Chapter Text
Their fates were sealed before they even knew it. While Grant and Destiny Best gazed into digital perspectives of what he and Mike's hard work presented, neither of them had a clue of what they had just done to themselves.
Because no matter how hard he tugged, gloved hands pulling fruitlessly at his wooden head, he couldn't remove the headset. And no matter how hard she tried to take off the device, nothing ever gave. Both of them were trapped, unaware of each other's realities, unaware of their true names, unaware of the dangers that lurked within the big top's walls.
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…
Grant looked down at himself, noticing the royal purple robe meeting the checkered flooring of their so-called digital paradise. He felt he didn't have a nose, his figure sported no ears, nor mouth, only a cross atop his head, and aghast blue eyes. At least Caine let him keep his eye color.
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…
Destiny held much of the same reaction, her body now nothing but a black chess piece, a carved crown atop her head, the regal red robe that rested on her frame despite the woman no longer having shoulders, fell past knees that didn't exist either. She took in the setting of the circus, the gleefulness of everything straining the woman's chestnut eyes, blinking lopsided spheres as she adjusted to the light.
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…
"Oh darling, that was incredible! To think it would take four years to make something as lovely as this!" Destiny beamed at her husband, arms around his neck as she hugged him tightly. Grant chuckled, squeezing her tight, the headset resting on his desk.
"I normally work pretty fast, huh? I guess I should've expected this would take as long as it did, given we've never done anything like this."
The couple looked at each other fondly, a sense of pride for her husband bloomed in Destiny's chest, outpouring itself in the form of a tender kiss upon his cheek.
"My little Einstein. I can't wait for the right people to get their hands on this. Do some good for people, the people who need it.”
They kissed once more, this time the love of sacrifice and devotion and charity being poured into the kiss, which made it all the more sweeter.
She pulled back first, bright sparkles of curiosity and delight sparking in her eyes as she spoke.
“We should celebrate! Go to Gino’s, share that carbonara you always love to get. Oh, and those lemon meringue cannolis...”
Grant purred at both the mention of such delicious food and the alcohol, his head tilting back as he chuckled heartily.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s a way on earth you could ever get me to deny those.”
“Even if I slipped an executioner wasp inside of it that shot out when you bit down?”
The speed at which Grant kissed her, as well as the love poured into it, made Destiny yelp with shock, and she whined pointedly as Grant pulled away, giggling fervently to himself.
“You don’t even know how cute you are when you wanna poison me.”
“Then it’s settled. Eight tonight, Gino’s, at—"
Both smiles fell off the faces of the Bests, for the door into the offices were suddenly tossed open. They both lifted their gazes away from each other to lock simultaneously on the man in the doorway, their faces falling when they noticed Mike.
Disheveled with a manilla folder leaking papers tucked underneath his arm, Mike had taken all but two steps away from them before freezing. His eyebrows arched in shock for a moment before narrowing out in confusion.
“Uhh… Eh, w-what on earth are you still doing here? Th-The offices are closed, Grant.”
“I could ask you the same thing, Mike.”
This question made the frail man scowl, his long, weary face dropping in annoyance. He scowled deeply, glaring at Grant like a father dealing with a petulant child, no matter their status as coworkers. Mike wiped his palm down the length of his face to hide his snarl slowly, like he was sliding a rag across his china shelf, before he pointed to his chest, tapping his scrawny palm against his lean torso as he spoke.
But when Mike opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a shivering, wobbling croak, a wet sound of terror and grief that tore through him as he stared at the headset atop Grant’s desk, and the sticker that lay on the floor next to it.
DEVELOPMENTAL EQUIPMENT: PLEASE DO NOT USE
Shit.
“...No.”
“Mike? Wh-What’s wrong?”
The entire place was frantic, or rather, they were all frantic. A worm, a dinosaur, short creatures and some others who didn't even know what they were begged the ringmaster for answers.
Kids.
They were all stomping their feet in frustration on the checkered ground, hands that gripped the new forms of their heads, and some that simply curled around their bodies, they all pressed the Ai.
"I'm not so sure what you're all blabbering about, it sounds to me like you all need a fun-frazzling adventure!" Caine enthused.
That's when he appeared, all doused in golden fur like some animal. Mike looked to his palms, soft linen gloves the only thing meeting his eyes, buds of short claws poking at the tips of his fingers. He could feel the sharp sensation of canines in his elongated mouth, the faint swishing of a tail behind him.
With those brand new hands, he looked to his brand new outfit, setting his view to look down at his cartoonish red shirt. He wore no pants, he had no more human anatomy, well — Mike was still humanoid, yet everything he had known physically about himself had vanished in just one fell swoop.
His hefty yellow paws that replaced his feet took one timid step after timid step on that digitalized wooden stage he had seen behind a computer screen just mere years ago. He looked up, squinting his cartoon eyes at the colors that stabbed into his sockets. Mike quickly adjusted, hopping down from the stage with a grunt. Before him, he could hear and see it now.
The kids.
Those four kids.
