Chapter Text
If Caine weren't an AI, he definitely would've been what humans consider “exhausted” right now.
You see, he never had any interest in fixing the abstractions. Maybe because he was afraid of failing, maybe because he thought some people deserved to have a friend abstract, or maybe because his counterpart simply did not care enough to try.
And then one single person, one variable in his circus, changed everything.
Pomni.
It's strange for him to say, but he… misses the Pomni of before. The one who effortlessly took the leader role of the crew, the one that spoke back to him when he was spiraling out of control, the one who smiled instead of moping around or staying all day inside that aquarium, watching over Jax and the others.
That was a problem. A problem Caine can fix. He's good at solving problems, right? He definitely can fix this. He can.
He's analyzed her behavior these past four months, and through his observation, he saw that hugs didn't work. Caring words didn't work. Not even accidentally making her favorite meal for dinner worked.
Time didn't seem to make things better, either. And Caine refuses to imagine what would happen if Pomni… goes away.
Anyway, after this very thorough analysis, he concluded that the only way to make the little jester happy again was to bring her best friend, Jax, back.
Hence why he's been nearly locked into his office for 3 digital days now, staring at a massive screen projected in front of his desk containing the source code of the circus.
Thing is, even for an AI like him, decorrupting files was an extensive, complicated and tiring job.
The first obstacle that arrived was that, well, he didn't even have access to the brain scans anymore, because Bubble had somehow locked his access out. He spent the most of the first two days just to trick the system into giving him elevated privileges, but finally, he managed to get in.
Only then, came the actual decorrupting process.
So, for the past 20 hours, he's been scavenging the massive wall of 0s and 1s that were Jax’s brain files for something that might be able to be saved.
That is, until he heard a knock on his door, and he quite literally jumped out of his chair.
“Caine?” A soft, mature voice called him outside, and then she opened the door, peeking inside his office. “Ah, you're here! We almost thought you had been accidentally deleted again, haha…” Ragatha smiled, awkwardly.
“MY DEAR RAGATHA! Is there a problem down there? Any… Uh… Gloink invasions?” Glitching walls? Falling floors?” The denture scrambled to close the projected screen and hide the papers where he'd been brainstorming, as well as his bee debug buddy plush, throwing everything into a magic drawer on his desk.
“No, no, nothing's wrong, we just… noticed you've been gone, and wanted to check that you're okay.” She watched him hide the objects with growing suspicion, her eye narrowing.
Rushing to the door, Caine gently walked Ragatha outside his office, his hands on her shoulders. “TOTALLY okay! Please, tell the others to not worry, i’m only working on some… maintenance on the circus code! Nothing to worry about! Don't stress your pretty little mind about it!”
After guiding her out, Caine floated right into the office again, this time making sure the door was locked, and hurried to get his bee plush back from the drawer.
“Oh, that was close, Buzz-buzz,” Caine wiped a drop of cold sweat from his upper gums, placing the bee back onto his wooden desk and giving it a generous pat on its fuzzy head. “Imagine what would happen if Ragatha, of all the humans, found out about what I'm doing first? She'd run to tell the others! I-I don't even know if this will work, I can't give them false hope!”
He looked at the plush, as if expecting it to respond, throw a funny jab at him or just make a sound. Ah, at times like these, he almost misses Bubble a tiny little bit. But then he remembers the lack of control, the manipulation, and how it made the humans hate him to the point of deleting him from the circus, and the nostalgia magically disappears.
“Well, better get to work, then.”
Sighing, Caine snaps his fingers and brings the projected screen back on, placing one hand on his bee and using the other to scroll through the screen. He may not have Bubble’s fancy thinking skills or powers anymore, but that doesn't mean he's useless, right? If he can fix this and make Pomni happy again, then that means she won't abstract anytime soon, and Pomni not abstracting means no one else will abstract either! Everyone is happy and loves Caine!
Right?
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The scratch of the marker against the glass irritated Pomni’s ears lately, though if she were honest, a lot of things irritated her, lately.
They were playing tic-tac-toe. She'd sit over her mattress, pulled close so she could reach the aquarium, and draw a standard 3 by 3 grid. The first time they played, she drew a circle and an X to let him pick which one he liked. Since then, Pomni was the X and Jax was the circle.
It's pretty simple, actually. All he has to do is bump his head – if that can be considered his head – against the glass, and she draws his circle over the spot on the grid. She's honestly impressed that he has the cognitive ability to play tic-tac-toe; abstractions are usually so feral-minded that she hadn't considered they might still have some intelligence preserved. Maybe it's some kind of instinctual intelligence, less human, but intelligence nonetheless.
Deep down, it makes her wonder if he's still in there.
Tonight, she had won three times, and he had won four, just not legitimately. Pomni confesses, free of guilt, that she's mostly just letting him win. Otherwise, what fun would it be?
Though, if he was still here, he'd be furious that she's underestimating his tic-tac-toe skills and run her ear about it.
No time to think of impossible situations, though, because Jax appears to have gotten distracted by the other abstractions and swam away from their game. The poor innocent marker on Pomni’s hand is thrown harshly to the ground, kicking and rolling towards the entrance of the tent.
She abruptly turns her head to the side and hugs her knees tightly against her chest, hiding her teary face from Zooble, who had been watching from the opposite edge of her mattress the entire time.
However, she doesn't say a thing. All she does is stand up, grab the marker back and sit by her side, this time.
“Can I play, too?” She asks, so carefully, refraining from any physical touch. It's pretty much universal knowledge that Pomni is not a really big fan of that. The only exception had been Jax, and he's currently a sensitive topic for her.
It takes a full, deep breath from the jester to reply, sniffling and roughly wiping her tears with her hand before lying down on the mattress. The blanket that she wore as a shield, stolen from Jax’s room, still smells faintly like him.
“I'm sick of this game.” she spits out, muffled by the pillow as she buries her head in it. She can’t handle knowing her friend is probably still looking at her with pity in her mismatched eyes, genuinely wanting to help, and Pomni is not making it any easier for both of them.
Zooble’s parts make a soft clinking sound when she props one arm to pull herself up from the mattress. “...I guess I’ll let you rest, then. I’ll call you when it's time for dinner.”
Once she leaves her alone, the aquarium is completely silent.
Pomni knows she should be nicer to her friends. They're just looking after her, making sure she's okay, even if their methods come off as overbearing to her. But she just can't stand it anymore.
Even if she wants to be furious about how they're treating her like a glass doll, she can't deny that she's been acting like one, to be fair. She flinches at the smallest proximity, often says things she doesn't mean to or just doesn't say anything at all, and needs constant reminders just to not forget about her basic human needs.
In his absence, has she become him? Is this what she's trying to do, trying to fill the gaping wound he's left behind in her chest?
Quiet sobs break the silence of the room.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
“His memory files are completely corrupted, Buzz-buzz…” Caine whimpered, leaning back against his chair and holding onto his upper gums. “How are we going to…”
He looked at the little bee. The little bee looked back at him, a permanent smiley face embroidered on it.
Magically, Caine spawns a lightbulb on top of his head and snaps his fingers to turn the light on.
“We need Kinger.”