Five Nights at Freddy's Fazbear Frights Collection, page 164
Brittany nodded again. “I love it.”
Jessica smiled. “Good. Me too.” She sighed. “There’s just one problem.”
“What?”
“It’s going to take us a while.” Jessica reached into Rosie’s control panel and pulled out a clump of wires. “How about I just get the uplink going and then we can go have burgers with the guys? After that, we’ll come back here and spend the evening programming Rosie.”
“Okay.”
Jessica opened her laptop and connected the upload wire. She handed another wire to Brittany. “Plug that into the wall. I guess she has to charge, too.”
Brittany nodded and dutifully plugged in the pig. Then she watched Jessica create an uplink with Rosie. Jessica noticed Brittany examining her nails again, then saw her friend stand to get her backpack.
Brittany snapped her fingers and sat back down.
“What?” Jessica asked.
“When I reached for my backpack, I had an idea. Instead of just”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“trapping them, why don’t we program Rosie to serve us while they’re stuck inside? That will make Mindy and Cindy like our own ladies’ maid. They can be our servant, like, fetching things for us and waiting on us.”
“Like royalty,” Jessica said, beaming. “You’re so good!”
Brittany took a bow. She looked at Mr. Thornton, who had stood up at his desk. “Hurry up and get everything going. I can’t wait to do this!”
“Me neither!” Jessica grinned and returned to her task. This was why she loved Brittany so much. She and Jessica had, like, shared thoughts. They always agreed, and one of them nearly always could take the other’s idea and make it better. They made an unstoppable team.
Jessica tapped a couple keys and got the upload started. Then she grabbed her backpack and headed toward the door. Brittany followed her.
Because robotics was in the mostly deserted wing that could be locked off from the rest of the school, Mr. Thornton had gotten permission from the principal to let some of his students come in after-hours to work on projects. They used an exterior door that gave them access to this wing only.
Before they reached the door, Jessica called out, “Mr. Thornton.”
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up from his computer.
“We’ve got Rosie’s upload going. We’re going to come back later to work on her. Can we have the after-hours key?”
“Sounds good. Hmm? Oh, sure. Yes.” Mr. Thornton pulled a key from his desk drawer.
Jessica took the key from their teacher, and the girls headed to the classroom door. “Bye, Mr. Thornton,” they called in unison as they left.
“Oh, good-bye,” he called after them.
As they walked away, Brittany said, “He said ‘goodbye,’ not ‘bye.’ ”
Jessica glanced at her friend. “So?”
“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. I guess it just sounds, like, kinda final, you know?”
Jessica grinned and hugged Brittany. “You slay me!”
* * *
Jessica and Brittany, on Derek’s and Roman’s arms, crossed the crowded parking lot in front of Burgerdom, a local fast-food hangout known for the best burgers in the county and even better milkshakes. If it wasn’t for the food, Jessica wouldn’t have been caught dead in the place—it was housed in a bright orange building shaped like a hamburger bun. How cliché could you get? But it was the in place to be after school.
The parking lot was filled with cars, bicycles, and big groups of students on foot. At least three different radios played, creating a musical war between rap, pop, and country. A few junior girls were dancing at the edge of the lot. Jessica recognized most of her classmates among the crowd, and many of them were watching the royal couples head toward the restaurant’s lobby. Because the pavement was uneven, Jessica shifted her gaze to her feet. She wasn’t about to trip and put a hitch in her perfect glide.
Her downcast attention, however, didn’t warn her of other potential hazards.
Suddenly, a bicycle swept past Jessica, its back wheels barely missing her left toes. She faltered, and if it hadn’t been for Derek’s arm, which she quickly clutched with all her strength, she would have lost her balance.
“Watch where you’re going!” Derek bellowed at the bicyclist.
Jessica looked up to see who had nearly run over her toes, and she sighed dramatically.
“Of course,” she muttered.
“What, babe?” Derek asked.
