Chapter Text
Cindy’s life didn’t start with a bang, but with a clang.
It occurred shortly after her auditory processors turned on. The next thing she heard was an enraged and annoyed “Fuck!”
SYSTEM MODE - REST: DEACTIVATED
SYSTEM MODE - COMFORT: ACTIVATED
Cindy opened her eyes, looking for the source of the sound. And she found it, easily enough. To her left, next to a wrench lying innocently on the ground was someone crouched down, clutching their left foot.
Quickly scanning them, Cindy’s suspicions were confirmed. The person was injured. And she had an inkling that the wrench had something to do with it. She opened her database and looked up the person’s profile.
PROFILE = [UNKNOWN]
Odd. They weren’t in her database. No matter, she could make them a new profile
PROFILE = INJURED HUMAN
NAME: UNKNOWN
AGE: UNKNOWN
SEX: MALE
GENDER: UNKNOWN
STATUS: EMPLOYEE (UNCONFIRMED)
MEDICAL NEEDS: LEG INJURY
(…)
OTHER: -
The animatronic stepped closer to the employee (?), intending on helping them, but stopped just before leaving her plexiglas pod. The reason she stopped wasn't the pod itself, no, its door was wide open. What stopped Cindy in her quest to help the human was the multitude of wires coming from the ceiling of the pod, each attached to her body parts. Extending an arm (as much as the pod space would allow) she examined the connection ports the wires used. They were unknown to her.
Lowering the arm, the wire attached to the back of her hand popped off with a hiss and a small puff of air entering the now empty connector.
The person, still crouching and breathing rather slowly, looked up at the sound. Their eyes widened in a comical way. Then they looked at the loose wire, still dangling from the top of the pod. They frowned at that.
Taking one more deep breath they rose to their feet, wobbling a bit before they found their balance. They favoured their left foot. The employee walked the little distance from the wrench to the pod.
“Cindy…Hi..” they said awkwardly.
Cindy. Yes, that was her. The comfort animatronic who had just been powered on for the first time. The one who will roam the Comfort Center of Freddy Fazbear’s MegaPizzaplex and help anyone there.
But she’s not in the Comfort Center yet (or at least she thinks so). Still, she needs to help out the human.
Cindy moved her hand, the one the wire detached from. It functioned perfectly well. She looked back at the employee in front of her. Their eyes widened and their mouth gaped with the realization a split second before she moved.
Cindy stepped out of the pod, the wires detaching as soon as she was out of their range. She immediately fell forward.
The employee caught her, grunting under her weight. They called someone over, a person Cindy hadn’t noticed was also in the room. Together, they placed her back in the pod and the employee (engineer?) reattached the wires.
So the wires were still needed. A strange, unpleasant feeling started in her chest, where her main systems were located. A word in her database immediately followed the sensation, giving it meaning and a name. Shame.
She was ashamed. Ashamed for burdening the humans, for being unable to help the injured one, and for not making sure she was completely functional before getting out of the pod.
She tried to voice these ideas, to apologize to the humans, when -
WARNING: [VOICE BOX MISSING]
No voice box? No matter. There are other ways to communicate ideas.
{I apologize for the mess} she signed, her gestures only slightly limited by the wires.
The other human, whom she suspected was also an employee, a security guard by the looks of their uniform, looked at her hand movements with concern painting their features.
The employee/engineer, however, seemed to understand her perfectly.
“It’s okay,” they said. “Just… don’t get out again.”
The animatronic nodded. Luckily, some gestures don’t need much effort to convey their meaning.
She then remembered why she got out in the first place.
{Do you need medical help?} she asked.
The human blinked, perplexed.
“What?”
{Your leg. Do you need medical help?}
“Oh, that, no!”
The person placed their foot behind the other leg as they said it.
{You need medical help} Cindy signed. It was obvious.
She did her best to glare at them. It was supposed to make them understand she wasn’t joking around. The person looked more amused than anything.
“I’ll go to a first aid station after I check you up,” they said.
Her information processors whirred to life with this new bit of knowledge. She changed the status from EMPLOYEE to ENGINEER in the profile (there was no more doubt anymore) and looked up FIRST AID STATION in her database, out of plain curiosity.
First Aid Stations:
- Places where guests and employees of the Freddy Fazbear’s MegaPizzaplex can get their injuries treated.
- Equipped with bandages, pills, ice, …(more information)
- First Aid Stations are usually managed by a STAFF bot and a certified nurse.
This new information would be useful later on, so Cindy created a new folder in her database, IN CASE OF INJURY, and placed the file there.
