Chapter Text
Pomni panted, leaning against a tree for support. This particular adventure had been taxing. In the few weeks that she’d been here, none of Caine’s adventures required this much physical endurance. The task today was to catch springers (weird, spring shaped creatures that bounced around randomly) that were set loose around the circus grounds. Those little [BONK!]s were fast, springing away before anybody could catch them. There was a springer loose for each circus member to chase, but they found themselves teaming up just to catch a single one. So far, Ragatha’s, Jax’s, Kinger’s, and Zooble’s springers were caught, leaving two still loose on the grounds.
It didn’t help that the springers seemed to be broken.
Jax snuck up on Gangle’s springer while it was still, but his hands phased through the creature when he tried to grab it. He stood there confused, swiping his hands through it in an attempt to grab something. After a moment, the springer glitched slightly and suddenly zoomed from where he stood to the other side of the map in a matter of seconds. He gripped his ears in frustration.
“This is getting old real fast!” he yelled.
Pomni left her tree and approached the rabbit, seeing Ragatha join them out of the corner of her eye. “Caine’s adventures aren’t usually this hard,” Pomni sighed.
“Maybe he wanted to challenge us?” Ragatha tried to reason.
“Can’t be,” Jax rolled his eyes. “If he really wanted to challenge us, he would’ve stuck us in some lame puzzle room instead of sending us on a wild goose chase.”
He watched the springer in the distance as it glitched in place before disappearing suddenly. “And glitches like that are not part of Caine’s usual plans.”
Pomni looked up at the sky and noticed that the digital clouds skipped in place as they drifted. “It’s almost like the entire world is lagging…”
She startled when both Jax and Ragatha groaned at her statement. “Not again,” Jax muttered.
“W-what?” Pomni grew nervous. “What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing serious,” Ragatha explained. “Every once in a while, the world starts to slow down a bit and get all… glitchy. B-but it’s not dangerous! Just a temporary setback.”
“But it’s super annoying!” Jax added.
“So…” Pomni glanced around, anxiously looking for glitches in the landscape. “It’s not a problem?”
“Not if you want to be chasing springers all day,” Jax grumbled, raising a fist to the sky. “Caine! Go restart your stupid program before I rip your eyes right out of your mouth!”
No response. “I know you can hear me, chatterbox! Just end this adventure already!”
“He’s not gonna do that,” Ragatha stated.
Jax groaned again. “Whatever! I ain’t dealing with this. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
Jax strolled away from the two, heading for the tent. Ragatha sighed. “Come on, Pomni. Let’s go find the last springers. Maybe then we can talk to Caine about this.”
They wandered the grounds, looking for the remaining springers as well as their friends. “Does…” Pomni spoke up after a while. “Does this happen often? You know, the… glitching and stuff?”
“Not really,” Ragatha began. “Though it really shouldn’t be happening at all.”
“What do you mean?”
They yelped as a springer popped up right in front of them before disappearing again. “Kinger told me once that this never happened when he first got here,” Ragatha continued. “I guess something had triggered it. And it’s been happening quite a lot lately. The last one happened about a month before you showed up.”
“Do you know what’s been causing it?”
“Well… over the years, we noticed Caine seemed to be the most negatively affected by it. When we first confronted him about it, well, all he told us was that he just needed a quick refresh and poof!” She gestured with her hands. “He was gone and suddenly everything fixed itself.”
Pomni pondered for a moment. “Refresh. Like… a reboot?” She gulped. “Does the whole circus just shut down or something?”
Ragatha sensed her unease, and she placed a comforting hand on the jester’s shoulder. “Nothing bad ever happens.” She looked away briefly. “Well, not yet at least. But it’s okay! Considering that this glitching stuff happens rarely, I assume that Caine reboots quite frequently, and nothing noticeable happens when he does. So we should be just fine.”
Pomni nodded, though she was still unsure. Her experience in the circus so far had been chaotic and unpredictable, and one strange problem or new mechanic seemed to show itself at least once a day. She couldn’t be too sure if something was perfectly safe when something else proved her wrong every time she let her guard down. But Ragatha was here longer; she was more experienced with how the circus worked. Surely, she could trust her word. And Jax knew about it too and portrayed annoyance rather than fear. Didn’t Ragatha say that Kinger mentioned something too? She should ask him about it the next time he caught him in the dark.
