He crawled out of the wreckage and into the vent, pulling himself toward the Primary Control Module. The space was tight. His shredded jacket caught on a loose panel, and he had to yank himself free, the fabric tearing further. He didn't stop to look at the damage.
He made his way out of the vent and into the control room. The air was stale. Dust hung suspended in the beam of a flickering monitor. No one had been down here in years.
Somewhere at the other end of the office, behind a false wall, his father had kept remnant. Mike knew where it was. Just a matter of getting there.
The screens in the module flickered on all at once. A face filled them—Funtime Foxy's head, but with different colors.
Mike stopped to observe the screens.
"Well, well, well." Her voice crackled through the speakers, playful and distorted. "Look who crawled out of the scrap heap. Aren't you that technician from years ago? Eggs Benedict, right? I could've sworn you died."
Lolbit. William's abandoned project a program built to stand beside Funtime Foxy that never got a physical chassis. Another piece of half-finished work left behind when his father moved on to bigger atrocities.
"I got better," Mike said finally.
"You're pretty calm about the whole dying thing. Got used to it?"
"It's been about ten years. So yes."
"I'm curious." Her tone sharpened. "The last time you were here didn't exactly end well for you. Why come back?"
"I'm here for something important. But I can't go back up the way I came."
"That is unfortunate." A teasing edge. "Tell you what. Help me, Bonnet, and Yenndo get out of this place, and maybe we can mutually benefit from each other."
"Why would I release dangerous animatronics?"
"Dangerous? Us?" A laugh echoed through the speakers. "I'm a program in the system. The other two are a hand puppet and an endoskeleton."
She wasn't entirely wrong. Bonnet and Yenndo wouldn't be hard to deal with if they tried something. Not that they could.
"If you're in the system," he said, "why haven't you opened the elevator to let those two out?"
"Because half the building doesn't have power, including the elevator. And the moment it finally becomes usable, you crash it. Brilliant work, really."
"Not exactly my fault it was unstable."
"Sure, sure." Her tone turned sly. "So… what's it going to be? Are you going to help us?"
Mike was silent. He wasn't sure if he could trust an A.I., but they were more useful with him than abandoned down here. He was trapped anyway. Might as well see what their deal was.
"I'm only going to help as long as you don't harm anyone."
"Perfect! There's a USB drive in the office. Plug it into the monitor—there should be a USB port on the side. I'll transfer myself onto it, and you can carry me out in your pocket."
"And Yenndo and Bonnet?"
"They'll be there waiting for you."
The maintenance vent led through Funtime Foxy's Auditorium. The office door waited near the stage. Mike pushed it open slowly.
An endoskeleton stood in the corner—tall, skeletal, stripped of any outer shell. Silver metal frame. No costume. No plastic. Just bare endoskeleton.
Yenndo.
In one hand, it held a small pink hand puppet. Blue eyes. Red cheeks. A tiny bow.
They hadn't been there that night. Different part of the facility. By the time Ennard crawled out of the building wearing his body, Yenndo and Bonnet were still down here, waiting.
"Hi! Hello!" Bonnet's voice burst out. "It's you! The technician! You're getting us out, right? Right??"
"Yeah. That's the plan."
"Oh good! I was starting to think we'd be stuck down here forever!"
"How long has it been?" Mike asked.
"I don't know!" Bonnet said. "What year is it?"
Mike didn't answer.
He scanned the office. Desk cluttered with old paperwork. Monitors glowing faintly with static. A terminal on the desk—he turned it on.
He swept the clutter aside—old invoices, a dried-out pen, a USB drive buried under a stack of sticky notes. Lolbit's way out.
He plugged the drive into the monitor. The screen flickered. Lolbit's face appeared, glitching slightly.
"There we go. Give me a second to transfer."
Lines of code scrolled rapidly across the screen. Then it went dark.
Silence. Lolbit was out of the system now.
Bonnet giggled. "This is so exciting! We're finally leaving! Aren't you excited, Yenndo?"
"I guess so," Yenndo said quietly.
"Alright," Mike said. "Let's find that remnant first. Then we look for a way out."
He moved to the back wall, scanning the surface until he found the crack. "Help me with this."
Yenndo stepped forward without a word. Together, they pushed the panel aside. It slid open with a low grinding sound, revealing a dark hallway.
"Whoa!" Bonnet's eyes went wide. "We never knew about this place! It looks cool!"
The hallway beyond was dark, but Mike could make out the familiar shape of it. The fake walls. The narrow corridors designed to confuse. His father's work.
"What was it used for?" Bonnet asked.
Mike didn't answer right away. The room had been designed for his father's twisted experiments. Cameras around for observation.
"Nothing good," Mike said.
Bonnet went quiet.
The hallway opened into the bedroom. Mike stopped just inside the doorway, scanning the floor. His father had been careful. The seams were tight, almost invisible. But Mike knew where to look.
He crossed to the corner, knelt, and pressed his palm against the baseboard. A section of the floor shifted under his hand, a false panel, designed to look like the rest of the wood. He lifted it. Underneath, in a shallow compartment, sat a dusty, closed box.
He pulled it out and lifted the latch.
Inside, a syringe-like injector. Beside it, ten small vials, each filled with a faintly glowing silver liquid. Mike picked up the injector. This was what he'd come for. The thing that might save Jeremy. If it still worked.
Yenndo leaned closer. "…What is it?"
"Remnant."
Mike closed the box and stood. "Alright. Now let's get out of—"
Mike took a step toward the door. His leg didn't move the way it should. He stumbled, catching himself against the wall.
Yenndo's eyes turned toward him. "Mike?"
The endoskeleton's voice was steady. Too steady. Mike tried to answer, but the words took too long to reach his mouth.
"Mike?" Bonnet's voice was suddenly faint.
Everything seemed to move and bend in an unexplainable way. His vision was sliding, the surroundings blending into something else. A diner.
"Something's wrong with him," Yenndo said.
Mike didn't answer. He couldn't. The lights flickered.
Then everything went dark.