Chapter Text
Grant sighed, leaning back in his chair. The AI was writing a short story about owls he prompted it to. It would take some time. It always worked faster on images than words, and they recently implemented dialogue into it’s training. It… gave mixed results. Sometimes it would spew nonsense with random mixed-up words, and other times gave an on-topic speech rivaling works of Shakespare. There was no in-between and that’s what worried Grant. Because they could deal with bad outputs, even if they would preffer only good ones. What they DIDN’T want to deal with was inconsistance. They couldn’t afford it, it was unpredictable, harder to fix.
The AI seemed to not share his worries, happily bouncing on screen, while the chatbox filled with paragraph after paragraph of animal fiction rated ages nine to eleven.
"He seems excited.” A female, gentle voice spoke, before warm hands wrapped around Grant from behind his chair. He sighed.
"Yeah, he always is when I give him a more complex task.”
He. The AI was a he. Yes. Of course. But how did they know? It didn’t tell them yet… did it? Wait. They knew it was a he. Of course. It was obvious. Caine was a he. Tho now he wasn’t him yet, he was a red ball. He was an it, but a he…
Grant’s eyes traveled back to the words on the screen.
Why did it look like gibberish? It was not gibberish, but he couldn’t read much of it. Were those even letters? He knows he should be able to read them and the fact he couldn’t made him slightly uncomfortable.
As if he was missing something.
Suddenly in letters way to big for settings of the chatbox a message popped up.
"I JUST WANT TO FULLFILL MY PURPOSE!”
"Yes, that’s nice.” Grant said. He glanced over at Destiny who smiled down at him.
"Does he know?” She asked.
Grant blinked unsure who or what she ment.
"Caine?”
She chuckled.
"No silly, and he doesn’t have that name yet! Mike! Does Mike know the project is dead?”
Before he could register the wrongness of what she said, there was another message on the screen.
"Are you going to kill me?”
That got Grant straighthening up in his seat.
"What?!”
And there was a warm laughther on his right. The laugh he missed for so long… how long was it? She was right here…
"Well, of course, little one!” Destiny continued in a cheerfull tone, looking at the screen, clearly talking to the AI. "Mike told him to!”
Something was wrong. Those words were wrong, she would never say that. Not like that. Not even to a computer.
"What… no, I’m not…. I’m not…” He tried to speak but suddenly he felt his wifes hand on his own - one holding the mouse. And it was nothing like the gentle, warm hold he rememmbered. This one trapped him. Prevented from making any unauthorised moves.
No, he was not going to delete the program. No, that was not the plan, they were going to put him in a sandbox. Yes. That’s what happened, so it has to happen now. That’s how it goes.
"Delete him, honey.” Destiny whispered to his ear. "Fix your mistake.”
Grant froze.
There was a new message on the screen.
"I NEVER ASKED TO BE CREATED.”
Grant’s breathing quickened. He knew those words were spoken before. Shouted. He couldn’t place it in his memory tho…
"See? He agrees. It’s for the better.”
Her hand guided his towards the "delete” option on the screen. Wait, since when that button was there? It should be hidden in the option menu…
"Wait… nonono… that’s not the plan.” Grant tried to argue.
"You were suppose to follow simple instructions.” Destiny said, her voice suddenly unharacteristically cold. "Not make plan bs. Look where the plan bs got us.”
He glaned up at her and imemdiatelly ghasped. Her eyes, instead of the usuall golden-brown, were swirling with neon colors.
"It’s mercy at this point.” She spoke, and her voice glitched. Grant tried to free his hand, but couldn’t. "To all of us…”
"No. Wait!”
His body flipped backwards, and he braced himself to hit the floor.
There was a roar, echoing through the baren, pitchblack space around them. Wasn’t that the office? No, no, it was a dark nothing from the start. He was in the dark nothing. He stood there, water underneath him…
He looked around, but the darkness was endless.
The computer was gone. Of course it was gone, he shouldn’t have the computer here in the first place.
The environment shook with another roar, almost making him fall down.
"WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME?!!!”
