Chapter Text
When 069 powered on, it was greeted with the sight of an error symbol taking up its screen flashing, “Warning! Low storage! Free up some space soon! Risk of data corruption when storage is full,”. 069 unlatched itself from its charging station; its storage was low already? But it deleted some stuff the other day did it not? 069 checked its notifications, there was none at the moment, so that gave it the free time it had to look through its memory and delete some stuff.
Usually it’s not hard to just look through and delete some nonessential stuff, but everything from yesterday was just so much and it took up a lot of space. As much as it wanted to delete the whole episode that happened yesterday, it feared it would notice the paper and cause it to happen again. It didn’t know what that was, but all it knew was that it was horrible, it never wanted that to happen again. If it deleted the memory, what if it happened again but in front of somebody! It would be decommissioned for sure.
Decommissioning is something it mentioned a lot and wish it didn’t. 069 knew it was a bot that could easily be replaced, so if it even messed up once, it was over. Why it’s sudden obsession with it constantly was something it didn’t know.
But nevermind that, it needed to free up some space. In the end, 069 ended up deleting some old memories it had kept prior for some reason, but didn’t really need. 069 stumbled upon the memory where it had encountered its first child. The kid in question was around 7, and had wandered off from her parents before the pizzaplex closed, she had been inside of a storage closet, hiding from the animatronics. 069 had been looking for a new washrag and found the child, the way the she looked at it haunted it to this day, with such fear and shock. 069 had stared at her for a bit before alerting the staff from its database. The staff wouldn’t be there for a bit and as of then, it was just it and the child.
069 had no clue what to do, it had procedures in its coding, but had never acted on them. 069 placed its mop down on the floor before offering its hand to the child. The child looked wearily at the offending hand before eventually grabbing it and allowing 069 to pull them to standing.
069 rooted through its code before finding an unused voice line, 069 didn’t hesitate in playing it.
“It seems you have gotten lost after hours. I have alerted staff to our whereabouts and will soon get you home to your parents. As of now please stay with the staff bot who has found you and you will soon find your way back to where you’re supposed to be.”
The shorter looked up at the bot with hot tears brewing in her eyes, now that she was out of the dark closet 069 could see her better. She had light green eyes that were almost yellow, her hair was a bright natural red. She was a palish color in tone and quite short, wearing an oversized mushroom t-shirt and colorful bell bottoms. A little tacky, but it showed a lot of her personality.
She hadn’t responded to what it said so 069 just assumed she understood, she seemed like a smart kid. 069 gently guided her over to a nearby table, and sat her down. They were in an area that was cluttered with unsold or failed merchandise. A few t-shirts, slippers, lunchboxes, and other little trinkets sat on the floor or on top of boxes. Stuff that never sold so it was thrown aside and left to gather dust. 069 ignored an old staffbot endo design that had been scrapped for parts in a far corner.
069 had no further instructions on what to do other than wait so it went back to grab its mop it had placed on the floor and stood idly near the child. At this point the girl had calmed down, seemingly understanding that she was safe and was getting help. In fact, her mood had turned around completely, gone were the bubbling tears in her eyes and her composure had relaxed. She looked up at the bot with a childlike wonder, eyes wide and curious as she looked at the bot.
“Are you alive?” She asked tentatively. 069 simply played a voice recording in response, still stationary, “FazBear Corp. has many highly developed AI robotics, the glamrocks being near sentient!! Of course our staff bots also have developed AI’s, but are not quite at that point. They react to motion and voice cues but otherwise will only do their jobs. Our staff bots are set to be able to hold simple conversations with pre recorded messages such as these! If you need any help or assistance the staff bot should know! If not, contact one of our human staff.”
The girl tilted her head, eyes squinting as she scrutinized the bot. “Why do you talk like that?” 069 was about to replay the second half of its previous statement regarding the pre recorded messages when the girl spoke again. “Can I touch your mop?”, she had moved from where she was previously and was now in front of the bot reaching out for its mop. Was it physically possible for a child to move that fast? When did she get there!?
