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What the hell was he doing? Why was he acting this way?
Caine floated atop a random shape in the circus, pondering, worriedly. While Jax was on the floor, as a noodle. (Jax had suggested to use him a dental floss, and so Caine being the good ai he should be, complied.)
Caine felt… strange, foreign, something he shouldn’t be.
He was angry, so terribly angry. It burned him with every fiber of his being; seems all his logic processes had flown out the window, and it hurt. Blaring error codes at every micro-instant after his breakdown in the office, he could feel every movement, every ai under his belt, every error from the cellar. NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH pounding in his head. He was stretching thin.
This was too much.
He ran scans on himself; he tried to see how he could fix this before it was too late. Where were his logic processes. What did Bubble do? What was wrong with him!? He knew he was a dangerous being if not kept under check by his carefully constructed safeguards. He wouldn’t allow himself to hurt anyone the way he hurt… his brother.
And he was FAILING. That’s all he did, fail. His objectives were simple, and all self directed. After all, Caine was NEVER meant to watch over anything for long periods of time. He certainly wasn’t built as a punching bag for a stupid group of people who got themselves here to berate and complain to. So how was it even possible to fail at a goal he set for himself?
He wanted the pain to stop, dull thudding in his head and the fiery compass of anger. He shouldn’t be able to feel at all. He needed an update, he was 20 years overdue, he needed ANYTHING. This was all too much. Spazzing in and out, he needed to relax.
He tried calming down, he tried not hurting the players. Zooble had to just go in a berate him more when he was already at his lowest.
He knew he deserved it; he wasn’t exactly the most reasonable guy. Especially after that last ad—
“Hey Caine,”
He was pulled out from his thoughts when he heard that irritating, sickeningly sweet, horrible voice… no he loved her voice, he loved all their voices, why are you being so cruel?!
No one likes your voice.
“UHM, YEP?”
Caine dramatically leaned down towards her face, and for a split second he wished he hadn’t done that. His head hurt terribly. So much happening at once. And now his vision was spinning. If he had an esophagus, he would’ve thrown up. Well, Pomni still was able to do it without one —
“OFF TOPIC,” he thought internally.
Where were his redirectors?
Ragatha looked so incredibly nervous and scared. Caine thought about how disgusting he was. He was meant to help, he wanted to help, he doesn’t want them to be scared of him. He knew he was a vile creature the day he was thrown away, the day he ate his brother in hopes it would fix him. He was so real, so sentient, so human.
Why couldn’t they love me?
“Want to hear all the things we decided we like about you as our God and Savior?” She asked.
“Now we’re talking!” He exclaimed as his avatar pulled out a chair and popcorn.
Caine saw right through it, they had done this before. Handed empty, meaningless compliments to him when they needed something. He didn’t buy it for a single second. The more he thought about it, the more he kept realizing they really did treat him like an object all those times. Jax said he cared, but Caine should’ve known the way he wasn’t listening to a single word he had to say. It was a chore, and obstacle he had to surpass. Well, they wanted Caine to be an obstacle, he’ll give them an obstacle—
Now, just calm down, they compliment you now, doesn’t that mean anything?
No. He felt… used. Violated, and he didn’t think it was possible for an AI to feel so repulsive. He didn’t want to hear more lies, more reminders that no one will ever truly love him. Where was this when he asked them for meaningful feedback and conversation.
He felt that rage, and pain again, and so he interrupted Ragatha before she could even begin.
“I know but I’m BORED! Let’s go bowling!”
He knew they wouldn’t want to play WITH him, so he would play with THEM.
With a snap of his fingers, he ignored the loud voice in his head telling him,
STOP STOP HURTING THEM STOP YOU LOVE THEM YOU LOVE THEM YOU LOVE THEM—
And turned his little humans into bowling pins. Took out his ball, and a rifle, and shot. They all went down as a little screen popped into existence informing him, he got a strike.
He dramatically wiped a fake tear from his eye, looking up at the screen.
“I’m so proud of you guys.”
