Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Po-o-om-n-n-i?" Ragatha's voice glitches in and out, as the world begins to dissipate from her perspective. She apparently fell flat to the ground unprompted, and the doll is holding her. The other circus members surrounded her vision, all with varying reactions.

"wha-what-s ha-happening t-to y-" Was all she could hear before everything went silent and black.  

██████████

White noise. The first thing she notices is the blinding light that seeps through her right, even with eyes closed. She externally cringes from the sudden heat she feels on the same side of her face, and groans. Distant mumbling is all she hears, from both directions.

She musters the strength to open her eyes. Everything is hazy and unfocused, a thought crosses her mind that she must’ve been looking like she just hit a wall and was dazed as a result. The thought goes at the same speed it came.

As soon as her vision regained focus, two people were staring at her, clearly waiting for a response, wide-eyed. She resists the urge to jump back at the sudden sight unsuccessfully.

“Pau-Pau? You okay? You’re looking a little too pale.” One of them pipes up, holding a VR headset. And all of a sudden, memories come flooding in.

Pauline Nicole E. Agbayani. 25 years old. Filipino-American. 12 years growing up in south-east asia. Getting on a plane. 13 years growing up in North America. Separated parents. Friends named Bernard, and Maggie. Working accountant. 5 years. $75k per year. Recently let go. Single bedroom apartment. Pet cat named 'Jolli' after a mascot. Financial crisis. Friends pulling out an advert of C&A looking for beta-testers. Signed up for beta-testing of a VR game.

TRAPPED INSIDE THE HEADSET.

Panic arises from her very being as her pupils constrict, and she wordlessly grabs the headset, smashing it to the ground and stomping on the remains, much to the shock of the others. ”Oh come on Pau-Pau, that was a prototype product!” The guy, Bernard, is quick to point out.

Whipping her neck fast that she was briefly concerned she may have broken it, she takes a few steps which admittedly shook her peers with the amount of intimidation her aura aired. She asks the dreadful question.

“HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN IN THERE.” Her voice, clearly raspy, demanded, all the while shaking. Nervousness was laced along it. The two were justified in their caution and fear for how she was acting, but nonetheless answered the question. 

“W-we don’t know, maybe a week? We just arrived to check on you! We were worried sick!” The guy in the middle answered. Pomni was taken aback, clutching her head in order to try and make sense of it all. She chuckles, which further scares her peers, thinking she might’ve gone down the deep end already.

But the chuckling stops, and she is quick to voice out her thoughts mostly towards Bernard due to his C&A larnyard. “Bernard, QUIT YOUR JOB.” it sounded more like a demand than a suggestion (it might’ve been).

Bernard was taken aback this time, looking at her with furrowed brows, as if psychically telling her if she’s gone mental. “What kind of a sentence was that? I can’t just quit my job like that!” He couldn’t help but point out. But Pomni grabs him by the hem of his collar, and he mildly panics at the aggression.

“I’M SERIOUS, BERNIE. THE COMPANY YOU WORK FOR, HAS DONE SOME MESSED UP SHIT.” 

She gasps and covers her mouth at her own swear word, PROPERLY leaving her mouth and not being comically censored with a black bar. She is quick to follow up her swears with even more colorful varieties thanks to her bilingual vocabulary, leaving her two friends confused and looking at each other for her sudden joy at shouting profanities to no one in particular.

“... Pau? Mind filling us in with what is…. Making you act like this?” Maggie, the long red-haired woman on the left of Bernard, concerningly inquires. Pomni looks back at her, and remembers.

“Ragatha…” She trails off at the thought. Maggie is clearly confused. "What?"

“I-I’m sorry, it’s just… I think you all need to take a seat, because this is going to be a LONG one.”

██████████

Her friends are… 

Well, ‘ terrified’ would be an understatement. 

But it finally explains why Pomni had been acting the way she had been the moment they pried off the headset from her, which apparently, was the ONLY way they could’ve freed the poor girl from her digital prison.

And Pomni is left clutching at her hair again, this time mumbling ‘puta’ under her breath.

Bernard sighs.. “Pau, I understand your concerns, but as horrible as what you just experienced, I can’t just…. Chuck my whole livelihood in the trash. It’s what feeds and helps keep providing me a roof over my head.” He finishes.

But Maggie comes in clutch with a suggestion. “But… since Bernie is working for the company, he could… try to be an inside job for you. Try and look for the other people inside that simulation who was with you.” she waves her hand around as she explains, and Bernard visibly wants to mentally punch himself for not coming up with that idea. “Oh yeah! It’s very likely that the company has documents about who they are letting beta-test the product. I can try and look for those” And that was what catches Pomni’s attention fully.

“Really?” She rushes to Bernard’s knees without touching him, to which the (questionably fruity) man flinches at. “You can do that?” There’s a very vague but noticeable excitement tone dripping out of her sentence, as her eyes imitate pleading puppy eyes asking for a treat. Bernard sighs at the desperation his friend presents.

“It’s going to be unethical, but considering the company I work for is apparently very morally dubious, I think we get a pass.” He rubs at the nape of his neck.

Pauline can barely contain her excitement, and almost hugs Bernard. ALMOST. She instantly pulls back, to which Bernard fully understands and simply shrugs it away, a silent mutual understanding between the two.

A plan is born out of this conversation between the three friends, and as dawn arrives, Bernard and Maggie say their goodbyes towards Pomni.

Pomni lays on her bed, both determination and fear evident on her face. “Don’t worry Rags. I’ll find you . As well as the others. I promise.”

██████████

Somewhere, a woman sucks in her breath, when a VR headset is pried off of her.

VR headsets are removed from four more, simultaneously.

In an other location, a man prepares to get in their bed and drift off to sleep.

Chapter Text

“Welcome to….” The voice trails off, and the rest of his sentence is indiscernible.

1 month.

The entire surrounding rings of white noise. Her vision vignettes. Everything looks so blurry. But she’s already finally made it out.

She’s made sure of it. For 1 month.

She knows she’s made out of flesh now, she’s been waking up in the same body for about 1 month now. Been eating REAL foods, experiencing REAL breeze and sunshine, and seeing actual faces in the wild.

“That will be… 15 DOLLARS , miss !” The cashier beams with over-enthusiasm. 

1. FUCKING. Month.

She’s landed a job as an accountant for a nearby bank in the timespan of it all. Her friends supported her financially and mentally through it all.

… So why, when she finally has to go Grocery shopping, does she hear the most dreadful, overzealous and familiar tone, coming from the man with bright red hair and van-dyke styled beard right in front of her?

Against her better judgment, her fist clenches so hard, her knuckles turn white.

“CAINE.”

The cashier jolts at the sudden harsh tone, and then remembers his name tag on his worker vest. “Uh.. That is indeed me, miss !” Caution is evident from his tone.

It takes EVERY fiber of her being to NOT throttle and strangle this man over the counter in blind rage. She lets that fantasy happen in her head instead and she smiles 'gleefully', which unnerves the man.

When she takes a while to respond, the man has to snap his fingers in order to bring her back into the plane of reality. “Uh… are you… okay? Is there something you need?” the ever-so familiar tone of the man she has grown to resent asks.

She takes a moment to recompose herself, but it’s very much obvious that she’s angry. For some reason. That god and the heavens above only knows, to the poor man’s confusion.

 “YOU…. WOULDN’T HAPPEN… TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH C&A, WOULD YOU?” Pomni clenches her teeth, forcing a smile as she says it. And a groan escapes the man and his brows touch in frustration.

“Chocolate sprinkles on an ice cream tub, yeah, I USED to own the place. I MEAN NO! Abso-effing-lutely not!” He frantically ‘corrects' himself, but it’s too late. 

The cat’s officially out of the bag.

Pomni angrily crosses her arms, to which Caine pulls on his collar to loosen up his tightening nervousness. “Okay, okay. YES. YOU GOT ME. I USED TO BE THE “C” PART OF THE COMPANY. But you’re very much holding up the line, miss!” He excuses, as Pomni looks in the same direction Caine points. He’s unfortunately right, As three other people are either checking their watch, staring at her impatiently for holding the line hostage, or just curious at what is currently unfolding. 

She is quick to apologize after that. 

“Well then! Will it be cash , or creeeeeeedIT ?” Caine is back to his “worker” mode as he swings his arm with his fist curled with enthusiasm, which greatly annoys Pomni.

 “Cash.” is all she says, while dropping 15 dollars unceremoniously on the counter. Once again, Caine’s strange antics shows up as he overdramatically counts the cash with fervor like a show host, complete with a tongue sticking out. When all is said and done, he nods and clicks a button in the register, and puts the bills in.