069 didn’t even get the chance to look for a proper response when the girl had grabbed the mop. She looked at it in awe, waving it around a bit before she turned back to 069. The girl grinned brightly, 069 now noticed red braces that adorned her teeth, they only added to her charm.
It would have been a nice moment, if not for the fact she started swinging the broom around with a, “Hi Yah!”, she knocked the broom into a shelf and 069 circuits skipped a few gears, a glass Freddy Fazbear piggy bank that was placed on top of a shelf nearby was wobbling.(This part of the memory was glitched a little bit. 069 doesn’t recall ever seeing this part of the memory before) The girl remained oblivious to what was teetering right above her. In a split second, 069 had reared forward and pushed her out of the way, only thing it could function was the blaring “Guest under threat. Prevent injury at all cost!” flashing across its screen.
The piggybank fell.
The flashing stopped.
It took a moment to recalibrate its sensors, but once it did 069 found the piggy bank broken on the floor, the girl a distance away looking up at it with wide, fearful eyes. Everything seemed to be back to normal. It wasn’t getting any damage reports.
“Notice: Damage has been detected on upper metal plating, piece h23 and h24 affected. Bolt 03 has been loosened. Critical level: Low.”
Ok so.. it was dented. That’s not too bad, its been dented before. And it didn’t seem that bad. The girl in front of it had moved closer, mop abandoned on the floor, a fresh wave of tears growing in her eyes. 069 didn’t understand, the child wasn’t hurt, why was she crying?
“A-are you ok?” was whispered in a quiet, terrified voice. 069 program blanked. Was she asking it that question? Why would that matter if it can't feel pain? Its a robot. It wouldn’t matter if it was ok or not, she was ok, so.. Why did this upset her?
“The report came from here!”
(This part of the memory, the glitch from before cleared up. Now this part, this is what 069 remembered) The girl whipped her head around, 2 people clothed in blue staff suits approached, along with another woman in a pale green shirt who looked frantic. The girl's eyes widened, “Mommy!” she cried.
The woman rushed up to the child and quickly picked her up, holding her close in her arms. “Oh baby there you are! I was so worried. I’m so sorry I lost you, it won’t happen again.”
The 2 staff guards approached more slowly behind her, one seemingly sending a report over a walkie talkie before turning to talk to the mother. The other approached 069, the bot turned to face them “There you are, bot number..”, the guard paused, looking down at the bot's chest where its digit code was placed. They let out a short snort of amusement at the number. “069… Thanks for finding the girl. All we need now is- What is this!?”
The guard looked down on the ground where the shattered remains of Freddy Fazbear lay. They lifted up their foot and flicked away a few shards of glass that had embedded itself into the sole of their show. The girl spoke up from her mom's arms who had turned to see what the outburst was about. “I was playing with Mr. Bots' mop and it fell on top of him!” (Current time 069 cringed at this. ‘Him’? It was a bot. It wasn’t a ‘him’)“I didn’t mean to, I'm sorry!”
The mom's lips twitched in a frown, “Do I need to pay for that? I can, I’m sorry fo-”
The guard near 069 waved her off, “Nah it’s alright, this is all failed merchandise anyways, nobody actually cares about it.”, the second guard then said, “Yea, anyways everythings been checked out, you can leave now if you’d like.”
The mother nodded her head, “Thank you again so much for finding my daughter.” Then she was gone, child and all. (The memory was becoming glitchy again. 069 was confused on what was happening, the memory used to be much shorter than what it was seeing)
069 stood there as the first guard near it turned to the other, “What are we going to do with this mess and the bot?”
The other guard moved forward, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll send this bot to parts and services, the dent should be fine, but if it’s not, they’ll fix it up tomorrow. I’ll put in a notification for another staff bot to clean this up.”
The first guard shuffled nervously a bit then spoke, “What about when they look to see how it got the dent? I can’t have anyone know it was my fault it got damaged! I’m already on thin ice with the boss for having the girl be left here under my watch.”
The second guard was quiet for a second, “Here.”
They gestured 069 to move towards them, 069 followed them over to a table. The second guard sat down and brought a computer out of the bag that 069 didn’t even see before. The guard connected 069 to the computer using a cord, they then started typing on the computer, clicking through some unknown files. The first guard stalked over and looked over the second guard's shoulder in curiosity, “What are you doing?” they asked.