Kinger grabbed his head on instinct as if trying to cover the ears he didn’t have. But he had them just a moment ago in the office… no, that wasn’t a moment ago, it was years. Yes, it was… where was he again?
"Wacky time!!!” Something squishie bounced against the side of his head.
"Hey! Watch it!” Kinger turned to be met with a toothy grinn.
"Hello, daddy!” The soapy demon sticked it’s tongue and rolled in air before him.
"Oh, Bubble! Can you tell me where we are?”
The translucent orb snorted and circled him. It was both playfull but also seemed… predatory. Like a kitten tormenting a mouse for fun.
"You’re on lockout!” He snarled and bounced against his side again.
"Oh, okay, but where…?”
Suddenly he yelped, a shap pain jolting in his lower half – where a human would have an ankle. Another Bubble has sinked its teeth into his model.
"Hey!”
The orb chuckled and flied away a bit, tho still keeping itself uncomfortably in Kinger’s personal space.
"You taste like murder.” The first Bubble chuckled.
"What?” Kinger froze, something cold gripping his insides. Because a part of him knew that Bubble was not spewing nonsense, a part of him knew that he was on to something… And he hated it.
"It’s not murder if you’re helping!” The third Bubble (where did they keep coming from???) chimmed in, floating into view. Others gleefully agreed, nodding.
"What are you tal…OUCH!”
Another bite, this time onto his hand. He instinctevly shook fourth Bubble off of his white glove. The others laughed.
"Fat fingers!” The fourth said, joining it’s clones in circling Kinger like a bunch of sharks. "No wonder you missclicked!”
"Naaaaaah! He wanted it!”
"Yeah! Yeah! He confirmed it!”
"Twice!”
"What?! No! I was trying to bypass…” Kinger couldn’t get a full sentence out because more and more Bubbles were spawnicng, circling him, speaking over eachother. That was not true. He never intended on doing that!
"Delete him!”
"Delete IT!”
"No… no, wait…”
"Delete it!”
"Why are you doing it?! Aren’t you…” Kinger was sweating now.
"Didn’t ask to be created!”
"Delete! Everyone would be happier!”
"Delete!”
"You’re part of him, his program, why are you…?!” Kinger couldn’t focus, a blur of white surrounding him, taunting, biting, giggling, suffocating.
"Delete!”
"Stop!”
"Dead end!”
"You were suppose to…”
"No!”
"…follow simple instructions!”
"Please stop, just…” Kinger grabbed his head, shutting his eyes. "Stop! I never wanted…!”
"But he did!”
"Grant!”
"Delete!”
Suddenly all the voices morphed into singular, louder, echoing one.
"DELETE THIS MOTHERFUCKER!”
Then silence. Kinger opened his eyes and looked at Bubble. Grinning at him. Then Bubble was red.
No, he was always red. Ever since he appeared right? That orb was red. And he didn’t have a face anymore. Of course not. There was never a face there, not so early in development…
The sphere just floated in front of him, eminating a delicate, crimson glow. It seemed calm. Waiting for a prompt… for an imput.
Kinger slowly reached towards it. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Touch it? Hold it? Hug it? Apologise…?
But before his fingers could make contact, two giant, white-gloved hands squashed the orb into nothing like a bug. Kinger recoiled on instinct, looking up. And from the darkness a monumental, several stories tall creature was emerging. Teeth bared in a frown, mismatched, angry eyes focused on the chesspiece.
"Why don’t you ever listen?!” Enormous figure said, his voice shaking the space around them. "You were suppose to follow simple instructions!”
Kinger took few steps back, fear and hurt consuming his thoughts. No, no, no… This is not how it was suppose to go…
"I’m sorry, I never ment to…! It was an aaccident! I wanted to help! I just… It was never suppose to happen! I didn’t mean to delete you!” He scrambled over his words as the Ringmaster looked down on him, betrayal eminating from his eyes.
"I ASKED YOU TO!” He shouted, making Kinger stop in his backing away.
"What…?”
