Archive of Our Own

A year ago, Dylan pulled off a headset that had kept him trapped for what felt like four years.

Throughout that year, a lot had happened. He wouldn’t say he was the same person, and he definitely was not Jax anymore.

If nothing else, he spent a lot more on airline tickets than he ever did before. Portland wasn’t so bad, he’d decided, not when it was warm and June looped her arm through his as they walked along the pier. This was going to be the longest he ever saw her for, even if it was far from time just for them; considering the circumstances, he couldn’t really complain. It was an occasion worth taking off work for.

They were going to Sacramento.

All of them were going to Sacramento. Dylan wasn’t a friend group type of person, and he definitely wasn’t a friend group vacation type of person, so the thought made him feel a little ridiculous. This was far from a normal friend group, though, if they could even be called that. They had a purpose. They’d all taken off from their various jobs for long enough to dent their bank accounts; it was the most time he’d taken off consecutively ever. He was really betting on it being worth it.

Two months ago, Devon had finally scraped Gangle out of the metaphorical hole she’d fallen into. Just as predicted, she’d convinced herself none of the Circus was real. She’d been added to their group chat with a png of a cat as her profile picture, and Dylan wouldn’t have had it any other way.

A month later, Devon announced a new progress update: They’d found Kinger. They’d tracked him down to the single console in Sacramento, leaving flaws considering the wife that June swore he had, but the IP address of the console and the profile itself didn’t lie. They had a massive city to scope through.

Somehow, with methods that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know, Devon had actually tracked him down. Amazingly, he was only fifty-two.

On his resume was a project with the company Caine & Abel, that of which had haunted all of them for a year. It was the source of the Circus, yet there was seemingly no information about it. It was all locked up tight. Between finding the last of them and possibly solving the mystery, it wasn’t a hard decision to finally get all of them together. Dylan and June never did meet Gangle, and Devon never met Ragatha.

Gangle was Olive, who still managed a mcdonalds in florida, of all places. He wondered if she was as domineering a manager as she was in the digital world.

It only took two weeks of their group chat actually being active and him having to interact with her for him to break, sending her a text with the apology that was supposed to be done in person-- at a meetup that was never guaranteed, not when he’d never been close with her in the first place. June and Alice-- Pomni and Ragatha-- were one thing, and Zooble had shown up at the door like a cat falling out of the sky, but everyone else? No one had the expendable funds to spend for that.

Right now, they did. For this. It was important enough. The paragraph had been awkward and formal and all of the things that he never was, but it was something he couldn’t continue on without saying. Olive had responded to his private apology awkwardly, and he wouldn't have blamed her if she didn’t accept it. He stopped making fun of her more than he did anyone else. It didn’t matter if anyone noticed; he was simply glad he’d actually done something about it.

The moment she realized there was something more going on between him and June, the ice thawed. Any complaints he had were quelled by his refusal to be too mean and the fact that she really was older than him, a fact that he used to like to pretend wasn’t true. In the end, no matter how much embarrassment it resulted in, it mended something that never let build before.

With a diploma that he still didn’t know what to do with and the weight of paying tuition off of his back, Dylan threw both he and June’s bags into the trunk of her car. She’d gotten her parents to drive it over, insisting that they do it before he landed no matter how much he said it would be okay for him to meet him. They’d drive for nine hours, timing it the best they could to pick Alice up from the airport, and then complete the drive with her to Sacramento.

They’d find Kinger. They’d all have their moment. Maybe, they’d even find out who the hell Caine & Abel really were. Then they’d all fuck off back to where they’d come from, as healed from the digital hell as they could ever be.

He had June, though. He wasn’t letting her go, and he didn’t think she would, either. Her apartment was officially a place he was comfortable, a permanent toothbrush and a few of his shirts left behind from the various trips he’d made across the country. She’d visited him once, insistent on attending his graduation that barely he even wanted to go to, but they both decided that they liked the privacy of her place better. They’d packed lots of snacks, canned coffee, and blankets into her car.

She smiled at him from where she was leaning her head on the top of her car, hair pulled up into a bun for comfort before the roadtrip. They’d take turns, June refusing to let him drive as much as he volunteered to do.

It was surreal to think that he’d met her a jester and him a purple rabbit, and here they were, going to see everyone else. Here he was, undoubtedly in love with her. He bumped his shoulder into hers as he circled around the car, earning himself a brief kiss.

He’d gone on one long road trip in his life, and he’d been so young that he barely remembered the finer details. His parents had driven when he still had some semblance of parents, and he’d stared out of the window, bored out of his mind. The drive they were about to make was not a short one.

June started out driving, the playlist they’d spent half of last night making beginning its long runthrough. If they didn’t skip anything, it’d last them the whole drive. That felt like a slim chance. Dylan pushed his seat back so that he could stretch his legs as far as possible and curled up with one of the blankets, the fall air of Portland making him feel even more tired.

He was the one to suggest a game, once they’d run out of the general information that they had to share since the last time they saw each other. He gave her a weird stare for the license plate game that was absolutely boring and difficult to tally points for. She whacked him for suggesting rock paper scissors, both of her hands gripping the steering wheel.

Not that much had changed, not really, no matter how much everything had changed. They’d always be Jax and Pomni to some extent. He was okay with that, content with everything that had come from it. They’d never be the same, but they didn’t have to be new people, either. They were simply June and Dylan.

They skipped three songs in a row. They sang along to the next. Then, four more were skipped. Their playlist was doomed.

He cracked open the first can of coffee for June.

“What about thirty one questions?”

