This choice: Later, much much later that night... • Go Back... The Gerbert Gerbil's establishment was a very different place at night.
The whole building was empty and dark, with only the night guard on duty. In the dark the arcade and game machines were monoliths, a low electrical hum heard in some places. When the building was this empty any sounds tended to echo across each room and hallway. Everything was shut down and closed.
*vvvrrrrrrrrt-*
Well, almost everything.
"H-H-Hey-y, hey Kids!"
Slowly, Gerbert was on the move.
Michelle Neith was disgusted with her luck. Here it was, supposed to be her weekend off but she had to fill in on the night shift. Douglas Stolz had come down with some sort of stomach flu and there was nobody else to step in for the night shift.
"Ugh!" It didn't help that the night watch was two kinds of annoying. Dull and stuffy. Rarely did anything happen, the need for security was just the company's paranoia. Even if burglars from rival companies got in, how would they ever manage to cart off one of the animatronics? The giant machines were clunky, utter beasts to move when they weren't on their track.
"Would it kill them to leave the air on overnight?" Michelle itched at the tight collar of her indigo and star speckled security uniform. Budget cuts would be the likely answer she would get if she made a compliant. Stale air did little to make the uniform more comfortable. Michelle was starting to worry that the pants were starting to chafe between her well built thighs. She had quite the set of hips but at least she was fit. Mostly fit, She didn't have the metabolism of her teenage self, although the appetite remained.
The security booth she sat in was boring, nothing to do but watch the uneventful camera feeds. True, she cold look back over footage from the day's operations but there were no incidents to report on. All the power left on overnight was for minimal systems, she couldn't anything like turn on an arcade cabinet to find something to pass the time with. Much to her chagrin, all she could do was sit here and snack.
It was no surprise that night shift had a notorious reputation for midnight snacks. Make that midnight to morning snacks. The guards could bring their own and it was an unwritten 'benefit' that after hours employees could help themselves to anything staled out in the kitchen refrigerator. Much as the day shift could get annoying Michelle was a woman who needed action. She was tough, scaring kids and parents with poor attitudes alike. There was literally nothing to do on the night watch.
And that was when she choked on her doughnut when the introductory catchphrase of Gerbert Gerbil himself echoed throughout the restaurant.
"What the--" Startled, Michelle rose out of her slouch to set the camera feed to backstage. She counted the deactivated animatronics. Hippo Don, Moolia, Fuchsia...crap, she had skipped over Gerbert. Because he wasn't there. Utterly confused she accidentally knocked over a binder as she panned through the camera controls, trying to find any footage of the mascot gerbil astronaut inside the restaurant.
"Gotcha!" Michelle huffed. There was Gerbert heading down the hallway towards the private party rooms on the other side of the building. The animatronics legs moved through a limited walk cycle. The motion came from the track underneath Gerbert's dais. "What is he doing down there?"
Just as Michelle was about to get up and investigate, she noticed a memo that had fallen out of the binder she had toppled over in her surprise.
To the Night Watch,
I wanted to warn you that because of the deep maintenance cycle I have set up to try and flush glitches out of Gerbert's programming, the animatronic may run through scheduled routines during the night hours. I'm not sure how many cycles it will take for the system to reboot. It should only be Gerbert that is set to wander through his routines. I apologize for the inconvenience. Make sure that the animatronic faces no obstructions along its track. If the warning lights don't come on please be cautious around the floor track in the animatronic's vicinity, same as how we warn customers during business hours. Please report any glitches or strange behavior you observe in Gerbert's reboot cycle.
Thank You,
-- Bilbo Dennings
Michelle groaned as her nerves settled. Great, now she was going to have dorky Gerbert roam the building on his preprogrammed routines. That little munchkin Bilbo was going to owe her for the added tasks to her night watch!
Still, she supposed it was a break from the monotony of the graveyard shift. After putting Bilbo's memo back in place Michelle checked the cameras again. There was Gerbert inside one of the party rooms, waving to a table devoid of children.
"Stupid machine." Michelle looked for the other half of her doughnut, cursing when she discovered it had rolled under the desk.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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