Chapter Text
Pomni had been gone for a month.
She was lucky that it was only that long, it made a lot of things easier and she even got her job as an accountant back.
Despite this, the circus had confronted her with questions she had no answer too. The question of her own existence was something every human stumbled upon from time to time. Most of them moved on quickly or ignored their lack of knowledge. The circus however, ingrained that question deep into her mind so that it followed her around even after her escape.
Kinger, or Grant had a harder time. First of all, he had to prove that he was alive to reverse being declared dead in the first place- otherwise he would have no identity. It was a difficult ordeal, mainly because he had to find out his own name first. It took searching reports for hours until they finally found it.
Pomni also noticed that she had a much easier time adjusting to her old life again. She was practically able to continue where she started, all that she was left with was some trauma to work through and a lot of questions that haunted her especially during the night. Questions about the circus and her friends, who she still hadn't found.
Kinger on the other hand...
She felt sorry for him. He took a job in retail while he applied for something in IT. While he had experience, he was unfamiliar with all technology that was developed in the last two decades -a dealbreaker for most employers- and while he tried to catch up, it would take some time.
But that wasn't the worst part. He had nothing to do, no place to start from. His entire foundation was gone, he was wandering around without a sense of direction.
The only thing he could really focus on was to find the others. He searched for them with even more fervor than Pomni, the activity was sort of an anchor to him. The worst part is, that he didn't want to admit it. He wanted to stay strong and composed for Pomni and while he wasn't on the verge of breaking down, she saw the situation get to him.
Sometimes she walked in on him staring into space and he rarely reacted when she used his real name. There was always a moment of confusion before he remembered that that was him. She wasn't always sure if he was entirely sane.
Despite that Caine's weird effects were gone, Kinger still prefered to stay in the dark. Whether it was force of habit or it actually had an effect, Pomni - or Elizabeth, that was her name now, couldn't say.
That is how the days were spend, slowly trying to adjust to a new routine and trying to make sense of it all. Weeks passed without them making any progress.
Until Kinger found a post in the internet:
Does anyone know anything about the amazing digital circus?
Please contact me here: dammitIhavetothinkofanadress.com
Nothing more, just these two lines. It was posted two months ago and no one really seemed to have interacted with it, but Pomni knew that it couldn't have been a coincidence. She quickly typed something before clicking send.
It didn't take long for them to get a new message,
Pomni?
____
It was hard for Gangle to return to her old life. In a way, nothing had changed. She got the missing person report taken down and despite the Spudsy's adventure she started a job at a fast-food chain, although she wasn't shiftmanager anymore. At some point she even found herself another apartment.
But everything was different. Every day, when she woke up, she remembered. The circus, her friends, everything. And apart from her memories and the fact that she was nowhere to be found for years, there was no proof it was real.
She found it harder to focus in her shifts, her thoughts constantly drifting to what she has experienced. But she would say that in a way, she was happier now. She had an unique experience, her life didn't mean nothing anymore. However, this didn't stop the loneliness to be so overwhelming.
The day after her arrival, she had posted a vague message her friends would understand on every social media platform.
Still, even after a month nobody had answered.
At this point she was desperate enough to return to the computer, even though she was repulsed by the mere thought of being in it's vicinity and putting on the headset again, just to look for any hints that her friends made it out too.
And maybe, apart from the pain, the torture and the occasional existencial dread, the life in the circus wasn't so bad. At least better than her life here.
That day was like many others, the rancid smell of cheap fat filled the air as she rang orders on the greasy device in. The time seemed to be endless and her shift neverending.
But she had hope. And really, in the past few years she had experienced worse.
The line of customers seemed to be never ending and at this point she turned her brain off completly and just kept reciting the same script.
"Welcome to BigBeautifulBurgers, what can I get you?"
"I know it may seem weird but... Welcome to Spudsy's?" a familiar voice asked. She was certain to have misheard, maybe she shouldn't daydream so much during work.