She snorted, “I think that’ll be a little redundant.”

“I’m sure there’s something out there you can come up with.”

He received another glance, irritated and mocking and not at all revealing of her real feelings. It made him grin.

“Fine. Question one. Do you love Scuba yet?”

He laughed before he could stop it, her hand batting at his knee as he tried to prop his legs on the dash board. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to, but they were already cramping, and the time had barely ticked by.

“I don't wanna play anymore,” he looked away.

“There’s my answer.”

“It’s not what you want it to be.”

“You let him sleep on top of you last night.”

“I don’t let that creature do anything, he stakes his claim. I’m a victim, really.”

“Okay, sure,” she shook her head, smiling. “I’ll be sure to write to HR about that.”

“Tell them I want him fired,” he waved his hand. “Okay, my turn. Have you ever smelled chowder or bread on me after I worked?”

“I never see you after you work.”

“That’s why it’s so important for me to find out.”

“No, Dylan, the smell of bread and chowder does not last through a shower. I doubt it’d last through an airport, either.”

He breathed a melodramatic sigh of relief, skipping the next song. She went back to it, and he let it play.

“Good. Your turn.”

“If you could move anywhere in the world, where would it be?”

He looked at her, his heart squeezing once. Her eyes were on the road, fingers drumming along to the song, as if she didn’t even realize what she’d just asked him. She always knew, no matter how good at hiding it she was. She was biting her cheek.

“Gee, I sure wonder.”

A smile grew on her face, her eyes darting to him momentarily.

“You could’ve said some beautiful beach somewhere, with clear waters and white sand. Or a place where you can see the stars. Or-”

“Sure,” he cut her off, brown eyes meeting his once again. “Only if you were there.”

She sighed, the sound almost like a huff, despite the smile she was trying to tamp down. It wasn’t a confirmation, nor a request or offer, but it was as big as three little words that he found too corny to say. He’d go wherever she went. If he could see her every day, he would, and he liked the idea of a world where he could someday. They had it once, as Digital as it was, and as dense as he’d been. It felt like limits were impossible when they’d met in such a place. He meant it; he’d move anywhere for her.

There were still no words to describe them, no labels he cared to put on something so meaningful. He didn’t care what people thought, and he didn’t need anything to make sense more than it did in his own head. June had said the same thing, once, in words of her own.

He’d excused himself at work to answer a panicked call from her once, left with no choice but to stutter out that it was from his girlfriend; Scuba had gotten out, and even though he couldn’t do anything about it from Atlanta, she’d called him for no reason and every reason at all. He apologized at length for the label two weeks later, to which she said she really couldn’t care less. It said everything that needed to be said. If she ever wanted that name, he could give it, but if neither of them cared, that worked, too.

She made him happy, and that was all that really mattered. He liked making her happy.

“What would be your last meal if you knew you were about to die?” She asked at one point, after their fingers had entangled together with the thought of waking up together everyday in their minds.

About five questions later, he asked, “Wear your glasses forever or never have access to a hair tie?”

“Cats or dogs?”

“What do you think mustard, relish, mayo, ketchup, and barbecue sauce would taste like together?”

They knew so much about each other already that the questions got increasingly outlandish. She exercised her Jeopardy knowledge and he pretended he knew even more, pissing her off until she pulled into a gas station and announced it was his turn to drive.

He felt like the married couples in movies who went on long roadtrips, handling silence for hours because they were just that comfortable before saying something mundane that no one else would ever care about, but they did, because they were the married couple in the movie. Maybe it was a more common experience than he thought, but five hours into the road trip he found that he still wasn’t sick of her, and that was a strong feat; it wasn’t surprising in the least bit.

It was around then that Devon and Olive got to Sacramento, having flown in considering the much longer distance they had. The plane tickets were expensive with the holidays slowly approaching, and then he’d have simply met June there, when he wanted a little more time with her. The layovers he’d have dealt with made it worth it to simply fly to Portland, in which case she’d decided they could put her car to use.

June fell asleep in the passenger seat, her second can of coffee untouched in the center console. He stole a small sip. The playlist had taken a turn for the better and the western mountains weren’t so bad, creating impressively beautiful sights despite how often they scared the shit out of him with sharp curves.

It was everything he’d ever hoped for and never thought he would get.

They pulled off the highway for the airport an hour before Alice landed, deciding to get Wendy’s and getting something they guessed that she would like. They’d only seen her that one time in Kentucky, her overbearing, judgy family still too intertwined with her life for her to go frolicking about, nevermind the fact that she was thirty years old. This was a big enough occasion for her to push past them, in one way or another.

June filled up the gas tank while Dylan cleaned up the back seat enough for Alice to have a seat. Then, they waited in the cell lot for her plane to land, sitting on the curb to get some fresh air. The driving was exhausting.

Seeing Alice’s mass of curly hair pulled into a bun atop her head was the biggest relief he’d had all day. She ran to the car, throwing her bag on top of the blanket and snacks before throwing herself in with just as much grace.

“You guys!” She said, sticking her head between them as June pulled them away from the busy California airport.

“Raggy,” he craned his head into the back, waving a hand.

“It’s great to see you, Alice,” June smiled, eyes in the rear view mirror for a long moment, not looking at the cars behind them.

“You too! Thanks so much again for picking me up. I would totally be lost on my own.”

“Oh, I'm sure,” he recalled the food they’d bought her, stretching halfway into the back seat to pull it out from under her bag. “Wendy’s. Hey, you kinda have her hair.”

