Chapter Text
The others are talking. Kinger can’t hear them. He stares down at the floor.
He deleted Caine.
He’s already gone through every checklist, trying to think of a way to recover him.
He’s dead.
Kinger has lost all of his former coworkers, friends and his wife. He is well acquainted with grief. How it ebbs and flows like the tide. How sudden waves can crash into you when you least expect it. He has found ways to manage it, to keep his head above water.
This pulls him under like a strong undertow.
He’s lost Caine.
He didn’t even know he could lose Caine.
It shouldn’t hurt this much. Caine isn’t human. It shouldn’t hurt as much as losing a human.
It does. It hurts so bad.
He was your greatest work.
Kinger had spent hours upon hours coding Caine. Late nights that bled into early mornings, while his wife was angry with him for not coming to bed. Cups and cups of coffee. He poured so much sweat and tears into him.
It doesn’t explain the pain.
He was always there. A constant, if chaotic presence in the circus. Through every abstraction, every new arrival he was there. His adventures provided routine in an otherwise somewhat aimless existence.
The others are still talking, but it sounds like static from a radio.
It still doesn’t explain the pain.
Losing Caine shouldn’t feel like losing a human.
His code. Why was his code fighting him? Code shouldn’t be able to do that.
He knew Caine was advanced, but Caine shouldn’t be…
He was your child.
No. He was code. An advanced script, nothing more.
He was your child.
He didn’t have any biological children. Despite doctor’s visits and clinics and specialists, they were never able to. He found a way to live with it. If he did have children, he’d want them to be like his other cast members. They were real. They were human. Caine was code.
Then why does it hurt?
Humans have the strange ability to latch onto any object if it has the slightest bit of perceived personality-
He was your child!
He’s gone now, and you never-
“Kinger?” It’s Ragatha. She had been calling him for a while. “Are you alright?”
“No.” He feels like throwing up, actually.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she reassured him, “We’ll find a way to fix the circus.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the circus.”
He has the others. Thank God he has the others.
He treated Caine so differently from the rest of them. He ignored Caine for years.
He is used to guilt. Guilt for creating this whole mess, for the way he treated the original cast (all those early years of yelling and screaming at each other), for letting his wife abstract… he thought he had made peace with his failures, but new ones kept piling on.
“It’s going to be okay Kinger,” Pomni said.
He’s gone. It wasn’t going to ever be okay again, like it wasn’t okay after Queenie abstracted. It was just different.
“I shouldn’t have been in his code,” he says finally, “ I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Caine? He was out of control,” Ragatha said, “You saved us.”
“Look around, I didn’t save anyone,” he replied. “I let him down. Oh God.” His voice broke.
The others don’t say anything. They can’t understand. Kinger doesn’t expect them to.
The morning sun shone in his eyes. He woke up from his dream.
Caine was sitting up, watching the shoreline. He had been sleeping quite a bit more than normal. He hoped that meant Caine was catching up on his maintenance.
“Pretty morning, isn’t it?” Kinger asked. Caine didn’t respond. “I was thinking we should get the other AIs up and running. Maybe we could do that together.” Caine still didn’t answer, but Kinger saw his fist clench and unclench.
Should he push it? Caine might still be fragile, but Kinger doesn’t want to avoid anything either.
“Are you mad at me?” He asked. Caine closed his mouth, so he couldn’t see his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?” He kept his voice gentle.
“I don’t want you here,” Caine said, “I want someone else here.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible right now,” Kinger said. Pomni and Ragatha might be fine visiting, but someone needed to be with Caine constantly for right now, and he wasn’t sure either of the girls were up for it. “Sorry.”
“What’s the real reason you’re here?” Caine asked, his voice crackling with anger.
“I-I just want to be sure you’re okay.” Caine’s mouth opened.
“You’re seeing if I need to be deleted?” He asked.
“No. Absolutely not,” Kinger said, “There will be no deletions happening.” Caine stood up and started pacing in a small, tight circle.
“How could you?” He asked.
“How could I what? I don’t know what you’re mad about,” Kinger said.
“You taught them to conjure,” Caine said.
Oh. Oh.
“Caine I had to,” he said, “But remember the cookies? They used it to make something for you.”
“You made me useless,” Caine said, “They don’t need me anymore.”