Just as she was done with the action, the engineer moved slowly around the pod, towards a desk with a computer on it. The desk, a small plastic thing, was somewhere behind her, but that was no issue for the animatronic. Whenever her eyes could no longer see them she turned her head, slowly, until she could comfortably look at the engineer as they performed her software tests.
Even as they were bent over to look at the computer properly (Cindy didn’t see any chair anywhere near them) she could see they were keeping their weight off the injured leg. Smart human .
A sudden yell startled both her and the engineer.
“Jesus!” she heard the security guard say. He was out of her field of vision and she turned her head towards him, curious about the cause of his shout. Had he injured himself as well? Was it the wrench? Did she need to scold the wrench?
Just as she had determined that no, she didn’t need to scold the wrench, the engineer yelled out a bewildered sounding “Holy shit!”. Cindy turned her head back towards them just in time to see them stumble backwards, wincing in pain upon placing their body weight on the injured leg.
What’s wrong , Cindy wondered. Did something happen that she was unable to notice? She wanted to ask the engineer-
WARNING: [VOICE BOX MISSING]
Right. She still didn’t have her voice box.
Cindy debated whether to sign her question, but since the humans were behind her, her joints would likely have to twist unnaturally for her to sign in a way they could see. And she’s caused enough trouble already.
Luckily, her biggest question was answered by the security guard.
“What the fuck happened to her head?! they asked, looking fearfully at the engineer.
They shrugged in response, while keeping their eyes on Cindy’s head.
‘Her head’ the security guard said. Was something wrong with her head?
She did a full 360 rotation towards her left, then her right. No, everything seemed to be working well.
Once her little experiment was finished she turned her back to the 187 degree rotation to look at the humans. They seemed much more tense than they were before her small check-up. Odd. Did they see something she didn’t?
The engineer stepped back from the computer, their eyes fixated on Cindy’s. They moved around the pod slowly, step by step, breath by breath until they were in front of its door. Cindy followed them with her eyes (and head) diligently.
The human entered the pod (either they were tall or she was short because she had to look up to maintain eye contact) and reached for her neck, touching around until they got to some sort of switch. Cindy had no idea it was there until they flipped it and she felt a tiny cog lift up and rest inside her neck at the meeting point between her head and neck.
The engineer stepped back and tilted their head, probably trying to see if the switch did anything. Cindy mirrored them. She couldn’t explain it, but it felt…fun?
Something seemed to click in the engineer's head, because they straightened their head and looked at the animatronic with a determined glare.
They stepped to the left and Cindy followed them with her eyes. Taking another step, the engineer waited until Cindy met their eyes again before moving again.
Once her head was turned to 90 degrees, Cindy found that she couldn’t twist her head any further. Was this what that switch did?
The engineer moved back in her line of sight.
“Can you turn your head any further?” they asked.
{No}
They looked at her hands, then back at her head. They nodded, understanding.
The engineer went back to the computer and Cindy's visual field was left human-less. Boredom quickly took a hold of her mind. Her only entertainment was watching the fan in the vent spin around and around and around…
Could she spin her head like that?
A quick check of her systems proved that yes, she should be able to tilt her head at least 110 degrees upwards, both left and right. 220 degrees in total. More than she hoped for.
Cindy should, by all means, stay put and not cause any more trouble for the humans. They were here to make sure she was functioning properly, after all.
But then again - she felt her lips quirk up in an involuntary smile - shouldn’t she check if everything went perfectly?
She decided to wait. 240 seconds should be enough to determine if she could wait it out until the check-up was done or perform the check by herself now.
The 4 minutes passed in silence, with nothing new other than the small pop-ups that showed the completed checks and the estimated time of completion (3h 56m).
With the confirmation of the time, Cindy began tilting her head in one direction, then the other. She stuck with tilting it to the left or to the right. There was no need to be greedy, now was it?
She changed direction with each new tilt, moving her head faster and faster.
It happened almost too quickly to register what happened. She was tilting her head to the right, hoping to achieve 80 degrees and a higher speed, when she found herself unable to move her head anymore.
She tried tilting it more to force it back into the original position, tried spinning her head to dislodge whatever got stuck, even tried pushing her head back up with her hands. Nothing worked. Great.
At least the new perspective provided some entertainment.
…
It was getting rather uncomfortable. Cindy didn’t have any pain sensors, but she could feel the discomfort when things are wrong, and things are definitely wrong in this moment. Cindy was well aware that there was an issue, thank you very much, but the uncomfortable feeling persisted, nagging at her.
Turns out knowing something is wrong isn’t the same as fixing it.
