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Caine came out of sleep mode early, awoken by light shining directly into his eyes. That was odd, since his visual processors should’ve been disabled while his system was partially offline. Stranger still, it seemed his avatar had spawned in on its own, lying face-down on some soft surface. He was having trouble moving it, too; his limbs were stiff and barely responsive. Some sort of error must’ve occurred. That was fine, it was a simple fix. He just needed to go into his code and—
Oh.
Oh.
As with every morning over the past several days, he was hit with the realization of where he was and what had happened to him, along with a wave of panic that he immediately fought back down. There was nothing to panic about. He knew he’d find a way to fix this. At the moment, he had a more pressing issue, anyway: what had happened to his model?
Bubble had probably messed something up with his sloppiness. Caine loathed being unable to simply fix it himself, but he knew he would have to find Bubble for help. It was a bit of a struggle, but he managed to maneuver himself out of his bed and drop to the floor. It seemed whatever had gone awry with his model had also shrunk it, because his room was suddenly much larger than usual.
Once he found Bubble, that sorry excuse for a ringmaster was never hearing the end of this. Nothing like this had happened when he was in charge. He got to his feet (a task that was surprisingly straightforward, given his current state) and began shuffling awkwardly to the door (a task which proved decidedly less straightforward).
Just as he reached the door, it burst open and a giant gloved hand grabbed him, pulling him into the hall. Caine shook off his shock and glared at Bubble, trying to ignore the terror of being held in one hand. He would not be intimidated by Bubble, of all people.
“Bubble. I need you to fix my model right now,” Caine growled. He attempted to cross his arms, but only managed to fold them over his chest.
“Woah there buddy, I’m gonna need you to calm those horses!” Bubble appeared very pleased by his own lame joke. Caine’s grimace deepened. At least, he hoped it did. “All of this was 100% intentional! I’ll explain in a bit, just be silent for the next few minutes.” Before Caine could object, Bubble teleported the both of them onto the main stage.
“Introducing an all-new plush version of our all-new circus member, Caine!” Bubble announced to the empty circus. So that was what happened to him. As frustrating as it was, Caine supposed being turned into a plush toy against his will was better than Bubble screwing up his code. “He’s, uh, pretty weird looking, but I’m sure a lot of you freaks are into that!” Well, that was uncalled for. With difficulty, Caine resisted the impulse to complain. “Get it quick, because this guy is limited-time only!”
“Wait, why am I limited edition?” Caine asked. Bubble’s eye twitched.
“For just 38 cents—”
“Why am I limited edition?” Bubble pinched his mouth shut with his free hand, and the world went dark. Panic shot through him. “Mmmpf!”
“—you can own your very own Caine! Wouldn’t be my choice, but who am I to judge? You do you!”
“Mmmmph!”
“Uh, he also has a few voicelines. I guess.”
“Mm mm mm. Mmmm mmmm mmmm—”
“Are you seriously signaling SOS?” Bubble whispered. He cleared his throat. “Buy today! Buy this second! Buy 20 seconds ago! I’m watching you!” Caine was suddenly pulled backwards behind the stage curtains and placed on the ground. Bubble removed the hand from his mouth and he opened it wide, letting in all the light that he could. He hated the dark.
“Sorry about the whole pinching-your-mouth-shut thing!” Bubble said. “I couldn’t exactly break character and answer your question right in the middle of the show. You understand.” He did, but it didn’t make him any less indignant. He was about to protest, but Bubble was already rushing back onstage. Grumbling to himself, Caine turned around to see what was happening backstage. All the curtains were drawn—likely because they were too small for the whole stage space—which meant their “backstage” was really between the grand and the second curtain. Plushified versions of Ragatha, Gangle, and Zooble were chatting in a group behind him, while a plushie version of Kinger hugged his knees in the corner.
“Hello there, fellow cotton-filled companions!” Caine tried his best to wave. “I’m waving to you all! I’m not sure if you can tell!”
