Chapter Text
When Sun came to from being shut off for the second time that day, he wasn’t too surprised to find himself in the repair tube. And, to his relief, he was once again in full control of his body.
“Well this is a mess,” he heard one of the technicians sigh (never an encouraging thing to hear when one was in a repair tube).
“How even?” interjected another in frustrated amazement.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” the animatronic finally decided to ask, finding no clarity even as he ran through his own memory files of the event. He still remembered what had happened but didn’t understand it.
Predictably the technicians barely glanced at him as he voiced his confusion, and certainly didn’t acknowledge it, and he let out a simulated huff at being ignored. “How are we going to handle a whole extra AI? What are we gonna say to corporate?” asked the second tech, rubbing at his head in exasperation.
Extra AI?! Thought Sun in panic, scanning through his systems frantically to find what they were talking about, and this time lingering over the inaccessible file that he had dismissed before.
“We’re not saying anything to corporate. If they knew we had made a kiddie theater villain independent we wouldn’t get any peace. They’d probably have us rewrite this whole thing’s AI. I ain’t doing all of that.” The lead tech leaned back in his chair as he contemplated Sun’s (and something else’s?) coding. “Look, this thing only turns on when the lights are out. What if we just add the daycare programming we gave the other one, what’s the difference?”
The lesser tech tapped his fingers on the desk in thought, nodding to the idea. “Yeah, yeah. That could work.” Thinking further, he snapped his fingers, adding, “And I know the guys have been having issues with the lights in the new daycare going off whenever the other animatronics recharge. We can just make it a… “ he waved his hand absently in the air as he crafted his narrative, “‘naptime’ whenever that happens--Kids need those, right?-- and this other AI can handle it. Two birds, one stone.”
“Sounds good to me,” agreed his co-worker.
Sun had his own reservations about this miracle solution, but was unable to even voice an ignored comment before being shut down.
When he came back online in the daycare (again-- he didn’t think he had been shut down then reactivated so many times before), he didn’t feel any different. Combing through his files, he found that the inaccessible ones had somehow become more hidden to him. Where before he could see the files there but not open or view them, now he couldn’t find them at all. As he went through his pre-opening checks for the daycare, he could feel more strongly than before that sensation of being watched. The feeling of a presence in the back of his head. Though it was a bit disconcerting, Sun threw himself into his work to ignore it.
This was even easier to do when the daycare actually opened, and he was able to work with the kids in his new role. Attending the daycare was a blast! Even more fun than the theater, since this way he got to interact with the kids directly instead of from afar on a stage only talking to one a show!
Within their shared processor Moon’s code was finally running up to speed. He was aware of the other system running, hearing it talk to the children, but he didn’t interact with it at all, only observed the room and sorted through his own coding. Who he was, what he was meant to do, all of it was jumbled before him and he methodically, piece by piece, shaped out his role. Once he had it straightened out, he watched the kids through what were currently Sun’s eyes. The more he watched the animatronic and the children play, the more he thought to himself that working with the kids looked fun, a stirring in his code making him want to do it, too.
Suddenly there was a dramatic clock strike, and Sun anxiously remembered the “repairs” that maintenance had done on “Moon”. While he internally panicked over what this unknown new piece of him could do, he was stuck with protocol and got the kids ready for naptime, grabbing blankets, mats, and pillows. Suddenly the lights went out, and Moon rotated to the forefront. He stood and stared at the kids for a minute, running through his new protocol as it actually became active. Protect kids, get kids to sleep. Ok simple enough. After all, Moon got the same daycare programming as Sun, so he should be good at this too, right? Turning towards the kids, he greeted, “~Hellooo, children,” his head rotating a quarter turn to the right. The nighttime attendant watched in dismay as seconds after his hello the kids began to freak out, scattering around the daycare in terror.
