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The programmer stared at Bonnie and Chica for a few seconds before turning to Lisa and saying,
"How in the world can they talk like that?"
"Beats me.", she told him, "Bonnie just started stuttering out words one day, and they've been talking like that ever since."
"Foxy did it first.", Bonnie informed her, "She was talking to Daniel."
"Daniel?", the programmer asked. He seemed to tense just a bit at the mention of the name.
"Yeah!", Chica confirmed, "Then the rest of our friends started talking to us, and we got used to it."
"Interesting...", the programmer said.
"What's your name?", Bonnie asked.
"Huh?", the programmer blinked, "Oh, Gene."
"Hi Gene!", the animatronics chimed in unison. Gene blinked.
"Hi."
"So what do you do?", Bonnie wondered.
"What?"
"Well, Lisa's the janitor, so she cleans the restaurant. Wallace is our mechanic, so he makes sure we're all working properly and kind of borrows parts from the others sometimes to do it. I remember I fell on my face about half a week ago and he had to use parts from Baxter. Baxter wasn't too happy about that."
"So what do programmers do?", Chica reinforced. She liked Bonnie's little tangents and all, but she noticed they could annoy some people really quickly, so she tried her best to steer the conversation back on track.
"Well...", Gene trailed off.
"He's sort of like Wallace," Lisa told them, "but he doesn't work on your bodies."
"Then what does he work on?", Chica persisted.
"Well, you could say he works on your minds, but robots don't exactly have minds. You have a code that sort of tells you what to do when."
"Really?", Bonnie asked.
"Yep.", Lisa told him, "That's why it was so hard for you to speak regular English at first, it went against your programming."
"Oh.", Chica mused.
"That makes sense!", Bonnie exclaimed, "I've always had something that sort of nudged me to do things or... sort of... took over? Baxter thinks it's creepy, I don't think about it too much. So, that's my... programming?"
"Exactly.", Gene said, "But who's Baxter?"
"Oh! All the staff call him 'Old Bonnie' for some reason, no matter how many times I tell them that isn't his name, they just sort of brush me off. It's like I'm... I don't know, I'll have to ask Baxter for a good... a good..."
"Analogy?", Chica offered.
"Yes!"
Gene was silent. Lisa decided to ease him into it.
"They talk to the old animatronics.", she told him, "They call the Bonnie Baxter, the Chica Candy, the Foxy Daniel, and the Freddy... actually, he's still Freddy... sort of. What was that naming system you told me about?", she turned to the other two.
"The older one we call Fred," Chica told her, "but he calls the one we call Freddy Fred."
"What?", Gene asked.
"Oh, right.", Lisa said, "Okay, basically, Toy Freddy is still Freddy for Bonnie, Chica, and... Mangle now, I guess. But to Baxter, Candy, and Daniel, he's Fred. The Freddies just call each-other whatever they wanna call each-other."
"O... kay...", Gene veered.
"So what are you going do?", Bonnie inquired.
"Huh?"
"Well, with Wallace it's obvious what he's going to do, because our bodies are damaged. So why are you coming to work on us?"
"Oh, I'm going to test out the new night mode on you two.", Gene answered.
"Night mode?"
"Yes, the night guard quit earlier and we're getting a new guy, so I want to make sure this one isn't scared off."
"Why would he be- oh!", Bonnie tapped his head, "They try to kill him every night, of course he'd leave!"
"They what?!", Lisa and Gene demanded in unison.
"Oh, they try to kill him because they think that'll help them move on.", Chica chirped, smiling. The employees looked from one animatronic to the other, not knowing what to say next.
"You know, you look just like the security guard whenever one of us gets the drop on him.", Bonnie said.
"Oh yeah!", Chica corroborated, "We usually just look him over and leave, except Mangle for some reason, I think it might be something buggy with her programming, but she always swings in and tries to bite him."
"Yeah, that's usually when he starts running.", Bonnie coincided. Lisa and Gene were now officially terrified.
"But he always runs the second Candy or any of the others gets to the hallway or the vents.", Chica added.
"Oh yeah! But then we all get really bored when he leaves, so we make breakfast for the day workers!"
"It's a lot of fun, though Candy does most of the work.", Chica admitted, "She's been teaching us little things, though, and letting us do stuff."
More silence.
"What's wrong?", Bonnie wondered.
"Huh?", Lisa blinked and shook her head, "I- it's just... that..."
"I think they're creeped out.", Chica said.
"Huh?", Bonnie turned to her, "Why would they be creeped out?"
"You remember how they always tell us they don't move around when people are watching because they'd creep everyone out?"
"Yeah... but what does that have to do with this?"
"Well, Gene and Lisa are creeped out because we've been talking about them in too much detail, see?"
"Oh... oh yeah! Okay, we'll stop talking about them, so are you going to install the night mode or not?"
Gene took a few seconds to realize what he was talking about, but when he did, he quickly shoved all the other things they had said from his mind.
"Right, of course.", he said, "Now, I'm going to have to shut down your systems for a bit to install it, so you're going to be... asleep for a while."
"Asleep?", Chica asked.
"Yes. Then I'm going to reboot your systems and-"
"No!", Bonnie suddenly shouted.
"What?", Lisa asked him, "What's wrong?"
"Whenever you reboot something, that means it starts from scratch.", he rambled, "That means we won't remember everyone. We won't even remember how to speak regular English!"
"What?!?", Chica cried, "No! You can't do that!"
"C- calm down you two.", Gene told them, "It isn't like that."
"But...", Bonnie whimpered, "Baxter told me that's what happens when you reboot something, and he's never been wrong before."
"Well, yes, that's sort of right," Gene conceded, "but not completely with you guys."
"Then what happens to us?", Chica asked him.
"Well, your programming will be rebooted, yes, and you'll have a new facet, but I'm pretty sure you'll retain your memories. However, you might have to re-learn how to speak normally."
"Pretty sure?", Chica prodded.
"Well, this has never happened before, so I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen."
"... Why do we need a night mode anyway?", she groused.
"Well-... Now that I think about it, I don't really think a night mode would do anything if you're going to be able to override it... somehow like you did with your vocal response programming."
"So...", Bonnie said, "you're not going to reboot us?"
"Well... I guess not. But you have to promise you won't go trying to kill this night guard."
"Oh, we're not the ones trying to kill him," Bonnie told Gene, "that's Baxter and his friends."
"... Right..."
"But we do have lots of fun scaring him!", Chica chimed in.
"Yeah, the looks on his face sometimes!", Bonnie burst out laughing, and Chica joined him. Gene looked from one chuckling animatronic to the other, then turned to Lisa, who shrugged and turned back to them to wait for them to finish laughing.