Chapter Text
About 5 minutes into the walk to the locker room you start to get antsy. You hope you aren’t being led to a terrible death but the articles and reddit forums are just replaying over and over again in your head. Picking at a hangnail you clear your throat,
“So uh, got a favorite color?”
“I was always fond of blue.” Montgomery grunts out, footsteps heavy on the linoleum.
“Blues a nice color,” You mumble, so he's not much for small talk then okay. Great job just making this already awkward situation worse. Shifting the box in your arms you look at the stupid little watch. “So, like, uh, I lost the staff bot giving me the tour and I think it was supposed to like tell me what I’m supposed to do, or maybe there's something I’m missing, but. Do I just walk around looking for people? Or like what.”
Montgomery turns around and blinks at you, leaning down and getting a little bit too close to your face than you would prefer considering he's a huge ass murder robot. He picks up the bear watch from the box, and clicks a button. “This thing is a Fazwatch. From it you can access all the information that ya need to know about this gig, tasks, maps, even security footage once ya get a promotion,” Montgomery smirks standing up tall again. “That is if ya last that long.” He mumbles the last part but you still hear him.
Could've been at least a little quieter asshole or kept it to himself. Does he really think you are going to quit after tonight? What the hell is his deal? “Ooookay, that seems rather convenient. I thought this was something they gave to kids for like. Fun or something. Like a crappy little item you buy at the gift shop.” You ask, running a little bit to catch up with him.
“There are some like that, but the one ya got is special, only for the staff. Were ya not paying attention to that bot at all?”
“I got distracted after it started talking about the history of chili, fuck off.” You glare at him, who looks back at you with a smug smirk that you wish you had the strength of a thousand suns to rip it off his face with your teeth. Fucking bastard.
Montgomery really isn't your favorite kind of personality.
After that conversation dies down, walking in what you feel like is a really uncomfortable silence until the damn crocodile stops suddenly making you ram into his back.
“OW! You could have, oh I don’t know! Warned me before you stopped so suddenly, what the fucking shit oh my god,” You clutch your nose that is definitely bruised after smashing your face into a solid wall of metal.
“This is the staff room, it's probably locked but you should have a key.” Montgomery smirks, slapping you on the back (which makes you almost fall to the fucking floor what is this guys deal?!) and then leaving off to wherever the hell he spends his time during the night. Next time you see the dude you are going to climb him like a tree and bite his stupid sunglasses off of his face and run away with them as a prize.
You look at the quite honestly disgusting box and dig around in it, eventually finding the key under the slacks.
Opening the door to the locker room is a little bit jarring, it's so different from the rest of the plex it feels like it isn't even in the same building. Going from neon, sleek, and clean to gray, cluttered, and dusty is a bit strange.
There's not a whole lot in the room, a crappy folding table with folding chairs pushed up against a wall next to metal desk that could probably rival the weight of Montgomer himself, and on the opposite wall there is a little window showing what looks to be an old run down staff kitchen area, there's also a door to the room on that same wall. And on the back wall there is a set of heavy looking metal lockers. There's also a cobweb on the side of the lockers, cute.
The inspirational posters duct taped to the wall really tie it all together you think.
Sighing you pick the locker at the corner, shoving your crap in it and trying not to asphyxiate on the amount of dust shoved down your sinuses the second you open the damn thing. Changing into your brand new uniform and then slamming it shut. You turn your attention to the desk, there's an ancient computer, a clock out board with cute little time cards (Although that's on the wall above it) a depleted pen cup, and a singular pack of water damaged sticky notes.
Why is everything in this fucking building water damaged? Whatever, not like that's your problem. You put your name on a sticky note and put it on your very dusty locker and leave the staff room to begin actually patrolling
Gnawing on a pen (which you definitely did not steal, no! You would never steal anything, ever) as you start your walk down the barely lit hallway you trip. And fall on your stomach. What the actually fuck, what was- you look behind yourself to see your leg hallway into a trashcan that now has its contents spilled on the floor. What kind of HAUNTED trashcans does this fucking building have?
Yanking your foot out, “Twice. TWICE! In one day, on my FIRST FUCKING DAY MIND YOU! What is wrong with this place!” You stand up kicking the thing with enough rage someone might assume you have severe anger issues.