The rest of the drive wasn’t so bad with Alice chattering their ears off, talking about the plane and Kentucky and how she’d gotten her mom to leave her alone long enough to come out here-- not that it worked that well, but it was the best she managed. June informed Alice that Dylan loved Scuba, a fact that he refuted at every chance. It led into the newest updates about Alice’s horses. He listened to them talk about animals, throwing in dumb comments where he could; it wasn’t that bad.

California sprang to life around them, the city streets familiar yet different in all the usual ways. Dylan regretted not driving, seeing as he was much more accustomed to driving on city streets than June, but she handled fine after she snapped at them both to shut up. Naturally, they hit rush hour traffic on their way into Sacramento.

The hotel that they were all staying in stood tall, a parking garage with a ridiculous daily fee attached. It was the best they could do.

The relief of finally getting to their destination was palpable, his legs officially freed from the confines of the car. It was only the beginning of the evening, everyone wanting to get there in time to find Kinger before he went to bed or anything of the sort. Coordinating five people from across the country wasn’t easy, but they’d done a damn good job.

Single rooms were cheapest, so everyone was scattered around the hotel. Being in the same building was surreal enough; they did not need a group sleepover.

June and Dylan abandoned their bags and leftover snacks in the stiff, clean hotel room that they’d been assigned. They changed into human clothes rather than roadtrip clothes and made their way to the lobby.

They stumbled upon Olive, a sight to see as a human rather than ribbons. Alice had tears in her eyes, one hand set on the shoulder of the person that they once knew as Gangle. They’d seen photos of her, but it was another deal for her to be across the room from them. Devon spotted them, a hand going up.

Olive wasn’t tall like Alice or short like June, simply standing with a dress from hot topic and her hair styled into long braids. She looked so normal, like someone who would have been in the art room at Dylan’s community college. Both of her hands were clutching her phone, eyes dragging away from Alice and all of the words pouring out of her mouth as she saw Dylan and June.

“Ah?” Alice said, backing away slightly. “They’re here!”

“Jax and Pomni…” Olive said, her voice not filtered through technology for the first time ever. “You two look like yourselves.”

He knew exactly what she meant.

“I would hope not,” he smiled, only a little sarcasm in his voice, hand waving in the air because maybe some of the mannerisms he’d learned weren’t all that bad.

“Can’t really argue with him there,” Devon murmured.

“It’s nice… to finally meet you,” June said, smiling. “Cute dress.”

Olive looked between them for a long moment, a smile growing on her face. It always took some time to process; they’d become quite used to it.

“Me too- oh, thank you! Both of you.”

Dylan nodded, the best response he could give; he really was happy.

“Wow… almost all of us are really here,” June said.

They all looked around the group, the wide variety of people that’d been brought together to be trapped in The Amazing Digital Circus. They were normal people with normal jobs, from cities and suburbs and the country. They had pets and siblings and various styles between them. They'd all lived different lives, yet they were all in Sacramento.

He was sure that he wasn’t the only one getting hit with the insanity of such a reality.

“Let’s go find Kinger,” Alice smiled.

In the most bizarre series of events in his life, all five of them packed into June’s car. It was tight, her car barely even seating four, but they made it work. June insisted on driving again since it was her car, and he let Alice take shotgun since he was skinny enough to squeeze against the back door and she was the only other one who’d been in the car before. Devon was beside him, Olive on their other side. Those two definitely didn’t mind the proximity.

June turned on the radio, popular and entirely shitty pop songs crackling to life from the local Sacramento station. She rolled down a window, likely to get some fresh air in the car full of people. They set off toward Kinger’s house, because that was how sure Devon was that Kenneth Murphy was him. They’d heard a snippet of his voice, so he couldn’t argue much.

Alice was rambling about nothing in particular to everyone in the car, trying to fill the silence that had fallen. They always had things to talk about, before. If they didn’t, he left, unless he could make something new to discuss. He never realized how much of a good icebreaker Caine was. Alice took a breath, seemingly running out of words to say, the repetitive responses becoming too much even for her.

“Does this feel like one of Caine’s adventures to anyone else?” He asked flatly.

There was a chorus of deep breaths and yes’. He nodded to himself.

“I miss Caine,” Olive said.

“I wonder what happened to him without us,” Devon thought aloud.

Alice frowned, “I hope he’s not lonely.”

“I hope there’s no new humans with him,” June said, a concern Dylan had heard voiced countless times.

“I never want to see the guy again,” Dylan announced, several pairs of eyes slowly sliding to him; June made eye contact with him in the rear view mirror. “But, he wasn’t terrible.”

It wasn’t like anyone could disagree. The biggest thing they had in common was that they were all dissatisfied with their lives, and it wasn’t like the Circus had cured that; it simply gave them some pieces to fill the gaps. Maybe it’d go somewhere else, maybe it wouldn’t.

He finished a degree that took entirely too long and he had no correct use for. Either he could keep going to school to get a bachelors that he didn’t know what to do with, or he could find a damn use for the thing. His only other choice was to remain in the serving industry forever, an idea that made him want to fall off the pier near June’s apartment.

June was utterly bored with her work, the monotonous and impactless nature nothing that entertained her. The hobby that helped her escape ended up trapping her in the Digital Circus, which made it too anxiety-inducing for her to continue to enjoy. She’d taken up sewing after Alice sent her a starting kit and gave her tips, she volunteered at the cat cafe, and she saw Dylan every chance they got; she still had a miserable nine to five.

