The Living Doll

Cannon Falls National Laboratory - July 13, 1982 - 5:00 P.M.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Time for me to continue my studies, thought Dr. Taggart, as he held onto his little notebook of observations, reading through the results of his recent findings. That first test did provide me with some knowledge on this agonized energy, and how to use it, but one haunted object wasn't enough. It gave the endoskeleton life for a few moments before it proved to be not enough to fully power it. But I wonder, can this also be used to power regular machines? Like a substitute for batteries or electrical power, I mean. That's one of the two things I hope to find out today.

Beforehand, Phineas took the melted hand from the endoskeleton and re-smelted it once more to create a small power chip. This time, instead of bringing an intelligence to life, he wanted to see if this energy could also provide enough power for a given machine. For this, he decided to use a makeshift radio, since he didn't want to go too big with this first experiment. The radio itself was battery powered, of course, but the chip he made should be able to give it a significant power boost. It's a lot smaller than my previous experiment, but I'm curious to see what happens.

He placed the radio in the experiment room once again, making sure to carefully place the chip inside of the portable radio before quickly exiting the room. The energy measurement devices were ready, and Phineas stood in front of the large glass panel on the outside of the room. Alright, let's see what happens with this one.

The energy devices showed a decent increase in the amount of energy being transmitted, just a little bit over the normal amount. The lights weren't flickering, nor was there anything wrong with the radio so far. Nothing too special is happening right now. I better write this down. The radio started playing one of those popular songs that came out earlier in the year. I don't remember the name of it, but that's not important now. (Try to think of Eye Of The Tiger)

Then, the devices started showing a much higher increase in energy, and the radio started cutting over to static and made strange, unidentifiable noises. Okay, this is good. Something new is happening. He would've gotten more down, but at that moment, the radio started releasing smoke, and quite a lot from the looks of it. After a few seconds, the radio suddenly exploded, leaving Phineas in absolute shock and ear-pain, falling down to the floor. Even though he wasn't in the same room as the radio, the sound of the explosion hurt his eardrums.

My God, I wasn't expecting that to happen. The fortunate thing was that the glass panel wasn't damaged by the explosion, so all the smoke and the separate radio scraps were still in the experiment room. That's going to be a mess I'll have to clean up. Well, let's check the damage report. When he carefully entered the testing room, he tried to search through the debris of the now blown up radio, and luckily, the power chip survived, which was all that seemed important at the moment. At least I was able to recover this.

While his latest experiment failed, he quickly began writing down the results to move on to the next experiment. Let's see, it looks like this agonized energy might be a bit too unstable to power smaller electronic devices, but it seemed to work for the endoskeleton. Interesting. With that in mind, he proceeded to the back of his lab to get a few items from his haunted object storage shelves.

He gathered four of them in particular and placed them into a single, large, blue electrical chamber, with a small glass window attached to it so that he could still see them. The first was a mirror that its owner claimed to have viewed a man murder the rest of his family. The second was a small statue of a scorpion-like man, though its owner didn't give too many details about what it caused. The third was an ouija board that its owner and a few others claimed to have summoned a demon itself. The fourth was the creepiest and the most promising of the four.

It was a human-like doll, around the size of a small child. It had long brown hair, with a fancy blue dress and a frilly hat, along with mini roller-skate shoes, holding a small tea-cup in her left hand. It was exquisite. Its previous owner told Phineas that the doll was named Ella, and it was a strange little doll indeed. She claimed that the doll was possessed, and that it even tried to kill her once or twice before. Amazing. Out of all the haunted objects I've collected so far, this one seems to be the most twisted out of them all.

The fact that someone claimed this doll actually tried to kill them provides proof to my theory. If this doll is possessed by agony, then it will be useful in my findings. Although, now that I think about it, this object might be better off being used as a more useful experiment of mine. With that in mind, he quickly took Ella out of the electrical chamber and placed it back on his shelf inside of a little cage, just to be sure that it wouldn't escape and try to kill him. I can't just have my scientific research running around rampant, you know.

Right then, back to the electrical chamber, then. For this next experiment, he was going to go further than he had previously gone before. This time, he was determined to actually release the agonized energy inside of the haunted objects into a physical form. He had no idea if the energy would be extracted in the form of a gas, or in a different form for that matter. But Phineas wanted to see if there was any way to physically extract it, period. For my first test, I'll be seeing if whether or not using enough electricity can release this energy.

Before he could even get to the experiment part, however, he heard someone knock on the backdoor to his lab. Oh, he's here already? I thought I told him to arrive by 5:15 P.M., but I guess he just arrived early. A few weeks ago, he and the man who gave him that endoskeleton, Dave Miller, met each other at an auction where Phineas was trying to find more haunted objects to purchase. Apparently, Dave had some information about some paranormal findings that I was interested in researching. Plus, he was intrigued by my studies with Project Remnant. He told me he'd be bringing along one of his prime specimens today for me to observe.