They were all hysterical, yelling, some crying, others jabbing accusing fingers at who they believed was responsible for trapping them in their brand new home.
"C-Caine..?" Mike asked.
The cheery ringmaster quickly pushed aside the frantic children at the sound of the man's voice.
"My my! Look at what we have here! A shiny new member has joined us! And who might you be, hmmmm?" The denture-headed entertainer asked, gums quirked up questioningly.
Who might he be, indeed?
The answer ran from Mike's mind, as quick as cotton candy dissolving pitifully in water. He could not, for the life of him, remember his name! That was certainly odd, the brain scan should've included everything about the person, right?
"M-My name?" He asked. Caine nodded expectantly.
"I… I don't— I'm not sure—"
"Not to worry, my brand-spanking new spectacle! I'll pick something out that's sure to fit you nice and snug for your new avatar!" Caine interrupted, throwing his cane in the air to catch it with a dramatic flourish.
He took in Mike's state, everything from his drooping ears, to the claws on his hands. Caine tapped his bottom gum thoughtfully, as if truly thinking hard on such a conundrum.
"How about… 'Scratch'?"
The man, the dog, nodded lamely, distantly, still looking from paws and claws, to the four others a few generous steps away from him.
"Yeah, yeah sure, that's fine." Scratch replied. Caine clapped rapidly, congratulating the both of them, himself more than anything.
"Can I ask you a question, C-Caine?"
"Mmmyeeup! Ask me anything you'd like, Scratch!"
Scratch.
He shook his head, instead looking up at Caine who floated carelessly in the air with an unserious expression on his face.
"W-Why can't I remember my name? Is that a defect in your coding? I—I thought I had told… Told…" He trailed off, pausing.
"Told who, friendo? Seems like you could use an adventure to clear that fuzzy head of yours!"
Scratch rubbed the sides of his temples, closing his eyes in frustration and confusion, scatterbrained from this abysmal moment. He blinked his eyes open, taking in the setting one more time, feeling something he didn't want to admit.
And as he let his head settle down, his eyes were glued back to the stage, two more figures occupying it. One dressed in royal red, the other a deep regal purple. Scratch didn't know how he knew, but he just had. He didn't know why he balled his fists at his sides, nor why his lip curled to reveal a nasty snarl full of bared teeth.
This wasn't his plan, this wasn't his intention.
This wasn't his fault.
Destiny took a step forward towards Mike with her warm eyes blazing with concern. She wrung her hands together, and reached one out towards Mike for any semblance of reassurance, before both her hand and help was brushed away as the man raced (best he could) towards the headset.
“H-Hey!”
Grant caught Destiny as she stumbled back, one arm wrapping around his wife as the other reached out towards Mike.
“M-Mike, what on Earth—?"
“Tell me you didn’t.”
Mike held the headset in his hands and a lifetime of terror in his gaze. His shoulders were slumped, his knees looked as if they were about to give out at any moment with how terribly he was quivering, his already exhausted face struck barren with paling horror.
“Tell me you didn’t do this, Grant.”
“Mi—“
“Tell me this wasn’t you. Tell me you didn’t do this.”
“…Mike.”
The wobbling terror in Grant’s voice, the way he had one tense arm back in front of Destiny, the way he stared at Mike, so confused, so unsure, so… wary. It was the look of an old farmer who once had an amazing companion that had deteriorated to be a feral dog, rabid spit dripping from its grisly maw as it approached the person it once gazed at with gratitude.
And rabid this dog was.
“...No.”
Mike shook his head frantically, his ashen face flaring with a crimson tint. He began to pace back and forth, running his spare hand not clutching the headset through his shaggy dark hair as he shook his head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
Grant and Destiny had stepped backwards away from Mike, giving him space to stew. She had holstered herself behind Grant, crouching behind his lanky figure as he tried his best to talk down his friend. He opened his palms, kept his voice low and soft, and began to plead with Mike to quit pacing and panting.
“Mike, tell me what’s wrong. What happened? What’s the issue? Was it something at the children’s hospital? Di—“
“What is wrong with you?”
Mike had paused everything on a dime, stopping his pace mid-stomp and his shouts mid-rant. The sudden collapse had left the Bests stunned, so the furious man now stared at Grant and Destiny like a pair of statues. His incredulous astonishment mixed with raw, pulsing anger and a miserable angst that melted together to radiate off of him in noxious waves as Mike lifted up the headset to shake and point it at the couple.
“Just what the hell is wrong with you!?”
Grant blinked hard at Mike’s line of questioning, the man’s terse tone completely alien to him. He opened his mouth to rebuttal, though was cut off by his partner, who suddenly roared at the couple.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!”
Scratch was upon them in less than ten strides, yanking the collar of his red shirt away from his neck, as if that would loosen the livid feeling that motivated his every movement. Like a parent raring to reprimand two children, he let the ball of anger, and confusion, and fear, and regret congeal in his digital chest, coughing it up into a slew of barks at the couple.
"Listen, no matter what happens, I'll always—"
"HEY!"