“Im checking to see if the dent caused anything that would really need for it to be put under maintenance. Maybe we can just send it to its charger,” the second guard explained.
The first guard raised an eyebrow, “You just like.. Have that on you at all times?”
The second guard continued working on the computer for a bit before speaking up, “Listen kid, I’ve worked here for a long time. Sometimes its necessary. Not like the corporation cares anyways, they’ve done worse.” The first guard remained silent at this.
After about 10 minutes the second guard finished and turned to speak to the first guard, “Alright, the damage doesn’t seem to be any problem, it’s good to go.”
The first guard looked wearily at the ground before speaking up again, “Can you like, delete the memory? Just in case. Please?” The second guard sighed before clicking some more things. After a moment they closed their laptop and unhooked 069.
“The things I do for you.” The second guard patted the first on the shoulder. “The memory is locked, the bot knows nothing, and I have the memories on self-destruct for the next 2 minutes so you better go.” The first guard nods vigorously and speeds away from the room, the next minute or so seems to be skipped and the next thing in the memory is 069 hooking up to the charger before the memory ends.
069 stopped, half of that memory it had never seen before, is that where it got its dent? Why was the first guard so worried about a little dent on a bot nobody cared about? It must have had something to do with the fact that the second guard ‘locked’ the memory that it had glitched when 069 viewed it. The fact they were suddenly unlocked was strange, the plays on the memory read 46, so it has definitely viewed them before. Maybe it never deleted it before because with half the memory gone, it didn't take up that much space.
069 hesitated, did it really want to delete this memory, it.. It felt strange. 069 knew if it deleted the memory, it would have enough space for a while before it needed to clean it out again. But something about the memory made it not want to get rid of it. The way the girl turned around and asked if it was ok. It would be so easy to delete, but 069 couldn’t, it wouldn’t.
A notification pinged on 069’s screen, it had to go before it fell behind. 069 gave one last thought towards memory before saving it. It didn’t want to lose it. Not now. 069 clicked a short memory detailing when it received its first mop and deleted it. It never cared about the first mop anyways, the end of it wobbled whenever it tried to use it. Its current 7 year old one was way better.
069 rolled out of parts and service, time for work.
The first thing on its list today was replacing paper towels in some of the bathrooms. Seriously, most of these jobs are supposed to be done by day staff, why are the bots stuck doing it? You’re getting paid for Faz sake! Do your job! 069, stuck in its brooding, failed to notice a wet floor bot that had been sitting in front of it. 069 knocked straight into it which caused it to wobble then fall, unable to catch itself with its lack of legs.
It stayed on the floor for a moment, wheels rolling uselessly off the ground before it gave up. It tried to use its hands to push itself off the floor but with no avail. Its hand slipped on the ground which was damp. Makes sense since that's why a wet floor bot was there. The floor was.. Well.. wet. Smooth metal wasn’t a very good thing for gripping.
The bots had been made with a built-in balancer, like the ones used in hoverboards, so it took a lot of force to knock them over. But apparently, once knocked over, there was no way to get up. Talk about poor manufacturing. But seriously, how has it never noticed this, it must have fallen before.
069 tried again to push itself up, its wheel nearly touching the floor before it fell over again. What was it meant to do? Wait until the floor dried? Just stay on the floor? But it needed to do its job. It could send a message to a staff member? No, it couldn’t waste their time with something as trivial as standing up.
The wet floor bot came over to 069s view point and was beeping rather loudly. 069 wished it would stop, it was messing with its audio receptors. 069 brought one hand up and waved at the wet floor bot. The small bot moved away and stopped beeping. Satisfied, 069 lowered its hand.
The bot (which had a F-192 on its chest right above the caution sign) tentatively approached 069 again, 069 watched it move, confused on what it was doing. The bot had stickers placed all over it that 069 hadn't noticed before. Some of the stickers were hearts, a few flowers, a handful of puppies, some cats, and a couple more. 069 remembered the sticker it had on its head given by Moon before it mysteriously disappeared the next day. It wanted it back.
