The Die Hard Fan (part 2)

"Hey, c'mon in. Howzit going?" The somewhat plump, well-dressed man in suspenders greeted the head mechanic.

"Pleasure, sir. Not as good as it could be, but everything's operational. Got the old code copied over to the new animatronics, we'll be working out the kinks." The mechanic rubbed the stubble on his neck with his knuckles, tugging his scrub pants up.

"I read the report, apparently a bunch of jokesters making the bots play non-family friendly songs? Also issues with Bonnie?" The owner moved around the desk a and rest a hand on a beat up paper folder, keeping his eyes on the other man.

"Yeah, stuff like 'Like a Virgin' coming out of Chica, Freddy singing death metal ballads, Bonnie's servos blew trying to play something the kids call grindcore?" The head mechanic hung his head a bit, scratching at his scalp through his cloth cap.

"Ugh. Well, lets try and get that sorted out, any parts that can be recovered from the previous model?" The owner plopped into the desk chair, the crinkling of the plastic covering it stifled all other noise for a few moments.

"Yeah, Sarah helped me dismantle the old one's arm and face servos. Works fine now, diagnostics went fine," the mechanic eagerly replied.

"Alright, lemme know if anything else goes wrong, gonna send a memo around to tell the others to knock off uploading whatever songs and to stick to the playtapes," the owner started shaking the mouse of the computer along the desk as the screen blinked on a few seconds later.

"Gotcha, talk to ya later." The mechanic peered out the office door before making his way out.

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"Hey boss, Sarah's found something up with the coding," The head mechanic's arrival was unannounced.

"Great, what's wrong now?" The boss looked up from various legal documents. A five o' clock shadow was forming on his face.

"Looks like grim stuff, she says it's probably a prank or something." The documents were handed over, stapled and printed in red ink.

"Prank? Lemme see what sort of stuff's being said... knuckle down on your assistants already!" The boss tore the staple out, skimming the documents and furrowing his brow as he paused on a few sections. "What...?"

"I am, but the edits seem to be happening off the clock, no programmers are around just security,"

"Did you check the security out then? And the hell is this? Kinda sick for a prank." The boss threw the documents down, looking a bit pale and flustered.

"Ah, we tried to bu-"

"But what?" the boss interrupted.

"Well... The guard wasn't here at the time, they showed up late to the shift, and it's on camera..." the mechanic tried to present as gingerly as he could.

"Well then who could've changed the programming? Who had access?" He gave a distant gaze, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"We're not sure, we'll be keeping an eye out though and beefing up the security on the playtape systems," the mechanic assured him.

"See to it that ya do." The boss grumbled, dismissing the mechanic with a hand gesture.

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"Still haven't received the new parts for Foxy, boss," the mechanic piped up in passing, holding a clipboard.

"Yeah, we're getting a refund because they're shipping late, but should be here tomorrow. Anything else to report?" The boss grunted as he helped set up one of the new tables.

"Not much, Sarah's been doing even my job at maintaining Freddy. Chica's face recognition unit's been installed, seemed to work fine." The mechanic crossed off a line of the clipboard as he looked to the two crews working on the animatronics initial set up.

"Good. I've got paperwork to go through, only bug me if there's a fire or someone dying." The boss wobbled off a bit to his office looking ill at ease.

"Uhhh... Okay then."

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"Sir, all we got was a face for Foxy." The lead mechanic held up the fox face like one would hold a sock puppet, wringing his fingers on his free hand, resting his wrist on the doorframe.

"The rest?" the boss looked up with a weary gaze.

"Packing peanuts," the lead mechanic replied flatly, the boss buried his face in his palms and then pulled his face up out of them as his jowls took a moment to snap back into place.

"Son of... I'll give them a call, we paid for a full franchise, not bits and pieces!" the boss' fists clenched as he slammed them on the table.

"We could use some from the old...?" the lead mechanic offered apologetically, cowering a bit behind the pinkish fox face.

The boss shook his head. "No, the new brand image is more feminine for Foxy."

"Could use a dress or something on the endoskeleton with the old Foxy parts?" the head mechanic offered, dragging his foot back a bit so he was more in the hall than the office.

"Resourceful, I like that. Nah, new ones fit different, and not easy finding a dress that size on short notice." The boss rapidly strummed his fingers along the desk top.

"Alright. Whoever's been entering that comment code is still up to it, seems to be getting more personal," the mechanic marveled, with a distinct tone of concern in his voice.

"So it's someone here then?" The boss asked, as if the mechanic was overlooking something obvious.

