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It was impossible not to admire Caine’s monstrous form. Under a strictly technical point, it was astounding the kind of things Caine could not only do to the world around him but to himself. The way he could twist his body like it was made of clay, not just making himself bigger or stretch his limbs out, but growing in a widely different form.
Spider-like.
Kinger hadn’t known what to expect when he rushed out of his pillow fort, leaving the computer to finish installing the backup. It might’ve been… yes, not the smartest move, but he had a very bad feeling that he couldn’t just ignore. He had lifted the bucket from over his head, still somehow shielding his eyes from direct light, to have his fears justified.
Caine dropped everyone he was holding against a wall, their bodies falling to the ground hard enough for their bones to break if they had had any. Caine snapped his head toward Kinger, he looked like a feral dog, in a way.
Quickly, one of the too many hands Caine had acquired closed the distance between itself and Kinger, grabbing him roughly. The bucket fell back over Kinger’s head, surrounding him in darkness and making his brain less scattered again.
“Kinger,” Caine’s voice came out double, distorted as he tightened his grip on the chess piece’s wooden body.
Almost immediately after, another voice called his name. Pomni? The bucket made voices hard to distinguish, and there seemed to be something warping the sounds around Caine, like statics surrounding him.
“It-It’s alright,” Kinger lifted the bucket again, just enough to see Caine refocus back on him, Pomni standing behind him, seemingly ready to fight despite her short stature.
“The…” maybe he shouldn’t talk about what had been going on behind the scenes “everything’s fine, I can handle him.” As if to prove him wrong, Caine slammed him hard against the floor, his hand restricting the human’s whole body. The bucket dug into the back of Kinger’s neck and he had to wonder if the pain was even real, who was to say?
Some kind of commotion could be heard not too far, the other humans picking themselves up and deciding what to do. Why weren’t they gone already? Sure Caine would probably shut down any moment, but it was not worth any of them getting more hurt than they already had. Kinger had let them distract Caine the whole day, taking the worse of it so he could find a solution. It was only right for him to take their place for a fraction of that same time.
Kinger would’ve liked to focus on whether or not the younger members had left, but Caine’s hot breath right against his chest made it hard to do so.
Kinger blindly reached his hand out until he landed on something solid, likely a tooth — God, they were sharp, sharper than they should’ve logically been. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on his perception. He pulled his hand back before going for it again, it wasn’t like Caine could bite his hand off, really.
“Caine,” he started tentatively. The fact he wasn’t being ripped apart was a good sign already and all Kinger really needed to do was buy some time. How long could the rebooting even take?
“Why are you here?” The question took a moment to register in Kinger’s brain. He felt Caine push down on him. One of his fingers pressed its pad right over the human’s chest, making him feel like he was about to get his ribcage crushed. After so many years without a ribcage, one would think Kinger had forgot he was even supposed to have it, but no.
“I want to hel- let me help you.” Kinger inhaled sharply when Caine turned his head, pushing a canine against the back of his hand.
“Help me?!” his voice seemed to echo all around, bouncing off the wall only to hit Kinger harder each time.
“It’s all your fault.” Kinger fought the desire to pull away, to cower, instead, he proceeded to hold Caine with his other hand as well.
“I know,” he said truthfully, “I’m sorry I never… it is my fault.” In the back of his mind, Kinger wondered if Caine would somehow remember any of what he was saying. He hoped so although he knew that probably wasn’t the case.
“Why did you create me?” Kinger’s brain flatlined for a split second. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answer, it was the fact that Caine had turned out to be so much more than he had imagined… it sounded so silly to offer a mere “I was researching creative AI”.
Caine had been an accident, in the grand scheme of things, but it wasn’t right to treat him like one.
“I was stupid,” he offered back. “I thought I knew everything, how to control it, control you.” Caine evidently didn’t seem to like that phrasing because he suddenly picked Kinger up again, holding him in the air like nothing more than a dog’s chew toy.
“Control me?” Kinger couldn’t be sure, but he felt the AI’s eyes stare right through him.
“Yes, but I can’t do it, I can’t…” there he went, “I can’t hide you away in a box when I don’t like how you behave.” That seemed to do something, everything glitched, even the bucket over Kinger’s head, allowing him to take the quickest look at Caine’s face. He was halfway between his normal form and his monster version, his eyes wide and teeth arched in a blank expression. There weren’t even that many arms anymore.
“You won’t do it again?” Caine sounded normal for a moment, vulnerable even.
“Of course not.” It was a useless question with a useless answer. Kinger didn’t have the power to box Caine away even if he wanted to, and yet, it wasn’t useless to Caine.
“I…” before Caine could finish his sentence, Kinger felt the hand holding him disappear. He fell to the ground on his back, letting out a pained oof. Before he could start theorizing Caine had let him go, he felt a weight fall over him and when he lifted the bucket he confirmed it was his AI. Out for the count.
Cain was really smaller than he had any right to be. His eyes had turned black with a loading bar slowly progressing, above it was “backup installation” and “wait” underneath.
Kinger felt weirdly protective all of a sudden. It was unfair how little attention he had paid to Caine. Obviously, he could blame part of it on his terrible memory, but he hadn’t always been that way and; even before his mind started playing tricks on him, even before people started abstracting, he never paid Caine the attention he deserved.
As he held the small AI close to his chest he promised himself to try and do better. If they were to accept the circus and its dynamic, they had to accept Caine too and Kinger would take the first step if that was what was needed.
But for now, the AI was rebooting, giving him, and the rest of the crew, time to think of their next steps.