Suddenly Beamz

 This was all the result of the third worst mistake Mike had ever made in his life, he just knew it.

The first, of course, was applying to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in the first place. Mistake number two was definitely that day in high school that he absolutely refused to even think about. Mike wiped the sweat away from his furrowed brow.  It wasn’t the heat that made the moisture bead on his forehead. Actually, the room he was in was nicely air-conditioned, more so even than the rest of the building. No, the cause of his sweat was anxiety.

Mike ducked behind a wall and stood stock still. He listened, straining his ears even as his chest ached for gulps of air. There was a predator in the darkness hunting him down, and Mike knew his ability to hide would be the deciding factor in how well he made it out of this situation.

A noise, the soft brushing of faux fur against a wall, caused Mike’s thoughts to grind to a halt. The sound was so quiet that Mike wasn’t sure if he had truly heard it and not just imagined it. If possible, he stood even more still. After a pause the soft padding of feet began to wander around the room that was just around the corner.

Mike cursed his inattention that night which had led to this. It had been a long time since he’d had to worry about fending off the animatronics so he’d gotten rusty at it. Thus, when a new animatronic was added to the group he was caught flatfooted. As the footsteps changed direction and began to move towards Mike’s hiding spot, he tensed the muscles in his legs, readying himself to spring out violently. Forcing himself to wait out those crucial seconds, Mike adjusted his grip on the tool in his hands.

Unbidden, a memory from hours earlier came to the front of Mike’s mind. A memory of just how he got into this mess.



It had taken less than a month for the workers to finish building the new addition to the restaurant. Mike had no idea where Freddy’s had found the money for it, considering the place probably averaged one birthday party a week. Idle suspicions of the pizzeria being a mob front for laundering money – and really, it would explain so much – aside, even the timeframe in which the construction was finished was mystifying. Mike hadn’t realized it before, but the new add-on was huge. Nearly as large as the rest of the building, even.

Of course, the new addition to the building wasn’t going to change much. The keys unlocked the back door with the same amount of difficulty as always; the floors were as dirty as they’d ever been; his office was just as full of trash as it had been before.

Mike had no idea what it was, which wasn’t surprising considering he didn’t even bother asking what it was before being forced to take two weeks of unpaid leave while it was constructed. His coworkers had probably talked about it a few times, but if they did he wouldn’t have been paying attention. Whatever it was, management probably had high hopes for it.

 The night shift started like it always had. The animatronics made a beeline for Mike’s office, likely because it had been so long since he’d been there. It took a couple of hours before they finally grew bored with him and left to do their own things. Chica did whatever it was she did in the kitchen, Foxy stayed firmly behind his curtain at the Cove, Bonnie seemed to be incredibly interested in the back stage, and Freddy wandered the front half of the restaurant as though he were patrolling.

Mike settled back in his chair and kept one eye on the cameras while the other flipped through a magazine. The pages were already well-worn even though the monthly publication had only come out the previous week. Mike flipped to one section in particular that he’d dog-eared. Sure, he’d looked at it plenty of times already, but it was more interesting than the rest of the magazine. Besides, it’s not like he could afford to splurge on any other reading material. Not now.

Some movement from the cameras drew Mike’s attention. He half-heartedly glanced at his tablet. Bonnie was stumbling around back stage, Chica was still in her kitchen, Foxy had constructed a box fort, Bonnie was tuning their guitar on stage, and Freddy was standing vigil at the entrance to the new part of the building. All in all, not much new. Mike went back to reading his magazine before the dusty cogs in his head started turning. His eyes shot back to the cameras. Why were there two Bonnies?

Mike scanned the cameras. The Bonnie on stage was still tuning, but the Bonnie back stage was missing. Mike scratched his head, wondering if he was finally going crazy. Blurry motion brought the guard’s attention over to another camera. Something had gone into the new section of the restaurant, and there were no cameras in there to find out who. A few tense moments later Freddy stepped out, and Mike breathed a sigh of relief. He really was going crazy.

Attention back to his magazine, Mike failed to notice the blue figure following Freddy out into the restaurant proper. He continued failing to notice as Freddy directed the figure down the hall, and as it walked past his window’s office with Mike unaware the point of no return had been passed.

It wasn’t so much a sound or movement at the corner of his eye that tore Mike’s gaze away from the article he’d been reading so much as the feeling of a presence looking at him. A tall, slender figure covered in blue fur stood in the doorway, taller than the other animatronics by far. Upon seeing Mike notice it – and jump in shock, and drop his magazine, and backpedal in his chair – the animatronic stooped down to fit through the doorway, and looked down at Mike. Though the figure had no eyes that Mike could see, he had a feeling that it’s empty sockets were glancing at the magazine in his lap.

“You know, dude, you’ve really got no situational awareness,” the new animatronic said. “The name’s Beamz, and I’m the raddest bat around.” The animatronic bat’s face gained a wide smile. “So, how’d you like to play a game?”

Mike, speechless, could only nod.