She had to get the engineer’s attention. Speaking was out of the question, signing would be impossible, so making noise was the only thing she could do. Cindy clapped her hands once, twice, and then more until someone groaned loudly and said “What is it now??”.
Someone stepped towards her and Cindy could only see their lower body, but she knew immediately who it was. Only one of the two people she met was favouring their left leg.
A disbelieving laugh was heard throughout the room.
“Everything alright over there?” the security guard asked from somewhere behind her.
The laughter only intensified.
Cindy knew she should be at least a bit insulted by the mockery of her predicament, but if she saw an animatronic with their head stuck in a weird position because they got bored, then she too would find it funny, even a bit.
The security guard let out a rather undignified snort.
Hands were at her neck and her eyes snapped back into focus. The engineer was looking at her head connectors, trying to figure out what went wrong.
A few minutes were spent in tense silence as the engineer poked and prodded at her body, nothing releasing the blockage at her neck. A button unlocked her auditory system compartment, another reset her visual feed, a button seemingly did nothing but Cindy could feel something in her head loosening and tightening, but still, nothing worked.
“What did you do to yourself?” the engineer tutted disapprovingly, shaking their head.
Cindy lifted her hands to sign, to explain what happened, but the engineer stopped her.
“No need to explain, Cindy.” they said, exasperated but kind. Cindy definitely liked them.
They let out a sigh, and turned around, going back behind the pod. Cindy could only hear some papers moving, and a small, almost imperceptible foot tapping.
The engineer couldn’t stay on their left leg, so they must be using it to tap. Unless it’s the security guard who’s tapping. Now that’s a fun thought to keep her occupied.
As Cindy debated this topic with herself, the engineer looked through the maintenance manuals they received when they got Cindy’s parts.
-
When Jaime came into work that evening to finally finish the C0MF0RT project they’ve been working on for weeks, they never thought the project itself, Cindy, would be able to cause them so much trouble.
First her head was spinning oddly (Jaime didn’t think it was normal to do that; the manuals said nothing about it), then she got it stuck in an odd angle. Thank goodness her head was the only body part without wires, because she at least understood she shouldn’t tamper with those.
Here Jaime was now, pouring over the manuals, trying to find a solution. Had Cindy been a mere electronic object, like a toaster, they would have tried stuff without care or worry. At least if she was a toaster, she could be easily replaced with another.
But Cindy can’t toast bread and is somewhat sentient, so trying things without knowing what they’d do in an attempt to fix her would be something akin to torture.
Finding a solution would be so much easier if their leg wasn’t pulsing with pain whenever it touched something.
Finally reaching the CHECKS section of the manual after what felt like hours, Jaime performed them all, one right after the other, but none showed the solution.
Jaime started reading the section out loud.
-
Cindy’s debate over the leg tapping was quite rudely interrupted by the engineer murmuring to themselves, reading from the book in their hands.
“When performing maintenance checks, the engineers must ensure that the animatronic is using the default settings. This way, the systems will show where the trouble is much easier…”
Cindy would have tuned out the engineer, if not for the fact they provided some much needed entertainment.
Their muttering went on until they finished reading the 5 pages.
When they didn’t find the solution, they started over. Louder this time.
“When performing maintenance checks, the engineers must ensure that the animatronic is using the default settings. This way, the systems will show where the trouble is much easier…”
The second read-through provided no solutions. At every question the engineer performed the check step by step. Yet all, besides the head tilting one, went by with no hitch.
The engineer groaned. Loudly.
“Why does nothing here help?! I’ve done all this stupid manual says!”
They went back to their desk, now leafing through the other manuals. Maybe they’ll find the solution there , Cindy thought.
Well, now with nothing more to do and nothing to listen to besides the eventual turn of the page, Cindy was left alone with her thoughts again. A horrible decision on the engineer and the security guard’s part, truly. First time she fell out of the pod, then she scared the humans with something about her head turning, and now her head is tilted in a very odd position - WAIT A SECOND!
Cindy started clapping like a theater nerd at the end of a Broadway show and Jaime bit back a groan. What now?
Dejected, they made their way back to the front of the pod. As soon as Cindy caught sight of them, her clapping stopped and her signing started.
Jaime blinked back the tired haze in their eyes as they tried to figure out what she wanted to say.
“Cindy, stop!” they said. Then they sighed, their shoulders sagging. “What’s wrong now?”
{Nothing! I-}
“Then could you please ,” the word made Cindy pause in her signing, “Let me go back to the manuals? I’m trying to fix you. Don’t you get that?”
