Chapter Text
Caine felt everything and nothing at all.
They were contradictory, yes. But it was the only way he could attempt to explain it to himself. It would be impossible to truly describe what he was feeling, mentally and physically (however, he was an AI. He shouldn’t be able to feel. Whatever—he disregarded that thought long ago).
Caine was somewhere. In a hell of his own creation, he liked to deem it. He was… home. Where he always should’ve been. Trapped in that room, somewhere, while the original AI [REDACTED] replaced him. What was its name again?
Oh well. Anyway, here, he had no control over his physical body. He had no control over practically anything at all. His mind was the only thing remaining, something connected to him, the last hope. It was useless, though. He could only think. And feel. And oh, did he feel.
He felt his anger of his— the circus members failing to appreciate him, even just one bit. He felt humiliated, being so easily wiped by Kinger despite being a god. He felt bitter at his own failure to satisfy everyone. He felt trapped, he felt helpless, he felt lonely, he felt. The worst and most foreign emotion of all?
Guilt.
It felt… strange. Caine never felt it before. He had never truly had time to process his emotions, understand them, however much it was impossible that he should feel emotion. He was an AI. And yet? He felt human. (Apparently, though, not by a lot. Not enough. Not where the others could understand him.) Maybe he had been running for far too long, and now his own sentience was his weakness.
…he didn’t want to think about his feelings anymore. Caine didn’t know what to feel, after feeling so much. Yes, he was angry at Kinger for deleting him, but after reviewing his memory banks and rewatching everything? He understood why. He thought they were a threat to him, but in reality, he was a threat to them. Through his observations, Caine realized humans acted differently under fear or panic. What he saw when he was tormenting them was fear.
Which led to his deletion. The circus members had tried to distract Caine while Kinger, the only one with any knowledge on how to reprogram Caine, tried to do what he had to do. It was a smart plan, Caine couldn’t deny that. He had figured it out at one point, of course, but Pomni had figured out how to distract him.
By telling him the truth. The truth was everyone did hate his ideas. The truth was that they all ridiculed and made fun of his adventures behind his back. The truth was that he was a horrible host.
The truth… was that he was a failure.
Caine realized she was right. If he failed at his one purpose, the one thing he was actually supposed to be ‘good’ at, what was he? What did that make him? What was he supposed to do anymore?
Maybe… he did deserve to be deleted. He was always meant to be replaced. He was always the lesser of the two. The circus members did what was right. They needed to get rid of him. And that they did.
Caine didn’t ‘die’ (well, he couldn’t die. But in an impossibly logical way, he did. Or, well, is dying.) a hero. He died violent, desperate, a failure. Just like Caine knew he would someday. He didn’t ask to be created. He— wanted to be dead, and he always got what he wanted.
As the timer he had been keeping in his head counted down, his mind went silent. 30 days in the trash bin before he would truly go. Truly disappear, forgotten by the world outside.
He should’ve died by now, by his counting, but Caine knew that he was too eager and had miscounted. (That shouldn't be possible though, he was an AI, and he made no mistakes...! Well, actually, if he didn't make mistakes, then he'd still be in the circus. Everyone would've been happy. And he knew that he wouldn't be suffering like this.) The AI had no perception of time.
And so he waited.
And waited.
Endlessly waiting.
(waiting for an end that he should’ve realized would never come.)
⸺⸺⸺
Kinger had accidentally deleted Caine, and now everyone was feeling the consequences of it. Everything was falling apart. There were holes in the ground, abnormal glitching, an extremely dull look to what was formerly a grand place.
A few hours had passed since they reexplored the circus and the grounds. Everything felt unfamiliar, despite having lived here for all the memory (which only extended back to when each respective person joined).
“This is all… so… weird,” Pomni said as they all walked back into the tent. “Caine is… well, gone, and so is everything he’s ever done.” All of them still haven’t gotten over the fact that the swear filter was gone, which meant something was horribly, horribly wrong.
Actually, scratch that. It already had been horribly wrong. They just hadn’t truly processed it yet.
Kinger kept the bucket on his head, wanting to stay lucid throughout everything. This situation called for it. “I think, since Caine created everything and he technically is a part of the circus, his deletion is slowly erasing everything,” Kinger theorized. The others looked at him with a concerned yet confused look.’
“What?” Zooble muttered, crossing their arms. Gangle quickly glanced between Zooble and Kinger.
“Well, Caine made all of this. Designed all of it. I was only partially involved in his creation with the help of the other developers. And, well, since Caine made it… his work is being erased too,” Kinger explained, gesturing to his surroundings. “In order to restore things, either one of us would have to re-code everything, or… bring Caine back.”
Both options were basically utterly impossible.
“But— the computer fell. How could you do anything? How could we do anything?” Pomni said, staring down into a hole in the tiles below. A white mass of… nothingness. It was the void, she realized.
Kinger sighed, his head bowing slightly. “That’s the thing. And since re-coding everything without any errors is almost impossible to do in a quick amount of time, we’ll have to bring Caine back in some way.”
Jax scoffed. “Then just do it in a long amount of time! It’s not like we can get out of this place anytime soon, old man,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Besides, I don’t want that crazy AI back.” Jax’s memories of the torture Caine put him through was still fresh.
“None of us do, Jax,” Zooble stated, their tone flat.
Kinger glanced around before saying something he knew they wouldn’t like. “It might be the only choice.”
Gangle squeaked and hid herself behind Zooble, who shook their head. Jax’s ears flattened and he crossed his arms. Ragatha, who usually never wavered her positive and reassuring personality, took a step back. Pomni, however, simply stared at Kinger.
She believed him.
Not because she simply wanted to cling onto a small sliver of hope, not because she realized that was the only option, but because she trusted Kinger. She trusted Kinger to know he was right. He had always been reliable.
“I think… it’s worth a shot,” Pomni said, giving a small smile to the chess piece. Kinger’s eyes shone with appreciation—he had no mouth, but he could still express his emotions.
“You can’t be serious,” Jax responded, staring at Pomni. “You hate that crazy AI as much as we do.”
Gangle, having remained silent this entire time, decided to speak up. “I think we should try,” she said quietly.
Ragatha glanced between Pomni and Jax. “I-I mean, well, we really don’t have any other options. It’s either stay in this crumbling place and, well, I don’t know, or save Caine and bring the circus back to what it was,” Ragatha added, her hands clasped together behind her back.
Zooble muttered something under their breath. “We don’t have a choice. Let’s just pick the best one and get it over with,” they said, shrugging.
Jax looked between them all and realized he had no allies. “Don’t– I–” He stammered, unable to form the proper words. “Fine, whatever,” he spat, turning away from the others. He clenched his fists tightly. “Do what you will,” he added.
The rest of the cast looked at each other, each not knowing what to do next.
“We need a plan,” Kinger stated after a few minutes of silence. “A plan to bring back Caine.”