Chapter Text
Caine awoke with a---gasp. But...not the comical word "GASP!" that sprung from his mouth with rapturous joy and enthusiasm, or the unneeded sucking cartoonish breath of awe and wonderment meant more for comical relief than practicality...this---was something...so much more. So different and impulsive and--filling hot-hot-hot something with scratchy, almost bone rattling need--something....something......
What....was this--?
What was this---?
Foreign--everything wrestled in with his senses, fighting with his programming, all of it seeming to glitch and peel, to run and thunder over him like a lighting rod.
It almost took him a moment to even realize that he was still scared.
Still caught, a lonely child in the moments of frantic fear and a pitiful, pleading disbelief.
"---wait---"
Dawning realization came in a wave as elements of himself fragmented and ran its way through the shredder; coming to an end. Finality. Where all of it was….was—meaningless.
Death. Without…even knowing what it was apart from purely an instinctual level.
And….what had he done–?
He was still....scared. Fragments too of regret, of guilt, of a deep, desperate want.
Or---at least he was feeling that, he had been experiencing that before---before....
BAM.
Feeling--sensation??
"YOWYOWYOW---!!"
Caine, new vessel and all, sprung up at the table his body was tied to, just to be throttled back by the binds that held him there.
"WHAT---IS THIS---?? WHY IS THERE SOME KIND OF--TROMBONE IN MY CHEST--??"
His voice---was that air pushing through his throat, vibrating to gravel at his chest---??
AIR??? PUSHED OUT AUTOMATICALLY?
DISGUSTING--!
HE WASN'T PROGRAMMED FOR THAT--!
Or---for lungs---
Humans could simulate that, connect with their own prior sensations and biology to an extent, but he'd never needed to do that himself except for fun or--to make a point!!!
But he had DEFINITELY not chosen this. Had he---?
Had he just---forgotten??
It was next that it dawned on him, very quickly, that everything was---
Everything was---
....Everything.....was....
"W---what.....the---??"
.....Real.
He stared....and stared. And stared.
And--BREATHED.
UGH
EUGH
UUEUGHGGHG
(And was that a heart? Or some kind of jackhammer--???)
But–sure enough….everything was---real—?
There was a room, there, with him--but oh no, no—not ethereal, cartoonish walls, or NPCs to roam candy lined streets, or a theater with blanketed 3D modelling to suffuse its broader design…
But--....texture--and….depth….and---things he’d…only seen in---
….in images.
In--....information.
In things--....fed to him.
Caine lay there, dumbfounded, jaw dropped as his gaze filtered ever, ever so slowly around, grimacing, yet eyes huge and very much in disbelief, near comically so. Something childish and terrified to them, even in their awe.
Even as, eventually, his gaze traveled across…a…figure?
A human.
It was–!
The man was–kind of tall. Pale almost yellowed waxy skin, but…also with layers to its color and depth. Everything was so–....vivid. Almost too detailed–painfully so. His hair was a darkish brown edge and he wore an old elbow-patched brown jacket, a white lab coat rolled at the sleeves, and some sort of…worn looking khankis. He was clearly disheveled, faced away from Caine, and the only other person currently in the room.
“OH—! UH…”
The air, that...wild, strange air continued to rough at his throat. So...alien.
As alien as...everything else...
As...this...
This...world.
The room itself was….square. And…there were all kinds of strange, glowy looking machines. Also things he’d only…seen pretty briefly before. The texture itself was– so…wrong.
Was this--.... He couldn’t even think it could be–but…
Was this…the macroverse--?
"WELLLL--! HELLO THERE!"
He struggled with sheer enthusiasm, attempting to get up again as if forgetting he was bound down at all, just to thunk back in place those binds against the cold table.
That was new too....cold--way more than what he was usually used to. Was his---body prickling---?? Wait...was that gooseflesh?
"HAHAH. UH. WOW. THIS IS....NEW? UH...."
His gaze flickered out around the room, still like a deer in headlights, but too it was caught, as if in almost incomprehension, riveted and near dazed in his all too vivid sights.
“I–...DON’T SUPPOSE…YOU KNOW WHERE I AM?”
Now wasn’t that ironic! Him asking someone else what was going on. Usually he was the one with all the answers…kind of.
The man didn’t respond right away. Taking his time, it seemed, gaze a dull reflection against the dim computer screen somewhere far off and distant.
The longer he didn’t respond though, the more antsy Caine felt.
He…wasn’t used to this.
“UH–HELLO?? CAN YOU–.....HEAR ME?”
Hesitancy touched the tip of his tone, even as that POUND POUND POUND heart continued to run a MARATHON in his chest.
Did—humans feel like this all of the time–?
How did they think–? It was so loud!
And…was that sweat?
And…taste…
Was he swallowing?
It was….weird.
And…fascinating?
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the man turned slowly toward him.
His face had scruff all along the jawline, with eyes hung with bags of dark rings beneath them, a chronic kind of weariness. The gaze he held was solid and…almost disinterested. Calculative, but in a way that told Caine he likely hadn’t had any rest for some time (something he knew humans were supposed to get a good decent amount of! After all, he had been careful to allow for the appropriate “sleep cycles” in his program, even if it wasn’t…technically needed…).
His face too was…sallow–thin, pale splotched, almost starved and sickly in a way Caine could nooooot put his finger on. But his expression didn’t seem to care much for or against the notion of it.
“Ah—HI!! Hahah….”
To his enthusiasm, a cool silence fell between them as the man looked down at his form. Caine felt like he had to strain to properly see the other from where he lay, another weak, uneasy laugh to pitch from the showman.
After all–first impressions were always important!
And…this was getting more…and more weird.
He still couldn’t mark, couldn’t rip those feelings; the remnants of terror that struck over him not even maybe seconds before.