Grant and Destiny looked to the source of the sound, two heads now turned to chess pieces setting eyes on an angry figure stomping towards them both.
The woman looked to her husband startled, taking his gloved hand in her own as she tugged him closer.
"W-Who is he..?"
Grant squinted those new lopsided eyes at the figure, though unrecognizable by his new form and demeanor, he could pinpoint that voice in a crowded room, a sea of people, a bustling office area.
The king chess piece shook his head side to side, blinking a few times to register the situation, the dog was closer than before. He wished he could remember his name, his wife's name, his own name. However, he could put voices to faces easily, and the face of the man trapped in that angry dog's body was front and center in his mind.
Grant looked to his wife, squeezing her hand once before they both stood up, stumbling slightly in their new bodies as they saw Scratch get louder and louder.
"YOU PUT IT ON!? BOTH OF YOU!?"
The couple stared at one another, so confused and so dazed. Then slowly, it dawned on the two of them. Why couldn't they remove the headset? Why couldn't they remember their names? The moment they had both put it on, so vivid in their minds, they had assumed it was a harmless little trip. Twenty minutes, in and out, he had said.
The humanoid dog was staring up at them from the stage, gloved hands prying at digital wood, a feral look in cartoonish eyes, the couple only looked back with aghast stares.
"YOU'VE DOOMED YOURSELVES! BOTH OF YOU! YOUR LIVES ARE OVER! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT!?"
He was still clawing at the top of the stage, a strong grip braced on the edge and a frantic tug the only thing Scratch needed to hoist himself on his stomach, heaving hard as he continued to jab gloved claws at the king and queen.
"Y-You're not making any sense!" Grant shot back, closing his eyes as a last attempt to remember the name of the man shouting at the two of them. Destiny tucked herself into his side.
Scratch breathed in ragged, uneven breaths, the fur along his tail raising along with his unbridled rage.
"Y-You… You're both trapped here, you get that right? Y-You're…"
Destiny put a placating hand up, anything to rid this new place of the conflict shoved at the two of them.
"Everybody please! Calm down. W-What's your name?" She asked.
The dog ran his hands down his face, one hanging limp off his snout, inhaling a deep shaky breath.
"Scratch. It's Scratch, now."
The chess piece nodded her head slowly, looking to her husband, then back at the man.
"Okay.. Scratch. Can you please tell us what's going on? My husband an I—"
"Are [#$@!]."
The king chess piece stepped up, timidness to his steps, though he held his head high.
"It's you.. It's you, isn't it?" He spoke slowly. Scratch's face twisted into something sardonic, a scoff leaving his mouth as he took in his friend's state.
"Good job, you cracked the case, old pal."
Grant let go of his wife, walking closer to his partner with a pleading look in his eyes.
"What is going on? W-Why can't we take the headset off? You need to be honest with us right now, Scratch."
"You're not terminally ill, buddy. Neither of you are, right? You're wife's got one in the oven, but that's.. That's an ailment all its own. This place wasn't built for you two to go lolly-gagging around for a five minute joyride."
Destiny looked down to where her stomach would be, then back up to the dog, that crazed look still in his eyes.
"W-What're you saying?" She asked him.
"This was meant to be the final resting place. A place where people like me could have another chance, a safe haven for the sick and weary." Scratch spoke, turning his head to look at the other players who had given up prodding the ringmaster for answers, instead letting him ramble on in the distance.
"The headset… It—It copies the user's mind files, transferring their entire consciousness into this.. place. At least, it was meant to. I-I don't know why we can't remember our names. It was the only way I, as a computer developer, could figure out a way to escape this." He put a hand to the back of his head.
Destiny shuddered out a shocked gasp, Grant stood back to hold her, an edge of anger in his voice neither of them heard too often.
"This.. This whole thing was a way for you to.. T-To cheat death!?" He ground out.
Scratch sighed, emotionally taxed and mentally spent, he nodded.
"Wouldn't you if you knew you only had a few years left? Wouldn't you find a way to reverse the cards life had dealt you? I-I'm nobody out there! Outside of C&A, no one cares!"
"SO YOU BUILD A MACHINE THAT CHEATS DEATH!?"
"It was the only way I could preserve myself! W-Why would I sit around and rot in my office chair when I know I have the knowledge to do something about it!? And better yet, w-why stop there? Why not give this to the world? Why be so selfish and keep this wonderful place all to myself!? I couldn't be the only one who felt hopeless, there are others. And I know they wanted another chance again, too."
The chess piece looked out to the four children, defeated and immobile. If he had a mouth, it would quiver in horror, in shock, in all of the emotions he felt at this very instant, yet all he could get out was a shaky breath.
"…Y-You are selfish, Scratch."
The dog looked at him, a crease in his furry brow.
"What did you just say?"
Grant let go of his wife once more, stepping forward so that he an Scratch were nose to— well... wood.
"You tricked me. You roped me into this escapade, and I willingly helped you because you were my friend.. Those nights full of breakdowns, breakthroughs — I don't even like coffee, yet I gulped down each and every cup to stay awake for the sake of the good this invention would bring! A-And bringing children into this just to soften the weight of the reality you had in your head all along!? T-They never asked for this!" He poked a finger into Scratch's shirt.
