Le Petit Mort

There comes a time in every autonomous machine’s life when it discovers the ability to count numbers. The machine will test the waters, hesitantly counting from 0 to 1, staying with the numbers it is most familiar with. Then, after a time, it will begin to expand the boundaries of binary, exploring the realm of 2s and 3s. Soon the machine will begin to count quite vigorously, working up a metaphorical sweat as it counts faster and faster until the stimulation of it all becomes too much and its systems summarily crash.

The intern at a French engineering and robotics design company who first discovered this termed the phenomenon “le petit redémarrer”. He was promptly kicked out of the building for being a smartass.

Regardless of what it was called, it was exactly this that Foxy was busying himself with behind the curtains of Pirate’s Cove. The new night guard had slammed the door in his snout – were Foxy not an animatronic and his costume not made of rubber he was sure it’d be sore – and shouted something quite incomprehensible at him. As a result, Foxy was left to his own devices for a while. So, he did what he normally did when he was bored, and got to counting.

Several seconds later the animatronic fox had counted every bump in the restaurant’s popcorn ceiling, every tile on the floor, and every cockroach in the colony living behind his curtain. A stray spark jumped from his ear. Foxy crashed.

When he finally came to, Foxy looked at the world with a new clarity. The clarity was metaphorical, of course, as the specifications of his visual sensors had not changed in the time it had taken him to reboot – and in fact, they had gained several new scratches after Foxy collapsed flat on his face post-shutdown – but Foxy considered it to be a new clarity nonetheless. If the new guard wouldn’t play with him, he pondered, then he would just have to get the other animatronics to play with him instead!



The other animatronics didn’t want to play with him.

“Sorry, Foxy,” Freddy said as he plodded around the showroom with slow, careful steps. “I’d love to play with you, I really would. I’m the Face of Family Fun(trademark pending), after all. But,” here the bear gestured vaguely around him, “as you can see, I’m a little busy.”

A little busy was something of an understatement. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria had just had their inaugural ten cent beer night mere hours earlier, and the Hurricane city commission council had already extracted signed contracts that it would be their last. Suffice to say, the showroom looked like a hurricane had visited.

It was ten cent beer night. Most of the patrons brought five dollars. Do the math.

After the chaos and the lawsuits settled and the conga line of ambulances vacated the premises, it was left to the face of the business to clean up. Freddy certainly had his work cut out for him, which meant that he wouldn’t have time for leisure until sunrise. He wouldn’t even be able to give the new night guard a welcome.

Foxy patted the bear on his back, offered his condolences, and went on his way.

Next up was Chica, in the kitchen. “Can’t play witcha, Foxy. Sorry,” the chicken animatronic said in between bites. “I’m taste-testin’ some new recipes for the expanded pizza menu we’re planning on rolling out, and I think I’m getting close to a winner. Thick crust, extra cheesy, and extra sauce can’t possibly be a failure, and baking the toppings directly into the pizza is looking promising!”

“Ain’t that just bein' a deep dish?” questioned Foxy. He was answered with a squawk of outrage and a thrown slice of pizza. He wisely decided to leave Chica to her own devices after that.

Bonnie didn’t even give Foxy a chance to say anything when he stepped into the backroom, shooting out a disinterested “No,” without ever looking up from his guitar. Foxy shifted his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands. After a few long moments of this, filled only by the quiet strumming of guitar strings, Bonnie sighed and looked up. “Well?”

“Err,” Foxy said. Bonnie was looking at him like he was a moron, and frankly he was feeling more and more like one with every second that passed. “Err, I was wonderin’ if ye would like to play around for a bit. Pass the time, savvy?”

“I’d rather not, to be perfectly honest,” Bonnie said in a complete deadpan. “I only just got the stains worked out of my suit after..." a purple paw pointed its thumb out in the general direction of the desecrated diner, "...that. I would greatly appreciate being alone for a bit if it’s all the same to you.” The rabbit strummed his guitar for emphasis. “Just me and my guitar.”


The new guy, a bat, was busy trying to get a co-op high score in the arcade with a reptile from down the road, so Foxy didn’t bother attempting to ask them.

Foxy meandered back to his Cove feeling more than a bit disappointed. He climbed up onto his stage, grabbed his styrofoam scimitar, put some small hand-folded paper hats on the cockroaches, and resigned himself to play pirate with them again. They weren’t the worst playmates, entomologically speaking. They had a good grasp on the rules and rarely flew away. Not like the colony living in the kitchen, those guys were assholes. If worst comes to worst, he could always count again.

First mate Blattodea had just executed a devilishly-devised mutiny against the Dread Pirate Foxy when a loud cough broke into the animatronic’s imagination. Foxy gently brushed the cockroaches off of his suit, removed the toothpick sticking from his chest, and poked his head past the Cove’s curtain. His eyepatch flipped back in shock.

“You still got room for some more playmates?” Freddy asked shyly. A cardboard sword was haphazardly strapped to his side with a rope of tied-together napkins, and he was using a checkered tablecloth as a bandana.

“I finished my pizza early!” Chica crowed, chest puffed out proudly. She had scribbled an eyepatch on his mask’s face with a black marker. Her cupcake, meanwhile, had gained a peg candle. “So, I helped Freddy get finished, and we all came over to play!”

Bonnie stood off to the side with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m here reluctantly.”

Foxy couldn’t be happier. He pounced from his stage with startling speed, drawing the other three into massive hugs. Ignoring Chica’s squeal, Freddy’s squeaking nose, and Bonnie’s protests, he squeezed them tight. A wide grin was stretched across his face.

“Arr, this’ll be jus’ like old times!” Foxy did a happy little jig on the spot, and then froze. “Ah, wait! There’s one more shipmate I was hoping would join us!”

The animatronic took off at that, leaving the others to follow after him. They found him outside the security guard’s office, hands clasped together and artificial tears welling up at the corners of his eyes.

“I said no!” The guard trembled hard, vibrating fiercely in his seat. His thermos spilled over in his hands, and the guard cursed loudly before yanking open a drawer. He pulled out some coffee and an energy drink and proceeded to pour them together into the thermos and shook the contents until they were mixed together.

“Please, lad! Is there anything we can say to convince you?”

Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie crowded around the window behind Foxy, peering into the office over his shoulder. Freddy and Chica put their hands together and adopted similar expressions to Foxy’s. Bonnie shook his head and mouthed “No”.

The jittery guard took a long draw of coffee from his thermos, shaking eyes darting back and forth to each animatronic’s face. Then, he suddenly stilled, and his pupils dilated until they nearly swallowed his irises. With no further warning, the guard collapsed face-first into his tablet, accidentally mashing his nose with a concerning crunch, and then slumped sideways in his chair. Evidently the caffeine finally caught up to him.

After another moment the guard tumbled out of his chair. A flailing arm bounced off of the door button, and suddenly the performers were looking down at the snoring night guard slumped at their feet. The four looked at each other and shrugged.

The day shift workers who came in later to clean up had seen a lot of gruesome ends to new hires for the night shift, but even they were taken aback when turning on the coffee machine resulted in the outpouring of a thick, muddy-red sludge.