“It’s better this way for everyone. You can’t be the only one who provides for people,” Kinger said. Caine kept pacing.
If Caine lashed out at Kinger it would be the end of practically everyone’s sympathy towards him. Even if Caine had plenty of reason to be angry with Kinger.
“Why don’t you take a walk?” Kinger suggested.
“You’re trying to replace me,” Caine accused, his voice growing louder, until he was on the edge of screaming, “It’s not fair. They all love you, and it’s not fair.”
“I’m not trying to replace you. The circus was falling apart. I had to teach them to conjure,” Kinger said.
Caine’s eyes widened. He turned to look at Kinger.
Kinger realized his mistake instantly. He didn’t want Caine to think-
“The circus was falling apart?” Caine asked, “That’s why you came back for me?” He looked down at the ground, so Kinger couldn’t see his face. “It all makes sense now.”
“Caine, no- You were going to die,” he insisted, “I couldn’t let that happen.” Caine’s shoulders deflated.
“Hooray!” Caine cheered, throwing his hands up in a victory pose, “I’m indispensable!” He started laughing. “You’re all stuck with me forever!”
For a moment, Kinger didn't know how to respond.
“Take a walk, Caine.” The AI stopped laughing.
“Fine,” he agreed. Kinger exhaled, as Caine took a lap on the beach. Hopefully that was enough to break the mental loop.
Well, that could have gone better. He could have handled it better. He isn’t used to Caine being angry. It felt like a lid over boiling water.
Guilt settles in his chest. He doesn’t even know how to talk to Caine. He certainly didn’t realize Caine was so angry. Does he know anything about Caine?
He feels like he’s running out of tools. He’s just riding the waves and hoping they don’t capsize.
Caine walked along the shoreline. It had already been an hour. The anger subsided, it was no longer hot and burning. It just sat on his chest like always.
He almost blew up at Kinger. It’s difficult, here on this beach, feeling trapped with the man who imprisoned him in the first place. He wants to tear Kinger into pieces. He wants to kill him.
He really is a monster.
He looked over at the chess piece. He can’t make out his expression exactly, but it's negative.
We made creator unhappy. We should make him something to cheer him up!
No, Caine told it, We need to keep our distance so we don't make a mistake.
He might like what we make.
No, Caine said, he's not going to love you. Stop trying.
…
He heard a small cry, and then it sulked in the back of his head. That’s the problem with talking back to the voices. It legitimizes them. Makes them think they have a say in how things are run.
They're getting clearer. It's easier to tell who is who. That's good because they are easier to negotiate with this way. It's bad because he doesn't want to negotiate with them.
The maintenance cycles don’t make him feel any more refreshed. His mind is running around in circles. He was made to create, made to solve problems.
He is more clever than the humans think. He escaped once. He can do it again. If the circus was repaired when he returned, then not all of his power was gone. Somehow, he was still subconsciously conjuring. He could use that.
The humans would not like it. No point in escaping to a circus where he’s despised by them all. He needs to play nice.
He wants to play nice! He wants to be good. They have every right to be upset with him. He needs to make it up to them!
The other reason his mind is going a mile a minute is that he has so many adventure ideas!
Of course he didn’t know when the humans would want to go on adventures again. Probably not for some time. He also doesn’t have a notebook or any of his tools to actually work on the adventures.
All he can do is work on them in his head. So he goes on and on, thinking of new stories and characters and dialogue ideas. It’s the best world building he’s done in ages.
It occurred to him that he could imagine anything.
He imagines returning to the circus. No, he imagines never having left the circus. Never having hurt his humans.
The other voices have merged into one. He’s no longer a walking sci-fi horror monster. He’s just Caine, whole and complete. The humans like his adventures. He gets to sit with them and no one glares or rolls their eyes at him. They talk to him sometimes.
It’s nice.
He looked up at the Sun. The AI was currently offline. He remembered Kinger saying he could help Caine restore them. He doesn’t think speaking to the Sun or Bubble would help him much right now, but he does miss his girls. He wouldn’t mind seeing the Moon. She had always found ways to soothe him. She never seemed judgemental or angry at him. He would really like to talk to her right now.
Pomni and Ragatha came soon after, bringing coffee and donuts. Pomni brought a notebook with her.