"Probably? Still no suspects, Emilio's been trying to check footage from around the time the editing keeps happening and still no one seems to be here, so must be remo-"

"Remote? Aren't we on a closed circuit?" the boss cut off the mechanic, his face a bit red and as his fingers clenched to the flat desk in front of him.

"Yeah, been bugging maintenance to see if they could find any line splices," the mechanic confidently announced.

"Great. Anything come up?" The boss had started to relax back in his seat.

"Not yet, though it's got my assistants unsettled..." The mechanic trailed off.

"Marvelous," the boss spoke sarcastically, closing his eyes before rubbing them with his palms. "Hopefully, no one's thinking of quitting?"

"Sarah's getting rather shaken up, gave her Freddy to work on," his confidence began to falter.

"Hrm. Well, is this mystery inputter targeting someone?" The boss raised his brows a bit.

"Well, Sarah, and seems this personal stuff's just on Bonnie, the others have similar input but none of it's been getting personal." The mechanic unclipped his board for a moment and gave the boss another packet of the red inked texts.

"Maybe it's someone Sarah knows?"

The mechanic shrugged, fidgeting with the fox mask and making its mouth move. "She denies it up and down, haven't exactly seen anyone hanging around or anything lookin' for her."

"Huh. I'll get the police on it as soon as we launch, alright?"

"Alright, I'll let 'er know." As he left, he kept his hand and the mask in the room, facing the boss, using a finger to make the mask wink.

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The head mechanic swung the office door open violently. "Sir, Sarah's out."

The boss was swigging a bottle of water before nearly choking on it and setting it down, swalloing with great effort. "She quit?!"

The lead mechanic nodded with a worried look. "Gave her two weeks notice. Won't say why, she's been real quiet all day."

The boss' nostrils flared a bit as he gripped the arms of his chair, the leather audibly squeaking. "Great, this close to opening too... Not enough time to train a new assistant in time?"

"Barely enough time to cover basics, boss." The mechanic sunk his shoulders a bit.

"Um. Umumumum. Let's get the next candidate called up and get them on at least the basics, hit the ground runnin' for the rest of their training?" The boss seemed to be grasping for anything at this point.

"Alright. I guess if you don't mind giving me some overtime..." The mechanic looked away as coyly as he could, speaking in a sing-songy tone.

"Ugh, fine. We're getting close to opening. Their behaviors are programmed and all?" The shaken leader faltered, a twitch tugging at the corner of his cheek.

"Yeah, they should function fine during the day."

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"Our mystery inputter seems to be upset that Sarah got switched, moreso that she was leaving. Don't think it's any of the coworkers, not a single one seemed to know she was quitting." The mechanic entered with a list of employee names on the clipboard, all of them crossed out.

"So...? Who did it then?" The boss looked on in suspense.

"The only person left to suspect is either Sarah or... Bonnie? Obviously it can't be the animatronics, they can't mess with their code. Has to be Sarah." The mechanic shook his head.

"Why would she try and pull a stunt like this then?" The portly man started to fume.

"No idea. We were pretty sure its gotta be her crying wolf after Bonnie started to play some rock ballad from the CD she carries in her player when she works? We even looked it up, older song by some norweigan group or something, Sonata Arctica?"

"Who?"

"Not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, but Bonnie just started playing it with music and all over the restaurant speakers. By they way, they work, and quite well."

"Good."

"Anyway, Bonnie had a minor lock up and kept repeating the chorus of the song in question, we put it through a search engine and found out it was a song called Replica." The mechanic started to look annoyed. "Lockup was enough to cause a grease leak out the eyes, now we gotta clean Bonnie's face, and hopefully we won't need to repaint."

"Well then, should I stiff her on her two weeks then?"

The mechanic took his hat off, the bald top of his head shone in the lighting of the office as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Honestly? I don't know. She refuses to work on Bonnie now, but she seems happy enough on Freddy and Chica. Maybe she'll change her mind."

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"Sir, What do we do about Foxy?" The mechanic asked in desperation, holding a jumbled mess of animatronic parts, the heads busted a bit, the mask covering only a single head.

The boss grimaced at the sight of twisted metal. "Eurgh. Put her in storage for now, we'll get that mess sorted out once we get some figures from the accounting folks." He wasn't going to let the asset go free.

"The footage was out that night, no idea who could've wrecked it like that. On the plus side, we got some more playtape programs to run through the animatronics, keep things fresher."

"Great, and the vents are done and keeping the place from smelling like a grease trap?" The owner was finally starting to look relieved for the first time in over a month.

"Yes, industrial grade. We'll be getting an upgrade to the free roam system as well." The mechanic added with a queasy smile.

"Marvelous." The owner clapped and leaned back in his chair going completely ragdoll as he relaxed.