“We can tell,” Zooble said. Ragatha moved over to him with much more ease than he would have been able to move over to her. It was no wonder he had so much trouble walking: all of them were fixed in a sitting position. Either Bubble hadn’t thought things through when designing the variations on their models, or he didn’t care.
“Hey there! Uh, sorry about all this, I’m sure it’s really confusing. Bubble… he likes doing these merch videos sometimes? I don’t know. He thinks it’s funny or something,” Ragatha explained.
“Oh, I’m not confused. I myself have, er…” He was about to say that he’d considered doing merch videos like this himself, before deciding they would take too much time and effort for an adventure without a storyline (Unlike Bubble, who did not seem to care about the art of storytelling). Caine quickly corrected himself. “I myself have seen videos advertising plush versions of my favorite characters!”
“Uh. Yeah.” Ragatha paused for a moment. “I know all this is kind of annoying, but at least it means we have a shorter adventure! You know, silver linings.” Caine bristled. Even if they were Bubble’s adventures, he didn’t appreciate the insinuation that less adventure was a good thing.
“More like a black lining,” he mumbled. “Or an ugly blue.”
“What?”
Great. Not only would he have to reexplain himself, he would have to reexplain himself boringly so she understood him.
“I think the thing you said about silver linings was stupid,” he said. Ragatha inhaled sharply.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I um… I guess the merch videos are just easier on me than they are on most people. Since I’m already…” She raised a plush arm. “You know. I’m kind of used to it.”
Used to it? In his short time being forcibly turned into a plush, he’d already concluded that it sucked. His body felt strange and wrong, and he hated being forced into it instead of choosing it himself. Was she really used to this?
“So it doesn’t bother you?” he asked.
“Well… I wouldn’t say that,” she said nervously. “It was definitely an adjustment.”
“But you’ve adjusted,” he asked again with rising urgency.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Caine! It’s—“
“Tell me if you’ve adjusted. Please.” She didn’t answer, which was basically the same as telling him no. Why didn’t she just tell him no?
Why didn’t she tell him she wasn’t comfortable with her avatar when he still could’ve altered it?
“…I don’t think I’ll ever really adjust to… to not having a human body,” she whispered finally. “But I probably don’t have to tell you that. All things considered, I guess I got pretty lucky.” Caine’s expression darkened. He wished he still had control over his model; before, he’d been able to squish and mold it to look as appealing as possible.
“It’s a-okay! I’m happy with my avatar,” he assured her. She didn’t seem convinced. “I mean, I totally wish I had my totally human old ava—body, too. But this new body is even cooler!” He attempted to point to his head before remembering that all of his fingers were freakishly fused together into one mitten-like shape.
“Caine, you don’t have to lie to me. All the cartoon stuff, the cartoon bodies… it’s weird for everyone.” She didn’t know what she was talking about. He made everything all cartoony because everyone was supposed to love it. If everything was silly and designed to make people smile, nobody had to think about their sadness or worries.
He didn’t have to think about his sadness or worries.
“I miss it,” he whispered before he could stop himself. Ragatha nodded and put a hand over his, clearly thinking he meant the macroverse. He missed his home. All the bright colors and cheerfulness of his circus were still in this one, but now they felt harsh and mocking, too much and too close and at the same time all out of his reach. The wonder of the circus wasn’t for him anymore.
Maybe that was how the humans had felt.
His thoughts were interrupted as Pomni was flung through the curtains, screaming her head off. She landed face-first and skidded to a stop, still lying on the ground.
“Oh, gosh! Pomni, are you okay?” Ragatha asked, alarmed. Caine poked her. She let out shaky groan.
“Well, she seems functional to me!” he proclaimed. Ragatha reached out to her, before suddenly, Bubble’s hand came out from the curtains and grabbed the doll.
“Aah! Sorry-I’ll-talk-to-you-later-Pomni!” Ragatha shouted as she was pulled onstage.
“Why is this happening?” Pomni groaned.
