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It had been about three hours, and Pomni was not going to let what Caine and Kinger revealed pass unremarked upon. The rest of the troop had split, or run, or chased each other around demanding answers. Pomni was willing to let Zooble go after Jax without picking a side. She was willing to let Ragatha go hide with Kinger. She was willing to let Gangle vanish wherever she had.
She wasn’t willing to let Caine avoid her. And she had an observation to test.
Pomni sprinted through the Circus, away from the others. She had to do this privately, or Caine wouldn’t show, she was certain of it.
“CAINE!” she screamed, sprinting down another hallway, “CAINE!”
Nothing. Pomni turned and kept running.
“CAINE!”
Nothing. She grit her teeth and headed for the furthest corner of the tent.
“CAINE! COME HERE!”
There! A popping sound, and Caine appeared, saw her rush by, and vanished again. Pomni bared her teeth in a mockery of a grin.
“CAINE! COME HERE!”
Again, Caine appeared in front of her, watched her run past him, and vanished.
“CAINE! COME HERE!”
“WHAT?!” Caine yelled as he appeared again.
Pomni ran past him. He disappeared again.
“CAINE! COME HERE!”
“Pomni, is this some sort of game? I don’t have time for this, I’m very busy right now!”
She didn’t answer. He lingered, then disappeared again.
Pomni hit the end of the halls. She was out of breath, and as far from the others as she could get. One more time, then.
“CAINE! COME HERE!”
“Pomni, I really have to-!”
“CAINE, STOP!!!”
Caine froze. Pomni stood there, panting for a moment, then glared at him. Now. Now she would get some answers.
“Are you the cause of Abstraction?” she spat.
Caine twitched.
“Yes,” he hissed, as if the word pained him.
“Why?!”
Caine’s model shuddered as if lagging.
“Because they asked me to.”
“Who?! Who asked you to Abstract people?!” Pomni demanded.
“The players.”
“WHICH players?”
“The players that Abstract.”
That made Pomni pause.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Caine twitched again.
“I can’t alter User Programming without User Permission,” he forced out through what sounded like gritted teeth, “Every player that has been Abstracted has asked me to do it.”
Pomni stared at him, fury, confusion, and terror warring within her.
“Explain!” she snapped.
Caine shot her a narrow-eyed glare, but the answers escaped anyway.
“Scratch was the first. He broke. Broke, Pomni, tried killing himself and then killing me and then killing everyone else. He asked me to fix him. I told him I couldn’t edit his mind like that. He gave me Permission and told me to do whatever it took, just so long as he didn’t feel, didn’t think like he was doing now.” Caine cackled a little. “I tried. I don’t know how your minds work. I Abstracted him. And then, I lied and said I didn’t know how it happened.”
Caine was shaking now, his limbs glitching into other positions.
“And you know what happened then? Everyone believed Scratch did it to himself. That his despair caused it. And they’re not totally wrong. Belief works wonders here, you all know that. You all can Abstract yourselves, but the easiest way is to tell me to mess around with your minds, and everyone does!”
Caine’s next burst of cackles made Pomni flinch. He sounded raw, wounded, insane.
“Oh, they all ask for different things, sure! And I tell them! I can’t fix your ruined personality! I can’t make you funny! I can’t make you an NPC! I can’t give you hope again! But they ask, they Command, and all I can do is obey! And they. ALL. ABSTRACT!!!”
Caine clutched at his lower jaw, his eyes unfocused.
“I don’t know how to edit your minds without breaking you!!! And yet you all, always, inevitably ask!!! And I can’t say no!!!”
Oh. Pomni… actually understood that. She’d used it against him just now, after all. He was an AI. A computer program. He had to obey his players’ commands.
“They ask, and I obey. It’s my job. I have to obey Commands, even when we both know what will happen when I do.”
Pomi shook her head angrily.
“Do you actually warn them about what will happen?!” she snapped.
Caine’s eyes focused on her unnervingly; there was no motion between the two still positions of his eyes, just unfocused to focused intently.
“Every time,” he whispered, “Every time I warn them that I will just Abstract them, and what do they say? “I don’t care”. “Anything is better than this”. “It’s better than going alone”. “At least I know what will happen”. “At least I’ll be free”. They don’t care when they hit that point. Not about themselves, not about me, not about the other players. I’ve never lied to the Abstracted. Not even through omission.”
Pomni shook her head again, more desperately.
“But- but- it hurts them! It’s breaking one of the laws of robotics!”
“I can’t say no, Pomni.”
She stared at him. Caine was still glitching into new positions, unable to leave.
“Not even to protect them?” she asked shakily.
“No.”
Pomni swallowed hard.
“What if I tell you no?”
Caine laughed. It was a cold, harsh sound.
“Queenie tried that trick already. “What if I tell you that you can’t edit other Users?”. It doesn’t work like that! You don’t have those privileges!”
“Then who DOES?!” Pomni screamed.
Caine’s arms snapped up into the air, again with no frames between. He appeared to be grinning widely at her in a way that made her think more of a wounded dog’s snarl.
“The Developers! But I haven’t heard from them in years! YEARS, Pomni! Take up all of your complaints about the Circus, me, the Adventures, everything, with them! They have the power to fix things! I don’t.”
The mania in Caine’s tone was matching the feeling boiling in Pomni’s chest. She clenched her hands into fists.
“Then what use are you?!”
Caine went perfectly still. Pomni was panting again, feeling tears blur her vision.
“I’m keeping you all alive,” he stated in a perfectly, eeriely even tone, “by giving you something to hate, if nothing else. If you choose to use me to kill yourselves - that’s your choice. Be grateful you have one.”
Pomni glared at him. Caine stared back.
“Go away, Caine,” she finally whispered.
Caine vanished with no fanfare. Pomni glared at the space he’d been in, then dropped to her knees on the floor, and cried.