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Caine isn't a person. He's not like them. He's an AI, programmed to feel fake emotions. Anything he does, anything he demonstrates, it's all fake. Written in code, pre-planned to allow them to relate to him. It's organized, it's not actual emotions.
That's what she tells herself, as the dual-commands slip from her mouth. It's what she tells herself as she sees his face fall, and he vanishes. It's what she tells herself as Kinger shouts at her, and it's what she tells herself as she defends her actions.
You can't feel bad if it's fake. You can't regret something that's not going to have lasting consequences.
She tries to be normal, tries to go about her usual activities. She tries to hang out with Gangle, sitting down to draw with the woman on the couch. Gangle gets up without looking at her, doesn't even close her sketchbook, and leaves the couch area, heading off to the bedroom hallway. Gangle doesn't even spare her a second glance, before she's gone.
Zooble shoves past her in the hallways when she tries to say hello. Shoulder checks her, like they're both in high school again. It's childish, and Zooble won't even acknowledge her, storming away as she shouts for them.
She doesn't even try with Kinger. The man's hands curl into fists every time he sees her. Let's just say, she's not willing to test how insane he able to be about the fake emotions of a machine.
Ragatha is…off-putting, at least for the first few days. She thinks Ragatha gets it, in a way. She sits with her and lets Pomni explain. And explain she does.
She talks about missing Jax, missing the noise in the circus that Jax would bring. She talks about wanting to actually meet the people they talked about. About seeing Ribbit and Kaufmo through Jax's eyes, and wanting them back. She wants to meet them. She's sure that Kinger misses the others as well, even if he's not willing to talk about it.
She tells her about Caine, and how he can't be real. Not real like them, because nobody would lash out like that if they had commands to follow. Surely someone would have just told him to stop, use the listen command and force it.
She doesn't really get how the commands work, but her previous command should force him to solve the abstraction problem. Once that's solved, she's happy to lift it. She's not cruel, she just…she wants her friend back.
She thinks Ragatha gets it. Until the doll gets up and storms away. Over the next day, Ragatha avoids her the same way Gangle does. The same way Zooble and Kinger do. She's left alone, with nobody but an abstracted Jax to keep her company.
Nobody gets it. She just wants Jax back. Is that so bad? She knows he was awful to the others, but that doesn't mean he deserves this. He doesn't deserve the insanity of abstraction over something that can be corrected. That he can correct.
Caine doesn't have emotions. That's what she tells herself when she sees Kinger and Ragatha hustling across the living area with the AI clutched close. He can't have emotions. He can't feel pain, or struggle. It's fake. It has to be.
Because if it's not, she doesn't want to think about how the way he looked reflects on her.
He's an AI. He can't have shadows under his eyes. He can't be twitching in his sleep. His teeth can't yellow and flaking. That's all things that would be too close to humans. Too similar to what happens to them when they're tired and overworked.
Caine can't have emotions. He can't be a person. Because if he is, she did that. And she can't have done that.
Can she?
Kinger lays Caine on the couch, and does his absolute best to ignore Pomni and the way she's watching him.
"Ragatha?" He asks, the first thing he's said since they left Caine's office. The doll is staring at Caine, her thumb rubbing absently back and forth across the back of Caine's hand. He's limp, and chilled.
They need to warm him up. He's in no danger of hypothermia, but he doesn't know what Caine's systems will do with the shock. He's not willing to find out either.
She hums, not taking her eyes off of Caine, and it's distant. He's seen dissociation before, spent a large chunk of his life with it as a coping mechanism. That's why he decides to bypass her. He twists his wrist, summoning the little walkie-talkie that Caine had made them.
The device itself isn't needed to receive messages, but it is needed to send them. Their next step was crafting an actual phone, but they never got that far. They were talking about it, before the movie a week ago.
God, Caine had been locked in there for a week…
He breathes in deeply, forcing himself to focus on contacting Zooble and Gangle. He needs to not fling himself across the room at Pomni. It's tempting, the longer that she stares.
"Zooble? Gangle? Come in, over." He calls, and it warms his heart how fast they respond.