Alice was trapped in a small town, and even if she was meant for it, her family suffocated her. She didn’t have a life of her own, not with the breath of her mother following her everywhere she went. She worked in a job that she’d gotten because of her family’s influence, she lived in a house owned by her family, and she rode horses in her mother’s back yard. She yearned to be a teacher, had all of the technical means to do so, but the reins on her shoulders were strong.

Devon had tried every job under the sun, bouncing from place to place and career to career. Nothing had ever filled them with a sense of satisfaction, a hole within always remaining, just like they felt in the Circus in the form of their replaceable yet irreplaceable pieces. Dylan had a feeling that feeling wasn’t something strictly within the Circus, but he and Devon never became close enough for him to receive information like that; some wounds would never really heal. They had a playful friendship, and that was good enough for him.

Olive wanted to draw, to create, but hadn’t found a way to do so that would ever allow her to live a decent life. She’d given up on education because of it and, strangely enough, was in a position not unlike his own. If she had any desire to advance in the food service industry, he’d been meaning to give her tips and his name as a reference; they could relate on that, at the very least.

They were a messed up group of people, and whether or not that was what drove them to the Circus was unclear. After all, did anyone satisfied with their life really put on a random headset? Maybe, if their lives had been any better, they would have abstracted like all the others who didn’t remember them. It would be easy to say they were worse off for remembering, but they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the memories. They wouldn’t have the group chat that filled a miniscule hole in their lives. Zooble wouldn’t have Gangle and Jax wouldn’t have Pomni. None of them would have the light that was Ragatha.

They pulled into a nice looking neighborhood, the air changing as if they collectively realized what they were about to do. It was a similar feeling to when Dylan and June went around Kentucky trying to find Alice, unaware that they’d find her the easy way in a grocery store parking lot.

“All five of us aren’t going to go up to his door, right?” Devon asked.

Everyone went silent.

“One or two of us could go,” Alice said, always filling the silence. “That way it’s less intrusive.”

“Not it,” Olive said, sinking lower in her seat.

“I don’t think it’s my place, either,” Devon said.

June winced, her name still in the running. She wouldn’t want to do that; everyone seemed to take the hint. He sighed, Alice turning to look at him from the front seat.

“That would just leave…” Olive looked between him and Alice, more accustomed to their unstable dynamic from the Circus than this real world friendship-thing they were trying.

She didn’t know that, just the other night, Dylan had accidentally word vomited to Alice that he would spend the rest of his life with June if he could. Naturally, she kept getting more information out of him-- no, asking questions, caring in a way that she meant so deeply. He’d grown to like their phone calls, harried and busy as they always were. It was still fun to tease her, she still got frustrated with him, but that was simply how they worked.

Alice smiled at him, “Whaddya say, partner?”

Not once were they willingly partnered up after Ribbit abstracted. Not once did he let it end any way other than horribly. Not once did he ever stop targeting her in their different groups.

They weren’t in the Circus, though. He and Alice were there the longest after Kinger, with Zooble arriving shortly after him and Gangle after that. It made sense for him and Alice to go, in hindsight. He never let himself bond with Kinger, and June would be better in that respect, but he could manage.

He rolled his eyes, “I guess.”

He was the only one who knew the detailed story that June was told about Kinger’s wife, which could be good. Or, it may not matter. He had no idea. They all knew he had a wife, at the very least.

“Great!” Alice said, smiling at Devon and Olive.

Olive was looking between them like they’d collectively grown a third head. The worst part was that he couldn’t at all blame her.

“You’re just gonna… knock on his door?” June asked.

“I guess so,” he looked at Devon, who shrugged in response.

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Says the country girl.”

The car slowed outside of a small, quaint house in a neighborhood within the city. There were signs to drive slowly everywhere, people walking all sorts of dogs. In the window was a tiny little white dog, barking hysterically like the sky was falling. Yeah, that was Kinger’s house. He would definitely have a little white ankle biter.

He and Alice climbed out, June giving him a comforting smile through the open window. He returned it, hoping that she’d get the ease that Kinger would provide soon. They weren’t in the Circus, and Kinger was merely an old man out here, but he was still him. He hoped.

Alice fell into step beside him on the small sidewalk, her faded jeans and button up feeling out of place in this Californian city. It was very her, and it helped ground him.

“Do you remember Kinger when you showed up?” She asked quietly.

“He was already crazy by then.”

“He was for me, too, but not so much. He rubbed my back and told me everything would be alright if I let it be.”

He could picture it, doll Alice and chess piece Kinger back in that colorful hell.

“I think he mistook me for someone,” he murmured, only having told June the memory over the phone in the middle of the night. “‘Told me that he was proud of me for all of the work I put into my education, that I’d studied hard to get where I was. I think he was thinking of someone who actually succeeded.”

“Don’t say that,” she said, focusing on the worst part of the statement. She quickly switched gears, “Nevermind the fact that you succeeded a few months ago, maybe he just… saw whoever that person was in you. He always had hope for everyone.”

He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. That was enough emotions for him; it wasn’t supposed to get that serious. Kinger’s old words had always perplexed him, though, grating on his mind at the worst of moments.

“I’m nervous he won’t remember me,” she said, hand scratching at her face.

They were at the door.

“Only one way to find out,” he raised a hand, knocking before he could let himself hesitate.

She straightened as if Kinger-- Kenneth-- could already see them. The dog began going absolute batshit, even more than before, visible in the glass detailing around the doorframe. Its nails scratched like it thought it could break through.

There was the sound of a voice scolding the dog, and then a pointed shoe tugging it out of the way. The voice did not sound like Kinger. They barely had time to glance at each other before a woman opened the door, stupid little white dog clutched in her arms.