The backdoor to his lab was very large, so large that in fact, when Phineas opened both of them, a mini-forklift came driving through, carrying a large cage covered by a single white sheet. The cage rattled and moved around relentlessly, making him question what the hell was inside of it. Dave walked in shortly after the forklift successfully placed the cage inside Taggart's lab, and the lab employee driving it soon left after his job was done. Well, well, Mr. Miller, I wasn't expecting you to deliver this to me.

Phineas walked over to Dave, who was standing near the large cage.

"Good day, Mr. Miller. I see you're early today. But I hope what you brought to me will prove to be very beneficial to Project Remnant."

Dave was very peculiar looking. He was wearing some kind of purple security uniform, with a small golden badge near the left side of his chest, with dark grey pants. His hair was dark brown and messy, along with a mustache and a goatee. His face seemed to be kind of pale, and there were a few strange and creepy scars that could be seen going down both sides of his neck. He seemed to be in a very cheerful mood, though.

"I guarantee you won't be disappointed, old sport! I would've tried to give you a better specimen, but this was the easiest one I could get to you."

Phineas took a moment to observe what was inside the cage. He couldn't see much since the large white sheet was covering it completely, but the rattling continued. It was quite large, so Phineas was very curious to see what it was.

"Excuse me for asking, Dave, but what exactly did you bring me?"

"Don't worry, Doc. This thing isn't possessed by agony, or as you claim. This is possessed by the spirit of a former living human being."

Dave took the white sheet off of the cage, revealing the horrifying image that was inside the cage. It was an animatronic, all right, but it was the most nightmare fuel looking animatronic Phineas had ever set his eyes on. The animatronic inside of the cage was around the size of an adult male. This animatronic was so...disgustingly creepy, almost like an abomination against God, or something that came out of a child's nightmare. The robot had two large black eyes, purple rosy cheeks, a large pink nose, two pink eyebrows, a purple cleft chin, and a long row of square teeth, and an abnormally large head. It had six legs which resembled the legs of a spider on a round body. His pink and white striped torso contained a speaker with two smaller speakers above and below it. It had a Funtime-styled appearance, but had no sign of face-plates or detachable casing. It also held a cymbal in each of its hands and wore a black top hat with a white stripe.

Phineas was absolutely disgusted by it. Then the spider animatronic started seeing creepily, with a static-like male voice.

"Oh, we got trouble, right here in River City! With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!"

Dave noticed that Phineas was clearly repulsed by it, so he explained himself.

"Dr. Taggart, this is none other than the Music Man. Don't even ask me why Fazbear Entertainment even thought that this design was appropriate for kids, because I'm sure this would just give them nightmares."

"Alright, Dave, next time could you bring something less...unsettling to me? This thing is really creepy. Thank you, anyway. But what do you mean by former human being, exactly?"

"That's the thing, Dr. Taggart. I've had quite some experience with animatronics like Music Man. I'm not quite sure why it happens, but I think I have an idea how it happens. This is far from the first possessed animatronic that I've encountered. I believe this one is possessed by the spirt of a child."

Wait, so not only are there objects infused with agony, but objects that are possessed by spirits, too? Hmm...I feel like this will be very beneficial to my findings. That being said, I don't understand anything about this strange thing. Dave spoke up again.

"Feel free to perform whatever tests or experiments you want on him, Doc. I'm actually curious to find out what makes this thing tick. Oh, and by the way, there's one more thing I want from you, Dr. Taggart. You see, I'm working on a *very* difficult project right now, and I think you're the only one who can provide me with the materials I need."

"And what exactly is this project of yours, Mr. Miller?"

Dave then reached for his back pocket and pulled out several blueprints for Phineas to see. One of them appeared to be the blueprints for some kind of animatronic endoskeleton, but what made it disturbing was that it looked much more similar to that of a human skeleton than the animatronic endoskeleton he gave him. The other blueprints were even stranger, with one of them showing the outline for what appeared to be some kind of suit that looked very humanoid in shape. There were many other things included in these blueprints that made him both confused and frightened. He spoke up first.

"What the...what the hell is this? Why do you need me for this? I thought animatronic mechanics were your specialty, Miller! I'm a scientist, not a mechanic!"

Dave gave him a very creepy smile when he responded.

"Oh, but I do need you, Taggart. You're not just a scientist. You're an energy AND a chemical scientist. You are the only one I know that has enough chemical knowledge to help me build the proper things for my next creation. Oh, and I think your theory on 'agonized energy' might be of help for it, too."

Phineas didn't have the slightest idea what Dave wanted from him.

"But I don't understand. What is it that you're making? I can't just work on something if I don't know what it is!"

Dave gave a much less creepier laugh this time around, and replied calmly.

"Why, Dr. Taggart, I am working on creating a human android."