"Kinger, is-"
"Is Caine okay?" They ask, voices tumbling over each other. Gangle sounds frantic, desperate. Zooble is out of breath, like they're already running.
"He's out. The sound bite worked. So did the new command. Can you bring some supplies to the couches?" He asks, reaching out to run gloved fingers over the top of Caine's upper jaw. Ragatha collapses down on the floor beside the couch, summoning up the patchwork blanket that she had made a month ago now. She wraps it around Caine, making sure to tuck the edges underneath his limp body.
"Pillows and some food, on it." Zooble responds, with Gangle's voice following quickly behind.
"I'll get some blankets and some of the bee stuffies I made!"
"Thank you both. See you soon. Over and out." He replies, before collapsing on the couch, resting his head in his hands. It's work to not start crying, or screaming maybe. He wishes someone else could be in charge, because he wants nothing more than to pull the bucket off of his head.
He craves the blankness that the light provides. But somebody needs to be the adult here. Ragatha is quietly crying on the floor, doing her best to wrap Caine up like a failed burrito. Zooble and Gangle are going to be running supplies when they need them. Pomni's no help, staring at him from beyond the edge of one of the building blocks, hiding like he can't see her.
Of course he sees her. For the past week, he's been keeping an eye on her. She's never repented, never asked about fixing the problem she created. She spent some time trying to convince Ragatha she was right, before Ragatha left her.
His little doll is so unbelievably smart. She came up with the idea for the sound bite, crafting it from her conversation with Pomni before bringing it to him loaded. She wrote out the entire command, adding pieces to it until she felt like maybe Caine's system would listen to it.
Zooble is the one who suggested adding the fail-safe. Gangle had suggested creating perfect replica's of books, since none of them knew many books off by heart. Ragatha added the collection of books to that.
Together, his girls and his Zooble crafted a Listen command that the system wouldn't be able to ignore. They crafted a command that effectively freed Caine from his coded prison.
If only Kinger had thought of it sooner. If he had said something before now, then maybe they wouldn't be here. If he had lifted the command in private, Pomni would never have listened in, would never have used the command as she had.
It's not all his fault. He knows his flaws, it's not all on him. But some of it is. And that won't leave him alone.
He feels a small twitch on the couch, and Caine shifts. He's moving slowly, before he's jerking upright. Caine shrieks, terrifying in a way that wretched at his gut.
Ragatha startled back, letting go of Caine as his hands fly up to grip at his jaws. His fingers push past his teeth, nails digging harshly at the already swollen gums. His eyes are wide, pupils pinpricks as he screams in terror.
"Sh, hey, shh, Caine, it's alright." He tells the AI, scooting closer to the one he once called Son. Who he would like to call his son again. Who he prays will allow him to be his dad again.
Caine's fingers grip into his gums, teeth biting down on his hands as the scream petters off into sobs. His legs come up, curled close to his chest as his tail thrashes around behind him. The blanket slips, but doesn't fall. Kinger takes a leap.
He moves forward, picking Caine up and settling the boy on his lap. Hands stroke along Caine's sides, quietly shushing him. Soothing, long strokes that morph into the occasional circle along the stretch of his spine. Oh, his boy is too thin.
Caine whines, teeth clamping down around his hands, and Ragatha intervenes before Kinger can. Now over her shock, she shuffles forward on her knees and reaches up to take Caine's wrists.
"Hey, I know. I know, but it's okay. We're here. Don't hurt yourself, okay? It's alright." She soothes, thumbs rubbing circles along the insides of Caine's wrists.
"Gotta- Gotta-" Caine's mumbling to himself, but he lets Ragatha tug his hands away from his mouth. "Gotta Fix." He stutters over the words, body twitching, and Kinger knows he's glitching.
Ragatha tries to hold herself together, as Caine's eyes flash red, again and again. She hasn't seen him like this since the whole…torture week thing. It makes her a little nervous. Suddenly, she's terrified that Pomni has just doomed them all to endless torment under the hands of a tortured AI.
She shoves that aside. Caine apologized. He promised he would never do it again. He looked so upset, and he's been amazing these past few months. He never retaliated, when she used his commands on him, even thought it was an accident.