"But they needed this! Who else would've saved them if it weren't for me!? They would've died alone in that hospital, and you know it. And if it weren't for your brain, building this digital oasis bit by bit, they would've never gotten that chance."
The chess piece shook his head, waving his hands in denial.
"No. No, no, no, don't you blame me for this nightmare. You can't play the role of savior then shove this back on me, that's not how it—"
"You had just as much of a role as savior as I did. Don't start denying that now."
He looked back at his wife, sobbing with her figure curled up to her chest, gloved hands hugging herself tightly.
Before he could remove it, that thought weaseled its way into Grant's mind like a parasite with no intention of leaving. He had no part, no knowing part at least, in all of this. If he had known, if he had known, if he had known. But he didn't. Yet he still let the guilt burrow into a wooden heart and a wooden brain, not yet realizing where that guilt would lead to. He shook his head again, jabbing a finger back at Scratch.
"You made a way to leave, didn't you? A backup plan, a kill-switch, anything! T-Tell me you did!"
The dog shook his head, a motion that seemed to speak more finality than any words he could provide.
"I created this to keep dying people alive, I'll let you figure that one out for yourself."
He stood there, heaving, the sheer effort of screaming like a marathon to a normal man, but continued on wailing, his rage fueling him.
“ARE YOU A CHILD?! YOU CAN’T LEAVE SOMETHING ALONE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD?!”
All jaws were dropped, though Mike’s had plummeted in a snarl, whilst Grant and Destiny’s mouths were opened in petrified silence as Mike continued, smacking his forearm in a crazed manner.
“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU TWO HAVE JUST DONE!”
At this, finally, one of them spoke up. Destiny unfurled herself from behind Grant, raising both hands in a placating manner as she whimpered softly.
“Mi-Mike, please calm down, you’re scaring us.”
“GOOD!”
He shot forward snarling, the veins in his skull and the tendons in his throat bulging with fury. Destiny leapt back behind Grant as Mike raged, uncaring that his partner was shoving back at him. Grant had Mike’s shirt bunched in his palms, holding down the shorter man as he kicked and jerked and fought up against him. Mike cared none at all; if anything, his capture made him all the more furious, all the more wild. Mike pointed a wretched finger directly at her, face taut with shocked fury as he screamed directly at Destiny, watching her gorgeous chicory eyes fill with tears.
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HE’S DONE TO YOU!?!”
CRACK!
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…
…
Grant’s palm thundered against Mike’s face, smashing into the side of his jaw in a thick crunch. Blood began to pour in a small leak from Mike’s lip as his cheek flared cherry red, and he whimpered out a pitiful mewl as the agony from the impact set into his nerves.
Destiny cried out a horrible shriek as she saw her husband, the man so docile he’d let a honeybee sting him rather than disturb it, hit someone— a cancer patient, nonetheless— so hard he bled. She clamped her hands over her mouth as Grant dropped Mike, letting him succumb to the ground. A squeak of terror slipped from her lips, matching the tears in her eyes as Grant aimed his own finger at Mike and spoke again, voice and tone hard as a coffin nail.
“CALM! DOWN! QUIT BEING HYSTERICAL!”
Both men paused as the gravity of Grant’s words settled across them. Mike touched his jaw, wincing, and Grant opened his palm to let a strip of fabric that had come off his friend's shirt in his hands flutter to the ground. Grant’s voice immediately shattered as he crouched down, terrified of himself as he spoke.
“I-I-I’m sorry, I didn’t m—"
Mike shoved Grant’s hands away from himself with a deep grunt. He rubbed an open palm on the smacked spot, his eyes watering as he stood.
“Goddamn you, Grant.”
“Mike I—“
“Why would you do it? Why would you—" He closed his eyes, wishing the mere act would will this reality away.
"Why.."
Mike dropped both hands by his side, along with practically his entire body, as he looked at Grant and Destiny, who’d begun to softly sob. Mike shook his head side to side once again, yet said nothing. His mouth was simply agape in horror, his face a mask of terror as Grant spoke.
“I wanted to show her our work. What we’ve done, what we worked so hard to make. I wanted to celebrate.”
Mike’s face twisted with astonishment.
“Take her to fucking dinner then, man!”
“What are you doing?”
Grant threw his hands up to his side as he scoffed, taking two deep steps back. He wrapped one arm around his sobbing wife, his other pointing at Mike as he continued speaking.
“It’s a video game, Mike. A virtual reality adventure. I’m sorry I-I-I did whatever God forsaken thing you didn’t want to happen. I’m sorry if I-I loaded in a new character, or-or altered Caine’s memory or...”
“It’s not a video game.”
Mike’s voice raised substantially at this. The mere idea that he had created an electronic plaything made him sneer in disgust, he took a step back from Grant as he spoke.
“It was never a fucking video game.”
Mike threw his hands up as Destiny crept her way over, his voice terse and tense as he continued on.
