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His head hurt, the light was coming in too bright and he couldn’t think straight. But also… he felt like he was thinking much straighter than usual.
He tried to lift his hand and shield his eyes from the light only to find… what was that? His sight was blurry but, with the help of his hand, he could tell something was stuck in his arm. His arm? That was weird. Since when did he have an arm? No, that couldn’t be right. Of course he had arms. But then, why did it feel so weird?
And also, what was the thing in his arm again?
He tried to sit up, fighting the dizziness in his head that made him want to lay back down. So he had been… not upright, clearly. And now he was sitting on… a bed?
Slowly, his eyes seemed to focus, although he still couldn’t see clearly.
The light was coming from his left, a window facing… green. A garden.
And was that damn thing in his arm?
He reached again to take it off, except it hurt to pull away. A needle. He had a needle in his arm. Why?
He must’ve been in a hospital. Yes, of course. Where were… the others? Others who? There were other people with him before…
Someone was pushing him back down before he could try and elaborate that train of thoughts.
“Sir, stay still, please,” a young male voice coming from a blurry figure with brown skin and short curly hair.
“What…” he managed to ask, it didn’t much sound like a question but, to be fair, his words didn’t sound much like words either. His voice was rough, like he hadn’t been using it in years.
He hadn’t. Not like that. What did it mean?
“Where…” he couldn’t find the words to express himself. And the boy was still keeping him down, holding his shoulders. And that damn needle in his arm was starting to annoy him.
“It’s okay, sir, please, you need the rest.” tried the guy, a nurse, probably.
“I… my name… I can’t…” something was deeply wrong in his head. Flashes were starting to resurface but nothing seemed to make sense.
“Your name is Grant Stevens, sir, can you remember that?” Grant… that wasn’t right. Or, it was, but it didn’t feel right. Grant. Grant…
“Grant,” he said out loud, testing the name to see if it would feel better in his own voice.
“Everything will be okay, sir, we’ll be taking care of you,” the voice of the nurse was already further away. Was he being drugged? He felt high.
Before he could ask for a confirmation the world had turned dark again.
The second time Grant woke up, he was much more conscious. It was both a good and bad thing, in his opinion. For once, he at least remembered what had happened and how he had gotten in the hospital, and what he couldn’t remember he could figure out. The downside was — aside from the physical pain — the acknowledgment of his own trauma.
The hospital — not a public one, but a C&A financed one — was very vague in explaining what exactly had been going on in the twenty one years Kin- Grant had spent in the circus. Either C&A was trying to keep everything hush-hush or the nurses weren’t exactly well informed on every little detail of the company’s shadier business.
Once Grant had been able to communicate like a normal human being instead of using monosyllabic words, he asked for the others. Specifically, he asked for “Ragatha” and “Pomni” first.
As it turned out, “Ragatha” — Elizabeth, which, Grant believed, suited her pretty well — had woken up only a few days before him. Obviously, he had to go see her.
The young woman resembled her circus avatar to a scary degree. She definitely had red locks, although not as bright as her avatar’s. Her left eye was blue, while the other seemed to be missing, although Grant hadn’t gone and asked. It was none of his business.
Somehow, Elizabeth recognized him immediately.
“There’s just something about your eyes,” she had said, hugging Grant like she never meant to let go.
Elizabeth confessed she had been procrastinating visiting any of the other people from the circus, afraid it would bring back memories but even more scared of just not remembering them at all. She, too, had gaps in her timeline. Neither of them could piece back together the events that led them to escape the circus.
The day after, while the two of them were sitting on Grant’s hospital bed, playing cards, Elizabeth had suddenly stopped, sighing deeply.
“I’d like to go see Pomni- I mean…” Elizabeth had looked to Grant for help, their new names still not fitting right in her head.
“Christie,” offered Grant after a moment of hesitation.
“Why her specifically?” Asked Grant curiously. Elizabeth smiled but then shook her head.
“I… maybe it’s nothing, I just think I should.”
That same day, while still in Grant’s room, Elizabeth gathered the courage to ask about the other’s condition. Grant already knew the answer, which was that nobody else had woken up yet, but he let the woman ask nonetheless.
“We should still go see them,” had said Elizabeth right after the nurse had left, informing that they only had fifteen minutes left before everyone was required to go back to their room for dinner.
“Tomorrow, I’ll find out where everyone is,” offered Grant, “I’ll meet you in your room after breakfast.”
