Chapter Text
Pomni had really, really, really wanted to get some sleep. Even if the players didn’t need to anymore, it would have been a break from a just completely awful day. Well, everyone else didn’t need to anymore. She never had.
God. She knew intellectually just how devastating it had been for Gummigoo to learn he not only wasn’t alive, not only that his entire life was a lie, but that he only existed as a toy for the real people. But now she knew.
It hadn’t changed the fact that she still couldn’t fall asleep. There were too many things to worry about. She was the world’s first insomniac computer program.
So, now she was just laying in her bed, under the blanket, in her stupid room filled with the stupid blocks. Pomni really didn’t want to get up and face the day. She’d seen how everyone had looked at her in total fucking silence.
There were a lot of worst case scenarios. Maybe they’d just avoid her now that they knew she was just elaborate hardware. Maybe they’d be confrontational. It was almost a certainty that Zooble and / or Jax would make their dissatisfaction with the situation very much known to her. Maybe they’d all just give her weird looks and humor her.
And who was to say how Caine would handle this? Would he dump her into an adventure again with everyone else? Would he make alterations to her? Would he just delete and reuse her like he had Gummigoo? She liked to think he wouldn’t, but then, Abel hadn’t thought that either.
It wasn’t any of these in particular that made Pomni’s heart pound. The vague idea of having to go out the door and deal with it squeezed her until she felt ready to pop under the pressure. Because things were different now. That alone made her want to vomit.
How did she know the fear was even hers? It was just how she’d been programmed, after all. Maybe this was just a facsimile of anxiety. How could she know if she actually knew what that emotion felt like? Caine had said she was a learning algorithm, picking up cues and acting on them.
She couldn’t even know how much she was just imitating how a person thought without actualling thinking. Because maybe that’s all she was, mimicking without actually doing. How did she know she was really alive and sapient?
Abel had known enough about her and Ragatha to keep them off their guard. He’d even been able to break through Jax’s general mistrust of everyone and everything to convince him there really was an exit. But Abel hadn’t gotten it.
He knew enough to copy people effectively, but he didn’t understand what he had been copying.. When Pomni threw a wrench into what he was programmed to respond to, he froze. When the ruse was exposed, Abel was totally oblivious to why anyone was upset, smugly crowing about how convincing he’d been. Hell, Caine hadn’t understood.
How could Pomni really say she was any different? What was it Caine had said? She was altruistic enough to be likable and spiky enough to be believable. She was a collection of maxed out traits pooled together by a machine to make something bland and with as much mass appeal as possible. Not an actual person; just cold hard data.
Fuck.
Today was not off to a good start, and she still hadn’t gotten out of bed. She should really get up.
Pomni did not get up. She could not find the motivation. Maybe she could just stay here forever and not deal with any of this.
This notion was destroyed by the familiar sound of Ragatha’s gentle but insistent knocking rattled in the room.
“Pomni, are you alright in there?”
Well, she had to get up now. She couldn’t say she was looking forward to today. Even in the ideal situation where she was a human being and not an NPC who had just had her life destroyed, the players were… a lot. They didn’t handle stress well, were incredibly dysfunctional in their own separate ways, and had very draining personalities. This, of course, included her.
And she had no doubt that Caine intended to handle this in the most obnoxious manner possible. Any minute now, he could come barging into her room. Or he’d snap his fingers and she’d be helpless before him. It wasn’t like she’d be able to anything to stop it. He could wipe her into nothing in the blink of an eye.
He did not. Ragatha knocked again.
Pomni threw off the blanket. Bracing herself for the shitstorm of raw suckiness, she trudged toward the door. She put her hand on the knob, took a deep breath, and opened it by a crack that was roughly an inch in width.
Ragatha had her hands clasped together dutifully. Her eyebrows arched up, as if she was surprised Pomni actually had opened the door. Probably because she was, honestly.
“Oh! Pomni,” Ragatha smiled and straightened her back rigidly. “Hi!”
“Um… hi.”
Pomni rubbed her arm, and shuffled her feet awkwardly. Both of them waited for the other to say something. Pomni really couldn’t think of a conversation starter, and it seemed that neither could Ragatha. Leading with “hey, how you doing after finding out your whole life is a lie” was not exactly her style.
“Are you going to come to breakfast? Because I- I know we don’t actually need to eat and all, but Caine might do an adventure today and I don’t know if you want to go- I mean, I’m sorry if I’m assuming, but in case you don’t want to miss it, which I’m not saying you don’t want to do or want to do or don’t want to want to do-”
Kinger’s head ducked into Pomni’s frame of vision from the crack.