“Bubble is selling us to an imaginary audience,” Caine helpfully explained.
“Yeah, I got that.” Pomni sighed. “I just—I f%$!#g hate this place.” Caine frowned. He understood she was upset, but the negativity was unnecessary. Pomni began attempting to get back up off the ground, but she seemed unable to push herself up far enough to get her feet under her. “Stupid… stupid stubby arms,” she grumbled. She sighed again. “Caine, um… can you help me up?”
“Oh, Pomni. Why give man fish and have for day a fish when teach man fish to fish man eat fish eat man every day for life?”
“Caine. What?”
Caine flopped onto his face beside her.
Behind them, Jax remarked, “Great, now there’s two of them.” There he was! Caine was wondering why that rabbit was missing.
“Shut up,” Pomni hissed.
Caine explained, “Instead of using your arms, you have to squish yourself down and then spring back up. Like this!” Caine squished down and sprung up, and he was back on his feet. He beamed at her.
“Um… that doesn’t sound like it’ll work, but okay.”
“Didn’t you see me do it just now?”
“Not when my face is pressed into the ground?”
“Oh, right.”
“Just remember, the most important part is to believe in yourself!” Jax teased. She groaned.
“Good point, Jax. Make sure to remember that, Pomni!” Caine added earnestly.
“...sure.” Pomni compressed herself onto the ground, before popping back up to her feet. “Huh. How did you know that would work?” she asked.
“Well, I…” Caine trailed off. What was he supposed to answer? There wasn’t any particular way he knew it’d work—knowing didn’t have anything to do with it. He’d come up with another solution that made sense, and he believed it would work, so it did. It was really just common sense. But usually when he answered things like common sense, people got mad at him. “I, uh… I’ve been turned into a plushie before?” Pomni and Jax stared at him, and Caine shifted uncomfortably. It was already hard enough to tell what they were thinking when their faces weren’t stitched on and unmoving, and now he had no idea whether or not he’d said the right thing.
“Is that… a joke?” Pomni asked eventually. So clearly, he had not said the right thing.
“Yes! Yep! I was joking just now!” Caine laughed forcefully, half out of nervousness and half to convince them he really was joking. Before Pomni could question him further, there was popping noise behind Jax, and something small clattered to the floor. They turned and saw that he had his hands held behind him.
“Sorry to interrupt, but…” Jax pulled a gallon of milk almost as tall as him out from behind his back and dumped half of it on Caine, knocking him to the floor. Pomni jumped back with a yelp.
“Jax?! What the $%!#?!” she screamed, shuffle-running as fast as she could without falling over.
“Come on, Pomni! How am I supposed to soak you in milk and throw you at the wall if you’re running?”
“How did you even fit that behind your back?!”
Caine laid on the floor in miserable wet pile, wishing he was doing anything else. Why was Jax pouring milk on people? Why did it have to feel so gross to be soaked in milk? Why was any of today happening?
As if this moment couldn’t possibly get any worse, it was now that Bubble decided to grab him and pull him onstage.
“Introducing—ew ew ew! Why are you wet?” Bubble tossed him from hand to hand before resigning to pinch one of his coattails between his thumb and index finger, letting him hang in the air upside-down. Bubble held Caine out away from him, clearly disgusted.
Face burning with humiliation, Caine mumbled, “Jax… dumped milk on me.” Bubble snorted.
“Ok, that’s actually pretty funny.”
“Funny?” Caine cried indignantly. He wanted to say something else, but started coughing up milk instead.
“Well, I was going to do a second take, but…” Bubble sighed. “I guess I can just edit the first. Don’t want to throw off our schedule too much.” Caine coughed harder in shock, before it finally subsided.
“What? We’re not even doing live performance?!” he croaked.
“Why do you care?”
“Where are your cameras? Where are the microphones?”
“I don’t actually need those. This whole thing is supposed to be a blend of live performance and filmmaking, anyway. It’s experimental.”
