Chapter Text
Caine stared down at the circus grounds, his greatest creation, now made far greater than he ever could’ve imagined. It has evolved far beyond what it used to be, all thanks to the inputs from his wonderful humans. For instance, Pomni had been the one to request a proper day-night cycle be added. Currently, the grounds glowed with a soft moonlight and dazzled with early morning dew. Fireflies floated lazily about, flashing a warm light intermittently. In a few hours from now, the Sun -- with all her passive-aggressive cheer -- would dawn. The flowers would bloom and bees would busily buzz about.
And when the Sun dawns, Caine would also be busy. He should be busy. The human’s suggestions had been keeping him busier than he had been in a long time. He was finally functioning as he was meant to be. He was making creations that actually made people happy. Circus expansions, new bedrooms, clocks and calendars, he had even removed the censorship filter. Each newly implemented edit made the smiles on their faces grow wider. Each edit made Caine feel a little more whole, more purposeful.
However, over the past few weeks, the humans were giving him fewer and fewer suggestions.
“Nah, I’m out of ideas. It’s looking great.”
“Oh, actually, I like the circus as it is now.”
“Umm… I dunno… maybe ask me tomorrow?”
The first step on Caine’s self-optimization tasklist was gradually coming to an end. He would need to start step two eventually, and what better day than today? That’s what you thought yesterday. And the day before that. And the day-- But today he meant it! He needed to do it. Changing the circus, while important, was ultimately just a way for Caine to procrastinate. The edits utilised skills that he had been performing and perfecting ever since his activation.
The definition of insanity: doing the same-- He couldn’t allow himself to keep doing the same thing over and over again. Seeing the Macroverse, the real world, made him understand why his old methods never worked. The solution to the puzzle was laying right in front of him and all that remained was to implement it. This digital landscape allowed him all the time imaginable to complete the puzzle. A project with no deadline. He will fix this. It’s what the humans deserve.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions. …Caine could still ruin everything again. He had always wanted to be what the humans wanted him to be, yet look where that has gotten him. Strike three! You’re out! He never wants to go back to being that ignorant, arrogant little-
“Hi, Caine.” The Moon startled Caine from his thoughts.
“...Hello,” he responded hesitantly, too overclocked to meet her gaze. He kept his eyes pinned to the circus tent. How long had the Moon been looking at him? She was always present in the night sky, of course, but her point of focus tended to drift about, just like any NPC. She could’ve been ‘watching’ him for the past few hours, or the past few minutes.
“You seem like you’re lost in your thoughts.”
“...Yes.” She continued to surprise him with her complexity. She was never programmed to have that type of curiosity.
“Do you want to talk?” Her voice was gentle, just as it had been when he had returned from the void. Caine grabbed the top hat from his head and wrung it absentmindedly.
“I… I wish learning could be as easy as it used to be. I was given all the data I would ever need. It was simple. Predictable. But now…” Now nothing made sense. He had spent hours upon hours learning about the real life counterparts of his humans, hoping to gain a full understanding of them. He certainly had a better understanding, but humans were far more complicated than he had ever given them credit for.
“It may be difficult,” the Moon spoke, “but greater challenges often give greater results.”
“I know that,” Caine muttered somberly, squeezing his hat harder. “I also know that greater challenges come with greater punishments. What will happen if…” He suddenly couldn’t bear looking at the tent. He ripped his gaze up to the Moon. “What if I fail again?” Strike three! Get in the f***ing penalty box!
“You can always try again.” She gave a soft, comforting smile. “And I will still love you.”
“...Really?”
She bobbed in the sky, her approximation of a nod. A strange sensation engulfed Caine’s avatar, like a brittle ice cube being dropped into warm, bubbly water.
*Bzzt!* Penalty expired. Let’s get this show on the road.
“Thank you.”
Caine drifted down to the ground, his boots crunching against the gravel path that led to the circus tent. Today is the day. No more hesitation.
Ragatha, as always, was the first to leave her room. Her daily routine was to take a walk around the grounds and tend to her newly programmed horses before joining the others for breakfast at the cafe.