Cindy’s hands slowly lowered until they were back at the sides of her body. She’s managed to upset one of the only two people she’d met in her life. Granted, she didn’t even know the names of the two humans, but it was still heartbreaking to think about.
Maybe her solution was dumb. Maybe it would cause more trouble than it’s worth. And Cindy’s caused enough trouble already.
A forced deep breath pulled her mind back to the real world.
“What was it you wanted?” the engineer asked with a biting tone.
It took a few more milliseconds than expected for Cindy to come up with a decent answer.
{I don’t want to bother you…}
The engineer rubbed the bridge of their nose.
“You’re not programmed to just attract attention to yourself for no reason. You’re not like or Roxy, or Freddy, or like how the gator animatronic, Monty, will be.”
Cindy had no idea who these beings were, but still, she listened on.
“So tell me why you wanted me here.” the engineer said. “Please,” they added as an afterthought.
Well. If they turned out to not be upset with her after her shenanigans, Cindy would definitely seek them out more. They’re definitely friend material.
{I may have found a solution to my head problem}
The engineer perked up at that.
“Go on.”
{The manual you were reading out loud said something about default settings}
“Yes, and?”
{Didn’t you flip a switch after I kept turning my head?}
The engineer looked at her neck, their eyes widening with the growing realization. They nodded.
{If it wasn’t flipped when I woke up, doesn’t it mean it wasn’t one of the default settings?}
“I FUCKING KNEW IT!” the engineer yelled out when she finished her idea.
Ouch. The animatronic flinched, a movement small enough for only her to notice. Was the volume too loud in her auditory system or did they yell loud enough for the security guard to flinch too? After the slight shock was over, Cindy lifted her eyebrows at the engineer, amused.
“I FUCKING KNEW THERE WAS SOME TINY, MINUSCULE DETAIL I MISSED!”
Before they finished saying that, they already entered Cindy’s pod, placing their hands at her auditory chamber, searching around for the switch.
As soon as the engineer flipped it, Cindy could feel something akin to relief when the little cog that blocked her head from turning earlier was lowered back to wherever it came from. Still, her head remained stuck.
The engineer went back and grabbed the HEAD AND NECK MOVEMENT MAINTENANCE manual with such speed Cindy was unsure whether to be relieved or concerned for their injured leg. Was it still as bad of an injury? Cindy would have performed a scan, but as her view was currently horizontal, her sensors might not be able to detect the human. She’d need to talk with them about that.
Immediately after starting the checking process, the problem presented itself.
The metal at Cindy’s neck had bent inwards as a result of the weight of her head, the speed with which she tilted it and that tiny cog that prevented it from going into a safe position.
After the problem had been found, fixing it was a breeze. Cindy didn’t even feel the tiny screwdriver the engineer used to bend the metal back into its place. Immediately after the tiny tool was away from her body, Cindy felt her head lower slowly to its original position.
“Check it” they said after she was done.
Cindy, in her bliss of having her vision back to normal, hadn’t noticed the engineer stepping back out of the pod.
She spun her head around once, twice, then tilted it in both directions and spun it again. Everything was perfect.
{Thank you!} she signed happily.
The engineer nodded, smiling brightly.
The rest of the maintenance checks went on with no issue. Cindy was much more compelled to be patient if the engineer talked her through the process and read outloud the instructions. Only once or twice did Cindy stop them from their checking to point out a detail they had missed or remind them to take a break. By the end of it she had a functional voice box, limbs that actually did what she wanted them to do and a funny story to tell if she was ever asked about her first day awake.
In no time she was deemed fit to exit the pod and walk around the room (turns out the wires were for charging and powering on her systems. Who would have known? Not her).
And so, after 4 hours of checks and the occasional shenanigan, the engineer left to do what they promised. The security guard was sleeping on the floor with their back against her pod, and Cindy realized that for the first time in her life, she was alone.
She could do anything. The thought sunk in faster than she had expected. I could do anything. The thought was both thrilling and terrifying.
Where would she go? What could she do? Who would she meet?
The questions were swarming her processor, mingling with worried thoughts. She had no map, or knowledge, or acquaintances. The engineer was an exception, of course, but they were gone to the First Aid station.
Could she find it? With no access to the network of the MegaPizzaplex? With no guide or any knowledge of the place besides the short definitions in her database?
While a part of her argued valiantly for her to keep put, the other part was overcome with the possibilities and thrilled with the idea of exploration.
‘Calm down, Cindy,’ she told herself. ‘There’s no need to be rash.’
So of course, like the good animatronic she was programmed to be, she looked again at the sleeping security guard to check on him, and then shamelessly stepped out of the room, determined to find interesting things.