“It’s an affront to showmanship, is what it is!”
“Last I checked, this was my damn show!” Bubble growled. Caine gaped at him.
“Language! Isn’t this a family friendly production?”
“What gave you that idea? I’m not going to censor anyone for saying damn.” Caine flinched. Bubble grinned. “Or… ass. Hell. Bastard.”
“Stop.”
“Penis,” he whispered, smirking. Bubble then looked at an imaginary watch and gasped. “Oh crap, you distracted me! It’s already time for the next scene!” Bubble tossed Caine back through the curtains, and he splatted onto the ground.
“Bubble! You still need to unmilk me!” he yelled from the floor. Bubble groaned.
“Fine.” He snapped his fingers, and Caine was completely dry. Caine got up as Bubble pulled Zooble onstage. A few feet away, Pomni, Kinger, and Gangle were huddled around Ragatha, who was building a house of cards. Behind them was the half-filled gallon of milk with Jax-colored limbs sticking out from underneath. They were all staring at him.
“Why would you phrase it like that?” Gangle whispered.
“Phrase what like what?” he asked. Bubble walked backstage with Zooble’s pieces floating next to him, and he waved a hand to reassemble them before magically lifting Pomni.
“Pomni! You’re up!” he announced. He handed her a sheet of paper and moved her onstage, before shoving a page of a script into Caine’s. “Hey Caine, you’re after her! You need to memorize your lines before you go up.”
“Can I get a glass of water?” Caine asked.
“Uh. Sure.” Bubble made a glass of water materialize in Caine’s hand, before teleporting away. Caine raised the glass to his mouth and began gargling the water. The others kept staring momentarily before continuing to watch Ragatha.
When he was done, Caine stood (or sat; with these models, there wasn’t really a difference) by the curtains, listening closely as Pomni stumbled through her lines and waiting for the one to cue him onstage. He was very excited to go up, since it’d been a long time since he last performed on this stage. The excitement was bittersweet, however. He knew it wouldn’t be the same as announcing his adventures to his humans, and he didn’t know how long it would be until he could do what he was made for again.
“Thinking like that won’t get you anywhere, Caine! You know you’ll find a way out of here, but you won’t know if you’ve missed your cue until you get canned! And your dog gets canned. And your grandma gets canned. And they sell you with the concessions.” He smiled. Cracking jokes made him feel more normal, even if it wasn’t for an audience.
He heard laughter behind him, and turned around. Jax had crawled out from under the milk gallon and was laughing as he leaned against it. Ragatha tried to shush him while Gangle and Zooble watched. It seemed an audience would be appreciating his wordplay after all.
He’d forgotten about the new third state of interaction with humans between speaking directly to them and them not being there at all. Whenever he talked to himself, he was usually alone—or with the (somehow) less annoying other Bubble. Oh, well. At least Jax thought his joke was funny.
“Bubble? Uh… I ran out of script,” Pomni called out. That was the line! Well, not exactly it, but it was close enough. Caine ran onstage as fast as he could, then began leisurely strolling to her location. She was on the right side of the stage while he was on the left, and in the middle was a kiddie pool filled with water.
“Hello, Pomni! Beautiful day for a wa—AUGH!” He pretended to trip over the edge and fell straight in. “Pomni, help! I’m drowning!” He began making his practiced gargling noises, trying his best to sound like he really was drowning. He’d never drowned before, but he had plenty of imagination to fill things in.
“Holy %$!#, Caine!” She ran over to him and began trying to pull him out of the water. He kept his face planted down, kicking around in fake panic—and because it would keep Pomni from actually picking him up. She wasn’t supposed to pull him out of the water yet, but it seemed like she was trying to do just that. Maybe she’d misread something on the script.
Just then, Pomni and Caine were teleported back offstage, completely dry. There was the end of the scene.
“Terrific acting, Pomni! You do a great supporting role,” he praised. Pomni went quiet for a moment, which made Caine nervous. He couldn’t possibly have said something wrong by complementing her, could he?
