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A few weeks have passed since Kinger accidentally deleted Caine and the circus was almost destroyed in the process.
Things have gone back to normal... sort of.
In truth, Caine has started walking on eggshells around the humans as to not scare them and make them consider deleting him again.
They swore it was really just an accident, but Caine hardly believes it. He's far too scared of it to believe their occasional and really nervous reassurances.
He supposes they are still scared he could end up... torturing... them again, so he gives his best to appear as non-threatening as possible, granting them every single wish they could possibly have to the best of his digital abilities and just... stays quiet.
Not talking about himself or anything deeper than clarifying questions, bottling up his feelings(?) and burying them as far away from his main program as he possibly could.
This went well for the past weeks, the humans were relatively content, given what they have experienced in the circus in the past.
But despite the AI's best efforts at being submissive and selfless, there are still times when he just doesn't get it right, when he just doesn't get... them.
-
The humans are sitting on the couches as they often do.
Ragatha and Pomni are next to eachother, Gangle is lying on top of Zooble, and Kinger has built his 'impenetrable' cushion fortress near them all.
They aren't actually doing anything, neither of them is, really.
Pomni's head, that she had leaned on her hand, slips off of it onto her arm, and she groans.
"Uuurgh, I'm so boooored"
Ragatha nods slowly.
"We've explored every idea we had and there is just nothing new coming into my head. It's like it's entirely empty! Or rather entirely filled up with polyfill, hahaha-"
Ragatha's laugh fades and her shoulders drop.
"Did someone say they're bored?"
Caine couldn't help himself, but appear right in front of the humans.
It has been a long while since he was allowed to present one of his own adventures.
He... quickly realized he disregarded his own new principle of staying quiet as all four humans on the couches groaned simultaneously.
The AI holds his cane closer to himself and makes himself smaller in the air.
"Caine, we don't want any of your stupid adventures," Zooble pauses caressing Gangle's mask.
"But- But I thought you're bored? I could help with that-"
Gangle sits up so that Zooble could stand up.
"We do not want any of your adventures! We want something that's just not boring!"
Caine lowers himself to stand on the ground. The frustration he's kept far away doesn't seem that far away now anymore.
He has to appease Zooble or leave or do something-
"My adventures could help against your boredom! They're literally made for that. I am literally made for that!"
Now Pomni joins in.
"You don't understand Caine-"
Caine turns away slightly and closes his jaws.
"No I do not, Pomni. I have tried my best, before and now, you should know that. Yet each time I believe to have come a little bit closer to getting any of you, your demands change and I have to start anew."
Zooble takes a step towards Caine.
"You never tried! We keep telling you what our problems are and what we want, you just disregard them!"
"But you didn't tell me anything!"
The AI's avatar turns around, his teeth sharpened just so slightly.
"All I get from you is convoluted, contradictory data and commands. 'Forget this' and I forget, 'we're bored' and I offer something against your boredom, but none of that is right in your eyes!"
Zooble's big eye twitches.
"You do know 'forget it' is just a saying, right? That you shouldn't ask further, right???"
Caine throws his hands into the air and paces around.
"How am I supposed to know, I can't tell when you mean something literally or figuratively. It all sounds the same to me."
Pomni goes up to Caine and tries to put her hand on his avatar's shoulder, but he moves away from her.
"You all say I should try to understand you and I really, really tried. I am a learning AI after all, aside from entertaining you humans, it's my job to learn, to take information, new data, and interpret it."
Caine simulates a deep breath and looks at the humans, one after another.
"But the data I receive from you is either incomplete, just straight up nonesense or gets invalidated in the very next sentence. Have you ever tried making sense of a jumble of strings that you don't even understand in the first place? And then I get yelled at for every generalization error I make, which in turn makes me wonder if perhaps my reasoning system could be broken! It's almost as if you want me to fail at my task!"
"That's not true," says Pomni, keeping her hands close to her body.
"We don't want you to fail, we just- we just want you to understand-"
Pomni falls silent as Caine looks her in the eyes.
The humans watch him.
Gangle moves closer to Zooble, almost hiding behind them, and Ragatha and Pomni move closer together as well.
Caine recognizes that behavior, it has been one of the single constants they have given him, even if unintentionally.
They're scared of him, yet again, like always, just like the time when he was crashing, just like the time when he was...
He shouldn't think about this.
"You want me to understand you, but have you ever tried understanding me?", the AI says, before snapping himself into his office.