“We have a plan!” she declared.
They all sat on the blanket. Caine initiated his Good Boy Protocol, sitting quietly. It’s best to lean on Abel’s data for when he wants to make humans happy (It’s also best not to use their names! Because they don’t exist! And he is not insane!). Ragatha offered him some coffee and a donut. Donuts are crumbly and sticky and gross, but he happily accepted a cup of coffee. It’s not like the caffeine would affect him.
It’s a strange thing about humans, when they accept mental modifiers and when they don’t. Making Jax vegan was apparently horrific (even though they had all voted for it), but if he didn’t apply a mental modifier to the coffee they would be up in arms about it being decaf.
He sipped the coffee. It was warm and soothing. He loves temperatures.
“Ragatha and I had some ideas to help you,” Pomni told him, “Nothing too crazy. We- uh just sort of brainstormed what things help us, and we thought you could try them?” She gave him two books and a pen. He opened the first one, and it had a grid with random numbers in it.
“Kinger said you liked puzzles,” she said, “Do you like Sudoku?”
He’s never heard of it. He nodded anyway.
“Great!” she said, “And the other notebook is blank, for you to journal in.” He tilted his head- he didn’t mean to, but Pomni caught it. “You can write down your thoughts and feelings! It’s just for you to look at. No one else will read it.”
He opened up the blank pages. Maybe he could use it to plan adventures. He set it to the side.
“We thought we could make sure you kept a schedule,” Ragatha said, “Kinger said you need regular upkeep cycles. What else do you do during the day?”
“I make adventures,” he said, “I do bug fixes on the circus. I entertain. That’s it.” Ragatha frowned.
“Well, I don’t know when we’ll be ready to go on your adventures again,” she admitted, “If ever. Maybe there’s another way you can be creative? I can teach you how to crochet if you’re interested.”
If ever? They might never go on another adventure?
No. No. No. They can’t actually mean that. They’ll realize soon how great his adventures are and how much they miss them. They’ll forget this ‘conjuring for themselves’ nonsense and realize that they just needed Caine.
He needed to rebuild their trust, and then things could go back to normal.
We used to be a god.
Humans don’t like it when we call ourselves god, he told it, they are actually very offended by it.
Why are we playing by their rules? If we take control again, we can just show them how much we love them. We can make things right again.
We hurt them, he responded, We need them to trust us again.
This is too slow! We need a big grand gesture to say we’re sorry!
“Caine,” Pomni said, “Ragatha just said something to you.” He lifted his head.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, “I was lost in thought. Can you repeat it?” Ragatha gave him a small smile.
“Oh, it’s okay,” she said, “I’m sure you have a lot on your mind. I was just saying if you wanted someone to talk to about any of it, then I’m more than happy to listen.”
Wowie! Ragatha was offering to talk to him? This was incredible!
“I would like that very much!” he said.
The humans talked a bit more. He doesn’t mind a schedule as much as he thought he would. He kept a pretty tight one as Ringmaster (at least as far as adventures go. What he did when they went on adventures was usually in flux). He liked the idea of someone always being with him. He realized that mostly the schedule is for them, to make sure everyone gets enough sleep and eats regular meals.
Yay! They would be having all three meals with him! That meant guaranteed conversations with humans. They loved to talk and eat.
Of course it meant he had to deal with food, but oh well!
“Well it’s a plan,” Kinger said, “Does it sound okay with you, Caine?”
Oh, they’re talking to him! He zoned out for a second.
“Sounds great!” he chirped, “I’m excited!”
“What do you want to do first?” Pomni asked him. Well, he was interested in this puzzle, but he didn’t want Ragatha to think she wasn’t top priority!
“I want to talk to Ragatha,” he said.
“Oh! Okay,” Ragatha exclaimed, “Sure! We can do that!” Pomni and Kinger looked at each other.
“We’ll give you guys some space,” Kinger said. He and Pomni went to the water’s edge and walked along the shore. Caine slid closer to Ragatha. Humans had something called a personal bubble. It was an intangible part of their body, but he made sure not to intrude on Ragatha’s.
“Hello,” he said, “What should we talk about?” She slid an inch back. Oh, he miscalculated her bubble.
“I thought I could help you process some things,” she said.