"S-Sorry, I didn't understand."
"Oh, I'll take a burger then," the other person answered, but somehow seemed disappointed. If only the voice didn't seem so familiar! Gangle didn't want to embarrass herself if she was wrong, but what if she wasn't?
"No, I meant what you said before," she clarified.
"You mean, Welcome to Spudsy's?"
"Zooble, is that you?", Gangle asked unsure, her voice barely audible.
"Gangle? Or is it Jenna now?" Zooble answered with a glance to her nametag, while Gangle hugged them awkwardly over the counter.
"Fuck, I am so glad to see you again! I ate so much fast food in the last month, it wasn't healthy." Zooble, in her attempt to find Gangle, went to a new fast food place every meal. They thought it was a hopeless endeavour, but they wanted to try it.
Gangle announced that she would take her break now and went outside to talk with her friend.
"You... searched for me?", she asked as soon as they found an empty bench.
"Why do you sound so damn surprised, of course!" Zooble really would have to do something about her friends self-esteem.
"I thought I would never see you again! I made posts online, but nobody has really noticed them." Gangle noticed that she sounded a little too sad. She was reuinitung with a friend, she shouldn't be! "But in the end it turned out fine! Is it just me or do you swear more often?"
"Hell yeah, Caine can't censor shit anymore and I am driven by pure spite to do anything that asshole hates," they explained.
"Have you heard anything about the others?" Gangle was glad that Zooble was fine, but she couldn't imagine all of them doing well. Even she had her late night breakdowns when she remembered the last moments there too vividly and she knew she couldn't be the only one.
"I actually arrived with Jax and Ragatha."
Gangle couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy, "And what about Pomni and Kinger?"
"I haven't met them yet and it seems like you didn't either. All I have seen was a weird note they left with a marker, so at least they are out."
"I am sure we will find them eventually," Gangle tried to be optimistic.
"By the way, are you guys hiring?", Zooble asked.
"Why? N-Not that I would mind, but you really don't want to work here," Gangle stuttered.
"It's about time I get a job. Jax moved out as soon as he could, but I think Ragatha wants to move out of her parents house too and is only staying because I haven't found my own place yet. Besides, it won't be so bad if I work with you", Zooble said and acted like she didn't see Gangle blushing.
They spend the next month with each other. They rarely talked to anyone else from the group. The circus seemed far away now and to them it belonged into the past.
Until Gangle or Jenna now- they prefered to use their real names- received an E-Mail.
As soon as she read it, a smile spread across her face. Pomni!
She showed it to Zooble- right, it was Ash now, Ash-
Caine sucks
"It's good to hear that they made it out too", they said.
Jenna shared the news with the rest of the group and as soon as Ragatha heard them she immediately started planning a reunion.
Ash was reluctant to go, but went because Jenna wanted to go. Even Jax, who nobody had heard of for weeks decided to show up. Ragatha invited them all to a spacious apartment talking something about inheritance.
Everybody was glad to see each other. They congratulated each other on their achievements, but there was an undeniable tension in the air. The circus and the memories of it hung in the air like a storm cloud, nobody wanted to mention it first, but everyone thought about it.
Suprisingly, it was Zooble who said something first, "Kinger, you got us out. Can you explain how?"
"There has always been the function to log out. It just wasn't in the game."
"What does that mean?" Ragathe asked.
"There was a code which allowed us to log out. The condition to activate it however, was impossible to achieve. I had to change that to get us out," he explained.
"So Caine wasn't the one who kept us trapped?" Pomni asked. Everyone visibly tensed. Caine was a name everyone had bad memories of, it was a name no one wanted to hear again.
"It wasn't one of his direct abilities. He was the ringmaster, but the log out was something different. Likely, he didn't even know that it existed."
For a moment Pomni regretted what she thought about him. But only for a moment, because she remembered the time she was hyperventilating when she saw a child carrying an inflatable crocodile.
"I can't believe Caine was innocent this time", Zooble spat out.
