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PUHLEASEE have mercy on me yall. I have never written on Ao3 before and I SWEAR TO GOODNESS this website is so confusing.
This is gonna be a long(ish) post as I cant be bothered (and I dont know how to) separate everything into different chapters!
I really hope you enjoy, and that my writing style isnt too hard to read!
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Another day in the circus. Although the place didnt really have a set timing system (or clocks in general) the moon always set and the sun always rose.
Caine did not require sleep, a trait that all AIs have, but even if he could sleep he would never rest.
Every night Caine would sit at his desk, scribbling in his notepad ideas for his adventures. He would do that quite quickly, and for the rest of the night, he would just spin around on his chair, drawing, waiting.
What exactly was he waiting for?
Even he didnt know. Its like he was just waiting to have a purpose. Waiting to be called.
Waiting to be needed.
And one night he was finally needed.
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Another restless night I suppose. These things happen, I always like to remind myself of that. Even if im in a digital body, my mind is still real, or atleast I think it is. So of course im bound to have these natural tendencies that I had before the circus. Even back then I couldn't really sleep.
My memories of my days of work at C&A are particularly fuzzy, whether that be Caine's fault or the amount of distance between the times, but all I do remember is the amount of stress it caused me to work there.
What I do remember quite clearly are my regrets. The guilt that nags me every day I wake up in this place. Everytime I look at their faces I just see my wrongdoing.
If I hadn't helped to develop those AI's, none of this would've happened.
If I hadn't helped to create Caine, maybe I would be able to remember my wife's name.
If It weren't for my actions she wouldnt be in the cellar right now, plunged into darkness for the rest of her life.
Shes practically dead, and its all my fault.
Everything is my fault.
If I abstracted right now, atleast I would be down there with her.
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NONONO, nono. I will NOT let this happen again. I know im not supposed to intervene with the others at this time, im supposed to give them privacy, but if I let another one of my members abstract then what kind of host would that make me?
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Caine headed straight for the pillow fortress, knowing that Kinger never slept in his bedroom, for a reason he didnt know. He teleported there in an instant, listening intently. He was greated with silence. That wasn't a very good sign. He slowly removed the front pillow off of the fortress, which was kind of like a makeshift front
door, and peered inside.
He blinked, adjusting to the darkness. He wasn't really used to the darkness, since he always ensured the circus was as bright as possible. But no matter how bright a place may be, there will always be shadows.
As he adjusted, he saw Kinger, curled up on the floor, shaking. He hadn't abstracted yet, good. Caine hesitantly reached out a hand, and tapped him on the shoulder.
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"AHH" Kinger yelped, jumping backwards.
"AHH" Caine screamed, also jumping backwards. He wacked his head on the surprisingly solid ceiling of the fort, clearly not used to the environment around him.
"Caine, what are you doing in here?" Kinger asked, looking bewildered. Caine had never actively sought anybody out during the night hours, let alone step foot into his fort.
Caine rubbed his head, muttering something to himself before his attention returned to Kinger.
"That was quite the way to greet me, my friend! Hmm, maybe I should add that to my list of my favourite moments with my FAVOURITE humans who I love love love love."
"Uhh, what?"
"Why am I here again. OH, RIGHT! I was just drawi- I mean planning adventures in my office, when I couldn't help but sense something was aloof, so, I made the bold and , dare I say, heroic decision to check up on one of my favourite humans who I love love love love!"
"I see-" Kinger didnt even get to finish his sentence before Caine was next to him, notepad in one hand, and pencil in the other.
"WOWEE! Well done for seeing! Anyway, what's bothering you friendo? And dont lie to me, EVERYBODY knows one of my MANY specialties is listening."
A beat of silence.
"Caine, I dont really want to talk about this right now." Kinger said, firmly. He knew that with Caine, things needed to be spelled out in bold letters. That was one of the many things that made Caine's AI faulty.
Caine went quiet for a while, before clicking his fingers
"AHA! Ive got it! You want a distraction, right?" He said, practically beaming
"I suppose a distraction would be quite nice-"
"THEN IVE GOT JUST THE THING!"
Caine snapped his fingers. A notebook teleported from thin air and fell into Kingers hands, a pencil following shortly after. The cover of the notebook was purple, the same colour as his robe, and engraved into the leather was a bee. Kinger found himself chuckling at that.
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During Caine's development, Caine had a particular glitch where he would constantly produce models of bees. The other worker alongside Kinger, Scratch, always found this as an error, something that should be fixed.
"An AI shouldn't have likes and dislikes. Who knows what could be created by an AI who has opinions." Scratch said. Kinger nodded at this and promised that he would fix the bug that evening. Obviously, he never fixed it.
Unbeknownst to Scratch, Kinger was the one who started Caine's obsession with bees.
Kinger was working a later shift, and the office was empty. He was doodling bees in his notepad when he realised that the computer screen on the desk opposite him was on. How long had that been on for? Electricity costs money after all.
Kinger approached the computer, preparing to turn it off when he realised that on the screen, was a chat bubble. Scratch must've been working on a communication update so the workers could make direct requests to the AI's. Smart.