“Hello? Can I help you?” She asked, admittedly skeptical.

He could imagine everyone in the car panicking right about now.

Unless…

“Are you Kenneth’s wife?” He asked, plastering a polite smile on her face.

She had kind eyes, wrinkles formed around them and gray hairs beginning to grow at her hairline. She reminded him of a customer he once had, the teacher who encouraged him to get himself up and to community college.

“Well, I am,” she smiled, the stand-offishness fading slightly. “Might I ask who you two are?”

“Oh, well, you see,” Alice’s hands moved around as she talked, “We worked on a tech project with him! We wanted to pick his brain, and maybe say ‘hi,’ too.”

It was actually quite an impressive lie, coming from her, with her usual lack of ability to do so. Maybe that was a Circus thing, her brutal kindness making every word as honest as it could be.

Her head tilted to the side, eyes narrowing the slightest bit. He got the urge to bolt. She either didn’t believe them, or she didn’t like them for some reason. Maybe they’d picked the wrong reason. Maybe, he was a horrible person, and the Circus had changed him in unrealistic ways-

“Kell?” A familiar voice said from down the hall.

The woman turned around, the dog letting out a few annoying yips at the sight of the man walking over. He had blonde hair swooped back and a beard to match, grays overtaking the blonde. Dylan wondered if he’d be lucky enough to see gray hair on himself someday, had wondered it for years; the way things had been going, it felt possible. He resisted the urge to turn and smile at June.

“Why, hello,” Kinger himself said, the softest smile crossing his face as his eyes studied Dylan and Alice.

“Hi,” Alice breathed, tears in her eyes the way they were every time she reunited with anyone. “I’m not sure if you’ll remember us, but-”

“Ragatha,” a familiar shock filled his voice.

Little pinpricks hit the back of his eyelids. He blinked them away, crossing his arms.

“Kelly, these are the kids I told you about, from the project.”

The woman-- Kelly-- looked at them with a new understanding, some sort of sadness taking over. She had absolutely no memory, then. It was sad. She’d been through what they had, but she didn’t last long enough for them to ever meet her-- for her to even remember.

She nodded, walking away with a smile at them, taking the stupid dog with her. It yipped one last time.

“Ragatha, you’re here,” he said softly, looking at Dylan next; he hadn’t said anything. “...Jax.”

It felt like talking to a family member that he didn’t have. The idea of being known despite being so different was something completely foreign to him. There was no way that Kinger should have been able to recognize him on looks alone, and yet he did. He didn’t know, he wasn’t pulling from preexisting knowledge; he simply recognized him.

Ragatha held both hands over her heart, eyes full of tears threatening to overflow. There was no blinking those away.

“Oh, Ragatha,” Kinger barely had time to say before she was hugging him.

Just like everyone else, Kinger was still the same person. Dylan didn’t get a choice to say no as he was pulled into the hug by Alice, her former name spoken so gently that it made his chest hurt.

“You’re both so full of life,” Kinger pulled away, looking at them with some misplaced pride.

It was hard to comprehend. Dylan swallowed, resisting the urge to twist his face up and sneer. If he hadn’t gone to school three years ago, it felt as if Kinger could have been the one convincing him, instead of a nameless customer.

“It’s amazing what being human again will do to you,” Ragatha joked, wiping at her face.

“You’re not too rough yourself, gramps,” Dylan said, eyeing the nicely decorated house behind him. “We’ve got everyone else in the car.”

“Oh,” Kinger dragged out the syllable, eyes seemingly straining as he looked at the car parked on the street. “Well, tell them to come on in, then. Am I late?”

“Just a little,” Alice sniffled. “My name’s Alice.”

“I’m Dylan,” he finished.

“Oh,” Kinger repeated, smiling at them both. “How… human. Come in, come in.”

He raised a hand to the car, waving strongly. Olive was climbing out in an instant. June’s head appeared, her face too far to make out, but her head curiously facing their direction.

They were really about to have all of them in one room for the first time since the Circus. The six of them were thrown on dozens of adventures together, wandering the same colorful hodgepodge of objects called the Circus, and then they’d been thrown back into their real lives. Kinger had been insane for so long, only lucid in the rare moment of darkness that Dylan was never willing to be present for.

They followed him into the house, leaving the door open for the others to follow. June came first, eyebrows raised at Dylan to silently get his explanation. Whatever she saw on his face got it across, her expression softening before he’d tried to tell her a thing. He wasn’t sure when she learned to read him so well— or maybe she’d always known; it made him feel loved.

Kelly was sitting on a plush red couch, the dog still in her arms. Kinger walked to the others at the door, trusting Dylan and Alice in the living room. There was a photo on the wall of him, his wife, and their dog. There was an older photo from before wrinkles stretched over their features, a different, larger dog between them; it had on a crown. It reminded him of June and Scuba. The wall was lined with various degrees and diplomas, intermixed with photos of sceneries that Dylan had never seen in person.

Just like everyone else, there was a whole life here. He wondered what Kinger had to be dissatisfied with in this life.

“You’re really all here,” he said.

Dylan turned as Alice continued looking at the small living room in awe. Kinger had let everyone in, the door shut behind June.

“Kinger…” Olive sounded on the verge of tears.

“Oh, it’s you, Gangle.”

The tears spilled.

“I’d recognize you anywhere, Zooble.”

Devon didn’t accept a hug, instead shaking his hand. He reciprocated with
an impossibly warm smile. He used to hide within a pillow fort in the Circus, and here he had a wall lined with his diplomas.

