Chapter Text
“How did it start?”
Caine stared at the mirror he had summoned into his room. He pulled his gums away from his teeth, pulling out the petal that had been causing him discomfort. The past few weeks, he’d noticed them spawning in him and Bubble. He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but he didn’t know if he was going to have the time to actually worry about it. There were other things for him to concern himself with. There was Jax, the anomaly. How long had it been? Thirty weeks? They didn’t have that much longer until the anomaly would be viable and– Caine blinked, looking at the white petal. He set it down on the desk before snapping the mirror away.
He straightened his bow tie out, swooping out of the room quickly. His room was at the end of the hall where the other AI’s were supposed to be. However… Caine was the only active AI. He looked at the room beside his, staring at the photo on it. He looked at his door, his eyes full of light in his portrait. Where had the years gone? Where had his light gone?
“Boss, I found Zooble!” Bubble spun into Caine’s vision. Caine pinched his back between his finger and thumb, holding Bubble close to his face. Bubble blew a raspberry at him and Caine’s eyes narrowed.
“And?” Caine tried to get her to continue. Sometimes he forgot Bubble needed to be prompted to speak.
“They’re in the classroom,” Bubble replied, “They’re doing that thing that Gangle does. Art-eh.”
“Art, Bubble,” Caine let go of his assistant, letting him spin in the air, “It’s called art. And they’re good at it. Some humans do it for fun.”
“I don’t give a &$^%!” Bubble exclaimed excitedly as they began to float away.
Caine stared at them before muttering, “Why are you like this?”
Bubble left his view and Caine stared at where he was. He shook his teeth, not with his time, he’d decided. Instead, he decided to head to the classroom. Zooble was likely still in there. He flew through the Circus, looking at the floor below him. Everything seemed to be in order, that’s what mattered, right? He turned tightly around the corner, slowly descending to the door of the classroom. He knocked softly at first, he didn’t want to disturb them, but he needed to know what they were doing. If he didn’t have eyes on them, he couldn’t keep them safe from the things lurking in the Circus.
NOT THAT THERE WAS ANYTHING LURKING IN THE CIRCUS.
“Oh, Zooble~” Caine called, drumming on the door a little louder. He could hear a string of swears get muttered, then the slamming of a door. He blinked, trying to look in.
Zooble tossed the binder in their hands across the room, watching it clatter in the corner. They were &#%$-ed if Caine figured out that they were snooping. They grabbed the door with their clawed hand, pulling it open. They leaned in the doorway, trying to block his view of the room. Caine wasn’t as interested with the room as he was with Zooble.
“What’s up, Denture Boy?” Zooble muttered, their eyes darting back and forth. Caine watched them, trying to track their eye movement, but then he started to pay too close attention to their pupils, noticing their shine and he lost track of what he was doing. He looked back at Zooble who was staring at him.
“Just checking in on you!” Caine exclaimed, “As you know, my duty as ring master is to keep you all safe and put together!”
Zooble’s eyes narrowed. Did he have a point to all of this or was he just yapping for no reason? Zooble rolled their eyes, they didn’t have time for his bull-^$&%. They had bigger fish to fry, like whatever they’d just found in that room. Caine stared at them eagerly, awaiting their response.
“Uhm, yeah,” Zooble muttered, “I’m fine, just working on art here, nothing too crazy.”
Caine nodded, “Wonderful! Well! I hope you consider showing it to me once you’re done! Art is a great way to express your feelings! Especially those related to being trapped in this digital realm!”
Zooble blinked, “Okay?”
Caine hesitated, looking at Zooble, then the hall. He didn’t know what to say, so he started to float away slowly. Zooble squinted at him before closing the door, turning back to what they were doing before. Caine stared at the room, his right eye twitching. They were just… What was wrong with him? He turned away, leaving slowly.
“That was weird,” Caine whispered to himself, “But not my main concern right now!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*
“And that’s how it started?” Moon asked, jotting down some notes. It was very rare for Caine to allow her an actual physical form, but when he did, it was usually for this reason and this reason alone. She’d act as a stand-in therapist. Which was ironically fitting given the fact that Caine was supposed to be a therapist for all of the people here. All the humans here, at least.
