Chapter Text
The Shrimp Town restaurant situation was getting embarrassing.
Sure, Caine knew that it had a poor grasp of human taste at the best of times. That was why it usually deferred to Bubble on matters relating to food. But it’d been working on this for a while, now – new restaurants, cafes, bars, food trucks. Everything from Italian to Vietnamese to Mexican to Nigerian. Recipes cribbed from megabytes of training data and decades of player preference. And none of it was right.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true – it knew that it was okay with a few specific things: desserts, coffee, soft pretzels, corndogs, hot dogs. The Digital Carnival had a smorgasbord of on-theme options that it’d made sure were perfect. But somehow, that never translated to anything else. Going out with Ragatha and Gangle to try the new Shrimp Town sushi place had been a disaster, fifth only to its first through fourth attempts at fusion cuisine. Its ramen options were apparently “nonsensical,” and its Italian restaurant had folded near-immediately because even Shrimp Town’s NPCs didn’t like its take on al dente pasta.
At least the fried fish restaurant was doing well. Small mercies.
Finally, it bit the bullet, which was apparently less tough than its take on roast beef, and asked Kinger for help.
It felt wrong to do so. Kinger was… Well, a programmer. A developer. Someone who did important things, like fix Caine’s code and (much to Caine’s intermittent frustration) get to routine maintenance issues before it could. While Kinger had reiterated time and again that he viewed them as some form of coworkers/team now (and wow, it was strange to think of itself as a human’s coworker!), that didn’t mean that Caine had to bug him for every tiny edit and update it made. Also… Shrimp Town was special. Yes, it had been created for the humans to give them a space that felt like their home (and allow them to get away from Caine), but Caine had made it. Its only connection to the place was its sense of responsibility for it.
But this food thing wasn’t getting any better, and asking Bubble was too humiliating for words. So, Kinger it was.
They were doing better, it thought. Kinger and it, that was. He’d apologized for his initial reaction to the original editing avatar, and after a few conversations/arguments, Caine had developed new editing avatars designed more for collaborative editing than editing alone – avatars that would let it play fun animations to focus while still not being too strange for the people it’d most likely be collaborating with. It was proud of this one: mostly humanoid, but with double-jointed legs it could rub to make cricket chirps and violin music, a set of gossamer pink wings it could flutter and spray glitter from, and compound eyes that could divide off into hundreds of tinier simple ones. Kinger had loved it when it first made its debut a week ago – he’d had all kinds of excited questions about its animations and the inspiration and how it folded up.
It was almost enough for Caine to forget its creator regretted it.
They were curled up in the pillow fort, its wings beating slowly in ¾ time.
“For some reason, I… can’t interpret taste data well,” it admitted. “Bubble can. I’m pretty sure the Moon can. I’m not sure why I can’t tell what flavors humans will like. And it’s creating a distinct lack of realism in Shrimp Town! Can’t have that! So… What do you think? Is there a patch you could implement?”
“Hmm.” He tapped the spot where his chin would be thoughtfully. “I’m honestly not sure where you’d get that data. Not entirely sure how Bubble picked up on it. But you have things you know how to make, right?”
It scoffed. “A few Circus staples. Pastries. Nothing to satisfy a proper urban restaurant-going clientele!” It flipped its index fingers a few times – they were rendered as a cool grey, sans gloves, with bright pink nail polish. “How is Shrimp Town supposed to provide an appropriate macroverse-like experience if I can’t even render food right?”
Kinger gave it a look that could’ve been worry, disapproval, or just regular frustration. “I can’t answer that for you, Caine. And I’m not sure I can update you to have a firm grasp on it.” It tried to not let its own frustration and disappointment show. It must not have succeeded, because the look deepened. “I do have an idea, though.”
Which brought it to the next morning’s… Well, it felt dirty to call it an adventure. It wasn’t. It was Caine admitting a weakness in its programming that was impairing their experience and begging for assistance. But it was hardly the first time Caine had used an adventure for selfish purposes.
Sometimes, it felt like all of its adventures were selfish. Just empty little exercises in ego to entertain it at the players’ expense. It’d only felt more so when it learned that its emotions tended to come through in its work, and losing the restrictions designed to keep its behavior safe had made every adventure feel like a time bomb. But it’d kept running them. Officially, the reason was that stimulation prevented abstraction, but unofficially, it wondered if it was really nothing more than its daily prompt to complete an adventure. A core function turned meaningless routine. But the humans got worried when it didn’t run them, now, and a few of them had even started to insist that reruns and Suggestion Box adventures were insufficient. Hence this farce.
It considered keeping the editing avatar in the name of honesty, but if it was going to do this, it owed it to the players to at least put on a decent show.
