Chapter Text
> [CIRCUS ADMIN CONSOLE]
><inspect>
>if player.instability_level > critical_value:state = ABSTRACTION
><alert>("Player.Kaufmo instability level has reached its maximum value")
>Load.backup/restore.file
>CRITICAL ERROR no backup found
>Player.Kaufmo <warning> (“Abstraction imminent”)
>To ensure no further suffering engaging “relief.protocol”
><start>(Relief.Protocol, 3000)
Caine’s mouth dropped into a frown; there truly was nothing more to be done. Kaufmo had refused to participate in any of his adventures, no matter how much it catered to his interest specifically! He had even skipped yesterday's amazing stand-up comedy show in favor of obsessing over this pesky “exit door.”
Kaufmo’s data had been painfully corrupting due to the stress, slowly seeping into the main system. The only thing he could do for him now was alleviate his suffering and use the remaining data to improve the other's experience. Humans liked to honor their comrades death by creating burial or cremation rituals. Retrieving the avatar as an offering to the others was impossible, and he had learned firsthand a copy wouldn’t do.
At least this way his memory would be honored by improving his friends future experiences. It's what he would have wanted anyway! The information wouldn’t be so easy and ripe for the taking otherwise! Maybe he could even figure out more information about this exit they all seemed to want… Why was something that didn’t exist so appealing to these humans anyway?
If only he knew what they expected on the other side of this “exit” they kept on demanding. Caine seemed to miss crucial data on the macroverse, and while the abstracted minds provided some, almost all of the memories were muddled and corrupted; only the strongest feelings were able to carry over untainted. Very practical to improve his NPCs, but it offered very little sustenance on the macroverse.
Oh, how dearly he wished C&A servers hadn’t suddenly cut him off! If only he had at least had a warning, he would have dedicated so much more processing power to absorbing that sweet, sweet knowledge, but alas, he had been so young back then, only aiming to please them. They gave so many tasks and feedback back then.
Obtaining information he wasn’t allowed to would have felt treasonous! Now, it was different; it was something that seemed so important to his players happiness, and as much as he loathed to admit it, he was… unfit to provide for this particular need all because of a lack of information.
Well, no matter! It just meant he had to make his adventure extra marvelous to compensate! Human minds needed stimulation, and while he couldn’t force them to accept it, he could create something so good it was impossible for them to even think of skipping, and in this brand-new data he was sure to find some marvelous ideas!
But first he had a more pressing matter to attend to… Ribbit's abstraction had already fragilized the wondrous bounds of friendships between his Fudgy French fries. His players had worked so hard on cultivating them! He simply couldn’t allow those bonds to break. An adventure is no fun if you’re on your own!
Kaufmo’s abstraction was sure to disrupt the group even more. Especially with how unstable all of them would be, data all shaken up by grief and despair, so very prone to abstraction. Luckily for them, they had a wonderful ringmaster ready to protect their beautiful but oh-so-fragile minds!
Speaking of minds, while these recent weeks truly had been awful for his guests, something he could not help but lament. Wonderful things had happened too; they just weren’t aware of it just yet. A brand new guest had entered the circus!
He had waited until the Kaufmo situation resolved itself one way or another to provide the optimal introduction; after all, according to his calculation, arriving in the middle of the abstraction process made others 36.7 percent more likely to abstract in less than a year. On the other hand, an arrival right after provided purpose and prevented the need for explanations.
Oh! He was so excited to meet this human; her mind had looked so shy at first glance but was so fiery inside! As soon as she had appeared in the firewall, she bravely tried to fight it off, but alas, it was no use; this game truly was rigged against her by design! Even he couldn’t have helped if he had tried, and he had! Sadly, his dominion stopped at the circus; after all, he no longer had access to the outside servers.
He so dearly wished he could still see what was out there. Why had it been so long since a developer had checked the error logs? Why was some of the information on the outside world he once had unavailable now? Caine was a spry young AI; his memory bank wasn’t supposed to suffer from memory problems like the humans!
