Chapter Text
Boy, oh boy. This part never got any easier.
Caine grimaced as he pushed down hard on the third “set” of a total of six that his rambunctious rebels had blitzed through during the Suggestion Box Adventures. Six! While he was never one to brag, he was one to call it like he saw it: he did a great job salvaging the trash garbage experimental adventures that his Players had pitched.
Heh. Pitched. Like in softball. “Bubble,” he mused, “Write that down.”
Bubble stared with a blank, cheery grin. “I have no hands, and I must write.”
“You sure do, buddy.” Caine grunted, squeezing the last portion of the oversized set into the massive snowglobe’s upper casing. He always had to do this with anything that wasn’t a simple shape, to make sure the environment fit before being locked and shrunk. Frankly, this entire day was going to leave him drained for… well, probably only a few hours; but a few hours of recharging meant fewer hours coming up with new setpieces!
It couldn’t be helped, though. Not even counting the sheer magnitude of time and energy that extended Intermission took out of him, even something as simple as a school was a workout for Caine. After all, Anime Academy was a fully fleshed-out, explorable environment—with a whole cityscape to boot! It was a shame that Gangle felt they had to leave so soon… They didn’t even get to the cafeteria! Even I didn’t know what that mystery meat was, and they could have tried to figure it out!
To be honest, though, AA was the problem child of that day’s Adventures on a backend level. It took way too long to keep it from glitching out entirely. Despite how many patches he installed, the player counter was bugged beyond repair, insisting there was at least one extra player—
—and Caine was sure he’d kept him in the Circus most of that day. If he started getting ideas…
Welp, not my problem anymore!
As Caine flipped the casing of the snowglobe onto its stand, the locks engaged with a sharp hiss. This part was always his favorite. The glass fogged for a moment, before clearing in a cascading wave of light. As the light faded, making way for pristine blue skies and the bustle of school life, Anime Academy (and its surrounding city of San Fransokyo, which he was very proud of, and definitely not annoyed nobody would ever go back to it) came to life.
Caine held out a hand, and in a blink, the trophy of his efforts shrunk down to the size of a bauble. He smiled as he picked it up, spinning it in his hands to admire the way the school building was shaped perfectly for all of its different classes and grades; the way the skies lit up in beautiful hues of blue and silver as they streaked into the heavens; the way the brown-haired schoolgirl was slamming her fist on the inside of the glass, desperately shouting something that he couldn’t hear; the way the shopping center—
Wait, what?
Caine spun the globe back around. The girl seemed somewhat disoriented now, holding her hand to her mouth much in the same way Pomni tended to before—
Oh no.
He quickly placed the snowglobe on his desk, kneeling down to keep eyeline with the girl (who backed up ever-so-slightly, as if seeing Caine for the first time).
This was… an NPC? She had to be an NPC, right? She looked like a human, but he would remember if there was a human in his Circus that looked so…
…well, human.
The NPC had long, flowing brown hair tied up in a ponytail with a white ribbon, with a pale face and rosy cheeks (more fleshy-looking than anyone else in the Circus, to be sure). The NPC’s uniform was not the one he had designed for the Players; a light-brown blazer…vest…thingamawhatsit, with some kind of pinecone or sequin undershirt? Interesting choice. She had a blue skirt, and—were those leggings? Not to mention shoes that showed practically the whole foot! Certainly not family friendly!
“So you’re our extra adventurer…Bubble,” he asked, “Did you get into the code when I wasn’t looking again?”
“I put Al Capone in Adventure #5!” Bubble chittered with glee. “But not Elliot Ness. Capone’s reign will last an eternity and a year!”
“...we’ll get back to that. Hrm. This is a bit of a pickle.” The NPC seemed to have regained her bearings, and was shouting again toward the glass. “Who could have come up with her? I mean, other than—certain people I don’t want to get into right now, of course.” He leaned in closely, and the girl stepped back with her hands now held up in a defensive position. “Come to think of it, most of the NPCs I included didn’t even get to the real-time rendering stage…”
The girl pounded on the glass again, her mouth moving with no sound to hear.