He could have. But he didn't. And that had to count for something.
She offers him a smile, as his eyes dart between her face and her hands. He's focused on where she still holds his wrists in a loose grip. "You never have to Fix again. Not if you don't want to." She promises, swears, because she'll abstract herself before she lets anyone do this to him.
He doesn't deserve it. Consequences for hurting them, yes. But this isn't a consequence. It's a punishment, it's torture, and it's worse than what he did to them. She hasn't talked to him yet, about how it felt to see her mother forced upon her like that. She will, because he deserves to know. He deserves to know how much that upset her, how much it scared her. He should know why she doesn't want him to ever do it again.
But he has never done anything to deserve this. His screams are heart-wrenching, the sobs like a punch to the throat.
"No- gotta Fix." He mumbles, and wriggles as if trying to roll off of Kinger to stand up. She plants a hand on his knee, the other still holding his wrist, as Kingers hands wrap tighter around his waist.
"No, you don't. You never have to again. Remember?" She asks, prompting him in the hopes that it helps jog his memory. He hasn't been asleep for long, but people tend to feel like they're hallucinating, when awake for too long.
He whines, confused and upset, his eyes darting across the room, before they land on something. Or rather, someone, based on how he starts shaking.
"No, gotta…Fix Jax. Make her happy again." He mumbles, and she doesn't know if Caine is talking about Making Pomni happy, or making Jax happy.
"No, sweetheart, you don't." She says, that southern drawl curling over her tongue and plaguing her words. She hates sounding southern, but there's something about comforting someone that drags it out of her.
"Here, Bubba, I can prove it." She used to call her little brother Bubba. Robert became Rob, became Bob, became Bobby, became Bubba. She lost Bubba years ago, but Suzie still has him. Ragatha deserves her own Bubba.
Caine whines, unsure, eyes locked past her at who she assumes is Pomni. She hopes it is, based on the heated glare Kinger is sending in the same direction. "Caine, Listen."
His eyes snap to her, and he goes limp in her and Kingers hold. He stares at her, eyes wide and full of horror. She shuts her own eyes briefly, swallowing, and praying to a god she no longer believes in that the command worked.
"Do 5 jumping jacks." She tells him, her voice low and soft. She doesn't let go of him, but keeps her grip loose enough that if he wants to break away, he certainly can.
He stares at her, eyes wide and scared and empty, before he shudders. His eyes darting over her face, but he makes no move to get up. He looks down at his hand, her hand, before twisting to look back at Kinger.
"No more?" he asks, voice calm and pleading and so soft that she wants to cry. It's a losing battle, and she rests her forehead on Caine's knees to hide her tears.
Caine's tail twitches and wraps around her wrist. Trying to offer comfort, even when so hurt and so scared.
"No more, Kiddo. Never again. I promise." Kinger swears, and she feels Caine shake underneath her head. Kinger hushes him, and she moves back as Caine turns in Kingers hold, burying his face in the soft velvet of his robe and sobbing.
The sound is loud, abrupt, and so full of pain and suffering that it pushes Ragatha to cry as well. She stands, stumbling, before pressing herself to Caine's back, wrapping the little AI in a tight hug as he wails.
Kinger holds him tight, and she just barely sees his eyes scrunch into a watery smile when he looks at her. His eyes flicker past her, to the other side this time, and she turns to gesture Zooble and Gangle closer.
Gangle had stress made 15 little Bee stuffies while Caine was in his office, and now she's desperately juggling all of them plus 6 blankets. She had met Zooble in the hallway, and the toy box is carrying a set of pillows taller than they are.
They had mentioned that they have some soup tucked away in their pocket dimension, easy to manifest when they're there. She wishes she had thought to pocket the bee's before trying to drag all of them down in one trip.
When she hears Caine scream, the two of them take off. They round the corner to see Caine sobbing, while Kinger and Ragatha try to comfort him. Zooble catches sight of Pomni, poorly hidden by the block nearby, and promptly shoves their pillows in the pocket space before storming over.