“I’m not some college kid trying to pass his three-thousandth coding class. I’m not trying for the Scholastic Book Fair!”
Mike raised his finger but heeded the tall man’s warnings, pointing it only at Grant as he spoke.
“All this time, you haven’t gotten it? All the functions Caine's capable of, all the layers we put in, all the possibilities we programmed into the circus?”
He threw his hands up, brow furrowed in shocked amazement that they simply couldn’t get it, and felt a small surge of pride that he was the only one who really had.
“It’s a world. It's my world.”
At this, he turned on his heel, arms still suspended half up in amazement and horrible confusion. His words tumbled out of him entirely disinterested, for Mike had wandered over to his desk. The oak object consumed all of his attention now, with him opening and closing assorted drawers in search for some unknown object. A pick-me-up, a lost man's vice.
Destiny and Grant had both followed him right on his heels, a pair of beings now composed only of growing terror the longer Mike talked.
“I-I dunno how you don’t know. We built these for kids. Kids, Grant. Kids we knew weren't gonna make it in ten years time. Kids who wanted to hold on, but you know God had to fuck them over too.”
He found it at the bottom of the desk, the leftmost drawer to the floor. Mike drew the bottle of Glanton’s Double Barrel up from its position inside the depths of his desk, unscrewing it easily despite the pathetic state of his muscles and body. He lifted it up to his lips, pausing before he swallowed to whisper ever so softly.
“..Who doesn’t wanna be a kid again, right?”
The swig was quick yet brutal; Mike purred with discontent, letting the bottle fall to his side. He rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes, shaking his skull as his jaw clenched. His hand lifted to his throat, and did a dull, dreary action as if he was adjusting the tie he didn’t have to frame his crimson colored dress shirt better. To look like a professional, someone who knew what they were doing.
Someone who wasn’t scared.
But when he opened his eyes again, and saw those two pairs staring back at him, Mike went right back to the bottle in the desperate hope it could erase his reality.
“They needed another chance at life. I needed another chance.”
Another swig, another setting of the bottle by his side. Mike looked at the Bests, but stunned and shocked and as silent as they were, he could not look them in the eyes, so the ground was where he kept his gaze trained as he continued.
“It takes you there. It.. keeps you there. And when you leave here, you stay there. Forever."
At this, Mike touched his temple, then the top of his head, and then the back in a series of movements quick as a hare, but profound as a philosopher’s voice cutting through the wind that sailed above Athens.
“It’s over for me. But I had it planned out. I was prepped, I was ready, I…”
Mike went around his desk to sink into his chair, the plush leather whining softly as his bony frame sank into it. The man ran his fingertips in circles atop his temples, and spoke with the quiet solemnity this moment deserved; the very same kind reserved for a funeral.
"I have no clue what's gonna happen. My head hasn't been screwed on right for a.. good while."
At this, they could finally move again. Destiny covered her eyes, hiding her freely running tears, and Grant stepped forward, hands outstretched, looking for some way that he could extract a semblance of relief from this situation.
But Mike knew his friend, and therefore, shook his head before Grant could say a single word. He cut him off with his own speech, watching each word tear what he had as close to as a brother, down, down, down.
“I’m sorry. I-I wish I had something. Anything. Some different route, some sort of…..”
He looked at Grant and then he looked at Destiny, back to Grant, back to Destiny, back from Best to Best, whispering in the same tone he had uttered when the doctor had told him it was terminal, the same way he now told them that where their consciousnesses resided were their own type of affliction. Their own version of terminal.
"I'm sorry, Grant… I really am."
Mike leaned back, taking one last swig of the liquor. The longest of the drinks, Mike allowed it to burn down his throat, grimacing as the fire tried its best to cleanse what was rotten inside of him. He kept that bottle tilted up until his eyes went glassy and then after a second of that finally let it drop to the carpet, plunking harmlessly off the ground.
Mike put his head in his hands, and bowed them, fingers doing their best to fight off against the warhead being detonated in his skull. He saw not Grant frantically reassuring Destiny, nor Destiny pleading with Grant for this all to be a lie, nor for Grant frantically searching through his papers.
No.
Mike Dobby stared into his palms, feeling the comfortable warmth of the whiskey slip over him, and spoke as a man fallen, awaiting the moment where he'd cease to exist altogether.
…
…
…
“Alea.. Iacta.. Est.”
The poor Ai tried, tried with all his might to uplift the new guests he housed with pride. For the most part, everyone settled in well, growing accostumed to stabbing colors and non-stop adventures of their brand new home.
Everyone but its creator.
Caine was stumped as to why Scratch never seemed delighted by his adventures, always participating, but still remaining skittish and on edge. It was something he didn't understand, everything he had been programmed and coded to do were meant to result in elation and positivity. Yet it only seemed to burrow this old dog deeper and deeper into his head.
Maybe Caine's adventures weren't to Scratch's liking because they weren't tailored to him? That could always be a possibility. A very likely one at that, in the ringmaster's head. Everyday the dog would retreat to his room, on the other side of mahogany that Caine didn't know whether to breach or remain still in front of. He didn't know what went on in there, curiosity was one of his greatest attributes, constantly wondering and adjusting and downloading to better understand those he served.
