John was counting Charlie’s breaths, one-two, three-four, in-out, each intake of air a marker of the time going by: that this was real, that she was not going to vanish. Hours had passed, and the sky outside was lightening, but still he could not take his eyes off her. His bed was narrow; she was curled on her side as she had been in the trunk, her back pressed against the wall, and he was perched on the edge, careful not to touch her. Jessica had taken a brief nap on the couch, and now she was up again, pacing the short length of his bedroom.

“John, we have to take her to a hospital,” Jessica said for the second time since she awoke, and he shook his head.

“We don’t even know what’s wrong with her,” he said softly. Jessica made a frustrated noise in her throat.

“That’s all the more reason to take her to a hospital,” she said, biting the words off individually.

“I don’t think she’ll be safe.”

“You think she’s safe here?”

John didn’t answer. One-two, three-four, in-out—he realized he was counting her breaths again, and he looked away. He could still hear her breathing, though, and the count went on nine-ten, eleven-twelve … He could feel her presence beside him; even though they weren’t touching, he had a constant awareness that she was close by.

“John?” Jessica prompted, and he looked first at Charlie, then at Jessica.

“Clay said something,” he said.

“At the hospital?” Jessica frowned. “Something else?”

“No, before that. He had Ella at his house.”

“That creepy doll from Charlie’s bedroom?”

John hid a smile, remembering. Jessica will like Ella, Charlie had once confided to John. She dresses like her. But when Charlie had spun the wheel at the end of her bed, the one that made Ella glide out from the closet on her track, proffering her little tea tray, Jessica took one look at the toddler-size doll, screamed, and ran out of the room.

“Yeah, the creepy doll,” he confirmed, his thoughts returning to the present. Jessica made an exaggerated shudder.

“I don’t know how she could ever sleep, knowing that thing was in the closet.”

“It wasn’t the only closet,” John said, furrowing his brow. “There were two more; Ella was in the littlest one.”

“Well, it wasn’t the location that creeped me out; I’m fine with closets … I take that back, I didn’t like the last one we were in,” Jessica said drily.

“I wish I could go back to that house—”

“Charlie’s old house? It collapsed; it’s gone,” Jessica interrupted him, and he sighed.

“Ella turned up in the wreckage, but Clay said Charlie wasn’t interested in keeping her. It seemed so unlike her; her father made that doll for her.”

“Yeah.” Jessica stopped pacing and leaned against the wall, letting everything sink in. “You were right, John.” She opened her hands in a helpless gesture. “The other Charlie, she’s an imposter; you were right. So, what do we do?”

John looked down again at Charlie, who stirred in her sleep. “Charlie?” he whispered.

She made a plaintive sound, then was still again.

John glanced thoughtfully at his dresser. After a moment, he went to it and began digging through the top drawer.

“What are you looking for?” Jessica asked.

“There was an old photo, one I found when Charlie and I were looking through her dad’s stuff. It was Charlie when she was little. I know it’s in here somewhere.”

Jessica watched him for a moment, then leaned over as something caught her attention. She crouched beside the dresser and pulled at the corner of something sticking out from underneath. “This?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s it.” John took the picture carefully and studied it.

“John, I realize you’re having a sentimental moment right now, but we really need to get Charlie to the hospital.” Jessica peered over his shoulder. “What is all of that stuff behind her in the picture? Cups and plates?”

“She was having a tea party,” John whispered. “I have to go to Clay’s house,” he added after a moment.

“Clay’s still in the hospital.”

“I have to go back to his house. Stay here. Take care of Charlie.”

“What’s going on?” Jessica demanded as John grabbed his car keys from the dresser. “What am I supposed to do if Not-Charlie shows up? You saw what she did to Aunt Jen; she was probably the one who got Clay. And now she’s gonna be after Charlie, too, our Charlie.” John stopped, rubbing his temples with one hand.

“Don’t let her in,” he said finally. “Bolt the door after me, push the couch across the door. I’ll be back.”

