Chapter Text
Zooble spawned into the room.
A…café of some sort? Caine’s wooden mannequin placeholders populated most of the tables, gesturing to their respective partners as if engaging in conversation. But as they currently lacked voices, the room was deathly quiet. All they could do was hopelessly loop their talking animations.
The ringmaster himself was seated at a table by the window in the middle of the room. His feet barely came halfway to the floor, Zooble noted with some amusement. Bubble floated in the chair opposite, grinning in contentment.
At first, Caine didn’t move or react in any way. He was positioned stiffly, almost as if lost in thought. Zooble wondered if he bluescreened - and then suddenly he animated again, gaze locked on the newcomer. “Zooble! What are you doing here?” he asks, confusion lilting his voice.
Zooble shrugged, placing their mismatched hands on their hips. “I got bored. What are you doing? Having a date with Bubble?”
“What? No!” Caine swiftly popped the sentient bubble, then gestured in welcome. “Come, sit!”
With a snap of his fingers, the chair lifted into the air and zoomed across the room. It scooped Zooble up, leaving the toy only seconds to grasp for dear life before it raced back to its original position. Caine looked rather pleased with himself as Zooble’s chair gently touched all four legs back down.
Zooble started to regret not turning around and leaving. The way Caine so callously flung objects and the circus cast around never failed to irritate them. It left them feeling like nothing more than a toy.
Perhaps sensing that he made some kind of misstep, Caine schooled his expression into something more neutral. “You know, Zooble, I know a great cure for boredom…”
“I’m not going on an adventure,” Zooble replied flatly.
Abandoning the aloof façade as quickly as he assumed it, Caine dramatically dropped his head against the table with a loud bang . “Why not? Do you hate me?” he wailed, eyes big and watery.
Even said in jest, it was a tough question to answer. Catch any one of the circus crew on a bad day and they’d happily rip their ringmaster to shreds. Some, like Kaufmo and Pomni, were of the opinion he tormented them on purpose like some sort of sadistic prison warden. Others, like Jax and Gangle, thought him a harmless windbag whose idea of ‘fun’ just wasn’t always that fun.
And Zooble?
Zooble thought Caine was everything they thought he was and more.
Their therapy session, though nonsensical and frustrating, had revealed more about Caine than perhaps he intended. His powers, though he often used them frivolously, also had the possibility of ripping apart their world. And who knew what else he could do if he wasn’t so happy-go-lucky? Just as easily as he sent them on silly adventures, Caine could put them through some real torture.
But he was quite adamant when he told Zooble that he never intended any torment or suffering. In fact, he seemed appalled - even angry - at the very idea. But when confronted with the possibility his adventures were indirectly causing harm, he went nearly comatose. That memory still made them shiver. What if Caine hadn’t snapped out of it when he did?
Zooble stared at the empty plate in front of them. Did they hate him?
“No. I don’t.”
They hadn’t even realized they said it aloud until they noticed Caine’s eyes go wide. “Really?” he cooed, his voice reaching pitches far outside of his normal range.
Zooble wanted to deny it, but they couldn’t. They
don’t
hate him. He was frustrating and annoying, sure. He never remembered any of the deep emotional secrets they confided in him, and then persistently badgered them about the same problems day after day. Every interaction with him was a pointless cycle with no escape. And even without participating in his adventures, Zooble still felt like a hamster in his wheel.
But at the same time…they could feel how desperate Caine was to connect with them. The frustration he felt in himself when he kept guessing the answer wrong.
They do like him. They want to have a connection with him. They want to.
But something always gets in the way.
“Yes. Really.”
Caine sat back, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. He had the body language of a blushing schoolgirl. “Is that why you came to spend time with me?” he pressed coyly.
He was pushing his luck, but Zooble amused him for the moment. “Well, it’s pretty rare to see you so chill. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sit still for this long.”
“Oh!” Caine seemed surprised - impressed? - that they noticed. He paused thoughtfully. “Hmm, I never noticed. But without you and the rest of the gang around, I suppose I don’t move too much. That way, you can enjoy the adventure!”
“Huh?” Zooble tilted their head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, for those who participate in them, anyway,” Caine said pointedly while averting his gaze.
“No, no, I mean…how would moving around affect the adventure?” Zooble asked.
Caine scratched his upper gums awkwardly. “Well…it’s kind of a long, boring, technical explanation…”
“I want to hear it.”