Scratch was his most difficult guest by far, for a reason he did not know. But he'd be damned if he never fixed it up in the only way he knew how.
"Scratch, may I…… Bend that floppy ear of yours for a moment?" The ringmaster asked, secluded in the privacy of a dormitory hall free of any lingering ears. The dog held a gloved hand on his doorknob, ready to go back into hiding and doing God knows what, turned back to look at the ringmaster with a worried quirk of his eyebrow.
"Uhm, sure? What did you need?" He replied.
Caine floated casually in the air, hands clasped in an almost pleading way as he cleared his throat.
"Scratch. Scratch, Scratch, Scratchity-Scratch. Something's telling me you aren't exactly.. Happy, here in the circus. Why is that?"
"W-What are you talking about? I'm perfectly okay here, Caine. I appreciate the concern, but you really—" Scratch refuted, his voice taking on a slight defensive tone Caine didn't budge at, he simply snapped his fingers, shutting what little space was created of the doorway to Scratch's room. The man yanked his hand away at the sudden motion, holding it as if he had just touched a hot stove.
"Y'see friendo, I'd agree with you if that face of yours told a matching tale! You're not happy here in the circus, and that makes me sad. Is it a problem with my adventures? I try my best to make them filled with exciting fun fit for all of you guys!"
"No, Caine it's not—"
"It just makes no sense to me! If I'm only built to bring nothing but carefree bliss for you humans, and I'm not doing that, then my purpose is all in vain!"
Scratch pinched the bridge of his nose, it appeared migraines still found their ways back to him one way or another.
"Look, Caine—"
"Maybe I'm not making them to your liking, Scratch. Maybe that's just what you need! Custom-made adventures perfectly suited for that furry figure of yours!" Caine beamed, a literal lightbulb setting off with a "ding!" sound above his head. Scratch's eyes bulged, worry now even more prominent on his expression as Caine spawned his cane in his grasp, gums upturned in pure joy.
"T-That won't be necessary… C-Caine!" Scratch yelped, bunched into the ringmaster's side as he held him with ease.
"Not to worry Scratch, I'll be sure to turn that frown upside-down! You can count on me!"
In an instant, the two of them were whisked away. In a slurry of vibrant colors and adventures involving all of Scratch's favorite hobbies growing up, until now. He dog sat as a teenager, learned his skills in a small coding elective in his high school, he honed his skills privately at home, learning with each trial and error. And Caine knew all of it. Every moment of Scratch's failures, achievements, heartbreaks, heartthrobs, Caine knew it all and so he put it front and center for the dog to see.
Scratch's head ached, the mirage of colors and rapid-fire adventures giving him something akin to whiplash, and for the scarce moments he did get to settle down, his body went rigid then sluggish like a pile of non-newtonian fluid. Caine took him through it all, and when the denture-headed ringmaster saw that the previous adventure didn't work, nor the one before that, or the one before that, he kept trying, determined to bring an ounce of joy to the man's face.
"C-Caine.. Can I please go b-bac—" Scratch attempted to speak, regurgitating black ooze from his mouth, the digital liquid dripping from canines and down a long chin.
"Wowza! Looks like you sure had a doozy there, my friend! Allow me to assist you!" He spoke, snapping his fingers to make his trusty friend Bubble appear next to him, licking up the fluid with nothing short of enjoyment. Scratch grimaced.
This was too much. He didn't know how much longer he could take any more adventures. Nothing Caine ever did made him feel better, and now with knowing his co-worker and co-worker's wife were trapped here too filled him with something his arrogance scoffed at. Laughed at. Bruised at.
They would have to live this life over and over and over again, "day after day" as that damned theme song always went. That jaunty tune that filled his head every morning, and made sure to taunt him well into the night made Scratch wanna tear his skin off. Every day was surely rote, just with a different adventure to set foot in, though it left him with the same new affliction he never wanted to feel. Not while in here, at least.
Boredom.
Anxiety.
Panic.
The resulting feelings of doing the same tiring thing over again, just to start new with the same four digital walls set up to fit the dog's personality perfectly. He didn't know how long he could take this, if he thought he could last in the first place. He wasn't a physical being anymore, safe from the harms of reality, but not immune the harms that came with transferring one's consciousness into a digital realm.
There was nothing that could hurt him anymore, he was safe from everything out there. From that malignant thing thriving inside his skull, the thing that would've taken his life from him if he hadn't decided to do it himself once he was sure his psyche was perfectly intact. Perfectly safe in the retreat he and his co-worker had built for four grueling years.
Then why did he feel like he was bound to fall through his own flesh at any given moment? What was this burning stagnancy he couldn't shake? This feeling that felt prickly and static behind his eyes, the battering ram inside his brain, and the tightness in his chest? He couldn't die, he told himself. That was the reason he created this place, to escape the very fate placed on him in 1995. He couldn't die. He. Couldn't. Die.
