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Pomni knows as well as anyone that she can’t keep living the way she is, and Jax stares at her because he knows that she knows. Still, she refuses his attempts at conversation (about the circus, and the others who remain, mostly) and eats very little even when coerced by Ragatha. She lies in bed, and worries her lips between her teeth, drawing blood constantly.
Jax decides that the only way to get her to speak is if he forces her. He doesn’t want to, and he knows he shouldn’t, but two still remain in the circus. He needs to find out how they are, how close they are to breaking just like they all did. He needs to—
Pomni’s nails have been bitten to the flesh, he notices, as he sits beside her on a particularly motivated morning, Gangle working and Ragatha out on a walk alone. He sees that blood has been drawn, only a little, but still he takes her hand briefly in his and rubs his thumb over it. He worries as she sits there, staring blankly at the unpowered TV.
“How were they?” He asks, casually.
Pomni hums, unaware of what he’s talking about.
“The others.”
She hums again.
Jax grows frustrated, but he tamps it down quickly enough, breathing out slowly through his mouth. “The circus. How were they, before you left?”
Pomni gets that faraway, wet-eyed look again, and Jax takes a breath in.
“I’m not trying to—to blame you, or anything,” he tells her, slow and quiet. “I’m just worried. About them.” He looks away, feels his face heat with blush. “And Gangle. She—she wants Zooble to come back. She’s been waiting and when it was you it was—”
“Disappointment?” Pomni asks, deadpan.
Jax splutters. “No, of course it wasn’t—Pomni, don’t try to—” He feels lost, and doesn't know what his next words should be. Because she’s right, Gangle was disappointed, and that can’t—He can’t just lie when he knows—and she knows—so clearly that she’s correct.
“Maybe,” he says, slowly.
She shrugs her shoulders and pulls a face, like yeah, of course it was.
“But it wasn’t the fact that it was you but the fact that it wasn’t them.”
Pomni stays quiet.
“It’s not the same thing.”
Silence lingers, and Jax feels unsteady, like something’s about to ruin his day. Something is about to—
“We found out,” Pomni starts. “We found out something. After you and Gangle abstracted.”
“Oh?” Jax prompts. She began this conversation, so maybe—
“When you abstracted, Caine accidentally… didn’t manage to keep you in the abstraction hole.”
Jax worries his lips. Did he hurt them? Did—Was an NPC version of him there in the circus?
“You ran—Glided, rather,” she laughs at herself, humourless. “Glided across the circus and out. You ran into the ocean, deep, deep, and just—disappeared. Vanished. Caine couldn’t find your abstracted form and couldn’t locate it through the code and neither could we so—so we just left it. We never looked, after a bit.”
“Right.” Jax says. Why was she telling him—?
“I think that’s how you escaped.”
“What?”
Pomni takes a breath in, and turns to him, still lying down in the bed. She sits up, and releases the breath she was holding. “I think—I know that there’s a glitched area near the bottom of the ocean, further down than we bother to swim, which is why Caine either never noticed or couldn’t be bothered to patch it.” She gestures to him vaguely. “You were abstracted so maybe it was just—you got lucky, or something. Kept going. Maybe part of your ruined code was attracted to the glitch or—I don’t know. Whatever it was, it made you disappear.”
“So?” Jax understands where she’s coming from, but no way she just figured it out from him. No way. Right?
“When Gangle abstracted,” Pomni says. “We… didn’t get Caine. We hid, and followed her from afar. She went to the same place. Deep down into the ocean, where you went, and then…poof. She was gone. Like it’s never happened.”
“So… you figured out it was the way to escape?”
Pomni laughs again. “I guess. I think most of us didn’t dare be that hopeful. We just thought that maybe if an abstracted person got deleted like that then maybe they wouldn’t suffer. Maybe they’d die, instead of endlessly oozing around the void.”
Jax stays quiet. “Oh.” Then, “Oh.”
“Kinger wants to get his wife back. He wants to—wants to let her out. We were trying to figure out how to get Caine to release all the abstracted people but—I don’t know. Ragatha was gone, and I was getting hopeless. What was the point? And now— Now I don’t even know what they’re doing. If they’re successful. All I know is that our hopeful theory was correct. And that—” Tears begin gathering at the corners of her eyes. “We can’t e-even tell them. They don't know anything.”
Then the floodgates open, and Jax has to catch Pomni before she crashes to the floor in a fit of anger and hysterics.
“Poms—” He says, but she swats away his face before he can attempt to calm her. She continues to sob, pulling at her hair as she mutters half-inane ‘should haves’ to herself, and Jax can only hold her as she works through it.
He thinks about what she’d told him—the abstraction, the escape, the natural pull towards the glitched part of the occasion. He can’t remember anything past being lowered into the abstraction basement, but really—it could be feasible. It is feasible.
Maybe it’s like a spawn and despawn point? He thinks vaguely, rubbing small circles onto Pomni’s back. Maybe that’s why Caine always transported them to new places during the adventures? He didn’t want them exploring…. Or maybe he just didn’t…
Jax shakes his thoughts. No use now, they can’t do anything with this information. They’ll have to talk to the others when—when they escape. Maybe find a way to make sure no one ends up in the circus again.
Jax looks down at Pomni, crying in hysterics, who was the circus for the least amount of time out of all of them. Maybe he would have reacted the same way, in her place, but…Maybe being in the circus so long changed him. Changed his mind. Maybe that’s why…
No use thinking about it now, he decides, shaking his head. Right now, he should help Pomni.