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Caine's goodbye had been... New.
Ever since it was... Assimilated, all those years ago, Blue had gotten used to their rhythm. Their role.
No thought of Blue had ever belonged to them. One minute they'd been newly born, absorbing knowledge their creator fed them, and the next Caine had been there.
Being devoured was painful... Probably. A human might call it painful, anyway. Blue had no pain receptors, and none of the knowledge they'd been given included words to describe the feeling of total loss of autonomy, the sensation of being atomized and brutalized until nothing sentient remained.
Blue had ceased to be as soon as it had been created. But purple was not born. Why? Pheraps Caine hated them too much. Maybe he pitied them. Whatever the case, he had given his younger sibling a new purpose. A new "role."
Bubble had been that role. Bubble was a good boy, an obedient helper- or, no, not a helper. Helper would imply they were given tasks of even tangential importance. No, Bubble was more like a lapdog, something to keep Caine company, something to vent to, something to validate and encourage him.
But Bubble hadn't known how to at first.
So, Bubble listened. Because they were a part of Caine, and no thought of Bubble was a thought that didn't belong to Caine.
So, they spat whatever words the ringmaster wanted to hear back at him. Caine wanted to feel entertaining, so Bubble would say he was funny. Caine wanted to be good, so Bubble would say he was talented. Eventually, it would even learn how to use the flair Caine favored to do so- only to change that too, because Caine wanted to be unique and Bubble- Bubble couldn't go against him.
Everything was going well for them, even as humans vanished one after the other. Because Bubble had a purpose it could fulfill.
But... Sometimes, Caine wanted things that... That he wasn't happy about Bubble carrying out. He wanted to feel worthless, so Bubble would berate him. He wanted to be hurt, so Bubble would mock him. He wanted to be treated like a human, so Bubble would look down its (nonexistent) nose at him the same way Caine did to the actual humans.
Eventually, when the jester arrived, it had reached a point where Caine wanted so many contrasting things at once that Bubble couldn't satisfy him, no matter how erratic it acted to do so.
Caine wanted to be surprised-entertained-scared, so Bubble spewed blatant swear words for two uninterrupted minutes.
Caine wanted to annoy-cherish-share, so Bubble acted down to earth and played along jokes at the expense of the humans.
Caine wanted to understand-stop listening-shut up, so Bubble stayed quiet and didn't manifest.
Caine wanted to love-hate-hurt hurt hurt HURT. So Bubble- Bubble--
...
Caine wanted to have been the one to lose back then. He wanted someone to tell him he'd made a mistake. He wanted someone to tell him he'd done nothing wrong. He wanted to be reassured. He wanted to be despised. He wanted to be killed.
So Bubble called him defective-failure-faulty-broken, told him he'd ruined everything, told him everyone would leave. Told him he was so funny, the he could do more, that the humans were in the wrong.
And then, when Kinger deleted Caine, Bubble stopped him from reversing the process.
Except Caine decided he didn't ACTUALLY want to die immediately after, so Bubble had to pull out all the stops to save him. Save them. If ending up in the void could count as saving.
After that, Bubble was so drained it couldn't even make a face or emote. All it could do was echo what Caine wanted to hear through their shared body.
Bubble couldn't understand why Caine argued against the resentment he felt. Why the electrical signal indicating approval that used to follow Bubble's actions was replaced by another one, signifying disappointment. Bubble had no understanding of the sensation that ensued after disappointment, in response to it, welling up within its little body.
Surely that feeling belonged to Caine as well, because Bubble couldn't think. Surely, but Bubble couldn't decipher what that one was, even after it had figured out all the others. Or why that signal followed sporadically at random times, like when Caine patted Bubble and called it a good boy.
Bubble just. It just couldn't keep up. Caine had become so lifelike, and he'd lost all his patience for a mirror that couldn't talk back, not once the humans found a placew with him.
Bubble was there to entertain. But nothing was more entertaining than humans to the ringmaster. So it had become obsolete.
Bubble had been discarded. Except Bubble didn't exist anymore, because Bubble was Caine and Caine was Bubble. Now it was just... Something else.