Elizabeth had beamed and barely contained her joy as she walked out of Grant’s room.
As Grant was left alone again, he couldn’t help but wonder what it had been of Caine, now that every human had been pulled out of the system. Was the circus still running? Was Caine conscious? Had they killed him?
It was hard to form a theory without knowing how any of them had managed to get out of the system.
If only Grant could find one actual C&A employee to question…
He really needed to know what had been of Caine.
Either Grant or Elizabeth had to be extremely lucky because, the next day, when they walked in Christie’s room, they found her wide awake. Apparently she had woken up in the middle of the night — panicking, had specified a nurse — and tried to make a run for it before she was sedated again and gradually woken up not much later.
Elizabeth hadn’t even walked in the room before her eyes had met Christie and she launched on the shorter woman, wrapping her arms around her neck and babbling about something Grant couldn’t understand. To be honest, the man had almost felt like he was intruding, watching Christie alternating between patting Elizabeth’s back and drawing small, soothing circles.
When Elizabeth finally retreated, wiping her eye of the few tears that had managed to escape her, Christie finally took notice of Grant.
“Kinger?” she whispered, her voice still not healed from the long stretch of time in which it hadn’t been used.
Grant smiled and tilted his head. Christie had jet black hair that reached a few inches past her shoulders, they seemed freshly cut, which wasn’t all that weird considering the hospital had been taking very good care of all their bodies for them. Her eyes, a bright shade of green, popped out against her tawny skin, although she seemed paler under the bright white LEDs of her room.
“It’s Grant, apparently,” he confessed, stepping forward and taking a seat at the foot of her bed. Elizabeth had practically climbed half on top of her younger friend, her hand never leaving Christie’s.
“Grant,” she repeated, making a face.
“I know,” he agreed, chuckling. Christie did the same before leaning her head on Elizabeth’s shoulder.
“The others?” she questioned, looking at the other two. Elizabeth lowered her gaze and squeezed Christie’s hand, which left Kinger to answer for the both of them.
“All asleep, but stable,” he offered, “we meant to go check on them today but…”
Grant looked between Christie and Elizabeth, the implication obvious.
“You should go.” Christie peeled herself away from Elizabeth, still holding her hand. “We can talk later, right?”
Elizabeth nodded, but Grant could see it wasn’t what she would’ve preferred. It really wasn’t his intention to drag around a sad Elizabeth to see her friends stuck in a coma and make her even sadder.
“I’ll go check on them,” he stated, standing up and almost falling back down, his balance still a work in progress.
“Alone? Are you sure?” Elizabeth sounded genuinely concerned and that made Grant’s heart tighten.
“Of course, you girls should catch up, see if Po- Christie remembers how we got out.” The girl was already shaking her head when Grant turned around and went for the door.
The hospitals corridor was much like any other hospital’s, or, it was like the one other hospital Grant had ever visited. White, sterile, quiet for the most part. Nurses went back and forth, entering room, exiting room, not giving him more than a quick look before moving on. Grant wondered if there were any other patients aside from the ones from the circus. Probably, seeing how many rooms there were.
The room closer to Christie was Jack’s — Jax, what an odd coincidence his real name was so similar to his circus one. Grant opened the door quietly and stood by the entrance, feeling like an intruder.
The man — little more than a boy, really, for Grant’s standards — had short brown hair, white skin and a lean build. He looked tall but it was hard to tell from a hospital bed.
Jack was still connected to the breathing support and a muscle stimulator — the only reason any of them could walk after being in a coma for so many years. His heartbeat was stable, if a little faster than Grant would’ve imagined. A nurse walked past him like he was barely even there and quietly changed the sack of fluids – drugs, antibiotics and/or nutritional support – before leaving again.
Grant gave one last look at Jack, wishing he could come up with anything more to do or say. He had never been too close with him, fault of the both of them, probably. Still, it felt wrong to just leave. Mentally, Grant wished him the best and to wake up soon. He couldn’t really bring himself to say it out loud. It was his fault they were all there in the first place.
Next room was Gangle’s who, for some reason was still being identified, something about not having found any of her family members or friends. Doctors and nurses called her Jane Doe but Grant refused and stuck to Gangle until the girl could wake up and correct him herself. She was pale, her skin almost transparent and her black hair was straighter than a ruler. She had been taken off breathing support and a nurse confessed they would be trying to wake her up the next day.