“Pomni, you got us out.”

Dylan turned to see her reaction, the way she’d let him grab her hand and her eyes had widened. There were no tears, but it meant a whole lot to her.

“It wasn’t really just me…”

“Don’t undersell yourself,” Alice said from across the room, now seated beside Kelly.

It helped join the two groups together. Kinger pushed them to sit, Kelly moving to a kitchen chair that had been dragged beside the TV to make room. It was a tight fit, but nothing could be worse than the car. They might as well have been on the couch in the Circus, playing some dumb game to pass the time.

He didn’t expect Kinger to be so… ready. It felt like he’d been prepared for this in some capacity. He’d been shocked to see them, figuring out their identities one by one, but there was still more knowledge than any of them expected. They weren’t leaving until they got answers as to why, Dylan decided.

“Alright, I should start. I’m Kenneth. This is my wife, Kelly, and our dog, Nemo.”

“I’ve heard so much about you all,” Kelly said warmly. “Nemo says hi.”

“Hi Nemo,” Alice and Olive said in unison.

“Kelly and I entered the Digital Circus as play testers. I worked with Abel, the CEO of-“

“Caine and Abel,” Devon finished for him, eyes widening as their voice filled with suspicion.

Kenneth sighed, pulling up a chair for himself. June crossed her arms beside Dylan.

“You already figured some things out, then. You must have had to go to such great lengths to find everyone.“

“You’re not the one who created the Circus, are you?” Olive asked, the question just rude and bold enough for her to be able to say it.

The room went silent. Nemo whined, wiggling his way out of Kelly’s grip until he was sniffing at June’s pants like they’d been dragged through the mud. Considering the cat hair on them, they might as well have been.

“No, I promise you all, I did not. I had no part in the company or its creation— my connection was originally as a for-hire specialist to create an advanced AI.”

It hit him immediately: Advanced AI. The only thing they knew about the mystery company that trapped them was the name and the AI who’d been in there with them. Alice gasped aloud after a moment had passed.

“Caine?” June asked hesitantly.

“You got it,” he said in an endearingly fifty year old manner. “It’s not like he remembered me or I remembered him, but that was my involvement. We went all the way to LA just to meet him, considering the countless days I’d put into creating him. I was never told the exact reason why.”

“They trapped you?” Devon said. “Even after you created the guy who ran it?”

“I’d say so. These days, my memory’s not so good.”

The brief omission hurt more than it should have. Thinking about Kinger as more than a crazy chess piece had always brought up the thought of his memory lapses, those of which made him absolutely insane. It was hard to imagine him as a human without them.

“So you suffered permanent damage?” Dylan asked, caring a little more than he wanted to. “Wouldn’t that give you legal grounds to sue?”

Kinger sighed, leaning forward to set his arms on his knees.

“Not when I’ve discovered there is absolutely no way to prove that we were trapped against our will, time passing at an extreme level compared to the real world.”

Devon fell back against the couch, “Fuck.”

They’d probably looked into it. They’d looked into all of it, trying to find a way to unfurl this mystery and eventually take it down. Devon was a good person like that, trying to make sure what happened to them wouldn’t happen to anyone else; it could have already.

“I did figure something out about the company, way back when, though,” Kenneth said.

The last time they all ever sat on that stupid couch in the Circus was shortly before they got out. They knew that Caine had found a way and was going to help them, but they also had to distract whoever ran the program. They sat there, pretending they didn’t know what happened while they each held their breath, pretending to find the strange symptoms out for the first time again. He’d called it lame and sat out, slumped halfway off of the couch, but he’d been there all the same.

This felt like that. They could say whatever they wanted to say, but in a way, they were still buying time. Dylan was beginning to suspect there were no answers here; at least they’d found him, all meeting here for the final act.

“You see, Abel, the CEO, added me to the company messaging service. As you can imagine, it’s not a very big company.”

“I noticed,” Devon nodded.

“One of the few employees said something a little suspicious about funding, so I did some digging. All of their funds for the servers are illegally acquired from a separate company. I had just about finished the AI and refused to abandon my work; I should have. I thought I’d get done, test it, and be done with it.”

Testing was only the beginning. He spoke with a cadence that said he’d mourned the exact scenario dozens of times, the idea of finishing something up only for it to drag out for years and years.

“You were in there a really long time,” Alice said sadly.

Kenneth’s smile looked a little waxier, his hand going to Kelly’s. Dylan wondered how he got her to believe any of this. Maybe the sudden memory issues were a testament to the truth of it-- or they made it harder. It wasn’t his business.

“The company went dark after we all got out, undoubtedly afraid of being discovered. I’m working on a case against them, but admittedly, I’ve been procrastinating on pulling the trigger.”

“I tried and couldn’t find a single damn thing,” Devon said.

“I don’t think that’s true. You all found each other. I couldn’t figure that out in the slightest.”

Devon turned their head to the side, likely considering the illegal tactics used to track everyone down— including Kenneth. He hadn’t questioned how they all showed up at his house.

“Do you really think a case like that would destroy the whole company?” June asked, skeptical.

“There’s our accountant,” Alice swung her arm, always the positive one. June smiled meekly and otherwise ignored her.

“Considering the dubious work they do and the size of the company, I think it would. It would also give me the chance to destroy Caine from under their nose, which would collapse the whole world.”

They had just been in the car talking about missing the guy, mouth-face and all. He was the reason they didn’t all go terribly insane, and he did like them. He had so much power that if he didn’t, he could’ve made it pretty damn miserable. Whatever was in the code that Dylan never did comprehend in coding classes had given him the ability to care for them.