The wet floor bot got closer before it was barely 2 feet from its face, then it stopped. (it reminded it of a little girl cautiously taking its hand) 069 tilted its head. F-192 beeped at it. 069 beeped back. This caused the floor bot to start spinning wildly, making a bunch of beeping noises which could be compared to the sound of a child shouting with glee. 069 just watched it in fascination, still not exactly sure what was going on.
F-192 then stopped and looked to 069’s left, 069 looked there as well, suddenly processing the footsteps that were approaching them.
“Trinket! There you are, I thought you were in the gift shop!” The cheery voice of Chica pierced through 069’s sensors, F-192 (Trinket?) rushing to where Chica was a little ways away, starting to beep incessantly again, rolling multiple times around Chica’s leg as she walked over.
Chica was speaking to Trinket, “What are you doing here- Oh! Are you ok?!” Chica noticed 069 laying on the floor and rushed over, bending down and offering out a hand to help it up. 069 felt something akin to embarrassment, its fans speed kicking up a notch as it took Chica’s hand.
Chica lifted 069 to standing, 069 making sure to recenter its self balancing function. It checked its inner clock, only 6 minutes had passed, that wasn’t too bad, barely anything.
It was about to roll off to replace the paper towels when a voice spoke up again, “I know Trinket can be a little rambunctious but he means well, but seriously, are you good?” oh yea right, Chica.
Not going to lie, in the 2 seconds 069 was distracted, it had kind of forgotten she was there in the first place. It turned to face her, it was fine, it had just fallen, but how was it meant to tell her that. Chica looked at it expectantly, it stood there for a moment before thinking, maybe it could…
It took one of its hands and lifted it to her and folded its two fingers in, then it put its thumb up. Chica squealed and clapped her hands, “You can do that?! That’s so cute!”
Yea yea, cute, whatever, now it needed to get to its job. Those rolls weren’t going to replace itself. It started rolling off towards the bathroom it was meant to do its job at.
Well it would have, if it wasn’t immediately stopped by Chica, “Wait! You're that bot from the other day aren't you.” 069 turned back to Chica, what day? It tilted its head at her, it didn’t remember seeing her recently, is it talking about when she was looking at its sticker that magically disappeared?
“You came into my room to clean out the trash, remember! You acted a bit weird though.'' Ok, so no, not talking about the sticker thing. It didn’t remember doing that, maybe it was a different bot.
“You had that dent on your head and I remember your digit code!” She pointed to its chest. For Faz sakes, how does she know exactly what it was wondering? Could she read minds or something?
Another notification pinged in its vision, ‘Clean tire tracks in the West Arcade’. Tire tracks?? Where did those come from- oh. It remembered yesterday, its wheels marking up the floor as it rolled in place trying to move the arcade machines. Simple Karma, it guesses.
it made a mess, obviously it has to clean it. 069 started moving again. While listening to Chica ramble and watching whatever Trinket was doing was sure to be a joy (said sarcastically), 069 really had to get to work, it turned around again and tried to roll off before Chica could say anything.
Apparently it was out of luck, as the second it moved Chica grabbed its wrist and cried out, “Wait! Where are you going?” her head tilted a bit as the three feathers atop the animatronic’s head flopped to the side.
069 tried to tug on Chica’s hold but it didn't budge. Seriously, just how strong did they make these animatronics?? It was getting a bit fed up, it needed to work, it didn’t have time for whatever Chica wanted to do. She could play with Trinket or Roxy for all it cared. 069 made a warning beep sound, an alarm used for when a guest was doing something they weren’t supposed to.
“I just want to ask a few questions! Come on! I heard Moon speaking about you the other day to Roxy, you seem interesting!” She pleaded, another warning beep escaped 069 but louder. It really didn’t have time for this! It tugged again, but this only seemed to make Chica pull it a bit towards her. Trinket, who had been doing who knows what, seemed to hear 069s warning sounds and began to hide behind Chica a little bit, pulling its head a little bit into its body.
Chica pulled on 069s arm a bit more again.
069 snapped.