“John!”

He left. He waited on the stoop until he heard the deadbolt fall into place, then hurried to his car.

*  *  *

John pulled into Clay Burke’s driveway too fast, slamming on the breaks and skidding onto the lawn. He rang the doorbell and waited long enough to confirm that no one was there, tried the knob and found it locked, then tried to act casual as he strolled around to the back of the house. He didn’t think the neighbors could see through the hedges separating the houses, but there was no reason not to be careful. The back door off the kitchen was closed as well, so he made his way along the outside wall, looking for a window that would open. The living room was where he found it: the window was unlocked, and after a few minutes of fiddling, he was able to get the screen up, then haul himself over the sill, scraping his back against the window frame as he squeezed through.

He landed in a crouch, and stayed there for a moment, listening. The house had a thick hush, and a closed-up, stale smell; Carlton must have slept at the hospital. John got up and went to Clay’s study, not bothering to be quiet.

He balked when he saw the wreckage: he hadn’t forgotten the scene: the door smashed, the furniture upturned, and papers scattered over the floor like carpeting, but it was still a shock to see it. There was also a dark stain on the floor where he’d found Clay lying. John stepped over it carefully and went into the office.

He scanned the room quickly: only one corner remained undisturbed: Ella was standing there almost concealed behind a standing lamp, her tea tray steady in front of her.

“Hey, Ella,” he said suspiciously. “Do you have something that you want to tell me?” he said as he turned his attention to the clutter in the room. There were three empty cardboard boxes beside the desk, and he went there first: it looked like their contents had been dumped out in one big pile. Sifting through quickly, he saw that they were all related to Freddy Fazbear’s: photographs, papers of incorporation, tax forms, police reports, even menus. “Where do I start?” he murmured. He came to a photograph of Charlie and her father: Charlie was smiling; her father was holding her on his hip, pointing to something in the distance. He set it down and kept looking. Among the papers and photos were other things; the random computer chips and mechanical parts that seemed to turn up everywhere. He checked his watch; he was getting nervous at leaving Jessica alone with Charlie so long. He looked at Ella in the corner. “You know what I’m looking for, don’t you?” he asked the doll, then sighed and went back to the pile.

On his hands and knees, he surveyed the area, and this time noticed a small cardboard box beneath Clay’s desk. It was only a few inches across, sealed with packing tape, but a corner had ripped open, spilling out part of its contents: John could see a bolt and a small strand of copper wire stuck to the tape on the outside. He crawled under the desk and grabbed it, then ripped the hole wider, not bothering with the tape. He stood and dumped out the rest of it on Clay’s desk; it was filled with more wires and parts. John shook the box and it rattled, and he banged on it until the thing that was stuck came out: a square circuit board attached to a tangle of wires. He studied it for a second before putting it aside and dropped the box, then spread the parts across the desk’s surface in a single layer, then sat down and peered at them one by one, hoping for something familiar.

It took less than ten seconds to find it: a thin disc about the size of a half-dollar coin. His heart skipped, and he held the thing up, squinting at it until he saw the tiny words engraved along the edge in flowing, old-fashioned script: AFTON ROBOTICS, LLC. He swallowed, remembering the incapacitating nausea the last disc produced in him; he also remembered the more substantial effects the disc was capable of.

John glanced back at Ella, then stood and approached her. He knelt beside her, holding the disc firmly in his hand, with his thumbnail under the switch on its side. John’s balance wavered. He set his jaw firmly and flipped the switch.

In an instant, Ella was gone. In her place was a human child, a toddler. She had short, frizzy brown hair and a round face set in a happy smile; her chubby hands gripped the tea tray determinedly. Only her absolute stillness indicated that she was not alive. That, and her vacant eyes, staring sightlessly ahead.