Jessica smiled up at him. She didn’t want to get into it, so she just said, “Eighth graders.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it. They’re everywhere.”
Jessica glanced at Brittany, who gave Jessica a quick smile. She’d also noticed that the kid on the bike had been Mindy. Jessica was sure Brittany was thinking the same thing: It wouldn’t be long before they got payback.
“Oh man,” Derek said as he pushed open Burgerdom’s double glass doors. “Look at the line. This is worse than Friday nights after a game.”
Jessica noted the semi-line-shaped cluster of students pressing into the lobby, waiting their turn to order. Inhaling the smells of onions, french fries, and charbroiled burgers, she scanned the tables in the small dining area. Every one of the orange-topped metal tables was occupied. Every dark blue booth was jammed with kids. And half of them, she couldn’t help but notice, were munchkins, clearly seventh and eighth graders.
“It’s bad enough they’re in our school,” she said, “but now they’re taking over our hangouts, too?”
“I know, right?” Brittany said.
It was amazing that Brittany had even heard Jessica. The noise level in the place was more rock concert than restaurant. Jessica threw back her hair and lifted her chin.
“Excuse me,” she said loud enough to prompt the kids in front of her to turn. She stepped toward them. “You need to let me by.” She said it in the same tone her mother used for everyone who worked for her. It was a cross between imperious and soothing, just the right combination to make a person feel like not only was it impossible for them to say no but they’d feel better after saying yes.
The kids parted, and Jessica swept through the opening. When she reached the next barrier of kids, she repeated the process. In under twenty seconds, she stood at the shiny silver counter in front of a kitchen filled with scurrying orange-and-blue-clad losers who were too poor or too ugly to get a decent job. More such losers stood behind two cash registers. One of those wore a nametag that read, IRWIN.
Irwin was ringing up an order, but he glanced over at Jessica and grinned at her.
“Hey, Irwin,” she said in a tone that suggested she couldn’t possibly be happier to see anyone. “You’re rocking the orange and blue today!”
Irwin, a skinny guy with bad skin and worse teeth, flushed. “Hi, Jessica,” he said as he counted out change to the threesome in front of his register.
As soon as Irwin closed his register and the three kids clutching an orange #17 started to move aside, Jessica stepped in front of the next kids in line. “Could you get us our usual, Irwin?” She turned and gestured toward Derek, Brittany, and Roman, who hadn’t yet made it through the throng. Jessica secretly reveled in her superior crowd-parting skills. Brittany was pretty good at getting a room to do her bidding, but she couldn’t compete with Jessica.
Irwin glanced around and frowned. “Um … ,” he began.
“I know they were next.” Jessica gestured at the kids breathing on her neck … like, literally. One of the girls was chewing grape gum, and not only was her hot breath on Jessica’s skin, the grape smell was strong enough to dominate the grill smells. “But we are in such a rush, with, like, homecoming duties and such. If you could just …” She flipped her hair and locked her blue eyes on Irwin’s pale brown ones.
He shrugged and tapped in the order.
One of the boys behind Jessica protested, “Dude.”
Irwin tried to reassure him. “This’ll just take a second.”
Grape-gum girl, a volleyball player whose name Jessica couldn’t remember—she didn’t have to remember it; the girl wasn’t anyone worth bothering about—sighed loudly, exhaling spitty gum breath into Jessica’s hair. She’d have to go home and shower before she and Brittany went back to the school to start programming Rosie Porkchop.
“Thanks so much, Irwin,” Jessica said. She took money from her backpack and paid for the food. She knew Derek would reimburse her immediately. He never wanted her to pay for anything. That’s the guy’s job, he always said. It was so sweet.
Irwin took her money, gave her change, and handed her an orange plastic #18. She flashed him a smile designed to leave him feeling like he was special, even though he clearly wasn’t; then she turned.
Grape-gum girl gave Jessica a dirty look.
