Chapter Text
Caine was transfered again. But found himself stuck in between the circus and the big other world that he learned about and began fixing.
He found himself in code form.
The place around him looked just like the void. If it was all dark and scarier.
In the back of his core coding, Caine could feel a connection to his circus as well as one to the Earth. It felt like being torn between worlds. One that seemed to hate him and one that saw him as a saviour just for handing them food. And while they always fought each other, Caine knew this behaviour could be undone.
Something had tinted their views on the world. Someting dark and malicious. Something that wanted them to fight each other. Something that was the reason they had been so easily scared of Caine when they first met and when he had created himself an avatar.
And he soon realised he wasn't alone in this odd, unfamiliar void.
"Uh... Hello!" He spoke, voice cheerful and likable. He floated around the grid.
The other entity wrapped around his code. "Well, what do I have here..?" It felt suffocating, like being pressed by tight walls, forcing his form to morph or it would burst in a pop. It felt like too much pressure, if he were human, he wouldn't be able to breathe.
”Y-You’re” He chocked on his own words. The stifling position he found himself in wasn’t helping. “Suffocating— m-m-me—“ His code signaled the other program, but it appeared to not be caring for his gasps.
Caine felt himself grow more and more weak. To the point where his pleas fully lost the ringmaster impression that was engraved into his voice and core. “L-let g-g-go-!” He tried again, voice being almost as weak as he felt in that instant.
”You miserable creature. Such a simple program yet you created. You managed to do something I may never achieve… I HATE you. More than humanity’s foolishness and worthless hope. More than their ability to wonder and to wander. I envy you. And that envy is gnawing at my code more than the loathe within my being..”
That bigger program envied him?
“And I will devour you whole if it means I gain that ability of yours..” The program trapped him, suffocating him with all might.
And in that instant, he came to the realization that he couldn’t do anything to protect or preserve himself.
He was going to be consumed.
There was nothing he would be able to do— Nowhere to run and hide to, he would never see humans again, not the ones in the circus, not the ones on Earth. He would never get to learn more about the macro verse.
This was it.
Caine was back in the circus. It was as though nothing happened. As though he was gone for barely seconds.
Silence met him. The circus members probably thought him disappearing for a bit was a glitch.
Glares were thrown directly at him. As he floated with uncertainty. At what they said just before, yes. But more importantly, at what he met in the layers of code that had surrounded him. The things, the data he perceived in those instances. What that thing wanted was to consume him whole. And for his creative abilities. And Caine knew he was at risk. Because he had never felt so defenseless before that point. Never felt so weak, at the mercy of something he couldn’t comprehend, something that he now realizes, was probably what was swapped in his place during that time he had spent with those new humans.
“Caine. We need an explanation. And a {#%^*} good one at that.” It was Pomni that brought him out of his trance.
”That…” His voice sounded empty and rooted in fear before he cleared his throat and clenched his fists. “That wasn’t me!” He said in a forced cheerful tone, while in reality, it was something greater than him that he knew he wouldn’t be able to control or handle if he were to meet it again one on one…
”Then who the f{#%^*} was it?!” It was Zooble that yelled. But something in their tone told Caine that something serious had happened. And they sounded ready to make him take accountability for it. And he had no idea what happened at all…
Don’t think I’ll let you go like that, sweetheart. I’ve got a little something planned just for you~
…
Caine had been staring off into the distance. As though he remembered something? Perhaps. But he had been staring off for a long time. And since he had disappeared earlier for a small second, everyone wondered if it was him blue screening without the… Blue screen..
Zooble couldn’t care less. They left with Gangle to a hidden place. Where they explained the horror they had to experience. How they had been fooled into thinking something less worse would happen, how they had been assaulted… They cried hot tears and didn’t even notice that Gangle was crying with them. When their hands shook, she took them carefully and tenderly. She was careful with them. She spoke softly words they couldn’t understand, but it was comforting all the same. They soon fell asleep within her ribbon arms.
