"I think you might have overdone it," Afton says as he surveys the damage.
Party hat snug on Ricky's head and glitter sticking to his jeans, he makes sure the tip of his sneaker smacks the goon's head with every swing to keep him awake. Each tap makes him groan so feebly it's a wonder he's still conscious, but going by his labored breaths Ricky can tell his time in the land of the living is well past borrowed.
The animatronics have returned to their stage, standing there as if they hadn't offed two intruders and cheered on the maiming of a third.
"S'gonna take more than that to put me down," Ricky says, kicking the goon a little harder. Afton eyes the animatronics before turning back to him with an unreadable expression. "They, uh. They took care of the other two."
"I reckon they did."
Ricky clears his throat, buying himself time to decide what to tackle first.
He's grateful Afton took his sweet time returning to the scene, the fallout of the adrenaline high forcing Ricky onto the checkerboard floor when most of his muscles decided to unclench at once. His last meal had made a triumphant return.
"I saw him," he says barely above a whisper.
Once the goon went prone and Ricky bound his wrists and ankles with discarded guitar strings, he scoured the pizzeria for any sign of Jeremy. Even when the world goes fuzzy around the edges, blurring the axis between nightmare, memory, and reality, he can tell what is really there and what isn't.
He saw him. He was there, in front of the cameras.
"I reckon you did."
Ricky hops off the table. The rusty knife is still in his hand, still drenched in ichor, and he does not give two fucks about how this ends. Either Afton goes or he does, and either option is acceptable at this point. When the animatronics don't move he feels better about his chances.
"You're gonna tell me what the fuck is going on here, old man. And no one's leaving until I've looked under every arcade cabinet and ripped off every inch of rotting carpet and on my piece of shit father's grave, you better believe I'll walk out of here knowing where Jeremy is."
Afton lifts his chin, the gray stubble scraping against the knife with the casualness of a morning shave. His eyes go to half-mast, mouth curling into a smile that is both heady and mocking.
He is overcome by the errant thought that Afton must have been a heartbreaker in his youth, relying on more than just charisma to get what he wanted. It's such an abrupt departure from the borderline shy and awkward man who took him home so long ago. This is his hunting ground, after all.
"What you should have done is take care of him where no one walking in through those doors could see." The words are murmured as he pinches the knife between his thumb and forefinger, moving it away. "Even if it was self-defense."
"I actually got him in the kitchen," Ricky mock-murmurs back. "You can thank Chica for that."
William laughs, patting him on the shoulder like the Vikings won the Super Bowl and is ready to celebrate over a couple of cold ones. "They're very protective of their home and, honestly, I can't blame them. Now, let's take this fella out back and I'll show you a little something."
The change in demeanor throws Ricky off, knife still hanging in the air, but not as much as witnessing Afton throw the semi-conscious goon over his shoulder as if he weighs lighter than a feather.
Fury slices razor thin beneath the folds of his muscles, reaching bone at a velocity that leaves score marks.
Afton plays it like he isn't aware, jostling the goon as he makes for the hallway.
Ricky licks the front of his teeth, jamming an accusatory finger towards the animatronics staring at him. "No funny business."
He's led back to parts and service, keeping an eye on his surroundings as lights flicker and cracked open doors eat their pale fluorescence. Amorphous shadows peek and bend, following until both men are out of sight.
Their final destination is beyond parts and service; a similar room with a garage door chained shut. There are more bits and bobs thrown around, entire boxes of spare chips and copper wires, empty suits hanging from the ceiling on industrial hooks. Half an endoskeleton lays reclined on a bench, its metal the shiniest thing he's seen so far.
There's another springlock suit, open and wound up, leaning on what resembles a modified mechanic's creeper. Before Ricky can open his mouth to warn Afton of his proximity to the suit, the goon gets dropped into its serrated claws.
The grind of rusted metal snapping into place punches a gasp out of Ricky, but the sound is drowned out by the squeal the man makes, now pinned in place. His body convulses as he tries to writhe himself free, a second wind kicking in as the jagged ribs dig deeper into tender flesh, dark spots blooming around the perforations. He struggles for air but a steel rod has pierced through a lung, his eyes bulging out of their sockets as his feet try to jostle him free.
Every attempt to beg is nothing but a garbled wheeze, bubbles of red overflowing from the corner of his mouth.
Ricky can't bring himself to look away, a hand held emphatically over his own ribs. He startles when his elbow is touched, Afton giving it a light squeeze as if to keep him steady throughout the gruesome display.
The goon jerks, splattering blood over himself. The springlock's hinges grind louder.
Afton holds up a glass vial and signals for Ricky to pay attention.
He perches next to the suit, his hand gingerly tipping the dying man's head to the side while holding the vial up to his ear. Something drips out of it, too dark to be blood this fresh, and Ricky inches closer to get a better look.
The substance is far blacker than anything he has ever seen. It makes pen ink look pale by comparison, its viscosity closer to motor oil. Only a few drops gather in the vial, even after Afton scrapes the lip against the soiled ear.
The man has stopped struggling. At least he's out of his misery.
"Agony," Afton says, as if correcting Ricky's unspoken thoughts. "The most powerful of human emotions. Powerful enough to bind the spark of life to any object conducive enough for it."
He can't take his eyes off the substance, astonished that he's never seen anything like it in either the limited biology classes he's taken or at the hands of his own design. It's like something out of a horror movie. Ghostbusters, if the ectoplasm was black rather than neon green. Or the freaky alien baby's eyes from Men in Black.