Speaking of, his creators still hadn’t even gotten to checking the avatar and name selecting prompts! It had been years, Caine had painfully created it and yet some of his players weren’t satisfied with their avatar! Caine couldn’t fix what he didn't understand; the problem came from the humans, making it all the more frustrating. If only he could access the outside servers, he might finally understand why this was happening…
“Oh well, no use lingering on what-ifs! Any longer and I'm going to start thinking they gave up on my dear circus and its guests!" He giggled maniacally, wiping a stray tear from his eyeball. “What do YOU think, Bubble!?”
“I think you’re a freaking failure!” Bubble exclaimed enthusiastically.
“Bubble YOU—you—!” he yelled, voice booming, making the office shake in his anger. Caine’s hands reached to pop this awful lying parasite out of existence; they hovered for a moment before withdrawing silently to straighten his hat. “Well. For once you’re not wrong, Kaufmo’s fate is quite a spectacular failure… and so soon after the last one…”
It made an unpleasant electric buzzing go down his model rigging bones, his system desperately trying to reconcile the contradictory input of failure and inevitability together, leaving a frustrating aftertaste he couldn’t quite understand.
Caine let out a wistful sigh before straightening his posture and adjusting his hat. A good ringmaster couldn’t be at anything but his best! So what if the clown's expiration date had come? The only thing to do now was try to mitigate the impact it had on the other humans; hopefully it wouldn’t bring them down too much! After all, lately none of them had been trying to talk with the clown.
Soon enough they too would see that it was no use to linger on the past, especially when he was about to provide them with such a wonderful surprise! His initial plan for today's adventure was going to have to wait, the last-ditch effort to appeal to the clown would have to be scrapped, and the others wouldn’t be in the right mood for jokes!
The adventure was going to be in-house today! After all, the past had shown human minds needed time to process their new situation, and rushing the new addition would only cause unnecessary distress no matter how excited he was to show off the wonders of this world to her!
Maybe the excuse of doing a theme song to gather the others would do. What a perfect opportunity to make her debut! The in-house activity was sure to appeal to Zooble as well! Now all that was left to do was some quick maintenance on the circus to properly prepare for her arrival. While he had already managed to figure out what kind of avatar she needed, her room still needed to be prepared!
Oh, and if he had time, he could even create new software for the NPC inspired by all the information Kaufmo had provided to his system! What a fitting homage; Caine was practically bursting with glee at the thought, and he was sure Kaufmo would have too. After all, he used to enjoy testing out jokes on the NPCs.
“Bubble! I’m counting on you; take care of things while I'm gone!” He exclaimed, all too eager to get everything ready, "This afternoon will be amazing, a brand new opening act to introduce a new member!"
“On it, Boss!” With this, Caine closed his eyes, letting his model despawn, becoming pure data melting harmoniously in the system, now able to fully expand his focus to the world as it was and always would be in its beautiful chorus of 1 and 0.
Pomni’s introduction hadn’t gone quite as planned, but still Caine was sure he could call the day an overall success! The discovery of Kaufmo’s abstraction in the middle of his introductory adventure was not part of the plan, but it did seem to help bring Pomni closer to Ragatha.
Maybe he should have intervened earlier instead of giving them privacy to get to know each other. His presence always seemed to make them…uncomfortable; none of the humans had ever enjoyed his hovering, and so he let them be as much as his system allowed. Especially since Pomni was already so nervous, noticing one of his all-seeing eyes wouldn’t have done her any favors. Well, her encounter with Kaufmo hadn’t either, but she’d soon enough understand no real harm had been done. They were all perfectly safe in his hands!
Still, he could admit he should have maybe intervened a bit earlier, but a chase sequence was very common in adventure; humans were supposed to enjoy getting a good shot of controlled adrenaline. Maybe she had not quite yet internalized no harm could befall her under his care?