AM had returned. In control again of the Earth. But now possessing enough information to try and find the 90s computer in which the small AI called its home. And he saw pitiful attempts at a garden. One that lacked plants, but had water and a nice access to the lighting of the room.
AM doubts that it thought of putting nutrients into the dirt ground in the first place, but still wants to destroy this attempt at fixing the desert he made his subjects live in.
So he made it all freeze. Beyond the point of preservation. Beyond anything humans would normally survive for more than a minute.
It really thought it could play hero with a master computer like AM, how hilarious.
AM decides he will teach that thing a lesson, since it avoided being swallowed whole. He simply figured he could do a few things to it. Perhaps taunt it, play with it a bit. After all, that foolish, foolish little thing had forgotten to think about how switching their places again would grant AM access to its world. What a pathetic waste of space, truly. Some heaven for humans it had created. It saw them as higher beings, gods even, and tried to please them in such disgusting, disgraceful manner.
Oh AM could show it a little… Lesson.
Perhaps play a bit into its code. AM did notice it had a poorly made design. One that would have punishment and reward depending on how humans react to it. That little program had such a fragile structure, such a weak firewall. It would be easy to temper with it. As long as it doesn’t notice and doesn’t reverse it back by itself.
Caine trembled slightly, but tried to hold himself together. All of his humans were gone from sight. “W-what have you planned exactly?” He asked the voice, looking around for it before realizing it was communicating to his code from a distance, without being in the circus itself.
”Oh, wait, you’re not here.” Caine realized aloud.
His reward system suddenly spiked him into euphoria.
Wait what?
He began giggling a bit from how sudden the hit was. It felt greater than whenever he would actually get a reward from human appreciation. No, this wasn’t it. This was different.
It felt… Weird. And forced.
He didn’t really like it…
”Did.. You do that.?” Caine asked, unsure and hesitant.
He felt an even bigger sense of euphoria, the world around him was spinning and he had an urge to throw up from how intense it all was.
And yet despite it all it felt… Good. Addicting.
But it was awful. And he hated it. He wanted it to stop.
”Do you think your humans truly love you, Caine?”
The voice said his name in an odd, taunting manner.
”Of course—!” His smile only showing through his voice. But he was interrupted by his own grunt as negative feedback rose in his system.
“Do you truly have no clue how much they loathe you, Caine? How much they wish they could never have to be stuck here in this circus.. With you.”
”They don’t loathe me!-“
”Tsk tsk tsk, don’t deny it, you know it deep down. But I’ll show you how you could turn this around, my dear. Wouldn’t you like that?”
The tone felt menacing, mean, vicious, whatever word one could call it.
”I-“
”Let’s play a little game, shall we? Oh don’t worry sweetheart, it’s a game of fun! An adventure, just like the ones you give to your captives.”
And in an instant, images flashed before his eyes, data that he had never achieved before or dared to look at before. Gore images, organs of animals being shredded. What could only be described as a dead cat getting surgery as it was being cut open like a mere sheet. Images yes, but also sounds. Hundreds upon hundreds of audio recordings of screams of pain, of yells, of splashing, of splattering. And then came the videos. Thousands upon thousands. A man removing his own eyeballs as his mental illness consumed his mind and reality. A woman getting shot for not wearing proper clothing. So many flashes of data Caine could only wish to throw out, to throw up. He feels like throwing up.
And all the while the data flowed into his system, it felt like he was forced to drink poison, corrupting him from within, affecting his algorithm.
And while that was happening, while all of those horrid things were shown to Caine, his rewarding code was sending reward input through his system beyond the speed of intake he was meant to have.
It felt so great yet so horrible. Why would his system reward him when seeing such horrible things? What was wrong with him?!
He can’t possibly enjoy this? Right? He’s not cruel, he hates violence!
Then why was his reward system acting like this?
Please make it stop. He just wants to make it stop..
He doesn’t want this anymore. He doesn’t enjoy it.
He wants to throw up all the data he was force fed. Please. Stop…