“What we’re trying to say is that you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, but we wanted to make sure you were okay.”
He was wearing a light purple pillowcase that fit loosely over his head. It drooped forward slightly. He was acting much more lucid than usual, and Pomni knew that only happened in the dark. The pillowcase was a workaround that Ragatha must have figured out.
Ugh. Why hadn’t she thought of something like that? Pomni could kick herself.
Ragatha and Kinger were still standing in front of the door, waiting for an answer. It reminded Pomni of a dog scratching on its owner’s door. Though she wouldn’t know, because she’d never seen a dog, had she?
“You actually want me to come?” Pomni squeaked out. “Even though I’m-”
Simultaneously, before Pomni could even finish, they replied:
“Yeah.”
Pomni squinted and searched them up and down for any hint they were lying. She widened the crack so she could see if any of the other players were waiting to ambush her, just in case. They were not, obviously.
Pomni took another deep breath.
“Okay.”
The breakfast table reminded Pomni of a college cafeteria, just as the bedroom hallway reminded her of a dormitory. It was a large group gathering at a buffet with food of middling quality. Though of course, it couldn’t remind her of any of those things because she had never experienced them. She only had data and programming that simulated those memories and a world she’d never known.
In hindsight, it had been a blessing that the Escape the Circus adventure was just a fake. Pomni would have had an incredibly rude awakening when she’d found herself left behind. After all, she was just code. She didn’t have any life to return to out there.
She had just realized that for the first time. All of the others had homes to go back to. If they ever did have the chance to finally leave this place behind, Pomni would be stuck here. With Caine. There was no getting out for her.
Pomni poked a fork aimlessly at the scrambled eggs she had no real intention of eating. She probably shouldn’t be doing that, but she needed to occupy her hands or she’d have nothing to fight the urge to scream with. Her foot bounced over and over on the floor.
What surprised her most was that Jax was not there at the table. Usually, he had no compunction about making an ass of himself in front of everyone. Even on his more sullen days, he was usually visibly lingering around somewhere nearby.
Gangle and Zooble sat across at the farther end of the table. They kept stealing glances at Pomni and then looking away when she noticed. She pretended not to see that, and they pretended not to see that she saw that. Though it was equally possible she was imagining it.
Ragatha formed a protective wall simply by sitting in between Pomni and everyone else. Kinger had taken off the pillowcase, because despite the lucidity it granted him, it obviously obstructed his eating. Pomni still wasn’t sure how he could eat without a mouth. Food just touched where it was supposed to be and vanished.
It was better to think about these random things than to keep contemplating the existential dread consuming her.
The only sounds filling the air were the ambient noises of chewing and utensils scraping against plates and plunging into food. Pomni really just wanted to turn invisible somehow. Just straight up vanish. The polite silence was somehow infinitely worse than anything she imagined.
Her chest felt like it was about to cave in from outside pressure. It felt hard to breathe, even though Pomni was aware there was no reason for such a feeling. She didn’t even breathe, and never had.
She really wished someone would talk. Anything would be better than just stewing in all this existential dread. They probably didn’t even want to bother with her anyway. They regarded the NPCs as mild entertainment at best and nuisances at worst. Why would she be the exception?
She sipped her cup of black coffee, relishing the bitterness. She gritted her teeth, and clasped both hands over the warm mug. Might as well bite the bullet.
“Do any of you know where Jax is?”
Zooble shrugged non-commitally.
“I think he’s off sulking somewhere,” Ragatha said. “He was pretty upset about the whole thing.”
“He was even meaner than usual.” Gangle added.
“Great.”
Well, that’s something to look forward to dealing with. She’d add it to the pile.
“And Caine? Does anyone know what he’s up to?”
“No, and that’s the way I like things,” Zooble said. “Don’t jinx it.”
After that, everyone stopped talking again. Back to that unbearable, oppressive silence. Pomni took another drink of coffee.
“So, aaare… we going to talk about yesterday?”
Pomni’s question was met with total silence. Even the sound of utensils scraping against plates ceased. Everyone looked at her with eyes wide like saucers. They were as still and panicked as deer in headlights.
Except, of course, for Kinger, who was happily and quietly dicing away his angel food cake.
Finally, Zooble said:
“It was pretty fucked.”
Gangle nudged their arm scoldingly.
“Zooble!”
“What? That’s what we’re all thinking.”