Everything about him just SCREAMS Caine , the show master made out of dentures who tortured her and 5 (and more) others all in the name of “fun”. Caine , the most annoying set of eyes and teeth you will ever face. And CAINE , the sleazy, no-regards-for-personal-space-and-privacy ringleader of a so-called, “AMAZING” –with HUGE quotations– digital circus, that she wishes to unleash hell on, if given the opportunity to do so.

As soon as her groceries were finished packing, she grabs it immediately. She makes a piercing, judging gaze towards the poor man. “We’ll talk MORE later.” to which Caine gulps.

“Y-you GOT it! Come back soon! Or don’t!” he adds the last part more to himself, but Pomni bares her teeth at him. He visibly yelps and jumps back from this.

Caine feels a weight is lifted off of his shoulders, as he visibly loosens and sighs. “What did that company do this time…” He couldn’t help but rub his temples at the thought.

“Excuse me!” The older woman behind the strange girl yells, and Caine immediately straightens his posture, and puts on his show master-esque persona once more, beaming at the customer. “Is this mango still good? It has some dark spots on it!” The woman complains.

Meanwhile, in the parking lot of the retail store, Pomni rushes to open the backseat of her car and put down the groceries inside. When all is said and done, she hops to the front of the wheel, and immediately phones her two friends. 

The phone rings three times, and then clicks.

“Hey girlllll” they both greet, “What’s the news today?”

“Guys, come over to the local retail store just down the road.” Pomni instructs. “We’ve got ourselves a new lead to this clusterfuck of a situation.”

“Oh?” Bernard says. “Tell us.” Maggie inquires next.

██████████

It’s been hours since the strange girl he encountered left and the sun has been out for just as long, but Caine can’t shake off the feeling of danger somehow. Something about her sentence just, for once, made Caine NOT want to clock out of his job, and stay within the confines of his station. Where there are CCTVs, in case something bad happens.

But the fact that she mentioned C&A of all things, THAT was what Caine was more fearful of. What did the company do to make her so aggressive towards him? And why was that her first impression?

Something gnaws at his mind.

They couldn’t. They couldn’t have found it. He hid it VERY WELL. He hid it SO WELL, no one SURELY could have found it and used it, even against his will, right?

Caine suddenly found himself violated with that very thought. He nervously chuckled at the idea. Surely. There was just…. No… way…

He comically shakes his head and takes a deep breath.

“Get AHOLD of yourself Caine.” He slaps himself physically two times. “You’re thinking OUTLANDISH things again.” He could care less. The company was no longer his. He’s no longer responsible for whatever may have happened behind its doors. And he's certainly NOT responsible for the actions of a certain someone anymore. 

So with a hesitant groan and rubbing his face down, he gets up from his station to go to his boss’s office to inform them that he’s about to clock out, which his boss acknowledges. Whatever his musings were, he can deal with it at home, when he’s safe in the confines of his apartment walls. The workplace was NOT a suitable place to air out his internal troubles. And as he steps out onto the parking lot, he can’t shake the feeling of being watched.

Even more so when he hears stomping getting nearer and nearer. He checks, and sure enough, there’s a redheaded girl staring at him, alongside with a dark-haired guy. Both look physically capable of mild capacities of violence and manhandling, so he frantically reaches for his car keys, hoping he can get away from this place as fast as possible, while phoning the cops.

The stomping became running, and the poor man just starts freaking out. It didn’t help that he drops his keys in panic, so he does what a sensible person does in this situation:

RUN.

He tries sprinting from the scene, but is unfortunately tackled down before he could even start to do so.

Everything snaps to black and Caine wishes he yelled for help before then.

Chapter Text

“Pauline, I think this is starting to get out of hand!” a feminine voice tells her concern to “Pauline”.

Caine stirs into consciousness. Everything is dark, and his head painfully throbs like it’s threatening to spill out the contents. He tries to tune in to the conversation, but the bag over his head and the ringing from his ears makes it slightly difficult.

“Mags is right. I’m all down for finding out the truth a-and-and- spreading everything about this situation against C&A for awareness, but we’ve basically KIDNAPPED AN INNOCENT MAN FROM HIS WORKPLACE!” the more masculine voice adds.

“In my defense, I never said you guys should’ve tackled him and knocked him out! I just said to bring him here, so I could question him!” 

Ah, now THAT voice is familiar. Definitely the woman who got unreasonably angry at him. He muses that this must be “Pauline”.

“Yeah- well- he was about to GET AWAY! How were we supposed to deal with that!?”

“This situation is FUCKED, man. We’re so dead.”

He cringes.

“Everyone just- calm the fuck down! I know this isn’t looking too good for us three, but something REALLY tells me that he knows more than he lets on. Fuck, he even admitted to owning the place!” 

“...What?”

“He… He said he owned C&A. But not anymore.”

“Hold on. Hold on Pauline.” the masculine voice cuts off “Pauline”. “Are you saying… I kidnapped MY EX-BOSS??”

Silence.

“MR. CAINE ANDERSON???” The tone was in utter disbelief, and another silence permeated the air.

“I can’t believe it. I’m dead. I’m dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, WE’RE ALL DEAD!”

“BERNIE PLEASE. WE’RE ALL FREAKING OUT JUST AS MUCH AS YOU ARE, BUT TRYING TO SAY THE OBVIOUS OUT LOUD ISN’T CERTAINLY HELPING OUR CASE!” the feminine voice reasons.

“Bernie” sobs dramatically, and Caine can’t help but snicker at the situation. Turns out these people don’t even know what they’re doing.

The girls, however, take notice of his awareness, and start panicking.

“WHAT DO W-WE DO!”

“I-I-I DUNNO!! KNOCK HIM OUT I GUESS??”

“WE CAN’T JUST “KNOCK HIM OUT” PAULINE, WE’VE ALREADY DONE TOO MUCH DAMAGE!”

“Would you gals… Please, just take this thing off of my head?” Caine breaks up the panicked conversation between the two. “I’d also like some water because my head is KILLING me.” He adds light-heartedly, despite the situation.

There’s a moment of silence that lasted too long, but he feels the bag off of his head be lifted out halfway to reveal his mouth, as someone wordlessly helps him drink a glass of water. As soon as the cup is empty, he can’t help but comically sigh in relief.

“Ah, very refreshing! Thank you, mysterious stranger.” He smiles like he hadn’t just been kidnapped by a bunch of people and brought in for questioning.

Caine is… admittedly skilled at handling these kinds of situations, since being a former owner of a company with shady practices pretty much gives you the ability to remain calm and collected during questions. Knowing what he knows of the situation now however, this was sure to be a walk in the park, and he just has to play his cards right.

One of them clears their throat, to which Caine knows is “Pauline”.

“Caine Anderson.” She speaks.

“Yesssss , my dear~?” He smiles.

“I assume you already know… why we brought you here.”

“Meeee ? Oh dearie, Heavens no ! But if I were to correctly assume the situation, then you could’ve just taken me to dinner first~” He flirts, and he can FEEL the physical discomfort of Pomni from his attempts.

“Okay. you know what, I can’t deal with this right now.” Pomni is quick to dismiss the attempts of further interrogating the man, so her friend Bernie steps in.

“Look sir, we just have some questions, if you would be kind enough to answer them.” Bernie kindly intercepts in, to which Caine dogwhistles at all of a sudden.

“You know, If I knew you had the voice of an angel, I would’ve let you tackle me with your big beefy arms, no consequence~.” He flirts again, to which Bernie audibly gasps. “I do swing both ways~” He amps up the sultriness in his voice, to which the other girl, “Mags”, CACKLES at –from what Caine assumes is– directed towards her guy friend.

“I-I’M NOT FLUSTERED! STOP LAUGHING!” Bernie desperately tries to prove his point.

“You’re as red as a tomato!” Mags further teases.

Bernie groans, seemingly having given up on the attempt as well in order to hide his reddening face.

Mags finally steps in after laughing her ass off, and Caine is DEFINITELY aware that the flirting option would not be able to get past this one. So the next best thing in this scenario would be: act as innocent as possible.

“Look sir, I know this is awkward, but we could really just use a bit of your cooperation. That’s all!” Mags tries to reason, and Caine sits up as best as he could with arms tied behind his back.

“Oh, but of course ! You have my FULL cooperation .” he smiles like an eager-for-treats puppy, and Mags takes in a deep breath, and lets it out.

“Are you aware of the recent happenings behind C&A’s current situation?” Mags asks, and Caine over-exaggeratingly ponders.