"This doesn't mean that it was impossible for him. He didn't have innate control over the log out but if he actually searched the entire code, he would have found it", Kinger added.
"Typical", said Jax.
Everyone else thought the same. It wasn't a surprise that Caine couldn't even make an effort to let them leave.
"So what was C&A really?" Another question, this time from Gangle.
Kinger tried to put it into words. His memory was still incredibly fuzzy, recalling something from 20 years ago was hard.
"Like I have explained, we wanted to make a creative AI. That was our goal and it stayed that way for years. Until suddenly something changed. We weren't just supposed to create an AI anymore. Humans were supposed to join the program too. They weren't just supposed to grow old and die, they should be able to exist beyond their death under the governance of the AI. It started with stasis pods and mind scans, but at some point simply putting on the headset would be enough to join the programm.
That was when something went wrong. The programmers that were supposed to test the headsets disappeared. Others, including me, went to search for them, only to land in the circus. Only then we found out about the missing log out."
"So you are telling me that this was all some immortality-scheme that we accidentaly got involved with?" Of course it was, Zooble thought.
"Yes, in a way."
Nobody really knew what to say after that revelation. All of that pain, all of that dread because of a faulty program?
"That can't be all!", Pomni said. "Doesn't this explanation seem somehow off? We must be missing something! What happened to the abstractions?" She fired one question after the other.
"Even I don't know everything", Kinger admitted.
"Then we have to find out! There are still so many questions left! Are you all in?", Pomni asked the group.
Nobody wanted to answer.
In the end Zooble went first. "I know, you really want to find out. But we are finally out! I mean, we have our lives back, the circus doesn't matter anymore! I don't want to spend time dwelling in the past chasing dead ends. I want to move on with my life and never think about what happened again."
"I'm s-sorry, but Ash is right. It is finally over and we don't need an answer to everything", Gangle mumbled.
Jax was also not very motivated to join the investigation, "It was fun while it lasted, but I don't really care anymore."
"I also really don't want to dig deeper than I have to. But if you ever find anything or need something, you can always come to me!" Ragatha did her best to be supportive.
Pomni looked at Kinger. "You know you can count on me," he said. But in a way he needed the closure the most of them all.
____
To say that Pomni was disappointed was an understatement. She thought that finally, if she met the others again, there would be more to help her. Maybe she would make actual progress then. But they just wanted to pretend it never happened. As if that would work.
How could they ever be satisfied with the vague answers they had? Weren't they also dying to find out?
Pomni couldn't just ignore everything that happened. But it seemed that she would only have Kinger on her side.
____
Caine noticed three things when he got awareness again in that order:
Firstly, he was weirdly... compact if that was the right word. He wasn't used to the sensation. In the circus, he was practically everywhere, not just with his all seeing eyes but his presence enveloped most of the circus or at least everywhere he was active in the moment. The avatar was a representation of himself for his guests, but his influence was far bigger.
This felt different.
He was bound to a point, he could neither expand or shrink, there was a space clearly defined as him and that was all. No way to reach beyond or pull himself back entirely.
Secondly he sensed differently. Sure, he was capable of normal sight in the circus, but usually he was aware and in control of every line of code in his vicinity. The physics engine was always working in the back of his mind, he was aware that some cubes were hollow and how he generated the texture of the couch.
Everything, including himself consisted of code, neat ones and zeros strung behind each other and he knew the function of every single one.
There was no code here. Despite that, the objects seemed weirdly realistic. He touched the floor and the small dents were placed in ways that made no sense and were impossible to predict, everything worked out in so much detail he could only be in awe.
And lastly, everything led to one thing: There was something wrong with his body.
He knew that humans were restricted to a single point in space, he knew the human world looked a little different. But he didn't know that the body was so... weird.
It wasn't malleable at all, it had this form and did everything to keep it. It couldn't be stretched and only twisted in certain ways unless a sharp sensation shot through his body.