Pomni was yanked out of her thoughts when Ragatha shoved her into a nearby bush. She stared at the doll, about to retort, but Ragatha held a finger to her lips and pointed ahead of her. A springer was approaching them, and they could see one of Zooble’s detached hands slowly crawling behind it.
Didn’t Zooble sit this one out today?
The springer froze where it stood, clipping through the ground slightly. Zooble’s hand stood up on two fingers and ran ahead, phasing through the frozen creature. The two watched as the hand ran further into the distance before flopping over in the grass.
Pomni looked at Ragatha, confused. “What’s going on?”
Ragatha shushed her politely. “I think Zooble’s got a plan.”
The springer disappeared from their line of sight. They peeked out of the bush to see it wandering right next to the disembodied hand. Immediately, it pounced on the creature, grabbing it by the bottom of its coil and pinning it to the ground. The springer exploded into confetti, leaving only the hand behind.
“Ugh. Finally.”
Pomni jumped at Zooble’s voice. They were standing right behind Ragatha and her. “I’ve been following that thing forever.”
Zooble’s hand ran back to them, doing a little victory dance on the way. “I thought you weren’t participating today,” Ragatha pondered.
“I wasn’t,” Zooble sighed. “But the little [HONK!]s kept taking my parts, and you guys weren’t finishing fast enough.”
“Hey!” Pomni yelled. “Not our fault the world’s being dumb!”
“Yeah…” They glanced up at the sky. “That’s also very concerning.”
“How’d you know that would happen?” Ragatha questioned. “You know, the springer thing back there?”
“I counted the seconds between each freeze,” Zooble explained, reattaching their hand when they could reach it. “Then estimated the distance it would travel in that time and decided to be there before it.”
“Wow, that’s…” Ragatha was speechless. “That’s actually genius.”
“Anything to make this end faster.”
A triumphant fanfare sounded from the sky. Pomni looked around frantically for a source, but found nothing. “Looks like that was the last one,” Ragatha smiled. “Guess we’re done.”
“Good,” Zooble deadpanned. “Maybe now Caine will fix this [BEEP!].”
Pomni barely had time to register what they said before they were all violently teleported back to the tent. She heard Kinger scream and Gangle yelp in surprise from behind her. She turned and waved at the two. Gangle waved back, cradling her broken comedy mask.
“Congratulations!” Caine yelled, appearing out of nowhere. “You managed to catch all the springers and finish the adventure! Now, for—”
“Cut the crap, Caine.”
They all turned to see Jax approaching from the hall, arms crossed. “I do not appreciate the interruption, Jax!” Caine reprimanded. “But all is forgiven! I’m proud of you all for finishing so fast!”
“We’ve been at it for hours!” Pomni complained.
“Really?” Caine glanced at his empty wrist. “Wow! How the time slips away!”
Jax sighed. “Shut it, Caine. You need to reboot.”
Silence. Caine cleared his throat. “I-I don’t have a clue of what you’re talking about.”
“Your NPCs are lagging and your cane is clipping through your head.”
Caine frantically tossed the stick in question over his shoulder, a loud clatter and cat shriek sounding in the distance. “I can assure you that everything is a-okay!” he argued, fiddling with his bow tie. “Just a couple of bugs I’ve been working hard on fixing!”
“Bugs?” Kinger broke in excitedly. “Where?”
Caine’s top hat lifted from his head, and Bubble squeezed his way out into the open. “Caine’s been working extra hard planning the next few months’ adventures!” he proclaimed.
Jax laughed. “And let me guess. He’s been so busy that he’s ignoring the obvious issues. Again.”
“Oh, the issues run far deeper than the bugs!” Bubble’s manic smile clashed with his bizarre statement.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Caine popped Bubble. “There is no need for any more questioning! I shall leave you to your own devices while I continue fixing things. Good job on today’s adventure, my superstars! Tomorrow’s is gonna be just as FAN-tastic. Oh! No spoilers! Haha!”
He disappeared. Jax rolled his eyes. “That stupid pair of dentures doesn’t know how to listen.” He turned to head back to his room, arms behind his head. “Guess that’s why he doesn’t have any ears.”
“Wait!”
Jax paused, watching Pomni run up to him. “What did that mean? With the bugs and the issues?”