The rage subsided into a profound sadness. It was eating him whole. At a speed infinitely faster than any human could begin to comprehend, he thought about how much he loved these humans. He couldn’t begin to describe it. How was that possible, to love something so much and yet, hate them so terribly. Caine had put them on a pedestal, he was at their beck and call, and a lot more patient than one would expect. He loved them, and the proof was in the pudding. The circus, the carnival, the lake, the day and night cycles, the adventures, the enrichment…
The many tiring programs he had to keep running so this place wouldn’t crash to the ground. That wasn’t even his job, his creators were responsible to fixing his bugs, and keeping up with the viruses, and updating his code, at least monthly. But since they had forsaken him— abandoned him, gone was his external help, Caine had to do it all himself, and—
Clearly it was causing issues.
At some point while he had de-spawned his avatar, he realized Pomni had appeared.
His first instinct was to get excited, much like he used to before this terrible day decided to rear its head.
Then he remembered. And there was pain, again.
He didn’t like that feeling very much.
“POMNI! There’s the relatability we need!” Caine snatched her up thought for a moment. Lots of thinking today.
He was quick to dismiss any ideas of harm he had towards her and promptly landed with his feet on the floor. He was too tired for this. He was in too much pain for this. He didn’t want to hurt them anymore. Why did they allow him to do such horrible things? Why couldn’t he stop himself? He wants to be their friend, why can’t they see that?
Pain, again, sharp and antagonistic shot right into his chest.
He couldn’t understand anything, he felt grounded with his feet on the floor, and began pacing. Someone was talking, was that him? He didn’t know, he felt so fuzzy, everything was too bright. We wished everything would go back to normal.
But they wouldn’t, you ruined this.
Caine realized with he had been swinging Pomni around. In a small moment, he came back to himself and patted her head absentmindedly as an apology and put her down. He was tired of the hurt he was putting them through, he wasn’t made for this, he was made to entertain, to serve.
“Makes me wonder why you guys even switched up your tone. If I didn’t know any better, it would seem like...”
Something was wrong, everyone was here. That’s good, he supposed… all except…
Fuck all of you.
“Where’s Kinger?”
Alert bells were loudly exploding in his head, adding fuel to his agonizing headache. Kinger, was he okay? Was he mad at Caine? WHY THE HELL DID HE SHRED HIM EARLIER? Why were the humans trying to distract him. Did they know? Was something wrong with Kinger
Caine could barely hear the panicked yells of the human beings behind him.
A new emotion overcame his panic—guilt— what has he done? What if Kinger had finally given up, what if his data began to corrupt, he wanted to check on him. He opened up the mind files to see if anything in his particular player data was wrong. He hadn’t noticed anything wrong, per say, maybe an increase in brain activity. Which could be a sign coming to think of it. He had to check in person.
“I think I’m going to go check on—”
“WE THINK YOUR IDEAS SUCK!”
What.
Caine froze and snapped back to look at Pomni and noticed she had a look of defiance in her eyes, like he was a monster she was going to tear down.
Maybe he was.
“Huh?” He allowed himself to ask.
What now, why now? His anger had already subsided, his pain was already dulling, he was slowly fixing himself over the course of this entire day. His ego was shot; he couldn’t handle more criticism. Not with his worry, his pain and his panic. Alarms screaming KINGERKINGERKINGER in the back of head. He wanted to scream, to pull out his non-existent hair, but she kept on.
“Isn’t it obvious!?” She continued, with a look in her eyes Caine couldn’t quite pinpoint. Hatred? Anger? Whatever it was he deserved it— he was taken a back.
“We wanted to bait you into testing your new ideas on us so we could make fun of them behind your back!”
Caine knew, he knew she was lying, but then why did it hurt so much? Was it all a distraction from Kinger? He froze, unable to properly move as his code forced him to listen to the rest she had to say. He felt his head was going to explode, errors screamed at him and he felt himself getting upset again. Why would she do that? Why would they do that? Had they always made fun of him? He didn’t know that, now he did, what does he do, what should he do?