Caine stared at them for a moment, seemingly startled that Zooble would be interested in the Circus’s inner workings. He considered it for another short moment, but finally relented. “Well, the Amazing Digital Circus™, as fantastical as it may appear, has only a limited amount of processing power! So while you superstars are off on an adventure, I put as many resources towards that process as I can. Because you choose to stay behind, Zooble, I can’t unload the Circus itself. But I can limit my own processes. I normally despawn my model entirely, but…” He put a hand on his lower gums, gazing sorrowfully out the window. “I suppose I was feeling a little melancholy today…”
Zooble blinked. “I-...wow. Sometimes I forget how much you have to handle behind the scenes,” they admitted sheepishly. “So it’s kind of a pain in the [BOING!] when I don’t go on adventures, huh…”
Caine waved his hands. “No, no, nothing like that. I can totally handle it! It’s just that, well, my own processes aren’t really needed while an adventure is running, so I optimize where I can.”
“That’s why you don’t go with them either?” Zooble asked.
Again, Caine looked taken aback. “Ah-” he stuttered, much like when Pomni first asked him how to leave. “W-Well…I don’t go on the adventures because they’re not for me! They’re for you: the players!”
“Players?” Zooble questioned, cocking a brow. “I mean, what’s stopping you from tagging along?”
Caine froze. What was stopping him? Well, technically, nothing. But that wasn’t how it worked. He was the ringmaster . The players were his troupe. Why wasn’t Zooble understanding him?
Once again he felt the same hopeless frustration creep up, a regular sentiment when he spoke with Zooble in particular. What weren’t they understanding about each other? Would they ever understand?
He wanted to understand them more than anything. Perhaps they wanted to understand him too.
“I’m…not needed,” he finally settled on, a limp explanation though it was. “Listen, Zooble, I see your point about forcing you to go when I don’t participate myself, and it’s noted-”
“I’m not talking about that,” Zooble cut off with a shake of their head.
Caine could have screamed. Again. It’s happening all over again. “Then what are you talking about?” he pleaded.
“I…” Zooble seemed confused themselves, leaning back as they considered the line of conversation. “...Aren’t you a player, too?” they wondered aloud.
An awkward silence followed as Caine stared at them. The mannequins froze in place.
“...No!” he replied, eyes wide in surprise.
Zooble narrowed their eyes. “Then what are you?”
“Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity!” Caine answered like it was a trivia question on a game show, adding the sound effect for emphasis. “But ‘Caine’ makes me sound more professional.”
“ Artificial-?! ” Zooble swallowed back their scream, eyes widening as the pieces finally fell into place. Caine wasn’t a player. He wasn’t a human at all. He was an AI - a computer! So their problems with communication…every time they had told him to ‘forget it’...
Oh [SPROING].
“My dear, are you alright?” Caine’s voice nudged them out of their spiraling thoughts. Zooble wrenched their gaze back to the - to the AI - to see that his teeth had upturned in worry.
Well, how could anyone blame her for thinking he was a human when he acted so much like one? What was that all about, anyway?! Classic Caine: for every answer, there’s a million more questions.
“I…” Zooble shook their head again as they stared at him. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before.”
Caine seemed to shrink under their gaze. If he had a difficult time parsing Zooble normally, he truly didn’t have a clue now. “Surprise…?” he tried, shrugging his hands out. He wasn’t attempting to hide it, but it was the only response he deemed remotely appropriate for the situation.
Zooble only sighed, sinking back into their seat. A yellow hand rose to their face as they rubbed the space between their eyes.
Caine shuffled closer to the edge of his chair, watching them carefully. It seemed like they had made some sort of revelation about him, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the conclusions they had come up with. But where did that leave him? No closer to understanding Zooble than before.
His shoulders fell as he watched them. What would it take? He’d do anything. But the more he tried, the more he ended up pushing Zooble away.
Was it because he wasn’t human…?
The awkward silence lasted what seemed like forever. The notification alert from Caine’s WackyWatch broke it, but he didn’t need to look at it to know what it was.
Zooble - wicked smart Zooble - also knew. “The others are coming back?” they guessed.
Caine looked at them, trying once more to deduce their mood now that they saw fit to meet his eyes. They looked…tired. That was the only word he could use to describe it. “That’s right. You can stay here if you want, I’ll be right-”
“I’ll come with you, Caine,” Zooble said softly.
Caine fell silent again as he watched them stand, searching for their balance on their mismatched legs. After a moment, he floated up into the air and offered his hand in a gentlemanly bow.
Zooble looked unimpressed.
They took it anyway.
“Heeeey, Zoobie! How’d your date with Caine go?”
“JAX, YOU MOTHER[BONK]-”
As Zooble cussed out the rabbit with enough censor bars to wallpaper the Circus, Caine simply floated there thoughtfully.
A date with Zooble?
A date. With Zooble.
A date!
Oh, he liked the sound of that.