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The textures of the pillow fort flickered.
“What’s happening?” Pomni’s voice cracked.
Kinger’s worried eyes drifted from the glitching surroundings to the jester. “I don’t know.” He stood up, holding his hand out for her. “But what do you say we find out?”
A dry laugh escaped the jester as she grabbed onto the offered hand and let it pull her up. Once Kinger had his bucket securely fastened on his head, the two snuck through the main room, following the glitches. Pomni held Kinger’s hand, acting as his eyes. she caught sight of a black cylinder sticking out from behind a wall of stacked blocks. Curious, she led the chess piece toward it to investigate. As the jester rounded the corner, her feet dug into the ground at the sight before her.
An enormous ringmaster sat clenching his head, hyperventilating. As soon as she gasped, Caine whipped his head toward her. Pomni slowly backed away, gesturing for Kinger to follow her.
“W—Wait!” Caine slid out from his hiding place and grabbed the duo, only their heads visible in his fists. “Please! Don’t tell the others! I can fix this! I can…I can…”
Pomni’s face began to turn blue. “Caine…Can’t…Breath…”
His pupils shrank. “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
He hurriedly set them down, leaving the two wobbling on their feet. They gulped down breaths despite the fact that there was no actual air in the circus.
Caine scooted away, giving the humans ample room.
Once the programmer composed himself, Kinger crept up to the giant.
“Kinger,” Pomni hissed.
“It’s alright,” he assured her. His eyes returned to his creation. “Caine…are you alright?”
“I…I don’t know what happened. One moment I was performing maintenance on the circus and the next…” His eyes drew to his hands.
Kinger’s glove rested where his chin would be. “There might be a malfunction in your code.” He began to turn. “Let me go grab my emergency console—”
“No!!!” Caine’s voice thundered as he slammed an open hand in front of the chess piece, creating a wall.
“Caine—” Pomni whipped around to berate the ringmaster but lost her nerve she saw his enormous face on the floor inches away from her.
“Now, now. There’s no need to bother yourself with fetching that…device…Perhaps we could…uh…wait until this goes away on its own?”
“Everything is glitching,” Kinger vaguely gestured around him, attempting to keep his voice calm. “If we don’t fix this, the entire circus could be in danger.” When Caine squeezed his teeth shut, Kinger tried to phrase it another way. “The others could be in danger.”
Caine’s jaw snapped open. He scrambled up to his feet, unable to catch his breath. “I—I don’t want anyone to get hurt. But I can’t…I…I can’t…” His hands gripped his head so hard that if he were in the real world, he would’ve drawn blood. Tears brimmed his lower jaw.
Pomni jumped out of the way of the aerial bomb right as it splashed onto the ground, droplets of water still hitting her face. The skyscraper collapsed, sending tremors through the floor. Head resting on the floor, Caine curled in on himself, still weeping.
While Pomni’s heart ached at the image in front of her, she couldn’t move her body.
Kinger had no such troubles. “Caine?” He knelt in front of the ringmaster as best he could without knees.
“What—what if y—you delete me again?” If he’d been his normal size, neither of the humans would’ve been able to hear him.
Kinger jolted at the blunt question. “That was an accident.”
“I—I know but w—wha—what if—what—what if it h—happens again?”
Kinger placed a hand on Caine’s lower jaw. “I understand and…I can’t promise that it won’t.” His eyes lowered to the floor and a weight entered his voice. “Accidents can happen twice.”
As Caine’s body stiffened, Pomni frantically waved her hands and was finally able to step forward. “But—BUT I’ll be here with him.” She wrung her hands together. “I won’t let anything happen…okay?” She couldn’t help taking a step back at the giant’s attention flew to her.
“You…you won’t?”
She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “No, I won’t.” She thought she’d have to force the words out, but they came out with a surprising amount of ease.
Caine’s hand reached out tentatively, then paused. It reeled back, the force of the movement sending a small breeze whipping over the two humans.
Kinger slowly held out his own hand palm up.
Pomni had to use every once of control in her body to stop herself from pulling him back.
Caine stared at the offered glove, his top jaw squinting in confusion. He inched his hand toward Kinger’s, possibly giving the chess piece a chance to run away. He placed his index finger in the tiny hand, startling when it clasped tight around Caine’s pointer.
Kinger’s other glove floated on top of the finger. “Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll go slow and tell you everything I’m doing before I do it. If you get scared, we can stop for a minute. But I promise I’ll be extremely careful. Okay?”
A long pause stretched before the ringmaster finally nodded.
Kinger released a breath. “Good.” He patted the finger and let it go.
Caine folded his arms under his jaw, unable to look at the two humans. His finger rapidly tapped against his bicep.
The programmer turned. “Pomni, could you stay here with Caine while I grab the monitor?”
The titan’s head jerked up.
“Wha—me?” She stammered.
Kinger waddled closer to her and leaned in to whisper, “He’s really nervous. I don’t want to leave him alone.”
Pomni peered at Caine, remnants of tears still clinging to his eyes. She sighed. “Okay.”
A smile entered Kinger’s eyes. “Thank you.” He looked back at his creation. “Caine, I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab the computer so we can solve the problem.”
All the ringmaster could do was give a small nod.
The chess piece sighed and headed out of the room.
Caine dug his head into the crook of his elbow, his arms still crossed underneath him. His whimpers revved up again, the sobs growing louder by the second.
While she didn’t fully trust the previously reckless AI, his current size not helping her trepidation, she couldn’t just stand there while he was so scared. Each step she took felt like her feet were weighed down by anchors. Her heart was banging against her chest by the time she was right in front of his face. She sat on the floor and leaned against the wall that was his crossed arms. Her hand gently rubbed against his sleeve. A twitch behind her made Pomni’s head flip up.
His head just barely above his arms, Caine looked straight down at her. His top jaw arched so high that she thought it might reach the ceiling.
Pomni took a couple deep breaths to ground herself under the giant’s gaze. When her heartbeat settled, she continued her comforting strokes. She gasped when a sudden pressure pinned her. Unable to move, she was cast into darkness. After a few seconds though, a stream of light burst as whatever was blocking it seemed to lower. Poking her head out, she saw a flattened white glove engulfing her body. Even though she was stuck, the weight of his hand wasn’t enough to hurt. She squirmed her arms out of his hold and placed them on top of the hand. She settled back, trying to get comfortable until Kinger returned.
“P—pomni?” Caine kept his voice low, most likely not wanting to spook the jester while she was so close.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for staying with me.”
She couldn’t stop the small smile spreading on her face. “Yeah…well…you’ve been alone long enough.”