“Caine is an ignorant [BOING!]hole,” Zooble cut in. “He just goes on and on about working on bugs and [DING!] and neglects to do the one thing that keeps this place running smoothly.”
“Which is… a reboot?”
“Yup,” Jax answered, stretching. “Don’t know why he’s so stubborn about it. It’s literally the quickest fix in the book.”
Pomni gulped. “What happens if he doesn’t reboot?”
“Beats me. He’s always given in at some point. I just wish it was sooner rather than later. Really don’t wanna be dealing with these glitches for weeks.”
“Weeks?” Pomni whimpered as Jax disappeared from view.
“It’s okay, Pomni,” Ragatha assured, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing terrible has ever happened to us. The world glitches out, sure, but we all remain exactly the same. He’ll reboot at some point and then everything will go back to normal. None of us are gonna get hurt.”
But it will drive you crazy, she had neglected to say.
Two weeks had gone by since their first confrontation with Caine, and the world had slowly been growing more unstable as the days went by. It got to the point where the floor began disappearing from under their feet, freaking them out for a second before realizing that it was just invisible. Adventures were lagging terribly, NPCs could barely get past their dialogue prompts, and objects were clipping through each other constantly. And, despite it all, no one could convince Caine to reboot (or get him to stay long enough to even say anything).
Caine himself began to slow down as well. A quick glitch would ripple through his avatar every so often, and at times he could barely keep himself hovering in the air. He also had gotten quieter, only speaking when necessary, and the voice that came out was a shell of its former bombastic self. His movements were sluggish, and his adventures were haphazardly stitched together, many being repeats of previous ones. Pomni had been extremely concerned about the stability of the circus and what it meant for the players, but as time went on, she began to worry about the ringmaster himself.
She never realized until now that the entire circus depended solely on Caine to keep it running. Previously, she had assumed that the circus was a separate part of the code and that Caine had just been ignoring the issue due to being distracted or negligent. But now, she saw that Caine was the circus, and the terrible state it was currently in reflected the state of the AI himself, which raised so many more questions.
Was Caine neglecting himself rather than the circus? Bubble said something about him being busy making future adventures. How long had he been working on those? Pomni knew that they didn’t need to eat or sleep here, but she also knew all too well that focusing on one thing for a long time was exhausting and frustrating. Could an AI even get tired? Well, she proposed, a computer could start performing poorly if programs were running for too long. That must have been the point of the reboots, then, to reset Caine’s performance and prevent any errors in the program.
But Caine refused to do so for one reason or another, and they all finally had enough. Everyone had gathered on the floor in the middle of the tent after the latest glitch sent Ragatha flying across the room after clipping through the couch. This couldn’t go on any longer. Something had to be done.
“He’s never gone this long without rebooting,” Ragatha began.
“Is he trying to abstract us?” Jax complained.
“He can’t be,” Gangle immediately shot that idea down. “He’s always thinking about our well-being.” She squeaked at the incredulous looks on the others. “…right?”
“Well, it sure isn’t showing,” Zooble argued. “I don’t even know if it ever showed to begin with. Does he even care?”
“Maybe he’s distracted?” Ragatha tried.
“How?” Jax raised his voice. “Everything’s broken! The problems are so obvious! He’s gotta be ignoring us.”
“That can’t be right,” Ragatha sighed. “He’s never shown any malice towards us before. Something could be wrong. Did something change?”
“Yeah,” Zooble scoffed. “He’s finally tired of us.”
“This has happened before.”
They all turned their heads to the nearby pillow fort. Kinger spoke from inside, not bothering to come out and instead leaving the “door” slightly ajar so they could hear him. “What do you mean?” Gangle asked.
“This has happened before?” Pomni repeated.
“It has,” Kinger replied. “A long time ago, long before any of you showed up. Right after my—well… an abstraction.”
“What happened after that?”
“And how are you even remembering this stuff?” Jax added.
Kinger ignored him and answered Pomni. “A lot of stuff. Glitches, clipping, lagging, missing textures, everything. It got so bad the entire world suddenly went dark.”
Pomni winced. “Dark…?”
“Dark. Couldn’t see past your own nose, well, if you had one. Like the lights cut out entirely. By the time they came back on, everyone else had… abstracted.”
“Wait, what?” Ragatha was shocked.
“Everyone?” Gangle choked out. “That sounds terrifying…”
“Was everything still glitchy after that?” Pomni asked.