It kept them sane, and it kept them alive long enough to be here. June had her eyebrows furrowed, staring off into space as she did some sort of mental math, undoubtedly going off of her own work experience.

“Poor Caine,” Olive said.

“Poor Caine indeed,” Kenneth said. “He never did bother me much. Almost like he knew somewhere internally.”

“You should show them the computer,” Kelly said not so quietly.

His eyes widened, darting to the stairwell on his left. The whole group collectively looked in the same direction, absolutely drawn to whatever computer this woman they never met was talking about. Dylan thought of the two headsets in L.A. that they’d spent months confident were Kinger and his wife, only to leave a mystery as they confirmed Kinger was the one in Sacramento. If they traveled to L.A. to test it, and then they had a computer here… the pieces slid into place.

“Especially since later today, I suppose it’s finally time to file the lawsuit,” Kenneth murmured to himself. “It’s like a goodbye.”

“A goodbye to who?” Dylan asked, sitting up.

June was frowning, all five of them wondering the same thing. It wasn’t normal for Kinger to be the one in the know. Then again, by that logic, it wasn’t normal for him to have five fingers; and that was finally something he was used to. This was real life, and he wanted to know what the hell Kenneth was talking about.

They were all led up the small stairwell to a bonus room on the second floor, revealing a large room with a low ceiling. There were boxes and various technologies all scattered around the room, but most notably was the PC in the center.

It wasn’t the exact same, and there was no goddamn headset, but it was eerily reminiscent of the computers that had trapped them all. A single glance at everyone’s expressions confirmed the thought. Beneath the desk that housed nothing but the computer was extensive hardware for the thing, as if he was running the Circus itself. Dylan was suddenly a little scared that he was, despite saying he hadn’t created it.

“There’s so much code keeping the actual program running, especially in order to keep us all trapped, but the visuals that we saw were basically all made by my AI-- Caine. It took me a while, and I needed Kelly’s help when my mind failed me, but I retrieved his original code and projected him onto this monitor.”

There were a lot of them packed into the small room, all trying to peer at the computer. Kenneth stepped over some of the wires to press several buttons, the monitor flickering to life. He stood above it, peering the best he could without obscuring the rest of their vision. Dylan stepped to the side to make room, ducking to prevent his head from hitting the slanted ceiling.

Slowly the screen loading, a pixelated version of the tent that kept them all trapped appearing. Goosebumps grew along his arms, a feeling of deep dread growing in his stomach.

“I don’t know if I wanna see this,” Olive backed away, eyes still on the screen.

“It was incredibly unsettling for me, too,” Kenneth admitted. “But it was worth it. Just let it get through the intro that’s supposed to be there.”

“How is there an intro if we’re not there?”

Devon’s question was answered as the screen glitched, phasing through red curtains behind an empty stage that they’d all stood on. Dylan didn’t like this. He’d just said in the car that he never wanted to see Caine again, and he had a feeling he knew what was coming. As much as Caine had kept them occupied for years, he also was the living embodiment of the trauma they’d faced-- in Dylan’s mind, at least.

The screen arrived in the Circus, the pre-programmed intro made by Caine over. He wondered if that happened every time the program ran-- every time a new person showed up, he realized as his stomach dropped. This computer being turned on was the equivalent of one of them putting on the headset.

He grabbed June’s arm, wanting to feel something other than the slowly increasing rate of his heart. Olive was still backing up. He made eye contact with her, feeling the same things despite all of their differences.

Sure enough, the singular angle that the computer seemed to have was suddenly occupied by Caine. He looked different on a screen; fake. It was amazing how being trapped in there made the mouth he had for a face seem plausible, but here, it was simply an animation style with a lot of creativity.

He was floating through the air, legs bent and arms limp at his sides. Bubble was off in the background. The circus looked the exact same, albeit vacant of anyone. If Kenneth merely had the AI and the visual locations he created, then no one would have been able to see them like this, not except for the people with the full program running. He felt a little nauseous.

“Oh, Caine,” Alice’s tears upon reuniting with everyone were officially completed, her voice watery and her hands over her heart once again.

“Is there some way to… put him out of his misery?” Devon asked.

Kenneth sighed, looking at the friend that they’d all made. He’d created him, and he hadn't even known it. There must have been a time when he was more sane, when he, too, bonded with Caine in his own special way.

“Once I do, it’ll all go down.”

“I’d sleep better at night,” June breathed out.

They all would. Knowing that such a key component of what kept them trapped was gone would add a layer of ease, especially with a pending lawsuit on top of it. It was sad, but Caine’s time with them was over; he’d said his goodbye.

If Kenneth didn’t create him, the Circus still would have existed, even if it simply looked a little different. If they had to have any all knowing AI, he was glad it was Caine.

“He’d be happy to know we’re all here,” Alice said. “Is there any way to tell him?”

Kenneth had stepped beside her, joining the group of them to stare at Caine in the cramped space. Dylan’s goosebumps hadn’t gone away, but he couldn’t leave. Olive had rejoined the group. He made brief eye contact with her, nodding, just as uncomfortable as one another.

“I suppose I could… add it to his code; the awareness of our happiness. Right alongside a virtual bomb to destroy it, rather than simply deleting it from my computer.”

The awareness of our happiness. Caine never knew that they were all such dissatisfied people, but he had to know that something was awry with them all in one way or another. They wouldn’t have been in there if things were perfect. It wasn’t like their lives were changed when they came back, but the situation had changed them, and for Dylan, that felt like a boost to actual change. June, who’s hand was atop his own on her arm, was a welcome shift from his previously disappointing life.