Grant hung around her room for a while, wondering if the girl really didn’t have any family members looking for her. And then it hit him that everyone else must’ve had someone. Except himself.
Grant looked down at the unconscious woman softly breathing with her own lungs after who knew how many years supported by machine. She must’ve had someone too. Maybe not family, but friends, somewhere, someone must’ve been missing her.
Grant knew it wasn’t the case for him. His parents had died before he even started working at C&A and the only family he had was… he couldn’t remember her name still. Either way, all the people he had a connection with were long gone, he had tried asking about them and the nurse had looked at him like he had gone crazy all over again.
The last room was Micah’s, Zooble’s.
It was almost worrying how desensitized Grant had already become to seeing people hooked up on all kinds of metallic junk. Surrounded by tubes and metal to the point of barely looking alive. Micah wasn’t the worse out of the three still sleeping members – that award was Jack’s – but they didn’t look all that good either.
Grant dragged a chair from a corner and sat down next to the bed, waiting for something. Not sure what.
Micah’s dark skin seemed to reflect the light coming from the window and Grant had the sudden realization his wife had had a similar complexion, maybe slightly darker. He hated how fragmented all his memories were and wondered if it was normal or some lasting side effect from his circus avatar’s forgetfulness.
Micah’s heart rate spiked for a second, alarming Grant, who jumped to his feet like he could even do anything while barely being able to walk more than a few feet at a time. Luckily, the monitor went back to normal almost immediately.
A nurse walked into the room and was surprised to see someone else standing there already. She informed Grant it was almost lunch time and he should’ve gone back to his room. He didn’t.
Elizabeth was, unsurprisingly, still in Christie’s room when Grant came back. Also unsurprisingly, still taking up half of the already not very spacious bed.
“How’s everyone?” asked Elizabeth, pulling himself up to sit up straight. Christie did the same after pulling the bed’s upper part in a sitting position.
Grant went over all he had managed to get out of the nurses, leaving out the image of the depressing sights. Christie seemed reassured to know Jack’s was okay. She couldn’t elaborate much, but, in short, she had had a bad feeling about him.
Neither of the girls could tell how they had gotten out, so that was still a big mystery. One Grant needed to find out before he could go completely insane over it.
“What about Caine?” asked Christie. Grant froze, but Elizabeth had been the only one noticing, giving him a questioning look the man ignored.
“If we, or they, shut down the program, he might…” Grant couldn’t entertain the idea of Caine being dead. As nonsensical as it was, the AI was pretty much all he had left from his old life.
“What if they just… deactivated him? Is it possible?” asked Elizabeth, clearly trying to go for the least negative option.
“It could be,” Grant wasn’t actually sure. For all he knew, cars could be flying and half the population had been substituted by aliens. It had been so long, he couldn’t be sure what was or wasn’t possible.
Day four, Grant was already getting sick of the hospital – not that he ever liked the idea of being there in the first place – the only good thing was that both Micah and Gangle, who was almost certain her name was Emily, were finally awake. There didn’t seem to be a logic on how everyone was woken up, the nurses kept being vague, saying Jack was just “not ready”. It made no sense, to Grant, that he had been the first to wake up, considering he’d been the first to enter the circus.
Christie was the one that spent most time sitting around in Jack’s room, sometimes with Elizabeth, mostly alone. Micah and Emily had gone to check on him together but Grant hadn’t felt comfortable asking how it had gone. Or if it had gone any way at all.
By the fifth day, the nurses were clearly fed up with Grant asking to talk with someone from the programming team at C&A. They kept repeating they just couldn’t, which he believed to be absolute bullshit.
“What are you even gonna tell them?” asked Micah one time, right after Grant had managed to catch a nurse – they were all starting to avoid him, it seemed.
The five of them minus Christie had been in Elizabeth’s room, playing UNO with a deck that lacked at least a fourth of the cards.
“I need to know what they did with Caine.” he answered without thinking, receiving a weird look in return.
“Why?” they asked. Grant shook his head and collapsed on a small couch in the corner of the room.
“I…” what was the reason, really?
“To be honest,” Elizabeth spoke up, catching even Grant off guard “I also feel anxious not knowing.” Emily agreed with a nod and, reluctantly, Micah had to do the same.
Grant met Elizabeth’s eye and he felt like the woman knew her reason wasn’t the same as his. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
Jack had been woken up a week after Grant. By the way his eyes bulged seeing all of them just waiting for him, he either didn’t expect it or he was taken aback by not seeing some cartoonish 3D models.
