Five Day's At Rad Rex's CHP:2 Tuesday
Story by WastedTimeEE on SoFurry
Bernard decides to shoot the breeze with the maintenance guy Ian as he works on getting some broken machines back in order. Ian discusses a conspiracy brewing involving the coin pusher machine.
Chapter features Toy Bonnie and Human OC.
Enjoy.
"Damn, stupid panel. Just come off." Ian muttered as he twisted the screws of stocky arcade game. The screws were nearly stripped at this point which meant they definitely needed replacing. Not that that was the worst of the old machines problems. Ian pushed with all of his might, but despite his best attempt the screws refused to budge. His energy gave out causing him to slacken and grunt. He sighed deeply before slamming a fist on the machines large plastic dome. "Piece of junk!" He muttered. This was a standard day for Ian. As the Rad Rex's official animatronic technician and attraction repair specialist his day consisted generally of checking spring-lock suits, drinking coffee, sneaking in a nap or two, and trying to keep ten year old hand me down arcade machines running with spit and elbow grease. Of course lately for the human, the amount of daily repairs seemed to be on the rise and it was starting to take it's toll. He considered himself lucky he didn't have to deal with the patrons. With his dark circles and bloodshot eyes they'd think he was a junkie. After sitting on the floor for a moment, he threw himself at the tool again pushing at the screw with all his might. "GRRRAaaaaah" he slipped again. Long black hair now pasted to his face with sweat, he slumped and sighed.
"Watcha working on?" Ian didn't even turn to meet the voice behind him.
"Bernard, to what do I owe this pleasure?" He said flatly. "I'm on break, so I figured I'd come visit my favorite maintenance man."
Ian pinched his bridge and groaned. "Really, you sure you didn't come back here to use my ventilation fan to smoke without Fred catching you?" He turned as he finished his sentence, catching Bernard switching the exhaust fan on and striking a match. Bernie's eyes widened and he grinned cheekily.
"Hey, I uh-" He scratched his head. "I agreed to start cutting back I swear. Besides a kid peed on me today, I need this." He lit his cigarette. Ian gave him a glare with his steely grey eyes.
"Is the suit okay? It didn't soak through to the spring-locks did it?"
"No, no it's fine...I actually wasn't wearing the costume at the time. Glad I had a change of clothes here." He said taking a drag.
"Good, we don't need rust forming on those things. Who knows what kind of mess that could cause." Ian threw himself at the machine again, his face contorting, and with a loud groan the screw finally twists loose.
"ARGH! Finally!" he said dropping the screw driver, and heaving a sigh.
"Ugh...I think I just saw your 'O" face, I feel bad for Vix having to see that all the time." Bern said, blowing smoke at the fan. Ian just laughed. "Seriously though, what are you working on?"
Ian popped the panel off the machine, and began reaching around inside the casing. "That stupid coin pusher game, you know it?" Ian said, reaching back to his desk to get a small flashlight.
"That stupid thing where you use tokens to push a bunch of tokens loose from a shelf or whatever?" Bern asked.
"That's the one, the damn thing." Ian said removing another part from the machine.
"What's wrong with it?" Bernard asked. Ian muttered as he jammed a wrench in the compartment.
"It's gummed up that's what's wrong with it." Ian sighed, slumping back down to take a breath. Ian wiped his brown. "Two of the slots have something keeping the tokens from being inserted, and what's worse this is the third time in two weeks." He sighs, looking over the menagerie of tools spread on the ground. After a moment of browsing. he picks up a small Allen wrench. Bernard nodded, then took another puff of his cigarette.
"Three times eh? So what's plugging it up?" Bern asked, flicking the ash away from butt. Ian stopped working on the machine and scratched his head.
"Let's see...the first time someone folded up dollar bills and crammed them in the panels." As he went back to work in the panel, he continued. "The second time I put a note on the machine that said 'machine does not accept real money' and that resulted in the thing being gummed up with plastic toy quarters." Bernard chuckled. "So last time I put a sign up that said 'tokens only, anything else with gum up the machine.' " Ian grabbed a pair of pliers, and gently eased them into somewhere deep in the panel.
"And...?" Bernard asked.
Ian yanked the pliers, and after two failed attempts, finally a pinkish blob with a dull grey disc imbedded in it pulled away from the internal mechanism of the pusher leaving wispy pink tendrils as he extracted it. After squinting at the blob caught in his pliers, Ian groaned flatly. " A plastic quarter wrapped in chewed bubble gum." Ian's brought his palm up to rest over his face while Bernie began to laugh heartily.