Huffing after your totally not temper tantrum, “This is so stupid, what the fuck am I doing…” You mutter, cleaning up the mess and rightening the Chica themed trash can. “I’m sorry, its not your fault I’m a clutz and taking my anger out on you isn't right,” You tell it, which is also probably stupid considering it isn't a life form or one of the realistically freaky robots or like. Anything that isn't a trashcan. The Chica face on it now has a rather angry shoe mark that you try to wipe with your sleeve, which doesn’t do anything but stain your white shirt.
Luck is really not on your side is it? Sighing you walk over to your flashlight and put it back on your handy dandy tool belt the upper management so kindly supplied for you and turn on the kiddy looking ‘Fazwatch’ like Montgomery told you to do.
At least something in this building is helpful.
Clicking through the menus wishing your fingers were smaller you make it to the ‘tasks menu’ which has three bullet points telling you where to go: The Atrium, Daycare and Roxy's raceway.
Out of the three you have been to one, about five years ago you went to a birthday party at the daycare, which you can barely remember. So. Not really helpful. Might as well start with the first thing on the list, the Atrium. Which you were just in earlier this evening! Although you do not know how to get there from here and if you did that would be really impressive considering the caliber of your directional skills is akin to that of a mole in the daylight. Think Speckles from the hit movie G-Force without the attempted genocide.
Surely this thing has a map on it? Oh. It doesn't. Okay, awesome, great actually. Might as well not give you anything helpful at all, and that box sure didn't have a map in it. You would think you included a good memory on your resume when you really didn’t because lying is bad and you would never do that.
Might as well just walk around until you find something! Sure that counts as patrolling well enough, all you have to do is walk around!
____
Thirty minutes of walking around has gotten you butt fuck nowhere by the way! You have literally walked in a circle, you did see staff bots tearing apart an older staff bot in a storage room though. Which was. Disturbing but really nothing of your caliber to deal with, plus that bot looked like it had gone through the same treatment as the sticky notes or the box. So. Not your business.
Sliding down the wall near a bathroom you stare blearily at the wall, This is a shit show. Can’t wait to put ‘got fired on the first day!’ on your resume. That sounds like a great way to get hired, might as well include ‘stupid dumb idiot!’ on there as well considering you can’t fucking do anything right. Got distracted by a stool? Which did have quite delectable leather… UGH! This is what your talking about, the fucking worst one track mind in existence. If only you had listened to the staff bot rant and rave about chili.
Or paid attention when Montgomery was leading you to the staff room or never even applied to work at this place. You could have avoided this headache all together! No trashcans! No getting lost! No crazy robots! You put your head in your hands and groan. Wishing you could scream, not like there's any other humans in this oversized building but it would probably set off a staff bot and then you would end up in a storage closet with your limbs being ripped off. Which is, believe it or not- not the way that you want to go out of this world.
Taking a deep breath you stand back up (rather jerkily mind you, the spots in your vision remind you of that), okay bad pep talk done you have a job to do and by god are you going to do it!
Walking down the hallway for not the first time this evening you take a small bit of delight in the neon lights, which isn’t helping your headache but the shiny colors do bring a distraction form the never ending anxiety clawing its way up your throat. But then you finally make it back to the Faz Pad. Which you know how to get to the atrium from here! Yes! A win for you! A win for all of mankind even! The incredible stools even seem to smile back at you. Luck is on your side, as it always has been!
That is until you spot the red lights, two lights that is. On the ceiling, the very very dark ceiling. The lights seem to bore holes into your head, into your eyes. Which would be weird because lights can't stare at people… can they? You and the red dots seem to have started a staring contest, it's almost hypnotizing.
And also if you look away you aren’t sure if you will die or not and you really don’t want to risk that. Getting fired is one thing but your life is a whole other thing that you really don’t want to lose in this god forsaken building.
Then the lights shut off. Like full on pitch black darkness, you cannot see any fucking thing. Groping at your side for the flashlight as the lights seem to get closer, almost right in your face and then you finally pull out the light and shine it right at the other lights, which aren't… huh. It's a weird looking freaky Moon face that just hissed at you?