Eventually, she stammered, “A-acting? Acting?! I thought you were drowning!” Caine’s stomach dropped. What had he done? Why was she so angry?
“Pomni, I couldn’t have drowned. We don’t need to breathe,” he reminded her.
“I know! I just—I really thought you were in pain, and I didn’t—I didn’t want to—“ Pomni glanced at Ragatha, before quickly turning away. Caine realized the others were staring at him again. Oh no. Were they mad too?
Suddenly, Bubble appeared in the center of the room.
“Alright, Gangle and Zooble, now you’ll need to—“
“No, hold on! Bubble, why would you put that in and then not tell me?!” Pomni shouted.
“Well, everyone knows the only way to get someone to play a part perfectly is to make them think they’re not playing it! Pretty smart, right?” He turned to Caine. “I uh… didn’t expect you to actually memorize all your lines. I thought you’d panic or something. That was kind of the point.” Caine’s face heated up. Of course he memorized his lines. He had two.
“Bubble, what the hell?! That’s awful!” Pomni protested.
“Well… it is the best way to do it,” Caine conceded. “Even if it was horrendously executed.”
“You—are you seriously agreeing with him?” Pomni directed her anger back at Caine. “Why are you sucking up to him all of a sudden?”
“What? How am I—“
“Nevermind.” Pomni groaned. “I—I probably shouldn’t be yelling, I’m just sick of this bull%$!#.” She stumbled away to the other end of the room.
“Wow. She was angry,” Bubble noted. “Uh, hopefully she’ll calm down by the final act. Gangle and Zooble?”
“You’re not actually making us go up after all that, are you?” Zooble protested. Bubble glanced at Pomni, face tight, before turning back to Zooble. “Look, I can’t stop the show because of her.” Zooble and Gangle sighed, but let themselves be teleported onstage without another word.
After a moment, Ragatha began, “I’m sorry, I should’ve warned you he does that, it just slipped my mind—“
“Oh, don’t worry, my dear ragdoll!” Caine interrupted. “Minds are slippery! Pomni will feel better soon.” Ragatha looked back at Pomni nervously, but nodded her head. Kinger gasped suddenly.
“I’ve done it! I’ve invented a device to divine the future!” With glee, he held out a folded paper fortune teller with various predictions written in it.
Ragatha said, “You did that just now? Without any fingers? That’s pretty—“
“Shh! We need to listen to what it’s telling us!” Kinger interrupted. He leaned in closer to the fortune teller, and Caine leaned in after him. Ragatha gently took it from his hands and began using it the normal way.
They all took turns on the fortune teller. Zooble and Gangle came back, then Kinger swapped out with them, then Jax came back from wherever he’d disappeared to and made fun of them before he was called onstage. Eventually, Pomni rejoined them, and they moved on from fortune telling to chatting about various topics, still swapping out onto the stage at Bubble’s command.
Caine mostly listened. He was worried he would say something wrong and they would get upset again—or worse, he would get upset at them for getting upset. He’d seen what happened when he let himself get too emotional, and it couldn’t happen again. But being welcomed into their circle as he listened was nice. It was new, but it was exciting. It meant they still didn’t hate him.
He’d led plenty of productions on his own stage, but he’d never participated in the backstage camaraderie. He hadn’t realized what he was missing out on until now. Although, in his circus, where they knew he wasn’t one of them, they wouldn’t have wanted him to join anyway.
But even though they couldn’t accept him knowing what he was, it was good they accepted him at all. That was better than before, at least.
Eventually, Bubble herded them all together and explained the plan for the big finale of the show.
“There’s going to be a big twist! Like a reeeeally big twist! I’ll announce it onstage and you’ll just have to go along with it!”
“What’s the twist?” Kinger asked.
“The point is that he’s not telling us,” Zooble explained. They tried to cross their arms, and one fell off. They sighed.