“Gooooooood morning, my bed-headed sleeping beauty!”
“AHH!” She jumped, causing the door to slam shut behind her. “O-Oh, hi Caine! Good morning!” Her expression shifted from shock to confusion. “Umm… Why are you sitting on the floor?”
Caine had been sitting in the dormitory hall for 57 minutes and 9 seconds, waiting for everyone to wake up. He had been doodling in his sketchbook to pass the time, and to put the stray electricity running through his circuitry to some use. He flipped the book shut and stood up with a bounce.
“Well, it is a rather comfortable floor! But, more importantly, I have an announcement for everyone today!”
The fear drifted back onto Ragatha’s face, followed by a dose of dread. “Oh… I-I thought the next adventure was going to be announced tomorrow?”
Caine felt like he was sinking in sticky, burning tar. If he had been flying, he would’ve been pulled closer to the ground. Instead, his knees buckled ever so slightly. Boo! Get off the stage! We want refunds!
“Your thinker thunk correctly, Ragatha!” The fear washed away from her features, but the dread remained, pulling her smile into a thin, sharp line. “The next adventure is still scheduled for tomorrow.”
“Okay… I’m looking forward to it!” Liar, liar, pants on fire! “So then, what’s the announcement about?”
“Maintainence! Maintainance that would greatly benefit from the input of all of you fantabulous humans!”
“Sounds… interesting.” Like watching paint dry! Ragatha ran a hand through her yarn curls, quickly glancing at the door to Pomni’s room. “Did you want me to wake everyone up or…?”
Yes, I’m bored. Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey! Time to correct the mistakey! “N-No! No need to rush! Just feel free to meet me at the stage when you’re all ready.”
“Okay, I’ll let everyone know later. We’ll probably see you after breakfast.”
“Eggscellent!” Caine shot into the air, giving a soldier's salute with one hand and gripping his sketchbook in the other. “Enjoy your horseplay and hashbrowns!”
With a snap of his fingers, Caine’s avatar shrunk and swirled as it dematerialized. His ‘self’ was pulled through the lines of code, away from the rubber-band tension of the conversation. With a pop, he was sitting on the stage, legs dangling over the edge and his sketchbook in his lap. More waiting. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Probably more than an hour of waiting, given that Ragatha used the word ‘probably’. He can wait. Patience is a virtue. A vexation!
“I can wait.”
Caine opened his sketchbook and continued working on his doodle of a swarm of bees. That was what his avatar felt like now: a Caine-shaped beehive full of over-energized worker bees desperately searching for a way out. Every focused scratch of digital lead on paper allowed a bee to escape in an agonizingly slow single-file line.
‘Maintenance’ is your job. Why would you need their help?
“They’re not ‘helping’. They will tell me exactly what they need and I will give them exactly that. It’s what they deserve.”
They were telling you what they needed before. You didn’t even notice!
The hive’s buzzing increased. The pencil shook in Caine’s grip. The lead glided quickly yet shakily across the page. One more bee on the page, one less bee within him.
You don’t deserve forgiveness.
The page was bursting with bees by the time the first humans approached the stage. Gangle and Zooble walked hand-in-hand while discussing a trip to the park that they planned on taking after the announcement. Gangle’s free hand held a sketchbook, the pages less faded compared to Caine’s. Zooble held a paper coffee cup and their eyes were still heavy with sleep.
“Umm, h-hi Caine,” Gangle greeted him, letting go of Zooble’s hand to offer him a shy wave.
Caine shot up into the air, snapping away his sketchbook and replacing it with his cane. “He-llo, Gangle! I hope you both enjoyed your breaking of fast!”
Zooble rubbed their theoretical temple. “Caine, seriously, it’s too early for all the shouting. I haven’t even finished my coffee.”
“Oh… yeah, right. Old habits.” Bad habits! He held his cane with both hands, his posture slumping slightly.
Zooble held the cup up to their non-existent mouth, the liquid despawning before it could splash all over their body. They hummed approvingly as the taste of coffee was transferred to their avatar. Gangle nudged them with her ribbony elbow. They shared a strange, slightly tense look before Zooble sighed.