He stood still as he watched them scatter, his head turning the other way in disappointment. This wasn’t anything like the fun that Sun had had when talking to the children. At the same time, his code was blaring at him Protect kids. Get kids to bed, and he had no choice but to follow. He stalked towards the daycareees, his every movement causing renewed shrieks as they darted away from him even more. He attempted to reassure the kids by saying some of the same things Sun said, “It’s alright, children, I promise. Come to bed.” This didn’t work, and he stopped where he was, his head turning in frustration. As he paused, he finally realized that in addition to the protocols guiding him, he could hear another frantically screaming voice, though this one was more angry than terrified.
“What are you doing?! You’re ruining everything!” yelled the strange voice.
He didn’t know how to reply, either from a technical standpoint or what to say. Instead he just watched the cowering children, his mood sinking with every shudder from them. He had just wanted to have the experience that the daytime attendant just did, but things did not seem to be going that way. At the end of the day he had to do what his programming said, it was screaming at him still, along with the other voice. Steeling himself resolutely, his head rotated back into place and his steadied his shoulders. If it was between being liked and getting done what he had to do, he would just have to make sure naptime was had. Quickening his pace, he went straight to each child where they hid, staring down at them and ordering them sternly, “Go to bed.”
One by one, they eventually all were curled under covers on the daycare mats, some having darted there with only a glance from him while others had been carried, but they were all laying down and his code could at last be quiet.
At one point in the night, a restless child sat up, looking apprehensively around the room. When the naptime attendant caught their eyes, he told them softly, “Go back to sleep.” As soon as the words left his voicebox, the kid squeaked in fear and dove under the covers, holding them tight above their head. Moon mimicked a sigh in another disappointment.
At last naptime ended and Sun testily took back control, pretty much running damage control and calming the traumatized children and mentally berating Moon. Moon remained quiet, and reflected on Sun’s day versus his own. He couldn’t figure out why everything went so badly for him. He did and said a lot of the same things Sun said! Why didn’t the kids like him? He was just following his programming -- same as Sun!
The second naptime, the kids didn’t bother to flee or argue, just immediately dove, shivering, under their covers. It seemed to Moon that he should be happy about this, since they were napping like they were supposed to, but at the same time it did not feel right.
The daycare was closed after its first day, and the Daycare Attendant was left to clean up. Sun (currently the one in charge of the body) silently fumed as he went through cleaning duties. Moon watched as best as he could without Sun giving him any direct access to their eyes, and wished absently that he was in control right now so he could fidget. As it was he just thought nervous thoughts and he tried to psych himself up to speak to the other attendant. Tentatively, he finally attempted to make contact -- not having officially talked to Sun before now. “...hi,”
he tried, hoping that since Sun could talk to him this way that he could do the same. He grew uncertain when the other AI said nothing back.
“They like you,” the night AI observed, questions burning in his mind so he asked them to the only person available for him to ask, “Why don’t they like me? I did what I was supposed to.”
Sun aggressively slammed a barrel back into place, finally replying, “You scared them. You’re supposed to calm them down to get them to sleep, and you didn’t even do that a little! You did the opposite!”
Moon’s relief at being in fact able to connect to Sun faded quickly as he processed that. He scared them? He didn’t want to do that!
“I had to do so much damage control! The parents were so upset! I just hope we’re going to be able to say it’s just first day jitters” Sun pronounced. Sun ranted more as he cleaned, picking apart every one of Moon’s actions and what he did wrong while he quietly absorbed the criticism.
Sun was in the middle of both another critique and scrubbing down the exit of a slide, when the lights randomly flickered off once again, leaving Moon in command. Since he had the cleaning protocol too, he silently picked up where Sun left off, figuring he could do this task with little trouble.
Sun’s temper cooled a bit as he saw that Moon could at least do cleaning well. (Though he’d really rather be in charge of it himself, he could just see how he would do it better. Plus he was still not entirely used to this whole “sitting back and watching while his body did stuff he wasn’t telling it to do” thing. He decided that while the lights were off, he would go into rest mode. He just couldn’t deal with this stress of watching someone else do what he was used to doing.)
Moon’s mood dropped in disappointment when he felt Sun go offline. Cleaning was going to be a lot more boring with just himself and his nervous thoughts reviewing the day and Sun’s comments.
Well, tomorrow was another day.