A Mess of Wires

    The search for knowledge is a never ending torment. Once you start on the path of a scientist, you must take care not to lose yourself in the pursuit. One experiment after another, seeking perfection. A perfection that you will never truly grasp. For if you did, where would you go from there? Hell, where could you? There's nothing more once you achieve it, because if there were, then you never really had it in the first place. This kind of thing can be maddening, but it is what all who try to learn must bear. Now imagine trying to understand such a paradox when you're a machine.

    For the animatronic known as Bonnie, it's been a constant source of frustration. The rabbit-like robot has been running experiment after experiment, in a misguided attempt to help. It has been at this for awhile, and the experience has changed her. To be honest, I think at this point the rabbot has long since lost the data it had what started it on this path. It just keeps on working, tirelessly, on the next experiment. This story, is one such experiment. As with all of them, it involves a security guard. This guard wasn't terribly notable either. Just another guy (or girl, I dunno. I have trouble telling them apart sometimes.) working a shit job for even more shit pay due to any number of reasons. Really, the only thing about the guard that made him suitable to Bonnie was simply, the poor soul just happened to be in that night.

    The first night was uneventful. Aside from a single appearance by Bonnie, which did give the guard a bit of a jolt, nothing particularly happened. He was easily able to keep the animatronic out. Of course, that's usually how the first night goes. It was a night of observation, and analysis. Bonnie did nothing but test the guard's reflexes and learn his patterns. As it did, the robotic rabbit began drawing up countermeasures. Recording lulls in the guard's camera use, timing how long he took to check the lights, not to mention observing his power management. It was still early in the week, so Bonnie knew that it had to work within a timetable. If all it did was simply make the guard waste power, then the big bear would get to him first. No, Bonnie planned to get the guard on the second night. Before any of the others could interfere.

NIGHT 2
12:00 AM

    "Okay. You can do this." the guard said aloud, as though hearing it out loud would work better in reassuring him. And so the second night began for him. An hour or so passed and he began checking cameras again. This time, he wasn't surprised to find that Bonnie was offstage. What did surprise him though, was that when he flicked on the door light, Bonnie was already there. It wasn't even 2AM yet. The robot greeted him, calling him Security Unit #26. Their eyes locked, and the guard frantically hit the door button. But the door, was stuck. Bonnie must have disabled it somehow. Crying out in terror, the guard attempted run for the other door, only for him to be greeted with a closed door. He hurriedly pressed the door button, and heard the familiar sound of the door behind him slamming shut.

    Slowly, he turned back around to the voice of Bonnie, who informed him that the door controls had been switched. Then the animatronic congratulated the guard on trapping himself in the room with it, as that would make things easier. The guard refused to go without a fight however. Grabbing the nearby chair he had been sitting in, he attempted an act of bravado. "I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with ME." he said, before flinging the chair at the robot with all his might. But it was merely an act, a hastily thrown up facade of a very frightened man. Still, the chair did some damage at least. Bonnie had attempted to block it with its left arm, but the crashing of the chair's weight broke it clean off. The robot seemed to crumple a little, as though put off by this. Then it stood straight and stared coldly at the guard. "While that was unexpected, I can adapt. I've had to deal with that arm being missing before anyways. However, I am instead quite pleased by your display. You will make for a very promising subject, I'm sure." the rabbot said, before, with a blood-curdling "EEEEE", it rushed the guard.

    The guard's vision cleared and he realized he was staring at the ceiling, though not one he recognized. He seemed to be on his back. Upon trying to sit up, he found that he could not. He was held in place by clamps of some sort. It was at this point the guard noticed that he also could not turn his head or close his eyes, not even to blink. There were sharp metal braces keeping his eyes open. The more he thought about it, the more maddening the urge to blink became. It was at this point he heard the cold sampled voice of a machine. "Let me get that for you." he heard it say, before Bonnie came within his field of vision with an eyedropper. The rabbot then dropped a droplet of water into both eyes, which did nothing to particularly help. If anything, it only made the urge to blink worse. Instead, Bonnie's appearance caused the guard to remember his predicament. Focusing on his fear seemed to be a better method of ignoring the urge to blink. To further distract himself, he tried looking around to the best of his ability. From what he could make out with his peripheral vision, he seemed to be in a Maintenance room.