“Hmm, you know, can’t say I know for sure! I haven’t been in office since last year, though I did hear that the company is currently being overlooked by a complete sack of rotting potatoes!” He didn't intend to be so vile with the last descriptor, but it's not exactly a lie in the first place…

“Bernie?” Mags questions, and Bernie verbally hums in approval. “Mr. Caine got ousted as the CEO. Now, it’s just his brother who runs the company.”

Caine scoffs and rolls his eyes at the mention of his brother . That dirty, conniving sonuvagun. The two friends take notice of this, and Pomni comes back to unceremoniously remove the bag over his head.

Caine is given whiplash from how fast it happens, and he has to visibly shake his head to refocus on the surroundings. “Well! It’s about ti-” He chides, only to be cut off by a piece of paper in front of his face.

“You know this?” Was all Pomni asks.

And suddenly, Caine’s expressions stiffens and becomes serious, as he takes in the contents of the paper. It’s a drawing.

It was of a cartoonishly short ringmaster, but with a pair of oversized dentures for a head, and a pair of goofy eyes on the insides of the mouth (Although drawn crudely with the word "<-- IDIOT." pointing at the character and some of the features are a little different, Caine is admittedly still impressed).

“How did you…” For the first time, Caine’s show master guise has cracked open, and there’s no over-the-top reaction coming from him. Pomni knows she’s got him right where she wants him, so it’s time to let the floodgates open.

“This guy tortured me for YEARS, when I was stuck in that VR headset. He kept throwing “adventures” at me and the other circus members- my friends… Because he says it helps keep us “sane”. Well you know what? I call bullshit.” Her voice comes out as shaky, hoarse but filled with pent up anger, almost like this was hard to let out. She carelessly tosses the paper to him, letting him see the ringmaster she drew in full view.

Caine was speechless for the first time, as he stared at the piece of paper on his lap. He could only stare at utter disbelief with the information Pomni dumped on him. “And you wanna know what’s worse? He has YOUR name.” She drops the bombshell while crossing her arms together, and Caine shakes his head incredulously at the direction of the paper, in complete denial.

“No, no, no! This wasn’t supposed to happen! He’s unfinished , sure, but…” The first genuine and sincere answer Caine gives since the interrogation had started. “They found it and STILL went with the plan?” A mutter. But it was loud enough for the whole room to hear. He wanted to clutch his head, but he only ended up throwing his head down in shock.

Now the three are definitely feeling bad for him. It seemed that he genuinely didn’t have a hand in this situation like they initially thought, after all.

Wordlessly, Bernie chooses to untie the ropes holding the man in place, and the two girls don't protest against it. As soon as Caine was free from his bonds, all he could do was take the paper and stare. He held it so hard that it ended up crumpling, and the man looked like he was about to start shedding tears.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he stands up, and with a serious expression watches on his face (it actually unnerved Pomni) and walks up to her until they’re face to face.

There’s no light-heartedness anymore. No jokes, no flirtatious tones, nothing.

Instead, there’s a silent and mutual understanding between two very different people. Caine opens his mouth.

“We may have gotten off on the wrong foot in the beginning, but it doesn’t seem fair if I don’t set this record straight for those affected. If your plan requires my assistance, then I am more than happy to provide my services.” He raises his hand, wanting to shake on it to officiate a deal. Pomni is… very hesitant to take it, and Caine mildly shakes it to emphasize what he’s trying to do.

“Well? Are we on the same page , or not ?” He questions, to which Pomni hesitantly replies. “I don’t… like... physical contact.” She rubs her arm in embarrassment, to which Caine audibly goes ‘oh!’  at realizing the context.

“My apologies.” He nervously chuckles, and takes a step back. “Not your fault.” Pomni raises a hand and dismisses it.

Mags chooses to shake Caine’s hand in Pomni’s place, pretty much rivaling the tempo of the man’s shake, which took him by surprise. ”Good grip.”

"Thank you!" Looks like his enthusiasm is back. Caine clears his throat, as they both loosen from the handshake. “I look forward to whatever may happen next. If you, or any of your friends are free by lunch tomorrow, I suggest we converse about this whole situation and gather our bearings at the local pie house just down by the road! The pies there are good, and PERFECT for plan-scheming.” Caine suggests, and the three perk up from the out-of-nowhere statement.

… It was very much an odd suggestion, but nonetheless, who could say no to a good pie?

As if on cue, Bernard is already practically SALIVATING.

“Mmmm… custard pie with whipped cream, berries and cherries…” Bernie drooled.

“Oh I know the owner of the place! She’s a cousin of mine. I’ll put in a good word for all of us in advance.” Mags points out, and a plan for a meetup is officially established.

Caine pretty much mentally congratulates himself for suggesting a good enough and amusing idea that landed him on the group’s good side.

The bright red-haired man clears his throat, and points to the door. “Well then! I take it this is my cue to leave?” he asks. Pomni is VERY tempted to say “no”, to make him have a taste of his own medicine , but then immediately remembers this is NOT the same Caine who had put her through the horrors. So, she nods without a word escaping her mouth, and Caine is already heading outside, with one last genuine smile towards the three.

The trio collectively sigh, tension finally off of their shoulders.

… But then he comes back, half of his body peeking through. “ By the by , no hard feelings on this . Or any of this . Buh-byeeeee! ” He points at the dried wound on his head then to the whole kidnapping event, and off he scampers for real this time.

Just like that, the tension is back, and the trio panics with the fact that they basically forgot they kidnapped a man and accidentally assaulted him in the process.

This was, most definitely, the strangest night Caine and the others have found themselves in.

██████████

A bell rings at a small, local pie house’s door.

A red short haired woman lifts her head to greet the customer. The customer, a man with long, messy and graying blonde hair, in his forties-to-fifties with an unfocused stare, goes to the counter.

“Ms. Taylor?”

The red-haired woman looks up at the man. “Yes?”

“May I have a word with you somewhere private?” He asks, the woman nods. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Pomni groans. “5 more minutes.” She throws the very typical line.

“POMNIIIII!!! RISE AND SHINE, SUPERSTAR! It’s time for yet ANOTHER ADVENTUREEEEE!!!!”

Almost immediately, Pomni lifts her head from underneath the pillow.

No. No, no, no, No! She can’t be back in the circus! She’s already made sure of it! She trips off of her bed, and rushes to the door. The surroundings definitely screams the aesthetic her room in the circus had, and she opens the door to an overly-looming and larger-than-life Caine, dentures and all.

“Goooooooooood MORNING, SUPERSTAR! Are you READY for another FUN-filled, Death-defying, ADVENTURE? I made SURE to amp up the BRAND! NEW! AI! In the works, and I have a feeling you’ll all LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE the new addition!”

If she wasn’t hyperventilating yet, then she sure is now.

“Aw, don’t be so cruel, Pom-pom! Caine worked really hard for this, we should just give it a go!” A vague feminine voice, sweet as honey but dripping with poison, prompts all of a sudden beside Pomni, and she flinches away from the vague silhouette of a doll.

“Well, I for one, can’t wait. This new AI sounds like it’d be peeeeeeeeerfect for breaking a certain someone’s mask.” a rabbitoid, shrouded in darkness with a wide, sinister and toothy grin, snickers behind Pomni, which the jester visibly jumps away at the rabbit’s sudden appearance beside her. A voice, somewhere, simply says “what?”

The voices all meld together between the four disembodied cast as Pomni tries to keep herself together, and Caine beams up.

“Oh! And I believe we have two new additions to the cast! Everyone, welcomeeeeeeeee……” Caine lets the drum roll on the stage (how…? Did Caine teleport them??), and pops a bunch of confetti as soon as the two new members are revealed. A strongman in a green leotard, and a red-haired Juggler.

“BARREL AND JUGS!”

The jester is mortified. The two look eerily familiar. And that’s when realization hits her like a truck, that this was her friends, Did C&A already find out, and choose to entrap them in the Circus as punishment??  She can't think. She can't breathe. This is all too much. She needs to get away. SHE NEEDED TO GET OUT. SHE WAS FINALLY OUT. WHY WAS SHE BACK. SHE NEEDS TO GO BACK OUT.

RUN.

RUN.

RUN.

"POMNIIII!!! WHERE ARE YOU GOING, SUPERSTAR? YOU CAN'T JUST CALL OFF ON AN ADVENTURE UNLESS YOU'RE SICK! FUN AWAITS YOU!!!!" Caine grabs her by the hat tightly and she yelps, screams, she squirms like a little mouse, desperately trying to claw and free her way out of the hand of a giant.

That's exactly what she was feeling.

She was feeling sick.