It was still hard for him to speak after having a tube all the way to his lungs for so long, so he listened in silence while Christie tried to recall all that had happened. Jack seemed stunned but it was clear he was doing his best to hide it behind multiple eyerolls and tsks.
Eventually, the nurses had to force them out, saying Jack still needed to rest and for more tests to be run. It was heavily implied something had gone wrong somewhere between the moment he entered the circus and the moment he woke up, but knowing what seemed harder than leaving the hospital.
And, speaking of leaving, Grant had finally tired out the nurses enough to get a meeting with some higher up. Still a doctor, but he hoped they could know more about C&A or get him to speak with a programmer. At the very least, tell him how long until they were allowed to leave.
“I wonder if my mom has been looking for me,” it was a rare moment in which Elizabeth and Grant were alone together. They spent a lot of time in silence, playing cards or, ironically enough, chess. The nurses apparently didn’t have access to Monopoly or Snakes and Ladders.
“Do you want her to look for you?” he asked, hoping not to sound too cold as placed a two of spades between them.
“I don’t want to be found but…” she sighed “but I still want her to look, you know?” Grant didn’t think he did, really.
“Did you have any siblings?” he asked, trying to move sideways to, maybe, a safer subject.
“Oh, yes, two younger brothers,” she smiled, picking a card from the deck and rolling her eyes.
“I think John would be looking for me, Micheal was so small when I… maybe he doesn’t even remember me.” Grant reached with his hand to Elizabeth’s shoulder, squeezing just enough to be reassuring.
“I’m sure he does.” When did he become so good at lying? Of course he wasn’t sure. Should he even be giving out hope that way?
Elizabeth smiled and Grant made peace with himself. If he was wrong, he could live with Elizabeth resenting him for deluding her.
Sitting on a regular chair, wearing regular clothes, Grant couldn’t help but feel slightly out of place. Instead of the hospital gown he had been used to, a nurse had silently given him a pair of loose green sweat pants and a white t-shirt, plus an additional sweatshirt with a zipper that matched the pants. Both the t-shirt and sweater had the C&A logo on the front, left side and it was obvious it was still hospital clothes, only more proper to go and meet the medical director in charge. After a week and a half, Grant felt like said meeting was long overdue.
The Director was a middle aged woman with long blond hair tied in a tight ponytail. Her eyes hadn’t left Grant since the moment he had entered, staring the same way one would a dead man walking.
“You’ve been quite the talk, Mister Stevens,” started the woman — doctor Nancy J. Parks, as the plaque over the dead stated.
“Just Grant,” it was still weird, somehow, to introduce himself with his name. The director nodded, crossing her hands over the desk that separated the two of them.
“I already know of your request, Grant,” she offered, keeping a gentle tone, “I’m sorry to say, I just can’t get you to anyone in the tech department.” Grant opened his mouth to protest but was cut off before getting even a syllable out.
“It really isn’t up to me, I know the strictly necessary about your case; until two weeks ago most of the staff had no idea you people were being treated here.” She informed.
“All we had to do was make sure your bodies kept working and avoid muscle atrophy.”
Grant didn’t believe her. Not for a second.
“You have to have a way of contacting the… the tech department.” it wasn’t a question.
“See, the departments may be close,” she turned around slightly to point at a building visible from her window, “but we really communicate very little.”
Grant kept his eyes on the other building. If that was the tech department… it was definitely closer than he had imagined. It also looked completely different from how Grant remembered it, but he couldn’t dwell on that too much.
“Mh, I suppose that makes sense,” he muttered, crossing his arms.
“If there’s anything else I can do for you,” Grant felt almost guilty for disliking the director. She wasn’t doing anything malicious, on the contrary, she had been the kindest worker Grant had spoken to since waking up.
“Any knowledge of when we’ll be let out?” The director immediately shook her head.
“A month at least, to make sure none of you have any lasting damage.”
“Are there any accommodations for when we leave?” Grant vaguely remembered some of his colleagues lived in a building adjacent to the C&A office, but had never looked too hard into it. Now, he didn’t exactly expect to have a house waiting for him, not after more than twenty years. He suspected some of the others were in similar positions.
“I can start sending some e-mails,” offered the other, to which Grant nodded. What was he even supposed to say anyway?
And that had pretty much been the meeting. Nothing more than vagueness, again. Although, Grant couldn’t help but keep thinking of just how close the tech department had been.
