Advanced Facial Recognition Software

She was staring again. Jeremy sat stock still in his seat. Sweat began to bead on the back of his neck. He didn’t know how long this impromptu staring contest had been going on for, but the cramp in his ramrod-straight back told him it had been a while.

Toy Chica tilted her head to the side quizzically, as though she were studying something. Jeremy didn’t dare to move. The Freddy mask was beginning to chafe and itch, but the guard ruthlessly suppressed the urge to adjust it. Toy Chica tilted her head to the other side.

“You know that mask doesn’t fool anybody, right?”

Jeremy jumped. He hadn’t expected, hadn’t known it was even possible for, the animatronic to speak. Then her words trickled into his brain and bounced around for a bit until the synapses caught hold of them.

“Y-you know I’m not Freddy?” Jeremy stuttered weakly.

Toy Chica snorted at that. “Of course. What do you think we are, stupid?” The animatronic pulled her beak out of… somewhere and polished it against her chest. “Well, TB definitely is, but I doubt even he’s dumb enough to fall for that.”

“Who’s Tee Bee?”

Before Toy Chica could offer a scathing reply to that, the vent on the right side of the office began to shake and rattle. Animatronic and guard both turned to face it. After a few long moments – and a bit of muffled cursing – Toy Bonnie popped out at high speeds and slid across the floor.

“Whoa, hey fellas. Cheeks, I was looking all over for you. I had some stuff I wanted to talk about.” Toy Bonnie spun to face Jeremy. “Sorry Fredders, but this is Girl Talk. You’ll have to go.”

Toy Chica face palmed, grabbed Toy Bonnie by the arm, and dragged the blue rabbit away. Toy Bonnie protested the entire time, and it was only until the two rounded the corner at the end of the hall that Jeremy stopped hearing the complaints.

The guard sighed heavily, feeling as though a massive weight was lifted off his shoulders. Before he could fully relax, however, a loud bang resounded above him. Then, a white and metallic-gray blur fell from the ceiling and landed in front of him. The resulting crash was enough to shake the – thankfully empty – drink cup off his desk.

Jeremy winced. The tiles were probably cracked after that one. At the end of the hall, Toy Chica poked her head around the corner. Jeremy gave her a thumbs up, and the chicken nodded her head and went back to getting talked at by Toy Bonnie.

Just as Jeremy was about to get out of his seat to check on her, Mangle raised her head and plopped it onto his desk. Her mismatched eyes stared up at him while her tongued stuck partially out in an admirable blep.

The two stared at each other for a while. Right as Jeremy was beginning to get strong feelings of déjà vu, Mangle’s ears shot straight up. Jeremy decided to take a chane.

“Uhh,” Jeremy paused. “…Are you alright?”

Mangle opened her mouth. The sharp hiss of static that followed was loud enough to make Jeremy wince, and almost loud enough to make Toy Bonnie stop talking. Neither stopped, however, and their respective partners increasingly wished to cover their ears.

When the static onslaught finally ended Jeremy pulled the mask up and rubbed at his ears. “So… was that a yes?”

Mangle’s other head plopped itself onto the desk as well. “I said, “I’m fine. Thanks for asking, dear.””

“Oh,” said Jeremy. “Well, that’s good.”

Mangle’s second head hummed. Both heads stared at Jeremy and squinted. The guard was confused until he awkwardly scratched his cheek. Then he remembered that he pulled the mask up and never pulled it back down.

“Oh sh-!” Jeremy snapped the mask back down over his face. Mangle’s four eyes narrowed even further. Several tense seconds later, though, they seemed satisfied.

“Well it was nice having this moment together, Freddy, but we must be off. Girl Talk, you see.” The fox animatronic waved farewell, then loped down the hall and jumped onto Toy Chica’s back while the chicken wasn’t paying attention. Mangle turned her head to face Jeremy once more and called down the hall. “By the way, dear, you look spiffy in that new uniform of yours!”

The group of three animatronics moved to the main dining hall to continue talking. To be more specific: One talked; One alternated speaking and spewing white noise; One tried her best to ignore the other two.

Jeremy removed his Freddy mask and put in on the desk in front of him. He turned it this way and that; tilted both it and his head; inspected it from every possible angle.

“So… does this thing work or not?”