The footsteps were drawing closer now. Mike tightened his grip on his laser gun and got ready to pounce. Closer, closer, even closer. Beamz was right around the corner, so close that even in the darkness Mike could almost see their shadow cast on the wall across from him.

The footsteps paused. The silence seemed the stretch on for eternity. Then, Beamz walked away. The footsteps grew softer, until finally Mike couldn’t hear them at all. He stayed tense for a few more moments, until he was sure it was safe. Then, he relaxed and let out a large sigh, his relief palpable. He stepped around the corner, already planning his next move. Beamz’s empty sockets greeted him.

“Boo,” the bat deadpanned, before shooting their laser gun at the frozen guard in front of them. The light registered a hit, and Beamz cackled as they bounced away. “Like I said, dude, no situational awareness!”

Mike’s wide eyes took in Beamz’s lithe form without really seeing it, not moving until the bat had vanished around a corner. A few seconds later Mike’s gear made a charging noise as it came back online.

“Why,” Mike wondered, “did I agree to this?” Why hadn’t he just figured out a way to get the bat out of his office? Now he was stuck playing this game of laser tag, and the stakes were far too high for him to lose.

“This place is an absolute maze,” Mike muttered to himself as he wandered aimlessly after Beamz. Long corridors, empty rooms, and the occasional barrier littered the new laser tag arena that had been added onto Freddy Fazbear’s. The workmanship was shoddy and the layout poorly designed, which explained how it had been built so quickly and, presumably, so cheaply.

It took several minutes of slowly walking and peeking around corners before Mike finally found his target. Beamz stood in the center of a room, back facing him, completely still. It was as perfect an encounter as Mike could’ve wished for. Quickly, the guard raised his gun and fired. Beamz’s vest lit up when it was hit, and the bat turned to face Mike looking completely unsurprised.

“Props, dude. Keep this up and you might win.”

At that moment it was obvious. Beamz was toying with him.

Although it grated on his nerves, Mike knew it was well deserved. Beamz had already scored three times to Mike’s one, and considering a score of five ended the game there wasn’t much time left. Beamz could afford to take it easy. Mike couldn’t.

Beamz’s eyeless sockets stared at Mike while he turned and fled. The bat’s chuckles followed Mike through several rooms, even though the animatronic itself stayed in place. Mike took a deep breath to calm himself but couldn’t stop the cold trickle that made its way down his neck.

The next two encounters between them played out similarly to the previous two: Beamz easily got the drop on Mike and scored, while Mike managed to get a point himself through Beamz’s inaction. The bat had laughed again when Mike gained another point, not concerned in the slightest. Even when Mike got two additional points in a row and tied the game, Beamz seemed completely unworried.

“I’m just making it interesting, dude,” they had said, before vanishing.

The end of the night shift was rapidly approaching, the score was tied. Mike crept down a hallway, listening as hard as he could. He turned the corner, senses tuned sharply, and saw a flash of blue. Instinctively, he jumped back around the corner.

“You gotta come out sometime, Mike. How can you win if you don’t come out?”

Beamz strode boldly down the hallway towards Mike, no longer bothering to silence their footsteps. Mike gulped, his throat dry. This was it, the moment of truth. Mike leapt out, laser gun already at the ready and pointing at his adversary.

Beamz was faster on the draw.

“Boo-yah!” Beamz exclaimed, before swooping down to Mike’s collapsed form. “Well, Mike, you lost,” the bat said, pointing out the obvious. It grinned, drawing out the moment, as if deriving some kind of sick pleasure from it. “You know what that means.”

A long, slender arm reached out to Mike and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, not so much picking him up as flinging him to his feet. Beamz’s face got dangerously close to Mike’s, until only a few inches separated them. A mechanical tongue darted out to lick pointed teeth.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Mike, shoving Beamz away. A hand dipped down into his pockets and when it came back up a large chunk of change came with it.

“Radical!” Beamz shouted.

“I don’t know why you have to pay to use the new arcade,” Mike grumbled while Beamz snatched the coins from his hand. “Aren’t you a robot? Can’t you hack them or something?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Beamz said, jauntily jingling the coins while the two walked into the aforementioned arcade. “You lost fair and square, dude, don’t get too upset about it.”

“Yeah,” Mike replied, “but now I’m going to have to wait until next payday to afford the new Atari Jaguar.” The guard’s thoughts drifted back to the abandoned video game magazine in his office.

Beamz hummed at that before suddenly pulling Mike into a one-armed hug. Something soft pressed into Mike’s shoulder. “Listen, dude, I’d never leave a fellow game enthusiast out in the cold. What’d’ya say you and I play some of the games here in the arcade until your shift ends?”

Mike rolled his eyes at the suggestion. “Wasn’t that supposed to be my reward for if I won our game? Something about ‘showing me some new games that were really fun to play’?”

Beamz laughed softly at that. “Not quite.” Beamz let go of Mike and swatted his backside. “C’mon dude, there’s a Contra cabinet with our names on it. If you get a higher score than me I’ll show you some of those games I was talking about.”