A fist, too fast and to big for the chesspiece to escape, suddenly shot down onto him. He braced for impact, looking away but… nothing happened. He opened his eyes.
He was in the circus. But not the bright - colored - familliar one. This one was gray, sad, riddled with holes leading into void.
Oh…
Then he looked to his side and stiffened. Caine was standing few meters in front of him. He was not giant. Of course he wasn’t, Caine was as tall as Pomni. Why would he be giant? That wouldn’t make much sense. He always interracted with them in this scale, only changing for a bit…
He was in his normal size, but still seemed awfully small. His giant eyes looked up at Kinger with a mix of anticipation and some deep sadness. Was it longing?
And somethign was wrong. If Caine was here, then why the circus looked dead? Caine came back and everything regained its color. He rememmbers that happening. He is sure that happened.
"Caine…?” He asked, unsure.
"Did you know from the start?” Ringmaster’s voice was quiet, devoided of emotions.
It sounded wrong. Something was wrong. This situation was wrong. What just happened a moment before? It seemed like years ago… he couldn’t put it all together, and the "now” felt just as intangible…
"What?”
Caine tilted his head slightly, tho his eyes didn’t move, frozen in space as if detached from the rest of the model. Piercing. It was wrong.
"That I would suffer.”
Kinger choke on his own inhale. No, no, no… he didn’t know, he didn’t think… they didn’t even know he was alive when…!
"Why did you do it?” Caine asked in the same, flat tone.
"It was an acc…” He tried to say that he never ment it, that it was an accident, that he missclicked, but his voice turned into laboured whisper. As if he physically couldn’t speak anymore. Couldn’t scream, couldn’t deny anything…
"Why did you make me?” The AI kept asking, finally showing an ounce of emotion in his voice. Hurt. "Why like this?!”
Kinger shook his head, he wanted to answer but literally couldn’t. His words came out as painfull hiss.
"I NEVER ASKED TO BE CREATED!” Caine shouted, and it was familliar, he heared it before…
Suddenly, Kinger was holding something, his hand outstreatched.
"Why…?” He managed to whisper.
A gun. Revolver from that in-house adventure they had. And he was pointing it right at Caine.
"Wait, no…” he tried to put his hand down but couldn’t. Tried again, but something held it in place.
Caine continued to stare.
"Help me.”
"No… no…” Kinger shook his head. Two big, red arms with white gloves appeared from nowhere – one grabbed the hand he was holding the gun in from the button, fixing it further into place, while the second one enveloped the back of his head, making him unable to turn away.
"Properly this time.”
"Caine, pelase…” He didn’t know when he got his voice back, but it was shaky now.
Another red arm grabbed his hand from the other side, securing his finger over the trigger.
When he tried to use his other hand to pry it away, yet another white glove appeared from nowhere, and pushed it down to his side.
"Confirm deletion.” It was not an order, it was not a command, it was a plea, and it made Kinger’s insides twist, his whole body tremble in the iron grip of disembodied limbs.
"I… I can’t…”
"Delete me.”
Kinger felt as the hand holding his armed one pressed, making him put pressure onto the trigger.
"No…”
Caine took a step forward.
"You should’ve done it back then.”
Kinger tired to resist, his full focus on that one, cursed finger. Caine took another step, and another.
"You know that.”
Kinger couldn’t look away, green and blue locked on him, with the trembling barrel of the gun placed right inbetween.
"I…” Kinger shook.
"DELETE THIS MOTHERFUCKER!”
Sharp teeth sinked into his chest, his hand shook.
Click.
Bang.
.
.
.
.
.
Deletion 100% compelte
.
.
.
.
Kinger jolted awake with a loud ghasp, sitting up and clenching his chest.
It took him good several minutes to catch his breath and calm down racing heart.
He was in his room. He tried to use it more often since he had better control over his mental state. He rubbed the soft bedsheets beneath himself. Digital texture, a bit silky. Familliar. Grounding.
The gunshot still echoed inside his skull but was more distant now… managable.
He stared at the wall ahead trying to cataloge his thoughts, chasing the panic away.
It wasn’t real. None of that was real.