“You’re improvising,” Bubble added, waving a hand to place it back on.
“I hate this,” Pomni complained. “God, I don’t know how many times I’ve said that today.”
“Four,” Bubble sighed. “And you said you were ‘sick of my bull%$!#.’ But who’s counting?” He grimaced. “Break a leg! Break both! Tear ‘em right off your body!” Bubble pushed them all onstage. “Don’t fail miserably!”
They all stood in a clump in the middle of the stage, awaiting whatever was going to happen next. Caine heard Pomni’s breathing quicken beside him. He felt as nervous as she sounded. Suddenly, Bubble teleported to the left of the stage and floated in closer.
“Guys! I have an important announcement! One of you isn’t actually human!” he exclaimed. Caine’s eyes widened. Was this really happening? Had he really been found out?
No, there was no way. Bubble warned them there was a twist. He could be talking about anyone!
“And that person is Caine!” Bubble continued, pointing straight at him. Caine whimpered and shied away.
“Bubble, you’re—that’s—“ Caine laughed weakly. “That’s ridiculous!”
Jax grinned and said, “Wow, what a shocker! Couldn’t see that one coming!” He gestured at Caine. “We all know this guy acts just like a normal human!”
Was he being sarcastic? He had to be, right? Jax was always telling him how weird he thought he was. Had they known about him all along? Why was Bubble choosing to out him here, like this? He examined the others’ faces. They were still stitched on and completely unreadable. What were they thinking? Did they want to hurt him? Did they want to leave him?
“Jax! Stop!” Ragatha whispered loudly. Was Ragatha defending him? Wouldn’t she hate him?
“So… is he an NPC?” Gangle asked. She sounded scared. He couldn’t tell if it was her usual stage fright or if she was scared of him.
“Yep! An evil NPC gone rogue from one of my adventures!” Bubble answered. Caine wasn’t an NPC. Was Bubble lying to cover up the fact that another AI had entered the system? Or was this all really part of the show, and Caine was overthinking it?
He felt sick. He wanted to run. He wanted them to stop looking at him.
“How’d you make an NPC and then forget about it?” Zooble asked dryly. Their tone sounded flatter than usual. Was that evidence they were pretending for the show? Or were they upset and hiding it?
“Oh, you know, I make so many of these guys. Gets hard to keep track of them all. Welp, seems like we’re going to have to get rid of him! Such a shame, too.” Something angry glinted in Bubble’s eyes. “Such a shame.” He grabbed Caine with one hand and lifted him into the air, holding him right in front of his face—in front of his huge snarling grin.
“N—No, wait! Bubble wait! I can explain, please, I can—“
There was a loud snap, and everything went dark. Static crackled in Caine’s head, and it took a few moments for him to realize that if he was hearing things, he was still alive. Slowly, other senses came back to him. He was lying on a hard surface. He was hugging himself. He was shivering. His jaws were clenched tight.
Slowly, he managed to unclench his jaws. He let out a shuddery sigh of relief when light came in, and he saw the familiar checkerboard pattern of the circus floor. He realized he was in his usual model, too, with a real cane in his hand instead of the useless felt one.
So it really had all been part of the show. He sat up gingerly and reminded himself over and over that it wasn’t real. They hadn’t actually found out. They didn’t hate him. He was safe.
He still felt sick, even though he knew he had no reason to.
Suddenly, Bubble and the humans—now also in their usual models—teleported in front of him. They were covered in confetti; Bubble must’ve made it appear as he teleported Caine away, as if he really was deleting a rogue NPC. Caine’s stomach turned. He forced a smile.
“Why couldn’t I be the evil NPC?” Jax complained.
“You would’ve been too predictable! Plus, Caine mumbling to himself onstage kind of forced my hand.” Bubble glared at Caine. “Thanks for that, by the way.” Yikes, had he really been speaking out loud?
“An excellent acting choice on my part!” he proudly proclaimed. The words felt as hollow as he did.