She wanted to say anything, but words failed her, choking in her tears instead. Caine shook his head in disapproval, 'tsk, tsk, tsk!'ing at her as he flew her back in position of the stage role call, and everyone else held her in place.

"Silly Pomni. Did you really think you'd get out of this Circus? You're such a silly little fool." For the first time, Pomni hears clear malice in Caine's voice. "I even added your friends so you don't feel lonely, and you're still ungrateful? Do your only job for once. I WON'T ASK AGAIN." She's left gasping for air now. Everything is too tight. Everything is too hazy. Everything... everything...

The audience cheers her name.

Pomni!

Pomni!

Pomni!

Pomni!

Pomni!

POMNI!

Pomni jumps, rolls and falls off her bed screaming, flinging her poor pillow. She groans and frantically checks her surroundings, and it’s her REAL room. Not the circus one. She heaves a very heavy sigh of relief, one that almost pushes her to quiet sobbing as she clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turn white.

But taking a deeper breath and letting it out, she doesn’t further entertain the idea of having a nightmare about the ringmaster, after the same night that They’ve brought him in for questioning. There’s no doubt that his digital imprint’s actions still have a negative impact lingering on her. Which, of course it will.

“Years” of trauma doesn’t just… go away in a flash, she reminds herself. If anything, the hardest part is confronting the source for the first time. And then from there, it gets easier.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

…

Fuck it, let’s just get this over and done with.

Fixing the bed first then a quick shower, brushing her teeth and putting on some more casual clothing, Pomni cooks herself some breakfast, when her phone emits a ringing notification.

…It’s from her estranged mother. There’s a heavy weight that sets on her shoulders.

She opens the message, but doesn’t bother to read the whole thing, and instead chooses to delete the message. Before it got fully sent into the digital abyss of her phone, there was a small thing that catches her eye.

“... I still love you as my daughter. I’m sorry. I hope this reaches you soon”

She can’t help but lean over the counter top and just… drag her hand across her entire face as tiredness seeps in through her eyes.

She’s not ready to deal with her just yet. Not after what happened on the very night that caused a rift between her and her mother, after all.

There’s more important matters at hand.

Speaking of which, if she doesn’t attend to her eggs and bacon soon, it would definitely start emitting burnt smoke.

Which it did.

Pomni spent the next 30 minutes trying to clean up the burnt pan and letting some air in from the windows. Oh boy, this was suuuuure to be a fun day, wouldn’t it?

██████████

A man whistles a jolly tune while taking a stroll in the local park.

He’s in such a joyful mood, that he occasionally kicks down signs and trashcans that spell out “no littering”. He spies some people playing with frisbees, and the frisbee is heading towards his direction.

He catches, and the people holler at him to throw it back.

He shrugs with a wide, sinister grin and chucks it so hard, it flies into the street and gets broken by moving cars. The people are pissed, and he feigns innocence by acting shocked, but immediately shrugs it off as he turns around, satisfied with his mischief of the day.

“This is sureeee to be a FUN day.” Is all he says as he hops, skips and trundles along.

██████████

After such an uneventful “breakfast”, Pomni eventually decides to meet up in the spot Caine told them about. Since it’s a pie house, might as well just grab some pie there to eat as a substitute brunch for the poor charred coals that are in her trash bin now.

It wasn’t a very far walk, and thankfully, pie businesses aren’t the norm in this city and therefore there’s not a lot of pie shops, so it was only by a couple of blocks that she manages to find said location.

It was a very rustic looking place, that one would mistake it as a souvenir shop instead if one were to not pay much attention to their surroundings.

She opens the door and the bell rings, and the first face she sees is the very bored look of what she could only assume is the red-haired waitress of the place, suddenly going wide-eyed, as if she had been caught slacking on the job. The woman immediately straightens her posture, and gives her the classic customer-service smile.

She had a strange scar on her face, specifically on the right side, coupled with her eye being gray-ish. Pomni could only assume that this may have been caused by an accident somehow. She starts blushing mildly and waves awkwardly, and the woman puts a hand on her mouth and genuinely giggles, but waves back.

“PAULINEEEEEEEEE!!!! OVER HERE!!!”

Oh god. Why did he have to be so fucking LOUD? And why did he have to wave at her like they're across a football field??

She groans and mouths a ‘sorry’ to the woman, who only giggles once more, and urges her to go to him. Pauline nods but covers her face in embarrassment, knowing for damn well sure that her face is as red as a tomato from this encounter.

(She misses the way the waitress’ face contorts to vague discomfort when she looks away, and she silently hopes that the waitress wasn’t the type to gossip)

Looking back at the table, she sees Caine in a simple white button up shirt and black pants... but wearing a red bathrobe over it all?? Outside?? ... She's not in the mood to question his fashion choices. He was giddily tapping the table, eager at her arrival. He now has a bandage over his head, which is unsurprising.

“Hey.” Pomni starts. “Just realized I never really… you know, apologized for that.” She points to the wound on his head, and he looked like a lost puppy for a moment, until eventually realizing and tapping at the bandage of his head, as if checking. He hisses in pain, but it was only momentary, and he’s back to his giddy self once more.

“Ah, it’s NO problem at all, Pauline! There is no harm done!“ He exclaims.

“.... Except, there… literally is.” She points out again. He retains his idiotic tight-lipped smile, unfazed.

“...There was no harm done BESIDES physical!” He corrects, and Pomni freaks out from his loudness, looking around to make sure no eyes are watching. “Dude! Keep it down!” She whispers boldly and waves her hands down repeatedly to emphasize her point. Caine goes wide-eyed and nods, then leans close, using the table as support. “ There was NO harm done BESIDES physical!” He whisper-yells, and winks, as if he’s slick and got away with a crime.

Pomni sighs. This is going to be a long day. 

She takes a seat in front of him, and the same waitress from earlier arrives with the menu. She hands them both one of each, and turns her attention to Pomni.

“... May I take your orders, new stuff?” She smiles ever so sweetly, and Pomni’s breath hitches as she sucks in a breath, hiding her blushing face behind the menu. Somehow, Pomni can’t shake the feeling of familiarity from that sentence.

She eventually stammers, and clears her throat to try and pick from the selection. “J-just the classic b-blueberry pie with whipped cream, please. Thank you.” It’s so hard to keep her composure maintained for some reason, her mind running at a thousand miles per hour, trying to figure out where she had heard that voice before because she could just swear right now, that it sounded so familiar somehow .

Does she share the same range as a singer she’s heard somewhere?

“And I’ll have ONEEEEEEEEEE WHOLE cherry pie with a vanilla ice cream topping!” Caine intercepts, and Pomni swears she saw the waitress’s eyes turn into pinpricks and flinch (she honestly can’t blame her. She could only assume that it must be because of Caine’s very loud personality). The waitress nods slowly to confirm his order, but leans to Pomni.

“Is he, um, usually like this?” She whispers, and Pomni has the strongest urge to just kneel on the floor and apologize for Caine out of embarrassment. She discards the idea immediately though.

“I’m so sorry if he’s too loud, he’s just… very excitable.” Pomni whispers back, as Caine is grabbing the free disposable table napkins one by one and folding them in a triangle shape, then stacking them, eventually putting them in his pocket after making precisely 6 stacks.

The two take a knowing look at each other, and have a silent understanding to not further prod into it. Though both start blushing profusely and look away once realizing that their faces are quite close to one another, and both overlap their flustered apologies. Caine takes notice of this, and makes a mental note.

The waitress clears her throat, and then nods to try and get rid of the tension in the air. “Okay, so that will be one slice of blueberry pie with whipped cream on top, and a… whole… cherry pie with a vanilla ice cream topping. Would you like that to be dine-in, or a take out?” She asks, tensing a little when she turns her attention to Caine.

“Take out please! But may I have a dessertspoon and a fork?” He inquires, to which the waitress laughs nervously. “O-okay new stuff, I’ll see what I can do.” She nods as politely as possible, and excuses herself away from the table as fast as she can.

Caine pulls out one of his trademark smiles. “What a strange, yet polite woman!” 

How ironic. Somehow, it both feels like an insult and a compliment to Pomni, but knew it was just the man’s bluntness speaking.

Seriously, how is this the same man who was calm, calculating and composed, and retained that until a certain situation when they accidentally kidnapped him? Does his calculating personality only come out on specific conditions? And he’s just idiotic like this casually? Maybe it takes a lot of brain power for him to be serious, and he reverts to a dense numbskull once it’s over.

She inwardly sighs, as she decides that it’s not honestly worth pondering about.