“Can you hear me?” he asked softly. There was no movement; the little girl was no more responsive than Ella. He reached out to touch her cheek, then pulled his hand back suddenly, revolted: her skin was warm and pliable—alive. He stood and went back to the desk, keeping his eyes on the girl. John clawed at the tiny switch again, flipping it back, and the toddler shimmered and blurred for a second, then the image solidified: Ella stood calmly in her place again, nothing more than a large toy doll. John sat down heavily. “Maximum range,” he muttered to himself, recalling Clay’s brief moment of consciousness at the hospital. But the photographs he’d insisted on giving them hadn’t revealed anything. Or had they?

He went to Clay’s desk and picked up the phone: There was a dial tone; it had not been damaged when the place was ransacked. He dialed his own number. Please pick up, Jessica, he thought.

“Hello?”

“Jessica, it’s me.”

“Who’s me?”

“John!”

“Right, sorry. I’m a little jumpy. Charlie’s fine—I mean, she’s still asleep; she’s not worse.”

“Good. That’s not why I called, though. I need you to meet me at the library—bring the envelope Clay gave us, it’s in my backpack.”

“All the pictures are gone,” Jessica said. “We left them at Jen’s house when we fled for our lives, remember?” she added with a hint of sarcasm.

“I know. We don’t need the pictures. There was a roll of microfilm in the envelope.”

There was a pause on the other end, then, “I’ll see you there.”

John turned to look at Ella, scratching his thumb thoughtfully across the surface of the disc. “And you; you’re coming with me,” he said quietly to Ella. He picked her up gingerly, repelled by what he had seen, but she felt just like the doll she seemed to be. She was large enough to be awkward to carry, so he placed her on his hip like a human child, and left through the front door. He stowed the doll in his trunk, put the picture of Charlie and her father in the visor, and pulled out of Clay’s driveway.

*  *  *

When John got to the library, Jessica was already in conversation with the librarian, a middle-aged man with an irritated expression.

“If you want to use the microfiche reader, I need you to tell me what you want to look at. Would you like to see the index of our archives?” he asked. It sounded like he had asked the question several times already.

“No, that’s all right, I just need to use the machine,” Jessica said. The librarian smiled tensely.

“The reader is for looking at microfilm; what microfilm do you want to look at?” he asked very slowly.

“I brought my own,” Jessica said breezily.

The librarian sighed. “Do you know how to use the machine?”

“No,” she said after a moment’s thought.

John stepped forward quickly. “I know how to use it; I’m with her. Can you just let us into the room?”

The librarian nodded wearily, and they followed him to a small back room, where the microfilm reader was set up. “You thread the film through here,” he said, “and turn the knobs to advance it.” He gave John a suspicious look. “Got it?”

“Yes, thank you for your help. We are very appreciative,” John said as he glared at Jessica.

As the door closed behind the librarian, Jessica pulled the film out of her pocket and handed it over. “Okay, what are we looking for?” she asked excitedly, clapping her hands with anxious energy.

“Slow down, okay?” John said wearily. “We almost got killed, we don’t even know what’s wrong with Charlie, and now you’re giddy like we’re looking for hidden treasure.”

“Sorry.” Jessica straightened her posture.

“I think these are the same pictures,” John said as he unwound the film and threaded it carefully through the machine. He flipped it on, and the first picture appeared: Jessica and Charlie, picking outfits in a clothing store. He clicked through the next few; they all matched what he remembered of the photos, though the order was different—chronological, he supposed.

“They’re the same, and they’re not any clearer, either,” Jessica said.

“What?” John went back, trying to see what Jessica had noticed that he hadn’t.

“They’re not any clearer. Charlie is still blurry,” Jessica pointed out.

“She’s just in motion,” John explained.

“In all of them?”

“The picture is clear,” he said again, growing agitated. “She’s just walking.” Despite his words, he stopped and began to go through the pictures more slowly, studying Charlie’s appearance in each one. Jessica was right: Charlie was blurry in all of the pictures, even some where she appeared to be standing still. John clicked through the photos fast, confirming it: there was Jessica and Charlie in a clothing store; Marla with them outside Jessica’s apartment; Charlie hugging herself as she spoke to John at the Burkes’ house that first night—Charlie was blurry in all of them. John flipped ahead quickly to the last set: himself with Charlie—the false Charlie—sitting in the restaurant where they’d had dinner.