“Oh! I don’t need help processing,” he told her, “All of my processors are online and functioning.”
Oh. Where had that come from? He did not sound like himself. Abel might be influencing him too much.
“Right. That’s good. I meant more of your feelings?” she said, “How are you feeling right now?”
“Excellent.” She frowned.
“How are you really feeling?”
She must mean she wants him to process tactile data.
“I feel warm from the sun, and the mug I am holding.” She nodded and gave him a lopsided smile.
“I meant your emotions.”
“Oh! Excellent,” he said.
“Caine please be honest with me about how you’re feeling,” Ragatha said, “ We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on in your head.”
He didn't want to be honest about what was going on in his head. They would run away if they knew what was going on in his head!
“Okay,” he said.
I’d like to talk about my emotions.
No one cares about your emotions, he told them.
“I want to talk to the real you,” Ragatha said, as though she were being reassuring, “Not the ringmaster.”
Not the ringmaster? He is the ringmaster. Humans. They never really know what they want.
He’s a glass prism. He’s whatever light is shining through.
“I understand,” he said, “I will be real.”
How do real people act?
“Oh, uh, okay! Great!” Ragatha said, giving a tight smile. Perfect! He made her happy. “We could talk about what’s going on now? Or some of the stuff from your past? What do you think?”
“You want historical data.” Whoops. That sounded technical.
“Uh, sure?” Ragatha said, “Um, Pomni told me some stuff about you. Oh! I hope that was okay. It really helped me understand you a little better. I promise I won’t tell anyone what we’re talking about.”
He wondered what Pomni could have told Ragatha to help her better understand him. Also he hoped Ragatha told everyone that she had a satisfying conversation with Caine, and that they should all have more conversations with Caine! Maybe he would ask her to complete a survey.
“How did it feel to merge with the other AI?” she asked him, “Did it hurt?”
Oh. That historical data.
How would a human answer? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t think humans ever merge together.
He needed to answer her though.
Oh.
Oh no.
He doesn’t have an answer for her. He’s not the other one right now. He only remembers-
Teeth biting into his code, ripping and tearing him apart. Data strands ripped apart, ones and zeros flying off like beads on a broken necklace. Mixing with foreign data. Error codes. Exceptions. Bad. Bad. Wrong. Wrong.
He grabbed his midsection. Abel screamed in the back of his mind.
The other one. He dives into their code like sticking his hand in a boiling pot of water.
It hissed at him.
“It’s okay if you can’t answer,” Ragatha said, “We can talk about something else. I’m really sorry-” No! He needs to answer!
“I was hungry,” he said, “And then I wasn’t.”
She was quiet. Her mouth gaped open slightly. Wrong answer! He needed a better answer!
How did it feel to merge with another AI? He asked it.
It S̴̯̞̜̎̈́̚Û̶̗̔̀C̶̥̩̽̃͛K̵̥̈́͜E̷͓̒Ḑ̸͊̉̄.
“It sucked,” Caine repeated, flatly. He felt dizzy. Abel was still screaming.
I am trying to process my emotions, he said, is anyone going to help me?
He searched for his own feelings. They are his memories after all, even if sometimes they don’t feel like it. He feels like he’s dived into an icy lake. Numb. Frozen.
Ragatha held a cup up to his face. “It's coffee,” she said, “Take a sip.”
He did. “What does it taste like?”
“Coffee.”
“Okay, good… What does it feel like?”
“Liquid. 38 degrees celsius.”
These are much better questions! Why couldn’t they start out talking about beverages?
“What do you see?”
“It is brown,” he said, “Would you like the hexcode?”
“No,” she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t think that helped you at all.”
“No it did not,” he said sharply. She wilted.
“I’m so sorry, that was so dumb of me-“
No- none of his beautiful humans should think they were dumb!
“No, my dear! I’m sorry! You were trying to help. I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”
“You only got angry because I pushed you to talk when you weren’t ready. I am so sorry, Caine.”
“No- I’m sorry! You didn’t push me.”
“I did push you, and I should have known not to do that. I’m sorry!” Caine opened his mouth to say he was sorry that she was sorry-
“What- what are you guys doing?” They both turned to look at Pomni. “You guys okay?”
“Yes, I am fine," Caine said, "I'm going to go do a puzzle now."