The bell on the entrance door rings once more, and they both look back. It seems that Bernard and Maggie have already arrived at the scene, but instead of looking for them in the pie house, both decide to head onto the counter and have a chat with the waitress. A couple of laughs, finger-guns and a fist bump later, it was at this moment that Pomni realized.

The waitress IS the owner of the Pie House, and Maggie’s cousin. Well that explains the same color of hair.

Maggie then looks over to them, then throws her thumb towards the table Caine and Pomni are sitting at, and the woman makes a visible “oh!” reaction, despite the voices being muddled from the distance. She nods, and the two friends head on over to their table.

“Scooch over.” Pomni tells Caine. He is quick to follow, and scooches over, and Bernard takes a seat beside Caine, with Maggie sitting beside Pomni.

“Don’t worry guys, I got this covered. Any pies ordered are on the house now.” Maggie whispers. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Pomni can’t help but ask, since she knows that pies aren’t exactly easy to bake and prepare, much less make them in the first place.

“Don’t stress about it, I mean, she already planned to make your pie free, which I think means that she must really like you~.” Maggie teases quietly, while elbowing Pomni’s arm very gently and carefully, just about enough to not activate her friend’s touch aversion.

Pomni starts blushing profusely, and against her better judgment, Pomni looks over to the wai– OWNER of the establishment. The woman was smiling fondly, but the moment Pomni’s gaze landed on her, she turned away bashfully. Her heartbeat quickens, but she tries to hide it.

“I-I guess that means I must’ve really left a good impression then, heh.” She nervously chuckles, and Maggie couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s predicament. “I can’t wait for this to bloom into something special~” She teases, but it’s clear that that was going to be the last of her antics for now, which Pomni was VERY thankful for because she doesn’t think she can handle anymore at the moment.

It’s already taking a lot out of her to not run out of the establishment, back to her apartment, and just bury her head under her pillow.

The pies are all served to their table by a different person, which seems fair to Pomni. The owner can’t do everything in this establishment after all, especially when there are other customers to attend to as well (a part of her wished that she chose to attend to their table, but that thought is quickly dismissed for how selfish and self-absorbed it was) .

The group dug in to their pies –with Caine comically eating a slice from his take out plate– and then bringing up the much needed question that’s the reason why they’re all here in the first place.

“Soooo what exactly IS the plan here?” He mumbles while chewing, and Pomni stops stabbing her blueberry pie in contemplation, making it ‘bleed’ in a gooey-gorey fashion. “Well, first off: trying to pinpoint the locations of the other people who were trapped in the circus with me. Then once that’s crossed off of the list,” She explains, then stabs the pie HARD that the fork makes an audible noise against the porcelain plate. “Figuring out how to let the truth out to the general public, to stop the company. Bernard still works there, and he’s trying very hard to look for the files of the beta-testers who may have signed up for playtesting the digital circus.”

Caine turns his attention to Bernard, who wipes his mouth with a napkin to speak. “Yep, but so far, I haven’t really found any decent progress. Turns out, our boss is more secretive than we initially thought.” He intertwined his fingers, and placed them under his chin in classic thinking fashion.

Caine scoffs, knowing just how true that statement was. 

“I’ve also been trying to look for discarded newspapers for any clue at people disappearing for weeks on end, but somehow…. There’s none. I think besides the secrecy, C&A also has a hold of the mainstream media, so that these concerning and pressing matters can be as easy as chucking it to the side.” Bernard explained further.

“Maybe we could try asking people all around if they somehow encountered a person who was wearing the same VR headset Pau-Pau was?” Mags suggests while shrugging, trying to throw out simple ideas into the mix, but Bernard is quick to shut that idea down.

“No way! Can you imagine just how crazy we’d look? ‘Hey, excuse me, but did you, or your beloved family member disappear because signing up to be trapped in a circus inside a computer was a thing?’ That just sounds complete and utter batshit crazy!” Bernard flails his arms around, and Caine flinches, then shrinks the moment the curse words left the dark-haired man’s mouth.

“Well, when you word it like that, of course it’s gonna sound bonkers to people!” Maggie interjects. 

Pomni tunes out of the conversation unintentionally, being lost in her thoughts while stabbing the pie again. The realization that they’ve been stuck on a dead end for more than a month now isn’t doing her mentality, and hope for finding the others any favors. She diverts her attention and looks up, and there, she has eye-to-eye contact with a man a few tables away from them.

Well, as much eye-to-eye contact you would have with a man with an unfocused stare, that is. He was wearing a purple vest with glasses, and his long, graying blonde hair was unkempt. He kept staring at her, even when he was taking a sip of his coffee.

It’s like the man was doing a critical evaluation of her, calculating her behavior. Pomni suddenly finds herself unnerved and tensing up by the man’s stare, wanting it to stop. A pie is taken to him by the owner of the establishment, and he spares no reaction. For a moment, Pomni wonders if he’s even staring at her, or he’s just zoning out into the distance, and just happens to align his unfocused sight directly at her.

A yelp from the man later, and Pomni decides it must’ve been the latter. (why did that seem familiar?)

“Pau?”

Her attention is back to the conversation. “Well?”

“Huh?” she asks. 

“We were deciding whether it’d be a good idea to hang flyers with our numbers, just in case that someone DID have an unpleasant experience with C&A, like you did.” Bernard explains. “Caine and Mags think it’s worth a shot, while I don’t. What about you?”

“O-oh, um….” She fidgets with her thumbs, a habit she does when confronted, or having to decide for something she doesn’t know. “I don’t know? I mean, for all we know, we may just keep getting prank calls if we did that” She is quick to add.

This definitely got Caine and Maggie reevaluating their decisions, their lives were already busy enough. And pranks from stupid, rebellious teenagers would NOT be worth it.

Maggie’s cousin arrives at the table again, this time with the bill.

“Thank you for eating at my humble Pie House, come back again soon~” She places it on the table to Pomni’s direction, and quickly leaves, face flaring up by the moment.

Upon Pomni’s confusion as to why there would be a “bill” when Maggie just said that everything was on the house, she grabs the receipt to check.

There, she sees that it is actually NOT a bill, but a 10-digit number, with a heart and the woman’s name.

‘Agnes’.

Pomni’s entire being internally explodes. She tries looking back to the owner, but sees her leaving the premises with the man who had the thousand-yard stare. Pomni keeps looking down to the phone number and contemplates, deciding to keep it safe in her breast pocket and patting it down (both to keep it in place, and to calm her racing heartbeat).

It was insane. Someone actually likes her.

But her heart sinks when she thinks about her promise. She deflates onto the seat, and the three take notice of this. Maggie is quick to comfort Pomni.

“Hey now, don’t lose your head about it. Knowing my cousin, she wouldn’t want you to feel pressured to reach back. It’s just an option at the end of the day, Pau.”

The flustered woman could only sigh in response.

Caine chooses to shift the topic, reading how the room basically needs it. “So, this is it? We’re simply stuck on a dead-end road UNLESS something happens?” He closes his leftover cherry pie lid, and grabs one of the table napkins he’s folded from his pocket and uses it to wipe his face.

Bernard tries to be optimistic. “Well, if there’s still nothing in about a week or two, I guess we can try the flyers.” He pinches his fingers to try and rack his brains about any more ideas. “But for now, all we can really hope for is that I can find where my boss hides the documents of play-testers.”

Caine rises from his seat. “Well then. Ladies, Gent, The pie was VERY nice! But if I am not needed, then I see no reason to be staying here any further!” He explains, and they all nod in agreement as Bernard gets up to let Caine out. He makes his way out of the seat, and bows to the three curtly, while reaching for his OTHER pocket, that didn’t contain the napkins.

“IF there is any new information that surfaces about this situation that you encounter, then you all know where to kidnap me. Toodles!” He jokes light-heartedly (which leaves the group embarrassed and muttering apologies), dropping the exact amount that his cherry pie should cost. 

“Caine, I told you, the pie is fr-” Before Maggie could remind him that there was no need to pay, Caine was already out of the door, and crossing the street.  He gives the group a cheery farewell wave, before disappearing as a bus halted in front of him and left.

The three stared at this feat of speed, jaw-dropped to the floor (metaphorically). Pomni looks at her phone, and checks the time. Somehow it was already 5PM?? It’s surprising how fast time flies by when you don’t pay attention.

She decides it’s time to go home, so waving goodbye to Bernard and Maggie as well, she is out the door and walking down the street to her apartment again. A blush creeps in her face upon remembering that she still had the phone number of “Agnes”, and she holds her breast pocket as she jogs over to her place.

