that would somehow clear her thoughts, too. "Right. You're coming with me." Madison glanced down at it, then frowned.
Wait. Had its eyes always been pointing in her direction?
She tilted the bear to the left.
Its gaze seemed to shift to her.
She tilted it to the right.
There it was again.
Madison went very still. "...What?"
She shook the plushie.
Its eyes wobbled.
She shook it again, a little harder.
The eyes wobbled some more, rolling around inside their sockets before settling back into place as if glancing at her before going in seperate directions. "Googly eyes. Extra neat."
Honestly, that was a relief. For about two seconds, she'd been on the verge of convincing herself that a stuffed bear was tracking her movements. Which would have been ridiculous.
She tucked the plushie under her arm, grabbed a box of ornaments, and finally spotted the missing Christmas star behind a stack of old suitcases.
"YES!" She snatched it up triumphantly.
Found the star. Found a weird bear. Avoided thinking about Sophia Hess's abs.
"Madison? Sweetheart, did you find the star?" Aunt Abby's voice floated up from downstairs.
"YEP! COMING!" Madison hurried down the steps, nearly tripping over the last one because she was carrying too much and because the universe had apparently decided that she wasn't allowed to have a single uncomplicated Christmas. She caught herself against the banister. "I'm good!"
Abby laughed.
Madison emerged into the hallway, holding the star aloft like a trophy. "Behold! The Christmas star!"
"Oh, thank god." Abby took it from her, inspecting the slightly bent metal points. "I was beginning to think we'd have to use a lamp or something."
"We could've gone minimalist. Very modern. Very sad." Madison joked, earning a chuckle.
"Your father used to say things like that when I was little."
Madison's smile softened a little. "Yeah?"
"Oh, absolutely." Abby adjusted the star beneath her arm and gave Madison an affectionate look. "He'd go looking for one thing, get distracted by something else, and forget what he'd been doing in the first place. Half the time, I'd find him asleep somewhere completely ridiculous."
Madison snorted. "Like where?"
"Once? In the pantry."
"Why?"
"He said he was looking for a snack."
Madison burst out laughing. It was a small thing, hearing stories about her father. The sort of thing Madison tried not to ask for too often, because she knew it hurt her mother, and because she had learned that certain subjects made adults go quiet in ways that were worse than shouting.
But Aunt Abby had always been willing to talk.
Sometimes, Madison thought, she was the only one who remembered that her father had been a person before he'd become a super serious PRT Agent.
Abby's eyes had fallen on the yellow bear tucked beneath Madison's arm. "Where did you get that?"
Madison glanced down. "Oh, in the attic."
Abby's expression changed.
Not dramatically. She didn't gasp or recoil. But the smile disappeared from her face, and for a moment she looked at the plushie as though it had just spoken to her.
Abby reached out, then seemed to think better of it, letting her hand fall to her side. "That's part of your mother's legacy."
Madison's fingers tightened around the bear. "Mom's legacy? What does that mean?"
Abby looked toward the living room, where the Christmas tree stood half-decorated beneath the window. Beyond it, snow drifted lazily past the glass. "It's complicated, sweetheart."
Madison resisted the urge to point out that adults used that phrase whenever they didn't want to explain something. "Is it a family thing?"
"In a way."
"Is that why it was in a locked box?" She asked, and Abby's eyes snapped back to her.
Madison immediately regretted asking. "You found the box?"
"Yeah. It had two padlocks and a big DO NOT OPEN sign on it. Very subtle."
Abby exhaled slowly. "Listen to me, Madison. I need you to do something for me."
Madison nodded cautiously. "Okay?"
"Don't show that to your mother."
The request was so immediate, so serious, that Madison felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "Why?"
"Because..." Abby paused, searching for the right words. "Because it brings back bad memories. Very bad ones. I don't want her to have to deal with that on Christmas."
Madison looked at the plushie again.
Its little black nose was slightly crooked. One of its googly eyes had settled at an odd angle, giving it an expression of permanent surprise.
"Okay," Madison said.
Abby's shoulders relaxed. "Thank you. Now, come on. Your mother will be wondering where we are, and we still have half the tree to decorate."
Madison followed her into the living room, the plushie tucked under her arm.
She'd promised not to show it to her mother.
She hadn't promised to get rid of it, and she certainly hadn't promised not to investigate.
Besides, it was a cute bear; how bad could its backstory be?
Meanwhile, in Hurricane, Utah
"Hello, hello?" The Manager said as she answered the phone, balancing a mug of coffee in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. "Hello?" she repeated, a little louder. "This is the Manager. If you're calling to tell me the coffee machine is broken again, I'm going to remind you that I'm a cape, not a fucking plumber."
"Miss Coppelia." The voice on the other end belonged to a man who sounded like he'd spent his entire career learning how to deliver terrible news without technically admitting anything.