Curious about how well developed this update was, Kinger simply typed in the first thing that came to mind.
"Bees"
He scoffed to himself, why was that his first thought? The screen was blank for a few moments before a message popped up.
"Bees? What is bees?"
Wow. Scratch truly was a genius!
"Bees are a type of insect." He typed.
Again, an empty screen, before:
"What is insect?"
It seemed that Caine's AI model had only been taught the basics, so Kinger typed out the simplest explanation of a bee he could:
"A bee is a circular animal that has yellow and black stripes on its body. Bees are very fluffy. They work very hard to make their friends happy every day. They have wings so they can fly around."
A response came quicker this time. The AI was learning.
"I work hard, does that make me like a bee?" The AI asked.
Kinger thought about this for a moment before typing:
"I suppose you could say that."
"So does that mean that you are a friend?"
The response came so fast that if Kinger didnt know any better, it seemed like the AI was eager for a human connection.
Kinger hesitated for a moment. He knew he shouldn't really connect with an AI. Scratch made that very clear. He said that it would mess up something to do with the AI's transactional behaviours. Kinger shrugged it off. If this was a mistake he could easily wipe the AI's memory. It wasn't like there was much progress anyway.
"Yes" Kinger responded.
He was awaiting a response when he heard a door open behind him. He scrambled to sign out of the computer. When he was questioned by Scratch, he claimed he was just making notes of Caine's errors.
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"You humans like to draw stuff, right?" Caine asked, staring at Kinger with eager eyes. Caine was practically beaming, which was weird considering the fact that his head was quite literally a set of teeth with two eyes between them. He had always been oddly expressive like that.
"Well, I used to draw befor-"
"GREAT! Then let's draw!" Caine said, his voice sparkling with enthusiasm. He was practically squished against Kinger's side, his excitement for human connection clearly overriding his sense of respecting Kinger's personal space.
Caine was frantically scribbling in his notebook before Kinger could agree. He didnt need to look at the notebook to know what Caine was drawing. Kinger tapped the pencil against the floor for a moment, before he began to sketch.
He couldn't help but feel himself relax a bit as the pencil danced against the paper, like it had a mind of its own. He never truly minded Caine's enthusiasm. He knew that Caine only meant the best, even when he didnt quite understand human emotions, or forgot things. But that's what Kinger liked about Caine. His imperfections made him seem human.
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He never once doubted that Caine could feel. Unlike Scratch, who constantly claimed that the AI was only mimicking human behaviour. Scratch insisted that a new AI must be created, and that Caine was a defective AI. He stated that the AI was "too humanoid, and seemed to prioritise a human connection rather than doing what it was told to do."
Kinger found himself arguing against this, and eventually, the two came to an agreement. Caine was to be preserved, not deleted, but a new AI was to be created, and this time, no friendly communication was allowed.
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Caine glanced down at Kinger's notebook, and went silent for a few moments.
"Kinger. Is that.. me?" Caine whispered, his expression unreadable.
Kinger looked down at the paper to see that he had infact, drawn Caine subconsciously. The drawing was so horrific that he was surprised Caine could even recognise it.
"Yeah, I.. think it is."
There was another silence, and Kinger glanced at Caine, only to see that he was facing the other way. His shoulders shaking. Was he.. Crying?
"That.. Thats the most beatiful thing ive ever seen in my whole life. WOWEE, A HUMAN DREW ME, I CAN'T BELIEVE A HUMA-"
And then all went silent again. Caine had shut down completely.
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Caine was buffering. Back in his testing days, he always used to. I remember how Scratch fully believed that this was because Caine was unable to process the bare minimum of information. I begged to differ. He would only fully shut down when a human expressed interest in him, almost as if he was overly excited, and it seemed to be only me who would notice this pattern. Obviously, I didnt want to tell anybody since that would make me come across as a madman.
"Caine?" I say, and I was greeted with no response. Luckily, I have a technique to bring him back. One that I used in his testing days. It was quite simple really, you just had to say a code word.
"Bees" I say bluntly.
Caine awoke almost instantly, his eyes flickering blue and red. He blinked a few times, shaking his head profusely.
"Guh.. Whuh? OH, Kinger! Hello!" He looked around, his upper jaw furrowing in confusion.
"Uh. What's happening?"
"We are drawing, remember?"
"OHO, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY FORGET?" He picked up his notebook, his attention returning to drawing uncountable amounts of bees.
I could feel my eyes growing heavy. The sound of Caine's pencil frantically scribbling against the paper proved to be quite relaxing. It was a rare occasion where Caine was quiet, and I treasured it. It was quite strange, how my brain still felt as if it needed sleep, even in a virtual world like this.
The others said something similar a few days ago about hunger. We didnt need to eat, but we still felt hungry. Almost as if our brains subconsciously refused to believe that we no longer needed these things that used to keep us alive before the circus.
My eyes began to close and I felt my body slump backwards. The last thing I remembered before I fell asleep that night was the feeling of my head resting against Caine's shoulder, and his hand hesitantly patting my back.
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Thank you for reading!!