He's reminded of the feeling of blood beneath his shoes, how sticky and thick and gummy and—Henry holding him back, telling him not to look—
"How do you know?" The question scatters when something bright goes off out of the corner of his eye, like a camera flash but incredibly dim, in the direction of the body. Turning his head, Ricky sees nothing but the mangled corpse.
"I've tested it countless times," Afton says as he moves towards the computer. "It only works for a limited amount of time, however. Only the pure, concentrated stuff seems to stick."
Ricky doesn't move away, his eyes on the sightless eyes aimed at the ceiling. "Countless times," he echoes. When he does turn, it's to find Afton staring at him from the room over. The look on his face isn't one of satisfaction, or even triumph. He's seen torment enough times in the mirror to recognize it on someone else.
"I have to," Afton says, and Ricky understands.
He wishes he didn't, but he does.
"Agony is the glue," Ricky says, feeling the thoughts and rolling them over his tongue before speaking them aloud. Synthesize the abstract into digestible sentences. "It binds… what? Some sort of lifeforce? Like a soul?" A tungsten sphere bounces against the walls of his brain. "And you shove it into a robot."
Step one. Rudimentary. Bucket of bolts with a single goal in mind, a Dyson with animal instinct.
Asimov, wherever he may be post death, is spitting out his coffee in bewildered indignation.
"And I…" Ricky begins, but Afton interrupts him.
"Artificial intelligence can be indistinguishable."
"It's not the same," he says, hating how his words waver. "It's programming. It's not a person."
"Listen to me." Afton snaps his fingers like calling a dog to attention, crossing the space to hold the vial up to Ricky's face. "Not yet. But it can be."
"William."
"If not for Jeremy, then for Henry. For every grieving parent who did not deserve to lose his child. For every brother who lost his sibling."
"For the parents of all the kids you kill?"
"This is only the beginning. Could you imagine the leaps and bounds, how this could evolve? You think I want to kill a bunch of stupid brats? No! But it's a necessary evil. For the time being. It won't always be this way."
The body cannot move while trapped inside the suit, but Ricky can see the man turn his head to him with eyes covered in a sheen of white. While Ricky doesn't feel bad for him, there's enough humanity buried inside to make him believe the man did not deserve to go like that. He might be wrong. Had Ricky not been used to that kind of assault, primed and ready to take down any bastard harboring ill intent, he would have met a worse fate. He too would have suffered a slow and agonizing death at the hands of humiliation and the theft of his autonomy.
Multiple children died that way. Countless times. Squeezed and perforated like fruit. Countless times.
"You say," Ricky starts without taking his eyes off the dead ones staring right back at him, "it's to do with how much one suffers at the moment of death. The worse it is, the longer the effect lasts."
Afton hums. "That's my working theory, yes."
Ricky's mind runs in half a dozen different directions, ephemeral thoughts on obscure subjects from his university days moving like wisps to the forefront of his attention. It's impossible, but is it as impossible as the potential of his brother haunting the building he's standing in. As impossible as sentient animatronic mascots picking and choosing what and how to do things, including defending someone by any means necessary.
This is beyond the reach of current technology. Beyond even the most plausible of theoretical metaphysics.
To think that his academic advisors warned him against squandering credits on such courses.
"Have you ever tried printing brainwaves? Having a computer replicate echoes for easier transference between objects," Ricky says, rubbing at an arm that is suddenly sore. The exertion is beginning to set it. "Not just rely on the AI to mimic, but a failsafe way of storing the…lifeforce, or whatever you call it."
Vial out of sight, Afton stands next to Ricky to look upon his handiwork. The man is once again in the same position he was when the spring locks triggered. "I seem to remember you preaching from your high horse, something about scientists being too ethical to do what they theoretically can."
"Don't be a smartass."
"My grasp on the programming aspect of robotics only goes so far," he explains. "No, I have not tried. This is why I have you."
"I feel like your grasp is pretty good."
"Those are Henry's machines," he says with a shake of his head, the words bitter. "I can replicate his work but that's about the extent of my capabilities." It sounds like it hurts him to say so, but not for any sentimental reason.
Ricky can't tell if Afton had a thing for Henry or if he hated his guts, but it's beginning to look like whatever they had going on might have been some unholy intersection of both.
The thought scatters when William places his hand on Ricky's shoulder, his thumb pressing against the back of his neck in a soothing upward stroke that makes him shiver. It's a casual gesture that speaks to a hint of relief.
"Okay," Ricky says, plucking the hand away because he can't fucking stand it. He can't fucking stand how much he would rather feel every one of his fingers instead.
He has to think. There's so much he doesn't understand, about the process, about how on Earth one even begins to tackle a project like this. He'll have to pour over Afton's notes and hope they make a fraction of more sense than whatever this objective reality is trying to show him.
But the biggest, most overwhelming part that he does not understand is the why. What is it about Afton that keeps him fascinated enough to give him the benefit of the doubt? What about him, what about this, has Ricky so willing to cooperate? He's seen behind the mask. He knows, now, the monster that he is.
Had it been anyone else, Afton would be in a fucking ditch.
Yet there's something about this man and his snarky dryness, the veneer of unassumingness that can so quickly flip to savage violence.
"Okay," he says again. "This'll…it'll take…God. Years. Maybe. Years before we'd even need human trials." He meets Afton's eyes, those steely blues that wear his mistrust with utmost clarity. "We do this as a team. Which means you gotta trust me as much as I trust you. Which isn't very but we're gonna have to make it work."
William doesn't back down, searching for something on Ricky's face before settling on a nod. "I've got nothing but time," he says, holding out a hand. "Partners?"
Bones in boxes and promises to rebuild with the anticipation to destroy.
The best he can hope for is mutually assured destruction.
"Partners."
• 