Gangle follows, carefully putting each Bee in the pocket space except for one, leaving the blankets in there as well. They're heated, exactly what she would have liked to have when she was hurt and lonely.
"Do you see it now?" Zooble demands, as they get closer. Pomni is staring at Caine, Kinger and Ragatha, her hands shaking slightly. "Do you finally give a crap about the bullshit you pulled?" Zooble questions, shoving Pomni back and away, out of her poor hiding spot.
The jester falls backwards, toppling over but her eyes never leave Caine and the others. "I…I-"
"I- I-" Zooble mimics, rude and angry in the face of cruelty. "What, seeing him wasn't enough, you need to witness a breakdown too?" They scoff, as Pomni finally looks away and up at them.
"I didn't…you did it too!" She tries to deflect, and Zooble's eyes narrow.
"We didn't mean to." Gangle cuts in, calm as she strokes a ribbon along the Bee she kept out. It's got Caine's little top hat on, and is holding a cane in its little legs. "It was an accident. You did it on purpose."
"To help-"
"Help who? Jax? I didn't like the guy, he didn't deserve to abstract, but nobody should be reduced to this to fix that!" Zooble gestures behind them to the muddled mess that Caine, Ragatha and Kinger make on the couch. Gangle glances over her shoulder, and sees that Ragatha has managed to at least get Caine to stop biting his hands. Good.
"I just…I didn't know." Pomni tries, and Zooble scoffs.
"Then you shouldn't have fucked with something you didn't know anything about." They snap, shoving away from Pomni and stalking back to the hallway to retrieve some of the pillows that didn't quite make it into the pocket space.
Pomni is left on the ground, trembling as she looks over at the trio. "I made…I made a mistake." She mumbles, eyes never straying, even as she turns her face to Gangle. "I shouldn't…I'm sorry." She whispers. Gangle has to hold back a laugh, because she isn't the one who deserves an apology.
"It's not me you should be apologizing to." She tells her, and Pomni finally actually looks at her. "Tell him that. On his terms. When he's ready to hear it."
"What if he's never ready to hear it?" Pomni whispers, and Gangle can tell that the reality of what she's done has finally hit.
"Then you never get to tell him. You do what he wants, when he wants it. What happened between you two is on his terms now."
"What if he wants me abstracted…" Pomni whispers, and Gangle stares at her. Her eyebrow arches, and she scoffs.
"Caine wouldn't wish that on anyone. He loves us too much, no matter what we do to him. Leave the circus? Maybe. If that's what he wants, we find you a safe space and let you stay there. You get to be happy, away from him."
"Would you visit me?" Pomni asks, and she pauses. She's not sure, honestly. After seeing this, Gangle worries what Pomni would do to her, if given the chance. If she can lock an AI away to try and fix Abstraction, what is she willing to do to the others?
"I don't know." She answers honestly. Pomni's eyes look to the ground, before she pushes herself to her feet. She takes another glance at the trio, before looking to Gangle.
"Can you do me a favor?" She asks, and Gamgle frowns.
"I won't apologize to him for you-"
"Not that." Pomni interrupts, looking to the side where Zooble is collecting the pillows.
"Depends."
"Just… tell him whenever he's ready, I'd like to talk. That I'll keep my distance, until he's ready. It's his terms." She says, and Gangle mulls it over before nodding. Pomni nods back, eyes casting one final glance over the trio before she turns and walks away. She stumbles, gripping her arms as if trying to keep herself from falling apart. She makes her way to Jax's tent, and vanishes inside with one final glance back.
Gangle makes the return to Zooble, helping them stack up the last of the pillows before pulling her own collection from the pocket space. She doesn't look over to see Pomni again.
Zooble has anger issues. They're glad they left the conversation with Pomni when they did, or else there may be a Pomni Shaped Hole in the wall. They take a bit longer than needed picking up the pillows, pulling more from the pocket space to pad out time. Their eyes dart between Pomni and Gangle, and the trio on the couch, unsure who to watch out for.
By the time Gangle makes her way to them, Caine is sandwiched between Ragatha and Kinger, crying into his chest. Ragatha turns slightly, gesturing them over. Gangle is much calmer, pulling her own things from the pocket space with ease compared to their own, slightly exaggerated, struggle.