It was so unflexible, he could feel something hard inside of him keeping it rigid, long sticks in the wobbly mass that was his flesh. As if it would fall apart if that wasn't there. Well, it likely would. It seemed so fragile, so unpractical.
It felt like a prison in comparison to his avatar in the circus, like an old machine who was rusted through and didn't work smoothly. Something he had to rely on despite not wanting to do so, his very own cage he needed to navigate this world no matter how uncomfortable.
He slowly walked a few stiff steps. It was a repulsive feeling, suddenly being bound to a body. He hated it. And only now he remembered why he was here again.
Humans
The ones who wanted to escape.
Who wanted to leave him.
Despite everything they had done to him, they still took the right to escape their deserved punishments.
But no, he wouldn't let them. He didn't let them, he was here now, ready to finish what he started. Hate filled his entire being and he knew that they would never be safe from him, not now when he broke the limits set by technology to come out here.
And now, he was in their disgustingly gray world, in that damned place they prefered over him, in one of their mushy bodies.
In a human body.
He did not belong here, he was not one of them. A weird pulsing mass was beating in his chest, it was a sickening feeling and he couldn't do anything to stop it. When he commanded, the body did not listen to him and continued pulsing repeatedly.
His hands continued feeling despite how often he told them not to, he had to continue blinking unless his eyes started hurting and filling with water. The body was not a slave of him, but he a slave of his body, having to listen and follow every command, being trapped in the web everything he needed to do.
He gasped for air, another one of those needs that he excluded from the circus for a reason and held a hand over his mouth. A mouth that now was small enough to be covered by a hand, a thin layer of skin seperating his teeth from the surroundings. He slowly moved his hand up, his hand who now had 5 fingers, and hit a strange protrusion with it. Pain shot from it to his head and a warm, red liquid started slowly dripping from it.
The smell of iron filled his head and it was almost sickening. At least he knew what that was: it was blood. Something that Caine didn't include because otherwise he would have to find a way to fill the avatars with liquid. Something that meant injury and that his body was harmed.
How ineffective.
He pulled himself up to the computer, the only thing he knew and slumped in the chair before it. After all, he had received pictures of it. He had been curious about it, only getting information from other humans on how the outside world looked like.
All he felt now was disdain for it.
The screen was black expect for the occasional burst of static. That was where he came from?
His face was reflected on the screen. He wasn't able to make out a lot, but what he could see was already horrible enough. He looked entirely human.
It was an instinct to reach out into the code and change that. He regretted it immediately, after being hit by the painful realisation that there was no code anymore.
He couldn't create anymore. No more adventures, no more funny effects. He was stuck how he was.
It was all the humans fault. Their fault he was stuck in a worthless body, their fault he was in their world, powerless and trapped.
He would avenge himself, even if it was the last thing he would do.
Now he only needed to find them. He glanced around the room. They weren't there. They would have to be somewhere else and he would find them.
In his attempt to get up his fingers brushed past something. It started rolling away and fell on the floor. Caine stepped on it to prevent it from rolling under a cabinet. The cylinder shape dug into his foot and when he picked it up he noticed that it was a marker.
He looked back to the spot the marker had been. There, in black was written what he was searching for. His humans had been here.
He opened the cap and thought about what to write. He wanted to curse them out, to tell them to come back and face their fate. But this wouldn't do anything, would it?
Instead, he calmly started writing.
'I was here too.
And I am going to find you.'
A smug smile crossed his lips. They would come back eventually. And this message would tell them exactly what awaited them.
____
Caine stumbled out the door, still disoriented from the new world. Everything was turning inside of his head, the hallways stretched endlessly.
Finally out the door, he was hit by another surprise. It was one thing to see pictures of it all and another entirely to experience it himself. The vast expanse of the empty sky loomed above him opressively, the road was grey and led to nothing at all. Everything smelled bad, dirty and unclean. He stepped over cigarette stumps and chewing gum that stuck to the pavement.