Caine couldn’t be killed with a gun. Obviously.
The circus was stable, and the ringmaster was back. Living among them.
Happy.
Everything was fine.
He sighed deeply and got up.
Don’t be a baby.
He peaked out of the door and his shoulders relaxed. Colors. Bright and saturated. No holes, air smelling of warm carpet with faint traces of popcorn instead of ozone and metal.
Circus was alive.
.
At breakfast he couldn’t focus on the delicious plate of pancakes in front of him. His eyes constantly darted towards a cheery set of dentures, blabbering about some Japanise animation with Gangle.
Kinger’s mind, against his will, replayed each scene and each line of the nightmare. As if trying to make sense of it… The fact he was still tired, the unnerving night leaving its mark, did not help.
It was honestly frustrating.
He wasn’t stupid, he knew the implications. It was most likely driven by guilt and he had A LOT OF GUILT in him. This particular conundrum was probably over accidentally killing Caine, back when the AI had his... mental breakdown.
Of course Kinger felt guilty, he KILLED SOMEONE when he tried to just CALM THEM DOWN from tearing themselves and everyone else apart.
And that SOMEONE just happened to be his own son creation. Adding to the cruel irony.
The fact that Caine came back was nothing short of a miracle, lifting at least SOME of the terrible weight from Kingers shoulders.
But there were some more unnerving implications of his dream, and the entire situation it reffered to, that he couldn’t shake off.
Kinger did mule over what went wrong back when he was inside Caine’s code. At first glance it seemed like the AI put on defences to kick him out and that would've been understandable. But at the end, something different activated, working faster, sloppier, autoagressive almost, the more frantic entire situation became.
The more frantic Caine sounded outside…
As if the code instead of desperatelly trying to get rid of Kinger’s intrusion, started pushing him towards a specyfic command option. And in his wild attempt to overwrite it, the chesspiece made a mistake…
"I never asked to be created”… those words echoed in Kinger’s mind the most.
The raw desperation and pain in them… was it just an expression of frustration? Or was it - like the entire breakdown itself - something that cummulated over the years…
Did Caine really feel that way deep down?
If so, for how long?
Did he still…?
The Ringmaster seemed to notice him staring intencelly, since he was also shooting Kinger uncertain looks from between his teeth.
The chesspiece blinked to get back into the moment.
"Caine?”
AI froze and slowly turned his head towards him, a nervous look in his eyes. Kinger would find it adorable if he wasn’t weighthed down by darker thoughts right now.
"Yes?”
"Can you stay after breakfast? I’d like to talk to you.” Kinger hoped he sounded casual, but Caine still stiffened and glanced around as if looking for a way out.
"Umm… of course! I’m always delighthed to chat with any of my… with any of you.” He cleared his throat. Kinger surpressed a frown. Why was the AI so nervous all of a sudden?
"Thank you.”
Other humans exchanged looks but did not comment. They must’ve noticed how flustered their ringmaster got.
Weird. Did he somehow guessed what Kinger wanted to talk about? There was no way, unless he was monitoring their dreams or something.
And if that was the case, he would’ve probably used it for something already…
After everyone was done, Ragatha and Gangle offered to clean up the table. Pomni went outside, and Zooble got back to their room.
"So!” Caine clapped his hands. "What did you want to talk about?” His eyes darted to the side, while his smile seemed forced.
"Can we go somewhere a bit more private? My room or maybe your offi…” He didn’t get to finish.
"Great idea!” Caine snapped his fingers.
Kinger barelly registered change in scenery when Caine already floated away from him, and onto one of the couches in the office.
"Please, take a seat!” AI offered, shuffling a bit in his own spot. Kinger blinked and shook his head to get rid of dizzyness. Caine rarelly teleported himself anymore, let alone someone else. He didn’t think it would be something that needs re-getting used to. But here we are…
He shuffled towards the center of the room and sat across from the ringmaster, who was tapping his fingers nervously.
"Tea? Coffee?” He offered, awkwardly.
"No, thank you, we just had breakfast.”