“Pardon me?” You gape almost at the sharp teethed animatronic. Oh dear god is it tall, it's like 3 feet taller than Montgomery. It (they? She? Him? Who really knows with these things) backs up a couple steps, face changing into a scowl.
As it comes to a stop its hat jingles, a little yellow bell on the end is practically inviting you to wrap your teeth around it and bite it until it can't even jingle anymore. Although that's not really where your mind should be going in a situation that could very well be life or death, with a potentially unstable robot.
“How's it uh, going… pal?” You try awkwardly embellished with finger guns and all, hoping maybe your terrible attempts at conversation might humor it into leaving you alone until the lights come back on. Although lady luck isn't really your patron it seems.
“...Why are you here?” It questions you, leaning in squinting at your flashlight. Which really doesn’t help make it seem very scary, but its voice is… not what you were expecting; Voice almost nice, it’s deep, gravely, and sounding almost like it's wet- maybe damp.
You blink at it, already feeling out of it and now you are just confused, this is the second time this has happened. “Shouldn’t you, well. Know who I am? Considering you should have the top of the line AI computer system, which I am just assuming you have since you are speaking sentences- well sentence that isn’t already in your programming, unless it is, although you don’t look like a staff bot so who really knows.” You poke its chest, trying to ignore how hard your hand is shaking.
It somehow manages to glare at you harder, “I do know who you are,” It grabs your flash light, oh shit. “...That doesn’t mean I know why you are here. As far as I am concerned you are an under trained overpaid ‘night guard’-” Ouch, its fucking mean is what it is, it pulls your flashlight down and out of its face as it leans closer- red eyes making your vision blurry, “Who doesn’t need to work here, considering,” Now its just mocking you. “You are human and that is a liability.” It stands up straight letting go of the flashlight.
“Now,” It blinks at you, poking you in the chest with a very steady hand “...Why are you here?”
Closing and opening your mouth a few times like a blubbering fish you attempt something resembling a response. “I needed the money, the pay is good, I got hired immediately and it was night guard or janitor and I have learned that me and the trash do not get along very well, so here I am.” You smile, trying to seem kind enough for this thing to leave you alone even though all you want to do is bite the bell on its hat and then kick it in its metaphorical balls while laughing like a murderous maniac.
Maybe you could ask, see if it would let you, only if to give it a reason to rip your head off, or show that it shouldn't interact with you or you will simply infect its code with a sense of crazy and stupid. What could you lose? Your dignity? That was stripped from you after the second trash can. And your confidence kicked the can (heh, trash pun) after this thing decided you needed a verbal reminder of your inferiority to programmed robots.
“Uhm, Quick question,” You start, it stares at you, “Could I uhm- maybe, I know you don’t like me but could I maybe, bite your balls?” The words leave your mouth faster than your brain can catch up to all of your stammering. ALTHOUGH YOU WISH IT HAD. What the fuck? ‘Bite your balls?’ ???!??!?? Who is in control of the words leaving your mouth, who- Oh god, its expression is downright murderous. “Bells! I meant bells!” You try to recover this although the situation only seems to be getting worse the more you talk, “I mean to say bells like the bell on your hat! Like it has the perfect type of metal to gnaw on and I thought it would be nice, and maybe I don’t know you would take pity on me! I do not want to bite your balls, do you even have balls? Do you? Oh god I don’t even want to know the answer to that-”
“Stop.” It puts its hand up, sounding almost pained, its really large hand that you wonder if it's warm, or cold? Do robots have warmth, “You may not bite me at all… I hope you quit. Or better yet get fired for company misconduct.” It peers down at you, basically sneering. It doesn't make you feel better, then it FLIES UPWARDS so fast you fall on your ass from shock.
Soon enough the red lights are gone and you are in the dark with your flashlight flickering on the floor next to you. Not for the first time that night you put your head in your hands and wish you were literally anywhere else. You stand up, might as well make it to the atrium and pretend that the embarrassment from this interaction won't haunt you for the rest of your life, only to trip on a trashcan for not the first or the second time but the third time this evening.
“FUCKING SHIT BELLS!” You scream as a banana peel lands on your head, and your face makes contact with the linoleum floor. You have this gross growing feeling in the back of your throat that the interaction with the moon face robot won't be the last you see of it.