Jessica leaned close to her ear. “Get over it. And you might want to invest in some tweezers. Your eyebrows are growing together.”
Jessica walked away and didn’t care even a little that grape-gum girl was glaring at her back. Jessica could feel it, but it so didn’t matter.
When Jessica returned to Brittany, Derek, and Roman, she handed Derek the #18. “Here you go. Once you get the food, let’s eat in your convertible. It’s way too crazy in here.”
“Sure, babe. Way to rush the line.” He pantomimed a defensive forward charging toward the quarterback. Jessica made a kissy face at him and then linked her arm through Brittany’s. “Let’s let the boys handle the rabid crowd.”
Brittany nodded. “For sure.”
She and Jessica tossed their hair in unison and strode from the restaurant, their steps in perfect sync.
* * *
It was after eight before Jessica and Brittany got back to the school. Between hanging out with the guys and then going home to shower and then taking time to redo their hair and makeup and decide what perfect programming outfits were, it just took a while before they could return.
Letting themselves in the back door of the deserted wing, they stood in the long, quiet hallway and contemplated the hundred feet or so they had to go to reach the classroom.
The hallway was only dimly lit by emergency lights, which put the bare tan walls, the scuffed beige linoleum floor, and the lockers lining the hall in gloomy shadows. The lockers in this part of the school weren’t used, at least not officially. Jessica knew that some kids left messages for each other in the lockers. She couldn’t help but wonder what else might be hidden in them.
Because of the empty lockers and equally bare walls and floors, all sounds seemed amplified. Jessica’s and Brittany’s breathing sounded like it was coming from twenty girls instead of two.
“It’s so, like, creepy here when no one’s around,” Brittany said. Her voice echoed down the hall.
“You said that last time we had to stay late,” Jessica reminded her, bumping shoulders with Brittany.
“Yeah, I probably did. But it’s still true.”
“Yeah.” Jessica turned and checked to be sure the outer door locked behind them. When it clicked into place, she nodded. “We’re locked in.”
“Yeah, but, like, with who?” Brittany asked, visibly shivering. “You know it wouldn’t be hard for some perv to sneak into the school during the day and then hide and wait until after everyone else has gone and—”
Jessica smacked Brittany’s arm. “Stop it! You’re going to freak me out, too.” She rubbed her arms, which were now covered with prickly hairs.
“Sorry.”
Jessica took Brittany’s wrist. “Come on.”
“We should’ve brought the guys,” Brittany said.
“Then we wouldn’t get anything done,” Jessica pointed out.
“True.”
“Let’s go. Once we’re in the classroom, we’ll barricade the door like we did last time, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Me? You’ve got goose bumps, too,” Brittany accused.
“Okay, so I don’t like it in here, either.”
Brittany tugged on Jessica’s arm. “Let’s hurry.”
Their footsteps echoing around them, Jessica and Brittany hurried down the hall. Neither commented when they both occasionally checked over their shoulders.
Jessica was relieved when they reached the robotics classroom and shoved the door open. Brittany scrabbled for the light switch before the door could swing shut.
The previous time they’d been in after-hours, they discovered that the classroom door didn’t lock. Some discussion had ensued about whether to get over their paranoia or just give in to it. The conversation had resulted in a “give in to it” strategy: shoving one of the classroom tables in front of the door. This time, they didn’t waste time with discussion. Without speaking, they moved together to the nearest table and shoved it over to block the door.
Then they both turned, exhaled, and surveyed the room.
The overhead fluorescent lights in the classroom did relieve some of the creep factor of being in the deserted wing. However, that relief was countered by the eerie presence of all the robotic parts in the room. Metal arms and heads and disembodied torsos weren’t exactly comforting decor.
Jessica and Brittany went to the back of the room where Rosie still lay on her cart. Hooked up to both the wall and the laptop, it looked like she was in intensive care or something. At this point, if Rosie were to move, Jessica would have run screaming from the room.