“Nope!” Kinger proclaimed. “Everything fixed itself.”
“Did Caine do that on purpose?” Jax growled, ready to strangle somebody.
“No, definitely not. In fact, I’d never seen him more upset than the day he found out I was the only one left.”
“So, why is he doing it again?” Zooble argued. “If he hated it so much, why is history repeating itself?”
Kinger shuffled in his place. “I… I’m not sure. I never truly figured out why it happened in the first place.”
“Something must be wrong,” Ragatha guessed. “Maybe he can’t reboot for some reason.”
“Someone should go talk to him,” Pomni suggested.
“Good luck with that!” Jax laughed. “He’s never listened to us before. What makes you think he would now?”
“Jax, come on,” Ragatha rolled their eyes. “We’re trying to help. Don’t be a jerk.”
“We have to do something!” Gangle cried. “I don’t wanna be stuck in the dark!”
“No one’s gonna be stuck in the dark,” Pomni reassured, standing up. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“I’m coming too!” Ragatha sprang up after her.
Zooble sighed. “Where are you even gonna find him? After us bugging the [BLOOP!] out of him all week, he’s not gonna show up just by calling him.”
“CAINE! HELP! I’M ABSTRACTING!” Kinger screamed, bursting out of his fort.
Everyone startled, watching the chess piece fall to the floor dramatically, but they soon relaxed. He looked fine; no black texture, no sharp edges, no extra eyes. Pomni wondered if Kinger had suddenly lost his sanity again or if his storytelling had briefly triggered something.
Until she saw Caine, and she realized that Kinger had faked it to summon him.
The AI appeared out of nowhere, hovering directly above Kinger. “It’s okay, Kinger!” he panicked, glitching. “I-I-I can take you to see her! That’ll help you, right?”
Kinger sat up, completely calm. “Oh, hey, Caine. When did you get here?”
Caine sighed, relaxing. “Thank goodness you’re okay. I thought for a second you—“
“Reboot, [SQUEAK!]hole!” Zooble yelled before he could disappear again.
“Wh—what…?” Caine’s eyes separated slightly.
“Caine.” Ragatha chose a calmer approach. “We’ve been really worried. The world is glitching and lagging a lot lately, and we’re starting to think that you are in need of a reboot.”
“Understatement of the century.”
“Jax!”
“Oh, my dear sweet Ragatha,” Caine replied. “You have nothing to worry about! I’m working on a solution to fix the issues going on and still get to send you on amazing adventures! You should be seeing some improvements in the upcoming weeks!”
“We don’t have weeks!” Zooble argued. “This place could crumble in a matter of days!”
“Yeah,” Jax agreed. “And I’d much prefer a couple days off than being stuck in the dark indefinitely.”
The terrain around them flickered, causing Gangle to scream. The group of humans scooted closer to each other, looking up at Caine fearfully. The ringmaster’s eyes were blown wide, and his body seized while his head remained frozen in the air. “H-how…” Caine’s eyes drifted to Kinger, who was cowering behind Ragatha. “You… you told them…?”
“Told them what?” Kinger asked, confused.
The world returned to normal, and Caine fell from his place in the air to the floor. He sat there in horror, staring at his twitching limbs. Ragatha crept forward, carefully holding out her hand. “Caine? Are you okay?”
He stood up abruptly. “I need—I have to—I have to work faster!”
And he popped out of existence.
“Great!” Jax complained. “Now, he’s never coming back! Nice going, Kinger. You scared him away.”
“You’re the one who brought up the darkness!” Zooble yelled.
“Yeah, but I’m not the one who gave him a heart attack pretending they were abstracting!”
“Guys, stop!” Ragatha intervened. “Now’s not the time to blame each other. We have to go after him!”
“I know where he is!”
Pomni looked up, seeing Bubble drifting to the floor. “He likes to hang out in his office when working on new projects,” he announced.
“Can you take us to him?” Pomni asked.
“Boss doesn’t like people seeing his unfinished works.”
“Oh! We don’t need to see anything,” Ragatha said, nervously glancing at Pomni. “We just… uh… well…”
“Oh! I never showed him my new caterpillar!” Kinger announced absent-mindedly, pulling a small bug from his robe and holding it in his hands. “I’m thinking about naming him Clyde.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Bubble grew excited. “Follow me!”