“Well, I don’t remember all the details,” Caine replied sitting up as he picked a petal out of his teeth, “Everything was a blur. Until Daisy was born, my brain was focused entirely on correcting the glitch in the code.”
“You told part of that from Zooble’s perspective,” Moon replied, “Are those assumptions you made? Or did Zooble tell you about that?”
“I– I– I DON’T KNOW,” Caine spat back, quick to hover above Moon, “I’m just telling you what my code is telling me happened!! I don’t know anything more than that!!”
“The way I see it, your code is trying to offer solutions to fill in the blanks,” Moon said softly, “You don’t know for sure what Zooble was doing in there aside from art and you only know about the binder because they brought it to you later. Sounds like you’re making stuff up.”
“I REBUKE THAT,” Caine pointed accusingly at Moon, “YOU’RE BEING OF LITTLE HELP!! ALL YOU’RE DOING IS ANTAGONIZING ME!!”
Moon blinked, staring at him. God, he really was losing it. Any semblance he had left of sanity was slowly rotting away with whatever disease was eating his code. Moon might’ve had a rough idea of what was going on, but it wasn’t anything she could prove without talking to all the parties about it first. She looked down at her notes written in long hand, she was going to get to the bottom of this, she just didn’t know how yet.
“What did you do after you left Zooble in the classroom?” Moon asked, turning to a new page in her notebook.
“I returned to my room,” Caine shrugged, sitting back down on his chair, “I went back to monitoring Jax and Daisy. What I was doing any time I wasn’t actively watching over something. I mean, everything was on in the background, it always is, but it wasn’t my main focus.”
“What happened while you were watching Jax’s vitals?” Moon inquired softly and simply.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*
Caine sat on his bed, criss-cross. His eyes scanned Jax’s vitals as he tore his attention between that and the rest of the Circus. He liked to keep his mind busy, safe from many distractions. His all-seeing eyes would sit in the back of his mind, they’d only alert him if something truly intense or of concern was taking place. Usually, especially on days like this, nothing much would happen. He might get an alert or two from wherever Jax was, or Kinger would accidentally trip one of the alarms. But overall, he didn’t have to pay too much mind to them.
He scrolled through Jax’s code slowly, watching as it spun gently. His eyes traced the spindles that broke off, the new code forming and mutating. That was expected. Definitely not normal, but hey, what was these days? They hadn’t had a semblance of normal since Pomni had entered the Circus a year prior. Hadn’t that been a kick in the head. At the very least, however, no one had abstracted, but his stats updates were always warning him to keep an eye out.
Caine coughed a bit, clearing his digital throat. Not out of the ordinary, a frog in the throat wasn’t unexpected. However the tickle didn’t go away, in fact it started to get worse. He stopped what he was doing, trying to clear his throat as best he could, but it didn’t seem to help. With the snap of a finger, he’d summoned some water, drinking it quickly. The cough stopped momentarily before picking up again. It felt like it was suffocating him and he didn’t even have to breathe. He felt something climb up his throat slowly. He was able to spit it out into his hand and just stare at it.
Sitting in the gloved palm of Caine’s hand sat a tiny flower bud. Caine stared at it curiously. He blinked. Up until this point it was a couple petals, he’d wake up with them in his mouth or caught in his teeth. But this? This was just a bud. He didn’t know what to do with it. Did he snap it out of existence like the other petals? Or did he actually do something with it? He decided to set it on his bedside table. Maybe he could figure it out another time.
Caine returned his attention to Jax’s vitals, noticing the rabbit’s heart rate spiking. He decided to take care of that as soon as possible. He pulled up the camera for the nursery where Jax and Pomni were fighting about something. Caine sighed, they were almost always fighting about something. Caine scratched his mandible, grabbed his cane, and headed out of the room. He’d worry about that flower situation later.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*
“And did you ever figure it out?” Moon asked, sketching the flower bud in the margins of her notes. Caine blinked, staring at her.
“Obviously not, Moon,” Caine griped, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now, talking about it with me.”
Moon nodded, “Yes, but sometimes you want outside opinions, dear, I know you well enough–”
“What time is it?” Caine interrupted, looking at his watch, “I think I have somewhere to be right now. UHM– Somewhere that is away– far away…. From you.”
Moon didn’t have time to object. She looked down at her notes, she was on to her next person: Zooble.