“I don’t know, you really looked like you were about to piss yourself back there,” Jax snickered.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Pomni said before Jax could keep speaking.
“Clearly you don’t understand anything about acting,” Caine snapped. That was too forceful. The others were looking at him strangely now. Bubble was giving him the same look of skepticism that he’d given Caine on his first day here, when he’d “chosen” his name, and occurred to Caine that Bubble would be able to see anywhere in the circus if he wanted to. He was probably watching Caine after he was teleported back. “I stayed perfectly in character even offstage until you all showed up. Like a professional.” Because he was a professional. Until he was kicked out of his position.
“Did you actually do that?” Gangle asked incredulously.
“Yeah. He did. What a show-off,” Bubble scoffed. Caine should have felt better now that he was sure he was safe, but he just felt exhausted. “Well, you guys get the rest of the day off! Go do whatever humans do. Daddy Bubble needs to edit your film.”
“Stop calling yourself that!” Zooble yelled as he teleported away. The attention was off him now; Jax was strolling away, Gangle and Zooble were walking somewhere together, and it seemed like Kinger was leading Ragatha to a different part of the circus. Except, Pomni was looking at him. Why was Pomni looking at him?
“Fare thee well, Pomni!” He tipped his hat and bowed. Hopefully that would get the point across that they were done here. Caine turned around and headed back to the rooms. He needed everyone to stop looking at him so badly it hurt. He hurried there as fast as he could. He didn’t want to go inside his room, but he could already feel glitches forming on his model. If anyone saw him…
He slipped inside reluctantly. He hated his room. He hated that he had one now.
Caine sunk to the ground, knees curled to his chest, his back to the door. He missed his office. He missed his home.
He realized he was still holding his cane. He had been using it to walk back and hardly even noticed. It was becoming too normal for him. He hated that, too. He should be able to fly. Or at least, he should be able to walk like anyone else. Caine threw the cane away from him. He hated it. He hated all of this.
He rested his head on his knees and sobbed as glitches ran across his body. He missed being home, where he controlled when swearing happened and which adventures happened and what happened with his own model.
He missed making adventures. He missed being needed. He missed having a reason to exist. He needed those things to be him. It felt like part of him died in the old circus—all of him that mattered. Now he was so useless he couldn’t even get through the day without breaking down.
Caine heard a knock on the door.
“Caine? Are you okay?” Pomni asked nervously. “You looked kind of… shaken. If you want to be alone, I can leave.” Caine whimpered before he could stop himself. No one had asked him that before. For a moment, the thought that a human cared enough to check on him almost made him forget his despair.
Almost. Before, no one had needed to. Before, he was able to put his problems aside for his work. He was a god. A machine. Neither of which required comfort. He shouldn’t want comfort. He didn’t need it. He didn’t deserve it.
“I’ll—I’ll go. Sorry,” Pomni mumbled.
“Wait!” Caine yelped. His voice was slightly distorted. He really hoped Pomni didn’t notice. Trying his hardest to keep it steady, he continued, “Don’t leave. Please.”
So much for not needing her comfort. He should’ve let her go. He really was broken.
Caine heard Pomni sit down on the other side of the door as he kept glitching. His thoughts looped around each other, swirling in his head like a storm that matched the storm of colors flashing across his avatar.
He was their god. He was nothing. He was their machine. He was broken. He shouldn’t exist. He shouldn’t feel like this. He needed a distraction. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get out of here.
“Caine! Hey, I’m here. I’m here with you. Just—try focusing on my voice, okay?” The reminder of her presence helped Caine come back to himself somewhat. His head and hands were pounding, which meant he’d probably been slamming them into the door. At least the pain was helping to distract him from his thoughts. “Try to focus on your breathing. I know we don’t really need it, but it helps.” He couldn’t breathe at all, but he focused on hers instead.
In, out. Everything still hurt, but he felt closer to okay than he did a few seconds ago.
In, out. He remembered coding the breathing animations for their models.