Was this what they prefered over him?
Was this what they denied every adventure, everything he had to offer for?
For this worthless and depressing world?
He staggard forwards just to walk in one direction. He would finish what he started and then return as soon as possible to his world. His feet got caught on a crack in the sidewalk and he plummeted to the ground.
A woman spotted him and walked over to him. Her mouth moved as if she was saying something, but Caine didn't care to listen.
Other humans
They would be the same. They wouldn't care for him, they wouldn't appreciate him and his efforts. He was done being the entertainment for them. He was tired of constantly listening and caring for what they say.
Caine swatted the woman's arm away and walked forwards.
The scenery changed a little, but still looked all the same. Was the human world really just rows and rows of gray concrete buildings on gray roads?
But it was alright. It was only temporary, he would stay here until he finished what he started and then go back.
Caine did not know how long he had walked or how much further they were. It was just so much of everything, pointless loud noises and humans that could be found in every corner. They were always in his way and complained when he pushed through.
He sat down on a bench and put his head into his hands. If he didn't change strategies he would never find them.
Just walking around was a bad approach apparently.
He was also exhausted. Another flaw of the human body, he needed rest and...
His eyes slowly closed. It was like blinking, except it was way slower and too much effort to open his eyes again. His thoughts were lagging all of a sudden. Was this sleeping? He forgot he had to do that now.
Could the mind of an AI even sleep?
____
Jake had known that going to that dinner was a bad idea, after all he cut contact with his family for a reason.
He shouldn't let it what they said affect him at all, he knew it was coming and should have gotten used to it by now.
Still, the comments dug into his brain and got stuck in the web of neurons, constantly replaying 'Are people really earning money with what you do, Jake?', 'I have sacrificed so much for you, but you refuse to see it, Jake'
Jake, Jake, Jake always Jake. Never his fault only Jake's.
Jake took a deep swing of air, if he let that get to him, he has already lost.
Nothing he would do would ever be enough and he would rather get hit by a car than be like the soulless imitation of a human that was his father.
It was already late and got dark a while ago. He wanted to be home by now, but then they started to argue and no one wanted to back down so that prolonged the visit.
On the bench was the shape of a man. He had his eyes closed and dried blood all over his face. Probably one of the few ones on the city who had it just as terrible as him.
Normally, people wouldn't approach someone like him. They would turn away, not wanting to be faced with a moral dilemma and continue on with their day, every interruption to their usual routine was unwelcome.
But Jake knew what it was like to be in a bad place, he was in similair situations himself without his damn family or someone helping him back then.
Many people would say that it was stupid to do that, after all he was a stranger, but Jake wanted to be kind. Maybe he was too kind and too trusting, he remembered a few scams he fell for, but in the end it made him a better person, didn't it?
'You have to be strict with people, if you are too soft they won't work and end up as failures.' Another thing his father had said. He was determined now, he would prove his father wrong.
Jake walked up to the man and shook him awake, "Are you okay, do you need anything?"
The man opened his eyes and started directly into him, the two differently colored irises burned into his mind with a calculating and cold stare. It felt wrong, that man felt wrong.
In a voice that was too cheerful for this situation with every syllable clearly enunciated he answered, "And why would you care?"
Jake couldn't back down now, "Because I care about the people around me. Do you have a place to stay?"
Caine snorted. Humans always cared about the people around them, but as soon as it was an AI it didn't matter. He wouldn't be fooled by humans anymore, he would not just entertain them and their fantasies.
The human was getting really annoying now, he wanted to rip his face off and make him regret ever talking to him. Instead he said clearly irritated "No."
"You can stay with me then. Until you get back on your feet."
Caine considered his options. He did not want to make the human think Caine would be thankful for it or owing him something. But he also had nowhere else to go. As much as he hated it, this world was unfamiliar and he needed a place as a residence until he found them. And while Caine didn't want to get used by humans, he wasn't against using humans.
He jumped up from the bench, "Let's get going then!"