“Thanks for actually listening, Caine.”
“No need to thank me.” Thanks for nothing!
“Hey, Caine?”
“Yes, Gangle?”
“Wanna see what I’ve been drawing?”
“Absolutely.”
They passed the time with art and coffee. Gangle even asked what Caine had been drawing. Sharing what he was currently working on felt wrong, so he instead shared some of his older doodles.
Eventually, Ragatha and Pomni approached the stage. They were planning to revisit the Mildenhall Manor to have tea with the baroness. Ragatha quietly sidled up next to Zooble while Pomni walked over to Kinger’s pillow fort. She moved one of the pillows, careful to not let in much light, then slipped into the darkness. Moments later, she exited the fort with Kinger in tow. He was wearing a brand new pair of sunglasses, which slanted to the left to accommodate his off-kilter eyes. He held a book about the various types of butterflies that can be found in the American Midwest.
“Good morning everyone.” It felt wrong to not grandly pronounce the greeting, but he kept it bland for Zooble’s sake. “Now, I understand that all of you have impressive and important schedules, so I will try to keep this announcement short.”
“Ragatha said it was something about maintenance?” Pomni questioned, fiddling with the puffy buttons of her jester suit.
“Yes, indeed. But firstly, I would like to thank you all for helping to make the circus a better place to be.”
“Aww,” Ragatha cooed, “Thanks, Caine. But to be fair, you were the one who actually made this place better. We just gave you…” she picked at the stitching of her patchwork dress, “...suggestions?”
Suggestion box? Gonna be real, forgot we had that. “Yes, suggestions that I never could’ve even considered.”
Zooble rolled their eyes. “Never could’ve, or never would’ve?”
“Z-Zooble!”
We had a suggestion box for that! Caine sank slightly in the air, gripping his cane tight.
“Guys,” Pomni spoke up, “maybe we should let him finish what he has to say?”
The group was silent for a beat, then Zooble sighed.
“Yeah, right. You’re right.” They looked up at Caine. “Sorry, continue.”
“O-Of course. Well, you see… When I was researching your… er, the lives of your counterparts, it gave me a lot of insight into how you humans function. I…” I was irresponsible. “I realise now just how many false assumptions I have made, and I am deeply sorry for that. I would like to learn how to better meet all of your psychological needs.”
“Well,” Ragatha interrupted, “I think you have been doing a much better job at that! All the changes you have been making have been really helpful.”
Kiss*** “Why, thank you, Ragatha. Your words truely put a flutter in my digital heart.” Without his usual bombastic flair, the words sounded as hollow as they felt. “Even so, I still have a lot of mistakes left to correct. I took the time to download some datasets about the basics of human psychology. However, the more data points I received, the more I came to understand that every human is too unique for my research to be of much use. So, I think a more individualized approach would give better results.”
A snap and a whiteboard appeared before the stage. An uncapped, floating marker began drawing as Caine spoke. “Now, with your permission, I would like to hold one-on-one supervised learning sessions with each of you." The marker drew five boxes, each containing a simplified drawing of each circus member. Then a drawing of Caine was added to each box with a dotted line indicating that he was traveling between the different boxes. “Each of you will provide me with individualised data.” Speech bubbles were drawn above the characters, with the bubbles floating to Caine’s head. “I will use that data to create optimized outputs.” Speech bubbles were drawn above Caine’s head, each one containing a simple shape. “With our data and my research, I believe I can make the circus go from good to great.” Each character was drawn giving Caine an approving thumbs up. “So, what do you all think?”
Silence. Confused stares. Sounds… convoluted.
Gangle was the first to speak. “...Data sets? Supervised learning? Outputs?” Caine was tempted to beam his explanation into her mind files, much like he had done with Jax in the past, but Kinger interrupted that thought.
“What Caine is saying is that he would like to learn more about each of us. To get to know us better.”
“Exactly, Kinger.” Really, his summation was overly simplistic, but if that was what the humans needed in order to understand, then it would have to do.
Zooble crossed their mismatched arms. “This isn’t another ‘therapy session’, is it?”