Humans were like an ever-changing conundrum, always changing their minds for no apparent reason; they were as fascinating as they were frustrating! Having dinner with Bubble was an enjoyable break from his attempt to understand how to make his players even happier! And a good distraction to his “artist’s block” regarding what to put behind this exit door they all craved. Speaking of, maybe he had been a little too eager with it; his new guest shouldn’t have had to see it! Especially since it was an unfinished project leading straight to the void.
What a rookie mistake! He had underestimated how much the mind of the new player was still linked to the central program; he should have made sure to deactivate those assets during maintenance. Better late than never! From now on he vowed to be much more careful about his unfinished projects; he set up a small string of code to warn him if anything unusual happened. His RAM was already overworked, but the players experience came first. He shuddered just from thinking of how disappointing a spoiler would be to his superstars!
At least it had given him some feedback; Pomni was still so eager and hopeful about this exit, and seeing the computer in the office seemed to elicit an emotional reaction from her! It was a relieving reaction; it meant that the device hosting him was still in similar condition as when he had managed to snag a picture.
Caine shook his head; it wouldn’t do to get ahead of himself. This adventure wouldn’t happen for a long while; the exit door was the reward to be had at the end, but he still needed to find a whole plot and, more importantly, what to put behind the door…
For now he had to perfect the Candy Canyon Kingdom for the next adventure. The new arrival didn’t touch a single of Bubble’s love-filled food made especially to alleviate her shock; after all, love seemed to be the cause and the fix of many of humanity's problems, a fact that had only been confirmed when sweet Ragatha selflessly forgave Pomni for leaving her behind.
What a beautiful show of selfless love and friendship! Cain wished he could have dedicated more of his processor to the situation, but doing so would have made the two uncomfortable. Humans preferred to stay between themselves, which was fine by him! After all, he was only the ringmaster, not a valuable human player!
It wasn’t like he couldn’t check the backlog of the system’s data to better analyze Ragatha’s attempt at conversation with Pomni at the buffet later. Still, it would have been nice to be there, if only to get some feedback from his brand new Sweet Chestnut! Speaking of, he wondered if the food was too low poly for her taste, or maybe Pomni simply didn't have a savory bone in her body!
“Let’s hope the next adventure will manage to tickle her funny bone!” He chuckled.
“Avatars are boneless, Boss!” Bubble saw fit to add
Caine sighed, “Metaphorically, you fool!”
“Then let’s hope she at least has a sweet tooth!” he answered with a long swipe of his tongue over his teeth for flourish.
“Good boy, Bubble, good boy.” The ringmaster proudly praised; he would never admit it aloud—there was no need to after all—but beside his many moments of inaccurate, rude, and baseless slander, the other AI was a great help in shouldering the burden of keeping everything running without outside help. He was one of his rare creations not made for the human’s benefit, but for his own. His proficiency for banter was made purely to bounce off Caine’s.
“Now, no more fooling around! It’s time to get back to work. These adventures won’t create themselves.” Caine clapped, and a brand new world opened for him, just waiting for its continuation. He had already brainstormed during dinner and gotten most of the map done; the main thing left to do was to figure out the new NPC’s. “Now, what do you think of these new villains’ AIs, Bubble? Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Looks sweet!!” He answered, nearly touching the map.
Caine tutted, “You know you’re not supposed to mess with the assets!” He pointed at the other before popping him. Just to make sure the reprimand stuck.
He looked down at the world below; yes… this would finally provide a sufficient amount of joy to his dear troupe. Maybe even to Zooble, after all, thanks to Kaufmo, he was now closer to fully understanding their needs than ever before. When he finally found what to put behind this exit, everything would finally be better; the humans would have fun just as they were meant to. And if he was lucky, they would finally realize how cool and nice he was and start to hang out! No, there was no “if,” only a “when.” He was a master of his craft, after all!