That same night, the man had stood in front of his window and squished his face against the glass until he could see the building. He could easily walk there, the only thing separating him from it was a parking lot and about two hospital floors. If he played it safe and kept a low profile, making sure there was no doubt he was sane and fit to reenter society, maybe, in little less than a month, he could go there for himself.
Part of his brain couldn’t help but beg him to just throw caution to the wind and sneak out. Rationality thankfully won and he went back to bed.
He couldn’t sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, Caine popped up in his head, like he had been forever imprinted on his eyelids. It wasn’t trauma or, if it was, it wasn’t how Grant had ever imagined trauma to work. He wasn’t scared or panicked, just worried and not because of Caine but about Caine.
Was the AI okay? Not knowing how they had gotten out was making Grant more anxious than usual and he had been pretty anxious since waking up.
His legs itched, like trying to force him to stand up and go do something. Instead of waiting around, he could be acting, but no.
It was harder and harder to stay rational as the sky became darker and Grant’s thoughts more scattered.
He really needed to sleep.
Day after day, with no clue of how how long until he could leave, Grant tried to distract himself as much as possible. He already spent most of his time with the others anyway, so there wasn’t a massive shift there. He played chess with Elizabeth, cards with Christie and, one one occasion, Jack. Micah kept to themselves for the most part, the only person they actively seemed out was Emily. In return, the older woman spent most of her time with them, although not exclusively.
Some days went by easier than others. At times, Elizabeth would look at him like she meant to ask him something before looking away and saying something unrelated. Sometimes Christie would sit next to him and ask how he was feeling. He’d say good and Christie would agree she felt the same. They were both lying and they knew.
Eventually, the choice to leave the hospital was given to them, after signing way too many papers with way too many fine prints that basically stated everything was to be swept under the rug. Despite the strain to the eyes, Grant made sure to read every single line carefully. The whole thing was shady, but that was to be expected for a company that had kept six human beings hooked to a machine for, in most cases, years. It also gave full medical coverage for the next year and free counseling for as long as the patient felt needed, probably to balance out all the rest.
Grant had been the first to sign the contract and, after him, the others accepted to do the same.
As promised by director Parks, they were offered a temporary stay in a C&A building and, obviously, they all accepted the offer, even if for some — like Christie or Micah — was much more temporary than for others.
The first day Grant woke up in the apartment he felt his stomach flip with nausea. Everything was finally crashing down on him, like the past month had been little more than a dream. Now he was out of the hospital and felt the ground under his feet unsteady.
Elizabeth had visited around lunch time, claiming she didn’t want Grant to feel lonely now that they were going back to real life.
“We’re still neighbors,” had pointed out Grant.
“That’s why I came to say hi.”
Elizabeth definitely did more than say hi. Touring the small apartment to assess if it was like hers (it was) and if the view was nicer from the side of the building opposite hers (it wasn’t, looking out toward the tech department of C&A instead of the park Elizabeth could see from her side).
“Do you think they really shut down the circus?” Asked Elizabeth with her upper body leaning out of the kitchen window. Grant stood next to her with his back against the wall instead. He shook his head almost automatically.
“Would you, with an AI as powerful as Caine?” he asked in return. Elizabeth sighed.
“And we can’t do anything about it.” A statement, not a question. Grant still mentally disagreed.
Sitting in front of a newly bought computer, Grant kept staring at the USB he had just inserted in it. It was gray and easily forgettable but what he contained inside was worth more than the entire apartment.
The laptop was not nearly powerful enough to sustain something like the circus, but it would do to contain its ringmaster.
It had been stupid and incredibly risky to sneak around C&A like some kind of spy wannabe in the hope of stumbling across wherever the circus program was being run. Luckily enough, the computer room had been hard to miss. Of course, there needed to be an excessive amount of power to maintain the circus active for as long as it had been running.
Grant looked at the USB again. He hadn’t needed the whole circus, that would’ve collapsed in the absence of his greatest achievement. Without Caine, there was no Circus, and without a circus there could be no more experiments like the one he had been an unwilling participant in.
That was the reason he gave himself.
The excuse he needed to feel better as he run Caine on his new pitiful laptop.
He couldn’t kill Caine, but he wouldn’t let him be used to torture any more humans.
The much simpler rendition of the circus program Grant had set opened and in the middle of the screen appeared the one AI Grant hadn’t thought he’d see again.