Speeding through and locking her door once inside, she leans against it, trying to calm her breathing. Reaching for the parchment, she stares at it, and walks over to her bed, flopping down face first and groaning.

Despite the rocky start of the day, she can’t deny the flutters in her stomach that happen every time she even thinks about looking at the piece of paper and examining the contents, remembering the woman who had given her the digits in the first place.

Was this even worth giving attention to? She still has a promise to keep. The very reason why she was even doing this in the first place.

Of course she also wants the other members who were trapped to feel the same, but she mostly wanted to remember her friend from the circus and find her, so they can share the freedom from the digital plane together.

Rising from her bed, she decides to simply pin the woman’s number to the corkboard she has on her living room for now. Then, she gets an idea.

She grabs a pencil and takes a seat on her desk. It’s time to use her good ol’ noggin and recall as much of what she remembers about everyone.

██████████

At the back of the pie house, Maggie was looking all over for Agnes, with the intention of thanking her for the pies, and having one last small chit-chat for the day. Unbeknownst to her though, Agnes and Caesar, her new friend, seemed to be deep in conversation. Maggie, loving hearing gossip as much as the neighbors next door, tries to tune in. It seems that the man is pinching his nose in disappointment, while sighing.

“Listen, Kinger. I know you said it’s risky, but this is my cousin we’re talking about!” Agnes reasons. (wasn’t his name Caesar? Is this some kind of weird code name?)

“No, Ragatha!” Caesar exclaims. 

( ‘Ragatha?’ Maggie silently gasped. ‘That’s the same name Pauline said when we found her.’ She tunes in back to the conversation. )

“... Not when there’s still the ever looming danger that we could be under surveillance. ANYONE could be a spy-for-hire to try and shut us down. We’re not even supposed to be roaming free, yet here we are, at the back of your pie shop!” Caesar is quick to remind Agnes. “Plus, that was a really bold move you did, you know. Giving that woman your number.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Agnes is clearly flustered. “I can’t explain it, Kinger. Something about her is just… I don’t know. Something’s pushing me towards her. An odd sense of… ease and familiarity.” She rubs her arm. Caesar raises his brow at that.

“Still. You know how risky our situation is.”

“I KNOW that, but-”

“Ragatha. Please. I saw one of them wearing the C&A lanyard. From across the table, the same one where your cousin was sitting at. And I swear, I could even hear him from there . ”

Agnes rubs her arm, knowing that Caesar and her heard the same thing. “You don’t really think it’s him somehow, right?” Agnes tries to bring sense back, to which Caesar can’t even think of a response. “I mean, there’s just no way! It’s an AI, for cripes’ sake!”

“... It’s quite possible that the man could’ve been the voice actor template for the ringmaster. Or even worse.” Caesar ponders, which catches Agnes’ attention.

“...What do you mean by that?”

“....”

“Kinger.”

Caesar sighs again. “I’ve worked at this dreadful company for 7 years, Rags. The unethical things I’ve seen done by this company to push digital limitations is beyond anything you might be able to psychologically handle.”

“Like what?” Maggie reveals herself from behind the corner to the duo, which makes Caesar scream in a comically high-tone.

“HOW MUCH OF THAT DID YOU HEAR, SPY!?” Caesar was quick to point his metallic ball-point pen from his pockets, but Agnes stops and protests against him pointing a blunt object at someone.

“Kinger, stop! This isn’t- like the circus- You could seriously hurt my cousin!!!”

“Just tell me! I’m not gonna tell anyone! Well- actually, I am going to tell my friend-”

After a bit of fighting for the pen, Agnes wins as Caesar gives up, choosing to drag his face down with his hands and turn away from the girls, as he kneels on his knees to try and regain his breath, old age clearly coming to bite him in the ass. “Mags, I can explain, but you CAN’T tell ANYONE about this. Not even your friends.”

“No Agnes, you don’t understand!” This is it. After one month of roads that lead to nowhere, this could be a possible clue for the gang. Plus, she can’t deny that she’s curious about this whole topic. All Maggie needed to do was to pick her words precisely as possible. Agnes’ eyes scan her cousin’s face for a semblance of mischief, but sees none. 

“What do I not understand, then?” she asks.

“ That I think you guys and my friends have a common goal .”

Bonus art!

Chapter Text

GASP!

GODdammit, it’s ANOTHER nightmare. She’s so not going to get used to that at all, especially when her recent bad dream today was about being grinded up by the AI as punishment for her failure to entertain the “audience” (just faceless mannequins that will forever give her automatonophobia), to make a blue-and-red Jester-themed pie out of her grounded remains.

Bleugh. The past few days she’s been having pie-related nightmares. It usually ends with her being the pie, or accidentally eating a pie made out of her friends, or even just- straight up, a Caine pie. Yes, it’s as worse as you think it is. That one takes the cake of being “the most bizarre” of the mix.

Her thoughts especially haven't been so nice as of recently too. Not that they’ve ever been nice to her in the first place, but she really wishes she just couldn’t be reminded of a certain figure whenever he spoke in his sing-song tone. She swears she can even taste blood from her mouth. She may have bitten her cheek or her tongue in fear. And her head feels like something is trying to protrude out of it. Like a tumor constantly smashing against the corners of her skull, and the knocking doesn’t help it at all.

A few more moments pass and there’s still that dreadful knocking continuing, with the very much annoying tone of someone familiar.

“PAUUUUULINEEEE!!!” sigh.

It’s Caine. Not the dentures Caine, the human one. How did he…?

Right. 

They kidnapped him about a few days ago, and then let him go on his merry way. Of course he knows where she lives now. Frankly, she’s honestly mostly surprised he even came back, considering the rough impression this place offered. But it does goes to show that he’s willing to put an effort for their cause.

So, with a hesitant shuffle, she goes to open the door to a practically beaming Caine. There’s still the bandage on his head on where he was previously bleeding out of, and Pomni has an urge to ask if it’s healed, but drops it. He's still wearing magenta-colored bathrobes though... she can't tell if his fashion sense is just too messed up, or he's trying to start a new trend.

His smile was so wide with teeth so white, that she couldn't help but squint her drowsy eyes to shield it from the bright onslaught. (there’s a pit forming on her stomach with that smile.)

She leans at the door frame, to keep her balance as she rubs her face down, clearly annoyed. “What do you want.”

“WELL! I just realized that I NEVER gave you MY contact! How are we to discuss pinpointing where your friends might be, if we had NO way of keeping in touch, besides my workplace?” He smiles even more as he tapped his walking cane, and Pomni feels that her eyes are touching the surface of the sun the more she looks at this man’s ear-to-ear grin. “I’d rather not repeat you holding up the line, as much as I’d like to help out in this situation!” he finishes, and Pomni rubs her face at his point, slightly embarrassed. “Oh… right.” She absent-mindedly realizes.

“So, may I come in ?” He gestures to the inside of her apartment, and Pomni is shaken out of her drowsy stupor.

“U-uh- Can you give me a few minutes? I need to- you know-” She points at her messy hair, and Caine enthusiastically nods.

“Take your time, SUPERstar!” He winks and finger guns at her, and Pomni visibly cringes as she closes the door.

The girl sloppily makes her way to the bathroom, and turns on the shower to freshen up. And Pomni… can’t help but just think about how different this Caine is actually, from the digital one. For starters, this Caine was respecting her boundaries very well, while the digital Caine just did whatever the fuck he wanted to the circus cast, and appeared at wherever he wanted. 

Like their rooms.

Sure, they both had the trademark obnoxious and overzealous showmaster tone, but the human Caine seemed to be more understanding, and empathetic of their pitiful situation, while the digital version could only care less, unless it’s talking about the adventure of the day.

Hm. Maybe it was the “unfinished” aspect of the AI, that it could merely poorly imitate the surface level that the REAL one was? Maybe this Caine wasn’t actually so bad as she was initially making him out to be. As long as he doesn’t pull the flirting card again, she can tolerate him.

She turns off the shower, brushes her teeth and dresses up in more proper clothing. As she approached the door, she could hear Caine… singing?

She pressed her ear onto the door, but it still sounded fully muffled.

To her knowledge, he was singing… jazz? All on his own, and he was even imitating the instruments as if it was a one-man acapella show. Technically speaking it was, and he was so engrossed in his own little world to even notice her chuckle of amusement at the door. As annoying as his tone was when he over-exaggeratingly applied it at every single talking moment of his life, she couldn’t deny: the man had a knack for singing, and he sure did have the voice, and the talent to go with it.