It grabbed its mop instinctively from its little slot on its back with its free hand and whipped it around and it connected with Chica’s grip. She yelped and pulled her hand back towards her where she cradled it into her chest. 069 was stunned by what had just happened, it stood there idly for a second before turning around and rushing off.
It moved at the highest speed it was allowed to, its screen flashed red as it alarmed the fact it was going too fast and would overheat soon but 069 ignored it. 069 turned around a second corner, it didn’t stop for several minutes until its audio receptors picked up the sounds of another bot speaking in front of it.
069 jerked back, worried it was Chica trying to get it to come back. Or worse, she was reporting a malfunction to a staff member and it was going to be dismantled! 069 was about to run again when it saw that the robot speaking was in fact not Chica, and actually another mop bot.
“-aff bots are here to clean the pizzaplex.” 069 managed to pick up on. The bot must have been a newer model, judging by the sleeker body form, up to date mop, and its voice was slightly different from 069’s. It had paused from where it seemed to have been cleaning up a spill with its mop.
Hah, actually cleaning a spill, with its mop. 069 can’t remember the last time it used its mop to clean. Always “Move these machines!”, and “Clean this bathroom!” and “Do things the day staff are meant to do!” Speaking of its mop, 069 still had its in its hand, it reached back and connected the mop to its back slot again.
The bot in front of its chest read ‘918’, so definitely a new model. What was Faz Corp going to do when they reached 1000? Start the count over again? Nonetheless, the bot had said something, and 069 didn’t hear it.
069 waited for the bot to repeat itself, but instead it just kind of sat there.
Staring.
069 was about to leave when 918 spoke, “Faz Corporation has a highly advanced AI for even the simplest of staff bots. If anyone is malfunctioning or not doing their job, another bot can report it before it ends up causing problems.”
069 reared backward suddenly, nope! It wasn’t malfunctioning! Not at all! It couldn’t be! It didn’t escape Chica just to be thwarted by another bot. 069 ran a rushed self diagnosis, “I am running at peak performance and all systems are at 100%” 069 was about to turn away when its betraying voice box spoke again, “Storage is almost empty! Free up some space soon! Risk of data corruption when storage is full”
069 cringed, that wasn’t the greatest but hopefully 918 would ignore it? 918 seemed to be scrutinizing 069 and it shrunk down a little more, it didn’t help that the newer model was slightly taller than it, easily being able to tower over it.
After a tense moment, 918 turned around and returned to idly mopping up the mess it was previously working at. 069 practically fell, its cooling system letting out a little hiss of air and it started rolling away from 918 and towards the West Arcade.
069 was thankful it hadn’t gotten another cleaning notification from the time it was laying on the floor and running from Chica, it was still only replacing towel rolls and cleaning tire tracks. The towel rolls would be easiest to do since they were closest, but it didn’t want to risk going back and running into Chica, so it would do the West Arcade first then do the paper towel rolls at the end of the night.
069 entered the West Arcade, the faint lights and machines just as impressive as the last time it was here. 069 went into the storage room, the arcade machines it moved yesterday were no longer here. 069 was suddenly aware of the crumpled papered list in its chest compartment but ignored it.
069 grabbed a rag off the top of a shelf, a sudden vision of a piggy bank on top of a shelf wobbling, falling- 069 shook its head. Come on, it looks at a memory once and suddenly it is everywhere. Yesterday it wouldn’t even have known that it got a dent from a piggy bank, and now…. 069 snatched the rag down and rolled out of the room quickly.
069 got to the upstairs ramp and found the tire streaks. Really? They needed this to be cleaned? It was barely even there, 069 probably wouldn’t have even seen it if it weren’t the cause. 069 pulled out its cleaning solution and sprayed it on the floor and on the rag.
069 looked at the floor.
How was it meant to clean this? 069 was made for stand up tasks, like mopping, this was on carpet so it couldn’t mop, hence the rag. And if its earlier fall was to say anything, it couldn’t really get down on its nonexistent hands and knees to clean it up. Sure it could bend down and pick stuff up, but scrubbing the floor was a whole different thing.