"They....Hah....they literally...Ha...." he wheezed. "literally 'gummed' up the machine." Bern sputtered. Ian let the pliers, gum and all fall to the floor.
"This is fucking deliberate. Who did I piss off enough to deserve this." Ian stood up and kicked the machine, causing several tokens to clatter into the prize tray.
"Don't look at me. I stick to the skee-ball machines myself." Bernard waived his hands defensively.
"You know, it wouldn't be such a pain if it didn't take hours to fix it. I'm not allowed to work on it on the arcade floor, because kids could trip over the parts and tools. So I gotta roll it backstage, and that causes all the tokens and prize discs to spill all over the place. I had to tape the reward trays shut after the first time, because a bunch of tokens spilled out all over the place and I got swarmed by kids. Then I gotta spend a good two hours getting all the panels off, cleaning them out, and putting them back together. On top of that I have to spend another hour carefully placing all the tokens and discs back on the pusher tray." Ian groaned and fell back on the floor, placing his hand over his eyes as Bern put out his cigarette before flicking it into the nearby sink.
"Maybe you should have the day guard check the cameras, maybe he can catch the kid and put the scare in him?" Bern crossed his arms.
"I hate to bother Peirce, he's got enough on his plate keeping the kids from destroying the place and the teens from robbing the prize counter, but I suppose it's I'm going to have to." They both stood silently for a while, before Bernard turned his attention to the other machine in the backroom.
"Oh sweet, you have the skee-ball machine back here? I didn't even notice it. Is it busted?" He looked visibly excited. Ian sat back up and looked at the machine.
"Just finished fixing it an hour ago, it's still on free mode if you want to have a go."
"Noice!" Bernard practically tripped over himself dashing over to the machine. "It's cool to actually get a chance to play the thing without little kids looking at me weird." Ian made his way over to the game as the oversized rabbit began lobbing balls up the game ramp.
"Get this, the balls weren't coming back out of the return shoot, so I flip the reset switch to try to clear it and-" Ian slapped his hands together. "Bam, nothing." The rabbit nods. "So I drag it back here, and spend an hour opening up the tubing for the ball return and what do I find?" Ian makes his way back over to his desk and fishes something out of the drawer.
"Wha'dja find?" Bern didn't even turn to look back before the object was shoved in his face.
"Is that...?" Bern asked, barely stifling a laugh.
"You my friend are looking at a toddler sized shoe."
Bern's next roll went wide, immediately guttering into the zero hole. Bernie nearly collapsed with laughter, between gasps he managed to slip out a
"H-How".
Ian scratched his beard. "I dunno, guess a kid must have shoved it into the lowest hole in the machine." Bernard was still heaving with laughter. "What bothers me most is, why did their parent just take their kid home with one shoe? Did they not notice?"
The rabbit reached out to him with a shaky hand. "M-Maybe it's N-Not the Ha-F-first time it's H-happened." He was nearly out of breath. Ian was laughing now too.
After a good long minute of sustained laughing the two managed to compose themselves.
"Phew...ah man." Bern wiped a tear from his eyes. "So...you gonna take it to lost and found?" the rabbit asked.
"No, I'm going to keep it...of course I'm gonna take it to lost and found." The rabbit laughed again.
"Well you better-"
With a sudden clatter, the door to the workshop swung open revealing a diminutive bear. Bernard reflexively gestured to hide his cigarette only to realize he had long since disposed of it.
"Ian! We have an emergency! A child got his hand stuck in the claw machine!" The bear was sweating. Ian grabbed his toolbox and let out a groan.
"Is it that kid who always wears the propeller beanie again?" The short bear simply nodded, Ian sighed. The rabbit was snickering as he stopped playing and made his way over to the two.
"I swear Fred, at this point you really should just ban that kid." Ian argued as he made his way past the bear and out of the workshop.
"The kid is special needs! His parents would throw a fit and I'd rather not deal with the legal fallout!" Fred hurried after him.
"Oh, no way am I missing this." Fred Jr. just glared at the rabbit as the group exited the workshop.
"Honestly Bernard, if your just going to laugh at the poor kid-" The rabbit put up a paw.
"Hey, it's only fair. He's the kid who peed on me." Ian laughed as workshop door closed.