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Kinger never believed there was a heaven.
It’s almost like his brain, hardwired in the logistics, couldn’t comprehend the concept. Of course, he never degraded anyone who did believe in it — why would he? — but it’s a conclusion he could simply just never reach on his own. Even with the influence of his peers. What proof did exist was always flimsy enough to be doubted, and it didn’t make sense for him to dwell on hypotheticals when definite facts were right in front of his face.
His wife believed there was. She wouldn’t mention it too much, despite her own beliefs, but sometimes if tragedy struck she would fall back on it: she’d wistfully say her loved ones were in a better place, and hoped that when she died, heaven looked like a beautiful field littered with butterflies.
He guessed it came from her family. They were all quite Christian. Not the kind that would intrude or degrade, but he'd find them at church on Sundays and they’d occasionally adorn their necks with dainty crosses.
He couldn’t fault them. In retrospect, he understood; sometimes, when life is hard, you need to fall back on something. And for some people, that was God and heaven.
He buried himself in his work instead and tried not thinking about it. It wasn’t the most foolproof way to counteract his thoughts, his life, but it gave him something concrete to focus on.
He always swore to himself that he wouldn’t fall back on the idea of heaven. Not that it was particularly bad — he couldn’t fault any idea if it was rooted in good faith — but he never wanted to find himself in a place where he would have to fall back on something that, potentially, might not exist at all. It would have to take something particularly dark, something particularly guttural to plunge him into that, he thought. And he always swore he would never end up there, as normal as it is for other people.
He went there once, only once. His wife had abstracted, and he caught himself hoping that, through her glitchy sight and mangled sense of self, she was somewhere beautiful. Like in her field of butterflies.
He hoped she was in some sort of strange idea of heaven.
The thought would cut itself out and replace itself with visions of her in the cellar.
Logistically, he knew, there was no way any sort of heaven existed in a place like this. It was likely that abstractions just lose their sense of self and die, akin to a human brain disconnecting from the body. Their death was most likely nothingness. Like a human’s.
But the thought comforted him for a fleeting second.
He finds himself there again today.
He stays stagnant on the ground, staring at his trembling hands. In his peripheral he sees Ragatha and Pomni sitting on either side of him. Thankfully, they do not move, they do not speak, or encourage him to; he doesn’t want to do that. Not yet. Their presence is just enough.
He’s lost. The path ahead is blurry and fragile.
His eyes fog up and tears threaten to fall. Oh, God…Caine…
My Caine…Our Caine…
He hopes heaven exists for him.
The thought surprises him. The tears stop themselves, as if startled, and his eyes grow wide. He can’t catch himself thinking of him in such a wistful way. The poor AI’s ways were damaged, his code flawed; he tortured the others for his own benefit. There was no hope for him that way.
But a sense of pride bubbles up in him. A sense of ownership — parental, almost — that feels so perverse but so right. So natural.
That, right there. Caine. That was his very creation: his creation that spent decades creating his own wacky world and trying his best to make sure everyone thrived. His creation that tried to solve any problem as it came. His creation that tried his very very best.
His creation that died to his trembling hand.
Kinger tried so hard to do the right thing. To sedate him, to at least get him to stop his rampage until they could fix him…
What even was that thing infiltrating the code…?
The whole circus is…
Oh, God…God, if you can hear me…
God? What God?
The urge to scream until his voice breaks takes him over and chokes it down with a shaky gulp. His distress must’ve been noticeable, as Pomni and Ragatha sit up and look at him. He shakes his head without breaking eye contact with his own guilty fingers.
His proudest creation as a programmer and his biggest loss. What are they going to do now?
Wherever he was — whether that be wholly gone or rotting on a circus computer’s recycling bin — he hoped and prayed that there was a heaven for him.
Maybe that looked like darkness, peace. Maybe he yearned so hard to break away from his creative spirit that his only respite is a pulseless black.
He liked bees. Maybe it’s a field filled with them.
He catches it. He’s praying.
god please listen be okay please be somewhere nice be okay be remorseful tell him i love him god god there has to be one out there listening to me please make sure he’s okay make sure he’s happy i am so so sorry tell him i’m sorry tell him he can fix this no we can fix this he just needs to be here so i can alter the code please i love you i want my wife i want him my caine cccaaiiineeee i didn’t mean to i love you please god God
But Kinger never believed there was a heaven.