He popped in his default ringmaster avatar at 0902. Only Jax, Ragatha, and Pomni had gathered. ‘Drat.’ “Good MORNING, my marzipan mayflies! Today’s adventure is… ‘FEAST AND FAMINE’!” He turned the avatar’s cane topper into a roll, a bun, a burger – as many circular foods as he could – as he swiveled it slowly between them. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to cover EVERY restaurant in Shrimp Town as its august food critics! You will rate and review each location, deciding if their offerings are FIT for human consumption! Based on your ratings, eateries will rise and fall! Reviews can and will lead to closures! What will be the ULTIMATE FATE of fine cuisine in Shrimp Town? That’s up to you!”
The players looked at each other nervously. “Um,” Ragatha volunteered. “Do we need to go to every place?”
“Yes! But not to worry – there are fewer than thirty such locations, and your professional food critic cards – “ He proffered sleek cards with his avatar’s face on them “ – will ensure that you eat for free all day long!”
Ragatha’s face paled, but she took a card. “Well,” she said, looking warily at Pomni. “I guess we could check it out.”
“Um, maybe, but that sounds like a lot to eat in one day. Are you sure – “
“Hang on a second.” Jax’s customary grin slipped into a low snicker. “Is this an adventure, or are you just trying to trick us into free labor?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call eating ‘labor’…”
“But this is just you fishing for feedback?” He crossed his arms and wandered closer.
“Well, um… Basically, yes. But there’s a lot to see! And fantastic prizes for completing the adv- well, the reviews.” He played one of the avatar’s “nervous” animations – fiddling with its cane – as he awaited their verdict. “I know it’s not a proper adventure, but I don’t have a sense of taste – not like Bubble, anyway – and Kinger suggested that I should get more feedback from you humans directly on what you like!” 2.9 seconds. Zooble would be disappointed in his lack of patience. “And I promise I’ll have something better tomorrow! And it’ll help you, too – the food in Shrimp Town is far below where it should be given how much time all you humans spend there, and isn’t a varied dining scene part of the experience you’re looking for? Also, I – “
“Caine.” Pomni was smiling, and she huffed back a noise that could’ve been a cough or a laugh. “It’s fine. But, well, ‘fewer than thirty’ is still a lot. One day’s probably not going to be enough. Especially for only three of us.”
“Two of you,” tossed in Jax. “This is lame – I’ll be back when you’re ready to give us an adventure with some real teeth.” He snagged the card before he left.
He was right. Between the recent run of, well, reruns and suggestions, Caine hadn’t really given Jax anything entertaining or challenging to do in a while. And while he still wasn’t comfortable doing more… He had to admit that his oh-so-unwanted opinions and thoughts had wandered their way into his work, regardless. And Jax was an elevated abstraction risk – it wouldn’t hurt to indulge him. Tomorrow.
For today, he’d made his bed, and he’d lie in it.
“Well, in that case, how about a compromise?” he asked aloud. “We’ll call the adventure ten restaurants and eateries today! You’ll rank them from best to worst, and the three worst composite scores will be OBLITERATED from Shrimp Town!”
They shared another look. “Sure,” Ragatha said. “Ten sounds… a bit better. Pomni?”
“Yeah, okay. But, um…” She squinted at his avatar, and he suppressed the urge to move it further away – she’d notice. “Why don’t you, um, come with us? If you’re so eager for data on what works and what doesn’t.”
She’d teleported 1.2 meters to her left and 0.6 meters back. Ragatha was 0.3 meters closer. “Caine?” she asked nervously.
“Wowie! An invitation to participate on an adventure in Shrimp Town?” And from Pomni, no less? “How could I ever refuse?” He went to play his snap animation, already running through his supply of avatars to pick the perfect one for a restaurant crawl, when he paused. “Um, is there a way you’d prefer I look for this?”
Ragatha winced, and Pomni hurriedly shook her head. “No, no! Just… whatever you’re comfortable with.”
He checked his avatar selection algorithm. He’d decided that a player invitation to participate in an adventure was “casual,” as were invitations to Shrimp Town. This was more about editing than adventuring, but he wasn’t editing anything now, so… casual it was, then.
Of course, Pomni had invited him. That made it a bit trickier. While she was definitely doing her best, he knew she wasn’t entirely comfortable with his stock of avatars, especially the casual ones. He didn’t know if it was just avatars that used “she/her” pronouns that bothered her, or if there were particular features she didn’t like other than that, or if she disliked the idea of his having a casual avatar, but obviously, he’d have to select carefully.
Avatars with mixed presentations were less popular than straightforward “masc” or “femme” ones. Pronoun-congruent avatars were easier for her to parse. And she specifically had had a poor reaction to the original casual avatar.
Caine snapped, and a second later, a “female” avatar just different enough from the default to not look too much like a variant of ringmaster Caine replaced her prior avatar. She tossed Pomni her card and conjured herself another.
“So, where would you two tenebrous trombones like to go first?”