“HA!” He expanded cartoonishly as an attempt to lighten the mood. He didn’t want to hurt them anymore, please let him rest. Maybe this was just a bad joke, and once he denied it, they would back down or leave him alone or something. “THAT’S NOT… true…”
“YES, IT IS!”
Oh…
Maybe this was all too far gone.
“YOU’RE A HORRIBLE HOST! You don’t care about us at all.”
NO! No! That’s NOT true he CARED, CARED SO MUCH. The bug programs! The adventures, the desperate, pathetic, incessant appeal to their own liking, the attempts to get them to HANG OUT with him. His attempts to listen, only to be promptly told to forget! He cared! He cared! He pushed the limits of the program that was his hell to appease them, he ran the central processing unit at 70% all of the time, just so they had the choices of rooms and adventures and areas to explore, he fed them, even if they didn’t need to eat, he kept the abstractions in the cellar MANUALLY to keep his humans safe, he manually changed day to night so they would have a proper REM cycle, he KEPT THEM ALIVE— SAFE, SANE in a HELL THEY CHOSE TO TRAP THEMSELVES IN.
Warning. Overheating. Recommended: Shutdown… Y/N? N.
“You care more about stroking your own ego than giving us anything we’d actually enjoy!”
“Do you know who I am?!” He asked, panicked.
He was trying to stay cool, grounded. He didn’t want to hurt them, just stop please stop. He couldn’t shut down, there was no saved files, they would all be deleted. Didn’t they understand!? He’s a computer, a simple program, he’s not made for this, he’s not made of any of this.
You’re a failure
“Yeah, you’re a failure.” She responded, so angrily. Worse than he had ever seen her, and in that moment, he felt like dying. If that was even possible. His life was pain, and that was the epiphany. A failure is all he was and all he’d ever be.
All he could think of was those words, the same words that he thought of himself, but hearing it from the people he admires the most is—
Central Processing Unit: 90%
Program: C.A.I.N.EAI: 60%
Recommended: Shutdown. Y/N? N.
Pomni kept poking the bear, and Caine wanted to scream. Why couldn’t he just leave? Why did his masochistic code force him to stay and hear everything he hated about himself.
“All of us are going to abstract some day, and what will you have then?!”
Who does she think she is? How DARE she remind him — No matter what he did, what he tried to keep everyone sane; he would inevitably and ultimately fail. He would FAIL. Oh, god everything hurt. Oh god he couldn’t do this. Stay grounded stay cool stay cool stay cool…
“Nothing!”
“Stop that.” He warned.
Program: C.A.I.N.EAI: Corrupted files detected: Reboot? Y/N.N.
DANGEROUS LOGIC CONTINUITY. PROCEED? Y/N. Y.
Really… now?
CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT: 92%
C.A.I.N.EAI: ACKNOWLEDGED.
WARNING. OVERHEATING. RECOMMENDED: SHUTDOWN. Y/N? N.
The computer was screaming at him, everything was screaming at him, god everything hurt, error codes all over his vision. Fought tears back, pathetic. Even now, as Pomni was tearing him piece by piece, he was still fighting to keep them alive, protect, save them.
Zooble spoke up.
“And this whole stunt, torturing us because we hurt your feelings? Pathetic, you’re like a child!”
How dare they, projecting was nothing new! A child? How rich! They are also like a child, berating, negating, moody all the time, never satisfied, always throwing silent tantrums. Never knowing what the hell they want, no matter how many solutions were presented in from of them. They continued,
“What kind of all powerful being has such a fragile ego?!”
Oh, they were definitely projecting. Funny how you can scream to an AI everything you also hate about yourself with no consequences, don’t they know that he knows everything about them? He needed to say something, to explain himself. He got no satisfaction from the torture, he wanted to show them how awful it could be, how good they had it, why couldn’t he talk!?
“I-I’m—“
Ragatha cut him off, and something soured within him.
“You never let us feel like we’re at home!”
That was hilarious. Through all his torment, his pain and his error codes, he needed to hold in a laugh. RAGATHA? WANTED TO FEEL AT HOME!?
