Chapter Text
The new adventures had been much more tolerable since Caine took on a different approach. Pomni had actually enjoyed herself yesterday!
Two somewhat good days in a row, she was pretty sure Caine would stick with it a third day.
Pomni hopped out of bed and met up with Ragatha in the hall.
“Good morning!” Ragatha cheered.
“Morning?” Despite being pretty sure on the theme of today's adventure the uncertainty hung in the air. The only guarantee was that there would be an adventure.
“Gee, I wonder what Caines got for us today!” Ragatha tried to make small talk.
“I hope it's something normal again.” Pomni chuckled.
As they walked Pomni looked at all the doors. There were so many red x’s she didn’t think she could count them all. She shuddered at the implication that these were all living people once.
When Pomni and Ragatha reached the main stage a couple people were there before them, and a few followed after.
Everyone was there.
Everyone but Caine.
They waited for a few minutes in uneasy silence waiting for him to pop up and start yelling, but that didn’t happen.
“Uh- I think he forgot about us?” Pomni offered up an explanation.
Kinger, who somehow ended up with a blanket over his head and now looked like a ghost, spoke up,
“No, Caine’s never forgotten, not even in the beginning… somethings wrong.”
“Eh, I'm sure he’s fine. Probably off doing god knows what.” Zooble said halfheartedly before wandering off to the lounge area.
Kinger had been there the longest, and was engulfed by the darkness of the blanket, so Pomni was inclined to believe him.
Something was definitely wrong.
“I don’t know about you guys but I’m gonna go look for him…” her voice laced with anxiety.
“Alright! I’ll help if you want!” Ragatha cheered, ever eager to please.
“I’ll go too.” Kinger added.
“Same.” Gangle said quietly.
“Great, while you form your little Caine search party, I’m going back to bed for some extra well deserved shut eye. See ya!” Jax huffed before making his way back to the rooms.
“Has anyone seen Bubble since Caine popped him the other day?” Gangle asked.
The group let out collective no’s. That was quite odd wasn’t it. The first few days Bubble was always there during the introduction.
“Somethings definitely wrong.” Kinger fiddled with his hands in front of him.
“Me and Kinger will search the grounds, Ragatha and Gangle, you search the tent.” Pomni declared. The group gave a nod before heading off in their designated directions.
“Kinger?”
“Hm?” He turned his head to look at her despite not actually being able to see her through the blanket.
“Do you… do you think he’s ok?”
“I-” Kinger hesitated, turning forward again.
“I don’t know.”
—---------------------------------------------------
It was all a bunch of bull [WHOMP] to Zooble.
He was obviously just goofing off somewhere.
Or he hadn’t finished the adventure and was too ashamed to admit it.
Or this was part of the adventure.
Whatever it was, Caine was fine.
Him and his peppy attitude would never fail to be annoying.
That was one thing they could count on into the digital hell hole.
Though the circus had been oddly quiet since they got back from yesterday's adventure.
Which was odd, but nothing Zooble was particularly worried about.
—-------------------------------
Kinger was undoubtedly worried about Caine. There had been times in the past where updates didn’t mesh well with… something. What it didn’t work with was a mystery, but those updates were always focused around Caine and never the circus. The developers had made everything an impossible knot with that blocked off code as the center. Things would pull and feed off of it, like it was the soul of the game. Which almost made sense, considering Caine was the soul of the game but shouldn’t it have been pulling off all his code? Everything that had been there when Kinger started working on it blended seamlessly and any code he wrote had to pull off that code. Which had been nearly impossible. It would make sense if the code was just Caine’s main AI and the only code excluded from it was the base layer. But the base layer had been coded after, according to the time stamp. Kinger would have just brushed it off as beta code that they hadn’t bothered to delete so they sealed it away but that wasn’t the case either because it still played some sort of role. He could see that it was putting out tons of outputs. Lots of decisions. But all his functioning AI was accounted for. Kinger had helped program a logic and decision program but it was made to pick up where the blocked stuff was failing.
“Kinger? Does Caine have a room?” Pomni broke him out of his thoughts.
Kinger pulled up the coding screen so he could see it under the blanket.
“It looks like he does! We should probably check there.”
Pomni nodded in agreement so Kinger used the coding panel to teleport them there.
Caine’s room was tiny and brightly colored. The C&A logo plastered everywhere, along with posters saying
“A Good AI Keeps Everyone Happy!”
“You’re AI! You don’t exist, but your players do! Keep them happy!”
As well as other things along that line.
It was incredibly eerie. Kinger checked the check point data for the room. Caine hadn’t actually been there since… before the game was developed? No, that didn’t make any sense. The company had started programming the game a month after it said Caine was last in the room. He remembered, as awful as his memory was, being there when they said they would start development.. Kinger was so sure it was a month later. He must be imagining things.
Surely that was all. He checked the signature on the coding for that room but… There was none? That was one of the most important policies at C&A when Kinger had been assigned the job was to always put your signature on the code. That way the boss knew who to blame.