The reel ended on the final picture from that night: Charlie nearly lost in the crowd, turning back one last time. She was barely visible, far more distant here than in any of the other pictures, only recognizable by the color of her dress and hair.

“I still don’t see the point,” Jessica said impatiently. John grasped the lens and turned it; the picture shrank. “These are the same pictures.” She turned away and sighed.

“This is the point,” he said, slowly turning it back the other way. The film was high-resolution and the image continued to enlarge as he zoomed closer to Charlie.

“What is?”

John kept zooming in; Jessica gasped, stepping back from the machine. John let go of the lens. “It has a maximum range,” he said softly. The figure that filled the screen was elegant and feminine, but it was not human. The face was exquisitely sculpted and was split down the middle, a thin seam outlining where the two halves met. The limbs and body were segmented plates, their color almost iridescent.

“It looks like a mannequin,” Jessica gasped.

“Or a clown,” John added. “I saw her,” he said wonderingly. “The night Clay was attacked, she was on the road. She looked at me …” The eyes in the photo were difficult to see, and John leaned closer to the screen, trying to make them out.

“It’s the imposter, it’s the other Charlie,” Jessica breathed. John snapped off the projector, blinking as the haunting figure disappeared. He took the disc from his pocket and handed it to Jessica. She turned it over in her hand, her eyes widening. “Is this hers?”

“No,” John said shortly. “But I’m guessing that our mutual friend has one just like it, messing with our heads when we’re around her and making us see her as Charlie.” He leaned back against the table. “I think Clay took those pictures; I think he suspected something like this but needed to prove it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“These things, these discs, send out signals that overwhelm your brain, causing you to not see what’s really in front of you. Now, that wouldn’t work on a camera, obviously, but Henry thought of that, too.”

“So, the frequency or whatever it emits causes the image to blur,” Jessica said, catching on.

“Exactly, but it has a maximum range. The signal fades; that’s why he captured these from a distance. He suspected that whatever was causing the illusion must have its limits.” John began putting the film back into his bag. “That’s why she looks human in the other pictures, at least, human enough when blurred.”

Jessica studied the disc again for a moment before John took it back. “I still don’t understand,” she said. She looked around as though suddenly afraid of being caught.

“I think it’s exactly what I suspected,” he said. “Except I was completely wrong.”

“Oh, that makes perfect sense,” Jessica quipped.

“I had all these theories about Charlie,” John said. “And even though I may have been wrong about the details, I suspected that Charlie, our Charlie, had been swapped out with an imposter. But it wasn’t a twin brother, or a twin sister. Afton swapped her out with … this.”

“A robot?” Jessica said skeptically. “Like from Freddy’s? John, that was different. People, kids, had been murdered. Those robots were haunted. I don’t even believe in hauntings, but those things were haunted! Robots like what you’re talking about don’t exist, at least … not yet. Plus, she knew everything Charlie did, how could Afton have programmed that?”

“She didn’t know everything, though. She blamed all the gaps in her memory on the near-death experience; her personality changed—everything changed—and we all believed she had just turned over a new leaf,” he said bitterly.

“You didn’t,” Jessica said, and he met her eyes.

“Yeah, but I wanted to. Something just wasn’t right.”

Jessica was quiet for a moment. “Why did she kill Jen?” she said abruptly.

“What?”

“Why would she kill Jen?” she repeated.

“Charlie’s aunt Jen knew her better than anyone,” John said. “She must have known she couldn’t fool her.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jessica bit her lip, then her face took on a look of alarm. “Or she went there—”

“To find Charlie,” John cut in.

“John, we left her alone; we have to go back.”

John was already out the door, running headlong across the library to the exit. Jessica ran after him. They both got into John’s car and he hit the gas, clenching his jaw as they sped toward his apartment.