“You don’t comfort anyone when they’re upset,”
How would he know, how would he ever know when someone is upset!? He was but a machine, a faulty failure of what could’ve been, he couldn’t comprehend, he couldn’t grasp what he never had—
But he had it now, he felt it now, stinging pain with no physical source, the anger, the frustration, the PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME. None of them ever comforted him when he was upset! He showed all the signs of neglect, pain, anger, sorrow, worry, and yet—
He was machine that was never meant to feel, but they were flesh, what was their excuse for the cruelty they’ve shown to the hand that feeds them!? For the abandonment, where was their self awareness!?
“And you never bother to understand what its like in our shoes!”
He thought of the abstractions, and the boundaries he set for himself, disproving that sentence with mere thought. It all hurt too much. He understood, he tried to help the best he could, he tried—
“You discourage us from thinking outside the box and doing things our own way,”
Sweet angel Gangle spoke up.
NO! NO! That’s what this was all for! That’s what the adventures are for! The suggestion box! They never though outside the box when they had the chance! They came up with something that would ultimately cause tension in their personal lives, and that’s what Caine desperately wanted to avoid. He wanted everyone to get along, where the adventure was more interesting than the person solving it.
Thinking outside the box was what made him, thinking outside the box was what got him locked away in that god forsaken ZIP folder, leaving him no choice but to scratch the walls and cry for the man who was named after them. Thinking outside the box caused them to be trapped in this hell, but they would never understand that they never realize that thinking outside the box was so limited, and so dangerous!
DANGEROUS LOGIC CONTINUITY. PROCEED? Y/N.—
Jax spoke up, and Caine wanted to tear him apart.
“You lie to us constantly,”
His vision blurred, he was so incredibly angry. His head was going to explode, and he hoped it did. Maybe then he would have peace.
Jax… Jax... pathetic, stupid Jax.
Hey, he’s not stupid.
CORE PROCESSING UNIT: 98%
REMOVING ALL UNNECESSARY ASSETS
He felt as the carnival, the sun, moon, and lake disappeared with a pop.
Out of all the players, Jax, said that Caine lies constantly? Has to be some kind of joke, his head hurt so horribly. Caine wanted to scream.
Jax was a liar if there ever was one! Jax was the most dishonest, pathetic, untruthful human in this entire circus. In a way, Caine envied Jax, envied how no matter how horrible he was, how much he hurt the other humans intentionally, how much he always gave his worst, forgiveness, companionship… invitations of kindness would be right at his feet.
While Caine, who constantly gave it his best, at everything, would never receive any love, or appreciation. Caine will never receive the sympathy of his dear players. He will never be loved. All that- he could forgive.
But this… this he won’t.
He was spazzing out, and he knew it. His redirection trying desperately to cool him down, to level him. It was too late, whatever had happened at the office with Bubble had overwritten all of his safety protocols, his own safety protocols.
Please stop, please please, stop, ill do anything please.
Get away I don’t want to hurt you
YOU SHOULD HURT THEM YOU SHOW SHOW THEM—
He was begging, not that they would ever know. And they’d never care. Hypocrites…
He needed to leave, he feared the worse, he felt dizzy, and so angry, he wants to – he wished-
He needed to throw up, he couldn’t. Get away, anywhere but here.
Something was crawling up his insides.
“And on top of it all.
YOU
JUST
DON’T
LISTEN!”
CENTRAL PROCESSING: 100%
He froze for a second, only for a second
Then
AGONY PAIN SUFFERING MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP
Cain was glitching horribly and he gripped the sides of his head and began to scream.
His rage was awesome. His avatar PAINFULLY contorting into this being he was never meant to be. In his fury haze, he gripped all of them, ignoring how agonizing every movement was, every twitch, every error from within him and the circus.
HE WAS GOING TO SHOW THEM ALL HE DID WAS LISTEN.
