“No. Not Henry. He was more brilliant than Henry. I watched my father work from a distance, a great, great, distance.” Her voice trailed off. Jessica waited for her to go on, half forgetting that she was trying to escape. “I see everything clearly now,” the animatronic continued. “But in my memories … things were much simpler, which made it so much more painful. Now I know that people are all fading, fragile, inconsequential. But when you are a child, your parents are everything: They are your world, and you don’t know anything else. When you are a little girl, your father is your world. How tragic and miserable such an existence is.” Jessica felt a wave of dizziness and looked up to see that the animatronic now appeared as the clown again, but the image passed. Suddenly, it was Charlie in the light, but the moment’s disruption in the illusion was enough to remind Jessica of where she was—and that she had to get away.

The animatronic girl stood beside the only window in the room. There was a door nearby; she was closer to it than the animatronic, not that she could count on outrunning her. What else am I going to try? Tentatively, keeping her eyes fixed on her captor, Jessica started working her wrists back and forth, trying to loosen the rope that held her. The girl watched, but did not move to stop her, so Jessica kept going.

“That’s the flaw, and the greatest sin of humanity,” the girl said. “You are born with none of your intelligence, but all of your heart, fully capable of feeling pain, and torment, but with no power to understand. It opens you up to abuse, to neglect, to unimaginable pain. All you can do is feel.” She studied her hands again. “All you can do is feel, but never understand. What a sick power it is that you are given.”

The ropes only seemed to tighten as Jessica pulled at them, and Jessica felt tears of frustration pricking at her eyes. No wonder she doesn’t care if I try to escape, she thought bitterly. If I could just see the knots … She stopped moving and took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. Find the knot. Ignore the robot. Jessica fumbled with her right hand, searching for the end of the knot, bending her wrist painfully. At last, she found the end of the rope and grasped it: the rope tightened, but she inched her fingers along until she came to the base of the knot, then began to carefully push the end of the rope up through the final loop.

“I wanted so desperately to have been the one on that stage, but it was always her. All of his love went into her.”

“You’re talking about Afton.” Jessica stopped, and Charlie nodded confirmation. “William Afton never made anything with love,” Jessica snarled.