10 The Compromise

March 5, 1976 - 9:00 A.M. - William's Apartment (Present Time)

Ah, finally, a relaxing cup of coffee to help calm my mind from everything that's been going on. He wasn't able to get too much sleep last night, mainly because he was still terrified of his experiences with Funtime Freddy and Ballora. If this is the kind of shit I'm being forced to put up with, then I'm not taking it. I need to have a nice little chat with Mr. Cunningham about all of this. He was still very pissed off, and spent the entire morning trying to figure out what to say to his boss about his "work conditions".

William's apartment wasn't too small, but it provided enough room for him to feel at home. The walls were painted light green, the carpet was bague, and the door was dark brown, with a shiny doorknob. Inside his apartment were two small tables, one where he put his small TV and the other where he put his lamp at, a cushion chair, and a medium-sized bed. Although it tended to get a little cramped, he was just fine with living here.

Alright, got my work outfit on, I ate some breakfast, and I should be good to go. His outfit was a button-downed teal blue shirt, along with a dark grey tie and a little silver badge near his chest that read out, "William Afton - Technician". Looks good, better get going. He got the keys to his apartment and left, walking out of the building to get to the parking lot, where he kept his purple Ford F250. Ok, just need to explain to Mr. Cunningham what's wrong carefully, and hopefully, I can finally get some answers to my questions. He opened the car door and turned on the engine, and began driving his way to work.

Alright, what exactly do I tell him first? Maybe about why the robots are trying to kill me? Wait, I haven't thought about that at all. Why am I just realizing this? Ok, just make sure to tell him everything, and see what he can do. Or maybe I should just quit and look for work elsewhere. No, maybe not, there aren't too many well-paying jobs available around here, anyway. But I better be getting a raise if I have to keep putting up with this shit. William's past week so far has been nothing short of a train-wreck - moving into a new apartment, getting a new job, nearly and nearly dying on the second night of the job. Coming back to a job where the robots you are trying to repair are secretly trying to murder you takes a lot of nerve. Oh well, at least I'm still getting decent payment for this job. I might as well see if there's anything Mr. Cunningham can do about it.

Around thirty minutes of driving later, William arrived at the parking lot of Circus Baby World. Luckily, it wasn't too crowded, as William's boss mentioned to him last week that not many customers come in on Wednesdays. How convenient, he thought. He got out of his car and went through the entrance to the above-ground level of Circus Baby World. Apparently, most of the customers take an elevator inside of the first level of the building to go to the galleries that the animatronics would be performing for them at, while the rest of the first level was where all of the administrators and employee rooms were located. William knew the place well, he remembered the little tour he was given last week before taking his position as a technician here, so he knew where his employer's room was located. As William was walking towards Mr. Cunningham's room, he bumped into another employee.

"Hey, look where you're walking."

William didn't recognize this employee. He had dark brown hair, probably in his later thirties, and was wearing a purple jacket, with a little gold name tag that had the following words on it: Dave Miller, Head Technician. He must work on the animatronics, too. Maybe I don't even need to go to Mr. Cunningham to get some answers. This guy could probably explain it to me. After realizing he just bumped into the man, he apologized.

"I'm sorry, uh, Mr. Miller, I didn't see you there. Say, you're the head technician, right?"

"If you can read what my name tag says, you wouldn't have to ask. I am."

Dave seemed to have a deep, soothing British accent. William did not like the arrogant attitude Dave was presenting to him. Yeah, I get it, you're the head technician. No need to rub it in my face, man. Alright, let's just get this over with already. He could see that Dave was looking at his silver badge.

"So you're William Afton? The new technician, right?"

"Yep. That's me. What about it?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry I wasn't able to give you the heads up before you started your shift here. You see, Mr. Cunningham was supposed to notify me of any new technicians being hired here so that I could give them the proper tour and guide for the place, but I didn't hear anything about you getting hired until Randy told me on Monday night! By that time, you were probably already done with your shift, right?"

"Yes, I didn't see you when I left for home on Monday night."

"Ok, so listen. Don't be pissed off at me for not showing you around. That was Mr. Cunningham's fault for not alerting me about you. So I'm sorry if you got the living daylights scared out of you by the robots last night."

"Wait, so you knew that these animatronics would try to kill me?!"

"Well, we know that the robots are unusually aggressive, yes, but there hasn't been any deaths caused by the robots here, or at least that we know of. Anyway, yes, we do know that the robots tend to get very aggressive and violent.

"Yeah, that's an understatement. Now can you please why the hell these things were trying to kill me last night?!"

Dave seemed to hesitate for a moment before giving his response.

"Well, you see, we don't really have a definite answer right now. For the past few months, we've been having a few difficulties with reprogramming the animatronic's software programs. They started out as minor glitches, so we didn't take it as much of a problem at first. But after that alleged child death incident happened, the animatronics started showing... much more hostile behavior than before. We're not sure how, but they seem to be unusually violent to not only the employees but also to the customers. We think it might be a glitch in the programming system, but we're still not sure. All we do know if that something isn't right with them."

"You're telling me that you guys knew that these furries are incredibly angry and violent and that you didn't do anything to stop it?!"

Dave did not take this remark from William lightly. His face showed a very stern, serious expression.

"Look, William, never refer to my inventions as 'furries'. Ugh, it's such a disgraceful and undignified term for my hard work. These animatronics are state-of-the-art mechanical creations, not some animal fur suit robot. These animatronics don't have a single speck of fur on them, and I prefer to keep it that way."

"You really hate furries, don't you?"

"It's exactly why my designs didn't have any fur for my creations. Alright, I'm getting carried away here. To answer your question, no, we did do something about it. In fact, we did a lot of things about, things that helped make your job much safer."

"I'm sorry, safer?! Last night I literally had to crawl under a desk for protection, I had to crawl on the floor just to avoid Ballora, and the Freddy robot and his handpuppet tried to kill me while I was rebooting the power! And on top of all that, I had to spray fire extinguisher in his face just to get out alive!"

"Listen, William. Believe me, you job right now is much safer than it was in the past few months. Back then we didn't know what these robots were capable of, so we faced a lot of problems and lawsuits when we found out they were hostile. We had to undergo some serious changes and adjustments to them. We had to forcefully lock Ballora's eyes shut so that she wouldn't try hurting anyone in her range. We had to give Funtime Freddy a handpuppet as a friend because nothing else would calm him down. We literally have to keep Funtime Foxy in a pitch black room to prevent her from mauling the technicians. And Circus Baby...well, she's not nearly as angry or violent as the others, but she's very shifty. She's also much smarter and devious than the others as well."

"Well, okay, then can you at least answer my other question?"

"Sure. Fire away."

"How can these things speak freely exactly?"

"I'm sorry, what? Our animatronics can only speak the lines we programmed them to speak. Other than that, they aren't supposed to talk."

"But I had a conversation with one. It told me it's name, and it even gave me tips on how to stay alive down there! If she hadn't spoken up, I probably would've gotten mauled by Ballora!"

"Wait, which animatronic are you talking about?"

"The little-girl robot, Circus Baby. Also, the bear robot, Freddy, was trying to taunt me when I was in the breaker room, too."

"I see. Don't worry about it rookie, I'll look into that myself. It's probably nothing too serious. Oh, by the way, I have to leave here in a few minutes for my break, so if you have any other complaints you want to tell me, please tell Mr. Cunningham. Have a great day!"

Well, that was a random exit, thought William. Something's not right with him. There is something deeper going on here. I think he knows more about this than he is letting on. Better go to Mr. Cunningham now, I guess. And hopefully I can finally get some damn answers from these people.