Mike felt the coldest of chills run up his spine; worse than the ones he felt while surviving the night as a security guard.

"Th-This can't be happening," he mumbled more to himself than the manager. He started to pace back and forth on the sidewalk outside the front entrance. "They chose this week of all days to come back to life...chose now to become amazing sentient robots...fuck!" He turned back. "And there's no way you can cancel all those cleanup crews or whatever? The ones who were gonna remove the animatronics and their stuff?"

The manager simply bit his cheek and shrugged. "I already submitted the paperwork to put this place on the market a week ago, Mike. And three days ago, some other company contacted me. Told me they wanted this space and made a good offer, but first they wanted the building to come down."

"Then don't take the offer! Contact those cleanup crews and tell them not to come! The company won't be interested if the building is still up and everything is cluttered inside, right? Right?" Mike was already sweaty with panic.

"It...doesn't work like that, Mike. I...accepted the offer," the manager said sheepishly, looking regretful. "They even offered to pay me double if I hired the cleanup crews and a demolition team myself...so...I did. They even paid in upfront in cash; that's how much they wanted this place. I don't know what they're gonna build on this land, though, I think it was a dentist office or something like that."

Mike didn't know if he wanted to punch something or just break down and cry. He had already gotten so close with the animatronics (well, Freddy was still a work-in-progress), and now he had to explain to them that they were not only losing their home, they would get scrapped. He would lose the first friends he had in such a long time.

"No...no, no!" Mike threw his hands down in frustration. "We can't let them have this place! They can't have the animatronics!"

"Mike, please, don't have a tantrum," the manager chided slightly. "What can we do? They now own this land and the building; so they can do what they want. And the cleanup crews and demolition crews will be here on Saturday or Sunday. If anything, we could probably move the animatronics somewhere, but they're very large and heavy. And where would we even keep them? I've got a family, I can't explain to my wife that I've got four sentient robots with me and that they need a place to crash."

"What if I took them?" Mike suddenly piped up.

The manager blinked. "You? Take them with you, you mean? You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not kidding around," Mike rolled his eyes. "I'm dead serious; what if I took them with me? I know that my apartment is tiny and I can't obviously fit them all into my shitty car at once, but...I really don't wanna see these guys without a home. I want to help them."

The manager couldn't surprised an exasperated laugh. "Mike, a month ago you were screaming at me, telling me that these guys wanted to kill you and stuff you into a Freddy suit. Now you're telling me you wanna help them?"

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know, I know, I sound fucking crazy, and I probably am crazy. But these guys aren't like that anymore. Before, they seemed soulless and hell-bent on getting me. All they did was screech and whirr around. But now they smile and laugh and make food and music! In fact, they don't even remember trying to kill me before! I think...I-I think these guys have some good in them, and I don't want to see that good taken away from them. They've suffered long enough. I believe they're really alive, and it would be inhumane to scrap them just like that, without even so much as a final goodbye. They...deserve more than that."

The manager wasn't sure how to respond to that. Mike had never sounded so mature in his life (even with the swearing). And he was right; these robots seemed so alive. But taking them home?

"Mike...as much as I wanna say yes and let you take them...I just don't think it's feasible. I mean, you probably know a lot more about robots than I do at this point, and it's clear you've got some good standing with them. But wouldn't it be too much to take care of them? They would have to be heavily reprogrammed to even be taken off the property. And then there's the oil and spare parts and charging ports...along with the fact that you'll be out of a job by the end of this week. How would you even take care of yourself and four others? It's not like they can also get jobs themselves. Mind you, I don't think society's ready to be introduced to sentient robots."

Mike sighed as the manager spoke. He was right, though. After this week, he'd have to pray for a miracle to get another job that actually paid well enough to support him and the animatronics. It was a pipe dream at this point.

Unless...

"Wait..." Mike said thoughtfully, furrowing his brow. "Maybe...maybe the animatronics can get jobs of their own."

The manager did a double take. "Say what now?"

As ideas began budding in Mike's head, he started to pace again, though out of excitement. "Yeah...yeah! We can give them jobs of their own!"

"Mike, I've no idea what you're going on about," the manager huffed. "Talk to me; what did you have in mind?"

"Okay, okay, lemme just...lemme just gather my thoughts," Mike said, still pacing. "I was wondering if there were any other Fazbear buildings that hadn't been torn down?"

"I...suppose there's still some of them somewhere as vacant buildings. I-I mean, I could check. Why?" the manager asked, not sure if he liked where this was going.

"Because if we can't have this place anymore, then why not buy one of the other ones? I know this isn't the main building; this is just one of those sister locations scattered everywhere else. Foxy said something about other places having more spare parts. And I remember quite clearly that the original owner died a long-ass time ago and didn't pass their ownership on to anyone. So at this point, all the branches are just like independent businesses, right? Like, you owned this building and these animatronics, but not anyone else."

"...What are you suggesting, Mike?" The manager seemed really uneasy now.

"I'm saying that we should buy one of the vacant buildings left and let the animatronics live there! And I know that the company paid you a good bit of cash for this old place, so what if we also used that cash and revonated a new place? We could give the animatronics their old jobs back and even improve them! Hell, let's just buy the franchise altogether and help make this a good business again! Let's give this a new beginning! Let's become the new faces of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!"