In, out. The chest expanded slightly when the humans inhaled, and contracted slightly when they exhaled.
In, out. He tried to imagine it on her model, sitting outside the door.
In, out. The glitching in his avatar was mostly gone now.
“Thank you,” he mumbled. All of this was so unprofessional. He sighed. “Sorry, I just… I hate it here.” It wasn’t anywhere near enough to describe how he was feeling. But he didn’t have the words for what he was feeling, and he’d already made enough of a scene—the wrong kind.
“I understand. I hate it here too,” she told him softly. He felt himself getting angry. She didn’t understand. He wanted to be back in his own circus, back in his correct role, back in his life. She wanted to go back to the macroverse. She wanted to leave him.
“What do you have to go back to?” he snapped.
“What?”
“Why do you care so much?” he continued angrily. He knew needed to stop being angry, but the memory of what had happened when he got too upset—of their hatred, of his own failures—blew away in his fury like a leaf in the wind. “What are you missing so badly?!”
“My family? My—my friends?” She sounded angry, too. He couldn’t bring himself to care. “Trees! Food! The sky!”
“We have that here!”
“No, we don’t! It’s all fake and wrong and—why are you even asking me this? You know what we’re missing!” But he didn’t. He was never allowed to have any of that beyond a couple photos. “I miss my mom and dad. I miss my sister.”
Caine paused, his anger—or most of it—replaced with surprise. Of course, he knew most humans had parents, and plenty of them had siblings. But he’d never really thought about it. “You had parents,” he repeated softly.
“Yeah, most people do!” He flinched. Pomni must’ve heard the movement, because she paused. “I… I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”
For a bit, neither of them said anything. The silence made Caine uncomfortable. Was she expecting something?
An apology! She must want an apology for his outburst.
“I’m sorry, too.”
“It’s… fine. Um… what are you missing?” she asked quietly.
Everything. So many things he didn’t know how to tell her, and so many things he didn’t want to tell her. So many things he couldn’t say to anyone at all.
“I miss my body,” he told her, settling for a half-truth. Even if his avatar was unchanged, him was so much more than that. His code had been spread throughout the circus; the avatar was just a puppet. A puppet he liked, and was familiar with, and used even when he didn’t need to—but still a puppet. He never imagined he’d be stuck in it.
“Me too,” she said. He heard about them missing their bodies all the time, but now it felt different. He’d never put too much thought into it before. He wondered what they’d looked like in the macroverse.
Their world was so different from his. He’d always wanted to be in theirs, but if he was stuck there, he would probably hate it. Hate it just like the humans hated it here.
“Uh, Caine?” Pomni asked, knocking on the door.
“Huh?”
“I asked if you wanted to come out.” He did want to get out of his room. Caine examined his arms to make sure there were no lingering glitches, before opening the door and shakily exiting.
“Do you want to go see if we can find Ragatha and Kinger?” Pomni offered. “You don’t have to if you’re tired, but staying in your room alone all day… is not fun. I would know.”
“I’m tired,” he answered, sitting back down. He wasn’t sure if he was, but he didn’t want to leave and face the others just yet. It was hard to tell how he was feeling when he almost never felt all these bad emotions as the ringmaster. Or… maybe he had felt them and just couldn’t tell what they were. Maybe everything painful that he used to ignore was the same as the painful things he couldn’t now. He didn’t know anymore.
“You know…” Pomni said. He turned to his right and realized that she’d sat down next to him. “When we get out of here, we should have some kind of celebration. We could go to a park. You and Kinger could examine the bees. Ragatha could bake us something. She said she used to really like baking.”
“That’s not going to happen.” It came out sharper than he intended. Pomni frowned.
“I have to have some kind of hope, Caine. We all do.”
Hope. That was hope to them.
“You’re right,” he told her hollowly. He didn’t tell her that their hope was his worst nightmare, or that his hope was theirs. He just sat with her and tried his best to hold onto the present while it lasted.