And maybe that was just the problem.
"Scratch?" Caine asked, his gums poised in concern at the state of his guest.
The dog's chest heaved up and down, expanding with nonexistent air as he shoved it down his nonexistent lungs. Nothing in here was real, that's what he told himself. He had stuck with that, and it had seemed like such a brilliant plan written down on paper. Scratch believed that even when placing that headset atop his head. So why now? Why now are we backpedaling?
"I.. I can't—" He choked out, legs giving out from underneath him as he succumbed to the barren floor of an office. Caine thought that a workplace setting would provide some sentimentality, or whatever humans called it.
The carpeted floor felt like carpet, the sickly beige-yellow walls looked like walls, but Scratch knew they weren't and so Scratch felt even worse. Nothing. Here. Was. Real.
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" He screamed, clutching his head with clawed hands he wish he could remove the gloves from. Those colors, those same colors had seen in his dreams before flashed behind his eyes.
Bright and blinding and wrong.
When he had sat down in his chair, the leather creaking and whining beneath his frail body, Mike didn't even care when Grant called him a monster before leaving. He didn't care that Destiny spared him one last tearful look before sinking into the side of her husband. He only cared about the pistol holding one round in its clip, and the pod that would contain his slumped body once he released said round.
Mike had thought it through the last three years, not abiding by his friend's wishes by safe-guarding the headset or testing it prior to visiting the children's hospital. And while it wasn't entirely his fault Grant and his wife had taken trying the headset into their own hands, the man still prickled at how he let that slip from right beneath his nose.
He devoted those three sparing years to build a machine. A way to always be remembered, in a physical sense as well as digital now. Mike wouldn't let the tumor in his head let him meet his maker, like every single day of his life he'd take matters into his own hands. No, he wouldn't let his final breath be taken by something out of his control, he'd climb down to the very bottom floor of C&A, the basement.
He'd remove the frayed covering off of the cryo pod he fit perfectly in like some decrepit mummy. The wires would be in place, from the inside a button would secure the door and activate the machine. Frost would coat the glass window like the final whispers of a world he'd leave a lasting mark on, just like he'd wanted. And with a shaking hand, but with all the certainty in the world, he'd pull the trigger.
That was his plan.
And on October 15th, 1999, Michael Dobby did just that.
Behind a screen and even outside of it, Grant was right, Mike was a selfish monster. He left himself slumped against those icy cold cushioned walls without a head. Brain matter sprayed as easily as saliva from a babbling baby who knew nothing better, blood coating every surface that surrounded him. And he remained that way, frozen in all his gruesome glory.
Until the company custodians found him one night, a police investigation ensued, ruling out the correct cause of death. The man's crumpled and grisly form was removed, the machine was destroyed, and C&A had felt fire beneath their stocks like no other. Money slipped secretly into the hands of those who prodded and questioned Mike's invention, to the hospital, to the lawyers, to the families who begged to know what their children had put on their heads before they passed away.
It just goes to show that developing artificial intelligence only sounds like a good idea when thought of, or written down. C&A didn't expect the lawsuit at their doorstep when the surrounding communities complained of unusable tap water, or the heat emissions the company poured out in swaths due to just how good their Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity was becoming at adapting and learning more and more about humans every single day. And so, the company was shortly shut down within the early 2000s, the jury ruling that the company's entire systems were set to be deactivated within the coming years. 2026, or so.
Grant had turned off the TV that day he had heard, setting down his lukewarm mug of tea he prepared for he and his wife just an hour before he heard the news. It devastated him, but the man understood why it had to be done. That night in the office, the night every wall seemed to crumble down on top of him, staring back at his broken friend like a shell of all he knew him to be. The day he had died, the week the police stormed the company building, marring his desk and basement in strips of yellow warning tape, Grant didn't go out for a few days.
He stayed by Destiny's side, tending to her needs as they both prepared and awaited the birth of their second daughter. Grant still remained in tech development, opting to settle for computer engineering instead of programming Ai. His wife supported him all the way, the two of them hunkering down as they both tried to remove any remnants of C&A from their minds, as well as they could.
He clawed at himself, pawed at himself. Yet nothing gave. Nothing could stop the changes happening to his lanky figure, nothing could quell the colors flashing behind his corneas. Scratch gagged on something rising from the pits of his stomach, the sensation flooding to an esophagus he knew wasn't there. Either way, he clawed there too, desparate to cease this nightmare.
"S-Scratch! My golly, are you—" Caine tried, extending a hand just to yank it away as Scratch lashed at him.
"T-T-T-THIS IS.. A-ALL Y—Y-YOU'RE…. FA-FAULT, CAINE!" The dog thundered, his once gravelly and grunting voice now warped with a stutters and a static undertone. It was unsettling for the young Ai to see, he had never known this was capable of happening to his dear guests. And by the looks of it, Scratch didn't know either.