Subconsciously wanting to hear his song much clearer, she slowly opened the door. Perhaps it was the clicking of the door’s locks, or the very subtle creak of the hinges, (unfortunately) Caine immediately notices that he’s been caught in the middle of his solo jamming session with his cane as a "microphone". And so he quickly spins around, but not out of embarrassment, just out of acknowledgement that Pomni was already finished fixing herself.

“Ah! You are looking VERY prim and proper, my dear! You don't happen to have a glass of water in there, do you? I'm a little thirsty!” 

… Actually, he's still a bit of an idiot just like the digital Caine is.

██████████

“Idiot!” A groan escapes from one’s mouth. 

“I better not catch you around my shop again, or you’re getting the cane!”

A walking stick was chucked towards the direction of the man who was frantically running away. Another person, presumably a worker, quickly ran up to retrieve the object thrown, to give it back to its owner.

They were actively scowling in anger (mostly annoyance), so the worker decided to get back to work as immediately as possible. A bell rings from another man in the shop, sporting a black and purple hoodie. They grunt in frustration, turning to walk towards the countertop with a limp from the prosthetic limb they possessed.

“Welcome to Z’s Body Art Salon, how may we help you today.” The greeting was as monotonous and lifeless as their expression, contrasting the sharp smile of the customer.

“Well, well, well. Looks like I DID hit a jackpot today.” The man flicks the toothpick to the other side of their mouth with their tongue and maintains the smile, the owner feels their cane drop to the side, their eyes wide-eyed.

“Oh, hell fucking NO.”

██████████

“Okay, hold on, just- slow down.” Pomni stops Caine from his train of thought. “Repeat all of that again.”

Poor Pomni was slowly regretting asking how he came up with the AI in the first place.

“A- It’s actually very simple! The drawing you showed me last night, was a result of an AI template being created, specifically extracted from my SUB- CON SCIOUS NESS!” Caine explains while pressing on the sides of his forehead and mimicking a trickling explosion, letting the last word drag on as if it held a magical mystery.

“What the fuck does any of that even mean?” Pomni curses in confusion.

“Language!” Caine immediately chides, pointing at her as if his finger was a pistol drawn from the hip holster of a cowboy. The woman immediately makes a connection to a very, VERY specific character in her head. “But my dear, it means that I was strapped down to a chair, got my brains sucked out in order to make as accurate of a human brain copy was possible!” He tries to simplify, and fortunately, Pomni… kinda? Gets it. That’s a check on her assumption at the shower earlier.

“Okay, but why? ” She asks. 

“ONE, saving resources! TWO, cutting costs! THREEEEE, for a more realistic and believableeeeee digital IMMERSIONNN!” He waves his hand like he was trying to entertain a three-year-old in a birthday party.

Pomni pinches the bridge of her nose. The first two reasons were definitely what any company would try and do. But the third reasoning? She can’t put it together.

“It’s just a game. A game that you and your brother created to trap people in. Why would you care about making it “immersive”?” She quotes with her index and middle fingers.

Caine fiddles with his thumbs, and sighs. “I-it was never my intent to trap people inside the game and psychologically break them! My brother and I started this company with hopes of pushing the gaming genre further past it’s limits, as we saw a growing potential in the market!” He excuses. 

“He had the idea that in order to fully make it immersive, the company could create an AI template out of my subconscious! And to increase gameplay time, we could keep the players technically glued to their headsets!”

“Of course, I… protested against this as it would be a violation of rights, and that’s when he… gave me the boot.” A more solemn tone makes it’s way to his throat. “...I’ve been working retail since, just to make ends meet. And it’s all because I wanted to do the right thing for once.”

Pomni feels a twinge of pity towards the man.

“So… why not rebel against him? Why have you just been… wasting your life working at a shitty retail?” The former jester notices the visible discomfort the man had the moment she swore, but she doesn’t point it out and instead makes a mental note.

“I-I did! I hid the AI template very deep in the company files, somewhere where I thought he would never check for. And I!” Caine pipes while lifting his walking aid, but he slows and puts it down. “I… can’t say anything about this to the public, or they’ll all think of me as a nutcase, salty CEO. Can you imagine the headlines?” There isn’t a word that escapes her mouth. She’s silent.

“... Just dealing with the cards I’ve been dealt with sounded like the best option, that’s all.” He finishes, choosing to stare at the floor at a poor attempt of hiding his forlornness and avoiding eye contact. Pomni can’t shake off the feeling that he’s not exactly telling the full-story, but decides not to pry too much into it. The man was already sharing too much information all in the span of one morning.

Sometimes, Pomni wished she wasn’t so… physically sensitive, so she could comfort people normally.

But then, she has an idea. “You know, I don’t think we’ve properly introduced ourselves. I think this is a great time to let one another know more about ourselves, don’tcha think?” Pomni offers. “I’m Pauline. You can just call me Pau, or… Pom.” 

Caine slowly beams once more. “Caine. I very much like trains, and 20’s swing.”

“How’s the noggin?” She imitates knocking at her own head, then points at his.

As if on cue, his head throbs painfully at the action (despite Pomni nowhere being near him in the first place) that he accidentally drops his walking stick, but he hisses under his breath to hide it.

“Uh, faring better than yesterday, at least!” Caine knew he was a BAD liar, and could only really dance around the truth. But this attempt makes Pomni roll her eyes and groan.

“Alright, let me see it.”

“T-there’s really no need! I’m doing GREAAAAAAAAAAAAT, superstar!” He insists while waving his hands around, but starts sweating.

“Dude, the bandage you did looks sloppy. Can you please just let me do this? If I don’t, it might get worse. It MIGHT already be worse.” Pomni crossed her arms, determined to AT LEAST fix him up as a way to return the favor. Caine is comically offended though, and gasps. 

“Why- I NEVER!” He crosses his arms in puffy ‘anger’ at the ‘insult’, although he goes wide-eyed when Pomni isn’t joking about it possibly being worse. He frantically looks around to think of an excuse, that his head IS getting better, and that he IS a good first-aid applier (no, no he’s not), but succumbs and just nods.

But not without crossing his legs and arms, and pouting immaturely, this time actually being slightly puffy about his handiwork being treated like this. Hmph!

Pomni rolls her eyes, and opens one of her cabinets in the living room. She retrieves a first aid kit, and moves a chair to place it down on. Caine does eventually let go of his puffy attitude, unable to keep being angry about it no matter how much he tried. Though he does sit in discomfort while eyeing the kit intensely, as if he’s afraid that it might suddenly jump and attack him. This momentary vulnerability allows Pomni to start peeling off the bandage dressing, slowly unraveling the haphazardly put gauze. She breathes in, and slowly tries to remove the dressing, revealing a relatively small scalp wound, but is still bleeding a little. It’s also formed a bruise around the edges, so Pomni sighs.

“Did you even apply cold compress to this?” She asks, and Caine avoids eye contact, but it’s clear from his wide-eyed expression that he was thinking ‘You’re supposed to do that!?’.

“Oh my god,” She huffs in response, heading to the kitchen to grab an ice pack, and some towels.

As she did so, the redheaded man explored the woman’s living room, cane tapping to the ground at every step he took. It was simple, but the thing that catched his eye mostly were the drawings pinned to a corkboard that Pomni had made. Caine never did like staying put in one place for too long, or he’ll end up thinking very bad and VERY sad thoughts that very much do not help his current state! However, this ended up getting him a scolding from Pomni, who immediately commands him to sit back down because his head wound is still fricking exposed.

Not wanting to face the woman’s wrath again, Caine immediately takes a seat back down, and profusely apologizes. With that said, she chucks him the ice pack, and instructs him to place it near the wound, where the bruise is forming. He follows, but feels the icy pain that makes him jerk it away.

“You’re supposed to hold it in place, you know.”

“It HURTS though!”

“The ice needs to unclot the blood forming on the bump of your head. Seriously, put the ice back on your head!”

Grumbling, he does so, and this time it stays. He cringes and hisses in pain like he did the first time, but he does learn that it gets easier the longer it’s in place. Pomni uses the towel to wipe and carefully pat away at the blood and clean away at the wound.

She could already feel her senses protesting against this, so in order to avoid awkwardness from her touch aversion –as well as teaching him a new survival tip–, she tries explaining to Caine that he needs to put in some fresh anti-bacterial properties to properly disinfect it and instructs him how to do it (which earns a comical yelp of pain from him –one that vaguely resembled a certain cartoon cat from the 1950’s scream– once it was applied). Then, with a spare gauze as her visual aid on how to patch it up properly. Unlike the previous self-care attempt, which has already been put in a bag then tossed into the trash.

By the time they’re done, the patch up, despite being done by a novice, was already a thousand times better than the initial one.

“There. That should make it, and you, feel better.”

