Chapter Text
“ Gooooood MORNING, my merry band of circuteer misfits!”
Every occupied door in the hallway swung open, and Ragatha, Jax, Kinger, Gangle and Zooble flew out, dragged by the ankle by an invisible force. They were suspended in the air for a moment, then dropped to a heap on the floor. They laid there groaning. Caine put his hands on his stomach and ha-ha’d theatrically, jaws bouncing around his eyes.
“Now, my friends, no need to complain! I’ve created for you a brand new game!”
“Your rhymes suck,” said Jax, his face in the floor.
Caine drooped for a moment. “It’s early,” he said. Within a fraction of a second, he resumed his booming demeanor. “For today’s morning activity, you will be teamed up and tasked to discover”—He waggled his fingers ominously—“the secret treasuuure , whose nature will be disclosed with the clues that you’ll find, which are scattered at random throughout the Tent!”
“Yeah?” said Jax, standing up with a defiant air. He crossed his arms. “And what if I don’t want to find your stupid treasure?”
“Nonsense!” said Caine. “Of course you want to find my treasure! That’s what makes it treasure ! But there’s a twist: only one of the teams can lay claim to it! And to make the game as FAIR as it is FUN, I will split you into THREE teams of TWO! Group One will be… RAGATHA and ZOOBLE!” Ragatha and Zooble, who were still on the ground, swung abruptly to their feet, backs straight in a soldierly manner. “Group Two will be KINGER and JAX!” Kinger launched to his feet as well. He stood there, shivering like a kicked dog. “Last but not least, Group Three will be GANGLE and POMNI!” Gangle stood nervously, touching her ribbons together. Caine studied her for a moment. Something was off.
“Wait a second,” he said, his upper jaw molding to reflect a raised eyebrow. “Where has our friend Pomni gone off to?”
Ragatha timidly twiddled her fingers. “She’s not in her room?”
“Hmm,” said Caine. “That is a distinct possibility.”
He flew to her door with a twirling flourish, then knocked on it politely.
“Hello!” he called. “Miss Pomni! I’m not sure how you evaded my magic, but it’s time to come out! ADVENTURE awaits!”
Still, no answer.
Caine scratched at a lower canine. “Huh. It appears that our jubilant jester is having a jibe!” He took off his hat and a dagger-toothed bubble emerged.
“Need something, Boss?”
“Just wanted to inform you that Pomni , here, is having trouble with leaving her room. Of course, we couldn’t POSSIBLY break in, since that would be an invasion of privacy and here at the AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS we hold a strict policy of respecting each members’ need for personal anonymity, extending to name, email, mailing and/or home address, phone numbers, or any other information that identifies you personally and may be used to—” Bubble rammed through the door. Caine slouched with relief. “Oh thank God.”
He peered through the gap. “Miss Pomni? Are you present?”
The room was dark. “I can’t see a thing in here,” he said aloud. He poked his maw inside. “But that’s the importance of having shining teeth!” On cue, his teeth lit up like iridescent bulbs, lighting up everything around him. He glanced around. He saw an empty twin bed, a tall, funhouse mirror, a dresser, and framed posters of artistic renditions of playing cards. But no Pomni. He drew away.
“Hmm,” he said, appearing uncharacteristically thoughtful. “She’s not in her room. But my all-seeing eyes haven’t alerted me.” He turned to his acts. “Do any of you have any idea where—” Everyone groaned and shielded their eyes from his blinding white teeth.
“Oops!” he said. Caine hung out his tongue, yanked it far down, and the lights went off with a click . His tongue rolled back up like a window shade. “So much for a beaming smile ! Well, I’m off to find Pomni. Bubble, would you be so kind as to watch our friends while I’m gone?” He nudged him with his elbow, closing one side of his jaw to resemble a wink. “I know you’re great company.”
“Sure thing, Boss!”
“Great!”
Caine disappeared with a poof, then immediately reappeared. “No biting,” he warned, then poofed away again.
Jax snorted. “I wish he’d bite him in the—” He screamed when Bubble tackled his face.
“Pomniii,” Caine called from somewhere in the tent, surrounded by colorful tunnels and slides. “Miss Pomni! You are needed on Gangle’s team for a treasure hunt! Not to mention our daily theme song! You’re not gonna make us re -rehearse it, are you?”
His voice echoed through the room, which only happened when one’s quarry was not in the vicinity. A cartoonish hint-hint built into the Circus’s coding.
Caine tapped his upper cuspid. “Now where could that girl have gone?” Then he remembered. “A-ha! One of my all-seeing eyes must see something .”
