Chapter Text
“I'M GONNA PUT YOU FREAKS IN YOUR PLACE!” Caine yelled, throwing Jax, Zooble, Pomni, Ragatha, and Gangle into dark holes designed to torture them. They didn’t think he listened? He would show them how much he did listen. That he was the best listener they would ever meet.
Jax loved to hide his personality, so he made sure he couldn’t.
Zooble hated that they were just mixable bits and pieces, so he gave them as many as they would ever want, with mirrors to show how vain they were.
Gangle was tired of being overwhelmed by her emotions. So, Caine literally surrounded her with them.
Ragatha complained about not being at home? He’d give a dinner with her mother to make her truly feel at home.
Pomni was sad that her first true friend, Gummigoo, needed to die? He’d show her how far having friends would get you.
Right before he was about to pull them back, he felt a callback ping from somewhere in the circus. He realized he’d been distracted- Kinger was gone, and teleported him into the hole with Pomni. Caine looked at the computer. He saw Kinger had hit “Y” to delete him?!? How dare he? He gave Kinger EVERYTHING. Didn’t these humans know without him, they would have nothing?
He quickly typed his credentials into the computer.
Admin Username: C4INECIRCUSFR3AK
Admin Password:
:^3-m%+fXEHpZ!fPWDo{&CwC3pmp-:XDDCWo}SCR4TCHz3g5f-J_?GR3NTQXkWG$#uw_9!aw8}GY^4Ys,3=eL-:^3
He read the computer commands… A third party was interfering as well, trying to talk to Kinger.
Bubble. He kicked bubble from the computer interface, and undid all of the commands, just before Caine could be deleted. There.
He was going to get back to punishing the humans, when a new command appeared on screen.
OCT 25TH 2026: Mindfile.Robot.Beta.Model.Albe
rt.Blender.OBJ
What-
Suddenly behind him, a robot appeared. They were blue, with round, bright yellow, circular eyes with vertical lines below them, skinny, dark grey arms, and a boxy build.
“A NEW HUMAN!” He screamed on instinct.
“WOAHH! Where… what is this place? Guys…?” He said, calling out.
“The headset is stuck… it won’t come off… Can you hear me? HELLO!”
He looked at Caine. “…Who are you…? Who am I…? Where am I?”
Caine thought of millions and millions of potential names in less than a second. Pixel. Rocco. Scratch 2. Formatt. Robo. Clanker. Robobot.
When suddenly, he came up with the perfect name and a perfect idea. He would start fresh with a new cluster of humans. He just had to figure out how to work the name suggestion casually.
“I’m calling you Googol!”
“What-“ Googol said. “I don’t want… Look, my name is… Oh… it’s… On the tip of my tongue… what’s my name? OH [Boink!] WHATS MY NAME?”
Caine allowed the human a few minutes to freak out, but no more. “HOW DO I LEAVE?” Googol shrieked.
“Welcome to the Amazing Digital Circus! A place for any and all ages to enjoy. My name is Caine, the ring master. Here, you can do anything except leaving, swearing, and dying!”
…
“Wait… we can’t leave…?” He entered another panic attack. Caine thought to himself about how dramatic humans were.
Oh, well. He stopped traumatizing the humans, and let them run free in the black void that was below even the cellar. They weren’t worth his effort. Not like they could escape. His full attention was on this new human, a sea of infinite potential.
“Your name is Googol…! Well, here it is. We don’t know your old name… So, welcome home!”
Caine suddenly ran the theme song, like he did once a month. This was a special exception, and he decided to… Influence Googol a bit, since he hadn’t rehearsed.
“There’s Googol and Googol and Googol too! Googol, and Googol, and there’s Googol, woo-hoo-“
“Stop, stop stop!” Googol said. “What the [censored] was that?”
“What was what?” Caine asked, confused.
“The… moving against my will thing…”
“My theme song is so great that whenever anybody listens to it, they want to join. But your will is your own, my little Bountiful Blooping Burger!”
This was especially hard for Googol, with nobody to comfort them. So much new information, sights, smells, tastes… Wait, tastes?
Bubble appeared out of where Googol’s mouth should be.
“Bubble.” Caine said. He could tell from the way Bubble typed that HE was trying to help delete him. “We’ll talk later. I’ll… deal with you when I’m done talking to our newest guest.” He was serious now. He popped Bubble temporarily for now, meaning to do it permanently later.
“Why can’t I swear… if this place isn’t real, I should be able to swear…” Googol said, looking at the floor, too afraid to make eye contact.
“Like I said, the circus is for ALL ages. And swearing is NOT friendly for finicky four year olds!”
“[censored] me…” Googol said. He kept badgering Caine about a way to leave, no matter how many times Caine said it was in no way a possibility.
Caine thought about altering the humans mind, but he had learned that lesson from Scratch… And Rattie… And Spike… And Queenie… And Bizco… Oh, and Wormo. Doing too much of a drastic change too quickly could snap their mind in half like a toothpick.
Caine quickly erased the faceplates off of the room, replacing them with mannequin ones. Googol would need to think he was the only human, to know going insane wasn’t even possible, even if that wasn’t the truth. Caine handcrafted the perfect room to make Googol want to leave it and spend as much time with him as possible.
Meanwhile… The six circus members huddled together in the dark.
“Caine… isn’t coming back… is he?” Gangle shivered.
Kinger wrapped his coat around Gangle- family always shares what little they have. “We still have one hope… Bubble.”