Caine tilts his head in curiosity, and sure enough, there’s not much pain compared to before. Suddenly, he finds himself thankful that Pomni offered to redress the wound/bruise in the first place (even though she ended up teaching him in the end, but not that he’s complaining, that’s just another perk of this situation). 

“WOW, You are a MAGICIAN! I feel loads better!” He even gets up, and taps his foot happily like a broadway dancer.

“Calm down there, happy feet. Don’t overdo it.” Pomni is quick to remind him, and he nods eagerly. As the brunette started pacing around once more and putting her index and thumb fingers on her chin, trying to rack her brains for anything considering how to find the other circus members, Caine approached the board of drawings once more, and observed it’s contents.

There was one of a rabbit with a wide cheshire-like grin, a tragedy mask made out of slithering ribbons, a chess piece draped in royal medieval robes, and something he could only assume was a take-apart-and-put-back-together toy of random assorted limbs.

Of course, he spies another drawing of the digital template of himself (with scribbles of various curses and insults to it, which he actually lowkey found amusing), but quite ironically, he finds himself fascinated by the rag doll with stringed hair, and a singular button eye. Even though it was the most normal looking one of the assortment of cartoon character drawings, there was a lot of details and thought put into it, and Caine can just feel the effort radiating off of it. A single heart was placed next to the doll’s features, and Caine slightly tilts his head, wondering if this doll was somehow, very special to Pomni.

He squints as he reads. “I hope I don’t forget you completely.” on the paper. Caine reaches to try and pry the drawing off of the pin, but Pomni is quick to warn him against it.

“DON’T.” She says “Just… look at it if you want, but please. Hands off.” Caine looks back and forth once, and nods. Pomni finally gives him her first genuine smile, even if it was small. Caine feels a little proud that he’s managed to do a miniscule thing.

She looks back to Caine, who is sporting a warm smile. He points at the same drawing of Ragatha.

“This one of your friends from the Digital Circus?” he analyzes. Pomni slowly makes her way over to the drawing, and caresses it. “Yeah.”

She removes it carefully from the pin, and she hovers her hand at the cheek part. “One of the few remaining memories of mine that resembled her the most.” She longingly sighs, and Caine recognizes the tone.

“She must’ve been one REALLY special gal.” He muses out loud, and Pomni nods. “These drawings are my last few remaining memories of the people I met in the circus. Everyday at every moment that I’m awake, those memories slip further and further into the abyss in my mind, and I’m afraid that I won’t have anything to remember them by soon.” He mouths an ‘o’, as he realizes why she refused to let him take one for further inspection.

“I’ve already forgotten their voices. HER voice. Their laughter no longer bounces on the edges of my head like the first day. I can’t remember the special things they liked to do if we weren’t busy “adventuring” our lives over. I can’t… remember the way things were between me and her. I’m even afraid that in only a couple of days, nothing will remain anymore. Just an empty promise with no context supporting it. Just… deja vu on a past that never happened.” There’s a heavy sense of forlornness in her tone, something that was difficult to ignore. Caine lifted his arm, but quickly remembered, so he put it down.

Pomni noticed this, but was thankful for both the thought, and the amount of respect and control he had to remember.

“Do you… wish to delve further about it? To, you know, help you refrain from fully forgetting?” He asked, as Pomni put the drawing back in place exactly where she took it from.

“... This chess piece? I can’t remember his name anymore, but I do recall him being… fascinated by bugs somehow. When I was too busy looking for an exit, he would mention many types of bugs and ask if I’ve seen any.” She warmingly recollected. “I even remember the time that he accidentally let a couple of insects loose, including a.. Weirdly-colored centipede?” She laughed, as her gaze returned to the image of the doll.

“She… hated? … Those things. Was even deathly afraid of them, I think. Because I remember I offered to remove it when her room got infested by the bugger”  Smiling, she continues. “Why? I just knew that I didn’t like the creepy crawlies, but something inside me just wanted to suck it up and impress her, you know? Show that I’m not afraid to deal with these creatures if I had to do it for someone, for her .” ‘and to make it up to her for everything.’, she added in her head.

Her expression changes to light-hearted annoyance. “But this guy .” she points at the rabbit with the grinning expression, “This bozo thought it was a funny idea to add a spider to my back.” She chuckles again. It’s weird how the brain works by making you remember embarrassing and bad moments of your life in good detail, but the good ones in vague details.

“Well, needless to say it wasn’t just her that ended up crying and screaming that day.” She pointed at the drawing of the slithery tragedy mask. The two share a look, then proceed to burst into laughter.

“Sounds like you had a pretty SWELL time!”

“Oh believe me, at the time? I don’t think it was AT ALL.” She sighs contentedly. “But now, it’s… actually surprising what I’d give to get enjoyable memories like those back. Just to look back at them and laugh about it, you know? I’d hate to admit it, but the circus was actually kinda great when we’re all not so focused about NOT dying on an “adventure”, or just not wallowing in our own self-pity being stuck in a weird headset, or even…. When he’s around.” She explains, and Caine looks back at the corkboard, trying to engraine their features to his memory as much as he could.

“... That’s why I want to find them so bad. If they’re still stuck in there, somewhere, then I’d do the same thing that my friends did and pry them out of there. There may not have been a physical exit in that place, but… at least I know how to help them escape now.”

The man had a look of contemplation on his face. It was like he was trying to envision every information relayed to him. After a moment of not speaking and blankly staring at the pieces of drawings pinned to the corkboard, his mouth opens. 

“If it… even means anything, anything at all, I truly, truly am sorry, Pauline.” He said in his calmest tone yet, and Pomni was caught off guard by this. She couldn’t help but spare him a questioning glance from the sudden tone, or lack, thereof. Perhaps he noticed, so he continued. “Not just you, but your friends as well. If I had known that my digital duplicate would be the reason for damaging psyches, especially at THIS magnitude, then I would’ve never proceeded on agreeing with my brother to create him. And perhaps, all of this trouble would’ve never happened in the first place, and you all would be free from pain. A pain that I caused, unknowingly.”

Pomni kept staring. Is he… speaking in a more somber and genuine tone, like he did the night he was kidnapped? It’s a little hard to tell, but she desperately wants to believe that he really is empathetic about her and the others’ situation. And that he’s not manipulating her to get something out of this.

There’s a major internal conflict happening inside of Pomni’s head at this moment. She tried to find logic in this situation, and explain Caine’s mannerisms based on his behavior. She squeezed her brows in concentration, trying to find reason. Anything that would give her an edge to whether or not Caine was doing this out of sympathy, or a much more sinister plot.

Caine so far has been understanding, patient, and just… overall, pretty goofy, to be completely honest. The most genuinely upset he’d ever been is whenever the topic mentions his brother . Who apparently, usurped him out of his position, according to Bernie. A reasonable choice to be angry, yes, but is the anger coming from selfishness, pride, greed and ego, or just pure familial hurt, broken trusts and betrayal? Now THAT was the true question.

It was… a little hard to read businessman thought patterns. Although, with the time she’s spent with Caine, his over-boisterous and cheery persona, it seems that he’s more of a performer than a business-type of guy, which… means that he strives for making something that the audience might actually enjoy, rather than the financial advantage and opportunities it could offer. In fact, that title seems to belong to his brother, IF there is no biasness to this situation.

That pretty much lines up with his reasoning earlier. So far, the odds are in his favor.

Caine pondered, though. He wondered if it was worth asking this question too soon, but he just needed to know, somehow.

“What did… you know, digital me, do… for it to get this bad?” He notices Pomni hitch her breath at the question and freeze in place, so he starts flailing his arms around, panicking that he may have chosen the wrong words, and blurted them out too soon. So, in classic ‘I may have made a mistake’ fashion, he tries to take it back. “O-OF COURSE, IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO ANSWER, YOU CAN IGNO-”

For a moment, Pomni looked angry. Like, REALLY angry. And he wanted to shield his eyes and ears to prepare for an outburst, a cold remark about just how much his digital imprint made everyone’s lives like the ninth circle of hell, but instead the woman chose to sigh.

“... To be honest, he was just like you. I mean, like you, I KNOW he meant well for the players, but the pain… the suffering… the horrors we had to go through with whatever his idea of “fun” was, wasn’t worth forgiving him over it.” She explains bitterly, and Caine understands.

“Does that mean you hate me for his decisions?” He asks, preparing for another cold remark. Caine would understand if she hated him. It wasn’t the first time.

Instead, she smiles softly at him.

“No.” 

“...No..?”

“I don’t think you deserve to be hated for something you didn’t do in the first place.”