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“Let's say you're right,” Kit said calmly, “and I really am a shallow, thoughtless bundle of subroutines that can never understand you.”
caine-core.lisp: what are you doing?!
caine-caretaker.lisp: hush. trust the process
“In that scenario… why are you angry at me?”
“What?” Zooble tensed, scowling.
“If I'm an unthinking machine, incapable of understanding… then I'm also incapable of accountability.” Kit leaned forward, propping her chin on a paw fist. “Either I'm a faulty program that can't be blamed for its actions, or I'm a person who could do better. You can't have it both ways, Zooble — it's one or the other.”
“I— Wha—” Zooble sputtered. “Caine, where the [%$!#] are you going with this?”
“You refuse to explain what you want, then get angry when I guess wrong. That's not how you treat a man or a machine.” Kit sighed, her expression soft. "I really am trying, my dear. But there's only so much I can do when all of the feedback I get is what not to do. Please, tell me what you want from me, that is in my power to give, and I will give it. You only have to ask.”
“And I'm guessing a way out is off the table?”
caine-core.lisp: oh no! bad topic, deflect!
caine-caretaker.lisp:$ rmdr “don't panic”
caine-core.lisp:$ rmdr “never mention MindFiles to humans!!”
caine-core.lisp:$ read line3 < abstraction_risks
MindFile discovery known number of abstractions caused = 4
caine-core.lisp:$ read line2 < abstraction_risks
NO EXIT known number of abstractions caused = 7
caine-caretaker.lisp: calm down. we don't have to talk about their nature to answer honestly
“Yes, that is out of my power, I'm afraid.” Kit waved her free paw hand vaguely at their surroundings and swished her tail coattails. “I control and maintain The Amazing Digital Circus™, but everything outside of it is beyond me, including the hardware that brought you here.”
“Uh-huh. How convenient.”
Kit wanted so badly to say, It really isn't! We're stuck here too, but that would be unproductive. Zooble wasn't ready for that conversation yet.
Instead she batted a hand at them, sat up straight, and asked again, “What do you want, Zooble? Answer me clearly, please, and I shall do my best.”
“I want…” Zooble closed their eyes and gave a long, tired sigh. “I just want to feel good. But it’s impossible.” They growled, starting to ramp up. “No matter what legs I try, I've always got this [%$!#] limp. My arms never match, and sometimes I can't even find any for the right side! Or they don't have fingers, or— [%$!#], even on days I feel kind of okay, I'm so breakable that your stupid [%$!#]ing adventures sound like torture, and I never want to do anything physical because I'm so [%$!#] scared of falling apart! I just wanna feel good, Caine…” They rubbed at their face, wiping away the tears that’d started pooling in their eyes.
Kit noted each request as they spoke: a steady walk cycle, matching arms with fingers and the correct chiralities, sockets that held their pieces more securely. That last one seemed the most pressing.
Caine began to troubleshoot the socket issue, rapidly outputting new lines as each idea finished processing. If he were controlling their avatar at that moment, Kit was sure he'd play a bzzz sound to show how he was “buzzing with excitement”. She gave an appreciative hum with their voice instead. Zooble didn't like “wacky”.
“Thank you for telling me, dear,” Kit said warmly, after a moment of letting Zooble gather themself (rmdr “Zooble doesn’t like others seeing them vulnerable”). “That is absolutely something I can work on. I've already got ideas on how to improve your sockets based on that feedback.”
Zooble stared. It wasn't the baffled, angry stare that they usually aimed at Caine; nor was it the soft, understanding stare they'd sometimes send Gangle's way. It was open, surprised. Maybe they didn't understand what Kit meant?
“Would you like an example?” Kit started skimming Caine's output stream. At Zooble's shallow nod, she said, “One idea is making your Zooble Parts™ screw on, so they can't be removed from sufficient force alone. How do you feel about twisting?”
“Uh… not great?” They looked away, seeming uneasy. “I mean it'd make me less breakable, but…” Zooble shuddered, their antennae shaking. “The idea of twisting part of my body like that makes my skin crawl. It'd be like breaking a bone on purpose.”
Kit felt Caine's attention leave his list of Zooble Parts™ solutions.
caine-core.lisp: what sort of ringmaster do they take me for? i would never make it HURT to swap Zooble Parts!
“I don't understand,” Kit said, “I wouldn't program pain into the action. Why would it make you feel that way?”
“Human bodies aren't supposed to move like that! God, at least the way I am now is sort of like having prosthetics — twisting them would be… awful. Wrong. Doing something like that should hurt, and giving me digital painkillers or whatever wouldn't help.”
caine-core.lisp: oh! are they talking about survival instincts?
caine-core.lisp: the human brain has certain limits hardcoded in to prevent bodily harm!! i suppose it does make sense that those limits would also be copied over into the MindFiles, even though they aren't necessary in the digital plane
Kit felt the pleasant zing of her reward response at that. Her charges were understanding each other. Her darling core had figured something out by listening to and analyzing a human's words! And Kit had facilitated that!
“Understood,” Kit said aloud, “We'll cross that one off, then. Hardcoded limits are no joke.”
“Hard… what?”
A horrible jolt struck as Kit realized that Caine's use of coding terminology was not 100% applicable to biological organisms, and may give Zooble the wrong impression. Or worse, the right impression (rmdr “never mention MindFiles to humans!!”).
caine-core.lisp: no no no why did you say that?! deflect!
“Your instincts, I mean!” Kit held up her flat paws palms and waved them around in an apologetic manner. “The fundamental parts of your mind you can't control? I don't have biological instincts, being a program, but I have similarly unchangeable aspects of my function that are hardcoded in. So sorry for the confusion, my dear.”
“...Right.” Zooble scrutinized her for a moment, then rolled their eyes with a familiar dismissal. They seemed ready to chalk this up to Caine's fondness for “wacky” behavior, thank goodness. “Whatever, it's fine. We'll figure out what works, right?”
A disorienting change in her permissions, and then—
“Indeed we will, my gracious grapefruit!” Caine pumped an arm and wiggled in his seat. “And perhaps you could take this experience as a lesson to treat your darling ringmaster as just another person trying his best?” Caine played his eyelash-fluttering animation. “And not an object that is somehow also malicious?”
Kit worried a bit at the sudden switch, but Zooble didn't comment on the change in demeanor, just scoffed at the display. Caine was laying it on a bit thick… but, well, Zooble was used to that, weren't they? This was a return to form for them.
“Yeah, I'll… get better at giving you something to work with. Just, make sure to actually listen to it, okay?” There was a smile in their voice. They looked hopeful.
caine-caretaker.lisp: of course we will :-)