His knees fell to the carpeted floor of Caine's creation, nothing surrounding them but desks, computers, and piles of papers. The pain was indescribable, as if someone had taken snake venom, laced it on the sharpest tips of the thinnest knives, then plunged them straight beneath the skin of the man. Scratch cried out in anguish, arms wrapping around his middle as he hurled midnight sludge from his canine mouth, no Bubble in sight to clean it up this time.
Caine looked around frantically, taking in the dull setting and snapping his fingers to a new one. A more colorful one. Scratch fell on his side, groaning loudly as the affliction continued to spread along his body. His fur was mussed, the hackles along his tail and back rising even through his shirt. Each time no change was evident, Caine snapped again, and again, and again, and again. And with each poise of his fingers, Scratch's condition worsened.
Suddenly, eyes of varying hues sprouted atop his head of thin golden fur. They darted around, mindless and spazzing. Tears pricked Scratch's eyes as he clawed along his arms and legs, deep-seated fear and confusion riddled in his eyes. He looked up to Caine who had a matching expression, helplessness the underlining emotion of the artificial entity. Black oozed beneath his skin, seaping through like blood soaks through a rag. The dark mass spread through his skin as easily as a water leak punctures a boat, sinking the being whole.
Scratch met his ringmaster's eyes,"W-W-What's.. H-H—-Happening to m-m-m-me… C-Caine—?" Was all he could ask, his voice abstract and incomplete.
The ringmaster's eyes darted from man to fingers, mumbling over his words, scouring his endless streams of code to find an answer only to come up empty handed. This was outside of his data range, he had no clue what was going on.
"I-I don't.. I don't know, I—"
"Y-Y-YOU DON'T KNOW!? WHA-AT D-DO— YOU.. M-M-MEAN YOU DON'T K-KNOW?!"
Caine startled, staring down at Scratch as his body was halfway covered in those frenzied eyes and nocturne matter. He barely looked like himself now, all wild and in pain. More matter dripped from his jaws, warbling his words, the black substance spewing every time he screamed at Caine for a solution. The ringmaster got closer, deducing that fast-paced adventures weren't the right course of action. Though as he went to approach his hurting guest, he was seized that very moment.
Paws snagged his shirt collar, forcing the denture-headed being to meet Scratch eye to eye. The sight was terrifying, Caine didn't know what fear had felt like. He wondered if that's what it felt like. Scratch's eyes no longer held pupils, but bright flashing orbs of cycling colors Caine couldn't make any sense of. He felt the grip of his collar grow tighter, the mysterious substance marring Scratch's figure practically coated his entire body by now. The eyes that speckled his new form stared at Caine, wide and expectant.
"F-Fix… Me."
"S-Scratch, please—"
"FIX M-ME!—"
Bared and black teeth gnashed at the ringmaster's face, Caine quickly snapping his fingers to teleport himself out of the mad dog's hold. He put a hand to his chest, inhaling roughly as Scratch continued to writhe on the ground. It was such a peaceful setting, no one could have ever thought something this awful could ever take place in an environment like this. The hospital lights reflected so wonderfully off of Caine's red suit, and the digital sterile smell of antiseptic and sick wafted through the nose of an even sicker dog.
He was covered, prickly with abstract shapes taking root along his entire body. Scratch looked up to Caine who stood suspended in the air, concern on every inch of those gums. Darkness overtook the man, dotted with more eyes that stared at the ringmaster as if blaming him for this. As if he was responsible for the digital death of Michael Dobby.
"F-Fix me.. F-F-Fix m-me… C-Ca—ine— Please.. Fi—F-Fix me."
Scratch's figure grew, exponentially, taking up the size of the room as he transformed into a hulking mass of glitchy and warbling shapes. No longer was there golden fur, a red collared shirt, nor the sight of bared canines ready to tear the Ai apart. Instead, a monster remained in its wake, angry and pulsating with unrest.
Caine thought up an idea, and he thought it up quick. A hole, a space in the ground that expanded to Scratch's size like a mouth preparing to swallow him entirely. He snapped his fingers, seizing the beast's glitching body and shoving him far down into the endless black void. Like he had never existed, the hole closed up. Caine sighed heavily, shutting his jaws in order to collect himself and regain his composure again. With a wave of his hand, he was back in the circus, tossing aside the slew of adventures and making his way over to Scratch's bedroom door in the dormitory hall.
Caine didn't know why he didn't feel anything towards seeing the face of the man's avatar get marked with a red "X". He thought back to the feeling of when the dog had him by the collar of his shirt, pushing aside the thought of fear and justifying it with an error in his sensory functions. Scratch had caught him off guard, it was as simple as that. And the next day, he'd continue his role of ringmaster for the rest of his beloved circus members. No matter if the chess piece and his wife broke down in front of him, or the dinosaur player would meet the same fate a few weeks later.
No, this was just an error. This was just a mistake Caine knew how to deal with now.
And in this world of endless fun and elation, Scratch would no longer be known. Though outside of the circus, in a world full of ruthlessness and irremoveable fates, would he never be forgotten. He had crafted wonders beyond other peoples' comprehension, and even beyond his own, an abstract and genius mind the only cause of what would remain inconceivable for many others to come.