He shut his jaws and focused, bringing his fingers to his gums. He grunted with the effort of concentration. He saw Ragatha, Kinger, Gangle and Zooble, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Nearby, Jax was getting mauled. Elsewhere, he saw the wondrously senseless playplace of the Tent, the perfect pristine waters of the Digital Lake, the promised pleasure of the Digital Carnival. But one of his eyes was not doing their job, it seemed. When he focused on it, he saw only… darkness? His maw snapped back open, he gripped his upper jaw in a panic.
“One of my all-seeing eyes has gone M- I -A! How could this have happened??”
His efforts picked up, evolving from an idle game of hide-and-seek to a full-blown manhunt.
“Pomniii!” He yelled frantically. “Pomniii, where are you!!!”
Had she wandered into the void? Had she discovered something she wasn’t supposed to? Not that she couldn’t wander freely. Of course she could. The Amazing Digital Circus was a “cosmic buffet,” designed for choice, dedicated to human enjoyment and unending splendor. Caine just really, really preferred that everyone be coordinated for scheduled activities. He had solid, level-headed reasons to be spiraling through the air, eyeballs hanging on the end of his lolling tongue, overturning all in his wake.
Giant stacked cubes, castles made of blocks, plastic palm tree-like objects were thrown aside in his quest.
“Gadzooks,” He said miserably. “It seems that I’m the one searching for treasure. Miss Pomni!!!”
Eventually his search efforts led him outside, where, last he checked, Pomni had gone for a walk after yesterday’s games. But that was hours ago, before the Moon had cast her glow on the Grounds. Surely she would have returned to the Tent, where all the exciting activities were? Not to mention her incredible friends!
Caine launched a full search of the Grounds, scouring the forest—there really weren’t that many trees—and checking every seat on the Ferris wheel. He even dove into the Digital Lake, where he nearly got eaten by a giant leech creature. Caine flew screaming out of the lake while it reared its ugly circular head out of the water, hissing with its triple jaw lined with razor teeth. Caine took off his hat and bowed.
“My apologies, Loigle! I forgot you were there. Perhaps you can host one of the games for next week?”
Loigle responded with a gruesome, guttural hiss, then slithered back into the depths. The water almost instantly resumed its placid stillness. Caine considered the idea with his hands on his hips. “Yeah,” he decided. “My little superstars would love that.” He put his hat on his head and carried on.
His next looking-place was the water slide. Particularly, the tower. It was a completely enclosed, windowless structure, with nothing inside but a huge winding staircase that led to the top. Mounted candles followed the staircase, providing the only lighting. Yet when Caine shoved open the medieval doors, the place was entirely dark. No sooner did he open the doors then his missing eyeball came careening out of the tower, burying itself into his chest. Caine cradled the shivering eye.
“Yowzers,” he said. “You really don’t like the dark. But that makes sense. Eyes are made for COLOR and CANDY! You can take a break, little guy.”
It tore off into the woods, noiselessly yipping with fright.
“He’s a strange little peeper,” said Caine, feeling glad. Pomni had to be in the tower. Otherwise, the eye would have had no business in there. He cupped his hands around his eyeballs and called to her. The sound of it echoed, this time for an ominous feel, rather than to suggest she wasn’t there. No one responded.
“Pomni,” he sang, “I know you’re there. Hide and seek is not this morning’s scheduled activity, though I do accept suggestions!”
His relentlessly cheery voice felt quite at odds with the dark, musty interior, making Caine feel a little bit nervous. In his fashion, he shook this feeling off. It was his responsibility as ringmaster to provide an upbeat and positive attitude, no matter the weather, to ensure that his incredible human guests were merry at all times! And so with a smile on his face—as his face?—Caine ascended the stairs.
As if to maintain the tense atmosphere, the inky blackness refused to be illuminated. The next several steps were its only allowance, which were littered with candles that were violently destroyed. Despite his personal oath, Caine’s shining teeth began to chatter comically, his shoulders hunched, eyes darting everywhere. He pulled at his suit’s collar.
“MY,” he boomed. “You REALLY don’t like candles, do you? Ma—maybe I’ll put in lanterns instead! Would that light up your day?” Caine paused to listen. He was halfway up the stairs by now. He could’ve cleared the distance by flying, but something restrained him. He had the feeling that, if he moved too fast, he’d push something off balance. Something delicate. This feeling was intuitive: genuine, yet vague. For an AI like Caine, it was oddly human. Perhaps last night’s exercise had helped him after all.
When he was past halfway up the staircase, he began to hear sniffles. His heart lifted, breaking free of any subtlety that had captured it.
“Found you at last!” he cheered, then flew up the remaining steps. Sure enough, when he reached the platform of the summit, he saw a small, curled-up figure in the mouth of the waterslide. Caine flourished his arms wide in delight. “There you are, my little superstar! I make a lot of games, but no one’s ever made a game for me!” He swept forward and grabbed Pomni’s hand, which had been covering her face. He shook in an obnoxious, two-handed grip. “Thank you for being SO consider—”
Caine reeled through the air, and though his body quickly recovered, his jaws remained spinning around his eyes. He secured them, feeling dazed. Then his eyes grew large in anger.