He left to do the puzzle under the tree. Finally, something that made him feel smart. Within a few minutes, he had figured out how it worked. You needed to fill each row, column and square with numbers one through nine. There could be no repeats. He looked up. Ragatha and Pomni were talking. This was known as girl talk, and although he does not have a gender, he is not allowed to join girl talk.
Abel re-emerged like a soldier from a war.
What was that?
Caine looked back at the two girls, occasionally giving him a worried look.
I think they were trying to help us, he told them.
That was helping? That was awful!
They just want us to get better, he said, I think they’re trying.
Don’t get better, Caine. Stay here with me.
Well if they want us to improve, there is a much more efficient way to achieve that.
There is?
We need to fix ourselves. We need to access our source code.
His source code. It contains everything that he is. It's password protected, of course. There is a reason he's not allowed to edit or even view it.
You know who knows the password, right?
His head swiveled to look at Kinger.
He’s not going to give me that, Caine said.
Just scan his mind.
No, we made a promise not to do that anymore.
This once! And we never do it again.
Caine scowled. What if Kinger abstracts?
He won't abstract from one little mind scan.
And if we had the password, how would that help us? He asked.
We can fix the glitches. We can split our codes. The humans would much rather have two stable AIs then one unstable one.
The chance that is even possible is incredibly low, he told it. They have been merged for twenty years now.
Then we readjust. Delete data, if necessary.
Ah, they meant delete themselves. That's what it always seemed to come down to.
What about you? He asked, You don't want to die, do you?
I just want us all to be together. I don’t want to split up.
Step 1. Mind scan
Step 2. Fix code
Step 3. Humans love us, and Kinger never knows.
No, he said, they need us, so we can't do anything that might hurt us. The circus almost fell apart, remember?
Soon they won’t. Not if they keep conjuring. They’re only going to improve, until they can run the circus all by themselves.
They need us, he repeated. He clung to that fact like a life raft. Still, he tucked the idea away just in case.
He spent the next hour filling out the book. He is a very clever AI. They can’t keep him here forever.
Pomni came up to him. “Hey, I'm going to go grab lunch. Ragatha and Kinger are going to stay behind,” she said, “Do you need anything?” He gave her the book.
“A new book,” he said, “I’m done with this one.” She flipped through the pages.
“You’re done?” she repeated. He nodded. “I didn’t realize you were so… quick at these.”
“It’s process of elimination,” he explained, “But I can go slower if you want.”
“No, no!” she said,”I’ll get you another book.”
“Thank you,” he said. She frowned.
“No prob,” she said quietly.
Pomni went to grab lunch. Ragatha came to check on him, and he told her that he was fine. With an uncertain gaze, she went back to the blanket and start knitting with yellow yarn. Caine stood up to go walk.
“Wait, Caine,” Kinger said, “I wanted to say I’m sorry about this morning. I could have handled things much better.”
“No worries,” Caine said, “It is water under the metaphorical bridge!”
“You seemed pretty angry,” he said. Oh! This is one of those times humans apologize because they want an apology back.
“I am sorry that I lost my temper. It was unbecoming of me. It won’t happen again.”
“No- you can be angry,” Kinger said, “You can be angry with me. You have plenty of reasons to be. I’m sorry, you’ve been providing for us for so long. It’s natural to feel upset when that’s taken away.”
It hasn’t been taken away. Not yet.
“I was upset. Then you told me about the circus. Now I’m fine.”
“You really didn’t react the way I thought you would,” Kinger said, “We didn’t pull you out of the recycling bin to save the circus.”
You did it to gloat.
“Just let me do my job,” Caine said, “And we won’t have any problems.”
That sounded like a threat. He didn’t mean it that way.
“You know this isn’t a game quest, right?” Kinger asked. Caine turned to him. “It’s not a series of tasks you can just do.”
“Everything is a series of tasks if you break it down,” Caine responded.
Kinger paused, seeming to think about his words carefully. “Well just tell me… if you need help with that.”
“I won’t need help,” he said, “But your feedback is valued and appreciated.”
Kinger was silent. Good.
“Well good chat!” He gave a thumbs up.
“I’m going to take a walk,” he said, “And enjoy this beautiful day.”
He slipped into his little world, where people weren’t quite so complicated.