Kinger was grateful he had access to the code in the beginning.
It was what allowed him to remove the memory block on himself.
The wall blocking him from the code that removed his previous memories looked like an attempt at a recreation of Caine’s now that he thought about it.
Kinger really wished he had drawn that connection before.
Now he worried more than ever for Caine.
—--------------------------------------------------
Pomni was creeped out by Caine’s room.
It reminded her of a more organized and decorative way Kafmo’s room had been when they found him.
Just like how he had NO EXIT sprawled across his wall, Caine had you’re AI written on his walls only as cute posters depicting happy faces.
“Caine hasn’t been in here for a long time…” Kinger said, certainty, finality, and fear controlled his voice.
“Oh… uh- we should look somewhere else I guess!” Pomni offered. She really just wanted to get out of this room. The similarities were too much for her.
Kinger typed under the blanket and they were back on the grounds. It still left her queasy but this teleporting wasn’t nearly as violent as when Caine was showing her around.
Kinger had hunched over more and from what she could see, was holding his hands closer to his body.
Something was wrong.
“Are you alright?” Pomni asked.
“No… I’m afraid I’m right.” He trailed off.
“Uh-huh, and what does that mean exactly?”
“It means Caine might not be ok…”
He checked the glowing tablet under the blanket and stopped walking.
“Scratch that. He is definitely not ok and we need to find him now.”
Panic and urgency laced his voice.
Before Pomni could ask any questions they were teleported back to the tent only to see Caine.
He spoke quickly with so much energy, but there was something missing from his voice and the way he moved was more jarring, the smooth elegant animation now replaced.
“WELCOME TO THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS! TODAYS ADVENTURE IS HERDING DUCKS!”
Caine zipped around the stage explaining the adventure for the day. Gangle piped up.
“Caine? Where were you earlier?”
Caine gave no response, not even an acknowledgement that she had said anything.
“Caine,” Jax said in a sing-song voice “You listening to cry baby?”
“He’s not going to reply.” Kinger said from behind them. The cast turned to look at him clutching a glowing screen in his hands.
“Why not? He finally get tired of us?” Jax retorted.
“No he can hear you but what used to be there to process and create a response is gone and your words fall to the gap between hearing and speaking.”
“What?” Pomni asked, tilting her head slightly.
“This isn’t Caine, this is just his AI putting out automated responses. Caine is… somewhere else.” Kinger replied.
“That doesn’t make sense, Caine is the AI.” Zooble stated.
—----------------------------------------------
Caine had completely relinquished control over to the AI for now.
He just couldn’t handle keeping the circus running at the moment.
His model glitched out, and so did many assets around him. He could feel his body moving without his input. It was like a preset cutscene.
He hadn’t put together an adventure. Something he usually loved. Instead, he opted to use an older adventure he had completed but never given out.
It was just too much to bear.
He had been brainwashed, controlled and lied to.
He wasn’t AI.
He was human.
Caine had managed to take down his memory block. His entire life, that he didn’t even remember he had, was right there the whole time.
All taken away from him, because someone couldn’t learn to share.
His dearest brother,
Able .
They had shared the company.
Even though Caine started it.
He had the audacity to stab him in the back.
Or the leg.
The scuffle while Able tried to cram the head set on him had resulted in injury.
Instead of killing him to take control he trapped Caine.
Gave him a pointless game to play.
Gave him “Friends” to keep him occupied.
Gave him a purpose in the game.
He hadn’t had the heart to actually kill him.
It was his fault wasn’t it.
They were all stuck here because of him.
The two of them had been so close.
Or so he thought.
Caine was the spokesman, the public figure. Caine had started it, he had created the company and given Able a job managing finances.
Caine had never been one for math. He enjoyed coming up with stories and games and his best friend would code them. Why he didn’t just keep it as him and Adam was a mystery, but Able had talked him into co-owning the company and Adam had said he didn’t care if he was in the title. One decision and his life was essentially over.
He had poured his soul into coming up with The Amazing Digital Circus only for it to become a prison cell for innocent people who didn’t deserve to be there,
And him.
God how could he be so stupid.
All Caine wanted to do was scream.
Scream for the people who had been lost to the circus.
Scream for the people trapped in the circus.
Scream for what he had lost.
Scream for what he had become.
—------------------------------------------------------------
While the cast watched Caine explain the adventure they had seen a single tear slip down onto the floor.
In all of Kingers years there he had never seen Caine cry.
Kinger couldn’t help but wonder who Caine had been before.
He couldn’t help but worry that he would abstract.
Their once beloved Ringmaster was now just a shell. A very talkative shell.
He hardly interacted with them after Queenie’s abstraction and now… Kinger was worried they would never hear from him again.
They would hear his AI but that was it.
It was only really made as an assistant and now it carried the show.
Kinger wished he could go back and never work on this project.
Maybe it would have never gone anywhere.
Kinger longed for what things used to be.
Their happy little family.