Five Night's At Freddy's: After Hours

//5//

*Cling*

Looking up, Jeremy saw the man of the hour. Mike Schmidt, the security guard from that expo. The one who gave him the tapes in the first place.

"Ah, there you are," Mike spoke a bit. "Guess you listened to them tapes?"

"Yeah..."

"Yeah...I'm just gonna' get a latte, you want anything?"

"Already have something," Jeremy lifted up the frappe he had bought earlier. It was still pretty close to full given how quickly the older adult showed up after ordering.

"Ah...okay then. I'll just..." Mike brushed it off, heading to the register.

It did become rather apparent that he was as uneasy as Jeremy was. He taken a better look at the man, still pretty big in terms of height and size. It did remind him a little of a pasty version of the Rock if he squinted a bit. Although that might be too much of a compliment, given he was sporting a gut.

The aspects of this meeting did little to mask the truth, the core of this chat. A subject that neither truly wanted to discuss. Yet it did present itself. Afton clearly was involved no doubt. His name seemed to always pop up since the trip began.

Enough of the coffee shop was empty now. Thankfully this particular store wasn't as popular considering the amount of this specific brand plastered every block.

"Okay...what did you want?" Jeremy uttered.

"Right to it huh? I was hoping for some bad jokes," Mike stiffened a bit at how easily the teen wanted to discuss such a subject.

"I'm not good at jokes," He sipped the last bit of his frappe. "It's about those tapes, right? Which one do you want to start with?"

"Heh, really into the fryer, eh? Alright alright...you listened to the one about those spring-lock suits?" Jeremy nodded to that question. Odd that he'd lead with that topic, given the other ones he clearly listened to.

The sound of his drink catching nothing but air led Jeremy to push the empty cup aside.

"...I'm not exactly proud of what I'm going to tell you...hell, I'm technically breaking an NDA..." Made sense that Fazbear Entertainment would use NDAs. An easy way to silence people if you know there is a chance of problems. "Those spring-locks...I designed them,"

"You...you're a security guard?"

"Yeah, but that's more of a demotion than anything. I was just a grunt, some new guy from Waco joining in a fancy new job at the right time in the right place. Doodling shit in my sketchbook hoping for a big break. One idea I had was animatronic suit hybrids. That Afton guy...he looked at it and was impressed. Hell, impressed enough to assign me to an engineer position to produce those designs,"

"You really built those things...people died in them, did they?" His face fell at that question.

"...kid, I knew after looking at my scribbles that it was death trap. Mr. Afton keeps reassuring though, 'Let my people work out the kinks', 'Being bold is how science is done', the whole stroking my young ego, that sort of thing," Biting at his thumbnail, the next part wasn't one that Jeremy felt that Mike was close to ready to saying.

Yet despite that hesitation and nervousness as he rocked from sitting up straight to hunching onto the table, the teen had a feeling that there was more he was going to say.

"Two were made based on the old mascots...two yellow ones based on the old Fredbear's before the whole company merger, made for an anniversary...two employees I knew, Fritz and Susie...they were crushed to death..." Tears were forming, quickly wiped away before they could escape. "...Afton fucking backstabbed me, said it was on me for not getting it checked for safety. Blamed me to corporate. How I even got a job as a security guard, it's the only blessing I got,"