Fritz Smith

This was a disaster. Jeremy would find out sooner or later – he had all the pieces in front of him. With a sigh, Fritz began to speak. “Uh, look Jer-Jermey, I think if-”

“No more bullshit, Fritz.”

Fritz turned his gaze downwards, resting on the animatronic parts instead of facing Jeremy’s anger. “Al-Alright. They caught me, Jeremy. Uh, they got into my office. Stuffed me into a suit…”

Fritz slowly looked up, catching sight of an astonished Jeremy, his mouth agape. “That’s-that’s not possible!” Jeremy fired back. “This isn’t just a suit. There’s no room for a person.”

“I know. Haha, this isn’t the first suit I’ve been in,” Fritz explained. He recounted the events of the past few months to Jeremy, explaining how he’d been forcefully stuffed into a Freddy Fazbear suit after that golden bear entered his office. He went on to describe the months he spent trapped inside the warehouse, before being rescued by William and somehow appearing in a whole new animatronic altogether. After explaining the amalgamation of wires that had attacked him, the room was filled with a stunned silence. Looking towards Jeremy, he noticed him lost in thought.

“Shit Fritz, I don’t know how much of this I can believe. But frankly, I don’t have a better explanation. You’re sure you aren’t hiding with a remote somewhere around here?”

Fritz shook his head.

Jeremy took a deep breath. “Well, alright then. Whatever this is, it sure as hell isn’t boring. Okay. We can figure this shit out, Fritz, but I really need to get some rest. Don’t kill me in my sleep, alright?”

“I don-I mean-” Fritz stammered, taken aback.

“Oh, and you still owe me for the repair!” Jeremy hollered, shutting the door behind himself as he left the room. Curiously, he didn’t lock it that time.

All Fritz could do was stare at the door Jeremy left through, the pressure that had been mounting throughout the conversation replaced by shock. He sighed. He should really get some rest as well. Had he been able to do so back when he was stuck in the warehouse, his time spent there wouldn’t have been as dreadful. His new body was a different story though – he’d never actually tried sleeping, always assuming he couldn’t – and there were occasions where he would fall unconscious. He shrugged. It was worth a shot.

Laying down on floor of his garage, he began to think of sleep. He imagined peacefulness, dreams, the satisfaction of escaping responsibility and boredom. He focused on these concepts, drawing upon memories of his former life. How nice it was to shut down after a grueling day. How nice it was to-

Fritz found himself at the Jeremy’s workbench, his arm moving out as if to inspect a tool. He was groggy, had he been sleepwalking? He looked around, noticing that the entire garage had been reorganized, the various items strewn about having been placed into neat piles, boxes, and shelves. What once was a complete mess of animatronic parts had turned into relative order. Did Jeremy do this? He was amazed that so much could be done while he was asleep. Speaking of which, he checked the clock on top of the workbench – 3:26 PM. He had been out for a while.

With nothing else to do, Fritz spent some time reflecting on the events of the past few days. To think he’d been so afraid of Jeremy finding out about this mess. Well, he still was a bit afraid, but he supposed he could see how things turned out. Pacing around the garage, he couldn’t help but think of what Jeremy said while he was repairing him. “Why were you built like this? What the hell can you do?” What could he do?

Fritz knew this body let him sleep – somehow. He couldn’t do that in that suit he was… stuffed into. So what was different about this? Really, he was thinking about things while blind – he was in an animatronic, for God’s sake! – but even if he knew practically nothing about what was happening to him, he could at least start with the facts.

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As far as he could tell, there were two big differences between his current state and that suit: the suit was just that – a suit; and, his body was clearly much newer than those old models. But even knowing that, the puzzle still didn’t make any sense. He shrugged. He’d ask Jeremy once he came back – he’d actually seen inside of the animatronic, so he probably knew more than Fritz about this. In the mean time, he wanted to know what he could do.

Fritz tried to think back to when he fell asleep. He had actually thought of sleep – envisioned it – instead of laying in bed in wait. Hah, seems like his animatronic body was better at sleeping than his old one. But that was no help either! He didn’t even know what he could do, how would he even envision it. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly heard the garage door open. Jeremy was home.

“Fritz, are you still the-” Jeremy asked before tapering off, his eyes growing wide at the scene before him. The garage had been completely organized. Sure, it was still full of junk, but at least that junk wasn’t strewn about. “Fritz,” he said apprehensively, “did you do this?”

Fritz was taken aback. “Wha- you didn’t? It, uh- I woke up and everything was organized.”

Jeremy looked at him, suspicion clouding his expression. “Fritz, I’ve literally been at Freddy’s all day. I even stayed up late to fix you.”

Fritz paused. Had he done this… in his sleep?

“I think I was sleep walking. My hand was moving on its own when I woke up. Maybe I was asleep when I did it?” He proposed.

Jeremy frowned at him. “That’s ridiculous. Shit, everything about this is ridiculous. Whatever, I’ll just run with it. Nothing else happened while I was gone?” Jeremy raised his eyebrow in inquiry.

“No, noth- well, I don’t think so. Jeremy, I was wondering, what did you mean when you said this animatronic had other abilities? I was just thinking that I couldn’t sleep while I was in-was in that warehouse, but with this new body I can…”

“Fuck if I know, Fritz. Look, your body- something’s off with it. I don’t know how else to put it. What if- why don’t I just show you?” Jeremy replied, picking up a screwdriver – one of the few things in the garage that hadn’t been moved – and approached Fritz. He gulped after unscrewing and removing the torso, memories of that strange grid resurfacing. “Can you see alright?”

Fritz couldn’t. His… snout got in the way, making the angle awkward. Improvising, Jeremy went into his house, retrieving a small camcorder. He then took a couple of shots, showing the metal grid and the components it was attached to. He then handed the camcorder to Fritz.

“See this here? I have no idea what this is. At first I thought it was some sort of support structure, but the design just doesn’t make sense. Not only that, but it’s connected to your control board and servos, as well as this device.”

“I thought it might be for data or power, but the design doesn’t work here either. Everything’s interconnected – this arrangement just wouldn’t work for either. And that device is only attached to the grid. Clearly, it has a purpose, but I just can’t fathom what it could be.”

Jeremy took a deep breath, remembering last night, then continued. “The strangest part is that it emits… something. When I moved my hand close to it, my hand felt hot and staticky – almost like I was in a thunderstorm. I thought it might be some sort of radiation or electric charge, but I’d probably be dead already if it were, and the camera doesn’t seem affected at all.” He gulped. If something showed up camera, it’d make sense. But why did this grid – whatever it was – seem to only do anything against him.

“Anyway, what really confuses me is that this metal – steel, clearly – should be- well, it should be shorting out and completely frying you. But it isn’t. And I don’t know why.”

Jeremy paused, looking at Fritz, who appeared equally bewildered. Fritz thought about it – a piece of metal, arranged in a strange grid, and completely going against what should happen. It was weird – haha, as if nothing about this wasn’t – but he felt like it had a simple answer. That metal wasn’t just there for show, after all. William put it there for one reason or another, he knew that.

Jeremy continued. “I think this was added after the fact. It just doesn’t fit the rest of the design, and it’s covering up part of the chest cavity.”

Fritz pondered this, then was suddenly struck by a thought. “What if it’s me?”

……

Notes

Fritz starts to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his possession of the suit. But they be able to uncover how to utilize the capabilities of his new body, or figure out the cause of the sleep cleaning (hint – someone put a data storage into Fritz that someone else intentionally omitted).