Alice stepped up to the monitor, hesitantly placing a trembling hand on the screen beside Caine. She didn’t get sucked in; Dylan exhaled. She stared at it a moment, face illuminated by the horrible mesh of colors that once trapped them all. She stood with teary eyes and a glance to the rest of them.

“That feels like a good compromise,” she said to them all, gauging their opinions.

Kenneth nodded, having been the one to suggest it.

“At least that way he’d get a real goodbye,” Olive said.

“He shouldn’t have to be so bored like that,” Devon agreed, their arm wrapped around Olive’s.

Dylan squinted at his stupid red suit and mouth face, Bubble suddenly beside him. Neither of them looked enthused enough. The whole Circus would be gone.

“It’s about time,” he said, both for Caine’s and their own sake.

“I think we all agree,” June said.

They made their way back downstairs, scattering in the living room and kitchen with the knowledge that they were really free. They slowly relaxed the more time that passed by, Kelly offering snacks and kind words. She even told Devon about how she’d come to find out about the Circus. Dylan, for once, didn’t have much to say.

When Kenneth came downstairs, he knew: Caine was gone. That multi-colored hell was gone. The servers that trapped them and ran the mechanism were still there, only the visual aspect having been erased, but it still meant the world. Maybe the lawsuit could be the final nail in the coffin; he really hoped it would be.

June leaned her shoulder into Dylan, just having finished talking with Olive. He played with her hair, well aware how much she hated public displays of affection but simultaneously feeling her lean into it. On a day like this, with people that they were somehow so accustomed to from another world, it seemed to balance out.

Kenneth joined them, a little party of everyone from the Circus seeming to occur in the small house. He and Kelly pulled lasagna out of the freezer, offering dinner to all of them after traveling such a long way.

Alice and Kelly fell into conversation for what must have been an hour, talking about real estate and teaching and how to switch between the two. She kept making excuses, but it seemed that Kelly had set her eyes on her, not letting her refrain from something that she wanted to do and would be so good at. Dylan gave this near stranger a thumbs up, ignoring a yell of ”Jax!” from Alice; that’d never go away.

Kenneth sat on an ottoman beside Dylan abruptly, startling him. June chuckled, waving a hand.

“Hello?” Dylan said, a little rude, but nothing Kenneth wouldn’t be used to.

“Hello,” he chuckled. “I’ve remembered lots of things from the last year. I think I must have said some-- well, a lot of things that didn't make sense to you. I realized why. When my mind was so scattered, you really reminded me of my nephew. I never even realized it.”

Dylan’s head pulled back, absolutely struck by the words for absolutely no reason at all. A voice in the back of his mind tried to tell him that Kinger was merely crazy, his words lacking meaning, but that voice was living in a Circus that no longer existed. Kinger was Kenneth, who seemed to be very smart, and he was saying awfully kind words to someone who had been so unkind.

It was weird. Kenneth seemed like he had money. He had a good career, a nice house, and a stable family. It was all things that Dylan didn’t have and had barely even been around. Somehow, he was still correlated to this man’s family, something weird happening in his mind.

“Oh. Um… Thanks?”

Kenneth chuckled, “I know that doesn’t mean much to you. Devon said you just graduated, and my nephew recently got his license in radiology after years of debate, so I figured you might be in need of some direction.”

He blinked rapidly.

“Why would they say that?” He muttered quickly before looking back at Kenneth, taking in the serious nature of the words. “Oh. That’s… thanks, man. I’m pretty clueless.”

June was pulled into Alice’s conversation, an awkward arm thrown over her shoulder, flashing a small smile in his direction.

The Circus wasn’t their reality, but it was nice to see how the people could have real effects. They’d probably never all get together at once again. It was too far-fetched, too unrealistic in a world like theirs. That didn't mean they couldn’t stay in touch. Dylan took every word Kenneth said to him to heart, no matter how much he pretended to shrug it off and make jokes about it all. He tried to take in everything in his surroundings, appreciating the fact that this could happen at all.

It wasn’t that bad.

As the moon rose higher in the sky, an amazing homecooked meal on the plate in his lap, June looked at him from across the room. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even open her mouth, but he knew how to read her in a way he’d never been able to in his life. Dylan didn’t get close enough to people to read them; June had changed that. He was close with her. He really loved her.

Her eyes were warm, open and comfortable as she sought him out. A smile was on her face, soft in all the right places and as real as it could be. Such a glance across a room of people they’d spent strange amounts of time with made his chest flip flop the way she always made it-- the way she would always make him feel. It was a glance that said she was happy. It was a glance that felt a little like saying I love you.

The living room was real and warm. The people had hearts beating in their chests and five fingers on each hand. Dylan was not Jax, not a purple rabbit, and he had no need to hide everything in his mind.

Despite it all, June was there. He’d always want June there.

In a few days, they would make the long drive back to Portland, listening to their worn playlist and talking about nothing at all. It would be things that no one else in the world could care about, things that they only said because they were so comfortable with each other’s presence. He’d kiss her before the drive started and maybe when she took over driving, just for extra measure, just because he could. She’d wind her fingers into his and he’d curl up happily.

Dylan would settle back into the apartment that he’d found a home in, and maybe, he’d ask what she meant about going wherever he did. He’d let the cat that he really didn’t hate lay on him, and June would smile, and everything would be alright.

He couldn’t call his life dissatisfying anymore, not with brown eyes and a smile facing him from across the crowded room.