“Hey!” he shouted. “It’s not nice to punch a guy in the teeth! What kind of reward is that?”
“Leave me alone!” Pomni snapped. Then she curled back into herself. “I need to be alone,” she whispered.
Caine stared at her, bottom jaw hanging low in incomprehension. Then he snapped back into character. “Needing to be alone? My dear, what HOGWASH!” He flew to her side again, this time maintaining some distance. He reached his cane across her shoulders. “Being quite knowledgeable on the human condition, I know for a fact that nothing keeps humans as HAPPY and HEALTHY as playtime with friends!”
“I don’t want to be touched!” Pomni shouted, swatting away his cane. “And you don’t know what it’s like to be human.”
“No?” said Caine. He performed a backflip midair and starfished his limbs. Colorful bouncy balls, trumpets, silly glasses and the like looped around him, the tinny, false noise of a laugh track in the background. “Then how do I provide such QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT?” The word stretched above him in garish bubble letters.
Pomni stared at the display, her peppermint eyes huge and watery. She was doing that weird thing with her face, Caine couldn't remember the word. It was meant to display strong emotion, he knew that much. But it wasn’t a smile. It seemed quite the opposite, in fact. This observation never failed to intrigue him. Here at the Amazing Digital Circus, every little detail was ingeniously designed to take a human’s FROWN and turn it UPSIDE DOWN. Ah! That’s the word he was looking for! A fro—
“Your entertainment is [boi-oi-oing]!” Pomni snapped. When the profanity box stayed fixed to her mouth, she threw it down the slide, prompting a cat scream effect. She buried her head in her knees and growled. Caine tapped his fingers together nervously.
“[Boi-oi-oing]?” he asked, perfectly mimicking the noise. “What an interesting compliment!”
Pomni whipped her head towards him, her peppermint pupils reduced to tiny pinpoints. “It’s not a compliment! I’m saying it stinks ! This whole circus stinks !”
The force of Caine’s gasp sent him back several feet. Then he planted his hands on his hips and leant forward at the waist, his upper jaw arching widely. “WELL, Missy! You think that you could do a better job?”
“I know I could.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I know what it’s like to be real .”
The following silence was tense. Even the digital world knew better than to add the sound of crickets. Pomni stared at Caine, waiting for his inevitable, loony answer. The quiet, which she’d gone all this way to achieve, began to grate at her.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Take it back,” he said softly. His jaws were mostly closed, she couldn’t see his eyes. Pomni squinted at him.
“What?”
“ Take it back !” he shouted, suddenly inches from her face, and she screamed and instinctively backpedaled. Caine realized his mistake too late. He reached out to grab her, but she tumbled down the drop off. Her scream quickly faded as she fell down the slide.
“Dear me,” said Caine, bringing a hand to his incisors. “Don’t worry, Miss Pomni, I’ll save you!”
Meanwhile, Pomni was having quite the thrilling experience. From outside the slide, it seemed pretty standard, but inside were dozens of mind-boggling detours, full of gravity-defying loop de loops, neon colors and a confusing cacophony of laughter and cheering. It kept going on and on, until she thought she’d be trapped in it forever, this nauseating tunnel of hyper-extravaganza. Pomni wished she was dead. Then she started to see the light.
“Oh God, just let me out!” she shouted, falling forward on her stomach as she rushed toward the opening, carried forth by a violent current. To Pomni’s mild surprise, her wish was granted. She didn’t get side swept down a hidden detour, dropped through a trapdoor, or any other zany nonsense. The next thing she knew, she was soaring through open air. She slowed to a pause in midair, suspended over the lake. She wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Phew!” Pomni sighed. Then she glanced down at the wide expanse of water below her. Her pupils shrunk. “Oh no.” These words gave the Circus its go-ahead. She plummeted, screaming, into the lake.
Pomni didn’t remember breaking the surface. When she peered her eyes open, she was surrounded by blue. She seemed to be in the middle of the depths. The good thing, she wasn’t sinking.
Pomni’s body relaxed from its hunched-up position, her arms waving gently in a quasi-swimming motion. It didn’t feel like water, it felt more like she was hanging in nothingness. She glanced around. A chill crept up her clay-like skin. Other than the water, something felt off . And after several months spent in an artificial plane, where the most inane things had by now become normal, this feeling was not insignificant.
Pomni looked behind her. Her mouth dropped open. Her squeak made a trail of bubbles, rising up past the humongous circular mouth of a giant leech-like beast, which regarded her with six narrowed eyes around its three sets of jaws. Pomni watched, frozen in place, as it lifted its awful ringed neck high above her. The beast glowered at her, then it opened its mouth with a terrible screech before diving in for the kill.