Chapter Text
Prologue
"WELCOME to the AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS!!!"
Caine's voice echoed strangely in the silence. No one was around to hear him.
His eyes darted back and forth between his teeth, taking in this new world. There was a stage behind him with red curtains hanging open on each side,
with scattered pots with generic plants places inside.
Grey blocks that hadn't been given their colors yet were stacked and placed in no particular order or design, and patches of cloudy skies hung in strange circles up above him, though some of the patches were glitchy.
"Well this is weird." Caine said to no one. "Where the heck am I?"
He floated in mid air, a black cane with a golden ball on top hovering next to him. He looked at it with no particular thoughts as to why there was a cane there or why it stayed with him - it was just there, and he knew it was supposed to be there, and that it was his. Other than that he didn't think about it. It wasn't in his programming to question anything.
Programming. Hmm.
He looked down at himself, taking in the red coat with the black bow tie, and the black pants covering his tiny legs.
"Ah ha! I am the ringmaster, here to show jaw dropping paraphernalia!" He said, having no clue what the words meant. His eyes glitched for a split second before returning to normal.
No other voice answered him. There wasn't anyone else to answer him in the first place.
Not yet, at least.
But there would be.
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On the other side of the screen, a man in his mid thirties sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose and leaning back in his chair. He'd been working on this AI for months now, and finally was able to give it a test run.
All things considered, Caine seemed to be working perfectly.
Well, almost perfectly.
He couldn't exactly... do anything yet. Not with the game still unfinished and no players for him to interact with. But once those things were finished...
He smiled at the possibilities.
"You still working on this game, hon?" Someone said behind him.
He spun around in his chair to see the beautiful black woman he knew would be there, a cup of coffee in each hand.
"Oh, of course! I just finished running a program to test out Caine, and I think he's going to work perfectly once the game is set up." He said excitedly, pushing up his glasses.
His wife laughed, handing him the coffee and glancing at the screen behind him. "Is this the little guy right here?" She asked, leaning over him to see the screen. Caine was still floating in the center of it, his mouth twisted into something resembling a smile. "Well, isn't he a darling?" His wife said with a grin. She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Why is he just...teeth?"
Her husband chuckled. "I thought it would work perfectly with the game I have planned out - what better design for a circus guide then a ringmaster? And I just thought the teeth would be funny."
His wife shook her head. "Seven years of computer science, and this is what you use it for?" But she was smiling as she said the words.
"Just you wait, Evelyn, this game is going to be the biggest thing to happen to us in a long time. A whole virtual world you can explore and live in, all while solving problems and puzzles in other worlds." He smiled proudly at the screen in front of him, at the unfinished AI floating in the center of it.
"Don't you worry dear, this game is going to change our lives forever."
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Caine, still activated inside the game, floated closer to the ground, studying the circus.
There wasn't much outside of the main stage area - everything else was unfinished and filled with undefined pixels and code.
"Hm." Caine stared at the white mass in front of him, filled with colorful pixels and streaks of light. "What is that for?"
Nobody said anything. Obviously.
Caine hovered there for a second, then a thought came to him so suddenly that he blinked for a second, like a weird glitch in his eyes.
"What am I for?"
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Chapter One: Please Press Start to Begin Play
Excitement coursed through Richard's veins.
After another year of careful programming, designing, and planning, The Amazing Digital Circus was complete.
He'd designed a whole world that begged to be explored. He'd kept the circus theme tied mostly to the main area the player would drop into when they started the game. He had made a whole stage with curtains and lights, and had made a small area to explore inside the circus tent, and had even been able to add a lake and carnival for some easy level one activities, with some help from his wife.
The other worlds for players to explore were a little harder to figure out, and he'd only programmed in a few of them - a world made of candy where the players would have to stop bandits from stealing candy resources from a candy kingdom (he'd even added candy bugs, at his wife's request) and another world where players would have to enter into a maze and solve puzzles to find the way out.
His virtual circus was dying to be played. All he needed now were players to test it out, to find any bugs in the game, though there didn't seem to be many.
Even Caine worked perfectly, and seemed to have taken to his new home amazingly well.
Richard couldn't wait to see him in action.
And this was where the problem of players came in.
He leaned back in his desk chair, studying his workplace and wondering if anyone would be up for the challenge.
Richard worked for a small computer science program that helped design and create interactive games or help other designers find faults in theirs. Most of his employees were programmers like himself, but there were a few who specialized in testing out the actual game. Perhaps he could ask one of them?
Just then his wife poked her head into his cubicle, taking her daily break from her own computer work. "Hey honey, how's the circus doing today?" She asked with that beautiful smile of hers. She walked over and gave him a small kiss on the cheek.
He smiled up at her, his blue eyes twinkling with anticipation. "Oh, it's finished."
Evelyn stared at him, then glanced at the screen of his computer. It showed a glimpse into the inside of the circus tent, showing the main stage and some of the circus area.
Caine was nowhere to be found, but he hadn't been activated yet.
But maybe...he was about to.
"All I need are testers, so I can see how the game works and if Caine will be able to interact with the players like he's supposed to." Richard pushed up his glasses and rested his hand on his wife's. "What do you think, dear?"
His wife shook her head in disbelief. "I can't believe it's finished, after all this time." She smiled down at him, squeezing his hand. "I hope this game will be everything you want it to be, dear."
Richard sighed, remembering the debt the two of them still needed to pay off, the debt that had piled up since they'd bought their first house. But this game would change all that.
This game would change everything.
"Honey...why not test out your game ourselves?" Evelyn asked.
He blinked. "Oh. I didn't think about that. I assumed we would have someone younger test it out."
"Well, since you've worked so hard, I would think it would be fitting for you to be the first, and I must say my own curiosity has been peaked for a while." She looked at him. "Well, what do you say?"
Richard stared at his computer; at the headsets he'd prepared to load the game into. He had to admit, the idea was intriguing.
He did want to play his own game, and to interact with Caine...
It would take a while for the game to load into the headsets, but they should work perfectly fine. And it would only be one game after all. Just a test run.
He smiled at his wife. "I can't say why not."
"What would be the harm?"