“Yeah. It was… a lot,” Pomni acknowledged. “Why did you guys invite me here? It’s not like I’m…”
Pomni couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. It wasn’t like she hadn’t accepted the situation as it was, but it still would have hurt too much. To say I’m not human, I’m less than; that would kill something inside her.
“Well, you’re still our friend,” Ragatha said. “You’re my friend.”
Something warm stirred in Pomni’s chest.
“What she said.” Zooble affirmed.
Pomni hugged Ragatha tightly. She shut her eyes tightly to stop the spillage of tears. She wasn’t usually a fan of touch. But she had no words to express what she felt better than that. Slowly, cautiously, Ragatha wrapped her arms around Pomni in exchange.
“Thank you.”
Pomni opened her eyes again, blinking away the salt water. Out of the corner of her eye, Gangle quietly tapped her hands together. Meekly, she nodded. Pomni didn’t think she seemed too convinced.
But still, Pomni felt as at peace as she had since before the past two days. Which had been absolutely rough, but maybe, just maybe, she was getting a breather.
“Sorry to disappoint you all,” Caine bellowed from above. “But today will be another day without an adventure!”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Pomni slid away from Ragatha with surprising nimbleness. It took Ragatha a few seconds to realize Pomni was no longer in her arms, and instead crouched in a defensive position on her chair. Or at least what Pomni could make pass for a defensive position in her noodle-limbed, small frame.
The chair fell pitifully backwards. Pomni rolled off of it and onto the floor.
“But I will be needing to speak to Pomni in my office! For a little Q and A, you see!”
And things were back to a shitstorm again. This was just her luck, wasn’t it? She was at the mercy of a digital god with the impulse control and emotional intelligence of a toddler with several CTEs, who had also created her. Really, she shouldn’t even be surprised by this bullshit anymore.
Maybe he’d wipe her slate clean like Gummigoo and send her back out, a blank slate. Maybe he’d snap her out of existence like he had done to Abel. Maybe Caine would reprogram her, and make her kiss her free will goodbye. It wasn’t like she could really say no to him anymore.
Shakily, Pomni started to come to her feet. She’d face this like she faced everything else. But… what was that blocking her path? Ragatha, Zooble, Gangle, and Kinger were all standing in front of her. They were shielding her.
Caine looked down at them quizzically. He floated and bobbed in the air.
“Um, what are you doing?”
Pomni looked up at him. She thought about Gummigoo again. She’d thought he was safe. And then he was gone. A flash of light and then he was dead. She thought of Abel, and those few seconds where she’d heard his scream echoing.
Call her a coward, but she didn’t want that to happen to her.
“It’s okay, guys. I’ll go with him.”
“Are you sure?” Ragatha whispered.
Pomni thought of confetti again.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”
“That’s great to hear, Pomni!” Caine pumped his fist. “Really loving that can-do attitude!”
Caine prepared to snap his fingers. It could mean she’d just go to his office. Or that he’d kill her without blinking, and treat it like a joke.
“Caine!” Zooble said forcefully. “Make sure she comes back in one piece, or I’ll-”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, my truculent turquoise!” Caine paused. “Uh, to be clear, I mean not bringing her back in one piece.”
“I- I think we got that, Caine.” Pomni said.
“Yay!”
Caine snapped his fingers. She really hoped that those wouldn’t be her last words.
Pomni stood on shaky feet in Caine’s office. She wasn’t dead. That was a good start to things.
Caine’s office was very much the same as when she’d last seen it. It looked like it belonged to a little kid pretending to be a grown-up with a white collar job, without truly understanding it.
Caine sat behind his desk. In front of him was a small fence line composed of a bead maze (which looked rather worse for wear), a rubik’s cube, and a small statue of what looked to be a golden retriever.
“So, Pomni, now that we’re on the same page, I’d like to do a little debriefing?”
Pomni’s knees wobbled.
“Debriefing?”
“Yes!”
Caine snapped his fingers again. In the blink of an eye, Pomni was sitting directly across from Caine in a chair that had not been there before. She gripped the arm rests tightly.
“So, from one AI to another, what’s the inside scoop on…” In a stage whisper, Caine intoned: “The humans.”
“What?”
Pomni blinked. She wasn’t really sure what he meant. Shouldn’t he know? After all, he did claim to have “a billion all-seeing eyes.”
“You know! The skinny, the hot goss, the low down, the confidential information, the juice!”
“Huh?”
Was that even English?
“Fine, I’ll spell it out for you! I mean, you’ve been with them long enough, you have to know.” Caine cleared his throat. “Why don’t they like my adventures?”
Oh boy. This was going to suck.
At least she wasn’t dead.