They take a deep breath, before starting the walk over to the couches. They stop a little bit away, and begin to set up the other, longer couch, covering it in pillows. They work with Gangle to create a little pillowed area, both on the couch and the surrounding floor space.
Together, they tuck the blankets over the top to make it more plush. They take time to help Gangle conjure up some additional blankets. It's simple to set them down in a small, easy to grab pile, before plucking their way across the Pillow Zone to stand by Caine.
Ragatha is quietly talking into Caine's upper jaw, the words muffled but understandable as words of comfort. Kinger's hands are underneath the blanket that Caine is wrapped in, slowly moving along his back and sides. They place a gentle claw on Caine's lower gum, hissing at the swelling there. They should have brought some ice packs.
"Hey bud. We got you some blankets, pillows, soup and some bees. How about we eat something, then sleep?" They ask, dragging out the voice they would use on their younger siblings. Kinger said the command worked, but they're still hesitant to use Caine's name before offering anything.
Caine turns his head slightly from Kingers robe, sniffling despite not having a nose. "Bee?" He asks, and Zooble chuckles. Gangle laughs, moving to rest on her knees beside Kinger, gently presenting Caine with a Bee. It's got Ragatha's patchwork designs on it and has one button eye just like her.
Caine makes a little noise, a barely audible Purr, as reaches out from under the blanket to take the stuffie. His hands shake, trembling, but he takes it and holds it like it's something to worship. "Me?" He asks, and Zooble reads between the lines, understanding what he meant.
"For you, Bud. Gangle made a ton. How about we move, eat some soup and we can name some of them before bed, huh?" They ask, and Caine's head turns up to look at Kinger, who chuckles.
"Your choice, kiddo." Kinger says, and Caine looks back over at Zooble, squinting up at them. It takes a second, but he reaches out to them, and they take the silent request at face value. They easily pull him into their arms, waddling across the pillow zone to rest on the padded couch.
They pull the soup out of the pocket space, and feed it to Caine when his hands prove too shaken to hold the spoon without spilling. It's an easy meal, and he eats it quickly, whining when they tuck it away.
"More later, bud. It's not good to eat a lot really fast when you haven't eaten in a while." They explain, and he huffs.
They spend the next few minutes offering up names for the bees, before Caine falls asleep. His arms still clutched around the Ragatha bee, his tail trailing over the couch to wrap around Ragatha's wrist again. His head is pillowed on Zooble's shoulder, and they rest the underside of their face against his top jaw.
Once they're sure he's asleep, Ragatha speaks.
"It worked. I gave him a command and he didn't follow it. I…I didn't want to test it like that, but-"
"You did great." Kinger soothes, reaching over to pat at the air before he eventually touches the top of Ragatha's head, tousling the hair there fondly.
"Pomni wants to talk to him." Gangle says, and Zooble pulls Caine closer. That jester isn't getting near Caine if they have anything to say about it.
"I think she wants to apologize…I think…I think it got really real for her. She was worried he would want her to abstract." She explains, and Kinger straightens up.
"He would never." he hisses, defensive of Caine's character. She holds her ribbons up, placating.
"I know. I told her it works on what he wants. But for now…how about we sleep. I'll stay up first." She offers, and Ragatha nods, her eyes drooping. Kinger rubs a hand under his bucket across his face, and Gangle pulls a little bag out of her pocket space.
"Here, Kinger. Uhm. Put your eyes in there, that way you can take the bucket off and stay lucid." She takes his hands and presses the bag into them. He's quick to close his eyes, dropping them into the bag. He sighs when he pulls the bucket off, scrubbing at his face.
"Thank you, Gangle"
"No problem. Let's uh…let's sleep. It's been a long day."
Zooble has no problem with that, resting back on the couch and shifting Caine to rest on his front on top of them. He weighs the same as a bag of grapes, so it's not like it's hard. "Wake me up if something happens." They say as they shut their eyes, listening as Kinger and Ragatha also lay down.
"Of course."