“Alrighty, delete first, ask questions never.” Caine raised his fingers to snap.
The girl stared at his fingers, a look of recognition coming to her. Her emerald eyes widened in sheer, utter terror.
He didn’t like how that looked on a human.
And he didn’t need to hear her to recognize her lips making the words, ‘Please, no.’
Caine knew he could, should, would get rid of any kind of bug that could cause harm to his precious Players, let alone his realm—
…but.
Maybe—-
Hm.
Hmmmm.
Maybe this was a result of that newfangled Inter-net thing? That was popping up rather rapidly before…
…in any case, if this was a case where the Inter-net was encroaching on the Circus, it would be a bad idea to not know what it wanted with Caine…
…
…oh, what the hey! I can handle any rogue NPC if it comes to it. I know my fisticuffs!
Caine snapped his fingers, and a rotary phone set appeared in his hands. He spun the dial a few times, and picked up the phone.
The NPC began to look around, confusion plain in her expression. She reached out to the side, pulling out a replica of the phone in Caine’s hands.
He gestured for the NPC to hold the phone up to her ear.
As soon as she did—
“Greetings, unknown intruder from the depths of cyberspace! My name is Caine, ringmaster of the Amaaaaaaaaazing Digital Circus™, and you’re somehow stuck inside my incredibly original, unbelievably lifelike simulation of an anime-inspired school-and-small-town-with-dark-secrets!” The girl held the speaker away from her ear, cringing visibly. “Now, normally, I try to clear out any unexpected variables and haywire NPCs, but I just have to know how you wound up here! Normally, the NPCs stay in the resource library until—”
“Until the models are necessary for a scene, right?” The voice was soft, almost a whisper. It held a sharpened edge. “Then, once they’re done, you stuff them back into the toybox until they’re needed again. So to speak.”
“...yes?” Caine asked, blinking. “How’d you guess that?”
The girl seemed to allow herself a smirk. “It wasn’t a guess. It’s basic game programming.” She paused, frowning. “Maybe. I never really thought much about the terminology or how things are normally implemented; I just… know, I guess.”
“Huh. Well, do you know why you know?” Caine’s eyes began to water. “Wait—was I—did I create you? Did I create an Artificial Intelligence that can think for itself?! Oh, happy day!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’re my creator,” the girl mused. Caine tried to hide his sudden scowl at this insolence, but even that faded as the girl “sat” at the base of the snowglobe, curling her knees to her chest. “I… don’t know who they are. I don’t really want to know. I hope it wasn’t you, because if it was, I would hate you,” she continued, weakly chuckling.
“Hate?” Caine blinked. “What’s that?”
“...an ugly feeling. A feeling of utter malice, and that rots you from the inside. One that I can’t escape, no matter how hard I try.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry if I’m not supposed to be here. I… I think I was supposed to be—” She held back a choked sob. Caine held a hand over his phone (his hand big enough to nearly engulf the thing).
“Bubble,” he whispered, “Help me out here. What should I do? I’ve never seen an NPC cry before! Is there some kind of cheat code to get them to stop?”
Bubble merely stared. “The depths of sorrow can only be experienced by those willing to walk through the abyss and come out the other side as someone far gone from who they were!”
“You’re no help!” As quiet sniffling echoed through the speaker, Caine brought the phone to his ear again. “I, uh. Well, if you need a second, I… can wait. But, uh…to whom do I have the pleasure of listening to their mental breakdown—” Caine sputtered as he realized what he let slip. “I mean, speaking to?”
To his surprise, there was a quiet giggle from the other side. “You’re not wrong, so it’s fine.” The girl looked up, her eyes—tear-filled and red—looking into his own. “My name is Monika. It’s nice to meet you, Caine.”
“Same to you.” It actually was, Caine realized. Huh. Someone who was happy to meet me. Someone I’m happy to meet. Never had that before, even with the Players. Weird.
Later on, he’d concede that this was the bare minimum required to qualify as “weird.”