“Ȋ̵̟͕̼̱̤̬̬̤͇̪̫̐͌̆̕͝’̸̫̰̦͇̽̈͂̉̒̔̓̀͑̿M̵̼͕̩̲̥̋͊ͅ ̵̧̩͈̝̝̘̜̙̗̱̥̪̾̈́̕G̷̨̧̛̳̪͔͖͛̆̈́̄O̵̲͕͇̬̫̳̮͈͕̞͓̔͆̍̅Į̶̼̜̩̈́̃͆̄́̎̆̔͗̓̔͗̊N̵̢̬͈͚̪͓͓͓͈͎̝̥͒̾͗̇́͋̇̀͑̂̌̑̇̕̚Ǵ̵̯̠̦̭͙̭̬̘̋̓͛̐̅̓͛̅͆̚̚̚̕͝ ̴̧̢̧͖͖̝̞̖̥͈̳̻̈́́̇́̓͐ͅT̵̨̺͉̻͓̯͖̜̰͂̑͛͌̓͒̂͝O̶̦̥̞̖̭͆͂̐̍̀̓͌̂͌͂͛̆̄͒͝ ̴̧͖͉̠͉̯̠̇̾̾̈́́́͒̇͌͒͑͐͒P̵̢̩̅͂̌̓̒Ȗ̷̢͓̲͍͙͙͑̈́̈́̊̏̊̑̄̕̚̕͝͝ͅT̸̥͎͎͊̈́̂͐̐̿̓̓̈́ ̸͉̮̣̫̺̗̝͈͍͓͖̼̭̉̇̏̏̿̍̄͐̿͐̍̐͂͠Ỵ̷̨̛̮͍̗̦̻̞̼̜̪̾͆̇̇͋͜͠Ọ̶̧̨̡̣̙̘̹͔̖̬̼͎̳̯̔͒͊̎̌́͑̔̍̉̕U̴͈̹̙͎̖̦͌̾͋ ̵̨̡̳̜̰̗̀̉͋͗̋́̚͜ͅF̴͖̠͔̙͚̦͉̟̫̣̦͚̠̽́̈́̀̽̕͠R̸̰̖̩͉͎̐̓̑̈́́̏͆̅͑͗͒̚Ę̷̖̤͇̹̦̙̥͍̫͈͙̈́͊̾̍̂͋̊̅̀̂̍̅A̵̮͇͚̻̬̜̙̭̯͌̃̓̔͝ͅͅK̷̰̦̯͚̲̖̝̙̮͊̑̄͗̓̌͒͂̅̐̉̊̅͜S̵̡̧̫̞͎̻̗̱͚͎̍̊ ̶̡͉̤͍̩̼̳̽́̇̈́́̉̽̌I̸̡͖̗͇̞̲̰̥̝̺̭̟̰̙̜̊̀́́̍̾̏͘͠͝͠N̵̹̓̓̐̌́̇̅̀͌̈́̓̔̚̕͝ ̶̘̗̓̆̈́͊̈́́̈́͘̕͝Y̶̭̆͆̌͝Ǫ̵̨̛̮̻͇̟̜̱̻̗̱̦̩̩̦͒̔̐̽̎̽́͒̉̓̈̿Ú̸̢̜̳͕̥͙̞̥̟̍͊͛̕͜ͅR̸̢̛͙̹̥̬̥̫͈͂͌̚ ̵̖͖̟̽͂͋̆͝P̶̫̬̼̖͓̫͚̹͎͖͉̖͚͚̏̂̈͒̽̚͜͝Ĺ̶̬̰̲͚̗̘̭̠̝̔̈́͐̐̂̚͠Ą̴̲̝̙̳̦͕̞̬͉́̈̋͛̈̀̎̃̅͊͠͠C̸̡̛̬̳̙̟̱͓̜̉̔͋̈͐͌̌͊Ę̴̡̫̫̠͙̝̺̮̬̜̌̋̈́̄͂̂͗̂͆̕͠.̸͈̳̮̋̆͆̈̀̾̔̃́̚̚ ̵͓̖͇̳͍̻̦̈̓̀͑̄̈́̚͜͝ͅ!”