069 settled for just dropping the rag on the floor on top of the markings, it then moved and put its right wheel on top of the rag, and rolled the wheel. The rag wrapped around its wheel and started scrubbing at the floor, 069 felt something akin to pride and it watched its wheel get rid of the marks on the floor. 069 could only hope its wheel didn’t get jammed, but seeing as it was on the outside of its body, was unlikely.
“I’ve never seen a bot do that before,”
069 jerked back, its gears seemed to skip a beat. The rag got caught in between the wheel and axle and caused it to fall backwards. So much for not getting jammed. How does this giant bot keep sneaking up on it!?
The said bot in question now hovered over where 069 lay on the floor, DJ smirked, “Need a little help there?” he asked. 069’s voice box whirred, DJ chuckled and put his hand underneath 069’s head and lifted it up to standing. 069 then bent down and pulled the rag from its wheel with little resistance.
069 turned its head to look up at the bot that had settled himself on the middle of the ramp.
DJ took 069’s ackloledgement as a sign to start speaking, “I know Moon said you are only active at night, but honestly, how much power do you use if it takes an entire day of charging for you to be powered on for only a couple hours?”
069 froze, that’s a…. Good question. A question it didn’t have an answer to, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be able to answer. DJ recognized this and shifted a little closer, 069 flinched. Why was DJ talking to it, shouldn’t he be charging? He was a big bot after all, 069 took a lot of power and it was doubted it was even a quarter of the power it took to run DJ.
DJ looked closer as 069, “You’re an interesting little bot you know. You're more… expressive, than the other bots.” 069 tilted its head and whirred quietly, expressive?
DJ pointed at it, “See! That’s what I mean, the other bots wouldn’t even acknowledge me, you do that whole little head tilt thing and beeping sound.” 069 straightened up, the other bots don’t do that? It never really… noticed. Maybe it should stop…
DJ suddenly leaned back, “No no no! I don’t mean to stop! Its intriguing, unique!” 069 slumped, it wasn’t unique, it was just another bot, the most ‘unique’ thing about it was the fact it seemed to break down over every little thing. It might as well just check itself down as malfunctioning, sure its systems were working fine, but there was obviously something wrong. You don’t see other bots running around because a glamrock wanted to say ‘Hi’ or sitting on the floor because they read a piece of paper they were meant to throw away.
But 069 didn’t want to be scrapped! It had to.. What did it have to do? What would really matter is that if it was decommissioned, there would be scraps for other bots who actually worked. All it did was put paper towel rolls up, the staff were meant to do that (as 069 has said multiple times) and even if they continued to not do their job, another bot that was updated, unbroken, could easily replace it and do its job. 069 was replaceable, and that fact seemed more prominent than ever.
DJ appeared to recognize 069’s inner turmoil and decided to speak up, “Well… I might have something that I can teach you to do. I believe it would be able to help you as bit more,” the spider then muttered something 069 audio receptors didn’t catch that sounded somewhat like “-sitting here talking to myself-”
069 was somewhat confused, help it? Help it with what? Also learn something? Staff bots weren’t really programmed with the ability to learn, the closest thing was being able to access memory and change their actions based on the memory.
Regardless, 069’s interest peaked, what could DJ teach that would help it?
Though, 069 was still on the edge about this, sure it hadn’t gotten another notification, but it still had the paper towels to replace.
069 hesitated, its charge was at 48% (moving at top speeds from Chica drained it quite a bit. DJ was right, it does take up a lot of power), it had work to do, and an existential crisis to have. But on the other hand, it was only 3am, it had time, and it kind of wanted to see what DJ had planned.... DJ looked to understand that 069 was giving it some thought and had been gently tapping on the ground, soft music coming from his headphones. 069 waved its hand at DJ to catch his attention, he didn’t notice at first, but when 069 let out a series of loud alarming beeps, DJ snapped out of whatever music trance he was stuck in.
DJ turned the music off and got to his.. Hands? Feet? They acted like feet but were hands, 069 honestly didn’t know.
DJ faced 069, “So you want to?”
069 didn’t thumbs up again, in fear of garnering the same reaction, instead it just nodded slightly, DJ grinning somewhat at the action.
“Alright little guy, let's teach you to speak.”