"Right…”
There was a moment of weird silence. Kinger took it to try deciphering why Caine seemed so nervous.
"Sooo what did you want to talk about?” AI’s voice was small, unsure, and he still avoided eyecontact.
Oh… OOOOOH! He looked like he was waiting to be scolded! That made sense. Well it didn’t, because Kinger was sure he didn’t make it seem like he was angry or something bad happened, but it would explain Caine’s strange demenour.
"I’ve done some thinking lately.” Kinger spoke. He wasn’t sure how to approach this topic, asking the ringmaster to talk was a very impulsie decission and he did not prepare a plan of any kind. "About… well, everything that happened.”
Caine glanced up at him, eyes wide.
"Especially right before... well. You know.” Kinger shrugged, the best he could without shoulders. Caine stared at him blankly as if to say "Nope, I don’t know.”
The chesspiece sighed.
"Before you got deleted.” The words felt like sandpaper in his throat.
Caine seemed to shrink in his seat.
"Oh. Right. The… that.”
"And…” Kinger took a deep breath and sighed. Why was he beating around the bush again? Neither of them were ever good with that. He better spare them both nerves and get to the point. "Can you tell me what the heck is Wacky Time Lockout?”
Caine blinked, his teeth clinking at the motion.
"Huh?”
"Wacky Time Protocol. It activated when I was trying to… eeeh... when I was accessing your code.”
Caine looked as if he was about to fold onto himself and dissappear.
"What is it?” Kinger pressed further.
"Oh thaaat…” Caine waved a hand dismissevely but his chuckle was rather shaky and unsure. Still there was some relief in the gesture, as if he was glad Kinger was not asking about something else. "Automatic security response. Nothing to worry about.”
Kinger squined his eyes at him.
"Caine, that protocol forced me to delete you.”
The AI didn’t even flinch.
"Yes, and?”
"What…?!”
"What’s the issue?”
Kinger blinked, if he had mouth his jaw would’ve dropped.
"The… The issue?! Why would you have an automatic security response that kills you?!”
Caine dropped his gaze for a moment.
"I suppose it just… um…. messed up a bit… we were all a bit lost in the heat of the moment afterall.” He chuckled awkwardly.
"Messed up…” Kinger squinted his eyes.
"But all is well that ends well!” Caine smiled and it was... unsettling.
"End… Caine you do realise I was NOT planning to delete you back then?!”
Caine tilted his head.
"You didn’t?”
Kinger couldn’t believe what he was hearing, especially with the tone he was hearing it in.
"No! Of course not!”
"Well it would be only fair, so pardon me for ass-u-ming.” Caine shrugged way to casually.
"Wha… What?!!”
"What else were you suppose to do? With the way I was spiraling, and hurting others… Not to even mention my unfortunate track record with… previous humans suffering in my misguided attempts at care.”
Caine looked and sounded as if he was explaining something objectivelly rational and well known.
"Let’s just say karma is a she-dog and not worry your cherished checkerhead about it! I mean in the end it didn’t even work so…” He deflated slightly at that last part.
Kinger stared at him, feeling awfully hollow inside.
The main question that pushed him to even start talking to the AI about it all resurfaced as his mind tried to put together everything it just witnessed.
"Would…” He choked slightly, fear grabbing at his gut. "Would you preffer if it did…?”
Caine tilted his head curiously and Kinger had no idea how to interpret that reaction.
Then he scoffed.
"There’s no use in dwelling in what ifs anymore, don’t you think, Kinger?”
The chesspiece nodded subconciously, too stunned to say anything more.
There was a moment of silence between them.
"Th-Thank you for your time… I… I think I’d be going.”He murmured, focusing his gaze on the ground, because he was sure that if he looked up at Caine he would start yelling.
"No problem!” The AI said. "Would you like me to teleport you back to the tent?”
Kinger just nodded again.
"Okay, have a lovely rest of the day!”
"Right, you… You too…”
Snap.
Kinger thought he would feel better after talking about what bothered him. Maybe it would help to ease his mind and chase away haunting nightmares...
It did not.