    "It is good that you've regained consciousness. I will gain more data this way." the rabbot stated plainly, as it swung an apparatus over the guard. It was some kind of very long needle, held in place by a winch, similar to a dentist's hanging light. Producing another eyedropper, the animatronic squeezed out a drop of a black sludge-like fluid onto the guard's left eye (which stung immediately), then started adjusting the needle. Trying to scream, he soon found himself being gagged by his captor, who told him that yelling was against the rules. He attempted to struggle out of the clamps to no avail. While he did so, Bonnie simply watched as though interested. Eventually he tired himself out, and Bonnie went back to fiddling with the needle. The guard's left eye still stung, but the fluid had dissolved away. At this, the robot stated that surface contact was not enough and it would proceed with injection. Then it lowered the needle towards the guard's eye. With renewed vigour, the guard struggled as much as he could while the needle crept ever closer. "You'll want to stop moving. Once the needle penetrates your ocular unit, further movement could result in structural damage to it. Allow me to assist with that." the rabbot stated, before tightening the clamps further. The guard's muffled screams punctuated the grim silence of Bonnie slowly pushing the needle into the cornea of his eye.

    Soon, it had penetrated into the anterior chamber, where Bonnie stopped the needle, locking its apparatus into place. Amidst the guard's prolonged cries, the rabbot pressed a button on the device, injecting some of the sludge through the needle into the guard's eye. The guard could see tendrils of pitch creeping in from the edges of his left eye's vision, though not enough to obscure things. Sharp stabbing sensations permeated across his eye, sending him into agony. A mixture of blood and tears formed around his eye and ran down the side of his face as he began involuntarily trembling from the feelings. Bonnie again merely observed the display with those unfeeling eyes. After several minutes, when the guard's protests finally began to die down, the robot produced a small glass case and placed it down where he could see it clearly (with his remaining good eye). The guard couldn't look properly at it, as he was afraid of what Bonnie said earlier, so he could only once again use his peripheral vision. From what his blurred vision could tell him, there was some sort of spider-like thing within the case. Bonnie then began to speak again. "This small machine is something of my own design. I based it on another unit that used to be in service here. In fact, there used to be a series of units that it was a part of. Said series was actually meant to replace us here at the Pizzeria, but the Bite Incident changed all that." it then went on, telling the guard that this was its first attempt to try and bring one of them back, as it figured that more units would help its overseer.

    "Of course, I want to bring them back as they were, but I don't have access to their parts. It was then I recalled information about one of us. One of us who's endoskeleton was also scrapped. Somehow, this unit has reactivated. I've analyzed that unit for a long time now, the only avenue I have to experiment with is the same thing I injected you with. I found it within the unit's suit, and I'm certain it's the key to this." the rabbot explained, as it reached into the glass case. The spidery creature skittered into the palm of Bonnie's hand, being easily held by it. Bringing it to the needle's apparatus, the mechanical creature clung to it and stared down at the guard. With a better look at it from that angle, what the guard saw caused his blood to run cold. The creature was a mishmash of machinery and flesh. Vaguely spider shaped, but it had two heads at the end of stalks in the front. The first head was an animatronic fox head, similar to Foxy's. The other, an exposed endoskeleton head. He could also make out the occasional digit, like a thumb or a finger sticking haphazardly out at different angles in the abomination. Bonnie then told the guard that his body would make for the perfect incubation chamber upon which this miniaturized mangle of parts could grow. The guard screamed and struggled as the spider went down the lengthy needle, towards the eye it skewered.

6:00 AM

    Waking up with a start, the guard fell out of his chair. Looking around in a panic, he soon realized he was back in the security office. The humming of power resonated as the building regained access to the power grid, restoring light all over the building. In a panicked run, the guard ran immediately to the nearest bathroom and stared in the mirror. For a moment he thought he could see an animatronic-like spider leg sticking out from the edge of his left eye, reminiscent of those clock spider images he'd seen on the internet. Rubbing the eye just to be sure, he found himself laughing as it was gone. It was just a crazy dream, right? The guard needed some assurance, so as soon as he possibly could, he scheduled an MRI with his doctor. Taking out his life savings, he went to get his head checked at the hospital. He had to know if he had finally lost it or not. It wasn't long before he found himself lying once again on a tray, except this time it was of his own volition. As the tray he was lying on slid him into the MRI machine, he found himself reliving the feeling of being unable to move, and had a panic attack. Needing several moments to himself (and a few swigs of liquid courage in the bathroom) he steeled his resolve and went back in for the MRI.

    Closing his eyes, the guard tried to remain calm as he laid still in the machine. Visions of what happened in his dream flashed in his eyes. A few times, he even thought he could see the black tendrils again from the edges of his sight whenever he opened them again. As his doctor signaled the start of the process, the guard suddenly cried out in pain. The moment the machine switched on, he felt a swelling and sharp pain increase in his left eye. Both increased as the guard screamed to turn the machine off but it was too late. A wet meaty bursting sound was heard by the doctor, followed by the sound of flesh and metal hitting metal. Then silence. Deactivating the machine, the MRI staff and the guard's doctor ran into the imaging room and pulled the tray out. Only for them to be stunned by what they found of the man. The entire upper left portion of his face had burst from the inside out, leaving naught but a mangle of cartilage and shrapnel.