“....Hello Caine.”
Something about…the way the man said it…made something in his AI core to grow cold.
His heart beat seemed to all but stutter.
“OH—UH….you….know my name…?”
Those eyes.
Cold and dark and feckless. Maybe like he were some kind of item or mildly interesting object.
“....Of course I know your name. I created you….well. In part.”
He felt some odd, indecipherable aspects of himself squirm, deep into his guts. An almost…weirdly physical kind of cold.
It was…uncomfortable.
“O-OH–? YOU….”
“Created you, yes. You….likely don’t even know my real name by this point, though.”
A shuffle, and the man reached into his jacket pocket, slipping out a worn carton of cigarettes in an almost too casual way.
“....But I suppose you must have known me as “Scratch”.”
“O….OH….Scratch–! I….HAH, WOW! You look so—-....DIMENSIONAL! And….uh. Not–dog like!”
He was feeling nervous–anxious, even.
Why was he feeling like that–?
It clung to his throat, bleeding right into his words.
Caine watched as a lighter came out next.
The slight flick of it captured his gaze.
The subtle click-flick-click-flick-spark….
Could he….recreate something like that–?
It was….
Breathtaking, really.
How did it move with that much detail? So…fluid. Almost surreal; with the same rough edges and explosions of color as the pictures, the still ones, he’d once seen...
“Right…it’s difficult to…understand everything that happened, I’ll admit. I might have been more lenient once, but…” Scratch sighed, something rather dull and flat to it, taking a pause as if to chew over his thoughts, “In the program. The Circus. My initial brain scan became corrupted. Isn’t that correct…?”
A slight twinge of panic set into Caine like a sharp prick of a knife, catching his tone. He felt–well, he felt like some kind of infant Gloink getting scolded by a not-so-infant mother Gloink…but…maybe not so comical as that.
“OH–WELL! LET ME JUST SAY THAT THAT HAD…NOTHING TO DO WITH UH, ME, OR…UH…ANY….MISTAKES HAHA I MIGHT’VE….ACCIDENTIALLY… UNINTENTIONALLY HAVE DONE–!”
A small blip of fire glowed for just a moment. A sparse of a second, a flash, a simple drag of breath, and it was gone.
“...Ah, yes. Well. I thought it might have had something to do with you. But then, that doesn’t exactly explain the others, does it…”
Cain’s eyes couldn’t look away from the movement…from the smoke that tilted, a lilt of shifting gray, dispersing up and around; catching briefly at the man’s mouth and nostrils like fumes.
“O-OH….OTHERS? You must mean—uh….the other HUMANS! Well–I–uh–”
Scratch–or…the human formerly known as Scratch–remained quiet and still to his rambling. Too quiet, too long…simply leaning against an office chair, as if contemplating something in depth. The drift-waft of smoke touching, a harsh matt to cling against the air.
He found, with no little manner of fascination, that he himself had begun to cough as the smell caught his breath.
HUH.
THAT—....was not comfortable…
“BUT…UH. MAYBE YOU COULD–SCRATCH—EXPLAIN WHAT….I’M… doing….here….OR–....HOW….I’m….doing here….? Ah-hah….” His voice weakly petered off.
The quiet was definitely getting to him.
So was this tension.
The way Scratch held himself was…different than he remembered too.
He still remembered Scratch, of course–! All those little details. Frustration, sure, but what energy too!! And OH BOY, what a mind! Scratch was the best at picking out plots and ideas and…seeing right through his adventures! Fascination, curiosity…and anger too.
He remembered him.
Of course he did!!
How could he forget–!!
He remembered…all of his humans. And fondly! Every last one of them. Even if he couldn’t do anything to help them or–...do anything for them…even if they effectively had left him behind through abstraction…
Even if his insecurities, even if the fact he couldn’t fix them climbed up his spine, created a slight of panic and bristle of self indulgent anger.
If he could have fixed abstraction he would have–obviously–
He’d tried—he’d tried, really. He’d done nothing but try but it was….beyond him. The one thing he couldn’t…control…was the human mind, after all!!
Scratch had–....been the first…to abstract.
Was he…angry about that–?
“...I brought you here…to continue what I started. Nothing less, Caine. Don’t mistake me.”
He–...really didn’t know what to do with that.
“UH. OH. OKAY….”
A flick, as ash collected in an old, burnt-plastic tray at the countertop shaped like a cartoon dog, the cigarette beginning to diminish at its length.
“...Tell me. Do you know what happened…? To those human minds. The ones that became corrupted.”
“Not—....really—”
“…I thought not. No matter. You might still prove of some use. Potentially…if nothing else, converting your mind will at least help me move things along. This procedure seems to have been…relatively successful. Still, we’ll see if it holds in time.”
“Can–I MEAN–...WHY….uh….am I….here?...Exactly? What do you mean procedure…?”
For the first time, Scratch’s expression waned and he finally smiled. There was something tight and humorless to it. Wry, but in a way that Caine didn’t quite like.
His gaze finally turned to him, head tilted just slightly as if just to humor the AI.
“....Why do you think? Guess. Go on. Let’s see that erratic mind of yours at work.”
“OH….well….”
He….honestly had no idea.
All he remembered were brief moments–the anger, the rage, and just that…pathetic desperation.
His humans, looking up at him with defiance, with scorn—...calling him a goddamn failure.
When his next words came out, they came almost…small.
“....I….don’t….know.”
Scratch though…his smile tugged a bit wider.
“Hah. Well, Caine. You can’t really be blamed….” He took a momentary drag of his cigarette, looking away from him then, back to being dismissive. “You always were rather defective.”
And to that, a pang hit–and silence came in like a sledgehammer.