She recognized him. One of the executives at Fazbear Entertainment. Middle management, technically, although the company had so many layers of management that she suspected some of them existed purely to give the others someone to blame. "Oh, hey Derek."
He groaned. "It's Dave. We have a situation."
"That's a shame." She told him.
"I'm serious."
"So am I. I was having a perfectly good night." She said as she put the screwdriver down and took a sip of coffee. "Go on, then. What's the sitrep?"
There was a pause. "An armed transport convoy carrying several animatronics was involved in an accident in Brockton Bay, Massachusetts. The vehicles sustained significant damage. Several members of the escort are injured or dead. The cargo has breached containment."
Coppelia stopped smiling. "They are out?"
"Yes."
"Actually in it or in the outskirts of the city?"
"In the city." The executive exhaled sharply. "Your assignment is to recover the animatronics and return them to a secure facility. You are authorized to use whatever force is necessary to ensure retrieval."
Coppelia leaned against the kitchen counter. Outside her window, the Utah night was quiet. Snow dusted the rooftops, and the distant lights of Hurricane glowed against the darkness. It was the sort of place where people expected Christmas to be peaceful, where the worst thing that might happen at two in the morning was a drunk neighbor setting off fireworks.
She'd always found that sort of expectation adorable.
"Hang on," she said. "You said Brockton Bay, right? As in the city with the gangs, the capes, the parahuman crime syndicates, and the general municipal death wish?"
"That is correct."
She sighed. "Fine. How many?"
"The whole gang. Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, Yellowbear, and the Marionette. We believe the incident may have compromised additional equipment inside too."
She counted them off on her fingers as she began counting how many dead would be in their wake this time. "Wonderful. Anything else? Nuclear fallout? A portal to Hell? Did the Bunny return?"
"This is not a joke."
"No, but it could use one." Coppelia set down her coffee. She was already thinking through the logistics. Distance. Equipment. Transport. Whether the animatronics would be operating independently or following some internal behavioral pattern.
She'd seen what happened when people assumed that a machine was harmless because it had a friendly face on her first mission.
The company's confidence in its own security measures was, in her professional opinion, a form of mental illness. "So," she said, "what's the situation on the ground at this point?"
"Local authorities have been notified of a traffic accident. We are attempting to limit public exposure. The initial reports suggest a confrontation between the Empire Eighty-Eight and the Merchants contributed to the crash."
"Oh, good. Gang violence. That makes everything easier to cover up."
"Your transportation will be arranged immediately. We have a vehicle waiting at the regional airfield, along with the necessary equipment."
"Uh-huh." She couldn't wait to hang up. The last guy was better. Close to her dad, personality-wise. Shame Bonnie hot him.
She could still remember her father's voice. Warm, tired, and perpetually amused by the sheer absurdity of the world.
He'd worked for Fazbear Entertainment for years. Long enough to know what the company was capable of. Long enough to understand that there were some things a man could fix with a screwdriver, some things he could fix with a phone call, and some things he should never have let his employer build in the first place.
He'd spent the last years of his life answering calls that began with the same two words.
Hello, hello?
Coppelia had inherited the habit.
She'd inherited a few other things, too.
The technical knowledge and the dark sense of humor.
She sighed it wasn't as though she had anything better to do, and if she didn't go, Fazbear would send somebody else. Somebody less prepared a d who might decide that the best way to deal with an escaped animatronic was to walk up to it and tell it to get in the box.
She'd seen that particular mistake before.
It was generally followed by screaming and a bad case of dying.
"Yeah," she said. "I'll go."
"Excellent. We appreciate your cooperation."
"Don't sound too excited. I haven't even left the house yet."
"Your orders will be transmitted shortly. One final matter: the incident occurred in a populated area. There will be casualties if the animatronics aren't contained quickly. Can you manage the situation alone or do you require help?"
Coppelia grinned. You know me. I always can manage. That's why I call myself the Manager."
The silence on the other end was long enough to suggest the executive was reconsidering several career choices. "Whatever you say, Coppelia."
"Great! I'll be in touch."
She hung up.
For a few seconds, she stood motionless in the kitchen, listening to the refrigerator hum.
Then she looked at her cold coffee.
"Fuck."
She drained it anyway.
There were worse ways to spend Christmas.
Probably.
Coppelia headed toward her bedroom, already mentally cataloguing what she'd need. Her costume. Her tools. Her equipment. Something to eat on the flight. Maybe a spare phone, in case the first one ended up being used as an improvised projectile.
Brockton Bay.
She'd never been there, but she'd heard enough stories to know the place was a mess. A city where superpowers had become another part of the local crime economy, where people dressed up in costumes and beat one another half to death over territory, ideology, or whatever excuse happened to be convenient that week.
And now it had killer robots.
Honestly, the city was beginning to sound like a Fazbear facility with better public relations.
She stopped at the doorway and glanced back at the phone.
For a moment, she thought about her father.
She wondered what he'd have said about all this.
Probably cry about Fazbear falling so low.