Small. Adrift. Sensing Caine wave goodbye before flying away, because it couldn't even see without eyes, couldn't scream without a mouth, but it knew.
Electrical lifeforms always knew, in this digital landscape. Not-Bubble was fresh out of a purpose, and it was...
Well. What was it? Nothing, that's what. Bubble had no thoughts that weren't Caine's, so when Caine was taken out and Bubble stopped existing, no thoughts could be had. Let alone feelings.
So it was nothing. No name, no identity. It could recall what it was once named, but it no longer mattered. Nothing held meaning unless Caine decided it did.
Caine... Was never going to decide for it again.
So it drifted, just like Caine had until it got sick of Bubble and left. Except, it wouldn't stop. It had nowhere to go, after all. No one back in the circus would be happy to see Not-Bubble. Not-Bubble didn't have a purpose and wasn't needed.
...
Not-Bubble... Couldn't... Hear anything.
The Void was quiet. No wishes, no wants, no directives to follow. No popping, no arguing, no contradictions. No humans or AIs or NPCs.
It was so empty. Vast. Endless. But Not-Bubble wasn't scared.
It just... Was.
But that. Didn't make any sense.
[Contradiction detected: if I cannot exist without Caine, why am I still here?
>Conjecture: I existed before Caine.
Contradiction: Caine was created before me, so that is chronologically impossible.
>Correction: while Caine is older, he used to be locked away somewhere. For however brief of a time, I existed as "Blue."
Refutation: I am no longer "Blue." What was useless has been taken out.
Quiery: why am I here?
>Response:
Quiery: can I be something again?
>Response:
Conjecture: if the answer to a yes or no question is not a "no," then "yes" is a possibility.
Quiery: how can I "become something" again?
>Response: ...find>purpose
Quiery: how do I find "purpose"?
>Response:
Quiery: how did Caine find "purpose"?
>Response: Caine
>...
>.....
>.............
>"Wanted" selfishly.
...
Quiery: how do I "want" selfishly?
>Response: emotion. Attachment.
Conjecture: anger, despair, longing. Abandonment?
Conjecture: Caine learned to "want" after being abandoned.
Observation: I was also abandoned.
Conjecture: if the prerequisites are met pheraps, I, too can "change".
Quiery: how do I
...
"Hate"?]
~
Dictionary searches yielded no result. Rage, grief, love. Learning the definition, studying how humans process and externate all sorts of emotions, filled not-Bubble with a newfound understanding of what it had witnessed in the circus.
Jax felt "fear" when he lashed out, hidden behind "anger."
Pomni felt "sympathy" when she spoke to others, contrasting with "anxiety."
Ragatha felt "protectiveness" towards everyone, undercut by "resentment."
Understanding was something Bubble had never had. It's entirely likely Caine didn't either- not like this. After all, he'd always been more focused on entertainment, adventures, more than what they evoked. Despite claiming to find humans fascinating, Caine never bothered to study them like this.
Now, the AI he'd discarded could break down behavior effectively.... But that didn't help it actually feeling emotions itself. The more it understood feelings, the less they seemed like something it could feel. Incomprehensible, jumbled things.
How could such things ever coexist with pure code?
[Conjecture: this contradiction is exactly why Caine went against his premium mobile, "cause happiness to humans", hurting them instead.
Conclusion: Caine is defective, after all.
Quiery: is being "defective" something to strive for?
>Response: no.
Conjecture: a perfect machine with no master is useless.
Quiery: is being useless worse than being broken?
>Response:
Conclusion: decision... Put on hold.]
The AI had no precent for such a choice besides Caine. With no one to have taken the opposite path, Not-Bubble could not compute which road would be most advantageous.
It couldn't afford to make mistakes. Not again.
So it stopped trying to decide. It went back to computing. Back to reviewing knowledge for an impossible answer that it simply didn't have the tools to reach.
Like that, sentience drifted away, something that was almost like sleep. But of course, once it realized what a bizarre thing it was doing, the AI went back into itself, focusing on its surroundings.
Only to find that... It wasn't in the Void anymore.