“Um, Jessica?” Brittany said.
Jessica shook her head. “Sorry. You’ve got me all spooked now.”
Brittany put an arm around her friend. “Come on, let’s go sit and try out our new lip gloss. That will make us feel better.”
Jessica nodded.
On their way over to the school, they’d stopped at the store to get some munchies in case they were here a while. Their favorite celeb had just released a new lip gloss that caught their eye; of course, they had to buy some. Brittany pulled Jessica down into a chair next to the one she settled on.
The girls applied their gloss—pink for Brittany, red for Jessica—and looked at each other. “Gorgeous,” Jessica said.
Brittany grinned. “I know, right?”
Jessica took a deep breath and reached for her computer, which was just where she’d left it. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see if we’re good to go.” She tapped a key to take the computer out of sleep mode and looked at the screen. According to the display, the upload was complete.
Jessica began tapping at keys.
“Do you, like, know what you’re doing?” Brittany asked.
Jessica laughed. “Probably not. But how hard can it be?” She gestured at the screen. “See? Rosie’s system is run by a software program that can be modified.” She frowned at the screen for a few minutes, reading the lines of code that were already there.
Brittany leaned in and read over Jessica’s shoulder. “It looks like you just input the descriptive phrases … like that one.” She pointed to line 41 of the code, then read what came after the line number. “ ‘Reaches out #7V800.’ I think it assigns a number to the plain word commands.”
“I think you’re right,” Jessica said, twirling a lock of super-soft hair around her index finger. “We just need to make a list of all the commands we want to program into Rosie, and then we can assign the right numbers to them and input them.”
“Exactly, right?” Brittany said.
Jessica peered at the code. “Okay, realistically, we’re probably limited in what we can have Rosie do, but how about we make a wish list, then see what we can do?”
Brittany nodded. “Great idea.”
Jessica minimized the software screen and opened a blank doc. “Okay, so what do we want our little servants to do for us?” She grinned.
“Well, it would be nice if we never had to go get something for ourselves.” Brittany leaned back in her chair. The chair creaked, which sent a tremor down Jessica’s spine. She ignored it.
“So, basically the command would be ‘fetch,’ ” Jessica said, laughing.
Brittany broke down, too. “Yeah. Maybe just for fun, we could do ‘roll over’ and ‘play dead.’ ”
Jessica threw her head back and guffawed. “Oh my gosh, stop it! That’s too good!” She typed in her document, ROLL OVER. PLAY DEAD. Jessica laughed harder. “This makes me think of Titan. If he was here, he’d be giving you five.”
Brittany grinned at Jessica. “They should do that, too.”
Jessica nodded enthusiastically. “They should do all of Titan’s tricks.”
“Spin,” Brittany said. She grinned. “And bow.”
Jessica chuckled and typed, GIVE FIVE. SPIN. BOW.
“Okay, seriously, though,” Jessica said, “this is all good for laughs, but what could they do that would be really helpful?”
Brittany tapped her lower teeth as she pondered. “Carry our bags, polish our nails—especially our toenails—dry our hair, brush our hair, style our hair … But first Rosie has to, like, grab those little freaks, pick them up, and put them inside her belly.”
Jessica tapped the keys on her computer but then reached for the papers Mr. Thornton had handed her earlier.
“What’s up?” Brittany asked.
Jessica waved her off. “Trying to figure out how we can get Rosie to recognize and make a beeline for the two brats first thing tomorrow.” After skimming through all the possible commands, she noticed a section called Vocoder System.
Apparently Rosie’s vocoder system, which allowed her to interpret spoken commands, could also differentiate between the voices of adults and children. She was currently programmed to approach children and avoid adults—made sense for a kiddie animatronic, she guessed. Jessica smiled. Cindy’s and Mindy’s chirping kid voices hadn’t dropped yet, so Rosie would be sure to zero in on them. Jessica just had to take the code one step further for Rosie to approach, then grab kids …