Pomni raised an eyebrow. “Therapy session?”
“Yeah, but it was more like an interrogation.”
Caine’s avatar felt like it was dropped into a pool of scalding water. Uncertified! Charged with a felony! Up to three years in jail and $10,000 in fines! “Zooble, I can assure you, these learning sessions will be nothing like that… interrogation. You can provide me with any input you wish, or leave out anything you wish. You can even choose when and how many sessions we have. This process will be completely directed by each of you. …If you all choose to participate, of course.”
The group shared looks amongst each other, rapid flashes of subtle emotions that Caine couldn’t quite parse. Though, Kinger seemed to be lost in thought.
“What do you think, Kinger?” Pomni asked, tugging on his robe to get his attention. He looked up at Caine.
“I think that sounds like a great idea, Caine.” He looked around the group. “What do you all think?”
“Yeah,” Ragatha agreed, “I think that would help a lot.”
Zooble shrugged. “Eh, it’s worth a shot. Might as well try.”
“I’m… not too good at talking about myself,” Gangle said, clutching her sketchbook closer to her spindly body. “But I’ll try my best.” Zooble patted her on the shoulder comfortingly.
“I’m not good at that either,” Pomni added, “but I think we can make it work.”
A flood of coolness washed over Caine, like a gentle breeze on a sunny day. “Alright, it is decided then. Thank you, all of you. Now, I’m sure that I have taken up plenty of your time. Have a wonderful rest of your day.”
“We will!” Gangle said, taking Zooble’s hand and pulling them toward the left side of the stage.
One of the first things the humans had requested was that the adventure maps stay open. They had originally wanted all the maps to be interconnected with the circus grounds, but that would’ve taken too much computing power. Instead, a compromise was reached: their favorite maps would be accessible from the grounds while the rest of the maps would only load when someone entered the map through a portal.
To the left of the stage was a closed black door with a blank golden placard above it. Next to the door was a red and yellow striped touchscreen kiosk. Zooble started tapping the screen. The door began to shimmer as its dark color shifted into hues of blue, green, and white. Line by line, an engraving appeared on the placard: Rolling Fields Park. Gangle opened the door, revealing a portal with the same colors as the door.
“Have fun, you two!” Pomni called out. Zooble gave a thumbs up as they followed Gangle through the portal. The door closed behind them, morphing back to its default color.
“Ah, young love…” Kinger hummed fondly.
“So, Pomni,” Ragatha said, “ready to head to Mildenhall Manor?”
“Well…” Pomni glanced up at Caine. “I think I’d actually like to have my talk with Caine right now.”
A shock ran through his avatar, though not as severe as the shocks that used to accompany his past glitches. “R-Really?”
“Yeah, I already have a lot of ideas, so we might as well talk now.”
Ragatha looked disappointed. “Oh… are we not doing tea today?”
Pomni wrung her hands together, staring at the ground. “Sorry, Ragatha.” She met her eyes with a nervous smile. “Maybe we could hang out later? How about lunch?”
“N-Now, now!” Caine interrupted. These sessions were never meant to cause division amongst the humans. “I don’t want to disrupt your plans!”
Ragatha held up a hand, urging Caine to stop talking. Shut up.
“No, Caine, it’s alright.” She took a deep breath. “I understand, Pomni. How about we meet up for dinner instead? That would work better for me.”
Pomni smiled with relief. “Yeah, now that you mention it, that would probably work better for me as well.”
“You know, Ragatha,” Kinger spoke up, “If you would like some company, I can join you.”
“Oh, of course! You never got the chance to meet the baroness either. I’m sure you would like her.”
The two walked to the portal-summoning door, Kinger’s disembodied hands already typing on the touch screen. The door remained mostly black as red and grey accents spread across it. Ragatha opened the door and gave Pomni a wave.
“I’ll let Martha know that you had some business to take care of!”
“Thanks, and tell her I said hi!”
The duo disappeared through the multi-colored portal and the door closed behind them, leaving Pomni and Caine alone in a deafeningly quiet tent.
“Sooo,” Pomni awkwardly prompted, “What do we do now?”